I've only finished once on Hard, and the highest level I reached was 32.

I'm doing a second play-through, and I want to try to get the maximum 35, is it attainable and has anyone done it?

And I don't mean by waiting for re-spawning enemies, I mean by doing every available quest.

You will easily reach lvl 35 on Iorveth's path by just doing all quests. But it's not that easy on Roche's.

Yeah, the first play-through was Roche, and I completed every quest I could and only reached 32.

I'm doing Ioverth now, so I hope that's the case.


EDIT: That sounds pretty unbalanced, if there are more quests or XP on a particular path?

If you do all available quests on the Iorveth path then you reach level 35 not long after entering the epilog . Did this 3 consecutive times . Not sure about Roche path...yet

Yeah, I was kinda surprised to miss level 35 by quite a lot, because the only thing I ever read was that level 35 is generally easily reachable. Guess back then people haven't had played through both paths and didn't know better...

I think I hit level 33 on Roches path, not sure though. Gotta start Iorveth patch after a few hours of sleep on the next day. ^^

Yeah, it's pretty unbalanced. No idea why. Maybe they really want you to play Iorveth's path second and experience the game to the full, but it makes no sense if you want to make Roche playthrough your 'official'. I hope they fix it in a patch or add a DLC to Roche's path or something.

Thanks.

Does anyone know if it is more quests, or just more XP?

Hmm.

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/The_Witcher_2_quests

Each side has 17 exclusive quests. So I guess it's just more XP.

Take a look at the experienced perk:
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Character_attributes
You can get it as early as Chapter 1, though I got it in Chapter 3 on Roche playthrough. I ended up reaching 32. If you get this perk asap and maybe do a little farming 35 on Roche shouldn't be a problem.

According to this person, the perk actually works retroactively, so there's no need to try to get it as early as possible unless you really want to. Since the bonus is so small, it's not like you'll see those extra one or two levels that early in the game, anyway.

I don't really care for the character level, but what if they add an expansion that takes place after Act 3? It would probably piss some people off, since many players farm Nekkers in Act 1 to reach a high level early (I don't see the point, but hey).

I meant this in another way: In a singleplayer game it's not so much about the level, how your character is built (abilities, training etc.) or how strong you are...but about the story.

I know that there are people who play these games like MMOs, trying to get the "best built with the highest dmg/second" and whatnot. You can see videos on youtube where one guy beats the final boss of the game with two blows.

I don't say it's bad. I'm tolerant enough to say that everyone should play how he or she wants to. Everyone is free to explore the possibilies of a game to his or her liking.

What I say is that's it's not important and that developers of story driven rpgs shouldn't base their game design on those players. For a game like The Witcher 2 there is one rule: Story --> Gameplay. If gameplay ruins the story then the game doesn't work. Of course it's also the other way around so the best possible solution is when gameplay and story are in a harmonic relation. ;)


There are other examples, where gameplay alters the story and ultimate balance is unachieveable, or, if tried, would ruin the game. Look at Deus Ex Human Revolution. Or Mass Effect. In the former, different specialisations make the game more or less difficult. If you choose to play the sneaky way, building your character to be stealthy, but encounter an unavoidable boss fight later in the game, where you have to be strong, it will be considerably more difficult than for the player who's all guns and explosives. And in Mass Effect it is part of the game design that some player character classes play more difficult than others. On the other hand they may be more interesting, more demanding and therefore more fun to play.

The only "bad design" in these cases would be if the game is not able to communicate those differences. The human player has to know - not in detail, just in general - that a different play style, a different character class or different ingame gear will make the game easier or more difficult, so that he or she is able to choose.

I agree with everything you said :) I was just saying why some people may want more balance between the two paths. I don't care about my character level, especially since I already feel too powerful at lvl 20 or something.

No argument GODzillaGSPB, absolutely none.

I felt too powerful around about level 18 or so, never mind twenty. Then again the course of XP rewards. From what I have seen of the two paths so far, they are balanced, of course I've not seen the end of Roche's path yet. Still... I might have only hit level 32 or 33.