Hey guys :P
I'm playing through TW for the second time (Didn't manage to finish it the first time around). Now, the first time I got it was on release (I waited til patch 1.3 or so though, which made it stable), but I recall the game being quite harder on normal difficulty. I remember the trophy plant in the swamp made me suffer the first time around, making me try to beat it over and over and in general I believe the game was tougher. Was this toned down with patches?

Also is it just me or did Declan Leuvaarden buy Salamander Brooches for 10 orens regardless in earlier versions? I couldn't manage to sell him more than 3 this time around, but I remember hogging them before to sell to him.

I'm fairly sure there were some difficulty tweaks, at least with bosses. The Beast was nigh unbeatable for me on release but after the Enhanced Edition he was a pushover. I don't know of any documentation that confirms this.

I know Declan continued to buy Salamander badges on my first play and I've also had the same thing happen in later playthroughs where he only pays for the ones for the quest. I don't know if this was introduced in a patch or if it's related to quest order or something similar.

I lost count of the amount of times I had to fight the beast the first time around. I recall I even knew exactly when it'd spawn more dogs after having tried to beat it so many times, so it became a dance of sorts. This time around, however, I got it in the first attempt. Just barely, but still.

I have only played the Enhanced Edition, but I found both the Beast and the plant in the swamp to be pretty tough on the highest difficulty setting. So if you want more of a challenge I'd recommend the highest setting.

There are also mods to increase the difficulty. You can find them in the sticky thread in this forum.

Well that's the thing, I always play on normal and I recall both being nintendo hard. I had to try both fights at least 6 times before getting them, and I recall the plant taking a swallow and lots, lots of moving around. This time around, however, I didn't notice it was a boss until after it was dead. I killed it thinking it was some regular echinopsae.

The swamp plant is pretty tough, unless you have the trait that lets you parry missiles. That makes him MUCH MUCH easier, since you won't get shot down to half health before you can get close to him.

As for the Beast, he was made a heckuva lot easier, but even in the original, it was possible to Aard him and then kill him in one blow. You'd have to try several times, but I made a quicksave right before the fight which helped (since I didn't have to sit through the cutscenes every time). I figured that if the Beast was gonna act all cheesy, I could do the same.