Looked around a decent bit and saw these two recommended the most. Which one do you think i should choose? Keep in mind i'm not afraid of a challenge and even if i end up really loving this game(which i believe i will) i probably won't be returning to this game any time soon(i'm jumping straight to the 2nd game after this, plus this doesn't seem like the type of game i'll personally replay a lot).

I wouldn't recommend the features modifying the fighting gameplay.
With FCR, you lose the original experience, and fights with Flash may be too hard without some knowledge of the game mechanics and a bit of meta-gaming.

But I would recommend most of the others improvements and new features of the Flash mod, more amors slots, more stacking and other little things are nice.

Definitely FCR. There's really no reason not to use it even on the first playthrough. Not only it makes fighting more logical and better but it also fixes combat bugs and offers some nice tweaks which should already be in core game. It also offers 6 difficulty settings.

Woah...Forgot about this topic for some strange reason.

I'm usually not one to drastically change a first playthrough with a bunch of random mods(unless i'm familiar with the game or series), but in this case if the FCR mod does all it claims, it'll most likely provide the best experience for me. Which is the most important part i'd say. I'll just dip my toe in and see if i like the changes. Thanks guys.

I'm currently replaying the game with FCR on the highest difficulty setting (I'm currently in act II) so if you have any questions don't hesitate to pm me, cheers :)

I recommend FlashMod. Increases the difficulty, fixes and tweaks most annoying or overpowered things about combat, weapons and talents the game. It's basically requires to use all the tools at your disposal but remains fair.

FCR is much more radical. You will basically be playing a different game. If you play with it your first time, forget the manual (it comes with its own manual because it's so different), forget using online guides or forums for help, and prepare to die all the time in frustrating ways.

I say this last point because it makes certain flaws in the game much much worse rather than fixing them. In particular the tendency for enemies to score hits when they are actually far away from Geralt. Also Flash discovered that Geralt's stun immunity (from talents/potions) doesn't work in-game, yet left the chance for creatures to stun Geralt in there, and with their ridiculously amped-up powers they can stun Geralt and then one-shot him.

Not true at all. I'm currently during my second FCR playthrough and I didn't encounter a single instance where enemy would score a hit on me while being far away. The combat is fast and realistic. As long as you keep using proper items (oils, potions, styles) and keep enemies in front of you you'll be good. Apart from fighting level 50 Flash I was never stunlocked to death so apparently resistances DO work. I doubt he would release this mod if the endurance tree didn't work. Currently I'm at the beginning of act III while playing on the highest FCR setting and the only frustrating fight I had so far was the haunted house in act II which had 2 wraiths on one floor, 2 graveirs in the basement and little room for maneuverability, but it was still doable after some attempts.

People install FCR and then expect to just click on things without any thought like in vanilla game. Rubedo, albedo, nigredo? Before FCR I didn't even noticed them. Now, rubedo swallow, nigredo blizzard and albedo tawny oil are my basic all-around potions. In vanilla you could just put everything into strength and strong style and then decimate everything without any oils or tactics. IMO FCR makes you play The Witcher as it was originally intended. Hell, the guy who made it now works for CDP.

Sorry it was bleeding, not stun, that remained in there. He really did have to remove all those critical effects because immunities to them didn't work. IIRC v1.6a was released solely for that reason, but bleeding remained in there.

This is documented in the patch notes:

"Immunities and resistances doesn't properly work in vanilla game. Removed Stun, Falter, Pain and Blind critical effects from enemy attacks because they meant instant-death for player with no way to defend against them."

I'm sorry you were lazy about playing the game before FCR. Other people aren't, and just wanted a game where the challenge was amplified and required the most out of the player without completely redesigning everything about how combat, items, and monsters are implemented. That's why I recommend FlashMod (at most) for a first playthrough.

Yeah, I know Flash works for CDPR. He made a FCR for TW2 as well, that people are constantly confused and frustrated about because they installed on their first playthrough and now nothing works like expected.

I'm not trying to stop people from playing FCR, I just think it's bad advice to tell someone to play either WItcher game for the first time with it installed. The tweaks are worthwhile but I don't think anyone can understand whether they want FCR core changes installed until they've played the game with its original mechanics.

Also the thing about enemies attacking and scoring hits when they seemingly shouldn't is documented right in the manual as a known bug:

"Sometimes while attacking an opponent, he can damage us without the attack animation. This is not a bug, only the game mechanics. In fact the opponents are carrying out an attack, but since Geralt’s animations have priority, Geralt’s animations cancel the opponent’s attack animations."

I wasn't lazy, vanilla game doesn't require you to do anything beside just clicking on enemies to succeed. Yes, people install a mod that redesigns combat and then they are confused because it redesigned combat... Yes, it was also like that in the vanilla game and it has nothing to do with "the tendency for enemies to score hits when they are actually far away from Geralt" because there is no such thing.

Yes, that was insulting of me to say, I'm sorry. Yep, they really do get confused, because when they hear "he works for CDPR" they think it's official or semi-official patch and/or that's it's a fix pack designed to remedy "broken" or bad combat mechanics. They also don't realize that FCR2 goes way beyond just balancing combat:

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/8730-Witcher-2-Full-Combar-Rebalance
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/8973-Issue-where-quot-Block-quot-is-considered-quot-Cast-Sign-quot
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/25940-It-doesn-t-make-sense
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/25948-Wheres-the-block-in-combat-rebalance-mod
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/692-Missing-Armor-modifiers-Full-Combat-Rebalance-for-witcher-2
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/8299-Full-Combat-Rebalance-for-Witcher-2

There are tons more examples but I guess it's beside the point. FCR for TW1 is in much better shape in terms of people understanding it. I know it's part of the normal game, I've said that all along, what I've said is just what Flash said, that his mod makes this and certain other flaws much more noticeable.

It's a symptom of the larger problem of hits and effects applying before or without an animation. For example, the bleeding issue that I mentioned. People still report it occassionally. And here.

Alright, went through the prologue with Flash and FCR.

Flash was played on the hard difficulty(it apparently added more difficulty options but i didn't see any differences from the vanilla game's default 3). It was a decent challenge at times IIRC, but i don't remember having much trouble. Savolla actually got my health under 50% i think, but overall it wasn't too hard.

FCR was played on the Easy Package's medium. In a way, i guess you could call it(throughout most of the prologue, at least) easier than Flash mod since battles are a lot more quick and realistic and most enemies usually died in about one hit or so(i'm sure that'll change later on, though). But one thing i noticed is that the regular grunts did a nice chunk of damage if i just stood there and didn't dodge, which i honestly like.

Anywho, things changed when i got to Savolla again. I actually died multiple times. Had to use up my health and stamina potions, and rely on dodging and Aard just so i could take out his minions and kill him before he killed me. Definitely a bit of a rush.

So i guess i'll stick with FCR. I'll most likely need some tips at some point though. Thanks guys.

but some problems are in tandem with the mod, i like the mod and the idea that it keeps the game more in line with the book itself so monsters do not appear endlessly some do but most of the more unique or rare monsters do not appear endlessly but with that quests are harder to finish like in chapter 4 i only got 3 noon wraiths i'm almost finish with chapter 4 already on my way into completing ripples quest but still i only got 3 noon wraiths with 2 shimmering dust per noonwraiths leaving me with 6 only harvested and lacking 3 more and i need 9 to give to the blacksmith's wife i've been scrounging the whole field and still no noon wraiths that is the problem with the FCR mod because of the changes some monsters are lacking in appearance makes it harder to complete or impossible to complete i don't know if i'm missing a spot but i already run through the whole field multiple times during the day even in exact noon still no more noon wraith...

you played it before? did you encounter a bug during chapter 4? i encounter one i can't finish this side quest about a wife wanting some noon wraith powder or hair i forgot to make the succubus her husband is fooling around with go away, i can't complete it because it seems there is not enough noon wraith i actually got frustrated because i was only missing 1 more and can't seem to find more noon wraith kept meditating to noon but sadly can't finish the quest got frustrated and just gave up.


P.S. can i use the FCR mod with the steam version?

I just needed a mod to speed up a bit the combat and slightly rise the difficulty.
It seems that both Flash and FCR went overboard and have some problems.
In the end, I chose to keep the vanilla combat.