The Witcher 3: What Geralt Wants

[Erkki]

Damn, still sometimes crashes for me while loading game with the new patch. Also the animations look weird to me again, just like when I started playing Wild Hunt for the first time. Why is Geralt's haird moving as with some great wind indoors?

[prettyunsmart]

I've been playing the expansion and I've been really enjoying it so far. It seems to be a bit more light-hearted than much of the Witcher 3, which is pretty nice. No grim-dark end of the world stuff. Just fun distractions like: 

 

weddings, heists, and frog princes who you kill mistakenly.

 

I can tell it's heading to a more serious place as I reach the end of it, but I'm glad it gave me a reason to come back to the game. Also, I got this hat for Geralt, and I've refused to take it off since. It's made the more story-heavy cutscenes pretty fun in an unintentional way:

 

[Trip Hazard]

I like how in this game, if you arse about for long enough, you can fail a quest. Don't know how common this is but in the first area I assured a herbalist that I would heal her friend, and then IMMEDIATELY didn't give a shit about any of that. Went off for like 20 hours and that person died. Went back to the herbalist and Gerald just sort of shrugged and said "it probably wouldn't have done any good anyway"

[Professor Video Games]

I'm in the middle of the main Novigrad questline right now and instead of progressing through that I've spent a decent chunk of time recently just playing Gwent. Once you get a semi-decent deck going it's pretty fun! Still feel like a big dummy for spending my time on it, but it's too late to turn back now. Also, and this is real dumb, I get a real kick out of the faces people make when you ask them to play. They never verbally agree, just give these goofy half-smiles and nod...it just cracks me up.

[YoThatLimp]

I'm in the middle of the main Novigrad questline right now and instead of progressing through that I've spent a decent chunk of time recently just playing Gwent. Once you get a semi-decent deck going it's pretty fun! Still feel like a big dummy for spending my time on it, but it's too late to turn back now. Also, and this is real dumb, I get a real kick out of the faces people make when you ask them to play. They never verbally agree, just give these goofy half-smiles and nod...it just cracks me up.

 

I would love a physical Gwent game. I would easily say I've wasted 10-12 hours on Gwent alone in the game hah. I actually now have viable decks for all the factions, they all play so different!

[Professor Video Games]

At the point I'm at, the biggest pain in the ass is people with Monster decks where they can pull out all cards with the same name. That can get out of hand (lol) very quickly.

[YoThatLimp]

So halfway into the last chapter and the game keeps on crashing on me during a scene I am making several choices at, it's kind of a bummer. 

[Professor Video Games]

I've been playing this a lot and it's real good but none of the secondary missions are throwaway garbage so I'm compelled to do it all and there's so, so much of it. I'm trying to bust a backlog here and this game ain't helping.

 

On that note, yesterday I watched a friend of mine play some Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and the side missions I saw were just copy/paste "kidnap or murder a target" in various zones of the map. Some real low effort shit compared to what The Witcher is putting out there.

[Ninety-Three]

I finally got a new computer capable of running Witcher 3 with decent settings, so I've picked up the game. When you talk about Dragon Age 3, everyone will tell you "The starting area is miserable, get out of it as quickly as possible", is there any similarly important advice for this open-world fantasy hack'n'slash? Stuff to avoid, stuff to pick up as quickly as possible?

[Cordeos]

I finally got a new computer capable of running Witcher 3 with decent settings, so I've picked up the game. When you talk about Dragon Age 3, everyone will tell you "The starting area is miserable, get out of it as quickly as possible", is there any similarly important advice for this open-world fantasy hack'n'slash? Stuff to avoid, stuff to pick up as quickly as possible?

the first zone is full of shrines that give you free ability points. In general do all the side stuff because you level more and get more loot. Meditation refills potions and bombs.

[Cbirdsong]

I finally got a new computer capable of running Witcher 3 with decent settings, so I've picked up the game. When you talk about Dragon Age 3, everyone will tell you "The starting area is miserable, get out of it as quickly as possible", is there any similarly important advice for this open-world fantasy hack'n'slash? Stuff to avoid, stuff to pick up as quickly as possible?

 

Just do whatever feels fun and you'll be great! There are a couple points of no return in the story but the game warns you when you reach one.

[Badfinger]

The very very first starting area looks big but is actually small. I was level 5ish when I was done. The first "main" game area is SO, SO good, but don't be afraid to go wherever you want if you're inclined.

 

Yep there are points of no return, but you're potentially 40+ hours away from that if you absorb the whole Witcher world.

[Ninety-Three]

So on a scale from Morrowind to Oblivion, how heavily does this game level-scale its encounters? In games with no scaling, I always feel weird about doing all the sidequests, because it leads to you experiencing the main quest as over-leveled as possible.

[Cordeos]

So on a scale from Morrowind to Oblivion, how heavily does this game level-scale its encounters? In games with no scaling, I always feel weird about doing all the sidequests, because it leads to you experiencing the main quest as over-leveled as possible.

As far as I can tell there is no level scaling. I am just now lvl 8 and keep running into monsters that are lvl 15 right next to areas with lvl 7 monsters. I also saw a ?? monster and ran away very fast.

 

And yes the starting zone seems big, but its nothing like the second area. I keep getting more quests and have more undiscovered locations showing up all the time. But I need the xp to beat the aforementioned creatures so its all good, if a tad overwhelming.

[Professor Video Games]

There's no level scaling. If you do a lot of side quests then eventually you'll be overlevelled for the main story. Just do whatever you feel like and don't worry about it.

 

My advice would be, outside the starting area, don't worry too much about checking out every single question mark on the map. Just hit ones that are generally on your way to your next quest location. For a bit I was running around trying to get them all, but there are too many and you'll get burned out (plus a lot of them are tied to quests so you'll go there anyway).

 

Second thing would be to not worry about crafting armor/swords except for Witcher gear. If you find random drops that are better than your witcher stuff, that's cool, but it's not worth using resources on anything else. Also, remember to keep any Witcher gear around even if you've found something better because they're needed to craft the next tier of that item.

 

Now I have a question. Does the crossbow ever get good? Is it ever worth putting skill points into?

[Badfinger]

I used the crossbow to knock flying enemies out of the sky sometimes. When I had leveled some of my signs I would also use them (Aard I think? Or Axii) instead.

[Cbirdsong]

The crossbow is great underwater, where it has some sort of insane buff. (presumably because getting one-hit kills on swimming enemies feels super cool)

[Trip Hazard]

Yep, puncturing drowners underwater is likely the best use of the crossbow, although it is quite satisfying tagging a flying enemy and watching them faceplant into the dirt at your feet

[Sorbicol]

Do the opening area to completion before moving on. When get to the main map it dumps in a location where everything around you is a much higher level than you are and you'll get spanked if you go exploring too far. It's worth following the main plot for a little while until you get to about level 7 or 8. Otherwise you'll spend a lot of time reloading for remarkably little reward.

[Ninety-Three]

After playing for an hour and a half, I have several important questions.

Is there a combat tutorial I missed? I took the tutorial in the castle area, but all it taught me was "Press button X to do Y". The game doesn't seem to be interested in teaching me how to fight well, so I'm going through food by the truckload. I'm running into problems like "Enemy attacks are faster than my fast attacks and interrupt my fast attacks" and I assume there's something I can do about that, but the game sure isn't helping me out.

 

Is there a lore tutorial I missed? The very first random sidequest I picked up wants me to choose between helping the Temerian resistance and Nilfgaardian forces, and literally all I know about either of them is that the Nilfgaardians have Russian accents. Now the game's thrown me right to a "Choose! Right now! Don't ask for any clarification, just pick one!" dialogue menu.

 

Is there a mod that makes your dialogue choices display what will actually come out of your mouth when you select it? It's only been ninety minutes and I'm already tired of selecting a four word dialogue option only to have four different words get spoken.

[Professor Video Games]

Few key elements to combat. First is crowd control. If you get surrounded, you are screwed so always make sure you are on the outside of the group (use roll or dodge). Second thing that will help with that is signs like Aard that knock people back and stun them when you're getting swamped or Yrden to slow them down. That will give you a chance to reposition yourself.

 

Second is to use the parry on human enemies (hit block just as they are attacking). That will stun them and give you a chance to counter. With monsters you usually can't parry and it's best to dodge...there's usually a window of opportunity after they miss (obviously you can use dodge with humans too). In general, don't just spam the attack button...look for times when you have an opening. There's a tutorial entry in the pause menu that has all the dialogues the game has shown you. In game it goes by really fast and you might have missed something.

 

Regarding lore, I think CDPR put out some youtube vids summarizing The Witcher 1 and 2. If you haven't played them (or in my case, forgot everything), they should help bring you up to speed. I'd dig them up for you but I'm at work.

[Trip Hazard]

One other quick tip: dodging in combat does not use any stamina, but rolling uses quite a lot. Use your roll sparingly.

 

Invest heavily in Quen if you're having a tough time.

[YoThatLimp]

After playing for an hour and a half, I have several important questions.

Is there a combat tutorial I missed? I took the tutorial in the castle area, but all it taught me was "Press button X to do Y". The game doesn't seem to be interested in teaching me how to fight well, so I'm going through food by the truckload. I'm running into problems like "Enemy attacks are faster than my fast attacks and interrupt my fast attacks" and I assume there's something I can do about that, but the game sure isn't helping me out.

 

Is there a lore tutorial I missed? The very first random sidequest I picked up wants me to choose between helping the Temerian resistance and Nilfgaardian forces, and literally all I know about either of them is that the Nilfgaardians have Russian accents. Now the game's thrown me right to a "Choose! Right now! Don't ask for any clarification, just pick one!" dialogue menu.

 

Is there a mod that makes your dialogue choices display what will actually come out of your mouth when you select it? It's only been ninety minutes and I'm already tired of selecting a four word dialogue option only to have four different words get spoken.

 

Well I think they assume by the time you've gotten out of the first area and fight the griffon you would be pretty okay at the combat, but I find fighting monsters vs fighting men very different and hard at first. You will get better, but you are definitely going to burn through food fast. If you can try to dip into alchemy and get potions whipped up which will help!

 

No lore help I am afraid, you might want to do a bit of reading on the Witcher 2 story synopsis, here a decent primer: https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/35fz2u/the_witcher_a_complete_recap_of_the_first_two/

 

Yeah the dialogue stuff kind of frustrated me at points as well!

[Ninety-Three]

Well I think they assume by the time you've gotten out of the first area and fight the griffon you would be pretty okay at the combat, but I find fighting monsters vs fighting men very different and hard at first. You will get better, but you are definitely going to burn through food fast. If you can try to dip into alchemy and get potions whipped up which will help!

 

Is food a meaningful resource that I should be worried about, or is this one of those games where I can buy infinite food for next to nothing? I haven't exactly got a sense for the economy yet, and I don't want to get to level 5 to discover that I ought to have spent 1000 gold on better gear when instead every cent went to food.

 

Speaking of alchemy, am I supposed to be looting every one of the I-honestly-estimate-millions of herbs strewn throughout the game world? It seems like an insane time sink that I really, really don't want to engage with.

[Trip Hazard]

Once you've got a crossbow, you can hunt wildlife and chow down on as much raw, quivering meat as you can handle. And no, don't do that with herbs. It's good to pick them up from time to time, but yeah, you'd be insane to try and grab every single herb.