So I just read this book on history of games called “Blood, Sweat and Pixels” and was fascinated by the chapter on The Witcher 3 and mostly how the team put in so much thought and care in every single side quest. And seems that there are a lot of moral decision to be made on each adventure. So I finally decided to give it a try. Got any advice for me?
In the first region in the midst of the first small village two neighbors are arguing. They are not giving a quest, they just talk to each other and listening gives such an insight in how war can turn people against each other that have been living peacfully and been friends for years.
Do the side quests and take your time with the dialogue. Some of these stories are impactful, mostly sad and worth your time. If you are told that you should talk to people to find out more about your contract, do it. Some of these quests can be done with only talking to one person but you want to get the information from everyone and especially their side of the story.
Do not look up the outcome of decisions. Make your decisions and live with them at least at your first playthrough. Most decisions have impact and seeing the outcome unfold makes this game special and yes often there is no “good choice” - that’s war for you.
Last: Buy every Gwent card you can get your hands on and play with everyone you can. If you can’t win just come back later with better cards and obliterate them - it will feel goooood!
The DLC’s are a must.
Try out difficulty settings - there is a sweet spot for most people somewhere but what it will be for you no one can know, but it would be a shame if you play through the game not having found the difficulty that fits you best because you “always play on <insert difficulty>”.
Have fun, I wish I could play this game for the first time again.
A note on brewing potions: You only need the herbs the first time you brew any particular potion, after you’ve brewed it once it will get restocked automatically when you meditate.
How did I not know this
I spent so much time not using the healing potion because I thought it’s so super rare when do I finally get a second one??? lol
Quen and side step a lot during combat. Focus on getting sets of armor and weapons because they are better than whatever weird ass stuff you throw together from loot. So that means you’ll have to visit armorers a lot. Do not ignore Gwent. It can be fun. Pick one girl and do not romance them both. Make sure you make Ciri as happy as possible. A lot of quests are about choosing the lesser evil. So basically you’re setup to make a bad choice no matter what. Which makes it interesting honestly. This game is really interesting and rich in story. Explore everything. Have fun.
As for mods:
The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project Arguably one of the best reworks ever.
They just drive home the “cold wilderness” vibe.
Then Better Combat Enhanced Because that’s one of the main critque points of this game.
And some more
And for DLC, i was especially impressed with “Blood and Wine” sidequests.
About helping sane monsters
There will be a point where your actions will be judged.
Would you recommend playing without mods first?
I would say it’s entirely up to you. Though, experience with games like Gothic 3 (don’t even start without the Community Patch and a visual glitch fix dor trees and the sea) led me to mod first, personally. If you dig a bit deeper, there are LOD fixes (buildings from distance) for Whiterun, for example. Btw, the bumpmapping shader of reshade works especially nice for Witcher 3’ roads.
Mods make this game better. I didn’t like inventory management and the equipment repair mechanics in this game, so I modded those things out. Fall damage also sucks, so I modded that as well, Geralt is a witcher, he should be able to stick a landing from 10m up.
I completely disagree with the top comment. Dont worry about the main game.
I advocate that you go in with the mindset that you are a part of an old and important guild, and that the main story is just an extension of your every day job of being a Witcher. The “side quests” are unbelievably good. So good that half of them have better stories than entire video games and series. I didn’t bother with the main story (only in parts, organically). I just wandered the country side and “did the job of a Witcher”. There is sooooooooo much to this game. Also, get the DLC’s.
One word of warning however. The power scaling is somewhat broken. If you over-level before moving forward, the game can get pretty boring only because the enemies become trivially easy to beat.
edit: Also, try and bang anything with eyes.
Don’t skip the dialogue, even if you use subtitles and are a fast reader. It sometimes switches from one sentence at a time to whole chunks of dialogue and action getting skipped. Plus, the voice acting is superb, and the physical reactions of characters can convey a lot of emotion.
Apart from White Orchard, you shouldn’t need to complete all side quests in your area before moving on. Particularly with witcher gear, it’s sometimes expected to need to come back at a later time when you’re more powerful.
Others may disagree, but I don’t bother dismantling gear and weapons. I find it simpler to just sell things and buy materials I need from vendors.
Roll around on the ground a lot during combat. Works wonders.
Keep Quen up, roll about, hit stuff.
There’s a couple of enemies where this doesn’t work, but it should get you through the trickier combat sections.
Don’t forget the DLC, and for all the praise Blood and Wine got because of it’s size, don’t sleep on Hearts of Stone - it’s the most memorable part of the game for me.
First few hours can seem slow with the early map not being the most exciting, but if you make it through the huge world opens up and things start getting much more exciting.
When I played I printed out a side quest list to try to experience as much of the game a possible and checked off ones I completed. Side quests are amazing and better than the main quest as opposed to being the usual fetch quest with a weak or no story.
Yeah, the intro is honestly awful. The game suffers from some major Kingdom Hearts 2 Syndrome. The goal is to teach you how larger Witcher contracts work, but it just slogs and there’s very little plot development for the first few hours of the game. The plot picks up once you get out of the starting area and to the Bloody Baron, so withhold judgement until you get to that point.
Also, the combat can be rough in the early game, but the difficulty quickly tapers off as you begin leveling up. By the end of the game, you’ll be mowing through enemies even on the Death March difficulty.
Good advice. It took me two or three attempts to finally get hooked by the game. But it was totally worth it.
Yeah, the first map area is small and kind of lifeless and I think like 3 hours long? Some don’t give a game longer than that, but the entire game took like 300 hours for me to finish so it was very small portion of a very long dense game.
Although this isn’t quite relevant before finishing the main game, be sure to pick up both the DLC once you’re finished.
Both DLCs are fantastic standalone stories, super rich in content they could even beat some full priced games. You could play the DLCs before finishing the main game (and there is an additional game mechanic introduced in Blood and Wine), but on a first run I would still recommend playing it after to not get distracted and take away the impact of the main story.Blood and wine is a masterpiece
Read the bestiary, always.
I knew nothing of the game and presumed as a “witcher” I’m supposed to kill witches. Be, um, …selective.
Be, um, …
selectiveseductiveftfy.
I believe kill is the wrong verb…
A little death can be good.
Heh clever. Petite mort.
I recommend playing the quest “The whispering Hillock” before persuing the Bloody Baron’s questline. It will make things slightly less depressing. Also, always support Ciri in her decisions and gather the whole crew before the siege of Kaer Morhen.
Okay as little Gwent as possible. Otherwise you will get hooked on it until you burn out and stop playing the game entirely because you’ve forgotten all the storyline and mechanics.
The combat is way too easy on normal difficulty - this is fine if you only want to experience the story but very understimulating otherwise. I honestly suggest trying to play the game on Death March (but turn it up after the first time you fight a pack of Ghouls, they’ll fuck you up). On Death March you’ll be incentivized to interact with the game systems: Alchemy, Signs, specific monster weaknesses in the bestiary. All this really makes you feel more like a witcher, which in my opinion enriches the gameplay.
Experiment with builds - respec potions are fairly plentiful so don’t be scared to put points into stuff. Don’t underestimate Alchemy, but make sure you visit all the herbalists you can find to purchase recipes, the difference between basic alchemy and the upgraded recipes is massive.
Play Gwent, and check every single store you come across for cards and instantly buy them all. W3 Gwent is fantastic and half the fun of the game.
With the story calling back to both the two previous games and the books it’s not a bad idea to try to find some story recaps on YouTube of what has happened earlier in the story.
EDIT: Completely put 100%-ing the game out of your mind. There are a million ?'s on the map and they are almost all completely meaningless filler content. Trying to collect all the sunken treasure in Skellige will completely burn you out and make you hate the game.
The combat is way too easy on normal difficulty
I played all the side quests and by like the halfway point, I took off all my armour and just beat every single enemy to death with my bare hands. I would definitely recommend a higher difficulty if you’ve played any rpgish games before.
This is honestly the biggest disappointment in the third game and is due to the console focus. The second game has much deeper combat because kb&m really opens up ability to get creative with complex magic, potion and swordplay combos.
