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?
Ignore the advice you saw in this thread, except for the one about trying the DLCs, and enjoy the game however you wanna play it. Romance both options if you want, be a terrible dad if you’re so inclined, etc. Have fun, it’s your first playthrough so enjoy it unspoiled ane cherish it, you will love it and go for a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and maybe even more runs and you can minmax things later on in these runs.
The only thing I’d say you shouldn’t do is skip the dialogue and cutscenes, and sidequests. This game has a very well-crafted story (which is the main attraction) and that goes also for the sidequests so enjoy them fully.
Whenever you have to make a choice that involves Citi, always make choices with her happiness in mind.
Rp as good dad.
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.
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.
Good thing to remember about builds. Geralt is a sword fighter first and a magic user 18th. Be good at slicey.
PLAY GWENT. The minigame became somewhat notorious because it’s really good - you can spend dozens of hours travelling the world and just playing cards.
I have done literally zero Gwent quests after the first match and even googled one time how to remove quests because they were annoying in the journal (you can’t)
Yooo, Triple Triad anyone?
I mean do you really have to suggest him that? He’s gonna get hooked like we all did
In any case W3 gwent is actually kinda crap in terms of balance but that just means you can own them super hard at some point
Is it common for people to save scum or is that blasphemy?
It’s your game you do as you please. I would definitely save scum
I only save scummed the Gwent tournament as it’s a one-shot type deal. The rest of the game there was no need as it autosaves frequently and there is basically no consequences to losing a game of Gwent to a rando
If I have played someone a bunch or am on a quest then definitely. Otherwise I try to keep it like live cards. Remember you can always cheat IRL too! It’s up to you if/when/where
I’ve literally got a save file prepped where I rushed getting to B&W before doing literally anything else so I can play the whole games’s Gwent with the Skellige deck when I decide to play it again. You don’t get enough time with it and it’s such a fun deck!
I didn’t finish the game because I am still playing gwent haha it’s that good. I would look up which cards you can only get from quests because you can’t get them afterwards. Just look up a mapping for quests to cards (no spoilers of course). I am on mobile and can’t find one currently
Oils are reusable so don’t try to ration them. I didn’t use them for the first quarter of the game because I didn’t know that. There are a lot of fights that would have been much easier.
You’re kidding me‽
Aaaaaaaaaa
With the real good tips here!
I felt so dumb when I realized
Put the baby in the oven
Just trust me on this bro
You’ll know when the time is right
I don’t trust you…
That’s a thing everyone needs to find out for themselves.
ABC:
Always
Be
Cfancying a round of Gwent
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
Tell your friends and family that you love them but you won’t see them for a while
I’m nearly finishing up The Witcher 2. Judging from the discussions, I’m afraid of starting Witcher 3 because I have other backlog of games I have to finish as soon as possible.
you got deadlines or something?
We all have a final deadline for finishing our backlog and experiencing as much as we can in this world.
I hope it’s not coming up soon as I haven’t made much progress!
Bought games from years ago I have to finish. Waste of money if I don’t complete them but I keep buying new ones.
Don’t chase all the markers on your map, most of them are crap and you’ll burn out.
So much this. If I never see another Smuggler’s Cache again it would still be too soon!
Don’t romance them both.
If the combat is frustrating, turn the difficulty down. There will still be a learning curve, but it’ll be the difference between surviving and having to do an hour of work again because you forgot to quick save and get slapped by a foglet.
Interesting. I found the game to be basically boring without the extended difficulties.
The combat is just generally unintuitive. Which early in the game is frustrating. And if you’re like me and spend weeks between sessions you can forget all the timing and buttons you need to press.
Yeah I think I tried like 4 controller layouts on the steam deck before settling on one.
I’ve heard of people setting up the right track pad to use as a movable area zoom, so you could actually read the tiny text. You try setting that up?
I didn’t have an issue reading small text on the Deck.
I will say that I found the experience of playing Witcher on the deck to be an absolute pleasure.
I had to get kinda squinty with some of the herbs and plant descriptions.
If you wish to keep your sanity through the entire game, I suggest only doing the really big side quests and ignoring the majority of the others. The game is fucking huge, and it can easily become repetitive doing everything.
The sidequests are fucking great though. Didn’t play all, but those I did could be main quests in a different game. I had to skip some because there is just stupid amount of them and I was overleveling fast.
Don’t do map completition though - trying to do all is truly insanity
As a general rule of thumb, if it has dialogue, it’s going to be pretty good, and surprisingly so a lot of the time. The Witcher 3 is still unmatched for quality and quantity of side quests.
This wasn’t a particularly good open world game even for its time, so I’d say ignoring the map markers completely is often smart.
This is very true, especially around mid game.
There are significantly more quests than you need to advance levels and eventually you get level 30+ having done all the side quests and there will be several unfinished missions for recommend level 7-20 that become worthless unless the story/character behind it interests you.
Definitely grind early missions as they are basically tutorials and also give you lore on all the factions, don’t worry too much about gold as you will rarely be able to buy weapons better than what you find.
By mid game you’ll have tons of access to loot for selling and will probably be more interested in spending money on refining/upgrading items than buying mediocre armor and weapons.
The bombs and oils are great if you keep them upgraded
Never sell ingredients you don’t have a billion of, you can buy a potion to redistribute your levels and switching from magic/physical build to late game Alchemist is really strong and fun and changes up play style.
I would say do every actual sidequest but don’t bother clearing the map of all question marks. Hunting for Witcher school gear is also just mostly cosmetic and optional, but they’re the coolest armors and swords.
Also, if you’re not playing on the lowest difficulty, read the infos in your journal regarding the creatures and prepare accordingly.
You don’t lie, trying to clear every question mark is what killed it for me back when. I think I stopped on the islands somewhere. And every time I pick it back up, the question marks kill it for me again. 😂
Same, the map is just overwhelming.
I spent like 4 years playing with my best friend. We were having a beer in the evening he watched me play Witcher on death March, i tried to do everything. It was the best way to play the game i think. Took us 4 years though.
Red Baron is the best questline imo
