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.
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.
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.
Don’t let the upgrade, potion, etc system overwhelm you. My brother gave up cause it seemed too complicated for him. If you mostly ignore it and just play for a bit, it comes naturally
Like I told my brother. Just explore, do minor quests, gather ingredients and items. Once you have enough ingredients to make a potion or oil, the menu literally tells you and you can do it in one button click.
Pay attention. The game wouldn’t always lead you to what you need to do. Some times you’ll have to figure things out. There isn’t just a marker on the map for what you need to do next. That messed me up because half the time I was following a marker but then there would be a line about giving someone an item or something in my inventory I missed. Ignore 100%ing every quest. Learn to parry and roll. Also, explore! I’ve run into very cool side quests! It feels really cool to just stumble into a story before a character even sends you out on the quest.
Explore, do the side quests, pay attention to the dialogue. I found the treasure hunts a little tedious after a while, but you can get some really cool gear. Take your time, you can easily spend 120 hours in one playthrough.
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.
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.
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