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?

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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    21 days ago

    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.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    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.

  • Sonicdemon86@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Do the side quests before the main quest as some of the side quests get locked off when you compete main quests.

  • rtxn@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago
    1. There is a setting for an alternative character control mode. Use it, the regular one is dogshit.

    2. The level difference between Geralt and enemies is very important. A difference of +/- 4 can make fights ridiculously trivial or a one-hit KO. Same goes for jobs’ recommended difficulty.

    3. Getting swarmed by level 50 sewer rats is not fun.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      I cannot up vote this enough. If you need smugglers caches then go for it. Otherwise that’s just a headache.

  • bugieman@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    If you have the patience for it, try playing on a much harder difficulty. The medium and low difficulty levels don’t provide the same weight. Many systems in the game are unnecessary at lower difficulty levels but higher difficulty forces you to engage in them to get the extra edge over certain encounters.

    Higher difficulties force you to engage in potion brewing, reading up on enemies, and making genuinely tough choices morally in order to keep Geralt alive. Lower difficulties remove all the tension from these systems.

    Also as another user mentioned, don’t skip any dialogue and engage in the side quests/contracts as they give a lot of unique flavor and nuance to the world and story.

    • yokonzo@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      This, this game isnt about fighting, it’s about prepping, it’s about researching your prey and knowing what you need to get the edge on it before you go in, brewing the potions you need and knowing what to hit it with

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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        20 days ago

        Oh yeah, I really wish I had played on a higher difficulty for this reason. Especially because one of the most immersive and thematically cool parts of the game for me was the main story section near the end of act 1 where you have to make a blade oil to fight a >!werewolf!< . (Vague wording to minimise spoilers in my main comment.) I really liked this because it made me reflect on what it means to be a Witcher — how the knowledge might be more important than the mutations and the magic.

        An additional point to the prepping is that being open-world means that you can potentially go to areas or take on challenges far beyond the “intended” level. On lower difficulties, I didn’t feel sufficiently punished for being audacious in that way, and I think the potential for punishment is part of the fun of the audacity. Especially when getting destroyed like this isn’t the game “fuck you for even trying”, but rather a “try exploring some more, find some new recipes and come back later (or just read the bestiary and find out that you already have the item you need)”

    • somtwo@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      I’ve done two full playthroughs of the game (plus dlc), one on the standard difficulty and one on hard. I can confirm that many of the game’s systems are rendered unnecessary by the easier difficulty. I really enjoyed my second playthrough and would definitely recommend.

      However, if you don’t think you’ll enjoy that (having to plan and work for every advantage to be able to succeed) I would wholeheartedly endorse the easier levels. The story and quest design alone are worth the price of admission! Side quests in this game make many other games main story pale in comparison.

  • JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    As other folk said, definitely do get the DLCs. There’s a whole other game in there.

    It’s been a while since I last played, and this game IS a masterpiece, no doubt about that, but the one of the first sections can be rough. Iirc it’s gloomy af, there’s some hard monsters in some quests that can be demotivating and the combat/mechanics takes some getting used to which makes the previous point worse. Just know that the game opens up and there’s a whole world out there.

    There are tons of side quests which are great, so you should do those but also don’t feel like you need to do all of them. It can be easy to get side tracked and then lose steam and quit on the main story.

    Especially because like I said the DLCs are amazing. They are also quite self contained so it’s like a breath of fresh air

    Enjoy this amazing game. I’m jealous of you

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Crafting armor is 100 percent superior to found and bought armor. But if you don’t like crafting, the found and bought stuff will get you through. Also don’t sell or dump old crafted armor pieces, you need them to craft the next tier up.

  • Thehalfjew@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Good thing to remember about builds. Geralt is a sword fighter first and a magic user 18th. Be good at slicey.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    As for mods:

    The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project Arguably one of the best reworks ever.

    Realistic Weather

    Phoenix Lighting

    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.

      • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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        19 days ago

        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.