The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is finally available at retailers across the country, along with a variety of digital storefronts, and we'd like to help ensure that your first few hours with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are as wonderful as you've been hoping these last few months (or years).
Of course, if you're still not sure whether or not the game is going to be for you, iDigitalTimes' editor Mo Mozuch has already offered his early impressions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt after spending more than two dozen hours with the game last weekend. But for those of you who already know that Geralt's quest will consume your life for the next few weeks/months, we've gathered up some tips to ensure that your first few hours with The Witcher 3 aren't quite as stressful as ours were.
As we spend more time with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and begin to see room for discussion of its early moments, we'll return with additional updates and new advice. Our goal is to help transform you into the greatest Witcher that the Continent has ever seen. With that in mind, we encourage any other The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt players out there to hit the comments section and add your own advice to the pile if you've noticed a particular tip/trick after your first few hours with the game!
1. Always Be Countering
Each person who plays The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is probably going to find an approach to combat that suits them; whether that be flurries of low-damage strikes, a few well-placed heavy attacks or some combination of the two. What isn't likely to change, no matter who's holding the controller, is that you're going to need to rely on the game's blocking and countering systems pretty heavily.
The nice thing is, while you can't just hold down L2/Left Trigger for the duration of an encounter, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt isn't picky about your timing. From what we've seen, initiating a block any time after an attack animation begins is enough to trigger a counterattack. From there, it's just a matter of making sure you back off, and resume your guard, before your foe recovers.
Worst case scenario, you only block the strike in question, which typically still gives you a small opening to reposition and try to land a significant blow on your enemy.
2. Meditate Frequently
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is hardly the first game to regulate players use of healing items in combat. In fact, it's not even the first major release of 2015 to put a hard limit on your health potions. But, unlike games like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt only gives you three (3!) Swallows to imbibe before you have to meditate again.
Fortunately, it seems Geralt isn't bound to the time constraints that a normal person would be. Unlike previous Witcher titles, meditation no longer requires the presence of a camp site. Geralt can meditate in the middle of quests, between encounters, while wandering through town and even while escorting the various NPCs who call upon him over the course of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt campaign. Make use of this ability. Use your potions frequently and replenish them just as often. The same goes for blade oils.
3. Double Check Your Quest Log
To their credit, CD Projekt Red did a pretty great job of making it easy to identify when individual people (or creatures) are too-skilled for Geralt to engage. However, character level doesn't always tell the full story and there are a few occasions when quest chains undergo sudden difficulty spikes that leave your goal more than a little out of reach.
Relatively early in the Witcher 3 campaign, Geralt is forced to head underground in search of several missing persons. Things get a little hairy but the challenges faced by players tend to ramp up at level that matches player progression. Then, a boss appears, and players are confronted with a challenge that the game suggests tackling at level 33. The problem is that this seemingly Herculean task appears just moments after the conclusion of a quest meant to be tackled at level 5. See the problem?
The problem isn't so frequent that you need to review your Quest Log after each quest update. But, if you suddenly find yourself unable to make progress on a mission, double-check your Quest Log and see if Geralt doesn't need to shift his priorities for the time being.
4. Take Your Time In White Orchard
If there's one thing that isn't hard to figure out, it's that players have an unprecedented amount of space to explore in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Countries seem to stretch out for an eternity, making it easy to forget that you've got whole other regions to explore when a particular area begins feeling too familiar.
For that reason, it can be important to remember that most players are going to have their enjoyment diminished if they try to clear an entire zone before moving on to the next. But Witcher 3 players might not want to leave White Orchard quite as quickly as the game prompts you to, either.
CD Projekt Red pushes you out of the proverbial nest just a few hours into the Witcher 3 campaign. Depending on how much time you've spent wandering off the beaten path already, you might be a high enough level to begin tackling the various challenges you'll encounter outside of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's starting zone. But many players will probably want to stick around, at least long enough to hit level four or five, and get some extra experience under their belt before venturing out into the world.
5. Negotiate At Every Opportunity
You won't get to haggle over every pay day. To be honest, we've spent around 50 hours (combined) with the game so far, and the iDigitalTimes staff has only found a handful of scenarios where you can ask for additional pay. That said, when those opportunities do present themselves, players shouldn't hesitate to ask for more money. Just make sure you're careful when it comes time to negotiate a new fee.
Sure, you could push the pay slider all the way to the right, demanding every last crown that the quest giver can afford to pay. But that won't always work out great for Geralt. Negotiation tutorials warn that repeatedly asking for too much will drive quest givers to drop their offers and losing money can have a big impact on the Witcher's journey. And you're going to build up quite a bit of animosity along the way.
Given how little time we've had The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in our possession, it's not clear how else such disagreements might affect Geralt over the course of the campaign. But it's probably safe to assume you're not going to get many favors from townspeople that you've been gouging at every opportunity.
6. Your Witcher Sense Reveals Loot
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt becomes the latest in a long line of video games that tie item discovery to a button press. Sure, there's plenty of loot that can be spotted by the naked eye. But those looking to discover all of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's secrets will rely on Geralt's Witcher sense.
Sometimes you'll need the protagonist's other-worldly senses to discover hidden mechanisms, strong scents or hard-to-spot bloodstains. The Witcher sense also comes in handy when trying to spot treasure in caves, deep water and/or any other dimly lit area. I've actually become so reliant on Geralt's Witcher senses that I give every room and battlefield a quick scan before departing.
Obviously, there are going to be times when Geralt's Witcher sense doesn't do anything more than confirm you've already picked an area clean. But you'll thank me the first time that the increasingly tedious searching process turns up a rare chest piece, sword or potion formulae.
7. Fight On Horseback
For the first dozen or so hours of my time with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I actively avoided any scenario that seemed to require Geralt to fight on horseback. If there were monsters on the path to my next quest, I'd either take a wider path or send Roach galloping past the assailants at top speed. If I spotted bandits on horseback, I'd go far enough out of the way to lose sight of the threat.
But that all changed after the first time I found myself surrounded, unable to escape or dismount Roach without exposing myself to an easy attack. So I engaged my enemies...and tore straight through them.
I'm not really sure why Geralt becomes the Hulk, while fighting atop his trusty steed, but the spike in damage dealt (and received) by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's protagonist is undeniable. Creatures that normally require five to ten strikes only need one (maybe two) when Geralt is riding Roach. And incoming damage is so laughably low you'll wonder why you're bothering to dodge at all.
Fighting on horseback won't always be an option. Roach won't follow Geralt underground, into caves and the horse is even forced to wait outside of some major cities. So take full advantage of your good fortune any time it's an option.
8. Monster Trophies Have Effects
Each time Geralt defeats a contract-worthy monster, he'll take a trophy; both to prove that he's really dispatched the creature and to gain some sort of advantage from his latest kill. Unfortunately, only the former is ever communicated in an effective manner. So it might've taken you a few hours to realize that you're robbing yourself of precious stat bonuses if you don't equip a trophies at every opportunity.
For some of you, this won't really be news. After all, if you've been taking time to review the contents of your inventory, then you probably noticed the various bonus effects that can be conferred by monster trophies. But we don't recall this ever being mentioned in the Witcher 3 campaign. In fact, there are even some conversational moments that suggest Geralt would return the various trophies to those who'd requested the monster slayings in the first place. So make sure to keep an eye on each new your inventory and swap your currently displayed trophy whenever necessary.
Before launch, CD Projekt Red heavily marketed Geralt's encounter with Griffin; a beast whose trophy increases the potency of Geralt's Sign magic. This is one of many potential bonuses to be earned and learning when to rely on each trophy will help players during their journey.
So keep that in mind the next time you're wondering whether or not a monster contract might be worth stepping away from Geralt's primary quest chain.
9. Explore Your Conversational Choices
If you've spent any time with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt already, you've probably noticed that CD Projekt Red goes out of their way to make the game's dialogue systems easy to navigate. Not only do small icons indicate the final outcome of certain questions/comments, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also color-codes the various possible responses to let you know which will/won't progress the narrative.
Naturally, there will probably be players who just look for the yellow words in each dialogue and pay little attention to the discussion at hand. Don't be one of those people.
Taking the time to converse with each NPC will frequently yield information that Geralt wouldn't be able to obtain elsewhere. Sometimes that information is superficial, offering little more than a better understanding of the Continent, its inhabitants and/or the local customs. But there will be times when that information is directly relevant to a quest and might even provide the detail you need to complete your next task without any headaches.
So, take a moment to ask the non-essential questions. If you're really dedicated, think about the order in which the inquiries could be asked for optimal effectiveness. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt may not have the sort of conversational freedom that made Mass Effect so noteworthy, but a little forethought can still go a long way when it comes time to speak with others.
10. Let NPCs Tank For You
At some point, there's going to come a time when you are forced to dismount Roach in the middle of the battlefield, or accidentally do-so a bit too close to the area where you plan to engage an enemy. When this happens, those enemies will frequently aggro to Geralt's horse, completely forgetting about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt protagonist. Sure, they'll remember you after a stab or two. But you'd be surprised how quickly that aggro breaks and the various enemies return to chasing Roach in circles.
What's strange is that Roach doesn't seem to have a health bar of any kind. And the same seems to be the case for any ally who joins Geralt for anything other than an escort quest. Yes, there are plenty of times when you must guard a character(s) with your life. But you'd be surprised by just how many seemingly invincible people that Geralt of Rivia calls his ally. So you might as well make use of that fact, right?
It's not clear whether or not this is intentional, or if a post-launch patch will diminish Roach's tanking prowess. But offering your enemies an extra target is an excellent way to provide yourself a slight buffer while you get the hang of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's combat mechanics.
Bonus Tip: Gwent Is Crazy Addicting
You probably shouldn't even start playing it. Mo has spent about as much time at the card tables as he has hunting down monsters and restoring order. Maybe more. Fortunately, there are a couple of Gwent-centric quests in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, so anyone unable to resist the call can at least bank a few experience points while they compete.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt coverage, including new tips and tricks, for however long The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt remains a relevant part of the gaming landscape.
What are your early thoughts on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? Have you already discovered a gameplay strategy that you'd like to share with the community? Want to try and figure out most of the game's ins and outs on your own?
Let us know in the comments section!
