Making some pretty good progress. I’m blowing through the first area a lot quicker than I expected. Up to level 11. Going to do some of the treasure quests and I have been knocking all the side quests out in rapid pace. I’ll slow down once I hit the content I haven’t played yet. I’m LOVING playing on the harder settings. As Triggy pointed out you have to make sure you prepare properly for the fights and I find I’m using things I never did on the lower difficulty levels. I don’t see the need to bump it up to the hardest setting. I’m dying enough now as it is. Jenny of the Woods kicked my butt the first attempt as I wasn’t careful. Second attempt I properly prepared and I was only hit a couple of times. :)
Yeah, Oct, you’re getting to the point where it’s going to be beneficial to start doing some treasure hunts.
You’re also at the stage I was at where I just started dawdling around like crazy before finally saying “FINE!” and heading to Novigrad…;)
I hit level 10 last night, loving the fact that all the content I’m playing now is new to me. I went into Oxenfort and explored the shops (shave and a haircut>two bits) then I did some contracts (Shrieker, Cockatrice, and Foglet), helped out a batshit crazy Rock Troll, and found a soothsayer to read my fortune.
I’m getting my ass kicked at gwent everywhere I go now so I’m going to need to backtrack, collect some early cards, and build a proper deck if I want to compete.
I went with the Cat school: Light armor skill and switched out all my Medium armor for Light. Crafted some new level 10 boots last night.
I’m still not using any potions or decoctions yet… largely because of the Gourmet skill which means a little snack, or even a drink of water, keeps me rapidly healing for twenty minutes… Given how hard it was to manage my health prior to equipping that skill, I think it should need 5 ability points dumped into it before it gets as powerful as it is for me now. Instead it’s just a one-off. Anyone else think that skill is OP? Rate of healing and duration are off the charts.
Edit: Just read some forum posts of other players who feel the same way. Urgh, now I feel like I should un-equip it so I don’t cheese my way through the game.
Gwent progression is built into the general progression of the main quest. You come across harder merchants and decks in locations that roughly correspond to your travels throughout the countryside as you level through the game.
A problem arises if you haven’t played any Gwent and suddenly decide to do so late in the main game, or worse during the expansion. You have to catch up by going back and finding old cards and opponents scattered throughout the lands with some cards being lost forever if you’ve already progressed past some points without playing certain people.
The newly added Gwent book is of very little help. It only tells you that X number of cards are available to be collected in general areas. Good luck tracking them down!
I hope you let the rock troll draw the picture :p
I didn’t! I did it myself. (But I just watched Trollololo’s version of the artwork on youtube… nice.)
Finally finished B&W and it took me about 50 hours. I’m pretty sure I missed a couple of quests as well.
Unreal value for what I paid. I’m pretty sure my TW2 play through was less than 50 hours.
I played The Witcher 2 twice and I don’t think I got 60 hours in total. Yeah, Witcher 3 is crazy value for money.
I finally solved my problem with the Gourmet skill. What I did was unequip it. That way I can stop whining and worrying about it. You’re welcome! I swapped in Sun & Stars (slow vitality increase during daylight hours) which I vastly prefer.
I continued on with the main quest last night by meeting little Johnny and the Crones of Crookback Bog. Took care of an evil spirit problem for them. I also went back to fight Jenny of the Woods… took me three tries. I finally got her once I grokked how to fight in an Arden trap. I had to learn that I shouldn’t even bother attacking if she’s not right inside the hex because it’s useless. I thought I was chipping away at her but she can pause to heal and I was getting nowhere.
Tonight I think I’ll look into some of these treasure maps I’ve been buying from merchants.
Will be starting my own re-play by the weekend. Really enjoying hearing y’all talk about it leading into that!
Yeah reading this thread makes my balls itch (hopefully you get the reference)
nVidia for F. sake move it.
I have played… 20 hours? and barely started the main quest, so yeah, lots of content. The house upgrades and the new witcher equipment will give you reasons to explore and find riches and new rare components, too.
House upgrades? Good grief! I’m at 33 hours and haven’t seen anything like that yet… (I assume that’ll happen when I reach Kaer Morhen.)
There’s a really satisfying streak of horror running through this fantasy world… I loved the departing actions of the Crones last night after our first meeting. One of them stroked the vestigial legs protruding from her gut in a rather obscene fashion and another spanked her own rump. And that eye made of an insect nest? So good. Rob Bottin would be proud.
I also enjoyed meeting Gran and her kids in the woods who talked about tits and arses. Great world, great writing, and it doesn’t play things safe or saccharine.
Don’t worry about it. Geralt doesn’t get a house until the Blood & Wine expansion.
So at this rate, July, maybe August for me.
Lots of quests have a nice post-end touch.
Obviously the tourney, if you win, have lots of people recognizing like the winner.
In the bard’s quest, you can see him later in the grand plaza singing pieces of his last “great hit”.
In the statue’s quest, you can come back and see people watching the statue and commenting its “attributes”, and you can touch them, too!
In Vivienne’s quest, I didn’t check it, but I read that
Vivienne’s ending
if you can cure her with the egg’s ritual, she obtains her freedom and you can see her in Novigrad in the docks area, she comments how she is travelling around the world.
Yup I should be on my way tonight or tomorrow. I’m just mopping up some minor stuff at this point. I should be into new content next week as I’m closing into where I stopped the last time.
robc04
6361
Holy cow I just hit a Blood & Wine quest that kills me within seconds even though I’m the recommended level (40).
I’ve only tried a couple times since I had to break for dinner. It’s called something like Extreme Cosplay and the statues come alive after performing a ritual. A couple throw fire, the rest are melee. The fire is brutal.
Hopefully with a little more thought I’ll think of a way to approach this and not die so fast.
jsnell
6362
Run up the stairs as soon as the fight starts. The spoilers won’t follow you there, and you can do hit and run attacks to whittle the enemy down and return back to heal. Pretty cheesy, but I can’t imagine doing that fight straight up. (If there had been some kind of a story indication that the upper level was safe, it would have been kind of a clever puzzle. But clearly it wasn’t safe the first time around).
That quest had the hardest fight in the whole DLC for me so far.
A possible strategy…?
The mages hit really, REALLY hard - perhaps a dimeritium bomb would be helpful?
