There are 4 deck types. Nothern Realms (regular deck), Scoiatel (elves and dwarves, some cards that play multiples from your draw deck, flexible placement cards, and return cards from discard), Nilfgard… don’t know their deal, and Monsters (lots of cheap minions that you can play lots from your deck. Based on overwhelming foes).
Unique cards are more powerful cards. Starting decks have lots of poor cards. But some like Yennifer have bonuses. She’s a powerful ranged card, immune to status effects, and heals one card from discard to active play. They tend to be straight up stronger, as I’ve only seen 2 non ‘hero’ cards that are > power 6. So by following the quests you can get these cards, and they can be a good boost to your decks, as even cards you buy will mostly fill out the bottom and middle of mid game decks.
As for money, it comes in time. Doing quests, expecially witcher contracts, gives decent coin. Also sell goods to the appropriate vendor. You get more money for swords and armor selling to an armorer than a generic vendor. Often 2-3x as much. And really selling dropped swords is where the real money is at outside of quests.
Sell the loot. Maybe install a mod that increases the amount of money the merchants have, otherwise you’ll be running from one to another to offload everything.
I always start at the blacksmith, clean him out, repair my gear (giving him more money), then clean him out again. Usually I don’t have to go to a second vendor.
I don’t know, I was frequently hauling around 10 swords and 8 pieces of armor (had around 150 weight capacity), each worth 800-2500 orens, and most vendors had around 1-2k. The woman smith in Crow’s perch and Hatori always had a little more so they were usually my first stops, but this wasn’t always enough.
Again, worth noting: the merchants who buy stuff in outlying villages pay MUCH LESS for stuff than the merchants in Novograd or other larger settlements (like the big one in Skellige, or even the Crow’s Nest in Velen). I had cash flow problems galore until I got to Novograd around level 10 or 12 or whenever that is. Then it gets a bit better.
I’ve done a good chunk of the second expansion, but I’m thinking of starting a NG+. A second play through’ll be more enjoyable if some new content still awaits at the very end. There was so much I missed in my first playthrough, and SO much time spent crafting everything that I’ll be all too happy to skip in a second play through. Pretty sure it will be the first time in my life I do a second play through of an rpg.
I spent by far the most time gathering ingredients/recipes for all the potions and bombs. Second time around I’ll only craft the armor I want (as opposed to getting every set to grandmaster like I did the first playthrough. I also spent way too much time getting all the places of power. The combat lacked variety so I was desparate for ability points. Another task I could skip round 2. Seems like it would be fun to start again with all the options offered by having upgraded signs, the two combat abilities, and cluster bombs.
Oh, and no gwent in the second playthrough. The more I think about it, the more it seems like it would be a different game. I basically spent all my time in Velen, and did way fewer optional quests in the other zones. Didn’t do a single witcher contract after level 5-ish either.
I’ve been getting back into this after a year. Stopped for some reason right before what I thought was the final battle, but I guess I have a ways to go still. Unfortunately I keep having computer crashes, event viewer shows Event ID 41. Been trying a few things, but nothing has fixed it. I think it may be the PSU, but shrug.
Game is good, but: (i) the load times are so horrible for PS4 at least; and (ii) I really wish they had fixed the leveling so that if I did a couple of side quests, I wouldn’t end up five levels ahead of everything.
So I’m wrapping up the Ugly Baby quest line and… I love Lambert. The interactions are hilarious to me. The bit at the end where the trio of switchers get sloshed had me smiling, and is one of my favorite character moments so far. A little extra since I did the Yen line (mostly because @rhamorim and others extolled this as the ‘true’ line, and more in line with how Geralt would feel. I liked Triss better).
I haven’t come across Shani, so can’t judge. I believe I saw mention she was in Blood and Wine? Triss is definitely the more compassionate of the two, so if I ever do a second run, that’ll definitely be the way I go.
Not sure that’s true. As all sorceresses, they’re proud and manipulative, they know which buttons to push, and they tend to see all non-sorcerers as “lesser” somewhat - including witchers in general. But I don’t think any of them is dismissive of Geralt like that.
I do like how all the sorceresses are amused by Geralt’s signs, thinking of them as parlor tricks. While I’m going holy crap I just knocked a dude twenty feet in the air and got that other guy to stab his ally with a sword!
I mean when you can tear a hole in reality and just appear someplace else, knocking a dude down is going to be fairly unimpressive. Then again they’re also getting hunted down by fat men with spears and losing.
Up to level 7 now. I finished the Baron’s quest and beat him in a hand of Gwent. He said he would give me a unique card if I beat him but it just looks like a regular old spy card to me.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with this game. I took on a level 14 Wyvern in a very enclosed space last night and finally managed to beat him, though it took absolutely forever. I’d have stood no chance without Quen, which I have finally learned to use properly. I also tried taking on some level 15 nightwraiths but just no way. Too hard switching between signs in the middle of a fight. I’ve got to mess with some key bindings for that.
I finished the Passage in the Dark quest in the elven ruins and that was such a great experience. Probably one of the best dungeon delving experiences I’ve ever had in a game like this. I’m working on the Ladies of the Wood quest now and I find myself reacting to the characters like I would in life and not in such a “game mode” fashion. The quests and writing are just really well done. Best I’ve seen in a game, really.
My cash problem got much better once I got to Oxenfurt because the merchants and blacksmiths there pay a lot more for your stuff. I can finally start buying some Gwent cards now.
I absolutely love all the little secrets and things you can find wandering around in this game. It really makes exploring fun.
