The game was released 1 year ago – still – it’s a masterpiece to be played. If you’ve never played it, play it now – it’s easily one of the best games in years, if not decades. The storyline with twists will keep you thinking in a while (no decision is clearly better or worse, and your choices will definitely make impacts on the ending), while the graphic is still one of best in any games, and the gameplay will keep you excited. If you played it – it’s now time to replay it, with new expansions, Heart of Stones and Blood and Wine. They are some of best expansions ever released.
Truth be told, I was new to The Witcher and Wild Hunt was the first game I played in the series. Now I’m playing it again and sometimes I feel really stupid for not knowing something earlier – thing might have been much easier in my first play.
Just want to share some of them:
- A skill might not be used until you activate it.
- Every sign has an alternative mode, which available after you activated it. For PS4, it’s a long R2 press.
- There are two places in Novigrad where you can hire prostitudes. One is cheaper (20 crowns). The sex is pretty the same – but supposedly the more expensive one has better girls (!)
- If you are not very good at crowd control, like me, the Axii comes to rescue. Activate the alternative mode (Puppet) and continuously spam it, then you can relax and watch they kill each other. This is also a trophy.
- The best way to kill an opponent with a shield is the alternative mode of Igni (Firestream). Just after seconds they will be disarmed and start burning.
- If you can’t finish an opponent quickly (mostly boss), then the longer you fight, the more advantage you gained as you can restore health and he/she can’t (except if it’s a werewolf. Then bombs come to rescue). Protection is the key. Be patient and use Quen to protect yourself – then wait for the right moment, do some damage, dodge, then repeat.
- Some side quests can be failed if you do the main quest. Always, I mean ALWAYS check for failed quests tab to make sure if you want to go back and play otherwise. I had to re-play nearly 10 hours because I ignored that.
- The part which you’ll suck the most is the hands to hands combat. Get used to it. The key is to patient and wait for the attack, then do counter attack.
- Don’t sell items with high level runestones. They are just expensive. Dismantle instead.
You can sells item for full price to an alchemist outside of Oxenfurt gate. He’s only available between 6AM and 8AM, and has limited of cash amount. But for beginning of game you can sell high price items (such as bear hide) to him. Keep the cheap hide for crafting (worn wolf hides, pig hide, goat hide) and sell the expensive ones.This is no longer true – more recent updates have patched this. Now he only buys some stuffs with low prices. Not worthy to visit anymore.- Actively remove Gwent cards from your desk. The more cards you get, the harder you get the right cards. Keep spy, restoration and heroes cards, and discard other weak cards. Weather cards can be useful at first, but when it’s less and less powerful. I completed the High Stakes quest with only 24 cards in Northen Realms (DeathMatch if that matters)
- Save whenever you can, then backup the saves on somewhere safe (your external storage or cloud). On PS4 due to big size of each save only 10 saves are allowed. Trust me, you’ll need to go back and correct a mistake, sometimes.
- If you have Blood and Wine expansion installed, make sure to acquire and activate GOURMET – Eating food regenerates Vitality for 20 minutes. This is a godsend when you’re new to the game (or in lower levels). Eat something and you’ll be healed in 20 minutes, so if you’re in a long fight with a boss, or a wave of enemies, cast Quen sign (to avoid sudden death) and keep the rolling until your health is filled – you’ll be almost immortal.
- Don’t forcefully push Dijkstra!
