From a roleplaying point of view it is silly for Gerald to do all the sidequests. Only reason for him would be money, and when he has enough, why would he care about other peoples problems, when he has more urgent problems? I could even ask you, how can you play a role of a character, that is in search of the only person he really cares about, and waste your time doing sidequests? A character that even tries to stay out of other people problems and stays neutral as much as possible. Makes no sense to me.
'Let's ask the Eagles to drop the Ring in the volcano...'
Some quests are more about the journey than the destination.
I'm playing on B&BB (Hard) so I need the side quests to build up experience and coin, and can rationalise that Geralt knows that.
Or you could set it to Easy and pump down the main quest line.
These are just choices.
That it makes no sense to an individual, does not invalidate them.
I've had the good fortune to have some time on my hands and have put probably 30 hours in.
I'm at level 10, still in Velen, and I'm following the following 'formula':
- Complete the current quest, clearing monsters/bandits and picking up (but not completing) all quests I pass along the way.
- The next quest will be lowest level contract, side or main quest in my quests log.
So I'm wandering around Velen at level 10, but working through the level 6 contracts, side and main quests,
once they are done, on to level 7 quests. On Hard difficulty this is providing a good challenge, but with a slight
over-levelling now, I'm not having to reload constantly after swift death as I was at the start.
You can't repeat your first time, so I'm taking my time about it...