Advice for New Players of "The Witcher"

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Advice for New Players of "The Witcher"

So, you just got The Witcher , and you're wondering what you need to know?

The Witcher is a story-driven action RPG. That means that you need to pay attention to what the main characters say, because it will all be important, AND you need to learn how to kill things.

One of the charms of The Witcher is that its makers, CD Projekt Red (henceforth, CDPR), have paid a lot of attention to detail. So listen to what the people in the street say as you're passing by, notice what kinds of games the children are playing in the Outskirts, notice the sights and sounds around you. CDPR has built quite a world here, and part of the pleasure of the game is seeing all of that. This is the sort of game where what you get out of it depends partly on what you put into it. Just like life. ;)

The game itself will tell you most of what you need to know -- and the manual contains lots of useful information -- but here's a baker's dozen of tips:


1. Read your journal.

The information that gets printed on the screen when you meet someone or advance a quest is only part of the information that's recorded in your journal. If you're not sure what to do next, the Quest Log in your journal probably has some hints about where to go or who to talk to.

The tutorials are also stored in your journal, so if you forget how to do something, you can check the tutorial in your journal for information. The game's manual is also helpful.


2. Save your game frequently.

Save before every major battle, before every major conversation, before leaving one area and entering another. Like most complex computer games, The Witcher crashes from time to time, and if/when it crashes on you, you'll want a recent saved game.

Don't overwrite too many of your previous saved games, though, because every once in awhile, a saved game becomes somehow glitched, and if that happens to you, you'll need to restore from a previous point in the game. If you have only one saved game, restoring from a previous save won't be possible, so make sure you have plenty of saved games.

Having a lot of saved games in your saves folder can slow the game down, so if you have more than 20 or so, feel free to move the oldest saved games from your saves folder to some backup folder elsewhere on your computer. If you turn out to need one of those saved games, you can put the game you need back into your saves folder, and if you don't need them, you can delete them when the game is done.


3. Pause if you need to.

This game features something they call the "active pause." That means that you can pause the game -- hit the spacebar -- and then switch to a different sword style or a different Sign without any time passing. If you need time to evaluate the situation or to think about what you want to do, you can pause the game. (Also helpful for bathroom breaks and lunch breaks. :D)


4. Talk to EVERYBODY.

Characters with green circles around their feet are major characters, so you should definitely talk to them, but characters with blue circles around their feet often have interesting things to say, too. The green-circled characters often have new things to say as circumstances change, so you'll want to talk to many of those characters more than once. (Characters with red circles around their feet are hostile and attack rather than talk. You'll need to kill them or run away from them.)


5. Learn at least a few of the keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard shortcuts can significantly shorten your response time, which can be very handy when something is attacking you. "Q" draws your steel sword, and "E" draws your silver sword; you'll want to remember those two commands if nothing else. (I've capitalized the letters for clarity, but you don't have to type them in as capitals; "q" and "e" work just fine.)
"Z" switches your sword style to Strong
"X" switches your sword style to Fast
"C" switches your sword style to Group


6. Explore!

Exploring is part of the fun of the game and can also be very useful. No one complains -- or even seems to notice -- if you take their stuff, so you can go into people's houses and grab their possessions if you want to. (Since Geralt kills the monsters that would otherwise kill people, you can think of his taking their stuff as the "Witcher tax," if stealing from poor folk makes you feel guilty. )


7. Potions and oils can mean the difference between life and death.

Do take the time to collect herbs and monster parts so that you can make potions and oils. In order to collect herbs, you'll have to put a skill point (called "talents" in this game) into the Herbalism skill on the Intelligence skill tree. In order to collect monster parts, you'll need to read books that give Geralt information about that monster. All of these books can be purchased for gold -- for some reason, booksellers are called "Antiquarians" in the game -- and many of them can also be found just lying around inside people's homes.


8. Don't forget about the Signs.

Your main attack and defense will be with your sword, but the Signs can help a whole heck of a lot. If you stun something with the Aard sign, you can kill it with one blow. If you set something on fire with the Igni sign, your enemy can be taking damage from burning AND taking damage from your sword blows at the same time.


9. Your inn storage is mobile.

Whatever you store at an inn will be available at the next inn you go to, so you don't need to worry about storing stuff at the inns, and you don't need to go back to get that stuff before you go on to the next location; it will automatically travel to the next location with you.


10. Advance the game only when you're ready.

Certain quests are main quests, and certain phases of those quests trigger the end of the current chapter. When you finish a chapter, you usually can't go back to any of the locations in the current chapter, so you'll want to finish everything you need to do in the current chapter before advancing the main quest to the point that it begins the end-of-chapter scenario. (The exception to this is that the areas of Chapter 2 are also available in Chapter 3, and a few of the quests that start in Chapter 2 not only don't have to be completed before Chapter 2 ends but CAN'T be completed before Chapter 2 ends.)

It's usually obvious which quest will trigger the end-of-chapter scenario, but you can ask here on the forum if you want to, plus, if you trigger the end before you're ready, remember how I told you to save frequently? Yeah. This is another reason. ;)


11. You're the fastest thing in the game.

Usually, you'll want to kill anything that's attacking you. But if you stumble into a situation that you can't handle, it's possible to run away. Geralt is much faster than most monsters, and you can use this to your advantage. Even if you can't run AWAY, running in circles can give your potions time to heal you up.


12. You don't need to experience-grind unless you like that sort of thing.

Doing all of the quests that are given to you will gain you enough experience to handle anything that comes your way. You never have to spend a lot of time killing monsters just for the experience ... unless you want to.

As in most RPG's, The Witcher usually has one extra-difficult monster at the end of every chapter; players call these "boss" fights. You don't have to experience-grind to survive boss fights in The Witcher; if you're having trouble killing a particular boss, what you probably need is a change in tactics.


13. There's plenty of help available

Both this forum and The Witcher Wiki contain lots of useful information. Both contain spoilers, though, so be careful what you look up.

Anything you've had trouble with, other people have probably had trouble with. So you can find tips for handling The Beast at the end of Chapter 1 or the Kikimore Queen at the end of Chapter 3, and so on.

The Search Function can turn up a lot of useful information.

And if there's anything about the game that annoys you, the chances are that there's a mod that changes things. You can find a list of mods here.
 
Nice and useful information
waow u r the best...i played so many time the witcher and witcher 2 game ......but in my point of view TW1 is much better then TW2
 
Thx this really helped me a lot!
Especialy the advice on overwriting too many saved games can cause problems,wish i knew that earlier...
 
Good collection of advices, thank you! I'd like to add some observations if you don't mind.

Corylea said:
6. Explore!
You do not actually need to steal from houses, although there's no one stopping you. You can survive without that pretty well and that way you won't feel guilty.

Corylea said:
7. Potions and oils can mean the difference between life and death.
Yes they can, and they are overall important.
But they can also be bought if you keep your eyes open. Relying solely on that makes the game harder though.
You can also survive without herbalism and any knowledge of monsters, but that makes some quests impossible to complete.
That means only for experienced players (I mean masochists)!

Corylea said:
8. Don't forget about the Signs.
A strong enough sword fighter, with oils and potions, won't need signs at all.
On the other hand, an all out sign user can throw away the swords.
One can find a balance as well and use both. It's up to the player's style. ;)

Corylea said:
10. Advance the game only when you're ready.
There are quest lines that span across multiple chapters, some of them doesn't even have a specific starting point, some of them aren't very strict in where to advance.
I mean the fist fighting and the poker.
 
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