What's your method to level up?

[HexerDa]

What's your method to level up?

I feel kind of stupid for asking this, but how did or do you level up?

I was hoping to reach level 31 soon so I can wear the Nilfgaardian Guardsman gauntlets. I'm only level 21 and already so far that the game tells me I'm entering a crucial point in the story...

I'd like to save as many side quests as possible so I can do them later when I'm all suited up.

Killing a respawning level 30 cyclops in Skellige seems to be best way, each kill is rewarded with like 40 EXP but killing him takes up to like 3 minutes sometimes and I also die occasionally so it's quite a pain in the ass.

Do you have any suggestions? Please, feel free to share.

 

[ketxxx]

Complete main quests and witcher contracts. Serious. You get a ton of XP for doing those, I and others have already said that normal enemies need to be worth more XP otherwise the game just becomes a monotonous grindfest. Will CDPR make the changes? They better, or I for one will never buy any of their games again for their third stab at a RPG type game its unbelievable the amount of basic things they have got wrong. Thats coming from somebody whos not only a veteran RPG player, but also a games modder.

 

[jmarron]

i finished the game at level 34-35, completed the gwent collection, all fightfists, horses etc...
=> no monster farming, no glitches or exploits in game mechanics.

- getting all boards and then all contracts & new locations & gwent npcs
- doing all the lowest level quests; and sometimes doing exploration to trigger even more quests & places...
- doing main quests just before getting more than 5 level difference, ofc.

 

[wildspirit]

I'm near the end of the game and i'm level 31.

I've done every side quests, every contracts, every gwent / horse challenges, every treasure hunt and almost all question marks on every map (have some left in the south of Skellige).

I didn't have to grind once.

I play on blood and broken bones difficulty tho, so I gain less XP overall.

 

[OptoNick]

Finished first playthrough at lvl 35, DM difficulty. I thoroughly explored territory square foot by square foot and made all quests on the way to the main plot locations, so I came to the village in Velen which has been destroyed by Wild Hunt at level 13 instead of recommended level 5. I've got most of exp points from slashing high-level monsters, and practically didn't get any exp from main storyline until Kaer Morhen siege. And after that I still had few main quests out of 5 lvl range.

Now I've started second playthrough with different approach - I'm trying to go along with the recommended levels for main quests, but it's really disturbing for me, because I have to pass through areas with so much deals to do but I can't do it without overleveling.

So I guess that I'll dump this strategy until (if) amount of exp for main quests will be significantly nerfed down or there'll come a higher difficulty with significantly higher demands to Geralt's level.

 

[cloolvl]

Complete main quests and witcher contracts. Serious. You get a ton of XP for doing those, I and others have already said that normal enemies need to be worth more XP otherwise the game just becomes a monotonous grindfest. Will CDPR make the changes? They better, or I for one will never buy any of their games again for their third stab at a RPG type game its unbelievable the amount of basic things they have got wrong. Thats coming from somebody whos not only a veteran RPG player, but also a games modder.

i for one dont see why should killing random monsters be as rewarding as doing something actually meaningful. thats also coming from somebody whos not only a veteran RPG player, but also a games modder.

 

[Soylent.876]

I don't really worry about leveling up. It just happens when it happens. My preferred gamestyle is to explore and finish as many quests as possible before leaving an area. By the time I first entered Novigrad I was level 8

 

[Setari]

I finished out my first game save at 36 or 37, can't remember which. Mastercrafted Ursine set w/ Adrenaline build. However, my advice to you is to just do the story and attempt to keep up on sidequests and don't outlevel them by 5 levels or else you're just going to get like 5EXP for doing them, which sucks.

 

[ironhorse384]

My first playthrough I focused more on the main story and found because of the gratuitous amount of xp awarded for doing these quests I more or less abandoned a lot of side quests as I became too overleveled.
My second playthrough has been more dedicated to doing side quests first and main quests second because at least the side quests don't award as much xp so the overleveling problem is minimized a bit.
Either way its been a balancing act to try and maintain the level of challenge with doing side and main quests even on DM.

 

[HexerDa]

Thank you all for your help. Guess I'll just do all the side quests that marked failed during the Isle of Mists quest and then continue the main quest and save the rest of the side quests for later. At least I get the black mare if not the gauntlets.

 

[roizumaaku]

Contracts

 

[Liquidacid]

I leveled up by trading currencies back and forth and banging whores

 

[VelcroSnake]

Finished my playthrough at 35, didn't worry about what order I did quests/contracts, or if they were grey or not, just played the game.

 

[ketxxx]

i for one dont see why should killing random monsters be as rewarding as doing something actually meaningful. thats also coming from somebody whos not only a veteran RPG player, but also a games modder.

I'm not saying normal monsters should give out loads of XP, but lets take a level 30 Cyclops for example, kill it you get 40XP. For that amount of XP it actually discourages getting in to fights as theres nothing to make it worthwhile. If XP were upped to say 100 though, it would encourage the player to get in to combat more whilst not going overkill on the XP, even if the player level were somewhere in the 20s you would still have to slay 20 Cyclops to level up. Given they aren't exactly littered around like candy the player should be rewarded in some way for taking down a relatively rare monster.

 

[Tuco]

My method is not caring about level up at all.
It's not like making levels is even a problem in this game. Hell, if anything, sometimes you have to struggle to keep a good pace doing the quests in a sensible order without out-leveling them too much,

 

[CannedPlayer]

i finished it today, level 34 - (128xp - 2000) I made a lot, contracts and stuff... but havent played gwent not a single bit because i dont like it.

is there any chance to get the 1800 and something that i need to get to 35?

i did some quests that gave me just 5xp... tower out of nowhere, which is a pain to complete, and just 5xp?

 

[SofaJockey]

Patience,
patience,
patience

Driving forward with too much focus on levelling is disruptive.
Main quests appear to dominate levelling, which is to be expected, because it keeps the faster players and the completionists more generally on par.
To additionally level, hit all the notice boards, and clear all and any contracts / side content, but enjoy it, it's not a chore.

That's coming from somebody who's not only a veteran RPG player, but also owns a sofa...

 

[Horwath1]

I just do quest and contracts. I don't really fight a lot outside of quests and those I try to end with with the least amount of fighting I can. Doesn't always work. The Axii sign helps with this to a point.

I've played 89 hours level 28 and just finishing up act 2 I think. It's close to the end anyway. So I guess 2/3 of the way done. I get distracted.