I'm seeing people online saying they beat the game on level 35, which really confuses and troubles me because that makes it sound like I'm halfway through when in fact I thought there's triple my current progress to go. I don't know how much of the story left, how many skills from the skill tree I will be able to unlock until the game ends, and other confusing matters.

So here are the details and stats I would like to know from each of you, just to get an idea of people's playstyles and progress:

• Current level: 17 (50 points from level 18, waiting for XP fix)

• Current main quest (description in a spoiler tag): Count Reuven's Treasure (about to find Dandelion) / The King is Dead - Long Live the King (getting ready for the funeral)

• How much you've explored of each area: Been through all of Velen, but only explored about 50% of the question marks / Visited Skellige recently for the first time, visited every isle, explored about 10%

• Looting: 100% of every location. I don't leave a stone unturned. Dismantled most at the beginning, sell most of the loot now, dismantle rare ingredient items.
• Money: 20,111C (aside from the occasional alchemical ingredient, I don't buy anything)

• Your current highest rated swords and armor: 275 silver, 173 steel, 107 armor

In-game stats screen:

• Vitality: 4720
• DPS silver sword: 580
• DPS steel sword: 472
• Armor: 213
• Total play time: 5 days, 2 hours. (122 hours... Minus alt-tabbing = about 110 hours).

I'll engage this just because I think silly numbers like this are fun. Here we go:

• Level 16 ~150exp off of 17
• Crowns 32869
• Silver DPS 811
• Steel DPS 543
• Armor 212
• Vitality 4660

Wearing the first version of the entire Feline(Cat) Witcher set. My high dps largely comes from the set bonuses and my focus on combat skills+red mutagen. Because so far, going glass cannon hasn't been punished too much.

60h played, I've never been to Skellige, but almost the entire Velen/Novigrad map has been cleared. Just a couple POI in the far south. And the ones with op lvl ?? Basilisks and shit.

Main quests atm is Get Junior and Destination:Skellige.

I'm enjoying my time with the game and im impressed with the size of the world. Im playing on the blood and broken bones difficulty and so far its really tough. Looting everything is a must and sometimes I'll be in a battle where I think I have the upper hand but one wrong move costs me.

• 30 hours played
• Level 11
• Dps silver sword: 318 Dps steel sword:205
• Armor 116
• Sign intensity: +24%
• Vitality: 4860
• Focused my character on Fast attacks, Aard and Igni sign intensity, and vitality regeneration
• Money: Had about 1500 coins and then i accidentally got into a fight with some guards which made me lose the money
• Just finished Return to Crookback Bogand got the Bloody Baron's gwent card.
• Currently I'm trying to beat the people at gwent that I have skipped and start the Fists Of Fury: Velen secondary quest
• I've explored almost all of western Velen and so far have not arrived at any of the major cities

• Total playtime 2 days, 18 Hours, 3 minutes
• Level 11 (85 points from level 12)
• Crowns 3664
• Vitality 4460
• Sign Intensity +73% ( most used signs, Igini: 173 Fire damage, Quen: 346 Phys Dmg reduction)
• Pretty Sign focused, so far, as I want to max out Quen. So, I've mostly got points in Igini and Quen.
• DPS Silver Sword 276
• DPS Steel Sword 246
• Armor 21
• Just finished "Ghosts of the Past", where I was surprised to see Letho. I chose to let him live in this playthrough, and pretty happy I went that route. I stepped in and ruined his plans, so wound up inviting him to Kaer Morhen. Interested in seeing how that winds up. I'm hunting some Gwent cards, and my current Main Quest is 'Pyres of Novigrad'.
• Explored all of White Orchard, and almost half of Velen, playing on Blood and Broken Bones (will save Death March for a later playthrough). I'm ultimately going about the combat with the same tactics I used in Witcher 2, having a Quen sign focused build, with bomb tossing and constantly rolling and dodging. By way of how I need to spread points in trees to access the other Quen upgrades, I've wound up adding Igini into my attacks. I loot everything (again, just like Witcher 2), haggle everyone I can for a bonus on contracts, and ALWAYS get paid for Witcher's work, no matter what (first rule of being a Witcher, never work for free). I've pretty much played it as neutral as I can, except where I thought I needed not to. Gave the Baron a piece of my mind, for example.

• Current Main Quests
  • In Ciri's Footsteps - Still searching Novigrad and yet to reach Skellige.
  • Novigrad Dreaming - "Find the dreamer [Oneiromancer] in the old house."
  • Destination: Skellige - "Find a boat heading to Skellige."
• Difficulty: Death March
• Level 12 (1061/1500)
• Vitality: 4464
• Silver Sword DPS - 548 - Disglair
• Steel Sword DPS - 310 - Witch Hunter's Sword
• Armor - 139 - Ard Skellig Aketon
• Sign Intensity +37%
• Aard - 61% Stagger
• Igni - 135 Fire Damage / 61% Burning
• Quen - 270 Physical Damage Reduction
• Yrden - 27% Slowdown / 13.5s Duration
• Axii - 7.25s Duration
• Orens: 454
• Playstyle
  • Neutral as possible
  • Never steal common items from any peasant buildings
  • Never fight guards or steal from them
  • Walk around a lot in towns
  • Sail as much as possible
  • No fast travel
  • Race horses
  • Combat Style: Heave mixed use of: Dodge / Parry / Signs / Strong Style Back Attacks
    • Use lots of oils
    • Use lots of decoctions
    • Save every few minutes / Die a lot
    • Most important things I learned:
      • Yrden & Axii are the best ways to break up mobs
      • You want to position yourself opposite the best place to be in AC or Batman, namely *never be in the middle*. Dodge your way to outside, and run the perimeter.
  • Terrible at gwent

I won't say where I am in the story cause I'm quite a bit further than most people here, but:

• DPS Silver - 1860
• DPS Steel - 1306
• Armor - 399
• Sign Intensity - +58%
• Vitality - 6090
• Crowns - 11642
• Level 32 155/2000 (Never got hit by the Exp bug)

I'm wearing the full mastercrafted Feline set, swords included. Each piece increases attack by 10 - 20% and the swords have innate 15% bleed, and I also invested heavily into the attack power tree. I'm currently wishing I played on Death March instead of Blood and Broken Bones cause I'm annihilating everything I come across. It's pointless to bump it up now cause I won't get the trophy, but I'll probably play again at some point on Death March.

I've completed all of Velen's question marks but have barely touched any in Skellige. I'm concerned about completing my Gwent collection because I've completed all the quests but I'm still missing a bunch of random cards and I don't think there are very many people left to play. I also hope that they patch a way to get the White Orchard innkeeper cards on PS4 cause I missed one of the Foltest cards.

I finished it last week. Mostly booked through the story stuff after the first chunk of Velen stuff, knowing that the sheer amount of content would have me playing it for weeks (which can drive me insane sometimes). I'll go back for the rest in the future.

Think I did finish the game around 35; after heading to Skellige around 16 or so, the main story stuff leveled me constantly until the end of the game. Was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up but it all worked out. My weapons and armor weren't great, but they got the job done. Used a fighting style that was mostly melee--light attacks, heavy attacks for openings, parries for human enemies--and pretty much stuck to Quen for my spells. Didn't find much use for the rest of them, especially on Hard where I felt Quen really helped. Hovered around 10,000 crowns until the end of the game, since I wasn't getting much money and kept having to repair gear. Took me about 70 hours in total, although the multiple crashes I had on PC may have bugged my hour count.

• I'm halfway through level 12.
• I'm supposed to be doing the Pyres of Novigrad quest, but I'm waiting for the new patch to fix the EXP bug.
• My silver sword DPS is 516, and my steel sword DPS is 336.
• Armor rating is 133, and my Vitality is 4770.
• I'm not sure about the Sign intensity, but I think it was 47 percent.
• I have 5036 crowns, plus 600 orens and florens in total. I don't go through people's houses and steal from them.
• I have 54 unexplored points-of-interest and at least two notice boards that I haven't checked yet (in Velen, that is.).

• Halfway through level 8
• Total playtime counter says 2 days, 18 hours. (I have a feeling it's broken. 56 hours?!?)
• Doing Crones of Crookback quest
• Explored about half of Velen, recently entered Oxenfurt and did a few quests around there
• Silver sword - 260 DPS, Steel - 173 DPS
• Armour 99, Vitalisty - 4160
• Money ~600 crowns :(

I'm on the quest Final Preparations

I should add I'm playing on the difficulty "Blood and Broken Bones!"

In-game stats screen:

• Level: 31
• Vitality: 5410
• DPS silver sword: 1788
• DPS steel sword: 1249
• Armor: 399
• Sign Intensity: +60%
• Total play time: 7 days, 7 hours.

Wearing the entire Mastercrafted Feline set fully socketed with +10% Quen

Using the Mastercrafted Griffin weapons with all +5% Attack power

I've explored 100% of everything except Skellige and I doubt I will explore it all.

I've had over 20k gold but spent all but 1k of it crafting runes for my weapons and armor. Overall I would guess I've had about 40k gold but could not say for sure.

*No glitching or form of cheating for the gold. Selling what you don't need and buying what you can. I found only using one vendor to buy and sell helps as he will always keep the money for when you need to sell. I now have a vendor with well over 20k....a master craftsman vendor will do as you will always need them and I picked the one in the Barons area.

• Current level: 18 (392 / 1500). I didn't stop playing due to XP bug, but I don't think it really affected me (I've been doing gray quests recently anyway)

Playing Blood and Broken Bones. As you'll see, I'm taking my sweet time.

• Current quests (I'm basically doing both in parallel):
  
  • Count Reuven's Treasure (need to talk to Priscilla)
  • Get Junior (need to talk to Roche)

• How much you've explored of each area: I turned off the "POI indicators" before I even started playing (so I spend a lot of time riding around exploring). I think I've done everything in White Orchard; I've reached all the notice boards in Velen/Novigrad (assuming they're all on the map at the start). Just recently hit up Skellige and explored around Ard Skellig and did a quest or two on Faroe.

• Looting: I'm partially reformed. I used to loot everything, now I will occasionally go on a spree but usually will leave residents of a new town undisturbed (my problem is that if I loot one house, then I kind of have to loot them all).
• Money: 6053. I spend money mostly on diagrams.

• Your current highest rated swords and armor:
  
  • Steel sword Beann'she (134-164 dmg). It has 3 slots, I'm getting +101 Armor piercing on top. It's not the highest rated I've found but I don't like to use a non-sword (heavy into oils) or a boring military issue, so there you are. I can craft a couple better ones but decided not to, since there are some I can craft that I'm a few levels off of that are way better.
  • Silver Sword Griffin Enhanced (225-275 dmg). Added chance to cause burning which is fun.
  • Armor: Belhaven Brigandine (99 Armor), 1 slot. It's pretty basic but I try not to get hit much, mainly I like the look of it (it is red & black vertical bands).

In-game stats screen:

• Vitality: 5533
• DPS silver sword: 536
• DPS steel sword: 364
• Armor: 201
• Total play time: 7d 20h 56m; probably can subtract ~1d since I left the game on a couple nights (assuming it counts time in menu?)

Leveling has been focused mostly on Alchemy tree (wanted to try it since I focused mostly on physical skills in Witcher 2). Since I turned off POI markers I roam around the map a lot, also I've probably spent way too much time playing Gwent.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the most important part: after realizing that it was possible, I've equipped the Wolf mask permanently.

Just finished killing the Crones and Imlerith I'm just about to hit level 30. The play time counter is borked to hell so I have no idea how long I've played buy I would guess it's at least 110 hours so far. I believe that the quest I'm on is "Final Preparations"

I just turned my PS4 off for the night but I'll try to remember to get more stats later.