As the title. With the last expansion out and the patch fixing all my niggles with the menu and inventory i've decided to try play this again. Last time I got to the bloody baron and just tailed off which is strange as I loved the story so far.
It is probably just a personal thing but I feel very overwhelmed with all the ? marks. I feel I should "get" them all but I presume if I just did a few and played as many written quests as I can I will still have a good time right?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Game » consists of 27 releases. Released May 19, 2015
CD Projekt RED's third Witcher combines the series' non-linear storytelling with a sprawling open world that concludes the saga of Geralt of Rivia.
Trying to start again, feeling overwhelmed.
The question marks on the map are far less important than even a stumbled-upon treasure hunt. I suggest you pick a quest and follow that chain to its conclusion. Consistency of narrative will serve your experience much better than completionist hoarding.
If you're lucky with a question mark, its an interesting little nugget that tells a story. But more often it's a random monster, a group of bandits, or a corpse that points to some less valuable treasure--always worse than the crafted stuff.
@daveydave: I wouldn't worry about the question marks too much. They're mostly just bandit camps and monster nests and stuff like that. I only ever checked out the ones that were on the way to wherever I was going, otherwise it started to feel like a slog. You could also just turn the question marks off and find that stuff just by exploring.
Check them out if you happen to be nearby while you're doing other quests, but don't feel obligated to seek them all out. They're just there as something extra to do if you want.
I've got well over 100 hours in the game at this point and I still have dozens of undiscovered points of interest on the map.
Yeah leave the question marks.
Or explore if you want to.
If you're feeling burned out though, mainline the story for a bit - then drift and explore later.
Most of those question marks have literally no story. They're just there to give you something to do if you feel like exploring or burn out on the main or side quests.
Yeah... you can pretty much put the idea of seeking out every '?' out of your mind. As others have said, they're not very significant in terms of either gameplay or narrative. I couldn't help myself from going after all of them, and I have to tell you getting all the damn smuggler's caches out at sea in Skellige is an exercise in insanity.
That being said, they improved the way they handle '?' significantly with Blood and Wine. More of them have narrative, some proper quests end up taking you to one, and they added some more types that are a bit more interesting. There's also a sidequest that tracks certain '?' and gives you bonus money for completing them.
@daveydave: * raises hand* Whats a, "niggle"?
Don't go after the ones in bodies of water, they'll take extra time to reach and sailing is kinda boring. Also, I like to set a quest objective and then walk to it through the wilderness while exploring the question marks. Makes it feel less overwhelming and it's nice to have a set goal for your travels.
The question marks are there to help fill out the world and give you a reason not to fast travel. They are very easy to ignore, as they don't offer much (usually). Focus on yellow exclamation points/other quests marked in the quests menu. And don't loot everything you see. It's not worth it. Chests should always be looked at, but everything else can be ignored (unless they are highlighted red instead of yellow in witcher vision)
My recommendation would be to not treat this game like any other open world game where there is a big incentive on collectibles and "100%"-ing things. There is just not really anything rewarding in doing every single question mark and even doing every side quest is not really worth it in the long run. This has a lot to do with how the xp system works in this game where if you're over leveled for a quest,monster or encounter you won't get that much xp for it and arguably the best gear is crafted rather than found from loot. Do a mixture of what interests you and what will help you in the long run, like treasure hunts for witcher crafting diagrams.
@ericjasonwade: a niggle is a slang term for a minor complaint or issue.
E.g. "I have a niggling knee injury". Means it is bothersome enough to mention but not enough to make a big issue out of.
@captain_insano: That's a wee bit too close to something more divisive. I am going to stay away from that one.
@ericjasonwade: Hahahahahaha, that's ridiculous. I can't tell if you're joking or not :)
You can turn the ? off in the options, it would probably give you a better experience as there's really no reason to see them unless you are actually going through the map trying to clear them out. It's much better to just stumble upon any of them as you play the game. Like others have said I finished the game and hadn't come close to clearing them out and it hasn't really ruined my experience with the game. I also at first tried to clear them all out and I did for white orchard but it was so miserable that I stopped.
I'm towards the end of the game (about two to three main quests from what I read) and I still have about 80% unexplored question marks. From what I heard once you finish the main story you'll be kicked back to a save right before the last mission so you can do all that side stuff and explore the question marks after you've seen the conclusion, and also lets you start the expansions from there. I suggest if you're overwhelmed just focus on the story and then do some contracts or side quests if you start feeling burnt out on the main quest.
I echo that most of the ?s are inconsequential but do keep an eye out for the 'abandoned site' challenges - they'll net you large amounts of xp, useful to do when you're feeling under-levelled. Also, break it up with other games - I've timed the major story breaks with diving into other games and it's felt great to come back to the game each time.
Definitely turn the question marks off. No idea what the devs were thinking when they added them. Distracting when you are focusing on quests, undermine the enjoyment of exploration when you're just messing around in the world.
I'm glad they're in the game, they let me know if there's something interesting or significant nearby. I'm the kind of person who would just run straight from objective marker to objective marker if there were no question marks saying "Hey! There might be something worth looking at here!" However, for people who have to grab every last thing, I imagine they can be hell.
I usually go after them if I'm just sauntering by, but I don't actively seek them out unless I just feel like grinding. Going after all of them sounds terrible, don't do that.
I'm pretty sure there's an option to hide all the '?' so you won't get distracted by them.
This is what I was going to suggest, pretty sure there's an option to turn them off.
I am insane and actually did every single one in Velen/Novigrad, but once I got to Skellige and saw how many there were out in random parts of the ocean and on mountain peaks, I just gave up completely, and since then have not felt like I missed anything at all. There is a very funny Game of Thrones easter egg in one of them though; I am glad I got to see that before stopping.
The ?s are worthless junk that doesnt belong in a Witcher game. Even i who is an huge Witcher fan and known completionist burned out on them. If you try to do them all at least 5-10 of them will glitch for you and cant be completed on a normal playthrough. CDPR are super supportive of their games with constant updates and fixes but those "?"s has been neglected ever since the release as not even CDPR cares about that junk. That should say something.
Some of the ?s are Places of Power, and you should seek those out for those bonus skill points. They're way more common in the first tutorial area, White Orchid, so that's the only area I recommend sweeping completely.
The rest of the ?s aren't that important, and once you get to the main game (Velen, etc.) many of the out-of-the-way ones are also super high level encounters that'll kill you pretty quick. I might actually recommend you do the ocean/lake ones if you're nearby, because those are almost all looting and no danger which is great if you're short on cash.
Once you get to the last huge region of the game (it's an archipelago, for a vague sense of clarity), the ?s are both less convenient to reach and less helpful to an already well leveled-up Geralt. I left most of those standing when I beat the game.
They're either:
- Monster Nests (which you can destroy giving you some loot, usually just crafting mats)
- Bandit Hideouts (usually containing 1 chest with "good" loot and in some cases a caged captive which you can free sending him home to his village where he will become a merchant or a blacksmith giving you access to new gear etc.)
- Abandoned Settlements (usually settled by bandits, kill the bandits and the settlement repopulates with villagers giving you access to merchants, craftsmen, barbers.)
- Places of Power (the best thing you could find, places of power give you a single ability point to spend. You only get these with leveling up otherwise.)
- Misc quests (quests that are short but can be sweet, like encountering a guy being chased by dudes who want to rob him, free the guy, guy says thanks, few hours later you encounter the guy again in a burned down village. Turns out he was a bandit being chased by guards and thanks you for saving him (I killed the ass.)
- Caves (contains loot, in best case it's Witcher gear.)
I must be missing some but that is the bulk of the ?'s in the Witcher. If you want Witcher gear you will have to visit a fair number of ?'s in the game. This is I think also the best way to explore the ?'s in the Witcher. Go on the Witcher gear Treasure Hunts and explore the ?'s you need to to get the loot.
I love W3 but I was so fed up of all the talking that I totally button mashed my way through all the dialogue in Act 3. I couldn't keep track of anything anymore anyways. I read that hearts of stone is all dialogue so I skipped that. I'm ready to play the last expansion and I'll play it from beginning to end without breaks so I know what the hell I'm doing.
As mentioned above, mix it up, bit of main story, round of gwent, side quest, horse race, explore unknown location, spot of crafting, read the bestiary, treasure hunt, play with load out, read character glossary and finish the evening off with a punch up. I think what drains players is trying to do everything available in a particular activity (guilty of it myself pursuing gear) all at once.
They're either:
- Monster Nests (which you can destroy giving you some loot, usually just crafting mats)
- Bandit Hideouts (usually containing 1 chest with "good" loot and in some cases a caged captive which you can free sending him home to his village where he will become a merchant or a blacksmith giving you access to new gear etc.)
- Abandoned Settlements (usually settled by bandits, kill the bandits and the settlement repopulates with villagers giving you access to merchants, craftsmen, barbers.)
- Places of Power (the best thing you could find, places of power give you a single ability point to spend. You only get these with leveling up otherwise.)
- Misc quests (quests that are short but can be sweet, like encountering a guy being chased by dudes who want to rob him, free the guy, guy says thanks, few hours later you encounter the guy again in a burned down village. Turns out he was a bandit being chased by guards and thanks you for saving him (I killed the ass.)
- Caves (contains loot, in best case it's Witcher gear.)
I must be missing some but that is the bulk of the ?'s in the Witcher. If you want Witcher gear you will have to visit a fair number of ?'s in the game. This is I think also the best way to explore the ?'s in the Witcher. Go on the Witcher gear Treasure Hunts and explore the ?'s you need to to get the loot.
Those miniquests aint part of the place of interests "?", they just happen as you stroll around in the witcher world.
I love W3 but I was so fed up of all the talking that I totally button mashed my way through all the dialogue in Act 3. I couldn't keep track of anything anymore anyways. I read that hearts of stone is all dialogue so I skipped that. I'm ready to play the last expansion and I'll play it from beginning to end without breaks so I know what the hell I'm doing.
If you don't like dialogue in games, what are you even doing playing the Witcher 3? I am one of those that did enjoy the combat, but if gameplay is the only reason you're playing The Witcher 3 there are a ton of other games with better straight up action and less focus on narrative and dialogue.
Like, you say you love the game but I don't understand how that's even possible if you just skip dialogue.
I had trouble jumping back in after a few months off. I just picked the lowest level quest in my log and finished that out. It was enough to get my feet wet, get used to the controls again. Now I'm back to being completely absorbed into the game and its world.
The ?'s have never distracted me. If I happen to be near one after completing a quest, I'll go for it. But I'm not going out of my way or getting sidetracked by them.
I love W3 but I was so fed up of all the talking that I totally button mashed my way through all the dialogue in Act 3. I couldn't keep track of anything anymore anyways. I read that hearts of stone is all dialogue so I skipped that. I'm ready to play the last expansion and I'll play it from beginning to end without breaks so I know what the hell I'm doing.
If you don't like dialogue in games, what are you even doing playing the Witcher 3? I am one of those that did enjoy the combat, but if gameplay is the only reason you're playing The Witcher 3 there are a ton of other games with better straight up action and less focus on narrative and dialogue.
Like, you say you love the game but I don't understand how that's even possible if you just skip dialogue.
I played the game for 60 hours straight when it came out before I gave up. I got sick of all the dialogue. Then I picked it up again and played another 15 hours and started getting bored of the constant cutscenes again but up to that point I was watching all of it. I'd forgotten a lot of the characters and what they were doing anyways so I decided to get through act 3 fast to get my level up. Looking back I should probably just have used a console command to level up, stupid me. Why am I playing W3? Because it's ten times better than any other game out there. I don't mind the combat. In fact I think it's quite okay. I love everything about the game, it's just too much talking for me to sit through and it gets to me after a while. This game has totally set the bar for games in general and I wonder when we'll see something similar. Not a lot of games can touch it and the devs should be proud and I bet they are. I think Cyberpunk will be crazy good because they will obviously try to outdo themselves. That in itself is hype enough.
I found the question marks useful for when I only had a short time to play and couldn't devote an hour or more to a main or side quest. I'd usually just knock out the ones in a small radius around wherever I happened to be when I loaded up the game. I never really got anything great out of them, and I didn't come close to clearing them all by the time I finished all the main and side quests, but it gave me an objective when time was limited and I still wanted to play since I knew they wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes each. As others have said, they're completely optional. You won't miss anything by skipping them.
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