10 mistakes to avoid when playing The Witcher 3

Okay, this article is just a bit of fun, but does have a serious side to it and can be useful if you’re planning to play The Witcher 3 for the first time.

Avoid the mistakes that everybody’s making.

1. Don’t forget to activate your skills on the Character screen. If you need Delusion Level 2 for a conversation, make sure it’s active before having said conversation. The same goes for all the other skills you want to use.

Make sure to drag your skills over to the slots on the right.

2. Don’t try to perform a heavy attack when holding a lit torch. The game will just say “You cannot do that now.” For some reason the game will not allow it. Maybe because Geralt needs two hands to perform a heavy attack? I dunno. It’s annoying during combat though.

“You cannot do that now” because the game won’t let you hold a torch and do a heavy attack at the same time.

3. Make sure to ask Zoltan about every woman’s name in the ledger during the quest “Broken Flowers“. Don’t run off before talking to him, and don’t skip any dialogue choices. Otherwise it may cause a game-breaking bug later.

Ask about everyone on the list. Especially Rosa var Attre. Otherwise there may be trouble later.

4. Don’t waste time fighting wolves. There are lots of them. Their loot drops are of low value. Use your Witcher senses to identify them and just run or ride around packs of wolves to avoid them.

Better to just avoid packs of wolves if possible.

5. Don’t accidentally blast people with Aard or Igni. Or the guards might get upset. It’s happened to me a number of times. Also: don’t steal stuff from containers if any guards are around. That’ll upset them too.

If you upset the guards and they knock you out, you’ll lose a proportion of your money.

6. Don’t get stuck in a hole. In some places on the map – usually in boggy areas – there are small holes that you can fall into, that you can’t get out of. No amount of jumping or climbing will get you out of those holes, it seems. It’s happened to me a couple of times.

This is an actual hole that I could not get out of.

7. Don’t miss Gwent cards by not checking what merchants are selling. Even the lowliest merchants sometimes stock surprising stuff. Check this detailed guide if you want to know where all the Gwent cards are found: mallo.co.uk/Gwent.txt

Check every merchant you meet to see if they sell Gwent cards. Quite a few do.

8. After beating The Crones as Ciri during the quest “Bald Mountain“, when you regain control of Geralt, don’t forget to turn around and go back to loot the bodies of Fugas and The Crones. You might need to jump over a wall to get there. If you don’t go back now you’ll never be able to get the items again. Note: it is vitally important that you take the Bald Mountain Key from Fugas if you do this, otherwise you’ll get trapped and won’t be able to go on to fight Imlerith.

The bodies of Fugas and The Crones are only lootable with some backtracking.

9. Don’t overload your Stash. It’s tempting to put everything into your Stash, but by the end of the game it’ll be taking a long time to open, because of the amount of stuff that is in there. By my third playthrough I was restricting what I put into my Stash (monster trophies, high value weapons and armour only, nostalgic items). Don’t fill your Stash with low value weapons and armour – at least for the latter half of the game. At the beginning of the game – when your carry weight is lower – you can use your stash to hold stuff that you can dismantle later. Once you have enough money to begin dismantling items regularly, take that scrap out of your Stash and start dismantling it for valuable resources. The fewer items you have in your Stash, the quicker it will open, and the quicker you can put things in, or remove items from it.

This was my Stash at the end of my first playthrough. It was so full it was taking, like, 10 seconds per update.

10. Don’t miss any side quests! There are no horrible, generic “radiant quests” in The Witcher 3. Every side quest has been written to add something to the game and some of them are incredibly surprising. Don’t miss a single quest. Use The Witcher 3 Wiki if you need to check what quests you have outstanding.

Do all the Treasure Hunts, even if you don’t intend to craft the armor. They lead to great loot and good EXP.

Also: don’t stand on any campfires and set yourself on fire (easy to do). It just makes you look bad, and also depletes your health.

Also: when leaving the Land of a Thousand Fables, don’t forget to consume the golden goose egg for that extra, free skill point, before you leave, because it disappears when you leave the illusion (I made that mistake in my last playthrough).