Important tips to improve and speed up the early game experience!

[Blade]

This game isn't that bad. The problem is that we've been getting nothing BUT triple A games that "aren't that bad" or are "just ok" since 2022 and 2023 where a triple A banger dropped every month during the Covid gaming boom. Honestly the first 10-15 hours are really slow, boring, confusing, and downright infuriating, but once the game finally gets going it starts to suck you in. I'm actually glad that I was persistent and kept giving the game several chances. I was so close to uninstalling last night to free up space for a different game instead but I changed my mind last minute.

The first thing you should do is get your horse "pebbles", the second is pickpocket a guard in Troskowitz to steal a full set of Knight armor. Just don't wear it around Troskowitz or the guards will recognize it and confront you, there's no speech craft check here, if you're found in it, you're paying the price. I'll link the videos on how to do all that at the bottom but it will save you a lot of time getting started.

Another important thing to mention is where to sleep at the beginning of the game because it just kind of throws you to wolves there. You can sleep in abandoned camps which is dangerous, get your own bed as the Blacksmith's apprentice, or rent a room in Taverns later on but the best place to sleep at the beginning is the Herbalist Woman's house, the one that takes care of you after the Bandit attack and nurses you back to health. Be warned, do not sleep in the bed you did when you were recovering or you will be charged with a crime. Sleep in the bed Hans was recovering in because THAT's your bed.

Be sure to do a couple jobs and earn some money at the start so you can buy food from traders, otherwise you'll need to find a food pot around towns and eat from it which could be a crime. You also have a crossbow so you can hunt your own food. You can cook food by interacting with stoves which are usually found in taverns. I'm sure someone else can contribute in the comments if there are other ways, but hunting is also a good way to make money.

Another thing I've seen posts about is sleeping at inns. It might just be a specific one, and again, someone can contribute in the comments if they know what I'm talking about to give more information, but there's an inn keeper that tells you to use the beds upstairs, but if you do, you'll get charged with a crime. There's a haystack outback that she's referring to.

Worst case scenario, I'm sure it's frowned upon, but use a trainer. The trainer gives you an option for zero weight, adding gold, infinite energy so you don't have to sleep, infinite food so you don't have to eat and more. Using a trainer isn't necessarily cheating in a single player game, in this case you're just playing it the way that makes you comfortable. You spent $80 on this game so if that's how you can get your money's worth, do it. It's no different than using a gameshark or codebreaker back in the day, but don't go overboard or you could ruin the immersion and over-all experience of the game. Give yourself maybe 500 gold, get through the initial rough patch, turn on infinite nourishment and energy until you get the lay of the land and figure out where to sleep/eat so it isn't so overwhelming at the start, and once you get going never use the trainer again.

Be sure to by saviour schnapps from vendors around town so you can save! Worst case scenario you can save and quit before you do something like pick-pocketing or anything you can fail, then re-launch the game and load back in to your save. Now you have a save to load back to because I've found often times it's not worth making a plan and thinking something over because you're just going to get there and all break lose. Better to save and quit, then load back in.

When fighting multiple enemies, try to divide and conquer. Positioning your self so that all the enemies are always in front you will help as well. When you block, you don't just block the enemy you're targeting, but all the enemies in front of you.

I encourage people to comment with more tips for starting out and correct anything I've said that isn't accurate The first 10-15 hours of this game are MISERABLE if you don't know what you're doing. But once the game hits it's stride it's deceptively good. I'm going to try to update the post with more as I learn myself but I'm just some random guy that never set up his profile and this post will probably get drowned out by all the drama in this forum anyways. I'll at least be able to say I tried to help though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbfo6PKcVQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-i-EhhRxI

[bylandt11]

I agree with you. I just don't understand why they made the first part of the game so tedious and frustrating. There's also no sense of pupose. All this, to be a party crasher at a wedding?

[Blade]

Originally posted by bylandt11:

I agree with you. I just don't understand why they made the first part of the game so tedious and frustrating. There's also no sense of pupose. All this, to be a party crasher at a wedding?

Yeah it's got the same vibes as Dragon's Dogma 2 and in the beginning it's just as bad until you spend several hours googling and watching videos because the game doesn't really explain anything.

[Licenturion]

Wait until you get to two timed insta-fail main quests where are you are locked in an area for hours. If you thought the monastery mission from the first game was infuriating, you will get something next level here.

This game has a lot of hype and brilliant marketing behind it, but it will be interesting to see how many new players go in this blind and get burned hard because it was totally not what they expected.

Another tip would be:
- download the unlimited saves mod (already on nexus)
- or use the console commands -devmode if you want to give yourself some immunity to overcome a rough patch, lockpicks or schnapps

[Nyamses]

A money tip that'll work for most of the game is to use and abuse Alchemy to sell potions to the Apothecary and the General Goods Trader. With the amount of plants you pick from the meadow the herbalist granny sends you to, you can make a ton of potions that'll provide a good starting cash flow for you to buy food and some equipment.

Traders seem to restock every 2-3 days, so soon they'll have more groshens for you to trade for.

Just remember to pick your Perks as you level Alchemy, making you produce an extra 3 potions and also sell them for 30% more, etc.

EDIT: One thing to remember with Alchemy is that there are 2 levels of boiling. The first level is to just lower the pot into the flame, and the second one is to use the bellows. If a recipe requires the bellows, it'll specifically state so.

Another tip is to flip the hourglass just as soon as you lower the pot onto the fire. There seems to be a visual bug where the pot wont boil for 2-3 seconds, but trust the process, flip it as soon as you lower the pot.

If you're having trouble getting Strong/Henry's level potions, use fresh herbs instead of dried ones. Dried herbs provide no Quality bonus, while fresh herbs do.

[FreeRanger]

Lets be honest
The game kinda sux,in many ways

[EarlBasil]

I'm really glad you posted this, I'm 13 hours in and i'm bored of it - I don't feel like I have value for money right now. But I will persevere and see what happens.

I'm totally pissed off with people praising the game for 100+hrs - of what? 6 real life hours to walking overcumbered to get max strength and vitality? This is neither fun nor content.

I really enjoyed KCD1, I felt like I was always doing something, working towards something, could take breaks to level up a skill or do side quests and it always felt fun. In this game, I'm at the point where Hans leaves me and I'm trying to get to the wedding. I'm bored, finding levelling anything is too time consuming and boring. I don't care to be a blacksmiths apprentice, i don't care for clicking a horseshoe, or messing around with alchemy tables, for me none of that is fun.

Anyway, i'll take some of your advice and see if it brings any joy.

[OldManTired]

Hax mates; if you rescue the herbalist woman’s daughter, wait for her daughter to go to sleep, knock the daughter out and take her keys, loot the chests. I got so much stuff I was encumbered. You will also find enough Groshen to pay her mum back and get the achievement.

[Raythered]

Originally posted by Nyamses:

A money tip that'll work for most of the game is to use and abuse Alchemy to sell potions to the Apothecary and the General Goods Trader. With the amount of plants you pick from the meadow the herbalist granny sends you to, you can make a ton of potions that'll provide a good starting cash flow for you to buy food and some equipment.

Traders seem to restock every 2-3 days, so soon they'll have more groshens for you to trade for.

Just remember to pick your Perks as you level Alchemy, making you produce an extra 3 potions and also sell them for 30% more, etc.

EDIT: One thing to remember with Alchemy is that there are 2 levels of boiling. The first level is to just lower the pot into the flame, and the second one is to use the bellows. If a recipe requires the bellows, it'll specifically state so.

Another tip is to flip the hourglass just as soon as you lower the pot onto the fire. There seems to be a visual bug where the pot wont boil for 2-3 seconds, but trust the process, flip it as soon as you lower the pot.

If you're having trouble getting Strong/Henry's level potions, use fresh herbs instead of dried ones. Dried herbs provide no Quality bonus, while fresh herbs do.

The only problem with doing this is the time it takes, each action, grabbing the herbs, boiling, grinding pouring etc, it looks great the first few times, but it seems designed so you don't just sit there and make 100's of potions.