Velen, second zone

[Warfulc]

Im trying to do my first play-through over here, reached the second zone. Alot of the games mechanics confuse me, but most of the question marks in the first zone I could tackle, nothing was really limiting me. Then I get to velen, im level 3 about to be level 4. The first bandit camp I scouted had level 9's in it, no big deal the zone says recommended level is 9, mabye thats a challenge for the end of it. Then I kept searching question marks, level 15s level 9s scattered across the map.

So now I got to the point of, im now discouraged from going to the question marks, discouraged from exploration and go straight through the main quest? I really liked this game and the first zone. Are different areas balanced towards exploration? From the hour that I spent in velen it seemed like most of the challenges are over leveled, accommodating alot of backtracking through the game.

[dantès]

why don't you turn off the POI (point of interests / question marks)... just have fun exploring and playing intuitively. If you find yourself in a tight spot (overleveled), just back up and return later.

different areas have different levels.. some are high, and others low. The games doesn't prevent you from exploring these areas, but if you find yourself in a fight.. its best you run away.

You can play this game any which way.. you can do the main quests, then go after and roam around, explore the map.. stumble upon caves, and side quests. etc. Do what you like and what pleases you most.

If you don't like exploring and surrendering to your sense of wonder.. which will involve backtracking. then it's best you get a guide that tells you step-by-step where to go and what to do.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

It's actually pretty much designed to be running into those camps on accident by not fast traveling. Hence that's why we've got boats and horse riding. If you are fast traveling you're missing half the point of this game. If you've got the minimap turned on, turn that off. I tried playing with NPC and herb names off but it made it too irritating talking to every villager possible because of not knowing which merchant I could sell to and who would give me quests apart the others.

Yes Velen has roughly different areas. That includes the dividing line between Oxenfurt and Novigrad which is pretty hard to get to on accident albeit more interesting to explore. The lower right swamp is also pretty highly leveled for a newb iirc, like level 9 or something like that, with the area more around the Bloody Baron's keep being designed for your level. This is all if you've got autoleveling off though; there's an option to make all enemies automatically around your level, that I leave off for obvious reasons. IIRC it's mostly around the center of Velen that you're supposed to be fresh out of White Orchard, if you didn't already level yourself to 3+ there. It's much harder to start but gets significantly easier around levels 5-7 to go out and explore. You also just have to get used to things like signs, right potions/bombs/whatever, learning how to kite certain boss tier enemies, using the right oils etc.

The thing is, if you start doing those side quests and really picking up the notices and contracts then you'll wind up running into those camps anyway. Imo running into bandit camps on purpose as an oddity is pointless because they stop being interesting mad fast and only end up spicing up the otherwise barren wilderness. The way you end up getting told to go here go there especially if you start hunting down the witcher gear will make you run into all those things anyway, and eventually you have to stop dealing with them or get bogged down for hours trying to do something simplefeels like real life

Also don't be afraid to just run obviously. You're not even going to have a chance on any enemy with the skulls over its head. IIRC The Division 2 did this same thing, where the skull means it's so over leveled you haven't got a chance in hell. The game is often more fun when you only press the M key to reorient the direction you're going because you turned off the minimap. You can just blindly start exploring. Enemies rarely have time to two shot you to death even then.

[tigerpoetry]

I tend to do the quest for the Priest on the way to the first main quest. Ithen follow the main quest and do Keira Metz's quest. After this I'm level 6 or so.

Another thing I do as early as possible is to is to craft the 2 viper school swords. If you did not find the Blacksmith in the Nilfgardian camp in White orchard, make sure you find a Blacksmith in Velen before doing Keira's quest.

The next thing I do is travel to all the noticeboards in Velen, to get all the quests. This gives me a few lower level quests to help me level up further.

In Keira's quest be sure to visit the place of power in the cave. Also, investigate the whole place fully, there is a ton of good gear in there.

Once you have Keira's artifact go back in a short way and you'll find an illusory wall that you can dispel. Behind it is a flooded chamber. You get a great silver sword in there.

Good luck!

[berend]

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

It's actually pretty much designed to be running into those camps on accident by not fast traveling. Hence that's why we've got boats and horse riding. If you are fast traveling you're missing half the point of this game. If you've got the minimap turned on, turn that off. I tried playing with NPC and herb names off but it made it too irritating talking to every villager possible because of not knowing which merchant I could sell to and who would give me quests apart the others.

I don't really like the advice to new players to turn the minimap off. Since it gives players a lot of useful information.. for example in which general area to search for something (with quests), or when they are near merchant, potential quest givers, locations on the map..

Maybe better for a second play through. I can already tell you right now that for the majority of new players turning of the minimap is only going to be cumbersome and annoying, and they will likely miss a lot of things. What I would turn off tho is that stupid dotted line which shows exactly how to walk. Don't get me wrong I would prefer no minimap but they kinda build it into to game so much that playing without it just becomes annoying.

Personally I play with enemy health bars off, but I would also not recommend it to a new player. I myself even turn it back on when I try a different build to figure out how exactly damage is applied. No minimap, no healthbars, even removing your own healthbar on DM are actually great and change the way you play. But again not for someone who is level 3 and just start the game. Maybe later, or in another playthrough.

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Im trying to do my first play-through over here, reached the second zone. Alot of the games mechanics confuse me, but most of the question marks in the first zone I could tackle, nothing was really limiting me. Then I get to velen, im level 3 about to be level 4. The first bandit camp I scouted had level 9's in it, no big deal the zone says recommended level is 9, mabye thats a challenge for the end of it. Then I kept searching question marks, level 15s level 9s scattered across the map.

So now I got to the point of, im now discouraged from going to the question marks, discouraged from exploration and go straight through the main quest? I really liked this game and the first zone. Are different areas balanced towards exploration? From the hour that I spent in velen it seemed like most of the challenges are over leveled, accommodating alot of backtracking through the game.

I don't remember having it this extreme.. or maybe I just went do to the main quest first and level a bit, which I guess at this point you just might have to do first. Or look at your journal for other quests around your level. You will keep encountering locations which are above your level throughout the game, although once you reach like level 15-20 it becomes a lot less. I remember a certain griffin on a certain island I could only kill after doing the expansion and being level 50+, even though I encountered it first when I was like level 20?

Sometimes it can be annoying, but in general it adds to the feeling of progression. You cannot deal with everything and everyone from the start, not everyone is created equal and you might need to gain more experience and tools (or basically level up) to tackle them. Coming back later to deal with a threat which killed me before always feels good.

My advice, just do some quests which are around your level, once you reach maybe level 8 or 9 a lot of things around you in Velen are things you can deal with and exploration like the way you are doing now becomes more viable. You don't have to worry that you constantly keep encountering things you cannot deal with (unless you go to high level areas on purpose). You will find out that seeing things you cannot deal with actually becomes pretty rare, at least from my experience.

[worm_master]

JUS kik their ASS'S!!!! go get em, level 3 is more then big enough to take out a lvl 9.... Trust me, I iz expert....... I prefer fighting 10 or more levels above my actual level... As a lowly lvl 3 on Death March, took out a lvl 13 Water Hag!!!! Of course that fight took nearly an hour....... so u may want to reconsider my advice.... And yes, was a clean death march, from the start.

[Warfulc]

Appreciate the few bits of advice that did help, I know I'm playing the game wrong because every single rpg out there gives you a new zone to play with, you can just kinda do whatever, witcher is very different from the formula I'm used to in an RPG.
Going into velen felt like getting a pizza, not taking a slice but only eating the cheese first and avoiding the pepperoni until I got done with the cheese.
I'd like to go from point to point on the horse exploring on the way but it seems the game has discouraged me from doing that, don't get me wrong I can kill the level 15 bilge witch, the amount of time it takes hints that your not supposed to.
I'm gonna try playing the game as the Witcher now and basing it off of notice boards, no point doing anything unless I'm getting paid to xD.

[Bobywan]

If there is a red skull on an ennemy life bar it will take a while to kill it. It's doable but tedious.
You can go back to white orchard to get xp from easier quests.

[tigerpoetry]

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Appreciate the few bits of advice that did help, I know I'm playing the game wrong because every single rpg out there gives you a new zone to play with, you can just kinda do whatever, witcher is very different from the formula I'm used to in an RPG.
Going into velen felt like getting a pizza, not taking a slice but only eating the cheese first and avoiding the pepperoni until I got done with the cheese.
I'd like to go from point to point on the horse exploring on the way but it seems the game has discouraged me from doing that, don't get me wrong I can kill the level 15 bilge witch, the amount of time it takes hints that your not supposed to.
I'm gonna try playing the game as the Witcher now and basing it off of notice boards, no point doing anything unless I'm getting paid to xD.

It can feel a bit that way at first. Those points aren't really there to force you to do things a certain way: they just show you where something useful might be.

Glad we helped in some way.

As for your last comment... absolutely! There's no need to kill every monster in the wild. I always thought that Geralt wouldn't wear out his silver sword on a monster that there was no contract for!

There are some monsters I try my hardest not to kill, such as cyclops. They roar and shout warnings at you but won't attack unless you ignore their warnings and get very close. One is in Velen. It's doing no harm, and is in the middle of nowhere. Heck, it's even farming it's own sheep! It has a treasure chest. I meditate until daytime when it leaves its shelter and patrols around, then sneak in, loot the chest and back out, leaving it in peace.

There's also a forktail in Skellige that won't attack at all unless you go too close to the cow it's just killed.

[berend]

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Appreciate the few bits of advice that did help, I know I'm playing the game wrong because every single rpg out there gives you a new zone to play with, you can just kinda do whatever, witcher is very different from the formula I'm used to in an RPG.
Going into velen felt like getting a pizza, not taking a slice but only eating the cheese first and avoiding the pepperoni until I got done with the cheese.
I'd like to go from point to point on the horse exploring on the way but it seems the game has discouraged me from doing that, don't get me wrong I can kill the level 15 bilge witch, the amount of time it takes hints that your not supposed to.
I'm gonna try playing the game as the Witcher now and basing it off of notice boards, no point doing anything unless I'm getting paid to xD.

It can feel a bit that way at first. Those points aren't really there to force you to do things a certain way: they just show you where something useful might be.

Glad we helped in some way.

As for your last comment... absolutely! There's no need to kill every monster in the wild. I always thought that Geralt wouldn't wear out his silver sword on a monster that there was no contract for!

There are some monsters I try my hardest not to kill, such as cyclops. They roar and shout warnings at you but won't attack unless you ignore their warnings and get very close. One is in Velen. It's doing no harm, and is in the middle of nowhere. Heck, it's even farming it's own sheep! It has a treasure chest. I meditate until daytime when it leaves its shelter and patrols around, then sneak in, loot the chest and back out, leaving it in peace.

There's also a forktail in Skellige that won't attack at all unless you go too close to the cow it's just killed.

I like you, such a friendly witcher you are!

[Shizofrend98HR]

you should be 100%ing it so you find every possible quest. then you do them in levle order from lwoest to highest always. that way you will rarely be under or over level for smtn

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by berend:

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

It's actually pretty much designed to be running into those camps on accident by not fast traveling. Hence that's why we've got boats and horse riding. If you are fast traveling you're missing half the point of this game. If you've got the minimap turned on, turn that off. I tried playing with NPC and herb names off but it made it too irritating talking to every villager possible because of not knowing which merchant I could sell to and who would give me quests apart the others.

I don't really like the advice to new players to turn the minimap off. Since it gives players a lot of useful information.. for example in which general area to search for something (with quests), or when they are near merchant, potential quest givers, locations on the map..

Maybe better for a second play through. I can already tell you right now that for the majority of new players turning of the minimap is only going to be cumbersome and annoying, and they will likely miss a lot of things. What I would turn off tho is that stupid dotted line which shows exactly how to walk. Don't get me wrong I would prefer no minimap but they kinda build it into to game so much that playing without it just becomes annoying.

Personally I play with enemy health bars off, but I would also not recommend it to a new player. I myself even turn it back on when I try a different build to figure out how exactly damage is applied. No minimap, no healthbars, even removing your own healthbar on DM are actually great and change the way you play. But again not for someone who is level 3 and just start the game. Maybe later, or in another playthrough.

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Im trying to do my first play-through over here, reached the second zone. Alot of the games mechanics confuse me, but most of the question marks in the first zone I could tackle, nothing was really limiting me. Then I get to velen, im level 3 about to be level 4. The first bandit camp I scouted had level 9's in it, no big deal the zone says recommended level is 9, mabye thats a challenge for the end of it. Then I kept searching question marks, level 15s level 9s scattered across the map.

So now I got to the point of, im now discouraged from going to the question marks, discouraged from exploration and go straight through the main quest? I really liked this game and the first zone. Are different areas balanced towards exploration? From the hour that I spent in velen it seemed like most of the challenges are over leveled, accommodating alot of backtracking through the game.

I don't remember having it this extreme.. or maybe I just went do to the main quest first and level a bit, which I guess at this point you just might have to do first. Or look at your journal for other quests around your level. You will keep encountering locations which are above your level throughout the game, although once you reach like level 15-20 it becomes a lot less. I remember a certain griffin on a certain island I could only kill after doing the expansion and being level 50+, even though I encountered it first when I was like level 20?

Sometimes it can be annoying, but in general it adds to the feeling of progression. You cannot deal with everything and everyone from the start, not everyone is created equal and you might need to gain more experience and tools (or basically level up) to tackle them. Coming back later to deal with a threat which killed me before always feels good.

My advice, just do some quests which are around your level, once you reach maybe level 8 or 9 a lot of things around you in Velen are things you can deal with and exploration like the way you are doing now becomes more viable. You don't have to worry that you constantly keep encountering things you cannot deal with (unless you go to high level areas on purpose). You will find out that seeing things you cannot deal with actually becomes pretty rare, at least from my experience.

It's literally not built into it though. What are you even talking about? It literally shows where merchants and such are on the main map, and not only that but literally has text above their heads saying "merchant." Not the merchant you're looking for? Then walk up to the next "merchant" and see if he sells stuff.

See, this is why people make fun of zoomers being literally too stupid to play a simple game, and why IGN (rightfully) gets ragged on for being so incredibly, unbearably stupid playing games like Ruiner and Alien: Isolation. It's why so many non-"professional" review channels make fun of the dumbed down, consolized idiocy of AAA games, very much rightfully.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/dishonored-devs-players-without-clues-getting-lost.492347/

See, in old games it used to be that, say, you'd be playing Vampire the Masquerade: Requiem, and literally have no minimap available period, and have to visualize in your head how to get around the city. Or KOTOR 2, you'd have to have a mental map of this one air shaft maze how to turn right left right right left etc. to navigate it. And so partly as a result of not being treated like I'm a child, we all got that dignity of at least being expected to be smart enough as a rat in a maze trying to find cheese, or to solve puzzles. It is partly why we could walk off a ledge and die, and we had a manual crouch key and jump, not just "press triangle button to go to cover shoot mode" and "press SPACE to initiate QTE cutscene of watching you walk up a ladder" press SPACE :watches character jump over predefined ledge:

There's literally a freaking map with an arrow of you on it showing in which direction you're facing. Wtf are you people even doing, watching the minimap while walking around instead of actually running around? It's an ARPG-esque game and it's beautiful, getting to watch the environment as you're navigating on foot, horse, or by boat is literally part of the point.

Or maybe it's just that the touchphone-pocalypse truly made everyone even stupider than I came to believe, and that's why no one can follow a simple map anymore, because they just let Google do it for them. It really reminds me of 40K thematically how the downfall of the golden age happened, in part, because Man made himself a slave to the overreliance on the machines to do literally everything and therefore he knew nothing.

In short, it's not simply that I'm sharply disagreeing with you, but that I'm baffled you'd even think to say this, because I didn't even say "the right way to play is turning all NPC/monster/crafting names off and never look at the map." I simply said turn minimap off. You may as well be advocating wall hacks in a survival horror or hell, wall hacks in any game really. It's probably partly why so many new players absolutely suck at everything and it's "too hard" because there's an expectation of being spoonfed now.

Literally just open the map and look at where your arrow is and you can see if you're looking in the right direction. It literally puts things like merchants and quest notifications on the map. Not that it even matters, because on top of literally saying MERCHANT right above NPCs, many of whom are positioned so obviously you'd be able to play this game with all names offI actually tried to, but because many NPCs are still reused it starts getting time wasting trying to talk to every single NPC that IRL looks like Geralt has developmental disabilities in order to get lost and confused at all, not only all that, but you literally have "witcher senses." Like just in case you missed that one last piece of loot or a secret area, you can literally press a button and have it brightly highlighted for you, which may as well be a loot wallhack.

:sips coffee: kids these days. Another something, you zoomers, back in my day it was a kind of reward in and of itself to actually just explore things. This actually became a sort of personal sense of victory to find that one secret area in something so pointless as a Quake engine game, without Steam or Steam achievements, just because we can, and having to use lots of jump/run gymnastics just to get there. That's a literal reason to play any game like this at all, be it Witcher 3, or Elite: Dangerous or No Man's Sky, or Skyrim or any of the other openworld RPG-esque games, is just because you want to explore. It's the biggest selling feature of this game. Not cutscenes, not dialogue options, not character building, maybe not the story even, but having this huge world to explore. In fact come to think of it you're right, I should've tried finding a way turning off all notifications other than possibly main quest on my main map along with Blur, HUD, and minimap from the start.

Sorry I don't sip monster--I sup coffee, unlike these kids.



...all kidding aside though this is my first playthrough and I immediately turned the minimap off. In fact the most irritating thing about Division 2 by far is the brightly glowing ammo/weapon/SHD HUD you can't disable for some utterly baffling reason, as it makes Division so much more engrossing to be running around these mostly dark streets at night seeing only muzzle flashes and hearing yelling, only to have that bright damn HUD light up the whole center of your screen. I actually tried turning minimap on at some point to see if I was missing anything and quickly realized it's redundant if looking at the M map anyway.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Appreciate the few bits of advice that did help, I know I'm playing the game wrong because every single rpg out there gives you a new zone to play with, you can just kinda do whatever, witcher is very different from the formula I'm used to in an RPG.
Going into velen felt like getting a pizza, not taking a slice but only eating the cheese first and avoiding the pepperoni until I got done with the cheese.
I'd like to go from point to point on the horse exploring on the way but it seems the game has discouraged me from doing that, don't get me wrong I can kill the level 15 bilge witch, the amount of time it takes hints that your not supposed to.
I'm gonna try playing the game as the Witcher now and basing it off of notice boards, no point doing anything unless I'm getting paid to xD.

It all also depends on which you prioritize, really. Frankly Witcher is designed with world exploration in mind, well that and story/worldbuilding. So while some people may be engaging mostly for the fights and skipping cutscenes altogether, and I know some people try racing through the main story first, it's built in such a way you mostly can focus on what you want.

Again, it's easy af to just run away. There's no reason for you to stand around swinging at something 20 levels higher than you. It WILL kill you, just not fast enough to get away, and they give up the chase pretty easily. It's actually so damn easy I once tried fighting this golem thing, realizing I had no way to really damage it, and then saying fine ♥♥♥♥ it and just Indiana Jonesing my way past it and looting the guarded treasure and running off with it. Except for maybe Wyverns or something, you usually can actually grab loot as you're running past it. So often I can just decide not to engage, because I'm on my way somewhere else and it's too high level, or simply because it's such a trash mob it's not even worth my time getting off horseback to even bother killing it.

ALSO I cannot emphasize this enough: it is a ROLE playing game. Regardless how you feel it being a trve cvlt RPG or not, this is first and foremost a narrative driven exploration where it's partly up to you how to act. This means that for example, in a game that gives NPCs health, you don't have to kill them and loot their bodies just because you can; likewise, there's no need of you to steal pots and porridge from these starving peasants simply because it's there. I honestly feel weird just barging into their houses. So I tend not to steal anything but books, to read then drop, and the occasional too highly useful craft item or runestone but even then I try not to loot people's stuff. Because it feels weird playing that sort of amoral, murderous, lying, stealing Geralt. Or you can turn your Geralt into a total ♥♥♥♥, up to you somewhathence another part of the "not real RPG" because you don't have the leeway in truly being whomever and instead play as a named, voiced character, which I can't stand in most games; main characters really ought to be unvoiced tbqh

Originally posted by tigerpoetry:

Originally posted by Warfulc:

Appreciate the few bits of advice that did help, I know I'm playing the game wrong because every single rpg out there gives you a new zone to play with, you can just kinda do whatever, witcher is very different from the formula I'm used to in an RPG.
Going into velen felt like getting a pizza, not taking a slice but only eating the cheese first and avoiding the pepperoni until I got done with the cheese.
I'd like to go from point to point on the horse exploring on the way but it seems the game has discouraged me from doing that, don't get me wrong I can kill the level 15 bilge witch, the amount of time it takes hints that your not supposed to.
I'm gonna try playing the game as the Witcher now and basing it off of notice boards, no point doing anything unless I'm getting paid to xD.

It can feel a bit that way at first. Those points aren't really there to force you to do things a certain way: they just show you where something useful might be.

Glad we helped in some way.

As for your last comment... absolutely! There's no need to kill every monster in the wild. I always thought that Geralt wouldn't wear out his silver sword on a monster that there was no contract for!

There are some monsters I try my hardest not to kill, such as cyclops. They roar and shout warnings at you but won't attack unless you ignore their warnings and get very close. One is in Velen. It's doing no harm, and is in the middle of nowhere. Heck, it's even farming it's own sheep! It has a treasure chest. I meditate until daytime when it leaves its shelter and patrols around, then sneak in, loot the chest and back out, leaving it in peace.

There's also a forktail in Skellige that won't attack at all unless you go too close to the cow it's just killed.

Again it really depends on what type of Geralt you are. I tend to uphold the "whatever's the biggest threat to people" routine, and part of that means wearing the personal moral responsibility for not killing something that for all I know I'd find a dead peasant there the next day.

I still to this day have a problem with letting the rock troll live, and ultimately only went back on my first decision because of Geralt's one possible line about "living too close to a city" when I looked at the map and said, hey, but he's really not though; Trollolo lives in middle of bum ♥♥♥♥ nowhere where he cant really bother or be bothered by somebody, otherwise even him being endearing his taste for peasant flesh makes him really questionable allowing to live.but tbh him singing Death To Nilfgaard Soldiers made me immediately like him more, as my Geralt is a Temerian pseudonationalist/loyalist who simply hates or distrusts all manner of kings, sorcerers, peasants, allegedly religious fanatics, elven terrorists etc. but still wants those Nilfgaardians to go back home to [s]London[/s] [s]Moscow[/s] [s]Berlin[/s]wherever they're from

So the beauty is you still can play a certain type of Witcher if you want, with however you see him. You can take the mercenary "I only lift a finger for coin" approach, or try to take a literal tell the truth approachwhich I love how hilariously morally grey the game world can be or be a moralist Geralt, or you can just sleep around and spend your days drinking and gambling away the latest heist's coin. I tend to kill non-sentient monsters on the spot for being a potential threat to humanoids.


With all this stated
tl;dr it's really up to you OP, but just don't think you have to or are supposed to fight everything you see or take every quest offered, especially because it's so grey taking one quest or protecting someone you don't know can have unintended consequences and get somebody else killed. This is very much a "don't rush to hasty conclusions" type of story.

[Warfulc]

I consumed all of the content in white orchard before moving on, was just saying how much freedom you had in the first zone to ride around the map the points of interest weren't guarded by things 12 levels higher.
I've spent alot of time on Morrowind, on alot of RPGs that didn't hold your hand, that isn't the issue. When I got dropped into a new zone I wanted to get on my horse and wander the map, which clearly isn't how it's intended to be played. The mission boards and story seem like they direct your path. Not ragging on it, but the Witcher does it very differently, I'm doing my first playthru on blood and broken bones because I do want the challenge, as long as that challenge is within reason to where my character is.
I can't even take the time to respond to all of that lol, but mad respect to the community for having so much good to talk about the game. Most of the people on this board seem passionate about the game.
Honestly just wondered if the zones after this constrained exploration as much as velen did upon first arrival. Happy hunting to y'all.

[rui.silva.incp]

White Orchard was already the same thing actually ;)

If you went all out exploring without doing any quests, you would find stuff like the wraith at the graveyard which would be a bit high level for a level 1 player ;) Its better to go get that wraith when you are level 3 for instance.

And the main quest would make you ride all the way north in white orchard which could make you go head on into some stuff if you went a bit off road.

Yes, this was not so visible in White Orchard due to everything being very low level. Therefore, the level difference is not that big between lowest stuff and highest stuff.

However, White Orchard already gives you a similar feeling. A lot of newbie players run straight into the graveyard and get killed relentlessly by the wraith there lol The game intends to do that! It intends to scare you a bit at times. Give you the feeling that you may run into something which will kill you. Keeps you on your toes ;) And its also part of the concept that some things you will need to run away and prepare before you can fight them.

[Warfulc]

Originally posted by rui.silva.incp:

White Orchard was already the same thing actually ;)

If you went all out exploring without doing any quests, you would find stuff like the wraith at the graveyard which would be a bit high level for a level 1 player ;) Its better to go get that wraith when you are level 3 for instance.

And the main quest would make you ride all the way north in white orchard which could make you go head on into some stuff if you went a bit off road.

Yes, this was not so visible in White Orchard due to everything being very low level. Therefore, the level difference is not that big between lowest stuff and highest stuff.

However, White Orchard already gives you a similar feeling. A lot of newbie players run straight into the graveyard and get killed relentlessly by the wraith there lol The game intends to do that! It intends to scare you a bit at times. Give you the feeling that you may run into something which will kill you. Keeps you on your toes ;) And its also part of the concept that some things you will need to run away and prepare before you can fight them.

White orchard was not the same to me, when I started, the main quest was to go up north to the garrison, I went south with the intent of exploring the whole map and all of the points of interest before going for the main quest, starting with the devil in the well. Maybe died to drowners a few times idk :P. I more or less started velen with the same intent, to explore before main quest.
Yeah you do learn fast that exploration does not yield experience in most cases. Witcher takes that logic that ive been fed over the last 10 years by other rpgs and says nah we do things differently over here. As refreshing as it is I just figured I would go to all of the points of interest on the map. Now if im crossing by something while on a quest Ill try and check them out, but I will not pursue them anymore as a goal.
That may change later, thoughts of a person just starting the game.