The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

• There are two "points of no return" in the game. They are very obviously signposted.

• If you're playing on the PS4, In-game you can simply hold the touchpad to go straight to the Inventory, or swipe either up or down to visit the World Map. Easy.

• You can use your crossbow underwater.

• Holding 'Block' lets you use the d-pad to switch between signs (on the PC you can mouse scroll whenever)

• Hold down the attack button while on Roach to slow down time and line up your shot better.

• Draining a Place of Power the first time gives you an Ability point.

• Selling appropriate gear to the right merchants give more money. Blacksmiths pay better for weapons, armorers for armor etc.

• You get the quest to go to Skellige well before you probably have wrapped up Velen. Feel free to do so. While there are a lot of higher levels areas in the isles, the quest level is not lying: There is stuff to do there at that level and you can fast travel freely back and forth.

• If you go off the beaten path in some parts of Velen you will run into monsters way higher level that you. This is another hint that you shouldn't aim to "clear each map" before moving on. One possible exception is White Orchard, due to being a small map with a fair number of Places of Power. Clearing that sets you up nicely for the rest of the game.

• You can expect to be around level 30-36 at the end of the game on a fresh game.

• The "Makes the Axii sign more effective in dialogues" trait of that talent basicially means that it can affect groups. Without the trait, if you use Axii on a person surrounded by friends, the friends will call you on using it. It's a good early pick, but not exactly mandatory as long as you pay attention to when and where you use Axii in dialogue.

• Winning a game of Gwent against anyone will give you a card the first time. There is a guy in Novigrad (near St. Gregorys bridge, the dude that sells respec potions) that will sell you a book, that you can use to keep track of which areas still have cards to be won.

• If you have read a book, the contents is stored in your journal. You can sell any non-quest books without consequence after reading them.

• If you dismantle items with runestones/glyphs in them, you get them back, at the expense of the item itself.

• If you read the bestiary entry it tells you they can go insubstantial, yrden forces them into the real world so you can do damage to them. the bestiary is really good, many monsters are built around a gimmick; attack from the back, use this one spell that is really effective, that sort of thing. Spectres and ghost-like beings get a teleport and huge damage reduction when they aren't attacking you.

• As for skills, there's a respec potion for 1000 so don't worry too much about gimping your character. You have to drag stuff to the right to 'use' it, so don't spread your points around. I leveled the weak attack and put points into the mind spell for extra dialog and the stun. You have a chance to autokill creatures (even skulls) when they are stunned so I really like it. The 2nd tier conversion is a trap since it takes too long to cast. I've heard the ingni flamethrower is pretty good but haven't tried it myself. I got the armor melt but i haven't noticed much difference. By far the most useful I've found is the active shield, they hit you, you regain life. It's mandatory on the harder difficulties.

• I can also see buffing potions/oils, and 'general' skills are very strong since they are 1 point each. About midgame you'll get the decoctions which give 100 toxicity and if you want to use any other potions with them you're going to need to put points there. Oils are just free damage if you can be bothered to open the inventoy screen so the skill that makes them poison too is just ace.

• Don't worry about running out of alcohol to refill potions/bombs every time you rest, even casually looting random boxes will give you more you can use.

• As far as general tips, every merchant you can play cards with will give you a free card when you win, most innkeepers have cards in their inventory. If you go through the first area and part of the second you'll build up enough of a decent deck to slam pretty much anyone. You won't be able to beat the guy in the palace when you first meet him, but go back and take that bastard's card when you think you're ready.

• Don't get too burned out going to every ? because there are too many in the map and by the 2nd map it'll suck all the enjoyment of the game out of you. You can "clear" the first map and I recommend doing it because there are a lot of places of power in the first map, but in the second map if you wander off the trail you'll get murdered by skulls and I've only found two places of power on the second map.

• I'm not saying it's the wrong way to play, but if you go into the second map with the 'must uncover and do every single ? and quest' completionist-style than you're going to get very burned out and annoyed because almost everything off the paths are 10 levels higher than you are and you run through high-level areas to complete lower-level quests a lot.

• You craft a potion once, you get a potion item with a certain # of charges (I think the charges are affected by your skills). When you meditate, any potions refill their charges if you have alcohol in your inventory, one per potion that needs to be refilled. You still need ingredients later because most potions have multiple upgrades that require the base potion as an ingredient, but you don't need to hoard flowers obsessively.

• Dodge rolling is not effective for avoiding blows at melee range, the animation has a bit of a windup and you frequently take damage mid roll. The shorter dodge dash/jump/pirouette is better for up close fighting and can be upgraded in the sword tree to negate damage for hits that connect during your dodge. The roll is still great for putting distance between you and enemies but you'll be dashing to their sides and behind them dark souls style more often.

• Getting surrounded will get you killed. Control fights and stay at the edges of them. Two rolls back is a great distance to throw a bomb from, replenish a sign, reload your crossbow. When rolling around the edges of a fight and whittling away at a pack of stronger enemies keep an eye on the minimap or you might roll into another group or get flanked. Much like the Witcher 2 with humans prioritize archers and leave shield bearers for last.

• You're a Witcher. Much like the previous two games if you ignore your signs, bombs, and oils you'll have a hard time. While these start out as small buffs the Enhanced (T2) and Superior (T3) versions of some bombs, potions, and oils are extremely powerful. Do you want to spend five minutes dodging and parrying an entire bandit camp or do you want to throw out two grapeshot bombs, stab the leader, and grab the loot? For bombs as well each upgrade lets you carry more of them per meditation, potions last longer. Superior potions tend to have a cool perk such as Superior Tawny Owl never expiring at night and Superior Blizzard making actions that would normally cost stamina be completely free if you have full adrenaline (this includes signs!)

• Unfortunately it's not obvious where to get all of this stuff. There's more than one way to skin this cat but I suggest finding the herbalist/alchemist to the very close north east of Oxenfurt (the smaller city in the Pontar river) as soon as you have around a k to spend. He has some great recipes and can tell you where to find a master. Between him and the master he recommends you should be all set.