Should I reserve another playthrough for the Gwent cards?

[AJ_Radio]

I plan to make The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt my 150th platinum, and so far I've sunk 40 - 45 hours into the game.

 

On Death March difficulty I have mostly gone after the side quests and the main storyline, as there is a trophy that requires you to beat the game on Death March anyway. The Gwent cards I have ignored for the most part, save for playing a few matches with random merchants here and there. I have beaten the Baron in a Gwent match against him, so maybe it's not so difficult.

 

I am aware there is a Gwent tournament but I seriously wonder if I should just reserve another playthrough entirely for the Gwent cards. Bad idea, maybe not a bad idea but I have gotten my ass kicked a number of times. I know the general strategies to win but I lack hero cards, which can really only be gotten by winning them from your opponent.

 

Those of you who finished this game, did you do everything in one playthrough?

[Redgrave]

You can definitely do it in a single playthrough along with Death March. I certainly did. It really just comes down to playing as much people as you can to win their cards and buying them in shops you enter, even if they have duplicate cards (mainly because they can help too).

 

When it comes to winning it mainly depends on the deck you're using. Early on you don't have much of a good deck and some of the people you play might have really good decks so it's just a matter of seeing what decks the opponent has and if they have a really good deck then you can just go back to them later. I believe some of the more poor people like common villagers have easy to beat decks. Once you get more cards though, you'll be winning more often than not.

 

The only thing I recommend doing is waiting until after you beat the story to do the Gwent tournament because during the tournament there will be a couple of fist fights you have to do and they can knock you out pretty easily on Death March. So it's probably a good idea to do as much card collecting as you can during the playthrough and then wait for the tournament until after the story.

[Zolkovo]

@Spaz I am 99% certain there are some missable Gwent cards, including one in particular than can glitch out on you due to an npc disappearing. So if you are quite far in, chances are you may have already missed out on one (for the card collector trophy). I myself played the entire game and DLC on death march in a single run so it is very do-able as long as you keep your eye out on the missables. I also did the tournament extremely early (first chance you have at it) which was challenging but if you know how to exploit spies, then Gwent is a joke anyway.

 

Spoiler

The only tricky part is the fist fight which takes forever when you're under-levelled, especially on DM.

 

EDIT: One thing I would say is that despite clearing all the achievements in one playthrough, I did a voluntary second playthrough because of the changes to the mutation system introduced in one of the expansions. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and different experience the second time around and man I can't believe how many alternative choices/cut-scenes there are.

 

EDIT2: If you didn't know, you can change the Gwent difficulty within the options.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Zolkovo

[AJ_Radio]

I don't know about using Spies as a cheap exploit, Gwent is a fantastic card game either way.

 

I'm one of those type people who likes to do the side quests as I move on with the game, rather than wait until the last main quest then go around doing them all because that's just boring to me. Geralt would just annihilate everything going against him in the side quests because he is far overleveled.

[Pirelli913]

There are a few missable Gwent cards, namely Olivier, the Kingfisher Innkeeper, a mini Gwent tournament (three cards available) during the side quest, "A Matter of Life and Death," and three cards during the side quest, "A Dangerous Game." At the end of that side quest, you have the option to keep the cards. Obviously keep them if you want the trophy.

 

You'll miss Olivier's card if you fail to play him before you help Triss get all mages out of Novigrad. (I forget the name of the quest,but it's AFTER "A Matter of Life and Death.")

 

As for the mini tournament in "A Matter of Life and Death," once you walk through the doors to the main courtyard, you should see a yellow exclamation mark. That's the tournament. It consists of three matches and thus, three cards to win.

 

Normally, when I uncover a new town, I play Gwent against all merchants/Innkeepers/blacksmiths/armorers so I can rest assured that I don't miss any. The first guy you play in the game also gives you a book of all cards available and where to acquire them.

[djippps]

Hi, just four things:

• the guide for gwent here is really good. I followed the instructions. It worked very well. The more important is to make a save before each match. I was a bit worried at the end since almost the NPC were all giving me weather cards and I was loading saves again and again. Just win again everybody and it wll work. Focus on the missable cards, it is the crucial point. Look also the « magic book » for gwent giving the number of cards you do not have in each area.
• the difficulty for gwent matches can now be different from the global difficulty (« blood and broken bones », « death march », etc.) in the options menu. The guide for the base game here says a bit the contrary (which explains the 2 playthroughs it can propose). I guess there was a patch at some point which splits the diffculty into 2 parts.
• For the fist fights, it can be tough even on « Blood and broken bones », I agree with Redgrave. Spend also some ability points on fistfights  abilities (red menu, like sword)
• In my case, I have the reverse pb than you. I did « blood and broken bones » difficulty: at the beginning I was not used to controls, magic spells, etc. And now I have 170 hours taking my time in the game and I know there will be one more playthrough (on NG+), which was not clear in my mind at the beginning. In my opinion, all depend how much you like the game: if you’re going only for the plat’, just stop now and make a new playthrough on « Death march ». If you enjoy the game and wish to make a NG+, a 2nd playthrough is a good option.

[Warlord99956]

I have got the 100% in all 3 stacks of Witcher 3. When the game first launched there were many missable Gwent cards but in the complete and ultimate edition (and through patches on the original) there are not many now. For example the 3 cards offered to you by Zoltan at the end of “A dangerous game” can be acquired by killing the witch hunter captain in the side quest where you go to their main base with Triss (can’t remember the name). The card purchased from the i keeper before she gets her face smashed in can be bought from the merchant outside her tavern if you miss that etc. 

 

The book given to you at the start will tell tell you what you’re missing (loosely) and with the latest patches the quest in your log for collecting all Gwent cards will fail as soon as you miss a missable one (it never used to do that originally). As far as I know the only truely missable cards are at the masquerade ball (beat the 3 guys at the table) and the Gwent tournament (win all matches).

 

I did 1 stack by playing on death match first and getting all trophies in 1 run (as NG+ wasn’t an option back then) so if you are part way through death march already then I would recommend that. For my second and third stacks I played on easy first and got all possible trophies and dlc stuff done. Then I did a story speed run on death march NG+. With all the potions and abilities unlocked it makes the NG+ super quick as you basically have 3 lives and take very little damage with the right build. I found that a single run to 100% vs 2 runs is pretty much the same in terms of time though. I cleared my last 100% in 80hrs using 2 playthroughs.

 

Regarding the difficulty of Gwent itself there is now an extra option in the menu for it. You can turn Gwent difficulty down if you want to speed through the matches or play games with a small deck.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Warlord99956
Gwent difficulty note

[AJ_Radio]

I haven't gotten far into the game. I'm 40 some odd hours in but much of that was simply exploring the countryside in the second area, which is still huge.

 

I started a few quests over in Novigrad but haven't finished them. As long as I don't actually finish them I should be okay.

[GT__Jedi]

Had no idea there was a difficulty option for Gwent now.  Good to know.