This is the fist guide I've ever created, so apologies if it's not on par with the standard guides. I was inspired to create this guide because there really wasn't any guide for people who are completely new to witcher, or I haven't come across any. I was new to this series and I haven't played any previous witcher games till now. I decided to make this guide because of those people who just couldn't understand how to play and give a bad review to this game. So, hopefully this guide will give a brighter picture of how to play if you're a complete newbie to Witcher series like me. I'm no expert in this game myself, but I sure am able enough to give some beginner tips for Witcher 3 newbies. SInce the guide is a bit huge, kindly use the guide index to go through whichever tip you need. And apologies for the low resolution screenshots and some of the screenshots are taken from google, so credits to them for the screenshots. And I'd like to take a moment and shout out for the people who inspired me and helped me to make this guide.

The world of Witcher 3 is massive. So, people will be tempted to roam around most of the time. Even though roaming might be a way to find new gear and interesting quests, places etc, I would not recommend roaming around during the early quests. Although, you should check out notice boards for possible quests and do it only if it's in your level or close to your level. Venturing out and trying to discover places at the early stages of the game will just end up in you becoming monster food or you raging that the game is bad or difficult.

Combat is one of the main elements of this game. Just because you are the monster slayer doesn't mean you will kill everyone by just swinging your sword.

For Sword fighting, which will be the mode of combat for most of the game, you should be able to know when to dodge and when to parry. Parry or counterattacking might be a bit difficult for beginners, so I recommend dodging first. Once you get a hang of parrying, you can start using that in your combat too. But I recommend using parry on humans only and dodge for monsters because it might fail for monsters since their attacks are more powerful than humans. Doesn't mean it is a waste to parry monsters. Parrying some monsters might disable some abilities of some monsters. Example, parrying some monsters will cut it's tongue which will disable it's ability to poison you.

SIgns are a very important element in combat. Swords along with the signs will help you beat enemies faster. There are five signs you can use. They are Igni, Quen, Aard, Aaxi and Yrden. Igni produces fire or spits fire. Quen provides a shield for the player. Aard will provide a telekinesis blast. Aaxi will influence opponents and peoples' minds and Yrden will create a magic trap. For beginners, I highly recommend using the sign "Quen". Quen provides a protective shield around you so even if you miss a dodge or an attack or a parry, this shield will protect you from taking damage. However, Quen at first stages will be weak. So, spend your skill points in upgrading quen first if you wanna stay alive longer if you're looking for sign upgrades. Doesn't mean other signs are bad either, Every sign is unique and useful in it's own way. Yrden is highly effective in fighting wraiths and ghostly monsters. And Aaxi can be used ot influence people during dialogue parts to convince them to lower their price or let you go through certain places for free where you are supposed to pay.

Potions and decoctions are very useful too, but you'll need to find blueprints and crafting materials for creating them. But alchemy materials won't weigh(if not, weighs very low) in your inventory, so loot as much of the alchemy materials and blueprints as you can. Potions will be very helpful in combat. Example, Swallow will heal you while you are in combat, and Thunderbolt will increase the damage you do. But do watch out of Toxicity when you use potions because overdosing yourself might result in death if not, will decrease your vitality in combat.

Oils and Bombs are the last parts. As far as my opinion is concerned, I've never used oils because I didn't find it to be important, but bombs are a bit important because they are used to destoy monster nests you find in the world, if you come across any. So, craft at least one or two bomb types just in case.

Everytime time when you level up, you get a skill point. Skill points are used to upgrade your character. You can use mutagens found in monsters and use it on yourself to increase your attack power, vitality or your sign intensity.

For the initial stages, I would recommend upgrading only quen in signs. It'll prove to be very useful because beginners are bound to make mistakes while fighting. And upgrading some of the attack and the vitality ones. Honestly, Attack and vitality upgrades are based on personal opinion on how they want to play the game because people will either try to go for a sign build or an attack build or a defense build. I don't wanna complicate things in terms of skill tree. I can recommend "Undying", "Arrow deflection" and the one which increases the fast strike damage ones in the attack tree for beginners. and get all the vitality skills as you can.

Crafting in a very important aspect of this game. Of course, you'll get to buy weapons and armor in shops which are good enough. You can even unlock master armorers and master blacksmith services who will give you better armor in their shops than normal shops. But if you want to acquire witcher gear, you'll have to do the corresponding quests and ge the blueprints and only the master blacksmith and armorers will be able to craft them for you. It'll be a pain to search for hours to get a blueprint and the required materials to craft the item, but it'll be worth the toil and it'll be rewarding too. If you have Blood and Wine DLC, you can even dye your gear with your favourite colour, dyes work on only witcher gear. There are witcher gears from different schools and equipping the whole set of a specific set will grant you different bonuses for wearing them and you also get an achievement by doing so (if anyone's interested in getting all achievements).
There are 4 witcher schools gears in the base game: (and each can be upgraded)
1 Cat School gear
2. Wolf School gear
3. Griffin School gear and
4. Bear School gear.
If you have the Blood and Wine DLC installed, you'll come across Grandmaster witcher gear blueprints. And there are 5 witcher schools having Grandmaster gear. All the previous 4 schools and Manticore School gear, which makes five.

Don't forget to read the beastiary about the monsters before you fight so that you know how to defeat em and what they're weak agaist. Despite the game itself being amazing already, there are many mods that you can use to make your gameplay more enjoyable and have a fun experience overall. For installing mods, just go to the folder where you installed Witcher 3 and create a folder called "Mods" and install whichever mods you like in that folder. I recommend using the nexus mods website if you're searching for mods. You can enable the console window and do a lot more stuff too. To enable the console, you have to go to the game's directory->config->base directory and open general.ino in that folder. Under the [General], add "DBGConsoleOn=true", save the file and close it. And once you open the game, press '~' button to open the console window and use this page[www.mmo-game.eu] to know what fun stuff you can do using the console. Wouldn't recommend using console at first though because it'll ruin the first experience for you, therefore making the game a bit boring. I'd recommend doing it once you start "New Game+" or at least after you finish the base game.

Hope these tips will help you in understanding the mechanics of the game and not just give bad reviews after playing 10-15 hours just because you didn't know how to play. And don't forget to approach almost every NPC possible. Almost everyone will have a side quest which are interesting. And there's one more important aspect in this game, which is a mini card game called Gwent. It'll take a long time to explain gwent, so if you want me to create a beginner guide for gwent, let me know in the comments below. Anyway, good luck hunting monsters and romancing your favourite people, and make sure you think twice before taking a choice. And if you like this guide, rate it and do let me know if you want me to make more and comment below if you feel I can improve on any aspect and feel free to ask questions about the guide or how to play witcher 3, I'll help you out as much as I can. HAVE FUN!!