So today's Gameplay starts with the main quest which is "A Princess in Distress" and trust me I had a hard time in that quest when we got to know some bitter truths about what happened to Baron's family, Geralt pays back some to Baron, lol. But the main trouble for me was handling that Botchling thing. First I was trying to kill that Botchling but couldn’t, then tried to save it by turning into Lubberkin but in the midway, it turned into the Botchling again.

Botchling to Lubberkin

One of the best guidance in playing Witcher 3 is to explore more and more and complete all the side quests/contracts. I didn’t explore the whole map of White Orchards nor did any other quests, just kept following the main quest and its instructions and I appeared before the Botchling in level 3, lol. I tried to dig more on the internet about this quest and most of them were talking about its difficulty, referring to saving it instead of killing, and also a minimum of witcher level 5 to face it. You may see that I have attempted five or six times but had no luck. Last time I was doing good against it as I was aware of its weakness and was just trying to focus on that, but my hundreds of attacks were equal to its one, I am dead.

Well, at last, I was able to save it, took it to the fortress, and buried it. Later, at midnight it led towards the wife and children of Baron because it was bonded to them so led towards the next clue that reveals another journey to the quest, well a pause to this quest now, not gonna face the next monster being in the lower level.

Mistakenly, I was heading towards Novigrad instead of White Orchard, finding it too hard to get through the obstacles. Later I noticed the above-mentioned map clearly and found out that I was in the wrong way, Novigrad is recommended for level 10 and in my mind, I was searching for White Orchard that I left unexplored. Next, I tried to complete two witcher contracts for more experience, exploration, reward, and fun it brings.

Witcher Contracts: Shrieker

This was a good one to lemme show how important it was to explore from the beginning. When I was in the cave I didn’t have any bomb or alternative it required to throw at that moment, nor the required ingredients to create one. So I had to go buy it later and then complete the contract. Well, this monster was a pretty easy one, and didn't struggle to kill it. Looked at its weakness and tried to attack as I could and used its weakness to have more damage and it was down.

Witcher Contracts: Devil by the Well

This one was also an easy one but I had lost track inside the well, when on my first attempt I dived inside I wasn’t finding any way out, I thought of it as a mistake and later I dig to see how it should be done then I got to know that there is a passage out by diving into the water which leads us outside the area and then you need to come back, inside the well, there is a necessary material to complete the quest. Yeah, this one was also an easy one that I took down.

Exploring White Orchards

Here begins the exploration, I did leave the white orchard unexplored, and didn’t even take any contracts perhaps so came back and complete a contract and kept exploring all the unexplored places, places of power, and kept on looting whatever appeared before me, even my capacity was full, red mark and I was slowing down, lol. I sold some stuff and kept looting, hehe, also used the stash to store some of my stuff that might be needed later for crafting that I am not sure about right now.

These screenshots are from some of the power of places, this animation is beautiful, and I liked it. Well, these places are mostly surrounded by ghouls, bears, or wolves. As I was at a higher level for white orchards, I didn’t find it hard to tackle them.

While exploring, I was astonished by the loot I was getting. Trust me, when I saw Saltpeter while looting I was like, "WTF man! I had to buy this for the Shrieker contract to make Samum Bomb. If I had explored before then I might not have had to spend those coins nor would I have wasted those time. So yeah, lesson learned, many more to do in the rest of the journey.

Gameplay:

Timestamps:

From starting - Main Quest: A Princess in Distress (Botchling to Lubberkin)
1:55:00 - Witcher Contracts: Shrieker
2:39:00 - Witcher Contracts: Devil by the Well
3:01:00 - White Orchard Exploration

What's next?

I think I have cleared the White Orchard, now I will move to Velen again to explore it, complete side quests, and then proceed to the main quest again. I don't wanna face another monster way more powerful than me to die over and over again.

So the journey continues….