Hello fellow wanderers:
I'm level 4, and cant find any quests under 6 or 7. I tried the level 6 ones and the whooping I got told me, "NOT YET"
I've gone through White Orchard and cleared much of the ? on the map. I go to Velen, and Novigrad and the lowest quest I can find is around 9.

I can tell by the little exp points you get for just killing stuff, wont get me very far before burn out.

I'm an old gamer, whose genre of choice is RPG's, MMO's, and open World games done well.
I've gotten to the place where I'm tired of fast travelling around trying to find appropriate quests for my level.

Either the leveling I'm doing is too slow, and Ive missed something, Or, I dunno.

A swift kick to get me in the right direction would be appreciated.
Its only because the game world is so interesting that it hasn't been a problem, till today.
I can feel I'm losing interest without a focus on the story and such.

Any help?

Paul.

Don't give up, Paul. If you've done most of the things in the opening area, just follow the main story for a while. You'll get much more experience points by doing that.

Most find the beginning of this game quite difficult, because of your low level and because most are still getting used to the controls/how to fight efficiently/using signs... But as you level up you get more powerful quickly.

Don't forget that you can always lower your difficulty level at any time, and then raise it back up later.

Actually mainstory quests about "search for witch" is required level 5. "Talk to baron" - 6. You can complete them, that will bump your EXP up and prepare for exploration of velen.

Have you been taking the notices and contracts from all of the notice boards that you see? Also, at what point of the main story are you? The Keira Metz line is level 5 recommended, and that's easily do-able at level 4. You see, the only way to earn meaningful XP is by doing quests, side quests and contracts. Talk to people in villages, and always check out any that have the giveaway exclamation mark above their heads, or on the map. There is enough XP to get you through, but you will *not* get it from monster/bandit grinding.

The main quests in Velen rewards ton of exp without too much fight.
You could try to find all the places of power in White Orchard to get skill points.
Don't forget to use Quen and its alternate sign to gain health without taking damage.
You could also lower the difficulty for now ( /!\ It disables some achievements).

There really are no quests to fill the level 3-5 gap in the game, you just have to jump into the main quest as the others have noted. Unfortunately the early game is unecessarily difficult due to some stupid design decisions, most notably making the basic potions and oils useless. Although the early gold and XP scarcity and level scaling for equipment don't help matters.

Early game, I would suggest assigning your skillpoints as follows:

Exploding shield 3
Far-Reaching Aard 3 (You can increase Delusion instead if you want the convo options)
Active Shield 3
Muscle Memory 5
Strength Training 3
Fleet Footed 5

Fleet Footed 5 and Active Shield 3 are two abilties that are going to improve Geralt's survivability the most.

End game, the abilties I had active on my two Death March runs were:
Exploding shield 3
Far-Reaching Aard 3/ Delusion 3
Active Shield 3
Muscle Memory 5
Strength Training 5/ Arrow Deflection 3
Fleet Footed 5
Counter Attack 3
Whirl 5
Rend 5/ Precise Blows 5
Bear School Techniques 1/ Cat School Techniques 1
Heightened Tolerance 5/ Crippling Strikes 5
Poisoned Blades 5/ Deadly Precision 2

Some other advice I could give you is that certain enemies use a very similar AI, so tactics that work against one tend to work against the others:
Drowners and Nekkers
Ghouls, Alghouls, Vampires and Werewolves
Sirens and Harpies
Griffins, Wyverns, Forktails, Cockatrices and Basilisks
Elementals, Golems and Trolls

What? No "git gud" posts? Wait, is this still the internet? I'm confused....

There is an Eternal Fire priest who gives you an easy quest (burn some mass graves), just to the west of Mulburydale.

Funeral Pyres.

You can also progress several of the main quest lines to a point without needing to be fighting at all. (or very minor skirmishes).

Several non-combat ones too like "The Empty Coop" in the north, the Velen Races. Picking off a few smuggler's caches, or hidden treasures can help too, but leave most of them till later, as you'll get better loot (worth more money) and won't overlevel so much in the early-mid game.

Fool's Gold is a fairly low level quest, though there is one nasty Nekker Warrior to deal with...


Personally I'd scour the map looking for 'easy to get at' places of power without big monsters intimately guarding them. There are a few which are guarded which you can slip past the guards for, and some which are ones to leave till later.

Before I headed to find the spy at the Inn at the Crossroads I'd unlocked most of the northern notice boards, and collected all 6 White Orchard and the two in the Novigrad and two from Velen. Helps greatly (equivalent to being 'level 15' while only being level 5 from a skills POV, though open slots and equipment still lag behind a bit).

At level 9, I have all but one from WO and Velen/Novigrad, which isn't AFAIK accessible until much later in the game.
Overall there are 26 Places of Power, which is comparable to your basic level near the finale state if you collect them all along the way.

It's an open world game, if you don't have any active quests that are equal or lower to your level - explore randomly wherever you feel like going. If you're unsure, spin a bottle on the table and whatever direction it is pointing when it stops, travel in game in that direction. Look on the map for "?" locations as these are points of interest to explore which usually are protected by enemies. Look at the map also to find what towns have notice boards that post witcher contracts and other work and if they show up on the map in yellow - that means there is a quest to be found there. Also look for yellow "!" on the map which indicates someone is in need of assistance which usually turns into a quest of some sort also.

The maps are loaded with tonnes of quests and points of interest to explore which activate quests, so any time you're running low just remember - explore explore explore, and look at the map, look at the map, look at the map. :)

Another thing that can help: even if the quest involves fighting something, there will often be preliminary stages (talk to this person for more info / investigate the site of the attack to learn something / prepare such-and-such for use during the fight), and completing those stages will give a bit of XP. You can do the pre-battle legwork for many quests long before you'll be ready to face the monster at the end.

All good advice.

I found that the game really opened up somewhere between level 6 and 8.. and it took a bit of effort to get to that point. Everything from that point seemed to flow well.. it was still challenging throughout 90% of the game, but it seemed that there were lots and lots to do by around that point in the game. So if you found main quests a bit tough, there was more than enough side and contracts to do by that point.

Very nicely done, all of you. Not one negative, "learn to play newbie". Thanks for that. :)

I feel I asked the right question, and got the best answers.

Thanks a ton folks.
I'm at lv.5 now, and felling encouraged again to keep going, for it is light I see at the end of the tunnel, and not the head-lights of a 18 wheeler.

Once more, "Into the breech"!!!

:)

I just finished the game today finally, at level 35. What an absolute epic journey it was to say the least. Fighting the Wild Hunt was a bit of a challenge but I kicked their asses finally. :) If you see the game through to the end you will probably find it to be quite the amazing ride of entertainment in the end, I know I certainly did.

Enjoy your game!

The main story line delivers far more XP than the side quests. I'd suggest just going along with that for a while. And on first play through, I'd just drop the difficulty if you're really struggling. That said; I bet there's no one here who hasn't come across a fight they had to do 5-10 times to win (or give up and come back later!), so you're likely in similar company. The first thirty minutes of my gaming time in Witcher 3 was me trying to beat those ghouls right at the game start. At that point, I decided I didn't need to play it on Death March :) I reckon I could do them now (maybe), but that's looking back from level 20.

One other thing; increasing your level delivers a suspiciously effective increase in damage output. I've noticed enemies that weren't taking a scratch at one level suddenly start being fodder two levels later, even if I've not invested the skills points. I suspect it's the game's way of saying the area isn't accessible to you, without actually stopping you going there.