I’ve just started playing this. So far, I’ve run I’ve spent a couple of hours running around White Orchard, chasing the question marks on my Mini-map. There is so much to do.
Am I the only one who had no interest in Gwent? I played through the main quest and both DLC campaigns and probably played Gwent five times. Other than a handful of Gwent quests, did I miss anything?
No interest in Gwent? How is that even possible? 
Really I usually dislike or at very best am indifferent to mini-games in RPGs. Gwent however is an exception. I actually enjoy playing it in Witcher 3, which surprised the heck out of me.
That said…
Nah, nothing necessary( I think ). They add some flavor to the campaign - you lose out on cash, ingredients and some interesting character interactions. But I don’t think there is anything that will cripple the main plot.
Over the weekend I did the drunken Witcher bros mission. Holy shit. I’m pretty sure I know all three of those guys.
I think I played it 2.5 times: the first time in the introduction, one more time to confirm that I wasn’t interested, and then in the Hearts of Stone DLC I accidentally started a game of Gwent at the wedding party which I instantly conceded.
Likewise. I hated Caravan in Fallout 4, and I tolerated playing… whatever the game in Knights of the Old Republic 2 was called just for the loot. But I enjoyed Gwent enough to replay games even when I’d obtained the quest/card rewards from opponents.
Pazaak. I was like you, I played it for the loot and it was okay but not compelling enough to play on its own. IIRC you had cards with +/- values and played them to meet a certain number like blackjack. It felt a bit tic-tac-toe-ish to me. I wish they’d had a Dejarik holochess like what they played on the Millennium Falcon in Episode IV or at least something established in the Expanded Universe before like Sabacc.
Yeah, the big problem with the game is that you always went first in each round, so you were always more likely than your opponent to go over 21.
I might be late to the opinion (it is 2020 already) but I totally agree. It is favourite of favourites, first in my top-games list. I like the plot, I like the gameplay, I like Geralt as a character (and his appearance). I could play it for hours/days/weeks.
I played it through about 18 months back and thought it was hands down one of the best games I’ve ever played. Since then, though, I’ve gotten into Dark Souls and I reckon if I went back to Witcher 3 I’d see some aspects of it in a very different light - the combat is a bit of a joke and the endless lists of meaningless weapons and equipment is bad for a RPG. BUT the story, characterisations and open world play is still supremely boss - the DLC in particular is heavyweight.
As much as I rate Dark Souls as the supreme temple of gaming I don’t actually like the open-ended, fill in the gaps lore all that much. I prefer a strong, straight ahead story like in Witcher 3. I think the DS hidden sort of narrative is the prototype for something amazing in the future, but isn’t quite there yet in this medium.
I depends what you’re looking for in a game. The combat in W3 may not be extraordinary challenging, but it is very satisfying - and conversely, I installed one of the Dark Souls games a few months ago, played for five minutes, died five times, and uninstalled it. So to each their own.
By the way, after I watched the “Witcher” TV episodes, I started a new game and tried Gwent again with the Gwent difficulty dialled back to the lowest level. It’s fun as long as you’re collecting new and better cards, but it doesn’t take long before it gets to the point where you’re basically as good as you’re ever going to get. And the strategy seems to boil down to “play a lot of spy cards so that you have way more cards than your opponent”.
While spy cards are generally the path to victory, there is nothing more satisfying in Gwent than luring a monster deck-playing opponent into using muster cards to have a dozen or more cards in their front line, and then hitting them first with biting frost to equalize their value and then with Vellentretenmerth to scorch the lot of them.
I hated the idea of Gwent. I’m not the biggest fan of card games to start with, and then having the distraction of one in the middle of my RPG really didn’t sit right with me.
Then I started playing. And the damn thing hooked me. Soon my highest priority was zipping around in Roach, trying to find all the best cards for my deck. Forget solving mysteries, beating monsters, saving people, and advancing the story. I needed to build my deck. I did not see that coming.
OK, fine. I just ordered the game on Amazon, with (I think?) all the DLC for PS4. Damn you all.
I’ll drop a plug here for The Outer Worlds, which my son got me for Christmas. Fun RPG, I’ve played through a couple of times.
My other thought about Gwent is that by the time I had a minimally playable Monster card deck, I already had a zillion Northern cards. Why not provide a basic deck of each type to start with instead of just one?