I know you "pure rpg" players find combat hard... but it isn't. I died 2 times than i learned how to play and every next fight i had i wasn't hit even once. A.I is stupid, if you roll in the proper way you can control them as they mostly follow you. If you learn how to roll on and run around - they should not be able to reach you :) I am at begining in the hiden passage mission so i don't know what awaits me in the game, but atm i must say it is not hard at all.

FYI: combat was nerfed BIG time with 1.2. It was a painful learning curve in vanilla. But agree: Once you figured it out, it's quite easy. :)

yeah, i started a new game after 1.2 and it's crazy how easy the prologue is now.

Yeah, as other ppl said, the prologue got a lot easier with 1.2.

Witcher 2 gets easy, IMO, for the same reason games like Dragon Age: Origins or Morrowind get easy - you have a massive toolkit for controlling and fighting your enemies. It's not a game where you have to re-play because you weren't fast enough (except on certain, very specific fights), it's a game where you have to re-play because you didn't plan ahead or use all your options. So once you get good at it, the game gets pretty easy. Difficulty level is more just how unforgiving the game is than actual difficulty.

Install Better Combat and CEO, and set the difficulty to Hard (or Insane). These should turn the combat into a more fun and challenging experience, and also maintain the difficulty balance you usually see in the beginning of Act I, all throughout the game.

Is there only one technique in combat that actually works? Maybe that's why players struggle

I think it's more that there are a lot of techniques that work, the sheer number of tools you use to execute those techniques can be overwhelming to new players.

Thanks for letting us lesser mortals bask in the glow of your awesome.

No, one of the strongest aspects of the combat in TW2, is that it's incredibly open-ended, and there are plenty of choices on how to come out victorious from a battle. Grasping the combat system takes time - it's a lot to learn, and I can see how that could discourage some people. This is why it comes with an 'easy' difficulty setting, however. CDPR designed 'normal' to be quite hard, as the enemies use more abilities (such as blocking). On easy, they do not block your attacks. Ever. Which makes it a much more ideal environment for players to start out, and stick to until they feel they've got the hang of all the techniques and toys available in the game. I wish more people would turn the difficulty down if they're having trouble, rather than stubbornly going at it, again and again, before finally going on forums to complain about the game.

My entire first playthrough was played on easy (without any mods installed), and I died plenty of times in the beginning, until I finally started surviving a lot better for the second half of the game all the way to the end. Some ways into my second playthrough (also on easy), I finally started feeling like I was beginning to understand what it was all about. I know, I might be a slow learner, but this still serves as a good example on how challenging the combat can be to a 'newbie.' There's no shame in dialling down the difficulty while you learn a new system, as it can save you a lot of frustration. I can now handle the game on hard with very little difficulty, and it was then that I realized that the game, in fact, feels too easy. And many others would agree, judging from the forums here and on the Nexus.

The problem is that TW2 vanilla unfortunately allows for some cheap tactics that are far superior to others, with bomb spamming and Quen-abuse being the two most prominent ones. Even without these tricks, once you have mastered the combat system, the game becomes effortless around halfway through the second act. The equipment and skill balance is out of whack, and with little to no scaling for the enemies, people start feeling disappointed. Again, this is an excellent example on how complex the combat actually is - at first, you die often on easy, but once you learn all the nooks and crannies, you hardly break a sweat on hard, and many people even start to always play on insane, and thus never die once during a full playthrough.

This is why I suggested those mods - they re-balance the difficulty, so that you no longer hit that spot halfway through the game when you start feeling like an invincible deity. They're especially great for those of you who already have wrapped your heads around the combat system, know it inside out, and have started feeling the game is too easy. Believe me, with these mods, it's like a whole new experience. It feels challenging - yet fair - from beginning to end.

You make it sound as if the "pure rpg" players (who I consider myself being a member of) are by default incompetent... while I assure you that is not the situation (at least not in my case).

I don't disagree about the "on rails" experience, but you are completely wrong about the combat. I can boil down just about any RPG to "ZOMG SPAM THIS FTW". Frankly RPG's aren't known for deeply satisfying tactical combat.

Fallout "SPAM EYE SHOTS"
BG1&2 "SPAM LEFT CLICK"
TWEE "SPAM IGINI + GROUP STYLE"
KOTOR "SPAM QUEUE LIGHT SABER ATTACK"
NWN2 "SPAM NOTHING; THE GAME ALMOST PLAYS ITSELF"
And on and on and on.

Combat balance is not easily achieved and every game has something that is overpowered. But consider that not every option should be equally powerful when it comes to in game skill choices. Having something more powerful than others isn't necessarily a problem, it just can't be completely out of whack. Outside of nerfing quen a bit, I don't see TW2 combat as unbalanced on a large scale.

While I think you could have stated your opinion in a less violent and crude way, I do see your point, and this is why I hardly ever give any credit to companies like Bethesda, since their products (lately, at least) are more or less worthless until the modding community 'fixes' the game. I don't feel TW2 is guilty of the same thing, however. I explained quite extensively how I found the game to be challenging and well-balanced the first two times I played it; and that was on Easy. Not once did it feel broken to me, and it was not until I fully understood the combat system and could execute various manoeuvres with more ease, that I started noticing the imbalance, mainly of equipment progression. The 'exploit' tactics aside - I never made use of them - I would never call the combat in TW2 broken. By simply changing the values and statistics of all the gear, this balance was quickly restored, so you see, it's not in the system itself - it's how poorly they handle handing out new weapons and armors, that are way too powerful.

All in all, TW2 is an outstanding game in vanilla, and I don't think it's fair to group it with those other, fully moddable games that seem to only survive because of that fact.

Combat wasn't nerfed in 1.2. What makes you think that?

Only the prologue was nerfed. The rest is the same, as far as I can tell.