he can take any person on easy, hell can take a few on easy

but doesn't matter how amazing you are, throw 5+ armored, sheilded guys at you and you will have a hard time.

i so far in prologue have yet to get hit more than once in any battle less than 5 people. and those are just times when i click one too many times and thus not able to roll away in time and get slashed in teh back.

and some people do not bring up games like god of war. hack and slash are as easy as they get. you can get him like a crap load of times, you can somehow hit 20 people at a time and just go ape shit.

And you do. A single opponent is no real threat in this game. You can slash away and be done with him in seconds.

Interesting. I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of the novels, it's on my "to do" list though :)

I am looking forward to experiencing the new combat system (only another 10 mins hopefully). Having to be tactical in your approach doesn't bother me, so that won't be an issue.

btw, Just to clarify, the inverted commas around the word flawed were to indicate that this was not my opinion, but a view expressed by some that are not happy with the new system.

Like I was saying, it was just a random thought. It just seemed a little funny (in the humorous sense), almost like...say... Miyamoto Musashi getting facerolled by a street thug... :)

peace

Exactly, hence why the enemy tries to swarm Geralt. The disparity in difficulty may stem from the fact that in TW1 you fought a lot of singular tough or fast opponents. Groups of the human kind were kind of rare.

@Blacklimoband

If you give it a chance and you like a challenge it will be very rewarding, but if you just want to enjoy the story play it on easy. I sincerely recommend you play the prologue in order.

The manual says that you should use the fast style against weak enemies, and strong style against enemy wearing heavy armors.
It says that you should use block against enemies carrying a shield to counter attack
It says that you can launch bombs using auto-aim mode or aiming yourself and should be use against groups of enemies
It says that daggers are useful against weaker opponents.
It says that you should drink potions before a combat
It says when you should coat your blade
It says that you should use your medalion to spot place of powers that provide additional support on combat
It says when and how you should use all the signs

and many more...

Beside that, you have a complete tutorial in the Journal that explain all the thing not covered in the manual.

I agree that the tutorial should be more user-friendly, but it's not that bad.

I have gotten to the ballista. Combat is going well, but I can't cock the ballista. I have killed a few knights and men at arms, and tried to cock it about 6 times. Every time I cock it, it releases and I get a new wave of enemies. What does it take??

The mouse icon in the cocking flashes -- this means repeatedly click the mouse button shown.

I'll stand by my statement that understand the mechanics doesn't mean you can fight. But anyway, I personally didn't have that much of an issue with the mechanics, I'm playing on hard and have it figured out now and past the prologue, just took a little adjustment period.

well duh, that like saying if you read a book on the rules of basketball you can go on the court and be good.

obviously an action oriented combat style will require some getting used to and learning

i think many of the people are used to the click and watch rpg, like kotor or neverwinter. where you know you click on enemy and then basically watch your guy go all amazing like dodging/blocking/attacking ect all with one click

I was also having difficulty at the start but this is because I chose the dragon section as my first part - d'oh!

Once you get used to the fighting system, though, life is easier.

That is not totally true. In God of War on harder modes that gets you killed instantly. There you need to block in fractions of a second often. You attack, you block, you evade. It's not frustrating. It's challenging and the controls are perfect.
TW2's are far from perfect. The auto-targeting on enemies in TW2 is a huge problem. I want to attack what I aim for, not what the game believes I want to hit.
If I unintentionally auto-target an enemy far away, Geralt will try to leap to him. That is so annoying. It gets him killed in a very short time.

I think the problem comes in here because some people dont get it. I dont think everyone wants easy mode, after all its there and it does work as intended. But some of us do want a challenge just not a masochistic frustrating reload 10 times challenge. Which is where normal mode usually comes in. It should be challenging but not frustratingly difficult, that should be reserved for hard and higher. Its not about being easier, its about providing a challenge for ones skill level, not all gamers are created equal.

I think Normal difficulty is ok, but the game doesn't show you what abilities you have at your disposal. Some people say "read the manual!". True, but I'm used to games ramping up the item use bit by bit. I defeated the 6 guys without bombs or traps because I didn't know I had em! Had the game shown me that it might not have been too difficult.

After I tried out the bombing system, I started to have even more fun. I can throw napalm on them and explosives. That'll teach ya.