<Note: Both of these playthroughs are on 1.1>

Anyone else? After dying about 50 times on the prologue on Normal, I got bored and restarted on Insane just to see what it was like. Ending up beating the entire prologue without dying, or even going to half health using the exact same tactics in combat. I choose the hardest paths possible (fought the guy + all his men, etc)

Seems like the AI is much more predictable on this difficulty... and it seems like i'm able to 2-3 shot guys where as on normal it takes about 2x more blows.

Anyone else notice this? Also, no matter how I look at it... when I import a saved game from TW1 the game always seems much harder. It might explain why some people are saying the game is "easy" and others are saying its "too hard". I may be crazy, but who knows.

thats actually ok, you see Insane is about you never dying so its like Easy but with only one life thats why its easy for you, because if its was hard then no one would be able to beat it on insane.

I stated I am on 1.1 in the first post. 1.2 is not out for steam yet. They are failing at it. Insane is the same difficulty as Hard, but with one life... not sure where you are getting it's the same difficulty as easy. The point of insane is to be almost impossible to beat for most people. That's why it's called... insane.

I think you're just used to the combat system. You have an intuitive knowledge of when you're about to bite it and need to roll away, you're used to watching your Quen timer, you have the rhythm of combo/roll down, and you're probably a lot better at keeping track of your stam.

I found the prologue to be a breeze on my hard playthrough... anyway, that's my guess.

actually, as far as i tested, Insane is only insane because imagine you dying at the strairs reaching shile, for some model bug i fell 20 times there, and when you do in insane its OVER, so practically the insane comes not from difficulity but on how insane its is when you just drop dead and cant go back. yeap . . . that is pretty insane i guess.

Hmm.. I haven't played 1.2 yet because Steam still hasn't updated my game, is the prologue really that much easier?

I didn't have any trouble with it anyway, but it was at least engaging and made me play on my toes from the start..

they don't need to compromise the difficulty in this game, it gets much easier as Geralt 'remembers' how to fight properly ;)

From what I read in 1.2 you can attack everyone around you with 1 swing, even from level 1. That's a HUGE advantage, and if true, i'll likely play the game on Hard.

Honestly I find monsters are much harder to fight against. I honestly suck against Wraiths. 2vs1 they always get me.. even on Normal. Probably doing something wrong though.

I may just wait until 1.3 or 1.4 to do my first real play through. Seems like the game still has many bugs.

Is the 'whirl' skill useless then?

My first playthrough was on hard with a really heavy alchemy build.. game was tough but never felt like it was too tough

for wraiths, I fight them just like humans.. since there fight with weapons and have quite some recovery if you block one of there attacks, when you counter attack though repeated light swings seem to miss.. so going light/heavy/heavy seemed to work out, three hits then get outta there.. especially if there were more then one of them

also throw bombs in there faces :)

Has anyone done any testing as to the damage and hitpoints of enemies on Insane compared to Normal / Hard? I have been seeing varied opinions on this matter.

It's almost the same as hard. But I wouldn't say it's the same, i don't remember anyone hitting me for almost 600 damage on hard (see attachement - screenshot is from Operator boss).

holy shite. and you survived?

no, it was my second attempt on Insane. After that I started again :)

That's what I was wondering - or does it just increase the amount of damage that you deal to those around you (i.e. it's not 100% by default)?

We need some actual stats. Reports are varying greatly.