Sorry but that's just not true. The game is plenty finished, except for Chapter 3 which is indeed rushed. But the combat system and everything else works just fine. Once you get the hang of it combat is really quite easy, even on 'Hard'.

If you are getting delays then perhaps you need to either turn your graphics settings down a bit, close down some background programs (some parts of the game seem to be extremely sensitive to having other programs open in the background), or both.

Of course, jumping into TW2 and expecting an experience similar to TW1 will only lead to disaster. I did exactly that, starting my TW2 playthrough immediately after completing a TW1 game. And I died. A lot. But the fact that you can no longer charge headlong into a cluster of enemies and slaughter them all by rythmically tapping the attack button is not a "bug". You just need to learn to adapt to the strategies required to be successful under the new combat system:

- Use Quen, always.
- When your Quen is not up, use dodge to put some distance between Geralt and his attackers and put the Quen back up.
- Look for an opening (ideally, try to get behind your enemy) and attack.
- Quickly dodge the counter-attack when it comes.
- Throw bombs on tight clusters of enemies as they fight to get through doors or narrow corridors, otherwise don't bother with bombs or daggers.
- Use Yrden on large enemies (Arachas, the Draug, etc.), for smaller enemies and large groups, just stick to your Quen.
- Don't waste time with parry or riposte, they waste your vigor and are nearly useless against multiple enemies anyways. Stick to dodging + Quen.
- Repeat.

Once I learned this, I stopped dying. And then Geralt's enemies died. A lot. 100% agree, I *hate* the finishing-move cut-scenes. They completely interrupt the flow of combat. And they don't always sync up. Sometimes I'm fighting one guy and I get a cutscene of Geralt cutting down like 3 people. Or sometimes I'm fighting a group of enemies, and I get a cutscene of Geralt cutting down like 3 people, but only 1 or 2 of my attackers actually go down.

Would it have been so hard to just make Geralt do a fancy spin or something, without the cut-scene, and any enemy that gets hit by it falls over dead? At least that would flow with the combat.

This is one of the bugs I and many others have mentioned. One way I found to 'fix' it is to let Geralt get hit at least once, then he starts swinging his sword again.

And guys I appreciate the combat advice, really. But as I stated I've already beat the game on medium difficulty while hardly ever using Quen ( because I feel it's overpowered) I actually think the combat works quite well, when bugs and input delays don't interfere. Problem is they did, a lot. I also played on low settings.

Yeah, I know. About the bug. But getting hit and swinging the sword wasn't even an option, because I went into the woods quite underpowered. On purpose, to improve my tactics at keeping enemies at a distance. One endrega hit was an instant death situation without quen.

The sad thing: I bet when I go into that same save again, I will maybe get three or four endregas, but not the whole horde again. It could've been so glorious... I don't know if you noticed, but quen did get nerfed with the 1.2 patch, the highest possible absorption rate is now 50%.

But I agree that combat advice is only useful, if it's a suggestion, not if it's presented as the only thruth. Because there are a lot of different ways to fight in this game and everyone can have their own preferences. I am using very different tactics the second time. Like, bombs can be very effective in a lot of combat situations. Or dodging a counter attack would be fine - if the command would get executed, but you always have to play for the contingency that it doesn't. I like that you have so many possibilities, but I'd prefer fewer, if they would work flawlessly, then. Let's see, what patch 1.3 will bring.

And just for the record: I played the game on two different pc's with different cpu's, different OS's, different settings, with everything in the background shut down and with everything on until I filled my RAM to the brink - the mechanics played exactly the same, the responsiveness was not influenced at all by all the test scenarios.

Maxed out your Ram ? How much you have in there? I haven't tried the game on my other machine as the ram is maxed at 2 Gb, although it is running XP MCE 2005, which doesn't use all that much resources ( unlike Vista ). You start maxing out the ram, you will get into a Virtual memory situation, which isn't all that great and could be a problem.
Nah. Stupid is when you can't do a simple mod, even with good assistance. : )

I remember when TW1 came out. The thing kept crashing to beat hell. I was blaming the developer at every turn. I had just Installed a new Video card ( 8400GS ) and thought I ws good to go. The previous card was a 7600GS that died. I didn't do my homework as the 8400GS was a step down form the 7600GS as it had a Bit transfer rate of 64 whereas the 7600GS was at 128. Big difference in performance. A 64 bit rate is not for gaming under any circumstances and I failed to look at that when I purchased the card. I went and bought an 8600GT and all was good. Point is, don't be so quick to blame the developer and check your hardware first.

I'm confused. Didn't you just quote the exact statement I wrote about the game performance on different hardware?

The game runs like a dream, graphic-wise with a 955BE quad and a GTX460Amp. I think that should suffice, as the minimal requirement is much lower and I also played it on a dual core. But good graphics alone don't make up for bad controls/response. Nothing I can do about that with different hardware.

Just curious: Are you using any nonstandard hardware, such as a controller, "gaming" mice or keyboard, or whatever?
This seems to be the prime cause of control lag.

Played the whole game on i7, 12GB RAM, GTX 570 (1920x1200), Win7x64
Used maximum settings (with the exception of Uber Sampling)

Used keyboard/mouse (Microsoft Sidewinder) for Act I and wired (Microsoft) X-Box Controlled for Act II/III.
Never encountered any video bugs or control lags...

I think the xbox360 controller is pretty much standard for this game. ;)
Other than that, I have pretty normal Logitech keyboard and mouse and Q reacts the same as (B).

I've just been using a Dell keyboard and mouse. Nothing unusual. I have a quad core 2.33 GHZ, and an ati 4670, 6 GB of RAM. Not cutting edge I know, but that's why I've played on low settings. I get 30 fps, and everything runs smooth ( including camera, which is responsive) except the input lag issue and bugs. There aren't a lot of bugs, but the few that are there are very persistent and will get you killed dead. Maybe certain hardware is incompatible with the new engine, i don't know.

I don't know. Possibly, as I could have missed that. : p Your rig is plenty capable. Bad Controls/respnse is due to design/engine for the most part. Not much you can do about that. My point was that some are quick to blame the developer, when in fact it is their hardware that is the issue and can be corrected by upgrading the hardware as necessary.
Actually, the only problem I have noticed is that the camera gets all crazy at times when in a battle, but then again that could be my wild mouse action too. : )

Well, there's a difference between a slow game and slow controls. That's something, a lot of people here don't seem to differentiate. Or I am not able to explain it right. For example, sometimes I push my medallion button three or four times, until it finally takes and the medallion goes off (yes, I did remap that button to see if it helps). While that one is not deadly, it is still annoying and most of the other command-refusings are deadly.

To clarify, there are even two instances of slow controls. The one, that just doesn't allow you to do two things after one another, without waiting one or two seconds, which is the most annoying "feature" of the game. And then there's the bug, which doesn't execute commands even though the waiting period is long over.

Just for fun: crank up the difficulty to hard and then go wild mouse clicking *g*. Then you might notice, that only every third or fourth of your clicks actually does anything. Problem is, while you figure that out, you're dead three times over. In hard difficulty you need to plan your tactics and your moves just have to be perfect. I like a challenge, but a fair one (wouldn't play on hard otherwise). And If I plan my tactics and then get screwed by unresponsive controls, then I am not satisfied with the game. I believe that is my prerogative. ;)

What was polished, I guess, was graphics and animations. The game is prettier now, and that's really important to some people.

Are you sure about that? I did a playthrough on hard after the 1.2 patch and I never noticed Geralt taking any damage whatsoever so long as Quen was up. Possible exception: boss fights like the Kayran and the dragon. But my assumption in those cases was that Geralt actually got hit twice in quick succession, with the first hit breaking the Quen, and the second dealing damage.