on hard mode, took me about 1 hour to learn how to kill kayran. I didn't read any guides or watch youtube videos :P afterwards, I felt very very good :P

queen endrega died the first time I encounter it. yrden! + roll. make sure you are facing it always, or you won't know where to roll dodge :P roll to the side as it charge attacks, roll to it's back, a few strong silver sword hits = GG!

Kayran fight is no different than any other game with scenerios that you or I can't solve. That's why Al Gore invented the internet. But to publicly admit to the world that a $50 game from Poland is smarter than you, well, that takes balls.

you make it sound like other games got boss encounters that plays out differently every time you fight it? you are delusional to the extreme.

what other areas that cries out for attention?

how is the game too short when it is 30 hours long? skipping dialogue doesn't count towards the game length :P act 2 has 2 entirely different sides and quests. that is 10+ hours minimum. so a 40 hour game, how is that short!

you want a game of this quality and 80+ hours long? they would need another 4 years of development to create content. you are out of your mind.

I would love to see what other areas need attention.

You realize this game has two separate towns right before Chapter 2? Not to mention the things you will have missed during your first play through? If you can't be bothered playing it again then I don't know why you'd complain about it not being long enough if you don't seem to like it much.

OMG

What's wrong with the Kayran? I actually thought that was a pretty good boss fight once I realized how to beat it (and it certainly did not take me over an hour!) And I play on HARD!

You want a boss that has god-awful game design? Try the Draug. So unbelievably stupid. The whole trebuchet and archer thing is just annoying. And when he god-damn charges at you and you run up behind him, your targeting system just doesnt lock onto him so your sword keeps missing!

Not to mention that the whole area before that is also terribly designed. Maybe that's just the combat however. Combat without Quen and/or rolling is terrible in tw2. Whoever suggested that blocking should be limited or that stupid staggering animation whenever Geralt gets hit was a complete idiot and needs to be fired.

Another one that confuses hard gameplay with dumb gameplay. I'm sorry, which part of your brain you are using in the kayran fight? I never though that games like arcanoid, Mario, etc. are considered smart. You know, it's like in the joke about soldiers whose brain has only one convolution that sometimes is confused with rectum. I haven't notice anything smart in pressing buttons in certain pattern. Besides, I'm hardcore rpg player for the last 20 years and I enjoy playing games on hard, so cut the crap about real hardcore players. You are not even 20 years old, aren't you?

The Kayran fight does not stop me to enjoy the rest of the game and it wasn't hard for me but it feels like a drop of shit on top of the cake.

Well, second playthrough on normal, killed the Kayran on the first go through the qte thing, i even took photos this time with the steam overlay.

Bad design is when something, which is made for a particular purpose does not do what is intended, right?
This is a boss fight, a big fight, its got to be hard it also has to be different to set itself aside from the normal stuff, it has to be rememberable, its got to be fun to some degree,it must be beatable with no cheating it, it has to be visually exciting and defeating it should bring a amount of relief or euphoria. It does that.
So in conclusion to that and from what i have read from the OP the title is wrong and the Topic should be called,
The Kayran: Needed improvements of the game, story and theory design.
As the suggestions seem to be a list of improvements and just because something can be improved from one viewpoint does not meen it is bad overall, it is just an opinion.

Well looking at it from my two encounters, on the first playthrough i took an hour learning what needed to be done to kill this thing. On my second i took 5 minutes?

I could not say this battle was designed bad, it does what is intended, if you know what to do your fine, if you don't your going to have a learning curve. There is a specific way to kill this thing, it is a boss and it is a game.

Now if you were to look at two other fights, Letho and the Draug, now these are examples of bad design, both work on the same mechanics, both can be killed fairly quickly with daggers or if Geralt is of a high enough level just hack and slash. They are both bosses and are litteraly a cake walk, nothing fun, intersting or different and in some cases (letho) irritating and tedious, if you try to use anything but throwing knives, infact the these bosses seem to be quite the same as every other monster/human opponent just with som extra abilitys.
I slightly dread the letho fight now if that was intended then it is working well but if it is not then that is bad, not only that but i also know i can easily knife him or try and fight it out how it was ment to be played i guess, as a witcher, not the pubs best knife thrower.

There are realy only two boss fights, the Kayran and the Dragon, both are visualy exciting and different to everything else. I think boss fights need to be different for me it give something to look forward too.
I like it when boss fights have something different, like with the Legend of Zelda games, boss fights through out the game tend to differ, ecpecially if you have played the newer ones, wind waker, OoT etc.

Its not bad it is just different, you need to use your brain for all of it, whether through reaction times or pressing a button sequence, which is what most games do.

What i think is being looked for is innovation or being able to kill this thing in any way possible (which would require you to think and it is sandbox thinking if i am correct) for that i think in terms of game design we are many years away from that in general.

The other nightmarish fight i found is in Loc Munic, the talent respec boss thing with the gargoyles, that i found incredibly difficult.

One last thing for the OP, you are right, you should be able to skip this fight, there should be an option to let Sile do it for you but then does that not defeat the purpose of playing a game as a character whos proffesion is killing monsters?

I agree with some of your points but you left yourself open to idiotic replies to your misadventure... The points of explaining the bomb is a serious oversight on the game design, but I found the game design is on par with a second rate dev..

I believe that the tight camera angles are too blame for a sensible tacticle strategy to solving your survival. Some who have said they easily defeated the "Boogie Man"(Boss fight) was more so on a serendipity (lucky) set of movements on their behalf. The Orig witcher did have horrendous boss fights because of the way the cut scenes were implemented and the delay in your actual ability to retaliate. (Which I think was the game engine lag -they built their own engine(TW2) so therefore are totaly responsible for game design)

I personally did not have a problem with the QTE and I'm 65..so what's up with that complaint!!

To sum it up the OP is voicing his sour grapes experience although I found the games inconsistant story line(and shallow character development) somewhat to blame.. To all you fanboys this is not a AAA game yet, but it is good enough for me!! Witcher 1 was a better experience but different then this rendition!

Its story(RPG element)is on a similar level of Bioaware's DA:O's If you have to compare this to the Oriinal Witcher, I would say it is comparable overall to DA2 vs DA:O

PS. Once I figured out to avoid the center tentacles and work on the ends it was actually easy. I'm sorry to hear that this is one of the tougher fights in the game (from anothers comment) but what the hell its been two weeks since release and I haven't played further than Ch 1, just going extremely slow and enjoying the ride.

Surely not that bad? And I'm not being facetious. I'm only part way through CH1 in TW2, but I'm already seeing it as being miles ahead of DA2 and nowhere near the step back/sideways that DA2 was from DA:O.

I spent a hundred bucks on DA:O with the CE and the Guides, DLC's etc and I mostly liked the game, I haven't played DA2 that much (only bought it because EA's site heavily discounted it and I gave up on it because of its dumbownedness(is that a word?)(I was trying to teach EA a lesson by depriving them of my playing existance of their shitty followup( I did the same for EA's Mass Effect 2 their sequel's sucked..and gave up on that too!!

I loved DA:O, and didn't mind ME2. Thought it was decent enough as a sequel (although there were elements that I took issue with, overall I found it fun to play). DA2 I thought was brutal (and I'm pretty much a die-hard BioWare fan). It plain sucked. The only BioWare game I've ever played where I found myself just wanting it to end.

TW2 though, I'm really, really liking a lot. I'm not blind to its shortcomings by any means, but overall, at this point in the game, I'm finding it to be extremely enjoyable.

I've not died once in Witcher 2 and not been able to know exactly where I went wrong.

It's all about brains over brawn!...

Q: How big is the Kayran?
A: F***ing huge!
Q: So how hard is he going to hit you?
A: So hard my ghost will be walking funny all the way to Valhalla
Q: So how do we stop that?
A: Quenn

Q: Whats that witch shouting?
A: "Trap it with Yrden"
Q: So what you gonna do Einstein?
A: Trap something with Yrden???
Q: What you gonna trap?
A: Those big glowing things look kinda vulnerable?
Q: Duuh! ... is "Duhh " a question?
A: No... but I catch your drift.

If there is a problem it's that there's not enough information available before the battle in the Kayran book you can purchase... You have to come to the above conclusion before you die in 2 hits...
BUT when something is that big Quenn should be a reflex! As it gives you time to assess the situation.

Can someone tell me what the whole rock throwing thing is?
Are there multiple solutions to this boss?

Here's what happened to me:

Traped a tentacle
Yrrden a second tentacle
Yrrden a third tentacle
Climbed onto a swinging tentacle
QTE to crawl up tentacle and avoided being throwing into the bridge pillar
Climbed up fallen bridge pillar thingy all the way to the top of the kayran.
Inserted bomb into Kayran.

The end.

No rocks were thrown.

Was I just lucky or something?

How true and good post ( love the humor ). I have been down there three times with no serious intent to take him on, but just to look around at the situation. Course they were very short looks as you last long. I just went in there with a serious intent to take him on and made it to riding the tenticle, but couldn't figure out what to do, then noticed the mouse icon w/ right click showing at the bottom............just before he got me ( my Quen ran out ). Doesn't seem to be much of a problem getting a tenticle ride, so I'm part of the way home. Actually, I have been kinda putting this thing off, but I need the Bounty money now and I find it kind of fun messing with that thing.