This is a re-post from Kotaku, I'm a regular commenter there, and I figured if more people speak up, something will be done about it.

Where do I begin...?

How about the part when I died 30-40 times just trying to get through the prologue. Don't let the reviewers console you, they play video games for a living, and thus are somewhat averse to common game difficulties. This game is brutally and unfairly difficult. I am not the only one with this issue it seems, an overwhelming majority of gamers seem to have run into the same issues as I. I died no less 4 times on the first battle! I thought to myself this is such epic bullshit. This guy is supposed to be a witcher... Why am I getting killed by common footsoldiers...?

They changed gameplay mechanics from the first game, sadly for the worse. Geralt has a quick and strong attack. Neither are distinguishable from the other. There are no more witcher styles. No combo attacks. It seems they tried to give the game an arcade feel, got halfway there, and stopped short. You can only target one enemy at a time. Problem is: THERE ARE NEVER SINGLE ENEMIES TO FIGHT. They always come at you in groups, and the groups use unfair tactics to kill you.

Let's look at how witcher 1 did combat:

You had 3 sword styles. Each sword style had multiple levels of attack, each level consisting of several combo hits. Each successful attempt to attack would continue the combo. Furthermore, there were group attack combos, to use against lesser but numerous enemies that could surround you. Also, you had acrobatics and dodges that you could use to get you out of a bind if you were to get surrounded.

These are all gone.

WHAT THE F?

Now, you only have two basic attacks, a short swing and a heavy attack. As I said before, neither are distinguishable from the other except that one does more damage than the other, they both have the same attack latency, if you will, and opportunity for counterattack if blocked. You might as well be using heavy every single time (which is what I do because light seems, well, useless). There is little feedback other than a healthbar over the head of an enemy to let you know how much damage he took. There are no bone crunching, or flesh slicing or metal pinging sounds to reinforce the brutality of the combat, to let you know: hey, you just fucking chopped this guy's arm off (if it does happen, you most likely will not notice it, because you are too busy running away from enemies just trying to frantically survive). Sometimes, you will wonder if your hit connnected at all, and with whom. You can target lock someone, but target lock is finicky. I can have someone target locked, and then all of the sudden I am attacking the wrong fucking guy? How did this happen? I didn't even touch the target button, no less attack another enemy. If i am gunning for one enemy, you better damn well let me finish him off instead of switching to another. Sometimes success in the battle comes down to how many guys are left. If I can't kill my intended target, that leave me a significant disadvantage in battle.

There is a roll button, but it doesn't do much. Geralt runs as fast as he rolls, what is the point of rolling if you not only sustain damage from rolling but it uses vigor, which you need for spells? There isn't really much advantage from rolling it seems. Acrobatics are gone. Geralt can't flip, backflip, or carwheel over enemies. Pray and kiss your arse goodbye if you are surrounded, you will die within 3-4 hits if you are.

Blocking uses vigor as well. You can't block from behind, which is understandable, but Geralt is sooooo EPICLY slow that you can't do split second dodges as you would expect a ninja assassin monster slayer to be capable of. You can only block one enemy at a time, which makes block useless in a majority of battles because they come at you at the same, and overwhelm you so easily.

I get that you are suppose to use spells, you are supposed to meditate before battles, you are supposed to use potions and play tactically. Once you use your vigor, you are left with guerilla tactics, 1-2 hits and then running around like a chicken with your head cut off until your vigor is restored and then quickly using your spells to temper the battle in your favor. Rinse, repeat until all enemies are dispatched.

It really breaks the flow of battle, which I had thought was going to be a strong point of this game. Of the many improvements from the first, I thought combat was going to be the most improved. After 6-7 hours of playing yesterday, I would have to say that the first game's combat is immensely more enjoyable than this borked heap of shit.

I suppose you could say I'm butthurt. This game was probably the biggest game of the year for me. I was so excited. I was anxious. I upgraded my rig, praised every screen and every video, ate up every detail, posted news updates on Kotaku and other forums on development of the game since last year. This was supposed to be my game of the year. You can imagine my disapointment.

I suppose I can't critique a game without listing some of its good points. Graphics are spectacular. The lighting and textures are the best of its kind. Each environment is carefully constructed, and beautifully detailed. Voice acting is top notch, excellent. Character models are amazing, and there are plenty of them. The story so far is intriguing and well told. The quests seem interesting.

I'm not trying to bash the game. I love certain aspects of it. Buy it to have it in your collection, just don't buy it and expect to play it right now, i can't recommend it in it's current state. Too broken.

One argument that seems to pop up is that Demon's Soul's has a similar level of difficulty. Demon's Soul's was designed from the ground up to be difficult. Witcher and his universe are not. The witcher Geralt is told to be of immense power and cunning. He is supposed to be fast, strong, intellingent, and durable. He is supposed to be able to take on the strongest and biggest of monsters. His combat tactics are not a hack and slash affair. His combat is supposed to be that of a mystical dance of death, each beautiful arcing swing of each sword as a carefully planned and methodically placed as to deal the maximum severity against each opponent.

In laymen's terms (TLDR): You would think that he could take a group of 3 shit-kicking footsoldiers on with ease, cutting each down in one hit. From the beginning of the game, you get your ass kicked by lowly castle guards. This is not the Geralt I remember, the one that I have read about in the books. It breaks the immersion.

Don't tell me I'm playing the game wrong. Modern RPG's are supposed to be about customization, the experience should customize itself according to your playstyle and your story choices. Don't make excuses for broken gameplay mechanics. I believe everyone should be able to experience this game, it's a great game and full of detail both in story and surroundings. It's one that shouldn't be passed up. My biggest fear is that people will play this once, shelve it, and tell others that the game is borked because of poor gameplay mechanics. That's not how and epic masterpiece like this should be remembered.

I turned the difficulty down to easy, but the sense of accomplishment is lost. It seems the only thing that changes is the amount of damage you do versus the amount of damage they do. Playing this game on normal feels like I'm playing elder scrolls oblivion again, backpedaling while swinging because enemies are so much stronger than me and I can run backwards just as fast as they run forwards. It's unfair, unrealistic, and above all, un-fun.

Minor quibbles:

The 360 controller is fully supported, with it's functions mapped out on screen and I have to say that the controller works fairly well in gameplay, but sucks in menu screens. Inventory management with a controller is a pain. Also, there is a very noticeable amount of controller lag in menu screens. I i hit down on the D-pad 3 times, I expect my menu selection or cursor to go down 3 times, right? Not so it seems.

Screen text is so small that it becomes hard to read if you intend on playing the game console style, with your computer hooked up to your big screen. I love playing games like this on a big screen, because the graphics and sound design (ambient surround sounds) will blow you away. But after 4 hours of squinting to see small text in my inventory and journal screens, I begrudingly brought my computer back upstairs and hooked it up to computer monitor just to be able to read menu screens. In other words, if you thought Mass Effect 2 was bad, You will more than likely have to get reading glasses after your first playthrough of Witcher 2 if the devs don't patch it with bigger text.

Other things that don't affect me (as much anyways): no remappable support for left handed gamers, no inverse mouse selection in game menu. No ability to change graphics settings in game, you have to exit it every time.

I could go on. Suffice it to say that I might just wait for a patch. It's hard for me to play a game that is this rich in detail and story, only to be dissapointed by the parts that one actually "plays". As I recall, witcher 1 was quite broken by launch, and within a few months the game went on to become quite a spectacular game when CD project dedicated itself to providing excellent post game support. Let's hope they do the same for this game.

Two words constantly ring through my head as I play through it:

"Flawed Perfection"

In regards to the combat, I think they wanted to go with a more console friendly system, since I'm sure the game was developed with the 360 and/or PS3 in mind. Meaning at some point we are sure to see it on consoles, so they wanted a combat system that would appeal to the console crowd. Nothing wrong with that btw. But in the end, the combat is nowhere as fluid and intuitive as some of the better console games. The combat system feels broken to me. Sometimes I try to parry and it works half the time, the rolling/evading is just as much of a hit and miss. So in the end it turns into a running game and just using magic attacks. Shoot a few fireballs, run a little waiting for it to recharge, shoot a few more, run some more. To me the combat is totally broken and unlikely it'll please either PC gamers or console gamers.

I Agree with you on some level... Game is Extremely Hard, i can't imagine how will someone be able to beat it in "Insane" Difficulty. I also encountered some combat gameplay issues that just make you want to take your screen and smash it in the wall.

E.g. The defence button "E" sometimes just won't listen and i get beat up, imagine being in battle for 5-10 minutes with a single group and when you finally killed everyone of them except one guy, he kills you because "E" didn't listen.

But i must say that combat difficulty improves throughout time in the game, e.g. you will be able to defend yourself from all angles (Parry), it's a skill you learn... etc.

Also i must admit that i like games that are hard, it's more challenging and also it improves the game's lifetime. There is no feeling like winning a battle after 10 failed times -) ... But that is just me.

Anyway, at some point i believe this is turning out to be one of the best RPGs i've ever played. But it needs some patching with that combat system!

Evidence, please, that the "overwhelming majority" of gamers are finding the combat so tough. I'm not (if anything, I was finding Normal perhaps a tad too easy), and I don't think the "overwhelming majority" are. Yes, I think some people, maybe a reasonable proportion, are having difficulty with the combat, because it is quite an intricate and involved system, and the Prologue certainly doesn't ease you in to the game and the combat mechanics... Similar to TW1, were you started at the Siege of Kaer Morhen. There, like TW2, you were thrown into combat against people trying to kill you, and not a nice hand holding "Here's is how to attack, try and hit me", "Here is how to dodge, dodge my attack" type thing. Do you have Vigor? Blocking/Parrying uses Vigor, same way signs do. If you have none, then the Block will not work... it'll be like "E" didn't listen.

OP don't mistake your own opinion for fact.

I disagree completely. The battle system is not perfect but I think it is better than from TW1. It is difficult but not unfair. And I like that every foe can be a threat and you have to make a plan before you go into a fight. And rolling works great for me, it is very important to avoid strong attacks. And I have no problem seeing the effects of my attacks.

But I don't like that the bodys vanish so quickly, and the looting is kind of difficult. The game has its flaws but the atmosphere, graphics, characters, story (so far) are great. And I hope they don't change the battle system much, only a little tweak of the controls, so that it is easier to move and chose enemies.

OK, truth is i didn't know that! Thanks for the info!

So many people saying that the game is too hard, i personally dont think so...Generally RPGs are too easy, when you level up there is no difficulty at all.

And the game is not that hard, you just need to be careful...thanks to this, the game almost demands for the player to use traps and strategies, this is a RPG game guys, not a hack n slash, combat is fucking great in my opinion, dificulty too.

I have to agree with the OP, I cannot fault anything in this game other than the combat. The more I played yesterday the more I disliked it, there is no fun in redoing the same parts over and over again. For me the most important thing in an RPG is the story, when you spend ages redoing battles you start to lose track of that story.

It's not beyond repair but as it is it's no fun at all, if I want to keep doing the same thing over and over I'll get a job on a production line and be paid for it.

Explain to me how it is better than witcher 1. Witcher 1 had some of the most fun and diverse combat for an RPG I had ever seen done on a PC. The reasons were already listed.

I know the combat gets better further in. At this point it has to, because it can't possibly get any worse than the prologue. With such limited abilities and next to no vigor at all, it turns into a mess of hack and run tactics. Trust me, I'm using all my signs. Sometimes, you don't know that you are to encounter a battle until you are in it. At which point you die, then reload your last save and meditate, make a bomb and potion and then replay the area you just played. If you have to do this every single battle you come across, dying at least once, one develops the feeling that something is wrong with the game, not the way he plays.

The prologue is quite a rough start...

I agree with the OP. Combat is too difficult right off the start, TW1 eased you into it a little. TW2 has no tutorial, it just throws 5 enemies at you from the very start. It's more click spam like diablo than TW1 where it was more tactical, the stances were much more artful and also a lot less player skill oriented and a lot more Geralt's skills oriented. Worse it's boring. Run away, run away, run away, turn around, use sign, whack whack, run away, run away, run away......

That last battle in the temple courtyard is just brutal. You have no room to cast signs or place traps and there's 7(?) enemies. Took me about 20 tries, too many tries it was a lot more frustrating than rewarding.

I think a lot of the problem is the tight third-person camera, restoring TW1's overhead tactical camera would be a major improvement. I'm constantly getting stuck on walls and everything feels so much more frenetic ( and not in a good way ) because I have so much less situational awareness.

The QTEs suck. Plain and simple. Who on Earth has ever liked QTEs? Really, click the left mouse button as fast as you can to crank the ballista? That's fun? That's immersive?

I also dislike the camera change for a finishing move, TW1 you retained your camera control, you just lot control of the character while he did his thing. TW2 feels like they were so excited to show you their finishing moves they made them their own little mini-movies, a separate portion of the game not directly related to the combat.

The UI is so poor and console oriented it's difficult to use signs or items effectively. Did any of the devs play using a keyboard & mouse? I think they were so excited to release this on consoles they must have only played with joysticks. Keys 3 is next sign and 4 is next item, no previous cycling, so I have to go all the way around to get to the previous sign? No mouse wheels support at all?!?! I'd love a hotkey bar on the bottom of the screen just so I could remember what keys maps to what signs & items. Oh, I'm sure I'll remember the keys for all the signs eventually but they're not even remotely intuitive. Using the 5-9 keys for a sign casts it immediately instead of selecting it, boy does that reek of joystick carryover. No using an item key directly from a pocket without cycling through it to select it first.

I sure hope the non-combat portion of the game lives up to the hype because right now, I'm pretty disappointed.

Did you even read my post other than the first paragraph? If Cd Project ever wants to market this game to a wide audience, they better not make a demo of the prologue... If the game wasn't supposed to play like a hack and slash, then why on earth did they eliminate sword tactics. Mount and blade has better sword tactics and that game looks like it was made in 1998...

This is just wrong. They are very much distinguishable, the strong attacks need much more time. I am baffled how someone can fail to notice that after 6-7 hours of gameplay. This statement is also wrong. Attacks do chain together in the sense that follow-ups do *much* more damage. There are no unfair tactics. Just those that work and those that don't. Enemies will try to use those that work. Adapt.
Btw, I am told there is a "group style" somewhere in the sword tree. Yes it does. It allows you to move instantly in any direction, without turning. If you fail to see how this is useful, you fail at elementary tactics (hint: DO NOT GET HIT). AFAIK rolling neither damages you nor consumes vigor (blocking does). Yes you can. There is a talent in the Witcher training tree that allows you to do exactly that. Well, that is a tactic that works.
If you find it a tad boring, you might want to use some bombs, traps, etc. as well.
Here is a video of a guy (not me!) playing decently (on hard) with decent tactics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqTyFxVdPvs I am sorry, but you are playing the game wrong (see above for details). And I have to admit, I do not understand people that expect games to play by their rules - I mean, if you play a board game with friends, do you expect that to play out according to your rules as well? But you would have a sense of accomplishment if the game bend it's rules to favor your particular... "tactics"? Err, that is an interesting point of view.


Watch. Learn. Adapt. It's what humans are supposedly *good* at.

The TW1 fights are nicely animated but it does not need any skill to fight. It is basically a QTE system. Just click when the cursor flashes. But is is probably just a matter of taste. And I like the new system better. More rewarding.

I miss the group style too. But I think you can learn it later in the game as a skill. But I am not that far yet.