Avalan: It's interesting, a number of things that you say. Starting with your conclusion :o) I really do rate The Witcher 1 & 2 as a couple of my favourite games and I don't say that lightly. I think they are flawed (even more than just flawed), but they both create a final all-in-all game that I find utterly compelling. I'm hoping that The Witcher 3 will become the same. I'm not sure that will happen without the equivalent of the Enhanced Editions for TW1 and TW2. I have no idea, but I do very much hope that CDPR release an Enhanced Edition one day. My concern is that on release, The Wicher 3 seems to have garnered higher praise than the first two, so I don't know if CDPR will create an Enhanced Edition, or even what it might look to fix.
skeletonbow: But I agree with what you've said about such things as AI. It took me a little bit of time to realise the dog chain system and even after realising, I was still surprised at how often some bandits (for example) are just inside the main gate, but can't go *through* the gate. It means it's very easy to back up a little while still fighting, but then find that they will go no further. So I'm using Igni, only to notice that they're not actually attacking me anymore. And the battle has only really gone back a matter of a few metres.
An Enhanced Edition is plausible some day as much as it is for any particular game really I imagine. I suspect such a release for The Witcher 3 would basically be the most recent update of the game (when released) along with the inclusion of all expansion packs released at that point, the free DLC and any other extra goodies they may have produced at the time, plus perhaps some additional goodies/content.
skeletonbow: I've also found that the differences in level are not good. When enemies are too high or too low, then they don't seem to attack, which I don't like in general, but worse than that is that they can often not seem to make their mind up. Also, as we've been saying, they can still be in combat and yet I find not attacking, but then they do attack or they hover or...? I'm not really sure how it's all supposed to work in theory, or if it is just glitchy. In a weird way, it's a lot easier to find an enemy whose number is green, as they attack me and I just kill them. Much easier. That may reflect poorly on me though :o) But I've found that I can kill a supposedly Red Skull Death enemy and that doesn't seem right. It take a bit of time, but I figure it's quicker than having to come all the way back when I'm a higher level and that doesn't seem right to me.
It never really dawned on me but you could be right there. Lately I've been fast travelling around No Man's Land and various sign post locations have bandits waiting for you on horseback when you arrive via fast travel. Sometimes one or two of them might issue a weak attack on you but for the most part they sit there on their horses not moving at all, or one or two bandits on horses will move along at a snail's pace slower than a human walking, and they will pay almost no attention to you unless you get right up in their faces. Even if they've went into battle mode at that point, they pretty much just sit there and do nothing. They don't rush at me at all, and if and when they do approach, I press my igni button causing their horse to freak out and knock them off, followed by a single left click that finishes them off on the ground. The next guy comes along and does the same thing, oblivious to the fact that I am immensely higher powered compared to them and will totally kick their asses. Sometimes they bark a comment or slur about me practicing witchcraft or something but I can cut several of their bodies in half with a single thrust and some guy with a bare chest and a billy club will still think he can beat me. But he might not actually attack me either, rather just stand there like he's protecting his ground.
Either way - they die. They all die. They all die fast, faster than their brain cells can compute that they've even been attacked, much like the first Apache helicopter strike in Operation Desert Storm.
The AI could be improved to have them actually doing something or giving the illusion they're doing something other than sitting on a horse staring at a tree silently waiting for me to come so they can protect the ground around their special tree.
skeletonbow: Lastly, the first thing you said [I do like to do things in a nonconformist order :o) ] is the scope of The Witcher 3, but it really is something to behold. For me, it's similar to another of my favourites, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but there's graphics, which I'm not so worried about and then there's the *detail* in the world, which in TW3 is just a wonder. As one example, I've been awed by the boats being built. Just... the ribs and beginnings of the planking and that they didn't need to be added. They don't form part of a quest or anything, but there are quite a few in the various lands and they are just one thing out of many, many things that create details beyond just graphics. And they have people hammering and sawing :o) Somewhere along the line, I'm not sure how many of the issue though will get sorted, but I doubt it will be all. Hopefully it will be enough for me. For example, I wish that it were possible to loot something by just looking at it, rather than have to be facing it. But on the issue of scope, I find the sheer number of Quests tempered by the frustrations at trying to find a Quest nearby to actually do. It's sometimes easy to miss the details of the animations and facial expressions during cut scenes, but I do find myself thinking that even a small Quest has had a lot put into it.
I fear for future games, as more and more such details may well require a team of 20... per quest :o(
Yep, the attention to detail is very high in many many areas of the game, in particular all of the background dialogue you hear when passing by random people who are conversing. You hear the same things repeated over time but the sheer volume of unique conversations is astounding, and some of them give hints as to the quests you are on too if you listen carefully enough. Some are just entertaining or amusing, or even just people bickering at each other like in real life. It's awesome.
I also agree that even the secondary quests and other optional quests are quite detailed and mostly well thought out. Many of them have a rather unique story to them be it short or long and the feeling of repetitiveness is almost nowhere to be found. There is some repetition but it's extremely minor compared to say - Skyrim. Don't get me wrong though, Skyrim was an amazing game, but it had a lot of repetitiveness to the Thieves Guild, Companions, various Jarl based questlines. The Mage's Guild questline also had some serious repetitiveness too it. "Fetch me some soul stones" followed by "Go fetch this item someone wants enchanted" and right back to "fetch me more soul stones" on an infinite repeat loop. Got bored of it a bit when I reached endlessly looped respawning quests that didn't seem to serve any useful purpose.
Yeah, Witcher 3 is a fantastic game and overall entertainment experience. It has its weakness like any game does, but the sheer volume of "they got that right" and overall quality makes the flaws pale in comparison. Still, when I experience some of these flaws from time to time I can't help but scream in my mind "WHYYYY?" as it seems like such a huge effort went into the whole game, but then small little things look like they either had very little effort or perhaps the clock ran out too soon and they had to fix the most broken things and ship it before they would have preferred to or something. It's far more complete and stable than most other huge games are that I've played mind you, but it does have its flaws. I do hope that they continue to patch and support the game for quite some time to come though to fix all game breaking and major flaws, and to fix as many other bugs/glitches in the game as possible, and enhance the UI and other aspects based on feedback etc. They appear to be doing so so far, so I'll have to trust them on that personally. Even as-is though, it still gets 10/10 in my book, this game is just too awesome for words regardless of any bugs/problems it might have here and there. :)