Thanks for spotting the issue and going through the work of deciphering the cause.

I like the game very much, it has a wonderful sense of immersion, a thoroughly crafted and detailed world and incredibly buggy controls.
In addition to the animations you have pointed out, I find sometimes in combat I lose the ability to use signs or, independantly of the signs, the ability to use bombs.
I also lose the ability to move freely, I can run but will stop/stutter/stall and start again - only happens in combat and I'm getting a good 40+ fps at the time, the machine itself isn't stuttering.

e.g. stuck trying to kill an endegra queen at the moment, I cannot throw bombs - at all. I can walk to the nearest other enemy pick a fight and use bombs there, but not while fighting the queen. I'd run around and attack her back, but I get half way there and Gerald stops for a quick think about life (and how it's about to end very shortly) before starting up again.

It's as though sometimes, the engine just ignores some inputs.

You should probably start a new question thread about this - losing control / stuttering in combat. It's a totally separate issue from the original post.

I don't agree. I think Bowmanger is confusing the speed of animations with the time between them, where Geralt does nothing. He doesn't even block. He just stands there, and meanwhile monsters are dancing circles all around him.

I'm fine with the animations. I'm not fine with pressing a button and watching Geralt twiddle his thumbs.

I know that the OP is saying something different and that is why I started my original post with the following sentence:

I don't know if my following quote is really relevant in this thread but I'll just put it here too. So from the patch discussion thread, I copy-paste my opinion in this so called "input lag" thing:

I know that there are problems with Geralt's responsiveness but I wanted to be clear on what is a problem and what it isn't. Having Geralt standing doing nothing at all when the player presses a button IS a problem and needs fixing.
Making Geralt stop instantly what he is doing in order to do something else just because the player pressed a button IS NOT A PROBLEM and DOES NOT need fixing. If Geral swings a sword in full force and midway through that move the player presses Dodge then Geralt should NOT insta-dodge. It's what 99% of all game do and what we as gamer are used to but it's not believable and at least an innovative game like the Witcher 2 should try to do it the right way for a change.

I fully understand what the OP is saying here and I agree with him. I just do not want the problem that he is mentioning to be combined with a generalization that Geralt should insta-change his move the second the player presses a button. Most games do the latter but I'd like a game that does the former for a change and if there is developer ready to do innovative things in this era of videogaming then CD Projekt Red is the one to do it.

Well, your initial post did suggest that it was a knee-jerk reaction to the word "input lag", judging from the absence of acknowledgement of the original post - which has nothing to do at all with "instant responsiveness" or "input freeze problem". Nor has any post that followed contained demands for such.

But since you have made your intents clear, I will say, "All right".

Nobody is asking to be able to cancel out of a sword swing straight into a dodge. However, the system as it is now - where you can cancel out of the 'cooldown' animation after a sword swing straight into a dodge works very well. The problem people are having is that almost nothing else chains nearly as smoothly. You can smoothly transition straight from a dodge into an attack into casting a sign, but you can't transition from a dodge into a sign, because the game insists on playing the entire roll recovery animation rather than allowing a logical crossover.

The issue is entirely one with consistency. Some things work smoothly and responsively, others do not. You wouldn't be seeing even a fraction of the complaints if you could as precisively go from run-bomb-sign-sword as you could the other way round.

vAddicted has contributed yet another excellent post.

Bowman's point is well taken, too.

I am confident that CDPr is on the track of sorting it in the right direction.

I was agreeing with the part where he said CDPR should fix the "freezes" (the actual problem some users are having), but not the intended animation (that some find problematic because they're used to more fluid combat in other games, which is NOT a bug/problem), too, you know.

I must have been distracted by every other element present in the game; as I was completely ignoring(or blind to) the behavior mentioned by vAddicted.

;) rep up.

[irrelevant wish..I hope the cycle of animation for left and right foot stepping on the ground for running animation without sword is elongated from 1cycle for x distance, to 1cycle for 2x distance or whichever is bit more immersive. Currently the running animation with a sword in hand is different and a bit more realistic, than without a sword]

@dnna. Sorry, my mistake. A free shot of virtual Vodka on me. :)

On a side note, I'm really curious to see what Flash comes up with since he said he'll be doing a combat re-balance mod..and since he seems to be working for CDPR now, are they paying him to do this? Probably something he'll do in his free time.