A lot of people are outright crybabies and others are trying to make the combat sound flawless. Right from the start the vast majority of encounters consists of groups of 5+ (sometimes much, much more) enemies. In this all too common scenario, there is NOTHING you can do but run away chucking bombs with quen activated and rolling in to get a single strike then running again. Clearly, not what was intended and clearly doesn't feel right as many have said. In a lot of these scenarios it's purely chance that saves you. What is clearly flawed is that attacks cause you to commit to a target leaving u open to unavoidable attacks from the many other enemies. A lot of people have said parry, which unless I'm crazy is just silly especially since it conflicts with quen with vigor and since you can only parry so many attacks at once all you'll get is a short period to quick attack then retreat as usual.
Quen seems to be 100x more useful than any other sign unless you invest in magic tree which is clearly not balanced. Trapping one enemy does next to nothing when there's 4+ that will hit you if you try to do anything more than quick strike and run, Aard? sometimes you'll get the instant kill (chance) and sometimes it does effectively nothing, Igni does low damage against most and is just silly vs crowds. The game clearly wasn't intended to restrict you to one sign.
Truth is, unless you think of Gerald as a grenadier that's always on the retreat rather than a swordsman set out to face his enemies, the combat clearly isn't working very well.

AND PLEASE: if you have a valid argument or know something I don't, don't flame.
I'm open to reasoning and all flaming does is bring more people to come and insult each other

Please learn how to play the damn game before complaining like an emo
I agree the combat isn't perfect but it is good, actually I find the game way too easy even on normal difficulty
I also agree that the magic in the game is very weak, sword play is the main idea :\ First Witcher had it balanced out, also the enemies are usually way too weak but Geralt dies a lot easier than in the previous game. However you do have to remember the game was just released and there is a lot of space for fixes / patches coming in short future. There are also additional DLC's that will come eventually and will make us all happy :D.

Games I am awaiting the most now:

Diablo III (PC), Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword (Wii)

Well, I would respect your response if you had any substance as to why what I said was untrue? Also, your mistaken as to what I think of the game, this is the best game I've played in quite a bit of time and I literally made this post after a crash and thought I'd add my insight on what I've seen so far.

Well I thought you were one of those trolls like Frenhrir constantly bitching about how combat sucks etc and how the game is terrible. Most of these people have hardware issues or are Bioware ass kissing people

Well I think they have made the combat make more sense now.

You are still one man. Witcher not - you should not be able to easily take on 5+ enemies. No matter who you are. The issue most of you are having is that in the first game the "group" style obviously allowed you to take on too many at once - making you to be a seriously overpowered individual.
This time around they have toned it down.

When facing multiple enemies it makes sense you run around, try to get into position. Use various signs, throw knives and bombs. Set up traps in advance and lure enemies there etc.

In the first game you could defeat almost any combination of foes using nothing but your sword. And I actually finished the game on Hard, rarely using anything but my sword and Aard sign every now and again.

I find the combat to me more realistic this time around.

Yep I love the fighting system in this one, but the magic is a little dumbed down :P POLSKA NA ZAWSZE!

I'd absolutely agree and I'd take this games combat any day over the first as it is much more skill-based and you have a lot more things at your disposal but I find it seriously confusing how every encounter has to involve so many enemies which causes this strategy to be used 99% of the time making it seem like that's the whole of the game's combat. In order to have a fair fight that doesn't involve running around there needs to be no more than 4 enemies which I expected most encounters to consist of but I was mistaken, at least thus far.

*Spoiler*----
I remember doing that quest where you meet the girl by the waterfall and I thought it was a glitch when that many elves came and attacked along with several drowners and the quest before that one when you enter the cave and at least a dozen nekkers attack you.

My advice is play magika first. The combat concepts are similar in witch2
U have to make use of all the tools u have at ur disposal

That's patently untrue. I played a magic-oriented character (almost all points in the magic tree), and both igni and aard do good damage on an area as long as you remember to equip stuff that'll improve the sign damage.

If you use the critical hits mutagens and the talent that increases the likelihood of inflicting status effects, most castings of aard/igni will stun/incinerate an opponent, making them helpless.

Yrden is a bit situational, Quen is more useful to a sword-based character except in some fights.

To summarize, magic can be very effective provided you dedicate your character to it.

Try to tell Frenhrir on this post that the game is good and involves strategy http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/the_combat_not_that_great/page12

of course he will troll and be a little Bitch about it

the thing i find most about people posts that complain abotu combat is me raising my eybrows going "wtf would you do that when fighting"

you guys say you HAVE to do these things to survive? what no you don't. I would fight multiple ones at a time, using NOT QUEN. Using Igni or Ard, good stunners to then attack for more dmage or switch to another close combatent while that one is stunned.

I also agree combat isn't perfect, but like i said 99% of complainers are just being stupid in combat. I read your post and would classify you as a noob in combat

Same here (although tbh, we're all "noobs" at this game considering it just came out, and not being good at action RPGs is no shame). I barely used Quen except for enemies that were unaffected by Aard and Igni (mostly the dragon).

Personally I feel that the biggest problem with the combat is the targeting system, which sucks. Apart from that, it's probably a bit too hard at the beginning, which discourages some people.

As long as you're patient, plan ahead your movements and use all your assets, the combat isn't hard.

No game is ever perfect, especially when it has been released recently. We got to wait for some patches, but even with just one patch so far the game is great

I second that. This time around you really need to think ahead and consider the situation you're into; and most important thing I found: to defeat opponents you need your skills + Geralt's. You just can't take a look at some stat and swing the silver/steel sword and think that's all you need to take them down.

Still don't like? probably, it's a matter of taste.

Combat design/concept is better than the first game IMO, the issues are in the details.

-Signs and blocking need to be more responsive, just don't work sometimes and I'm not sure why. Perhaps they need to allow them to interrupt attack animations/attack chains.

-Blocking shouldn't require vigor - or at least require less. It's already relatively inferior to dodging anyway, which costs none.

-The aiming auto-adjust system needs to be toned down, it should adjust for only a bit of an angle, rather than attacking and lunging toward what seems like random enemies at times.

-Mutagen system is counter-intuitive, since you can't change them majority of them will never be used by anyone - only the best. Should've made less powerful talents only allow less powerful mutagens or something as well as allowing them(and talents as well really) to be changed. What sounds good on paper doesn't always work in practice and players shouldn't be discouraged from experimenting with builds.

-Bombs/Traps are pretty powerful, I'm pleased with them so far. Should be able to collect traps without disarming them first however, really no need to make it a two step process.

-Smaller, group based enemies probably hit too hard. Things like drowners and nekkers/nekker warriors in numbers greater than 2-3 are pretty much suicide to face unless you cheese them by running in and out of their range.

-Igni should be a conal AoE or do more damage - not a full circle spam it until everything dies like the first game. It doesn't do enough damage to be worth using single target.

-Aard probably probably needs the conal treatment as well.

-Yrden seems fine to me - maybe could deal more damage though, Geralt really just needs more vigor so he can use them without feeling like it's a waste.

-Axii seems fine, pretty useful.