Name one RPG game with better fight mechanics.Warband is excellent and I get the same feeling of mastering a system as I do with TW2 and Warband is not an RPG.The very close quarters combat in TW2 is very hectic and loses a bit of the feeling of control but I can't imagine you being able to do strategic moves with friend and foe surrounding you.

It may be possible to solve the problem by aiming the camera, but it is still a bad design choice.
Why they included this rediculous auto targeting is beyond me. Probably a technical shortcut. The way they have it now means they only have to do hit detection between Geralt and the target, not between all possible targets and Geralt.

Personally I would call that either a bug or at least a bad design choice. This can be understandable in a turn based or more strategical based RPG but not that much for an action RPG.

For me having to practice to improve your skill is fine... having to practice to get around gameplay flaws or limitation is a totally different beast and personally I don't consider the later to be very interesting.

(I am not saying that W2 combat is bad or anything, at least not before I have played more, just that it has IMHO a lot of rough edges)

im guessing its for thrown weapons

I think I could have designed the combat to be more fun than what it is. It is too hard to start with and the tutorial is very poor. Where have the flips and spins gone from the first game? These would have been great to get behind an opponent or to get out of a corner. Too often you get stuck in a corner with no escape and this is frustrating.
There could have been some sort of timing mechanism like the first game that would let you increase the power of the moves.
The game is good but the combat is letting it down and could do with some more thought.

My only problem with the combat system, is that the past couple of weeks I played W1, so I got used to those settings, and kept on trying to use them in W2. But now that I am used to them, I'm ok..

i agree, add that to the stong move set atleast.

and maybe Aard and Igni

the other two dont really need it

The jazzy moves come from getting a # of hits in a row. Nothing sweeter than getting a good combo, doing a spinning backhanded slice then double-tapping to roll into an enemy for a strong attack while they try to rush you.

Sexual.

*puts on flame-retardant clothes, grabs some marshmallows and hunkers down*

My problem is that the sword combat mechanics break once you have to fight more than one opponent.

The auto-targeting is awful, just plain awful. You can be attacking an opponent, and one of his buddies closes in and gets kind of between you and your target, you're screwed. One of two things will happen. Either you'll switch targets and your sword swing will go after the new target, which doesn't connect because that enemy is going to either hit you first and interrupt your attack or block it himself because you were timing the attack against the original target. Or you'll maintain your original target, who is now out of range because his ally moved in, and now your attack passes right through the closer enemy but doesn't do any damage because it only registers collision detection for your selected target. Which lets not forget, unless you have ninja like concentration and reflexes, becomes absolutely useless in a group fight.

So your blocking and Signs both draw from the same power. Great idea in theory, terrible execution. Once again, against multiple opponents, block is next to useless. So what if you can block the first two attacks? You can't block attack three and four, get interrupted AGAIN, and then the guy you block originally joins in on hitting you while you can't do anything back. Not that is mechanic hinders the enemy. Fighting one of those double sword wielding elves? Guess what? They can block EVERY attack of a five or six attack long chain! They don't run out of blocking, but Geralt does. How is this fair again?

And why in the hell does every opponent stagger back for a successful block, more often than not putting them conviently out of range for a counter-attack? Don't forget to watch out for his 2+ buddies who will be after you, and if they so much as swing in your general direction, will once again interrupt your attack. Leaving you vulnerable just in time for your original target to move back into range and say 'hello' with his sword while he's at it.

Rolling? Well, it works, but not well. You'll get hit every time you try to roll past anybody with a weapon. This is ironic, since almost all group fight devolve into a series of run/attack/roll/repeat. Or if the enemies block EVERY one of your attacks (like the aforementioned dual-wielding elves) then it's run/sign/roll/repeat.

This is not epic. This is not fun. Geralt is supposed to be a renowned swordsman, but he can barely fight his way out of a paper bag. He get interrupted by any little bit of damage, causing him to be flung into back in various states of complete helplessness. This only allows him to be hit more, further amplifying this broken mechanic and ruining the combat. I get that Witchers are more than just swordsman, but this is ridiculous. All of the signs, potions, and traps don't make up for the fact that the sword combat mechanics fall apart against more than one opponent.

Every group fight requires multiple tries (it took me 4+ hours to finish the prologue because some fights took upwards of 40 tries), and it's time consuming and aggravating to no end. When you have to use cheap tactics to succeed because the game's mechanics are broken, there's something very wrong. Unless of course your entire goal was to make group fights the most god awful part of the game, because as of right now, for me they are. I love everything else about this game so far, but I am so damn tired of having to restart these 8+ vs fights over and over again.

What do I think would help fix some of the problems with the combat? Fix the targeting system, try something like the system they used in the Knights of the Old Republic series (and just about every MMO), or use the old setting from the first game. Either always have an enemy selected and allow me to rotate back and forth through all available targets, or let me click directly on them. The current system is akin to selecting by looking, similar to the driving controls for the Warthog in the Halo series. Can it be fun at times? Sure, but it's not what anybody would a 'precise' system by any stretch of the imagination.

Fix the combat interrupts, make them less frequent and serious. The enemy should not be allowed you knock half of your health off in a second because just one of your attacks got blocked, and that left you completely defenseless. And for the love of crap, find another system for blocking, because the current one doesn't work. Look at the Assassin's Creed series, it can be done. Not that you should also turn all of your fights into a parade of constantly blocking and lethal counter-attacks, but find some middle ground. I will say this about Assassin's Creed, I never felt like the game was cheating against me, it never felt like my opponents were using the games mechanics for an unfair advantage. Not like the combat in the Witcher 2 does.

/end rant

^^^^ Holy Wall of Text, Batman.

I mostly agree with the basic premise though - group battles aren't as fun because the combat system is geared to one-on-one combat (which is few and far between, if we're being honest - most scenarios involve facing multiple opponents) and this results in strafing-type attack tactics.

Whilst I'm glad they changed the combat from the first game, I think some sort of "outnumbered battle stance" mode is required so you swing in large circles with your sword etc.

Strange, I really enjoy fighting groups of enemies. You just gotta react quickly. I've just posted this vid in another thread, only used Aard sign and a single bomb, not even needed a Swallow potion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS6463DdJfk

The parry button dont seem to work great. I tend to evade and then parry. But, the parry doesnt work unless Geralt comes to complete stop.
Say, I am fighting 2 nekkers. I evade their attack and I am very low in health, so I decide to parry after the evade. I press space and then T (i remapped it). But, the button wont work unless geralt has completed the evade move and come to a stop. I mean I have to press it after he comes to a stop. By which time the nekkers decide to hit me and I die.

some fine work there, but does not make the block system less useless.

garalt is still suppose to be the biggest badass on a battlefield ever. so why cant he do things without running away half the time even in your video alot of it is get away and get em one by one.

because you need vigor to parry or block

orly i mean that has not been brought up 1000 times already