You are comparing a combat system that in no small way is trying to recreate a realism of a medieval combat which includes, realistic damage, exhaustion, staggering, outmaneuvering, weight of weapons and armour, positioning and so forth to a combat system (as "referenced" by you) that has combatants fly 10 meters into the air, shoot fireballs out of their asses, instantly get up from a full body impact hits and the like...

Furthermore you are comparing it by association to BioWare where individuals take multiple hits with very large weapons that seem to have no effect on them (short of a small red bar gets smaller) where people jump and teleport around the battlefield (while wearing full plate-mail and shield) and never actually block incoming hits (which in real world equals instant death).

Now I personally know what kind of combat system I want to see in the future Witcher products and it is certainly not the one you do.

Where the responsiveness of your PC is concerned, I will not offer any comments as I have not experienced the problems you are discussing.

I'm talking about key responsiveness and bugs. My Bioware comment was a dig at DA2 being a rushed product.

Whatever. Just wanted to have my say, because I actually do care about The Witcher franchise.

I was talking about witcher combat, not movies. Have you never played TW? Likewise. It's not about having "minimal problems", but "maximal enjoyment". Which, you can adapt to basically being handicapped, but you don't automatically come to like it. I am handicapped in real life, I don't need to experience the same thing in my favorite game. That would defy the whole point of escapism.

I like WC2 combat for several things:

1. the wheel that allow slow motions while you choose spells or bombs. That makes the game fair and real.

2. the character actually block. Dragon Age, Oblivions, even God of War and AA has stupid combat in my taste. Noone actually block, they get full blow but dont die expect diminish their health. And they jumb 12 feets high and so.

3. they have finishing moves. I am playing Assassin creed again with the WC2. I think the combat in WC2 is just as nice as assassin creed. I believe with the codes they already have, and a bit more improvement, we can flawless combat just like assassin creed but with RPGs elements.

Think about real-time combat like assassin creed where your finishing moves and killing skills could be unlocked by upgrading your character. Just awesome.

Bye bye turn based combat.

p.s: you people should learn programming to walk in the shoes whose people you mock and complain. See if you can be any any any any little better

My advice: Buy the best PC around and then see how it works!
I'm using Win7 on a quadcore I7 processor, with 8 Gb RAM, Nvidia GTX 480.
The game works really smooth. No perceptible bugs. Beautiful!
I play mainly on the Easy level, too, and decativate silly QTEs.

quoted for the truth :P now if only they can read and get something out of this. I am hoping for too much right?

Too many people not reading the OP's post carefully. Never once did he/she mention about hardware problems with the game. It is just the slew of bugs and questionable game designs that can detract from the enjoyment of the game. Various issues, such as input lag, stuck camera, clunky interface are brought up and well discussed in the forum. This can be frustrating especially when you are playing on Hard and you can easily be caught up / killed in attack combination by multiple enemies (the somewhat inconsistent quest-related monster mob spawning does not help).

That being said, other than hoping for a patch. One can but find ways around those issues.
a) Unresponsive system (game not registering keypresses)
- not an elegant way, but press the keys multiple times, but don't mash the keys (when you mash LMB that might aggravate the going-all-over-the-place targetting system).
- learn which actions connect, which do not. For example, Aard + 2-3 hits with LMB works fluidly but Aard + WASD do not. Some funky connectivity issues here.

b) Auto-aim - single out enemies and use ALT to toggle lock if necessary. Make sure when you attack you don't get caught in another enemy's attack combo.

c) Controls locking up - I try not to use bombs / knives that much. At most I use 1 - 2 and roll away. Not sure what triggers the lock-up - the theory that moving and throwing at the time seems plausible.

d) Enemies surrounding you
- I always invest 2 points in dodge and position because of this. Getting surrounded is bad enough without having to take double damage and dodging well could get you out of many tight spots.
- In extreme cases, just run away from the enemy out of their "aggression zones" and they will stop pursuing you (although they are rare exceptions).
- Also try breaking up the mob around obstacles such as ballista etc.
- Use Red Haze to incite in-fighting.
- You can approach slowly (press SHIFT to walk) to attract individual enemies rather than a whole group running towards you.

e) The usual advice: get good gears, and drink potions. Investing 2 points in Catalyst can be very worthwhile (e.g. White Raffard's Decoction at level 2 increases your vitality by 82% while lowering damage by 30% which can be countered with Thunderbolt / Rook or oils / whetstones).

For me dodge was the silver bullet. Wouldn't know how to survive without it (yes Quen helps too but I haven't spammed it since my first playthrough). Bugs do exist, but once you get the hang of the dynamics, it does not bother you as much.

I must say the fade-in fade-out screens and (bordering on) slow-mo animations still bother me though, especially when you chug potions on a regular basis.

Kind of works both ways...

Few pages back there is a post where the OP (different OP) complains about controls lag,
Assuming that the problem is of course with the game,
Later on he changes a keyboard and lag simply goes away.

So like I said works both ways...

Use search function, read before you post and do not name your threads in a hostile/dismissing fashion because it in return will generate hostile response.

Stuff you say makes a lot of sense, but ... this is one of my issues with the control scheme.
ALT is one of the worst possible keys to lock on with, when the combat system uses Geralt's orientation to decide which move he does.
Meaning, your left hand is probably busy pressing 1 or 2 keys at the same time as you want to lock on.

Some people I know rebind lock to something usable with their pinky finger, and that's WAY better than ALT.
Personally, I use rebind lock to middle mouse button, seeing as this game requires less than 2 mouseclicks per second to play like a pro, I figured giving something else for the mouse to do is a better option.

I'd prefer pausing. Note that you only select a different kind of active sign or bomb. That selection could have been done through keyboard shortcuts. This is definitely one of the good parts of TW2 combat. In far too many games, everybody is stupidly bashing away at each other in a contest who hits the heaviest and who has the most hitpoints. Blocking and dodging makes combat a lot more interesting.

There are some downsides, though: Blocking when surrounded isn't terribly effective (not unreasonable in itself), while dodging is maybe a bit too effective, which results in you constantly rolling around like a clown. Overuse of rolling doesn't make combat look very realistic. Also, combat happens way too fast to use block and dodge as effectively as Geralt would in a real combat. Real-time combat is a nice idea, but it's too fast and too chaotic, and we don't have the reflexes of a real swordsman. So it's never really going to look like real combat. I don't like the finishing moves. I'm killing someone with a sword, and suddenly I'm using Igni for no reason? It interrupts the flow of combat, and I just don't like the nature of many of the finishing moves. But perhaps it's my fault; maybe I see Geralt too much as a pragmatic fighter, instead of the flashy showman that he's apparently supposed to be.

it needs improvement . But it is a start. The finishing moves are actually real-time in a sense that they don't put a random cutscene but they give a closer look at the actual combat.

And well, Geralt is a witcher who master both swordman skills and magic
the guy start with bashing the developer. It is his problem that he cannot play well . I don't see how his bad experience is due to the game or the developers.

Many assholes in this forums starts with "the developer's fault" to explain their problem with their game.

Just stupid - They cannot even play a game.

Interesting, I finished the game when it came out (with only the first patch) and did not have any problems. No crashes, and the only bug I encountered was unskippable cutscene before fight with kayran. No other issues.

You know that the enhanced edition of the Witcher was way more polished and stable than the initial release right?

You know they will be fixing these issues, its a small development team who listen to their players but give them a chance.

You've already completed a play through so just move onto something else for a bit then in a months or so come back and check out the newest patches.

Personally im on my first play through on hard (high settings) and its hard and sometimes its annoying htat the magic doesnt work as soon as i press the key but im still loving it

My last gaming session last night ended like this...
I was strolling through the woods of Flotsam, all nests still intact this time around (2nd run on hard), as a regular horde of endregas came at me from all sides, must've been near a dozen. Real creepy. I've never seen so many of them in one place, I was exhilarated and fully intended to put on a firework of a fight!

Only... I could not throw a bomb. I could not use a sign, I couldn't even dodge and roll away to get my bearings. I could only die...

But probably I'm just stupid and can't play a game. :(

Yeah, but if the finishing move shows him using Igni when I was using a sword, the game isn't showing the actual real-time combat that I'm playing. So it is a cutscene that interferes with my choices. In a very minor way, but still, I'd rather play the game without these finishing moves.

I understand why other people like them, so maybe the best solution would be to make them optional. Just like some QTEs currently are.