Just died 20 times in a row on the first battle. I can't see how I'm meant to survive this when I randomly get set on fire by burning planks, can't avoid being ignited when I cross between hoardings, can't use potions and seem to have forgotten Quen.

I think there are some God Mode mods on Witcher Nexus website, but all you really need to do is get used to the new system. It's far from easy, I know, I died a million times in Prologue and almost gave up on the game because of that. But trust me, it's rewarding once you get the hang of it.

Slash the enemy once or twice, quickly roll away. Rolling is important! Observe your enemy, learn their moves, cut them when they are vulnerable and move away before they have a chance to hit you. Watching some YouTube videos may help you figure it out faster.

I was doing the sword fights without a wound, it was the dragon that got me every time (literally). Decided to RTFM and discovered I do actually have the Quen sign, so all's good (apart from the unmappable keys).

I thought the key mapping got fixed with the patches?

And you do know you're supposed to run away from that dragon instead of fighting it, right? :P

that's not the first battle. a lot of people have trouble because they don't start from the very beginning, which, helpfully, is the top option when you're telling roche your story. you get eased into combat much more smoothly that way.

Yep.

I say this as someone who wisely picked the dragon fight option first :'D

I was running away. I got burned while doing so.

Yeah, it happens. Stick to the tunnel wall and just run forward, you'll be able to defeat the guards later. It's possible even without Quen.

The secret to survival is to not run out of cover when the dragon is drowning the area in deadly fire. Go figure. ;)

Most probably you are referring to the Dragon in prologue. Stop before the roof and scout around till the dragon stop spitting firebreath then only you cross. I remember that's how i did it if not mistaken.

Unfortunately guy the game is full of the cheesey fights like that, worse is yet to come with the kayran, then Letho, and then the Dragon at the end. All are primarily roll spam, Quen spam and click spam so lower your expectations lower the difficulty and enjoy the story that is all that is left.

Asai

You can remap the keys in the game's launcher.

They really should patch in the option to remap in-game, though (so you can test to see which works right away).
But, for now, at least it's .. possible.

strange... i did the prologue parts in order, and had absolutely no problems, except maybe dying a couple of time near the ballista, or testing arrow fire, and in the ignited part with wooden planks.

But running without stopping (except to fight guards in the way) is a good idea IMO (or i had been lucky thos time :p)