I have seen the not fun to play part now.

After leaving the tower I wandered into a swamp, saw some critters, thought to give it a go.
Ugh the clunky combat controls, I already forgot what button it was to lock on so the camera ended up swinging wildly in the wrong directions making the fight between the gas fumes impossible. Ever so helpful the game offered me a tip to hold down x to run, of course straight into a gas cloud thanks to mr camera. I thought I had cleared the cloud so I ignited it to hold of my pursuers, I was wrong, optical illusion or whatever, dead. It didn't auto save before the fight so a nice long loading screen back to the tower. (why not reset to the moment you draw your sword or come into range, would be so much more user friendly)

Second attempt, lower the difficulty until I get used to the controls. Of course after I kill them I find the quest to clear the area, as per usual. He still had me looking for some stuff anyway, then the game decides its time for a chase. Ok he's gone, where is my horse, mount and go. Why won't my horse go faster, x to canter, wtf is canter. How do I gallop. Quest failed. Hmm no retry? Reload then, long load, quest failed. Oh it does auto save after you fail how nice. At least it also auto saved before talking to the guy again.

Another long load, blah blah Yennefer, blah blah, ok back to the chase. Huh, now there are 2 horses. Ok get on one. Hmm, it's not going at all, won't move, quest failed.

Again, now he won't mount at all. Horses get spooked and run away, quest failed.

Reload, to the horse again. Where do I stand to get on one of these horses. Finally boarded, spam x, gallop, eureka, too late, quest failed.

Reload, huh quest failed, ah it made another auto fail save. Luckily there are 3 auto save slots. Better add a manual save point.

Reload, save, talk, finally a quick mount and galloping, this steers even worse than project cars. At least the horse doesn't spin out. A couple of erratic moves later, I press attack, cut scene, quest success, anti climax.

At least it's an improvement over the witcher 2 where the tutorial was the hardest part of the game and auto saves were even worse (forcing me to replay an entire chapter after getting stuck)

Good refresher I guess, save often. Oh and x is not jump in this game, it's o of course after he happily ran to his death. And horses can't swim, however they can teleport after you swim across :)

I am officially unattracted to this game.

Besides being Wow'ed by some of the connectivity and depth of some of the random sidequests in the prologue in Witcher 3, there i sthat one moment when the wind first picks up and its almost like a storm that is just breathtaking.  The look of the sky, the trees and the grass blowing insanely all around you, the sound of the wind, ect.  For this HUGE open world game it was just Jaw dropping.

That moment made me go, "wow this is next gen stuff"  Have not really felt that in any game I'v eplayed prior.  Everything else felt like could still be a ps3/360/WiiU game.  

Why?  Reading that is just made me think of half the gaming journalists out there.  Horrible gamers.  

I feel like if he had a let's play and I watched it, I would quit watching very quickly thinking "this guy sucks at games"

Haven't played bloodbourne but from what I've heard of that type of game its very unforgivving and you die alot.  i would think that would have helped people to be prepared for battles.  Witcher is a game taht you don't just blindly run up to groups of enemies and swing away, and just focus on mashing a button till enemy dead.  Someone hits your back and you lose like 3/4 of your hp.  This game rewards preparation big time.  Knowing what enemies are weak against. Quick or Strong attacks.  Applying oils they weak against, using signs they are weak or vulnerable too.  Drinkign potions to do various buffs ect.  

I mean heck one of the side quests you fight a noonwraith and you can't do any damage to it unless you either throw a certain bomb at it or get it into one ofyour signs.  Without researching about it before hand you would not know this and probably die bitchign at the game for being "BROKEN"

Alan wake did the wind blowing through the forest much better though. I just had a rain storm in W3 and it was kinda comical, trees spasm out bending in odd places, weird popping sounds through the surround channels did not sound like trees rubbing together or branches rattling in the wind at all.
Walking though the wheat fields in the wind looks nice though.

I would never research a game, its called trial and error my friend. I'm the type of gamer that goes after the hard trophies like Grounded Mode on TLoU, Crushing Mode in Uncharted, Platinums in games like ME1+2, RE5, MGS series, AC series, GoW series, GTA V and Uncharted series. I'm not one of those people who play a game just to pass time, I actually enjoy the experience put forth and more than anything look for a good storyline and a challenge at the same time. Playing games like Oblivion or Fallout 3 with the difficulty cranked up is time consuming but its the most effective way to make the game more immersive. I get the mosrt out of a game, trust me.

The reason why I said I am now unattracted to The Witcher 3 is because SvennoJ made it seem like it had problems with its progression after death which is an unattractive thing to have in games, plus the statement about the clunky controls which I've heard people talk about. The quest he described sounds pretty glitched but oh well. Doesn't make the game bad, its just my opinion, many people find MGS series to be very annoying but that's just an opinion. My opinion is practically baseless due to the fact that I've never played The Witcher 3 but that's all my previous statement stood for anyways, it wasn't meant to be anything special, just my simple view of some random guys post.

But no, without researching about The Witcher 3 before hand I'm sure I would welcome the challenge, I do not look at guides unless they are Fallout or ES games (I'm a completionist).

Thanks, but I do not suck at games :)

It was the second fight since the tutorial I played a day earlier. (First one I had that graphical corruption). I did not blindly run up, I approached carefully trying to lure one out, didn't work, they all jumped me together. I started dodging which made the camera go wild as I couldn't recall the lock on button.
No, I did not gather traps, oils and bombs yet. Everything was still locked and no money. Anyway the fight wasn't even the problem, autosave points, slow reload on death, and the horrible horse chase were the problem.

I'm still having lots of fun exploring, although I feel like the usual errand boy again. (Find my pan, really) But the game suggests I should level up and prepare, as you said as well, so I'm stuck running errands for now instead of enjoying the story.
Mr experienced Witcher has to start at the bottom of the ladder again, although he claims he's already killed many a griffon, and probably noonwraith too. He should know this stuff, yet he starts as a lvl 1 unprepared rookie...

There is a ton to complete. I've been running from ? to ? location for 2 hours and completed 3 side quests, lvl 2 now. Luckily no more horse chases and I've been running on foot everywhere, no need for a horse. With lock on, combat is a lot better. I did die one more time when I thought I was at a safe distance to equip something, yet the AI was only stuck on the scenery for a while and actually still in pursuit, you do die quickly when you get hit. I'm saving every 5 minutes so it's just a long load, nothing lost.

It's fun for now, yet nothing new here. Standard fare, go here, kill a few things, get reward or go to next step, and lots of loot everywhere. But I'm still at the very beginning. The world is beautifully crafted which is the main attraction atm.

You didn't recall the lock-on button; that's not really the game's fault, is it?
The fact that you had no money, traps, bombs or oils just shows the nature of a true open-world game, one can stumble into encounters one can't handle, especially early on, I remember in Gothic 2 when I stumbled across two black Wargs when I was still only level 2; they tore me to shreds, same with the Snappers at the beginning. It had nothing to do with poor game design and everything to do with my ambition and lack of preparation.

If you had played the game on PC, you would be able to turn autosave off and you wouldn't suffer slow reloads.
This is the cost of getting ambitious games on inferior hardware on consoles, and I don't think we have much right to complain as long as we keep gaming on consoles, knowing these limitations. Rockstar games have huge technical limitations on consoles, yet people buy them in droves and it doesn't detract from the fact that they are great games.

As for starting at the bottom; this is the nature of almost all RPG's series, Mass Effect is the exact same, the story elements and past decisions carry over but you only get small bonuses for past games and essentially have to start over from scratch again, yet this wasn't really a huge point for complaints for this series.

To all those new players to the series with no save games or knowledge from the past two games, would it makes sense for an RPG to start you off in a brand new game at a higher level? Isn't a huge part of the whole RPG experience building your way up from the bottom and becoming something more? I know it is to me, I'd hate to have that initial part of development taken away from my control, they would also need to have made quite a few decisions for the player before you begin, such as assigning skills and signs, which would limit an already somewhat limited character arc since you can't make your own character for the game.
Most RPG's are full of NPC's and companions with flamboyant and impressive back stories, despite these characters being low level of perhaps even complete newbies.

I guess what I'm thinking here is that I don't really see that you're a lot of having huge issues that are the game's fault in and on themselves, but rather had an expecation that the game would be something it isn't. I know I told more than one friend that they should not buy this if they're looking for another Skyrim since the two are quite far apart besides both being open-world.

So, I broke my wow not to play it further until I get better GPU and I played a bit yesterday - honestly, I really don't understand what problem some people have with combat, I find it perfectly comfortable and I'm very happy it makes you be defensive and careful.

That said, I prefer when combat feels heavier and I'm quite used to that, so I've felt pretty much at home with W3 combat right from the start.