Yeah, people should REALLY know that this game's design is heavily influenced by Gothic, which means monsters don't level up, so it's quite easy to run into some very nasty things fairly early on in the game.

Oh and I see your snappers and raise you wild boars in Gothic 3 at almost very beggining. ;)

I dont get it either. Maybe I have to play Scholar of the First Sin to get an idea of what "good combat" is suppossed to be but from my standpoint most of the complaints come off as nitpicking (and not knowng how to play). Im still fairly low level (7) but I have no probem killing monsters using all kinds of tactics. I switch between attacks, signs, crossbows and bombs with ease, I also use swallow and thunderbolt when necessary. I havent even experimented with more specific oils or potions yet. Granted 60fps may give me better response and control but eh, I have never understood complaints about combat even since the W2 days.

Or the pack of wolves next to the fisherman's hut right below the first village in Gothic 3... Good times!

Or the first time one stumbles into a cavern where a Shadowbeast is sleeping. So many great moments in those games. I remember Oblivion doing its level scaling thing; by the end of the game, the roadside brigands were wearing Daedric full plate and wielding Ebony Claymores.

Open world games should pose danger and threats everywhere; building a massive, living world with no potential for proper challenges is meaningless imo.

You've got to start somewhere...
Explaining all the buttons in the prologue, than not presenting any opportunities to use them for 2 hours, that's bad game design.
Relying on manual saves, reload on death, that's archaic game design.
Clunky movement, taking control away in cutscenes is not neccesary nowadays.
Sure starting out as a penniless lvl 1 is the usual fare in rpg's, that doesn't make it less immersion braking to play a hero that has all his abilities taken away. I did complete the witcher 2 multiple times (on pc though) and it simply feels wrong to start out at the bottom again. Have me beg for coins for doing simple tasks. I did opt to simulate a witcher 2 save, not sure if that did anything?

Graphics keep getting better yet gameplay remains the same old.
A map littered with repetitive points of interest, tons of mandatory sidequests to detract you from the story, it's all the same old busy work. Handholding you step by step on quests, it feels like Dark souls never happened.

I'm sorry for directing this at The witcher 3, yet when a rpg sits at 93 in metacritic, I merely observe it's not for its gameplay. For me this game does feel very similar to Skyrim.

It's hampered by being a sequal ofcourse, people don't like gameplay changes within a series. Mass Effect changed into more of shooter, and they lost me. But the witcher wasn't open world so they didn't really need to put all the standard open world busy work gameplay in there. Get rid of the reliance on the mini map, let me ask npcs for directions instead of quest markers. Use landmarks for directions, smoke rising out of the forest to indicate a place of interest. Sound to lure me somewhere. Instead of static ? locations with little groups of enemies, add more dynamic encounters. RDR was on the right path, W3 is a step back.

Anyway I'm enjoying the game as it is. It's just that I see this amazingly immersive hand crafted open world, and then the same old non immersive gameplay. If you keep moving your right foot forward while leaving your left firmly in place, at some point it's gonna hurt!

When I say research I mean talking to people int he game about the enemy, finding books in the game about the enemy, reading the beastiary that gets updated as you progress through the sidequest.

I dont mean going online at all.  The beastiary is amazing in this game.

Pretty much zero luring in this game, enemies work in groups as they should.  Always kind of annoying how you can have a group of enemies and then lure one away and be fighting it with all the yelling and growling ect 10 feet away and all their buddies ignore you.

As someone else said, sounds like you forgot some controls, not the games fault.

Rolling away is the wrong thing to do in this game.  Seeing as that was how you basically fought in Witcher 2, I can see many stick to it, but the small dodges are 1000x better.  When you roll away you roll so damn far you can't counter attack back, so it basically is just a way of escaping from being surround or squaring up to the enemy again.  Hardly practical in actual fighting.

Must not have the PC version of the game.  Loading for me takes like a couple seconds at best.  Basically reloading after a death is about same time it takes to fast travel load, and htat is also just a couple seconds at most.  

Also bombs, potions, oils, ect cost zero money.  YOu just find the ingredients in  the wild and craft them yourself for free.  Then to refill them ALL, you just meditate and if you have some hard alcohol in your inventory they all get refilled, bombs, potions, oils, ect.  Way better than last game wher eyou had to have the ingredients to remake them again.

Don't want to get into wether you suck or not at the game, the above is just some hints/tricks to help you out and enjoy the game better.

As for the chase scene and other bugs you may have encountered, hopefully they are small for you.  Had zero bugs so far for me, zero crashes, no lag, fast loads, ect.  And my pc specs are not the "recommended" they are below that.  So I'm not runnign some super computer or anything.  Experienced witcher?  No shit you start at lvl 1.  All games do this.  Do you bitch when in God of War 3 or whatever that your level one when you have done all you did in earlier games?  Though at least you can do everything in Witcher from lvl 1 basically.  You have all your signs available from start, you can make potions if you hav eingredients and know recipe.  You have both weapons and are fully armored up.  Then at this point you decide which skills you want to become more proficient in. And you can't do them all.  You can't max out every skill if you didn't know.  

Oh ok, cool, fair enough. Wasn't quite sure since I've never played the game.

Thé gameplay is not boring, its really bad when it comes to how thé character/horse move, it lacks of precision, its so lame, but in combat, thé gameplay is quite good

Im surprised no reviewers talked about that big flaw... Fanboys or...?

I imagine the fact it seems many put like 100 hours into this game and even if the game controlled like pure garbage you woudl get accustomed to it in that time.

But its just some momentum thing the devolpers gave Geralt.  Only take a couple hours before your used to it.  Only time it really bugs me is sometimes grabbing loot is tricky.  But you can't loot till fighting is over so its not like it ever gets me ragging. 

Thanks for the tips.

I did notice that about the potions, found it rather odd. I tried to make more, yet it wouldn't let me. Have to meditate to refill, weird. Explaining it the way you did makes more sense :) I guess I can stop stockpiling ingredients lol.

Rolling was the right choice in that situation as they were crowding me. It worked fine too against that level 6 bear I ran in to. Side stepping a charging 1000 pound bear didn't seem like the best way to handle that. It was the camera in that group encounter that caused the confusion but yes my fault I didn't know the controls yet. Or is it? The 'problem' with these kind of rpgs is that they start out unforgiving and kinda annoying with quick deaths, and then become very easy later on. You can say that's part of getting more powerful, yet having all the risk up front is not a nice learning curve and turns these games into a big todo list with little sense of meaningful progress after the initial bump.

Actually I did bitch in GoW when it started all awesome with all abilities, which then quickly got taken away to slowly be regained. At least it made sort of sense from the story perspective.

I figured you can't get all skills, yet I do hope you can reset them at some point as I have no idea yet what I'll need or want in 40 hours.

I might sound very harsh and that's not my intention. The world they made is awesome. I'm actually loving it and a bit annoyed with the sunny weather that compels me to go outside. Why can't it rain today so I don't feel guilty playing all day...
I love walking around, talking to the people, listening to the Polish voice cast. Yet for all the immersion the world offers, the gameplay doesn't fit anymore. I'm excited to see what I'll find around the next corner, then slightly disappointed it's nothing more than another 15 year old game mechanism.

Meanwhile I'll keep dreaming of an RPG where you care for, maintain, and enhance you armor and weapons instead of picking up tons of fodder to replace anything as soon as something with a green stat comes along. One where tracks, rumors, treasure maps, smoke from camp fires, lights at night, strange sounds, something luring you, is enough to draw your attention instead of adding ! and ? to a map. One where you have no map at all, but can ask people where something is and they'll direct you to follow the river until you get to the broken bridge, or look for the windmill and head west. One that doesn't say, you should do errands and level up to suggested level 3 before continuing.