I'm now ploughing through the main quests and side quests because some of the hunts are just a tad too high level for me. These are some of the best and most interesting quests I've come across in an RPG. Loving them.

And I've still got another FULL map to explore!

The game really needs a storage chest. The weight restriction seems good at the start but you end up collecting sooooo much alchemy and crafting materials that it takes up everything!

Ugh, the main quest can be infuriating too.
Save people from a barn, trial and error so I ran out of breath the first time. Reload, wait, that's not where I saved. Beware game saved isn't always game saved apparently.
Then suddenly I have to fight the baron, can't roll, can't use potions, can't do anything, before I figure out what's allowed I'm dead? Didn't he only punch me out, reload. Bet I can't kill him...
And he starts punching me immediately when the reload is done, dead again, didn't get back fast enough, grr.

So it continues, just getting into it, followed by a slap on the wrist again. I better get ready, reload might be done any minute...

Yeah but it has unrivaled diversity and mods can make it into any combat system you want.

Hmm, I dunno, I got pretty tired of fighting wolves in woods and Draugr in the dungeons. Diversity is among its weak points for an open world game, in my opinion. Morrowind was actually more diverse in many ways, but it had a much smaller map, making it simpler for the developers to make it so.

Fallout 3 suffers from the same problem; the world is big and open but after a few hours you've pretty seen it all (and I have about 150 hours in Skyrim with two different characters as well). New Vegas was better in that regards.

Mods are awesome though; they can both add content and change features or mechanics in the game, my favorite mod for Skyrim is the UI mod, without a doubt. The standard UI was horrible.

I finished the main quest in Velen. It was great apart from some game play issues. Currently I have about 35 open quests left in Velen, pretty overwhelming. Which ones are filler and which ones are worth doing. Or should I just head to Skellige and move on with the main quest.

For now I decided to help Trish in Novigrad. My inventory limit is temporarily fixed after I found the +100 saddle bags, although that will likely make the already slow inventory navigation worse. I'm getting a bit bored of finding merchants to sell to as well, 9000 crowns, what to do with it. The npc recycling is getting ridiculous at times, stop following me silly people. Even the akward sex scenes are identical...

It's all fine when the next glorious sunset or sunrise bathes the world in golden light. It's a nice place to be in, yet apart from the main quest its the usual laundry list busy work with all too familiar kill, loot, shop cycle.

Imo the best RPG ever made. I am after main story and I can't stop digging into this beautiful world. There is so much to do.
Main story can be a bit overwhelming for those who did not read books (seriously guys you should at least give them a shoot), but sidequests are THE new definition in games. Witcher 3 sets new standard in RPG games.

After reading this post and another of yours,( http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=7299777 ) maybe you should just concede that this isn't your type of game. 

You're not finding issues that aren't there but they just seem much worse for you and result in death, easy and very avoidable deaths. Running into a pack of enemies in the middle of a poisonous swamp just cos? Ignited a flammable cloud around yourself and died? End of the paragraph, you even lower the difficulty to get used to the controls... Not the games fault. 

Couldn't save the barn hand? Isn't there only one way to go? One door that opens? Silver platter, imo. 

I'll concede that the camera at times does suck. Roache can just run off to avoid combat and the lock on system needs improvement. After reading your posts though, you're having troubles that are just obvious and terrible. Roache has a one button mount system. 

One button. 

Maybe the game just isn't for you. 

Maybe it's not, yet I'm still addicted to it despite all its faults.

That early death was easily avoidable in hindsight, but it was my first and I felt sabotaged by the camera. I knew the gas was flammable, it looked like I cleared it in the current camera angle, yet I clearly wasn't. Die and learn is the motto. The problem is in the way death is handled, long load screen and hope you saved recently or the auto save point was somehwere nearby. Same with the chase quest in the same area. Not user friendly at all. It was probably a glitch though, second time I played it (I started over) it worked in 1 go. Maybe the patch helped, dunno.

In the barn, yes there is one way to go, I didn't get to it in time. I found 3 doors at the lower end, the third one was the exit. Or maybe it was 2 and the camera tricked me again. I tried to open 2 locked doors anyway, sorry can't blast this one, try another. No silver platter at all.

The world and characters are great and I want to see more, the gameplay is a hinderance at times. For example what is the point of letting me play Ciri for a few minutes. I had another screw up with the bit where you get rudely interrupted by a cutscene when the barron gets grabbed by a griffin and put on top of the tower. I tried to get on the tower only to be met by invisible walls, clearly jumping high enough but not being able to get on the ledge. Blame me or the camera but the 'obvious' path wasn't obvious to me and I set out in the only open direction following invisble walls all the way to the harpy feeding grounds where further invisible walls barred my way. I figured maybe if I kill enough harpies the griffin will come and I can finish him off, there must be a reason I can go here. Well not, after killing 10 of them I went back along the walls to the tower where I spotted the ledge for another cut scene to finish the now completely ruined story scene. So yes, it's often not all that fun to play, but it's a great place to be and explore with awesome characters to meet. Plus it knows full well how to get you hooked with all the increasing numbers and loot.

It's not particularly the witcher's fault. It's more the nature of open world games. You have to play more and more to get the same satisfaction out of it until it leaves you burned out. At least that's my experience with these kinds of games. I'm in the honeymoon period atm after a rocky courtship, yet I know it will end in divorce, at which point I'll never touch it again.
The witcher 2 was better for me. There I was actually interested in figuring out what all the choices did and played through both paths in chapter 2 and all the mutations in the last chapter. I've stopped caring about my choices in the Witcher 3 and enjoy the world instead.

Ah, certain restictions in this game with invisible walls really suprised me...such an amateurish mistakes from CDPR. That, along terrible handling of jumping and climbing steeper hills, is really annoying me, since there are more than a few open-world aRPGs that do thic right.

Anyway, I've accepted that I have to play with POIs and quest markers so far, so I'm trying to enjoy it that way, but can't shake off the thought how much better the game would be if they were smarter in how they've designed world-quest-POI symbiosis. Still enjoying it a lot, I would still recommned it to all open-word aRPG fans, but overall I'm in 8/10 mood (which is pretty good for me, my favourite aRPGs are 9/10).