bartholen said:
But there's new problems too, the combat, rather bafflingly, still being the biggest one. It's much more satisfying now that player input actually feels like it matters, but it's like this: it's Dark Souls combat, but without the ability to block 100% damage, no crowd control, rolling doesn't give you I-frames, and with 10 enemies all coming at you at once. The very first combat encounter outside the prologue chapter had at least 12 enemies coming at me at once, with the combat system giving the player tools to manage maybe 3 at a time. What sense does that make? I also didn't like how the game rather condescendingly decides the recommended difficulty level based on a combat challenge that's immediately thrown your way after an insanely long tutorial where all the mechanics are dumped on you at once.
Here're the ways to make the combat bearable (even fun):
Use Quen, and only Quen, ALL the time. Seriously, it's so much better than the other ones it's note even funny.
Treat the combat like Two Handing light armor Dark Souls, anticipate attack, dodge away, strike his ass off. This works well for basically every enemy in the game.
Try to avoid backstabs, because that's how you get oneshot.
Ignore memes about traps and "preparing yourself before every encounter", this is a blatant lie which is still being repeated. Potions are nice but almost never vital, that said, they do last for quite a long time and dies give decent buffs (rook gives 10 % extra damage on swords, to give you an approximation of their power, nice, but not immediatly noticeable or vital), so I do recommend using them.
The hardest part will be when you're in a forest fighting monsters called "nekkers" and especially "Endregas", there's a side mission about killing "Endrega Queens" which is the hardest fight in the game, after that it gets easier, and it gets very easy by the lategame.
Also, I do recommend doing the sidemissions, aside from the monster contracts they're all fun and rewarding in ways (in such a way I was a a bit confused by the reception for Witcher 3's side quests, since they were already great in 2).
Other than that, pay attention to the storytelling, the politics do get genuinely complex in the latter part of the game. Other than that, you're good to go.