ecat: I must admit to liking TW1 combat, at its best it had a certain grace and style that had me truly believing Geralt was a master of light armor and sword.
My TW2 play is much as Asai describes when playing on normal, but a single finger on the mouse is all that's really needed. As for Quen being over powered, well, it is your choie to use it in this single player game, I would be lost without it and as I don't play these games for the combat I'd probably have given up by now.
Asai: Fair enough i am not telling anyone how to play that is not my bussiness. What is and is not overpowered, what is and is not being used by the player is none of my concern, (not to be dismissive or smart assery). I am just pointing out why i liked TW1's combat over TW2's combat. As a firm believer in "to each his own" there are plenty of ways to self nerf if that is your choice. I am just playing now to finish the story and get a bit more insight as to what CDPR was going for. Seriously so far my only complaint is that the kayran fight seems to so straight out of WoW that i was almost turned off by the game. Fortunately Triss and Ves have such sweet bums, that i would follow them anywhere, so the next chapter it is.
Asai
I agree with you on both TW1 combat and the bums :) The idea of 'self nurfing' is something I often see mentioned, especially with respect to RPGs. I'm not accusing you of the following, but I find the situation both interesting and confusing...
Something like Quen, a feature of the game that supports a certain style of play, in this case the sign path but in another game the play style could be stealth or diplomacy or mercantile or tank etc. Some will enjoy the style of play, some will not and some will combine features from various supported styles to aid their game or create a unique style or simply create the most efficient character the game allows. And now everyone is happy! Except they are not, are they?
Onward to the point... If I decide to play on a difficult setting I will most probably find the game to be more of a challenge, it should certainly require more player skill in order to survive for that is the whole point of the difficulty setting. This is seen as a good thing, my skills are to be applauded and admired, by myself and hopefully others :)
In particular, playing on a more difficult setting reduces the survivability of my character, this is normally accomplished in part by reducing the damage I can deal and overall by increasing the amount of damage I take if I allow myself to be hit.
If I decide not to use Quen I effectively reduce the survivability of my character by increasing the amount of damage I take if I allow myself to be hit. This is NOT seen as a good thing, my skills are NOT to be applauded or admired, indeed there are those who consider me stupid for my choice for I am obviously self nurffing. lol
If I use one game feature, difficulty, to reduce the survivability of my character it makes me leet, yet if I chose to reduce the survivability of my character by using or ignoring some other game feature it makes me stupid. Why exactly do people think this way?
Anyway, off topic and only half serious <shrug>