I have got to agree with general consesus in this thread, the Prologue was a failure as a tutorial and to most frustratingly hard. The sad thing is that the prologue is one of the worst parts in the game. I am surprised that some folks did not quit because of this poor introduction to the game. Hopefully they can tweak and make it a bit more inviting than frustrating.

I also agree with the statement about oversize bosses. To me it so unrealistic that it even clashes with the sensation of the general fantasy theme. Worse case scenario would be God of War type bosses, I hope this game never introduces that.

You play with a controller, so there are a limited amount of keys for you to press. So it was easy for you to discover what did what and when by accident. I play mouse and keyboard on a PC, not a crappy toy imitating a 10 year old cheap pc. There are way more buttons available to me, and the devloper decided to put these ALL over the keyboard to which they are not even accesible by one hand without leaving WASD. The game never explains where these keys are, or that these functions EVEN exist. Because you mashed your way through training and figured everything out, doesn't mean that it was terrible game design.

"Just press LB" hilarious.

"Just press mouse5"

"Just press ctrl+i"

See how the first one makes sense because it's one of 12 keys. But me calling out a single or combination of what amounts to an option of 150+ keys is entirely unintuitive. Obviously with 12 keys you will stumble on the solution, with 150+ keys and an expectation that this crap will be explained to me, one will NEVER stumble upon the solution until they become super frustrated.

Logic puzzle: Here is a game. Here is a remote with 150 keys. 12 of the keys do something at any given time, yet the 12 keys are not the same in some contexts. How long does it take you to determine which keys DO something AND what they do?

Answer: Way longer than it takes to lose interest in the narrative. Console game that relied on the button mashing tutorial effect, and pc'ers got screwed again.

But how did you learn this game mechanic? By accident. Now i know why Axil has NEVER done anything for me before. Believe me I tried Axil on the courtyard fight as it seemed overly hard. The characters simply flinched and continued assaulting me. How am I supposed to know that i need to HOLD the button for this ONE particular witcher power effect to take? I simply assumed it was a status based effect after a couple tries, and i was too low a level to Axii an opponent.

This thread is win. Because it's challenging and difficult, it's a game flaw. Oh no the prologue is bad because a died a lot. Whatever. I hope none of you play Demon Souls then, if you are crying now, you'll be ploughing bricks with that one.

At least this thread is good for lots of laughs.

The prologue might have worked to introduce the story if there was also a separate tutorial that players could skip if they wanted to. But having tutorial pop-ups that don't pause the game meant on my first time through it that I could either read them or focus on what was happening. The same criticism applies to quest progression and other things that pop up on the screen and often disappear before I can turn my attention onto them to read them. Maybe it's just me: I don't have the reactions of a hummingbird filled with coffee any more!

I'm going through the prologue again now that I know how to play the game, but that's something that should have happened the first time!

That's the point. The point of the prologue is that CD Projekt is telling you some investigation, trial and error, some reading and learning from mistakes will be required for the game. The prologue doesn't just introduce the background to the game, it also introduces you to the type of game it will be and CD Projekt did that marvelously. They told you right off the bat no hand holding here.

It's not a game flaw and I think it's awesome and I hope more games follow suit. This is probably one of the best features of Witcher 2.

And for icing on the cake, reading all the people whine and complain about is also eating the cake. It's so awesome, this thread is full of win.
All of that is in the journal. Seriously, WTF... Pressing J is not hard.

You are ridiculous. What if later in the game you were required to press block rapidly for it to have any effect against stronger opponents. You just died and died over and over again until you realized that there was a new unexplained mechanic involved. You then grin broadly and say, "Well done, Cd Projekt!"?

Congratulations, you read through a walkthrough. The game quite clearly introduces you to nothing. For instance: A lot of people struggle in the temple courtyard in the prologue. They ask questions and they get responses like: "Meditate, make swallow and brown oil if you can." These things mean absolutely nothing to a brand new Witcher 2 player. Since the game never introduces any of these concepts to the player, how is the player supposed to know these things? Not everyone is Witcher 2 omniscient like you. I guarantee most players were like me and did not even know there was a such thing as Meditation, or Alchemy, or Oil at that early point in the game.

Nope not omniscient. Instead or raging on forums I learned to play the game and accepted I had to learn from my mistakes. That's probably the key difference.

No oils, not potions or anything of that sort is necessary to defeat Prologue. First time I beat the prologue I didn't even use any of the signs. I didn't master using potions, oils and signs until Chapter 1, I learned to dodge like a madman during the prologue though.

And yes I did go through the Journal and all the information I needed about potions and signs were there.

I should read the Witcher books, I'm really curious to find out if they go like this:

Geralt jumped into the fray slashing quickly at a shielded guard. The guard parried his blow and returned a thrust in kind to Geralts midsection. Geralt whinced, then felt two other blows land from behind and to the side. Geralt magically threw the sheilded guard away dazing him in the process. With a viscious thrust Geralts swords hacked into the guard's neck killing him. Geralt who is unable to perform more than one action at a time without pausing for a couple seconds inbetween each one failed to be able to avoid the 2 incoming swings from the now enraged dead man's friends.

Almost dead Geralt rolled back and began running around in circles like a school girl waiting to get up enough endurance to try to enter the fray again.


I mean seriously, is the combat so specific that there really is only one right way to do it or you end up with what I like to call "The Cowardly Witcher"?

Like the others in this thread im trying to like it, but the combat is ass so far.

Have you tried that... The option says Difficult OFF not QTE??? caause I still have QTE"S??

There are no QTEs on bosses on Easy. Unless you count clicking your mouse button rapidly a QTE.