I started playing Witcher 3 a few weeks back, and it feels so polished and sleek. However, I have heard that this wasn't the case when it was released.

My initial impressions of Cyberpunk were pretty positive, until quickly I started experiencing crashes, fps drops in more populated areas, and a ton of bugs (which, for the most part, I am pretty tolerant of, but some of them do take you out of the experience).

Anyways, I know that it is impossible to know exactly how long some of this stuff will take to iron out, but from someone who does not often buy games at launch date, I'm wondering how long these things typically take - until there is a noticeable/significant improvement (I'm not expecting poor AI/fundamental flaws to be fixed, just for a more polished experience).

I'll likely put it on ice for at least a few months, and get through Witcher 3 (and then RDR2, which I have just purchased). I'd rather play something that feels complete : )

(Note: I have a gtx 1660 super, 16gb of ram, and an ancient i7 920 processor (which I realize may be causing the crashes). Surprisingly, this old cpu runs Witcher 3 and RDR2 very well (I was pleasantly surprised with the latter).

The last patch for Witcher 3 with a changelog for bug fixes was in September 2016, so that was about 16 months after release, and 4 months after the last expansion pack.
Keep in mind, this is a more ambitious title with a lot of 'first time' features for CD Projekt: cars, first-person perspective, gunplay, etc. so we may be looking at a longer support schedule.

One thing - pretty sure the 97-920 not support AVX - you might want to look at nexus mods - they have a couple of AVX fixes to stop the crashes when the game normally try to use AVX - think it will cause some slow down in those area but might help.

Honestly, if you're able to wait, give it a year. Six months, anyway. Witcher 3 was the culmination of the Witcher series, and used the same engine that Witcher 2 used (REDEngine) so it had the benefit of some significant optimization and experience. Even then, while I was personally lucky and able to play W3 quite well from day 1, there were a lot of people seeing bad bugs for at least six months after release.
REDEngine4, the engine for CP2077, is derived from REDEngine but isn't the same. There are a lot of novel features and there just hasn't been as much time to get the experience base built up for the game developers. Not that all bugs are engine bugs, not by a long shot, but the guts of the game have to be stable for everything else to reliably and consistently work, you know? It's going to take longer, probably.

After you've finished Witcher3 once, go check out the YouTube channel by the name Letalisx. The guy goes and digs deep into W3 to find all the rare and hidden stuff that's secreted away in the game. It'll give you an idea of how much you missed, and an excuse to play through again. Witcher 3 can easily give you 150-200 good hours across two or three playthroughs. You've got stuff to keep you occupied until CP2077 gets all polished up.

Witcher 3 at release was nowhere as buggy or unpolished as Cyberpunk. I'm talking as a person that downloaded it on release day and played it non-stop for the next few weeks. I don't remember if I was using the patches or not for the first play through - but certainly do not recall being stopped or irritated by bugs. I'm sure they were there - but the game ran perfectly well as it was. At least on my hardware.

I would also take a LONG break if you play Witcher 3 first before you start with Cyberpunk. Just to avoid disappointment by starting to draw direct comparisons. Rather then wait until the memory clears and start afresh.

Dude same! It was so smooth and had next to no crashes whatsoever. I remember this clearly, because I was playing a drinking game with my buddy at the time. CP 2077 is absolutely ridiculous in comparison so definitely give it a long break, at least until the hype dies down enough for people to see the very obvious and glaring issues they seem to be ignoring right now.

KInda weird. But I am finding CP2077 working pretty well for me with mid-range hardware, AMD FX8350, GTX1080ti, and 24 gig DDR3. I get 45-50 fps at ultra/psycho settings. Granted, it is at 1080p, but still,,,,,, not bad.

The only bug that's really annoying me is the CTD one. Witcher 3 was the same on release, and one of the early patches fixed it there, so I'm hoping they're just as quick to fix it here.