I played The Witcher 2 first and really liked it though I never finished (yet). I just completed my first play though of W3 Wild Hunt and I liked the characters so much I decided to get the whole story from the beginning. Much as I want to play through the original game I just can't. I get that it's the first one and on a different engine but damn what a mess. I've never had such a hard time figuring out a control scheme. I must have quit the game a dozen times now to research online how to deal with something. I've never seen mouse cursor combat in a 3rd person game and I hope I never do again. Timing your clicks while centering the camera on the target? What were they thinking. Even on the lowest sensitivity the camera swings around like a bowling ball at the end of a rope. Pausing the game to change to the correct attack mode for each enemy? Really? Wow. Unless some mod wizard or CDPR does a remaster/remake I'll never get through this one. Too bad because I really like the Witcher world. Back to Witcher 2.

Pressing Alt+Tab if you want to use google (or whatever else you want to do) while playing the game.

I personally like the combat system, maybe because I was anticipating the worse.You can change the combat mode without pausing but it creates a defense hole. The need to center the camera IS irritating though, it's hard to adjust when you're surrounded by lots of enemies and the group mode can only do so much damage :(

I enjoy more W1 than W2...

To be fair, you don't *need* to center the camera on an enemy to attack, unless you're playing in OTS camera mode. Obviously, yes, that's the only way if you're adamant in playing the game that way, but there is an option to use the pseudo-isometric view, which works wonders for me and a lot of old-school cRPG fans. I think the game works better when you play it using this camera mode instead of the more widely preferred Over the Shoulder perspective.

Same here, and actually that is one of the reasons I still don't spent money in the Witcher 3
Take Groze advices, you don't need to center the camera for the timing.

By the way, just for be sure, quick events don't exist in the third, right?

I never understood why people have so much trouble with the combat in this game. It is the simplest in all three games. If you can't work it out we have a manual that we can read.

True, but it's also the least like other RPG games that people may have played. I haven't played the Witcher 3 yet, but in Witcher 2, even though combat was hard and took time to learn, I was familiar with the basic structure of it because it was similar enough to other third-person RPGs or action games. The combat in Witcher 1 is not like other games, so that can throw people off.

Also, the opening parts of The Witcher aren't necessarily the best for learning combat because Geralt doesn't know any sequences yet, he just repeats the same attacks. The timed nature of the combat makes more sense later, when he's launching into crazier parts of the sequence. I think it may have worked better if Geralt started the game knowing two parts of the sequence, so it's clear that timing things right gets him to launch a more powerful attack.

Yes, the combat in W1 is a real turn-off at first, but it's mostly because Geralt is really weak and feeble. It makes a lot more sense after his skills improve.

I really enjoyed The Witcher. Combat took a few hours to get used to but then it felt good. Different but good. To me, the story overcame the combat so I forced myself to push through it. I think that's why I overcame the combat and I got used to it. Keep playing it if you only started. Keep going to the second area, if by then you don't like it then you might not get used to it. Sludge through it and you'll find that it has an excellent story.

I prefer The Wticher 1 by leaps and bounds over the second one. OP, try playing games like Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 to get used the engine that the game runs on, Aurora. They are some of the greatest RPG games of the last 15 years.

The Witcher 1 have a great combat system, really unique and difficult to master.
The Witcher 2 and 3 CS are more easy, like for casual gamers or console gamers...

I've spent more time on TW1 than TW3 in the past month.

Why thank you my good man.