My biggest gripe with the gameplay at this point is the horrible bosses.

They are extremely hard to get through, and not because my character is not developed, it's because I lack the button-pressing skills.

What's really annoying is that regular fights are easy. But bosses - I just have to keep repeating and repeating and repeating. It's sheer luck to get through.
Leaves a very bad taste in one's mouth.

I'd rather play a nice rpg, where the character's stats are actually meaningful with regards to what Geralt can do, not the button-pressing skills. I'm playing on normal level, btw.

The kayran was pure stupidity with all the crap press this press that, not to mention that a monster like that should really kill a person with a hit, no matter how experienced.

Then Letho...the guy has a constant supply of mana, he can throw sign after sign at me w/o pause for recharge. He seems to recharge even with the shield on (altho I think it's rather that he has unlimited mana). He can hit while I'm rolling away sideways, meters away from where he landed his blow. It's just wrong on every level.

That's about it, rant over.

It's a nice game but I'd really prefer a more rpg-like one, this action-movie way is not my piece of cake.

You're free to do this.

You know that if everyone hides their negative opinion, you're left with a very small happy fanbase and the game eventually deteriorates into nothingness ?

But it was just a rant, get over it. Eventually I will, too. :)

Hmm, hard for me to figure out what to rant about in Witcher 2.

Oh, right!

NO FEMALE DWARVEN PROSTITUTES! How dare you, CD Projekt! I need hairy wummen!

What you need is a console-ported dumbed-down game.

Is Witcher 2 really-really-really hard? The last time I complained about a game being too difficult is Diablo 2 (still hate those auto-electric when hit. =P) and I was still in 12-14yrs old back then.

You really shouldn't go swimming with hairy bearded women!

OT: Letho is a wuss! A little witchering around and he's done for!

Actually the console-way of doing things I reckon is what buggers me 2nd most ;)

I was 30 something playing with Diablo 2, I did not find it hard. But I haven't played much with it I admit. It wasn't as good as the first one was, somehow.

And I haven't said the witcher 2 is really hard, read again.

It's not that it's hard to do the bosses, rather that it's not in sync with the overall difficulty. If I switch to easy, I'll not have anything to do in normal fights. This way I can't get past the bosses under an hour, and that's just wasted time, spent with a repetitive brainless task, as far as I'm concerned.

Might as well work in the McDonalds all day, or a building site, putting brick on top of brick...

Agreed, i hated some of the boss fights too.

I never got the feeling that I defeated them, instead it was that i completed a game mechanic to defeat them.

Totally unsatisfying.

Just do what I do. Make a few solid attempts at a boss fight, and if it's still too much, turn it down to easy. You don't even have to tell anyone, it can be our little secret...

The trouble with that is that in this game 'Easy' is NOT easy!

You're right...it's TOO easy. I couldn't beat the Kayran to save my life on normal, but on easy, i'm not even sure I had to PLAY let alone be skillful to win. This game's "easy" mode is FAR easier than any other easy mode in any game ever made...ever.

Have to agree with the OP on this one, though only in part. I actually liked fighting Letho (even though his endless Vitality wasn't that grand).

Thing is, Prologue intro finishes brilliantly - a 6 v 1 knight battle against the Witcher, it made me reload many times until I got the fight right, utilizing Signs, consumables and traps. Awesome fight.

Kayran, on the other hand, is anything but awesome - it's a QTE event without the obvious buttons blinking on-screen. Run, roll, click, roll, click, click, roll, rinse, repeat. I know that QTEs are all the rage these days, and that since it's being ported to the consoles, it's a natural thing to add, but I have personally always disliked the QTEs and so the Kayran fight was quite annoying - not difficult, annoying.

I agree. The fact that Letho can just spam Quen was a bit much.

And the poor signposting and checkpointing of the Karyan fight was not great - how was I to know that I needed to run up the fallen bridge when the beats still had one leg left and a third of it's health? Also, the Dragon had a checkpoint before the QTE, why not the Kayran?

Not enough to ruin my experience by any means, still adored the game, but enough to frustrate a great deal.

You don't need cat reflexes for this game. All it takes is some thinking and common sense.

Spoiler example. Fighting Kayern is so easy it's pathetic, 100% health and no damage taken.

If you use Quen Geralt can take a hit. It's so easy it's mind boggling why anyone has a problem with it. First you use Quen. Then you run and find a glowing spot, there is more than one. Place the trap. Tentacle one down. So easy, that's a freebie. Renew your Quen. Run to where you saw a tentacle smash on the ground. Lay down Yrden as the sorceress as screaming at you to do. Just stand there. Tentacle smashes you and Yrden traps and Quen protects you. 2nd tentacle down, it cut scenes to the bridge being broken a little. Repeat for tentacle 3. Still have 100% life. 3rd tentacle down, you see in cut scene the bridge is down. Oh gee, let me think hard what I should do next. Go to bridge. 100% health still with Quen, you can take a few hits. Cut scene, Geralt kills.

Geralt kills monster with 100% health and no damage taken.

For the tentacles I don't even both to dodge and avoid them. Stand right over the trap/Yrden signs and let the tentacle hit me.

How can a boss fight be any easier? I have no idea. It couldn't possibly be any easier.

I agree. Boss fights are very unsatisfying. Unsatisfying is the really important word here. When you finish a boss fight in a video game, you should feel accomplished. But the way I feel is like I was rolling dice until I got 2 sixes and finally I could stop rolling dice.

Also, turning the difficulty down to easy makes it just crazy easy. I finally did that to defeat Letho. On easy, beat him first try. He never even blocks an attack. I basically just laid into him with about 20 consecutive hits and then the fight was over. It was dumb.

The gap between normal and easy is huge in the boss fights, but difficulties really should fill out a continuum.

However, I think maybe I'm starting to understand boss fights a little better. Stupidly, I didn't see very many of Letho's patterns until I played him on easy and the patterns were different. You can hit him twice before he blocks. Don't try to hit him a third time, else he blocks and counter strikes, fucking you up. We'll see.


Read this and tell me that it doesn't sound like a pretty stupid, unsatisfying boss fight. I didn't find it as easy as you, but your basic strategy is the one I used. Dodge, dodge, dodge, oops, Quen, repeat. I really think it's indicative of a flaw in the game that all the bosses I've fought seem to need a lot of Quen to defeat.