If you don't mind going offtopic for one comment to indulge me, then yes please, I'd like to read your thoughts on it.
P.S. I'm neutral on W3's combat because I haven't played it enough to judge it properly.
I was referring to whether people can confirm that they dropped it earlier yea. I do think it gets good because of some factors:
1) First reason is that in both expansions you get new monsters that have new and different attack patterns, unlike your first hours in the game you will be fighting different things from Drowners, Nekkers, Wolfs and Spectres. Among the different things you get enemies that attack in groups like the black spiders and the boars. The boars try to circle you and flank you from behind while the spiders will wait patiently for example if you use quen and then stun you with a whip attack and gang on you for a group attack. they back off and dodge your moves and wait for the moment when you attack one of them so they can attack from behind.
* Things like this is an improvement to combat because it improves; Enemy A.I, More attack patterns that feel different from each other, Harder enemies, and better use of enemy group aggression.
In the second expansion this again happens with more unique and better enemies, for example the spores have a ranged attack that deals good chunk of damage and they plant seeds, so the moment you get close to attack them you have a window to give some hits but if you stay so long you the seeds below them explode nearly one shotting you, on higher difficulty i mean ofc. And to not make my comment very long. Basically a lot more variety of monsters so that is a plus above the main game.
2) Second reason is the second expansions adding a new gameplay tree to give more skill/attacks to the combat, its called mutation, not gonna spoil them but they do give extra flavor, another upgrade imo.
3) Third reason is the better and more aggressive boss fights, they have more attacks and are harder and require some strategy other than just mashing dodge and quen. Also their lore and character is way better than Wild Hunt. More unique and interesting, not all big dudes in frost armor. So there's that.
4) Fourth would be the new mechanics like enchanting but its too costly tbh, its still an upgrade albeit a small one, just like the new weapons they added that had some special effect, very minor upgrades but at least better than generic weapons you get during the main game.
5) One last reason is obviously when you reach expansions you already unlocked a lot of skills and made many potions and decoctions and bombs, so using all these tools should definitely spice thing up more and make combat feel less repetitive and boring.
Those are what i would consider an upgrade to the combat, but those are worth experiencing if you are enjoying the world and the story and found the combat to be boring, the upgrade from the expansions will feel good if you are one of those players. But if you are not interested in the world and the characters then i dont know if its worth for you to keep going until you reach an upgrade that takes it from mediocre to good/decent (I say good but some people may still feel its not good enough, its definitely an upgrade though i can guarantee that)
The reason most players give this game tons of crap for its combat is because: 1- they had wrong expectations about its genre, they maybe thought its like monster hunter or dark souls or nioh type of game but then they got something else. 2- people who never played the previous witcher games before it. 3- people using hyperbole (i dont think its as bad as some people make it out to be) 4- people who bought it for the combat, weren't interested in the story or the world and dropped it early, i dont blame them but their view on the combat is generally extreme and uses a lot of hyperbole given that they didnt really give it a fair chance or given that they compare it with literally different game.
Not going to keep making excuses though, I do agree with some of the issues people point out about the combat and its clear that there was an attempt at improving hence the expansions combat upgrades, so im all for constructive criticism for further improvement in combat in the next game, it definitely needs more work to become something excellent, but i totally disagree with people who say its atrocious or awful or something like unplayable. But thats opinions and all. To me its an average to decent combat system in the main game that improves to good after the expansions.
