I never had an issue fighting enemies a couple of levels higher than me.
uh huh. you didn't notice how fighting a level 9 bandit at level 6 suddenly made it 2x as difficult to kill him?
All enemies receive a health bloat in addition to their higher skills and health based on level in vanilla.
So it's not just that you are facing a more skilled opponent, the game punishes you for going in certain areas too soon - not based on lore, but based simply on what the devs decided the level would be for that area/quest.
As far as the game being linear, that's only the main questline, and it's obviously because they're telling a story.
Wrong.
The main questline is non-linear. It's only forced to be linear by the broken RPG mechanics. Play it with w3ee and you'll understand that you were originally meant to be able to do the main quest in any order and still have it make sense. It only bottlenecks at meeting Siri and then it becomes linear for real.
And yeah, sidequests are somewhat non-linear, but there's a needlessly forced progression that makes little sense.
Heart of Stone has you fighting level 30 drowners. Why are they so powerful? Are they special drowners? No. Just level 30. So the content is gated until you are level 30. For no reason. (I mean, you aren't fighting dragons, you are fighting ghosts and outwitting a demon.)
The same for swords and armor. The weapon from a random bandit in the late game will be 1000x better than your starting gear made by witchers for witchers. Why? Lore? No. Arbitrary and poorly thought out game mechanics.
It's really no different from most other RPGs in that aspect.
Most poorly designed RPGs, true. It feels more like a cellphone game than an actual CRPG. You end up picking up a new sword every 5 to 15 minutes with little incentive to craft. The biggest offender in this regard is the quest sword you get made by a master swordsmith which is probably outclassed by random weapons by the time you get it.
And btw, speaking of swords, swords are the only thing that matter in vanilla. You don't need skills, armor or potions. All you need are dodge, basic quen and the best sword you can qualify for (according to your level, since level is the only limiter).
Your damage is 99% what sword you have. That bit where Geralt says that the sword isn't as important as the man wielding it is bogus in vanilla. Skills only make a fraction of the difference.
If you were level 100 and had all the skills maxed out and turned on somehow, you still wouldn't do much damage with the starter sword.
Vanilla is broken and dumb. The only reason you should continue to use it is if trying new things frightens and confuses you, or if you enjoy laughing at horrible game mechanics.
(Or if you're retarded. If you're retarded please rate my post as "cool story bro" so I know for the future thx.)