Incredibly sophisticated?
No, but fairly sophisticated in the sense that, compared to similar mechanics in other games there is (or was?) thankfully more to it than just resting at a bonfire and see your Estus Flask charges magically refill on its own.
What? I'm not sure how you can compare Estus Flasks to Potions in the Witcher. I can pick on Witcher mechanics out of context as well and claim they are "dumbed down" game design, it won't prove anything.
Again, 'mindlessly looting herbs' and actually preparing/brewing potions yourself is a big deal for a chunk of the audience. It's small details like that contributing immensely to that thing called immersion, which, if I remember correctly is also supposed to be a big deal in The Witcher 3.
...and there are others that think it is not at all immersive and adds noting of value to the game. That is besides the point anyway since your argument is that they ruined something "complex" by using these auto regenerating potions. If you want to argue that you don't like auto regeneration potions because it breaks immersion for you, thats fine. However, don't try and tell us that there was anything complex about the way it worked in W2. It required very little thought or skill to use.
With the current auto-refilling of potions in place (and how it was described by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz) it's actually working pretty much like the Estus Flask.
Resting at bonfire -> have your Estus Flask automatically recharge
Meditating -> have your potions automatically recharge
Going by the number of stages/phases required to create or prepare a potion in The Witcher or The Witcher 2, the old mechanics undoubtely are more elaborate or more complex. By how much exactly they're more sophisticated or more complex is of course a subjective matter, but this doesn't change the fact that there's simply more to those old mechanics than just Step 1: Sit down and Step 2: Recharge.
If CDPR really does feel the need to streamline certain aspects of the game, fine. They just shouldn't force it on everybody, and look for ways to make those changes optional or at least, to some extent revertable through customization.
Unfortunately, modern game design is a lot like you claim alchemy to be in W2 -- its sophisticated and complex and expensive and a lot of other hard things. CDPR doesn't have infinite resources and man power, which means that it is not feasible to create a game that pleases everyone all the time. If they had turned this into a linear 8 hour hack n slash with an antsy teenage Geralt and it felt like one big money grab, I'd be waving my pitchfork as well. That is not what this is though... The Witcher 3 is, by far, dwarfs the scale and scope of the previous games. They have absolutely streamlined a few things but maybe its because they decided to focus on something else or they added additional elements to that feature to compensate or they just plain didn't like how the previous system worked?
You're probably right, however there are a couple of things to consider here:
There's still about 8 (more like 7) months of development time left and mechanics as they worked in the previous games still exist (in their respective implementations on the Aurora Engine and the first iteration of the RED Engine).
This is obviously just guesswork, but one would think that it could be possible to either
a) take the best of both potion preparation mechanics of The Witcher 1 and 2, integrate that into the game and make it available as an optional alternative to the by default streamlined mechanic
or
b) allow the by default streamlined potion preparation mechanic as it is currently in place to be modified/customized to include all the required effort of manually creating potions.
I'm no expert on game developement, but I'd imagine that to be feasible considering the time that's left and the complete(?) absence of possible side effects on balance or such things. The technical side of implementing something like this is probably a more delicate matter not to be taken lightly, but, as I said, there are still 7 months to go.
Again, a game of a much smaller scope and size like Thief 4 was shipped with a considerable amount of customizability in terms of game mechanics and overall gameplay,
so why not at least take into consideration of doing something similar with The Witcher 3?
The Demons' Souls / Dark Souls franchise doesn't count anyway since it is (or once was in case of Dark Souls) console-exclusive and was developed with already simplified mechanics (and to an extent) simplified gameplay from the ground up.
So basically, you've never played any of the Souls games. Gotcha.
I played (or should I say, forced myself through) a bit of both the terribad PC port of the first Dark Souls and the less terribad PC port of the second one, and apart from the fairly satisfying and challenging combat mechanics (which arguably are more sophisticated than what's in place in The Witcher 1 & 2 and probably 3) both really aren't that deep or complex (imho), especially in regards to the roleplaying mechanics.
Now, The Witcher games do not necessarily excel in the 'deep' or 'complex' department either, but I consider them having an edge because (imho) there's generally more effort (others would say tedium) required. Not to mention the existence of an actual proper storyline, but that's another matter.
