I was a bit surprised and disappointed when I first got into the game to find out Triss was nowhere to be found since when I last saw her in the witcher 2 she had vowed to stay by Geralt’s side in his search for Yennefer no matter what happened. So right from the very start I felt they had dropped the ball as far as story was concerned. In my opinion it made perfect sense to have Triss with Geralt and Vessimere right in the beginning and would have meshed perfectly with the story from the Witcher 2 as it seemed important to Triss to help Geralt locate Yennefer.
They should have had a short scene when Yennefer showed up with Triss telling Geralt not to worry etc etc and that she would ride on to Novigrad while he went with Yen to see the emperor. This would have made much more sense story wise to me. Yennefer shows up, Triss knows Geralt needs to sort through some things so she would have stepped back a bit and ridden on to novigrad alone where Geralt would catch up with her later.
The decision to choose either Yennefer or Triss should have come much closer to the end of the game, I’m thinking probably on the boat in skellege right before the main battle with the whole romance thing building up to that point by having Triss and Yennefer together helping Geralt locate Ciri and not just one or the other at different times in the story.
The Triss romance seemed to me like it was tacked on at the last minute, like they made the game with no option where Triss just sailed off to Kovir but then later decided they should give the players the option to choose. Character responses after the lighthouse scene with Triss seem to support this as almost every character talks like Geralt is still with Yennefer and even Geralt himself sometimes acts like he is still with Yennefer during some cut scenes.
The largest indicator that the Triss choice was tacked on after the game was already made is the fact that every single character on the boat before the main battle in skellege has dialogue options except Triss, it pretty much proves that they never intended for her to be there and never had any voice actor dialogue for her in that situation done. They just threw her character on the boat after the fact when they decided to allow players to choose her over Yennefer.
The Kaer Morhen thing was bullshit as well. Triss TOLD Geralt she would go to Kaer Morhen after the lighthouse scene to wait for him, after all she was being pursued by witch hunters and NOPLACE else would have been safe for her to be. Yet when we get there she is not there and Geralt doesn’t seem to give a shit even though he just told her he was in love with her, knows this woman he loves is not safe anyplace else, and she had told him she was going straight there.
Wtf?.... this again proves that they designed the game with no romance choice involved and that Triss was supposed to sail away to Kovir, this is why Geralt doesn’t seem to give a shit that she is not at Kaer Morhen when she should be because in the game they designed before tacking on the Triss romance option Geralt knows she is safe on her way to Kovir.
Instead of writing the Wild hunt story based on their previous games I think CDPR strayed too far into book territory forgetting their own story in the previous games until at the last minute someone over there was like, guys wait a minute Triss is a HUGE main character in OUR story even though she isn’t in the books we can’t release the game like this, hence the tacked on Triss romance option bandaid.
Very disappointing for a series ender as far as Triss is concerned.