Yeah first time round i remember the joy of Novigrad, the annoyance at Skellige, the horror of realisation that Triss wasn't at Kaer Morhen as agreed. After that it there were a couple of very nice bits but overall it was threadbare. Even now ensuring i do skellige first the empty black hole that is Kaer morhen depresses me. Really keeping my fingers crossed the fixes can sow the lovely individual bits together into a more satisfactory tapestry.
First time around doing Skellige I was not bothered in the slightest except for the few forced lines.
I remember punching the guy who insulted Yennefer upon arriving to the islands and overall enjoying the Yen content a lot. The funny exchanges in the garden, the unicorn stuff, the party and especially the last wish. I remember going to bed after finishing it, with the two of them sitting on the boat and looking over the horizon after confirming their love for each other. I had a smile on my face and was feeling good about the world.
I realized the next day I had to break it up with her or bad things were going to happen so I reloaded and made the asshole choice.
Until that point everything was great, I had enjoyed both their questlines and I really liked both characters, just liked Triss more so I decided to postpone romancing Yen till my second playthrough.
It was after that moment that stuff started to go wrong, KM bothered me some, second KM bothered me even more (in the romance stuff, the battle itself was great) and by the time I was doing the sunstone quest I was positively annoyed and frustrated.
Ironically, had the Triss content been on equal footing with the Yen content and had the later been a little more open as to how we interact dialogue-wise with the raven haired sorceress, I would have enjoyed both paths equally.
So, in essence, the lack of Triss content and the forcing into the other one against our choices, robbed me not only of my enjoyment of romancing Triss, but ruined the experience with Yennefer as well. So I could not appreciate either to the fullest
The first because of the lack of interactions and the second because I was too annoyed to relish in it.
Speaking of lack of Triss content and how it bothered us, I can't even begin to imagine how the book lovers of old would have felt with NO Yennefer at all in two games and even having Triss stealing Yennefer lines in W1.
It does bring some perspective, I mean, if I felt annoyed at Yen for taking over some space in which I would have preferred Triss to be there, having her replace Yennefer completely in the first two games, to the people who wanted nothing more than to experience the relationship G&Y had in the books, would have made them hate Triss with a burning passion.