So far, I have found the game extremelly story driven, extremelly pacey. No breath in, no respite to settle the character in the gameworld. This PC only breaths, runs and meditates to carry out the resolution of the quests.
Developpers removed the few optional behaviours existing in TW1. My thought, so far, is that the plot is written according to ingame time, granted that a witcher does not need to sleep. PC arrives in location A, is given a rendez vous in the evening, has two or three quests to do in the meantime, goes to evening rendez-vous, is set new goals for the morning, which happens well as the rendez holds several mini games in it, enough to last until dawn. Move to morning rendez. Dealt with the subsequent matter and ready for a final confrontation with a beast. Once dealt with, no break, a companion appears and a jump to another quest line.
The character has no time off. Quests after quests and again quests. Very pacey. Very dynamic. And detrimental to RP.
Very likely a design decision by popular demand as players want something that goes fast, they dont want to waste time on petty activities. They want their PCs to matter all time.
Great adventure game with the story thought to exhibit the PC's features but so far, looking for the RPG in it.