Gothic 2 vs Gothic 3

[Coyote]

Or you can just not worry about it. I understand the urge to maximize your stats; I'm pretty obsessive-compulsive about that sort of thing myself. However, Risen and the first two Gothics have a much smoother and IMO more enjoyable progression if you take permanent stat increasers as you come across them and don't worry about maximization (within reason, of course - you might still save up a few for those last few points of strength you need to equip some cool weapon you found, for example). That way you get a boost to your character when you need it the most, and you still become very powerful in the end - just not so overpowered that it removes all challenge from the last chapter or two. It also frees you up early in the game to spend more of your limited skill points/gold on other things.

The main downside, at least in G2 with NotR, is that you might not be able to wield the most powerful weapons if you spread your points too thin and/or lose access to certain trainers. But again, by the time that becomes an issue it doesn't matter much anymore. The 10-point damage difference between the two most powerful weapons is pretty superfluous by the time you can wield them (especially since the weaker one has the more important advantage of much greater reach), whereas the same 10 points earlier in the game can mean the difference between being able to meaningfully damage an enemy and chipping off a single HP per hit.

 

[Lord Andre]

Weapon variety and placement always sucked in Gothics. Usually you have a nice progression in the first chapter, then you have 2-3 good weapons for the rest of the game until the last chapter where they start showering you with - by that point - redundant epic swords.

I remember in G2 gold, by the time you would be expected to clean the cave and get the Dragonslayer, the damn thing is already available at a merchant in town.

Don't get me wrong though, G2 and G1 are still way better than G3. Comunity patch fags just love the popamole.

 

[Kz3r0]

Gothic 2 with Night of the Raven expansion, is not even a question.

 

[Nikolaj]

It's been a long time since I played either game, but I don't think Gothic 3 is as bad as it's sometimes made out to be, at least with the community patches. I enjoyed it, although not quite enough to ever finish it. That said, Gothic 2 is still my favourite of the series, just be aware that if you play with NotR there's some potential for really screwing up your character build, especially when playing as a mage. I remember having to restart my game, and then finding a guide on how to properly min/max my character, which I didn't enjoy much. It's been a while, though, so there might be some mods or such to help out with that. The one SCO mentions sounds promising.

 

[SCO]

That patch only makes stat raising potions not count towards the required LP multiplier that increases when you increase a stat, it's not a license to go spread points around.

 

[curry]

Gothic 2 Cons: Can be really tough in the later part of game

I've spent a minute thinking how to react to this. Not sure if you're serious or trolling but it's not a bad thing that G2 is a fairly challenging game.

 

[hexer]

Gothic 2 Cons: Can be really tough in the later part of game

I've spent a minute thinking how to react to this. Not sure if you're serious or trolling but it's not a bad thing that G2 is a fairly challenging game.

IIRC I had to use god mode cheat to defeat the orcish hordes but that was so long ago I don't remember anymore. For me, it was too tough. I'm no powergamer.

 

[Morning Star]

Gothic 2 is one of the games I have the most fun with, in general. It has the perfect combination of exploration, character progression and story. While the same could be said about Gothic 3, the horrible job done in terms of bugs and... everything else - I, alone, in a huge room with a strong echo would have made a better job with the voice acting - made it that I could never bring myself to finish it.

I guess there are patched out now that fix all the issues. Should I reinstall G3 and try to play it again? Is the story good?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

There isn't much of a story, really. It's pretty much you and who you end up killing/sparing.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Two things to note about G3:
- only play the patched version. There is no G3 other than the patch version, just an abomination in G3's clothing.
- it's just about the only game where I'd say it actually needs more of a handheld introduction into the gameworld. I love the open-ended quest structures and narrative. But it places too much reliance on you being familiar with the story of G1 and G2 - not just in terms of 'guy escapes prison, Xardas helps him defeat shit', or even 'Xardas isn't a white-robed goodguy mage, and it isn't out of character for him to help the orcs - his only interest so far has been in making sure cthulu-esque ancient evils don't arise and assfuck everybody, and orcs don't fall into that category' (the game does a decent enough job of explaining that).

No, the thing that it really needed to emphasise HARD at the very start is that the main character has plenty of reason to be all schadenfreude at the humans getting conquered by the orcs (especially as it's only some humans - more a state v state occupation than a racial one; plus it isn't a genocide, 'loyal' humans still get to trade freely and live their lives, just a change in who rules the place). I think a lot of players rush into the game thinking that they should be liberating all the cities straight away, instead of doing quests for both sides, keeping their options open and getting clues about wtf happened with Xardas - because in most games it's just obvious that you're supposed to fight the orcs, and the intro actually reinforces that when you get captured by orcs and overthrow them in the starting town.

Coming from G1 and G2, many of the characters are political prisoners who have no reason to help the former monarchy (and may even have good reason to side with the orcs if it gives them a chance at revenge), and the main character starts G3 quite ambivalent to both sides. But even if you've played G1 and G2, that's an easy aspect to miss. They really needed to sell it with the voice acting. From memory, the G1/G2 voice was a lot more snarky - that should have been continued, or amped up even further for the first section of G3, to signal to the player that (until the player decides to choose otherwise) the character views both sides as assholes.

 

[Butcer]

im close to finishing chapter 5 in gothic 2 and i must say its awesome. a little clunky controls that took me some time to get used too and i was not impressed by the game at the start(mainly the controls and the trees blocking my view that piss me off) but after a few hours it turns awesome

 

[Delicieuxz]

Gothic 2, and its mind-blowingly great expansion, Night of the Raven, form the greatest Western RPG experience yet crafted. Even without Night of the Raven, Gothic 2 is still the premier Western RPG.

Gothic 3 is good, fun, and well worth playing for its own reasons, but it's an entirely different style of game.

 

[subotaiy]

Now, now! Greatest action RPG, son.
Oh and good morning.

 

[taxalot]

To think I had both Gothic 2 and the expansion and only played Gothic 2 thinking "I will install the expansion once I'm done with the main game". How cruel was the realization that it couldn't be done. I still have to play NOTR.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The best things about the Gothic series were the amazing world building (open worlds with intelligent, unique and hand placed content, terrific NPC scripting which still puts modern games to shame, well done enemy difficulty curves, factions well integrated into the tight world, great atmosphere), and great melee combat, once you got used to the unorthodox controls and figured it out. Both Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 + NotR excel in these areas and do some others nicely. Unfortunately, the third game was a letdown in both of these. In order to increase the size of the world, they replaced unique content with blander stuff (go to a bunch of different places but do roughly similar things everywhere, over and over), and replaced the fun parry/counterattack melee combat with some hideous button mashing bs. That doesn't mean it's completely worthless, but if you want to know the essence of Gothic games, that so many people love, play the first two games.

 

[kieferd20]

Alright which gothic game is better Gothic 2 or Gothic 3(with community patch) and what are there strengths and weaknesses when compared to each other?

Gothic 3 gets really repetitive very fast, and the combat is very bad. even with the community patch. Most of the quests are fetch this or kill this. And the game can lag even now with very nice game rigs.
Gothic 2 on the other hand is very a very well game. so much to do and gets very exciting at time. Gothic 2 also offers alot more challenge.

 

[Obsequious Approbation]

Alright which gothic game is better Gothic 2 or Gothic 3(with community patch) and what are there strengths and weaknesses when compared to each other?

Gothic 3 gets really repetitive very fast, and the combat is very bad. even with the community patch. Most of the quests are fetch this or kill this. And the game can lag even now with very nice game rigs.
Gothic 2 on the other hand is very a very well game. so much to do and gets very exciting at time. Gothic 2 also offers alot more challenge.

Stop necroing threads and get to work on Savage Bliss 2.

 

[kieferd20]

code for me and we will finish it

 

[Sykar]

Gothic 2 is a classic.
Gothic 3 is an irredeemable pile of turd beyond saving.

 

[Haplo]

Weapon variety and placement always sucked in Gothics. Usually you have a nice progression in the first chapter, then you have 2-3 good weapons for the rest of the game until the last chapter where they start showering you with - by that point - redundant epic swords.

I remember in G2 gold, by the time you would be expected to clean the cave and get the Dragonslayer, the damn thing is already available at a merchant in town.

Only you could get the Dragonslayer in Act 1.... Making the rest of the gear almost obsolete
Of course actually having the stats to wield it wasn't easy... but was quite doable in the vanilla game (without NotR).

Regarding itemization, it was even worse in G3. You only got "good" swords from some of the last chests you opened (after exploring the whole humongous map)... and in practice they were still hugely inferior to the orc halberd because of retarded reach coding. Seriously two-handed weapons seemed to be even shorter then one-handed swords. And all were inferior to Scythe/Spear/Halberd/Orc Halberd.

 

[Lord Andre]

Weapon variety and placement always sucked in Gothics. Usually you have a nice progression in the first chapter, then you have 2-3 good weapons for the rest of the game until the last chapter where they start showering you with - by that point - redundant epic swords.

I remember in G2 gold, by the time you would be expected to clean the cave and get the Dragonslayer, the damn thing is already available at a merchant in town.

Only you could get the Dragonslayer in Act 1.... Making the rest of the gear almost obsolete
Of course actually having the stats to wield it wasn't easy... but was quite doable in the vanilla game (without NotR).

Regarding itemization, it was even worse in G3. You only got "good" swords from some of the last chests you opened (after exploring the whole humongous map)... and in practice they were still hugely inferior to the orc halberd because of retarded reach coding. Seriously two-handed weapons seemed to be even shorter then one-handed swords. And all were inferior to Scythe/Spear/Halberd/Orc Halberd.

Who dares to summon me from the scum filled pits of the political subforum ?

Oh, necroed Gothic games thread. Yes Gothic 1 and 2 were one of a kind.

What about that Aeon Flux thing or whatever it's called ? Is it out yet ? I want to have my hopes raised and then mercilessly crushed into the muck by Piranha Bytes' continued failure to recapture at least 10% of the original Gothics' magic.

 

[Severian Silk]

You can kill every single npc and the story won't break.

This doesn't sound good at all. How generic and banal must your quest line be to make this possible?

 

[Dux]

Gothic 3 is Gothic post-cranial surgery that got botched due to malpractice. Gothic 3's dry cracker ass world design is bullshit, patch or no patch.

"Stop right there Morra!" No fuck you and fuck Gothic 3. What a load of discarded refuse. Makes me want to shiv Xardas for being a prick. Which I did, come to think of it, before uninstalling.

 

[kieferd20]

You can kill every single npc and the story won't break.

This doesn't sound good at all. How generic and banal must your quest line be to make this possible?

He is right though....I went around and killed everyone in every town it didnt effect nothing. it gets boring very fast.

 

[Doktor Best]

You can kill every single npc and the story won't break.

This doesn't sound good at all. How generic and banal must your quest line be to make this possible?

Same goes for Fallout 1+2 and New Vegas. Are those also boring questlines? Implenting fail-safe ways to solve quests if questgivers are dead is simply another notion of choice and consequence. The developers thought of the possibility that the player is a genocidal psychopath and spent actual effort to make this playstyle possible. It says nothing about the quality of the story, but the devotion of the makers.