Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline Gothic turns 15 years

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Zogged if I know then, worked in my modded version, which was just the same game with a different protag head.

I get the feeling it will be a long time before I get around to playing Gothic II... I have plenty of properly working games to keep me occupied until then, but it doesn't make it any less sad.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
I get the feeling it will be a long time before I get around to playing Gothic II... I have plenty of properly working games to keep me occupied until then, but it doesn't make it any less sad.

Yeah I was really stoked on it by the end of Gothic 1. If only I knew I would spend so much time hopelessly trying to get it run properly. It's quite a bit of a turn off when you can play majority of new shit at 60 FPS maxed or almost maxed but a 14 year old game is dropping all the way down to 30 and even below. Maybe I'll just go back to ELEX, at least that one runs well even if it seems like inferior game.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
Fuck it, I think I'll make peace with shitty performance and continue Gothic II. Can't resist the urge, game was instant like from the start so it would be a shame not to play. I just hope frame drops I get in harbor district are as bad as they will get.
 
Last edited:

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,512
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I reached chapter II in Gothic. Time to kill respawned monsters and improve my gear!
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I still don't know which faction that I will ultimately join. I like to drag it out as long as possible in PB games.
If you're not aware, the devs left tricks to delay this on both gothic I and II.

On gothic 2, you can delay getting into a faction from the 'natural' point (entering the city) by entering it in other fashions, exploits or not, and many of the 'faction' quests aren't faction quests, expecially on the monastery, which you can also exit with a trick. On gothic 1 there is a beautiful bug or overlooked behavior that allows you to start the quest to join one of the factions (old camp iirc) and interrupt it midway, getting access to some of the low level abilities (armour iirc) and be able to get other faction goodies, then come back and complete it.

Same thing applies to Risen actually (where you 'need' a faction to get *out* of the city... but you don't actually need it, just very good acrobatics).

The disadvantage of all of these, if you can call it that is that iirc, the levelup gains change with the faction and and you get to be a weak vagrant for most of the game. Longer. But hey, more content and the satisfaction of 'gaming the system' right? I'm actually convinced most of these were designed tongue in cheek or just with a 'what if' (though some were definitely intentional, like the Velaya Gothic II mod 'get into the city in chapter 1 'exploit' that it's obviously a designed -obtuse- path).
 
Last edited:

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,789
Location
Mexico
Divinity: Original Sin 2
I have played 24 hours of Gothic, still on Chapter 1, level 11, 70 skill points available and have made all the quests for joining each camp but will probably make a “Master Save” at that point for when I replay it for choosing different paths... will probably choose the swamp cultists this time to get their sweet sweet armor
This game is fast becoming one of my favorites of all time and love how you can cheese much higher level enemies using the terrain and a good bow
The game crashes a bit and has these weird rainbow colorings which are fixed on reboot (probably the unofficial patch and hi res textures) but other than than it is just so much fun and I love how you dont have to do every single requirment for some of the camps instead of the super boring “get me these exact 8 flowers which are on these exact spots”
 

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
Swamp Cultists are the least shitty guys to new people and have the coolest armor. Plus they get rations of (swamp) weed every day. What's not to like?
They're commies.

More thoughts on Gothic II - The Returning.

The biggest problem with the mod, more than the translation, is the difficulty. The game, which was already difficult, has been made unbearably so and demands more skill than is reasonable from the player. I increased my strength by 35 and equipped a weapon that has 40 more damage, and I still do 5 damage to every single enemy in the game. It sometimes takes two hits to kill a meatbug. Enemies have significantly more hitpoints than they did before, and there are enemies in places they didn't used to be. Most enemies, even the most basic ones like scavengers, can kill me in 1 or 2 hits, meaning I have to play absolutely perfectly if I want to kill anything. In addition, you no longer gain hitpoints when leveling up; you have to pay a trainer for them. Gold and resources are scarce in the beginning of the game and I'm finding it difficult to improve my character even though I have 50 or so unused skill points. Maybe it gets easier as my character gets stronger, but I'm inclined to think the HP bloat and overpowered enemies persist.

Another thought - the game installs new music files that overwrite the old ones by Kai Rosenkranz. The new songs are alright, but there's something wrong with the triggers and they almost never play. Sometimes when they do, they play two at the same time. Not a huge issue, but annoying and disappointing. I like the atmosphere music provides to Gothic.
 
Last edited:

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
The biggest problem with the mod, more than the translation, is the difficulty. The game, which was already difficult, has been made unbearably so and demands more skill than is reasonable from the player. I increased my strength by 35 and equipped a weapon that has 40 more damage, and I still do 5 damage to every single enemy in the game. It sometimes takes two hits to kill a meatbug. Enemies have significantly more hitpoints than they did before, and there are enemies in places they didn't used to be. Most enemies, even the most basic ones like scavengers, can kill me in 1 or 2 hits, meaning I have to play absolutely perfectly if I want to kill anything
Wait till you get to the bosses. After 1/2 of the game plenty of them have 40k hp or more, the toughest ones have 75k and some of them can heal by thousands. Oh and they kill you in 3-4 hits max even if you are a shield warrior with best armor in the game and the biggest damage a melee fighter can deal in this mod if you bother to min-max is about 600-700 per hit (this is considering damage gets lowered by armor), have fun! But I forgot to mention that there is a solid chance of you getting a backlash damage each time you hit a boss, this damage can get as high as 200 or something per prock and additionaly to that plenty of bosses have some mechanics that involve unavoidable aoe damage of some sort that you will have to just tank through.

Actually screw bosses, if you are playing a melee character do tell everyone about your experience with trolls and swamp gollems I'll be waiting.
 
Last edited:

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
The biggest problem with the mod, more than the translation, is the difficulty. The game, which was already difficult, has been made unbearably so and demands more skill than is reasonable from the player. I increased my strength by 35 and equipped a weapon that has 40 more damage, and I still do 5 damage to every single enemy in the game. It sometimes takes two hits to kill a meatbug. Enemies have significantly more hitpoints than they did before, and there are enemies in places they didn't used to be. Most enemies, even the most basic ones like scavengers, can kill me in 1 or 2 hits, meaning I have to play absolutely perfectly if I want to kill anything
Wait till you get to the bosses. After 1/2 of the game plenty of them have 40k hp or more, the toughest ones have 75k and some of them can heal by thousands. Oh and they kill you in 3-4 hits max even if you are a shield warrior with best armor in the game and the biggest damage a melee fighter can deal in this mod if you bother to min-max is about 600-700 per hit (this is considering damage gets lowered by armor), have fun!
I've read that some content is locked off if you're not playing on hard mode? Is that true? I wouldn't mind restarting on an easier mode as long as all the content is still there.
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
I've read that some content is locked off if you're not playing on hard mode? Is that true? I wouldn't mind restarting on an easier mode as long as all the content is still there.
On hard and above you have to sleep, eat and drink otherwise you character will suffer penalties or even die. The best crossbow available, that actually makes crossbows worth something past 1/2 of the game, is only possible to get if you play on hard or above (it's difficult to get and you only get 1 chance at this, I'm pretty sure you will miss it), some of the unique monsters appear only on hard and above difficulties. Also you get less experience the higher difficulty you choose (75% on hard and 50% on legend), some armor is only available on hard and above, but nothing really important though. Don't try legend it is really ridiculous.
 
Last edited:

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
I've read that some content is locked off if you're not playing on hard mode? Is that true? I wouldn't mind restarting on an easier mode as long as all the content is still there.
On hard and above you have to sleep, eat and drink otherwise you character will suffer penalties or even die. The best crossbow available, that actually makes crossbows worth something past 1/2 of the game, is only possible to get if you play on hard or above (it's difficult to get and you only get 1 chance at this, I'm pretty sure you will miss it), some of the unique monsters appear only on hard and above difficulties. Also you get less experience the higher difficulty you choose (75% on hard and 50% on legend), some armor is only available on hard and above, but nothing really important though. Don't try legend it is really ridiculous.
As far as damage output and monster HP goes, is anything changed on easier modes?
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
As far as damage output and monster HP goes, is anything changed on easier modes?
HP and damage values of monsters always stay the same regardless of difficulty. It looks like I forgot to mention one of the most important nuances about choosing the difficulty - LPs. It's 15 for hard and 10 for legend.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
I noticed you start with more HP on easy compared to normal and that monsters take less hits on easy than normal, so I think you should go for normal or hard mode if any.

I am liking the mod, quite a bit -- it really is impressive what they've done. However, my god, whoever was responsible for putting vegetation needs an intervention. Went way too far with it to the point where you are often running blind in a jungle.
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
There is a texture pack that makes game brighter and less of an unrecognizable mash - here also removes a lot of crap from other games (Skyrim, Dark souls etc) and restores some of the original gothic stuff, download is at the very bottom of the first post, unpack files to Data folder. You can view screenshots under spoilers. You should also grab a NOGrass patch at the same page it reduces the amount of vegetation in the game, there are 4 files in the archive - noGrass.vdf already removes a lot of needless plants, the other files will remove even more, pick one you like and drop into Data folder.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
I think I unintentionally found a way to squeeze out more performance in Gothic II by lowering VerticalFOV value to 60 in SystemPack.ini because fish eye effect when turning camera was annoying me. At least I cannot get FPS to fall under 30 now even with view range maxed.
 

Junmarko

† Cristo è Re †
Patron
Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
3,480
Location
Schläfertempel
I think I unintentionally found a way to squeeze out more performance in Gothic II by lowering VerticalFOV value to 60 in SystemPack.ini because fish eye effect when turning camera was annoying me. At least I cannot get FPS to fall under 30 now even with view range maxed.
Which mods did you install & in what order? Steam community is rabid with help guides for Gothic 1/2: https://steamcommunity.com/app/39510/guides/?browsesort=toprated&browsefilter=toprated&requiredtags[0]=english&p=1

Last time I played was nine months ago, I recall having some slow-down with DX11 in Gothic 2 & I believe the work around was to open DX11's in-game UI (F11?) and turning off ambient occlusion or something. 100% it was a bugged shadow rendering effect that was the culprit anyway.

Worked flawlessly after that.
 

Junmarko

† Cristo è Re †
Patron
Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
3,480
Location
Schläfertempel
DX11 can go fuck itself, I am only using System Pack.
From my experience, the game actually ran better with it. Due to the forced rendering = better utilization of modern hardware. But suit yourself :|

Found my old post, hope these other options help ;)

I adjusted the Gothic2.exe profile through NVIDIA Control Panel. The settings I altered, gave immediate changes to the performance.
*Threaded Optimisation - On (Allows application to take advantage of multiple CPUs)
*Vertical Sync - "Adaptive" (After enabling Threaded Optimisation, the game jumped between 60-120fps causing mass screen tearing. Setting VSync to Adaptive locks the max at your monitors refresh rate, and disables it should it slip below that)
*Power Management Mode - Performance
There were various other settings I played with after - but those above were the major ones, for me. Play around with others and see what works for you.

Also, DO NOT touch the view distance settings via the in-game menu, leave them at 100% (they can go up to 300%) - DX11 already overrides this, so adjusting it will cause conflicts, thus a performance hit. You can also press F11 in-game to manually adjust DX11 settings.
 

Junmarko

† Cristo è Re †
Patron
Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
3,480
Location
Schläfertempel
I already explained more than once why I won't use DX11, not going to again.
Ok, clean your vagina. If you had bothered to read the rest of my post, you'd see I listed GPU tweaks to try.

Sound bit salty mate. Been a while since your last upgrade eh? Keep saving those pennies.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom