Incline Gothic turns 15 years

[T. Reich]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

A transformation scroll basically goes to replace your stats+appearance+animations with the corresponding attributes of said creature.
You can check the critter stats here - http://www.worldofgothic.com/gothic2/?go=addonmonster

Shadowbeast has 300hp, 150dmg and 125 melee protection.
That makes it a good option for mowing down moderate strength enemies early on (enemies that are worth 120 exp or less). Trolls (1-on-1), too, but only because you attack them way faster than they attack you, so you'd be able to eat away their hp 5 points at a time before you croak.
However, if you tried tackling something like an orc or, god forbid, a dragon snapper while you were a shadowbeast, you'd be quickly fucked, because pretty much any 150+ exp monster has at least the same stats as shadowbeast, making you deal very little damage per hit to them, while they can chunk you relatively quickly.

Basically, I rate the transformation scrolls as follows:
1) warg, shadowbeast, fire lizard (300hp, 150dmg, 125def - 150def for lizzy) = good up until Chapter 3 while leveling, then become useless because you're supposed to be stronger than that yourself (offensively).
2) dragon snapper (400hp, 200dmg, 200def) = actually good up until endgame, but its strength falls off rapidly around Chapter 4 due to you having to fight large groups of strong enemies.
Everything else is trash-tier, usually useless at the very start of the game already.
And even the best transformation scroll is pretty weak vs groups of 3+ strong enemies, because you'll simply be stunlocked and your relatively small hp pool chipped away by many rapid attacks. The best use is to attack several solo enemies in sequence until your HP depletes.

 

[Gimble]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

Everything else is trash-tier, usually useless at the very start of the game already.
And even the best transformation scroll is pretty weak vs groups of 3+ strong enemies, because you'll simply be stunlocked and your relatively small hp pool chipped away by many rapid attacks. The best use is to attack several solo enemies in sequence until your HP depletes.

The other transformations have their use, not for combat, but for safe passage in areas like the valley of mines. In fact, for a pure mage character, it is recommended to rush to chapter 3 after meeting lord Hagen for better runes and the transformation scrolls really help zip through VOM chapter 2 quests. You can still come back later for actual exploration and XP.

 

[Multidirectional]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

I tried to tackle skeletons and couple of orcs with it. Nope, I'm already stronger in my original form and I'm still in chapter 2.

 

[Gimble]

I tried shadowbeast transformation a couple of times, which is apparently supposed to be super powerful and got raped both times without being able to hit anything. I guess I just don't know how to use those things.

Like the other poster stated, their usefulness depends on context. The shadowbeast and warg is also useful to deal with the bandits (not the lighthouse, but the small camps of Dexter's bandits - the ones at the bridge and the ones near Sagitta for example).

 

[Gimble]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

I tried to tackle skeletons and couple of orcs with it. Nope, I'm already stronger in my original form and I'm still in chapter 2.

Only the dragon snapper, and perhaps the fire lizard is strong enough for orcs and skeletons. Also, melee/bow builds can become strong enough by mid-chapter 2 to take on all the monsters in the game (while mage builds need to wait a bit more), so these are basically chapter 1 options for most builds.

 

[Multidirectional]

Yeah one poster a page ago claimed I should try those scrolls to see "true power". Apparently "true power" is already useless in chapter 2. Beliar's Claw also doesn't seem to be nearly as OP as I was led to believe. Maybe on higher levels it is but so far I can only handle 1 orc at a time in melee and I'm resorting to cheesing them with climbing + crossbow. Also lightning from Beliar's Claw is irritating so I think I'll give it to Vatras to destroy once I equip something else decent.

 

[Gimble]

Yeah one poster a page ago claimed I should try those scrolls to see "true power".

It is all relative. Transformation scrolls can be used right at the start of the game, for example, for some easy kills. The fire rain spell is indeed "true power" though, but only a limited number of scrolls are available (2 for purchase and maybe 4-5 through exploration) - they are OP throughout the game, able to oneshot all but the strongest enemies in a large area.

Beliar's Claw also doesn't seem to be nearly as OP as I was led to believe. Maybe on higher levels it is but so far I can only handle 1 orc at a time in melee and I'm resorting to cheesing them with climbing + crossbow. Also lightning from Beliar's Claw is irritating so I think I'll give it to Vatras to destroy once I equip something else decent.

The claw is useful for two reasons. It has no STR requirement for the damage it does. It procs for 50 magic, unblockable damage now and then (the chance depends on sword's upgrade level). That damage also has some aoe. Btw, you should be able to take on non-elite orcs one on one with the claw (or any other decent weapon by now) - get them to charge you and strafe to the side and do one/two attacks and back away (and repeat). Btw, in this game backstepping is a guaranteed dodge to avoid melee damage.

 

[T. Reich]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

I tried to tackle skeletons and couple of orcs with it. Nope, I'm already stronger in my original form and I'm still in chapter 2.

Only the dragon snapper, and perhaps the fire lizard is strong enough for orcs and skeletons. Also, melee/bow builds can become strong enough by mid-chapter 2 to take on all the monsters in the game (while mage builds need to wait a bit more), so these are basically chapter 1 options for most builds.

Mages get access to summoning skills relatively early on as well. Goblin skeleton rune is a circle I spell, and skeleton rune is a circle III spell. Once you're able to summon at least 2-3 of those (90-180 mana basically), these summons can tackle pretty a lot of solo enemies on their own, especially if you help them.

 

[Gimble]

Depends on what you tried to tackle with it.

I tried to tackle skeletons and couple of orcs with it. Nope, I'm already stronger in my original form and I'm still in chapter 2.

Only the dragon snapper, and perhaps the fire lizard is strong enough for orcs and skeletons. Also, melee/bow builds can become strong enough by mid-chapter 2 to take on all the monsters in the game (while mage builds need to wait a bit more), so these are basically chapter 1 options for most builds.

Mages get access to summoning skills relatively early on as well. Goblin skeleton rune is a circle I spell, and skeleton rune is a circle III spell. Once you're able to summon at least 2-3 of those (90-180 mana basically), these summons can tackle pretty a lot of solo enemies on their own, especially if you help them.

Agreed. Goblin skeletons are very efficient for the mana spent. Chapter/circle 3 allows ice block + summon skeleton combo which can be used effectively against most enemies in the game.

 

[Declinator]

Played through Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 NoTR after desiring some more after Elex. Have to say Gothic 1 has terrible combat. Mechanically pretty much the same as 2 but the enemies practically kill themselves on my sword. On the other hand outside of UI and combat concerns it was actually better than Gothic 2.

Some questions about Gothic 2:
-Can you really not move diagonally? As in you can only strafe or go forwards?
-Is it impossible to hurt multiple enemies with one swing?
-Why would anyone play with Gothic 2 controls instead of Gothic 1 controls since the latter affords you so much more control?

 

[Gimble]

Played through Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 NoTR after desiring some more after Elex. Have to say Gothic 1 has terrible combat. Mechanically pretty much the same as 2 but the enemies practically kill themselves on my sword. On the other hand outside of UI and combat concerns it was actually better than Gothic 2.

Some questions about Gothic 2:
-Can you really not move diagonally? As in you can only strafe or go forwards?
-Is it impossible to hurt multiple enemies with one swing?
-Why would anyone play with Gothic 2 controls instead of Gothic 1 controls since the latter affords you so much more control?

You can move backwards/forwards and strafe. The Gothic control schemes are that way because the original started development as a console game. No aoe/multiple enemy damage possible in Gothic 1/2 as melee, except the beliar's claw which has a small area of effect when its special damage procs (may be a bug). Use spells for AOE much like gothic 1.

Btw, Gothic 2 control scheme is actually as good if not better, AFTER you do the following: Bind left attack and right attack keys to individual buttons - this allows the exact same flexibility as Gothic 1 with less key presses. Also, in Gothic 2, stepping back during combat always dodges attacks, and it is actually safer to use attack + step back combo against dangerous enemies rather than left/right attacks.

 

[Multidirectional]

Have to say Gothic 1 has terrible combat. Mechanically pretty much the same as 2 but the enemies practically kill themselves on my sword.

I started using Gothic 1 control scheme as soon as I got a weapon with good reach just so I can cheese 1 on 1 fights with side swing combo. Poor fucks are just helpless against it, keep bumping into my sword while very rarely landing a single hit. Works even against Orc Elites.

 

[Gimble]

Have to say Gothic 1 has terrible combat. Mechanically pretty much the same as 2 but the enemies practically kill themselves on my sword.

I started using Gothic 1 control scheme as soon as I got a weapon with good reach just so I can cheese 1 on 1 fights with side swing combo. Poor fucks are just helpless against it, keep bumping into my sword while very rarely landing a single hit. Works even against Orc Elites.

The left/right combo can be executed with the Gothic 2 control scheme as well. With either control method, it requires the faster swing animations to be unlocked to consistently beat tougher enemies.

 

[Multidirectional]

Got done with all 4 dragons yesterday. So much tedium. On one hand it's sort of cool to revisit G1 area, on the other hand game didn't really give me anything interesting to do in it. Just fuckloads of orcs and lizardmen to wade through on the way to dragons. At least dragons were decent enough to stand there and do nothing while I chipped away at their health with crossbow. Good, because I have no idea how you could kill them in melee, I could barely even get close enough for a single hit.

It felt like a last chapter without actually being one and now I'm exhausted and wanna take a break from the game. Except the ending also seems to be close so I might as well get it over with.

 

[Gimble]

Got done with all 4 dragons yesterday. So much tedium. On one hand it's sort of cool to revisit G1 area, on the other hand game didn't really give me anything interesting to do in it. Just fuckloads of orcs and lizardmen to wade through on the way to dragons. At least dragons were decent enough to stand there and do nothing while I chipped away at their health with crossbow. Good, because I have no idea how you could kill them in melee, I could barely even get close enough for a single hit.

It felt like a last chapter without actually being one and now I'm exhausted and wanna take a break from the game. Except the ending also seems to be close so I might as well get it over with.

Yes, the dragons are balanced for the player wielding ultimate weapons. As melee there is no special trick other than to use all resources available. Summon some fodder, drink speed potion and use hit and run tactics; or just ranged attacks as you did. Fire rain scrolls will help, especially against the ice dragon. Summoned demons can even solo them as they actually have a bit higher armor and resistance than some of the dragons themselves.

 

[Declinator]

Got done with all 4 dragons yesterday. So much tedium. On one hand it's sort of cool to revisit G1 area, on the other hand game didn't really give me anything interesting to do in it. Just fuckloads of orcs and lizardmen to wade through on the way to dragons. At least dragons were decent enough to stand there and do nothing while I chipped away at their health with crossbow. Good, because I have no idea how you could kill them in melee, I could barely even get close enough for a single hit.

I killed the dragons with melee weapons. They are very annoying to fight but if you can make them flinch/fly with one or two hits they are reasonably easy to kill because you just need to hit them as soon as you can after they land so they take flight again. Rinse and repeat. The best trick of course is to summon/hire help as Gimble said.

The action side of Gothic 2 is ultimately not all that convincing:

• Enemies have very little variance. Essentially only two different melee weapon wielding enemies (one that swings once and one that swings twice).
  
• The enemy activation/lock-on system is poor and the fact I can't hurt multiple enemies simultaneously despite the game constantly pushing multiple enemies at me is strange and often basically necessitated tedious baiting tactics.
• No diagonal movement. Lacking basics like this makes your game clumsy.
  
• Very forgiving parry. Can't remember a game with more leeway when blocking.
• Some animals seemingly have a period of immortality after you strike them once and before they recover from flinching.
  
• Some animals have strangely far reaching attacks (looking at you dragon snapper). Of course my counter-attacking style aggravates the problem since you're probably supposed to side step instead of trying to time your swing to hit them before they hit you. Dragon snapper is probably the second most difficult animal to counter with the flame lizard being the most difficult for obvious flammable reasons.
• Weapon types don't seem to have any differences in Gothic 2. I know in Gothic 1 I sometimes needed maces but while I constantly tried to keep a good mace and an axe at hand "just in case" in Gothic 2 I never ended up needing them.
• Some enemies are complete doormats. In Gothic 1 the ants were some of the more dangerous enemies but in 2 I'm not sure they ever even got in striking distance. Zombies are similarly lackluster. They just make me wonder why they are in the game in the first place.

On the other hand there are of course some positives too:

• It's refreshing to be able to decide which way your weapons swings instead of just light/heavy attack.
  
• The range your weapon has also has far more importance than in most games which often means that the weapon that deals the most damage isn't necessarily the best choice.
  
• I like that the game embraces flinching so completely as it makes it possible to play with the aforementioned counter-attacking style. Some animals need very exact timing to counter which can be delicious though the repetitive movesets obviously puts a damper on it.

 

[Gimble]

I always join the mages these days even if building a warrior. The warrior gameplay is good in the first two chapters while mage gameplay is better later on. There are so many mana stat boosts available (to get to 150-200+ mana easily) that all you have to do as a warrior->mage is to train the circles later on (chaoter 3+) with spare LP and get some very specific spells handy. This way, you can clear the hordes of enemies with aoe spells and fight only the tougher leftover enemies one-on-one.

 

[SCO]

In gothic 1 it's possible (without the console) to get some of the benefits of joining the old camp guards while being part of the magician circle because of a bug of a temporary variable. You do this:

Spoiler

- Be a member of the Old Camp ( A Shadow )
- At the beginning of Chapter 2 after obtaining the Focus Stone you'll need to go find a Minecrawler Nest in the Old Mine.
- After you kill the minecrawler queen head to the Old Camp and save your game.

Make your way to Thorus and speak with him. Instead of saying you want to be a guard, tell him you want to be a magician. Head to the fire mages, Milten will tell you Corristo wants to speak with you. Go to Corristo and complete the test...

Tell him you DID work for the Sect Camp, that their god is Innos, and to be humble in the face of magic.

Now he will go upstairs and wait for you. Go back to Thorus and tell him you want to be a guard. You will then need to go to Stone who's across from the fire mages. He'll give you guard armor and a weapon. Head back to the fire mages and you will become a Fire Mage.

This will give you the Fire Mage armor, and the Light Guard armor + a Guard Sword for free.

Classic case of two steps commit bug. You can always change the faction on the console on both games but this is p cool. You might be able to access some of the training benefits from the old camp guards too, i don't remember.

 

[Gimble]

Some animals have strangely far reaching attacks (looking at you dragon snapper). Of course my counter-attacking style aggravates the problem since you're probably supposed to side step instead of trying to time your swing to hit them before they hit you. Dragon snapper is probably the second most difficult animal to counter with the flame lizard being the most difficult for obvious flammable reasons.

Dragon snapper/Fire lizard damage is reliably avoided by stepping back (the game basically grants iframes when you do this) and then doing a quick counter attack, or combo if you have the faster animations.

In gothic 1 it's possible (without the console) to get some of the benefits of joining the old camp guards while being part of the magician circle because of a bug of a temporary variable. You do this:

Joining the water mages as a mercenary works the same way, but without needing to exploit bugs as you can get 2h training from Lee for example and then join the water mages.

In Gothic 2, only advantage of mercenery/paladin is better armor (and usage of beliar's claw). By joining fire mages, you can still train Dex/STR/weapons etc from corresponding master trainers and thus freely play as a regular warrior until you get access to good spells in later chapters - access to spells beats better armor anyday. You also get funnier reactions from various NPCs as a mage. One of my favorites is to enter the paladins' ship in chapter 2 as a mage - the conversation with the guard is quite hilarious.

 

[SCO]

Do you remember any tricks for multiple factions in Risen?

I know it's possible to go back and forth into the city, paying gold each time to enter, get quests inside, jump outside etc. I also know you can do almost all of the quests of all factions when you don't have a faction (which the previous allows for those quests that require the city), and they become hostile after you aggro them during later faction quests, but I don't know of a way to get one faction benefits and be a member of one of the other two for example.

IIRC, you could even (with use of stealth or a nymph distraction scroll) steal stuff from the Don which was required for some faction or other without aggro-ing the camp.

 

[Gimble]

Not as familiar with Risen as it has been a few years since I played that game. Due for a revisit soon thanks to Elex induced nostalgia.

What I do remember is that there is very little difference between mages and the order(?). Both get access to the fire/ice/bullet spells. Mages have the the ability to cast special spells from runes(?) - since anyone could learn scroll crafting (even bandits), runes are less useful overall. Mages also get different armor of course.

The bandit master trainers wont train axe/sword to 10 if you join a different faction, but they will when you are factionless. So, one way to be an axe wielding mage, for example, is to train axe skill with the bandits to 10 in chapter 1 (your trick of doing all faction quests will be useful for the additional xp needed), and then join the monastery and play flexibly from thereon as a fighter/mage. There are also a couple of +1 axe/sword skill rings, so for the min-maxer, training only till skill level 8 is actually necessary to max either of them.

 

[Taurist]

Recently blasted my way through Gothic 2 for the first time. Its actually astonishing how complete the dip in quality is once you reach the Valley of Mines.
I think in future replays I will consider the fight with Raven to be the end of the game, and save myself the tedium of fighting 6000 orcs and lizard men. I would also agree that the final chapter feels utterly redundant. I had already used all my scrolls against the first round of dragons.
Gothic 1 handles this tedium slightly better, by making you much stronger relative to the enemies, they also block less. This may be due to the difficulty increase that NOTR applies though.

 

[Gimble]

I don't think the developers intended for the players to ever 'clear' the VOM. The orc invasion was supposed to be unavoidable and unstoppable. The huge abundance of transformation scrolls in the valley is also an indication of that design (orcs are not aggressive to the transformed player and it is possible to move about free and fast in this state).

Gothic 2 vanilla also has the same orc infestation and necessitated a less than direct approach there - you visit VOM after talking to lord Hagen and you are too weak to take on orcs at that point. Its just that in NOTR, the player may become strong enough to fight orcs in chapter 2 due to the added content and it becomes tedious to actually do so in VOM.

 

[T. Reich]

This.

Frankly, anyone trying to actually cut out the entire siege in Chapter 4 is a certified autist.
Especially considering that most of those orcs do not impede your movement in any way and are easily outrun/avoided.

 

[Taurist]

Oh yes, I didnt tackle the majority of them. But even if you dont, there are rather a lot of them. Each of the routes to the dragons and the final chapter's dungeon and filled with these boring ass fights.
I unfortunatly went melee, which necessitated a lot of provoking and backtracking.