Gothic 3 is the best RPG ever

[Kraszu]

I don't really consider that 'exploration.' Sure, you have look around a bit to find the mines to complete the quest but you're given the actual quest in town. That's more like a positive since there's no quest compass . Same with Ivan and the monsters. You get those quests at a central hub and (as you pointed out) those things are all a fairly short distance away from said hub. The ruins and such... loot... yes loot... it's superfluous in this game. Hell there's so much of it they charge ridiculous sums of gold for the armor

So loot is superfluous despite that you need it to buy Armour? Does not compute.

(another design flaw tying it to a reputation and gold grind)

How is that a design flaw? It is awesome, you have a real initiative to get more REP that way, gold grind is part of every crpg, you get gold by doing quest, looting, and stealing there is no grind in the sense of having to go out of your way to kill every mob to get money.

Of course, PB never really could do the balanced economy thing. Usually you stop looting things in the second or so chapter of G1/G2. That's a whole different discussion regarding scarcity, though, but it still ties in to exploration. There's nothing fun about finding a cave with a gold chalice in it when you already have fifty thousand gold. The shadow beasts... eh... why even kill them? Experience? There's no shortage of that in G3 just sticking to the main plot lines. Loot? Nope. Their skins? Same as loot. Challenge? I guess... The rebel bases are just more quest hubs. I never considered finding them as part of exploration. They're really not hard to find and are part of the main plot line.

This makes it not an exploration ,why? I am not much into exploring in games like Skyrim where it doesn't matter where you go because you have quest in every cave are dull to me. I rather get a general direction, and actually look for something. There is no real need for finding something specific where every place is filled with awesome loot, and awesome loot isn't anything special then just dull. Getting Armour in G3 now that is something, you can't just stumble on it in some cave.

I'd say the only quest related thing that requires any kind of exploration off the beaten path (moderate amount of poking around you do in any game or even MMORPG) are those extra people you recruit for rebel camps. Some of them can be tricky to find. I can't speak for the arrows because archery always seemed to be brokenly overpowered in G3 given some highly suspect AI. But the fact that a world is densely populated does not mean it has good exploration. It means there's a lot of content and I never denied that. It's just that a lot of the content is fairly dull and most of it isn't particularly hard to find... just like in MMOs.

Having shit not very hard to find doesn't make the game MMORPG.

I understand that argument (and even mentioned in one of my many previous discussions over the game) and my conclusion was that I'd much rather have the fixed locations and deal with 'exploiters' or people just stumbling on to a site at random. There are also at least a couple of ways you could make them 'exploit' proof (if desired) like the non-scaling enemies you mentioned or have access require certain skill proficiencies you'd only obtain at certain level thresholds, etc. To me, the 'completionism' method of dispersing loot is poor design. No argument will convince me otherwise. I'm not going to make the 'immersion' argument because I rarely get immersed in a game, anyway, but the method they choose in G3 is little different than just spawning a sword out of thin air after you've killed X number of creatures (assuming no respawns which I don't think there are in G3), or walked Y number of in-game miles or some other goofy a-a-a-achievement unlocked gimmick.

It is pretty different because most of weapon chests are in important places. You don't have much chance to find them in a random cave.

How so? I suppose it's subjective but whenever I stumble on a location with monsters that kick my butt the first thing that pops to my mind is: hey there must be something really cool there, I can't wait to level up and come back. Of course, some people prefer the scaled approach where you can go everywhere and do everything allowing them to 'explore' at their leisure. But where's the fun in a game where you can visit and accomplish everything at level one? The reason G3 is accused of being a single player MMO is because the vast majority of the quests are dull and others are excessive grindfests like city liberation and clearing Nordmar of orc camps (something I opted out of, btw, since playing the Innos path I had already slaughtered about 200+ orcs in Myrtana and didn't feel like repeating the process ad nauseum for something that would make no difference in the game). As an aside, a better way of handling city liberation short of a straight out fight would have been to assign a number of quests to npcs throughout the city that would help make the liberation easier. Not just 'give us X weapon bundles' but maybe 'slip this poison into the water in the barracks if you have the poison ability' or 'smash the guards weapon stockpile if you have X strength' or 'free some more prisoners to help in battle if you have Y lockpick proficiency to open the cell doors' or 'scare away some guards by performing a magic trick if you have Z ancient knowledge skill' etc. etc. It's design decisions like that which are severely lacking in G3. Again, I applaud their ambition but frown on their execution. The game just feels like a big sandbox mmo where you tool around and see the sights.

MMORPG don't work in this way at all. One of the problem with what you are saying is that MMO don't give this freedom, you can't kill NPC there, you don't have spells like bloodlust to wreck havoc, you don't have a quests that are related to killing almost every NPC, NPC don't own MQ related items that you need to get often by killing them. I liked the liberation, sure there could be more quest that would make the fight easier, and REP should be connected with getting help from Rebbels (and they mostly hardly help witch is the problem as well, and the reason why Varant has better liberation's).

The combat isn't bad either, some animations look awkward but other then that on hard or medium, with alternative AI on, and alternative balance on you can't just mass lmb, you must find a timing to attack, observe your opponents, and react to it, this makes the combat interesting to me.

 

[tindrli]

anyone care to describe what patches, versions, links are needed to have vanilla playable?

 

[Kraszu]

http://www.worldofgothic.com/dl/?go=dlfile&fileid=166

Set Alternative balance on, alternative AI on, and the game difficulty hard.

As for ini tweaks:
ROI sphere is used to process all dynamic entities within range.
;Entity.ROI - 0.01=min, FarClippingPlane=max, 4000.0=default
;Automatically clamped to FarClippingPlane if bigger
Entity.ROI=6000.0

;DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_High - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 10000.0=default
;DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_Medium - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 8000.0=default
;DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_Low - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 6000.0=default
DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_High=30000.0
DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_Medium=28000.0
DistanceHigh.fFarClippingPlane_Low=26000.0

;DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_High - 10000.0=min, 300000.0=max, 100000.0=default
;DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_Medium - 10000.0=min, 300000.0=max, 50000.0=default
;DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_Low - 10000.0=min, 300000.0=max, 25000.0=default
DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_High=100000.0
DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_Medium=50000.0
DistanceLow.fFarClippingPlaneLowPolyMesh_Low=25000.0

;VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_VeryHigh - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 7500.0=default
;VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_High - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 6500.0=default
;VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_Medium - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 5000.0=default
;VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_Low - 1000.0=min, 30000.0=max, 4000.0=default
VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_VeryHigh=27500.0
VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_High=26500.0
VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_Medium=25000.0
VegetationViewRange.fViewDistance_Low=24000.0

 

[Gord]

Again though I can only say that alternative balancing is a very mixed blessing.
It sounds good, true, but at least if you are playing a mage it means that you will spend a big part of the game with a character that feels rather weak (and a bit boring).
It will take forever to get magic on a level where you can use it comfortably.

 

[mkultra]

Nice to see some people here with good taste!

Gothic 3 is indeed really great, not as good as Gothic2 though, but not far from it.. The detailed gameworld in G3 is the best ever, and probably the biggest gameworlds for an open-world singelplayer RPG.

Bethesda does some things better, especially in Morrowind which had a great lore.. I also like Bethesda's approach to interactivity (almost any object can be picked up and many has uses), PB's games are a little stiff with the interactivity and there arent as much interesting loot or ways to customize your character.

 

[Hobo Elf]

C'mon, other than the new fancier armor that looked better than peasant clothing, Gothic wasn't about the loot or magical weapons. Eventually when you did find a magical weapon it was super cool because of how unique it is, but it's not like I was bored because I didn't keep finding weapons with different elemental damage enchantments.

 

[mkultra]

Yeah it wasnt a biggie, and like you say it's really nice when you do get a good weapon..

 

[Chuck Norris]

You know what? Based at least partially on this thread, I decided to try Gothic 3 again.

I happen to still have a copy, which I played through some back when it came out yet soon abandoned, but I figured with all the patches that came out, plus the latest CP, it had to be better.

Man, was I fucking wrong. It took me less than an hour to remember how incredibly shitty of a game this is. Thanks a lot, Chuck. Wasted time I'll never get back again.

Ban this motherfucker.

So you realized Gothic 3, a game that takes 80 hours to be finished properly, is shit in less than an hour? I don't take the opinions of the people about games seriously unless they haven't finished it, let alone the opinion of someone who is as dumbfuck as you and judges such a huge game by playing it for less than an hour.

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

 

[CorpseZeb]

I'm sorry, I'm finished G3 "properly", that took over two months of my time, because I liked to check every corner of the game, and... still.... I haven't much to say about "dark side of G3", except well know of its idiosyncrasies. G3 is a just, huge, great and demanding game for players who are bit (or more then a bit) on the masochistic side of the coin of pleasure....

Ps. For what is worth, G3 isn't a Hike Simulator - definitely not. Oblivion - sure, pure form - but G3 - never.

 

[mkultra]

A lot of people doesnt understand that you're supposed to suck in the begining of the Gothic games, most ADHD kids wants to feel "epic" within 10 minutes (like in KoA etc).. I really like how vunerable you feel in the Gothic's, and how your armor and weapons are shit for a long time.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Yup. Suck at the beginning is a mark of any good game, anyway. Contrary to the cursed "easy access" mode of modern games.

Ps. First scene in the G3, on the hard mode, some orc kick your mora ass, rather hard, rather harsh. Now, if you find pleasure in it, you're gold.
Ps. Beginning of G1/G2 were similar...

 

[Outlander]

So... any thoughts on Forsaken Gods?

:D

 

[someone else]

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

Now if this isn't waaah! You don't like a game I like! Waaah! I don't know what it.
I don't like Crispy and I've won Gothic 3, replayed a few times as well and while I enjoyed it, there are certainly bad things about it. The combat for one.

 

[Kraszu]

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

Now if this isn't waaah! You don't like a game I like! Waaah! I don't know what it.
I don't like Crispy and I've won Gothic 3, replayed a few times as well and while I enjoyed it, there are certainly bad things about it. The combat for one.

What is bad about the combat?

 

[someone else]

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

Now if this isn't waaah! You don't like a game I like! Waaah! I don't know what it.
I don't like Crispy and I've won Gothic 3, replayed a few times as well and while I enjoyed it, there are certainly bad things about it. The combat for one.

What is bad about the combat?

Before CP and some after: Stun lock, enemy queuing, poor and slow swinging animation, awkward movement. Haven't played in a couple of years, but combat isn't fun as in an action game. The CP itself introduce other problems, the game isn't made for you taking on many orcs at once hence the queuing AI, so if you turn it off you have to break the game to win, usually by kiting/luring, abusing the AI or powergaming.
PB improved the combat in Risen, but it still flawed.

 

[Gord]

What is bad about the combat?

There's too much of it.
It has very strange balancing: different classes of enemies are "feeling" different, so far, so good. But why are most animals so much more difficult than humanoids? Why can I easily kill an orc, but not an goblin in melee (most people probably can, I couldn't; maybe my char just had the wrong weapons for goblins, dunno)?
Fighting multiple enemies usually means rushing in, attacking one, then running away. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[Kraszu]

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

Now if this isn't waaah! You don't like a game I like! Waaah! I don't know what it.
I don't like Crispy and I've won Gothic 3, replayed a few times as well and while I enjoyed it, there are certainly bad things about it. The combat for one.

What is bad about the combat?

Before CP and some after: Stun lock,

Not a problem anymore, you can sometimes stun lock kill somebody but it is usually pretty risky to do.

enemy queuing,

3 attack you at once you have to run backwards anyway or you will get smashed.

poor and slow swinging animation,

Animation could be better, but the speed isn't bad it makes the combat based more on fighting right timing windows to attack, and since attacks that enemies are chosen randomly (or partly randomly) the combat with the same enemies never is the same.

awkward movement.

What is awkward about it?

Haven't played in a couple of years, but combat isn't fun as in an action game.

I completely disagree there, gameplay in most action games is mostly about pressing pre learned combination of buttons, and I despise it.

PB improved the combat in Risen, but it still flawed.

It still could be improved but it has one of the best combat systems.

 

[someone else]

^ edited my previous post re: CP patch AI.

 

[Kraszu]

What is bad about the combat?

There's too much of it.
It has very strange balancing: different classes of enemies are "feeling" different, so far, so good. But why are most animals so much more difficult than humanoids? Why can I easily kill an orc, but not an goblin in melee (most people probably can, I couldn't; maybe my char just had the wrong weapons for goblins, dunno)?

They aren't, did you play the game with set Alternative balance on, alternative AI on, and the game difficulty hard? As for Goblins they do a strange dodge animation kinda like wolfs but not as easily to notice, the easiest way is to just block, and counter.

Fighting multiple enemies usually means rushing in, attacking one, then running away. Wash, rinse, repeat.

You need to find a timing for attack, otherwise it will be blocked or you will get hit first. Also after your first attack you are closer to your enemies and vulnerable with 3 NPC attacking you can't rush anything.

 

[Kraszu]

The CP itself introduce other problems, the game isn't made for you taking on many orcs at once hence the queuing AI, so if you turn it off you have to break the game to win, usually by kiting/luring, abusing the AI or powergaming.

Or by not sucking. I did kill many Orcs at once in melee without any abuses, and without power gaming, just by looking for the right timing to attack, attack once, and step back, or block, and step back, depending on the situation.

 

[Gord]

They aren't, did you play the game with set Alternative balance on, alternative AI on, and the game difficulty hard? As for Goblins they do a strange dodge animation kinda like wolfs but not as easily to notice, the easiest way is to just block, and counter.

Yes to all.
About the goblins, I guess I was using a too slow weapon, they would always interrupt my attack before it would land.
I did end up shooting them from afar.

You need to find a timing for attack, otherwise it will be blocked or you will get hit first. Also after your first attack you are closer to your enemies and vulnerable with 3 NPC attacking you can't rush anything.

Yes, but this is just one of the thing that made combat so tedious in my eyes. You are almost always fighting alone, yet you are facing sometimes a dozen or more enemies at once.

Now, admittedly I didn't delve too far into melee, as I eventually decided to go for a mage, but the basic problems I had with Gothic 3's combat exist regardless of class, imho.

 

[someone else]

The CP itself introduce other problems, the game isn't made for you taking on many orcs at once hence the queuing AI, so if you turn it off you have to break the game to win, usually by kiting/luring, abusing the AI or powergaming.

Or by not sucking. I did kill many Orcs at once in melee without any abuses, and without power gaming, just by looking for the right timing to attack, attack once, and step back, or block, and step back, depending on the situation.

Oh another one of those experts, such arrogance. I cleared entire cities alone using melee, an average player will have difficulty due to the AI whacking them in the back. So the easy wasy is to lure them out one by one or a few at a time. If you made a mistake just run away and the orcs will forget you, then come back and lure them again. This is plain abuse of AI. But then you get to clear entire cities alone without the help of rebels.
How about looking at the game from the point of an average gamer instead of going around saying people suck at a game you like? I was expecting this when I reply to you, hence the my sig. How old are you? G3 without queuing is hard for average gamers and probably why PB put it in. Taking queuing out, you have to rebalance the game, will a new player be able to handle it? Did you play CP on very hard as a new player? If a new player complains will you tell him he sucks and it is his fault, not the game, or the CP, or that he should lower difficulty?

 

[Kraszu]

The CP itself introduce other problems, the game isn't made for you taking on many orcs at once hence the queuing AI, so if you turn it off you have to break the game to win, usually by kiting/luring, abusing the AI or powergaming.

Or by not sucking. I did kill many Orcs at once in melee without any abuses, and without power gaming, just by looking for the right timing to attack, attack once, and step back, or block, and step back, depending on the situation.

If you take on many of them at once they will whack you in the back and they can kill in a couple of hits.

They will not whack you in the back if you don't let yourself surrounded, attack once, sometimes twice, and move back, if need sprint few meters away, and restart.

There are those who can't take on entire towns full of orcs alone, because some cities don't have rebels to help you. The correct way to win those situations is to lure them out a few at a time.

Then I had played incorrectly, worked fine for me.

Do you have to resort to going around calling people you suck at games, cos they can't take on a city full of orcs alone? What is wrong with you? Arrogance? Butthurt that people criticise your game? Waaah? Immaturity? How old are you? An average player will have difficulty, and yes I cleared out all those cities full of orcs alone with my 2-hander. I lure them out and line them in front of me so non-could stab me in the back. Pretty dumb AI. Happy?

I didn't know that you will get so personally jeez. I specifically didn't want to lure them one at the time, because it would be easy, and tedious to do so, the worst exploit is that Orcs, and the rest of the NPC can't jump, so you can easily shoot them from safe place while strafing to avoid they bolts/arrows I didn't use that exploit either.

Yes to all.
About the goblins, I guess I was using a too slow weapon, they would always interrupt my attack before it would land.
I did end up shooting them from afar.

I had played with one handed + shield, 2 weapon build, and 2h weapon build, and I was able to kill goblins, as you had said each enemy needs different approach, if your weapon was to slow you could had switch to different one, some 2h weapons are decently fast.

Yes, but this is just one of the thing that made combat so tedious in my eyes. You are almost always fighting alone, yet you are facing sometimes a dozen or more enemies at once.

There could be more help in liberation, as for the animals, when you fight with many at once you also can easily hit many of them with every strike as they don't block so it doesn't take too long, fighting with enemies that use weapons can take some time that is true, but it did find it pretty fun so it wasn't tedious for me.

If you don't want to fight with almost all of the Orcs yourself, then learn bloodlust, and wreak some havoc before you start to liberate.

Now, admittedly I didn't delve too far into melee, as I eventually decided to go for a mage, but the basic problems I had with Gothic 3's combat exist regardless of class, imho.

Did you fight 2 or 3 orcs at once in melee? You really did find it easier then killing say 2-3 boars?

Some animal killing:



As I had said move back, and to right or to left, and time your attacks right after getting to 300HP I had to really mess up to die against packs of any animals, sans trolls. It did happen sometimes but only because of my fault not because they were imba, or because there was anything wrong with the fighting system.

 

[King Crispy]

You know what? Based at least partially on this thread, I decided to try Gothic 3 again.

I happen to still have a copy, which I played through some back when it came out yet soon abandoned, but I figured with all the patches that came out, plus the latest CP, it had to be better.

Man, was I fucking wrong. It took me less than an hour to remember how incredibly shitty of a game this is. Thanks a lot, Chuck. Wasted time I'll never get back again.

Ban this motherfucker.

So you realized Gothic 3, a game that takes 80 hours to be finished properly, is shit in less than an hour? I don't take the opinions of the people about games seriously unless they haven't finished it, let alone the opinion of someone who is as dumbfuck as you and judges such a huge game by playing it for less than an hour.

Many classic RPGs start slow, uninteresting and confusing. This problem shines more brightly for Gothic 3 because it's just way too huge and open and bugs don't help either. It's easy for a noob fag like Crispy to get confused and lost in such a huge world without any quest marker or detailed map to guide him. So he abandons the game entirely and covers his lack of skill by calling the game shit. I really like to see someone who has managed to finish Gothic 3 properly ( not by rushing through it ) and still has bad things to say about it.

If you'd re-read my reply a little closer, and a little slower, you insipid baboon, you'd see and realize that I've played Gothic 3 before. I actually got quite a ways through it. I was intrigued enough by it then to have dedicated enough time to formulate my opinion on it, deciding after at least 30 hours in that it wasn't worth the time to keep going. The false sense of nostalgia from the first two games had worn off and I realized what I was playing wasn't really a Gothic game at all.

What I was playing was a rushed, messy, abomination completely devoid of the charm that its predecessors had. I wasn't confused, the game was actually pretty easy to get through. I didn't get lost; everything revolves around towns and major landmarks. No, I was bored. I was tired of the stupid combat, I was tired of the ridiculously repetative story, and I was tired of the bugs, the clunkiness and the overall poor quality of the game. Had these patches come out sooner, had the game been more stable and playable then would I have gotten further into it? Probably.

But now? I just can't be asked to give a shit. Fuck Gothic 3 and fuck you for recommending it (trolling GRPG). I think I might go back and play NotR, however. I'll take even someone like Konjad's advice on what to play over yours any day.

 

[someone else]

^^ edited my previous post. How do you take on 30 orcs without being overpowered or luring them to keep from being surrounded? The line between tactics and abuse of AI is blurry, your vid shows some abuse of AI, or tactics as you say. Whack them a few times then sprint away? Cos the AI doesn't know how to trap you? Forget about you when you run away?. That is cheese tactics to me. When you judge a game keep in mind the abilities of the average gamer. A new player playing as you recommend: CP without queuing, on hard will have problems. Rather then judge a game from your leet skills, how about from the average gamer? How about a new player to G3 who doesn't know how to build a char, or fight, or the AI, oh wait that person sucks, it is his fault not the game's. Lower the difficulty, turn on queuing yet plenty still will not like the combat.