Gothic Gothic is fun

[Murk]

how the fuck does dodging work in gothic 1?

I see all these posts saying you're supposed to dodge back with monsters, but it only ever seems to result in me being hit no matter what. What am I missing here?

A combination of learning audio cues and animations, basically.

Anyway, here's a shitty video of it to show what I meant.

 

[Zanzoken]

Well done Murk, you are way better at this game than I am lol

Spoiler

 

[1451]

Regarding difficulty, the Gothic games are easy. I never understood players who struggled with the controls.
As for the Risen series, 2 is the best because they tried evolving Gothic's recipe. It had it's problems but I was disappointed to see them returning to soulless popamole gameplay for 3.
As to why it's a fun universe, because the developers put a part of their soul during the creation of the game. That's why it is so loved.
And I think it's wrong to undermine Morrowind just to make Gothic seem better in comparison. Both games are good and should be enjoyed by pc gaming connoisseurs.
And while mods add replayability to games, it's wrong to judge the core game based on the mod's imbalances.

 

[Tavar]

Play Gothic 2 with NOTR expansion. This is the way.

Having just recently replayed the game with NOTR installed, I can say that is decline in every way compared to the classic experience. NOTR has such a retarded balancing that you'll run into walls unless you really know what you are doing. I'd never recommend it to someone new in the series. And let's not forget that it adds a lot of bugs and general jankiness to the game (e.g. changing voice actors in different lines, Bosper not commenting on the boar hides even though he comments ever other type of hide etc.).

So I've been playing G2 a little while and starting to get decent at the combat. I have a good "1-2-dodge" combo using the little knife that Cavalorn gives you, and can reliably kill wolves, field raiders, and other mobs while taking little or no damage.

I've just been hoarding LP for these first few levels, given that the character system is kind of fucky, but ultimately decided to go with 1H melee for this run. I trained the requisite skill up to unlock "Fighter" rank, eager to see what the new combat animations would be like. Surely my dude will be even quicker and deadlier now, right?

Uhhh... no. The new animations are complete garbage. While I can now do a flashy 4-strike combo, each step is tricky to time, and if you're off then dude just freezes for a second and gives the enemy a free shot at his face. And the speedy "stick-and-move" style I was using so effectively up until now is no more. The flashy new sword strikes are slow and unresponsive to the point that I can no longer properly execute my backsteps. The timing I was using in the old style is now all wrong, and results in dude either throwing up an ineffectual block, or being too slow on the backstep to avoid damage.

I am going to keep at it and see if I can adjust to this new style, but if I can't sort this out then it might be enough to induce a ragequit. I really want to like this game -- and in many ways I do -- but it's testing my patience in ways that G1 never did.

As you've met Cavalorn it seems that you are playing with the NOTR addon. I don't think that melee is very good with the addon installed, you'll see what I mean once you meet the dragons. In general, I'd recommend playing classic for any new players. But if you want a NOTR build which owns everything after a while, go for a dex based bow build. Note that increasing dex is more important than increase the bow hit chance, because you need a good bow to deal any damage at all to high powered enemies. The only thing I know which improves the combat animations is a book you can buy in the upper city for 5000 gold. I think Luthero is the vendor. Sadly, I only know the German name for it "Die Kunst der südländischen Verteidigung" which translate to "The art of the southern defense". It will give a +5 one hand combat and a new block animation which opens the enemy up for a quick counter strike. It is expensive but worth it.

 

[Cryomancer]

I think I'm done with the returning mod; started a new game to avoid the last corrupted save, same thing happened after about 3 hours.

I never had that problem. But always had multiple saves

If you wanna a perfect Ch 1 save, where you can only chose the guild and do the quest, with a shirtton of LP and gold, PM me. Is from sinitar. Of course, if you wanna be a magician, you also need to get 30~40 INT by doing the intellectual stuff like reading books, alchemy and runemaking(you can't train INT like you can with STR/DEX) and do the initiation quest which is not trivial for necromancers.

 

[Zanzoken]

If my character is only Level 9, would it be completely foolish to advance to Chapter Two?

I know the right approach from a powergaming standpoint is to clear the whole map in Chapter One, but I am sick of grinding mobs with such shitty equipment.

Bumping the plot to Ch2 would allow me to get the Ore Longsword and Medium Merc armor, which would give me like 50% gains to both attack and defense. But if it will somehow fuck up my game to do that then I can wait.

 

[Shadenuat]

There's nothing wrong from pg standpoint in advancing chapters provided you did quests. For C1 if you did all joining quests for factions you can go C2. C2 also allows you to join Ring of Water and get their armor, and go to NOTR, where you can get Pirate Armor, and some other stuff, I remember Ruby Sword being nice.

It is possible to get to level 15-20 on first map, in C2 go NOTR, and if you finish NOTR, you will be overleved for most of the game since then.

 

[Zanzoken]

Well let's see, I did all the quests for the master craftsmen in Khorinis and became Bosper's apprentice. Then went to the Farm, passed Torlof's test (using help from Lares / Cord), recovered Cipher's weed, and beat up Buster, Fester, Raoul, and Rod. The novice fire mage in Khorinis told me you can't get into the Monastery without paying 1000 gold so I figured there were no quests to be had there unless you planned on becoming a mage.

So I went ahead and joined Mercs and just need to take Lee's message to Hagen to advance to Ch2. I haven't gone with Lares to deliver the amulet, completed any of the Ring of Water quests, or joined the Thieves Guild (not sure how you even do that) but it sounds like I'll probably be able to still clear those in Ch2.

 

[Tavar]

If my character is only Level 9, would it be completely foolish to advance to Chapter Two?

I know the right approach from a powergaming standpoint is to clear the whole map in Chapter One, but I am sick of grinding mobs with such shitty equipment.

Bumping the plot to Ch2 would allow me to get the Ore Longsword and Medium Merc armor, which would give me like 50% gains to both attack and defense. But if it will somehow fuck up my game to do that then I can wait.

Do it, it won't harm you in any way. And there is no need to ever clear the whole map. You'll get enough experience with normal play anyway.

 

[pomenitul]

the Gothic games are easy

Mostly true, but I played NotR as a pure mage recently, and it was… not fun.

 

[Shadenuat]

I haven't gone with Lares to deliver the amulet, completed any of the Ring of Water quests, or joined the Thieves Guild (not sure how you even do that) but it sounds like I'll probably be able to still clear those in Ch2.

There is a pirate quest, give him farm clothes. Then there is going with Lares do that, he can kill things for you too. You can activate teleporter that way. And later you can make him kill things for you in the forest. He's a helpful dude. And tracking bandits takes you across whole map. Kill Black Troll if you haven't, he's dumb. Bring his hide to bandito.
For thieves guild you need to

Spoiler

let thieves you encounter go/deal with them. there are 3 total.
but afaik there is also option of dealing with them bad and still going into the guild.

There is myriad of microquests in G2, I recommend checking walkthrough after you think you "finished" the chapter.
Don't forget to learn alchemy and check traders every chapter, for new items and king sorrels/other herbs.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

As for the Risen series, 2 is the best

No, just no.

Risen 2 was a step backwards in the series in almost every conceivable way.

 

[Murk]

Well done Murk, you are way better at this game than I am lol

Spoiler

I've replayed it a metric ton of times mein freund; autism has its perks (sometimes).

I think I'm done with the returning mod; started a new game to avoid the last corrupted save, same thing happened after about 3 hours.

I never had that problem. But always had multiple saves

If you wanna a perfect Ch 1 save, where you can only chose the guild and do the quest, with a shirtton of LP and gold, PM me. Is from sinitar. Of course, if you wanna be a magician, you also need to get 30~40 INT by doing the intellectual stuff like reading books, alchemy and runemaking(you can't train INT like you can with STR/DEX) and do the initiation quest which is not trivial for necromancers.

I appreciate the offer!

I had multiple saves too, the issue wasn't just that it would crash when loading -- but that it would also crash when saving. It's all good, all the changes weren't too my liking anyway. I took half a step back and got the english L'Hiver 1.15 instead, which is *different enough* that it might keep me going.

Zanzoken

Below is a minor-to-medium spoiler regarding the order of areas to go to due to my crippling autism and how a certain quests requires you to go to (through) all three game world areas.

Do not read if you don't like these things, but this is the order I always play it because I hate backtracking and I am the kind of person who *must* finish a quest when he comes across it.

Spoiler

In Jarkhendar (beyond the portal of the water mages) you will come across a quest in which you need to use the *safely extracted* venom of a blood fly to make a certain potion. You can learn to extract said venom safely from a book in the valley of mines, in the castle. Also, this makes the venom stingers from blood flies full-heal you when you use them.

So I go Valley of Mines -> Jarkhendar.

You don't have to finish the quest line in the valley of mines, you can just read the book then go to Jarkhendar, but that's up to you. I'd actually suggest you *not* finish the valley of mines so that you can make use of the armors you get in Jarkhendar.

 

[Cryomancer]

Mostly true, but I played NotR as a pure mage recently, and it was… not fun.

Offensive magic on G2 is worthless. The same spell deals 1/5 of the G1 damage and costs 5x more mana to cast. Use Ice Block and summon goblin skeleton while you use a rapier. That is how """mages""" plays on G2 NoTR. 6 Fireballs to kill a zombie. That is ludicrous. Just summon a few goblin skeletons and you can dish far more damage with far less mana.

Other problem, is that Xardas who teaches circle 6 magic on G1, doesn't teach anything to you. Nor Saturas(unless you join the sheeps of innos). You can't even ask for Xardas for magic tuition(only weapons), the unique way to learn magic is going in a all male monastery and distributing sausage. And water mages teaches magic to you if you are a fire mage, but you can't join then. Why? Why I can learn circles from Saturas, spells from Nefarious but not join then? And army of darkness being tough in the monastery of Innos, by the same guys who hate Xardas for doing dark magic? WTF!!!

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

Playing as a mage in G2 NotR is pretty broken. You can only be a battle mage and if you don't invest enough in mana you'll end up being pretty useless. When I played as a mage for the first time I ended up killing orcs in the valley of mines by throwing 2-3 fireballs at them, using a teleport rune back to the castle, sleep, going back to them and repeat. You think you'll be powerful enough on your own in the late game but no. You'll always need a summon or a companion to carry you. Rune spells also don't get stronger as you level up (which I think is a good thing but can be a bit confusing at first).
It has its upsides though. They made some monsters much stronger than in the vanilla including those that you can summon. I killed Raven by summoning a skeleton and while he was busy attacking me the skelly hits him 5-7 times in the back and boom the chosen of Beliar dies like a bitch. FUN.

The unique way to learn magic is going in a all male monastery and distributing sausage.

YES. Problem?

 

[Cryomancer]

When I played as a mage for the first time I ended up killing orcs in the valley of mines by throwing 2-3 fireballs at them, using a teleport rune back to the castle, sleep, going back to them and repeat.

Yep. Extremely boring. I also ended using transformation scrolls, cuz they was far more mana efficient a lot on the normal game...

Anyway, returning improves mage gameplay a lot.

• You can learn magic from Xardas, a baddass necromancer, not only by distribuiting sausage in a all male monastery
• Spells grow up in damage with INT(that you get by doing intellectual stuff, you can't train like STR/DEX) and spellpower(learning new spells)
• Summons are "ethernal" but each one has a mana cost per second to maintain
• Demonology is a separated skill line for necros which allow then to create more powerful demons, including archdemons.
• You can learn how to make scrolls, including fire rain scrolls
• Enemy bosses also get a huge buff. Dragons cast circle 6 magic and without learning fire/cold resist, only by being 100m near this dragons lair, you take constnat fire/cold damage
• You can learn mana regen to regen your int / 20 mana per 5 sec or 1% per sec(AB)

 

[Shadenuat]

So it's Victor who spammed reddit and steam about how Xardas doesn't teach magic anymore

I remember nothing hard about playing G2 as mage. Get Ice lance to 2-shot enemies by either Lance + Firebolt or Lance + Lance. Play game more "backwards" by going quicker through Chapters to get to higher circles. Storm spell, while takes long to cast, leaves many enemies at hp to be 1-shot. You also get summon skeleton and summon zombie.
Endgame is just pressing "all die" button. Supplement playthrough with myriad of OP scrolls which can kill everything alone even without runes at your leasure.
Harder than bow of course but bow is kinda cheating, and melee is always at least somewhat dangerous.

The only terrible loss is no more Transform into Bloodfly.

 

[pomenitul]

G2 or NotR? Because Seekers are a massive pain in the ass with the latter installed.

 

[Cryomancer]

So it's Victor who spammed reddit and steam about how Xardas doesn't teach magic anymore

Spammed? I don't post on any steam forum from ages. And most of my posts are just memes like

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldofgothic/comments/l125e0/what_could_have_made_adanos_so_angry/

G2 or NotR? Because Seekers are a massive pain in the ass with the latter installed.

Ice block and on the circle of sun, summon golem to deal with the 3 at the same time.

 

[Shadenuat]

Seekers are stupid they don't even follow you and will stand waiting if they can't draw a LOS through tree to you. Any ranged character can just strafe and kill them. You only need to kill them in group twice - in da house and at sun circle. Scroll or raptor both locations or something.

I kinda wonder what you do with them as melee, drink possesion potion all the time or clear whole map first then go to Pyrokar? Although maybe you can just ambush them from the back when they're walking around.
And use extra protection from fire maybe.

Spammed? I don't post on any steam forum from ages. And most of my posts are just memes like

When I was absorbing G2 knowledge through google I've seen posts by some [KhajitName]FromDarsheeva or something like that who spammed Desiderus-style slay all noobs how G1-2 are EZ and how magic in G2 sucks and Xardas can't teach 6th circle anymore on steam and reddit (although on reddit name was different but agenda very same).

 

[pomenitul]

Still needlessly irritating when playing as a pure mage.

 

[Cryomancer]

reddit (although on reddit name was different but agenda very same).

Is not me. Is another person. And believe or not, I saw the same complain from a LOT of people. Sinitar on his returning walktrough said that in his opinion, be able to be a necromancer and learn magic from Xardas is something that gothic always needed. Questboy 72 said that was disappointed that he can't join in water mages or dark mages. Is not "my agenda", a lot of people has this opinion.

In fact, since you know russian, check the polls on RPG Russia about returning and see how popular necromancers are among the magic classes. Spoiler : They are by far the most popular magical class of the mod and only lose in overall popularity to templars and paladins. Water mages are the least popular mage class but there are a reason for that. Their unique tier 3 offensive spell is trash and they are the unique mage guild without guild specific quests. When I mean trash, think on 42 seconds to kill the same mob which I can kill in 6 seconds with spear of darkness(necro circle 3 spell)

The popularity on returning is >

1. Templar
2. Paladin
3. Necromancer
4. Fire mages
5. Guru
6. Mercenaries
7. Water mages

 

[Zanzoken]

TFW you finally manage to kick Bullco's ass after getting OHKO'd by him who knows how many times and no longer have to tiptoe around camp to avoid him

 

[Sjukob]

As somebody who has beaten Gothic 2 8+ times I can assure you that each following style is better than the previous one thanks to increased speed and decreased recovery times. Once you play around enough you will notice how much faster you can recover, swing and cancel one action into another.

When fighting animals you should attack like this: first 2 combo hits, side swing, first 2 combo hits, side swing, repeat until the target drops dead. The reason for using 2 combo hits into side swing and not just swinging left right, is that doing combo hits advances you towards the target, the creatures in Gothic slip away slightly when they are hit, they can still slip away from you even if you use the said technique, but that way you will be able to land much more hits before they do. You should never use more than the first 2 hits in a combo, no matter your mastery level, the following hits are just way too slow and take too long to come out.

When it comes to humanoids you should never attempt to hit them more than 2 times in a row, unless you are willing to trade HP, because they will hit you back, and getting hit in Gothic hurts a lot. What you should do is use the first hit of the combo and cancel it into side swing immediately, after that parry, dodge backwards. The timing is pretty strict and you might not get it all the time.

Once you reach 60% with one handed weapons you can cancel the first hit of the combo into step forward and then do first hit of the combo again, this is easy to loop and you can do that instead of the usual "first 2 combo hits into side swing" stuff. However, this is harder to use on humanoids, I recommend sticking with default "first hit into side swing" pattern.

All of these techniques apply only if you have at least 30% in one handed weapon proficiency, before that you should stick with your 2 hit combo, because side swings are just terrible at that level.

One thing I don't see anobody mentioning during control scheme discussions is that Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 control schemes treat attacks differently. If you use Gothic 1 scheme you can cancel side swings into backwards dodge immediately, but not the combo attacks, for Gothic 2 scheme it's the opposite. Dodging backwards is pretty much the ultimate defensive move in Gothic melee, while dodging you block all attacks in front of in a large cone (something like 140 degrees) and move away from enemy attack range, it also the only way to defend yourself againt animal attacks, only golems, trolls and dragons ignore dodge protection. So if you are panicking or not sure what do next, you can just keep dodging back, you will stay completely safe while doing so. Mind that when you choose a control scheme, of course, you can always cancel any attack into parry and dodge afterwards, but it's way sloppier than dodging right away, and parrying is generally riskier and it doesn't protect you from animal attacks.

Dodge backwards is the prime reason I recommend everybody to play with one handed weapons not two handers, unless they feel like gimping themselves. When you use one handed weapons and dodge back you recover way faster than if you were using two handers, this allows for much, much easier punishment at any given chance. With two handers, most of the time opponents will be able to fully recover after an attack before you will be able to hit them, that is if you choose to defend yourself via dodge. This is especially troublesome when you are fighting groups of enemies, where parrying is risky, or animals, where backward dodge is your only defense options. Another thing is that one handed weapons give you much better miliage once you get an opening thanks to their speed, you will be able to land more hits before having to defend yoursrlf again. Especially if you catch somebody from the side or from behind. And lastly combat styles for two handers frankly just suck until you get to 60% and that's a long road, especially in comparison to one handed weapons that become good at 30%. I guess Wulfgar says that you have to plan ahead when using two handers for these reasons specifically. Generally speaking, the small increase in damage per hit and length that two handed weapons get just does not worth the downsides that they come with.

And lastly I always tell people that Gothic melee combat is about pattern recognition. Don't try to just react to attacks, they come out way too fast for you to able to do it and the telegraphed ones (trolls, golems, dragons) usually can not be defended against. I remember some russian modders said that side swings hit the target pretty much instantly, even before the weapon reaches the target, you just don't notice that while playing, because the animations are so fast. So, instead you should predict when the enemy is going to attack, recognize the pattern, defend yourself, hit back. Take Moe, for example, the thug near tavern in harbor district, his pattern is the most braindead one in the game, he will always attack back once after taking a hit. So to beat him you just do this: hit him once, parry, hit him once, parry, hit him once, parry, repeat until he drops on the ground. Easy, you can do that with your eyes closed. Of course, it gets more complicated, for example, orcs have something like 4-5 attack patterns, but once you get familiar with them, it will be easy for you to recognize the oppenings and punish them at the right times.

I hope it helps Zanzoken and anybody else who reads this.

 

[Zanzoken]

You know I'm impressed by how well the companion AI works in the Gothic games. Usually in action RPGs it's awful, but companion NPCs in Gothics are genuinely helpful.

I think this the first time ever I've actually wanted a follower to tag along in a non-party RPG. All those mercs sitting around with nothing to do... would be nice if I could bring Cord or Wolf along to help out.