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Does Gothic have bad controls?

Mastermind

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Bethestard
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I love tight open world RPGs that are designed with no quest markers. Ideally, we’d live in a universe where CRPG studios try to emulate Piranha Bytes’ design philosophy on this stuff. Unfortunately, those games sell just enough copies to keep the doors open and line up the next project (probably more because of the difficulty curve, the eurojank and the lack of marketing than a lack of quest compass/markers, but it’s hard to convince the money guys to emulate something niche).

Souls is hard and doesn't have this problem. The problem with Piranha Bytes design philosophy with regards to combat is "hard to play hard to master" IE: the most retarded way to do it. Souls PC port was first released it had shitty awkward controls that were widely considered unplayable with kb+mouse and they got panned. Games like gothic feel like shit to play even though they were made for the PC.
 

Sigourn

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Souls is hard and doesn't have this problem. The problem with Piranha Bytes design philosophy with regards to combat is "hard to play hard to master" IE: the most retarded way to do it. Souls PC port was first released it had shitty awkward controls that were widely considered unplayable with kb+mouse and they got panned. Games like gothic feel like shit to play even though they were made for the PC.

Agree. Gothic feels clunky. It is not as noticeable as you level up and get better gear since you get OP and start one-shotting or two-shotting everything. I personally wouldn't compare the two, though. Dark Souls is about gitting gud, whereas Gothic is about improving your character, to the point one piece of armor makes the difference between getting horribly massacred and raping your opponent to death.

Even if it is true that improving your character in Gothic leads to smoother controls, these are never as smooth as Dark Souls'. Again, it makes sense in context: Dark Souls is about good reflexes, Gothic is about improving your character and so reflexes don't matter anywhere near as much (and thus the combat doesn't need to be as fluid).
 

Black Angel

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Gothic's controls are fine, the first time I heard anyone complain about its controls was on the internet, never occured to me that anyone would find the controls clunky when I first played it.
I finished the game in recent times and I didn't find it 'clunky' or anything, just radically different. Gothic 2 might have relatively simplified controls but I think Gothic 1's kind of feels like it has particular uniqueness to it. I guess it's thanks to me experiencing Dark Souls original KB + M schematic, and that one is.... doesn't felt good initially but through sheer persistence I mastered the control, when the camera didn't fuck me in the ass that is.
 
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Sigourn

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Gothic's controls are fine, the first time I heard anyone complain about its controls was on the internet, never occured to me that anyone would find the controls clunky when I first played it.

I mean... I could say the same about a lot of games I played, it's a non-observation. The truth is the controls are fairly clunky because it's nothing like most action RPGs.
 

sullynathan

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Gothic's controls are fine, the first time I heard anyone complain about its controls was on the internet, never occured to me that anyone would find the controls clunky when I first played it.
Nope. The first Gothics controls are so shitty that PB made some good changes with Gothic 2. If it was "fine", it would be exactly the same for all their later games which are all Gothic clones and that isn't the case now is it?
 

Kem0sabe

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A game can be an amazing experience and have outdated controls and ui, fallout 1&2 are a pain to deal with due to the ui, ultima 7 runs like shit with a terrible control scheme, sake with Gothic.

Doesn't mean we didn't enjoy them years ago, but user experiences evolve.
 

Hobo Elf

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You guys might just have brain damage. As JarlFrank said, controls in Gothic are fine, in fact I'm going to take it up a notch and say that they are perfect. Sure it gets some taking used to because they aren't using industry standard controls, but once you get used to them they work exactly as they should for how you play G1&2.
 

Perkel

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My god. 2019 and we talk about gothic controls.
They were shit then and they are even more shit now.

Gothic is amazing game but you have to be mentally challenged to suggest controls were fine.
Game was amazing despite of controls not because of them and they were not even media-core.
 

Shadenuat

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Gothic controls are tanky but there is particular consistency to them, and creature behavior you fight, so after a while you do figure it out. Also, they usually have a lot of creatures/enemies to train on, and NPC trainers who fight with you, or whole Arena like in Risen.
 

The Great ThunThun*

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My god. 2019 and we talk about gothic controls.
They were shit then and they are even more shit now.

Gothic is amazing game but you have to be mentally challenged to suggest controls were fine.
Game was amazing despite of controls not because of them and they were not even media-core.

Codex has a problem. Every game it likes, the hivemind thinks that everything in it was also great.
 

Latelistener

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Controls in Gothic are so good I actually managed to adapt it to X360 controller using Xpadder and completed both games without any issues.

And whoever was dissatisfied with those controls: they made Gothic 3 for you. I hope you enjoyed it.
 

The Wall

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Infinitron, please rename thread to:
GOTHIC III - Obsidian's new first-person sci-fi RPG from Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky

So that thread title maches posts in it. Some could get wrong impression that there is such game as Outer Worlds, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky are working on it and we're in its thread. Perhaps threads from one timeline got mixed up with posts from another. I wonder if there's a timeline out there where Bloodlines gets sequal after 15 years...
 

The Wall

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What have I done! I created new timeline and thread! Quick, are Gothic controls still good, it just takes time getting comfy with them?
 

Sigourn

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You guys might just have brain damage. As JarlFrank said, controls in Gothic are fine, in fact I'm going to take it up a notch and say that they are perfect. Sure it gets some taking used to because they aren't using industry standard controls, but once you get used to them they work exactly as they should for how you play G1&2.

See, when I read shit like that and then I see Codexers complain about Skyrim's "shitty consolized UI" I have to re-evaluate whether nostalgia or Codex-cred is an actual thing. How could anyone realistically say Gothic's controls are fine? Pushing one button to do one simple tasks is an "industry standard" because there's literally no reason why I should be pushing two buttons to pick up an object lying in the ground. Gothic is an action RPG where using your mouse is counter-productive, and pretty much the entire game is designed without a mouse in mind, which leads to extremely clunky interface controls that were scrapped over when going the way of Gothic II (for good reason). There's "industry standard" and there's "convenience". Not all conveniences exist as "industry standards". The graphical user interface became an industry standard after people saw how good and convenient it was. Gothic followed no industry standards and its control scheme was anything but convenient.

Sure it gets some taking used to

"Sure, getting fucked in the asss takes some time getting used to but it totally rocks I swear" (doesn't apply to homosexual Codexers) I would have to replay Gothic to judge what aspects of the controls I dislike and what I would have done differently. Having to use two buttons to do what could have been done with one is already one of those things. The truth is Gothic's controls are serviceable, but they are anything but comfortable, which is what you ideally are looking for in any game. Because the moment people launch your game and start complaining about the controls, you know you fucked up.
 

sullynathan

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You guys might just have brain damage. As JarlFrank said, controls in Gothic are fine, in fact I'm going to take it up a notch and say that they are perfect. Sure it gets some taking used to because they aren't using industry standard controls, but once you get used to them they work exactly as they should for how you play G1&2.
Um Gothic came out in 2001, there weren't "industry controls" back then because many 3rd person action games had varied control schemes before we had our current homogenized controls in every 3rd person game. Gothics controls were fucked, Gothic 2's were much better. PB very clearly saw this and made changes to it.
 

ghostdog

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I played Gothic when it first came out and I thought the controls were fine. At some point my PC crashed and burned so I forgot about it.

Years later I played G2 Night of the Raven and had a blast, so I decided to go back to G1 and finish it.

At first it was a culture shock, the controls felt really awkward. After some fiddling with remapping keys, I got the hang of it and it was fine. I then proceeded to have immense fun with the game.
 

Barbalos

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I find them extremely non-intuitive, but not bad at all once you get the hang of it. The combat can seem a bit clunky but I don't think it actually is, it just punishes you for trying to spam attack. Risen does the same thing IIRC, you won't get fast hits in if you try to mash attack.
 

grom

Educated
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Gothic's controls are fantastic. Navigating the inventory sucks, buts that's a problem with the UI, not the controls.
 

Dodo1610

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Gothic 1's controls were stupid there is no reason why I have to use the WASD/Arrow keys +CTRL for simple actions such as picking things up or attacking. Of course even despite the weird control scheme Gothic remains one of the greatest RPGs of all time.
 

SlamDunk

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Trying out Gothic demo for the first time back in 2001 I rage-quit it because of the controls. Decided to give the game another chance the next day, got the controls down pat and fell madly in love with the game.

The controls aren't bad, just different.
 

Paul_cz

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Jan 26, 2014
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Gothic 1 had shit inventory and its controls. Interface for buying selling and stuff like that was terrible. Controls themselves were fine after I mapped them to WSAD and mouse. Gothic 2 had fine controls throughout.
 

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