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.

Risen

Orobis

Arcane
Sychophantic Noob
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,066
PorkyThePaladin

Have you ever played Gothic 2 with NOTR yet? If not stop w/e you're doing and play it now.

Ok, look, I know I posted some long walls of text in this thread and most people today, even codexers, can't be bothered to read anything beyond a twat twit length, but do a browser find on this page for "Gothic 2" or "G2". I literally mention it about 200 times. So your comment is pretty funny.

You're right, i can't be bothered with long walls of text anymore, if i was a decade younger sure, just don't have the time or patience anymore these days. Unless it's a good ole' entertaining rant, always got time for those.

Anyways, i'm going to assume you haven't which is a shame. You should probably get on that.
 
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
795
Maybe all of the RPGs I've played the melee combat is weak on its own. The result is I'd always add magic, thievery, crafting or other skills to the pool to keep things interesting. Magic doesn't always supercede melee--in fact I don't remember it doing that in the RPGs I've played. So you don't think magic can add to melee in Risen?

Just a straight up observation my friend, not an attack on you or Risen. Also I agree with your preference for Gothic 1/2 melee combat. Taht's how close combat should be. However, applying this concept universally might be mistake. How? Primarily because game makers can't (and maybe shouldn't) do everything. They only have X budget and Y time to complete a game. The result is some RPGs can work if both melee and magic are combined, while others will rely one or the other. Doing everything so it can exist on its own is more difficult to achieve. (Maybe your expectations are higher than mine.)

I've covered this idea before in another forum and I don't think many people liked it, so I don't anticipate you liking it either. I'm a programmer and while I'm not a game programmer, the idea game makerd can't do everything is 1+1=2. It's rare for something to be good in almost every aspect no matter how you approach it. Game makers don't normally know exactly what's good and can do it on every level, while also being able to fulfill time and financial obligations.

EDIT: I have Risen, but haven't played it much. I played some in 2014 but I stopped. I can't remember why. I definitely will return to play it some time. Right now my monitor is too iffy for the job.

You're free to lynch me, just know I'm not here to draw blood. I agree with almost everything you say. But I tried telling some other posters here the same thing and they only want to see me die. *shrugs*

Oh and I have this on my wall: "Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick two."
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Maybe all of the RPGs I've played the melee combat is weak on its own.

That IS usually the case, but Gothic 1 and 2 are definitely an exception. I thought Risen would be too when I started playing it, but while I am still enjoying the game itself, the combat system has been a letdown.

The problem with melee combat in RPGs stems from the problem with combat in general. Typical RPG combat is non-interactive to a large degree, meaning you do certain things regardless of what the enemy does, as if you are in two separate vacuums, and still have success. So in most RPGs, you can just spam something of choice (be it a fireball, a harm spell, a ranged weapon shot, a melee attack, etc) and deplete the enemy's HPs faster than they can yours, and you win. Obviously this is not how real combat works, where you instead have to read what the opponent is doing and react to them constantly. Now, some RPGs (those considered to have good combat systems, e.g. Baldur's Gate games or ToEE) do have some reactivity, for instance, if the enemy casts this protection spell, you cast this spell to remove it, or cast stoneskin to protect yourself from a melee attacker before casting offensive spells, and so on. However, this reactivity is very shallow, requiring no real effort and offering no real challenge beyond learning some basics. So you will ALWAYS cast stoneskin on your mage when in danger, ALWAYS cast Breach spell on enemy casters and so on. So in the big picture, you can say that the degree of reactivity is still pretty abysmal.

This is true of magic, archery and melee, but because magic has a lot more flavor (a ton of spells, flashy effects) it seems more interesting than melee, which only has a few basic attacks, and archery in some games might involve actual FPS-like aim and be more interesting that way.

The result is I'd always add magic, thievery, crafting or other skills to the pool to keep things interesting. Magic doesn't always supercede melee--in fact I don't remember it doing that in the RPGs I've played. So you don't think magic can add to melee in Risen?

I really hate mixing melee, archery or magic together. I am a purist, for a couple of reasons. One, I think one of the coolest things about RPGs is that you can carefully craft the kind of character that you want, a really cool character. So with that said, what character is the coolest? A master swordsman who dedicates his entire life to his craft, able to win a duel against anyone with his sword skills? A renowned archer who can put an arrow through the eye of a squirrel (on Trump's head possibly) from 40 feet away? A great archmage able to wield terrible powers to reshape the world? Or some jack-of-all trades douchebag who dabbles in everything? You decide. The other reason is, it's difficult enough to get a single system in an RPG right, be it melee combat, magic or archery. Once you start mixing them together, the result is usually an ugly mix of exploits and cheese. So stay pure my friends.
 

Crichton

Prophet
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Messages
1,210
Maybe all of the RPGs I've played the melee combat is weak on its own. The result is I'd always add magic, thievery, crafting or other skills to the pool to keep things interesting. Magic doesn't always supercede melee--in fact I don't remember it doing that in the RPGs I've played. So you don't think magic can add to melee in Risen?

When I played Risen, I played a mage and learned how to fight with an axe from that orc in the harbor; pretty much all tough (i.e. Lizardman) fights were dealt with by summoning a skeleton buddy to tie one or more of them up so I could chop them one-on-one. I recall thinking that the other spells were pretty worthless in comparison but keep in mind that I only played through once (and I didn't even beat the game, I gave up on the final boss and just watched the ending on Youtube).
 

Old One

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,679
Location
The Great Underground Empire
I started a game of Risen a few days ago. I finished a Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 NoTR playthrough a few weeks ago. It's interesting to compare them.

Risen has better climbing than I remembered. I think blamed it unfairly for the climbing in Risen 2, which is only allowed at specified ledges that all look alike and is therefore stupid. Actually the whole three-dimensional landscape design is quite good in Risen. Too bad they removed swimming though.

Combat...it's a strange thing. I like it in a lot of ways, but I dislike it in others. Compared to Gothic 2 is seems to have more facets and subtleties, but I'm not sure the subtleties aren't wasted in a situation where your objective is to win as fast as possible rather than spar. It's too cute for it's own good. It might work better as a PvP combat system actually, where your opponent knows all the tricks and uses them against you.

It's nice that they added shields, but they kind of did it wrong, too. Shields are really the only way to go if you want to be a really good melee fighter, and you can see that in some of the game's mechanics - like how training swords to a certain level lets you use bigger and bigger weapons with one hand, until you can swing a two-hander and use a shield at the same time. That's pretty stupid.

Gnomes are awesome in Risen. Every fantasy RPG needs some pesky little villain monster to use as fodder, and Risen's gnomes are the best I've ever seen. They're ugly, nose-picking punks who steal everything and throw garbage at you. It's perfection. Too bad they utterly destroyed gnomes in Risen 2 by making them NPCs instead of monsters.

I don't like the lockpicking in Risen nearly as well as lockpicking Gothic 1 and 2. The visual cues are not only unnecessary, they're distracting and detract from the sensation that you're "feeling-out" the lock based on sound cues.

The game looks quite nice, and it runs great on my machine. I always appreciate a 3D game that accepts alt-tab without a complaint. On the other hand, they could definitely use a couple more female models. All the women in the game look exactly the same, even Tilda, who's supposed to be older with three grown sons.

Overall, it's a pretty fun game, at least for the first two-thirds. Unfortunately I remember how the late-game and the ending plays out.
 

Orobis

Arcane
Sychophantic Noob
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,066
I don't like the lockpicking in Risen nearly as well as lockpicking Gothic 1 and 2

The Gothic 1/2 lockpicking game is one of the few things i really disliked about Gothic. It's just a stupid memory game that begs to be save scummed...which i admit sadly doing almost every locked chest.:negative:
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Risen has better climbing than I remembered. I think blamed it unfairly for the climbing in Risen 2, which is only allowed at specified ledges that all look alike and is therefore stupid. Actually the whole three-dimensional landscape design is quite good in Risen. Too bad they removed swimming though.

Yeah, I love the whole climbing aspect in Risen (and in G1/2). It really adds something because while out exploring, you are always trying to think in 3D ways, where you can get too, what hidden spots you can find. It does have amazing 3D design, some places you get to, the way you can see paths and valleys and sheer rock faces below is breath-taking.

Combat...it's a strange thing. I like it in a lot of ways, but I dislike it in others. Compared to Gothic 2 is seems to have more facets and subtleties, but I'm not sure the subtleties aren't wasted in a situation where your objective is to win as fast as possible rather than spar. It's too cute for it's own good. It might work better as a PvP combat system actually, where your opponent knows all the tricks and uses them against you.

It's nice that they added shields, but they kind of did it wrong, too. Shields are really the only way to go if you want to be a really good melee fighter, and you can see that in some of the game's mechanics - like how training swords to a certain level lets you use bigger and bigger weapons with one hand, until you can swing a two-hander and use a shield at the same time. That's pretty stupid.

I think you nailed it. They took the Gothic combat model, which was simple yet elegant and worked excellently in terms of mechanics (at least against humanoids), and they added a lot of facets and subtleties to it as you say, but all of them not only absolutely pointless and bad, but actually all of them ruining the actual combat model, each in its own way. Gothic was all about leveling sword skill (1h or 2h) so you could move quickly and fluidly, and then using players skill to time parries and counter-attack. Simple and elegant. In Risen, they borrowed held parry from Oblivion, removing the need to time parries, then reintroduced that need with counter-parry, then made it irrelevant anyway with slow parry times, fast and unpredictable enemy attacks, power attacks that bypass it, counter-counter-parries that bypass it, and so on. So every way that you can do combat is boring and requires zero player skill. Hold your shield in place, wait till enemy hits into it, then attack, zero active player involvement or challenge. You can also dodge and attack, but because everyone attacks so quickly, you can't dodge in response to their movement, but must instead spam dodge preemptively, and then spam attack. Really disappointed in the combat, and shocked that people think this system is an improvement on Gothic's.

Gnomes are awesome in Risen. Every fantasy RPG needs some pesky little villain monster to use as fodder, and Risen's gnomes are the best I've ever seen. They're ugly, nose-picking punks who steal everything and throw garbage at you. It's perfection. Too bad they utterly destroyed gnomes in Risen 2 by making them NPCs instead of monsters.

Haha, those little fuckers are so annoying. Or at least were, when I was stupid enough to try to parry them, with their 3000 miles an hour insta-jump-slash. Once I got a hunting crossbow, gnome problem solved. The shit they throw at you is pretty hilarious though.
 

Nim

Augur
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
447
The Gothic 1/2 lockpicking game is one of the few things i really disliked about Gothic. It's just a stupid memory game that begs to be save scummed...which i admit sadly doing almost every locked chest.:negative:
pickLockScramble=0
; ... you can increase the feeling of lockpicking if you enable scrambling the combination on loading an savegame
; the value is the maximum length of combination which will be scrambled, 0 = off (default)

You're welcome.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
On the other hand, they could definitely use a couple more female models. All the women in the game look exactly the same, even Tilda, who's supposed to be older with three grown sons.

I think there's one woman who looks different, the huntress in the lone hut at the east coast (one of the teleport locations is behind the hut).
I found that somewhat strange, as she has no real relevance except for having some minor input during two or so quests.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
1,473
I think you nailed it. They took the Gothic combat model, which was simple yet elegant and worked excellently in terms of mechanics (at least against humanoids), and they added a lot of facets and subtleties to it as you say, but all of them not only absolutely pointless and bad, but actually all of them ruining the actual combat model,.
Eh no, youre trying too hard bro. Whats with the essays? No, I played Gothic 1 and 2 right after Risen 1, and no, combat is not better there. Its finicky, janky, and simpler.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Eh no, youre trying too hard bro. Whats with the essays? No, I played Gothic 1 and 2 right after Risen 1, and no, combat is not better there. Its finicky, janky, and simpler.

Or you are. Look, I get it, you really like Risen, and to be honest, I like it overall as well, I mean I am still playing it and enjoying it more than most RPGs I've played lately. But that's because it has excellent world design, exploration, and atmosphere. If they just copied G1/2 combat over, it would be an all-time great just like G1/2. But being objective, Risen combat is shit.

And I am not saying this as a subjective thing, where we can all throw around terms like janky. I am actually describing in detail how the combat is shit compared to G1/2, in those "essays". It just doesn't work in any logical way that involves any sort of player skill. Last night I spammed my way through several lizardmen, which were supposedly so hard and annoying. So I fought several parties of them around the island, on Hard difficulty, without a shield equipped, usually me alone against 2 of them at once. So I just spammed a mixture of attack/parry, killing them both easily each time without losing any health. This is a joke.

I am remembering fighting 2 orcs at once in G2, and if you tried to spam anything, you'd be sliced into ground beef. No, there you actually had to time your moves, as in tactics and technique and player skill. And that's the difference in a nutshell.
 

Orobis

Arcane
Sychophantic Noob
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,066
Porky is right. G1 and particularly G2 with NOTR has way better combat than anything in Risen. The constant fear of being crit by a mob and almost 1 shotting you for making a mistake is what made gothic 2 combat so damn fun. That same tension and eventual satisfaction after you defeated a mob in Risen just wasn't there.
 

Old One

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,679
Location
The Great Underground Empire
On the other hand, they could definitely use a couple more female models. All the women in the game look exactly the same, even Tilda, who's supposed to be older with three grown sons.

I think there's one woman who looks different, the huntress in the lone hut at the east coast (one of the teleport locations is behind the hut).
I found that somewhat strange, as she has no real relevance except for having some minor input during two or so quests.
She has a different face, but the same stripper body. I think she's the only one with a different face though, which is pretty strange. Some of them have different clothes, and some of them have different hair, but they all have the same body. Essentially they're all Patty clones.

I'm playing a mage again because I enjoy the Tests of the Masters and all the other quests in the Monastery, but other than those quests there isn't much reason to pick mage. Your one unique skill is rune use, which is kind of cool but only moderately useful because there are so many damned scrolls in the game. I think that's a weak point. I suspect the game would be more fun if the number of scrolls you find was chopped down by about two-thirds. Doing that would automatically make mages better without touching their skills or anything.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
1,473
Did we play the same game? Any time i spammed anything in Risen I got my ass kicked.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Did we play the same game? Any time i spammed anything in Risen I got my ass kicked.

You have to know what to spam. If you spam regular attack, then yeah, you'll die. But if you spam parry, they will eventually hit into it and go helpless for a bit. Or just try to throw out parries whenever it feels like they will attack, if you guessed right, you ll counter parry them. if you guessed wrong, it's most likely because they didn't attack at all, so nothing bad will happen, and you can parry again and again, until you guess right. Compare this with G1/2 where if you mistime a parry, you will pretty much always eat a heavy dose of damage.

Against non-humanoids, similar approach, spam dodge (side to side or backwards) until they will attack and miss, and then you can easily hit them. Or try other people's approach, what I call the Oblivion approach, hold your shield up until they hit it, then attack at leisure.

Whichever way you try, no skill or elegance, just button mashing.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
I suspect the game would be more fun if the number of scrolls you find was chopped down by about two-thirds. Doing that would automatically make mages better without touching their skills or anything.

I would say it depends a bit on the type of scrolls. E.g. Healing scrolls are plenty and due to having many of other ways of healing yourself not really needed.
On the other hand levitation, Nautilus and telekinesis scrolls are mandatory for several parts of the game. You can still find enough of them (and buying them is another option), but removing a large part of them would definitely hurt more. Then again it would make the skill to scribe them yourself more useful (although the skill is quite cheap, so...).
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
1,473
Did we play the same game? Any time i spammed anything in Risen I got my ass kicked.

You have to know what to spam. If you spam regular attack, then yeah, you'll die. But if you spam parry, they will eventually hit into it and go helpless for a bit. Or just try to throw out parries whenever it feels like they will attack, if you guessed right, you ll counter parry them. if you guessed wrong, it's most likely because they didn't attack at all, so nothing bad will happen, and you can parry again and again, until you guess right. Compare this with G1/2 where if you mistime a parry, you will pretty much always eat a heavy dose of damage.

Against non-humanoids, similar approach, spam dodge (side to side or backwards) until they will attack and miss, and then you can easily hit them. Or try other people's approach, what I call the Oblivion approach, hold your shield up until they hit it, then attack at leisure.

Whichever way you try, no skill or elegance, just button mashing.
Well then how about not abusing the system? I never button mashed playing the game.
 

Old One

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,679
Location
The Great Underground Empire
I suspect the game would be more fun if the number of scrolls you find was chopped down by about two-thirds. Doing that would automatically make mages better without touching their skills or anything.

I would say it depends a bit on the type of scrolls. E.g. Healing scrolls are plenty and due to having many of other ways of healing yourself not really needed.
On the other hand levitation, Nautilus and telekinesis scrolls are mandatory for several parts of the game. You can still find enough of them (and buying them is another option), but removing a large part of them would definitely hurt more. Then again it would make the skill to scribe them yourself more useful (although the skill is quite cheap, so...).
The thing is though, in any place where a Nautilus scroll is mandatory, you'll find one or two of them helpfully placed nearby, same with Levitation. Either that or one of those neato green crystal balls.

Maybe limiting non-mages to scrolls of the second circle or below would be a better answer. I don't know. The fact is, mages don't have any unique powers in Risen. They have a power that lets them reuse spells more frequently, but they're spells anyone can cast with a scroll, so it's not all that great. And the funny thing is, you can't even get rune magic without significant questing and pumping points into wisdom: a stat which does absolutely nothing - except make it possible to learn rune magic.

Anyway, it's a problem that's never going to be solved.

Risen does have some pretty good dungeons, I have to say. I just finished the Eastern Temple, and it was quite fun.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Yes, it's true that you usually find the necessary scrolls close by, especially in the early game.
However, iirc beginning around mid-game there are more dungeons where you either don't, or you only find the respective scroll after the obstacle, i.e. to get back, so you still need to have brought one with you.
As solid as the dungeons usually are, I think some are simply missing some non-linearity/alternative paths. Usually scrolls are mandatory (sometimes you can choose between Nautilus or Levitation, but you still need a scroll).
The better approach would probably have been to put in some alternative to using scrolls and then indeed remove a good chunk of the findable scrolls from the game.
That way mages would have an advantage (much easier access to magic), scrolls would be more precious (offering a convenient and fast way around obstacles), but you could still do those parts without scrolls (e.g. through taking a detour, finding another lever first, fighting some enemies, solving a puzzle, etc.).
 

Old One

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,679
Location
The Great Underground Empire
Once you get inside the volcano (that's where I am now) things really fall apart. I actually don't mind the tombs of the lizard priests so much, but it's still the third time you've been sent all over the island to get twelve missing pieces of the generic-plot-item. Also, logic goes on an extended vacation.

Risen's late-game is one of the best (meaning worst) examples I can think of when it comes to hysterical false urgency. Mendoza goes off to try his plan, and you're suddenly handed this new multi-part quest which will take, at best, several days of in-game time to complete, but hurry up before Mendoza can finish what he's doing or we're all doomed! It's just silly.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Is it possible to play this game (GOG) in German but with English subtitles and so on? Moreover, is it worth it?
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Unlikely because the Inglese script is different from the German one altogether iirc.

Should I become a Nazi or I miss nothing by playing the English dub?
 

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