Gothic 2's combat learning curve and general tips

[deadalcoholnudes]

I finally got Gothic 2 working on my PC so I gave it a go and played for a few hours. I was mainly just exploring and along the way discovered I'm absolutely shit at swinging a sword (or at first, a heavy branch). Especially if I'm facing more than one enemy. I assume it's supposed to be challenging but do you guys have any advice so that two flying insects don't completely rape away my manhood?

So far, I love the surplus options right from the start regarding entering the city. I bought the pass off of that one douche on a log but then loaded an old save to find other ways. I started working on a farm and that's where I'm at now, trying to track down a merchant with a frying pan for the rude farmer's wife. My goal is to join the militia/king's guard.

So yeah, I'm open to any newbie tips/suggestions and just curious about what you enjoy in Gothic 2. I've been told I should start with the first one but I had already purchased 2 and its expansion (blind buy) some time ago.

 

[Nim]

Don't engage 2 blood flies at once in the beginning ? But if you have to the best way would probably to lock one (Num0 iirc ?) and hit and immediately step back while trying to keep away from the second one as best as you can.
Make sure you never use low range weapons though you'll have to look up range elsewhere as it's not displayed ingame normally. F.ex. a heavy branch has 70 range while that wolfs knife you get from Cavalorn has 30.
Don't use permanent stat boosts too early in vanilla.

 

[nomask7]

Don't use permanent stat boosts too early in vanilla.

He mentioned he has the expansion (I hope he installed it, since it affects the whole game).

Here's how I dealt with the flying insects as a noob: I ran the fuck away with my spine tingling with terror.

Even on my second play through, I still got the feeling of terror. These days it's gone, alas. But I still avoid them.

What I liked about the game on my first play throughs were avoiding scary or dangerous monsters and just trying to beat the game in this rather realistic fashion (I wasn't supposed to be monster hunter, after all, but a courier and what have you).

 

[nomask7]

P.S. I hadn't played the first Gothic game before I played the second + expansion. I can recommend the experience, and never really liked the first game much anyway.

Not sure if you noticed my post about the view distance in the other thread...

 

[deadalcoholnudes]

I do have the expansion installed and I did see your post and am leaving the view distance at the default setting for now. Thanks for the input.

 

[Helton]

Vanilla is easier than NotR, even the non-expansion parts. Not easy, mind you, but there is a significant difference.

I don't think there'd be any shame in playing Gothic 2 through once without the expansion if you're having too much trouble.

Get good armor and weapons. Try and isolate foes. Take on weaker enemies first. Stay well rested and high health. Use companions when available. Have fun.

 

[Eyeball]

Think Vanilla is hard? Don't play NOTR. You will get killed a half dozen times by literally the first pissant level 1 wolf you encounter at the start of the game.

If playing with NOTR, use an editor to unfuck your weapon damage so you can actually KILL something. Retarded HP bloat is no fun at all.

 

[SCO]

The only thing wrong about gothic is that the item stat upgrades are encouraged to be used for last. There was a mod that overhauled the xp system so that later stat points didn't cost more or something like that so that so that absurd incentive went away but it never did get popular.

 

[nomask7]

Think Vanilla is hard? Don't play NOTR. You will get killed a half dozen times by literally the first pissant level 1 wolf you encounter at the start of the game.

It's about attitude.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Learn to run. Away. Fast.

 

[Nim]

Don't use permanent stat boosts too early in vanilla.

He mentioned he has the expansion (I hope he installed it, since it affects the whole game).

My bad. Should have said non-modded.

Think Vanilla is hard? Don't play NOTR. You will get killed a half dozen times by literally the first pissant level 1 wolf you encounter at the start of the game.

You must suck really bad then.

If playing with NOTR, use an editor to unfuck your weapon damage so you can actually KILL something. Retarded HP bloat is no fun at all.

Or maybe get a grip on how damage works, it's not that complicated.

The only thing wrong about gothic is that the item stat upgrades are encouraged to be used for last. There was a mod that overhauled the xp system so that later stat points didn't cost more or something like that so that so that absurd incentive went away but it never did get popular.

I always play with a mod that makes stat boosts not count towards training.

 

[Eyeball]

I do rather suck at NOTR. That does not account for Piranha's inexplicable decision to fix the balance problems the added experience points gained from the expansion would introduce to their otherwise excellent game by making even starting enemies roughly ten times harder to kill than earlier. It does not make the game better, it just wears out your attack button. It is poor game design and the only way to make the game enjoyable Again is to use a trainer to make earlier fights like they were in Vanilla G2.

Sadly this makes the endgame a bit too easy. I wish there was a difficulty patch for NOTR that would balance all of it out better.

 

[subotaiy]

If even a young wolf kills you then uninstall the game.
PS> Best advice ever: Don't listen to those who say to keep stat bonus items/potions, use them once you get them because otherwise, after you finish New world part in chapter 2, the game becomes piss poor easy (you become a god).
This sort of balances the problem mentioned in the previous post.

 

[Severian Silk]

Play using a game controller. It's what I did.

http://www-en.jtksoft.net/

 

[Eyeball]

If even a young wolf kills you then uninstall the game.
PS> Best advice ever: Don't listen to those who say to keep stat bonus items/potions, use them once you get them because otherwise, after you finish New world part in chapter 2, the game becomes piss poor easy (you become a god).
This sort of balances the problem mentioned in the previous post.

In NOTR, that Young wolf twoshots you. In Vanilla, it is fodder.

 

[Lilura]

Think Vanilla is hard? Don't play NOTR. You will get killed a half dozen times by literally the first pissant level 1 wolf you encounter at the start of the game.

If playing with NOTR, use an editor to unfuck your weapon damage so you can actually KILL something. Retarded HP bloat is no fun at all.

No offense but it honestly sounds like you just sort of suck at the game. I have raped Gothic 2: NotR several times, it isn't as hard as you make it out to be, it just has an initially steep learning curve.

 

[nomask7]

Think Vanilla is hard? Don't play NOTR. You will get killed a half dozen times by literally the first pissant level 1 wolf you encounter at the start of the game.

If playing with NOTR, use an editor to unfuck your weapon damage so you can actually KILL something. Retarded HP bloat is no fun at all.

No offense but it honestly sounds like you just sort of suck at the game. I have raped Gothic 2: NotR several times, it isn't as hard as you make it out to be, it just has an initially steep learning curve.

This is true. I was actually quite surprised how much easier the early game was on my second play through in terms of combat.

As for how damage works, you have to realise that the to-hit percentage is very important here. While it looks like you always hit and always do a little bit of damage, you only do proper damage if you actually hit properly, which doesn't happen too often with the starting stats, and you keep sucking if you keep always putting your training points to other stuff than the to-hit skill.

 

[Eyeball]

Admitted. But why did they up the difficulty of the expansion so comically? I understand that you might want some secret encounters like the orc in the cave near the beginning to be hard to new characters, but why make need-to-kill early mobs an exercise in frustration?

 

[Coriolanus]

A few things worth stressing to a new player:

One big thing (already mentioned by SCO) - learn how stat upgrades work; basically, don't use stat-boosting items until it costs 4-5 skill points for 1 upgrade. After that, use all your stat boosters (tablets, potions etc.) at once and become a powerhouse.

Second thing - about the combat. Basically, it's a twitchy mini-game. Every enemy has a pattern. Once you learn it, you can beat any foe 1v1, even at level 1 - even though it will take forever against some foes and can be VERY hard against some (fast humans), while remarkably easy against others (trolls!). The hardest enemies to fight are humans because they have some randomness thrown in - so you'll have to play safe and have good reaction skills if you want to take some tougher ones on early.

Lure out enemies one by one. Fighting 2+ hard enemies at once is a challenge for a veteran player. Don't stress yourself if you can't win. It's often not worth it to spend 15+ minutes fighting a skeleton at for 300XP reward with a rusty sword when you could get the same and more through quests and easier opponents.

Oh, and finally: playing a mage build isn't worth it unless you've already done the other routes and are looking for variety/challenge. Magic is pretty badly done compared to melee (lots of useless spells, very basic mechanics) and is much harder to boot.

 

[nomask7]

I think the game was meant to be played as a melee fighter. If you focus on ranged combat with a bow, fights become ridiculously easy rather fast. Magic is a cakewalk as well if you know where to put the points, at least after you get the first summon spell. Crossbow I haven't tried, but since it's slower than the bow I guess beating the game with it would be significantly harder (due to the regenerating dragons).

 

[Lilura]

Also, get a ranged weapon and some skill in it. If you're STR-based, xbow. Dex-based, bow. Picking off enemies from a distance is cheap and yet oddly satisfying. Exploiting pathfinding can be funny.

Frustrated newbies should go one-handed/Dex-based for a certain sword you can get early, and for bow. And become a pally. It makes life easier.

Two-handed can be very hard for newbies, the STR requirements are insane. But you are rewarded for the patience.

 

[Brayko]

I did not like NotR not because of the difficulty but because of the questing clusterfuck. When there's 30 or so unfinished quests in my backlog I just give the fuck up. Anyway, combat in the early Gothic games I think is something that you either have a knack for or don't, I am one of the lucky ones who really got a feel for the combat and had no problems using ranged weapons and exploiting the mechanics at low level to bring down most enemies in my path. That's the key word here: exploits. Hit them run away so they get stuck or climb a rock and shoot them with arrows. It's not as flexible as divinity 2 combat which is super easy as a ranged player but there's exploits aplenty.

 

[Nim]

I think the game was meant to be played as a melee fighter. If you focus on ranged combat with a bow, fights become ridiculously easy rather fast. Magic is a cakewalk as well if you know where to put the points, at least after you get the first summon spell. Crossbow I haven't tried, but since it's slower than the bow I guess beating the game with it would be significantly harder (due to the regenerating dragons).

I think the problem is that the vast majority of enemies have only a melee attack themselves making them easy targets to ranged and magic. You have only some humans with bows/xbows, the seekers and the dragons that can retaliate from afar.

Two-handed can be very hard for newbies, the STR requirements are insane. But you are rewarded for the patience.

You'll also curse the slowness of two-handed weapons, getting past 60% weapon skills so that they are fluid is expensive when you also have to put points into STR as you said and probably would like some other abilities.

 

[Lilura]

Hit them run away so they get stuck or climb a rock and shoot them with arrows.

It should be noted here that some enemies, like orcs, can climb. A few times I thought the fuckers were stuck so I started plinking away with a trollface, and all of the sudden they are up in my face and one-shot me.

It can also be very tedious to wittle them down, and if you're above them and they can't climb they will be right underneath you violently twitching against the wall and you can't always lock on for the cheap win.

 

[Karmapowered]

No offense but it honestly sounds like you just sort of suck at the game. I have raped Gothic 2: NotR several times, it isn't as hard as you make it out to be, it just has an initially steep learning curve.

Exploiting pathfinding can be funny.

That's the key word here: exploits. Hit them run away so they get stuck or climb a rock and shoot them with arrows.

Hit them run away so they get stuck or climb a rock and shoot them with arrows.

It should be noted here that some enemies, like orcs, can climb. A few times I thought the fuckers were stuck so I started plinking away with a trollface, and all of the sudden they are up in my face and one-shot me.

It can also be very tedious to wittle them down, and if you're above them and they can't climb they will be right underneath you violently twitching against the wall and you can't always lock on for the cheap win.

No offense but it honestly sounds like you just sort of suck at the game.