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Risen is predictable and far too similar to Gothic

Cadmus

Arcane
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Dec 28, 2013
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huh hey ELEX fuck off budy
 

sullynathan

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Since then I've put another 10 hours and I'll say that the experience has been a lot more positive. At this point, I'm 23 hours in and I'd say it's better than Gothic.
The world is bigger than I originally thought, it isn't as varied as Gothic 3 but it's big enough.
There is still the rune teleportation but this time it's worse due to now having loading screens.
Combat is still shit, but this time I have a charging attack. Why wasn't this the first sword unlock instead of the 7th? At least it wouldn't be as tedious as it is now.
One thing that Risen has a lot more and I'm liking are the dungeons. When it's night and it's really dark and you have your torch and walk into a cave, it is atmospheric and has some of the better use of exploration in the game.
 
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Safav Hamon

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The first act of Risen is great. The open world, complex sidequests, hidden secrets, immersive NPCs, gothic style progression. After that the game blows. It becomes a tedious exercise in navigating linear dungeons and solving uninteresting puzzles.

I still consider Act 1 of Risen the last great thing to come out of Piranha Bytes. Everything afterwards, including Elex, has been a major disappointment for me.
 
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unfairlight

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It's about balancing the side content to fit the entire game. You shouldn't blow through all the good side content in act 1 and have nothing but the main quest left in act 2-4.
 

Master

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One thing that Risen has a lot more and I'm liking are the dungeons. When it's night and it's really dark and you have your torch and walk into a cave, it is atmospheric and has some of the better use of exploration in the game.
The dungeons were cool.
 

Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Hi,

I recently finished Gothic2+NOTR for the first time (a great experience, although a bit too long; I felt a little burned out at the end, but it was perhaps due to the fact, that directly before G2 I completed ELEX playthrough). After resting a bit and playing somewhat different games, I am considering approaching another product of Pirahna Bytes.

Now, my choice is between Gothic 3 (+ Community Patch ofcourse) and Risen. What would be your suggestions, guys? Which is more enjoyable?
 

moleman

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Mar 8, 2018
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604
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Birthplace of the headless horseman
Hi,

I recently finished Gothic2+NOTR for the first time (a great experience, although a bit too long; I felt a little burned out at the end, but it was perhaps due to the fact, that directly before G2 I completed ELEX playthrough). After resting a bit and playing somewhat different games, I am considering approaching another product of Pirahna Bytes.

Now, my choice is between Gothic 3 (+ Community Patch ofcourse) and Risen. What would be your suggestions, guys? Which is more enjoyable?

Although I don't think Gothic 3 is a bad game, go with Risen. G3 has a horrible combat system, even with CP. Risen has the best combat in all Piranha Byte games imho. Risen has also a better faction system and the main quest in G3 is basically non-existent.
 

sullynathan

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More like you suck. Combat is solid pretty much from the start.
Combat is shit, like it was in the previous Gothic games. I'm breezing through it with Stormwind right now and I have barely died throughtout playing the game. To put things in perspective, Risen has nearly the exact same combat system as Severance Blade of Darkness, except the latter doesn't suck.
 
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Hrymr

Educated
Joined
Jul 7, 2017
Messages
80
It's about balancing the side content to fit the entire game. You shouldn't blow through all the good side content in act 1 and have nothing but the main quest left in act 2-4.
And another problem is that you can explore most of the map in the first chapter, so the later chapters are mostly about backtracking places you have already seen (teleportation runes help, but it's not enough). Gothic 2 is the best in that regard, because there are multiple maps and they open up along with the storyline.
 
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Safav Hamon

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Risen combat isn't good, but it's the best combat system of any Piranha Bytes game. They should of refined it.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Hi,

I recently finished Gothic2+NOTR for the first time (a great experience, although a bit too long; I felt a little burned out at the end, but it was perhaps due to the fact, that directly before G2 I completed ELEX playthrough). After resting a bit and playing somewhat different games, I am considering approaching another product of Pirahna Bytes.

Now, my choice is between Gothic 3 (+ Community Patch ofcourse) and Risen. What would be your suggestions, guys? Which is more enjoyable?
Forget about the imagined problems with the combat. G3's main problem is that it's goddamn huge and once you figure out what the formula is (raid villages and free them from orks) you'll come to the realization that you don't wanna be doing the same shit over 3 continents and quit the game. That's what happened to me. Once I finished with the grass area and entered the other ones I realized fuck this shit it's the same thing all over again.

Risen is more like G1 imo, more condensed and while about the second half of the game gets progressively worse, it's still more fun than G3.
I don't hate G3 but no way I'd ever touch it again.
 

Lord_Potato

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Thanks guys, seems like Risen is actually better for me at the moment.

Besides, after finishing Fallout New Vegas for the second time, ELEX, Gothic 2 + NOTR and Assassin's Creed Origins this year I'm a bit reluctant to try another game of this scale (have to save some strength for Odyssey later this year!). Risen seems a bit shorter experience.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
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Risen is much better than ELEX, so if you enjoy that one you should like Risen too. Unless you prefer needlessly bloated open worlds, that is. Also, I found Gothic II endgame to be way more tedious than Risen.
 
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unfairlight

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I don't really think that Risen was better than Elex. Although Risen is literally just more Gothic 2, I think that's a disadvantage. The world of ELEX is a bit more interesting and Elex also has a lot more content.
 

sullynathan

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I'll make a post eventually detailing why I think the combat is bad.

Piranha take such little steps within all their games trying to improve the combat but also take steps back.

Their changing of lock on, how weapons are used, lack of stamina system, enemy attack animations and more should be included
 
Joined
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Messages
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I don't really think that Risen was better than Elex. Although Risen is literally just more Gothic 2, I think that's a disadvantage. The world of ELEX is a bit more interesting and Elex also has a lot more content.

"More content" is not a positive to me in this case. I think ELEX is a bloated mess with some of the shittiest third person combat I've ever experienced. It also has way less satisfying exploration with really boring and random itemization. Unless you enjoy toilet paper being guarded by HUEG mobs that you can only kill at high levels. Also random enemy spawning and respawning in a PB game.. Yuck. It was addictive enough to play through it but goddamn was I sick of it by the end. I don't think I will ever replay it in my life, while I played Risen three times and can see myself coming back again years down the line. Also it has some of the most enjoyable melee combat I've ever seen in RPG, with very satisfying skill progression. I think it was a huge improvement over Gothic 1/2 in that regard.
 
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Safav Hamon

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Elex was such a huge disappointment for me. I can deal with the terrible combat system, cliche worldbuilding, bad writing, and subpar graphics/QoL, but they fucked up the two most important part of their games - Exploration and immersion

The world didn't feel handcrafted at all. It felt like they just pasted a bunch of monsters and loot randomly over a big empty map. Worst of all was the gamey feeling of the regions. This is the snow land - this is the volcano land - this is the desert land... this is lazy design.

And the immersion - man, that's the biggest fuck up of them all! Nothing in Elex can compare to how authentic and vibrant cities like Khorinis and Harbortown were. Even Gothic 3 is on another level in terms of immersive settlements.
 
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Big Wrangle

Guest
I think Elex's biggest flaw in terms of immersion and writing would be the dialogue. I wouldn't call the first Gothic games the greatest stories ever told, but the dialogue feels realistic, if that makes sense. On that regard, characters are consistent. Elex is kind of all over the place on that, ranging from down to earth to absurd caricatures. And when you meet the latter, it's a really bad/hilarious one.

"Forget the Albs, it's really about your ass" is the best line ever though.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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Elex was such a huge disappointment for me. I can deal with the terrible combat system, cliche worldbuilding, bad writing, and subpar graphics/QoL, but they fucked up the two most important part of their games - Exploration and immersion

The world didn't feel handcrafted at all. It felt like they just pasted a bunch of monsters and loot randomly over a big empty map. Worst of all was the gamey feeling of the regions. This is the snow land - this is the volcano land - this is the desert land... this is lazy design.

And the immersion - man, that's the biggest fuck up of them all! Nothing in Elex can compare to how authentic and vibrant cities like Khorinis and Harbortown were. Even Gothic 3 is on another level in terms of immersive settlements.

this is why nobody likes you
 
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Safav Hamon

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I think Elex's biggest flaw in terms of immersion and writing would be the dialogue.

Nah, the dialog wasn't the problem. The settlements they created simply weren't believable from a social and economic perspective.

What made the first four Piranha Byte games so immersive is that the settlements had very clearly defined social structures and economies. They felt like real places, whereas the settlements in Elex do not.
 
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unfairlight

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shittiest third person combat I've ever experienced.
I disagree on the combat, as I feel that the enemy design is better rounded and scaled. By Chapter 3, I could kill just about anything in Risen with about 5 hits, and considering that combos in Risen are unbelievably fast and you have no stamina, it's plainly without challenge the last 10-15 hours of the game. In Elex the toughest monsters still stayed relatively difficult until the end, and you can't just stunlock enemies by swinging away because you have stamina. The attack patterns and animations in Risen are also stupidly broken, worse than in any other PB game despite being an issue in most of them. If you get hit once, you're going to get hit 2 or 3 more times more instantly with zero defense against it and that makes earlier combat pretty annoying. Infinitely annoying with ghouls and most animals because they group up on you, you get hit once, stunlocked for 2.5 seconds, get hit by the second one that's nearby and now you are dead.
Also random enemy spawning and respawning in a PB game..
Meh? The XP gains from them are so tiny that it barely matters. I really didn't care about having a molerat or two being spawned into the world. I don't like it, but I don't really think it's a con for the game either.
 
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Safav Hamon

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In Elex the toughest monsters still stayed relatively difficult until the end, and you can't just stunlock enemies by swinging away because you have stamina. The attack patterns and animations in Risen are also stupidly broken, worse than in any other PB game despite being an issue in most of them.

Early game monsters are ridiculous HP sponges. Late game they all drop like flys.

Because monsters in Elex only have one or two attack animations, they are easy to counter. Risen combat was more dangerous and unpredictable because enemies had a more diverse set of attack animations.
 

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