Gothic 3 Boy, is this game cool!

Speaking of trolling - its also trolling to have the audacity to compare G3 melee to Severance. I mean come on. I won't name the guilty party - you know who you are!

bjon045 said:

Gothic 2 had horrendous AI if you took the time to exploit it.

I remember in the valley of the mines in chapter 2 you could lead 10-20+ orcs to the bridge that you have to walk up to get into the castle and as soon as they reach that point they all turn around and start walking back. Now all you have to do is stand exactly at that point and you can swing your sword and kill them all without being touched. About 10 free levels of experience after you clear out all the orcs....

I seem to NPC's getting stuck on objects easily as well, espically the bandits next to the lighthouse who get stuck in that little shed and then you can finish them off with a 2-hander by swinging "through" the wall.

How many people beat Bullco by trapping him behind a table and shooting arrows at him till he had almost no life left and then pulling out a sword and giving him one last tap to finish him off?

Certainly not the best AI i have come across, though certainly better than the pathfinding in NWN

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Gothic 2 didn't have horrendous AI. You could say that about ANY game if you want to point out every single flaw. What would you say about the AI in Morrowind? Gothic 2 certainly had better AI than that game and didn't sell 1 tenth as many copies. There are AI exploits in every game I've ever played whether it was an rpg, fps, or strategy game. Compared to most games in the genre, the Gothic series has very good AI.

JDR13 said:

Gothic 2 didn't have horrendous AI. You could say that about ANY game if you want to point out every single flaw. What would you say about the AI in Morrowind? Gothic 2 certainly had better AI than that game and didn't sell 1 tenth as many copies. There are AI exploits in every game I've ever played whether it was an rpg, fps, or strategy game. Compared to most games in the genre, the Gothic series has very good AI.

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Morrowind had AI?

you can call me a troll if you like. in fact a few days ago i thought that pretty much fit my description, since for years i would just 'wait under a bridge' watching people go by (post) and not say anything. though when i did commment it was benign and not for the sake of argument.

comparisons mean crap to me, i only care what i enjoy and i make them simply for explaining the similarities in two things i enjoy greatly. someone needs to take an into poetry class to understand the diffetence between similie and metaphor. i use metaphors all the time as they are one of language's greatest tools. i rarely use a similie to say that something is more than just 'like' or similar to something.

i loved blade of darkness from the begining(demo) just like the gothic series. and like in prior posts i care about the developers. i bought scrapland not because of what the game offered but because the people who made blade of darkness made it and will eventually by bad day la for the same reason. peoples' talent and creativity for design and storytelling is what draws me games. not what some review says, what the millions of gamers have to say, or what is marketed to me. i go see movies mainly based on who is directing it. i like bands whose musicians are involved with other musicians i have liked.

to me i see life as a tree where i can explore how all this creativity is connected to each other and understanding one part/branch helps you appreciate enjoy another.
i try not to be a consumer in a vast parking lot just looking for what shiny box i want to open next.

Hey I was allowing you to stay annonymous! LOL. Look I too loved Severance/BoD - but I don't see how you can take such a sophisticated combat system and compare it to this... err... less sophisticated system.

But I'll entertain the discussion if you like. How is it similiar? Maybe I've missed some nuance, some.... subtely in G3 melee.

Joking aside - its possible, I only played the G3 demo for a half hour.

After reading a few comments about my previous post I feel as though it is now necessary to defend myself in order avoid being lumped into the same category as our former beloved VB. While it is obvious that my comments were made in a less than casual tone I would like to point out that they were not made to offend but simply to be humorous. So to begin….

Originally Posted by lostnumber

Doesn't anyone see a problem…?

Rhetorical questioning and putting words in one's mouth.

Rhetorical yes, but the only opinion here is my own. Just as much as anyone can answer yes they can answer no, either answer is acceptable under the context of the question.

...with the fact that all enemies kindly wait their turn to get their arses stomped?

Mocking AI rather than simply stating problems.

Fine, you got me there.

endless chain of clicks. [...] clicking my left mouse button about 200 times.

Exaggeration.

By no means is this an exaggeration. I cleared out all of Montera by simply running into the castle and climbing up a stairwell. Every hostile NPC followed me and waited their turn. A few hundred - and I do mean it - clicks later everyone who was able to reach me was dead. After that I ran downstairs and cleared out all of the stragglers who fell victim to path finding problems.

The friggin AI in Pac-man was better than that, the ghosts worked together sometimes.

Irrelevant apples to oranges comparison.

This depends on the level of analysis. If I was comparing the RPG aspects of G3 with the Arcade aspects of Pac-Man I wouldn't be writing this. In this case I am comparing the achievement of a goal, killing the player. The ghosts in Pac-Man would actually work together when trying and cut the player off, quite often they were successful. The hostile NPCs in G3 do nothing of this sort, maybe two will attack but this is due to a response from being targeted or hit with a wayward swing. Team tactics are limited to melee based assailants rushing and waiting while their ranged comrades hang back and attack; never mind the fact that simply hiding behind an obstruction or corner most often renders their support useless because they don't move. By a vast margin most of my deaths were a result of stun lock and not team tactics or enemy skill.

Really though, I think the problem here is that the combat system is designed so poorly that fighting more than one guy at a time would be too difficult. I think the AI had to be crippled in order to accommodate the unresponsive combat design.

Finished up with an armchair analysis.

This is not true by any stretch of the imagination. I came to this conclusion after playing nearly 9 hours a day for 2 weeks; needless to say I didn't get much sleep. Like it or not combat control in G3 is not as responsive is it was in the previous iterations of the Gothic series. Actions are queued and cannot be stopped once set in motion, rearward retreat is no longer possible, power strikes are slow and unwieldy, swings are relatively slow, and blocking is not as effective. Considering this lack of response it is only logical to conclude that defending one's self from two enemies at once would be very difficult, make it four enemies and it is neigh impossible. It is obvious that the developers built the enemy AI so that they wait their turn, if they never had this intention it wouldn't happen as often as it does. This conscious design decision had to be made for a reason. This brings me to my next point.

Let's see... you and a few of your friends get swords and decide to ambush someone else P). Now, when one of you starts swinging that sword like a madman, you're not exactly keen yourself to stand right next to him and maybe get cut yourself, aye?

And that's the way the AI thinks, too.

This makes sense, but if this was the intent behind blade wielding characters waiting for their turn to fight why do animals do the same? Scavengers, wolves, jackals, lurkers, snappers, and everything else follow the same combat dynamic. Wolves don’t carry swords, werewolves might, but the wolves in Gothic don’t. I have been bitten – playfully – by my dog and kicked by my grandma at the same time; neither my grandma nor my dog accidentally hit each other. (Just joking here, don’t get mad). Since the two competing theories behind the "waiting" problem are friendly fire avoidance and combat accommodation, and we just disproved the avoidance theory, we can only conclude that the accommodation theory is the *next best idea*. Keep in mind that we know the "waiting" problem was intentionally built into the game. I have a great deal of experience with this game and I took my time when thinking about what I wrote, it is not an armchair analysis.

Since when is being upset about something wrong? I never attacked anyone; I didn't curse anyone's mother. I though my approach was funny, not offensive. In the end though, I'm just upset because a great game with boundless potential was rushed along to completion and ended up hitting the market as an incomplete product bearing the facade of an exemplary representation of what we as gamers demand. As I've said before, when considered in isolation G3 is an average game, but as a Gothic fan I can't consider this game in isolation. G1 and G2 set standards, standards that were not met by G3 in my book.

I am very much enjoying the G3 combat, but as I said, I consider Dark Messiah more along the lines of Blade of Darkness. That was a disappointment with Dungeon Lords (yep, it comes up again) - DWB claimed the combat as a blend of Blade of Darkness of Jedi Knight II ... but the result was woefully beneath either.

txa1265 said:

I am very much enjoying the G3 combat, but as I said, I consider Dark Messiah more along the lines of Blade of Darkness. That was a disappointment with Dungeon Lords (yep, it comes up again) - DWB claimed the combat as a blend of Blade of Darkness of Jedi Knight II ... but the result was woefully beneath either.

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Holy CRAP Bradley said that?!!!?? Oh that is rich! Now I'm off to print out lostnumber's post. Its so damn long I'll take it with me to the hopper.

how far did you get in the game lostnumber? after montera there is no way you can easily clear a town. don't forget that shamans are in every orc town after that and like goblin shamans unless you have excellent fire protection 3 shots will kill you at any level. also there are a lot more enemies equiped with bows/crossbows later in the game and they don't take they turn and you can get fired at from all directions while getting swung at. yes there are exploits, but as someone mentioned all gothic games have had exploits so to use those as an example wouldn't really matter.

since you can't see how a beast is holding his weapon or about to swing wouldn't it be hard to tell if 2 were going to charge you at the same time. or what if one charged you right as you swung would another beast who charged a split second later contiune its lunge once your sword had already been thrust. as a hunter/warrior i loved the challenge(to me at least) of picking of one or two with a bow then drawing my sword and going at one beast while the others surrounded me and then being able to fight one beast and then switch behind me to another and so on. i would agrue that some animals are going to have a level of self preservation to and will wait for their opportunity. especially canines. when they are in feeding mode they are very selfish creatures and will attack someone who is normally friendly. many dogs for instance don't like to be petted while eating, especially when really hungry. if you have 2 dogs their is a relationship/understanding that one dog 'teaches' another to stay away from the bowl of food that is 'his' and will growl 'til the other dog gets it. so unless the other dog is stronger it will wait for its opportunity of find some food of its own.

oh and lostnumber i value your intelligence and don't think you or anyone else resembeles viking beserker, despite the fact that we definately have some differing views.

oh and to me a challenge when liberating a town is also keeping as many slaves alive as possible, which most certainly requires stategy, not to mention 'friends' if you have any in that town.

I've cleared each town in Myrtana including the ocrs surrounding the barrier. I also gave it to a few of the hashishin (SP?) towns along their northern border. After that and a HD crash I threw in the towel. All told, I spent about 80 hours playing the game.

The comment about the AI was made to point out that every melee based hostile adheres to the same set of rules. Orcs, humans, wolves, and gargoyles all do the same thing. It is very unlikely that they all have their own mutually exclusive reasons for acting like one another. Although I wouldn't recommend it, I can guarantee that if anyone were run into the middle of a pack of lions while brandishing a sword they would not be given the luxury of one on one combat, to put it simply they would be killed. This combined with the aforementioned argument should help to clarify my point.

Ranged combatants, excluding goblin shaman, are fairly easy to dispatch. I've killed dragons at a very low level with little effort. I just shot at them from behind cover and they sat there and took it. They didn't resituate themselves to regain an attack vector and they didn't take cover. They just sat there and waited for me to stick my head out each time I shot at them, in the end their dimwitted patience spelled their death.

Yes all Gothic games have had exploits. In G1 the player could just tap the strafe key to aviod a falling death, in G2 the player could defeat the besieging orcs by luring them to the battering ram, and in G3 the player can use inventory items endlessly by hitting the inventory key immediately after consuming an item. Many games have exploits, but an exploit is an unintentional exception to a rule, not the rule itself. The rules governing combat in G3 are not exploits; they are just the result of poor a design.

Thanks for not lumping me in the same category as VB.

have you played since and applied patch 1.09. i too was having seriously crashes once my character got past level 50+. i've only had one crash this time through on my new character.

i've seen all these comments about piranha bytes promissing us things and not deliver. if anyone can show me these i would be suprised. not meeting expectations is something altogether entirely. i will close my comments on this topic with this.

the world would be a lot happier place if people didn't complain as much. if you place a value of happiness on someones dissatisfaction voiced when they recieved something that they are not completely satisfied; who then voices their unhappiness on whoever sold/gave/served them this product; the complainer is unhappy and is caused a loss of happiness, even if what they desire is and can be corrected; the giver is caused unhappiness by having to fix the problem, and possibly guilt; on lookers and anyone who is told of these happening will also take a 'hit' to there happiness or overall positive feelings.

obviously it is necessary to complain throughout life. the choice is up to the complainer though, and i feel that because we live in a world where we can have pretty much anything, many of us think that it is our right to "have it our way".
i realize i may be on the extreme, for example, if i am at a resturant and my order gets messed up i most likely will say don't worry about it, unless it is something i can't or find disgusting to eat. on the other extreme others would complain if they normally get 'x' amount of 'y' when this time they got 'x-1' amount of 'y' even though 'x' is not specified on the menu.

i just don't think it is fair to complain at pirahhna bytes to the end that 'you' are. constructive critism only ever works when someone is asking for feedback, an even then its like sifting for gold.

gothic 3 is not mine, yours or anybodies. it belongs to the hard working people at piranha bytes. every 'problem' you voice is a 'knock' at their hard work. i have had things i didn't like about all the gothic games, and i still hold the first game as probably the best in many regards. if this behavior makes me a rabid fan or fan boy or whatever title you want to call it fine. but i would rather be a blind follower of pirahna bytes than a rabin fan of 'what i want' in a game.

@ Lost Number: Your comments neither upset me or offended me at all concerning your take on G3. That alone keeps you WELL out of VB's catagory, who's every post did both of those things :lol: ! Of course you are entitled to your opinion, and I respect that even more after finding out you have spent considerable time with the game.
In fact, I would be much more inclined to listen to YOUR feelings on the matter than someone who has only spent half an hour playing the demo, and yet has been one of the most vocal complainers about the game on this forum for weeks now! (I shall leave names out of this, but you know who you are )

As for Curious' psychoanalysis of our complaining nature: I think he was trying to say that we make what we want of things. For instance, you can look at the bad AI and say "That's stupid," or you can use your imagination to reason out the behaviour - thus come the ideas of "he didn't want to get hit by his own Orc buddy" or "the hungry wolf wanted me all to himself."

I choose to use my imagination to make up for design flaws and continue enjoying the game. Some people don't.
Whether you or I think that the glass is half empty or half full... it's still the same amount in the glass. Can't we all just get along then?

Jabberwocky said:

@ Lost Number: Your comments neither upset me or offended me at all concerning your take on G3. That alone keeps you WELL out of VB's catagory, who's every post did both of those things :lol: ! Of course you are entitled to your opinion, and I respect that even more after finding out you have spent considerable time with the game.
In fact, I would be much more inclined to listen to YOUR feelings on the matter than someone who has only spent half an hour playing the demo, and yet has been one of the most vocal complainers about the game on this forum for weeks now! (I shall leave names out of this, but you know who you are )

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What can I say - it only took 3-4 minutes to dislike the combat - which they dropped me in the middle of. It took another 3 minutes to see that it ran pretty poorly and another 5 or so to witness stability issues.

I think a half hour was generous!

Unfortunately, half an hour with this game is totally insufficent to be able to judge it!! Heck, I enjoyed the first 30 mins of DL!!

Corwin said:

Unfortunately, half an hour with this game is totally insufficent to be able to judge it!! Heck, I enjoyed the first 30 mins of DL!!

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Now that is an interesting observation. I can't say I liked the first 30 minutes of Dungeon Lords, but I didnt hate it either. That took several hours.

Reverse that and you've got a great point. Even some reviewers have pointed out that you need to give the game a hunk of time until you get hooked.

Ironically, that is exactly the advise I give to people who want to try Gothic 2. Give it 5 hours or don't bother trying it at all.

OK I'll give it a whirl.

@ ToddMcF2002: Hey, I gave you an opportunity to remain anonymous! :lol:

lostnumber, I need to assure you that I found your posts non-offensive-- I just think that for a lot of people it is, as a fan of the series, inevitable to have their voiced opinions laced with emotional flavouring. It's like you said: you consider Gothic 3 with your previous experiences of Gothic 1 and 2 in mind, so you are more harsh to it than you would have been if you considered it individually. I see the same behaviour in people when they see a book they love transitioned to the silver screen or when hardcore Star Wars fans watch Episode One. I think many of these people could enjoy the product a lot more if they just took it the way it was without all the extra baggage.

This is how fanboyism and long tirades against developers are born. Anyway, just my opinion. I enjoyed the game so far, but admittedly, I haven't played for dozens of hours yet.

EDIT: @curious, interesting way to look at things and I agree with a lot of that. Reminds me of this ancient Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus. Complaining hardly ever accomplishes anything if the damage has already been done. Rather, make the most out of it or be constructive about it.

Jabberwocky said:

@ ToddMcF2002: Hey, I gave you an opportunity to remain anonymous! :lol:

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I don't mind being called out for my bs!

Thaurin said:

Reminds me of this ancient Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus.

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I thought that was "EpiCurious" Ha ha :lol: