Risen First Impressions

Maylander,

Are there enough skill points / opportunities to max out archery while still being "pretty good" (say level 7 or 8) with swords?

I always play a ranger type char that is decent with 1-h swords but killer with a bow.

Note: I also realized that I would need to Max Dexterity while keeping a pretty respectable strength.

Let's see you say you were level 26 when you finished. That's 260 skill points.

It takes 100 to max archery, then say 70 to get to level 7 in swords. That's 170 right there. Only 90 left. Lets take 10 from that for sneak & lockpick. OK, now its 80 points left.. Say I'll spend 50 on dex, and 30 on strength. The rest I'll have to rely on permanent stat boosts or equipment.

It seems tight, but possible.

P.S. - I'm assuming also that each level of skill costs 10 LP. If the LP requirement increases in the higher levels, then my calculations will have to be redone.
 
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Let's see you say you were level 26 when you finished. That's 260 skill points.

I think that Maylander kind of rushed through the game. According to the World of Risen testers you should usually end up ~level 30 if you explore everywhere and do everything there is to do.
 
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Are there enough skill points / opportunities to max out archery while still being "pretty good" (say level 7 or 8) with swords?

Yes, that should be possible. It will be tight, but I'm fairly certain you can gain quite a lot in terms of permanent stats by having alchemy. I have not yet scoured the map for ingredients to make permanent stat potions, but there should be quite a lot around. It probably means you can't pick up 3/3 pickpocketing etc though.

P.S. - I'm assuming also that each level of skill costs 10 LP. If the LP requirement increases in the higher levels, then my calculations will have to be redone.

This is correct. However, you start out with 1 point in all combat skills, so it only costs 90 to max out a skill. To get to level 7 in swords and 10 in archery, you'd need 60 points in swords, and 90 points in archery = 150 points in total. That leaves you with quite a few points.

I think that Maylander kind of rushed through the game. According to the World of Risen testers you should usually end up ~level 30 if you explore everywhere and do everything there is to do.

Yes and no. I completed most sidequests, so in that regard I didn't rush anything. However, Risen has creature spawning similar to Gothic 1 and 2 (certain creatures spawn here and there at the start of new chapters), and I did not clear the map (or re-clear), especially later in the game. I'm fairly certain you'd be able to get a few more levels than I did by killing more monsters. 2-4 levels sounds about right, especially if you also do Bandit -> Monastery quests in the beginning, instead of siding with one faction right away (I did not do this, as I wanted to play a bandit, and you can't do Monastery -> Bandit).
 
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Been playing now few hours and it feels a bit better. For example the combat is actually pretty good, very close to Gothic 2. But overall the game just feels like Gothic 2 rip-off. I liked Gothic series very much, but with Risen I was expecting something new and fresh, but even "Eat 15 apples"-thing is there as well as ALL the skills are the same. On the other hand, the story works and gameplay has been polished since Gothics.
 
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After playing it for some time in the weekend i think i don't like it.
First of all i have no clue what to do with quests since none of the NPCs talks to me , i didn't do anything wrong tho...when i need to read spoilers there is something wrong with the game.
The game is too freaking hard , i ve got one hit killed by some creatures even with my shield covering me . I have great time reloading but the game needs an "easy" option when nothing can kill you with less than 20 headshots .
Archery can not be combined with sneaking , what the hell ! the idea of archery when there are no horses around is not to back-pedal while a guy with a sword and a shield runs against you , the idea is to hide and kill remaining undetectable , also , only 1 sneak skill is killing all the fun.
Sword fighting is close to G3 and gets old after while , i still believe that even Oblivion had a better system.
Something is wrong with money , when a piece of valuable golden artefact costs 100g no sword can cost 300g , specially in the same area.
I used a memory trainer to freeze my hitpoints and went to Inquisition camp to level up a bit , although i did kill one guy there i was magically "arrested" (without being knocked off) and teleported to the office of a white robe ...LOL , nice !
 
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After playing it for some time in the weekend i think i don't like it.

Hmmm, funny. I disagree with almost all of your points.

First of all i have no clue what to do with quests since none of the NPCs talks to me , i didn't do anything wrong tho…when i need to read spoilers there is something wrong with the game.

I disagree. I had no trouble completing several quests and I'm sure I'll find the solutions to the others. If none of the NPCs will talk to you, I guess something is wrong or you pissed them off. You can use a joke scroll to fix that.

I don't think quests should be too easy. At worst, you could be required to level a bit first before you can handle it. As with adventure games, I don't believe something is wrong if you "need" a spoiler. Quest solutions don't need to be easy. A bit of challenge is a good thing, but there should be enough clues for you to solve it. You never need a spoiler, but it's an easy way out if you're stuck.

The game is too freaking hard , i ve got one hit killed by some creatures even with my shield covering me.

It's better than the game being too easy. I distinctly remember the feeling of being threatened in the Gothic games and I'm sure others can relate. When you're not sure if the area you're in is populated with monsters that could one-hit-kill you, you get worried... then scared to see your fears proven right. :p You don't *have* to go to these dangerous areas. I thought the path to the bandit camp and the harbour town was just right, difficulty-wise.

Archery can not be combined with sneaking

Can't comment on this, since I've only just found my first short bow and don't know any sneaking skills.

Sword fighting is close to G3 and gets old after while , i still believe that even Oblivion had a better system.

What? This is all wrong! :p Gothic 3's combat system does not even come close to what Risen has. It's all different! And Oblivion's combat system gets old much sooner than Risen's (although I like the magic system). Risen's combat is more action-packet than Gothic 3's and feels more responsive. I like it better.

Something is wrong with money , when a piece of valuable golden artefact costs 100g no sword can cost 300g , specially in the same area.

Hey! Swords are expensive to make. :p I can easily imagine that buying a sword requires a small fortune, especially for some guy that has just been washed up. A golden artefact doesn't really have to be that amazing to be called valuable. Imagine a good sword costing 3000 euro, and a goblet that's about 2000 euro. It's still a very valuable goblet. :)

I used a memory trainer to freeze my hitpoints

Cheater! :p

although i did kill one guy there i was magically "arrested" (without being knocked off) and teleported to the office of a white robe

Really? I thought they needed to knock you down before they could do that. At least, that's how it worked for me when I...

...tried to flee the harbour town by jumping off the wall of the main gate and died.
 
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I disagree. I had no trouble completing several quests and I'm sure I'll find the solutions to the others. If none of the NPCs will talk to you, I guess something is wrong or you pissed them off. You can use a joke scroll to fix that.

They are just saying that they are not available and i didn't piss anyone

I don't think quests should be too easy. At worst, you could be required to level a bit first before you can handle it. As with adventure games, I don't believe something is wrong if you "need" a spoiler. Quest solutions don't need to be easy. A bit of challenge is a good thing, but there should be enough clues for you to solve it. You never need a spoiler, but it's an easy way out if you're stuck.

True but i spent like 3 hours running around without any luck, this sucks

It's better than the game being too easy. I distinctly remember the feeling of being threatened in the Gothic games and I'm sure others can relate. When you're not sure if the area you're in is populated with monsters that could one-hit-kill you, you get worried… then scared to see your fears proven right. :p You don't *have* to go to these dangerous areas. I thought the path to the bandit camp and the harbour town was just right, difficulty-wise.

Those areas being 2 minutes walk from the camp is just not right and no i insist that they should placed a "ridiculously easy" setting for the casual gamers

What? This is all wrong! :p Gothic 3's combat system does not even come close to what Risen has. It's all different! And Oblivion's combat system gets old much sooner than Risen's (although I like the magic system). Risen's combat is more action-packet than Gothic 3's and feels more responsive. I like it better.

Swinging 5kg swords like there is no gravity isn't any good plus the special move in level 2 is worthless

Hey! Swords are expensive to make. :p I can easily imagine that buying a sword requires a small fortune, especially for some guy that has just been washed up. A golden artefact doesn't really have to be that amazing to be called valuable. Imagine a good sword costing 3000 euro, and a goblet that's about 2000 euro. It's still a very valuable goblet. :)

Artifacts or pieces of them are usually more expensive, anyway…


I am a cheater and i love cheating

Really? I thought they needed to knock you down before they could do that. At least, that's how it worked for me when I…

They didn't , i will edit my life to 2.000 and try that again.

Well, let's just agree that we disagree on everything :)
 
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Ah... my first impression after playing for some 8 hours and getting lost and found.

It feels like gothic 2. :)
 
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Well, I completed it again just now, this time as an Inquisitor (though I wanted to be a mage, but I ended up becoming an Inquisitor against my whishes). Again at level 26.

Bandit vs Inquisitor (combat):
As long as the Inquisitor has mana to use his magic, he's the stronger of the two. However, without mana, he's lacking - staff fighting is good, but it just can't compete with maxed out axes or swords in my opinion. For example, beating an Ashbeast for an Inquisitor without mana is a very painful experience.

I do like the Monastery better than the Bandit camp as a start though. It's a bit more easy going and you get a very good feeling of "being part of something".

Now I intend to finally start that mage game I've been going on about. Hopefully my idea of doing Bandit camp -> Harbor (Inquisitor quests) -> Monastery (voluntarily) will work out.
 
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I do like the Monastery better than the Bandit camp as a start though. It's a bit more easy going and you get a very good feeling of "being part of something".

Aw, you put doubt in my mind. :( I've always chosen the bandit route in the Gothic games, so I was planning on it this time. However, this sounds like it'd be fun. I usually don't replay games as I spend months completing them anyway (if I complete them at all). *sigh*

Hey, how do you feel about one reader's comment about hearing that the second part of the game (chapter 3/4) is worse than the game's beginning? Does the game slump towards it end? (No spoilers)

True but i spent like 3 hours running around without any luck, this sucks

Well, I spent several hours just talking to everyone in town. You need to go through a lot of dialogue and explore everything in this game to be able to have any clue as to what's going on. From your description of your gaming habits, that doesn't seem to fit you. I believe that if you've talked to everyone and paid attention, it's clear what you need to do.

Those areas being 2 minutes walk from the camp is just not right and no i insist that they should placed a "ridiculously easy" setting for the casual gamers

I'll agree to some extent with your first point. It did seem like the camps where really close together. That means less walking around going from place to place, though. I'm sure I'll survive.

I haven't tried the Easy setting, but even I would't use the "Ridiculously Easy" setting and I'm pretty casual, I think. :p

Swinging 5kg swords like there is no gravity isn't any good plus the special move in level 2 is worthless

Oh well, minor gripe I suppose. It's a fantasy RPG, not a sword fighting sim. :)

Artifacts or pieces of them are usually more expensive, anyway…

Depends on the artefact, I suppose. :)

I am a cheater and i love cheating

Hey, to each their own. It's a single-player game after all!

Well, let's just agree that we disagree on everything :)

Fair enough. :)
 
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Hey, how do you feel about one reader's comment about hearing that the second part of the game (chapter 3/4) is worse than the game's beginning? Does the game slump towards it end? (No spoilers)

Depends on personal opinion really. Chapter 3/4 are quite different from 1/2 in terms of structure and quests (more fighting, less talking).
 
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After playing it for some time in the weekend i think i don't like it.
First of all i have no clue what to do with quests since none of the NPCs talks to me , i didn't do anything wrong tho…when i need to read spoilers there is something wrong with the game.
The game is too freaking hard , i ve got one hit killed by some creatures even with my shield covering me . I have great time reloading but the game needs an "easy" option when nothing can kill you with less than 20 headshots .
Archery can not be combined with sneaking , what the hell ! the idea of archery when there are no horses around is not to back-pedal while a guy with a sword and a shield runs against you , the idea is to hide and kill remaining undetectable , also , only 1 sneak skill is killing all the fun.
Sword fighting is close to G3 and gets old after while , i still believe that even Oblivion had a better system.
Something is wrong with money , when a piece of valuable golden artefact costs 100g no sword can cost 300g , specially in the same area.
I used a memory trainer to freeze my hitpoints and went to Inquisition camp to level up a bit , although i did kill one guy there i was magically "arrested" (without being knocked off) and teleported to the office of a white robe …LOL , nice !

Wow, what game are you playing? This game is not really hard at all...you just have to pick your battles...not every creature you see can be beat at start. But cheating...yeah...um why? Defeats the whole games purpose I would think....why not watch a movie instead?
 
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First impressions….

I have only tried the Demo so far. Let me preface this by saying that I actually enjoyed Gothic 3 after waiting a year for the Community Patch to fix it. Enjoy is too weak….I loved G3. Except for the ending, but by then I was ready for it to be over.

I also had tuned it graphically to really extend the graphics range and it was one of the best looking sandbox games I've laid eyes on.

Risen seems like it might be a good game….can't really tell from the demo. But graphically it is disappointing. G3 looked far better and that was a couple of years ago. It's not just things that I can tweak either. It doesn't even seem like improved textures would do it. The basic geometries/ polygons/ whatever just don't seem right in a lot of areas ….. the trees are hideous. I hate DOF and almost always turn it off……but maybe that's why I'm not seeing other folks complain about this ….with everything blurry you don't notice the elephant in the room as much?

I'm playing this at 1920X1200 on a 8800XT E6400 2G machine and while it is pretty good at 30 fps or so…..G3 ran 40-60fps and that was AFTER I tweaked the draw distances and details up to 10x. normal. And G3 looked better doing it.

I can't be the only one.
 
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There's a thread nearby about tweaking the graphics. You can push everything but the NPC spawn distance quite a bit farther away.

I don't think G3 looked better. A couple of details looked better, but as a whole Risen looks better. And runs much better.
 
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I don't think G3 looked better. A couple of details looked better, but as a whole Risen looks better. And runs much better.

I like the DX10 lighting in Risen, but otherwise G3 looks better IMO, once you max things out in the ini file that is. Maybe I'm having trouble separating the vastness of G3 which I prefer from that opinion. I missed the open vista's and the amazing stonework architecture of the towns. Perhaps this is splitting hairs. They both look great afterall.
 
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I just started playing this one yesterday. I played for about 1-2 hours so I don't have much to say. I've only played Gothic 3 before so it feels familiar enough - which will be a good thing for me if it ends up that I'll like it more than G3 (which I liked well enough but lost interest eventually - though not too soon so I can't say I didn't enjoy it)

The only thing that bothered me a little is the game's looks - not that it looks bad nor do I care much about that… but it just once again gave me a reason to think that developers with limited resources should stop trying to compete with the AAA ones in visual realism and detail but they should focus on artistic design, imagination and style instead. It's a shame that Risen has such well-made realistic looks and yet fails to 'wow' me as much as that terrible-and-completely-soulless-looking Oblivion did.


Also BTW: I just started the game and there was a woman there! A woman! And she talks!! :biggrin:
 
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You should spend some time tweaking Risen. It's possible to make it look much better on a reasonable PC.

Risen doesn't have much on common with G3. It's much closer to Gothic and G2.
 
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You should spend some time tweaking Risen. It's possible to make it look much better on a reasonable PC.
My PC is almost new - the game plays smoothly with all graphic settings to the max.
It's not not the 'technical quality' that bothers me though, it's the fact that everything looks as I'd expect them to look - only less 'expensive'. It's not a problem I have specifically with Risen, it's a problem that I have with almost every RPG including this one… I just want to see a gameworld that I haven't seen before. Morrowind did a pretty good job at that - for example there was a consistent style of insect-like forms: from creatures to architecture, landscapes even the faces of the npcs had this unique quality. (that was unfortunately perceived as a flaw... I was impressed by the efforts people made to remove any evidence of 'personality' from the game)

I just wish that 'smaller' developers such as PB would exceed that and propose a new unique aesthetic to surpass Bethesda's and others' current mediocrity.

Risen doesn't have much on common with G3. It's much closer to Gothic and G2.
So I understand. It still feels familiar hough (and I like that)
 
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It's not not the 'technical quality' that bothers me though, it's the fact that everything looks as I'd expect them to look - only less 'expensive'. It's not a problem I have specifically with Risen, it's a problem that I have with almost every RPG including this one.


Perhaps it looks less expensive because it is. PB didn't have a huge budget for Risen, and I think they did a great job with the visuals. PB games have always been more about artistic style and atmosphere rather than mind blowing graphics. Gothic 3 was the exception, and ironically their worst game.
 
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