Gothic 3 Newcomer to Gothic 3,not to Gothic 1/2

Ragnaris

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I've been tempted to jump into this one and see if it holds it's own against Gothic 1 and 2. I chose to avoid it many years ago due the number of technical issues present at the time, which I'm sure are squished by now. I'm still very eager to give it a try, but I'm not sure what the general consensus seems to be for Gothic fans. It seems like a love it or hate it title. Personally I think it looks quite intriguing, and am curious if anyone can give me a few pointers and suggestions as why I should or should not avoid it.
 
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I would definitely recommend to give it a try. Obviously you should only play it with the community patch applied (it's at version 1.5 now, I believe). I recommend using the alterantive AI and balancing options.
If you liked the other Gothics you should still find plenty to like in G3. It is of course more open-ended, and far larger, so the the tight main story and intricate chokepoint oriented landscape design of the first two titles are missing. But you gain an incredibly large and varied terrain to explore with lots of interesting stuff to find, and more freedom to just go exploring than in the other titles. If you also like open world titles like TES or Two Worlds 2, you should feel right at home.
There is also a community quest pack that you can consider if you would like additional content (I didn't use it, thought the content in the original is adequate).

You do need a decent rig though, all patching couldn't quite fix the unoptimized engine - but a current gaming rig with a fast HD shouldn't have any issues.
 
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You should definitely try it. G3 is still hit or miss, but for 5 bucks the gamble is worth it.

The Community Patches, partially paid for by JoWooD, fixed 1500+ issues and repaired combat and quest bugs as far as a highly committed amateur team can. So G3 is a game now, and no longer a buggy POS.

G3 is closer to the Elder Scrolls series than to Gothic. A gigantic open world with 3 continents and still no loading breaks. Until Skyrim one could argue G3 had the most beautiful RPG world.

The typical Gothic feeling takes some time to develop. I think the game got much better when I left the coastal area and reached the 2nd or 3rd town inside the continent.
G3 uses a continent wide reputation system, and additional ones for the cities. If you choose one side too often, the other faction (Orcs or Resistance) will attack you on sight. So you'll probably spend the first 50 hours staying flexible while exploring the main continent. Then you return to a couple of cities and make your choice to be allowed to go to the desert area. The 3rd area is an ice maze up in the mountains.

Gothic 3 traded depth for size. I didn't really like mellee combat, so I stuck to bows first (very good) and then went for a mage route and shot everything down with fireball and ice lance. I still spent ca. 130 hours looking behind every tree and seeing all 3 endings, so I guess I must have had enough fun.

Make sure to read the pdf for the CP before you start the game. You have to make one or two irreversible choices.
 
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Definitely no reason to avoid it. Most fans of the series agree that it's not quite as good as Gothic 1&2, but imo it's still a very good game as long as you have the community patch installed. Afaik, version 1.75 is the final version, and I don't believe it's being updated any further. http://www.worldofgothic.com/gothic3/

My personal opinion. Compared to Gothic 1&2…

+ Graphics are outstanding. Even compared to more recent crpgs, Gothic 3 has some of the most beautiful outside environments you'll see in a game.

+ Soundtrack is also outstanding. In fact, many fans feel it's the best in the series. I prefer the music in Gothic 1&2 by a small margin, but I'm in the minority.

+ World is huge. Larger by far than the earlier games with tons of places to explore.

+ More player impact on the world. You can chose to liberate entire towns and ignite large scale battles that will have permanent consequences in those areas.


- Combat is not as satisfying as the previous games.

- The majority of loot is not hand-placed like the previous games. Regular chests are somewhat randomized, and the loot in special chests is determined by the order in which you open them.

- Climbing and diving were removed, and swimming plays less of a role than before. You reach elevated areas by simply spamming jumps.

- Some people feel the game is a little too long, and I tend to agree. There are too many simple fed-ex type side quests, and many of them feel similar. The game also feels overly long because exploration isn't quite as satisfying as the earlier games. Part of that is due to the lack of hand-placed loot imo, and the fact that most buildings, caves, etc. contain nothing of value.
 
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Go for it!

It's one of my favorite games actually, and has a lot going for it. I agree with JDR13's list of positives and negatives, though I'd add another:

+ Atmosphere: top notch, as you'd expect from a Gothic title.
 
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Yep, definitely worth playing. I don't have a lot to add really, except that you might want to be a bit careful with the community patch - it fixes a lot of issues, but it also introduces alternate AI/balance (which can be turned off in the mod). I'd probably start out with that sort of thing turned off the first time you play it, as it does make the gamer harder overall.
 
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The story is very vague and weak in G3, the ending is "WTF is that it?", the combat is broken compared to G2, but running around doing stuff is kinda fun. The "level" design of the northern area may drive you as insane as whoever it was who designed it.
 
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I know I'm in the minority here, but I quite liked the combat in G3 - particularly duels with humanoids (one on one or one on two) are actually more fun than in the previous Gothics imho, while battling wildlife is more boring (only ever played the patched version, of course). Stuff like the rhino hordes in the north or some of the city battles are pure chaos, of course - poor design there.
 
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Gothic 3 is not only one of my best gaming experiences ever, but also one of my best life experiences ever. Most people might consider this a wild exaggeration, but it's true. I doubt I can reach the level of enjoyment I got from some parts of the game ever again. Of course it became really confusing near the end (especially in Nordmar) and it prevented me form leaving its world with the best impression, but that's just 10 hours out of 90. It's easy to forgive.

Personal prattle aside, I definitely recommend playing the game. As Gorath said, Gothic 3 is still a hit or miss title even with all of these patches and fixes. If it's a miss, you won't lose much, but if it hits, there are few RPGs that hit so hard. So take your chances.
 
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Thank you all very much for the feedback, it's much appreciated. I'm currently installing now.

And Ghan, as far as I know, there's a 1.75 patch out for Gothic 3, which I'm currently in the process of downloading (and wow, 1.5 gigs!). I took a look at a few of the gameplay videos as well to grasp an idea of the game, and it certainly does look beautiful. I just finished a run through of Gothic 2 (NotR installed), which was very satisfying, and part of the reason it piqued my curiosity.
 
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After a little over a week with the game, I bring forth some impressions (keep in mind this is with the 1.75 patch):

  • Voice acting is pretty darn good, in my honest opinion. You can pick out a few high profile people like Steve Blum and Crispin Freeman, so naturally this is music to my ears, in a lot of ways. With this brings the soundtrack, which is absolutely astounding! I can't believe how many times I started to hum a particular town's theme or wilderness music, as it's so wonderfully composed.

  • Gold is much, much too easy to acquire as it was in, say, Gothic 2. You can spend some time liberating a town, and anywhere from 10-30 minutes looting everything the townsfolk had with them, but in seconds become rich and purchase among the best armor in the game, though some require you to have a reputation with said town/clan. There's no carry limit, which is nice, but there's a lot of unnecessary clutter that you'll feel compelled to get rid of anyway, simply to find what you need.

  • Combat is…well, not I wouldn't say broken but pretty challenging. More often than not power and normal weapon swings are useless, and you'll find yourself using the jab or swipe attacks fairly frequently (right mouse click). This is because most enemies back out of the way of your attack most of the time and you can be swinging away and never hit them. The jab/swipe attack seems quite enough or has a farther reach to negate this. I started out as a warrior type, but came across a few spells that seemed enticing, and later on moved to bows which brought me to a Jack-of-all-Trades character. This gave me a decent understanding of combat. I would imagine starting off as a mage is even more difficult until you can come across the mana regeneration perk. Once you gain access to basic damage spells like fireball (which are incredibly powerful for some reason), any use that bows once had now become impractical (without mana regeneration, there's a nice balance between using spells, bows,and swords. To cut it short, you switch to whatever is necessary when the situation calls for it, provided that you avoid a perk here and there that leads you to pushing one button for everything combat related.

  • As Gorath mentioned, the landscape is simply astounding. I can't imagine what it would be without the 1.75 CP, but every little attention to detail really brings out the PB vybe that G1 and G2 shared. With such a huge open world, it seems very well inspired. I'd even go as far to say that it's much more gorgeous than Skyrim, though that may be due to pale and dead look that Skyrim was built around which I wasn't a fan of. Nothing feels forced, and you'll stay immersed for as long as you continue to play. That said, exploration is somewhat weak because as JDR pointed out, caves mostly contain nothing of real value and the serious lack of hand placed loot and more of a focus on randomized chests that improve on loot the more that you actually open.

  • Quests don't feel like chores that you're required to take care of for the local villagers as you travel around, because you'll come across a quest object or plant that's needed if you decide to explore or go hunting, and find out that what you need is something you've carried for the past several hours. Many side quests require the ability to skin animals, but if you picked that up early on, you'll almost always be close to completing something given to you. Pay attention to dialogue because you won't always be told where to find something, and quest givers can only give you so much information. Much of your time spent questing is based on where you think the next best place to go is (as is the case with early Gothic games - leaving it up to the player to decide and not a quest marker).

There's much more to be said regarding Gothic 3, but perhaps for another day. For the time I've spent playing, I've greatly enjoyed myself and completely immersed in this beautiful world, but I'll keep a watchful eye on the cautions given to me on the Nordmar region.

Tip: Buy a world map from your local merchant as soon as possible. They cost 500 gold and give you the ability to see where you are in the world (the standard map just gives you an overview of all 3 regions).
 
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Armour!!! Grr*gnash* *froth*

replaying it now the CP 1.75 after a Steam sale ...and man....&$%@#!@!!! I am getting irate. I have Alternate Balancing and AI enabled, but they seem to have tweaked things since the last time I played with the CP? Seem harder...and I still don't understand how armor helps at all. I have 70 AC against impact, but a lowly 50xp goblin does 36 points of damage to me with it's 'worn' wooden stick. I get swarmed by a few and even at level 26, with 200 strength, second rank in swords, etc etc I die very quickly. How can they do so much damage against such a "high" (compared to the earlier phases of the game) Ac? How does Ac work - I'd love to know. Perhaps I am not doing something right when I'm spending my LP. But right now it seems pointless investing in better armor.

I just liberated Silden (about the easiest one iirc) ...I could *not* do it 'the right way' (by attacking head orc to start things off...I had to assassinate people, including Grompel, by leading them them out of town and killing them 1 by 1. And every orc seemed intent on attacking me when I started the uprising (even before I tried the murdering scheme), even though the whole town was rising against them. Seems very different from how I remember it in the original game. And frustrating...not in a good way. The arena fights are also much harder, even the low level ones..I'm playing on 'normal', as I always do, so I don't know why they could not have left that alone.
 
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Solution is simple. Restart, disable alternate balancing (go with original set), enjoy the game with patched stuff.
 
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Afaik harder arena fights were one of the goals of the CP, the original difficulty was a joke.

The number of Orcs trying to get you is dictated by the difficulty level, if you're on normal it should be 2 melee fighters + whoever is attacking you from a range, not really that much worse in comparison to the original with the exception of you not being able to stun-lock them.

Both of the above scenarios are afaik dictated by the alternative difficulty.

As for the armor I've personally found the new system to work better for me even though I generally avoid melee in G3. In case you haven't read it here's what the CP manual has to say about armor:
In the normal game, the damage that an NPC causes is solely based upon the strength or rather the "level" of the NPC. And the armor protection of the hero is subtracted from this damage as percentage. This way the hero could reach a maximum protection of 90%. But this holds for an attack by a scavenger as well as for a an attack by a troll, such that the hero, wearing the best armot in the game, still receivesome damage from a scavenger, even when it is just about a few hitpoints.

With activated AB,
the damage caused by a human or Orc to the heis not only connected to the strength of the NPC, but also influenceby the damage of the weapon the NPC uses. When someone attackonly with fists, that person is now less dangerous than for example with a battle axe.

On the other hand,the armor of the hero doesn't work percentually anymore, but in absolute figures. If the hero has a good armor, then weak opponents will rarely be able to wound him anymore. To make sure that the hero does not become completely immune against attacks from weak enemies, a small percentage of these attacks will still cause a little damage.

Not changed are the battles between NPCs themselves and the attacks of the hero, nor are the formulae for attacks with ranged weapons or magic.

I'd suggest investing a few points in HP as they can make much more difference early in the game.
 
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The original difficulty was a joke in some parts, but 3rd party balance overdid some parts too. There is no reason to "fix" something that wasn't broken in the first place. I'd rather play a joke.
 
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Afaik harder arena fights were one of the goals of the CP, the original difficulty was a joke.

The number of Orcs trying to get you is dictated by the difficulty level, if you're on normal it should be 2 melee fighters + whoever is attacking you from a range, not really that much worse in comparison to the original with the exception of you not being able to stun-lock them.

Both of the above scenarios are afaik dictated by the alternative difficulty.

As for the armor I've personally found the new system to work better for me even though I generally avoid melee in G3. In case you haven't read it here's what the CP manual has to say about armor:

On the other hand,the armor of the hero doesn't work percentually anymore, but in absolute figures. If the hero has a good armor, then weak opponents will rarely be able to wound him anymore. To make sure that the hero does not become completely immune against attacks from weak enemies, a small percentage of these attacks will still cause a little damage.

Not changed are the battles between NPCs themselves and the attacks of the hero, nor are the formulae for attacks with ranged weapons or magic.


I'd suggest investing a few points in HP as they can make much more difference early in the game.


Assuming the absolute value scenario for armour, I stilll don't see how a goblin could be delivering 70+36 = 106 hp of damage with its little stick :-/ I have 70 AC (now more) against impact. I would expect about 10hp (?)to sneak through now and then. So I assume they did not reveal all in the CP infos…. Sounds like the entire attack is getting through, with none being absorbed.

@ Joxer: I like many of the fixes and I think some of the new balancing/tweaks are good, just not all of them, in all situations. Can't pick and choose though - either get nothing or everything…

note: I am trying to go a completely mageic free path - fighter only with weapon+shield, crossbow... This seems much harder? With a mage/fighter I had fireball which just killed most things with a few blasts (from great distance). Also, a crossbow is painfullys low to load and does not do that much damage (even a cow required two shots ;-) But i do not have enough points to waste on boosting hunting skill so my bow skills are not great... Also tried smithing for the first time. Well, 'forge ore weapon' was disappointing. The non-ore longsword I forfed was better than the magic ore-based ruby sword. I also took hone weapon, but ...not keen on getting smithing to 60 for improve armour. Nots ure it wil be worth it.
 
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Yes, it is harder, especially with the balance fix installed. In the original, you could go 100% melee by pumping strength real fast + 2h weapons and then get one of those orc halberds. The rest of the game was a breeze after that.

If I recall correctly, that no longer works as the orc halberds ended up getting their damage reduced by quite a bit.
 
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foolishly tried to liberate Montera... The thing that always undoes me is melee with archers/crossbowmen in the background. Their shots seem to break your defense /manoeuvre and then (of course) you get smacked with a Krush Pach (or whatever they're called) (by both melee opponents). So, I am forced to play tag and try to find a corner where I can avoid the archers for a short period. It's kind of frustrating. I don't know why they didn't simply limit *all* attackers (incl. ranged) to 1/2/3 depending on difficulty - doesn't make sense, but then neither does the melee limit (really...) Still, I enjoy the game overall, as I did even before the CP. I wish PB woudl do another proper Gothic game and not obsess with pirates (ruined for me forever by Orlando Bloom)
 
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Yes, it is harder, especially with the balance fix installed. In the original, you could go 100% melee by pumping strength real fast + 2h weapons and then get one of those orc halberds. The rest of the game was a breeze after that.

If I recall correctly, that no longer works as the orc halberds ended up getting their damage reduced by quite a bit.
I didn't play it that way so... And honestly never would. Even now when I know it's possible. Where's the fun in that?
 
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From what I saw in a recent playthrough of mine going melee is bound to be much more enjoyable with the latest questpack and content mod installed. The combat mechanics are as annoying as ever but the plethora of quest provided items allows for enough experimentation to keep things interesting.
 
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