Gothic 3 v1.7 difficulty slider

I turned the difficulty slider down to "Easy" temporarily so that I could clean out Ortega's bandit cave instead of getting my ass handed to me all the time. Am I going to hell?

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Am I going to hell?

Yes, because you posted this in the wrong forum.

I can fix that!!

Originally Posted by Corwin
I can fix that!!

You can fix the forum location … but his inevitable destiny?

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I turned the difficulty slider down to "Easy" temporarily so that I could clean out Ortega's bandit cave instead of getting my ass handed to me all the time. Am I going to hell?

I'm playing the whole game on easy but with balancing turned on. I still die plenty…but not enough to discourage me from the game. I will say, however, that the NH's death scream makes me crazy.

I'm getting slightly frustrated, because I think I should be powerful enough to liberate cities by now without exploiting terrain or AI.

I wonder if I'll ever reach a point with dual wielding/hunting where I can get that obligatory feeling of being "powerful" - which I think is a must in this genre. I mean, that I get to that point eventually is a must.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Yes, because you posted this in the wrong forum.

Whoops—I forgot that we have a specialised Gothic 3 forum. I mean, that's not very common now, is it? Honest mistake.

Originally Posted by matziq
I'm playing the whole game on easy […] NH's death scream makes me crazy.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'm getting slightly frustrated

Exactly, and this all only gets compounded by the long load times. I'm pulling my hair out sometimes, I'm in danger of smashing the keyboard through a window. One thing I feel is a shame is that in Easy mode only one opponent will fight you. I thought it was one of the nicer features of CP1.7 that multiple opponents attack you.

However, I'm finding the game hard and unforgiving at times. It's a good thing because punishing foolishly running into new and dangerous territory makes exploration more fun, but at times I get quickly overwhelmed—and I'm back at the load screen.

Still, I thought changing the difficulty down felt like cheating.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I'm pulling my hair out sometimes, I'm in danger of smashing the keyboard through a window.

I'm experiencing the same thing, although it's with a different game. I'm currently playing Deus Ex for the first time in years, and I'm trying to go through a large percentage of the game without killing anyone. It's VERY hard, and my keyboard has taken a few licks recently.

What they need is a difficulty where 3 guys attack BUT they don't friggin block every single attack…CLINK CLINK CLINK.

Honestly I don't see how this game could be enjoyable any harder than it is given the load times as well. There is simply too much combat across too many hours of gameplay to have every encounter be a near death experience. And liberating towns? No thanks. I'd play on "easy". Then again I did the whole thing with 1.6. Is that equivalent to "easy"?

Well, difficulty definitely *feels* different from 1.6. You can still suffer multiple subsequent attacks from beasts, but the death-lock is gone, fortunately. However, the multiple opponents thing means that you can get surrounded and overwhelmed quickly if you are not careful. Finally, there are the vastly more powerful creatures you can run into if you carelessly explore too much into new territory, but these were always there.

This would be great, I guess, if reloading and quicksaving was fast. I don't mind quicksave-reloading much if that means I won't have to replay big portions of the game again (often right after I painstakingly rearranged my inventory or spent my learning points—arghh!!).

Oh well, I guess I'll leave it at Easy then. I always play my games at the medium setting, but I don't feel so bad about it any more now that some of you seem to feel my pain, too.

I'm playing at Normal, not Easy, and it's not *that* hard.

There's a catch, though: you can't do the quests in the same sequence as in 1.6. You have to explore and do Fedexes and very easy head-hunts for a while, so you can build up your character. Only then can you do the more violent quests even around Ardea and Cape Dun without going "Aaargh!" constantly.

I like this balance a lot, since IMO one of the best things about G2 was the feeling you get from returning to areas that used to give you trouble, and then clearing them out.

The biggest issue, to me, is that dual-wielding seems pretty unviable. I can't liberate cities without exploiting the A.I., and I haven't even approached the feeling of being powerful by level ~35. This is in terms of fighting normal opponents, not biggies.

I can't speak for other melee builds, but I'd be surprised if any of them feel right or natural when being attacked by multiple opponents.

Not that I expected 1.7 to be perfect, but I guess there are too many fundamental flaws in the combat system to get the balance right.

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
I'm playing at Normal, not Easy, and it's not *that* hard.

It's not that easy, either. For example, I only managed to take care of Ortega after finishing most of the Montera quests, and even then it was a long and grueling affair (whereas in vanilla, I just ran it and beat everyone up on my second try). Reaching Montera was definitely the key point, though, as the money and the easy experience related to the arena quests there really helped (I was constantly short on money beforehand, even!).

Still, I'll definitely agree with you on balance: it's "just about right". Difficult, yes, but not completely unforgiving and impossible. Of course, I haven't tried liberation yet (and now I know shield was a better choice than dual-wielding, thanks DArtagnan!), but I'm sure I'll manage it. I think all those liberations were intended to happen towards the end, when you're really all-powerful, and not as soon as you finish the quests in a given town (as it turned out to be in vanilla).

VPeric, if you use a bow and exploit the terrain a bit, Ortega's cave is quite easy. The problem is that when the exploit doesn't work well, you can die -> lots of saves. But that reminds me about gothic1 where I saved almost every minute to complete it with a minimal loss of life.

Well, I'm now doing a 1.7 playthrough on Normal difficulty with A-AI and Balancing, plus the so-far underwhelming and only partially translated Questpack.

I started as a bowman and pumped up the Hunting skills, got a Halbred for close encounters and that worked for a while until I discovered that there was no way I could fight in an arena…

So I have since put all my LP into Strength and worked on the blade skills. I liberated Montera as a bowman, and ran out of arrows twice, fighting for 2 days and nights and leaving to restock arrows twice as well. By the time I attempted a liberation of Trelis, I had reasonable sword skills, got Tyler and Finley to join me (it's much easier to do things with the available allies than alone), and ran the Orcs out to the rebel camp behind the Temple to take off some of the pressure of the crowds of Orcs. I killed Vak by sword, but finally had to resort to the bow and terrain exploits as the endless swordplay and potion drinking got pretty tiresome. No way to coax Charles and the boys out of their cave for a little help. Some 'rebels'!

This game, patched, has gone from annoying and disappointing to challenging and quite enjoyable.

EDIT: Well, I hit Nordmar after romping around in the desert. Nordmar was always hard, but now it is really tough. The skellys in the ancestor tombs, between bows and swarming surround attacks, are very difficult to survive. I run in, draw a few outside and fight them, oh I would say 20 or 30 times before I clear one of the damn places out. That and the fact that you NEED cold resistance or your endurance drops quite rapidly and returns very slowly, leaving you constantly vulnerable, makes it rough.

It's tiring and you have to do it over and over… (sobs like a little girl).