Gothic 3 Recommended Difficulty?

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Hey-o.

I was wondering what the consensus was on this? I'd like to play on Hard, Alternative AI + Alternative Balancing, if possible. I say if possible because I'm not sure if the game was really designed for that sort of thing. Will that be a viable difficulty later in the game as well? I expect it to be quite hard, as the first battle itself with the orcs is already nasty as heck, but I just want to make sure that the game is in fact playable with those settings in the long run.

Thank ye.
 
Every game you play for the first time, that includes Gothic 3, I always suggest normal.

Unless a game is a nostory trash. For example some carracing sim or 2d platformer. Or Candy Crush Saga. If possible, pump those on highest difficulty, only then those could be a bit fun.
 
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I usually start all RPGs now on the highest difficulty. I'm just curious if with these Alternative enhancements (were they done by Piranha Bytes, by the way? Or are those modder enhancements?) the game is 100% playable and beatable on the hardest difficulty.
 
All games are beatable on the highest difficulty. Some are superhard on normal though for the most part so they don't need a higher setting (recent example: Regalia).

There is however a good reason to firstplay all games on insane difficulty. Public dickwaving.
An example is DX:MD. Get invisibility skill and you can fastrun on insane - easily. Because all it did was turning, just like every other game, trashmobs into bullet sponges. Instead of, if it's insane, disabling the skill that allows you to get past anything.
Well man, I don't care about difficulty bullshit in DX:MD. How about turning every stone and doing sidequests mainstream media ignored instead.

What I'm saying, if developers designed a game to be challenging, that challenge will exist on the normal difficulty. If not, even insane will be easy.
 
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I was curious because I wasn't sure if the Alternative AI + Alternative Balancing had been tested for full playthroughs, being that they seem to be modder creations, not official Piranha Bytes modes. But maybe I missed something there.

Edit - Looks like the game can be finished just fine and those modes were tested. Good stuff.

Ah well, thanks. About to jump in on those settings and give it a go. I hear the AB at least makes the game feel more like the first 2 Gothics, progression wise, which I'll like.
 
Well, Gothic 3 is a 2006 game and modding basically began the day it was released in its super-broken original state.
PB parted ways with JW shortly after the game was released. The only official PB post-release content for G3 is everything up to the 1.12 patch which only included very basic stability fixes.

Everything that came after was either made by the community or by Spellbound Entertainment (the makers of ArcaniA).

The most notable milestone here was the 1.6 patch created by Spellbound. Contrary to the community patch team, they had full access to the G3 source code and were able to make some major under the hood changes.
Today's community patches and efforts are all based on this final official 1.6 patch.

Therefore, alternative AI + AB are purely community-made and have been around since at least 2009-/2010-ish and they have been tested by millions of G3 players over the years.

Of course, there have been patches and adjustments to AB/AAI and the modding community constantly keeps working on content for G3 (like the community story project -CSP-) but rest assured that it is very unlikely for you to be treading new ground here :) .

There should be a very good and very detailed documentation on what AB and AAI do in the PDF manual that comes with the community patch (though I'm not sure if there is an English manual?). Check inside your G3 folder after installing CP 1.75.

AB + AAI have specifically been created by Gothic veterans and for Gothic veterans who were longing for a more NotR-like experience rather than the default easy (even on hard minus the boars from hell :biggrin: ) difficulty. So if you want more of a challenge with slower character progression (less bang for your learning points buck, less gold etc.) then go for it.
 
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Thanks for the great info, Moriendor! I ended up starting on Hard + AB + AAI. Loving it so far! Looking forward to the slow progression. :)

Also going to be playing Forsaken Gods afterwards, which I know most will say not to, but I did hear from a couple Gothic diehards that it's worth a peek, even if it was made by some weird, non-PB studio. I'd also like to return to the first Gothic (recording a Let's Play as I've done for Gothic 2 and now will be doing for Gothic 3), and even trying that Gothic 2 fan game/expansion/mod thing, the 40+ hour adventure set in Khorinis. Something about Tale of a Warrior, I think. And then I think I will have maxed out my adventure in Gothic. :)
 
Hey Moriendor, how do you like AB? The game is wicked tough for me so far. It's like the Valley of Mines from Gothic II as a Fire Mage all over again. :D

But, long-term, is the game really, really challenging? It seems like the requirements are steep for some things, which makes me wonder, is AB designed for one, very narrow focus? For example, I'd like to maybe train my bow to a decent level, but I also want to use Large Weapons. I don't want to be Godlike with both, obviously, but enough to at least survive the challenges the game presents later on. Is this possible with AB enabled?

In GII NotR, I kind of gimped my character with one of the worst builds anyone could probably do. :p I started as a bow user, became a mage and started training a bit of two-handed staff fighting, and later poured most of my points into magic, although I had "wasted" points with melee/bow since later on they weren't that useful, except against the weakest of the weak enemies. My Strength remained really low, around 40-ish, Dexterity I got over 50 so I could use a slightly better bow (never hit 80 for the next upgrade, though) and so on. I ended up finishing the game with 270-ish mana, not even enough to cast a Shrink Monster spell, for example. So I think the build was pretty jacked up, really.

Is the same thing to be expected with G3? While I don't want to be overpowered, I would like to possibly dabble in a couple different weapon skills, if possible. Thank ye in advance. Glad to see some people still so much into these awesome Gothic games. :)
 
IIRC even with AB the game is so large you will eventually be able to max most things by late game if you ignore some of the skills you really don't need (like the extra damage against Orcs etc.). The challenge does remain into late game but mainly due to sheer numbers of enemies.
 
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Hey Moriendor, how do you like AB? The game is wicked tough for me so far. It's like the Valley of Mines from Gothic II as a Fire Mage all over again. :D

But, long-term, is the game really, really challenging? It seems like the requirements are steep for some things, which makes me wonder, is AB designed for one, very narrow focus? For example, I'd like to maybe train my bow to a decent level, but I also want to use Large Weapons. I don't want to be Godlike with both, obviously, but enough to at least survive the challenges the game presents later on. Is this possible with AB enabled?

In GII NotR, I kind of gimped my character with one of the worst builds anyone could probably do. :p I started as a bow user, became a mage and started training a bit of two-handed staff fighting, and later poured most of my points into magic, although I had "wasted" points with melee/bow since later on they weren't that useful, except against the weakest of the weak enemies. My Strength remained really low, around 40-ish, Dexterity I got over 50 so I could use a slightly better bow (never hit 80 for the next upgrade, though) and so on. I ended up finishing the game with 270-ish mana, not even enough to cast a Shrink Monster spell, for example. So I think the build was pretty jacked up, really.

Is the same thing to be expected with G3? While I don't want to be overpowered, I would like to possibly dabble in a couple different weapon skills, if possible. Thank ye in advance. Glad to see some people still so much into these awesome Gothic games. :)

Fluent,

I really recommand playing with alternative balancing turned on. It makes the game feel more like a proper old school rpg. Skill/perks/spells have proper tiers now and stat requirements. So unlocking those mage skills feels very mage like. This ofcourse means that you must early on decide which path to follow. You can still learn plenty of general skills, but as a mage you can no longer reach to the highest levels in archery or sword fighting. So yes, the experience is quite like in gothic 2 notr. So it should feel very familiar to you. And by the way this time around, mages can learn staff fighting, so you don't need to train sword combat at all. :)

So if you're playing with alternative balancing, increasing stats begins to cost twice of learning points & gold once you go over certain stresshold. I think it was 250. So in other words increasing strenght to 250 costs 250 points and after that each strenght point costs you 2 points. Same applies for every other stats (Dexeterity and ancient knowledge).

Also this applies for mana, health and stamina stats as well, but learning costs are more generious. Under 250 = 20 health/mana/stamina costs 5 learning points. After 250, the costs are doubled as well.

Also a small tip: You need only 60 skill points for brewing permanent potions skill and you can slowly learn required 60 points of alchemy throughout the game from bookstands without investing any points. There are ofcourse other alchemy skills which require higher knowledge.

There are also so called bookstands and stone tablets that grant you permanent bonuses to ancient knowledge. So if you're a mage, you should prioritize of learning 250 ancient knowledge and only after that point start using stone tablets since after 250 every point costs double ammount of lps and gold.

Also if you choose to go mage path. Learn the perk quick learning assap. Quick learning perks means that once you level up, you gain 11 lps instead of 10. :)
 
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@Dez, thanks! I already started with AB/AAI/Hard difficulty. It's *brutal* so far. Loving it. When I'm not hating it. :D

But yeah, it's great so far. I also read that the AB makes it more like the first 2 games, so I had to go with that. Even if I did ultimately make a terrible Fire Mage in G2! :)

I know now to pay even closer attention to how I spend my LP.

By the way, not sure if I mentioned it, but the Quest Pack stuff actually makes the game harder. It adds higher armor restrictions and things like that. I didn't use it for my first run as I like to remain true to the original content the first time I play.
 
The quest pack also has google translated standard english. I personally couldn't live with that so I've never installed it. Maybe that has changed but last time I looked it was bad. I'm also not keen on the stuff that changes the models and textures to be more G1/2 like. Whether Gothic fans like it or not the models and textures in G3 were the developers vision for the game. I'm all for fixing the broken stuff but not changing what the developers actually intended.
 
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The quest pack also has google translated standard english. I personally couldn't live with that so I've never installed it. Maybe that has changed but last time I looked it was bad. I'm also not keen on the stuff that changes the models and textures to be more G1/2 like. Whether Gothic fans like it or not the models and textures in G3 were the developers vision for the game. I'm all for fixing the broken stuff but not changing what the developers actually intended.

You and I are on the same page there. Especially for a first playthrough. I generally don't like to change textures too much, either, since the game's artists made them that way for a reason. A nice high-res pass, though, I welcome.
 
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