Gothic 3 Gave up in frustration... :-p

Prime Junta

RPGCodex' Little BRO
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Ironic, really, given that I started a thread on how *not* to do just that.

There's a lot to like about the game, and indeed it got me hooked worse than most games in past years. I liked it a lot early on, but got progressively more disillusioned the longer I played. Its recurrent habit of stringing you along for a while and then dumping on you just got too much for me. In a nutshell:

(1) It has way too many imbalances: situations or attacks that can't be defended against or handled except by save-reload, *even* when you're at quite high level (I was around 50 when I quit). Examples: much of the wildlife at low(ish) level, the fireballs and ice lances at high(er) levels, many set-piece battles.

(2) It has way too many bugs. The memory leak that causes save-game corruption is one of the worst, but quests that are broken to start with or break through completely innocent and clearly unintended actions are almost as bad.

So, I uninstalled the game and deleted my saves as well. I might give it another try in a year, if patches have brought it to some kind of decent shape.
 
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Im sorry to hear that. I have finished all of Myrtana and is almost done with Varant. I am still enjoying myself enough to stay awake all night, eating in front of the computer and only make break for sleep.
 
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I've completed the game several times and I'm still enjoying it a lot. In fact, my second and third run through the game was more fun than the first, as I started to recognize all the locations and felt "at home".

If I were you I'd give it a new try as soon as the technical issues are sorted out. :)
 
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Well isn't that ironic, i was also about to give up due to the bugs, kept a couple of saves then uninstalled with a view to give it a rest for a while, then i saw your great thread Prime Junta, and i took notice of what you said. Two days later G3 is up and running better that ever and the save game was recovered thanks to your helpfulness.
Did you keep any savegames? - my saves would only work with the same patches loaded as previous - with patch-1 only, the saves were unreadable.
 
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I didn't keep any saves. As stated, I'll give it another shot next year; with any luck it'll be much better then. I want to play games, not be a beta tester, dagnabbit.
 
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Prime: I too had a similar relationship with G3. My love for the series and anticipation of the release lent me a great deal of forbearance when dealing with the bugs and balance issues. Yet, after hours and hours of looking for something that simply just wasn't there I had to give up. The series has lost the charm of its predecessors. Exploration is unrewarding, most of the items worth having are purchased and not found or earned, combat in all of its forms is uninspired, NPCs and towns are lifeless and interchangeable, bloom and distance blur are overbearing yet necessary due to the "flashing bug", bugs and balance issues are frustrating, and a few enjoyable features ( i.e. interactive lock picking, and climbing) are removed. Many of the above issues could be fixed with patches and content releases; however, holding out for such hopes to be realized is most likely unrealistic. I hailed the last two Gothic games as some of the best games of all time. I played them over so many times it's nearly criminal. By no means am I a casual gamer who simply wishes to bash this game due to frustration. If G4 were to be released tomorrow I would buy it without much hesitation or thought. I am still a fan of the series, and I feel that expecting something great from PB next time is not unwarranted, well, that is of course if the story line would permit it. Simply stated, G3 was a screw up and doesn't accurately represent what PB and the Gothic series is capable of. Even on its own it's still a mediocre game. Let's put down our rose tinted glasses, offer the best criticism we can, and hope for the best to come. A quick aside: Even in spite of everything I just wrote, the music in the game is quite possibly the best I have ever experienced. I have to give praise where it's due.
 
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I have to somewhat agree with lostnumber. G3 feels very rushed, and more like a Quest-based MMO rather than what the previous two games were: memorable characters, events and locations. I know I've only played G3 for several hours, and I havent played enough to make a certain judgement, but it just seems so imbalanced. Seeing NPCs just get slaughtered by boars and lizards without ever getting a chance to swing the sword just doesnt make any sense to me. As far as I am through the game, I already think Gothic 2's combat was much better. I became very good with that system; it is very straight-forward and simple, making it easy to develop different strategies. However, I am at a loss as to whether there is any real useful strategy to be learned in G3. :-/
 
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I agree that allowing named NPC's to be easily killed by animals, sometimes before you get to talk to them; Chris springs to mind- I had to reload 3 times cause I heard him groaning, but he was dead before I arrived twice, was a stupid design decision!! I remember going hunting with Diego and got a failed quest cause he got himself killed by Jackals on the way when he ran right into the middle of a pack of them!!
 
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In patch 2 they are slightly better at defeating animals though, as animals have been dumbed down a bit. If you get a couple of boars into a farm near Montera for instance they will most likely not kill anyone right now.
 
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@lostnumber -- Yup, you describe it rather well. The thing that bothers me most is balance, balance, balance.

Combat balance. You have ridiculously low-level critters doing stuff that even high-level characters can't defend against (e.g. goblin shamans).

Quest balance. There should be a reasonable balance between quest challenge and quest reward. If you spend hours and hours doing a series of quests that require spending about five levels worth of skill points, the reward should at the very least be better than what you could've gotten just by spending those skill points on brute force.

Character development balance. If the game offers multiple ways of developing your character, there should be different rewards -- in gameplay, challenges, quests, and/or loot -- for these different ways. As it stands, many of the skill trees are just useless. I'm not talking rocket science here -- for example, if you buy the full smithing skill tree, it should give you access to weapons that make up for the skill points you didn't spend on strength or hunting skill, or if you build a hunter, there should be bows somewhere in the game that are legendary enough that only you can make use of them.

And, as you say, the unfortunate thing is that many if not most of these things were quite well addressed in the previous installments of the series, and would not have been difficult to do in G3 as well. Bugs and borked plots aside, the game just feels rushed. Another three to six months would've done it wonders, and, as stated, I intend to return to it somewhere along the line, at least if the rumblings are good.

Oh well. Going by the first reports, NWN2 doesn't appear to be a complete washout, so at least there won't be a shortage of stuff to do...
 
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Quest balance: Higher level quests will give almost an entire level worth in xp upon delivery.For instance, you can get at least 25.000xp just for completing the fire chalice quest + the help of some incredibly powerful paladins around the world. I feel this reward is sufficient, and most other quests are quite easy to finish fast if you know what to do - there aren't really that many quests which are longer/harder than others.

Character development: Smithing gives THE best weapons in the game, hands down. You can get 1h weapons with over 30% more damage through smithing than any other means in the game. Hunting allows you to get access to skins, which is used in tons of quests, especially in Nordmar, and you can't do those quests without hunting - that way hunters are rewarded with more xp and loot based on their build. I'd say thieving is the most useless right now, but if you want to be sneaky and steal stuff all over the place to get faster loot, it can certainly be useful(especially being able to lie your way out of crimes instead of guards attacking you).

Combat balance: Gothic has never been easy, beating a dragon snapper in Gothic 2(with addon) is about as painful as defeating half an army of orcs. Once you've learned techniques on how to beat various monsters, they will hardly ever kill you again. Animals for instance are very easy to beat with long range weapons(bows, crossbows or magic), and orcs/humans are easy to beat in melee. No character should ever be 100% range or 100% melee, that is a very weak build with obvious weaknesses. I agree that NPCs are simply not good enough at dealing with animals, and because of that you can lose powerful NPCs to beasts, which makes little sense, but I feel that they should rather boost powerful NPCs than weaken beasts. Only Zuben, Xardas and Rhobar are actually fairly solid, all others die fast.
 
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In the space sim Dark Star One your reputation with various factions/pirates would mean that almost every sector had random encounters with people who disliked you due to reputation and attacked you on sight. However, whenever you took on a mission, be it a cargo mission or an escort mission or whatnot, each mission had a build-in encounter (or not) and while you were on that mission all the other space faring people would be neutral towards you until you finished the mission and then would go back to liking/disliking you.

If only the same principle would apply in Gothic 3 to escort missions I would be extremely grateful. Every single, and I *DO* mean EVERY, escort errand has resulted in a failed quest because the idiot got himself killed along the way. As it is now I have no choice but to make sure I save before I agree to the escort, then follow him to his death, memorize the path he took, reload and go clear the area, go back and save again, then follow him once more to his death and redo the whole process over and over until he finally is able to reach his target without being wasted along the way.

Regarding melee vs wild animals I have to say that as a dual wielder of a pair of home made bastard swords (the second schematics I bought and the best single handed weapon I've found so far being close to level 60) I've noticed on the numerous occasions that my ass has been handed to me on silver platter by various wild life that it seems that you actually have to connect with the hilt of your sword (or very close to it) before it counts as a hit. This means that you have to be dangerously close to your target to actually damage it and since most animals are very fast and have a sort of "leap" attack they usually hit you before you can hit them.

Another theory could simply be a "hit box" miscalculation. At present I can down most wild life with a single shot of my Nimrod bow if I hit them in the head (with the exception of shadow beasts and saber tooths and crawlers). If I don't hit them in the head they take a lot less damage, alert the rest of the flock and starts to give chase. It could simply be that a "head shot" isn't working with melee weapons and if that is so it could explain why it seems like you have to hit the critters with the whole lenght of your sword to inflict damage since you have to reach past the frothing mouth and sharp teeth and actually hit the torso of the animal to score a hit.

Of course it could also be that the earth really is flat and that I'm just talking out of my rear end :)
 
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@Maylander -- Perhaps I'm just dumb, but I never did manage to figure out a way to whack shamans lobbing fireballs and ice daggers at me, other than by extreme save-reload. Perhaps you'd care to share a few tips?

Smithing? I did the Nordmar "pure ore" series of quests... only to discover that there aren't any pure ore blueprints to be had, anywhere. Yay. Second, even if there *were* blueprints to be had, the 50 LP's or so you need to get to forging pure ore weapons (plus honing), could just as well have been spent on strength, which will give you that extra 30% of so of damage too (OK, it may drop to less than that once you're really powerful, but by that time it won't even matter).

Lousy balance, as I said.
 
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My friend Maylander, it is obvious that you enjoy this game very much as you have been a very vocal defender and advocate. I know what it is like to enjoy something very much only to have others tear it down, it's frustrating and in some ways personally offensive. What I have written about G3 isn't an attack on something you enjoy simply because I don't like it. I haven't been mingling with this community for all these years on accident. I started because of G1, a game that I enjoyed like no other. Even to this day there is something about the OC NPC community that had never been matched by any other game I have played. It felt alive, dirty, dangerous, and fun. Starting the game as scavenger fodder and scrambling to find a decent sword tucked away in a cave somewhere was so exhilarating. A digger's getup was worth something. Every little item added depth to the game, NPCs were memorable and had personalities, running off the beaten path was worth more than a reload screen, caves were worth exploring, and the game was enjoyable, not manageable. On its own without any consideration to the Gothic series G3 is a decent game; but when compared to the others it's something much less. I write what I write because I want the Gothic series to return to what made this community, not to be cruel, offensive or attack something my friends here enjoy. Let's be honest, most of us are here because of the original game. If G3 came in the place of G1 and vise-versa I really don't think that many of us would be here. I don't want to make excuses and I don't want to be overly critical, I think that patience and expectation is best. I am glad that you enjoy G3; if people don't buy the game our chances of purchasing something along the lines of G4 are slim. I hope that PB puts their best effort into supporting and improving G3, furthermore, I hope that they have learned a lesson from all of this.

P.S. Go get your war craft wisp avatar back; it doesn't feel the same without it.
 
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@lostnumber -- I wish I had your eloquence. I agree with every word you're saying.
 
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Somehow I knew that beta testing this disaster would ruin the experience for people. My guess is that in a few months it will be enjoyable - just walk away for a while!
 
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I think we can have hope for the American release. It's still a couple weeks out, and perhaps PB and Aspyr managed to rework a few systems.
 
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Thank you very much, it is good to see that the spirit of the series and the foundation of this community have not been forgoten. I know that our voice is small, and that we represent a very tiny portion of the RPG market share. However, our apreciation for this series is something which I believe to be noteable. Not simply because we are fans and are willing to pay for a product, but because our wants and expectations are in line with what made PB's first product so great to begin with. The subtelties of PB's original design lead to their success and growth. Doesn't anyone remember the "Hut out on a Lake" thread on the dot? PB should want what we want; not because we are entitled and expectant fans, but because our wants represent a magnificient and highly valuable product.
 
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well said lostnumber. I must say that I need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I've been playing Gothic since I randomly bought it off the shelf back in late 2001/early 2002 (cant remember, its been so long :) ) At first I was totally turned off by the game, but I learned to love it. The same thing happened with Gothic 2. At first I didnt like the changes I saw in it compared to G1. But again, I learned to love it. And not just that, but I ended up liking G2 more than G1 simply because of how much better designed the game was (and it looked way better). Now I have a feeling the same process will happen with Gothic 3. At first I may not like it all that much, but as time goes on and I get to know it better, it'll probably become a game I simply cant put down (besides all the memory crashes :) )
 
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