Differences between normal and hard.

Anyone know? The manual says nothing, and I'm wondering if it simply means that enemies have more hit points and/or do more damage, or if there are other differences as well.

Hahah, all I can tell you so far, is that the game starts of very easy, and then suddenly it becomes much harder when you go inland. I set it to normal thinking it would be hard like the other Gothics, and at first I thought it was a mistake, but now I'm becoming rather glad I set it at normal. Still, I might want to go hard at some stage, because it's still rather easier than the Gothics.

Anyone know if one can change difficulty in mid-game? I know you could with Oblivion, for instance. It seems as if you can, but I'm not sure if it actually "registers" .

I started off on normal difficulty for my first game (just to demo the game so I didn't get too far in) and I'm now playing on hard. Hard definitely is NotR-like hard . I got the impression that the only difference in difficulty lies in the amount of damage that monsters do. I used to be able to soak up more damage when playing on normal. Now, on hard, it's usually over after 2 or 3 hits from most mobs which sometimes means sudden death since some enemies are able to hit you 2x or 3x in very rapid succession (kind of like the killer boars in G3). I can very safely forget about taking on several mobs. I need to take them on one by one which is harder to do than in the Gothics because the mobs stay very close together when chasing you.

Well, so I'm saving a lot and I'm generally being very careful where I go (level 5 or 6 now). I'm currently trying to solve as many non-combat quests as possible since most of the quests involving combat are simply too hard.
I'm making it extra hard for myself though since I want to become a mage but went to the bandit camp first. I haven't put a single learning point (LP) into raising any of my combat skills yet to save up all LP for later when I join the mages. But I think that I might have to leave the bandits for a while and at least pick up some staff fighting skills soonish.

Moriendor, we have done basically the same. I didn't spend a single LP until I got to the monastery(on staff fighting). I had done everything I could do at the swamp before going to Harbor City. I still had plenty to do there, but got bored and saw a way out of the city walls and decided to just go on a lil tour before resuming from HC. I literally ran and/or sneaked past whatever wanted my nuts for a snack, and found myself on the far east of the map. Actually off the map just a lil, east of the volcano keep. It was here that I killed my first ghoul…ummm….with the help of a hunter, but still…I KILLED A GHOUL! and didn't have armor But if the truth be told, I didn't have a choice. After numerous reloads trying to get past a sh!tload ghouls, skeles, wolves, etc. going back through a cave like I came, I was faced with the simple fact that I would have to somehow kill the first ghoul, or reload back at HC, thus ending my lil tour. I gave him a poke with a bolt and ran. They are hella fast, so you can't just stroll up to one and lure them around the map lol. We tag teamed the ghoul and we both had a sliver of health left when he finally took his eternal dirtnap. After that I was able to high-tail it back to a safer area, and eventually to the monastery. I've done so much there now, I doubt I will resume from HC. I'd rather get my mage on, then go to other places slinging fireballs like confetti at a parade

I know the cave you're talking about, it has a few ghouls inside, and one at the eastern exit. What on earth are you doing in that cave without armor? Exploring is one thing, but messing around with ghouls too early is just suicidal, hehe.

@Moriendor, So are you glad that you chose to play on hard? Has it ever got to the point of being frustrating? I'm still tying to decide which difficulty level I want to go with…

Maylander, my first time thru I try to challenge myself and go into areas I can't possibly get out of….then figure out how to get out of it Generally i will do a few quests and get bored and want to see the rest of the world….sometime from my back lol.

I could have been off doing stupid quests and died of yawndom, but instead I just spent about two hours clearing a tower of skeles. The undead lord was a total bitch to kill since I have no armor and pitiful weapons, but I figured out how to do it and enjoyed it immensely. With no armor, a shield, and my trusty rusty 16 blade damage sword and/or my novice staff, I can kill things that would surprise you. And you'd be surprised at how much more you reallllllly look at the area when you are in deep sh!t. With my weapons i won't even attack stingrats until I know exactly where I will fight from.

Finding the right spot spoiler:

Is it just my imagination, or is it slightly harder to outrun enemies in this game? I used to do a lot of running away, then coming back in for a hit or two, then running away again, in the other Gothics, but somehow, (ok, the beasts, not the humans really) seem more persistent in Risen.

Maybe I just picked up this impression during storms though, because then it's harder to see where you're going and easier to get yourself cornered.

When I read Uriziel's post now, I wondered why he didn't just pelt it past, but maybe there were too many things ganging up on him? Or perhaps you couldn't really get past because of a narrow passage? I remember right at the beginning when I took on those cute little gnomes, I found they were really whittling my already depleted health down, and since I had only one potion to bring it back up with I decided to try and conserve HP and run out of the cave, but instead I took the wrong passage and ran in..- yeah, I turned and carved the last one up but I had only a sliver of HP left, LOL.

About running - Not sure, I don't quite remember how persistent critters were in Gothics however I don't think it's harder to run away as the vile things seem insistent on chasing you.

Well, monsters do stop running after you after a while, but since there is no sprint (except through a spell), it's very hard to simply run past them - quite a few monsters are faster than the main character (wolves, ghouls, etc), and will simply attack you in the back as you run past them.

From what I have seen the pursuit distance is much further than like in a Gothic game…..and there is a speed differential, so they can catch you. Neither of which are good for your health The part I like about Risen and being chased is sometimes you will not hear them chasing anymore…but they ARE there.

Originally Posted by JDR13
@Moriendor, So are you glad that you chose to play on hard? Has it ever got to the point of being frustrating? I'm still tying to decide which difficulty level I want to go with…

Overall, I'm glad I went for hard, yes . It sure does have its frustrating moments though (just like NotR) when you repeatedly hit dead ends by running into quests that are just too hard for your current level and equipment.
Also, contrary to other people, I'm not a big fan of this combat system. It's way too random IMHO. Just when you think that you have all figured out a certain type of enemy and that you have found a good strategy to beat them you all of a sudden get insta-killed by a blitzkrieg attack leaving you with a blank WTF?!? stare on your face . It would help a lot in this regard if the game had smoother animations so that you can tell easier if/when an attack is coming but as it is enemies go from their attack pose to at-your-neck in an instant. It's very hard to tell when to launch an attack (blocking is easy as you can just keep your defense up all the time). If you attack at the same time as the enemy and lower your defenses then it can happen quite easily that you get hit 2x or 3x in rapid succession (similar to the stunlocking boars and wolves in G3) and on hard getting hit 2x or 3x = game over.
It's all good though. It really keeps you on your toes at all times and it makes the exploration a very exciting endeavor. You will not run around the world carelessly like a clown. That much is sure .

I have to slightly disagree about not being able to tell when an enemy will attack. While it is quite true they can go from way over there to on your jugular in a split second, they do have a pattern. It took me a good 45 minutes to be able to kill a gnome chieftain until i spotted a pattern in his attacks. The next chieftain was by no means easy, but it only took a couple of reloads. And if you haven't seen it yet, go find a chieftain and watch his finishing move. It is sweet….until you are on the wrong end of it for about 5 trillion times. I take the shield and press him against a wall or corner to help, but if he times that finish move right….you go bye bye very quickly. He will look up, like he is bored. When he does that he has two moves. One is a single strike, and the other is a three hit instadeath if you get caught.

I've also noticed that mobs will change place in the attacking queue if they get low on health. I have seen wolves in Gothic simple walk off when they got hurt bad enough. That hasn't happened in Risen yet. But, let's say three are attacking and you heavily damage the lead…he will fall back and number two will take the attack lead, etc.

So far I know the patterns of gnomes, wolves, skeles, moths, bog bodies, rotworms, and those huge seagull thingies. I have to totally avoid ghouls, and only engage wild boars if I have proper terrain.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the enemy AI. Dam it is getting good. I was at Leon's and shot a boar and later a wolf with a crossbow. They were down below the cliff in the woods. When I shot them they quite quickly found their way to Leon's. In Gothic they would have run to the bottom of the cliff and waited to have arrows/bolts rain down on them. In Risen they went around the mountain and up the path to Leon's without hesitation. SaaaaWeeet!

Originally Posted by Uriziel
I have to slightly disagree about not being able to tell when an enemy will attack. While it is quite true they can go from way over there to on your jugular in a split second, they do have a pattern. It took me a good 45 minutes to be able to kill a gnome chieftain until i spotted a pattern in his attacks.

Ah, I haven't really fought (or beaten rather ) many humanoids yet. They are all too tough at my current level (still ~ level 7 and zero LP spent on any combat skills or stats). Just about the only humanoid I've beaten is one of those guys at the harbor pub that I was able to take out surprisingly easy. I've taken on quite a few humanoids though and despite getting my ass kicked I prefer humanoid enemies because you can at least tell when an attack is coming. Fully agree with you there in regards to the attack patterns. The animations are better than for the creatures, too, so you can actually react in time when someone swings their weapon at you. D'accord.

When I was talking about the totally unpredictable, random attacks I was mostly referring to wildlife critters like wolves, boars, "scavengers" and those spikey rats (playing the German version and no idea what they are called in the English version… porcurats or what? ).
So what I do is I usually attack right after the animal has attacked me but that is no guarantee of success either. Often times they still manage to counter-attack really fast and break through my attack.
Maybe I still need a lot more practice but generally I don't like it that you can't really take control of a fight. The random element carries too much weight in my opinion. And that random element sort of sucks if you go down in a couple of hits on hard.
Oh well, I finally need to get around to putting some LP in upgrading some of my stats and skills. Maybe it'll get much better then…

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the enemy AI. Dam it is getting good. I was at Leon's and shot a boar and later a wolf with a crossbow. They were down below the cliff in the woods. When I shot them they quite quickly found their way to Leon's. In Gothic they would have run to the bottom of the cliff and waited to have arrows/bolts rain down on them. In Risen they went around the mountain and up the path to Leon's without hesitation. SaaaaWeeet!

Well, yes and no . While it is true that the pathfinding is MUCH improved over Gothic, Gothic 2 Gold and Gothic 3, it is still far from perfect or natural.
For example, if you shoot a creature with a bow from a short or medium distance and then run off to the side, the creature will still first run towards the spot from where you shot the arrow at it, unaware of your change of position (unless you shoot it again of course). You can literally see how the critter is following the invisible waypoints that the game created for it. I think we have all seen much better AI/pathfinding in some other modern games where the enemy homes in on you instead of following a series of waypoints on rails. But I guess if you need to optimize performance and get rid of a few CPU cycles then that is one of those compromises that needs to be made (i.e. waypoints or nodes with fewer updates).

There's also some other AI weaknesses like the fact that enemies apparently don't need a line of sight for ranged attacks. I got slaughtered by some gnomes and their ranged attacks repeatedly even though there was no way that they could have "seen" me (I was running around and constantly hiding behind trees/bushes/rocks/foliage). Line of sight rules obviously don't apply for the AI.
So all in all I'm finding the combat AI only about average for an RPG (early game).
The normal NPC AI is more impressive in my opinion like when they come after you if you enter their house or steal stuff or draw your weapon etc. It's not flawless either but pretty reliable and still quite impressive even though it's been in PB games since the first Gothic.

Some of the monastery quests on normal were hard enough for me with melee skills very low, I can't imagine what it would be like on hard

Now that I have finally put some points into upgrading my stats the game has all of a sudden become a lot easier (duh!) . I have fought and beaten quite a number of humanoids in harbor town by now and fighting against human opponents is a lot of fun. It's challenging and it can take quite a while before you win (or lose). You can take control of these fights pretty well just by watching what your opponent does, blocking, dodging, all that… if you lose you usually know what went wrong.
It's the complete opposite of fighting wildlife creatures which at least for me was not much fun at all due to the randomness and unpredictability of the attacks. Fighting wildlife is like a lottery while fights against humans can be controlled ~90% of the time. It can sometimes happen that you are surprised by a quick, unexpected, counterattack but most of the time you'll be able to block it while wildlife critters seem to have much less difficulty to break through your block.
It's funny how this game is heavily borrowing from all of its predecessors (G1/G2 NotR/G3) including the strengths but also the weaknesses. In this case they have borrowed from G3 where it was easy to slaughter armies of orcs while a boar was an extreme challenge. Same here in Risen. You can take on even tough humans quite easily. It will just take time until you bring their HP down. Boars and wolves, however, are much harder to fight and even though you will sometimes win w/o a scratch you will even more often just have to reload.
I'm looking forward to acquiring my first spells now (going to be a mage) so I can just fry boars, wolves and all those annoying wildlife critters from a hopefully far and safe distance .

That was the case in Gothic 1 and 2 as well though, where you could almost always dodge an incoming orc (they have this silly running attack that's easy to get around), but a Shadowbeast would be an entirely different matter.

I didn't find a huge difference in beasts and humanoids in Gothic 1-2, but it was just plain silly in Gothic 3, where a wolf could still be difficult at level 20.

Originally Posted by Maylander
That was the case in Gothic 1 and 2 as well though, where you could almost always dodge an incoming orc (they have this silly running attack that's easy to get around), but a Shadowbeast would be an entirely different matter.

Hm, not quite. I've seen videos of a level 1 guy beating the black troll (for those who don't know: one of the highest level enemies in G2 (NotR)) via the simple left-right combo. Just timing the left-right attacks in Gothic/Gothic2 correctly was bordering on an exploit. I haven't beaten the black troll this way myself but I won many, many fights that probably shouldn't have been possible at my character's level in the first two Gothics and against wildlife like shadowbeasts, warans etc., too. You could easily defeat high level critters even as a newbie character.
Beating Risen's wildlife is much harder in my opinion since you can't block all incoming attacks (good!) and because of the random element (bad!) and the rather poor animations (bad!). It's pure luck. If you attack at the exact same time as the creature but the creature somehow hits first then it can be game over real fast if the creature performs a combo attack or if it scores a crit hit.

Oh well, the combat has never really been a strong point of the Gothics anyway in my opinion so it is not unexpected that Risen's isn't oodles of fun either. Sometimes when playing this overall great game I do wish though that they would have improved or evolved certain things instead of just ripping off or copying themselves .

Well I finally got a copy, and started a game on hard.

What can I say? Hard is definitely *hard*, even Hungry Wolves are beating me down. I hate the autosave though, it saves way too often, so I refuse to use it and only reload from manual saves when I die.

Anyone know how to use the "look back" function that is listed in the controls?