Risen 2 - Preview @ GameSpot

Risen 2 has been previewed at GameSpot, in a pretty perfunctory article:

While we're on the subject, the hero has a few tricks up his sleeve to turn the tide of combat. He can use his parrot to distract foes, pull off counter parries and normal parries, and even toss dust to stun foes if players choose these abilities when leveling up. We felt that every little bit of help was welcome, if the prequel's absurd difficulty curve was of any indication. Thankfully, Oberlechner said that Risen 2 will be a little easier than the first game, with the first few hours of the game introducing many incentives to power up your character and the hard parts to come in later.
It should also be noted that all of these fights took place in incredibly lush jungles with beautiful waterfall vistas. Furthermore, Oberlerchner said that the PC version need only modest PC requirements and will stick to using DirectX 9.

More information.

absurd difficulty curve? is this newspeak for when a game doesn't have scaled combat?

I believe it's actually newspeak for any gameplay more difficult than "Press X to win game."

Risen 1 was a cakewalk even on hard. I remember saving up far over 100 learning points on the first 15 levels or so because I wanted to prolong my class/faction decision for as long as possible and then just spend all the points once I had chosen a path.
Despite the saving up of LP and running around with a cripple of a character it was still pretty easy.
And I'm not boasting or trying to show off by saying this. I know for a fact that I'm not a leet gamer (how could I be with the little time I have for gaming - I sometimes don't play anything for weeks). I'm average at best so for anyone with any real skill it must have been ridiculously super-easy even on hard.
GameSpot is completely and totally nuts claiming it had an "absurd difficulty curve". STFU, GameSpot, before anyone reads -or worse- believes that crap. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Risen 1 was a cakewalk even on hard.

Wow I guess I suck.

I'd love to watch a video of your game. I remember monsters giving me a run for my money at least until midway through chapter 3 - and even then I had to use a lot of run-heal-and-return tactics.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
Wow I guess I suck.

I'd love to watch a video of your game. I remember monsters giving me a run for my money at least until midway through chapter 3 - and even then I had to use a lot of run-heal-and-return tactics.

I agree, it was lame dying to weak monsters, while not nearly as cheap as Gothic 3 I still did not care for it, I never got the feeling of being powerful, it was lame in that regard.

Originally Posted by curious
absurd difficulty curve? is this newspeak for when a game doesn't have scaled combat?

I'm bet they tried to defeat the wild boars early in the game. I'm guessing one of Piranha Byte's lead designers was maimed by a wild boar and now considers them to be the most deadly critter this side of the gates of Hell. I would give them even odds against a rabid elephant in all the PB games I've played.

I'm starting to like the pirate theme as its something different than the usual fantasy settings I play.

Pirate them sounds good….directx 9 really?

Any making the game easier? Facepalm

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
Pirate them sounds good….directx 9 really?

Any making the game easier? Facepalm

DX9 doesn't bother me as a majority of pc gamers dont have dx11 capable cards yet. That is a fact based on Steam.

It seems that what people want these days is scaling and perhaps big neon signs to tell
them something along the lines "THIS IS A LVL 5 MONSTER YOU ARE LVL 3 PLEASE COME BACK LATER" so they don't waste time exploring what the game has to offer
and finish up quickly( so they can get to the next shinny thing)…

And yet they still complain about scaling and games being too short! (perhaps
those complaints come from a different audience though)…

I think I definetely got left behind the times (a bit of a gaming dinosaur I guess ?).
But hey, if games keep "evolving" that way I predict great saves on my hardware and
software budget in the coming years (I currently struggle to find more that 2-3 games
I like per year anyway)…

/minirant

Risen was pretty tough compared to most games, though obviously quite easy compared to NotR. Still, it does have a bit of a learning curve (espeially melee combat), but I wouldn't call it absurd.

As a melee dude, I found Risen to be quite challenging - once you got to the point where the "primary" enemies started to appear. I fought many tough battles, IIRC.

I still remember the orcs from Gothic 2 they were a bitch to kill. Still combat was a challenge in risen but after playing a bit you got used it.

I hated those wolves packs in Risen 1 but to me the best moment in the whole game was when I figured out how to kill them! I mean this as a very good thing!

In some games the combat becomes trivial once you figure out the trick but I felt in Risen 1 that you still need to be on your guard else those wolves packs can still kill you.

Generally, PB does combat well (may be not gothic 3!) and I hope combat in Risen 2 will be good as well.

I don't really care if the game uses DX9 or DX10 etc. For starts I can't tell the difference and I think art direction is key rather than the tech behind it.

For some reason I really never found the Gothics or Risens too hard. Mostly, you just have to know what kind of fights you should better run from to come back another day. There are a few difficulty spikes in the main quest, but I found none of those too frustrating.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
For some reason I really never found the Gothics or Risens too hard. Mostly, you just have to know what kind of fights you should better run from to come back another day. There are a few difficulty spikes in the main quest, but I found none of those too frustrating.

Precisely. And you still have the option to plan, equip, and try the hard ones way ahead of
time if you like to (and don't mind reloading a few times or a dozen until you train
yourself/get it right ). Pretty rewarding imo but I can understand people looking for a different gaming experience naturally.

I too can enjoy different gameplay styles and appreciate them for their merits and strong points (The Witcher 1 comes to mind. I must have been one of the few not bemoaning the combat and how easy it was. I thought it was Ok on Hard at least for the first playthrough, on subsequent ones the game did become a bit too easy admittedly).

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
Wow I guess I suck.

I'd love to watch a video of your game. I remember monsters giving me a run for my money at least until midway through chapter 3 - and even then I had to use a lot of run-heal-and-return tactics.

Perhaps the game is easier for those who are already used to the mechanics ?

I'm a bit disturbed to see someone from Piranha Bytes saying that Risen 2 will be "easier". I hope this isn't the start of them dumbing down their games in order to compete with more mainstream titles.

I think Daniel Oberlerchner is the brand manager at Deep Silver so that'd mean it isn't a real Piranha saying it will be easier.

And I just powergamed through NotR (working Gothic 2 Gold in addition to TW2 and 16$ credit, thanks GOG!) so I feel ready for pretty much any difficulty now.