Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven is a brutally difficult game for most people until they learn all the little tricks and exploits.
"Wrong. I played at least 20 hours of gothic 1 & 2 each."
"It's quite bizarre that these games have so much appeal here."
I always spend over 40 hours in a game that I dislike too…. and then play it's sequel…..
I fired up G1 a few days ago and again last night. Sure the controls are different but there's a certain logic to them and they aren't that difficult to get used to.
That said I think my main problem picking it up again now is I don't know what to do. I didn't enjoy the first 4 level enough to really want to go back and do them again.
I've been to all three camps, the mine, explored a lot of the map - except past the gate to the Orcs. Haven't managed to join any group yet. If I recall in the new camp I have to beat some guy up and in the old camp I have to win an arena fight… Both of which seem beyond my skills at the moment. Wandering the map grinding to level up is kind of boring.
What am I doing wrong?
Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven is a brutally difficult game for most people until they learn all the little tricks and exploits.
Because people die a lot? Your own retrospective mentions dying frequently.
How far into Throne of Bhaal have you gotten? That’s the hardest game I ever played to completion. Fight the dragon yet?
Brutally difficult how though?
I don't find ELEX as difficult as people say, either. The little tricks you have to learn in PB games is mainly which enemies to avoid until you're stronger. Once you know in Gothic you shouldn't mess with Orcs, Dragon Snappers, etc., at lower level, you're good to go. IMO.
Do I really need to explain how Gothic 2 + NotR is difficult for most people?
You don't need to run away from most things in other popular open-world RPGs, and few enemies can one-shot you as far into the game as many of those in G2+N.
It also stays consistently difficult for longer into the game than most comparable RPGs. Add that to the fact that XP and better gear are very slow to accumulate compared to other games.
The average gamer playing G2+N for the first time is going to die… a lot.
I can dig it. I'm just not sure I'd consider that as "difficult". You're absolutely right on your points. You don't need to run in other games, less obstacles via enemies in other games, etc.. True. But as you mentioned, once you learn the tricks of the game, which enemies to avoid, etc., that isn't much of a difficulty level anymore.
I view difficult RPGs as more like games with hard puzzles. That first dungeon in M&M VI that took me 20-30 minutes to figure out that puzzle, that was tough. Or games with battles that require a long period of medium-to-high attention to overcome. Some of these battles in BG:EET are brutal. Xulima I'd call somewhat difficult, but even that falls into the "avoid harder enemies for awhile" category that PB games do (although Xulima has wicked puzzles, too. The Hall of Heroes puzzle - tough. And some others, too.) I find Wizardry-likes harder, especially ones that limit saving or have crazy dangerous dungeons to explore (Elminage Gothic, as I already pointed out, even though a large chunk of that difficulty is lost when teleportation is introduced. It does have inventory/party management aspects, too, but between teleporting and saving at will it can lose some of that at times. Some dungeons remove the ability to teleport, though.)
In Gothic 1 & 2 you don't really have long, drawn-out battles that are very difficult. I remember some tough, tough ones in that Lord of the Rings action RPG. You'd be fighting huge waves of tough monsters, be running out of health and energy only for trolls to smash through, or you'd lose your objective. Really tough battles at times. Most battles in G1/2 are over in the blink of an eye, even the boss fights, and don't require much in the way of manual dexterity to overcome.
For long-term, sustained challenge in terms of having to pay attention to your surroundings, Gothic and PB in general is king there. In terms of actually difficult gameplay, I dunno, I don't consider their games all that difficult, at least not to the level I've seen others talk about (people saying ELEX is brutal, and in this very thread Gothic being talked about as "cruel", etc..)
I do think the fact you have to pay attention in the game could make people perceive them as harder. If you're half distracted and playing a PB game, you'll get wrekt because you ran into a Black Troll or something. But you can also load your quicksave from 2 minutes ago and learn to not do that again.
Total side note but those are the types of RPGs I like, ones that you have to pay attention and immerse yourself in a bit. As fun as Skyrim was for a long session, it becomes a bit of auto-pilot after awhile when you know nothing in the world will stand in your way at any turn. Exploration has no real danger. Nehrim and Enderal on the other hand…
It has nothing to do with perception. The game is difficult compared to similar games. You can rationalize all you want, but that's not going to change that fact.
You keep saying "but once you learn…", but that has nothing to do with what I said. Any game will be less difficult once you learn what needs to be done, but I'm not talking about for people who have already sunk a significant amount of time into the game and know all the little things you can do to make the ride smoother. I'm talking about for the average gamer who's playing it for the first time.
The only comparable action-RPGs I can think of that are more difficult are the Dark Souls games, and I say "comparable" with a grain of salt because those aren't really open-world in the same way as Gothic 2.
I was the average gamer playing it for the first time a few years ago, though. The "difficulty" as you call it comes down to seeing an enemy type in the wild, determining if you can kill it or not (attack it, if it's health goes down, you're good. If it kills you in one shot that's a general indicator that you should leave. ), and then re-loading if necessary. I'm not sure if I personally would call that "difficulty."
Dark Souls would be difficult because it requires manual dexterity to avoid powerful attacks from creatures, learning attack patterns but also reacting quickly to them, dodging and defending and so on. Battles can rage for minutes at a time, where one false move can get you whacked. Gothic has none or very little of that. So I'm just still not seeing how Gothic's design equates to difficulty. It's trial and error, mostly. It's not like in Gothic super powerful creatures jump at you or ambush you, either. You can almost always see them coming and avoid them easily.
But this is just my take on it. Other than what people mentioned about the average gamer simply not being conditioned to play Gothic because they are too used to modern RPGs, I don't see those games as having a high difficulty level in the traditional sense.
More difficult than similar games? I guess. I mean, it takes a semblance of awareness to play them, which is the opposite of modern games, so yeah. But as long as you avoid the dangerous enemies with that awareness there isn't much more of a challenge beyond that, IMO.
If your point is that you're different from most people, then that's fine.
The vast majority would concur with what I'm saying though.
Fluent do you want us all to believe in your Uber skills? Ok. You officially have Uber skills