Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven is a brutally difficult game for most people until they learn all the little tricks and exploits.
Gothic - Series 75% Off on Steam
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I always spend over 40 hours in a game that I dislike too.... and then play it's sequel.....
There are many non-combat quests to complete, they should easily get you to level 5-6 if I remember correctly.
Then it's about choosing where to spend your LP.
For a first run I would suggest strength and two-handed weapons, then get yourself the best weapon you can with that strength limit.
You'll notice a massive change in damage and ability to kill or beat up things.
zahratustra
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Well, I'm with LD and Ovenall. I've found Gothic games mediocre and could never understand the gushing and the praises. Gothic 1 was probably the best of the whole series but it's not saying much. And I did finish Gothic 1 but just couldn't be bothered to finish 2 or 3.
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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.
Which was terrible writing on my part.
I should have said something along the lines of, "You will die a lot if you try to fight tough enemies that you shouldn't yet, which means you can come back later for revenge, etc.." You can watch my Gothic 2 Let's Play on my channel to see how often I died. It wasn't nearly enough to call it cruel or brutally difficult. As long as you don't try to attack very hard enemies then I don't see much difficulty to it.The hardest part for me was sneaking through the Valley of Mines the first time at night, and that was really because I ended up quicksaving in a bad spot and didn't want to lose Biff at the time by teleporting to the castle. I wish these games had 2 quicksave buttons or something. I hate getting stuck by saving in some bad spot.
The harder games, to me, are games with difficult puzzles, or stuff like Elminage Gothic, which feature huge, sprawling maze-like maps. But even that game is made easier at the start with unlimited saving so you can save scum if you like. Baldur's Gate: EET + SCS has had some brutally hard encounters so far, some of the hardest I've seen in a game like it, but it was also due to being rusty in my 2nd Edition D&D. Lords of Xulima had crazy encounters, fights that I won with literally one character out of 6 still alive with 2 HP or something.
Those were fun fights. But I still wouldn't call it hard. I can't really think of many hard or brutally difficult RPGs, really.
ToddMcF2002
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How far into Throne of Bhaal have you gotten? That’s the hardest game I ever played to completion. Fight the dragon yet?
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Nah, I'm in Siege of Dragonspear currently (which has some challenges, too.) Not sure if you ever played BG with Sword Coast Stratagems. Holy hell, the Improved Sirines, Improved (insert name here) makes some of the battles craaazy. I'd say some of those fights have been the toughest I've ever seen (playing on Hard, too), but I think a significant portion of that is my lack of super deep knowledge in 2nd Edition. I mean, I've played and beat BG only one time, so it's still fairly new to me. I don't min/max and I don't use a min/max'd party, either.
But yeah, it's been rough in spots. Not sure if the difficulty will hold up, though, given the insane amount of magic "stuff" I have now. The
dark cultist battle w/ 7 or 8 mages
ToddMcF2002
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I highly recommend ToB it’s pretty special. Except for the final battle in BG1 there are few challenges that compare to ToB. About half way through it becomes a virtual gauntlet of challenging fights. Great game but exhausting
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.
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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...
To me, G1 & 2 seemed inspired by 1990s style RPGs like Ultima, but with updated graphics (for their day) and 3D worlds. But the gothic games kept that vibe of "this world is dangerous." Contrast that to contemporary games where players are used to scaling and you can for the most part mow through areas without much difficulty. As much as I loved the Witcher 3, combat never seemed hard (on hardest difficulty). To me, early RPGs contrasted to contemporary ones are like comparing black and white movies from the 1940s to your latest blockbuster movie... generations are separated apart and the more time that goes by, the more that bridge between generations crumbles. I for one, never liked watching old black and white movies, though I'm told by those who love them I'm really missing out on a lot of great content...
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.
D
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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. 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 used to Gothic style because they conditioned by 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.
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I was the average gamer playing it for the first time a few years ago, though.
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.
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I guess I'm saying my criteria for difficulty might be different. I didn't find ELEX difficult, which made me wonder why so many people were saying it was brutal. But I see what you're saying.
I'd say this current run of BG:EET is actually hard. Mostly because your spell rolls, etc., can fail. I haven't seen that many hard RPGs before this, though.
ToddMcF2002
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Fluent do you want us all to believe in your Uber skills? Ok. You officially have Uber skills
ToddMcF2002
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Well most of it. You went kind of Dartish with the wall of text there. I agree with some of your points but you seem to be on a mission to discount the average gamers perception of difficulty. Most people game for fun and dying constantly while exploring and mounting frustration cause many to give up on a game like Gothic. Not sure how you don’t see that. It’s what is killing Elex as well. No amount of willful denial is going to improve reviews or sales numbers. After about 10 hours of off quest solo exploring I called it quits. Could I keep going? Sure. But it simply isn’t fun. The average gamer has a lot less patience than I do.