So, I picked up the Gothic Pack on Steam a while ago (It was during the point when it went on sale for $2 for a couple hours). Anyway, I tried it, couldn't get into it, and then recently came back to it. Still can't get into it.
My problems with it are:
- Poor architecture.
- Combat mechanics
- UI
- Quests
- Skill progression
By architecture I mean the coding. It runs horribly, and my PC can run more visually appealing games like Oblivion and OFDR just fine (around 30-40 fps, not great but good considering the price/age of my PC). By the time I managed to get it to run at a consistent 15 fps, the visuals are so bad I can barely stand it.
I really wanted to like the combat. It was new and slightly visceral, which is something I've wanted in a game for a while. However, it feels like combat is down to luck as much as anything, and i really didn't feel like my character's stats had much to do with it. For a game that claims to be very hard, I was a little put off by the fact that I could win the gladiator fights in every town I went to (which are another thing I don't like. Why do I lose if I leave the circle for a second but my opponent doesn't if they do?).
Then there's the fact that you always attack at the same height. You can't attack up or down. Few things frustrated me more than dying to a wolf, because the stupid thing is on an incline and I can't attack down.
One of the UI problems I had was the fact that you couldn't auto-equip a weapon if you picked it up with nothing equipped, making getting knocked down in a big fight (which is likely since the enemy AI targets you more than anything else, and the friendly AI is rather docile), annoying because you have to pick your weapon up and then go into your inventory to equip it, which makes no sense at all.
Similarly, why doesn't the game pause when you open the inventory. You still stand there and drink a potion, it's not like Oblivion's instant digestion. As a matter of fact, why can't I drink a potion while moving. I can drink and move irl, why not here?
Also it's hard to pick what you attack when NPCs clump together, leading to accidentally attacking neutral NPCs more than once.
The quest are, simply put, boring. Generally the typical fare you'd see in an MMO (collect plants, kill so many wolves, etc). The one that cinched it for me was where you have to find an escaped slave, who it turns out is standing aimlessly just outside of town, within spitting distance of the walls and within sight of the guards.
All these might be forgivable if it wasn't for the skill progression. The game does a lot of neat things to increase immersion (cooking, sleeping, water, etc) but then it has one of the least immersive skill systems I've ever seen. The only way to increase ANYTHING is by visiting a trainer or shrine. That's skills, health, mana, attributes, anything. So I can spend all day and night fighting monsters out in the wilderness, but I can't increase my strength until I visit generic mercenary #24 who never leaves town and give him money. WTF?
Also, each skill has a prerequisite attribute level before you can learn it, but the only way to raise your attributes is to train the. ARGH!
What I end up doing is going around doing jobs for money just so I can train my atributes so I can train my skills so I can defeat more enemies so I can do more jobs....etc.
It completely pulls me out of the game because it makes me actively think about improving my character , rather than just letting me experience (the rather sterile and static) world and let the leveling up happen in the background.
So I guess what I'm asking is, "is there something I'm missing." I hear a lot of people talk about how good the Gothic games are, but, to me, they seem shoddy and poorly designed.
I appreciate the increased challenge, but difficulty can't excuse poor programming and game mechanics. If I want a more difficult RPG, I'll play Oblivion with OOO and some realism mods installed.
Which leads me to my next question, "Are there any mods for Gothic 3 that address these issues?"
And don't say the community patch because the Steam version already has that.
My problems with it are:
- Poor architecture.
- Combat mechanics
- UI
- Quests
- Skill progression
By architecture I mean the coding. It runs horribly, and my PC can run more visually appealing games like Oblivion and OFDR just fine (around 30-40 fps, not great but good considering the price/age of my PC). By the time I managed to get it to run at a consistent 15 fps, the visuals are so bad I can barely stand it.
I really wanted to like the combat. It was new and slightly visceral, which is something I've wanted in a game for a while. However, it feels like combat is down to luck as much as anything, and i really didn't feel like my character's stats had much to do with it. For a game that claims to be very hard, I was a little put off by the fact that I could win the gladiator fights in every town I went to (which are another thing I don't like. Why do I lose if I leave the circle for a second but my opponent doesn't if they do?).
Then there's the fact that you always attack at the same height. You can't attack up or down. Few things frustrated me more than dying to a wolf, because the stupid thing is on an incline and I can't attack down.
One of the UI problems I had was the fact that you couldn't auto-equip a weapon if you picked it up with nothing equipped, making getting knocked down in a big fight (which is likely since the enemy AI targets you more than anything else, and the friendly AI is rather docile), annoying because you have to pick your weapon up and then go into your inventory to equip it, which makes no sense at all.
Similarly, why doesn't the game pause when you open the inventory. You still stand there and drink a potion, it's not like Oblivion's instant digestion. As a matter of fact, why can't I drink a potion while moving. I can drink and move irl, why not here?
Also it's hard to pick what you attack when NPCs clump together, leading to accidentally attacking neutral NPCs more than once.
The quest are, simply put, boring. Generally the typical fare you'd see in an MMO (collect plants, kill so many wolves, etc). The one that cinched it for me was where you have to find an escaped slave, who it turns out is standing aimlessly just outside of town, within spitting distance of the walls and within sight of the guards.
All these might be forgivable if it wasn't for the skill progression. The game does a lot of neat things to increase immersion (cooking, sleeping, water, etc) but then it has one of the least immersive skill systems I've ever seen. The only way to increase ANYTHING is by visiting a trainer or shrine. That's skills, health, mana, attributes, anything. So I can spend all day and night fighting monsters out in the wilderness, but I can't increase my strength until I visit generic mercenary #24 who never leaves town and give him money. WTF?
Also, each skill has a prerequisite attribute level before you can learn it, but the only way to raise your attributes is to train the. ARGH!
What I end up doing is going around doing jobs for money just so I can train my atributes so I can train my skills so I can defeat more enemies so I can do more jobs....etc.
It completely pulls me out of the game because it makes me actively think about improving my character , rather than just letting me experience (the rather sterile and static) world and let the leveling up happen in the background.
So I guess what I'm asking is, "is there something I'm missing." I hear a lot of people talk about how good the Gothic games are, but, to me, they seem shoddy and poorly designed.
I appreciate the increased challenge, but difficulty can't excuse poor programming and game mechanics. If I want a more difficult RPG, I'll play Oblivion with OOO and some realism mods installed.
Which leads me to my next question, "Are there any mods for Gothic 3 that address these issues?"
And don't say the community patch because the Steam version already has that.