So, about L'Hiver... (spoilers)

[A Potato]

I guess I should start by saying that I'm a huge fan of Gothic 2 (NotR) and wanted to give the game a new lease on life, since I've played it to death over the years.

I tried a mod called "Yet Another Unofficial Patch", which added a tonne of great stuff and visually enhanced a lot of the weapon/armour models. However I hated how that mod "restores" the cut sounds of NPCs getting hurt or killed (they are the Gothic 3 sound effects and they sound goofy and out of place) and how the mod made magic completely non-viable in the mid game by making enemies almost totally immune to magic damage (it took about 10 fireballs to kill a single orc warrior), so I decided to try a different mod.

Which brings me to the subject of this discussion I'm writing, L'Hiver. I have seen how much the Gothic community loves this mod and so I decided to give it a go (I'm running version 1.6 btw), only to find that the mod completely unbalances the whole experience.

At first I welcomed the challenge and managed to very carefully do everything before entering the city (working for Lobart, killing the bandits with Cavalorn, meeting with Lester, etc.) and managed, with great effort, to get into the city via the coast and swam to Lares for that bonus Exp. I was amazed at how different everything looked and how many new weapons and effects were available. I was disappointed to see that Vatras no longer heals you and that the stat boosting Stone Tablets were no longer in the game, but I shrugged and decided that it would be fine if I played carefully.

Then I ran into the first fully grown wolf of the game.

Holy Crap. I was level 7 by the time I left town, with 29% skill in 2-handed fighting, a rusty 2-hander and around 35 strength. I should have demolished this wolf, but instead it killed me in about 2-3 hits. It kept leaping about and feinting and with the combat system being so old, my button inputs had me swinging at air. I did about 30 damage out of the 200 hp the wolf had before I was killed. I eventually managed to kill the thing through blind luck (it stopped leaping about like a Dark Souls/Bloodborne enemy), with about 5 hp remaining, only to realise that I had to very slowly and painfully top my health back up by drinking from a barrel. Then, at full health (135 hp) I tried to advance a little further towards the Dead Harpy, only to get slaughtered by 2 giant rats. I was level 7 and getting destroyed by rats.

How the hell do you play this mod!? I had to, for the first time in all the years I've played Gothic 2, enable marvin mode and give myself 500 hp, just to get by 2 rats! And it didn't end there. at level 8 I made it to the Dead Harpy and went with Greg to do his unskipable quest in the goblin cave and recover Daron's statuette of Innos, only to die immediately to some kind of Goblin ninja! I had to enable godmode to get through this quest. It was never a walk in the park, the goblins could easily swarm you and destroy you, but it was never impossible. This same trend happened throughout the whole game until I stopped (I stopped at chapter 2, after meeting with Saturas in the temple at level 12), I had given myself by this point 1000 hp (to a total of 1160 hp) and I was still getting my ass handed to me easily by wolves, boars, field raider and goblins. I had to enable godmode multiple times and becoming a mage didn't help much, since most enemies except NPCs were almost immune to fire arrows and fireballs. Even Lares has been given a huge nerf! Now I have to protect him, instead of it being the other way around, because he gets killed by 2 snappers. How the hell will he survive the forest?

I love so much that this mod has changed and done and yet it is almost unplayable without heavy use of cheats. How can anyone call this crap fair? Giving enemies animations that the combat system was never made for? Quintupling the enemies' damage and health while reducing the player's health by 80%? I have to spend 300 gold, which is more scarce due to the economy being made much harder, just to get +5 hp?

Please, anyone who has gotten anywhere legitimately in this mod, tell me how. Tell me how I'm supposed to make a build when the only viable weapons seem to be dex 1-handed swords. Tell me how I'm supposed to survive 2+ wolves at once when they do 35+ damage and I have less than 150 hp. I'd love to experience this mod legitimately, I'd love to try out all the new crafting and resource gathering systems there are. I'd love to see the new Valley of Mines or the new Jarkendar, I'd love to wield the new weapons and cast the new spells. But I find it maddeningly impossible without tainting the experience with cheats.

[[AK] GaroK]

You could also try Script-Patch, a mod which that was pretty much an inspiration for YAUP, and which just recently received an english translation. I don't think it messes with the balance a lot if at all.
The Gothic 3 sounds you are talking about might actually be just Gothic 2 sounds, the game has a lot of unused pain and death sounds which are unused in the files.

As for L'Hiver, you might join their Discord and ask any questions.

[A Potato]

Wait, are you the same GaroK from YouTube? If so, hello from one of your subscribers! I've enjoyed your pure Mage playthrough quite a bit so far.

Thank you for the tips, is Script-Patch on Mod DB? And yeah, they used the cut pain and death sounds from Gothic 2 in Gothic 3, but they sound horrible haha, especially the Seekers (they were given old man type pain/death sound effects).

Tbh I'm a little afraid of the L'Hiver Discord. The L'Hiver community, including the mod creator himself, seem very... unwelcoming of criticism or issues with the difficulty of their game, from comments I've read from them on Youtube videos. I have cooled down since the posting of my Discussion and am now trying to approach the mod differently. Maybe I'll enjoy it a bit more, now that I know what I'm in for? Haha or maybe I'll be done with it forever, who knows?

[[AK] GaroK]

:)

I was thinkinh about uploading Script-Patch to Nexus Mods, not sure about ModDB, maybe I should do that.
As of now it's only on WorldofGothic

[A Potato]

Sounds good, I'd be happy to look into it at some point, especially if it was on either platform (WoG is so difficult to navigate right now, since most of the time it's pages written in German).

It's a pity that the English-speaking community for Gothic (particularly Gothic 1 and 2) is so small, there's so much potential left in these old games that is locked away behind a language barrier. Some Polish and Russian mods look amazing!

[Masty]

Originalmente postado por A Nameless Hero:

Wait, are you the same GaroK from YouTube? If so, hello from one of your subscribers! I've enjoyed your pure Mage playthrough quite a bit so far.

Thank you for the tips, is Script-Patch on Mod DB? And yeah, they used the cut pain and death sounds from Gothic 2 in Gothic 3, but they sound horrible haha, especially the Seekers (they were given old man type pain/death sound effects).

Tbh I'm a little afraid of the L'Hiver Discord. The L'Hiver community, including the mod creator himself, seem very... unwelcoming of criticism or issues with the difficulty of their game, from comments I've read from them on Youtube videos. I have cooled down since the posting of my Discussion and am now trying to approach the mod differently. Maybe I'll enjoy it a bit more, now that I know what I'm in for? Haha or maybe I'll be done with it forever, who knows?

L'Hiver is very hard and it's fine if you find it too difficult for you, with next version it will be fixed since we'll be adding easy mode (but also an harder version, just to point out that the difficulty was too easy for someone :P, ppl also did no death runs in it, it's not broken it just requires a lot of skill, game knowledge and patience). About my community don't worry you'll always be welcome, i literally listen any criticism and you will always be free to speak in my discord. My answer comes a bit late sorry for that.

[A Potato]

Originalmente postado por Masty:

Originalmente postado por A Nameless Hero:

Wait, are you the same GaroK from YouTube? If so, hello from one of your subscribers! I've enjoyed your pure Mage playthrough quite a bit so far.

Thank you for the tips, is Script-Patch on Mod DB? And yeah, they used the cut pain and death sounds from Gothic 2 in Gothic 3, but they sound horrible haha, especially the Seekers (they were given old man type pain/death sound effects).

Tbh I'm a little afraid of the L'Hiver Discord. The L'Hiver community, including the mod creator himself, seem very... unwelcoming of criticism or issues with the difficulty of their game, from comments I've read from them on Youtube videos. I have cooled down since the posting of my Discussion and am now trying to approach the mod differently. Maybe I'll enjoy it a bit more, now that I know what I'm in for? Haha or maybe I'll be done with it forever, who knows?

L'Hiver is very hard and it's fine if you find it too difficult for you, with next version it will be fixed since we'll be adding easy mode (but also an harder version, just to point out that the difficulty was too easy for someone :P, ppl also did no death runs in it, it's not broken it just requires a lot of skill, game knowledge and patience). About my community don't worry you'll always be welcome, i literally listen any criticism and you will always be free to speak in my discord. My answer comes a bit late sorry for that.

Wow, I wasn't expecting a reply so long after posting, especially from you haha. Sorry if I came across harshly, I was just very frustrated at the time and very intimidated by some of the community's "Get Gud" mentality. I'll probably come back to L'Hiver whenever it gets an "Easy Mode", since I love a lot of ideas that it puts forward, but couldn't get past the insane (at least for me) difficulty. In any case, thank you so much for taking the time to reply, especially since I probably came across as very whiny and obnoxious.

[Masty]

Originalmente postado por A Nameless Hero:

Originalmente postado por Masty:

L'Hiver is very hard and it's fine if you find it too difficult for you, with next version it will be fixed since we'll be adding easy mode (but also an harder version, just to point out that the difficulty was too easy for someone :P, ppl also did no death runs in it, it's not broken it just requires a lot of skill, game knowledge and patience). About my community don't worry you'll always be welcome, i literally listen any criticism and you will always be free to speak in my discord. My answer comes a bit late sorry for that.

Wow, I wasn't expecting a reply so long after posting, especially from you haha. Sorry if I came across harshly, I was just very frustrated at the time and very intimidated by some of the community's "Get Gud" mentality. I'll probably come back to L'Hiver whenever it gets an "Easy Mode", since I love a lot of ideas that it puts forward, but couldn't get past the insane (at least for me) difficulty. In any case, thank you so much for taking the time to reply, especially since I probably came across as very whiny and obnoxious.

No worries man, hope you'll be able to have fun with it in the near future :)