I'm getting concerned.

[Zuckerhund ®]

So I remember beating the original Gothic II and having a blast back in the day. This version has the expansion attached and I just realized that they made it way harder. The community requested that this be done, apparently.

So now I'm concerned that I'll hit a brick wall and be unable to finish the game. I'm in Chapter III, level 17 with heavy mercenary armor, using a melee weapon. I still can't kill wargs, shadowbeasts, dragon snappers, or more than one skeleton. Seekers are easy to stunlock and aren't an issue, but they take forever to kill.

Is all of this intended or am I about to waste dozens of hours of gameplay because I built my character the wrong way for this expansion?

[Ocsabat]

That sounds about right. It's been a while since I played but I recall it being difficult dealing with those creatures for quite a time into the game. Make sure you are finding all the trainers to boost your strength, armor and weapon skills. I think there are at least two more armor upgrades after Heavy Mercenary. So you still got a ways to go.

I remember a few points in the game where I thought I was completely stuck and unable to progress, but I had just missed talking to certain people or missed certain dialogs. This game pretty much requires you to exhaust all dialog options in the game. I remember spending hours systematiclly talking to every person I encountered until I found the right person with the right conversation to get things moving again.

I loved that this game required you to be so thourogh in completing all the right quests in order to progress. It can be extremely maddening, but it is so gratifying once you break a percieved stalemate. Keep pressing on.

[pw1108]

What you need is trick.
if you know the trick, you can beat every enemy in 1:1 situation.
the trick is simple: use backstepping at right time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOLAp31Ty6I&feature=youtu.be

[Ryika]

Yeah, backpaddling is what makes you survive against almost everything. It's a bit difficult at first, but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be able to defeat almost everything rather easily in melee. "Tanking" the really strong enemies is generally not a good idea.

Choice of weapon is also of great importance. There's a hidden "weapon range"-stat on melee weapons that will make your life a lot easier if you get one with a high value.
See: http://www.worldofgothic.com/gothic2/?go=addonwaffen

[Zuckerhund ®]

Yeah, I've known about backpedaling for a while, but like Ryika says, it's difficult to pull off. I've used it to clear out a few bandit areas, pulling carefully, having the melee guys follow me around, striking, backing up, rinse repeat. It helped me deal with some quests while I still had light armor.

Now that I'm in chapter 3 I've stuck to trying out various swings to stay alive. For instance, against a lizard or lurker I did one quick side swing as they got to a specific point in their attack pattern, and that made it hard for them to hit me.

For a single skeleton I usually parry and exchange hits. I took down two orc warriors, one by one, because they couldn't get through a wall of side by side swings, although it took me 2 tries to pull off.

Wargs are still impossible, although I brute forced one by hitting it point blank with an untrained crossbow, go figure. I'm going to try and open up the expansion content now, I heard this is where NotR makes up for all the difficulty by giving you extra XP and allowing use of those tablets I've collected.

[pw1108]

Try transformation spell.
and find warrior's amulet and rings and equip them all.

[Morgannin]

To do proper damage to later-game enemies, you need (by that I mean NEED) to emphasize weapon skills over attributes. If you are using one handed weapons, get that skill to 100% as soon as possible. Go grinding and finishing side quests. The reason weapon skills are so important is that your typical blows do so little damage, but higher skill makes you more likely to achieve critical hits - something that later enemies seem to be highly resistant to. Without critical hits, you can hardly do any damage to these enemies.

[Zuckerhund ®]

Okay, so I finished the expansion content and obtained the Claw of Beliar. This weapon is insane. I can brute force every single monster or foe I come across. I'm ripping through each enemy like butter. Not even the game engine can keep up with me; targets die and I receive the XP before they even hit the ground.

I only upgraded it once (to activate it), is it supposed to be this crazy? It's like this weapon is supposed to make up for all the pain and frustration most of the game has heaped on me. I'm about to go into the Valley of the Mines to start clearing house, and I'm still in chapter 3.

[Valen]

OP - it is possible to build they wrong PC for this game. On the other hand it is possible to exploit the creatures AI faily easy. If I were you I would do some research on builds and play styles. This game could be considered a little hard in some areas - but it is far from to hard... I myself restarted the game with another build - learn your leason and play on 8)

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

I've just reached level 15 and killed my first warg (for a lousy 300 XP) in the forest while trying to explore the area near the stone circle Dragomir refers to. Won't try that again any time soon though, but this particular warg didn't feel much different than an ordinary wolf. Always jumped into me swinging the paladin two-hander exactly at the right time. That made it easy.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Similarly with a shadowbeast a bit before levelling up to 15. I think it surprised me behind the pyramids and I simply tried hitting it with a few combos, which worked. No solution yet to do that safely with all the other shadowbeasts in the places I've discovered before.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

It's really all about doing as many side quests as possible and clearing as much of the world as you can before you run into pockets of stuff that will one-shot you. You'll want the extra Learning Points, gold, and the +12 HP automatically gained per level (or whatever it is).

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

It's been quite some effort to retrieve Dragomir's crossbow for a meager 150 XP plus a couple of goblin skeletons and lurkers. Had to avoid the warg groups. I also don't think finding cheesy ways to eliminate that Orc Elite is required so early.

Finding Sun Aloe has been easier than expected. Hopefully will get a better reward for that.

Normally the hero would not waste so much time in the dangerous woods, but either join the Ring of Water and look into that quest or explore the Valley of Mines.

I think I'll set out for some more exploration and try to reach level 16.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

As an update for those few, who might be interested in such posts and may want to comment on it:

I've decide to do a lot related to the Ring of Water stuff for all the experience before I will continue into the Valley of Mines eventually. That has been helpful. Tons of XP to level up a few times. I've advanced to killing orc warriors and shadow beasts. Then on the road to the lighthouse area I've even caught the orc elite unit in an unfortunate place and could interrupt him often enough to finish him off. Meanwhile I'm close to level 20 and wielding his shiny two-hander.

The meta-gaming requirements are brutal. I know my strength could be higher at this point (I've only gone to STR 64 using LP and the +1 from Erol), but there are oh so many things one doesn't know in advance.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

It sounds like this is your first playthrough. Keep the updates coming. Always interested to hear how others experience this game.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Correct, it's the first attempt including a few restarts.

It's a long long road.

It seems one could do Jharkendar a bit earlier, since many of the fights are easy, but what do I know, I'm still clueless. Been running around with a saved 30 LP once more at level 23, unsure how to spend the points. It may have been a mistake to learn the ancient language of the priests already for the bit of HP/STR bonuses from tablets.

Trolls scare me. Used some cheese to kill one at the entrance of a temple, where it couldn't enter. In the open, it might be possible to finish them with hit and run tactics in a lengthy fight.

Going to STR 64 hasn't been so bad. With the permanent bonuses and items on top of that I'm at a total of STR 134 meanwhile. Not enough to equip the next two-hander, which I've bought somewhere (maybe from Garret the pirate) just for fun. It requires 135. Of course, one cannot know in advance that the strength trainers, such as the cook in the bandits camp in Jharkendar, only offer training up to STR 90. However, then when I carefully examined my inventory once more, I've discovered the "fire strips" food that gives another STR +1. Ah! 135 reached.

My cluelessness also manifests itself in that I've had almost 400 healing plants in my inventory in addition to other plants and herbs as I have been using various forms of meat for healing instead. So, in Jharkendar I've started using more plants and consumables for quick healing while hunting orcs in the canyon.

What else? There's only one scroll I've used so far. That one Oblivion spell in Khorinis. All the other scrolls, I keep them for whatever special situations I may still run into.

And ranged weapons? No idea how useful they are without spending a good bunch of LP on proper training. The only time I've used a bow is to kill some goblins in the very first cave at the start of the game.

The exploration factor in Jharkendar is great. The errands also make more sense. Except I didn't really want to join the pirates. That has been all too easy after that little bit of cooperating with them.