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?

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

At level 7 I went into the cave right outside of Khorinis where there is an orc and a portal. I paid Mika the guard to help me out. I pulled the orc to the gate and all the nearby NPCs killed it for me. (Didn't get the XP but oh well.) Then I got the key from Orlan and went through the next portal to visit the water mages. The trouble began when I wanted to leave the area. I had to train through the goblin skeletons who would have one-shot me until I was out of the ruins, then I had a snapper chase me up to the tallest pyramid. I was able to pick locks so I got the 130 damage sword in the chest at the top, then cleared my way all the way back to Vatras. I made a level or so and nearly 1,000 gold along the way. I should have asked Lares to come with me to bring back the ornament, but the dialogue option disappeared and the only thing he would do was to take me to the farms (he stops at the tavern, which is pretty lame if you ask me).

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Tired_David - Twitch.tv eredeti hozzászólása:

At level 7 I went into the cave right outside of Khorinis where there is an orc and a portal. I paid Mika the guard to help me out. I pulled the orc to the gate and all the nearby NPCs killed it for me.

When I tried that, the orc warrior killed Mika and one guard. Letting Lares kill the orc (and get the XP) worked better.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

Really? When I did it, the orc had no chance. Maybe I got lucky and he never landed a critical hit on anyone. There was Mika, the two gate guards (I think they might have used crossbows?) and Darion the fire mage shooting fireballs...and me running around in circles.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Wow. Putting on a bandits armor, then entering the lighthouse works. They've got no clue what's coming to them from inside the tower. I'm impressed.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Oh, btw, this second Paladin of mine with base STR 74 could reach a total of STR 199 with amulet/rings/belt, but used all those item slots for other bonuses and fought in the final chapters with STR 171.

About the Paladin runes, took the first two healing runes and the holy arrow, which is an alternative to using the crossbow to lure enemies towards me.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

I've found this...bug?...where I started Chapter 2, have not visited the Valley of the Mines, but instead had a quest from Vatras to deliver a message to Saturas. I went to Saturas on my own (Lares' option wasn't active) and when I got there, Saturas had no dialogue options regarding the message delivery. Is it necessary to go to the Valley first? I really hate those seekers.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

It's not necessary to visit the valley. And I wonder what message from Vatras it is? There is only one message for Saturas, and that is when you've joined the ring of water. Have you delivered all ornaments to Nefarius yet? It may be important to complete that task before Saturas will offer new talk options.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

I've talked to everyone, including Nefarius. Not sure what's up. I'm still low level (maybe 10?) and I can't defeat goblin skeletons, lurkers, snappers.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Only level 10 is ambitious. In my current run, I've waited a bit more and haved activated the portal at level 13.

My fire mage had major problems defeating the stone sentinels. The one on the fields near the crossroads at Onar's farm easily got rid of the farmers and me (a guildless level 7). So I did some more quests related to the mercenaries before I became a novice.

One-handed weapon speed is nice, although I need more practice. Different attack patterns are possible compared with two-handed fighting.

When visiting Dexter's camp, I climbed onto the roof of a house in hope that I could eliminate some bandits with my bow (unskilled 10%, but DEX for one-handed weapons, and that's enough to one-shot scavengers and even hurt lurkers). Greg went mad and also climbed onto the same roof, then ran in circles without attacking anyone. Thanks! That gave me enough time to get rid of all bandits myself.

And finally I asked Lares to help me a second time, all the way deep into the eastern woods. Luring two wargs towards him is a high risk undertaking.

Nothing broken related to the water mages. Vatras insisted on me talking to Lord Hagen first, so I've had to become a fire mage. Only then I could join the ring of water. The first job is to deliver a message to master Isgaroth, visit the meeting at Orlan's, and afterwards I brought the remaining three ornament pieces to Nefarius. That's when Saturas wants a confirmation message from Vatras before he would give me the ring to activate the portal.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

I split my saves and went to the Valley. I had to kill 2-3 lurkers in the river and then I ran past the orcs to get into the castle, where I bought heavy militia armor. The dialogue said 60 protection but the item says 70. (It was rebalanced by a mod or something.)

I'm using the L'hiver DX11 mod which looks cool, but finding the ramp to the castle was a pain in the ass because there are way too many trees. I did it mostly from memory.

So I have decent armor (finally) but I'm still at only 42 STR. It's funny going to the vendors and not being able to use a single weapon that they have for sale.

I did the Vatras thing. Went to Hagen, did the ceremony for the Ring of Water, delivered the message to Isgaroth and then went back to Vatras. I talked to Nefarius and delivered one ornament (three? I forget how that works...I don't have the quest to do the sentinels and Vatras and Saturas won't give them to me...doesn't it come with map markers also?) but Saturas still won't talk to me about the message. So I'm doing the Valley now.

I tried the shrine of Innos because I forgot that I could gain STR there. I donated 100 and got +1 STR, then went to the next shrine and got only "Innos thanks you for your prayer". Can you only visit one shrine per day for the reward? It has been so long since I played.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

At the shrines you can only pray once per day. When I noticed one gets STR +1 or DEX +1 or Mana +1 several times as a guildless hero, I've looked up the available documentation. It's complex and also depends on whether one is guildless or has joined a faction already. Once either STR +10 or DEX +10 have been acquired, one can also get up to Mana +20 and the +10 for the secondary attribute, and afterwards +3 HP per day indefinitely.

Everything about the four ornaments is added to "The portal" log entry. The first ornament you get from Vatras with the task to bring the piece to Lares. Because Lares cannot leave the harbor at first, you may propose that you will take the ornament to Saturas yourself, but Lares rejects that idea. You will accompany him, however. Once arrived at the excavation site, you're on your own and need to talk to Saturas who refers to Nefarius. It's Nefarius who requests the missing three pieces and gives you a map. That should be in the log.

Maybe you've skipped something, such as bringing the first piece to Lares, and instead you've delivered it directly to Nefarius?

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

When I started the game, Lares had 2 options: take me to the landowner or take back the ornament piece. I asked him to take me to the landowner. We stopped at the tavern and he turned around and went back home. I continued on with Jack, who was waiting for me at the tavern.

Lares will not show the "ornament" dialogue again.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

I checked my quest log. It says that Nefarius wants the ornament, Lares is supposed to take me there, and Vatras wants me to deliver the message to Saturas. I might have bugged the game when I went through the portals at level 5 and showed up and talked to all of the Water Mages without real quests to visit them. It's possible that modding the game broke this but I'm not sure.

I have uninstalled the L'Hiver mod with its balancing changes and the DX11 renderer. All of the extra trees and grass makes it extremely difficult to locate important items on the ground. NOTR made the game notoriously difficult on its own. The balancing changes added by the mod were not good in my opinion. I could kill wolves with ease but scavengers could kill me. I could kill snappers but not normal lizards. Spending all 10 LP to go from 30 to 35 STR is stupid. The screenshots were nice and a lot of work went into the mod but it is not for me. I am glad that I gave it a try.

So I will start anew.

Edit: I see in my list of installed programs that I installed this Ironkeep mod at the same time. It's great that there are minor bug fixes, but modders need to ♥♥♥♥ off already with their unwanted balance changes.