Gothic 3 was bad, admit it.

[Jarmaro]

A bit triggered by hearing yet again how Gothic 3 is under appreciated and actually good. The Gothic 3 was a massive decline, it dropped literally every good thing Gothic I and II had.
- Combat is a joke, you can kill anything the moment you start the game, be it trolls or the King by spamming Left Mouse Butoon.
- Character progression is also a joke, it's barelly noticable, as it only changes how much time you will waste on killing something.
- Quests have been reduced to MMO style "collect/kill 5, 10, 15".
- Characters' personalities changed and barely resemble who they were before.
- Main quest barely exists as it "starts" when we reach Xardas, which should happen when we finished ~60% of the game.
- Plot is stupid as fuck, don't really see why should I go into why. It was never series' strength, but it wasn't that terrble before.
- Exploration was handicapped heavily by chests having random loot and depending on how many chests we had opened before, killing any joy of exploring the world.
- As we can't join any guild/faction, our postion as character doesn't change entire game, noone in the world cares about us. Reputation system is barebones and only affects how good armor we can buy and which end game areas we can go to.

There were only two good things: Music and dialogues. Apart of that game doesn't resemble its predecessors at all.
Just look at Risen, it's everything Gothic 3 was supposed to be (not in scale though). Such a shame Risen series was then bastardizated to appeal to "American consumer".

Anyone cares to unravel to me the secret of G3 appeal?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I thought it was just an oblivion clone. I never played it because of that.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Gothic 3 was great.

 

[retinoid]

It's better with the fan fixes/patches, but they still don't solve the core issues. Personally, I'd still rate it higher than 80% of the tripe that was released in the mid 2000s.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

This is why:

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=137

 

[Mangoose]

A bit triggered by hearing yet again how Gothic 3 is under appreciated and actually good. The Gothic 3 was a massive decline, it dropped literally every good thing Gothic I and II had.
- Combat is a joke, you can kill anything the moment you start the game, be it trolls or the King by spamming Left Mouse Butoon.
- Character progression is also a joke, it's barelly noticable, as it only changes how much time you will waste on killing something.
- Quests have been reduced to MMO style "collect/kill 5, 10, 15".
- Characters' personalities changed and barely resemble who they were before.
- Main quest barely exists as it "starts" when we reach Xardas, which should happen when we finished ~60% of the game.
- Plot is stupid as fuck, don't really see why should I go into why. It was never series' strength, but it wasn't that terrble before.
- Exploration was handicapped heavily by chests having random loot and depending on how many chests we had opened before, killing any joy of exploring the world.
- As we can't join any guild/faction, our postion as character doesn't change entire game, noone in the world cares about us. Reputation system is barebones and only affects how good armor we can buy and which end game areas we can go to.

There were only two good things: Music and dialogues. Apart of that game doesn't resemble its predecessors at all.
Just look at Risen, it's everything Gothic 3 was supposed to be (not in scale though). Such a shame Risen series was then bastardizated to appeal to "American consumer".

Anyone cares to unravel to me the secret of G3 appeal?

They wanted to make it a complete open world sandbox (edited bc game, with the plot being quite not important (and fucking buggy). TBH you don't have to do the main plot, lots of exploration to do, except for the desert mostly because the game was kinda shitty QA and I assume time was an issue given the lack of content in the south. It's more like each area (cold north, fantasee medieval world, sand people) has its own subplot.

Combat is just buggy as hell, nobody cares or likes G3's combat. It's not that you can kill the King because he's weak; instead you're probably "stun-locking" the NPC so they can't hit back. At least from what I recall.

The chest loot are (a weird version of) random. The equipment is still hand-designed, with intentional stats. In other words, it's not like, say, Diablo, Divinity, etc. that generate random equipment on the spot, using prefix and suffix modifiers or the like.

Not saying it's a great system but it's not really that random. And you wouldn't even know that loot depends on # of chest openings unless you were upset with the game, searched for flaws on some wikia, and then copypasta. I didn't know that until I read right now. In other words, while playing the game, drops weren't significantly random enough that it elicited a reaction from myself. Criticize the flaws that you yourself experience during gameplay. It's silly to criticize something you find out after the game is over. Just like a movie. If you didn't notice a flaw it's because they did a good job maintaining suspension of disbelief. (Same with nerds yelling about "plot holes" in a movie... after they realize a few days after watching the movie. )

 

[Jarmaro]

This is why:

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=137

It's incredible what hype can do to a man. He even points out the cons and yet gives the game 85%. I especailly like oblivion section, it's right to compare one garbage to other.
Vault Dweller Do you stand by the words you wrote back then?

 

[JDR13]

Gothic 3 was a joke at release, but I think it's a decent game with the community patch.

That said, I completely agree that it sucks when compared to Gothic 1&2.

 

[Jarmaro]

Gothic 3 was a joke at release, but I think it's a decent game with the community patch.

Does the community patch fix game design? Wasn't it just bugfixes?

 

[Mangoose]

Vault Dweller Do you stand by the words you wrote back then?

The codex is a free-speech place but pragmatics tells me it's better to not poke the previous Codex main admin*

Besides, "Gothic 3 is under appreciated and actually good" does not mean it is great. What are you, a computer? You speak in binary? You trying to say the top 10 RPGs are tied for 1st place, whereas everybody else sucked equally? I have a feeling someone said that "it's actually decent" and the binary switches in your brain go DECENT MUST MEAN GOOD. GOOD MUST MEAN PERFECT.

While people do say it's under-appreciate it, I don't know anyone who would consider it more than "decent."

Back to the topic title: "Gothic 3 was bad, admit it." I don't gush in emotion about whether a game is good or bad. There's been enough crap that if I don't like something I'll quit it and that's it. I have a feeling you decided to keep going even though you hated, just so you had material to whine about.

How's about this? Gothic 3 was not bad, Gothic 3 was not good. Admit it. I admit it, at least.

If you can't understand that nuance then please stay away from evaluating games anything.

*Also, as a Chinese-American, I don't see 85% as a good score. But I guess you have lower standards.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Vault Dweller Do you stand by the words you wrote back then?

The codex is a free-speech place but pragmatics tells me it's better to not poke the previous Codex main admin*

Besides, "Gothic 3 is under appreciated and actually good" does not mean it is great. What are you, a computer? You speak in binary? You trying to say the top 10 RPGs are tied for 1st place, whereas everybody else sucked equally? I have a feeling someone said that "it's actually decent" and the binary switches in your brain go DECENT MUST MEAN GOOD. GOOD MUST MEAN PERFECT.

While people do say it's under-appreciate it, I don't know anyone who would consider it more than "decent."

Back to the topic title: "Gothic 3 was bad, admit it." I don't gush in emotion about whether a game is good or bad. There's been enough crap that if I don't like something I'll quit it and that's it. I have a feeling you decided to keep going even though you hated, just so you had material to whine about.

How's about this? Gothic 3 was not bad, Gothic 3 was not good. Admit it. I admit it, at least.

If you can't understand that nuance then please stay away from evaluating games anything.

*Also, as a Chinese-American, I don't see 85% as a good score. But I guess you have lower standards.

It’s safe to say Gothic 3 was better than half the crap the Codex gushes over these days.

 

[Mangoose]

Gothic 3 was a joke at release, but I think it's a decent game with the community patch.

Does the community patch fix game design? Wasn't it just bugfixes?

Nah it was a lot of shit. For one, the combat you complained about (which I agree with you on) was tweaked in some way, I can't remember. I'll have to look it up. I don't think I would've continued the game if not for whatever they changed in combat or combat balance.

 

[Mangoose]

It’s safe to say Gothic 3 was better than the crap the Obsidian fanboys gush over these days.

 

[Morkar Left]

Gothic 3 was a failed project on many levels and sucked. Till it became good. First the community patches and then the overhaul mods whch brought more content to flesh the world out and the equipment. The latest Content Mod is available in English and contains the Questpaket mod and the Choices and Consequences mod. It's now a complete game with a huge world to explore with full freedom and three different endings. Combat isn't the best but it's not that bad either compared to other rpgs.

 

[Vault Dweller]

This is why:

https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=137

It's incredible what hype can do to a man. He even points out the cons and yet gives the game 85%. I especailly like oblivion section, it's right to compare one garbage to other.
Vault Dweller Do you stand by the words you wrote back then?

And thus once again we shall attempt to solve the greatest mystery of our time: how can one man like a game another man hated? how can such a thing even be possible?!!

 

[Micormic]

I thought it sucked, didn't most people think it sucked?

 

[user]

It was just unfinished duh. It could have been objectively awesome.

 

[JDR13]

Gothic 3 was a joke at release, but I think it's a decent game with the community patch.

Does the community patch fix game design? Wasn't it just bugfixes?

It added a lot of balance tweaks and also fixed skills that didn't work correctly or were just outright broken. It also tweaked combat in some ways. For example, it's no longer easy to stunlock opponents or get stunlocked yourself.

The game is still quite flawed though imo. Melee combat has no weight to it, and the world isn't nearly as fun to explore compared to the earlier games.

 

[Mangoose]

Gothic 3 was a joke at release, but I think it's a decent game with the community patch.

Does the community patch fix game design? Wasn't it just bugfixes?

It added a lot of balance tweaks and also fixed skills that didn't work correctly or were just outright broken. It also tweaked combat in some ways. For example, it's no longer easy to stunlock opponents or get stunlocked yourself.

The game is still quite flawed though imo. Melee combat has no weight to it, and the world isn't nearly as fun to explore compared to the earlier games.

Ohh now I remember the stunlock. Yep, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have played much of the game without that patch.

I remember really liking the north, snow area. Decent quests, if not tombs to explore on your own. Whoever did terrain/landscape there did a great job.

But the desert.. was deserted.

 

[JDR13]

Whoever did terrain/landscape there did a great job.

Yeah, the environments in general were incredible for that time. Visually, the game still holds up well even today.

 

[user]

Whoever did terrain/landscape there did a great job.

Yeah, the environments in general were incredible for that time. Visually, the game still holds up well even today.

Exactly. Imagine if they had all the time in the world to complete it. It would have become a larger Gothic 2.

 

[Dodo1610]

My opinion as a hardcore Gothic fan

Gothic 3 had a pretty world but the quest design is abysmal there 99% of the game's quests are kill x or collect y. The game has even a MMO like design where you travel to a settlement collect all quests there and then proceed to the surrounding wilderness to finish said boring quests.In that regard Gothic 3 preceded "modern" RPG design. The game's overall flaws can be blamed to PB desire to create a AAA RPG with only 30 developers.

Gothic 3 setting was pretty unique with a world in which the Orcs aren't just a faceless evil. The idea of deciding a country's fate was good but the execution wasn't good enough. The Orc/rebel conflict was the best part but the Orc/Assassins conflict felt under-cooked as well as the game's various side factions. The story is equally lackluster you spend almost a half of the game looking for Xardas and when you find him he tells you to collect a bunch of Mcguffins. The game is also full of inconsistencies for example there are random dragons hidden in caves while in Gothic 2 dragons where an even bigger threat than the orc invasion or the history of the water mages was changed for the second time after Gothic1& 2.

Pb's third game still had the dark atmosphere the rough language and even the likable nameless hero with his usually funny lines but so much of what made Gothic one and two master pieces was lost. The game lacked the immersion of the older games, the world was no longer a living place but merely seemed to exist for the players enjoyment. For example random NCPs no longer had unique class specific dialogue. Or the fact that you could no longer be attacked while using potions from the inventory. These may be small changes but the game is full of details that made Gothic 3 loose the series identity and with it it's unique charm.


Gothic 3 was a game that I loved when I was a teenager, i loved the lush forest, organic landscapes but as i grew older I started to see the cracks so I can understand why someone likes the game but as someone who played through G3 at least 4 times I can say the game's best parts are superficial things while everything else is either mediocre like the quest design or outright terrible like the G3's combat system.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I don't know if it was a good or bad RPG since in my three attempts to to play it I would always rage-quit in the exact same place - that bandit cave near the starting area with the little invincible goblin and all the bandits ganging up on him and he on them, caught in a terrible Nietzscheian nightmare where no one can damage the other. I always give up in disgust there. One interesting observation though - in the original release of Gothic 3 before even its first official patch you must fight several orcs at the very beginning of the game and two gigantic trolls that stand the height of three men. In all the patched versions the trolls are removed for some reason. I thought they were kinda cool. Certainly cooler than one little shit of a bugged goblin perpetually fighting a band of bandits.

 

[JDR13]

One interesting observation though - in the original release of Gothic 3 before even its first official patch you must fight several orcs at the very beginning of the game and two gigantic trolls that stand the height of three men. In all the patched versions the trolls are removed for some reason. I thought they were kinda cool. Certainly cooler than one little shit of a bugged goblin perpetually fighting a band of bandits.

Huh? I don't recall that, and I had the game since Day 1.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

One interesting observation though - in the original release of Gothic 3 before even its first official patch you must fight several orcs at the very beginning of the game and two gigantic trolls that stand the height of three men. In all the patched versions the trolls are removed for some reason. I thought they were kinda cool. Certainly cooler than one little shit of a bugged goblin perpetually fighting a band of bandits.

Huh? I don't recall that, and I had the game since Day 1.

Maybe they weren't exactly trolls but some kind of extraordinarily large humanoid species. Was there a demo for the game just prior to release? Maybe it was the demo. I just remember two extremely large, towering troll-like creatures lumbering around during that initial fray. Does anyone else remember this in Gothic 3 at the very beginning of the game?? I'm thinking they were removed in patches or in the official release because they caused frame-rate issues in a game that was already severely un-opitimized for the vast majority of home PCs at the time. I know it ran like shit on my system then.