Was Gothic 1 programmed to be a bad game?

[GameWarrior2216]

So I decided to buy Gothic 1-3 because I heard mediocre things about it(aside from a few glitches) and so I booted up G1 to kick off the series... I am very disappointed by what I experienced. Now I know this is an old game and I wasn't expecting much so I compared how I felt about my experience from Morrowind to this game. Both open world type games so it's an easy comparison in my opinion. Now where to start ranting on this game...

First, controls. Movement is somewhat awkward where if I turn one way with the mouse and the other with the keyboard, the keyboard command overrides the mouse and turns me the other way. If you played MMO's it's hard to get used to these controls. Now strafing is a piece of work on it's own. Whenever I strafe in one direction, he doesn't keep moving while looking forward rather he just does a small side jump. So now I have a hard time getting used to these controls because it is everything different I am used to compared to all 3rd person view games. The only other game I can think of that comes close is Tomb Raider but even there I can control Lara easily.

Another thing I have a huge problem with is the 'use' key. The 'use' key is the most simple to understand action button anyone can get used to even if someone has never played a game or even can wrap around the notion of what an action button is. It took me about an hour playing around to figure out how to pick things up. Why the programmers decided 'use'+'forward' would be a good way to pick things up(as well as use items and talk to people) was a great thing astounds me. Why not just have the 'use' key itself do all the work? Why an additional button added to it I will never understand. It's like playing Super Mario Bros. and having to hold the 'B' button then press 'up' every time you wanted to jump. It doesn't make sense.

Inventory is another thing they screwed up bad. Really bad. When I open up the inventory, there's a single column there where I have to shift through different slots to get what I want. This concept becomes annoying and a little difficult when trading because when I accidentally go to my side of the trading screen, I have to press left constantly just to get out. Another thing about trading is pressing enter to accept trade. My hand is never on that side of the keyboard and I use a mouse to play. It would have been better if there was a mouse to use in game to solve a few nuisances. The inventory becomes more troublesome when I am in combat where I need to use a healing item in a hurry and BAM, I'm dead. Speaking of combat...

The worse thing in this game is it's bread and butter, heart and soul, the mainframe itself: combat. Holy ♥♥♥♥ is it bad. I don't even know where to start. OK, just like picking things up or talking, fighting requires you to press 'use'+'forward'/'left'/'right' keys to swing and 'use'+'backwards' to parry. When I get into combat, my guy sometimes locks on to his target and when he does lock on he loses his target after swinging his weapon once. I have a hard time already trying to move this guy and now i have to always look at my target after one attack to hope he locks on again. When it comes to actually swinging a weapon, he is slow, has a short range, and barely moves forward when doing a forward attack. Hell, the fighting is so bad I was fighting a small bug near the beginning for 2 minutes! I had it locked on and kept punching/drop kicking it and nothing happened until I eventually hit it and it died. It's just a small bug, I should just be able to squish it and be on my way! Now when it comes to parrying, I have no clue if I'm doing it right. I try pressing the right keys but time after time again I take damage. Do I have to time it right? I tried and it didn't work. Is it percent based? Again, I tried and it didn't work. I have been fighting those giant chickens and I die rather fast and in no way I see any technique involved. I just go berserk, hope I didn't die, kill it, heal, save, repeat. I don't want to keep doing this every time I do battle, it's tedious and annoying as hell.

I had enough of this game. I quickly tried playing the other two and already got angry before starting a new game, there's no 1360x768 resolution. It suffers the same fate as the Halo PC series. You know, it would have been a little better if G1 had some sort of tutorial guide to at least explain how the game worked, not just throw me in and figure it all out on my own. Bottom line: if anyone of you wants to by this game, don't. Trust me you'll be a happier person by not shelling out your hard earned cash on this POS.

[thepassengersep]

mate...I totally agree with you on Gothic 1. Just an aside though, I'm pretty sure you can force your desired resolution through the shortcut, that is, if you feel a rush of patience coming on

[jiminator]

eh, true. gothic 1 controls are extremely hard to get used to. it was not a built with a mouse in mind. if you want to try to continue playing you should set it aside and just use the arrow keys. The whole shift click thing becomes much easier with the arrow keys. that being said, I had a lot of fun with the game. it is worth it if you can get past the UI issues.

[jeffreydean1]

Yes OP, they specifically and with purpose designed Gothic 1 to be a bad game. /sarcasm

All 3 Gothic games (Gothic 4 isn't a Gothic game) are rather rough, but if you give them a chance and arent the type that needs everything spit polished, it's a grand time. It's kinda hard to go back to Gothic 1 and 2 these days since games now are much more polished, but back then they were very good. I still enjoy them for nostalgia.

[thepassengersep]

Would either of you happen to know if the control scheme for Gothic 2 is any easier than the first? I don't mean to hijack this thread but having loved Risen and enjoyed what I've played of Gothic 3 I'd like to give the second one a chance. Thanks

By the way OP, jiminator is absolutely correct about the keyboard-only scheme versus keyboard/mouse combo, much easier. However the difficulty level, for myself anyhow, is too much for me to enjoy. Risen was more up my alley than the first Gothic, though I hear many comparisons between the two.

[jiminator]

gothic 2 is playable with a mouse. there is a mouse scale factor that you need to set to about 5 or so to get it to move in real-time. There are also some other changes you need to make. look for the walk throughs that say how to set the control scheme. also.... be aware that there are essentially two gothic 2 games. One is the regular gothic 2. the other is night of the raven expansion. It includes an add on world and extra missions. The steam version is the expansion. The expansion is much much harder than the non-expansion. Not sure of all the reasons but a big factor is that you need more learning points to train a skill after every 25 levels for that skill.

[thepassengersep]

I appreciate the response jiminator. I purchased Gothic 2 off of GOG and look forward to playing it after I beat Prey (just felt the urge to pick it up and finish it ). However, based off what you said I will pass on the expansion and just play the original. Thanks for the mouse tips as well.

[TheOD]

Combat isn't Gothic's heart and soul at all, but I can understand not liking the combat.

[GameWarrior2216]

Originally Posted by jeffreydean1

Yes OP, they specifically and with purpose designed Gothic 1 to be a bad game. /sarcasm

All 3 Gothic games (Gothic 4 isn't a Gothic game) are rather rough, but if you give them a chance and arent the type that needs everything spit polished, it's a grand time. It's kinda hard to go back to Gothic 1 and 2 these days since games now are much more polished, but back then they were very good. I still enjoy them for nostalgia.

Well I'm not looking for a spit polished game where everything is simple, easy, and obeys my every whim. What I should've wrote in my rant was more of a comparison to Morrowind, as I stated in the beginning, because Morrowind came out a year after Gothic and both are of almost of the same genre.

Take for instance in Morrowind, at the beginning it tells you how to move, take out weapons, attack physically(I think) and magically, how to pick things up, and once the basics are covered you are free to do what you wish. Gothic doesn't do that at all. It's like the game assumes you know how to play or you've read the manual. I don't like to study how to play before launching a game.

Having simple controls or a tutorial isn't spit polishing, it's common sense for complex games such as this. Even combat is understandable in Morrowind. I remember when I first played it, I mastered in long swords and the first enemy I encountered was a worm. I tried stabbing it with a dagger for like a minute and nothing happened. Fortunately I read the text below that kept stating my attacked missed and suddenly realized how fighting worked; it's percent based. In Gothic, I played for a few hours and I still don't know how to really fight. That's just poor design.

Well since I bought the game I might as well try to finish it. So far after I posted my rant, I've been avoiding combat like the plague and as story line/quests/character interaction goes, it's pretty decent. Hopefully the game's story can outweigh it's flaws and maybe I will change my mind about it. As for now, I'm still sticking to my original opinion.

[jeffreydean1]

Originally Posted by GameWarrior2216

Well I'm not looking for a spit polished game where everything is simple, easy, and obeys my every whim. What I should've wrote in my rant was more of a comparison to Morrowind, as I stated in the beginning, because Morrowind came out a year after Gothic and both are of almost of the same genre.

Take for instance in Morrowind, at the beginning it tells you how to move, take out weapons, attack physically(I think) and magically, how to pick things up, and once the basics are covered you are free to do what you wish. Gothic doesn't do that at all. It's like the game assumes you know how to play or you've read the manual. I don't like to study how to play before launching a game.

Having simple controls or a tutorial isn't spit polishing, it's common sense for complex games such as this. Even combat is understandable in Morrowind. I remember when I first played it, I mastered in long swords and the first enemy I encountered was a worm. I tried stabbing it with a dagger for like a minute and nothing happened. Fortunately I read the text below that kept stating my attacked missed and suddenly realized how fighting worked; it's percent based. In Gothic, I played for a few hours and I still don't know how to really fight. That's just poor design.

Well since I bought the game I might as well try to finish it. So far after I posted my rant, I've been avoiding combat like the plague and as story line/quests/character interaction goes, it's pretty decent. Hopefully the game's story can outweigh it's flaws and maybe I will change my mind about it. As for now, I'm still sticking to my original opinion.

Your first comment is comparing a 3rd person RPG by a small studio to a first person RPG made with a huge budget and expecting them to be of similar polish. Not exactly a fair comparison. Play Morrowind from a fixed 3rd person perspective and ittl start looking alot more like Gothic, heh.

Then you knock it for not having one of those obnoxious in-game tutorials. I mean... seriously? You need "Press space to jump! Jump over this chasm now to see how it works!" Im so sick of that hand-holding from modern games I could vomit.

Combat in the Gothic series has never really been the game's selling points. If you can't figure it out, RTFM for gods sake or check a FAQ. It's hard, and not as intuitive as Morrowind's 'spam left click until it's dead' but you'll get the hang of it just like everyone else if you actually give it a little effort.

Gothic is about atmosphere, exploring, and story. Like any RPG, there are hefty doses of combat, but that's never where any of the games have shined. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to play it, no need to torture yourself. Maybe games like this simply are not for you. Gaming is supposed to be fun, not an arduous task you don't enjoy.

[GameWarrior2216]

Originally Posted by jeffreydean1

Your first comment is comparing a 3rd person RPG by a small studio to a first person RPG made with a huge budget and expecting them to be of similar polish. Not exactly a fair comparison. Play Morrowind from a fixed 3rd person perspective and ittl start looking alot more like Gothic, heh.

Then you knock it for not having one of those obnoxious in-game tutorials. I mean... seriously? You need "Press space to jump! Jump over this chasm now to see how it works!" Im so sick of that hand-holding from modern games I could vomit.

Combat in the Gothic series has never really been the game's selling points. If you can't figure it out, RTFM for gods sake or check a FAQ. It's hard, and not as intuitive as Morrowind's 'spam left click until it's dead' but you'll get the hang of it just like everyone else if you actually give it a little effort.

Gothic is about atmosphere, exploring, and story. Like any RPG, there are hefty doses of combat, but that's never where any of the games have shined. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to play it, no need to torture yourself. Maybe games like this simply are not for you. Gaming is supposed to be fun, not an arduous task you don't enjoy.

Not much I can say here, to each their own I suppose. I feel that tutorials are necessary for game with a little complexity in it so anyone new to a game can ease their way into it and understand a little of how the game itself works without resorting to a manual. A manual itself should just be a reference point to the game in case you forgot or overlooked some game mechanics. Also as far as I know, tutorials inside a game isn't new, it's been around for a while in one form or another for the same purposes I just stated before. Although I do agree with you to a point where some game's tutorials explain to the gamer like they're an idiot(i.e. use the joystick to move around!). As for your argument about a small publisher can't be as efficient as a big publisher, that's just wrong. Look at Psychonauts, it was made by a third party game company and I love that game. I'm sure there are a few more examples of this but this game just came to mind. And finally combat. Combat in video games is like special effects in a movie, it shouldn't only rely on it but it does help make the experience much better. To quote George Lucas: "A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing". The same can be said about combat in an RPG.

When I get into combat, my guy sometimes locks on to his target and when he does lock on he loses his target after swinging his weapon once.

When you press action, it "locks" your target. To prevent it from dropping your target, stop letting go of the action key. To charge targets, let go action, face another target, and hold action. Not really any different than most games that have a target locking system.

When it comes to actually swinging a weapon, he is slow, has a short range, and barely moves forward when doing a forward attack.

In regards to being slow -- you just started and haven't trained your weapon yet. When you train your weapon, it gets pretty fast. It sounds like you didn't play far enough to get a bow, if you had, you wouldn't be complaining about range. To top it off, you can become a mage later on and swap between weapons and spells.

Moving forward... meh... the combat system has more quirks than that. Forward becomes a combo key later on (when you train weapons) and it's used to stay close to your enemy so you can finish your combo. I'm not sure that it was ever intended to initiate combat, but who knows...

Hell, the fighting is so bad I was fighting a small bug near the beginning for 2 minutes! I had it locked on and kept punching/drop kicking it and nothing happened until I eventually hit it and it died

Are you talking about the mealbugs in the beginning at the old camp? I'm pretty sure there is some geometry problems preventing you from actually hitting them.

Now when it comes to parrying, I have no clue if I'm doing it right. I try pressing the right keys but time after time again I take damage. Do I have to time it right? I tried and it didn't work

You don't parry in this game, but you can block. With your action button pressed, you push down. You can't just enter block and wait -- it will eventually time out. And you can't immediately block becuase the animation has to play. You have to time it right. When you start getting further into the game and you get used to the combat mechanics, it gets easier. I didn't do much blocking, honestly, I would always back up instead as I could never time it right every time.

I have been fighting those giant chickens and I die rather fast and in no way I see any technique involved.

When you bump into one of the NPCs on the road, he gives you a strategy for these. You get close enough to draw one out (it'll start "barking" at you) and then back up a little. It will come to you. Then you run at it and swing left to right. If you do it right (and time your left/right presses correctly), you'll never get hit. There's no need to block one of these (not even sure you can).


I grew up playing games without a mouse. While this one was rather difficult to pick up, it wasn't that bad. You just have to remember that it was designed for 100% keyboard use, so anything you do with a mouse is an afterthought. I've got a logitech G15 and mapped all of the keys to the G buttons on the side. I really don't have any complaints (other than trying to move 2,000 items from an NPCs inventory, and 2,000 items from mine so we can trade).

It's a solid game. Sure; it's got a lot of bugs, and if you can play through without at least one crash, you should play the lotto. But something about this game caught my attention and I forced myself to play through. I don't regret it. If you want a rock solid polish game, then it's not the game for you. But if you want one heck of a story, some cool graphics, and a pretty cool world -- be patient with it.

When I finish this run (I'm 30 hours played right now), I'll probably never play again, but I'll be glad I played it. It really is a great story.

[Amander]

I don't agree to any of these rants. Gothic was easy to play (after a short period of getting in), the only problems were the bugs which got fixed later.

[kara_bulut]

Yep that was exacly how I felt when I first played Gothic.

But the sucker had something and kind off pulled me into it.
You get used to the controlls in a few playthroughs.
Just use god mode and some other cheats until you are comfortable with the game.

[Amander]

Wait wait. Are you serious? Few playthrougs for the controls?