UPDATE: Okay, this isn't working as planned. I'm not gonna quit, but the very limitations I was concerned about are showing themselves. With the quadruple whammy of 1)massively increasing costs of attributes and skills, while 2) significantly increasing the attribute requirements of weapons and 3)making enemies harder to kill and not insignificantly 4)making it easier for enemies to kill you... the combination of the four is just too damned much. So, I'm near the end of Chapter 1, I'm probably about 20,000 XP's away (I need 3 more levels) from reaching Level 17 (as in the plan above), my main attribute is only 45 without using permaboosts. Thus, I'm unable to get the Master Sword as I did before when I did use potions, goblin berries, and a stone tablet to get the Master Sword then that changed things up so much for me previously in Chapter 1.

So, before when I did use those perma boosts early, and I got my DEX to 60 and the 120 damage from master sword made me dealing out 180 BASE damage points (before armor and critical hit/no critical hit calculations are made). Now, my DEX is 45, my sword damage is 40, and thus I'm dealing out 85 BASE damage before those calculations. That's huge. It's more than double.

And the result? Beating Bullco before with the Master Sword took 3 tries, kiting (running around an around doing as much damage as I could from a distance before using my sword) and again, that took 3 tries. With my current abilities, I've tried 10 times so far, and haven't even gotten close, I mean not even halfway. (BTW, with a 45 DEX versus 60 DEX, that also reduces the bow damage by 15 plus another 10 from using a lesser bow so even the bow when kiting is doing a lot less).

And then, once again, if I DO use those boosts early, then due to the massive 5 points per attribute later... I believe I have made the ability to be competitive later much more difficult, if not impossible.

I realize the obvious answer is "Well, don't fight Bullco". Okay, then the same could be said about every quest in the game. Why play a game if you can't experience all of it?

I really am thinking that the ONLY way people are finishing this game now, with NoTR, is by kiting, save scumming, MARVIN, and other exploits. I'm not interested in doing that.

I'll keep going for now and see how it turns out, but the frustration level is making completing it unlikely for me. I play a game to have FUN, not experience frustration.

Fail, THQ Nordic. Fail.

ADDED: Maybe I'm looking at the wrong end of this equation. Maybe my problem is on the other end (damage received). I used all of the Darron donations to get all those extra HP's (85 hit points is a big deal), and my armor versus weapons is 51. That's the best I've been able to find in Chapter 1 (until joining a guild and thus effectively ending Chapter 1). That's 25 with armor, 10 with belt, 10 with amulet, and 6 with 2 +3 rings. So my armor is 51, my hit points are as high as they can be so as to maximize the number of hits it takes to reach 0, but maybe this half of the equation can be improved? Anyone know if maybe there's a plus 15 amulet and/or plus 5 or plus 10 rings in Chapter 1?

About a better armor in chapter 1, I think you can join the 'Ring of Water' and get their armor pretty easily, and that armor has a base of 50 protection from weapons. You can then add a dexterity belt or ring to get you closer to 60 DEX.

About your plan to reach level 53 at the end of chapter 5, I recently finished Gothic 2, played as a paladin and put most points on strength. By the end of chapter 5 I was level 43, and 46 at the end of the game.

EDIT: There is a Rapier sword (DEX 50, Damage 100) on the ground near Dexter's Tower near a skeleton between 2 large trolls. You can try to get it by drinking a speed potion and running before they get you.

Okay, thanks. BTW, you literally can't get the Ring of Water armor until you talk to Lord Hagen (Vatras insists you can't join until you've talked to Lord Hagen). And isn't that when Chapter 2 starts? Or am I misremembering that just from last week? Now you can get your guild armor prior to speaking to Lord Hagen, but what I'm not sure is if all of the guild quests end when you do. I know for a fact I had two quests disappear from my list in my last playtrhrough. One was the quest from Lutero about getting the claws of a killer snapper. It just disappeared from my quest list. Didn't show up as completed, didn't show up as failed, and no longer showed up as current. It just completely disappeared. (I didn't complete it, as, going by a long ago memory so might be wrong, but this involved killing a specific snapper and specific claws, like in Gothic 1 with the Lurker near the dam. It was specifically marked as a different Lurker as was the claw you got off it. And I know I didn't kill that snapper. As far as the other that disappeared, I'm not recalling it right now, but I do vividly remember it was two quests that just disappeared.

Anyway, point being, I think I've beaten enough mercenaries to join right now, but I was worried by doing so I would lose out on the other mercenary quests that I haven't finished (beating Bullco is a quest given by the local sheep herder and there are a couple of others that are mercenary specific, just like there are quests you must complete to join the militia or the Fire Mages.

And now it looks like my plan above was unrealistic, which means if I get to say 45, that's 80 LP's I won't have in that plan. So... what... no forging? No alchemy? No animal processing? I mean why add all of those things in a game if they can't realistically be enjoyed.

NoTR is just wrong. It's just wrong. I think at this point I am going to contact the developer (even though by now I've vowed to never buy another offering from THQ Nordic) if they would send me the original gothic 2 installation as a poster in this thread (or maybe one of the others) suggested was possible.

Fuck NoTR.

You're right. I probably did that in chapter 2, but I do remember that I needed to find out about the missing people, and talk to Vatras and Lares and I just got the ring of water.

You should maybe try to get the Rapier (mentioned in my previous post). It might make things a bit easier.

Also, maybe don't try to reach 100% in bow skill just reach 75 or 80%, that would be 6 or 7 less levels to reach.

Nah, I'm done with NoTR. Thanks for the info though, very much appreciated.

Checking the list I kept back when I played it, I had 60 dex at level 10, since the only other things I got early on are beast part skills so I won't lose out on them, otherwise full dex till I hit 60 and could use that sword.

Heh, my love of this game has turned into a love/hate relationship. :)

So, still not ready for a divorce from this game, I went back in... and defeated Bullco. Which then opened up finishing all of the mercenaries Respect quest, went from there and finished a couple of other quests I had on the back burner, found two caves I had missed completely, found another batch of Lizards (120XP each ha), threw some ice arrows at two fire lizards (300 XP's each)... and voila, I got to level 16. Bought a dexterity ring for 500 gold (making one of my plus 3 to weapon armor obsolete), and got the Master Sword.

I beat Bullco in a more cheeky way than I did before, since I didn't have the Master Sword yet. I found a fenced in building (almost like a small temple) right next to the Landowners farm, I got him to chase me, ran into the fenced in area, and of course he couldn't figure out how to get in so while protected from inside the fence I just peppered him with arrows until I got down to the last hit (actually had to reload because I killed him the first time, but I learned where to stop) then it was two hits and he was down. During that time he also got in two hits, and my life bar went from completely full to less than 10% in those two hits, but I got him.

And to Kobi-K, I went to every vendor I could find and couldn't find the rapier you mentioned. But now I have the Master Sword so I guess it's moot now. ADDED: Oh, I read the original post you made again and realized it wasn't a vendor selling it. Darn, I should have seen that earlier and I might've gotten Bullco sooner. My bad.

And it looks like I was kind close in my initial plan, even if 53 levels isn't realistic. I did get to 16 in Chapter 1 (plan had me at 17).

I'll stick with the plan as long as I can and see how it goes. If I have to forgo something due to 45 levels instead of 53, the first thing to go will be forging (which I had budgeted 20 LP's for). Then 10 points of skill in archery (30 LP's) and then I'll see how things progress from there.

I just can't quit this game. lol
Yeah, I guess that's one way to go. I usually use two and a half early levels though to get all the stealth skills (25 points-5 sneak, 10-pickpocket, and 10-piclklock) which is why I never do it that way. Those stealth skills I need to a)make enough money to afford the Master Sword and 2) get probably two levels from the thieves guild quests and pickpocketing as much as I can. Pickpocketing is very beneficial in terms of XP even if not cash. I would often get maybe 15 gold but 80 to 100 XP's, thus this is why I play that away. The benefit of being able to pickpocket Lehmer's Ledger alone is amazing, as you can then turn that into several hundred XP's (by giving the book to three people as long as you do it in the right order you can buy it back from the first two, something I learned quite by accident in that game I made it to Chapter 3 in). Plus, I usually put at least one level early into 1H weapon, because the critical hit of 10X is so important and taking it from 10% to 20% is big, as with the plain sword (=+5 1H weapon) and master sword (+10 1H weapon) makes getting a critical hit go from 1 in 7 or 10 (depending on whether you have the plus five from the sword) to 1 in 4 or close to 1 in 3. Big difference, and because it's such a huge benefit (10X damage) I usually try to put at least 1 early level there.

I thought that DEX based weapons (some swords and all bows) added your DEX to damage and STR based weapons (most melee weapons and all crossbows) add your STR to damage. Seems not an unreasonable assumption to me.

So I've been playing this whole time using a DEX based sword and bow and forgetting all about STR. My DEX is 115 and my STR is still 10. According to two recent posts on the subject (not here) all melee weapons, no matter their requirements, use your STR to calculate damage. So by ignoring STR, I'm doing a small fraction of the damage I should be doing.

So, you need DEX if you want to effectively take advantage of the stealth opportunities in the game (most especially pickpocket, as I guess you could just brute force your way through lockpicking by either carrying around a whole bunch of lockpicks or save scumming) you must raise DEX, and to be effective at melee you must raise STR. No wonder I've been struggling so badly in melee.

Goddammit there aren't enough LP's to do both, especially early.

Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh man this game......

Its Skynet.

Okay, I got this. I cheated, something I almost never do (I hate even the thought of looking at walk thrus), and I may have been okay with not doing it, but my frustration was getting the best of me. So I went to this website and got a detailed list of what "free" attribute and skill bonuses were available. I then worked backwards, this time knowing how many "free" points I would get, subtracting that total from my "goals" and set up a point to train to. In other words, if I wanted a 100% 1-hand weapon skill, then I see from that website that I need to train to 59. Do this basic math, working backwards, and then it all suddenly does seem doable.

I think the sharp jump in difficulty, especially to start, left me paranoid over being able to be effective in later Chapters if I didn't have enough attribute and skill levels. But, it's actually all good. I don't really foresee the later chapters being bad as given all this info, I can easily see a character build with a strength of 150 (give or take) and dexterity of 130-150 (goblin berries are a wild card here), a one hand skill of 100% and a bow or crossbow skill of 75-90. I think that's a character that will do okay in the later chapters.

I started over completely AGAIN, but this time it's all going so well I feel silly about my over reaction before. Make no mistake though, NoTR spiked the difficulty, and massively so, it wasn't just a tweak. But it's still fair, and I'm progressing fine (just about to finish Chapter 1 and this time, the third or fourth time was a breeze) and it's all going so smoothly I, again, feel silly about my initial reaction. Sorry for that.

If anyone else has been put off by my previous posts, or just by the initial shock and awe of the new difficulty in NoTR, then I will offer some advice, but remember I'm no expert (obviously), and am just making some simple recommendations in case someone else may have missed them.

1) In addition to and in conjunction with your early decision on which guild to join, you should choose just two or so attributes/skills to focus on early. For example, maybe focus early on strength and 1H weapon/2H weapon early if you're going to focus on a melee character. You simply can NOT be a jack-of-all-trades or balanced character at least not early. Focus on a couple, and stay with them. I chose Dexterity and 1H weapon. I have no plans to add a single point into Strength, Mana, 2 handed weapons, bow, or crossbow until probably Chapter 3. Playing this type of character has the added benefit of being able to take advantage of the stealth opportunities (they all rely on Dexterity for improvement) and these stealth opportunities aren't just about wealth. The amount of XP's you can get from picking pockets is very, very significant (in the thousands. maybe even tens of thousands) and makes a significant difference in the number of levels you will ultimately get. It's almost as if NoTR made using stealth a necessity as opposed to a choice, but not quite there as I'm sure one could succeed and never put a point in sneak, pick pocket, and pick locks. But the number of XP to be gained from picking pockets is huge, and makes a big difference early.

2) Spell scrolls are you friend in NoTR (unless you're a mage I guess, and I'd bet even then they're almost necessary). Gothic 2 drastically changed this dynamic from Gothic 1. In Gothic 1, the only time I used spell scrolls were the few times they were actually necessary (shrink monster to kill the troll, transform into meatbug to enter one area, telekinesis to reach one of the focus stones, etc.) and when you did use them, it was very inefficient. There seemed to be some time period (second or fraction of a second) per mana point used to cast a spell. So, if it took 10 mana, the animation of casting the spell took ten of these "units" and as you can imagine, spells requiring lost of mana took some not insignificant time to cast. In Gothic 2, almost all spell scrolls have been reduced to a cost of 5 mana, and there is no "powering up" time period to cast them. So, with only 25 to 30 mana points, you can rapid fire 5 or 6 spells. For reference, there is a Snorting Dragon Snapper in Chapter 1. a tough beast. I killed it with a mana of only 15. Three fireballs in quick succession had it almost dead, and switch to sword and a couple of hits killed it before it killed me even though it would kill me in just two hits. If I would have had 20 mana, and could have rapid fired 4 fireballs, that's all it would have taken. Ice Bloxk and Ice Wave are your friend. 3 or 4 lighting scrolls can take down tough foes. In short, they seemed to increase the effectiveness of magic to make up for the much more difficult challenges in melee combat (all enemies harder to kill and all weapon requirements increased). I learned that spell scrolls are a great equalizer to the other harsh changes that were made.

3)This one is guild specific I suppose, but I'll list it anyway. In terms of strategy, I've found if playing as a mercenary, the game does get easier once you reach Chapter 2 and 3. I would recommend making Chapter 2 a short chapter that is treated like Chapter 2 was in the original Gothic 2. It's more of a combat avoidance chapter than one with a lot of combat. Just go into the VoM, sneak and bypass all the orcs and tough critters, do the minimum to complete Chapter 2, then return. Upon returning, Chapter 3 starts, and then immediately get to work freeing Bennet from prison, which then gives you Dragon Hunter armor. Then, equipped with this awesome armor, enter Jarkandar and do your thing there (Jarkandar must be completed in order to enter Chapter 4 I believe). Playing this manner makes Jarkandar so much easier than if you do it in Chapter two with maybe medium mercenary armor instead of dragon hunter armor, and that's a BIG difference. Plus, completing Jarkandar will add several levels and make your time in Khorinis in Chapter 3 easier. As an example, early in Chapter 3 the seekers are nearly impossible without using spell scrolls, and there are so many seekers and not so many spell scrolls available. Buy "buffing up" in Jarkandar (it could easily be 10 or more levels), when I returned in that last game I played, I could seekers, dragon snappers, wargs, and orcs without resorting to spell scrolls. Armor makes a huge difference in this game.

Ugh.... yet another wall of text that on one can read. *sigh* I always do this. Sorry.

That made me chuckle.
I think, you've earned your "expert" title by now with all the planning and strategizing.

Next stop:
https://www.speedrun.com/notr