According to my Orders and Settings Page, Disco Elysium, The Final Cut has been claimed.

Whew, I remember how gobsmacked I was when I first read the manual of the Gothic II add=on Night of The Raven where it just came out and said they made the game harder. I was like... "What? You intentionally made a Gothic game... harder??? Really?"

I have restarted now four times, and it seems no matter how I "build" my character, I get to a point where I can't really proceed. Usually around Level 4-7, you're still too weak to beat most of the bandits, most of the NPC's, and most critters that give up any serious XP. WTF? I mean I'm left wandering around wondering what to do. I can't complete this quest because I have to beat 6 lizards. No hope. Can't do that quest because it requires beating 3 bandits, one of which non-stop pelts you with arrows. Can't go to Onar's Farm because I'm too weak and Lares won't escort you now (like he did in Gothic 2 originally) until you "solve' the missing persons quest (at least I'm guessing that as I haven't read a walk through but that's what it sounds like from his answers)... but solving that quest require, I think, going to that island with 6 lizards where I can't even defeat one.

I mean they made several changes any ONE of which would have made the game a lot harder. All of them together.... man. They massively bumped up the cost of increasing your attributes. That alone would have been a challenge. They made all the monsters tougher to kill and easier to kill you. Again, that alone would have been a challenge. They made the requirements for using weapons drastically harder, meaning the attribute requirements to wield a weapon are much higher. Again, that alone would have made a big difference. Originally I recall I could find a certain sword at the harbor that dealt like 60 damage early on. That same sword now requires a strength of 60. Hah! That's 50 points added in strength. That's five levels without doing ANYTHING ELSE.

I'll figure it out though. It's just going to take a different play style. I used to concentrate early on bows and stealth, but both bows and crossbows in this game no longer have critical hits. The damage you do is the damage you do. I don't know if that's a change from NOTR or maybe it was always like that, but after trying this approach three of four times now I think I'm just going to put everything in my first five levels in strength and one handed weapons. Don't know how I can possibly learn alchemy, trophy taking, or forging, not to mention the stealth skills. It is these stealth skills that I recalled played well early game as I used to go in and rob Khorinis blind lol. Doing that now leaves me to weak to then go anywhere beyond the city it seems.

Oh well, end of rant. I still love the game, and, despite being somewhat befuddled and frustrated, am still enjoying the game and the atmosphere. I'll get it though. Gonna start a new game right now and just go strength and one handed for my first 4 levels (except for animal skinning which is required to be an apprentice for Bosper). I'm thinking that my insistence on dexterity and bows and stealth just won't work with this version of the game, at least not early. Removing critical hits from bows and crossbows are huge, as when using melee weapons the critical hit damage is multiplied TEN TIMES. The game basically tells you to be a melee fighter or magician, the old school archer/rogue style ain't working for me. That's okay, I'll pick one, for me most likely melee instead of magician.

I guess mercenary it is. I was thinking of playing a rogue/archer type and join the newly added guild of PIRATES, but I just can't make that work for me early on. So, mercenary it is.

And to once again thank everyone here for all of their help in getting me back into these two great games (Gothic 1 and Gothic 2), below is a code for Disco Elysium.. I think it's a cool little game that can probably be finished in a week, maybe even a weekend if you're committed. Probably 40 hours, give or take 10 each way. I hope I got this right, been feeling a bit dyslexic lately.

100-100-11-A1-110
A101-101-A1-A110-11
1000-A10-1-1-A10
111-110-A110-110-100

Enjoy the game. Again, it's Disco Elysium, The Final Cut.

CLAIMED: Here is the code: 46F67-B11B8-3FA5E-6A344
The "code" above was this actual game code backwards (hint was the dyslexic remark), using binary numbers for both numbers and letters, but with letters the number represents where that letter occurs in the alphabet, so the number 1 would be A, 2 would B, etc. (the hint for which ones are letters was the letter "A" before it.

Yeah, I've thought about that strategy. In fact, that guard outside the (east??) gate (Named Mika or Mikel IIRC) basically offers his service for that, saying if you pay him 10 gold and in get trouble, he will help (which means leading critters back to him).

The problem with that approach is that I won't get the XP. And with the NOTR changes, LP's are super precious. There are always only going to be so many levels (and level points) that can be obtained.

Now to be fair, it did new ways to increase your attributes and skills (at least I think the stone tablets are new) that makes up for the much higher cost to increase attributes. But, again, you can't get any of those attribute bumps until you learn alchemy (for potions) or how to read the stone tablets and they all cost LP's and are unavailable early.

The major limiting factor is the massive increase in attribute requirements for weapons. I may be exaggerating, but I think to get a weapon to do 60 damage before now could be done with 30 strength (maybe even 20), now it requires 60. (at least that sword on the beach does). That's a huge difference. At level 5, I had spent 10 points in stealth and trophies (5-sneak, 5-animal trophies), 15 points in DEX and 15 points in bows, with the plan being to add the other stealth skills (pickpocket/picklocks), which is another 20 points (those are 10 each now).

And with DEX of 25, Bow skill of 25 (base 10 each plus the 15 I added each), I'm just not doing enough damage to survive the battle. Gonna get it though. Dammit I will. lol

There is the Gothic II Classic Mod. Here's the info from World of Gothic, translated with a plug-in:

If you want to play G2 Classic despite having the addon installed and without a second installation, you can try this implementation as a modification. Since there are various differences in the addon engine, it is not 100% classic (you also have to start over because old save games are not compatible), but it is mostly identical. The HP costs, inventories and attributes of NPCs/animals/monsters, dialogues, bonuses, etc. are the same as in G2-Classic.

A few bugs have also been fixed (similar to the script patch): Since in Classic you can, for example, go to the 2nd chapter without a guild or as a novice, all novice quests are now also unlocked for the 2nd chapter. Furthermore, the exploits with the Shadow Runner Horns, Old Coins, Mika, Milten and Almanac, as well as the frostbite bug have been fixed. You can shrink the undead dragon again and kill it with 'Destruct Undead' (I see this more as a classic feature than a bug, even if it makes it too easy...)

The differences to the "real" Classic consist, for example, in the "physical" changes, such as making it harder to get over the wall next to the city gate, as with the add-on, as well as the visual effects (the rain of fire and the wave of death, for example, look like they do in the add-on and not like in Classic etc.). There can also be differences in textures, music, and the fight AI of the monsters, if there are differences between the addon and classic.

The setup file is about 5MB, but the mod ultimately takes up about 120MB because the existing world data is copied over.

Update: G2 Classic 1.1
This is not a patch, but a new full version, where the error with the trade multiplier has been fixed (you now get the correct 30% instead of 15%), and guildless playthrough is possible (the hurdle in the 3rd chapter of Xardas has been cleared accordingly), Furthermore, it should also work for the English version, as both German and English texts/subtitles are included. Savegames from version 1.0 can still be used.

https://www.worldofgothic.de/dl/download_230.htm

Thanks. I bookmarked this and may try it later. But for now, I'm determined to get through this. The first time I played Gothic 2 I didn't have NoTR. I finished it, then found the add-on one day in a mall, bought it and I'm not sure if I finished it but definitely remember getting well past the early part and going to that new area with the pirates, so I know it's possible. Just looks like a stealth/archer build won't work here.

I don't know if this happened in the original, but it is more difficult to skill up. I was trying to increase my strength to 50 and once you reach 30 or 35 it'll cost you 10LP for 5 strength or any other value.

No, in the original it was 1/1. In NotR it's 1/1 to 30, 2/1 to 60, 3/1 to 90, 4/1 to 120, then 5/1. Insane.

And to OP, yep, I keep complaining about this ever since my first attempt to play it with NotR installed, there were multiple restarts, and the last time I gave up was in 2012, still mean to go back someday but... seems just insanity. And there's also the fact that the character build is in good part set because of the tablets, which make up for some of what you lose in terms of total skill points but are fixed. And you need to know exactly what you'll get and what you want by the end, to first train as far as you'd need to train, while the costs are low, and then use permanent stat boosts, otherwise you end up with way, way lower totals.

That sword that requires 60 dex instead of str is still accessible early though.

Still have the character plan so far, seem to have been level 28 when I gave up, had trained dex to 60, MP to 57, Animal Skins, Mandibles, Teeth, Bloodfly Wings, Bloodfly Stingers, Claws, Shadowbeast Horns, Hearts, Crawler Plates, Dragon Snapper Horn and Tongue of Fire, Lockpicking, Sneaking, Language of the Peasants, Language of the Warriors, Mana Essence, Essence of Healing, First Circle, Second Circle, Third Circle, Fire Arrow and Ice Block. Not much for actual combat, but ice block and that sword let me poke away at things... to a point...

Then... I'm not sure if what I have listed here is what I found or what I actually used, but from permanent stat boosts I have:
L1 tablets: 4 Str, 2 Dex, 40 HP, 8 MP, 6 1H, 2 2H, 4 Bow, 4 CB
L2 tablets: 4 Str, 30 HP, 8 MP, 8 1H, 16 Bow, 8 CB
Shrines: 4 Dex, 10 MP
NPCs: 85 HP, 12 MP, 2 1H, 2 2H
Potions: 3 Str, 9 Dex, 20 HP, 10 MP
Food: 4 Str, 3 HP, 6 MP
Books: 2 MP, 5 1H, 5 2H

Yeah, and then when you combine the huge increases in requirements (I've seen one sword have a STR requirement of 130, so I'm guessing there's even higher ones than that) the cost to use any good weapons are so high they are essentially unusable early. I'm in Chapter 1, and seeing some weapons that would make me do some decent damage but ALL of them are out of reach due to the astronomical increases in attribute requirements.

That one change alone would've made the game plenty hard (and again, I never played any Gothic game and left feeling "Gee that was too easy". Never.) but that combined with the harder enemies and higher costs to increase attributes.... whew, well, if their intention was to make the game harder.... Mission accomplished.

Still though, it feels like it's going to be the case that if you can get far enough to be able to read the tablet and make the permanent stat boosters, then it will likely "make up for" the higher costs per se. However, getting that far.... whew. I'm just gonna play the first several levels strictly melee, one handed, and see if that at least allows me to progress further.

NOTE:According to my Orders and Settings Page, the code for the game above is still unclaimed.

From the NoTR manual: 1 alone would have made a not insignificant jump in difficulty.
2 alone would have made a significant jump in difficulty
7 alone would have made a massive jump in difficulty.

ALL THREE?!?!?!?! Combined?

Yeah, it's harder. Congratulations. You met your goal. Now, if only someone could explain why that was ever a goal to begin with.....

And it says "A lot of people" said Gothic 2 was too easy. Uh huh. Another example of "group think" where maybe in their forums it was a "consensus" that the game was too easy. What companies forget is that of the millions of copies of any game sold, less than 1 percent of them ever bother posting on a forum. So you're basing your decision on a "consensus" of less than 1 percent of your customer base. But, they all do it.

Pretty sure that relatively few complained about Gothic games being easy. And, of course, difficulty increases can come through added difficulty options, not enforced like that.

But about listening to forum posters, GOG doesn't...

OldFatGuy, thank you, once again, for the puzzle, and for Disco Elysium, The Final Cut.

Although the critical hit damage on melee is technically 10x the normal damage, the more accurate way to describe it would be that critical hits do full damage, while normal melee hits only do 1/10 the damage. The damage formulas for G2 (NOTR) are as follows:

Formula for a critical hit (Melee)
Weapon Damage + Strength - Opponent's Armour with a minimum of 5 damage.

Fomula for a normal hit (Melee)
(Weapon Damage + Strength - Opponent's Armour ) /10 with a minimum of 5 damage.

Formula for a normal hit (Ranged)
Weapon Damage + Dexterity - Opponent's Armour with a minimum of 5 damage.

So melee actually suffers very low damage until you get your melee skill high enough that you're regularly dishing out critical hits, while bows always do full damage (bow skill affects your accuracy). If you're finding early that bows are doing poor damage then it's likely that your bow damage + dex isn't enough to significantly overcome the armor of whatever you're shooting at (or the combination of your bow skill plus trying to fight at long range means you're missing most of your shots). The difficulty with bows is that you'll end up in a bad spot once enemies close in, unless you can make use of terrain to effectively kite enemies around without accidentally pulling other enemies into the fight. With melee if you can get your technique down well you can go toe to toe with lone human enemies early on even if they're much stronger than you, along with most beasts (once you learn the dodge/attack patterns that can be chained against a particular beast). Groups of enemies remain challenging until you gain a lot more power, and early game a large part of taking things down is figuring out how to pull lone enemies away from groups. If memory serves you can usually pull away lone enemies easier if you aggro them through just walking close then kiting them away from the group before attacking, while if you attack them within a certain range of the group (either melee or ranged) you'll quickly have the whole group swarming you.

I'm pretty sure they're both technically equally accurate. Regular damage is 1/10 of critical damage and critical damage is 10 times that of regular damage. Neither way is "more" technically correct because... math.

GAME HAS BEEN CLAIMED

I only played the GOG version a few years ago, so I think I just experienced the harder version and can't really compare. I honestly don't remember it being a particularly difficult game, though.

Well, I'm stubborn, and really wanted to play this as a rogue/archer and join the NoTR added guild of Pirates, and I think I've figured it out. As usual it was my bad. There are swords in Gothic 2 that uses DEX as the base stat instead of STR. In Gothic 1, all melee weapons (as far as I can recall) used STR and all ranged weapons (bow and crossbow) used DEX. In Gothic 2, there are melee weapons that use both STR and DEX and there are ranged weapons that use DEX and STR.

So, when I built my character's first 4 levels (40LPs), I had put 5 in skinning, 5 in sneak, 15 in DEX and 15 in BOW. And my strength was still 10 so I was still using the Wolf Knife Cavalorn gave me (10 STR requirement). But, this time, with those same 40 LP's, I still put 10 in skinning and sneak and 15 in DEX, but this time I put the other 15 on One handed weapon instead of bow AND I grabbed a sword that has DEX as the base stat. So before, with wolf knife and 10 STR and 10% one hand weapon skill, I was only delivering 30 (damage of wolf knife) + 10 (STR) for a total base of 40 (not counting the armor rating of the enemy) and with a 10% chance of critical hit and 10X damage

By keeping with my DEX based character but simply moving the 15 skill points from bow to one handed, AND grabbing a sword with DEX as a base stat, my damage melee wise goes from base 40 in example above to 40 (damage of Sword) + 25 (DEX) for a total base of 65 AND instead of a 10% chance of critical hit now I have a 1 in 4 chance (25%).

And I am "seeing" the difference now. I am beating foes I was losing badly to before. Those same three bandits that I had no hope with before, this time I was able to wipe two of them out by separating those two and then refilling my life and surviving the fight with that last hard one. And I noticed right away when having the sword fight that I was dealing more damage than I was in the previous games using that wolf knife with a 10 STR and only a 10% critical hit chance.

So, yeah, I think one can still play a dex/archer/stealth character in this game. It may be a bit harder because I did notice that the availability of melee weapons with DEX as a base is much much less.

Hello OldFatGuy!

Yes, old story... when "Gothic II" initially released in Germany in 2003 seemingly everyone in the small vocal Gothic community and the gaming magazines were abusing the ^console command for godmode or other cheats which were exactly the same as in the original "Gothic" game, and then complaining the game was too easy for veteran Gothic players. (I even remember that the game mocked the player for enabling the "maverick" mode.)

Hence, the developer decided to significantly increase the difficulty with the release of the Addon (Night of the Raven), included in the Gold Edition and later patches of the game...

Unfortunately, GOG.COM stopped providing the link to the original installer (without the addon), because they could not make it run for non-German language versions - especially the English one. Nowadays, they have some non-English only products available, for instance only in Polish or only in German, but they never redeemed at least the original German "Gothic II" installer files, not even as unsupported extras.

I kept both my original retail copies and grabbed a European Gothic Series DVD re-release which included both Gothic I and II in their original (pre-international) release for having the InExtremo guest event in "Gothic I" and a pure "Gothic II" version without this madness. The Addon content ist great, but the changes under the hood (stats a.o.) are a clear misstep from the developer which they never backed down from.

I also tried once the Classic Mod, mentioned by others, but at the time it did not got close enough for me to the original experience. Maybe, the modding scene has accomplished that in the mean time - I do not know.

Kind regards,
foxgog