Like I said, it is almost a fetish :P.
It is the first time I see such thing implemented in a modern engine. My character was stuck in the last maze for quite a while. It took me three playing sessions to get him out. And when I actually did get him out, the satisfaction is incomparable to other games.
It takes some balls to put something like that in a game. And it is well implemented too. It is fully optional, unrelated to the storyline and features non-crucial rewards.
I’m at about 12 hours now (official game clock - should be a bit more in reality), and I gotta say, things have gotten more than a bit dull.
There were a few side quests, but most of them were rather boring, imo.
After I was starting to have a little fun exploring the lands on horseback, the game insisted to take away that toy and made me walk around again.
I haven’t found a weapon worth using in a long time, it’s all the same couple of thingies you either haul around to a trader or deconstruct in your backpack to get even more unneccessary crafting material.
Most of the warrior skills suck. Like I mentioned before, difficulty is fluctuating, and most enemies I can stand up to in a one-on-one fight, but too often the game insists on pitting me against not one or two of those, but half a dozen instead. When that happens, my health is dropping too rapidly and I don’t have enough time to even use those special abilities. I find myself relying on cheese tactics like jumping up on a ledge which the baddies cannot reach to fire away on them with my bow (for which I have only basic training / skills). I guess I could alternatively quaff potions like crazy…
I have begun working on the main questline again and I think I’m nearing the end of chapter 1, and I have to say, I hope things make a change for the better again soon.
Also, it sucks that they have scaled locks the way they did.
I was playing for a long time without really paying attention too much to lockpicking, but the odd chest I picked was Primitive with the odd Simple lock thrown in. Then I put a few points in lockpicking, and now it’s all Master Locks. These are no fun, as they take too long and have a pretty high chance of failure - and the loot they contain didn’t scale along accordingly, as they usually (but not always) contain crap.
rezaf
That’s a shame. You know you can break locks? That’s what I do far almost all of them now. And that you need to put points into metallurgy to upgrade your weapons…? And that potions are instant and hotkeyed to N on the PC…?
If you don’t like it, you don’t like it… but most other people I’ve heard from have said it’s too easy, not too hard :) I do think you miss out on a bit by sticking to a specialised character type. I’ve been doing the jack-of-all-trades thing, and magic has become the highlight in some ways as I wade into combat surrounded by my squad of six spiders the same size as me. Not sure how well they fight but they look awesome. And they’re not even the coolest :)
I’ve only just worked out how crafting with gems works, and what shields do, and am trying out the skills attached to fighting with a torch, knocking people down etc. It wouldn’t suprise me if melee has less depth than megic, but it is most linked to the crafting side… Where are you in the main quest? About how many quest lines are listed in your journal - I have 59 I think - is that more or less than you…?
I just noticed that locks went from very easy to … hard isn’t the right word, it’s still very much doable, but annoying and time consuming, imo.
Is breaking the lock the option with the success percentage you get?
What happens if you fail?
With your second paragraph, are you referring to the overall game or the lockpicking? If it’s the overall game … like I said, I don’t have that much problems yet, I just think monsters like ganging up on the player and that quickly gets VERY painful. I began dabbling around in the other professions as well, mostly because there’s very little in terms of skills I think of as actually useful in the fighter tree, and summoning definately seems nice, but I haven’t put many points in the magic skills yet and thus the summonings do take a beating, but basically no damage on their own, so they’re only useful as distractions. Also, I can only have two or three, at the moment.
And it sucks that you have to switch to a crappy staff to perform magic.
Still … maybe i’ll do a respec if things get too painful.
Do you have a way to specifically go for attacks like the knock down?
I got the skill, and knockdowns do happen, but only vs. very weak enemies and in irregular intervals.
Likewise, the bow skills I really want to use have disappeared from the panel and were replaced by frost and fire arrow or whatever.
I’m not sure where I am overall, but in the main quest … like I said, I think I’m nearing the end of chapter 1. I’ve done all sidequests I could get a hold of (mage guild and mercenary billboard).
rezaf
Yes, if you have a weapon drawn you’re given a % chance of breaking the lock by force, and a separate, much lower, chance of breaking the weapon in the attempt.
The archery skills (like melee) depend on what you’re doing at the moment - I don’t think this works well for archers (I think it’s ok in melee) but the types of arrow you can fire depend on whether you’re in zoomed-in sniper mode or zoomed-out autolock mode. Zoomed out you can use frost and fire, but manually aimed, and zoomed in you can use poison and distraction I think. I don’t think that’s a great idea and it’s made more confusing by the way that some arrows have timers… so suddenly you can’t autoaim because the fire arrow timer has run down and you’re back in manual aim mode, so you zoom in… and then fire arrows aren’t available in zoomed in mode…! Needed more thought I think :)
I’m not sure about knockdown - I expect you’re right. Does the kick knock people over? I do like the little critical-cam slowdowns in melee. I don’t know if that happens in archery - I don’t have the ‘criticals can happen with bows’ skill.
First patch is out.
ftp://2W2Updates:[email protected]/TwoWorldsII_Patch_1.0.1.exe
Claims to fix crashes, mouse inversion settings and a few other things.
Further patch planned for before Christmas, including some UI refinement, AI and balance tweaks.
I’m just into Chapter II - Maybe 40 hours in so far and loving a lot of things about this. I’d say the German reviews calling it the real Gothic 4 were pretty reasonable - I’d say it’s better than Risen for example.
Nearly at the end. I have to temper my enthusiasm as it seems the ending is the worst I can remember.
Tip - if you have a particularly shit boss fight, do not suddenly change the rules of the game and disable saving. Risen had a shit ending but did not do this. Ego Draconis had a fairly shit ending but did not do this. That way they limited how long they were shit for. You have not done this. You are now endlessly shit. Patch this idiocy out.
Thanks for the warning. This is the #1 way to really piss me off in games.
Picked this up on 360 today, and figured I’d bump the thread to see if anyone else has.
When the hell is this game coming out in NA? Amazon now lists late Feb, Gamestop lists Feb 8.
Consoles should be out now - I’ve seen people who have received their preorders. PC got pushed a couple of days - 28th, I think. The Royal Edition, which is coming from TopWare rather than Southpeak, is February. Maybe you were looking at that specific version?
Personally, I think it’s pretty ordinary, so I wouldn’t rush.
Honestly this game is much better than I thought it would be. Some very good mechanics buried in here if you can tolerate the interface.
I’ve been looking forward to this one, but I don’t know whether to play the PC or the console version. Is there anything about the game that would make PC controls better? I mean does it require lots of hotkeys and such?
The PC version is fine (and being able to tweak the graphics is a plus) but the UI is a bit console focussed. I’d call it pretty much a wash I think. Not that I actually played the console version :)
IIRC didn’t Risen do this exactly? Wearing super armor different abilities forced to use a mace etc.
It didn’t disable saving.
Perhaps an odd question, but does this one let you create a female character for the sigle player campaign?
I got past that silly restriction in the first game by downloading a mod, but that wouldn’t be possible on the Xbox 360.
No. You’re a human male, with configurable appearance within that.
I see, thanks Alistair.
This is now out on Steam in the US: