I can barely play this game anymore. I tried really hard to enjoy it but I just find myself being frustrated by the atrocious combat. I'm stuck.

I'm fighting an orc warrior for the first time. I got some pal with me who's supposed to help, but he stands there like a complete retard and watches me die. The moment I die he pulls out his sword and starts fighting. The orc doesn't even notice him until after I'm dead so I can't even use him as a meatshield.

So I need to take out this orc using actual skill. I would, if the controls would let me. But instead I'm left standing there doing nothing. I try to block, nothing happens. I start mashing the keyboard as this orc gets 1,2,3 hits on me in rapid succession. Nothing's still happening. 2 seconds later I raise my weapon to block a blow. Great, something happened. I try to counter attack. I get a hit off, and this kludge of a control system is just unresponsive and doesn't block afterwords so I can't do anything. I die.

I'm well aware that there's a timing to the combat but this is just absolutely a pile of shit. I press the action button and backwards, it's supposed to block. Instead, I look at the orc run at me, watch him hit me a couple of times, and THEN decide to block. Sometimes, I do absolutely nothing and flat out just die because I stood there while getting beat on. It's just futile if my character won't even respond to my input.

I can work my way around awful controls. Picking up items and looting chests was weird, but it actually worked. This combat doesn't. I can't work my way around unresponsive controls. If I know from experience that a certain key combination should make me block, but yet it doesn't, there is little reason to try. It's simply luck if I can get him to raise his sword.

I don't want to grind on a bunch of animals to buy new armour and level up my strength so that I can button mash my way through combat. I am doing damage to this orc, and I am able to take at least 4 hits from this orc without dying. I spent 15 hours in this game, starting out mostly by sticking with people who would let me follow them to camps. I would also level up from doing quests that didn't require too much fighting. I enjoyed this and I managed to level up enough that I could take on whatever monsters I had to. But now I'm at my wit's end as I watch my partner stand their uselessly as I get my ass handed to me over and over and over again. If the controls could at least work, then maybe I could enjoy this game.

Most actions can't be done while being stunned from an attack, so if you don't block soon enough you won't be able to start blocking until you are no longer stunned.

Manual blocking requires relatively precise timing since you're vulnerable during the beginning and end of the block animation and it can only be held for a very short time. I'd recommend trying backwards on its own; this automatically blocks most attacks and will loop mostly seamlessly as long as you're moving backwards.

You didn't specify your weapon. By the time you're taking on orcs you should have the best one-hander available at that point (e.g. for Chapter 2 the Stone Crusher, sold by Darrion in the swamp camp) and aim to move on to two-handers as soon as the training for them becomes available, with remaining points going to strength (unless you're also using bows and/or magic). Two-handers deal a lot more damage and have a slight reach advantage.

A recommended strategy for upgrading is to get enough strength to wield the best weapon you can find in that chapter and then put further points into the weapon skill since this will increase the speed of all your attacks, add additional steps to the combo, and increase the chance of dealing a critical hit (which doubles the weapon's listed damage). Critical hits will benefit you much more in the long run than their LP equivalent in strength.

Anyway I hope some of my random thoughts make sense and are helpful to you. :)

I'm wondering if by skills you're talking about casting spells? I know that to cast something, you hold down the attack button then hold the forward key until it launches. Somewhat similar to how you would slash forward.
I think my blocking works without hesitation, so that seems odd.
I also wonder if movement is the problem. While moving, the game doesn't really let you do everything the moment you hit the key. You pretty much need to be standing still to block or do any action.

LOL

I just bought the whole series of Gothic games on GamersGate and have never played a WORSE game when it comes to controls

I'm going to delete the first game from my computer and give away all the other Gothic games on my website. You couldn't PAY me to continue to struggle with this absolutely abysmal game :)

Only Gothic 1 has the bizarre controls; the rest have standard controls where things work as expected.

Note that the "unresponsiveness" is part of the game. The combat controls get more responsive as you train your weapon skills - if you haven't done that you've simply made a big mistake. I remember that the first time I played the part in the cave it was tough indeed, but it was far from impossible. Next time I played I had done more sidequests and training before this and fighting orcs was rather easy at that point. It's a hard game but just blaming the controls is non-sense - it is an RPG and it is about character development (even too much, if you ask me).

Guys, please don't give up just because of the controls. If you didn't like the gameplay or the story, it is fine but please don't quit just because of the controls. I am saying this because Gothic series (1,2,3) is the best game of this type I have ever played and I am sure there are a lot of other fans who think the same. Its atmosphere, its story, the music, dialogues, the challenge, everything and everything about this game is masterfully crafted.

Just give it another chance. Actually, when you get used to the controls, I am pretty sure you will like the way controls are designed. Unlike other games, you don't simply click one single mouse button to do every action. You use different keys, different combinations plus the left mouse button for your desired action, whether it is attacking, climbing a ladder, swimming or opening a chest. This introduces more connection to the game as you really feel what action you are doing.

In my opinion, the default controls are quite useless for me, hence I changed them to the way I want.

Controls are complete ass. I beat the game, they don't magically become better. It's a horribly designed system and one of the worst parts of the game. If the method of access all the dialogue, story, music, and all that is hidden being this kludge of a control system, then I'd hardly call it a good game.

Every step of the way of accessing the good parts of the game was hindered by the controls. I spent something like 30+ hours, enjoying what I could, but almost wishing for the game to be over because it was an eternal struggle to do everything.

Gothic 2 feels so much smoother, and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

As for unresponsiveness being part of the game, there are better ways of increasing difficulty than just being arse even as a master of 1 handed and 2 handed weapons. I beat the game by abusing AI rather than any skill I could have possibly applied, because there really was little skill in how the character handled and how you controlled him.

I guess I am confused. Maybe I need to go back and play Gothic 1 and 2 at about the same time to compare the differences, but in my mind, the combat is the exact same in both. Now as far as inventory management goes, yes, Gothic 2 blows 1 away. 1's was just, bleh. It worked, though.

The other confusing thing is mention of actually beating the game after 30+ hours of play. That's dedication for hating so much about it!

I'm wondering, what game do you consider to have good controls that can be compared to Gothic's "arse" controls, and why is it better? That sounds like a school essay question.

And what do you mean by abusing AI? Like, they got stuck in trees and you pelted them with arrows? I'm just very curious.

Enough questions. That's it!

I will struggle through a game as long as it doesn't cross a certain threshold. This game was constantly teetering on that line. At times I loathed loading it up again but everything else about it managed to save it. I couldn't just leave it there staring at me half finished. I loved everything about it, except for the controls.

The combat in Gothic 2 makes me feel like I am in control of my character. Even when I fuck up the timing of my swings, I still feel like I can recuperate and everything responds as it should. There's still some minor quirkiness. I got this bug where I'm stuck in focus mode and I can't really do much until I fix it. At least this time when an enemy moves around I can actually turn instead of defocusing, turning, and then focusing again like in Gothic 1. Makes bloodflies so much less frustrating, but still difficult. Surely I can't be the only one that can feel the difference in the smoothness of combat between Gothic 1 and 2?

For controls similar to Gothic, I don't think I've ever seen such a control scheme before. I play mostly FPS, but dabble in many different genres (3rd person FPS, RPG, management/simlations, RTS etc.), and I don't ever recall having to use 2 keys to pick up an item in Gothic 1 fashion. I have played risen, and all my time playing Gothic 1 reminded me of a technologically worse version of Risen (subjective stuff like story, atmosphere, writing and what have you is a different thing.) I just wanted more Risen since I heard the second was bad, so the old games were my best bet. Just wish there were more games like this.

Lastly, I abused the AI by getting only 1 to attack me at a time. I would get close enough to anger one enemy, then run off for a couple of seconds and prepare to fight. I would beat up whatever I was fighting while his friends looked none the wiser. I actually did this for the whole orc camp entrance. I would use water for safety because nothing could attack me there. I would wait for people to be next to a wall, and just wail on them with a continuous left-right-left combo until they got knocked out because they flinched and couldn't escape. I sometimes used my bow with the pathetic 10 dexterity I had to separate enemies. I fought as dirty as I could.

--- and let's not forget standing on the siege engine while the orcs just make noise below and slowly die with arrow fire; running until the enemy just stops and will go no farther then pelt with arrows at close range; hitting a friend in a melee who then attacks you forgetting all the orcs killing his friends (especially in III); enemy mages who continually throw fireballs into the cliff wall while you shoot them full of holes; etc, etc, etc. For all this games positives (and like most single player games), the AI needs work.

Weirdest double post I've ever seen. Deleted.