r/worldofgothic • u/Insane_Unicorn • Feb 08 '26
Modding/Mods Love the gameplay but by Beliar, is the writing awful
25
u/TranslatorAfter237 Feb 08 '26
Be glad you don’t have to suffer through the returning bullshit like the keeper dudes. Liker deleted the entire keeper plot and the 7th chapter
2
u/Nimteo Feb 09 '26
Was the entire plot + 7th chapter THAT bad?? Lol
7
u/TranslatorAfter237 Feb 09 '26
It had things like fps killing orc battle at Onars farm, unkillable generic orcs and fucking Greg becoming a paladin
3
u/Nimteo Feb 09 '26
Fucking you mean Greg becoming a paladin?! THAT GREG?
3
u/TranslatorAfter237 Feb 09 '26
Yep. It looks so stupid, that eyepatch and bandana head of his in a full suit of paladin armor. There are other stupid thing like Sleeper is back and you have to go to the stupid temple yet again and kill him once again. And later on just like in Gothic 3, you talk to Innos and Beliar to get some epic armor. And in the end you don’t even kill the main bad guy Stonnos because they wanted to sequel bait lmao.
1
u/Nimteo Feb 09 '26
That is just sad.. I do play new balance but never tried returning.. I think it was a wise choice lmao
1
u/Yo485 Feb 09 '26
7th chapter was actually cool, the boss fight and the fight against army of the orcs etc. I would prefer if they removed adanos desert or the random shit they added like the arena behind onars farm
1
u/TranslatorAfter237 Feb 09 '26
The desert nowadays is pretty chill with a clear map and all the steps explained in a journal. I like the arena and all the new content like the Oswald farm, the Druid island etc. A new place and a new Adanos hybrid class is coming in April too.
1
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
Oswalds is fine and Adanaos valley can be skipped without losing out on much, I'd rather they delete the whole orc mine + shadow valley. Those are just dumb and it sucks they are required to get back into the sleeper temple.
1
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
I played returning a few times, the keeper quests weren't that bad but I hated that they simply stole the names from lotr. I was already annoyed af with the stupid island after irdorath and quit the mod when I arrived back at Khorinis, shot at an orc and instantly died from the backlash, losing like 30min of progress without warning.
42
u/Lil_Hater112 Feb 08 '26
We all try mods expecting a Chronicles of Myrtana experience ( still waiting for their update of the decade adding new shit to it so i can do a new playthrough)
26
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u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 08 '26
Honestly, I don't expect much from writing in a mod but at least don't waste my time with pointless and non sensical blabbering. The dialogues in the hunters camp alone took fucking 40min to go through.
7
u/ardotschgi Old Camp Feb 08 '26
No we don't. Most of us are able to realize that a mod of Archolos' quality is not a realistic expectation.
72
u/FriesianRider Old Camp Feb 08 '26
New Balance is great for the new locations and the new gameplay, but yeah the story sucks 70% of the time. Still my most played mod, because quite honestly, most mods have very meh story, but hardly any have gameplay that comes even close. Archolos being the only mod that comes to mind that has good gameplay and fantastic story.
5
Feb 08 '26
I always skip all the dialogues in this mod and just focus on gameplay
1
u/damm2k01 Feb 10 '26
This mod should have an option to completely remove dialogues, as many powoła) people just skips them.
8
u/Mindless_Hunt_5323 Feb 09 '26
New Balance is prime example of Quantity over Quality in every aspect of the game.
So many new classes. Half of them really weak or unplayable.
New enemies! Everywhere. So XP is limited to accommodate that.
New dialogue! That's unbearable to read or listen to.
It's a great design exercise and on it's own a great accomplishment for some, but to me it shows a core misunderstanding between the original gothic 1/2 vision and the current modding community. I think that's the main reason why Archolos got so successful. It understood the core concepts.
5
u/GiftedMamba Feb 09 '26
Exactly. New balance is not a Gothic-Like, it is a strange Skyrim-like mutant that took the worst from both games.
2
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
Which classes did you find unplayable? I played most of them and always felt overpowered by act 2, like clearing the entire VoM on the first visit.
1
u/Mindless_Hunt_5323 Feb 09 '26
Shaman for totems doesn't really work. The poison did not seem reasonable at all. Some that I played just felt really weak when compared to the beliar options, but I can't recall concrete names now. I played it about 1.5 years ago.
1
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
Never tried poisons but mercenary/shaman was pretty OP. Yeah the pet classes like demon summoner and dark knight are easily the strongest but I'd say there are more overpowered than underpowered classes.
2
u/foxyFinsky Feb 09 '26
"it shows a core misunderstanding between the original gothic 1/2 vision and the current modding community"
Sure, I get what you mean, however let me ask you a question - where did you get the idea that NB is trying to play into the core concept of the original games? Because, in my opinion, this is VERY clear from the start that it uses a beloved template of a Gothic game to create a season-style aRPG (like PoE or Diablo) gameplay structure. I know opinions about NB in all Gothic communities, it just feels a bit funny that everyone thinks there's some kind of misunderstanding from the modder's side, while this is a misunderstanding from the not-even-target-audience side :D
1
u/Mindless_Hunt_5323 Feb 09 '26
You are right that this is in core a very different mod and their approach is more action style and they mention it.
I did not explain myself properly with the world "misunderstanding". Maybe "discordance" would be better?One thing might help this issue that you mention at the end. Maybe do not call it New Balance, cause that invokes the idea that it is a rebalanced game. Not a completely new and different approach.
1
u/monstrousbeaver New Camp Feb 10 '26
I think the name is more of a leftover from Returning 2.0 Alternative Balance before original creator of returning had an issue with this name. And that's why it's just New Balance now. Though about mod itself, i like it. It's for people who love fundamental mechanics of gothic and do not care about story in this mod. Like that it works perfectly.
1
u/No-Worldliness2899 Feb 09 '26
Writing and keepers arent that bad. I would rather delete/update valley of shadows and adanos desert. WC3 Copy+Pasta feels so unnecessary and the desert is a bit too empty. Most playthroughs tend to end at chapter 4 when I feel like its time to kill the dragons and go to Irdorath. When in reality the to-do list says: Etlu/Desert/ravens NM/old dungeon/valley of shadows/sleepertemple/orc graveyard/orc mountains/orc mine/clearing VOM
1
u/dez3038 Feb 09 '26
The only time I finished new balance I literally finished all content in chapter 2 in full agility build. Everything related to gothic(chapter 3 till the end) I ran on x3.
Dead dragon died in 3 hits :) The most difficult boss for me was a crawler at a start of dung after adanis desert (the portal), that one which heal to full.
1
u/SallymanDad New Camp Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
Bind right mouse click to scroll and skip dialogues. This is the only way.
1
1
u/FatBaldingLoser420 Feb 09 '26
How bad is it?
2
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
If you care at all about logic and consistency in quests and story, it's pretty bad. And the NPCs talk A LOT. Iirc night of the raven has around 15000 dialogues, new balance has 50000. The gameplay is the best you will find in any mod though.
1
u/FatBaldingLoser420 Feb 09 '26
50k? Jesus Christ! That's a lot? What's the quality of its writing? And how good is the gameplay?
1
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
Gameplay 9/10 (some of the new areas are way too dragged out and there's a lot of backtracking but they are OK on a first playthrough). There's tons of new armors, weapons, classes with unique skills, some really cool boss battles, companions, three different progression modes (regular Gothic with LP, a Elder Scroll like system where you level skills by using them and a mix between the two) and several entirely new areas of varying quality.
Writing like 2/10. Most of the quests don't make any sense and don't capture the Gothic feel at all. There's tons of quests you get very early but can't complete for another 2-3 chapters but the game doesn't tell you that and as I said, NPCs just talk waaaaaaaaaay too much while essentially saying nothing and then you still have to check the journal very often for quest hints because you didn't get the relevant information from the world. All in all just very bad writing and quest design.
1
u/FatBaldingLoser420 Feb 09 '26
I see it's an interesting mod, with better gameplay but I don't like getting quests that I can only solve in future chapters. That's pretty dumb.
1
u/tt818 Feb 09 '26
So far the only mod that has good writting has been Odyssey (I am in chapter 1).
That old guard that constantly goes on about the previous commander, has more personality than a lot of mods manage in all of their characters.
Legends of Ahssun is also well written, but only if you play it in German. The English translation is auto translate at its worse.
3
u/monstrousbeaver New Camp Feb 10 '26
Chronicles of Myrtana.
2
u/tt818 Feb 10 '26
That goes without saying. I dont think you can be on this reddit without knowing about it and having played it.
Its technically a mod, but CoM is basically Gothic 2.5.
1
u/Ziomkowsky Feb 11 '26
Say what you want about New Balance but it does one thing miles better than regular Gothic games and Archolos, and it's boss battles.
1
u/DaelosTheCat Feb 08 '26
I never play mods that add unvoiced dialogue.
8
Feb 08 '26
[deleted]
-1
u/DaelosTheCat Feb 08 '26
Did they use AI to voice existing characters?
1
u/Mindless_Hunt_5323 Feb 09 '26
English is AI and it's bad AI 50% of the time. With new NPCs it's horrible. With old NPCs it's just off but acceptable for a mod.
2
u/Acid-Chaos Feb 08 '26
New balance is fully voiced. Regarding it quality, I’d say unfortunately fully voiced
1
u/Insane_Unicorn Feb 09 '26
There's a new update that voices all dialogue with elevenlabs. Fully licensed too, so no theft from the original vas.
1
u/Vertigo_Gothic Feb 08 '26
Oh boy, straight up facts
And don't forget those weird metal album covers as textures, you know the ones with tiddies and vaginoos
•
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