Jerykk wrote on Feb 18, 2013, 12:39:

Kajetan wrote on Feb 18, 2013, 05:39:

Jerykk wrote on Feb 18, 2013, 05:02:
They revamped the equipment system, the skill system, the combat and the party system.

In this case: Revamping = dumbing down. A lot!

In comparison to Gothic, Risen 2 was nice and simple action game with a few RPG elements. I am GLAD, that the sales of Risen 2 weren't nearly as high as expected. As with Gothic 4: Arcania, the attempt to gain a broader audience for a once dedicated niche RPG franchise was not very sucessful. RPG fans do not want a watered down gameplay and "casual" players have no interest in a game they knew only as a complicated and time consuming RPG.

Not really sure what you're talking about. In the Gothic games, your armor was always full body. In R2, you could choose individual components, each with their own unique attributes and bonuses. That's not dumbing down. That's the exact opposite of dumbing down. Same with the skill system. In R2, they added a bunch of active abilities, in addition to the attributes and passive skills. They also added skill checks during dialogue, something sorely lacking from the Gothic series. Again, exact opposite of dumbing down. Then they added a proper companion system, unlike the Gothic games where you only had companions for certain quests. The new companions are much more fleshed out and have unique abilities that compliment the player. Again, exact opposite of dumbing down.

The only part that was actually dumbed down was the animals' day/night cycle reactions. Unlike Gothic, the animals in R2 never sleep, which was disappointing. Oh, there was also the fact that you could only choose from two factions instead of three, but this was compensated by the fact that the story missions were generally much more open-ended.