Elex now available

Off Topic What Else Are You Playing?
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Played it yesterday for 5 hours on stream and will do so in about 2 hours. So far this game delivers exactly what was expected. Therefore I can’t be disappointed.

Pyranha Bytes games have always been medium budget titles. Games like Gothic and Risen never looked graphically the best of the era. They were always clunky in design with regards to combat with indeed very bad voice acting. Especially after the awesome VA’s from Divinity Original Sin 2 it is a huge step backwards. Yet these games always offered deep mechanics when it comes to character development. As well as interesting worlds, somewhat interesting story and awesome settings.

Seeing it is a medium budget title, appealing only to certain type of players, I feel that a 35-40 euro price is acceptable. Compared to Mass Effect Andromeda that had the nerve to over-charge 60-80 euro’s.

PB games never hold your hand. The info it provides through tool tips and tutorials is very limiting. It expects people to explore and experiment and try stuff out themselves. Once again this might not appeal to everyone. Especially gamers of the newer generation got accustomed to things being done for them. Though combat is clunky it is still skill based, meaning you can beat even the toughest of opponents with skill and patience. Unlike just button mashing to victory.

When starting the game I do advise people to explore the starter area. Do not go to the first town just because the NPC offers you that option. Do NOT rush through the main quest, because you’ll be too weak for many things to come. If you stick to the first area, and let the NPC wait for you, it’ll be possible to explore the open area freely. Kill raptor and rat runts which can be killed fairly easy. Do not expect to facetank them and be smart about how you fight them. They can, and will, kill you in 5 hits or less. Going through this early area lets you find open world quests, gain experience and also additional loot and gear.

Once you hit Goliet, the first village, just do the simple quests that don’t require you to leave the village too much. Meaning more easy experience and rewards. Also running away is not a bad thing to do at times. If dodge rolling doesn’t work you can also use the simple side stepping or temporarily using the jet pack to fly away. Expect that even simple quests, like picking flowers, can get you killed in 1 hit if you’re not careful of what roams near them. While men with laser guns or chainsaws 2-3 shot you early on. However, as you get higher in level Pyranha Bytes games get progressively easier. The quicksave function is still a very advised function to use…often.

Even though the combat itself is clunky it still offers depth. The environment is actually designed with the use of jet pack in mind. In Andromeda the verticality, except for the handful scripted battles, was more of a novelty. In Elex it is very much worth exploring and using this verticality.

The world environments are beautiful. Sure it isn’t graphically high fidelity, it is still very alive and atmospheric. I never really liked open, empty environments like the Bethesda games or those from Bioware. These environments feel more like The Witcher 3. It is fairly densely populated, lots of plants and trees with narrow paths through the wilderness. In short it actually feels like a living world you’re traversing and exploring.

Storywise it seems pretty standard. You have something to set straight with someone. Story of vengeance basically. However there does seem to be more depth to it through the backstory and interactions of the factions and some of its members.

You can quite easily make a comparison between Elex and Andromeda in my opinion. In both games you do a LOT of flower collecting, they both have jetpacks, they both attempt verticality in world design and combat… Thing is… Andromeda had more fluid combat. Other then that none of the mechanics were fully developed and were hollow presentations of what they could be. Andromeda sold itself for what it wanted to be, but in the end wasn’t. A disjointed mess. Elex on the other hand delivers exactly what is expected for matching price. In so many ways it is better then Andromeda.

If you can overlook the combat clunky shortcomings you can find quite a fun and interesting medium budget title. In my opinion.

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as could be expected from a medium budget title. Especially those from Piranha Bytes. Gothic and Risen games weren’t graphically advanced in their day either.

The very first rat enemies on normal mode hit you once and take away half of your life. Your hits against them take away a tiny sliver of their health bars. You have to preserve stamina to be able to roll and also drink a health potion. You run out of health potions quickly at such a low level.

Gothic and Risen games have always been about skill based combat. Carefull exploration and careful/tactical approach to fights. Don’t just run in and expect to kill stuff. That happens later in the game when you fully developed your character and are rather OP. In the start you’re not such a godmode character.

Enemies charge you and attack four times as fast as you do. No stamina to drink a potion? You’re dead unless you somehow get away from an enemy…You have to walk around and wait for your stamina bar to very, sloooowly refill while enemies rip into you quickly and efficiently since apparently they don’t have a stamina bar holding them back. If you dodge? There goes more of your stamina bar. You can’t drink that potion again. And if you don’t dodge, you’re dead. On normal mode. I tried it on Easy mode…guess what? I wasn’t able to notice one bit of difference other than enemies had slightly less health.

now you’re just over reacting. Only annoying thing I found early on was that those raptors charged so far past you that you had to move in close. Which took time and stamina. So instead I adjusted to staying close to them and side step/strafe around them. Even against tougher opponents that took away half my hp,like the bartender in berserkerville.

If an opponent is fast and hits multiple times, time your evasion and/or use your block to mitigate damage. Or simply use your jetpack to fly on top of a rock formation or fallen or such to use a bow from safety. You have to be smart about things and actually think about everything you do. Which, i’ve noticed, is quite a task for many people these days.

You don’t wait for your stamina bar to fuly re-fill. There is also an element of tactics involved. If you notice that a certain 3 hit combo, that takes 25% of your stamina, drops the opponent on its back. And you notice that by the time he gets up you got that amount of stamina back again… Then you simple use that to beat him. Don’t just run in, dodge, use your power attacks and special attacks hoping to finish stuff quickly…that’ll get you killed fast.

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Good post, Gibly. Nailed it.

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serious git gut.

Other then game performance all i hear are Learn to Play issues :stuck_out_tongue:

And yet, you wonder why nobody likes you in this board…

Seriously, how the f*** did someone like you get to be a Praetorian is just beyond me… no wonder why we’re getting these horrible and unbalanced patches in gd, with stuff like kubacabra and such.

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wow someone had too much vinegar for breakfast. eek:

besides i never wondered why nobody likes me. i never even noticed it. nor did I care. you see… on twitch and youtube people are a lot less whiny and bitchy. There I actually take the time to assist new players where ever I can. Give advice and info where I can.

Here, on these forums, I just want to put a torch to all you whiny bastards. You idiots bitch and moan blaming everything and everyone, but yourselves. It would help if you calmed down, think things through, learn, improve. So if you hate me…well in most cases its two ways :slight_smile:

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Perhaps you should both take a breath and go do something else, neither of you is looking good here. Just saying.

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Today I spent another 5 hours roaming around in Elex. Roamed around and ran into stuff that killed me hard and fast. First a raptor chicken. Then when I tried to sneak around a giant spider appeared from under the ground and one shot me. Then some hunter wanted me to fetch his sword where two strong Forlorn were waiting for me. Ran around, used jetpack, snuck back in and took the bow. Then killed them with some npc assistance.

Like every Piranha Byte game it is getting easier. Learned some skills, increased armor and now stuff kills me in 4-5 hits instead of 2. Also learned there are companions. Switched out Duras for Carja. Making fights a lot better. She actually helps while Duras half of the time just stands there doing nothing.

The live story of npc’s when you meet them is quite tedious after a while. Exploring the world, new environments, factions. OVerall really great. Moral decisions are not Black and White, but more grey of choice.

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So I watched some videos of this game, looks fine except for one thing. I don’t get why they put in those skull-level enemies right from the start. I do own Risen and in that game they handled this issue by repopulating the world after certainly storyline points. Those lizardmen which would one shot you at the start only appeared when you had a chance against them. Wonder why they didn’t use such a system in Elex because it seems a lot of players get turned off by this. Doesn’t help that this issue shows itself right from the start of the game, so many people are probably refunding because of this.

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In the beginning those skull level enemies are indeed a bit much. But you need to get some companion help. Duras just doesn’t cut it. He just watches. When leveling up try to get some basic combat skills. Those make a huge difference. Then go full Charisma for a while. You can get some cool stuff story wise. First 15 hours the combat activities for me have been minimal. Been mostly running around in 2 villages/cities and their surroundings doing LOTS of talking.

At lvl 10, 15 hours in, I am now part of the Berserker clan. Combat encounters have become significantly easier. And i just love the world and traveling around in it. Just as I did with Witcher 3. Other games feel so empty and lifeless in their worlds.

Some people say this game brings nothing new to the table… Well… It brings one thing new to the table actually. Most games that use a morality system are black / white. Being a douche or a saint. In this game everything is grey and I’m for once actually thinking over the decisions I make. This is quite a new experience when I actually am dissapointed when things don’t go as I want. Its not as predictable. People aren’t just part of a faction and all faction laws are done the same. Its like real life where people question their faction and break off into their own believes and laws. There are seperatists, deserters of every faction. Settlement that tries to be neutral, traveling groups with their interepretation of their faction stuff. ITs…there is so much subtlety in the morality system. It is a shame the dialogue’s and voice acting is so bad though.

Then on top of the morality is the “cold” mechanic. Basically your emotional development. As a former Alb you’re coming off the Elex and now get to experience emotions. Depending on your decisions in general you either gain cold or develop your emotions. Which is how the world in general seems to perceive you. And also effects the dialogue options available…

And your companions…man I just can’t seem to please them. They have strong personalities to take into consideration as well when making decisions.

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thanks Gibly!, I removed it but adding this back to my wishlist then! :rolleyes:

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lol Xavier
well What are you looking for? the start of the game can be frustrating. and the game can be slow if you’re mainly combat oriented. You can spend so much time in the village of the Berserkers and another one that you gain lots of xp without all that many fights. So once you do go out to fight you’re strong enough to deal with it.

will keep playing it for now untill i get bored. but now that the Berserkers let me in their faction…they rewarded me with a magical glove. Could choose between ice, poison or fire… Now I can shoot fire balls and have a flamethrower built in. With lots of cool sounding skills I could learn. Can only imagine what the other factions would offer.

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From the streams I’ve seen it looks pretty interesting (particularly the boob seizure physics), but I’m probably gonna wait for a sale on this one…

Bet you could please DURAS.

Never forget :cry:

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I could forgive lots of things about this game if it weren’t a AAA price tag for a non AAA developer. Crate would never even consider charging as much as Piranha Bytes does for their games, and Grim Dawn in my opinion is a much better game than Elex. I’m very glad some folks are having a good time with it and are defending it so vehemently (it shows how much you really like the game, and i’m jealous of that), but it’s just not for me, sadly. I followed this game and had high hopes. Two friends of mine also refunded it, one within thirty minutes of playing it and the other after a good hour and a half. It’s like Skyrim and Mass Effect had a much less polished illegitimate baby with far worse voice acting and poorer, less fluid and more clunky combat.

I don’t mind difficulty. I absolutely loved Cuphead, and am a veteran of old school NES platformer back when games were hard. I don’t think Elex is all that ‘hard’…I think the combat is ‘cheap’ and there is a difference. Hitbox sizes, poor AI in followers, very slow melee swinging and overly draining stamina. If these things get a lot more polish, the price gets reduced by about 40%, and I turn off all voice dialogue, I could see myself getting back into it.

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its not a triple A price tag though. Triple A price tag is 60 euro at the cheapest going all the way to 110-120 euro if you’re not careful. Elex was 37 euro after GoG gave 7 euro wallet funds from the original 44 euro price tag paid. That is right at the spot for what a medium budget title game is worth.

Crate didn’t charge more then 25 euro, because Arthur didn’t really knew the value of Grim Dawn. There were many uncertainties on how GD would’ve been received. And the scope of the game was smaller when the price was set for the 25 euro mark as well. If Crate would ever release a similar game as GD I fairly sure they’d charge around 40 euro as well.

I’m not really defending Elex. I’m just…more open to seeing what games offer. I give them more time and more chance to show what their mechanics and gameplay is like. I try to understand the games more deeply. Thus also seeing the bad things just as the good things. Therefore when people saying things that are incorrect…that is what I find annoying and irritating. I couldn’t care less if people like Elex or not. I don’t care if people like certain mechanics. Just don’t spew nonsense is what I would like.

For example. I’m 20-25hours into Elex. Done everything around Goliet and Abessa region. Close to ranking up to Warrior with the Berserker Faction. I enjoyed the depth of the morality/emotion system and the decision making. But now it is becoming more and more going through the checklist of tasks like every other open world RPG. Meaning the fun levels are diminishing since the novelty has worn off for me. There isn’t much of a “reward” system in the game. You only get higher tier armor by getting a higher rank with your faction. Even after doing all tasks for everyone I still have to wait 4 levels of xp grind. Another way is through crafting and thus enhancing your old gear. However those upgrades mean you need significantly higher attributes to wear them. Those require higher levels and or tons of alchemy ingredient grinding to make Skill Point/Ability Point potions.

The overal story is less compared to gothic/risen. The whole World Heart conspiracy and political scheming in a war background is nice, but only goes so far. I miss some of the more magical/mystical elements Risen had for example.

For me the game started harshly and got better over time. Then it was a pretty damn good game before falling flat on its face again. Still if you love exploring then you could explore a lot of cool stuff though.

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My opinion on this game was an accurate reflection of my experience with it in 1.7 hours of gameplay. It isn’t nonsense and I certainly wouldn’t say I spewed anything inaccurately based off of my experience and opinion about it.

What I said is true for me.

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Oh I might try this.
Something added to wishlist to remind me when I have extra money haha. (I have like 60 items on my wishlist now that I never bought hahaha. I choose one or two every so often to buy.)

At least the videos on steam show actual gameplay and not just shiny pictures.

For some reason most games only show shiny pictures or videos without gameplay in them haha.

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Just keep in mind, that Elex is NOTHING like Grim Dawn. Graphics are awesome, but the focus is on the RP part. You will be spending decades “talking” with NPCs. I fell asleep several times! :stuck_out_tongue: