ELEX ELEX RELEASE THREAD

[Morkar Left]

Also, would it kill them to put a wristwatch in the fucking game?

A flashlight would be even better!

 

[Daemongar]

Ok, finished. Ending:

Spoiler

Killed the Hybrid, everyone was happy except Arx. Love ending for Nasty. Everyone upbeat. Satisfied that I beat this game.

Just one thing: to not piss off the Outlaws, I killed the guy who made the bomb (I was a cleric). The Hybrid mentioned him in his little speech. Maybe I should have left him alive, but the Outlaws seemed to like that he was dead

So, even though it took me this long to finish, I really would like to see Elex 2. Once I settled into the game, it was fantastic.

 

[Daemongar]

Some questions for folks who had multiple playthroughs:

Spoiler

1. I think I did pretty good playing without cranking on the Elex potions. I used some, but saw what it did to my cold so I stopped. I think I got about 12 stat points off of Elex. Any real difference between high cold and low cold? I got the feat "Human" for cold 10 or lower, and it was awesome that Nasty was sort of turned to helping all citizens based on my low Cold. I had the love ending with her, even though she was an Outlaw.
   
2. Calaan. I found the shuttle but couldn't find the code to get to see it. After I finished the game, googled the code. Feel bad, but damn this is my kind of lore and I kind of had an idea from the beginning that this is how it was.
   
3. Everyone in the Dome got murdered. Essentially the Clerics slaughtered everyone. I don't know how or what I missed, but holy shit. Honestly, I wasn't even paying attention to quests, and then I went back there. Shit got real and I actually started paying attention to quests. This blew me away.
   
4. That quest line for Ray. I felt bad murdering those folks with the contract and stopped for a while thinking I was doing something shitty ("Killing this person will alter the storyline"), and never really figured out the point behind the bounties. However, he was an awesome NPC - flying into the barrier and living. I expected him to be evil and was glad he turned around. Ended up with Ray as a True Friend.
   
5. A lot of NPCs I didn't click on some responses and ended up paralyzing quest lines. An example is saying to the Ex-Alb leader "I want the strength I had as an Alb." WTF, I would never say that playing as my char. But.. I had to select it to advance the story-line. Same with the Berserker leader.
6. There were a lot of good surprises with NPCs and story-lines. The game did a HELL of a job with quests and making them complex. The Rat quest line was amazing. I had absolutely no idea what I should do next and felt there were no good options, fitting with the Outlaws.
7. The overall amount of "this decision will change the story" moments was over the top and just made me surrender to doing whatever I felt like doing. This was brilliant. Really. Eventually, you have to surrender to just playing as you play. As I played, I had no idea how killing an NPC or letting them live would affect shit, so I just played as if I was there. PB doesn't get enough credit for this.
   
8. OK, others have said it, but a small team created this. I couldn't play Skyrim for more than a few hours with their team of thousands. For Elex, I couldn't stop playing this and it was stable as hell. I told those Germans to turn aside there method of game producing, but here we are - the difficulty engaged me.

So, overall this was a damn good RPG. Would I ask PB to make the next game easier on easy-mode scrubs like me for Elex 2? In the first 20 hours I would have said yes, in the final 30 hours I would have said no.

 

[razvedchiki]

you

Spoiler

can save everyone in the dome if you do all the quests there in clerics favor.

 

[RK47]

Ending is tied to Jax's body temperature. You have no free will.

 

[Fenix]

Ending is tied to Jax's body temperature. You have no free will.

Yes, but you have free will over your body temperature.

 

[Daemongar]

So, looking to start again to test some things. See how hard it really is now that I spent 50 hours playing/completing. I just noticed there were mods - any worth using?

 

[unfairlight]

There's a relatively new job listing on Piranha Bytes' site for a graphics programmer. Gearing up for Elex 2/Gothic 5? I hope this also means that Elex did well enough that they can hire more people. I hope to see their next game next year with an announcement this year as they usually keep a 2-3 year schedule.
https://www.piranha-bytes.com/index.php?navtarget=5&lang=en

 

[Anthedon]

Elex 2 is already in the works. The EU is even subsidising it with €150k.

 

[Funposter]

Finally got that stats to use The Redeemer plasma rifle (with the help of some boosting gear) and I can now stunlock everything to death with relative ease and quickness. Granted this is on Normal, but I think I may as well just rush the ending now. Level 26 or so.

 

[RapineDel]

Love all this "once it clicked, once combat became bearable" crap.

PB best games have always focused on exploration and atmosphere as their biggest strengths. Gothic 1 and 2 are the best games in existence for exploration and Elex doesn't disappoint either. PB games have always had good, solid combat that strikes a balance between player skill and RPG elements, but it's not the game's main draw.

Coming to the early game in Elex, it's not some grind to get through, it's probably the best part of the game. It's when exploration and adventure feels like it really matters. For instance finding resources, potions etc. found in places other developers would never bother to detail and because you're weak and mostly useless they're at their most valuable at this point too. F

If you just hide around town pick pocketing everything with the mindset that you'll just avoid the world until you're strong enough, these games are not for you. The point of these games is clearing out section by section as you can, every time you get a level up or a new weapon/armour it's a moment of excitement because you remember those areas you just weren't quite ready for and can go and explore those again as well.

Late game is a reward for all this hard work, and it's plenty of fun destroying everything but this game is about the journey, not the destination.

If there's criticism for this game I'd say it lies in some of the world design and getting a few things back to basics, I'd love to see them go back to non re-spawning enemies where mob XP really matters as that made exploration even more satisfying.

 

[HoboForEternity]

yeah, gothic isn't an easy game to get hooked into, especially with gothic 1, for me the controls are definitely the biggest wall to climb, but when it finally hook you, oh boy it will have you for life. i also agree, the earl parts of gothic/risen/ELEX are the best part of the game, and the climb towards domination is just so...soo satisfying. there is rarely a game that made me feel "FINALLY FUCK YEAH!" stabbing that troll that killed you in 1 hit 30 hours of gameplay ago.

the overpowered end game, i do find it duller, but as you said it is a reward for crawling out of the muck and your character finally made it in his world into someone worth giving a fuck. that is still a better choice than these pretend RPGs that have level scaling and shit.

 

[Beastro]

Now that someone's mention it, there anyway work arounds to the keys in Gothic 1?

I ask because I'm down to my laptop which has these kind of arrow keys that I dread just thinking of using playing it with:

Of course, I my old laptop with decent arrow keys had its mobo fried that also took my first real attempt at Gothic 1 one with it years ago.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

How does someone get skidmarks on a keyboard?

 

[a Goat]

PB games have always been about giving the player an open world where in 80% of it you will be immediately ganked. Gameplay effectively revolves around finding the next newly survivable area after each level up. They don't seem inclined to change this.

Elex is kind of different from Gothic 1/2 in the way that everytinh is seemingly randomly mixed together. Move 3 steps in the wrong direction and instead of fighting enemies you should be able to defeat you're getting chased by one that's waaaay above your power level.

 

[Doktor Best]

Now that someone's mention it, there anyway work arounds to the keys in Gothic 1?

I ask because I'm down to my laptop which has these kind of arrow keys that I dread just thinking of using playing it with:

Of course, I my old laptop with decent arrow keys had its mobo fried that also took my first real attempt at Gothic 1 one with it years ago.

Install Fix Pack, google how to find mouse sensity value in some .ini data, crank it up good until you have sufficient mouse speed. Voila, you have Gothic1 with almost Gothic2 controls.

 

[RapineDel]

Having finished Elex recently (around 50 hours doing just about all the content and exploring the full map, maybe missing the odd fetch quest) I'm excited to see what Elex 2 has to offer but at the same time I have some reservations.

When it comes to what they should keep here are my thoughts on Elex itself:

Pros:
- Exploration is as good as ever, there's no other developer that ensures exploration is as rewarding as it is in PB games, Bethesda games and The Witcher pale in comparison to Elex. Why is this? Bethesda games are too reliant on the overworld simply being a hub for dungeons and the world can feel like something that's simply there to break up going from place to place. Elex's world IS the content of the game and thus the world is the focus and is the reason it's far better to traverse and explore. As for the Witcher 3, it suffers from Ubisoft game syndrome where the world is a base for a series of similar activities for the most part (monster dens etc) which breaks the immersion and ensures the game becomes a checklist, it's got some good moments however, but doesn't reach the heights of Gothic and Elex in this regard.

- Domed City (deserves a special mention). To me this was probably the highlight of the game, a neutral city of sorts which felt like a game within a game if you will. The C&C was at it's strongest here and I hope they can build on this going forward as this is the sort of quality I want to see in future games.

- Cities - The Beserker and Outlaw cities were great too me, full of things to do with some great characters, my favourite quest involved Rat in the Outlaw city and I was constantly intrigued as to where it would go, these two cities also felt pretty well crafted. The Cleric city I found looked way too similar from region to region and I found it more difficulty to distinguish everything, I found the whole aesthetic of the Cleric area to be a bit dull and would prefer they didn't go down that route in the city. That said there were some good quests and I know joining the Clerics was a popular choice here.

- Main Story/End game - while the main story, as usual was nothing special I appreciated that it mostly tied into me exploring the regions and factions, I also liked that the end game was mostly short and didn't fall into the trap of some earlier titles where it became a dungeon crawl, the end section was quick and intriguing enough to not feel boring and I appreciated the epilogue as well.

Cons:

- I'm going to say Questing, not all the quests but it just didn't feel as strong as in Gothic 1/2 and to an extent Risen. There are a LOT of fetch quests in this game and while I found myself not needing the quest marker in Edan too much, as the game pressed on it started to feel necessary and far too many of the quests give you little information or almost none at all. This comes down to some of my points below where I feel PB wanted to make use of a lot of locations and ensure there were quests tied to most of them, this resulted in filler quests with little choice, I want quests in these games to be something I love to stumble upon, not something that makes you think "here we go again" offering you another generic quest relying on the quest marker.

- The world is too big, while they did a good job of exploration as mentioned I'd much prefer they tightened the experience. Risen felt like the perfect sized game world, go back to this, doing so along with 3-4 cities would be absolutely perfect.

- Re-spawning enemies - the issue with this is it ties into the world being too big again, in previous titles, not only did killing enemies feel like progress and more rewarding exploration, they also helped with traversing the map and knowing where you had and hadn't been. Given those games were smaller, it's stupid to NOT continue this trend with a huge game map. A lot of the forests look very similar and no re spawning enemies (aside from chapter to chapter) would've really helped with this.

- The perk system. I appreciated that they tried to expand on something that's pretty similar in earlier games but I feel like it fell a bit flat. There's far too many useless perks and I feel like it's just more hassle for a developer that's likely already on a tight budget. This territory is not their strength and rather then trying to be a jack of all trades, I'd prefer they focus on their strengths.

Mixed:

- Combat I'm in different on, I don't think it needs to be a huge focus as I prefer combat to complement the exploration in that I want to continue to feel like I'm best off running away from enemies who're too strong for me, and come back, approaching the exploration like a jigsaw puzzle that way rather then being able to go anywhere I want. That's signature PB so my only change would be to either make melee more of a focus or make ammo far more scarce and a resource that can't be crafted.

- Companions. I didn't mind the companions but I felt their quests were a little lacking. Now I read that Duras' quest is a lot more interesting in the German version and the translation was supposedly botched here which is why it doesn't make as much sense. That's a shame but I'm guessing the reasons may have been beyond their control so I won't critisise that one too heavily. Most of the other quests fell into fetch quest territory with not a whole lot of interest, I think if they're going to go down this road again I'd prefer they tighten things up again, perhaps fewer companions with higher quality quest lines and maybe generic characters you can hire in town to go with you if you want something different.

Now for Elex 2. I'll keep this brief but Piranha Bytes should stick to their strengths, instead of trying to make their games move towards a AA version of a better Skyrim etc. they need to strip it back and spend their development time on the things they're really good at. Domed City, exploration within a tight environment where everything has a place, factions and towns should be the focus, not a "bigger is better" world with tons of fetch quests, meaningless perks etc.

 

[RapineDel]

PB games have always been about giving the player an open world where in 80% of it you will be immediately ganked. Gameplay effectively revolves around finding the next newly survivable area after each level up. They don't seem inclined to change this.

Elex is kind of different from Gothic 1/2 in the way that everytinh is seemingly randomly mixed together. Move 3 steps in the wrong direction and instead of fighting enemies you should be able to defeat you're getting chased by one that's waaaay above your power level.

There's still a bit of that in Gothic 2 which is what makes it great, it's not a world you slowly peel away from all sides, the forests always feel dangerous if you aren't careful. Even in some pretty earlier areas the wargs will kill you in one or two hits, takes a fair while into game for them to become manageable.

 

[Haplo]

I agree with most points. Except the perk system. I think it was a step in a good direction. While it could use refining and... balancing, made the character progression more interesting. I'd rather have PB develop it further then abandon the idea.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Man the world in ELEX is huge, I hope they do NOT downscale it. So what, it's not exactly like Risen or Gothic, but it's enormous with lots of cool things to see and find, and plenty of level-locked areas with tough encounters to avoid until you're more powerful. I was leary at first about the world size but ELEX nailed it, made the game feel massive yet handcrafted in traditional PB style.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't understand the people claiming the world feels empty. There was stuff everywhere, I was keeping notes when playing of what I visited.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

No way did it feel empty. And the enemies were placed perfectly too, to keep things interesting. There were a lot of great places to visit in the game and many of them were dense with loot and stuff to check out. Modern classic PB open-world RPG.

 

[RapineDel]

Certainly not empty and they deserve a lot of credit for that, the Four Houses puzzles and Map Pieces kept the exploration pretty relevant to the end, even when you have too much stuff to know what to do with (though a nicer reward for the Map Pieces would've been good). I just think with such a big world it can start to undermine what you find as you've picked up the same things too often. Keep it tighter and every little settlement and location feels much more unique.

Something else I'd like to see return from Gothic 2 is plants that boost your stats permanently, they really brought exploration up a notch and make it easier to have a tough monster guarding them without it seeming forced.

As for the perk system, by all means if they can make it work then give it another crack. I just feel with their small team/budget I'd rather they prioritise what they're good at then systems they probably won't ever get right. Would love them to prove me wrong there though!

 

[curry]

The world designers did an absolutely fantastic job on Elex.

Agreed. There were a few areas that were lacking story content but I still found myself exploring them anyway.

The one thing that's disappointing is that there are a few places where you can see the whole map and realize how small it actually is.

 

[retinoid]

PB will never get the credit they duly deserve for world design by the mainstream gaming press. ELEX has a much more interesting, cohesive, and diverse environment compared to Breath of the Wild, with smarter enemy placements to boot. There's an obsession with BOTW that I will never understand, though it simply being Zelda was probably enough to make the manbabies that are Nintendo reviewers over-exaggerate the aspects it does decently well. I'm not saying BOTW is bad, far from it, but the fact that its world constantly gets cited as one of the best in open world history is honestly laughable.