ELEX ELEX RELEASE THREAD

[Daemongar]

Playing Elex for the second time, and its amazing how different the start is now that I understand the combat system at the beginning. Here it is, the first game I am calling for more hand holding at the beginning. Honestly, I think if they made the combat intro better, it wouldn't turn off so many folks.

 

[Morkar Left]

Since my ELEX CE was lacking a manual (what a damn shame!), I decided to do my own. Sorry guys it's in german. It's just a quick draft and really limited but I think it provides good information for starters about the game systems and the story. I mostly took some press texts and texts from World of Elex and other sources.

Maybe I might turn it into a full fledged walktrhough or something in the future. My main point was that it's possible to provide players a cool and useful manual to a game without going overboard with pages (only 25 pages, 17 x 24 cm format, full color, 150 g/m² paper and 2 fullcolored coverpages) in excellent quality for 1 unique print unit for 12 € on epubli.



It fits nice in the back of my CE. It's not filling out completely the back as a background for the action figure. A4 would have been better for that but it would have been 1 cm to wide. But I will improve it with some wood frame for the Alb figure anyway and put some LED into it, too.

 

[Morkar Left]

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.

Actually I think enemy placement wasn't that good this time. For me there was too much "let's place a very hard enemy on the middle of the road just because". I think it contributed to the confusion with difficulty at the beginning combined how the first quests were designed (leading you around the whole map in all directions). Another rather bad thing for me was how some enemies were placed too near of settlements. On the farm in Goliet there was an old world house with some really tough monsters just 15m away from it. There is plenty to improve but without question world design belongs to the best in the genre.

 

[Haplo]

Also, I think there was less "learn enemy moveset to win" in this time then in the traditional Gothics.

I have fond memories of beating the 2 skeletal warriors guarding the Dragonsplitter early on in Gothic 2.
Many reloads, retries, a lot of blocking, over 20 counters, that had to be executed properly, as 1-2 hits and my Nameless wouldbe dead.. meanwhile my weapons could barely scratch them. But man, it felt good to finally succeed.
Same beating the first orc/veteran... or dragon snapper. Even those early field bugs were a learning experience... or the small goblins/black ones.

Here combat was mostly same-y regardless of monster type (of course fighting humanoids is a bit different then monsters). The main differentiating factor was your choice of weapon and skillset.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Actually I think enemy placement wasn't that good this time. For me there was too much "let's place a very hard enemy on the middle of the road just because". I think it contributed to the confusion with difficulty at the beginning combined how the first quests were designed (leading you around the whole map in all directions). Another rather bad thing for me was how some enemies were placed too near of settlements. On the farm in Goliet there was an old world house with some really tough monsters just 15m away from it. There is plenty to improve but without question world design belongs to the best in the genre.

There is great incline in the design of "randomly placed hard monsters". What do most RPGs do? Fill the world in sections, i.e. this area over here is a easy area, this area later is medium, then at the end it's hard. ELEX made a magnificent design where hard exists within easy and vice versa. So exploration was always interesting and tense as you could happen upon strong monsters andthere was no real easy section nor hard section per se, even though the Cleric zone seemed to be more high level in general. But the overall design was serious open-world incline.

I do agree that they could and should have done a better job explaining that to the player, so people would know what's going on. I'm a strong believer in "philosophy tutorials" that detail HOW and WHY the world is built like it is, i.e. a tutorial in-game that explains what they're trying to accomplish with the design. That would lead to a lot less confused gamers and negative review scores when Joe Schmoe couldn't kill a raptor or troll at level 1. "But it's there! In the starting area!" Skyrim syndrome, SEE, KILL, NO THOUGHT. ELEX is SEE, EVALUATE, TAKE ACTION, action being run, avoid or fight. The world was much more subtle.

 

[samuraigaiden]

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.

In the menu you can choose the alternative keyboard settings, which transfers the controls from arrows to wasd. If that isn't enough, you can rebind keys individually too.

 

[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.

In the menu you can choose the alternative keyboard settings, which transfers the controls from arrows to wasd. If that isn't enough, you can rebind keys individually too.

Really? I coulda sworn trying to fiddle with the firsts keys and found they couldn't work.

Damn head of mine. I'll give it try again and see regardless.

 

[Bad Sector]

I finally finished ELEX. Great game, too bad it got so low scores in almost every (non-German) gaming review, i do not believe the game deserved them. Although amusingly i remember when the "ELEX review thread" was made on a subreddit (i do not remember which, probably games or pcgaming), almost every top comment was about how good the game is and how the reviewers didn't "get it" :-P. So there is some hope that the reviews do not reflect the general consensus.

I do not think there is much to say about the game that haven't already been said, though. For me the main "mindblowing" aspect is how a team of 25 people managed to make such a great game with high production visuals (the most expensive and laborious part of game development). It isn't "AAA+", for sure, but i think they're well beyond the level where any complaints are IMO just nitpicking. Nitpicks that would be great if they were addressed in their future games, but only as long as they do not affect anything else in these games.

Of course it isn't all honey and butterflies, the game has some annoying and often major flaws (opaque progression, character sheet, too many uninterruptible animation-based actions) but somehow it balances those with positive aspects (one of the best feelings of progression, great world/setting) that are good enough to make me stick with it.

Now i want more of it, so i decided to try Risen since i think it would be the closest. I haven't played any game in the Risen series before (TBH i'm not a big fan of RPGs with a fantasy setting). From the comments around here i get that the second and third games in the series aren't that great - i hope this wont be repeated with ELEX 2.

This will fit more on the Risen thread, but at least from the first couple of hours of the game i like it (also i like the camera controls way more than those of ELEX, although thanks to gamepads the latter is everywhere commonplace nowadays - but that is another topic). Especially the conversations :-P.

 

[Doktor Best]

I finally finished ELEX. Great game, too bad it got so low scores in almost every (non-German) gaming review, i do not believe the game deserved them. Although amusingly i remember when the "ELEX review thread" was made on a subreddit (i do not remember which, probably games or pcgaming), almost every top comment was about how good the game is and how the reviewers didn't "get it" :-P. So there is some hope that the reviews do not reflect the general consensus.

I do not think there is much to say about the game that haven't already been said, though. For me the main "mindblowing" aspect is how a team of 25 people managed to make such a great game with high production visuals (the most expensive and laborious part of game development). It isn't "AAA+", for sure, but i think they're well beyond the level where any complaints are IMO just nitpicking. Nitpicks that would be great if they were addressed in their future games, but only as long as they do not affect anything else in these games.

Of course it isn't all honey and butterflies, the game has some annoying and often major flaws (opaque progression, character sheet, too many uninterruptible animation-based actions) but somehow it balances those with positive aspects (one of the best feelings of progression, great world/setting) that are good enough to make me stick with it.

Now i want more of it, so i decided to try Risen since i think it would be the closest. I haven't played any game in the Risen series before (TBH i'm not a big fan of RPGs with a fantasy setting). From the comments around here i get that the second and third games in the series aren't that great - i hope this wont be repeated with ELEX 2.

This will fit more on the Risen thread, but at least from the first couple of hours of the game i like it (also i like the camera controls way more than those of ELEX, although thanks to gamepads the latter is everywhere commonplace nowadays - but that is another topic). Especially the conversations :-P.

If you havent played Gothic 1 and 2, do it now. As fine as Elex is, those two games is still PBs magnum opus and confidently one level above their other games.

For Gothic 1 simply install system pack and increase the mouse sensitivity in the .ini file.

 

[Alienman]

Bad Sector The first Risen is great. The other ones, they are kinda meh. I did find the second charming at times though, but the island hopping wasn't the best. The one big island in Risen 1 was perfect. One of my fav RPGs.

 

[retinoid]

Bad Sector The first Risen is great. The other ones, they are kinda meh. I did find the second charming at times though, but the island hopping wasn't the best. The one big island in Risen 1 was perfect. One of my fav RPGs.

Shame it declines in the second half, if it remained consistent throughout I might even rate it higher than ELEX.

 

[Bad Sector]

Doktor Best i have played both Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 , i really liked the first game although i never finished the second (and never touched the third since i have this tendency to want to play games in order :-P). I do not remember why i stopped though, probably got distracted by something else. I think i still have the savegame and i had progressed a lot, although i do not remember anything about what i was doing :-P so it might be a better idea to start a new game.

Risen so far is good and some conversations are funny. Weirdly enough, sometimes the game's framerate drops noticeably. My PC is weak (Ryzen 5 APU with 8GB of total RAM and play in 1366x768 resolution) but ELEX had a more consistent performance.

 

[pOcHa]

great, then you can start gothic 2 fresh again, but this time with the night of the raven expansion - you're in for a treat

 

[toro]

Elex 2 exclusive on Epic Store!?

 

[Lyre Mors]

Does anyone know what was actually said in that video? Please, Piranha Bytes, please don't do this.

 

[Steezus]

Does anyone know what was actually said in that video? Please, Piranha Bytes, please don't do this.

They just talk about the Epic store, no mention of Elex.

I really want my 18 minutes back.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Does anyone know what was actually said in that video? Please, Piranha Bytes, please don't do this.

Blablablablablablabla it's all ultimately a decision of the publisher whether a game ends up exclusively on Epic blablablablablablablablablablablabla

 

[Lyre Mors]

Blablablablablablabla it's all ultimately a decision of the publisher whether a game ends up exclusively on Epic blablablablablablablablablablablabla

Bad news, then.

 

[Steezus]

Blablablablablablabla it's all ultimately a decision of the publisher whether a game ends up exclusively on Epic blablablablablablablablablablablabla

Bad news, then.

All things considered, a niche studio like PB might just make more money out of an Epic exlusivity deal, than from pure sales on Steam. Their primary customers are Poles, Germans and Russians aka thieves so Epic bribe money + pirated copies = win/win?

 

[adddeed]

Now i want more of it, so i decided to try Risen since i think it would be the closest. I haven't played any game in the Risen series before (TBH i'm not a big fan of RPGs with a fantasy setting). From the comments around here i get that the second and third games in the series aren't that great - i hope this wont be repeated with ELEX 2.

This will fit more on the Risen thread, but at least from the first couple of hours of the game i like it (also i like the camera controls way more than those of ELEX, although thanks to gamepads the latter is everywhere commonplace nowadays - but that is another topic). Especially the conversations :-P.

Risen is amazing.
Also Risen 2 and Risen 3 are worth it, dont pay attention to the bandwagon negative reviews, its just stupid nitpicks.

 

[Orma]

Now i want more of it, so i decided to try Risen since i think it would be the closest.

Closest to Elex would be gothic 3, not Risen.

Risen is a more focused experience, like gothic 2

 

[RoBoBOBR]

Having a trouble in the cleric main city, floors and walls flicker in and out out existence almost constantly, slightest camera movement can make stuff blink out. Have anyone here experienced that?

 

[Steezus]

I remember that people with weak hardware had those issues, textures blinking in and out, pink water and shit like that.

 

[RoBoBOBR]

No, harware is ok, running it on 1080ti. Guess i'll try reinstalling it.

 

[unfairlight]

Pink water was an issue on old AMD cards that was fixed on the second patch as I recall.