ELEX ELEX RELEASE THREAD

[sser]

Does anyone crack up at how it just says 'End' when you die? No music. No glory. It even has a LONG pause before anything happens. Just like yeah. You fucking DIED, bro. And NOBODY CARES.

 

[thekdawg21]

This guy deserves Codex love in my opinion.

 

[Riptides]

Could any of you fine Clerics enlighten me on the variety of energy weapons? What energy weapons are there besides run-of-the-mill laser and plasma blasters?

 

[Tigranes]

OK, I've decided to restart the game. Pump all stats into int and get +1 attribute per level up at 3rd level. Pump all communication/thievery skills.

Is that worth it? I can see it taking many many hours to get to level 20+, which is when that +1 would add up.

I took lockpicking and haven't found more than one chest needing it, though I've found a couple safes.

What's with Melee Weapons, Attack Strength and Combat Skills? Presumably just so you can increase your power in terms of attack types, or a general bonus, or using INT?

 

[Grunker]

Eh, started the first character and, in the end, totally screwed him. In the end, all that visibility of the skill chekcs is just that - visibility. The core of the game is absolutely combat based and even more so, since the game is all about breaking through enemy damage reduction. It's all about building up your STR or DEX, depending on whether you go melee or ranged. Nothing but that.

I went for the somewhat predictable charisma-based Int build and boy, does it suck sweaty balls. First, the payoffs are pathetic. All those "more experience for the foes killed/ quests done / books read" turns out to be 5%. Which means that it probably doesn't even pay for itself (and for the tempo you lose on reaching that 50 int fast). Likewise, Attribute is shit because it gives very, very mediocre payoffs for literally castrating you in the early game. You just won't be able to win any combats (outside of relying on cheesing it with your companion), meaning that you'll be wasting a helluva lot of a time (which you can invest into grinding in quite the same fashion). I'm talking about Ultra difficulty, of course.

And barely any quests have satisfying charisma resolutions. You know, the ones in which you actually do something (instead of earning, like, +25 experience and saving some pocket change). There's also too many alternate solution so you're never really missing out anything.

To put it simply - charisma here is worse than in Fallout 1. Don't spoil your build - invest in combat. Combat is teh king.

What about spellcasting?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Game seems pretty alright, a little railroady at first but that's to be expected.

I think it even looks pretty good - runs at 60fps without any drops at 2560x1440. Console peasants must be complaining because it runs at half the resolution at 20fps on peasant machines.

DoF is too heavyhanded so I think I'll play without it.

 

[Junmarko]

Does anyone crack up at how it just says 'End' when you die? No music. No glory. It even has a LONG pause before anything happens. Just like yeah. You fucking DIED, bro. And NOBODY CARES.

I prefer the long pause Death Screen to be honest

 

[Darth Roxor]

lol @ the people trying "charisma builds" in a pb game and then whining they get r00flestomped

 

[Achilles]

Review from a greek site in english, don't know if it's been posted:

http://ragequit.gr/reviews/item/elex-pc-review-english

It might look like a lost title from the year 2010, but for those that want a pure exploration experience, real role-play, even with some unpolished aspects by our advanced age's standards, this is the place to be. I for one couldn’t wait to get home from work to lose myself into Magalan. Just like when I was young, playing Morrowind.

83%

 

[unfairlight]

Really strange that Europeans love inclinelex while Burgers jack off to shit like D:OS2. Puts me to ponder.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

lol @ the people trying "charisma builds" in a pb game and then whining they get r00flestomped

Combat build is not a gurantee not to get rolfstomped either. Either way you do no damage & die in 1-2 hits unless you lower the difficulty or confine yourself to noob areas.

Really strange that Europeans love inclinelex while Burgers jack off to shit like D:OS2. Puts me to ponder.

F*king hamburgers! Making it worse for everyone else.

 

[Pope Amole II]

What about spellcasting?

As far as I know, they don't take you into faction unless you're level 15. Good luck getting there with a gimped build.

 

[Jenkem]

this desert area is nice and pretty

 

[harhar!]

I'm playing on Ultra right now and feel just slightly retarded having to watch Duras kill some trash mobs while I stand in the corner jacking off. Do STR and DEX strongly affect damage on lower difficulties or is it more about the weapons? It feels like it's doing nothing at all. Also the Berserkers only have one other bow than the worst one to sell, which is odd.

I don't know about ELEX specifically, but in Piranha Bytes games gear usually matters a lot. Getting even a single new piece of armor or a new weapon or upgrading your fighting skills at the various Trainers, which was always the most important thing about improving in combat skills can change the dynamic of the game dramatically and the changes are very noticeable.[/QUOTE]

In Gothic the individual skill is just as important for damage calculation as the direct weapon DMG though. I wonder if they changed it.

 

[Lyre Mors]

For anyone with an older Nvidia card who might have been dealing with some occasional stuttering, try this out. Go to your Nvidia control panel -> Manage 3D settings -> Program Settings -> find ELEX on your program list, or manually add it. Modify these setting as such:

Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Threaded optimization: on
Triple buffering: on
Vertical sync: on (keep this turned off in the ingame settings)

Helped my occasional stuttering and evened out my FPS on a Geforce GTX 760. Just wanted to post it in case anyone could benefit from it.

 

[Jasede]

No, it's the same. You could still in theory defeat any foe as long as you can do 1 damage.

It's just next to impossibly hard.

I'm also playing on ultra and it's a thrill. I'm level 11 and running from everything.

 

[Rahdulan]

Really strange that Europeans love inclinelex while Burgers jack off to shit like D:OS2. Puts me to ponder.

Just inherent familiarity. Remember that NA was originally late to Gothic train and PB didn't really build such an extensive fanbase in comparison.

 

[odrzut]

Really strange that Europeans love inclinelex while Burgers jack off to shit like D:OS2. Puts me to ponder.

PC gaming is big in central/eastern Europe compared to consoles.

26 million PC gamers vs 22 million console gamers in Germany. 92% of all gamers play on PC (some also on consoles).
https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/614xGermany2.png

9.5 million PC gamers vs 6.2 million console gamers in Poland. 97% of all gamers play on PC (some also on consoles)
https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/614xPoland.png

Sorry can't find Greek one, but I bet it's similar to Poland.

Compare to USA (sorry - it uses different methodology, so stats aren't directly comparable, but the general picture is obvious - consoles rule with twice the market size of PC gaming).

https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Newzoo_US_Games_Market_2016.png

And you have your answer.

 

[Tigranes]

I'm most impressed by character models and faces - they actually look very nice, and better than anything Bethesda's ever put out.

Took on Duras to do some heavy lifting for a little bit, but now I have a shield, learned a few skills, and trying it out alone again. Companions in any PB game are cheat mode crutches until one gits gud.

For melee fighting at start the stamina boost - I have a ring now and the skill - is crucial, before that you swing once and got to take a nap.

Some minor spoiler Qs on early Berserker quests out of curiosity

Spoiler

-I questioned 5 dudes, Duras agreed we should look up 1 of them, he joined my party, there was some weird dialogue back and forth, now the quest is complete?
-The poisoned basement, come back later once I find equipment to deal with it or is it meant for immediate explore?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I really love that PB made all three playable factions so repellent—there’s something for everyone to hate about each of them. And the two with the most powerful abilities are both cults. Just like in real life, or any plausible fictional universe, obedience to authority (especially a corrupt or degenerate authority) comes with really tangible benefits.

They did a great job of subtly integrating moral compromise as almost a gameplay mechanic.

 

[cvv]

I am killing animals for the past hour and my exp bar had barely moved and i am level 11. The levelling is one of the worst i have seen in a rpg.

Respawning is a terrible feature, I don't know why devs keep doing it. A game WITHOUT monster respawn is hard enough to balance but with respawn? Shiiiit.

Plus PB never ever resorted to monster respawn in their previous games (some additional monsters appeared at some places at certain points iirc but that was it) why did they decide to start now? So you have moar cumbat therefore moar viscerul and akshun? Sigh.

 

[ortucis]

I am running the game maxed out without any issues but, is it just me or the textures up-close (or medium zoom), completely shit?

When the opening cinematic started, I thought I accidentally set the textures to low. Even restarted the game and ALL armors, even surfaces, look like a blurry mess. It looks like a engine bug because some textures look alright, here and there.





Anyway, only played it for 3 hrs for now, still getting used to the melee combat. Then again, for three hours, most of my time has been spent running around the first Berserker camp, looting and talking to people. Only actually gotten in combat with monsters outside a few times (and died most of the time).

Luckily, knowing PB and how the armors are usually locked, I went for constitution stat instantly. Gonna boost that a bit more, just to be "safe".

That said, how hard could it be for PB to simply replicate combat from a game like FABLE? While we're at it, WTF is with Backspace key in menus? UI is actually dumber than their previous games on PC. Oh and Fallout 3 like Quest Name popup, along with similar sounding sound effect (in-case anyone had any doubts about why they went for this setting).

 

[Lyre Mors]

Respawning is a terrible feature, I don't know why devs keep doing it. A game WITHOUT monster respawn is hard enough to balance but with respawn? Shiiiit.

Plus PB never ever resorted to monster respawn in their previous games (some additional monsters appeared at some places at certain points iirc but that was it) why would you wanna start now? Sigh.

Yeah, it's stupid. But like I said in a previous post, grinding on respawns just isn't a plausible way to progress in this game. Combat experience is more of a supplementary thing in this, much like the other PB games. If you run out of quest to do, go somewhere else and find some quests.

I'm playing on Ultra and when I run up against a wall with strong enemies, I just go elsewhere and find something else to do. Come back an hour or two later and start holding my on.

I would say that respawning could be removed by a mod and hardly anyone would notice much of a difference.

 

[thekdawg21]

I have to call it, guys. This one is just THAT good ELEX.

At first I thought it has really wonky combat, but then I started to feel the rhythm and it surprised me more than I thought it would. Early Impressions

Combat:
Melee Combat - the most nuanced of combat since that's what PB has iterated on for six titles prior to the cumming of ELEX.
Ranged Combat - very simplistic and barebones. Guns feel like you are firing BBs at an enemy, but it is a viable strategy if not all that exciting.
Magic - Animations are crap, but the results are fun. I especially like a spell called "Chameleon Cloak" which when cast makes your opponents not swing as aggressively as they normally do. Summoning a drone turret is also satisfying. Magic is more nuanced than I've seen an open world game have yet.

Economy: 20 hours in and I'm still scrounging for my next purchases. I fully expect this to change since I do not believe it is possible to make a balanced economy in a world of this size when your character can essentially loot pickpocket and haggle ALL the items in the world, since they were placed just for the PC. World of this size will break the economy.

Quest Design: Old school Piranha Bytes quest design. Some quests are fetch quests early on, but many have different solutions. There was one particular quest that was fantastic and if even a fifth of them could reach the level of this semi-side quest, I'll stick with this game for five or six playthroughs.

Reactivity: I sabotaged a group of people that I did not like (didn't have a quest for it, just wanted to do it because they were dicks) and I was noticed and rewarded for it from a competing faction. Very nice surprise.

Bugs: One crash, one pathfinding issue.

Youguysshouldn'tfuckingcare Graphics: Fantastic and will run well on low end systems.

Voice/Sound: Voice ranges from "I think that's a placeholder developer reading those lines" to "he could pass for a high school theatre teacher". Sounds are not great, Music is copped from other games. I think I heard the NCR theme with a few chords changed here and there. Same goes for VTM:B.

My opinion of this game has skyrocketed once what was going on "clicked" in my mind. If the game retains 70% of the current pace, it's my GOTY for the last 5 years easy.

 

[Grunker]

I'm most impressed by character models and faces - they actually look very nice, and better than anything Bethesda's ever put out.

I agree in principle, the base is very well done, but there's a real World of Clones things going on