ELEX ELEX RELEASE THREAD

[cvv]

Has anyone tried any of Elexes mods? If so are there any you would personally consider a must haves?

If you're not too far yet I HIGHLY recommend the Overhaul mod that changes some items and weapon stats around and brings many other welcome changes, since the OG balancing was pants-on-head retarded. The early phase was a combat-devoid adventure game and from the mid-game on it was a mind numbing roflstop devoid of any challenge.

I'm on my 2nd run now with the mod and so far it's a MUCH better experience.

 

[HoboForEternity]

the more i play gothic 3 the more i want ELEX 2 because ELEX is just well-executed gothic 3. i'll probably pop a 2nd playtrough after i play cold steel 4

 

[Ravielsk]

They're mostly... nth time.

If you're not too far yet I HIGHLY recommend the Overhaul mod that changes some items and weapon stats around and brings many other welcome changes, since the OG balancing was pants-on-head retarded. The early phase was a combat-devoid adventure game and from the mid-game on it was a mind numbing roflstop devoid of any challenge.

I'm on my 2nd run now with the mod and so far it's a MUCH better experience.

Thanks to both of you. I checked them out and the Overhaul mod seems to be mostly a reasonable rebalance of the game, although several of the nerfs are not exactly smart. Removing energy regen and nerfing stat potion is generally a mistake for a "gothic game". The stat requirements directly assumes the player can get serious stat boosts from potions and no mana/energy regen just makes usage of spells a chore. Luckily Elex seems to be reasonably easy to mod so once I get there I can fix these oversights.

Also I personally recommend https://www.nexusmods.com/elex/mods/55. To make nights look atleast somewhat like nights, its still too bright for night time but its way better than the barely perceivable shade the vanilla game has.

 

[cvv]

nerfing stat potion is generally a mistake for a "gothic game". The stat requirements directly assumes the player can get serious stat boosts from potions

Yes, that's the only serious problem with this mod, I've pointed it out too a while back. I thought it's an oversight and hoped the authors would fix it. I guess they didn't.

 

[agris]

I bounced off of Elex pretty hard, which is strange given how much I liked G1, G2 and even Risen 1 (except for the end). I think it was the itemization, specifically found weapons. In G1/G2, you really felt getting a better weapon. Further, if you went off the beaten path, killed some dire mudcrabs guarding a cave, you would probably find a spell that was new to you and/or a better weapon. That sense of handplaced loot that rewarded exploration was nowhere to be found when I played Elex. I would climb towers, dig into nooks and crannies, and felt like their lootables had been populated by a rogue Bethesda AI. It was all generic, felt like a Bethesda game.

 

[JarlFrank]

Has anyone tried any of Elexes mods? If so are there any you would personally consider a must haves?

Fog removal mod is a must.

https://www.nexusmods.com/elex/mods/3

 

[1451]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

 

[Abu Antar]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

There is, unfortunately, it's not always very good. I know the sword that you're talking about.

 

[agris]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

There is, unfortunately, it's not always very good. I know the sword that you're talking about.

I may have been unlucky, I also played the release version. I don't know if loot was changed much in patches, but it happened more than once. The itemization felt like crap.

Can either of you say it's actually good in Elex?

 

[Murk]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

Nearly all loot around the world is hand-placed -- even Energy Sword I or Fire Warhammer II or whatever. Only room where it may vary is perhaps enemy drops (do you get a toilet paper or a cup? who knows!). Otherwise all notable loot in containers/locations is the same always, whether its gems or elex potions or gear.

There are 'unique legendary named weapons' that come in two broad categories.

1) Not particularly strong, but the polarity of their stat requirements is reversed -- the Ignis Artifex is the Fire 2handed words that you're referring to. It over-emphasizes DEX over STR. My guess is they assumed this would be an option for people who don't have high STR but do have high DEX but still want to try a weapon like this out. It's damage is pretty low for an actual melee char who will be better off just using a generic fire 2h sword (or any other upgraded 2h).

2) Optimal or near-optimal damage. Mortal Stream (laser rifle), Redeemer (plasma rifle), and Thunderclap (shotgun) are like this. In truth, a fully upgraded double-barrel shotgun is *slightly* stronger than the Thunderclap, but it's by a damage value of like 1-3 where-in it doesn't really matter given that you'd have to spend thousands to upgrade it. These are just best-in-slot for this type of weapon or near-best-in-slot.

agris I thought itemization is *okay*, not great. There's too much redundancy in weapon sub types (3 types of laser rifles, which are basically just -1, and -2 versions of each other). Most weapons follow this trend where there are identical weapons that just have lower damage and lower stat requirements of each other. TBH it's not that different than say Gothic 2 where you have a bajillion 1handed weapons that are stat req/damage done 65/65 70/70 etc. But it *feels* different. I wrote more about this in my long ass rambling "review" of elex a few years ago.

Having said that, gear does represent a much more noticeable leap in power than it did in Gothic or even Risen.

The other thing is that the DOT effects are far more important and often they alone will give you access to areas that you otherwise wouldn't be able to fight through.

 

[Darth Roxor]

There were people here complaining about how easy it was to find some of the best weapons in the game and break it completely as a consequence (the death ray comes to mind), so you are most definitely not very correct.

There are places where the loot in chests etc. was clearly assigned randomly from some kind of loot table, and it kinda sux, but Gothic did the exact same thing (hello chest with 7 gold coins and a dagger, I haven't seen you before), so it's weird to bash one relative to the other. Still, most of the weapons placed either directly in the world or in containers are definitely placed there by hand, and that includes both named uniques and upgraded regular ones.

 

[Abu Antar]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

There is, unfortunately, it's not always very good. I know the sword that you're talking about.

I may have been unlucky, I also played the release version. I don't know if loot was changed much in patches, but it happened more than once. The itemization felt like crap.

Can either of you say it's actually good in Elex?

Itemization is nothing amazing, but it could be worse. You do feel the "power curve" of stronger weapons, though. I used a two handed sword that I found mid-game until the end.

 

[agris]

Sounds like I didn't give it enough time. The point about Gothic is fair, my memory of Elex was that I found special places and only found trash tier rando loot, rather than hand placed. Seems pretty likely those places weren't actually special.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, you can find uber hand placed weapons out in the wild, like the already mentioned artifacts, as well as some regular Tier I - II faction weapons. Quite fast, if you know where to look or are lucky. I'd argue that the gap between "O" Tier, Tiers I, II and III are actually too large. And you're nearly helpless against stronger enemies (except abuse of grenades/DOTs and such), where in Gothic you could still defeat them trough skill and patience with poor weapons if you git good.

But the fact is, that in such a large world, those valuable things seem few and far between. MOST of the stuff you find doesn't feel very rewarding.

 

[Latelistener]

i was still using GTX 760 when i played ELEX and it ran in 720p and 60 FPS.

meanwhile gothic 3 run like 30 -50 FPS in towns using GTX 1080

Elex is a heavily GPU bounded title. I haven't played it much yet (which I plan to correct), so I don't know whether there will be locations that could load CPU, but I tested the beginning on an old Q9650 (2008) and 1050 Ti (2016) and what do you think? GPU was under 99% load all the time. A couple of options lowered though and you can achieve 60 fps.

Gothic 3 though, you can probably play it in 2k even on 760, 4k on 1050ti, but the CPU side in this game is terrible. It uses 1 or 2 cores so ideally you need a CPU with a strong single threaded performance. And the fps still won't be stable simply because it was rushed and has a terrible optimization.

 

[Ravielsk]

Has anyone tried any of Elexes mods? If so are there any you would personally consider a must haves?

Fog removal mod is a must.

https://www.nexusmods.com/elex/mods/3

Neat. Although I do not understand the point of the "adjust" setting. It looks essentially the same as the default and remove is a bit too much. It honestly could use some sort of a middle ground setting so that the fog is scaled back to the horizon but not completely removed.

EDIT: Eh, never mind its easily edited in the ini file to look much better than any of the presets. Steam has a good guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1331001055

 

[HoboForEternity]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

One of the best energy rifle is somewhere on top of an empty barn mill thingy that you have to climb with jetpack, and iirc there is no door but a latch below so you wouldn't even know you can enter if you don't get curious and approach it. My memory is spotty since it's been 3.5 years but it's really cool.

I think they do have a note of some raider stashing it in the location but i actually found the note after the rifle.

 

[Murk]

I remember finding a unique sword down a well so there is definitely hand placed, handcrafted loot to be discovered.

One of the best energy rifle is somewhere on top of an empty barn mill thingy that you have to climb with jetpack, and iirc there is no door but a latch below so you wouldn't even know you can enter if you don't get curious and approach it. My memory is spotty since it's been 3.5 years but it's really cool.

I think they do have a note of some raider stashing it in the location but i actually found the note after the rifle.

It's in the hands of a corpse at the top of it (it's outside the Outlaws' Fort).

Right across from it on a hill from where the corpse is sitting, is the abandoned weapon of the assassin/sniper that shot him (crossbow).

 

[T. Reich]

Another blatant example is War Bow (the strongest un-upgraded bow in the game).
It can be found near the Small Camp waypoint, which you unlock on your initial trek to Goliet - basically, the very beginning of the game.
It's just a behind the farmhouse, on the ground.
There's a "small" matter of avoiding getting killed by a troll that's guarding it, of course.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Every third person rpg should have a jetpack like elex.

 

[JarlFrank]

The jetpack made vertical exploration so much fun. And there's plenty of locations that make use of it, like that bridge-tower-whatever thingie you go through when you head from the grassland to the desert.

 

[Citizen]

Every third person rpg should have a jetpack like elex.

The magic of ELEX isn't in the jetpack itself, for example TES series had levitation spell (aka fantasy jetpack) for decades, yet the TES exploration isn't even half as good as ELEX's.

The real reason why ELEX's exploration feels amazing is because the map is actually designed with the jetpack in mind. Compared to absolutely flat terrain of most 3D RPGs *cough* bethesda *cough*, ELEX has Super fucking Mario 64 levels of verticality

The only RPG that comes close in terms of vertical exploration is Divine Divinity 2, where you can turn into a dragon anytime (basically jetpack)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

for example TES series had levitation spell (aka fantasy jetpack) for decades,

if a kid was born the last time a TES game released with levitate they'd be old enough to star in porn.

 

[Ravielsk]

Well after spending like 15 hours with the game with the elex overhaul (on hard) installed I can confidently say that it is in many ways a definitive improvement over Risen but only a slight one at that.
-The exploration is great but fundamentally uneven where I am either finding legendary blades of forgotten warlords or some lame mushrooms with nothing in between.
-Character progression is initially similar to how it was in Gothic 1/2(without NotR) where every level up feels like a reasonable step forward but then around level 5 or so it again slumps back into the Risen problem where multiple level are needed to even feel any kind of development, a 10 level change feels like 2 levels.
-Same goes for skills half of them are essentially novelties that seem important but rarely come up, such as lock picking or hacking but still have rather high skill requirements despite having so little utility.(this partially because the mod upgrades the cost of elex potions)
-Weapon upgrades and sockets are a great idea but they also increase weapon requirements meaning that to upgrade a weapon I need to spend another 2 level just to keep using it.
-Armors having any kind of attribute requirement is just a slap in the face as you have no idea what those requirements are before you unlock said armor(so again 2 level investment just to use something you have to pay for on top)
-Exp rewards are also bizarrely slanted against the player where a 20 minute detour with a giant mecha fight at the end gives you like 500 EXP in total when I need around 7000 to level up.
-Magic seems cool but once again has the same Risen problem of having absolutely no punch unless you dump all point into it(which is retarded since the game start off pushing you towards strength and melee) while costing too much to use. Seriously if I empty my mana bar twice over I expect it to be done for something big not a pack of base enemies that each give 20 EXP.
-The HDR is absolutely insane indoors. At night they are effectively pitch black.

I can say it a better game than Risen 3 but overall it feels like they have not learned anything from the Risen series and just keep repeating the same dumb mistakes but only incrementally less so. For the 12 bucks I paid for it through humble bundle its a perfectly adequate game but had I bought it full price I would not be as charitable.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Well after spending like 15 hours with the game with the elex overhaul (on hard) installed I can confidently say that it is in many ways a definitive improvement over Risen but only a slight one at that.
-The exploration is great but fundamentally uneven where I am either finding legendary blades of forgotten warlords or some lame mushrooms with nothing in between.
-Character progression is initially similar to how it was in Gothic 1/2(without NotR) where every level up feels like a reasonable step forward but then around level 5 or so it again slumps back into the Risen problem where multiple level are needed to even feel any kind of development, a 10 level change feels like 2 levels.
-Same goes for skills half of them are essentially novelties that seem important but rarely come up, such as lock picking or hacking but still have rather high skill requirements despite having so little utility.(this partially because the mod upgrades the cost of elex potions)
-Weapon upgrades and sockets are a great idea but they also increase weapon requirements meaning that to upgrade a weapon I need to spend another 2 level just to keep using it.
-Armors having any kind of attribute requirement is just a slap in the face as you have no idea what those requirements are before you unlock said armor(so again 2 level investment just to use something you have to pay for on top)
-Exp rewards are also bizarrely slanted against the player where a 20 minute detour with a giant mecha fight at the end gives you like 500 EXP in total when I need around 7000 to level up.
-Magic seems cool but once again has the same Risen problem of having absolutely no punch unless you dump all point into it(which is retarded since the game start off pushing you towards strength and melee) while costing too much to use. Seriously if I empty my mana bar twice over I expect it to be done for something big not a pack of base enemies that each give 20 EXP.
-The HDR is absolutely insane indoors. At night they are effectively pitch black.

I can say it a better game than Risen 3 but overall it feels like they have not learned anything from the Risen series and just keep repeating the same dumb mistakes but only incrementally less so. For the 12 bucks I paid for it through humble bundle its a perfectly adequate game but had I bought it full price I would not be as charitable.

I can already hear the codex polesquad sharpening their pitchforks