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ELEX is one of the best RPGs of 2017
- Thread starter His Majesty
- Start date
For me personally, ELEX is the worst Piranha Bytes game since Gothic 3.
I'm a huge PB fan and loved every game except for Gothic 3 (yes, even the Risen series), but ELEX just didn't work out for me. The world and lore were very interesting and it was a joy to find letters or similar things, but the rest somehow couldn't motivate me. I didn't like the attribute system or the way weapons were handled at all. And I think the quests in ELEX are boring and not as good as previous games.
I'm a huge PB fan and loved every game except for Gothic 3 (yes, even the Risen series), but ELEX just didn't work out for me. The world and lore were very interesting and it was a joy to find letters or similar things, but the rest somehow couldn't motivate me. I didn't like the attribute system or the way weapons were handled at all. And I think the quests in ELEX are boring and not as good as previous games.
So are you saying I should just go ahead and dump my points into STR and CON to be able to use the melee weapons I currently have and ignore ranged until later in the game? Will I have enough points to get my DEX up to like 85+ to use the late game ranged weapons if I put all these points into STR and CON now?
later it takes more points to raise attributes. the game is designed to be a jack of all trades. just raise all the stats and you can't really go wrong. at least in the first 20 hours or so. the easiest way to play is definitely to go for the clerics and get their caster weapon as soon as possible as the spell black hole turns you into a god instantly.
The game doesn't seem finished, missing critical aspects like a proper rpg stats screen and lacking proper descriptions.
Sucks to hear, even with the jank. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Risen and loved the old Gothic games back in the day. I've been holding out on a decent sale so I can try it out.
Pretty much everything else seems finished, so I believe the missing stat screen was just a very odd design decision (especially with how easy it would have been to implement). It's definitely more bug free than the Gothic games were too.
I prefer to give PB the benefit of doubt and assume it's unfinished because making a design decision to not include basic progression statistics in an RPG is insane.
I reinstalled Risen 3 in the meantime with the enhanced edition mod and it's pretty enjoyable and much better than Risen 2, not as good as Risen 1.
Has anybody here played the game in German? I usually prefer englisch VO but since PB is German and the Gothic games had a pretty good cast I'm wondering whether I should give the german voices a try.
Also what "class" would you recommend? I prefer magic-stuff since it's usually more fun than just hitting dudes with a sword but I have no real idea what classes even are in this game.
Also what "class" would you recommend? I prefer magic-stuff since it's usually more fun than just hitting dudes with a sword but I have no real idea what classes even are in this game.
I played it in German and thought it was the usual PB quality, which is very good and one of the reasons I love their games.
Some people have said the English VO is far better, others have said it's far worse.
There are no classes in this game, and although you can focus on either melee, ranged or magic, I firmly believe the game is meant to be played as a jack of all trades. Mainly because the higher your attributes get, the more points it costs to raise them.
If you like caster, I recommend meeting the clerics faction as soon as possible. The Berserkers have classic magic like Fireballs and the Clerics have PSI powers, but the PSI powers are far stronger. The game is not well balanced.
Some people have said the English VO is far better, others have said it's far worse.
There are no classes in this game, and although you can focus on either melee, ranged or magic, I firmly believe the game is meant to be played as a jack of all trades. Mainly because the higher your attributes get, the more points it costs to raise them.
If you like caster, I recommend meeting the clerics faction as soon as possible. The Berserkers have classic magic like Fireballs and the Clerics have PSI powers, but the PSI powers are far stronger. The game is not well balanced.
In the other PB games I've played, you can still be on friendly terms with the other factions once you pick one. Is that the case in this game as well? The story makes it seem like a no, but then I was certain that'd be the case in Risen too and I was surprised.
I joined the Berserkers and could still move around in Cleric and Outlaw cities. You'll miss out on some stuff, but that's par for the course with PB games.
ELEX scored a spot in Angry Joe's Top 10 in 2017. Unfortunately it was the Worst of 2017 list but hey at least someone is talking about ELEX right?
He had the same problems with the game as anyone else like bad first hours, glitchy bugs and difficulty combat but I'm wondering why he is so harsh on it despite the fact that he is a fan of the Risen series (and knows what awaits him in a PB game). Wouldn't mind when he puts ELEX on the most disappointing games list but on a list with Life of a Black Tiger is pretty ouch.
He had the same problems with the game as anyone else like bad first hours, glitchy bugs and difficulty combat but I'm wondering why he is so harsh on it despite the fact that he is a fan of the Risen series (and knows what awaits him in a PB game). Wouldn't mind when he puts ELEX on the most disappointing games list but on a list with Life of a Black Tiger is pretty ouch.
I actually expected him to have ELEX on his list. Also, I don't think that he is a huge fan of the Risen games.
I saw that he has a video where he called Risen the worst RPG on 360, so yeah...
Surprised that this is still so expensive on ps4 despite being on sale and with a plus discount. It's like 35 quid.
it's just his personal list. his scope is relatively limited compared to outlets that play virtually everything when making those
tbh it would probably have a spot on my list too even though i don't particularly hate the game
I don't think so. I beat the game yesterday and I had joined the clerics and while everyone comments on your choice and some people despise you they will still help in the the deciding battle at end. Pretty sure you can do all the quests except the one where you join them and rank up in their organization. Most of the huge quests in each area end up being mandatory anyway. Like the way the game is structured you usually end up talking to a NPC asking you to deal with the following issues which takes you around all the places anyway. and this gimmick repeats itself in each chapter. It's kind of a bit underwhelming. I was playing The Technomancer before this which is also janky and your teammates actually leaves you easily depending on choices.
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The best part of the game for me was definitely the lore about the world before the comet and Elex. It was entertaining to find voice recording and document about how the military and scientists were planning to deal with the disaster. I also appreciate how as a narrative tool Elex was at the same time a source of life, death, power, chaos, order but also a commodity. The writers vision about how religion are born seem right on the money with me.
I felt the game was more frustrating and tedious than fun gameplay wise. It's poorly balanced most of the time and fairly broken in some parts. When you have to patch in a slider for damage dealt to enemies, damage dealt by enemies, turning stamina meter on/off on top of difficulty you know something went wrong. I already talked about I didn't like the progression before in the thread and after beating the game it's clear it's still my main issue with it. Even outside of my rant about how unfun was the beginning because it's not balanced there are still a lot of stuff wrong related to the gameplay. When a rocket knocks you down the getting up animation is slower than it takes for a new rocket hitting you. Some of the trolls throwing rock will sometimes have throws that will stick to you as you see the huge rock change course to target you as you dodge roll away. The scorpions like monsters witch scissors can endlessly slam you until you can no longer guard and die. Some of the skills seems rather useless too. I never spent more than one point in hack and I have opened like 95% of the safe I found. The skills related to the alignment system seems rather pointless too. Outside of a mention on your character sheet I never found why should I take a skill giving a boost if my cold is between 80 and 1000 or one if less than 60 because I'm not sure where I stand. I don't mind hard games where it's fun and rewarding to find how to win like Divinity Original Sin 2 but here it's hard because it's unbalanced and the combat is pretty poor overall..
The coding is pretty poor in some parts like in missions where there is a checklist of enemies to defeat. The game shows you a list of "Enemy A 1/12" "Enemy B 1/10" "Enemy C 1/15" "Enemy D 1/17 " as you defeat them but instead of updating the tally in real time it increases each one by 1 each time, displays it on the screen but the game doesn't support showing you more than four line at a time so you get "Enemy A 2/12" "Enemy B 2/10" "Enemy C 2/15" "Enemy D 2/17 " even if everything is already dead. So you need to wait for the whole things to add up to get the quest XP and updates, then you have to sit through the whole displays of loot recovered following the same rules. The "epic" battle at the end lasted less than a minute but the processing of it took much more.
The alignment system is basically a Bioware style good-evil meter except it's emotional-cold and you don't actually see the meter and you have the traditional choices locked options in dialogue. I'm also fairly disappointed that the skill checks in dialogue seems only to give +25 XP most of the time and nothing else.
It seems they ran out of money or time near the end too.
When Zardom kidnaps Caja you just warp to his safehouse you already know of and she's there unharmed and alone waiting for you. Seems like something is missing there. Another underwhelming part is when you finally get to the ice palace and there's like robots and two dudes in there walking around like nothing happened after the supposed battle that took place outside. It's like a linear corridor to the hybrid dude. The first time you went around the infinite skies' secret site you find the memoir of the doctor that discovered the comet and can read the truth about what happened. Yet the game makes you go back there again to have a cutscene where Jax repeats alone what you found hours ago already.
It's not really a game I would recommend, certainly not at full price. Story and lore was fine the rest was really poor to me.
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Me too. I liked the challenge of the combat and adapted to it. When I was strong and could kill basically everything in a few hits it began to feel shallow.
I really want to like this game, but the combat is making it extremely hard (the combat isn't hard, it's just terrible). It's baffling to me that someone would design combat that way and think 'yeah, this is good'.
EDIT: I guess I should say that the original Risen is one of my favorite RPGs. So PB games aren't exactly new to me
EDIT: I guess I should say that the original Risen is one of my favorite RPGs. So PB games aren't exactly new to me
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Mainstream media is just terrible at evaluating niche RPGs. It's better to just ignore it.
The lack of progression is starting to get to me. Weapons require such high stats and it feels like I will never get there. I tried upgrading a weapon just to realize that it raised its required stats too which sucks. I'm tired of running from everything...
Risen is one of my favorite rpgs but I'm not sure Elex is for me
Risen is one of my favorite rpgs but I'm not sure Elex is for me
I don't know how you are allocating stats but the best advice I can give is to hold onto them so that you don't waste any. Be sure you know what weapon you want to use and exactly how many points you need. It does take awhile to get to a point where you're really mowing things down although mastering the melee combat will allow you to squeeze out a lot more damage than you may have thought.
When you get your base of operations, immediately pay for the merchant option. He selles Natural Elex. These can be used to create different types of Elex potions. The medium ones are the ones you want to brew.
They give you attribute points but increases your cold value. I was as cold as a machine when I beat the game.
They give you attribute points but increases your cold value. I was as cold as a machine when I beat the game.
The only way to not have to run away from everything from the beginning to mid game is to use weapons or spells that knocks down. They didn't bother to actually evaluate the time for the animation to get back up compared to the amount of time it takes to shoot or cast again so you can keep knocking down enemies. Be careful because it works on you too if enemy do it with rockets or knock down attacks. Get a cheap plasma rifle and use the mode that creates and explosive shot that knocks down or spam black hole from the cleric Psi amplifier. Black hole is op because it clusters enemies, knocks them down and apply the electrocution ailment. Otherwise yeah progression is pretty awful. I could equip nothing for half the game then all of the sudden you can equip what you want and are OP.
To get tons of money and crafting materials put the 3 points in animal trophies so enemies will drop tons of items you can sell. Harder ones will also frequently drop natural elex and sometimes x 10.
I didn't even bother with Elex potions much as at the end I probably at 5-6 leftover skills points because I didn't care much about the skills left anyway. I was at low cold though. How low who knows I don't think you can see the actual value while you need it to chose some skills but I was "spontaneous" I guess.
I can finally use The Redeemer plasma rifle. I'd been looking forward to finally meeting its requirements but now it's made combat really trivial :P
Do I have to join a faction to progress the main story? If I do, what a bummer. It appears I've exhausted all other main story quest lines though.
Do I have to join a faction to progress the main story? If I do, what a bummer. It appears I've exhausted all other main story quest lines though.
Thanks for bumping this thread. I can't believe this was so overlooked. I had the fortune of playing through the PC version a month or so ago and jank side i *REALLY* enjoyed the game. Who knew Jetpacks would make an RPG so much more fun. Yes this basically plays like Risen in a post apocalyptic future but it is so much fun.
The world building and factions are so enjoyable. Can't wait for Elex 2.
The world building and factions are so enjoyable. Can't wait for Elex 2.
Thanks! Argh, that's a shame. I really dislike all the factions lol. I guess the Berserkers seem like the best of three bad options but their skill tree doesn't appeal to me.
Despite that, I'm really enjoying the game, too. Maybe it's the world, the mobility of the jetpack, or something else my brain is picking up on, but I've spent over 50 hours on Elex despite the Gamebryo-level models/animation, and MMO-style combat. I've been pleasantly surprised by how stable the game is, too. I've had almost no technical issues and a stable 1080p/60fps for those 50 hours.
They need to put in some serious work on this game and rerelease it as an enhanced edition with a free upgrade to current owners. So much potential squandered.
- rebalance the game, remove the custom difficulty sliders.
- fix the progression, including better skill descriptions, loot requirements and distribution.
- completely redesign the combat system, make it more like Risen 1 or Gothic 2.
- don't lock and key bindings.
- redesign the movement, make it more responsive and add quick turn animations when changing direction 180 degrees.
- add a stats screen that shows all the traditional RPG statistics like hp, armor, Mana, exp points, etc
- rebalance the game, remove the custom difficulty sliders.
- fix the progression, including better skill descriptions, loot requirements and distribution.
- completely redesign the combat system, make it more like Risen 1 or Gothic 2.
- don't lock and key bindings.
- redesign the movement, make it more responsive and add quick turn animations when changing direction 180 degrees.
- add a stats screen that shows all the traditional RPG statistics like hp, armor, Mana, exp points, etc
Yeah I agree, and this coming from a big fan of the developer. I'm baffled by their lack of communication, at least send out a tweet saying we're working on patching the game or something. It really feels like they don't give two fucks about their customers.
Their lack of communication is very disappointing, they used to be a lot better than this.
There was another patch on steam a few weeks ago and we never even got patch notes or anything.
Elex was still the best RPG of 2017 for me, loved every minute despite it's shortcomings.
I feel like i traveled back in time to the early nineties waiting for a patch for this game. No communication platform between developers and community. Did PB forget the internet exists?
Maybe it's because I played it on PS4 but I never found it that glitchy. It crashed once in my whole playthrough which is less than most 20+ hour games. The only thing that annoyed me was the sticky/slow cursor on the map.
It's not glitchy, just has some major balance issues and glaring omissions.
Sanity check please: Something weird is going on, I remember when I played the game a couple of weeks ago I was getting steady 144 fps matching my monitor's refresh rate. Now when I play, my max FPS is fluctuating between 120 to 122 at max settings. And when I lower the settings the FPS does not increase. Is the game hard locked at 120 fps and I'm just not remembering correctly that I was playing it at 144 fps before?
AJ is a fan of the Risen series? Really? I distinctly recall him shitting all over Risen 3 because of the combat. If he didn't like the combat in Risen 3, he wouldn't like the combat in the previous games (or any of PB's games).
Anyway, I enjoyed Elex but PB really needs to get with the times. They're still repeating the same mistakes they've made since Gothic 1. So many little tweaks and fixes would make their games much more playable, which is the biggest barrier to new players.
Examples from Elex:
- Allow players to switch and holster/unholster weapons while using the jetpack.
- Allow players to grab ledges while jetpacking.
- If I hold jump after jumping, automatically go into jetpack mode instead of requiring another button press.
- Increase the acceleration and lateral speed of jetpack movement.
- The jetpack drop attack should target an area instead of a specific enemy.
- If I land directly on a character while performing the jetpack drop attack, don't cancel the attack. Just turn off my character-to-character collision so I can pass through them and turn it back on after I've knocked them back.
- Don't prevent the player from doing anything when they run out of stamina; just significantly nerf their damage output and maybe even remove hit reactions on enemies.
- Don't put hit reactions on rapid-fire projectile weapons.
- Reduce the startup and recovery frames of every action.
- If you're going to use animation translation for traversal, make sure the state transitions are as quick as possible. I should be able to start, stop or change directions within 10 frames.
- Fire projectiles from the camera, not from the weapon.
- If a gun has multiple firing modes, the more effective modes should either consume more ammo or used specialized ammo (I'm looking at you, Plasma Rifle).
- Don't completely cripple me while I'm using heavy guns.
- Companions should immediately attack any enemies that target me instead of waiting for me to get hit.
- Companions should not use AoE knockdown attacks when I'm right next to their target.
- Explain the numerous status effects and damage types.
- Provide a codex that shows you the resistances of different enemy types.
- Show numbers for the Cold meter so that I have some frame of reference.
Most of these changes don't even require new assets. A designer could implement almost all of these within a week.
Worse yet the console version hasnt been patched for months and they have nothing to say about it.
I'm guessing the console versions sold pretty poorly, hence the lack of updates. It's a shitty move but unsurprising. Getting patches through the console certification process ain't cheap.
I wouldnt say half the people call it a 2, more like 90% lol.
The people who call it 8/10 are probably employees, its a half arsed janky mess with very few redeeming features at all. It deserves to be in the worst of 2017 for factual reasons as well, people who enjoy this level of jank are sadists.