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Jerykk

Banned
Dec 26, 2017
1,184
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.

The people who enjoy it love exploration and Elex (as well as PB's other games) excels in that regard. It's just a really fun world to explore. It also offers lot of interesting quests and choices. The people who hate it are unable to overlook the jank. This has been the case for all of PB's games. Gothic and Gothic 2 were the well-received because jank was pretty standard back then. However, PB has failed to keep up with the industry when it comes to polish and accessibility and people have a far lower tolerance for jank these days.
 

Paul

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,603
I am playing the PC version, 25 hours in. I still feel like I am in the beginning (have starting hunting armor, axe..) but I am enjoying it a ton. Sure the combat is a bit clunky, but apart from that I am not seeing much jank and no bugs. It looks quite nice and runs at perfect 60fps maxed out. Jetpacking is awesome. I am enjoying it more than super polished AAA like Horizon ZD, to be honest. Exploration and game design is just lot more interesting.
 

Lagamorph

Wrong About Chicken
Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,355
Picked this up for a tenner from gog.com Russia, so might start it out over the weekend to see how things go.
 
Oct 27, 2017
454
I pick this up on sale recently, and I'm about 20 hours into it. I'm enjoying the game, but it fails to live up to the legacy of Gothic 1, 2 and Risen 1.

I feel the game falls into most of the same pitfalls as it's mainstream counterparts. By making the world larger, each area becomes less unique and there's more empty space between actually important places. The heavy use of fast travel becomes necessary to make the game playable, making the area in between even less remarkable as you repeatedly skip over it.

Quests in the games rely on a quest markers to tell you where to go. Previous PB games gave you enough information to figure things out on your own, using landmarks for reference. It's sad to see even low budget niche games becoming GPS simulators.

Elex does a few things right, like character progression and the lack of level scaling. Being able to finally fight monsters after 15 hours of running from most fights felt really rewarding. That being said, some of the enemy placement seems poorly thought out. Why are there enemies that can one shot you guarding plants you need to collect for a low-level quest?

In previous PB games high level monster were an obstacle you had to return to once you got strong enough. In Elex most high level monsters are just something you have to walk around on the way to the next quest marker. The world is too big to remember where they are, you can't mark them on the map, and defeating them is not necessary to progress.

Quest have actual choices with consequences and multiple ways to complete them. Which is something that can't be said about Bethesda's and Bioware's latest games.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game. I just wish exploration was more rewarding, and required to progress.
 

Lagamorph

Wrong About Chicken
Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,355
Ok, I get this isn't supposed to be easy but bugger me.

I'm still pretty early on, I got to the Berserker town, had a bit of a wander around and spoke to some people and decided these probably weren't the guys for me to join up with. I did hear about some former Albs though that still use Elex and Technology so figured I'd head North and join up with them. As soon as I get a little ways from the Berserker town though every creature I come across is capable of one shotting me.

What the hell? How am I supposed to join anyone other than the Berserkers if I just get smacked down trying to go to anyone else?


Also, how do I boost things like Charisma? There doesn't seem to be any option to do so when I level up.
 

Loganclaws

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
384
I pick this up on sale recently, and I'm about 20 hours into it. I'm enjoying the game, but it fails to live up to the legacy of Gothic 1, 2 and Risen 1.

I feel the game falls into most of the same pitfalls as it's mainstream counterparts. By making the world larger, each area becomes less unique and there's more empty space between actually important places. The heavy use of fast travel becomes necessary to make the game playable, making the area in between even less remarkable as you repeatedly skip over it.

Quests in the games rely on a quest markers to tell you where to go. Previous PB games gave you enough information to figure things out on your own, using landmarks for reference. It's sad to see even low budget niche games becoming GPS simulators.

Elex does a few things right, like character progression and the lack of level scaling. Being able to finally fight monsters after 15 hours of running from most fights felt really rewarding. That being said, some of the enemy placement seems poorly thought out. Why are there enemies that can one shot you guarding plants you need to collect for a low-level quest?

In previous PB games high level monster were an obstacle you had to return to once you got strong enough. In Elex most high level monsters are just something you have to walk around on the way to the next quest marker. The world is too big to remember where they are, you can't mark them on the map, and defeating them is not necessary to progress.

Quest have actual choices with consequences and multiple ways to complete them. Which is something that can't be said about Bethesda's and Bioware's latest games.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game. I just wish exploration was more rewarding, and required to progress.

The game is huge waste of potential. So many brain dead design decisions it makes me want to reach out and slap the game designer across the face. This is from someone who loved PB and considers Gothic 1, 2 and Risen 1 to be some of the best RPGs ever. It is so very frustrating that they didn't bother to listen to the vocal fan feedback to fix this game and make it reach its full potential. Instead we haven't heard a peep from the developer since the game's released. I purchased every PB game on release, including Risen 2, 3 and Elex (they all suck), but this is where I draw the line and will not be supporting them any longer unless they put a real effort into their next game and actually put some thought into their game mechanics.
 
Oct 27, 2017
454
What the hell? How am I supposed to join anyone other than the Berserkers if I just get smacked down trying to go to anyone else?

The big roads heading to the other cites are relatively safe. There's a quest that asks you to go to each of them so they are easy to find.

Also, how do I boost things like Charisma? There doesn't seem to be any option to do so when I level up.

Dialogue skill checks are based on how many points you put into the different skill trees. Learning any of abilities in the Personality tab will give you more Charisma.
 

Artdayne

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,015
Ok, I get this isn't supposed to be easy but bugger me.

I'm still pretty early on, I got to the Berserker town, had a bit of a wander around and spoke to some people and decided these probably weren't the guys for me to join up with. I did hear about some former Albs though that still use Elex and Technology so figured I'd head North and join up with them. As soon as I get a little ways from the Berserker town though every creature I come across is capable of one shotting me.

What the hell? How am I supposed to join anyone other than the Berserkers if I just get smacked down trying to go to anyone else?


Also, how do I boost things like Charisma? There doesn't seem to be any option to do so when I level up.

So you are able to do quests for the Berserkers early on and still join a different faction, you aren't committed to a specific faction until much later. It might be worth it for you to take some quests at the Berserker camp to get a few levels just doing things within their settlement before you fight anything. With that said, there are definitely two enemy types for sure that you can kill at the beginning of the game. There are plenty of others you have to avoid. Utilize your sneak skill when needed to get past them. If you aggro them, run to some npcs so they can help you fight them. There are a number of ways to survive it's just a game that you have to play really careful for several hours.
 

HBK

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,972
I just wish exploration was more rewarding, and required to progress.
Well, exploration opens up some quests and more importantly some areas to loot.

If you don't loot ruins on a regular basis you're pretty broke in this game. I mean unless you're doing pickpocketing A LOT.

If I had to formulate one main criticism on the game, I think it'd be on the story department. The story itself while pretty meh is not offensively bad, it's just poorly told with godawful pacing and lots of infodumps through dialogs at some key points. I mean technically you don't have to talk about EVERY subject when they open up but you'll have to at some point so why wait? While you're there, you just do it.

There are of course other stuff such as some weird playability issues but overall given the game budget it's pretty good. The OW is well done, just about the right size, with nice vistas and all, and the progression system is super rewarding. Also the questing while not perfect (not all options exist for all quests) is amazing for a game released in 2017. You can betray pretty much anyone at many points and while it will cancel some of the quests (understandably so most of the time), many times it unlocks some interesting denouements.
 

Spleenpoker

Member
Nov 11, 2017
342
I'm hoping some kind sole can help me out here.

I got the game from gog but every time I open it, I get an instant crash at the logos.

I don't have GeForce experience installed, afterburner and rtss are closed and the game folder is in my AV exclusion list. I also have February's GPU driver. I've installed all the vcredist' and directx. I even unplugged my controller. I'm at a loss of what to do next.

I've deleted the config files but then instead of the game instantly crashing, I get a "this application was terminated abnormally" error, which at least leaves me a dump file this time, but ecrb putting it through an analyzer online, I can't make heads or tails of it sadly.

I was really interested in the game because of this thread, but looks like I won't even be able to give it a shot, which is really disheartening!

Thanks all!
 

ThreepQuest64

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
5,735
Germany
I just finished it after 40 hours. The beginning is rough as it has always been since Gothic 1. You're more busy with figuring things out, getting to know the world, characters, which areas are basically off limits due to your character's level and weakness. You try to establish yourself and the character within the game world. Only after chapter 2 the plot starts to come together and you're involvment gets substantial. And boy, the plot is the best PB have come up with since Gothic 1. Not saying it's the same, although there are many similarities. It evens holds up against many other modern and AAA RPGs. I don't want to spoil anything, but the antagonist isn't that one-sided as it seems at the beginning, and they have a clear motive apart from being the typical predictable, sinister entity that wants to destory the world.

It took me about 25 hours to reach chapter 2, when it gets more interesting, plot-wise. Pace takes up since you're then strong enough to face many, if not any, difficulties. You don't have to carefully pick your quests anymore and just do them as you please. Behind that curtain of jankyness and unrefined gameplay and combat, quests are fun, offer some surprising consequences and the storyline compensates for the flaws, which are mostly to be found in the combat mechanics and dialogs, even for this small developer team.

Although my native language is German and I love the voice-over in Gothic 1–3, Arcania and Risen 1, it got worse with NPCs since Risen 2. I guess it's due to the amount of NPCs and the increasing world that they rely on more voice actors. Risen 3 and Elex were the first PB games I played almost entirely in English, and only for the first five hours in German. English translation was inaccurate on many occasions, but sometimes better though.
 
Nov 4, 2017
284
I enjoyed it....and I'm hard to please.

If I can give one piece of advice it is to do all the side-quests before running through the main quests - this will build up the world for you so you'll know what is going on when references to places/characters etc are made during the main storyline....and secondly, the main story moving at 100 miles a minute at the end is far more enjoyable than having it spread out over longer periods.
 

Loganclaws

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
384
Still waiting on PB to fix:

Allow esdf keybinding
Add a proper stat screen
Improve skill descriptions and fix broken skills and stats
 

Charpunk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,616
Whatever happened to the X enhanced patch? They claim they submitted it well over 2 months now and nothing. I guess I should put it with RE7 in the never going to happen category.
 

Moff

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,780
I can only guess they encountered some huge problems. Their inactivity and silence is very unusual for them.
 

Hawk269

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,043
Whatever happened to the X enhanced patch? They claim they submitted it well over 2 months now and nothing. I guess I should put it with RE7 in the never going to happen category.

I bought the game on the premise of the "X" patch. So it better come soon. Been waiting a long time for it. I played the game on the One "S" for as short time since the "X" was about to come out and the game has been shelved since then. This patch needs to come out soon.
 

DPB

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,844
I can only guess they encountered some huge problems. Their inactivity and silence is very unusual for them.

Haven't they always abandoned their games after one or two patches? A number of their games have had bugs left over which lead to unoffical patches being released.
 

LordAmused

Member
Oct 29, 2017
437
Canada
I think they simply dont have the manpower/financial resources to support the game for an extended period of time. I remember reading about PB being a maximum 30 employee-studio.
 

Moff

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,780
Haven't they always abandoned their games after one or two patches? A number of their games have had bugs left over which lead to unoffical patches being released.
That was Gothic 3, but the problem of that game was that they ran out of money before the game was even launched and they changed their publisher and lost the franchise.
Risen 1 to 3 had a lot of patch support, Risen 3 expecially. Risen 3 had a combat overhaul within the first week I think and the final patch after 6 months had some new features like a new difficulty setting.
I really don't know what is happening with Elex but I assume it must be a massive problem. I can't imagine it has to do with sales though since it sold a lot more than Risen 3. It's probably because they did the console ports themselves for the first time ever.
 

Loganclaws

Banned
Nov 14, 2017
384
Combat overhaul for Risen 3? Don't remember that at all. Risen 2 had a patch where they added the dodge move, maybe that's what you're thinking about.
 

wombleac

Member
Nov 8, 2017
712
I'm about 10 hours in and I have loved every minute of this so far. I have been doing all the side quests in the first town and am trying to wrap up the first companion quest now.

The world is really fascinating and quite original in a sort of a bizzaro video game trope way. Its like an AI computer learned about all the open world games and this was what it created. Raptors, outlaws, drones, barbarians...etc. Everything seems random but very familiar. The combat is janky but even that feels oddly familiar and I think it works in its own way. I love love love the jetpack. It makes exploring the multiple levels of the environment so satisfying.

I cant wait to jump back in. I really hope more people play this, I think it could end up being a cult hit years from now.

Playing normal difficulty on the PS4.
 

HBK

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,972
I cant wait to jump back in. I really hope more people play this, I think it could end up being a cult hit years from now.
It's a great game no doubt. Unfortunately it seems great games are overrated these days.

People would rather play interactive movies or other forms of barely interactive entertainment software than just good games lol

I must be getting old. I'm out -> []
 

Elven_Star

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,955
May I bump this thread please? The game is 50% off on Steam so, I might jump in. Before doing that though, I'd like to get some impressions about the story. How does it compare to Fallout games, especially New Vegas? Can it compete? Basically, I want to play a modern New Vegas without having to go through the hassle of modding.
 

TheWordyGuy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,623
May I bump this thread please? The game is 50% off on Steam so, I might jump in. Before doing that though, I'd like to get some impressions about the story. How does it compare to Fallout games, especially New Vegas? Can it compete? Basically, I want to play a modern New Vegas without having to go through the hassle of modding.

It's nothing like New Vegas. This isn't a post apocalyptic world.
 

Artdayne

Banned
Nov 7, 2017
5,015
It doesn't have to be post apocalyptic. Guess what I'm trying to ask is whether the story is good enough to keep one engaged.

Have you played a Piranha Bytes game before? It follows a very similar pattern. The story is good, what stands out in this game is the choice and consequence. You really need to think through your decisions carefully because it will have a permanent effect on the game. As far as I know, every character can die for one. Getting better armor is gated behind three different factions, you kill a member of that faction and they learn about it, you may never get their armor, just an example. Your character is weak for a good amount of time. You need to learn what you can defeat on your own and what you need NPC help to kill and what you need to stealth around or run away from.

edit: One other thing that fascinated me about the game is that there are three factions and all three are a mix of enticing and reprehensible at the same time, I think they are deliberately designed that way. You'll also find that once you get to understand the factions more there are a variety of different personalities within each of them, some of the leaders within the faction are really strict about their rules while others approach it more as a general guide but are more willing to bend the rules when needed. Yet you still need to navigate the minefield of appealing to all of these personalities if you want to advance within that faction and get the best armor, and armor is very significant in this game because of how damage calculations work.
 
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Elven_Star

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,955
Have you played a Piranha Bytes game before? It follows a very similar pattern. The story is good, what stands out in this game is the choice and consequence. You really need to think through your decisions carefully because it will have a permanent effect on the game. As far as I know, every character can die for one. Getting better armor is gated behind three different factions, you kill a member of that faction and they learn about it, you may never get their armor, just an example. Your character is weak for a good amount of time. You need to learn what you can defeat on your own and what you need NPC help to kill and what you need to stealth around or run away from.

edit: One other thing that fascinated me about the game is that there are three factions and all three are a mix of enticing and reprehensible at the same time, I think they are deliberately designed that way. You'll also find that once you get to understand the factions more there are a variety of different personalities within each of them, some of the leaders within the faction are really strict about their rules while others approach it more as a general guide but are more willing to bend the rules when needed. Yet you still need to navigate the minefield of appealing to all of these personalities if you want to advance within that faction and get the best armor, and armor is very significant in this game because of how damage calculations work.
Thanks for taking the time to post in such detail. It would be rude not to buy the game at this point, I guess.
 
Oct 27, 2017
11,505
Bandung Indonesia
I watched some videos for this game and to tell you the truth, I find the claim in the title hard to believe. at least from what I've seen. I mean, the combat looks really atrocious.... Maybe I'm just missing something here.
 

Paul

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,603
Okay, congratulations. You proved me wrong. Good for you. Here's the thing though... the person I was responding to really wanted to know if this game has a New Vegas vibe to it - it doesn't.

You're focusing on the wrong thing here.

His point is that your original statement - This isn't a post apocalyptic world. - is flat out wrong.

Elex mashes up scifi and fantasy, but it definitely does take place in post-apocalyptic world, quite similar to Horizon Zero Dawn.

Of course it has different vibe than New Vegas, but so does every game that isn't called New Vegas including Fallout 4.
 

Jerykk

Banned
Dec 26, 2017
1,184
I watched some videos for this game and to tell you the truth, I find the claim in the title hard to believe. at least from what I've seen. I mean, the combat looks really atrocious.... Maybe I'm just missing something here.

If combat is your top priority, you should probably look elsewhere. Elex (and all of PB's games) are about exploration above all else. The worlds are large, detailed and a lot of fun to explore. There are a lot of interesting quests too. The actual gameplay (and animation and voice-acting and writing) is super janky. In that respect, these games are a lot like Bethesda's RPGs, only even jankier.

That was Gothic 3, but the problem of that game was that they ran out of money before the game was even launched and they changed their publisher and lost the franchise.
Risen 1 to 3 had a lot of patch support, Risen 3 expecially. Risen 3 had a combat overhaul within the first week I think and the final patch after 6 months had some new features like a new difficulty setting.
I really don't know what is happening with Elex but I assume it must be a massive problem. I can't imagine it has to do with sales though since it sold a lot more than Risen 3. It's probably because they did the console ports themselves for the first time ever.

I think you're talking about Risen 2, not 3. They added a dodge roll to Risen 2 because the combat didn't have any defensive options before then. Risen 3 was actually pretty polished for a PB game. I played it at launch and didn't encounter many issues at all (aside from Patty's ridiculous outfit). Elex could definitely use a patch to address the numerous playability issues. There are so many little annoyances that could be fixed with relatively little effort. A few more months in the oven could have made all the difference.
 

TheWordyGuy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,623
His point is that your original statement - This isn't a post apocalyptic world. - is flat out wrong.

Elex mashes up scifi and fantasy, but it definitely does take place in post-apocalyptic world, quite similar to Horizon Zero Dawn.

Of course it has different vibe than New Vegas, but so does every game that isn't called New Vegas including Fallout 4.

You're really banging the drum, aren't you? What do you want from me... to get down on my knees and grovel? I said I got it wrong, so chill.