Elex

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I just learned that this game existed, and was pretty interested in it, so I looked up some info online....and immediately lost all interest in it because it is a massive open world RPG with ZERO character customization.

I see plenty of comments from people in the same boat as me oddly enough. It seems that there is at least some demand for a female protagonist or literally ANY customization apart from your skills etc.

I mean if the protagonist is actually interesting then I'll still probably check it out, but considering it has a tagline of being "full of freedom and choices" I find the lack of choice regarding my character to be considerable.

 

[Zhukov]

"Elex? Never heard of it.

*Youtubes*

Oh, that thing. Okay, I did hear about it, but then I filed it directly into the trash can of my memory.

Looks like a single player MMO, complete with boring setting, crappy animation and tedious healthbar-em-up combat.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Looks pretty stock standard as far as games go.

I'd look more into it, but a one minute trailer where part of the sound track is the same breathing looped into my ear for over a minute is enough for me, thanks.

Unrelated, I think it's silly to consider the lack of character creation an automatic detriment. Seems silly and kind of petty, particularly if one is willing to give the Witcher a 'pass.'

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It's the developer of the Risen games, right? Those terrible RPGs that somehow get funded every time. That is generally not a great impression, people are supposed to hone their skills with further experience.

 

[SweetShark]

I saw only pictures.
So it is like Fantasy Theme game taking place to an Alien Planet?
If yes, cool idea, but the execution not good enough. Looks right now very generic and grey/brown for my taste.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Fantastic game. My GOTY. And I've played Divinity Original Sin 2.

 

[sXeth]

I just learned that this game existed, and was pretty interested in it, so I looked up some info online....and immediately lost all interest in it because it is a massive open world RPG with ZERO character customization.

I see plenty of comments from people in the same boat as me oddly enough. It seems that there is at least some demand for a female protagonist or literally ANY customization apart from your skills etc.

I mean if the protagonist is actually interesting then I'll still probably check it out, but considering it has a tagline of being "full of freedom and choices" I find the lack of choice regarding my character to be considerable.

Well, he's from a chemically-induced cold emotionless race(sort of) of super-soldiers. By the end of the intro segment, he's been exiled from said race, and apparently completely cured of his drug habit. And is a cold emotionless super soldier who delivers everything in the same slightly gruff bass monotone. You get the occasional options to pick, sometimes, when someone remembered to put them in or whatever. Your companions will react occasionally, while other times ignoring conversations even when directly addressed within it. They all have some sort rep meter with you, which gets really vague beyond they don't like you helping another faction. You get to pick one of the three factions (Tech viking/wizard people, tech using priests, or theif guys with chems and regular type guns). Hypothetically you could lone wolf it, but not sure if there's any real storyline consideration for that (and as noted below, it horribly gimps you mechanically)


The gameplay itself sort of hovers around barely functional, sometimes dropping down to awful due to the AI apparently having a breakdown and highly suspect hitboxes. And of the 3 companions I found, one literally would never fight, one guy one shot everything when he decided to fight (usually after some comical merry-go-rounding for a minute or two, and the other one did fight, but mostly did no damage to anything. You yourself also seem to be in that last category, until you consign yourself to one of the hilariously awful named factions (not that the enemy "Albs" exactly is impressive, but it at least didn't seem like they took a concept and ran a random thesaurus check on it) at which point you unlock weapons or powers that would qualify as useful.

 

[Nedoras]

Elex was made by the team behind the Gothic series, and is touted as being the spiritual successor to it. I'd say that it more or less is, which I think is a good thing, but it doesn't play much better than the Gothic games and those are pretty old at this point. It's janky as hell, and is relatively dated mechanically. Still, if you can get around the game feeling like it's from mid-2000's and mute the dialogue (fucking hell the voice acting is terrible), I'd say it's worth a go. I haven't played it all that much yet, but I'm having fun with it so far. However, I'm also someone who can stomach playing extremely dated games so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

 

[TheFinish]

It's the same game Piranha Bytes has been releasing in one form or another since Gothic II. None of their games ever had any form of character customisation, this one is no different.

And it has most of the stuff from a Piranha Bytes game: ok graphics, mediocre story, horrible combat (people will tell you the combat is "challenging" or "rewarding". It's not. It's just clunky and terrible.), horrible voice acting. But the world building and the quests are actually pretty good, and you do have a lot of choice in how you approach stuff.

But much like the other games by the same company (which are really just small variations on the same damn game for the last 14 years) this isn't a game you "play". For the first few levels you're frustrated because you're incredibly weak and everything breaks you. Then, you have your eureka moment, and you learn how to properly play the game: exploiting the hell out of it. And with that, you can advance until you reach a point where your character is so OP you can actually stop exploiting it.

But Elex is worse than other games in the series because it has an even worse UI than Gothic 3; it gives you no bloody information about your own stats; seriously, you can't see how much health/mana/PSI you actually have, to know how much damage you can take or how much you can cast, you have to eyeball it. It's also incredibly vague with how stats like Strength or Dexterity affect damage, or how much Health Constitution gives you, to the point people thought (and frankly I still think) that they did nothing until the dev came in and said "No, no; it does something, it's just minuscule!". And to top it all off, we've somehow regressed from Risen 3 animations/voice acting.

 

[meiam]

Personally I never cared about character visual customization, I just click random and pick w/e I get. The fact that it doesn't have character customization is actually a small plus in my book since it means they didn't waste resource on that and can spend it on something else.

That being said, it really does look like they overstretched there budget, graphic are insanely dated and UI looks awful. I actually made a topic on the steam page about how terrible the image selection they displays on the game store page. It's all scenic shoot but the graphic are so bad it's just doing themselves a disservice. From what I understand the selling points is the fact that you're not an unstoppable badass at the start (which sounds nice, I want there to be area I can't possibly explore early game) and the vast number of choice you get in quest, along with branching storyline. Well none of the picture on display are about combat or dialogue choice...

I'll probably check it out once it goes on sales.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

 

[TheFinish]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

It really isn't. And the combat isn't fine. It's clunky, it's slow, and it mostly devolves into "circle strafe a dude for 10 minutes doing chip damage until it dies".

You know, until you realise grenades kill everything in like 2 hits, vendors stock them inifinitely, and getting infinite money is stupid easy. Then you just blow everyone up.

So, typical Piranha Bytes experience in a nutshell.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

It really isn't. And the combat isn't fine. It's clunky, it's slow, and it mostly devolves into "circle strafe a dude for 10 minutes doing chip damage until it dies".

You do realise you get faster with more dexterity points?

And if you think this is clunky, try replaying Gothic 1.

Grenades won't work on faster enemies who will avoid them. And there are a lot more methods to kill something than circling doing "chip damage".

 

[TheFinish]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

It really isn't. And the combat isn't fine. It's clunky, it's slow, and it mostly devolves into "circle strafe a dude for 10 minutes doing chip damage until it dies".

You do realise you get faster with more dexterity points?

And if you think this is clunky, try replaying Gothic 1.

Grenades won't work on faster enemies who will avoid them. And there are a lot more methods to kill something than circling doing "chip damage".

Uh, enemies can't avoid grenades if you set them to "Detonate on Contact" mode. Y'know, the one and only mode that you should ever use? And if you don't want to use grenades, just use the flamethrower. Even better range, a bit less damage, same absolute OP drek.

Yes, Gothic I was clunky. Gothic I also came out in 2001. This game has no business being this idiotically clunky. There's a horrible delay, the animations don't sinc well, the hitboxes are some of the bloody worst I've seen in recent memory.

And no, to be honest, I didn't notice any speed improvement between my 10 Dexterity and my 100 Dexterity. But then again, I beat this game in the 3-4 days post launch, so this may have been patched.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

It really isn't. And the combat isn't fine. It's clunky, it's slow, and it mostly devolves into "circle strafe a dude for 10 minutes doing chip damage until it dies".

You do realise you get faster with more dexterity points?

And if you think this is clunky, try replaying Gothic 1.

Grenades won't work on faster enemies who will avoid them. And there are a lot more methods to kill something than circling doing "chip damage".

Uh, enemies can't avoid grenades if you set them to "Detonate on Contact" mode. Y'know, the one and only mode that you should ever use? And if you don't want to use grenades, just use the flamethrower. Even better range, a bit less damage, same absolute OP drek.

Yes, Gothic I was clunky. Gothic I also came out in 2001. This game has no business being this idiotically clunky. There's a horrible delay, the animations don't sinc well, the hitboxes are some of the bloody worst I've seen in recent memory.

And no, to be honest, I didn't notice any speed improvement between my 10 Dexterity and my 100 Dexterity. But then again, I beat this game in the 3-4 days post launch, so this may have been patched.

3-4 days? I call bollocks on that, the game is 80+ hours and unless you played 24 hours a day would not have come close to finishing it.

Anyway, what's wrong with slow combat? I like it. Far better than most of the hyperactive, ADD combat that you get with pretty much all other ARPGs.

 

[Warhound]

Honestly it is pretty damn clunky, and has an issue with the levels of enemies varying wildly and without any real organic reasoning behind it. Can go from fighting a low level critter in the swamp then encounter a building containing human enemies who will curb stomp you the moment they spot you.

It also took quite a while for it to get interesting, like 15 hours in or something when I finally got to the people who use laser and plasma rifles and got them to accept me.

It has been enjoyable enough but it is very, very rough.

 

[TheFinish]

Played it about halfway through, its fucking trash. Pirahna Bytes have lost their touch and to be honest I actually think its insulting of them to put out a 60 dollar game with THAT combat system.

The combat system is fine. It's just in the first half of the game, you've lost your powers and are not a good fighter. When you increase your stats that changes. I don't get why games like Dark Souls are praised as "difficult" and then games like Elex are said to be "clunky".

This is Piranha Bytes best game yet.

It really isn't. And the combat isn't fine. It's clunky, it's slow, and it mostly devolves into "circle strafe a dude for 10 minutes doing chip damage until it dies".

You do realise you get faster with more dexterity points?

And if you think this is clunky, try replaying Gothic 1.

Grenades won't work on faster enemies who will avoid them. And there are a lot more methods to kill something than circling doing "chip damage".

Uh, enemies can't avoid grenades if you set them to "Detonate on Contact" mode. Y'know, the one and only mode that you should ever use? And if you don't want to use grenades, just use the flamethrower. Even better range, a bit less damage, same absolute OP drek.

Yes, Gothic I was clunky. Gothic I also came out in 2001. This game has no business being this idiotically clunky. There's a horrible delay, the animations don't sinc well, the hitboxes are some of the bloody worst I've seen in recent memory.

And no, to be honest, I didn't notice any speed improvement between my 10 Dexterity and my 100 Dexterity. But then again, I beat this game in the 3-4 days post launch, so this may have been patched.

3-4 days? I call bollocks on that, the game is 80+ hours and unless you played 24 hours a day would not have come close to finishing it.

Anyway, what's wrong with slow combat? I like it. Far better than most of the hyperactive, ADD combat that you get with pretty much all other ARPGs.

I actually had to go check on Steam because I wasn't sure, but indeed I was exaggerating. I Beat the game on October 24th, so a week after release (which is 3 days before the first patch hit). Took me 33 hours and 38 minutes, according to the game, Level 42 Cleric, completed all the Quests I could with the exception of 1 or 2, including the post final battle stuff. The only way you get 80+ hours of content in this game is replays, even exploring most of the map doesnt take that long (and I know, because I had to trek all over the damn map to complete a scavenger hunt quest for the Clerics)

And slow combat can be fine. Elex combat is slow because you're chomping through horribly bloated HP bars and Jax can literally only do five quick attacks before his stamina bar depletes. Less if you use Heavies or Dodge. And the talent that gives you more Stamina, when maxed, only gives you enough for 2 more light hits. Whoop di doo.

So a lot of the combat is circle strafing an enemy while your stamina recharges, because if an enemy hits you WITHOUT stamina, it stops the regen, stun locks you, and sends you into a quick death. Which you can also do to them, until your stamina depletes anyway. Unless they're monsters or animals, because those have infinite stamina.

At least if you're moderately good you can pull off "combos" to keep your damage increased, but until you get a melee weapon that's been upgraded to level 2 or higher even that won't help you much. And I'm talking about enemies your own level here.

All of this, coupled with bad animations and absolutely shameful hitboxes and hit detection, makes for a really bad combat system. Not that ranged is much better, mind you, since the hitboxes are even worse, but at least with ranged you won't die as often, and ranged has AOE options do deal with groups (which melee does not).