ELEX RELEASE THREAD

ah yes spacetime, they are still developing that?

 

Haha, I wasn't serious - I was just reminded of that odd Piranha Bytes RED announcement back in 2015 - The logo is even colourised on the Polish flag Is "Spacetime" the codeword for a vault in Poland where Piranha Bytes ("Blue?") will run if they go bankrupt? Has Michael Hoge been waiting in there this whole time with ex-CDPR team members, bored - did they, in their boredom, start making this a Gothic mod, but forget to hide their studio-level of experience in it's presentation? Lol. https://thehistoryofkhorinis.com/ (seriously though, how impressive is that for a mod?)

Nah, to be honest, side-by-side each of them is a studio that has delivered cRPGS I consider equal parts flawed & great, but in different areas. I think they both understand rich C&C as a core focus in CRPGs, better than most - and their approach to strategy in action/real-time, has been high risk/reward, using tactile feedback (Gothic typically split it with RNG and made it like Poker). Witcher has a higher quality of storytelling & character development (a book series helps) but Gothic recaptured the Ultima 7 simulated world, with complex A.I routines & a crime system (killable NPCs, theft etc) based on common sense e.g: you can't wander through someones house without them calling for help etc. If you were to combine two teams with strengths & focus like this, you would get a brilliant game.

 

Well damn. I'm not giving up on Piranhas though, I'll be looking forward to their new releases.

Well look at team that made Returning. It might be of questionable quality or even a turd to some people but a lot of stuff has been made to create it. And even for a mod it has a lot of new content and features. I wouldn't mind studios creating mods for their games especially for something like gothic, if it happened it might've even breathed new life into game communities that were not as active.

 

look like ‘murica consider germans like aliens


why no merkel gif?

 

Elex was Germany's cry for help regarding Merkel. The conclusion - need human hybrid A.I to deal with inc "external" threat, only shelter the ones who voluntarily opt out of emotions lol

"Ve vill give sequel, if Merkel is found dead within 1 year" - Piranha Bytes

 

Can't decide if I liked Elex or not. I went from having fun beeing slaughtered like back in the gothic days and climbing my way to beeing a decent fighter slowly bit by bit to just YOLOing through everything after i found "the redeemer", didn't even loot the enemies anymore nor spent my points to level up, just killed everything so easy and the fun suddenly vanished. Quests became boring chores with a fad story where they give you a little illusion of choice with the cold-emotion system but you are rather forced to click the answer because of your current emotional alignment.
Exploration became boring after you finally realize you only find more fucking toilet paper and flares in those chests and nothing special anyway.

I really gave this game a chance and did almost every side quest I found but after 38 hours of playing I was glad it was finally over as it became rather a tedious taks than an exciting adventure.

Had enough Elex at the end and could have instantly deep-freeze myself (when I had a big amount of Elex they already patched in that using elex gave you cold value and didn't want to stray of my "warm" playthrough) and 5-shotted the final boss anyway without using any of it. And I played on ultra difficulty

You could argue that using plasma rifles is just broken - and you are right - but you have no other chance as an dex/int character on ultra difficulty, you just do zero melee damage with such a build.

 

I've just finished ELEX for the first time.

The game is great, kind of. It's the first game for years that's really "gamey" for me, i.e. I kept returning to it almost every single day for the past one month and a half to progress just a little further or to see what other options lie ahead of me in terms of character progression and equipment. It's extremely bold with sticking to the very first design choices and concepts that probably sprung before the game entered the early development stage. The devs had a complete control over the whole process and it shows throughout the game. The game throws you into the world without any kind of explanation how to play it, and that's great. You have to figure out things for yourself, you don't know what will await for you in the end, you can't sneak peek to the end-game abilities and play styles that's present in an every single game nowadays. You will make mistakes when progressing your character and you will have no option of easily getting rid of them (well, if you don't abuse elex, of course, but I think it's a design choice to railroad you into a specific ending and as such I think it's neat). The player character is also not a demi-god with access to things that enemies don't have. Even a lesser reaver can bring out a flame thrower and burn you to a crisp, just like you can. Enemies can riposte your attacks, just like you can and it works along the same rules. There is no slow motion scope aiming helpless mobs. Even though you could argue about jetpack, it's neatly balanced with most of enemies ranged attacks (even if it looks strange), so the jetpack doesn't really give an upper hand in fights.
It's the first real "gothic" game since Risen 1, although it's the worst of the bunch. This pure love to your own creation, no matter how perceived it is as long as it suits your own goals of making your dream game, is beautiful within itself. It really feels like a 2001 game thrown into 2017.
However, just like in Gothic 3, the overall experience is hampered by a sheer world's size. They tried to do too much, (probably) run out of time and wrapped things up for the release. The world design is neat, especially in Edan, Abessa and Tavar. But, Ignadon is completely irrelevant (still pretty good), and Xacor is an equivalent of PB end-game dungeon, like Irdorath (but much worse). The quality difference between Abessa and Xacor is just striking and it's obvious that the later in-game locations weren't finished. The same goes for the quest content. The Edan and Abessa parts are great, things slow down in Tavar, to come to an almost complete halt in Ignadon and the 3rd and the 4th story acts. Especially the faction and later main story stuff seem to be severely cut down and quickly patched up (the final assault and the Hybrid fight are the best examples) for the release. Some things really do go nowhere (the Rat in Fort) and faction hubs further into the game feel empty and irrelevant. The Ice Palace is clearly patched up for the release, with a few empty corridors and blocked entrances. The final chamber gives me a Sleeper/Titan vibes, but it went nowhere, replaced with a boring and quick Risen2/3 ending fight. The very end is also handicapped, end slides completely broke for me. Some quest chains didn't come to an end (Caja romance didn't come to its conclusion before ending all main story quests, although my player character and she already confessed their love to each other, eh).
The progression pacing is also off. While the beginning is great, though arguably overcharged with seemingly unbeatable HP bloats for early weapons (yeah, I know that the point is to avoid all fighting, but still it feels off that a green critter, that gives just a bit more xp than a normal rat, is literally a tank). Slowly you get better weapons, armor and resistances to kill more tough things (raptors, jackals, even solo out a mutated bug or a ripper), but suddenly in a blink of an eye you roll through everything with little to no effort. Sure, you can still die easily even to lesser beings (like a skex) on a 40th level, but it doesn't happen until you walk away from your desk and stand idle in-game. The same thing happens in Gothic of course, but much later into the game. It feels, again, wrapped up in a middle of making. Shared teachers among the factions, a lack of attribute teachers, and finally lack of blocked out features until you learn them (e.g. levels for using certain classes of weapons unblocking new move sets just like in Gothic, mining, etc.) doesn't really match the encounters you meet throughout the game. But my grips, aside of the obvious "the game is not finished", are mostly a quality of life ones. They should've added more teachers, blocked off some skills behind teachers, replace some monsters, remade teleporter system (do not activate them at the beginning, instead they should've tied them down with the story and block in acts 1/2). I really miss Gothic 2/Risen crafting's ways of conduct, you know what I'm talking about: take an iron ore, smelt it into an iron bar, then forge a sword. Instead, it's an instant product through a terrible UI. For me, it's the worst thing in this game, because rushing things is understandable, a terrible UI is not. It's a thing that must be redone in Elex 2, that's for sure.

Also

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fucking space lizards

 

Thanks for the reminder. Had forgotten this one.

Should be interesting and certainly better than whatever Pankratz Bytes will release.

 

No aweigh Spectacle
THis Elex hype is codex trolling meme bandwagon.

The combat is absolute shit. The hitboxes are like 10 times fatter than you.

The UI is shittier than the generic pay2win korean MMO. Inventory management is a nightmare

when you change areas, the lens flare/bloom whatever is pure eye rape.

Questing is broken; you tend to complete quests out of nowhere when you initiate dialogue for example.

The only saving grace is exploration; but everything else in the game from the clunky console controls to amateur hitboxes to phoned in UI is definitely not worth it

 

It's my game of the year. 100% honest, no memes involved.

 

I finished it, it sucked even more than DOS2.

Forget it, game is trash, TW3 is better than this and I dislike TW3.

Can go fuck themselves, I will not be playing their games anymore. Good thing that unlike with DOS2 I didn't give them money for their shit.

 

You know what's interesting about it ? My hour counter on a saved game says 36 hours yet it felt like I was playing for 120. I've never experienced a game to be this much of a drAg for me before.

 

Quoted for truth.

:mrpresident:

 

However there is one thing I should've mentioned about Elex - it's "emotions vs logic" dilemma. Probably the only thing I liked about the game, it's natural for humans to be emotional and it really saddens me that usually emotions are looked down upon as plenty of people favour logic instead. Some of the most informative posts on the internet feel like they were written by a robot and sometimes a really educated person in a dialogue doesn't feel much different from an AI. And how people usually ask others to calm down when they become emotionally invested in something and start, for example, speaking louder or making chaotic gestures, let them do it, it makes communication more interesting. It's good to have things balanced not one sided.

 

I never knew that UI and the presence of lens flares were some of the most important factors in determining whether an RPG is shit or not. Clearly I can apply this logic to any RPG:

• PoE: UI is good, no lens flares, so obviously it's 10/10 and the best game of all time.
• Grimoire: has a crappy UI, but doesn't have any lens flares, so it turns out to be 9/10, which is mediocre.
• ELEX: has a shitty UI, but has loads of lens flares and other post-processing effects, which makes it 8/10, which is obviously the lowest rating we can give it.

 

Did you ever play a Piranha Bytes game before that?
It is common knowledge that ranged is always broken. It is mandatory.

 

Summoning and aoe spells, too.

In ELEX, aoe is also broken AF.
I assume that when someone here talks about plasma weapons being "broken", they mean abusing the "explosive" firing mode, which makes those people cheaters in my eyes.

 

they are a totally different team? ladt interview pankratz say they are 27, i don’t think the red team is part of that 27 people.

so they have same name but a tor

 

I forgot to add: PB, for the love of God, bring back pointer NPCs. An absolute lack of interaction with 95% of characters in your game is just soul rending. It wouldn't be much to do, considering G1 did it perfectly already. Just give all generic NPCs copy-pasted expository answers ("where am I", "how to get to...?", "who's in charge here?") with a few voice actors/reuse other voice actors. This would also get rid of necessity of using quest markers where they're not needed.

 

I'm wondering, how many people who worked on Gothic 1/2 are still a part of Piranha Bytes and worked on Elex?

 

Very few, and most of them used to have unimportant positions back then iirc. I made the comparison once for Risen 3, so not a lot could have changed since then.

 

bjorn don’t work at PB since g1?

 

yeah and his duties there included "additional game design", "administration", "quality assurance", "music" and "additional sound effects"

sooooooooooooooooooooooooo...