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ELEX ELEX II - Jax is back

lukaszek

the determinator
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what if dungeon is something that used to be a tower that was lifted up, turned upside down and then showed hard into the ground?
 

Haplo

Prophet
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I think my biggest gripes with the original Elex despite liking the core game was the near-zero amount of dungeons and the distinct lack of effort put into locations worth exploring given how the game is so geographically focused on ruins. They're all boring and there's nothing in them. So when I see a post about a geographical location in the open world in marketing for Elex II, it actually makes me dehyped

I do remember most valuable weapons were found in the open or above ground, which is... quite weird design, I agree.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think my biggest gripes with the original Elex despite liking the core game was the near-zero amount of dungeons and the distinct lack of effort put into locations worth exploring given how the game is so geographically focused on ruins. They're all boring and there's nothing in them. So when I see a post about a geographical location in the open world in marketing for Elex II, it actually makes me dehyped

I do remember most valuable weapons were found in the open or above ground, which is... quite weird design, I agree.
Not that weird if you remember the jet pack.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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I think my biggest gripes with the original Elex despite liking the core game was the near-zero amount of dungeons and the distinct lack of effort put into locations worth exploring given how the game is so geographically focused on ruins. They're all boring and there's nothing in them. So when I see a post about a geographical location in the open world in marketing for Elex II, it actually makes me dehyped

I do remember most valuable weapons were found in the open or above ground, which is... quite weird design, I agree.
Not that weird if you remember the jet pack.

How does the jetpack explain lack of interesting exploration? If anything, it should enable more creative exploration with out-of-reach places and such. When I say "dungeons" I don't mean "caves". I just mean world locations that are indepedent exploration sites. I remember finding many ruins throughout especially the forest-location, but they were nearly all empty except for a critter, a consumable and a log.
 

Peachcurl

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Exploration was one of the major strong points of Elex. Missing that, what else would you be interested in?

The story is passable at best.

The main character has the charisma of a folding chair.

The combat is reasonably fun, but also quite janky.

The graphical quality is fine, but nothing to call home about.

Which leaves the atmosphere and environmental design I guess?
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Exploration was one of the major strong points of Elex.
Compared to an average game? Probably. Compared to a PB game? Not really. The world is a lot bigger, sure, but the hand crafted feeling took a hit and there's just way too many places that offer little else than mugs, cigs and toilet paper. The fact that those places are often guarded by deceptively strong enemies doesn't help.

It also does "getting excited about finding a unique weapon or a recipe" slightly better than R2-3, but not nearly as good as the peak PB games.
 

thesheeep

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^ Which is precisely why I thought the game was OK but never understood all the hype.
Well, in the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

I feel this is very applicable to ELEX when compared to the majority of (so-called) RPGs. It is only recently that more RPGs with similar exploration focus have come out / are being developed.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I think my biggest gripes with the original Elex despite liking the core game was the near-zero amount of dungeons and the distinct lack of effort put into locations worth exploring given how the game is so geographically focused on ruins. They're all boring and there's nothing in them. So when I see a post about a geographical location in the open world in marketing for Elex II, it actually makes me dehyped

I do remember most valuable weapons were found in the open or above ground, which is... quite weird design, I agree.
Not that weird if you remember the jet pack.

Perhaps. But kind of removes the feeling of having earned that trophy by pushing trough a deadly dungeon challenge. The best two handed weapons I could possibly find (Tier II elemental/poison) were maybe guarded by 3 strong mobs or in an area with some environmental hazard. Not in a deep, deadly maze to explore.
Kinda disappointing.
 

CthuluIsSpy

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Face is like :3

Gay aliens from outer space?

I think that armor design is pretty cool.
Whilst Elex did have problems concerning gameplay, it did have a really nice art direction. Only thing I could really bitch about are Alb helmets having 4 eyes even though they are worn by humans.

Exploration was one of the major strong points of Elex.
Compared to an average game? Probably. Compared to a PB game? Not really. The world is a lot bigger, sure, but the hand crafted feeling took a hit and there's just way too many places that offer little else than mugs, cigs and toilet paper. The fact that those places are often guarded by deceptively strong enemies doesn't help.

It also does "getting excited about finding a unique weapon or a recipe" slightly better than R2-3, but not nearly as good as the peak PB games.

Yeah, what bothered me about Elex is that it really, really wanted you explore but at the same time had a punishing difficulty curve that made you encounter enemies that you couldn't kill but they could kill you, which in most games means "get the fuck out, you aren't supposed to be here".
Got some mixed messages, to be honest.

The main character has the charisma of a folding chair.
To be fair, most western RPG characters have shit for charisma nowadays.
I mean, look at Fallout 4 and Mass Effect.
 

Raskens

Learned
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Yeah, what bothered me about Elex is that it really, really wanted you explore but at the same time had a punishing difficulty curve that made you encounter enemies that you couldn't kill but they could kill you, which in most games means "get the fuck out, you aren't supposed to be here".

This was the case in Gothic 1, 2 and Risen (it probably was the case for most older semi-open to open world RPGs). Also, It's also a good thing as it makes leveling up more satisfying
 

CthuluIsSpy

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On the internet, writing shit posts.
Yeah, what bothered me about Elex is that it really, really wanted you explore but at the same time had a punishing difficulty curve that made you encounter enemies that you couldn't kill but they could kill you, which in most games means "get the fuck out, you aren't supposed to be here".

This was the case in Gothic 1, 2 and Risen (it probably was the case for most older semi-open to open world RPGs). Also, It's also a good thing as it makes leveling up more satisfying
Most games do that, actually, but they tend to organize the scaling in such a way that super hard to kill enemies are rare and relative to the area you're in and if you do kill them you at least get something out of it.
Elex doesn't do that, even basic enemies are a chore to fight and if you do beat them you get nothing for it. You don't really get rewarded that much for your effort.

Imagine if in say, Fallout 2, a single ant pushes your shit in with hardly any effort. That's kind of like what Elex did. Suffice to say, I wasn't a fan of having to play the game for several hours before being able to actually do something to common enemies.

I don't mind not being able to kill molochs at level one, but fucking biters? I can't even fight those gits? It's kind of hard to actually explore and get the means to get good if you can't walk two feet without running into an enemy you can't fight and then run around aimlessly like a headless chook. It just feels like a really counter-intuitive approach to game design to me.
 
Last edited:
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Jun 23, 2020
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Yeah, what bothered me about Elex is that it really, really wanted you explore but at the same time had a punishing difficulty curve that made you encounter enemies that you couldn't kill but they could kill you, which in most games means "get the fuck out, you aren't supposed to be here".

This was the case in Gothic 1, 2 and Risen (it probably was the case for most older semi-open to open world RPGs). Also, It's also a good thing as it makes leveling up more satisfying
Most games do that, actually, but they tend to organize the scaling in such a way that super hard to kill enemies are rare and relative to the area you're in and if you do kill them you at least get something out of it.
Elex doesn't do that, even basic enemies are a chore to fight and if you do beat them you get nothing for it. You don't really get rewarded that much for your effort.

Imagine if in say, Fallout 2, a single ant pushes your shit in with hardly any effort. That's kind of like what Elex did. Suffice to say, I wasn't a fan of having to play the game for several hours before being able to actually do something to common enemies.

I don't mind not being able to kill molochs at level one, but fucking biters? I can't even fight those gits? It's kind of hard to actually explore and get the means to get good if you can't walk two feet without running into an enemy you can't fight and then run around aimlessly like a headless chook. It just feels like a really counter-intuitive approach to game design to me.
Dude, in Pyranha Bytes' games you are supposed to finish a bunch of non-violent quests in the major city(ies) before you can get enough levels to properly fight any enemies and go out exploring. Your character starts at the absolute rock bottom of the food chain and has to slowly climb up the ranks in order to earn his place at the top, if you don't like this kind of progression structure I would advise you to not even bother trying to play other games by this studio.
 

Wunderbar

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Nov 15, 2015
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Yeah, what bothered me about Elex is that it really, really wanted you explore but at the same time had a punishing difficulty curve that made you encounter enemies that you couldn't kill but they could kill you, which in most games means "get the fuck out, you aren't supposed to be here".
the great thing about PB games difficulty curve is that you can cheese hard encounters by luring monsters closer to NPCs who will help you. And some monsters have a very predictable attack patterns, so you can kill them even at an earlier levels (yeah it's basically a minigame of "make 1000 perfect strikes and die if you failed to dodge once", but it's doable).
 

Murk

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Jan 17, 2008
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13,459
Elex 1 had tons of just marijuana all over. Including a nice high-elevation hidden camp with at on of plants that you can get to from the very beginning (leads up to the crashed raider).
 

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