Elex First Impressions
 

Um, I don't have any but @joxer didn't want to create the thread ;)

Okay then. To quote from other thread:
Dunno about that one, but when I fired up the game I've set all graphics options on max - maybe it's some sort of placebo effect but honestly the game on my machine looks better than in any video I've seen previously.
Dunno about cheats, but you can train your stamina up. I mean, you most probably will train it up even if you won't stick to melee so you can sprint as long as you want.

I think the guy who made the video wrote he used ReShade or a similar tool.

I bet Elex supports the same kind of .ini tweaking as all PB games since G3 though.

Where are the actual impressions ?

I think most of us are too busy playing. :)

I'm at my GF's house for the night though, so no more gaming until tomorrow for me. It gives me time to talk about it though.

The first thing that comes to mind is how polished it is. I've noticed a few minor things, like foliage clipping through solid objects, and creatures occasionally getting stuck on something in the environment, but overall it's been surprisingly problem-free for a new release.

It also runs very smooth on my mid-high range system with every option set to max.

As I've mentioned in other threads, I don't think highly of the English voice acting. It's a subjective thing though, and it's certainly not a deal-breaker. I've also noticed that they re-used the same faces for multiple npcs.

Combat is pretty rough, but I'm not sure if that's due more to the game mechanics or the fact my character is still rather unskilled. I think it's both.

The music is just "ok" imo. It's not bad, but it doesn't stand out like it did in the Gothics.

Exploration seems very strong and reminds me more of Gothic 1&2 than the Risen series. The map is huge, but I've everywhere I've been so far has been rewarding. There's no empty buildings or caves like in Gothic 3. Every area has something to find, and there's so much to explore it's almost overwhelming.

Most of the sidequests I've done so far had at least 2 different ways to complete them, and some of them connect in one way or another. There are also quite a few opportunities to use skills during dialogue which is a first for PB.

If I have one major complaint it's that quite a few quests force you to activate a quest marker to find your objective. You're told you need to talk to X person but not told where to find them.

I give PB credit for not having markers on by default, but I hate to see them falling into that routine where you're given a quest and the PC magically knows where to go without being told. I know that's how most developers have been doing it for a long time now, but I was hoping PB wouldn't get that lazy.

OKay so Jax leads me to Gotier(?) and all I have is a rusty ax and a pair of worker pants and a great amulet I found at the very beginning of the game. Plus tons of miscellaneous stuff I picked up along the way. And I mean tons. Yeaaaaaaaa, Gothic I mean Elex has no weight requirements.

After my little discussion with Jax at the front of the town instead of going into town I decide to explore this small home located at the bottom of the road that lead to Goiter. Crappy weapon, little armor and the barest of enchantments and brand spanking new to the world . . . what could go wrong?

There were couple large rats at the small home and they were dispatched but there was a also side shack just next to home. I decided to explore. It was dark in there. Something glowed. I picked it up and as I got further I could see that there were stairs in the back of this little shack. There were a couple shinny objects I could see on the lower lever so BANG, it was looting time.

As I carefully went down the stairs I started picking up stuff. It was great until I thought I heard something. Maybe it was my dog who likes to nap by my feet. I kept on looting. More scuffling sounds. Not my dog. And it was fricking scary. Gothic Scary. I had no business down there. There is a price to pay when you wander off path. I know that. And yet here I was picking up nube trash instead of looking for proper equipment and weapon that Jax had so kindly taken me too. Hmmm, when was the last time I saved . . . . ?????

Yeah, this is a PB game

In Elex, trashmobs respawn.
I'm not sure to what extent, seems it's not every second as in DA Inquisition and Skyrim but it takes a while till they reappear. Also, so far I've seen only "lowlife" reappearing, not sure if hard minibosses are godlike too.

While it's still IMO bad they betrayed own design for mainstream filler, if only "easy" trashmobs respawn so I don't have to waste time on that crap, that's okay.

Speaking about mainstream, many reviewers said there is no handholding. It's not true. Each quest you can mark as active in the log and you'll immediately spot exact points of interest on the map. :(
If it was really that necessary, instead of direct pointer on some NPC or loot they could have put a vague circle or something like in TW3 so you need to explore a marked area.

EDIT:
Forgot to add. I'm not happy with stealth system. Or it's bugged?
Sometimes I don't sneak at all and noone notices me stealing stuff, sometimes NPCs see me through walls. It's basically quicksave, steal, if spotted by a guard in the adjacent room that shouldn't see you at all, reload.
Which is not a huge hassle as unlike many recent games, quicksave/quickload is superfast, but still.

I literally just played up to arriving at the first settlement (pretty sure I am Jax and it was Duras, former enemy of Worf, who lead me there). All seems fine performance and bug wise. I started on the hard difficulty (think its called 'Difficult') mainly because of memories of Risen 3 being far too easy but I'm delighted to say it wasn't easy at all which was great. As JDR said that might change once you've got more stamina, for example, as it does seem to be a serious limiter but I'm happy that stamina stops me from rolling constantly like an acrobat on steroids like so many games these days.

One thing I can't quite figure is the Q to perform special move. It tells me I am good to go for a Q move but pressing it does nothing. Am I suppose to tap Q, or press it while also attacking with left mouse button? Still not sure.

I haven't had that happen yet, but I won't try to steal something if anyone else is nearby even if I'm not directly in their line of sight. It's probably based on proximity like in TES.

I'm having the same issue.

I've performed some Q-attacks by holding LMB down and pressing Q. Not sure if that's the real formula though.

I have gotten it to work by timing the attack just right. Not positive but I read somewhere that you have to do that special attack before the meter starts to go down - meaning you have to do it while you have the momentum. I have done it a half dozen times now just timing it right. But I think its the special attack. With the lead pipe I did 3 slams in a row when I activated it.

https://guides.gamepressure.com/elex/guide.asp?ID=41845

Some quick first impressions now that I have a day and night of playing:

This game reminds me of some old animated cartoons I use to watch - He-man and Thundercats are two that come to mind. By this I simply mean the voices were not great, the animation wasn't great, it was corny, and the quality was not the likes of Walt Disney or Pixar … yet they were still fun to watch and I enjoyed them.

I think that sums up my overall impression of the game. This is not a high quality game. Having gotten used to professional voice overs, animation, and very smooth polish of games chocked full of details that becomes very apparent. But that doesn't make a game bad IMO. It simply means this is a lower budget game with a smaller team. So comparing it to a AAA style game doesn't make sense to me in that regard. It is fun for what it is.

Anyhow some quick things I have noticed while playing:

- Graphics are nice with some good lighting. But lens flare is too intense at times and can overwhelm the scene instead of enhancing it.
- Over-saturated colors (to me at least as I tend to like a bit less neon) that could use a good ReShade preset to tone down, something I may work on later.
- No ability to hide the GUI, just something I like for screenshots being a screenshot nut
- The trader in town, Sindha (can't recall her actual name) has rather unusually long arms and wide hips. Just stood out for me along with the constantly jiggling boobs. Amusing in a way.
- Weather could use a little work. The rain didn't match the sky. Playing at daytime I noticed it was raining but the sky was bright and it felt sunny out. It should be more overcast with darker clouds, especially since the rain was coming down at a decent pace.
- While the realism was nice it was just a tad annoying that I could not look at my map or quest log … or anything … in the Beserker town since that was using technology. Well it is also the game mechanic you use to actually play the game itself so that was irritating having to find a place away from people to use it. They notice that but not the jet pack strapped to your back? I don't mind inconsistencies like that normally but if you are going to be inconsistent like that at least make it so you don't have to worry about using the games interface tool that lets you interact with everything.

Lastly something started to happen in combat I can't figure out and not sure if it was something I did or what. Before I entered the city my combat was smooth. Then there was an attack by boars in the town. While fighting my combat slowed down like it was a kill move and I kept getting a flashing message "use 2x [key]" to evade. But pressing the evade key twice did nothing since I was moving like molasses. Maybe I had run out of stamina and that is what happens?

It is a quirky game but fun and I look forward to playing more today and this weekend. Not my GOTY certainly, that most likely will be EDIT: had put DOS2 but saw Torment Tides was released in 2017 so that would be my first choice for GOTY.

Elex devs asked how to persuade @crpgnut into buying this game. ;)

You got yourself a stutter bug. Doesn't happen to everyone nor in every playthrough, what causes it is (currently) unknown, but it's very rare.

Its strange when you think about it that the voice overs are so poor (in English anyway) when you look at Larian getting very good voice acting and I'm guessing they are not spending millions maybe just put some care and attention into it where perhaps PB just contract it out and don't really care about the result. Translation has always been dodgy at best too when it comes to English with some dialog at times not making sense which again is probably to do with how much a developer gives a 'you know what' about it. All rather odd really. A game like Elex with some polish would be massive I think.

First impressions for me are that it's one of the best PB games ever, and a big step up from Risen 3 which I also enjoyed.

It's been awhile since I woke up with a game on my mind and couldn't wait to play it. Feeling like a kid again. :thumbsup:

The big thing for me, is that PB can't use the small team cry. They're charging AAA money for their game, not indie dough. If you charge $50 retail then your stuff needs to match up evenly with other games like Prey/Witcher 3/etc that charged $50. Though I like the little I've seen so far, no way this game is comparable to AAA titles. This feels like a $29.99 title all the way.

I believe the price always gets set by the publisher, not by developer.

Unfortunately I do not have financial resources right now to really update my PC; it was enough for Risen 3 but last year it couldn't run Obduction so I fear that it won't run Elex properly. Without a demo I cannot test it so I'm thinking about buying the game for my non-pro PS4. Is anyone playing this on this console? Is it playable?

Probably true, so Take 2(?) instead of PB then. I'm not against the game at all, but the price point is wrong imo.

Also, I haven't met a pretty woman yet and barely any women at all. The male/female ratio would not work to keep the planet populated. PB has always been male focused though, so nothing new. Good thing they're tiny or women's rights groups would be after them ;) More jiggly bits fellas.

Translation and localisation are classic publisher responsibilities. Both depend heavily on the budget allocated by the publisher. Larian is self-publishing and their game cost at least twice as much as Elex. Of course it's not clear if their loca budget, relative to the amount of dialogs, was bigger than PB's. It's clear though that for Larian the lead language was English while for PB it was German. Their German voice-overs are usually pretty good. It's not clear "just contracting out" would reduce the quality. Don't forgot that English is a foreign language for PB. Even if their English is good, there's still a language barrier.

I quite like it so far. Nice combat, decent graphics, nice exploration, interesting atmosphere. I just find the NPC's rather uninteresting so far. Would have been nice if Ragnar and his crew were inaccessible like in Gothic series and hade some more charisma. I also prefer fantasy rpg compared to this mishmash.

Take 2 doesn't publish interesting games. ;)

What sense would it make for THQ Nordic to leave 20$ from every hardcore fan lying on the floor? PB probably has a burn rate of ca. 140k€ per month, and the game took more than 3 years to develop. This is a mid budget title. They need the 20$ extra the 1-300000 fans are willing to pay. The price will sink fast enough.
See the interview with Feargus last week for the typical problems of A titles today.

No way. The game is polished, enormous, 100% hand-crafted with a large attention to detail even down to the contents of every chest being hand-placed. To me, it's well worth what I paid for it. I'll continue to buy their games in the future if they stay at that price. Not many RPG devs I would pay that price for but PB is one of them up there with Bethesda for me.

And for the record I wouldn't spend anything on Witcher 3 or Prey though. :) They just don't interest me like Elder Scrolls, ELEX and some of the bigger indies like Obsidian and InXile RPGs do…

In a world where all game are treated equally, one can say yes this game is $29.99 title all the way. However in the world we live in, if exact game was made by Bethesda, EA, Ubi etc, lot of game reviewers will be lining up to give blow job to the dev, the very least a hand job!

Lol… funny, but true though.

Just curious, but how is it not comparable to AAA titles? The animations are sub-par, but then so are the animations in TES/Fallout. I think the amount of content is a better measuring stick when it comes to price.

I think you tend to cheat yourself with a little narrow-mindedness sometimes. You should actually try playing those games instead of judging them by YouTube videos.

I play plenty of games doggie. And I don't watch YouTube gaming videos.

I'm just saying that Witcher 3 in particular doesn't interest me much, for several reasons. And Prey does nothing for me. I'm a diehard old-school type RPG fan.

Nothing wrong with being a fan of a particular sub-genre, but don't downplay games you've never played.

Also, don't lie, it doesn't suit you. You've talked about watching YouTube gaming videos more than once. ;)

Who's downplaying? I'm saying I'm not interested in them, hence I wouldn't spend money on them. If you enjoy them then cool. :thumbsup:

One thing I'm finding annoying about the game is that it sometimes doesn't recognize my controller is turned on and switch the input to controller instead of keyboard. I've had to restart the game several times sometimes, and get lucky for it to work. Seems like a bug.

They should just add an option that allows you to manually choose your input device instead of auto-detection.

The HDR lighting effects are the most intense I've seen in a game to date, but I like the realism. For example, when you walk into a dark building from outside and can't see crap for a few seconds until your eyes adjust. I wish more games would start doing that.

Options --> Gameplay--> HUD

The environment and location design is pretty nice. Just explored that weird building, Infinite something, that Ragnar stays in. Very high attention to detail there. Reminded me of a Fallout 3 location but in 3rd-person and no loading screens, complete with a lot of environmental storytelling. :thumbsup:

I bought the game for more than $29.99 so even though I don't think it's worth it, I made the purchase. However, I think that price point is more accurate. This game looks old imo. Old and poorly designed too. It's big though and it has lots of macho dudes running around speaking very poor English. I think animations are better in almost anything over these too.

Still, the game has a little of the Risen charm and the exploration might be spades for this loot-aholic. Okay, I shouldn't multi-task while posting, but hopefully you get the gist.

I looked for that HUD thing under gameplay and couldn't find it. Will look again - been playing the game 4 hours solid so breaking to take the dogs for a walk. Must have missed it somehow. Maybe I was expecting a key command to do it.

The adaption (something ENB does well if used for Skyrim) is fine. That wasn't my issue with the lighting. Its the lens flare with the blue tint. It is to intense for scenes at times (depends on time of day, location, and all that of course). But that is just my personal view after doing so much with ENB based graphic work. Overall the lighting is nice.

It is a rather addictive and fun game and I don't really care that much if the graphics, animations, characters, or textures are not AAA. Sure it would be nice if you could see your HP and it had higher quality assets but after playing so many old style games it really isn't a big deal for me - especially since the overall game play is working fine and I like the content, mechanics, story, etc.

The content is excellent. The way quests start to entwine with each other is very well done and enjoying all the side stories going on in Goliet with the clans and people in them. I also love the day/night cycle and the less hand holding in many areas. Even the Adjunct is rather cool and getting a feel now for how much distance I need to look at it. Just means being discreet and that fits into the game nicely. Even the talk you have with Jora about it being in implant was nicely done.

Can't really rate it though as way too soon. Still in Goliet and haven't done much real combat. But my impression of it is very favorable at this point. A rough gem but still a gem.

I'm playing on a 6 year old AMD cpu @ 2.9Ghz and an R7 260X and with a little tweaking I get more than 40fps. Sometimes it dips to 30fps but it's fine.

Yeah, I as quite impressed by that simple effect as well, it's a nice touch.

I'm liking the skill-based dialogue options, but hell, I'm never developed enough to use them! Took me about three hours to get my scores up enough to wear some hunter armour, but still getting quite hurt by little beasties. I feel like such a n00b in a very dangerous world, and that's kinda exhilirating.

yeah the feeling in the first hours is that you grow very slow, every skill requires x and y attributes and gotta think carefully what to choose; i wonder around what level you finish it since there are a shitload of skills :biggrin: . I grabbed a shield earlier, now its a different life, i block the shit out of the nasty scavangers….i mean biters :D

I have been playing SimCity Buildit for the past 6 months, once you understand the mechanics that game is like crack. So very very hard to stop. I'm still dipping into right now as I start to explore Elex more and more.

But Elex has its own specials charm. I was running around the first city looking for weapons and a place to sleep and it gradually got dark. I will probably have to mess around with the setting a bit but some of the very dark evacuated building were too dark to check out at night. There were lights and sounds I could not identify. I thought I heard something and took out my axe and swung. The interface said I was swinging at a rat. It was highlighted by my swing but I certainly couldn't see it. Oh, and there was a rickety door between me and the rat that I did not see so my swing and a "whiff" didn't do squat. Can rats get injured from splinter debris???

Hmmm, I gonna have to explore this place better, F&$( SimCity Builit.

Dagnabbit, that's what I need! I went up a level before I last saved, so hopefully I have enough points to get my stats to what is required to weild one. Going in…