Elex I don't know….
 

I'm a veteran of PB games but I don't know about this one. Berzerker city - hard to complete quests. Even in Gothic 3 they some indication of direction - aka behind the tree to the north. Here nothing. After 10 hours I'm still level 3. Rusty Axe. No armor and losing interest ranging for 10-50 XP. I have learning points that I can't apply because noone will train me as my supporting stats are too low. I can certainly keep going but I feel like I'm wasting my time and it is not fun. Damn rusty axe LOL

I guess that's supposed to be funny?

Just my silly sense of humor. Not to worry.

I'm just anticipating a certain response to your criticisms.

I'm not bashing really. I'm a big PB fan. Loved the Gothic series. Risen etc. NOTR. I don't know why but this game is a real struggle for me to progress in. For example, the "murder mystery". The suspects are supposed to be "out in the forest". OK. North, South, East, West? I just finished the "gear" quest and I have no clue where I'm supposed to be.

I'm still waiting on a bit more patching, but, from what I've read, I suspect I'm also going to struggle with the painfully slow progression, and some of the clunkier design choices.

You could turn on the quest indicators if you're not sure where to go.

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Open up your log for the quests and mark them. It will show you exactly where to go. First few lvls suck and you get crushed. Keep at it and you will become very powerful. Take a companion with you.

Use your jet pack to get stamina back and to use healing potions.

Oh geez quest markers. Didn't even know it LOL

I think if you enjoyed their other games you will really start to enjoy Elex. I'm loving it now and it feels like a classic PB game.

Time to put on your big boy pants.

… or your quest markers :)

Sure:

https://i.imgur.com/S8PuAwi.gif

3 levels in the last hour. Cooking now. Flying blind wasn’t working

Early game progression is very slow, I'll certainly attest to that. That kind of curve is appealing to some people, but I find it works against the game's favor. Progress just felt very slow. Around 14 or 15 hours, though, things really started to pick up. I was able to equip certain ranged weapons and start killing creatures on a pretty consistent basis.

The main problem is damage resistance that the starting enemies possess, and that's the real limiting factor. For example, you could have a Rusty Axe with a damage value of 20, and an enemy that has a damage resistance value of 19. But that Not-as-Rusty Axe you just picked up has a damage value of 25. Suddenly you're dealing 6 times the damage you were previously dishing out, even though the statistical damage increase from 20 to 25 seems minimal.

I think the best way to go about it is to stick to quests. Avoid what you can unless you are able to kill it with the bow (which is actually VERY helpful early on). Later on, you can start making Elex potions to start gaining more attribute points (and subsequently equip better weapons), but I found doing that made the game a bit too easy and I had to turn the difficulty up to max (or ultra, or whatever the highest one is) just to maintain some sort of challenge.

Believe me, once you get past that initial stage of avoiding everything and can equip a weapon around 35-40 damage, the game really picks up.

Oh, and a quick tip, once you are able to start exploring the Converter towers, make sure to jetpack to the top of them once you reach the outside platforms. Each of them have some very beneficial goodies at the top.

Weird to see a veteran of PB games struggling with it to be honest. But I guess just stick with it. At the 157 hour mark currently on Steam I think I like the game a little bit. :)

The progression is very slow and I love that about it. Eventually you gain great amounts of power, and small changes add up huge over the course of the game. A few points in armor or a well-placed Learning Point can make all the difference, and it's a difference you will feel the longer you play the game. The game rewards you for sticking with it and makes you work to get the rewards. I love it. :)

Quest markers help but I only turn them on for "logical" situations, i.e. an NPC says "this person is supposed to be at the ruins at the bottom of the lift", so I pretend they just mark that spot on the map (they know where the ruins are, after all.) But not sure what you mean when you say the game provides no direction. I'd say 90% of the quests I've found so far can be done fine without quest markers. The clues on where to go are often subtle (i.e. if someone mentions a person is stationed on the road between Xacor and Abessa, you might hear that in conversation and completely miss it, etc..)

That's another thing, pay attention when NPCs talk. There are clues, hints, subtle cues and more in the dialogue, the way they speak, tone of voice and more. If you sleepwalk through those parts you'll make mistakes. Same goes for your dialogue responses in quests. You have to carefully read between the lines.

And you have to pay attention when challenging enemies, too. Some enemies should just be avoided, but when you slowly increase your power (maybe a new weapon, a simple upgrade in the Ability tree, or a few grenades or spells you found, etc.), you can start slaughtering wildlife for fun, profit and advancement. :) And the game is balanced in a way in that the runts you are fighting now, giving you a measly 5 or 10 xp, well, by the time you are strong enough to kill decent enemies, they start giving 50+ xp. By the time you can kill rotboars you'll be giddy when each kill gives you 125 xp. So at the start you are discouraged from grinding on weak enemies and have to play the game they want you to, i.e. work to make friends (companion at first, faction later), make money to get better equipment and develop your Abilities before you can really tackle the hard combat in the game. Stick to quests because you need better equipment, skills and friends to survive in Magalan, as Duras explains to you at the start.

When exploring you always have to calculate your odds of success before attempting combat. Or, you can be like me, get the Friend of Beast skill and not have to worry about weaker enemies bothering you. :) It becomes very natural as you explore and get to know the enemy types in the game, which areas and enemies to avoid and so on. And survival skills can help you there, too.

Otherwise, yeah, it's a typical PB game, but taken to a very high level. It's really amazing stuff. Sort of like Gothic Super Advanced Edition. :)

1 more patch then i'll have a go… seems like they´re working on something at least,
https://steamdb.info/app/411300/depots/

Nice find. Hope it drops soon before I finish the game.

You'll probably have to restart :)

Well. If you have to restart after dozens of hours play, it could be considered serious.

__

'Sho nuff. Just wondering where he got the idea from that one would have to restart after this patch. Did PB say that somewhere? o_O

I'm fine now. I have armor and a weapon upgrade. I didn't realize there were map markers. The world is huge and some quests just aren't doable without location info.

It's not like the game goes out of its way to communicate useful stuff like that.

It really is terrible in terms of UI and the new player experience.

Terrible is a bit harsh. It could have been better. I would say average at best.

The UI? Well, not only is it butt-ugly and clunky - but VITAL information is downright misleading, even after a few patches - and then there's all the information that's not even communicated to the player.

It's pathetic and inexcusable as far as I'm concerned.

Game still seems great, though.

What's the issue with quest markers? There's a big option called Track Quest or Show on Map or something on the quest log. It couldn't be much clearer :/

Yet a lot of people miss that. I've seen several Reddit posts where people have been very surprised that was possible in a PB game.

However, that's not my problem with the UI.

It's primarily the misinformation related to the absolutely vital details of skills - where skills do NOT do what the text says they do. As well as stuff like the personality skills - that seem deliberately opaque in terms of function.

In a game that totally revolves around character progression and smart choices - it would seem to be a very important thing to communicate clearly to the player.

I mean, I could fix everything in 20 minutes if PB told me what skills actually did - and I could write crystal clear descriptions for their tooltips.

The fact that they obviously don't care about details like this, tells me more than enough about their approach to UI and new players.

I find it annoying that I have to spend a significant amount of time on Reddit or Google when I need to make a skill choice.

I'm the kind of guy who prefers to play games "as they were intended" - and I prefer to make informed choices based on in-game systems and information. I don't build characters based on guides or information I need to hunt down because skills don't do what you would expect them to do.

I can't build my character in my preferred way in Elex - because the system doesn't make intuitive sense. It's a mess, really.

Dart, are you playing it in English or a different language? I thought the descriptions were horrid in English, but I'm not sure which languages you read/write/speak.

Abominable. That's how I'd describe Elex UI. And I mean everything. Options, menus, descriptions… Everything.
It's just another consolecentered UI.

The only good thing is quickbar, but it can't really save the day on it's own.

I wish there was a group of modders out there dedicated to redo all these pathetic UI designs.

I play in English :)

I speak a little German - but definitely not enough for something like skill tooltips. That's just about as complicated as you can get in any language - unless we're talking math descriptions ;)

I realise I can peruse Reddit for a few hours to get a good idea of what the skills do, but I'll forget half of them as I'm playing. Meaning, I have to take a chance every now and then - as I refuse to take a break for every choice.

But I already invested a few points in bad skills first time I played. Not a big deal, I suppose - but it's very annoying when you're a little obsessed with making smart choices :)

I say this as someone who usually has a very intuitive sense of what complicated RPG mechanics do - and I'm not often wrong.

However, Elex actually lies to the player about certain skills - like the one that's supposed to continuously add HP to your guy. Apparently, it does not - according to Reddit.

Several other skills have similar issues.

My issue with that is that it's SO easy to fix - but they just don't bother.

It does not definetly. It's one time boost. I'm confirming it. Each time you pick it, it adds some small amount of HP that one time and never again.

I've seen in some "things to prioritize" article, perhaps that was even a guide, I remember it was linked in one of Elex threads… The problem was an article saying you should pick this skill as early as possible because "it adds hp on your every level up", something like that.
It doesn't. :)

Yes, I was very close to picking that skill as one of my first.

Meh. The UI could be improved (it still occasionally confuses me with the various icons), but I'm 160 hours in and haven't looked up any skill descriptions.

My advice is the same for every RPG - Use your RPG Senses skill IRL and don't sweat the small stuff. You can still easily build a capable character in ELEX with intelligent choices.

Ahh, so if you're intelligent enough - the misinformation goes away, and I'll be able to guess what something does, counter to the description.

Got it! ;)

Well the translations are cheap and are actually rewrites instead.

Nah, it just really isn't that serious. :)

I'm playing on Ultra difficulty and still wearing the starting armor in the game 70 hours in in Chapter 2. Haven't put a single point into Constitution or Strength. The game, thus far, does not require strict power spec'ing in any way to succeed. Few RPGs ever do in my experience.

So I don't sweat it. :)

Curious though, which descriptions are actually misinformation? The one I did question was Attack Strength, as it is vague (increases strength of "strikes" or something.) Yet it has a fist icon, so I assume it means melee. Could be wrong.

But I agree they could be improved. But certainly nothing to worry about to peruse Reddit for a few hours. Just wing it, bro. You've played RPGs before. :thumbsup:

I enjoy making smart choices. It has nothing to do with it being necessary.

Making smart choices in Elex means you will breach the somewhat absurd curve sooner rather than later. So, that's a bonus.

Since the tooltips are so poor, it's kinda hard to say which ones are misleading - because I'm not sure what they actually do. But the HP skill I mentioned is a great example of misinformation.

The fact that they've chosen to ignore stats altogether as anything but prequisites for items is another highly unusual choice that they really should have communicated to the player. I've seen posts from several hardcore PB fans who have had to start over because they invested too many points in a stat, like strength - because they expected it to help with the melee damage.

A lot of people seem to have been very surprised by that - and so was I.

No, they didn't start over because the game was too hard - but because they enjoy making smart choices, just like me.

It's ok with me that you're blind to flaws in games you enjoy - but why do you have such a hard time accepting that I think the UI is bad?

I mean, it's not like I'm out to hurt you or the game. I'm just recognising there's an issue - which is something a LOT of Elex fans agree with.

Also, I'm not sure what my experience with RPGs has to do with this. It's not really relevant. Most of the Watch have played far more RPGs than you have - but that doesn't really change anything about the UI.

Finally, it has nothing to do with the game being hard. You sound like you're trying to give out advice about how to handle the game - but you're missing the point.

It's about frustration - not challenge.

Once again, I don't find anything challenging about going from quest to quest for hours to gain XP. To me, that's anything BUT challenging. In fact, it reminds me of auto-piloting through W3 - and that's not a good thing when you enjoy activities that require a mental investment.

I enjoy a challenge. I just don't enjoy waiting 10-15 hours before I can find a meaningful one.

In fact, if you accept that Elex is a waiting game for a long time - then it's possibly the easiest of the PB games so far - because you won't bother grinding XP until you're powerful. That means almost no combat and almost exclusively questing for hours and hours. Questing being about clicking buttons in dialogues (apart from all the "fun" running away). Most PB games don't allow major progress without fighting a little. At least, I don't remember that being an option.

To each his own, though.

It seems to be generally agreed that 'Attack Strength' increases your chance to stagger or knock down an enemy with a strong attack. It did seem to work that way for me.

But yeah, the skill descriptions, at least in the English version, could have been a lot better. :)