RPGWatch Feature - Elex Review

Never saw a woman use the restroom in the whole game. Men had to piss, women didn't. Immersion breaking!
:biggrin:
 
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After the day of adventuring the hero returns home and takes a dump. :)
32056-3-1361383409.jpg


The picture is from a skyrim mod btw. Anyhow I actually like to see stuff like that added to these open world sims. Little touches such as proper outhouses makes the world come alive. When I play these open world games, my mind often wonders and I begin thinking how plausible this world actually is. To live in houses without an outhouse and bathing equipment for instance would be darn unpleasant in the long term. :) Piranha bytes have always paid attention to world details such as these which many other devs just ignore.
 
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I was put off by the setting of Elex at first but I kinda enjoy it now. Really like some of the back story. I still enjoy a fantasy setting more but it is nice to switch it up sometimes. I learned about Gothic 2 Night of the Raven from RPGWatch. It's close to my favorite crpg of all time. That's why I will always be around this site.

Gothic 2

Gothic 3

Elex

Risen 1

I think Elex could move to #2 when I finish with the game. About 50 hours in and I think it is fantastic. Though I don't seem to really like any of the factions that much. The Beserkers aren't letting me join yet because I messed up the quest with the leaders wife. Seems like I should be able to join a faction after 50 hours.
 
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. . . . Though I don't seem to really like any of the factions that much. The Beserkers aren't letting me join yet because I messed up the quest with the leaders wife. Seems like I should be able to join a faction after 50 hours.

Aint that the truth. For me the most inoffensive is the Berserkers because at least they are trying to save the planet. I like the apparent free style of the outlaws. And IMO, the clerics have the coolest uniforms. OTOH, the berserkers have their rules, the outlaws kind of offend me, and the clerics have no problem using mind control. Maybe Elex 2 might let me work with those minor factions.

I'm well over a 100 hours in and have just now decided on concentrating on joining a faction. If possible I want to get the game to the point where all the factions will let me join if I say yes. I'll probably go with the Berserkers but I don't look forward to going to a hidey hole every time I want to check the map.
 
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@Hastar; - You really should play Gothic 1 sometime. It's the favorite for a lot a PB fans. Personally, I think G2 with NotR is a little better, but it's close.
 
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I agree, I should play Gothic 1 but like someone else mentioned in this thread, the graphics are pretty outdated. I like older games and don't care about graphics that much but it has kept me from playing Gothic for some reason. It seems like the single player open world crpg's like Skyrim and Witcher 3 are the games I do enjoy my graphics in. Strategy and group based rpg's like ToEE and Knights of the Chalice, I don't care about the graphics.

I could be wrong but I don't think Gothic has been updated with mods like Gothic 2&3. I only played Gothic 3 because of the mods that were added to it that got rid of the bugs and updated the graphics. I loved the world in 3 but not sure how much I would have without the mods.
 
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There are a couple of texture mods that bring Gothic up to the level of Gothic 2 visually. Still, it's not going to have the same impact as if you had played it back in the day.

It might be interesting to play it after Elex though just to see how PB has evolved since their first game.
 
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The guy at the entrance to the Fort? I initially took the quest but then told him no due to my general dislike of the Outlaws. It also went against the way I was role-playing that character, and…

I didn't want to steal from the Clerics

So what did I miss out on? :)
 
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So let me spoil you, perhaps
major spoiler for very minor quest

The robot is really one of those flying drones and it doesn't even seem like stealing because it does not say forbidden unlike some other quest items you have to get in the game. In any event, I'm SAVING the world so I am allowed some minor transgressions . . . (what's that word for a flexible moral guidelines?) but I digress



So I complete the quest and the robot takes over at the gate. The guy at the gate gives you 250 shards and says you will be getting a cut every once in a while. I initially thought, wow that's a lot of shards in particular compared to the guy at the other gate.

So I'm looking at my map trying to figure what quest to do next, not leaving the gate area and then some guy tries to get out the camp and the robot demand ID. The outlaw has no ID and then the robot demands 2000 shards. The outlaw says the hell with that and they start to fight. The robot kills the outlaw. I go uh ooo, and quickly and silently get otta there. I have no idea what the consequences of "that" is gonna be.
 
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After the day of adventuring the hero returns home and takes a dump. :)
32056-3-1361383409.jpg


The picture is from a skyrim mod btw. Anyhow I actually like to see stuff like that added to these open world sims. Little touches such as proper outhouses makes the world come alive. When I play these open world games, my mind often wonders and I begin thinking how plausible this world actually is. To live in houses without an outhouse and bathing equipment for instance would be darn unpleasant in the long term. :) Piranha bytes have always paid attention to world details such as these which many other devs just ignore.

I have a more tasteful way of dealing with this. I think when you click on the latrine, it should switch to a first person view of you opening a newspaper, and allow you to do the crossword.
 
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I have a more tasteful way of dealing with this. I think when you click on the latrine, it should switch to a first person view of you opening a newspaper, and allow you to do the crossword.

Hahah good one! I haven't actually tried this mod myself, so don't know how it *works*, but indeed the screenshot should give a good idea. :p Anyhow when I saw people discussing here about restrooms in Elex, Skyrim kind of sprang to to mind and how Skyrims' world lacked certain day-to-day details. So ofcourse someone had actually taken the trouble and modded outhouses to Skyrim. I expected nothing less from the dilligent modding community.
 
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Ok the review is too long, I'm too lazy today. So I don't think it covers the dodging aspect of combats, but Im' not sure.

I have watch many video (I have achieved the second grade at Barking Dogs school), read plenty posts with comments/advices about combats, and something seems very clear, almost no player use much the dodging.

And that's weird, for me it's pinpointing an awful design failure, because combats can have a quite advanced dodging gameplay. Here an example, not all will show it clearly but some will, and surprisingly the archery guide is among the most marking example:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxuUSp4WB4DgqEOqAHa9OSork5K2sTKGa

You have other tools to manage combats, long range or even hyper magic specialization, block enemies with obstacles, apply chain locks, jetpack, companion, circle run, power build character and/or equipment, many more. Absolutely none reach the finesse that can have close combat dancing as there was in Gothic 1&2.

The worse is it's there, but from what I noticed very few player ever reach the ugly elephant dancing level, so even less reach the ballerina art level. This aspect of the combat is mostly fully out of reach of a large majority of players, it looks wrong.

But there's another element, ok exploration has many qualities, but if combats aren't much a challenge the game lost a lot in term of exploration density filling. A lot of this filling is also coming from enemies that could cause you troubles. And then paradoxically the design flaw of an impossible learning curve for dancing combats becomes a sort of quality be delaying mastering to later game when the player achieves some building level.

A quality, a flaw, I don't know. Still the consequence is for most players it's no way the satisfaction to have learn a mastery level as you could in Gothic 2 Gold. At best it's the satisfaction to control a bit better combats and achieve an OP build working well with the few you learned.

For sure it's a problem when you master the combats. If you achieve it even at lower level, many enemies will look like preys, the exploration quality will suffer and the whole game too. Still there's something wrong in combats design. The chains get too much focus, the building allows too OP builds, multiple weapons are too OP, Elex abuse is too easy, more.

So for me the game is inside a paradox, two bad designs, completing fairly well and achieving a fairly good fun level, even without to ever feel you have achieved something through some mastering.
 
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I agree that you need a lot of player skill to make combat balance "work" as intended. The game assumes you have achieved this mastery, hence the difficulties and complaining among people without any skill.

I for instance have trouble switching back and forth between the left and right mouse buttons, so I am not making effective use of parrying and get hit a lot. Creatures also have a lot of "tells", and if you can remember them all, the game will be much easier for you.

Even taking the above into account, the combat still feels kind of clunky to me.
 
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