RPGWatch Feature - Elex Review

Originally Posted by JDR13
Yeah, I don't get how anyone could rank Risen or Gothic 3 ahead of Gothic 2, but it sounds like your experience wasn't optimal. Did you play it with NotR installed?

I wouldn't put Gothic 3 above 2, but I would revise my list to put it above Risen 1. Flaws and all, G3 is still a very interesting game after patching. Risen 1 is great, best Risen game IMO, but I'd probably put G3 just a slight bit ahead of it, mostly for the huge unscaled open-world and very ambitious and unique mechanics.

Originally Posted by Hyperion
I'm going to take a go at this.

1. Gothic 1
2. ELEX
3. Gothic 3
4. Risen 1
5. Gothic 2
6. Risen 3
7. Risen 2

Gothic 1 will probably never be replaced on that list for me as it's the first game I ever played that I truly loved. Most people also like Gothic 2 a lot better than I do. I hated the ending and the game had game killing quest bugs. I lost count of how many times I had to restart the game to finally finish it. I didn't play 3 until most of the bugs were fixed with patches and community fixes, so had a much better experience.

Interesting list. I played Gothic 3 for the first time ever recently and enjoyed it a lot. Only got about 50-60 hours in before pausing it and starting ELEX, but I am going to return and finish it later. With Alternative Balancing and Alternative AI, Gothic 3 is pretty damn great.

Weird that you have Gothic 2 that low, though. Gothic 2 was much "more" of Gothic 1, more content, more polish, more mechanics. Yet I agree that Gothic 1 is my favorite out of the 2 because of the more memorable story and setting. Most people prefer Gothic 2, though.

Thanks for sharing! Cool to see other PB fans here besides me and JDR.

Interesting these lists. I’d like to see more of them. To see where Elex might end up for me.

Gothic 2.
Gothic 1.
Gothic 3.
Risen 1.

Reading all your experiences and lists I am tempted to play Elex, but each time I think about the setting… I mean, I was already put off by the gun in Risen 1…

Originally Posted by Eye
Interesting these lists. I’d like to see more of them. To see where Elex might end up for me.

Gothic 2.
Gothic 1.
Gothic 3.
Risen 1.

Reading all your experiences and lists I am tempted to play Elex, but each time I think about the setting… I mean, I was already put off by the gun in Risen 1…

If you are put off by the gun in Risen then you arent probably going to be able to cope with Elex because of the jet pack. Even if you can cope with that, you may get enjoyment from playing the game with bows and melee weapons in the beserker area, but you cannot complete the game.

Hey, I can easily see how repaired and fixed up G3 can be rated higher than G2. bigger, more diverse locations, more interesting places to explore. Additionally, the last part in G2 on that isle was just okay for me. Whereas G3 was consistent from start to finish. While I have G2 higher, G3 is really, really close. And actually, If I do a replay it would be with G3 (already did three G2s).

next on my list:
Risen 3
Gothic 1
Risen 2
Risen 1

Keep in mind, only Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout Vegas, and Might and Magic 4 would come to play somewhere on that list if I were listing my top 10 RPGs of all time. Such is my love for PB games.

Elex will finish in the top somewhere and would knockout Risen 1. But I have not finished Elex yet.

Excellent review as always, thank you

Sounds like it's well worth playing and then some. I'm sad to hear about (most of) the loot being randomly generated, but I kinda predicted that pre-release - based on what I heard about it being so big.

If there's one thing your review could stand to get more into, it would be combat - especially melee and ranged combat as compared to Risen/Gothic.

I think PB combat has been through a very strange progression, and though Risen 1 was quite good in terms of melee - combat has never quite reached the original two Gothic games since then.

I did enjoy Risen 3 combat - but the balance was clearly out of whack, and you got too powerful too quickly.

As you said elsewhere, it really feels like they've overcompensated with Elex based on R3 feedback - but I would definitely rather have this than another pushover system.

But what I'm wondering about is just how "skill-based" combat is in Elex. Gothic, Gothic 2 and Risen were all very skill-based when it comes to melee combat.

How's Elex combat?

For me,

Gothic 2 - The first PB experience and its almost perfect.
Risen 1 - Its only just above Elex in that I prefer fantasy.
Elex - Strictly speaking, this should be top, if I am playing PB games for the first time now!
Gothic 3 - If this game was to the same standards as Elex, this will be on top!
Risen 2 -
Risen 3 -

Never played Gothic 1 and can't get myself to play it these days due err graphics.

Can't rate Elex yet, but:

Gothic
Gothic 2
Risen 3
Risen
Risen 2
Gothic 3

Only played 4 PB games and would rank them as follows:

1. Elex
2. Gothic 2
3. Risen 1
4. Gothic 3

Originally Posted by NewDArt
Sounds like it's well worth playing and then some. I'm sad to hear about (most of) the loot being randomly generated, but I kinda predicted that pre-release - based on what I heard about it being so big.

I didn't read the review (want to avoid spoilers), but which randomly generated loot? For the most part, the game feels handplaced with loot. Human enemy drops seem to be randomized a bit, but it's not nearly as bad as some games with lottery drops.

If some of the chests are randomized, it doesn't seem to an extent that is really that noticeable. It's rare you find a chest with more than 2 or 3 things in it.

As you said elsewhere, it really feels like they've overcompensated with Elex based on R3 feedback - but I would definitely rather have this than another pushover system.

I followed the game a bit before release, and this was intentional on PB's part. They wanted ELEX to be more like Gothic and less like Risen in terms of challenge level and "hardcore-ness". I think they did very well in that regard, but it might not be for everyone.

I don't think the game is very hard, though, but it's satisfying, sort of like Morrowind was the first time through, where you're learning the lay of the land, slowly getting stronger, etc.. Only you don't become a God at level 20 in ELEX (maybe if you power spec, dunno. )

Originally Posted by Fluent
I didn't read the review (want to avoid spoilers), but which randomly generated loot? For the most part, the game feels handplaced with loot. Human enemy drops seem to be randomized a bit, but it's not nearly as bad as some games with lottery drops.

If some of the chests are randomized, it doesn't seem to an extent that is really that noticeable. It's rare you find a chest with more than 2 or 3 things in it.

Everything is randomized even what items npc's have to pickpocket. That said it is not a huge variance, like the value can differ by about 2x from the best and worst loot. One thing I noticed, I dont know if it is a bug or not, but there is a certain weapon you can only ever find one of to pickpocket ever and the game never allows you to pickpocket weapons normally. I used it in my arsehole run.

That's not true. The loot carried by people is randomized, but everything else is hand-placed.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That's not true. The loot on human enemies is randomized, but everything else is hand-placed.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Some of the chests are for sure, and overall they "feel" handplaced to me (I avoid testing it.)

And some of the chests also seem to be based on how difficult the enemy "guarding" it was. If you can sneak in to a dangerous area and grab what's in the chest and flee, you can find cool stuff that way.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That's not true. The loot carried by people is randomized, but everything else is hand-placed.

Yup, there was one spot in the game where a one-hit monster was right next to a chest I had just opened. Every time I replayed from that spot, the merchandise in the chest was always the same.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That's not true. The loot carried by people is randomized, but everything else is hand-placed.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Yup, there was one spot in the game where a one-hit monster was right next to a chest I had just opened. Every time I replayed from that spot, the merchandise in the chest was always the same.

Hmm… I noticed the lockpicked chests and hacked safes can vary. I also know all the chests are randomized at the start, but I also thought they were randomized based on your play time.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Yup, there was one spot in the game where a one-hit monster was right next to a chest I had just opened. Every time I replayed from that spot, the merchandise in the chest was always the same.

I experienced that a couple times in my playthrough, too.

Originally Posted by Damian
Hmm… I noticed the lockpicked chests and hacked safes can vary. I also know all the chests are randomized at the start, but I also thought they were randomized based on your play time.

Nope, chests are definitely not randomized at the start. I double-checked that tonight with several brief test runs.

I can't say for sure about locked chests/safes, as I didn't feel like playing that far into those runs, but I think it's unlikely that PB wouldn't hand-place that loot as well.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Nope, chests are definitely not randomized at the start. I double-checked that tonight with several brief test runs.

I can't say for sure about locked chests/safes, as I didn't feel like playing that far into those runs, but I think it's unlikely that PB wouldn't hand-place that loot as well.

Thanks for checking man. That was a key feature PB talked about, too, when they announced that every piece of loot in chests/etc. would be hand-placed in the game world (and also placed based on the difficulty it took to open the chest, i.e. the toughness of the enemies "guarding" it or the trickiness to find it if it was hidden.)

I don't know how Maylander came to that conclusion - but the loot certainly SEEMS randomized in most containers so far.

When I say randomized, I mean it's seed-based (meaning the loot is generated and then locked at the generation of the game).

That said, like Maylander said - some of the loot is obviously hand-placed, even in containers.

For instance, you find some "Worker Pants" in one container during the "tutorial" - and that's obviously what you're meant to find.

But I would be VERY surprised if everything is hand-placed in all containers. In fact, I'm absolutely certain it's not.

I mean, the vast majority of the loot is like "3 pieces of junk" and "2 pieces of more junk". There's just no way anyone would bother to hand-place that.

The standard approach is just to mark a chest with "this kind of loot" upon placement - and the generator will make sure that kind of loot is placed there based on the random seed. When something is hand-placed - they either don't mark it with anything - or they simply add it to the loot table as a guarentee. Something like that.

That's ok, though. I didn't expect it to be like the first two Gothics. It's too big for that.

I don't think the game is very hard, though, but it's satisfying, sort of like Morrowind was the first time through, where you're learning the lay of the land, slowly getting stronger, etc.. Only you don't become a God at level 20 in ELEX (maybe if you power spec, dunno. )

I agree, there's nothing hard about running away. In fact, that's very easy.

I'm talking about a lack of fun for the initial 10-15 hours - based on my preferences. But, again, I'll see on my current playthrough