Elex 2 Elex 2 Discussion

vanedor said:

Rose-tinted glasses perhaps? ;-)

While the way the town / world lived in Gothic was a great novelty back then, it's not the case anymore. It's been part of basically every open world games produced since. Imo, the one I found the most amazing is in Cyberpunk 2077. The way the city breathes is simply breathtaking. More recent PB/Bethesda games have also been doing a great job at it.

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Or perhaps it's the fact that even most modern games still don't have that level of realism in certain ways.

For example, you can enter any building in most RPGs and loot the shit out of them right in front of the occupants without so much as a peep. Same goes with brandishing your weapon in front of them. Not a word.

I'm not sure if it's because developers are too lazy to go to such detail or if it's because they assume gamers don't want to be bothered with any obstacles in obtaining loot. I suspect it's the latter, because I think a lot of mainstream gamers would probably get flustered if they couldn't just pick up loot whenever they want.

For the record, I didn't find Cyberpunk very immersive in that way. Don't get me wrong, I like the game a lot, but the worldbuilding aspects leave something to be desired. The way valuable items are simply laying around everywhere constantly had me miffed. "Oh, so this high-level katana is just laying on a countertop in a room full of people, and they don't mind if I take it? Score!".

JDR13 said:

For the record. I didn't find Cyberpunk very immersive in that way. Don't get me wrong, I like the game a lot, but the worldbuilding aspects leave something to be desired. The way valuable items are simply laying around everywhere constantly had me miffed. "Oh, so this high-level katana is just laying on a countertop in a room full of people, and they don't mind if I take it. Score!".

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Now, I totally agree with this and would like it taken further. Say, for instance, you rob a prominent mayor's sash of charisma. Everyone in town would know it belonged to him, so wearing it in that town or even that area should be noticed and people would be yelling for the guard to arrest you. However, if you happen to be the next county over, then it would only be noticed by traveling merchants or visitors to said town or city.

I'd love to see Elex 2 or any game adopt that type of AI for items. Not for generic +1 items but for items that are unique or that have a known history.

JDR13 said:

Or perhaps it's the fact that even most modern games still don't have that level of realism in certain ways.

For example, you can enter any building in most RPGs and loot the shit out of them right in front of the occupants without so much as a peep. Same goes with brandishing your weapon in front of them. Not a word.

I'm not sure if it's because developers are too lazy to go to such detail or if it's because they assume gamers don't want to be bothered with any obstacles in obtaining loot. I suspect it's the latter, because I think a lot of mainstream gamers would probably get flustered if they couldn't just pick up loot whenever they want.

For the record, I didn't find Cyberpunk very immersive in that way. Don't get me wrong, I like the game a lot, but the worldbuilding aspects leave something to be desired. The way valuable items are simply laying around everywhere constantly had me miffed. "Oh, so this high-level katana is just laying on a countertop in a room full of people, and they don't mind if I take it? Score!".

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Sure, thievery isn't dealt with in the most "realistic" way but the city itself, how it breathes, with its day/night cycle, its radio stations, advertisements, road and highway, pedestrians/cars that wait for the green lights at the intersections, the way people react to their surrounding, its slang, its beautiful graphics, so many details that make the game world feels as the most realistic ones I have ever seen in a RPG.

crpgnut said:

I'd love to see Elex 2 or any game adopt that type of AI for items. Not for generic +1 items but for items that are unique or that have a known history.

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Funny, that's something I noticed tonight when playing Skyrim. My character was wearing an "epic" imperial armor and NPC were reacting to it.

wiretripped said:

I've yet to play Elex (though it's on my shortlist of games to start), but heavy respawning? I hate respawning. Are we talking respawning a la G2 (where some low-level critters respawn between chapters) or respawning a la Diablo 2 or Far Cry where you turn your back and bam, all enemies are back?

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Elex has the worst re-spawn mechanism of any PB game to date. You can trigger respawns by just fast travelling between two points. It does seem to get worse the more the game progresses. In the final chapter Trolls would reliably respawn by just fast travelling.

What's even worse is it isn't just the overland map as well. Even major locations of interest i.e. inside buildings/caves will respawn. Not every building but it seems like there are flags on zones to indicate whether they respawn or not.

I believe the system is primarily set up this wait for people to grind money to be able to buy Natural Elex so they can craft Elex potions. It was just poor design in my opinion. I vastly prefer the system of using rare herbs to boost stats (or even potions) that are acquired through normal play (exploration). Natural elex respawns in every merchant. For a something that is suposed to be "rare" it is just lazy design.

I did a full completion run i.e. max all stats/skills etc and I am guessing the people who didn't observe respawn didn't do much flower sniffing but even then I find it hard to imagine people couldn't realise what is happening.

Worst grind of any PB game to be sure. I liked the game but I would of strongly preferred that you could "max" (as far as the game intends you to) by just playing - like G1/2.

Unless they changed that mechanic in one of the patches, and I highly doubt they did, the respawning in Elex isn't nearly as bad as you're making it sound.

I played on the second hardest difficulty, and I had no problem getting strong enough for the endgame by just naturally playing through the game. I never hung around to fight things for the purpose of farming XP or loot, and I was more than high enough level by the end.

I didn't pay much attention to the frequency of respawns, but I never felt like it was happening too fast. Maybe because I tend to not revisit an area that I've already explored unless a quest takes me back there.

Also, of the three enemy categories, only monsters respawn. Human enemies and robots never respawn.

I did dislike that Elex restocked in merchant's inventories. You can just choose to ignore it of course, but I would rather it was harder to obtain. There are various rebalance mods that tweak things like that.

JDR13 said:

I didn't pay much attention to the frequency of respawns, but I never felt like it was happening too fast. Maybe because I tend to not revisit an area that I've already explored unless a quest takes me back there.

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That would be it then. The troll near the north converter teleporter was the worse one, I killed him about 5 times.

I'm not saying it is really bad - just worse than any other PB game. Gothic 2 was perfect for me - where there was a limited amount of respawn across chapters. It really had the sense that you could clear areas and make them safe.

I would score elex a 7/10 and I would of scored it higher if it had better area design and writing. I probably removed half a point for the respawning mobs/inventories - it wasn't a big deal but it just didn't improve the game.

bjon045 said:

That would be it then. The troll near the north converter teleporter was the worse one, I killed him about 5 times.

I'm not saying it is really bad - just worse than any other PB game. Gothic 2 was perfect for me - where there was a limited amount of respawn across chapters. It really had the sense that you could clear areas and make them safe.

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I was fine with it. After all, it's not a valley or an island like the Gothic games. It wouldn't make sense if areas stayed clear in a region that large. It takes several in-game days for monsters to come back to an area, and I don't find that unreasonable.

I definitely would have had an issue if unique mobs or named enemies respawned.

I'm about 9 hours in. Having a good time right now.

Some Bad:
Monster movement and melee animations.
Some weaker areas of the world. If you have flowers, snow, late afternoon sunlight, it looks fine, but if you're in an area with little going on visually, it looks flat, basic and empty.

Some Good:
Melee isn't the sum total of combat. Ranged attacks, Jetpack, Companions all add to the mix. It is richer and more dynamic than I thought at first. Thankfully You're not really told about the parry and kick and I haven't used them much yet.

Too early to talk much about the plot and exploration. I quite like the straightforwardness of the narrative so far. Bad guys / Build alliance? Fine, that's what I do I do think reusing the same map held them to an art style I didn't really like first time round.

So that's it so far. Keen to get back to it

I want to play it but not at full price. I will pick it up eventually, but there is absolutely no hurry. It has an AAA price right now which is not appropriate imo.

2 hours in and having fun. This is so much a PB game!

Died a few times, took one of the first missions which I knew was a mistake and got wiped out. That's just the way it is though, I like the initial story line and the base so we'll see how that progresses.

I've found one thing which quite annoys me. If you're in a fight and get close to an NPC with a dialogue trigger, then he will start his dialogue while the critter is eviscerating you, or you can be attacked while in the middle of a conversation which you can't leave and suffer the same fate!! That needs to be fixed.

Oh man, if it has issues like that I wonder the level of playtesting the game has had.

In previous instalments if a monster attacked you (or the npc) during a conversation you wouldn't take any damage but I certainly don't remember conversations initiating while you were in combat - that is just poor design. They should help you kill the mob and then immediately initate the conversation I would think.

Anyone else have serious graphics problems in major settlements?

Alistair said:

Anyone else have serious graphics problems in major settlements?

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Yep the well known texture pop-in problems. Some players claim they have no problem and others well they have that problem. It seems to affect AMD players more.

As for me it happens sometimes were textures pop-in or don't load correctly.

Alistair said:

Anyone else have serious graphics problems in major settlements?

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Can you be more specific?

Here you go.

Link- https://steamcommunity.com/app/900040/discussions/0/3190242354889371878/

I meant him not random people on Steam. That's why I quoted him.

yes I'm getting that. Heads, necks, ground disappears briefly as you are walking along. Doesn't make it unplayable but not something you would expect. Someone on that thread mentions the Morkon base and that is certainly bad for it, have only just got there.