Elex Elex First Impressions

booboo said:

Do you companions scale? I'm level 9 now and Duras seems pretty crap (except as a distraction) I was thinking of dropping him, but not sure the cleric I found would be useful seems more like a tech person than a fighter …

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They scale. Not only via the skill, but actual scaling. They will never be able to handle trolls or similar, but if you face a regular mutant later on, the companion will flatten it. And those are pretty challenging in the start.

Started over a few times but I'm level 7 and have done most of the quests in Goliet and surrounds. I like the quests pretty well. The combat is kinda dull, but mages are always gated in PB games and this one is no different. You can't really play a mage or cleric until the game is half over. That is a major negative for me. I've done the Beserker quests, but you must visit the other cities before before choosing. Dunno if I'll stick with the game long enough to get to the class skills or not…

Outside of towns the treasure is all around but worth almost nothing. I can't count how many elexit treasures consist of exaclty one coin. 50 elexit is the most I've ever seen without it being a quest reward. Weapons and armor are extremely scarce and I'm not sure what the impetus is for exploration.

Still a $29.99 game to me.

Modded the jetpack and stamina bar to not run out unless I'm in combat. Most good treasures are high up and I see no fun in jumping from ledge to ledge to reach them. I just fly I can also run forever if I'm in town but will tire quickly if I'm wielding a weapon. This increases the fun enough to continue playing.

I've been to the outlaw area and it was exceedingly boring. I haven't seen the clerics yet, but I've heard that they're the OP class for the game.

One thing I do love is fighting the reaver camp at the very start. Good old DoAss is leaning against a rail while I snipe the reavers. I kill the first dude and the whole camp chases me. I run them over to a couple of oil barrels and BOOM! Each Reaver is worth 100 XP and I'm level 3 and almost 4 by the time I get to Goliet I was using the troll till I noticed the barrels!

Yea, I have watched some game play videos by now and I would not pay more than $20 for this game…the dialogues are pretty cringe-worthy, and its obvious many times that it was written by a non-native English speaker…just very, very awkward.

The voice acting is one of the biggest turn offs for me, especially the main character. Why they chose that guy with his awful voice is beyond me…the UI is also an eye sore, just really bad design, and just ugly. It looks like a placeholder UI that they never got around to developing. In my humble opinion.

The only reason I would still consider it if it went on a deep discount and sale on steam is they made a very cool looking trainer for this game. I had mentioned in another thread that I think a game trainer (cheats) would enhance this games appeal for me in that it would allow for unlimited stamina, making combat more appealing to me, and a website, cheathappens.com, they made a trainer that not only does that, but coolest of all, they made infinite rocket fuel!

Yes, you can actually fly for real now in this game, and that would be pretty cool I think, to just goof around in the game, exploring it, flying like superman, lol.

P.S. Cheathappens.com is an expensive "premium" cheat site, and it costs $13 a month, so you would have to spend at least $13 (and then cancel your membership) to get this very cool cheat trainer, just wanted to say that up front. It isn't free, unfortunately.

Check out video of it in action here…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZTE5e2DchA

$20. :lol:

Arkadia7 said:

Yea, I have watched some game play videos by now and I would not pay more than $20 for this game…the dialogues are pretty cringe-worthy, and its obvious many times that it was written by a non-native English speaker…just very, very awkward.

The voice acting is one of the biggest turn offs for me, especially the main character. Why they chose that guy with his awful voice is beyond me…the UI is also an eye sore, just really bad design, and just ugly. It looks like a placeholder UI that they never got around to developing. In my humble opinion.

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That's the problem with just watching gameplay videos as opposed to actually playing a game. You're not really getting an accurate idea of how much you'd like/dislike the game.

I had the exact same opinion about the UI, and I mentioned it more than once on these forums. I also don't care for the voice acting at all.

That said, those things don't matter as much as you think once you get into the game. I stopped noticing the UI within the first hour. It took a little longer to get past the voice acting, but it's not a significant factor once you realize how much else there is in the game.

JDR13 said:

That's the problem with just watching gameplay videos as opposed to actually playing a game. You're not really getting an accurate idea of how much you'd like/dislike the game.

I had the exact same opinion about the UI, and I mentioned it more than once on these forums. I also don't care for the voice acting at all.

That said, those things don't matter as much as you think once you get into the game. I stopped noticing the UI within the first hour. It took a little longer to get past the voice acting, but it's not a significant factor once you realize how much else there is in the game.

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Yea, I get what you are saying. You might be right about getting used to it, and like I said, I would still consider buying the game if it went on sale, eventually. But I have other objections and always have had them about this game, like the setting, as others mentioned. I don't like the mishmash of the setting. I always prefer "pure" fantasy games than a mixture. This game just doesn't grab me, for a variety of reasons, basically.

Anyway, as always, these are my own views and preferences, and others peoples mileage may vary.

I wasn't a huge fan of the setting when I first heard about the game, but it's executed so well in the game that I've grown to like it a lot. It is very refreshing.

I think it gets better once you get armor and weapons that are up to snuff. I finally have a decent bow and full hunter gear and I can defeat several of the skull monsters outside. This is turn allows me to keep leveling up while exploring. The failure of PB (imo of course) is the beginning of their games is brutal AND boring. Eventually, the game starts to come around, but most people have given up by then.

I'm starting to enjoy it, but the first several hours are just dull no matter how you slice it. Everything can kill you and the lack of material rewards is just dumb.

Stop trolling 'nut.

It's my thread....

It's ok nut, I realize Bethesda fans aren't used to having to put effort into getting their character strong.

JDR13 said:

It's ok nut, I realize Bethesda fans aren't used to having to put effort into getting their character strong.

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Hey hey... just cause in Oblivion you close a hellgate at level 1, and in Skyrim you kill a dragon at level 1 doesn't mean...

oh... nvm... you are right.

No mention of a deathclaw?

Arkadia7 said:

The only reason I would still consider it if it went on a deep discount and sale on steam is they made a very cool looking trainer for this game. I had mentioned in another thread that I think a game trainer (cheats) would enhance this games appeal for me in that it would allow for unlimited stamina, making combat more appealing to me, and a website, cheathappens.com, they made a trainer that not only does that, but coolest of all, they made infinite rocket fuel!

Yes, you can actually fly for real now in this game, and that would be pretty cool I think, to just goof around in the game, exploring it, flying like superman, lol.

P.S. Cheathappens.com is an expensive "premium" cheat site, and it costs $13 a month, so you would have to spend at least $13 (and then cancel your membership) to get this very cool cheat trainer, just wanted to say that up front. It isn't free, unfortunately.

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I wouldn't touch that site with a ten foot pole, personally. If you google "elex trainer", you'll find the same cheat on any number of free sites.

Drithius said:

No mention of a deathclaw?

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There seem to be so many overpowered beasties including deathclaw like monsters - I'm level 12 and I have to avoid many regions, especially near Ignadon. I feel like leveling up doesn't bring that much rewards - every stat seem to be important, which is good, but you only get 1 skill/perk leveling up and even though 10 points for attributes seems high, the increments needed to get the next weapon are ridiculous (especially since the point buy cost increases quite quickly). I am still using the axe/hatchet I found ages ago. The next weapon up requires about 3 levels worth of strength and con investment (and as I said, pretty much every stat matters, so that is too much). And the weapon upgrade perk is crap - the upgraded versions are powerful, but again, you need to have insanely high stats to use them - so all it does is save you buying them later (and I have enough elex actually).

The game seems very melee unfriendly. Stamina drains way too fast for a melee warrior - I invested 1 point in extra stamina but seriously, that's what warriors do - swing a sword, why make it so costly? Not even power attacks etc - just swinging a sword. And it seems you can't do anything when you stamina is gone… thank god for shields. The next stamina improvement is again one that requires massive investment..and for how much extra oomph?

I have no issues with the world, quite like it, except for the outlaws region which is dull and dreary (like all other post-apoc settings of this type). The quests are fine - if a bit distributed at times e.g. go any fetch something at the other end of the world.

Another thing: monster aggro seems way too high and often even if you back away they still pursue. Maybe I was just unlucky, but it starts wearing out my enjoyment of the other parts of the game,.

Mostly having fun, but getting increasingly irritated at slow melee combat improvements. At my level I should be able to take on more more easily - it's painfully slow progress.

I've just hit level 14 and finally got my attribute points up high enough to use a nice sword I've been carrying around for a while. Suddenly I can risk fighting some of those more dangerous beasts and am progressing more quickly. Everything leading up to this has been a struggle. Run away from most creatures, sweat over what attributes to raise and skills to get, find loot wherever you can and do as many quests that you can that don't require combat because you aren't strong enough. Yep it's a proper PB game and I'm loving it. Newcomers to this type of game won't enjoy this 10-15 level struggle and that is probably a good reason it isn't scoring well but I think so far it's their best game since Risen 1 (probably better than Risen 1) and will easily end up my game of the year.

I've passed 20 hours with the game (was too busy so couldn't play more) and it's not an early impression… But I just have to write it.

There are too many things to abuse. While small omissions really, combined will turn the hardest difficulty into easy. All of these need to get fixed ASAP.
While I got used to silly AI issues, hacking bug is getting on my nerves - it's broken for everyone and I'm honestly tired of retrying keypads till all keys finally work. Additionally, hacking a safe in Fort (near junk master, Mad something) is not possible. Well, there's the code then? Nowhere near, I assure you.
The game is not bug-o-rama, it's just me being a nitpick, of course some bugs have to pass through when a game is this huge, but I got spoiled with fast patches in DOS2 and ToCS so I'm kinda impatient.

At first I didn't like trashmobs respawn, but the rate is so small I stopped caring about that. Thanks to the jet, I don't have to waste time on any of trashmobs, seems it was the general idea of this game, fly past anything you don't feel like battling (currently). Which is IMO awsome, if you hate grind, no forcing it. If you love grind, knock yourself out.

Some people here posted exploration sux.
Not to me. I'm having so much fun turning every stone I'm not even sure when will I finish this game. I'm addicted!
Still have to find at least one King's Sorrel (if it even exists in the game), but spotting a superrare golden (what's it name) plant feels like an ultimate reward. These are used is special recipes you may buy from the trader you may hire in Origin settlement. Yes, I need to find more, desperately! And I've thoroughly explored, erm… only 10% of the map?

As a final thought for today - PB didn't read what I was writing for decades.
No humor. Again and again, the same mistake. IMO. There are people who hate humor and then there is me who yells PB games desperately need humor, as much as possible.
The only humor you get in the game is having the drone as sidekick. But it's a robot. Humor is supposed to be humans thing! I'm disappointed.

@joxer;, did you find the special plant near a mutant and his brother? You'll need poison protection. That should be vague enough not to need a spoiler, I hope. One thing I do like about poison fields is that you can't pop a healing pot while inside them. You're choking too much, so you have to leave the field before drinking. This makes antitoxin stuff like liquid gold.

Exploration doesn't suck; there is just too much stuff that has little or no value. Every time I find an Elex vein, I get excited. The problem is all of the single pieces of Elexit that you find constantly. There needs to be a little more variety than 1 or 50 Elexit. Somebody needs to go back through the treasure generator and change all those piles to a random number. It'd be nice if you'd find 1d10 Elexit instead on only 1 every single time for 50,000 piles.

No I didn't find any brother (none? ), but the map is so huge that shouldn't be odd - I mean you didn't find the next camp yet.
And IIRC you said it's not openworld but trashmobgated tunnelgrinding FinalFantasy13.

Basically, the whole game is level gated. You need to be level 10 or so to really go anywhere safely. After you get full armor and a decent weapon, most of the world opens up. Trouble is, most folks stop playing before they get to the good parts, which is why PB is always on the verge of bankruptcy.

85,000 copies sold on Steam, and figure another 15,000 on Gog perhaps. Most games need to sell a million copies to break even. Will Elex hit that? I hope so. The game is rough, but I want other options than TES.

Okay spoiler for the extra special plant: