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[Drazgul]

Has anyone found a +2 lockpicking amulet (or alternatively, a +1 ring to go with the +1 amulet)? I could get 2/3 lockpicking now but why bother if I can get it via gear.

Also, is socketing permanent or could I use the small stones until I have enough to craft the standard ones?

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Also, is socketing permanent or could I use the small stones until I have enough to craft the standard ones?

Socketing isn't permanent. Feel free to use the stones however you want.

 

[SilentRob]

A little late to the party but as I already shortly teased it on the first pace I figured I'd share my review of the game. It's in german but there are autotranslated english subtitles that work OK to get the meaning across.

While I expected it to be another divise game, I didn't think it would get this bad a reception. The metacritic is way worse than Risen's and about the same as Risen 2 which is, frankly, silly. I know, we shouldn't care as much about a Metacritic score and normally I don't but I hoped for Elex to finally break the mold of PB games being woefully underappreciated. Then again, not even Gothic 2 managed to get out of the 70s, so that's probably a lost fight

Really hoping this does well enough on the storefront (though that was never the problem for the small team of PB) so we can see the planned ELEX 2. What I don't hope for, though, is that Piranha Bytes grows a lot and tries to change their games to accomodate their now bigger targeted playerbase. The unforgiving, sometimes frustriting first 10, 20 hours of these games, were you get killed by almost anything in the wild and the big, open worlds that don't lead you around via the main quest but asks you to figure it out yourself are instrumental to the success of these games. Dramatically growing the team would make it necessary that PB also loses a lot of what makes their games great in the first place.

And, frankly: We already have more than enough great RPGs that are a little more easy and guided. We don't need PB do develop another Skyrim or Witcher. We already got those. I'd much rather get more of what they are already developing since that is something I get nowhere else.

 

[Soulblighter31]

A little late to the party but as I already shortly teased it on the first pace I figured I'd share my review of the game. It's in german but there are autotranslated english subtitles that work OK to get the meaning across.

While I expected it to be another divise game, I didn't think it would get this bad a reception. The metacritic is way worse than Risen's and about the same as Risen 2 which is, frankly, silly. I know, we shouldn't care as much about a Metacritic score and normally I don't but I hoped for Elex to finally break the mold of PB games being woefully underappreciated. Then again, not even Gothic 2 managed to get out of the 70s, so that's probably a lost fight

Really hoping this does well enough on the storefront (though that was never the problem for the small team of PB) so we can see the planned ELEX 2. What I don't hope for, though, is that Piranha Bytes grows a lot and tries to change their games to accomodate their now bigger targeted playerbase. The unforgiving, sometimes frustriting first 10, 20 hours of these games, were you get killed by almost anything in the wild and the big, open worlds that don't lead you around via the main quest but asks you to figure it out yourself are instrumental to the success of these games. Dramatically growing the team would make it necessary that PB also loses a lot of what makes their games great in the first place.

And, frankly: We already have more than enough great RPGs that are a little more easy and guided. We don't need PB do develop another Skyrim or Witcher. We already got those. I'd much rather get more of what they are already developing since that is something I get nowhere else.

people should stop looking at consoles for metacritic on this game. The metacritic is on pc which is 70, which is better than Risen 2 or 3. Changing for mainstream audience is the last thing they should do. I hope they continue pissing against the wind. They and Bohemia Int are the only ones that do so anymore

 

[jesu]

Couldn't wait any longer.
Bought it and downloading now.
I really enjoyed Risen 1 and 2 so I know what I'm getting myself into.
Not fussed by reviews, if fans of previous PB games like it I know I will too.

On;y problem is, it will take all day to download!

 

[oneils]

Aside from somebody saying Assassin’s Creed Origins is a better game above, they also mentioned they ruled another game out for micro transactions. Assassin’s Creed Origins has micro transactions.

You read his post wrong. Might have to read it again.

 

[stoff]

Haven't had much time with it yet, but I am loving it already after a few hours.
Man, how I've missed drowning in Quests with choices that have actual consequences.
Though I'd take a historical or fantasy setting over post-apocalypse any day, the world manages to suck me in regardless.
I feel this could be PBs best since G2.

 

[texhnolyze]

The game really opens up after you get a real armor and a shield. I feel like I can tackle everything now. Not really.

Also, the luring monsters to enemy groups tactic does wonder. Especially for the Albs groups which I had no chance to beat them normally.

 

[Drazgul]

The game really opens up after you get a real armor and a shield. I feel like I can tackle everything now. Not really.

Also, the luring monsters to enemy groups tactic does wonder. Especially for the Albs groups which I had no chance to beat them normally.

I don't like the shield at all, it ruins the special attack - shield bash is so much worse than the massive damage from your 1-hander.

 

[texhnolyze]

I don't like the shield at all, it ruins the special attack - shield bash is so much worse than the massive damage from your 1-hander.

True, it's better to just use the shield bash manually (right click/RB) than the special move which is basically just the shield bash.

But I think it's actually a merit of using a shield, you can tumble enemies anytime or you can focus on maxing the combat meter so you gain maximum normal damage at all time.

 

[gossi]

I’m 4 hours in on easy and basically anything in this game kills me. I can’t go anywhere without getting killed, I just have to sprint around. This is not a criticism.

 

[PnCIa]

I’m 4 hours in on easy and basically anything in this game kills me. I can’t go anywhere without getting killed, I just have to sprint around. This is not a criticism.

Yes, you will have to select the enemies you fight very carefully even when you are at higher levels. The world is littered with weak and hard enemies in close proximity to each other.
This way of navigating around the world (utilizing dat jetpack to use high walls to stay out of enemies attack radius) is quite tense, especially at night.

I get the feeling that IGN, Gamespot et al. just ran straight to whatever their objective was and got killed a ton in the process.

 

[Anoxida]

I’m 4 hours in on easy and basically anything in this game kills me. I can’t go anywhere without getting killed, I just have to sprint around. This is not a criticism.

That was my first 12 hours. Also not criticism. Then I started to be able to kill stuff. Even npcs with skulls. So I got cocky and thought one of them black raptors aint got shit on me. I got destroyed.

 

[texhnolyze]

Yeah, avoiding and choosing your enemies carefully is part of the fun in this game. I don't really have that much experience with PB games, but I think it was obvious that you should avoid high-level enemies. The devs even give you the obvious skull icon in the enemies' health bar to give you a clue.

 

[gossi]

I’m finding it a really interesting game as it absolutely feels different to Skyrim, Witcher and Dragon Age (all of which I love). When this game says you’re in a dangerous world and the outside is a nightmare, it isn’t kidding. The words the NPCs say have weight and meaning in this game.

 

[DPB]

Do Clerics get any special melee weapons, or are you expected to solely focus on ranged and/or PSI powers? I want to try a bit of everything, which I realise is probably a bad idea.

 

[texhnolyze]

Do Clerics get any special melee weapons, or are you expected to solely focus on ranged and/or PSI powers? I want to try a bit of everything, which I realise is probably a bad idea.

I'm planning to join the Clerics and I'd like to know the answer to this as well.

It seems that they're focusing on ranged weapons such as energy rifles, but I prefer a sword+shield.

 

[SilentRob]

Do Clerics get any special melee weapons, or are you expected to solely focus on ranged and/or PSI powers? I want to try a bit of everything, which I realise is probably a bad idea.

Oh yeah, they have melee weapons, too. I think they are called "Regentsword" or something like that? But, basically: If you explore the world a little you'll find weapons that are way better than the stuff you can buy and that's what I went with. Only ever bought my armor at the faction vendor and that took more than enough money^^

No faction is really focused on melee or ranged. Berserkers have their fantasy swords/axes and magic & bows, Outlaws have the huge metal hammers and guns & stims, Clerics have metallic/energy swords and laser rifles & PSI. But you can use every faction's weapons with every other faction.

 

[spleenpoker]

After understanding how the combat works (all thanks to the tutorial video), I'm starting to love it. It seems that maintaining the full combat bar as long as possible is better than using it for special move. The damage boost gained from full bar is huge. It also requires you to be more aggresive but still careful.

What tutorial video?

Definitely going to pick this up at the end of the month. Such an interesting world. Just hope there's a patch out to fix the AI

 

[Moff]

Do Clerics get any special melee weapons, or are you expected to solely focus on ranged and/or PSI powers? I want to try a bit of everything, which I realise is probably a bad idea.

Clerics have swords and shields in their design. They also have laser and plasma rifles and flame throwers.
Their Black Hole Spell is also the only really good magic spell in the game.

I'd say all factions rely heavily on melee weapons until the late game where you can use really strong guns.
Magic is generally underpowered and honestly looks really bad, that was a lot better in Risen 3, I wonder what happened there. There are also very, very few non combat spells in all factions.

What tutorial video?

Definitely going to pick this up at the end of the month. Such an interesting world. Just hope there's a patch out to fix the AI

Q: Does the combat suck again?
A: Combat is again very challenging, early in the game you are supposed to avoid many strong enemies and always bring a companion.
Watch this video to make sure how to pull off combos and increase your damage.

 

[dragn]

playing around with cheat engine, i went from 20 to 50 constitution and didnt gain any health. double strength still no damage on small monsters wtf

 

[loganclaws]

I'm really starting to think that PB chose not to show any numbers in their UI because they don't actually do anything, is this possible?

 

[Filben]

playing around with cheat engine, i went from 20 to 50 constitution and didnt gain any health. double strength still no damage on small monsters wtf

Hm, I remember games where just increasing a value didn't do anything, too, because you literally just changed the value within the UI, but not the value that is used for calculation.

Can someone test it with actually spending saved skill points?

 

[texhnolyze]

playing around with cheat engine, i went from 20 to 50 constitution and didnt gain any health. double strength still no damage on small monsters wtf

Try changing the unspent points value instead of the stats.

I'm really starting to think that PB chose not to show any numbers in their UI because they don't actually do anything, is this possible?

I think the numbers do matter. My survivability has risen immensely since I had Jax fully equipped.

I'm not really sure about weapons though, as the upgrades have been very insignificant so far.

 

[dragn]

Hm, I remember games where just increasing a value didn't do anything, too, because you literally just changed the value within the UI, but not the value that is used for calculation.

Can someone test it with actually spending saved skill points?

i did it again 27 to 67, still 90 health. editing health directly to 300 works and i see the change in the hp bar and can heal it full with potions
with skills its the same, stamina or extra hitpoints dont give anything. melee weapon to 3 works and gives +30% damage which you can see on the weapons

 

[Drazgul]

I think the numbers do matter. My survivability has risen immensely since I had Jax fully equipped.

I'm not really sure about weapons though, as the upgrades have been very insignificant so far.

Sure, the numbers from armor and weapons definitely matter. Stats... not so much.

 

[Artdayne]

I'm really starting to think that PB chose not to show any numbers in their UI because they don't actually do anything, is this possible?

I'm not sure the attribute points do anything other than allow you to unlock new items and abilities and those things are very substantial.

 

[MrCinos]

Any idea how to get there? Berserker's village under Oran's tavern. I even pickpocketed cellar's key from Oran but there's no door. The trapdoor on the screenshot isn't active.

 

[Big_Al]

Done a few quests so far that have come up and said 'This will change the story' and these were just sidequests. Very very interesting.

Loving the game so far. I'll admit it took me a wee while to warm up to it, as I love the pirates theme in the Risen games, but Elex is superb. Absolutely loving it. I've completely fucked up the Berserker option though so I won't be joining them

Part of me maybe thinking (could be story spoilers!)

Spoiler

I might see if I can help the Outlaws build that bomb they're making for the Duke and blow the Berserkers sky high. That option is very appealing I must admit

 

[FeelTheKick]

As my laptop wasn't able to run this at any respectable resolution I decided to buy the ps4 version. Hopfully I won't regret that

 

[Xando]

Joined the clerics and finally got some decent gear. Feels like i‘m starting to turn the tide. Love it

 

[RedSparrows]

So i explore the southern coast. I glide down a cliff edge and see some men.

Hail fellow travellers!
'I'll get you ass hole!'
DONK
<<end>>

I genuinely laughed. So very silly and yet somehow fun.

 

[iFirez]

I just started playing today. It’s highly refreshing and strange to be playing a game with next to no restrictions or hand holding. I only played for an hour so far (got to the Beserker town) and got a quest about finding a murderer by interrogating suspects. Combat feels floaty but nuisanced and I need to figure it out more with the flow and combos.

I’m ready to strap myself into my chair for 8-10 hours tomorrow and really get used to the game a little.

It is a little daunting after playing so many modern games that hold your hands and tell you where to go. This game is just “you can do this... if you want” or “here’s something you could do but there’s also a massive world which you can explore from the start”.

Joined the clerics and finally got some decent gear. Feels like i‘m starting to turn the tide. Love it

How long to get there? I plan on trying to do as much with the Beserkers as I can to get levels and items and then heading off to the clerics. Do we get a quest line or marker to head to the clerics at any point because I have no idea where they are.

 

[vesirott]

Hello Gothic my old friend

 

[texhnolyze]

Is there any consequence later for killing your companions?

Spoiler

I solved Duran's case which ended up with him being the culprit. So I reported him to Ragnar and executed Duran in front of him. I thought he wouldn't fit for the adventure waiting ahead of me. I've already got Falk the Cleric for the time being, and it seems that I'll get more companions down the road anyway.

Sure, the numbers from armor and weapons definitely matter. Stats... not so much.

I'm not sure the attribute points do anything other than allow you to unlock new items and abilities and those things are very substantial.

I see. Yeah, I guess that would be the case.

 

[deoee]

Elex is sold out @ cdkeys.com

 

[cvben]

First PB game and I'm in love here. Can't promise that'll last, but if the game remains the same kind of funky/awesome/weird greatness then I'll be set. I can't say that I agree with the negative reviews either, but then again I could understand if its not a person's cup of tea. Either way, I love it and will definitely be checking out the PB back catalog. That GOG sale will be well used (wallet be damned).

 

[texhnolyze]

First PB game and I'm in love here. Can't promise that'll last, but if the game remains the same kind of funky/awesome/weird greatness then I'll be set. I can't say that I agree with the negative reviews either, but then again I could understand if its not a person's cup of tea. Either way, I love it and will definitely be checking out the PB back catalog. That GOG sale will be well used (wallet be damned).

I always wanted to try the Gothic games, but the lack of gamepad support killed my interest.

If they ever bother to update or even better, remaster them, I'll be there. I'm in love with Elex.

 

[His Majesty]

Gothic 1 works pretty well with xpadder.

 

[loganclaws]

From a hardcore PB fan, this game has huge potential but still needs about 1 or 2 for patches to make it shine. They need to fix some really glaring issues.

- more transparent and clear progression
- more responsive controls, especially movement
- allow rebinding of all keys
- show numbers for everything, health, stamina, energy, experience points etc
- more responsive ui
- more intelligent ai
- resolve buggy quests
- option to disable dodging with movement key double tap

 

[Shengar]

Elex is currently at 66k according to Steamspy. I hope this bodes well for PB.

 

[Moff]

Any idea how to get there? Berserker's village under Oran's tavern. I even pickpocketed cellar's key from Oran but there's no door. The trapdoor on the screenshot isn't active.

the lock for the trapdoor is next to one of the barrels, it's hard to find.
this is also a quest for the thieves guild.

 

[Jag]

It helps turning the combo meter to easy in the difficulty settings to make the combat quite a bit easier (fills the damage bar more quickly) without breaking the balance too much imo.

Wonder if it lowers xp or loot doing this. I’m still hitting like a wet noodle at lvl 8.

What’s a good level to start doing Cleric quests? Started picking them up but zerker quests are still giving me problems.

 

[Moff]

I'm not sure the attribute points do anything other than allow you to unlock new items and abilities and those things are very substantial.

It is really annoying that we need to guess important stats like this.
Personally, I think the stats alone doe increase damage, health, magic power.
I mean the attributes say so, right? It might not be much though.
But I certainly have way more health than in the beginning, I can see that from the health potions, how much they heal. And I never got the health perk.
And INT would be useless to raise to 100 if it would not increase magic damage.

But hey, we might never know. As I said, annoying.

How long to get there? I plan on trying to do as much with the Beserkers as I can to get levels and items and then heading off to the clerics. Do we get a quest line or marker to head to the clerics at any point because I have no idea where they are.

You can join every faction very easily, their joining quests mostly involve talking and stuff in the main cities and maybe kill some weak single enemies or duel come NPCs. They are meant to be doable at an early level.
The Berseker boss does give you a quest to bring him information from the other cities, wich places questmarkers for them on the map if you don't want to look up where they are online.
There is also a shortcut to the clerics base in the neutral city in Abessa. The teleporter there also unlocks the Teleport to the Clerics base.

 

[AJLma]

Media coverage of this game is subpar, so I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in support of this game, since it seems like there's a lot of fence sitters. I'm about 5-6 hours into the game, so these are early impressions.

First, the game feels way better to play than it looks. The main characters movement is weighty, which actually feels great when playing with a controller. This translates well to the combat system and exploration. Combat is weighty, a bit slow, but very engaging, and I much prefer it to the beeline-to-enemy, spam R1 style of combat that you get in Fallout/Skyrim. Watching videos of this game makes it look like it plays janky even in it's movement, this is not the case, it feels great to play.

The voice acting is about 8/10 good, meaning for every 10 NPC's I talk to, there might be 2 that are like... almost bad, then the other 8 will be great. So far this game has very convincing world-building dialogue, and I've been really impressed with the range of character personalities just in the first village. I haven't followed enough of the main story to comment on its quality, but I'm intrigued. The whole package isn't quite as sharp as say D:OS2, but it's close.

Random positives:
-The jetpack makes exploration a lot of fun. There's lots of verticality to the world design.
-Game runs flawlessly, 90FPS+ on my machine at all times with no dips or stutters, I can't remember a AAA game I played that performed this smoothly.
-Vibrant color palette, it's a nice game to look at.
-Seems to be a decent variety of builds just glancing through the skill lists.
-Lots of stuff to find, if only just "valuables" to sell for better weapons/armor.

Overall a much better product than I was expecting, and undoubtedly way better than these recent mainstream reviews are saying.

 

[Ennosuke]

As a German you need to love PB somehow, but I never played any of their games. Gothic was a legendary game back then, all of my friends were hyping it, but I wasn't playing it. Somehow I am interested in playing Elex, mainly because the open world looks fun and the weirdness of some game elements are sort of appealing.

The OT title is amazing!

 

[Lagamorph]

How is this?
I'd never heard of it until I saw it in town today. Is it up to much story wise? The box description of an open world RPG with actual choices rather intrigued me.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

It sounds like this game needed to be delayed and they felt they couldn't miss the holiday season. I'm sure budget played a big role in that. I'm certain the developers were aware of the balance issues and others prior to launch.

 

[Big_Al]

Bah, trying to reach an item for a quest but it's in a restricted room and even when I sneak into it some bastard from the next room just runs in despite not being able to see me. Very annoying.

 

[Jag]

Bah, trying to reach an item for a quest but it's in a restricted room and even when I sneak into it some bastard from the next room just runs in despite not being able to see me. Very annoying.

Sleep until midnight and try then.