And they say NO NO NO! :P
Piranha Bytes (of the Risen and Gothic series) fame made another super-janky German WRPG! Let's talk about it!
Also, this game is HARD, even on easy I find myself running from most fights.
Trailers:
Tips for new players:
1. You are weak - avoid fights with enemies that have a skull to the left of their health bar.
2. Equipment is your strength especially starting out.
3. Get the Attribute skill from the Charisma trainer as soon as you can. The benefit does not apply retroactively.
4. Don't tank, time your attacks, watch your stamina, and dodge. It makes a difference.
5. Don't be afraid of experimenting for some enemies light attacks work better and with some heavy. Combo-ing them both can help for certain fights.
6. Get a companion. It can be a little tricky going through their quest you'll need to hide from enemies flee from enemies and make it to your destinations for their quest, fortunately you can avoid fighting.
7. Your Companion is not invincible, but they won't permanently die. When your companion has fallen they will fall more easily the next time, most often in one hit. Switch your companion out (send them to camp) if they die too much, to rest up.
8. Save before conversations. Especially quest conversations.
9. When you get to the domed city avoid "taking sides" if you plan on progressing to a point where you'll save and then branch off to different factions, especially relavent for getting all achievements. BTW there are three possible outcomes.
10. If you're planning to have multiple playthrough(s) stay at neutral cold for as long as possible before you make that branching save file.
11. Some Enemies do respawn, Stores respawn, named NPCs can die and you can't always save them. Rare plants don't respawn, ore veins don't respawn, pockets once picked don't respawn, and items in town don't respawn.
12. Use your jetpack in combat. It's useful and dodges without draining stamina.
13. When using your jetpack in combat for some enemies it's good to hover close to the ground; to trick them into not using their ranged attacks.
14. Aiming with a ranged weapon while using the jetpack puts you in hover mode. (I guess PB played Mass Effect: Andromeda?) :snap: :P
Posts
Already thinking of a second playthrough.
Now I have a working fancy plasma rifle, wheee! :P
Socketing gems into your wrist implant/Pip-boy thing is neat.
I really suck at the numeric keypad hacking mini-game.
Enemy scaling is all kinds of whacked-out. You can just get overwhelmed and horribly murdered, at any moment.
Luckily they put quick-saving in the console versions too (I'm on PS4).
Aaand I'm pretty sure that this companion I picked up at
The way he talks is just like Data from ST:TNG.
Worried about stretching my character too thin statwise but at the rate I'm going, not going to ever earn enough for faction armor upgrades.
Its fricking huge too.
Does anyone know the code for the locked door inside the Converter in Edan?
I spent like 1/2 hour trying to hack it, before giving up, and there's a companion quest item in there.
No problem, says I, and make my way up to the picturesque lake by the village, only to have some sort of winged fire-breathing gargoyle thing sweep down and murder all the guards nearby, and then squat in the middle of the herbs I need.
This game.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Yes!
*Need to be five levels higher before I can accept*
Noooo!
Them: Rawr!
Me: SIDDOWN.
That's where I am with the Berserkers. Only one level to go now, though. I spent all of level 13 just running around exploring the wilderness and killing skull level critters. Magic is good stuff, and the critter trophy perk at least pays you for the time.
What you're supposed to do is go to one of the other settlements and churn out quests. It's the fastest way to level up. I'm in Tavar now just doing random quests for the Outlaws (read- killing and humiliating their people for being jerks.)
I don't hate the combat system. I can see what they were going for with it. It's like the barebones system of Dark Souls with a little rhythm bit. Unfortunately the hitboxes are far too generous for some of the bad guys, but the invincibility frames on the evade and dodge moves are incredibly generous. It also doesn't seem like specialization is a good idea to start. Combining melee, ranged, and magic and swapping as appropriate gets me through most battles without too many problems.
I am kind of wondering if there is something to leveling up I'm not seeing, because I have a lot of weapons now with prerequisites that would take a LONG time to get just by leveling up. Those two handers are no joke in that department.
he he he
I feel like this game is a bit of a hot mess, to be honest. I started it on hard, not realising it was going to be the way it was, and spent the first dozen or so hours just running from everything all the time. It just encouraged me to break the game faster (almost kind of like morrowind in that respect, but less relaxed). It's definitely not bad, and I'm pretty sure its design is largely intentional, but it is very silly, I think on purpose.
The endgame solution to combat in this game is the Redeemer. 100 damage + AoE stunlock = ridiculously broken. I killed the final boss with like 4 shots, and before then as long as I hit anywhere near an enemy, nothing ever got near me.
As it is, I can't even really recommend it to my friends without adding the huge caveat that makes the recommendation worthless.
Hopefully something happens like that with the money curve as well, because the armor I'm looking at is 10,000 credits (just the chest piece). I did just pick up animal trophy 2/3 though, so hopefully that helps. Who knew the market was so strong for claws, legs, and puppy dog tails?
Cigarettes are worth collecting too, especially packs of them, even though they're not worth much individually, there's so many that the value quickly adds up.
That's a good point. I spend a lot of time exploring, and I got the Good Eatin' Perk (whatever that's actually called), so I'm constantly hunting for raw meat anyway. I could take the perk to find all the teleporters around the map, which would at least point me to where most of the settlements are, but I figure the main quest will point me at most of those anyway.
*late game spoilers*
Spent the entire game blowing people up for profit and now the game wants to force me into negotiating because I have a bad elex drinking habit? Come onnn.
Maybe I should just say fuck it, go from hillbilly desert raider evil to full on Terminator evil and roll with it.
I'm also pretty much ahead of the difficulty curve of the game, at this point. Once I figured out what Elex potions do and how easy they are to make, it all got much simpler. That, and I also figured out how the game works mechanically a little better. The biggest things are that the game really rewards clean inputs, and that the invincibility frames for dodges and backsteps are incredibly useful.
Non spoiler thoughts-
Combat goes from really rough at the beginning, to really enjoyable towards the middle. At then end, things are just a little too easy but since the game makes you work to get to that level, it's still pretty satisfying.
The story is well done and satisfying. Choices matter.
What I think messes with people in this game (and got me too in the beginning) is that your assumptions of the genre can work against you. One thing is that armor works in a static way against damage. If a monster has 10 armor and you do 9 damage, he's invincible. When you put points into stats, it does sweet fuck all but qualify you for better weapons and perks. Chaining attacks is also really, really important which may not be super intuitive. The game tells you that, but doesn't beat you over the head with it.
I've watched a few streamers (Like Dansgaming) play it and not realize the reason they couldn't hurt monsters was because their equipment blew ass. What level they were is largely irrelevant. Leveling stats at the mid game is done though Elex potions- not actually leveling. So those weapons that look like they have crazy requirements aren't out of reach.
Criticism-
The game doesn't explain itself too well. You basically have to take a hinted whisper as the game screaming at you. Chain attacks. Learn parry timings (two handers can be parried, btw. I've seen a video incorrectly saying you couldn't). Back dash and rolls have a lot of invincibility frames at the beginning of the animation. You will need these for fighting large groups in melee.
Systems being a little vague + people operating off their assumptions is a bad combination for this game. Combat feels clunky until you realize it's a simplified Dark Souls system. If you do a thing, you're committed to the animation for a while so make sure you do the right thing, at the right time.
My other big criticism of the game is that there really needs to be another hotbar. There are too many useful abilities to fit on there. (Unless that option exists and I just missed it.)
General Tips-
Armor and Weapon upgrades are king. Upgrade your weapons as soon as you can get the stats for the upgraded versions.
Chain attacks, learn parry timings, and use I-frames on rolls.
Get Animal Trophy ASAP. 2/3 will solve your money problems. 3/3 will solve your Natural Elex shortage issues.
Pure ranged and pure melee are doable, but you're better off having each on switch as the situation calls for it.
Heavy weapons knock down groups of enemies.
Food is better for healing than potions, and straight buffs to armor and damage (that you can get through food and magic) are incredibly good. Put something good to eat on your hotbar.
If you're going to use a lot of ranged attacks, get the barter skills ASAP. You'll go through a lot of ammo.
For Melee, the jetpack attack is very strong. If you're having problems bonking your feet on their head rather than hitting them, try boosting to the side rather than forward or back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg09LJky-bw
I like that there is a sequel but I'm not sure this is a "Buy at Full Price" at least for me. I'll probably wait a year after its out for a sale.
It seems like every one of their releases since has just massively dialed up the eurojank without quite having enough of what I loved about Gothic 2 to make it worthwhile. There's a lot more competition in the genre which is probably part of it too. It sounded like Elex was preeetty terrible, but uhh maybe they actually polish this one decently?