So it’s like the Witcher special sense that highlights stuff? Neat.
So I finished albeit some bugs. Could not complete Caja or Ray’s quests as they would not progress anymore. Otherwise a fine game. Took me around 30 hours of pure playtime, propably almost double that if you count reloads due to death or stupidity.
There is no need to worry about skill or attribute points on the low difficulty really. I had a bad build with lots of crappy skills, spread around between melee ranged and heavy etc. I had 11 unused Skill points and and round the same attribute points left over. Simply because I could not take many more skills because attributes became very expensive with 5 points per raise. Could have raised attributes higher but why bother when you do not need them for something specific. Was Level 39. Could have still brewed around 20 attribute Elex potions though just with stuff I found. Money was an issue right up to the end which I loved. And with a higher difficulty I would propably had much longer to play and skills to learn. On easy I 2 shot most things, maybe max 5 swings for bigger monsters. There are only 2 big ones I never really bothered with.
I will give it a bit time to stew and revisit in a bit when there have been hopefully more patches. Imho their greatest game since Gothic 2. Not quiet at that level but oh so very close. Liked most of the game and the world is just spectacular in some places. Even with edgy trees and non smooth landscape. Sunset in the Valley is just amazing. Skyrim Looks better in screenshots but I feel much more immersed in Elex as everything feels more natural, handcrafted and lovingly placed.
So, what are us starting to play the game doing wrong? What is the stuff that allows poors like us be able to defend ourselves? is some skills? is armour, weapons? being able to craft ammo?
Are we supposed to steal stuff? I started the game has a honest guy, not stealing anything… was I gimping myself much?
Steal what’s not nailed down. PB game protagonists are not really good guys. Gear is the most important factor and the best weapons are late game. Best to explore a lot, avoid fighting and join a faction of your choosing. I was level 25 when I did but could have done so propably a lot earlier.
Hmm, I have only ever found one pair, and um, I sold them to someone… :(
Ya, you can actually steal some pretty sweet weapons from various places.
I feel like the early game got a lot more manageable when I got three things:
- Increased Health skill
- Increased Stamina skill
- A shield (probably the most important of the 3 for me)
Once I was able to wield the ‘Axe’ I felt like I was able to do decent damage. Also, I’m not sure if this was mentioned at all, each hit in a melee combo does increasing damage. If you’re just piddling around and hitting once, it takes forever to kill stuff. The damage difference between six single slashes and a six hit combo is staggering - like orders of magnitude difference.
There’s more! The shades I have all seen offer special buffs as well. E.g. the “detect enemies” skill is mimic’d on one pair of shades. Another has detect items, which is only doable through using a special tech potion thingy you can find in the wild. That one is super helpful. I should add that some alleged spaders have made the +10 armor claim but it remains unverified.
Patch out with a not of nice fixes (e.g. barter fix). Also apparently taking elex potions now increases cold. which makes sense Lore wise. I would not want to play the game without them, though.
I turned the radar off as it was ugly. Things and skills which mark locations on that are no good to me. I wish the main map would persist my chocies for what to display though. Your companion always obscures which way you’re facing.
Edit - the patch mat have fixed that, yay :) It also lets you disable double D to roll etc.
The item finding thingy doesn’t mark items on the radar; it outlines items within a certain distance of the character in the actual world. You can see through walls with it (to see the outlines, I mean).
I find marked enemies on the radar to be helpful, myself.
Oh I see. That does fit the hitech glasses idea better.
I see in the patch ‘Companions now more useful in combat.’ My companions are essential in combat, as their indestructability means every time we get into a fight I have to leg it and let them look after themselves. I feel a bit of a cad :(
This was pretty much my early path too. Hang around the first town doing stuff until I had better armour and was able to wield one of the decent weapons I’d found. A point in health, armour, and stamina skills. And a good shield - lifesaver! And a cool knockdown heavy attack.
Then I was equipped to handle all the lower tier stuff as long as there weren’t too many at once.
Did all the Duras investigation quests, sticking to roads and avoiding tough fights, doing little surrounding quests along the way when I could. Met another companion in the course of that, and once you have a companion things get a bit easier.
I love all the little companion comments that are location appropriate, if not always situation appropriate - yes, it’s a nice view but something’s EATING ME.
I thought Risen was a pretty good PB game.
Very similar to Gothic 2.
I struggle to get my head around this game a bit.
Bit hard to suspend disbelief for it, and the scenery changes don’t help.
The jungle environments look really nice, they’re good at that.
Gah. Just finished it. What is with these total bullshit final battles (finished D:IS 2 just before this) ? The worst part is that it has a very long interaction / cut scene and THEN the final battle starts and it will not let you save the game until the battle is over. Meaning you need to go through all that stuff between each attempt.
All in all this is a game I both really like and really hate. Normally I do steam reviews of games, but I am not sure what I should rank this one since all I get is a thumbs up and thumbs down.
I think this is totally fair.
It does some stuff very well, and some stuff very poorly.
You ever try out the dual resist exploration?
I went:
I took both points in radiation + poison (because I was unsure what certain “toxic” areas were), some sort of gas mask that gave +25 to both, and the necklace that gives +10 to a bunch of resists. Didn’t use chems. Explored the Mausoleum in Edan where that quest guy is hanging out with his “brother”. I didn’t notice much of a difference with that level of resistance versus less (just compared switching to sunglasses versus the other helmet). maybe a little bit. I am pretty disappointed but entirely unsurprised.
I did fire and frost resist. I never got hit by a frost attack after buying the skill. The fire resist was decent. Unfortunately they did not offer resistance to things that really mattered (other than fire) like lighting and bleeding damage.
All in all, most of the skills in the game are somewhat worthless. IE: Lockpicking. Sure you could open chests, but I never found anything but junk.
I think the only really good skills I bought were the trophies skill for animal parts, and the chemistry skill to brew elex potions. I am not sure, if any, impact the other skills really had.
For example, the improved armor skill. I have no idea if that helped or not. I bought the cleric personal shield spell which said it gave +40 armor IIRC. Considering that would more than double my armor, I would expect a dramatic improvement when hit. It was not here. I think I had slightly better survivability.
I think the greatest thing that makes you more powerful is simply being a higher level. Everything else pales in comparison. Stats do not matter other than qualifying you for skills or gear. Skills, mostly do not matter.
Without seeing actual numbers, its hard to know for sure.
Mmmm, all the crafting skills are good. Well the gem one might be mediocre. But weapon upgrading is terrific. I assume each faction also has a special upgrade skill like the Cleric’s high tech weapon upgrade (which gives Energy, Stasis, or uh I forget options for weapons).
Some of the spell skills might be worth it; I’m not sure. I found some ok loot in chests but yes the premium stuff (e.g. weapons) is always out in the open. Hacking was also ok, not great. But you’ve got the skill points for this stuff over time, so why not.
You say you think level matters but I really think it’s just the weapons. Level → attribute points → use better weapons. Rush chemistry and "animal trophies " 1, and the first Stamina skill (a must get), get some stat upgrades to use better weapons and then get to the 2nd trophies skill. then get better combat stats for better weapons. I’m in late game (~level 28) and using Weapon II’s with high tech improvements and largely wrecking stuff. Trolls and the huge gangly mutants are still troublesome but killable.
I assume that some stuff isn’t properly implemented yet. E.g. “improve mental energy” or the spells kills that improve damage. Or if they are, it’s really minor. It’s too bad half the stuff is either not working or is a victim of the dev’s design strategy. It’s still a fun game in many respects.
The psi battery skill definitely works. I bought it when I had full psi, and after the HUD was up again after the conversation I was missing about a quarter of my psi. You’re right though, it would be nice to see a breakdown of what you’re getting for your skill points.
How about the skill that gives more xp for reading books? What do you get, 11xp instead of 10? That one is a total joke.