Of course, as you say, the ranged weapons are also terrible in that way, weapon feedback, how fun feels to use it. Melee is kind of band, but ranged weapons are terrible.
If I would have to compare it to other games, it would be:
Yeah, it reminds me more to Morrowind where you just click and see a bit of the enemy health bar decrease if the hit connects, than to any other thing.
What faction is the best to join? I can join already the Berserkers, but I’m delaying it for now.
Later on ranged weapons are super-stupid-OP-as-fuck. I found a named weapon in a random location that almost broke combat for me, as I was able to start one-shotting lots of critters from range.
The redeemer is the weapon I found. It does 100 damage a shot.
I have that weapon, I still can’t use it as I need more Int.
Still… I believe I can surpass that already. Easily.
I have a sword that does 50 damage. Each step of the comb seems to add 20% or 25% to the damage??, let’s say for this example it’s just 20%. My stamina allows right now 9 hits in succession, so then I’m doing:
Does the HUD show that? I had that turned off and never saw the numbers… Stamina is individually tweakable in the difficulty options if you think that would be worthwhile.
I think comparing it to Morrowind is a bit harsh :)
Numbers don’t show up. I’m making up numbers here, but I think it works that way, because when I’m fighting skull enemies, the first hit impact on their health bar is basically invisible, but the next hits have a bigger and bigger impact with the two last ones basically remove 20% of their health each.
You have the stamina for a 9 hit combo? I never remember having more than enough stamina for 5/6 hits, even with stamina upgrades. And good luck when you’re getting swarmed by 3+ mobs at the same time.
If I recall correctly, the armor enemies have is a flat damage reduction. So if they have 40 armor and you hit for 50, you do 10 damage. If you hit for 60, you do 20, etc. So for the high end mobs, you going to do minimal damage with your first few swings.
I only have 1 upgrade (of 2) to my stamina ability, but I upgraded it with stamina elixirs (the potions done with rare ingredients). And +10 with a amulet.
And yeah, obviously this doesn’t solve the game, against 3 or 4 enemies I have problems.
I talked of several of the problems with the combat, but there is still more to cover: the enemies themselves. For example there are good numbers of critters, between spider like things, bug like things, raptor like things, and more, but THEY ALL FIGHT THE SAME: They advance in a straight line, and attack in melee. Some of them have additionally a forward lunge attack, and some of them have additionally a spit attack (sometimes it’s green, others red, or blue, depending of the type of damage).
And that’s it,with these three simple features I think I just covered 15 types of enemies in the game.
It’s a far cry from something like TW3, with great variety of enemy behavior, unique abilities and animations, group behavior, etc.
The game has some interesting tidbits in the lore/setting.
The MadMaxian desert bandits that seems have a small twist, instead of being generic Fallout 1 raiders. They are very driven for the profit, they mention profit and profit and profit, how the Duke is the leader because he knows how to make profit, they are in a way hyper capitalists in a post apocalyptic setting, which it kind of makes sense? Hyper capitalism is already survival of the fittest, and greed and ‘me’ over everything else, that attitude fits well into survival focused raiders.
Factions seems to have a bit of history instead of just existing for the playher, which makes them more real. Before Logan the Duke, the previous leader was Baxter, in the Berserkers the leader is missing because he went to a mystical Pilgrimage, the Clerics are missing people because the casualties of the past war with the Berserkers, etc. Little things like that.
I also like how exploring on my own I’ve found answers to things like the World Heart trees from the Berserkers (in the big domes in Tavar you can learn they were doing genetic engineering with plants and how they got something that could absorb radiation, maybe they did it knowing that it would be needed with the Comet arriving), and I also found the truth about the Clerics and their religion. Lol.
I’m in the final part, just a few main quests to finish.
This part, of me doing the rest of the main missions I had pending, is being a slog, as I already explored most of the world and done all the side quests, and the game without the exploration factor falls down a notch or two. Not only that, but the main story is ugh. Who the hell thought it would be interesting to have two bald white men speaking robotically to each other, only to be interrupted by a totally amateurish flashback of two other bald white men speaking robotically to each other (but ‘2 years ago’).
The Hybrid! The directive commands! /falls sleep
Gameplay wise, I’m not happy with the difficulty balance the game has shown. It’s curious because this is a hardcore euro RPG, the kind of game people expects to point out for a defense of no auto level enemies in open world games (in contrast of more mainstream RPG which usually uses a more dynamic system) ; instead the game shows the possible weakness of said systems: the game is too hard for the first 10 hours, it’s fine for 20 hours and it’s too easy for15 hours. So for more than 50% of the total time, the difficulty didn’t feel appropriate.
Those flashbacks are I think the worst I’ve seen in a game since… ever?
I found putting it down rather than powering through kept it as fresh as its early stages, but I know what you mean about the difficulty curve. Conversely combat becomes repetitive so being able to trot straight through it isn’t all bad. It gave me a chance to try all the weapons. I think I also dropped the difficulty towards the end as well, just so every journey wasn’t stalled by 2 Cyclops every 30 ft.
40 hours in and I am still running around in a tank top. Really wish there were more armors that were not tied to joining a faction. Still enjoying it a lot though.
Yeah, I want to do all the quests for all factions before joining so I am going on similar trajectory.
I will probably join berserkers because contrary to popular belief, I actually like melee combat here (and in general) and I want their magic, plus they seem like pretty good people. Clerics have best bad ass palading armor but I don’t like their brainwashing stuff, and Outlaws would be my preferred choice if they didn’t focus on guns, I don’t like guns (plus they are building large bomb, no idea what is going on there yet).
I enjoyed this game but I hope Elex 2 isn’t just more of the same. I hope they got enough cash from this to make some changes but I’m not super hopeful.
In my grand plan for the EuroRPG, the Technomancer Guys (Spiders I think) and the Two Worlds guys (Reality Pump) have to merge. They both have good art and ok writing, and similar game types. Reality Pump need some help with animation and possibly combat, which Spiders have a reasonable handle on. Spiders need help with map design and their endless slow lumber back and forth through the same corridors. That’s the plan that should get EU funding :)
PB… I’m not sure they have much worth contributing. Best open worlds… maybe? Maybe they could do a better implementation of firearms and contribute that…? Dunno. Anyway, someone make that happen.
Yeah finished it a while back. I liked it a lot. Enjoyed the world exploration, atmosphere, quest design was pretty good, story was ok (not great, not bad). Liked it more than Risen 2 and 3 (though I enjoyed those too). Really appreciated that PB actually took some care with the ending here.
From Spiders I only played Mars War Logs which I uninstalled 4 hours in because it never grabbed me.
From Reality Pump I finished Two Worlds 2, which was quite good over all. But I liked PB games lot more.
