Don't buy this game. Combat is complete garbage that ruins the experience completely.

[Tamaster]

I have played this game but not on PC. Extensively.

And what i can tell to anyone thinking to buy this game because it's on big discount - i tell you: don't.

Combat in this game, especially in melee, is perhaps the worst combat system I have ever had the displeasure to see in twenty and some years of gaming. Bar none.

The game overall might have several positive aspects such as a ton of hand-crafted locations, immense world, and an outrageous amount of diverse quests, items, locations, abilities and so on. All of these points are definitely good. Also interesting lore.

But the combat completely ruins all of it. It's so bad that alone it manages to overcome all the other numerous positive aspects this game might have.

Let me clarify:

Combat in ELEX can be Ranged or Melee, and the experience you get is roughly:

Melee: a clunky, poorly-made, unpolished mess where attack animations of players and enemies are ridiculous, enemies can attack you without any windup / telegraphing animation, you can see them make their "idle animation" or movement, and them 2 frames later just attack out of nowhere at comically high speeds or absurd patterns - as if there was no momentum or realism at all in their movements. You know Dark Souls where moves are well telegraphed (more or less) and are reasonably realistic in their animations and making? Well think the COMPLETE OPPOSITE and that's what you have in ELEX. Combine this with inaccurate hitboxes and completely idiotic stagger / poise systems and the dish is served.

Ranged: ranged combat is more bareable but ultimately boring beyond reason. On one side you don't have all the ridiculous issues of melee, which is great, but on the other side all you have is a kiting fest where you just backpedal for miles or kite enemies in circles until you fed them enough bullets so they die. It works, mostly, but it's extremely boring - still the lesser of two evils, at least ranged is playable.


These devs still have the combat quality standards of Risen 1, which was also a complete mess but partially justifiable since it's a very old game - nowadays with the tech at their disposal having a game with a combat made as poorly as this one is inexcusable.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy this third-rate mess. There are plenty of other better games offering similar experiences.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Tamaster:

Combat in this game, especially in melee, is perhaps the worst combat system I have ever had the displeasure to see in twenty and some years of gaming. Bar none.

On PC, melee combat works fine and is enjoyable. I've done multiple melee-only playthroughs, enjoying the different feeling of different weapons.

Maybe it is different on console? Can you point at a youtube video that shows what you try to describe?

Originally posted by Tamaster:

you can see them make their "idle animation" or movement, and them 2 frames later just attack out of nowhere at comically high speeds or absurd patterns - as if there was no momentum or realism at all in their movements.

Which type of creature or human does that?

Originally posted by Tamaster:

you have is a kiting fest where you just backpedal for miles or kite enemies in circles until you fed them enough bullets so they die.

Then don't do that. It indicates that you try to fight when your Jax is not capable enough yet. Learn more combat abilities, get better weapons. Eventually, you can kill all opponents with only a few hits.

Originally posted by Tamaster:

These devs still have the combat quality standards of Risen 1, which was also a complete mess but partially justifiable since it's a very old game

Risen 1's major flaws are: 1) Slowness. Running feels like walking, walking mode is in the game for no reason other than tailing a single NPC during one quest, but you can do that without walking mode, too. 2) A very small ingame island with graphics that complicate exploration. Risen 2 and 3 improve on that a bit by adding more islands. 3) Obstacles and cave walls getting in your way during combat way too often.

Overall, combat in ELEX is much more fluid and predictable than in Risen 1. It works as designed.

Originally posted by Tamaster:

There are plenty of other better games offering similar experiences.

What makes them better when they offer a similar experience?

Which games are that, for example?

[Ambassador of Darkness]

Originally posted by Tamaster:

I have played this game but not on PC. Extensively.

And what i can tell to anyone thinking to buy this game because it's on big discount - i tell you: don't.

Combat in this game, especially in melee, is perhaps the worst combat system I have ever had the displeasure to see in twenty and some years of gaming. Bar none.

The game overall might have several positive aspects such as a ton of hand-crafted locations, immense world, and an outrageous amount of diverse quests, items, locations, abilities and so on. All of these points are definitely good. Also interesting lore.

But the combat completely ruins all of it. It's so bad that alone it manages to overcome all the other numerous positive aspects this game might have.

Let me clarify:

Combat in ELEX can be Ranged or Melee, and the experience you get is roughly:

Melee: a clunky, poorly-made, unpolished mess where attack animations of players and enemies are ridiculous, enemies can attack you without any windup / telegraphing animation, you can see them make their "idle animation" or movement, and them 2 frames later just attack out of nowhere at comically high speeds or absurd patterns - as if there was no momentum or realism at all in their movements. You know Dark Souls where moves are well telegraphed (more or less) and are reasonably realistic in their animations and making? Well think the COMPLETE OPPOSITE and that's what you have in ELEX. Combine this with inaccurate hitboxes and completely idiotic stagger / poise systems and the dish is served.

Ranged: ranged combat is more bareable but ultimately boring beyond reason. On one side you don't have all the ridiculous issues of melee, which is great, but on the other side all you have is a kiting fest where you just backpedal for miles or kite enemies in circles until you fed them enough bullets so they die. It works, mostly, but it's extremely boring - still the lesser of two evils, at least ranged is playable.


These devs still have the combat quality standards of Risen 1, which was also a complete mess but partially justifiable since it's a very old game - nowadays with the tech at their disposal having a game with a combat made as poorly as this one is inexcusable.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy this third-rate mess. There are plenty of other better games offering similar experiences.

This game is for mouse players even from the very beginning to compare it with dark souls which is only suitable with console steering and cant be properly played with mouse steering is absolutely nonsense and not appropiate and even fair.so gothic the very start of elex is about 20 years ago so the concept was kept cause it was good and the fighting system was the best possible solution of this time.the graphics were adequate to the pc s requirements and looked always good when playing it at the time of publishing.the system was arranged in away even lower reqirements pcs were able to run this game so lower resolution was included.so to say combat in this game was always a little bit chaotic but u had to develop a playing strategy to control it and to defeat the monsters so for this reason quick combat reactions were always required with built in breaks of the combat strategy of the monsters to keep it fair for the player.so even far ranged combat was never a real problem rather easy to disable the opponent in the pre fight.u right it is a handcrafted diam concerning the landscapes not Ai created as usual today.if u know the chain of developement u must know combat is not all and game mechanics are old but should be kept.Cause they are well proofed.so coming to an end i dont like elex cause it doesnt take place in the middle ages or the pirate era.everything is the same but why critsize when we got no better one or choice.

[godslayer1975]

sorry you are wrong game rocks on xbox x and here on pc. i thnk you are being liar i have not seen any of the stuff your crying about and i beat game twice on x just bought on pc sale . i think you just suck at combat and came here to brute like child when asked for some proof since no one has seen this you ignore us .

[Average Juice Enjoyer]

Originally posted by Tamaster:

I have played this game but not on PC. Extensively.

And what i can tell to anyone thinking to buy this game because it's on big discount - i tell you: don't.

Combat in this game, especially in melee, is perhaps the worst combat system I have ever had the displeasure to see in twenty and some years of gaming. Bar none.

The game overall might have several positive aspects such as a ton of hand-crafted locations, immense world, and an outrageous amount of diverse quests, items, locations, abilities and so on. All of these points are definitely good. Also interesting lore.

But the combat completely ruins all of it. It's so bad that alone it manages to overcome all the other numerous positive aspects this game might have.

Let me clarify:

Combat in ELEX can be Ranged or Melee, and the experience you get is roughly:

Melee: a clunky, poorly-made, unpolished mess where attack animations of players and enemies are ridiculous, enemies can attack you without any windup / telegraphing animation, you can see them make their "idle animation" or movement, and them 2 frames later just attack out of nowhere at comically high speeds or absurd patterns - as if there was no momentum or realism at all in their movements. You know Dark Souls where moves are well telegraphed (more or less) and are reasonably realistic in their animations and making? Well think the COMPLETE OPPOSITE and that's what you have in ELEX. Combine this with inaccurate hitboxes and completely idiotic stagger / poise systems and the dish is served.

Ranged: ranged combat is more bareable but ultimately boring beyond reason. On one side you don't have all the ridiculous issues of melee, which is great, but on the other side all you have is a kiting fest where you just backpedal for miles or kite enemies in circles until you fed them enough bullets so they die. It works, mostly, but it's extremely boring - still the lesser of two evils, at least ranged is playable.


These devs still have the combat quality standards of Risen 1, which was also a complete mess but partially justifiable since it's a very old game - nowadays with the tech at their disposal having a game with a combat made as poorly as this one is inexcusable.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy this third-rate mess. There are plenty of other better games offering similar experiences.

The feel of the combat is exactly what makes games such as Risen, Elex etc so much fun. It's their unique style that gives them so much character. Think of the difference in combat between games like Skyrim, cookie cutter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and dark souls, a much more punishing system. Elex is nice and firmly placed in the middle of the two.

If you pass up this amazing game based on that fact alone before even giving it a chance then good riddance to you, you self entitled bastard. If you decide to stick with it for longer than a few hours then you will find the foundation for a masterpiece of a game.

[CriticalCore]

I bought it on sale, I find the combat tolerable and even enjoyable so far. The exploration is a real winner here in my books, lots of places I want to jetpack around and explore.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by CriticalCore:

The exploration is a real winner here in my books, lots of places I want to jetpack around and explore.

Exactly what I felt during my first look at the game already. Of course, one must be interested in exploring an ingame world, even if it may lead into less inhabited areas of the game where only few beasts may lurk.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1760371456
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1298524331
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1205979597

[Mighty Fredde]

Pyranha Bytes makes bad combat, everything else is worth the experience. And to be honest, most games these days have awful combat, look at witcher and all the dark souls inspired games.

[Blevalschitsa]

this game is definetly not bad, and combaat system is far from garbage, it's just difficulty zone spikes that makes it sometimes ridiculously hard.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Mighty Fredde:

Pyranha Bytes makes bad combat,

Magic in Gothic 3 is still among my favorites. It's absolutely awesome. Mana regeneration, seeking missiles, AoE spells. Pure gold.

Originally posted by Mighty Fredde:

And to be honest, most games these days have awful combat,

That's much too vague. What makes combat in those games "awful"?

There are plenty of games that work fine, but they try to offer a completely different experience - such as button mashing, jumping into the fray within the first minute of playing and dumbed down character progression. Some of those games aim at a different target group of players. Somebody, who isn't interested in button mashing or nonsensically fast attack animations, may call such combat "awful". Other people perhaps want exactly such an easy-going combat.

ELEX's combat just works and, for the faction-less melee/combat options, is based on simple design decisions that do the job. You are free to say you don't like it, but then tell specifics and don't only throw in attributes like "bad" or "awful".

[BDK]

Melee for me was MUCH more enjoyable after I disabled the auto lock on and double tap to dodge. If all else fails though, just focus on ranged combat.

[Tetssian]

yeah combat in pb sucks its always clunky and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but like they said everything else is worth every penny, its a great game to be honest

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Originally posted by Mighty Fredde:

Pyranha Bytes makes bad combat,

Magic in Gothic 3 is still among my favorites. It's absolutely awesome. Mana regeneration, seeking missiles, AoE spells. Pure gold.

Don't forget Time Bubble! Probably the single coolest spell in any game I can think of.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by godslayer1975:

sorry you are wrong game rocks on xbox x and here on pc. i thnk you are being liar i have not seen any of the stuff your crying about and i beat game twice on x just bought on pc sale . i think you just suck at combat and came here to brute like child when asked for some proof since no one has seen this you ignore us .

your comment just like you, is trash.

the combat on this game is terrible. its so bad that is ruins anything else in the game

[/.]

Yeah I agree, combat's absurdly bad. The game is trash too!

Anyone curious about buying this game should first read this hilarious article: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/10/23/elex-first-hour/

The only charm ELEX has is how bad it is. It's so bad, it's funny. I know there's a lot of hardcore Piranha Bytes fans that will defend it, but they're defending a really shoddy game that ultimately isn't worth it, even when it is on sale.

Voice actors fall outta character between lines, you can't kill anything for hours - no matter how good you are at games. If your Jax is level 1, you will die, often times in one hit. Even if you manage to dodge the attacks, you barely do any damage, even after hours invested in the game, so your only option is to run unless you're tryna spend 45 minutes dodging everything and doing the tiniest fractions of damage til it's dead. Particularly with melee - horrible stamina means you'll be tired after 2 or 3 swings and then you die because the dodge mechanic sucks. Using guns is easier but just as lame, because it's kiting.

And yeah, you could hypothetically run from everything until you get some levels, but the quests aren't really that interesting either, and leveling is pretty slow, especially without elex potions that give exp but have an impact on your "coldness" stat or whatever that could impact later stuff, so without those potions the game turns into hours and hours of trying to level up just to be able to even have a chance in a fight. Even then, the combat is crap so why bother?

Even when you're just exploring, if you accidentally stumble upon something, you'll probably die if they have a ranged attack, so good luck with that. Or you know, realize the game is stupid and sucks and stop playing so you can get a refund.

I chose to be patient with the game, played over 20 hours, and it never got any better. If you're craving a mediocre, frustrating experience, then ELEX is your game. Otherwise, I agree it's best to pass on it.

[Viror]

I bought this game few days ago, and I like it.
The combat system reminds me the old school rpg with little more action like dodge and combos; of course you can't compare it with the combat system of souls like game (which I prefer), but at least is better then the spam hits game.
It give me the feelengs of vintage game, and the enviroments is very good!