This game is so easy...

[nobleberry]

... that someone managed to speedrun it in less than 25 minutes. So why people complain about high difficulty?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_xnHImsAGk

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Obviously, a speedrun involves heavy meta-gaming. A new player cannot make the same predictions, but will try to complete many quests and battles in different order and visit locations in different order.

Btw, the video doesn't show anything about the chosen difficulty mode/settings. Very early, Jax gets hit in the back by a spine hound and takes almost no damage.

[nobleberry]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Obviously, a speedrun involves heavy meta-gaming. A new player cannot make the same predictions, but will try to complete many quests and battles in different order and visit locations in different order.

Btw, the video doesn't show anything about the chosen difficulty mode/settings. Very early, Jax gets hit in the back by a spine hound and takes almost no damage.

why instead of accepting challenge and forging their own will through trials and errors, people make only excuses to justify giving up.

This is not just a game, this is an opoortunity to become smarter, faster, stronger, to become a superhuman. And people reject this chance.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Continuum hypothesis:

This is not just a game, this is an opoortunity to become smarter, faster, stronger, to become a superhuman. And people reject this chance.

And still, a speedrun video made with unknown difficulty settings is a poor example. It is the exact opposite of a first playthrough, where a player doesn't know where to go first.

ELEX on normal difficulty mode is unforgiving already, simply because without any equipment, Jax doesn't do enough damage to the more fearsome beasts in the game. Many gamers, casual gamers included, want to jump into the fray during the early minutes already, wielding two weapons at blazingly fast speed, carving a way through hordes of beasts. ELEX doesn't offer that. Not at the beginning, and not towards the end either.

You won't be able to change gamers, who want even more handholding than available in modern games. They are the reason why developers add difficulty modes to their games, which are even easier than "Easy". But then the same players give up nevertheless and complain about other aspects, such as story, writing, graphics, animations, UI, voice-acting, load times, no romances, no sex scenes - it's an endless list for complainers.

[grodenb]

This should be called SpeedCheat, not SpeedRun. As mentioned, the difficulty settings must have been set for super-easy. Jax outruns all enemies? Wow, not in my experience. Around 11:24 he talks to the Hort armorer, goes to the buy screen, waves the cursor up and down rapidly, and suddenly he has 29,375 elexit! SUPER CHEAT! No way he could do all the other things he did without that super cheat! At 13:46 he makes 30 elex drinks, and at 14:02 barely raises his left arm, and suddenly, he is able to drink all 30 of them in 2 seconds. Speedrun or speedcheat? From 16:33 to 21:58 he is running through the freezing mountains of Xacor -- really? Why? Because he found an exploit where he can jump off the edge of some mountain into black nothing, then straight thru the Xacor fortress, and somehow be right outside the Hybrid chamber, which he can enter thru the barrier.

No chapter 2, no chapter 3, and no chapter 4, just a cheat to get to the Hybrid. Gosh, how impressive. He must have spent hundreds of hours to find all the cheats and exploits to make this speedCheat video.

Good thing Elex doesn't have console commands available. From the start, goto Hybrid, kill hybrid, game over 10 second speedrun!

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Haha! I stopped watching the video shortly after the mentioned spine hound attack.

[Steveyk]

Honestly after running away from most battles I found myself thinking it really isn't the game for me. When you die so many times it gets a little boring. They really screwed up with this game. It's not dark souls after all. So what if I want to fight and kill as many trash mobs as I want, at least that feels like I am accomplishing something. It just feels like so much effort has been put into developing a game that most people are not even going to see because they will drop this game before they see it due to the bad combat and odd difficulty.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

So what if I want to fight and kill as many trash mobs as I want, at least that feels like I am accomplishing something.

You get tons of opportunities to eradicate camps or caves filled with reavers, beasts or Alb forces - and the entertainment factor increases a lot. The only catch is that at the beginning of the story, Jax is weakened and poorly equipped, and you absolutely need to focus on errand boy tasks, exploration, avoidance, collecting of trash and making cash as to become a capable warrior again.

The process is rewarding. And it's a plus that the graphics are much better than in the Gothic series, so it's much easier to get back into the game in the future - whenever you are willing to discover that it's a real gem the developers have created.

[Shellbie]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

Honestly after running away from most battles I found myself thinking it really isn't the game for me. When you die so many times it gets a little boring. They really screwed up with this game. It's not dark souls after all. So what if I want to fight and kill as many trash mobs as I want, at least that feels like I am accomplishing something. It just feels like so much effort has been put into developing a game that most people are not even going to see because they will drop this game before they see it due to the bad combat and odd difficulty.

Without sacrifice, there can be no victory.

[BuffHamster]

Originally posted by Paladin:

Originally posted by Steveyk:

Honestly after running away from most battles I found myself thinking it really isn't the game for me. When you die so many times it gets a little boring. They really screwed up with this game. It's not dark souls after all. So what if I want to fight and kill as many trash mobs as I want, at least that feels like I am accomplishing something. It just feels like so much effort has been put into developing a game that most people are not even going to see because they will drop this game before they see it due to the bad combat and odd difficulty.

Without sacrifice, there can be no victory.

Woo Hoo!!, First Playthru, level 25, no factions selected yet (goal is lvl 30 then select), oh! and it took me only 118 hours, ... not really a "speedcheat", er, um, "speedrun" but I am having a blast.

How many times have I died? A freakin' lot, but in truth, you learn more from failure than you do from easy success.

Creatures and enemies that used to one shot me now fill my stewpot, and they make great burgers too!

[Shellbie]

Originally posted by BuffHamster:

Originally posted by Paladin:

Without sacrifice, there can be no victory.

Woo Hoo!!, First Playthru, level 25, no factions selected yet (goal is lvl 30 then select), oh! and it took me only 118 hours, ... not really a "speedcheat", er, um, "speedrun" but I am having a blast.

How many times have I died? A freakin' lot, but in truth, you learn more from failure than you do from easy success.

Creatures and enemies that used to one shot me now fill my stewpot, and they make great burgers too!

But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!

Rocky Balboa

Keep moving forward Buffy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgmVOuLgFB0

[Steveyk]

You guys can argue all you want, people dropping this game proves my point. Risen series was much better than this trash.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

You guys can argue all you want, people dropping this game proves my point. Risen series was much better than this trash.

Nah. Certainly not Risen 1 or Risen 2. And Risen 3 is nice for the story and the voice-acting, but ELEX offers so much more entertainment because of free world exploration and great freedom during combat, too.

[BuffHamster]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

You guys can argue all you want, people dropping this game proves my point. Risen series was much better than this trash.

Who cares? I bought the game, I am playing the game, and I am having a lot of fun with the game. Who cares what others think? Really, why waste your time trying to prove some subjectively irrelevant point?

tbh, these are the reviews I looked at before purchasing the game. The Steam reviews boiled down to "waaa! dis game too hard!", so I went searching for something a little more balanced and mature:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/elex
... a pre-patch review:
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/elex-review/1900-6416791/
... a couple of in-depth descriptive reviews:
https://www.destructoid.com/review-elex-465802.phtml
https://www.rpgsite.net/review/6640-elex-review
... and a individual's PS4 review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HATwV_J-DfA

The game was on my wishlist for a while, but I took the plunge during the Summer Sale and I agree with the reviews listed above.

I am having fun. Most of the games I have purchased for myself, have all been enjoyable, ... and that is all that matters.

[kaay]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

Honestly after running away from most battles I found myself thinking it really isn't the game for me. When you die so many times it gets a little boring. They really screwed up with this game. It's not dark souls after all. So what if I want to fight and kill as many trash mobs as I want, at least that feels like I am accomplishing something. It just feels like so much effort has been put into developing a game that most people are not even going to see because they will drop this game before they see it due to the bad combat and odd difficulty.

While i strongly dislike and disagree with your other posts in this thread, this particular post is quite interesting and good.
In the first part you state how you didnt figure out how to play the game, and im not saying this as an insult or critique, its just what im noticing.
Then you state what was your expectation of the game, which i understand, makes sense.

The last part i found the most interesting and very well put: "It just feels like so much effort has been put into developing a game that most people are not even going to see because they will drop this game before they see it due to the bad combat and odd difficulty."

Really well put, i think you hit the nail on the head, except you made one mistake, the combat is not bad, has odd difficulty indeed, but its not bad at all, you just perceive it as being bad because you did not make the effort to understand it.
Yes, a lot of people will drop this game because just like you, they will perceive it as bad, because of the odd dificulty...but does this mean it is really bad?

Yes Elex does take a fair amount of effort to get into, but just look at the people who made that effort, they are describing you a beautiful game they had a lot of fun with, just because you did not want to make that effort does not make you a bad player, it does not make Elex a bad game, its just that you wont be able to enjoy Elex, and you put it very well, a lot of people will drop it, but not necessarily because the game is bad, but because they considered the effort required was too high. In the end its just a matter of taste.

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

Originally posted by Steveyk:

You guys can argue all you want, people dropping this game proves my point. Risen series was much better than this trash.

Just set everything to Easy mode (and switch off Stamina management). EVERYthing btw, not just the main setting.