ELEX - New Screenshots

I did not compare their games to either dragons dogma or dark souls. I do not expect that kinda of a game from PB, it doesn't fit in their games. Also who cares about angryjoe.

All i said is that their combat systems are pretty mediocre and clunky. Risen had a pretty terrible parry or block if you had a shield but no dodge or roll or anything else.
Risen 2 had a roll which i found laughable and Risen 3 implemented roll which again was not all that great as it didn't seem "meaningful".

I think their games are usually pretty interesting and deep but a third-person RPG where you'll spend a lot of the time fighting should at least have a good combat system.

So you've only played the Risen series then? I don't think most people would agree that the combat in Risen 1 was mediocre. I think the melee combat in particular is exceptional.

The combat in Risen 2&3 definitely took a step backwards though. I'm not sure why PB decided to change it the way they did, but I suspect they wanted to simplify it for the mainstream crown and make the games easier overall.
 
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So you've only played the Risen series then? I don't think most people would agree that the combat in Risen 1 was mediocre. I think the melee combat in particular is exceptional.

I would say it was half-mediocre ;) . The combat against wildlife sucked but the combat against humanoids was decent.

Against humanoids, it could have been exceptional if they would have implemented it better. The ability to just stand there and block pretty much everything ruined it. They should have added 'stamina' or 'concentration' or some kind of stat along those lines that should have determined blocking chance/duration/ability to add more depth to the combat system.

The general idea , i.e. LMB = offense, RMB = defense, was a good one, but as is often the case with PB in their more recent games, the actual implementation fell way short of the potential.

All in all it was definitely their best combat system across all of their games but I thought it was still a far cry from fun or engaging. I've never played PB games for fun combat though so it did not really matter too much to me.
 
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So you've only played the Risen series then? I don't think most people would agree that the combat in Risen 1 was mediocre. I think the melee combat in particular is exceptional.

The combat in Risen 2&3 definitely took a step backwards though. I'm not sure why PB decided to change it the way they did, but I suspect they wanted to simplify it for the mainstream crown and make the games easier overall.

No, i am just using Risen as an example as it's the most recent. I have played all 3 Gothic games to exhaustion, especially Gothic 2 and i love them of course. I hve a Gothic physical copy which i haven't done for many games.

Still, i never played a Gothic for it's combat, i played them cause of the world feeling and atmosphere. I still wasn't particularly fond of it's combat.

Opinions, i know. As Moriendor said combat against humanoids was ok i guess but against wildlife it was not.
 
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AAA for me means open world technology, detailed environments, a lively, breathing world, exploration and all that things that are considered technically above average and therefor expensive to develop.
People who bought Star Wars Battlefront learned the hard way AAA today is completely opposite thing of what you listed up there.
I've never played PB games for fun combat though so it did not really matter too much to me.
And I've never played any game for fun combat. Those that were supposed to be fun because of combat praised by people, I found utterly boring. I understand that some people feel that stamping is fun too, but I'm not such person.
The perfect example is Dragon Age 2. Honestly, the combat is done well (forget three waves of spawns thing please). But kill me, it goes old fast and other game aspects can't help the feeling the actual game is (deliberately?) retarded.
 
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People who bought Star Wars Battlefront learned the hard way AAA today is completely opposite thing of what you listed up there.
Yep, people need to see that the video game industrie is not an exception from the general rule that there's a difference between AAA marketing and a AAA product. ;)
 
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People who bought Star Wars Battlefront learned the hard way AAA today is completely opposite thing of what you listed up there.
There is always an opposite example, especially when comparing a primarily multiplayer shooter with an CRPG. You could have mentioned Fallout, The Witcher 3 or even Assassin's Creed ('though not an CRPG) instead. In comparison to them, Risen isn't on par. And I'm not talking about story design. I'm talking about tech, that includes animations daily npc routines, everything that makes a game appear "lively" and "realisitic". Or comfortable, like controls, auto and cloud save, things like that.

I would argue there is a niche for these kinds of games. First the really expensive AAA RPGs are pretty much made by Bethesda, Square Enix, CD RED, and Bioware, and we see maybe 1, maximum 2 a year.

Then there are the real small indie games, these often have fantastic gameplay, but have a limited audience because there are people who won't buy them because of their graphics, difficulty level, et.

Gamers who like AAA rpgs, but who'd never venture into indie rpgs will buy them to pass the time until the next AAA title comes out. Heck, I buy them from time to time and enjoy them, though I usually wait to they are like -75% off.
I thought of something more in between. Most indies are really small projects by few people. I thought of some games that require a medium-sized company and require more than drawing 2d or pixel art. Like Fox Searchlight in the movies sector.

As said before, Cyanide and Spiders would be such an example, like Game of Thrones or Styx. Compared to AAA titles they are games with flaws, but compared to so-called indies their production value is higher (visualization, features, length).
 
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Same as all their other games (actually I bought all the Gothics boxed versions but whatever) I'll wait for it to be drm free and buy it cheap and enjoy the hell out of it for what it is.

And based on their record with the Risen games I'll be playing it a year or two after it's released. I'm just now playing Risen 3 and don't mind a bit.
 
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I thought of something more in between. Most indies are really small projects by few people. I thought of some games that require a medium-sized company and require more than drawing 2d or pixel art. Like Fox Searchlight in the movies sector.

As said before, Cyanide and Spiders would be such an example, like Game of Thrones or Styx. Compared to AAA titles they are games with flaws, but compared to so-called indies their production value is higher (visualization, features, length).

Spiders's games were all financed by a publisher as does most of Cyanide's games (mostly Home Focus Interactive for both of them). Their publisher can't afford AAA games budgets.

What people call AAA games are now in the 30+ millions budget bracket and publishers likes EA can spend 2x/3x has much money for the marketing. So 50m-100m total budget.

Elex is being published by Nordic Games, the CEO consider a $50 million budget ridiculous.
 
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No, i am just using Risen as an example as it's the most recent. I have played all 3 Gothic games to exhaustion, especially Gothic 2 and i love them of course. I hve a Gothic physical copy which i haven't done for many games.

Still, i never played a Gothic for it's combat, i played them cause of the world feeling and atmosphere. I still wasn't particularly fond of it's combat.

Opinions, i know. As Moriendor said combat against humanoids was ok i guess but against wildlife it was not.

Yeah, I forgot about the difference between humanoids and beasts in Risen when it comes to combat. Iirc, you can't block attacks from animals/monsters, and it makes the way you approach combat with them quite different.

Still, compared to other 3rd-person, open-world RPGs, I think the combat in PB's games holds up pretty well. Of course there isn't much to compare to since there aren't many 3rd-person, open-world RPGs to begin with.

Two Worlds 1&2, Divinity II, The Witcher series, Kingdoms of Amalur… and that's about it unless you go all the way back to Ultima IX. I suppose you could include TES as well since some play it in 3rd-person. I'm not including games like Dark souls or Dragon's Dogma which focus almost exclusively on combat.

Of those titles, The Witcher 2&3 are the only ones that I felt had significantly better combat.
 
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Still, compared to other 3rd-person, open-world RPGs, I think the combat in PB's games holds up pretty well. Of course there isn't much to compare to since there aren't many 3rd-person, open-world RPGs to begin with.

Well, you have a fair amount of hack&slash action games with some rpg elements...I'd say they are pretty mediocre overall, but doing a poor job of evolving what is esentially the same fighting system from their first game. Hit feedback and simplistic AI ( large number of enemies have exactly the same attack patterns...charge, attack, triple attack...) are biggest issues.
But they present a good challenge overall and player's attack animations improving with skill was a very cool feature.
Night of the Raven is for hardcore, ye filthy casuals. :p
 
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But they present a good challenge overall and player's attack animations improving with skill was a very cool feature.
Night of the Raven is for hardcore, ye filthy casuals. :p

And that's my main problem with other open-world RPGs.. most of them are way too easy. Two Worlds is a cakewalk once you're past a certain point, and KoA is the same way. Divinity II did stay challenging for most of the game, but the melee combat was very basic hack&slash.

Hopefully ELEX will go back to the challenge of the Gothics and Risen 1. I'll be highly disappointed if the combat is as easy as it was in Risen 3.
 
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Elex is being published by Nordic Games, the CEO consider a $50 million budget ridiculous.
He is right. 50 million for Darksiders 2 indeed was ridiculous if you consider how many copies you have to sell to break even. Darksiders was never close to that numbers, and although it is a good game, everybody knew that it's not that mainstream. But Wingefors didn't say, that 50 million in general is ridiculous.
 
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Darksiders is not mainstream?
Since when?
And since when it's a good game?

And why is $50M investment in a videogame it's publeisher believes in considered rediculous? That way of thinking smells like Konami.
 
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Star Wars and Call of Duty is mainstream, Darksiders is not.

Based on the sales numbers of Darksiders 1 (1.2 million full price), I think it was ridiculous. Darksiders 2 was an improvement over Darksiders, but it wasn't a visionary release. If that was the plan from the beginning, imho it was very risky. In hindsight, Wingefors was totally correct. Darksiders 2 never met the expectations of THQ and as a result they went out of business.
 
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Sorry, I still think it's mainstream. Sure, it didn't sell like GTA5, but then again GTA5 had 250 million budget, not just pathetic 50.

And how was it improved? For all I know, mobs are endlessly respawning during area transition in the sequel too (the only reason why I never bought any of those).
 
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