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  1. #1 Zitieren
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    [Video]

    Tell me your thoughts.
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    Warrior Avatar von The Ore Baron
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    Well, Skyrim and Fallout are two very popular go-to examples of their respective genres, medieval fantasy and post-apocalyptic fiction. Elex mixes these genres together, so sure, a comparison between the games can be made.

    However, I don't think it's fitting to call Elex a mix of those two specific games (as opposed to genres). As popular as they are, these games are simply popular examples of the genres, and neither the best ones, nor the genre-defining ones. Asserting such important status to these games is, in my opinion, improper.

    In short, I'd prefer if Elex was judged on it's own artistic merits, and not compared to mediocre examples of the genres it mixes rather uniquely

    And just in case I haven't made myself clear yet: I consider Bethesda to be an irredeemably bad video game development company, and I am very critical of Fallout 3/4, as well as Oblivion/Skyrim (Fallout 1/2 and New Vegas were amazing, but not developed by Bethesda; Morrowind was also great, but it was made a long time ago, back when Bethesda was more competent and creative). That being said, it is quite obvious that Piranha Bytes did take a lot of inspiration from Skyrim and Fallout 3/4, and, perhaps in an attempt to emulate their success, copied some of the elements, which I believe was a bad move.
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  3. #3 Zitieren
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    Zitat Zitat von The Ore Baron Beitrag anzeigen
    Well, Skyrim and Fallout are two very popular go-to examples of their respective genres, medieval fantasy and post-apocalyptic fiction. Elex mixes these genres together, so sure, a comparison between the games can be made.

    However, I don't think it's fitting to call Elex a mix of those two specific games (as opposed to genres). As popular as they are, these games are simply popular examples of the genres, and neither the best ones, nor the genre-defining ones. Asserting such important status to these games is, in my opinion, improper.

    In short, I'd prefer if Elex was judged on it's own artistic merits, and not compared to mediocre examples of the genres it mixes rather uniquely

    And just in case I haven't made myself clear yet: I consider Bethesda to be an irredeemably bad video game development company, and I am very critical of Fallout 3/4, as well as Oblivion/Skyrim (Fallout 1/2 and New Vegas were amazing, but not developed by Bethesda; Morrowind was also great, but it was made a long time ago, back when Bethesda was more competent and creative). That being said, it is quite obvious that Piranha Bytes did take a lot of inspiration from Skyrim and Fallout 3/4, and, perhaps in an attempt to emulate their success, copied some of the elements, which I believe was a bad move.
    Fair enough.

    I saw this question being asked so many times even before the game came out, and I guess it's reasonable to try and compare it like that, because games like Skyrim and Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4 are really popular games, regardless of their quality. If a good amount of Skyrim players alone, decide to buy Elex, the first question they will probably ask ''Is it like Skyrim?'' Same goes for Fallout fans.

    In a long run, I look at this as a positive thing, more sales, more PB games.

    it is quite obvious that Piranha Bytes did take a lot of inspiration from Skyrim and Fallout 3/4, and, perhaps in an attempt to emulate their success, copied some of the elements, which I believe was a bad move.
    I kinda don't agree on that. I know it's not everyone favorite PB game, but Gothic 3 did so much similar stuff, many years before Skyrim. And I did a whole video on that topic, check it out if you're interested:

    Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)


    I had the similar philosophy as in Elex video. Bring the attention for PB games to Elder Scrolls players.

    I'm curious btw, what elements of Bethesda games PB brought to Elex, that you didn't like?
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    Abenteurer Avatar von orc_dog
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    It may looks like Skyrim+Fallout, but fortunately doesn't feel so
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  5. #5 Zitieren
    Warrior Avatar von The Ore Baron
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    Zitat Zitat von justgli Beitrag anzeigen
    I'm curious btw, what elements of Bethesda games PB brought to Elex, that you didn't like?
    I was mainly referring to the large open world aspect of it, and not necessarily taking inspiration from only the mentioned Bethesda games, but more popular games in general, including BioWare games and such.

    PB is a small studio, I don't think they're capable of making quality large-scale worlds. Gothic 3 proved me right, and Elex seems to be an even worse attempt at that. Open and large worlds have become a staple of the RPG genre these days, so I would not be surprised if PB came to the conclusion that Bethesda games are so popular because they have large and open worlds, and attempted to replicate that. The problem is, Bethesda actually has the necessary man-power to make dense and interesting open worlds, while PB doesn't. They bit more than they could chew, is all I'm saying.

    Apart from that, the very choice of factions suggests to me that they wanted to make 'something like' Skyrim and Fallout. The industry is over-saturated with medieval and post-apoc games these days, and PB could have chosen any other theme (Risen games were more late Renaissance themed, for example, inspired by the Age of Discovery era, which is a much less represented theme in video gaming). And yet, they went with Vikings and Mad Max, almost as if hoping to interest the same player base as Bethesda does.

    As for your video, I don't think your praise for Gothic 3 is all deserved. I will break it down point by point:

    * The world of Gothic 3 was empty and boring to explore, no matter the amount of mountains or lack thereof, and finding a random chest (with pretty much random and useless content) on some random plateau is not something to write home about, either. Sure, someone placed it there on purpose, but that's not really what I believe a "hand-crafted world" means. Every game world is handcrafted by your definition, but there must also be thought put behind every element, and Gothic 3 lacked that. Oblivion also had "stuff to be found on every corner", and actually did a better job at it (as stated in the first paragraph).
    * Level-scaling enemies is a major mistake on Bethesda's side, and I fully support PB for not going down that way, I will give you that.
    * Training with trainers instead of on your own is also a very immersive and even original idea of PB, but Gothic 3 is not really the best game to exemplify that, because in Gothic 1 and 2, you had to train every stat and skill with trainers, while in Gothic 3 you could increase most of your stats at Innos shrines, which was not very immersive, and neither it made much sense, and was basically the same as increasing the stats in your own character tab with no trainer involved. Risen returned back to having trainers for all stats, which was great, but then went back to trainer-less stat increases in the stat screen with the later games, including Elex. So yeah, while I loved the trainer system of Gothic 1 and 2, it was largely lost by the time Gothic 3 rolled out - likely because of the attempt to simplify the leveling process due to targeting more casual audiences who 'just wanted to kill some orcs'. And it never made return to that system, which only proves that instead of staying original, PB decided that streamlining the process is the way to go. I should also note that Morrowind had trainers as well, and kept them in Oblivion, and largely ditched them by the time Skyrim rolled out. So, in a way, Gothic 3 started the trend of removing stat trainers even earlier than Bethesda games did, which is also saying something.
    * Next you talk about quests and quest markers. Yes, Gothic 3 has no quest markers, but unlike Gothic 1 and 2, it doesn't have journal entries, either. Sure, you get spoken directions, just like in Oblivion and Elex, but due to the world design, the directions are generally useless in practice. Oblivion circumvented that by adding quest markers, while Gothic 3 attempted to remain true to its origins and thus made the game worse as a result, because the marker-less gameplay was not suited for their new world design. Elex seems to suffer from the same issue. I would also like to remind you that Morrowind had no quest markers either, but had informative journal entries, which helped to mitigate the lack of markers (yet it still sometimes led to very frustrating searches for hidden cave entrances, because the world design in Morrowind is, admittedly, far from perfect, as much as I love that game). In short, Gothic 3 design featured the worst combination possible - a large and empty game world with no journal entries or quest markers. Elex seems to have very short quest descriptions in the 'quest log', which I would hardly call journal entries, but they're barely enough. Inclusion of quest markers, while not a good practice in general, is still better than what Gothic 3 offered. Interestingly enough, Risen 2 and 3 also included quest markers, and had no journal entries to speak of, but because their game design was so much better, you could find every quest item or location by simple exploration, and not even use the markers. Don't get me wrong, Risen 2 and 3 are both very mediocre games due to several other reasons, but world design is one of the things I genuinely love about them.
    * The fact that you can complete quests without actually taking them from a quest giver is an absolutely and undeniably cancerous practice that PB came up with for reasons I cannot even hope to comprehend. I absolutely abhor this design choice, and was hoping very much that PB would finally drop it with Elex. They did not, and that makes my blood boil, because by now it has become a standard of PB quality. This practice began with Gothic 3 and is one of the main reasons I hate that game so much. To even propose that it is somehow a positive design choice is simply mad. And no, it does not 'appear in your quest log', like you said, because PB games after Gothic 3 did not really include a log for finished quests. You pick up an item, you get an on-screen notification about a completed quest, and then you're left dumbfounded of what the hell did you just do. That's it, and it's terrible.
    * The reputation system was, while hardly perfect, still quite well-implemented in Gothic 3, I will give that to you as well. However, it was an alternative system to the clear-cut choice of factions from the previous games, which I found to be a lot more immersive and interesting than just working for all sides and reaping most of the available rewards (reputation loss for working with both of the warring faction would usually just result in you not being able to purchase their best armors, which is quite a minor loss). In Gothic 3, I never felt like I was actually part of a faction, I was simply a mercenary who either chose to help one side of the conflict over the other, or decided to work for all the sides like an indifferent bastard. Yes, it's an interesting choice in its own regard, but I consider it to be vastly inferior to making a dedicated and clear-cut decision of choosing a certain faction and truly sticking with it. PB seems to agree with me on that one, as none of their later games included the reputation system, and I congratulate PB for that. Oblivion (and Morrowind) suffered from the same issue for the most part, where you could become the grand-master of every guild, despite the fact that they were working against each other more often than not. However, at least in Morrowind, you also had to make a dedicated choice of which of the Great Houses you wished to join, with the available choice of three, which resulted in different quests and, I believe, trainers.

    The Ore Baron ist offline Geändert von The Ore Baron (21.10.2017 um 11:34 Uhr)

  6. #6 Zitieren
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    Zitat Zitat von The Ore Baron Beitrag anzeigen
    I was mainly referring to the large open world aspect of it, and not necessarily taking inspiration from only the mentioned Bethesda games, but more popular games in general, including BioWare games and such.

    PB is a small studio, I don't think they're capable of making quality large-scale worlds. Gothic 3 proved me right, and Elex seems to be an even worse attempt at that. Open and large worlds have become a staple of the RPG genre these days, so I would not be surprised if PB came to the conclusion that Bethesda games are so popular because they have large and open worlds, and attempted to replicate that. The problem is, Bethesda actually has the necessary man-power to make dense and interesting open worlds, while PB doesn't. They bit more than they could chew, is all I'm saying.

    Apart from that, the very choice of factions suggests to me that they wanted to make 'something like' Skyrim and Fallout. The industry is over-saturated with medieval and post-apoc games these days, and PB could have chosen any other theme (Risen games were more late Renaissance themed, for example, inspired by the Age of Discovery era, which is a much less represented theme in video gaming). And yet, they went with Vikings and Mad Max, almost as if hoping to interest the same player base as Bethesda does.

    As for your video, I don't think your praise for Gothic 3 is all deserved. I will break it down point by point:

    * The world of Gothic 3 was empty and boring to explore, no matter the amount of mountains or lack thereof, and finding a random chest (with pretty much random and useless content) on some random plateau is not something to write home about, either. Sure, someone placed it there on purpose, but that's not really what I believe a "hand-crafted world" means. Every game world is handcrafted by your definition, but there must also be thought put behind every element, and Gothic 3 lacked that. Oblivion also had "stuff to be found on every corner", and actually did a better job at it (as stated in the first paragraph).
    * Level-scaling enemies is a major mistake on Bethesda's side, and I fully support PB for not going down that way, I will give you that.
    * Training with trainers instead of on your own is also a very immersive and even original idea of PB, but Gothic 3 is not really the best game to exemplify that, because in Gothic 1 and 2, you had to train every stat and skill with trainers, while in Gothic 3 you could increase most of your stats at Innos shrines, which was not very immersive, and neither it made much sense, and was basically the same as increasing the stats in your own character tab with no trainer involved. Risen returned back to having trainers for all stats, which was great, but then went back to trainer-less stat increases in the stat screen with the later games, including Elex. So yeah, while I loved the trainer system of Gothic 1 and 2, it was largely lost by the time Gothic 3 rolled out - likely because of the attempt to simplify the leveling process due to targeting more casual audiences who 'just wanted to kill some orcs'. And it never made return to that system, which only proves that instead of staying original, PB decided that streamlining the process is the way to go. I should also note that Morrowind had trainers as well, and kept them in Oblivion, and largely ditched them by the time Skyrim rolled out. So, in a way, Gothic 3 started the trend of removing stat trainers even earlier than Bethesda games did, which is also saying something.
    * Next you talk about quests and quest markers. Yes, Gothic 3 has no quest markers, but unlike Gothic 1 and 2, it doesn't have journal entries, either. Sure, you get spoken directions, just like in Oblivion and Elex, but due to the world design, the directions are generally useless in practice. Oblivion circumvented that by adding quest markers, while Gothic 3 attempted to remain true to its origins and thus made the game worse as a result, because the marker-less gameplay was not suited for their new world design. Elex seems to suffer from the same issue. I would also like to remind you that Morrowind had no quest markers either, but had informative journal entries, which helped to mitigate the lack of markers (yet it still sometimes led to very frustrating searches for hidden cave entrances, because the world design in Morrowind is, admittedly, far from perfect, as much as I love that game). In short, Gothic 3 design featured the worst combination possible - a large and empty game world with no journal entries or quest markers. Elex seems to have very short quest descriptions in the 'quest log', which I would hardly call journal entries, but they're barely enough. Inclusion of quest markers, while not a good practice in general, is still better than what Gothic 3 offered. Interestingly enough, Risen 2 and 3 also included quest markers, and had no journal entries to speak of, but because their game design was so much better, you could find every quest item or location by simple exploration, and not even use the markers. Don't get me wrong, Risen 2 and 3 are both very mediocre games due to several other reasons, but world design is one of the things I genuinely love about them.
    * The fact that you can complete quests without actually taking them from a quest giver is an absolutely and undeniably cancerous practice that PB came up with for reasons I cannot even hope to comprehend. I absolutely abhor this design choice, and was hoping very much that PB would finally drop it with Elex. They did not, and that makes my blood boil, because by now it has become a standard of PB quality. This practice began with Gothic 3 and is one of the main reasons I hate that game so much. To even propose that it is somehow a positive design choice is simply mad. And no, it does not 'appear in your quest log', like you said, because PB games after Gothic 3 did not really include a log for finished quests. You pick up an item, you get an on-screen notification about a completed quest, and then you're left dumbfounded of what the hell did you just do. That's it, and it's terrible.
    * The reputation system was, while hardly perfect, still quite well-implemented in Gothic 3, I will give that to you as well. However, it was an alternative system to the clear-cut choice of factions from the previous games, which I found to be a lot more immersive and interesting than just working for all sides and reaping most of the available rewards (reputation loss for working with both of the warring faction would usually just result in you not being able to purchase their best armors, which is quite a minor loss). In Gothic 3, I never felt like I was actually part of a faction, I was simply a mercenary who either chose to help one side of the conflict over the other, or decided to work for all the sides like an indifferent bastard. Yes, it's an interesting choice in its own regard, but I consider it to be vastly inferior to making a dedicated and clear-cut decision of choosing a certain faction and truly sticking with it. PB seems to agree with me on that one, as none of their later games included the reputation system, and I congratulate PB for that. Oblivion (and Morrowind) suffered from the same issue for the most part, where you could become the grand-master of every guild, despite the fact that they were working against each other more often than not. However, at least in Morrowind, you also had to make a dedicated choice of which of the Great Houses you wished to join, with the available choice of three, which resulted in different quests and, I believe, trainers.


    * The world of Gothic 3 was empty and boring to explore, no matter the amount of mountains or lack thereof, and finding a random chest (with pretty much random and useless content) on some random plateau is not something to write home about, either. Sure, someone placed it there on purpose, but that's not really what I believe a "hand-crafted world" means. Every game world is handcrafted by your definition, but there must also be thought put behind every element, and Gothic 3 lacked that. Oblivion also had "stuff to be found on every corner", and actually did a better job at it (as stated in the first paragraph).
    - It certainly didn't feel empty to me (I realize I actually said that when I found a random chest in the video, lol bad example) Npcs, caves (which usually contained a quest related npc/item/ rare monster), made me feel like everything is carefully placed with care, as much as you could do that in a game that big back in 2006 with such small team. Many developers have a similar mind set, that their next game should be: bigger and better, hence the size of Gothic 3. It's quite normal, and people from Piranha Bites are really ambitious I would say. But not all people will like that design decision of course. Oblivion was really generic and underwhelming for me (especially the world design, that at times looked like it was made in Ms Paint), and I would strongly disagree that ''it did a better job''. But, like I said in the video, a lot of this is subjective really.

    Training with trainers instead of on your own is also a very immersive and even original idea of PB, but Gothic 3 is not really the best game to exemplify that, because in Gothic 1 and 2, you had to train every stat and skill with trainers, while in Gothic 3 you could increase most of your stats at Innos shrines, which was not very immersive, and neither it made much sense, and was basically the same as increasing the stats in your own character tab with no trainer involved. Risen returned back to having trainers for all stats, which was great, but then went back to trainer-less stat increases in the stat screen with the later games, including Elex. So yeah, while I loved the trainer system of Gothic 1 and 2, it was largely lost by the time Gothic 3 rolled out - likely because of the attempt to simplify the leveling process due to targeting more casual audiences who 'just wanted to kill some orcs'. And it never made return to that system, which only proves that instead of staying original, PB decided that streamlining the process is the way to go. I should also note that Morrowind had trainers as well, and kept them in Oblivion, and largely ditched them by the time Skyrim rolled out. So, in a way, Gothic 3 started the trend of removing stat trainers even earlier than Bethesda games did, which is also saying something.
    - I didn't want to compare Gothic 3 with 2 and 1 in the video, because that was not the point I was trying to make. I only compared it with Skyrim and Oblivion a little bit, for reasons I stated there. But I agree with you that Gothic 1 and 2 did a better job with trainers. Going back and forth with Gothic and Risen trainers seems like they like to experiment a lot with this thing. Simplifying is not always bad if done correctly, and where it make sense. But I don't think this was their intent really. Just a questionable design decision. Skyrim didn't have stats, but they kept trainers for skills only. It felt like they were there just for the sake of it, since you level up your skills so easily.

    Next you talk about quests and quest markers. Yes, Gothic 3 has no quest markers, but unlike Gothic 1 and 2, it doesn't have journal entries, either. Sure, you get spoken directions, just like in Oblivion and Elex, but due to the world design, the directions are generally useless in practice. Oblivion circumvented that by adding quest markers, while Gothic 3 attempted to remain true to its origins and thus made the game worse as a result, because the marker-less gameplay was not suited for their new world design. Elex seems to suffer from the same issue. I would also like to remind you that Morrowind had no quest markers either, but had informative journal entries, which helped to mitigate the lack of markers (yet it still sometimes led to very frustrating searches for hidden cave entrances, because the world design in Morrowind is, admittedly, far from perfect, as much as I love that game). In short, Gothic 3 design featured the worst combination possible - a large and empty game world with no journal entries or quest markers. Elex seems to have very short quest descriptions in the 'quest log', which I would hardly call journal entries, but they're barely enough. Inclusion of quest markers, while not a good practice in general, is still better than what Gothic 3 offered. Interestingly enough, Risen 2 and 3 also included quest markers, and had no journal entries to speak of, but because their game design was so much better, you could find every quest item or location by simple exploration, and not even use the markers. Don't get me wrong, Risen 2 and 3 are both very mediocre games due to several other reasons, but world design is one of the things I genuinely love about them.
    - To me, everything is better then having something magical on your map telling you ''Oh, your looking for that guy that was lost and no one knows where he is, there buddy, it's right on your map''. It's just wrong for so many reasons, and I would rather have poorly directions from npcs, and look for myself somehow. This can be frustrating, but it also encourages exploration, and you usually stumble upon some different quest you weren't doing. But I understand someone would just like to do the quest their on straight away. The Witcher 3 had big circles around the area on the map, which eliminates the need for quest markers. Both Bethesda and PB should maybe use something similar. Risen 3, and especially 2 had far from better world design from Gothic 3. Far smaller, but yet not interesting. Risen 3 did a far better job the Risen 2, but still it looked like copy and paste from Risen 2 somehow, which was really unappealing to me. And you have Risen 1 that did all those things way better.

    The fact that you can complete quests without actually taking them from a quest giver is an absolutely and undeniably cancerous practice that PB came up with for reasons I cannot even hope to comprehend. I absolutely abhor this design choice, and was hoping very much that PB would finally drop it with Elex. They did not, and that makes my blood boil, because by now it has become a standard of PB quality. This practice began with Gothic 3 and is one of the main reasons I hate that game so much. To even propose that it is somehow a positive design choice is simply mad. And no, it does not 'appear in your quest log', like you said, because PB games after Gothic 3 did not really include a log for finished quests. You pick up an item, you get an on-screen notification about a completed quest, and then you're left dumbfounded of what the hell did you just do. That's it, and it's terrible.
    I love this feature for a couple of reasons. There are rpgs that lock you out of content, even the whole areas just because you're not on that specific quest. (like Dragons Dogma for example). Which is totally non immersive, and almost game breaking for me. Or when you fully search a cave for example, and find nothing, but later on some npc gives you a quest for the exact same location, you come back and find the thing/corpse/item or whatever he was talking about..but you just came from the same location and it was empty. That's the thing the boils my blood.

    The reputation system was, while hardly perfect, still quite well-implemented in Gothic 3, I will give that to you as well. However, it was an alternative system to the clear-cut choice of factions from the previous games, which I found to be a lot more immersive and interesting than just working for all sides and reaping most of the available rewards (reputation loss for working with both of the warring faction would usually just result in you not being able to purchase their best armors, which is quite a minor loss). In Gothic 3, I never felt like I was actually part of a faction, I was simply a mercenary who either chose to help one side of the conflict over the other, or decided to work for all the sides like an indifferent bastard. Yes, it's an interesting choice in its own regard, but I consider it to be vastly inferior to making a dedicated and clear-cut decision of choosing a certain faction and truly sticking with it. PB seems to agree with me on that one, as none of their later games included the reputation system, and I congratulate PB for that. Oblivion (and Morrowind) suffered from the same issue for the most part, where you could become the grand-master of every guild, despite the fact that they were working against each other more often than not. However, at least in Morrowind, you also had to make a dedicated choice of which of the Great Houses you wished to join, with the available choice of three, which resulted in different quests and, I believe, trainers.
    Yea it was far from perfect, but it worked. It felt more open, and non restrictive that you could float around doing stuff for everyone until the certain point. I would love if they would bring back reputation, but improved and reworked, but I really doubt that will happen. Maybe in the next Gothic title? Lol... Yea they all have their flaws I guess. Still at the end of the day, I love to play all the games I mentioned here.
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  7. #7 Zitieren
    Warrior Avatar von The Ore Baron
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    All your points are valid, I'll cordially agree to disagree Much of our discussion concerned personal preferences, anyway.
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