ELEX is the first game from Pirhania Bytes I was able to finish. G3 was a mess of bugs at it's time, so I deleted the crap. Risen was a non-motivating attempt to conclude what had started with the Gothic-series, but bored me. Now ELEX: There are lot of quests to do, some NPCs are very unic and some quest have hard turns. All in all, it is just impossible to act clear good or all evil. This is a very good tone of the world of ELEX and reflects human actions and decisions also in the real world. Sometimes I was a bit suprised about this distopy in parallel to our current situation (Corona). In summary, in shape of a current triple A production, this game would be a masterpiece. Here the points, why it fails to get 5/5: - Life simulation is outdated: NPCs just stand where they are, just break standing for sleep. All of my measures revealed just one NPC practicing a more complex daily routine. - production of the dialogs is outdated: Most of the time, you talk to NPCs. So, it bores to listen to static voice acting, moreover the scenery itself is all time the same, camera angle, no acting by the figures itself. - the fight system is a pain: There are scripts just running and it dosn't matter how fast or elegant you can hit buttons. Main advice to get no or few damage during a fight: Don't get hit by the first attac of your opponent! - Graphics quality is outdated. - Standard-story, save the world, just no motivation for a second playthrough
On the one side, pathfinder: Kingmaker is a great game. I like all the statistics, the different classes, the buffs, the story, the possibility to create an own kingdom. But all this stuff seems to lead to the other side: Balancing! This is a main problem. Currently, I'm on the end of the third chapter, expolring a huge dungeon with a very dangerous enemy on its end. There are two floors in this dungeon, my characters are on level 11. All other fights outside were easy, most of it. Random meetups with bandits or other low level enemies are just time stretching, no real problem for my party. Sometimes a bit more tactics, better placement of the characters and a better timing for the spells was necessary to win the fight after a reload. But this dungeon! I managed to go throw all enemies on the first floor, had (thought so) enough resting packs, but there came some soul eaters. My party had no chance! Please note, with lvl 11 characters, going to this point takes almost 2 hours and then the task is just over, because you have no possibility to rest, no spells, no experience. Characters gain experience for leveling up by fulfilling quests, not by killing enemies. This is a huge problem, since outside, too, there are not that much quests to raise the party to level 13 or 14 at this point. This leads me to cheating. When there were not this option by a mod, I would quit this game. Unfortunately, It seems I have to cheat a second time, since on the end of the second floor of this dungeon, again some monsters, my party is just pulverised by. This balancing problem is just frustrating.
Die Gilde 2 könnte ein recht gutes Spiel sein, wenn folgende Dinge nicht so mühsam wären: - Das Versenden von Wägen benötigt 5 bis 10 Klicks: Gewerke anwählen (1) und hoffen, dass ein Wagen in Reichweite ist, Rohstoff auf den Wagen laden (2), Wagen anwählen (3), Versandt-Option des Wagens anwählen (4), Ort, zu dem der Wagen versandt werden soll suchen und anwählen (5-7), Wagen los schicken (8). Natürlich sind all diese Vorgänge mal auf die linke und mal auf die rechte MT gelegt, wenn man sich also verklickt, beginnt das Spiel von vorn. Absolut grausam! - Übersichtlichkeit und Finden von Gewerken/Charakteren: Die Leiste rechts bietet einen Überblick über die Gewerke und Häuser, die man so gebaut/erworben hat. Als hoch angesehener Bürger kann man aber mehr als 30 Gebäude bewirtschaften. Dafür ist das GUI absolut nicht geeignet. Auch die Suchoption ist altbacken, da man ewig lange scrollen muss, bis man etwas gefunden hat. Eine Textsuche wäre hier sinnvoll gewesen, da man einfach zu viele Gebäude verwalten kann. - Immer gleicher Ablauf: Bei den meisten Gebäuden hat man 2 Ausbaustufen. Das war es. Die unterschiedlichen Gebäude produzieren zwar unterschiedliche Güter, der Upgrade-Vorgang ist aber immer der Gleiche. Nur zu Beginn ist dies spannend, da man zu wenig Geld hat. Später rotzt man die Gebäude einfach nur so hin. - Automatische Handelsrouten lassen sich schlecht einstellen und erzeugen Überangebot bzw. Rohstoffknappheit, so dass man manuell nachregeln muss.
