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Deus Ex: Human Revolution |OT| I never asked for this... It gave me lemon-lime

Coxswain

Member
wutwutwut said:
I'm sorry, I simply see nothing wrong with sidequests that you can miss or not be able to complete with your build.
What sidequests do you miss or render yourself unable to complete if you spend four Praxis Points to raise yourself up to Hacking: Capture level 5, and don't spend any other points in any other augmentations, at all?
 

TTG

Member
Coxswain said:
It's sloppy design in a game of this style to require any one particular skill, no matter how small the point expenditure.


I obviously haven't spent enough time with Deus Ex yet, but the general point you make here I completely disagree with. This design philosophy is why so many games that rely on customization render all that hard work meaningless. The general rule of thumb seems to be that the player should always be prepared for whatever is around the next corner, no matter what choices he's made. Why? Because it's no fun to punish the player or the casual gamer will be upset or any other motive you'd like. The thing is though, if you're perpetually piling more stuff on the plate, while all that's ever required is what was there when you sat down to eat, those upgrades come off as superficial and gimmicky... which they are.

How that's related(or not) to this case I don't really know, since hacking skills were the first thing I upgraded and I'm still very early in the game. From what I've seen though, it's all very fixable. It's no monumental feat, it's just a few points actually and you come by those often enough.
 
Do items you drop stay forever on the ground? Can I just dump shit into my apartment for safe keeping and such or are you forced to sell shit as soon as possible? Playing Fallout Vegas now and love just hoarding shit in my room
 

Londa

Banned
Marco1 said:
Isn't it great that these devs took the time to really make a deus ex game instead of attaching it to a poorly put together FPS ?
Great game eidos and it deserves the praise, long may it live.

Yes, I am not a FPS fan and even I can get into this and enjoy it. I'm now starting to feel that I've been missing out on a great game series (this is my first Deus Ex game).
 

54-46!

Member
I was kind of annoyed when the game forced me to play with heavy weaponry near the end when I spent all my upgrades on the 10mm.
 

Dina

Member
It's a cool game, but boy does the last 1/3th part of the game drag on. The last level is quite possibly the worst disappointment in any game, ever.
 
Coxswain said:
It's not a contradiction. "Major" is not the same thing as "Part of the critical path". In a game with ten fleshed-out sidequests, total, it is in fact pretty fair to call each one 'major'!


No, there is a negative opportunity cost for investing in hacking. For every point you put into hacking, you earn back enough experience through hacking to gain about two Praxis Points. Not to mention the fact that two of the three quests in question give Praxis Points as rewards, meaning that putting the... seven, I think, points into Hacking: Capture and Hacking: Stealth results in you gaining somewhere in the area of 14-16 points.

Your two options are quite effectively 'do I take these skills, gain extra levels for having done so, and open up 90% of the game's blocked-off areas in one fell swoop' versus 'do I not take these skills, end up with fewer points to put into other skills, and render myself completely incapable of completing several of the game's small number of sidequests'.

It is the opposite of the RPG "agony of choice".

right but isnt that my original point? that there is a lot of value in putting points into hacking? I am playing a lethal playthrough and want the combat augs really badly like armor coz u die way too quickly without that. same with cloak, I want that real bad, but I am gonna have to think carefully about when to put points into these.

I think the difference is that I see a lot more value in non-hacking skills than you do. you correctly state that hacking is the "best" or "optimal" investment for unlocking content, getting xp and items etc. but for me I want non hacking augments for non technical reasons like fun of playing a certain role (feeling like a combat cyborg badass). eg optimisation wise, there is no value in combat or cloak mods when you can just reload save games, and you are correct that its optimal to unlock all hacks in the game.
 

Angst

Member
BattleMonkey said:
Do items you drop stay forever on the ground? Can I just dump shit into my apartment for safe keeping and such or are you forced to sell shit as soon as possible? Playing Fallout Vegas now and love just hoarding shit in my room
Yep
 

shuri

Banned
I learned that in D:HR's world, any kind of problems will be resolved by having a convenient vent in the promixity of the problem and/or challenge.

Road blocked by the police? A vent will allow you to bypass it
Camera? VENT!
Heavily armored mech? VENT VENT VENT
Need to get into a building? TURN AROUND! VENT!

Deus EX had the 'time-to-crate' meme; now it's 'time-to-vent'
 

HolyTaco

Member
Lostconfused said:
But it's still poor/bad/sloppy design. Which is even more egregious when the point of this game is to facilitate various play styles.

You think they should reward every different play style equally? Clearly a lot of the effort put into this game was to support various play styles, though if you ignore a key part of the skill tree prepare to be met with resistance from the devs.
 

Zeliard

Member
shuri said:
I learned that in D:HR's world, any kind of problems will be resolved by having a convenient vent in the promixity of the problem and/or challenge.

Road blocked by the police? A vent will allow you to bypass it
Camera? VENT!
Heavily armored mech? VENT VENT VENT
Need to get into a building? TURN AROUND! VENT!

Deus EX had the 'time-to-crate' meme; now it's 'time-to-vent'

At least you're not still crying about the highlighting. That's an improvement.
 
shuri said:
I learned that in D:HR's world, any kind of problems will be resolved by having a convenient vent in the promixity of the problem and/or challenge.

Road blocked by the police? A vent will allow you to bypass it
Camera? VENT!
Heavily armored mech? VENT VENT VENT
Need to get into a building? TURN AROUND! VENT!

Deus EX had the 'time-to-crate' meme; now it's 'time-to-vent'

Where did he go?! Couldn't have gone into this giant vent that has it's convenient door open! Keep searching
 
for people who want no-highlighting, I am interested in why. is it

a challenge/reward thing where you feel like you truly discovered something (versus 0 effort with highlight)

or is it more of a "take time to appreciate the world" in that turning off highlighting forces you to spend more time taking in every single site/area of the game and finding stuff you wouldn't ordinarily find (eg stuff that wouldnt be highlighted anyway)? I can appreciate that, I loved the assasin creed reference in the beginning of witcher 2.
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
BattleMonkey said:
Where did he go?! Couldn't have gone into this giant vent that has it's convenient door open! Keep searching
We can do better than that.

Ever went through a group of guys by moving a move? When they aren't looking, move. When they are drop and hide!
 

Coxswain

Member
TTG said:
I obviously haven't spent enough time with Deus Ex yet, but the general point you make here I completely disagree with. This design philosophy is why so many games that rely on customization render all that hard work meaningless. The general rule of thumb seems to be that the player should always be prepared for whatever is around the next corner, no matter what choices he's made. Why? Because it's no fun to punish the player or the casual gamer will be upset or any other motive you'd like. The thing is though, if you're perpetually piling more stuff on the plate, while all that's ever required is what was there when you sat down to eat, those upgrades come off as superficial and gimmicky... which they are.

How that's related(or not) to this case I don't really know, since hacking skills were the first thing I upgraded and I'm still very early in the game. From what I've seen though, it's all very fixable. It's no monumental feat, it's just a few points actually and you come by those often enough.
There are several situations in the game where you need a skill in order to proceed. I can think of one offhand where you either need Hacking or the Social Enhancer to complete a sidequest. I don't have a problem with that.

I have a problem with the fact that Hacking is the only skill that is always an option, and it's also the only skill for which you ever run up against a situation where there are no other skills that will work as a substitute/alternative.


And on top of that, Hacking gives you more experience than any single thing in the game save maaaaaaaybe the main quest, and that in almost all cases it's second only to Cloaking in terms of being able to completely trivialize an otherwise-challenging portion of the game. Like, I'm almost surprised that the game's bosses don't have a security terminal glued to their forehead that you can use to instantly shut them down.
DXHR has a major case of degenerate strategy, and you can pin that almost entirely on Hacking. That's my problem with it. It doesn't "ruin the game", but the line where it passes from "less than ideal" to "genuine problem" is when it becomes the only way to complete a significant fraction of the game's content, in a way that isn't really seen in any other skill in the game.
 

Zeliard

Member
cleveridea said:
for people who want no-highlighting, I am interested in why. is it

a challenge/reward thing where you feel like you truly discovered something (versus 0 effort with highlight)

or is it more of a "take time to appreciate the world" in that turning off highlighting forces you to spend more time taking in every single site/area of the game and finding stuff you wouldn't ordinarily find (eg stuff that wouldnt be highlighted anyway)? I can appreciate that, I loved the assasin creed reference in the beginning of witcher 2.

The highlighting in this game is ugly, distracting, and damages the sense of exploration due to its range and multiple-targeting. The original Deus Ex had it so you had to be very close to an item before it would highlight, and it would only ever highlight one item at a time, keeping exploration intact and highly critical. If they had kept that way I would have happily used it, but since they have some other awful version I'm far more inclined to just turn it off completely.
 
Zeliard said:
The highlighting in this game is ugly, distracting, and damages the sense of exploration due to its range and multiple-targeting. The original Deus Ex had it so you had to be very close to an item before it would highlight, and it would only ever highlight one item at a time, keeping exploration intact and highly critical. If they had kept that way I would have happily used it, but since they have some other awful version I'm far more inclined to just turn it off completely.

oh LOL I actually like the effect, as a cyborg super vision thing (like terminator movie red view). I realize that its not a common preference though.
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
I'm a little confused by people saying you have to invest in hacking capture to get through some of the quests. You can buy the two hacking aides from at least one vendor in Detroit, and I'm sure the same is true in the other hub cities. With enough hacking aides, it's possible to hack something even if you never invest points in hacking at all.

cleveridea said:
oh LOL I actually like the effect, as a cyborg super vision thing (like terminator movie red view). I realize that its not a common preference though.

I kept it on too as it makes sense as a feature acquired when Jensen's visual augment was installed.
 

tiff

Banned
I don't see the point of highlighting. The game still pretty much tells you what you can interact with, so I never really saw much need in just making shit glow.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
I have highlighting on and I like it. I like to know which things I can interact with, not bump into everything hitting E.
 

Zenith

Banned
If anyone's interested in real augmentation, google transcranial stimulation. Non-invasive electrodes can increase your memory skills for 6 months. A literal thinking cap.

Also I love the effect for the see-through-walls aug where the triangles highlighting people scatter into a million pieces.
 
luxarific said:
I'm a little confused by people saying you have to invest in hacking capture to get through some of the quests. You can buy the two hacking aides from at least one vendor in Detroit, and I'm sure the same is true in the other hub cities. With enough hacking aides, it's possible to hack something even if you never invest points in hacking at all.
In north america if you didn't pre-order from gamestop those items do not exist in your game.
 

Derrick01

Banned
cleveridea said:
for people who want no-highlighting, I am interested in why. is it

a challenge/reward thing where you feel like you truly discovered something (versus 0 effort with highlight)

or is it more of a "take time to appreciate the world" in that turning off highlighting forces you to spend more time taking in every single site/area of the game and finding stuff you wouldn't ordinarily find (eg stuff that wouldnt be highlighted anyway)? I can appreciate that, I loved the assasin creed reference in the beginning of witcher 2.

My first playthrough was with no highlighting and my current one is with it and it changes everything. It makes everything so much easier to find and isn't really a lot of fun. The complaints from people were justified, it works exactly how we all thought it would and thankfully they provided an option. This game would have been a lot worse if we were forced to use it.
 
tiff said:
I don't see the point of highlighting. The game still pretty much tells you what you can interact with, so I never really saw much need in just making shit glow.
Well, i still kinda needed it in the beginning, sicne it's my first Deus Ex game. I'm fine with it.

Anyway, Holy shit @ this game. You're Seth Bullock!!! The music is AWESOME.
It's like i'm playing in a mix of Mass Effect, Splinter Cell, MGS, Rainbow Six Vegas and Bladerunner covered in awesome saus.

I'm playing in a mixture of stealth and sometimes completely violent. Probably not the most pure and GAf way to play this, but i like it just fine.
Love the atmosphere. And, i'm motherfucking Seth Bullock in the future..
Thanx for making me aware that this game exists GAF.
 

raphier

Banned
Lostconfused said:
In north america if you didn't pre-order from gamestop those items do not exist in your game.
that is so ridiculous...I just read on this. I don't have items my friend (Pre-ordered) most of time has. I don't also like how some of pre-order items are over-powered. The blue explosive apparently does one-hit kills on strong targets and is unheard at large proximity. (room alerted only)
 
Just out of curiosity, is anybody else completely destroying everybody in sight? I'm talkin' about full on destruction of every human being including hookers and bums? Oh and that stupid dancer
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
Lostconfused said:
In north america if you didn't pre-order from gamestop those items do not exist in your game.

Incorrect - I'm not referring to the preorder DLC at all.


Lostconfused said:


No, that's not what I meant. I meant the Stop Worm! and Nuke programs you can buy at the Detroit vendor in the gas station. You can also find them as objects in the game world via exploration and while hacking.
 

Derrick01

Banned
raphier said:
that is so ridiculous...I just read on this. I don't have items my friend (Pre-ordered) most of time has. I don't also like how some of pre-order items are over-powered.

Yeah the auto unlocks, grenade launcher, and those manual use detonation devices came in handy for me. The latter 2 on those asshole bosses mainly, the 3rd boss was a piece of cake cause of that.
 
Dina said:
It's a cool game, but boy does the last 1/3th part of the game drag on. The last level is quite possibly the worst disappointment in any game, ever.

It was pretty odd that they changed up the game's style so drastically at the last part of the game. Although the mission before it was classic Deus Ex, I felt so awesome after finding various hidden routes through the buildings.
 

Coxswain

Member
luxarific said:
No, that's not what I meant. I meant the Stop Worm! and Nuke programs you can buy at the Detroit vendor in the gas station. You can also find them as objects in the game world via exploration and while hacking.
You can't even open up the hacking screen if you don't have Hacking: Capture up to the same level as the lock you're trying to open.

(It probably should work the way you think it does, though.)
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
Coxswain said:
You can't even open up the hacking screen if you don't have Hacking: Capture up to the same level as the lock you're trying to open.

(It probably should work the way you think it does, though.)

That is indeed true. I'll be interested in seeing a final list of "tough" hacking barriers and see if there are any quests that closed of solely because of hacking limitations (that aren't surmountable via other pathways - e.g., finding a list of passwords behind a breakable wall).
 
Derrick01 said:
Yeah the auto unlocks, grenade launcher, and those manual use detonation devices came in handy for me. The latter 2 on those asshole bosses mainly, the 3rd boss was a piece of cake cause of that.

This reminds me of my question, in the preview build I had those blue remote explosives and found an auto-unlock device (consumable) that lets you bypass a hack. I haven't found any in the retail game, were those taken our or relegated to pre-orders? I don't care so much about the auto-hack thing, but I found ALOT of useful and creative ways to use the remote explosives, and I'm missing those in the retail game. Pisses me off if they're really not there.
 
33-Hit-Combo said:
How the FFFFFFFFFFU- do I use it? I only get the option to use it on about a tenth of the hackable shit.
If you have it you just use it like a grenade by aiming at whatever it is you want to hack and throwing it.
 

Zenith

Banned
33-Hit-Combo said:
How the FFFFFFFFFFU- do I use it? I only get the option to use it on about a tenth of the hackable shit.

they work like grenades. equip them and press G and they'll auto-target the nearest comp/panel/keypad in range.
 
Zenith said:

I could imagine this was cut from the full game... As I mentioned previously, there seems to be a lot of content that was cut.

Zenith said:
they work like grenades. equip them and press G and they'll auto-target the nearest comp/panel/keypad in range.

Yeah I got that before, but I swear when I go up to a hackable item, and press the action button, then hack button, there's an option to auto-hack. Only appears in rare moments?
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Zenith said:
The shotgun in this game is really practical, especially with the burst system. And once you upgrade the SMG with silencer and auto-tracking and movement-accuracy augs you can do quick charges down corridors with the fire button held down. And of course the 10mm is my personal sidearm.

I wanted to keep all of them so I made the unusual choice of not having the assault rifle even though I'm a "soldier class". Next run through I'm going to use a revolver-assault rifle combo.

what does this autotracking do? Is it essentially autoaim?
 
I've played through the hostage situation. It took me about 2 hours because I was messing about, reverse engineering, etc.

I got a good laugh out of the email talking about acquiring millions of pounds from a confidential Nigerian 'businessman' too.
 

Geoff9920

Member
I love this game, but keeping something like the Automatic Unlocking Device as a pre-order bonus item only (for US folks) is an aweful idea. When I originally read about the item I thought they had just given people one for "free" and they'd still appear in game.
 
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