Deus Ex 3

Tankero · 2011-09-03T07:59:14.000Z

Chris Nahr:

On my way to China now, and I’m getting rather disenchanted with the game. In the big industrial installation at the end of the first hub, there doesn’t seem any point to exploration – all you find is a labyrinth of repetitive rooms and corridors, containing nothing but worthless McLoot. The game might as well be a linear corridor shooter for how empty and lifeless those large environments are.

In the interest of fair & balanced reporting, however, I’ll add that the dialog minigame enabled by the social implant is pretty great. Short character briefing at the start, a small personality type indicator, and finally you get to make your own choice based on that knowledge. Definitely beats the usual “[Persuasion]” options!

I just wish the actual game was as good as the minigames…

You don’t even need the addon. The animations/content are informative enough to know what’s working and what’s not. The writing and voice acting in the “conversation” bits were so well done that you can navigate through them without that many hints. Then again, I didn’t get that particular aug, so you might be able to do some things with it I have no clue about.

As for exploration, you can actually find some very interesting things/alternate paths for the levels. Then again, that’s only true for SOME levels, and not all. There is a particular secret area that is very significant that isn’t on the linear path. On top of THAT, you’re getting XP rewards based on the difficulty or obscurity of the places you find. The bonus goes up to 400.

stusser · 2011-09-03T08:49:09.000Z

Tankero:

You don’t even need the addon.

At least one major conversation can’t be won without the speech addon, and one very major conversation can’t be won with the addon activated.

Chris_Nahr · 2011-09-03T09:14:04.000Z

Tankero:

You don’t even need the addon. The animations/content are informative enough to know what’s working and what’s not. The writing and voice acting in the “conversation” bits were so well done that you can navigate through them without that many hints.

Maybe you can, I don’t think I could. And I was rather impressed at how well-realized those hints are, compared to the usual skill-dependent insta-win dialog choice.

As for exploration, you can actually find some very interesting things/alternate paths for the levels. Then again, that’s only true for SOME levels, and not all.

That’s the problem, I expect that I’ll miss some things but I don’t want to waste time searching boring levels on the off-chance that something interesting might be there.

On top of THAT, you’re getting XP rewards based on the difficulty or obscurity of the places you find. The bonus goes up to 400.

Watching the XP counter go up is the lamest possible reason to explore levels IMO. That’s the equivalent of level grinding, rewarding tedious busywork. It’s just as wrong as giving extra XP for take downs.

stusser:

At least one major conversation can’t be won without the speech addon, and one very major conversation can’t be won with the addon activated.

Are you saying you can disable that implant, and you have to do that before the conversation? That sounds weird.

Tankero · 2011-09-03T09:16:48.000Z

The areas you explore and get XP for are alternate paths leading you to either loot or simply non-direct routes. Past that, there are a couple of legitimately ‘hidden’ rooms, but there’s no completely hidden city or anything like that.

stusser · 2011-09-03T09:21:15.000Z

Chris Nahr:

Are you saying you can disable that implant, and you have to do that before the conversation? That sounds weird.

No, you just choose not to use it.

Razgon · 2011-09-03T09:22:45.000Z

stusser:

No, you just choose not to use it.

You are referring to the pheromones, right?

Chris_Nahr · 2011-09-03T09:33:54.000Z

Tankero:

The areas you explore and get XP for are alternate paths leading you to either loot or simply non-direct routes. Past that, there are a couple of legitimately ‘hidden’ rooms, but there’s no completely hidden city or anything like that.

A hidden city isn’t necessary, I was rather thinking of NPCs that actually talk to you, or unique objects or information that trigger side quests or story branches. In the first hub, all quest givers were highlighted without my intervention, and other NPCs outside of the Sarif building either shoot you or just offer canned one-liners, with very few exceptions. Any info I find outside of indicated quest locations seems to have no impact on the game, it’s sometimes interesting but it’s never acknowledged by either Jensen or other characters.

Razgon:

You are referring to the pheromones, right?

That makes more sense. But the automatic personality type information is also provided by the implant, right? That’s what I was assuming.

jpinard · 2011-09-03T11:12:41.000Z

Is there any penalty for taking candy bars and credits from colleagues offices at Sarif HQ?

Jason_Townsend · 2011-09-03T11:16:53.000Z

jpinard:

Is there any penalty for taking candy bars and credits from colleagues offices at Sarif HQ?

I suspect it sets off an “office bandit” controversy among employees (via email) which is just story fluff.

Gus_Smedstad1 · 2011-09-03T11:27:06.000Z

All the stealing you do in DEHR, and in DE (often by cracking into the bank accounts of innocents) makes me appreciate the Karma system of Fallout. It didn’t have a lot of real effect, but at least the game acknowledged “hey, you’re stealing from the good guys.”

Jason_Townsend · 2011-09-03T11:55:59.000Z

I only took stray candy bars because Pritchard seemed not to care when I stole one in front of his nose. I left the credit chips lying around, but the “office bandit” emails happened anyway. That made me feel a bit bad (some innocent person gets yelled at) so there’s karma.

Sarkus · 2011-09-03T12:06:57.000Z

What bugs me is that you almost have to steal the candybars. The few merchants don’t carry much in that regard and the recharge system means you need it all the time.

Guido_Jones · 2011-09-03T12:10:19.000Z

stusser:

At least one major conversation can’t be won without the speech addon, and one very major conversation can’t be won with the addon activated.

Huh? I won all the conversations with the implant.

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-09-03T12:28:24.000Z

Sarkus:

What bugs me is that you almost have to steal the candybars. The few merchants don’t carry much in that regard and the recharge system means you need it all the time.

Generally I avoid stealing from NPCs in such games, and try to treat it like I would in real life.

However this game has a serious case of “Super Secret Agent with multi-million dollar budget has to scrounge for ammo and snacks”, so I just took whatever I found and pretended I’d gone shopping somewhere. Such scarcity makes (some) sense in Fallout, but is fairly immersion breaking here. It was especially annoying when I started running out of freaking Pistol ammo, because the store (i.e. the foes you take out) started carrying much less of it. The candy bar angle of this was even stupider.

I much preferred how E.Y.E. handled equipment. At an arms locker you could stock up on whatever you wanted, at no cost. You only had to scrounge for ammo during a mission if you didn’t bring enough.

Assuming Human Revolution allows any mods I expect all of this will be resolved unofficially before to long, but why is that always necessary?

Jason_Townsend · 2011-09-03T12:28:55.000Z

I think he may mean that one of the pheremone-won conversation endings is a “bad” outcome story-wise.

Omniscia · 2011-09-03T13:41:37.000Z

If it’s the conversation I’ve seen several people refer to as having a “bad” outcome, how is that even possible? There were two possible resolutions that became available to me, and each party went away happy. Sure, it was touch-and-go for second, but it wasn’t irrevocably dire.

Jason_Townsend · 2011-09-03T14:10:08.000Z

The conversation I mean

[spoiler]…is with Haas, to get access to the police department. If you really “ace” the conversation without pheremones he has a very special episode of Blossom and lets you in, saying you and he would talk later. Later, he appears in your apartment building because he’s been fired, his superiors having discovered he let you into the building. Per my prior discussion I reassured him that a place would be found for him at Sarif Industries.

I imagine there are probably a few variations on the story, including a less happy-go-lucky conversational win, the pheremones (which lead to him being threatened over his use of psychotropic medication) and unhappier/different endings at the apartment building confrontation.

A lot of players who encounter the “Pheremones = pill bottle blackmail” option probably reload thinking it’s a “bad ending,” even though it gets the job done and even if you can fix it later.[/spoiler]

Omniscia · 2011-09-03T14:27:08.000Z

Yeah, that’s the one.

Sebmojo · 2011-09-03T14:32:53.000Z

WarrenM:

And Quake 1 can be completed, start to finish, in under 12 minutes. Not really relevant, is it?

Thats a ridiculous comparison.

That said I did it knowing what I had to do and after the load time patch and it still took like ten tries. That could be because of my Bad Sports though.

stusser · 2011-09-03T14:42:17.000Z

Guido Jones:

Huh? I won all the conversations with the implant.

the conversation I mean

When I used the pheromones with Hugh Darrow near the endgame he called me a psychopath looking to manipulate his emotions and I failed the conversation.