Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Pre-Release Thread

[Jaedar]

You get to the roof, you get XP. You go into the sewers, you get XP. You don't get (max) XP for completing your objective, but just for being nosy.

That is a bit exaggerated, but yeah. Deus ex gave most its xp for quest rewards, and the remainder is exploration based. And the xploration is rarely "get on the roof" but more "find 'secret' route/treasure". Quite possibly because making the trigger for such a large area as a roof is hard?

 

[Infinitron]

I think most RPGs end up offering strange incentives that don't exactly make sense from a "real life" narrative standpoint, but an incentive to maximize exploration in a first person game seems pretty benign. Players want to see all the content your game has to offer anyway. What they don't want is to have to kill/neutralize all the enemies in a certain way (although they might want to neutralize them all in some way).

 

[Athelas]

I never liked the 'area location' XP rewards for exploring out-of-the-way areas in the original Deus Ex, since they typically held their own rewards: ammo/weapons and/or a passcode. And expedience is what should be rewarded, rather than the opposite. Other than that, I thought the XP system worked great.

 

[Zombra]

I think most RPGs end up offering strange incentives that don't exactly make sense from a "real life" narrative standpoint, but an incentive to maximize exploration in a first person game seems pretty benign. Players want to see all the content your game has to offer anyway. What they don't want is to have to kill/neutralize all the enemies in a certain way (although they might want to neutralize them all in some way).

Eh. The more I game, the more I realize that not seeing every last air duct and rooftop is much more satisfying than having that feeling, "I'm ready to finish the level, but first I should scour for carrots." Ruhfuss is right - objective xp is the way to go. If I want to see everything for its own sake, I'll go look at it for its own sake.

When I see a tool shed and think, "I bet that tool shed is very detailed inside, but there's nothing in there I need, so I'm not going to look. My time is better spent elsewhere", that's when I know I'm in a truly fleshed out and well realized game world. If I think, "I better open it in case I get xp", the devs fucked up.

If the goal really is to incentivize "nook and cranny gameplay", Thief did it much better by offering optional objectives like "steal 5000 gp worth of valuables". Gives the player a much more natural motivation than "another empty room! congrats 500xp".

I still remember the first time in Thief when I broke into some place just because it was there ... and it was empty. It was just a realistic place, it made sense it was there, and it made sense that there was no game reason to go there. That moment changed the way I thought about level design, in a very good way.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

What MD really needs are fat yellow glowing outlines everywhere for every fucking vent, door and manhole cover so that the retards defered successful don't miss out on all that good Deus Ex-hallmark leveldesign. And if you're hardcore, then you can always disable it in the options amirite?

 

[Ash]

Original DX's XP system is king. The only thing that can be challenged about it is the exception of providing minor XP bonuses for exploration, but I think it's necessary as a universal reward. You need to reward both stealth and combat players and any derivatives of each playstyle; xp rewards are one of few rewards that are universally beneficial to all build types. Non-lethal in particular is a tough build to reward fairly and frequently as they have such a limited arsenal.

Popamole Revolution very thinly straddles the line between good and popamole shit. All things considered it was a commendable effort, you just can't bash it without throwing the occasional praise in and having some degree of respect for it, but it just isn't good enough for a game in the Looking Glass lineage. Far from it.

I still remember the first time in Thief when I broke into some place just because it was there ... and it was empty. It was just a realistic place, it made sense it was there, and it made sense that there was no game reason to go there. That moment changed the way I thought about level design, in a very good way.

The occasional non-rewarding point of interest for realism/immersion purposes is fine...if they are few and far between. These are still games, and absolute realism is not what we play them for. If we ever get to that sorry stage then maybe I'll put more focus in the one true RPG game of life, at least. Psuedo-realism focus of LGS games is the best it can get without turning into having to take a dump or spend 8 hours every night immobile in the game world.

 

[Gnidrologist]

When I see a tool shed and think, "I bet that tool shed is very detailed inside, but there's nothing in there I need, so I'm not going to look. My time is better spent elsewhere", that's when I know I'm in a truly fleshed out and well realized game world. If I think, "I better open it in case I get xp", the devs fucked up.

And you DO open every tool shed in DX, because there might be multitool. And you need moiltitools. Also look under every staircase and other silly places.

 

[LESS T_T]

Discover everything you need to know about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in the official 101 trailer!

 

[Infinitron]

Oooh, we get to see the Illuminati bigwigs in their prime. I think that's Morgan Everett on the right.

 

[Ash]

Less overbearing and more varied art style is



Further popamolified gameplay is

 

[Llama-Yak Hybrid]

Looks worse than Human Revolution.

 

[an Administrator]

Discover everything you need to know about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in the official 101 trailer!

Design is so deus ex-y

 

[SmartCheetah]

4:11 - Cyber Hitler confirmed.

 

[Ivan]

they manipulated the dawning of Human two-point-o

 

[Carrion]

I wonder if that shady doctor guy helps Jensen unlock his full potential and gain the most powerful aug of them all: the lean button.

I also had almost forgotten how dumb those arm blades were.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

This really is Ghost in The Shell: Desu Eks Meme Edition.

I also miss JC Denton's cool and restraint. Adam is just that dull, passive-agressive BADASS that can rape whole armies. It's that same stereotype the industry keeps reusing over and over again.

 

[TripJack]

christ why couldnt deus ex just die with ion storm

 

[Durandal]

Turns out my military grade enhancements were hiding a cutting-edge set of experimental augs

jay fucking cee denton
Just go with the Metroid way of explaining why you don't have the powers of the previous game, by just saying you got damaged real bad and lost all your powers

 

[superstepa]

I'm getting a liberty island feel from the first level they demonstrated with the non-violent charismatic terrorist leader telling you the "truth". Lets hope they take more cues from the original.

 

[The Nameless Pun]

I'm getting a liberty island feel from the first level they demonstrated with the non-violent charismatic terrorist leader telling you the "truth". Lets hope they take more cues from the original.

The charismatic leader dies in the end of the confrontation before saying much, exactly like the hacker dude in the first mission of human revolution. They are using the same tricks of the previous game, lmao.
Also, I don't like the story of the lone wolf trying to uncover a global conspiracy orchestrated by powerful capitalists and bankers. I think it worked better in the first dx, you were a pawn the entire game, first for unatco and then for the nsf and everett. Only in the end you become a power player able to influence the outcome of the events on a global scale. I mean, come on, this guy jensen was able in hr to find the source of the conspiracy all by himself and he is doing this AGAIN? What the fuck?! This guy is fighting a war already lost, he's trying to put the pieces together and understand the big picture using only scattered informations and hidden clues against a group of immensely powerful and rich geniuses who have been developing and predicting every step of their grand scheme for decades. He has absolutely no chances to discover anything. But, of course, we always need to put the player in the center of the story, one cannot simply be a PAWN used by various factions to fulfill their own agenda, no, the player must always be the fulcrum of everything. But of course, you say, every single rpg wants the player to be the one in control of the story, even those with faction dynamics have the player as the kingmaker of the story, since absolutely no one is capable of achieving their goals without the help of the main char. What I'm saying is we all know that mankind divided will have multiple endings and you will do some strange mumbo jumbo to thwart the plans of the evil overlords, but it doesn't feel right. I want to be a pawn, a nameless operative able to learn something from every force trying to manipulate me and then building my own position of power from the secrets and clues I gathered working for the various factions, like in fnv. Not a generic Dude McAwesome playing detective and discovering the big baddies hiding behind masks through sheer luck and force of will.

 

[T. Reich]

What a load of bullshit.

Regarding DX:HR, throughout the game, Jensen was directed by two things only: his boss' orders and his misguided desire to find gis ex-gf who dumped him the moment he stopped being useful to her. There was not a single moment in the game when Jensen went "there's a conspiracy and I MUST discover it". The ONLY reason he actually stumbled upon anything is that someone (Van Bruggen) fucked op one of the operations and left a number of loose ends. And then we had a vaguely sympathetic AI who dropped a couple of hints for whatever reasons it had to do so.

Jensen has never discovered The Conspiracy, all that he found were a few middle-level power players who were controlled by the big people behind the scenes themselves while trying to further some of their personal small goals.
Darrow, Taggart and Zhao Yun Ru were pawns themselves, easily discarded.

In the end, Jensen achieved nothing. The "aug madness" plan of the Illuminati was successfully realised, all the evidence and key pawns in the scheme were eliminated, and the media was under firm control from the get-go.

In case you forgot, that's the ending of DX:HR:


The original DX is much more of a wish fulfillment fantasy in this regard.

 

[Infinitron]

T. Reich Actually, the real reason you stumble onto something in HR is that the bad guys fuck up and allow one of the kidnapped scientist's augs (Sevchenko) to be traced. The Van Bruggen->Eliza plot thread hits a dead end after you confront Isaias Sandoval back in Detroit.

Technically, Jensen and Sarif could have just waited in Detroit until that happened, then sent Jensen directly to Hengsha and onto the ship to Singapore. Although he would have been quite a bit more clueless and out of his depth in that case.

 

[an Administrator]

I remember devs said non of the HR's endings are canon.

 

[Athos]

What a load of bullshit.

Regarding DX:HR, throughout the game, Jensen was directed by two things only: his boss' orders and his misguided desire to find gis ex-gf who dumped him the moment he stopped being useful to her. There was not a single moment in the game when Jensen went "there's a conspiracy and I MUST discover it". The ONLY reason he actually stumbled upon anything is that someone (Van Bruggen) fucked op one of the operations and left a number of loose ends. And then we had a vaguely sympathetic AI who dropped a couple of hints for whatever reasons it had to do so.

Jensen has never discovered The Conspiracy, all that he found were a few middle-level power players who were controlled by the big people behind the scenes themselves while trying to further some of their personal small goals.
Darrow, Taggart and Zhao Yun Ru were pawns themselves, easily discarded.

In the end, Jensen achieved nothing. The "aug madness" plan of the Illuminati was successfully realised, all the evidence and key pawns in the scheme were eliminated, and the media was under firm control from the get-go.

In case you forgot, that's the ending of DX:HR:


The original DX is much more of a wish fulfillment fantasy in this regard.

The aug madness is solely Darrow's work, if I remember correctly. The Illuminati wanted a backdoor access to control the augs, the new chip was designed for this in their plans. Darrow himself was pretty high in the ranks, I think, higher than Zhao surely. Taggart is just a tool.

One thing that sounds bullshit to me is that Jensen had more unknown augs already implanted and now these magically come out. Couldn't they say that Interpol upgraded him with the latest tech?

 

[T. Reich]

T. Reich Actually, the real reason you stumble onto something in HR is that the bad guys fuck up and allow one of the kidnapped scientist's augs (Sevchenko) to be traced. The Van Bruggen->Eliza plot thread hits a dead end after you confront Isaias Sandoval back in Detroit.

Technically, Jensen and Sarif could have just waited in Detroit until that happened, then sent Jensen directly to Hengsha and onto the ship to Singapore. Although he would have been quite a bit more clueless and out of his depth in that case.

Good catch. Not to mention that the whole "stow away on this ship, it might get you where you need to go" episode is also pure dumb luck, as was conveniently explained away in the DLC.

The aug madness is solely Darrow's work, if I remember correctly. The Illuminati wanted a backdoor access to control the augs, the new chip was designed for this in their plans. Darrow himself was pretty high in the ranks, I think, higher than Zhao surely. Taggart is just a tool.

One thing that sounds bullshit to me is that Jensen had more unknown augs already implanted and now these magically come out. Couldn't they say that Interpol upgraded him with the latest tech?

Ah, right. The control was indeed the primary target, with Humanity Front as the, well, front for the legislative ways to control the aug'd population, and with Neuroposine (produced by VersaLife, hello there!) as yet another tool of control.
Darrow's initiative was indeed an independent dick move, fueled by his childish envy.

Darrow was indeed above Zhao and even Taggart, I believe, but he definitely was not one of the Council of Five (the known long-standing members of that circle prior to MJ12 Coup in 2030s were: Dowd, Everett, DuClare, DeBeers, Page).

And I totally agree about the "hidden augs" bullshit. That's the incredibly lazy excuse that rubs me the wrong way.