1eyedking DX:HR's Lead Designer talks about level design philosophy

[MyFirstAlt]

Because I am him, you shithead.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Alfons]

What I remember most about DX:HR level design are the vents, the ones that go from the begging of a hallway to the end. Those were...convenient.

 

[Ninjerk]

Ban

 

[bloodlover]

What I remember most about DX:HR level design are the vents, the ones that go from the begging of a hallway to the end. Those were...convenient.

Of course. It wss the stealth alternative for the combat. I sometimes wish the game had some gameplay elements that Splinter Cell had, like moving while hanging from pipes or hiding under objects like Metal Gear Solid, but I guess that would ve problematic from a gameplay and design pov, not to mention make the character overpowered as hell.

 

[Alfons]

...but I guess that would ve problematic from a gameplay and design pov, not to mention make the character overpowered as hell.

Jensen is overpowered. Get a pistol with a penetrating mod and laser, all of which you can get after the first mission and you're ready. With those items you can kill all non-heavy/non-boss enemies in 1 headshot, heavies take 2, for bosses use something else. From a mechanics standpoint, the game is a joke, the fact that detours that have zero obstacles are the stealth alternative reinforces that point.

 

[bloodlover]

Well what kind of obstacles would you expect from a ventilation system? Also, you are talking about killing I am talking about sneaking. Different things.

 

[DeepOcean]

Wot? They for sure talked alot and played Deus Ex but they must have not like it because the game is alot more splinter cell cyberpunk than Deus Ex but to be fair with Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell Blacklist had a few levels that really allowed many path possibilities and felt way more organic than anything that was on HR.. When even some Assassins Creed missions play less linear than your game Eidos Montreal, you know you have a problem. Dishonored spits and shits on HR and while I loved the art style, the way the world is presented, the sound track and some bits of storytelling, HR level design was weak and really unimaginative, it could be worse and be like CoD levels of linearity but still...not in a single mission it managed to generate that feeling on the back of the spine of you playing something truly great that was constant on the original Desu Ex.

The only level I thought was truly great was the Police Station and even in there... the dumb down was obvious with you winning the level and turning all cops non-hostile with a simple and easy conversation at the entrance.

 

[Alfons]

Well what kind of obstacles would you expect from a ventilation system? Also, you are talking about killing I am talking about sneaking. Different things.

Well, putting mines or something like that might be feasible from a mechanics standpoint, but it's obviously idiotic from a game logic standpoint. I think each playstyle should have obstacles, if one path requires skill, strategy, and resources, but the other just requires you to press W while moving the mouse button something is not right. Honestly, I think the vents are an afterthought, and trying to fix them is like polishing a turd, the levels should be redesigned. Take for example, the original Deus Ex, I remember there was a level where you had 2 or more entrances into a building, I only remember 2 of them. The first was the front door, and it had enemies and cameras, it was a frontal assault. The second one was the stealthy way. First, you had to figure out that you could lower a crane or an elevator, get up to the roof and enter a vent. I didn't go much further since I encountered laser beams and mines, when the lasers were tripped robots came from everywhere. It wasn't just a straight path, it was a fully realized area. To stealth through you needed skills, thought, and resources, I think that is a much more interesting option than the path HR took.

 

[pippin]

The vents were convenient, but as it was said before you often missed some stuff in the way. Those were way to convinient in that part where you first faced the asian lady. Those even had open spaces which apparently the enemies didn't get to notice.

 

[felipepepe]

Vents usually put you behind the guards or next to the security console, so you can sneak throught the vents and then easily backtrack a bit too see if you missed anything.

 

[bloodlover]

Alfons It does not make any sense to put mines in a police station. HR also has multiple options to enter buildings (

Spoiler

if I remember you can enter the police station from the roof, the sewers or just talking to the guy up front

) but I feel they sometimes are too obvious.

 

[tuluse]

The night club had multiple entrances too.

 

[Jaedar]

Sadly, the police mission is probably the best one in the game, featuring multiple routes of entry and a very open level design without the usual stealth path, combat path, hacker path nonsense the game often devolves into.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Jensen is overpowered. Get a pistol with a penetrating mod and laser, all of which you can get after the first mission and you're ready. With those items you can kill all non-heavy/non-boss enemies in 1 headshot, heavies take 2, for bosses use something else. From a mechanics standpoint, the game is a joke, the fact that detours that have zero obstacles are the stealth alternative reinforces that point.

Actually modded pistol rapes bosses as well so no need to use anything else, maybe not the 1st boss (not enough ROF upgrades by that point, though it's still easily doable) but by the 2nd one you have it almost fully upgraded at which point it becomes an absolute monster of a weapon, as long as you have some ROF mods in it (in addition to AP) and a negate recoil aug you can an empty a mag into their heads easily.

The only thing a modded pistol isn't arguably the best at is crowd control but even then if you're decent at shooters and can score headshots you should have little trouble.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, the police station is the best area in the game. It's honestly even better than most places in the original game.

One of the hardest one to ghost as well, full of patrolling guards and tempting side-goals. That is, unless you have the dialog aug and speak with the guy at then entrance. Then you can just skip like 2 hours of vent crawling and sneaking and waltz through the station. Quite bold, is like a "second playthrough route". And it's very well done - if you sneak to the prison, two guards will be talking about the Robocop movie. If you get clearance and walk there, the cops will have the same conversation but start to make jokes with you about it.

DX:HR would have been fantastic if all levels where of this caliber. They are police officers and they are nice people, you don't want to kill them, but you need to complete the mission. It gives a more human touch to the game. Sadly, the second half of the game boils down to "kill or sneak past faceless guards in yet another military compound". At most you overhear talk like "Hey, did we fix that obvious sneak route in the roof yet? *WINK WINK, NUDGE NUDGE, UPDATED MY JOURNAL*".

 

[Alfons]

The thing about the levels ,at least how I remember them, is that while it's true that areas have multiple entrances, when you are inside your stealth options are very limited.
Let's look at the Chaos Theory bank(or maybe it's the estate) level, you start out near the gate outside the building, you can go through the front door or through the roof, regardless of which one you choose, the stealth doesn't stop when you're in. The police station in comparison has straight hallways with patrols, on one of the floors all you can do is go to an office and travel through the vents to another office. You never have to worry about timing or strategy.

 

[Metro]

Sadly, the police mission is probably the best one in the game, featuring multiple routes of entry and a very open level design without the usual stealth path, combat path, hacker path nonsense the game often devolves into.

Can you progress in the game if you happen to shoot your way through the police station? I'm guessing yes since they wouldn't allow people to 'break' the game because modern players would go 'muh freeedomz.'

 

[Modron]

DX:HR would have been fantastic if all levels where of this caliber. They are police officers and they are nice people, you don't want to kill them, but you need to complete the mission. It gives a more human touch to the game. Sadly, the second half of the game boils down to "kill or sneak past faceless guards in yet another military compound". At most you overhear talk like "Hey, did we fix that obvious sneak route in the roof yet? *WINK WINK, NUDGE NUDGE, UPDATED MY JOURNAL*".

Yeah the game really takes a nose dive in later levels, after the preorder/dlc mission I just downloaded a trainer, turned on infinite energy, and just ran through everywhere invisible (probably should have just looked up the ending on youtube in hindsight).

 

[felipepepe]

The thing about the levels ,at least how I remember them, is that while it's true that areas have multiple entrances, when you are inside your stealth options are very limited.
Let's look at the Chaos Theory bank(or maybe it's the estate) level, you start out near the gate outside the building, you can go through the front door or through the roof, regardless of which one you choose, the stealth doesn't stop when you're in. The police station in comparison has straight hallways with patrols, on one of the floors all you can do is go to an office and travel through the vents to another office. You never have to worry about timing or strategy.

The real problem is that knocking out enemies is too damn easy. Knockdown patrolling guard, push his body to the corner and knockout the next guy until everyone is unconscious - "I'M GHOSTING!". In the original, you had very limited stun rod ammo and tranquilizer rifle took a while to work... in HR it costs energy to knockdown dudes, but the energy regens! And the Director's Cut made it even worse by making it regen 2 full bars! And they didn't even have the good sense to disable the regen in the max difficulty setting... so many wasted opportunities with that "Director's Cut".

What's worse is that I don't have high hopes for further games... one of the interviews I read the project's director said that what he would change is that "the game was too hard".

 

[Alfons]

Knockdown patrolling guard, push his body to the corner and knockout the next guy until everyone is unconscious - "I'M GHOSTING!".

That's either a modern definition of ghosting or I never really understood what ghosting meant, I'm quite confident it's the former. First time I encountered that term was in the Splinter Cell franchise, from my understanding it meant going through the mission without disturbing anyone, or just not having you or your shit be noticed, if you were knocking people out you weren't ghosting.

one of the interviews I read the project's director said that what he would change is that "the game was too hard".

That's unfortunate, it was one of the easiest games I played that year.

 

[tuluse]

The thing about the levels ,at least how I remember them, is that while it's true that areas have multiple entrances, when you are inside your stealth options are very limited.
Let's look at the Chaos Theory bank(or maybe it's the estate) level, you start out near the gate outside the building, you can go through the front door or through the roof, regardless of which one you choose, the stealth doesn't stop when you're in. The police station in comparison has straight hallways with patrols, on one of the floors all you can do is go to an office and travel through the vents to another office. You never have to worry about timing or strategy.

The real problem is that knocking out enemies is too damn easy. Knockdown patrolling guard, push his body to the corner and knockout the next guy until everyone is unconscious - "I'M GHOSTING!". In the original, you had very limited stun rod ammo and tranquilizer rifle took a while to work... in HR it costs energy to knockdown dudes, but the energy regens! And the Director's Cut made it even worse by making it regen 2 full bars! And they didn't even have the good sense to disable the regen in the max difficulty setting... so many wasted opportunities with that "Director's Cut".

What's worse is that I don't have high hopes for further games... one of the interviews I read the project's director said that what he would change is that "the game was too hard".

I think you really overstating how hard it is to knockout guards in DX1.

 

[DeepOcean]

I think you really overstating how hard it is to knockout guards in DX1.

DX 1 vs HR:

DX 1:

Gas grenades make them cough but you still have to shoot them.
You could pass whole missions and get two or three charges for the prod at the best while it took more than one hit to knockout some guards and it required you to get really, really close to enemies.
Police stick requires a hit on the head for instant knockout or high levels of melee skill for instant knockouts.
Crossbow requires a long time to take enemies down while they still can shoot at you and easily alert other enemies.
Shooting with a sniper rifle is a bitch if you didn't max out the rifle skill, miss the shot and the guard goes running for the alarm.

HR:
Gas grenades are automatic mass knockout.
Enemies don't realize they were hit by a poison dart and it works pretty damn fast.
You don't need to aim your awesome cutscene powers, the press A for awesome appears from almost 1m of distance from the guard and you only need to look at his feet to trigger it.
You can look behind cover on third person with no risk and you have a radar pointing out the position of every enemy and the direction they are facing at level one.
You have a taser that is one hit knockout and is more powerful than a minigun to bring some guards down, one hit and there they go.
Sniper rifles are 100% precise and if you miss, enemies will look to the place the bullet hit like tards while you shoot them again.

Knocking out enemies without messing up is far easier on HR.

 

[DeepOcean]

one of the interviews I read the project's director said that what he would change is that "the game was too hard".

That's unfortunate, it was one of the easiest games I played that year.

That is sad, easier than the game already was only if it played itself.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Gas grenades make them cough but you still have to shoot them.

True, though you could carry a stack of 10 of them in DX while in HR each one takes an inventory slot. Overall, inventory management is harder in HR because weapons take up more size, ammo actually takes up slots (it didn't in the original), weapon mods take up more size (not easy to hoard them for the right weapon), energy replenishing nutrients take up far more size than biocells (which you stack up to 30 in DX) etc.

You could pass whole missions and get two or three charges for the prod at the best while it took more than one hit to knockout some guards and it required you to get really, really close to enemies.
Police stick requires a hit on the head for instant knockout or high levels of melee skill for instant knockouts.

Baton doesn't use the head damage multiplier (neither does prod), hitting them in the lower back from behind produces the best results. Regarding needing high melee skills, you can knock out NSF troopers in one hit from behind with a baton on untrained, on trained you can do the same to MJ12/UNATCO troopers and can knock out MIBs with one hit from the prod (provided you hit the sweet spot in the lower back). All of this is on realistic, I don't know about other difficulty levels.

Crossbow requires a long time to take enemies down while they still can shoot at you and easily alert other enemies.

Yeah, it's one of the little design decisions I love about original DX, instead of making the crossbow work like a pistol that just leaves enemies unconscious instead of dead they made it feel like a unique weapon. That said, it does knock out people pretty fast on master skill provided you scored a headshot and in HR enemies can wake up their tranqued friends (can't in the original).

Shooting with a sniper rifle is a bitch if you didn't max out the rifle skill, miss the shot and the guard goes running for the alarm.

Sure but once you max out the skill you can take out cameras (without sounding off an alarm, unlike in HR), turrets and alarm panels, one-shoot everyone but "bosses" and bots and best of all, you can mod it with a silencer.

However, what makes the stealth more challenging in original DX (and more importantly much more fun/engaging) is that level design usually doesn't include a clear stealth path (it's just one of the ways you can choose to tackle obstacles), guards often have much longer patrol routes (I lost count how many times in HR the guard just stopped short of that corner I was hiding behind) and as you already said, there's some actual player skill involved in knocking out guards instead of just pressing the awesome button (and stopping time in the process as well).