AP finishes DLing soon, any build "traps"?

[deuxhero]

I don't so much need a full build so much as pointing out what completely blows (Like in DX putting Medicine, Swimming, lockpicks, multitools and demolitions beyond "trained") and should be avoided.

 

[SuicideBunny]

picking more than one combat skill blows and spreading out might make the game impossible. rifles suck more than the other weapons, iirc. you absolutely need a combat skill that is not martial arts.
there is a huge difficulty discrepancy between normal gameplay and some of the bossfights.

the vanilla game had a save bug that would not properly clear and load the state of the mission when you restarted from checkpoints which could severely fuck up your game and make progress of the mission impossible, not sure if they fixed that later, so you might wanna specifically check for that bug by killing someone and picking something up, then reloading from checkpoint and seeing whether the enemy and pickup are still gone.

 

[Sacculina]

Many have found the hacking minigame annoying (I didn't), but you can ignore that skill so long as you purchase EMP charges before your missions. You might need to put some points into the melee skill, because there's one point in Rome where you could be stripped of all gear and immediately have two mooks thrown your way. Otherwise, the one essential skill is pistols, even if you're trying for a nonlethal playthrough.

 

[Gragt]

Assault rifles are some of the best weapons you can use, though their action skill is useless on PC — it's supposed to lock you on enemies automatically but that's not needed if you play with a mouse, and I found out that it doesn't seem to work when I use my pad. Shotguns and SMG's are ok but the rifles are usually better and the pistols have the most overpowered ability in the game, so while you may struggle a bit with them at the start for some boss fights, by the end you'll kill a boss in less than 30 seconds.

Hand-to-hand can be useful, depending on your play style, but don't consider it as a weapon skill. Be aware that if you go the stealth route and deal with enemies that way, your martial skill will do absolutely nothing since you'll always knock them unconscious or kill them if you reach them undetected.

My strategy is to focus on one weapon skill and 2 other skills and max them, as I find spreading out not too effective. You're free to experiment of course, but try to reach special abilities and bonus as they will do the most instead of stopping mid-way.

It can be useful to invest in Sabotage other than for the hacking mini-game …

Oh, and the game is pretty much built around a pad. KB works fine, of course, but the lockpicking mini-game is made completely trivial by the mouse, while the pad has you gauge the pressure with the trigger which is rather fun.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

The early game may fool you into thinking you can stealth your way through the game. Don't be misled, a weapon skill is essential (and martial arts won't count for most of the non-stealthable fights). I do recommend investing some into stealth just for the awesomeness of silent running + breaking everyone's neck in an area in 10s. Ignore the cloaking, its incredibly slow to use (even max level doesn't let you sprint like silent running) and 100% consoletarded popamole.

Pistols are the best weapon because of their insanely OP special ability. Rifles are pretty good as well simply because they do lots of damage and are accurate, though their skill sucks (lol consoletard autoaiming). Shotguns/SMGs will blow for long range which is half the reason you carry a gun anyways since at short range you hardly need a gun, being able to snap their necks or popamole the corners.

Other miscellaneous skills are pretty well balanced in what they offer. So long as you pick up Pistols/Rifles there is really nothing else that you especially need, and IIRC there are only like 1 or 2 points at which a skill affects the outcome of a dialog action (hacking skill). Unlike Deus Ex you get plenty of nice stuff for maxing out them, and you can see what the skill leads to before you even create your character so you will know what you are investing in ahead of time.

Do be an asshole to anyone you want to be an asshole to. Not sucking up to people doesn't lock out tons of content like in most games (it even unlocks some things in AP), and Mike is much better off as a smug self absorbed asshole. In other words, play a proper Codexer.

 

[Stinger]

Pistol is the most powerful weapon imo thanks to chain shot and the silencer. Silencing your pistol can allow you to just stealth kill all the mooks from cover and since the AI is kinda dumb and the bodies fade away anyway it allows you to just casually stroll through each level killing everyone.

The game isn't really designed around non lethal playthroughs so I wouldn't waste time on it (although if you don't want to piss off Mina keep tranq rounds ready for non lethally taking down the normal security guards who are just doing their job that you might see in a level or two)

 

[deuxhero]

Can I turn the turn blur off? It effectively adds to the loadtimes with a pause the first time it occurs after loading.

 

[skuphundaku]

picking more than one combat skill blows and spreading out might make the game impossible. rifles suck more than the other weapons, iirc. you absolutely need a combat skill that is not martial arts.
there is a huge difficulty discrepancy between normal gameplay and some of the bossfights.

The assault rifles are very powerful actually. The submachineguns are the crappy ones IMHO. As for martial artis, it does make the Brayko boss fight a massive pain in the ass because you CAN NOT use martial arts against him (and hope to survive), but, otherwise, they're quite good in every other situtation.

The pistols skill is (at least for bosses) almost like using cheat codes if you develop it all the way up because Chain Shot is really powerfull.

 

[deus101]

I stopped playing the piece of shit after the tutorial level but as far as i can gather....there are no pitfalls...which is the fucked up part for an RPG.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Specialize in:
Pistols (for chain shot, which is enough to dominate combat)
Sabotage (for minigames)
Technical (for extra ammo, extra gadgets, some extra dialogue and generally just extra options)

 

[SuicideBunny]

The assault rifles are very powerful actually. The submachineguns are the crappy ones IMHO. As for martial artis, it does make the Brayko boss fight a massive pain in the ass because you CAN NOT use martial arts against him (and hope to survive), but, otherwise, they're quite good in every other situtation.

any weapon will do outside of bossfights, regardless of their individual differences in power, the only thing that matters in the end is the special skill and how it helps you to kill the bulletsponges.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Can I turn the turn blur off? It effectively adds to the loadtimes with a pause the first time it occurs after loading.

Pretty sure motion blur has nothing to do with that. Anyway, turning off motion blur actually fucks up some of the textures so don't. If you need optimization do a search for the "modding Alpha Protocol" thread over at Obsidian's forums.

 

[Raghar]

As for martial artis, it does make the Brayko boss fight a massive pain in the ass because you CAN NOT use martial arts against him (and hope to survive), but, otherwise, they're quite good in every other situtation.

Actually you can. You just need to do a little thinking before combat. (and pay few thousand bucks) In certain hotel martial arts don't count as killing which means Mina would stay happy. Or he can piss of Mina when he wants it to lowest level.

 

[Secretninja]

max pistols then do whatever you want

 

[Mister Arkham]

Can I turn the turn blur off? It effectively adds to the loadtimes with a pause the first time it occurs after loading.

Pretty sure motion blur has nothing to do with that. Anyway, turning off motion blur actually fucks up some of the textures so don't. If you need optimization do a search for the "modding Alpha Protocol" thread over at Obsidian's forums.

Yeah, there's some sort of minor registry change that you can make to sort it out. It's been a while, though, so I don't remember the specifics.

And to answer your main question; I don't know that there's really a "bad" build in a game like this. Some will afford more of a challenge than others, but I don't know that any would make the story impossible to complete. I would recommend playing around with a variety of styles in the first chapter of the game though, because eventually you'll be asked to tag three skills and give yourself access to an expanded perk set for them, and it'll help to have tested the waters by then and develop a sense of how you'll want to play and develop your character.

 

[Gragt]

Can I turn the turn blur off? It effectively adds to the loadtimes with a pause the first time it occurs after loading.

If it's what I think it is, the motion blur isn't responsible for that. It's related to the loading of environments. Check this post for a possible solution. Happened to me as well and weirdly enough it doesn't happen at all when I use my pad.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Specializing in Sabotage makes a difference.

Also, I'm going to say SMGs are a good choice, they can cause some outrageous damage when used effectively and they don't need as much preparation as rifles and shotguns.