Chade on 13/9/2003 at 07:24
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Originally posted by ZylonBane Ironic that your "not all that complicated" explanation is a dozen times longer than mine.
It's also relevant to the discussion ...
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Ah, an ad hominem attack right off the bat. Way to grab the high ground, champ.
Okay, okay, fair enough. Half veiled insults like that always annoy me more then they should, but I'm over it now.
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Okay, you're using the word "context" here in some bizarre fashion that I've not previously encountered. As for it being advantageous to use a wide variety of weapons... have you actually played Deux Ex? The game
strongly encourages you to specialize. If you throw skill points at all your weapon skills, you'll be pathetically average at everything.
Everything else in your message after this came across as random gibberish to me. I must have read and re-read it ten times trying to make some sense of it, but failed.
OTHER aspects of the game encourage you to specialise. Not ammo count.
Look, the way I'm using context (and I've heard/read/used the word in this way many times) means that you can't (or at least, it doesn't do anything usefull) think about something in terms of something else. For instance, there's no point talking about how much milk (possibly a bad example, pretend I said lemonade or something) I'm going to buy in the context of how many cats I own.
EDIT: So when I say there's no situational context, I mean there is no point talking about the effect an ammo/gun "ammo model" has on the incentives to play in a particular style in the context of the situation my character is in in right now. But over a long period of time I will find myself running out of ammo if I do not switch styles around. And when I say there is no 'style" context I am referring to the playstyle of the palyer. It doesn't matter how you choose to play the game. You will still have the same thing happen to you.
Now read the post again.
FURTHER EDIT: I'm sorry you couldn't understand it first time through, but it is difficult (for me at least!), to make an explanation which is both hard for an "aggresive" reader (like yourself) not to stupidly nitpick, yet also descriptive, and ALSO not take up much space.
King Ronald on 13/9/2003 at 12:12
For gods sake! Both of you!
Look at yourselves!
The game isn't even out yet! Your attacking each other over homonym usage as part of this ammo arguement.
a) The ammo thing makes total sense to me, as it allows greater freedom for different play styles.
b) Chades arguement wasn't difficult to follow. At least for me.
c) FOCUS ON THE GREAT ASPECTS OF THE GAME, NOT IRRELEVANT SIDE-ISSUES WE CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO DISCUSS UNTIL THE GAME COMES OUT!
At least the whole "OMG! Interface looks weird!" "Is not" "Is too!" thing was based on seeing the screenshots - this ammo thing has hardly been described, yet you're fighting over it like cats in a sack.
RobDDav on 13/9/2003 at 12:53
the interface looked better on the newer screens. It wasn't as big in the earlier ones.
The choices sound good so far and seem to be earlier in the game. Should mean lots of replayability.
Chade on 14/9/2003 at 02:43
King Ronald, I hope you're not trying to inject some sort of sanity into this thread ... :grr:
:eww: <- best smilie ever
chris the cynic on 14/9/2003 at 03:23
Deus ex is a game that you can dissect and be rewarded, you can dissect parts of Deus Ex 2 before it comes out because we know about them. For example we know that the grays will be back we know that they are not aliens, and we know that their role in the first game was pushed back to the second game, so creatures that seemed almost (almost but not quite) superfluous in the first game will be enriched.
If we were to talk about that would you shout, “The game isn't even out yet!”?
I hope not.
Now the ammo thing is more a general RPG thing and thus could have been talked about before we even knew anything about the game.
The question is does the difficulty of a given path as related by environmental conditions enrich or detract from the (or “a”) game. Another way to look at is if there was a daylight mission would that have made it worse solely because it made stealth harder? Or might it enrich the game by making it so that your chosen path was more difficult and thus to stay in your role you had to get into the role and think of what the character you created would do.
Certainly having different ammo types does not remotely make it even close to difficult to stay in your role, it merely makes it simpler to not stay in the role.
If you are the kind of person who can only play in a role when you can use a check list (stay in shadow, shot silent weapons for the head, hack cameras, so on) and not actually think out what the character would do I'm not sure that Deus Ex is the game for you.
In my opinion if the role is one that you have to work to stick with the game would not be RPG at all, it would be a multiple plot game yes, but you are not playing a role, unless the path of least resistance is really a role. If it is than you should have no problem changing style left and right.
The idea that ammo does not change regardless of what you do is exactly what makes it in the context of role-playing, if it changed than there would be no reason to consider what you want to do in any context other than, “I feel like playing this way.” The way that a character will react does NOT change depending upon what you do, there is no way to make that change, what does change is the reaction that you will get, just as the ammo you get depends on how you take down enemies, and how you explore. The stealth style should automatically yield less ammo because you can't go out into the open to get it, it is all like that.
No part6 of the game (NO PART) changes, ever. The only thing that changes is what part you see, Gary Savage will NEVER change how he reacts to his daughter dying, if you save her you still haven't changed how he will react to his daughter dying, you have just avoided calling on that reaction.
Captainclone on 14/9/2003 at 03:27
I don't know how I feel about DX2 with its biomods and ammo situation quite yet but I do think it might take out some of the suspense of some situations. Here is a marvelous story crafted by me!
You are UNATCO agent JC Denton crazy rifle ninja, one shot one kill from your rifle of doom, and when you got inside it was shotgun time. Pistols? Bah. Explosives? Too unpredictable. But after picking people off left and right and through fierce firefights you are out of shells for your shotgun and bullets for your rifle. Checking your sidearm proves you have more than enough 10mm rounds to finish off this fight as well as a LAM. But you never had any pistol training and you throw like a girl...What will become of our agent? STAY TUNED!
If you played a specific role character (pistols/rifle/low tech) you've faced a situation where you ran out/low of your main weapon and had to resort to something you had no training in. More than likely you saved and said to yourself "This better work..."
It seems like things might be a little simplier which discourages exciting and deciding moments like that. I never trained in explosives/heavy at all because I used those at close quarters, or in the case of the GEP REALLY REALLY far away where I wasn't even reconized as a threat yet. So those GEP rockets and those LAMs I picked up saved me because I out of bullets. When I would run low on ammo that I used the most I'd switch weapons. Try to even out the ammo spread and keep it at a level where if I ran across some clips or rockets I'd have to pick it up because I rarely had any weapon at full ammo capacity.
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a) The ammo thing makes total sense to me, as it allows greater freedom for different play styles.
From King Ronald
True, but say you are playing the ultra stealth pistol ninja extrodinare. Nothing defines your character more than being a fish out of water every so often. Take the Thief series for example. Garrett was a thief not a fighter, granted fighting wasnt that hard after a couple passes in the game. But ideally guards should have been a lot more formidable, but for the most part the game reenforced your role as thief after you had to swing your sword a couple times with the guards. After a fight you realized "Hey, it's a lot easier to clobber them when they aren't looking." same goes for DX2. If you are pistol-ninja and you find you just finished off your last clip and you have to use a knife or a rifle for your next kill you feel awkward as it creates a new challenge, using something that isnt your forte.
But after you kill that guy, possibly take a bullet in the arm and check his pockets and you find a clip you tell yourself "Lets not let that happen again." and you are once again the magnificent ultra stealth pistol ninja. Face it, if you are pistol ninja all the time you lose touch with what its like to be less than a fine tuned killing machine. Plus that gets boring if you are godly, I like the feeling when bullets are flying and you switch to the weapon you are less skilled with and hope you can put two in the head before you get tore up too bad.
Thats my two cents.
King Ronald on 16/9/2003 at 17:48
Right, I'm completely confused now.
This was how I understood the ammo changes - in Deus Ex 1 you could fire either normal or tranq darts with your dart gun. In Deus Ex 2 there will simply be "darts" - not a variation of ammo per weapon.
Then you seem to say that there will just be >item_ammo, a generic pickup that boosts ammo by a certain amount for whatever weapons you are holding, but not specific this-goes-with-this-weapon ammo.
Then there's some talk about roles in games - e.g. stealth people getting pissed off with running out of riot prod charges, or on a personal note, running out of sniper ammo (silenced death from a mile - the best way).
That would mean that >item_ammo was a good thing, constantly giving people ammo for everything - thusly allowing you to play whatever role you wanted. Otherwise, whenever the level designers put down a pack of sniper bullets in a map, they would have to have every other ammo type (for each player-types trademark gun) next to it, or it would be biased for the sniper (in that example).
NOW you're saying that biased specific-ammo placement is good, as it makes you feel the perils of your character class - e.g. Ah-nold assault guy is happy, as all the troops drop assault guns, but stealth bloke neds to buy extra tranq darts from some alley-way thug.
Is that the long and the short of it? Or am I completely confused?
chris the cynic on 17/9/2003 at 01:27
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This was how I understood the ammo changes - in Deus Ex 1 you could fire either normal or tranq darts with your dart gun. In Deus Ex 2 there will simply be "darts" - not a variation of ammo per weapon.
This seems to be the one that is wrong, the way the reviews have been stated it would appear that this is total fallacy and is not related to the truth at all. (note: SEEM)
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Then you seem to say that there will just be >item_ammo, a generic pickup that boosts ammo by a certain amount for whatever weapons you are holding, but not specific this-goes-with-this-weapon ammo.
This would seem to be the way it is.
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Then there's some talk about roles in games - e.g. stealth people getting pissed off with running out of riot prod charges, or on a personal note, running out of sniper ammo (silenced death from a mile - the best way).
That would mean that >item_ammo was a good thing, constantly giving people ammo for everything - thusly allowing you to play whatever role you wanted. Otherwise, whenever the level designers put down a pack of sniper bullets in a map, they would have to have every other ammo type (for each player-types trademark gun) next to it, or it would be biased for the sniper (in that example).
You had the idea, you lost the idea. If it had every type of ammo next to it, it wouldn't help you play your role any better, nor would having item_ammo. All that it would do is make it so that you are no longer playing a role so much as the path of least resistance.
When a level designer puts in a sniper ammo it does not bias it towards sniper. If that were the case than most levels would end up biased towards everything and then you couldn't really call it a bias could you? It would be a balance.
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NOW you're saying that biased specific-ammo placement is good, as it makes you feel the perils of your character class - e.g. Ah-nold assault guy is happy, as all the troops drop assault guns, but stealth bloke neds to buy extra tranq darts from some alley-way thug.
Exactly, part of your role is your ability to do what is dictated by said role. If you are stealth than you are not downing people left and right, thus you can't get their ammo, further you can not go into all areas where you might find ammo, thus you need to be able to get it in other ways.
If you are going in guns blazing then you get more ammo, and you kill everyone so you have time to look around and everything. To say that having different types of ammo will make some parts harder for certain character types is true, it is also like saying that talking a direct approach is more likely to get you shot than sneaking by. Both are true, both are things that add to the role-playing.
Chade on 17/9/2003 at 02:14
Ergh, my modem's gone down ...
This is me typing in a few spare moments at a lan cafe. I'm sure there are lot's of interesting things being said, but I don't have time atm to read or respond to them!
The only thing I picked up ... Chris, I don't think that's true. Balancing level design for large amounts of multiple ammo types is a hell of a hard and time consuming task, and I know that for 100% certainty. Furthermore, it never works properly, because to allow someone enough ammo for their role you end up putting far too much ammo in the level and they never are in danger of running out of total ammo supplies, which considerably reduces tension. This is exactly what happened in Deus Ex.
Also, if all the enemies use pistol, there is a massive bonus to using a pistol against them, being that you'll effectively get past that section "for free". This is also what ahppened in Deus Ex, although it was considerably less effective in later levels as skills and augs really started kicking in.
King Ronald on 17/9/2003 at 17:16
Okay, okay, let me ask this:
My play style in Deus Ex was to get all the items I could, complete all mission objectives, read all the logs/newspapers/emails, explore all the maps, kill anyone I deemed a "bad guy" and save the "good guys".
I'd use augs/stealth to infiltrate places (e.g. Ocean dock, Rocket silo, Vandenburg etc.) and carry on as long as possible remaining undetected. Being completely rubbish at stealth (due to my kleptomania/trigger happiness) I'd eventually get found out - best moment: falling off the roof of the gas station in front of about 8 guards - whereupon i'd use my silenced assault rifle, gas grenades and pistol to wipe everyone out.
I don't know what the hell my character class is - "Thief-Rambo"?
Anyway, what with the new changes to ammo, will my style be made easier or harder?
That's the bottom line for me - how it will affect my play.
