So Human Revolution is sounding pretty good

Ostriig on 22/1/2011 at 12:57

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

I think they could but they've taken a different approach. Give it a chance - there are so many slots and augs and tech trees already it's complex enough.

This. Invisible War's statistical character development didn't suck because it had a single development tree, it sucked because it was limited in scope and of ultimately little long-term consequence. DX3's cutting down to a single stat dev tree need not be any more jarring than DX1's reduction to two dev trees from the holy stats/skills/feats trinity popularised by D&D.

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And I don't think you know what a 4th wall breaker is.

This too, I think you're making a confusion in terms there, Tolknaz.

negativeliberty on 22/1/2011 at 15:22

Quote Posted by Ostriig

This. Invisible War's statistical character development didn't suck because it had a single development tree, it sucked because it was limited in scope and of ultimately little long-term consequence.

So? DXHR will have swappable augs (well we call them augs but it's more reminiscent of Dragonball Z than DX tbh). Not to mention character development you won't give a toss about anyway because Adam and the other character will be cardboard cutout wankers (okay, you can call that speculation).

Quote Posted by Ostriig

DX3's cutting down to a single stat dev tree need not be any more jarring than DX1's reduction to two dev trees from the holy stats/skills/feats trinity popularised by D&D.

By that logic they might as well turn it into a regular FPS and get it over with. Screw jarring, it shows EM's not bothered to understand what made DX great (not the augs btw, like all the devs seem to think going by the interviews) or that people might like a bit of complexity for a change - which HR will definitely not deliver.

I still don't understand how it seems to be so hard for EM to comprehend that people didn't like DX because of the superpowers or the weapons or the conspiracy storyline. I mean if (if) they actually played it for more than 30 minutes, this should tell you something about how utterly clueless they are.

Reminds of that Steam sale banner for the DX bundle so obviously made by someone who's never played it, something like "There's a vast conspiracy and nobody believes you, save the world!". Except of course that's excusable, because it's a bloody Steam sale banner.

Muzman on 22/1/2011 at 16:28

Let's not forget in all this that Bioshock's 'augmentations' system is even more unrestricted than DX:IWs (ie: completely) and it's probably that which is influencing things just as much.

Ostriig on 22/1/2011 at 17:18

Quote Posted by negativeliberty

So? DXHR will have swappable augs (well we call them augs but it's more reminiscent of Dragonball Z than DX tbh).

No, the official word is that DX3 will have (http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=113445) permanent augs. For what it's worth I do agree that some of the augs seem too far-fetched our outright anime, but that's not the current topic.

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Not to mention character development you won't give a toss about anyway because Adam and the other character will be cardboard cutout wankers (okay, you can call that speculation).

If it were just speculation it would be alright, but this right here is the tedious wishful thinking of a disgruntled fanboy who just wants something to RAEG about. Is it so difficult to just wait for launch to have something backing your comments? If DX3's good maybe you'll enjoy it, if it sucks you get to RAEG about it without having to put up with me or anyone else calling you a reactionary twit because we'll all be disgruntled together. Either way you're happy. In the meantime feel free to bitch about the stuff we're actually in the know about, like third person or the lack of leaning.

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No, here you're missing the concepts of either logic, RPG gameplay, or both. Again, just because Deus Ex 3 features a single strand of character development within the fiction does not necessarily mean that said single strand can't offer a sufficient level of complexity as we'd expect from a Deus Ex game. It may or it may not. Can you really say that Deus Ex 1 didn't have enough RPG complexity in it just because it didn't follow the tri-stats models of D&D or that of System Shock 2? Furthermore, if you look (http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Human_Revolution#Augmentations) a bit more into the matter, you'll see that DX3 will in fact have something very similar to the two functional types of character development seen in DX1: some of these augmentations will be passive, not draining energy, and always on (i.e. skills), and others will be activated just like the original augs. In essence, the principal change has been that the upgrade resource is now common, all experience, instead of having two separate ones in the forms of experience points and upgrade canisters. And no, before you try, comparisons with unified ammo do not apply.

Manwe on 22/1/2011 at 18:14

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And I don't think you know what a 4th wall breaker is.

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This too, I think you're making a confusion in terms there, Tolknaz.

It does kinda break the fourth wall if experience points are used to upgrade your body with mechanical upgrades. Experience points can't be explained within the game's background story. Upgrade canisters made sense. It's a canister, with super duper nanites inside, you shove it up your ass or whatever and suddenly you can see through walls. That's good enough for me, I can buy that. Now the original game did use experience points too but at least they gave you, well, er experience. Like you'd get more experienced at aiming with a gun for example, or at diffusing grenades or hacking etc...
But how does one go about improving his body mechanically with experience points ? How does that work ? What does an experience point look like ? Do you shove it up your ass too ? And how do you acquire the actual phsyical mechanism for the upgrade ? Like, the two wrist blades, do they just appear out of thin air when you buy the skill ? How do you buy a skill ? Are there skill merchants within the game world ? Like the same merchant magically appearing at every corner of the game as in resident evil ?

negativeliberty on 22/1/2011 at 18:54

Quote Posted by Ostriig

That would be a better move if it's true. Sorry but I stopped following this some time ago.

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Will augmentations be permanent once installed, or can players mix-and-match augs or remove them?
There are indeed permanent.

I don't actually take that as confirmation seeing as though it's not even a sentence (nor would that stop EM from changing their minds again). Not that I keep up with that topic (good for a cringeworthy read though). Anyway I think the "augs" or any other aspect of DXHR are on-topic itt, even character development since that also entails being involved with the (player) character(s) in the first place (and yes I know you were discussing the technical aspect).

Quote Posted by Ostriig

Wishful thinking disgruntled RAEG? Ah right because I want this game to be a failure! I stopped being reactionary about this game some time ago, frankly I was just commenting on the characters we've seen so far (Adam, Barrett, robot-girl, not-Tracer-Tong-Tong and well... everyone). I somehow really doubt that will change between now and launch.

Quote Posted by Ostriig

I'm sorry but I'm missing your train of thought here; you were saying how reducing DX's formula need not be necessarily jarring, and I said the fact that they feel the need to "streamline" it any further (pretty much down to the bone marrow now; ie a regular shooter "with a twist") is highly indicative of both their intentions and capability. I fail to see why I'd need to be a Vulcan D&D 3.5 ruleset master to make such an observation.

Sure, on its own such a change seems harmless enough, and we can even say that individually for any of the ridiculous augmentations or canon-breaking 'liberties' they've taken. Put it all together and add the gameplay changes however and you get a game with a serious identity crisis.

I'm also curious why comparisons to uni ammo wouldn't apply (aside from being the least of IW's problems) but I won't press the issue because I don't care.

Ostriig on 22/1/2011 at 20:06

Quote Posted by Manwe

What you're describing, and I'm assuming Tolknaz was referring to the same, isn't an issue concerning the fourth wall, it's an issue concerning the diegesis of the game. At any rate, how that experience works towards "upgrading" your mechanical augmentations has been (http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Human_Revolution#Augmentations) explained and it makes sense just as fine in the game's fiction as the original skill tree did in the first one:

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New augmentations can be bought from limb clinics with money, but their use will be limited at first. The more powerful abilities are unlocked with experience points, a system designed to simulate Adam becoming more familiar with his new features.

I'm guessing that means you buy those wrist blades from the start and the more experience you have with them installed the fancier the moves and shit you can do.

Quote Posted by negativeliberty

No, you're misunderstanding, on the one hand I was arguing that reducing stat complexity doesn't remove it entirely, but that was more of a tangent so nevermind that. The other thing I was trying to get across, and the one that actually matters here, is that combining the two stat systems into one single stat system need not lead to a simplification of the gameplay at all, provided that the resulting unified system is complex and comprehensive enough to provide similar build depth and diversity as the previous two did together. And - in a nutshell - the reason a unified ammo comparison isn't applicable is because that made things "easier", it genuinely dumbed play down by removing an issue of character (inventory) management. Ammo availability would go into your selection of which weapons to carry in your limited space, whereas you never had to choose between favouring either Skills or Augs because of their upgrade resources. If anything, unifying the upgrades resources could potentially even result in a slight increase in complexity by forcing you to choose between improving your passive or active characteristics.

As for "general trend" and "intentions and capabilities" of the Eidos crew, I wasn't talking about that and I'd rather not get into it (yet again) - I addressed a comment on a very particular and well defined mechanical issue, and I'll judge the big picture when I see it in a couple of months.

SubJeff on 22/1/2011 at 20:30

Between Ostriig's post starting from "The other thing I was trying to get across" and the link he provided I can't see that there is much more to add.

:thumb:

Manwe on 22/1/2011 at 21:13

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What your describing, and I'm assuming Tolknaz was referring to the same, isn't an issue concerning the fourth wall, it's an issue concerning the diegesis of the game. At any rate, how that experience works towards "upgrading" your mechanical augmentations has been explained and it makes sense just as fine in the game's fiction as the original skill tree did in the first one:

New augmentations can be bought from limb clinics with money, but their use will be limited at first. The more powerful abilities are unlocked with experience points, a system designed to simulate Adam becoming more familiar with his new features.
I'm guessing that means you buy those wrist blades from the start and the more experience you have with them installed the fancier the moves and shit you can do.

Ok I guess it does make sense. Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic after all. And maybe I should restrain myself from making uninformed comments about this game. As for that word, "diegesis", I had to look that up, eh. I understood "breaking the fourth wall" in a game as making the player aware he is playing a game, either voluntarily or unvoluntarily. But I guess it's more subtle than that. So basically when a game tells you to press the A button, that's non-diegetic, but when your character performs the action associated to that button, that's diegetic ? Did I get this straight ?

Tolknaz on 22/1/2011 at 21:54

What i was referring to with my "fourth wall" comment was indeed making the player more aware of the fact, that it's all a game, removing a layer, that originally made the system easier to digest by making a clear a distinction between getting better at skills by experience and getting better augmentations by physically upgrading the tech. The skills represented trainable disciplines and the augmentations represented all kinds of future tech that gave you "superhuman" abilities. Maybe i should have been a bit more clear. I suspect the real reason behind getting rid of skills is the fact, that they needed to get rid of weapon skills anyway, as these influenced your accuracy with a weapon and shit like that wouldn't simply fly well with a typical console honcho these days. Some of the remaining skills, like medicine would in fact be better explained as augmentations.