Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Pre-Release Thread

[Ninjerk]

I hope Mankind Divided adds an aug that lets Jensen summon dragons so fanboys won't complain about them not fitting the setting.

 

[WhiteGuts]

The Namir boosfight was fucking painful. I only beat him through sheer luck, by spamming toxic grenades at him while he was stealthed. I dunno if it's because the Revolver was weak or if it was an extreme case of the bulletsponginess.

 

[T. Reich]

All the bossfights in DX:HR are cancer. That's why I personally pumped the Typhoon aug specifically to deal with Fedorova and Namir. Takes like 2-3 activations to dispose of them, and you're free to go.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

DX:HR gunplay is killed by sponginess of enemies and stupid weapon stats . Enemies can take about 10 rifle bullets to the chest , but kill you in about 4 . Also , some other shit :

Dudes can kill you with single shotgun shot , but can take several shotgun shots from you .
Machinegun has less power than pistol .
Lasergun is absolutely useless .

Observations from "Give me Deus Ex" difficulty .

Just wanted to point that stats are unfair in DX:HR , it was not the case in original Deus Ex .

That's par for the course for cover shooters (fragile protagonist vs bullet spoungy retards) and HR was still designed as one (compare its movement and combat do Dishonored for example). Original DX started out as a more methodical/slow shooter but eventually transformed into run and gun action (which was typical for FPS genre for that era) as you built up your weapon skills.

Lasgun is super-useful! ....but only vs Zhao boss, because it shoots right through the "impenetrable" glass barrier, ending this retarded boss encounter in less than 10 seconds.
Shotgun does suck for some bizarre reason... But then again the original DX pump-action shotgun also sucked balls, hard.
Pistol becomes the most powerfulk gun in DX:HR as soon as you acquire the armor-piercing upgrade, and that's pretty bad, yeah. But it doesn't make the machinegun bad actually.
Also, why are you shooting the bad guys in the chest? That's where the body armor is, duh. Gotta pop the moles.

Most weapons suck in HR unless you fully pimp them out, you can eventually mold shotgun into an all-around reliable weapon for regular mooks and an excellent boss killer (you can off Namir in few seconds with a burst round mod).

 

[Infinitron]

Also, why are you shooting the bad guys in the chest? That's where the body armor is, duh. Gotta pop the moles.

In the words of Alex Jacobson:

 

[T. Reich]

Lasgun is super-useful! ....but only vs Zhao boss, because it shoots right through the "impenetrable" glass barrier, ending this retarded boss encounter in less than 10 seconds.
Shotgun does suck for some bizarre reason... But then again the original DX pump-action shotgun also sucked balls, hard.
Pistol becomes the most powerfulk gun in DX:HR as soon as you acquire the armor-piercing upgrade, and that's pretty bad, yeah. But it doesn't make the machinegun bad actually.
Also, why are you shooting the bad guys in the chest? That's where the body armor is, duh. Gotta pop the moles.

Most weapons suck in HR unless you fully pimp them out, you can eventually mold shotgun into an all-around reliable weapon for regular mooks and an excellent boss killer (you can off Namir in few seconds with a burst round mod).

Same as in DX, then? That makes DX:HR a faithful adaptation in that aspect.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Same as in DX, then? That makes DX:HR a faithful adaptation in that aspect.

Not really, while they are some game changing upgrades in the original (laser sight, scope and silencer) upgrading your weapons is largely inconsequential, you increase your effectiveness with weapons mainly by investing into appropriate weapon skills.

In HR on the other hand upgrading your weapon of choice is much more substantial though obviously you're also helped by stuff like the strength aug that reduces/eliminates weapon recoil. I thought that aspect of the game was very well done in HR actually, definitely enjoyed it more than in the original, loved how nearly every weapon had a unique "ultimate" upgrade that had a very noticeable effect on gameplay.

 

[T. Reich]

Same as in DX, then? That makes DX:HR a faithful adaptation in that aspect.

Not really, while they are some game changing upgrades in the original (laser sight, scope and silencer) upgrading your weapons is largely inconsequential, you increase your effectiveness with weapons mainly by investing into appropriate weapon skills.

Not true.

Compare assault gun and combat shotgun before and after 2-3 recoil mods.
Compare sniper rifle before and after silencer mod.
Dark xbow also gets quite a bit better after being modded with the scope mod.

Laser sight was more of a cosmetic mod in DX anyway, not quite as useful unless you had a good deal of accuracy with the gun in question.

In DX:HR mods are differently balanced, alright.
Mostly because there are no more (weapon) skills that improve gunplay in general.
Of augs, IIRC only the "reduce recoil" aug was present and it was mostly useful for non-stealthy automatic guns.
Finally, a lot of "generic" weapon mods in DX:HR did exactly the same things as their DX counterparts - somewhat improving some aspects of a weapon (if that weapon could be modded).
The "impactful" mods we're currently discussing are basically the very rare "endgame" mods that would either cost a lot of credits or would have to be found in places that are hard to access - safes, secret weapon caches, etc. IIRC, a lot of them could only be acquired in the second half of the game, and if they could be gotten earlier, IMO it's a design oversight.

 

[Gnidrologist]

upgrading your weapons is largely inconsequential

And they say i'm the one who has not put enough man hours in the original. Basic pistol is shit, but it has about 50 units of upgrades through out the game, which gradually makes it better than GEP gun or sniper rifle in all aspects except exciteement. The game was obviously developed with pistol as a primary weapon in mind, especially for a first runners. No wonder that at chargen its skill is at ''upgraded'' status by default (you can choose to downgrade it though and redistribute the points to something else).
Also, sniper rifle without upgrades, even with high skill is useless in DX.

The Namir boosfight was fucking painful. I only beat him through sheer luck, by spamming toxic grenades at him while he was stealthed. I dunno if it's because the Revolver was weak or if it was an extreme case of the bulletsponginess.

Funny thing that his fight was the easiest of all from all the boss fights for me, but i guess it's because he glitched out. Never really run into my room to shoot at me and i was immune to gas because of aug at that moment. I just sneak-peak shot him gradually down.

In my playthrough I avoided gunfight whenever possible and kept buffing the Revolver for bossfights, and that turns out to be a bad idea because the Revolver was fucking terrible even when I kept pimping it with every fucking mod I found.

I guess everything, but Typhoon is terrible in boss fights, which is why i pumped it up just before i had to fight Barret. Went down after two ''awesome button pushes''. Boss fights and unfair XP distribution are two thing i'm seriously pissed off about this game. Everything else is mostly inconsequential and given too much spotlight. Having typhoon that early in my game was logical though as i'm playing aggressive gunner char as i right this post. Use some stealth/non lethal for larping reasons only (like, don't want to kill cops in station or security guards in chinese tower limb lab.

Dudes can kill you with single shotgun shot , but can take several shotgun shots from you .

Not in mu experience, although i use the double barrell shotgun with ''double shot'' mode always on, when using it. (yeah, i got the ''not removed'' version with dlc bonuses in it so it is available from the start). Theoretically the standard shotgun can be modded the fuck out to be absolutely devastating for a shootist guy. I assume you understand that it's damage gets weaker the further you are a away from the target because of spread? None of the shotgun wielding enemies have caused trouble from afar in HR, but if i go into the room and there's one, i'm toast as it should be.

Machinegun has less power than pistol .

Yeah, machinegun seems to be the worst weapon in the game. Dunno how it performs, when fully upgraded and silenced, but few times i tried it i just can't see any advantages for it over regular combat rifle.

Lasergun is absolutely useless .

Did i actually miss a weapon in this game? What ''laser rifle''?


Couple of note from my second play i'm running right now with combat orientated char.
Guys, who say there is always everything obvious and predetermined UNLIKE DX are full of shit x 3. Couple minor things among others i didn't caught even in my first OCD stealth walkthrough. Didn't get the passage where you can obtain a clearance to chinese labs (the compound where Zhao is) from a fallen down guy in one of the shafts. I think there was some ''heavy lifting'' aug needed, which i didn't have at my first run or maybe i was just careless. Also, in the same building i never figured out the way to get through laser field by disabling them. Just time-jumped. This time i noticed that the room with a went that leads to the place, where you can outright disable them, has one of the lasers flickering therefore enables to get into that room by timing the sneak-run by the milisec. First time i just ignored those rooms and used my high jump aug to circumvent lasers acrobatically.

Second thing. I'm. Now at the point, where i'm supposed to confront Taggert and first time around i went right into the conference room and fucked with him via pheromone aug. Now i don't have it and don't intend to acquire either so i snooped around a bit more than previous time and found a vent to computer, where the info about Sandoval is, which modified my quest to finding him and kicking the info out of him. So, io figure i wont even enter the confrontation with Taggert before i don't find Sandoval and kick the info out of him. That's in my opinion heavier gameplay related C&C than DX ever had and it's subtle. There were no ques beforehand that i could gain that data and change the course of the quest in this way. (dunno how this will end though - the dialog with Taggert probably will still take place, but i assume there will be more dialogue options to throw around.
Also, i managed to get ''silver tongue'' purely accidentally, when confronting Sarif after Pritchard gave the heads up about the backdoor info leak that Sarif himself set up. Previous time i did it with social aug (and even then i had to reload, because i choose something wrong). This time i chose the various reactions purely on my own instinct and it clicked in the end.
There are quite a bit of branching paths in this game. Obviously, just like in DX the endgame will be the same, but replayability is there. Also, crossbow deaths are hillarious. I'm keeping that shit just for an occasional grotesque death.

 

[T. Reich]

You should be able to find the laser gun somewhere around second visit to Heng Sha, in Tong's hideout, IIRC. It can shoot through the walls with 100% precision, that's its main gimmick.
Not really that exciting a weapon, though.

Btw, did you know that you can completely bypass the laser beams by turning on the invisibility?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Compare assault gun and combat shotgun before and after 2-3 recoil mods.

Master skill in rifles eliminates nearly every recoil.

Compare sniper rifle before and after silencer mod.

With or without silencer I can clean out anything but bots with a sniper rifle easily.

Dark xbow also gets quite a bit better after being modded with the scope mod.

Don't need it to score headshots with it (quickens the effect of trang darts), not to mention that mini-crossbow is more of a hit and run weapon anyway.

Laser sight was more of a cosmetic mod in DX anyway, not quite as useful unless you had a good deal of accuracy with the gun in question.

On the contrary, you use laser sight for a weapon you don't have good accuracy with because it sets accuracy to 100% automatically (which BTW is not a cosmetic effect).

In DX:HR mods are differently balanced, alright.

Which is what I said, you need them to upgrade your peashooters if you want to gun down opposition efficiently. in original DX on the other hand, you can rely nearly completely on weapon skill and Targeting aug (which also boosts damage so of course you're gonna take it instead of seeing through walls if you're playing a combat focused JC).

If you don't believe me, do a test run of each game without using weapon mods.

The "impactful" mods we're currently discussing are basically the very rare "endgame" mods that would either cost a lot of credits or would have to be found in places that are hard to access - safes, secret weapon caches, etc. IIRC, a lot of them could only be acquired in the second half of the game, and if they could be gotten earlier, IMO it's a design oversight.

They're scattered all over the game actually and feel very rewarding once you've found them which is the way I prefer it. They're the main reason I like weapon modification in HR.

Basic pistol is shit, but it has about 50 units of upgrades through out the game, which gradually makes it better than GEP gun or sniper rifle in all aspects except exciteement.

Pistol's main advantage is its all-roundness/versatility, it's good in nearly every situation and takes up little inventory space. However it is never the best weapon in any specific situation and certainly lags behind most other weapons when it comes to stopping power, mostly evident when facing enemy big hitters like MiBs, Commandos, bots etc.

The game was obviously developed with pistol as a primary weapon in mind, especially for a first runners.

Rifle is the best weapon skill in the game but maybe you're right, who knows.

Also, sniper rifle without upgrades, even with high skill is useless in DX.

With master level at rifles, sniper rifle is OP as hell without any upgrades whatsoever.

 

[Gnidrologist]

You should be able to find the laser gun somewhere around second visit to Heng Sha, in Tong's hideout, IIRC. It can shoot through the walls with 100% precision, that's its main gimmick.

Is that the only place, where you can find it? Because if so, i certainly missed it. What ammo does it use?

Btw, did you know that you can completely bypass the laser beams by turning on the invisibility?

No i didn't. Ho ho, lack of replayability. I never even used cloak in my first run with mostly stealth approach. Mostly used to sneak among swarm of enemies and use typhoon, because even with fully upgraded damage resistance aug it's impossible to barge into the middle of large swarm and kill everyone with it.

PS. Updated my journal. If you don't confront with Taggert at the conference, but instead beeline to Sandoval after getting the data via sneaking to certain computer, the whole dialogue doesn't happen. Also it gives possibility to keep him alive and get some memo from him. It's also mostly a flavor thing, but it just shows that HR has the same if not more gameplay C&C things to add to replay value in contrary to what DX fanboys say.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Rifle is the best weapon skill in the game but maybe you're right, who knows.

I wonder about this too. When i finish current HR run i will replay DX with JC focused on rifles. Only thing i can't decide is what other skills to develop. Guess lockpicking is a must for all builds, if you want to get to places other than straight shootout corridors. What about those armor/hazmat suits or swimming? I'm going to wreck chaos and shoot everyone on sight.

With master level at rifles, sniper rifle is OP as hell without any upgrades whatsoever.

Okay, but it's very clumsy in close quarters, which there are lots. Shooting with sniper from the hip is kinda meh. Besides, the distance you can kill guys with upgraded pistol is ridiculous. Better to switch to some heavy weaponry all together to change gameplay experience i guess.

 

[Gnidrologist]

edit:
Specially posting this in separate post for posterity (hurr).

Although unfair rewards for different styles of play are kinda non grata, given there are no other benefits to ''kill-em-all'' approach besides morbid satisfaction, i must say that i'm totally stacked with all needed skills and have spare 7 praxis points, which i don't even know where to dump now. I'm about to leave Detroit2, which is about mid to 2/3 of the game. I can simply dump my praxis into skills i probably never use (except occasional cloak for more effective typhoon). Don't know if HR devs did it on purpose being ''sawyerist'', but there's really little else to want by mid game, when all the aiming/recoil/armor shit is upgraded. Did upgrade to full inventory slots early same as high jumping, breaking walls and heavy lifting. As a result found a lot of alternative ways to go through early on, because with spy guy hacking consumed most of my early praxis points.
That's another low point of HR that i must admit, but none of the detractors didn't mention. Even with master-hacker Jensen it's better to use the auto-hack thing on high level terminals. Maybe i just suck at this minigame, but i can't do shit on lvl5 stuff and most of lvl4 is huge savescum pain in the ass too. With my Rambo Jensen i make good use of all the magic hack tools and nuke/slow viruses.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

PS. Updated my journal. If you don't confront with Taggert at the conference, but instead beeline to Sandoval after getting the data via sneaking to certain computer, the whole dialogue doesn't happen. Also it gives possibility to keep him alive and get some memo from him. It's also mostly a flavor thing, but it just shows that HR has the same if not more gameplay C&C things to add to replay value in contrary to what DX fanboys say.

Yeah, HR definitely has those moments. I remember how awesome it was that the game acknowledged (via Pritchard) if you shut down the signal Antenna in Derelict Row before getting the quest to do so. I always loved those little bits of reactivity in games.

I wonder about this too. When i finish current HR run i will replay DX with JC focused on rifles. Only thing i can't decide is what other skills to develop. Guess lockpicking is a must for all builds, if you want to get to places other than straight shootout corridors. What about those armor/hazmat suits or swimming? I'm going to wreck chaos and shoot everyone on sight.

DX has a number of alternatives to opening doors via lockpicks such as the GEP gun, LAMs, Sniper Rifle at master skill level, Dragon Tooth boosted with Combat Strength Aug etc. and it's not like lockpicks aren't plentiful so I usually don't go above trained in lockpick but it depends on your playing style, how thorough you are when searching levels and similar.

Swimming is decent and cheap to upgrade, a lever or two speeds up those underwater sections. Granted if you have the Regeneration Aug (which works even when you're drowning under water) you can reach any underwater stash but it's gonna take a while in some cases.

I'd say it's pretty safe to ignore environmental training (governs your use of Ballistic Armor and Hazmat Suit), never found much use for it in vanilla DX. Using augs instead is just more practical.

Okay, but it's very clumsy in close quarters, which there are lots. Shooting with sniper from the hip is kinda meh. Besides, the distance you can kill guys with upgraded pistol is ridiculous. Better to switch to some heavy weaponry all together to change gameplay experience i guess.

Unless you're facing a group of like 5-6 enemies it isn't that unwieldy in close quarters especially because it's so lethal (with fully developed rifle skill you can torso one-shot regular mooks). Besides rifle skill offers you alternatives for room clearing like Assault Shotgun (which is also great against those annoying Spider Bots if you load it with Sabat shells) and Assault Rifle. The only problem could be facing medium and large-sized bots but you can usually avoid them by sneaking and hacking, or you can take them out with a LAM, GEP gun (if you can fit it in your inventory, rifles take up more space than pistols), EMP grenades etc.

 

[Metro]

the lack of self-awareness

Eh? I'm fully aware that you, agentorange, ker-babitz, and the other retards that hang out in CDS or konychat or whatever don't like me. As I said, it's irrelevant . Not that you'd be able to read this because you're now banned or pulling off some other moronic tweenage stunt.

 

[T. Reich]

You should be able to find the laser gun somewhere around second visit to Heng Sha, in Tong's hideout, IIRC. It can shoot through the walls with 100% precision, that's its main gimmick.

Is that the only place, where you can find it? Because if so, i certainly missed it. What ammo does it use?

Btw, did you know that you can completely bypass the laser beams by turning on the invisibility?

No i didn't. Ho ho, lack of replayability. I never even used cloak in my first run with mostly stealth approach. Mostly used to sneak among swarm of enemies and use typhoon, because even with fully upgraded damage resistance aug it's impossible to barge into the middle of large swarm and kill everyone with it.

PS. Updated my journal. If you don't confront with Taggert at the conference, but instead beeline to Sandoval after getting the data via sneaking to certain computer, the whole dialogue doesn't happen. Also it gives possibility to keep him alive and get some memo from him. It's also mostly a flavor thing, but it just shows that HR has the same if not more gameplay C&C things to add to replay value in contrary to what DX fanboys say.

On laser rifle.

Also, you can keep Sandoval from dying even if you ruin his reputation via Taggart dialogue. This, of course, requires either good luck with dialogue options or the use of CASIE aug.

That's another low point of HR that i must admit, but none of the detractors didn't mention. Even with master-hacker Jensen it's better to use the auto-hack thing on high level terminals. Maybe i just suck at this minigame, but i can't do shit on lvl5 stuff and most of lvl4 is huge savescum pain in the ass too. With my Rambo Jensen i make good use of all the magic hack tools and nuke/slow viruses.

IIRC you gotta pump the hacky aug cluster REAL good to have a decent time with lvl4+ terminals, because every point spent there decreases your chances of detection by 5% or something.
Also, level5 terminals usually require the use of nukes/worms if you want to avoid save-scumming. They're fairly plentiful if you're a good hacky person, anyway. Also, you gotta be just good at the hacky game as well - recognise the effective routes to the target node(s), fortify the captured nodes to delay failure, and even capture the non-essential nodes just to make sure the counter-measures take longer to fail you.

 

[Gnidrologist]

I did that and had maxed out everything hacking wise by the mid-to-late game, but still found myself using the hack tool more often than not. Only thing i didn't invest in was the ''analyze'' aug. Maybe i should have to be able to go through the most safest routs, but i already felt a bit gimped in other aspects given how much all the hacking tree costs. Anyway, having jumping/lifting/wall breaking aug early on seems much more fun way to circumvent obstacles. Hacking game really gets old given how ridiculously many terminals/computers there are on every corner.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Minigames need to die plain and simple

 

[Carrion]

Generally I'd agree, but the hacking minigame in HR was pretty well made, requiring both player and character skill and having multiple levels of success. It also fit the setting, didn't feel tacked-on or artificial, and wasn't an awful pain in the ass to play unlike the vast majority of hacking minigames out there. The only real issue was that there was way too much of it, but aside from that, I won't mind if it makes a comeback in some form.

 

[Gnidrologist]

So stupid that they give plasma rifle at the point of the game, where there's noone left to kill anyway.:/

 

[Metro]

Problem with the hacking mini-game was that it was too common and most of the time the info you got from hacking was fairly pointless. That is, you'd never really find stuff like the killswitches for Gunther and Anna like you could in DX1. Usually you just got some backstory.

 

[Average Manatee]

Gunplay is very good for a hybrid shooter that aims for realism and it's really goddamn challenging even, when using pop-a-moling

DX:HR gunplay is killed by sponginess of enemies and stupid weapon stats . Enemies can take about 10 rifle bullets to the chest , but kill you in about 4 . Also , some other shit :

Dudes can kill you with single shotgun shot , but can take several shotgun shots from you .
Machinegun has less power than pistol .
Lasergun is absolutely useless .

Observations from "Give me Deus Ex" difficulty .

Yet the stun rod still 1HKOs them, because I guess someone in a suit made the decision that the non-lethal route through the game shouldn't be harder, and in fact should be easier than the lethal route.

Similarly the buffed pistols kill almost everything in one headshot, guess its to reward the player for investing all the upgrades in one gun.

Although unfair rewards for different styles of play are kinda non grata, given there are no other benefits to ''kill-em-all'' approach besides morbid satisfaction, i must say that i'm totally stacked with all needed skills and have spare 7 praxis points, which i don't even know where to dump now. I'm about to leave Detroit2, which is about mid to 2/3 of the game. I can simply dump my praxis into skills i probably never use (except occasional cloak for more effective typhoon). Don't know if HR devs did it on purpose being ''sawyerist'', but there's really little else to want by mid game, when all the aiming/recoil/armor shit is upgraded. Did upgrade to full inventory slots early same as high jumping, breaking walls and heavy lifting. As a result found a lot of alternative ways to go through early on, because with spy guy hacking consumed most of my early praxis points.
That's another low point of HR that i must admit, but none of the detractors didn't mention. Even with master-hacker Jensen it's better to use the auto-hack thing on high level terminals. Maybe i just suck at this minigame, but i can't do shit on lvl5 stuff and most of lvl4 is huge savescum pain in the ass too. With my Rambo Jensen i make good use of all the magic hack tools and nuke/slow viruses.

If you are playing the Director's cut its almost impossible not to max out everything by the end.

Level 5 hack is all you need, but its very much a speed game (as in speed of moving your mouse and multitasking to hit buttons quickly). You want to fortify every node you take and take every node you can at max speed once you get detected. You might need one or two of the special powers that stop time or take nodes instantly on level 4 or 5 but if you get hack 5 early and hack everything you'll get tons of those from the 1-3 hack level stuff.

 

[J1M]

Yet the stun rod still 1HKOs them, because I guess someone in a suit made the decision that the non-lethal route through the game shouldn't be harder, and in fact should be easier than the lethal route.

You have to make it easy enough for the developers to show off to the press and the press to execute correctly when they review the title.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Well, with the stun gun you must get almost at point blank with victim just like you needed with stun rod in DX so that's an inconvenience, if you want to play non lethal fag on top of ghost fag.
I finished my rambo run and must say that this time around the game was actually somewhat easier and faster than the first time around, when i tried to ghost through everything (i still killed people though). Of course, there was some meta-knowledge involved, but all around gunning down fucks are faster and less pain in the ass than find all the perfect routes to stay in ''non-hostile'' mode. I also got the immunity to gas and electricity augs way more earlier so i could shrug off some of the shit i had to break my head over the first time around. If they fucked over XP gain from aggressive approach for balance reasons i can understand the devs, because balancing shit trend seems to be spreading a lot now days. If it was for other reasons than fuck off. You kill two guys with machine gun in the chest and get 20xp. You kill them by performing non-lethal double take-down, you get 120xp. Fuuuuck offf.
Other than that i stay to my conviction. HR is a great game. Also, as i said earlier, i found some stuff that i didn't in my first run, even though this one was supposed to be more straight forward and less stealthy. There were some nooks and crannies i never checked out properly. Some heavy creates that could be moved, some gas fields that i could bypass and thus make it into areas i didn't went before or could circumvent obstacles differently. If they improve on this and make MKD even better then great.