Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

[True Ukrainian]

One more thing I forgot that triggered my autism: when you pick up a duplicate weapon all you get is a few bullets, but if you drop your weapon and pick that one up you can dismantle it for a whole bunch of crafting parts (50 for rifle/shotgun). I wasn't using any of the augs that require ammo, but if you are this would be super annoying.

Its actually a completely broken mechanic. Once you get the nanoforge upgrade, you can craft all the tesla and nanoblade ammo that you ever need from weapon pickups. You also no longer need to hack since you can craft multitools as well.

 

[Gargaune]

One more thing I forgot that triggered my autism: when you pick up a duplicate weapon all you get is a few bullets, but if you drop your weapon and pick that one up you can dismantle it for a whole bunch of crafting parts (50 for rifle/shotgun). I wasn't using any of the augs that require ammo, but if you are this would be super annoying.

Its actually a completely broken mechanic. Once you get the nanoforge upgrade, you can craft all the tesla and nanoblade ammo that you ever need from weapon pickups. You also no longer need to hack since you can craft multitools as well.

Investing in crafting is also a cheeky way of gaming the economy. Really want that Praxis Kit but you're short on cash? Break down every useless weapon you come across, craft Typhoon ammo and sell it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Do shops sell praxis kits? I haven't come across any. I have so many of them either way.

 

[Gargaune]

Do shops sell praxis kits? I haven't come across any. I have so many of them either way.

Yeah, the guy in Jensen's apartment building does. He's got a couple to sell in your first and second stages in Prague.

 

[Gerrard]

The game is too generous with experience and if you complete the Divali quest line, Adam's big overheating weakness gets removed just in time for the end game. That makes the finale pretty weak since Adam has grown so powerful.

I found that gadget to be completely pointless, even without it I didn't have enough points to buy everything available (unlike in HR), and you would never need all the augs in a single playthrough anyway.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah better get all of those praxis kits otherwise you might not be able to get every fucking upgrade

 

[Lacrymas]

I just finished this. It's pretty good apart from the weak story. The final decision of whether to go to Marchenko or Brown isn't much of a decision when going to Brown first lets you fight Marchenko before the bombs go off anyway. The whole Dvalis questline kind of just ends once you get the information from Nikoladze. I tranq'd him either way. I saw the hints pointing to Adam being a clone or something, but I don't see what that has to do with anything. I knew the shrink was up to something from the very beginning, so her appearance at the end didn't surprise me. Overall, pretty weak storyline that meanders and goes nowhere. I don't get the complaints about the length of the time, it felt pretty meaty to me and I wouldn't say it ends abruptly or out of nowhere. We found out everything that is to be found out and stopped the terror attack. If we ever get a sequel, it should focus more on the events that lead to Deus Ex 1. There were already hints about creating a chemical that alters the genome for the body to no longer reject augments, so they have that work cut out for them, along with other threads like Janus and the creation of the Grey Death.

I'll start the DLC content soon. Is there an order to follow or are they all basically unrelated to each other and can be played in any order?

 

[DalekFlay]

I just finished this. It's pretty good apart from the weak story. The final decision of whether to go to Marchenko or Brown isn't much of a decision when going to Brown first lets you fight Marchenko before the bombs go off anyway. The whole Dvalis questline kind of just ends once you get the information from Nikoladze. I tranq'd him either way. I saw the hints pointing to Adam being a clone or something, but I don't see what that has to do with anything. I knew the shrink was up to something from the very beginning, so her appearance at the end didn't surprise me. Overall, pretty weak storyline that meanders and goes nowhere. I don't get the complaints about the length of the time, it felt pretty meaty to me and I wouldn't say it ends abruptly or out of nowhere. We found out everything that is to be found out and stopped the terror attack. If we ever get a sequel, it should focus more on the events that lead to Deus Ex 1. There were already hints about creating a chemical that alters the genome for the body to no longer reject augments, so they have that work cut out for them, along with other threads like Janus and the creation of the Grey Death.

It's been a while since my only playthrough, but wasn't the clone stuff about them cloning Jensen, not Jensen being a clone? I remember it being heavily implied that Paul and J.C. Denton are his clones or something like that. Anyway, whether I'm remembering that wrong or not I think the game does a decent job leading up to Deus Ex 1 and who the players are in that. Obviously they intended to do a third game that leads in more directly, would probably touch on the stuff you're talking about, but I don't think it has to be that spelled out really. Mankind Divided plants seeds that bear fruit in DX1 well enough, to my memory.

 

[Butter]

I played this game 3 months ago and I don't remember any of the story stuff you guys are talking about.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Jensen is a clone. You can find the corpse of the original Jensen stored in the Picus vault at Palliside.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'll start the DLC content soon. Is there an order to follow or are they all basically unrelated to each other and can be played in any order?

Desperate Measures >> System Rift >> A Criminal Past

I played in this order and it worked for me, especially since you're going from a 'short mission that was obviously cut from the full game to boost them pre-orders' to a full-fledged mini-campaign that could work as a standalone game.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I'm wrapping up Human Resources and just got Mankind Divided on GOG, which I'll probably play next. I liked the game, went mostly stealth, since that's that I do reflexively whenever given the chance. The negative aspects for me were:
- too much hacking.
- NPCs have poor AI. Too easy to knock down guards one by one with cheap tactics.
- Praxis points inflation made "builds" not viable.
- Takedowns are annoying and can't be skipped.

How is Mankind Divided different, if at all? Is the area design as good?

 

[Lacrymas]

Jensen is a clone. You can find the corpse of the original Jensen stored in the Picus vault at Palliside.

What? I went there and I didn't see his corpse? I could be very blind, though. There are other hints he's a clone, though. Or you mean the VersaLife vault?

I'm wrapping up Human Resources and just got Mankind Divided on GOG, which I'll probably play next. I liked the game, went mostly stealth, since that's that I do reflexively whenever given the chance. The negative aspects for me were:
- too much hacking.
- NPCs have poor AI. Too easy to knock down guards one by one with cheap tactics.
- Praxis points inflation made "builds" not viable.
- Takedowns are annoying and can't be skipped.

How is Mankind Divided different, if at all? Is the area design as good?

There is even more hacking, yay! You can still knock out guards one by one with cheap tactics. I finished the game with 10 praxis points unused. You still can't skip takedowns, but I'd argue they are the worst way to knock out guards, especially since they use energy for some reason. The area design is excellent, though.

EDIT: Yeah, it's in the VersaLife vault -

Spoiler

Some of the comments suggest that the JC part of JC Denton stands for Jensen Clone. Along with Jesus Christ of course.

 

[JRIz]

One more thing I forgot that triggered my autism: when you pick up a duplicate weapon all you get is a few bullets, but if you drop your weapon and pick that one up you can dismantle it for a whole bunch of crafting parts (50 for rifle/shotgun). I wasn't using any of the augs that require ammo, but if you are this would be super annoying.

Its actually a completely broken mechanic. Once you get the nanoforge upgrade, you can craft all the tesla and nanoblade ammo that you ever need from weapon pickups. You also no longer need to hack since you can craft multitools as well.

It's even worse if you can sell the weapon. In Golem city, there's this one dealer involved in a Dvali quest. Really also got my autism triggered in this situation. He has multiple battle and tranquilizer rifles on display, which are super-expensive. So I killed/incapacitated him and sold that stuff to the other dealer. It's not necessary to kill him and the game explicitly provides a non-lethal solution to everything and a diplomatic one to this quest. But the money + additional EXP is just too much of a reward for doing it "wrong". General problem of both nu-Deus Exs but especially bad in some situations. The games are not even so hard that you need the stuff. They just shove it in your face: You can get all these rewards this way or nothing at all this way lol.

 

[Sodafish]

It's even worse if you can sell the weapon. In Golem city, there's this one dealer involved in a Dvali quest. Really also got my autism triggered in this situation. He has multiple battle and tranquilizer rifles on display, which are super-expensive. So I killed/incapacitated him and sold that stuff to the other dealer.

You don't even need to incapacitate him or his guards. Just go invisible, steal them, then sell them back to him for extra lulz.

 

[Lacrymas]

Speaking of going invisible, it's a pretty OP augment, especially since it doesn't consume much energy if you are standing still.

 

[JRIz]

It's even worse if you can sell the weapon. In Golem city, there's this one dealer involved in a Dvali quest. Really also got my autism triggered in this situation. He has multiple battle and tranquilizer rifles on display, which are super-expensive. So I killed/incapacitated him and sold that stuff to the other dealer.

You don't even need to incapacitate him or his guards. Just go invisible, steal them, then sell them back to him for extra lulz.

Heh, yeah. But then I also didn't want to waste multitools or EXP for those lvl5 locks. It's sad when gameplay degenerates like that

 

[Gargaune]

The final decision of whether to go to Marchenko or Brown isn't much of a decision when going to Brown first lets you fight Marchenko before the bombs go off anyway.

I believe there's a timer involved in that mission, where if you save the delegates and then take too long dealing with Marchenko the bombs go off. I didn't get to that, since I'd picked up Allison's macguffin which should give you extra time in that stage, and I had Marchenko's killswitch as well.

I'll start the DLC content soon. Is there an order to follow or are they all basically unrelated to each other and can be played in any order?

I'd suggest playing them in the order they were released. Desperate Measures is part of the OC timeline and quite short. System Rift is a proper length unrelated mission based in another part of Prague, vaguely set after the events of the main game, if I recall correctly. And you've got the best for last, A Criminal Past plays out in retrospective, some time before the Ruzicka attack, and it's got some pretty excellent level design.

What? I went there and I didn't see his corpse? I could be very blind, though. There are other hints he's a clone, though. Or you mean the VersaLife vault?
[...]
EDIT: Yeah, it's in the VersaLife vault -

Spoiler

Huh, that's messed up. I wonder if this is the direction the writers planned their trilogy, or if it's just an easter egg meant to fuck with inquisitive players. The question of Jensen's memory does pop up again in the cinematic at the end of the third DLC, when he's discussing the Penthouse mission with the shrink rat.

I don't have a relevant save handy, anyone peer into the other boxes?

Some of the comments suggest that the JC part of JC Denton stands for Jensen Clone. Along with Jesus Christ of course.

Some of the comments don't know what they're on about, since JC is, technically...

Spoiler

a Paul clone. Even if the Montreal devs had picked the name Jensen to play on "Jensen Clone" (rather than just rhyme with Denton), it wouldn't make sense for a designation to skip a prior iteration like that.

 

[DalekFlay]

- Praxis points inflation made "builds" not viable.

The second half of the game you're probably maxed out in what you care about and overpowered, but the first half of the game... if you want to stealth anyway... has challenging sections like the ballers camp. You probably don't have great cloaking and such yet. Anyway, I would largely agree they give you too many points (especially if you play the shit director's cut that shoves the DLC in) and I'd also agree the game isn't hard either way. I've played through it 3-4 times on "Give Me Deus Ex" difficulty and don't recall ever being frustrated really, outside of the dumb bosses.

 

[Lacrymas]

Huh, that's messed up. I wonder if this is the direction the writers planned their trilogy, or if it's just an easter egg meant to fuck with inquisitive players. The question of Jensen's memory does pop up again in the cinematic at the end of the third DLC, when he's discussing the Penthouse mission with the shrink rat.

There are three hints I managed to find that point to Jensen being a clone - the VersaLife body, Sarif during a video call that says they couldn't identify your augments, and the post-credits sequence where the shrink says she thinks "the new specimen" is stable and whatnot. I'm fairly sure I missed a side quest where you talk to Eliza again and she says something suspicious to that effect too. I don't think this matters, though?

 

[kreight]

how does this compare to human revolution?

 

[Butter]

how does this compare to human revolution?

Shorter, less interesting and less intelligent, but still pretty good.

 

[DalekFlay]

The two actual expansions are quite good as well, especially the prison one. I agree HR is better, but MD is very much worth playing.

 

[Gerrard]

The dumb AI stands out like a sore thumb against the relative "realness" of the world. Especially in the bank (that was supposed to be super secure yet all the keypads and computers have low security ratings, honk honk) the guards communicate by radio but nobody even notices that most of them stopped reporting.

- Praxis points inflation made "builds" not viable.

The second half of the game you're probably maxed out in what you care about and overpowered, but the first half of the game... if you want to stealth anyway... has challenging sections like the ballers camp. You probably don't have great cloaking and such yet. Anyway, I would largely agree they give you too many points (especially if you play the shit director's cut that shoves the DLC in) and I'd also agree the game isn't hard either way. I've played through it 3-4 times on "Give Me Deus Ex" difficulty and don't recall ever being frustrated really, outside of the dumb bosses.

The DLC was very obviously cut from the main game, you get a unique weapon from the final boss dude that you can't do anything with because it's the end of the fucking DLC.

 

[DalekFlay]

The DLC was very obviously cut from the main game, you get a unique weapon from the final boss dude that you can't do anything with because it's the end of the fucking DLC.

You can find that weapon during the mission, he only has it in the end if you did not find it. There's no way that DLC was lifted out of the game near the end to be sold later. Maybe it was originally outlined in the planned out game, but that's not the same thing at all. And either way, it works ten times better on its own as designed, as does the original game without it there.