Editorial Deus Ex: Human Revolution Design Analysis

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Deus Ex: Human Revolution; Eidos Montreal

<p>Gamebanshee's Eric Schwartz analyses the design of Deus Ex: Human Revolution in comparison to the original Deus Ex, <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20110910/8406/Deus_Ex_Human_Revolution_design_analysis.php" target="_blank">on his Gamasutra blog</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the ideas most crucial to the original <em>Deus Ex</em> was that it allowed players to approach a wide variety of scenarios and complete them using the toolset given to them by their skills, augmentations and abilities - sometimes in ways that the game's developers never anticipated (including occasional exploits of the game's scripting and AI).  While part of this game out of the fact that the game was, understandably, less technically sound and open to certain forms of abuse by dedicated players, in almost every situation, Ion Storm went to great lengths in order to ensure players always had reasonable, logical options available regardless of gameplay style.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For the most part, this philosophy has been retained in <em>Deus Ex: Human Revolution</em>.  Objectives during missions often feature multiple stages and allow for many options and outcomes.  The fortitude of the game in this respect is extremely impressive.  Early in the game, for example, the player must negotiate with a terrorist leader who has taken a hostage.  While the game's options explicitly present the options of negotiating the release of the hostage, allowing the terrorist leader to leave with the hostage, and simply entering into combat for a lethal or non-lethal takedown (which normally results in the hostage's death), there is some additional nuance in the decision that the game actively recognizes.  During my third play-through, rather than negotiate or allow the terrorist to escape, I tried something else: I fired a tranquilizer dart at him immediately upon drawing my weapon.  Rather than watch the hostage die as the temporarily-invulnerable terrorist executed her, as I'd expect in so many other games, instead he simply fell over unconscious.  Not only did the hostage live, but so did the terrorist; later, I encountered him held in prison, and even later in the game, he ambushed me after escaping the prison.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This sort of detail is a subtle one, but it adds an incredible amount of meaning to the player's experience.  The outcome I received was not one that the game telegraphed, and it was not one I expected to be possible - and yet it was, due to my quick reflexes.  In a sense, I felt as if I "broke" that scene, and <em>Human Revolution</em> simply shrugged and said "yeah, you can do that".  In many ways, this situation parallels the famous moment in the original <em>Deus Ex</em>, where the third unstated option of killing an ally in what is presented as a binary choice leads not only to the player's surprise at the success of the act, but the characters in the game itself seem to be equally surprised, even as they desperately come up with ways to cover up the player's actions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/104726-deus-ex-human-revolution-design-analysis.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>

 

[Angelo85]

More like spotted at the Codex Forums:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... t=#1786269
What is the most prestigious CRPG Website now, bitches?

 

[DwarvenFood]

:D ya this is just so ironic :brofist:

 

[sgc_meltdown]

looking pretty norwegian metal band there sea

 

[villain of the story]

Looks like a naive virgin. What happened to the game you were making anyway?

 

[sea]

looking pretty norwegian metal band there sea

 

[Forest Dweller]

I'll definitely be playing this over Christmas. But I have to wait until then.

EDIT: *reads thread*

Oh wow, the guy's a gigantic faggot. One thing I can't stand is intellectual dishonesty. Someone should post the link on his blog calling him out for the little plagiarizing bitch that he is.

DOUBLE EDIT: Oh wait, it's the same person.

 

[Carrion]

Gotta love the Absu shirt


Didn't read the entire article because I haven't played DX:HR yet, but yeah, I think one of the most satisfying things in Deus Ex was/is finding out that you were able to make a game-affecting choice even when the game didn't tell you so. That particular scene with Anna Navarre is probably the most well-known one and my favorite, but there are a few others as well.

 

[Castanova]

I can tell by that Boss pedal that you do not fuck around.

 

[Kron]

Fuck Desu Ex, and fuck the designer clothes, designer lights, designer architecture and interiors, designer blades, floral patterns, and the faggot designers who designed these.

 

[bishop7]

Good read, but I think (following the part of hacking) you give Deus Ex a little too much credit in the skills department. Lockpicking, hacking and one or two of the combat skills were all you needed, the rest were of marginal use -- which is to say, i've never found any point in the game where one of them was absolutely required to get a certain weapon, upgrade or tidbit of useful (or even entertaining) info. Augs were much the same, not a lot of situations required microfibrial strength (to use one example.)

I totally agree about the environments though, the originals maps were far larger and more fun to explore. Hopefully they get it right during the second game, as this is the feature which made the original so much fun.

 

[Reject_666_6]

I can tell by that Epiphone guitar that you fuck around.

 

[Satan]

Lockpicking, hacking and one or two of the combat skills were all you needed, the rest were of marginal use -

Oh my God! You don't need every skill to complete the game, most of them aren't required, therefore must be shit and useless!

Have you even tried other augmentations? For example that emotion-reading one was really useful in many situations, wall-breaking one made some paths (especially in some quests) a lot easier and you could find some hidden stuff.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Lockpicking, hacking and one or two of the combat skills were all you needed, the rest were of marginal use -

Oh my God! You don't need every skill to complete the game, most of them aren't required, therefore must be shit and useless!

Have you even tried other augmentations? For example that emotion-reading one was really useful in many situations, wall-breaking one made some paths (especially in some quests) a lot easier and you could find some hidden stuff.

What's wrong, Satan? Has eternity in hell sullied your reading comprehension? Are all Djinn this foolish?

 

[DwarvenFood]

And aqua breathing shit is just sooo james bond, gotta have it.

 

[praetor]

Good read, but I think (following the part of hacking) you give Deus Ex a little too much credit in the skills department.

i agree with this. i just replayed it before jumping into DXHR and i have to say that most skills in DX are largely useless. before entering area51 i had something like 15k skillpoints unspent (and after i got my hacking to advanced and demolitions to trained, i usually only spent them when i came to a locked door/keypad that required more lockpicks/multitools than i cared to use [i.e. 2]). plus, i find the concept of "i'm more skillfull with a gun therefore i deal more damage with it" to be of an unparalleled derpiness

 

[ortucis]

Good read, but I think (following the part of hacking) you give Deus Ex a little too much credit in the skills department.

i agree with this. i just replayed it before jumping into DXHR and i have to say that most skills in DX are largely useless. before entering area51 i had something like 15k skillpoints unspent (and after i got my hacking to advanced and demolitions to trained, i usually only spent them when i came to a locked door/keypad that required more lockpicks/multitools than i cared to use [i.e. 2]). plus, i find the concept of "i'm more skillfull with a gun therefore i deal more damage with it" to be of an unparalleled derpiness

Maybe you both are just shit at spending skill points.

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

Fuck Desu Ex, and fuck the designer clothes, designer lights, designer architecture and interiors, designer blades, floral patterns, and the faggot designers who designed these.

Well aren't you a pretty little princess.

 

[bishop7]

Lockpicking, hacking and one or two of the combat skills were all you needed, the rest were of marginal use -

Oh my God! You don't need every skill to complete the game, most of them aren't required, therefore must be shit and useless!

Have you even tried other augmentations? For example that emotion-reading one was really useful in many situations, wall-breaking one made some paths (especially in some quests) a lot easier and you could find some hidden stuff.

I was referring to the original, the social aug wasn't available in the first game.

But to answer your question, yes i've used other augs in that game and lamented over the fact that I had pretty much wasted my skill points on the microfibrial muscle aug (the one which allowed you to carry larger items), but using the stealth playstyle I never really saw the need to take the environmental resistance aug over aqualung... just to use one example.

 

[bishop7]

Good read, but I think (following the part of hacking) you give Deus Ex a little too much credit in the skills department.

i agree with this. i just replayed it before jumping into DXHR and i have to say that most skills in DX are largely useless. before entering area51 i had something like 15k skillpoints unspent (and after i got my hacking to advanced and demolitions to trained, i usually only spent them when i came to a locked door/keypad that required more lockpicks/multitools than i cared to use [i.e. 2]). plus, i find the concept of "i'm more skillfull with a gun therefore i deal more damage with it" to be of an unparalleled derpiness

Maybe you both are just shit at spending skill points.

Explain to me why i'm wrong in neglecting to spend points on Medicine and Electronics when medikits and multitools are plentiful enough that I never run out, even while playing a combat character?

Explain to me the justification of spending points on swimming when Aqualung is the far superior aug to Environmental resistance (an aug which sees very little use throughout most of the game)?

Environmental training? Not enough items throughout the world to justify spending the points, i'd rather spend it on combat skills or lockpicking. Marginal anyway, since the dermal aug choice between ballistics protection and EMP shielding is a no-brainer!

Don't get me wrong, all the other skills are not *totally* useless, just like the skills in HR aren't *totally* useless either. But there are some major advantages with a few skills compared to others in both games, which was my original point.

 

[TNO]

I think some skills/augs are better than others in DX (Aqualung > environmental resistance, and fast running > run silent [You are 'silent' when crouch walking, so doing so with fast running lets your move faster than run silent, and you are harder to see], ballistic shielding > emp, power recirc > artificial heart and probably cloak > robot cloak). There are also some elements where some costs are unnecessary: trained hacking is good enough to do everything besides read emails, and gain a few more (wholly unnecessary) credits, and going above trained in lockpicking or electronics is diminishing rewards (and, as noted, canny players will be swimming in consumables). Slightly more controversially, some playstyles are plainly easier than others - master rifle + sd sniper is easy mode, and seems strictly superior to carting heavy weapons, low tech is also pretty redundant after you get the DTS.

But I don't think this imperfect balance harms the game. The fact that all paths aren't equally good gives a sense of verisimilitude: IRL armies don't have front line troops who use primarily pistols or melee, etc. So long as the augs aren't *useless* (which a couple of them almost are, admittedly), then players aren't shafted, and, providing there are clues as to which choices might be more effective, it might add an element of character building. I far prefer it to IW, where the augs are 'balanced' so picking at random pretty much guarantees 1 or 2 gamebreaking augs (worst is the spydrone, which kills bots and knocks organics unconscious, meaning as soon as you find a techBot, you can clear the map from there).

The other issue is that many of these skills/augs *do* become really useful in their own playstyle. The guy who did the nonlethal visual walkthroughs had a very idiosyncratic aug and skill set (buffing environmental resistance and melee, dropping regen, IIRC). Two further examples from my playthroughs.

I played a 'non-lethal-unless-they-shoot-first' James-Bond esque character, which meant lots of evasion augs, swimming, hacking, and pistols. Pistols are probably inferior to rifles (SD sniper can shoot cameras, certain doors, and oneshot commandos, and auto shottie/AR are better for firefights), but their much smaller inventory space gave me more to blow on 'nades, consumeables, etc. and so gave me flexibility to pop gas, pull out my stun prod etc. The main problem was running out of 10mm ammo late in the game.

Another example: Spydrone. This Aug slot isn't used much (likewise the eyeslot), but if you are willing to invest to T4 spydrone and T4 power circ, you can do cool things. (For example, knock out the bots in the Vandenburg base from the roof where you spawn). There are other augs that unlock play options with sufficient investment (eg. melee + combat strength means the DTS can destroy bots, doors, cameras, etc.) So although there is a 'path of least resistance' with a clear set of 'best' augs, there are other valid ways to complete the game. That seems cool to me.

 

[bishop7]

But I don't think this imperfect balance harms the game. The fact that all paths aren't equally good gives a sense of verisimilitude: IRL armies don't have front line troops who use primarily pistols or melee, etc. So long as the augs aren't *useless* (which a couple of them almost are, admittedly), then players aren't shafted, and, providing there are clues as to which choices might be more effective, it might add an element of character building. I far prefer it to IW, where the augs are 'balanced' so picking at random pretty much guarantees 1 or 2 gamebreaking augs (worst is the spydrone, which kills bots and knocks organics unconscious, meaning as soon as you find a techBot, you can clear the map from there).

I think the largest criticism of IW with regards to aug is that you simply have the ability to get the vast majority of them (albeit nearer the end of the game) which is totally valid. However I would say that neither game really gets the balance correct. I would say, however, that something like the rebreather aug trumps environmental resisitance due to the ability to ignore gas grenades. I do prefer how the IW devs added a few different advantages to some augs that the original didn't.

The other issue is that many of these skills/augs *do* become really useful in their own playstyle. The guy who did the nonlethal visual walkthroughs had a very idiosyncratic aug and skill set (buffing environmental resistance and melee, dropping regen, IIRC). Two further examples from my playthroughs.

But even then (and I realize i'm really picking on environmental resistance here) there are other ways to get around these obstacles using nonlethal methods without having to use a hazmat, I can't recall a single exception to this rule in my playthroughs.

I will agree that the augs are balanced a lot better than the skills. At least there is some use for many of the augs, but many of the skills simply aren't required in the vast majority of scenarios.