Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Alpha Protocol

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,917
I also don’t understand why it’s so offensive. I really prefer this method of Making Skills Matter with regards to weapons vs the much more game-y increase in weapon damage as weapon skill increases.

Was it simply that people complained? I remember jumping through many stupid hoops to get an OG DX-style aiming system implemented in FNV with static weapon damage when it was released, but once it was up and running it felt so much better.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,568
Original DX worked that way. If your crosshair was on the target, your shot would hit. However your crosshair started out gigantic and the time it took to shrink was a function of your weapon skill. This was "solved" as of Invisible War by removing weapon skills (actually, by removing all skills) and just letting you play a FPS. Bethesda-tier game design.
Most people don't like "wait for accuracy" gameplay. Every fps-rpg released in the past decade seems to have done rather well for abandoning it and no dev seems to have any interest in bringing it back.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,917
Shit is great, a million flies can’t be wrong.
Alpha Protocol bombed. Maybe some indie outfit could release a profitable game with this kind of gameplay, but like I said, no one's interested.
Popularity as a metric in a discussion of mechanics is worthless. Popularity is intrinsically tied to so many factors outside of mechanics as to be meaningless.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
12,799
As someone born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist: AP was a Cold War game?! Of the three JBs, the 2002 Bourne (yes, I know the novel is older) and 2001 Bauer were both solidly post Cold War. The first hub is post-Cold War GWoT, Russia's appearance is entirely gangs in international arms deals and the most prominent Russian character is very much a post Soviet sterotype in tastes. Unless we define Cold War to be "the modern one against ultra rich puppet masters fucking over the world for their own amusement and China", which is still ongoing and makes Sawyer's point moot, I don't see how it would be Cold War in the slightest.
At least Josh Sawyer is being truthful in that he clearly doesn't remember Alpha Protocol in the slightest, though he's projecting his own ignorance to the gaming community in general. :M
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
5,274
Unless we define Cold War to be "the modern one against ultra rich puppet masters fucking over the world for their own amusement and China", which is still ongoing and makes Sawyer's point moot, I don't see how it would be Cold War in the slightest.
Yeah, it is not a Cold War story. It is a spy game that can evoke similar themes (being a spy game), but Phantom Doctrine is the actual Cold War story.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,917
As someone born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist: AP was a Cold War game?! Of the three JBs, the 2002 Bourne (yes, I know the novel is older) and 2001 Bauer were both solidly post Cold War. The first hub is post-Cold War GWoT, Russia's appearance is entirely gangs in international arms deals and the most prominent Russian character is very much a post Soviet sterotype in tastes. Unless we define Cold War to be "the modern one against ultra rich puppet masters fucking over the world for their own amusement and China", which is still ongoing and makes Sawyer's point moot, I don't see how it would be Cold War in the slightest.
At least Josh Sawyer is being truthful in that he clearly doesn't remember Alpha Protocol in the slightest, though he's projecting his own ignorance to the gaming community in general. :M

tbf he’s equating interest in “spy thriller” stories with Cold War interest, not explicitly saying AP is a Cold War game.

all is fair in love and shitposting, eh?
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
12,799
As someone born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist: AP was a Cold War game?! Of the three JBs, the 2002 Bourne (yes, I know the novel is older) and 2001 Bauer were both solidly post Cold War. The first hub is post-Cold War GWoT, Russia's appearance is entirely gangs in international arms deals and the most prominent Russian character is very much a post Soviet sterotype in tastes. Unless we define Cold War to be "the modern one against ultra rich puppet masters fucking over the world for their own amusement and China", which is still ongoing and makes Sawyer's point moot, I don't see how it would be Cold War in the slightest.
At least Josh Sawyer is being truthful in that he clearly doesn't remember Alpha Protocol in the slightest, though he's projecting his own ignorance to the gaming community in general. :M

tbf he’s equating interest in “spy thriller” stories with Cold War interest, not explicitly saying AP is a Cold War game.

all is fair in love and shitposting, eh?
Sawyer must be too burned out to remember the War on Terror, that Alpha Protocol's protagonist takes inspiration not only from James Bond but also Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne, that only a few of the Bond films (unlike the novels) even dealt with the Cold War, and that the spy thriller genre predates the Cold War (and WWII, for that matter). Or he's engaged in wishful thinking in regard to the last full game designed by Chris Avellone.
 

Atlantico

unida e indivisible
Patron
Undisputed Queen of Faggotry Vatnik In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 7, 2015
Messages
16,781
Location
Midgard
Make the Codex Great Again!
Invisible War was made by the same people just a few years later.
Yes for Xbox. It was Deus Ex as much as Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance was a sequel to Baldur's Gate. Same devs. Different platform, different target players.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,568
Yes for Xbox. It was Deus Ex as much as Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance was a sequel to Baldur's Gate. Same devs. Different platform, different target players.
The system changes were made to appease their very intelligent designer friends, not the xbox crowd.
Harvey Smith said:
We listened to our super hardcore friends who told us, here's how I would fix Deus Ex. I mean we listened - we had some friends, some good friends, who told us that Deus Ex was giant disaster - and here's what they would change, and I love those guys, and we really felt sensitive about that. We really felt like, "God, we've - we've uh, we're not meeting the demands, or we're not meeting the standards of our very intelligent designer friends, so ashamed. Let's fix all that in the sequel, and we weren't listening to the players of the original game, who liked what we had done.

Additionally here's Warren saying that all of the design changes they made would have happened anyway regardless of what platforms it was for https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/12/05/invisible-war-diaries
Warren Spector said:
True confessions time - I'm not just a PC gamer. Never have been and doubt I ever will be. I've always owned every gaming platform available, always played both console and PC games. What's more, I've always wanted to work on a console game. There. I said it.

At Origin, I talked about doing something on the Genesis. Didn't happen. "We're PC developers," everyone said, "not console developers." When I left Looking Glass, I wanted my new shop's first project to be a small, actiony console game (a game I still hope to make someday!). That didn't happen either. The publishers I talked to all said, "Make a big PC roleplaying game - that's what everyone wants and expects."

Man, it's tough to shed a reputation as a PC-only developer!

Finally, after years of being a platform agnostic player and a wannabe console developer, Eidos gave me - and Ion Storm - a shot at taking Deus Ex to the PS2. That project taught us a lot. And now, with the benefit of that PS2 experience, we get to bring Invisible War to Xbox AND PC players.

I went into console development genuinely believing that games are games and gamers are gamers. I never quite believed or understood people who said platform or player differences required a radical rethink on the design side. I mean, everyone I KNOW plays PC and console games. We're all gamers, right? We all like good games, don't we?

Now that we've done DX on the PC and PS2, and Invisible War on PC and Xbox, I still think the goal, hardware willing, ought to be to deliver the same experience to people, regardless of their platform preference. Do that, and gamers (most of 'em, at any rate) will "get it."

I don't think you have to dumb down the experience or make a game more action-oriented or less thoughtful for console gamers (as I've been told repeatedly over the years).

I don't think it's true any longer (if it ever was) that console games have to be aimed at a younger audience than PC games and THAT forces you to make different design decisions.

And I still don't see the huge difference in playing a game on a TV, in a living room, while sitting on the couch as compared to sitting inches away from a computer monitor somewhere else in the house.

Maybe I'm just dim but, from a player experience standpoint, I STILL believe games are games and gamers are gamers. And I'm proud as hell of the Invisible War team for delivering virtually the same game on both PC and Xbox. The only differences worth noting are the UI, texture resolution and overall resolution. Other than that? Same game. PC, Xbox, we don't care - it's Invisible War. (Guess we'll find out soon enough whether I really am dim or whether I get to thumb my nose at all the folks who said we should change the game to suit the platform!)

However. Hmph. Well. Yes. There are some significant DEVELOPMENT differences when you're talking PC versus console. The limited memory available on consoles, as impressive as the current hardware is, DOES impose some limitations. And let no one doubt that the user interface differences between the two platforms ARE huge and significant. And they, too, force some design decisions.

Let's start with the obvious:

There just aren't a lot of similarities between a PC keyboard/mouse combination and a console controller.

The keyboard and mouse give you near instant response and near exact control. The controller is a far less precise, far more...well...leisurely input device. That has huge ramifications, particularly with regard to combat tuning. In particular, player character turning speed has to be tuned completely differently depending upon what input device you're using and auto-aiming, crucial to a successful action game on console, isn't even necessary on a PC.

To address that, we spent a lot of time tuning turning speeds so mouse users could exploit the pinpoint accuracy people expect. (Frankly, we screwed up a critical mouse setting in our initial release, causing the mouse to feel "laggy" -- PLEASE download the Invisible War patch to address that problem! The game will feel a LOT better if you do!)

Then there are the user interface challenges associated with making a relatively complex, relatively deep game like Invisible War playable given the limitations imposed by a controller that has just eight buttons, two triggers, two analog sticks and a d-pad. Heck, we're spoiled, on the PC, what with a (minimum) 3-button mouse and 100+ key keyboard! So what do you do? Do you simplify controls for console players, and risk disappointing PC players? Do you craft different games that exploit the available input device(s) to the max?

We decided that some of the complexity associated with the UI in the first Deus Ex game actually didn't contribute to our core gameplay AT ALL. And we decided to eliminate what we considered to be unnecessary UI complexity. So, I suppose you could say that we chose the path of simplifying the controls for Invisible War. But it's critical that people understand -- though the UI decisions we made clearly benefited the console version, we made no decisions that we thought would compromise our core gameplay. And we would have made the same decisions even if the game had been PC-only.
We eliminated the unnecessarily complex spatial reasoning game associated with the DX inventory screen. Did the "inventory slot" approach make the game more "cerebral" or more "PC-ish?" I don't think so (though it certainly made the game more Diablo-like!). The whole idea behind the original DX inventory design was to force players to make decisions about what they would and would not carry. We didn't want you to be able to carry everything. When we did the PS2 version of the game, we realized that we could force the SAME decisions simply by limiting the number of inventory slots you had. The goal was to limit the number of items carried -- the shape of those objects was never the big issue. The end result of this was a simpler system for players on console AND on PC that accomplished exactly the same design goal we'd set for ourselves in the original PC title. Total win.

We made it so you don't have to find a medbot and go to a separate screen to install a biomod or heal yourself. I suppose there are players out there who thought it was cool to walk around with a character upgrade but NOT be able to use it. I wasn't among them. Why delay a reward? The player has discovered something cool, either by exploring the gameworld or expending resources to solve a game problem. Why NOT let them install a biomod immediately, without having to find a medbot or go to a separate UI screen to do so? Happily, this decision allowed us to eliminate a UI screen.

We rolled the augmentations and skills systems of the first game into a single "biomods" system, eliminating the UI subscreen associated with skills (and all the classic-RPG number-crunching associated with that system). Yes, we did this to make the game more accessible. We didn't WANT players worrying about ways to increase their marksmanship by 10%... We wanted players playing the game, making choices about who they wanted to be and how they wanted to interact with the gameworld. And combining the two systems had the added benefit of eliminating some particularly silly decisions (like forcing players to decide whether they wanted to increase their aquatic capabilities by upgrading the aqualung augmentation or by spending skill points to upgrade their swimming skill -- I mean, why NOT roll a choice like that into a single, reasonable decision?). This wasn't a console-specific decision, per se, but a gameplay decision. The biggest benefit we derived on console (other than increasing immersion on both platforms by not forcing players to a static UI screen...) was the elimination of the UI elements associated with that static skills screen. Again, though, we would have made this design decision even if we'd been a PC only game.

Among the more controversial decisions we made, one some players see as making the game more consoley and less PC-ish, was to go with a single ammunition type (rather than unique ammunition for each weapon type). This eliminated the need to track "shots" and "clips" for each weapon, individually. It also had the added benefit of ensuring that players have to manage their ammo resource throughout the game, instead of blasting through all of their ammo for one weapon, secure in the knowledge that they have a max loadout for every OTHER weapon in the game to fall back on! Some people have assumed that this change 'simplifies' strategic gameplay. In my experience, it actually makes the game more difficult, maybe even more hardcore! Players who've objected to this decision (which we justified fictionally, for what it's worth) have said, "You've eliminated the choice of switching from one weapon to another in different tactical situations!" How so? Players still switch from one weapon to another when a combat situation invites this decision -- they still use a rocket launcher or a sniper rifle, for example, at the appropriate times. But now, they really have to think -- hard -- about that decision. I mean, that rocket is going to eat up ammo you might need later for a sniper rifle shot. Do you REALLY want to expend that resource? In Deus Ex, if you were low on ammo for your primary weapon, the game encouraged you to switch to something else (say, the shotgun), even if that was a mismatch for your style of play. In Invisible War, as long as you have ammo, you can use your weapon of choice. Now, your decisions are completely based on the functionality of the weapon (the shotgun is short-range with a spread... the railgun does EMP damage...). This is significant, because the designers were able to tune the unified ammo globally, ensuring that you have enough during the game. This frees you up to use the right weapon in every situation, as opposed to saying "Man, the railgun would be great here, but the designers haven't dropped any railgun ammo recently, so I'll have to use a crummy weapon." This decision was all about supporting player expression.

Dark Alliance had the Baldur's Gate name slapped on it for marketing purposes. Bioware wasn't involved and they were very upset about it. The better comparison to make would be Daggerfall->Morrowind and Morrowind kept the janky RPG combat (they finally got rid of it with Oblivion).
 

Wesp5

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,915
Original DX worked that way. If your crosshair was on the target, your shot would hit. However your crosshair started out gigantic and the time it took to shrink was a function of your weapon skill. This was "solved" as of Invisible War by removing weapon skills (actually, by removing all skills) and just letting you play a FPS. Bethesda-tier game design.
Most people don't like "wait for accuracy" gameplay. Every fps-rpg released in the past decade seems to have done rather well for abandoning it and no dev seems to have any interest in bringing it back.
How do they handle weapon stats then? More damage while using the same gun with the same ammunition? I found the crosshair solution much more logical...
 

Hellraiser

Arcane
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
11,689
Location
Danzig, Potato-Hitman Commonwealth
Most people don't like "wait for accuracy" gameplay. Every fps-rpg released in the past decade seems to have done rather well for abandoning it and no dev seems to have any interest in bringing it back.
How do they handle weapon stats then? More damage while using the same gun with the same ammunition? I found the crosshair solution much more logical...

TBH I'm quite sure the same mechanic, bullet spread and often recoil causing the spread are present in modern popamole. IIRC Starfield, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077 and Deus Ex HR model recoil somehow, hell now that I think about it I am sure Starfield also uses the crosshair getting smaller effect for communicating it to the player. The thing is the recovery time on recoil in those is an order of magnitude smaller than the baseline in Deus Ex as is any spread. That and usually the first shot is "free" with no penalty and aiming down ironsights might eliminate this and turn aiming into pure twitch mode (with sway).

EDIT:

https://deusex.fandom.com/wiki/Augmentations_(DXHR)#Aim_Stabilizer

Aiming Motion Control 1​

  • Upgrade Requirement: Aim Stabilizer Augmentation
  • Upgrade Cost: N/A
  • Use: Reduces reticule growth due to movement by 50%
 
Last edited:

Sannom

Augur
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
951
As someone born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist: AP was a Cold War game?! Of the three JBs, the 2002 Bourne (yes, I know the novel is older) and 2001 Bauer were both solidly post Cold War. The first hub is post-Cold War GWoT, Russia's appearance is entirely gangs in international arms deals and the most prominent Russian character is very much a post Soviet sterotype in tastes. Unless we define Cold War to be "the modern one against ultra rich puppet masters fucking over the world for their own amusement and China", which is still ongoing and makes Sawyer's point moot, I don't see how it would be Cold War in the slightest.
Well it was about a plot by a company that made bank thanks to the Cold War trying to start a new one because their whole operation was unsuited to what came after. Of course, considering that one of their idea to make more profits was to sell high-tech anti-air weaponry on the black market, that "master plan" of theirs was always going to fail.
 

Camel

Scholar
Joined
Sep 10, 2021
Messages
2,508
AP is one of my favourite Obsidian games and it's a pity Avellone was the lead designer only for one them. Reactivity and C&C are top-notch and writing is above average. Yes, gameplay is clunky, stealth is laughable, some of the characters are anime-tier(Sis, Brayko, SIE) but it's good and enjoyable on multiple playthroughs.
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2022
Messages
2,316
Location
Vareš
some of the characters are anime-tier(Sis, Brayko, SIE)
Had both of them killed, but I chose to personally kill Sis the first time I saw her, very satisfying, couldn't be bothered. I stuck with Heck when I played through.

As for gameplay, I really enjoyed my pistol build, felt satisfying to his headshot after headshot because I invested into it fully. Action games with shooting mechanics do nothing for me because I've spent my entire life playing games focused on shooting and the "RPG" versions are childsplay even on the hardest difficulty. In fact, the "hardest" one I played was Mass Effect 2 and that's only because of bloated shields/HP which just meant sitting behind cover for 20mins in certain missions. I also enjoy watching retards complain about systems like Alpha Protocol. It's most pronounced with Mass Effect 1 because I feel like that's the most popular game which utilizes that. Be shit at games in general --> Don't put skill points into weapons --> Complain about how nothing is hitting. Even if it's simplistic, it's fun to see the casuals squirm.
 

Ladonna

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
11,207
AP is one of my favourite Obsidian games and it's a pity Avellone was the lead designer only for one them. Reactivity and C&C are top-notch and writing is above average. Yes, gameplay is clunky, stealth is laughable, some of the characters are anime-tier(Sis, Brayko, SIE) but it's good and enjoyable on multiple playthroughs.

I still have my copy of AP here. I tried it for about half an hour, seemed like a clunky attempt at Deus Ex and didn't bother trying again. I might have to put it on the to-do list and see if it goes any better the next time.
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2022
Messages
2,316
Location
Vareš
AP is one of my favourite Obsidian games and it's a pity Avellone was the lead designer only for one them. Reactivity and C&C are top-notch and writing is above average. Yes, gameplay is clunky, stealth is laughable, some of the characters are anime-tier(Sis, Brayko, SIE) but it's good and enjoyable on multiple playthroughs.

I still have my copy of AP here. I tried it for about half an hour, seemed like a clunky attempt at Deus Ex and didn't bother trying again. I might have to put it on the to-do list and see if it goes any better the next time.
You should push through, the game isn't long, I logged 20hours on my playthrough to get everything. This is one of the rare games with basically 0 padding.
 

santino27

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
2,770
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Shit is great, a million flies can’t be wrong.
Alpha Protocol bombed. Maybe some indie outfit could release a profitable game with this kind of gameplay, but like I said, no one's interested.
Popularity as a metric in a discussion of mechanics is worthless. Popularity is intrinsically tied to so many factors outside of mechanics as to be meaningless.
It's the only argument Roguey ever has though. Have a heart; don't take this away from him.
 
Unwanted

Cologno

Unwanted
Joined
Jan 3, 2024
Messages
293
Shit is great, a million flies can’t be wrong.
Alpha Protocol bombed. Maybe some indie outfit could release a profitable game with this kind of gameplay, but like I said, no one's interested.
Popularity as a metric in a discussion of mechanics is worthless. Popularity is intrinsically tied to so many factors outside of mechanics as to be meaningless.
It's the only argument Roguey ever has though. Have a heart; don't take this away from him.
He's not wrong, though. Plays like a junky piece of shit by even 2010 standards.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,568
It's the only argument Roguey ever has though. Have a heart; don't take this away from him.
People make games to make money. The kind of people who are dedicated to making games that will lose money don't make shooters.

Avellone's own take was that Sega delaying the game after Mass Effect 2's release hurt it significantly because it looked and played so awful by comparison. This is funny because before release there was an Obsidian dev hyping up how they were going to make the original Mass Effect look like crap.
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/5...t-get-annoying/?do=findComment&comment=871962
Patrick K Mills said:
If AP does well some other developer can wail and gnash their teeth that everything they are doing is being compared to Alpha Protocol. For now, that's our cross to bear. It's cool. ME did really well for good reason and the games do look similar in gameplay and graphics, so it's an easy point of reference.

I have a lot more fun shooting guys in our game than in ME, though. I hope that after we start doing hands-on previews that will be the next comparison: "It's a lot like ME except that combat is fun."
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom