DX:HR leak impressions

[J1M]

This looks p. promising. But I don't get the point in pre-orders. Why not wait a few months for the price to fall and the codex critical consensus to accumulate.

Also, DX: IW also was pretty good for the first two hubs. And then...

1. I have money. It is used to purchase goods and/or services.
2. I waited a decade since DX1 for a proper sequel.
3. I don't want accidental spoilers.
4. The first third of the game is awesome, I don't need approval of the codex to like it.

Also, IW was a complete turd.

 

[J1M]

Well, still on the fence. I would like to ask though:

Ulm, how is the cover-based stealth and shooting affecting your gameplay experience?

I use the cover system the same way I used leaning in older games, to peek around corners.

On the hardest difficulty you won't last for more than a few seconds in a firefight without hiding/using cover. Some play styles will use it a lot, others could avoid it completely.

EDIT: Does anyone have an alternative way to deal with prox mines than throwing things to trip the sensor? I tried the cloak aug and the walk silently aug (not together though, I only had 3 spare upgrade points at the time) but neither helped. I was hoping to be able to disable them like in DX, or at least zap them with the stun gun (which will disable laser beams) but you can't get close enough for that and the gun has no upgrades.

 

[Grunker]

Well, still on the fence. I would like to ask though:

Ulm, how is the cover-based stealth and shooting affecting your gameplay experience?

I use the cover system the same way I used leaning in older games, to peek around corners.

On the hardest difficulty you won't last for more than a few seconds in a firefight without hiding/using cover. Some play styles will use it a lot, others could avoid it completely.

EDIT: Does anyone have an alternative way to deal with prox mines than throwing things to trip the sensor? I tried the cloak aug and the walk silently aug (not together though, I only had 3 spare upgrade points at the time) but neither helped. I was hoping to be able to disable them like in DX, or at least zap them with the stun gun but you can't get close enough for that and the gun has no upgrades.

You can't survive in Mass Effect 2 on the hardest difficulty for more than a few seconds without resorting to cover either. What this creates is a cover/uncover tactic with a few precision shots that basically draw out combat, making it more tedious.

This is my exact fear; that we'll have the choice between easy-cake on normal because cover leaves us invulnerable, and boring shit-fest shooter where it's "pop two shots - cover - pop two shots - cover - rince and repeat".

For purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter that I can also use stealth. I'm talking about the quality of the shooter-action.

 

[Jack]

This is my exact fear; that we'll have the choice between easy-cake on normal because cover leaves us invulnerable, and boring shit-fest shooter where it's "pop two shots - cover - pop two shots - cover - rince and repeat".

It's just like that, but the firefights never are particularly long since a headshot is lethal. Less tedious, but just as dull.

 

[J1M]

Well, still on the fence. I would like to ask though:

Ulm, how is the cover-based stealth and shooting affecting your gameplay experience?

I use the cover system the same way I used leaning in older games, to peek around corners.

On the hardest difficulty you won't last for more than a few seconds in a firefight without hiding/using cover. Some play styles will use it a lot, others could avoid it completely.

EDIT: Does anyone have an alternative way to deal with prox mines than throwing things to trip the sensor? I tried the cloak aug and the walk silently aug (not together though, I only had 3 spare upgrade points at the time) but neither helped. I was hoping to be able to disable them like in DX, or at least zap them with the stun gun but you can't get close enough for that and the gun has no upgrades.

You can't survive in Mass Effect 2 on the hardest difficulty for more than a few seconds without resorting to cover either. What this creates is a cover/uncover tactic with a few precision shots that basically draw out combat, making it more tedious.

This is my exact fear; that we'll have the choice between easy-cake on normal because cover leaves us invulnerable, and boring shit-fest shooter where it's "pop two shots - cover - pop two shots - cover - rince and repeat".

For purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter that I can also use stealth. I'm talking about the quality of the shooter-action.

Deus Ex isn't a run 'n gun shooter though. It sounds like you would be better off looking at Serious Sam or Duke Nukem Forever for that type of experience.

 

[Grunker]

No. I liked the shooting in Deus Ex, but it was not "pop into cover, pop out of cover" repeat action. If you shoot at, say, a robot, it will come towards you, move around your cover, and you will have to retreat further away. So while in Deus Ex you must utilize stealth or "cover", it's fluid, and not repetitive. While I make no assumptions, I've never seen a stick-to-cover-based shooter that played as anything but pop-in pop-out.

Shooters are not DUKE NUKEM or COVER-BASED, thankfully. And as I liked playing half-stealth, half-shooter mode in Deus Ex, I'm wondering whether I can expect the same quality of the shooting action. Judging from Jack's reply it seems I can't, and that it does play like Mass Effect 2 during the shooting.

If anyone will claim otherwise I'd love to hear why. I'm still really hoping for a good game . The fact that Sniper Rifles are in gives me some measure of hope, I guess, though they were also in ME2 and functioned pretty much like any other weapon except for their aim.

 

[SoupNazi]

Actually yeah you can. Enemies will always try to pursue your position as - unless you pop out of cover every now and then to prevent them from doing so - they will lose sense of your actual location and try to "find" you. So let's say you are hiding behind a container on the street after having shot a thug. You just hide there, do nothing, but the enemy group saw you retreating there.

They will cautiously walk toward your cover both through the frontal approach and if they have enough men, some will try to flank you at which point unless you retreat or shoot (blindly or accurately) to force them back, they'll kill you easily.

Of course this doesn't work in every area so there are instances where for example you can camp a doorway with just one entrance and they will never pursue you but on the other hand they also won't try to stupidly run through the door only to be killed (like they did in the original game) so it's all good.

It's definitely not a Gears of War cover-based shooter where both parties stay behind the same "level" of cover and just popamole each other. It's more like in the Rainbow 6 Las Vegas games where the enemy will, whenever possible, try to assault you or outflank you.

Edit: and yeah you can take a silenced sniper rifle and eliminate an entire area from a high spot with ease (perhaps too easy), no problems and you never even get in their reach

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

In fact they don't even know where you're shooting from with a silenced sniper rifle. Which makes it super easy to kill them since you snipe a dude in the head and his bros get into ALERT SEARCHING pose and you snipe them at your leisure.

 

[baronjohn]

In fact they don't even know where you're shooting from with a silenced sniper rifle. Which makes it super easy to kill them since you snipe a dude in the head and his bros get into ALERT SEARCHING pose and you snipe them at your leisure.

The silenced sniper rifle, double barreled shotgun and the auto unlocking tool are shitty pre-order bonuses. Throw them out and enjoy the game like it was meant to be before marketing butted in.

 

[someone else]

You can simulate getting a pre-order bonus in many games by editing your stats. Just give yourself a 5000 XP bonus.

 

[Ulminati]

Ulm, how is the cover-based stealth and shooting affecting your gameplay experience? That's what mainly makes me go

Keep in mind that I do have an XBawks and I don't froth at the mouth with incoherent rage when I'm allowed to enter cover.

That said, I didn't mind the cover one bit. You can ignore it entirely, unbind the key and just crouch+move, although it wil make some sections slightly trickier. You have a small radar in the lower left corner that shows you the facing of nearby guards, so the vision-around-corners information that sticky cover gives is available in first person mode too.

Some of the stealth sections will be a lot easier if you stick to cover though. The AI is slightly more lenient with spotting one of your polygons when you're in cover, and the moving from cover to cover animation 1) Is faster than your normal movement speed when crouched and 2) Won't over/undershoot the distance you move when timing is tight.

It's the same as the Quest Compass, (T)wesome button and Glowing Outlines. I don't paticularly mind them. If you do, you can toggle glowing lines and quest compass off, and you can still complete the game without melee takedowns (stun gun is OP anyway) and using cover.

Headshots are pretty much guaranteed kills, so it's possible for you to step around a corner, pop peoples heads off and retreat. Be aware that on highest difficulty - which is what a Codex Bro will play naturally - a single burst of enemy fire will probably kill you dead. So cover does become essential in several parts of you're not stealthing. That said, groups of enemies have an annoying tendency to try and flank you or lob grenades at you when you're in cover.

I only got a tiny taste of the gunplay though. I completed everything except the last boss fight using stealth, (T)wesome Button and a tranquilizer rifle. The last boss fight I completed using hiding from the boss and popping explosive barrels and pressurized bottles with a silenced pistol when he got near them while searching for me.

My suggestion is get the unofficial demo, ignore the intro (it's very popamolish) and play the first mission. There aren't too many spoilers, it's pretty short and it'll give you a good sense of the gunplay. Muck about a bit in the hub afterwards if you want to relive some of the good old multiple-approaches situations. The Detroit hub is easily on par with Hells Kitchen or Hong Kong. The second non-hub mission (after you hack the antenna) is kinda spoilerish, so don't play it if you don't want huge spoilers.

 

[J1M]

In fact they don't even know where you're shooting from with a silenced sniper rifle. Which makes it super easy to kill them since you snipe a dude in the head and his bros get into ALERT SEARCHING pose and you snipe them at your leisure.

The silenced sniper rifle, double barreled shotgun and the auto unlocking tool are shitty pre-order bonuses. Throw them out and enjoy the game like it was meant to be before marketing butted in.

The shotgun is worse than the default one, and I'm pretty sure that unlock device is the multitool of this game so having an extra isn't going to matter. The only thing that was basically a cheat code in that list of bonuses was the silenced sniper rifle.

The quiet sniping items (crossbow, dart gun) are harder to aim and have other tradeoffs to balance them against the default sniper rifle (which cannot accept the silencer mod).

 

[baronjohn]

The unlocking tool is a preorder bonus. I don't think it's in the standard game. And it's a huge cheat.

 

[Jack]

Of course this doesn't work in every area so there are instances where for example you can camp a doorway with just one entrance and they will never pursue you but on the other hand they also won't try to stupidly run through the door only to be killed (like they did in the original game) so it's all good.

I'd really like that to be true, but it isn't. During my guns blazing walkthrough I utilized that precise tactic, and it worked wonders, literary everyone in the room came after me trough the one door, even the snipers in the FEMA base. I could easily pop their moles one by one, even the old hide behind the door trick also still works.
If you disregard the stealth in this game completely it really is not better than your average chest-high-wall and over-the-shoulder-camera shooter in any way.

 

[sah]

In fact they don't even know where you're shooting from with a silenced sniper rifle. Which makes it super easy to kill them since you snipe a dude in the head and his bros get into ALERT SEARCHING pose and you snipe them at your leisure.

That's a huge waste of sniper rifle ammo. I found very little of it during my playthrough. None of the merchants was selling it.

 

[SoupNazi]

I'd really like that to be true, but it isn't. During my guns blazing walkthrough I utilized that precise tactic, and it worked wonders, literary everyone in the room came after me trough the one door, even the snipers in the FEMA base. I could easily pop their moles one by one, even the old hide behind the door trick also still works.
If you disregard the stealth in this game completely it really is not better than your average chest-high-wall and over-the-shoulder-camera shooter in any way.

I remember several instances where I tried this and it never worked:

in the FEMA base, after you take the elevator down and pass through a few doors you reach a room with a security console, and the room after it has enemies. I hid behind the door, popped a mole but the rest of them just took cover behind the crates nearby and kept firing in my direction to suppress me and prevent me from popping any more. I had to fall back to draw them out and then rush back in.

in the police station when I was caught snooping around and I instinctively punched the guy across the face, but someone saw me. I hid on the toilets and again tried popping moles through the door but after the two guys who came up first died, the rest stayed down the hall hiding behind pillars and corners, utilizing the same tactic as above.

It would of course be way cooler if they knew their own way around the police station for example and tried to send two guys around the building to flank me but then again which game does that. In original Deus Ex they would just run through the door and you could line up headshots while leaning from behind cover.

 

[Data4]

So... anyone figure out the mouse dealie? I've played with the sensitivity settings and tried turning vsync off, but it's still laggy as hell. I want to check this thing out, but if I can't get some real-time mouse response, it's not even worth the hassle.

 

[Twinkle]

A*I* is limited by the Invisible Wall. There are some doors that they'll never ever pass while "looking" for a troublemaker.

I hid on the toilets and again tried popping moles through the door but after the two guys who came up first died, the rest stayed down the hall hiding behind pillars and corners, utilizing the same tactic as above.

So? Stop firing and they'll forget about your existence after 30 seconds or so.

Glad to know you can't actually tell the difference between Deus Ex and Gears of War. Ah, the intellect of Codex members.

Maybe it's because the shooting part is ripped straight from R6V, eh?

The alternative - stealth approach is just as formulaic and primitive. It doesn't even account lighting, sound is unimportant as long as you remain in crouched position, use silenced weapons and don't throw fridges around for lulz. Heck, it uses cone of vision check and nothing more. Watching ridiculous Twesome animations doesn't help either.

 

[Jaedar]

My Impressions of the leak are quite positive, way more positive than I thought. I went in expecting a piece of shit and found a game that was quite good. Not as good as the original, I'd argue its not even close, but still quite good.

Health regen sucks but inventory space is really limited so I guess that kinda makes up for it in a way. Resources in general seem quite sparse except for cash(you start with enough to buy everything in the game). Cover can also be ignored most of the time which is a blessing.
The map design is a large improvement over the standard corridor, but still ultimately linear: it's a linear progression of rooms with multiple entrances/exits instead of a linear progression of rooms that is standard.

A nonlethal stealth approach seems hugely favored by the devs though as you get way more experience that way: minimum of 30 instead of the maximum 20 a lethal kill gives. And the bonuses for "Ghosting". Will probably end up buying this on release. AI is simultaneously impressive and retarded, just like in the original.
Score: /

Has anyone managed to find the crossbow by the way? I can't seem to locate it.

 

[Jack]

So... anyone figure out the mouse dealie? I've played with the sensitivity settings and tried turning vsync off, but it's still laggy as hell. I want to check this thing out, but if I can't get some real-time mouse response, it's not even worth the hassle.

I never had any issues what so ever with the mouse control, what is the problem?

Has anyone managed to find the crossbow by the way? I can't seem to locate it.

It's here, or at least in that area, if I remember correctly.

 

[Data4]

So... anyone figure out the mouse dealie? I've played with the sensitivity settings and tried turning vsync off, but it's still laggy as hell. I want to check this thing out, but if I can't get some real-time mouse response, it's not even worth the hassle.

I never had any issues what so ever with the mouse control, what is the problem?

For me and others in the thread, the mouse lags. You move it and there's a delayed response in the game. Very disorienting for me, as I'm susceptible to motion sickness. When mouse movement and screen response are in sync, I have no problem, but if there's even the slightest disconnect, vertigo sets in pretty quickly. It's literally preventing me from being able to play.

 

[Ulminati]

Health regen sucks but inventory space is really limited so I guess that kinda makes up for it in a way. Resources in general seem quite sparse except for cash(you start with enough to buy everything in the game).

You start the game with preorder bonuses in the form of a shotgun, a silenced sniper rifle and 10k credits. without those 3 things, I imagine you're going to be hurting for cash if you want to buy the praxis kits.

The map design is a large improvement over the standard corridor, but still ultimately linear: it's a linear progression of rooms with multiple entrances/exits instead of a linear progression of rooms that is standard.

In the factory and the last mission this is true. However, there are a bunch of different ways to go at the police station and the various sidequests in the detroit hub. If they stick to more hubs and less location-based missions, I'll be thrilled.

Has anyone managed to find the crossbow by the way? I can't seem to locate it.

It doesn't appear until you get the mission to retreive the murder weapon. Look at the map posted a few posts befor emine, or follow Comrade Quest Compass to victory.

 

[Destroid]

So the pre-order bonus is like easy mode or cheating for weapons and money? cool.

 

[Jaedar]

Health regen sucks but inventory space is really limited so I guess that kinda makes up for it in a way. Resources in general seem quite sparse except for cash(you start with enough to buy everything in the game).

You start the game with preorder bonuses in the form of a shotgun, a silenced sniper rifle and 10k credits. without those 3 things, I imagine you're going to be hurting for cash if you want to buy the praxis kits.

I just dropped the sniper rifle and shotgun knowing they were preorder cheats. Had no idea about the 10k credits though. It seems to be better balanced then.

The police station was indeed the best part of the map design in the leak.

Has anyone managed to find the crossbow by the way? I can't seem to locate it.

It doesn't appear until you get the mission to retreive the murder weapon. Look at the map posted a few posts befor emine, or follow Comrade Quest Compass to victory.

What mission is that? I don't think I found it. Though I did not look very hard since the two sidequests I did find were not hidden at all.

 

[baronjohn]

You have to talk to a hooker across from Derelict Row and then go to the corrupt cop behind the police station who tells you to get it and then murder someone.

More weapons slightly out of the way: a rocket launcher in DR, and a group non-lethal weapon in the police station armory.

I found 3 quests in the hub,
- the woman who wants you to investigate her daughter's death
- the Sarif guy who's being blackmailed
- the undercover cop who wants you to do a bunch of stuff to get at another cop

are there any more?