Lord Azlan is angry about Alpha Protocol

[Raghar]

Well, of course you can use armor cover and that skill for SMGs... Well don't expect they would solve that bastard with machinegun situation, but in close against multiple soldiers they are decent.

The reason for that pistols is they wanted to allow certain archetypes, you can select, and wanted gameplay to be viable for every of them. Otherwise it would be going with assault riffle, going with assault riffle, going with assault riffle.

Recruit has easier difficulty when you don't click screw up training by an accident, otherwise first three missions are hell. Veteran is fun. (Note they lower difficulty for recruit, and they would increase difficulty for veteran. But veteran can do certain things in missions.)

 

[Lord Azlan]

Why does AP feel so annoying at the start of the game? I feel like that's actually most of why it failed commercially, because it just feels like a blank wall of annoyance for the first part of the game

2) ...the fact that the minigames start off as hard as they will ever get in the tutorial/first part of the game (since you will shortly get much better at them and can cheaply unlock a perk to make them easier) when you have no idea what's going on with them yet. On PC this is especially bad because the controls are a complete hack that has zero connection to mouse and keyboard conventions. I think the minigames are actually fairly good as those things go, even on PC, considered on a whole-game basis.

Once it gets rolling my problems with it shifted to the story and setting more than the gameplay.

I am afraid it is probably one mini game in particular that encourages most players to hit the escape key, exit the game and curse themselves for buying this trash.

This WORDSEARCH with moving letters probably is the only mini game in the whole of PC gaming history that wipes out a large proportion of it potential player base in one stroke. And we have not spoken about the inept control method to solve it. Puke.

I am afraid to say even Dishonored - a game I tried to uninstall but my kids liked a lot - is better.

And, and, even any of the Bioshocks is better - sorry - it's just my opinion.

I think if I wanted to explore a decent chat malarkey thing I would just speak to anyone in my family or anyone at work.

Decent game - I hardly think so. Kick it out.

I am currently playing the final retail version of LoX having played the pre release game a lot and that is just a perfect little gem of a game - I think my game of the year so far - better than WL2, M&M IX, Blackgaurds (these are the games I have played thus far).

I would like to start a petition to kick AP out and put LoX in. Sign below

I confirm that under no influence (from Lord Azlan) that from my good RPG sense and experience accumulated since the 1980s or 1990s, that Alpha Protocol should be evicted from the Codex all time RPG list and replaced by Lords of Xulima. LoX has decent music that you can hum along, good blobbness, herb picking, BETTER MINIGAMES and even better weapons.

Lord Azlan

 

[Durandal]

Is there some explanation from Obsidian that can explain pistols being forty miles better than anything else in the game and capable of instablicking all bosses? Is it a bug or something?

Balance is the last thing a developer thinks about when developing a singleplayer RPG in an extremely short span of time. They just gave every weapon category one Active Skill that looked cool on paper. Chain Shot was supposed to be like the Mark 'n Execute from SC: Conviction, Bullet Hail was supposed to recreate the feeling of bottomless magazines in Hollywood action flicks, for the shotgun they probably couldn't think of anything else but adding guaranteed knockdowns, and the Assault Rifle got a pathetic aim assist skill that didn't do anything in the PC version.
There's also the fact that you ALWAYS line up headshots with Chain Shot, giving you a damage multiplier for several shots. Other skills don't really have that benefit, as SMGs recoil everywhere, the shotgun spread isn't small enough to shoot every pellet in someone's head from a medium distance, and the assault rifle is just the assault rifle.

 

[Lhynn]

Balance was never a problem in Alpha protocol, chain shot was OP, but no one in their right mind would actually use a pistol outside of that skill.
Shitty gameplay was the only real problem this game had.

 

[Durandal]

Did you forget about Critical Hits? Just aim your pistol at an enemy's head for 1.5 - 3 seconds and you have an instant kill. Slap on a silencer, and nobody will even hear it.

 

[Lhynn]

Did you forget about Critical Hits? Just aim your pistol at an enemy's head for 1.5 - 3 seconds and you have an instant kill. Slap on a silencer, and nobody will even hear it.

I dont see that as a problem, you had p. much the same ability in RDR and no one complained. The shitty movement, how hard it was to even aim, and all the other myriad of problems that plagued the gameplay were simply more important than some skill, balanced or otherwise. If anything the game is actually playable thanks to teh "I-Win" buttons.

 

[Infinitron]

Balance is the last thing a developer thinks about when developing a singleplayer RPG in an extremely short span of time.

But Alpha Protocol was in development for like 4 years.

They just really had no idea what they were doing

 

[Durandal]

Really? I thought it was like only 2 years after SEGA forced them to release it because they had to release SOMETHING in that fiscal quarter. At least thats what it felt like.

 

[Roguey]

Is there a way to set up SMGs so they're decent? If you go all out on recoil will the spread cone max out at something useable or does it just make it so you can hold a burst for an extra picosecond before bullets start flying from your gun at a 90 degree angle (SMGs are bad)

IME SMGs didn't feel good until about 8 ranks into the skill.

Balance was never a problem in Alpha protocol, chain shot was OP, but no one in their right mind would actually use a pistol outside of that skill.

Um, eventually you're able to line up headshots without ever leaving cover, which is an extremely useful ability to have in a cover shooter.

Really? I thought it was like only 2 years after SEGA forced them to release it because they had to release SOMETHING in that fiscal quarter. At least thats what it felt like.

The ink was signed in 2006, released in 2010.

The handy Obsidian state listing to verify it:

Delaware - Knights of the Old Republic 2
Pennsylvania - Neverwinter Nights 2
New Jersey - Seven Dwarves
Georgia - Alpha Protocol
Connecticut - Aliens
Massachusetts - Mask of the Betrayer (see this is mid-to-late 2006 right here)
Maryland - Dungeon Siege 3
South Carolina - Storm of Zehir
New Hampshire - New Vegas
Virginia - Onyx-engine downloadable space trucker action RPG
New York - South Park
North Carolina - Canceled Sawyer project, possibly published by Microsoft
Rhode Island - ?
Vermont - Canceled UE3 sci-fi RPG worked on from January-April 2011

 

[Lhynn]

Um, eventually you're able to line up headshots without ever leaving cover, which is an extremely useful ability to have in a cover shooter.

Yeap, but i never actually bothered, chain shot+stealth makes combat mostly interactive cinematics, and thanks fucking god for that, allows me to get to the good parts faster.

 

[Roguey]

Those can't be the only things you use because they have 1 minute-or-45 second/2 minute-or-90 second cooldowns and Brilliance only works once before it cools down for 4 minutes.

 

[Lhynn]

Those can't be the only things you use because they have 45 second/2 minute-or-90 second cooldowns and Brilliance only works once before it cools down for 4 minutes.

Not sure what fight could last that long, but its easy enough to hide during that time, unless you are going against brayko. I even hid and insta beat any enemy during the last fight to get to where the final enemy is, no need to actually fight.

 

[Roguey]

Doesn't really get you there faster then, does it?

 

[Lhynn]

Doesn't really get you there faster then, does it?

Than having a shootout? sure it does, takes like 50 seconds to reach that place, 30 seconds invisibility + brilliance are enough.

 

[Raghar]

Well you can spike Bravko cocaine. Then he basically offs himself.

The most difficult fight is defeating Malburgh in CQC.

 

[kazgar]

Installed this the other week, any non-1eyeking build tips or is it all overpowered and boring and i should just play it once and get it over with?

 

[Diggfinger]

I want to be a true Codexian!

Don't we all!!


- Digg

 

[Gozma]

Installed this the other week, any non-1eyeking build tips or is it all overpowered and boring and i should just play it once and get it over with?

Pistols and high stealth are grossly overpowered and will make the game unfun. Chain shot (pistol) instakills everything and the invisibility power doesn't break on a stealth kill. Meaning you can turn it on and stealth kill everyone in a room. Either bugs they never got a chance to patch or stuff to help the people that wouldn't stop complaining when it launched.

Five pips of stealth (30 points) gets you permanent awareness, which gives every enemy a facing marker over their head that you can see through walls - that's really strong. You also get a basic silent footsteps power that lets you get occasional stealth kills when you're wearing unstealthy armor and a 1-second automatic invisibility power that takes a lot of frustration out of the game. The game's classes start with pips in whatever skills, but if you remove them they all start with 31 skill points so anyone can start with 5 stealth and then build up everything else.

Pick one of shotgun, assault rifle, or punchmastery. Put points in it and run around shooting/punching shit and wearing real non-ninja armor. There is close to no reason to ever play it like a full stealth game where you sneak up on guys and choke them a billion times. There's no penalty for running through a level not caring about alarms. If you don't take any punchmastery carry shock traps or flashbangs for the occasional situation where you don't want to kill people. The assault rifle power is near useless but the guns are very good. If you want to use SMGs you should probably unlock veteran for it because they're total shit until you've invested a lot of resources in them.

Don't play on Hard unless you've beaten it before. The main reason being that it makes the minigames incredibly difficult, and if you do anything wrong with your build the bosses might be way harder than they oughta be.

 

[Lhynn]

I never found the gameplay in AP good enough to make my character shittier for the sake of experiencing more of it.

 

[Gozma]

I think AP gameplay, modulo completely broken shit, is legit fun and complementary to the RPG stuff. I guess the stealth might also suck more than other stealth games, possibly, but I'm so sick of waiting for computer men to turn around on their endlessly repeated patrol route so I can crouch walk behind them and play a choke animation I can't be bothered with it in anything anymore.

I don't play that many action games other than Dark Souls and fighting games so I don't have much FPS/3rdPS taste, so take that as thou wilt.