Arkane PREY - Arkane's immersive coffee cup transformation sim - now with Mooncrash roguelike mode DLC

[RoSoDude]

Fair call, however that also reminds me that you have no longer any progression to work towards either; you have all or nearly all the neuromods, weapon upgrades and whatever else by 2/3rds, so there's less payoff for all your janitorial clean up and recycle efforts. In the classics (Deus Ex, SS2, Arx Fatalis, New Vegas), you finish the game with roughly a little over half of the total upgrades obtained, leaving you clamoring for more till the very end, every single playthrough.

I agree with this, I had every human neuromod I cared about way before the end. Though if I were doing a psi playthrough I don't know how true that would be? Anyway this is a common issue nowadays, because a lot of people like 100%ing shit or just getting that master of all power trip. There was a recent thread on the GOG forum with people whining endlessly about games that don't let you 100% your stats.

lol the psi playthrough is even worse about this because installing alien Neuromods builds up a chance to spawn the Nightmare and at some point you'll just melt it with your mind powers for free Exotic material.

The overabundance of neuromods was easily my biggest gripe with the game. The devs were a little too generous with them, but I guess they have to pander to the masses nowadays. I'll be installing a hardcore mod the next time I play it.

Hi, my mod includes a module for halved recycle yield. It allows you to fill out about half the skill trees by the end, as it should be. Also makes loot more exciting and trash collecting more engaging, in my opinion.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It was the Zenimax suits that mandated the over-abundance of neuromods (along with a bunch of other things to reduce resource-scarcity and difficulty in general). Raph Colantonio said as much himself.

 

[DalekFlay]

Hi, my mod includes a module for halved recycle yield.

Do you compensate for this somehow for non-stealth human mod only playthroughs? Because I would have been out of ammo all the time with half the recycle yield.

 

[Wunderbar]

DalekFlay run away from enemies, or upgrade strength and use your wrench.

 

[RoSoDude]

Hi, my mod includes a module for halved recycle yield.

Do you compensate for this somehow for non-stealth human mod only playthroughs? Because I would have been out of ammo all the time with half the recycle yield.

Compensate? There's already too much ammo. I have another module that reduces how much you find by 25-33% that I use in conjuction with it, so that crafting ammo is an actual concern (in all my vanilla playthroughs I maybe crafted 3-5 boxes max). Human combat-focused builds should be upgrading firearm damage skills and get some engineering skills to modify and repair their weapons, which improves ammo efficiency. They should also expect to use the wrench and GLOO gun quite a bit, maybe Leverage to throw shit at enemies, and turrets are helpful too. Resources should be scarce by design.

 

[Zombra]

There's ... no dynamic enemy respawns

I’m pretty sure that’s not true. I know there are certain scripted respawns, but I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of logic the game looks at when you enter a map to figure out if it needs to spawn in mobs.

Yeah. I did a ton of backtracking throughout my playthrough and there were plenty of respawns. Not the insulting kind where you clear a room, step out, step back in and everything's reappeared ... more the System Shock 2 kind where stuff wanders back in sometimes to keep you on your toes. I thought it was done very well.

 

[Ash]

Not my experience. Once you clear an area, stay as long as you like to loot every inch. No dynamic spawns, you're completely safe. There's some scripted progression-based respawns for sure, but as far as I am aware that's it. Possibly also time-based on the condition that you leave the area via loading screen first (leave an area, commit to no story progression, just do some looting or whatever of the lobby and come back in 20 minutes) then maybe there's something, but it is in no way the System Shock 2 level of incline. That game has solid ratio of looting:combat+secondary gameplay elements

 

[JDR13]

If by "dynamic" you mean happening while you're present, no. I don't recall ever seeing a respawn happen in the same level while I was still in it. I'm pretty sure you have to transition between areas before any respawning will occur.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

If by "dynamic" you mean happening while you're present, no. I don't recall ever seeing a respawn happen in the same level while I was still in it. I'm pretty sure you have to transition between areas before any respawning will occur.

Yes, exactly.

 

[RoSoDude]

I'm very nearly sure that all enemy respawns in Prey are scripted based on story/quest progression. I can't say I've tested waiting and going between zones, but in all my experience backtracking through Talos 1, the only time I noticed any repopulation was after making some progress and returning to find a new set of enemies, like the Weavers in the Lobby, which is the same every playthrough. You certainly never end up with enemies dynamically roaming around and surprising you like in SS2 -- if you've cleared an area, it's basically guaranteed to be clear until you trigger some event to move things forward.

A less obvious reason that Prey is more interesting early on than later is that there are actually way more scripted enemy respawns too. Etheric Phantoms show up in the Hardware Labs after your spacewalk to find Calvino's keycard, and in the Lobby after you repair the looking glass screens, plus there are some Phantom scares I recall in Psychotronics that trigger once you go down certain hallways. You also have a bunch of cases where Mimics swarm into an area and some Voltaic Phantoms that march towards you on a trigger. By the time you get to Deep Storage, this stuff is more or less absent and you're given full initiative to take on your enemies while they're unaware. SS2 never let up with static enemy placements, dynamic respawns, and scripted ambushes for the entire game, which along with the general resource scarcity kept things from getting stale.

EDIT: there are the Nightmare spawns to throw you off after the Arboretum, but we all know how toothless it ultimately is. And the Military Operator spam, but that's monotonous and comes after the game's long run out of steam so I don't give it any points.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Well, I defer to RoSoDude. Apologies for the slander Ash.

 

[Ash]

There's next to no reason to return to an area even if there were time-based respawns anyways. Except at the end of course which forces it, by which time you're bored out of your skull.

...Unless you count the lobby of course, which serves as the main hub.

I guess that's not fair, there's some examples, but 90% of the time once you clear a level, even though you can backtrack, you're never going to return (until forced to at the end). And to be clear this isn't necessarily a bad or a good thing.

 

[JDR13]

I'm very nearly sure that all enemy respawns in Prey are scripted based on story/quest progression. I can't say I've tested waiting and going between zones, but in all my experience backtracking through Talos 1, the only time I noticed any repopulation was after making some progress and returning to find a new set of enemies, like the Weavers in the Lobby, which is the same every playthrough. You certainly never end up with enemies dynamically roaming around and surprising you like in SS2 -- if you've cleared an area, it's basically guaranteed to be clear until you trigger some event to move things forward.

There are definitely respawns that aren't new sets of enemies. I encountered it quite a bit in my playthrough.

 

[RepHope]

I wonder if we could actually get a Prey 2 now that MS owns Arkane. Game Pass means they don’t care as much about copies sold, Todd said so himself in that 4 way interview recently.

 

[Zarniwoop]

This thread is literally about Prey 2. The original came out years ago.

And it was way better.

 

[Ash]

Original PREY had a few creative aspects but as a game it was banal shit boring. Linear, bland, simple, easy, unengaging gameplay. Not that Modern Prey is significantly better but the moderate gameplay complexity at least distracts from its overall gameplay inadequacy (for a certain time).

Original PREY is like a stripped down Half-Life gameplay-wise (HL gameplay = 8/10), with more linearity, less weapons, less puzzles and platforming, less interactivity, less enemy types, fewer creative environmental gameplay ideas (e.g flooded office complex, desert minefield, low-g xen) and so on. It's rather mediocre but simply has a few cool moments, like the portal segments or the intro. It's weird how much love it gets in certain circles. Then again the masses "enjoy" far worse.

 

[Bad Sector]

In adventure games you get a single screen, at worst (if there's no hotspot highlighting) you just need to move your mouse a lot. You don't have to turn or move around to get it all.

In many adventure games you control a character and many of them also have scrolling screen (e.g. Broken Sword, which IIRC -it has been almost two decades since i played it- also doesn't have item highlighting, only the cursor changes shape if you move over an interactive item). But i wasn't really comparing adventure games with immersive sims in general, just mentioned that i prefer to hunt for items in 3D first person games than adventure games :-P.

I thought of whether it'd be better to stop at 100 but then decided to go all the way. The default 86 is definitely too small for me, for this particular game at least. I think that might actually have something to do with that I've written above about adventure games: high FOV means I don't have to move the camera that often and can parse the environment from a relatively static position.

Yeah, whenever possible i use around 100 to 105 degrees horizontal FOV - though that is mainly because i was used to ~90 degrees in 4:3 monitors in games like Quake and on a 16:9 monitor the equivalent is ~105 degrees.

I always play TES in third person, it's just easier for me that way.

Yeah i think our brains work very differently, personally i find third person perspective a bit harder for item hunting :-P. If anything i even put down/holster any gun i have (if the game allows for that) when exploring the map - i'm just a camera floating through space :-P.

 

[V_K]

Yeah i think our brains work very differently

I have dyspraxia, so no wonder they do. I need a third-person avatar as a reference point to assess distances and scales of things because my spatial awareness is shit. But that has more to do with reading level geometry than with finding things in it.

Broken Sword, which IIRC -it has been almost two decades since i played it- also doesn't have item highlighting

Funnily enough, I've just played it this year, but I don't remember either. I remember it being piss easy though, so it probably does - or maybe it's just the remaster.
Scrolling screens in adventures are still not the same though because they only extend on one axis (typically, left-right). In 3D games you have three axes, and also limited FOV, so that complicates things compared to Adventures.

 

[Lutte]

It's weird how much love it gets in certain circles.

It's just degenerates who can't forget about that video game that had vaginas and anuses for doors in a spaceship. I don't think original Prey would have even one whiff of retention in the collective memory of gamers if it were not for its... peculiar presentation, as it would be nothing but a run of the mill bogstandard decline fps otherwise.

 

[DalekFlay]

Compensate? There's already too much ammo. I have another module that reduces how much you find by 25-33% that I use in conjuction with it, so that crafting ammo is an actual concern (in all my vanilla playthroughs I maybe crafted 3-5 boxes max). Human combat-focused builds should be upgrading firearm damage skills and get some engineering skills to modify and repair their weapons, which improves ammo efficiency. They should also expect to use the wrench and GLOO gun quite a bit, maybe Leverage to throw shit at enemies, and turrets are helpful too. Resources should be scarce by design.

I don't really have any desire for it to be limited to only playing like a survival horror game. The joy in these games to me is all the options you have, all the different playstyles you can use. My human only shooter guy run was a fun one, and one you would remove from the game to suit your playstyle preferences, and it's just not something I gel with. But I respect your preferences of course.

Yeah, whenever possible i use around 100 to 105 degrees horizontal FOV - though that is mainly because i was used to ~90 degrees in 4:3 monitors in games like Quake and on a 16:9 monitor the equivalent is ~105 degrees.

A lot of first-person PC focused games did use 75ish though, which is 90 at 16:9. Deus Ex, Morrowind, Half-Life 2, etc. Doom 3 kept 4:3 90, but was one of the few to do so (as default) after those early days, in my experience. Which is better is of course subjective, but removed from the simplistic visuals of the Quake 2 era I do think 105 looks fisheye, personally.

 

[fantadomat]

I don't think original Prey would have even one whiff of retention in the collective memory of gamers

Yeah,the original was generic and forgettable fps shit. I am surprised at how many retards get butthurt about it.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Original PREY had a few creative aspects but as a game it was banal shit boring. Linear, bland, simple, easy, unengaging gameplay. Not that Modern Prey is significantly better but the moderate gameplay complexity at least distracts from its overall gameplay inadequacy (for a certain time).

Original PREY is like a stripped down Half-Life gameplay-wise (HL gameplay = 8/10), with more linearity, less weapons, less puzzles and platforming, less interactivity, less enemy types, fewer creative environmental gameplay ideas (e.g flooded office complex, desert minefield, low-g xen) and so on. It's rather mediocre but simply has a few cool moments, like the portal segments or the intro. It's weird how much love it gets in certain circles. Then again the masses "enjoy" far worse.

Get rekt.

The original Prey was by no means some kind of Citizen Kane of Gaming® but it had many unique mechanics such as all the gravity shenanigans and turning into a magic spirit injun in order to solve puzzles. It also had a much more coherent story.

The new one IS a generic FPS. It's basically a cross between Half-Life and System Shock 2 (it even has HEADCRABS for fuck's sake), with the only thing distinguishing it from any other FPS being the cum-cannon.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I don't think original Prey would have even one whiff of retention in the collective memory of gamers

Yeah,the original was generic and forgettable fps shit. I am surprised at how many retards get butthurt about it.

Most "gamers" these days are Millennial wastes of skin. They don't even remember what happened last week or a time before the iphone 8.

Game publishers take advantage of this all the time, for example their shit naming of games/consoles/other products after ones that already exist or even intentionally choosing confusing names in order to pretend it's the first.

Like Prince of Persia 7 being called Prince of Persia
or like Prey 2 being called Prey
Or the 3rd Xbox being called the Xbox One
or like the fourteenth Battlefield game being called Battlefield 1.

Gamers are retards with short attention spans, this doesn't mean anything.

 

[RoSoDude]

I don't really have any desire for it to be limited to only playing like a survival horror game. The joy in these games to me is all the options you have, all the different playstyles you can use. My human only shooter guy run was a fun one, and one you would remove from the game to suit your playstyle preferences, and it's just not something I gel with. But I respect your preferences of course.

Well, good thing I didn't just "remove" it from the game, then. The ammo reduction and halved recycling yield changes were put in optional add-on modules for a reason -- I viewed them (along with the module that removes operator restoration) as a proper hardcore difficulty mode that you can select of your own choosing, while the base mod only contains balance changes that don't make the game harder or easier overall.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well, good thing I didn't just "remove" it from the game, then. The ammo reduction and halved recycling yield changes were put in optional add-on modules for a reason -- I viewed them (along with the module that removes operator restoration) as a proper hardcore difficulty mode that you can select of your own choosing, while the base mod only contains balance changes that don't make the game harder or easier overall.

That's good, but I was obviously responding to your "I halved this and that" statement, which is the only thing I was replying to.