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

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
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.

I guess it's not entirely obvious that a module = modular thing that is optional, but:
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.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
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New Vegas
Yes well, I was asking if the module accounted for the varied playstyles, and then said I wouldn't be interested in the module because of it doesn't. But yes, it's cool that it's optional, kudos.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
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.
I guess that depends on how you look at the screen. If you try to take the whole image in, then of course 100-120 is too much. But personally I just tend to concentrate on the central section of the screen and leave the sides to peripheral vision, more or less like in real-life field of view. It just feels more natural to me that if I have to take a glimpse to the side, I move my eyes and not the mouse. So if I set the game's FOV to 90, that would narrow down my actual FOV to 40-50, which is way too small.
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,385
Location
Atop a flaming horse
I will buy this game soon... any recomended mod for the first time?

Personally I'd say just play it vanilla. I can't remember whether the survival status effects are available until you've unlocked NG+, but if you can put them in from the beginning it increases the challenge (not a huge amount though).

I liked this game a lot, have fun.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
Underwhelming game with tons of potential. Better than most AAA these days but still manages to disappoint. If possible I'd have definitely played first playthrough with mods if that were an option at the time of release and I somehow knew in advance the game was disappointing. I've still not played it with mods because none can truly address even half the games major issues, but in a few years I'll try RoSoDude's core balance. Balance is one major issue of many so it's for sure on my radar.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
I will buy this game soon... any recomended mod for the first time?

I felt the game was too easy on normal in my first playthough. Quickly restarted on Nightmare difficulty and had a blast. Amazing game

Why would anyone play games on Normal?

It is codeword of "easy" in devs language. You should always start on highest difficulty unless you want to be bored of left-clicking your path to victory.
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,523
Because due to modern low iq design many games have higher difficulties making gameplay more tedious instead of more difficult/interesting.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,152
The problem with vanilla Prey is that Normal vs. Nightmare doesn't do anything except change damage modifiers. You'll still eventually become a god of everything with infinite resources, you'll just quick save and quick load on Nightmare when in the early game you die in 2-3 hits. SS2 did the same thing with making the player easily killed, and it IMO went too far on the highest difficulty, but it also greatly amped up the cost of upgrades and buying supplies from replicators, and deleted a few of the stronger early game "freebies" lying around. Prey does none of this. In fact I'd go so far to say that if you are good at Prey you wouldn't even notice the difference between normal and nightmare, because you've figured out how to avoid getting hit ~80% of the time and if you're not getting hit everything else feels the same. I'm not even sure if Nightmare lowers the damage you deal to enemies and thereby changes your bullet economy. If it does it's almost unnoticeable.

Rosodude's mod does go to some lengths to fix this.
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
I will buy this game soon... any recomended mod for the first time?

I'd recommend my CORE BALANCE mod as I took great efforts to preserve the original design while subtly tweaking character upgrade and resource balance, but you have no context to verify my claims, as is always the case with installing mods blindly.

I would at least recommend Detailed Tooltips, which adds some more numerical detail to things like perk descriptions, as well as the Prey Interface Customizer, which allows greater customization of HUD elements, which are rather cluttered in the vanilla game. Arkane added some options to remove a few HUD elements post-release, but it's not as extensive.

The problem with vanilla Prey is that Normal vs. Nightmare doesn't do anything except change damage modifiers. You'll still eventually become a god of everything with infinite resources, you'll just quick save and quick load on Nightmare when in the early game you die in 2-3 hits. SS2 did the same thing with making the player easily killed, and it IMO went too far on the highest difficulty, but it also greatly amped up the cost of upgrades and buying supplies from replicators, and deleted a few of the stronger early game "freebies" lying around. Prey does none of this. In fact I'd go so far to say that if you are good at Prey you wouldn't even notice the difference between normal and nightmare, because you've figured out how to avoid getting hit ~80% of the time and if you're not getting hit everything else feels the same. I'm not even sure if Nightmare lowers the damage you deal to enemies and thereby changes your bullet economy. If it does it's almost unnoticeable.

Rosodude's mod does go to some lengths to fix this.

Accurate description of Prey's difficulty design. Because combat is built on stunlocking, Nightmare just means you save more often to avoid getting one-shot, which means in turn that you never touch your stack of medkits.

For reference, Story/Easy/Normal/Hard/Nightmare difficulty affects the following in the vanilla game:
  • Damage taken from most sources: 0.1/0.5/1.0/1.4/1.6x
  • Damage taken from crush and laser sources: 0.4/0.7/1.0/1.2/1.4x
  • Suit damage received: 0.25/0.25/1.0/1.0/1.0x
  • Health/psi from consumable items: 2.0/1.2/1.0/0.8/0.8x
  • Damage dealt by the player: 1.25/1.1/1.0/1.0/0.8x
Damage is reduced by 20% on Nightmare, which matters a little, but not that much.
 

samuraigaiden

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
1,954
Location
Harare
RPG Wokedex
On Normal I was able to kill a Phantom with a wrench on my first try. Nightmare difficulty doesn't allow this kind of sloppy approach.
 

Israfael

Arcane
Joined
Sep 21, 2012
Messages
3,580
I don't know what kind of game people were playing, but it's quite easy to become a god in SS2 (adrenaline overproduction + agility boost + other buffs) that kills everything left and right with no damage taken and runs like a husain bolt. Adding balance to such games just makes them too boring, in my opinion. I played the game without investing a single point into the combat tree and it was mostly fine, especially before you get the materials to upgrade shotgun to the highest levels.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,307
Adding balance to such games just makes them too boring, in my opinion.

Yeah it's kinda same for me, I don't really mind becoming very powerful at later stages of RPG playthrough as long as it properly kicks my ass in the early to mid game so I feel like actually I deserve a fucking break after all the upgrading. RPGs that do this "from rags to riches" journey in the most satisfying manner become among my favorites. Prey's problem is that it feels too easy to become powerful quickly when you know what your are doing.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Prey's problem is that it feels too easy to become powerful quickly when you know what your are doing.
Emphasis mine. I sort of liked that. The game is more about learning things as a player than upgrading from the crowbar to the pistol to the shotgun to the rocket launcher.

The first time the Nightmare shows up,
you have no fucking idea how many hit points it has or how much damage it does, so you run.
Later, once you get the tools and the confidence to dissect the situation, you learn that killing them is not that big a deal.
Isn't this a perfectly good and valid way for a player to gain power and agency? The only thing that would ruin it is if you read a guide (or too many Codex spoilers) beforehand, in which case that's your fault anyway.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
2,223
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The first time the Nightmare shows up

...i hit it with my wrench until it died (which was very quickly since i had laser focused on making hitting stuff with the wrench the game's equivalent of a WMD) :-P
.

Of course i didn't mind that at all since
i put the effort on making this work and the game validated that effort
, which made me happy. And i like it when games make me happy.
 

kangaxx

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2020
Messages
1,385
Location
Atop a flaming horse
I don't know what kind of game people were playing, but it's quite easy to become a god in SS2 (adrenaline overproduction + agility boost + other buffs) that kills everything left and right with no damage taken and runs like a husain bolt. Adding balance to such games just makes them too boring, in my opinion. I played the game without investing a single point into the combat tree and it was mostly fine, especially before you get the materials to upgrade shotgun to the highest levels.

Absolutely right, although they could have tried to make paths other than "normal weapons" a bit stronger IMO. SS2 is still one of my favourite games ever, I shat my pants when I was a kid playing that.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Why would anyone play games on Normal?

It is codeword of "easy" in devs language. You should always start on highest difficulty unless you want to be bored of left-clicking your path to victory.

Some games on harder difficulties are absolute slogs filled with bullet-sponges and no real added fun or interesting mechanics. Cool that you want to flaunt some big dick energy though happy for ya.
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
Adding balance to such games just makes them too boring, in my opinion.

Yeah it's kinda same for me, I don't really mind becoming very powerful at later stages of RPG playthrough as long as it properly kicks my ass in the early to mid game so I feel like actually I deserve a fucking break after all the upgrading. RPGs that do this "from rags to riches" journey in the most satisfying manner become among my favorites. Prey's problem is that it feels too easy to become powerful quickly when you know what your are doing.

A good zero to hero curve is very satisfying. As you say, Prey's issue is you hit the hero part very quickly.

A lot of games have the same issue these days.
 

Israfael

Arcane
Joined
Sep 21, 2012
Messages
3,580
Absolutely right, although they could have tried to make paths other than "normal weapons" a bit stronger IMO. SS2 is still one of my favourite games ever, I shat my pants when I was a kid playing that.
Well, I'm not saying it is bad, it was actually fun to figure this out on my own. Of course, in our days of internet guides / wikipedias it's hard to discover something on your own, but it was good while it lasted. I'd say immersims were never about difficulty, but discovering means to your ends, figuratively speaking. For instance, if you cared about the balance in Prey, you'd have to remove the x-bow as it's too OP against those ballsacks of peace that explode in your face, one bolt is enough to destroy a swarm of them or even more if you can find it afterwards. Technopaths can be stunlocked to death with the shock gun (also too OP) and so on.
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
For instance, if you cared about the balance in Prey, you'd have to remove the x-bow as it's too OP against those ballsacks of peace that explode in your face, one bolt is enough to destroy a swarm of them or even more if you can find it afterwards.

The Huntress Boltcaster is a dinky useless waste of plastic. This post brought to you by Remote Manipulation + Leverage III gang.

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