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

[DalekFlay]

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]

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.

 

[Rarre]

I will buy this game soon... any recomended mod for the first time?

 

[Wunderbar]

I will buy this game soon... any recomended mod for the first time?

play without mods

 

[kangaxx]

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.

 

[samuraigaiden]

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

 

[Ash]

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.

 

[Butter]

Just replay SS2.

 

[Whisper]

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]

Because due to modern low iq design many games have higher difficulties making gameplay more tedious instead of more difficult/interesting.

 

[Average Manatee]

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.

 

[Zombra]

If you're playing Prey because you want a great combat shooter, you're doing it wrong in the first place.

 

[RoSoDude]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Multidirectional]

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]

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,

Spoiler

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.

 

[V_K]

Yeah, I love those complaints like "The game is too easy on my 10th playthrough!". Well, duh.

 

[Bad Sector]

The first time the Nightmare shows up

Spoiler

...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

Spoiler

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Ash]

lol the anti-balance crowd strikes again. Go play Bioshock if you want gameplay to have no strategy, challenge, interesting conflicting choices and about twenty other downsides as a result of zero balance you fucking casuals.