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

[Latelistener]

Reducing material yield without redistributing neuromods throughout levels will probably make junk more valuable than neuromods. There are so many of them already you don't even need to fabricate them.

And exploring station in search of more junk to make ammo is not exactly super exciting. Ammo is among few things I was fabricating on Nightmare. Other things are recycling grenades and trauma kits. They didn't bother much distributing the latter, but even the fabrication plans for them placed kind of weird. I got Skeletal Repair Kit and Coagulation Gel fabrication plans only towards the end.

It's probably much easier to simply increase the cost of the abilities though and I assume that's what you did.

 

[RoSoDude]

I'm not following your reasoning whatsoever. If junk is worth less in terms of its crafting potential, then the directly useable resources found in the world become more valuable by comparison, no? What you choose to make with the junk you've recycled is more critical since you'll have much smaller stacks to draw from, but the junk itself is... half as useful. Put another way, cutting down your resources in general makes the acquisition and intelligent use of those resources more impactful, no matter the type.

Let's examine the Neuromod question. I think the amount placed in the world is perfectly fine. You need 218 Neuromods to max out the Human skill trees, and 159 to max out the Alien skill trees (so 377 total). There's something like 200 Neuromods to be found by the most avid explorers, which is enough to max out just over half of the skills. I would estimate most players find no more than 150 as they make their way through the station. How about fabricated Neuromods? Let's look at the exotic material drops from enemies:

• Mimics drop 0.1 exotic (0.15 with Necropsy)
• Greater Mimics drop 0.2 exotic (0.3 with Necropsy)
  
• Phantoms drop 0.3 exotic (0.4 with Necropsy)
  
• Poltergeists drop 0.6 exotic (0.8 with Necropsy)
• Weavers drop 1.5 exotic (2.25 with Necropsy)
• Telepaths drop 1.5 exotic (2.25 with Necropsy)
• Technopaths drop 1.5 exotic (2.25 with Necropsy)
• Nightmares drop 3.0 exotic (4.5 with Necropsy)

These all get multiplied by 1.2x with Materials Expert. Ignoring the 1 organic, 2 mineral, and 2 synthetic cubes you need in fabrication, 1 Neuromod costs 30 Mimics, or 15 Greater Mimics, or 10 Phantoms, or 5 Poltergeists, or 2 Weavers/Telepaths/Technopaths, or 1 Nightmare. If you have both Materials Expert and Necropsy, you'll get around 1.8 Neuromods from the same number of enemies (you can extend it even further by using recycler grenades on Typhon corpses and raising Phantoms from human corpses using Phantom Genesis). You'd be surprised how quickly all this adds up; including respawned enemies on later visits, most areas probably have at least 5 Neuromods worth of exotic material on enemies, or 9 with Materials Expert + Necropsy. So we could be looking at anywhere from 60 to 100 Neuromods from fabrication alone (or much more with compulsive recycling and Phantom raising) based on exotic material gathered over the game's 12 or so areas. That's a pretty significant chunk of total character progression!

With fabricated Neuromods cut in half in the optional module, both exploration and character development decisions become more important. I left the total amount of Neuromods needed to upgrade Morgan more or less the same (I think it's actually 1 less), only rebalancing skill costs relative to one another. This maintains the same level of challenge in the base mod, and in the hardcore module decelerates character progression only in the mid to late stages of the game (the early game was already pretty hardcore, and didn't need to see the player even more starved of tools and abilities). This keeps the difficulty curve in check and hopefully maintains the player's interest in crafting and character development for longer, which in my vanilla playthroughs waned due to the overabundance of resources and my character growth outpacing the insufficient challenges in my path. It doesn't fix the gaps in level design, enemy roster, weapon arsenal etc. but it does stave off boredom in the later sections a bit longer.

I'd agree that some fabrication plan placements need rethinking, particular for trauma-clearing items which are awfully tough to find, but if anything this points to the problematic aspects of limited fabrication licenses in the first place. Global yield scaling manages to keep things in check nicely without much additional complexity.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It’s worth noting that the trauma system was only fully implemented with the launch of Mooncrash; in the base launch it was an entirely neutered version. Not trying to excuse it, but it does explain why some of the fabrication plans for trauma items are so weirdly placed.

 

[Latelistener]

I'm not following your reasoning whatsoever. If junk is worth less in terms of its crafting potential, then the directly useable resources found in the world become more valuable by comparison, no? What you choose to make with the junk you've recycled is more critical since you'll have much smaller stacks to draw from, but the junk itself is... half as useful. Put another way, cutting down your resources in general makes the acquisition and intelligent use of those resources more impactful, no matter the type.

That sound like it, but it doesn't affect neuromods in any way because there are already too much of them. Simply put, you don't need to fabricate them. 200 neuromods... let's just say I found less candies (Big Bang Candy) on the station. You can easily max Hacking, Repair and Suit Modification in the early-mid of the game and those are the only critical skills I can think of. Add Combat Focus and you are basically a god in this game. Everything else is on the level of quality of life improvements and typhoon powers are on the weak side in my opinion. They aren't even that interesting, except for mimicry.

Let's examine the Neuromod question.

Yeah, but mineral and synthetic materials are always the bottleneck since they are used in ammo and unlike neuromods, ammo is an issue. Reduce everything by half and they will still be the bottleneck. The only way to get a sufficient amount of those is by recycling junk and operators. And hunting for those is not exactly an exciting prospect.

Reducing material yield is definitely needed in any case, but I don't think neuromod boredom can be fixed without further rebalancing.

 

[Atlantico]

No one is shitting on Dead Space. If anything I was praising it for a clear vision. It never stepped into that System Shock territory. Never gave us an open station and human AI to interact.

System Shock never gave you "human AI to interact", what are you talking about?

The Ishimura is about as "open" as the Von Braun, areas are locked until they're unlocked in both games. It's really bizarre what you think was "System Shock territory". I'm not shitting on anything, except your description of calling Dead Space a RE4 clone. It's really stupid.

Stupid to the point of meaninglessness. It's a regurgitation of other people's talking points, and doesn't offer any insight, as evidenced by your pussyfooting around making a simple definition on how one is "the clone" of another. Note that Average Manatee was wrong about almost every single definition he made.

As for it being RE4-like, you have a lot of QTEs, very explicit custom death animations for all of the various things you could be killed by, the RE4-style movement and aiming system, locational damage with different effects depending on what you shot, a focus on a linear order of areas where you are locked in while waves of enemies are spawned (as opposed to a more open world where you are expected to go anywhere at any time with random spawns being your primary opposition), the DS regenerator being a clone of the RE4 regenerator.

These are gameplay elements, except for some things you clearly misremember from RE4:

- very explicit custom death animations for all of the various things you could be killed by, is only found in DS.
In RE4 you can get decapitated, and it's always the same way. Otherwise it's basically always the same death. This is something distinct to DS and very very few other games, certainly not RE4.
- the RE4-style movement and aiming system
In RE4 you can't aim and move
- a focus on a linear order of areas where you are locked in while waves of enemies are spawned (as opposed to a more open world where you are expected to go anywhere at any time with random spawns being your primary opposition)
In System Shock 2, you are most certainly not allowed to waltz around freely, you are locked in areas until others are unlocked. There is a linear order of play in System Shock 2, on the same level as in DS. How long is it since you people even played these games?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Latelistener I haven’t yet had the free time to try RoSoDude’s mod, but I believe it seriously tempers the incredibly OP nature of Combat Focus.

 

[Average Manatee]

- very explicit custom death animations for all of the various things you could be killed by, is only found in DS.
In RE4 you can get decapitated, and it's always the same way. Otherwise it's basically always the same death. This is something distinct to DS and very very few other games, certainly not RE4.

- the RE4-style movement and aiming system
In RE4 you can't aim and move

Still the same system. It's not like strafing was some arcane unknown art in video games by that point.

- a focus on a linear order of areas where you are locked in while waves of enemies are spawned (as opposed to a more open world where you are expected to go anywhere at any time with random spawns being your primary opposition)
In System Shock 2, you are most certainly not allowed to waltz around freely, you are locked in areas until others are unlocked. There is a linear order of play in System Shock 2, on the same level as in DS. How long is it since you people even played these games?

In SS2 you have entire decks unlocked, sometimes multiple at once, and can generally run around in whatever order you wish for the most part. In DS and RE4 you are constantly locked in individual rooms that can only be traveled through in a linear order. It's totally different. Now granted the early levels of DS do still have some hint of an open world.

 

[Atlantico]

That video contains about 5 distinct death scenes and a whole lot of similar or identical death scenes. Sorry, but that's a world apart from the effort made in Dead Space.

It doesn't make Dead Space an RE4 clone either. That's the point, not that it's isn't obviously inspired by.

Still the same system. It's not like strafing was some arcane unknown art in video games by that point.

Yes, strafing wasn't an unknown art in video games at that point. Neither were distinct death scenes, btw.

A clone, however, would have the same system. The same need to stop, aim and shoot.

DS being called a RE4 clone, is just stupid.

DS being more linear than SS2, is reaching. The non-linearity of SS2 is largely an illusion, since you have to do everything, you just can sometimes to one thing before another. It's a way of telling a story, and doesn't affect gameplay in such a degree that the entire game can be defined by it.

The tempo of DS and RE4 are also quite different, where DS starts as a survival horror, but ends as an action game where you are truly powerful and a force to be reckoned with. That's more similar to SS2, which has that kind of tempo. RE4 is always a survival game, unless you know it by heart and know every secret and treasure.

So how about that Prey game?

 

[Average Manatee]

That video contains about 5 distinct death scenes and a whole lot of similar or identical death scenes. Sorry, but that's a world apart from the effort made in Dead Space.

It was an unusual thing to have in RE4's time. The fact that DS took a popular RE4 feature and did more of it is only logical

Still the same system. It's not like strafing was some arcane unknown art in video games by that point.

Yes, strafing wasn't an unknown art in video games at that point. Neither were distinct death scenes, btw.

A clone, however, would have the same system. The same need to stop, aim and shoot.

Again, it's an unusual system rarely found outside RE4. Not to mention that RE5 then went and used the same system.

DS being more linear than SS2, is reaching. The non-linearity of SS2 is largely an illusion, since you have to do everything, you just can sometimes to one thing before another. It's a way of telling a story, and doesn't affect gameplay in such a degree that the entire game can be defined by it.

Needing to finish the primary objectives of a game to win isn't exactly a litmus test for linearity. In SS2 you can go back to literally any previous level of the game until well into the Rickenbacker, which is ~85% of the way through the game. Can you ever do that in RE4 or DS, aside from the very short portions where the game forces you to retread steps?

The tempo of DS and RE4 are also quite different, where DS starts as a survival horror, but ends as an action game where you are truly powerful and a force to be reckoned with. That's more similar to SS2, which has that kind of tempo. RE4 is always a survival game, unless you know it by heart and know every secret and treasure.

lol, what? RE4, the game where you are suplexing monks by the midgame, with action hero QTEs everywhere and straight up firefights with minigunners and shit at the end. Where you can just blitz through buying a rocket launcher to one-shot every boss in the game, and where the Striker can hold 100 shells. All of these aren't reminiscent of an action game? By far both RE4 and DS are action games, SS2 is the survival horror game more in line with games like RE1.

 

[Atlantico]

Needing to finish the primary objectives of a game to win isn't exactly a litmus test for linearity. In SS2 you can go back to literally any previous level of the game until well into the Rickenbacker, which is ~85% of the way through the game. Can you ever do that in RE4 or DS, aside from the very short portions where the game forces you to retread steps?

You never need to retread steps in SS2, in other words, it's the illusion of choice and it's only purpose is to make the game seem larger than it is.

Bamboozling the player into thinking the game is larger than it is, can't really be described as a defining feature of SS2 as a game.

lol, what? RE4, the game where you are pile driving monks by the midgame

Yeah that one. That's more of a survival horror than the later levels of Dead Space.

Pile-driving and other QTE's don't make RE4 an action game, it's just a ham-fisted attempt to hide its terrible gameplay inadequacies when it comes to action.

All of these aren't reminiscent of an action game?

Not the way you have to stop, turret aim slowly and awkwardly, and shoot. No.

It reminds the player that RE4 is a terrible action game and the 5th chapter in the military installation is well beyond what the game design can tolerate.

By far both RE4 and DS are action games, SS2 is the survival horror game more in line with games like RE1.

I'm sorry what? SS2 at the end is you one-shotting everything with a wrench. That's how overpowered you are.

That's not counting the endless amount of firepower and healing at your disposal, as you mow down any and all opposition. After the midgame, there's nothing "survival" or "horror" about SS2. It's just unfair against the poor Collective.

 

[kangaxx]

I will say that if you play SS2 on impossible you don't tend to become completely OP, or certainly less so. I'd say that mode is pretty "survival horror".

 

[Atlantico]

I will say that if you play SS2 on impossible you don't tend to become completely OP, or certainly less so. I'd say that mode is pretty "survival horror".

If I play Trails in the Sky on "impossible" it's also a survival game. And that's a goddam jrpg.


Turn anything up to 11 and it's going to be a survival game, but that's not how the game itself is designed to be played.

In other words, on "impossible" you're playing the game outside its perimeters, not the way it was designed to be played. SS2 is a great survival horror game for almost half of the game, then it becomes an OP psionic death machine against a poor Collective unable to defend itself.

 

[kangaxx]

In other words, on "impossible" you're playing the game outside its perimeters, not the way it was designed to be played. SS2 is a great survival horror game for almost half of the game, then it becomes an OP psionic death machine against a poor Collective unable to defend itself.

If you aren't experienced at the game it's entirely possible to screw up your build and be the opposite of OP towards the end, particularly on the settings above the default. People forget this about SS2.

 

[Atlantico]

If you aren't experienced at the game it's entirely possible to screw up your build and be the opposite of OP towards the end, particularly on the settings above the default. People forget this about SS2.

It's true, putting everything into melee skills to bash mutants with the wrench probably doesn't *seem* like the way to become an OP god of smashing, but it pays off big time.

 

[Bad Sector]

I never played RE4 but when i first played Dead Space, the level design reminded me a lot of System Shock 2 (and that was before i learned that it was originally going to be a System Shock 3) so i can clearly see the association.

TBH calling DS a RE4 clone makes me want to play RE4 too, assuming it is the original Dead Space that was the clone and not the later games (that felt like big departures from the original and personally didn't like as much).

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

RE4 is the only RE game I’ve played. It’s not bad, but I found it to be overhyped.
In terms of comparison to Dead Space it has much worse writing and its combat is less fluid.

 

[Average Manatee]

TBH calling DS a RE4 clone makes me want to play RE4 too, assuming it is the original Dead Space that was the clone and not the later games (that felt like big departures from the original and personally didn't like as much).

The later DS games and the post-RE4 games follow the same trajectory.

 

[LudensCogitet]

Nice to see the Dead Space vs. RE 4 vs. System Shock 2 thread getting some love.

 

[Atlantico]

The later DS games and the post-RE4 games follow the same trajectory.

That trajectory was like this:

I really enjoyed both RE4, SS2 and DS and then came Prey. I've given up on Prey for now, halfway through or so.

Perhaps I'll give it another shot.

 

[Infeckted]

Giving the game a shot with the Core Balance Mod. After having logged 90sh hours in the game going to see how it plays. So far so good. I'll report how it's going.

 

[Infeckted]

At kelstrups office. So far everything seems to work well no bugs detected so far. I really dig the o2 meter starting no matter what suit integrity is at. Going to Calvino even tho I had plenty of time I was constantly monitoring the meter even with full suit integrity. I like that it adds a "oh shit I better do what ever the fuck I'm out here to do quick" even if the timer is plenty. I actually think the oxygen level could even be a bit lower(at least at full integrity)as there are plenty of air stations and the little oxygen bottles. Tooltip updates on the chipsets and mod trees are also nice and I think the choices on changing mod requirements feels appropriate. So far so good.

 

[Ivan]

NoClip time!

 

[Siel]

NoClip time!

Fucking hell Raf looks really affected in the last part you can guess all about this game and its reception made him quit Arkane and the AAA business.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It’s been heavily implied that Raf was forced to resign and his “quitting” was in now way voluntary.

 

[Siel]

drama