Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[Stark]

Shoot a guy - 20xp

'silent' takedown involving grunting, electrical shorts and flipping them into a crate = 50xp

With luck, it's sensitive to initial conditions (although with luck choosing guns and ROE isn't a really long, tedious conversation in retail) such that you're rewarded for following through and being stealthy when you wanted stealth etc.

Was the first game really static, with little but predictable and unsuspecting guards? I remember 'exciting' battles, I'm sure.

[Mr Bean]

The first game had mixed enemies from the all knowing all observing enemies who were spawned in to chase you down in some locations, to those who had pre-defined paths and it does not matter if you gunned down two dozen of his buddies and artfully arranged their bodies in a pyramid at one end of his patrol route he would freak out, run around a bit but in two or three minutes he'd go back to patroling and ignoring the fact there was a giant corpse pile he passed every few minutes. Then there were rare guards not set to patrol routes but set to specific tasks and those who could be interesting because they were set to zoned responsibility rather than route patrol meaning they could do a little bit more unpredictable things but they were still level limited, they never follow you into the grates and tunnels.

But yeah all of the games AI broke if you went the melee/stealth route and played the game like Thief. While invisible their AI might as well not even be turned on.

[Stark]

That's not very inspiring.

I notice it goes third person for cover. Isn't this a missed opportunity for immersive modifications? Peeking out of cover or just looking straight through it would have been neat.

It's a shame you can't just set third person all the time. Then it wouldn't need to change cameras everytime you did something 'cool'.

[Chardok]

That's not very inspiring.

I notice it goes third person for cover. Isn't this a missed opportunity for immersive modifications? Peeking out of cover or just looking straight through it would have been neat.

It's a shame you can't just set third person all the time. Then it wouldn't need to change cameras everytime you did something 'cool'.

How are you going to know it's cool if the action doesn't slow down to a snail's pace and the camera doesn't back out and sweep 360 degrees or offer up a static "cinematic" closeup angle so we can SEE the dued breaking the other dued's arm?

Imagination?!

AAHAHAHAHA you stupid, stupid man.

[Stark]

I guess we want immersion, but not when being immersed means we miss out on Michael Bay action excitement.

Remember third person cover in Thief 3? That's right, now you can look around corners. Hope you didn't like any of that tension whereby hiding generally reduced your ability to keep track of what was going on!

[Chardok]

I guess we want immersion, but not when being immersed means we miss out on Michael Bay action excitement.

Remember third person cover in Thief 3? That's right, now you can look around corners. Hope you didn't like any of that tension whereby hiding generally reduced your ability to keep track of what was going on!

There's a definite threshold, though, that devs should be mindful of with 1st person games.

That threshold is called Mirror's Edge. Forcing constant 1st person for the sake of "immersion" doesn't always work as a game mechanic.

[Stark]

That's not a perspective issue - since the whole point was 'third person movement in first person, body awareness, stupid colours' - but simply that the game was a bad idea.

Not that 'immersion' is some kind of catch-all excuse; it's just amusing that DEHR breaks first person for stupid shit like 'look at our SWEET TAKEDOWN BRO' and 'uh oh a crate here you can magically look over it' and doesn't just be a third person game because... third person is CONSOLIFIED.

[Tolya]

There's a definite threshold, though, that devs should be mindful of with 1st person games.

That threshold is called Mirror's Edge. Forcing constant 1st person for the sake of "immersion" doesn't always work as a game mechanic.

I actually liked Mirror's Edge. Visible limbs made it feel like it's an actual person running and doing all the stuff, not just a hovering camera that has a gun mounted on an artificial hand. And for some reason I thought the game wouldn't be better if it were a 3rd person game. ME's problem was that safety margin in some instances was too low. I read in the reviews people had problems with certain jumps, although I was driven to the aggravation point only once, when you had to make a huge leap from a crane to the next building. It literally took me 2 hours to get it right and I was close to giving up the game. But that wasn't the perspective problem, merely level design.

Actually I can't recall a game that was bad BECAUSE it had visible limbs. Hitman had visible limbs in 1st person, Bohemia Studios had that...

I may come from a pen&paper RPG background, but I really like visible limbs as it adds immersion for me.

[Stark]

Body awareness is only a part of the ME thing though; most games with an actual body don't have the high level of headbob and viewpoint movement.

Ironically, I read the other day that Far Cry 2's mapboard, body awareness and head movement were 'intrusive'. So what we learn is that random people just know 'immersive' is good and 'intrusive' is bad. I reckon proper first-person cover-peeking would have been a bit more interesting than generic cover 101.

[Tolya]

Ironically, I read the other day that Far Cry 2's mapboard, body awareness and head movement were 'intrusive'. So what we learn is that random people just know 'immersive' is good and 'intrusive' is bad. I reckon proper first-person cover-peeking would have been a bit more interesting than generic cover 101.

Speaking of cover, I find it amazing that almost no one has learned the valuable lesson that Vietcong taught: that you can make an effective cover peeking system from 1st person's perspective. I've watched the video review of FEAR 3 and noticed that they used it... other than that I can't think of any game that did so.

[Stark]

It's interesting you mention that, since Far Cry 3 appears to use that very system; dynamic height of crouch + aiming. At absolute worst, the same controls used in third person (ie, aim + direction = look that way) would work in first person, and you'd actually be limited by the shape and placement of cover instead of just magically seeing everything past the cover. AND it'd give scope for 'see through crates' technology, to make it easier or safer to observe from stealth. Managing the balance between exposing yourself and having a good view? Not immersive.

I mean, Gears might have the best cover system around, but hiding and perception isn't a factor in that game.

[Tolya]

It's interesting you mention that, since Far Cry 3 appears to use that very system; dynamic height of crouch + aiming. At absolute worst, the same controls used in third person (ie, aim + direction = look that way) would work in first person, and you'd actually be limited by the shape and placement of cover instead of just magically seeing everything past the cover. AND it'd give scope for 'see through crates' technology, to make it easier or safer to observe from stealth. Managing the balance between exposing yourself and having a good view? Not immersive.

I mean, Gears might have the best cover system around, but hiding and perception isn't a factor in that game.

The system Gears used was alright, but it was absolutely spoiled by level design. The moment you saw chest-high walls and obstacles you knew there would be something going on.

I liked how Rainbow Six Vegas managed that. While you couldn't for example jump over any obstacles, it just felt naturally.

As for peeking and exposure, SWAT 4 had a simple thing: an optiwand. It seems peculiar how stealth games nowadays are aimed at arcade-action games crowd. Stuff has to happen fast and you have to have the possibility to quickly and accurately assess your environment or else it will be a boring stealth game. Like in the latest installation of Splinter Cell, where not only you could see half of the map when tucked behind cover, but you could also fucking snapshot someone in the head from 20 meters just by sticking out your gun and not even looking.

Thief was a good example: you had to balance exposure and use audio information to judge what is going on. Peeking was dangerous. And add that fighting enemies was really difficult, it was just better to avoid them (especially later in the game). And when you were tucked in behind cover without knowing what is going on, then you really had immersion.

Now stealth games resemble simple platform games, where you just had to recognize the pattern to stay hidden/not fall off the map.

[weemadando]

Shoot a guy - 20xp

'silent' takedown involving grunting, electrical shorts and flipping them into a crate = 50xp

With luck, it's sensitive to initial conditions (although with luck choosing guns and ROE isn't a really long, tedious conversation in retail) such that you're rewarded for following through and being stealthy when you wanted stealth etc.

Was the first game really static, with little but predictable and unsuspecting guards? I remember 'exciting' battles, I'm sure.

That imbalance may also be a result of good design (but easily exploitable, so it makes it bad design), wherein someone who is stealthing might only have to take out 1/3 to 1/2 the number of guys that a combat monkey would in order to complete the level.

[Nephtys]

The problem is that 'real' stealth can be very frustrating for games not built around it as a core element. For example, Stealth WAS the point of Thief. So that's fine. Getting outnumbered in a fight lead to death.

In a game such as say, the rarely-mentioned Metro 2033, Stealth was vital yet was not a core element. There was no obvious gauge of how well you were doing except for guessing, which made it nerve wracking since at any moment, somebody shoots you with two AK bullets and you die if you're caught. This is the frustration aspect, which all these games really try their best to avoid, which unfortunately does lead to losing something in the process.

[Stark]

There was indeed an on-screen gauge. It's trivally easy to sneak through entire stations in Metro; the only 'difficulty' was that the badguys didn't have truncated vision cones and the level of exposure players are comfortable with in other games (like standing in the 'darkness' to look at hostiles facing them) isn't safe in the slightest.

If you're in a situation where you're sneaking past a bunch of guys at very close range (the only time you're likely to die quickly in Metro), it SHOULD be dangerous. 'Stealth' has simply come to mean 'immune to everything godmode easy alternative' and not 'amazingly dangerous risky attempt to avoid combat'. Stealth isn't 'supposed' to be hard; it's 'supposed' to be like in Splinter Cell, where you become literally invisible and untouchable and can rain doom on whoever you like, jumping in and out of practical invisibility like a superhero.

The 'frustration' just comes from a 'stealth run' being the A+ you win special award result. If you're spotted, you instantly 'fail', regardless of whether you're in any real danger. Someone sees you throw a guy out a window in Hitman? Ho hum, restart level. If the rewards for being low-profile were set up in a more balanced way, it wouldn't be such a big deal - but these games handle distraction about as well as they handle enemy AI. Amusingly, designing a game that allowed stealth like Uplink instead of like Hitman would allow specific instances of stealth to be used to gain long-term benefits, without requiring absurdity like 'kill everyone in this building one at a time while being magically invisible while they never, ever notice'.

[White Haven]

There's nothing wrong with Magical Near Invisibility if games that wanted to give the player that ability gave them invisibility. You want a character to be able to wander across a salt flat and never be seen? Fine. Give them magical invisibility. You want your ultratechninja to be able to ghost past guard posts in the tiniest of shadows? Give him an active-camo system. In other words, write your game to support the mechanics you want to be in the game.

[Stark]

Absolutely - especially in games like Bioshock, Crysis or Deus Ex where the whole hook is 'super powers'. Even Thief made you literally invisible in full darkness because of magic. All of those games managed to have more threat than games like Splinter Cell, where complete invincibility is never more than a ledge or drainpipe away.

I hope later in DEHR they get better ideas/implications of the cyber you can get, because they seem more in the '+10hp, +5% accuracy' style than the 'game-changing new ability'. There should be a lot of scope to get mods that allow you to do remarkable or different things, instead of just 'be better at xyz'.

[weemadando]

Absolutely - especially in games like Bioshock, Crysis or Deus Ex where the whole hook is 'super powers'. Even Thief made you literally invisible in full darkness because of magic. All of those games managed to have more threat than games like Splinter Cell, where complete invincibility is never more than a ledge or drainpipe away.

I hope later in DEHR they get better ideas/implications of the cyber you can get, because they seem more in the '+10hp, +5% accuracy' style than the 'game-changing new ability'. There should be a lot of scope to get mods that allow you to do remarkable or different things, instead of just 'be better at xyz'.

I kinda liked in the first DE when I did my second playthrough and went for the Power/Strength augs. So I could jump up onto rooftops or pick up and throw dumpsters and kill mechs with a single sword hit. It actually felt like a completely different game, unlike the stealth and shooty routes which were really just variations on a theme.

[Stark]

There are a lot of games since that simply didn't pull it off - it's apparently just too hard to build levels that suit such a wide variety of possible approaches. Look at how essentially meaningless the cyber mods were in System Shock 2, for instance, or how Master Chief actually has no super powers. Crackdown - the idiomatic superpower game - had zero scope for 'different builds' or approaches, since the only important power was agility.

In a modern engine (DEHR's engine doesn't seem to count for this) it should be possible to make a Deus Crysis, where you have both a wide range of powers and abilities, but also a huge scope to use them to knock over buildings, deform terrain, etc. DEHR looks far too chokepoint-and-impassable-barrier based to really showcase that sort of thing.

[weemadando]

I think a real barrier is that it becomes "too hard" to deal with a highly variable situation. I'd love a fully deformable level (say a small hotel or office building) with an interior and exterior for me to explore. But should I decide to blow throw 3 floors of it with a massive explosive to satisfy an objective it might get a bit hard to deal with. Also, I have to imagine that level designers hate watching their art get trashed. But honestly, it would be great to have truly freeform levels and methods of completing them.

Though, give me the "Rhino" power-up from RF:G in a DE style game with deformable terrain and FUCK YES.

[weemadando]

A PC Gaming mag gave it 94%, which means approximately nothing as I haven't seen the review text to understand WHY they did that.

But there you go.

[Stark]

Remember all those awesome pre-release reviews of Brink?

[Simon_Jester]

I'd say deformable terrain gets tricky when it's realistically practical to make the building collapse. Your game probably doesn't double as a structure simulator, but it's ridiculous if you can blow holes in load-bearing walls with impunity.

Though I have the great image of a cutscene where the building you're doing your mission in starts to rumble, the floors and ceilings slump, dust is drifting down from the walls. The guards all flip out and start running out of the building, hauling as much equipment as they can. You disengage from them and slip away... then the whole building collapses.

MISSION FAILED.

[Stark]

I hate to say this, Simon, but most modern games that have deformable buildings allow them to collapse. They're generally open-world maps with structures on them, rather than buildings being made out of level geometry, so there's certainly a range of engine tradeoffs required.

Frankly, I think developers are simply quite aware players just want to feel tough and slay incompetent guards.