Deus Ex 3. I shit you not.

[K9]

ARISE!

Trailer from March

[Bunk]

This thread was kind of fun to reread. I won't make any comment on the game until I see more than generic teasers.

[Malakili]

I read an article about it and they said there is going to be health regen out of combat, that kind of made me lost some interest right there.

[Goreschach]

Typical consolitis. I can understand why something like that is needed in a console game where you have limited control and options, but a realistic, complex game like Deus Ex would be ruined by modern fps elements like Regeneration. It would be nice if they'd at least play the damn game before bastardizing it.

[Sky]

a realistic, complex game like Deus Ex

 

[Rasix]

I read an article about it and they said there is going to be health regen out of combat, that kind of made me lost some interest right there.

Why? It's not like the Deus Ex experience was in any way dependent on the way you regen health.  Easy enough to justify it by saying that the health regen biomod is part of you from the start or some nonsense. 

Deus Ex is about setting, story, and choice (both in story and how you address the challenges you face). There's a lot of mechanics they can fudge with before they start making something that's "not Deus Ex".

[Paelos]

Exactly, I tried to play a game one where my goal was only to knock people unconscious, hack everything, and essentially try to stealth my way through almost every mission. Very rarely do you get rewarded for that behavior the way you were in Deux Ex. It was one of many viable strategies, just as easy as being a total sniper, or a demolition freak.

[Malakili]

I read an article about it and they said there is going to be health regen out of combat, that kind of made me lost some interest right there.

Why? It's not like the Deus Ex experience was in any way dependent on the way you regen health.  Easy enough to justify it by saying that the health regen biomod is part of you from the start or some nonsense. 

Deus Ex is about setting, story, and choice (both in story and how you address the challenges you face). There's a lot of mechanics they can fudge with before they start making something that's "not Deus Ex".

Its just a mechanic that I by and large don't like in shooters, and lets be realistic, Deus Ex is far more shooter and far less RPG these days.  Now, I don't know enough about 3 to say for sure, health regen to me sounds like "We expect you to be doing lots of fire fights and want to make sure you are at full hp for each one" and that doesn't really sound like Deus Ex to me.  Maybe you won't have to play that way, maybe I'll be wrong, and its really just a tiny piece of information, but hopefully its not indicative of more overall simplification/consolification.

[UnSub]

ARISE!

Trailer from March

Did everyone catch the metaphor? It was subtle, so you may have missed it. 

[lamaros]

Yeah. Lets hope that the trailer isn't indicative of the quality of the writing.

[Sky]

Its just a mechanic that I by and large don't like in shooters, and lets be realistic, Deus Ex is far more shooter and far less RPG these days.

ELF NEEDS FOOD BADLY

Maybe you can find a health kit mod. Someone should make a posted of all the health kits and potions that have ever appeared in video games.

[NowhereMan]

I've been replaying DE1 and it's been fun focusing on not killing anyone (at least for the first part before the conspiracy erupts) and stealthing.

The problem with the regen health thing isn't specifically that you'll be regenning health but that it seems indicative of gameplay that features lots of not very spaced out firefights. I'm expecting an FPS that occasionally lets you sneak past a particularly large guard bot or hack turrets to take out a room so you only have to clear the other 5. It's not that single mechanic that bothers me it's that that mechanic tends to be used in games that play quite differently from how Deus Ex should.

[Yoru]

Yeah. Lets hope that the trailer isn't indicative of the quality of the writing.

But hey, at least your dude will have built-in retractable sunglasses, so he can look badass while spitting one-liners.

[Sheepherder]

The problem with the regen health thing isn't specifically that you'll be regenning health but that it seems indicative of gameplay that features lots of not very spaced out firefights.

If you want a shitton of fights the design would require large amounts of returned health, fast.

[Vaiti]

Isn't this pretty much one of the very few IP's out there where health regen makes sense anyhow?

Regening health in a WW2 shooter never added up to me, but I accept it. Same goes for any modern run and gun action.
Here you have all shorts of nanobots and biomeds running through you anyhow that can easily explain it.

The video trailer looks good. Tis pretty and shinny. I like shinny things.
At this point I'm kind of looking at that trailer like I do the MW5 trailer that is floating around.
I'm not buying that this game will actually physically happen till I see game footage.

[UnSub]

The regen of health in single player FPS titles is a vast improvement over the old 'hunt for health packs' or 'quick save every time you get past a bit with decent health'.

[NowhereMan]

I thought the original handled it pretty well with a few different ways of recovering health. Medkits could be stored up and used to treat individual injured areas (with only head and torso being necessary to survive, you could be crippled but last quite a while with the max no. of medkits), food and drink restored a little, the regen implant could heal you up but at the cost of energy and you need that augmentation and finally most levels had a medbot somewhere about. Honestly I preferred it because it throws some resource management into the mix beyond just ammo and it encourages stealthy gameplay. In straight up FPSes hunting for health packs is an annoyance because all you're generally going to be doing is gunning down enemies. Deus Ex 1 was awesome because you could do that or you could sneak past them or you could find some way to bypass them completely and you got rewarded for all those methods. The fact that they think you're going to need regenerating health suggests that they're not expecting pure stealth style gameplay.

Of course that's reading a lot into a single mechanic, maybe I'm hugely misjudging the team behind this.

[Kail]

The fact that they think you're going to need regenerating health suggests that they're not expecting pure stealth style gameplay.

Arguably, it could be seen as giving you a choice in how you play.  In DX1, going in guns blazing was very hard compared to stealth, as I recall, because you spent more ammo, took more damage, but got roughly the same rewards as someone going the stealthy route.  Plus, there's nothing saying that regenerating health couldn't be balanced with stealth in mind, that your stealth specced character would get shredded in a stand up fight without the combat mods, even if he had full health.  You just wouldn't spend the entire mission limping along at 2 mph because some jackass got a lucky shot in the beginning of the mission and took off your kneecap.

The thing about regenerating health is that it gives a relatively stable difficulty level.  The devs know roughly how much they can throw at a character and expect him to live.  In DX, there were a lot of fights which were super easy if you had a heap of medkits and batteries, and nearly impossibly difficult if you didn't.  So you end up with BFG syndrome, where your character is toting around massive stockpiles of this incredibly powerful stuff but never uses it because you might need it EVEN MORE somewhere down the line.

[K9]

Level 4 silenced sniper was pretty much Deus Ex 1 on easy. Going in with small arms was a lot harder, especially later in the game.

[Setanta]

Deus Ex 2 wasn't Daiktana


That's the only good thing I can say about it. Hopefully #3 is as good as the first, but I doubt it.

[Vaiti]

I honestly have more reservation about the fact that the game will ever come into existence, more than I do about whether it will be good or not.
And seeing as Square Enix is publishing it, it actually happening is pretty much guaranteed to happen sans the entire development team being taken out by snipers.

Square developing and publishing this along with Eidos makes me excited and wary at the same time. It's a given the game will have a shiny polished feel to it. The RPG elements are going to be given ALOT of attention and you can expect some new little systems to it that should be interesting and somewhat innovative if not completely useless.

My worries is the game will extremely repetitive. After the first level you will find all 3 guns (then continue to find those 3 guns throughout the game with slightly differing stats and new paintjobs) Run into all but 1 or 2 of the enemy types you will encounter throughout the game. And despite being open ended and "sandbox" all the levels will still feel linear (with the extreme case being WaW type inviso walls blocking you from areas you should really be able to go)

Those are my fears, simply because that is the feeling I get out of Square when they release PC titles. High polish, but somehow missing the mark on gameplay.
Eidos could almost be blamed for the same... only they seem to deliver far poorer quality titles on average compared to Square.
Arkham Asylum was published by them, but developed by their pet company Rocksteady. The last game that I recall Eidos actually developing themselves was Battlestations: The Pacific. Anyone recall that little gem? The third person flying sim with somewhat clunky control and quicktime bombing runs? It was super pretty tho. Just ass to actually play.

[UnSub]

Square Enix develop games with lots of options and lots of thought in their level design, right? 

[Thrawn]

Some lines from the latest PC Gamer -

Earlier this year, lead game designer Jean-Francois Dugas told PC Gamer, "We want to remove the RPG aspect of the fighting and make it more straightforward, like you see in games such as Rainbow Six."

It's also discouraging that none of the 130-plus artists, programmers, designers or writers working at Eidos Montreal were on the original Deus Ex team.

 

[Malakili]

"We want to remove the RPG aspect of the fighting and make it more straightforward, like you see in games such as Rainbow Six."

Read: "We want to make a game that will be more than a cult classic on the PC and will sell a lot of copies."  Sad, but oh well.

[tgr]

Sigh. Guess that's probably one game to ignore then.

[Vaiti]

Welp, there goes any delusion at all anyone might have been holding onto that this might end up being a spiritual successor to the last games.

Game might still end being good and fun. Maybe. I dunno. But sounds like "just another FPS" to me. Pass, thanks.

[NowhereMan]

Eh, it might be a fun tactical shooter type game if they're citing Rainbow Six (though just mentioning a game means nothing, I know). I had actually been expecting them copy ME2, though I guess a more tactical/stealthy version of that could be good fun. Just not sure why they're bothering with the Deus Ex IP since I will bet cash monies it has nothing to do with the original game story or characterwise.

[Margalis]

Meh, never mind.

[Rasix]

Earlier this year, lead game designer Jean-Francois Dugas told PC Gamer, "We want to remove the RPG aspect of the fighting and make it more straightforward, like you see in games such as Rainbow Six."

All that could mean is that they want to remove skill levels determining the size of your hit box in regards to accuracy.   Pretty much like what Bioware did with ME2.  Introducing more skill and less "you picked the right weapon category and leveled it up sufficiently".  Either this means character refinement will be less interesting or it will focus more on the nano-abilities of  <insert hero name here>.

I won't despair until I see a Gameplay video with a series of linear corridors peppered with chest-high crates/walls/sofas.  I know the pedigree and snippets of text aren't exactly pointing to a game that does the first game justice (saying series here would be a bit of a joke), but I think we might be jumping to conclusions.

[Megrim]

Eh, it might be a fun tactical shooter type game if they're citing Rainbow Six (though just mentioning a game means nothing, I know). I had actually been expecting them copy ME2, though I guess a more tactical/stealthy version of that could be good fun. Just not sure why they're bothering with the Deus Ex IP X-COM IP since I will bet cash monies it has nothing to do with the original game story or characterwise.

Oh hey, would you look at that.

[tgr]

It could mean that, yes. I'm going to go with my bitter gaming vet and be sceptical as fuck until I see an actual game.

[Kail]

All that could mean is that they want to remove skill levels determining the size of your hit box in regards to accuracy.   Pretty much like what Bioware did with ME2.  Introducing more skill and less "you picked the right weapon category and leveled it up sufficiently".

They already did that with DX2, remember?  People bitched about it.  The only way I can see it being less RPG than that is to take out the inventory completely, like Bioshock.  If they manage that level of competence, it could still be a decent game, but it still won't be Deus Ex.

I don't see the point of saying something like "we're trying to make our game more generic" at a press conference.  People who liked the original are going to rage that you don't get it, people who would like the more arcade-y game aren't even going to notice it among the heap of similar looking also-rans.  If you must design a generic as hell shooter, fine, but don't SAY you're developing a generic as hell shooter, point out all the novel things you're doing.  You can get away with a lot of changes in a game if it's good, but we have no way of knowing that until it actually comes out, and until then it comes off sounding like another quick, cash grab franchise killer.

[eldaec]

Earlier this year, lead game designer Jean-Francois Dugas told PC Gamer, "We want to remove the RPG aspect of the fighting and make it more straightforward, like you see in games such as Rainbow Six."

I think it's pretty cool how one designer can use 23 words to encapsulate both of the two most depressing examples of consoletardation in the last decade.

I'm pretty sure he must have meant this sentence ironically.

[UnSub]

My memory of DX is that it didn't have hitboxes, but that your accuracy was shown in how steady your crosshairs were when aiming.

DX2 then took out locational damage.

I don't have an issue with DX3 having less inventory management, but if the transition is to 'linear FPS shooter with occasional branching paths where you can 'stealth' instead of shoot' I'll have to put myself into the "THAT'S NOT DEUS EX!" camp.

[eldaec]

Imo, what made Deus Ex awesome was level design and story flexibility. You could have almost everything good about Deus Ex in a game without inventory management or even character development.

Deus Ex is not it's shitty 1990s health pack resource system.

If the castration of Rainbow 6 is their model then the project is anyway doomed. But not because of health regeneration.