The Next Deus Ex - new gameplay mechanic ideas anyone?

[m G h m u o s]

Anyone have any ideas for unusual or interesting gameplay mechanics that could be implemented for DX4? Unique or based off current/previous ideas?

- The Skills system - basically the system from DX1 could return in the form of 'nanite neuro-optogenic augmentations' or something where you use items like aug cans/prax kits (just probably more common) to upgrade your skills, so you can download training - Matrix-esque.

Or do you think it should take the Skyrim route and skills should just improve with use?


- Augmentation hacking - A weird idea I had that you could use a multitool item to hack enemies and disable their augmentations/mechanical parts or even a rare ammo type you could equip, basically a multitool projectile or something. It could bring a new level to boss fights and turn them into more of a puzzle for the hacker/stealth builds.

Then from this idea, I thought would it be cool if enemies in turn could also hack your augmentations? So you have to build up your own defence system (so you could basically make your own hack network with your chosen augmentations as major capture points or whatever)


- Grappling hook - I always liked jumping around and travelling in DX, though such an ability make cheapen certain augmentations or something, so it'd have to be very costly in terms of an augmentation slow or a significant amount of your inventory. Anyone think it could work?


- Weapon upgrades - I was trying to think of some unique/decent upgrades for stuff in DX, but the only one I could think of was a 'Compacting' upgrade where you can reduce the weapons size in your inventory. Anyone ever have any ideas for upgrades?

I was wondering if DX would benefit from further RPG elements, such as player/weapon/inventory weight?


DISCUSSZ0R AWAY

[McFlabbergasty]

I think being able to access two if not all three varieties of augmentation would be pretty neat. If this DX4 takes place some time soon/soon-ish after HR then the player might get the feeling that s/he is moving from the old world of augmentations, where it was just hanzer mechs versus nats, to the much more diverse playing field we see in the original DX.

Who's up for physio-pharmaceutical augmentation?

I do like your idea of hacking enemies' augs! I'm surprise I haven't seen something like that mentioned before. After all, something like that has happened in the original game and in HR, but never at the player's will.

Maybe for gameplay balancing purposes, we could have mechanical augmentations cost bio-energy (the DX way, not the HR way, sorry that was possibly the only thing about that game I hated) and be quite ubiquitous, but the catch is that these parts can be hacked.

Physio-pharmaceutical augs obviously cannot be hacked, but would provide only temporary boost of your strength/speed/whatever and then be discarded after use. A lot like steroids, or nootropic drugs.

And finally nano-augs, which I'm imagining would not be hackable (yet) so there must be some other way to balance them.

Maybe they cost a crap-ton of BE energy, or instead of BE energy they sap away directly at your health. But if the latter is the way nano-augs would work, obviously there's not going to be any nano health-regen. Personally I don't think that's a loss. I thought that got to be overpowered in DX1 anyway.

[m G h m u o s]

I was never really clear on physiopharmaceutical augs, I read them up on the wiki but.. are they still able to be activated/turned on and off? I haven't played DX:IW, not sure if any those kind of augs are included there

But as for your other idea, balancing nano-augmentations could be easily done through a variety of ways. Like you said it could just drain BE like crazy, or stamina, or the initial cost of the aug could be much much more expensive. I want to say nano augs should be susceptable to hacking as well, but it seems too easy to say..

Maybe mech augs can be hacked and just disabled, but nanoaugs could do something much worse like lowering your maximum health. Plus there could special enemy types or ammunition that can be used against specific augmentation types (against enemies and the player respectively)?

[kud13]

hmm. A bit different, but I always thought it'd be cool to do a spin-off dealing with biotech augmentations--in which you essentially mutate your insides/gratf organs to gain abilities.

this could be some seriously blackest of the black markets, being a research tech newly discovered inad not implemented worldwide, but rather somehting existing on a very limited scale, while maintaining the largely cyberpunkish world.

[m G h m u o s]

That sounds interesting, kud31.. Are you just imagining an underground shop or group that you'd have to work to get into, to access the limited/cheaper augs?

I heard DX2 had a 'factions' system, though I'm not sure what that entails, your idea reminded me of it. Perhaps there could be more moral decisions, like the choice to betray that undercover agent in detroit, but with doing jobs for the blackmarket so they can grant you access to certain augs. You could choose jobs that affectively made you a harvester, a notch up from that bar man side mission in Hengsha, where you can forcible and gruesomely retrieve major mech augs or organs (ala Repo Men) or even nano augs (ala Syndicate).

[Romeo]

More based upon what you said about weapon mods, I'd just like to see a more in-depth system in general for that. Have a bigger stock increase accuracy, but also increase length. A bigger clip gives more rounds, but makes it taller. A barrel extension does more damage but also increases length. Not exactly novel, but it would play more in to a "Do I want one super-weapon, or multiple weak ones" kind of thinking.

[m G h m u o s]

Did you like the ammo system in DXHR, Romeo? How it used up space in your inventory I mean.

But yeah, seeing the level of weapon customization in games like Ghost Recon Future Soldier and Blacklight Retribution. It's why I raised the point about the weight of weapons/items, just to bring another element to help balance that kind of thing.

It was a little funny when you'd add a silencer to your pistol or rifle and it'd shrink in size in your inv lol can't say I wasn't glad for the extra space though

I do remember all that discussion about bringing multiple versions of weapons into DX or whether it should stick to the main archetypes.

[nomotog]

Hacking enemies would be nice. Though I wonder if it would feel like cyber magic or not.

With weapon augments. I Like the idea of them being attachments to the item that increased the size. It would be neat to see your new sniper scope taking up it's own space in inventory. I'd also add the ability to remove them and attach them to other weapons.

Ammo types should come back. Explosive ammo, hacking ammo (So you can hack things from far away), fire ammo, EMP ammo, all kinds of ammo. There also needs to be a system where your inventory dosen't get to full of all these ammo types. (Maybe they you could stack different verity on top of each other)

Melee weapons should come back.

[m G h m u o s]

Hacking enemies would be nice. Though I wonder if it would feel like cyber magic or not.

Are you sure its not missing the technical jargon lol? But I kinda get what you mean. The idea of shooting someone or something and being able to hack it from anywhere feels off.. Feels like it could do with some gameplay aspect of hacking to keep the tagged enemy/hack ammo device whatever in sight or aimed on, or maybe some frequency mini-game you have to do accurize the signal to the hack or something. Just to give it another level, to balance the reward with skill/challenge.

I was also thinking about how I'd like to see a stamina bar again and wondered if a game has ever implemented 'localised stamina', similar to the health system, and if it'd even have any point lol

[Zerim]

I really just want good AI.

Smart AI by itself can give you the best gameplay ever. Everything else is just details if you ask me.

[kud13]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

That sounds interesting, kud31.. Are you just imagining an underground shop or group that you'd have to work to get into, to access the limited/cheaper augs?

I heard DX2 had a 'factions' system, though I'm not sure what that entails, your idea reminded me of it. Perhaps there could be more moral decisions, like the choice to betray that undercover agent in detroit, but with doing jobs for the blackmarket so they can grant you access to certain augs. You could choose jobs that affectively made you a harvester, a notch up from that bar man side mission in Hengsha, where you can forcible and gruesomely retrieve major mech augs or organs (ala Repo Men) or even nano augs (ala Syndicate).

I was thinking of using a previosly unexplored setting-Russia, Africa, India, South America.

you have a government/corporate science group with some genius scientist who makes enormous breakthroughs in biotec/genetic tampering. the protagonist is thrown into this somehow--cop/special forces/P.I, whatever. the scientist is on the run, someone like the Illuminati are trying to take over the whole thing, by arranging a coup d'etat in the country. You know too much, and you are a target. you can either want to help and spread the tech or destroy the creator of the tech 9who made you what you are), who probably found backing in organised crime in order to survive. could play around with something like "instincts"--if you use too many powers too soon, or if you sustain too much damage, animal instincts take over, and you either fight to the death or flee uncontrollably.

Idk, tbh. I'm just throwing out ideas, like I said, i'm like to see this as a spinoff, rather then the main story line.

[m G h m u o s]

I really just want good AI.

Smart AI by itself can give you the best gameplay ever. Everything else is just details if you ask me.

Off topic, but can you give me any examples of games with good/exceptional AI? :/ I can't think of any one moment that really stands out in all my years of gaming that an AI has made me go "oh wow that was smart". Loads of "oh wtf how did they see/shoot me" though lol. The most memorable moments are more like moments of immersion, Half Life comes to mind.

I was thinking of using a previosly unexplored setting-Russia, Africa, India, South America.

you have a government/corporate science group with some genius scientist who makes enormous breakthroughs in biotec/genetic tampering. the protagonist is thrown into this somehow--cop/special forces/P.I, whatever. the scientist is on the run, someone like the Illuminati are trying to take over the whole thing, by arranging a coup d'etat in the country. You know too much, and you are a target. you can either want to help and spread the tech or destroy the creator of the tech 9who made you what you are), who probably found backing in organised crime in order to survive. could play around with something like "instincts"--if you use too many powers too soon, or if you sustain too much damage, animal instincts take over, and you either fight to the death or flee uncontrollably.

Idk, tbh. I'm just throwing out ideas, like I said, i'm like to see this as a spinoff, rather then the main story line.

Thats all cool Your short synopsis made me imagine a mission where you have to pursue a target through a central hub and you have to actually chase the person through streets and across rooftops. I really want to see more unusual settings for cyber-punk stuff too, I had South Africa on my mind but in the end it comes down the imagery of buildings and lights for that 'cyberpunk' theme.

As for your 'instincts' idea, you think how that could be further tied into the DX lore? Like nano/mech augs just toxify the body and some new type of aug releases the body/minds own full potential?

[Angel-A]

Is anybody besides me hoping for legitimately a female or non-white protagonist? DX and IW both offered appearance choice but the canon versions are of course Caucasian male for all three games. One of the things Deus Ex is recognized for is breaking from the standard, and a main character who isn't just another white guy would certainly would be a great thing to see when franchises are dominated by them.

[kud13]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

Off topic, but can you give me any examples of games with good/exceptional AI? :/ I can't think of any one moment that really stands out in all my years of gaming that an AI has made me go "oh wow that was smart". Loads of "oh wtf how did they see/shoot me" though lol. The most memorable moments are more like moments of immersion, Half Life comes to mind.


Thats all cool Your short synopsis made me imagine a mission where you have to pursue a target through a central hub and you have to actually chase the person through streets and across rooftops. I really want to see more unusual settings for cyber-punk stuff too, I had South Africa on my mind but in the end it comes down the imagery of buildings and lights for that 'cyberpunk' theme.

As for your 'instincts' idea, you think how that could be further tied into the DX lore? Like nano/mech augs just toxify the body and some new type of aug releases the body/minds own full potential?

RE: AI. I know this wasn't at me, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s AI really impressed me.

with regards to tying "instinct" stuff to DX lore, the easiest thing I could think of would be EMP bullets scrambling your systems. that, or using informational warfare to upload a virus into PC.

ofc, this could also be explained by experimental nanotech, where the nanites' programming still has elements of fight or flight, and they just respond to stimuli such as excessive damage by "taking over"

[m G h m u o s]

Is anybody besides me hoping for legitimately a female or non-white protagonist? DX and IW both offered appearance choice but the canon versions are of course Caucasian male for all three games. One of the things Deus Ex is recognized for is breaking from the standard, and a main character who isn't just another white guy would certainly would be a great thing to see when franchises are dominated by them.

I'd totally be up for female protagonist! As for prospects of optionality, I was wondering if DX would be suited for heavy character customisation that is typical in other RPGs. Making their face seems like a step too far, but how does changing appearance with clothes/hair sit with anyone?

EDIT: Kinda bad examples here lol. It occured to me personal aesthetics won't matter much in an singeplayer FPS, nevertheless DX1 did give you some optionality. I'm trying to think of other typical RPG elements to put a DX spin on.

Inventory. I actually liked the initial restrictive inventory (until I realised I had to carry some fire power for boss fights :P) but to accommodate for those who like the more traditional RPG system where you can carry a ridiculous amount of stuff then would a "digital inventory" work? Basically you can buy/check in stuff with a digital receipt or whatever and check out said item at appropriate shops or weapon vendors or something..?

with regards to tying "instinct" stuff to DX lore, the easiest thing I could think of would be EMP bullets scrambling your systems. that, or using informational warfare to upload a virus into PC.

ofc, this could also be explained by experimental nanotech, where the nanites' programming still has elements of fight or flight, and they just respond to stimuli such as excessive damage by "taking over"

I like the sound of EMP/scrabbler bullets. Anyway, so you'd basically get a strength/speed/accuracy boost when on low health? I'm trying to think of another game that uses some kind of 'instinct' system.. I want to say Far Cry..

[Angel-A]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

I'd totally be up for female protagonist! As for prospects of optionality, I was wondering if DX would be suited for heavy character customisation that is typical in other RPGs. Making their face seems like a step too far, but how does changing appearance with clothes/hair sit with anyone?

EDIT: Kinda bad examples here lol. It occured to me personal aesthetics won't matter much in an singeplayer FPS, nevertheless DX1 did give you some optionality. I'm trying to think of other typical RPG elements to put a DX spin on.

I remember seeing a DX1 mod that lets one COMPLETELY customize JC Denton's appearance. Not just skin, but hair, face, clothes and stuff. I imagine mods can be made for super-duper aesthetic customization.

[m G h m u o s]

I remember seeing a DX1 mod that lets one COMPLETELY customize JC Denton's appearance. Not just skin, but hair, face, clothes and stuff. I imagine mods can be made for super-duper aesthetic customization.

If such a level of customization is actually in the vanilla of a DX, I'd like it if it was accomplished 'in-game' as much as possible, ie not with a option menu but with clothing shops and facial surgery places lol. But more than that, I think it'd be the most interesting if the characters responded to your appearance accordingly, for humourous and/or expositional purposes.

[Anticitizen]

I LOVE the idea of 'hacking people'. It's a recurring theme in the Ghost in the Shell franchise (to which Deus Ex owes a lot of influence, after all).

In Ghost in the Shell, Motoko Kusanagi, the squad leader of Section 9, was not only skilled in combat but hacking. In one episode of the Standalone Complex series, Section 9 is about to storm an office building in which a group of (augmented) terrorists are holding the office workers hostage. Kusanagi was able to remotely hack in to one of the augment's implants and use his eyes to get a visual count of where the terrorists were, how many were there, etc. She was also able to force one terrorist to shoot another (despite obvious resistance).

Now, how badass would that be in a game!? Instead of using the remote drone from DX1, you would have a hacking augment that would allow you to be able (so long as you're in a certain range) to hijack other aug's vision in order to scope out an area before you move into the scene... and as your skill/aug upgrades are increased, you could control that aug to varying levels... have him 'hear' a disturbance in a misleading direction and investigate in the wrong direction... or maybe 'accidentally' drop his rifle for just a second or two (so you can charge in)... maybe lose hearing and vision briefly, allowing you to sneak by without triggering a fight... and at the highest levels, turn on his teammates. You would be able to actually control that character remotely, and play as him... perhaps for a limited amount of time (maybe tie it to your battery level, so it would use energy like other augs so you can only do it for so long unless you keep eating candy bars!), or, it could be for an indefinite amount of time, but the control of the character might be a little slow or imprecise - aiming is a little harder, he doesn't move as fast, and doesn't have health regen, or 'looking through his eyes' is sort of low-resolution so you can't see as well to shoot, etc. So you could use him as a 'proxy soldier' for battle but he probably won't last long.

I think that would introduce an AWESOME new element that would fit in with the Deus Ex world very well. You could use the 'proxy soldier' to weaken defenses before you move in for the final kill, or maybe just use the soldier to explore areas without being spotted. Imagine hacking an enemy just so he could walk past the turret (which doesn't recognize him as a foe), and then you hack the turret's control panel THROUGH the soldier you're controlling!

And of course this would only work on augmented enemies, so it's not like a player could spam the ability all the time. Many enemies would not be augmented at all, and thus unhackable. And then various augmented enemies would have varying levels of security, just like the terminals in the game - level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc - and you'd have to go through the little 'hacking game' every time you attempted it. If you try to hack an enemy and fail, the enemy automatically goes into alarmed or even hostile mode...

There are a hundred things you could do with the idea. You could 'relax' enemy solders, causing them to drop out of hostile or alert status, for instance. The possibilities are plentiful.

...like I said, I LOVE this idea.

[m G h m u o s]

Love GiTS Totally forgot about that vision jack scenario, but I think the main thing is the "delivery system" of how you'd hack enemy augmentations. Hacking ammo/Projectile multitool? Cerebral nano-ship with hacking abilities? In DX:HR the purist hacker was wired in, but I'm not sure it'd be so fulfilling at extreme close range (unless you could 'plant' the hack for a later timed distraction).

I mean for the GiTS scenario, if you were close enough or had visual contact, then what use would you have for seeing through your enemies eyes? Then again this also brings question to mission structure and everything, I mean how about we take the back seat for some missions/side missions and just act as reconnaissance to gather intel for a bigger team to make a tactical insertion or whatever.

A lot of ideas can be thrown up in the air, but I feel like taking direct control of an enemy or making him commit suicide by shooting himself should be reserved for dedicated aug hack builds. I also find having an enemy shoot himself in the head to be really.. unimaginative lol. You could scan the enemy body for augs (or find records on a computer) and do much nastier things like having their arms/legs malfunction, suffocate underwater troops by disabling their internal rebreathers, cause major organ failure by reprogramming nanites inside their bodies, all sorts.

Disabling/manipulating augmentations is what interests me personally, but the Syndicate style of just having the enemy just go crazy and kill himself/team mates feels too simple for me lol.

Then again if neuro-chemical-optogenetic-augmentations come into play then it could be cool to have variants of CASIE augs to analyse psychological profiles, or from computer files, from inside their brain and use nanites to burst electricity to certain neurons, or good old pheromones, to create a ruckus so you can sneak by x10 without spending a bullet. Or of course some crazy mini-game where you can randomly stimulate parts of their brain with chemicals/nanites and they'll go do something crazy XD But thats what I was getting at really, that level of technology. If you can make a dude shoot his teammates and these kinda complex actions, then what happened to the just turning their brain off stage lol.

Mission structure ties into these kind of crazy ideas again, because you could go to all the effort of doing a hacker run or pacifist or no alert or no items and get the self satisfaction and maybe an achievement, but I think that kinda stuff should really reflect in-game with mission reports and appropriate rewards from armories or something. Not just if you kill a bunch of people and piss off an ex-sergeant but stuff right down to the amount of BE you use or the number of bullet shells you leave at a scene.

[nomotog]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

Off topic, but can you give me any examples of games with good/exceptional AI? :/ I can't think of any one moment that really stands out in all my years of gaming that an AI has made me go "oh wow that was smart". Loads of "oh wtf how did they see/shoot me" though lol. The most memorable moments are more like moments of immersion, Half Life comes to mind.

Smart Kobold. It has a very advanced AI. It's also a good example of why smart AI is a bad thing.

[Anticitizen]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

I mean for the GiTS scenario, if you were close enough or had visual contact, then what use would you have for seeing through your enemies eyes?

I was thinking that you'd have to be close enough for the enemy to appear on your radar. You could be right outside a room, or in a ventilation shaft or whatever, and as long as the person is close enough to be on your radar, you could initiate the hack attempt. This means that you couldn't control the person and send them running off to complete your entire mission for you - if you send them away and they get out of range, you lose the connection, and they 'snap out of it' - and probably immediately go into 'hostile' mode and alert everyone around them that something is up (so you would lose any 'ghost' achievements or whatever). Also, it doesn't have to just be enemies you hack - it could be any augs nearby, including citizens walking down the street. This brings up questions of morality, of course - which is something Deus Ex is already known for, so that would just add more/deeper elements to the current theme. Think of the police station mission, for example - if you fail to convince that officer to let you in the station, you could hack one of the perps inside the station and cause him to start attacking police officers - which would make them all go hostile against *him*. Meanwhile, you sneak in unnoticed because all the police are concerned about the guy inside who went berserk.

Anyway, I agree with most of your other points. I won't get into the debate about specifics of how the hacking will take place (is it a minigame like the typical hacking, or something else, etc). That's why playtesters exist

Though I will say it shouldn't be an 'ammo'. It should definitely be an aug/hacking skill that you upgrade to. There would be nothing lamer than a 'hacking gizmo' that you have to find and use. I think DX is interesting because of the choices of augmentations/skills you choose to incorporate into your playstyle. You can choose to beef yourself up as a war machine, or go for the slick stealth ninja type, the clever hacker, etc. It should fall under those guidelines and not be a weapon you can just come across and exploit. You'd need to choose it and dedicate Praxis points or whatever to its use, and choose to (possibly) sacrifice other augs in favor of it.

EDIT: Also, if you tie the 'hacking range' to your radar, you now have an incentive to spring for the radar increase aug, which is something I've NEVER gone for during my playthroughs of HR. I never once desired, while playing, the desire to see people on my radar at a longer range - and I don't think that having that aug would have changed my gameplay style in the slightest. Think about it - when you're in a large, open field-type area, you can physically SEE the other people in the distance. You don't need the radar for that. If you're in closed corridors and rooms, you have walls between you and them. They can't see you. Which means you'll almost always get in the default radar range of them before you have to deal with them at all, so it doesn't matter if you 'detected' them at 100 meters away or 50 - you still detected them before they saw you, and you could act accordingly. Therefore I saw the radar range aug as pointless. However, if you tied it to the people-hacking aug, you'd have a legit reason to want to increase your radar range, because you could hack any augs within that range if you had the proper hacking augs. You could even have 'hackable' targets on the radar be a different color or something. There are twelve soldiers in that room, according to your radar. Three of them are augs that are hackable. One of them has a security level of two, but he's mostly unaugmented/unarmored and is carrying a pistol. Another has a security level of three, and is carrying a machine pistol. The third has a security level of four - which is the hardest to hack - but he's armed with a heavy rifle and frag grenades. This gives you a choice - you can go for the easy hack and go for the guy with the pistol, and use him to attack the others just to create a distraction. Or you can go for the hard hack - but only if your hacking aug/skill level is good enough - and go for the guy with the heavy weaponry, who you could use to take out all the other soldiers, including himself. Or the guy inbetween. All of this would depend on your skill level, the level of your augs (both the radar level and the hacking aug level), and the decisions you make - are you just trying to create a distraction so you can sneak by, or are you trying to use these hacked soldiers to take out other soldiers, etc. The idea opens up whole new decision-making opportunities in gameplay. And I don't think it would be hard to implement. And it's something else that would set DX apart from all the other shooters out there. The more I think about it, the more I think it's an obvious enhancement to the franchise.

[kud13]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

I'd totally be up for female protagonist! As for prospects of optionality, I was wondering if DX would be suited for heavy character customisation that is typical in other RPGs. Making their face seems like a step too far, but how does changing appearance with clothes/hair sit with anyone?

EDIT: Kinda bad examples here lol. It occured to me personal aesthetics won't matter much in an singeplayer FPS, nevertheless DX1 did give you some optionality. I'm trying to think of other typical RPG elements to put a DX spin on.

Inventory. I actually liked the initial restrictive inventory (until I realised I had to carry some fire power for boss fights :P) but to accommodate for those who like the more traditional RPG system where you can carry a ridiculous amount of stuff then would a "digital inventory" work? Basically you can buy/check in stuff with a digital receipt or whatever and check out said item at appropriate shops or weapon vendors or something..?


I like the sound of EMP/scrabbler bullets. Anyway, so you'd basically get a strength/speed/accuracy boost when on low health? I'm trying to think of another game that uses some kind of 'instinct' system.. I want to say Far Cry..

Bloodlines had Frenzy. which was usually a very bad thing.

[m G h m u o s]

Smart Kobold. It has a very advanced AI. It's also a good example of why smart AI is a bad thing.

Yeah? For enemy AI in a 3D space, I think it comes down to giving them a lot of "abilities" too. AI can be smart, but sometimes theres situations where they just won't work. Stuff like rolling grenades into vents, crouching to shoot at you from a better angle, kicking boxes out of the way, close quarter melee combat and that kind stuff isn't what I'd call smart AI but could certainly give the illussion of such a thing. Players will always find certain situations the AI can't handle :P

I was thinking that you'd have to be close enough for the enemy to appear on your radar. You could be right outside a room, or in a ventilation shaft or whatever, and as long as the person is close enough to be on your radar, you could initiate the hack attempt. This means that you couldn't control the person and send them running off to complete your entire mission for you - if you send them away and they get out of range, you lose the connection, and they 'snap out of it' - and probably immediately go into 'hostile' mode and alert everyone around them that something is up (so you would lose any 'ghost' achievements or whatever). Also, it doesn't have to just be enemies you hack - it could be any augs nearby, including citizens walking down the street. This brings up questions of morality, of course - which is something Deus Ex is already known for, so that would just add more/deeper elements to the current theme. Think of the police station mission, for example - if you fail to convince that officer to let you in the station, you could hack one of the perps inside the station and cause him to start attacking police officers - which would make them all go hostile against *him*. Meanwhile, you sneak in unnoticed because all the police are concerned about the guy inside who went berserk.

Being able to hack random civilians sounds totally awesome lol. The main thing would be its implementation into "boss" battles, giving a chance for hacker/stealth builds. Though I still think iniating the hack should be skill based / minigame in itself, but yeah you're right its pointless to debate things at that level. But an alternative to the radar range mechanic could be a simple timer depending on your BE, or maybe a combination of both.

Though I will say it shouldn't be an 'ammo'. It should definitely be an aug/hacking skill that you upgrade to. There would be nothing lamer than a 'hacking gizmo' that you have to find and use. I think DX is interesting because of the choices of augmentations/skills you choose to incorporate into your playstyle. You can choose to beef yourself up as a war machine, or go for the slick stealth ninja type, the clever hacker, etc. It should fall under those guidelines and not be a weapon you can just come across and exploit. You'd need to choose it and dedicate Praxis points or whatever to its use, and choose to (possibly) sacrifice other augs in favor of it.

Well hacking ammo does make it sound like shooting an enemy with a submachine gun with hack ammo will automatically hack him lol but what I had in mind was an ammo type, you might easily get one at the start, for a mini-crossbow or something that you can shoot and retrieve. That or something extra to a multitool, which keeps value to levelling your skills, that has some laser or actual projectile functionality that can be retrieved.

EDIT: Also, if you tie the 'hacking range' to your radar, you now have an incentive to spring for the radar increase aug, which is something I've NEVER gone for during my playthroughs of HR. I never once desired, while playing, the desire to see people on my radar at a longer range - and I don't think that having that aug would have changed my gameplay style in the slightest.

Yeah the radar was broken up poorly. You had a cone vision upgrade but you could already tell which direction they were facing on the default radar. You shouldn't have started with a radar at all imo or the one you did had to be player activated and work like a sonar, with pulses, and enemies, civilians, cameras, bots all show up at indistinguishable blips. Then the upgrades just make the radar more reliable and detailed.

Your idea about having to level up both aug hack and radar though seems off though, unless aug hacking is a branch off of the radar aug. Radar could detect specific enemies, cameras and robots, but aug hack radar could only detect hackable things but with no way to differentiate them other than actual visual contact, but is balanced by the fact you can actually hack them :P

I do like all your prospects of potential decision making opportunities but damn designing environments and scenarios that work for every single aug/skill build would be a pain in the ass XD

[Romeo]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

Did you like the ammo system in DXHR, Romeo? How it used up space in your inventory I mean.

But yeah, seeing the level of weapon customization in games like Ghost Recon Future Soldier and Blacklight Retribution. It's why I raised the point about the weight of weapons/items, just to bring another element to help balance that kind of thing.

It was a little funny when you'd add a silencer to your pistol or rifle and it'd shrink in size in your inv lol can't say I wasn't glad for the extra space though

I do remember all that discussion about bringing multiple versions of weapons into DX or whether it should stick to the main archetypes.

I did, yes. Albeit, it did need a couple tweaks (Certain big things were small, certain small things were big). And yeah, both those games and Army of Two are what came to mind with the better weapon customization. I just feel like the added complexity of the inventory aspect would make it even better.

[Zerim]

Originally Posted by m G h m u o s

Off topic, but can you give me any examples of games with good/exceptional AI? :/ I can't think of any one moment that really stands out in all my years of gaming that an AI has made me go "oh wow that was smart". Loads of "oh wtf how did they see/shoot me" though lol. The most memorable moments are more like moments of immersion, Half Life comes to mind.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Fear and MGS4 came to my mind.

Originally Posted by nomotog

Smart Kobold. It has a very advanced AI. It's also a good example of why smart AI is a bad thing.

What do you mean exactly?

Oh wow,

look guys

AN AI

AN AI!!