The Conspiracy is real... but so are these game mechanics that can take players out of the experience.
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Deus Ex
- Aiming, in general, is incredibly archaic even by the standards of the era. To even consider hitting someone at range with any weapon, you have to stand completely still in the open, and keep your crosshair focused on them as the reticle narrows in. Firing before you're fully honed in will likely make you miss horribly or simply skim your target. Even having that weapon type's skill mastered still has a slight randomized spread every shot which probably will make you load that quicksave repeatedly until you finally get that headshot with a tranquilizer dart on a non-lethal run. Naturally, melee weapons don't suffer this, but then, getting close to an alert enemy can get you killed real quick anyway. To note: The Playstation 2 port, The Conspiracy, added an auto-aim feature (albeit one that locks in on the torso, not the head) in a bid to make the experience more manageable for console players.
- Looting items off of corpses can feel incredibly clumsy, especially with modern RPG standards and the game's more detailed Inventory Management Puzzle. While finding ammo for the guns they need, players can expect their inventories to constantly be filled up with useless junk they don't need, forcing them to stop constantly and either jettison or rearrange their setup. The developers seem to have presumed that every player needed a Combat Knife and base Pistol in their inventory, even if they're trying to actively avoid such items. If you want to move a body, you have to pocket its junk before you can do so, adding on to this clumsy system (and making it more likely than an enemy will catch you trying to move said body). The Conspiracy, the port for the Playstation 2, alleviated this by revamping the inventory system to not be as tedious, via making Randomly Drops pop out like confetti (and making it faster to move a body) if you've already got the max items allowed, in addition to expanding the inventory system to make it easier to pick up more miscellaneous items. Certain gameplay mods like Revision add an "Item Refusal" system that allows the player to selectively refuse picking up certain items, in an attempt to alleviate the problem.
- Enemies in the game often drop only handful of bullets and almost never drop a full clip, despite enemies being able to fire their guns nonstop. Loot for ammunition are incredibly scarce as well despite the setting. This issue persists even into the Eidos Montreal developed games Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
- It was possible, during the No-Gear Level in the MJ12 prison under UNATCO Headquarters to inadvertantly pick up your modded weapons when you were already carrying a "base" version of the weapon (any of the pistols, shotguns or assault rifles), which would cancel out any upgrades you had invested into them. This forced the player to redo the Inventory Management Puzzle all over again, dropping their non-unique weapons, picking up the originals and then picking everything back up again. This problem was addressed in Invisible War by unique weapons that used different models from the base weapons (and were upgraded on a separate path), while Human Revolution finally addressed the issue by implementing code
to make certain weapons "merge" their upgrades if a modded weapon was picked up after a non-modded one. - In general, the Swimming, Environmental Resistance and Computer skills were seen as deliberately-pointless to invest more than the bare minimum of points into, for a variety of reasons:
- Swimming was generally considered the weakest of the skills — despite setting up situations where the player could swim through maintenance systems or tunnels to reach their targets, those instances were few and far between, and the game never gave players a reason to want to invest in the skill, as the majority of combat encounters are land-based (and most of the player's weapons, save for melee and the Tranquilizer Crossbow, won't work underwater anyhow). The game also offered a limited-use item, the Rebreather, that trivialized swimming anyhow. To note, this was an opinion shared by the developers of the Playstation 2 port, The Conspiracy, which specifically added in more underwater tunnels in an attempt to make the skill a more attractive proposition for players. Subsequent games in the franchise would ditch swimming altogether.
- Environmental Resistance had the same issue, in that the disposable armors and suits — Ballistic Armor, Thermoptic Camo and Hazmat Suits — were shied away from by players, due to being unwieldly and inefficient. Instead of wearing down based on damage sustained (whether by bullets, radiation or other external factors), each suit relied on an arbitrary timer that was ineffective for extended engagements and didn't confer notable benefits at lower skill levels. (It didn't help that the Hazmat Suit, despite stating otherwise, doesn't stop EMP, fire or electrical damage suffered by the player.) They had limited situational use in many stages due to being rare items and unable to stack more than one copy of. Players were already given better options with utility Augmentations like Regeneration and Cloak, which made JC effectively invisible for long stretches of time once upgraded or made him Nigh-Invulnerable and able to soak up damage (radiation, fire or otherwise) for an extended period. The GMDX mod removes many of the deficiencies — suits can now be stacked or repaired by Biocells based on the requisite skill level, and they no longer work on a timer, but on damage sustained.
- There was never a need to upgrade the Computer skill past Trained level — simply hack the console, wait a few seconds and skip through the emails or quickly turn off the cameras before logging out. The painstaking work on the developers' part to set up a framework where you could write down notes on passwords and keycodes within your Infolink, learn the lore of various side characters and run to ATMs constantly for money went out the window when you could automatically keep relevant emails with passcodes/logins or drain the entirety of an ATM's funds in one shot. Several gameplay mods rework computer hacking to make it more valuable, via locking off certain consoles behind higher skill levels and rebalancing ATM rewards.
- One big exception however, is that Advanced level unlocks the ability to activate turrets and set them to fire on enemies instead of you. While useless to anyone attempting a non-lethal run or intending to ghost through an area, turning turrets on your enemies can be extremely effective for clearing out certain areas.
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Several of the controversial gameplay mechanics in Deus Ex: Invisible War could be described as "having a good idea at the time" — but those same mechanics drew ire from players (and some members of the dev team, who would go on to publicly criticize their own decisions in the years following its release):
- The "universal ammo" system was intended to fix one of the original game's biggest drawbacks — namely, having numerous types of ammo that, depending on the player's completionist tendencies / preferred weapon / playstyle, they could either not have enough of, or have too much and no weapon to use it with. To that end, the developers decided to create a "choose any weapon you want" mentality for the sequel, which was intended to allow players versatility in finding their own style and never leaving them at a disadvantage... except it always leaves the player at a disadvantage. Ammo clips aren't always dropped at the same rate, the threats get much heavier by the time the final level rolls around, and once you're out of ammo for one weapon, you're out of ammo for all weapons. It doesn't help that heavy weapons would take off a third of an ammo bar (or more) per shot, quickly running dry and forcing you to rely on melee. It also had the knock-on effect of making the Toxin Blade, a unique weapon you find early on in the game in a sidequest that's impossible to miss, one of the most powerful weapons in the game — one players were advised to rely on in a pinch, as it would do damage over time so long as the player hit them once or twice. The mechanic appeared in other games before and since, but the hate for it in this case was partially because the wide variety of custom ammo types and ammo management was a major part of the first game, and partially because, again, a single ammo source powers every weapon in the game - other games with ammo sharing at least have some sense to what shares ammo, and thus the common courtesy to not take away one third of your pistol or assault rifle ammo just because you fired a rocket launcher once - so not playing "smart" enough by conserving ammo at just about every turn could lead to the game being Unwinnable by Design once the player runs into unavoidable guards in the ruins of the UNATCO base. This ammo system was completely jettisoned for the next game in the series, to much more positive response.
- The attempt to make the game run better by practically restarting it during every loading screen causes several issues, even for modern systems. The game was built on the infamous "Flesh Engine" (a heavily-modified version of Unreal Engine 2) which had to dump critical system processes between each area (which is to blame for the smaller map sizes; the memory simply can't handle it), causing black screens and frequent crashes. If you have multiple monitors, the resolution changes every loading screen which is extremely immersion breaking (it does change back once the loading is done, so at least settings aren't affected). Short of relying on a fanmade tool (the Visible Upgrade mod), the game is nigh-unplayable on some systems.
- The ability to work for any faction at any time was done to avoid the railroading that marked the original game's plot, as JC Denton was functionally conscripted into working for the NSF (and eventually, Tracer Tong) early on in the game. This time around, the player can work for up to four different factions at once, causing several moments of Gameplay and Story Segregation that make little-to-no sense during the story. In one notable instance, Order questgiver Lin-May Chen sends a hit squad after the player if they destroy a key part of a greenhouse in Cairo, and once the assassins are dead, sends another message noting that she will be sending the player more missions(!). In another, you can functionally kill the wife of a major questgiver (Nicolette Duclare, the leader of the Illuminati and wife of WTO chairman Chad Dumier), who outright tells you that he should kill you for what you've done... but since you're his "best soldier", he's hopeful that you'll still keep working for his faction.
- The inventory system was changed from an 8x6 grid system (which allowed the player to hold different weapons and items, while ammo was stored elsewhere) to a "list" system, which had a set limit of 12 spaces. While the decision to allow inventory stacking for certain items (beyond Biocells and Multitools) and limit weapons to a single inventory space was generally praised, it came at the cost of the inventory being reduced to a paltry 12 squares. This made the Inventory Management Puzzle of the first (already loathed by some fans) even worse, as it forced you to almost always jettison items or weapons, particularly as you had to balance having a stack of healing items, Biocells and Multitools (a mainstay of every playstyle) with a slim 9 squares to devote to weapons and miscellaneous items. It didn't help that a key deficiency in the maingame (picking up extraneous weapons you didn't need) reared its head again in this game, particularly if you already had certain weapons you were relying on and didn't want to pick up any other classes. Deus Ex: Human Revolution jettisoned the system in favor of the original game's "grid-based" setup (with inventory upgrades you could unlock, to boot), which was much more warmly received.
- It is impossible to simply enter a password into a keypad — you must find it somewhere in the gameworld before you can legitimately access the door or computer (compare to the original, which allowed you to type in keypads, and potentially skip some plot points, before you know them properly), or otherwise resort to using up Multitools on them. Human Revolution would revert back to the original game's styling, where the player could enter passwords or keycodes before they knew them — though throwing a concession in that found passwords and logins would match up to the correct keypad, with the player just having to type it again to access it.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- In the original version of the game, the pre-order bonus items (which include multiple unlocking devices and two bulky weapons) get dumped into the player's inventory at the beginning of the first level proper, not only making it extremely unwieldy for players in the early game due to the initially-limited inventory size, but also potentially forcing you to either carry around the weapons until you found more ammo for it (or sold them), or just dumping it because you were playing a non-lethal build and didn't want it to begin with. The Missing Link DLC would later do the same thing in the Director's Cut, forcing you to carry around all the modded weapons you had on you at the time the mission started (the standalone DLC originally promoted Bag of Spilling — you only had access to a limited number of Praxis Kits and weapons for the duration of the DLC), and couldn't use them unless you (a) has invested more Praxis Points into upgrading your inventory again, and (b) found ammo for it, which may not even be awarded or in short supply during the mission. The Director's Cut would later integrate the pre-order items more organically into the world, while Deus Ex: Mankind Divided took a workaround for them, via allowing the player to put certain items and weapons in a "Storage" menu that's independent from the main game and tucked into an account menu, and allowed the player to access them anywhere in the gameworld.
- The hacking system was revamped to make it much more interesting for players, as an ad-hoc minigame that also conferred experience (both from hacking the computer/keypad and from specific bonuses found within "system nodes"), money and additional items that could further trivialize the process. This would be tolerable if it were used infrequently, but given that keys, lockpicks and multitools no longer exist, you'll be using it for absolutely everything, from opening doors to disabling security grids to hacking computers to reading emails. The minigame quickly becomes tedious, but it's at times necessary to advance the plotnote It doesn't help that the system gives so much EXP at later stages once you're familiar with it (managing to hack every node) that it has a knock-on effect on the flow of gameplay, making even the Ghost and Smooth Operator bonuses (generally awarded for feats of skill) pitiful when you crank out a good 2,000 experience or more if you get into a room full of computers and manage to max-hack all of them. This was changed in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to not only play faster (along with adding back Multitools, which can be crafted), but rebalance the system to also give XP to players who found the keycodes legitimately (just entering the normal code in Revolution did not confer any XP bonus, nor did the rare "Automatic Unlocking Device" items found during the game).
- Despite an attempt to make melee attacks flashier (via the, admittedly cool, retractable blades in Adam's mechanical arms), the system itself faced its fair share of criticism. The main problem is that there's no melee combat to speak of. All you can do is take an enemy down by approaching them and pressing a button when a prompt appears. The take-down happens in a cut-scene, and aside from choosing a lethal or non-lethal variety, you're uninvolved - there's no QTE, you don't even need to ambush the enemy or approach them correctly - and while the animations are fun, they play every time, are unskippable and get tedious after a while. Also, the mechanic clashes with the energy management system. Take-down is a power, and using it costs an entire energy "cell", meaning that without energy, you cannot use melee at all. You can replenish energy quickly via consumables, but they are rare, and because the last cell in your energy pool regenerates over a short time, and most other powers expend energy gradually, players tend to stay on that one regenerating cell at all times and don't bother with consumables at all, which is usually enough, but when you need to combine take-downs with other powers like stealth or super-speed, suddenly you're out of your element. Even more frustratingly, ammo drops for quick takedown through simply shooting the enemy silently are, in series tradition, incredibly scarce as well, punishing the player for every bullet miss. Mankind Divided would slightly adapt the energy bar to be a single "charge meter" that refills fully over time, while limitations appear in the form of "Activation Costs" for available augmentations.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- The Praxis Kits awarded by the Season Pass are, in a first for the franchise, one-time-only use items that are not awarded at the beginning of each new game, but awarded once per player's Square-Enix account. Said Praxis Kits are awarded through a "Storage" submenu, ostensibly designed to deliver items from the various DLC packs to the player's account (and which can be used across multiple playthroughs, if stored there). The problem is that, once the Praxis Kits are withdrawn from Storage, they become Permanently Missable Content for all future playthroughts, even though these were part of a paid Deluxe Edition pack players spent real money on, and for a single-player-only experience. This is in stark contrast to the previous title's bonus items, which were awarded at the start of a new game, regardless of whether or not they were a Square-Enix member. While this was likely done so as not to take away from the microtransaction backend of the game (it maintains a separate cash shop where the player can purchase Praxis Kits or Crafting Parts at any time), to say this caused fan backlash is an understatement. Players are generally advised to keep a save from the beginning of their very first New Game profile, because once the items are withdrawn from the player's storage (a separate menu in the Pause screen, independent from the storage Adam Jensen has in his apartment) and the player overwrites it, those items are lost forever.
- The "Jensen's Stories" DLC missions, particularly Desperate Measures and System Rift, are generally derided — not for the quality of the missions themselves, but for being completely divorced from the main game. They cannot be accessed at any time as part of a normal playthrough, are set at an undetermined time in the game's timeline, slightly mess with the continuity by giving the player access to gameplay abilities they normally don't get until late in the normal story (having the neuroplasticity calibrator, which allows you to use any augs without power drain) and generally take place in isolated locations that could have been integrated into the regular plot with little-to-no overlap. Unlike Human Revolution (where both the Tong's Rescue and Missing Link missions were merged into the game proper for the Director's Cut release), no such treatment was given for Mankind Divided's missions.
- Even big fans of the System Rift DLC will admit that the developers' choice to stop the plot cold in its tracks, 3/4s of the way through the runtime, to force players into a Justified Tutorial regarding the multiplayer gamemode "Breach"note doesn't serve the story any favors. It doesn't help that the tutorial relies on default keybindings that the player may have changed hours before that point, forcing them to either rebind (or remember) what keys they were relying on. The plot won't progress until the player goes through a number of mandatory button commands (that may or may not be communicated correctly on-screen).
