Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

At least the Director's Cut improved the boss battles by a large margin. I actually managed to finish the entire game without having to fire a gun outside of the tranq and stun gun.

I think a problem with the original DX's stealth and nonlethal gameplay is the fact that the nonlethal stuff had no guarantee it would work. When using a stun prod you were essentially gambling on it to work and actually incapacitate your foes. Plus the crossbow nonlethal darts had to be hit with a headshot if you wanted a quiet knockout.

Meanwhile HR and MD have given you tools that will absolutely do what they are meant to do, in one shot with no gambling beyond aiming.

I never played the original DX, but I'd imagine that it sucked to have your stealth run depend on the outcome of a dice roll as opposed to actual skill. That's kind of a thing with the heavy RPG elements games, though, so I guess it's fine in context.

The problem is if you combine those kinds of RNG elements with gameplay designed to channel you down one particular path, so you are completely screwed if you roll a one on your takedown and now have to fight it out.

Save Scumming is a way to get around that, but then it's just the player rerolling the dice until they get an outcome they want, in which case you might as well remove the RNG entirely.

edited 27th Mar '18 10:01:43 AM by Fighteer

The original Deus Ex is mostly skill and patience-damage and HP/locations are set, and the only real RNG is the shot pattern within your targeting reticle. That can be mostly mitigated by patience-get close and wait for your reticle to close as your character lines up a shot. The weapon mods and investment in skills should make most targeting a moot point somewhere between 10-30% the way through the game.

After you get up to advanced skill on your main gun and plug a few mods, there is no shake, and the reticle takes a little more than a second to max. You should be able to snipe headshots out to max range with a pistol, or out around half range with a shotgun or short bursts with the assault rifle.

Integration-wise, nonlethal weapons are poorly implemented but very viable-the crossbow you pick up from one of the first enemies in the game can ably serve as your main weapon straight through the ending, and the Riot Prod needs to be understood-it is an excellent weapon. Just don't aim for the head, and carry a baton to pair it with.

As for stealth, once you have enemy patterns and senses worked out, most of them besides the Commandos and MIB are easy to deal with-again, it comes down to patience and environmental awareness. Honestly, I don't get the complaints about a RNG-almost everything in the game is set, scripted, or follows predictable patterns.

Anyone complaining about getting screwed by an RNG outside the context of lining up an iffy long range shot does not understand the game-the most common complaint I hear, besides the graphical limitations, is the lack of variety and randomness. Once your have your strategy down pat, the only real challenge is adapting it to each area's environment and possibly your opponents' weapon loadouts, because there is basically nothing else that changes.

Caveat: all this applies to the base game, as numerous baseline changes were made for the various mods.

edited 27th Mar '18 11:42:46 AM by ViperMagnum357

My problem is that I get a stun prod, I sneak up on a guy and get ready to carry him off. Sometimes, one zap, and he's down, more often than not I have to waste multiple charges.

The Stun Prod has some targeting quirks-it deals only half damage to the head, and the armored commmandos only have a couple of places where they can be stunned, but they can still be taken down. Once you get the melee skill up to trained, most enemies you can tag once with the Prod then immediately knock them out with a Baton to the back; which is much faster, safer, and conserves the relatively scarce Prod chargers.

edited 27th Mar '18 11:44:44 AM by ViperMagnum357