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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided |OT| We Asked For This

Game is barely out a month and it's already lttp? I've yet to play it yet but from everything I have seen it's a solid game.

I think the poor sales should entirely be put into square Enix with very little advertising and butchering the game seemingly by cutting the ending etc.

It's not the first AAA game to sell poorly . It's a shame because everything I have seen is it's a fantastic deus ex game.
 

TheMan

Member
Game is barely out a month and it's already lttp? I've yet to play it yet but from everything I have seen it's a solid game.

I think the poor sales should entirely be put into square Enix with very little advertising and butchering the game seemingly by cutting the ending etc.

It's not the first AAA game to sell poorly . It's a shame because everything I have seen is it's a fantastic deus ex game.

how poorly did it sell
 

Diancecht

Member
Basically Enix forced Eidos to add microtransactions a few weeks before final submission, as well as breach iirc.

Yeah but that doesn't adress the OP's issues. Either the good folks at Montreal aren't capable of creating a captivating story with great pacing and ending or Squeenix chopped the game in half.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
i really liked it. more so than the previous (still not a patch on the original deus ex though)

i definitely preferred the style (no more piss filter) and i prefer the singular location (better context) my only real complaint is that of it's economy...

if you play certain ways (stealth/hacking for instance) weapons, mods, ammo, grenades, mines, money, health etc become completely insignificant and useless. having 2 easily upgraded weapons for stealth is too little. there needs to be as much diversity and mod option for the tranq rifle or stun gun as there is for pistols and assault rifles, or at least give us variations in stats so we can find/buy better versions of those 2. give us different tranq darts that work faster. or traps that KO rather than kill. it's a weird game (and the same is true for human revolution) were the game seemingly pushes you towards stealth and hacking due to the environmental options (lots of keypads, lots of vents etc) and yet 90% of the items you pick up and buy are geared towards shooting.

now, this is a problem with all games like this really. but it's still disappointing to amass all these credits and have nothing to spend them on. i mean, i currently have a maxed out tranq rifle, a maxed out stun gun, 200 ammo for each (all found) and about 100,000 credits. why? why give us so much if you can do so little with it?
 

Angel_DvA

Member
i really liked it. more so than the previous (still not a patch on the original deus ex though)

i definitely preferred the style (no more piss filter) and i prefer the singular location (better context) my only real complaint is that of it's economy...

if you play certain ways (stealth/hacking for instance) weapons, mods, ammo, grenades, mines, money, health etc become completely insignificant and useless. having 2 easily upgraded weapons for stealth is too little. there needs to be as much diversity and mod option for the tranq rifle or stun gun as there is for pistols and assault rifles, or at least give us variations in stats so we can find/buy better versions of those 2. give us different tranq darts that work faster. or traps that KO rather than kill. it's a weird game (and the same is true for human revolution) were the game seemingly pushes you towards stealth and hacking due to the environmental options (lots of keypads, lots of vents etc) and yet 90% of the items you pick up and buy are geared towards shooting.

now, this is a problem with all games like this really. but it's still disappointing to amass all these credits and have nothing to spend them on. i mean, i currently have a maxed out tranq rifle, a maxed out stun gun, 200 ammo for each (all found) and about 100,000 credits. why? why give us so much if you can do so little with it?

Yeah definitely, I had plenty of money and no use of it, they need to find something interesting for us to purchase...
 

Venom Fox

Banned
Basically Enix forced Eidos to add microtransactions a few weeks before final submission, as well as breach iirc.

Game is barely out a month and it's already lttp? I've yet to play it yet but from everything I have seen it's a solid game.

I think the poor sales should entirely be put into square Enix with very little advertising and butchering the game seemingly by cutting the ending etc.

It's not the first AAA game to sell poorly . It's a shame because everything I have seen is it's a fantastic deus ex game.
I think the DE franchise needs to be rebooted. Where do you go from here? They could have done so much more with MD and at the end it felt disappointing. There's no resolution to the Illuminati once again. The plot was ridiculously bad to the point I had to drag myself to complete the game. I was mega excited about the segregation of augs and how they'd handle that, it seems like they pulled a shit ton at the last minute over fear of a backlash?

There was next to no gameplay improvements that mattered, they gave a reason as to why Adam had new upgrades and I thought that was cool. Ultimately though it felt samey, in a bad way. It's the same old sneak through vents and snipe people with sleep bullets. It's gameplay that's been done to death at this point. If they do a sequel I really hope they either revamp the mechanics with Adam using the coma as an excuse again or simply ditch Adam and use a new super character that is created by Sariff and the company he works for again. I don't know. I just don't really see where we can go from here and I'm moaning too much now.
 

Roussow

Member
I mean, it's a pretty great game. On the aesthetic, I too was a little disappointed with the lack of the Human Revolution's distinct vision of the augmented future. Going back to it now however, it doesn't hold up consistently, set piece significant locations look great still, but the streets are generally quite dull -- the Hengsha hub is saved by its skybox. Prague is a lot more convincing, great architecture that contrasts the old with the futureistic, all grounded in a more relatable world, which is fitting given all the games analogies to current and past real life events. It also helps to make Golem City stand out more by comparison, just phenomenal lived-in design work there.

The big problem for me is how and where the story cuts off, it's something everyone agrees on -- that and the central metaphor being pretty loose and not having a whole bunch to actually say. The only other critique I can see is that it plays a little too similarly to the last game, although I think it's refined in almost every way. The only dated / awkward element of gameplay for me was the cut-to-black transitions to canned takedowns, they look alright in a cover takedown, but in open combat it just feels awful.

So yeah, "what went wrong" is a little strong -- Jim Sterling Square Enix insiders included. Oh, and you're really not that late to the party -- like, you missed the Pizza, but you're here in time for the drinking games.
 

Djostikk

Member
I didn't see it, I'll take a look.

Square Enix was already there for Human Revolution so is this really Square fault ?

@all

Sorry for LTTP but I didn't know how to start it.

I am kind of agree with your write up, had same thoughts after finishing it for the first time. Still love it, though.
 
First, I don't hate the game.

Where Human Revolution took you hopping across the globe, Mankind Divided keeps you mostly in Prague and its surrounding environs, and the story feels far more limited in overall scope and worst, it makes the game feel so repetitive, Prague is pretty for sure, but everything looks the same, you can watch everywhere and had this impression of déjà vu. What make the game so repetitive in Prague is the goings and comings the game has, you're always going to point A to point B to come back to A to go to C to come back to B etc... fucking annoying...

The animations feel like a game from the 90's, like seriously, during discussions, it's like Adam Jensen or other characters only have a spine, they all standing and almost nothing else is moving, during gameplay, they only have 2 or 3 animations for the stealth takedown, it's like you always do the same thing over and over and over and over... and why I'm talking only about stealth takedowns? it's because the game can only be played this way if you want a little fun, the gunfights on this game are terrible, seriously, shooting just isn’t as satisfying to become your primary choice. The IA in this game is the worst IA I've ever seen for the last decade, it's amazing how bad they make it, just terrible.

You are trying really hard to hate the game.

Why would you even talk about 90s in the Video game context, there were no mouths on characters back then. Animations are fine, what do you want in the game where you literally pause dialogue every 3 lines for the user-response? Do you want Adam to pick his nails or something? There are way more than "2-3" takedown animations. There arent' that many animations, but there are so much more depending on enemy and your positions: behind the cover, front/back, sitting enemies, leaning enemies.

This is not COD, shooting isn't supposed to be smooth and satisfying, there are even upgrades for better shooting. Appreciate the fact that it is much improved than Human Revolution.

Again, you are trying to hate this game really hard talking about AI. It is fine. It does all the basic functions, reacts to your actions, throws grenades and moves-in on your position. Do you have any above-Trump level arguments on why the AI is the worst in decades?

MD takes place in
Mission in the Middle East, Prague (which alone is much bigger than Detroit, also Martial Law time), Alps, Golem City, London.
You are really hating this game if you suggest that HR is better in locations.

You have to go to the point for dialogue. You don't just reach location X to complete your mission, you go there to report to your boss or meet someone in secret.

Game has problems and was disappointing for me, but your criticisms sound unreasonable to me, especially about tech, gameplay and locations.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
Pretty much. I assume OP hasn't watched Jim Sterlings video, with his source at Eidos.

Really really dumb stuff, what Square Enix pulled.

just watched that, and i honestly didn't even know there were microtransactions in the game? where are they? what are they for? i know that they are considered to be the bane of the industry atm, and if they're rammed down our throat i agree, but if i don't even know they're there, that to me seems about as optional as it gets?
 
Wow, how did that person even know where to look?

If you look closely in the room with Smart Vision you can make out the outline of something. I'm guessing they were just stomping around the room looking for more secrets, maybe saw the outline and then decided to figure out how to look more closely.
 
I just sold my copy, lol. Kind of regret now. I need to stop making stupid decisions, primarily selling games.
I used to sell and trade games a lot back in the day. I barely do it anymore because I know I would regret it later. Plus trading in games you barely get anything back for it because trade in pricing is bonkers.
 
Finished it last night, did a pacifist run. Was a little worried that I might have accidentally killed a civilian along the way (a couple of times, I had a random person die on me as I dragged their unconscious body through vents -- not sure if glitch or not -- and I reloaded my previous save just in case.)

It's a really good game and I had a mostly enjoyable time playing it. Prague is a really great setting, and the bulk of my time was spent exploring it for secrets and more information about the world. It's a great hub. The side missions stand out as being excellent. That's pretty much how you should do side content in games; there aren't a ton of them, but they were all pretty memorable and varied. The Harvester and Neon Nights, in particular, are two that I won't forget anytime soon.

I do agree with the criticism of the main story. It never really seemed to go anywhere or build any real momentum after the initial Dubai incident and train station bombing. It felt a lot "smaller" and much lower stakes than Human Revolution's, and instead of paying off on most of its concepts, it left much of the story threads incomplete, clearly saved for a sequel. I'm actually surprised I finished the game last night. I wasn't planning to, but about halfway through the final mission (which was excellent, by the way), it dawned on me that "Wow, this is actually the last mission!"

A lot of that is because this game doesn't do nearly the same job with the supporting cast as HR did. The world-building and everything is still great in Mankind Divided, but the main storyline was surprisingly thin, and the characters central to it were largely undeveloped.

Gameplay-wise, playing it stealthy (w/ hacking) was maybe a bit too easy, especially for "Give Me Deus Ex" difficulty. But at the same time, I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking out all of the guards and stealing all of their stuff without anyone knowing. And I'm okay with that aspect of it being very forgiving; it's better than it being frustrating and feeling like Jensen is incompetent.

But I do think they could do a better job finding more creative ways to take the non-lethal stealth route. It's very much going through vents, and tranquilizing/knocking out guards and hiding their bodies. Which is fun and easy to do, but there's no real reason to do it any differently. There's stuff like setting electrical traps or hacking turrets, but again, those result in death. It's too easy to just walk right into a room with a couple of guards, run up to them, press circle and knock them all out before raising an alarm. And I never even used smart vision or cloaking! It's both a case of the guard/enemy AI rarely requiring you to go out of your way to take them out, and the game not having more ways (environmental or otherwise) to incapacitate an enemy that's just as worthwhile and fun.

It's a good, worthy sequel to Human Revolution and is still one of the best games I've played all year. There are things here and there in the gameplay that could be improved, but all of that sneaking around and hacking everything was fun nonetheless. But I think I would still give Human Revolution the edge. That game just held my interest a lot more. I just never found myself caring that much about the main plot, and most of the intriguing elements of it won't get paid off until a later game.

if you play certain ways (stealth/hacking for instance) weapons, mods, ammo, grenades, mines, money, health etc become completely insignificant and useless. having 2 easily upgraded weapons for stealth is too little. there needs to be as much diversity and mod option for the tranq rifle or stun gun as there is for pistols and assault rifles, or at least give us variations in stats so we can find/buy better versions of those 2. give us different tranq darts that work faster. or traps that KO rather than kill. it's a weird game (and the same is true for human revolution) were the game seemingly pushes you towards stealth and hacking due to the environmental options (lots of keypads, lots of vents etc) and yet 90% of the items you pick up and buy are geared towards shooting.

now, this is a problem with all games like this really. but it's still disappointing to amass all these credits and have nothing to spend them on. i mean, i currently have a maxed out tranq rifle, a maxed out stun gun, 200 ammo for each (all found) and about 100,000 credits. why? why give us so much if you can do so little with it?
I completely agree with this. I maxed out those same two guns plus a silenced pistol, and still finished the game with close to 150,000 credits. I almost rarely bought anything from vendors once they ran out of Praxis kits. Eventually, I just gave up on looting as the inventory fills up way too fast, and there was no reason to keep selling stuff I don't use for credits that I have no use for. There desperately needed to be something else in the game to put credits toward.
 

h0tp0ck3t

Member
I think it was mentioned before but man what was up with
that tease at the end of GARM. You go outside and looks like there's a huge building to explore. Lol nope get to da choppah
 

d00d3n

Member
The System Rift DLC is still supposed to come out this friday (September 23rd), right? I really hope that it is a mega sized Palisade Property Bank type thing.
 

Furyous

Member
Golem City
is completely fucked in terms of guards and lack of side missions.

Is the lethal option easier than sneaking my way through cameras and guards while hiding in vents? My path sucks as I'm missing the hidden praxis kit in
Ridit Row
but oh well. The biocell aug + stealth aug increase is a god tier upgrade series, IMHO.
 

Zanzura

Member
Minor gripe, I wish there was some indicator of when you lose Ghost bonuses. I just started M12 and noticed I was getting Smooth Operator but no Ghost bonus for each objective. I thought maybe it would only apply for the final objective, but nope, no Ghost xp at all. I look up a video walkthrough and what do you know, they're getting 200 xp for every objective. Not really that big of a deal since by this point you should have most of the augs for your playstyle, but it's still somewhat annoying. I noticed the robots are just randomly popping out of their alcove like a search phase or something was triggered when I walk in to the bank but the HUD doesn't show anything was triggered. The guards in the garage didn't spawn either. Loaded an earlier save and did a speed run and still wasn't getting bonuses.

Meh, dumb bug.
 

sueil

Member
Can someone explain to me how the DLC side mission stuff works? Does it load my save and I have all my items and stuff? Or is it totally separate?
 
The lack of silent lethal options is really disappointing. I mean, why decrease the effectiveness of weapons by putting the silencer on it? What is the point of doing that? And why can't the sniper rifle take a silencer? What the fuck? This game tries so hard to force you to be non-lethal if you want to be silent and it's stupid and it violates the principle of the original games where you were free to do what you wanted to the NPCs.
 

Braag

Member
I finally started playing this. I've been doing some missions in prague and the game has been great so far. Only thing that I dislike is their choice to still use pre rendered cutscenes. It's 2016 and almost all AAA games use real time cutscenes. The jump to the cutscenes from gameplay are fairly noticeable (not quite as jarring as in HR), especially if you're wearing some other outfit than the default one cause that's what will be shown Jensen wearing during the cutscenes.

Also being able to use the DLC weapons only in 1 saved game and then they're gone forever is the biggest bullshit I've seen with DLCs in a long time.
 

Morts

Member
Spoiler thread has probably dropped off somewhere, but anyway

We already know Adam was originally "created" by VersaLife, so presumably they (and so Page and everyone else) have access to the information to create more Jensens. The guy in the box doesn't have the sunglasses implants, so that would suggest it's a "fresh" clone. But that could just be reading too much into details; the Harvester quest already made it apparent that memories can be acquired from dead people, so for all we know the guy in the box is the dead original. Since he's dead, they took off all of his augs and put them on a clone. But then that would mean this guy isn't a copy, he essentially IS Jensen transplanted onto new organic components. There can't be a conflict of memories like with Daria because a clone of Jensen implanted with Jensen's memories is just Jensen. So functionally, it makes no difference whether this is a clone or the original Jensen. Unlike the Venom Boss twist, this isn't some random Joe Shmo made to look like Jensen, it's essentially a replacement body for the original. Their capability to add the experimental augs and modify his memories would seem the same whether this is a clone or the original, so unless the original is dead/ damaged beyond repair (seems unlikely given that in this game's universe, he already survived being shot in the head and having his heart and lungs replaced), there's absolutely no reason to bother putting the augs on a clone. And if he IS a clone, it doesn't matter because it's just Jensen's memories being implanted into a clone of him, not a person being tricked into merely believing that they're Jensen.

He wasn't identified in Alaska because they already knew who he was, there was no reason to identify him and let anyone know he was there. At any rate, this just confirms what was already made apparent from the stinger of Human Revolution, that VersaLife/ Page are using Adam's DNA as the basis of nanoaugmentation and so we should expect to see clones one way or another.

Wait, what?
Adam was created by VersaLife? Which game did I miss that in? I missed all of this.
 

Serrato

Member
The lack of silent lethal options is really disappointing. I mean, why decrease the effectiveness of weapons by putting the silencer on it? What is the point of doing that? And why can't the sniper rifle take a silencer? What the fuck? This game tries so hard to force you to be non-lethal if you want to be silent and it's stupid and it violates the principle of the original games where you were free to do what you wanted to the NPCs.

Equip a Combat Rifle with a 4x Scope and a Silencer and it's pretty much an full-auto Sniper Rifle. Use Armor Piercing Bullets for people with helmets and voila!
 

d00d3n

Member
The lack of silent lethal options is really disappointing. I mean, why decrease the effectiveness of weapons by putting the silencer on it? What is the point of doing that? And why can't the sniper rifle take a silencer? What the fuck? This game tries so hard to force you to be non-lethal if you want to be silent and it's stupid and it violates the principle of the original games where you were free to do what you wanted to the NPCs.

Use the rare version of the battle rifle instead.
 

Quonny

Member
I'm very close to the end of the game, but holy crap this game needs to cool it on the organizations. There are like fifteen different organizations that are all interwoven in some way with leaders that do certain things and I dunno what the fuck is going on. The whole story is a blur at this point and I'm just playing it for the fun gameplay.
 
Finished it after over 40 hours. Loved it but Eidos Montreal really should've learned to add a stats screen after HR. Guessing whether or not you accidentally killed somebody or triggered an alarm til the end is annoying. Ultimately I'm really happy HR wasn't a fluke and these guys know how to make good Deus Ex games. Hopefully it's not another five year wait.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Finished it after over 40 hours. Loved it but Eidos Montreal really should've learned to add a stats screen after HR. Guessing whether or not you accidentally killed somebody or triggered an alarm til the end is annoying. Ultimately I'm really happy HR wasn't a fluke and these guys know how to make good Deus Ex games. Hopefully it's not another five year wait.

With the sales numbers being so horrible I wonder if it won't be 10 years+ and a reboot :(
 
Just finished my first play through and got the pacifist trophy. I really liked it, I wish it was longer. Main story felt rush as many have said.
 
The lack of silent lethal options is really disappointing. I mean, why decrease the effectiveness of weapons by putting the silencer on it? What is the point of doing that? And why can't the sniper rifle take a silencer? What the fuck? This game tries so hard to force you to be non-lethal if you want to be silent and it's stupid and it violates the principle of the original games where you were free to do what you wanted to the NPCs.
Equip a Combat Rifle with a 4x Scope and a Silencer and it's pretty much an full-auto Sniper Rifle. Use Armor Piercing Bullets for people with helmets and voila!
You can find (
ARC territory or SM09
) or buy (
upper Prague during the night
) the Lancer Rifle, too.

Basically a bolt action rifle that can comes with a scope (guessing it was 8x) and can be equipped with a silencer.
 

justjim89

Member
Errant Signal is out for the game, he's pretty critical of it.

I had a great time with the game, but he's right on pretty much every count here, especially with how the game betrays it's own themes in service of always being a cool action dude. The cops never really hassle you. You never experience a downside to your augmentations, even when crazy brand new ones are found hidden inside you. You go to Golem City for a brief visit while others have to stay, including an NPC you may unwittingly send there. The final boss and a lot of the augmented villains look like barely human monsters, while you have cool shades augmented into your face to always look sweet. Augmented people on the streets are going through hell trying to get Neuropozyne while you magically don't have to use it. The most sacrificing you have to do is turning off augmentations you don't plan on using so you can use your new cool ones, and even that is undone by the end of the game.

For all his moping, Jensen has it pretty damn good.
 
Errant Signal is out for the game, he's pretty critical of it.

I had a great time with the game, but he's right on pretty much every count here, especially with how the game betrays it's own themes in service of always being a cool action dude. The cops never really hassle you. You never experience a downside to your augmentations, even when crazy brand new ones are found hidden inside you. You go to Golem City for a brief visit while others have to stay, including an NPC you may unwittingly send there. The final boss and a lot of the augmented villains look like barely human monsters, while you have cool shades augmented into your face to always look sweet. Augmented people on the streets are going through hell trying to get Neuropozyne while you magically don't have to use it. The most sacrificing you have to do is turning off augmentations you don't plan on using so you can use your new cool ones, and even that is undone by the end of the game.

For all his moping, Jensen has it pretty damn good.

I see I'm not the only one who watched that vid. I'm actually considering making a thread about it, but I'm worried I'll get "I'm not watching an 18 minute video! Are you crazy?" responses.

I also agree with Chris here. Mankind Divided honestly didn't get enough flak for its story to be honest. The story can only be described as thematically clueless.
 
Errant Signal is out for the game, he's pretty critical of it.

I had a great time with the game, but he's right on pretty much every count here, especially with how the game betrays it's own themes in service of always being a cool action dude. The cops never really hassle you. You never experience a downside to your augmentations, even when crazy brand new ones are found hidden inside you. You go to Golem City for a brief visit while others have to stay, including an NPC you may unwittingly send there. The final boss and a lot of the augmented villains look like barely human monsters, while you have cool shades augmented into your face to always look sweet. Augmented people on the streets are going through hell trying to get Neuropozyne while you magically don't have to use it. The most sacrificing you have to do is turning off augmentations you don't plan on using so you can use your new cool ones, and even that is undone by the end of the game.

For all his moping, Jensen has it pretty damn good.

Eh, I think the game is aware that Jensen has it really good. A story NPC is flabbergasted and visibly jealous (nearly bitter) that Jensen doesn't need Neuropozyne (also it's not really magic, it was the entire plot of the previous game), starkly contrasts his extravagant Human Revolution style apartment by having you walk outside and see that everyone else in that area of town (and even the actual building) is living in garbage, etc.

There's also various lines and imagery I've noticed on subsequent playthroughs where, maybe I'm giving it too much credit but, it seems that the game slips a secondary meaning into all the talk about a divided humanity to comment on how Jensen is in a extremely unique position where he's very much divided between two different spheres of society and either he'll pick one or be resigned to accept that he's not representative of either.
 
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