Too fucking difficult

[Kayl]

Ok I don't know if I made a mistake when choosing the difficulty settings or if you guys drastically increased the enemies' hitpoints with the patch but I'm on my second playthrough and this time I decided to side with WC and suddenly the game is fucking impossible.

I set the difficulty to normal hitpoints/normal damage inflicted to enemies/scarce items/hordes of enemies, and the first mission for WC (DXO hideout) is about ten times more difficult than the hardest mission on my previous playthrough (and it's the beginning of the game I barely have any items, weapons, augs or exp). First enemy I encountered at DXO I thought "OK two shots to the head with the silenced pistol should kill him", but it didn't, so I thought "OK let's finish him with the automatic shotgun", so I shot about 30 rounds into his head at close range and he was still standing. I then threw a grenade at him and it fucking blew up in my face... I had to reload 2-3 times just to kill this guy. And as if that wasn't enough there's a boss in the room on the upper floor, who's equipped with a fucking flame thrower, who seems to be completely impervious to bullets, who can become invisible and who's protected by a sentry gun placed right in front of the door, activated by lasers right on the doorstep !!!!

Needless to say after about 15 reloads I said fuck this and quit.

I mean seriously what's with the augmented enemies ??? They're a fucking pain in the ass and not fun at all. You usually have to resort to exploits to defeat them. Athena and zero presence were already completely annoying on my first playthrough but at least they were much further into the game and you knew when you were gonna face them and that they were gonna be tough. But this is just ridiculous, it's the first real mission of the game I'm not equipped to fight augmented enemies.

Also fire attacks are absolutely horrible. If you get hit by fire you're pretty much dead, unless I missed something. Is there anything you can do when you're in fire besides using up all your medkits or reloading ? Do fire extinguishers work on yourself ? And it's like every enemy in the game is equipped with a flame thrower or some other fire based weapon. I had to kill silver dragon earlier in the game, he's a dragon, he shoots fire out of his mouth, yay...

I'm sorry if I'm being rude but I'm so fucking pissed off right now, even more so because I was having so much fun before I got to that mission. Anyway maybe I'm not playing this game the right way. I'm basically playing it like I used to play DX, but DX on realistic was a walk in the park compared to this. Is there a way by any chance to change the difficulty settings in the middle of a game ? I'd hate to have to restart the game now.

Also a little suggestion for a future patch, why not make augmented enemies weaker on lower difficulty settings ? Or maybe even make another difficulty slider specifically for augmentations that would determine the level of augmentations of enemies. Or you could get rid of augmented enemies entirely and of fire based attacks, that would be fine by me.

[Jcelios]

TNM is a game that frequently requires you to think outside the box with higher difficulties. With augmented enemies it just means you need to get more creative.

"OK two shots to the head with the silenced pistol should kill him"
If your using alpha's pistol it should be noted that one if it's trade offs it less damage but higher rate of fire.

If your fighting someone with ballistic protection (orange glow) then don't just keep shooting them. Brainstorm another approach.

The LAM exploded in your face because of someone's ADS aug. So don't use explosives on them.

"Is there anything you can do when you're in fire besides using up all your medkits or reloading ?"

Fire extinguishers work on yourself. There are probably other ways to mitigate the damage also (maybe a hazmat suit or one of the protection augs?) Although I usually just end up quickloading. Quicksaving and quickloading are very useful on higher difficulties in case you're not using them.

"And it's like every enemy in the game is equipped with a flame thrower or some other fire based weapon."

No...

"I had to kill silver dragon earlier in the game, he's a dragon, he shoots fire out of his mouth, yay..."
Just shoot him and lead him into the guards, its really easy.

Anyways its best to calm down before hand if you're going to try and make a serious post about something. A combination of rant/venting and trying to make serious suggestions/asking for help isn't an effective combination.

I'm playing through TNM on a high difficulty and I had a lot of trouble with that area too but I got through it. It sounds like maybe your difficulty settings are a little wonky though. I'll leave that part to the devs.

For augmented enemies just remember that you can EMP their bio energy and other things. There are tons of ways to do things in Deus Ex and I welcomed the parts of TNM that forced me to get creative.

[JC_Helios]

There's a manhole as soon as you enter DXO, if you have lockpicking trained it'll only take 2 lockpicks and by taking that route you can avoid fighting for the most part.

Compudoc is standing in the doorway looking in different directions every few seconds, it shouldn't be too hard to sneak up on him and stun him with stun fists/prod. Remember that most of their augs are off while they're not aware of you, so you could proly snipe someone with ballistic protection in the back of the head before they even have a chance to activate BP.(AO's pistol is to weak though, note I said snipe. (25+skill lvl dmg vs. 10+skill lvl dmg... the difference becomes even more apparent when you add in the damage multipliers for: unnoticed, head, from behind, stunned, or whatever. )

Yeah, you should always have a fire extinguisher if you hate fire that much. Not only will it put you out; chances are it will blind the enemy flaming you at the same time.

[Kayl]

Anyways its best to calm down before hand if you're going to try and make a serious post about something. A combination of rant/venting and trying to make serious suggestions/asking for help isn't an effective combination.

Yeah sorry it just litterally drove me crazy I just had to let it out. I ended up reloading an old save in order to do some side missions to get some xp before going to DXO. I also noticed I didn't even have to fight the guy on the upper floor. I just needed a login and password in one of the desks on the first floor. I still have a lot to learn about TNM and probably DX.

Fire extinguishers work on yourself. There are probably other ways to mitigate the damage also (maybe a hazmat suit or one of the protection augs?) Although I usually just end up quickloading. Quicksaving and quickloading are very useful on higher difficulties in case you're not using them.

Ok good to know, I guess I'll have to make room for one in my inventory. I hate using quickloads too much though, it kinda breaks the flow of the game. And I still think fire damage sucks It's too penalizing and you can't see anything when attacked with a flamethrower. It's just really annoying.

For augmented enemies just remember that you can EMP their bio energy and other things.

Well the EMP grenades aren't really effective, like the lams they usually end up hurting me more than anyone else (because of the ADS aug), or if the enemy is equipped with a speed aug they're just wasted. You just throw it somewhere and the next second the enemy is on the other side of the room. I've just found the EMP gun though, maybe that will help. Is it affected by the ADS aug too ?

it shouldn't be too hard to sneak up on him and stun him with stun fists/prod

Yeah I noticed the prod was really useful against augmented enemies when I was fighting zero presence on my first playthrough. But I find it annoying that you have to use this weapon to fight such powerful enemies. It's almost too overpowered for such a small weapon. I mean they're immune to everything but one hit with the prod and you can safely finish them.

[JC_Helios]

I think I noticed that NPC ADS doesn't work on wall mounted lams... or at least it didn't work on the napalm blobs after I had shot them at a wall. So set an EMP mine, get one of them to chase after you, and boom! mortal enemy.

The only enemy that I remember being 'immune' to everything was Scara, I think (Maybe TRM too...).
If you see an orange glow pull out a gas grenade and see if that works, even if they have ADS the gas grenade won't really hurt you and the gas will still expel prolly blinding them. Then you can try crossbow darts, or the flamethrower/napalm launcher, O! O! O! PS20.... A couple of hits from those might bring down a non plasma protected augged enemy.(the other plasma,and fire weapons are a bit big.) Speaking of fire, there's no Walton Simmons' or Gunther Hermanns... I believe even enemies with energy shield will run around crazzily when on fire.

If none of those work you can always get inventive. In Alginon's no item playthrough he lead WS up into a room with electricity arcing about out of a broken light and waited 6-12 minutes for it to kill him. Too bad the broken electricity box here requires that you have TRM's key I think, but..... there's always TNT, tranq mines, you can reprogram the turrets in TRM's room and the other one, or just have them kill themselves.(TRM does it with his LAM sometimes.)

Think of it less as "Too fucking difficult" and more as: "A fun challenge that I can create some overly drawn out plan in order to pass". Bah, maybe I'm just autistic or whatever and find too much pleasure in coming up weird solutions.

[Jcelios]

With EMP'n augmented foes: does the ADS still work even through they haven't spotted you yet?

[JC_Helios]

I think when you look at Phas in the training mission he has ADS on without being in combat. Probably one of the "passive" augs which they always have on. (until you drain them)

[Eddy Way]

I always grab as many fire extinguishers as I can, they are a cheap and effective replacement for the pepper spray (one of my most used weapons) now that they are stackable. <(##')>

Does anyone know if LAMs stuck to walls are affected by an enemys ADS?

[JC_Helios]

Stacking fire extinguishers= bad.
You're better off just throwing away your old one and picking up a new one. You can't reload them and if your current one is empty the new one just gives you 44 ammo, and 2 clips which you can't use....

As I said earlier I don't think they are. If you want to test it, just stick one on the wall behind(or near) Scara.

[odawali]

With level 4 Energy Shield on you only take about 2 damage/second when you're on fire. Love that aug in TNM.

[JC_Helios]

Yeah, but with it's counterpart you can heal every time it inflicts damage on you, and on level 4 you can even wait till you have about 20 torso health left, regen until you're at a hundred, turn it off and wait until you're at 20 again. (This conserves energy or at least it makes sense that it would in my head.) One time I went for both, because I was playing as combat type and I wanted as many shields as possible, hell I even got the EMP shield....It was actually quite helpful for the hover bots and spider bots.

[Eddy Way]

Huh hadnt noticed that stacking fire extinguishers makes your next clip contain 44 units, dont get enough time to play. Still like to make sure ive always got one on me. cheaper than investing in plasma/fire shield if you play more stealth combat.

I stacked 3 chairs in the doorway and killing the red greasels was painless. Common exploit though - perhaps you already tried that.

[Jonas]

In my opinion, the best thing about the Energy Shield aug is that it negates the temporary blindness you get from being hit by plasma rifles or being on fire - just one level of the energy shield removes the blinding effect from a plasma shot.

[DDL]

Strictly speaking, one of the endearing things about DX is its refusal to cut the player any slack. Sure: the flamethrower is devastating if you've got it. You can clear out a whole room of heavily armed grunts with a short burst.

But of course, if THEY have it, and get you: you're generally fucked.

So generally my policy with flamethrower-armed opponents is LAM everything.

[that guy]

To my recollection all fire based weapons that the ai can get are short range.

TNM is harder than DX because DX was a cakewalk.