Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

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Jonas
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Jonas »

Well, a high-level rundown then, because that feels like a fun thing to do at 3:30 am.

There's three major components to performance: memory (RAM and VRAM), GPU, and CPU.

GPU is rarely a bottleneck on PC - it can be on consoles, but generally speaking graphics cards are really powerful, and really good at the very specific things they do. Crudely speaking, video cards crunch the polygons and the shaders. This is what most people think of as "graphics" - more numerous and more detailed objects on the screen, with fancier materials like 8-bit transparency, emission, reflection, refraction, parallax, animation, and so on. You can definitely have too many polygons and too many fancy shaders on screen at any time, but you'll probably fuck up the CPU or fill the memory before you manage that.

Memory is always an issue. Now adays a standard gaming rig has at least 8 GB of RAM and some have 16, so that's obviously tons, but the videocard has its own RAM, and that's typically more limited. Blowing the memory budget is painfully easy, but fixing it is usually pretty easy too - compress your assets as much as you can get away with, or stream a little more aggressively (more on that in a second).

CPU is always a concern. You tend to run physics on your CPU (except when you can throw it over to the GPU), you run AI on it which can get really really heavy in a modern game (The Last of Us is probably the current state of the art when it comes to individual agent AI, and they couldn't have more than 8 characters in a fight at the same time because it got too intense). The CPU also handles draw calls, which is basically how many objects you're rendering. Static objects can be batched (dynamic objects can kinda be batched too, but that gets messy) to reduce the draw calls, but Clandestine for example (which batches almost everything) tends to hover around 5-6000 draw calls, which means the CPU has to process that many rendered objects every single frame (so ~60 times per second).

Occlusion is the way you reduce the GPU load by filtering out objects that are hidden behind other objects before you draw the scene, but IIRC occlusion is done on the CPU, so you're kinda moving the problem from the GPU to the CPU. Still, it's pre-baked, so occlusion definitely helps.

Streaming is how you reduce GPU and CPU load by only loading in the objects that are relevant to the current area the player is in, and just keeping the rest of the scene handy on the harddrive until they're needed. Streaming is how modern games can actually exist in the first place, with levels that are larger than - let's say - the levels in Thief 3. Streaming is also, however, why you have to either go through the subway station or crawl through a weird little tunnel in an alley to get from one side of Detroit to the other in DXHR.

Unfortunately now it's 4 am and I'd rather go to bed than finish this post. Good night ;)
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Jaedar
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Jaedar »

Jonas wrote: Unfortunately now it's 4 am and I'd rather go to bed than finish this post. Good night ;)
That was nice, but it didn't answer my question regarding post processing at all [-X
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by fantsu »

Too much off topic stuff here. :)
Leave that hideous-piece-of-crap-game (HR) out of this.
I'm really hoping for an decent game this time.
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Jonas »

Gameplay video - not too spoilery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh-iX2bxOjI

Commence whinging ;)
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Made in China »

First of all, I don't trust E3 trailer and demos, but I've got to say - SO PRETTY.
Also, SO GOLD. I'm guessing that someone in the art team took all of the criticism from HR backwards, and instead toning it down and allowing more colour in, he just bathed everything in yellowy-orange. Hopefully this can be toned down through a shader or a removal of one. It also lends to one of the most prolonged sundowns EVER, which took me out of it a bit, but it's a minor complaint.

So, things in order:
0. (Cutscene) - Rudest cops ever. Also, never start with a 5 minute long cutscene for your gameplay trailer, you're bound to lose viewers.

1. I can't believe that you get an EMP pistol straight off the bat. We've had to break into WorldCorp for our only shot at getting it, and even then it was OP. Not to mention, the original Deus Ex only had EMP grenades, so the sudden appearance of EMP bullets is kind of awkward.

2. Icarus Dash - Dishonored much?

3. Remote hacking - cool idea, actually. It appeared in several Deus Ex mods and it was a really good upgrade, so I can see it being useful.

4. Regular hacking - fucking awful. It seems just as tedious as it was in HR, only now you're blind for half of the minigame. A good puzzle is having all of the pieces you need and assembling them together, or logically finding the missing piece. It isn't wandering in the dark bumping into shit.

5. Destructible cover - thumbs up for that. Gives real consequence for going combat rather than stealth.

6. Conversation system - Jesus Christ, I can't believe they haven't changed a bloody bit about it. The most random part of HR remains, unless you get the CASIE aug and then you need to basic ability to count to win all the arguments.

7. Weapon mods on the fly - Removes consequence from actually permanently upgrading your weapons, can fuck up the inventory system if a certain weapon is too versatile, and breaks the pacing of combat. It's a cool idea on paper, but I haven't seen a game that can pull it off properly. So it's doomed to fail, although I hope it doesn't.

8. Focus system - I loved it in Max Payne. I don't think it fits in Deus Ex, because that's what made Max Payne OP in the first place, but I guess it can work if it's properly balanced.

All in all, I treat this like a Deus Ex/Illuminaughty fanfic come to life. Not canon in any way, but I might experience it just because I love the original so much - plus, it introduces some gameplay elements that seem fun, so it might be interesting from a design standpoint.
Still not hyped, though.
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Jaedar »

The only real thing I saw was more of the same. Including the completely broken xp system that seemingly hasn't changed at all.

And I guess energy comes in one bar now?

Starting to doubt I'll even try this one.
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by Blade sword »

It will be very similar to HR anyways, the same people are involved so there is no surprise.
Personally as I see it Deus Ex was designed after first person shooters, but the third one not really, it's more on par with games like metal gear or gears of war (rainbow six vegas) for the awful combination of views.
Personally I hate cinematic games, and well HR have too much of that, lots of its gameplay elements revolves around the cutscene craze.
So the sequel while it seems to improve upon HR in many ways, it doesn't do any step back regarding the things that are problematic to me since the beginning, the cinematic aspect and the forced third person perspective for taking cover and using the takedowns
Even if Dishonered wasn't the absolute perfect game, I at least loved the fact it stayed in first person all the time and it has actual melee
Also funny to see that the mantling is in first person in MD while they kept the third person ladders ...

The only aspect I do agree with the developers and disagree with plenty of the deus ex community is pretty much the game should let you choose your style and propose a fair challenge in whatever playstyle you choose. I know that the first game truly favored stealth unless you had points on the weapon skills, but I think it was a bit problematic in the end because the first part needed stealth and made combat a lot punishing, while the later part became more combat friendly with certain weapons and skills and so becomes much easier.
If I had only one complaint regarding the vanilla game it's pretty much there
Combat is too hard in the beginning, while too easy if you take that route and build your character around it, while stealth in the only thing that takes over as you progress.
If one thing has been fixed on HR regarding the original game it's the weapon handling. it surely removes the skill system and ruins the RPG aspect for the most part. but the weapons are more fun to use even if less functional or sometimes totally cheap with certain upgrades.
I played many deus ex mods and some of them actually improve combat
I personally prefer that deus ex guns revolves around recoil base than pure accuracy base
To explain better I think when the player has low skill, you can still aim relatively quickly, but when you shoot you loose a lot of accuracy, and then have to wait a relatively long time to get it back, thus forcing you to move if you play combatively or even more stealthily.
I also think that inaccuracy should be bigger after shooting than after moving. I think it would make the combat more fluid and still keep challenge even when points are invested into weapons
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Re: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Post by DDentonas »

Cybernetic pig wrote:Personally I'm not a fan of that system (in my Deus Ex, anyhow) as it is anti-choice and consequence. Every applied weapon mod in DX is a permanent decision (as with all the RPG systems if course) and I like that. It may not be realistic, but damn is it good for C&C, replayability and strategy in how to build your character.

Well, first of all this is all about making the game more "fun" right? I mean if the goal was to make it more like a simulation, we wouldn't even talk about not being able to switch weapon mods. Now permanent mods have their advantage. Namely that it encourages multiple playthroughs. But the disadvantage is that it doesn't allow for freedom of experimentation in a single playthrough and it doesn't allow freedom of expression. You are locking in the player for the whole game in a single playstyle. Ok, maybe locking is a bit of a harsh word, if we are talking about a single mod, but once you spend half the mods the game gives you on a single weapon, the player will be discouraged to change the way they play, even if they want to. Warren Spector himself didn't like the concept of absolute consequences and that is why he designed the AI in a way that if you screw up, it would reset in less than a minute after you hid. And in my opinion, the advantage is not really an advantage, because forcing the player to replay the game to try different things, feels a bit like "artificial replayability" to me. Of course weapon mod freedom has its own disadvantages. When the player can take out any mod from any weapon and put it into another at any moment, you no longer have specialisation. They player becomes good with everything. What I would like of course is the best of both worlds. Something like changing weapon mods requiring a gun smith and a small price. That way the player can try different playstyles in a single playthrough, but can't abuse the system. But then again this is all academic conversation. EM has shown that they just don't think at a high enough level to get concepts like that and I doubt they will change that with the new game.

Wow, I wrote much more than I was planning to, about this matter. Anyway. Mankind Divided. I expect more of the same. Mary DeMarle is still lead writer so I expect more of generilisations ("Augmentations will allow us to evolve and become better!" "Noooooo. Augmentations are bad and unatural.") more nonsensical and unsatisfying storylines, plot holes and of course, like MeskY said, a complete disregard for the original DX canon. The gameplay will be about the same, even a bit more polished I hope. Which is good in comparison to other AAA titles that come out now, but nowhere near to the original Deus Ex. Yey.
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