Realistic too easy?

[endgame]

First of all, hi folks

I'm here to silently wait in the shaft with my cloak and power recirculator on for the hdtp

While playing deus after a looooong time, something was bothering me..

I've only played it once when it came out and it was damn hard. Since then I've grown up, got some fps and sneaking skills from other games, true, but still..

- I've managed to get from beginning of the game past Paris with using basically only knife and a pistol.
- I turn on augmentations maybe once per level, and that's stuff like muscle on-off just to drop some explosive crates.
- Most of my skills are untrained or trained, only the rifles which I don't use are advanced (I didn't know I'd get this far with a pistol)
- Bioelectric cells and medkits are starting to rot due to lack of usage

Yeah I know, this sounds like childish bragging but that's really not the point.
My point is actually concern about the game being as "hard" as Half Life 2 on hard - easy.
If a normal person with only a pistol and a knife can do all that, what's so heroic about our beloved JC..
MJ12 commandos take only 3 non-upgraded pistol headshots to die, not really cool considering the difficulty + their tough looking armors.. The only reason I'm currently using assault rifle/sniper is the lack of 10mm ammo

Is there a chance that the game recognized my style of playing/neglegance of augs/skills and decided to downgrade the difficulty?
I'm playing the original Deus 1.002, could that be the reason? I've upgraded it somewhere during Hong Kong, but I belive it didn't effect the savegames as my Cloak still uses 300 energy/minute no matter how much I upgrade it

Thoughts on the abovemention would be nice.

**Note** - yes, I know I'm committing high-degree blasphemy with this way of playing, but I couldn't resist it when seeing that it could be done (so far), and I'd like to try and minimize the use of augs/weapon upgrades/other guns just for the sake of it.

p.s. I guess I'm just a stingy gamer, after seeing that thread

[bobby 55]

Hi, welcome to the forums, I have the GOTY edition and I can't recall realistic being way too easy. That said though, Half Life 2 on normal is challenging enough the first time you play imo. I don't think the game compensates for your playing style, perhaps you're good at the style of play you choose.

[endgame]

I'd much rather play GOTY, no matter if it's the same as patched original.
Problem is, it has all sorts of weird constant crashes under XP 64-bit so I gave up..

[bobby 55]

I'd much rather play GOTY, no matter if it's the same as patched original.
Problem is, it has all sorts of weird constant crashes under XP 64-bit so I gave up..

Would they be at the warehouse and Hong Kong? I had crashes there on XP64 but not on XP home edition. I haven't done a complete play-through on Windows 7 yet.

[endgame]

Never got there, the f*cker started with crashes during the very first few minutes of playing, no particular pattern. Errors like "MemoryPump<-MemoryLoop", pretty obscure stuff since even google went "what?"

[Xesum]

Ah yes, the great random crashes of Deus Ex, caused by The Unreal Engine.

What's even better is when enemies have an infinite amount of 10mm ammo and medkits so you can just stand above their bodies and blast down everyone.

[endgame]

Damn the google/yahoo jedi bots for this upheaval of off-topic on my first topic

Gentlemen, I know it's juicy joining powers and taking a load on the good ole UT engine, but I'm playing the regular patched game just fine, so.. let's talk evil solid snake ex

[Xesum]

My personal favorite Deus Ex Error is the one where you've just reached the button to destroy Area 51 at the end of the game and the game crashes.

[endgame]

I guess the topic was doomed to begin with. Ah to hell with it, I'm gonna go back to knifing armored troopers

[bobby 55]

I guess the topic was doomed to begin with. Ah to hell with it, I'm gonna go back to knifing armored troopers

Hey, come on guy, don't get upset. Comeback later and I'm sure you'll have more people ready to continue your topic.

[endgame]

T'was a mere harmless joke, I guess you guys are yet to get to know me and my morbid humour
I like a good off-topic myself, no worries there

[Hassat Hunter]

First time DX owned me even on easy.

Now I can take on TNM with all bars set on 4.

Guess you just get used to exploiting the AI, and shooting people in the head and all that jazz...

Tried running DX Realistic without saving at Liberty Statue though, and I always get one-headshot pistol killed at one point. Not fair...

[Jaedar]

Now I can take on TNM with all bars set on 4.

I take TNM on all four with only my fists! Boyakshza! bonus points for innuendo?

Also, no I never found DX too easy.

[DDL]

Endgame, you can check your difficulty by typing

get deusexplayer.combatdifficulty

at the console: you should see a tiny number appear at the top left of the screen: if it's 4.0000, then you're on realistic.

0.5 = easy
1.0 = normal
2.0 = hard
4.0 = realistic

In fact, the only (ONLY) difference that number makes is: how much damage you take from shot and autoshot damagetypes (all non-sabot bullet weapons, knives, swords etc, and turrets). The rest (AI responses, enemy health etc) is exactly the same on all difficulties.

Simply put, getting shot with a pistol on easy means you take 14*0.5 = 7 damage.

On realistic you take 14*4 = 56 damage. Add in a location damage modifier (say, head) and that's nothing to worry about on easy, and an instantly fatal wound on realistic.

That's the only difference. Flamethrowers, plasmarifles, grenades? Those all do the same damage on all difficulties.

Essentially, if you play in a manner than means you rarely/never actually get shot, it doesn't matter what difficulty you play on.

[ggrotz]

I've only played it once when it came out and it was damn hard. Since then I've grown up, got some fps and sneaking skills from other games, true, but still..

My point is actually concern about the game being as "hard" as Half Life 2 on hard - easy.
If a normal person with only a pistol and a knife can do all that, what's so heroic about our beloved JC..

It seems you've learned how to play one aspect of the game. Congratulations. When you master a game, you tend to destroy it at any skill level with time.

DX is nice in that it was designed so it would be agnostic to your methods you use. Which means you can safely use any weapon of your choice and generally be fine, as long as you know what you're doing. If you've followed me long enough on PDX and here, you'll see me talk about using low-tech weapons only (that knife, along with the swords, crowbar, riot prod, and so on) on the game from start to finish. Quite possible. You'll even see some talk of using nothing at all in inventory. It's been done.

If you're really looking for challenge, pick a weapon class and stick with it in the game from start to finish. Or instead of playing killemall, play as an infiltrator. Try to do your "job" without being noticed. There's easier ways and harder ways to play DX depending on the method you try.

Go for it!