Tigranes

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Assault Rifle = Focused Aim. Otherwise, look in the modding thread for ini tweaks, though whether they work or not is unconfirmed.

The guards are easier to get past, the marines are much harder.... as it should be.

Walking "looking" silly won't be fixed, though - you'd need to make new animations.

Unfortunately, asking "Can I run around and be stealthy" is the same asking "Can I play a football game without running". If they balanced the game so that you could do this, then the entire game would be broken, because everybody would be able to 'stealth' and the enemies would be deaf and blind. You can look in NoiseStats.ini (see my post in the modding thread) and change the values, so that running makes just as little noise as Stealth. However, this would break the game and make it very easy.... your call, though.

Exactly. Constructive criticism is fine - I think it's silly that Surkov doesn't take proper cover, as well. But the OP's criticism is at its heart a frustrated tantrum about why he can't beat the mission. You don't have to be a run and gunner to beat that part easily. However, being a spy on the run means you're often forced into situations that you would ideally like to avoid. Seriously. You're a spy. You're not an office worker. You don't have the luxury of taking everything on when you want how you want. Everyone complaining " i don't get to play a real spy" need to look at a James Bond movie and ask themselves - does James Bond get to do everything when he wants how he wants? Or does he get forced into highly dangerous and exposed situations?

You mean... like an elevator? OH GAWD

If you play on Recruit and Hard, why are you complaining it's too difficult? Anyway, I've done it on those settings, AP is one of thoes games where once you work out a strategy any challenge becomes doable. Yes, the dozens of us on the forums who have finished Hard quite easily must be gaming Gods. That must be the only explanation? You finding a particular challenge excruciating has more to do with getting used to the game and finding the right strategy. It's always the people's extinct to blame the game first, though.

I won't address every single one of your points, but the core of it comes down to this - all your complaints come from the fact that you think the game is too hard and unbalanced. All your arguments boil down to that. Why is it so hard to sneak? Why are minigames so hard? Why are bosses so hard? Why do I have to chew on razor blades? Well, let's see: -> "12 nodes alarm minigames are impossible": I do these most of the time. They're not hard, because the shape of the mazes are picked from a few handful of pre-set ones. i.e. the wire mazes aren't random. So after a while it's pretty easy to hit one node every second or so. Is it hard? Yes. Is there a significant chance of failure? Yes. Is it impossible? No. If you're not good at this particular minigame, that's fine - I'm useless at shooting, for instance, and sometimes die to a single Taipei policeman. Get yourself an EMP or sabotage. -> "Stealthing missions are impossible": Um... are you suggesting that for a game to be 'balanced' for stealth players, you should be able to stealth past anything and everything? Seriously? Stealth is incredibly overpowered at the moment, thanks to Shadow Operative. The point of stealth is to let you tackle challenges on your own terms or bypass some of them, not a magic token that lets you feel like some invisible badass. The fact is, this game is not a hard game, or an unbalanced game. No matter what build you make, if you make full use of the gadgets, skills, guns, environments, etc available to you, there are very few areas where you get stuck and come up against overwhelming odds. Example is Brayko - he appears freaking impossibly hard, but once you work out how to get to him (and there are ways to get to him for just about every build), he becomes almost deflatingly simple to defeat. There are areas where the game could do better, but your rant just comes from the fact that you're not taking advantage of all the tools you have. The game is telling you "here are all these things you can use to win", and you're saying "No I wanna win this way and I wanna get my perks and I wanna be a badass"...

No problem - if you play again and encounter it again feel free to upload the save. Hell, maybe by then we'll have a patch to fix the issue - I can't think there's not one coming.

*shrug* if you cheat, then weird things may happen to the game. That's rule 101 of editing game files. Spydude's solution might do the same thing - the more APs you have, the harder minigames get - but at least you can max out sabotage skill, the second to last skill on that tree will mean you will never get the very hardest ones (10s/5pin).

Al Bara mission was surely meant to be an 'open mission', yes. Perhaps with some Hitman-style disguise-and-enter and attempting to fool people. Really would have been a fun mission.

Generally, I find that most people that complain about Mike being 'too weak' or skills being 'too useless' actually tried it a little bit, didn't really understand how to use those particular skills properly, and then instead of giving it a fair go for a while and learning how to play in a different way gave up and just decided to not play / go back to old way / cheat / etc. Good to see OP is giving it a fair go - the game isn't impossible for *any* character by any stretch of imagination if you use what you have right.

Actually, I've gone through entire missions where I killed and dealt with 90% of the enemies with gadgets, they are great fun and very useful. 1) You need to observe and wait just as much as a stealth character. Wait until 2, or even 3, enemies are clumped together, line up your grenade trajectory just right, and then lob - use Overclock if available. Instant multi-kill. 2) If you use a stealth takedown to kill the first man, often, other enemies will go 'yellow' and come to the scene of the crime. If you time it right, you can use that first man as a bait and then get 'em all. 3) Incendiary grenades have a very large area of effect and sometimes they take a few seconds to come into effect - even when you can't see the fire graphics (a bug?). Especially with overclock and/or upgrades they can very easily take out multiple enemies. 4) Remote mines are not as useful, but they're the most fun I've had with anything in Alpha Protocol. they are hilarious. Tricks include: (a) When you hear an enemy coming towards you from the other side of a door, quickly set a remote mine on the door and then back away. When they open the door, hit the remote - and bam, they're dead. (b) Wait and see their patrol routes; when they're on the other side, mine their patrol route, then bam. © Hell, you can even throw them then detonate them. 5) Explodable trucks. Use them. Combined with any gadget they make big big explosions. Places where you can use gadgets to great effect include, just off the top of my head: -> Saudi Arabia, Jizan Weapons: When you first approach the open area, before you go down all the stairs, you can lob a grenade to the wooden tower where a guy is manning a turret. If you wait another guy will come near - you can get two of them instantly, and then distract the other remaining ones. Oh, you can try my remote mine trick with the door when you are entering that room behind the satellite dish: mine the door, open it, and stepping backwards, hit the remote. :D Also, after you open the big door leading underground, you can take the zip-line down to knock an enemy out, then immediately, lob a grenade to a nearby truck to get the other 2 enemies - often before they've noticed you properly. -> Saudi Arabia, Nasri: In the room with the big tank and lots of weapons (and the missile you can fire at the palace), you can often use grenades to great effect if you have Awareness, because there are so many obstacles and the enemy can't see you easily. Often they'll stumble around trying to find you and put themselves in harm's way. -> Moscow, Lazo's Yacht: Obvious one is two guys near the first floor arcade machines, close together. Then, after you take out Lazo, there will be a lot of enemies coming down to your location - a well aimed overclocked incendiary grenade can take out up to 5(!) enemies at once - just be careful not to get the scantily clad woman. Remote mines placed beforehand can also be useful. There are a lot of other places. I find that a gadgets-man is not so much about getting by undetected, but choosing your own ground and own timing for the fight - laying traps and laying your plans and then cackling maniacally while people are set on fire.

Tip to getting the most out of life: read before you post. Upload your save.

That's only because we delete all the horse porn before you see them.

People are meant to hear you if you sprint, for obvious reasons. Game would be a lot easier if they couldn't. If you want to change it go to NoiseStats and lower the value for Sprint.

See Eschalon Book II for a good example of this. Darkness would actually mean darkness - so harder to see things for yourself, and also game rules reflecting this in reduced accuracy over long ranges and reduced LOS for enemies. Heavy rainstorms would reduce efficiency of fire spells and blow out your torches as well. It'd be interesting to do things like use wind for directional blasts of rigged explosive kegs...

Americans win at life

I know you're coming from a pretty reasonable and organised perspective, but when I just look at the game and see how I enjoy it, there's a kick out of using different ammo, as well. It's an additional item type (and thus additional type of loot); it's a perishable good, which adds an element of excitement and tactical planning; and it feels just as good as using a special ability or magic spell to blast the enemy away. Not to mention the expectations of verisimilitude you mentioned. I think one could potentially go with something like Diablo 2's arrow skills, or unlimited basic arrows, but abstract and streamline it too much, and I think it'll take out a lot of the feel good factor, as well as immersion. I don't think ammo should be merged into some mana soup.

His recent activities didn't have something to do with it, right? That's really really sad... we'll miss you Michael.

Followup on noisestats - It *does* work and it does make a big difference. I found that spiking up noise values for sneaking (RECON) and open door too much meant you could not do Parker's espionage training (both 'normal' and 'secret') without being detected! Putting up recon too much would mean that even if you snuck up to an enemy from ehind they would become alerted just before you did the takedown. Lots of tweaking still needed, what I ideally want is for it to be really really hard to be able to take out people inside a building or a courtyard without other enemies in that same area noticing. i.e. a lot more yellow arrows (suspicious enemies). No idea, maybe later on I can suggest it if we get more modding stuff going on, but it's not my call.

That's not really a learn by doing system though. That's exactly the same as saying "gain xp to level up, levels give you ability points, spend them on whatever you like".

office-and-panoptic-watchtower then.

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