Digital Spy preview / interview with Nathan Davis

[Niten_Ryu]

Very nice !

 

Recruit with hard difficulty sound like perfect for me.

[Humodour]

It's pretty presumptious of developers to assume people will play their game more than once.

I'm sorry, but what? You end the game then either click on New Game or Exit Game, and it's presumptious if they give you a reason to choose the former?

 

No. He's basically saying that developers should put all the content in from the get-go, because it is presumptious of them to expect players to enjoy the game so much that they would want to play through it all again. His opinion is fair enough.

 

In AP's case, that really wouldn't work too well. Some explanations are probably in order.

 

When you start up a game, you pick an "agent history", which pre-selects some of the skills for you. You can choose between Soldier (guns), Field Agent (stealth), or Tech Specialist (tech skills). These give you some basic recommended skills that will suit your playstyle if you don't want to allocate your skills yourself. (You can also choose Freelancer if you want to allocate your skills yourself.) However, the history you choose will also change the way some characters will react to you; some characters (especially early on) know that you came from the armed forces if you chose the Soldier background, and will comment on that, etc.

 

Recruit and Veteran are similar. If you start as a Recruit, you are assumed to be a really green recruit, and your other agents are going to give you a hard time about it (which in itself can be pretty amusing); likewise with Veteran, where other characters will treat you with a bit more respect because they know you've been around the block once or twice.

 

So it's essentially impossible to have all this content exist in one play-through, unless we populate the world with a bunch of schizos who think Mike is both a recruit, a somewhat capable but unproven field agent, and a veteran all at once.

 

That sounds better than the article.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I still don't understand whether recruit and veteran are tied into the difficulty setting or completely independent of it.

[Gfted1]

^

Recruit and Veteran are selected separately from difficulty. You still have difficulty settings that you select apart from them. I don't know that we've necessarily finalized the difficulties, but you should be able to play Recruit on Easy mode, or on Hard mode, depending on whether you want to have an easy time with it or want to be punished a bit.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Oh, thanks, I think I missed that because I posted at the same time as he, so the subsequent discussion was irrelevant.

[kreese12]

I like the system they decided upon.

 

It's odd. It's like the designers are making all these decisions that I agree with. It is pretty unusual ! It is sort of unsettling for me...

 

 

Certainly looking forward to AP .

[alanschu]

Are the titles simply a label?

 

I'd prefer to be referred to as a tech specialist, with my own focus specified.

[Matthew Rorie]

If you select a "tech specialist" background, you will be given a certain amount of advancement points allocated to certain skills in the character creation menu. If you want to, say, remove all of your points and throw them into Assault Rifles, then start the game, NPCs will still refer to you as if you had the tech specialist background, because that's what you initially chose.

 

That might sound confusing, but in the end it lets people who choose to replay the game the ability to go through with a different background and see some of the different conversations that ensue without necessarily having to play through with skills they don't want to play with.

[EvilWolf]

Wow, When I said it was a lot like the Mass Effect way of handling classes... I had no idea I hit the nail on the head...

[alanschu]

Matthew, that'll work just fine!

 

As for it being like Mass Effect, it is similar, but less (i.e. no) distinction between the classes and what abilities you can specialize in.