How would YOU improve Alpha Protocol?

[Dragoncat]

What do you think could have been done differently in order to make the gameplay of AP more balanced?

[Serrano]

That could be such a long conversation. I think AI improvements would go a long way, as would making boss encounters possible to deal with by non-violent methods. Toning down certain abilities like stealth and chainshot would also be a good idea. That said, I think the game on whole is more balanced than people give it credit for, it's just that some of the things that are broken are so common that you're always noticing them

Edited June 24, 2010 by Serrano

[Dragoncat]

That could be such a long conversation. I think AI improvements would go a long way, as would making boss encounters possible to deal with by non-violent methods. Toning down certain abilities like stealth and chainshot would also be a good idea. That said, I think the game on whole is more balanced than people give it credit for, it's just that some of the things that are broken are so common that you're always noticing them

I'd certainly support nerfing Chain Shot + Shadow Operative wholeheartedly. I think that those two abilities are the most obvious examples of gameplay imbalance.

 

I'd be interested in seeing how Shadow Operative and Chain Shot could be toned down so that they aren't gamebreaking. Maybe Chain Shot could function more like Chain Lightning in D&D: each subsequent bullet inflicts progressively less damage.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Dragoncat

[edgarcuk]

It depends, because the "overpowered" chain shot and shadow operative, make sense playing on hard... of course, if you want to make your life easy and stress less.., yes, such abilities are overpowered in normal mode, but in hard, they come as a bliss. it also depends on how you play, if you always used them, it feels overpowered, a la FO VATS, DAO mages, ME2's singularity, stealth... etc... but so far there's no "overpower" complains... they are just right

 

Talking about such games, the cooldown is ridiculously fast, VATS with all perks is around 15 seconds, stealth in ME2 is 6 seconds and SO is 20 seconds... just an example, of course

[unskilled-]

1. Open up the world. Give the player the option to slow-travel (on foot or by vehicle) or quick-travel to locations.

 

2. Options to customize Thorton even further (different face, etc..). Hell, even let him be female for those who want some lesbian action with SIE.

 

3. More weapons, armors and gadgets.

 

4. More intel to buy. Ontop of the intel for missions and people, you could have misc intel just to flesh out the world and its political climate.

 

5. More missions.

 

6. Different types of missions.

 

7. More animations for every character. Yes, even an animation for dragging a body.

 

8. Completely rework the boss-fights. Give the options for stealth players to silently take out the boss in a single blow, like every other enemy within the game. Taking a page from Oblivion, have the ability for technical people (trappers) to poision or "assassinate" the boss in different ways (electrocute brakyo in his pool or something).

 

8a. Change how you meet up against the bosses. Having the fight in a huge-ass room is cliche, make it so you can take the fight throughout the level (which would make the "respawning" enemies a bit more tolerable).

 

9. Rework the upgrading system for weapons. Mikey can do basic upgrades, while more technical upgrades (depending on your build) would require a qualified mechanic.

 

10. More greybox missions. It would make more sense for MIkey to take on 1-2 missions before the mission where he gets ****ed over. This would also give time for some characters to get fleshed out, instead of (example) Mina latching onto you for "doing the right thing" without even doing anything to even warrent such a comment.

 

11. Rework the levels and the AI to take advantage of more "realistic" guard movements. Ie: no spawming enemies when you get into a certain area.

 

11a. Eliminate checkpoints for anything other than meeting up with the boss.

 

12. AI teammates in your missions ontop of your handlers. You could hire ex-CIA/NSA/Spesntas/etc to provide you with backup for those tough missions that require you to storm a place or w/e.

 

13. Randomly Generated Missions. You're a rogue operative with no access to funds unless you take on jobs to get money. Finding 20k within certain missions is absurd, really.

 

14. More CQC moves. Knocking the gun out of an enemy's hand, or getting him in a choke-hold and use him as a shield.

 

15. Unexpected missions. Ie: your safehouse is raided due to you being careless and being seen in "x" amount of missions.

 

16. More security devices to over-come. Trip-wires, sound sensitive alarms, pressure plates that trigger alarms, retina scanners that need the right guard.

 

17. Side stories, side missions. (Ie. Mina's parents are being held hostage cause she's helping you)

 

18. Disguses. This would tie in with the different missions (6.) in as much as you would have to disguse yourself to gather intel in different places. ASSASSINATE AL-BARA HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU.

 

19. The option to join the badguys at ANY time. Ie: you could, technically, goto the greybox right after Saudi if you wanted to.

 

20. More skills, different skills.

[Serrano]

If it were me I'd make sure that Chain Shot was limit to the kind of distance that regular pistol shots are. I think I'd also lose the pinpoint accuracy and require that players aim as normal with the advantage of the world moving at slow speed. I'd have Chain Shot use a different damage table for grunts, bosses and vehicles, bosses only taking a slight increase in damage for head shots so you can still do a noticable amount but never enough to destroy him in a couple of vollys.

 

I think Stealth Operative would be probably be just fine though if you couldn't judo throw a guard in front of his buddies without revealing yourself.

[JamieKirby]

Well, i would suggest the following things:

 

1: Removal of difficulty scaling and make it based on the characters' level instead - Easy = 1-10, normal 11-15, hard 16-20

 

2: Balancing Shadow Operative and Chain Shot to a degree, most players want it nerfed because it takes away the challenge, while i personally find it fine, but i am more about experiencing the storyline then thriving on the challenge of games.

 

3: Increased Money (i remember on a certain mission, i must have aquired 88k (it said that amount on the post mission screen) but i never recieved it.

 

4: More possibilities of stealth on every mission, it seemed like some missions were designed for you to choose over stealth or direct combat, while others are not designed with stealth in mind, i would prefer the choice.

 

5: More Romance possibilities, where after you sleep with one of the characters, they act like you haven't at all, i find that stupid, i would prefer more interaction, not a full blown sex scene or anything like that, but something to point out that it actually happend...you know what i mean?

 

6: Awareness Master (Stealth Rank 5) should be Rank 2 for those that do NOT want to waste points in stealth on a character that doesn't plan to utilise stealth.

 

7: More Longer game, i would like either more hubs or many more missions in the hubs, also, the friends you make should help you out more, i made friends with several groups and only had help from 2 of them at the end.

 

8: More Access to weaponry, armour and gadgets that ARE worth the price that they are offered at, i have seen crap guns for sale at over 130k and i am thinking 'oh my god, are the arms dealers on crack or something?

 

9: a Skippable intro!!!! lol

 

Thats what i have so far

[MysterD]

See this post for my thoughts...

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Lack of balance? I assume you're referring to chain shot and shadow operative. Oh noes, teh stealth and teh pistols are really effective in a game about spies!

 

On to the more important subject of how I would improve AP.

 

-Social stealth, a la hitman series. If MT walks around with an assault rifle, people should act accordingly. This would open up different ways of completing missions depending on what gear the player chooses.

 

-Fewer all-out assault missions, unless that's how the player wants to handle it.

 

-More variety in outfits, with different uses (i.e. maintenance uniform gets you different places than a tuxedo, and has more pockets)

 

-Enemies use different levels of force depending on perceived threat. Bouncers/security guards would probably try to verbally challenge and/or manhandle Thorton for trespassing, not shoot him dead. This ties into . . .

 

-Improved CQC. This could be done in any number of ways.

 

-More flexibility regarding boss fights. The option to flee from a fight, blow up the building from a distance, learn Gunther's killphrase, whatever.

 

-Choices have more pronounced effects on the mission. Allying with somebody only to swap out their bad guys for another faction seems merely cosmetic to me.

 

AP kind of plays like the opening action sequence of a Bond movie repeated over and over again. I'd rather the gameplay hit more of a range, or at least allowed for it at the player's choosing.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I'd just remove any third person shooter aspect in the game, it'd be strictly stealth. It's an easy way to remove a large part of the problem, IE balancing two or three completely different playstyles, and gives the game more focus, something I think AP lacked.

[Xor42]

Shadow Operative always seemed a bit silly to me. The concept of magic invisibility that let me walk right past people without them noticing was kind of weird and I didn't really use the skill that much. But then I got it up to Expert and I found myself stealth killing entire rooms full of guards every 90 seconds without taking damage. It completely removes any challenge from normal enemies and should probably be toned down to maybe 8 seconds at Master.

 

Brilliance shouldn't refresh Shadow Operative. Other than that it's fine.

 

Chain shot needs to be toned down. I killed most bosses using Chain Shot twice and hiding behind cover for the rest of the fight. On hard.

 

Other weapon skills are mostly fine.

 

There are design decisions I don't really agree with (forced boss fights, for one) but those are etched in stone. Maybe if they release a sequel that can be addressed.

[Sannom]

Here is what I think :

 

--- Shadow Operative : keep it, there is no way to make a "unseen" playthrough without it. Just disable it when Mike attacks, stealth take-downs included.

--- Chainshot : well, obviously.

--- Give the possibility for every weapon to perform critical hits from cover at some point, not just for the pistol and assault rifle. That includes having an indicator to know where we're aiming.

[Vahkn]

Why do single player games need to be balanced? It's a valid concept for multiplayer and mmo's but who cares if one playstyle or skill combo is harder or easier than another in sp?

 

You can play the game how you want. If you want more of a challenge then avoid using guns and expect to get raped. Game too hard? Try stealth and chainshot. It's not rocket science that some skills will make the gameplay harder or easier. Chain shot and shadow operative overpowered? Then only put a few points into each. You can nerf them yourself if they bother you so much lol...

[pmp10]

I would fix the cover system for starters.

[Laverre]

Hmm I would mainly improve on

 

a) the amount of interaction with the other chars. AP managed (at least for me) to make every Char interesting in its own way, which was a rather mean move on their part, because after the game I felt there was so much more to find out about most of them and I just couldn't.

 

b) take a long long inspired look at the way certain games had their levels designed. Hitman Blood Money was rather impressive in that area imo. I think the possibilities to make it a spy game away from the usual third person shooter thingemie aka "run from a to b and kill/knock out everyone on the way" was sadly underused and only hinted at.

[player1]

Why do single player games need to be balanced? It's a valid concept for multiplayer and mmo's but who cares if one playstyle or skill combo is harder or easier than another in sp?

 

Balanced game is on long term more fun game, since different options that have similar weight prevent players from locking themself in single playstyle due to it being more powerful or rewarding then something else.

 

Balance is especially important for RPG genre, where you want all options to be fun, and not just some that are more powerful then others.

[Orogun01]

Penalties for enemies using guns in close quarters, animations for the use of handguns with martial arts. The works: AI, bugs, textures loading time.

 

Edit: shadow operative was fine, how else would a stealth based character stand a chance against hordes of enemies at close range.

Edited July 10, 2010 by Orogun01

[Jackalmonkey]

My main suggestion - and I bring this up because it actually seems feasible to modders - would be to lose the Shotgun and SMG skill trees entirely. For sake of comparison, consider the stealth, martial arts, technical aptitude, and sabotage trees. All of these are successful skill trees because each works like a little toolbox under the umbrella of a single skill. Take martial arts, for instance: The player gets a nice active ability in Fury to even the odds against gun-wielding opponents, a running takedown which makes dealing with multiple enemies much easier, and a devastating finisher, especially useful against bosses. And this is all on top of the passive resistances and damage bonuses you would expect from the skill point investment.

 

If successful skills are toolboxes, then unsuccessful skills are merely entrenched commitments to a single tool. Investing points in any of the firearms skills does not enrich or add to gameplay. Rather, it makes the firearms do their one trick more efficiently. You get a better wrench, but it's still a wrench, and sometimes you need something a little more like a screwdriver.

 

Ideally, SMGs and shotguns would be lumped together with assault rifles under an Assault Weapons category, thus creating a single strong tree with a nice assortment of situational tools (and under a common theme: shooting people loudly). The activated abilities could be reduced to only one or two tiers each; I'll grant that this is a lot of active abilities for one tree, but given that none of them can be used simultaneously (and could even share a cooldown), I don't think they'd be overpowered.

[Wrath of Dagon]

How about not make me stand up and lose invisibility when I'm coming out of cover? How about cover that actually works more than 50% of the time?

[Oner]

How about not make me stand up and lose invisibility when I'm coming out of cover? How about cover that actually works more than 50% of the time?

Nah, sounds stupid.

[Zoraptor]

I never used cover (I usually just forgot it was an option) and played the game as a "3rd person fps". It was perfectly feasible to do it that way.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Did you play it on hard? Because most of the time I survived exactly two hits out of cover.

[Hassat Hunter]

Invest in the thoughness tree to improve HP and endurance...

 

EDIT: Barely used cover ever either. Only the beginning of the Brayko fight comes to mind, and when fighting Sis.

Edited July 15, 2010 by Hassat Hunter

[Sannom]

I generally use cover so that I can have a good view of what's beyond the corner. But I used it a lot more with the pistols since I could score a critical hit without getting exposed.

[Zoraptor]

Did you play it on hard? Because most of the time I survived exactly two hits out of cover.

Yep, including hard/ recruit and hard/ no ranged weapons.

 

To be clear though: I did hide behind things, I just didn't use them as formal-spacebar-press cover.