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Prey 2017 why wobbly legs? [and general comments]


Fidcal

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In Prey 2017, I've reached the Arboretum but noticed somewhere along the journey through GUTS I now got permanent wobbly legs which is annoying. Keep shaking about every few seconds. Why? And can it be fixed? Health, Psi, Suit, and Rads okay far as I can tell. Not drank any alcoholic drinks.

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Aah, thanks, chakkman - that was it! Radiation poisoning. Strangely, the HUD shows just the radiation symbol but no value so I assumed that meant zero rads. But the status page gives all the details: 100% rads, stumbling, slow health regen and so on. Now fixed with anti-rads.

Good game btw so far. Real gamesaves! and I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered LEANING round corners! And it does appear to work like Thief, ie, enemies can't see you when you lean (not sure about shadows yet.) There is a ref to Looking Glass servers in the fiction. Can't help thinking they've drawn on Thief's origins. Climbing, crate stacking and so on. The carrying is nowhere near as good as Dark Mod though, no fine positioning only clumsy drops or throw. Still, heaps better than the Ministry of Silly Jumps you get in most games, if at all, and climbing seems to work on anything that looks climbable!

But it's hard even on easy. Fair hard, not unfair restrictive checkpoint hard so you can quickload and try different strategies.. I don't see how anyone can fight through this. I can just about beat one phantom then use up my average few medikits to recover from the fight! So it's almost forced stealth to preserve resources. Probably I'm not developed my fighting and weapon skills yet though.

- Hip

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👍

For me, it's one of the best games in the last 20 years or so. I really loved it. Even though in the end, there were some parts where you're sent from one end to the other, and it felt a bit like they wanted to synthetically lengthen the game.

And, I hated Mooncrash. That kind of gameplay really isn't for me. I wished they would have made the addon more like Prey.  

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The thing I found about Prey is that the difficulty varies hugely based on your upgrades and equipment.

For example, I found the military operators very challenging either to sneak past or defeat in combat (especially when they respawn), but if you get the Typhid upgrade which allows you to hijack them for 30 seconds, it becomes trivially easy. Hijack one, off it goes to fight amongst the others, wait a few seconds and you can hijack another one, repeat.

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It's a bit challenging in the beginning, but, when you develop your skills, it becomes pretty moderate (which is good, because that's the whole point of a RPG system).

I would say the difficulty is pretty appropriate. Don't even remember which difficulty I chose, probably Hard (that's mostly the difficulty I choose these days, one level below the highest). It was definitely harder than Fallout 4 for example, but, well doable.

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59 minutes ago, chakkman said:

And, I hated Mooncrash. That kind of gameplay really isn't for me. I wished they would have made the addon more like Prey.  

I ended up loving Mooncrash, although it takes time to embrace the concept. Marrying im-sim principles with Dark Souls / rogue-lite rules of play isn't something super intuitive, and there's a lot of stuff you have to discover yourself. The whole thing seems to be targeting all the careful ghosters and save scummers, to show them that their play style is boring and the real fun is elsewhere. There are no saves, so you have to play past your mistakes. You have preset character abilities, so you need to change your play style from person to person. And you have to take quick and decisive actions, as there's time limit for all characters. But, as with Dark Souls, this is a game of learning and repetition, with some things being persistent and other things not. It definitely pushes you out of a comfort zone, if you have a one style for im-sim games. I didn't like it at first, but I think it's an excellent construct, design-wise.

But I also believe this might be a niche within a niche. I guess most im-sim fans love their freedom of choice, i.e. freedom not to change their habits, and that's why this DLC is probably not as popular as it should be.

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The difficulty for me is that even though I scavenge every scrap I can find, and mostly fabricate 9mm ammo and medikits, I'm always low on both. When I entered crew quarters yesterday, I reloaded several times before I realised there was nowhere to hide and that Nightmare is forced on you. I emptied my gun into it pointlessly. I really thought that was game over for me. As a last resort I just ran forward to find somewhere to hide. After several reloads I found a niche upstairs, killed one or two extra mimics and phantom, but now I was down to about 45 health with no medikits and no ammo in a place that had seemed to be swarming with enemy. Then up comes 'Objective Completed!' - 'kill or evade Nightmare'. I didn't even know it had been an objective. Got a shotgun from somewhere but again only 3 or 4 shells at a time. I used to love my silenced 9mm auto handgun in Fallout 4 and hate shotguns because they were so slow but now that's reversed. Had to use Utube to find how to get in mail room for more shells but still no medikits. Poltergeist took my last shells b4 I killed it and now down to about 2 health and no ammo. Any enemy contact from now on and I'm dead. Is it even possible to continue? Need medikits or lots of bananas. And ammo, did I mention ammo? I prefer the freedom of Fallout 4 where you could pretty much always escape and come back with a mini-gun and 20,000 rounds! :D

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Do you play in PC or on a console? Especially with such a hectic game, I'd surely have problems on a console, because you simply can aim so much better with a mouse. At least that would explain for me why you're so low on ammo. The game definitely doesn't give you a lot of ammo though, just like System Shock 2. So, it's definitely normal that you are always pretty low on ammo.

TBH, I don't even remember the game much in terms of weapons, so, I don't really have a recommendation in regards of killing enemies. I just know that some were more effective against a special type of enemy (couldn't you learn about enemies' weaknesses in some way?).

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Try using more Psi powers, if you have them. You can recharge psi quite cheaply (even for free if you have the suit mod that allows you to regenerate psi whenever standing in the yellow "coral"), and powers like kinetic blast and mindjack can really turn the tide of battle.

For the Nightmare, I don't bother trying to kill it, but just hide from it. It is quite large and cannot get into small spaces or use lifts, so in many areas it is quite easy just to hunker down for 3 minutes until it goes away.

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I'm on Playstation and you're right chakkman, aiming is loose and sloppy. There's no aim assist I can detect. Not sure what's missing but I feel no positive 'connect' in fights. Compare the skull-cracking metal pipe in Last of Us! Another thing missing from this game so far is not a single human apart from the very start. Even the audio transmissions seem to be accompanied by a cartoon still. And, like the mute deputy in Far Cry 5, the player is dumb apart from cries. And no companions. I prefer the taunts of enemies I can identify with so it's more satisfying when I get retribution! Prey is definitely impersonal - up till now anyway. It's a ghost ship full of bodies.

Anyway, I found water fountains upstairs in the fitness centre and a couple of extra neuromods enough to boost my max health up to 200. Takes ages to keep drinking but at least it's an option. I went back there after one more fight to regain 60. Not fun.

There's a bug. I could not enter the maintenance hatch in the tulip bar - which is essential to continue the game. I tried closing and opening it over and over, jumping at it, angling into it - even hitting out with the wrench in case there was invisible glass! Nothing worked until in a frantic effort I pushed against it while it was closed and clicked open  as I was doing it. As the hatch raised I suddenly found myself going in! After that it was ok and normal. Strange.

Having got the voice recordings I had to make a blind run to escape and got lucky I guess because once outside I just kept running hoping to hide somewhere and accidentally ran directly to the deep storage entrance! But before entering I hid and saved. The Nightmare countdown reached zero but now I have to figure out what to do about the phantom or just dash to the deep storage entrance.

Not even tried psi yet so I'll take your recommendation, Orbweaver and experiment with it.

Have I mentioned the inventory is flashy but inefficient? Needs better grouping. Give me plain text lists any day. I spend ages flipping through what is effectively a children's picture puzzle trying to identify what's edible, where the medkits and ammo are, and so on. They should clearly block group anything that restores health for instance.

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OK, now I understand why I've never been using psi - no info. Yes, I was vaguely aware of it but too much else going to spare the time. Now I actually look I find... nothing. There is no device in the inventory so it's not a weapon I can equip. There is no tutorial in the tutorials (though they are not really tutorials but ultra-short summaries anyway so even if it had been there it would have probably said something banal like 'use your psi abilities to blah blah...) Next I check every header in the erm... whatever that big menu is called. Can't see anything except under neuromods. Maybe I have no psi powers until I select one?  I've always had more important ones to select so never selected any - probably because I don't understand what advantage they might give me, whereas increasing my max health is simple to understand. Next I look at the controls in the pause menu. Ah - the ps4 controller uses left trigger for psi power. So, back in the game try it. No effect that I can see except I die faster. Do I aim it? Use it as a shift key? I have noticed that sometimes the scope gives a message like 'now you can manipulate this' but doesn't say how. Hit different buttons. Nothing.

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Psi powers come from neuromods. None of them are available at first so you might not have access to them yet. I can't remember exactly when it happens but there is some interaction with the aliens which gives you the power to scan Typhids and then unlock various neuromods which give you skills like mindjacking and various psi-based damaging abilities.

The disadvantage of taking lots of psi neurmods is that the turrets identify you as alien and will shoot at you.

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Awesome game Prey and it actually took me quite a while before I started playing it. I never bothered to take a look at the game because they used the name Prey and I didn't like the first one, so I thought it was just a reboot with more of the same. Never really understood why they used the name Prey, because as far as I know it doesn't have much to do with the original game and I think it actually hurt sales. When I saw one day that Arkane Studios (from the awesome Dark Messiah and Dishonored) made the game, I gave it a try and I'm glad I did. Difficulty is just right and I like that you sometimes have to decide to come back to an area because you don't have strong enough skills and weapons. There's also enough replay value for the new game plus mode.

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There is no connection whatsover between Prey (2006) and Prey (2017) other than the fact that they have the same name and are first-person shooters.

I actually liked the 2006 game with its weird physics-defying portals and creative use of the Doom 3 engine, but I don't think it was anywhere near as well-known or popular as its 2017 namesake.

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The connection is inspirational: hero on space station with strange extra-terrestrials and being hunted, hence 'prey'. I got into this because I read about the original and watched some utube of both games and decided to try them both - the earlier one first. Unfortunately, it's either not on PS4 store or it's a 'freebie' on on their 'PSN' but you have to subscribe. I've bought quite a few games in the last couple of months but I don't generally buy many games, preferring to find one good game that I can play for months (or even a year or two like Fallout 4.) There was another game I wanted like that, maybe the first Hitman. It's annoying because they'd have made a sale if they'd also offered them for sale separately.

Thought it was gameover last night when I simply could not get enough turrets in the cargo bay mission (incidentally another nod in the direction of Looking Glass with the objective title: 'Shipping and Receiving'?) Damn sure the second or third mission in Dark Project or was it Metal Age was the same. I recall the excitement of starting that. Anyway, I only had one turret and two damaged. After exhaustive searching I decided to dump them in place in the hope maybe an engineering operator would fix them, but apparently they were sufficient. Wish I'd known that two hours earlier.

I also think 'first person shooter' is understating 'Prey'. I mostly feel I'm playing a stealth game with some combat. Like yesterday, once I'd opened the cargo bay door I backed away and hid and let the turrets and NPCs take the hits to save my bullets! I love the freedom of different strategies like that and not being too forced to dance to the tune of the game developer! :D

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9 hours ago, Carnage said:

Awesome game Prey and it actually took me quite a while before I started playing it. I never bothered to take a look at the game because they used the name Prey and I didn't like the first one, so I thought it was just a reboot with more of the same. Never really understood why they used the name Prey, because as far as I know it doesn't have much to do with the original game and I think it actually hurt sales. 

Probably for the same reason they make new Star Trek movies and series', which don't have anything to do with Star Trek, apart from the names of the franchise and the characters. People buy it, when there's a fancy name tag on it, that rings a bell, in whatever way.

I agree about the original Prey: It never did anything for me, while Arkane's Prey is totally my thing.

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24 minutes ago, Fidcal said:

Thought it was gameover last night when I simply could not get enough turrets in the cargo bay mission (incidentally another nod in the direction of Looking Glass with the objective title: 'Shipping and Receiving'?)

They do that a bit too blatantly in Prey. :D

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20 hours ago, Carnage said:

they used the name Prey and I didn't like the first one,

They really should have called it Neuroshock. That would have made it clear it's more along the lines of System Shock and Bioshock.

Anyway, I thought the game was a bit uneven quality wise. The stealth is cool and I'm a sucker for derelict space stations. And I appreciate that it's optimized well enough to run OK even on my ghastly potato of a computer. The gloo gun and the recycler bombs are cool too.  But I could never really warm up to the protagonist, and there were places where the loading screen bulkheads were just too close together. The typhons being tedious bullet sponges after a while got annoying as well. And don't get me started on that huge typhon that turns up all the time and you have to hide from it for ages until it wanders off again- it's only scary the first time, after that it just slows the game down and is annoying.

Random observation: Morgan is the only person on that space station who eats the peel along with the banana.

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thebigh said: Morgan is the only person on that space station who eats the peel along with the banana.

Lol, yeah. Reminds me of wine etc in Fallout 4 where there's no empty bottle left after you've drank it. Empty bottles were really useful in early stages of Survival mode for gathering portable water.

thebigh also said: I could never really warm up to the protagonist.

Yes, that's a big flaw, much of it because he's mute. That is weird. I mean, they have the voice actor for the early video so why not use it? So, emotionless, I don't like him. a big part of good storytelling is about conveying feelings. From his pov he wakes up and should be excited ready to start a new job (he thinks.) It's not too long before he gets a vid from himself telling him to blow up the entire 3/4 kilometre space station and kill hundreds of people including himself! Silence. Imagine in his head yeah ok then. He should be screaming Noooooo! and arguing with January before he finally yields to what has to be done. In fact the robot January shows more emotion than the robotic Morgan Yu. And it would help if he could contact January for help in a frightened tone. Hey January, I'm dead here! There simply aren't enough working turrets so I can't get through!!!!  January replies: The damaged ones might be working sufficiently; give them a try. That would be useful and make story sense. And that sort of interaction would give the protagonist an identity - like we cared about Garrett and others. Incidentally, that reminds me I never did find the plan to fabricate turrets which the objective said was 'nearby'. I scoured the area over and over and over. There's no objective marker for that plan. Not that I had enough resources to recycle anyway, I guess.

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12 hours ago, thebigh said:

And don't get me started on that huge typhon that turns up all the time and you have to hide from it for ages until it wanders off again- it's only scary the first time, after that it just slows the game down and is annoying.

I'm afraid that since Resident Evil, such (nearly) impossible to kill enemies are a popular thing. No. 1 mistake in gameplay design for me, but, hey.

Was only one of the very few things I could criticize about the game though. The rest was sweet really.

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It may be sweet but a somewhat sticky sweet like toffee. I'm stuck again last night. Can't get into the reactor room. Just not enough info. Managed to find an overhead route into water processing and gathered some resources but also lost many in fights. The Technopath I found unbeatable but could sneak around it. But ultimately I'm back in the passageways leading to the reactor room with its damaged keycard thing. So last night I googled and found no help except to suggest the technopath is causing the electronic corruption. How is anyone supposed to know that? And what's the best way to kill it? I've emptied my guns into and it hardly scratched its health bar.

In addition, I recall an audio message from a russian-sounding lady but can find no record of that in the objectives or audio messages at all.

So I next looked at a dozen or more utube walkthroughs of this quest but they were all confusing and showed passageway I could not identify.

I came across a ref to a body to the left of the reactor room door of someone called Talia I think who has the keycard. No such body can I find and the screenshot I saw showed a round door - not the reactor room at all. Grrrrr! The GAME should provide better info. I mean, I'd never in a million years think I had to kill a monster in another room to fix a damaged lock. Nor would I search for a keycard to a lock that's obviously damaged. Mind you, I scavenge EVERYTHING I can find anyway. There's also a storage room nearby. Why is its lock not corrupt then. But I don't know its number either. I've studied my inventory of keys but can't see anything. Also about info, it seems some objectives disappear after their done so I can't refer to them. I see messages like plug something psycho into the water supply. Why would I? I've no idea of the pros and cons of that so I left it alone. I do recall a message asking someone to do it but I don't think it said why. And it makes it an objective? Why? And that saving people thing - why? - I'm about to kill them all!

For me, the weakness is all about good info. Especially since I'm playing on EASY which it definitely ain't.

I'd still score Prey in the low to mid 90% but it would be more like 99% if it had better info (and a better organised inventory - I STILL have to shuffle through silly pictures to try and guess what's what. Yes, I can recognise easy ones like the big glue gun, but most of the rest are fiddle fiddle shifting through to look at what each one is one by one to find what I need. But that's the modern way - flashy graphics come before practicality.

That reminds me, I see references to repairing weapons. None of my weapons has ever broken down yet (perhaps because I avoid combat if I can?) How do I tell what state they're in? And how do I repair them? I've tried dragging those spare parts onto my shotgun but it just swaps places with it in the inventory (which is a bit pointless because as soon as I re-sort then they are back where they were!)

To finish on a good note, I got that morph perk and used it as suggested to become a bottle and roll through one of those cross-beam door barriers. Neat! And wisely I moved the bottle near the door to save psi points but with the added bonus that I hadn't thought of - when I came back that way I could target the same bottle through the barrier! Must remember that one.

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23 hours ago, Fidcal said:

Yes, that's a big flaw, much of it because he's mute

That's because it has no voice. Finish the game ;)

Btw. I finished the game on Hard, and enemies were a bit bullet-spongy, but it kind of went well with the survival horror aspect. I tried to evade most of them.

You seem to have a lot of trouble with navigating the interface and finding the proper info there. I never had such trouble myself; there are quite a few tabs and subtabs, but everything is there: maps, keys, objectives, status info – everything is basically at your fingertips.

Weapon degradation is optional feature. When you chose New Game, there was a Survival Mode Options tickbox. That's where you can choose features like weapon degradation, traumas, oxygen limits, etc. Otherwise you use repair kits to repair in-game objects, like turrets.

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