Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Highlighting Now Optional

Why do you say it was a minority? Most people on the official forum was against. In most forums and other sites, there was more people complaining than defending it. You can't say it was a minority.

The majority of posters who post negative or just hate comments on games are usually the vocal minority. They usually do not represent the majority of the buyers if that was the case then bioware would be in trouble.
 
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The limited highlighting in the original Deus Ex is not comparable to the highlighting in Deus Ex: HR.. not by a long shot. In fact, I wouldn't even call it highlighting.
 
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Devs are just screwed no matter what they do.

I've seen some lame discussions before, hell I've started a few, but this is beyond ridiculous. They make an option to get rid of that glow and people still cry foul. It's an option people.
 
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Devs are just screwed no matter what they do.

I've seen some lame discussions before, hell I've started a few, but this is beyond ridiculous. They make an option to get rid of that glow and people still cry foul. It's an option people.


How is it lame I said it great its optional but cant see what the problem was in the first place. Hence why I asked why it bothers people. As for Devs are just screwed no matter what they do that always happens. There is always someone who disagrees with your design decision you dont have to cater to everybody. That is the biggest problem with everygame nowadays.
 
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Devs are just screwed no matter what they do.

I've seen some lame discussions before, hell I've started a few, but this is beyond ridiculous. They make an option to get rid of that glow and people still cry foul. It's an option people.
It's not that simple. What we're discussing is an interface feature which, would be logical to assume, was not made optional to begin with for some reason; ie it was for some reason considered necessary.

Now one can simply agree with all those who claim that that reason was the low attention span of todays console crowd that tend to represent all that's unholy with gaming, but I personally don't like that. I expect that the reason might be within the game itself - for example, usable items might be too hard to distinguish from non usable items or, worse, items that are usable in some cases might be unusable in others.

If that deeper issue is not dealt with then making the overlying feature optional is not going to 'fix' anything. Here's an analogy: If I buy a movie I want it to have optional subtitles (ie not embedded, uncommon but it happened at some point) however making the subtitles optional doesn't automatically make me understand Japanese!



EDIT: BTW, I don't care about the DeusX highlight one way or the other; it didn't look so bad to me (maybe my attention span shrinks as I grow older?) and I don't mind waiting to get some real informed views on it anyway. I'm generalizing because I like the subject of the discussion. ie. I'm not trying to "bitch about a trivial option", just in case that's what's coming across, I just find it an interesting discussion subject.
 
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You have to read and watch the video to believe it. Must be the kind of complaints developpers love to receive as it is so easy to correct, contrary to fundamental design.
No wonder the genre is in a drain...
 
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It's not that simple. What we're discussing is an interface feature which, would be logical to assume, was not made optional to begin with for some reason; ie it was for some reason considered necessary.

Now one can simply agree with all those who claim that that reason was the low attention span of todays console crowd that tend to represent all that's unholy with gaming, but I personally don't like that. I expect that the reason might be within the game itself - for example, usable items might be too hard to distinguish from non usable items or, worse, items that are usable in some cases might be unusable in others.

If that deeper issue is not dealt with then making the overlying feature optional is not going to 'fix' anything. Here's an analogy: If I buy a movie I want it to have optional subtitles (ie not embedded, uncommon but it happened at some point) however making the subtitles optional doesn't automatically make me understand Japanese!



EDIT: BTW, I don't care about the DeusX highlight one way or the other; it didn't look so bad to me (maybe my attention span shrinks as I grow older?) and I don't mind waiting to get some real informed views on it anyway. I'm generalizing because I like the subject of the discussion. ie. I'm not trying to "bitch about a trivial option", just in case that's what's coming across, I just find it an interesting discussion subject.

While I fully get your point - I'm not sure why you find the optional aspect an issue.

If their original design was there for a reason, then having an option to disable highlighting wouldn't hurt. Because if it turns out to be a problem when actually playing the game - you can just re-enable it and enjoy the original design.

The only problem I see, is if the original design was bad - as in the highlighting is actually a bad design decision - and yet the game still needs SOMETHING to be fully playable.

If that's the case, we're left with developers who obviously make bad design decisions - and as such, this is most likely a single bad one amongst many.

In the end, I'm going to have to trust their vision - and I'll be playing with highlighting on. Maybe it's a good thing and maybe it'll work for the game in a way that makes sense.

We won't know until we actually play it.

But I agree that people being assuredly happy about this new option are kinda kidding themselves. There's no way we can really know how the game plays with the highlighting - and I, for one, have seen enough positive things about this game - that I have a hard time believing they just arbitrarily made everything light up for an augmentation just to cater to the "consoletards".

They may very well have had a good "gameplay" reason.

But we can't know at this stage.
 
How is it lame I said it great its optional but cant see what the problem was in the first place. Hence why I asked why it bothers people. As for Devs are just screwed no matter what they do that always happens. There is always someone who disagrees with your design decision you dont have to cater to everybody. That is the biggest problem with everygame nowadays.

Maybe lame was too strong a word. I tend to antagonize when my students have been driving me nuts, which they did all day today. Sorry about that. Damn these weather changes :)

In any case I just thought it silly. I'm all for options, mods, conversions, etc. I don't really care about the designers vision. I only care if I am having fun with the game or not. So having more options is a definite plus.

The problem though is that this glow distracts from the game and the game looks beautiful.

I also don't need to play the game to know that I will turn off some ridiculous hand holding feature. Just like I didn't need to play Bioshock to know that I would turn off that damn quest arrow above my characters head. I do not need or want a game to hold my hand or tell me, "This way to something awesome!" It's ridiculous.

What's wrong with it glowing when you get close to it. That solves two problems. One it still looks good from afar and two it's not pointing the way to something awesome. It takes very little time at all to figure out what the designers had in mind with usable objects and unusable ones.
 
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DA:O solved this in a very simple way: just press Tab to activate highlighting. That way you can simply use it if you feel like rushing or don't feel like actually searching the environment for something interesting. And it does not even take a detour to the options screen.
I prefer that they made it optional though - to me it deters from the experience mostly because the way it is implemented does not really make much sense in the "its an augmentation" sense - it's just too clearly an interface device, and as such I find it too intrusive. :shrug:
 
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Maybe lame was too strong a word. I tend to antagonize when my students have been driving me nuts, which they did all day today. Sorry about that. Damn these weather changes :)

In any case I just thought it silly. I'm all for options, mods, conversions, etc. I don't really care about the designers vision. I only care if I am having fun with the game or not. So having more options is a definite plus.

The problem though is that this glow distracts from the game and the game looks beautiful.

I also don't need to play the game to know that I will turn off some ridiculous hand holding feature. Just like I didn't need to play Bioshock to know that I would turn off that damn quest arrow above my characters head. I do not need or want a game to hold my hand or tell me, "This way to something awesome!" It's ridiculous.

What's wrong with it glowing when you get close to it. That solves two problems. One it still looks good from afar and two it's not pointing the way to something awesome. It takes very little time at all to figure out what the designers had in mind with usable objects and unusable ones.

Thanks for explaining why it bothers people. Me personally I have no problem with it just like quest marks in rpgs. There is nothing I hate more then trying to find a item or npc when you barely know were they are.They also could of made it a skill you use with a key to highlight items like in nwn 1+2.
 
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DA:O solved this in a very simple way: just press Tab to activate highlighting. That way you can simply use it if you feel like rushing or don't feel like actually searching the environment for something interesting. And it does not even take a detour to the options screen.
I prefer that they made it optional though - to me it deters from the experience mostly because the way it is implemented does not really make much sense in the "its an augmentation" sense - it's just too clearly an interface device, and as such I find it too intrusive. :shrug:

Maybe it's just me, but I found that whenever I spent more than 2 seconds looking for something in Dragon Age - I immediately held down tab because I knew it was a feature.

If it hadn't been there, I might have just resigned myself to exploration - and the game would have been different. To me, it's just a lazy design. Either the game is about exploring or it's not.

I felt the same in NWN. It's a good aid to help you target something, but it still feels like cheating when it comes to items you're supposed to discover as part of the exploration.

To me, this is a much more complex psychological problem than how it may first appear.

That's why I'm rarely fond of "options" - because just having them there, will make you question whether it should be on or off.

That's why I prefer the developers make the decisions, so I don't have to "guess" what I should have on when playing.

It can't be that hard to decide what's appropriate for your own game, and if it's too hard or too easy as a result - then to hell with that. Just make the game as you see fit, and trust in your own vision.

People are spoiled with options, and I honestly think it's more destructive than beneficial in many cases.

Then again, a lot of people seem to make decisions based on what they think they want - and when they get what they think they want - they stop complaining. It's as if they never think about what they ACTUALLY want.
 
Well, I think it doesn't matter whatever highlighting is optional or not, when they build and playtest the game they do it with highlighting on, so the game experience is optimized for having highlighting.
 
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Well, I think it doesn't matter whatever highlighting is optional or not, when they build and playtest the game they do it with highlighting on, so the game experience is optimized for having highlighting.
At least when it comes to building, I think it may not be true - one "leaked" video showed an earlier build which didn´t have highlighting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA99knPbkAs

Maybe they just panicked (or were told by some higher power) that their game is too "hardcore" and implemented the set of handhold-y features (it´s not only highlighting, but also objective marker which is now optional too and maybe some others) ex post :).
Otherwise, yeah, if the game was developed by guys who honestly believed feature like this is a good idea then I have to wonder what they did with other game elements like level design.
 
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Maybe they just panicked (or were told by some higher power) that their game is too "hardcore" and implemented the set of handhold-y features (it´s not only highlighting, but also objective marker which is now optional too and maybe some others) ex post :).
Otherwise, yeah, if the game was developed by guys who honestly believed feature like this is a good idea then I have to wonder what they did with other game elements like level design.

The feature have nothing to do with gameplay. It meant to represent augmented reality. The fact that augmented reality is hand-holding is a side effect to the original intent which was purely artistic.
 
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The majority of posters who post negative or just hate comments on games are usually the vocal minority. They usually do not represent the majority of the buyers if that was the case then bioware would be in trouble.
You just can't compare it.
In the official Bioware's forum they gather a lot of support for some of their most controversial decisions. In this case, in the DX:HR official forum, the issue was raised, and let's say that was a clear majority that want to make this issue optional or altered it.

The fact that augmented reality is hand-holding is a side effect to the original intent which was purely artistic.
In my opinion, in a purely artistic way, it hearts my aesthetic sensibility. It's obnoxious. :)
 
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The feature have nothing to do with gameplay. It meant to represent augmented reality. The fact that augmented reality is hand-holding is a side effect to the original intent which was purely artistic.

Haha. You can´t be serious.
 
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The limited highlighting in the original Deus Ex is not comparable to the highlighting in Deus Ex: HR.. not by a long shot. In fact, I wouldn't even call it highlighting.

It was more pronounced in Invisible War, where it pretty much highlighted everything. Even in the original though it was pretty obvious and always there when you looked at items. If the argument is that it's immersion-breaking then surely that applies to the similar effects in the previous games?

In any case I'm not arguing for it, I will probably turn it off.
 
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It was more pronounced in Invisible War, where it pretty much highlighted everything. Even in the original though it was pretty obvious and always there when you looked at items. If the argument is that it's immersion-breaking then surely that applies to the similar effects in the previous games?

In any case I'm not arguing for it, I will probably turn it off.

There's a pretty big difference between items being highlighted regardless of whether or not you're looking at them.

Deus Ex required you to not only be looking at something, but also be within close range before the targeting box would appear.

The issue with highlighting in DE:HR - as it APPEARS - is that exploration and the sense of discovery is partially ruined when you know exactly what you can interact with - without even investigating the scene.

It's just no fun entering a room and have the game point out to you what your options are.

Well, I certainly don't think it's fun.

If you can't see the VERY significant difference between the two, I just don't know what to say.
 
Haha. You can´t be serious.

I'm serious, well, Edios is serious, it's explained in their French blog. They actually want to put more augmented reality in future Deux Ex games, too.
 
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It was more pronounced in Invisible War, where it pretty much highlighted everything. Even in the original though it was pretty obvious and always there when you looked at items. If the argument is that it's immersion-breaking then surely that applies to the similar effects in the previous games?


*Edit* Nevermind, DArtagnan already summed it up.

As far as Invisible War is concerned, highlighting was the least of that game's problems.
 
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