How much Exploring Should You Do?

[The Brown Hornet]

In Detroit I did a lot of off the path exploring and thought I was finding a lot of miscellaneous but cool stuff, as I played on and accepted side quest it took me back to most of those same locations however I had already triggered events, looted, hacked those areas earlier. I'm just arriving in China and have the urge to go exploring all over the city, should I do that or will all the side missions bring me to those locations anyway?

[illgib]

Do it, i'm whit you in OCD!

[A Little Child]

Now I'm paranoid that I've missed some side-quests in Detroit because I've not returned to one or two locations that I explored prior to getting the side-quests...
Can't help on the China exploring, sorry!

[Trogdor]

There's nothing wrong with fully exploring/clearing an area before accepting quests. In fact, it makes some missions much easier. For example, if you clear out DRB territory as soon as you get to Detroit, you don't have to worry about doing so stealthily, because then you can go back and grab the missions that take you into DRB territory and just walk to the objectives. Because the enemies are already cleared, you'll get the ghost bonus.

There are, however, a few things I would avoid doing. For example, in Detroit, there's nothing stopping you from going up to the roof of DRB territory and turning off the signal jammer. In Hengsha, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing the Tai Yong Medical pass in the Hung Hua Hotel right away. However, in doing so you'll get a bit of dialogue that is different, and imo not as satisfying, as what you'd get had you waited until the relevant quest told you to complete that objective.

As for whether you should go exploring or just go where the missions take you.. that's largely up to you. I would just suggest you save often, just in case you do something you later regret.

[illgib]

Ayway i never found a game braking issue with triggering events before having the quest, the game is pretty well coded in regarding to avoid dead ends, the TYM pass is an example. It's not like Elder Scrolls where there's an high percent of screwing a quest triggering an event before the related quest :)

[Trogdor]

I really, really didn't like how the game seems to punish lethal/non-stealthy gameplay by giving you significantly less XP. (Which therefore incentivizes what we're talking about, going around and clearing areas before you have the quests) You could argue that by staying stealthy and doing takedowns, you're 'using your augments' and therefore gaining more practice with them. But there are other augments, such as the ones that reduce/remove recoil and improve accuracy, which one would be utilizing while using automatic or scoped weapons, but there is no 'bonus' to reflect that.

I also don't really like how, for example, you can gain a bunch of xp from hacking and then use that 'experience' to give yourself the ability to punch through walls or jump ten feet in the air. It would make more sense if, for example, you gained 'arm' experience by doing takedowns and shooting firearms, you gained 'leg' experience passively while walking around and more while sneaking, you gain hacking experience by hacking, etc.

TL;DR due to the stupid way experience/praxis is awarded in this game, I think the best way to play DX:HR is to use the Burger Menu mod (and also some inventory space mods) to give yourself all of the augments/weapons/upgrades you want right from the get-go, or at whatever rate YOU think is appropriate, and use someone else's savegame to unlock the achievements you didn't get.

[illgib]

It's more user friendly than older rpg, with severe rules about leveling and exps, i like how it's made, considering that you can use praxis wenever you want insetad of searching a drone like in teh orignal one.
I think the game give more xp with non lethal because it's a bit more difficult to be quite instead of gun and sword blazing, it require more time to track a guard route to take him down quetly, you have to thake care nobody see and hear you. When you go lethal you don't care if someone see you as you shoot him down. It's abit easyer to go lethal and that's why you're awarded with a bit more points with a full ghost playstyle. At least that's what i think, maybe i'm wrong.