Is it just me or is "The Missing Link" a complete mood-killer?

[DarkCobalt]

I love the rest of the game, but man.. this part is just a mood-killer so far.

Note that I haven't finished this section fully, but so far it's tone-deaf and a terrible slog. Getting the augs and guns removed makes some sense, and definitely makes the levels a lot harder, but the exploration here is so unrewarding. They seem to have neutered all of the vents and wall-smash pathways because the rest of the game was so chock full of those. Hacking is a non-option, every major panel is either in plain sight of some guard or camera, and not having nuke or worm software means doing these quickly during a vision lapse is impossible. So thus, I'm finding the best way to go about this is doing raw stealth by crawling behind people until I can find a room to duck into, or cloak and walking past everything. Not to mention every area looks the same, so occasionally I'm wondering if I've walked in a giant circle in some of these corridor-like sections.

On top of all of this, the "morality" is so forced. NPCs complain about me killing people, sorry but ya work for a backwater private military corporation, if you wanted some pacifist lifestyle you shouldn't have signed up for a PMC. And then of course the big reveal (well the big reveal thus far, I haven't finished just yet) is fairly predictable, big bad is doing big bad things, and gives me even less reason to care about any of these soldiers, and I'm just left wondering what the point of this DLC is. Plus, there's no dialogue or gameworld intrigue whatsoever, it's completely disjointed from the rest of the cast of characters, so it's completely pointless trying to read emails since most of them are just military glarbo, whereas the base game had a lot of interesting nods to news-related events or people's personal dealings with other characters you've met etc.

It's pretty much halted my entire playthrough, I've spent several hours now stuck in this series of levels wondering when it will end.

[DarkCobalt]

Originally posted by negativezero:

Your post denote a GTA play style which makes sens to complain about this.
I see the ship part as one of the best and most challenging and about the exploration, it's worth a lot. Duct on a ship? You watch too many bad movies. In high school I was train as ship builder so I kind of know about design not to mention intense study of blueprints so, no, there aren't any ducts to crawl in.
"Morality" was always a matter in this game and never feel forced. You like to run gunning and shooting anything that moves, fine, it's one way of playing it but don't complain about consequence.

Part of DX's downfall is because too many players are see it as straight line shooter. Well, it isn't.
See this game as a chess game where you have to think what's best against a hostile guard: kill him, knock him cold and hide the body or avoid him. Playing non lethal have it's own reward and believe me it's a lot more difficult than easy way of trigger happy.

I meant even in comparison to the base game, the exploration felt weak. I spent a lot of time sneaking around the various buildings and reading all the lore bits scattered here and there, but there's not much of that in this particular set of missions.

As for "straightline shooter" I do go lethal but I try to stay sneaky with a silencer. I think I've only had a few shootouts. I've always felt kinda bad about killing Triads or random security guards, they kinda are just doing their thing and I'm barging in, so when Tong criticizes me for killing his men on any occasion there's a bit of guilt. But the military people... I mean there's not much ethical grey area here. I don't feel an ounce of remorse for putting bullets in their heads, meanwhile every NPC is just mad at me and I'm like "lol well don't mess with my people either and I won't screw with yours." On top of that, they give so few tranq bullets here that going non-lethal practically means just touching nobody. I've had 8 tranq pistol rounds for the entirety of this sequence, I have yet to find any more despite poking my head into every corner and coming out empty-handed. So yeah, just walking past everything is the best approach in that sense.

[Χάρης]

I didn't even notice that there was a DLC in the game. Is the missing link only the ship part, or from ship till end?

[Gexterminator]

I felt the same thing and after an hour oor so i just rushed throught the dlc without caring for being stealthy.

[DarkCobalt]

Originally posted by negativezero:

Stealth take down (default key Q). Or in your case stealth kill. Like some one said" Sarif didn't put the chisels in your arms to trim the hedge".

I've used that a bunch yeah, but here it seems that any time you are allowed to get close, there's a 3rd guard that is on patrol, or a camera that will pan across the area, so stealth takedowns are huge risk.

[DarkCobalt]

Originally posted by negativezero:

I don't know what DLC are you talking about (I have none). As for all the complain which makes the main topic at the end of chapter you get back all the stuff including the points for augmentation

It's Chapter 14 of the Director's Cut, which is apparently a DLC add-on for the original version of the game but later included with Director's Cut. Ok good we get our hard-earned points back, if we didn't then that would defeat the entire leveling process.

[Atrix_Tussand]

Yeah i had similar problem with the DLC. in one sentence....backtracking and BIOSCANING IN PROGRESS. That is just a cheep trick to extend the playtime of DLC. I also agree that ventilation paths dont have logical routing at all. Unlike basegame.

[{SVK}Puškin]

Disagree.

[Kai]

Its kind of a fan service to a certain part in the first game.

[Corrosion]

Absolutely. I am at that part again, and it's why I stopped playing.

For reference, I've played DE:HR twice, and then I finished TML much later, both standalone and wayyy before the DC existed. And am now on a DC run, which got halted by this.

I enjoyed TML as a standalone when I had bought it mainly because it gave me a fix of DE, which I was absolutely craving at that point. Whilst the story integration is neat (as in it's seamless), TML definitely breaks up the pace more than it helps sustain what, after/by that point, is the last act of the game.

Originally posted by Χάρης:

I didn't even notice that there was a DLC in the game. Is the missing link only the ship part, or from ship till end?

Yes, TML starts on the ship and ends once you're off it - anything beyond is the main game. The main game (back when it was standalone) literally handled this by starting a cutscene of Jensen getting into the pod and then skipping to when he's off the ship.

[Delta]

TML kinda sucks yeah, It's fun the first time you go through (IMO), and it's waaaay more fun if you're into really stealth-focused non-combat gameplay. But It's definitely something that makes me reconsider more playthroughs, unless I like giving myself a challenge or something.

[Deadeye]

It is when you're going for Foxiest of the hounds achievement.

[dunebeetle]

Yes. The game is paced so nicely until this point

[TheMysterD]

There should be an option in DC to skip right past this section when doing the Main Game's Campaign b/c TML in its (rightful) place, story-wise still can kind of break the base-game's pacing, since TML does feel like its own story & has its own beats & whatnot.

Also, there should be in the main menu in HR DC an option to just do this DLC by itself on its own like you could in OG Deus Ex HR.

[BLACK MAMBA]

Based, was literally going to the discussion tab to talk about this.

[mazewaliztli47]

I hate that DLC, thats why i love the 2011 version without it, and there is no mods to remove or skip this damn dlc in 2013 version