Hacking Broken, kills the fun

[Skipp Pintreau]

So I just bought Dex and was really having fun until I got to the "Get Augmented" mission at the docks.

It takes all my focus to hack a single thing and then I have to go back to Tony's to get my focus refilled, just so I can hack 1 more thing and go back to tony again for a refill.
Not to mention the overwhelming number of enemies in AR, the pea shooter weapon that does next to nothing, hacking taking ages and making you unable to move, all combining to make the AR part the polar opposite of fun :(

I just spent about an hour looking for a cheat or trainer to give me full focus because the ar hacking parts are just killing the fun for me.

Any help would be appreciated, maybe I'm just doing it wrong

[cocodojo]

Actually... you can just go right back into the hack most times. Any viruses and enemies you already took out, will stay dead. If you just stand still for a while, your focus refills normally up to a certian amount. All you really need to do is wait, and still have some health left.

For hacks, I find it best to just go in, slowly take things out as much as possible. If you die in the hack, you get booted out. Check health, if low, recover some health with healing items, wait until your focus stops going up, then go back in again. If the amount of viruses and things are a bit overwhelming, try to back up a little, they'll bunch up making it a little easier to shoot them.

Also, upgrade your hacking and try to get the wave ability asap! That wide wave attack makes weaker swarms so much easier to handle. Keep firing nonstop as soon as soemthing shows up while backing up a bit or moving side to side usually helps. If possible, hug a corner so the viruses have to contend with the walls so they can't all swarm you at once.

[Skipp Pintreau]

Thanks for the reply.

One thing that's really giving me trouble is the way the enemies seem to spawn whenever you start a hack, so if you move away from the hack point the wave will respawn when you restart the hack.
The wave always seems to include a large spinning blade enemy that has too much HP to kill it before it gets to you (and will respawn if you move away from the hack).

Trying to evade enemies just results in more being spawned (since you have to restart the hack), so the only success I have had is from just sitting on the hack point with a full focus bar which results in me finishing the hack just before the unstoppable blade of death kills me.

Is the dock area just really punishing unless you level up lots first?
It seem like if anything it should be on the easy side since its basically the first mission of the main quest.

I wanna play more since it seems like this game has cool stuff to offer but this mission has just stopped me dead :(

[cocodojo]

Yes, the dock is mostly meant for later when you get better implants and things, the only reason to go to the docks initially is to get that item so you can get implants and augments. You'll come back later when you are better suited to hand them.

If you can, try to take out the cameras 1st in any place that has a camera + gun mount. Disabling the camera is easier than the gun mounts and when they're out, the guns won't attack you either.

Also, if you can, do takedowns on any normal sized human enemies. Its quiet, and won't alert everyone where you are, so you can take his friend down out of sight, run off to hide afterwards, wait for them to calm down and take out another guy until there's nobody left.

I don't think I bothered with guns at all in my playthroughs... the fine gun control is a bit...hard to make a reliable shot when you need it. Besides, close combat is pretty fun lol.

[Aerowind]

I'm assuming you're talking about AR hacks on cameras/turrets.

Step 1: Buy Spammer upgrade.
Step 2: Shoot the giant spinning blade with it a few times over the course of the hack.
Step 3: Kill the little viruses with your normal shot.
Step 4: Get out of AR as soon as the hack finishes.

[cocodojo]

OP might mean the actual shooting section inside terminals and such. Like the T-farm. I know those are very annoying when you run across those viruses that swarm you when you only have the weak initial shot "wedge", but once you get "wave" its a little more manageable.

[DerOger]

if you have the points put some in hacking, the ability that let's you "fire" two shots is a great help. and yeah...pulsewave to keep the little red things at bay

[TotesAdorbs]

Also something I took a long time to figure out...
Once you start the hack, you're not frozen in place, you can move around. You can also move in and out of the circle. In quite a few cases I've found it super easy to get the hack to near-completion until they're right on top of me, hop out of the circle and move to one side of the screen, then turbo boost back into the circle to finish it off.
Figuring that out fixed nearly every frustration I had with the AR/Hacking stuff. Hope it helps!

[Viliv]

@TotesAdorbs nice advice, I haven't thought about it. I will try it next time :)

In my case it helps when I play using keyboard. Normally I use xbox pad but in this case it's impossible for me to play. I am awful. I don't know what's going on and I'm dead shortly. When I switch to keyboard+mouse I am a pro xD

[iNfLiKtOr]

play better

[loosetrooper]

I agree the hacking in this game is f***ed

[Hackvize]

Isn't the get augmented mission need you to get the neurowave ? why the hassle ?

[The Average Rook]

Originally posted by Hackvize:

Isn't the get augmented mission need you to get the neurowave ? why the hassle ?

A lot of people don't like the handle one has when trying to navigate Cyberspace setups in Dex, which is what you have to do in the "Get Augmented" quest. You are required to go to Mr. Holm's pharmacy, and use his computer to hack the database of an activist gang, just to know that the Neuroweave is being shipped to the Docks.

It's actually been a while since I played Dex. I need to replay it again to remember what happens in THAT particular Cyberspace setup, as I don't remember ever having a bad time with the controls.

Though, in my defence, I did switch to the keyboard/mouse whenever I needed to do AR or Cyberspace, which just made things so much easier. The only thing which did give me trouble was remembering which key was the Shockwave and the Data Shield. Often it's the circumstance that I forget which key does what, and end up using a consumable I didn't want to use.

But other than that, it was fine(ish)...

[trevel]

yea I agree. I didn't intend to play a space shooter knockoff when I bought Dex. It should've have been an optional side mode if anything. So far, its killing my motivation to continue playing.

[Gillsing]

Hacking a computer system is easy enough, even without skills, but hacking anything in Augmented Reality is quite risky without AR 2. The 50% faster hack time really is the difference between losing virtually no Focus and losing so much Focus that it becomes too risky to hack a second device before going back to Tony's for a free refill.

My preferred secondary weapon for AR-hacking is the Wedge, to kill the Trojan Virus that rushes in when hacking people, turrets or vending machines. Pulsewave is good against viruses in computer systems, but in AR they're coming from all directions, so even a wide attack doesn't catch a whole lot of them.

I don't bother attacking the big, blue-white Attractor that turns up when hacking cameras and turrets, because the hack will be finished before my feeble attacks can kill that thing. Maybe killing it is an option for someone with much higher Hacking skill, but I didn't bother putting a single point there.

[KA*sino]

The hacking sucks. Period. You are represented as a huge blob, throwing sticks that does nothing. All while the viruses can be smaller than your bullets and faster as well. It sucks the fun out of the game and has made me rage quit several times. Has not happened in years. Usually just stop playing such games. They are supposed to be fun. Dex is amazing in all other aspects (could use some ambient sounds tho) and this is why I keep coming back and keep getting pissed off at hacking. Jump to tony every 2 minutes are not fun. Just take a look at Nier Automatas 9s campaign if you want to know how the same exact hacking idea is made to actually be fun to play.