ITT: Cody undercuts his central argument against Destiny

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, August 12, 2013, 09:39 (4122 days ago) @ Leisandir

The big thing about Deus Ex's leveling system is that, for the most part, the augmentations are incomparables. They don't give you numerical benefits that can be mathed out and organized by "most beneficial." There are builds in Diablo which are, speaking from an objective standpoint, better. Deus Ex (and I'm speaking from the experience of Human Revolution, I didn't have the patience for the original) has a few of those (improved armor, for example), but most of them are simply new abilities: things which allow you to approach a challenge in a different way. It's a non-linear progression; there are trees, but they're very small. It's not "I'll get this so I can get that later," it's "I'll get this, and I think it'll synergize well with my existing abilities." In a lot of RPGs, playing at higher levels doesn't feel that different from playing at lower levels; the numbers are bigger, and you have a wider range of abilities to make numbers happen to other people, but you're still doing the same actions. The augs in Deus Ex give you new avenues to explore; Icarus lets you survive long-distance falls, which gives you new options in combat, exploration, and escape. Hacking opens doors and gives access to data you otherwise would have to find through an alternate pathway. Strength augs let you stealth-kill multiple foes at once, which gives you a whole big pile of options for stealth, combat, and navigation.

Well said. That is of course the failure of most JRPGs MMORPGs or ARPGs, in that really you are doing the same thing throughout the game.