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Thanks for letting us know about this, I'm downloading the patch and the DLC now.
Prior the release of Prey, I was very upset to hear that several hardcore systems had been disabled due to having been judged to be too hardcore for mainstream audiences. I later bought and played the game, and while I found it engaging enough, it was a far cry from the tense and challenging experience I craved from a successor to System Shock 2. Ever since they mentioned optionally reinstating some of these features in free update for the game, I've been eagerly awaiting news for a Survival Mode. So when I tuned into the Bethesda E3 conference, saw the Prey logo, and Arkane stated that the new Survival Mode, I was super excited and redownloaded the game right away.Initially, I was very impressed. Limited weapon durability had an immediate impact -- none of the weapons I could find lying around were in particularly good condition, so I couldn't rely on crafting tons of pistol and shotgun ammo to spam my way to victory and had to be more strategic about combat. This in turn encouraged me to experiment with explosive gas canisters in the early game, and the combat system was much made much more engaging as a result. Weapon degradation also leads to significantly more build depth by tying the game systems together. For example, you can avoid the Repair skill by finding new copies of weapons lying around the station or by crafting them yourself, but this means you'll lose any modifications you've made to your weapons. Thus, if you want to spec into the Gunsmith and/or Lab Tech skills, you must also spec into Repair. Since you're probably going to be using Spare Parts more often overall, this also encourages you to acquire the Dismantle skill to retrieve Spare Parts from destroyed operators and from breaking down equipment. Since I'm going for a scientist/psi build instead, I'm relying on found/crafted weapons and have come to accept that weapon mods are a temporary rather than permanent investment, perfectly fitting with the upgrade cap on all weapon modifications without Gunsmith/Lab Tech. Hence, a significant amount of weapon potency is locked behind multiple investment in Engineer skills, great to balance out the power of maxed out Alien Neuromod trees.However, I'm a little concerned that it won't pan out to be quite as meaningful as I thought. I did some testing, and here's what I found:A 100% condition Shotgun can fire 200 rounds before breakingA 100% condition Pistol can fire 500 rounds before breakingA 100% condition GLOO gun can fire 500 rounds before breaking (each clip is 42 rounds, for reference, this is actually damn quick if you use the GLOO a lot to freeze enemies)A 100% condition Disruptor Stun Gun can discharge 5000% before breaking (recall each shot takes 25% so this is really 200 shots)Don't have the Q-Beam, can't test itThe Huntress Boltcaster doesn't degrade (aww)Given that Spare Parts repair 25/35/50% durability depending on your Repair skill and that I've acquired something like 70 Spare Parts already by the Arboretum, is weapon degradation that much of a deciding factor? I'm curious about others' experience with the system so far, especially those whose character builds are more focused on weapon usage. For reference, I thought SS2's amount of weapon degradation was more or less perfect, and its degree is vastly overstated.As for the trauma system, I must unfortunately report that it hasn't really come into play yet other than burn trauma, which is quite nasty. I'm carrying around a few trauma clearing items, but so far I haven't had any concussions, bone fractions, or hemorrhaging. I hope it'll become more relevant as time goes on (I hear bullets from turrets are prone to cause hemorrhaging, which will matter to me as someone installing plenty of Alien Neuromods). I also wish Operators had limited uses (or a certain amount of healing/repair/psi "charge"), since it is still pretty easy to just run back to the infinite healing/repair/psi station when things go south (as a point of balance, a spent Operator could have its Medkit/Q-beam Cells/Psi Hypo removed from its inventory when destroyed).Finally, the oxygen system. I've not been too impressed with it, personally. I had hoped that the oxygen rate would be proportional to your current suit damage (so you're only totally immune if you're at 100% suit integrity), but it looks like it only comes into effect if you're below 50% suit integrity. I've only been in a few fights in space in my new playthrough, so maybe it'll become more relevant, but I was hoping for more tension and greater importance of Suit Repair Kits, which are pretty easy to come by.
I'm a little dissapointed with the free Survival Mode, the weapon degradation is somehow bugged in my game (works for others) and the oxygen mechanic just has you on infinite air if your suit durability is above 50%...
Well that was a waste of time, the devs implementing restoring that feature. I remember having something stupid like 70 suit repair kits by mid-game, not something sensible like a range of 0-8 depending on player efficiency.Wep degradation sounds like a waste too. RoSoDude's tests concluded you needed something stupid like 300 shotgun shots/500 pistol shots to break from full condition. 300 shotgun blasts...I generously guesstimate I fired 700 in my full hard difficulty playthrough (bloodlust playstyle). Arkane stop pretending you're game design dunces. I've played Arx Fatalis. Yeah your games have always had some very notable balancing issues but this is just beyond stupid.
RoSoDude, that's a very good write-up, and tallies with my disappointment (though I'd not attempted to discover the rules governing weapon degradation). Unlike you, I do think System Shock 2's weapon degradation is too harsh (though not ridiculously so) and I'm relived that Prey 2017's is less harsh, but I agree that it is too slow and simplistic. As you say, the number of shots it takes to ruin (until fixed again) the weapon should be lower, plus also add other factors, if plausible, though since I'm not used to games with weapon degradation, I can't recall any good (and non-System Shock 2) examples of working weapon degradation.
It's a step in the right direction, certainly (and it's good that the player can disable it if he/she prefers), but after all this time, you'd think the game's developers would have listened to the fans' wishes and requests and gone deeper with the add-ons.For me though, the main fault with the game is still that when you've killed all of the enemies in an area, then you're mostly very safe to spend as much time as you like there. They really should have included the semi-random, rare but not too rare, spawning of area-appropriate enemies that System Shock 2 does so well. You can still find enemies that you didn't know were there, or in some areas find enemies that might have actually spawned after your last kill, but even if so, it never carries the same conviction that you get in System Shock 2, where you can believe that the enemy was always in the level and it's only now that you meet face to face.I really hope that they make a Prey 2, as it could be fantastic, if they took what's great about the first game and add what the fans request.
[Weapon degradation]
Yeah, the scripted repopulation is actually done quite nicely, but they need systemic respawning as well. Mimics can already move in and dynamically copy objects without being pre-scripted, and dynamic Phantom spawning from dead corpses (which is supposedly how they're created) and corruption of friendly operators would work quite well, while also giving the impression of a dynamic Typhon ecosystem.
PREY CORE BALANCE MOD - Version 1.0by RoSoDudehttps://rosodudemods.wordpress.com#### What is CORE BALANCE? ####CORE BALANCE is a modification that seeks to improve Prey's game balance without substantially altering its core design.Neuromod skills, chipsets, status effects, etc. are essentially the same, but numbers are tweaked to even out the viability of strategies, while also reducing the abusability of certain systems.The player's strength will start out on par with the base game, but they will have a longer route to unstoppable godhood, with fewer no-brainer skills and more playstyle flexibility.The total number of Neuromods needed to obtain every skill remains the same, but overabundant resources are reduced and character progression is slightly decelerated.Survival Mode options are now finely tuned to provide the intended depth and challenge, where in the base game they were easily trivialized by resource balance and other numerical oversights.Far from simply nerfing everything, this mod aims to enable greater creativity and player expression by bringing underpowered options up to par, so every Neuromod and chipset is an interesting choice.Enemy designs and hazards are also rebalanced, with some previously undodgeable attacks and instant death events mitigated, and enemy resistances made more intuitive and explicit for the player.This mod is NOT designed purely for hardcore players, though there are optional modules to suit them as well as more casual players and everyone in between, making for a highly tweakable experience.CORE BALANCE is Prey as it should have been; retaining all of the nuanced gameplay that Arkane is known for, but with none of their famous balance mishaps!#### Overview of Changes ####Food heals over time and more slowly (but for a longer duration).Oxygen is limited in space in Survival Mode even when at full suit condition.Weapons degrade at vanilla rates (so trading for new copies remains viable) in Survival Mode, but have a chance to jam below 5% condition. Spare parts are much less effective at repairing weapons. The Huntress Boltcaster can now degrade and break too, just like a real nerf gun!Loot tables contain far fewer Suit Repair Kits, and psi hypos, spare parts, medkits, and food are somewhat rarer. Trauma-clearing items are slightly more common in Survival Mode.Difficulty settings expanded with greater impact on the effect of healing items and trauma acquisition, while damage intake scaling on Hard and Nightmare is removed.The radial selection menu only slows time down by 50% rather than stopping it entirely, the effect of Combat Focus is downtuned at every rank, and it no longer provides any bonus damage.Directly damaging alien abilities require more investment to ramp up to full potency, and higher ranks are more expensive.Less direct alien abilities such as Remote Manipulation and Lift Field are slightly cheaper, and Mindjack/Machine Mind last longer at the higher ranks.Mimic Matter now provides increasing benefits to stealth camouflage, and base visibility while rolling around as a coffee cup is as low as while sneaking (rather than as high as running)Human skills offer increasing benefits as you upgrade them, rather than often suffering from diminishing returns except in the case of already overpowered skills.Hacking puzzle times are rescaled, so tier II hacks are not more difficult than tier III and IV hacks.Anomalies in chipset balance are resolved, and niche chipsets buffed to encourage unique playstyles. Thorough numerical detail is added to chipset descriptions to better inform player choices.Enemy research data are expanded to include resistances, where it was previously poorly communicated that some enemies were resistant but not immune to Mindjack, Fear, etc.Overly damaging enemy attacks and hazards are downtuned to lead to fewer cheap deaths and more recoverable situations in gameplay.In addition, there are 5 optional modules which can provide further gameplay changes (these go in the same folder as the main patch file):-patch_COREBALANCE_1-0_HALFMAT.pak halves recycling yield. Recommended for hardcore players (requires new game, not compatible with MOREMAT module)-patch_COREBALANCE_1-0_MOREMAT.pak increases recycling yield by 1.5x. Recommended for casual players (requires new game, not compatible with HALFMAT module)-patch_COREBALANCE_1-0_NOFREELUNCH.pak removes fountain healing and all restoration from Operators except Survival Mode traumas. Recommended for hardcore players-patch_COREBALANCE_1-0_LESSAMMO.pak reduces the counts of ammo found in containers and in the world (requires new game). Recommended for hardcore players-patch_COREBALANCE_1-0_WEAPMODCRIT.pak replaces the Pistol range mods and Shotgun recoil mods with critical chance mods (may or may not require new game)The full changelist is provided in "CORE BALANCE changelist.txt".Mooncrash is not currently supported. Stay tuned for similar balance updates for the DLC in the future.