Plasmid Mechanics Questions

[Aleph]

As distinct from the "what plasmids do we know about and/or want" post already on the front page.

I was looking at the screenshot scenario contest and I realized that I haven't the slightest idea of the systems underlying plasmid use. I know there are active and passive abilities and have seen examples of each, but how is their use regulated? Do active abilities have individual cooldown times? Do they all draw from a single pool which is a. replenished over time b. replenished by Adam c. replenished by something else (commensurate with the Psi Hypos of SS2)? The game is supposed to have a survival horror mechanic of "every bullet counting" - how does that interact with the ability to spew flaming death from your fingertips? They didn't mention a limited ability to use plasmid powers in the screenshot scenario, but then again you use TK early in the screenshots to defend yourself, so why couldn't you use it until you vanquish your foe?

[Hatesink]

I think there's something called Eve as well as something called Adam. I think, where Adam is currency, Eve is a little like Manna. So every use of an ability costs a certain amount of Eve.

Each Plasmid you 'equip' gives you some kind of power, skill or advantage. e.g. Shotgun affinity etc. but active plasmids cost a certain amount of Eve per use.

[ComradeP]

A question that just occurred to me: will players mutate?

In the videos that are available, one could see a woman who had been genetically mutated (in the cellar of a store, with bullet holes above her, she might've been a splicer) and the machine that the main character uses to apply the new abilities/switch abilities is referred as sort of a mutation device.

I wonder whether there'll be penalties for mutating.

As a consequence of having the option of mutating (it doesn't seem to be required, even though it makes life a whole lot easier for the main character) A Purist "no mutations" challenge seems imminent.

[Necros]

I wonder whether there'll be penalties for mutating.
No, Ken said only the way your hand looks like will change. There will be no sideaffects. They've tried it but it wasn't fun and didn't work well. It was in Q&A #2 I think.

[Hatesink]

That's interesting. I was under the impression that in order to remain accessible to the Little Sisters the player would have to get plastic surgery to reverse the effects of the plasmids.

[v.dog]

No need, there's a plasmid for that. :)No, Ken said only the way your hand looks like will change. There will be no sideaffects. They've tried it but it wasn't fun and didn't work well. It was in Q&A #2 I think.They played SiN Episode 1, saw that it didn't work well, and went and had a long hot shower. ;)

There are two catagories of plasmids: active which require Eve (SS2 analogy: psi powers), and passive which don't (SS2 analogy: stats upgrade)

[ComradeP]

They've tried it but it wasn't fun and didn't work well. It was in Q&A #2 I think.

My bad, didn't read that Q&A I guess.

I'm a bit sceptical about features getting erased because they're not "fun" and I actually doubt that it wouldn't work well. Other games had systems where certain effects would occur when certain items were used before, and on many occassions the resulting gameplay was a success.

If plasmids corrupt someone, slowly, it would mean the gamer would have to make a choice between purity and mutation. Now it seems that, as long as the player has the resources (or hoards the resources, usually possible in RPG games or horror/survival/RPG/action adventure/FPS games), he/she can deploy plasmid powers whenever he/she wants, taking a certain amount of challenge out of fights.

The Big Daddy Hunt, even though it looked dangerous, didn't seem to be difficult at all to the player as there was a Grenadier chucking free "ammo" which could be used by the player against the Big Daddy, not to mention that the room was littered with throwable objects which could be combined with others, resulting in a burning teddybear in this case. A plasmid-resistant field or a type of room where no plasmid-based powers can be used would increase the feeling that there are limits to everything and would encourage the player to think more about his/her survival, knowing that abilities won't help them in that specific area and only their wit counts.

[ffanxii4ever]

But you cannot forget that
a) those are planned events (for the vid), so it will be easy for the person who was playing it to know the schedules of all of the AI's there and work around them
b) You can't forget the "starved for resources" part of it, where it is likely that you could start that fight with only a handful of rounds, and your Eve doesn't regenerate, so you may run out of it in the fire fight.
It would look pretty stupid if in the middle of this giant, climatic firefight all of a sudden the player runs out of ammo, and you hear it clicking, or they run out of Eve and drop a grenade at the feet because the telekinesis used it all up, so to prevent this they probably gave them infinite ammo, and infinite Eve, but you don't know as there is no HUD present
Many developers do this kind of thing with video demos, as such to not make the one playing the game look incompotent at it

[Corgano]

...or they run out of Eve and drop a grenade at the feet because the telekinesis used it all up.
Now THAT would have been funny! I know, not the point here, but it made me laugh! :D

[jackinthebox]

No, Ken said only the way your hand looks like will change. There will be no sideaffects. They've tried it but it wasn't fun and didn't work well. It was in Q&A #2 I think.

you are right... here's the quote:

Will the player feel real-time side effects to plasmids, such as nausea, blindness, even death if overused?
We tried it out, we thought it would be fun. It turned out, it wasn’t so fun. We pulled the ripcord on this idea.

[ComradeP]

so to prevent this they probably gave them infinite ammo, and infinite Eve

I'm not sure about that.

The player only had 2 main weapons (perhaps there'll only the two we saw and a Tommygun or something, who knows) and didn't fire a lot of rounds with them all in all.

The plasmid abilities were not directly related to combat, and are probably fairly "cheap":

-Telekinesis seems to be sort of a general (puzzle solving, interaction-related) ability.

-Splicer irritant doesn't deal damage, it only irritates a splicer to attack the nearest target except if it's the player. It has a limited use, and there's a good chance the effect has a "fade out" timer.

-Teleport is a typical "convenience" ability which saves the player a couple of hours worth of backtracking and can also help in combat situations as indicated by the video.

I would be surprised if the total amount of EVE spend would be more than 30%-40% of the total amount the player can "carry".

[a rabid chicken]

I don't think people should look at the game balance when watching this video, because that is not the purpose. Their objectives for this video were probably something like: show people the combat, show people a couple plasmids, show people some AI interactions, etc. I don't think they were showing people anything about game balance. I don't think we can make any sort of estimations about game balance, and I would guess that even if we were shown a current build of the game, which this demo is not, then the game balance will still probably change a relatively large amoun between now and August 21st.

[Renight]

Well I am annoyed becuase you don't actually stab the plasmids into yourself, and, when you use them, they look like spells from oblivion! I mean WTF?!? I thought, you would use plasmids rarely, like in dire situations, but apperently, you use them whenever you want, just like a cliquche spell.
That really pisses me off.