Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Average Manatee]

I dunno, energy transference still makes sense to me. You shoot a guy, he drops bullets to shoot more guys with. You cloak up and power-stab a guy, he drops more energy to stab more people with. Granted the stealth bonus was fairly ridiculous. If you removed it completely and stayed with the standard melee bonus it would be fine. Heck, you might have gone the other way and provide slightly more energy for non-stealth kills. After all the target is in a more energetic state. Beating alerted enemies with melee almost always means sucking up some energy with a high chance of damage, so it makes for a sensible tradeoff.

I'm not against the idea of a fluid ammo cap. Certainly lower caps and being able to increase them make for good gameplay. It just doesn't seem to fit as an augment. You're right that the ammo capacity you can carry is silly in Deus Ex, but by modifying it with augs you've changed the ammo capacity from an out-of-universe generic FPS handwaving of inventory to an in-universe recognition of a ridiculous ammo capacity and the gamey limitations of the simplistic system. e.g. the whole issue with FPSs letting you carry 80 bullets, 80 AP bullets, 80 HP bullets, 80 slugs, etc, but preventing you from carrying 81 bullets. It also jives with the rest of augs, whose purpose is "do amazing superhuman things" rather than "stop annoying me with small ammo capacities".

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

No. It interferes with natural gameplay/choices of engagement with NPCs by putting a reward on hostile NPC's heads (small amount of bioenergy). It's like the "skills for kills" problem that shoehorns how you play, but on a very, very, minor level. Instead of naturally weighing your options with each hostile, you may be encouraged to melee/stealth kill for the bioenergy restoration. It isn't that degenerate, it's barely a problem at all really as Bioenergy isn't hugely valuable in the same way something like xp is, but still is a problem nonetheless and so should be scrapped. The ammo aug is plain better.

This is probably too drastic a change for your mod, but did you ever consider removing the exploration XP and just adding it to the mission XP? Deus Ex has a ton of shortcuts and interesting ways to get around enemies but I always find myself not really using them the way I feel like they should be used because I have a need to explore every inch of the map to make sure I don't miss out on any XP. To me that feels slightly degenerate too.

 

[Ash]

This is probably too drastic a change for your mod, but did you ever consider removing the exploration XP and just adding it to the mission XP? Deus Ex has a ton of shortcuts and interesting ways to get around enemies but I always find myself not really using them the way I feel like they should be used because I have a need to explore every inch of the map to make sure I don't miss out on any XP. To me that feels slightly degenerate too.

It is degenerate, yet at the same time Deus Ex rewards exploration heavily (credits/augs/aug upgrades/weapon mods/ammo/health etc etc) so removing xp for it won't do much to counter the unnatural "explore everything!" mindset. And that's only one point in xp-for-exploration's favor. Another big one is ensuring all playstyles are rewarded fairly for secret areas etc, as xp is one of few reward types that benefit all build/playstyle types. Besides, the game is at its best and by far most enjoyable when you explore, see and do everything, right? It can't really be avoided, or shouldn't be (would arguably be excessive realism focus to the detriment of gamey goodness), but the Energy Transference issue can and should be.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Well you don't need as many items/credits/whatever when you're skipping past enemies/whole areas but I agree it wouldn't solve the issue entirely. It just feels like some of the "immersive sim" "play it your way" qualities are lost when you're expected to explore everything and do everything, especially when there are so many intentionally designed ways to shortcut that and get closer to the mission objective. I'm not sure it would actually make the game better, I just would be interested to see what it's like.

 

[Ash]

Yeah there is some confused design present in that regard, but gamey goodness wins.

I just would be interested to see what it's like.

Two thirds shorter than the usual playtime :D

Yeah I'm confident the game would be worse off with it removed, but I can see why people argue for it.

Some players do play that way regardless of the xp anyway, with minimal exploration. You miss so, so much. Upgrade progression and general resources, interesting conversations and events with NPCs, fun challenges, secondary goals, sometimes whole levels (e.g Ford Schick in the sewers)...just like two thirds of the game as stated. Surely a far inferior way to play, but the game (and mod) does support it.

 

[Cross]

It is degenerate, yet at the same time Deus Ex rewards exploration heavily (credits/augs/aug upgrades/weapon mods/ammo/health etc etc) so removing xp for it won't do much to counter the unnatural "explore everything!" mindset.

If exploration is already its own reward, isn't that an even stronger argument in favor of removing exploration XP?

There is an obvious difference between XP rewards (something you can never have enough of) and finding ammo and items which the player may not need and which can be gained through other ways.

 

[Ash]

If exploration is already its own reward, isn't that an even stronger argument in favor of removing exploration XP?

No, because the "problem" is the prevalence of the "explore everything" mindset encouraged by said rewards (everything cumulatively), not really the xp by itself...unless you happen to take great issue with the occasional xp pop-up during exploration, yet are fine with the same happening when completing missions. Removing the xp bonuses will do little to nothing to address said problem. You'll still want to scour every corner of every map because it's just so incredibly rewarding to so many degrees.

I welcome anyone to make such an add-on that removes exploration xp. There's no doubt in my mind the game would suffer.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Some players do play that way regardless of the xp anyway, with minimal exploration. You miss so, so much. Upgrade progression and general resources, interesting conversations and events with NPCs, fun challenges, secondary goals, sometimes whole levels (e.g Ford Schick in the sewers)...just like two thirds of the game as stated. Surely a far inferior way to play, but the game (and mod) does support it.

Just because there's no exploration XP doesn't mean you'd do minimal exploration, just exploration when it makes sense to explore. There's no real reason not to find Smuggler your first time in Hell's Kitchen (and get the Ford Schick quest) because it's not like there are a bunch of enemies guarding him so you don't really lose anything by it. And once you have a quest (in the case of Ford Schick), isn't that enough reason to do it, especially since you also get XP for completing quests? But in Liberty Island, do I really have a need to go into that little underground bunker with the EMP field and fight an extra guard? Maybe if I saw the hazmat suit and and wanted it or I was running low on resources sure. But if not maybe I'd rather just head for the statue. But with exploration XP I'm punished for not going down there.

 

[Ash]

But in Liberty Island, do I really have a need to go into that little underground bunker with the EMP field and fight an extra guard? Maybe if I saw the hazmat suit and and wanted it or I was running low on resources sure. But if not maybe I'd rather just head for the statue. But with exploration XP I'm punished for not going down there.

Lib Island Bunker Rewards:

Multitool
Hazmat
Laser mod
Clip mod
Fire Extinguisher
XP Bonus
Grenade wall mine (if disarmed. Hardcore mode only. The only potential reward added there by GMDX also)
10mm ammo (NSF drop)

Removing the xp bonus shouldn't do much of anything. There's many high value items down there.
In instances where there isn't as many, xp is needed to ensure those that do actually explore are rewarded, no matter their build type (non-lethal in particular doesn't see as much benefit from exploration as lethal stealth and combat does, yet xp rewards usually ensure they at least get something relevant to their build).

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Yeah I see the benefits of exploration XP, I just don't think it's a binary either you explore everything or you explore nothing kind of thing, and I definitely wasn't trying to argue for anything that would encourage the latter. The bunker might have been a bad example, but I was thinking more for someone who doesn't actually know what's in there (probably more applicable to things in later levels though since anyone who knows about exploration XP probably knows what's in there at least). The argument is more for an organic style of play. If I don't know what's in some area that doesn't seem to clearly get me to my goal and is guarded, do I want to expend resources to find out what's there? Well, with exploration XP I know I do, because I want to make sure I don't miss out on any XP. Without it, maybe I would prefer skipping it if I currently don't have a resource shortage (heck, exploring the area might cause a resource shortage due to fighting and I might not get the items I want/need).

Also, don't think I'm critiquing your mod (which is absolute

) or trying to get you to add something you don't like to it. I just think this is an interesting topic.

 

[Ash]

Arguably more valuable and exploration-incentivising is augmentation cannisters and augmentation upgrade cannisters. You can remove xp but the thirst for reward and the general curiosity will still be there, and nearly as strong. Removing xp won't do much to counter it. Weapon mods are also major attractions for all but non-lethal and niche melee-only builds.

Anyway, there's concessions for realism, immersion and organic play such as removing energy transference, and then there's taking it too far. In my mind this is absolutely the latter. Leave the deeper organic play to something like Thief.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Ah yeah, good point about the aug canisters, that definitely is a huge exploration incentive. I still think it would be fun to, at least once, play Deus Ex in a more organic fashion, since the level design definitely supports it. I guess I should just do that and not bother with what the game is incentivizing though, since it's not like you need to be remotely min/maxed to beat it.

 

[RoSoDude]

Weapon mods are also major attractions for all but non-lethal and niche melee-only builds.

Ah, that reminds me, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I enabled the Dragon's Tooth Sword to accept damage modifications in my addon (while nerfing its damage from 26 to 22). Will get up to 83 damage with Combat Strength + Master Low-Tech + Targeting + 5 Damage Mods. Since those are some of the most valuable modifications around, this gives some meaningful choice between melee and ranged weapon investment, and makes the DTS the melee weapon with the highest damage potential without being busted from the moment you pick it up.

Oh, and here's something else I fixed recently: Damage to the player used to always strictly round down rather than rounding evenly (truncation of a float to an int). On Realistic/Hardcore, the most common damage number is 9, from AR rounds and shotgun pellets. When 35/45/55/65% damage reduction from Ballistic Protection is applied to this, the rounding changes 9 damage to 6/4/4/3 (do the math yourself and you'll see why, it's the most pathological case you could get). After I changed it to round properly, Ballistic Protection turns 9 damage into 6/5/4/3 damage. Don't forget to add int(x+0.5) during type conversion!

 

[MediantSamuel]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Deusex/com...ple_think_that_gmdx_is_gameplay_wise/dvn9fwc/

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Reddit delenda est

 

[Zer0wing]

Shouldn't we be more thick-skinned? These special snowflakes are still being shocked from in-game writing ("[checks emails]whoah I expected Deus Ex to be dark, but THIS is something beyond!!!!!!!" - typical lebbitor)and don't expect the game to be mature, yet alone to include hardcore gameplay. The only objective way to judge GMDX is to git gut, the police baton is still choice for non-lethal takedowns from behind, acting like a maniac police officer. That didn't change.

 

[agris]

That's pretty damming. I wonder if Ash has a detailed reply to this?

YCCCM7 0 points 56 minutes ago

Yeah, it's not unmanageable, but the way things get puffed up in terms of numbers is pretty appalling.

A good example is that most HP pools are elevated. Depending how far you've specced into weapon skills and how many damage/ROF mods you've gotten (as they can increase a weapon's DPS by 200%, varying slightly per weapon), this may or may not go well.

My biggest gripe with the new weapon mods is that damage mods shouldn't exist. They have no tradeoff, and increase a weapon's DPS potential considerably, unlike ROF, which lowers your ammo efficiency. Even accuracy mods in vanilla only increase the effective range of your maximum DPS, not the maximum DPS itself.

This leads to a lot of enemies being puffed up later game in expectation of both weapon skills and DPS raising weapon mods.

So when you run into a gray with 250 health instead of 50 (and yes, that's the real numbers. On hardcore mode they have 400), and you still can't headshot the damn things with the new headshot multipliers, your only tactic if you don't have a "god gun" or ammo for your "god gun", killing one of those fuckers off takes ages, and it just turns into a giant slog of kiting, taking unnecessary hits, and rinse and repeat.

If you're not built for combat, but have to defend yourself (this is now mandatory on some parts of A51, and many areas have increased guard density on hardcore to the point that sneaking by is literally impossible), this situation grows far worse.

Many other enemies have massively puffed up HP, and on harder difficulties (even excluding hardcore), other areas of stats have been blatantly puffed up to ridiculous levels, eliminating tactics one might use on enemies, thus resulting in more shooting and less thinking.

That's exactly how I would define artificial difficulty, when talking about it from this angle. Having the tactic be "shoot this guy more now" instead of adding mechanical complexity in a way that makes the player formulate new strategies.

TBH, I find GMDX's difficulty scaling really bad overall. It usually just comes down to adding more enemies, deleting loot from levels, making doors/keypads harder to bypass, making doors harder to break, lowering the ammo the player gets from acquired loot sources, and increasing enemy stats.

Good difficulty scaling should be done in meaningful, handcrafted ways instead of just throwing two hands on the nearest stat-pump.

Deus Ex's difficulty scaling was more about lowering the forgiveness of taking hits, making you plan a bit more carefully, but it's still not that great of a concept. One of its biggest gimmicks was its sheer lack of forgiveness. One badly placed pistol round could kill you from full health, so you couldn't just run in, guns blazing, unless you were thinking 5 steps ahead of the enemy.

Ironically, from lowering the cap damage mult from 4x to 3x (damage taken by player) and nerfing the pistol's base damage, GMDX's "realistic" difficulty is often far less challenging than deus ex's realistic difficulty, and will throw puffed up baddies and doors at you instead, only cementing the feeling that the game hates you, and not that your approach was too crude.

You can tell from the fact that both Hotel Carone and The Nameless Mod went for customizable difficulty settings, to try and let the player decide what they wanted to harder. I would argue customizable difficulty like theirs is probably the new standard, in a bizarre way, despite its infrequency of use.

I detest HP bloat as a means to achieve difficulty - but not having played GMDX, I can't comment. Also, the point about customizable difficulty is a good one. I'm guessing this is too complicated for Ash or RoSho to program, otherwise it would be in the mod already?

 

[Ash]

Nearly everything written is either objectively false (this is the majority), exaggerated to extremes, or conveniently leaves out details. It is intentionally doing so too. The guy that posted it is the developer of a different Deus Ex mod (some cartoon thing) and has been PM'ing me massive diatribes the previous week which essentially boils down to "I hate your guts", even though we only interacted once in the past and it was very pleasant. He's been stalking my posting history and just generally being obsessive. This is merely the malicious rantings of a weirdo.

agris You question now? There's 113 pages of consistent codex praise here before you: only ONE guy disliked it and he was clearly not too sharp. The mod has minor nitpick-able flaws (nothing that redditor wrote though), yet it should be well established it's thoroughly codex-approved by now, and that's the best approval it can have. Play and find out for yourself.

 

[Zer0wing]

What the actual fuck? A cross-website mod-war?

 

[Alienman]

Modders always seem to fight.

 

[agris]

agris You question now? There's 113 pages of consistent codex praise here before you: only ONE guy disliked it and he was clearly not too sharp. The mod has minor nitpick-able flaws (nothing that redditor wrote though), yet it should be well established it's thoroughly codex-approved by now, and that's the best approval it can have. Play and find out for yourself.

Uh, earth to modder. He made some very specific claims regarding HP bloat, and that you've exalted combat as a more favored (as compared to vanilla) method to bypass challenges. I would think that someone as confident as you could simply describe why that's wrong, not point to a page count for the thread.

Guess I was wrong.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

I'm not Ash so I can't speak to the exact specific underlying mechanics, but I did recently beat the game with GMDX so I know how it felt at least.

A good example is that most HP pools are elevated.

As far as I can tell, this is total horseshit. Nearly every enemy still dies with a single non-stealth-pistol shot to the head, just like vanilla. Assault rifle and combat shotgun to the chest still kills in a few hits too.

My biggest gripe with the new weapon mods is that damage mods shouldn't exist. They have no tradeoff, and increase a weapon's DPS potential considerably, unlike ROF, which lowers your ammo efficiency. Even accuracy mods in vanilla only increase the effective range of your maximum DPS, not the maximum DPS itself.

Not entirely sure but I think base weapon damage is somewhat nerfed, so this basically increases the value of specializing your weapon instead of switching late game. I guess I can see a complaint here but I didn't mind it (even in vanilla, you want to keep using your older guns because they have the mods).

This leads to a lot of enemies being puffed up later game in expectation of both weapon skills and DPS raising weapon mods.

Again, untrue, with the one exception of...

So when you run into a gray with 250 health instead of 50 (and yes, that's the real numbers. On hardcore mode they have 400), and you still can't headshot the damn things with the new headshot multipliers, your only tactic if you don't have a "god gun" or ammo for your "god gun", killing one of those fuckers off takes ages, and it just turns into a giant slog of kiting, taking unnecessary hits, and rinse and repeat.

I'll admit, grays definitely seem more tanky in GMDX. Given that they are an extreme lategame enemy and you only fight a few of them, I don't really see this as a problem. But even if you hate HP bloat, this isn't a problem for nearly the entire game.

If you're not built for combat, but have to defend yourself (this is now mandatory on some parts of A51, and many areas have increased guard density on hardcore to the point that sneaking by is literally impossible), this situation grows far worse.

You literally can't play hardcore until beating the game with GMDX on another difficulty. It's obviously not the core experience.

Many other enemies have massively puffed up HP, and on harder difficulties (even excluding hardcore), other areas of stats have been blatantly puffed up to ridiculous levels, eliminating tactics one might use on enemies, thus resulting in more shooting and less thinking.

I didn't notice increased enemy stats compared to vanilla. I did notice much improved AI, which is the exact kind of difficulty spike I want.

TBH, I find GMDX's difficulty scaling really bad overall. It usually just comes down to adding more enemies, deleting loot from levels, making doors/keypads harder to bypass, making doors harder to break, lowering the ammo the player gets from acquired loot sources, and increasing enemy stats.

Another complaint about hardcore, disguised as a complaint about the mod in general. Gee, it's almost as if someone is being disingenuous.

Deus Ex's difficulty scaling was more about lowering the forgiveness of taking hits, making you plan a bit more carefully, but it's still not that great of a concept. One of its biggest gimmicks was its sheer lack of forgiveness. One badly placed pistol round could kill you from full health, so you couldn't just run in, guns blazing, unless you were thinking 5 steps ahead of the enemy.

Right, it's a gimmick that you couldn't just run in guns blazing without thinking ahead.

Ironically, from lowering the cap damage mult from 4x to 3x (damage taken by player) and nerfing the pistol's base damage, GMDX's "realistic" difficulty is often far less challenging than deus ex's realistic difficulty, and will throw puffed up baddies and doors at you instead, only cementing the feeling that the game hates you, and not that your approach was too crude.

I first played on realistic, it's undoubtedly more challenging that vanilla, and I didn't notice any "puffed up baddies". Also I was running around with tons of lockpicks and multitools most of the time so apparently the doors weren't much of a problem either.

You can tell from the fact that both Hotel Carone and The Nameless Mod went for customizable difficulty settings, to try and let the player decide what they wanted to harder. I would argue customizable difficulty like theirs is probably the new standard, in a bizarre way, despite its infrequency of use.

Other mods did a thing one way, so it's clearly the best way.

TL;DR guy pretends the entire mod is the optional hardcore mod which has intentionally increased enemy difficulty, tells you this, and doesn't even let you play it until you beat the game on another difficulty. On the few occasions when he's actually talking about other difficulties, he massively overstates things (maybe enemy stat bloat does exist on realistic but it's not very noticeable). Only points I'll give him are grays, which have noticeable bloat on realistic, and damage mods which is a personal taste thing.

 

[Ash]

agris You question now? There's 113 pages of consistent codex praise here before you: only ONE guy disliked it and he was clearly not too sharp. The mod has minor nitpick-able flaws (nothing that redditor wrote though), yet it should be well established it's thoroughly codex-approved by now, and that's the best approval it can have. Play and find out for yourself.

Uh, earth to modder. He made some very specific claims regarding HP bloat, and that you've exalted combat as a more favored (as compared to vanilla) method to bypass challenges. I would think that someone as confident as you could simply describe why that's wrong, not point to a page count for the thread.

Guess I was wrong.

Earth to patronising guy: I tire of it. I've purposefully ignored debunking his garbage in that thread because it is feeding the degenerate trolls and zero standards Revision fanboys. What part of this guy is unhinged and obsessive, writing massive diatribes to me via PM etc don't you get? This is what I was hoping for: monocled fellows like the above debunking the false claims so I don't have to waste another minute on this fuckwad.

Again, the whole post is garbage. It's intentionally disingenuous bullshit. He basically makes it sound like the mod just pumps up hp values and calls it a day. This can't be further from the truth. the mod enhances AI behaviourconsiderably, they're twice as engaging in stealth and combat as they were vanilla, while still fair. Plenty of their behaviour also scales based on difficulty, and difficulty modes are painstakingly crafted to cater extensively to a wide variety of skill levels. The biggest accomplishment of GMDX is perhaps it's AI; they're much smarter. I've never even come across a mod for any game that improves AI intelligence as much as GMDX does. And I'm often actively looking.

Anyone with a) experience with gmdx, and b) half a brain can call bullshit on that guy's post. And as you can see some already are. I shouldn't have to defend myself from spiteful jealous trolls by now. GMDX should have earned that prestige. It is the definitive Deus Ex experience. Much research, love, effort and learned monocleism went into it to specifically ensure it was true to vanilla and relatively fault-free. It's the mod the GOAT actually deserves, and that's not arrogance when it is true (and stated by pretty much all classic fans in this thread, and many elsewhere).

 

[Anomander Rake]

Question : why would you focus on asking the developer what he thinks about a random criticizing review on internet?

I bet Ash would appreciate way more if you made an idea for yourself by playing his mod and actually trying to talk with him about what you think and making (constructive) criticism. I saw\met few modders that weren't autistic fucks and Ash is one of them

 

[agris]

agris You question now? There's 113 pages of consistent codex praise here before you: only ONE guy disliked it and he was clearly not too sharp. The mod has minor nitpick-able flaws (nothing that redditor wrote though), yet it should be well established it's thoroughly codex-approved by now, and that's the best approval it can have. Play and find out for yourself.

Uh, earth to modder. He made some very specific claims regarding HP bloat, and that you've exalted combat as a more favored (as compared to vanilla) method to bypass challenges. I would think that someone as confident as you could simply describe why that's wrong, not point to a page count for the thread.

Guess I was wrong.

Earth to patronising guy: I tire of it. I've purposefully ignored debunking his garbage in that thread because it is feeding the degenerate trolls and zero standards Revision fanboys. What part of this guy is unhinged and obsessive, writing massive diatribes to me via PM etc don't you get? This is what I was hoping for: monocled fellows like the above debunking the false claims so I don't have to waste another minute on this fuckwad.

I shall address the Gray concerns but that's all I'm putting my time into.

The Gray values are one half-truth among a load of false claims, idiocy etc etc. Half-truth, as while the stated values are true it's disingenuous:

It's nothing new. The post doesn't provide the HP scale of other enemies. Vanilla Karkians had 400hp, also with no headshot multiplier. They're exactly as tanky as karkians used to be, and only on hardcore. On all other diffs. gmdx grays have 250hp. GMDX also actually reduced karkains' HP to 250 on all difficulty modes with acknowledgement of how tanky it is, and because they're quite a common enemy. The mod logically reverses the values of the two enemies because one is a relatively common enemy and the other is a rare final area enemy.
Note that hardcore is also not intended to be the faithful purist mode, that's all the other difficulty modes. It makes some (like 4) minor concessions to satisfy old school hardcore classic gamers to the detriment of Deus Ex's design principles. This is repeated to followers of this mod ad infinitum. And as the gentleman above said, the mode is locked so that newbies cannot stumble into it first playthrough.
It was also much needed. They're a late game enemy; it's game design 101, and also coincides with "Warren Spector's ten commandments of game design" (and anyone's commandments if they have a fundamental understanding of game design. early game is meant to be steady. challenges ramp up with progression as the player learns how to play). As a result of apparent fundamental game design oversight, Deus Ex was hardcore at the start and piss easy in the latter half, and ultimately lost some level of engagement via its gameplay. to be fair, this is common with many RPGs though. with GMDX, the gameplay will engage the brain on a higher level never faltering 'till the end credits, and it does so without feeling particularly "gamey"; while still retaining that immersive, organic, simulated spirit.

Again, the whole post is garbage. It's intentionally disingenuous bullshit. He basically makes it sound like the mod just pumps up hp values and calls it a day. This can't be further from the truth. the mod enhances AI behaviourconsiderably, they're twice as engaging in stealth and combat as they were vanilla, while still fair. Plenty of their behaviour also scales based on difficulty, and difficulty modes are painstakingly crafted to cater extensively to a wide variety of skill levels. The biggest accomplishment of GMDX is perhaps it's AI; they're much smarter. I've never even come across a mod that improves AI intelligence as much as GMDX does. And I'm often actively looking.

Anyone with a) experience with gmdx, and b) half a brain can call bullshit on that guy's post. And as you can see some already are. I shouldn't have to defend myself from spiteful jealous trolls by now. GMDX should have earned that prestige. It is the definitive Deus Ex experience. Much research, love, effort and learned monocleism went into it to specifically ensure it was true to vanilla and relatively fault-free. It's the mod the GOAT actually deserves, and that's not arrogance when it is true (and stated by pretty much all classic fans in this thread, and many elsewhere).

So glad you descended from your game-modding cloud to address the comment. Truly, we are not worthy. One thing though:

What part of this guy is unhinged and obsessive, writing massive diatribes to me via PM etc don't you get?

The part where he clearly articulates his problems with your mod and no evidence of your claims. I'm not trying to take sides or poke at you, but from the outside his comment seems like a well articulated opinion and I was simply curious how you would respond to it. Thanks for taking the time to.

I don't doubt you're putting your best into the mod, but perhaps your ego is growing a bit too large? That's been the downfall of many a developer in the past, and since you profess to learn from the Old Ones, that might be another lesson well-worth taking to heart.


edit:

Question : why would you focus on asking the developer what he thinks about a random criticizing review on internet?

I bet Ash would appreciate way more if you made an idea for yourself by playing his mod and actually trying to talk with him about what you've thought and making (constructive) criticism. I saw\met few modders that weren't autistic fucks and Ash is one of them

Because I, like many others, use the reviews and feedback of users to determine if something is worth my time or not. I have read, in general, glowing praise of GMDX. I have not read a well articulated criticism of it, thus the criticism provides an interesting point of comparison. That's why I asked Ash, I hadn't seen this type of feedback presented before and was curious how he would respond to it.


edit2: thanks @~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T