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Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

grimace

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,958
[SUGGESTION] Mantling while crippled (self.gmdx)

submitted 8 days ago by inknow

Most game ending bugs can occur because you can't jump due to being crippled. To fix this, I suggest being able to mantle slowly while crippled to simulate crawling up an obstacle.

This will also allow a low HP challenge run - 1 HP head, 1 HP torso. No weapons and no jumping.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gmdx/comments/5cjvnu/suggestion_mantling_while_crippled/

Ash

Thoughts on this?
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
RoSoDude said:
This relates to the issue I still have with the laser sight. I never found I had to put many bullets into most enemies until Area 51 because one headshot with my untrained pistol was trivial to line up. It got a bit harder when everyone started having helmets, or were commandos, but by then I was using other weapons more frequently, and the power curve felt more balanced. The first half the game was super easy on Realistic, though, as it wasn't too hard to just remember to hit the ALT key (my map for the laser).

Maybe I'm missing something, but the degree to which it bypassed the weapon accuracy from skills/mods seemed off. I'm happy to hear why I'm wrong, but it removed some tension for me.

Yeah, it's a valid complaint. Laser mod is too OP. Having limited ammo is meant to address that, but it doesn't really if you are a good mole popper. I don't want to shifter-ify it, but I haven't really come up with a better solution yet. Simply removing the first laser mod in the game on the highest difficulty mode would work wonders for balance, but I like meh laser mods, perhaps very biased so. I shall consider it.

I just gave Shifter's laser mod a try and I definitely can see why you wouldn't want to implement it in the same way. I think one of the worst aspects about it is that the crosshair just sits out at some distance from the true center of your aim, even though a real person would immediately try to correct that inconsistency. It's super frustrating to look at, though it is neat to see how the system decides where shots will go (very deterministic but with a variable unknown to the player, rather than an RNG roll every time you shoot, pretty cool).

All I could recommend is to keep more of the aim wavering behavior, but have it centered to the true center of your aim when you have the laser sight on. This would simulate a untrained person's lack of stability in handling a firearm, but would still give a big benefit to using the laser sight, as you would have in a real scenario. I also agree that the laser mod should stay in the first level, because it's a great bonus to players who explore and try to get their gear set up early.
 

Somberlain

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 5, 2012
Messages
6,202
Location
Basement
I'm not seeing any tedious bullet sponge here. Just got past the Paris catacombs and I'm one-shotting commandos with sniper headshots and the WiB too. Commandos die really fast with Dragon's Tooth Sword too, both skills on advanced. Granted, I'm playing on medium but that doesn't affect enemy health anyway?
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
I know about the other improvements to ladders, but is there any way to make it easier to mount a ladder from the top? I was playing Half Life recently and it automatically puts you onto the ladder if you walk backward onto it. If you know what you're doing you can carefully do the same in DX but it's a lot more subtle.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Not as far as I am aware. The unreal engine handles that, and engine modifications are out of the question as I'm not an engineer, and more importantly the source code to Unreal 1 was never publicly released. The current improvements to ladders are hacked in and are not modifications to core native ladder behavior.

Those improvements are ladder climbing sounds (previously there was none), and the ability to jump off of ladders (prev. you could only drop), for those that don't know.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Entrance to smuggler's now looks more like a parking garage as intended:

1h48hw.jpg


Vanilla from a different angle for reference:

latest
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
Entrance to smuggler's now looks more like a parking garage as intended:

[Insert screenshot of appropriately and consistently detailed Smuggler garage]

Vanilla from a different angle for reference:

[Insert drab shit from vanilla]

Clearly this needs more reflective surfaces and a piss filter. Er, sorry, I masochistically made myself play the first few levels of Revision, and now I have a verbal tic which makes me sarcastically attest to its brilliant design and [sic] visceral core. Fuck it's so bad.

This looks great, though. Someone should do an in-depth comparison of the game areas between vanilla and GMDX v9 when it comes out. And a video reviewing it and comparing it to all of the existing overhaul/gameplay mods to show how complete and meticulously crafted it is. Dammit, do I need to learn how to do video editing? And gameplay recording? And audio recording... okay maybe this is best left to someone else. I should stick to text promotion and physics stuff.
 

Dev_Anj

Learned
Joined
Jan 14, 2015
Messages
468
Location
Auldale, near the great river
But perhaps I'm overreacting. Could have been an innocent enough statement; a case of simply lending your thoughts, as opposed to your usual attempts to one-up me.
Basically this, yes. You mentioned that bullet/damage sponges being considered bad was generally ridiculous, I aired my thoughts on why it wasn't. Like many other gameplay tropes, they can work well and do have their place but they need to be delicately managed, and more often than not designers tend to misuse them to create a "difficult" section or game mode.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Basically this, yes. You mentioned that bullet/damage sponges being considered bad was generally ridiculous, I aired my thoughts on why it wasn't.

I said sponges being considered inherently bad was ridiculous. As in people who oppose sponges in any circumstance.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
Heard you delayed it because you have no one to make installer.
What stop you from packing content into archive and uploading? You can make separate folders for additional content, like it happen in Stalker mods for example.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Don't you think GMDX deserves better?

I'll make an installer myself if I have to. Besides, the past three or so versions had an installer so I'm not lowering past that standard.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/gmdx/articles

gmdxnocredsDELAYED.png



To preface for those that are unaware: GMDX improves all aspects of design excluding the soundtrack and plot, and is frequently hailed as the "definitive Deus Ex experience" by players. And so it should be, as that is exactly what it strives to be while following the design principles that made Deus Ex great to begin with.

GMDX v9.0 was due for the final phase of public beta testing today. Unfortunately this and the release date have been delayed indefinitely until I can find an individual capable of programming a high quality user-friendly installer.
To speed up the process of finding such an individual, share GMDX with the world. Raise awareness. The "definitive Deus Ex experience" can grow even more concretely definitive with adequate support. Nonetheless, delays give the project more time to ensure perfection, so it's not all bad.

In the meantime, here's a first look at the next logical evolution of Deus Ex's Artificial Intelligence present in GMDXv9.0. Previous versions of GMDX already made leaps and bounds to improve AI, which you can view a demo of on youtube if you missed it, and this is the next step.

Suppressive Fire


An NPC lays down heavy suppressive fire with the plasma rifle.



NPCs now sometimes lay down suppressive fire if specific conditions are met, firing upon your last known location. This can potentially force you into cover, or even damage you if, say, a plasma bolt passes overhead and hits something nearby, scathing you with the blast radius AoE. Just another intelligent, realistic, challenging variable to consider if taking enemies head-on.

In the above .gif the parameters are set high for demonstrative purposes. In other words, they won't be that aggressive and trigger happy in the release version.

Smart Strafe

A problem in the vanilla game in how NPCs in pursuit handled target acquisition and also corner turning is now addressed. Below is a vanilla example of how NPCs turned corners and acquired a target:





Note how the NPC stopped, pointed his gun at the wall, and then rotated to the target (the player). This is a tame example of how bad it could get. So what does GMDX do about it? Well, previous versions simply increased NPC rotation speed which helped (a lot of things, actually), but it wasn't enough in this case. NPCs now strafe around corners, improving combat efficiency and believability, and solving a number of flaws in the process. The frequency in which they decide to do this scaled based on difficulty level, among other parameters. It cannot be understated how much this improves the experience and fixes their immersion-breaking derpy-ness.

Class-Specific Behavior

Class, as in enemy type. Enemy type, as in one type being everyone's beloved spiderbots!

84ba8c_d792f8924cc247e4b79a1281456f8a0d~mv2.gif


A spiderbot walks on the ceiling.


As always, this new behavior falls in line with the game's lore and general design principles.

Other enemy types display new unique behavior where appropriate.

Alarm! Alarm!

No more gifs, they're a time-consuming pain in the ass to make

Did you know Alarm Units yielded no reaction from nearby NPCs? While a laser trigger when tripped would cause nearby NPCs to come and investigate, an alarm unit would not. This is now addressed and bolsters GMDX's already-present improved alarm dynamics. e.g NPCs raising the alarm if they spot a dead body, or alarms being raised calls in reinforcements.

All-Seeing Eye

NPCs are no longer "psychic" and will not know of your presence when in combat mode unless they have actually seen you. In the original game when NSF and UNATCO were fighting (for example), NSF would often turn around and fire at you despite never having seen nor heard you.
Immersion-breaking, unfair, annoying...Fixed.

Takedowns

A very simple yet HIGHLY significant fix: the range at which a stealth takedown is registered is increased by 33% - if you're behind an unaware NPC and aim for the right part, you WILL perform a takedown.

General Polishing & Balancing

AI pain screams and distress radius are reduced from vanilla, resulting in leniency when attempting to silently take out an enemy with more than one hit/shot.

Much polishing related to NPC movement around the game world, such as NPCs set on fire no longer run into walls.
Bumping into NPCs that are attempting to move somewhere will override that attempt to move, and so on.

Better, more accurate intelligence scaling based on difficulty level.

...and much more.

----



Here's the full list of new AI features present in GMDX v9.0 so far:

_ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE_
------------------------------------

-Human NPCs now sometimes lay down suppressive fire.
-Human NPCs in combat sometimes strafe around corners already facing the player. This is quite the significant improvement to how NPCs move around the world, and how believable and competent they are in combat.
-AI are no longer "psychic" and will not know your location when fighting with other NPCs, unless they have actually spotted you.
-AI will now investigate the source of alarms emitting from alarm units (Previously they'd only investigate alarms from laser triggers and cameras).
-Spiderbots can walk on the ceiling.
-The range at which a stealth takedown counts is increased by 33% - if you're behind an unaware NPC and aim for the right part, you WILL perform a takedown now.
-Hostile AI attempting to move to a location will immediately stop and attack if they bump into the player, rather than attempting to move around him to get
to that location.
-Added minor diversity to what an NPC decides to do after triggering an alarm.
-NPCs in combat that are moving to a location and see the player often will immediately stop and shoot, rather than continuing running to that location without opening fire.
-Reduced the radius of NPC pain screams, resulting in leniency when attempting to silently take out enemies without the whole area becoming alert. Vanilla the radius happened to be just a touch too loud.
-Improved behavior related to NPCs opening doors in combat.
-Robots ram down doors blocking their path.
-Heavy robots destroy decorative objects blocking their path.
-AI are somewhat less accurate if the player is moving at high velocities.
-AI with assault rifles are highly inaccurate while dying mid-burst fire.
-Enemies set on fire no longer run into walls if they can't find water.
-Enemies that are melee-based and can't reach the player will run away and hide (e.g player is on ladder, Karkian cannot reach so will go hide).
-Enemies with blast radius-based weaponry may open fire even if the player is right in their face, if their health is critical. //consider removing this
-AI accuracy with grenade throws has a touch more randomization to it to cut down on frequent perfect pitches, and
LAMs are thrown by more NPC types.
-Unconscious NPCs now have their name displayed when highlighted.
-NPCs no longer break open footlockers by running into them.
-if the player is blocking the path of an alarm unit an NPC is attempting to get to and press, the NPC will instead attack, if equipped with a weapon.
-AI stealth-related stats have been nerfed a little on realistic mode.
-The advanced security bot now uses a new/previously unused model.
-Greatly diversified how an NPC behaves when seeking the source of a disturbance.
-Minor improvement to the new NPC melee attack/gun bash system.
-If an NPC runs into glass in combat they will stop and shoot it rather than steamrolling right through it.
-Enabled some overlooked NPC vocal reactions to the player clowning around (like throwing a basketball at them).
-Hitting the torso of the enemy now has a damage multiplier of 4. (vanilla = 2. GMDXv8.0 = 3).
-Security camera FOV is higher on hardcore mode.
-Breaking boxes alerts AI at a lower radius.
-NPC leg pain animation rate is slowed down a touch, to add realistic diversity and tactical advantage to shooting the legs.
-Spiderbot movement animation rate is increased a touch, giving them a more realistic-looking stride.
-Heavy EMP damage now disables Anna, Gunther and Walton Simon's augmentations.
-Greasel attack rate now scales based on difficulty mode.
-Snipers now take their time to fire on all except hardcore mode.
-Walker bots suffering critical levels of health attempt to suicide self-destruct near the player if specific conditions are met (Hardcore mode only).
-Military bots that have spotted the player take faster strides/move faster, returning to normal when no longer in combat (Hardcore mode only).
-The advanced patrol bot met later in the game now reacts to sound disturbances (Hardcore mode only).

--------

The above list doesn't mention AI improvements achieved in all eight previous versions of GMDX


GMDX has been in rigorous development for over four years now and the AI really have come a long way while still remaining balanced and fair. Seeing the NPCs in action fills me with pride. *wipes tear*

As usual, they're not different per-se, they're just the next logical step. The same is true for nearly every aspect of GMDX. Real unhindered progress is made here. The "greatest game of all time" on another level.

One last note: I have made public GMDX's organized efforts to attain visual consistency among art assets and address the assets that HDTP and New Vision did not update.
Join in on the fun HERE, sign up, and contribute to Deus Ex's visual fulfillment.

You can also vote GMDX for Moddb's annual Mod of the Year award by clicking the relevant link near the top of the page.
 
Last edited:

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Good man. Shill GMDX everywhere. The more awareness there is the stronger it can grow in many possible respects.

Next version will be some serious incline, once again.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Don't forget to vote GMDX for Mod of the Year too. Click the button near the top of the page: http://www.moddb.com/mods/gmdx

If you're one of those that has been voting GMDX for the past few years now, there is nothing else recent in the Deus Ex category worthy of a vote, and you can cast multiple votes anyway, so vote GMDX again.
 

Jaedar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
9,837
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Jeez, with that supressive fire and strafing, ai should be hard to kill (it could already be a bit rough before!).

Looking forward to this.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Playing through on combat + hardcore right now for testing purposes. It's good stuff.
 

RoSoDude

Arcane
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
Thoughts on this suggestion to switch out the dead NSF trooper's crossbow for a pistol in the first level? I'm inclined to agree, but I might be missing something.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Here's what I thought back when I was making those changes: why bother removing that crossbow when enemies on the level carry crossbows in abundance anyway? I guess I should replace it with the Glock regardless just so that it doesn't instantly say fuck you to those that picked the crossbow.

The choices are much more balanced now in reality but you need experience with the options to actually know that, which a newbie likely won't have.

All that aside, best I can do to make the crossbow option even more worthwhile is to pre-mod it. Choosing the rifle comes with one accuracy mod pre-installed, and the rifle can no longer be found on an enemy in the level. Crossbow comes with tran darts, steel darts and flare darts. Gep gun comes with three rockets as opposed to four too, if I recall.
 

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