Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[CyberP]

What say you, Codex? Having a good time? If so, let the others know

OR

 

[PotatoElemental]

Dragons tooth Sword: Lowered damage.

BLASPHEMY!

Honestly though, the mod seems like a lot of good work, although I'm a bit worried about the changes to swimming and map layout. Will have to test it out.

 

[CyberP]

Dragon's tooth rendered the melee-related RPG systems irrelevant and was ridiculously OP. Devs shouldn't give you an OP weapon half way through the game. It also laughs at those who invested in Low-Tech skill and Combat Strength aug for the most part. 100 damage, what a joke. Now you can reach that same level of damage, but you have to invest in the related systems like any good RPG. It's still usable without those systems though of course.

Worried about changes to swimming? I don't see why, everybody knows swimming skill, aqualung etc were useless. The changes resolve that with a similar approach to the Tooth Sword.

 

[CyberP]

^Well they weren't useless, but they were not worth the asking price at the very least.

 

[Jasede]

I don't like that the modder felt the need to change the interface.

 

[CyberP]

that wasn't me

That is the non-scaling GUI/otp fix. It's the very same interface it just doesn't scale as you increase resolution. You can also disable it.

 

[Jasede]

What about that red color? If that wasn't you either I didn't say nothin'! Great mod, in that case. (Modders messing with the UI is a pet peeve of mine.)

 

[nil]

Who is Snake04?

 

[CyberP]

"What about that red color? If that wasn't you either I didn't say nothin'! Great mod, in that case. (Modders messing with the UI is a pet peeve of mine.)"

The red color is the "Terminator" HUD colour scheme which is an option available to you in the vanilla game. Ion Storm gave you ~15 or so colour schemes to chose from for both the menu and the HUD seperately.

"Who is Snake04?"

A randomer. No one of prestige as far as I am aware. It just makes me proud as it describes exactly what my goal for the mod was.

I can link you to the source if you'd like.

 

[Jasede]

I didn't remember that. Time to reinstall....

 

[CyberP]

It's going to be a decent challenge for you if you don't remember the game to well. I recommend choosing the realistic difficulty level and spamming quicksave, not the new hardcore mode. Unless you love a good challenge of course.

 

[PotatoElemental]

Dragon's tooth rendered the melee-related RPG systems irrelevant and was ridiculously OP. Devs shouldn't give you an OP weapon half way through the game. It also laughs at those who invested in Low-Tech skill and Combat Strength aug for the most part. 100 damage, what a joke. Now you can reach that same level of damage, but you have to invest in the related systems like any good RPG. It's still usable without those systems though of course.

Worried about changes to swimming? I don't see why, everybody knows swimming skill, aqualung etc were useless. The changes resolve that with a similar approach to the Tooth Sword.

Yeah, the Dragon Tooth was gamebreaking, but that's why it's so awesome.

I'm not worried about swimming per se, but more about the changes they made to the map layout to accomodate those changes. Then again, I don't really like mods that change too much of the game outside of graphics/numbercrunching.

 

[Ninjerk]

Watching. Like others said, it isn't quite time yet for a replay.

 

[Serious_Business]

Hesitating between this and waiting for Revision

 

[CyberP]

I'm not worried about swimming per se, but more about the changes they made to the map layout to accomodate those changes. Then again, I don't really like mods that change too much of the game outside of graphics/numbercrunching.

I understand your scepticism. Deus Ex's level design is probably the best I've ever encountered in a 3D exploration-based game. They levels remain this way for the most part, and should be more so. Overall they weren't perfect however. Some were really bland visually. I haven't rearranged the layout in any instance at all, simply added more details/eye candy to the most bland of maps and reinforced them from a gameplay standpoint. The bits you do not recognise from the trailer are expansions, because my philosophy is always expand and refine, never remove content. I strongly detest all the "streamlining" of the modern industry, I wanted to add more depth, I wanted to make Deus Ex more "hardcore" or "old school". You can trust me. Any issues you find, let me know, and if you back up these potential issues with logical reasoning as to why they are issues, I will get to resolving them right away.

 

[CyberP]

Here's what I've done, in short, with the levels:

Gameplay:

-Balancing of paths. Sometimes in Deus Ex there was an optimal path to take no matter the build.
-More locked doors. Primarily to give lockpick skill more weight that it needed.
-Bug fixes.
-AI improvements. Half of the AI improvements in GMDX are done via the maps, which is good because some things are situational. Some AI react to stealing, more AI react to breaking and entering and so on.
-Swimming related. These are always minor changes to give swimming skill and aqualung aug more weight, for example in Everret's fish tank I made getting to the goodies and back harder to navigate, but it's still the same old fish tank. Very minor and simple changes that make the related RPG systems that much better.
-More challenges: this would just be an extra camera, NSF, turret, greasel or what have you were it makes sense to do so.
-Environmental hazards: There were plenty environmental hazards in DX that you could simply turn on regen aug or speed enhancement and run right through. Hazmat suits and the environmental training skill were not necessary. Again minor changes help with this, and the God-like regen aug has been nerfed significantly.
-Expansions: usually these are just to give more weight to the lesser portion of the RPG systems (again). So I'd add an extra room here and there that is locked with a door/keypad.
-Refreshed keycodes: This is simply for anti-exploitation. The keycodes that cannot be found in-game by any legitimate means have a new number combination so players cannot look up the codes and cheat.
-Events. Example: in the trailer @00:50 you can see a helicopter taking off. This was simply to remove a non-interactive object with an unrealistic collision cylinder from the game world. Before we could walk right up to it, fire rockets at it and so on, but it was in no way interactive when any player would realistically expect to be able to.
-Additional enemy-placed proximity mines. Gives the demolition skill more weight.
-Ammo redistribution: This was done primarily via code (for example a box of pistol ammo gives you 4 10mm bullets rather than 6), but sometimes ammo/tools are removed to make the gameplay more strategic and challenging, or at times ammo is added to make picking a locked door worth the rewards in the rare instances this happened.
-Less explosive barrels/crates. These were free ticket to opening locked doors or blowing up robots etc. They are also exceptionally useful if you take the new and improved microfibral muscle aug as you can throw stuff around at super strength.
Where there would be four TNT crates there are now two for example. Just for balancing and challenge.

Visual:

-Additional decorative detail. Skirting boards, power outlets, shipping crates, plumbing (pipes), ventilation and so on. Usually minor out of the way details that in no way effect gameplay that simply help Deus Ex's boxy and at times bland (bland visually) level design look more detailed and realistic.
-Texture alignments.
-Improvements to skyboxes.
-Some NPC types have more varied faces. Hong Kong Military police for example, some actually look Chinese now. Three facial variations as opposed to 1. UNATCO HQ as another example, the guys working in the offices do not have their face masks and helmets on. Only visible if you disable HDTP character models though.
-Additional details based on the real world. For example, just as Liberty Island and other maps were loosely based on the real world location, I've took the time to study images, watch virtual tours etc to add more real world details to certain maps, though obviously with Deus Ex's setting and events taken into account. So for example in Liberty Island's pedestal entrance I've made the Torch monument more true to real life, added two pillars, spherical lamps on the wall, a desk and so on. Just minor details that make the place look better, more detailed and more simulated.

Overall as you can see the changes are primarily gameplay related, because I am gameplay mad. I'm not a "storyfag" or graphics whore, though obviously graphics and story are still very important.

 

[Jaedar]

Overall as you can see the changes are primarily gameplay related, because I am gameplay mad. I'm not a "storyfag" or graphics whore, though obviously graphics and story are still very important.

Look at you already assimilating and starting to scale to our level

This actually looks better and better. Will definitaly have to try it out sometime early july depending on how good DivOs is.

 

[CyberP]

 

[Jaedar]

Now the question is, will you be able to scale to MY level and beat the mod on the optional hardcore mode

Nah it's not the hard. Deifinitely not on the 8/16/32-bit level of hard, or rogueLikes or what have you.

What does the hardcore mode entail?

 

[CyberP]

Expands upon "realistic" difficulty (same values):

Dark Souls-style save system.
Console commands are disabled.
Automatic weapon reloading is disabled.

It's optional for obvious reasons.

Put's the "consequence" in choice & consequence as all decisions made are likely to be permanent, prevent's exploitation of some game systems, and results in a more intense challenge.

 

[Jaedar]

Expands upon "realistic" difficulty (same values):

Dark Souls-style save system.
Console commands are disabled.
Automatic weapon reloading is disabled.

It's optional for obvious reasons.

What happens upon death? respawn at a checkpoint or something presumably. That sounds very doable though, although I don't really like playing on realistic in general, just makes you die from 2 bullets instead of ~6 in my experience.

 

[CyberP]

Pretty much yes, but the system is probably not how you expect, as in not absolute shit like the way most modern games do it...except Dark Souls, which does it very nicely.

As for realistic mode, it affects a couple of things, but you only die quick if it's to the head or torso and you don't have a vest or ballistic protection on, plus it depends on the weapon being fired, i.e assault gun bullets you can take a hail of (2 damage for assault gun vs 12 for the pistol, quite a difference which also has alterations in GMDX).

 

[CyberP]

By the way, I should mention that whilst the mod is fairly large I am still not done. I'm looking for a 3D artist so GMDX can have "realistic" dismemberment and much more. PM me if you are interested.

 

[ghostdog]

I haven't yet played the mod, but: A couple of things that come to mind, since I like to play with toned down brightness (default DX is too bright imo)
1. Light augment upgradable so that it consumes less energy when used.
2. Flares that last much longer. As they are now they are pretty useless.

Other stuff:
1. Daggers should do more damage so that with enough melee skill you can insta-kill (most) enemies with a headshot. (I think that's already implemented ?)
2. The way shifter partnered swimming with environmental resistance was a good idea. Two shitty augments combined make one OK augment. I don't know if you do the same in your mod.
3. Make the inventory glitch with the item stacking available when cheats (-hax0r) are enabled. (I use it when I want to fuck around)

Idea about some actual story tweaks:
- How about making the Anna Navarre battle avoidable so that you can make a real non-lethal run ? You can use the grenade trick, with enough luck, to make her unlock the door and run away but a real option to sneak away would be great.
- And IF you haven't killed Anna, how about having the option to persuade Gunther to stand down in the templar cathedral ? If you have been nice to him, the game gives you the dialog option to try and persuade him, but it doesn't work eventually, because you've already killed Navarre.

 

[CyberP]

I haven't yet played the mod, but: A couple of things that come to mind, since I like to play with toned down brightness (default DX is too bright imo)
1. Light augment upgradable so that it consumes less energy when used.
2. Flares that last much longer. As they are now they are pretty useless.

GMDX actually does make the game darker in places, I wouldn't recommend lowering brightness past the default value.

I did mention that not everything was logged (I think), so you may be pleased to hear that light aug energy drain is slightly slower, and flare light radius has been increased (for flare darts also).
However, I didn't think to make them last longer, good suggestion.

Other stuff:
1. Daggers should do more damage so that with enough melee skill you can insta-kill (most) enemies with a headshot. (I think that's already implemented ?)

I raised damage of all melee weapons, yes.

2. The way shifter partnered swimming with environmental resistance was a good idea. Two shitty augments combined make one OK augment. I don't know if you do the same in your mod.

The environmental resistance aug was actually a pretty good aug vanilla:

if ((damageType == 'TearGas') || (damageType == 'PoisonGas') || (damageType == 'Radiation') ||
        (damageType == 'HalonGas')  || (damageType == 'PoisonEffect') || (damageType == 'Poison'))

Whereas aqualung only protected you vs drowning damage. What I've done is simply make aqualung passive, in addition to changes listed earlier such as deadlier environmental hazards, drowning damage increased, and so on. The result is both these augs being a balanced choice against one another and both has a greater impact on the gameplay.

3. Make the inventory glitch with the item stacking available when cheats (-hax0r) are enabled. (I use it when I want to fuck around)

Yeah that's already in there, but not available on hardcore mode of course because access to the console is denied.

Idea about some actual story tweaks:
- How about making the Anna Navarre battle avoidable so that you can make a real non-lethal run ? You can use the grenade trick, with enough luck, to make her unlock the door and run away but a real option to sneak away would be great.
- And IF you haven't killed Anna, how about having the option to persuade Gunther to stand down in the templar cathedral ? If you have been nice to him, the game gives you the dialog option to try and persuade him, but it doesn't work eventually, because you've already killed Navarre.

Story tweaks are not possible because no voice actors. I can make minor changes to story scripting, so for example I could place a key to the front door in Manderley's inventory, but then we have a problem with the actual plot, i.e what the fuck happened to Anna navarre the bloodthirsty bitch? Why is she not hunting down JC with the rest? So I cannot really do anything here.