Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Baron Dupek]

Revision work on nonSteamed version, just see topic in GOG thread.
Not worth it, though.
Still baffle me the Steam exclusivity of Revision.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I prefer this over Revision any day of the week to be honest.

 

[AW8]

Ash



If you purchase the security login from this mechanic in Secret MJ12 Facility, you'll get locked in an infinite dialogue loop once you've purchased all that he has available.

 

[Ash]

Vanilla bug. As far as I am aware, mostly everything about the vanilla game is fixed except the 3 or so bugs found within conversation packages. Officially you can't edit the vanilla conversation packages, but extracting the contents and rebuilding in a new package should do the trick, same with any other kind of manipulation of the vanilla data found within packages. I guess I'll do that now.

 

[Ash]

Quick question: I've been considering increasing the inventory size by 1 column and 1 row, and then making ammo something that appears in the inventory which you have to manage. Good for consistency, as well as those that love inventory management (me), as well as having to be resourceful with your ammo and weapon choices. But would others like it? Bit of a pain in the ass to implement, but I enjoy it.

 

[Durandal]

Deus Ex always let you carry way too many ammo to the point where you never really had to worry about it unless you were spraying and praying.
Managing ammo through inventory management should strike a nice balance between HR's minimal ammo drops and your ridiculously high ammo limit present in DX vanilla.

 

[ghostdog]

That depends on the playstyle though. The stealthy approach always saves on the ammo.

If you're going to mess with the UI how about providing a UI for high resolutions?

 

[Ash]

The idea is ammo drops would remain the same, but inventory size limitations would not allow you to carry it all.

If you're going to mess with the UI how about providing a UI for high resolutions?

Involves recreating a large portion of the UI from scratch. It simply isn't a task anyone would be up to without money being involved, the results are negligible.

I've messed with the UI somewhat already, if you're not aware: http://genericname112.wix.com/gmdx#!user-interface/c88r
Inventory shortcuts, new inventory tetris functionality, attached weapon mod visualization, all that good stuff.

 

[Ash]

The proposed inventory change is probably not worth it, otherwise we'll get more whiners like Symbolic Frank complaining about limitations, despite the mod only limiting 20 or so very vital things (like skill checks for hacking or limited use restoration bots on higher difficulties), then expanding and adding thousands of others which the increase the overall freedom substantially.

But hey, I've always had an uncompromising mentality and a solid belief of what I think is good design and that's not about to change now, but I question the value in this proposed idea. You won't be able to ditch any weapons and just pick up a flamethrower late game and go on a burn spree, unless you had been hording napalm ammo for example. I think that's just plain better design, ultimate freedom is never a good idea, games are defined by rules and that includes DX, but I'm still not 100% confident in implementing this.

"ultimate freedom is never a good idea"

As an example of that, with ultimate freedom there would be no inventory period, you'd be able to carry anything without any limitations. Bad.

Alright, I'm going to attempt to look at it from all possible angles, and then make my decision.

 

[Jaesun]

If you actually care what some retard thinks, and that is altering your decisions on a mod, you should just stop modding now. Period.

What you should always be doing, is do what you think is best, logical, fits the systems and game and always get some feedback. But ultimately it is your design.

 

[Ash]

I won't deny he got to me, but I won't let it interfere with the design process further. Still, I think it is good to doubt yourself from time to time just to prompt additional thought or perspective, if necessary. But I don't think it was necessary in this case. I have made one or two poor decisions in the past which feedback helped me turn around, that's for sure.

Ammo system is very likely to go in. I'm seeing lots of pros and very few cons.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Quick question: I've been considering increasing the inventory size by 1 column and 1 row, and then making ammo something that appears in the inventory which you have to manage. Good for consistency, as well as those that love inventory management (me), as well as having to be resourceful with your ammo and weapon choices. But would others like it? Bit of a pain in the ass to implement, but I enjoy it.

I would say the biggest problem with this idea is that you would need to reevaluate the worth of a slot, because the original cramped inventory worked fine and it sold the idea of heavy weapons really taking up lots of space but being hard hitters, grenades being easily carried and yet largely unreliable unless you threw them accurately, pistols being effective and easily carried but lacking in raw power, and more. While it would encourage ammo and item management, it would also easily imbalance the overall system since the player will just be encouraged to use the inventory only for weapons, ammo, medkits, lockpicks, multitools and nothing else. That, and how are you going to manage ammo looting from enemies? Because original Deus Ex code basically destroys the weapon and converts it to ammo if you happen to be holding it, and if ammo is going to occupy space it's going to feel really weird. It would also make some ammo types really questionable to keep around, like the three types of darts for the crossbow or the three ammo types for the shotguns.

 

[Ash]

I would say the biggest problem with this idea is that you would need to reevaluate the worth of a slot

There's a pretty big inconsistency there already.

10 LAMs or Gas Grenades = 1 slot.
Slot value: Very high.

1 fire extinguisher = 1 slot.
Slot value: very low.

All ammo values (how much they stack) would be intended to be somewhere in between those two extremities.

That, and how are you going to manage ammo looting from enemies? Because original Deus Ex code basically destroys the weapon and converts it to ammo if you happen to be holding it, and if ammo is going to occupy space it's going to feel really weird.

It'd work the same as it does for everything else looted from corpses. Why's that weird?

It would also make some ammo types really questionable to keep around, like the three types of darts for the crossbow or the three ammo types for the shotguns.

All ammo types are generally of notable value, except flare darts (unless you get the related perk). It's much the same as actual flares themselves: why keep them in your inventory? Some playstyles may want to do so (ghost/non-lethal to toss as distractions). It's that strategy, value estimation and adaptation to your build type that makes it fun.
Furthermore as the inventory would in general be larger, you can opt to carry little ammo, but instead have more tools. Through this ammo limitation comes more freedom elsewhere because of the increased inventory size.

I think it would work and the game would be better off for it, but like I said, still gotta look at it from all possible angles before going ahead with it, and feedback/other perspectives does help with that.

 

[Jaedar]

Hmmm.

Perhaps ammo taking space is a good idea. I always found the value proposition of explosives rather low. I'm unlikely to get enough of them to have more than one or two on me at a time, and that's a fairly low value per slot compared to say, a crossbow+3 kinds of ammo. Or an assault rifle, that has some grenades of its own.

However, there's some playability issues(I foresee much annoyance at my inventory constantly filling up the lost slot with single bullets for guns I don't want, even more than the usual annoyance of always finding a combat knife I never wanted in my inventory). There's also the fact that it makes flare darts and other rare ammo much less attractive. You generally don't want to devote inventory slots to things you will rarely use, when there's stuff that's generally useful to put there instead. Only exception in DX is really bots, as you need *some* way to deal with them, and there's a decent chance you won't get to choose something generally useful (due to ammo scarcity if nothing else).

It would also emphasize the "useless crate-> reload" part of spending lockpicks multitools. At least now you get ammo you will *probably* never use, rather than ammo you won't even take, because you don't have the inventory space.

 

[Ash]

It's a tough decision. As much as I like the many pros, the cons still have weight. A part of me is telling me to leave it and just focus efforts elsewhere. It's fine as it is, and even if it can perhaps be better, there's still those attached cons that weren't present before. Part of what makes Deus Ex different from say System Shock 2 or Arx Fatalis is that it does not have as quite a tight a focus on simulation and realism and there is benefits to that, e.g DX's ammo system being simplified and unrealistic makes it is less cumbersome. It's simply something you the player don't have to worry about and micromanage, as much as I personally like micromanagement.

There's too often a conflict of interest.

 

[AW8]

Ash what affects carry capacity for LAMs? Is it the Microfibral Muscle aug? I'm on a second playthrough and I can only carry 1 LAM as opposed to at least 6 on my last character (who had fully upgraded Microfibral Muscle).

 

[Ash]

Nothing. As in vanilla carry capacity for grenades is a maximum of 10 and that value cannot be altered in any way. There's no known bug in that regard either.
You can only carry 1?

 

[AW8]

Nothing. As in vanilla carry capacity for grenades is a maximum of 10 and that value cannot be altered in any way. There's no known bug in that regard either.
You can only carry 1?

Thanks for the reply, I dropped the LAM I was carrying and picked it up again, that solved it and I could pick up the second LAM afterwards.

This happened on the first level, the first LAM I picked up was in the INF-locked container on the grounds, the second LAM is in front of the lasers outside Gunther's cell. Here's the error message:

Spoiler

Now that I think of it, there's another weird thing going on regarding ammo. Tranqulizer darts are listed twice in the ammo list (only the first entry is correct):

Spoiler

I love the secret area you added with the binoculars and the 30.06 ammo. When I played the level in vanilla I thought: "Why are there no hidden items here? This would be the perfect place for some hidden items!".

 

[Ash]

After some consideration and some testing I just replicated both these bugs. Trigger: choosing the mini-crossbow option from Paul. I'll find the exact loophole and plug it.
Well, good thing the mod's mostly considered stable overall so a few bugs here an there is acceptable as long as I fix them, which I have been.

How was your first playthrough, by the way? I'm glad the mod has inspired immediate replays for a lot of people.

Version 9.0 Changelog so far:

Localization:

GMDX is now available in the following languages:

English
French
Russian

Player-Controlled Mechanics:

-Faster and more immersive mantling.
-Stabilized the GEP Gun's remote controlled rocket steering & pressing the left mouse button will boost the remote rocket.
-New left click interactivity: left clicking on doors will put either a lockpick or nanokey ring in your hand.
Doing the same for hackable electronics will put multitools in hand.

Weaponry:

-New simulated reload movement effects.
-Improved new recoil handling system further.
-Improved dynamic cover animations.
-Improved camera firing effects.
-Improved a large number of vanilla technical flaws with the Assault Rifle.
-Crossbow darts are not visually present in the weapon until halfway through the reload process.
-Ejected shell casings are no longer visually different if you attach a silencer, as in GMDX shell casings differ based on ammo type.
-Improved flamethrower handling effects.

User Interface/HUD:

-The health and augmentations screens now display a variety of general statistics.
-Added a number of functional & cosmetic improvements to the augmentation screen.
-Improved dynamic crosshair behaviour.

Audio:

-Climbing ladders now has sound effects.
-Added some new subtle UI audio effects.
-Footstep sounds will now play when crouch-walking, albiet too quietly for NPCs to hear.
-Movers will play the appropriate footstep sounds as opposed to defaulting to concrete sounds.
-Security Bots play their unused critical damage sound if health is less than 20%.

Augmentations:

-The Cloak and Radar Transparency augmentations now have new visual effects each.
-The spy drone now bounces off of level geometry upon collision, rather than losing all velocity.
-The Vision Augmentation now displays in full screen and has some aesthetic alterations.
-The Target Augmentation's scanning text has now been moved to the location of the target window so as to not distract the player.

Skills/Perks:

-Thermoptic camo only enables you to pass through laser alarms undetected if you have the "Tech Specialist" perk.
-The "Nimble" perk now makes climbing ladders silent, in addition to mantling.

Level Design:

-More of the same - more detail, interactivity, balancing etc.

Artificial Intelligence:

-AI accuracy with grenade throws has a touch more randomization to it to cut down on frequent perfect pitches.
-AI stealth-related stats have been nerfed a little on realistic mode.
-The advanced security bot now uses a new/previously unused model.
-Greately diversified how an NPC behaves when seeking the source of a disturbance.
-Minor improvement to the new NPC melee attack/gun bash system.
-NPCs are no longer scared or turn hostile when the player is running around with a crate of TNT.
-Enabled some overlooked NPC vocal reactions to the player clowning around (like throwing a basketball at them).

Miscellaneous:

-Some new options for the menus, including new improved headbobbing and a method to resolve constant combat knife pickups.
-Plenty tweaks and refinements I don't bother to log.

Graphics & Effects:

-Gore effects improved.
-Additional level design detail.
-Added a variety of new interactive generic objects to the world where appropriate.
-A small handful of new hi-res textures made by 'Broken Pencil'.

Bug Fixes and inconsistencies:

-Vanilla Bugfix: ensured an end-game scenario cannot be met at the Hong Kong Helibase event if Jock misses his shot at blowing up the door.
-Vanilla Bugfix: fixed the speed enhancement super jump exploit.
-Vanilla Bugfix: the assault gun's fire sound plays per bullet rather than playing a five round burst sound regardless of # of shots fired.
-Vanilla Bugfix: Weapons dropped to the floor by NPCs give ammo, as opposed to none.
-Vanilla Bugfix: fixed a moderately rare bug where Paul refused to coverse with the player in the Hotel after having sent the NSF signal.
-The "do not place" test box bug when interacting with corpses if you have the the interaction auto holster option enabled is now fixed.
-Fixed an ai cooldown issue affecting a bot activated via an alarm being triggered in the dockyard map.
-Fixed a BSP error on the brooklyn bridge station map.
-JoJo now finds a path to the Rentons.
-The "Short Fuse" and "Combat Medic's Bag" perks now actually work properly.
-The advanced security bot with cloaking now deactivates it upon returning to patrol (just like the humans with cloaking do post-GMDXv6.0), and can also be destroyed by the plasma rifle without error.
-Pepper spray and other gasses no longer trigger laser alarms, same as in vanilla.
-Fixed a pathfinding error on the batterypark_02 map.
-The "Death Perspective" option no longer causes occassional crashing if set to First Person.
-Sam Carter no longer sets your assault gun ammo to 32 during a conversation triggered by the player's non-lethal efforts in battery park.
-Secondary Weapons no longer work underwater, except melee.
-Teargas doesn't produce splashing effects when entering water.
-There is now a displayed name distinction between quicksaves and autosaves.
-Fixed bug where right clicking inventory icons while dragging another caused the dragged item to disappear.
-frobbing heavy weapons from carcasses with the "In Bulk" perk reduces their size beforehand.
-Fixed a minor visual inconsistency on the Skills UI screen
-Ensured the player cannot set all custom color theme colors black, as this will result in a broken menu.
-Tied a number of new headbob and camera interpolation effects added in GMDXv8.0 to the vanilla headbob option for those that suffer with motion sickness.
-NPC Head decapitation is disabled as was originally intended (because it's incomplete).
-Added a couple extra assault gun clips in the interest of ammo balancing.
-Amended a couple typos.

Boring Balancing & Difficulty Adjustment:

-Removed UMP, USP and Laser Rifle (to be available via optional add-on), as well as 20mm EMP grenades.
-Reduced Synthetic heart energy drain considerably and halved the light aug's drain.
-You now cannot assign any melee weapon as a secondary weapon without the "inventive" perk.
-Altered stamina drain values & stamina now regenerates when crouched (if idle).
-The MJ12 ambush in Area51 now detects if the player has been ghosting/non-lethaling, and if so this ambush event does not happen.
-Minicrossbow steel dart damage reduced by 4.
-Doubled the amount of ammo recieved from a napalm cannister (reset it to vanilla value).
-Nerfed the damage of rubber bullets & thrown inventory items.
-On hardcore mode breath/stamina meter is not refilled when entering water.
-Increased the plasma rifle's effectiveness VS bots.

 

[Ash]

There's not much new big interesting stuff this time around, at least not yet. Most of it is further polish & refinement so far.

Edit: posting again on the new page so it isn't missed:

Version 9.0 Changelog so far:

Localization:

GMDX is now available in the following languages:

English
French
Russian

Player-Controlled Mechanics:

-Faster and more immersive mantling.
-Stabilized the GEP Gun's remote controlled rocket steering & pressing the left mouse button will boost the remote rocket.
-New left click interactivity: left clicking on doors will put either a lockpick or nanokey ring in your hand.
Doing the same for hackable electronics will put multitools in hand.

Weaponry:

-New simulated reload movement effects.
-Improved new recoil handling system further.
-Improved dynamic cover animations.
-Improved camera firing effects.
-Improved a large number of vanilla technical flaws with the Assault Rifle.
-Crossbow darts are not visually present in the weapon until halfway through the reload process.
-Ejected shell casings are no longer visually different if you attach a silencer, as in GMDX shell casings differ based on ammo type.
-Improved flamethrower handling effects.

User Interface/HUD:

-The health and augmentations screens now display a variety of general statistics.
-Added a number of functional & cosmetic improvements to the augmentation screen.
-Improved dynamic crosshair behaviour.

Audio:

-Climbing ladders now has sound effects.
-Added some new subtle UI audio effects.
-Footstep sounds will now play when crouch-walking, albiet too quietly for NPCs to hear.
-Movers will play the appropriate footstep sounds as opposed to defaulting to concrete sounds.
-Security Bots play their unused critical damage sound if health is less than 20%.

Augmentations:

-The Cloak and Radar Transparency augmentations now have new visual effects each.
-The spy drone now bounces off of level geometry upon collision, rather than losing all velocity.
-The Vision Augmentation now displays in full screen and has some aesthetic alterations.
-The Target Augmentation's scanning text has now been moved to the location of the target window so as to not distract the player.

Skills/Perks:

-Thermoptic camo only enables you to pass through laser alarms undetected if you have the "Tech Specialist" perk.
-The "Nimble" perk now makes climbing ladders silent, in addition to mantling.

Level Design:

-More of the same - more detail, interactivity, balancing etc.

Artificial Intelligence:

-AI accuracy with grenade throws has a touch more randomization to it to cut down on frequent perfect pitches.
-AI stealth-related stats have been nerfed a little on realistic mode.
-The advanced security bot now uses a new/previously unused model.
-Greately diversified how an NPC behaves when seeking the source of a disturbance.
-Minor improvement to the new NPC melee attack/gun bash system.
-NPCs are no longer scared or turn hostile when the player is running around with a crate of TNT.
-Enabled some overlooked NPC vocal reactions to the player clowning around (like throwing a basketball at them).

Miscellaneous:

-Some new options for the menus, including new improved headbobbing and a method to resolve constant combat knife pickups.
-Plenty tweaks and refinements I don't bother to log.

Graphics & Effects:

-Gore effects improved.
-Additional level design detail.
-Added a variety of new interactive generic objects to the world where appropriate.
-A small handful of new hi-res textures made by 'Broken Pencil'.

Bug Fixes and inconsistencies:

-Vanilla Bugfix: ensured an end-game scenario cannot be met at the Hong Kong Helibase event if Jock misses his shot at blowing up the door.
-Vanilla Bugfix: fixed the speed enhancement super jump exploit.
-Vanilla Bugfix: the assault gun's fire sound plays per bullet rather than playing a five round burst sound regardless of # of shots fired.
-Vanilla Bugfix: Weapons dropped to the floor by NPCs give ammo, as opposed to none.
-Vanilla Bugfix: fixed a moderately rare bug where Paul refused to coverse with the player in the Hotel after having sent the NSF signal.
-The "do not place" test box bug when interacting with corpses if you have the the interaction auto holster option enabled is now fixed.
-Fixed an ai cooldown issue affecting a bot activated via an alarm being triggered in the dockyard map.
-Fixed a BSP error on the brooklyn bridge station map.
-JoJo now finds a path to the Rentons.
-The "Short Fuse" and "Combat Medic's Bag" perks now actually work properly.
-The advanced security bot with cloaking now deactivates it upon returning to patrol (just like the humans with cloaking do post-GMDXv6.0), and can also be destroyed by the plasma rifle without error.
-Pepper spray and other gasses no longer trigger laser alarms, same as in vanilla.
-Fixed a pathfinding error on the batterypark_02 map.
-The "Death Perspective" option no longer causes occassional crashing if set to First Person.
-Sam Carter no longer sets your assault gun ammo to 32 during a conversation triggered by the player's non-lethal efforts in battery park.
-Secondary Weapons no longer work underwater, except melee.
-Teargas doesn't produce splashing effects when entering water.
-There is now a displayed name distinction between quicksaves and autosaves.
-Fixed bug where right clicking inventory icons while dragging another caused the dragged item to disappear.
-frobbing heavy weapons from carcasses with the "In Bulk" perk reduces their size beforehand.
-Fixed a minor visual inconsistency on the Skills UI screen
-Ensured the player cannot set all custom color theme colors black, as this will result in a broken menu.
-Tied a number of new headbob and camera interpolation effects added in GMDXv8.0 to the vanilla headbob option for those that suffer with motion sickness.
-NPC Head decapitation is disabled as was originally intended (because it's incomplete).
-Added a couple extra assault gun clips in the interest of ammo balancing.
-Amended a couple typos.

Boring Balancing & Difficulty Adjustment:

-Removed UMP, USP and Laser Rifle (to be available via optional add-on), as well as 20mm EMP grenades.
-Reduced Synthetic heart energy drain considerably and halved the light aug's drain.
-You now cannot assign any melee weapon as a secondary weapon without the "inventive" perk.
-Altered stamina drain values & stamina now regenerates when crouched (if idle).
-The MJ12 ambush in Area51 now detects if the player has been ghosting/non-lethaling, and if so this ambush event does not happen.
-Minicrossbow steel dart damage reduced by 4.
-Doubled the amount of ammo recieved from a napalm cannister (reset it to vanilla value).
-Nerfed the damage of rubber bullets & thrown inventory items.
-On hardcore mode breath/stamina meter is not refilled when entering water.
-Increased the plasma rifle's effectiveness VS bots.

 

[AW8]

How was your first playthrough, by the way? I'm glad the mod has inspired immediate replays for a lot of people.

It was great. The mod is not an overhaul, it's just an improvement. Comparing it to vanilla, there are small improvements spread out over the entire game that makes the whole experience better.

I started up the Gas Station mission in vanilla to check something, and after having played GMDX there's absolutely no going back. The zoom for the sniper rifle is hilariously limited, you can't see shit. The sniper rifle deals too low damage to one-shot enemies in the head even with points in Rifles (or maybe it's just the hitbox that's bad). Ammo is never a concern and looking at the ammo menu made me smile as these numbers are pretty much impossible in GMDX. The map is empty of enemies in comparison, a new enemy here and there really does make a difference. And don't get me started on how a stealth player is supposed to crouch around and hit goons in the ass with the baton because headshots deals less damage than bodyshots.

That's not to say Deus Ex is a bad game that needs mods, quite the opposite. It's a great game and your mod fixes some of the few problems it has. It's not so much revolutionary changes as polishing, and who doesn't want that?

My first GMDX playthrough was a combat character that tried to murderize all opposition (absolutely hilarious with the new Microfibral Muscle throwing mechanic as well as the new gore effects), my new character is a bleeding-heart stealth pacifist. It's been fun just starting off and picking the perks that enable silent mantling and an audio warning to enemy mines, already the run feels different.

I'll have some more detailed impressions, input and design questions tomorrow after I get some sleep.

 

[Ash]

Yes, I never wanted to revolutionize nor reinvent Deus Ex, the goal was to iterate and advance the game forward while keeping well within the confines of the original design, events, setting, story etc. In my eyes one of the best games ever made, only on a new level. It is counter productive to reinvent the wheel when you don't have adequate resources to do so, nor when you don't have the desire to either. Deus Ex was a winning formula and I thought I could and should improve that formula almost across the board without losing sight of what made it great to begin with, and obviously succeeded.

As for the microfibral muscle, It's fun being able to throw corpses around like that but a bit cartoonish. Hardcore mode outright disables high-powered corpse throwing and there's also the "realistic corpses" option you unlock, so players can choose whether they prefer the gory fun or realistic consistency, which do conflict very strongly in this instance.

Anyway, will probably do a "quick" video showing some of the new stuff soon.

 

[Dux]

I'm playing some Deus Ex GMDX at the moment and I have a pretty drab question. It's about the baton. Sometimes when I hit enemies from behind they're knocked unconscious outright and sometimes they're just not. It seems quite arbitrary. Is there some secret to the art? Do I need to hit them somewhere specific?

 

[Ash]

From behind, anywhere waist and above (excluding arms) should be a guaranteed K.O in GMDX, unless the damage dealt is not enough, which in almost all instances it should be if the enemy is humanoid. If you're specifically aiming for the ass, aim a bit higher as you may be clipping the legs.

 

[Dux]

From behind, anywhere waist and above (excluding arms) should be a guaranteed K.O in GMDX, unless the damage dealt is not enough, which in almost all instances it should be if the enemy is humanoid. If you're specifically aiming for the ass out of habit from the old ways, aim a bit higher as you may be clipping the legs.

Thanks. I'll try to refrain from smacking the ass next time. Old habits die hard.