Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Jaedar]

But there's two positive responses and one neutral, so maybe it is worth keeping...I don't know :/

Maybe I'll keep the status bars and blend it with style 1. It's the display in the middle I don't like, but that's mostly because I don't think it matches the font and there's unnecessary spacing.

I think the moving bars could be cool, but the text should be on top of them, similar to how lock strength/ hacking and biocell energy is displayed. Gotta be consistent after all.

 

[zeitgeist]

What exactly are the bars supposed to represent? I just can't figure it out.

 

[Ash]

Circuit activity/status. Could be voltage, zero point, current energy drain, electromagnetic/static interference, whatever. Granted there's no labels, symbols or anything of the sort to associate them with anything, and that's probably your point. It's just cosmetic bullshit style over substance, which is unlike me and unlike Deus Ex, so I should tread carefully. In reality they are passed values such as current energy drain, current energy : max energy, randomized fluctuation, and other nonsense. Would you like me to tag/label the bars each?

And in the end I've gone with a merge of the two styles. Looks a lot better. Just let me fix this microbug™ and I'll have that video done shortly.

Open to people protesting about these bars being dumb. I'd probably agree, and will remove it with enough people telling me so.

 

[Ash]

Ah, well I could do what Jaedar said...not sure though, because I like it as it is. It's stupid, I know, and probably conflicts with the idea of this actually being a detailed stats window and will just confuse players. but let me get the video out, and then we'll decide.

 

[zeitgeist]

Circuit activity/status. Could be voltage, zero point, current energy drain, electromagnetic/static interference, whatever. Granted there's no labels, symbols or anything of the sort to associate them with anything, and that's probably your point. It's just cosmetic bullshit style over substance, which is unlike me and unlike Deus Ex, so I should tread carefully. In reality they are passed values such as current energy drain, current energy : max energy, randomized fluctuation, and other nonsense. Would you like me to tag/label the bars each?

It's just that I tried to connect the numbers from the text to the bars and couldn't, which was pretty confusing, I still don't quite get if they're supposed to be purely cosmetic or represent values that are not already expressed in text?

 

[Ash]

Here you go:



Just shows some select interesting things from the changelog, and there's not a whole lot interesting yet beyond further polishing and bugfixes.

So, remove or keep the bars, now that you've seen them in action?

 

[Ash]

It's just that I tried to connect the numbers from the text to the bars and couldn't, which was pretty confusing, I still don't quite get if they're supposed to be purely cosmetic or represent values that are not already expressed in text?

Both, as well as loosely representing values that are already expressed in text. It's primarily there because cosmetics, and is dumb and inconsistent, but pretty. Removing it won't be a notable loss.

 

[Ash]

Bars are gone. I've just been trying to justify the time I spent creating the textures and coding the cosmetics. Generally that window is universally always used for relevant information only, and should stay that way. Only I actually know just how dumb they were, having made them, so the onus is on me to stop trying to justify the dumb and make the correct decision.
Recognising mistakes and scrapping shit is a good quality to have nonetheless, and ensures the mod remains pure. though of course it's preferable to not make mistakes and think things through thoroughly in the first place.

I will restore and modify them only if there can be enough relevant information to associate them with, which currently there isn't.

 

[Dux]

I finished my GMDX playthrough last night and it was lots of fun. Although it's been too long since I last played Deus Ex, I could still see and feel the improvements which have been added to the vanilla game experience. It's all rather sleek. Good job.

Once again I went the stealth route: slipping past guards, picking locks, hacking terminals, living in air vents. I always end up doing that, for some reason.

 

[Ash]

Great. Another happy customer.

Anything at all you'd change about the experience if given the chance?

 

[Dux]

I'm not sure. Deus Ex is Deus Ex. The story is there, C&C, open-ended gameplay, augs and skills. GMDX enhances the experience and I didn't really encounter any noteworthy issues - apart from some slight audio distortion. That might be because of my own hardware, though. The problems I have are with engine itself, I think. It's just not that good. The action is extremely awkward at times, no doubt due to the rigid animations. I have no idea how to amend that, if it's even possible. If people in general were to run faster then maybe that would improve things. Guards not really reacting when seeing fallen comrades is also quite distracting.

 

[Ash]

"Guards not really reacting when seeing fallen comrades is also quite distracting."

Eh, they do. Functionality added by GMDX: NPCs now react to unconscious NPCs as well as dead (previously dead only), and now will sound an alarm, if one is nearby.

But yeah, engine is horrible by todays standards, but ultimately the design is what brings us back of course.

 

[Dux]

Functionality added by GMDX: NPCs now react to unconscious NPCs as well as dead (previously dead only), and now will sound an alarm, if one is nearby.

Hmm? That's pretty weird. I wonder what made the guards in my playthrough so oblivious. I lost count of how many times I witnessed one of them walking past a downed comrade and not reacting. As far as I can remember, guards would only sound the alarm if in the vicinity of an explosion or upon seeing me.

 

[Ivan]

difficulty?

 

[Salk]

Hello, Ash! (keeping up with all your names requires a perk in itself! )

I found out you have your own, nice thread going on here and that you are more likely to keep an eye on this rather than OTP so in the future I will make my reports here.

I have been reading all those 50 pages (it took me quite some time!) and I want to chime in on two aspects:

1) I would agree with changing the Lockpicking skill advancement to 5/10/20/50 as one other user suggested

2) I would choose Style 1 over Style 2 (bars) and I was a bit surprised by the almost uniform preference towards the bars...

I was wondering whether or not some of my reports (possible bugs/suggestions) at OTP might be filed again under this thread, in those cases they were not addressed directly. If so just, tell me and I will do it of course.

 

[Ash]

Hello Salk.

I would choose Style 1 over Style 2 (bars) and I was a bit surprised by the almost uniform preference towards the bars...

Yeah Style 1 has been chosen.

I was wondering whether or not some of my reports (possible bugs/suggestions) at OTP might be filed again under this thread

That's not necessary or desired, but if you want to rewrite those suggestions and reports into a single compact post/list just in case I overlooked anything by all means go ahead.
I'd rather you give the mod another go and make further reports and suggestions that may help improve the mod, since you never actually completed it due to your universal permadeath rule.

 

[Salk]

Hello!

I will not waste your time by repeating what you have already read elsewhere then and I'll just be looking forward to my next playthrough with the new version of GMDX, making sure to not overlook anything that might warrant your attention.

Even if you have probably mentioned this somewhere, I would like to ask you whether or not you feel that most of the AI enhancements that contribute to realism (mostly, human behavior) are something that should be part of the game, no matter the difficulty level. I am myself of this opinion and I was wondering where you stand on this...

Kudos for having succeeded in tackling such an ambitious project counting mostly on your own self to keep your vision alive.

Thanks again.

 

[Ash]

The vast majority of new AI actions are there on all difficulty modes, just the frequency in which they happen will be lesser as AI spot you less/hear you less/die easier/player rarely dies and doesn't have to start the encounter over and thus the AI don't have as much of a chance to carry out their actions, because they are flies to be swatted rather than somewhat of a real threat.

If I knew I could be successful, I'd persuade you to drop your permadeath principle and play the game on hardcore mode, which is similar in intention to permadeath, actually designed to be a possible play experience, and somewhat more forgiving to the point where you can actually complete the game and experience a great challenge too.
The game and mod has had no intention in supporting permadeath runs and although still possible as with most games I wouldn't recommend it, at least not before you've played the game many times beforehand. Good games deserve to be experienced as they were designed to be at least once.

 

[Salk]

Playing on Hardcore (or possibly Realistic if the frustration factor becomes too prominent) is really appealing to me on another level as I see it as a completely different kind of challenge (the game expects me to try again and again in order to do something close to perfection, relies heavily on metagaming in order to develop a sound strategy, giving minimal room for mistakes and rewarding exceptional performance). I do not exclude I will play the game on that difficulty level too (I consider myself a player of decent skill, all considered). But to do that I will want to have completed the game first once. And my own challenge is to survive it. There will be time to then tackle the game from another angle.

After all, GMDX makes it all the more worth while being replayed and it would be nice to be able to tell the differences.

 

[Ash]

Nah there's a lot of room for mistakes even on hardcore. It's really not that difficult at all by some game's standards, but does bump up the challenge to a nice standard, demands you use your head on a deeper level, makes choices have more weight and so on.

Alright, you're too set in your permadeath ways and I'm not going to argue with that, and I respect it on some level...but it's Deus Ex, it deserves a proper playthrough goddamn it, even if only to see how the story and late-game gameplay pans out.

 

[AW8]

Ash

Is there a way to check what difficulty level you are playing on in Deus Ex? I'm unsure whether I actually picked Realistic or not.

 

[Ash]

Check the DeusEx.log. I told it to spit out difficulty level at the start of every level load/play initialization.
If you're using Kenties Launcher it will be found in MyDocuments/DeusEx/System else it is in LocationYouInstalledDX\DeusEx\System

CombatDifficulty=0.5 is Easy
CombatDifficulty=1.5 is Normal
CombatDifficulty=3.0 is Realistic
Hardcore is also 3.0 but you don't need any indication you're on it because it's obvious in multiple ways (e.g save menu is greyed out).

Alternatively you probably can just use console commands and set it yourself as you please using the "Set" command, if you're not on hardcore mode.

 

[AW8]

Strange, I don't find a "CombatDifficulty" line in either DeusEx.log. I'm using Kentie's Launcher.

Whatever, I'm probably playing on Realistic. Back to my non-lethal playthrough.

 

[Ash]

Had to check as I thought I may have commented it out, but nope, it's there:

log("bHardCoreMode =" @bHardCoreMode);
log("CombatDifficulty =" @CombatDifficulty);

Note it only logs whenever you enter a level or load a save game, and the DeusEx.Log is overwritten each time Deus Ex is launched, so if you launched DX but didn't go further than the menus there would be nothing on difficulty.
Maybe I should add it to the save window where it shows your general stats like play time, #of saves etc.

 

[AW8]

For some reason the line is not in my log, and the text file doesn't log when I start up the game and load a save. It logged when I played earlier today (Uninitialized: Log file closed, 06/18/16 17:11:49), I have no idea what made it log then and not now.

Like I said, no biggie, I'm pretty sure I'm on Realistic and I'm keeping on playing and having a blast.

It would be a neat addition to have it added to the save window, if it's not a lot of work. I love relevant information.