Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Durandal]

The AI is somehow immediately informed of your position if you hack a turret to shoot them. Is this intentional?

 

[Ash]

Vanilla. The instigator of the damage they receive is the player, so it is as if you shot them. Maybe I'll set it to the turret and make the NPC dash for a hide point. After all, if you have access to a turret in GMDX you often earned it, as it is more balanced.

 

[Durandal]

Alright, just finished my first run on GMDX 8.0 on a no-hacking rifle/melee build. DX supports no hacking just fine, which is pretty ironic considering nearly everyone goes for hacking.
I wish the reinforced cameras appeared before Area 51, I had a jolly easy time destroying all cameras with throwing knives before that. With the Targeting aug your weapons can easily exceed the 80-damage threshold and break everything. I don't know whether that's intentional, as the Dragon's Tooth's damage seems to be balanced in such a way that having Low-Tech on Master still doesn't let you deal enough damage to wreck all electronic panels. Thermoptic Camo pretty much trumps Radar Transparency as you can easily pass through lasers by quickly equipping and unequipping the Camo. I wish that you didn't have to unequip whatever you're wearing in order to put on something else, having whatever you just selected to equip override what you were wearing would be better to me. Stackable apparel does make it harder to discard a more worn-out equipment piece in favor of a brand new charged one. I often had to unequip whatever I was wearing, drop all instances of the apparel, and pick up the newest first if I wanted to wear a fresh copy. But other than that I liked that apparel is actually useful now.

Sometimes it feels as if TKs are too OP, with what them being able to deal 50 damage if you level up Low-Tech and/or upgrade Combat Speed. You'll certainly have plenty of them as you can carry forty around, and the Canal Road Triad fight will supply you for life. I also noticed that while equipping TKs underwater, you wouldn't be able to throw them, but if you assign them as a secondary weapon and throw them as if they were a secondary weapon, they somehow can be used underwater. Works fine against Karkians, anyways. I think there might be a bit too many prod charge and TK drops, as one item will often hold multiple charges, whereas for 30.08 and buckshot ammo I felt I had to be more conservative.

Also I'm positive the Short Fuse perk doesn't reduce the detonation team from 3 sec to 2 sec as was advertised (at least I think the base detonation time is 3 sec.), other than slightly messing up the beeping sound on grenades. But other than that, great mod. In the case of a good future, I hope they look at GMDX when they decide to remake Deus Ex. Would immediately replay with a stealth character if my backlog wasn't so fucking hueg.

 

[Ash]

The majority of that has already been addressed in v9.0, but thanks anyhow.

 

[TNO]

I have replayed DX with GMDX v8, and I think it is fantastic. The vast number of carefully implemented improvements raise the game even higher - from visuals, to gameplay, to balance, to map tweaks, to AI. I'd unhesitatingly recommend both old and new players have GMDX as the default.

I dash off below some impressions on my own run through the game (pistols/stealth, realistic). I haven't followed the development of this mod closely, so I am sorry if I note things already changed in v9. Although I will note in parentheses particularly good things along with the feedback, I should note that, to a first approximation, everything you have changed which I don't mention is sodding great. Thanks a lot for this great mod, and I look forward to it getting even better.

1. I'm glad you are dumping the UMP - giving pistol players access to basically an AR light overpowers the weapon group as you can use it to hose down weaker enemies. (It also seems there's slightly more 10mm/darts around later in the game, which is a good tweak). Pistols generally seem stronger than I remember, and plausibly now 'beat' rifles, the other 'go-to' weapon group.
2. I'd be keen on weapon re-balancing re rifles. Enemies toting ARs (most of them) are currently very unscary, and even the Commando MG can be basically ignored (unlike their rockets). I'd contemplating upping the per-shot damage to 10-15: it does mean the players tricked out AR is a monster, but it also means enemy ballistics are much more frightening in a firefight - it might be better 'realism' rather than having you and your opponent emptying clips into one another, but it probably makes 'bog standard' opponents a serious threat in a firefight. For stealth play, all the weapons when tricked out with silencers + damage etc. are more than capable of killing an opponent.
3. Although it makes the game a bit easier, I'd lean towards making downed opponents drop slightly more ammo: it remains taxing to suspension of disbelief that the MJ12 trooper you took out before he knew you were there was equipped with two rounds of ammo. Realism and gameplay run at cross purposes here - obviously you want the player to be carefully rationing ammo (if only to make spending hundreds of creds for a clip a good deal), but on the other hand if you are chewing your way through battalions of troops, there should be thousands of rounds for the taking.
4. Laser sight remains OP (especially as you pick one up in the first map), because (it seems) to make all your guns 100% accurate no matter how wide your crosshairs are, giving (modulo the damage buff) master-level skill with that weapon. For almost all weapons being untrained but having a laser sight is better than being advanced but not having a laser sight, and that seems wrong. Maybe (a la shifter) make it give a boost to accuracy recovery, introduce jitter, but as it stands you don't really need to develop any weapon skills until 1/3rd into the game when you need to chase after more damage.
5. The mantling is cool, but perhaps requires some augs to be tweaked as it is the default setting: Microfibrial muscle and (to a lesser extent) leg boosters are weaker (although given boosters still seem much better than run silent, this partial nerf is a good idea).
6. Apropos of which, combat speed seems really powerful - it seems to give approximately master level buffs to your low-tech, as well as quickswitch. IIRC, DTS+L4 combat speed gets above the magic 50 damage threshold to open lots of containers without lockpicks. My other playthrough with MF muscle doesn't seem to be giving as much, especially with mantling and leg boosters.
7. This is a problem with vanilla, but spy drone remains absurdly OP, mainly because its principal utility isn't spying but being a guided EMP uber--rocket (I knocked out the huge bot now added to HK markets with a single L2 drone). Being able to trade often <10 bioelectric units for a robot is a steal (or in Paris, you can take out both Page-3s with a single L4 drone as they cross paths over your sewer grate. Not 'realistic', but maybe making it so the drone itself has pretty low 'running cost' but there's a big cost if you pop the EMP, so the spy drone is used more for actual spying?
8. Power recirculator still seems better than synthetic heart (most playstyles rely on a few Augs fully upgraded, and getting another boost at the cost of increased drain is usually not a great trade), and it also seems to dominate some augs for upgrades: why upgrade cloak to reduce its cost, when I can upgrade Power recirc and reduce the cost of all my augs?
9. Even on realistic, and despite the much tougher progression of electronic/lockpicks, I still started snowballing when I got these up to master and so had a continual float of (approx) 10-15 for each of lockpicks/multiols/biocells/medkits from basically HK onwards: although doing this costs 6k skillpoints, all of these consumables give the player a big advantage across the game (not to mention picking up mods/aug upgrades, etc.). I'm not sure how I would further tweak it, but I thought I'd flag up the issue. (The changes to hacking are great - both giving a point of going above trained, and (unless you invest in master) a reason to actually use all the log in information the developers lovingly placed around the maps assuming the player didn't just bump hacking to trained and hacked all the consoles).
10. Is it possible to make more items destructible within containers? Despite my 'stealth' playthrough, I had a GEP gun with untrained heavy weapons purely so I could funge rockets with lockpicks and the occasional alpha strike. Nerfing the utility of this might be fair, especially for 'realism' - blowing open the door to an explosive locker might light the flare but leave the lam next to it untouched. Another dividend of making stuff more destructible is we don't need things like slightly implausible "infinite strength plate glass" to stop players blowing their way into the juicy goodies.
11. I think in Hells Kitchen 3 (prior to the wallcloud) you have - I think - riot cops that spawn in periodically/after you take out some existing ones. Although a bit gamey, it does have the key advantage of obliging the player to sneak their way through lockdown rather than just taking out everything on the level. Some other hubs could benefit from this (Hong Kong, definitely Paris - I ended up stealthing all the MJ12 and cops and then rocketed all the doors to get at the goodies).
12. The elite variants are great, and a nasty surprise when first encountered (ditto the trangenics you strew around some of the levels). The new enemy placements are also good - I'd encourage shoving in even more enemies, especially for the midgame onwards: small groups, even of higher powered opponents, are a bit too easy to take out: doubled patrols would be one natural port of call, maybe sprinkling in the occasional elite with the goons to 'catch out' a player who misses this and makes a less-prepared strike.
13. Stealth remains an issue from vanilla. I'd suggest (but obviously maybe its already been playtested) for hardcore and possibly realistic difficulty to have no 'cooldown' from the AI from high alert in certain circumstances (e.g. discovering a dead comrade, getting shot at by the player). It seems both more realistic and also gives much larger consequences if you 'blow' stealth (albeit at the risk of encouraging save scumming on realistic). Similarly, I'd be tempted to import the mechanic from HR that destroying a camera triggers the alarm, if only because it seems a bit too easy to kill the cameras (pistols have AP ammo, explosives if no organics around, I think master-level sniper can still ping them, DTS, etc.)
    
14. Not sure if a bug or not, but some cameras in some maps (particularly the Submarine base exterior) appear 'cosmetic' - they would sweep over me yet not alert or alarm. I'd aver a design principle for the levels should be that all cameras 'work', and that all have a control somewhere.

Sorry if all this has been covered, included in v9, or just isn't very good. I look forward to future versions.

 

[Black]

Hands off my laser sights.

 

[Ash]

I'd be keen on weapon re-balancing re rifles. Enemies toting ARs (most of them) are currently very unscary, and even the Commando MG can be basically ignored (unlike their rockets). I'd contemplating upping the per-shot damage to 10-15:

Instant death! 15 damage is enough for one bullet to kill you with a headshot. Assault rifle users and commandos would be a nightmare. At most I'll increase the damage by 1.

Although it makes the game a bit easier, I'd lean towards making downed opponents drop slightly more ammo: it remains taxing to suspension of disbelief that the MJ12 trooper you took out before he knew you were there was equipped with two rounds of ammo. Realism and gameplay run at cross purposes here - obviously you want the player to be carefully rationing ammo (if only to make spending hundreds of creds for a clip a good deal), but on the other hand if you are chewing your way through battalions of troops, there should be thousands of rounds for the taking.

Vanilla drops are randomized between 1-4 no matter the weapon. in v9.0 the assault rifle is now the exception, and drops 1-5, with additional odds that there will be more than 1 bullet.

People like SymbolicFrank set in their Shifter mole-popping ways do not recognize the 1-4 drops are vanilla design and claim the mod is too "restrictive" as a result, which is fucking laughable as the mod increases gameplay depth and freedom substantially. It only restricts the few things that needed to be restricted, and then adds five times as much (balanced) freedom on top.

Laser sight remains OP (especially as you pick one up in the first map), because (it seems) to make all your guns 100% accurate no matter how wide your crosshairs are, giving (modulo the damage buff) master-level skill with that weapon. For almost all weapons being untrained but having a laser sight is better than being advanced but not having a laser sight, and that seems wrong. Maybe (a la shifter) make it give a boost to accuracy recovery, introduce jitter, but as it stands you don't really need to develop any weapon skills until 1/3rd into the game when you need to chase after more damage.

Often a point made by players, yet weapon skills increase reload speed, damage and accuracy, and also come with perks which do things like reduce recoil and scope sway that cannot be overridden by laser.
Laser sights are rare, you get one in the beginning and no more 'till the superfrieghter (if I recall), and you have to remember to actually use it/turn it on. It doesn't override weapon skills, but it can come close if you are an effective player that always remembers to turn it on every time.

The mantling is cool, but perhaps requires some augs to be tweaked as it is the default setting: Microfibrial muscle and (to a lesser extent) leg boosters are weaker (although given boosters still seem much better than run silent, this partial nerf is a good idea).

Microfirbral muscle and combat speed are both a little OP in v8.0, fixed in v9.0. Speed enhancement was always OP. Mantling doesn't have much influence on those choices. Sure as hell makes silent running more viable though as you can get up anything more than one foot high without speed enhancement.

Apropos of which, combat speed seems really powerful - it seems to give approximately master level buffs to your low-tech, as well as quickswitch. IIRC, DTS+L4 combat speed gets above the magic 50 damage threshold to open lots of containers without lockpicks. My other playthrough with MF muscle doesn't seem to be giving as much, especially with mantling and leg boosters.

MF lets you throw explosive barrels and such. An effective door opener also.

This is a problem with vanilla, but spy drone remains absurdly OP, mainly because its principal utility isn't spying but being a guided EMP uber--rocket (I knocked out the huge bot now added to HK markets with a single L2 drone). Being able to trade often <10 bioelectric units for a robot is a steal (or in Paris, you can take out both Page-3s with a single L4 drone as they cross paths over your sewer grate. Not 'realistic', but maybe making it so the drone itself has pretty low 'running cost' but there's a big cost if you pop the EMP, so the spy drone is used more for actual spying?

Yeah, I may do that.

Power recirculator still seems better than synthetic heart (most playstyles rely on a few Augs fully upgraded, and getting another boost at the cost of increased drain is usually not a great trade), and it also seems to dominate some augs for upgrades: why upgrade cloak to reduce its cost, when I can upgrade Power recirc and reduce the cost of all my augs?

v8.0 Synthetic heart can be upgraded (reduces the additional energy drain), and also provides permanent upgrades to passive augs when installed. And it is automatic. Unfortunately its drain is way too high in v8.0 as a result of an oversight so steer clear for now, but in v9.0 it will be a valid choice.

Even on realistic, and despite the much tougher progression of electronic/lockpicks, I still started snowballing when I got these up to master and so had a continual float of (approx) 10-15 for each of lockpicks/multiols/biocells/medkits from basically HK onwards: although doing this costs 6k skillpoints, all of these consumables give the player a big advantage across the game (not to mention picking up mods/aug upgrades, etc.).

This should be addressed in v9.0. We shall see how testers feel. I haven't played the game proper myself in about a year now. I'm forever testing on a new feature basis but no full playthrough to get a sense of progression yet. But I'm not a decline fag, so all will be well.

Is it possible to make more items destructible within containers? Despite my 'stealth' playthrough, I had a GEP gun with untrained heavy weapons purely so I could funge rockets with lockpicks and the occasional alpha strike. Nerfing the utility of this might be fair, especially for 'realism' - blowing open the door to an explosive locker might light the flare but leave the lam next to it untouched.

LAMs do actually explode when taking any lethal damage in GMDX. Problem is explosions only damage things in their line of sight EXCEPT doors which blow regardless of line of sight, so Lams often go unscathed by the smallest bit of geometry blocking the way. I may change this and add a impact zone that is half the size of the blast radius which will damage anything regardless of geometry, but that may cause problems elsewhere.

Another dividend of making stuff more destructible is we don't need things like slightly implausible "infinite strength plate glass" to stop players blowing their way into the juicy goodies.

There's a notable amount of unbreakable glass throughout the game. I don't believe I added any more though. Interaction with all the things!

I think in Hells Kitchen 3 (prior to the wallcloud) you have - I think - riot cops that spawn in periodically/after you take out some existing ones. Although a bit gamey, it does have the key advantage of obliging the player to sneak their way through lockdown rather than just taking out everything on the level. Some other hubs could benefit from this (Hong Kong, definitely Paris - I ended up stealthing all the MJ12 and cops and then rocketed all the doors to get at the goodies).

This was actually removed in GMDX. Vanilla UNATCO troops would spawn in already attacking as you took out riot cops. It was unfair on stealth players, but I regret removing it as design consideration for stealth always holds combat back and rarely vice-versa. By that I mean you can never have scripted events like monster closets and such (even though vanilla did it from time to time, and I added two to Area51, one of which now doesn't happen for stealth players), and enemies always need to forget about you after a few seconds of no line of sight. But I think in GMDX I achieved a good balance here between stealth and combat, unlike vanilla and it's AI that would forget about you if you ducked behind cover for five (!) seconds.

The elite variants are great, and a nasty surprise when first encountered (ditto the trangenics you strew around some of the levels). The new enemy placements are also good - I'd encourage shoving in even more enemies, especially for the midgame onwards: small groups, even of higher powered opponents, are a bit too easy to take out: doubled patrols would be one natural port of call, maybe sprinkling in the occasional elite with the goons to 'catch out' a player who misses this and makes a less-prepared strike.

Will probably add more locations where enemies are called in when an alarm is sounded, and also add more enemies exclusive to hardcore (and the "overwhelming odds" option).

Stealth remains an issue from vanilla. I'd suggest (but obviously maybe its already been playtested) for hardcore and possibly realistic difficulty to have no 'cooldown' from the AI from high alert in certain circumstances (e.g. discovering a dead comrade, getting shot at by the player). It seems both more realistic and also gives much larger consequences if you 'blow' stealth (albeit at the risk of encouraging save scumming on realistic).

By that I guess you mean an "Alerted" state where enemies don't actually know where you are, but will actively search with heightened awareness and do so persistently. I'd like that very much, but it demands new voice work and new animations. By the time I'm done with this "definitive Deus Ex experience", the fanbase at large will finally wake up to it's superiority and will want to help, but I'll be done so they'll have to do it themselves.

Similarly, I'd be tempted to import the mechanic from HR that destroying a camera triggers the alarm, if only because it seems a bit too easy to kill the cameras (pistols have AP ammo, explosives if no organics around, I think master-level sniper can still ping them, DTS, etc.)

Maybe on hardcore. Good idea.

Not sure if a bug or not, but some cameras in some maps (particularly the Submarine base exterior) appear 'cosmetic' - they would sweep over me yet not alert or alarm. I'd aver a design principle for the levels should be that all cameras 'work', and that all have a control somewhere.

Not a bug. Vanilla design. The cameras outside the base proper? We'll you've not trespassed at that point. At least I assume that's the Ion Storm logic behind it.

 

[Black]

I agree that if you have master lockpick/electronics with the '1 use per' perk you start having them in the vanilla quantities but isn't that the point? Why else would you invest so heavily in those skills.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Not to mention, you sacrifice a lot of potential power if you upgrade even one of those skills fully, perks and all.

as design consideration for stealth always holds combat back and rarely vice-versa

What do you mean? If you don't design considering stealth it becomes next to impossible to sneak past and the stealth players will have to fight battles with characters not geared up for combat, which is unfair.

 

[zeitgeist]

Problem is explosions only damage things in their line of sight EXCEPT doors which blow regardless of line of sight, so Lams often go unscathed by the smallest bit of geometry blocking the way.

Is it possible to differentiate between level geometry (i.e. static walls and such) and other objects like crates, NPCs, misc items?

 

[Ash]

Only geometry applies/blocks explosions vanilla, but yeah it is possible to differentiate.

What do you mean? If you don't design considering stealth it becomes next to impossible to sneak past and the stealth players will have to fight battles with characters not geared up for combat, which is unfair.

In a game where both combat and stealth is on offer as options, combat is held back by the latter in many ways.

We were discussing the vanilla scripted events where UNATCO Troops spawn in on the attack in the third Hell's Kitchen visit. Previous GMDX versions removed/altered those events precisely to consider stealth players, yet it's to the detriment of combat as always. I'm saying I regret that, because vanilla DX thought it was OK to turn the tables occasionally in favor of combat, and combat needs all the help it can get.

I may do more tracking of the player's actions and set up occasional specific events based on that data. That way no playstyle has to suffer.

 

[KlauZ]

Started to play PS2 and Combat\Hardcore GMDX back to back.

On Liberty Island: On PS2 Starting dock is walled of by small building with tournicket. Feels and looks more realistic and immersive.
Gunther`s room has a ventilation access. It is too easy but seeing Gunther smash all the guys i usually take out myself was very satisfying.

On Hardcore: Checkpoints layout is very good. Though i`d argue for 1 free save per level, it shouldn`t be very abusable, but very helpful if you suddenly need to quit the game.
Decapitation is a blast! But damage threshold is to low.

 

[Black]

Have you considered turning off the selection reticle for hardcore mode?

 

[Ash]

Selection reticule? Nah that's needed for interactivity, especially with tiny objects like zyme.

On Hardcore: Checkpoints layout is very good. Though i`d argue for 1 free save per level, it shouldn`t be very abusable, but very helpful if you suddenly need to quit the game.

If anything I will add a rogue-like style save & quit feature.

Decapitation is a blast! But damage threshold is to low.

Decap has been removed outright in v9.0.

Dumbest Deus Ex thread of the week so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/Deusex/comments/54pxyy/easy_explaination_for_mds_short_main_story_its/

 

[MediantSamuel]

It boggles my damn mind how people can defend being shafted and ripped off.

For fucks sake, it's not even a good enough game to spend time defending.

"I spent a couple hours last night going through the detective case that ends with Nicholas Cipra and Daria. It is SO great. And 90% of casuals (not you guys) probably don't even know about what I'm talking about"



DAE side quests r hard 2 find???

Fuck me.

I'm going to go slit my throat.

 

[Ash]

 

[Ash]

Decapitation is a blast! But damage threshold is to low

Decap has been removed outright in v9.0.

Wait a minute, you're my artist.

If you can make head decapitation look more convincing and polished, I will restore it.

For example, make various head meshes based on the various types of human meshes. Then alter all the many various head skins to be bloody around the area of the wound, and to have a dead look on their face. Then I can code the head to come off from a sword slice to the neck (or maybe anywhere that hits the head, players won't mind a small touch of abstraction). Ultimately It's a lot of work for such a small thing, so don't bother. Focus on the list.

That reminds me, I still need to update the asset to do list.

 

[Black]

Just found out you can 1 shot m12 commando with fully upgraded xbow, master pistols and steel darts. Don't you dare change steel darts and crossbow, they're the only thing that gives me joy.
Since different ammo does different amounts of damage, can you make it show in the inventory when you switch ammo?

 

[KlauZ]

Then I can code the head to come off

I agree with focusing on basics first, but in thory ALL body parts can be cut of, right?

 

[Ash]

Yes. Stupid amount of work though. Should be the last thing done if it is to happen at all. In the year 2027.
The head is easier as the meshes are already segmented/UV mapped in such a way that allows for it, but that's still a lot of work in of itself.

"Since different ammo does different amounts of damage, can you make it show in the inventory when you switch ammo?"

Every time this has come to mind of I've always put it off. Odd really because it's not a lot of work and it would be an improvement.

 

[Jaedar]

If anything I will add a rogue-like style save & quit feature.

Yes please. This is probably the main thing keeping me from playing on this difficulity level.

 

[Durandal]

Alright, just started a Hardcore playthrough for my first time, non-lethal only.
I actually like how well save points are integrated into the exploration aspect of Deus Ex. You want save? Explore more! Getting chased by an alerted bot is actually frightening now that I can't rely on my savescumming behavior. Last run I totalled on 700+ saves.
I'm a bit ambivalent over the stamina system. On one hand it enforces a 'stop-start' mentality where you can use the brief pauses when you are catching your breath to rethink the situation you are in, on the other hand having to pause every 20 seconds when you want to get from point A to point B is a pain in the ass. I'll definitely upgrade Athletics some more.

Also, I found a potential exploit concerning dart ammo where you can potentially have an enemy with a mini-crossbow shoot infinite amounts of tranq darts at you which you could pick up from the wall, considering the enemies have limitless ammo, until you search their bodies. I really think enemies should have a limited amount of ammo (which you can't fully loot for gameplay reasons) and have them switch to a melee weapon once they run out.

 

[Ash]

Enemies don't have limitless ammo, just a lot more. It takes away from the realism aspect but does a lot for gameplay, and even counter-intuitively, improves realism as enemies don't get their knife out and start running in circles, waving it in the air when they can't reach you (e.g hiding in vents), and generally being unable to hit you if you simply keep moving because of the way DX NPC melee works. I am in the process of addressing all those individual things but I won't set enemy ammo counts back to vanilla because it just makes for far better gameplay.

As for the dart thing, are you consistently able to dodge their fired darts with 100% success? Enemy shots are also more unpredictable in GMDX but with the "sharp-eyed" perk it's probably not so much of a problem.

Vanilla human NPC melee behaviour should be avoided at nearly all costs. It's essentially:

Find path toward player. -> Attack (and guaranteed to miss if the player is moving).

If player cannot be reached, stand still waving knife in air and occasionally run in circles.

And that's about it.

In this state they're not agile, intelligent, diverse, competent, they're not even the slightest bit of a threat. Their slow movement speed becomes apparent too.
There's very little animations associated with melee behaviour. Melee attack 1, melee attack 2. That's it. Same two anims for all weapons. I personally can do nothing about that.
To melee attack, NPCs have to first stop moving. I can't do anything about that because of the two anims.
NPCs finding a path to you = more chances of pileups in doors. More chance of NPC friendly fire due to the inaccuracy system.

It was the absolute most unpolished aspect of vanilla AI.

Between GMDX's pathfinding improvements, new NPC melee attack, new v9.0 stuff, and plenty other tweaks this plays out a little better, but it's still shit. I've neglected addressing much of this stuff directly because it's far simpler, and more importantly far better for gameplay and Immersion to simply get rid of it, and there's not a whole lot of point in even trying. I wouldn't be able to address it to a satisfactory extent because many things just don't gel well with it, I've no animator, and aspects of navigation code inherent to the engine is out of my reach.
There's still the occasional enemy that will run out of ammo real fast for "realism" and diversity in the vanilla's spirit, but all the dumbfuckery after the fact becomes apparent if you don't happen to immediately put them out of their misery.

So aside from The Triads with their swords, the player shooting a weapon out of the NPCs hand, and the rare NPC that does run out of ammo fast, the only meleeing happening should be the new GMDX individual melee attack systems for the dog, humans, commandoes, greasels etc. Much better stuff.

 

[Durandal]

In hindsight, the melee does suck ass.

I've also been wondering if it's possible to reverse pickpocket grenades into the pockets of enemies from behind, Fallout-style. Considering there's no way of cooking grenades and enemies tend to change position once they're alerted to a thrown grenade, being able to plant a grenade for a certain takedown at the cost of being in range of the nade and sneaking up on an enemy sounds like a cool idea to me. (Perhaps reverse pickpocketed nades should have a longer fuse time to compensate, and or alert the enemies at the very last second for comedic effect)

 

[Ash]

Reverse pickpocketing demands normal pickpocketing be implemented for consistencies' sake.

The "Short fuse" perk helps with thrown grenades. Or it will in v9.0 as there it actually works.