Deus Ex GMDX: Deus Ex Advancement Mod v9 Released!

[Ash]

He's supposed to stay in his room until you approach reception, if I recall. At least that was my intention. I'll check it over.

 

[Ash]

Fan-made subreddit for GMDX: https://www.reddit.com/r/gmdx/

Not sure how far it will go, depends if a community evolves around the mod building add-ons and custom content for it.
As for v9.0 news, I'll probably make an AI-focused article in the coming weeks.

 

[Icewater]

The problem with Paul being vulnerable (and actually dying if he dies, unlike you) is that it makes the simplest, safest way to ensure Paul lives for you to just immediately suicide into the dudes outside the apartment. It seems to encourage you to not even try to fight.

 

[Ash]

Yes, v9.0 has a script for that.

 

[Ash]

//Ash: Paul dies if the player is captured in the hotel while some troops are remaining.
//Ash: if there are less than five, he survives as we can assume he can defend himself against that amount, and it is fair from a gameplay POV.
if (!flags.GetBool('PaulDenton_Dead'))
{
      foreach AllActors(class'UNATCOTroop',troop)
      {
            count++;
       }
       if (count > 5)
             flags.SetBool('PaulDenton_Dead',True,,0);
}

Also the player is no longer captured if you're blown up to giblets by a LAM/MiB explosion/whatever. Realism faggotry is important in the right context, i.e whenever it doesn't make for really shitty gameplay.

 

[RoSoDude]

Full Design Doc for DX1 released, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/Deusex/comments/5crex7/full_dx1_design_doc_with_annotations_by_warren/

As if I already needed more to distract me from the math journal papers I need to review...

 

[Ash]

So I realized that while Spiderbots are meant to be maintenance bots, you never really get that sense from them. They just wander aimlessly and attack. So I've upped their presentation factor:

 

[RoSoDude]

So I realized that while Spiderbots are meant to be maintenance bots, you never really get that sense from them. They just wander aimlessly and attack. So I've upped their presentation factor:

Looks great, and really fits the world. Also potentially gives me a bit more of a window to avoid the damn things, as I don't have to deal with their RNG idle walk?

Version 9 is looking sick. From what little I've seen, the new details are communicating the world so much better than the already fantastic original. If people don't understand greatness even after the visuals get this much of a buff and still flock to Revision, I am going to lose my shit.

 

[Ash]

The bot finishes up repairing eventually and goes into his RNG walk, but if you run over frob the key and get up the ladder fast enough you'll avoid it. You'll also miss what's down the path to the left though if you do so.

This is only a special case instance too. Not all will be repairing. I plan to add a little more such events but Deus Ex lore does state that when they're not performing maintenance they can be set to patrol areas. I just wanted to add one or two events to make them play their role a little better and come across as more functional and in-world rather than video game baddie x.

"The Chiang Arcbot Model 2 was only recently introduced, a radical departure from Chiang's usually conservative line of industrial bots. Constructed on an arachnid frame, the Model 2 can adeptly maneuver in environments that would be difficult for other repair bots to access. With the addition of a comprehensive array of repair tools, it becomes ideally suited for damage control and building maintenance. But the truly inspired touch by the normally staid Chiang engineers was the ability for the Arcbot to utilize it's bioelectric discharge capacitor as a non-lethal weapon, allowing it to protect itself from potential vandals and perform double-duty patrolling otherwise unsecured portions of infrastructure. However, the Arcbot's big brother, the Model 5, is almost exclusively used for riot control..."
- A datacube of JANINE'S BOTS SPECS AND OVERVIEW

 

[Jaedar]

Nonlethal my ass...

 

[Black]

If they're half as good at maintenance as they are at "non-lethal" combat then they should be receiving mechanic of the year award every year.
I swear I saw a small spider bot at A51 take out a peacebringer mech, the ordinary one. Guess it proves my theory that lightning > bullets.

 

[Dev_Anj]

I swear I saw a small spider bot at A51 take out a peacebringer mech, the ordinary one. Guess it proves my theory that lightning > bullets.

That's because of how damage types work in Deus Ex. Robots take very little damage from bullets and melee attacks, while electricity and EMP deal a lot of extra damage, with electricity probably being more damaging than EMP. Too bad the player himself never gets to deal any electrical damage though.

But yeah, that's why small spiderbot vs. medium sized regular robot makes the spiderbot win most of the time.

 

[Black]

I know, calm down, it was merely a jest.

 

[.Pixote.]

Now that I've complete both hard-core and realistic (I have to say you've done a brilliant job Ash), I did notice the difficulty level on hard-core is much harder than realistic, and made for a very intense experience. But I was hoping on "realistic" difficulty the game would play as difficult as hard-core with the added ability to save at any time. Any chance to make this happen?
GMDX has changed a brilliant game into a masterful one, thanks Ash.

 

[Ash]

GMDX has changed a brilliant game into a masterful one, thanks Ash.

Ensure it is known. There's still a lot of misconception about the mod from outsiders despite every player (bar one or two) labeling it "the definitive Deus Ex experience". It's a "rebalance mod", it's a "gameplay mod", it's a "hardcore difficulty revamp mod". No motherfucker, it's an advancement mod and improves nearly every aspect of the game's design that is logical to do so. Just the past couple of days I've been working on polishing up the conversation system, for example.

Any chance to make this happen?

Maybe.

 

[Sjukob]

Think I will play through the game once again after you release 9.0 .

Be ready for another "review" .

 

[Aenra]

And after 9.0 you'll be hard at work modding Arx Fatalis. A mod that will recquire Arx Libertatis and will be as expansive as your GMDX one. Say it.

I have a few decades left, i know you can make it, lol

(seriously, do)
((seriously, why is it that no one has bothered with this game? I don't get it. With the code released, just.. why))

 

[Ash]

Arx Libertatis guys haven't got around to supporting mods properly yet.

Arx Libertatis 1.1.2 updates and improves Arx Fatalis by supporting modern systems, porting the game to new systems as well as eliminating bugs and limitations. In the future we plan to improve and modernize the engine as well as enable customizations and mods by the community.

So nag them first. I'd love to incline Arx, one day perhaps.

 

[Jazz_]

I don't quite remember how it was in the original Deus Ex but in this mod the enemies are bullet-sponges, was it like that in the original too? Because I don't recall that you needed so many hits to kill them in the original (but again, I played the original centuries ago so I might be mistaken).

 

[Ash]

Health values are exactly the same, with the occasional exception.

e.g

NSF
Vanilla: 75hp per body part on all difficulty levels
GMDX: 75hp per body part on all difficulty levels

Enough for one headshot to kill, excluding the assault gun and melee weapons.

MJ12 Commando
Vanilla: 150hp
GMDX: 250hp

Why is this? Well first of all the commando is a from head to toe fully armored cyborg, so that's the "teh ultimate realism at all costs!" faggots covered. Second is Deus Ex got ridiculously piss-poor easy about half way through the game. First half could be rather hardcore to the uninitiated with the accuracy system, health system and such, while the second half was one shot mole pops. The misconception that bullet sponges are inherently bad is hilarious, especially when you have believable excuses for it (helmets, ballistic vests, full body armor, ballistic protection augmentations, re-routed fear of pain). Games are full of sponges, and for good reason. Without it the experience can easily become:



Bullet sponges in moderation aren't a bad thing. Doom and System Shock, the two early templates, were packed full of bullet sponges.

Deus Ex's accuracy system went some way to not make it a case of simply pointing and clicking at heads to one-shot mole pop while also including a semi-realistic health model, but once you got remotely skilled the need to add spongeyness was a must. Vanilla the most HP an enemy had was 350 (MiBs), which was enough to take SIX untrained stealth pistol headshots or FIFTEEN untrained assault gun headshots. It didn't even try to explain it away by giving MiBs armor or ballistic augs.

So in short, while GMDX buffs enemy hp here and there to provide better gameplay it never really goes past that standard of semi-realism. Hardcore mode is an exception, but not by much. Every enemy with high hp has semi-believable armor protection accompanying, often added by GMDX.
GMDX makes such aspects more realistic, for example MiBs now have subdermal BP-implanted skin as evidenced by the sound it makes upon bullet impact, and helmets now deflect bullets and can also be shot off of heads. Headshot collision issues are fixed. Hitting the enemy in the back of the head counts as a takedown and so on and on.

 

[RoSoDude]

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.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Bullet sponges are considered bad because they just drag out fights without adding much more of consequence besides perhaps an endurance aspect. A few enemies being bullet sponges are fine, so long as the player has a decent chance at taking them out and doesn't get tired out by fighting them. An enemy should only have as much health as it allows them to use a few attacks to retaliate or show some interesting patterns/behaviors, no more than that. Beyond that, you just run the risk of making a game full of tedious fights that suck out all of the engagement with the game.

 

[Ash]

With every enemy being guaranteed one shot mole pops and the player having 100% accuracy there isn't much a fight at all. Pop out of cover, pop the mole, pop back in. Or run around with speed enhancement popping moles left and right. Imagine if Doom or System Shock had one shit kill enemies throughout? Dragging out fights is the exact purpose, and it's a good thing. The AI actually gets to go through their routines and fight back if they take more than one mole pop.

All Deus Ex games had enemies that take multiple headshots to kill, for very valid reasons. It's not inherently bad.

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.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Dragging out fights is the exact purpose, and it's a good thing. The AI actually gets to go through their routines and fight back if they take more than one mole pop.

I know that giving enough health to make AIs actually fight back or show off interesting routines is a good thing, which is why I mentioned this:

An enemy should only have as much health as it allows them to use a few attacks to retaliate or show some interesting patterns/behaviors, no more than that. Beyond that, you just run the risk of making a game full of tedious fights that suck out all of the engagement with the game.

All I was saying is that overdoing it doesn't add anything to the game and can completely kill engagement for the player.

 

[Ash]

Of course, but is that a necessary point to make considering GMDX doesn't overdo it? Unless you think it does, but like I said I never went past vanilla's model. No enemy has more than 350hp, except on hardcore mode which is a mode for the 5% of players and the implementation is still believable anyway.

If you don't think that and were just making a general statement, well I already said "bullet sponges in moderation are fine". That "they're not inherently bad", leaving open the possibility that they can be bad if overdone.

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.