cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/161693
We’ve been really busy this year so here’s a recap of the best additions since v2.0 was released a year ago.
New in v2.5 are Mirrored Maps!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8BOLf1tskc&list=PLZIQTa_kwZhBksj7UzcahPiRaHk87fWch
Play through the game with a random mix of mirrored maps, which will keep you on your toes even more than the randomizer has before!
We now have an installer program!
- Helps with getting the game running well on modern computers for you and also handling the mirrored maps download and installation.
New game modes:
Zero Rando - great for first-time Deus Ex players! Disables all randomization features but keeps all the bug fixes, QoL improvements, and balance tweaks.
Randomizer Lite - Great for players who haven’t played Deus Ex in a long time, or those who are intimidated by the full randomizer, or if you just want to keep the original mood of the game.
Serious Sam mode - same as the normal Randomizer but with 10x as many enemies with difficulty tweaked to compensate.
All 3 of these new game modes can also be combined with other mods: Lay D Denton, GMDX, Revision, or Vanilla? Madder.
Enemies Overhaul:
Randomly spawned enemies can now get randomly generated patrol routes.
New enemies with slightly different stats and appearances, see the wiki.
Randomly spawned enemies now appear as the same faction as the enemies near them. (No more Thugs with MJ12 Troopers.)
Enemies now have a random chance to have a helmet added or removed, and an additional chance for them to get a visor. A helmet slightly reduces damage, while a visor makes them resistant to pepper spray and gas grenades.
We’re now at 56 goals with randomized locations, with 228 locations for those goals.
We’re up to 177 bingo events for our built-in bingo tracker
https://github.com/Die4Ever/deus-ex-randomizer/wiki/Bingo-Goals
And we also have an external Bingo Display program so you can keep your bingo board visible on your 2nd monitor! https://i.imgur.com/niBVyMi.png
Accessibility improvements:
New spoiler buttons on the Goals screen in case you get lost:
Show Spoilers: shows where goals are
Show Nanokeys and Show Datacubes: similarly highlights the locations so you can see them through walls
Goal Locations: tells you the possible locations for goals without spoilers or cheating
Entrance Locations: Provides a list of all the possible entrances in your current map (for Entrance Rando only)
Entrance Spoilers: Provides a list of all the entrances in your current map as well as where they lead (for Entrance Rando only)
Improved Training mission
Reduced pixel hunting
Datacubes/nanokeys/medbots/repairbots now glow
Crates that become emptied out now turn into cardboard boxes so you know from a distance
Improved visibility for some goals like a new in-game map of the ship and emails referencing the locations of goals.
Training mission improvements including explanation of some of Randomizer’s features
Map teleporters are now visible and show text of where they will take you, especially useful if you’re playing Entrance Randomizer mode or with Mirrored Maps enabled
Music Overhaul
Random song chosen for each area
Ability to add music files from Unreal and Unreal Tournament (someone in our Discord also added in music from Red Sun with some easy config file editing!)
Continuous music which keeps the music playing smoothly even if you die similar to Super Meat Boy
Support for the mod Vanilla? Madder. v1.75
- This mod adds tons of new mechanics and I think when you combine it with Randomizer you get the most in-depth Deus Ex experience possible! We’ve been working together so when they released their update on April 10th we were ready with support on the same day!
Choose what map to start the game
- If you want to start in Hong Kong or Paris, for example. You’ll start with an appropriate amount of skill points, augs, and equipment. Likewise, the bingo board will be intelligently built and scaled to match your position in the game.
Other Improvements
We’ve improved physics with enemies receiving knockback from high damage, and improved physics on gibs.
We’ve recently added a leaderboard in-game! Make sure you enable Online Features because it’s disabled by default. Also check out our Mastodon bot (Twitter started banning bots, Mastodon is like an open source and community-run version of Twitter) https://botsin.space/@DXRandoActivity
Left clicking to use items even if you don’t have inventory space for them, such as medkits, armor, and food
Tweaked some numbers to make the rates of enemy types, weapons, and items a bit more varied from run to run.
If you haven’t seen Deus Ex Randomizer before, here’s the trailer from v2.0 to give you a taste of the features already included:
Download here: https://github.com/Die4Ever/deus-ex-randomizer/releases
The only real issue I’ve stumbled upon were random crashes, which crashes the whole Steam Deck oddly enough. Since changing to Proton Experimental I have had such crashes maybe once or twice in ~20 hours, so I would say that mitigated it.
800x500 is a great resolution to play at, I find. Every text is perfectly readable and HUD is at a great size, in fact, it feels like it’s made for Steam Deck. Also changing to 32-bit color mode is a good idea.
The most important part really is the controller layout. There are some great community ones out there, though I found myself customizing it a lot to fit my personal taste.
To be frank, I haven’t played further than playing through Liberty Island on GOTY, and a bit further. Personally I opted for Revision instead, with vanilla map type, vanilla soundtrack, all HDTP models to false, New Vision disabled, and normal Revision gameplay style (which brings a lot of QoL stuff, bugfixes, but nothing I’ve found to be really intrusive).
Revision (with the changes I mentioned) on Steam Deck is very stable (with Proton Experimental) and faithful experience in my mind. The only problem I found was that all data vault images are still for the Revision maps, so they won’t line up and will quickly become confusing. I ended up manually swapping the images, which was a painstaking endeavor I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but it worked out in the end. Might end up uploading it somewhere at some point, but I should instead really just report it to the team and hope it gets fixed. My main reasoning for choosing Revision was honestly the achievements, it’s a fun bonus and a ton of them still apply to vanilla maps. That, and the fact that it just feels like integrates seamlessly into Steam, being a mod with its own store page. And once I’m done with this, I’m very tempted to just jump back in and play through actual Revision with Lay D Denton.
Though if I started out now, I would probably seriously consider taking a look at Transcended or Deus Ex Randomizer with Zero Rando mode (just heard of the latter first here, so I’d have to look into it more before choosing). I’m not sure how smooth the process of getting that into GOTY on Steam Deck is, and I’d miss out on those achievements from Revision of course, but it could be well worth it still.
That all said, just playing GOTY straight out of the box works, with the few things in mind which I wrote about above. There’s a myriad of bugs and stuff in GOTY that are just there, of course, but it’s not related to Steam Deck and still play very well.
if you have trouble with our installer on Steam Deck let us know, it’s still new but it should properly setup everything on Linux just fine, we do have a couple Linux players in our Discord
achievements are great for one time, but that doesn’t really suit a Randomizer where you’re meant to play over and over, so I think our integrated bingo board is a more appropriate substitute for achievements