I noticed that your mod is still a work in progress, so I would like to share some ideas. I'm something of a mod maker myself (not for Mass Effect though) so I understand how little other people's suggestions usually impact on outcome, but I'll try to paragon persuade you, please hear me out.
It's quite difficult for me to recommend this mod to other people if they never played ME3: because it requires to check the abbreviations on the mod webpage, or at least to be familiar with each quest. All in all I don't think it immersive. I humbly suggest a few changes to the current system summary. Please take a look at this example:
* Priority: Sur'Kesh Deliver: Cerberus Cyphers Investigate: Dr. Bryson Investigate: Blue Suns Investigate: Barla Von Recover*: Biotic Amp Interfaces Scan: Prototype Components (Ismar Frontier) Scan: Pillars of Strength (Kite's Nest) Pending: Book of Plenix * Priority: Eden Prime Deliver: Alien Medi-Gel Formula Failed: Resistance Movement
I suppose the list requires some explanation, so here we go: - The main idea is to keep categorizing missions by activity. - The second main idea is to keep all the useful information on front, and hide or move anything else to the end - Full names are better than abbreviations — it's more immersive and still functional in terms of sorting. I'm not sure if there are many lines that would be out of boundaries. Worth checking out though. - Current names are obviously not adamant, you are free to suggest other versions. Maybe "Secondary" instead of "Investigate" and "On Hold" or "Postponed" instead of "Pending". - Separate Scanning from Recovery missions — these are different aspects of the game. Change both to "Deliver" when picked though, as this activity is identical for both. - Move location names to the end of a line, or may be drop some of them if not all: specific location names aren't always necessary, especially since you added Shadow Broker Intel for the most of "Scan"/"Recover" quests (God bless you). Maybe retain names for some Scan missions only. As for Recovery missions, there as not too many of those — you can just double-check all the available ones before you run a mission. - In case of closed missions, the "Failed" prefix should be enough. No need to change prefixes for successful quests, as they grey out anyway. - Is there a need to sort missions by DLC ? Personally I'm not sure. - For N7 missions I'd suggest either "Dropzone" as the name of the type, or "Firebase", as they are called in multiplayer — these are mostly multiplayer maps anyway, looks like a good resemblance. - "zzz" in "Pending" missions will automatically place them below everything else. But what about changing font color to a middle yellow-grey for specific lines? If color coding is a thing in ME, there is a chance it could be used for sorting — I made something similar in Starbound, for example. Otherwise, "zzz" is fine too. - The color coding thing goes for Priority missions as well, it could help getting rid of the asterisk. Changing color by one digit could be sufficient to sort, a no one would see the difference in color.
- I also saw some menu lists with icons in ME -- could this work for Mission Summary as well? Could you add different icons for each line? If so, it would be nice to have icons for specific categories next to flashing "new" icons, like this: ⭐* Priority: ... 📦 Deliver: ... 🔍 Recover: ... 💬 Investigate: ... 🌌 Scan: ... 💤 Pending: ... ✅(Any finished) ❌ Failed: ... The "N7" icon for "Dropzones"/"Firebases" I mentioned above.
If you're interested, I could try to either look for, or maybe even draw some icons so you can add them.
In any case, your mod is currently one of the must haves for ME3 in my list, I can't even describe how useful it is for me. I just want to share my thoughts in hope to make it even better. Thank you for your contribution anyways👍 (Pardon my English, I'm not a native speaker)
Hey! Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for the delayed answer.
It's quite difficult for me to recommend this mod to other people if they never played ME3: because it requires to check the abbreviations on the mod webpage, or at least to be familiar with each quest.
I don't really understand nor agree with this. Anyone who installs a mod should anyway probably read the mod page first, even (especially?) if they've never played the game before. No need to be familiar with each quest. I don't think that the end result with my mod is perfect... but if it's difficult to recommend, it means that the vanilla journal is better... which idk.
For the rest, I'm not super satisfied with the [C], or zzz, etc either. Maybe having the full word like Deliver would be nicer, as you suggest. I'll keep that in mind and might have a look at the feasibility if/when I get back into updating this mod. But yeh, I did consider that kind of possibility at the time... and although I don't remember exactly what were the main reasons for my choice in the end, there were some reasons. If it means removing the planet name, some info is lost (even if it's the description, that requires more effort, some people would see it a plus others a minus). I also tried to keep mission names close to the vanilla ones, so it's easier to google.
As for the icons, it might be possible, not sure... but if it is, it would be a whole lot of other things to deal with. Here, I modified the quest definitions and the text lines, and it was already a lot of work. But I can't just add icons in the text lines. It would be necessary to go into the UI stuff in flash, which is possible to some extent but extremely messy, very few ME modders have even tried to do that kind of stuff. And then probably necessary to add new variables into the quest definitions so that the UI scripts can detect what kind of quest each one is, no idea how I would even go about that tbh.
I think so. Google "mass effect mods on steam deck" and you'll find several reddit posts, a steam guide, etc. You can also join the ME3Tweaks discord server (link on the page of ME3Tweaks Mod Manager here on nexusmods), you might get some help there but only Windows is officially supported.
So, what I've always done, and it's worked well for pretty much any modded game (off the top of my head I've done Witcher 3, POE 2, ME OT, MELE), is I've modded MELE normally on my desktop, then install MELE on the Deck, then copy the ME1, 2, and 3 folders from the desktop, and replace those folders on the Steam Deck install. Works like a charm every time.
Just a tiny detail worth mentioning that i assume probably can't be fixed so it's not worth the trouble, but project variety allows pre-coup missions to be completed post-coup and this mod still marks them as expired. it's really not a big deal but i figured it was worth mentioning. either way thank you for this mod! it always bugged me SO MUCH how little the journal actually updates in me3. thank you!
Yeh obviously, any changes made by Project Variety will not be reflected in the Journal. I might see with Scottina to make a patch at some point, but it's quite some work, not going to be right away. But in any case, even if changes made by PV can make the info displayed in the Journal incorrect, it's not more than that (e.g. you should still be able to complete the quest even if it is marked as expired: the quest logic in-game and in the journal are two separate things).
Oh yeah, ofc! I checked earlier to make sure and it doesn't cause any actual problems. Just thought it might be helpful to drop a lil heads up. Thanks again for your excellent mod! :D
Thanks a lot! Yes sure, if you can do the spanish translation that would be great! It's quite a bit of work though. Hit me up on discord (same name) and I'll send you the files/instructions.
I cannot overstate how fucking good this mod is. It drove me insane before installing this trying to look up all the item locations on the wiki and deducing whether or not they were accessible. You should try and work with Project Variety to make a patch in order to update the journal entries with location edits (such as Bailey's office being in the new C-Sec headquarters floor).
Thanks, glad it helps! Note that technically "I cannot understate how fucking good this mod is." means the mod is not fucking good at all, but well you mean overstate I guess eheh. And yeh, I'll eventually look into adding Project Variety specific info.
LOL whoops. fixed. you certainly knew what I meant... that's what matters. Please do think about doing some sort of PV patch/addon. I am never playing through ME3 without this life saving mod again
Thanks! No my mod does not affect the galaxy map at all, only what appears in the journal (and when). But journal entries from other mods like EGM or Spectre, are completely unaffected by my mod. So if the authors of these mods do not put directions in the journal that are precise enough, Journal Enhanced is not going to fix it: I only addressed vanilla quests.
Thank you so much for this. The base journal was annoying the heck outta me, especially coming from the great journals in ME1/2. And it seems to be working okay so far with EGM/SEM. 10/10
88 comments
It's quite difficult for me to recommend this mod to other people if they never played ME3: because it requires to check the abbreviations on the mod webpage, or at least to be familiar with each quest. All in all I don't think it immersive. I humbly suggest a few changes to the current system summary. Please take a look at this example:
* Priority: Sur'Kesh
Deliver: Cerberus Cyphers
Investigate: Dr. Bryson
Investigate: Blue Suns
Investigate: Barla Von
Recover*: Biotic Amp Interfaces
Scan: Prototype Components (Ismar Frontier)
Scan: Pillars of Strength (Kite's Nest)
Pending: Book of Plenix
* Priority: Eden Prime
Deliver: Alien Medi-Gel Formula
Failed: Resistance Movement
I suppose the list requires some explanation, so here we go:
- The main idea is to keep categorizing missions by activity.
- The second main idea is to keep all the useful information on front, and hide or move anything else to the end
- Full names are better than abbreviations — it's more immersive and still functional in terms of sorting. I'm not sure if there are many lines that would be out of boundaries. Worth checking out though.
- Current names are obviously not adamant, you are free to suggest other versions. Maybe "Secondary" instead of "Investigate" and "On Hold" or "Postponed" instead of "Pending".
- Separate Scanning from Recovery missions — these are different aspects of the game. Change both to "Deliver" when picked though, as this activity is identical for both.
- Move location names to the end of a line, or may be drop some of them if not all: specific location names aren't always necessary, especially since you added Shadow Broker Intel for the most of "Scan"/"Recover" quests (God bless you). Maybe retain names for some Scan missions only. As for Recovery missions, there as not too many of those — you can just double-check all the available ones before you run a mission.
- In case of closed missions, the "Failed" prefix should be enough. No need to change prefixes for successful quests, as they grey out anyway.
- Is there a need to sort missions by DLC ? Personally I'm not sure.
- For N7 missions I'd suggest either "Dropzone" as the name of the type, or "Firebase", as they are called in multiplayer — these are mostly multiplayer maps anyway, looks like a good resemblance.
- "zzz" in "Pending" missions will automatically place them below everything else. But what about changing font color to a middle yellow-grey for specific lines? If color coding is a thing in ME, there is a chance it could be used for sorting — I made something similar in Starbound, for example. Otherwise, "zzz" is fine too.
- The color coding thing goes for Priority missions as well, it could help getting rid of the asterisk. Changing color by one digit could be sufficient to sort, a no one would see the difference in color.
- I also saw some menu lists with icons in ME -- could this work for Mission Summary as well? Could you add different icons for each line? If so, it would be nice to have icons for specific categories next to flashing "new" icons, like this:
⭐* Priority: ...
📦 Deliver: ...
🔍 Recover: ...
💬 Investigate: ...
🌌 Scan: ...
💤 Pending: ...
✅(Any finished)
❌ Failed: ...
The "N7" icon for "Dropzones"/"Firebases" I mentioned above.
If you're interested, I could try to either look for, or maybe even draw some icons so you can add them.
In any case, your mod is currently one of the must haves for ME3 in my list, I can't even describe how useful it is for me. I just want to share my thoughts in hope to make it even better. Thank you for your contribution anyways👍
(Pardon my English, I'm not a native speaker)
I don't really understand nor agree with this. Anyone who installs a mod should anyway probably read the mod page first, even (especially?) if they've never played the game before. No need to be familiar with each quest. I don't think that the end result with my mod is perfect... but if it's difficult to recommend, it means that the vanilla journal is better... which idk.
For the rest, I'm not super satisfied with the [C], or zzz, etc either. Maybe having the full word like Deliver would be nicer, as you suggest. I'll keep that in mind and might have a look at the feasibility if/when I get back into updating this mod. But yeh, I did consider that kind of possibility at the time... and although I don't remember exactly what were the main reasons for my choice in the end, there were some reasons. If it means removing the planet name, some info is lost (even if it's the description, that requires more effort, some people would see it a plus others a minus). I also tried to keep mission names close to the vanilla ones, so it's easier to google.
As for the icons, it might be possible, not sure... but if it is, it would be a whole lot of other things to deal with. Here, I modified the quest definitions and the text lines, and it was already a lot of work. But I can't just add icons in the text lines. It would be necessary to go into the UI stuff in flash, which is possible to some extent but extremely messy, very few ME modders have even tried to do that kind of stuff. And then probably necessary to add new variables into the quest definitions so that the UI scripts can detect what kind of quest each one is, no idea how I would even go about that tbh.
My only problem is that of course, it changes almost all text to english, but if you let me i want to translate the mod to spanish.
Thank you so much for your work!
Yes sure, if you can do the spanish translation that would be great! It's quite a bit of work though.
Hit me up on discord (same name) and I'll send you the files/instructions.
You are the one who do the hard work with this, i am happy to help you.
does this effect the galaxy map at all?
for some EGM and Specrtre quests i need to go to certain planets, but i'm not sure where they are and get lost