Just finished up. Was a really enjoyable campaign. Like others have said, probably not as good a story as Dragonfall, or at least not as well integrated into the majority of the missions, but overall still very interesting, and with much improved gameplay. Ran into a lot of bugs though, especially in the endgame. Most hilarious one being checking in on the Ka Fai family after the last mission and getting wildly different accounts off how their situation worked out from each family member.
My gameplay advice for anyone playing a rifle user, I highly recommend grabbing the auto-reload arm implant, and a sniper rifle or mini-gun. By the end my guy was throwing out non-stop 150~200 points of damage a turn. Add in the fact that he was so heavily armored that I could just ignore cover and walk out into the middle of everyone, and it feels like being the fucking Terminator.
And I liked the final boss fight, but they just felt hilariously outmatched by my team.
I kinda felt sorry for them after just stomping all over them in the first two phases. I offered to let em go in the end, but they were just too dumb to accept my charity. Ended up finishing the final phase in two hits. Not two rounds of combat, two hits. Gobbet's poison fog is insanely overpowered in that fight. The yama king takes up four tiles, and gets hit by each tile of fog. And I don't know if it's a bug or intentional, but things seem to get hit twice by the fog on the first turn. So one hit from that knocks off 80 hp. Follow that up with one pointblank blast from a mini-gun and they didn't stand a chance.
Really looking forward to the follow up mini-campaign. It'll be interesting to see what you can do now that you'll presumably have a team of seasoned veteran runners.
One weird bug that I've run into is that sometimes my runner would use his Monofilament Whip... while in the Matrix. :O This appears as an additional action on top of using his AP normally. It does very little damage (Matrix damage STARTS at 50 and goes up up up), but it is amusing to see bleed apply to IC.
Miami is not all that fleshed-out, in my understanding. The only sourcebooks that I can think of that cover Miami are Cyberpirates!, maybe Smuggler Havens, and there was a novel that was partially set in Miami ("Shadowboxer"). The Gunderson Corporation and Carribean League (loose coalition of Carribean city-states) are pretty much all that you can say about it, and the Gunderson Corporation basically gets gutted by Art Dankwalther as a "practice run" for his attempt at taking down Richard Villiers and Fuchi/Novatech.
So yeah, almost a blank slate there. An ideal location to set up your own campaign (if you want a blank slate), either in PnP or using the Shadowrun Returns editor, because so little is written about it.
I know you guys advised me against going cyberware/decker but that whip is really tantalizing.
Mmm..
I went cyberware/Decker (hand razors) and had no problems really. Sure you could make a really nice minmaxed char if you're prefer but on normal it's just not necessary. I'm on the final mission now and here are my base stats:
Body/Cyberware Affinity: 5
Quickness/Dodge: 4
Strength/Close Combat: 6
Int/Biotech/Decking: 6 (Yes, I am still rocking the Fuchi VirtuaX cyberdeck as well, it's fine.)
Charisma: 6 (I always take 3 etiquettes. :P )
Spirit Summoning: 3 (Just picked it up for the passive Totem, +15 HP from Boar seemed nice.)
I tried to save scum when I screwed that up, but I'd last saved at the moment The Engineer started running away. I had to save and reload a dozen times just to get back to the point where I could keep from fucking up that sequence.
...
Hmm I've encountered a bug in the mission where you first encounter Red Samurai
I opted to kill them with the help of the technology dudes after the Kangaroo court and despite being a red-smear on the ground, when I left the mission area back to Heoi, he was part of my crew. All my crew members mused about having a ghoul on the team too and I could have him on missions etc. My oldest save had me still locked into that decision and it's a repeatable bug, so I hope it gets patched. I'm still continuing on though, I've just decided to role-play an elaborate narrative reason on how I got him out of there alive My PC has very high charisma for just this reason
Sounds like a lot of these issues are trigger issues. Things firing out of order, persistent settings getting missed or failing to get set due to... Trigger issues!
My experience was always that the trigger engine had a particular level of entropy. Things would fire in a certain order reliably, then a step would inexplicably start getting skipped.
I know you guys advised me against going cyberware/decker but that whip is really tantalizing.
Mmm..
I went cyberware/Decker (hand razors) and had no problems really. Sure you could make a really nice minmaxed char if you're prefer but on normal it's just not necessary. I'm on the final mission now and here are my base stats:
Body/Cyberware Affinity: 5
Quickness/Dodge: 4
Strength/Close Combat: 6
Int/Biotech/Decking: 6 (Yes, I am still rocking the Fuchi VirtuaX cyberdeck as well, it's fine.)
Charisma: 6 (I always take 3 etiquettes. :P )
Spirit Summoning: 3 (Just picked it up for the passive Totem, +15 HP from Boar seemed nice.)
Yeah, Cyberware fits really well with a decker. With the higher Karma, its easier to build a crazy character to. With cybernetic enhancements, Redwood Cedar ended up being a beast:
Those were her main stats (with modifications added in). With modifications, she had 8 armor, 92 health, and could hit a sniper from across a combat zone, with a pistol, at 85%-90% accuracy. Go ahead and build your cybered out Decker, its huge amounts of fun.
Also money is kind of tight early on, but while the money doesn't flow in like crazy as in the last game, I still think you have more than enough to support your character. The only thing I didn't buy that I thought about was the best cyberdeck, and that was because I was getting along just fine without it. The way they re-did decking, so much of it comes down to sneaking and skill at the mini-games that you really only need the deck for some of the combat ICs you can't avoid.
Overall, I had a huge amount of fun with this game and would heartily recommend it to someone else.
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
new beta patch available for Hong Kong if you opt in
spoiler: It sadly does not fix the cyberware attribute bug, which is my most wanted bug fix at this point
it does fix a bunch of other stuff though, including making Is0bel's launcher upgrades (armor shred and incendiary) actually function.
Patch notes in spoiler
New Features, Improvements
Added trigger to check for Game difficulty
Added first time Jack into Matrix help popup
Added first time Hacking Blocker IC help popup
Updated Help slides to improve understanding of new Matrix Features
Core/Engine Bug Fixes
Rebalanced some Physical Adept spells
Resolved edge case issue that could cause save files from loading properly under specific conditions
Resolved issue that caused “last actor” triggers to lose reference upon save and load
Resolved issue that caused Drones to be loaned incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused Magnet Arm ability to activate incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused mission objective toasts to not appear if Karma screen was open
Resolved issue that caused some Cyberweapon abilities to have incorrect cooldown
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect UI behaviour if Karma screen is opened with other UI active
Resolved issue that prevented Screen Labels from displaying in specific cases
Content Bug Fixes
Added Grenade Launchers to Heoi weapons shops
Rebalanced Prosperity Tower Matrix
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior after double crossing allies in the Whistleblower mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior in the Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect hostile behavior in The Extraction mission
Resolved issue that caused merchant in the City of Death mission to sell you the clothes off his back
Resolved issue that caused Non-Lethal abilities to be counted as Lethal in Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused Rat King’s body to disappear after death
Resolved issue that caused skill check to fail incorrectly in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause a mission objective in Assist mission to not complete under specific cases
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect camera behavior in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect endgame payout in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause players to be unable to summon an environmental spirit in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs dialogue to not trigger
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs to be staged incorrectly in Heoi in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause The Extraction mission to be starting in a bad state
Resolved issue that could lead to confusion in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect behavior when loaning Drones to Racter
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect hostile behavior in Prosperity Tower mission
Resolved issue that could prevent an NPC encounter in The Dig mission
Resolved issue that could trigger incorrect series of events in Deckcon 2056 mission
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from lighting people on fire if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from stripping armor if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Optional Paydata from Deckcon 2056 from being sold
Resolved issue that prevented Pocket Clams from being used
Resolved minor animation issues
Minor grammar and typo fixes
Minor UI improvements and bug fixes
Update on Gun Bunny Pistol Adept: I loaded myself up with some more lower-essence Cyberwear and Bioware, bringing my Essence down to 4. This means Counterstrike and my other actives (Light Cover, Stride's extra bonus) have a +2 cooldown, but I was mainly using Counterstrike only once or so per fight when the situation was ripe (baiting into a group of three enemies as the only reliable target). And all the defensive and movement passives are always active.
In return, my Elf has 11 Quickness, extra Ranged Combat, extra Dodge, extra Movement, and large bonuses to hit from Cybereyes and Smartlink.
Do I miss the extra Counterstrikes? Potentially. But when this hype resistant Gun Bunny no longer remembers what missing a shot feels like, I'll deal.
For people starting this game, a suggestion I would have is that for your non-combat skills (intelligence, decking, charisma, etc) you don't every have to make those skills higher than 7, I don't think I saw a single skill check that was higher than 7, and most of the 7 checks come in the last run.
I beat Hong Kong today. Damn that was a good game.
By the end I grabbed 3 points in conjuring for a totem. I grabbed fish for the -10% to hit me since I love standing in the open on dragon lines. But since it was the end didn't help much.
Overall I loved it. The runs were tighter and much more fun. I love there are more than a things you can get through with 0 fights. Improved matrix was great. The characters are fantastic. Gobbet. I like Is0bel fuck the haters. She was interesting if you talk to her. Racter was the best though. Sadly Gaichu bugged out so I couldn't do the last conversation with him. DAMN IT!
Also holy shit is Duncan broken if you build him right. I would always start the fights with at least one enemy down. Sometimes one down and one stun locked permanently while my mage tore the rest apart. Actually enjoyed the whole not killing people all the time part. It was fun. A good edition to the game. It was a way to go loud but not go loud at the same time.
Going to go again but I think street sam or adept. Haven't figured which. But rigger looks good too with all the new drones. Not sure about decker. Is0bel is fantastic for that already.
My current run is a monofilament whip decker with high charisma. It's working out extremely well. The new decking allows you to get through a lot of decking encounters without a ton of resources. Two attack programs to take out the occasional Watcher IC that detects you, and that's it. I've been slowly increasing Intelligence and Decking, but most of my karma has gone to Body/Cyberaffinity, and Agility/Ranged Weapons to make the monowhip more effective (and it crosses over with a Rifle for longer range encounters, too!).
My character isn't a combat powerhouse, but he definitely holds his own and even has a decent role in combat other than "extra gun that misses 50% of the time".
Didn't really like the story very much at all. Racter was an interesting dude, but I wish he had gotten a full story arc instead of a single bonus objective in another mission. Gobbet and Is0bel were pretty boring, and Gaichu was entertaining in a kind of hilarious 90s japanophile kind of way.
Duncan was a mess. His characterization was all over the place and he was just kind of a dick.
I found the climax to be a bit predictable, and the lack of tie-in to any story elements through 80% of the game's missions made the story feel rushed/abrupt? I liked all the bits with Kindly Cheng, but the broader conspiracy was shallow and unexciting.
I did like the mission structures and the varied options a lot, and there were some fun ways for runs to go sideways, but I also found the game waaaaaaay easier than Dragonfall. Aside from the first two missions where a few characters got dropped, the sheer volume of karma I was receiving and the completely absence of any need to spend money on any characters but your main meant that I had a monster of a protagonist - plus the party was very strong, even the support characters!
By the time I got to the last fight, I was basically invincible, which definitely sucked a lot of the tension out of it.
My dude and Gaichu just spanked each iteration of the Queen every time she appeared. It made the whole drama seem ridiculous - "oh no, we can't let this creature break into this reality!" It felt like the more realistic solution would be to just take shifts beating the crud out of her incarnations and get paid by the city, like some kind of extradimensional janitor thing.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I think the thing I liked least about the story is the way they pre-establish your character but don't tell you anything about him.
So like, literally at something like a dozen different points in the game Duncan will ask you something about the past, and there are right and wrong answers. Like "oh man, remember what this guy used to say?" And you answer, "What no that wasn't it at all that was the cleaning lady, what are you talking about"
So maybe your dude just has a shitty memory, I guess. That's what I contributed to the character, he has a very poor recollection of his childhood.
They're saying the displayed hit chance is likely not true
If we go back to the oft cited example of X-Com, this is demonstrably true
People did studies on XCOM. It cheats... but only in your favor, and only below classic. When it rips you a new one, it was completely fair.
Shadowrun, I've missed far, far too many 99%s to trust the RNG at all.
I have difficulty believing that about XCOM. Because either it cheats, or I'm the unluckiest XCOM player there ever was.
Confirmation bias only works so far. When you keep consistently missing shots in very high double digits, the likelihood of it happening becomes absolutely minuscule.
I beat Hong Kong today. Damn that was a good game.
By the end I grabbed 3 points in conjuring for a totem. I grabbed fish for the -10% to hit me since I love standing in the open on dragon lines. But since it was the end didn't help much.
Overall I loved it. The runs were tighter and much more fun. I love there are more than a things you can get through with 0 fights. Improved matrix was great. The characters are fantastic. Gobbet. I like Is0bel fuck the haters. She was interesting if you talk to her. Racter was the best though. Sadly Gaichu bugged out so I couldn't do the last conversation with him. DAMN IT!
Also holy shit is Duncan broken if you build him right. I would always start the fights with at least one enemy down. Sometimes one down and one stun locked permanently while my mage tore the rest apart. Actually enjoyed the whole not killing people all the time part. It was fun. A good edition to the game. It was a way to go loud but not go loud at the same time.
Going to go again but I think street sam or adept. Haven't figured which. But rigger looks good too with all the new drones. Not sure about decker. Is0bel is fantastic for that already.
I'd like for them to develop the "no kill" options a bit. For example, I'd like to at least have post-battles/mission options like interrogations or the ability to do things like "Call the cops" or "Sell the fucker to the organ harvesters", especially when I leave a boss character alive. Basically, a more organic version of what happens in missions where it is scripted that you have to leave a character alive.
It was especially disappointing how spotty the game was recognizing that I didn't kill someone. Sometimes you'd get dialogue acknowledging it. Sometimes the game just goes on as if you'd killed them.
Didn't really like the story very much at all. Racter was an interesting dude, but I wish he had gotten a full story arc instead of a single bonus objective in another mission. Gobbet and Is0bel were pretty boring, and Gaichu was entertaining in a kind of hilarious 90s japanophile kind of way.
Duncan was a mess. His characterization was all over the place and he was just kind of a dick.
I found the climax to be a bit predictable, and the lack of tie-in to any story elements through 80% of the game's missions made the story feel rushed/abrupt? I liked all the bits with Kindly Cheng, but the broader conspiracy was shallow and unexciting.
I did like the mission structures and the varied options a lot, and there were some fun ways for runs to go sideways, but I also found the game waaaaaaay easier than Dragonfall. Aside from the first two missions where a few characters got dropped, the sheer volume of karma I was receiving and the completely absence of any need to spend money on any characters but your main meant that I had a monster of a protagonist - plus the party was very strong, even the support characters!
By the time I got to the last fight, I was basically invincible, which definitely sucked a lot of the tension out of it.
My dude and Gaichu just spanked each iteration of the Queen every time she appeared. It made the whole drama seem ridiculous - "oh no, we can't let this creature break into this reality!" It felt like the more realistic solution would be to just take shifts beating the crud out of her incarnations and get paid by the city, like some kind of extradimensional janitor thing.
Final fight:
I wish the final fight was more dynamic, with options for deckers and such, but I get why it wasn't. I just played the last mission in Dragonfall, and that thing is a massive design failure. I can see why they decided to just go for a relatively easy shootout followed by a conversation battle this time.
Anyone else go for both Spellcasting and Conjuring and use the Mana Charge line of spells? They don't seem to do anything for me, either spell, I get the buff for standing on the leyline it creates but it just has zero effect, no change in accuracy, damage or cooldown or either spell.
Anyone else have this issue?
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
The fights in Hong Kong are in general much easier than anything in Dragonfall. There wasn't a single mission in Hong Kong that even came close to being as difficult as APEX or the last mission of Dragonfall.
The fights in Hong Kong are in general much easier than anything in Dragonfall. There wasn't a single mission in Hong Kong that even came close to being as difficult as APEX or the last mission of Dragonfall.
Hong Kong's fights were also usually a lot more straightforward. There were fewer where you had multiple goals and locations in a fight.
In the Apex fight, you had a decker doing their thing, while the remainder of the team had to split in two to handle waves of enemies while protecting both the decker and a central console in another room. The final fight had similar complications (waves + optional decker fight + timer + boss). By contrast, all of Hong Kong's big battles were straight-up shootouts with finite amounts of enemies.
I suspect this is the result of feedback. Both of those fights in Dragonfall were my least favorite parts of the game. Not because they were hard, exactly, but because the game wasn't very good at outlining just what the goals and threats were. You just had to learn by failure and reload.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
I was kinda disappointed in the APEX fight because I heard on here it was going to be really tough but I guess playing on normal kinda took that away from me. Once I figured out what was actually going on (which was about 25% of the way through) it was a breeze.
I at least thought the turrets were going to turn on you and start firing, but just a bunch of junkies and some hp sponge robots? My team of Eigar/Glory/Lucky Strike/Kael'thas (my mage) just made mince meat of them. Only one wave of robots got shots at the terminal and it was only for one round, and that was only because I made an explicitly bad decision in where to position Eiger.
so isn't the whole suite of Shadowrun Returns engine games supposed to have an editor for people to make their own campaigns etc.? do you get that when you buy the game? i don't know how to access it, if so. i'm curious.
new beta patch available for Hong Kong if you opt in
spoiler: It sadly does not fix the cyberware attribute bug, which is my most wanted bug fix at this point
it does fix a bunch of other stuff though, including making Is0bel's launcher upgrades (armor shred and incendiary) actually function.
Patch notes in spoiler
New Features, Improvements
Added trigger to check for Game difficulty
Added first time Jack into Matrix help popup
Added first time Hacking Blocker IC help popup
Updated Help slides to improve understanding of new Matrix Features
Core/Engine Bug Fixes
Rebalanced some Physical Adept spells
Resolved edge case issue that could cause save files from loading properly under specific conditions
Resolved issue that caused “last actor” triggers to lose reference upon save and load
Resolved issue that caused Drones to be loaned incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused Magnet Arm ability to activate incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused mission objective toasts to not appear if Karma screen was open
Resolved issue that caused some Cyberweapon abilities to have incorrect cooldown
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect UI behaviour if Karma screen is opened with other UI active
Resolved issue that prevented Screen Labels from displaying in specific cases
Content Bug Fixes
Added Grenade Launchers to Heoi weapons shops
Rebalanced Prosperity Tower Matrix
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior after double crossing allies in the Whistleblower mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior in the Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect hostile behavior in The Extraction mission
Resolved issue that caused merchant in the City of Death mission to sell you the clothes off his back
Resolved issue that caused Non-Lethal abilities to be counted as Lethal in Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused Rat King’s body to disappear after death
Resolved issue that caused skill check to fail incorrectly in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause a mission objective in Assist mission to not complete under specific cases
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect camera behavior in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect endgame payout in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause players to be unable to summon an environmental spirit in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs dialogue to not trigger
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs to be staged incorrectly in Heoi in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause The Extraction mission to be starting in a bad state
Resolved issue that could lead to confusion in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect behavior when loaning Drones to Racter
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect hostile behavior in Prosperity Tower mission
Resolved issue that could prevent an NPC encounter in The Dig mission
Resolved issue that could trigger incorrect series of events in Deckcon 2056 mission
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from lighting people on fire if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from stripping armor if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Optional Paydata from Deckcon 2056 from being sold
Resolved issue that prevented Pocket Clams from being used
Resolved minor animation issues
Minor grammar and typo fixes
Minor UI improvements and bug fixes
They still haven't fixed Compound Attack and Barrage not working right either. They're supposed to be multi-hit attacks but aren't.
so isn't the whole suite of Shadowrun Returns engine games supposed to have an editor for people to make their own campaigns etc.? do you get that when you buy the game? i don't know how to access it, if so. i'm curious.
Yep, all three games have an editor, although it's basically the actual editor the devs use and is pretty abstruse and not super documented, so the steam workshop page tends to be littered with a lot of half-finished projects. The HK one is supposed to have some improvements in that regard but I haven't poked around in it yet.
Going back through for the skillcheck guide. Bringing Gaichu along results in the best dialogue.
Exit, Stage Left:
Normally without an invite it takes charisma 5 to bluff the party guard. With Gaichu it takes 4; you pass him off as a costumed actor, and he pretends you're his agent, going along with the bullshit story of a TV pilot involving ghouls somehow.
"The twist is that we were the aliens all along."
I love this guy. Intense spec ops ghoul notwithstanding, he has just the right sense of humor to roll with the absurd bullshit that comes up on a run.
It was especially disappointing how spotty the game was recognizing that I didn't kill someone. Sometimes you'd get dialogue acknowledging it. Sometimes the game just goes on as if you'd killed them.
it looks like at least some of this was due to bugs and the new patch sounds like it fixes a lot of this. I saw people complaining that Duncan's zip-tie didn't let them get the no-kill objective on the Yellow Lotus triads in the second mission, but the launch day version of the game totally gave me credit for that (although I only zip-tied the dude who had beat up the old man, rather than the entire gang). So the intent was definitely for it to matter. It'll be nice if it gets more consistently applied across the entire game.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Compound Attack definitely hits twice, you're thinking of Fray Armor
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Going back through for the skillcheck guide. Bringing Gaichu along results in the best dialogue.
Exit, Stage Left:
Normally without an invite it takes charisma 5 to bluff the party guard. With Gaichu it takes 4; you pass him off as a costumed actor, and he pretends you're his agent, going along with the bullshit story of a TV pilot involving ghouls somehow.
"The twist is that we were the aliens all along."
I love this guy. Intense spec ops ghoul notwithstanding, he has just the right sense of humor to roll with the absurd bullshit that comes up on a run.
I remember hearing you wrote some guides about these games. Is there any reference for links to those? I looked to the OP for it when I started replaying Dragonfall but couldn't find anything, and the SRR wiki is painfully bare bones so I couldn't find anything to help me figure out how builds are actually supposed to work or how the different weapons compare, etc.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Haha the head chef in the seafood restaurant mission just asked me to "sea yourself out"
I think the thing I liked least about the story is the way they pre-establish your character but don't tell you anything about him.
So like, literally at something like a dozen different points in the game Duncan will ask you something about the past, and there are right and wrong answers. Like "oh man, remember what this guy used to say?" And you answer, "What no that wasn't it at all that was the cleaning lady, what are you talking about"
So maybe your dude just has a shitty memory, I guess. That's what I contributed to the character, he has a very poor recollection of his childhood.
That was easily my most frustrating thing with the story. Every time I came up with my guy's backstory, the game tells me that's wrong. I roll my character with Shadowrunner and Security background, thinking he was basically a gun for hire. Nope, he was a street thug that's been sitting in jail most his life. I meet up with my best friend, and I decide I was the brash hot-head, and Wu was always calm and cool one since he ended up a cop while I was in jail. Nope, got that backwards. Start talking about our adopted dad, and surprise again, they had a totally different relationship than I thought.
So yeah, my guy ends up being the same. He can't remember anything that happened to him.
Haha the head chef in the seafood restaurant mission just asked me to "sea yourself out"
goty 10/10
I really love that mission. It's as if your runner swaggered into the joint tapping their chin and musing to themselves "now what mischief can I rouse tonight?"
Posts
My gameplay advice for anyone playing a rifle user, I highly recommend grabbing the auto-reload arm implant, and a sniper rifle or mini-gun. By the end my guy was throwing out non-stop 150~200 points of damage a turn. Add in the fact that he was so heavily armored that I could just ignore cover and walk out into the middle of everyone, and it feels like being the fucking Terminator.
And I liked the final boss fight, but they just felt hilariously outmatched by my team.
Really looking forward to the follow up mini-campaign. It'll be interesting to see what you can do now that you'll presumably have a team of seasoned veteran runners.
Pain & Gain and Rick Ross' Hustlin' are on my mind.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Doesn't sound that different.
So yeah, almost a blank slate there. An ideal location to set up your own campaign (if you want a blank slate), either in PnP or using the Shadowrun Returns editor, because so little is written about it.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Body/Cyberware Affinity: 5
Quickness/Dodge: 4
Strength/Close Combat: 6
Int/Biotech/Decking: 6 (Yes, I am still rocking the Fuchi VirtuaX cyberdeck as well, it's fine.)
Charisma: 6 (I always take 3 etiquettes. :P )
Spirit Summoning: 3 (Just picked it up for the passive Totem, +15 HP from Boar seemed nice.)
If it makes you feel better...
...
But it was kind of worth it. That's a sweet gun.
My experience was always that the trigger engine had a particular level of entropy. Things would fire in a certain order reliably, then a step would inexplicably start getting skipped.
Yeah, Cyberware fits really well with a decker. With the higher Karma, its easier to build a crazy character to. With cybernetic enhancements, Redwood Cedar ended up being a beast:
Body 7
Cyberware Affinity 3
Strength 6
Quickness 10
Firearms 9
Pistols 7
Intelligence 7
Decking 7
Charisma 6
Those were her main stats (with modifications added in). With modifications, she had 8 armor, 92 health, and could hit a sniper from across a combat zone, with a pistol, at 85%-90% accuracy. Go ahead and build your cybered out Decker, its huge amounts of fun.
Also money is kind of tight early on, but while the money doesn't flow in like crazy as in the last game, I still think you have more than enough to support your character. The only thing I didn't buy that I thought about was the best cyberdeck, and that was because I was getting along just fine without it. The way they re-did decking, so much of it comes down to sneaking and skill at the mini-games that you really only need the deck for some of the combat ICs you can't avoid.
Overall, I had a huge amount of fun with this game and would heartily recommend it to someone else.
Counterattack + Guns = Glorious.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
spoiler: It sadly does not fix the cyberware attribute bug, which is my most wanted bug fix at this point
it does fix a bunch of other stuff though, including making Is0bel's launcher upgrades (armor shred and incendiary) actually function.
Patch notes in spoiler
Added trigger to check for Game difficulty
Added first time Jack into Matrix help popup
Added first time Hacking Blocker IC help popup
Updated Help slides to improve understanding of new Matrix Features
Core/Engine Bug Fixes
Rebalanced some Physical Adept spells
Resolved edge case issue that could cause save files from loading properly under specific conditions
Resolved issue that caused “last actor” triggers to lose reference upon save and load
Resolved issue that caused Drones to be loaned incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused Magnet Arm ability to activate incorrectly
Resolved issue that caused mission objective toasts to not appear if Karma screen was open
Resolved issue that caused some Cyberweapon abilities to have incorrect cooldown
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect UI behaviour if Karma screen is opened with other UI active
Resolved issue that prevented Screen Labels from displaying in specific cases
Content Bug Fixes
Added Grenade Launchers to Heoi weapons shops
Rebalanced Prosperity Tower Matrix
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior after double crossing allies in the Whistleblower mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect behavior in the Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused incorrect hostile behavior in The Extraction mission
Resolved issue that caused merchant in the City of Death mission to sell you the clothes off his back
Resolved issue that caused Non-Lethal abilities to be counted as Lethal in Uninvited Guests mission
Resolved issue that caused Rat King’s body to disappear after death
Resolved issue that caused skill check to fail incorrectly in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause a mission objective in Assist mission to not complete under specific cases
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect camera behavior in the City of Death mission
Resolved issue that could cause incorrect endgame payout in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause players to be unable to summon an environmental spirit in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs dialogue to not trigger
Resolved issue that could cause some NPCs to be staged incorrectly in Heoi in some cases
Resolved issue that could cause The Extraction mission to be starting in a bad state
Resolved issue that could lead to confusion in the Bad Qi mission
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect behavior when loaning Drones to Racter
Resolved issue that could lead to incorrect hostile behavior in Prosperity Tower mission
Resolved issue that could prevent an NPC encounter in The Dig mission
Resolved issue that could trigger incorrect series of events in Deckcon 2056 mission
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from lighting people on fire if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Is0bel’s grenade launcher from stripping armor if upgraded
Resolved issue that prevented Optional Paydata from Deckcon 2056 from being sold
Resolved issue that prevented Pocket Clams from being used
Resolved minor animation issues
Minor grammar and typo fixes
Minor UI improvements and bug fixes
In return, my Elf has 11 Quickness, extra Ranged Combat, extra Dodge, extra Movement, and large bonuses to hit from Cybereyes and Smartlink.
Do I miss the extra Counterstrikes? Potentially. But when this hype resistant Gun Bunny no longer remembers what missing a shot feels like, I'll deal.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
By the end I grabbed 3 points in conjuring for a totem. I grabbed fish for the -10% to hit me since I love standing in the open on dragon lines. But since it was the end didn't help much.
Overall I loved it. The runs were tighter and much more fun. I love there are more than a things you can get through with 0 fights. Improved matrix was great. The characters are fantastic.
Also holy shit is Duncan broken if you build him right. I would always start the fights with at least one enemy down. Sometimes one down and one stun locked permanently while my mage tore the rest apart. Actually enjoyed the whole not killing people all the time part. It was fun. A good edition to the game. It was a way to go loud but not go loud at the same time.
Going to go again but I think street sam or adept. Haven't figured which. But rigger looks good too with all the new drones. Not sure about decker. Is0bel is fantastic for that already.
My character isn't a combat powerhouse, but he definitely holds his own and even has a decent role in combat other than "extra gun that misses 50% of the time".
Didn't really like the story very much at all. Racter was an interesting dude, but I wish he had gotten a full story arc instead of a single bonus objective in another mission. Gobbet and Is0bel were pretty boring, and Gaichu was entertaining in a kind of hilarious 90s japanophile kind of way.
Duncan was a mess. His characterization was all over the place and he was just kind of a dick.
I found the climax to be a bit predictable, and the lack of tie-in to any story elements through 80% of the game's missions made the story feel rushed/abrupt? I liked all the bits with Kindly Cheng, but the broader conspiracy was shallow and unexciting.
I did like the mission structures and the varied options a lot, and there were some fun ways for runs to go sideways, but I also found the game waaaaaaay easier than Dragonfall. Aside from the first two missions where a few characters got dropped, the sheer volume of karma I was receiving and the completely absence of any need to spend money on any characters but your main meant that I had a monster of a protagonist - plus the party was very strong, even the support characters!
By the time I got to the last fight, I was basically invincible, which definitely sucked a lot of the tension out of it.
So like, literally at something like a dozen different points in the game Duncan will ask you something about the past, and there are right and wrong answers. Like "oh man, remember what this guy used to say?" And you answer, "What no that wasn't it at all that was the cleaning lady, what are you talking about"
So maybe your dude just has a shitty memory, I guess. That's what I contributed to the character, he has a very poor recollection of his childhood.
I have difficulty believing that about XCOM. Because either it cheats, or I'm the unluckiest XCOM player there ever was.
Confirmation bias only works so far. When you keep consistently missing shots in very high double digits, the likelihood of it happening becomes absolutely minuscule.
I'd like for them to develop the "no kill" options a bit. For example, I'd like to at least have post-battles/mission options like interrogations or the ability to do things like "Call the cops" or "Sell the fucker to the organ harvesters", especially when I leave a boss character alive. Basically, a more organic version of what happens in missions where it is scripted that you have to leave a character alive.
It was especially disappointing how spotty the game was recognizing that I didn't kill someone. Sometimes you'd get dialogue acknowledging it. Sometimes the game just goes on as if you'd killed them.
Final fight:
Anyone else have this issue?
Hong Kong's fights were also usually a lot more straightforward. There were fewer where you had multiple goals and locations in a fight.
In the Apex fight, you had a decker doing their thing, while the remainder of the team had to split in two to handle waves of enemies while protecting both the decker and a central console in another room. The final fight had similar complications (waves + optional decker fight + timer + boss). By contrast, all of Hong Kong's big battles were straight-up shootouts with finite amounts of enemies.
I suspect this is the result of feedback. Both of those fights in Dragonfall were my least favorite parts of the game. Not because they were hard, exactly, but because the game wasn't very good at outlining just what the goals and threats were. You just had to learn by failure and reload.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
They still haven't fixed Compound Attack and Barrage not working right either. They're supposed to be multi-hit attacks but aren't.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Yep, all three games have an editor, although it's basically the actual editor the devs use and is pretty abstruse and not super documented, so the steam workshop page tends to be littered with a lot of half-finished projects. The HK one is supposed to have some improvements in that regard but I haven't poked around in it yet.
Exit, Stage Left:
"The twist is that we were the aliens all along."
I love this guy. Intense spec ops ghoul notwithstanding, he has just the right sense of humor to roll with the absurd bullshit that comes up on a run.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
it looks like at least some of this was due to bugs and the new patch sounds like it fixes a lot of this. I saw people complaining that Duncan's zip-tie didn't let them get the no-kill objective on the Yellow Lotus triads in the second mission, but the launch day version of the game totally gave me credit for that (although I only zip-tied the dude who had beat up the old man, rather than the entire gang). So the intent was definitely for it to matter. It'll be nice if it gets more consistently applied across the entire game.
I remember hearing you wrote some guides about these games. Is there any reference for links to those? I looked to the OP for it when I started replaying Dragonfall but couldn't find anything, and the SRR wiki is painfully bare bones so I couldn't find anything to help me figure out how builds are actually supposed to work or how the different weapons compare, etc.
goty 10/10
That was easily my most frustrating thing with the story. Every time I came up with my guy's backstory, the game tells me that's wrong. I roll my character with Shadowrunner and Security background, thinking he was basically a gun for hire. Nope, he was a street thug that's been sitting in jail most his life. I meet up with my best friend, and I decide I was the brash hot-head, and Wu was always calm and cool one since he ended up a cop while I was in jail. Nope, got that backwards. Start talking about our adopted dad, and surprise again, they had a totally different relationship than I thought.
So yeah, my guy ends up being the same. He can't remember anything that happened to him.
I really love that mission. It's as if your runner swaggered into the joint tapping their chin and musing to themselves "now what mischief can I rouse tonight?"