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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

Keye_

Educated
Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
78
That it had better encounters I came to believe simply because I enjoyed them much more. But this may be due to the fact that I played different classes in DF and HK and enjoyed the one in HK more.

What exactly do you mean when you say that DF missions were more fleshed out?

What I do believe and what did make a difference to me are two things:
1. That you were first and foremost a shadowrunner in HK and this focus wasn't there in DF. DF was about doing runs to pay Alice, while I think that in HK there was a stronger focus on your identity as shadowrunner instead of your identity as main character that has to save the city/world/etc.
2. HK missions were more creative and more varied. I feel like almost every DF mission was you hitting some megacorp office/warehouse to steal something or get information. While in Hk you go into: an underwater lab, to an office to disrupt qi flow, museum/excavation site, DeckCon, Sinking Ship, etc.
 

Freddie

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1. That you were first and foremost a shadowrunner in HK and this focus wasn't there in DF. DF was about doing runs to pay Alice, while I think that in HK there was a stronger focus on your identity as shadowrunner instead of your identity as main character that has to save the city/world/etc.
2. HK missions were more creative and more varied. I feel like almost every DF mission was you hitting some megacorp office/warehouse to steal something or get information. While in Hk you go into: an underwater lab, to an office to disrupt qi flow, museum/excavation site, DeckCon, Sinking Ship, etc.
Would brofist if I could.

One thing that I really liked in the series was that they tried to kept innovating new ways to use the setting and engage the player, which for me was is one reason I like the series so much. Even if the game engine is what it is, rules are what they are, but I really did admire how they tried to bring something new for players to experience in each title. And they did it without breaking the in-game universe. Whatever people think of series, I admire the dedication and imagination of the team.
 

V_K

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at a Nowhere near you
HK missions were more creative and more varied. I feel like almost every DF mission was you hitting some megacorp office/warehouse to steal something or get information. While in Hk you go into: an underwater lab, to an office to disrupt qi flow, museum/excavation site, DeckCon, Sinking Ship, etc.
They aren't using that setups very well, though. Where in DF the environments were much more involved, giving you various options for subterfuge (vents, hackable turrets and cameras etc). In HK for the most part it's either you pass dialog checks or have a fighting straight.
 

Delterius

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Entre a serra e o mar.
Yeah, I'm mostly speaking from memory but whereas HK is more varied in terms of themes (its a completely different place, after all), Dragonfall is much more solid in terms of actual mission design.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
Yeah. Take the Feng Shui mission everyone talks about - the idea is kind of cool, but the execution is simply go into a room and click on each spot. Dragonfall missions were much more interesting, complex, and varied in their design. And the combat encounters were much, much better in Dragonfall. There were only a few HK encounters where I even had to think.
 

agris

Arcane
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Keye_ nice posts, I agree with most of what you've written. There's a push-pull going for DF and HK when they're compared- as previous posters have said, DF had more routes to approach missions from, HK has more varied themes. Obviously the combination of the two would be best. The atmosphere of SRR pre-bug, the mission options of DF with the theme variation of HK for a trinity. And nonlinear itemization and full companion character development, but now I'm just dreaming.

If you have any saves before some of your favorite fights, try using the AI mod in my signature. I think you'll find DF or HK significantly more challenging. Especially in the HK expansion missions. Default enemy AI (non-boss) restricts them to only 1 attack per turn, even if they're in a tactical spot where two attacks makes sense.
 

Mozg

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2015
Messages
2,033
Dragonfall having too much combat
Wat

Dragonfall had too much combat.

None of the combat in the SR games has any tactical interest. It's just "gear check" stuff where you see what the dumb skill you bought at the last level-up does and to let you monitor the progress of your RPG numbers-going-up. Less is more, one set piece per mission that features a gimmick or two is better than brainlessly fighting 10 MMO spawns in series over the course of 45 minutes of sleep-clicking.
 

Keye_

Educated
Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
78
That it had better encounters I came to believe simply because I enjoyed them much more. But this may be due to the fact that I played different classes in DF and HK and enjoyed the one in HK more.

The difference in encounter design between Dragonfall and Hong Kong is best summarized by comparing the very similar crescendos of APEX Rising (DF) and Assist (HK).
At the end of both missions, there is a sequence where your decker has to connect to the matrix while your remaining squad members take care of waves of incoming enemies.

Thank you for the clarification. You are correct, definetly in your comparison of the two missions. APEX Rising was indeed a well designed fight, better than Assist. In retrospect it seems to me that in HK they tried to make combat harder by making your enemies more powerful, not by designing more complex situations, this is indeed a flaw.
As you said, the mini-campaign tried to adress this problem, which led to some great encounters.


Keye_
If you have any saves before some of your favorite fights, try using the AI mod in my signature. I think you'll find DF or HK significantly more challenging. Especially in the HK expansion missions. Default enemy AI (non-boss) restricts them to only 1 attack per turn, even if they're in a tactical spot where two attacks makes sense.

I will try these mods on my next playthrough, thanks.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
The only mission during the main HK campaign I thought was "Dragonfall-good" was the one you could tell both teams to get lost and then had to take them down. The expansion later did another repeat, this time with more enemies and it was a goddamn blast. I only made it out alive because Koschei kept re-enabling itself, attracting enemy fire.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
As you said, the mini-campaign tried to adress this problem, which led to some great encounters.

I wouldn't call the encounters in the mini-campaign great at all. I only recall two that I had to try more than once - the end of the de-aging one if you take on both teams, and the very last one. And the former wasn't difficult to beat, you just had to drop to the defensive positions at the bottom of the screen (they even gave you a defended layline there).

And these two encounters (like others in the mini-campaign) suffered from consisting of too many enemies being thrown against you, rather than having a smaller number of strong enemies. This ended up making them tedious, because after your team moves you have to wait a long time for every enemy to go through their animations (many of which consisted of just running back and forth to use up their extra AP after an attack).
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I have just finished the EE.
I didn't play the DC of Dragonfall, just the regular version, so it is hard for me to compare.
It is weird that elite opponents are also limited by the rule allowing only 1 attack per turn when you can do 3.
I liked the companions, and the setting in HK more, but everything is too verbose there, and many NPC have conversations that lead nowhere.
Not sure it is HK or the DC, but playing an adept was fun as you have to balance taking out mages fast, and not getting killed by sitting in the middle of every opponent out of cover with your abysmal evasion (because you are either a troll or a dwarf, and don't have the budget to invest in dodge).
Dragonfall had better encounter design indeed, as HK is usually about entrenching your team and slugging it out until the end.
I didn't really like the matrix before, but the changes in HK are atrocious.
It is a shame when you compare it to what Klei did both with turn based infiltration, and its own "matrix" system in Invisible inc, where the matrix adds a layer of choice about how to spend your energy to help you out in the meatspace.
Here, the two are really separated, but that goes back to the TT, which I think is a shame.
Overall, the memory sequences were completely out of place to me there IMO and really did not feel like decking at all. It was KOTOR pod race level of WTF to me (or the turret minigame would work too).
It is a shame, because the campaign is still fun (but I am almost as much biased towards Shadowrun than I am towards 40K, but too easy now, and felt rushed.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
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4,229
I wouldn't call the encounters in the mini-campaign great at all. I only recall two that I had to try more than once - the end of the de-aging one if you take on both teams, and the very last one. And the former wasn't difficult to beat, you just had to drop to the defensive positions at the bottom of the screen (they even gave you a defended layline there).

Only if you knew there would be more and more and more waves of the enemies beforehand. In the most likely scenario you will fight through the enemies in the middle of the map and will not move, seeing that you are strong enough to take them all and that is the final battle of the mission, so you don't have to care about the party health after the combat ends. But then new foes arrive, but you still try to stand the ground and fight. You somehow manage, but then the next wave arrives and you have to retreat to the defensive positions.
This is a superb example of toying with player expectations. Good design.
 

Junmarko

† Cristo è Re †
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I have not finished Hong Kong and probably never will because every time either an NPC or a party member decided to speak it meant I had to read 2x/3x the amount of text than in Dragonfall, and it was always uninspired

Give it another go man. A lot of the conversations with Racter are genuinely fascinating, especially once he reveals *what* he is ;)
 

pippin

Guest
I didn't play the DC of Dragonfall, just the regular version, so it is hard for me to compare.

Kind of agree with your review, those were mostly my impressions as well. I'd reccomend you to play Dragonfall DC, as most of the annoyances from HK aren't present here.
 

Luckmann

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia
Dragonfall having too much combat
Wat

Dragonfall had too much combat.

None of the combat in the SR games has any tactical interest. It's just "gear check" stuff where you see what the dumb skill you bought at the last level-up does and to let you monitor the progress of your RPG numbers-going-up. Less is more, one set piece per mission that features a gimmick or two is better than brainlessly fighting 10 MMO spawns in series over the course of 45 minutes of sleep-clicking.
I don't think it's quite that harsh, but overall I'm inclined to agree. Shadowrun Returns would do well to pull a page out of the books of XCOM, X-COM: UFO Defense, Jagged Alliance 2 and some others.
 

eXalted

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
1,213
Finished the Shadows of Hong Kong DLC.

It was nice but gosh was the combat annoying. What's with the constant wave spawning? Is this the best that they could do to make it "tactical"?

Almost all enemies are dead... WHAM... lemme spawn a group of enemies ON TOP of your team. Pfft.
 
Last edited:

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,825
Finished the Shadows of Hong Kong DLC.

It was nice but gosh were the combat annoying. What's with the constant wave spawning? Is this the best that they could do to make it "tactical"?

Almost all enemies are dead... WHAM... lemme spawn a group of enemies ON TOP of your team. Pfft.
Eh, at least the combats were challenging, more than i can say for HK OG.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished the Shadows of Hong Kong DLC.

It was nice but gosh was the combat annoying. What's with the constant wave spawning? Is this the best that they could do to make it "tactical"?

Almost all enemies are dead... WHAM... lemme spawn a group of enemies ON TOP of your team. Pfft.
Don't they spawn from the edges of the map?
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
I have played through every Nu-SR game and I can safely say, it's the most boring CYOA for tablets that I have ever played.
 

eXalted

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
1,213
Don't they spawn from the edges of the map?
If your team is there, they will spawn on top of you.

In the final battle one of the special enemies that appear spawned on the edge and then walked on the same tile as my guy because it was scripted to appear and walk exactly there.

Couldn't they just throw a lot of enemies at you from the beginning to make it less annoying? The reinforcements part could also be handled better. A timer that shows how many turns until more enemies come from a door and giving you a chance to lock it down would have made it a lot more interesting.

Sudden reinforcements spawn is interesting for one fight - it gives you sense of emergency if they appear right behind your guys. But doing this in every fight... naah.
 

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