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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
You get too overpowered, too fast in the nu-Shadowruns, combined with the already mentioned shitty AI and lousy enemy stats, you get a quite trivial and inconsequential combat system, turn-based or not. Some fights are quite cool conceptually, but fall apart due to the lousy micro-structures of the system.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
What exactly is it? Only a vehicle to show off the setting? When I play the nu-Shadowruns I'm confused as to what the intent of the devs was. I'm not saying this in a bad way, I said I enjoy them, I just don't know what they are about. What is the point?
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
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Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
What exactly is it? Only a vehicle to show off the setting? When I play the nu-Shadowruns I'm confused as to what the intent of the devs was. I'm not saying this in a bad way, I said I enjoy them, I just don't know what they are about. What is the point?

Not everything has to fit neatly into the prescribed genre boxes.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
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Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
What exactly is it?
I don't care to define what the game "is", but as to the combat, it's "tactics light" - about the level of combat crunchiness that tabletop RPGs actually have (unless you are a hard core miniatures and rulers kind of group who would rather be playing Warhammer in the first place). An X-Com level tactical Shadowrun game would be cool, but it's not what they were going for at all.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
I thought Dragonfall combat was better than 95% of the games on the Codex's top 70. You can go back and look at the threads here, there are Codexers who couldn't handle the Very Hard mode. Of course, it's common for Codexers to play on lower difficulties and then complain about games being too easy or shallow, so eh...

One of the nice things about Dragonfall is that there's almost no trash combat. Each encounter is unique, and each one seems to be fairly well thought out (where the enemies are, where cover is, where the turrets are, where the choke points are, if the enemies hold back or rush you, etc.). So, for instance, the ghoul attack in the sewers is a very different encounter than the fighting the corporate soldiers trying to hack into the cybertroll.

There were several fights in Dragonfall that I personally had difficulty with when I first encountered them (like the last fight in Blitz's mission, or the last fight in the Apex mission), and it required a rethinking of my strategy, not just my tactics. For instance, there's about 3 different strategies for the matrix part of the fight alone in Blitz's mission (go after the turrets trying to completely avoid the decker, go after the decker and completely ignore the turrets, or a middle ground where you are switching the turrets while trying to wear down the decker). They yield very different results, and that's not even getting into tactics used for each or the strategies and tactics that your characters in meatspace are going to be using at the same time.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
You get too overpowered, too fast in the nu-Shadowruns, combined with the already mentioned shitty AI and lousy enemy stats, you get a quite trivial and inconsequential combat system, turn-based or not. Some fights are quite cool conceptually, but fall apart due to the lousy micro-structures of the system.
It isn't the best or more complicated tacticool combat ever (and I don't believe this was the intention) but was more than adequate for the games, each weapon had its quirks and functioned on a unique way, the game has flanking mechanics and the fights are all unique without godawful trash mobs to pad the game length. How many games have you fighting on two arenas at the same time with one arena influencing on what happens on the other?
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
What exactly is it? Only a vehicle to show off the setting? When I play the nu-Shadowruns I'm confused as to what the intent of the devs was. I'm not saying this in a bad way, I said I enjoy them, I just don't know what they are about. What is the point?

It is an RPG with tactical turn based combat. On top of that a fairly extensive tool kit to make your own adventures, something explicitly asked for by the community over more in depth and extensive campaigns from the developers by the way.
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
It is an RPG with turn based combat.
Fixed. It's certainly an RPG with turn based combat, that much I can agree on.

Harebrained went out of their way to make every instance of combat a uniquely handcrafted scenario. It's a shame then how basically every aspect of the game's design works to undermine that effort.

  • A.I. is handicapped, never doing more than moving and performing one action on their turn. Your characters have no such limitations and can attack multiple times on their turns. I don't think I need to explain how being to attack at least twice as often as the enemy by default affects the difficulty.
  • Companion inventories, which are filled with medkits, grenades and other useful items, are replenished between every mission. This makes the game's resource management almost non-existent. It also means you always have a consequence-free bag of goodies to fall back on.
  • Cooldowns encourage rote tactics, e.g. spam all your abilities at the start of combat so that they cooldown as fast as possible and you can use them again.
  • Many mechanics are quite wonky and perhaps even broken. I've noticed distance seems to have a very dubious effect on accuracy, for instance.
  • The nu-XCOM AP system where taking a single step costs the same as running to the other side of the room, combined with the fact that you can use your AP's to attack multiple times a turn, discourages movement and encourages staying behind cover and taking potshots at enemies.
The end result is that despite the obvious care put into mission design, combat is a fairly mindless affair, even on the highest dfficulty.
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Is "light tactical combat" a euphemism for "an excuse for shitty AI"? While I applaud HBS for handcrafting every encounter, not having any grinding and sometimes superb encounter design, it's all for naught when it's so easy and you are so freakishly overpowered it doesn't really matter what you do. In Hong Kong, a rigger + Racter can "overclock" a drone to have 6 AP (!). Keep in mind I haven't played Dragonfall yet, so it may be different there, but Returns and Hong Kong were ridiculously easy on the hardest difficulties. The only fight in both games (I haven't completed Hong Kong yet, so can't speak for end-game encounters) I had to reload was my first mission in Hong King, it was where you had to disrupt the qi in the corporate building, the last battle was against a handful of mages who flung nasty AoEs and grenades at you and you are still a newb shadowrunner with not a lot of options.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,886
Is "light tactical combat" a euphemism for "an excuse for shitty AI"? While I applaud HBS for handcrafting every encounter, not having any grinding and sometimes superb encounter design, it's all for naught when it's so easy and you are so freakishly overpowered it doesn't really matter what you do. In Hong Kong, a rigger + Racter can "overclock" a drone to have 6 AP (!). Keep in mind I haven't played Dragonfall yet, so it may be different there, but Returns and Hong Kong were ridiculously easy on the hardest difficulties. The only fight in both games (I haven't completed Hong Kong yet, so can't speak for end-game encounters) I had to reload was my first mission in Hong King, it was where you had to disrupt the qi in the corporate building, the last battle was against a handful of mages who flung nasty AoEs and grenades at you and you are still a newb shadowrunner with not a lot of options.
If you want difficulty play Xcom or JA2. This is a RPG first, a tactical combat game second. On hardest difficulty you could not move wherever, do random actions and still win, that was enough for such a game.

Even with all its faults it was more fun overall than ToEE that had complicated and hard combat but terrible everything else.
 

orcinator

Liturgist
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Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
This is a RPG first, a tactical combat game second.

Which would be tolerable if the stuff you do outside combat was worth a shit.
It is good enough compared to other RPGs in last 10 years. For me Dragonfall was best in out of combat stuff since Kotor 2/MotB.

You walk through narrow hallways, click on the shiny hotspots and sometimes pass a skillcheck (assuming you correctly guessed which etiquettes would have actual use). Yeah that's actually good and not something that makes you wish this game was an actual VN instead of a glorified one so you could get back to the words.

I still have boredom PTSD from the mission where you first meet Gaichu.
 
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Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Is "light tactical combat" a euphemism for "an excuse for shitty AI"? While I applaud HBS for handcrafting every encounter, not having any grinding and sometimes superb encounter design, it's all for naught when it's so easy and you are so freakishly overpowered it doesn't really matter what you do. In Hong Kong, a rigger + Racter can "overclock" a drone to have 6 AP (!). Keep in mind I haven't played Dragonfall yet, so it may be different there, but Returns and Hong Kong were ridiculously easy on the hardest difficulties. The only fight in both games (I haven't completed Hong Kong yet, so can't speak for end-game encounters) I had to reload was my first mission in Hong King, it was where you had to disrupt the qi in the corporate building, the last battle was against a handful of mages who flung nasty AoEs and grenades at you and you are still a newb shadowrunner with not a lot of options.

Ridiculously easy? Now that is just plain exaggeration. I agree that the AI is not the greatest but it was servicable. Racter's Drone might get 6 AP but lasts for one round only. It also does not have the greatest accuracy, mine was hovering between 60% and 70%.

There were other missions I remember which could turn nasty, like when you get some data and then two parties try to persuade to give it to you and you tell both of them to screw themselves while they surround your team with like 10 on each side. If they had perfect AI you would never win this fight, period even with the two round advantage you get.

Though I admit I fully ignore the revive kits, I wish they were not present. An activated revive kit is reason to reload for me.

This is a RPG first, a tactical combat game second.

Which would be tolerable if the stuff you do outside combat was worth a shit.
It is good enough compared to other RPGs in last 10 years. For me Dragonfall was best in out of combat stuff since Kotor 2/MotB.

You walk through narrow hallways, click on the shiny hotspots and sometimes pass a skillcheck (assuming you correctly guessed which etiquettes would have actual use). Yeah that's actually good and not something that makes you wish this game was an actual VN instead of a glorified one so you could get back to the words.

I still have boredom PTSD from the mission where you first meet Gaichu.

What? You can have three fights during that mission if the peaceful solution bores you.
Etiquettes play only a small role overall, there are plenty of other skill checks which you can potentially pass.

It is an RPG with turn based combat.
Fixed. It's certainly an RPG with turn based combat, that much I can agree on.

Harebrained went out of their way to make every instance of combat a uniquely handcrafted scenario. It's a shame then how basically every aspect of the game's design works to undermine that effort.

  • A.I. is handicapped, never doing more than moving and performing one action on their turn. Your characters have no such limitations and can attack multiple times on their turns. I don't think I need to explain how being to attack at least twice as often as the enemy by default affects the difficulty.
  • Companion inventories, which are filled with medkits, grenades and other useful items, are replenished between every mission. This makes the game's resource management almost non-existent. It also means you always have a consequence-free bag of goodies to fall back on.
  • Cooldowns encourage rote tactics, e.g. spam all your abilities at the start of combat so that they cooldown as fast as possible and you can use them again.
  • Many mechanics are quite wonky and perhaps even broken. I've noticed distance seems to have a very dubious effect on accuracy, for instance.
  • The nu-XCOM AP system where taking a single step costs the same as running to the other side of the room, combined with the fact that you can use your AP's to attack multiple times a turn, discourages movement and encourages staying behind cover and taking potshots at enemies.
The end result is that despite the obvious care put into mission design, combat is a fairly mindless affair, even on the highest dfficulty.

If the enemy could attack twice you would no be able to win some fights. The enemy has that much more fire power.
Most companions have like 1 medkit. How does that undermine the economy? In fact HK has by far the most severe restrictions in terms of what you can buy and you have to chose carefully
Some CDs make no sense using at start like Heal for example. Same goes for certain defensive buffs.
I never noticed anything pecular about distance and accuracy. It is lower the farther away the target.
Taking pot shots at the enemy is the safe route but takes a long time since the enemy is fairly adapt at staying in full cover often. Flanking give you much faster combat at the expense of lowered saftey.
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Your drone can get 6 AP, not Racter's, he just provides the skill needed. I haven't come across that fight you are describing, but still, your drones alone have 8-10 AP, that's like having 4-5 additional people on your team every turn. Not to mention the AI very rarely attacks them, so I can safely position them anywhere for max accuracy and devastate the enemies before they know what the fuck. Maybe only riggers are obscenely OP, but I plan on doing a street samurai run sometime, so I'll see if that's the case.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Your drone can get 6 AP, not Racter's, he just provides the skill needed. I haven't come across that fight you are describing, but still, your drones alone have 8-10 AP, that's like having 4-5 additional people on your team every turn. Not to mention the AI very rarely attacks them, so I can safely position them anywhere max accuracy and devastate the enemies before they know what the fuck.

I know it is the drone and it still lasts only 1 round. Mid game you and your companions have 3 AP. Drones are nice but are not even remotely as good as a runner. At best they provide half of what a runner can provide. Also drones drain 1 AP from their riggers so no you do not get "4-5 additional people". In fact early on it is quite the risk using the drone when the Rigger is not tugged away safely.

I agree that the AI is not the greatest but it was servicable

The AI was shit bro, you couldn't even rely on them to make their one offensive action since they loved to just move back and forth for no reason.

Most of the time they take their shot. The back and forth running is most certainly a bug but whatever.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Your own character is pretty useless, so no big deal. Sure, it's not 4-5 people it's 3 and a half - 4 and a half. The drones have 4 AP each at max drone control, Racter only gives 2 AP, so, yeah. The drones provide as much firepower as a standard street samurai, but also provide free grenades or med kits, depending on the type. They can't cast spells, but that's what the runners themselves are for. The AI literally kills itself on Acid Fog, so I wouldn't say it's serviceable.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Your own character is pretty useless, so no big deal. Sure, it's not 4-5 people it's 3 and a half - 4 and a half. The drones have 4 AP each at max drone control, Racter only gives 2 AP, so, yeah. The drones provide as much firepower as a standard street samurai, but also provide free grenades or med kits, depending on the type. They can't cast spells, but that's what the runners themselves are for. The AI literally kills itself on Acid Fog, so I wouldn't say it's serviceable.

What?

And way to overrate Drones.
 

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