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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
Cross, It's weird how you "fixed" HoboForEternity's "light tactical combat" and then went on to complain about how it is light tactical combat. :|
That's not the post I was quoting. I was quoting Sykar's 'It is an RPG with tactical turn based combat. '

I've noticed distance seems to have a very dubious effect on accuracy, for instance.
What you probably "noticed" is that rifles have a penalty for close-range shots. Well, duh, they're rifles.
The examples I'm thinking of involve Mana Bolt and other projectile spells.

If the enemy could attack twice you would no be able to win some fights. The enemy has that much more fire power.
I'm sure Harebrained would've lowered enemy stats if they were capable of attacking more than once per turn, but even with their current stats, I can't imagine them posing much difficulty even if they were able to attack more than once. Due to my natural RPG hoarding instincts, I actually made it comfortably through most of the game before I even realized companion inventories replenished between missions, and this was on the highest difficulty and with a main character that was always lagging behind due to unspent karma points I wasn't sure what to do with.

Furthermore, the A.I. is extremely lacking because not only are enemies scripted to never attack twice, but they're scripted to attack once and move, no matter how little sense it makes. I can't count how many times enemies would shoot and then move to a less advantageous position, often even out of cover, because they just have to move, I guess.

Most companions have like 1 medkit.
You are lying:
2409DF4455DC267611F0D2


Each companion has half a dozen items, usually some mix of medkits, trauma kits and grenades (and occasionally) fetishes and drugs, that replenish between every mission. These can carry you through basically all the battles in any mission, and they replenish after every mission. If you can't comprehend how this trivializes the encounters, I don't know what to tell you.

Some CDs make no sense using at start like Heal for example. Same goes for certain defensive buffs.
Okay, a few make no sense at the start of combat. So that still leaves dozens and dozens of different attacks and spells that are perfectly viable to always spam at the start of combat.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,825
I dont understand what you guys are arguing about now? that the games are easy? Yes, they are retardedly easy, and so is your favorite rpg. So is every highly rated rpg around here. And SR games still manage to be harder than most of them.
You fucking spergs, talk about something worth reading.
"But muh drone has 6 AP" :roll:
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Cross, It's weird how you "fixed" HoboForEternity's "light tactical combat" and then went on to complain about how it is light tactical combat. :|
That's not the post I was quoting. I was quoting Sykar's 'It is an RPG with tactical turn based combat. '

I've noticed distance seems to have a very dubious effect on accuracy, for instance.
What you probably "noticed" is that rifles have a penalty for close-range shots. Well, duh, they're rifles.
The examples I'm thinking of involve Mana Bolt and other projectile spells.

If the enemy could attack twice you would no be able to win some fights. The enemy has that much more fire power.
I'm sure Harebrained would've lowered enemy stats if they were capable of attacking more than once per turn, but even with their current stats, I can't imagine them posing much difficulty even if they were able to attack more than once. Due to my natural RPG hoarding instincts, I actually made it comfortably through most of the game before I even realized companion inventories replenished between missions, and this was on the highest difficulty and with a main character that was always lagging behind due to unspent karma points I wasn't sure what to do with.

Furthermore, the A.I. is extremely lacking because not only are enemies scripted to never attack twice, but they're scripted to attack once and move, no matter how little sense it makes. I can't count how many times enemies would shoot and then move to a less advantageous position, often even out of cover, because they just have to move, I guess.

Most companions have like 1 medkit.
You are lying:
2409DF4455DC267611F0D2


Each companion has half a dozen items, usually some mix of medkits, trauma kits and grenades (and occasionally) fetishes and drugs, that replenish between every mission. These can carry you through basically all the battles in any mission, and they replenish after every mission. If you can't comprehend how this trivializes the encounters, I don't know what to tell you.

Some CDs make no sense using at start like Heal for example. Same goes for certain defensive buffs.
Okay, a few make no sense at the start of combat. So that still leaves dozens and dozens of different attacks and spells that are perfectly viable to always spam at the start of combat.

I was talking about HK but way to be a disingenuous fuckwit. Do you understand what kind of character Glory is? a close combat MEDIC. Dietrich had none and Eiger and Blitz had like 1 or 2 if even that. As to "trivializing" I never needed many consumables anyway so this is a complete non-issue. Money was also plentiful enough and you find enough stuff that even without the automatic replenishment it would not have mattered one jot. Fuckwits like you must really love to complain about non-issues.

As to "spamming" what there are also other spells you do not want to spam on CD. Most AoEs have bad damage/AP ratio if used on single target. For CC you want to have the right target CCed. Spells can get resisted as well. Sometimes you won't be able to use a spell because of AP damage. Sometimes another spell is more important than the one coming off CD.
The combat might be simple but you are way oversimplifying things, no surprise here though considering your blatant agenda, retard.
 
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almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
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.

As others have said, Dragonfall is the best. I thought Returns had a few challenging encounters (though I was also playing as an adept, so my main was a lot weaker than any hire), but yeah, combat in SR:HK is pretty mindless. There was one encounter in the base game that I enjoyed and that felt somewhat challenging (lobby of the fengshui mission), and it's one most people are going to avoid (easily avoidable if you use a decker or pass etiquette challenges). Likewise, the encounter ESh mentioned - in order to get it you not only need to decide to take on both sides, you need to stupidly decide to take on both sides at the same time (the game give you the option to take them on separately).

I can only think of two challenging encounters in the mini-campaign - the mission with the little girl if you decide to take on both corps, and the final mission. And the former is pretty tedious, because they tried to up the challenge by just adding a ton of enemies - meaning you have to wait a long time at the end of each turn as each of the 20-30 enemies runs back and forth in turn. It would have been nice to see fewer more powerful enemies, or them using the boss AI (was that ever used outside of SRR?).

Someone correct me if I'm mis-remembering things, but In Dragonfall I seem to recall some encoutners where the enemy would wait for you behind cover, chokepoints and turrets (they wouldn't all just run out of cover as soon as combat starts like they do in SRHK).
 

Lios

Cipher
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
425
Shadowrun Ching Chong's danger while playing wasn't the AI for sure
it was the danger of banging your head to the screen with unecessary wall of text after wall of text
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,367
Pathfinder: Wrath
Shadowrun HK has too much of flavor text. Maybe the thought process behind the writer is "hey we got shitty graphic engine so instead of animating things we can't let's just write the scene down"
Maybe 25% of the long text are set description (Guy A walk through the rain snickering. He moved gracefully and say "blablala"). It like reading a theater script or something. While the writing style might be good for some more important scene, it being used in EVERYTHING made it annoying.

The writer pretty much learn about this in the post game campaign by reducing the amount of descriptive text during dialogue.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
Ok to summarize:

If you want DRAGONFALL's combat to be challenging, you need to a) play on the hardest setting AND b) modify the AI files (or use the modified AI files) to allow the enemy AI to attack more than once a turn (which is the main problem, since that's also what causes the AI to run out of cover like a moron or cast useless buffs if mage).

There's no way to redeem Hong Kong's combat. At least four of the main game missions were never even finished (if you use the campaign editor to look at the files, you'll see that they were supposed to be much longer, ex. the Restaurant was supposed to have a boat chase finale). And you have the stupid OP cyberware (baseball arm, reload arm, monofilament whip, wired reflexes) and Grenade Launcher. So even if you play on the hardest setting, modify the AI files, AND play an adept you'll still crush everything easily. And that last mission is a complete joke (also unfinished).

DMS you can make more challenging simply by taking less people with you/ no one with you on the missions. DMS hardest setting with both modified (imported from Dragonfall) and improved AI, using only your PC, is quite difficult. And you can add additional challenges like speedrunning as well.
 
Last edited:

KazikluBey

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Feb 10, 2007
Messages
784
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Shadowrun HK has too much of flavor text. Maybe the thought process behind the writer is "hey we got shitty graphic engine so instead of animating things we can't let's just write the scene down"
Maybe 25% of the long text are set description (Guy A walk through the rain snickering. He moved gracefully and say "blablala"). It like reading a theater script or something. While the writing style might be good for some more important scene, it being used in EVERYTHING made it annoying.

The writer pretty much learn about this in the post game campaign by reducing the amount of descriptive text during dialogue.
I think they saw the reception of Dragonfall and the praise they got for the hub and companion dialogue, thought "hey people really liked our writing" and just went overboard with it in HK.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
I think descriptive writing should only be used on important character and if they are doing something important. It gets extremely annoying if everybody and their mothers are scratching their ears or twisting their mustaches. Flavor text shouldn't be substitute for real text also, all kickstarter RPGs had a problem of not enough important dialog on key characters that should have more content and obscene amounts of flavor text on irrelevant shit that are only worthy to be skipped as it is a waste of time to read that garbage.

Obscene example of this is you not having a single fucking one dialog with the fucking king of Defiance Bay while having endless garbage writing about poor random NPC peasant suffering from misogyny on the hands of his evil husband.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
I think descriptive writing should only be used on important character and if they are doing something important. It gets extremely annoying if everybody and their mothers are scratching their ears or twisting their mustaches. Flavor text shouldn't be substitute for real text also, all kickstarter RPGs had a problem of not enough important dialog on key characters that should have more content and obscene amounts of flavor text on irrelevant shit that are only worthy to be skipped as it is a waste of time to read that garbage.

Obscene example of this is you not having a single fucking one dialog with the fucking king of Defiance Bay while having endless garbage writing about poor random NPC peasant suffering from misogyny on the hands of his evil husband.

Imho very few people would divulge that much personal information anyway over such a short period.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The Crafty Xu conversations made me smile because it felt like I might be talking to the writer's idealized Azn waifu. You can't hate on that kind of soul.

As for the amount of writing in Hong Kong compared to Dragonfall, I'm not sure that Hong Kong being rushed is the right way to explain it. You should remember that Dragonfall was a DLC, something to be made on the fumes of DMS' budget. Hong Kong was a separately Kickstarted game, a full-scale premium experience. They just weren't looking to be modest.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
As for the amount of writing in Hong Kong compared to Dragonfall, I'm not sure that Hong Kong being rushed is the right way to look at it. You should remember that Dragonfall was a DLC, something to be made on the fumes of DMS' budget. Hong Kong was a separately Kickstarted game, a full-scale premium experience.

It was incredibly rushed, though. The flashback sequence with Duncan in the prologue mission was written three weeks before the game shipped, according to dev commentary.
But what you say is true, it doesn't make sense that HK is so unpolished compared to Dragonfall, given the presumed budgets. Either HK was severely mismanaged or Jason Liang is right and Dragonfall was lightning in a bottle.

Yeah, I guess it was mismanaged. Wouldn't be the only time something like that has happened. Dragonfall to Hong Kong is like Mask of the Betrayer to Torment: Tides of Numenera. Devs get ambitious, bad stuff happens.

IMO Dragonfall is a really well-made game in that it makes its fans not see how modest it actually is, kind of like a good NWN module. Doesn't work on everybody, though. I value Crooked Bee's contrary opinion on this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-extended-edition.102256/page-36#post-4095507
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
I presume the conversations that go nowhere, which is most of them, in Heoi is HBS' attempt at trying to characterize the hub itself. That's sort of required in hub-based structures, but it does tend to lead to long-winded conversations with merchants. I do like some of the characters that aren't your squad mates in Heoi, though, Ambrose in particular. The drone merchant is also ambitious. The interesting thing about Heoi specifically is that it feels like you are one step ahead of the Hong Kong police and Lone Star, but it also reduces a bit of the tension. You literally have a neighborhood to yourself, a haven safe from the authorities, which kinda goes against the whole shadowrunning thing. What I'm trying to say is that I understand why HBS included the long-winded conversations, but some of them do drag on and don't have a purpose.

I think the better hub would've been the Sinking Ship, at least from the start, before moving on to Heoi. It could've been handled better, but that can be said about every aspect of the game.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
I don't disagree with Crooked Bee on SR: Hong Kong. Looking back over the thread, I was pretty enthused about it initially. But the game doesn't hold up to replay; what's the point of trying out a different build if combat is piss? First time with a physical adept was fun; second time with a cyber zombie was a chore. Also I am still bitter that HBS never went back and patched the game to its potential (by rebalancing the encounter design and restoring the skipped content). Which is even more disappointing since they built the game on a toolset which makes it easy to tinker with and test the encounters. So they basically did 90% of the hard work, and failed to finish the most important 10%.

Except obviously the last mission was a hard fail; that needed crazy demons out of Demon City Shenjoku or something. Compare that to Mercy's personal mission...
 

Magnificate

Novice
Joined
Oct 23, 2015
Messages
41
Well, it's two years after the HK Extended Edition went out, isn't it? The thing I remember most fondly after all that time is actually the ending. Everyone got back to living a normal life and that at least felt like an accomplishment.
 

zool

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
897
I'm about to start my first playthrough of Shadowrun: DMS (I'm completely new to the Shadowrun universe). Are there recommended mods?

I hear you can run the DMS campaign in Shadowun: Dragonfall, is there any point to it?
 

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