Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[dryan]

Basically all that drone is good for is passive tanking of retarded AI fire

That taser helps out once in a while, but the hit chance is kinda sucky. Jana's taser on Trial Run was so much better.

 

[Shadowfang]

My final build was 7 Body, 8 Strength, 8 Close Combat, 5 Melee, 2 Quickness, 2 Dodge, 8 Willpower, 8 Chi Casting. I would have happily traded away the points spent on Quickness and Dodge and the 7th Body to get Pain Resistance.

Tanking with Armor works perfectly fine, and Pain Resistance is basically armor that never disappears.

I did expend most of Glory's health kits as well as my own, but you find so many it is not an issue.

I played on very hard. In short: chi casters have many disadvantages compared to other classes, but no one can deal as much damage in such a short time. A hasted Chi Caster can one-shot almost all non-bosses they attack with that Triple Strike they get + a Slash.

Grunker i salute you. I just reached the MKVI mission with a similar build and its much harder to play than with a cybernetic adept with high dodge.
It plays like a bullet sponge and it kinda works until someone decides an ap grenade is in order. Since i can't dodge squat it doesn't end well.

 

[Grunker]

It's fun and very effective, but it's definetely also lethal in the "when it goes to shit it really goes to shit"-kindda way.

 

[Jools]

I just finshed the vanilla campaign. Very disappointing ending. I didn't quite like the whole section in the bug's lair, but it turned out to be fairly short so I assumed the game would go back to more Gibson-esque stuff after...

Spoiler

Instead I get shitfaced and that's the end of the game. And a very meh one too, I was expecting the no-money surprise, but the whole ending felt rushed or a bit abrupt. Not even a last round at the Union, just a few lines of convo with a handful of NPC, and that's that.

You guys were right. First half was the best, and the game would have benefit from more "side" runs. Decking and the Matrix are also massively under-used, I wonder why they've put it in at all. I think I was in the matrix 3, max 4 times. I would have loved if decking could provide an alternative way to "solve" some levels, rather than being a "forced" path to take when and only when the devs want the player to. As the game is now, there seem to be little to no point to invest points in decking at all, as such a character would turn out to be completely useless in the remaining 99% of the game.

That said, as a human mage, I found myself literally overflowing with KP (which I put in body/dodge and summoning, in the end).

Another big flaw imho is the game's length: took me 13 hours to finish the vanilla campaign. That's not really a lot, although in line with "average" veideogames, I suppose (action-y stuff, though. RPGs tend to last a bit longer, on average).

I still loved the game, especially the first part. I hope modders will make some awesome additional campaigns with the toolkit, or something. Now, time to move on to Dragonfall, hoping that you guys are right about this too, and it therefore will prove awesome. I'm thinking of rolling a pew pew character, for this one...

 

[Gord]

Dragonfall is p. cool if you could at least appriciate some aspects of DMS.
It has much more "normal" Shadowrunner work in it, it has improved on some mechanics, a nice setting and the writing is quite good.
If you have bot the original version and the DC, you could even go for the former first and play it again to appreciate the DC more, but there's nothing wrong with directly playing DC.
It has it's flaws, of course, but then again, what hasn't?

 

[Monocause]

Jools:

Dragonfall is superior to DMS in pretty much all respects. Have fun!

 

[Jools]

Dragonfall is p. cool if you could at least appriciate some aspects of DMS.
It has much more "normal" Shadowrunner work in it, it has improved on some mechanics, a nice setting and the writing is quite good.
If you have bot the original version and the DC, you could even go for the former first and play it again to appreciate the DC more, but there's nothing wrong with directly playing DC.
It has it's flaws, of course, but then again, what hasn't?

That's what I did. I bought the game with DMS and DF, and then played it in order. Really looking forward to playing DF, now.

 

[Sheepherder]

Finished Director's Cut on very hard, using an elf mage/summoner. Previously I tried to play as a straight up nuker. I have to say they improved combat by a lot. On very hard, I used abilities and items I didn't bother using when I played regular Dragonfall earlier. Overall, it was great: the new missions are fun, revised armor and cover mechanics add depth to gameplay and I liked the new HUD. Enemy AI is still retarded though.

Some thoughts on magic and summoning:
With the addition of the new idol, summoning is now a lot more viable. 0% chance for the creatures to break away as long as I stayed close to them with the totem active. Makes for an interesting playstyle where my mage has to stay on the frontlines most of the time. Earth elemental is the best summon.
Damage spells are a waste of APs for the most of the game. I occasionally used flamethrower, but debuffing, temporarily disabling enemies, buffing and healing my own teammates or keeping up with the summon proved to be a lot more effective then wasting APs on something Eiger or my summon can do better.
Spells like mindwipe and confusion seem to be broken, as they do nothing.

 

[Gord]

Spells like mindwipe and confusion seem to be broken, as they do nothing.

Seems the same as Blitz' special ability. According to the Steam forums, HBS is aware of it though and working on a patch.

 

[roshan]

Finished it and enjoyed quite a lot.

Both Versions of the Endfight could have used a Little bit more Power in the difficulty department though.
With 6 AP and the Minigun, the Ork wasn't really a challenge.

Some tweaks like in the APEX-Fight would have been nice.

If i'm going to do a second run one day, i'll probably pick a Samurai/Decker Hybrid.
Glory/Eiger/Dietrich should make a bit of a more powerfull Party then any with Blitz in it.
Which is a shame, he could have been really great if his drone wasn't such an incredible Piece of junk in the later missions.

How did you have 6 AP? I think it's two basic, plus the late game boost, plus the adrenal contractor - and two from haste?

 

[KazikluBey]

How did you have 6 AP? I think it's two basic, plus the late game boost, plus the adrenal contractor - and two from haste?

Drugs, man, drugs.

 

[Duellist_D]

Finished it and enjoyed quite a lot.

Both Versions of the Endfight could have used a Little bit more Power in the difficulty department though.
With 6 AP and the Minigun, the Ork wasn't really a challenge.

Some tweaks like in the APEX-Fight would have been nice.

If i'm going to do a second run one day, i'll probably pick a Samurai/Decker Hybrid.
Glory/Eiger/Dietrich should make a bit of a more powerfull Party then any with Blitz in it.
Which is a shame, he could have been really great if his drone wasn't such an incredible Piece of junk in the later missions.

How did you have 6 AP? I think it's two basic, plus the late game boost, plus the adrenal contractor - and two from haste?

As KazikluBey pointed out, i simply dwelled into Drugs.

So, 3 original AP, Adrenaline Contractor, Haste and one from the "1 AP for 5 rounds" Drug.
The +2 AP Haste-Spell is okay, but i dislike its horrible cooldown, high Castingcost and reduced time of effect.

 

[dryan]

I've started over so many times that now I'm doing Trial Run with my hands tied behind my back. And to think I thought it was hard the first time around...

 

[Jools]

Loving DF. Went for nuker again, in the end, but am enjoying using the rest of the team just as much. It feels exactly like a polished, AA(A) version of DMS. Most of the "creases" have been smoothed out, AI is still shit and mages still only "need" a very limited section of the skilltree (unfair? unbalanced? poor design?), namely Willpower and Spellcasting. But the game DOES feel a lot better. The atmosphere also has improved a bit, I love the bazar and all the details that have been put into the visual aspect of the area(s).

Provisionary score: 8/10, would fuck again.

 

[roshan]

So I beat this about a week ago, and I must say, this is probably the best RPG since Arcanum. Awesome stuff! Beautiful graphics, great gameplay, a fun combat system, excellent setting. Loved the CnC. Very, very well put together. Should I still play the original game after this? Or will it just be a disappointment?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

best RPG since Arcanum

 

[Athelas]

I'm playing the director's cut for the first time (haven't touched Dead Man's Switch or vanilla Dragonfall) and I'm not sure what all the high praise is about. Combat is entertaining enough, but not exactly mindblowing. I don't care for the nu!Xcom-style movement system. Also, cooldowns. The cover system is interesting though.

It uses the patented Bioware 'three dialogue choices that all say the same thing' system. Setting doesn't seem particularly memorable or well-thought out (a cyberpunk setting that has elves, dwarves and orcs is IMO worse than a regular high-fantasy affair). The writing in general comes off as a bit trying too hard, especially with the emotionally engaging companions (TM Bioware again). More in general, the whole game has a feeling of being very 'lite' that is rather off-putting.

I will say one thing though: the music is fantastic, better than any of the other Kickstarter RPG's by far.

 

[dryan]

Setting doesn't seem particularly memorable or well-thought out (a cyberpunk setting that has elves, dwarves and orcs is IMO worse than a regular high-fantasy affair).

I wish I could stab you over the internet.

 

[Crichton]

Setting doesn't seem particularly memorable or well-thought out (a cyberpunk setting that has elves, dwarves and orcs is IMO worse than a regular high-fantasy affair).

I wish I could stab you over the internet.

I think I'll split the difference on this one. I think the Shadowrun setting is memorable but not well thought-out. I think the way it handles metahumans, in particular, is one of its strong suits. The real problem is all the random 80's derp that got thrown in alongside (tribals, flux-state, Jap-crap). In the case of Daggerall, I've only just finished it so I'll post more impressions later, but I thought the writing was one of its best points. The main three companion characters were all well-written and well-integrated into the setting and yeah, in the back of your mind, you still know that dragon-emperors and the flux state are silly, but you don't care.

 

[DeepOcean]

Setting doesn't seem particularly memorable or well-thought out (a cyberpunk setting that has elves, dwarves and orcs is IMO worse than a regular high-fantasy affair).

Depends of what you mean by well-tought out, shadowrun setting is really great. If there is a problem is that politics on shadowrun sucks and Dragonfall is a bit too political, the weakest part of the setting, the politics is outdated, require huge leaps of faith without proper explanation and is a bit too preachy (Soviet Union existing until 2033, japan becoming an empire and dominating the global economy, indians somehow going from a few thousand people to repopulate huge areas of the USA on just one generation, obcession with enviromentalism crap, fashion anarchists/punks everywhere, it's all outdated 80's stuff.).

Anyway, the best of the setting is the cyberpunk corp dystopia/decaying society/techno horror + fantasy elements and the impact of said fantasy elements on the corp dystopia that was little explored on both Dragonfall and DMS, honestly that Kreuzbasar nonsense and that Flux State nonsense with its fashion punks is annoying. Cyberpunk and idealism are things that don't go well together.

 

[roshan]

Has there been a single RPG since then that is better than Dragonfall? Because if there has, it has escaped me...

 

[SwiftCrack]

Directors Cut? Probably not.

Original? D: OS full version.

 

[roshan]

I'm playing the director's cut for the first time (haven't touched Dead Man's Switch or vanilla Dragonfall) and I'm not sure what all the high praise is about. Combat is entertaining enough, but not exactly mindblowing. I don't care for the nu!Xcom-style movement system. Also, cooldowns. The cover system is interesting though.

Cooldowns per se are not a bad mechanic unto themselves. It depends on the context in which they are implemented.

It uses the patented Bioware 'three dialogue choices that all say the same thing' system.

I don't think this is correct? I don't recall situations where picking different dialogue options led to the same replies (and I did in fact reload several times to try different conversation nodes during the NPC chats and key encounters during missions, with different replies).

Setting doesn't seem particularly memorable or well-thought out (a cyberpunk setting that has elves, dwarves and orcs is IMO worse than a regular high-fantasy affair). The writing in general comes off as a bit trying too hard, especially with the emotionally engaging companions (TM Bioware again).

Yeah, I got that feel as well. Sadly this thing has been going on for quite some time and I fear that Planescape Torment is to blame for it all. (Not being sarcastic here, but it comes with maturity. PST companions felt complex and deep as a teenager but I'm not sure how well they hold up at 30 years of age). Even MOTB companions like Gann, Kaelwyn etc. came off as trying way too hard, as I recall.

More in general, the whole game has a feeling of being very 'lite' that is rather off-putting.

I will say one thing though: the music is fantastic, better than any of the other Kickstarter RPG's by far.

Do you mean in terms of mechanics?

 

[Crichton]

After waiting for the DC to start playing, I finally finished it last night, not going to be the game of the year, but might have been not too long back. It's a leaps-and-bounds improvement over Dead Man Switch.

Spoiler

My runner was a troll heavily invested in using a rifle with smaller investments in spellcasting and charisma; a sort of street paladin.

You might think that since I created a character with essentially the same build as Eiger that I'd use her less but Ahnold basically spent the entire game frantically humping her leg. Sadly there was no bioware-style troll-on-troll sex option. For pretty much every mission, I took Dietrich (because I actually liked him), Eiger (unrequited lust, she never even thanked Ahnold for lending her an assault rifle for the early missions)) and Blitz (because I was desperately afraid of losing out on something by not bringing a decker even though I hated him).

Speaking of Blitz, it's as if the writers carefully thought about how Glory, Eiger and Dietrich would fit into the setting and wrote a nice little backstory for each of them and then much later in the process, a designer came by and yelled "There's no decker, you fruits! There has to be a decker NPC!" Next run going's to be with a rigger/decker so I can leave Blitz's dumb ass back at the curiosity shop.

The writing was a gigantic improvement over DMS, particularly in the absence of evil space insects, but also in the companions and minor NPCs. After DMS, I kind of got the impression that HBS were just a bunch of Shadowrun fans with no idea how to design a game. But either I was wrong or they've improved dramatically.

Ahnold was a rifleman because that was the best weapon for a high ranged-combat character in DMS but it looks like all the guns are pretty useful now. I think the fact that rifle feeds into both assault rifles and sniper rifles means that it's still the most useful but SMGs and pistols are pretty hot too. Pity about shotguns.

The only gameplay problems I thought were significant were the loopy AI and the occasional inability to move a character exactly where I wanted to because the cursor kept highlighting some nearby clickable object/character.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Cyberpunk and idealism are things that don't go well together.

Do you realize that the people who originally created Cyberpunk put it together with idealism? Well, a sliding scale of idealism vs cynicism but back in the late 70's and early 80's, the whole point of cyberpunk emerging was to marry "20 minutes into the future" low sci-fi with ideals of punk. Both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 had it from Day 1. William Gibson's Neuromancer had it, FFS.