Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[Infinitron]

Was the new, bugged hit chance visible or would it appear as soemthing higher?

It was visible. But I'm pretty sure this should be fixed in DC

 

[ArchAngel]

It's not even that I didn't get the flank. The guy got a cover damage reduction.

I think tacking on the cover mechanic is part of what makes DC more difficult than DF. In the original you could just get your guys in cover buff the PC and exchange bullets until you win. Repeated full auto attacks usually out damaged anything the enemies had. With the introduction of the blocked and cover damage reductions instead of HC reductions an 11 damage assault rifle can have hits as weak as 3. Which means you either need to flank or get people out of cover, doing the latter means relying on your companions and their extremely low hit chances which doesn't work well. The flanking option means constantly moving your PC which means less attacks which means less damage. That would be alright if your opposition would have been as incompetent as your friends, but they're not. Seeing as they can actually hit people they can spread out and actually take advantage of the flanking mechanic, even if they do so incidentally. Which brings it back to combat being a damage race. With chances stacked against you it's very hard to go through it without getting very lucky, which is a shame.

They have the ideas that can make a great turn based combat system but they took the lazy way out. They made it purely about the numbers. If they made hit chances much higher this could've been an interesting combat system which stresses positioning, instead they made it about RNG. The former could still be the case on lower difficulties but only if the AI is better, which I doubt. On very hard the intentionaly stupid AI is the only thing keeping you alive. I saw someone mention how rigidly coded they are. Only throwing grenades when at least 2 people are pressed to each other. Forget about that, how about the fact that they rarely focus anyone? I lost count of how many times I had a guy who is one hit away and the enemy that is in front of him runs back, takes cover and shoots someone else.

Overall I'm genuinely disappointed, kinda strange since I don't have much faith in these people. I think I mentioned before that I think these guys are either lazy or incompetent. They had an interesting simple mechanic but they didn't know or didn't try to implement it properly. They just tacked it onto an existing game without modifying anything else to actually make it an inherent part of the game rather than an afterthought.

Actually cover does not reduce damage, only armor does. Cover gives reduced hit chance and protects you from critical hits. Blocked means your damage didn't exceed enemy armor value.

I think their system is good, but the cover system needs to be more similar to Xcom with the angles of when it applies and when it does not.

The other problems you have is about playing on Very Hard. The game mechanics are usually made for Normal difficulty, if a player plays above that he must take the increased difficulty in the way it is made or don't play on it.
To me it just sounds like whining. Just like people that whined how on Impossible in Xcom 2012 enemy gets higher life and better hit and critical chance. Grenades could not one shot some enemies like before and Thin men now became crit men and just trading shots while behind cover didn't work anymore and people used same stupid excuses for whining like you are now.

 

[Athelas]

Actually cover does not reduce damage, only armor does. Cover gives reduced hit chance and protects you from critical hits. Blocked means your damage didn't exceed enemy armor value.

Not what the creators of the game say:

So we decided to break this system down into something with more cause and effect. In the Director’s Cut, shooting through medium and heavy cover now reduce your critical hit % to 0 – you’ll always either do 1.0x damage or 0.5x damage. Shooting through Light Cover, you’ll always do 1.0x damage, no more or less. This goes for the enemy’s attacks as well of course, so using cover will become much more important for all involved. If you’re caught out in the open, or you are flanked, the chance to take critical damage is going to increase drastically – you’ll always take 1.0x or greater damage. If you want to dispatch enemies quickly – and safely – you’ll want to flank them, and attack them from behind cover.

Being in medium or heavy cover does result in less damage (or rather, the chance to take less damage). There's also nothing in there about cover affecting hit chance.

 

[ArchAngel]

Not what the creators of the game say:

Being in medium or heavy cover does result in less damage (or rather, the chance to take less damage). There's also nothing in there about cover affecting hit chance.

You are mistaking terms. Reducing damage and not getting critically hit is two different mechanics. Armor reduces damage, cover protects vs critical hits.

And I did say it reduces hit chance but I was not sure if I was right when writing it but I left it all the same knowing someone would correct me soon if I was wrong :D

 

[Nevill]

I found the cover mechanics easily abused by shamans, or rather, their earth elementals.

Summon a big one, cluster around it, cast Heavy Cover, walk up to the enemies, shoot them at point-blank. Makes all supposedly difficult last/boss fights trivial.

And yeah, I can relate to the companions not being able to hit the broad side of a barn even after all the buffs. Couldn't understand the love for Glory when her claws just don't connect. However, they get better at it for the last set of missions. Maybe it's the enemy dodge progression that is retarded.

 

[Alfons]

I finished the game with a shitty, badly made melee adept that tried being a knife thrower and shaman at same time and lost essence with shitty cyberware, if my character finished the game easy even on very hard, any other character build can finish it too. I remember Eiger cutting enemies to pieces with her sniper rifle and later an assault rifle I bought for her and I remember Glory melee attacks and a taser gun were really helpful so those supposed ultra low hit rates didn't impacted me.

This is a my word versus yours type of thing. I can't shit hit shit. you can? Ok.

Never allow the combat to be this way, I think you are insisting on playing Director's Cut as if it was Dragonfall and it is not. Don't try to shoot enemies through heavy cover, always pay attention if an enemy is out of cover and focus fire on him, if a runner is marked as flanked (you can see on the tooltip) get him the fuck out of there and try to flank the bitches but always paying attention if your character can be flanked.

I explained in detail why I get motherfucked. When I try to play it like DC wants you to play it.

When you know how to play, RNG is a non-issue and that is true for most RPGs. I've seen plenty of whining about RNG and most of the time is the player doing stupid shit like forgetting there is reaction fire and walking their guys on the middle of a group of enemies on NuXCOM, for example, then complaining when the RNG doesn't save them from their mistakes.

RNG is a non issue only when it's not insanely low or when certain conditions can be met. I said, in optimal conditions I still rarely hit.

I think they could make the cover mechanics better, especially by making clearer on what situations you are flanked and what are the rules of flanking but the system they implemented actually made the game better because lazy tactics like assault rifle + burst fire behind cover aren't so easy to pull off as before (while still pretty much effective) and cover is much more relevant now so if their system worked even if a bit wonky how are they incompetent? I think your butthurt is stopping you to learn how the cover system works.

Just observation and deduction. Turrets are perma flanked because they are not in cover. Cover works inconsisntelntly etc.

The first time I played, I got murdered and I didn't understand what was going on until I got that a single metal box even if heavy cover is actually terrible cover unless the enemies are far away from you as on reality if you expect a single box will protect you from multiple angles, you are going to be disappointed. I learned that the game was only to shoot enemies out of cover and never allow my guys to be flanked even if that meant retreat, stun grenades and crowd control became alot more important too.

I like retreating but certain maps simply don't allow it. The whole flanking thing relies on team tactics and with a crap team it doesn't work well.

There was actually a bug a while back.... that every time you reloaded the game your difficulty setting in terms hit/miss percentages would get reapplied and it would stack. Supposedly they fixed it. But if you honestly can't hit the enemy at all and they always hit you, there's a chance you have that bug.

That might actually be it. I had a problem when downloading the game to steam. Is there a place to download the patch manually?

 

[eXalted]

There is a community by the name Shadowrun Identity which have a goal to turn some of the original sourcebooks into UGCs. And apparantly they released the first one yesterday - Maria Mercurial.
As far as I know they are around 10 people and there is a little more work on the UGC.

Here it is - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=499423132

And here is information about their upcoming projects - http://www.shadowrun.com/forums/discussion/42509/news-from-shadowrun-identity

I'm thinking of playing it to sate my hunger until Hong Kong arrives.

Just thought you might be interested.



I don't know if it's permitted to post links to outside forums... if not... free speech riot!

 

[ArchAngel]

Just observation and deduction. Turrets are perma flanked because they are not in cover. Cover works inconsisntelntly etc.

Why is this a problem? Turrets are stationary objects that are easy to hit, of course they are flanked and you do criticals on them. They got good armor to compensate.

 

[almondblight]

So...apparently the guy who did Shadowrun: Unlimited is going to try to license the Shadowrun IP from MS to make yet another isometric turn-based Shadowrun series:

I have some news... I'm selling my nightclub and starting my own little indie game dev company! I'm currently slugging away at my first title in my free time. I have the mechanics for it down, I'm just in the process of building levels. I'm thinking about doing a Kickstarter to get some funds to pay people to build me some better meshes and textures to make it gorgeous... Looking to launch within a couple months. As for my next title, after this ones (hopefully) generates some revenue, I'll be looking at doing a proper remake of Shadowrun Unlimited (or a heavily influenced non-"shadowrun" version if Microsoft is a real pain about the IP). It will be nice not working in the bounds of the Shadowrun Returns system.

 

[naossano]

I thought HBS owned Shadowrun...

 

[almondblight]

I thought HBS owned Shadowrun...

HBS is licensing the IP from MS (they tried to blame the initial situation with the DRM on this), and Cliffhanger is doing the same. I believe HBS will be licensing Battletech from them as well.

 

[Jaesun]

Yes, Microsoft own both Shadowrun and Battletech. They own all(?) FASA games.

 

[SCO]

Basically, i agree with Alfons, but my conclusions are a bit different. Dragonfall could have been a well, not completely worthy due to lack of stances and elevation, but at least a 'adequate' successor to jagged alliance. But they're cutting corners on all the wrong places for a truly phenomenal combat experience, and it's on purpose not to alienate (more) the dumbfucks. I mean when mods have to implement your stealth system for you... well. Not to mention the AI being ultra-rigid (i also noticed it only using grenades with > 1 in range, even when they're stun grenades) and not using 'player' tools like overwatch, prioritizing a single target, or using all the APs to shoot as mentioned.

 

[Gord]

Why would one expect JA level combat from the SRR games? That's a completely different focus to what they are/have been aiming for with those games.
Even if they would implement all those things that would make sense, like better AI, improved AP use, use of certain skills, etc, it would still not be close to the scope of the JA games.

 

[Excidium II]

Why would one expect JA level combat from the SRR games? That's a completely different focus to what they are/have been aiming for with those games.
Even if they would implement all those things that would make sense, like better AI, improved AP use, use of certain skills, etc, it would still not be close to the scope of the JA games.

Is it wrong to expect Shadowrun combat too?

 

[Ninjerk]

Why would one expect JA level combat from the SRR games? That's a completely different focus to what they are/have been aiming for with those games.
Even if they would implement all those things that would make sense, like better AI, improved AP use, use of certain skills, etc, it would still not be close to the scope of the JA games.

It would be a step in the right direction.

 

[SCO]

Why would one expect JA level combat from the SRR games? That's a completely different focus to what they are/have been aiming for with those games.
Even if they would implement all those things that would make sense, like better AI, improved AP use, use of certain skills, etc, it would still not be close to the scope of the JA games.

I read that and i can only think: why can't things be good instead of shallow?
It's not 'focus' whatever that means that prevented most of those those features (except maybe systemic overwatch ambushes if they couldn't hack it) but deliberate design decisions to condescend to player intelligence even on 'very hard'. Just look at the bosses using all of their AP on a single target.
I don't like to be treated like a child when i ask for a tactical game - especially with the seams of the attitude showing on the mechanics - if you're going to do it, at least hide it.

One thing that Dragonfall did right by the wrong approach - probably by accident because savegames would get fucked - was the limited inventory and no resting, which plenty of people were annoyed by (including me to be honest, but only because of how freaking dumb it was not to be able to drop stuff to pick up weapons for instance).

 

[Gord]

Nah, don't get me wrong, all those suggestions make sense and I would welcome them, but JA is still something else entirely.
Wouldn't mind a JA-like game set in the SR universe, either, but it's obvious that the SRR games were never meant to be something like that.

 

[eXalted]

Playing the Mercurial UGC right now. That car prop seems familiar

Spoiler

 

[Duellist_D]

Keep us updated on the quality of it.

 

[naossano]

(overall stuff).

One should not forget that those two games were designed to also work on a very limited plateform, beside PC, and considering that, the result seems quite impressive.
Let's see what they could improve on their next PC exclusive Shadowrun game.

 

[Excidium II]

One should not forget that those two games were designed to also work on a very limited plateform, beside PC, and considering that, the result seems quite impressive.

Cease this bullshit already. SRR was never limited by platform.

 

[Athelas]

One should not forget that those two games were designed to also work on a very limited plateform, beside PC, and considering that, the result seems quite impressive.
Let's see what they could improve on their next PC exclusive Shadowrun game.

Why would a turn-based game be limited by being designed to run on a tablet?

 

[Alfons]

I removed the game from steam and redownloaded it. It seems like either the installation got fucked up or it didn't update, or it might be placebo, but hit chances seem higher. Since the reinstall I had only one area that completely fucked me up. On the Humanis datasteal I decided to fuck over everyone. I forgot that during the last part of the mission when you leave the building there is a big showdown against the humanis guys. If you screw over the smugglers that battle is like 10 people against your 4 or 5. It didn't help that my autosave got fucked up and Dietrich's nephew fucking disappeared.

Overall. this is one of the most boring games I played recently. At this point I think the only reason I enjoyed these games when I played them when they were fresh is because I haven't played any TB games in a while at that time. But me being the fucking idiot that I am I actually wasted a few more hours trying another build Christ, I thought the game was slow with a gun character. If you ever need something that will put you to sleep try playing a rigger on very hard.

 

[Lord Azlan]

I don't really like reading loads of text in game.

In the last couple of days I gave this game another chance having previously not even finished the first encounter.

I am now finding it quite enjoyable and reading and exploring a world that I had not encountered before. I even like the conversation banter between the characters and also like the graphics style which are excellent.

Thanks to reviewer and comments on this thread. Without the Codex Curator I would not have come across this one.