Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[Gondolin]

I've just finished the APEX run, and although I'm really enjoying the game, I have to say the last fight of the run was dissapointing.

Not that this game is difficult by any means, but when you face 2 hordes that sorround you, I expected a bit of a challenge. I mean, I didn't even have to hack any of the turrets! Glory and Dietrich took care of the left, and my MC and Eiger of the right, and only Eiger was hit twice in the entire fight...

I didn't finish the game. The APEX run was so tedious, I simply quit.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I'm pretty satisfied with this game. There are not many games around that allowed me

Spoiler

to use a cyberzombie with a minigun and befriend "a brain eating" warfare AI. I also let APEX took control of the Great Dragon

Combat is harder and better than DMS but still easy most of the time, thanks to shallow AI who only shots one or casts some offensive spell before buffing its accuracy...

 

[thesheeep]

or casts some offensive spell before buffing its accuracy...

Yeah, that really made me laugh sometimes. The sheer inability to target someone useful with the accuracy spell. Most of the time the caster either targets himself, which doesn't make too much sense if all the caster does is buffing, or he targets someone who doesn't have any AP left for this turn.

I know that randomness makes AI more interesting, but this one went a bit too far with it

 

[Gord]

It also makes -AP debuffs much less useful. Unless you do enough AP damage that an enemy is stunned, AP reducing abilities are almost useless.
What does it matter if I bring him down to 1AP if he is anyway only using one offensive action?

 

[Cyberarmy]

They also like to waste their heal on minor 1/2 bleed damages a lot.

 

[Morkar Left]

Doesn't this stop the bleeding? I really don't know, never was in such dire need to notice.

 

[Vibalist]

The problem with Shadowrun Returns is that it presents the illusion of choice when there is none. The presentation is dishonest.

You can click any dialogue choice in the first campaign and it didn't matter what you chose, the result was always the same. You can click randomly and you will have the exact same experience as every other player. The same is true 99+% for Dragonfall.

At best they will have a slightly different reaction to your dialogue choice before saying the exact same canned response that they say for all the other dialogue options.

People sometimes forget that freedom of choice in an RPG can also mean freedom in terms of gameplay. Even though Dragonfall is by no means Deus Ex, it still offers you some situations where you'll progress through a mission differently depending on your skill sets. Do you hack the elevator in the nightclub or charm the owner in order to get to the hotel area? Do you fight your way through the Aztechnology run or do you have the necesarry etiquettes, charisma and decking skills to avoid most of the fighting, and so on. I wouldn't call it emerging gameplay as such, but it's the same basic idea. I especially liked that they learned from their mistake in Dead Man's Switch and added more decking and rigging opportuneties.

 

[circ]

I felt like the story and dialogue in Dragonfall could have been written by BioWare at times. And I'm not alluding to teh gays.

Anyway, I started doing Glory's convos really late and she kept going - we'll talk later 'k? and I'm now doing APEX hax mission, before going back to mansion or something - that mean I can't complete that one? Only picked it up because I thought I had to do that one to get the +AP cyberware but I didn't. Is there any point in any of them?

Also, is there any point at all to make a decker in DMS? Spam mark target?

EDIT: Oh and, I haven't seen a single shadowrunner etiquette check - waste of etiquette?

 

[Excidium]

Also, is there any point at all to make a decker in DMS? Spam mark target?

Not worth it.

EDIT: Oh and, I haven't seen a single shadowrunner etiquette check - waste of etiquette?

Yes, it isn't checked once in the entire game as far as I know.

 

[Owlish]

The problem with Shadowrun Returns is that it presents the illusion of choice when there is none. The presentation is dishonest.

You can click any dialogue choice in the first campaign and it didn't matter what you chose, the result was always the same. You can click randomly and you will have the exact same experience as every other player. The same is true 99+% for Dragonfall.

At best they will have a slightly different reaction to your dialogue choice before saying the exact same canned response that they say for all the other dialogue options.

People sometimes forget that freedom of choice in an RPG can also mean freedom in terms of gameplay. Even though Dragonfall is by no means Deus Ex, it still offers you some situations where you'll progress through a mission differently depending on your skill sets. Do you hack the elevator in the nightclub or charm the owner in order to get to the hotel area? Do you fight your way through the Aztechnology run or do you have the necesarry etiquettes, charisma and decking skills to avoid most of the fighting, and so on. I wouldn't call it emerging gameplay as such, but it's the same basic idea. I especially liked that they learned from their mistake in Dead Man's Switch and added more decking and rigging opportuneties.

RPG lites like Dishonored offers all of this in spades, then.

 

[Gord]

This stuff is true for almost every RPG with a somewhat linear story, though.

 

[Vibalist]

The problem with Shadowrun Returns is that it presents the illusion of choice when there is none. The presentation is dishonest.

You can click any dialogue choice in the first campaign and it didn't matter what you chose, the result was always the same. You can click randomly and you will have the exact same experience as every other player. The same is true 99+% for Dragonfall.

At best they will have a slightly different reaction to your dialogue choice before saying the exact same canned response that they say for all the other dialogue options.

People sometimes forget that freedom of choice in an RPG can also mean freedom in terms of gameplay. Even though Dragonfall is by no means Deus Ex, it still offers you some situations where you'll progress through a mission differently depending on your skill sets. Do you hack the elevator in the nightclub or charm the owner in order to get to the hotel area? Do you fight your way through the Aztechnology run or do you have the necesarry etiquettes, charisma and decking skills to avoid most of the fighting, and so on. I wouldn't call it emerging gameplay as such, but it's the same basic idea. I especially liked that they learned from their mistake in Dead Man's Switch and added more decking and rigging opportuneties.

RPG lites like Dishonored offers all of this in spades, then.

Yes, this is true. But what keeps a game like Dishonored from being an RPG is that completing tasks is dependent on player skill and not character skill. In Dragonfall it's largely the opposite.

 

[Roguey]

Yes, this is true. But what keeps a game like Dishonored from being an RPG is that completing tasks is dependent on player skill and not character skill. In Dragonfall it's largely the opposite.

Tactical combat requires player skill, as does any game that's worth a damn.

 

[circ]

I am confused about Glory. People profess that she's a badass team mate, but um how? Even late game her ranged is horrible, even outdone by Blitz who's not even specced for that, and her melee is semi-impressive -- after haste and injection. Meanwhile Dante kicks ass with no need for haste. BUT SHES A HEALAR TOO DUED! Who cares?

Also, is there a way to use the editor to add in a team mate? Blitz choice of ESP nags the hell out of me. Who the hell picks exploder when you have assassin available. His stats are fine, although why he's dual specced for rigging I don't know as he blows at it. But dat ESP, I'd probably change around the programs too.

 

[dryan]

I played a samurai, so I had no use for Glory up until the last mission, when I wanted to use her just for plot significance and was pretty disappointed.

 

[DeepOcean]

I am confused about Glory. People profess that she's a badass team mate, but um how? Even late game her ranged is horrible, even outdone by Blitz who's not even specced for that, and her melee is semi-impressive -- after haste and injection. Meanwhile Dante kicks ass with no need for haste. BUT SHES A HEALAR TOO DUED! Who cares?

When you are with a melee character with alot of hitpoints, those powerful med packs are alot useful especially when you don't want to waste points in intelligence to get biotech.

 

[Vibalist]

Yes, this is true. But what keeps a game like Dishonored from being an RPG is that completing tasks is dependent on player skill and not character skill. In Dragonfall it's largely the opposite.

Tactical combat requires player skill, as does any game that's worth a damn.

Did you notice I wrote "largely down to character skill" instead of "entirely"? I know perfectly well that any game requires the player to have at least some degree of skill, but what seperates an RPG from an action game or a FPS is that in an RPG success is also dependent on the skill level of your character. If you want to hit a wooden ledge with a rope arrow in Thief it's purely down to your own aim whether you succeed. In Dragonfall there'd be a skill check.

I think it's one of those discussions we've had approximately 1 billion times on this forum.

 

[circ]

I am confused about Glory. People profess that she's a badass team mate, but um how? Even late game her ranged is horrible, even outdone by Blitz who's not even specced for that, and her melee is semi-impressive -- after haste and injection. Meanwhile Dante kicks ass with no need for haste. BUT SHES A HEALAR TOO DUED! Who cares?

When you are with a melee character with alot of hitpoints, those powerful med packs are alot useful especially when you don't want to waste points in intelligence to get biotech.

I did try a melee sam. And you have a pretty good chance when your stats get up there of putting everything you hit to sleep for a round because of -ap with melee. Meanwhile Glory does an amazing -1 hp of bleeding for a round. Wow.

 

[circ]

Ok I played through it. I'm not sure I'll do it again because super-linear. Glory's storyline was extremely retarded. Dietrich's was straight out of Hellblazer, but not retarded so that's something. Rest of the NPC's were ok.
Rest of the story was good, nice twist. At one point I was convinced Audran was Vauclair or whatever his name was.

Spoiler

Killed APEX because LUL YOU KILL TONS OF PEOPLE AND EXPECT EVERYTHING TO BE COOL? FUCK NO.
Let Feuerschwinge burn because, see above. Did not see further twist coming. OH WELL.
Game lacks option to put a bullet in Lofwyr's head, even if it does nothing. Fuck your cheesy as fuck philosoraptoring.

Still. If this is all there is, how horribly bad is DMS then. Because I wouldn't recommend this unless someone gives it to you for free. 0 replay. Guess it works as a container for future content but gameplay needs major work not to mention UI.
Also, matrix is HORRIBLY BAD. Fucking Neuromancer from circa 1986 had the same matrix almost 30 years ago. Seriously, you can't improve on 30 year old design?

 

[Galdred]

Replayability in RPG is overrated, I have never been able to force myself to replay any RPG, however replayable it was even though my OCD allows me to restart 3/4th into the game because my build is sub optimal :
Even when they are pretty open, RPG are far below sandbox strategy games when it comes to replayability.

 

[circ]

It's not that hard to even throw in some illusion of replayability. Give the player a mission or two that are different depending on what groupmates you use or how your performance is or who you've talked to whatever. Or just recycle maps and write a different scenario. Right now talking to any of your groupmates has zero impact on anything, there's like a hint of flavor text and that's it. You can't screw up either as dying just has you reload a save, and non groupmate npc's are just flavor text - when they die.

 

[Gord]

You don't need to do all runs in one playthrough (of course, if you did that argument becomes invalid) and esp. the bloodlines run can be approached differently, depending on your character. Several of the other runs can be resolved differently, although that mostly will result in some different flavor text.
And of course you can choose differently in the APEX run, and while it doesn't have huge ramifications and comes pretty late, it will change a few things.
And finally one might want to try out a different character class.

Unfortunately they've thrown away some easy ways to score a few points on the C&C side, e.g. the mission for the weapons dealer or the ghouls in the sewer come to mind. Both could have been resulted easily in some small consequences later, most prominently during the attack on the Kreuzbasar.

Anyway, a game doesn't need to offer major branching to be replayable. With Dragonfall I'd say the atmosphere is great and a good reason to play it again eventually.
If a game delivers fun and good atmo, I can live with it being linear (esp. if it cost me less than 15€).
Not so much the other way round.

 

[Morkar Left]

I'm not much into replaying rpgs but I still appreciate having different outcomes depending on your choices / performance. It's really satisfying to see your actions can have different results.
Usually I'm replaying games only years later, but I restart often in the first quarter of the game till I have found the char that is the most interesting for me. In SR I always end up with a decker...

What I lked most in Dragonfall was the the multilayered story. There was a lot of grey in it and even philosophical questions to think about, not just Good/Evil. You see something like that very rarely in games.

 

[eremita]

Anyone tried the Tablet version? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it a lot different?

Spoiler

?

 

[Roguey]

Did you notice I wrote "largely down to character skill" instead of "entirely"? I know perfectly well that any game requires the player to have at least some degree of skill, but what seperates an RPG from an action game or a FPS is that in an RPG success is also dependent on the skill level of your character. If you want to hit a wooden ledge with a rope arrow in Thief it's purely down to your own aim whether you succeed. In Dragonfall there'd be a skill check.

I think it's one of those discussions we've had approximately 1 billion times on this forum.

Success in role playing games that use real-time action for combat resolution is also modified by character skill. Regardless of the model used, people who are good can succeed with poorly built characters and people who are bad will struggle even with optimal builds.