Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Deleted member 7219]

Also got Good Fortune on my first try.

Spoiler

But my conversation with Crafty is about the same. She didn't acknowledge Aljernon's presence either.
Her dialogue tree seem to stopped progressing after "You looked dog tired". Then I asked her to send a copy of the notes to me.
Her emails only went through after several runs though, did you read both of them?

Spoiler

Didn't know the first requirement but I chose it because it sounds like the right thing to say during the heat of the moment.
The phrase is not even out of place or in-your-face like these exposition-heavy npcs conversations.
It just sounded so natural, blending into your conversation with your bro and your established history with Raymond.

They REALLY should implement more of these subtle but critical dialogue options that demand the players to invest in the story itself instead of clicking the dialogue with the green text.
And maybe erase the (GLARING TIPS) for etiquette, stat and skill checks altogether.

One of the best things about Pillars of Eternity was being able to hide the glaring obviousness of the skill checks. I would love to be able to turn off the unattainable skill checks as a minimum. That way, you don't know what you could have done. Most RPGs have this as a default, but for some reason the Shadowrun games don't.

 

[V_K]

To be more precise, you get 2^3 endings

Not really because one of the variables has 3 states, and in one of these states one other variable becomes irrelevant.

 

[Gozma]

Yeah, I wish someone had a good paradigm for making stuff like getting the "golden ending" in this kind of RPG hard enough that you won't be able to do it on the first try by just talking to everyone (yet still is somehow a test of some kind of investigative skill, which you would be better at on replay).

I missed the golden ending in MotB on the first try because one of the hotspots you need to click on doesn't get highlighted by holding down Tab. Just that kind of silly accident made me enjoy the game a ton more due to having to choose a tradeoff ending, and gave me impetus for a replay.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, I wish someone had a good paradigm for making stuff like getting the "golden ending" in this kind of RPG hard enough that you won't be able to do it on the first try by just talking to everyone

Well, the obvious fix would be to make a game where talking to everybody actually disqualifies you from the golden ending. Kinda like what can happen to Blitz in DF writ large. That sure would piss a lot of people off, though. Goes against decades of ingrained RPG best practices.

 

[Zetor]

Yea, we had lots of discussion about this in other threads... in the end, it always comes back to completionism being a main driving force for the typical RPG player. If you have a "golden ending" that just requires ~doing stuff~, most people will either get it done on their first run or get it on their subsequent completionist playthrough by default.

Lots of ways to design this right (time limit, interaction limit, situations where ~doing stuff~ is worse than not doing anything at all), but most of the playerbase would probably hate you for it.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Yea, we had lots of discussion about this in other threads... in the end, it always comes back to completionism being a main driving force for the typical RPG player. If you have a "golden ending" that just requires ~doing stuff~, most people will either get it done on their first run or get it on their subsequent completionist playthrough by default.

Lots of ways to design this right (time limit, interaction limit, situations where ~doing stuff~ is worse than not doing anything at all), but most of the playerbase would probably hate you for it.

I don't know. Look at Steam achievements, where so few people actually get achievements relating to companions / alternative endings.

Look at people talking about their Mass Effect playthroughs on sites like Shitaku, where they (mainly game journos) talk about characters dying.

That just wouldn't have happened if they had done everything.

I think the filthy casuals just storm through the MQ and they make up the bulk of players.

 

[Ludo Lense]

I don't know. Look at Steam achievements, where so few people actually get achievements relating to companions / alternative endings.

Look at people talking about their Mass Effect playthroughs on sites like Shitaku, where they (mainly game journos) talk about characters dying.

That just wouldn't have happened if they had done everything.

I think the filthy casuals just storm through the MQ and they make up the bulk of players.

That is a bad metric given the bugs related to achievements.

 

[Saduj]

Finished this last night. Overall it was fun and if they come out with another campaign, I will buy it. But there were some things I didn't like:

• Didn't like the new matrix mini games but wasn't a problem because I'd just let the alarms go off and then just killed everything through Matrix combat. One time I had to cheese a little bit but for the most part, killing everything in the Matrix was easy. My refusal to deal with new mini-games did result in a less than optimal ending, which I guess is fair....

• Cyberware seemed a little broken to me. I didn't get a +1 passive Quickness bonus from Reload cyber arm (still a cool toy though). The cyberware that did give an attribute/skill bonus didn't add the bonus independent of what I've spent in skill points. Instead, it acted like I had spent some skill points on those skills/attributes. So if I had 6 Dodge and installed something with +1 Dodge, Dodge goes to 7. Next time I want to increase I have to spend 8 skill points instead of 7. And even though I had 7 in Cyberware Affinity, I could not exceed my racial max in anything. I expected the bonus to be independent of what I spent in skill points, as in the other games. I do think they did a better job of making cyberware more diverse as far as how it affects game play.

• The final boss had horrible AI. She hit my main character pretty hard once in melee during the 2nd fight. But she mostly walked in circles towards the back of the screen. Her ranged attacks missed more than they hit. I thought the last fight in Dragonfall was pretty hard due to time constraint and it took me a few tries to get past it. I thought they would tone that back but this was just a big nothing. In general, I thought the combat was way too easy this time around.

Edit - I also noticed in some cases the game did not recognize that I already had certain conversations. Even after I finished the game, I could talk to certain people who would repeat prior conversations/act like the big bad threat still existed.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeah that was okay I guess. Weakest of the trilogy though IMO. The crew wasn't quite as engaging as in DF, nor was the atmosphere, and many of the fights relied on quantity over quality. They just dragged on a lot. Only a few were somewhat challenging, and those mostly because I was trying out a new crew member and ended up with something sub-optimal.

Spoiler

Racter + Koschei is OP as fuck, and Gaichu sucks.

Also that blocker ICE minigame is godawful and there was way too much of it (mandatory) in Tsang Tower.

Worth the 15 bucks I put in the Kickstarter, but probably not going to play again (unlike DF and DMS, both of which I've run through two or three times.)

 

[Abu Antar]

Completed a mission or two. I have read a lot of complaints of the game being wordy, but I think the writing is solid, so I don't mind.

 

[Copper]

Yea, we had lots of discussion about this in other threads... in the end, it always comes back to completionism being a main driving force for the typical RPG player. If you have a "golden ending" that just requires ~doing stuff~, most people will either get it done on their first run or get it on their subsequent completionist playthrough by default.

Lots of ways to design this right (time limit, interaction limit, situations where ~doing stuff~ is worse than not doing anything at all), but most of the playerbase would probably hate you for it.

Yeah, look at Primordia for a game that did this fairly well, but the puzzles were too obscure for reviewers, at least.

 

[opium fiend]

I'm so disapointed they didn't make more of the walled city's inner sections, every layer had like two screens and little to do. The mood was excellent, typhoon, people running out, going mad etc, but it was very short. Btw, Raymond was sad that I had decided to keep with shadowrunning, does he react differently to other choices?

 

[Nael]

Not really a spoiler. Just pics.

 

[Crooked Bee]

The Codex x Jivebot combo was pretty amusing.

 

[Ninjerk]

What does that bring the count up to?

 

[Nael]

What does that bring the count up to?

What are you talking about?

 

[Bubbles]

You're the 16.5th person to post that screenshot.

 

[Heresiarch]

After suffering a fuckton of expositions at the hub, I took the museum mission, hoping to get some action to rid of the boredom...

And it was over, just like that???

15 min later I'm thrown back into the hub for another fuckton of exposition...

I sincerely hope that the museum quest was the only really short, really bad quest in the game.

 

[tjorb]

I see a lot of complaints about the hacking mini-game, but to me it wasn't that bad because you didn't even have to do the memorization thing. Just click next and pick the right set of symbols. It took like 10-20 seconds.
Sure it wasn't a very good mini-game but it wasn't very time consuming or annoying.

 

[Nael]

You're the 16.5th person to post that screenshot.

Oh. Well, fucking sue me, assbag.

 

[Bubbles]

No need to be rude.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

I am surprised Berlin felt way cyberpunkier than the damn Hong Kong (not art wise, but content wise). Music is not very fitting, should've been more dynamic. Why didn't they bring some older combat tunes in?

Equipment management is fucked. How hard is it to create a team screen i can open any time and check/change stats/equipment.
Also, am i not supposed to buy equipment for my team mates? I remember buying decker stuff in DF and all kinds of spells. Now team equipment seems "locked".

All in all so far a step back from DF, what's the point? Slam dunk? Well, still would buy 15$ module every year, so seems to work for them.

 

[Gord]

Also, am i not supposed to buy equipment for my team mates? I remember buying decker stuff in DF and all kinds of spells. Now team equipment seems "locked".

You can lend equipment to teammates just as in DF:DC.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

How the hell? There is a white lock on equipment and Gobbet has only 1 free spell slot (and her stats are so shit - she cannot handle best spells).

 

[opium fiend]

After suffering a fuckton of expositions at the hub, I took the museum mission, hoping to get some action to rid of the boredom...

And it was over, just like that???

15 min later I'm thrown back into the hub for another fuckton of exposition...

I sincerely hope that the museum quest was the only really short, really bad quest in the game.

Nope, all runs feel very short. It takes you more time to read Kindly's email about the run than to finish it.