Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[Septaryeth]

I thought of doing a decker/gunner, but I guess i will do something else. Does your party miss any relevant role?

Otherwise i might try some close range chrome-murdermachine. Are cyber adepts viable?

Definitely.

I play a pure melee adept and ignored all cyberwares on purpose, and the build is still extremely powerful.
You don't normally need that much essence anyway. Most of your damage comes from Chi strike or Chi onslaught which doesn't take up spell slots.
The only useful spells are Stride, Martial Defence, Magic Resistance and maybe Quickstrike.
Counter strike sounds good in theory but there are too little enemies trying to melee you. And mystic armor require too much Will to be activated.

So you should be able to spend 2 or 3 essence or even more if you level up cyber-affinity, the extra stats or perks will definitely outweigh these rubbish spells.
Cyberwares got a big boost in SRHK and thus making them more useful than ever, for example some automatically pick up and deflect incoming grenades.

 

[Duellist_D]

You don't even need the Adpet Boni.
I played a mostly mundane Cyber-Melee with spurs (didn't even touch the whip) and he sliced himself through the enemys like there was no tomorrow.
Just get the +1AP implant and take gobbet with you for "Haste".
If you use that Drug that gives you+strength on hit, this gets even more ridiculous.


Edit:
Have my endgame-stats:

Points in Decking have been a waste and those in Assault Rifles and ranged combat could have been spend otherwise, but came in handy occasionally.
Quickness is very handy to further reduce the chance of you getting hit while moving towards enemies, its basically a supplement to the evasion that "Close Combat" provides.

Towards the end of the game, very few things managed to hit me and those that did, rarely made any damage.

 

[Zetor]

A note about difficulty: apparently all AI scripts were rewritten in Gumbo for HK -- this means only the core AI files have to be changed to make all enemies somewhat less braindead. Depending on the restrictions of the gumboscript API, it may be possible to create AI on par with, say, SCS: identify mages and go after them first, coordinate attacks, try to drain AP and use crowd control / defensive abilities intelligently, etc.

For a quick-fix, just change the MAX_ATTACKS and DEFAULT_LOOPS values in each non-IC script to 2 (unless DEFAULT_LOOPS is higher than that already). I tried it out and stuff got actually somewhat challenging: enemies could throw a grenade and fire or just straight-up fire twice per turn, etc. Should probably replay the game and see how it shakes out, but :effort:

 

[Duellist_D]

Eh, that sounds quite good.
Could you give me a how2 for dummies, as in which files must i change and where are they located?
I wouldn't mind replaying it if it became challenging.

 

[Zetor]

Well, you can mod the main campaign, but it's probably easier/faster to just edit the files directly. They're text files in gamedir\SRHK_Data\StreamingAssets\ContentPacks\HongKong\data\ai\gumbo_*.gumbo.bytes
I just modified the human non-caster AIs (gumbo_adept, gumbo_meleesoldier, gumbo_sniper, gumbo_soldier, gumbo_suicideattacker), since mages can already cast a buff and an attack spell in the same turn -- I have a hunch that just increasing their attack# allowance would be wasted without rewriting part of their attack logic as well.

edit: the same thing probably works on the IC AI scripts as well, though I doubt it'd make matrix combat that much more interesting

 

[Duellist_D]

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I've completed the game. My playtime clocked in at 20 hours. Take an hour off for alt-tabbing and reloading, and it would be around 18/19 hours. Not bad. I also put 20 hours into Dragonfall.

I really liked this game. The story was excellent. The characters were the best in the series so far. The runs were well designed, the writing was good. The combat was a good mix of challenging and empowering - made you feel like you really were making progress as you built up your character. The soundtrack was excellent and memorable.

I raged at the Prosperity Tower mission though, it was really awful. But everything that happened after made up for it. I really liked the ending that I got - being able to talk the final boss down is always fun. I wonder what difference there is for other choices and whether there are alternative endings?

Spoiler

In mine, Auntie Cheng expanded her criminal empire and pretty much declared her love for me. I was a bit non-commital about continuing to work for her, but she seemed to really appreciate my talents. Josephine lost everything and ended up in prison. It didn't say what happened to any of my companions - I reckon the upcoming mini-campaign will answer these kinds of questions.

Also - there's absolutely nothing in the game that is SJW, unless you are a racist who doesn't like having black (Isobel) and Chinese (Duncan) people in your party. There's nothing that is anti-men, anti-gamer or any of that cis trans whatever bullshit in the game so I don't know where the SJW tag is coming from. Just trolls, I guess.

 

[V_K]

I wonder what difference there is for other choices and whether there are alternative endings?

There are 8 different epilogues, look in contentpacks\hongkong\data\misc. They're just plain text files, so you don't even need to open the editor.

Spoiler

Basically, three variables are involved:
1) How you deal with the queen - talk her down, banish her or let her rule the Walled city.
2) Whether Raymond lives or dies - don't know exactly if it's related to ASIST level or some final decision, haven't walked this path.
3) Whether you give Auntie dirt on Josephine - if you don't she just looses her political power but remains well-loved.

Generally, I'd say that HK is better in that department than DF, as the outcomes are not just cosmetically different.

 

[CptMace]

To be more precise, you get 2^3 endings.

 

[Ninjerk]

What's with trying to make the player feel guilty about the Plastic Faced Man? Did the writers/designers forget he intended to kill us? Also, do shadowrunners tend to give a shit about collateral damage when doing a run (e.g. movie theater warnings about "regular folk")?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

What's with trying to make the player feel guilty about the Plastic Faced Man? Did the writers/designers forget he intended to kill us? Also, do shadowrunners tend to give a shit about collateral damage when doing a run (e.g. movie theater warnings about "regular folk")?

Yeah, IIRC, you're doing it for revenge and not like a cold-blooded killer kind of thing.

 

[Ninjerk]

Yeah, IIRC, you're doing it for revenge and not like a cold-blooded killer kind of thing.

Even if there weren't some kind of Revenge-Daddy-subplot going on, the guy was involved in linking you to a terrorist group and the ongoing police manhunt. Why wouldn't you try to take him out?

Spoiler

If his memory is wiped, so what? Tsang could just easily give him another directive to kill you.

 

[skyst]

I enjoyed the game overall, but it felt seriously rushed towards the end - as many games tend to. I noticed typos, grammatical errors and even misspellings of some character names within the final 2 missions. Also, there seemed to be a total drop off of skill checks in the last area, though I suppose it is possible that the choices I selected may have circumvented them. I even held ~30 karma when the boss went down, in case I needed a few points for a high skill check. My strength, melee weapon, body, max charisma Street Samurai didn't need the points to butcher everything on hard anyway.

I don't regret the purchase or time spent in the slightest, but I liked Dragonfall better.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Also, those in the know who've finished the game already, because I feel I've been robbed of the 'optimal' ending by broken scripts:

Spoiler

How do you get the option to tell the yoga king to gtfo with a counterproposal deal and let Raymond survive? From what I've read it's only about going through all the dialogues with Crafty, but I've pushed through *all* the tl;drs in the hub and I didn't get the option. I also feel that at some point her fucking dialogue just got b0rked and refused to progress because after giving me her mother's journal she just got stuck in 'hey lo pan if i get anything imma tell u' mode, which felt very fishy to me because she wouldn't even comment on the sudden appearance of Aljernon at her shop.

So, yet another bug or did I actually miss something?

 

[Zetor]

Also, those in the know who've finished the game already, because I feel I've been robbed of the 'optimal' ending by broken scripts:

Spoiler

How do you get the option to tell the yoga king to gtfo with a counterproposal deal and let Raymond survive? From what I've read it's only about going through all the dialogues with Crafty, but I've pushed through *all* the tl;drs in the hub and I didn't get the option. I also feel that at some point her fucking dialogue just got b0rked and refused to progress because after giving me her mother's journal she just got stuck in 'hey lo pan if i get anything imma tell u' mode, which felt very fishy to me because she wouldn't even comment on the sudden appearance of Aljernon at her shop.

So, yet another bug or did I actually miss something?

I was able to get the proper ending on my first try, no broken scripts... there are 4 pre-reqs, though. Going to c&p a post I made on the steam forums earlier:

Spoiler

Basically you need to

• talk with Duncan enough so that you know the specific line Raymond used to break up fights (you get to choose which one, any of them work iirc), then use that line to break up their fight just before entering the Walled City. This will snap Raymond out of it, and he'll tell you about the ability of the Fortune Engine to open rifts and let all sort of bad stuff in.
• rest at least 5 times total (this includes the mandatory rests); as long as you got the part where your tooth falls off after waking up, you'll learn about how the Yama "eat their own"
• finish Is0bel's side quest, and ask her about Walled City stuff until she tells you the story of the kid who tricked the Yama Kings... this will allow you to use the same tactic on the Yama

If you get this far, the Yama will be forced to leave, but will insist on bringing her thralls with her. You can prevent that too if you followed up on Crafty Xu's research (and read both of her emails), and you can reference the laws they must follow, locking her out completely. If you do this, Raymond lives... otherwise, she takes Raymond with her on the way out. Both cases count as the 'good ending', but the ending text will be a bit different.

 

[Dookins]

Rather liked the way the ending can play out in various ways like that, just wish they'd go on and make something more substantial. Also as had been talked about to death, balancing issues. Not only are the fight setpieces less well done than in Dragonfall, but the economy/karma payout is wonky. Ended my run with 20+ karma unused and with barely enough cash to get decently geared out, even after selling nearly everything I could get my mitts on and avoiding any purchases until the best stuff was available.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I was able to get the proper ending on my first try, no broken scripts... there are 4 pre-reqs, though.

I got all of these...

 

[Zetor]

I got all of these...

Hmm... you can check the global vars to see What Went Wrong™. Going to c&p again:

Spoiler

Bring up the debug menu (ctrl-alt-f1, iirc), select console, then switch to globals tab. Check for:
a2_HK_Hub-FinishedDuncanTrustKnowsAboutOpeningChoke (should be 1)
a2_HK_Hub-NightmareCount (should be 5)
Global_Trust_Is0bel-hasHeardYamaStory (should be 1)
Global_HK_Hub_MissionComputer-hasReadCraftyMomNotes2 (should be 1... this one is optional though)

 

[Dookins]

I got all of these...

Spoiler

Did you get the part where Crafty's freaking out about the Yama being real? Comes at some point after the notes and Algernon. She didn't comment on him being there for me either, so doubt that was a problem./

 

[Darth Roxor]

Spoiler

Well, it looks like it's all kinds of fucked to me.

DuncanTrust is 0/False. NightmareCount is '5' but counts as False. Is0bel's yoga story is 0 but counts as True. Crafty's mom notes are also both 0 but True. Wat.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Spoiler

Well, it looks like it's all kinds of fucked to me.

DuncanTrust is 0/False. NightmareCount is '5' but counts as False. Is0bel's yoga story is 0 but counts as True. Crafty's mom notes are also both 0 but True. Wat.

Did you spam talk everyone after every trip to the Hub or did you do them at different times?

 

[Zetor]

Spoiler

Well, it looks like it's all kinds of fucked to me.

DuncanTrust is 0/False. NightmareCount is '5' but counts as False. Is0bel's yoga story is 0 but counts as True. Crafty's mom notes are also both 0 but True. Wat.

Actually it doesn't look fucked.. it's just that some of those variables are booleans (true/false), others are numerics, and the console presents them in a different way (e.g. if something is a boolean, its numeric value will be 0 even if it's True).

Spoiler

Duncan's stuff should be True/0, that's what's missing here.
NightmareCount is OK with False/5 (it's a numeric)
Is0bel's stuff is OK with True/0.
Crafty's stuff is OK with True/0 as well.

So what's missing is the "get Raymond to talk about the rift" thing, which is triggered just before heading into the walled city a second time when they have that little "father-son fight", and you need to break them up (or not, but then Raymond doesn't tell you about the rift).

 

[Darth Roxor]

Spoiler

Yeah, it's a bit more clear in the "analytics" tab as opposed to "storyvars".

And yeah, it seems Duncan's stuff is missing, even though I am 99% sure I heard about the rift :/

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Spoiler

I banished the Yama Queen too. I even made sure my intelligence and charisma were high because I had been told by Isobel/Crafty that only intelligent people could trick the Yama Kings. But there weren't any skill checks or etiquette checks in the final area.

Zetor's post is excellent - I followed all those just by playing normally. I'm so glad I persisted with Duncan's conversations now, because that guy was really quite boring. But it meant I was able to talk Raymond back into becoming normal, I guess. So, if you don't use that special conversation thing (the reference to your childhood), the two fight it out? Or does Raymond stay a quivering wreck?

The Crafty stuff was great, glad to see it paid off. And if it also requires Isobel to talk about the Yama Kings, then it makes her character worthwhile too. I must say it was really satisfying to tell the Queen to fuck right off, and tell her she couldn't take anything with her because I beat her.

 

[Septaryeth]

Also, those in the know who've finished the game already, because I feel I've been robbed of the 'optimal' ending by broken scripts:

Spoiler

How do you get the option to tell the yoga king to gtfo with a counterproposal deal and let Raymond survive? From what I've read it's only about going through all the dialogues with Crafty, but I've pushed through *all* the tl;drs in the hub and I didn't get the option. I also feel that at some point her fucking dialogue just got b0rked and refused to progress because after giving me her mother's journal she just got stuck in 'hey lo pan if i get anything imma tell u' mode, which felt very fishy to me because she wouldn't even comment on the sudden appearance of Aljernon at her shop.

So, yet another bug or did I actually miss something?

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?

I was able to get the proper ending on my first try, no broken scripts... there are 4 pre-reqs, though. Going to c&p a post I made on the steam forums earlier:

Spoiler

Basically you need to

• talk with Duncan enough so that you know the specific line Raymond used to break up fights (you get to choose which one, any of them work iirc), then use that line to break up their fight just before entering the Walled City. This will snap Raymond out of it, and he'll tell you about the ability of the Fortune Engine to open rifts and let all sort of bad stuff in.
• rest at least 5 times total (this includes the mandatory rests); as long as you got the part where your tooth falls off after waking up, you'll learn about how the Yama "eat their own"
• finish Is0bel's side quest, and ask her about Walled City stuff until she tells you the story of the kid who tricked the Yama Kings... this will allow you to use the same tactic on the Yama

If you get this far, the Yama will be forced to leave, but will insist on bringing her thralls with her. You can prevent that too if you followed up on Crafty Xu's research (and read both of her emails), and you can reference the laws they must follow, locking her out completely. If you do this, Raymond lives... otherwise, she takes Raymond with her on the way out. Both cases count as the 'good ending', but the ending text will be a bit different.

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.