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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

Zetor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
1,706
Location
Budapest, Hungary
I wonder if the new (from DFDC) system of cover/armor has actually made combat overly predictable and thus too simplistic. I did a test a while ago: I ran my dudes into the center of the cargo ship in Whistleblower on Hard, and passed a single turn -- three of them got absolutely wrecked by SMG / rifle / spell crits. Then I reloaded, set everyone up at obviously 'good' cover positions, and defeated the same encounter with almost zero damage to my team following the simple algorithm of "focus fire the most exposed enemy while staying in med+ cover".

I prefer my TB tactics games relying as little on the RNG as possible (hi Telepath Tactics!), but the nu-XCOM style design tends to go the other way: lean on RNG to provide combat variance. Problem is, if you eliminate almost all unpredictability from your combat system, you're going to get dull by-the-numbers gameplay. This CAN be salvaged by good encounter design (Whistleblower two-way fight is one, and the mage fight in Wuxing tower is another, mostly because AOE spells don't care about cover), but HK is pretty lacking in this area compared to DF. Other things that could work include making most cover objects have their own HP and thus be destructible (can be done via scripting, but it's a huge pain), or making the AI a bit less brain-dead and actually have some semblance of team tactics -- even if it's just "geek the mage first".
 

Athelas

Arcane
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
4,502
I believe the goal of the combat system of nu!XCOM and the ones inspired by it, like the Shadowrun games, is to create tension between the defensive benefits of cover and the offensive benefits of going out of cover and flanking enemies. But because the Shadowrun games let you attack multiple times per turn and distance doesn't seem to affect accuracy (or at least, very inconsistently), staying behind cover and firing away at the enemy is encouraged. This is further compounded by the enemy lacking the ability to attack multiple times per turn and their habit of running out into the open. I didn't like nu!XCOM much, but the Shadowrun games in many ways exacerbate the flaws of its combat system further.
 
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subotaiy

Cipher
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
522
Location
Romania
I didn't follow this one, so should I try it now or wait until they're releasing enhanced edition? Are there plans for that?
 
Self-Ejected

ZodoZ

Self-Ejected
Patron
Joined
Nov 6, 2013
Messages
798
Shadorwun: Hong Kong

Turns out your correct after all.
Either that or Angthoron has not much customer service experience.
FFS, I HATE dealing with PayPal on scams and having to file reports etc etc for such piddling amounts
bummer
but what must be done will be done
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

Self-Ejected
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Third World
My major complain so far, is, even worse than Dragonfall, you spend quite a lot of time unrelated with your main quest/main goal. They should work on it next time, pick if you are a shadowrunner that do mindless jobs, or someone that have an important goal and seek to move forward it. Not have an important goal and do mindless jobs.
Isn't it justified by the fact you are working for cheng so she can dig info for you?
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
6,207
Location
The island of misfit mascots
I'm actually wondering whether crpgs could take inspiration from some of the better implementation of AI in FPS games, and restrict the style of levels in order to make an AI that works brilliantly for that type of level design.

The game that comes to mind is the first FEAR. It isn't all identical levels by any means, but they're all indoors, and it uses a particular level structure as its base for the AI to work with, then adds special units to deal with each variation to that structure.

I.e. your stock-standard FEAR set-piece battle site is roughly 3 vertacle levels, with a raised platform at one end, a structure with a balcony on top of that raised platform (sometimes the structure will have a 2nd floor), facing a 'pit' with lots of boxes and similar for cover. The AI is designed to react intelligently to that specific set-up, allowing the illusion of genuine squad-level cooperation:
  1. 2 guys with mid-range automatics will provide cover-fire, to force you behind cover;
  2. 1 guy with a long-range high-power weapon will get to the highest point on the structure and then position himself so he can fire at you if you've taken cover in the middle of the room, working with the 1st two to move you over to cover in the far corner;
  3. 1 or 2 of those first 3 guys will then throw grenades to flush you out; and
  4. You run headfirst into 1-2 guys with shotguns who have flanked you and closed in while you were crouched behind the box.
Other unit combos are designed for other map styles (e.g. heavy acting as tank down the centre, while guys with automatics use the opportunity to get into cover or flank while the heavy tries to pin you down and absorb you fire), but in each case you can tell that they've deliberately aimed to make an AI that is excellent for that particular map design, i.e. maps and AI were designed with each other in mind, instead of treating them as independent tasks.

I wouldn't want all crpgs to work that way, and it needs to be broken up with different level structures - you don't need great AI on every fight, just the big set-pieces, so that should still let you only re-use the basic map design once or twice, and then adding variations each set-piece, while still being within the parameters of what the AI can use.

It means that you could set AI to do something like:
  • 1-2 enemies with AoE position themselves to be able to nuke the middle of the room (because you know the map will be designed so that they can do so while being behind cover themselves) - forces player out of the centre cover, either towards the corner or into melee;
  • tank enemy set to remain still and guard the AoE nukers from melee, unless there is no party member within X squares AND there is a party member forced into the corner cover. If that happens, tank enemy advances and occupies the centre cover, allowing the AoE enemies to move - if the player doesn't do something to stop it, they'll get into a position where they can AoE nuke the corner cover, flushing the player out and costing them HP via the tank (now on overwatch in centre cover) as well as damage from:
  • 2 short-range DPS enemies, with single-use grenade or similar anti-cover ability. Easily killed and will stay back unable to do much, unless the tank occupies that centre cover position. If he does, they use the opportunity to go round the sides and flank the player.
Isn't brilliant or anything, but it's leagues better than what we typically get from AI that is designed around the different classes interacting (healer-DPS-tank), instead of around map interaction.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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Messages
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Djibouti

I *think* the general idea behind the setpieces in this game is supposed to be like that. There are plenty of places where stuff like that is used and reinforced by the combat area structure - enemy classes, cover patterns, etc.

It's just that this usually works only for one single turn when the mooks have it semi-scripted what to do. After that, the AI gets super confused by the player's actions and it starts doing absolutely retarded stuff like moving forward with snipers or switching cover positions for no reason whatsoever. And then the whole setpiece falls apart completely.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,336
Location
Crait
The game just seriously needs encounter redesign, rebalance, very hard difficulty, and improved ai. And tone down magnet arm, reload arm and grenade launchers etc...

I know in Shadowrun an RPG Launcher is supposed to be the equivalent of a Fireball spell, but Hong Kong's balance is ridiculous.
 

prodigydancer

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 16, 2015
Messages
1,399
Azrael the cat

Call it a conspiracy theory but my opinion is that game AI development is being held back on purpose. You cannot argue with the facts and one simple fact is that we've seen big fat ZERO progress in this department over the last two DECADES. Setpiece encounters make it easier to spot but let's face it: average game AI is dumb as rock even when there's just one enemy (i.e. no tactical coordination is required). Sure there were some odd attempts to do something about that (like the original F.E.A.R. and maybe bots in the UT games) but the overall picture is nothing short of heart-breaking. And so far there's no light in the end of this tunnel. During the decline era the only company that even talked about working on a better AI was Bethesda and we know it was a total hoax.

Now I won't go full wacko mode and say that efforts to improve AI are sabotaged by some aliens-controlled shadow government. I think there are much more plausible and less far-fetched explanations:
1) AI is less tangible and thus harder to sell than graphics, voiceover or even writing. You can showcase it and explain how it works but it won't make the audience gasp in awe (especially if we're talking about mainstream audience).
2) Sane AI is fairly hard to program. Not impossible - as shown by mods like SCS - but you need to find able programmers and do lots of QA. Which may not translate into huge sales because of 1).
3) It really does make the game more challenging and it's the sort of challenge that may be harder to adapt to. When the game simply throws hordes of enemies at you there's usually a simple solution like a chokepoint, mass AoE or kiting. But when it's say 6v6, you know that enemy reinforcements are on the way and the AI starts kiting you things really heat up.
4) Losing because of being outsmarted makes people realize how stupid they really are. And nobody likes having their intellectual deficiency rubbed in their face. Mainstream kids complain all the time about games being too hard even now. When they'll see how a clever AI can kick they asses every time there'll be so much butthurt the Jedi will feel it.

All in all, I'm not optimistic. We're kind of stuck where we are and I really see no way out.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Call it a conspiracy theory but my opinion is that game AI development is being held back on purpose
I remember the guy behing Frayed Knights posting on his blog that he intentionally dumbed his AI down because in his original design monsters made a really short work of the party every other time. So no conspiracy theory at all.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
The game just seriously needs encounter redesign, rebalance, very hard difficulty, and improved ai. And tone down magnet arm, reload arm and grenade launchers etc...

I know in Shadowrun an RPG Launcher is supposed to be the equivalent of a Fireball spell, but Hong Kong's balance is ridiculous.
Yep, HK is easier than Dragonfall because the balance and encounter design were all over the place :
Grenade launchers somehow ignore cover while they didn't on Dragonfall. Grenade launchers should be like tasers, only one shot.
Giving a grenade launcher as default to one party member is OP as hell.
Combat arenas should be more open with enemies more spread out and comming from multiple directions, enemies on HK tend to get too close to each other and are easy targets for AoEs and pretty much everyone in your party has some AoE ability.
Some enemies should be immune to cover bonus like spirits for example.
Quite sometimes I could destroy the enemies from afar, on the Ares mission for example, all those Knight Errant troops didn't even got close enough to do harm. If you are going to place the Ai on a large arena, don't make it go after you, the Ai is terrible at this, set it up to be cautious and camp you where you have to go.
Appealing to the whiny scrubs that complained about the RNG was a bad idea, a smartlinked assault rifle and aim buff could do some serious damage, Very Hard mode on Dragonfall was pretty good at keeping you from murdering the Ai at long range because of the accuracy debuff.
 

Gnidrologist

CONDUCTOR
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
20,856
Location
is cold
God the fuck damn. I'm like 5 hours into the game and have done about 3 missions, two of which didn't have any combat, because i could talk my way out, which i instinctively choose in these kind of games. From simply a bit wordy in the first game, they've gone full blown big wall-o-text simulator. Yes, everything is written competently, not genius great, but quite charming, BUT they NEED to tone that shit down. It's not Torment level, where the weirdness and novelty never wears out and you keep on exploring. Too many sappy stories about 'muh childhood' n shit and the dialogue trees seem to never end. Game generates new barrage of tomes after every mission, after every time you rest, after every talk to Aunty and every time you fart in real life. I know they can be skippable, but you can't skip the OCD. Besides, some characters or descriptions are really interesting, while others are not and one cannot know that beforehand. Furthermore, i received an odd job just from 'romancing' Isobel, which means they are obligatory anyway. Need moar karma.

The should've make ''free roam'' mode in next games, where you can just take assorted party true the generic location of choice (barrens, skyscrapers etc.) with generic foes assaulting for no reason just to rest from the torrents of wurdz, because
my-brain-hurts.png
 
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Self-Ejected

Excidium II

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Jun 21, 2015
Messages
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Third World
They should have just used all that effort into implementing proper legwork. Preparation should be half the game but everything is done automagically for you which is p. lame.

Also I hate how I can just waltz into everywhere with a bunch of combat drones and assault rifles and nobody bats an eye. At least they seem to acknowledge gaichu but it doesn't result in anything besides flavor text.
 

Gnidrologist

CONDUCTOR
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
20,856
Location
is cold
The fuck is this stupid ass hacking minigame? It's more retarded than the one in nu fallouts. Anyone uses it over ''force''?
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

Self-Ejected
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Jun 21, 2015
Messages
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It's still p. dumb that when it came to increase depth of the matrix gameplay what they decided to add was real-time stealth and a hacking minigame.
 

khavi

Learned
Patron
Joined
Jul 31, 2015
Messages
119
BattleTech
So, I've put in 50 hours and not finished it yet, but I've built more than a few characters, played a bit in the editor, and messed around editing the AI scripts. I'm purposely drip feeding myself the game. Even though I enjoy most of the writing and NPCs, I'm taking different missions and talking to different vendors/NPCs with each of my characters.

Through changing the AI files I've managed to actually increase the combat difficulty to decent levels, which mainly means doubling (or more) the actions enemies can take in respect to mine, and also changing some of the priorities. It's still...not really challenging, but at least if I make a mistake I get punished for it. I wish they had put time into a higher difficulty setting or better encounter design because there is definitely a good...feeling...I get when I take a wrong step and get gibbed for it, fallout crit style. I played for a few hours before I started playing with the scripts, and I just couldn't take it. Shadowrun is supposed to be punishing and unforgiving, which it was anything but.

I am enjoying the mission design. Good variety of settings and goals. I've noted a few where you can end up with less than optimal success and be punished for it, but I still think that there should be the possibility of complete mission failure that doesn't end with death. Some of the runs have multiple paths to achieve the objectives, or parts you can skip entirely, which is a step up from Dragonfall. Even the ride in and slaughter everything missions have character and are different enough from each other, so, good job there I guess.

Matrix is still just...meh. And HBS really just fell asleep with focus item/weapon implementation, not even worth having in the game.
 

Gnidrologist

CONDUCTOR
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
20,856
Location
is cold
Heh, the Codex reference was p. awesome, have to give em' that.

Anyway, is there any way to circumvent all the walls of text and get the companion side quests ASAP if i decide to make another run? Maybe some sort of mod that places them in journal?
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Actually there's a camera barrier object that they must not have used
 

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