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Game News Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Update #79: Dragonfall Director's Cut Dev Diary #3: Combat Mechanics

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Harebrained Schemes; Shadowrun Returns; Shadowrun: Dragonfall

In the third Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director's Cut dev diary Kickstarter update, lead designer Trevor King-Yost explains the changes that have been made to the original Dragonfall's combat mechanics. They're aimed at making the combat less opaque and more "cause and effect". Here's an excerpt from the update:

During development of the original Dragonfall expansion, we focused most of our time on the new campaign's story, missions and gameplay (though we did manage to squeeze in some time for new weapons and combat tweaks). This overall focus on content and story paid off, and the feedback we've received about Dragonfall’s narrative has been really great to hear.

But coming off of Dragonfall’s release, we knew we wanted to update the engine’s combat to try to address the things that started to bother us during development, and to respond to feedback we got from fans. So, the first thing we took a look at was the way that Cover behaved in the game, and the way that Critical Hits occurred.

If you’ve played Returns or Dragonfall before, you know it’s a bit of a “black box” when it comes to dealing damage. Your “specialization” skill (e.g. Pistols, Rifles) will increase your chance to do a critical hit (greater than 1.0x damage) and decrease your chance to get a “weak” hit, (0.5x damage). At the same time, the enemy’s Body and Armor would increase the likelihood of taking 0.5x damage, and decrease the chance for you to do a critical hit. Cover was also a factor in this black-box equation. Overall, it could just feel random when an enemy jumps out and hits you for double damage even though you’re behind solid cover.

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.


An example of a flanking attack on an enemy in cover. Also note the addition of white armor pips above each character's health bar.

Due to this change, melee combat has more risk & reward than before. You’ll do critical damage much more often, since enemies are never in-cover from melee attacks, but you will want to be careful to not end your turn exposed to your foes. Of course, there are magical ways to add cover to an area, or protect yourself. In our internal testing we’ve found these changes to make the combat more tactical, fun, and dynamic. We’re looking forward to seeing what kind of combinations the community comes up with, too.

Armor

When we designed the combat system for Shadowrun Returns way back in 2012, we tried to convert the damage system from the Pen & Paper into a form that would work in the game. As I alluded to before, Armor along with Body would increase the likelihood of taking 0.5x damage, which we called “light” damage, where 1.0x damage was akin to “medium”, 1.5x “serious”, and 2.0x “deadly”. It was a tenuous connection, but we thought it worked well to keep the spirit of the tabletop, even though we moved to a numerical HP system instead of the 10 boxes of the Pen & Paper combat.

So what we have done with Armor, is again create a much more “cause and effect” based behavior. 1 point of Armor will reduce any incoming damage by 1. Stacking more and more armor on will protect you more and more from damage - that’s it.

Of course, now you’ll have to deal with the enemy’s armor, which before was an invisible stat behind the scenes. You’d probably notice during gameplay of the original Returns or Dragonfall that your Crit % would be lower on some enemies, higher on others. This was due to their body & Armor. Now, you’ll see exactly how much Armor an enemy has, so you can react to your opposition more tactically. If you come up against an enemy with 8 Armor, and your firearm only puts out 10 damage, you’re going to be plinking away at their HP for a long time unless you have a backup plan.
DT - it makes everything better. The Director's Cut will also have an armor penetration mechanic, improved AI, and of course the ability to equip your crew, all of which you can read about in the full update.
 

piydek

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Does any of you bros know how sales of Shadowrun/Dragonfall have been and if they're planing on doing another campaign? I'd really like to see another Dragonfall style expansion. And continuation of improving mechanics/AI.
 

LarsWestergren

Educated
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No other campaign planned at the moment, as far as I know. It looked like it, as they were hiring (programmer? writer?) with Shadowrun lore knowledge but they explicitly said no.

If they do really well in sales, who knows. They might re-evaluate.
 

almondblight

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Does any of you bros know how sales of Shadowrun/Dragonfall have been and if they're planing on doing another campaign?

Depends on if you think a writer hired from July 2014 - December 2014 is working on a director's cut being released in September 2014 or on an expansion being released in early 2015.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Very pleased to hear they are fixing the cover mechanics.
 

toro

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(Note: Backers and existing Dragonfall owners will receive the Director’s Cut for free!)


That's all I need to know. Engage Waiting ...
 

Grotesque

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Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
(Note: Backers and existing Dragonfall owners will receive the Director’s Cut for free!)

That's all I need to know. Engage Waiting ...

I've backed Shadowrun Returns with $15 back in the day. Does this mean that I get Dragonfall Director's cut for free?
 
Last edited:

toro

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(Note: Backers and existing Dragonfall owners will receive the Director’s Cut for free!)

That's all I need to know. Engage Waiting ...

I've backed Shadowrun Returns with $15 back in the day. Dies this mean that I get Dragonfall Director's cut for free?

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released January 2014 for Windows, OSX, and Linux and will be free to Backers. You’ll get the same number of Steam keys you received for the original game via our Backer website and details about how you’ll get your DRM-free version will come in a future update.

So I guess it should be free for backers.

Edit: I received the Dragonfall addon and I only pledged 30$.
 
Last edited:

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,987
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
(Note: Backers and existing Dragonfall owners will receive the Director’s Cut for free!)

That's all I need to know. Engage Waiting ...

I've backed Shadowrun Returns with $15 back in the day. Dies this mean that I get Dragonfall Director's cut for free?

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released January 2014 for Windows, OSX, and Linux and will be free to Backers. You’ll get the same number of Steam keys you received for the original game via our Backer website and details about how you’ll get your DRM-free version will come in a future update.

So I guess it should be free for backers.

Edit: I received the Dragonfall addon and I only pledged 30$.


Does that means that I should have received a Dragonfall key? Because I did not.
I thought that I should pay for Dragonfall to play it.

EDIT: "At 10am PST February 27, your Steam, GOG and Humble Store keys were officially activated. Backers and folks who bought the Collectors Edition of SRR can now download their free copy of Shadowrun: Dragonfall."

I've looked through the tiers and no tier is named "Collector's Edition"

EDIT2: "We are excited to let you know that we have begun emailing Shadowrun: Dragonfallkeys to all Backers and anyone who ordered the Shadowrun Returns Collector’s Edition from the HBS website." update #71
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Does that means that I should have received a Dragonfall key? Because I did not.
I thought that I should pay for Dragonfall to play it.

You thought wrong. You're supposed to have a key. If you didn't get one, contact HBS support.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
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Messages
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(Note: Backers and existing Dragonfall owners will receive the Director’s Cut for free!)

That's all I need to know. Engage Waiting ...

I've backed Shadowrun Returns with $15 back in the day. Dies this mean that I get Dragonfall Director's cut for free?

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released January 2014 for Windows, OSX, and Linux and will be free to Backers. You’ll get the same number of Steam keys you received for the original game via our Backer website and details about how you’ll get your DRM-free version will come in a future update.

So I guess it should be free for backers.

Edit: I received the Dragonfall addon and I only pledged 30$.


Does that means that I should have received a Dragonfall key? Because I did not.
I thought that I should pay for Dragonfall to play it.

EDIT: "At 10am PST February 27, your Steam, GOG and Humble Store keys were officially activated. Backers and folks who bought the Collectors Edition of SRR can now download their free copy of Shadowrun: Dragonfall."

I've looked through the tiers and no tier is named "Collector's Edition"

EDIT2: "We are excited to let you know that we have begun emailing Shadowrun: Dragonfallkeys to all Backers and anyone who ordered the Shadowrun Returns Collector’s Edition from the HBS website." update #71

Man, honestly I don't know. I automatically received my Steam key for Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

As of March 1, 2014 we have closed down the old HBS Account website and will no longer be using it to deliver updates to Shadowrun Returns.

Unfortunately the old HBS site is no longer available to that I can check some stuff.

Like Infinitron said, is better to contact HBS.
 

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