Harebrained Schemes General Discussion Thread

[HoboForEternity]

Shadowrun but with mechs and dragons

 

[Siveon]

Shadowrun but with mechs and dragons

That's what I wanted from Battletech tbh, I don't think they should do Strategy games.
Okay not dragons though just, Shadowrun pacing.

 

[Yosharian]

I for one can't wait to see more Muslim women doing repairs on my mechs in the next game

Hell, they should make the entire team Muslim, and give all the 'Mech pilots a special ALLAHU AKBAR ability which detonates the fusion core taking out all nearby mechs in a blaze of glory

 

[Smerlus]

I will forever hope for an Earthdawn game.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

so much butthurt for 1 NPC lmao

Hopefully another Shadowrun, but just recruiting means that the game will be quite far away

And if they are going to use Battletech engine or something make it run better, BT runs like ass the last time I played it

 

[Yosharian]

so much butthurt for 1 NPC lmao

Yeahhh go for that straw man, take it apart

 

[razvedchiki]

hope next battletech game is a pure merc simulation with playable tanks/infantry etc.

 

[RegionalHobo]

can t say i give a fuck for harebrained, even if dragonfall is really good and hong kong is decent

that said i wish the ip was free from MS

 

[Yosharian]

Dragonfall is overrated, yeah I said it.

 

[JarlFrank]

They should make another Shadowrun game but this time in an engine that doesn't suck ass and is artificially limited due to mobile compatibility (yeah they upgraded the engine for Hong Kong but it still sucks).

 

[agris]

JarlFrank you're giving them too much credit to assume that the engine was the principal limitation of their Shadowrun series. I think it was mostly conscious design decisions.

Imagine what those games would have been if:

1. Itemization was not a linear A > B > C > D ordeal. If armor, spells, weapons and drones had different tradeoffs, and everything was not reduced to [Previous Version] + 1.
   
2. There was more environmental interaction opportunities for combat maps, both in combat (ala Blackguards) and outside of combat (such as the mission where you can active the surgical saw with an enemy in the room to kill them).
   
3. Hired runners that died on missions were permanently removed from hiring
   
4. Healing items were less plentiful
5. Improved enemy AI

Non-linearity in itemization (#1) and more lethality to the combat (#4-5) would have gone a long way I think.

 

[V_K]

Healing items were less plentiful

The problem isn't so much that they are plentiful - limited inventory space takes care of that - but that companion (and especially bot) inventories reset on the map change. And that is an engine thing.

Itemization was not a linear A > B > C > D ordeal. If armor, spells, weapons and drones had different tradeoffs, and everything was not reduced to [Previous Version] + 1.

There is a bit of that with armor actually, you have a choice between better armor and slightly worse armor that gives bonuses to some skills.

 

[agris]

Healing items were less plentiful

The problem isn't so much that they are plentiful - limited inventory space takes care of that - but that companion (and especially bot) inventories reset on the map change. And that is an engine thing.

That's right, thanks for reminding me. Its been years since I played, but I remembered there was something casual about consumable items.

It is not an engine limitation, the engine clearly has state tracking. It has a saved game system, and your personal consumables do not refresh. It's a design choice, a poor one.

 

[V_K]

It is not an engine limitation, the engine clearly has state tracking. It has a saved game system, and your personal consumables do not refresh.

Yeah, but that was something only patched in later, after fans demanded it. The original SRR and IIRC even the first version of Dragonfall could only save at the start of a level.

 

[Tigranes]

I continue to be fascinated by how Shadowrun/Dragonfall is so fondly remembered by folks here - all I ever saw from the entire franchise was decent, serviceable, but also completely and utterly forgettable games that showed zero potential as to doing anything special. The story and writing was entirely forgettable, and so were all of the combat systems, and then laboriously boring matrix sequences. I can't remember a single thing about these games where I say "gee, I wish others would learn from this / gee, I wish they had time and money to flesh this thing out". Whereas Logic Artists, for example, show that.

Like, I enjoyed Dragonfall, and I'm glad they're around, but what is this spark in their games that I'm apparently blind to?

 

[Ivan]

When I think of the trilogy I think of the compas first. They did that particularly well, bolstered by strong art. But I agree with the rest of yall', the gameplay was more negative than meh.

 

[V_K]

Like, I enjoyed Dragonfall, and I'm glad they're around, but what is this spark in their games that I'm apparently blind to?

For me it's two things: variety and tightness. There's just a lot of different things to try, both in and out of combat, and many different ways to solve a level or an encounter. None if it is terribly deep mechanically, but in terms of variety it's far ahead of 95% of the competition. And on the other hand, there's very little padding - no grinding trash combats, no fetch quests, no crafting or loot treadmills, dialogs are concise and to the point (that went to shit in HK unfortunately). These games don't overstay their welcome - which is, once again, a virtue that the vast majority of RPGs can't boast.

 

[DeepOcean]

I continue to be fascinated by how Shadowrun/Dragonfall is so fondly remembered by folks here - all I ever saw from the entire franchise was decent, serviceable, but also completely and utterly forgettable games that showed zero potential as to doing anything special. The story and writing was entirely forgettable, and so were all of the combat systems, and then laboriously boring matrix sequences. I can't remember a single thing about these games where I say "gee, I wish others would learn from this / gee, I wish they had time and money to flesh this thing out". Whereas Logic Artists, for example, show that.

Like, I enjoyed Dragonfall, and I'm glad they're around, but what is this spark in their games that I'm apparently blind to?

They are decent shadowrun games and the encounters on Dragonfall are pretty nice, not so much on Hong Kong but still good enough. Yeah, they could be much better but what RPG is out there that let you fight enemies while your hacker is on the Matrix? Summon spirits on chinese slums and and have drones moving all through the map? Yeah, it is super basic on many aspects but there are no better alternatives,only decent Cyberpunk rpgs released on the last 10 years and are on 2d to boot.

 

[Tigranes]

I continue to be fascinated by how Shadowrun/Dragonfall is so fondly remembered by folks here - all I ever saw from the entire franchise was decent, serviceable, but also completely and utterly forgettable games that showed zero potential as to doing anything special. The story and writing was entirely forgettable, and so were all of the combat systems, and then laboriously boring matrix sequences. I can't remember a single thing about these games where I say "gee, I wish others would learn from this / gee, I wish they had time and money to flesh this thing out". Whereas Logic Artists, for example, show that.

Like, I enjoyed Dragonfall, and I'm glad they're around, but what is this spark in their games that I'm apparently blind to?

They are decent shadowrun games and the encounters on Dragonfall are pretty nice, not so much on Hong Kong but still good enough. Yeah, they could be much better but what RPG is out there that let you fight enemies while your hacker is on the Matrix? Summon spirits on chinese slums and and have drones moving all through the map? Yeah, it is super basic on many aspects but there are no better alternatives,only decent Cyberpunk rpgs released on the last 10 years and are on 2d to boot.

Fair enough, and I think the Cyberpunk setting carries it a long way too. The way I saw it ultimately was that most encounters really boiled down to fairly classic turn-based combat that's been done better in a million places, plus a slow, boring, pointless Matrix layer that was like pulling teeth. I do appreciate the idea that it's cool to have those layers come together.

Invisible, Inc., for example, seems to me to give that experience in far more interesting ways.

 

[Roguey]

that companion (and especially bot) inventories reset on the map change.

It is not an engine limitation, the engine clearly has state tracking. It has a saved game system, and your personal consumables do not refresh. It's a design choice, a poor one.

If companion inventories never refreshed, I would never use items and I have no doubt the same would be true for most players. That "gotta save it for the 'when I need it' that never comes" drive combined with better things to spend money on (weapons, armor, cyberware/spells).

It seems sensible enough to me; you can't take their items and put them into your stash, and they're responsible for re-buying their own supplies, not you.

 

[DeepOcean]

It was sort of cheap though, I always kamikazed drones, used spirits until no tomorrow and etc.

 

[DeepOcean]

Invisible, Inc., for example, seems to me to give that experience in far more interesting ways.

Isnt Invisible Inc more like a isometric stealth game than a turn based combat game?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

HBS will never make anything close to dragonfall again.
compare the credits of dragonfall to battletech
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/shadowrun-dragonfall/credits
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battletech/credits

Half the people listed in shadowrun are interns, temps, or QA. The core team was very small. And many of those people are either missing or had very minor roles in battletech per the credits.

 

[almondblight]

Indeed, 2 out of the 5 people responsible for Dragonfall aren't at the company anymore (Simon Cameron, Mike McCain). And it's telling that the best game that HBS put out had the smallest team and was considered a side project (originally it was going to be a short DLC for SRR).

 

[fantadomat]

HBS will never make anything close to dragonfall again.
compare the credits of dragonfall to battletech
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/shadowrun-dragonfall/credits
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battletech/credits

Half the people listed in shadowrun are interns, temps, or QA. The core team was very small. And many of those people are either missing or had very minor roles in battletech per the credits.

Yeah,hong kong was the peak of hbs,now they will go the bioware way. And end ups a joke company that nobody really wants to exist,yet it does exist.