Shadowrun Shadowrun Returns - Dead Man's Switch Original Campaign

[aris]

Oh man, I was having high hopes for the life on a limb module, it seemed excellent at first as it is much more open than the OC and makes good use of skill checks, but I realized that right now it's a mess, and a buggy one at that. All the areas are overfilled with pointless stuff, it's impossible to understand what's going on, because 10 dialogue windows pop up at the same time, overlapping eachother, you die way to often completely randomly by people that attack you for no sensical reason. The worst offender, is the science fiction mag you find in the bus, you hand it to the science fiction guy, and for no fucking reason that makes any sense at all, he attacks you and turns out to be a high level shaman that you can't really beat, at least not with the character I made. That was also the point at which I stopped.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

And interface and hotkeys. Like, use Enter to end the dialog box, NOT TO SKIP MY TURN IN COMBAT FFS!

 

[Diablo169]

Does anyone know where the save games are kept in the steam version? I cant find the damn things anywhere in the Shadowrun directory.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Quickness/Shotgun/Dodge ; willpower/spellcasting hybrid is pretty easy on very hard. buff/heal (occasional stun) with spells and blow everything with kneecap/wideload.

 

[Trash]

Oh man, I was having high hopes for the life on a limb module, it seemed excellent at first as it is much more open than the OC and makes good use of skill checks, but I realized that right now it's a mess, and a buggy one at that. All the areas are overfilled with pointless stuff, it's impossible to understand what's going on, because 10 dialogue windows pop up at the same time, overlapping eachother, you die way to often completely randomly by people that attack you for no sensical reason. The worst offender, is the science fiction mag you find in the bus, you hand it to the science fiction guy, and for no fucking reason that makes any sense at all, he attacks you and turns out to be a high level shaman that you can't really beat, at least not with the character I made. That was also the point at which I stopped.

Mostly because it's buggy as fuck. The maker often forgets to put npc's into neutral or friendly stance. Every new version readme has amusingly enough fixes for npc's he accidently made into enemies. I'll stay well clear of it untill he bugfixes it for a few weeks more.

 

[Sensuki]

I always find it hilarious when people complain that RNG isn't good enough because it doesn't provide results they expect . Btw there is no reason to have separate seeds for each actor unless they are using PRNG with period that is smaller than number of rolls you need (this definitely isn't the case here, and even if it is you can always reseed it when necessary). In other words probability of 3 crits followed by 3 misses is the same no matter how many PRNGs they use.

Edit: Actually it is possible that they did use separate seeds for all enemies but fucked up and gave everybody the same seed, it's easy mistake to make because usually you use time as seed when randomness isn't important (like here). But if that happened enemies would always have exactly the same rolls until PRNGs were reseeded (they could reseed them on each round). If they used same seed for all rolls you wouldn't have this problem. This is all assuming they fucked up and that you didn't just got unlucky rolls.

Indeed. I thought it might have been a bug or something rather than just a 'random result' it is entirely possible that that could all happen in the same round but the chances would have to be pretty low.

 

[dibens]

The Ripper boss fight was laughable. I kneecapped and ap drained the troll, and while he was unconscious, Dr. Holmes was just running around aimlessly, trying to fight off the spirit. That's on a highest difficulty and without a full team.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

So, finally beat it, according to steam it took me 14 hours.(slower than average ) Was a smooth and enjoyable ride, no bugs for me(sheer luck I suppose) and only one level restart(the painting puzzle.). Although the lack of manual saving wasn't a big problem for me personally, I agree that it shouldn't just be swept under the rug and excused. Better to be vocal about it until they get the hint and fix it. If they're planning on using kickstarter as their funding platform of choice it's best to keep their fans from hating them.

As for the game itself, liked the story, enjoyable combat, decent customization and great art, got my ten bucks worth imo. my main gripe with HBS actually has nothing to do with the content, but instead their constant referencing to the editor. Having a good editor is a great addition, but they seem over reliant, game too short you say? That's okay, we've got an editor! I've never been interested in fan made content, would have preferred no editor and a deeper story, but oh well.

All in all I'd consider SRR a success, looking forward to more content, DLC and what have you.

 

[NotTale]

I hope it does well enough on Steam that they look at the numbers and make future content PC focused instead of tablet.

If something like 90% of their sales are on the PC they'll have to rethink that UI.

 

[Surf Solar]

I don't understand why people are so excited about the editor. The game engine is a scrolling bitmap with a couple of awful 3d models overlaid and a scripting engine for logic. An experienced game programmer could remake that shit in C++ and lua over a weekend.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[mindx2]

IMO the only people who might have a right to be pissed off are those who spent large sums of money in the Kickstarter campaign, in the expectation of getting a "full scale" RPG. To those people I would suggest selling their physical editions when they arrive - I'm sure they'll be worth quite a bit on eBay.

!!!BLASPHEMY!!!

 

[aris]

the shotgun with kneecap is without doubt the most powerful weapon. I understood this quite quickly.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the shotgun with kneecap is without doubt the most powerful weapon. I understood this quite quickly.

You've never played a rigger with two S-class drones then.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Oh are you serious? I noticed that for drones too...

If you're talking about my statement, then yes, I am serious. Even better, Mrs. Kubota asks about Coyote after your failed mission...

 

[skacky]

I also beat it a minute ago. I did not encounter many bugs; there was a chatbox bug and some other weird stuff but nothing too important. It was pretty easy overall and the final showdown is pretty underwhelming to be honest. Other than that I quite enjoyed the ride.

 

[Jack]

It was pretty easy overall and the final showdown is pretty underwhelming to be honest.

Yeah, things got more interesting towards the end so I got my hopes up that it would end on a high note with an relatively difficult boss fight but I got through it without using any consumables and anyone dying. Mechanically it was pretty much just a repeat of the earlier sections, they should have made it more unique at least.

 

[Frusciante]

Bought the game this afternoon with my last spare cash. Some initial impressions (about three hours in).

I like the background art and portraits. The game has got a nice atmosphere even though the music isnt that special. The writing, characters and storyy are all good and a lot better than 99% of popamole console arpgs. In general, the game is a very enjoyable low budget pc rpg for me. Low budget is for me also the likely cause for many of the negative points.

The first thing I dont like is the lack of sound. Basic voiceover (in combat, flavour text at the start of dialogue and companion banter) would add a lot to the game. But also normal ambient backgrounds sounds woud improve this game. Things like chatter on the streets, cars riding, city noises etc.

A second shortcomig for me is the linearity of the game, there is just no sense of exploration. An open world to explore with some interesting sidequests would be great. The game currently is extremely focussed and limited. Not a bad thing per se but its definitelynot a full scale big PC rpg.

Finally I miss standard rpg stuff like party customization, inventory, looting etc. Combat isnt very difficult but I personally am not too bothered by this.

So basically for me its a very enojyable, wel written and good looking rpg. But also very limited. Also, I think we might have to adjust our expectations for Wasteland 2, Torment and PE based on this. A 50+ hour game with all the extras that werent included in SR does not seem achievable with a 3 million dollar budget. So when it comes to PE, W2 and torment, i'm hoping for less linear, approximately 25 hour games with all the options a full rpg should have included.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So I've started playing through with a troll adept. The way Adept powers work is kinda fucked up. Killing hands basically replaces your unarmed attack with a weapon that does 10 damage- and stops you from using things like roundhouse kick. The chi strike thing only works with melee weapons, but it seems useless anyways (2 AP for 2 melee attacks on one target- whee). Some of the later stuff seems like it has potential but I doubt I want to sink dozens of karma into willpower + chi casting just for quick strike, and if I spent every turn buffing myself I'd never get to actually hit things, since the buffs wear off so quickly (and some even cost 2AP ffs.)

Does anyone know how the armor/body mechanics work? I've noticed my armored troll with 6 body seems to take damage just as easily as unarmored mages and deckers. Do I just not have enough yet or is it going to be fairly pointless to invest too much in body and I should just go for STR to hurt things faster?

Also, I find it amusing how easy it is to dip into all the various types of magic just a bit. I grabbed 2 points of spellcasting for the heal spell to use when no enemies are around, makes things a lot easier. Seems like every character should have at least a bit of magic since it's so cheap karma wise.

 

[Aeschylus]

So I've started playing through with a troll adept. The way Adept powers work is kinda fucked up. Killing hands basically replaces your unarmed attack with a weapon that does 10 damage- and stops you from using things like roundhouse kick. The chi strike thing only works with melee weapons, but it seems useless anyways (2 AP for 2 melee attacks on one target- whee). Some of the later stuff seems like it has potential but I doubt I want to sink dozens of karma into willpower + chi casting just for quick strike, and if I spent every turn buffing myself I'd never get to actually hit things, since the buffs wear off so quickly (and some even cost 2AP ffs.)

Melee is better for adepts. And chi strike basically always crits = basically always drains AP with the weapons that do, making it very powerful. Pretty much all the melee and unarmed skills are useless though, yeah.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Unless there are some really badass melee weapons available down the road, I'm having a hard time imagining chi strikes putting out the kind of damage killing hands does. 15 damage on a basic hit is nothing to sneeze at. I suppose it could even out at sufficiently high str levels though, when the damage multiplier on crits matter more.

AP drain is cute, but things my troll hits tend to be dead after 2 ap spent anyways.

 

[Excidium]

Man they still haven't fixed the stuttering issue FFS

 

[Sensuki]

Just finished the game on Very Hard. Steam clocks me in at 12.1 hours that's with AFK time and quite a few reloads of one of the Catacombs levels due to no trauma kit/medpacks.

I enjoyed the start of the game where it's a murder investigation, but when it blew into a 'Save the world' type scheme I started to facepalm a little bit. Everything was blatantly obvious including Jessica being the mastermind of it all. The Elf Doctor showing up at the crime scene was like a complete LOL, there was absolutely zero doubt he was the killer because the writers lack any form of subtlety.

That said I didn't mind the combat too much. Sure it could be a lot better, but there aren't many turn-based RPGs that I don't have to whip out my CRT monitor to play at 4:3 low res. I didn't like how you were either stuck in combat mode or story mode, there should be more seamless integration between the two. I'm sure it wouldn't have been too code the transition better.

I played as a Human custom-class - I started out as Melee/Ranged dual but I picked an AK-97 as my first weapon so I just rolled with Rifles. Maxed Quickness, Ranged Combat and Rifles, had like 5 pts in Strength, 6 in Body, 4 or 5 in Dodge and 2 in Charisma, not sure how many I had left over at the end. I found the most useful NPC to be Coyote with her Shotgun, most of the other ones were pretty terrible, even the Mages. Is it just me or are Deckers completely useless at combat?

One thing I was never able to figure out is how to unlock doors. My main PC didn't have the skill so I just assumed that I needed to in order to be able to do it, probs missed out on a fair bit of loot because of that.

The only two missions in the game that required remote use of Tactics was the Infiltration mission to steal the Aegis thingo and the final mission under the Brotherhood Compound. This may be because I was grossly underprepared for the endgame and had pretty much zero consumables or grenades, so if anyone took multiple instances of damage I could only heal the last one with Harlequin. Kept losing one person before I got to the next level and even after 5-6 reloads my Dwarf Shaman kept dying to crits, so I just kept going.

Funny thing was when I entered the final level a scripted NPC arrived to take her place, and it was the same guy I already had in my party haha so I had two of them. He also had one of those Aegis weapon thingos.

Got smashed the first time I did the final boss fight because I thought that the minions would stop coming, second time I just went straight for Jessica, took her out in 2 rounds and then mopped up the 3 bugs that made it in. Pretty easy.

I definitely agree that the art direction of the game is really cool, the environment art, character models and portraits are all great. That was probably the best thing about the game.

 

[HanoverF]

I just finished the game with a troll adept, I put 5 points into Willpower/chi but used counterstrike like twice so could have stopped with 4 for swiftness (or 1 if you run with a shaman all the time for haste[it overwrites swiftness]) I used Killing hands throughout the campaign, I used roundhouse a few times when three enemies would bunch up so I could hit them all with it. I used disarm once just to see what it did

To avoid/mitigate damage better I think you want to put points into Quickness/dodge, but I'm no expert.

 

[Sensuki]

Man they still haven't fixed the stuttering issue FFS

You get it too?

I submitted a support ticket and their producer got back to me about there being a bug with the Unity multi-threaded renderer. He said to try Single threaded rendering via a steam shortcut. Tried it but it only made it worse.

Ah, Unity.

Also as a pre-order backer ($15) not a Kickstarter backer, does that mean I have to pay for Berlin DLC ?

 

[Orma]

Yeah i also found out that trying to finish bugs first is stupid.