exmachina64
Banned
Nope.
You may have already gotten there, but it's slightly later in the game until you can do that.
It means spells specifically, I believe.
Shadowrun Returns |OT| Never, ever cut a deal with a dragon.
- Thread starter cj_iwakura
- Start date
Nope.
You may have already gotten there, but it's slightly later in the game until you can do that.
It means spells specifically, I believe.
A chatty samurai? Sounds like a plan, thanks!
There is a "copy" option in the save menu which lets you make copies of your savegames.
Really liked the concept of this location.
A lab facility for investigating plane crashes filled with debris of said crashes and spirits of victims, now that's something not often seen in video games.
I like that the story premise is actually quite mature as is the writing - considering the setting. Much prefer this to over the top silliness.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Finally got around to playing the game, and... well...
I actually like reading all the writing in here, and the art's pretty... OK, I suppose, but...
It feels like there's a bit of a pacing problem with the game flow. I don't know what's going on, but... something about the turns seem to take a while to finish. Sometimes it made me wish there was a "fast movement/action" toggle somewhere in the options.
Still kind of something that makes you think about it. The beauty of turn-based tactical combat...
I actually like reading all the writing in here, and the art's pretty... OK, I suppose, but...
It feels like there's a bit of a pacing problem with the game flow. I don't know what's going on, but... something about the turns seem to take a while to finish. Sometimes it made me wish there was a "fast movement/action" toggle somewhere in the options.
Still kind of something that makes you think about it. The beauty of turn-based tactical combat...
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Exactly this. Thank you for expressing the very same feelings Ive had about the current broken as shit save system.
Im a bit let down that the combat is ripped straight from the "modern" Xcom basically.
OniBarubary
Banned
You should be fine. To be honest, I think the game on Normal has you swimming in Karma. So much so that as a Decker with an Uzi I've found myself with so much Karma I should really use to branch out considering I'm already 7 in Intelligence and Quickness. If you specialize in one area, it shouldn't be a big deal.
Did you exit the game with the menu option or did it freeze or crash?
And are you sure there actually was a save, as indicated by the "Autosave Indicated" text? I think you may have to both see that text and then exit the game through the menu options for it to work correctly.
Honestly I think experiences may differ on this. Like I mentioned, I nearly died on normal just trying to do the building-clearing early on when
going after Coyote since the burns were doing so much damage
Krappadizzle
Member
Couple of questions as I'm thinking of buying this tonight.
What is the penalty for dying? Is it just a check-point reload?
The combat is more or less XCOM right?
Can I purchase the key for this cheaper anywhere other than Steam? GMG or the like?
I've never played a Shadowrun game before. It looks interesting.
What is the penalty for dying? Is it just a check-point reload?
The combat is more or less XCOM right?
Can I purchase the key for this cheaper anywhere other than Steam? GMG or the like?
I've never played a Shadowrun game before. It looks interesting.
exmachina64
Banned
There are combat drones and support drones (healing). I've spent most of my drone time with combat drones. You sacrifice 1 AP and the drone receives 2 AP. If you have 2 AP, then you will only have 1 AP left after activating a drone. This holds true regardless of what type of drone you are using. It is possible to activate two drones and have 0 AP available.
Drones can be very useful throughout the game, provided you put karma into drone control (to be able to purchase better drones) and purchase better drones as they're available. There's also the drone combat skill which puts different permanent status increases on your drones (+15% accuracy, +2 dodge, +1 armor, etc.).
Even if you don't try to flank enemies in certain levels, a drone is still another gun and a shield for your party members. During
the Universal Brotherhood mission, the bugs
Yes.
XCOM's more difficult, imo.
Probably.
This is my first experience with Shadowrun and it's really fun. I'd like to see more content and campaigns produced for this game by Harebrained Schemes, but their recent statements have left me uncertain whether they intend to return to this. After they complete the Berlin campaign, they're ramping up production on a KS project they're starting in August called Golem Arcana.
As an aside, I think I recall seeing a mention that the game saves to the Cloud... so what does the DRM-free backer version save to?
SneakyStephan
Banned
Seems like I'm done with the game
I'm on some super long mission (the aegis one), at the end you have to hack into a computer and since the previous hacking missions were super easy I forgot to bring a healing/threat reducing spell.
It's impossible to finish without these, you take so much dmg from the enemies and once it goes to 100percent alert it spawns a ton of extra enemies
dying on the first turn after entering one of the last rooms in there every time.
Since I can't access any kind of vendor and since this whole mission was long and tedious I'd much rather play a different game than slog through this a second time.
Even if I were to load a previous checkpoint I don't think I have the credits to buy those healing/alarm reduce spells anyhow.
The story /setting in the game is good but compared to xcom the level design and combat are really really poor throughout the game. I was happy to replay xcom levels over and over again but here it's a big chore, the tablet UI doesn't help either.
edit: for those playing, never send your main char into a room first, near the end of the game there are some rooms where enemies can overwatch most of your hp in one turn as soon as you enter, and then on their turn all it takes is one rng crit to make you lose 45 mins of progress.
I'm on some super long mission (the aegis one), at the end you have to hack into a computer and since the previous hacking missions were super easy I forgot to bring a healing/threat reducing spell.
It's impossible to finish without these, you take so much dmg from the enemies and once it goes to 100percent alert it spawns a ton of extra enemies
dying on the first turn after entering one of the last rooms in there every time.
Since I can't access any kind of vendor and since this whole mission was long and tedious I'd much rather play a different game than slog through this a second time.
Even if I were to load a previous checkpoint I don't think I have the credits to buy those healing/alarm reduce spells anyhow.
The story /setting in the game is good but compared to xcom the level design and combat are really really poor throughout the game. I was happy to replay xcom levels over and over again but here it's a big chore, the tablet UI doesn't help either.
edit: for those playing, never send your main char into a room first, near the end of the game there are some rooms where enemies can overwatch most of your hp in one turn as soon as you enter, and then on their turn all it takes is one rng crit to make you lose 45 mins of progress.
I am on that mission now and really getting beat around. My second time through I camped outside of rooms and had all four runners use overwatch much like the AI will do to a player. Its a good (stupid) sport about coming out to a trap instead of keeping its own.
I lost a runner but moved on. With the highest level deck (4 turns, high damage) the matrix sections are easy but I imagine they are terrible if using the hired runner suggested for the mission.
There is some resource management going on in the campaign that would be cool stuff but maybe not in a game that is even this long. In the 12 hour campaign the runners or gear choices are a little straining and I imagine if money got any worse I would be slagging my save.
If do want to give the game another shot you can roll back to the seamstress in the load menu and get a mission from johnson that pays 9k.
Mockingbird
Member
Saw the trailer and ummm this looks horribly boring. Why is there excitement for this?
Because that is such a great post I will now spend a great deal of energy explaining why people are enjoying the game:
AngelsDontBurn
Banned
I played the SNES game quite a bit, I loved it actually. Never played the pen & paper game. Do any of you think this would be up my alley / worth checking out? I love the universe, so that alone makes me want to dip in. I'm just slightly questioning it. I mean, it's only $20, but of course I don't want to just throw money around, lol.
I said specifically "complaints about the save system seem shallow". As in there is some merit but it has very little impact on the actual functionality of the game in most scenarios. I also pointed out how the checkpoint system has conversely added challenge and punishment to a genre notoriously easy to exploit. Not only did you fail to address my points directly, but you felt the need to claim I was defending the save system wholesale and insult my intelligence in the process. Possessing a completely different opinion than you is not an opportunity for you to call me stupid, and I would appreciate a better method of debate in the future as I am a real life human deserving of respect and proper
communication.
As for your relevant points: certainly some enhancements to the system would be great. Generally with rigid checkpoints you also include a generous suspend save system so you can leave and come back at any time. Nowhere did I make any statements that the system was not flawed; considering those flaws have been discussed to death it seemed more appropriate to shift the discussion to aspects I found advantageous and enjoyable.
Neuromancer
Member
Not to mention its frustrating when forces outside ones control (such as the game crashing or locking) make you lose progress when a manual save system, in concert with being conscientious about saving, may have prevented it.
The main criticism and unredeemable quality of the save system is being forced to replay significant chunks of game (reading upwards of FOURTY minutes) because you either a) die or b) simply cannot continue your gaming session and need to quit. Your arguments only apply to scenario A where the poor save system becomes "challenge" where you are encouraged to plan well for your encounters. However, scenario B turns the "challenge" into a broken system with no redemption. There is nothing shallow about complaints having to replay sizeable portions of non-combat sections of a single player game. There's no defending that.
Replay combat, sure. Replay dungeons, ok. Replay exploration around town or story sections? Not cool.
Re the save system. Loving this game but it's been a bit of a bugger to play so far. My laptop keeps heating up and shutting itself down and I've had to re-do several early sections multiple times (no idea why as it's all none dusty and ventilated; the lack of air in the house may be an issue mind). Really could do with a better system.
Still; since only picking this up on my radar a few days ago to having an urge to play lots of WRPG's (and the original 16 bit games) am liking this lots!
Still; since only picking this up on my radar a few days ago to having an urge to play lots of WRPG's (and the original 16 bit games) am liking this lots!
VGChampion
Member
Only problem I have with the save system is every time I get to a new zone I take a break pretty much. Not knowing how long until the next zone has me waiting until I'm guaranteed at least half an hour.
I can't speak for duckroll, but in my opinion the following almost implies that the lack of saving is intentional rather than due to technical problems. Since you contrast your reasons with save complaints, it can sound as though you are disagreeing with the complaints, which weren't necessarily about the issues you pointed out.
erragal said:
And I don't mean to be rude, but do you mind if I ask why you ignored the question when I asked where you specifically said the following:
I have not been able to find your quote. I also did not see any mention of where the developers have lied before, if you believe they are lying now.erragal said:
having to replay non-combat sections because you have to go do something else or whatever doesn't add challenge, it's just annoying
they should've added twice as many checkpoints, at least
-MD-
Member
People like different things than you do is likely the reason.
So what portion of the game actually has 40 minutes of conversation that you had to play before triggering an autosave? You spending 30 minutes reading all of your skills /examining all the gear is not tome that you lose. The knowledge doesn't disappear from your brain. What section has 40 solod minutes of just wandering around and talking to people with no new checkpoints?
As for just having to quit... you actually quoted me being quite upfront that it should have a suspend feature. I agree completely with that. It being flawed in one facet does not change the advantages it receives from another. It does not degrade my point because another aspect of the system isn't perfect. That's only a realistic argument if I was somehow trying to say it's perfect, ideal, flawless etc. Again: I'm attempting to make one new point and everyones rebuttals are simply repeating the same already acknowledged flaws in the system.
What I find more curious is how vehemently against this save system some individuals seem to be. Is everyone here an emt/paramedic that plays games on call and is frequently interrupted before 20/30 minute periods have passed? Hence my use of the word shallow; I find it ludicrous that it will impact the vast majority of real world players given the frequency of the save points.
I dunno about 40 minutes but when you first get to your safehouse you spend 20-30 minutes just talking to everybody, seeing cyberware for your first time, spending the crazy amount of karma you get, etc.
but yeah I'd settle for a suspend button
I really can't understand a professional developer struggling with a save system. I mean they already do checkpointing, how much harder can it be to add manual saves?
As I said in my post, I read accounts that indicated upwards of 40 minutes.
You're defending the system, claiming it's a good thing for challenge. Other, including myself, are saying that you can retain the challenge without the frustration that accompanys it.
Really? You find it unusual that people might have limited time to play games and can't always work there way around a 20-40 minute checkpoint time? That's a pretty limited view. Not everyone has unlimited gaming time. I happen to be a full time working, married parent. I get a couple hours here and there. If I have 20 minutes left to play and I hit a checkpoint, guess what. I'm going to need to stop playing for fear that I won't hit another checkpoint.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that very FEW people have unlimited gaming time. You have sleep, work, family obligations, etc that will give you a firm stopping time.This save system will affect anyone that has a stopping point they need to adhere to.
I'm on mobile and multiquote responding is virtually impossible. I thought id added that to my post but I ended up removing it. So now I will say it: in spite of their objections some of the save mechanics feel like design decisions in additon to efficiency.
I'm not attempting to call anyone a liar. Development is a high stakes environment, features need to be cut, and if they fit the design of the game those features end up the first cut for efficiency purposes. Don't try to attach malign intent to what is obviously expediency/damage control.
If you kill the two Deckers that spawn after the alarm gets triggered, they don't respawn. Secondly, getting killed there just jacks you out with a lot of meat damage, which can all be reversed by a heal spell in the real world if you survive, so as long as you have a healer out there (not the jacked-in heal), you have as many tries as you want. All your ESPs come back when you jack back in, so it's easy to gank the enemy deckers - then you have all the time in the world to do the jacked-in part.
It's slightly more difficult to handle the huge ambush that comes after you at that point, but I was playing on a mage and there was a leyline in the room, so I just mezzed the big guards and destroyed the rest with an oppressive flood of fireballs.
Also - overwatch isn't a big deal if you pump dodge and body. High armour values also help - the problem is that most NPCs have pretty poor stat assignment (around 6 would be considered high for them, so they almost always get hit) - if you have 8 dodge or so, you can scout out rooms for your team, or use a shaman pet/drone as a sacrificial scout if really necessary. For resource management, some Nephilim Network guys are randomly cheaper than the normal hirees, so don't forget to check those out too. A lot of earlier missions can be run with only 2 or 3 people, so you can end up wasting a lot of cash on those.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Love this game after playing more.
The problem seems to arise from a lack of resources to implement a save system whcih can track all the elements in the game state and restore them on load without introducing more bugs into the game. The checkpoint system ensures that there are basically no triggers or changes in the current game state to be tracked, since they are all placed when you first enter a fresh area. They don't have to track who you have already talked to, what you have done, etc. It only saves your character data and story progression.
It's not so much that making manual saves is impossible, but rather that it would be time consuming on the part of the programmers and it would also require much more testing and QA after implementation to make sure nothing is accidentally broken when loading such saves. The complexity would directly translate to more cost and more delays.
We'll see what happens in a week or so, since by then there should be a good indication of how successful the launch of the game is. I'm sure they'll address improvements to the game and discuss the Berlin campaign based on how well the game is selling. Fingers crossed!
Love the game so far played for several hours late last-night!
Just loaded up my game and am in the bar, I now have two choices from :
Does it matter which one I choose first?
* Thanks Nanashi!
Just loaded up my game and am in the bar, I now have two choices from :
Mr. Delilah - Put together a team to hit Telestrain Office or for the Renraku Lab
Does it matter which one I choose first?
* Thanks Nanashi!
I dunno, it's not an open world rpg, most variables I imagine don't scope out of the current "level", so I guess only new stuff to keep track of is people you've talked to, quests you've solved, items you've picked up, people you've killed, and your position. and it wipes everything out every time you change levels since it's not open-world.
I'm sure they know their particular case better than I, but I've worked on one or two save systems and while they're a pain I can't imagine them being a point to concede because of QA time.
it's almost a deal-breaker if it gets any worse for me.
like dying and having to replay a whole non-combat part is annoying as hell
Renraku is optional and gives you a bunch of cash (9000 Nuyen, so check your net profit) if you need it. It has one fight near the end which might be problematic - bring Confuse if you have access to it. There's one minor choice in it which doesn't seem to affect the rest of the game much.
I have to confess that it feels a bit awkward at the way so much random Japanese keeps popping up in normal conversation, especially when some of it is a bit misused (especially their use of "omae"). I'd figure any future where the Japanese haven't birth-rated themselves into extinction and the world isn't taken over by China is high fantasy indeed. (Just a joke, don't take it seriously)
Nester
Member
You'll love it. The SNES game is probably one of my favorite games of all time, love the universe and the backstory but never got too much into the Pen & Paper game. I'm enjoying Shadowrun Returns a ton so far.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
If you are familiar with the Shadowrun universe in general, its part of the world. The odd random use of Japanese that is.
Well, if I was asked about it - the weakest points of the game were the linearity and the lack of party customisation. I kind of assumed at some point it'd turn into a job-board thing where you could accept (maybe pseudo-random) jobs and try to build up cash and a team, but you only ever really keep full control over one person, which I did find a bit frustrating since it meant party members got a bit static near the end of the game.
The lack of a save system was noticeable, but not too irritating compared to that - I think Shadowrun's setting is better suited to something open world, and not horribly linear. The gear system was also a tad boring and "take it or leave it", which gave me an overall "this is actually an iPad game, but a good one, at least" feeling.
The real annoyances were the bugs with the combat system (There's no "Shut off combat, everything is dead" button so sometimes you have to explore in turn based mode, which is highly irritating) and one very notable bug near the endgame where
I'd like to see SR get expansions that add functionality towards maintaining an actual squad and let you sort of access a finder's lobby that lets you try community-generated singleton missions. The remaining problem would mainly be progression, if that was done. Definitely not enough gear customisation options.
The lack of a save system was noticeable, but not too irritating compared to that - I think Shadowrun's setting is better suited to something open world, and not horribly linear. The gear system was also a tad boring and "take it or leave it", which gave me an overall "this is actually an iPad game, but a good one, at least" feeling.
The real annoyances were the bugs with the combat system (There's no "Shut off combat, everything is dead" button so sometimes you have to explore in turn based mode, which is highly irritating) and one very notable bug near the endgame where
not-Kefka got himself killed, which is understandable since he's kind of awful, and with the death of another party member, the game erroneously thought my main character was dead and put a big skull over his face in the UI, which prevented me from actually switching to my main character unless I used up all the turns of the other people. It's quite possible to get stuck at that point since the bugs require 3 noncrit shots to kill on a 2 shot weapon and you need at least 2 people with the Aegis system to take them out reliably since the weapon itself can only fire twice. Melee is horrible in this game (look at the crappy katana damage values!), don't do it.
I'd like to see SR get expansions that add functionality towards maintaining an actual squad and let you sort of access a finder's lobby that lets you try community-generated singleton missions. The remaining problem would mainly be progression, if that was done. Definitely not enough gear customisation options.
If anyone else runs into this, you can press Ctrl-Alt-` (the key with the ~ on it) to enable debug mode, and then type "manualturnmode off" in the console in the top left. Press enter and you should go back to normal mode, and press Ctrl-Alt-` again to disable debug mode.
You can also just type "manualturnmode" to enter turn-based mode outside of combat, if you ever wanted to.
This is a very enjoyable game but I can't help noticing that it is also a very.......none-hardcore game.
The developer clearly aimed at the very mass market audience. Perhaps because that is their strength.
I hope and wish that this seemingly successful launch open the possibility of a more involved and complex sequel.
The developer clearly aimed at the very mass market audience. Perhaps because that is their strength.
I hope and wish that this seemingly successful launch open the possibility of a more involved and complex sequel.
-MD-
Member
Sounds in line with the rest of the industry.