Way to increase the difficulty

[potterman28wxcv]

Hey ! First of all, I'm enjoying Shadowrun :) I have never played the RPG version of Shadowrun, still I like the dialogs and the lore.

Still, I have the feeling that it's not well balanced. It seems to me that if you create for example a team of 4 fighters (the heavy guys destroying everything on their passage, with shotgun. One guy come in range, you destroy him, and you say "next one, please !"), you would just finish the game without real difficulty. Even with the hardest difficulty settings, I feel the game is somewhat too easy.

Of course I'm not using such teams ; i'm using generally a team of 2x(1 shaman + 1 DPS), the DPS being a fighter or a mage, i find it fun enough. But I'm looking for some mods that would give some more challenge.. A good example of mod you could know, is Sword Coast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate 1. It's typically this kind of mod that I search.

Have you heard of any mod, or maybe any campaign, with some hard difficulty ? Like the kind of campaign where you would have to restart 2 or 3 times before you would manage to have a very good team ?

[Incunabulum]

If all you're doing is combat then you're doing it wrong.

[potterman28wxcv]

Yeah, I'm more a tactician than someone who will invest in the lore actually.. But even then, dialogs are very nice, but whatever what you say, it's the same ending. I've played games like Fallout, where you'd better not tell someone that he's ugly, or he will directly attack you and then the game is over ! I particularly loved Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 because what you said had a real impact on the gameplay (you had to choose carefully what to say), and the combat system was cool.

There, it's a very nice game, but i would play this game more to know the story, than to actually play it. It's like I'm reading a story from a book : whatever decision I take, it's the same issue.

So, I may do it wrong, but then how do you do it ? Honestly, how do you play this game ? How do you choose your character ? Are you trying to build your own character story ?

I have also played Oblivion, with many mods ; for almost a playthrough, I've chosen a particular kind of characters, chosen him a story, and decided to interact in the game as if I was that character. (I was an acrobatic priest who drinks alcohol. Actually, I had to drink alcohol before each fight to give me courage ; and when i came in town, i always stopped in temples. Of course, this was no quest line, only some behaviours added by myself). Oblivion was giving me enough freedom for that ; I would really like to play this game the way I would do, if I was there, sit on a chair, a paper in front of me, playing a real RPG game with a game master and such (I do that every Thursday actually, thanks to a club in my school). But there, the action is pretty much linear.

Still, the story is immersive, I grant you that point. There's just a kind of lack of 1) combat system ; 2) non-linear progress . And so I'm asking if there's a mod who does that (because the game right now has a great potential, really, and mods can bring A LOT to a game)

[Shufflecat]

I do kind of agree. I mean, it's great as is, but I found myself leaving my shaman at home all the time after the first couple missiions into Dragonfall. He just doesn't seem to bring much of value to the party compared to a fighter or a decker.

[Incunabulum]

I think the best way to play the game is to kit out the PC to be able to handle the non-combat stuff - Decking, Ettiquettes, dabbling in other stuff to be able to pass the attribute tests and then stick the other 3 with combat specs.

But that's pretty much due to the game design - you can't use party skills (except for a very few areas - none in DMS and a few in DF). So you're Charismad out the ying-yang Shaman can't use any of the ettiquittes he should know, the support skills (outside of Haste) are meh (when they're not absolutely useless, like Silence), and using summons is just a more complicated and iffy (you either waste a totem or you hope there's a summon point in the area) Rigger.

Even the Mage ends up being straight combat - the mage 'weapon' is meh compared to the other ranged weapons, and the support skills (outside Healing) are hardly neccessary - most combat is over by the time you've got a decent set of buff/debuffs out. So you stock up on damage dealing spells and rotate them. And, again, you may have an uber-Merlin in your party, won't help you in safely breaking that ward on the door though.

This is, I think, the biggest flaw with this game - party members are only there for DPS and not utility.

[Dorok]

In Dragonfall party members can do few stuff, some strength actions, all the decking, some extra rigger actions, few more. But as the game is, it's quite logical because you don't build the companions and the choice among them is relatively limited, so it's normal they don't do most utility actions that would made vain your character building, it would be different if you was building the full party.

There's more where is a weak point of the framework, no party building when combats are party stuff. It lower the depth of replay, even if in case of Dragonfall it's a lot reinforced by the numerous options and choices you have.

[steelcoresoviet]

I'll assume that you're already playing on Very Hard. If not- that's what it's for.

A Stitch in Time is occasionally ballbustingly hard.

[potterman28wxcv]

I'm playing on very hard indeed :)

[Harparone]

Just use fists only, that should make it harder

[potterman28wxcv]

Na if i use only fists, i would make a full team of adepts ;)

Actually I'm near the end of the game, and there is a fight that has challenged me (the one in the graveyard). I had to use 2 or 3 medical supplies. And one regen kit, due to a mistake.. I think that when I'll finish this walkthrough, I'll do it again with the rule of not using a single consumable. That should make things a lot harder, and challenging.

Right now, I just want to know the end of the story ! I have to admit that there is some great story there.