Feedback, Too short, Limited progression, Low replay value etc.

[Blebekblebek]

I've finished campaign in 2 days (don't ask how long I play)

since the story progress are just pretty much straight forward there isn't much else to do, not even for chit-chat with NPC (except traders)
I love the gameplay, I wish at least give it some grinding spot to make NUYEN, or to get more KARMA, or random and/or repeatable mission from Mr. Delilah after games is complete (or while in-campaign to make it even better).
overall there's only 2 side quest in this game.

- Melee are so much underpowered in this game, anything melee is simply a meat-bag look at the AI, they show up, running at you, get hit and die before they can hit, so making a melee character is really... probably just for fun. it miss a lot, and require so much karma just to see real potential a.k.a not missing a punch (and with same amount of karma & money you can already make a decent character with other build)

- Rifle is the best!, well probably... just an opinion but I don't see any benefit pick for another weapon, reasons: it has the longest range, best accuracy, and do BURST damage very often, it doesn't have AOE ability but how often AI is surrounding around you at the same time? you don't want to tank a damage, kill the enemy fast as possible is the way to go, med-kit are expensive, but ammunition is FREE.

- Crappy mercenary, even with Nephilim network Merc are just crap no matter what their class, I can't count on merc at all to DPS. I don't know is this intended? the only merc class I pick is shaman/support mage. even with 80%+ rate it sill miss 2/3 turn.

Coyote/Jake/Paco are so much better than mercenaries.

- Isometric view glitch, how often you character goes beside your enemy? or can't target the enemy because large object are in front of it? it happen a lot in last scene if you chasing jessica.

making Hybrid character? it's possible but... I don't think you will have enough karma to complete it.

Since the game is barely came out, I can understand, but for $20 I do expect better, and I hope it will get an expansion (hopefully free)
I'm sure lot's of people agree with me, but if you don't I think you should finish the game and replay it once again.

Thank you.

[TrasherNL]

I found the mercs to be OKish: not as focussed and your main char can be, but fine for the missions.

Hybrid is quite possible, but some are much more suited for the missions provided. The rifle is indeed amazing.

My conclusion isn't much different from yours though, but I think $20 was a reasonable price. It could have been much better, but enough for a Shadowrun fan like me.

[Necanthrope]

The linear nature of the game is both a blessing and a curse. It allows for tight story telling but does affect replayability. That said I'm nearing the end of my 6th playthrough. I really enjoyed the story and gameplay and created characters to experience all of the main skill sets i.e.

Decker / Rigger
Summoning / Conjuring
Mage
Gun (rifle wish I had gone shotty)
Melee Weapon
Chi

I am done with the campaign now though as I prefer 'pure' builds rather than hybrids.

More Nuyen and Karma, really? All of my characters have been fairly godly by the endgame. Including the 34 you get at creation you get around 220 Karma to spend. As for Nuyen I upgrade all my armour, weapons and spells everytime there is a slight improvement. The end result? 10-20k unspent at the end of the game.

I beg to differ that melee is seriously underpowered. Its less powerful than the oft mentioned elf / rifle / haste build. However it is not so weak that you can't complete the game with it. As a side note I found the rifle playthrough to be the least engaging of my 6 characters.

The rifle isn't the 'best'. It's simply the easiest way to kill once you can buff yourself to 5 AP. As mentioned though its simultaneously the least interesting way to play the game. My favourite was my first character who was a Decker / Rigger. This was closely followed by my control / AoE Mage. Both had lots of options which greatly increased the fun.

The Shadowrunners do seem rubbish for the most part. Although if you look there are some decent ones. But stop and think about this. What are we comparing them too? Oh yes our possibly min / maxed hero designed to be awesome at 1 thing. I suspect the dev's expected people to make more rounded characters. We'd still be superior to the runners but not to such a large degree.

I agree Coyote is a solid runner. I hire her everytime she's available.

I agree sometimes I can't move to the tile I want. It's not a massive issue though for me its mainly while trying to stack all my guys in 1 spot prior to an explosive entry :o) I've never had a problem targeting an enemy which is much more important.

I think hybrids are perfectly possible. What you really mean is your not willing / happy to make the compromises that come with a hybrid i.e. your not perfect in both fields. Again though I'd point out that your probably not meant to be perfect in even 1 field.

[fredingue]

Hybrid is not easy, for sure. I tried a Shaman-Mage, but the spell limitation was that i mostly only used Haste in my spellbook, the rest being Mage spells. It's true that it takes a lot of K to be a Shaman (4 branches to raise). So, better be a full Mage and others use medics :p

But in your list Sumonnner/Conjurer is allready an hybrid :p

[Necanthrope]

Haha I see your point and agree somewhat. However on the whole I don't see it as a hybrid. Otherwise taking any other skill such as say pistol or dodge in addition to a main field of expertise would be a hybrid.

In the case of a summoner / conjurer the skills share a governing stat and thus synergise well together. In my mind a hybrid is something that requires multiple governing stat's to a decent level and thus requires significant amounts of Karma. So a rifle / rigger I'd see as a hybrid where as a decker / rigger I wouldn't.

It's a fine line though and perhaps for me a hybrid is something that isn't Karma efficient. Of course my Mage has maxed out willpower, spellcasting and dodge. Technically that makes it a candidate for being a hybrid. However I don't see it as one simply because in practice all it can do is cast spells and its other abilities such as body and dodge only facilitate that.

[fredingue]

On the other hand, so far as i've seen in 5-6 UGC that a Generic template maxed for his karma level and well played is deadly even on very hard, those Mods are good to test new templates.
Problem is this essence/cyber things and races limitations, that's why in another post i said that "we are all stereotypes". I feel like it in SR, due to the starting postulats of the game creators + modifications over time.
Those strange Nephilim guys profiles never convinced me, i never dared to put my Nuyens in a so called "Burned Mage" :p

[takashi_K]

Автор сообщения: Blebekblebek

I've finished campaign in 2 days (don't ask how long I play)

Funny, I don't see the game in your games list at all.

[A.Bear]

Автор сообщения: Necanthrope

The linear nature of the game is both a blessing and a curse. It allows for tight story telling but does affect replayability. That said I'm nearing the end of my 6th playthrough. I really enjoyed the story and gameplay and created characters to experience all of the main skill sets i.e.

I would disagree, a slightly more open story telling experiance was had in the original two shadow run games, with the SNES version being superior. The story felt more organic as you had to rush out and discover things. If you wanted a side mission, go ahead and find it.

Maybe I am just showing my age, but I really would have just prefered a clone of Shadowrun for the SNES that was mouse enabled.

[ArchAngel]

Although the OP is right in some aspects (problem with moving to specific squares) I feel for 20$ the game gave us enough content. I spent 100+ hours playing it and that is way more then I did for 60$ games like D3

[Blebekblebek]

Gaining nuyen/karma is merely for a goal (if there's side quest/random quest)

Let's be honest, how many games like this were available for PC?
The only reason people accept it the way it is because there is no game like this out there for pc,

they could make better, in way more bigger scale (add Internet Play like Torchlight II, so WE can get into a mission together, isn't that FUN)
heck they even could make this IP as an MMO ( I have loads of idea in my head)

Add option to buy permanent Mercenary, so extra karma gain can be used for them. Think about a perfect Team for longer run. (PVP anyone?)

about Meele character, underpower probably not the right word for it, Out of Place probably better word to define it, I mean we have guns, magic, and all those techs and you prefer fight it with sword and bare hands?
and what? to make it even worse a bare hands character only have 3 damaging skills? cmon...
it's not like the enemy is standing still, meele character didn't gain more extra AP too, for long range, they could stand still and spend AP to hit (this is the right term to say, ♥♥♥♥ 'camper'), while melee had to chase them down often run out of AP before even hitting. (hello jessica, why are running so FAR FAR AWAY I CAN'T EVEN SEE WHERE YOU ARE...)

How many missions required you to kill enemy from far away while you have to protect you crew?, last 4 mission is hard if you don't have long range DPS (and most bug attack also do -1 AP) this when I hate my mercenary at the most of time, but ofcourse once again... it's doable.

Decker is awesome, but then again, after spending all those extra karma to make decker lv higher, how many mission require a decker? if I count it right... there are 4 missions, and 3 missions is being done with NPC decker, Johnny Clean, Marie-Louise, the last one Elf, you can 'Jack-in' but you need loads amount of medikit to survive, side quest finding Mr. Saada also have decker mission, but not really that hard.

Mage is ok most of time, but this class need better spell for normal attack. it does have other spell but require more than 1 AP.

Shaman.... I don't understand why shaman need to buy a summon item to summon a spirit, why this isn't included in skills? and if you're not that lucky... it also backfired when you randomly pick their AP moves, it can die instantly or worse become your enemy.

Rigger, expensive unit, expensive medkit with limited slot for item, and only useful if you have higher lv drone. I havent got far with this class due buying low lv drone is barely can hit, it miss all the time, and it's very fragile. (but yes, it's the most challenging class for me to build atm)

Anthing else that I miss?
please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just expressing my feedback, this game deserve to be "Better" in lot's of way, ofcourse then again...who am I? I'm just a player, I have no ability to change this game the way I want it to. I hope dev can do something to make it better,. that's all.

[Necanthrope]

@Zombie Bear

I think im lucky in that I'm not burdened with any Shadowrun baggage. I've neither played the prior console games or the pnp its all based on. Instead I've just got many years playing RPG's and games with turn based combat. This means i don't have any preconceived expectations for the game.

I would really like a huge campaign with a tight story and a large number of side quests. I think I've mentioned elsewhere that a full triple AAA title in the mould of Fallout would be awesome. However I accept that for the former there just wasn't the budget. Likewise for the latter but more so in that if such a game had been pitched it would never have been made and we'd have had nothing.

I came in with no expectations beyond the game setting / mechanics sounding interesting and the visuals looking decent (reminds me of all the greats like Fallout, Baldurs, Torment etc but much nicer). I was thoroughly engrossed for the 14 hours my first campaign took. I've now got 9 characters and about 70 hours spent of the game. All I want at the moment is more quality content of a decent length. If that isn't a good recommendation I don't know what is.

I should point out that I don't think the game is perfect (interface, save system and some skills could be better etc). However I also don't understand the massive amount of whinging that goes on. I think some people expected far too much from what is an indy game with a modest budget. What we go for me was worth the asking price. Hopefully going forward the UGC will really extend the games lifetime. Perhaps if it proves popular enough a PC exclusive sequel might materialise. The tablet based design is possibly the games biggest flaw as I'm sure its behind both the save and UI issues (too many clicks!).

[Blebekblebek]

$1.8M sounds like modest budget?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns
it's one of the most succesful kickstarter project out there.

[Necanthrope]

@Blebekblebek

I've just written a long post so I'm not going to address all your points :o)

However taken as a whole I agree that a longer campaign with more side quests would be awesome. As would be more oppurtunities to use class skills and not just Deckers. I also think the skills should be overhauled in some area's via a patch.

I have to take issue concerning melee. I can't see it as out of place as its part of the pnp game. They are also completely viable. As for unarmed sure I'd like more skills (I'd like more skills on every tree!) but I would assume most people pair it with the Chi skills. That being the case you have a lot of options.

The bottom line is though everything takes money. They had 1.4M after taxes to make the game and that only goes so far. i have no idea how successful the game has been or not. However if it makes enough money then perhaps an expansion (not just a new campaign) or even a sequel might be on the cards. Even if that where to occur though its never going to be a AAA titles as its a niche genre. Neither is it going to please everyone.

[Necanthrope]

1.8M is a modest budget and more so as after tax they received 1.4M apparently. Compare this to COD MW2 with it's 50M development budget and a 150M advertising budget. Obviously I'm talking extremes there. However the advertising budget for pretty much any AAA game is likely to eclipse the total budget for SRR.

I'm glad its been sucessful this just increases the likelihood of more content or similar games. In fact Kickstarter already has games like Wasteland that I will be buying day 1.

[ArchAngel]

I already "bought" Wasteland 2 by supporting their Kickstarter. As soon as I read that it would be a spiritual successor to Fallout 1 and 2 I was sold :)
I hate what was done to Fallout with Fallout 3...

[Evlyn M]

I liked the campaign, then I tried many user made scenarios. It was fun but I got bored with character progression and with the combat gameplay and moved away from the game. I guess I will be back for the Berlin campaign.

I was optimist at first, but I am getting more and more letdown by how the game differ from the pen and paper version. Gunfights are just boring and rarely create exciting or interesting tactical situations. They often feel just like exchanges of damage points.

Most advantage you can gain in the game are just boring small % bonus and lack punch (especially the cyberwares). After a while building characters also become kind of boring since everything lack punch.

In the P&P, maybe because of dice pools (vs the boring %), everything feel like it have more punch. And fights are more exciting because damages have also more punch and consequences because of the wounds meters (vs having boring hit points that mean nothing). Samething for spell casting, it just more exciting in the PnP version.

So because of all this, I am begining to agree with the low replay value point.