Difficulty Hard - hit chances

[karwoch]

I almost always play on hard, as I`m quite devoted player ;). All was well until returning to floor 24 on MKVI prototype misison. My whole team on this level acted as bunch of incopetent rookies, almost no one had more than 50% to hit chance with buffs (to aim and mark target), and Blitz mark target has rarely more than 30% to hit chance, so even using this is pretty useless. Only area effect spells and grenades had some decend chance to hit,they even couldn`t hit stuned man which stood without cover i plain sight two meters from them (around 30% chance to hit). And my mage had quite high 8 level spellcasting, and still could hit almost anything.

My question is - will this get worse in later campaign? Or will be even the same? Constant reloading doesn`t give me joy of playing this game, and I don`t like to fell that my team just can`t do nothin, little strategy, only luck, so I wonder if I should restart game now with lower difficulty, or have a hope my team get better, to at least 70% of hit chance?

[Zadok]

Thing is: You got a killing machine at hand. The MKVI can kill them all by himself. Literally.
That run may be a little special but it is not especially hard - it is about using what you've got.

As I see it many other runs are more difficult but difficulty is always about figuring out how to do it. Sit back, look at it from a certain distance and you should be fine ;)

[karwoch]

Yes - killing machine was doing fine job, but of course - even he had around 40% hit chance, without possibility to buff it up. And I was confused, as many people on this forum sad they do not shoot until they have 80% of chance to hit, and it looked just impossible with what I sow. Finally I did it, but if this really just this mission - then I will be still playing on this difficulty, I just hate to have a team of blind shadowrunners, which can`t hit static target, so I hope this will not be a case in future. Thank You for the answer!

[Clockwork]

From the MKVI point of view, I think you're either trying to shoot from too far (the minigun is like a shotgun, its accuracy decreases quickly), or with the full auto minigun, or both. I replayed that run on Very Hard recently, and I always get the MKVI to melee with his axe (he's got 99% on melee range with normal hit, plus he's got an ability to mark targets with his Cybereye). And once on close range, I sometime decide to unleash the Double Tap minigun shots for critical hit.

As for your question : yeah, targets tend to get harder to hit later on (as well as having better armors too). That's why whenever I play Assault Rifle, I always quickly increase Quickness (see that pun ?) and Ranged Combat, and I always buff myself with Dietrich.

At some point, my PC became so strong that I didn't need to mark targets anymore (despite being a decker), and I could shoot the Assault Rifle at Sniper Range too.

See the screenshot below if you're not afraid of spoiler (it's a later run).

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=847369816

Edit : You don't need to restart the entire game to change difficulty. According to the game, all you need to do is change it then restart the level. It will then be taken into account.

[karwoch]

I didn`t noticed his melee axe!! And I can see it`s a game changer. Hm... I always liked magic, so I have a mage, on lev 8 spellcasting, which is high on this map, and this mage have max around 70% chance to hit buffed with Dietrich lay line and to aim buff. That would seem guns, at least Yours are litte better with hitting a target.

Combat decker... is very interesting concept, this should be my setup for second walkthrought. Thanks!

[Zadok]

Actually a Mage is extremely powerful. If you use AoE hitting is easy of course but the cooldowns limit your damage on the long run. Powerbolt is not that great. If you want good dmg/turn I'd recommend Aim III + Flame Thrower III + Flame Thrower II. You can use both Flamers every turn and hit pretty well with Aim. That's about one kill per turn if you play it right.
Mind every point of Magic you lose prolongues all cooldowns by 1. Install as much as a Datajack and you're already doubling the Flamers' cooldown. No chrome for mages!

[karwoch]

I even don`t know a game where mages aren`t powerfull, and in most of them they are op. Not here, but stil, AoE are most realible, as they have decent to hit chance always, but like u sad, long reload and high ap cost. Flamethower is very good but - on 24 floor my mage had less than 50% of chance with buffs with it, but this level seems ridiculus about it, in az tech building on next mission it wasn`t that bad, my mage did job good.

So I have two AoE - one with ap dmg second fireball with over time dmg. Flamethower, acid (armor dmg), lighning barrier (excellent on retreats, when it`s get too hot) and haste (mage/conjurer). I use Dietrich Aim, because on haste - my mage really quickly uses her spells. I`ll think about changing acit to flamethrower, but there is another spell - with ap dmg, it can sometimes block one oponnent with critical dmg, but... I don`t exacly get it - sometimes I do 2 AP dmg and AI still has 3 AP on hist turn... Somewhow. So maybe I should really use only dmg spells?

I don`t use any implants beside one with zero cost - incresed willpower but decreased intelligence - as intelligence is much cheaper to improve than willpower with my mage from mission with doc, my cooldowns are killing me enought even witout them ;)

Btw. when do You upgrade decker with implants? As I can see - later in game there are better, and from my memory - they can`t be removed once installed.

[Zadok]

Originally posted by karwoch:

Btw. when do You upgrade decker with implants? As I can see - later in game there are better, and from my memory - they can`t be removed once installed.

You can't remove yet you can replace implants. If you start with Decking 1 you also start with the cheapest deck and a Datajack, thus you've got an implant from the start. Personally I've always considered a Decker a secondary class and chrome depends on the primary class mostly. I don't think an Encephalon is worth it, so there is no Decker ware besides a Jack.

[Clockwork]

Originally posted by karwoch:

Combat decker... is very interesting concept, this should be my setup for second walkthrought. Thanks!

That's what I usually play when I want to play "myself" (or my Mary Sue I guess), and it's quite effective (I hate not being a decker, and I like the rifle). The main problem is it's expensive, both on karma and on nuyen. If you want to play it, either you plan every investments carefully or you're gonna beg the merchants for a discount.

Originally posted by karwoch:

Btw. when do You upgrade decker with implants? As I can see - later in game there are better, and from my memory - they can`t be removed once installed.

In my case, I mostly used Bioware for my Decker Rifler, and most of the wares are Quickness and hit percentage ones (I really wanted to see how well I could shoot on Very Hard ; turns out really well).

[chaosbringer42]

Harder difficulties make everyone deal more damage, all accuracy is less (80% on VH is close to max normally for anyone but main char), and crit-rates are higher. Also, aoe spells are insanely good on VH, because as long as you aim at "the ground" you dont get the - accuracy that you get for aiming at a character.

[Zephyr]

In that mission, they really expect you to use the prototype to murder everything. The amount of opposition is staggering comapred to most of the fights in the entire game. It's pretty much "hide behind the big guy", with your team only there to quickly murder the riggers who can take back control of it.

As for the datajack, I replaced my head datajack with an eye one as a decker, seeing eye cyberware isn't that great for deckers anyway, especially if you play decker/rigger like I do, seeing both synergize well, seeing they depend of the same stat.

You have to be careful though, to make sure you have enough money to actually replace your datajack, and not stay without one, otherwise you will be in trouble.

Also Clockwork, you're still running?

[Clockwork]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

As for the datajack, I replaced my head datajack with an eye one as a decker

Beware, I remember reading about a game blocking bug where the game would say that you don't meet the requirement to begin the run (the Bloodline one), and I think the problem was because the eye datajack wasn't considered a datajack. So you'll either have to get a new cyberware or play with Blitz (if you accepted him in your team).

Originally posted by Zephyr:

Also Clockwork, you're still running?

Like clockwork!

[Zephyr]

This is why I kept a contingency save before I installed the cyberware. I wanted to be sure the whole thing worked. And it did.