Completely derailed with MKVI mission... :/ plase halp

[Option]

TL;DR - U mad? Cool blog post bro.

I finally played through Shadowrun Returns recently and absolutely loved it. It wasn't perfect but it was a hell of a good experience and I had a hard time waiting for the summer sale before splurging on this.

Got a good 5-6 hour in, loving every minute. The Knight-King quest? "THIS is what Western RPGs are supposed to be about," I said to myself, "great original writing, multiple ways/play styles to reach the objective, legitimately humorous and yet atmospherically haunting at the same time... These guys really hit the nail on the head."

Then I got to this MKVI mission and was forced to single corridor fight through... how many enemies in a row? 30?

The first room you fight was dumb enough (because there are no alternate paths or dialog skills that let you bypass the fight) but it's do-able with the Superzombie. But then you take the elevator up and get forced down a series of small corridors with endless enemies spamming various explosives that murder your team. In the first single room alone you fight EIGHT enemies as soon as you cross the invisible line- and it never lets up for upwards of an hour. There are literally more enemies in this one area than in the entire game leading up to this point COMBINED (side quests included).

And for some crazy, insane, mind-numbingly absurd reason, my team's hit percentage drops to less than 50% even when they're point blank and FLANKING. Even funnier is that I will miss 80+% hit chances 3/5 times (no joke, I counted and documented), while every mage explosive AoE attack will hit me from full, zoomed out screen away with a crit. Then there's the 'jack in' decking segments that glitch, hang, and waste my time because all they do is shut off SECURITY CAMERAS.

The first time I stuck this ridiculous section out, I made it about 4/5ths of the way through before I ran out of meds. Every time since I can't make it past THE FIRST HALLWAY because somehow the enemy decker will take control of the superzombie within 1 single turn (while Neo dodging my 75-80% point blank hit chances) and flash grenades will unbalance 3 members of my team THROUGH FULL COVER WALLS.

So... I ask you, the 'gud' gamers, WTF am I missing? I've tried it multiple ways and every way turns out the same- me getting stomped on by an unfairly polarizing amount of enemies and I want to ALT+F4 uninstall delete sys32. Not ONE SINGLE SECOND have I strugged in this game until now and suddenly I'm forced to fight through a STOOPID number of enemies who have perfect aim and throw grenades at me like I was playing CoD with a bunch of hacking 14 year olds.

I want to at least give the game the benefit of the doubt before I leave a negative review (which I'm sure will get downvoted to hell anyway) for what seems like a great game that goes so far off the rails for one single mission it's surreal.

Plase. Halp.

[Traveller]

Well, one strategy that works is to ambush the enemy instead of letting them ambush you. The enemy rigger can only take control of the "super-zombie" if he/she sees it, so keep him out of sight of the rigger. What you do is place your team in good overwatch positions and then use one member (not the "Cyber-Zombie") use one AP to move into the enemies sight (you can usely spot the red conversation boxes from them when they see you) and then move back behind the corner/wall at the selected ambush spot. You then go into overwatch, cast the aim spell, armour spell and what ever rocks you boad and wait for the enemies to arrive one by one around the corner. It should not be that hard to get through the rest of the mission using that strategy.

[Traveller]

*Boat

[Option]

Originally posted by Traveller:

The enemy rigger can only take control of the "super-zombie" if he/she sees it, so keep him out of sight of the rigger.

Yeah, it's a good idea but I've already tried that. It's either A) I send out the super zombie, the enemies focus on him and I lose him before I can get my team to where they can hit anything or B) I keep him out of sight and then get my team spammed down with endless grenades and AoE attacks. Or just enemy pistols that shoot across teh world. Either I eat up all my revive packs in the first two rooms or I lose the superzombie. If I send them both out at once it's the same thing. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Traveller]

Seriously, luring the enemy to you around a corner works pretty well....i had trouble with that mission the first time but after slowing down and luring it is close to a walk in the park. The thing with the riggers are they usually stay in the back, so when you "lure" it is only the enemies to the front that spots you, so the rigger do not get involved until you have decimated most of the strike force.

[Traveller]

What are your team composition? What members and equipment have you brought? Do you use Blitz with his "Confuse" ability, do you use blind spell, petrify or confuse? What about lightningwalls, spirits and Elementals?

[jbridso]

I just played through the mission on very hard mode and the Cyber Zombie made short work of pretty much everything with his big axe. As long as I took out the enemy riggers first the fights weren't that bad. Also, enemies will not use grenades with their unavoidable damage if your group is spread out. As soon as 2 targets are within 3 tiles or so of each other, every enemy will throw a grenade at them if possible.

[Option]

Originally posted by jbridso:

I just played through the mission on very hard mode and the Cyber Zombie made short work of pretty much everything with his big axe. As long as I took out the enemy riggers first the fights weren't that bad. Also, enemies will not use grenades with their unavoidable damage if your group is spread out. As soon as 2 targets are within 3 tiles or so of each other, every enemy will throw a grenade at them if possible.

Yeah I've heard this story from more than a few people. I'm starting to think something is wrong with my game (ie. glitch etc). I say that because every single time I go in to the matrix the game freezes/hangs for a couple minutes when an enemy dies, and of course, the mission objectives are also glitched.

Again, the first time I played I didn't have a problem getting through it, there were simply too many enemies. I would one shot everyone with the chaingun without missing and do 30 dmg with every swing of the axe. Now, the cyberzombie gets taken in 1 turn (where as before it would take 2 turns and I could kill the decker easily before that happened), the chaingun misses 80% of the time, and the axe, if it hits, only does around 11 dmg per swing.

Also I can't spread out or lure them because again, grenades. The first time I never had a problem with the grenades- now they will throw stun grenades and AoE summon fire spells ALL THE WAY down the hallway or through the walls. I really think my save file or something is bugged; I've even started the entire mission over from scratch and still get the same result.

TBH it doesn't even matter. I finished SR returns easily, and up to this point I haven't so much as lost a single team member. To have a mission where I suddenly have to fight upwards of 30 enemies in one encounter... that's just bad design. Maybe if it was later in the game or something I'd understand but my interest is completely gone at this point.

[Option]

Originally posted by SpenReyn:

What is the type of character that you're using? take advantage of the cover as much as possible, but don't be afraid to run eiger out into the open at maximum range to give her higher hit percentages with her sniper rifle.

I have an elf decker with high ranged combat and pistol/smg. Yes, I've done that with Eiger but she doesn't hit anything. It'll say 80-90% high chance and she'll still wildly miss. No lie, I have missed 99% hit chance two times in a row on the first decker who sits behind the desk. Then she gets spammed down with magic and simple pistol fire. You guys don't exactly understand that I've DONE everything you've said... MULTIPLE TIMES. The problem is that you simply can't put out enough damage quick enough because the miss percent is so high, there's no cover and you can't move far enough, the enemies spam DoT and AoE attacks if I'm grouped up or not, the enemies HEAL and BUFF each other to oblivion, they get crit hits on you 3/4 times... the salt is real.

Not to dismiss anything anybody's said- you guys have given excellent suggestions and offered valid points... but it doesn't change that this one single mission is wildy out of place and derails the entire experience. I suppose I could re-start the entire game from scratch and build a better set of characters... but the one thing I liked about this game was that you could use things like decking and etiquette to get through situations.

This is coming from someone who's been through the original Fallout, Final Fantasy Tactics, and a host of other SRPGs and classic WRPGs. Those games are hard, and have caused plenty of rage but never was I looking at a scenario like like and going "What on god's green Earth were they thinking?" If they simply would have made the hallways bigger with more cover or limited the number of enemies that come at you at one time or broken it up instead of having more than an hour's worth of fight at once it wouldn't even be hard. Challenging maybe, but not unfair.

[Traveller]

I am wondering how they can throw grenades at you if you lure them? They will run to you and use their AP to move so they should not be able to even attack. Your team should then use overwatch to kill or wound them them one by one before they even get to throw a grenade and then it should be your turn again....so either the ambush point you use is to close to the enemy or something is really wrong?
It sounds very odd.

What team members did you bring and did you give them any extra equipment?

[Option]

Originally posted by Traveller:

I am wondering how they can throw grenades at you if you lure them? They will run to you and use their AP to move so they should not be able to even attack. Your team should then use overwatch to kill or wound them them one by one before they even get to throw a grenade and then it should be your turn again....so either the ambush point you use is to close to the enemy or something is really wrong?
It sounds very odd.

Yes, it is very odd. I have tried sending one person out and having them turn around and hide back behind the corner and overwatch:

A) If someone is peaking out they will 100% get shot down from pistols across the entire lobby.
B) An enemy conjuror appears and summons a flame elemental. The flame elemental will rush down the corridor at you blow AoE attacks as soon as a single team member is visable.
C) All of the enemies will only advance far enough to start throwing grenades or use magic attacks that (again) will HIT ME THROUGH THE WALLS AROUND THE CORNER.
D) They never come close enough for overwatch and even if they did, I'd have all my AP knocked out before I could shoot through sun grenades.
E) Team members I brought were the basic ones without the decker. They all have medkits, revive kits, and a few grenades. That doesn't matter because they can't hit the broadside of a barn.
F) I am not underleveled or lacking good gear. I've done every side quest in the game up to this point, have sufficient equipment, armor, cyberware, etc. Again, I haven't had a single 'difficulty' issue until this point. Glitches? There have been plenty of those.

I think my game is flat out bugged. Even I've SEEN it bug out because I've had the enemy decker take control of the cyberzombie without seeing him or either of them giving the hacking dialog. I'm just not willing to restart the entire game over; like I said, if this mission was arranged slightly differently, it wouldn't even be challenging.

Either my game is bugged in some way or I'm just straight up terrible at this game. Whichever it is, it's too bad because this game seemed really great up till this point. Even if it's not bugged, I don't want to redo this hour long mission again on subsequent playthroughs. Thanks anyway guys.

[Traveller]

It sounds odd.
A few things...

A) Seems you are doing some things the wrong way. Enemies do not use overwatch so they can´t shoot you unless you stay in the open in plain sight. What you do is
1. Start the round out of sight.
2. move a member of your team into sight using a single AP.
3. You then use the rest of that models AP for that round to move out of sight again and towards the selected ambush point. Again, you do not end the round with a team member in sight of the enemy.
4. You put all the rest of the members on overwatch from the position out of sight and around a corner. That way the enemy have to move within your overwatch firing range before being able to see any of your members.
5. You end your turn and then wait for the enemy to arrive...it might take a few turns until the enemy can reach your position but some will come...you just stay in overwatch.

B) It can happen that the conjourer survives the overwatch and summons a fire elemental. just shoot the conjour next round and the elemental will disappear again. Again you do not make ambush point a long way from the corner, otherwise the whole ambush point of the strategy goes out the window.

C) Enemies can´t attack you unless they can see you so don´t stand AT the corner. Position your team mates a few meters away from the corner, a little spread out and preferably behind cover.

D) Overwatch have first fireso fire before the enemy unless you have positioned yourself badly. So unless you do the ambush strategy the wrong way this should not happen. See answer A for ambush points.

E) you can change a lot of the teammates equipment before the mission, so grenades and spells are important to buy if you want to use the team better. Also the Aim spell should always be up and running on Glory and Sniper...and the main character if (s)he needs it.
What level dificulty are you playing?

F) Yes most of the missions before are very easy compared to this mission.

You could try using the "rewind" option when loading, but if you don´t want to play the mission again then I guess there is no real option.

Other than that you could watch a couple of mission playthroughs on youtube to see how other players manage to get through it...you might get some fresh ideas ;)

[nofate]

Originally posted by Option:

I think my game is flat out bugged. Even I've SEEN it bug out because I've had the enemy decker take control of the cyberzombie without seeing him or either of them giving the hacking dialog. I'm just not willing to restart the entire game over; like I said, if this mission was arranged slightly differently, it wouldn't even be challenging.

/poor english

Everyone have this problem but still this mission is not that hard as you describe. You are doing something wrong.

Right now im on me 4th playthrow on very hard (was gunner, pure mage, melee fighter and now conjurer/summoner) and its all right. It dont matter what character you have. You have zombie and eiger. Zombie on front line but dont rush, Eiger with sniper rifle far behind. Anyone else support and sometimes shoot if % is > 50 (yes i know it is broken :)

Once again no rush!

[jbridso]

Ya, it sounds like your game might be bugged... ie) not blocking LoS via walls or considering remote viewing as being in LoS.

Normally, the riggers will not trigger until they see the zombie. Like I've had them run up to get him in sight, then give the warning speech and attempt to take control. If they're trying to control him from out of line of sight due to range/walls, then you're definitely bugging out.