The GWJ CRPG Club - Game 1: Shadowrun Dragonfall DC (Over)

Think Ill relive the game through the thread It is a good game, was my first jump into the that world, and really liked the setting. But I think a second playthrough would only hurt my memories of the game.

I feel like I should know what decking is. I’ll start today or tomorrow, decking presumably.

I'm in too! I'll be rolling up a character and playing a bit tonight. I'm excited to get back to this series finally!

Finished the starter mission finally.

A few days ago I started up an Elf decker and kind of breezed through the opening mission. I ended up wiping out that game, and starting over last night, and ended up doing the last part of the mission over several times as I kept messing things up. Hopefully I have a better idea of how combat works now at least. I completed a couple more small things before getting called into space by my sisters, and today was devoted to finishing Half Life, so I might not make any more progress until next weekend.

I'm in. Playing a decker as well. I think I played a standard combat class in the first game, so this'll be a change (though that was long enough ago that I really don't remember all that much other than I enjoyed my time with it). Got to the point during the first mission where I have to stay alive for 10 turns, and then the newborn woke up. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it tonight.

About halfway through Returns. Glad I'm doing all 3, I may be done with 1 1/2 of them before February even starts.

Blake Bortles is a fun build. Throw some grande bombs into the initial clusters of enemies, and then run in and punch them in the face. I've been using a shaman and a mage to buff him as he charges in, and then a rifleman to aid in combat from a distance.

Not having to buy weapons (besides 'nades) means plenty of money for stuff.

Playing on Hard difficulty, might bump up to Very Hard for Dragonfall. Had a couple of deaths when playing lazy, but if you XCOM it even a little bit, it's been pretty easy.

I'm playing as well - I just installed the game. Thanks for the suggestions of trying out a Decker.

*Legion* wrote:

About halfway through Returns. Glad I'm doing all 3, I may be done with 1 1/2 of them before February even starts.

Blake Bortles is a fun build. Throw some grande bombs into the initial clusters of enemies, and then run in and punch them in the face. I've been using a shaman and a mage to buff him as he charges in, and then a rifleman to aid in combat from a distance.

Not having to buy weapons (besides 'nades) means plenty of money for stuff.

Playing on Hard difficulty, might bump up to Very Hard for Dragonfall. Had a couple of deaths when playing lazy, but if you XCOM it even a little bit, it's been pretty easy.

Deadman's switch is a lot shorter than the other two, if memory serves. And a lot more linear. Dragonfall (especially with the directors cut' has a lot more variety in missions available, including a lot of side quests. It does the 'baldurs gate 2 thing' where you need to raise x amount of cash to do a thing, by taking on various missions. Plus there's a lot of smaller side missions from people around your base camp,area, and I think all of your named npcs companions have companion quests if you talk to them enough? So yeah, there's a fair bit more content than the first.

fuzzyslug wrote:

I feel like I should know what decking is. I’ll start today or tomorrow, decking presumably.

Decking = hacking, only with the aid of a large novelty Casio keyboard looking thing!

Welcome tundra, gravity, billt721, and Aristophan!

Eleima wrote:

Elemental summon? What elemental summon? I guess I'll have to take another crack at it tomorrow!

I have no idea what they are talking about either.

_______

I played another hour or so today, split over two sessions. I wandered about the safe house neighborhood for 30 minutes or so, chatting with the locals and spending money—irresponsibly most likely. I'm not sure how intelligent my purchases were.

Pyxistyx mentioned the writing, and at first I wasn't sure what she was talking about. As I spent some time talking to the locals, though, I ran into a lot more writing than I did in the opening mission, and now I get it. This might be the best writing I've encountered in a game. Concise, descriptive, and powerful. Really sharp stuff. Usually when I play games I'll work through text dialogs as quickly as I can, but I found myself just enjoying the ride with these. The writing adds so much to the game.

From there I went on to the second mission, which was a blast. I feel like I'm starting to get a grip on the combat, and I enjoyed navigating the different floors and figuring out all the elements to the mission. The game does a good job using individual skills to open up conversation options. I assume this makes certain parts of missions easier or more difficult. Things went smoothly, and now I have money to spend and skill upgrades to decide for team members.

One thing I didn't quite get though. I bought an upgraded deck for my main character and a couple of programs that I assumed went with it. But although I was able to equip the deck for the second mission, I didn't have any of the new program options for it, and everything seemed the same as on the first mission. I'm not sure what the deck really does then. I assume I'll figure it out at some point, but I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

pyxistyx wrote:

Deadman's switch is a lot shorter than the other two,

Somewhat. My Steam playtime says SR took me 10 hours, DF:DC took me 14.3 hours, and HK took me 18.3.

I definitely was not a completionist with the side quests available in the latter two, and I probably will try and explore that content a bit more this time through. But I'd definitely consider them all fairly bite-sized as far as CRPGs go.

To be fair, I don't think SR is going to take me 10 hours this time. That had the benefit of being the first Shadowrun game I played, and I'm obviously a lot more familiar with the mechanics and "what works" in the games now.

Interested to try this, so I'll jump in. Bought the game on Humble, haven't started yet.

Matrix hotshot like Clockwork

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/943935949955854777/5340491F6A79A27F092571F6FF1F218C1C91DB58/)

I'm about 3 hours in and at the point

pyxistyx wrote:

where you need to raise x amount of cash to do a thing, by taking on various missions.

So I guess the training wheels are off and I'm into the meat of the game now.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

spending money—irresponsibly most likely. I'm not sure how intelligent my purchases were.

I bought cybereyes because hello how can I be a cyberpunk razorgirl without a pair of cybereyes. But I've also learned the hard way that it can help to leave a couple hundred nuyen in your wallet for NPC interactions.

Question for the floor about teammate inventories: should I be buying stuff for them? New weapons, armour, upgradeables? I've only been by myself (or with Dante) when shopping, so can only equip to myself or send stuff to the stash, and can't compare or swap their gear. Can/should I equip them stuff from the stash before a mission?

you can't buy them new armour, they're stuck with what they have. Weapons I think you have to swap out with stuff from your stash while you are outfitting your team on starting a mission, it's probably a good idea to do so but I've not really played around with that at the moment (i should take look though, combat encounter are getting a bit more dangerous at the point where I am and my character is a pretty frail high-charisma type who's not much use in a fight, so she needs the backup!) otherwise, skill and ability upgrades are only available through that "new x-com" style upgrade system they added as far as i know.

There's also at least one early instance of being able to upgrade a character's gear through a story point

Spoiler:

The Decker/Rigger's personal drone can be recovered and repaired for him from the hotel penthouse safe. No idea how effective this is, since i never bother taking the decker along with me on missions as there's not really much point! also he's annoying.

There might be others? I can't remember, it's been a while since I played. But otherwise I think if you want them to have better firearms/spells/decker stuff, etc you need to buy/find it in the world.

Jumped on the Mac pile copy last night and of course I used the opportunity to rethink the whole character thing and look at more Cyberpunk artwork...

This time I've gone with Murder, an Ork Adept, likes the blades.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/FjIEa2F.jpg)

May not have played much of the game yet... but have really enjoyed the artwork browsing, been especially cool to find an artist I quite like - Josan Gonzalez, who's stuff is new to me, though a familiar style - tip of my tongue, can't think.

He did the cover art for the Brazilian run of William Gibson novels...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/YrT58TV.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ihTxNvD.jpg)

and I've pinched one of his characters for my SR portrait

Anyhow next time I check in I'll hopefully have played some of the actual game!

oooooo. Nice!

oof. Yeah I remember now why I hate a particular mission...

(the "recover the prototype tech" mission, which crops up after you've performed your first proper hire job, i believe). Fair warning in advance - do a hard save BEFORE embarking on this mission, and make sure you're stocked to the gills with health and recovery packs!

I think if I have one complaint about this series is that there's little to no options for grinding / doing ancillary side missions for extra cash in those moments when you hit an absolute brick wall of a mission (see above).

pyxistyx wrote:

I think if I have one complaint about this series is that there's little to no options for grinding / doing ancillary side missions for extra cash in those moments when you hit an absolute brick wall of a mission (see above).

That's probably why I bounced off of Returns. I need my grind!

That is a really nice looking Gibson set. Funny, I was going to say playing this game had me thinking about digging out Neuromancer.

steinkrug wrote:

That is a really nice looking Gibson set. Funny, I was going to say playing this game had me thinking about digging out Neuromancer.

Same, well atm looking at the art has anyhow

It's been a looooong time.

Having the right team for that prototype mission is essential. If memory serves, a rigger and/or a shaman are both super useful. But being stocked up on healing kits is the most important thing.

Loving this game so far!

I found myself writing down key codes as I got them then I noticed the game makes a note of them under mission items.

Anyone else skipping missions from the jobs board thing? One guy wanted me to basically be a corporate hitman and I wasn't sure I wanted to go down that road...

Makes me wonder if I will not be tough enough later if I miss out on grinding opportunities

Hardek wrote:

Makes me wonder if I will not be tough enough later if I miss out on grinding opportunities

short answer....probably? It can certainly make things a little more challenging. I think, though, that it gives you two different main mission options at a time so that you can pick or choose the ones that best fit your character's motivations.

That said, you generally get a couple of different options in how you complete a mission, and even if it means missing out on a payday by upsetting the client, you'll generally still get karma from it. So it's worth maybe dropping a save beforehand and seeing how the mission plays out...

Is it possible to make enough money to be pimped out in all the latest gear for your characters or do you need to be careful with your credits?

JeremyK wrote:

Is it possible to make enough money to be pimped out in all the latest gear for your characters or do you need to be careful with your credits?

It is a tight economy, but you should be able to get everything your particular character needs with enough leftover for medkits and one use items by the end of the game. That said, if you get a little spend happy you could find yourself down a spell or short in some area. My general advise is that on the "hard" missions (big story beats, prototype mission) don't be afraid to throw the kitchen sink at things. On the softer side missions, aim for "clean" runs as best you can, saving those medkits for the rainy days.

I went elven mage, and I recall having enough of everything,, but that heal spell probably saved me a ton of medkit cash.

Redherring wrote:

Interested to try this, so I'll jump in. Bought the game on Humble, haven't started yet.

Welcome aboard! The timing on that Humble deal couldn't have been better.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

I went elven mage, and I recall having enough of everything,, but that heal spell probably saved me a ton of medkit cash.

I started making liberal use of Dietrich's heal spell on the second mission. That helped a ton. His damage mitigation spell is trickier to set up with positioning, but helps as well.

I decided to start with Shadowrun Returns and then dive into Dragonfall. I understand that they do not officially connect, but I was in the seemingly never ending search through the Steam library looking for something to play. This is the perfect antidote for that problem. I am a couple of hours in and I like the story. I am playing as a Mage and the spells leave a bit to be desired, at least at the beginning. The missions are solid and I just tasted my first defeat. I will keep grinding about looking for Coyote tomorrow evening.

I put in a some more time this evening doing one of the side missions, advancing the story, and running about the town for a bit.

I wanted to try and make it through the combat mission without using any medikits or grenades, but I ended up using one of each. I also reloaded a save when a conversation didn't go the way I had hoped. I tend to not like to save scum and instead just deal with the consequences, but it seemed so obvious what to do that I figured I'd give myself one more chance to make it out with a better outcome.

I'm curious, for people playing a decker, what are you spending karma points on? I think I'm missing something. It seems like his deck just takes up space, and about all it opens up is some dialog and data access things. Are there special Matrix missions or something like that come up where I use his deck for combat? In regular combat, though, my character is about as useful as a flower pot. So far I've put karma points in decking and IQ, but I've got 15 karma points now and I'm thinking to add in either drones or a rifle skill instead of immediately maxing out decking and IQ.

The combat is fun, though. Wow, the enemies are pretty dumb.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

The combat is fun, though. Wow, the enemies are pretty dumb. :)

You say the enemies are dumb, but I'm the one who keeps putting my characters next to each other, with a sign on their foreheads reading, "Toss grenades here". One day I'll stop doing that.