No, it breaks SR's internal logic due to the massive, colossal, epic disconnect between the way technology has previously been stated to work in the Sixth World, and the way it is now being stated to work, with absolutely no in-universe explanation given for the change.


I have no idea where he's getting the idea that nobody uses radios, drones, or tacnets. I see posts here on Dumpshock all the time about the awesomeness of tacnets (and they are pretty damned awesome), and my players use drones and comms all the time. Which reminds me, I should really start throwing some hackers at them.

Anyway, hacking enemy comms is super useful in combat. Hacking enemy drones is super useful. Hacking the enemy tacnet... holy shit, the havoc you could wreak. Why in great Cthulhu's unholy name is it necessary for cyberware hacking to be a viable avenue?

Except, by the book, this new wireless paradigm is somehow affecting gear made 20 years ago.

Because there is no in-universe explanation for most of it, just "wireless makes everything better!"

Fortunately, it appears that simply houseruling the wireless bonus rules away won't measurably affect the game, since there's already plenty of routes for hackers to exploit even without them.



-k

That's the thing. The characters have no reason to be angry, as without there being an explicit change, this is business as usual for them. Even if it's a change, as presented they've got no reason to be angry at the corps anyway, as the ones exploiting it would be... other Deckers. Shadowrunners just like them.

The anger is entirely in the PEOPLE CATALYST IS TRYING TO SELL THE NEW EDITION TO.

But this still ignores that while it makes sense for junk the corporations are selling to consumers, it might be the dumbest idea in history for a product they are selling to a military, or are issuing to their own door kickers.

Taking it back to the good old days, cyberdecks were differentiated from normal cyberterminals because the deckers had ripped apart and rewritten parts of the firmware to eliminate all the undesired "features" in the OS that would make them trackable, or might potentially impede illicit matrix activity. Where is that spirit in this? Why didn't the street doc who put in Joe Street Samurai's wired reflexes and reaction enhancer come up with a kludge that lets them interact with each other at full effectiveness without exposing him to the risk of getting shut down by GOD? You can't claim to want to go back to the good old days of the Neo-As without embracing the idea of repurposing The Man's tools to use them against him.

Probably. Like I said, I hadn't had any caffeine, so I wasn't entirely sure how to parse that one.

I can't. I can say that I fought it, but the actual arguments are still, I think, covered by NDA. I'll see if I can do some paraphrasing, but I'd rather not cross that particular line if I can help it and haven't already.

Sorry, not gonna happen.

The Hacker already had something to do in combat. He puts his commlink down, draws a machine pistol and starts laying down covering fire for the Sammy.
Or he calls in a drone strike.
Or he hacks the other team's drones, or their turrets.
Or he hacks the lights/etcetera.

He does not get to hack the opposition's wired reflexes or their smartguns, because that is retarded, and exists purely for the metagame reason of making him an MMORPG debuff class.

Yeah, sorry. Frankly, I almost wish I had one of those con books, so I could go through the gear and matrix sections line-by-line and make a comprehensive "bringing the sanity back" houserules post.

If something gets haphazardly bolted on, it's fortunately easy to tear off again...

BA HAHAHAHA! Yeah fragging right.

Hacking does not take place in combat-time, entirely due to two reasons:
1) Extended tests (which people seem to be up in arms about getting rid of because "now it makes hacking too fast" and "hackers can now choke me to death with my own cyberarm as a complex action" and "makes him an MMORPG debuff class.")
2) It is not a single test. First you have to Scan (extended test) to locate the correct node. Second you have to hack the target to gain access (extended test). Third you have to actually give the command! which itself may involve yet another (threshold) test. Oh, and if the signal is encrypted, you can add an other extended test between steps 2 and 3. Even if all of these extended tests used up Free Actions (and you got one, plus you could convert simples and complex actions into free actions) it would still take a absolute minimum of two passes to complete this hack-action (unless you're under some kind of delusion that the hacker can roll enough dice to make the thresholds in a single roll without edge....).

I've still yet to see anyone who is so adamantly against gear being hacked comment at all on the dissonance between refusing to accept this, but having no problem with literal mind control spells. Why is a hacker spending 3 passes to shut off your cyberarm totally unacceptable, but the Mage spending 1 pass to turn you into a puppet and start shooting your friends perfectly okay?

I can understand the fluff arguments, the ones that say the change makes no sense from the in-game standpoint that these things that used to be doable without wireless now require wireless. I am all for calling out bad fluff, or unimaginative bonuses, or whatever else. What I do not understand is people whose sole problem seems to be "I hate the idea of losing control of my gear", as if gear/cyber hacking is somehow worse than what is already a part of the game.

Regarding JH:

Errata.

WAR!

Layout.

SR5 online bonuses.

I measure things on what they are, not on what they are said to be or should be or wished to be.

If SR5 will have a usable errata policy (errata documents or errata forum topics, if new printings and PDFs are updated (hello Arsenal PDF) and if online bonuses become offline bonuses except for real online bonuses (like tacnet or drone control) then I will happily pull back what I said.

And yes, I would be (as Hermit) very happy to see a full listing of arguments pro/contra online bonuses from a dev/author point of view (especially considering the fact that hackers were already capable of combat hacking during SR4 (tacnet, drone etc)), because I am still looking for the big selling point.

--



Then CGL should not put up stupid rules. It´s that easy.

SYL

Then you understand the reason why so many people are upset. It´s not about comparing the usefulness of hackers and mages, it´s not about the DPS output of sams and faces - it´s simly in this case about a certain part of matrix rules.

SYL

QFT

I've seen lots of people who are adamantly against any possible reason that would give hackers access to their gear though. Like I said, the people with fluff complaints I can understand (though if the complaint is fluff based, it seems to me the better solution is to find a fluff based solution, not a change to the rules), but there are people whose whole complaint is divorced from the fluff and instead focused on "I don't think this should be possible in the game. It existing at all in any form is something that upsets me", which is a stance that I really can't comprehend. It's like if I decided I wanted to demand a way to turn off my astral connectivity with no drawbacks, so I could be immune to all magic.

Making things which should be combat-hackable hackable in a reasonable amount of time by reducing matrix cruft actions is acceptable - after all, the Sammie doesn't have to waste a pass "acquiring" a target, and while in theory he may have to spend a simple action drawing his weapon, he can bypass that with a "Prove you are this badass to ride" roll.

Also, you failed to counter my "stop playing with your cell phone, draw your gun and start flinging hot lead downrange" argument, which really, is the #1 thing the hacker should be doing in combat. The best time to hack the other guy's drones is before combat starts, so when combat does start, he still thinks they're on his side until they put a long burst into his back.

Ultimately, the "wireless everything" was the problem.

Deckers have always been an iconic part of the Shadowrun universe, but SR4 tried to shoehorn them into a role that not only never existed in the universe prior to that, but also one that just doesn't really make much sense, or ends up being much fun.

Let's be realistic, having a traditional decker in SR1-3 required a group that was patient, and a really good GM who could handle the multi-tasking in order to keep everyone engaged. Sadly, only a handful of us are that fortunate, so decking often got shunted aside. And it's kinda sad, since the game borrowed so directly from Neuromancer, in which the protagonist was effectively a decker.

But in the effort to make the decker a more viable character, the game went too far, introducing mechanics that made the decker a further annoyance to characters that relied on technology. The problem is, these characters were already slowly losing the power creep battle to magically active characters. So the game now had NPC hackers that would screw with your already increasingly ineffective cyberbits. Sweet Brown said it best. Ain't nobody got time for that.

If skinlinks seemed too powerful, it's not because they were. It's because they were exactly the kind of solution that every single Shadowrunner would use. They weren't too powerful. They were exactly the right amount of power, because anyone not using a wireless solution was an idiot. Why would you run anything with an inherent security flaw if there was a simple way to avoid it? The answer is: you wouldn't. I mean, I live in a good neighborhood, but if I park my car on the street for whatever reason, I lock the doors. Why? Because I'd be an idiot not to, and there's a very simple mechanism for basic security that is available for cars.

The excuse that the hacker needs something to do, like it has been pointed out, is bulldrek, to use the parlance of the game. The decker always had something he could do, even if sometimes it was just "pull out a gun and shoot at some dudes".


Basically, what has happened was there was a perceived need for a drastic alteration to the universe done at the time of SR4. It was a good idea in theory (giving the deckers a larger role) but the problem was that it was so poorly conceived and executed that nobody wanted to use it. It seems that the problem is that the SR5 team thought that the solution was trying to fix it, instead of recognizing that it was an inherent flaw in the design itself, and eliminating it. The decker's job is to be the superfreak computer hacker. That's it. A good player gave his decker other reasons and ways to be useful when he wasn't plugged in.

Catalyst would have done a far better job if they'd recognized all the flaws in the design they could fix that would scale back the ridiculous power creep for the mages and combat monsters, which would introduce the parity to make a decker with a halfway decent attribute and skill to be able to shoot a gun and affect the combat. I don't think most decker players were ever concerned that they weren't quite as good as the street sam or physad. They just wanted to feel like they mattered. The problem wasn't that they were underpowered. It was that the rest of the characters were overpowered.

It´s about believability.

One thing is magic. And yes, it´s magic. If magic is too powerful or too weak is an entirely different topic. The other thing is online connectivity, which is enforced for no good reason with explanations in the area of "please wear a glowing pink suit for +3 to initiative". This enforced gameplay is based on a lie (JH claiming that a hacker was not able to contribute enough in combat while completely ignoring tacnets, drones and radio communication)



No one, really no one, has argued that real online activities (like radio communication, tacnet, drone control etc) can be manipulated. Why not exploiting that? Why not give program options and hacker/decker actions on how to manipulate radio communication (with a searing pain due to overload, -x to actions, while your ear almost explode in pain) or that the enemy tacnet can be manipulated by a "mirror room program" where you shoot on your own team with 3 - or, God beware, the fun you could have with 3 marks on an enemy drone). No one here is talking about immunity against certain forms of attack or balance between mind control mages and hacker. It´s about believability, the reason why it exists and metagame reasoning. And in that area this specific kind of rules completely fails.

Edit:
Oh yeah, astral connectivity. Image if everyone (mundane included) is now being forced to become dual natured. Because, you know, mages cannot contribute to physical combat while in astral space. And if you turn of your dual nature, you suffer X negative dices every round. How does that feel? Totally stupid, right?

--

Brainhacking is, again, a totally different topic. It already exists partially in the sixth world (psychotropic ICE, PAB treatment) and yes, it is indeed a very interesting topic. Some does not want it, I, for the record, have nothing against it - if it is done properly. Aka not the JH way.

SYL

I think we are still missing some crucial information in this discussion. And that is, how easy or hard is it to defend myself against hacking attempts on for example my cyberarm.
Is a good commlink with an IC or two enough to discourage most deckers? Or am I absolutely defenseless against hacking attempts if I'm not protected by a decker myself?

Could someone with access to a SR5 book please find some infos about this?

-CJ

Exactly.

I have my own problems with mind control magics, but they're not germane to this issue because they've been written into the system from the start as something that can happen. There is a massive amount of in-game reasoning and exposition on just how magic works, especially as concerns influencing other people.

The better comparison here would be if everyone were made physads, and mages were allowed to ground spells through all such astrally active targets from astral space. Players could sacrifice their power points in exchange for not being subject to this.

That sort of thing would get just as much pushback as this is.

What astral connectivity?

Then again, with some modifications your comparison actually works: Criticizing the concept of everything being coerced to go online just to allow some Neo tricks for hackers? That is like deciding you do not want every person in the universe to be permanently dual-natured because you believe a permanent threat of being mana-nuked by Astral entities does not belong into the setting.

Great minds think alike, I see. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Actually - this does not really matter that much. Because there is another thing to consider.

If you are online, your signal can be found and tracked. Depending on the situation even that alone is enough to alert the authority and to screw the entire run (it´s like in SR4 with hidden networks). Of course you can disable your online connectivity or simply reduce signal range to 0 or 1 (which was quite common in SR4, depending on the situation). If you do that in SR5 however, your cyberware and items are ... suboptiomal.

There was a basic explanation on how the matrix rules work in the Quick Start rules. I do not recall the details but my impression was that the hacker defense for "non hackers" was far weaker then the attack when the attacking decker and the defending item was on a comparable power level. But I would have to check again.

SYL

Well, this is still shadowrun... so running the shadows should still be possible. Which means I totally expect that there are some countermeasures against being tracked through the matrix. Something similar to the Hidden Mode in SR4. Because without such a thing that game is dead...

-CJ

Oh, believe me, I'm about the last person who'll get the Xbox1984. Not even for the aggressive DRM, but for the fact this fucking thing is a bug for the NSA planted into my living room, a bug which monitors who visits me, records what is said, records faces, records emotional expressions, and daily sends that collected data it straight to the KGB America for all I know. And then they expect me to shell out $499 for this. No thank you.

The problem is, this isn't really justified by any in-game development. Because it affects legacy ware. Because it affects things that before never needed wireless. Because it just goes too far and is poorly handled, thought out, and written. It is an out-game change forced onto the world because some people apparently wanted combat hacking so bad they never bothered to think about what collateral damage this causes, or whether or not to handle wifi boni with care.

I can get the basic idea, though actually, changing the combat hacking mechanic would have sufficed, even reached the intended goal of the combat hacker as a standard much more successfully. Because in the current, all-hackable-or-all-crap setup? The hacker will nto be crapping the enemy's guns. The hacker will be scrambling his best to try and prevent the team to be killed by hacking, while the rest of the team except for the mage is, basically, dead weight that occasionally shoots in case it is not being hacked right now. You made mundane cyber characters pretty redundant with this move, as it seems now.


Uhm, no. Because this is not what these rules changes are. These rules changes are fucking players over, not runners, in-game. And besides, these changes look like they kill the concept of a cybered runner, which is more than a bit sad for a cyberpunk setting.


The problem is: these are not bonuses at all. These are basic functionalities taken away unless you go all-hackable.


But, unless the actual rules are extremely misrepresented in this discussion, you will get exactly that, or workaround like bio-sams, more awakened characters, or opt-out skillmonkeys.


Pity, though understandable. I'd still like to know. Maybe we're overlooking something; after all, I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't have an origins pre-release book.


Which was what I said at the beginning of SR4. It becam handleable with Skinlink. Now, it is a problem again.


That was a carryover from SR1 and SR2, really, with it's elaborate Data Dungeons. SR3's Matrix system in Matrix, for the few who ever read it and worked into it, was mechanically crassly different from the trest of the game, but made Matrix runs no more time consuming than Astral runs by mages. And nobody ever complained about them. Both the decker and the mage are effectively short-term teamsplits. With the small houserule that deckers and everyone else operate on the same initiative turns, you could even play a viable combat hacker concurrent with everyone else in the same combat! Of course not hacking everybody and their dog's cybernetics, but the environment, which can be pretty lethal too.


Well. It's still possible if you play an opt-out awakened, a bio-augmented mundane or a decker, I suppose (barring some great defense mechanism that nobody mentioned yet). It kills all cybered characters (and maybe also riggers, depending how they get shafted this edition). Except if you houserule that stuff out, which looks increasingly like the best solution.

Of course, if that's the best solution, I know I at least won't be buying the book.

I'm not up to pay $50 or so for the privilege of fixing the dev team's fuckups and making their game playable.