Genesis: Too Damn Hard? Options

[Wounded Ronin]

And you're gonna be doing a LOT of runs to save up for that Fairlight Excalibur. Also, when hiring other runners I think they have two prices - one for one run and another that is effectively indefinitely. And they will gain karma as well.

Of course if you paid for the indefinite runner, you lose your investment if he goes down and instead of reviving him you abandon him on a run. Whereas if that happens to a one off you don't care so much.

Hilariously that runner will re appear in the same place to be hired later, but will actually be mad at you, have a 'tude in the flavor text, and will charge you more.

I think one of the deckers throws a burnt optical chip at you. LOL.

[chinagreenelvis]

I've given up entirely. The game was clearly made to keep the player five steps behind at every single point in the story. Even street sams get taken down by the random encounters right from the start of the game and are too slow to run away from them (or keep the attackers at bay). The kind of money you earn from the only runs you can physically accomplish at any moment is far too little to advance by the time I've gotten bored with them.

Hell, I maxed out all of my combat attributes and bought a 10,000 nuyen illegal armor suit and the security of low-level corp runs that only pay 1k each (and can be just as complicated and time-consuming as the Renraku runs since you never know what floor the target is going to be on unless the game randomly tells you) is still cooking the collective asses of myself and every runner I've tried bringing along with me.

I love the concepts, but either this is really shitty game design or I'm doing something ridiculously wrong.

[Wounded Ronin]

I've given up entirely. The game was clearly made to keep the player five steps behind at every single point in the story. Even street sams get taken down by the random encounters right from the start of the game and are too slow to run away from them (or keep the attackers at bay). The kind of money you earn from the only runs you can physically accomplish at any moment is far too little to advance by the time I've gotten bored with them.

Hell, I maxed out all of my combat attributes and bought a 10,000 nuyen illegal armor suit and the security of low-level corp runs that only pay 1k each (and can be just as complicated and time-consuming as the Renraku runs since you never know what floor the target is going to be on unless the game randomly tells you) is still cooking the collective asses of myself and every runner I've tried bringing along with me.

I love the concepts, but either this is really shitty game design or I'm doing something ridiculously wrong.

I don't know what to tell you. I don't remember being it all that hard and I played through the game at least 3 times. I guess I'd have to watch you play. Having come this far, want to post a video on YouTube so we can all chime in and Monday morning quarterback? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Also, if you haven't done so already, I remember there being an excellent guide on gamefaqs.com.

[chinagreenelvis]

Hah, that'll make for an interesting game session, pointing out all the things that are pissing me off... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Sendaz]

Hah, that'll make for an interesting game session, pointing out all the things that are pissing me off... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It's sort of like how many campers stash a deck of cards in their go bag, so if they get truly lost in the wilderness you sit down and start playing Solitaire.

Because I guarantee no matter where you are, someone will turn up and tell you the best place to put that Red 7. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[binarywraith]

What a bunch of monkey jizz... The low-paying corp runs are just as dangerous as the high-paying ones. Clearly the only choice I have is to keep whoring it up with ghouls until I've saved enough to buy what probably still won't be enough armor to keep my ass alive.

If you get really frustrated, go talk to Mortimer Reed over at the Big Rhino, and take aquisition runs against Lone Star. The lobby of that building has a safe you can crack and then walk out, which will reset the wall safe. Repeat as needed to fill your pockets, go sell off what you don't want, and do it again. It'll put some cash in your pocket.

Or just cheat. A B B A C A B Start at the title screen, it adds another blank line at the bottom of your pocket sec that opens a debug menu in-game.

[chinagreenelvis]

I actually did wind up cheating instead. The number of runs of any level you'd have to do to make the nuyen to advance yourself to be able to start doing new kinds of runs is ridiculous. A 12-year-old in 1993 might have been content to spend weeks doing the same drek over and over again, but I'd lose my damn mind trying to finish this game without cheating. Hell, even with cheats I couldn't get myself in a position to finish the end-boss, and settled for watching someone else do it on YouTube.

The funny thing is I almost didn't use the cheats at all, because I thought they were overpowered the first time I saw how much nuyen it could give you. What an understatement that would have been to make... Getting that much money even from top-level runs would take forever, but you can blow through it all in just a simple purchase, and then turn right around and lose it all by making a single mistake in a Matrix run. Seriously... fuck that noise.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Tell me about it. I stopped playing a Shadowrun MU* because they did the same thing, and when I said "hey, why can't I just store a copy of my programs out of my deck in chips and load them back in once the intrusion is over," they said that would make deckers too OP and that tarpits were the only checks on their money-making powers.

[Wounded Ronin]

I actually did wind up cheating instead. The number of runs of any level you'd have to do to make the nuyen to advance yourself to be able to start doing new kinds of runs is ridiculous. A 12-year-old in 1993 might have been content to spend weeks doing the same drek over and over again, but I'd lose my damn mind trying to finish this game without cheating. Hell, even with cheats I couldn't get myself in a position to finish the end-boss, and settled for watching someone else do it on YouTube.

The funny thing is I almost didn't use the cheats at all, because I thought they were overpowered the first time I saw how much nuyen it could give you. What an understatement that would have been to make... Getting that much money even from top-level runs would take forever, but you can blow through it all in just a simple purchase, and then turn right around and lose it all by making a single mistake in a Matrix run. Seriously... fuck that noise.

My memory of the game is much more nuanced.

Decking is the way to get money, but decking is also potentially harder and more involved than just beating the damn game. Like, you can be tough on yourself and deck every system, but it's sort of beside the point of beating the game.

This is because the stuff you buy with money is less important than your skills and attributes. Since you get 1 karma per kill on a run, go on a slaughter fest while screaming "Get some!" at the screen.

If for some reason you're not an epic gunslinger with the final boss, he likes to eat like 6 frag grenades in a row.

The matrix is a whole thing...a whole thing separate from just going and killing the final boss.

[Bigity]

Tell me about it. I stopped playing a Shadowrun MU* because they did the same thing, and when I said "hey, why can't I just store a copy of my programs out of my deck in chips and load them back in once the intrusion is over," they said that would make deckers too OP and that tarpits were the only checks on their money-making powers.

Must have been after my time or a different MU. I always had copies on chips in offline storage.

[X-Kalibur]

I actually did wind up cheating instead. The number of runs of any level you'd have to do to make the nuyen to advance yourself to be able to start doing new kinds of runs is ridiculous. A 12-year-old in 1993 might have been content to spend weeks doing the same drek over and over again, but I'd lose my damn mind trying to finish this game without cheating. Hell, even with cheats I couldn't get myself in a position to finish the end-boss, and settled for watching someone else do it on YouTube.

The funny thing is I almost didn't use the cheats at all, because I thought they were overpowered the first time I saw how much nuyen it could give you. What an understatement that would have been to make... Getting that much money even from top-level runs would take forever, but you can blow through it all in just a simple purchase, and then turn right around and lose it all by making a single mistake in a Matrix run. Seriously... fuck that noise.

To be fair, there are a very limited number of nodes in very high level servers that have tar pit.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Must have been after my time or a different MU. I always had copies on chips in offline storage.

Really? Which one do you play?

I remember that the one I had had a pretty nifty system wherein it didn't automatically serve you the name of anybody. You had to /mem them as whatever name you gave it. Ostensibly, this meant you would ask them their handle, they'd tell you their street name (or an alias, if they were feeling sneaky,) and you'd /mem them as that name.

In practice, well... I wonder how many people punched in /mem DOUCHEBAG and /mem BELLEND and whatever.

To be fair, there are a very limited number of nodes in very high level servers that have tar pit.

True, and on Gamefaqs you can find stupidly comprehensive guides, including the one by Eller, which has literal maps of the servers in the game, including where they have their nasty tar-pits and such. Armed with that information, you can pretty much just breeze through the easy-to-nail high-risk, low-reward servers. The best ones are the ones where the highest-value datastores are within a few (preferably one) hop of the CPU, so you can browse for those 60 Mp paydata files until you trigger an alert, zoom back to the CPU, reset the alert, and swish yourself right back into your node to go a-fishin'.

[Tenlaar]

It's probably a little late now, but by far the fastest way to make money is to go the screen to the left of the one you start on when you go to Downtown Seattle (I think), where the guy who buys pay data is with the terminal next to his door. Hit up random systems, get data, sell data, upgrade deck, rinse and repeat until you have everything you want.

Aaaaaaand now I want to play it again.

[Bigity]

Really? Which one do you play?

I remember that the one I had had a pretty nifty system wherein it didn't automatically serve you the name of anybody. You had to /mem them as whatever name you gave it. Ostensibly, this meant you would ask them their handle, they'd tell you their street name (or an alias, if they were feeling sneaky,) and you'd /mem them as that name.

In practice, well... I wonder how many people punched in /mem DOUCHEBAG and /mem BELLEND and whatever.

Ah thought we were talking past tense. Spent alot of time on the Seattle and Detroit MUSHs/MUXs. But that was a looong time ago (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tiralee]

Re: the SNES junkyard thing? Oh god, did I spend a week in there. Had flashbacks when it was mentioned, brrrr....





-Tir

[Wounded Ronin]

Re: the SNES junkyard thing? Oh god, did I spend a week in there. Had flashbacks when it was mentioned, brrrr....





-Tir

That was the height of the SNES game for me. Grinding in the junkyard. Because it made you a badass for the rest of the game once you were able to kill the King with the Beretta.

[Tiralee]

No no - what was awesome was grinding that vampire and fraggin ghouls in the basement of the vampire club for cash and karma. Assualt cannon, wired and gun skill maxxed? Cash for jam.

Although I DID try and have Kitsune (?) with me on the final run, that leather jacket really didn't cover the damage being thrown at us. And I think the biggest gun she got was a 9mm.

But who didn't love the, "Opps!" when you went to the dodgy street doc?
Nonononononononooo, HOW many hours before my head explodes?!


-Tir.

[Wounded Ronin]

No no - what was awesome was grinding that vampire and fraggin ghouls in the basement of the vampire club for cash and karma. Assualt cannon, wired and gun skill maxxed? Cash for jam.

Although I DID try and have Kitsune (?) with me on the final run, that leather jacket really didn't cover the damage being thrown at us. And I think the biggest gun she got was a 9mm.

But who didn't love the, "Opps!" when you went to the dodgy street doc?
Nonononononononooo, HOW many hours before my head explodes?!


-Tir.

The best part about the street doc was how if you asked him about something he didn't know he would say, "Sorry, sudden lapse in attention there..."