Hackers were always viable in SR4... They just did not hack 'ware (which is stupid) unless the target left himself woefully unprotected. However, there were more than enough other things to keep a Hacker busy in combat in 4th. My longest running character in 4th Edition was a Hacker/Rigger Cyberlogician, followed up by the Team's Technomancer. Between the two of them, there was not a system that could not be hacked, given the right circumstances.

'Ware and Gear hacking is for the most part really, really stupid, in my opinion, because it was not needed to make the hacker viable. He already was. *shrug*

I think the character archetype has been valid since SR1. It just used to take some more work on behalf of the GM to ensure integration. The most popular campaign I ever ran (sr3) was set in Seattle and the team decker was based in the CFS. Never once in the 18month (70 sessions at 6hrs a session average) campaign did the team physically meet up with the decker. We still talk about that game 10years later.

Sr5 means the GMs job has gotten easier.

Except that in your contentious example, not all cyberware has that wireless capacity. You always had the option to use non-wireless variants, or burn out the wireless, or disable the wireless, etc. So no, cyberware was not "leaching" off the wireless matrix, so no amount of new matrix technology made to exploit such things would ever work on those systems at all. ANd keeping this paradigm in the new wireless matrix would be trivial and would not cost the Corps billions in research to outfit their own people with 'ware without the security risks..

But you are correct in one thing... the new 'ware technology is indeed patchwork, as they try to create a plausible explanation to a system that does not work in a rational manner.

Sorry, the setting has to conform to the system in this case. If the game designers wanted to write in a mechanic for X-Men style mutant laser eyes, the setting would have to adapt to include it.

It's useless to say "this could never happen" with respect to gear hacking, because it obviously did. Now all it needs is a storyline reason. Fighting any potential explanation tooth and nail is utterly pointless.

I disagree. If the designers added mutant laser eyes the game is no longer Shadowrun but a mutant superheroes game.

Problem is, for a change of this magnitude, you NEED A STORY REASON FIRST... *sigh*
The fact that there is no story reason, nor any fluff rationale other than [LINE DEVELOPER REASON FOR HAXORZ], indicates that the change is ill conceived and poorly executed.

Indeed... SO much this.
+1 Internet...

Nothing wrong with that but if you make the rules asinine enough, you can't fit fluf to it. And honestly these rules aren't good in the first place, so I am not seeing the benefit on either the gamist of simulationist side. And new edition or not, you can't change the fluff as much as you want in established settings compared to new settings.

I don't like the change from a gamist point of view (some of the bonuses are no where near useful enough to risk being hacked) nor from a simulationist point of view (the bonuses makes no fakking sense, and all the fluff justifications are even worse).

Closed system IS an option, and as far as the in-game world is concerned, NO previous functionality is lost. They don't get the benefits of connectivity, but that's just the tactical decision that these guys have to make.



Not as a general case.



If you were to use old 'ware without any wireless, it would at best work the same as the new 'ware does without the wireless on.



... No. Just no. There's no one right order. Game reasons can, and in many cases MUST, come first.

At best.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Say, isn't that a SURGE expression? : P

No... it's not...

/sniff
:'(

That's a bunch of crap and you know it. My sam from SR3 had wired reflexes and reaction enhancers that worked just fine together without wireless and his smartgun made it easier for him to hit as a baseline (-TN)(or SR4 +DP) rather than increasing the hit ceiling. They have completely changed the base functionality of these pieces of gear by shoehorning in that they require wireless so that they can be hacked. It's poppycock at best. Tell me how my wireless connection is magically telling my reaction enhancers and wires how to interact, when previous levels of tech allowed this without the connection and they worked just as well (please see SR3 rules, the Init and REA bonuses coincide quite closely to SR5).

Change can be good when it makes sense or you overhaul the system entirely (see AD&DD -> 3rd Ed) but can also totally backfire (see D&D 3.x -> 4th). I like that mages have been brought down some and I really like that they are trying to empower the decker, which is just as iconic as the Sam. I just wish it wasn't so ham-fisted and transparent. They could have found other ways to accomplish this. Plus it overvalues jammers in combat now.

You're taking that rather literally. What I'm saying is that Game Element A can be introduced and the story can adapt to fit it, for the sole reason that the game element will make the game better. I imagine if the old edition were set in 2010, and the new edition advanced the storyline to 2012, we'd be having the same conversation about elves and dwarves.

False. In the current timeline, no Samurai had wired reflexes that operated with reaction enhancers in the 2060s. That technology wasn't introduced until Matrix Aware gear allowed it in the 2070s.

You're describing an alternate universe. This edition is not set in that universe.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Unfortunately, some of these changes must by their nature represent a retcon.

Actually at best the cyberware does work like it did in previous editions, however what you described is not a best-case scenario so therefore the statement of "at best" is accurate but does not apply to your situation.

Was your Sam able to break the rules with stacking his wired reflexes and reaction enhancers and take his augmented max beyond their limits?

I'm afraid that argument isn't going to work for existing campaigns trying to convert to the new rules. So we are, sadly, going to be faced with a large number of players who want to know why the characters they have been playing in existing campaigns, in some cases for years, suddenly need wireless connectivity to do exactly the same thing they were doing last session.

So it is a question that is going to be asked at the table.

Unless, of course, you want to say that existing campaigns cannot convert to 5th Ed. I'd personally regard that as a strike against the game.

It's a strike against a game if you can't convert existing campaigns from one edition to the edition after next?

My understanding is that there is going to be material available to migrate SR 4 characters into the SR 5 edition, yes.

However, how a gaming group resolves an Out-Of-Character issue like universe continuity is a separate issue than In-Character cybernetics continuity. The "last session", however disorienting, occurred in a universe that operated inside of a different construct.

The "last decade" had cybernetics that operate under identical constraints as modern (2070) cybernetics when not connected to the Matrix. In Character, they have been improved (Yay, go technology) to add additional bonuses that were not previously available.

Therefore, from an in character perspective modern cyberware is, strictly speaking, better. In all cases.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

You're not telling people anything they don't know. They know this, and they're not happy with certain changes in this new universe.


The fly in the ointment is that "some of these changes" create the situation where there must be a retcon. If certain rules had been implemented a little more...thoughtfully...then many of the retcon situations would disappear.

Sorry, I should have said '4th Edition campaigns'.

There aren't any major shifts in cyberware power between SR4 and SR5 (except some large wireless bonuses like WR + RE, which wasn't a possible combination in SR4).

The only really troublesome one is the Smartlink, but you could argue that one either way.

Using the wired reflex and reaction enhancers is really not the best example though as they were an exception rather than the rule. You could not use them with any other reaction boosting methods except each other.

So they were sort of the Form Fitting Armor scenario of cyberware.

Under the new rules the FFA shouldn't stack, but I am sure they will work in some exemption to slip it in. In the same way they have retweaked it with reaction stuff, normally the two do not work but the new wifi setup gives you the workaround you need to let the two stack.

Is it annoying? yes, but they could have just ruled the two do not stack at all anytime, so it's a bit of compromise on both sides. Plus as has been mentioned before, all the decking and mech heads will come up with some sort of workaround, whether its daisy chaining commlinks to make their own 'cloud' or maybe design some sort of fly by wire system that will balance the two devices so they work together who can say..

But it is allowed in the Anniversary Edition.

So it can shift freely one way, but not the other?

Here's one solution: The amount of fu (or power, or level of efficacy, or whatever) simulated by each die in the game is larger in SR5 than it is in SR4. This can be inferred by the lower dice pools. As a result, the same amount of fu granted by wired reflexes and reaction enhancers working in tandem would be expressed in SR5 by a lesser bonus.

EDIT: Even without the explanation offered here, it would be quite in-universe for the functionality to swap to incompatible. It's done so two or three times before. =i)

Except they do work in tandem - if you enable wireless. Which, for two pieces of 'ware that should work purely by DNI, makes no sense whatsoever. If they had gimped the wired reflexes/reaction enhancers combo, I would have understood it - they had some gear nerfs going from SR3 to SR4, too.

But making the combo conditional on wireless was a bad idea, because it used to work without it in the previous edition. So instead of people seeing it as a boost, they are all "What, suddenly I need to be online for two pieces of gear to work, when they worked fine before?". And the illogical nature of the bonus doesn't help, either.

More importantly they worked together even before there was a wireless matrix. Things like that just don't make sense.

SR4 is not the first edition of the game and they should consider all the setting's history and not just the last few years of it.

If you think the designers aren't allowed to rebalance gear when changing editions, I don't know what you want.

(Warning: TV Tropes links!) And this is the reason such terms like retcon, aka retroactive continuity, and ass pull were created. In the SR5 version of the Shadowrun universe, they were never compatible until the enabling of wireless. So really, history? Yeah, that can be ignored.

You are certainly able to argue that retcons suck or that they shouldn't have retcon'd it. I might even be inclined to agree if it were presented that way. But saying "they worked together even before there was a wireless matrix" is nonsensical in SR5, as much as you (and others) may dislike it. As noted by others, this isn't the first time they've pulled compatibility retcons.

-Temperance

Irrelevant, because I could combine them (without wireless) to hit the Augmented Maximum quite nicely, no external transmissions necessary.

By your logic here, SR4A Characters should convert seamlessly and without any loss to functionality at all, then. Which we know is crap. *shrug*

What? How did you get all of that out of that question?

No, any time an edition changes you gain some and you lose some. How could it ever be possible to literally change the rules of a game, however slightly, without actually affecting anything?

Right. Basically this.

The discussion may unfold in two ways which are valid:

1) I, the player, out-of-character, don't like retcons. I wish the designers hadn't retconned the change, because I liked it the other way. I'd like to have a discussion about how I feel about this.

OR

2) For ComputerScienceReasonX, it is impossible for two arbitrarily implemented systems to be integrated in such a way that favors the distributed nature of the Matrix 3.0.

NOT

3) In the past X years function Y was present, what happened to technology that removed that function?

I think that Option #2 has been pretty robustly defended as an untenable argument to make based on the implementation of the Matrix 3.0 largely being obfuscated from us, as players, so there is no real place for us to attack other than to assume it must operate under some arbitrary constraint that we place upon it -- An arbitrary constraint that, in reality, really need not apply.

I think Option #3 has made up a solid bulk of the complaints. The simple answer is : Retcon.

And Option #1? Sure, everyone has an opinion. Your opinion, as defined by your perception, is just as valid as everyone else. Not that it smells any better, mind you, but everyone's entitled to have one. But it would be silly to have an argument over opinions, wouldn't it?

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Well, that's also irrelevant, because be SR5 RAW, you can't. You'll have to use one or the other to hit the Augmented Max if offline, or be online to hit the max or break it by stacking them.

Okay, so lets say that the design goal is to have all electronics, including cyberware, online. You can't weasel out of it, you have to have cyberware online. What would you do to make cyberware online? Just say, everything is online and people don't get a choice? They tried that in SR4 and everyone just magiced that away with skinlinks, so clearly that didn't work. Or players would burn out their wireless with no in-game consequences, when there should have been maintenance problems from it.

So what would have been better then a wireless bonus? No bonus, just everything works better but the Sam now has to pay for a higher life style to show higher maintenance on his ware? Allow players to ignore one-third of the game and pretend the Matrix doesn't exist? Say everything is online, and you can't turn it off, ever?

Entertainingly enough, It is not because we as players have been obfuscated from the design implementation of the New Matrix. It is because the Developers don't understand the design implementation of the New Matrix. As admitted by the guy who designed the online bonuses. THEY MAKE NO SENSE. THAT is the crux of the OUTRAGE on this topic. Had they implemented changes THAT MADE SENSE, there would likely be no uprising. Unfortunately, we have the mess they gave us....

I don't mean to be condescending, so I will throw a non-sarcastic smiley face at the end to help soften the language a little, but with respect to the theoretical implementation of a system whose requirements and design are unknown, I don't think that you're qualified to say that it doesn't make sense.

Your frame of reference is limited to existing computer infrastructure which, obviously, does not operate like the Matrix 3.0. The Matrix 3.0 is not such a computer infrastructure. It operates under rules that you are not familiar with.

To say that the new Matrix must not operate the way that it does, is not a job for arm chair scientists. This forum is littered with probably hundreds of examples, at this point, of why a futuristic implementation of a technology could operate the way it does.

In short, to say that it must not is untenable. To say that it may not is true, but the converse is that it may. And in fact, in the context of SR5, it does.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Which, again, makes absolutely no sense.

The End result is that you disable everything that makes no sense to have online. So you lose out on a few "Options" (Which are not, as has been exhaustively discussed, truly options), and return to the days where the Decker has nothing to do but WHAT HE DID IN THE PREVIOUS EDITION. which was mess with Tacnets, Drones, and the few items that you could not take of the network. OR, he used Nanites to enable your Offline gear to make it more hackable. See, the problem is that all these options ALREADY existed in SR4. All those "Choices" you are so proud of ALREADY EXISTED, but they were also easily protected against. If you had no consequences for your choices, that is not the System's fault. There are plenty of things out there that would have forced such consequences as you suggest, and if they were not enforced, that is a Table Issue not a Rules Issue. The Magic Solution of Skinlink was easily fixed with the Magical Solution of Nanites, or EMP Grenades, etc.

But wait, the developers NEEDED more stuff for the Hacker to do in combat, so they FORCE everyone to have ubiquitous online presence without dealing with the ramifications of such a decision (as well as providing ludicrous "Bonuses" for that vulnerability), and then do not tell us the reasons for such a decision other than [JM HARDY's DECISION, SO LIVE WITH IT]. THAT is what the complaint is...

If you were ignoring the Matrix in SR4a, then you were not doing it right. Again, that is a Table Issue, not a Rules Issue. *shrug*

Except, you would agree that the Matrix in SR 1 - 3, and SR 5 is better than the Matrix in SR 4, right?

(*nudge* )

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

You mean the system that took me a week to learn, a week to design a challenge, and the decker spent five hours on while everyone else left for pizza? That SR3 Matrix? ^_^

{In the hopes of not sounding an ASS, I also include a Smiley... }

SO IS THE DEVELOPER'S UNDERSTANDING SO LIMITED. I would go so far as to say the YOU are not (nor is anyone) an expert in this so called paradigm either. If you were, you would be a Multi-GazBillionaire as you implemented such an infrastructure across the globe, revolutionizing communications and connectivity in one fell swoop. So any defense of it is entirely fanciful, though sometimes rational. There is NO scientific backing for such a Global Infrastructure, because we do not have the scientific understanding required to make it even theoretically work, let alone become a reality. It is ALL conjecture.

The problem is not that they are trying to force the issue, it is that they are trying to force the issue in such a hamfisted and illogical manner. If they actually could provide explanations (and by extension, online bonuses that actually made some sense) you would have a point. The problem is that those explanations do not even exist yet. So they DO NOT ring true. Again, it is not that it exists, it is that "Online Bonuses" make absolutely no sense from what they have presented so far. Correct that, and you will likely see most of the dissenting voices disappearing.

And it does not make sense in world either . .
There is simply no reason why one would ever constuct things like that . .

Remember we're discussing a core rulebook, not a core rulebook with supplements A B and C. Unwired and Augmentation came out relatively late in the game for SR4, so there weren't any 'magical solutions' for 3-4 years. This core book is starting out with a stronger stance -- gear hacking is possible from launch, and not convoluted or requiring rules in books that don't exist yet.

Heh... I love the ideas of Decking/Hacking. Unfortunately SR1 and 2 were atrocious. In SR3, it got better, but was still very unwieldy, though workable. SR4/SR4A made Hacking work really well, and was mostly seamless, at least for me. I LIKE a lot of what I have seen from SR5's Matrix streamline, though I still do not like the Kludge of Online Bonuses crap. Unfortunately, even if I had the money to purchase SR5, that would likely be the proverbial straw that kept me away. I hate Limits, I hate Online Bonuses. 2 Core, Mandatory, changes that I truly despise. *shrug*

So in conclusion... SR4A's Matrix was the Most Awesomest system ever invented.
Glad you agree with me Wired_SR_AEGIS, together we should be able to rejoice in the enlightenment that is SR4A...

These books came out later because of the transition from FanPro/Fasa to CGL if i remember correctly.

It is the EXACT same stance that SR4 Started from. *shrug*
A Stance they backed off from when they realized how mind-numbingly dumb it was, I might add. Even while keeping it available, if you liked it.

Sure there is. If you accepted SR4's entire premise that the world should be based more on what we know of the world today -- hey, it turned out that plugging wires into everything really isn't following any sort of modern historical course, so this whole Wired Matrix looks bizarrely antiquated by today's standards -- then the logical dystopian conclusion is that the peons don't get good data security. It's not that good data security doesn't exist, it's just that most people can't really afford it.

Basically imagine what the Internet would look like if the only antivirus you could get was Norton or McAfee, and they cost $10,000 a year.

The Corps can afford to police their own stuff, and presumably they do it pretty well -- from their hosts to their augmented armies. It's not a problem for them, because they have the resources to shovel at it.

It's the little people, the runners, the mom-and-pops that use this stuff that get screwed, and that's very Shadowrun.