HP can still work in a game that is about fast and deadly combat. For a good example, check out (you're gonna have to dig some) Cyber Knight 2 for the SNES. A random encounter can wipe you out as quickly as you can wipe them out.

I don't think the AMOUNT of HPs or how fast you run out is a problem.

The fact they exist in any game calling itself Shadowrun Returns, is a detriment. At least in some people's opinon, including mine.


The 'how it translates to other media' is a pretty weak argument. With a computer or gaming system of some kind, any mundane mechnical systems can be automated (except maybe die pools) so why NOT go with what Shadowrun uses?

Why?
Is there a particular problem?
You have 10HP in a regular SR3 game. EVERYONE in fact has 10HP. Call it CM all you want, it's HP.
Finer granularity is a good thing for a computer game, or you will drop dead all the time after a single random number event (read: taking damage).

People are little bent out of shape over a minor mechanic aspect of it. You want to complain about the spirits, go for it, I hear what you're saying... although it's still pre-alpha. It's also NOT the first Shadowrun title to have HP. The Genesis version used a 10% meter (ahem, 10 HP) and the SNES version had Body that directly translated into HP at a x10 ratio.

Uh-huh, Its getting caught up in semantics really.

It's "Tha IntraWebs! My way is right, and everything that isn't my way SUCKS!"

Or, so it feels to this Old Guard.

*Sighs* Eternal September.

Quick! Let's throw a huge monkey wrench in the work and request them to change it from HP to TP! Tenacity points! Then it can make no sense to anyone!

Yeah, I'm not feeling the hate for HP, myself.

The main concern I have is: if Healing magics / equipment / etc is based on a flat rate of HP recovery, then it would be harder to heal a Troll than an elf. That would not fit Shadowrun very well, at all.

However, there's an easy "fix" for that.

Let's first posit that each point of Body gives you 20hp.

Let's next posit that Healing spells come in L, M, S, and D "levels", with commensurate Drain impact.

If a Healing effect heals 5, 10, 15 or 20hp base (depending on the level it's cast at), and that base is multiplied by the target's body ... then guess what? Now, a Heal L will heal the same percentage of the target's maximum HP, regardless of body. B=3 Elf? 15hp out of 60. B=11 Troll? 55hp out of 220.

So, it's not super-complex to make healing scale across all HP potentials. Thus, I retain hope that my biggest concern about use of HP will be properly addressed.

http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/b/377701080
for 15$ Pre-Order and 20$ Retail it doesn't sound that bad.

At only US$1.8m for the budget, I doubt they could have justified getting people to spend US$60 on it brand new. Especially as every sale they make is PROFIT! (And investment into DLC/Expansion Packs!!! Berlin, here we come, eventually!)

Assuming Kickstarter was their only source of money. I obviously don't know if they did it, but after having just collected 1.8 million dollars without so much as a concept drawing, HBS surely would not have had any problems finding investors...

Also, HBS stated the net income from the Kickstarter as "just under $1.2 million". Rewards and fees are major factor for all KS projects.

If its just semantics, why the need for HP at all instead of what the game already uses?

Because they want to sell the game to people who don't know Shadowrun as well.

Unfortunately this wasn't how the game was billed. I think many people contributed to the kickstarter thinking they would get SR in computer form, not whatever it is that has abom spirits and summoning fetishes and hit points and spell cool-downs and critical hits and on and on.

This is why you gotta watch out with where you kickstart money. At least with Star Citizen and Wasteland 2 I knew the teams working on them had good track records.

Because the pencil-and-paper game uses hit points, too. It's just that, in the print / tabletop version, everyone (prior to SR4) always had exactly the same number of hitpoints: 10. And they weren't actively called hitpoints, they were "boxes on the condition monitor".

But as has already been quoted in this thread: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose // By any other name would smell as sweet."

I sort of agree that actually the name "hit points" isn't so offensive. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered seeing people get hit for like "-15 hit points" or something. So it seems that they not only used the name but also the idea of hit points, where as you get more powerful you gain more and more hit points.

Regardless, there was a lot more stuff in that video that was changed than hp or not.

You've made a gigantic, unfounded leap from "there are hitpoints" and "you get more as you 'go up in level'".

Seriously. The SNES Shadowrun game gave you 10hp, per point of body. No levels involved. Wanted more hp? Had to raise your Body score.

Using HP, even with things doing 12 or 15 damage at once, does NOT mean the game is level-based. ::sigh::

I'm just trying to discuss this topic, not get into a bold text or sigh contest. Lighten up

You've made a gigantic, unfounded leap when you think I was talking about a level-based system. My quote is "where as you get more powerful you gain more and more hit points." So it still holds for your case, where you keep getting more and more HP when you raise your Body score (x10).

Which version of the Shadowrun rules are you going to use?

Let's start here--Shadowrun was never about the rules. It's about the game world. If you need proof, look at the 1st Edition rules. They were. . . lacking. But the world caught on and the rules improved. So we intend to be true to the world and take our rule cues from the 2nd and 3rd Editions. They best represent the 2050 era time frame.

Honestly I don't give a crap if they don't follow the rules, not only is it not always ideal to do strict translation from tabletop to digital (Icewind dale 2 I'm looking at you) But more importantly: Personally I'm more interesting in getting people invested in the Shadowrun setting, in the concept itself d6's and condition monitors aren't what makes SR. What makes SR is Megacorps, Plotting dragons, Bug spirits, Rogue AI, Gangers, Magic , VR, Riggers, Chrome and Misery.
That's what important, that's what I want from this and that's what I hope so many new people will come to love.

Style over substance, for the lose.


And in tabletop Shadowrun, you get "harder to kill" as your Body score rises, too.

Explain to me the fundamental difference between the two? Because I'm not seeing one.

A difference in execution, yes. But not in result.

10 hitpoints, or more commonly, 10 boxes in the condition monitor, is what combat's about.

Sure that wagemage might, just might, manage to roll high enough to resist that 14D aimed shot I had lined up...that's fine, that's what the second bullet is for.

But if having a body 10 troll = 100 boxes in the "Hp/Condition modifier", that's not Shadowrun 2/3rd. It's Magicrun 1.a, easier to swallow with half the difficulty.

And it's certainly not what I was expecting when I forked over the cred to fund that dream

Sorry if I've started and cranky-fest on this topic, people - but I wanted to play SR3, not a version of DnD CyberDaggerdale.

-Tir

This is my concern too. Hit Points, Life Points, Wounds, whatever. Yea, I dislike that part.

What I REALLY dislike is the idea that a round from a heavy pistol isn't something you have to worry about in and of itself.

Or the possibility that along with hit points, you take the magnitude of getting shot and crank it down a notch or two so that it's more 'fun' for people who prefer less lethal combat.

What exactly they call it, yea, its probably irrelevant, but if combat works more like whack-a-life-bar of WoW or D&D, I'm not interested.

And another huge unfounded assumption comes rolling down the pike.

Who's to say that the equivalent of a "14D" attack, won't be dealing 100 or 150 damage?

Even using the SR3 system, essentially a D attack does 10 damage.

Erm, yes. Quite.


You get oh-so-slowly harder to kill in SR. Increasing Body is very expensive, and gets you almost nothing in terms of "hit points". Body 5 vs Body 10 is almost no difference in SR.

The fundamental difference is number inflation and, for lack of a better term, grittiness. Rules-systems with hit points tend to be more heroic, where the PC becomes nigh untouchable by lower-powered mooks mostly because of high hit points. This is cool in certain games. But for me this isn't the kind of game I want to play if I'm playing "SR". In SR, there's always the chance that some punk with a heavy pistol will roll well and one-shot you, no matter if you're at 0Karma or 100 Karma. Not the same feeling if you have 100 HP and the heavy pistol does 10 HP for damage.

I know the game's not finished. I'm just not liking the direction it seems to be taking. Let's hope this clip doesn't accurately represent the state of SRR.

You're kidding, right?

Body 10 gives you twice as many dice to resist damage with, as Body 5. You should ideally get twice as many successes.

Let's say it's that 14D attack cited earlier comign in. And you've got good, solid armor - 10 points of it, resulting in a TN of 4 to resist the damage. About half of your dice should come up successes.

Body 5? Two, maybe three successes. You stage down to S, 6 boxes on your condition monitor.

Body 10? 5 successes; you stage down to M, 3 boxes on your condition monitor.

... you call that "almost no difference" ...? The guy with B=5 is at 40% remaining, the guy with B=10 is at 70% remaining. I know which one I would rather be.


For one thing: Shadowrun does have hitpoints, and it always has. Up through SR3, it has given 10 for lethal damage, 10 for stun damage, and your Body in physical overflow boxes - and that was that.

For another thing: yet another assumption raises it's head: that weapon damage will be a fixed amount, no matter what. But ... what if, instead, weapon damage is a function both of the weapon, and the relative success of the shooter, then modified for the target's armor ...? IOW, that heavy pistol may not do "10 damage" all the time. It may do, say ... "!7"; that is, "7 base, modified by margin of success-versus-armor". And you might see a 4 drift up over the target ... or a 30 ... or lots of points between the two.

*Sighs* It's taking so loooooooooooooooooooooooong... *Whines some more*

*pat pat*
for once, we are in the same boat what with not getting to play . .

According to the latest email they've decided to release on Steam. I'm not sure in the coming months if I will be in the US or in the Federated States of Micronesia. I'm not sure if Steam would work in the FSM or not.

They did say that in order to keep the DRM-free promise they would also have a non-steam version, but that it basically wouldn't be compatible with DLC content and fan created stuff in the same way that the Steam version would.

Which makes sense.

Makes me feel nostalgic for the days when you'd scour the internet for custom DOOM wads, or Max Payne mods, and after tons of searching you'd find some real gems. The days when it felt all wild and free. There were some truly great DOOM wads.

I've never used "Steam" and I'm at work ATM... Can someone give me a run-down of what it is (or isn't)?

Thanks.

Steam (a program made by Valve, thus it's name is a Pune. That's a play on words, BTW) is a combination of social media and online store program to sell and distribute video games, as well as handle the DRM issues for companies so they don't have to (Most, being jerks, still do. *Looks hard at EA*) as it makes sure the copy is legitimately purchased (though them) and then licensed once. After it's installed on your computer, the game will run even if Steam is unable to connect to the Internet as it has already determined the DRM of the product in question and is more than happy to let people play the games they actually bought.

Also, you can buy Valve games through it, such as Portal, Team Fortress 2, and the Half-Life series.

Recently, it's opened up to more and more independent game teams with what's called "Greenlit", a voting program that lets the users of Steam determine which Indy Games are worth putting onto the site for sale, and which ones aren't, so that they don't have to dedicate teammates away from doing far more important things (Like making hats for Team Fortress characters).

It's free to use, costs for games are just as much as in a store with HELLA less DRM hassle, and it has *LOTS* of great sales all the time.

Thanks CanRay.
I don't normally game on my PC (that's what my PS3 is for)... I'm making an exception for the SR games coming out this year. So Steam is another (otherwise) useless program that I'll have to install, create an account for and then uninstall and forget the password for. Yea. (sigh).

Also, I always thought it was pun.

Hey, don't dis Steam.

Serve the Newell!

If Steam was available for an actual gaming platform, I probably would keep it around, but since my laptop is 4-ish years old and I have no intention on upgrading anytime soon I have little use for Steam. Not really disrespecting it, just of very limited value to me.

I think they were talking about making SR:R available for the Ouya as well.

You won't be able to do that - uninstall steam and still play the game.

Steamworks titles require steam to be running in the background, in order to be run themselves.

With that said ... Steam is about as unintrusive as DRM can get.

Thanks _Pax._
So another TSR that I can't get rid of...(sigh)

Maybe I'll just D/L the DRM free version from the developer and not worry about player-made content.

.... Steam really isn't a big deal. I've got it running right now (I use the IM feature to keep in touch with a few folks, now and again), and with an IM going ... I'm seeing 32,244K of memory and 0% CPU. Shutting the IM window dropped it to 32,088K. Meanwhile, the Logitech Core Gaming Framework process (which runs my G510 keyboard and G500 mouse) takes up more than that (it's at just under 42,000K right now), and Windows Explorer is just over 38,000K.

So it's not a resource hog. It's not a memory hog on disk, either .... sure, my Steam folders are 31.1GB and 38.7GB, for a total of nearly 70GB ... but then, I have sixteen games currently installed, and that total includes their install folders. (And just FYI, I have two folders, because one is on my SSD, one is not - favorites that I think may benefit from being installed to an SSD, go in that Library; the rest get stuck on my HDD.)

It's really not the resources that bother me, it's the need to have yet another hole in the firewall for a single-player game. If I could get the Android version as my backer reward I'd do that and be done with it since I have to have the play store available anyway. But in the various releases they stated that only the PC/MAC (and maybe 'nix) versions will be available as backer rewards.

I am very much looking forward to this game's release. Now it is sounding like maybe the end of May or begining of June, sweet!

Steam also handles software-updates for the games too, keeps them current so they are always compatible with each other.
You may not be able to uninstall steam and still play your steam based games, but you can install the game and then close the firewall to prevent steam from going online.
Then you start Steam in offline-mode and can play, if i remember correctly.

yup, offline mode is fine.

unless you play UBIsoft, MicroSoft, EA, or any other company that then launches a launcher that has it's own servers and additional DRM and another password to forget and etc
ad infinitum ad nauseum

Having recently re-installed Assassins creed and Anno 2070 .. I now remember why I stopped playing them, those launchers are AWFUL !

It's a simple client program, why would it need a hole in the firewall? Unless by "hole in the firewall" you mean "allow another application in the 'firewall' program running on the same client"

Nevertheless, I think they should have fostered some market diversity by using GOG or another platform away from Steam. It's not that I consider Steam bad per se, but I dislike the idea of having an ever-increasing number of my games tied to a single distribution platform.

.... you can keep Steam in Offline mode 99.999999% of the time - only going Online when you choose, in order to patch up your game. (Or in the case of SRR, to browse the community-created material, an tag various things for completely automatic download and installation.)






Steam solved an entire "problem" for them with existing tech. That problem was "how do we provide a searchable, safe repository of community-generated content for our fans?" The solution was, "the Steam Workshop."

Actual gaming platform?


You're kidding right? ;P

used to be when people scoffed at consoles as being "for casuals" and computers were regarded the one true gaming system . .

No joke. I paid 3 grand for my packard bell and damnit, I loved every minute I used it to play XCOM and Duke Nukem 3D

Same here.

My old machine was a $1100-ish box, that served me well for ~3 years before I bricked it.

Being stuck with only a laptop (and one with Intel HD integrated graphcis no less, 'cause it was never MEANT to be a gaming platform) for six weeks was utter HELL.

My new machine - just a handful of dollars under $3K as well, featuring an AMD FX-8350 8-core 4GHz CPU and a Radeon HD 7970 video card - is an absolute joy to game on. Everything, everything, gets turned up to to TWELBE visually, with rock-solid 50+ frames per second (and usually FAR more).

I love my PS3, my Xbox 360, and my g/f's Wii very much. But none of them can even hold a candle to my desktop PC. Not even close.

Consoles are no go for me due to KBAM. A controller just feels imprecise. I can't head shot people in Tribes jetting packing through the air while they are doing the same with a damn controller.

However, when I had one (just a Wii now for the kids) I used it for sports games, and that was good.