This is a continuation of the discussion from the comments:

Thanks for not being defensive about my slightly hyperbolic complaint. I just did the fight and was able to clear it by basically knowing everything that was going to happen beforehand and playing for it. Despite that, I still think it's a really rough fight, and a ton of it hinges on unpredictable stuff. I'm going to point out specifically the things that bother me about the fight:

Max Galaxy just has a very very high dodge value, and this is a huge problem because most of the party is using non-optimal weapons. For example, you mentioned Luna: I brought her too. Yes, she has Strength and Close Combat, but despite that she has a _41%_ chance to hit Max Galaxy on Hard with her punches. Her stats are only 3 Strength, 1 Close Combat, afterall. And 2 action points. So there's a good probability that she's going to punch Max and do literally no damage, and she's our most optimized for hand to hand combat. And Max can heal himself for 25 hitpoints. I have the game minimized, and Padre, from behind the desk in the back, has a 30% chance to hit Max. And Max is not even in cover!

There's no good cover. This is a problem with the decker, because has to essentially stand out in the open to get to the turret. And again, randomness, if the enemies want they can just turn whoever is jacked in into swiss cheese. Similarly, there are a lot of things that look like they might provide cover, like the pillars, or the lamp-table props, but they don't. If the pillars provided cover, the fight would feel a little more managable. Right now, the best cover option is the desk in the back, which just exacerbates the whole "I can't hit Max" thing by putting you at long range.

This is the first real fight. It's cool if you want to have serious combat, but having the first real fight be such a crucible is rough, because I personally like to save some karma, save some money, and wait until I get a feel for the mod/game, what options are available etc. On top of that, this isn't actually a mission, this is billed as the set up to a mission. This is a mission where a centerpiece idea is that the place is super secure. Where did all these guys come from? I'm not saying you don't justify it in story, I'm saying I as a player have no reason to expect I'm going to fight a serious, use-everything-you've-got brawl.

The scripting in the fight seems wonky. I've twice had the two guys who I now know are supposed to come in after the fight ends, do their thing in the middle of the fight. I've also had Maria not come out to help, although I don't know if that was a bug or if the fight ended before it was supposed to happen.

I don't think it's "mathematically impossible" anymore, but it relies so much on you having the right guys. There is no way I could have done this fight without my shaman getting the air spirit, for example, or without Luna being able to do decent damage. The first time I did this fight I brought Gunner, I was a drone rigger/hacker, Padre, and Luna. Needless to say, me, Padre, and Gunner could contribute nearly zero to the fight, and it was really really tough. On the other hand this time I played a gun guy with CHA/spirits, and I used high quickness to sneak a pistol into the fight. Suddenly, instead of having 1 semi-useful character, 2 useless ones, and a decker, I was able to contribute to the fight, summon a spirit, do damage, and win. There was also luck, though - a few lucky crits, Max decided to use his heal stupidly, he didn't fireball well.

Thanks for your comments, Timeghost, both the ones in the main comment thread and here. We really appreciate your feedback. We, as the developers, are trying to make the best game possible. The discussion about the first fight has been a back-and-forth for a while now even among our development team, so please don't feel like your concerns aren't heard.

That being said, we wanted the combats to be difficult and to make players pay attention to them. We originally started with three drugged gangers running in, very little to the combat. It was faithful to the source material, but it didn't have any sense of danger. We increased the number of gangers, played with the format, and tried to make sure that players weren't lulled into a false sense of safety by an easy first combat. If the rest of the combats in the game are going to be difficult (and yes, they are), then we need to prepare players for that as early as possible.

We can look at tuning the combats better (those NPC heals are ridiculous, aren't they?), and thank you for stating your concerns.

@TimeGhost

It sounds like the worst of the offenders is Max Galaxy? Taking away his heal (I wasn't aware he even still had it) would go a long ways to preventing the frustration you've experianced. As far as how did these armed goons get into the secured building... Play on... They're explained. I'll take away the heal spell that Max apparently still has.

As far as the scripting bugs, both of them that you mentioned (Maria going active, and Newt & Tellin's arrival) are actually both working as intended. Maria goes active in the Underworld 93 fight when your character (in DEV terms, PC0) takes 50% damage. She's there as a sort of auto-balancer... as she's quite powerful.

Newt and Tellin arrive a couple rounds into the conflict, regardless of wither your've fought off the goons, or they're still alive. They return your weapons to you, if you checked them... and Then you can become the shadowrunner blender for badguys you are suppose to be.

Again, thanks for the comments. They'll go along ways in making sure our mod stay current with the expectations of it's players. It's hard to build on of these things in a vacumn.. which is what we've been doing for the last 9 months or so. So, Thanks! Keep up the good work, and I'm sure we'll hear from you again. :D

Are Newt and Tellin supposed to participate in the fight? Because they never did, they wait out in the hallway. Even if it was actually working as expected, it _seemed_ weird because I was having people "bust into the room" and hand me my weapons, while literally just chilling in the hallway. I didn't even notice them the first time it happened, so it was doubly confusing.

Also, Maria coming to the rescue if your PC gets below 50% health is cool, but it's not really helpful when your playing as a decker, you're in the matrix, and Max crit fireballs you (because there's no cover at the matrix terminal), you die, and the mission ends without even the ability to use those resurrection pack. I feel like I need to emphasize, it's not even Max's heals, Max's fireball can do ~30 damage in one turn to a character out of cover, AND he gets an additional attack. It's quite easy for him to one shot you or any other character.

You can gain infinite karma by clicking on the escape van in the second fight, the one that takes place outside the restaurant by just clicking on the escape van, getting 3 karma, seeing the prompt, canceling, and then clicking on the van again, etc. etc.

edit: for some reason I thought I was in the bug thread

Good catch.

Originally posted by DaveOfDeath:

Good catch.

Lol given the nature of the issue it's probably best that it is in the spoiler thread!!! Thanks dude.

Originally posted by Timeghost:

Are Newt and Tellin supposed to participate in the fight? Because they never did, they wait out in the hallway. Even if it was actually working as expected, it _seemed_ weird because I was having people "bust into the room" and hand me my weapons, while literally just chilling in the hallway. I didn't even notice them the first time it happened, so it was doubly confusing.

Also, Maria coming to the rescue if your PC gets below 50% health is cool, but it's not really helpful when your playing as a decker, you're in the matrix, and Max crit fireballs you (because there's no cover at the matrix terminal), you die, and the mission ends without even the ability to use those resurrection pack. I feel like I need to emphasize, it's not even Max's heals, Max's fireball can do ~30 damage in one turn to a character out of cover, AND he gets an additional attack. It's quite easy for him to one shot you or any other character.

@Timeghost, thanks for your great feedback. Re: decking, the intent behind not making a secure decking spot (i.e. no cover etc.) was to creat a tactically risky yet fun and profitable decision, similar to standing on a ley line in the open as a mage. We recognize though, that unlike a mage on a ley line, deckers are defenseless in meat space while decking, so we'll look into toning down Max Galaxy a little bit and see what other tweaks we can make.

Re: Newt and Tellin, a few people have let us know about this and we're working on improvements to their entrance.

It's a tricky fight which was intended to be surprisingly difficult but with safeguards such as Maria and Tellin in place to 1.) introduce characters and plot hooks and 2.) to keep the PC from dying. That said, if Newt and Tellin aren't doing their jobs then we'll need to train them to be more effective. :)

Originally posted by Timeghost:

You can gain infinite karma by clicking on the escape van in the second fight, the one that takes place outside the restaurant by just clicking on the escape van, getting 3 karma, seeing the prompt, canceling, and then clicking on the van again, etc. etc.

edit: for some reason I thought I was in the bug thread

Either place would've been fine... The current build r0.658 addressed and I believe removed this issue. But thanks for bring it to our attention!

Hi guys:

Thanks again for your work on this. It was fun and in its final form I'm sure it's going to be truly killer. Here are some specific things I noticed (and no, the opening fight wasn't one of them, went just fine for me :)):

- (minor) The way the NPC runners are handled feels a wee bit... kludgey? After encountering them at the initial meet, I don't know if they need to be on the map at all, much less all showing up at the same bar around the corner from my hideout for some reason? If there's a lot more personal interaction planned with them, that would be welcome, but they don't strike me as being a group of people who would seek each other's company socially. Otherwise it would make sense to just have them turn up on the runner-hiring screen before missions.

- (minor) It would also be interesting if there was a way for the conversations with the runners at the initial meet to affect which ones will actually work with you later on, which I initially thought was the purpose of that scene.

- I noticed some spots where character dialogue seemed to have been assigned to the wrong runners. In particular, I brought Padre with me to help clean out the hotel and his conversation seemed oddly bloodthirsty, as if he'd switched personalities with Blight. And there were denizens in Sunnyside talking about how Razor and Ronnie used to protect them, which I wonder if that's actually meant to apply there.

- I also noticed some scene transitions where descriptions seemed wrong, as well. Prior to the final run against the Aztechnology building, the description that comes up is about me arriving in the Barrens as an up-and-comer and staking out my hideout.

- I appreciated having the opportunity to use nonviolent means in the hotel mission, but I guess the implementation of this isn't complete yet, as it boiled down to my clicking "let's see what they're up to" and the Cutters promptly saying "I didn't see it that way before" and buggering off.

- I went into Sunnyside on the mission to track down this troll who'd been the catspaw for the whole bounty-on-my-head thing, but I never saw him or made contact with him. The first clue I ran into on the streets was about the Aztechnology building, so I went straight there. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be possible, but it did feel like skipping a couple of chapters of story to get to the end.

- I did not find the elusive sewers.

All I can think of so far. Thanks again!

Hi Mistabob, the Hotel was largely headed up by me, and you bring up some good points which I'd like to address.

Originally posted by mistabobdobolina:

Hi guys:

- I noticed some spots where character dialogue seemed to have been assigned to the wrong runners. In particular, I brought Padre with me to help clean out the hotel and his conversation seemed oddly bloodthirsty, as if he'd switched personalities with Blight. And there were denizens in Sunnyside talking about how Razor and Ronnie used to protect them, which I wonder if that's actually meant to apply there.

- I appreciated having the opportunity to use nonviolent means in the hotel mission, but I guess the implementation of this isn't complete yet, as it boiled down to my clicking "let's see what they're up to" and the Cutters promptly saying "I didn't see it that way before" and buggering off.

Those are pretty much my goals for our hard release date (which will be shortly after Hong Kong gets released as we'll need to convert the whole UGC for that engine).

Regarding your first point: That introductory hotel interaction is tricky. The way it's set up now is that the NPC in hiring slot 1 talks first, followed by 2., 3., etc. The way you described it, and which is also the way I want to do it, would basically require a version of each dialogue window for each runner, plus a system to check which runner is actually in your party, and also the hiring slot order that they're in, in order to correctly display the appropriate dialogue in the correct order. This means several dozen different branching conversation options for the one conversation at the beginning - a bit of a daunting task. I'm working on a way to be able to handle that elegantly for the hard release, but in lieu of that, I simply handled that dialogue by hiring order, just so it at least works for the time being.

The second point is somewhat similar. I laid out the results of each social approach (i.e. the gangers go "duh" and leave) as one main script, so each social approach basically references that default behavior which is why they say the same thing (for now). The goal for the hard release mentioned earlier is for them to respond more appropriately to each social method, with the end goal still being the same (they bugger off). That requires a different version of the default "bugger off" behavior, which is itself mainly a matter of copy/paste at this point as far as the code goes, with the hard part being actually thinking up interesting responses for each social method and in each ganger encounter.

Lastly, about your other points on NPC character development, I agree with you completely and this is something you can expect to see much more of in our next mod, which will be a much more sandboxy campaign based on Bug City. For example, you'll be able to do things like make and break friendships with imporant runner NPCs based on your words and actions, and if they die, they'll be dead permanently. Things like that.

Thanks again for taking the time to offer more detailed feedback. It really does help make us better as UGC developers.

Originally posted by mistabobdobolina:

- I went into Sunnyside on the mission to track down this troll who'd been the catspaw for the whole bounty-on-my-head thing, but I never saw him or made contact with him. The first clue I ran into on the streets was about the Aztechnology building, so I went straight there. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be possible, but it did feel like skipping a couple of chapters of story to get to the end.

- I did not find the elusive sewers.

The "Mateo" character is located in the Sunnyside Hotel, Located down in the 'bottom left' corner of the Sunnyside Map (By the shaman with the toxic spirit) Mateo wraps up alot of the story, and connects some of the missing pieces. Finding him however, seems to be an issue... so this will be addressed soon, as it's been a pretty common comment. This is where my next bug fixing time will be spent anyways.

The elusive sewers require a couple of things to uncover... First you need to talk to Sgt. Matthews in the lonestar building, and get the gang quests. Then you need to capture, not kill both gang leaders. Last, you need to know about the taetzel building. (Which you get to do by talking with the people of sunnyside, until that notification pops up. I can't tell you who to talk to, since the legwork option was randomized intentionally for replayability.... Once you know about the Taetzel building, and have captured both gang leaders, return to Sgt. Matthews to turn in your quests, and get the reward... ask her about taetzel. She'll tell you about the sewer access, which is right behind the lonestar building, in the fenced compound. (Don't worry, when I solved the other waypoint issues, I added one for the sewers too)

Just some feedback ont he Underworld Backstage area. When talking with the Johnson with 6-7 Charisma (was playing a Elf Shaman) a couple of times when I was negotiationg for more money it started showing mutiple responces for multiple amounts in a row. Of a whole the entire section was cluckly with globs of text carrying over from one response to another even when it was just a '. . .' to continue.

The Stuffer Shack meet was also another area where the convos where clucky as heck. I somehow managed to lock myself out of conversation with Gunner only one or two responces in and then pissed of the Adept because I mentioned I was hiring when that was the only conversation option.

Alright guys, here's my feedback, take it with a pinch of salt:

Level Design: 7/10 - You guys must have put a lot of hours into building the different areas for this campaign. They are, for the most, detailed and feel lived in. There were a few exceptions, of course, but for the most part great job.

Characters: 4/10 - I was initially quite excited with the amount of options available when I first started the mod. When I saw the room with all the different runners and took in their personalities and stories I started looking forward to learning more about them and seeing how they'd react to my actions. Sadly, that never happens. Perhaps I missed my chance, or perhaps it's currently not implemented, but I wasn't able to learn anything more out of them during the campaign and there was no bickering, no back and forth, only a few random comments which I truly believe were random, not NPC-specific. It's a shame, but something you could improve on in future versions or a new project.

Setting: 5/10 - Most mods are set somewhere in Seattle and it tends to get old pretty quick. In spite of that, I think the quality of your level design along with the different flavor texts and random street-npc banter (some of which had more dialogue than actual NPC party members) was adecuate. You tried to get the feel there and it worked to some extent. This story is not screaming with ambience, but it throws just enough bits of lore at you to keep the illusion going. I did find the extensive use of spanish a bit annoying. As a spanish speaking person I can tell you it didn't sound "realistic" most of times. One thing that had me completely confused was how my identity seemed to be known by everyone... it's Shadowrun, not Mass Effect!

Presentation: 6/10 - There are a few bumps on the road with this mod. A few misplaced dialogue lines, some triggers that seem to fire randomly, people popping out of nowhere or saying they are leaving and getting stuck in a wall, etc. The most aggravating of this bumps was an fps loss or "choppinness" throughout the entire last level. For some reason game performance started dropping when I reached Taetzel and it went with me all the way up the building and into the final battle. Reloading and restarting didn't fix it. There's a lot of work here, that's for sure, but it could use some more polishing.

Story: 5/10 - Most RPGs nowadays are more about character interactions than actual story line. Dragonfall being an excellent example. Even when we forget about the blank slates that are our companions (except perhaps for the first decker, who is a bit more fleshed out), the general story of "Mercurial" is rather simple. It started very promising but quickly unveiled itself and all I saw were bare-bones with little to no meat on them. You've got the idol with psychological problems (really underplayed), you've got the sleaze bag manager and you've got your token antagonist. Everyone could be an interesting character, but they all fall flat. The presentation is partly to blame here as well, since some quests were most assuredly bugged and bits of storyline were lost. The most offending of these bugs is right on the last act. I never realized that Mercuria had been kidnapped by the bad guys right until the very end. Rescuing her previous manager also came as a surprise. Frankly, I still don't get what the whole deal with the chip in Mercuria's head was... and I'm a guy who stops and reads and tries to follow the story. The ending was also very sudden. Combat's done, a short text and good bye. Not much info on the runners or even yourself. That was also quite a let down.

Gameplay: 5/10 - Combat in this mod is hit and miss. It started of difficult, with that first fight that had me cursing and then the restaurant showdown that never ended. It became non-existant at the Coronet Hotel, where I simply talked my way past all the guards (and with little effort at that. Frankly, that felt more like a place-holder conversation than anything else guys). Then it grew nerve-wrecking during the matrix bits, where my NPC deckers proved less than useless. The black girl might be sexy and all (or at least that's what we are supposed to believe from the brief time in the game when she actually has some sliver of personality) but she simply can't hit anything unless she's buffed and right by the target. It made fights that should have been a breeze extremely hard. And this was with TWO deckers! Then we had that combat with the japanese assassin and her lackeys, which I thought was going to be hard but their tactical behavior was ridiculous. I just ran everyone around a corner and shoot them as they came up to me. Ducks in a barrel. On the last act, combat was too simple, hardly suffered any damage at all. The only challenging fight where those two basilisks trapped in rooms (for what reason I don't know). Actually that bit was harder than the final boss fight (and the Dragon is truly underwhelming guys). In regards to game-mechanics, I didn't feel like my character had enough chances to use his skills. I rolled a gun-slinger / charmer and though there were initially a few options to use my charm, after act one it was a pretty straightforward thing. The headquarters are bland and unimportant (you spend little to no time in them) and when you upgrade to the penthouse there's simply nothing to do there. I was honestly expecting it to get blown up or burnt down. I was like: "I see what you are doing game..." There was also an issue with my companions' power level (they felt gimped at first and midly overpowered at the end) and how/when karma points were awarded. I think I went the whole of act three earning only a hanful of poinnts.

Overall: 6/10 - I know it doesn't add up, but I think that when we put everything together, this is a solid mod. There's a lot of effort put into this campaign, and it shows. This one could really shine if it got a good polish and extended a few of its already existing features. The world of Shadowrun needs more people like these guys and I sincerely hope they keep working, either on this module or a new one.

Well, that's all from me lads, sorry If I sound harsh at times, but if I seem nitpicky or outright ludicrous inn my expectations it's only because I'm truly excited about such a group of dedicated people working in one of my favorite settings.

Mercurial QA here. @Deathcall, I'm happy you chose to put your detailed feedback into this Spoilers section so we can talk honestly about it.

Originally posted by Cmrd. Deathcall:

Alright guys, here's my feedback, take it with a pinch of salt:

etc.

As QA Mgr for the project I can assure you that this team loves nothing more than direct and honest feedback. I for one appreciate that you posted in the Spoilers section, so that we may speak frankly.

It was always our plan, for months now, to make a quick 'bow shot' exactly one week before Hong Kong released, before submerging to work on finalizing our product. The idea being that we would attract good feedback from the hardcore critics like yourselves but become quickly forgotten in the good noise of Hong Kong. What we plan to do, have always been planning to do, is to take good targeted feedback from persons like yourself to heart, to help us focus on what really matters to real players.

So please do look forward to the final product, which will be HK-capable, in (we hope) about 6 -8 weeks. The amount of improvements (we have a huge list of things we want to do!) to our core storyline that we can accomplish along that timeline will be greatly impacted by what HK brings to the editor.

We will be trying our best to raise our ratings based on critical feedback such as yours.