Sandbox Characters get Free Runner

[fallen]

As you will see in the new Cyber Knights release, all new sandbox characters get a free Runner - either a gang melee fighter or a gang gunslinger. For a long time, large aspects of the Cyber Knights system (especially the team aspect!) have been obscured because of the amount of play and exploration needed to even uncover the edge of the system. Hiring Runners and building a team is one such system.

We have purposefully reversed that by introducing all new characters to Runners right out of the gate. Yes, this changes the difficulty and starting guides potentially significantly, but most importantly it 1) increases the change of a new starting character surviving their first week in the NBZ, 2) makes it very clear that Cyber Knights is a team building game, 3) gives you a friend who can jump in front of the bullets, or shoot some if you are the punchy type.

We'd love your feedback as we work on making Cyber Knights more accessible and fun for new players!

[grävling]

Clearly, I have to try the new system first, but my initial take is:

Huh?

Have you guys been labouring under the misapprehension that runners help new CK survive? With the serious exception of hiring a glove-expert runner for Female 2 CK, runners limit the new CK's ability to survive, first, by making him or her do dangerous things to protect the runner, and second and more importantly because the encounters are scaled so that they are harder as a team of 2 than as a singleton. Only a CK with significant experience -- and AP -- can afford to protect a new runner. My female 2 CK generally spend their first 4000K hiring *2* martial artists, because we expect one to get killed. I am currently exploring the idea that if you have only 1 of them, the fights are so much easier -- fewer members -- that death is unlikely. In 2 days I have made 8 female 2 CK with 1 martial artist runner only and 6 of them had their single runner die on them, early, so I was getting pretty close to concluding that 'hire 2, expect one to die' was a better outcome, and use of 2000K.

I hate it that these are Los V runners you get. Couldn't you at least make them Fennian?

With the first connector chip you get to be likely Vinnie the Rat, and your start location in Los V controlled The Fenns, do you need to stack things even further in favour of making the new player a Los V partisan?

Personally, I need Club-wielding and Pistol-wielding runners as a fish needs a bicycle, (when is doom tomb coming back? and will it make
a difference?) -- even the Los V ladder club reward only turns Bolsh into a 'so so' fighter, as compared to Snipers and Martial artists who
become excellent. Agent Exes, Hackers and Faces whom you might hire for other reasons -- well those are the reasons and who cares if they
cannot fight?

When Bolsh came into the game, I have been very active in playing CK, rather than AoP. My whole idea was, he is free, get him on your first
day as a CK, and see if having him around from early will improve things for you. My results are unequivocal. The single worst thing you can
do to improve your survivability as a CK is to have a Bolsch in your party, if you hire him before you already have a 4 job computer. Then you can train him up so he doesn't get you killed -- but again, why the heck would you want him? I tried so hard to like the guy, but all stick-wielders are more or less baggage compared to glove users, just as all pistol users are more or less baggage compared to rifle users. Hackers, Agent Exes and Faces you may be hiring for their other skills -- as the third man of the team with the other 2 doing the fighting.

I will go try this, as the upgrade comes out, but my first take is that this is a very bad idea.

Sorry to be so negative, but from my point of view, it would have been better to give the new knight a MERCENARY to start with. It gets them used to team play. It doesn't hurt as much when they die. And you can learn how to convert your mercenary to a runner, and how to convert your runner to an ally -- assuming the correct sandbox dialog. This ought to be 'introductory exposure' enough, no?

[fallen]

grävling - thanks for the feedback. Sorry you don't like the new change. A couple of points:

1) The Runner-based strategies that you are suggestion are nothing that I would expect a Cyber Knights newbie will be able to accomplish in their first hours of game play.
2) From my early game testing, having a gang member on board is very helpful while you are getting your feet wet, assuming you stay in gang territory. Having a runner to back you up significantly increased my chances of surviving in gang-land and finding the fights there engaging and more fun, as well as bringing the team building system to light.
3) Bolsh will be found by ... just about 0% of new Cyber Knights players. He is intended as a off-hand easter egg bonus for players who are deeper into the world. The likelihood that a new player will find the tunnels is low, people are still emailing and asking how to find them.
4) We are working on the Doom Tomb.
5) The Runner joins your team with 0 historical XP, so he does not tip the Encounters against you. He does however, cause you to gain XP at double time while you have him.

Point taken that it could be a non-Los Valentinos character, and that it could also be a different character (not a ganger, as those are the characters you are most likely to be fighting). Also, we are discussing varying the starting location / faction of different sandbox characters, which might help. Do you hate Los V for some reason?

Excited to hear more feedback!

[grävling]

Aug 25, 2013 16:10:18 GMT -5 fallen said:

grävling - thanks for the feedback. Sorry you don't like the new change. A couple of points:

1) The Runner-based strategies that you are suggestion are nothing that I would expect a Cyber Knights newbie will be able to accomplish in their first hours of game play.

Of course not. That is the whole point. If I, with all my skill, find it damn hard to keep a new unskilled runner alive knowing all that I know about fighting in this game then the newbies will find it even harder.

2) From my early game testing, having a gang member on board is very helpful while you are getting your feet wet, assuming you stay in gang territory. Having a runner to back you up significantly increased my chances of surviving in gang-land and finding the fights there engaging and more fun, as well as bringing the team building system to light.

This is the disagreement. From my early game testing, based on my play, the single most unhelpful thing that you can do when you are
getting your feet wet is to have to shepherd a newbie, crappy stats, crappy equipped runner. Your runner needs better stats and better equipment, but you are in no position to know what that is, as a newbie.

3) Bolsh will be found by ... just about 0% of new Cyber Knights players. He is intended as a off-hand easter egg bonus for players who are deeper into the world. The likelihood that a new player will find the tunnels is low, people are still emailing and asking how to find them.

Of course, the point being that by pure chance I have been testing the value of having a cybersword-stick-user in the party from startup.
So I have a pretty good idea

Would I trade him for 500Y -- HELL YES.
Would I trade him for 100Y -- yes.
Would I trade him for 50Y -- yes.
Would I pay 25 Yen to get rid of him? YES, that is the cost he has every taxi ride!

4) We are working on the Doom Tomb.

Glad to hear it.

5) The Runner joins your team with 0 historical XP, so he does not tip the Encounters against you. He does however, cause you to gain XP at double time while you have him.

Your team, not you personally gains things at double time, correct?

My experience is that, as time goes on, a singleton knight of 800 xp still finds fewer opponents, in a fight than a team of 1 knight and 2 runners, all with XP of 200. There are more warm bodies the more there are in the team.

Am I seeing a pattern there that does not exist, and making substance out of randomness?

Point taken that it could be a non-Los Valentinos character, and that it could also be a different character (not a ganger, as those are the characters you are most likely to be fighting). Also, we are discussing varying the starting location / faction of different sandbox characters, which might help. Do you hate Los V for some reason?

Excited to hear more feedback!

It is not so much that I hate Los V, but that I have found that working for Streets, Yakuza and Fennian are both more profitable in ladder rewards (unless you are male 2 and want that Los V maul) and in contracts (Streets ROCKS in terms of assassinations for pay for low level chars, and ought to really rock in assigned hacking missions once they start in backrooms, as the place is overfull of hackers. Plus Spencer Street Butchers to Yakuza missions, delivery, common, pay either very well or better than very well.) Working for Los V is what you do when you do not have anything better to do.

Having different sandbox professions start in different places would be extremely cool.

[grävling]

idea:

If your focused desire is to have CK learn about runners early in the game, and have the game impose them on him, could you set things up so that once a knight has 300XP or so one shows up and pesters him to join? A different one depending on what faction he or she has best rep with, with some default action if there is no best character?

By that time the knight is more likely to know which end of the thug sledge to pick up....

Just an idea-

[Swami]

+1

[fallen]

I still disagree, and find, especially with the new Encounter changes that getting a new Runner at the beginning of the game is a great boon. Cory and I have been talking about tweaking his skills so that he is a better (more purposeful) foil to the Cyber Knight, whichever profession you chose.

Also, note, 300 XP is no where near the early game for most of the Cyber Knights players that this addition was made to encourage. Feedback on other channels has been very positive.

[grävling]

I've got this one filed under 'takes all kinds to make a world'. But a runner with significantly better stats would help. For me, adding an incompetant club-using runner or a gunslinger just makes the game harder, assuming that you want to keep the runner alive. But then, aside from the time when I wanted to test the new weapon Kass was handing out, I've never wanted a either of those sort of runners on my team in the first place. I always prefer a Sniper to a Gunslinger and a glove-user to a club-using Cybersword. If other people are finding him useful, so be it.

[Cory Trese]

Game changer for me. I think the starting runner + new encounter system has doubled, or tripled, the fun I have playing the game

[LordofSyn]

Holy Frak Chummers...I love the new aspects to the game. I haven't been able to play for a few months. Lots of life changes and my Droid 3 finally died. I am renting a laptop currently, installed BlueStacks and went back into the NBZ. I am Uber impressed. Wow!!! Great job guys!!!!!!!!!

[grävling]

Welcome back, LordofSyn.

[Jacob]

Wb, LoS!
And where did you get the CK apk? When I use the google play store to install apps, they go directly to my phone...

I'm Max Mercer, more Metal than Man.

//Sig=!CK-1337 --Bugreport/Catlog ID

[fallen]

Sept 21, 2013 1:40:10 GMT -5 LordofSyn said:

Holy Frak Chummers...I love the new aspects to the game. I haven't been able to play for a few months. Lots of life changes and my Droid 3 finally died. I am renting a laptop currently, installed BlueStacks and went back into the NBZ. I am Uber impressed. Wow!!! Great job guys!!!!!!!!!

Great to have you back LordofSyn! We've been making a lot of changes as always, and there is a lot more just down that dark, gritty alley. Load your weapons, Knight, let's go!

On the subject of Clive Zep, he will get some stat / skill upgrades in the next release:

tresebrothers.blogspot.com/2013/09/cyber-knights-new-clive-zep.html

[shards]

i was never much into runners at first
but i gotta say
playing a sniper character
and having someone to decoy my opponents
and keep me covered at point-blank
actually does make it more fun

[fallen]

shards - they can be a challenge to keep alive, but if you can get them to a safe level (imho, the right armor, weapon, cyberware right out of the gate gets you there), then they change the whole game. And with the new Encounter skill distribution, they change the whole game too!