[Moonshine Fox]

You make a bold assumption that the system for 6th (which I feel I must remind people constantly we haven't seen yet, let alone played) is going to be worse for almost all gamers. What's already been described will be able to draw my own group into it finally, as two of my players aren't good number crunchers and the level of math-run in 5th turned them off to the game.

"Soak pools are reduced to almost nothing, armor does nothing,

Soak based on body is the same, armor now gives tactical advantage and possibly focuses more on things beyond shot'n'stab soak. I'd imagine by 2075 ballistic weave is in every color and can be made into every type of clothing.

strength doesn't increase melee damage,

Have you been in a fight with melee weapons? Trained for such? You want more realistic, guess what? Strength measures very little to knowing how to use the weapon your holding. I could stab someone with a knife sure, but I don't know were to stab you to do anything more then give a nasty laceration. My friend who's advanced level in it could stab someone once and do more damage then I could in several blows, and he's a third my muscle mass. Besides, every tweeked build I ever saw that focused on melee went with a cyberarm with maxed out mods, or went shock/monowhip were strength doesn't matter. The new system seems to make skill the deciding factor in most melee fights, not your bench press stats.

guns are piss weak,

And are scaled down to match the lack of armor to soak, keeping overall personal damage levels roughly the same.

modifiers are gone,

And so is reference 17 different pages and a cheat sheet grid to keep track of it all. Plus it now let's in players who suck at math-run.

the action economy is borked,

everything runs on a newfangled edge mechanic,

You want to point out the page that has to rules you would change? Oh right, we have speculation and nothing more so far. People bitched to high heaven back on Dumpshock when 4th ed came out about how the game was fragged and action economy sucked now!

but it was all worth it because now the normies and casuals will like it!"

You want to bitch to me about gatekeeping with that type of comment? You remind me of all the "hardcore" players of WoW screaming because they aren't a majority anymore. Or the 40k players at the new Power Point system. Or old D&Ders with literally every edition. Who do you think becomes the core players? normies and casuals who pick up the book and like it. You throw shade at them and push them away in your quest for hyper-realism and you will end up with a dead game due to lack of enough people buying it, or you burn out in rage trying to fight the tide rather then ride it and direct your craft.

I'm a core player base. I've been playing this game for a very long time now. It's always been over the top and a little silly, with the understanding that if you wanted more realism you went to Cyberpunk 2020. The two games are sister games, one leaning more Black Trench, the other more Pink Hawk.

You want to talk gatekeeping and elitist attitude? Chummer, you're doing it. As it stands right now, I have serious doubts when the game actually does come out that you'll even give it a fair shake and judge it on it's own merits. I've got my concerns too, but what I fear is all I'll expect to see is the hate for it like that which was constantly spread on Reddit for 5th edition. Wait for the rules to actually come out. Give it a try to see how all the wibbly bits work, then share your tables house rules and constructive feedback for all those who are looking for the same type of experience. That's what I'll be doing. Everyone can win.

[tenchi2a]

Again I will put forth that the system at its core could work with a few changes.
1. Get rid of the +2 edge limit, it is one of the major issues with this edition.
2. Add some more intuitive edge expenditures to the list.
a) Spend 1-2 edge to add Armor rating to soak/ or cover barrier rating/ higher (3-4 edge) if #3 is used
b) Spend 1-2 edge to add Armor rating to dodge/ or cover barrier rating/ higher (3-4 edge) if #3 is used
3. AV vs DV grants +1 edge per multiple of 4
4. If you are going to punish players for having low essence on healing then allow them to use some form of mechanical skill to heal, since the point of this has always been they are more machine then man. This has been issues to me in all versions of the game.
5. Have some form of coup de gra from the edge system 4-5?
All this can be done from just adding a few lines to the edge chart and removing the edge limit.

And before anyone brings up, well just house rule it. I don't support games where I have to make them work at their core rules.

As for the gatekeeper argument, having been a game-store employee and being friends with most of the owners in my city. I can say that most game are advertised by word of mouth. I have seen very few players come into a game store to look around and just pick up a $50-60 game from a quick page scan. Almost all of them come in either having a friend running the game or someone telling them about it. Most sales of RPGs where to players who came in for that game or had ordered it form us in the first place.
The point is, games are advertised by the current players in the RPG industry. And new players are going to come from the current player base recruiting, not from advertising. If you drive of the current players you will have a hard time replacing them.

The idea about D&D is majorly flawed in that D&D is a major name even outside the RPG community. Even with that 4th edition was a huge flop for WOC, prompting 5th's player inclusion at every development level model. IMHO most other companies would have folded from 4th. But WOC had magic and others to fall back on.

P.S. My players are playing through in this order
1. Silverangel (Done)
2. Mercurial (Done)
3. Dreamchipper (Done)
4. DNA-DOA (In Progress)
5. Harlequin-Physical
6. Queen Euphoria
And yes I have all these books 
Don't know if this make me an elitist?

[Marcus]

My Goodness, what a show. Gonna just keep hammering the party line? I'd love to see something new if you can think of something.  Where did Moonshine Fox come from?

As for sounds from people who actually played: We also got a lot of positive reactions from people who tried out the Box. So all in all I'd say it's too early to judge or let things scare us.

You got something to back this up? I haven't heard anything like this. Where is that being said? It's not on any of the online groups that I am aware of.  Locally all I keeping hearing is that while it is said to be in the pipeline no one seems to be getting their hands the QSR as yet. Out on the west coast?

So the new armor rules are just bad, the break with simulationism to that level is to much, and as demonstrated by the play test the edge argument is meaningless or at least appears to be meaningless thus far. I guess we can all cheer in support of bikini armor but lets be really honest that trope has never been a good idea, your whole argument on yay we can wear whatever is just silly. Anyone on who's read the 5e books knows Sleeping Tiger has been the prefer armor sense it came out. The reason for that is obvious it's good everything and everyone. So it's not like we haven't been doing that for basically every recent edition. Even the a decent chunk of the demo team agrees with that and has said so on here in this thread.

The same can be said for str and melee weapons, it would be better to be honest and simply remove strength from the game, just make unarmed damage come off body. It'll save Players used to the past edition from making the poor choice of wasting resources on a meaningless attribute.

Next the action economy. We can argue about damage and armor until we hit page 400 , but here is the truth. NPC are going to go more, considerably more. Why? Because fights aren't going to be decided in the first two passes and cleaned up in the third as we are used to. As is intended by the above armor changes PCs are gonna take more damage. Which means the game is going to be more deadly. Those are facts of life under 6e, as shown from the released material.

Next healing, So healing has changed, I don't know the full extent, apparently its been capped to some number of times per day per type? Also from what has been said magic healing has been Nerfed into oblivion due to the needing something like 3 hits for one level change. That was the numbers given that i recall on here.

Finally Edge. I don't really know or understand what the designers intended with Edge. It refreshes every conflict? But the ability gain it per turn is limited to 2 a number that is apparently just arbitrarily fixed? It replaces penalties but it's tactically generated? Its uses are ether meaningless at one die, or insanity at 5 points, giving us back wonder of the old Storyteller problem. The better your character's pool is the more likely they are screw up epicly. I'd call it paradox, but it's clearly 6e is betting the whole house of cards on this mechanic. So how comfortable are you guys with edge? Do you really think the player base isn't gonna miss the ability to re-roll on the critical rolls more?

Personally on edge I just don't know. I can say I strongly dislike what i have seen so far. So this is where I am at. Nothing said so far has made any meaningful impact on those positions.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Part of the edge problem is if your entire system is based around it and players don’t buy in like they have edge 1 they are cut off from the mechanic that theoretically makes the game work. You can’t both have a core mechanic that makes a system worn and have it optional.

[Moonshine Fox]

My Goodness, what a show. Gonna just keep hammering the party line? I'd love to see something new if you can think of something.  Where did Moonshine Fox come from?

Ohio.

Been around a while, even made the 5th edition character sheet portfolio. I just didn’t comment much for a while do to the math-run crunch of 5th turning off my groups to the game, something I’m looking forward to changing with the new edition.

[Banshee]

books already in print, not much use now unfortunately.

I will say I think Banshee's a good guy and his heart is in the right place.
(I'm trying to give kudos whenever I can as the freelancers tend to be the ones eating all the shit for Catalyst's mis-steps and that's not fair imho).

thanks ... doing what I can when I can

[Hobbes]

....I guess we can all cheer in support of bikini armor....

Yay bikini armor!!!! 

 

[Shinobi Killfist]

If I knew how to post images I’d post Frankie from one piece.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Classy armored swimsuit right here.

[FastJack]

My Goodness, what a show. Gonna just keep hammering the party line? I'd love to see something new if you can think of something.  Where did Moonshine Fox come from?

As for sounds from people who actually played: We also got a lot of positive reactions from people who tried out the Box. So all in all I'd say it's too early to judge or let things scare us.

You got something to back this up? I haven't heard anything like this. Where is that being said? It's not on any of the online groups that I am aware of.  Locally all I keeping hearing is that while it is said to be in the pipeline no one seems to be getting their hands the QSR as yet. Out on the west coast?

Here's the reviews I've seen so far.
6th World Box Set Play Experience
Meeple Mountain
EN World
GeekDad
GeeksAGoGo

[incrdbil]

The reviews I've read so far sound like they are pretty decent and are sure to attract new players (which is the goal of every game). The only real complaints I'm hearing are printing errors (which is, unfortunately, pretty common), and folks that just don't want anything to change.

I think its fair to say players don't want things to change for the worse, or to change without making a meaningful positive impact; they don't want change that takes away from the enjoyment of play, or excessively alter certain basics of the game (both in theme and in playstyle) that, by and large, have been very common and enjoyed. Change that fixes problems, that improves the flow of the game, fixes imbalances, makes the game more readily accessible and understandable, that improves immersion, that reinforces the uniqueness of the setting is to be welcomed.

I'm open to good change. I'm happy to think of a two roll resolution system. Heck, I wish it could be one. I'd be ok if the bucket of d6 were dumped all together, for any resolution system that kept success rolling in the range of 1-3 dice rolled, percentile, d20, or whatever.

[tenchi2a]

I have read most of these reviews and would say most come down to new players may like this.
The one that truly when into the rules, made some off the cuff statements about 5th that where not entirely true or very over blown.
This was called out in the responses.

On to more productive talk another idea accrued to me.
How about for every 2 points from AV-DV adds a die to attack roll or dodge.
This would simulate the effect of armor.

[Michael Chandra]

We already ran math on Action Economy before, showing it's very subjective as to how 'borked' it is. Asides from 'let's throw 40+ iniative around' people, it's not as badly twisted as claimed, and the Minor/Major system actually lets the augmented pick between an extra attack and more tactical options. All in all it's subjective as to how good/bad the new system is. Meanwhile, Edge Economy is indeed up but the benefits per point are smaller, making it less of a '7 Edge player can easily outdo the 2 Edge player whenever it matters the most', but none of y'all mention that.

I see a lot of soak, armor and damage complaints combined, which ignore the fact these are a combination that sum up to, as already discussed before, less 'either you're massively armored or the big toys oneshot you', making combat more tactical and less shock-and-awe. They're pointed out as single negative points, but the bigger picture and the math run to show it's not as bad is simply tossed aside. Frag, the second thing I did with SRM was save up for a Barrett 122, so I could try to one-shot the heavy opponents, so they couldn't one-shot me. I wiped out an entire squad of PR6 mooks in a single attack in Dragon Song 1, while my brother one-shot a lot of heavy encounters simply by overcasting and spellshaping an AoE spell. If you throw that at a player group, they'd also get butchered. So I for one welcome our new less-deviation damage overlords.

Y'all talk about the 'core playerbase not liking stuff' and risk of gatekeeping, yet at the same time by treating the 'core playerbase' as a monolith you're basically saying 'all those that disagree with me are obviously not core players'. To add to that, y'all are actually questioning the identity of a lurker who's been around longer than half of y'all, all because they dare to disagree with you and stopped lurking to combat the negativity spiral. (If postcount matters so much, what makes me then?) Heck, y'all can't even agree if SR6 is too Pink Mohawk or too Black Trenchcoat, so what is this about one opinion?

On top of that, y'all are so eager to claim playtesters were ignored and demand a player survey, but ignore the well-known fact that it was playtesters that went 'hey, how about you merge the combat advantage system with the edge system', playtesters went 'hey, how about you add status effects to make those things more explicit', and that obviously there also were plenty of playtesters that love the new mechanics otherwise CGL wouldn't have gone with it. This is not 'we toss it down and that's it', this is 'we try things, evolve things, and eventually we make decisions that obviously not everybody agrees with'.

Speaking of the writing process: First there were attacks on the writers for 'not knowing what makes shadowrun shadowrun' and none of y'all disagreed with that, then suddenly people go 'writers are cool, let's blame catalyst', a 180 so sudden it gave me whiplash and dumpshock.

There's complaint after complaint about the 'lack of quality control', meanwhile the errata team literally got the book weeks ago so they can go through it and provide fresh insight into what might have slipped during the changes during development, so that this time around CGL can be on top of things with the errata process. Frag, I'm actually jealous of the errata team because whenever I check Who's Online, I see constant activity of "Nothing, or nothing you can see", aka they're actually doing something meaningful while I'm stuck speculating. All I was able to do was provide some feedback to the Beginner Box.

And on top of all of that, we had several topics discussing positive feedback and reviews from those that played the game. Heck, y'all participated in those. Yet when I dare reference those, multiple people thought it was necessary to pretend I'm making it up. Let me reiterate: y'all participated in those topics, but me referencing them suddenly means I'm full of it.

Given how CGL isn't paying me for this, I don't see any reason why I'd respond to your Beginner Box data demands while at the same time y'all's default mode is 'MC is full of it'. I already received a (well-deserved) official warning here and I don't intend to get a second one. So for now I'm just going to try to survive a false heatwave, prepare a Beginner Box session, and work on some ideas I have for SR6. If anyone wants Beginner Box info, just PM me some requests and I'll see what I'm comfortable sharing (can't just copy the entire thing or JM Hardy will extract me for re-education).

See you in the shadows, chummers

[BeCareful]

Personally, fights getting decided by "who gets the jump on whom" always seemed pretty realistic to me. While a frantic, back-and-forth fight that lasts an entire minute in-game, where resources are gained and spent, would be exciting and dramatic, I'm the sort of player who prefers the satisfaction of taking out/bypassing a dangerous obstacle through careful planning. Though presumably, spending Edge to improve sneaking/social skills also exist in SR6, and can be used to avoid fights too.

I've got three other things to say about this:

1) I'm okay with abstracting stuff that'd be confusing/boring to track, but not when it breaks immersion (if anyone ends up with, "I do this a few times in a row purely to refill my Edge meter so I can spend it all on something unrelated later"). Though since I don't know all the rules yet, I'm willing to wait and see how everything fits in to everything else.

2) Bringing in new players with hype and a simplified system sounds sensible; then, adding crunchy complexity in a supplement to make it less abstracted will appeal to both people coming over from older editions, and new players who've got a handle on the simple core setup. Again, let's wait and see. (Either way, I'm still interested in the plot & setting books)

3) Because of an RPG De-motivational poster linked somewhere earlier, I noticed an applicable one: http://www.geneticanomaly.com/RPG-Motivational/slides/change.html][url]http://www.geneticanomaly.com/RPG-Motivational/slides/change.html[/url]

[Marcus]

Classy armored swimsuit right here.

Nightmares for life.