[IrNot1337]

I'm coming from 5e to 6e and wondering if there is still the drawbacks from using the bruteforce methodology of getting net hits bounced back at you if you lose a hacking attempt.
I know the actual actions changed between 5th and 6th with there now being the Probe and Brute Force and there being no limits anymore (so it's less important what your Attack/Sleaze is on your deck).
I can't find any evidence that you still take feedback from a failed matrix attack or get marked from a failed sleaze attempt, but I just wanted to verify I'm not missing something.

If this is the case, what is the point in having a higher Attack/Sleaze if it no longer acts as a limit and only boosts your hacking AR vs the device you are hacking? Is the huge cost of top end decking gear really worth the +1-4 extra stats for the chance at the bonus edge?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The automatic punishment for failing an attack/sleaze action in 5e is no longer a thing in 6we.  Hackers of the game, rejoice!

And yes, Attack/Sleaze attributes are not *critical* in importance, the way they were in 5e.  It's no longer "you can only become a decker if you were one in chargen, due to the extreme cost of buying the necessary gear".  Deckers of the game, rejoice!

Now mind you, there IS still a valid point in investing in Attack/Sleaze. Hosts, and more importantly anything defended by a Host, are going to have a pretty decent Matrix Defense Rating.  Maybe  your dice pool is enough you don't need to gain edge on hacking tests.  But *giving away* edge on hacking tests is more or less the same thing as subtracting 3 dice from your pool, because that edge you gave away can be used to force you to reroll one of your hits.

[Banshee]

There is also the whole linked attribute thing too ....

Brute force is linked to attack so that means your attack needs to be higher than your sleaze or you take a penalty equal the difference
The reverse is true for Probe.

All in all ... yes attack and sleaze are less important than they used to be but still have an impact.

The way I wrote the matrix puts a lot more emphasis on the skills instead of the gear ... the point was to make it so that skilled hacker can work with anything but a skilled hacker with good gear was that much better while Kenny rich boy hobby hacker could have all the gear in the world but without the skills it didn't matter.

[Michael Chandra]

  But *giving away* edge on hacking tests is more or less the same thing as subtracting 3 dice from your pool, because that edge you gave away can be used to force you to reroll one of your hits.

2: You lose 3 dice worth, but get to roll 1 die after, so same as subtracting 2.

[penllawen]

Now mind you, there IS still a valid point in investing in Attack/Sleaze. Hosts, and more importantly anything defended by a Host, are going to have a pretty decent Matrix Defense Rating.  Maybe  your dice pool is enough you don't need to gain edge on hacking tests.  But *giving away* edge on hacking tests is more or less the same thing as subtracting 3 dice from your pool, because that edge you gave away can be used to force you to reroll one of your hits.

It doesn't take much effort or sacrifice to avoid conceding Edge, though.

Attack rating is Attack+Sleaze; defence rating is Data Processing+Firewall. A host maximally configured for defence will have a defence rating of (Host Rating x2)+3; so for a few common host ratings:

R2 -> defence rating 7
R4 -> defence rating 11
R6 -> defence rating 15
R8 -> defence rating 19

I don't think SR6 has any guidance on what those host ratings mean. SR5 uses the same 1-12 scale, so let's assume those hold true; Rating 6 is "social media, small colleges, local police, international policlubs." A fairly big deal. R8 includes "local corporate hosts" and "low-level government", so pretty secure servers.

A R1 deck and R1 cyberjack get you ASDF of 4/3/4/3. (Total cost of 70k.) Let's assume you can't shuffle stats across devices (because while that is RAW that's also incredibly stupid) and set those to 7 each for our decker. If you mix in a couple of stat-boosting programs, that's an attack rating of 9. That's already enough to go up against a R4 host without conceding Edge.

R3 deck & cyberjack are 6/5/6/5, or an attack/defence rating of 11, or at least 13 with programs. (That costs 175k, incidentally.) You're now up to a R6 host without conceding Edge.