I just finished my first core story in GH2, so I though I should comment on it. Technically, this is my second play-through, the first also being on version 0.624. On my first play-through, I reached the final battle, lost all 4 of my lance mechas, then did the stupid mistake of getting a sneak peak at what the final battle looked when you retried it, before getting new mechas. The result? The autosave kicked in at the beginning of the battle, and my character is not fast enough to jet-pack to safety before being on the receiving end of a big explosion (full death). Anyway, let's talk about the second (and successful) play-through:
Disclaimer: I played the base v0.624 game, with a slight code change to prevent AIs from using Mecha Transformation systems (which was annoying in my previous game). I had autosave on at all time, and the only times I force-reloaded were when one my lancemates died. Oh, and I kinda restarted the game a bunch of times until I got a initial lancemate I liked. I ended up with a monk (Mysticism/Medicine/Spot Weakness) with all stats in the 12-15 range.
SF:0 versus SF:2 content
For some reason, I started playing with the impression that there was a lot more SF:2 content than SF:0. That was mostly false, as my early game consisted of a lot of dungeon diving, and late game had the fungus events (once I realized that "I just want to chat" actually mean "Do you have job *wink* *wink*" and actually use the Conversation skill). Hint for new players: Dungeon + weak weapons = *lots* of XP, especially for lancemates. By the end of Cailey mine + the derelict, me and my lancemate both had in the 20'000 XP.
The thing is, there is plenty of fixed SF:0 content, and plenty of random SF:2 content, but the reverse isn't true (I'm ignoring arenas in this discussion as they are half fixed and half random). There are only 2 random SF:0 missions (fungus + non-lethal criminal capture), and only 1 non-core story fixed mecha battle (the big robot). The problem with the lack of random SF:0 content is that you can complete a dungeon relatively quickly, but after that, there is not much point in going back, so you get a huge glut of content, then you don't have much opportunities. A few more random SF:0 missions would help alleviate this (lets say an "Anarchy" mood with lots of riots, bank robberies and killer robots walking the street; or a dungeon exploration event where you cannot go back once you leave, like the GH1 sewers, but with treasures to be found; etc). The SF:2 content is too repetitive too, it's always battle a bunch of mechas in a straight fight in space, battle a bunch of mechas in a straight fight on an asteroid, battle a bunch of mechas in a city... The only variety comes from enemies who come with their themed mechas and when you get caught by an enemy patrol (they aren't scaled with your renown, aren't they?). Some variety could help, such as ambushes (start in the middle of the enemy), fights against SF:2 biomonsters/robots, or the like. But what I would really find fun would be the introduction of fixed SF:2 content, for example a SF:2 sized dungeon.
SF:0 deaths and cyberware
I died a few times in dungeons, and I got a grand total of one permanent injury. That is way too low of a penalty, but maybe that was due to my first lancemate knowing Medicine. But at one point I had installed both Muscle Bonding (+1 Body) and Fashion Cybereyes (+1 Perception, +1 Charm) and with my lowly 8 Ego and no Toughness I got cyberdisfunctions at an unplayable rate. After reading the concerned code, I have a few issues with the current trauma systems. 1: if you don't have the appropriate talent or skill, you are unable to live with more than a few (2 to 4) piece of cyberware, as the trauma build up way too fast. 2: there is no advantage to getting the high grade stuff, as all that matter is the total bonus you get, similarly penalties don't help alleviate the trauma. 3: there is no zero-trauma cyberware for people who don't want to get the talent/skill.
At some point I contemplated going pragmatic to get the cyberware talent, but I quickly found that there is only one way to increase your pragmatism, and it only come about by being a jerk in a randomly chosen discussion the first time you meet people... So yeah, I quickly changed my mind.
Faction membership
For this game, I was in the MUGL faction, and I really got the impression that there was no difference from my previous faction (Privateers). I got the same missions, against the same enemies, and the friendliness of Rishiri didn't change. The MUGL owned stores had the same prices has Hoeller/Comet ones too. The only difference I saw was that I got automatic missions from my faction, and I couldn't get ones from my enemy factions. Some more faction-specific content wouldn't hurt, like an exclusive shop selling faction mechas with the faction theme. Or some faction-specific missions that would only be accessible if you are a member, like a "raid the other guy factory" mission for company factions and "catch the smuggler" for police factions.
Skills and talents:
First of all, Initiative is definitely overpowered, or more precisely, not having it is underpowered. Only my main character had it, while my 3 lancemates lacked it, and it showed. Whenever I activated tactic mode, I was only able to do 3 or 4 actions with them, while doing a lot with my main character, shooting all my weapons. I got the impression I had 3 times more actions with Initiative than without, which I found to be too much. Action speed for people without the skill should definitely be increased.
One of the restrictions I decided upon for this game was to not take the Polymath talent, to actively restrict my number of skills. Keeping the number of skills low is definitely possible, so no problem there. The issue is that, at no point in the game, I saw it worthwhile to raise my Knowledge 5 times just to get a single more skill slot. Reducing that number to 2 or 3 would be much better. So going from the current 8+Kn/5 to 7+(Kn-1)/3 should be better (the numbers being chosen to keep the number of skill slots equal at 10, and having an extra one at 16, as discouraging people from doing so at character creation).
Tech vulture was the last talent I selected, when I didn't like any of the selection I had before me. But the moment I took it, I found myself salvaging whole lances of enemy mechas, and getting only a few limbs. That was beyond ridiculous, as I was then swimming in cash and I had access to many mechas for tinkering.
Lancemate skills
I had one lancemate with the Mysticism skill and one with the Science skill. And I was only able to successfully use them on a single occasion (Mysticism on the Crystal Skull). I even tried in tactics mode, but to no avail.
Difficulty
Due to me dying a lot in SF:0 scale and losing in the arenas, I lasted a long time at a renown between 20 and 50. I found that the difficulty rating was way too low at this range, with enemy mechas still consisting mostly of Buru Burus with the odd Daum. But after 50 renown (seemingly exactly at 50 renown), the difficulty ramped up quite a bit, with the arrival of Nekos and other mechas of that price range. I would suggest increase the 20 to 50 renown difficulty, preferably by increasing the quality of the mechas instead of the quantity.
The arenas difficulty was all over the place, as I was able to trivially win the matches against random mooks, but I kept being defeated against named opponent. Is that due to the random mooks being scaled with your renown? If it is so, they should be changed to fixed difficulty like the named opponents, at least until you win your 10 match (then they should scale to your renown).
The difficulty of the core story was quite low overall, except for the last battle, where I first lost (losing my main char mecha), then I only won after all 3 of my lancemates lost their mechas on the second try (after a lot training). And considering I pretty much only chose core story paths that improved my standing in the final battle, I found it way too hard. Although destroyed mechas not being replaced when you tried again may balance that difficulty.
Core story choices
I found the choices kinda bland to say the least. They were all about the consequences (easier final battle or immediate bonus). I would prefer having choices about the means, i.e.: having a say on whether the next episode will only involve mecha combat, or none at all, or be diplomacy heavy, etc. No need to ditch the current system, just change the current 3 choices about consequences to 2 consequences choices + 2 means choices.
Character dump in the second post as I'm exceeding the characters limit.
