How about using the Breach Protocol mini-game to power up regular Quickhacks?

[yabab]

This is drawing from Edgerunners: in the anime, the Netrunners are often depicted performing several breaches to penetrate the opponents' ICE. What if one could hold the action button instead of pressing it when uploading a normal quickhack to enter a series of random Breach Protocol mini-games to power up the effect of the quickhack in question?

Bonuses could range from reducing RAM cost for the upload, upgrading the level of the effect for that particular use or just increasing damage.

To add a risk/reward aspect to this mechanic, the Breach mini-game could start with the timer running. This would force the Netrunner to solve the mini-game under extra pressure. Uploading at least one daemon in the mini-game would give the player the chance to complete additional mini-games for maximum effect.

Failure, on the other hand, could increase cooldown, reduce effect time or even negate the effect for advanced quickhacks, like those of the Ultimate category.

This could be implemented in a way so that particularly experienced runners could play using only Quickhacks from the beginning of the game, if they want to roleplay as pure Netrunners.

I imagine this would require minimal visual assets, the bulk of the work would lie on programming and design...

Thoughts?

 

[DjSpyder]

Breach Protocol basically does most of that already, Between the Icepick and mass vulnerability Deamons It reduces ram cost and increases damage while decreasing enemy resistance, you just need to put perk points into it. Not to mention those stack with perks in the Quickhack tree so there are plenty of buffs at high level.

Failure also has a penalty if you attempt to breach someone's system and fail you are instantly discovered if you were in stealth.

It looks like you're talking about adding a secondary breach to each specific hack as you use them as an added buff/debuff for each enemy you hack or each hack you use in addition to the initial breach of the network. But that comes with two issues.

1.) If breach protocol is already invested in, and quickhacks have perk points invested as well, adding bonuses to bonuses could make Netrunner builds entirely OP which they are already kind of are, a good deck with a lot of perks invested can already wipe an entire room out before anyone even knew they were under attack. And the Rippler with legendary QHs literally destroys everything in seconds.

2.) It can slow down the pace of the game, which may not be a problem for some, but think of this, If the game slowed down for every single attack with time dilation, or the minigame screen then you have a breach timer of let's say 30-60 seconds (possibly more with perks) You're basically stopping time for every hack you cast. which could quickly get boring, and with time basically stopping it also makes it near impossible for enemies to fight back.

I get the general idea, bring the game a little more in line with the anime (Personally I think they're close enough and the game came first), and in theory it could be cool. It just feels like it may be something that seems cool but isn't fun in practice.

The other option is changing the breach protocol system entirely so instead of breaching the network as a whole for an overall buff/debuff system that effects everything, you make breaching each NPC specific and separate from systems like cameras and turrets, and then have each successful breach on an enemy stack, maybe even add a high level perk/ability that allows the breach to chain to other NPCs in the area instead of starting off as effecting everyone. That may eliminate the issue of becoming OP to the point of no challenge, but then there is the technical issue of literally reworking an entire system from the ground up which does not seem likely at this point.

 

[yabab]

It looks like you're talking about adding a secondary breach to each specific hack as you use them as an added buff/debuff for each enemy you hack or each hack you use in addition to the initial breach of the network. But that comes with two issues.

Pretty much, the idea is to present several Breach mini-games in quick succession to the player. With an unlocked timer from the get go.

The bonuses would replace the usual daemons we normally upload through Breach Protocol. Uploading a single bonus gives you a chance to keep going and play another mini-game until the maximum number of possible mini-games is reached or the player fails. It would work as a sort of super-upload, where the player can buff up the Quickhack for that specific use based on his success in the mini-game.

Would enable Intelligence combat builds to forego gunplay or melee combat entirely if they wish to rely only on quickhacks.

Breach Protocol basically does most of that already, Between the Icepick and mass vulnerability Deamons It reduces ram cost and increases damage while decreasing enemy resistance, you just need to put perk points into it. Not to mention those stack with perks in the Quickhack tree so there are plenty of buffs at high level.

Yes, but Breach Protocol can only be used once per encounter. If the effect wears off, you can't use it again. This alternative would always be available, but the timer would always start ticking from the get go.

1.) If breach protocol is already invested in, and quickhacks have perk points invested as well, adding bonuses to bonuses could make Netrunner builds entirely OP which they are already kind of are, a good deck with a lot of perks invested can already wipe an entire room out before anyone even knew they were under attack.

We're talking about a single-player game here, something being broken in the late game is not that bad. Specially since, as you yourself mentioned, Netrunning builds are already OP after a certain point. The base quickhacks could, and maybe even should, be weakened. The focus here is to give Netrunners more to do than simply look at an enemy and press a single button to win. Even in the late game. WIth the introduction of something like this, the player should only upload an OP quickhack in the late game if he aces the mini-games.

2.) It can slow down the pace of the game, which may not be a problem for some, but think of this, If the game slowed down for every single attack with time dilation, or the minigame screen then you have a breach timer of let's say 30-60 seconds (possibly more with perks) You're basically stopping time for every hack you cast. which could quickly get boring, and with time basically stopping it also makes it near impossible for enemies to fight back.

This is already the case for every Combat/Control quickhack build. I don't see the problem here...

The other option is changing the breach protocol system entirely so instead of breaching the network as a whole for an overall buff/debuff system that effects everything, you make breaching each NPC specific and separate from systems like cameras and turrets.

I like that idea too... Overall, the idea is to use the Breach mini-game more often since it is actual gameplay specific to builds using the hacking OS's. As it is, you can just sit in the Breach Protocol screen and work out the solution to the puzzle before ever letting the clock start. That's OK and shouldn't necessarily be removed from the game, but the mini-game is great and should be used more often. Offering more variety and challenging the player to engage with it under different circunstances.