iPhone Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut (by Harebrained Schemes LLC)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by killercow, Dec 3, 2014.

  1. Spinda

    Spinda Well-Known Member

    Dec 6, 2013
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    Is it me or is this game really poorly optimized for mobile?

    Sprites disappearing and reappearing, really bad framerate, crashing. Lack of zoom. The battery drain is noticeable. I reinstalled SRR and none of those problems are there.

    The games don't even look different graphic-wise (other than the interface and DF being stuck at super zoom)

    So why does this game perform so much worse?
     
  2. Luciano1084

    Luciano1084 Well-Known Member

    May 8, 2014
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    Ouch, glad I held off for a bit.. What device are you using?
     
  3. brerlappin

    brerlappin Well-Known Member

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    #103 brerlappin, Dec 5, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2014
    Even when the game opens, the dev's logo is huge and then shrinks down.

    Then the Dragonfall logo appears to flash in the upper left corner before it fades and the menu screen comes up.

    I'm sure it will be all polished up for the next update.

    Completely unrelated to the optimization, the text box that suggests you close all other apps before playing makes mention of user generated content... so does that mean its coming or (more likely) they forgot to remove it from the port?

     
  4. thefrivolouscake

    Oct 16, 2013
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    That sounds like what happened when I attempted SRR on my iPad 2. I'm playing this latest one on an iPad Air and am having none of these issues.
     
  5. Luciano1084

    Luciano1084 Well-Known Member

    May 8, 2014
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    Is anyone playing on a mini retina? Would love to know how it handles dragonfall :)
     
  6. gquiller

    gquiller Well-Known Member

    Nov 15, 2011
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    I was wondering this as well. Might there be a way to do so in an update? Or will it be offered in MAC app store? I appreciate this in advance and apologies if this is redundant...
     
  7. Nobunaga

    Nobunaga Well-Known Member

    Jun 2, 2012
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    iPad 4 handles it alright. Occasional stutter. Slightly longer load times than SRReturns. No crashes.
    Mini Retina (A7 for mini, A6X for 4) should offer better performance than I'm getting and I have no major performance complaints.

    To those asking, I don't think an iPad 2 is going to offer a good experience. I might be wrong. Considering that Returns runs smoother than Dragonfall on iPad 4 and the 2 can't be considered ideal for Returns, I wouldn't attempt running on the 2.

    In terms of the game itself, it was well worth the wait. Like most reviews said, improved upon the original in almost every way.
     
  8. HBS_Jeff

    HBS_Jeff Active Member

    Sep 26, 2013
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    Answering a few questions...

    I am seeing a few questions come up today so I thought that I would attempt to answer them here to the best of my ability.

    Can Shadowrun Dragonfall - Directors Cut run on my iPhone?
    The issue is really about screen size. Our UI is not optimized for smaller screens and Apple only allows us to specify all phones or all tablets. Since we can't just allow for the iPhone 6+, which (arguably) does have a large enough screen, we decided to not to make the game available for phones.

    Why can't I zoom, or what optimizations have happened?
    Dragonfall is on average about 3 times bigger than Shadowrun Returns. Many of our maps have more actors, larger areas, and more VFX playing at one time then most areas in Shadowrun Returns.

    Optimizations:
    - Manual Zoom has been disabled (this choice was a hard one to make, but we have set the zoom to the optimal level concerning both gameplay and performance, the camera will still zoom when attacks are made)
    - Fog of War is turned off for freemove only areas (this can cause actors to "pop" in and out as the player moves around and Line of Sight is made or broken, this happens in all levels where LoS can be broken)
    - Bloom and Post Processing effects are turned off
    - Extra blood and gore options are turned off
    - Some environmental effects are turned off (this may include prop VFX, environmental VFX, and environmental lighting)
    - Some props have been removed (the only props that have been removed are environmental "fluff" props, and no gameplay has been effected)
    - Following actors stick close behind the Player (this is to reduce what may have LoS and need to be drawn and reduced performance hits due to pathfinding)
    - Minor draw call improvements including a faster FoW
     
  9. ScotDamn

    ScotDamn Well-Known Member
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    Jul 8, 2013
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    I haven't experienced any slowdowns or issues with performance on a Mini 2. I'm beyond happy with my purchase, even without finishing the first one which I was worried about.
     
  10. Nobunaga

    Nobunaga Well-Known Member

    Jun 2, 2012
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    Glad to see you drop in and clear up some questions for people.
    congratulations on what I hope is a successful launch. I hope that it's popular enough that you rethink adding in an ability to download user content in an update. Obviously that would add server costs for you guys if you did it the way stealth Bastard / Inc did. There's always the option of having Apple host as IAP DLC content as well. I'm sure if there's a will, there's a way. Seems to be a popular request and I'm sure a lot of fans of one of the best RPG's (any platforms) of the year would be more than happy to spend some extra cash on the option.
    If not, thanks for the release of DragonFall to iOS, all the same. It's an amazing game. Cheers.
     
  11. spajdr

    spajdr Well-Known Member

    Mar 29, 2011
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    Not even Ipad Air 2 can't have some of these environmental effects enabled?
     
  12. AchillesReborn

    AchillesReborn Well-Known Member

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    #112 AchillesReborn, Dec 6, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2014
    Couldn't you set the device compatibility as being iPhone 6+? At least then people are warned that it will suffer performance/interface issues on other devices. Or is there too great a risk of people ignoring this, downloading on other devices, and complaining? I noticed that shadow runs is available on my galaxy s4, so I assume the the play store allows you to set device restrictions more concisely.
     
  13. Malrulezzzu

    Malrulezzzu Well-Known Member

    Mar 28, 2009
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    #113 Malrulezzzu, Dec 6, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2014
    This game easily would be playable on the 6 or 6 plus. Making it iPad only basically means you cost yourself a metric f-ton of sales. Heck I would have bought both games right now if they would run on my 6 plus. Might be a great way to give the series more exposure. I think this series has been vastly underrated if anything. EDIT I just read about the dev's reasons for not allowing the game to run on the iPhone 6 plus and it makes sense. I was maybe stretching it to say it would be fine with the 6 as well as the plus but with some tweaking of the UI it would probably be possible. You can say iPhone 6 series only. If people can play Bioshock on their iPhone 5's I am sure you can figure out a way to make this game playable on the 6 series of phones. I only say this because I would love to play it on my iPhone and you would sell a lot of games IMO.
     
  14. Malrulezzzu

    Malrulezzzu Well-Known Member

    Mar 28, 2009
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    Supposedly Apple won't let developers do just one version of a series model, at least that is what I gather from the devs earlier post.
     
  15. Spinda

    Spinda Well-Known Member

    Dec 6, 2013
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    I'm playing this on an iPad 3. The framerate issues I'm talking about is how the running animation is noticeably less smooth as opposed to the animation in SRR. I can notice the stutter where characters arms just snap to a new position instead of swaying.

    Pannning in SRR is mostly smooth, panning in DF has noticeable stutters.

    Also when I pan, NPCs suddenly pop into view. Sometimes stuff like text bubble icons(to indicate a NPC can be spoken to) take a bit longer to load as well so I need to stop wait for a moment to see if an NPC can be spoken to then pan, stop when I see an NPC, pan, stop whe I see an NPC.

    The lack of FoW is fairly annoying in fights, there are times when an enemy just pops out of nowhere because they were just at the edge of the invisible FoW.

    I guess you can say the maps are more complex in DF but with all the effects removed, they don't look any better than the maps in SRR. Doesn't help that the perma zoom makes everything look less sharp. Speaking of complex maps, permazoom makes those harder to navigate.
     
  16. pinnygalore

    pinnygalore Member

    Feb 6, 2013
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    What game are people referring to by "the original" and "the first one"? Do they mean the (awesome) SNES Shadowrun, or (the not as awesome) Shadowrun Returns? Just trying to guage how this compares to the original as to whether I try it.
     
  17. Fangbone

    Fangbone Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2012
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    They are talking about Shadowrun Returns for iOS
     
  18. Sildani

    Sildani Well-Known Member

    Feb 2, 2013
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    Thanks for the response HBSJeff, even if it wasn't what I wanted to read.
     
  19. AchillesReborn

    AchillesReborn Well-Known Member

    Nov 29, 2008
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    #119 AchillesReborn, Dec 6, 2014
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2014
    But they can list device compatibility. Many apps don't function on older devices properly. The compatibilty requirement doesn't stop people downloading them, but informs them that they won't run properly. I think they are worried that people will ignore the requirements, and then flood them with negative reviews. They are probably right to worry about this, but it's a shame.

    Lots of games are listed as only being compatible with certain devices. People can ignore the compatibility warning and download them on older devices, usually resulting in negative reviews/complaints (check out games like GOT or bioshock to see how many people are complaining about performance on devices that aren't compatible).
     
  20. Wisely

    Wisely Well-Known Member

    Jan 24, 2013
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    Read all the pages hoping to get an impression of the game. Got the feeling maybe those who love the game are busy playing. So far it has been pages of negative feedback?
     

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