I think people will figure out to use it quick. But if it fails then what?
You don’t have a decent soak to fall back on when you roll bad or just don’t have the minor action.
They will roll up new characters and start playing the game as Black Trenchcoat as they can. Players and GMs who don't like playing Black Trenchcoat (whether or not they already knew it) will either return to a previous edition of their choosing or stop playing Shadowrun altogether. I'm calling it now.
Guess I’ll be playing something else then. Forced Black Trenchcoat can go burn in hell. I like my Mohawk Fix or at least the option to do either. 5e was also highly BT in my opinion and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Let the gaming tables make the options of which direction to go, not the game developers
The damage-numbers and mechanics teased suggest that while massive armies of mooks become more dangerous, there's less chance of being one-shotted. Don't forget, in SR4 and SR5 a sniper can easily one-shot you when they get the drop on you unless your armour is crazy high. Only actual time can tell us if this still exists in SR6, but lower damage and lower soak numbers means less 'holy crap a bad soak roll completely wiped me'. I've had players roll 1 hit on over 10 dice even after reroll, so then they'd drop like a fly in SR5. In SR4 there's a Mission where the sniper deliberately fires a paintball first, and his superior initiative still meant that I (too obviously unfortunately) fudged a killing shot.
Also, my SR5 campaign was pretty pink mohawk so I'm a bit surprised to hear that apparently I've been doing it wrong?_?
Anyway, if players wipe too easily, it suggests either the players should be a bit more tactical in the fights they pick, or the GM needs to adjust to the new balance. It doesn't mean we are forced into Black Trenchcoat. So the massive negativity here is extremely surprising. You're playing together with, not against, the GM, so the PM vs BT is still something that explicitly depends on the table.
@Stainless: I wonder how many tests will involve Strength?
Yeah in SR well anything there are items that can one shot you easily. SR5 I felt was too deadly. Assault Rifles a sort of corp goon norm had a base damage of 11 2 AP, two net hits and you are looking at 13DV. Assuming a fairly normal set up for a runner they had 15ish dice to resists, on average knocking it down to 8, a point of edge knocking it down to 5ish. Now you maybe got hit more since the auofire reduced your dodge dice. But that was another place where you had a chance to save yourself. With cover probably canceling out most of that dodge penalty.
Currently according to what people have stated, assault rifles damage 5 but can be boosted to 7/8 with autofire, their dice pool can go up if firing as a group and I think each group member adds 1 DV. Now low rent types have a solid chance to hit you, and when they hit its devastating. Now lets assume non group, 2 net hits on a auto fire attack. Damage is 9, but you only roll 3 dice, so 8. Seems kind of the same place, but you need 1edge on hand to reroll each failure, and you are kind of capping at reducing it to 6. If he had been going full auto and hit you are at 10 boxes and hoping for a hit on 3 dice to live. Part of a group and you are resisting like 12 or 13 with 3 dice. I'm actually seeing a lot of one shot kills in 6e unless I as the GM pull my punches in play. I'm fine pulling my punches in not having an overpowered opposition facing them even though its a mega corp. But whatever the opposition is, intentionally playing it worse seems off if they aren't dumb or something.
Now again I felt SR5 was too deadly.They have stated as part of the advertising SR6 is more deadly. The deadlier the game gets for the players the more they generally will move away from Pink Mohawk. I hope it is not more deadly, and that is just marketing. There are a lot of things I think will improve it from SR5, but there are a lot of things that have me worried.