From a missions writing standpoint, I'm excited to leave 5e behind. Without having to presume 1+ hours per fight, the plot structure for a 4 hour mission gets more options.
I decided to write down a bunch of points where we save and lose time in combat compared to 5e:
+ You no longer are considering which of the 30+ Called Shots* to use
+ You don't have to subtract 10 each Initiative Pass, nor process the -5 for every interrupt action, making initiative-tracking much easier
+ Environmental circumstances being far less complex to process means we can actually write scenarios that involve those, since it's not massive math anymore
+ You don't math out whether to pre-Edge or post-Edge with your limit in mind, since that's a big expense now**
+ A GM no longer has to roll every grunt in a group individually, so if you're facing 8 Humanis grunts they can just throw 2 group attacks instead of having to work out 8 individual attacks based on positions and their negative modifiers
+ You no longer have to keep track of how often you were attacked for the negative defense modifiers on your defense pool
+ Dice modifiers are far less now, so far less math involved, plus you can just keep your default attack and defense pools at hand
+ Soak pools are far smaller, so no more '24~36 dice rolled, let me count the hits...'
+ You don't have to bother with checking AP to see how many soak dice are rolled and whether the damage is physical and stun
+ You don't have to track your recoil anymore
+ You don't have to track how much you moved so far this Combat Turn
+ Ranged isn't per-weapon anymore, so you can memorise the simple 3/50/+ numbers instead of the 5/10/15/20 of Tasers, 5/20/40/60 of Heavy Pistols, 25/+ of ARs, 15/30/45/60 of Fletchette Shotguns, 10/40/+ of Shotguns, 50/+ of Sniper Rifles, 25/+ of LMGs, 40/+ of MMGs/HMGs, 50/+ of Assault Cannons...
- You have to track your Majors/Minors to see if you still have an defensive action available
- You have to track how much Edge you earned this turn, due to the cap of 2
- People with a flair for the dramatic need to weigh a couple of Edge Actions they would like to initiate the fight with
- People can actually defend while surprised, so that's an extra roll
- You need to remember your DR and AR, so that in the first round of combat everyone can figure out whether they're capable of earning Edge (in my experience after the first round people remember)
- Effects with a duration measured in Combat turns actually start being relevant, so their duration needs to be kept in mind
- Toxins actually have impact now because the fight doesn't end before they go into effect, so they're going to become more popular
- Status effects are more explicit and common now, so they need tracking
- People will actually bother with taking cover now, so you have to keep your cover-level in mind for the extra dice
~ Rather than tracking how many enemies went down to see if they flee, instead you can roll composure once their damage exceeds their PR
So all in all, I think that especially the whole 'being attacked by 4 enemies and having to keep track of the -0/-1/-2/-3 defense modifiers...' being gone now, due to no more accumulating penalties and grunt groups, will definitely matter. Adding to that the simplication of environmental modifiers, soak pools being smaller, no more initiative-modifications of interrupt actions, and no more having to count AP into the soak pool but having a fixed number so no math involved in your soak roll, will all greatly speed up combat since there's far less math involved. Plus you're not mathing out Edge use since for small expenses 'make the enemy reroll' is always the best statistical option, and no more recoil tracking, and... Compared to the added paperwork, I think the amount saved is by far superior. And I really like not having to memorise half a dozen weapon-types their range categories for my players now.
All in all, so far I really like being able to do 2 fights during my Open Events now, without each fight lasting over an hour when it should be a simple one. Even complete rpg-newbies quickly picked things up.
* 8 in core, 6 vehicle-locations or 16 metahuman-locations, 24 ammo-specific called shots of which at most 6 per ammo type and runners often carry 2 kinds of ammo so need to pick between, so that's an easy 8+16+6+2=32 options when comparing Ex-Ex with APDS.
** Instead of deciding on intended Edge use before their action, in my experience risk-seeking people will default to 'If I fail by a small margin, I'll spend X Edge to make my opponent reroll X dice and hope the enemy doesn't reroll too well' and risk-averse people will go 'If I fail by a small margin, I'll spend Y*2 Edge to up Y 4s to 5s', while only the big rolls that will basically end the encounter will be 'I'm passing you Edge' 'Thanks, now I'll spend 4 Edge for a massive reroll'
