Story/Immersion/Side-quests/Mini games
I would love if you took the approach of less is more by creating meaningful side-quest similar to Witcher 3’s Towerful of Mice quest that told a story of its own.
I personally love quality over quantity. I don’t like RPGs to be big for the sake of being big, I would prefer a smaller map-size packed with interesting content then the map being empty such as how a large size of Skellige was in Witcher 3. The undiscovered locations marked with question marks on the water were hard to get to, and yielded small rewards, for example.
Meaningful side-quest that tell stories are what make a RPG great for me, story-wise. There doesn’t have to be an emphasis on player choice so much as “bringing the player in a smaller, more intimate universe “for the duration of a side-quest. E.g.: Getting involved in a family feud or a neighbourhood’s problems.
I believe that meaningful story side quests were one of the Witcher 3s greatest strengths and it would be amazing to see similar side quests in Cyberpunk as well.
Another important aspect would be a mini-game, or side-activity in a place of respite. Witcher 2 did this with dice poker, Witcher 3 with Gwent. It would be awesome to be able to do something relaxing in a bar other than getting side-quests or chatting NPCs for extra info. A type of mini-game would be great. The trailer showed pool in a bar and basketball. I don’t think it’s such a bad idea, as both help the player disconnect a bit from the usual activities of the main game. However, it is important to reward the player for engaging in such activities. Perhaps extra world currency would help, characters could be involved in a bet before the game.
For people that want a darker atmosphere and mature storytelling, I guess the day/night cycle could help, making Night City a completely different city while at night. I personally would love the game to have the same mature type of storytelling as was in Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, at least during the night, but that, of course, depends on your vision of what the game should be.
Combat/Gameplay Mechanics/Playability
Gameplay wise, you guys are the developers, and it all comes down to your vision. Personally, I would love for it to have third-person cover shooter mechanics but too also have a class designed especially for melee combat for people who love to play melee, this is an RPG after all.
Classes play a very important role in any RPG. I know that one of Witcher 3's main complaints about its combat was that it got boring really quick. Personally, as I played a Sign-build I never had this problem, as I used a different combination of signs for every enemy thus making every type of monster encounter unique. When designing classes, it would be interesting to look into this aspect.
A player home-base would also be cool, with a stash available for the player to stash items that he found, or where he could display certain guns or armor like how the Corvo Bianco estate worked in Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine expansion for Geralt’s armor and swords.
An arena would also be lovely for people that want to engross themselves in the combat mechanics and try different type of stuff. And speaking of trying different stuff, perhaps a stat or reset class tree item should exist as to allow the player to respec and try a different approach to combat without going through the hussle of creating a new character just to try out a different class. This can allow the player to experiment with different combat styles and mechanics while also keeping his story progress and decisions without creating a new character. The arena can include a variety of things, enemy waves, selecting a specific type of enemy unit to test your build on etc.
Lastly, as the world will be big or fairly big, an efficient means of transport and use of fast travel should help the player spend less time walking or sprinting and more time engaging in the game’s activities. Perhaps having both a car and an aerial means of transportation would help (skycar perhaps). However, when it comes to it, sprinting should “feel” really fast. There are sessions during gameplay in which players will take the slow walking approach to look at the beautiful environments you guys create, but they should never feel forced to if they just want to do quests and immerse themselves in the story or do the other types of activities available in the world.
Love you guys and I hope this helps,
A loving fan
