After the PR Blanket Party... Are you Ubisoft, or are you Hello Games?

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Blanket Party: A blanket party is a form of corporal punishment, hazing, or retaliation conducted within a peer group, most frequently within the military or military academies. The victim is restrained by having a blanket flung over him and held down, while other members of the group strike the victim repeatedly with improvised flails...

Straight out of Full Metal Jacket, and no, it wasn't just made up for the movie.

CD Projekt is currently enduring potentially the worst excoriation of a developer/publisher we've ever seen, and for very good reason. The business with Devotion aside, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't what it should have been by a long shot. Even with the minor issues I've encountered on a 9900K and 2080 Super, the state of the game is unacceptable given that we were told for nearly a decade: "When It's Ready."

CDPR has never experienced this level of harsh criticism. Yet, they've brought this upon themselves by being so deceitful when it came to obfuscating Cyberpunk's performance on 8th Gen consoles, hamstringing reviewers, and shooting themselves in the foot with their public apology. (Corpo Speak, placing their business partners in untenable positions, which lead to Sony pulling the game from the PS Store). These things are exacerbated even further when you consider the standard CDPR held to in the face of their own marketing and image as a "pro-consumer" corporation.

From this point forward, our Polish friends face their ultimate test and a supremely difficult road back into the world's good graces: taking Cyberpunk 2077 to its fullest potential.

As many have pointed out already, Cyberpunk 2077's issues extend beyond the technical. While the game's visuals (bugs notwithstanding) may have improved significantly compared to pre-release demos and footage, its systems and features have suffered dramatically. Chief among them: AI, character customization (RPG elements), open-world vigor, and the impact of player choice. Many things that should have been fleshed out simply weren't in favor of an arbitrary deadline, and now there are two paths ahead.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have its performance stabilized enough for them to begin work on story expansions that fail to build on the game's current foundation in meaningful ways, or CDPR dedicates itself to restoring and adding features they couldn't get working in time to push Cyperpunk to the next level... Where it always deserved to be.

For CD Projekt to have any hope of regaining a modicum of their formerly sterling reputation, Cyberpunk's performance must not only be fixed and *significantly* improved come the next-gen (and PC :mad:) performance "update" (read: overhaul)... But all of the "little things" that players are finding absent from gameplay need to come back. Furthermore, even newer features should be developed and added over time. I'd wager that the vast majority of people didn't even read the player data/metrics prompt that appears when you first launch Cyberpunk. CDPR needs to put that information to good use, seeing as we all bought into an early-access title.

I've spent over 91hrs in Cyberpunk already, perhaps 12 of them asleep or AFK. I have gained a deep understanding of its underlying systems, the narrative, the city, and I absolutely adore this game... But it's still not enough. As entitled as that sounds, hear me out. CDPR put this game on a pedestal, and it's already good enough to not be that far from actually sitting atop it.

The characters, your relationships with them, and the overall story are positively masterful, with the only major flaws being the ultimate conclusions and how they play out no matter what choices you make. (They all feel rather deterministic and fly in the face of CDPR's implications that every major decision would wildly alter the outcome of your story). Nevertheless, this game drew laughter, tears, existential contemplation, and a general engagement from me that I haven't enjoyed since The Outer Worlds.

Night City is incredible... visually and geographically. However, through the fog of NCPD crimes and dozens upon dozens of smaller side gigs, there's not much to do. I really love the vast majority of them, but the side jobs are essentially part of the campaign, and when all is said and done, Night City is positively empty.

Now, I will never accuse this game of lacking content; it just definitely lacks variety. I'll get more into certain aspects later as I continue and describe the chief issues I mentioned outside bugs.

AI: Inconsistent. The game's Achilles Heel right now. Enemies are either a force to be reckoned with and make for intense engagements, or they're completely braindead and stuck. Enemies are consistently aware of things they shouldn't be when you're in stealth; they can see you through walls before you've been detected, unaware patrol routes take ages to cycle, and their aim is godlike or nonexistent. Separately, and more importantly, the NCPD, period. They spawn behind you, yet they cannot chase you. They are also complete pushovers even as Max-Tac is called upon you, and there's no option for you to be arrested, bribe dirty officers, or engage with them in anything besides open combat. You can lose them in less than 45 seconds, and you'll gain a wanted level whether or not there is anybody to witness you accidentally shooting or plowing through an NPC with your vehicle. As for the crowds? The notion that every citizen NPC of Night City was going to have a full routine for a day/night cycle was always a fantasy, and I'm not sure why that was touted at any point before release. Crowds/traffic need to be optimized and fixed for better variety and responsiveness and made so that they no longer appear/disappear anywhere near V in free-roam for the sake of immersion.

Character Customization (RPG elements): The RPG aspect of Cyberpunk needs some serious attention. Perhaps there's not much to be done in terms of perk reworks, but an overwhelming number of them don't actually change the way you play the game terribly much as they're simple percent increases for XYZ weapon/damage types. Nudity was severely gimped, detracting from the "gritty, adult RPG" side of Cyberpunk that we were made to expect. The Tech tree is basically mandatory for the prolonged use of Iconic weapons and clothes, as there's no alternative way to craft/upgrade items like with Blacksmiths in The Witcher 3. You'll struggle even to look how you'd like to, given that Armor is a crucial stat for progressing through content. The loot system doesn't make much sense as there's no reliable way to obtain higher tier weapon, armor, and cyberware mods even at max level and street cred (vendors seem to be capped at the occasional Epic and the very rare Legendary for each category). While extensive, your physical appearance is the most RPG aspect of the game, given V's ultimate fate is rather "samey" no matter how you decide to tackle the main story.

Open-World Vigor: (Opposed to lividity, which Night City currently suffers from). Despite the mission overload in every district, Night City lacks an actual identity as a place with factions and individuals that respond to your behavior outside of the main campaign. This, in my opinion, severely detracts from Cyberpunk's playability without a narrative driving you forward, be it the main campaign or future expansions. There's no genuine interaction or relationship with the NCPD, no bounty system for factions like the NCPD or the gangs to send powerful mercs after you for meddling in their affairs, no chases, no races (besides one questline), no unique games to play like Gwent that add so much to the world and culture of Night City, no specialized stories/missions/content that only becomes accessible to you based on how you've spec'd your character. There's so much potential for this game to be a time-sink even beyond the end of V's story, but it has yet to be taken advantage of.

Impact of Player Choice: The consequences of the choices you make extend *only* to your relationships with the characters in the story and the inevitable outcome of the game beyond the "point of no return." i.e., How you tackle the final gauntlet, who does or does not accompany you, and one of basically two conclusions.

Finally, there's the cut features and content. Wall running? That makes perfect sense, considering the charge jump and double jump options being as strong as they are. However, the fact that I can't strangle or hack people with my Nanowire? Awful. Not even having the option to change the paint-job on my vehicles? Pretty lame. TWO stealth takedown animations for bare hands and NONE based on what weapon you have equipped? Yikes. No interrogations? Oof.

The point of ALL of this is directly stated in the title of this post. CDPR. You can do the corporate sleaze thing and simply "fix" Cyberpunk 2077 enough to where its performance is no longer an issue like Ubisoft (pick a game), or you can commit yourself to Cyberpunk 2077 and continuously make things up to your community by working tirelessly to keep your promises like Hello Games (No Man's Sky).

I believe you are still dedicated to this game and your fans, prove me right. Then worry about expansions and multiplayer.
 

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Well done, you described my biggest fears about this game. I have no doubts that in some time this game will be technically refined. I am concerned that CP2077 will become what it is now, a good game with a beautiful city, while it needs a strong gameplay balance, mechanics extensions for specific playstyles, and virtually every flavor from other games that REDs drew a handful of but left out the details which made them successful titles. Currently, it's Far Cry with a Borderlands looting system. From the specific things that I can point out beyond what you wrote, I have one big objection.

Stealthy style of play. All that talk - you don't have to kill. You must. Fixers occasionally require you to go unnoticed during missions and all we have is a slightly higher payout. So you are poorer for everything your opponents are wearing, weapons, clothing, materials from both, or extra experience for hacking them. In other words, you fall behind every other way of playing. How to fix it? Even higher payouts for being unnoticed? The possibility of stealing from opponents, but it would probably be boring, so maybe at least the main NPCs in a given mission should have something valuable in their pockets. It's hard to come up with a mechanic that would not be able to be used by someone who enters the object with a stick and beats everyone. Being invisible doesn't pay off, takes longer, and isn't rewarding, but that's because of the AI and primitive stealth system.
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And I really want the game's expansions to focus on developing mechanics, and then loading graphics content (weapons, cars, clothes). Make you want to be a hacker, an outspoken dodger, or a spy who doesn't like killing. Many games that offer different ways to play also fall into this topic. Is more experience as a reward enough to play differently? It's easy to develop a satisfactory shooting model in 2020 and congratulations because you did it, but creating satisfying hacking, mini-games and stealth mechanics is just a challenge and I thought it would be different here, but it is not. The only reward for a different way of gameplay (netrunner) is to be like an administrator on the battlefield, you enter the missions and say - hello gentlemen, I order you to die now, fire up quickhack and you win. So being an OP is some sort of reward, like being a caster in classic fantasy RPGs
 
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Well done, you described my biggest fears about this game. I have no doubts that in some time this game will be technically refined. I am concerned that CP2077 will become what it is now, a good game with a beautiful city, while it needs a strong gameplay balance, mechanics extensions for specific playstyles, and virtually every flavor from other games that REDs drew a handful of but left out the details which made them successful titles. Currently, it's Far Cry with a Borderlands looting system. From the specific things that I can point out beyond what you wrote, I have one big objection.

Stealthy style of play. All that talk - you don't have to kill. You must. Fixers occasionally require you to go unnoticed during missions and all we have is a slightly higher payout. So you are poorer for everything your opponents are wearing, weapons, clothing, materials from both, or extra experience for hacking them. In other words, you fall behind every other way of playing. How to fix it? Even higher payouts for being unnoticed? The possibility of stealing from opponents, but it would probably be boring, so maybe at least the main NPCs in a given mission should have something valuable in their pockets. It's hard to come up with a mechanic that would not be able to be used by someone who enters the object with a stick and beats everyone. Being invisible doesn't pay off, takes longer, and isn't rewarding, but that's because of the AI and primitive stealth system.
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And I really want the game's expansions to focus on developing mechanics, and then loading graphics content (weapons, cars, clothes). Make you want to be a hacker, an outspoken dodger, or a spy who doesn't like killing. Many games that offer different ways to play also fall into this topic. Is more experience as a reward enough to play differently? It's easy to develop a satisfactory shooting model in 2020 and congratulations because you did it, but creating satisfying hacking, mini-games and stealth mechanics is just a challenge and I thought it would be different here, but it is not. The only reward for a different way of gameplay (netrunner) is to be like an administrator on the battlefield, you enter the missions and say - hello gentlemen, I order you to die now, fire up quickhack and you win. So being an OP is some sort of reward, like being a caster in classic fantasy RPGs

All of this is why I'm so torn about the game right now. It is by NO MEANS bad, and I've absolutely loved my time so far and still plan to hop right into another playthrough as a different life path after I finish my current run. I'm playing a Stealth Techie right now and still have a ton of fun despite the shitty AI and mechanics, but it's still in the back of my head just how much is missing :/
 
I still to this day have no idea why, "Deliver a quality product and you will have loyal customers." is such a hard thing for modern day companies to comprehend.

Maybe for once, just ONCE, one of them will try it, instead of trying to just scam the crap out of people and then apologizing for it over and over again. The worst part is that this isn't even a difficult concept. Just deliver what was promised. That's it. If you can't do that, don't make the promise. It's really not that complicated, yet we deal with this time and time again from company after company, because not a single one seems to understand that if you just deliver on your promise PEOPLE WON'T BE MAD AT YOU.

It's baffling how the same mistakes keep getting repeated and repeated over and over again with NONE of these places learning their lesson.
 
This needs to be sticky asap!

Thank you for your great work. That sums it really much up.

I think most posts here got driven away with the censorship - me too. (and I still think its a super annoying problem)

But this post sums the problem with the game perfectly up, thank you.



I remember the story mission against the first mechboss, my lovely npc buddy stood there for minutes soaking up shots while I had no ammo left. I had to reload because of the feeling I cheated this boss.
 
I am wondering if all the press and influencers that got to play early voiced any of this, or if they just "oohed and ahhed" over it and didn't let CDPR know that it had major holes. Or maybe they just assumed all that was in there and they just didn't see those parts yet.

I have said several times on this forum, that CDPR needs to NOT focus on things like interactive food vendors, more clothes and cyberware options, and similar things. The general interactivity, AI of all NPCs, faction favor/disfavor, and consequence of player actions should come first. I'm not saying those other things shouldn't be done; just that the feel of the world being a real one will be created more from general AI improvements to police, gangs, and NPCs, and quest branching where players feel they have real choices. These are not trivial features to implement.
 
please everyone stop demanding this "Hack with monowire" that thing was replaced with BlueTooth 5G Wifi hack, its exact same thing just wireless.
 
The game is great. Go play it instead of browsing Reddit and YouTube. Form your own opinions. Cyberpunk 2077 is an amazing game that has gotten unreasonably harsh treatment from the media and gaming communities. Dragon Age Inquisition and Fallout 4 were, for me, massive disappointments and did not receive even a fraction of the backlash CDPR is getting.
 
The game is great. Go play it instead of browsing Reddit and YouTube. Form your own opinions. Cyberpunk 2077 is an amazing game that has gotten unreasonably harsh treatment from the media and gaming communities. Dragon Age Inquisition and Fallout 4 were, for me, massive disappointments and did not receive even a fraction of the backlash CDPR is getting.
I've played it, that is why I'm here. Because I cannot get myself to start it up again.
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please everyone stop demanding this "Hack with monowire" that thing was replaced with BlueTooth 5G Wifi hack, its exact same thing just wireless.
I personally think they should bring back the manual requirement for hacking. Would make hacking less boring and more rewarding for skill.
 
please everyone stop demanding this "Hack with monowire" that thing was replaced with BlueTooth 5G Wifi hack, its exact same thing just wireless.
Honestly, I agree. Hacking with monowire seems like a very pointless feature. However, I think Monowire should allow you to stealth kill enemies with skulls, but have it's overall damage rating reduced compared to the other arm augments. Similarly to how Gorilla Arms allows you to open doors without the strength requirement. This would make it very useful for stealth builds, giving it a purpose. Right now it's just a lackluster alternative to Mantis Blades. Plus, you literally hold it like a garrote in game, the fact that it doesn't work like that practice is in itself a crime.

Also note, I said stealth kill. If you use monowire there would be no more non-lethal option. That would be one of the trade-offs, since taking out enemies with skulls from stealth is a very strong ability.
 
I am hoping against hope that this makes them look internally about the issues they have. They have a history of crunch at this point, with W3 especially and now CP2077.

Crunch is 100% a failure of management. One that is unfortunately common in studios, especially successful ones as management smells their own farts.

CDPR did respond to the issue by basically brushing it off a while back. But if you look at their glassdoor reviews (employees review their employer site) a lot of the complaints are poor management/middle management. Which makes a lot of sense. ME: Andromeda and Anthem were in basically the exact same states because of poor management.

I do doubt they'll do anything about their buddies in management however.

Heck devs spoke out about issues in CP2077 development but that was brushed aside because of how beloved CDPR is. https://www.reddit.com/r/JimSterling/comments/7tsy9o
 
I've played it, that is why I'm here. Because I cannot get myself to start it up again.
Sounds like a personal issue to me. What exactly do you not like about it? I admit, the backgrounds could have been longer and the transition to working with Jackie better, and more interactivity with the world. But the game is most certainly not unplayable.
 
Ubisoft vs cdpr

Cdpr imo has done far more to show empathy than Ubisoft did for ghost recon breakpoint.

I have over way over 500 plus hours of playtime on breakpoint and dealt with Ubisoft forums asking what would you like to see fixed or added.
While some people basically made a very descriptive layout and explains every single detail. To the point i even said Ubisoft hire this person bc their idea was what the game should be.

Did it happen no, did thet listen to us?no. Until 1 year later. One year! They gave us a pinch of what the people wanted.

Cdpr on the other hand, has made more progress than Ubisoft has ever done in 6 months.
Cdpr offered refunds where as Ubisoft was like. Bend over assume position your gonna take what we give ya.

And i think Cdpr saw how outraged we got for basically being told by ubi to go pound sand. I have strong hopes for cp2077. I really do. But if they do anything like Ubisoft has done by giving us little expansion or adding live events just like giving a baby a pacifier. Then cp2077 will be dead in the water by next year maybe sooner. And to rely on the holidays to hope everyone is gonna get the new console. Was a joke.
 
Sounds like a personal issue to me. What exactly do you not like about it? I admit, the backgrounds could have been longer and the transition to working with Jackie better, and more interactivity with the world. But the game is most certainly not unplayable.
There's a difference between unplayable and unenjoyable to play.
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I am hoping against hope that this makes them look internally about the issues they have. They have a history of crunch at this point, with W3 especially and now CP2077.

Crunch is 100% a failure of management. One that is unfortunately common in studios, especially successful ones as management smells their own farts.

CDPR did respond to the issue by basically brushing it off a while back. But if you look at their glassdoor reviews (employees review their employer site) a lot of the complaints are poor management/middle management. Which makes a lot of sense. ME: Andromeda and Anthem were in basically the exact same states because of poor management.

I do doubt they'll do anything about their buddies in management however.

Heck devs spoke out about issues in CP2077 development but that was brushed aside because of how beloved CDPR is. https://www.reddit.com/r/JimSterling/comments/7tsy9o
This actually explains a lot of the questions I had about why this game ended up the way it did. It seems to me that CDPR's management team just has no idea how to make video games despite the devs themselves trying to actually do their jobs.
 
There's a difference between unplayable and unenjoyable to play.
Cyberpunk 2077 is neither of those things. The story is compelling, the world is interesting, and the gameplay loop is pretty fun. There's definitely room for improvement but I would say it is EASILY game of the year for me and the only redeeming piece of 2020.

Also, the combat is way better than Witcher 3. I hate how no one ever mentions that.
 
CDPR's management team
At this point, after the heavy crunch (once again, failure of management) of Witcher 3 and CP2077 they should fire and/or demote their entire management team and replace it with people who know actually what they're doing.

Because clearly the CDPR management staff doesn't. The studio is being heavily carried by how good the rest of the team is, which just stinks of "Bioware Magic" where that studio waved away poor management as something fixable by the dev team. Except their team got heavily burnt out, exhausted mentally and physically. Bled most the talent that made the previous games possible and resulted in a demoralized, tired team working on their next game. The machine is only as good as the weakest link and their management staff is a cog made of cheap cardboard.

Issue there is management tends to be friends with people higher up in the company which means they're buddy buddy with the folks who decide if they're demoted, fired or whatever. It might not be the case with CDPR, we don't know for sure. But changes really need to be made there.

It's not a problem fixed by just throwing more people at it or having the studio be a revolving door with high turnover.
 
Cyberpunk 2077 is neither of those things. The story is compelling, the world is interesting, and the gameplay loop is pretty fun. There's definitely room for improvement but I would say it is EASILY game of the year for me and the only redeeming piece of 2020.

Also, the combat is way better than Witcher 3. I hate how no one ever mentions that.
[...]
>The world is interesting.
[...] That's the main issue. The 'world' basically doesn't exist. It's just a big empty shell with a bunch of lifeless puppets. There basically is no 'world' outside of the cutscenes and scripted events.
>Gameplay loop is pretty fun.
The combat is interesting and is pretty enjoyable. However we were promised more than just combat. Combat was in fact supposed to be one of the things you did when you needed to. It wasn't supposed to be the primary focus of the entire game.

This is not even close to game of the year.

[Edited for tone -- SigilFey]
 
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Sounds like a personal issue to me. What exactly do you not like about it? I admit, the backgrounds could have been longer and the transition to working with Jackie better, and more interactivity with the world. But the game is most certainly not unplayable.
[...]
The game is not unplayable performance wise. The endings are what killed any kind of replayability for me personally. I enjoyed my first playthrough and had a great time experiencing the story once up until the conclusion. After that I saw no reason to go through it again. The world is pretty and fine for a linear action shooter that I wanna play only once, but has no substance.
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[...]
>The world is interesting.
[...] That's the main issue. The 'world' basically doesn't exist. It's just a big empty shell with a bunch of lifeless puppets. There basically is no 'world' outside of the cutscenes and scripted events.
>Gameplay loop is pretty fun.
The combat is interesting and is pretty enjoyable. However we were promised more than just combat. Combat was in fact supposed to be one of the things you did when you needed to. It wasn't supposed to be the primary focus of the entire game.

This is not even close to game of the year.
I'd argue the combat is not even that interesting. Nothing we haven't seen before, and once you get a few levels undr your belt, you are just OP.

[Edited -- SigilFey]
 
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[...]
>The world is interesting.
[...] That's the main issue. The 'world' basically doesn't exist. It's just a big empty shell with a bunch of lifeless puppets. There basically is no 'world' outside of the cutscenes and scripted events.
>Gameplay loop is pretty fun.
The combat is interesting and is pretty enjoyable. However we were promised more than just combat. Combat was in fact supposed to be one of the things you did when you needed to. It wasn't supposed to be the primary focus of the entire game.

This is not even close to game of the year.

Since CP2077 was the love of my gaming life for almost 6 years, I can agree...

And I really tried to love it as much as I hoped it would be ... but after like 10 Hours I simply played TOO MANY games of such genres, that this game simply started to taste very very bitter. And as the Story put me in URGE it felt even more, they did that to blend over the totally empty world, like rush story you are in urge, dont look at the game too closely.

Now 25 hours in, still didnt progressed because its extremely obvious how the story will end at least in which direction, and I didnt hoped for a storygame, it got advertised as an immersive open world game "not a large world, but full and immersive", they said.
Sadly its just a story game, and the story is extremely obvious while not being bad. And I have the feeling, I need to wait till I can really enjoy this "immersive" world, till I need to face the destiny the story "forces" me to.
 
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