Game Difficulty - will Cyberpunk ever be made remotely challenging?

[Johny_Mnemonic69]

As long as it does not become unrealistic, i.e. Blowing someones head off with a Rifle and the Enemy still lives.

I never said it's easy to balance the game where you have mods/skills/cyberware/perks/skills to take into consideration. BUT right now it is broken beyond believe.

Post automatically merged: Jan 27, 2021

Might be fun, I mean the first time I played the game I got to lvl 27 or so like that cause I didn't wanna waste perks till I had an idea of how to build my char, shouldn't even be annoying now that I know what I'm doing.

If you have free time make as much armor defence as possible and tell me if you still die like a little gonk. Also is there any way to get elemental resistance? I still have 0% and can't find any items to increase it.

 

[koziklocek]

Did he have any problem with this so called suicidal mission?

I didnt watched it coz i didnt want to spoil it for myself then. it was around 12-15min long i think.
In my run with perks i was using 400dps defender coz i like it and was still one shooting everything

 

[INulis]

Is anyone forcing you to use weapons that deal so much damage?
You know you can just use something that doesn't one-shot everything.

That "rasoning" is just essence of broken balance. Ofc. you can go around naked to make ur gameplay harder, but that wont make it any better balanced. As example in Borderlands 3... I just cant imagine myself being forced to run trash gear to get any sort of challenge (you can still be terminator like beast, but you need work for it... and its still not that braindead easy as in CP lvl30+)

 

[R001c]

Your all doing it wrong.
Your supposed to get absolutely sh@tfaced drunk. Strip naked , rush in screaming something totally inappropriate and open fire.

Seriously though the games balance is so bad it is a bug.

Enemy Netrunners should be more numerous and some NPCs should have more powerful counters to quick hacks. The System Reset quick hack is so ridiculously powerful. I'm not saying get rid of it but perhaps there could be a cumulative health debuff on V for a certain amount of time, because <insert Sci-Fi explanation of your choice>, so that overuse could lead to your own death. Some gameplay around two opposing hacks would be good. Enemy Netrunners should be able to buff their squad and remove effects from squad members.

It very much looks like noise was going to be an important part of stealth which would make Reset Optics less OP. Also touching an NPC who cant see you should generate an aggressive response of some kind or perhaps markedly shorten the duration of the effect.

Armour should be separate from outfits. Its a bit of a stretch but not as much as pretending a bra and a pair of hot pants will save you from a hail of bullets. Appearance/vanity slots would sort that.

Clothing mods....don't even know where to start with this one. RNG slot system is just plain wrong. Again it quickly gets OP.

I love shooting people through walls but that's slightly OP and we should pay just as heavy a price as an NPC for hiding behind a cardboard box.

I'm all for making games playable by people who can't crack walnuts with their thumbs but this needs sorting. The sooner the better.

 

[CS554]

I appreciated that gun battles didn't drag forever. I hated bullet sponge mechanics like Tom Clancy's The Division with passion. In this game, I felt gun play was pretty good (Annihilation) though LMG's are bit underwhelming and with shotgun it reminded me of old 3rd person shooters Max Payne 1 & 2.

Then there's a matter of melee builds and that not everyone wants or even can't spend hundreds of hours in game, so it's neat that you achieve good enough build just by focusing to main story missions. Yet achievement data shows about 10% difference between meeting Hanako achievement and completing game achievement.

I guess one solution might be having optional challenge modes available under game difficulties. Hard with aggressive enemy level scaling or very aggressive level scaling. etc.

 

[Johny_Mnemonic69]

I appreciated that gun battles didn't drag forever. I hated bullet sponge mechanics like Tom Clancy's The Division with passion. In this game, I felt gun play was pretty good (Annihilation) though LMG's are bit underwhelming and with shotgun it reminded me of old 3rd person shooters Max Payne 1 & 2.

Then there's a matter of melee builds and that not everyone wants or even can't spend hundreds of hours in game, so it's neat that you achieve good enough build just by focusing to main story missions. Yet achievement data shows about 10% difference between meeting Hanako achievement and completing game achievement.

I guess one solution might be having optional challenge modes available under game difficulties. Hard with aggressive enemy level scaling or very aggressive level scaling. etc.

I think no one likes sponge enemies BUT if you can hit for hundreds of thousand of dmg (and actually millions with min/maxing) enemies with 12k life that's a "little" overkill don't you think?

 

[yota71]

At lvl 25+ there is nothing I can use that doesn't kill with 1 shot. I would have to reset every skill and remove every dmg related cyberware.
That makes no sense whatsoever.

Not true in my second playtrough i use only fist (gorilla's arms) blunt weapon (a japanese mace) a katana, and a pistol for the stealth, its more difficult, you need to go very near, and the melee weapons do a lot of damage to V, like one hit half of the energy out (and i have 980 hp) (i play on hard)

 

[koziklocek]

I think no one likes sponge enemies BUT if you can hit for hundreds of thousand of dmg (and actually millions with min/maxing) enemies with 12k life that's a "little" overkill don't you think?

There is not enough enemies for them to not be bullet spongy.
How much long it takes to kill everything in any mission? 10sec? how long it takes to get there? 5 min? This game either need to up enemy hp *their lv or spawn enough enemies to have a firefight.

 

[Czech Death]

Perhaps in RPGs in general ballance is pretty hard thing to pull off.

Devs have to prettymuch make the game accessible/playable for players who basically rush trhu barely leveling anything and for players that min max, players really will make their character as powerful as possible.

Maybe the curve could be flatter. To introduce little bit of realism. As people mentioned here before about headshots. I am of opinion that when you shoot somebody to the face with prettymuch anything that is not an airgun, they should drop. And I missed this in the game. the early RNG made it pretty furstrating on hard and beyond actually.

And at max level currently I am enjoying being OP - cutting thru arasak tower like butter, was sutisfying reward for all the hard work.

Somebody mentioned survival mod - count me in! I loved that in fallout 4

 

[Johny_Mnemonic69]

Perhaps in RPGs in general ballance is pretty hard thing to pull off.

Devs have to prettymuch make the game accessible/playable for players who basically rush trhu barely leveling anything and for players that min max, players really will make their character as powerful as possible.

Maybe the curve could be flatter. To introduce little bit of realism. As people mentioned here before about headshots. I am of opinion that when you shoot somebody to the face with prettymuch anything that is not an airgun, they should drop. And I missed this in the game. the early RNG made it pretty furstrating on hard and beyond actually.

And at max level currently I am enjoying being OP - cutting thru arasak tower like butter, was sutisfying reward for all the hard work.

Somebody mentioned survival mod - count me in! I loved that in fallout 4

That's why we have difficulty lvls? For players that rush through things cos they like it that way normal one is fine.
There should be hard mode for the rest of us that are enjoying challenge.

There was literally no hard work involved (and that is among many thing a problem) for all those 1 hit kills to be satisfying - at least for me.

 

[Alteredmax]

Same thing happens with netrunning on the highest difficulty. The beginning is pretty hard, needed to use granades a lot, and by lvl 20 i was killing everything with a Ping and a Shock or Contagion. By the end of the game was a Suicide hack galore and the problem was to not being too overpowered. I had to restart different saves since the missions bugged out 'cause of the "killing everyone from outside the building" stuff so the events wouldn't proc. . .

 

[CS554]

I think no one likes sponge enemies BUT if you can hit for hundreds of thousand of dmg (and actually millions with min/maxing) enemies with 12k life that's a "little" overkill don't you think?

Yes and no. What some others has said, fluid combat say headshots, should drop targets fast. That damage in numbers is about something absurd is kinda moot. It's what happen in practical game play terms. Built also aren't equal, even max level Annihilation doesn't drop enemies on normal with body shots with legendary shotguns, and then there's perhaps just two legendary shotguns in game. I think you can get the picture that in close quarters combat also mobility perks are already important, especially if player hasn't found those shotguns.

Something I thought. We have all sorts of equipment available in game. So on harder difficulties more enemies could wear helmets. Then some boss enemies, could have second heart, so they would come back, subdermal armor on selected enemies could more common. These could be also made optional difficulty challenges, like Very Hard + Cybered up enemies.

I also concur what Yota71 wrote above. Melee builds and bullet sponges are very difficult combination and is also a matter of skill progression. Situation where player can't reliably melee but last one, or last two enemies still standing, getting exp to level up Brawling and Athletics could become very difficult, limiting practical build options for players.

But more optional challenges for difficulties and since those could also be tied to achievements I think they might turn out even be something quite popular.

There's actually something very clever problem solving in game already and I think CDPR could make this work but people must ask for these things.

 

[psyclum]

sigh... another click bait post about how much dmg you can do to a mob 40 lvls below you... if you WANT a challenge, try dont fear the reaper at very hard difficulty when you are lvl 3x instead of lvl 50... when your critical headshot only does 273 dmg and you ran out of sniper bullets before killing 1 yard trash...

yes the game CAN use an increase in difficulty, but that's due to the fact that except dont fear the reaper, there are NO lvl 50 mobs anywhere else in the game. (maybe max tac? but i never bothered killing them so i don't know) the lvl cap for the rest of the mobs in the city is like 35? so of course you are going to do 100 million dmg to them... they are of NO challenge. but if they adjusted the lvl range of the mobs in some areas to 50-60? you arent going to be saying the game is too easy and will be right back here saying the game is way too hard as another click bait...

 

[Johny_Mnemonic69]

sigh... another click bait post about how much dmg you can do to a mob 40 lvls below you... if you WANT a challenge, try dont fear the reaper at very hard difficulty when you are lvl 3x instead of lvl 50... when your critical headshot only does 273 dmg and you ran out of sniper bullets before killing 1 yard trash...

yes the game CAN use an increase in difficulty, but that's due to the fact that except dont fear the reaper, there are NO lvl 50 mobs anywhere else in the game. (maybe max tac? but i never bothered killing them so i don't know) the lvl cap for the rest of the mobs in the city is like 35? so of course you are going to do 100 million dmg to them... they are of NO challenge. but if they adjusted the lvl range of the mobs in some areas to 50-60? you arent going to be saying the game is too easy and will be right back here saying the game is way too hard as another click bait...

Nothing clickbaiting here. I was just interested how other people see this game dificulty.

I highly doubt I will ever complain that any game is to hard. Never happened so far.

Anyway the problem is not character lvl but that after around 20h the game becomes laughably easy. This is the moment every enemy is for 1-3 hits on very hard depending what you shot with and I'm talking about regular body shots. That is not good at all imho.

 

[psyclum]

Nothing clickbaiting here. I was just interested how other people see this game dificulty.

I highly doubt I will ever complain that any game is to hard. Never happened so far.

Anyway the problem is not character lvl but that after around 15h the game becomes laughably easy. This is the moment every enemy is for 1-3 hits on very hard depending what you shot with and I'm talking about regular body shots. That is not good at all imho.

it's a matter of where you hunt. 15 hrs in, you'd find a good challenge in the badlands, santo domingo, and pacifica. city center may still be abit too high for you at that time, but it really depends on what lvl you are at the time and what lvl your skills are. there are some "keystone" skill lvls like poison becoming capable of critting and becoming able to craft legendary items etc, that really transform the game from challenging to trivial. it also makes a difference as to how lucky you are in your loot drops. if you spin that 2 bullet in 1 shot burya or 50% faster lockon ashura early in the game, then the rest of the game is going to be way easier then otherwise.

what it comes down to is how you play the game dictates how difficult the game can be. it really all has to do with what lvl of mobs you decide to fight relative to your own. if you want a challenge? try doing a red skull playthrough and you will see what i mean. you'd be sitting there in mid combat breaking down junk just to craft more bullets

edit: i mean double dmg poison instead. sorry for the confusion

 

[CS554]

Something you could try if you want to draft something up is checking Example 2 here: CP2077 and The Gas Station Problem
It's really about finding solutions without creating additional problems.

For example, what I wrote earlier about Cybered Up idea, how to work around NPC having a Second Heart and still keep stealth viable. (remove Second Heart from options) so if you get rid of that sort of problems, might come up with something CRPR might give a look.

 

[Agent-94]

I appreciated that gun battles didn't drag forever. I hated bullet sponge mechanics like Tom Clancy's The Division with passion. In this game, I felt gun play was pretty good (Annihilation) though LMG's are bit underwhelming and with shotgun it reminded me of old 3rd person shooters Max Payne 1 & 2.

Then there's a matter of melee builds and that not everyone wants or even can't spend hundreds of hours in game, so it's neat that you achieve good enough build just by focusing to main story missions. Yet achievement data shows about 10% difference between meeting Hanako achievement and completing game achievement.

I guess one solution might be having optional challenge modes available under game difficulties. Hard with aggressive enemy level scaling or very aggressive level scaling. etc.

Even in the current "easy" state, you can still die quickly if you go charging into a hail of gunfire. You can die in a few hits, even at level 50 with legendary dermal-armor, but enemies can die in a few hits too, so it's fair. It still took me 97 hours to beat the game with all sidequests and gigs (and I have yet to clear the map of NPCD hustles). Bullet sponges should be an option, not forced onto all players.

 

[CS554]

Even in the current "easy" state, you can still die quickly if you go charging into a hail of gunfire. You can die in a few hits, but so can most enemies. It's fair and it still took me 97 hours to beat the game with all the sidequests. Bullet sponges should be an option, not forced onto all players.

Many problems with bullet sponge kind of enemy with this type of game, but I'm all for options if they can be added without creating additional problems. I'm not that much of a gamer and don't care to be, story really got me in this and fluid gun play was a plus. Then having optional additional challenges would extend game experience for those seeking that sort of content, I don't have any problem with that.

 

[Guest 4519094]

RPG are all about having fun with min/maxing

how to make talented GMs or game designers quit and never look back in one simple sentence.

Seen many people struggle during boss fights, or even during normal encounters.
Now the bullet sponge feeling can be easily solved, make a realistic difficulty where bullets have a chance to either penetrate ricochet or get pulverized on contact with the skin of the target based on the ratio of (damage dealt / total health of the target).

two birds and all that jazz ... keeping all the "RPG stats" some seem to be engrossed with while getting rid of the bullet sponge feeling.

 

[Johny_Mnemonic69]

Yes and no. What some others has said, fluid combat say headshots, should drop targets fast. That damage in numbers is about something absurd is kinda moot. It's what happen in practical game play terms. Built also aren't equal, even max level Annihilation doesn't drop enemies on normal with body shots with legendary shotguns, and then there's perhaps just two legendary shotguns in game. I think you can get the picture that in close quarters combat also mobility perks are already important, especially if player hasn't found those shotguns.

Something I thought. We have all sorts of equipment available in game. So on harder difficulties more enemies could wear helmets. Then some boss enemies, could have second heart, so they would come back, subdermal armor on selected enemies could more common. These could be also made optional difficulty challenges, like Very Hard + Cybered up enemies.

I also concur what Yota71 wrote above. Melee builds and bullet sponges are very difficult combination and is also a matter of skill progression. Situation where player can't reliably melee but last one, or last two enemies still standing, getting exp to level up Brawling and Athletics could become very difficult, limiting practical build options for players.

But more optional challenges for difficulties and since those could also be tied to achievements I think they might turn out even be something quite popular.

There's actually something very clever problem solving in game already and I think CDPR could make this work but people must ask for these things.

how to make talented GMs or game designers quit and never look back in one simple sentence.

Seen many people struggle during boss fights, or even during normal encounters.
Now the bullet sponge feeling can be easily solved, make a realistic difficulty where bullets have a chance to either penetrate ricochet or get pulverized on contact with the skin of the target based on the ratio of (damage dealt / total health of the target).

two birds and all that jazz ... keeping all the "RPG stats" some seem to be engrossed with while getting rid of the bullet sponge feeling.

How you can struggle in here is beyond me.

I played normally doing main missions and whatever was the closest to them meaning gigs/missions/ncpd etc. Taking skills along the way without even trying to make myself strong. What it resulted in was disappointing fights with mobs halfway through the game and also underwhelming so called "bosses".
Last one at Mikoshi died so fast I don't even know what he does beside looking all cool and shit.
Fights at the beginning were so fun it is sad they couldn't make it last throughout the whole game.

Meaning I would have to skip 80% of the game and go like main story only to be able to call a boss boss. That is fundamentally bad design for very hard mode.