Fixers the worst people in Cyberpunk? :)

[Mobster100]

During the playthrough of Cyberpunk you are going to meet a lot of bad people that you get hired to take care of. But couldn't help wonder as I was watching a stream, where the person got close to a rescue mission, and as we know Regina (as with the other fixers) with their godly powers know exactly where you are at any given point in time, so she obviously call the guy and told him all the details about the kidnapping.

Which is where I started wondering how evil these fixers must be, just using Regina as example, clearly she have knowledge of all these kidnappings going on around the the city and exactly where these people are being kept etc. given that she call you every time you get near one of them. Yet at no point does she seem especially concerned about calling the cops or letting the families know about their love ones, so maybe they could call the cops or something. She keep all these information to herself, relying on you to deal with all of them, but obviously only if you are nearby otherwise she doesn't care

In the future with DLCs or a potential CP 2 or for other games wanting to get inspired by CP, I would strongly suggest that this gets completely overhauled and integrated more realistly into the game. The more you think about it, the stupider it is, these fixers are basically just mission vending machines rather than NPCs with a background story and a personally.

 

[Hexipoo]

One thing I've been saying since launch, the way the fixers work is stupid. You should call them to get jobs, not the other way around. Except for time-sensitive gigs, and those should be, you know, time-sensitive. As in, you go shopping for new sneakers an you fail the job.

 

[Mobster100]

One thing I've been saying since launch, the way the fixers work is stupid. You should call them to get jobs, not the other way around. Except for time-sensitive gigs, and those should be, you know, time-sensitive. As in, you go shopping for new sneakers an you fail the job.

Completely agree or at least you should be contacted in a different way, or the whole mission design should be different, if they wanted these "police" missions, which they basically are, again making use of rumors in bars and other means that can
get you on the tale of where you ought to be looking, rather than just pressing M and look at the map and see where to go. It really turns a lot of these fixers into vending machines, where very little thoughts seem to have gone into integrating them into the universe and how they are suppose to operate with the police etc. there.

It's sort of weird that you know exactly where all the crimes are and yet the police are not doing anything, basically no one is doing anything besides you.

 

[FLyingMonkeyPaints]

This is Cyberpunk. The cops don't care, and even if they get involved, they are likely to screw up anything more complicated than writing a traffic citation or busting some punk's skull.

Fixers are middlemen, their talents lie in connecting the right people with the right task to get things done. In the pen & paper there is an entire sourcebook (I have a shelf somewhere) detailing how Fixers do their thing. It's pretty interesting. They are like the lovechild of used car salesmen and movie star agents. They know everybody, what's happening, and who's doing what.

I don't disagree that the implementation of Fixers in CP2077 is ham-fisted, impersonal, and overall pretty weak. But the fixers do what they are supposed to: hook up mercs, netrunners, and various other n'er-do-wells with lucrative employment.

It would be better IMO if you had to occasionally check in with Fixers over the phone or in person, in order to get jobs. The Fixer has no idea where you are at any time, and them calling you whenever you are 50m from a job is ludicrous. They should not want to talk on the phone about really sensitive jobs, and should just say something like "I have something interesting and kind of urgent for you, you should stop by and we'll chat."

You could have a lot of interesting conversations that way, and build up a rapport with individual fixers that you do many jobs for. If you succeed at a bunch of jobs, they could have a few larger, branching storyline quests that you unlock after you get enough smaller jobs done. That would go a long way toward making Fixers seem like people with lives and not just a combination of Google Maps + Angie's List for mercs.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

During the playthrough of Cyberpunk you are going to meet a lot of bad people that you get hired to take care of. But couldn't help wonder as I was watching a stream, where the person got close to a rescue mission, and as we know Regina (as with the other fixers) with their godly powers know exactly where you are at any given point in time, so she obviously call the guy and told him all the details about the kidnapping.

Which is where I started wondering how evil these fixers must be, just using Regina as example, clearly she have knowledge of all these kidnappings going on around the the city and exactly where these people are being kept etc. given that she call you every time you get near one of them. Yet at no point does she seem especially concerned about calling the cops or letting the families know about their love ones, so maybe they could call the cops or something. She keep all these information to herself, relying on you to deal with all of them, but obviously only if you are nearby otherwise she doesn't care

In the future with DLCs or a potential CP 2 or for other games wanting to get inspired by CP, I would strongly suggest that this gets completely overhauled and integrated more realistly into the game. The more you think about it, the stupider it is, these fixers are basically just mission vending machines rather than NPCs with a background story and a personally.

The cops are slow and bad, sometimes they are purposefully ignoring crimes. They added a bounty system because they can't handle the majority of crime in a timely fashion.

The people informing the fixers are the loved ones or the people themselves. The fixer's whole existence is based on being able to find people willing to help other people, in exchange for money. The fixer's usually have their own perspective, and take jobs based on what they want to focus on. Regina more than most seems to take on jobs saving people, or providing some measure of "justice" so I can't see her as evil.

tracking Vs position is nothing at all, you can do that with tinder and a cellphone irl. Welcome to 2005

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2021

This is Cyberpunk. The cops don't care, and even if they get involved, they are likely to screw up anything more complicated than writing a traffic citation or busting some punk's skull.

Fixers are middlemen, their talents lie in connecting the right people with the right task to get things done. In the pen & paper there is an entire sourcebook (I have a shelf somewhere) detailing how Fixers do their thing. It's pretty interesting. They are like the lovechild of used car salesmen and movie star agents. They know everybody, what's happening, and who's doing what.

I don't disagree that the implementation of Fixers in CP2077 is ham-fisted, impersonal, and overall pretty weak. But the fixers do what they are supposed to: hook up mercs, netrunners, and various other n'er-do-wells with lucrative employment.

It would be better IMO if you had to occasionally check in with Fixers over the phone or in person, in order to get jobs. The Fixer has no idea where you are at any time, and them calling you whenever you are 50m from a job is ludicrous. They should not want to talk on the phone about really sensitive jobs, and should just say something like "I have something interesting and kind of urgent for you, you should stop by and we'll chat."

You could have a lot of interesting conversations that way, and build up a rapport with individual fixers that you do many jobs for. If you succeed at a bunch of jobs, they could have a few larger, branching storyline quests that you unlock after you get enough smaller jobs done. That would go a long way toward making Fixers seem like people with lives and not just a combination of Google Maps + Angie's List for mercs.

agree with most of what you said, but the reality is the tracking thing is extremely likely. The sourcebooks you are talking about were written some time ago. it would be almost a prerequisite that a fixer/merc would share location info like any two bit app has access to IRL. The fixers job is sometimes a matter of time, people wouldn't call fixers in emergencies if they couldn't get an operative there pretty fast, and that would require a network of mercs they track.

The fixer also has marked your map with possible gigs, so they also provide tracking to the merc.

that said its a game, so its exaggerated/simplified some times. Like all the jobs conviently starting only when you are around, like flaming crotch man, but it is a game

 

[simon_brooke]

agree with most of what you said, but the reality is the tracking thing is extremely likely. The sourcebooks you are talking about were written some time ago. it would be almost a prerequisite that a fixer/merc would share location info like any two bit app has access to IRL. The fixers job is sometimes a matter of time, people wouldn't call fixers in emergencies if they couldn't get an operative there pretty fast, and that would require a network of mercs they track.

The fixer also has marked your map with possible gigs, so they also provide tracking to the merc.

that said its a game, so its exaggerated/simplified some times. Like all the jobs conviently starting only when you are around, like flaming crotch man, but it is a game

If a merc was going to share location information with anyone at all, it would have to be over a very secure link and with someone they absolutely trusted (which would necessarily not include many of the fixers). Otherwise, every gang and every corporation in the city would be tracking every merc, and the life expectancy of a merc would be hours at best.

Sure, tracking will exist in 2077. It does, as you say, now.

But mercs won't share their location (and any mercs that do share their location are dead).

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

If a merc was going to share location information with anyone at all, it would have to be over a very secure link and with someone they absolutely trusted (which would necessarily not include many of the fixers). Otherwise, every gang and every corporation in the city would be tracking every merc, and the life expectancy of a merc would be hours at best.

Sure, tracking will exist in 2077. It does, as you say, now.

But mercs won't share their location (and any mercs that do share their location are dead).

you should trust your fixer, because location info or not, your life is in their hands. The fixer knows everybodies business and no fixer who betrays that trust will be respected/used again, if people ever find out about it. Reputation and trust is actually the biggest part of being a fixer.

If a fixer wanted you dead, they could kill you easily without tracking, they could just send you on a job with a bomb in it. The fixers you work with have all built a strong rep for trustworthiness, such that they are the dominant fixers in each region.

 

[Mobster100]

The cops are slow and bad, sometimes they are purposefully ignoring crimes. They added a bounty system because they can't handle the majority of crime in a timely fashion.

That might be the case, but they are still the police and you see them fight crime in the game and having pulled people over etc. Sure, they are corrupt, but given that no civilian apparently cares to carry a gun, one must assume that the law is somewhat functional in the city, which is also the impression I got when I played it. There might be a lot of shootouts etc. But for the most part, people are pretty relaxed. So surely people would still contact the police, if their child was kidnapped, otherwise there wouldn't be any and it would all be private contractors.

tracking Vs position is nothing at all, you can do that with tinder and a cellphone irl. Welcome to 2005

It might be fairly easy to track someone, but still I find it to be more of an excuse, rather than something that is explained in the game or even the lore for that matter.

First of all, V is a merc and is not an employee of the fixers, that they can just treat as if you were a cab driver or something. So it would be weird for V to agree or allow them to just track them or not having some standard way of "working under cover" or something. Furthermore one would assume that it would be extremely easy to find missing people in this universe, whether that is the police or random fixer, if they can track V without any issue then it shouldn't be hard to track some random person.

Also you have several occasions where Judy and Tbug I think it is, that has to connect to you both during some missions but also when doing BDs. At least in those cases it is explained. The Fixers just magically can do this and V seems completely fine with it, more in a sense that it is something that have not been taken into consideration when designing the game rather than something done on purpose.

that said its a game, so its exaggerated/simplified some times. Like all the jobs conviently starting only when you are around, like flaming crotch man, but it is a game

Yes, I am aware of that, so corners have to be cut somewhere.

But I completely agree with V having to contact the fixers more or them asking you to come meet them. You could do it through V's computer. There are lots of ways to make it more immersive, rather than them just magically popping up every time you get near a mission.

You could even have a mission computer in Afterlife, where people (Fixers) could post jobs for the Mercs as that is a know place where they hangout.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

That might be the case, but they are still the police and you see them fight crime in the game and having pulled people over etc. Sure, they are corrupt, but given that no civilian apparently cares to carry a gun, one must assume that the law is somewhat functional in the city, which is also the impression I got when I played it. There might be a lot of shootouts etc. But for the most part, people are pretty relaxed. So surely people would still contact the police, if their child was kidnapped, otherwise there wouldn't be any and it would all be private contractors.


It might be fairly easy to track someone, but still I find it to be more of an excuse, rather than something that is explained in the game or even the lore for that matter.

First of all, V is a merc and is not an employee of the fixers, that they can just treat as if you were a cab driver or something. So it would be weird for V to agree or allow them to just track them or not having some standard way of "working under cover" or something. Furthermore one would assume that it would be extremely easy to find missing people in this universe, whether that is the police or random fixer, if they can track V without any issue then it shouldn't be hard to track some random person.

Also you have several occasions where Judy and Tbug I think it is, that has to connect to you both during some missions but also when doing BDs. At least in those cases it is explained. The Fixers just magically can do this and V seems completely fine with it, more in a sense that it is something that have not been taken into consideration when designing the game rather than something done on purpose.


Yes, I am aware of that, so corners have to be cut somewhere.

But I completely agree with V having to contact the fixers more or them asking you to come meet them. You could do it through V's computer. There are lots of ways to make it more immersive, rather than them just magically popping up every time you get near a mission.

You could even have a mission computer in Afterlife, where people (Fixers) could post jobs for the Mercs as that is a know place where they hangout.

If I was a fixer whose job in 2077 starts involving emergency/time sensitive services, the only way to serve those clients would be with tracking. like police, emergency medical services, Uber, Uber eats use. The reality is a merc who isn't taking location jobs is going to get a lot less work. Maybe by the end when they only contact you for big jobs, but by the time you go to visit or call the fixer, many jobs would already be gone.

rocker calls fixer looking for a new guitar by tonight's gig,
I'm trapped in cargo container, scavs going to kill me Wakako,
I need you to steal back my car from 6th street before they sell it
This missing person has sensitive Intel, last seen at a tigerclaw club.

these things can't wait until a merc checks the morning merc classifieds.

 

[Mobster100]

If I was a fixer whose job in 2077 starts involving emergency/time sensitive services, the only way to serve those clients would be with tracking. like police, emergency medical services, Uber, Uber eats use. The reality is a merc who isn't taking location jobs is going to get a lot less work. Maybe by the end when they only contact you for big jobs, but by the time you go to visit or call the fixer, many jobs would already be gone.

rocker calls fixer looking for a new guitar by tonight's gig,
I'm trapped in cargo container, scavs going to kill me Wakako,
I need you to steal back my car from 6th street before they sell it
This missing person has sensitive Intel, last seen at a tigerclaw club.

these things can't wait until a merc checks the morning merc classifieds.

These are all good, there is no issue in them calling you with jobs, in fact I like that.

My issue is that you run down the street, let say going to buy some cloth or whatever and suddenly Regina calls you talking about someone that was kidnapped, which in itself is not issue either. The issue is that the kidnapping is always in a building 25-50 meter from you and she called you, because you got to close. When it happens for the 30s time, it just feels a bit silly.

Rather than her calling you saying something like:

"Hey V, just had a client which daughter went missing 2 days ago, if you are interested in the job, some friends of her, said she was last seen in the Maelstrom bar, so might want to go there and ask around. Maybe her friends can tell you more, here are their addresses."

Something like that, even if you are not near the place, but is just a random mission that is triggered and you as player, would have to "solve" it, trying to track down some information in the bar or from her friends, which eventually would give you a location for the girl. Instead of it being in the exact house you are standing next to and the Fixer already knowing that. So the problem is not that the fixer calls you with jobs, it how lucky it is that you are always right next to the place where the mission is, that is lame. And that is why to me, they become more of vending machines rather than characters. Because you can already from the minimap guess which fixer is going to call you. If you go near a marker. The map should be almost completely blank except for the shops, landmarks and the current active missions, fixer/friend locations which you have discovered or been told.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

These are all good, there is no issue in them calling you with jobs, in fact I like that.

My issue is that you run down the street, let say going to buy some cloth or whatever and suddenly Regina calls you talking about someone that was kidnapped, which in itself is not issue either. The issue is that the kidnapping is always in a building 25-50 meter from you and she called you, because you got to close. When it happens for the 30s time, it just feels a bit silly.

Rather than her calling you saying something like:

"Hey V, just had a client which daughter went missing 2 days ago, if you are interested in the job, some friends of her, said she was last seen in the Maelstrom bar, so might want to go there and ask around. Maybe her friends can tell you more, here are their addresses."

Something like that, even if you are not near the place, but is just a random mission that is triggered and you as player, would have to "solve" it, trying to track down some information in the bar or from her friends, which eventually would give you a location for the girl. Instead of it being in the exact house you are standing next to and the Fixer already knowing that. So the problem is not that the fixer calls you with jobs, it how lucky it is that you are always right next to the place where the mission is, that is lame. And that is why to me, they become more of vending machines rather than characters. Because you can already from the minimap guess which fixer is going to call you. If you go near a marker. The map should be almost completely blank except for the shops, landmarks and the current active missions, fixer/friend locations which you have discovered or been told.

but, you realize thats exactly the way people who offer these services work? We aren't talking two day timelines here that often.

police are tracked, and have scanners, they send out calls to police in the area. EMTs know when they have cars in the Area. Uber connects drivers within a certain distance to people looking for rides. Tinder shows you people within your chosen physical range.

For example, Sandra Dorsett, that happened within two hours of her going off the trauma team grid. If wakako couldnt get a merc there in that time frame, she'd lose the job, and Dorsett would be dead. If wakako had to randomly call every merc in her network to see if any were currently close enough to get her, she simply couldn't do those type of jobs.

Also, the fixer usually does the private eye part, they contact V as the person who gets the final part done. The quests that you get outside of fixers usually work differently. Those generally only light up really close, and usually involve more footwork/detective stuff. Like dorsett's second mission, Perales quests, MSQ, river stuff, the cop in your building.

Notice that dex puts more of that footwork on you, and both Jackie and V are like wtf thats the fixer's job.

So basically, you'd prefer to cut into the fixer's job. Which, I can see why that gameplay might be more entertaining, but I think they try to do that outside of fixer work.

It would be nice if they had more of that, but on the flipside that type of content is a lot easier to miss. You either need to get lucky and be in the area, or you are recommended by someone from some other content, and they rarely tell you who/how they got your info. There are some quests I had to look up to find, or didnt get because of pre reqs.

Like highwayman. ozobs boxing match, the cops killing the corpo, The bartender's wife etc. Many people don't even know these quests exist.

 

[Mobster100]

but, you realize thats exactly the way people who offer these services work? We aren't talking two day timelines here that often.

police are tracked, and have scanners, they send out calls to police in the area. EMTs know when they have cars in the Area. Uber connects drivers within a certain distance to people looking for rides. Tinder shows you people within your chosen physical range.

For example, Sandra Dorsett, that happened within two hours of her going off the trauma team grid. If wakako couldnt get a merc there in that time frame, she'd lose the job, and Dorsett would be dead. If wakako had to randomly call every merc in her network to see if any were currently close enough to get her, she simply couldn't do those type of jobs.

Even if it is the case that this is how it is in the CP RPG, to me that is poor world building then. Because V is not an Uber driver, if anything you are more of a freelance detective/mercenary. In regards to tinder, it is possible because people allow it. And even if V allowed it and even if it is not explained in the game, it still makes little sense.

If we take the Dorsett example and it is possible for a fixer to track her down in less than 2 hours and get her rescued, then clearly the police or private protection agency could do it and everyone would sign a "protection" deal with such company. Also one would assume that clients of Trauma team would give them permission to track them at all times, if it's so easy for people to track each other down anyway. So it wouldn't make sense for them to not allow this in such world. Also the police would clearly have these capabilities as well, as a huge part of their job, whether they are corrupt or not, is to track down people, so one would assume that they were much better at it than some random backroom fixer is.

Remember that when V contact Trauma team with the location it says that they are there in 2 minutes, but honestly it's less than 1 minute (game time). So it simply doesn't make sense, for the police or trauma team, if it is so easy for these fixers to track down people, to not do exactly the same. It's not like you get the impression that these fixers have special powers or networks etc. They appear more as mafia bosses than anything else in my opinion.

And again, the problem as I said is not whether the fixers can track V, its that they apparently always know exactly where you as player have to go to do a specific mission.

As with my example in the last post. The fixer doesn't know where the daughter is, simply where she was last seen and that she was with some friends, and either her family or whatever have contacted the fixer, for whatever reason to help them find her.

But the fixer is purely the middle guy, they gather the missions and give them to mercs and take a cut.
If I should use the same example and how the quests basically work in CP now, it would be like this.

"Hey V, just had a client, which daughter went missing 2 days ago, she is being held in the basement at Garret street number 5 by a guy called Jack Vang, 43 years old, 2 kids and loves strawberry ice cream. By the way, it's the house on the other side of the street where you are now, if you turnaround. Interested in the job?"

That is basically how the jobs feels at the moment

To me if we use the same example again and the fixers are not super CIA agents, but that you as V have to track down this girl. There could be lots of interesting things added and multiple solutions to it.

For instance, maybe the friends could give you a description of some guy that spoke with her and using your scanner you could go there trying to track down the person. If you played female V, you could potential use yourself as bait, by getting really drunk and force this guy to come to you and trick him into leading you to the girl, assuming he is someone that kidnaps girls, so you would basically play him. You could simply stalk him and follow him, which could lead you to the location, maybe he tricks another girl, you could ask the bartender if he knows something. Or you could simply straight up try to force him by approaching him when he is alone and pull a gun to his face. Lots of different ways, sort of like Hitman style to solving the mission and in certain cases it might lead to you failing and not finding the girl, if you screw up or you find her already dead or whatever. Exactly as you would expect in regards to how CDPR said that quests would work original, that each of them could be solved in different ways.

You would also make use of the whole scanning mechanic that are in the game now, which is basically only used for marking stuff. To me at least it would first of all make the whole quest more interesting, because it's not handed to you on a silver plate as pretty much all these quests are now. But actually requires you to think a bit, it could even make use of skills for dialogs to give you better informations, maybe you could try to get hold of the surveillance videos from the day she went missing which could also identify the person.

The issue is that CDPR almost went for the absolute minimum in regards to RPG elements when it comes to quests as they
are now as I see it. Because they are just handed to you with everything you need to know, without trying to make them more open ended. Im not saying that all quests should have as many options as I suggested here as it would obviously require a lot of work, especially since a lot of these quests are "grinding" quests, meaning they are just copy/paste quests of each other, with some minor differences.

Usually following along the lines of some sort of camp with some enemies and you have to go in there and save someone, get some information, find something or kill a specific character. Whether its one or the other, in the end makes little difference. So at least making it, so the information of where this "goal" is, require or allow the player different means of obtaining, I think would make the whole quest system more interesting and more inline with what they made people believe.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

Even if it is the case that this is how it is in the CP RPG, to me that is poor world building then. Because V is not an Uber driver, if anything you are more of a freelance detective/mercenary. In regards to tinder, it is possible because people allow it. And even if V allowed it and even if it is not explained in the game, it still makes little sense.

If we take the Dorsett example and it is possible for a fixer to track her down in less than 2 hours and get her rescued, then clearly the police or private protection agency could do it and everyone would sign a "protection" deal with such company. Also one would assume that clients of Trauma team would give them permission to track them at all times, if it's so easy for people to track each other down anyway. So it wouldn't make sense for them to not allow this in such world. Also the police would clearly have these capabilities as well, as a huge part of their job, whether they are corrupt or not, is to track down people, so one would assume that they were much better at it than some random backroom fixer is.

Remember that when V contact Trauma team with the location it says that they are there in 2 minutes, but honestly it's less than 1 minute (game time). So it simply doesn't make sense, for the police or trauma team, if it is so easy for these fixers to track down people, to not do exactly the same. It's not like you get the impression that these fixers have special powers or networks etc. They appear more as mafia bosses than anything else in my opinion.

And again, the problem as I said is not whether the fixers can track V, its that they apparently always know exactly where you as player have to go to do a specific mission.

As with my example in the last post. The fixer doesn't know where the daughter is, simply where she was last seen and that she was with some friends, and either her family or whatever have contacted the fixer, for whatever reason to help them find her.

But the fixer is purely the middle guy, they gather the missions and give them to mercs and take a cut.
If I should use the same example and how the quests basically work in CP now, it would be like this.

"Hey V, just had a client, which daughter went missing 2 days ago, she is being held in the basement at Garret street number 5 by a guy called Jack Vang, 43 years old, 2 kids and loves strawberry ice cream. By the way, it's the house on the other side of the street where you are now, if you turnaround. Interested in the job?"

That is basically how the jobs feels at the moment

To me if we use the same example again and the fixers are not super CIA agents, but that you as V have to track down this girl. There could be lots of interesting things added and multiple solutions to it.

For instance, maybe the friends could give you a description of some guy that spoke with her and using your scanner you could go there trying to track down the person. If you played female V, you could potential use yourself as bait, by getting really drunk and force this guy to come to you and trick him into leading you to the girl, assuming he is someone that kidnaps girls, so you would basically play him. You could simply stalk him and follow him, which could lead you to the location, maybe he tricks another girl, you could ask the bartender if he knows something. Or you could simply straight up try to force him by approaching him when he is alone and pull a gun to his face. Lots of different ways, sort of like Hitman style to solving the mission and in certain cases it might lead to you failing and not finding the girl, if you screw up or you find her already dead or whatever. Exactly as you would expect in regards to how CDPR said that quests would work original, that each of them could be solved in different ways.

You would also make use of the whole scanning mechanic that are in the game now, which is basically only used for marking stuff. To me at least it would first of all make the whole quest more interesting, because it's not handed to you on a silver plate as pretty much all these quests are now. But actually requires you to think a bit, it could even make use of skills for dialogs to give you better informations, maybe you could try to get hold of the surveillance videos from the day she went missing which could also identify the person.

The issue is that CDPR almost went for the absolute minimum in regards to RPG elements when it comes to quests as they
are now as I see it. Because they are just handed to you with everything you need to know, without trying to make them more open ended. Im not saying that all quests should have as many options as I suggested here as it would obviously require a lot of work, especially since a lot of these quests are "grinding" quests, meaning they are just copy/paste quests of each other, with some minor differences.

Usually following along the lines of some sort of camp with some enemies and you have to go in there and save someone, get some information, find something or kill a specific character. Whether its one or the other, in the end makes little difference. So at least making it, so the information of where this "goal" is, require or allow the player different means of obtaining, I think would make the whole quest system more interesting and more inline with what they made people believe.

Ok, I understand what you want. I can see why you might want it. But world wise it makes sense why fixers and fixer jobs work the way they do.


Also, They also have quests that work outside of the fixer system. Have you found or done all of them?


As an aside, Cops are not effecient in this world, I can see why you think they should be, they are not. Its not about what people are technologically capable of, its about time/resources/desires/priorities. This is commonplace in law enforcement irl in many societies.

 

[Mobster100]

Ok, I understand what you want. I can see why you might want it. But world wise it makes sense why fixers and fixer jobs work the way they do.


Also, They also have quests that work outside of the fixer system. Have you found or done all of them?


As an aside, Cops are not effecient in this world, I can see why you think they should be, they are not. Its not about what people are technologically capable of, its about time/resources/desires/priorities. This is commonplace in law enforcement irl in many societies.

I don't think I did all quests, its some time since I played it. It took me 125 hours on very hard to complete it. But in the end, there was mostly the random quests left and I could already 1 shot everything at this point, so weren't interested in new gear. The "main" characters were pretty much dead (meaning, them just standing there.) so the game felt a bit empty/lonely to be honest, as there is not really a lot to do

I think fixers and the idea of them are cool and that people might not have a lot of confidence in the abilities of the cops, which is why some prefer going to fixers, all that is fine.

But in regards to world building, you have the Arasaka, at some point V ask how they found her/him, and they basically say that they can find anyone. Which makes sense, it's a huge company working with technology and shitloads of ressources, so it's believable, that such a powerful organisation have these abilities.
But Wakako, Regina etc. hang out places like bars, damaged buildings, bars, back rooms etc. so you don't really buy that they have the abilities to track down a random person in a few hours, at least I don't.

The capabilities in such world or even in real life to be able to do something like that would be an insanely valuable thing, with a lot of power attached, yet these people just hangout the most weird places.

If you have seen Minority report, where they can figure out if someone is about to commit a crime before they actually do it. It is linked to these girls if I recall correctly.

Sort of giving the idea that not every smuck can just make such machine or get hold of such people, so it limits or explain why only the government have it.

But in CP you get the impression that anyone can track you if they feel like it, whether its a random fixer or Arasaka, because it's apparently quite normal.
And if that is the case, then clearly those that abduct people would be aware, so either they wouldn't do it or they would know how to prevent being tracked.

So when talking world building, these things need to have an explanation or people won't buy it, and again it makes sense that Arasaka can do it, but not really the fixers.

The way I see fixers are that they are like the local caretakers of an area, where they are the goto people, if you need to have something done under the radar, or just need help with something. Like a Godfather for a given area and at the same time they make use of mercs to handle these things for them.

So it's more about how you as player are presented or introduced to these missions, rather than the missions themselves. Because they don't really seem to make use of the possibilities of the city or the mechanics in the game, if that make sense? Like I said, the scanner you have that allow you to scan people, not really used? Bars, and shady people in the city, not really used for information gathering, RPG elements in dialogs not really used either, even in the side or main quests are they used very well, besides giving you some more information, but hardly anything that makes a difference. BDs? V's computer? Hacking cameras to spy on people? Even if the game is rather generic, there are still lots of ways that they could have made use of all these things to make the general quests more interesting, I think. But they hardly used any of them, which is really sad, I think. Which is why the Fixers end up feeling so much like Mission vending machines, especially Regina is bad I think and doesn't really help that you get that 0/20 psycho people quest, that smelled a bit to much like a standard MMORPG quest type of thing or a let's make the players spend a lot of time on this, so didn't cared to do them.

Also I just realized that she is actually a former reporter, when looking her up, I thought she was suppose to be a cop or former one, guess I missed that

 

[Cali66]

I despised the way they would call me every two to three minutes. As if your the only Merc
in Night City. Wasn't aware we had a billboard on our car doors "If you need a Merc call"
There's times when you just want to peacefully cruse around the city. Please add voicemail to
the game CDPR thanks!

 

[Mobster100]

I despised the way they would call me every five two to three minutes. As if your the only Merc
in Night City. Wasn't aware we had a billboard on our car doors "If you need a Merc call"
There's times when you just want to peacefully cruse around the city. Please add voicemail to
the game CDPR thanks!

Do you even see any other mercs in the game doing things? I don't recall running into any, which sort of surprised me as well. Because as you, I kind of got the feeling that I was the only one to be honest and the rest was drinking in Afterlife pretending to be mercs

 

[Cali66]

Do you even see any other mercs in the game doing things? I don't recall running into any, which sort of surprised me as well. Because as you, I kind of got the feeling that I was the only one to be honest and the rest was drinking in Afterlife pretending to be mercs

Or I just love how we kept getting vehicles for sale. How many cars can one person
drive sheesh. Someone modded a drivable scooter for the game it was to funny.

 

[GloriousRuse]

This is one where I accept there is some gameplay/story segregation. There are a lot of gigs, and many of them are shorter in nature. And they're all over the map. To play them "realistic" you would have to get a fixer call/make a fixer call, accept the job (closing out all the other jobs temporarily after you accept, because you're already doing a job for them), travel across the map to wherever, shoot five tyger claws or whatever, call back, deliver the goods, and complete.

Sounds cool until you cross the map fifty or sixty times with other gigs unavailable just to blast a couple gangbangers. Or when you have to work through gigs in a semi sequential manner - can't do B until A (or you reject A). So I'm willing to suspend my disbelief slightly in the name of convenience even if Wakkao isn't actually tracking V with location services.

Now what I think we would all like is if there were more "big" mission lines that really did require meeting with a fixer, doing legwork, meeting characters, an interim step or two, and then a finale. Those would be worth the player time. The three room six goon set pieces aren't really, so you get "on site" calls.

 

[brannonb]

We know Fixers are bad because they sell used cars.

No further proof is needed!

 

[Mobster100]

This is one where I accept there is some gameplay/story segregation. There are a lot of gigs, and many of them are shorter in nature. And they're all over the map. To play them "realistic" you would have to get a fixer call/make a fixer call, accept the job (closing out all the other jobs temporarily after you accept, because you're already doing a job for them), travel across the map to wherever, shoot five tyger claws or whatever, call back, deliver the goods, and complete.

Sounds cool until you cross the map fifty or sixty times with other gigs unavailable just to blast a couple gangbangers. Or when you have to work through gigs in a semi sequential manner - can't do B until A (or you reject A). So I'm willing to suspend my disbelief slightly in the name of convenience even if Wakkao isn't actually tracking V with location services.

Now what I think we would all like is if there were more "big" mission lines that really did require meeting with a fixer, doing legwork, meeting characters, an interim step or two, and then a finale. Those would be worth the player time. The three room six goon set pieces aren't really, so you get "on site" calls.

You wouldn't need to lock off content, but players would simply pick up missions in more different ways.

- Fixers might call you like they do now. However the mission might not be right next to you, so you might have to go somewhere else first to gather information. In some cases the missions could be like now, depending on the type of mission. For instant a Fixer could call saying that they have tracked the location of someone and they need you to take them out, in which case you would simply go there as you do now and complete the quest.

- There could be a special fixer website where V have a merc login, so you could access each fixer in the apartment and you can have a mission bank there, where you could choose missions. Fixers could also email/sms you, if again the missions are currently unknown locations and requires V to gather clue first.

- You could show up to the fixers themselves and get jobs, much in the same way as you would were you using the computer.

- You could call them and they could offer you a job in the area you are in, if they have any. Which could be both a just go here and do this mission, or it could be a gather some clue here mission.

- Then you would also still have the odd missions that you run into on the map, but again these are not shown to you beforehand. Like that burning guy I think it's called? That would just be a quest you ran into or that vending machine. You might stumble upon something while you explore that could trigger a mission and so forth.

- They could add NPCs to the bars, which could offer some jobs as well, even some of the store owners might need you to do something. Which i think is already in the game now.

So lots of different ways to get missions and none of them really exclude you from having several at the time, however some of them should have time limits, to put some pressure on the player. Not like 10 minutes limits as that is boring, but like 2 in game days and so forth etc.

And they could even make it so your street cred decided how many missions you could take at the time, maybe if there was a reputation system with each fixer, that could be used.

As it is now, CP is a lot like a map cleaning game, where you just try to clean the map for icons with a lot of repeatable one step missions for the most part.

Go here -> do that -> get reward

There is not really multiple entry ways of how to deal with them, except whether you want to try to stealth them or go all out shooty shooty. And there are not really any different outcomes either, you can fail them in most cases if you get killed and that is it.

But there is no ways to fail them, based on you choosing to do certain things, meaning the RPG element is completely missing. Which is because most of them follow the same design.

1. You have two gangs fighting each other and you can go there and shoot them all and collect loot.
2. Someone is being held up by a gang and you can go there and kill them all and collect the loot.
3. Someone need to die and you can go there and kill them.

Most the quests follow this idea. Only the side missions and main missions have more depth to them, even though they are still really linear so again, so there ain't really a lot of RPG elements to them.

At least for me, when I played. I got fairly quickly bored of the gangwars, the hold up missions and the psycho missions. They were way to much like "camps" of monsters where you just go kill stuff, without any real context behind it. And again, these are so static, so if you choose not to do them, a hold up for instance can last the whole game basically, since you are the only person in Night city that does anything.

Post automatically merged: Feb 26, 2021

We know Fixers are bad because they sell used cars.

No further proof is needed!

Also you are not really sure that they own them, some of them you have to pick up some rather dodgy places