Remove the wanted system

[Chubbz7]

Unfortunately I am unable to upload a 196mb clip about a minute and a half long. It shows me standing next to 2 police officers that are literally 50m away from an assault in progress. So I go shoot the baddies, save the victim and the cops now aggro me, and apparently a crime was committed. This system should be removed entirely. There's rumors it was added only months before release which explains it's shallow existence. It's not like Read Dead 2 where there's multiple different crimes in which will cause you to be a wanted criminal as well as a nuanced bounty system(Sure it wasn't perfect), it was clearly intended to be in the game and they were building around it. In Cyberpunk the only reason the cops exist is to stop the player character from murdering civilians. There's no robbery, no car jacking, no scav system(Strip implants and sell them on the black market), there's no real crime the player can commit to activate this wanted system EXCEPT murder. So yeah even if they fix the spawn position of cops, even if they smooth it out, even if they make it more forgiving for accidental grenades and such, it's only purpose is to stop you from murdering. Hence it should be removed from the game. I as a lover of the Witcher series as well as thoroughly enjoying cyberpunk would rather have the devs work on things that were actually intended for the game, you know things they had been previously working on, and focus on implementing the scrapped ideas they had. Such as: Car combat, dual wield pistols, wall climbing, car customization, apartments to buy(As well as an incentive to actually visit your home), AV vehicles, third person perspective, as well as any story content that got cut(too many of the side missions just feel like an interesting mini story that dead ends, with no actual perspective on how the quest shapes the game world afterwards, you know things you would expect from devs of the Witcher series), as well as needing balancing and critical thinking for builds. Monowire levels street brawler, Projectile launcher system damage scales with body, Athletics only levels up due to using stamina but perks reduce how much stamina you use therefore hindering any progress towards athletics, more variety with cyberware(too many times do I have an empty cyberware slot with nothing to put there, which means either there was something supposed to be there, or it shouldn't even have a slot there). My suggestion is to just remove the wanted system. It can never be as good as it should be, because nobody thought to build the game around it. Instead put things in the game that were intended and had the game built around them but for whatever reason, couldn't be shipped with the game.

 

[Mobster100]

So yeah even if they fix the spawn position of cops, even if they smooth it out, even if they make it more forgiving for accidental grenades and such, it's only purpose is to stop you from murdering.

The police system is not going to be fixed with a few patches. Which is why CDPR is probably in quite a lot of issues here, I would think.

Because as you say one option is to completely remove it, but that would ruin immersion and honestly be pretty lame in a game like CP. Besides that, it might be acceptable if we were talking an indie studio, but not an AAA developer, which promoted their game as a RPG, realistic city etc etc.
But it does show some of the flaws in the game design as I see it, it seems like a lot of teams working in different directions and no one ever really brought it all together into one single experience.

Night city is well designed in terms of running around and its impressive and all, but it doesn't seem like the design took into account that there should be police and car chases. And the same goes with pretty much everything in the game, a lot of different teams working on their version or vision of the game and no overall direction. Some are making a GTA type of game, others an adventure game, some a RPG, others a action shooter game, some wanted to make an open world game, but forgot to add stuff to do. And none of it is integrated into a single consistent game. That doesn't mean that you can't have a good time with the game, I did, but it completely depend on the player and how they approach the game. Had I gone into it playing it like a GTA game or an open world experience, I would have had a terrible time. Obviously the last one disappointed me, because I thought it would have a lot of open world content. But the story, characters and Night city is what is carrying this game, rest is poor to mediocre at best.

But to get back to the police system, the issue is that they have to completely redesign it, if they want to fix it. Simply making them spawn further away is not a good solution and again think it shows how poorly it is actually integrated into the game and simply can't be patches, because it's not broken, it is simply non existent as it is now.

So as I see it, there are two options, they redesign it, or it will stay as it is now, maybe with some minor adjustments. And unless they completely overhaul how traffic works as well, I don't really think that the current design of Night city and the gameplay is capable of handling police chases and car combat. And I doubt that CDPR will invest the time in fixing it.

In regards to car combat, I again think it was probably the team that was working on the GTA version of the game that thought it could be cool, with dynamic car chases as shown in the first trailer and when that didn't work out, and they already said that it was in the game, they had to turn it into scripted events. And again all the ideas they told people, that police was corrupt and bribing etc. it got scrapped as well. And it was probably part of the original police design.

As it is now, so many things in the game is fairly broken or missing, even the whole RPG system is not working very well, the economy is broken, itemization as well and Night city is completely dead, and the list goes on.
The best things about the game in my opinion, is the action shooty parts and the adventure game (story). Rest needs to be to fixed, before they can release expansions in my opinion, that is if they want to be true to their word and deliver the best of the best games in the industry, then they really have to start redesigning a lot of stuff.

 

[Chubbz7]

Because as you say one option is to completely remove it, but that would ruin immersion and honestly be pretty lame in a game like CP.

I agree, for immersion to take place a cop system is good for things like such horrendous crimes deemed necessary for a bounty, example being evelyn's story, where the cops are called over a dead body and they don't even bother, so if you accidentally hit a civilian with a grenade should the cops even be called? Maybe if you are intentionally killing more than one person and go on a spree after 3-4 civilians, then the cops go after you. Furthermore I agree that a complete redesign would have to take place. What with systems like Street Cred as well as having gangs. I'd say the best bet would be to add an outlaw system where you no longer work for the police, and are a full blown criminal. Why there's no gang interaction outside of all of them are enemies and you kill them is beyond me. I agree it feels like too many ideas in one but I also feel feel as if these ideas CAN be meshed together but after doing research the development of the game went down the sewage pipe. That being said however, I would much rather the wanted system not be there or at the least, as I stated above, after killing multiple civilians militech just hunts you, skipping the NCPD, which would make way more sense storywise after knowing how the city treats cyberpsychos. Hell after going on a murderspree have a buff be cyberpsychosis where the game is literally dubbing you a psycho murderer. Really it boils down to a lack of RPG stuff in the story. You like one gang? Well don't get attached cause at some point a fixer will call you for a job to kill that gang. Despite what you want your V to roleplay as, there will be many moments that negate what you are roleplaying as. Much like Fallout 4 Nuka World DLC. Not a bandit? Well this DLC is like 3 hours for you.

So though I agree with pretty much all of your points, I feel like removing the wanted system or at least having a much forgiving version of it wouldn't break the immersion too much, cause the immersion breaks many, many times in systems/quests not related to the wanted system.

 

[Simpson3000]

Ever tried to "help" the police in real with your own gun shooting the criminals? Did they thank you with a high five there after and invite you to a drink? :>
You seriously complain that the cops in the game hunt you down after they wittnessed you comitting lynch justice?

 

[eternal_streetkid]

You seriously complain that the cops in the game hunt you down after they wittnessed you comitting lynch justice?

They're the ones that request assistance bro.

 

[PepeSmug]

Ever tried to "help" the police in real with your own gun shooting the criminals? Did they thank you with a high five there after and invite you to a drink? :>
You seriously complain that the cops in the game hunt you down after they wittnessed you comitting lynch justice?

What do you think police dispatches are, hello?

 

[fjdgshdkeavd]

I couldn't read all that text lol but agree with the title.

The Witcher 3 demonstrated how fun an open world can be without any substantive police mechanics. The guards would attack you if you accidently stole something but no one expected Geralt's petty criminal exploits to be a major mechanic. No one cared that you couldn't slaughter civilians.

They should have just made it impossible to kill civilians in cyberpunk.

 

[-Nailes-]

Ever tried to "help" the police in real with your own gun shooting the criminals? Did they thank you with a high five there after and invite you to a drink? :>
You seriously complain that the cops in the game hunt you down after they wittnessed you comitting lynch justice?

There are actual cases of citizens helping and even saving police officers irl and they get medals or even guns for those efforts. But thats real life, not Cyberpunk 2077, where the NCPD calls "all subcons" and tells them which bad guys are near and fair game for any merc. You take out certain bad guys, the NCPD pays you a bounty.

If in cyberpunk 2077 you help a police officer the following is supposed to happen:

You can find this police officer and his dead collegue when you enter Pacifica. When you help him(against several scavengers), he will thank you as you can see in the screenshot. I liked this encounter because it makes sense and I was happy I could help him.

Sadly, the police system doesnt work properly and half the time you get situation like the following:

In this particular case a single police officer got sent to Japantown, he complains that he has no support but is forced in on his own anyways. Tyger Claws are waiting for him and are beating him up. The game clearly states that I have to neutralize the perps and secure the evidence. Its an assault in progress, the NCPD puts them out for mercs and V has Kiroshi's with an NCPD database. Basicly the police wants mercs to deal with these situations because they cant.

When you shoot the 'perps' and help this officer(I reloaded to make sure I only hit the gangoons) the following happens;

He is going to give me a fine for littering (tyger claws)? Is this an acute case of Stockholm syndrome maybe?

I like the game, but the police is broken at the moment and in desperate need of a fix.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

My advice for Police during NCPD event.
Generally, I'm waiting for the police to get killed by the Gangsters. But they generally don't become hostile directly, it's if you don't go in the area (like with Maelstomers vs Cops in NorthSide)

In this particular case a single police officer got sent to Japantown, he complains that he has no support but is forced in on his own anyways. Tyger Claws are waiting for him and are beating him up. The game clearly states that I have to neutralize the perps and secure the evidence. Its an assault in progress, the NCPD puts them out for mercs and V has Kiroshi's with an NCPD database. Basicly the police wants mercs to deal with these situations because they cant.

Never happen for me (on many, many playthrough), I just don't shoot the cops on the chair...
For me, he's stay on the chair (he seem to be aggressive few seconds, but he sits down directly)

But I agree, it's not good and seem "fast implemented". But I hope and I'm pretty sure, that will be fix/improve one day.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2021

My bad, this time he's hostile and I'm in combat, but he don't attack me and he stays quietly in his chair...
The reaction of the Cops seems pretty random and unpredictable... Like in real, isn't it ?

​

PS : Please, no comment about my junk look...

 

[Mobster100]

So though I agree with pretty much all of your points, I feel like removing the wanted system or at least having a much forgiving version of it wouldn't break the immersion too much, cause the immersion breaks many, many times in systems/quests not related to the wanted system.

The Witcher 3 demonstrated how fun an open world can be without any substantive police mechanics. The guards would attack you if you accidently stole something but no one expected Geralt's petty criminal exploits to be a major mechanic. No one cared that you couldn't slaughter civilians.

They should have just made it impossible to kill civilians in cyberpunk.

I think that is one of the main issues with CP, they thought of it as a Witcher game, except in CP you don't really get the feeling that you are roaming the lands, but rather that you are in Night city, even when you go outside, you never really feel like you are away from it. But where it makes sense in TW3 to go hunt monsters and kill camps is because you know that there is not suppose to be any city guards/police there. But in CP you can have massive shootouts in the middle of a street and no one reacts to it. And even though CP is a violent place, you don't really get that impression in general when you are just walking around. Most people don't look to concern about anything, none carries guns, they drive along normally, kids walking the streets etc.

But where it gets very weird, is because the camps that you would find in TW3 and go deal with, is also here in CP in form of these random gang camps, that the police doesn't really seem to care about at all.

As CP is now, I would probably agree, that simply making it impossible to shoot when travelling around Night city is the best option and to get rid of all those random gang/monster camps on the street. And instead only have specific locations, such as clearing out a warehouse or club, go steal something etc. Because as it is now, the police is not functional enough to deal with a GTA playstyle, it's not really fun for anyone to just have them randomly spawn near you and it honestly doesn't improve the gameplay in anyway. I bet most people that accidentally triggers the police, simply run away as it is now or end up getting killed and have to reload. It doesn't expand the game in any way, where it will have consequences for you or you have to deal with it later etc. It is utterly pointless right now. And as you say, it have no connection to any quests or story elements anyway. If the police is in a quest, they would be there anyway, because that is how the quest is designed.

Again as I see it, to many teams working on different types of games or visions of what CP should have been, without ever bringing it all together into one single consistent experience or type of game.

 

[Garrison72]

They should consider reducing the algorithm on whether the cops even show up if you break the law. There's no point in drawing attention to a broken system.

 

[Chubbz7]

You seriously complain that the cops in the game hunt you down after they wittnessed you comitting lynch justice?

You completely missed my point, I am complaining that the cops WHOLE purpose is to stop you from murdering. Sure for immersion sounds good on paper but in play what if you are an engineering build, like I am currently running on a playthrough, and accidentally throw a grenade at a pack of enemies to miss the one civilian on their knees. Well now cops are called and I gotta run. I am complaining that in the world of CP and in Night City we as players are told that crime is at an all time high, cops are spread too thin, and they often don't respond to every crime committed throughout the city. With this in mind, does it make sense to have them hound the player with hordes of OP cops for the accidental death of one civilian? NO! it does not. Like I stated above this system should have been reworked to a cyberpsycho system where after intentionally(Hell or even accidentally) killing 3-5 civilians, then cops don't go for you but instead militech sends maxtac at you cause the game recognizes you as a cyberpsycho. This would make way more sense story wise due to how cyberpsychos are treated. Why do we have to take down cyberpsychos? Well they killed so much maxtac that militech quit sending responders and have now outsourced it to mercs.

Not to mention that I wouldn't be going out with a gun to murder a criminal in front of the cops. That's they're job, not mine. However police IRL do ask for civilian help all the time but it's mainly with information and witness statements. The fact that you just compared Night City's all out anarchy due to the corps cutting funding for the NCPD as well as being a corpo ran country to real life crimes. Well I'd tell ya, I wish I could get my body parts replaced with some cybernetic parts but Cyberpunk is not Reality. [...]

But where it gets very weird, is because the camps that you would find in TW3 and go deal with, is also here in CP in form of these random gang camps, that the police doesn't really seem to care about at all.

This is true, however I would also add that the miscellaneous things to explore in Witcher 3 was just the Cherry on the icing of the cake, so to speak. Witcher 3 had so many quests, some of which didn't truly influence the story, however they were given the same treatment as those main quests. In cinematic style as well as RPG style and interesting characters. Now I think the characters in CP are great however the problem is the NCPD scanners and random side gigs are the cake and the icing and everything else feels like the cherry. Biggest example being peralez side gig compared to say, killing radovid or not killing radovid. No matter you're choice for peralez, the player doesn't get to really see the ramifications of this side gig, we don't see peralez being completely brainwashed, or breaking from the brainwashing, does he even win as mayor? Does holt win? I couldn't even tell you and I've done the quest 3 separate times. As opposed to Radovid, you see the world shift due to you're actions(or inaction). Each quest builds up to something and that something plays out later.

As for the wanted system. Like I've said a few times, a forgiving Cyberpsycho system which forgives accidental deaths and harshly punishes mass murderer sprees would be preferable. It would be more forgiving for people committing accidental murders, as well as make way more sense in context of the story. Or hell even removing the cop system all together would make more sense, or at the very least have it take a long time for them to respond, you know, how a close to derelict police system would respond. Instead the entire Wanted system completely negates a lot of the story and immersion of the world that is Night City, which I will say again, the immersion breaks itself even without this system.

 

[BigWezz69]

The cop system doesn't need to be removed, it needs to be rebuilt.

 

[Simpson3000]

@ chubbz7

So you admit that you accidently killed a civilan with a grenade at your attempt to be the big hero of the day and then complain that the cops did not forgive you because humans make mistakes?

Perhaps its a good thing that there is something implemented in the game to prevent us from ruling the streets, something that makes you be carefull even if the circumstances seem to be perfect for us that everything can quickly turn against us.

Its a singleplayer game, you can save whenever and as much as you want. Something went wrong, load a save [...].

Oh and in case you cant resist in future, try to avoid to post wall of text please, much easier to read with some paragraph every now and then.

 

[Niatka]

the most annoying with cops; their checkpoints.
you are too close, only a few seconds and {a crime has been committed}. you are chased. I didn't do anything, I just passed but a little too close.
in general, cops are irritable, in Night City they demonstrate it well.

 

[Chubbz7]

@ chubbz7

So you admit that you accidently killed a civilan with a grenade at your attempt to be the big hero of the day and then complain that the cops did not forgive you because humans make mistakes?

Perhaps its a good thing that there is something implemented in the game to prevent us from ruling the streets, something that makes you be carefull even if the circumstances seem to be perfect for us that everything can quickly turn against us.

Its a singleplayer game, you can save whenever and as much as you want. Something went wrong, load a save [...].

Oh and in case you cant resist in future, try to avoid to post wall of text please, much easier to read with some paragraph every now and then.

That is but one instance in which the cops can accidentally be called. In my original posting I talked about an incident that I have video of in which I wasn't able to post due to the file size. Essentially I was running to an assault in progress, there's 2 cops next to it 50m away. I run up and kill the Maelstrom WITHOUT EVEN TOUCHING a civilian. Walk back near the cops(Car was parked there) and due to just being violent next to them causes them to act as if I committed the crime. I have talked about multiple different accidental things as well as things like this that break the entire immersion of the police system, making it a shallow existed system whose sole purpose is to make sure your a good person in NC. I talk about how this conflicts with ways to Role play [...].

I have also offered other solutions other than completely removing the wanted system however the reason why I would like them to easy fix it or remove it together, as I stated, is due to the fact the game wasn't built with a wanted system in mind. However there are other things that were intended for the game and had it built around them and for whatever reason they were scrapped before release. There's a multitude of things that got cut and I'd prefer the game devs focus on THAT stuff rather than focus so heavily on something that got slapped into the game MONTHS before release. This is [...] just a little suggestion. Which after all isn't that what these forums are about?

And in case you haven't notice, I have been using paragraphs, very few times I don't actually. [...]

 

[Draconifors]

A few posts edited.

Insults and personal attacks are not welcome; you are required, by the forum rules, to always treat others with kindness and respect.

 

[AikoHayashi]

...

I've cleaned the whole map with 5 characters and I barely had problems with the police. If you know that they get annoyed if you are in their perimeter, you just go around, it takes also some time while the "warranty issued" is triggered. The police system needs to be improved, but not removed.

 

[Mobster100]

So you admit that you accidently killed a civilan with a grenade at your attempt to be the big hero of the day and then complain that the cops did not forgive you because humans make mistakes?

Perhaps its a good thing that there is something implemented in the game to prevent us from ruling the streets, something that makes you be carefull even if the circumstances seem to be perfect for us that everything can quickly turn against us.

I don't really think that is the issue he is referring to.

When you drive around NC, there are a lot of these random holdup/monster camps, where you have a bunch of gang members doing some bad stuff. Yet a lot of these are happening in plain sight of everyone, civilians walking by like nothing is wrong and clearly no one cares to call the police or they themselves don't care to show up and deal with it.

Obviously these camps are made for the player to constantly have something to shoot at if they want, and to make it look like NC is a violent place. But it doesn't really work, when no one cares about it, so these camps simply comes off as MMORPG camps, where you just go grind some monsters, but they add nothing to the game overall or the believability of the police.

However the police is extremely sensitive towards the player, to the point where they might kill you for simply looking at them, and if you hurt a civilian, whether its by mistake or not, they are there instantly in huge numbers, with robots and stuff, but when the gangs do stuff like this, they don't care at all.
So it comes off as if the police is stalking you, which first of all breaks immersion, but it also makes it so, the game is not really playable, if you wanted to play as a more "criminal" minded merc. Simply because the game is not really designed to be possible to play as such, like you can in GTA for instance. And since it not a viable way to play, then there is simply no reason for it to be there.

So the issue is not that the police shouldn't care about you killing civilians, but rather that they are too broken to handle it, if CDPR want to allow it in the first place.

That NC is a violent place is fine, but I think that CDPR could have handled it a lot better, because these camp honestly doesn't really do the job of making you buy into this illusion. What does however are all those missions where the violence is "concealed" from the outside. Like the first mission with the girl in the bathtub. That one with River, where you have to save his nephew or who it is and so on. Because in these cases it make sense that the police is not dealing with it, because they might not know that it is going on etc. So the missions is what makes you believe this illusion, not the random monster camps.

They have all these gangs which run whole areas of the city, and they even say that in certain areas the police refuse to go, so they could have used that a lot better, especially if they had made better use of the gangs, so certain areas of NC which are under the control of the police, you can't kill random people, but when you get into the gangs area, there are no rules, except those that the gangs set, and you could have a lot of missions going in there and based on reputation with the gangs etc, they could react differently, meaning that whole city sections could turn into hostile areas, because you have done a lot of stuff towards that gang. The problem now is that the gangs, doesn't care about you at all, if you kill 100s of them there is no reaction the next time you meet them, because they have no real integration into the game, they are just big monster camps

And to further expand on this illusion they could have occasional fights between gangs and police on the edge of these areas, giving the impression of a tug of war going on, the news could talk about it etc. And you could have much more visible violence going on in these areas, than in the police controlled sections of NC.

 

[Onmens]

I wouldn't mind the wanted system being gone.

If civilians dropped loot or something and you actually got something out of these "crimes" you're commiting it would be a dfifferent thing.
But as it stands now any time you get the police on your ass it's either because of an accidental death, or because of a bug. Both are annoying.

So give me a reason to kill civilians and I wouldn't mind dealing with the consequences.