Yeah, there are things to fix... But also we have things to enjoy

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I don't want to start a skirmish here, but why did you focus on the two examples probably everyone nows (Blade Runner and GitS), but not on the ones who are THE seminal examples and codifiers of Cyberpunk literature and Cyberpunk as a whole - the Sprawl books (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, the Buring Chrome short stories) and Snow Crash? They have quite a variety of outcomes and endings, characters who survive, some who enter a different plane of existence and others that just go home after a long day.

And I would argue that even the endings of Blade Runner and GitS are more positive than what V experiences, even the Blade Runner sequel to some extent (K dies (probably), but Deckard reunites with his daugher, so at least there is some payoff). And in GItS Makoto wanted to merge with the Puppet Master if I remember correctly and she seems quite content in the sequel I think.

And, as someone else mentioned, CP2077 is a game. You get much more emotionally invested in a long game, and you'd expect that you have more of an influcence on the outcome, especially if the game calls itself an RPG.
Even in Witcher 3, which is set in a pretty grim world where lots of shitty stuff happens, you can influence Geralt's fate and have a chance to reach some kind of happy state based on your actions.
I totally agree that players deserve a more rewarding end, but it is not sure if Vs story stops here.
My V
in the Sun ending wasn't ready to die.
- What Rogue says is quite important. V is already a legend after causing so many troubles for Arasaka and becoming the boss of the legendary Afterlife, so what else does V want to achieve?
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- V has requested information about mr BE, I don't think that someone ready to die would be interested in this.

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Plot, however, it oozes patchiness. 2 out of 4 main story arcs are completely irrelevant to main story.
Panam/Hellman arc could be entirely cut and there would be no missing links in the plot. Judy/Eve arc could be skipped if V just called Mr Hands and asked, "Do you know anyone tech/AI-savvy I could do a quest for?" Moreover, the only thing Takemura arc concludes at outside the Arasaka ending is the location of Mikoshi which is - who could've thunk - Arasaka HQ. The only arc that truly matters for the plot is the VDB/Alt arc.
Yes, let's cut
Panam/Hellman and miss one whole ending. Let's give V a magic ball, so V knows that Mr Hands can lead to VDB (of course V magically knows that they are the right people who maybe are able to help). Let's ignore that Vic with all his connections can't help V. Even better, let's cut Alt out of the picture, cut the Sun ending, and just go to Arasaka.
 
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I totally agree that players deserve a more rewarding end, but it is not sure if Vs story stops here.
My V
in the Sun ending wasn't ready to die.
- What Rogue says is quite important. V is already a legend after causing so many troubles for Arasaka and becoming the boss of the legendary Afterlife, so what else does V want to achieve?
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- V has requested information about mr BE, I don't think that someone ready to die would be interested in this.

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Yes, let's cut
Panam/Hellman and miss one whole ending. Let's give V a magic ball, so V knows that Mr Hands can lead to VDB (of course V magically knows that they are the right people who maybe are able to help). Let's ignore that Vic with all his connections can't help V. Even better, let's cut Alt out of the picture, cut the Sun ending, and just go to Arasaka.
I agree with V destiny is uncertain in all endings except 1,but i would not put the faith in a phrase
that is an idiom that comes from US Air Force anthem and glorifies to die in battle and that people who want to have gray hair due to aging shouldn't join the force
 
FFS. [...] The Cyberpunk genre has many examples of good or okay endings with hope for the future, just look at the Sprawl books or Snow Crash. Or GitS. Even Blade Runner, which isn't even full Cyberpunk except for its style, actually can be interpreted as quite hopeful.
And the happy/unhappy ending thing is not even the biggest problem with the endings. It's that they are all more or less the same (V alsways gets plot cancer, only the scenery is different.) and one random decision on a rooftop decides Vs whole future.
I think original cyberpunk as a genre finds its tension-filled contrasts in power structures and circumstances like having to recover from something or somebody. So as soon as Johnny jumps into the game, everything makes sense to me. I just need to try to survive, and in the end accept that I've failed. EZPZ. Let's rock'n roll! I don't give a shit about the endings!

Act#1 on the other hand... Why did we even try to steal that chip again?
 
There were some mentions about FPP in the game being an excellent and flawless feature.
While FPP choice itself (although not 100% consistent, since you can see yourself while driving a motorcycle / car) seems a good one for this game (I like it in general), it's pretty much underdeveloped. There are issues with ugly transitions between animations, there are no barefoot footstep sounds when you don't have shoes on (barefoot npc characters also don't generate barefoot sounds), our character's shadow is bold and distorts in various movement situations (climbing, sneaking, swimming, operating with weapons), there are still some collision problems (we can go through dead / unconsious npcs and sometimes objects lying on the ground). All of this is not even OK for a game that was supposed to put much emphasis on immersion (it was mentioned by the devs before the release, if I remember correctly), not speaking of EXCELLENT.

There are definitely some large parts of CP2077 that deserve praise - story, emotions, atmosphere, artistic direction etc., but there are also multiple things that turned out plain ugly and so apparent that not to see them is like enchanting reality to me, sorry.

I also wouldn't see a problem in plunging emotionally into the game if it was a mixture of TPP and FPP, or even only TPP. I really don't see a problem here.
 
Honestly, I am not sure if the ability to pass through dead bodies is not a feature and not a bug. V should be agile enough to not need to jump/go around a dead body.
 
Honestly, I am not sure if the ability to pass through dead bodies is not a feature and not a bug. V should be agile enough to not need to jump/go around a dead body.
It might be a valid point of view, if it could be seen as a necessary solution for our character constantly tripping over dead bodies of fallen enemies. Agile doesn't mean being a "ghost" for me though, sorry.
I'm afraid it's a poor and very unimmersive "feature" in a game that pretends to pull us into a virtual world with an assumed sense of realism. I'm sorry, but this sense of realism collapses for me once I can go through someone's head like a ghost.
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But it is funny how enemies trip over their fallen fellows :)
This thing seems to confirm that something is wrong or underdeveloped here, at least from V's perspective.

Sure, that's not a big tragedy or anything, the game is absolutely playable with this tiny flaw ;) , but it is a flaw nonetheless.
 
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ya1

Forum regular
Disclaimer: I have not followed the hype, so the explicits about what was presented, promised at one time and what ultimately may have become player expectation I do not know. But from many posts I've read it seems that many expected several elements that may never have been part of the game, or werent certain to become such. And yes, I am aware of the marketing having gone out of hand so one does not help the other.

Long story short, the hype surrounding this game was so high, I still view NMS (launch) as a sort of equivalent in what seems to have happened. Culminating in the moment of launch into... Well that we know.

Thanks for your reply.

It's not just about the marketing. It's about the quality of the game in the light of generally accepted industry standards. While things like animated splashes of water have been an industry standard since games would put the word "3D" in the title. As in Duke Nukem 3D. But it's hard to speak about it without descending into cynicism so I'll stop here.

I beg to differ on this. A plot does not require complexity or many twists and turns to make a good movie. (Alien, Predator, Terminator, I could go on)
These are all good movies with very simple plot.
CP77 plot just does not hinge on a big twist specifically. I suppose only the ending does. But even in its more or less linear setup the plot is sufficient.
I do agree that, specifically because its a large open world game, it could be deepened more than it is. But as it is its not really a detractor in itself.

I never said the story was bad. I just find people overpraising it as a pinnacle of storytelling perhaps somewhat uneducated in what true storytelling masterpiece looks like. CP storyline is in fact full of holes. Characters if cool and likable, as if purposefully designed for mass consumption, are rather shallow and cliche. Plot is somewhat obvious. The story revolves around immortality tech - a notion that is already painfully cliche - and it does little to enrich this notion with philosophy or nuance. It is painfully apparent that the plot was thrown together asap when Keanu Reaves joined the cast.

The reason for all this praise is that the bar for writing in video games is set very very low. Not that the writing in CP itself is extraordinary. Like I said before, it is at the level of a decent Netflix show, nothing more. What I mean to say, it's never 10/10 in my book. 8/10-ish if anything.

What is remarkable about CP is not the story itself but its setting. The billboards, the commercials, the hints of lore within dialogues, etc. But none of this in my opinion makes up for the total fail which is CP's scandalously unbalanced and amateurishly* designed gameplay as well as the quality of AI that fuel it. The writing could've been done by Gibson himself, and it still would've failed to make up for it. Also, for all its detail and amount of work that went into it, the world in CP fails to make the player feel INVOLVED - something that W3 was very good at - because of the lack of environment interactivity, the repetitiveness and lack of depth in playable content, and the general feeling of an empty world we can have no impact on.

* personal opinion not an attack
 
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MUSIC

It would be a crime that a game named as a music subgenre had awful music or, at least, didn't have this specific kind of music in it. The developers have defended themselves perfectly in this aspect.

Disagree.

Hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE the 90s grunge nonsense they went with.
I want my 80s synthwave, not the garbage I endured all through high school...and then later in film school, when I had to sit through so many angsty, whingey, therapy-worthy student films about Kurt Cobain's suicide.

The music is all kinds of wrong. It should be electronic and not EDM.
The kind of stuff you find on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NewRetroWave

VIEWS & ENVIRONMENT

A friend of mine in this forum recommended me to take a look in the architecture of the city. I knew that Night City was pretty, but since she told me to do so, the city gets actually prettier.

Agreed.
Night City is a work of art.

However, that's not enough; affect alone does not a game make.
"Style over substance" is a terrible credo.

STORY

Perhaps the best description of the main storyline was done by my french friend in this forum: "it's an emotional rollercoaster". I don't want to make any spoiler but if you haven't completed the main storyline, enjoy every single dialogue because it's worth it.

Ehhh...see...again, kinda disagree.

The characters were well-written and acted, but that's not the story...the plot is the story, and that was kinda lackluster and occasionally even annoying.

STYLE (PEOPLE & TRANSPORT)

There's hardly any discussion about the desings in the game. When it comes to the people, the futurist looks and the diversity of styles (depending on the class level and the gang) are well represented. Things change when it comes about cars. It exists a huge gap between the low class vehicles, which are small, square-shaped, sometimes rusty and resembling to the 1970s cars; and the futurist high-class sports cars that everyone dreams of. They represent the two faces of society of Night City to perfection.

And yet, it's all meaningless.

They advertised the game by saying that style matters in Night City:

...but it's meaningless color; nobody reacts to you based on how you're dressed.
Just another way they misled us.
 
Plot is somewhat obvious. The story revolves around immortality tech - a notion that is already painfully cliche - and it does little to enrich this notion with philosophy or nuance. It is painfully apparent that the plot was thrown together asap when Keanu Reaves joined the cast.
...is that such a bad thing? After all half the games you gave, as an example of 'masterpieces' in story, have 'painfully cliche'. The other half I haven't played to tell.
Imo HOW the story is presented is what makes it 'good' and not just what it is about:)

.....btw 8/10 is very very good. Nothing is 10/10 after all:)
 
Thanks for your reply.

It's not just about the marketing. It's about the quality of the game in the light of generally accepted industry standards. While things like animated splashes of water have been an industry standard since games would put the word "3D" in the title. As in Duke Nukem 3D. But it's hard to speak about it without descending into cynicism so I'll stop here.
Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying all critisism is wrong ;) I'm just saying that, from what I read, the most complaints seem to deal with elements that have (possibly) been overhyped to a point where it have become a thing on its own. And I also have to admit I do have some bias with certain elements in the sense I dont particulairly care, which makes me forgiving, water splashing would be one of those. But I agree it would still be a valid one.
I never said the story was bad.
I'm not saying you did, you said if CP was a movie, it would be a bad movie, and that is what I countered.
I just find people overpraising it as a pinnacle of storytelling perhaps somewhat uneducated in what true storytelling masterpiece looks like. CP storyline is in fact full of holes. Characters if cool and likable, as if purposefully designed for mass consumption, are rather shallow and cliche. Plot is somewhat obvious. The story revolves around immortality tech - a notion that is already painfully cliche - and it does little to enrich this notion with philosophy or nuance. It is painfully apparent that the plot was thrown together asap when Keanu Reaves joined the cast.
Well, Icant speak for others of course, but I never expect something to come out as a masterpiece. I always look at it more like it becomes one if judged compared to something else and its ends up that 'good'. Maybe it would not be the conversation for this topic specifically, but what are the main detractors for you storywise?
With regards to the Keanu thing, that seems to consensus yeah. It caused quite the stir up in the outline they seem to have planned before that.
The reason for all this praise is that the bar for writing in video games is set very very low. Not that the writing in CP itself is extraordinary. Like I said before, it is at the level of a decent Netflix show, nothing more. What I mean to say, it's never 10/10 in my book. 8/10-ish if anything.
An 8/10 is not what I'd call decent, but good. Decent in my book would be more like a 6/10 (average)
But these are semantics really. I suppose the biggest issue with the video game industry and common trends in movies alike is that mass-poeples seem to want explosions and action and shooting and thrills. Sort of the duke nukems of today (nicely picked in your post also btw ;) ). My primary example for this would be: look at all the remakes of the good classics moviewise. Its like good writing has gone out the window because most no longer seem to care, hence the consumer culture as they call it.
For me personally, I find the story good enough and solid enough to anchor the remainder of the videogame onto. Its not particulairly new or innovative when you look at the broadstrokes, but then again. What really has been last 20 years. Most often its the same ideas recycled at its core. Which is also what I meant with: " it doesnt have to be complex etcetc". For the story to be hinging on cliche'd elements, I okay with that. I also do not specifically need a masterpiece. But someone else is welcome to do want one.
What is remarkable about CP is not the story itself but its setting. The billboards, the commercials, the hints of lore within dialogues, etc. But none of this in my opinion makes up for the total fail which is CP's scandalously unbalanced and amateurishly* designed gameplay as well as the quality of AI that fuel it. The writing could've been done by Gibson himself, and it still would've failed to make up for it. Also, for all its detail and amount of work that went into it, the world in CP fails to make the player feel INVOLVED - something that W3 was very good at - because of the lack of environment interactivity, the repetitiveness and lack of depth in playable content, and the general feeling of an empty world we can have no impact on.
I havent played Witcher so I cant comment on that.
And I personally also dont really get that same vibe of emptiness and so on, and I dont see much issues with the gameplay. I'm on PS4 and there the driving is actually pretty much ok, far better than keyboard handling, specifically if compared to something like GTAO. Gunplay in CP also has its fair share of variance. AI... Well for the traffic AI I agree, I put in place some headcannon as 'lore' to remedy that. as far as enemies is concerned its not notably worse for me when compared to other games I have played much (most notable being Fallout) but it is my understanding also this has large area of different experiences between players. I've seen some clips of players who had enemies frozen in place. I never had such thing, enemies were always pretty lively. Personally I have also always argued the enemy ai (as how I experienced) is better than GTAO enemy.
And with that I guess I went on a bit of a ramble gheghe. In short, I know its not perfect, but for me the good/enjoyable parts greatly outweigh the bad ones.

[Edit] its virtually impossible to make a good long post via this damn phone and not have half the sentences butchered...
 
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Disagree.

Hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE the 90s grunge nonsense they went with.
I want my 80s synthwave, not the garbage I endured all through high school...and then later in film school, when I had to sit through so many angsty, whingey, therapy-worthy student films about Kurt Cobain's suicide.

The music is all kinds of wrong. It should be electronic and not EDM.
The kind of stuff you find on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NewRetroWave
They choose various music, nothing wrong with that. I'm glad they break the cliche that synthwave is the only possible music for the cyberpunk genre.
 

ya1

Forum regular
...is that such a bad thing? After all half the games you gave, as an example of 'masterpieces' in story, have 'painfully cliche'. The other half I haven't played to tell.
Imo HOW the story is presented is what makes it 'good' and not just what it is about:)

Thanks for the reply.

I fail to see how Disco Elysium is cliche. It does derive from established archetypes like the alcoholic detective with a broken heart, true. But it the whole story is one of a kind. So those "cliches" do not feel pretentious. The setting is detailed and intriguing. The narrative style is inventive. The writing itself feels like high literature, an acclaimed novel in itself. The symbolism. The mystery. Everything clicks.

In CP, things are cool. And Pondsmith and Keanu and competent dialogue writers. And that's it. Nothing is exceptional, nothing new, especially if you are already familiar with the genre. I agree that it is almost impossible to come up with fresh ideas in SF. But in CP there is no depth to the notions they tackle. Nothing surprises you, nothing amazes (in the story, that is).

as far as enemies is concerned its not notably worse for me when compared to other games I have played much (most notable being Fallout) but it is my understanding also this has large area of different experiences between players. I've seen some clips of players who had enemies frozen in place. I never had such thing, enemies were always pretty lively. Personally I have also always argued the enemy ai (as how I experienced) is better than GTAO enemy.

Enemy AI make CP a "solitaire of FPS." Even before you factor the AI, 2/3 of playstyles (Sandevistan and Cyberdeck) already make you totally noninteractive to your enemies. As in enemies do not get to interact with you as you dispose of them. But in truth, thanks to AI, you don't even need that to be untouchable. Cover makes you near-untouchable. Because AI for the most part can't traverse the environment. And when they sometimes do, all you gotta do to is turn 180 and run away to the next cover while mashing x. This is a winning strategy 99% of the time.

Also, the "difficulty gimmick" where they strafe ten steps left and ten steps right... Please...

Last time I played CP I played "naked" (no perks, no attributes, no cybernetics). That plus a mod where all enemies scale up to exactly your level (no level difference multipliers to the advantage of the player). Game was still childishly easy. Because AI.

Back to the topic, sure, there are things in CP that are worthy. Some of them unprecedentedly so. The city is like an art museum. But the above... sorry... but these things would sour even the biggest perks.
 
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ya1

Forum regular
I want my 80s synthwave, (...)

The music is all kinds of wrong. It should be electronic and not EDM.

Honestly, I never noticed that. I would not go as far as to endorse retrowave for CP77 but only now after reading your post have I noticed how much they strayed from the cyberpunk synthwave roots.

I'm not a big music fan so maybe it just doesn't bother me how mainstream they went with it. Also, I think this was a decision based not only on commercial premises. CDPR's cyberpunk was not meant to be ultra retro. I think they genuinely wanted their interpretation of it feel different, more modern.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

I fail to see how Disco Elysium is cliche. It does derive from established archetypes like the alcoholic detective with a broken heart, true. But it the whole story is one of a kind. So those "cliches" do not feel pretentious. The setting is detailed and intriguing. The narrative style is inventive. The writing itself feels like high literature, an acclaimed novel in itself. The symbolism. The mystery. Everything clicks.
Thanks for agreeing with me:D

....and you used as an example one of the games I haven't played.
Enemy AI make CP a "solitaire of FPS." Even before you factor the AI, 2/3 of playstyles (Sandevistan and Cyberdeck) already make you totally noninteractive to your enemies. As in enemies do not get to interact with you as you dispose of them. But in truth, thanks to AI, you don't even need that to be untouchable. Cover makes you near-untouchable. Because AI for the most part can't traverse the environment. And when they sometimes do, all you gotta do to is turn 180 and run away to the next cover while mashing x. This is a winning strategy 99% of the time.

Also, the "difficulty gimmick" where they strafe ten steps left and ten steps right... Please...

Last time I played CP I played "naked" (no perks, no attributes, no cybernetics). That plus a mod where all enemies scale up to exactly your level (no level difference multipliers to the advantage of the player). Game was still childishly easy. Because AI.

...did you just played very defensively and waited a lot for your RAM to fill and kill them from afar slowly? Or I suppose there are some legendary operating systems that can give you fast RAM return.....but you have to kinda cheat and already know their locations. I suppose they can have them require high stats to prevent that....
But unless you specialize in int and quickhacks - sorry, but I don't believe you that you can be so powerful with no stats.
 
Honestly, I never noticed that. I would not go as far as to endorse retrowave for CP77 but only now after reading your post have I noticed how much they strayed from the cyberpunk synthwave roots.

I'm not a big music fan so maybe it just doesn't bother me how mainstream they went with it. Also, I think this was a decision based not only on commercial premises. CDPR's cyberpunk was not meant to be ultra retro. I think they genuinely wanted their interpretation of it feel different, more modern.
I believe I have read somewhere they wanted something darker to highlight that the city is not paradise. They described (ornsomeone did) the synthwave stuff to be too 'cheerful'. I have to agree both with direction sentiment and plain simply music style itself. I like more heavy and industrial so what they went with is a good pick for me :)
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Thanks for the reply.

I fail to see how Disco Elysium is cliche. It does derive from established archetypes like the alcoholic detective with a broken heart, true. But it the whole story is one of a kind. So those "cliches" do not feel pretentious. The setting is detailed and intriguing. The narrative style is inventive. The writing itself feels like high literature, an acclaimed novel in itself. The symbolism. The mystery. Everything clicks
.

In CP, things are cool. And Pondsmith and Keanu and competent dialogue writers. And that's it. Nothing is exceptional, nothing new, especially if you are already familiar with the genre. I agree that it is almost impossible to come up with fresh ideas in SF. But in CP there is no depth to the notions they tackle. Nothing surprises you, nothing amazes (in the story, that is).
Specifically this (highlighted) I can agree with to some extend. Its either not really there or tucked away via shards, which breaks what it may try to build. I reckon the common reaction these things may yield are along the lines of: "hah, thats funny..." .. moving on...
Enemy AI make CP a "solitaire of FPS." Even before you factor the AI, 2/3 of playstyles (Sandevistan and Cyberdeck) already make you totally noninteractive to your enemies. As in enemies do not get to interact with you as you dispose of them. But in truth, thanks to AI, you don't even need that to be untouchable. Cover makes you near-untouchable. Because AI for the most part can't traverse the environment. And when they sometimes do, all you gotta do to is turn 180 and run away to the next cover while mashing x. This is a winning strategy 99% of the time.
I never play with either of those sryles so my play experience is much different. I can understand how it can make our views widely different as a result, and I understand yours.
Also, the "difficulty gimmick" where they strafe ten steps left and ten steps right... Please...
I was not specifically talking about that dronelike strafe. One anecdote I must comment btw, its also highly dependend on the area. I've fought many Maelstromers that try to setup flanking position, close in on you, use cover and fight from there. Reposition (some also trip). Those fights were fun and dynamic. But I've seen sometimes people come acros scavs or whatever and they never move more than 1 meter. Which is what I also meant with that equally as with bugs, it seem quite varied for some reason.
Last time I played CP I played "naked" (no perks, no attributes, no cybernetics). That plus a mod where all enemies scale up to exactly your level (no level difference multipliers to the advantage of the player). Game was still childishly easy. Because AI.
Well, I'm not sure how uou normally would prefer your games difficultywise and how you gear up style wise. But I also consider my playstyle organic. I use weapons and clothing that I like rather whats supposed to be good. Never really used many cyberware. Usually just some quickhacks. But I generally have fun and be stressed out, but can play the game at a slower pace.
This can also cause a difference in experience of course ;)
Back to the topic, sure, there are things in CP that are worthy. Some of them unprecedentedly so. The city is like an art museum. But the above... sorry... but these things would sour even the biggest perks.
Sad to hear that. I hope future fixes and new content can yet change your experience there.
 
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