The Writhing of Night City....

[mr.cappadocia]

/me writhes.

The Great Horror of Night City is not that it moves, but that it writhes. Take a good hard look at Night City and you'll see a city that never moves. Not truly. It's always stapled in place. They use their illusion to the fullest extent and there can be no doubt in their design, but when you get on a motorcycle and ride you'll find the highways and byways are yours alone. There are no other motorcycles on night city. There are no other traveling gun fights.

In other words the City is passive. It's body is ready. It's not only that there's no motorcycles on the road at any given time it's the fact that nobody ever hunts you down, nobody ever initiates combat without your express choice. *You* have to take an action resulting in combat. V's super power is informed consent. A talent she hordes for herself.

The cops seem surprisingly leery about chasing you down regardless of any crimes you commit. You're telling me I can break into a factory, steal plans worth millions, and the cops won't even show up to say hi? There's not even a "payoff" mechanic where Wakako has to pay the police to not show up? You're telling me I can annihilate dozens of unbelievably brutal criminals and nobody will put a hit out on me? Not the Tyger Claws, not Maelstrom, nobody?

Is the City so passive I don't even warrant a drive by?

Night City is the villain of the story and it's a city that cannot be saved, but people never see that *because the city never fights back*. It writhes at you with as much menace as it can muster but always waits for you to throw that first punch. Before that it feeds you, overstuffs you even, ensures that you latch and never pulls away no matter how hard you bite.

Night City should be a leather mother that brandishes a stabbing utensil just waiting, just waiting, for you to open your milky newborn eyes. Why? Because she wants you to see. She wants you to *know* what's about to happen and she wants you to know who did it. That's Night City. Night City wants you to know.

Instead what we got was a coddling god who punishes others but never you. A passive city that takes what you'll give it, no matter how hard, and will make sure you get a second helping of your favorite sugar gob-smacked meaty-Os cereal with aphid lactate enhancement. Because it's your favorite.

Night City needs to fight back. It needs to do things to your sister. In front of your mother. It needs to be as personal as an unfinished ocular implant. No, seriously, imagine if (as a random event) during anesthesia, someone showed up and shot out Victor Vektor's upper jaw and he bled out all over you. That's what you wake up to. You would *enjoy* that.

Night City needs fellow motorcycle riders is all I'm saying.

 

[ChrissyVicious]

This is so true...we were told its a dangerous city and danger lurks around every corner and the only danger really is if you start it..the city is compared to a tourist city without anything to do.

 

[mr.cappadocia]

This is so true...we were told its a dangerous city and danger lurks around every corner and the only danger really is if you start it..the city is compared to a tourist city without anything to do.

What I'm curious about is why they made this design choice. NC has all the elements of a living city *except* where the player is concerned. Then everything works to the players timeline, to the players advantage. A plethora of loot. A non existent sleep/eat schedule. Nothing is urgent. Nothing is imperative. There is no real danger, merely enemies to put down. It's almost never a question of if you'll win, but how much you'll win by.

One of the finest elements of the game are the car shootouts. It would be delightful to encounter a "tigerclaw patrol" when driving to another place on the map.

 

[kaotkbliss]

When I first turned on the game, I was expecting to get jumped in the dark alleys, random goons chasing after me. To feel threatened at every corner at night. Just keep walking, you'll be alright.

 

[wyzman001]

/me writhes.

The Great Horror of Night City is not that it moves, but that it writhes. Take a good hard look at Night City and you'll see a city that never moves. Not truly. It's always stapled in place. They use their illusion to the fullest extent and there can be no doubt in their design, but when you get on a motorcycle and ride you'll find the highways and byways are yours alone. There are no other motorcycles on night city. There are no other traveling gun fights.

In other words the City is passive. It's body is ready. It's not only that there's no motorcycles on the road at any given time it's the fact that nobody ever hunts you down, nobody ever initiates combat without your express choice. *You* have to take an action resulting in combat. V's super power is informed consent. A talent she hordes for herself.

The cops seem surprisingly leery about chasing you down regardless of any crimes you commit. You're telling me I can break into a factory, steal plans worth millions, and the cops won't even show up to say hi? There's not even a "payoff" mechanic where Wakako has to pay the police to not show up? You're telling me I can annihilate dozens of unbelievably brutal criminals and nobody will put a hit out on me? Not the Tyger Claws, not Maelstrom, nobody?

Is the City so passive I don't even warrant a drive by?

Night City is the villain of the story and it's a city that cannot be saved, but people never see that *because the city never fights back*. It writhes at you with as much menace as it can muster but always waits for you to throw that first punch. Before that it feeds you, overstuffs you even, ensures that you latch and never pulls away no matter how hard you bite.

Night City should be a leather mother that brandishes a stabbing utensil just waiting, just waiting, for you to open your milky newborn eyes. Why? Because she wants you to see. She wants you to *know* what's about to happen and she wants you to know who did it. That's Night City. Night City wants you to know.

Instead what we got was a coddling god who punishes others but never you. A passive city that takes what you'll give it, no matter how hard, and will make sure you get a second helping of your favorite sugar gob-smacked meaty-Os cereal with aphid lactate enhancement. Because it's your favorite.

Night City needs to fight back. It needs to do things to your sister. In front of your mother. It needs to be as personal as an unfinished ocular implant. No, seriously, imagine if (as a random event) during anesthesia, someone showed up and shot out Victor Vektor's upper jaw and he bled out all over you. That's what you wake up to. You would *enjoy* that.

Night City needs fellow motorcycle riders is all I'm saying.

yep...even more so is Pacifica ...."deadliest place in night city" ..meh I wish

 

[mr.cappadocia]

yep...even more so is Pacifica ...."deadliest place in night city" ..meh I wish

Are there any Hands jobs in pacifica? I've looked and looked but next to no dice. I mean there's a handful but where Regina is like an ex who misses the squishes you made in her guts and never leaves you alone... Mr. Hands mostly keeps those hands to himself and we have to be contended with the mess we find on the sidewalks.

 

[Maranares]

Are there any Hands jobs in pacifica?

Aside from his involvement in the main quest, Mr Hands has only one gig for V.

 

[tru3story]

Interesting. I like it.
For me, while the idea of hating Night City is attractive, you still want to 'use' it for what it is and take everything it has to offer. I like this hate/love relationship, or a hypocrite in making. Instead I chose to love Night City.
The thi(-ck)n line of what it could be and what it isn't - fruits of imagination anyway at this point. If you choose to see what you want to see, how untrue is it?

Also, there you go: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...-i-see-on-the-streets-of-night-city.11091229/

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

yep...even more so is Pacifica ...."deadliest place in night city" ..meh I wish

Pacifica is a weird situation, because its supposed to be abandoned mostly, so how is it dangerous? Its weird because it kind of makes sense but kind of doesn't.

The concept is supposed to be its outside of the law, and abandoned by society, which is true. So I suppose for a corpo its dangerous, the cops don't go to certain parts, trauma team probably won't get you. There aren't a lot of corpo security. Most of the people outside if the VBD territory are aggressive, either scavs, or animals.

But overall, doesn't feel more dangerous to a merc. All I can think is they planned to have more vehicular crime there at some point before they scrapped that feature. Its kinda hard to feel more dangerous than areas where there's thugs around every corner, when the area is sparsely populated.

 

[BigWezz69]

yep...even more so is Pacifica ...."deadliest place in night city" ..meh I wish

This +1

 

[GogRelvas]

Pacifica is a weird situation, because its supposed to be abandoned mostly, so how is it dangerous? Its weird because it kind of makes sense but kind of doesn't.

The concept is supposed to be its outside of the law, and abandoned by society, which is true. So I suppose for a corpo its dangerous, the cops don't go to certain parts, trauma team probably won't get you. There aren't a lot of corpo security. Most of the people outside if the VBD territory are aggressive, either scavs, or animals.

But overall, doesn't feel more dangerous to a merc. All I can think is they planned to have more vehicular crime there at some point before they scrapped that feature. Its kinda hard to feel more dangerous than areas where there's thugs around every corner, when the area is sparsely populated.

But it is a place where a lot of shady businesses choose to be had at. I don't know, in my opinion it doesn't have to be only car chases to get this feeling across. With the game's current features they could have made a lot more areas where there are gangs "restricteď areas" to diminish the player has to go meet trouble, and loose events would go a long way. I believe Pacifica had a lot of content (also missions) unfinished that didn't make the cut. There's a leak saying the first Expansion will be centered around Pacifica.

 

[OdiousMortem]

What I'm curious about is why they made this design choice. NC has all the elements of a living city *except* where the player is concerned. Then everything works to the players timeline, to the players advantage. A plethora of loot. A non existent sleep/eat schedule. Nothing is urgent. Nothing is imperative. There is no real danger, merely enemies to put down. It's almost never a question of if you'll win, but how much you'll win by.

One of the finest elements of the game are the car shootouts. It would be delightful to encounter a "tigerclaw patrol" when driving to another place on the map.

It's hard to program random encounters that look/feel different across an entire map like that. Every encounter needs to be hard coded, as far as I know. You can procedurally generate landscapes like what Star Citizen does, but in a game like Cyberpunk, it sounds very challenging.

I think eventually AI can take over, and create a lot more randomness. Until then most of it has to be hard coded, which takes time. And a good AAA game already takes a long time as it is.

And most games are only hard at first, in the early game. It's hard to account for the human element. Players learn the game, they get good, and pretty much just unstoppable. That happens in almost every game I've played. Computers can crunch numbers, but beyond that, even dumb humans can figure a game out and they just reach a point where they stop dying... unless you are me and die by falling a lot. LOL

What's interesting is I don't remember ever dying in Pacifiica, the war zone. Most of my deaths were over in Wellspring.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

This +1

The most dangerous place in NC is clearly wherever V is at any given time.

 

[CTPhipps]

When I first turned on the game, I was expecting to get jumped in the dark alleys, random goons chasing after me. To feel threatened at every corner at night. Just keep walking, you'll be alright.

That part I don't mind because think about it.

"You're utterly safe...as long as you walk by all the horrible murders and assaults going on around you at any given time."

Things the cops won't intervene in because they have better things to do than get killed.

 

[OdiousMortem]

I stumble across shootouts between gangers and NCPD all the time. It's not quite as good as Fallout 4 with respect to spontaneous fighting between different groups; but it still happens. Gangers and NCPD will clash, just like you'll see Raiders and Super Mutants clash out in the wasteland. You do have the environment that the city is not safe, even though it doesn't really harass you as a merc very much. It's just the poor shopkeeps that get bullied. You hear a lot of gun fire off in the distance. That's probably the #1 giveaway a city has a crime problem. LOL.

Those assaults and crimes in progress are all about close to the same. It's just a group of thugs that spawn into the area. It feels like busy work, but you do get paid. So earlier in the game, it's helpful if you are trying to save for that groovy double-jump cyber implant that we all seem to prefer.

 

[Garrison72]

Night City is so safe Floridians retire there.

 

[OdiousMortem]

Night City is so safe Floridians retire there.

You might be on to something. Recently in Miami, FL an entire building just legit collapsed. lol

I'm not any kind of a construction expert, but... there's that old saying we have in the US... "a wise man does not build his house on sand."

 

[mr.cappadocia]

It's possible to write in random encounters, or should be. Skyrim was doing it back in 2011 and that's just one of the more obvious examples.

I believe CDPR have this capability and it would do wonders to making the city live again.

 

[BigWezz69]

It's possible to write in random encounters, or should be. Skyrim was doing it back in 2011 and that's just one of the more obvious examples.

I believe CDPR have this capability and it would do wonders to making the city live again.

I guess it depends on the engine and the coding.

One of the thing's I really liked about Fallout 4 was that you could be minding your own business then all of a sudden there would be a firefight in the distance. Some time's you'd get there to join in (or watch), other time's you'd see what was left and then loot the dead. It made the Boston area feel alive, like things were going to happen with or without the player.

Additionally, when the Brotherhood arrived, they started patrolling the area and they too would get into fights.

I wish Night City was more like this.

At the moment it just feels like V arrives at a set area, the script begins, then V fight's, then end. Not very dynamic, more like a stage waiting for the audience (V/the player) to arrive. It makes it feel less immersive imo.

 

[CTPhipps]

It's possible to write in random encounters, or should be. Skyrim was doing it back in 2011 and that's just one of the more obvious examples.

I believe CDPR have this capability and it would do wonders to making the city live again.

I mean, are random encounters good? I prefer story driven content.