Why is boxing trash?

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I feel like we expected them to deliver Witcher 3 level of polish and content or even better, and we didn't realize that they have no experience with any of the systems they wanted to deliver in Cyberpunk 2077.
Well, they sure as hell should have realized it and hired appropriately, especially since they had 7 years of off and on development. Look at Sleeping Dogs, United Front's first open world title and they nailed it.
 
How does this game mechanic work?
Im lvl 30+ lvl 20 body, street brawler. Epic/legendary items.
Last boxing gig the dude literally two hits me. 1 Hit, -80% health. Block does nothing to mitigate the damage. His arms are at least 2meters long. The jump punch cannot be dodged if you are anywhere near the edge of the ring, and you can get stuck on the chair.

Sometimes the "gut" punch works and sometimes not. Sometimes he is stunned sometimes he instatly kicks me or does a spinning punch.

Well, ok, I don't mind a challenge. Got him under 40% health. But oh look, hows doing a spinning kicking jumping move? The dude wont stop attacking me for 10 straight seconds.

Conclusion: I have to land around 30 clean hits, he has to land 2. I fuckin hate boxing in this game.

What about the quest itself? The little girl is cringe. Viktor and his lines are annoying. I think he is meant to say good, keep going when V is ahead, but I got the line even when the dude punched me dead.
Also, you can't save just before the fight, so if you want to try your luck, you have to skip trough all of Viks bullshit.

GG
i wish it was better
 
When it comes to Razor, hitting him in the gut, barely does anything. It might stumble him for a short amount of time. But dodging, moving slower, dosen't seem to be worth it. I really don't want to do this fight. But i want to do all the things. This just shows how poorly the game is designed
 
The very first match against the twins was so bad, after finally beating them the only way I could, by using a glitch where 1 got stuck in a corner and the other got stuck in the sofa by the ring, I completely ignored all other matches.
 
For the boxing quest line on my first play through I did the beat on the brat gig and realized then that the other gigs in the line would significantly escalate in difficulty (from what I have read the escalation seems to be exponential) and as a result this and the racing quest lines I have not bothered to do (honestly not fond of racing games)
 
When it comes to Razor, hitting him in the gut, barely does anything. It might stumble him for a short amount of time. But dodging, moving slower, dosen't seem to be worth it. I really don't want to do this fight. But i want to do all the things. This just shows how poorly the game is designed
I think it took me 2 hours to beat him. As I sad before two hits would kill me so I had to look into his motions, and he has things that can tell you if he will attack or not.
Can't remember every detail, but if he is down and you beat him and he does not move, it means he will start his attack.

I beat him this way:
1. attack until he is stunned/dazed
2. look for signgs hat he will attack back
3. dodge dodge dodge

You can certainly learn his patterns but I don't think it's worth it since this knowledge is useless in any other area of the game.
 
What about the quest itself? The little girl is cringe. Viktor and his lines are annoying. I think he is meant to say good, keep going when V is ahead, but I got the line even when the dude punched me dead.

If you manage to win the fight and talk to the little girl it's kind of funny and the lines get, let's say, more context. Ha.

What i find frustrating is that the hitboxes can be really weird. Razor can totally whiff, but it still lands even when you're on opposite ends of the ring. And they all have a combo that's essentially uncounterable/unblockable. So your only real option is dodging, but then you can kind of get stuck in a crouch accidentally.

I think these gigs are supposed to be a callout to classic games like Punch Out!, where the bosses were often ridiculous and unfair. But I find that type of gameplay frustrating so there's no nostalgia in it for me. Kind of like one of the previous posters mentioned, I don't mind being challenged, or even losing, but it's more fun for me if I understand why I lost and not that the mechanics are confusing.

If you could break their super combos with perfectly timed counters and if the hit boxes weren't so janky I think the fights would play a lot better. Even if that would less spiritually in tune with the "you can't mess up once or let them land a single hit or you die" gameplay of the Punch Out! era.
 
the gorilla arms are like the clothes in shops. There are levelled at the moment where you enter in the shop (open the inventory).
So Gorilla arms purchased at level 30 are less powerfull than ones purchased at level 40 (same between level 40 and level 50).
For most powerfull gorilla arms (mantis or mono-wire), you must buy them at level 50 :)

It's the reason why all free cybeware (legendary) was removed in 1.2 ;)
(legendary mono-wire looted at level 5 was incredibly weak...)
Oh boy, so that's why I had to cheat during the last box fight...
Body_20 and legendary Gorilla arms was not enough. I've placed a non-lethal weapon on the ground that I was able to pick up and equip at the beginning of the fight. Beating Smasher on the other hand was too easy: I managed to defeat him on the first try. I'm glad it wasn't as difficult as the box fight though...

By the way, you seem to know everything about the game, it's quite impressive!
 
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Boxing isn't good by any stretch in my opinion. I got through the last fight by getting the best slow time cyberware, and then beat the crap out of him before he could react
 
Worst aspect of the game.. Honestly, I don't understand how people can defend this broken mechanic. CP2077 boxing quests making the w3 troll boxing quest look like it's a childs play. Balancing their games wasn't their strongest suit. I'll never forget w2 first letho fight.
 
boxing is terrible but doable...if you channel your inner Sekiro-player. Don't dodge or jump around, parry and then sucker punch them. All fights are doable like that, even though the one against the Animal lady is still pretty dificcult because she hits so hard.
 
Weird match to complain about. I mean if you don't like how the boxing was done in general that is fair...but pick another match like the Valentino or the 'twins' (which I had a lot of problems with as I had trouble reacting to both with controller). But the final boxing match? When you are up against somebody that is supposed to be cybered up to the teeth? Didn't you pay attention to Victor when he told you the guy is basically a tank in human form?:)

...btw the flying punch is a bad idea to block, but if you time it right you can easily counter it and thus get a big advantage.
 
By the way, you seem to know everything about the game, it's quite impressive!
Certainely not everything, that's for sure. But I play a lot, that's help.

But in Beat on the brat, they have alwys the same attack patern so it's relativey easy to anticipate. In very hard, if you have good gorilla arms, clothes mods (crit chance/damage) and some cyberwares, they are "KO" between 1 hit/the twins and 10 hits/Razor (even with very low body skill - 4).

I went from the idea of "it's totally impossible" in my first playthrough to "it's pretty easy" afterwards :)
 
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I managed it to with low body skill and no talents invested in body tree. You just need to use another tactic towards it. I dident even try to block anything i pretty much went for stunlocking him as much as i could and dodging when he tried to hit me. was a couple of patches ago tho and i lost my fair share of fights before i managed to beat him.
 
The worst part is how messed up your hit box is. If it was done corretly, the fights wouldn't be nearly as hard, i think
It is not your hit box, I think, but the way the attacks happen. Imo they target (and worse lock on) you and not the coordinates you are standing on or something, so it ends up if you dodge too early or your move out of the way normally, you end up hitted when you shouldn't have. I am not sure why they did the melee combat that way.
That said it isn't the first game to do that, so I was used to it:) Not that it is not frustrating when you die by hit you don't bother to block because they were too far away to hit:D

....but I disagree that the later fights should be doable for normal V. They should require specialization in such fighting:)
 
In my first game I fought the twins first and it was insanely difficult but more importantly it just wasn't fun at all so I decided to skip the fights and try at a later date. Some weeks later I tried again with a more powerful V and more determination and the only way I could defeat them was trying over and over again and activating scanner mode slow-mo and jumping over their head and releasing slo mo long enough to try to punch them in the head. I did it with the guy in The Glen also and so I won those two matches. Tried Buck and the other one and they were too insane and not fun so I gave up.

In my second playthrough I dreaded the idea of the fights and avoided them for a long time, but then I was in a regular quest for a fixer to access someone's laptop or something and in the middle of the quest just randomly the game granted me completion of Beat on the Brat Coronado or whatever the eastern most one is. I was like wut, I didn't even go to any of the fights but the game completed the fight quest for me, a bug I presume or memory corruption or whatever. I had no problem with that though... Then a buddy of mine who had a similar difficulties with the fights kept at it until he finally managed to beat all of the fights, which motivated me to be more creative and I sunk the time in to trying to win them. I pretty much spent a long long time doing the scanner slow mo, jump over their head, punch them in the back of the head trick until I won, which felt like cheating or end running around a not fun game mechanic just to complete the missions. I ended up defeating the first 3 opponents after many hours, plus the freebie glitch the game granted me, and went to Pacifica to do the final match and it was impossible.

So... being a level 50 character completely maxed out in everything including gear fully modded, upgraded, etc. I decided to get Gorilla Arms and go around The Glen pounding Valentinos in alleys for a few days to get to level 20 Street Brawler. I'm at level 16 right now. When I hit level 20, going to do a few more upgrades from the new perks etc. and then go back for the final fight...

Wish me luck. :)

P.S. The upside of this is that I have avoided melee combat all along and it is immensely fun to go punching out gangsters all day without using a weapon and actually win. I can now go in and take out an area with up to 11 of them with just gorilla arms which is deeply satisfying LOL
 
In my first game I fought the twins first and it was insanely difficult but more importantly it just wasn't fun at all so I decided to skip the fights and try at a later date. Some weeks later I tried again with a more powerful V and more determination and the only way I could defeat them was trying over and over again and activating scanner mode slow-mo and jumping over their head and releasing slo mo long enough to try to punch them in the head. I did it with the guy in The Glen also and so I won those two matches. Tried Buck and the other one and they were too insane and not fun so I gave up.

In my second playthrough I dreaded the idea of the fights and avoided them for a long time, but then I was in a regular quest for a fixer to access someone's laptop or something and in the middle of the quest just randomly the game granted me completion of Beat on the Brat Coronado or whatever the eastern most one is. I was like wut, I didn't even go to any of the fights but the game completed the fight quest for me, a bug I presume or memory corruption or whatever. I had no problem with that though... Then a buddy of mine who had a similar difficulties with the fights kept at it until he finally managed to beat all of the fights, which motivated me to be more creative and I sunk the time in to trying to win them. I pretty much spent a long long time doing the scanner slow mo, jump over their head, punch them in the back of the head trick until I won, which felt like cheating or end running around a not fun game mechanic just to complete the missions. I ended up defeating the first 3 opponents after many hours, plus the freebie glitch the game granted me, and went to Pacifica to do the final match and it was impossible.

So... being a level 50 character completely maxed out in everything including gear fully modded, upgraded, etc. I decided to get Gorilla Arms and go around The Glen pounding Valentinos in alleys for a few days to get to level 20 Street Brawler. I'm at level 16 right now. When I hit level 20, going to do a few more upgrades from the new perks etc. and then go back for the final fight...

Wish me luck. :)

P.S. The upside of this is that I have avoided melee combat all along and it is immensely fun to go punching out gangsters all day without using a weapon and actually win. I can now go in and take out an area with up to 11 of them with just gorilla arms which is deeply satisfying LOL
I feel like you are trying to do some complex strategy instead of doing something simple:) The only hard thing in that fight is that you have to be aware of 2 targets at the same time, which with controller (at least for me) is hard. Maybe CDPR should consider adding some extra UI elements like a minimap (as V should have greater senses than the player) as an option. But anyway about the fights - I haven't done the fight in some time, so I may be wrong, but learn to dodge. The second 'twin' has a predictable attack pattern and as the easy fight, they were very easy to stun. Do you have points in the tree? To make blocking easier (also an idea if you get good at counterstrike/blocking at the right moment that will pretty much win the fights for you), to get (Up to 5%) hp on punch etc?
 
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