All of this is on June 2'021 version of the game, had not been able to access internet in a while so no updates for useless old me (some if not most of this is out of date info). It is also written by a complete imbecile, somehow I missed the look back button (only works on 3rd person view of vehicle) for MONTHS.
(my gaming philosophy)
Player's choice, player's voice always matters above everything else!!!
If you are NOT letting player decide and feel their choices matter than stop making computer games – you are interested in creating passive entertainment like movie or TV show or something like that, go do that in stead. Do not disrespect player by forcing them into choices you have predetermined ESPECIALLY if you are than going to kick their balls in for the very same choices made by you. Narrative is tool not an end point, the game is here not for its own sake but to please the player you can create amazing things within those rules it just takes time, effort and care.
Example – the “job” must always have a way around any railroad for player, no matter their statistics, but also leaning into their chosen path.
Say the techie can offer the Militech woman a way into Royce's HW, establishing shadow connection from close proximity hacking (via the hack into thingy),
or someone with high charisma (or cool I guess?) could sweet talk her into both date and helping out (would offer militech evac upon Yurinobu's betrayal),
high intelligence player could see the loop closing, in calling bug (sidenote: do Not have bugbear as another hacker NPC please its confusing) off to safety, having a helping hand later in game,
High body stats will allow player to physically shield chip from the shooting,
high reflexes will allow player to save Jackie from being shot.
You know just give me options based upon stats not a single way its always going to be. Hell high reflexes player should never be blind sided so neither Militech woman nor Dex should get to jump on them – at least have a reversal that will kick the enemy straight on their almighty arse, not dying or getting fucked because some limp dick (in case it was woman loose cunt) programmer could not be arsed or did not have time to make a proper game.
Example II shithouse bugaloo
Corpo job... actually lets roll a bit further back,
Corpo pathway in general: you will start with a personality test that will match you to an ideal corporation (you a killcrazy? Militech, you a ripe cunt? Arosaka, you a smartarse? Biotechnica etc.) each of which will have its focus in augmetations and tech access and will play a bit differently but all will allow you to manage team of either freelancer or stable team mates – why rely on singular person when you can send in oh I dunno half a dozen people each of which specialist in a field of their own. Hell there could easily be a mode of tactician where player wont even partake in the action itself, just manage the team remotely.
Building upon that the corpo job, you will be able to manage avoid ever getting onto thin ice with your corpo but even if it dose come to it you will be able to do whatever – in worst case scenario just grenade the fuckers rather than surrender the data (player will always have options no matter what your game wants do not ever jerk people about without jerking them off you jerks – game is here for players not for itself), but hey past experience will enable Jackie to intervene if your work relationship is good, or Afterlife contacts of yours could or (if you have no augments) you can just go good old fisticuffs.
Following that atrocity of a scene player will be permitted to accomplish the mission you met Jackie for (depending on how the agents were dealt with they may have to do so without their corpo support) and if successful you will either continue within your corp or have to swap to another, competing one – reputation talks.
These are handful of examples, I would have had multiple additional ways of playing the game such as:
Corpo whore would get access to all the goods – from hit squads to actual in field support team to bolster stats they are weak at. Perfect for someone who would play as pure human – no implants what so ever.
Streetkid would know the streets, have friends everywhere so if someone was being a problem they could either disappear or have random NPCs back them up. Or you know pull Vyvyan and fuck everyone up with a god damn bat.
Nomad would just run like wind I suppose? More likely they'd find place to hide out in solitude.
You should have full access to modification, from chrome body to replacing things to extent similar or surpassing that of malestrom, or as hinted above purely natural – the natural would be hadcore mode and malestrom tier modding easy if expensive.
Do not show loading splash screens show the travelling animation in stead.
Forcing player into role of passive audience is both incredibly disrespectful (meaning that you think players can not be trusted to do anything themselves and have to be treated like cattle) but game is not there to fap itself off it is made to entertain the audience. Treat your fucking audience with respect.
Hell the whole ending should be based upon what player did, like those fallout 1 and 2 outros but interactive. Say you did jobs for fixers and now they all owe you so you call upon them to help you in hour of need (if you do not have the chip or any HW in your body the urgency is impending Arosaka invasion).
Or if you make buddies with every gang in city you could have sickly flowery ending of everyone coming together at Nomad camp – Rhyno would put in good word and get animals involved and either Dum Dum or Royce (if player gets them on their side) Malestrom fixing up the tank, Valentinos organising multi tier defences, all but the na++i american patriots offcourse those would be the night's distraction – something to test the improved tank upon. Maybe have Ozob come along why not. Most of the gangs will be there to poach some awesome tech, some (animals, Valentinos) might also want to have a good fight for fun.
Or if you are still in corpo you could just gather their high grade HW and people for different take down of arosaka.
If you fuck up to point of having no allies, you can allways go out with the Hatred way – nuke the fuck out of the towers (yeah I know its supposed to be Johnny's way).
Fucking hell if you play it right you could have the guy “stolen meds” mission be right there at the end with you, fighting the corpos he sees (correctly) as scum. That'd be good intelligence or cool and solid awareness of situation
get el Cesar to fund a boxing school for kids, to keep them off the streets as means of supporting his family in not so risky way and when you beat the boxing champ have him financially back that whole affair up.
You could make fun out of the fact that you have Johny Mnemonic and neo actor sometimes dammit, you completely wasted mr. ”you are amazing”.
More annoying things:
ORGANISE ORGANISE ORGANISE!!!
if I go to inventory it is bad design result that I have to spend minute mousing over dozens of items before I find one that dose what I need. Alow players to use various auto collecting bags (food, drink, uppers (boosts), downers(stat procs), whatever), make the inventory organisable by some rules – rows, columns, aforementioned bags SOMETHING so that I wont have to spend time looking about for too long for whatever it is I feel like I want or need.
Maybe in the quest log allow for all categories to remain collapsed or opened, just as player left them when they close the quest log /shard thingy etc. (as mentioned before -leave that choice to play, and allow change of it at any time within the appropriate menu)
Parse the quests better – thematically or locale based connections should allways be next toone another irreverent of the quest's name – same problem I have with inventory realy I have to spend time looking through quests to find what I want and it just keeps getting worse as the crap is overwhelming, I often find myself picking up a quest line weeks later having no fucking clue what the fuck it was about because I simply do quests from top to bottom and can not be arsed to read up journals – either map or the Quest log.
Guys this is basic designing things to self-organise! You should have it down pat long before attempting something as extensive as this game.
The encyclopedia, shardpedia and whateverelsepedias could use type in word search, and contextual link through character listing (which ought to be features little more prominently, maybe reference the “would you like to know more” of starship troopers? It is after all about same core idea – governments fucking over people under guise of progress or doing the right thing). YES I realize that this very document is completely disorganised and I am being utter hypocrite in that respect.
In broad strokes each way should have different feel, that is the 3 main ways:
Corpo a punk sellout with mighty backing of seemingly indomitable monolithic monstrosity at their back and call. Punk in sense of treating others like asshole.
Point of this is not to make player feel like an asshat but lure them into being one by offering all sorts of candies and pretty things that they'd want. You could make whole game an extensive psychological test with allure here bribe there, silly little vanity stuff over there... and than make player see how it afflicts the not so well of NPCs – help them understand weather they do or not empathize is entirely player choice however, you are not here to reform any soul-less businessmen or politicians (you know thives that we for some reason let rule over people?) you are here to point out hypocrisy in all of it, that is the nature of punk – sold out or not it should still do that one thing better than anything smack everyone's bullshit views right in their face and let the receiver of said smacking pick up the pieces.
Street Kid would be your Vyvyan ( Or you can think Hiei of YuYu Hakusho for the nature of the beast, not the most punk character there there offcourse but the point is his main thing is combat in show about combat) – complete nutter who goes around beating the fuck out of everyone because of both internal fire and some messed up loyalty. combat being their main means of expressing themselves.
Nomad – I do not have nor do I want anything or anyone, I shall go my way weather you stand in it or not, if you do I will break right through you. Like the wind howling this uragan of punk will keep on fighting for whatever twisted thing they believe in. most likely a survivalist style play – sometimes hide and seek, sometimes just overwhelming power – like a car crashing into the mission, taking out the main target outright (remember the GTA vice City mission where you are supposed to kill the chef? Well you could crash PCJ600 into him and game will allow that even get right to cutscene after beating him up as opposed to showing the “who are you” part THAT is the spirit I am thinking of) and never relent.
The damned – basically a burnout, you have fought for punk and lost. Your band has all sold out and you are only one still holding on to the ideal of keeping the fighting going on. Game starts you off as homeless with no weapon you'll have to rely on your own wit your own resourcefulness and maybe some crafting skills if need be. Your arch here will be to take vengeance upon those whom betrayed you before game started in similar manner to Count Mt. Christo (the specific one I am thinking about is the Depardieu, the poinient scene is when he cuts down 3 candles in one swing and names his adversaries stating the end goal of his mission – you will be known to your enemies, they are likely to see you coming. Make sure you wont be stopped). Hell if you want you can have this be the cyberpsycho aftermath story line – you were triggered and stopped, you were rescues by that mysterious collective and now are on path of redemption. Likely entirely opposite to the next way of playing but also combinable with most other ways.
The natural (no not Dustin Rhodes) – you have no augments, this is the hardcore mode, whilst it dose not have exactly its own story arch you will not start with augments (and getting any will end the path of hardcore) mode where player will be tested to their utmost limits, where any melee combat player ends up in will risk fatality, where you have to use this antique plastic card as opposed to finger gun to pay. You can get glasses for UI, that aint augment, you can get clever suit for protection but you may not cut into your flash, you wont have personal datalink nor holo, you will have to rely upon external gadgetry for most hacking if you want to go down that route. Only advantage is that you wont be hackable. First natural run should be done via corpo because you need to grasp it first, it wont be mandated (hey you want balls busted? Your own choice asshole) but it will be warned about.
Tasks
Fuck why not have more missions with Ozob? Maybe we could become his Nualk or Retsej you know just no Niuqelra. It'd be really fun to have longer followup on some more colourful characters. Something like you did for Judy or Claire is about right.
And Mr. Hands, hell even treacherous fuck like Dexter could have bunch of crap for us to do before (in my version gets shit pushed in for trying to fuck with V – always have to have a way out never railway). Damn I wish there was something to do with them, even if it'd just be another racing series (for motorbikes maybe?) or fight night or swimming contest or bloody challenge pissing I dont know.
CONSISTENCY!
El captain dose have introductory monologue talking how he eats, breathes and sleeps biz but when you meet him he claims to dislike that word, says its hard honest work. I like the second one – give more bereth to different way to talk about things, so maybe have more consistency in between dialogues. Polish the damn game Polish .P
SCRAPS and general thoughts
throwing knife and appearance there of
Can the throwing knife have far more distinct look from the kitchen knife? (like just colour the hilt of kitchen knife into wooden colours guys come on) leading into having to make things just far more distinct on first glance (probably not things discussed earlier that'd be parsed into different categories) if I am in rush of combat but need to equip knife so that I can say it is knife to meet them, by throwing him one right into his forehead I do not want to be in situation when I rush through inventory to equip something* only to not be able to greet my enemy poiniently at instance as the thing I equipped in rather hasty manner is NOT the thing I thought I had.. (solutions I can think of: again organize things into groups, the distinctive looks would help, and obviously auto equiping next throwing knife even if of lesser grade. This shit is already in the game with grenades too so why it was not applied to knives is just … unPolished.)
Sound:
Often times, especially in combat, sound seem to bug or lag or something – technically messing with one of my senses. Now I realize that might just be my shitty on MB sound “card” but if it happens to be more than that I thought i'd mention it.
Clarity of progression:
it would be immensely helpful if there was clearly stated progression with each of the Fixers (and especially whenever I am about to take up mission that will decrease rep with one) ASSUMING there even is such a thing (and there ought to be, higher grade missions unlocking has ben hinted at by Jackie in the prologue.
See it is nice making buddies in game right? So why not have missions do more things like that reporter squatting at Regina's, maybe involve them deeper – more independent news from him would upsetting the channel 52 News's monolithic grasp on city's status. And every such upgrade to each fixer (sometimes its people, sometimes its tech, sometimes its dildos or food or what-fucking-ever they want or need for any reason) would improve relationship with play do it in 3-5 steps (using the logic of star wars Jedi knight dark forces II for 5 step upgrades and JKA/JKO for 3 – cause they are lesser .P) ultimately setting up the finale I mentioned above.
Same mechanic for gangs really – big event heist or fights offered by certain people would come a long way. Hell I want the roller-coaster fixing ppl to start actually running that park out of Pacifica, turn the place into bustling hub of entertainment (if there are multiple steps to putting up park player might actually prop up local economy and build the damned place into hobo powerhouse of commerce...i guess at that point it wont be hobo but I hope you get what I mean) – provided player helps them, if not it will remain as is.
Ah obviously I want more of Mr. Hands, get really handy missions or work with him hand in hand or something .P Pacifica feels dead without fixers and I do want that flowery ending, hell I want the option to go full Hatered (or Johny Silverhand) up on the ending – just fucking nuke the Arosaka again, and hit every single goddamn thing they have tin the city oo for good measure! Burn the city to the ground if need be!!! (ok sorry I have this vision of standing on a random rooftop – the misty's Jackie spot?) whilst everything in sight is on fire, rising a glass to toast the toast that was city triumphantly, or staring in awe “how could we have done this?” v asking Johny. if need be as option. Again giving player massive variety of what they can do should make them feel far more appreciated.
(add after few sessions on up to date game: beast in me still says wait a day even if it awaits some other trigger can you fix that somehow please? i have seen "do other stuff until X is ready before as immersion breaking as that is it is better than outright lie)
Beat on Brat
Winning fight with el César but letting him keep the car dose still result in conversation (text after final fight) where it sounds as tho V kept the car, which is not the case - can not even call it. (happens even when I specifically avoid getting in the car)
Gameplay Flares:
In heated moments you could have V have an audible reaction. Specifically I mean when I go on rampage with melee weapon, or like mantis blades, limbs heads and torsos flying everywhere V could scream or laugh or something (if you ever played Evil Genius there was this henchman, some mad doctor who had amazing quote “slice them, dice them, chop them up (laughter)” that'd be the idea here just maybe more animalistic concise, less of a spoken thing and more an outburst of pent up energy to go along the with the shower of blood (hell you could go for player can also get cyberpsychosis if they do this often storyline option). I have not mastered monowire (still waiting for at least stereo or maybe quadrophonic), so I mostly rely on blades or bladed weaponry.
Idle animations are vastly underutilised so I think some tinkering with each weapon could be nice, or you know that thing Postal 2 mod and postal 4 dose with a shotgun reload (under catnip in latter's case). Moment to moment gameplay should be fun even if player is not doing much. Dose not have to be every bloody moment obviously but hey if I afk for WC or something I would not mind occasionally catching random funny animation or something.
The whole city appears to be besieged by trash (in both human and more baggy variant) would it be possible to have entirely clean and damn near clinical part of city? Something like high end corpo plaza with restricted access – player would go through it with that mission for would be mayor whose mind is being played with by some wierdos in a van (dont recall the mission name but you get to follow a van after tearing through their appartement and finding out full on surveillance central, than follow cables on roof and kinda look where that dish I pointing to (ping? I dont recall)) , and likely his wife.
Some waterfront activities for NPCs to do would be nice, and maybe have player partake in few of those. Something like surfing, swimming water seems rather like wasted space as it is. People however love water so even if it is just sitting by it or being boat passenger or SOMETHING should be done with it no? Otherwise its just a ditch thats wet inconveniently. Yes last two entries are basically asking for same thing – more variety.
When working for a fixer some continuity might be nice, as example: as I write this I do Dakota's missions, right? I just wiped the god damn entire base of militech, because fuck militech, let noone live, even burn their goddamn drones (but do it stealthy like without being detected and save Bruce Welby, no civvies hurt). But than do the wraith thing (BIG Pete) and go out of my way to just knock them all out, do not even kill Pete, should result in unique line of dialogue or something. In fact these are things that ought to build up for finale – choices like who lives and who snuffs it. Build up this network of allies and enemies via gameplay rather than event missions – sure someone like Ozob wont be much help during finale but it would be nice to see him there, for fun and maybe he would be the one taking down the fucknut (Smasher) if we were to go with my imbecilic idea of all together against Arosaka way – which notably is not only one that should be avalable.
Please make an name generator, even if it results in “Human McHumanface the 3rd” it will be better than “NC resident” or “an animal” or something generic like that. Is it not purpose of the Kiroshi ID scanner to have that kind of in-depth nonsense with completely silly things (Matt Facts come to mind of Matt Hardy) or random facts that bare no useful information but could prove good building block to establish just what kind of ppl live in the city... and what they tell of each other as those facts would have to be written down by NCPD based upon SOMEONE complaining.
This is chiefly about cyberpsycho, but should be a general rule – if I am on a mission and need to chat up fixer (as integral part of mission) or whoever via holo than dont make me have to use text, allow choice to call and have NPC the option in dialogue (yes I know so much more dubbing this way but its important to allow choices for player, and given that the mission was began via one such convo the bookend ought to be there too or at least be an option.
STYLE
There ought to be shop based styles of attire – say asian themed (Kabuki and around) ought to sell very traditional or completely mental anime style outfits,
Heywood, domingo would have street thug style clothes,
any kind of waterfront or high end area (ex.: City Centre) would have high grade corpo slick threads (suits, casual satin, even things that look like there is no seam, i'd love that),
Badlands would have very utilitarian “outdoorsy” stuff,
Pacifica and some parts of Kabuki should lean towards those transparent and illuminated clothings (possibly inspired by blade runner),
That is those would be in shops not just on NPCs, all of them would have basically comparable stats tho so as to permit player to choose their appearance rather than look like doggie and pussycat's cooking endeavour or the outcome of trying to eat it rather.
Vehicles should be customisable in terms of visuals at least (yeah yeah i'd love the game to include hot rod (think it was 92 or something racing game) level of customisation but that aint happening so at least paint jobs please?)
I'd like to have my character's dick flapping about on the bike or wherever if I got bottomless (similarly when its a pussy) just cause it sounds like dumb fun thing you can have in game with minimum effort. bedsides you could let people literary piss about... uhm no I dont know why I am trying to make cyberpunk into postal game .P
And for fuck's sake “statics” is the least creative way to refer to static nomad. “Oasis”, “Harbor”, “haven” should be how they call the place and the unmoving nomad something like caretaker or Ibihara (fort Boyard reference, and I suppose it may mean something in French).
Yes i am that bad at grammar and no i wont apologize for language usage - either take full bereath of it or grow thicker skin.
(my gaming philosophy)
Player's choice, player's voice always matters above everything else!!!
If you are NOT letting player decide and feel their choices matter than stop making computer games – you are interested in creating passive entertainment like movie or TV show or something like that, go do that in stead. Do not disrespect player by forcing them into choices you have predetermined ESPECIALLY if you are than going to kick their balls in for the very same choices made by you. Narrative is tool not an end point, the game is here not for its own sake but to please the player you can create amazing things within those rules it just takes time, effort and care.
Example – the “job” must always have a way around any railroad for player, no matter their statistics, but also leaning into their chosen path.
Say the techie can offer the Militech woman a way into Royce's HW, establishing shadow connection from close proximity hacking (via the hack into thingy),
or someone with high charisma (or cool I guess?) could sweet talk her into both date and helping out (would offer militech evac upon Yurinobu's betrayal),
high intelligence player could see the loop closing, in calling bug (sidenote: do Not have bugbear as another hacker NPC please its confusing) off to safety, having a helping hand later in game,
High body stats will allow player to physically shield chip from the shooting,
high reflexes will allow player to save Jackie from being shot.
You know just give me options based upon stats not a single way its always going to be. Hell high reflexes player should never be blind sided so neither Militech woman nor Dex should get to jump on them – at least have a reversal that will kick the enemy straight on their almighty arse, not dying or getting fucked because some limp dick (in case it was woman loose cunt) programmer could not be arsed or did not have time to make a proper game.
Example II shithouse bugaloo
Corpo job... actually lets roll a bit further back,
Corpo pathway in general: you will start with a personality test that will match you to an ideal corporation (you a killcrazy? Militech, you a ripe cunt? Arosaka, you a smartarse? Biotechnica etc.) each of which will have its focus in augmetations and tech access and will play a bit differently but all will allow you to manage team of either freelancer or stable team mates – why rely on singular person when you can send in oh I dunno half a dozen people each of which specialist in a field of their own. Hell there could easily be a mode of tactician where player wont even partake in the action itself, just manage the team remotely.
Building upon that the corpo job, you will be able to manage avoid ever getting onto thin ice with your corpo but even if it dose come to it you will be able to do whatever – in worst case scenario just grenade the fuckers rather than surrender the data (player will always have options no matter what your game wants do not ever jerk people about without jerking them off you jerks – game is here for players not for itself), but hey past experience will enable Jackie to intervene if your work relationship is good, or Afterlife contacts of yours could or (if you have no augments) you can just go good old fisticuffs.
Following that atrocity of a scene player will be permitted to accomplish the mission you met Jackie for (depending on how the agents were dealt with they may have to do so without their corpo support) and if successful you will either continue within your corp or have to swap to another, competing one – reputation talks.
These are handful of examples, I would have had multiple additional ways of playing the game such as:
Corpo whore would get access to all the goods – from hit squads to actual in field support team to bolster stats they are weak at. Perfect for someone who would play as pure human – no implants what so ever.
Streetkid would know the streets, have friends everywhere so if someone was being a problem they could either disappear or have random NPCs back them up. Or you know pull Vyvyan and fuck everyone up with a god damn bat.
Nomad would just run like wind I suppose? More likely they'd find place to hide out in solitude.
You should have full access to modification, from chrome body to replacing things to extent similar or surpassing that of malestrom, or as hinted above purely natural – the natural would be hadcore mode and malestrom tier modding easy if expensive.
Do not show loading splash screens show the travelling animation in stead.
Forcing player into role of passive audience is both incredibly disrespectful (meaning that you think players can not be trusted to do anything themselves and have to be treated like cattle) but game is not there to fap itself off it is made to entertain the audience. Treat your fucking audience with respect.
Hell the whole ending should be based upon what player did, like those fallout 1 and 2 outros but interactive. Say you did jobs for fixers and now they all owe you so you call upon them to help you in hour of need (if you do not have the chip or any HW in your body the urgency is impending Arosaka invasion).
Or if you make buddies with every gang in city you could have sickly flowery ending of everyone coming together at Nomad camp – Rhyno would put in good word and get animals involved and either Dum Dum or Royce (if player gets them on their side) Malestrom fixing up the tank, Valentinos organising multi tier defences, all but the na++i american patriots offcourse those would be the night's distraction – something to test the improved tank upon. Maybe have Ozob come along why not. Most of the gangs will be there to poach some awesome tech, some (animals, Valentinos) might also want to have a good fight for fun.
Or if you are still in corpo you could just gather their high grade HW and people for different take down of arosaka.
If you fuck up to point of having no allies, you can allways go out with the Hatred way – nuke the fuck out of the towers (yeah I know its supposed to be Johnny's way).
Fucking hell if you play it right you could have the guy “stolen meds” mission be right there at the end with you, fighting the corpos he sees (correctly) as scum. That'd be good intelligence or cool and solid awareness of situation
get el Cesar to fund a boxing school for kids, to keep them off the streets as means of supporting his family in not so risky way and when you beat the boxing champ have him financially back that whole affair up.
You could make fun out of the fact that you have Johny Mnemonic and neo actor sometimes dammit, you completely wasted mr. ”you are amazing”.
More annoying things:
ORGANISE ORGANISE ORGANISE!!!
if I go to inventory it is bad design result that I have to spend minute mousing over dozens of items before I find one that dose what I need. Alow players to use various auto collecting bags (food, drink, uppers (boosts), downers(stat procs), whatever), make the inventory organisable by some rules – rows, columns, aforementioned bags SOMETHING so that I wont have to spend time looking about for too long for whatever it is I feel like I want or need.
Maybe in the quest log allow for all categories to remain collapsed or opened, just as player left them when they close the quest log /shard thingy etc. (as mentioned before -leave that choice to play, and allow change of it at any time within the appropriate menu)
Parse the quests better – thematically or locale based connections should allways be next toone another irreverent of the quest's name – same problem I have with inventory realy I have to spend time looking through quests to find what I want and it just keeps getting worse as the crap is overwhelming, I often find myself picking up a quest line weeks later having no fucking clue what the fuck it was about because I simply do quests from top to bottom and can not be arsed to read up journals – either map or the Quest log.
Guys this is basic designing things to self-organise! You should have it down pat long before attempting something as extensive as this game.
The encyclopedia, shardpedia and whateverelsepedias could use type in word search, and contextual link through character listing (which ought to be features little more prominently, maybe reference the “would you like to know more” of starship troopers? It is after all about same core idea – governments fucking over people under guise of progress or doing the right thing). YES I realize that this very document is completely disorganised and I am being utter hypocrite in that respect.
In broad strokes each way should have different feel, that is the 3 main ways:
Corpo a punk sellout with mighty backing of seemingly indomitable monolithic monstrosity at their back and call. Punk in sense of treating others like asshole.
Point of this is not to make player feel like an asshat but lure them into being one by offering all sorts of candies and pretty things that they'd want. You could make whole game an extensive psychological test with allure here bribe there, silly little vanity stuff over there... and than make player see how it afflicts the not so well of NPCs – help them understand weather they do or not empathize is entirely player choice however, you are not here to reform any soul-less businessmen or politicians (you know thives that we for some reason let rule over people?) you are here to point out hypocrisy in all of it, that is the nature of punk – sold out or not it should still do that one thing better than anything smack everyone's bullshit views right in their face and let the receiver of said smacking pick up the pieces.
Street Kid would be your Vyvyan ( Or you can think Hiei of YuYu Hakusho for the nature of the beast, not the most punk character there there offcourse but the point is his main thing is combat in show about combat) – complete nutter who goes around beating the fuck out of everyone because of both internal fire and some messed up loyalty. combat being their main means of expressing themselves.
Nomad – I do not have nor do I want anything or anyone, I shall go my way weather you stand in it or not, if you do I will break right through you. Like the wind howling this uragan of punk will keep on fighting for whatever twisted thing they believe in. most likely a survivalist style play – sometimes hide and seek, sometimes just overwhelming power – like a car crashing into the mission, taking out the main target outright (remember the GTA vice City mission where you are supposed to kill the chef? Well you could crash PCJ600 into him and game will allow that even get right to cutscene after beating him up as opposed to showing the “who are you” part THAT is the spirit I am thinking of) and never relent.
The damned – basically a burnout, you have fought for punk and lost. Your band has all sold out and you are only one still holding on to the ideal of keeping the fighting going on. Game starts you off as homeless with no weapon you'll have to rely on your own wit your own resourcefulness and maybe some crafting skills if need be. Your arch here will be to take vengeance upon those whom betrayed you before game started in similar manner to Count Mt. Christo (the specific one I am thinking about is the Depardieu, the poinient scene is when he cuts down 3 candles in one swing and names his adversaries stating the end goal of his mission – you will be known to your enemies, they are likely to see you coming. Make sure you wont be stopped). Hell if you want you can have this be the cyberpsycho aftermath story line – you were triggered and stopped, you were rescues by that mysterious collective and now are on path of redemption. Likely entirely opposite to the next way of playing but also combinable with most other ways.
The natural (no not Dustin Rhodes) – you have no augments, this is the hardcore mode, whilst it dose not have exactly its own story arch you will not start with augments (and getting any will end the path of hardcore) mode where player will be tested to their utmost limits, where any melee combat player ends up in will risk fatality, where you have to use this antique plastic card as opposed to finger gun to pay. You can get glasses for UI, that aint augment, you can get clever suit for protection but you may not cut into your flash, you wont have personal datalink nor holo, you will have to rely upon external gadgetry for most hacking if you want to go down that route. Only advantage is that you wont be hackable. First natural run should be done via corpo because you need to grasp it first, it wont be mandated (hey you want balls busted? Your own choice asshole) but it will be warned about.
Tasks
Fuck why not have more missions with Ozob? Maybe we could become his Nualk or Retsej you know just no Niuqelra. It'd be really fun to have longer followup on some more colourful characters. Something like you did for Judy or Claire is about right.
And Mr. Hands, hell even treacherous fuck like Dexter could have bunch of crap for us to do before (in my version gets shit pushed in for trying to fuck with V – always have to have a way out never railway). Damn I wish there was something to do with them, even if it'd just be another racing series (for motorbikes maybe?) or fight night or swimming contest or bloody challenge pissing I dont know.
CONSISTENCY!
El captain dose have introductory monologue talking how he eats, breathes and sleeps biz but when you meet him he claims to dislike that word, says its hard honest work. I like the second one – give more bereth to different way to talk about things, so maybe have more consistency in between dialogues. Polish the damn game Polish .P
SCRAPS and general thoughts
throwing knife and appearance there of
Can the throwing knife have far more distinct look from the kitchen knife? (like just colour the hilt of kitchen knife into wooden colours guys come on) leading into having to make things just far more distinct on first glance (probably not things discussed earlier that'd be parsed into different categories) if I am in rush of combat but need to equip knife so that I can say it is knife to meet them, by throwing him one right into his forehead I do not want to be in situation when I rush through inventory to equip something* only to not be able to greet my enemy poiniently at instance as the thing I equipped in rather hasty manner is NOT the thing I thought I had.. (solutions I can think of: again organize things into groups, the distinctive looks would help, and obviously auto equiping next throwing knife even if of lesser grade. This shit is already in the game with grenades too so why it was not applied to knives is just … unPolished.)
Sound:
Often times, especially in combat, sound seem to bug or lag or something – technically messing with one of my senses. Now I realize that might just be my shitty on MB sound “card” but if it happens to be more than that I thought i'd mention it.
Clarity of progression:
it would be immensely helpful if there was clearly stated progression with each of the Fixers (and especially whenever I am about to take up mission that will decrease rep with one) ASSUMING there even is such a thing (and there ought to be, higher grade missions unlocking has ben hinted at by Jackie in the prologue.
See it is nice making buddies in game right? So why not have missions do more things like that reporter squatting at Regina's, maybe involve them deeper – more independent news from him would upsetting the channel 52 News's monolithic grasp on city's status. And every such upgrade to each fixer (sometimes its people, sometimes its tech, sometimes its dildos or food or what-fucking-ever they want or need for any reason) would improve relationship with play do it in 3-5 steps (using the logic of star wars Jedi knight dark forces II for 5 step upgrades and JKA/JKO for 3 – cause they are lesser .P) ultimately setting up the finale I mentioned above.
Same mechanic for gangs really – big event heist or fights offered by certain people would come a long way. Hell I want the roller-coaster fixing ppl to start actually running that park out of Pacifica, turn the place into bustling hub of entertainment (if there are multiple steps to putting up park player might actually prop up local economy and build the damned place into hobo powerhouse of commerce...i guess at that point it wont be hobo but I hope you get what I mean) – provided player helps them, if not it will remain as is.
Ah obviously I want more of Mr. Hands, get really handy missions or work with him hand in hand or something .P Pacifica feels dead without fixers and I do want that flowery ending, hell I want the option to go full Hatered (or Johny Silverhand) up on the ending – just fucking nuke the Arosaka again, and hit every single goddamn thing they have tin the city oo for good measure! Burn the city to the ground if need be!!! (ok sorry I have this vision of standing on a random rooftop – the misty's Jackie spot?) whilst everything in sight is on fire, rising a glass to toast the toast that was city triumphantly, or staring in awe “how could we have done this?” v asking Johny. if need be as option. Again giving player massive variety of what they can do should make them feel far more appreciated.
(add after few sessions on up to date game: beast in me still says wait a day even if it awaits some other trigger can you fix that somehow please? i have seen "do other stuff until X is ready before as immersion breaking as that is it is better than outright lie)
Beat on Brat
Winning fight with el César but letting him keep the car dose still result in conversation (text after final fight) where it sounds as tho V kept the car, which is not the case - can not even call it. (happens even when I specifically avoid getting in the car)
Gameplay Flares:
In heated moments you could have V have an audible reaction. Specifically I mean when I go on rampage with melee weapon, or like mantis blades, limbs heads and torsos flying everywhere V could scream or laugh or something (if you ever played Evil Genius there was this henchman, some mad doctor who had amazing quote “slice them, dice them, chop them up (laughter)” that'd be the idea here just maybe more animalistic concise, less of a spoken thing and more an outburst of pent up energy to go along the with the shower of blood (hell you could go for player can also get cyberpsychosis if they do this often storyline option). I have not mastered monowire (still waiting for at least stereo or maybe quadrophonic), so I mostly rely on blades or bladed weaponry.
Idle animations are vastly underutilised so I think some tinkering with each weapon could be nice, or you know that thing Postal 2 mod and postal 4 dose with a shotgun reload (under catnip in latter's case). Moment to moment gameplay should be fun even if player is not doing much. Dose not have to be every bloody moment obviously but hey if I afk for WC or something I would not mind occasionally catching random funny animation or something.
The whole city appears to be besieged by trash (in both human and more baggy variant) would it be possible to have entirely clean and damn near clinical part of city? Something like high end corpo plaza with restricted access – player would go through it with that mission for would be mayor whose mind is being played with by some wierdos in a van (dont recall the mission name but you get to follow a van after tearing through their appartement and finding out full on surveillance central, than follow cables on roof and kinda look where that dish I pointing to (ping? I dont recall)) , and likely his wife.
Some waterfront activities for NPCs to do would be nice, and maybe have player partake in few of those. Something like surfing, swimming water seems rather like wasted space as it is. People however love water so even if it is just sitting by it or being boat passenger or SOMETHING should be done with it no? Otherwise its just a ditch thats wet inconveniently. Yes last two entries are basically asking for same thing – more variety.
When working for a fixer some continuity might be nice, as example: as I write this I do Dakota's missions, right? I just wiped the god damn entire base of militech, because fuck militech, let noone live, even burn their goddamn drones (but do it stealthy like without being detected and save Bruce Welby, no civvies hurt). But than do the wraith thing (BIG Pete) and go out of my way to just knock them all out, do not even kill Pete, should result in unique line of dialogue or something. In fact these are things that ought to build up for finale – choices like who lives and who snuffs it. Build up this network of allies and enemies via gameplay rather than event missions – sure someone like Ozob wont be much help during finale but it would be nice to see him there, for fun and maybe he would be the one taking down the fucknut (Smasher) if we were to go with my imbecilic idea of all together against Arosaka way – which notably is not only one that should be avalable.
Please make an name generator, even if it results in “Human McHumanface the 3rd” it will be better than “NC resident” or “an animal” or something generic like that. Is it not purpose of the Kiroshi ID scanner to have that kind of in-depth nonsense with completely silly things (Matt Facts come to mind of Matt Hardy) or random facts that bare no useful information but could prove good building block to establish just what kind of ppl live in the city... and what they tell of each other as those facts would have to be written down by NCPD based upon SOMEONE complaining.
This is chiefly about cyberpsycho, but should be a general rule – if I am on a mission and need to chat up fixer (as integral part of mission) or whoever via holo than dont make me have to use text, allow choice to call and have NPC the option in dialogue (yes I know so much more dubbing this way but its important to allow choices for player, and given that the mission was began via one such convo the bookend ought to be there too or at least be an option.
STYLE
There ought to be shop based styles of attire – say asian themed (Kabuki and around) ought to sell very traditional or completely mental anime style outfits,
Heywood, domingo would have street thug style clothes,
any kind of waterfront or high end area (ex.: City Centre) would have high grade corpo slick threads (suits, casual satin, even things that look like there is no seam, i'd love that),
Badlands would have very utilitarian “outdoorsy” stuff,
Pacifica and some parts of Kabuki should lean towards those transparent and illuminated clothings (possibly inspired by blade runner),
That is those would be in shops not just on NPCs, all of them would have basically comparable stats tho so as to permit player to choose their appearance rather than look like doggie and pussycat's cooking endeavour or the outcome of trying to eat it rather.
Vehicles should be customisable in terms of visuals at least (yeah yeah i'd love the game to include hot rod (think it was 92 or something racing game) level of customisation but that aint happening so at least paint jobs please?)
I'd like to have my character's dick flapping about on the bike or wherever if I got bottomless (similarly when its a pussy) just cause it sounds like dumb fun thing you can have in game with minimum effort. bedsides you could let people literary piss about... uhm no I dont know why I am trying to make cyberpunk into postal game .P
And for fuck's sake “statics” is the least creative way to refer to static nomad. “Oasis”, “Harbor”, “haven” should be how they call the place and the unmoving nomad something like caretaker or Ibihara (fort Boyard reference, and I suppose it may mean something in French).
Yes i am that bad at grammar and no i wont apologize for language usage - either take full bereath of it or grow thicker skin.
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