Middle of nowhere, full of Cars?

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Why are cars in the distance in certain places, such as these, even though these places are in nowhere and even have little traffic?
(You can also see them spawning and despawning...)


Patch 1.2 on Xbox Series S.
 
This was the same on earlier Patches an even the Release in December (PC-Version), but especially in the deserted Outlands, such dense Traffic looks really "crazy"... Lot of Work and "Polishing" has still to be done here...
 
This was the same on earlier Patches an even the Release in December (PC-Version), but especially in the deserted Outlands, such dense Traffic looks really "crazy"... Lot of Work and "Polishing" has still to be done here...
That's right, it looks so unrealistic somehow..
 
Why are cars in the distance in certain places, such as these, even though these places are in nowhere and even have little traffic?
(You can also see them spawning and despawning...)


Patch 1.2 on Xbox Series S.
I experienced this on PC (gog version) also. Including in version 1.2 - in fact one of racing videos i posted just yesterday has a variant of this bug happening: a car appears outta thin air right in front of my Caliburn going 200+ on some desert road, then despawns about a second later right before i'd hit it. Messy.

As for "why" - the answer is simple: it's a bug. Perhaps you did not know, but this game has many, many bugs, overall. Bad news are, while hundreds are fixed by 1.2 - hundreds more are not yet. Good news are, remaining ones are almost never game-breaking (as in, you can still play despite those bugs).

More bad news are, CDPR official position regarding fixing non-game-breaking bugs - presumably is "oh well it ain't a priority" or somesuch, as one can figure out based on this report from december 2020 urgent meeting with CDPR investors - quote (my bold):

"The investor asks what the developers intend to do to fix the game on the previous generation consoles. CDPR responds that there won't be any changes in graphics or gameplay: for now, their main goal is simply to make Cyberpunk 2077 playable on PS4 and Xbox One from start to finish without crashes".

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1091500/discussions/0/2988665684345905124/ .

Thus, it's not clear when, and even if, this particular bug would be fixed...
 
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That's the same on all versions of the game. I'm on Series X and it still happens. If i could snap my fingers and magically fix one thing about the game, it would be this one. It's so jarring to watch those 2D sprites of cars in the distance, i honestly refuse to believe CDPR failed to come up with a more elegant way to simulate traffic without compromising performance too much.

It's actually the case with NPCs too. Just climb somewhere high in the Badlands and then point your view to the Sunset Motel: zoom in and you'll notice a myriad of little 2D people bustling like the Motel was an ant colony where a rave party is taking place.

On a side note, did you notice those lamp posts floating mid-air in the video? It happens with traffic lights too. I recently sent a support ticket to the Support Team about this, to which they simply replied, "Go into Settings and clear the cache". A bit disheartening, if you ask me. This in my mind translates like, "it's really not a bug so we're not going to fix it". :/ I hope i'm wrong, because every time i go to Sunset Motel, those flying lamp posts immediately pull me out of immersion...
 
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It's not actually a bug it's a "design feature". It was designed that as you drive in a city, you see the clog of vehicles making the city seem "vibrant and alive".

The bug is that they never blocked it from the badlands but made it game wide. Well not a bug but [...] a game designers decision.

So the ironic thing is, it was designed to make Night CIty seem more vibrant, but due to the way that Night CIty is laid out with all it's curves and hills and such, you'll almost never see or notice it. But in the badlands, where it's not supposed to be, it's all over the place.
 
Why are cars in the distance in certain places, such as these, even though these places are in nowhere and even have little traffic?
(You can also see them spawning and despawning...)

Because they are faking the draw distance, just like they are faking many other things.

For example they are faking racing AI by having the NPC cars repeatedly teleport behind you instead of actually "driving".
 

"MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, FULL OF CARS?"

Supposedly to complete the picture with the 3D cars driving in front of you. It's the same with pedestrians too.
 
I have been moding games for several decades, based on my observations almost all the ROADs have a sub program connected to them to produce the cars. Their tool for laying out the road includes this code. The same way I believe the tool for layout building geometry also has integrated code for the Parkour.

This was one of their strategies to get such a massive amount of work done efficiently. Rather than layout all the building geometry and THEN go back over the entire thing to lay out grip points (as was done in older games) for the Parkour. I believe the same basic strategy was used in the road layout tool for spawning the cars.

I was deep in the badland mountains and saw in the distance a few car taillights heading up the mountains. I was excited because I did not see a town on my map for that area. but when I got there I only found an old abandoned dilapidated road that just led to a dead end. So I find it hard to believe one of their DEV went thru the trouble of laying out the special dilapidated road and THEN said to themselves; "mmmmm I should put a bunch of cars on here as well" then got out a separate tool for laying out a traffic egress grid on the road up to the dead end. ;)

I also noted that there were NO cars on the road where as before from a distance it look like at leas 4 or 6 at a time driving up it. So the code has some condition checks to test how far away you are. That I guess is obvious. Too bad there were not also "area" condition checks or some flag that the DEV could tell the code that the road is rarely used.

I do find it humorous how many cars are out and about in the miles and miles of miles and miles in the Desert areas. I lived in such an area for many years and if not on a major street to get to the next town, I would be surprised (and a little suspicious ) when ever you saw a car drive by on the minor roads. :D
 
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As forum user I've been vocal about it since day 1 I've bought game, it doesn't work as it should : Badlands. It's ok for Night City, but outside it's breaking visuals of game. They didn't adress it in 1.2. You can find even one place in Rocky Ridge, when it spawns these 2D models infront of you.
Traffic system is something they should really work on.
 
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