We had a huuuuge one of these around, but much of what we debated or wondered about (perspective, hand to hand in or not, driving in or not, which stats are in) has now been answered.
Much has not!
Thus, I present the 2020 Game Not Out Yet Dammit Gameplay Fi...Discussion Thread. V II!
"Since everyone regardless of build can talk to NPCs, and you want to maximize the amount of stuff you experience (not to mention probably speed up the game), charisma would become a "must pick". Usually it also gives discounts when you are buying stuff. "
That's sometimes Charisma, sometimes haggle or finances or whatever. Depends on granularity. In 2020, it's Streetwise.
I don't want to maximise the amount of stuff I experience in one playthrough, though, and CDPR doesn't want you to either. Thus the different Roles and play styles. You cannot go both non-lethal and lethal. You cannot both be a super hacker and a super Solo. Presumably? Maybe you can! For sure you cannot pick all endings and all plot twists.
Typically, they want you to make choices that affect your gameplay. They've just been funny about social role-playing. Highlighting the plot choice, not bothering with social skills.
"EDIT: I suppose it depends on whether or not "social interaction" acts as a problem solution like it does in VtMB. In there, persuasion is one possible way to get access to stuff (others being combat and sneaking) "
Since they have sneaking and combat and hacking and who knows what else, I suspect they aren't going to include social skill challenges. It's really too bad, but I have a small feeling that conversation is mostly a way for you to choose what happens as opposed to your character abilities affecting what you -can- choose.
Typically, they want you to make choices that affect your gameplay. They've just been funny about social role-playing. Highlighting the plot choice, not bothering with social skills.
Charisma is definitely a thing that some people have and some don't ... but cant that be fairly well reflected in dialogue choices without a specific charisma skill? If you've been a more sociable character, and struck up lots of conversations, you can get additional (and more persuasive) dialogue options that way since you have more information. And people who are charismatic in one setting are definitely not in some others. So the leaning on other skills in dialogue options as a sometimes substitute makes some sense.
Finally, I kinda liked in L.A. Noire and Detroit Become Haman's interrogation systems where sometimes it was up to the player to figure out for themselves the " most persuasive" way to say it/ask it in order to get the "best" result. I get that this leans a bit further towards the player's ability than the characters than some people prefer ... but the results were pretty good in the hands of companies that can do branching narratives well (which CDPR has shown it can) from both a gameplay and narrative perspective.
I think it could be really good if CDPR tried to blend character and player abilities in determining how persuasive V can be.
Before worrying about a digital genitalia, I'd be more concerned about the lack of any social skill. In the Deep Dive video the only perks were based around combat.
V social skills will be at V social skills levels and that's it.
You'll just have access to knowledge, so you may customize "what" V have to say despite being unable to customise "How".
I also agree that lack of a "charisma" skill is a good thing. Charisma skill would become more or less required regardless of your build, if one existed. Any type of character can talk to NPCs...
Charisma is not just about what is said, but also how it is said.
That's really the point of charisma checks (when it is actually checked and affects the NPC disposition). An uncharismatic brute with a lisp saying the same line as a flashy hustler will undoubtly have lesser chances to getting a favorable result even if the lines that are spoken are verbatim, word to word and syllable to syllable.
That is where charisma is concerned. That brute is far more indtimidating than the hustler and that's the area where he shines.
As I've been saying for some time (beating a dead horse?) several of the game mechanics choices CDPR made make it crystal clear what CP2077, as a game (as opposed to advertising speak), emphasizes, and it's not the "character".
While it's clearly possible to divorce character stats/skills from a games social, and combat (via FPS mechanics) interactions from the avatar (I use the word "avatar" because the "character" merely represents the player, it has no "life" of it's own) such a game isn't an RPG. The PLAYER makes decisions, the game code determines the results. Regardless of what stats you give your avatar to improve this or that method of combat, regardless of what combat improvement perks you select, your avatar is exactly the same as every other players when it comes to social interaction.
The illusion of an RPG without actually being one.
Playing a role by definition involves player input. This is why DMs in PnPs give advantage in lots of games for rolls when a player has come up with just a really great idea. There's still some mechanical stuff in there but I see DMs reward creative players all the time ... which is not about the character at all. So no, it's not just the character with no player input. Thus the player can make decisions and it still be an RPG. I mean, any game with choice has to involve the player.
It's all about striking the right balance between the player's influence and the character's influence to allow for character development, freedom of gameplay and high quality narrative. Can that be done without a specific charisma/social stat for a character? I think it can yes. Will it in this game? We don't know yet ... but based on the dialogue we have seen in the demos, I remain hopeful that the end result will be satisfying.
Of course typically I disagree with Su, ( mostly because, as -I- repeatedly point out, your real life skills and talents tremendously affect your PnP experience - more charming, on the ball wittier players get a lot more play time and do a lot better than others, so there was never a world where -you- aren't massively affecting your character success), but in this case I think she has a point.
Certain..balance...is necessary to provide a sense of role-play. My character has to be able to do things I cannot, and vice versa. This is easy to do for shootin' and fightin', but for other things, unless I see a compromise between skills I can and cannot have, it seems very silly that I am both a low-Empathy hardcase and also as charming and witty as I, Sard, choose to be in dialogue. While being able to drive a bike like a demon and sleep with beautiful people because I save-scummed or guessed at the right dialogue choices.
It's just so...Mary Sue, to borrow that tired trope of overpowered characters. I get that they will balance Super Hacker with Super Fighter, sure.
But social skills are a very very real thing and deserve as much attention in terms of mechanics as does the ability to dual-wield machineguns. You have to (presumably) earn that dual-wielding MGs skill, so you should have to -earn- the Charm Your Way In The Front Gate skill just the same.
I personally think that social ways of dealing with situations should have more of an emphasis than combat. So that's absolutely a fair point. I just think doing it all under a charisma/persuasion skill is unnecessary, and frankly a little bit boring.
Furthermore, I've never played a game that came up with a satisfying & purely mechanical way to make it work without relying on the player picking a more persuasive option by actually listening to the NPCs they're talking to and using social ques themselves to sus out what a successful option is likely to be.
Hoy,
I think both ways are right. RPG just means "role-playing game" and not "how" it should be roleplayed
There are multiple standardized rulesets and players even make their custom ones.
Somewhen for fun or just because of it fits them more for whatever reasons.
As we saw in the demo, there were both background dependant and independent dialogue options.
I guess that as well as in Wither 3, there may be some "checks" e.g. for clothing/appearance, health status, and more...
So, that's really it, isn't it?
Combination of both background, individual player's V development as well as some globally available options.
Playing a role by definition involves player input. This is why DMs in PnPs give advantage in lots of games for roles when a player has come up with just a really great idea. There's still some mechanical stuff in there but I see DMs reward creative players all the time ... which is not about the character at all. So no, it's not just the character with no player input. Thus the player can make decisions and it still be an RPG. I mean, any game with choice has to involve the player.
When I ceased to be a newbie GM, one of the things I made crystal clear to my players is that they were playing their characters, not themselves, meaning that I would let them roll their dices if they were not on par with their characters and that if they were much better then character at something yet did not limit themselves than would be bad character interpretation, with can means experience loss if it ends up spoiling the game for either other players or myself.
And in the end all players roll dices and interpretation in only here for fun.
And every player minus one that I played with and which are GMs too adopted that rules too.
Far less optimisation and a lot more fun now by the way, and people still makes efforts not in a mean of optimisation but just for fun.
So in the end it's up to the GM if they want to see players put all their experience in combats and speak their way out of social situations or if they want players to actually play the character they created.
I think no one say it forcibly have to pass by that.
You could use skills to actually makes things harder/easier based on real life, like:
-Giving the ability to understand who is in front of you, kinda knowing what their reactions to what you wants to say will be, if they lies, etc... Like a mentalist.
-Social "Health Bar" which let do a certain number of mistakes without ending dialogue. Like that super handsome guy who can say a lots more stupid things while trying to seduce a woman before that woman shut him than average joe would.
-Having a number of answers depending on you social ability: the better you are the less bad answers appears.
And so on...
Nope. A player can absolutely come up with creative solutions that is consistent character and it should be rewarded, but it's still the players idea. To pretend the character came up with it and like your rewarding the character is ... inaccurate IMO. The player and the character are not in conflict with each other the vaaaaaast majority of the time. To dogmatically say a players good idea should not be rewarded with advantage is not a way I would want to play a game. Incentivizing creativity leads to much more fun games IMO ... which is kinda the point. Now sure, if the player is like "I know X (even though my character doesn't) and therefore I'm going to do Y" then yes punish away. But when my bard player starts singing a legit good song in the middle of a session, that guy/gal is getting an extra d20 on that performance roll.
Similarly, I think that allowing the player some responsibility in making choices in a cRPG is a legitimate and even desirable design choice. Hiding all the flavor behind mechanics does not make for an intuitive social experience at all, and as I've said before, makes it feel like the NPCs are having massive mood swings based on nothing but invisible numbers. Because we hear/see the player say the same thing, and get wildly different results based on nothing we see but rather have to head canon. So by all means, reward the player who notices that NPC X isnt making eye contact, reward the player who notices that the NPC is jumpy and likely to respond easily to intimidation, etc etc.
