50 hours as a netrunner, just don't

[lobsterboss]

So after 50 hours I have decided to just start over, long story short doing a netrunner/stealth run is a huge disservice to yourself. There is no satisfaction, it is very overpowered even on the hardest difficulty mainly because of the enemy AI and the gameplay mechanics surrounding netrunning/stealth. There needs to be a complete rework of the mechanics to make it exciting in my opinion.

So a rundown on how a typical gig works as a netrunner, ping the closest connected device to highlight all enemies in the site, mark all of them, use breach protocol solely to reduce the cost of a quickhack so that the whole thing goes faster optionally go for the reduced resists as well and If they have cameras enjoy sitting outside the site to just "snipe" enemies with short circuit which does the most damage and usually one shots most enemies with the correct perks. Then you enter the site to execute all the enemies for more xp/street cred since apparently executing defenseless people warrants more street cred (on another note shouldn't street cred go both ways so that the corps want to get rid of me if I disrupt their plans to much), loot the place and finally complete the mission without ever having been in any danger at all.

That is how it goes from common cyberdecks to legendary ones, only two missions forced me into combat so far and that was through cinematics otherwise when using the above technique there is no danger from opposing netrunners, they don't seem to be aware that you are just killing everyone. Any enemies that are on site don't care that you are killing everyone, they do this little search radius around the killed enemy but since there is no "alertness", no search protocols, no trying to find the enemy netrunner you are never in any actual danger through the whole thing. I really expected something else as a netrunner.

What I was hoping for was infiltrating the subnet, while avoiding getting tracked down by opposing netrunners, if the netrunner found me perhaps they boot me off the subnet, upload malware, ping my location to everyone. If I force my way into the subnet somehow at least the enemies should get alerted that they are being attacked unless I can do so stealthily without alerting the enemy netrunner. I also really hoped for something more from trying to breach the subnet, right now it is only in place to place debuffs on enemies and buffs for yourself. Don't they put up firewalls, ICE, tracing daemons, disrupting malware and what not on their subnet, all of them are just wide open for anyone to abuse.

And since I'm just ranting now I really think they dropped the ball on this one, they added so much content to explore most of which I found to be good or great except for the delamain line because it keeps interrupting other quests with all the calls I keep getting from him. But the actual mechanics in the game are lacking which is sad. My suggestions on netrunning would be a complete rework. In my opinion you should have to work to breach the subnet, you would have to do it stealthily without alerting the enemies and you would have to be tactful to kill the enemy netrunner to finally gain complete control of the subnet then and only then I would feel satisfaction from being able to quickhack my way to victory without physical danger. If I fail the enemies should get as I do get pinged on my location and bumrush me, I am a netrunner not a samurai. And if someone finds a body shouldn't they start a search, alert everyone, call reinforcements, tighten security, place up mobile turrets, mines, activate search drones or whatever else they have handy because right now they are all acting quite stupid frankly.

 

[Gregorian_1738]

My man Skill Up went down the entire Crafting Tree, called it the Biggest Mistake Ever.

 

[casbyness]

My version of V spent the entire game running around with a large hammer, one-shotting every enemy in sight. There were only a handful of battles when I had to pull out a ranged weapon to take out a drone gun or out-of-reach sniper.

Never bothered with any of the hacking or other techy stuff.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

So after 50 hours I have decided to just start over, long story short doing a netrunner/stealth run is a huge disservice to yourself. There is no satisfaction, it is very overpowered even on the hardest difficulty mainly because of the enemy AI and the gameplay mechanics surrounding netrunning/stealth. There needs to be a complete rework of the mechanics to make it exciting in my opinion.

So a rundown on how a typical gig works as a netrunner, ping the closest connected device to highlight all enemies in the site, mark all of them, use breach protocol solely to reduce the cost of a quickhack so that the whole thing goes faster optionally go for the reduced resists as well and If they have cameras enjoy sitting outside the site to just "snipe" enemies with short circuit which does the most damage and usually one shots most enemies with the correct perks. Then you enter the site to execute all the enemies for more xp/street cred since apparently executing defenseless people warrants more street cred (on another note shouldn't street cred go both ways so that the corps want to get rid of me if I disrupt their plans to much), loot the place and finally complete the mission without ever having been in any danger at all.

That is how it goes from common cyberdecks to legendary ones, only two missions forced me into combat so far and that was through cinematics otherwise when using the above technique there is no danger from opposing netrunners, they don't seem to be aware that you are just killing everyone. Any enemies that are on site don't care that you are killing everyone, they do this little search radius around the killed enemy but since there is no "alertness", no search protocols, no trying to find the enemy netrunner you are never in any actual danger through the whole thing. I really expected something else as a netrunner.

What I was hoping for was infiltrating the subnet, while avoiding getting tracked down by opposing netrunners, if the netrunner found me perhaps they boot me off the subnet, upload malware, ping my location to everyone. If I force my way into the subnet somehow at least the enemies should get alerted that they are being attacked unless I can do so stealthily without alerting the enemy netrunner. I also really hoped for something more from trying to breach the subnet, right now it is only in place to place debuffs on enemies and buffs for yourself. Don't they put up firewalls, ICE, tracing daemons, disrupting malware and what not on their subnet, all of them are just wide open for anyone to abuse.

And since I'm just ranting now I really think they dropped the ball on this one, they added so much content to explore most of which I found to be good or great except for the delamain line because it keeps interrupting other quests with all the calls I keep getting from him. But the actual mechanics in the game are lacking which is sad. My suggestions on netrunning would be a complete rework. In my opinion you should have to work to breach the subnet, you would have to do it stealthily without alerting the enemies and you would have to be tactful to kill the enemy netrunner to finally gain complete control of the subnet then and only then I would feel satisfaction from being able to quickhack my way to victory without physical danger. If I fail the enemies should get as I do get pinged on my location and bumrush me, I am a netrunner not a samurai. And if someone finds a body shouldn't they start a search, alert everyone, call reinforcements, tighten security, place up mobile turrets, mines, activate search drones or whatever else they have handy because right now they are all acting quite stupid frankly.

How far did you get in the main story? Are you sure this is how it is for all the game?

 

[EMT-Fields]

Yeah, I'm playing netrunner as well. This is 100% truth. Though I'm also specced into reflex with high handgun stat, so when I get bored I start running and gunning with my pistol.

 

[Prae255]

Ayup. Breach, ping and moments later sparks are flying, grenades are exploding, people are vomiting or on fire.
It would've been a bit more engaging if you were forced to sneak up to enemies to connect with their network.

Posted this vid in another thread and that was also the vid that made me decide to play a hacker build.
Starts at the 5 minute mark and they do clearly state that it's a Work in Progress feature.

 

[AdamTaylor]

Short Circuit and Contagion make the game a joke. lol
Ping something, breach them (often making them weaker to your quickhacks) and drop Contagion and watch them all drop like dominos.

I'd started off doing stealth the classic way, with a silenced pistol and hiding bodies. Sneaking around, disabling cameras, all of it... now... just murder the area from a mile away and stroll in like you own the place.

 

[lobsterboss]

Oh and I don't know if it works on other bosses because I was to low level to use suicide at that time but they do work on the cyberpsychos questline and apparently survive shooting themselves in the head so they clear the mission as well, easy and quick win.

 

[Hudatyebam]

I get what the OP is saying about wanting netrunning to be more in depth but if you fully spec into a skill line you should be powerful. I haven't taken any of the damage perks in intel yet and my quickhacks just tickle the enemies even in easy encounters.

 

[Vohira]

I like it, but that just me liking my characters feeling overpowered and one shooting everything - that's what I aim for any character in a game. And while I get it, the wanting enemy netrunners to counter you, I would expect perks/daemons to counter even that in the end.

 

[HellKnightX88]

It can get boring, yes, but you could just make it more interesting for yourself by actually fighting people. Netrunning doesn't need to be all about sitting in a corner or on cameras spamming quickhacks.

 

[Hudatyebam]

It can get boring, yes, but you could just make it more interesting for yourself by actually fighting people. Netrunning doesn't need to be all about sitting in a corner or on cameras spamming quickhacks.

Yeah, even though my damage quickhacks don't hit that hard the utility of netrunning is really useful and I use it in some way or another on every encounter be it turning off cameras, distracting or rooting/blinding/resetting an enemy.

Feels badass slowing down time to toss out a quickhack while I'm in the middle of a gun fight

 

[ottffss1]

Yeah game balance is a bit strange .... to say the least.

 

[alphamachina]

The main thing that I come away from this whole thing with is that CDPR didn't balance their marketing and hype machine properly with the development of their game. They spent so much money on marketing, blowing this thing up as the game of the century, as some masterstroke of cutting edge game development and storytelling, but they failed in the end to put their money where their mouth is. And after riding on their every word for 7 years, I'm left feeling rather displeased with the outcome.

So many of the core aspects of this game are pointless and/or broken in fundamental ways due to poor implementation. The ecosystem falls apart the moment you begin to scrutinize it on a whole. It's like, instead of a well-crafted, finely tuned and balanced body of work, the various systems are fighting one another for dominance. And, unfortunately, the crafting and upgrade systems lost that fight.

Crafting is essentially made pointless by the weapons, combat and loot systems.

Combat and Weapons: You can play the game on Hard difficulty with common, white weapons and get by just fine. The enemies are idiots, so you can just blast them away, doesn't really matter what quality weapon you use.

Loot: This is compounded by the fact that weapons drop like candy, constantly. So you always have an overabundance of weapons to choose from, further delegitimizing the usefulness of the crafting system.

Crafting: Someone at CDPR thought it a good idea (for some odd reason) to make crafting materials so out of reach throughout the game that it renders itself worthless. You literally have to dismantle higher tier weapons in order to craft lesser one's. It's utterly ridiculous. I can't even fathom the thought process behind the implementation of these systems together in the same game.

Together, these things don't function like they're supposed to. It's like they didn't even bother TRYING to make the crafting system function with the rest of the game. It feels like it was slapped on there last minute just so they could say, "Look! We have crafting!"

Actually, now that I think about it, everything about this game, other than the main storyline, feels like exactly that. Like they slapped it on last minute just to flesh the game out. I feel like the vast majority of the content we're seeing in this game outside of the main story were developed during crunch over the past year 1/2, maybe two years. This is NOT a game that's been worked on fluidly and properly for 5-6 years. What happened, and CDPR has already alluded to this, is that they spent a lot of manpower, hours, months and probably even years, working on content that was eventually scrapped and thrown out due to being too ambitious for them to finish it by 2020. Essentially, they spent most of their development time creating and scrapping ideas out of fear of not finishing the game within their timeline.

They screwed this game, and therefore the players, out of being a masterpiece because they were beholden to their investors and wouldn't have made the 2020 release if they went "big and incredible and cutting edge" on development. So, what we've ended up with is a pretty great story wedged into the middle of a bunch of mediocre last minute crunch content.

It makes no sense whatsoever, and after rooting for CDPR and Cyberpunk 2077 for so long, that they'd think this is an acceptable thing to do after 7 years of near constant hype. If they'd spent a fraction of the time and money on the game that they spent on hyping and marketing it they might have released the masterpiece they advertised. This game isn't even close to being ready for prime time. It needed another year or two of development to be the "masterpiece" we've all been lead to believe it'd be, or at least another 6 months to be just an acceptable and mostly bug-free version of its current state, actually worthy of the 90/100 rating that critics gave it.

Overall, I want to love this game, because the setting is incredible. The idea, and even some of the implementation is amazing. But the textures look kinda like hot garbage, even on a high-end PC (like, 5 year old graphics) I assume because they tried to cater to last gen current gen and next gen graphics all in one game, essentially screwing themselves in the process, the core systems are a mess, the game is riddled with bugs, the AI is horrible and laughable in so many ways, the prologue's that are supposed to give this game such high replayability are entirely too short and unremarkable. The main storyline is entirely too short for such a massive title. It's just.. not the game we were told it was. CDPR created the myth of Cyberpunk 2077 being a masterpiece, and the game itself failed to live up to that. The journey getting here, waiting for this game, was more exciting than the game itself, and when that happens, you know you put too much effort into marketing and not enough where it counts.

I just hope, for their sake and ours, that they are able to fix at least 50% of these issues within the next few months (not very likely) because I really want to be able to enjoy this game at some point in the near future. But, I'm afraid they'd have to take Cyberpunk 2077 back to the drawing board to completely rework many of the core aspects of the game. I just don't see any of this being an easy fix.

All in all, they screwed up, big time.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

The main thing that I come away from this whole thing with is that CDPR didn't balance their marketing and hype machine properly with the development of their game. They spent so much money on marketing, blowing this thing up as the game of the century, as some masterstroke of cutting edge game development and storytelling, but they failed in the end to put their money where their mouth is. And after riding on their every word for 7 years, I'm left feeling rather displeased with the outcome.

So many of the core aspects of this game are pointless and/or broken in fundamental ways due to poor implementation. The ecosystem falls apart the moment you begin to scrutinize it on a whole. It's like, instead of a well-crafted, finely tuned and balanced body of work, the various systems are fighting one another for dominance. And, unfortunately, the crafting and upgrade systems lost that fight.

Crafting is essentially made pointless by the weapons, combat and loot systems.

Combat and Weapons: You can play the game on Hard difficulty with common, white weapons and get by just fine. The enemies are idiots, so you can just blast them away, doesn't really matter what quality weapon you use.

Loot: This is compounded by the fact that weapons drop like candy, constantly. So you always have an overabundance of weapons to choose from, further delegitimizing the usefulness of the crafting system.

Crafting: Someone at CDPR thought it a good idea (for some odd reason) to make crafting materials so out of reach throughout the game that it renders itself worthless. You literally have to dismantle higher tier weapons in order to craft lesser one's. It's utterly ridiculous. I can't even fathom the thought process behind the implementation of these systems together in the same game.

Together, these things don't function like they're supposed to. It's like they didn't even bother TRYING to make the crafting system function with the rest of the game. It feels like it was slapped on there last minute just so they could say, "Look! We have crafting!"

Actually, now that I think about it, everything about this game, other than the main storyline, feels like exactly that. Like they slapped it on last minute just to flesh the game out. I feel like the vast majority of the content we're seeing in this game outside of the main story were developed during crunch over the past year 1/2, maybe two years. This is NOT a game that's been worked on fluidly and properly for 5-6 years. What happened, and CDPR has already alluded to this, is that they spent a lot of manpower, hours, months and probably even years, working on content that was eventually scrapped and thrown out due to being too ambitious for them to finish it by 2020. Essentially, they screwed this game, and therefore the players, out of being a masterpiece because they were beholden to their investors and wouldn't have made the 2020 release if they went big and incredible on development. So, what we've ended up with is a pretty great story wedged into the middle of a bunch of mediocre last minute crunch content.

It makes no sense whatsoever, and after rooting for CDPR and Cyberpunk 2077 for so long, that they'd think this is an acceptable thing to do after 7 years in the making and constant hype. If they'd spent a fraction of the time and money on the game that they spent on hyping and marketing it they might have released the masterpiece they advertised. This game isn't even close to being ready for prime time. It needed another year or two of development to be the "masterpiece" we've all been lead to believe it'd be, or at least another 6 months to be just an acceptable and mostly bug-free version of its current state, actually worthy of the 90/100 rating that critics gave it.

Overall, I WANT to love this game, because the setting is incredible. The idea, and even some of the implementation is amazing. But the textures look kinda like hot garbage, even on a high-end PC (like, 5 year old graphics), the core systems are a mess, the game is riddled with bugs, the AI is horrible and laughable in so many ways, the prologue's that are supposed to give this game such high replayability are entirely too short and unremarkable. The main storyline is entirely too short for such a massive title. It's just.. not the game we were told it was. CDPR created the myth of Cyberpunk 2077 being a masterpiece, and the game itself failed to live up to that. The journey getting here, waiting for this game, was more exciting than the game itself, and when that happens, you know you put too much effort into marketing and not enough where it counts.

I just hope, for their sake and ours, that they are able to fix at least 50% of these issues within the next few months (not very likely) because I really want to be able to enjoy this game at some point in the future.

Well, the crafting system allows for at least 15% additional damage for crafted weapons. So, if you care about your performance - you will want to create your own items instead of whatever you find. Even more so, you can craft until you get your desired specific version of stats - which will save a lot of time.

One of the easiest ways to make money is to sell crafting components, so that's another incentive to invest in crafting - because you can get more components to sell in that way.

That said, if it turns out to be true that the game on Very Hard is trivially easy with normal weapons - then there's no reason to craft stuff at all, but then - there's no reason to ever pick up or even use better weapons at all.

Which is not about the crafting system, but about bad encounter balance. The Witcher 3 was exactly the same way, though. Terrible balance and terrible itemization.

I think Cyberpunk is much more interesting and rich in terms of the loot you can find, at least.

 

[stevenomes]

My version of V spent the entire game running around with a large hammer, one-shotting every enemy in sight. There were only a handful of battles when I had to pull out a ranged weapon to take out a drone gun or out-of-reach sniper.

Never bothered with any of the hacking or other techy stuff.

Yes that hammer is massive. its amazing just how much damage it can do once you upgrade and absolutely obliterate enemies with its massive face.

 

[alphamachina]

Well, the crafting system allows for at least 15% additional damage for crafted weapons. So, if you care about your performance - you will want to create your own items instead of whatever you find. Even more so, you can craft until you get your desired specific version of stats - which will save a lot of time.

One of the easiest ways to make money is to sell crafting components, so that's another incentive to invest in crafting - because you can get more components to sell in that way.

That said, if it turns out to be true that the game on Very Hard is trivially easy with normal weapons - then there's no reason to craft stuff at all, but then - there's no reason to ever pick up or even use better weapons at all.

Which is not about the crafting system, but about bad encounter balance. The Witcher 3 was exactly the same way, though. Terrible balance and terrible itemization.

I think Cyberpunk is much more interesting and rich in terms of the loot you can find, at least.

I honestly thought that this game would have made the loot more meaningful. That you'd collect a handful of worthwhile weapons along the way from very meaningful situations (like from defeating a boss, or as a gift from a friend who left the weapon to you in the event of their untimely death), and that we'd spend the entire game meaningfully upgrading and modding the weapons in really interesting ways.

But no.. CDPR got wrapped up in the BULLSHIT looter-shooter method of gameplay and made the loot system and weapons in this game completely worthless and forgettable. Crafting would have been worth something if they didn't go all looter shooter with the game. If the game didn't drop constant fodder weapons to kill the dumbass AI fodder enemies with, then crafting those handful of very special weapons, crafting mods and augmentations for and to work with those unique and special weapons that dropped in the game would have all been a special and worthwhile endeavor.

We could get awesome named weapons with unique abilities that are moddable. Not only that, but they could have made it so only the crafting path could make mods that interact with these weapons in unique ways, unlocking hidden functionality between mod and weapon that you find over time as you level up. They could have made it so we play "the long game" so to speak with a handful of amazing weapons. Not a constant, overwhelming barrage of crap weapons that SHOULD be useless, but were made artificially worthwhile by dumbing the enemies down enough to make them useful, making the cool weapons worthless in the process.

Catch my drift?

Instead, we got this looter shooter garbage.

Quality over quantity, CDPR. You of all developers should know this.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

I honestly thought that this game would have made the loot more meaningful. That you'd collect a handful of worthwhile weapons along the way from very meaningful situations (like from defeating a boss, or as a gift from a friend who left the weapon to you in the event of their untimely death), and that we'd spend the entire game meaningfully upgrading and modding the weapons in really interesting ways.

But no.. CDPR got wrapped up in the BULLSHIT looter-shooter method of gameplay and made the loot system and weapons in this game completely worthless and forgettable. Crafting would have been worth something if they didn't go all looter shooter with the game. If the game didn't drop constant fodder weapons to kill the constant, dumbass AI fodder enemies with then crafting those handful of very special weapons, or crafting mods and augmentations for and to work with very special weapons that dropped in the game, or crafting upgrades for those weapons would have all been a special and worthwhile endeavor and it would have been so much better.

Nope. We got this looter shooter garbage.

Did you miss the loot in Witcher 3? Now THAT was terrible.

I don't know how anyone could have expected Cyberpunk to be particularly good in this way.

That said, I find the weapon variety and overall arsenal of offensive tools in Cyberpunk infinitely more interesting than in Witcher 3.

While the "looter shooter" approach is a little lazy - it does make for nearly infinite progression incentive - because at least gear is useful in Cyberpunk, where the Witcher 3 made everything 100% pointless due to Witcher gear being so easily obtainable and vastly superior.

CDPR was never good at game mechanics. But Cyberpunk is a huge step up from that.

 

[alphamachina]

It's not just lazy, it makes working toward better weapons pointless. It's a constant barrage of useless shit made functional by easy enemies. If they make common weapons functional and throw it at you constantly throughout the game, then the unique stuff is essentially worthless. And if they make it so you need legendary materials to craft an epic gun, then WTF? Why would you dismantle your legendaries to craft an epic? Especially when you can upgrade said legendaries, if you ever find enough mats to do it. Did you even bother watching that YouTube video up there? The guy got to the end of the game and never found a use for crafting because the mats required are all out of balance with the rest of the game. It makes absolutely no sense.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2020

Did you miss the loot in Witcher 3? Now THAT was terrible.

I don't know how anyone could have expected Cyberpunk to be particularly good in this way.

That said, I find the weapon variety and overall arsenal of offensive tools in Cyberpunk infinitely more interesting than in Witcher 3.

While the "looter shooter" approach is a little lazy - it does make for nearly infinite progression incentive - because at least gear is useful in Cyberpunk, where the Witcher 3 made everything 100% pointless due to Witcher gear being so easily obtainable and vastly superior.

CDPR was never good at game mechanics. But Cyberpunk is a huge step up from that.

Cyberpunk isn't a huge step up from anything. It's mediocre in every way but world building and story telling.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

It's not just lazy, it makes working toward better weapons pointless. It's a constant barrage of useless shit made functional by easy enemies. If they make common weapons functional and throw it at you constantly throughout the game, then the unique stuff is essentially worthless. And if they make it so you need legendary materials to craft an epic gun, then WTF? Why would you dismantle your legendaries to craft an epic? Especially when you can upgrade said legendaries, if you ever find enough mats to do it. Did you even bother watching that YouTube video up there? The guy got to the end of the game and never found a use for crafting because the mats required are all out of balance with the rest of the game. It makes absolutely no sense.

Again, that has nothing to do with the looting system or the crafting system - but the encounter balance.

You're not making any sense, I'm afraid.

If you find endless weapons - then what's the problem with dismantling some? Again, the best possible DPS will come from crafted weapons - because you get 15% additional damage with them with the right perks. Even if you have to dismantle 100 legendary weapons - the one legendary weapon you end up crafting will be 15% better than anything you could possibly find, regardless.

Components can't be a problem logically, because - as you say - you find stuff to dismantle ad nauseum. Also, you can simply sell components and buy those you need, if you want to make it even easier.

So, the system works fine - and there's a logical incentive to craft stuff.

Only, you don't need that stuff - because enemies are trivial to kill because of AI and encounter design.

Conclusively, the problem is encounter balance - not a bad crafting system.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2020

It's not just lazy, it makes working toward better weapons pointless. It's a constant barrage of useless shit made functional by easy enemies. If they make common weapons functional and throw it at you constantly throughout the game, then the unique stuff is essentially worthless. And if they make it so you need legendary materials to craft an epic gun, then WTF? Why would you dismantle your legendaries to craft an epic? Especially when you can upgrade said legendaries, if you ever find enough mats to do it. Did you even bother watching that YouTube video up there? The guy got to the end of the game and never found a use for crafting because the mats required are all out of balance with the rest of the game. It makes absolutely no sense.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2020

Cyberpunk isn't a huge step up from anything. It's mediocre in every way but world building and story telling.

Which is a huge step up from Witcher 3, which was terrible in every way but world building and story telling.

People just pretended it was amazing because they got caught up in the story and the pretty visuals. Visuals that Cyberpunk can easily beat without breaking a sweat, I might add.