As I sat pondering Cyberpunk 2077

[Midknyghte]

I was sitting here reflecting on the game. I totally get the frustration and even the anger over it not being what was marketed to us.

I try to keep in mind that CoVid created delays and other issues.

I try remember that part of why there are deadlines for games like this one are related to simple fact that the money pot is not bottomless. There has to be a point where you put what you have developed out on the market in the hopes of not losing everything. Sometimes, that's gonna come back to bite you in the ass.

I try to keep in mind that many people are confined to their homes, often involuntarily. That jobs are being lost. That businesses are going under. That having no option, other than to stay home with your kids while they may (or may not) be forced into online learning is stressful.

I try to keep in mind that the past few years have shown us the decline of the gaming industry. We, the buyers, want more depth, more immersion, more graphic beauty, more personal interactivity. The simple problem here is that the industry is struggling to find ways to give us what we demand... and in a timely and cost effective fashion.

I try to keep in mind that many of us, MANY OF US, are not programmers. We do not fully understand the limitations of code. We complain and bitch about how things are not perfect... but the simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of us cannot do better.

I try to keep in mind that expecting perfection is not reasonable. We often expect in others, but we would each be mortified and angered by having others expect it of us. The devs are just human. The marketing team should made us all aware much sooner that the game was not going to be what we were first introduced to. It leaves me wondering if the marketing team fully understood where the dev team was. Makes me wonder if the administration was being transparent with them.

I try to keep in mind that for the past few years the gaming industry has failed at almost every level. NMS is an anomaly... and frankly still falls much further from than mark than Cyberpunk does, imho. I wanted BG3 to be good, not great, and it will clearly never be what it should have been. But I take consolation from the fact that it was not put in the hands of EA and Bioware. The teams that "created" Anthem... again a colossal failure. I hoped Wolcen would be the next Diablo... no change there. I then hoped that Godfall might be able to step up and be the next big looter.... nope. I look at the Dragon Age games, Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 76... awful. The announcement by Blizzard that the next Diablo game would only
be available on mobile..??!!! And the list goes on and on and on.

It has been a grievously disappointing few years for gamers, so I definitely get all the angst and frustration.

In the end, I bought the game and it is not at all what I was hoping for. However, I have been alive long enough to understand the over-hype... and to even prepare for the game to fall short. I can still hold out hope that they will turn the corner and repair some of they failed at. It would be unreasonable to expect them to deliver on all points, I never expected them too.

I can enjoy what I have received. I do not feel cheated. I would encourage you all to hold out hope and be constructive in your appeals to the Team at CDPR to fix this game. I don't suggest you need to be pleasant or passive or accepting; be loud and angry and unapologetic. But be constructive.

 

[tavellone]

A lot of people say 2020 was a bad year for games, but I don't see why people think that, even regarding the pandemic, a lot of great games came out. This was not one of them.

I understand your points, but my gripe with this game is not that there were simply features removed or content cut or that this game is clearly not an RPG, or the empty facade of the world. It is a mixture of these things, but more to the point it is that this game is just so bland and mediocre overall. It doesn't shine or Innovative anywhere. The story themes have been done before and much better. The gameplay is simplistic and derivative. The art design is alright, but nothing amazing. The quest design feels a bit disjointed in places, for example sometimes you have quests that flow into each other, as the Witcher 3 did and I think this is where this game and the Witcher 3 has really good quest narrative. Unlike the Witcher 3 however, the other quests are just bombarded at you depending on some pointless street cred bar, which makes no sense and is frankly just annoying. The Witcher 3 has you collect quests from specific places on a map to ensure you're never flooded with too many at once. Cyberpunk does the opposite and for me it felt more like a chore to do these quests to unclutter my quest log. The quests themselves were quite hit and miss too. Overall a disappointing experience and it is patently clear that this company could and should do better. With The Witcher 3, I could and have played that game through multiple times. I have very little desire to play this game again until some dlc comes out or the game is seriously redesigned.

In short I am disappointed and somewhat dislike this game not because it didn't exceed or even meet the ridiculous expectations CDPR set for itself, but that it fell so short of them, in many areas even moving backwards from its predecessor.

 

[Obsidian_Crane]

I basically never got into the hype, always taking any news with a grain or two of salt. My attitude every time a trailer or something popped up was "well if they deliver that it will be cool, but I don't expect that to happen".

So when I got the game installed and started playing, the game pretty much delivered what I was expecting. I can see what they showed, I don't feel mislead by the hype and I'm having a lot of fun with the game still.

Is it a masterpiece of gaming? Beats me, and frankly I don't care. Just like any entertainment, all that really matters is am I enjoying it? To which the the answer is a resounding yes.

I'm looking forward to bug fixes and DLC as the year goes on.

 

[Bukary77]

I would encourage you all to hold out hope and be constructive in your appeals to the Team at CDPR to fix this game.

I, for one, would gladly, patiently wait and see if CDPR can salvage CP2077 (fingers crossed!). I just need one short and simple statement: "We are well aware of some serious problems with the game (beside the bugs). And we'll try to improve your overall experience in the coming months". Perhaps after issuing a statement like that they should go silent and work on the game (just like Sean Murray did in reaction to the disappointment over the release of NMS).

What we got instead was some corporate speak from Marcin Iwiński: the promise that they will fix the console version of CP2077 (in some really mischievous translation: worry not, dear shareholders, we'll try to earn more money with the use of PS Store) and some patting on the back given to the team with quite shocking statement: "We are very proud of the game (PC version)" (in some really mischievous translation: worry not, dear shareholders, as the lawsuits will not harm us). And, in reaction to Jason Schreier's article that revealed the troublesome process of the development, Adam Badowski said, with some improper self-confidence, that what we have right now (in Act I) is even better than E3 demo. At the same time Paweł Sasko, probably one of our favorite developers due to his noticeable dedication in each interview, tweeted: "I know there is always something that can be done better". In the eyes of many players such a sentence was both an expression of sincere regret and some carefree statement that "what's done is done".

Yes, they can be proud of many things that they accomplished with CP2077 (including the number of preorders). I am, for example, amazed that they managed to combine a few seemingly conflicting genres: immersive sim, stealth game, open world game, FPS etc. And that it works! But, in my humble opinion, one should not say things like that while the game, in consequence of some terrible management and CDPR's own decision, was delivered to the gamer as a product that is clearly unfinished (e.g. broken mechanics, quests, perks) and different from what was advertised (missing features and content).

 

[CS554]

I try to keep in mind that expecting perfection is not reasonable. We often expect in others, but we would each be mortified and angered by having others expect it of us. The devs are just human. The marketing team should made us all aware much sooner that the game was not going to be what we were first introduced to. It leaves me wondering if the marketing team fully understood where the dev team was. Makes me wonder if the administration was being transparent with them.

Can't comment about marketing as I didn't followed hype and I really haven't followed gaming media since 2013 or so.

I'm not game developer and don't want to be one, but in general level there CDPR has committed to avoid so called crunch work. I think that is definitely right call for number of ethical reasons, but also practical as people really have goals outside of their profession tend to choose career paths that make achieving those goals possible.

COVID-situation hit this studio and I don't think it should take a genius, I think this is as any software production, that things get slowed down when workers don't have fast access to builds via company internal infrastructure but need to download and upload their work depending whatever infrastructure there is available for them in their homes. Would be logical to note that things like that contributed towards CDPR needing to resort to crunch-work during last legs of production and even despite that there are some issues in game. For major bugs though Takemura call was probably the biggest issue. It didn't prevent me progressing, but it was something that definitely needed a patch.

There are issues with perks and those lead to difficulties to estimate how LMG builds work, which makes it impossible to estimate if game needs more LMG's. Two or three quests outcomes aren't reflected in the game world, visually, there's no visual effects applied to some objects hitting water.

Now I have read that people in studio received death threats when they told that production was delayed and game wouldn't ship in November but December. None of issues remaining in game prevent playthrough. Like I wrote above, I'm not a game developer but considering situation, what would be needed to be cut, to make playthrough possible with shipped product, those would have been my calls too. These issues in game will be addressed later, most probably as soon as 1.2 patch will hit.

When CDPR released roadmap for patches, next generation content for consoles and DLC they also told that they are going to reach those goals without crunch work. I wait that patch too but I rather wait than contribute to culture that encourages crunch work. I even think games industry is in some sort of dead end and are bound to that because their own toxic policies and work culture is simply don't make anything else possible. Huge budgets don't contribute to what I perceive as quality at all, but unattractive unintellectual wastelands, which begs to question if these companies themselves are but that.

There's also something important from my Xbox app to keep things in perspective:

Wasteland 3
The Wastelander.     You completed the game on normal difficulty 3.03% has unlocked this

The Outer Worlds
The Outer World.     Complete the game on any difficulty         16,15% has unlocked this

Cyberpunk 2077
The World.           Complete the main story line                24,85% has unlocked this

 

[ReneAensland]

We received about 20% of what was advertised.
Covid is not responsible.

 

[OG_VELI]

I was never hyped, at least not until I saw the launch trailer, after which I bought the game. I didn't really watch any of the newswires, or even the 2018 demo either. Hell, I even thought that it's going to be a buggy mess on release and that everyone will go mad. Well, what do you know, I was right after all.

However it is, though, sincerely, hats off to the devs. They did something magnificent with this game, for which I am grateful.

All I can do now is, well, hope for a bright future, I guess.

 

[Blurts]

However it is, though, sincerely, hats off to the devs. They did something magnificent with this game, for which I am forever grateful.

Man I must have bought the wrong game. The Cyberpunk 2077 I got was an uninspired, run-of-the-mill title with less interesting content than your average Assassin's Creed reskin.

 

[OG_VELI]

Man I must have bought the wrong game. The Cyberpunk 2077 I got was an uninspired, run-of-the-mill title with less interesting content than your average Assassin's Creed reskin.

 

[I_Willenbrock_I]

Overpromising and inderdelivering, while proclaiming: "when it's ready.", simply is crap.

I can't get my head around why people still excuse this behavior.

EA, ubisoft, all those big publishers did ist before and were universally roasted for it. When CDPR does it, people find the wildest excuses and blame people for getting hyped up or for having too high expectations. Guess who fueled the hype and expectations?

Covid only raged for over half a year of the entire development cycle and you don't need to send all the people home if you set up hygene standards. I only had to go to home office for 2 weeks during the first lockdown, because we followed our regulations. No direct meetings, ventilation, limiting people per office room, glass shields, yaddayaddayadda...

They hyped up the game and told people it runs surprisingly well on 8th Gen consoles. People pre-ordered, because CDPR made people believe that this game is the best game ever designed.

When you even manage to disappoint people with low expectations....


Here we are.
.

 

[Bartinga2077]

Will only say that I pre-ordered the game without any regret, and enjoying it, and loving it since day 1, everyday, till today. Am even highly addicted to it. It has it's sheer amount of issues, but nothing game-breaking. As the game is vast, will just have to be patient and wait for CDPR to flush it out.

And yeah, I do think Corona played a mayor part in negatively affecting the game's development.

 

[hulkman2456]

I try to keep in mind that many of us, MANY OF US, are not programmers. We do not fully understand the limitations of code. We complain and bitch about how things are not perfect... but the simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of us cannot do better.

What does coding have to do with proper ploting out stores. That's at the scripting and pre-production stage, done fours years before game production began. This is where experienced people. Who've worked on these systems. Have a timeline in their head. On how long things take. This is where you trim material. Than go back and update the script. So that you cover up any holes.

But what I saw, with one example. Padre is introduced in the Street Kid open. But than is introduced over the phone again. For the other two LP's. Which is bad story telling in the first place. But no one thought: Why don't we record two variations. So that the intro is not repeated in the Street Kid LP. No one proof read the script? It takes months. But that's why you have a team work with you.

There's also something important from my Xbox app to keep things in perspective:

No game in history of achivements, has ever had 100% game completion, by everyone who owns it. Because not everyone will connect their consoles. Sync their trophies for their games. If you do want to use this argument for people don't even bother finishing games. This has been going on since games invented. It didn't just appear when we got Thropies. I think Thropies are freaking dumb. Disable and don't bother syncing them AT ALL. If I have the option. Consoles are the most common systems to do this.

 

[mbrto]

317 hours and still having fun

 

[CS554]

No game in history of achivements, has ever had 100% game completion, by everyone who owns it. Because not everyone will connect their consoles. Sync their trophies for their games. If you do want to use this argument for people don't even bother finishing games. This has been going on since games invented. It didn't just appear when we got Thropies. I think Thropies are freaking dumb. Disable and don't bother syncing them AT ALL. If I have the option. Consoles are the most common systems to do this.

Those are numbers we have. Liking or disliking the system has no relevance.

 

[hulkman2456]

Those are numbers we have. Liking or disliking the system has no relevance.

Again, people haven't been completing games since Atari. Doesn't give them a pass at making poor games. Or put less effort in games.

 

[CS554]

Again, people haven't been completing games since Atari. Doesn't give them a pass at making poor games. Or put less effort in games.

Based on numbers we can make pretty well educated guess how engaging people found these games, also game breaking issues. Numbers for Cyberpunk 2077 has been like that since 1.06.

Absolutely liked the Outer Worlds though, more people should go through with it. And yeah, in the end it's just my opinion.

 

[Mobster100]

I try to keep in mind that many of us, MANY OF US, are not programmers. We do not fully understand the limitations of code. We complain and bitch about how things are not perfect... but the simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of us cannot do better.

I try to keep in mind that expecting perfection is not reasonable. We often expect in others, but we would each be mortified and angered by having others expect it of us. The devs are just human. The marketing team should made us all aware much sooner that the game was not going to be what we were first introduced to. It leaves me wondering if the marketing team fully understood where the dev team was. Makes me wonder if the administration was being transparent with them.

I don't think anyone would argue against the difficulty of making a games, not only the technical side of things, but also the whole design and mechanics of the game, like stats, balance etc. And to me the gaming industry is already a fairly forgiven one, in the sense that players accept and forgive that there are bugs in the stuff they buy, that games are not 100% perfect and so forth.

But at the same time, there also has to be a limit in how forgiving players ought to be towards gaming studios. Some of the AAA games that are released, doesn't just have some bugs in them, it's like an infestation of them, some so obvious that there is no chance that they weren't spotted during development, but were decided by the company to simply be ignored before releasing it. And to me, it seems like companies have pushed this limit more and more, to the point where you almost get the impression that they have a meeting and some QA person make the management aware of all the issues and bugs and they just say that it doesn't matter, because people will accept it anyway so they can just fix it later.

That is not really how this unwritten "agreement" between players and companies work in my opinion. Yes, we accept that issues and bugs exists and that they can't get all of them, but we didn't agree to being sold hardly working products that still need years of development. We also didn't agree to being told one thing and then sold another. But as you said some of the games that have been released the last few years are of such low quality that it is insane. I think the main issue here is not the players and their expectations, because the companies decide what material they want to release about their games and if they can't deliver on that, then they have an issue. So to me, it seems to be an issue in the gaming industry of how they make and manage the development of games, maybe they need better methods or to reinvent how they do these things or something like that. Because clearly the way they do it now is not working.

I also don't think one can blame the marketing team, because they most likely get told what features to sell the game on, without really knowing what exactly the game is capable of or not. So I think you are correct that there clearly have been misinformation or certain design choices given to the marketing team, which weren't really solved in the development department, but was expected to be solved or work in a certain way at some point. So when those features got sacked, clearly the marketing team must have been frustrated, because what now?

I personally think that companies are way better off with not announcing release dates and to much material about a game, before they know they can actually deliver what they say. Otherwise release the game as early access, so players know what to expect and they get feedback constantly on how and what people like and don't like. Basically get a much closer relationship with the community. I think it would remove a lot of the frustration and pressure on the development teams to be honest, because they don't have to be constantly worried about the approaching release date.

 

[MaxPrimal]

I basically never got into the hype, always taking any news with a grain or two of salt. My attitude every time a trailer or something popped up was "well if they deliver that it will be cool, but I don't expect that to happen".

Me sentiments exactly. Especially the news reports. SO many of these sites are paid to push thier sponsors and bash anything that may take away from their merchandise. Like KOTAKU! They are the absolute worst. They rave and push all Sony products and Nintendo products, everything else they complain about and while complaining compare it to Sony or Nintendo products. So i just stopped using many of the news sites as reliable source and may pop in for amusement.

The only person I need to worry about is me. I am the consumer and its my money. I enjoy the game and look forward to its future.

 

[mbrto]

Again, people haven't been completing games since Atari. Doesn't give them a pass at making poor games. Or put less effort in games.

"less effort" isnt something that comes to mind when i think of cyberpunk .
the amount of time and effort that went into character models, animations, voice acting etc is unprecedented.
all those little details make the characters feel alive

 

[Grindders]

My problem with the game is that CDPR advertised one game and sold me a completely different one.
Imagine following a shooter game for years and then you buy it and it turns out to be a racing game.
To me, the difference is that big.

Many dialogues have only 1 answer choice. Or two that imply the same thing. Didn't anyone tell the developers that there was something wrong with the dialogue system in their Role Playing Game before release?

If CDPR had originally advertised the game as another Far Cry in a cyberpunk world or Borderlands in an open world, I never would have bought this game. They fooled me, congrats to them. I hope it was worth it to lose a fan who has supported them since 2007.

My only hope now is DLC. I hope that the developers have realized their mistake and the DLC will give us 40+ hours of cool quests with choices, consequences and a proper choice of dialog lines.
As it was in the case of The Witcher 3.