Cyberpunk 2077: the Preem, the Gonk and the CDPR (the edited version)

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I wanted to edit or delete my previous thread after receiving input from a mod, but when it's locked it seems impossible to do so.
So i decided repost this edited version, hopefully up to this forums standard to generate some discourse, and if not i said my peace.


After a week of as close as nonstop playing and reading countless posts, i decided to write this not just as feedback towards CDPR but also towards parts of the community. As a plea for them to understand some aspects of the game, by articulating and putting into perspective why certain aspects are better than what the status quo tries to make you believe and *explaining* also a few things that in all fairness should had been explained ingame if not made more clear.
Because constructively criticizing the game is one thing but to muddy the water by calling everything about the game "trash" doesn't help the game or anyone especially not the devs !!

I want to avoid giving a numeral score on things, i'll try using a scale of above / under average relative to other titles on the market to put things into perspective so you can see where i'm coming from. Don't worry, it's spoiler free.
BIG CAVEAT, this is about the PC version, playing on hardest difficulty.


**WARNING**: Beyond this point you will be crit by a (hopefully comprehensive) wall of text, advance at your own peril !

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The Preem:


* Story: As I said this will be spoiler free, while a story's content is a highly subjective aspect of any media, one cannot ignore it's length or lack thereof. A big factor responsible for why TW3 was capable to bring emotion out of people was that they had the time to get invested and attached to characters and the world. I didn't rush to finish CP77 and while I didn't do all side jobs & gigs, I did end up doing the most important side missions and i clocked about 65hrs before seeing the end credits for the first time, comparatively I clocked over 110hr in TW3 on my first playthrough without exploring everything.
CP77 has a lot of great characters with realistic personalities and problems unlike stereotypical borderline caricatures that other games are flooded with, it has great moments of story telling that really pulls the player in.
It's filled with different subject matter and is far from the stereotypical "action" games that follow action movie scripts, so if you tend to skip dialogue you will miss out on the intricacies that elevates the story and you will only do yourself a disservice at that.
It is however relying too much on the player to find information off the beaten path, at times crucial information which result in the player never being able to come forward and confront or explain themselves with their findings as there's no appropriate dialogue option for it...
It has other flaws which I'll write down under the Gonk which makes it fall short of outstanding, but overall a very interesting story in the world of cyberpunk...and I'm left craving for more... bravo, way above average !

* Music: This will be a short one because simply put it's 10/10, from combat to ambient to radio it's a blast, the fact those tracks were made specifically for the game didn't affect their quality and honestly opened the door to look at some of the music artist other work.

* Sound: Vehicle and city sounds are among the best I've heard in a game, you need a decent sound system preferably headset to appreciate it. Gun sounds are good and feel impactful, with every class (tech/smart/power) having their unique sounds and every type (shotgun/rifle/ect) being easily disguisable. However, all (unless i missed some) blunt weapons sounds are subpar, they not only sound too much alike with the exception of sasquash's, they have a severe lack of impact. And I believe ALL melee weapon sounds lack a proper impact sound when hitting different surfaces with minor exceptions. (eg, there is a metallic surface sound but unlike gun impacts less variations if that makes any sense) As it currently is sound can bug out and get out of sync or not play at all in rare occasions, there's still work to do on and as a result slightly above average, with some fixes and tweaks it can be cranked up to easily distinguishable above average with a outstanding 10/10 only achievable with indoor/outdoor locations affecting the reverb (eg, shooting a gun in or outside sound the same, driving a vehicle outside or inside parking garage sound the same but IF there's a difference it's so minor I cannot differentiate in-between.


* Graphics: CP77 is truly nextgen and is arguably the next Crysis. While DLSS does a lot of heavy lifting, the game is contrary to popular belief actually one of the better optimized games of the past years, while there's memory leaks affecting performance those are nothing new in pc gaming and bounds to be fixed with time. For now in-between long sessions and/or traveling in-between a lot of districts when a performance drop is noticeable one should simply do a quick reboot.
We have yet to see footage of a game which it's maximum graphics come anywhere near this, all the while this being a OPEN WORLD game located in a massive city (horizontally but especially vertically to a degree not seen before) Which needs to be emphasized as people don't seem appreciate the fact that relatively speaking, creating large maps with loading screens in-between with a good looking skybox is so much more common as its easier to achieve...

People calling it unoptimized because they cannot run it maxed out at the same framerate of "other titles released this year"... you politely don't know what you're talking about.
To put it differently, every game that I can think of has major performance dips when in their larger cities, here you are nearly constantly in the largest city ever if not adjacent to it, with on highest setting at peak times per district the biggest (generally) unique dynamic (albeit with basic behavior) crowds I've seen.
Tweaking and optimizing graphics performance can be a never ending story, that said graphics are outstanding.


* Design: Architecture, clothes, guns, vehicles, gang identities, and the star of the show night city itself and anything else I forgot to mention 10/10 ! While this is more subjective there's nothing out of place that doesn't fit with everything else. The only "negative" is that I can't get enough, I want more cars, guns, clothes...


* Gameplay: It's one of those aspects that *some* are quick to dismiss and label as bad without any constructive criticism or argumentation, I try to see the best in people so I'll attribute it due to ignorance of how the system works, and again some things could had been clearer in game but also part of it is on the player to pick up on and learn.

* Combat AI: One point that keeps being brought up is how the combat AI is stupid, that's just not true (when it works) because it's deliberately varied. I'll attribute this to people assuming "because it's a FPS /FPP(perspective) NPCs look humanoid thus they should all behave similarly" when there's couple of layers to NPC behaviors, which is one of the RPG elements of the game.

First of all, they're divided in archetypes EACH having a few tiers that dictate their difficulty which enables certain abilities/perks. (eg, a lower tier won't have access to cyberware or nades)
There's your "default" ranged enemies, fast ranged (usually represented with kereznikov ect), heavy ranged (lmg/hmg) shotgunners and snipers.
Then there's the "default" melee, fast melee (bladed sandevistan) , heavy melee (blunts 420)
Last but not least netrunners and mechs/androids...and i'm possibly forgetting some.
This translate into that NOT ALL NPCs ARE ALLOWED (/know" how) to use cover, shooting while moving/running, use grenade, heal, sprint, rush ect..

The second layer is their aggressive levels dictated by their gang affiliation, with on one end of the spectrum animals / maelstrom... while at the opposite end is arasaka / militech...
This translate into how prone they are to rush or flank the enemy, remain in cover, retreat, chase, ect ...

The result in normal combat situations (normal being when the AI doesn't bug out and actually loads and executes it set of "rules" and the player doesn't try to exploit AI perimeters) that some NPCs just rushes the player or at times moves but doesn't attack, or won't go into cover despite being shot at ect... but those occurrences eventually disappear the higher level the player is and enemy scales into higher tiers.

The one archetype that's absolutely horrendous when you think of the possibilities, are netrunners. All they seem to be capable of (aside of the basic fighting rules) is to spam overheat.
They should be capable to blind the player by disabling their optics for X seconds until it reboots, make their weapon jam, blowing up their inventory grenades might be too hardcore but you catch my drift, heck maybe interfere with the player's leg/arm cyberware.
I believe it was planned as netrunners tend to have duplicate "overheat" perks which is possibly due to it being the only ability in their pool of available hacks.
If anyone experienced anything else than overheat spam, please let me know !

So combat AI is arguably average if not above average. Their reaction time after entering combat feels like it could be a tiny bit faster, but otherwise nothing stands out as "bad".


* Cover system: quick word on that as I've also read complains how the cover system is jank.
The cover system works pretty much like most FP cover system, the player needs to get used to the dimensions the character takes in the game world then associate what cover works with said dimensions...which is pretty standard.
Not all cover is impenetrable pairing that with enemies using smart and tech weapons, results in the player that can be hit while in cover, which isn't the cover system necessarily being jank but it's on the player to react to the gameplay scenario.
To be fair the one jank thing about the cover system (on PC) is how finicky it is to adjust positions with the double tap dodge that launches the player out into the open to eat a face full of lead.


* Gunplay: It's clearly not a twitch aiming FPS like CS:GO...but i don't understand how some people can call it bad which is probably why there's never argumentation supporting that label.
Enemies "bulletsponginess" not only makes sense for the game world (cybernetics...) but rewards aiming as headshots deal massive damage, weakspots deal massive damage if not crucial in certain encounters and rewards character progression.
Also while having the RPG elements of different weakness, resistances up to immunities, and perks that increases armor, hp ect...

Enemies reaction to hits is very good, it's so satisfying going for the legs followed by headshots john wick style. (it's no euphoria engine good but that would actually be unrealistic in the world of cyberpunk)

When comparing it to similar games, eg: Fallout, GTA, RDR2 or Watchdogs if those are considered baseline while having a somewhat basic gunplay, CP77 is way above average as it moved away from that and brought the gunplay closer to CoD.


* Melee combat: feels good enough, some sync issues with parry timing for certain animation as their point of contact and window of counter attacking doesn't feel to align precisely but that might just be my perception of it.
Some out of sync of gorilla fists animation and sound finishers issues, but worst case average.


* Driving: How vehicles behave on the road is actually surprisingly good, it's by far not anywhere near simulation level and I didn't expect it to be but the weight distribution/transfer feeling is pretty spot on.
So not only do each vehicle handle differently, but one can gauge it pretty good just by it's model !

There's tweaks that need to happen for sure, there's something weird going on with turn sensitivity, while you can get a "feeling" for when you over/under steer there seems to be sudden "spikes" of aggressive turn acceleration ? Not sure about the terminology or how to explain it, but there's probably something wrong when you can borderline drift with those arasaka trucks...i suggest people try it !

If there's one thing that needs to be more aggressively tweaked its braking. Let me put it this way, it's quite "realistic" for the speed on the dashboard...but doesn't feel right for the speed the vehicle drives at on screen. Some kind of "emergency brake assist" that strengthen brake speed the longer you're holding it would really change things for the better I think.
That said it's definitely not for everyone, I can see how someone who's used of GTA5 arcade style driving where they can just throw themselves in sharp turn at ridiculous speeds and correct themselves airborne would dislike CP77's driving.

But that doesn't make it bad ! So with some tweaks driving would easily be above average. (again compared to similar games GTA/Watchdog...not comparing to Forza...)
Now vehicle collision/physics however isn't good...but I guess it's the red engine's limitations ?

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The Gonk:

* Polish: With all due respect to the devs that poured hours into the game, but to keep it short I need to be blunt. let's not sugarcoat it or insult anyone's intelligence the game is unfinished, lacks any sign of polish. Polish to me is making sure that at least in the cutsenes everything is as it should be eg. when a item is in view it doesn't stand out of the environment because it's being held in a unnatural way or held by a ghost... or of all places during the end credits not having certain "things" render/loading properly but just shown as black silhouettes... it's way below average it's borderline horrendous.


* Police / Wanted system: there's absolutely NOTHING good about it, the game would had been better off with no wanted system and just static police presence which would had suited the lore for certain areas of the game anyway.


* Non-combat AI: overhyped a system that clearly wasn't anywhere near ready, but it could still be worse they could be completely oblivious... at least some run away, others crouch, they manage to create a crowds and bring life to the world until the player interacts with them ... i understand that there can be A LOT of NPCs on screen which might be taxing for intricate AI systems...but at the end of the day... because it was overhyped in marketing material it deserved to be scrutinized... it's way below average.


* Driving AI: IF ONLY the driving AI would keep cars moving... but it's even worse because some cars can suddenly stop having any semblance of AI, which even occurs on the outskirts of the city where they'd just stop dead in their tracks...it's clearly bugged as nobody (i hope) would code the AI to just stop... it's probably issues with culling which also affect NPC AI... but still it's horrendous.


* Immersion: How can one be immersed when there's not just bugs, and a general lack of polish, and horrendous AI issues but a lack of features for a SELFPROCLAIMED immersive RPG, from just sitting at a bar and drinking / eating , to barber and tattoo shops....while there are moments of immersion... it pales in comparison to RDR2, Kingdom Come and even to FO4...so way below average.


* Character progression, perks and attributes balance, economy, crafting and all around RPG elements: in short, unfinished. The crafting and economy needs such a large rebalance that It wouldn't hurt to just completely overhaul the crafting and armor system and then balance the economy accordingly.

Too many perks are nothing more than +% passive increase. It's normal to have passive increases but it's not ok when that's the vast majority of perks.
Take the athletics tree for example, good perk= the rock (not because of it's name) because it gives immunity to knockdown which is something unique.
Bad perk= Human shield, because it's just a conditional % armor bonus which is something you can get in almost every tree but with different conditional requirements eg, blades armor when moving, rifles armor when in cover...
Eg of making that bad perk good = Human shield, When grappling a enemy their allies will hesitate to open fire unless to retaliate (can add a cyberpunk lore aspect to it f.ex maelstrom not giving much of a duck about it)

Then you have cold blood which is just one big passive support tree....
I'm not saying this to insult any devs and i can very well be completely wrong but my HONEST first reaction was "damn this whole character progression, the looter shooter and enemy scaling aspect of the game was taken last minute from the multiplayer prototype".

For an labeled and marketed as RPG it's way below average. For a action game above average.


* Story pacing: Making the main story shorter was a bad decision, because it became clear that it resulted in "unfinished" business with certain individuals and the feeling of time jumps without the passing of time which makes you question if it's not plot holes, and occasionally complete immersion breakers.
Spoiler free and simply put: if the player is sent to let's say a fixer for w/e reason....there needs to be a established relationship, thus there should had been a introduction quest for each individual fixer, preferably locked behind a small street cred reputation requirement. Low enough so that it doesn't take hours of doing sidejobs & gigs, but SOMETHING just to give that palate cleanser to the player and introduce them to things outside the main story and if not for those reasons, at least for immersion !

For a CDPR game...it's disappointing, any other company would get a pass for this.


* Cyberware: Oh boy... it's importance in the world and lore made it that this deserved it's own talking point.
I didn't expect a detailed cutscene for every time you get a new piece of cyberware, but at least why not show the player a preview, maybe a 3D model like we've seen in the tools of destruction trailer, or if that's too demanding on performance/time something like the "schematic style" of the mantis blades poster / concept pictures...just anything for the player to appreciate the tech they're about to get installed and go "awesome so cool".

There's also a lack of variation and mods, what about kiroshi automatic night vision (or nv goggles) ?

Legs cyberware add so much fun and freedom that you should let the player experience it much sooner ! Since it is locked behind a hefty pricetag and street cred it would be great to have "junk" cheaper leg implant to differentiate from the current blue ones, maybe double /charge jump has a cooldown and don't make you jump as high, maybe there's a chance to randomly trip and fall ...

Let's not forget cosmetic cyberware...no chrome or gold skin, synthetic to realskin visual options, tech hair or colored implants ?!?

Or what about the fun ones like "midnight lady" zappy tits...just small % chance of dealing some electric damage as melee retaliation, where's the Mr Studd ? It doesn't need to do anything in combat, but just knowing I could buy it for shit's n giggles would be great, cherry on top would had been something as small as your partner saying 2 words "oh wow" before playing the default scenes.

On top of this all... there's no visual changes for the cyberware that is installed on the player with exception of arms cyberware with variations based on it's slotted mod.
Overall it's lacking on too many different aspects to get a pass !


* Interface: Is painfully below average when we've been told what we see on screen is what V actually sees trough his optic cyberware... it 's thus something that should be extremely customizable from resizing and scaling, changing colors, disabling the (immersion breaking) on screen location/objective icons, V's current body position of crouch/stand ect ...

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the CDPR:

If you made it this far and read everything, i just want to say thank you choomba !
I like you, even if you don't agree with me.

With all that said, I followed this game development for years and believe I managed to keep my expectation in check...all I expected was a product that resembled what was shown just mere months prior the initial release date...after the game got delayed time after time under the guise of polish, I didn't expect more features but simply that it would be a real immersive experience.

(If I'm being honest the ONLY thing I SECRETLY wished for was that the whole "dual wielding is cut from the game" would had been a language barrier thing and misunderstanding that dual wield pistols was still possible but not smg ect, as the icon was visible in the perk tree in videos and still is till this day ingame)

So is Cyberpunk 2077 worth playing on PC ? Despite that it sadly does NOT resemble the game that it was marketed as. Yes ! There's a lot of things that are good and done really well, it's a fun time if you want it to be.


Is it a game that NEEDS to be played right now ? No, if u didn't know of the games existence I envy you, as you should experience it a year from now.




Cyberpunk 2077 is FAR from the masterpiece that we all hoped it would be, it's clearly unfinished and rushed out the door, as a CDPR fan and simply as a consumer it's such a massive disappointment so I can only imagine how much worse the devs must feel.

I expect some will call me a bootlicker which I will just shrug off because It can only come from those not trying to understand...it's sad that some are trying to label CDPR as the "big evil" it's obvious that the game was too ambitious for the dev time it received, but there's clearly heart and effort put into it !

One also can just take one second to look at all the official merch, all the free goodies that came with physical copy, and i was one of the lucky (or maybe unlucky) to get my hands on a CE, are all qualitatively SO GOOD with attention to detail and care that it couldn't be further from the truth.

CP77 with a lot of bug fixing and tweaks can easily be among the best games, with more features and content it CAN achieve the status of masterpiece because the foundation and structure is there !

Contrary to what the loud minority is spouting it isn't bad, it's not even among the worst games released this year. It's simply extremely disappointing because CDPR is held to a higher standard based on their track record, their "when its ready and we want to polish" statements then shot themselves in the foot with their marketing campaign and got headshotted by their console performance.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, but seriously if you read it all YOU are breathtaking !

Ps: I am interested in hearing other people's constructive opinion even if it would contradict my own.
 
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That was great to read and well put out, thnxz could never have said it remotely any better

Im no going to attempt to repeat what you put out i'll just say i still enjoy playing the game, will probably stick to motorbikes and have faith i'll see a different game come the time the devs move on to something else, it a shame it launched as it did but shit happens and it nearly Christmas so happy Christmas ;)
 
That was great to read and well put out, thnxz could never have said it remotely any better

.... so happy Christmas ;)

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad someone appreciated it.
Absolutely I'm also still enjoying the game, just waiting on next hotfix to start another playthrough and Merry Christmas to you too !
 
Hey There!

Nice TEDTalks, choomba! I agree with what you have said, and it is more or less represent what I feel about CP2077. And for the sake of the forum, please allow me to also share my own opinion.

I am one of those (understandably, really small minority of) people who is not 'disappointed' with a game, just wished it could've been 'more'. I have been playing CDPR game since the Witcher 1 (even before the enhanced edition), and for those who played it, could remember how clunky the game could be. Then come the Witcher 2 with its clunky as hell combat and stupid roll animation. Before finally they come up with the Witcher 3, the one that finally hit the home-run. The way I see it, I judge this game not only based on how it plays. But its future possibilities. Be it for future Cyberpunk IP or improvement via expansions and stuff (if we get any).

After all the "mess" that is CP2077, I still believe this is the Witcher 1 of their Cyberpunk IP. First, I am going to Cyberpunk never to expect a second coming of Jesus, and frankly a 'blade-runner' GTA. I am one of those people who expected Cyberpunk to be some kind of Deus Ex on steroid, and in my humble opinion it hits the mark. Secondly, and I am going to get a lot of hate for this, but Witcher 3 is not a good open world RPG, nor it is a good RPG as well. It is (beyond) an excellent story-driven action RPG, however. So I never expecting a great open world RPG coming from a company who has (only) creating some story driven RPG on their first attempt. I do however expect the story to be (at least) good. In that respect CDPR delivers. For those who are curious I would consider KOTOR, Dragon Age: Origin, DOS 1&2, Disco Elysium and Fallout New Vegas as a great RPG with a great Branching Story and choices. TES Oblivion, Skyrim, for its Sandbox Open World, finally RDR2, KCD, GTA IV for Immersion.

For the story, I agree with all your points, above, the story need more context the '6 months later' montage was like a slap in the face for me. I think having V and J during those 6 months montage, will help setting the context with the fixers (I assume they do lots of gigs for them during those 6 months) especially Wakako and Padre (because of Dorsett and the montage), also I would love to see the dynamic between Jackie, T-bug, and V. Well, maybe an expansion called "six months before the gig"? I dunno, here I am, wishing. I get around this by finishing all the side activities first before going through the main story, but those side activities are only a filler contents, I wish there are more side quests that could give more context to people around V: Vic, Misty, Mama Welles to name a view. CDPR, to me, is too overwhelmed with their own ambition that they kind of forget what makes the Witcher series great (especially the first): the 'show don't tell' philosophy, down to the last side quest.

Come on, if Jack Snyder can release his Snyder cut, I don't see why CDPR can't. in the future, once they have finished with more pressing issues.

Before anyone put me on the stake and goes full Radovid on me, yes I do agree with you that CDPR need to improve a lot of things mainly the Vehicle AI, Side Activities (Where is Cyberpunk 'Gwent', CDPR? Come on! Hell I would even feel happy to play Gwent in this game for the sake of easter-egg.) What's the point of having all those bars and foodstall if you can't hang out there with your friends or dates? Finally eating that juicy synth-sirloin noodle, our friend Jackie loves so much. Your explanation is so spot on that I could not put it better myself., although an additional note: I wish Wall Running or Climbing using my Mantis Blade is still a thing as well as some kind of train station and ride the train (skippable) for fast travel (and if you stick around you can listen to various flavor text via people's chatter to talk about the current issues, a much more exciting and "immersive" alternative instead of lazy tourist board.

Although I doubt that CDPR will No Man's Sky-ing this project due to the amount of complexity of CP2077. Come on, no man's sky is procedural, hardly no NPC, and empty world. It is not even a comparison. I do however CDPR take their time with CP2077, forget multiplayer for awhile, and restore the CP2077 to the way their original vision of CP2077 (i for one would also love that 3rd person cutscenes).

At the end people can call me a CDPR Shill or whatever the hell they want, but I do believe that the hate towards CP2077 is heavily overblown. There are worst game with a worst state coming out at launch, Arkham Knight is unplayable on PC for the first couple of week, I still unable to start second playthrough for RDR 2 (not the game fault but that stupid R* social media club), not to mention FO4 disappointing quests, and RPG elements (I still unable to get a constant 60 FPS at 1080p with my RTX 2070 with this game). It is good that everybody starts to care about consumer rights and fight against corpo-rat Johny Silverhand style. But hey, do it equally, not just to CDPR. Let them do their best to patch things up, give constructive criticism if the patches turn out to be a gonk, but don't spread hatred, it would not help anyone. Then after all of those years of patching and CP2077 still turn out to be a trash, we have the right to do everyone a favor, and stop buying games base on the hype only, start watching let's play here and there, or a review, then decide.

Wow I don't intend to write this long. If you read this, thank you and have a nice day!​
 
Constructive criticism, didn't think the community was capable of that anymore, nice to be proven wrong.

Even if I don't fully agree with everything I appreciate the sentiment and the well thought out explanations.

Like lancelot206 has mentioned, I as well have been a fan of CDPR since it's inception and I can definitely see an improvement within each title they release, sometimes on the gameplay side and sometimes on the technical side, but not both together yet and I expect that this shake up will strike some balance in their development practices and time frames.

One thing I'm continuously impressed by is their ability to create engrossing narratives and compelling characters that pull you into the world that they inhabit, practically becoming a part of it by proxy.

No matter what subjects they approach they show a distinct care and tact - the latter of which took some refinement (*chough* sex cards *chough*).

And I can also clearly notice the passion behind each of their projects, the hard work and the dedication, none of which translate well with the PR stunts and the mainstream media hellbent on any sort of controversy.

Regardless, their main problems are the development pipeline and setting a concrete vision for the full experience before the bulk of the development process commences.

While their stories, characters, visual and audio designs are absolutely outstanding every single time, with great emphasis on atmosphere and gravitas, their gameplay design seems to revolve around these pillars which doesn't fully work in an interactive medium as a right way of approaching the subject matter.

What I intended to emphasize with the previous statement is that the gameplay cannot be always solely created to serve the story, a much better approach to this would be a balance in between creating the world and the gameplay systems that serve to provide a satisfying loop.

Ultimately adjusting everything to fit your purpose - it's fine to have fantastic set pieces, but having gameplay and assets solely created for this purpose alone is a waste of development time if these things are prevalent and fully rigid with very little chance for creating meaningful player involvement.

Now on the technological side of things there needs to be full body procedural animation systems as well to serve the amazing mo-cap like dynamic facial expressions created with the use of JALI.

All of that would serve a more expansive, branching type of narrative that leads to more player choice with less developer input while maintaining a decent cohesiveness on the grand scale of things - a major flaw of narrative driven RPGs with voice acted protagonists and dynamic interactions.

The game suffers from this, the high quality and poignant character interactions and set pieces are amazing but also very rigid and requires extensive creator input which impacts the overall development process.

Now if all of this can be refined and a decent development pipeline can be created once the RedEngine technology plateaus - ultimately achieving consistency in quality and momentum, I can see the RED's getting better and better at designing the other facets of the game.

You can clearly observe how over time they have been able to improve on their own gameplay design philosophy, from the rigid combat system of The Witcher to the dynamic action combat of The Witcher 3, which leads to the - I would call it - fantastic first person action gameplay of Cyberpunk 2077.

It's not perfect, it suffers from janky input design and environment interaction, poorly implemented melee NPC animations and general procedural animation transitions, and ultimately general combatant reactiveness issues which can all be tightened up and refined over time with more experience and better understanding of the technology they have developed.

All of that does not, however, taint the openness of the overall gameplay loop that facilitates a large variety of styles and builds in every corner of the map and in every mission, and overall interaction with the main and side content, which leads to a satisfying experience once the player understands the limitations surrounding these systems.

Now it all depends on their future plans so we'll see what's what at the end of this month.
 
In regards to your complaints about cyberware, you are aware everything but the arms is subdermal, right? As in, under the skin. You wouldn't notice them. We're not getting rigged by some amateur with scrap built or stolen cyberware like Maelstrom, it's professional work with market items. The arms we see because that's replacing an entire section of the body, not just attaching something to an organ, or muscle. You don't see the majority of cyberware in Shadowrun, either.
 
My only complaint is that after the you do everything. All missions, side and cars

There is absolutely nothing to do.

I could play this game for the next 10 years if there was something to do

NG+ is nice and i understand they want crafted stories but repeatable quests would be awesome.

Repeatable quests is areason i am still playing skyrim. Its a great RP game
 
Repeteable quest all the way!. Or roguelite "dungeons" damn it. It would be so hard to create places with enemies whose difficulty and level scales with you with some objetives to do?
The random 1 star robberies, gang shootins and kidnappings on the map also disappear after completing everything?
 
The random 1 star robberies, gang shootins and kidnappings on the map also disappear after completing everything?
1 star robberies I think repeats but not sure but its the only ones. Gangers without any map mention are the only thing to do outside main and side missions because they respawn. The pity here is also in the environment torwards the end. The city truly goes dead if you don't space completing blue missions. There are no gunshots, music changing to specific gang ambience...
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
They've said resounding "NO" to radiant quests long ago:

Will there be procedural “radiant” quests at all, or is everything going to be handcrafted stories?

Every quest in the game is handcrafted. For us, quality is always more important than quantity, and we just couldn’t deliver this quality with modules we assemble in different ways to create these random quests. We don’t just want to keep people busy, but actually give them something to do that’s worth their while.

But we’re making a big Open World RPG of course, so that also means that despite our quests being handcrafted, we tried to make a whole lot of them, so players can have fun in the game for many hours.


https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...st-design-coordinator-philipp-weber.11014292/

I hope they maintain their position because I think they are the worst gameplay element I've ever seen. Even worse then QTEs. The only way I can tolerate RQs is if I'd have the option to toggle them off completely. I don't want to see them anywhere on the map, I don't want to receive any notification about another one of them becoming available.
 
There is nothing inherently wrong with necroing threads when it's done by actually contributing something to the topic.

I don't disagree with the statement in general.

But a thread about a review of the game from the uhhmm, let's call 'em early days? I don't see anything good coming out of it or that hasn't been discussed to death already.

Just my two cents on that... I know, my opinion doesn't matter lol.
 
Necromancers are cool! Embrace the dark side:)

That said, while I understand wanting repeating, random generated quests, I don't think it is for this game as it is. Don't get me wrong - if they decide to make an expansion with a new char and make it truly open world (unlike how it currently is - the main quest is too 'restrictive'/hurrying you along) then yes. As the game is now - probably too much work for too little gain?
 
If we're on the topic of Random quests, I think I'd like a little more variety in like "World Events" things that aren't quest lines but just sort of happen around you that you could engage with, since 1.5 the world does feel a bit more alive, and I know they've said there are new secrets and things to find out in the world (Not That I've found any yet). But I really love this world they've built and the foundations of this game (yes it still needs polish and work even now) I'd just like a little more to do besides roll a new character and starting over.
 
My only complaint is that after the you do everything. All missions, side and cars

There is absolutely nothing to do.

I could play this game for the next 10 years if there was something to do

NG+ is nice and i understand they want crafted stories but repeatable quests would be awesome.

Repeatable quests is areason i am still playing skyrim. Its a great RP game
I would point out the flipside of this, though. Skyrim is a pretty terrible story game.

So if i want to dabble in being the greatest hero of the universe in X, I will play Skyrim. If I want storytelling, I'll go to another studio than Bethesda because it is not their raison d'être.

Not to knock the request for repeatable quests, to be clear. It would improve longevity for many players. Just i do see CDPR and Bethesda games as almost polar opposites of the open world.

Edit: i have GOT to start reading the date of posts I reply to. Still relevant, I suppose.
 
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