Short about me:
Played CP77 since launch on PC. Had multiple playthroughs, though only finished one (the first).
Here is my honest critique/feedback with everything the game does great, and what the game could seriously benefit from adding/changing in the future (like patch 2.0).
Pros:
- Atmosphere in the game is incredible. The setting is near perfect.
- Main story is very engaging and caters to players who want to immerse themselves in their character and feel like they're living through a movie.
- Scope of the game is so big, that it can stand to receive a TON of content without feeling bloated. It's a type of game that sees benefit from more content variety.
Mids:
- General character control is decent, albeit a bit sluggish at times - mostly at high-pace non linear movement and fighting, where you feel a bit disconnected from your character with no ability to manipulate your natural inertia (a game like Mirror's Edge handles realistic inertia to near perfection, as an example).
- Map is well sized and has a lot of room to make individual districts stand out from one another. However, the vastness also ends up emphasizing the slightly empty feel in the world itself, and many places outside of downtown city center end up being exclusively quest related and hold little explorational value (specifically because there is nothing to explore except the surface level content).
- Weapon variety is decent and distinctive, and allows players to build custom setups that cater to their personal playstyles. However, there also exists quite a bit of weapon overlap and the lack of more in-depth customization means the setups you end up having are often quite simplistic despite the depth of the skill tree.
Cons:
- Gunplay itself doesn't cater to player skill, as it just comes down to level gapping your opponent (or the other way around). The fps mechanics don't tempt the player to seek out advanced mechanical skill in combat/movement, because it is far more efficient to just level up your stats and seek out higher rated weapon tiers.
- Bullet sponginess has no place in a first person shooter, unless the game has some seriously good arguments for its existence. Safe to say, CP77 does NOT have good arguments. There is no logical reason that two exactly similar weapons can perform with a 1000% difference just because of their level rating. That is not how weapons work in a realistic-ish type of near future game world. This gameplay element is a major drawback to CP77.
- The entire character leveling system is vague and applied in the wrong places. Character leveling should exclusively be tied to a skill tree and player perks, NOT the quality of weapons that are available to them. That should be the job of "Street credit", not player level.
- AI is just not on par with the requirements for the massive scope of this game. You have gone through so much effort and hard work to create this beautiful city setting, yet the AI means it is impossible to populate that beautiful world. It's like playing in a photo mode simulator. NOT GOOD.
- Cops are still teleporting and the entire wanted system is superficial, as it has no long-term effects and cops are easy to get away from right up until they become overpowered. This extremely hard balance point is way too abrupt and subsequently the police and wanted system rarely feels like a meaningful/enjoyable game mechanic.
- The city is beautiful and made to work in both the horizontal and vertical plane, but as players we never get to explore the verticality of it because we always exist at street level. There is hardly any incentive to vertically scale the city (again bringing back Mirror's Edge as an example of how verticality can drastically change the perception of a city environment).
- There is no purpose to the character background you choose. After the initial 15 minutes of prologue gameplay, all you're left with are a few personalized dialogue options that don't change anything anyways.
- Lack of player interactivity and ability to be proactive in their own character story, rather than passively following narrated scripts all the time.
Here is how I would suggest things can be changed/added for future game expansions to tackle some of the main flaws of the game in its current state:
COMBAT:
1. Completely remove all looter-shooter elements. Remove gun leveling. Make all guns deal a flat base damage relative to the weapon and ammunition type.
2. Weapon rarity system (Common-Uncommon-Rare-Epic-Legendary) should be changed so that the rarity affects the quality of the weapon rather than its specific damage. Quality means how good of a shape is the weapon in? Does it occasionally misfire? Are reloads quick and easy, or are they janked and slow? How many modifications can be added? Cybernetic upgrades should be exclusive to Iconic weapons (regardless of rarity), to make them truly iconic both in name and gameplay.
3. Make enemies' level affect their strategies and mid-fight tactics, rather than their hp and dmg outputs. For example, a low level enemy would be a non-trained civilian with a gun -someone who fights in the open and reacts to distractions etc. These opponents may also try to flee when facing overwhelming odds (grenade spam, decapacitation, etc).
A medium level opponent would fight defensively and constantly seek out cover and try to hold their position and rotate their defense relative to you if you try to flank them. They will try to fight you at a range, and employ grenades if you get in close reach.
A high level opponent would be taking on a search-and-destroy tactic where they systematically in a team clear out angles and try to force multiple directions of engagement and push you into a disadvantage. They will also make use of netrunners who will either try to hack you, or intercept your own attempted quickhacks (you can intercept their hacks too if you're proficient in quickhacking).
Within these levels, there would also exist a hierarchy of command, where a group leader would have the ability to call in backup for example, or request a certain area to be closed off if you fight inside a public building like a mall or fenced area. This would give incentive to be strategic about who you try to fight and how.
GENERAL LEVELING:
4. Character level should be relevant for the skills you unlock in your skill tree and player perks. On the other hand, the Street Credit system should be what allows you to unlock unique trade deals with various vendors and get you higher tier gigs etc. High tier items and weapons should be acquired through good contacts and a wide social network, which gets wider the more street credibility you have.
Street Credibility should also be split into separate entities between each faction in Night City, and be a fluent meter that goes up and down depending on your actions. Lets say you do a lot of gigs for a certain gang, your street cred with them and their associated vendors and gig offers goes up - but then perhaps your street cred with another opposing gang goes down because you're making deals with their enemy. This means there is an active player incentive to decide where your alliance lies in Night city, as different alliances open up different opportunities and drawbacks. This offers fluent gameplay that is not limited to the scripted storyline or a set finite level counter that you have "perfected" once you reach lvl 50 or some other arbitrary number.
WORLD INTERACTION:
5. AI simply needs to change completely, and here is what is a desirable starting point:
You should be able to interact with citizens in a manner that has a progressive outcome, meaning the npc reacts to how your actions. The first step is to divide AI into subgroups, for example based on their occupation. Are they homeless? Young adults? Gang-members? Corpo affiliates? Regular workers? This will determine where they live (general area), and what their individual daily routine is (where they work, how they commute, etc).
Based on the occupation of the npc you interact with, they may respond with comments related to their general life. There could even be a 10% chance roll that they will have a tiny task you can help them with, which may improve your proficiency in whichever field their occupation lies in. And maybe there will be a 1% chance that the npc interaction could lead to a regular gig-sized event that changes dynamically (make a deal with X character, talk to X person about Y thing, get randomized reward).
Furthermore, what really is needed to implement into the Night City interaction, is progressive non-scripted events that take place regardless of whether you proc them or not. AKA world-based random events. This could for example be a local gang deciding to try a heist on a random passing Arasaka armored vehicle. Or maybe a group of people start gathering in the night to host a spontaneous street rave in an alley. Or maybe some locals begin a protest if large quantities of police are in an area that recently is not well aligned with the cops. Maybe a street brawl breaks out in front of a nightclub or at a bar.
The deal here is that these events are based on programmed AI mentality and a chance-of-proccing at any moment in time. Effectively, one could code it so that a given area has 1% of proccing a progressively generated event every 10 seconds (within a certain distance of fx 100 meters of the player character).
One could even make it so that players could actively try to encourage certain events - such as trying to rally bystanders into a protest mob, or encourage a local gang to perform a heist on the next passing Arasaka transport, or start raving in the street with music and passing npcs might join you if they feel like it etc, all based on percentage of proccing the progressive event generation - and this percentage can go up with your street credit level in that area too.
This is how you create natural interactivity. You give players the ability to decide if they want the world to take part in your gameplay, and vice versa.
6. The wanted system should be tied to your street credibility in the sense that the police sector has its own affiliation system that determines your standing with them regardless of whether youre actively committing a crime at a given moment or not.
If you have good affiliation with the police, they may overlook certain acts of violence or only dispatch low level enforcers to try and deal with you non-violently - and comparably if you are in bad standings they may send a highly skilled task force to deal with you over even the smallest offense, and actively react to you if they spot you roaming on the street. In such cases, if you're in a good standing with a local gang, they might come to your aid if police should try to engage on you in their territory.
If you ever perform an offense from a hard-to-reach position relative to street level, then the police should either try to deal with you by sending drones, or by drop-shipping police from a carrier vehicle flying in to your location (like how the Trauma team enters the apartment in that one story mission).
7. You as a player should have access to Trauma Team health insurance if you have the wealth to support it. How it would effectively work, is similar to how you can call in a vehicle: You call them to your general location, to which they arrive within lets say 30 seconds, and they will assist you (and anyone who is on good standings with you) by offering temporary medical and military aid, while also giving you the option to extract from the area and return to your safe house. The membership would be a one-time cost, like buying a house or vehicle, and then there would be a small fee each time you use their service (and a time limit to how often you can use it, fx once every 20 minutes).
MAP VERTICALITY:
8. Implementing a monorail metro system would be the best way to add easy verticality to Night City, and allow players to view the city from an elevated perspective while traveling between the large towering buildings. The second option would be a sky-equivalent version of the Delamain taxi service, but you request drone transportation instead. These would be point-to-point travel systems that would effectively substitute the current quick-travel network - and be a high speed alternative to the monorail metro.
For the most influential players who have reached the peak of importance in Night City, you could acquire a personal drone that you can point-and-travel to any position on the map (so not fully self-driven, but can be used from any position without having to seek out a quick-travel destination). This drone would take you all the way above the city itself as you travel at great speed across the map to any destination of your choosing.
A drone like this is something the player would acquire not just by financial means, but also by credibility and associates. For example, someone playing a corpo-oriented lifestyle would gain easier access to such a vehicle by socializing with high-standing corpos who might offer the vehicle as a part of a new job hiring bonus. A street-oriented lifestyle could on the other hand mean that getting in touch with a high standing gang boss could bring you the opportunity to steal a drone vehicle for yourself during a major gig for his gang, etc. This aspect of acquiring items from social credits and networks should also be carried over to other purchasable goods like apartments, weapons and gear, etc.
To further incentivize vertical exploration, it would be great to implement various non-ground floor points of interest. Such points of interest could be rooftop bars, lounges, mid-floor offices, landing pads for drone vehicles, etc. Rooftops in general should be points of interest just as much as ground floors.
Some of these elements are long-term potentials, while others are must-do's. The main must-do's are the ones related to combat gameplay/item+character leveling, and AI/city interaction. The lack of interactiveness is one of the game's biggest downfalls as it stands now, and the entire leveling system causes unwanted grind with no long-term payoff.
Feel free to add further suggestions or discuss the points I raise.
