And I guess no honest feedback to the developers during a time that it matters the most (months before the game releases) is immune to nitpicking either.
all of that to say...i still don't understand this general nihilism at the mere mention of things not being what they thought or what devs were working on 2 years ago. at every point the CDPR has made clear that features they were working on including could be removed entirely. it seems a lot of people missed this?
I think it has something to do with the fact that a bunch of people are hanging on to Cyberpunk2077 for dear life as a genuine good quality escapist experience considering the state of the world, and Idon't mean anything political or virus related in any way. Some of us have a really, well, certain kind of view, or opinion, or well, how we feel about life on earth, and when a game as great as Cyberpunk2077 comes along, made by people as great as CDProjektRed, it really really matters to us a lot because we're just waiting for that chance to immerse ourselves in a world of imagination and forget just for a single moment how bad things are, and sort of just focus on an experience where our choices actually do matter. A world where we can actually make a difference. When we see things being dropped and choices and options being taken away or just simply going bye bye for any number of reasons, even good reasons, we get depressed, like very depressed, because that experience we're all looking forward to is now diminished, not the same it could have been, you see, we could get every vitamin and mineral in the world from A to Z, but without a full and proper dose of Vitamin Cyberpunk, we're just starving. We're desperately and fearfully and excitedly anticipating the moment where we find out, is Cyberpunk a full spectrum multivitamin, or is it just like a 50% reccomended daily allowance add-on supplement?
I may want what I want, and I may need what I need, we may all those things, but I know that we know, we are also maybe mildly kidding ourselves a little, but yea, we are aware, we're imperfect human beings, and we should never put our full faith into something, anything imperfect of this imperfect world. It will never be perfect, so yes of course it is foolish on my part to say that I expect that, and I don't expect perfection, even though I may hope for something above average, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
And even the greatest games become boring eventually.
Are we all vampires? Always forever thirsty for more? Never satisfied? Never QUENCHED?
Or are we just waiting for the one and only true thing that will ever give us what we need.
I know it will be good, but when, when will it be done.
"But the main issue here is that the system hasn't been improved in any significant or tangible way since the witcher 2 days. Why is CDPR using copy-pasting the same mechanic. "
This is straight up incorrect, if you're not just ranting or just complaining for complaining I can't understand why would you write something like this.
Obviously they didn't "literally copy-paste" the fist fight codes from the previous games (i hope so).
If you compare a fist fight tournament match from the Witcher 3 with that fist fight seen from Cyberpunk, what difference do you see or feel other than the perspective change?
For me, i see that
- the enemies attack in almost the same intervals, and even in the same attack variations. This is a Cyberpunk world, why aren't the enemies have some augmentation for more impactful punches (could be indicated through simple smokes coming out of their arms or elbows), or speed boosters for dash. Well the boss from the animals gang did have a dash move, so does having a simple dash move make them a boss? come on !!
- the actions available at the player's disposal are literally the same, a light attack, a strong attack, a dodge/ sidestep, a basic kick. needless to say all the animations look lame and boring.
- the hit impacts feel the same, but even worse in Cyberpunk, when the player character gets hit, there is only a UI indication and a slight player character position displacement.
- when knocking out an opponent, he immediately falls down in the same fashion as seen in the Witcher 3, even the same ragdoll or rolling in pain animation. if there is a difference, i really couldnt notice it.
- strategy employed were the same, you wait for them to attack and then land a counter attack.
- collision detection and audio queues were extremely weird. And i don't think its due to the fact that the demos were played through a streaming media (similar to stadia and steam remote play), that would only explain the slow react because of latency/ping.
- when counter attacking, 3 impact sounds were played, but the actual contact points were just 2, the block and the attack. The third sound had no purpose other than creating a false psychological assumption that the fight was "fast paced" but in reality there were only two actions done there. I really didn't think CDPR would implement something like this.
I doubted whether to write anything or not, as its obvious to almost anyone that this is not a QTE minigame with scripted fight animations, but an actual hand to hand fighting system instead with controls for movement, different attacks, blocking, all in real time, with AI for enemies, and with collision or hitboxes. Actual health and damage are involved, probably affected by stats, more than one enemy can be in the same fight, the fights take place in the actual gameworld thus you have to take the environment into consideration for moving; basically this couldn't be any more different to witcher 2.
Initially i was thinking "why is he stating the obvious", then i went to recheck how fist fights were in witcher 2, yea my bad there, i completely forgot that fist fights were quick time events in witcher 2 (its almost been a decade), but hey, the moves he does in witcher 2 seem way better than those in witcher 3, like the fast flurry punches.
As for animations, everywhere, melee or otherwise, hand to hand or katana, its all work in progress with 5 months ahead. In videogame dev, animations are one of the things that look the absolute worse until release. It's always like that except for very specific examples of games with insane team and budget sizes like RDR or Assassins' Creed, or games with inherited animation systems from previous projects (again assassins' creed). Go look at early footage of witcher 3 or other games, they all have a TON of jank as they should have and if they dont its usually in the main content like just walking or core combat. We're talking about side stuff like hand fighting here, which also happens to be hard to make it look right. Dying Light or Mirror's Edge don't count ofc as those games are entirely based around that specific thing.
Lot of people feel that animations are the ultimate last and final part of developing a game, that might have been the case before, but now with motion capture, i dont think they would hold that as the literal last piece of development. every mechanic from siting to fighting has to be done in coordination with its animation.
I'm pretty sure CDPR doesn't consider these as WIP, who in their right minds would show WIP content to news outlets and in trailers?. I'd wager CDPR uses these 5 months to remove bugs like glitches, collision clipping, path finder, damage values, collision detection etc. I'd be more than happy if they do improve these combat systems and add animations. But i'm under the impression that they have already finalized these.
The early trailers from the witcher 3 have pretty solid and good looking mechanics. They did remove sliding and monster mounting as shown in the swords of destiny trailer, but there was never too much hype for those features.
I think it has something to do with the fact that a bunch of people are hanging on to Cyberpunk2077 for dear life as a genuine good quality escapist experience considering the state of the world, and Idon't mean anything political or virus related in any way. Some of us have a really, well, certain kind of view, or opinion, or well, how we feel about life on earth, and when a game as great as Cyberpunk2077 comes along, made by people as great as CDProjektRed, it really really matters to us a lot because we're just waiting for that chance to immerse ourselves in a world of imagination and forget just for a single moment how bad things are, and sort of just focus on an experience where our choices actually do matter. A world where we can actually make a difference. When we see things being dropped and choices and options being taken away or just simply going bye bye for any number of reasons, even good reasons, we get depressed, like very depressed, because that experience we're all looking forward to is now diminished, not the same it could have been, you see, we could get every vitamin and mineral in the world from A to Z, but without a full and proper dose of Vitamin Cyberpunk, we're just starving. We're desperately and fearfully and excitedly anticipating the moment where we find out, is Cyberpunk a full spectrum multivitamin, or is it just like a 50% reccomended daily allowance add-on supplement?
As for animations, everywhere, melee or otherwise, hand to hand or katana, its all work in progress with 5 months ahead. In videogame dev, animations are one of the things that look the absolute worse until release.
The purpose of showing trailers and gameplay footage are to represent to final product and make potential buyers interested in the game. It's marketing, i repeat, no one in their right minds would show a WIP content on their trailers and advertisements in any industry.
In your exact words, I'm pretty sure there were more important things to be done in the witcher 3 than "Gwent" which is not anywhere even near the core mechanics of the game, and not even considered a side stuff mechanic. So please, CDPR are more than willing to put resources into side and non-core mechanics.
You know how detailed Gwent was in witcher 3. But shit like unarmed combat in cyberpunk "is the core mechanic" as it exists as a reliable alterantive in combat. Which looks extremely boring and dull right now. Unarmed combat doesn't have to be as detailed and complex as a fighting game. But it certainly needs more, and that's the point of this thread.
I never wanted it to be the best of every other AAA game.
But seeing sword animations like Skyrim (2011 game) and unarmed combat like witcher 3 (2015 game) and other similar features that haven't evolved at all are what disappoints me. And this is CDPR we're talking about, they are all about making ambitious titles. So expecting better or atleast on par with other good games isn't too much to ask.
In a simple numerical example, let's say my expectations of cyberpunk's gameplay was 100
I wouldn't have cared or would have been satisfied enough if the game's actual gameplay was 50-80
But what i'm seeing on the trailers and gameplay footages are 20-40
that's why i feel so disappointed.
And with all the features being removed like vechile customization, trains etc etc
It's definitely not helping.
When you consider the hype we had for the game. Is it really unrealistic expectations?
But seeing sword animations like Skyrim (2011 game) and unarmed combat like witcher 3 (2015 game) and other similar features that haven't evolved at all are what disappoints me. And this is CDPR we're talking about, they are all about making ambitious titles.
CDPR has never been known for its groundbreaking animation like Naughty Dog though. When I hear "ambitious" and "CDPR" in the same sentence, I think story choices, characters, detailed world. Not combat animation.
If the quests are reactive as the previews said, expecially in terms of choices and consequences, and your background matters outside the prologues, expanding on the system introduced in Dragon Age Origins, than that's good enough. Combat and other silly stuff is side content, this game is an RPG, not a shooter.
In terms of animations, have we even seen any of the high level gameplay? I thought we've only seen the prologue content which would reason it being a fairly low-level character with sloppier animations to reflect that?
I will make the case that I hope animations are a bit better and varied though. I'm not saying they need to be the best is the business, but having more variety would be nice. I would argue that RDR2 was meant to be a third-person game (it's what they're known for and all the prior games were), but their first person animations and fighting was actually rather impressive.
It'll be nice if they throw in some things like kicks to knees, chokes, etc. I don't know if this was mo-capped or not, but maybe use a go-pro on a proficient boxer, muay thai fighter and grappler for inspiration in how it'd look in first person?
I'm content with what we have for this game, but I do hope they make another Cyberpunk game after this with even more advances in gameplay and animations.
Keep in mind CP2077 is first and foremost an RPG.
Not an action game (Doom).
Not an FPS (Call of Duty).
Not a melee fighting game (Mortal Kombat).
Not a driving sim (Richard Burns Rally).
Not a wasteland survival game (Mad Max).
Not a "create your own story" open world (Skyrim).
Not ...
Not ...
Not ...
To expect any aspect of the game (combat, driving, ect.) to play as well as a game dedicated to and designed around those game mechanics is wishful thinking at best, foolish at worst.
If the quests are reactive as the previews said, expecially in terms of choices and consequences, and your background matters outside the prologues, expanding on the system introduced in Dragon Age Origins, than that's good enough. Combat and other silly stuff is side content, this game is an RPG, not a shooter.
CDPR describes the game as "open-world, action-adventure story", it no longer calls it a RPG. So when a game is being advertised as an Action-adventure, combat doesnt become "side stuff", it becomes the core mechanic.
It is an Action game , in which action game combat is a side stuff ? Are u expecting that they bring out the "action" using dialogues ?
An RPG game is supposed to give way for different modes of playing, melee combat is a playstyle too
and if it is indeed a shooter then the game should focus on melee combat as well, not entirely but atleast partly, for an eg; Saints Row The third , has guns based combat as primary and melee combat as secondary but it had its own variations , not saying that Cyberpunk should be like SR3 but they could have a better melee combat mechanics than the cut and dried version ( attacks, counter-attacks, dodges, block). Plus CDPR specified that the game will have underground martial arts tournament, so combat is not an "side stuff" for them.( If the combat gets better after some progress in the game then its good too but in what way is still a mystery).
RDR2 comes to mind when thinking about groundbreaking animations. And CDPR didn't shy away nor put less resource on animations, the NPCs have thousands of motion captured animation. But the Player Character animations feel like a generic FPS game. Generic FPS doesn't feel immersive.
Witcher 3 was their previous "most ambitious" project. If they had made it the way you are indicating, then Witcher 3 would have just been Witcher 2, with only better story choices, characters and detail of world.
The meaning of Ambitious is -
"(of a plan or piece of work) intended to satisfy high aspirations and therefore difficult to achieve."
Story choices, characters (almost all witcher characters were from the books anyway), and detailed world, was already achieved in Wticher 3. So those have become basic expectations from CDPR. When saying a developer are making a Ambitious game, people look at "what new great feature, that they felt difficult before, are they implementing now".
Rockstar's recent ambitious project was RDR2, which had fully detailed and motion captured animations for literally everything. Its not just a difficult to achieve task for Rockstar, its also an extremely difficult task for literally any developer.
Monster Hunter : World was the MH dev team's most ambitious project. Just look at previous Monster Hunter titles. its blatantly obvious that they achieved such an high and difficult task.
Fromsoftware claims Elden Ring to be its most Ambitious project, through the sheer size and has made supposedly made it open world like Skyrim and witcher. If you compare that kind of open world approach to their previous games, then it certainly qualifies as a ambitious project.
Bethesda's most Ambitious game was Skyrim, which people even play to this date(i would give the credit to modders rather than bestheda on that).
Dying Light 2 is the most ambitious project of the dying light team, because they are bringing in a "new" feature of dynamic world changes based on player choices. Dying light one didn't even have anything near that. So definitely its a huge task for them to overcome. Thus ambitious.
Witcher 3 was ambitious, because it brought in a massive open-world with swimming, horse riding etc. It brought in crossbow, literally hundreds of sidequests. Those are just a few features they brought in. All those were very ambitious for CDPR at that time.
So when CDPR called Cyberpunk as its next "most ambitious" project. Anyone would obviously look for big things that they bring in new.
Right now the ambition i see in Cyberpunk 2077 is
- extremely crowded city scape with hundreds of NPCs.
- Item based dialog options (which is just extended the dialog options)
the only high level gameplay we saw was access to mid-game cyberware/weapons/abilities during the E3 2018 gameplay demo, which is just not indicative of how the game is built at the moment. we don't even know how old the build the devs played for NCW is. and the high level gameplay during that demo wasn't a "full suite" of abilities.
but my main point is, we don't know how gameplay mechanics look when those mechanics are transformed by use and investment. example from a different game: AC Odyssey. there are some skills that can be invested in multiple times, and at each investment tier, the animation changes, becoming faster and more complex.
CP2077 may be doing something similar. i don't know and neither do you. but it does make sense to me that shooting would have ridiculous recoil early in the game. it does make sense to me that fighting would feel clunky early in game (when i started muay thai irl, i looked way clunkier than i did 4 months later).
the only thing i want to see from investment in melee combat is kicking. i didn't see V kick during his fight with the twins. based on the gamepad control scheme, i can imagine a control scheme for kicking. i'd love a basic roundhouse and a forward kick, like a bênção (capoeira) or a teep (muay thai). if it's not in there, no loss. if it is, then that'd be pretty dope.
Right now the ambition i see in Cyberpunk 2077 is
- extremey croweded city scape with hundreds of NPCs.
- Item based dialog options (which is just extended the dialog options)
I think that you are being biased because you are in criticism mode of a game you hype about.
The ambition of the game is astounding.
A FEW gameplays points that have been quite well developed here, and some other matters in other domains, have raised valid concerns... but the general impression is still great!
I'm not in criticism mode, i'm just in "we want some more!" mode.
Because, like a lot of people, i too want Cyberpunk to be the game which i'd enjoy playing for the next 5 years.
I want it to become my next most favorite game.
But after seeing that some other games have features that looks absolutely amazing, like driving, combat, customization, cool moves, animations etc.
And after seeing that the gameplay videos show features that are not even close to that, it makes me fear that this game might not end up becoming my next most favorite game.
Hey, i never called the game trash or anything, we all know its amazing.
If i had the choice of picking a game to play, among Cyberpunk, Dying Light 2, Mirro's Edge, Doom, Starfield, Crysis remastered, or pretty much any FPP game out there, I'd pick Cyberpunk anytime anywhere, no question in that.
A FEW gameplays points that have been quite well developed here, and some other domains, have raised valid concerns... but the general impression is still great!
Well CDPR does have 3 + 2 months of development time, and if unarmed combat and mechanics like that were at the bottom of CDPR's checklist, meaning if they had left that to be finished in the upcoming months. Then I'm worrying for nothing. But if that's not the case, I'd try hard to get my feedback out there before the point of no return.
(sure they have all the time to add things after release, but that doesnt feel the same way as having all that on launch date.)
I understand for sure.
Maybe this forum is not the best place to get your voice heard from the studio itself,
I read half-humorously somewhere that CDPR follows twitter feedback closely, maybe you can try to make yourself heard there too.
Also journalists have been making most of those criticisms already, I think the value of your post is that it is comprehensive and well-written, might be harder on twitter!
