Cyberpunk Levels & Character Progression Systems

[KakitaTatsumaru]

I don't agree it's auto something. Just because you have a smart gun doesn't mean you auto win a fight. V had to switch away from it in the 2018 demo towards the tech shotgun, which was much more effective.

The point of being skilled at something is to do that something only.
Being a marksman doesn't auto win fights, it make you hit things you shoot at. That's exactly what smartgun does for you.

And what would an auto-hacking tool do by doing minigames for you would be not different.

 

[Snowflakez]

I agree about leveled gear. Fingers crossed it's not a thing. I'm okay-ish with rarities though.

I edited my post with a different suggestion for progression. What do you think? I've mentioned it before, but not sure if I've ever gotten your opinion.

As for rarities, I mostly don't like rarities when they mean two identical guns are different in stats. I can stomach it if it's just a way of saying "this gun is unique and special compared to others," but I'd still prefer they use terms other than Fantasy ones.

 

[Rawls]

I would prefer that weapons and gear function as follows:

• You have several categories of weapons: Pistols, SMGS, snipers, etc.
• There are 5-6 DISTINCT (visually and power/functionality) tiers of each weapon. Ramshackle, Street, LE-Grade (law enforcement), Military-grade, Corporate-grade, Experimental. Just as examples.
• It is possible -- just as it was in Skyrim -- to use a lower-powered "Street" pistol throughout the game, but you will need to spend more time and effort upgrading it using crafting skills, applying mods, etc. Think of it like enchanting and honing a Steel sword in Skyrim. You will always be better off using more powerful gear, but if you just really like the style of a certain piece of equipment (or you have a sentimental attachment), you can get by with it.
• For melee weapons, since there is so much variety, things would work a bit differently. I would break it up into two-handed, one-handed, etc. You can still have unique weapons that don't specifically fit a certain tier, just as you did in Skyrim (the nanowire could be one example). Or maybe someone can suggest an alternate system for melee weapons.
• The main thing I would change is the drops themselves. A corporate pistol could drop off a random bandit, but it should be VERY, VERY rare (maybe he was lucky enough to pop a Corpo in the face via an ambush). For the most part, "tiers" of enemies should have gear appropriate to their tier. Street thugs use street or ramshackle guns. Corpo guards use corpo weapons. The best of the best use experimental gear (this could drop from bosses). Police drop LE-grade gear.

Honestly for guns I'd like weapons to just have a base level assigned to that weapon. You can tinker with it some, but ultimately it never gets too far above or below what it is. "Rarer" guns could have extra doohickies on them (scopes, fancy designs, auto targeting, laser sights, bursts, mods to help them be drawn or loaded faster etc), but the damage is based on the caliber of the gun. That makes the most sense to me. As I've said many times before (an PS I love that aim is based on the cool stat), the real difference in gun combat ought to be represented by weapon sway, bullet spread, reload speed, draw speed, etc.

Melee weapons are a different story a bit. Stats should have more of an effect on them are damage %s and the like. If you can swing harder you do more damage. Parry time or area box gets bigger, and etc. Rarity for them should be more about durability & style. But my preference would never be the way it's done in games, cause people would get made when their favorite sword broke and became unusable.

So honestly, the best system for me would be that there isn't a lot of progression in the sense individual item of gear reappearing as a better form of itself later in the game. The progression is simply getting better gear. This would involve having lots of different brands, with rare stuff being exponentially more expensive than common stuff. This sort of focus on economic cost for items being premium is how I would prefer to gate it. That not only serves as a way to "gate" stuff mechanically, but also serves the milieu of the world with rampant consumerism and chasing the almighty dollar. If you can afford it and convince someone to sell it to you, you can have. Or if you manage to defeat someone a lot "better" than you, and get some awesome loot for it, you can use it (assuming t's not DNA locked or something).

Ultimately, I like designs that are intuitive and are common sense representations of real world things adapted for the intellectual property. I don't love smart guns because they aren't realistic IMO, but they're a better solution than something like VATs IMO which is very game-y. They're included for people who don't like twitchiness, which is reasonable. I personally like twitchier and frantic combat, because that seems more realistic to me. Being able to comfortably execute a well thought out plan does not scream Fireday Night Firefight to me. But understanding that some people dont like / cant do that, I have no problems with implementing something that accommodates the preference. I actually think Smart Guns is a fairly intuitive way to do that. Much more interesting than pausing a screen, picking the limb with the highest %, and clicking X.

 

[Mybrokenenglish]

well, if gear is not level gated, it means that the +X% DMG to bullet skills will be extremely important. I mean, levelled enemies (= bullet sponges) have been confirmed, so how do you increase your DMG output without levels if enemies' HP grow a lot?

Both are awful designs.

It could've been so easy to make a less numbers-centric progression system... Fixed stats for each enemy archetype, fixed DMG for weapon type, you progress via obtaining better gear (no color coded bullshit), active skills (cyberware: double jump, x-ray vision, skin weave...), passive skills (better weapon handling with use) and better stats (STR, INT...) and you gate missions with steet creds (= reputation). Early in the game fighting a max tac officer is almost impossible since he's very good at shooting, fully armored and has a lot of crazy cyberware (double jump, x-ray vision, super speed), but if you manage to sneak behind his back and cut his throat with a broken glass, he's dead.
No, we must have a level 3 V with a bazooka who barely damages a level 25 enemy. Borderlands 2077: the wild mankind divided.

Why must any progression system nowadays be that much number-centric = very very VERY gamey and immersion breaking? Few years ago devs were actually trying different things, now it's all the same (and is not good). They put it even in Control which is a 15 hours linear game FFS.

P.S. yes, skyrim's system is much better at this.

 

[Snowflakez]

My only real complaint with the progression systems in Skyrim were the passive bonuses perks gave you. In that sense, I actually like 2077's character progression better, but I think it's weapon/gear progression is worse.

 

[Kuboniusz]

My only real complaint with the progression systems in Skyrim were the passive bonuses perks gave you. In that sense, I actually like 2077's character progression better, but I think it's weapon/gear progression is worse.

Skyrim's weapon progression was deeply tied to crafting/enchanting and it worked great. I think it would work great in cyberpunk too (yes with colour coded gear too) if crafting was given similar significance. Unfortunately we know virtually nothing about that which is a huge shame. Kind of makes me think it'll be a half-assed addition there to give resource grinding a purpose but I'll guess we will have to see.

And here's the biggest issue I have with CDPR at the moment. They feed us strips of unrelated information and/or vague statements and the rest is a guessing game. I actually think it creates a more negative image of the game, at least amongst the CP community. I hope we get some more of those short twitter videos theyve been dropping recently. Slightly more informative. Maybe. Perhaps. Please?

 

[CyberBobber]

I think cdpr tries more the rockstar route and they add the multiplayer later on.I think rdr online got the potential to be their best multiplayer game yet because it has a much more mature and stronger rpg tone in it

You sure about this? As far I know they have 40 people already working on MP and theres still 8 month to go, we might get something small for launch. I could almost bet ts somed knd of gang-PVP thing, especially news about MP and NPCs can be killed came at the same.

 

[Snowflakez]

Skyrim's weapon progression was deeply tied to crafting/enchanting and it worked great. I think it would work great in cyberpunk too (yes with colour coded gear too) if crafting was given similar significance. Unfortunately we know virtually nothing about that which is a huge shame. Kind of makes me think it'll be a half-assed addition there to give resource grinding a purpose but I'll guess we will have to see.

And here's the biggest issue I have with CDPR at the moment. They feed us strips of unrelated information and/or vague statements and the rest is a guessing game. I actually think it creates a more negative image of the game, at least amongst the CP community. I hope we get some more of those short twitter videos theyve been dropping recently. Slightly more informative. Maybe. Perhaps. Please?

I actually think it works fine even without crafting. Honestly, I barely touched the crafting skills in my Skyrim playthroughs. I just bought or looted stuff and never regretted it. I did toy with enchanting and tempering, but never outright crafting.

I would guess crafting will serve similar purposes in this game; improving existing stuff and what have you. We'll certainly see, though.

 

[Atalvyr]

I also have big hopes for the crafting system in the game. With the many cool weapons in Cyberpunk and first person perspective meaning we always get to see them up close, being able to customize you gun would be very satisfying.

So far, I think the only thing we know is that we can change the weapon "type", for instance turning a Smart weapon that tracks enemies into a Strong weapon that punches through walls or into a Tech weapon that bounces bullets around corners. I hope we can also mess with grips, silencers, scopes and such to change the handling of the guns, but I don't think we have seen/heard about this being in the game yet.

Apart from that, a big part of crafting the PnP was the ability to make your own custom 'deck for netrunning. Modding in faster CPU's and more memory to get faster hacks, or adding security features to keep opposing netrunners from frying your brain (or taking security features away to get faster but more risky hacks). Hopefully hacking equipment is also a factor in CP2077, so non-combat types have gear to chase as well. I don't know what kind of crafting/equipment Techies will want to focus on, but from what we know so far they might be able to mod the drone and perhaps make some custom cyberwear to make their lives easier.

 

[Kuboniusz]

I actually think it works fine even without crafting. Honestly, I barely touched the crafting skills in my Skyrim playthroughs. I just bought or looted stuff and never regretted it. I did toy with enchanting and tempering, but never outright crafting.

I would guess crafting will serve similar purposes in this game; improving existing stuff and what have you. We'll certainly see, though.

Yes sorry by crafting I meant enhancing your weapons (I would usually do it back to back and it's in the same skill tree that's why I just generalised).

 

[Codecypher]

I also have big hopes for the crafting system in the game. With the many cool weapons in Cyberpunk and first person perspective meaning we always get to see them up close, being able to customize you gun would be very satisfying.

So far, I think the only thing we know is that we can change the weapon "type", for instance turning a Smart weapon that tracks enemies into a Strong weapon that punches through walls or into a Tech weapon that bounces bullets around corners. I hope we can also mess with grips, silencers, scopes and such to change the handling of the guns, but I don't think we have seen/heard about this being in the game yet.

They did confirm in an interview that you can customize your weapons, I am not sure if there was any spraying of the weapons but you could attach scopes, silencers, extended clip etc.