With Cyberpunk 2077 being delayed yet again and the team working on polishing the game I decided to make this post to remind about and emphasize on the importance of QA and gameplay testing.
The previous big game, The Witcher 3, was very good overall. But its gameplay was desperately lacking that QA attention. It’s been 5 years and many of the skills are still bugged or not working at all. The Blood and Wine DLC is great, but again, the new skills (mutations) are either bugged, not working or duplicating the existing ones from the base game. I know that, because I’ve been modding the game for all those 5 years and fixing many of those bugs that still remain.
It’s known that at CDPR you place the story and the cinematic experience above all else. But for a game it’s not enough. Games are about gameplay. And for a good gameplay having skills with proper and clear descriptions that work as intended and increase the possibilities for the player to interact with the world is mandatory. Sure, the story can be so captivating and the visuals so stunning that at first the player won’t notice the gameplay issues. But as the game progresses problems become apparent and start to detract from the experience.
Here are some examples of why attention to gameplay matters.
Let’s start with Blood and Wine and mutations. The two ultimate mutations are called Second Life and Metamorphosis respectively. The first one revives you when you die and the second one activates a random decoction with no toxicity cost. But both skills already exist in the base game: namely Undying and Side Effects. Little bit different in implementation and sure less flashy in presentation, but they essentially do the same: Undying revives the player and Side Effects activates a random potion (not a decoction, granted, but still the very same mechanic that was already present). What was wrong with those skills that even the developers have forgotten about them? Well, yes, they were certainly not among the most used ones by the players. Because both were unreliable. You could still “randomly” die with Undying (because of the damage calculation rules and some enemies dealing more than one damage type at once, so for the player it looked like the skill randomly didn’t work). And having no control over which potion or decoction is activated makes Side Effects useless – who needs Cat at a sunny day in the middle of the combat? Realizing this makes one’s enthusiasm about the new skills diminish. Because after examining all the other mutations closely more problems become apparent. Deadly Counter and Cat Eyes exist because both counterattacks and crossbows are underwhelming in the base game. Euphoria is bugged and actually gives double the bonus displayed. Furthermore, no other mutation can compete with the passive and massive boost to both attack and sign power it gives! They’re all conditional and active while Euphoria is unconditional and passive - having a big full toxicity bar is not really a condition, because that toxicity means you have boosts from potions and decoctions and you’re getting Euphoria boost on top of them for free. Just take a look at every other mutation and compare investment vs reward and the huge disparity between them and Euphoria will become apparent. How could such an oversight have happened? My guess is the lack of QA and second opinions. Because B&W mutations look like ideas that were implemented without calculations and released without testing. And in the end such an approach did hurt the game, because no matter how good the story was (and it was a very good one!) the gameplay part felt lacking, there were no real choices to make in terms of character development, no new builds and no new tactical moves.
I will finish with the example that in my opinion illustrates the need of calculations and thorough testing the best: Melt Armor skill. The skill was supposed to literally melt the armor of enemies and thus increase the damage dealt to them. It wasn’t working (and still isn’t), but the players were posting on forums how good and effective it was. Why? The answer is simple – numbers. The skill actually did literally nothing. The only enemies who wear recognizable armors (humans) are bugged and don’t have those armor abilities on them. So their armor is zero and even if the skill itself was working properly, its effect wouldn’t matter. The player did see bigger numbers on damages because of two factors. First, the players buy skills after leveling up and leveling up passively increases sign and attack power, so you deal more damage just because of the levelup itself. Second, the skill is associated with Igni sign. And it needs to be slotted to work. And when you slot a skill more often than not you have a corresponding mutagen slotted too and thus gain even more sign power. As a result, casting Igni after leveling up and buying Melt Armor gives noticeably bigger damage numbers. And this is naturally attributed to the skill by the players.
Personally I don’t like progression systems that are based on numbers. And I would prefer Cyberpunk 2077 to go “wide” instead of going “tall”. But whatever path you’ve chosen with it, please, remember that gameplay matters! Attention to skills, their descriptions, visual and audio feedback, their performance and synergies with the other skills and gameplay elements is important in the long run. Stories can be finished in dozens of hours, but the games can be played for hundreds of hours if the gameplay is done properly.
The previous big game, The Witcher 3, was very good overall. But its gameplay was desperately lacking that QA attention. It’s been 5 years and many of the skills are still bugged or not working at all. The Blood and Wine DLC is great, but again, the new skills (mutations) are either bugged, not working or duplicating the existing ones from the base game. I know that, because I’ve been modding the game for all those 5 years and fixing many of those bugs that still remain.
It’s known that at CDPR you place the story and the cinematic experience above all else. But for a game it’s not enough. Games are about gameplay. And for a good gameplay having skills with proper and clear descriptions that work as intended and increase the possibilities for the player to interact with the world is mandatory. Sure, the story can be so captivating and the visuals so stunning that at first the player won’t notice the gameplay issues. But as the game progresses problems become apparent and start to detract from the experience.
Here are some examples of why attention to gameplay matters.
Let’s start with Blood and Wine and mutations. The two ultimate mutations are called Second Life and Metamorphosis respectively. The first one revives you when you die and the second one activates a random decoction with no toxicity cost. But both skills already exist in the base game: namely Undying and Side Effects. Little bit different in implementation and sure less flashy in presentation, but they essentially do the same: Undying revives the player and Side Effects activates a random potion (not a decoction, granted, but still the very same mechanic that was already present). What was wrong with those skills that even the developers have forgotten about them? Well, yes, they were certainly not among the most used ones by the players. Because both were unreliable. You could still “randomly” die with Undying (because of the damage calculation rules and some enemies dealing more than one damage type at once, so for the player it looked like the skill randomly didn’t work). And having no control over which potion or decoction is activated makes Side Effects useless – who needs Cat at a sunny day in the middle of the combat? Realizing this makes one’s enthusiasm about the new skills diminish. Because after examining all the other mutations closely more problems become apparent. Deadly Counter and Cat Eyes exist because both counterattacks and crossbows are underwhelming in the base game. Euphoria is bugged and actually gives double the bonus displayed. Furthermore, no other mutation can compete with the passive and massive boost to both attack and sign power it gives! They’re all conditional and active while Euphoria is unconditional and passive - having a big full toxicity bar is not really a condition, because that toxicity means you have boosts from potions and decoctions and you’re getting Euphoria boost on top of them for free. Just take a look at every other mutation and compare investment vs reward and the huge disparity between them and Euphoria will become apparent. How could such an oversight have happened? My guess is the lack of QA and second opinions. Because B&W mutations look like ideas that were implemented without calculations and released without testing. And in the end such an approach did hurt the game, because no matter how good the story was (and it was a very good one!) the gameplay part felt lacking, there were no real choices to make in terms of character development, no new builds and no new tactical moves.
I will finish with the example that in my opinion illustrates the need of calculations and thorough testing the best: Melt Armor skill. The skill was supposed to literally melt the armor of enemies and thus increase the damage dealt to them. It wasn’t working (and still isn’t), but the players were posting on forums how good and effective it was. Why? The answer is simple – numbers. The skill actually did literally nothing. The only enemies who wear recognizable armors (humans) are bugged and don’t have those armor abilities on them. So their armor is zero and even if the skill itself was working properly, its effect wouldn’t matter. The player did see bigger numbers on damages because of two factors. First, the players buy skills after leveling up and leveling up passively increases sign and attack power, so you deal more damage just because of the levelup itself. Second, the skill is associated with Igni sign. And it needs to be slotted to work. And when you slot a skill more often than not you have a corresponding mutagen slotted too and thus gain even more sign power. As a result, casting Igni after leveling up and buying Melt Armor gives noticeably bigger damage numbers. And this is naturally attributed to the skill by the players.
Personally I don’t like progression systems that are based on numbers. And I would prefer Cyberpunk 2077 to go “wide” instead of going “tall”. But whatever path you’ve chosen with it, please, remember that gameplay matters! Attention to skills, their descriptions, visual and audio feedback, their performance and synergies with the other skills and gameplay elements is important in the long run. Stories can be finished in dozens of hours, but the games can be played for hundreds of hours if the gameplay is done properly.