Nice article from GamePressure, if a bit negative-sounding for my taste (not that I should care, I'm not one of the devs
). What I like about it is that it takes a more cold-headed look at some aspects of the game shown so far, compared to other articles.
[...]I do not expect it to be possible to take out a gun and start a slaughter of innocent residents in the middle of the street, just as many of us, home-grown psychopaths, did in GTA to play cat and mouse with the police.
I am convinced of such "non-interactivity" of Night City residents by, for example, how they behave when a player accidentally knocks them down on the sidewalk. In fact, virtual people make the impression of icebergs in such random events. They don't lose their balance or even throw insults at the hero – they simply move V as a cube of physics, walking further in their own direction.
Usually I don't like playing the psycho-randomly-firing-at-the-crowd type in videogames unless it's one as funnily stupid and stupidly fun as Just Cause and still I usually target foes, not pedestrians. That being said, it would be very dissapointing if the players weren't able to pull their weapons out at will in the street. There should be consequences, obviously, considering how the people of Night City's different districts deal with threats of violence—either running from it or responding to it the same way—but no reaction at all sounds like an oversight from the devs.
It does make a bit of sense that people in places like Pacifica might be desensitized to violence around them, depending on who's attacking who. However, some of them should at the very least verbally react to it, not just stand there ("like a donkey on a boat", as we say in my country
). Even regular NPCs in The Witcher 3 had better reactions to violence.
Sounds like there's still work to be done there. Chop chop, CDPR!
On the other hand, the developer has announced that the game will include a "search system". This would suggest that there is, however, the possibility of committing crimes and attracting the attention of law enforcement. It sounds promising, but in fact it does not have to be a more complex mechanism than the one from Witcher 3, in which guards simply threw themselves with bare swords at Geralt, if he stole a sweet roll in front of their eyes. This is likely to be the case if CDPR have ruled out the option of surrendering to law enforcement and going to prison (or to a cyber-psychiatric institution for braindance therapy). In short, for the time being we are not able to say how much of the living world Cyberpunk 2077 we will actually see.
I do believe it should be a bit more developed feature than it was in TW3. There's no need to go full psycho to get the law's or the gangs' attention but any enforcing/protecting group should be aware of the players' actions if it affects them or their protected NPCs. And, of course, react accordingly: not with bazookas if the players steal an apple from a street vendor, not with sticks if the players mow down a group of thugs with a gatling gun.
By the way, if the devs did confirm that the players can't go to jail or anything like that, how would law enforcement work? Would security forces always try to kill the players? Would they send them to a lifetime imprisonment if not killed (basically a game over state when captured)?
The construction of the virtual world is combined with the issue I had a problem with in The Wild Hunt – the rigid assignment of levels to opponents, locations and tasks.
I don't have a problem with that. The alternative—level scaling—is not of my liking in most scenarios, unless my character is way overleveled, but if it were to be implemented in the final version of the game I hope it's optional, like in TW3.
The same with quest scaling: I don't mind having some of them being appropiately gatekept. Not all edgerunners have automatic access to every place and every important person in the city.
Fortunately, knowing the art values of CD Projekt Red, we don't have to worry that gaining experience while performing side tasks will turn out to be some unpleasant duty – even if we haven't seen any such activity yet.
As long as the game on a whole is fairly balanced I don't mind if certain quests reward me with little XP, I just don't want them to be boring or unremarkable.
XP gains are rarely memorable but stories usually stay with you.
The fact that Cyberpunk is not a Deus Ex can also be seen in fights against bosses. It seems that they have to be defeated even by players who don't like to use any type of force - only after the opponent's health bar is reduced to zero we may decide whether or not to spare his life.
I don't recall the devs saying they wanted to, for instance, introduce social battles with bosses, like the ones on Deus Ex, so that's not a fair comparison. Not that I wouldn't want them in the game, mind you, they could add another layer of interesting gameplay to CP2077, but I was never expecting them either.
Also, be aware of the scale of this project. Deus Ex didn't even stand close to the sandbox, so Eidos Montreal could afford to be much more meticulous in designing quests and locations. Six-district Night City is a much more difficult area to develop than a piece of Prague presented in Mankind Divided.
Yep. We always have to keep in mind this: Night City is not Prague nor Golem City. Cyberpunk 2077 is not Deus Ex. Cyberpunk 2077 is not [insert your favorite RPG here].
That being said, I do hope there are some locations, in the "real world" or the Net, as elaborate as the ones in the Deus Ex games but adapted to CP2077's gameplay.
Based on what I have written so far, you may have had the impression that the purpose of this text is to discredit Cyberpunk and to sow the seeds of doubt. I want to assure you that this is not my intention. If it were otherwise, I'd be dwelling on issues such as poorly-looking driving model, poor optimization, debatable AI of opponents or flawed physics of the ragdoll system – that's what we already pointed out in the previous announcements of the game, and what in all likelihood will be improved until next year.
It's good feedback for the devs but it's just harsh-sounding, like listening to a bitter teacher. We all want the devs to make the best game they can but there's no need to "scold" them, so to speak
But, of course, there's no obligation to treat them like delicate flowers, either
I only hope that character development will be more interesting than in The Witcher 3, where the effect gained from every level advancement often ended in boring addition of small enhancements (like +2% to rapid attack damage).
I fully agree. Those specific skill gains in TW3 were bull
Sadly, I read somewhere that those type of "skills" exists in CP2007's current skill tree.
Please CDPR, make CP2077's skill tree more interesting than that!
In Cyberpunk you may choose your character past, which has an impact on the game's starting point (did anyone in the room just shout Dragon Age: Origins?). The dialogue options and set of abilities are dependent on this decision (your past).
[T]he presentation of dialogues. There is still no distinction between cut-scenes and actual gameplay as in most games – both are smoothly combined together.
These things I love. The last one feels like a Half-Life approach to gameplay, which I find very pleasing
[T]he character moves on the battlefield quite slowly, when he or she does not sprint
Probably because they didn't have leg-enhancing cyberware.
Alternatively, I could still express my doubts about hand-to-hand combat and the use of melee weapons.
Combat, either melee or with guns, might be the most common complain we'll hear from people, even after release. That being said, what I've seen so far (the 2018 demo) seems not mindblowing but still great to me
At any rate, PAX West can't come soon enough!
