Fairly disappointed leveled enemies are still in.

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Tuco

Forum veteran
Well, the title should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll elaborate a bit on that.

I was reading/watching impressions about the private demo and while most of it sounds impressive and almost unbelievably good, I couldn't help but notice how the press is pointing out that enemies are still tiered by levels and have their level clearly stated as a label close to their names.

I'm definitely disappointed by that, not just because arguments could be made that it's an immersion-breaking detail, but also because I genuinely don't think the game needed levels in the first place from a mechanical standpoint.
If The Witcher 3 is anything to go by, levels were completely superfluous there as well and they introduced far more issues that they solved.
They forced level-gated gear, they introduced a progressive unnecessary stat inflation over time for both the character and the enemies, encouraged item bloat, created nonsensical scenarios from a narrative standpoint (i.e. Wild Hunts general level six, scary big stone golem level 9, then followed by lvl 30 wolves and lvl 40 angry farmers with pitchforks come to mind).

A progression system where you just unlock talents/improve skills without any need for levels would have been so much a better fit for Cyberpunk, especially considering how the pen&paper ruleset was notoriously a level-less one.
 
It depends on implementation. It was really weird in Witcher 3 when you dispatch a level 10 wyvern then get wrecked by a pack of level 20 wolves because a wolf shouldn't be a harder fight than a wyvern.

The problem lies more in the discrepancies like this than the levels themselves. As long as levels indicate toughness in a logical way you can probably turn off the level display in the UI customisation, i.e. as long a Max-Tac has consistently higher levels than street thug no. 2, it's okay.

Do the journalists mention whether item levels are a thing or just enemy levels?
 

Tuco

Forum veteran
It depends on implementation.
That's true for everything, but still, i would be tempted to argue that I don't remember a single case where leveled enemies were an addition that made a game better.

"Tolerable/easy to ignore" is always the best case scenario... Which begs the question "Why levels are even there at all, then?".
 
Overtly levelled enemies is a terrible idea in any game with pretensions of immersion, it is pretty much the epitome of 'gaminess' ... scaling difficulty should all be strictly 'under the hood' rather than in your face. Use lore to let people know what are the 'hard' areas and who are the 'tough' enemies, not visible levels. And FFS do not level items, just tie the better gear into game progression.
 
The only way I see we can still have hopes is that CDPR does an extremely good job at placing enemies so that you never encounter enemies with levels higher or lower than yours throughout the whole campaign.

Or that levels are consitent (better and easier): all scavangers are level 5 (ALWAYS), all Animals are level 18 (ALWAYS), all max tac officials are level 36.

We all know it's not gonna happen, being optimistic hasn't led us nowhere.

We don't know anything about level gated gear yet. The press was too busy asking the same questions about Keanu Reeves to care about gameplay machanics. Those are not really important in a videogame, how they convinced john wick to be in the game is (THEY PAID HIM FFS!). Goddamn.
 

Guest 4211861

Guest
I understand what OP is saying, it seems like an artificial imposition.

But in the Cyberpunk setting, levels make complete sense, as everything is based on hardware, so you want to know what a guy's packing, because he may have dual nuke launchers hidden in his arms.

IMO levels only make sense in cyberpunk worlds and other worlds based purely on tech level.

It's the Witcher 3 that needs to abolish numbered levels, or at least hide the numbers and just show a relative indicator, like blue, orange, red etc.
 
But in the Cyberpunk setting, levels make complete sense, as everything is based on hardware, so you want to know what a guy's packing, because he may have dual nuke launchers hidden in his arms.

Then why ISN'T it based on hardware then, that you can loot from enemies with some kind of tech skill, or grind money and buy from a dealer, have a ripperdoc install it? Have it based on money and gear, not xp?

Not, Oh, you played the game for X amount of time, you gain Y XP, you put it in your submachine gun skill, you now do more damage with SMGs.

The fundamental issue that devs (and RPG makers) need to understand is that the xp approach makes sense in pen and paper games where you don't actually act out any of this stuff. But in a video game you quite literally can do all the things that your character does, so why not go for an actually believable and immersive system? The XP system is an aged relic that needs to be dumped as soon as possible.

Now I know this is not going to change in CP2077, since they likely structure the gameworld around character levels, and changing this would be too much of a hassle. But I can still be angry about this. All gameplay-related elements Ive read about were awesome. The character progression-related news were not.
 
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I mean... as far as I know, the enemies will be people with tech.
So.. instead of seeing someone and seeing 'level 5' instead, maybe we could see some kind of indicator of 'this guy has this much of this kind of tech' so we can plan accordingly and decide how to approach them.
 

Tuco

Forum veteran
I understand what OP is saying, it seems like an artificial imposition.

But in the Cyberpunk setting, levels make complete sense, as everything is based on hardware, so you want to know what a guy's packing, because he may have dual nuke launchers hidden in his arms.
They WOULD make sense if the level of enemies was consistent with their level of threat in a lore-friendly manner (see the previous @Mybrokenenglish post). Which we all know won't happen, sadly.

Beside, calling levels "necessary" is a weird claim to make when the Cyberpunk pen & paper ruleset was level-less in the first place.

It honestly pains me that they are going at a great length to build these painstakingly detailed worlds and then implicitly throwing their credibility out of a window with questionable mechanics that 1) don't make the game better 2) don't work as intended 3) are actually harmful to the immersion and suspension of disbelief.
 
The fundamental issue that devs (and RPG makers) need to understand is that the xp approach makes sense in pen and paper games where you don't actually act out any of this stuff. But in a video game you quite literally can do all the things that your character does, so why not go for an actually believable and immersive system? The XP system is an aged relic that needs to be dumped as soon as possible.
Actually in CP2020 you got skill points (you could spend to gain/improve skills, and sometimes [at HIGH cost] base character stats) for completing missions, and nada for killing stuff. So the XP system has been added for CP2077 (for some reason).
 

Tuco

Forum veteran
I mean... as far as I know, the enemies will be people with tech.
So.. instead of seeing someone and seeing 'level 5' instead, maybe we could see some kind of indicator of 'this guy has this much of this kind of tech' so we can plan accordingly and decide how to approach them.
And that would be a lot better, more coherent and believable than having "corporate special corps lvl 10" followed twenty hours later by "shirtless street thug lvl 30", which I'm afraid is what we are going to see.

These leveled systems always seem to consider consistency an optional, for some reason.

This is a RPG, you need to level up, get better gear to progress. this isn't Call of Duty.
I'm honestly not even sure this deserve any attempt at an actual answer.

Actually in CP2020 you got skill points (you could spend to gain/improve skills, and sometimes [at HIGH cost] base character stats) for completing missions, and nada for killing stuff. So the XP system has been added for CP2077 (for some reason).
Yep.
Goal-based progression systems.
One of the best (and somehow also most criminally underused) solutions around.
 
I mean... as far as I know, the enemies will be people with tech.
So.. instead of seeing someone and seeing 'level 5' instead, maybe we could see some kind of indicator of 'this guy has this much of this kind of tech' so we can plan accordingly and decide how to approach them.
we tried to convince CDPR about this since we saw the demo, we were absolutely ignored. They like unimmersive classic levels, nothing we can do about it.
 
This is a RPG, you need to level up, get better gear to progress. this isn't Call of Duty.

Oh look! It's the guy who knew to be right on things that were proven to be wrong the moment he blinked.

I'm honestly not even sure this deserve any attempt at an actual answer.

You know it doesn't.



All of this COULD still work though. I've no excuse for the enemies having numbers floating over their heads. CDPR could've done better by earmarking enemies being stronger through better visual storytelling. I hope this is something they'll remove before launch, but something something optimism not getting us anywhere indeed.

But I look once more to Fallout 2 to see that raw level doesn't necessarily mean raw progression for our own character. It could still be an interesting system of trade-offs and careful investment in gear and skills.
 
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Tuco

Forum veteran
we tried to convince CDPR about this since we saw the demo, we were absolutely ignored. They like unimmersive classic levels, nothing we can do about it.
In general it's somewhat ironic that when someone complains about this sort of stuff there are always rabid fans ready to shut him down with "It's just an early build, it's too soon to complain!".
They don't seem to realize that by the time the game will be advanced enough, complaints will be pointless anyway, because even in a scenario where you'll convince the developers of how good your arguments may be, there won't be enough time to revise anything anyway.
 
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Little off topic: it's very fun to see how the rest of the world on social networks is screaming in orgasmic excitement for Keanu Reeves while few people on the official forum are complaining about cheap game mechanics. :ROFLMAO: we're on the wrong side, folks.

The other fun thing is that what we've been asking was just a little attention to details when creating game mechanics, something that doesn't cost 1$ to make. It's not like "please do the whole game in motion capture with green screen", just think for 2 seconds on how to make the game more immersive in order to fix your previous game's flaws, there's plenty of examples on market already you can copy, don't go for the wrong ones.

But worry not! The game is still work in progress and subject to change, they're gonna change it for sure, they listen to feedback they ask like they did in the last 10 months... Ooooopsie. :ROFLMAO:
 
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I think any user here was bound to end up dissapointed in the hope that any of our efforts here on these forums (or that of any other game) will lead to any sort of change in a game, regardless of how long they've claimed to be a fan or how thoughtful their arguments were. There's just far too much at stake in the institution of game development. The development team hires professionals for that. Any decision they make, has probably been made before the game was even announced for us to discuss it. If not, it'll be carried through regardless, because our opinion ways far less than those of the development team they decided to depend on. Though perhaps some were right to think it would've been more likely in CDPR's forums.

I myself never engaged in there forums with that predisposition. I never presumed to have that much influence. Instead, I'm just here to share in the passion we have, regardless of how much it may have soured, and to engage in good debate, no matter how obscure the cheap game mechanics are that we discuss. It's fun to figure out what each of our perspectives on the ideal game is.

It also explains why I've been able to maintain a good amount of goodwill and optimism. I never considered my opinions or expectations to matter much, and therefore, I have not been dissapointed by much either.
 
I think any user here was bound to end up dissapointed in the hope that any of our efforts here on these forums (or that of any other game) will lead to any sort of change in a game, regardless of how long they've claimed to be a fan or how thoughtful their arguments were. There's just far too much at stake in the institution of game development. The development team hires professionals for that. Any decision they make, has probably been made before the game was even announced for us to discuss it. If not, it'll be carried through regardless, because our opinion ways far less than those of the development team they decided to depend on. Though perhaps some were right to think it would've been more likely in CDPR's forums.

I myself never engaged in there forums with that predisposition. I never presumed to have that much influence. Instead, I'm just here to share in the passion we have, regardless of how much it may have soured, and to engage in good debate, no matter how obscure the cheap game mechanics are that we discuss. It's fun to figure out what each of our perspectives on the ideal game is.

It also explains why I've been able to maintain a good amount of goodwill and optimism. I never considered my opinions or expectations to matter much, and therefore, I have not been dissapointed by much either.
oh yeah, never thought my feedback would have been listened to (I just hoped they wished to fix TW3's objective flaws), it's just fun how people keep thinking that subject to change means we have power on that. Almost as fun as the difference in perception of people on the forum and on twitter: "what the hell is this un-immersive stuff???" vs "John matherfucking Wick, best game ever!!!!!!!!!!"

Let's close this OT, shall we? :)
 
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