gameplay and story do not work well together (Act 2 Spoilers)

[Swarth161]

i get why they did the entire the chip is killing you thing however they really should have made it 2 years or so instead of 2 weeks(and he said a maximum of 2 weeks), i know its a small thing but considering how often you have to wait in this game 2 weeks really breaks the immersion, because half way through the game you would already be dead if you are completing multiple side missions.

its just a small thing but it really doesnt connect well with the gameplay, does the 2 weeks thing feel weird to anyone else or is it just me?

 

[Nerconiglio]

Vik said "a few weeks" and I understood something from 3/4 up to 7 weeks.
Ok, true, is short and in some ways breaks the pace of the game (my first run was faster than the second one), but it's different than only 2 weeks.

 

[Swarth161]

Vik said "a few weeks" and I understood something from 3/4 up to 7 weeks.
Ok, true, is short and in some ways breaks the pace of the game (my first run was faster than the second one), but it's different than only 2 weeks.

my mistake, still would prefer 2 years for example however you are right no one actually said 2 weeks its my assumption which was wrong

 

[Kaspar.Hauser]

i get why they did the entire the chip is killing you thing however they really should have made it 2 years or so instead of 2 weeks(and he said a maximum of 2 weeks), i know its a small thing but considering how often you have to wait in this game 2 weeks really breaks the immersion, because half way through the game you would already be dead if you are completing multiple side missions.

its just a small thing but it really doesnt connect well with the gameplay, does the 2 weeks thing feel weird to anyone else or is it just me?

I agree, but for me the main issue is that Dex mission is in the beggining of the game.

It should be there in the middle of the game, just as RDR2 (Arthur cough his lungs out after he got tuberculosis, but you don't really feel this was a writing problem, because it happens in the middle of the game).

 

[Sillivanukas]

I agree, but for me the main issue is that Dex mission is in the beggining of the game.

It should be there in the middle of the game, just as RDR2 (Arthur cough his lungs out after he got tuberculosis, but you don't really feel this was a writing problem, because it happens in the middle of the game).

I agree. Or alternatively the fatality of the chip shouldn't have been immediately obvious. Maybe you just chill with Johnny for awhile, wanting to get rid of him because he's annoying, but later you start getting relic malfunctions and it becomes clear the chip is actually killing you.
The impending doom the game throws at you immediately just kind of messes up the comfortable pacing of exploration open world game would benefit from.

 

[Aetrion]

I agree, the story completely clashes with what I actually enjoy doing in this game, which is going around and just being a mercenary.

Unfortunately open world games that put a false sense of urgency into their main quest are all too common. I don't know why developers insist on doing this all the time. I also absolutely hated it in Fallout 4, where you have to just ignore the motivation the game gives your character if you want to play the actual game.

The only game that ever did this well IMO was Mass Effect 2, where you know your final mission from the start, and the game straight up tells you "Do whatever you can to power up before you try this". A near perfect ending is possible in ME2 if you put the work in, so that's the one game I can think of that married up an urgent main quest with people's desire to explore the world and do every side quest.

Another thing is, if this game had started with "You have a month to live, what do you intend to do with that time?" and the whole game was about a desperate person trying to raise the eddies to get treatment or create some kind of meaningful legacy to their life that could have been an amazing setup for consequence heavy stories in the world. Every single quest could have thrown you a number of decisions where you can help someone or screw them over to get more money. The game could have constantly made you choose between principles and saving your own life. There is a lot of potential in the idea of playing a character who is desperate to save their life, but the whole game needs to support that idea. Just having an open world to explore and also a story that says you've got a month to live just don't go together.

 

[Sillivanukas]

The only game that ever did this well IMO was Mass Effect 2, where you know your final mission from the start, and the game straight up tells you "Do whatever you can to power up before you try this". A near perfect ending is possible in ME2 if you put the work in, so that's the one game I can think of that married up an urgent main quest with people's desire to explore the world and do every side quest.

Now that I think of it, CP2077 could have done something very similar without changing the story all that much.

Maybe the "time limit" before you die wouldn't have been so strict, so there's isn't that big of an urgency, maybe year or so. And you pretty quickly would learn that

Spoiler: spoiler for late act 2 / early act 3

you need to get to Mikoshi at Arasaka HQ

and you spend majority of the game getting resources and allies to pulling it off.

 

[Clayr1982]

Agreed, Also the fact that you

Spoiler

die in the end no matter what

kind of flies in the face of the game being open world/designed to explore. Once I completed the story and tried the different endings, it kind of sapped the wonder of going out to explore/complete gigs/be a Merc. That and the fact that you will always be playing before and not after the conclusion of the story.

Maybe the online version will allow more flexibility in character creation, progression and more open ended gameplay.

Edit: messed up spoiler, thanks to the helpful people that pointed it out.

 

[Aetrion]

Maybe the online version will allow more flexibility in character creation, progression and more open ended gameplay.

Yea, at this point it does look like we'll have to wait for the online version to get a Cyberpunk experience that isn't bounded by a dumb story with no good endings.

 

[amikae]

I mean Vik was pretty vague and said this whole thing is beyond his understanding. The dude knows chip is bad for us, but doesn't really know much else.

So how we interpret it is up to us. Even if you roleplay it realistically several weeks is more than enough to do all side content in the game. The content meshes up well with the main story thread and leads to a bittersweet finale.

Spoiler

Also almost all endings leave the door open for V to survive. If they really wanted us dead, they would've had us die. Us having 6 months to live means there's all kinds of ways for us to get our brains repaired. The BioDyne commercial? I guess we'll know in the first expansion.

 

[rednhax]

Agreed, Also the fact that you die in the end no matter what kind of flies in the face of the game being open world/designed to explore. Once I completed the story and tried the different endings, it kind of sapped the wonder of going out to explore/complete gigs/be a Merc as I knew

Spoiler

my V will die no matter what

. That and the fact that you will always be playing before and not after the conclusion of the story.

Maybe the online version will allow more flexibility in character creation, progression and more open ended gameplay.

Dude, spoiler warning maybe?
Some of us are ignoring the main story and aren't trying to finish it!

 

[amikae]

Dude, spoiler warning maybe?
Some of us are ignoring the main story and aren't trying to finish it!

Don't worry, he couldn't even manage to spoil it correctly. You don't die and there's a wide variety of endings that you can reach depending on your choices.

 

[Aetrion]

Also almost all endings leave the door open for V to survive. If they really wanted us dead, they would've had us die. Us having 6 months to live means there's all kinds of ways for us to get our brains repaired. The BioDyne commercial? I guess we'll know in the first expansion.

Yea, I was thinking about that too, there is a commercial in the game for a nanite treatment that can restore nervous tissue, which seems to be exactly the kind of thing you need, given that the chip is destroying your brain with nanites, and you eventually manage to shut it off.

But then the game insists that you go on a suicide mission to a space station and shows your helmet malfunctioning right before it ends.

This thread has a spoiler warning in the title, we should be free to discuss the story openly here.

 

[amikae]

But then the game insists that you go on a suicide mission to a space station and shows your helmet malfunctioning right before it ends.

Let's not spoil people so I'll answer in the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

The space casino ending is ambiguous. It's a very high probability going to the casino will be part of the expansion so that ending directly leads into it. Even the other endings can lead to the casino, including the ones where you leave town. Imagine there's a cure for our brains, but it's up there, or that we need a lot of eddies real quick so we can pay for treatment from BioDyne, so we go make a heist on the casino.

 

[Sillivanukas]

This thread has a spoiler warning in the title, we should be free to discuss the story openly here.

It says "spoilers if you have not reached act 2", so spoiling the whole game isn't really fair.

 

[Aetrion]

It says "spoilers if you have not reached act 2", so spoiling the whole game isn't really fair.

Uhhh, that means "This thread possibly contains spoilers for everything that happens after Act 1". Sorry, when there is a big fat warning label on the thread then people don't get to complain. You don't open up a can that says beans on it and then go "Ew, it's full of beans!".

 

[Sillivanukas]

Uhhh, that means "This thread possibly contains spoilers for everything that happens after Act 1". Sorry, when there is a big fat warning label on the thread then people don't get to complain. You don't open up a can that says beans on it and then go "Ew, it's full of beans!".

No, it literally doesn't mean that.
But whatever, dude. I'm not going to argue about semantics.

 

[Kenzou84]

I remember finding Ciri is not my Geralt priority back then
after no more sidequest and taking a very long sweet ass time in Toussaint and saving Beckham, I finally do the Ciri quest, the wild hunt, and Emhyr is so patient with my Geralt.

 

[Krul2k]

I've personally never had a problem with the time factor or felt rushed simply because the day/night cycle is pretty long

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

I agree. Or alternatively the fatality of the chip shouldn't have been immediately obvious. Maybe you just chill with Johnny for awhile, wanting to get rid of him because he's annoying, but later you start getting relic malfunctions and it becomes clear the chip is actually killing you.
The impending doom the game throws at you immediately just kind of messes up the comfortable pacing of exploration open world game would benefit from.

That isn't even present really, because the world only opens up at the time you get the doomsday clock.
I have also multiple times already said that it would've been better if the Dex Heist was about some materialistic (eddies.. an expensive car what have you) be exactly what Jackie says: a swing into the big leagues.
Stealing from Arasaka isn't just big leagues, thats major endgame league.
The Arasaka heist should've been a secondary or tertiary heist where we (dex/evelyn) have eventually overplayed our hand. Push the doomsday relic back with an act or 2.
Let us first build up a character that becomes an established merc, maybe already ventures outside the city for some lucrative Nomad business. This would also allow much more side missions to undertake with romancible characters to stretch that aspect out a bit more as well. I wouldn't mind having at least 5 to 6 mission with romancible characters where it can even vary slightly between when you've established an actual commitment. and add in some to keep it up in stead iof it feeling like an abrupt end once you've got him/her.

It would change the pacing of the game considerably in the middle where you can still enjoy some freedom and learn the ropes and make friends, allies but maybe also enemies, and then act 3 (or 4) kicks in where you have to deal with the damaged Relic and the game changes up in a situation where you're no longer fighting for a score, but for your survival.

Or, make a mixture from mine and your suggestion in some way.
I mean, why couldn't there be several "big" jobs that you need to pull off?
Now we get 1 job and it immediately goes to fuck. (thanks Rogue for that explicit statement btw)

[edit] my writing is off today