Gameplay Demo - Your Suggestion/Feedback Thread

[TalentX]

Dear Readers, Community and CDProjekt Team

with this thread I want to share my thoughts and feedback for possible improvements for the final Cyberpunk 2077 game based on the recently reveled gameplay demo from 27th August 2018. YouTube Stream-Link: https://youtu.be/vjF9GgrY9c0

This is quite a lot of details which I am providing here, and with that I want to say this isn't just some short common feedback/suggestion, but a closer look at the situation with detailed and realistic considerations to provide a higher game quality.
I'll also create more topics like this to share my feedback in other related content later on.


Introduction:

First of all I'd like to introduce myself while explaining the reason of why I am doing this. For once this part is actually a little longer than what will follow in my future threads, but it's mandatory if you aim to understand my suggestions and feedback at this point.

Just as all of you, I am a gamer too and I enjoy playing videogames alongside with a few other hobbies which I've. Gaming however isn't just a hobby I like, there is a little more behind it.
In fact, my occupation is in the IT, since I work as a network and system administrator - you could almost call it a common combination being a gamer at the same time - but gaming and IT isn't all I do. I also follow and investigate in entertainment software development politics and marketing, as how these are affecting products such as videogames we get nowadays.

Of course everyone may have different opinions and sights regarding this matter, depending on their very own knowing and investigations etc. you don't need to agree with me if you share another opinion. That said, what I am providing here is only based on my very own experiences. I care about it, because it is my interest to enjoy more quality games instead of games created for mere profit purposes which we may not be able to enjoy in the future anymore.

Long story short, at this point I am talking about something which you might have heard before already: "Quantity not Quality".
Now this phrase is something very far-reaching and it could mean all sorts of things to you. But there is quite the deep detail beneath it.
It includes stuff like poor system optimizations, game changes to accommodate Microtransactions and DLCs, bad Multi-Platform ports, poor content for delivering fast content, abuse of reputation for sequels, consciously spreading false information in news to hide true intentions (social manipulation), forced implementations of third-party software etc. etc. which is all being done and executed to maximize profit by many publishers and developers for a long time already.
Now some people may think that this sounds quite far-fetched, but I am telling you, it's not. It is a key element which is currently driving the whole entertainment market, and I am sure even CD Projekt has its own professionals who are very well aware of this.

That said, the reason why I want to share my feedback here is, because CD Projekt - with all these issues going on currently - is still keeping in touch with their ideals and therefore they're kind of revolutionising the Videogaming-Industry, by standing for their ideals and keeping promises not just by words but also by executing these. For that you gained my very respects and I hope that you'll never leave this road.
And I just very much like this game and you guys are listening to your customers, so why not sharing my thoughts?


Feedback - Menu & Screen Real Estate:

Cyberpunk 2077 is being developed for PC, Xbox and PlayStation and with that the so called "Screen Real Estate" will play a critical role for the PC version of the game.
A lot of companies who provide titles available for consoles and PC, simply port the console version to the PC version without making any considerable optimisations, especially in regards of the menu & screen real estate debate. Things remain optimised for the use of a game-pad, making lots potential a keyboard and a mouse could provide remains merely wasted.

The bad (examples):
- Scrolling in menus is poison for PC games (TES4 Oblivion and TES5 Skyrim) - please don't do that, it's a pain in the ***.
- 70-80% of the screen used for showing useless item visuals and/or the character (again TES5 Skyrim)
- The need of going through lots of other menus first, just in order to access the inventory menu - wtf (Far Cry 4)
- Selections with invisible options which appear only during selected items are horrible (Final Fantasy 15 and almost all other Square Enix Games).

The good (examples):
- Dropdown-Menus are quite neat (Starcraft).
- GRID-Systems with weight and item size difficulties are top-notch platin-value (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.).
- Making full use of the screen-size for the actual needs and giving the option to resize single menu parts is mere heaven for a PC gamer (TES3 Morrowind).
They're not perfect but they at least do try to make full use of PC control capabilities, which you cannot say about many other games out there.

As much as I liked The Witcher 3, unfortunately the menu screens weren't the best thing I've seen in games. The inventory menu was quite nice with its GRID-System, but a bunch of other menus wasn't such as settings menus which could have been improved with dropdown menus to view all options among a specific setting, instead of dot-based selections.
With the first demo reveal, we haven't seen much of the menus in Cyberpunk 2077, however it's still worth the talk in order to consider optimisations for this part early enough to make potential changes to improve controls quality on the PC version of the game.

Let's take a first look to the Character Creation Screen:

Spoiler: Demo Screenshot

The left screen side is pretty much required to view the changes done on the character face. So it's just natural that half of the screen must be used to view the character. However, it was unapparent if you have the option to rotate the character preset preview. Perhaps this might be an feature to be implemented, if it isn't yet that is.

The selection method on the right side options such as the Eyes is something rare and I kind of like it. However it looks like it limits the options given, in this case it offers only 10 options each for Eyes, Nose, Mouth etc.
I think this can be improved too, or else it'll be difficult to provide more character customization options in the future.
Let's say all the options are already concluded and there isn't anything more to be added at that point. How sure can you be about that? Maybe you'll get a new ideas to add in a future patch, after the game launched? Let's just face it, we never know what great ideas we may implement with later patches, as human creativity has no end either.

Inventory:
My favorite part. I wished you would have shown a little more here. I am very well aware about the design of the inventory menu which also must suite to the world of Cyberpunk in general, yet there is still a few undisclosed issues here.

Spoiler: Demo Screenshot

Hovering the cursor over the equipped items will show a tooltip of the item stats and the option to swap them from the slots with other weapons/gear which is quite a nice thing. I guess that the gear parts on the character preview are handled the same way. Also the character isn't taking too much of the space and is showing a preview of everything he/she has equipped, just like in The Witcher 3.
Other than that it looks a little bit wasted though, as most of the screen remain unused when not hovering over the items. At this point I could say: free real estate. Maybe there is a better way to optimise this?
However, we can see on the top of the Equip-Part, there is also the selection for "Backpack", which is probably a GRID-Based inventory for all other items the character is able to carry during the journey. Perhaps even similar to the one of The Witcher 3. Yet, I'd personally still prefer something similar, but a lot more improved version of the backpack from the game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Car Interior:
While driving the car and using the First-Person-Perspective, there are a bunch of controls of the cockpit of the car. I am not sure of how much interaction options it has included at this point, however just having them there for visuals would be a waste.
Make them also be parts the character will interact with when driving the car.

Spoiler: Demo Screenshot

As we can see there are red buttons on the top screen. I am not certain for what they're used for but I could imagine some possibilities:
Boosting the car speed using nitro or similar things (Like Need For Speed Underground), to temporary boost the speed of the car. With that for example the character could use his/her right or left hand to interact with these buttons on the top.


I hope I could give you a good share of my thoughts about the demo and in regards of the menu and screen real estate. I am sure that CD Projekt have considered in this matter already, yet giving this feedback may extend the ideas and result for even better decisions.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your own thoughts and suggestions about the topic here as well.

 

[Draconifors]

@TalentX Thread merged with existing one. We don't want the forum getting flooded with separate feedback threads (or other multiples of similar threads).

 

[Sabre_Shark]

I haven't really read much from others so I'm probably going to repeat what they have said so apologies.

Firstly the game looks very promising hence why I am even excited enough to make an account just to add another voice to this conversation. (Thank you for showing us the game so far, I think the risk was worth it)

My main concern as has been raised by others is the combat system in place that has been shown. My hopes are for brutal but believable/realistic combat. The bases for this to me is the health system.

1. My ideas for a difficult but nice health system is multilayered and applies to both player and NPCs.
1.1 Starting at flesh/cybernetics segmented into arm, head, hand etc having a health pool until destroyed/wounded. This step seems to already be in place though with legs being destroyed. This health pool should be low in general, head destroyed with a 9mm shot for instance.
1.2 After this clothing/armor provides an additional health pool and armor class(AC). Armor deterioration at certain percentages etc
In conjunction with this, different calibers would have differing degrees of effectiveness against the armor class, its penetrating power.
1.3 A 9mm would have for example have a armor penetration rating of 3, and a .50 BMG would have an AP rating of 10.
So with AC and AP values being used for ammo and armors a formula could be used to calculate how much damage is dealed and in what fashion.
1.4 For normal clothing with, for example, an AC of 1; the 9mm and .50 BMG will both penetrate fully for being 2 AP or more above the AC. and apply 100% dmg to the body part beneath.
For heavy armor with an AC of 9 the 9mm will do very, very little damage (because its AP is so much lower than the AC), say 10% of its damage to the armor's health pool. While the .50 BMG is only 1AP above the AC, so it will barely penetrate the armor and thus the damage will be split between the body and armor segment, maybe like 20%dmg to the body, 80%dmg to the armor. (percentage based on base damage)
1.5 This system of stat vs stat can be used for other weapon attributes such as explosives/stability, acidity/resistance, electric/conductivity.

I feel this kind of system also lends itself to rpgs as it doesnt recreate unrealistic bullet sponges and still allows a kind of soft 'leveling' mechanic where 'high level' NPCs will just have better equipment with high AP weapons and AC armor (and wearing/covering more).
- A level one player with a 1AP pistol wouldn't be able to do much against a 10AC elite solider but it wouldn't break the immersion, the bullets just couldn't make it through the armor for good reason.
On top of this different bullet types can be unlocked as you progress for higher AP or [insert other effect, such as explosive tipped bullets)]
Different difficulties could vary the effects of this system and the health pools.
I'm also on board with fast paced action being possible (there being high mobility).

2. The next thing related to combat I would love, love, love to see is varying levels of combat AI/behavior in NPCs.
2.1 Gangster's aren't trained, they should fight dumb. And if they are drugged up they should be dumb and aggressive.
2.2 Regular police aren't usually fond of being shot at for not great pay, trained but cautious; mostly just waiting for the backup if there is a stand off.
2.3 Special forces are trained to work as a team and cover fire.
2.4 Pretty much whatever you think that group should be like in general in terms of tactics, behavior and skill/accuracy.
2.5 Possibly add some kind of morale/fear status effect - fleeing/hiding is what I would have done as a scav in that house. Certain actions could affect a NPCs' morale/fear status, e.g. landing a hit on player = +10, seeing a friendly NPC die = -40, NPC at -20 triggers the NPC to take more cover, at -40 triggers flee. Fleeing of course should stop if being shot twice or something. I'm not really too sure how this would be implemented.

3. I'm assuming the stealth is a satisfying and viable option, deus-ex had pretty good stealth and I'm sure others here have expressed this so I'll leave it that really. Assuming damage is realistic there is not much need for extra sneak damage, such is the case in fallout etc where its required to deal with the sponges.

4. I have myself pondering how customisation works in some aspects. From watching the game play I couldn't help but imagine the kind of character I would like to be in the world you portrayed. (I personally have vague idea of a character, the consummate professional and aspiring special forces mercenary, kinda like Robert De Niro in Heat meets Kellogg from Fallout 4 I suppose.) So yeah...
4.1 Will I be able to choose how I act / Where I live / How I look(clothing) etc? For instance I wouldn't see my guy wearing a tanktop reaching for the bottle getting as I get out of bed. I also wouldn't see myself having a roomie.
4.2 I really don't want to be stuck with Jackie the whole game unless I can change how they act, preferable I can work alone or get a companion that makes sense to me and my character.

5. One other thing I wondered was how carrying weapons around in public works, open carry on all weapons? Either way I'd like to be low key and conceal them but that might just be annoying.

6. Last thing, please let us customise our HUD and keys as we see fit. Every key, ever element of the HUD. (In the menu there can be preset HUDs, all visible, medium, hardcore) It annoys me so that some games still don't let you do this, granted usually ports.

7. One nice feature is when display settings like shadow quality are applied right away ingame as you go through the options etc.

I've spent too long typing this and I can't focus anymore since it's late, thanks for taking the time in reading however much you made it through and have a good day.

 

[lelxrv]

Combat Mechanic Problem 1
The enemy NPC's are bullet sponges. The number one reason the original games mechanics were so popular was due to how incredibly deadly combat was. In this demo we have beginner level NPC's soaking up entire magazines of bullets. They wear no apparent armor, yet V unloads on them with a small trucks worth of ammo. A shot to the head should take most enemies flat out. Shots to the limbs should disable, shots to the torso should stun or have some effect. Also the hit/damage counters we see completely destroy immersion, this is an unnecessary video game mechanic that just feels out of place here.

Probably fair enough for less augmented enemies. But the bunch in the demo looked rather inhuman. I personally didn't get the impression of bullet spoonges. They died relatively fast.

Problem 2
Problem 3
Problem 4

Seriously? Tuned double-barrel, auto-aim weapons and double jump? Non-issues whatsoever. The setting is unrealistic, often cartoon and taking it THAT seriously is too much.

Problem 5
There is absolutely nothing that can be seen in this demo that requires first person perspective. If the issue is the optical implants, then fine, force the perspective to zoom in to first when they are in use, the same as if the character was aiming through a scope. But the idea that this decision was made to make the game more realistic, more immersive, flies right out the window the second the "double jump" or the "hit/damage counter" mechanics pop up.

FPP adds to immersion. Aiming is better too. Visor upgrades make much more sense with FPP. But this more realistic argument... I don't remember devs focusing on that. Realism and immersion have little to do with each other.

Problem 6
Boss battles! Not only is there the awful "enemies are bullet sponges" mechanic, but now you are telling me there are going to be "can only be defeated via very specific nonsense method or just ridiculous amounts of damage" boss battles? My hatred for this mechanic knows no bounds. It utterly ruined Deus Ex, hell it utterly ruins any game it is a part of after 2005. You see the enemy, his face and upper torso are completely uncovered, yet he is somehow untouchable until you shoot the magic target spot. This is weak game design and unnecessary. At no point in the game should we EVER come across an enemy that does not adhere to the same rules as the Player Character. There is nothing in the original RPG, neither thematically or mechanically, that supports this. This is Cyberpunk, not Dungeons and Dragons.

Boss battles didn't "utterly ruin" Deus Ex. Maybe only spoiled slightly. Bosses being bullet/sword/magic spoonges is an old mechanic and I haven't seen any viable replacement in games. It was always either 1) outsmart the enemy by finding it's Achilles' heel, 2) avoid it one way or another, or 3) fight it head on and exhaust it's large HP pool. Same old. Problem with DXHR was that you have only one option out these. Two if you had Typhoon.

Also, table tops aren't computer games and following them blindly is a mistake.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Bosses being bullet/sword/magic spoonges is an old mechanic and I haven't seen any viable replacement in games.

How about not having them?

 

[lelxrv]

How about not having them?

How about a choice?

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

How about a choice?

I'm all for choice, but I'd rather not have one of those deliberately be a jarring and themtically out of place excercise in tedium. There are better alternatives.

Bossbattles at the end of a level like that belong in Mega Man.

 

[Suhiira]

Seriously? Tuned double-barrel, auto-aim weapons and double jump? Non-issues whatsoever. The setting is unrealistic, often cartoon and taking it THAT seriously is too much.

Actually the setting and rules for the CP2020 PnP were anything but "cartoon", and that's the problem some of us have with some of CP2077's gameplay elements.

Also, table tops aren't computer games and following them blindly is a mistake.

So is totally ignoring most of the gameplay elements that made them different from most tabletop games and are a significant reason the PnP still has a loyal fanbase.

 

[Snowflakez]

Actually the setting and rules for the CP2020 PnP were anything but "cartoon", and that's the problem some of us have with some of CP2077's gameplay elements.

I don't even particularly care about that stuff, and even I know it's not even remotely plausible in the 2020 setting.

I'm all for choice, but I'd rather not have one of those deliberately be a jarring and themtically out of place excercise in tedium. There are better alternatives.

Bossbattles like that belong in Megaman.

I think the question is, what's the alternative to building up badass characters and then putting them in a fight with you? Realism aside, it can be anti-climactic to just pop their heads off with a single headshot and then the fight is over, and so is all of the character-building.

Note, I'm not disagreeing with you. On the contrary. Not a fan of boss battles myself in "realistic" games, they ruined the pacing for me in the recent Deus Ex titles for sure. Plus, y'know, they are even bigger bullet sponges than everyone else.

But I would be curious as to how we could handle it differently. Let's say this Royce character had been an ongoing antagonist throughout the game, and it finally builds up to a major confrontation - does he use his environment and his technical prowess to deal with you (Decent solution)? Does he just sic hordes of goons on you (boring, IMO)?

Would an exosuit be OK so long as it merely enhanced his abilities and didn't make him "immune" until a weak point was destroyed (I.E. you could still kill him with a single headshot, or a few well-placed bullets, but his target area is smaller)?

Curious what your take is, if you'd care to expand upon this discussion. If not, that's fine too. I don't think the opinion that boss battles suck in realistic games needs much explanation.

 

[EchoOfMidgar]

Well, after the disappointing E3 video, yesterday's video has improved the game a lot in my eyes ....however....

What I am not just reconciled with is the daylight. I am not reconciled with the brightness, sunny days and overal happiness which coming out of this kind of mood. I think a cyberpunk subject (movie, game, book) should be dark, full of melancholy and solitude. In my opinion the game is losing a half of its atmosphere when moving from the night to the day. I think, even the day in the game should be darker and "sadder". For the moment the "day" passages are the weakest point of the game since it is changing into a generic post-apo-like thing.

Well, i am aware that Cyberpunk 2077 is based on the 80's representation of the cyberpunk style, but in my opinion the genre has come a long way and it has been improved since to the point which makes the 80's cyberpunk look naive and too generally.

But this is only my opinion.

I loved the gameplay and the shooting mechanics (but i hope we will be able to turn the HUD off completelly with all the markers) and the indoor enviroments were breathtaking. I hope the next video will show some RPG elements the game has.

Overall: While I like the video and the game a lot and I am looking forward to it, I think the outdoor enviroments (mainly during the day) make the atmosphere much more worsen.

 

[GW84]

My thoughts based on the demo:

The good:

- The city felt alive
- Choice is clearly part of the game
- Always like for my char to have an appartment/ hub.

The bad:
- Combat lookt like basic twitch shooting with some added abilities. This doesn't feel fitting in an RPG.
- Movement during melee is confusing abd disorienting
-HUD is kind of basic and the text is too small IMO.

The ugly:
- Jackie seems like a good character and I have no problems with either swearing or mixing in foreign words but Jackies speech feels very unnatural.

 

[animalfather]

REMOVE "PRESS B TO SKIP" PROMPT ON SCREEN TAKES ME OUT OF THE IMMERSION

 

[AlexiaRevan]

the only thing I can think of..

would be those background you can choose ? like 'Dead Sibling' and 'ex lover in Town'' . I'm hoping we get some context to those . Because it's hard to 'care' if there is nothing shown , y'know ?

 

[RyokoSimon]

Well, my friend complained about numbers, but i understand its a RPG thing, maybe they should add-up or something. Character feel op, too many enemies and they die too quickly, sign of a terrible console shooter. I need a challenge and RPG aspect should matter a lot. Need to turn up gore a bit. Need more tits and asses.Make it a hell for vidya journos to play.
Take as many time as you need, don't rush development. Thank you, i believe in ya.
P.S.: Message me if you need Junior Game designer\Tester.

 

[lelxrv]

I'm all for choice, but I'd rather not have one of those deliberately be a jarring and themtically out of place excercise in tedium. There are better alternatives.

Bossbattles at the end of a level like that belong in Mega Man.

If I were into guns and battle upgrades, I'd prefer to deal with a boss with means I'm good at and where I invested in. Means augmented firearms, protection and melee weaponry. The boss needs to be durable or complex enough to present a challenge.

I haven't seen boss battles that evolved past Mega Man. It's the same thing in Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, Icewind Dale, The Last of Us...

 

[immessingaround]

I noticed in the demo you don't have any hand animations when pushing the elevator button, interacting with the soda machine or ad billboard, or picking up guns or the jacket at the apartment. Is this subject to change?

It is kind of immersion breaking if we don't get the animations for some of this stuff. Its not a huge deal to me but I did see a few people saying they were annoyed by it.

 

[LordCorvin1]

Just watched the gameplay reveal.
Biggest thing that stands out right away is numbers and how enemies seem to be bulletspungies. I want headshots actually kill, give satisfaction that weapons actually do damage.
Disliked that main character just has one health bar, I liked Original Deus Ex health system, I think it can fit nicely into CP2077

 

[shmulzi]

The opening scene was amazing, I like to imagine that the girl u save there is the same one from the initial trailer a few years back. Also really loved how breakable everything is.

I am hoping that like in the Witcher 3 most of what you see is actual gameplay area. Nothing sucks more in games like these than cool looking areas that you find out are just decour (I honestly would rather not see them XD)

Gunplay looks solid, though the main starter gun feels a bit boring - in general I hope this game will be more about building your own gun than finding a built one or saving up to buy one.

While the whole ripperdoc thing is very cool I hope there will be easier ways to customize yourself (wouldn't want to have to visit him for every change i want to make to my characters gear)

The car seems great, but I didn't see any other traffic, maybe that is still being developed but it would be weird to only stumble upon other bad guys on the road without regular traffic.

One thing that worries me from watching the video is context sensitive input. Seems like when you approach a character there are changes in the UI and probably there are buttons that are context switched - this almost always has negative effects especially in combat scenarios.

Super excited and hope to see more

 

[AlexiaRevan]

I noticed in the demo you don't have any hand animations when pushing the elevator button, interacting with the soda machine or ad billboard, or picking up guns or the jacket at the apartment. Is this subject to change?

It is kind of immersion breaking if we don't get the animations for some of this stuff. Its not a huge deal to me but I did see a few people saying they were annoyed by it.

I noticed that too! considering that they want us to see our hand holding a gun , I would have though pushing an elevator button or a door open..would be up there in the animation .

I hope they add those , cose it's kinda weird lol

 

[ElvenNeko]

So, i do understand that everything is a subject to change, so i will put a list of things that i liked or disliked about this video, with hope that some things may change for the better.

Dialogue system is shit. No more than 3 short lines, it's even worse than Bioware Wheel. And there is no way to roleplay your personality, you only get to choose how you want to complete missions, and not how you talk. Even in shooter-rpg's like mentioned above Mass Effect you could be official, crazy funny or cold and violent, and in true rpg's like FNV there were dozens or archetypes to roleplay. Here you seem to have no choice but to be a typical badass, and that's the saddest thing about rople-playing game to me - inability to role-play. I expected that CDPR wanted to create a game without character with pre-defined personality like Geralt so they can give players a true freedom in role-playing, and we will have a game like this gem, but seems like roleplaying your character isn't going to be a thing. Or, maybe, it's still a possibility?

Quests have lots of different ways to solve them, that's great, at least gameplay should be fun and replayable.

Character customization looks good, except the pre-defined voice. I know that miracles like Saint's Row, where you could not only chose between several voices, but also adjust the pitch to make it perfect won't happen anymore, but... they could at least try to hire an actress that soulds a bit less like "cliche female protagonist"?

How many times we had a protagonists with a very cute vocie, for example? Like this girl, for example. I can remember only Sunny from Evolve and protagonist from Saint's Row (if you chose the right voice and play with the pitch). EVERYONE can make a main character sound like a badass like in gameplay video we seen, 99.9% of games have this. Don't you want to stand up? There is people with different voices out there. It can be fun to play a deadly augmented merc with cute, childish voice. I don't understand why it's so hard to step out of cliche and make something more than generic badass, maybe not in the way i suggest, but in some other. Like i said - there is many voice varitations humans have. For example, i would want to play a male character if he was voiced by Jim Caviezel - calm and soft voice, or male that voiced by Amy Acker, with soft notes and maniacal tone. Both of them played a characters in action series "Person of Interest" (that, by the way, can be called a prelude to some cyberpunk world), and made it even greater with their unique voices. I wonder, when a video game will do something like that?

Having at least few different voice options would help a lot with adapting to your character, it's just as important as visual option. If players get to create a character - it's important to let them create someone they would really like.

The world is amazing, i like the crowded streets and how everyone is busy doing their stuff instead of greeting the hero, like npc's in other games do. I wonder if we will see different crowd behaviour, for example - during mass riot or protest.

Like the story so far, where mercs are being used as a disposable assets they are, good way to finally relax after all those "only you can save the world". Would be great if it ended in similar way, because few people can't defeat megacorps or change world order, there should be no "happy ending" like in Witcher - only different types of compromises.

Don't like that there was zero reaction from authorities on the gunfight on the road - with drones and cams everywhere law enforcers should be there in the blink of an eye.

Characters should stop speaking in exact same moment as they die.

Battle system seems fun but those numbers on hits and weapons without recoil ruining it a lot. Would be great to at least have an option to remove damage indicators.