How many difficulties will there be?

[Skipper_1O1]

Personally, I am beginning to have second thoughts about the idea of levels of difficulty. I mean it shouldn't be just about increasing the obstacles or damage taken etc..., rather, level of difficulty is situational. Say I am facing a gang member with low quality cybernetics. He/she, from a situational perspective, can't inflict damage like a corporate agent with fancy augmentation. So increasing the inflicted damage from low-tech enemies due to the higher difficulty level, slider or any sort of that thing is pointless because that sort of adversary should be weak or not that strong anyway. But critical shots can be definitely considered, so having a shot in the head even from a low tech enemy should hurt enough

Even with customized difficulty sliders, this sort of difficulties cut core features of the game that make it enjoyable in the first place. Like the difficulty system in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Although it's innovative and gives several options to tweak the difficulty levels even further, removing features like the instinct ability is not something that's challenging. It is simply pointless because it removes a core feature of the game. And I am not talking about how to make it realistic, but to make the difficulty reflected from the situation at hand, regardless of the perspective of realism.

Something that caught my attention in Mafia 3 is how the police responds to witness calls. So if you committed a crime in a poor district, the police will be slower to show up and act differently compared to richer districts. And this is not depending on the difficulty level, which makes it much more convenient as it's a situational thing. Although it's a small detail, it's the closest thing that came to my mind.

 

[MajesticJazz]

Personally I hate playing games on Normal cause its too easy and it doesn't force me to learn the gameplay mechanics. Hard is a bit too annoying though. Would LOVE a difficulty between Normal and Hard, and infact that should be the recommended difficulty setting. I think we should have a no challenge "story" mode for the blog journalists. Normal which is easy. Hard which is what I want and then Expert for people who have already finished the game. Expert is really freaking hard, and I like that for my second play through.

I dont get it, what specifically are you asking for? Based on what you're saying, Normal be becomes Easy....Hard becomes Normal.

So why not just play the game in hard mode?

 

[DannyCortz]

Personally, I am beginning to have second thoughts about the idea of levels of difficulty. I mean it shouldn't be just about increasing the obstacles or damage taken etc..., rather, level of difficulty is situational.

You know....

I think if there is going to be a super duper hard mode or whatever they going to named it. Since this game is open world and dying for x/y reason is too penalizing for this type of games that give immersive amounts of hours. I think the way that perhaps will or have to be is by saving files and decisions that will entangled your life path as a citizen in Night City. Let's entertain the idea that outside of easy, normal and hard modes, there is this other particular option that will take this game into different experience for those who like challenge that doesn't have to be about dying a lot.

Let's think about how they handled this two games that share these super hard modes, Witcher 2 and Witcher 3. Witcher 2, a game that not only being super hard it penalized your saving files by automatically erasing/corrupting the files making you start from the beginning. Witcher 3, you could die a lot if you didn't prepare well for a fight beforehand and so without corrupting your save file, you could reload and level up if need it but preparing was a must for a certain victory. Reloading as much as you want without starting again.

Now for Cyberpunk 2077 is different right? And it will be all about this particular factor...

The importance about the decisions of choices that matter. With that in mind the game will be hard sure, not only in combat but specially the way will handled the game penalizations features by everything you do, use and wear. Dialogs that will affect yourself, companions, relationships and even combat. All through the save file, by being automatically and being only one, you will not have any other slot to save as an additional option to go back if you didn't like what happen because x/y permanent repercussion choice, trough automatic save file.

Examples being, perhaps you want to go back to see a different path, because this type of combat encounter in the story couldn't be more hard knowing that my poor choice in clothing and its traits didn't help me that day in that main mission or side mission. And also the weapons too, because the lack of treatment I should have gave it makes the weapon not as responsive if it were clean or fixed the day before. Equally with the dialog that triggered a bad response, and so a fight began, a companion die, leaves, a fixer doesn't want to work with me or is looking for me? And so I cannot reload.

That for me, is what it could be or have been done? To give that extra hard tactical tough process trough this perspective and experience of choices that matter so much. Because how different the game is, right? it's a game that its base core is all about role playing a character that its decisions affects him or her. Making it permanent. One save file from the very start of the game, every decisions, dialog choice and randomly playing it autosaves and have a good life decisions choomba!. Only for true Rpgr's at heart or something like that, haha.

 

[Arshunk]

I hope this time around the difficulty will be more meaningful because the last time... hehe

 

[Guest 4211861]

Witcher 3 had 4 settings, I think the third one was the best.

The fourth one was just ridiculous, especially fighting the vampire, it was a one-hit death and that's just useless, even with all the chemicals.

Meanwhile, the second one was not a challenge for anyone who got the hang of the movement, dodging and rolling.

 

[DannyCortz]

Yes, you referred about Death March (insane) @RaduMihai. It is quite insane for sure. You have to pay attention to the skills you want to developed as a witcher and always have the essentials on you while facing whatever you are hunting. Funny enough for me Witcher 3 Death March was quite easy in comparison to Witcher 2 that for me was all kinds of insane. One slight mistake roll in the wrong direction not queue a good block and missed a combo. Restart!.

I honestly failed a lot before getting the grip of things. And most of the times where mistakes, like I mentioned previously. Let me share this, I remember looking for one part of the armors that helps you with the dragon, "Dragon Scale Armor" there was a part in a tomb where there were gargoyles. Oh brother, you had to be rolling like crazy while paying attention to so many directions because they spawn one over another and it felt like an endless fight.

 

[animalfather]

I dont get it, what specifically are you asking for? Based on what you're saying, Normal be becomes Easy....Hard becomes Normal.

So why not just play the game in hard mode?

normal is too easy, hard is too hard.

 

[Drew22881]

Hopefully it's more balanced across the game. I played Witcher 3 on death march, and the hardest fight by far was with a pack of wolves at level 3. Most of the rest of the game was too easy, with the Wild Hunt being a complete joke.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Hopefully something along the lines of:

Easy - Easygoing storydriven shooter where skills and stats are helpful, but not really a big concern. (Essentially a story mode, without being completely babyproof.)

Normal - In between the above and below (the way the game is ”meant” to be played).

Hard - Skills and stats make a BIG difference in gameplay across the board (e.g. the penalties from low skills/stats are far greater), levelups and skill-increases require more work to achieve. Guns/ammo/armor/cyber/items/healing etc. are costlier, and making money is harder.

I don’t think it needs more than that unless the player is allowed to somehow finetune the difficulty.

I just hope the difficulty setup hasn’t devolved into damage/resistance modifiers.

 

[Pure-Grux]

Normal first then on next playthrough ramp up the difficulty. That's the approach I'll take.

 

[CyberpunkRoslyn]

Here is how it should be. The hardest difficulty should include special perks. For having to make wise decisions; you should earn perks for nailing those tough head shots in enemy hide outs. Special clothing, tech upgrades and friendships. Many of you might refer to this as 1990's style game play. Starfox 64 had hidden features like performing a series of aerial task, took you down a separate path with your team members. Bioshock Infinite had 1999 mode; which was very hard.

With a game like Cyberpunk 2077; a very hard difficulty should be rewarding to gamers. Picking the right tech upgrades to pull off a bold heist on a dangerous hide out, could be challenging. After making it out by the skin of your teeth, one would assume that the game gives you something special. Having to dodge 80 percent of the bullets, taking your time with shots and doing the heist by yourself is almost like a suicide mission. It would feel good to come back on the forums about receiving rare tech or bragging rights from your partners in the game.

 

[Neuronin]

Haha, imagine walking down the street and getting hit by a car... restart!

Laugh out loud I used to be a masochist and I regularly forced myself to play Permadeath in TES IV: Oblivion; and this one time I built an amazing mage character over the course of 40-50 hours of playtime, only to end up dying at the hands of a nasty goblin who ambushed me on the road.

 

[parasite_avi]

Laugh out loud I used to be a masochist and I regularly forced myself to play Permadeath in TES IV: Oblivion; and this one time I built an amazing mage character over the course of 40-50 hours of playtime, only to end up dying at the hands of a nasty goblin who ambushed me on the road.

How the hell can endure this? I'm into roguelikes and permadeath, a lot, but when it's something that has a set plot or a beginning that is identical playthrough after playthrough (Cogmind doesn't count, the beginning sequence there barely lasts more than a minute after you do it first time), I burn out extremely quickly.

 

[DannyCortz]

Laugh out loud I used to be a masochist and I regularly forced myself to play Permadeath in TES IV: Oblivion; and this one time I built an amazing mage character over the course of 40-50 hours of playtime, only to end up dying at the hands of a nasty goblin who ambushed me on the road.

I had my enough of those types of game modes after I endure that difficulty on Witcher 2. The only game I ever try something like that. And at least that was a secluded cohesive story, small game. Waste of time really.

 

[UnreadyPlayer2]

I would personally prefer the game to have only one difficulty, something between normal and hard as the op said.
But since this is not going to happen I'll stick to hard or maybe will play on expert if I get extra rewards.
Unless normal mode is already difficult enough, which I highly doubt these days.

 

[dragonslayerxxx]

Hopefully, they all won't feel the same.

 

[Markus_Geiger]

If there is a story mode maybe I will play it for saving me from frustrations in boss fights.
Mostly I play "normal" mode if there is easy, normal, hard and so on

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

If there is a story mode maybe I will play it for saving me from frustrations in boss fights.
Mostly I play "normal" mode if there is easy, normal, hard and so on

Well, story mode will perhaps also be mandatory to fight enemies with a lots more levels than you without them being bullet-sponges.

 

[Iszdope]

I reckon there'll be 69 dudes!

 

[Jonalax]

The last game I played in first person was Aliens vs Predator on PS3. I'm going to start on the hardest difficulty and take the lumps upside my head as I go.