How will humanity work?

[Decatonkeil]

I hope that what they mean by "PC not being able to go cyberpsycho" is that they won't corner us into a spot where we have to reload the game so that the humanity loss roll is more acceptable. Like, there's probably going to be either a set amount of humanity loss per piece of cyberware or at least it's going to just be a limit where the game will say, nope, you can not have any more new cyberware, unless it's an upgrade of an existing one or in the same part of your body or whatever.

The thing is that there doesn't seem to be an empathy stat in Cyberpunk 2077, at least not in the classical sense. So where would humanity be derived? Will it be there even? Will it be a set amount and be the same for everyone?

I'm a bit disappointed by this turn of events, but can accept it if CDPR thought it best fit gameplay for a videogame. I just hope, though, that Empathy and semi-random Humanity Loss and cyberpsychosis are kept for Cyberpunk Red and upcoming PnP.

 

[Loostreaks]

Maybe it's me, but I'd change the label "Humanity cost" to something more logical, in game( world) derived term: form of stress on individual's psycho/biological system, that you can withstand until . It's ok in PnP/crpg, but kind of feels out of place here, to quantify "Humanity".

They could make it work as a hard cap based on Constitution, that's how it usually goes ( and perhaps with Cool/Mental attribute, to smaller extent).

 

[evilhippo]

Cyber psychosis would be very hard to implement in a game in ways that do not drive the *player* crazy

 

[maffaxxx]

If you want to know how cyberpsychosis works (and well all the lore you might need or are curious to know) the best source are Madqueen videos on youtube. This is her latest on cyberpsychosis.

In short, humanity and empathy are locked. Each point in empathy are 10 points in humanity. Cyberpsychosis is the event that happens when someone's humanity is 0, but it's a gradual process: the more cyberimplants you carve into yourself, the more you detach yourself from humanity (i.e. you lose your empathy, the skill to feel another human as one of your kind, and share emotions and experiences as basic as they are). A low emphatic person is -for lack of words- a piece of shit, a sociopath, someone that doesnt work well with others and that thinks nothing about his fellow humans, because in fact they are less and less fellows, and more like useless sacks of meat that hinder your routines and goals. Cyberpsychosis is giving up your mental sanity and you simply go berzerk, or awry, because you feel more like a machine and less of a human.

This said, i think that a low humanity rating should affect NPC interactions, simplybecause when your humanity is low you are, not to repeat myself, a literal piece of shit. It's difficult and unpleasant having to do with such a person, and dialogue should reflect that. Of course, good luck recording all the required voiceovers to cope with that...

 

[evilhippo]

This said, i think that a low humanity rating should affect NPC interactions, simplybecause when your humanity is low you are, not to repeat myself, a literal piece of shit.

Figurative rather than literal

I suspect cyber psychosis is really just another way of saying 'induced psychopathy'. And psychopathy, which is a critical lack of empathy, is actually quite well understood.

The thing about psychopaths is there are functional and non-functional ones, from charming urbane ones who are not obviously psychopathic, to glassy eyed loony toons who very obvious are. Psychopaths are often unable to prosper in life due to their inability to connect (particularly if coupled with a low IQ), or they can be high IQ adaptive mimics who can fake empathy, thus ending up directors of FT500 companies or as successful politicians (as a friend of mine likes to quip: "The key to life is sincerity. If you can fake that, you're got it made" (sometimes attributed to Samuel Goldwyn)).

I suspect how cyber psychosis would manifest itself would not be predictable, and working it into a game mechanic that doesn't annoy the hell out of the player would be a fraught non-trivial undertaking. As suggested, it could be represented in dialogue options... but frankly that assumes a high IQ person with cyber psychosis cannot fake the empathy he doesn't actually feel.

I can well see why CDPR might have looked at this topic and decided it has 'fail' written all over it, thus electing to just avoid cyber psychosis (or at least limit it) for V rather than risk of alienating players by crimping their options with what would inevitably be a subjective and arbitrary mechanic.

 

[maffaxxx]

Figurative rather than literal

The literal was figurative

The thing about psychopaths etc.

In the P&P game, when you are ill with cyberpsy your character is removed from the game and turns into a (dangerous) NPC. It's an endgame scenario. Before getting to that final step, moreover, you progressively lose the ability to connect with humans. If cyberpsy is empathy 0, a character with empathy 2 is not much more friendly or tolerable. You do no interact happily with such a person. You, as a person, lose interest with people. In order to manipulate people you nee to invest some interest in them: you do not have such an interest anymore.

As i see it, there are two possibilities empathy and humanity can go. It's a given you cant go cyberpsycho.
So you either:

* have a cap on how much humanity you can lose just before turning cyberpsycho, but then there are lots of consequences for that choice (including the cyberpsycho squad knocking vigorously on your door and making you feel not alone anymore, forever), or

* have a cap on humanity just before becoming an unpleasant person, in order not to rework every dialogue in the game to cope with the fact that your character behaves like the Terminator.

 

[James_Hall]

I had a different view on how humanity would function. It's not about your character's humanity but society's perception of your humanity. The more machine you become the more concerned people become of your state of mind. The more they treat you like something else. Something less human.

When I read my first article about the game I thought they were going to use it as a mechanic for transhumanist racism. I still see that as a viable option for cyber psychosis in players. By allowing them to open fire on civilians after having been spit on by NPCs that scowl at you in disgust, the psychosis is the player's. Control is never taken. It is a game over reload save but not because of a bad roll but because you chose to surrender that empathy.

i would most closely compare it to gta where you go on a rampage with cops dropping in everywhere but with no escape, no get out of jail without consequences. It's game over because you lost sight of your humanity. You became a killing machine and died.

 

[Harthwain]

Cyberspace and the netrunners will prove a force to be reckoned with

What's the link between Cyberspace and Cyberpsychosis?

 

[maffaxxx]

What's the link between Cyberspace and Cyberpsychosis?

They both are in Cyberpunk 2020. That's it.

 

[evilhippo]

What's the link between Cyberspace and Cyberpsychosis?

The former is a virtual environment (essentially the internet of the future), the latter is a form of induced psychopathy that springs from becoming more man-than-machine.

 

[Decatonkeil]

I had a different view on how humanity would function. It's not about your character's humanity but society's perception of your humanity. The more machine you become the more concerned people become of your state of mind. The more they treat you like something else. Something less human.

When I read my first article about the game I thought they were going to use it as a mechanic for transhumanist racism. I still see that as a viable option for cyber psychosis in players. By allowing them to open fire on civilians after having been spit on by NPCs that scowl at you in disgust, the psychosis is the player's. Control is never taken. It is a game over reload save but not because of a bad roll but because you chose to surrender that empathy.

i would most closely compare it to gta where you go on a rampage with cops dropping in everywhere but with no escape, no get out of jail without consequences. It's game over because you lost sight of your humanity. You became a killing machine and died.

That wouldn't work at all in this setting. People have been using cyberware for a long time, even before 2013 in universe. Cyberware is used by the rich (high end) and the poor (cheaper, second hand, black market... or indebting themselves to a corporation) alike. It's used by the famous. It's a fashion statement.

This isn't Deus Ex Human Revolution or Mankind Divided. The transhumanist racism doesn't work... in any angle, not even in Deus Ex's lore if you pay attention to the original Deus Ex. I hope people would stop equating racism or discrimination to something like that. People aren't scared that amputees and disabled people are given a chance, and the media would make never boost or even allow any kind of discrimination about something that the rich and powerful would do more so even than anyone else.

 

[evilhippo]

This isn't Deus Ex Human Revolution or Mankind Divided. The transhumanist racism doesn't work...

Indeed, if anything in CP2077 it is the diametric opposite to what Deus Ex posits: people without any cyber-bits are probably looked down on as being an underclass of Luddite proles!

 

[Decatonkeil]

The way I see it I have no problem with the cyberpunk rpg moving away from Humanity loss for something more complex. Humanity loss may be cheesy but it fits temathically as an abstraction, but I see how people nowadays may have a difficulty understanding that it has nothing to do with people who use prostheses being less human.

Cyberpunk, as a genre, isn't anti-technology and certainly not about what I just said before. It's about how dehumanizing it is that its stories are commonly about people who change themselves, transforming themselves into more useful tools for corporations to wage wars for the needs of the market while a population of mindless drones partake in a constant orgy of purchases of apparently (more or less) innocent consumer products.

The tech-savvy, the hackers, the scavengers, recyclers and repurposers are romantizised ideals, as they have the skills, the knowledge, the willpower, self-discipline and the bravery most lack to use these without compromising their own privacy, safety, maybe even ethics.

On the other end of the spectrum, corporate agents and mercenaries. Towering masses of muscle, cold stares, heavy-set on stomping feet in combat boots, taking corporate interests wherever they go, a steamroller paving the way for a neo-lib/neo-con's wet dream. They're not opressed, they're the machine of opression embedded in a human body.

In the middle, there are those who are either happy mindless consumerist drones, who are but enablers of the powers that be; and also the ever dissatisfied that can't do anything to change their situation.

Most of us, sadly, would fit the middle ground, even if aware, we would just be the dissatisfied. We wish we were the first group, we may have an element or two of them, but life in the shadows, off the grid, has its own dangers and problems. The corporate agents and mercenaries are badass, we can't help but admire how unstoppable they are, but also feel a satisfaction when the heroes or slightly better anti-heroes (or maybe just in the heat of the sick game of corporations, in their own terms )blow them to pieces, because they leave behind a puddle of blood mixed with oil, brain tissue imbedded in optical fiber, titanium in place for bones and we feel that, if somewat pyrrhic, a small victory against those who victimised the displaced, the indigenous, the poor, the enslaved... has been won that day.

 

[Nikola_Nesic]

I hope humanity is not just there to limit you how many cyberwear you can put on your self, i would really like to see that Cyberpsychosis can affect V to so that humanity cost have effect on you and gameplay.

But if you can raise humanity cap with levels or by some other means and upgrade your self more and more and you still don't get affected by some side effects it will be really stupid and weird.

More and more you upgrade with Cyberwear more you lose your humanity and what mean to be human, and get more cold and emotionless, cyberpsychosis is like end result where some one totally lose all connection to humanity and go crazy and start killing people and destroying property.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

I hope humanity is not just there to limit you how many cyberwear you can put on your self, i would really like to see that Cyberpsychosis can affect V to so that humanity cost have effect on you and gameplay.

But if you can raise humanity cap with levels or by some other means and upgrade your self more and more and you still don't get affected by some side effects it will be really stupid and weird.

More and more you upgrade with Cyberwear more you lose your humanity and what mean to be human, and get more cold and emotionless, cyberpsychosis is like end result where some one totally lose all connection to humanity and go crazy and start killing people and destroying property.

Actually they can't do that because currently at least Cyber is mandatory to advance in the game (so if there is a drawback it would not be fair to the player playing a social character) and that V is a defined character which won't Cyber herself to Cyberpsychosis.

 

[Nikola_Nesic]

I know some cyber is mandatory, but then humanity is pointless why put it in game if don't affect you ?

Also many plan to play with minimum cyber, one cyber would not make you so cold and disconnected from emotion, but lets say 4 cyberwear sure you get colder and less emotional, i think only that hand jack is mandatory and rest of cyber is up to you, again maybe i miss read that.

I was planing to get just some melee cyberwear like hand razors or mantis blades but then i was still thinking that game will have both TPP/FPP option to pick, if i am force to take eye implant and that sub hand thing from demo it would be really stupid, i want to see some HUD element even with normal eyes, it is really stupid when game force you to pick some upgrades just for some trivial reasons.

 

[Keith_Latondress]

the way it works in the role playing game is your EMP or empathy stat. which is used to see how well you can empathize with other people is also used too determine how much humanity you have. (EMP x10 ) the higher your Emp stat the higher your Humanity and the more cyberware you can use. but that said I don't think they are going to be using this stat in game.

Post automatically merged: Sep 15, 2018

as you get more upgrades your character starts too feel less human. like in ghost in the Shell where the female protagonist has no qualms about being naked as from her perspective the body she is in isn't even her body so who cares. your noting but metal you no longer feel the wind on your skin. all tactile sensation is gone but your a murder machine now and its all that you have left. Its all you will ever be. I hope you feel it was worth it.

in my opinion tech always fails eventually machines break down and need constant maintenace. and that is why in my opinion flesh will always be superior to metal.

 

[Marquis_deShade]

I've been poking around, trying to find this answer, but, seem to have missed it if it's been discussed at all.

When upgrading cyberware at a greater cost of humanity from a lower tier version, how is humanity cost effected?
Exampe: In the demo video we see V get an optical scanner, a Kiroshi Mk. I. It has a Humanity cost of 2. There's also a Kiroshi optical scanner MK. II listed with a humanity cost of 4. If we were to eventually upgrade to the Mk. II, do we lose a whole 4 additional points of humanity, just the 2 additional, or, is there a modifier check to determine whether you pay whole humanity cost or just a portion when upgrading?
Further, in the source books, if you remove cyberware, you can, after time and therapy get the lost humanity points back, but, how that works tends to be the domain of how your game master wants to role play that out.
How will it work in CP 2077?

To complicate things more, is humanity cost different when integrated onto a cybernetic limb? For instance, the subdermal grip we see in the demo video has a humanity cost of 3. What if, however, you get that installed/integrated into an entirely artificial limb? Is the humanity cost the same as if you're implanting on meat, fractional since there's still the extra neural connections required, or, even 0 since no "human" part is getting modified?
Thanks.

 

[Mybrokenenglish]

I imagine it will work somehow like this:
A) every augmentation decreases your humanity and the lower it is the worse are the side effects (think maluses in an RPG manner such as -10% precision or real on screen effects such as blurred vision or problems with command input)

and/or

B) you have a certain number of humanity points (that could be dependent by your TECH stat) and you can install (=equip) as much cyberware (with its humanity cost) until you reach that number (think nier automata, transistor or the inventory in deus ex).

 

[CyberBrett]

At this stage there hasn`t been a lot from the Devs about this topic . I think it makes sense that you get the " just the 2 additional " points because you will be taking out the other cyber improvement and replacing with the new one . I also think it wont make any difference if you put cyber gear into meat or other cyber gear there will be the same prices to pay in humanity .
I like Mybrokenenglish`s ideas maybe more B than A but A would be very interesting to have in game .