.

+
Yeah, I'll concede that decision to steal from Arasaka is pretty close to idiotic, especially for corpo V. But, to their defense, they almost pulled it off. Had T-Bug been 10 minutes quicker everyone would have come out unscathed.

I wasn't speaking about that part, but about a lots of times when I thought that auto-playing V was stupid.
That's the problem with an RPG forgoting it's not just an adventure game.
 
In fact, even as a huge Fallout 4 fan...
When I see that :
-------------
And that :
-------------
Or that :
And that :
-------------
I can feel the weight of the years... Fortunately and luckily, modders are here. They did and still do a brilliant job.
Otherwise I think it wouldn't be so popular :)
 
What I hate is RPGs that show quests down my throat and CP2077 is terrible at this.

Every fixer in town knows where V is 24/7 and whats the fkn point of having a option to answer a call when V takes it anyway?

Just take the beginning for example, I have no interest in boxing and if I talk to Fred and accept ofc no problem, but if I tell him no he still shoves 4 quests down my throat and send me messages.

Try to walk right past him, same thing. Even if I take the elevator direct down to the garage.

at least in Fallout I could tell everyone to shove off.
 
What I hate is RPGs that show quests down my throat and CP2077 is terrible at this.

Every fixer in town knows where V is 24/7 and whats the fkn point of having a option to answer a call when V takes it anyway?

Just take the beginning for example, I have no interest in boxing and if I talk to Fred and accept ofc no problem, but if I tell him no he still shoves 4 quests down my throat and send me messages.

Try to walk right past him, same thing. Even if I take the elevator direct down to the garage.

at least in Fallout I could tell everyone to shove off.
Maybe they changed it patch 1.3 but now coach doesn't give me 4 quests and I just walk past him without a word. See I still have the original missions to chat with the coach and I am into act 2
1631454917096.png
 
Cartlidge is right, I never took the 'Beat on the brat' gigs with my current character, I can simply go up to him to sell or buy stuff without getting them. The option to take the missions is there, but I can just ignore them.
I thought you could always ignore them, but maybe I'm not remembering correctly. This is a pre-1.3 character though

2021-09-12_1651_1.png
 
Yeah, that's cool :)
Before 1.3, if you "skip" him (like for going directly pick up your gun from Wilson), the quests were automatically "activate" in quests journal.
(Beat and the Brat and the Kabuki one at the very beginning)

It's the reason why I didn't notice it... I always go talk him at first, because I know the quests will be activated anyway.
Nice change :)
 
Yeah, I was complaining about NPC character interactivity with the generic citizens walking around compared to other games like Fallout 4 and GTA5, but I realize now that wasn't really a fair comparison given that I spent most of my time with the game playing on low crowd density. For the 5 hours or so that I was playing with crowd density on high it dramatically changed the feel of the game and I convinced myself that turning it down to low "didn't change much" like a lot of people were saying. It absolutely did change how the game felt and that really wasn't the vision of the developer. They traded off all that NPC interactivity for those very large crowds and if you aren't going to use them then I don't think that is really a fair comparison.

And really I think that the large crowds actually made for better atmosphere than any open world game to date, aside from the NPC pathing/driving issues.

Also, I would say that the game's combat never got stale. It was really the opposite of grinding, I was playing actually to play not to level, yet many of the upgrades were incredibly rewarding. With Bethesda games you get that mid level grind that's just not fun until your character is where you want, but the combat in Cyberpunk 20777 was fun throughout.

Really, if you think about everything that CDPR did right, it's just that much more disappointing that the glaring issues kept this from being a true masterpiece.

Surprisingly, it's the endings that I didn't like in Fallout 4.
Either you make a huge crater instead of the institute, or you coldly kill the Railroad, or you crash the steel brotherhood.
Frankly, I was a little disappointed the first time... After I almost always stop all my playthrough when I had no other choice than these three :(

The point is that you can continue the game indefinitely and live out the consequences of your actions.
 
I have always liked Fallout 4. Most complains I hear about it is "it's an okay open world sandbox shooter but a bad Fallout" which I kinda agree and the main story is just bad overall but it's a really good and fun game regardless.
I have about 700h in Fallout 4 and 150h in CP2077.
 
I have always liked Fallout 4. Most complains I hear about it is "it's an okay open world sandbox shooter but a bad Fallout" which I kinda agree and the main story is just bad overall but it's a really good and fun game regardless.
I have about 700h in Fallout 4 and 150h in CP2077.
Fallout 4 - 6.393 hours
Cyberpunk 2077 - 1.537 hours

The experience with Fallout 4 changes when you start modding (survival-mod, immersive scrapping/building etc.). I haven't added any mods for Cyberpunk 2077 yet, as I want to see CDPR's finish-line and expansions of Cyberpunk 2077. Then I'lll look at mods.
 
Fallout 4 - 6.393 hours
Cyberpunk 2077 - 1.537 hours

The experience with Fallout 4 changes when you start modding (survival-mod, immersive scrapping/building etc.). I haven't added any mods for Cyberpunk 2077 yet, as I want to see CDPR's finish-line and expansions of Cyberpunk 2077. Then I'lll look at mods.

There are some gameplay mods, but mostly they are cosmetics or quality of life mods. Nothing to compare to Bethesda because the modding options there are quite limited, at the moment.
 
There are some gameplay mods, but mostly they are cosmetics or quality of life mods. Nothing to compare to Bethesda because the modding options there are quite limited, at the moment.
Bethesda's Gamebryo / Creation Engine was specifically designed with the idea of including the Construction Kit as part of core game. It was included with the very first version of Morrowind to release on PC. The entire concept of the Bethesda approach was to provide powerful tools to players, allowing them to craft entirely new games from scratch if they wanted to. A massive focus of their business over the nealy 20 years since has been focused on community modding being front and center. They've even continued using iterations of the exact same engine since 2003.

CD Projekt RED has focused on creating extraordinarily cinematic and narrative experiences that rely on an engine that can create in-engine scenes with nuance and detail that rival live-action film. The games are also quite focused on creating distinctive moments, encounters, and environments. These things don't really jive well with modding. (The same is true of things like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Call of Duty. Sure, mods exist, but they'll be fewer and further between than games that were specifically designed with modding in mind, like Beth games or Minecraft.)

In order for games to work well with modding, the core game design needs to be built around a comparably simple set of functions. The more "hand-crafting" that goes into any aspect of a game, the more things will need to be baked into the final product and cannot easily be altered. That's not very conducive to mods.
 
If CDPR gave modders something like the Creation Kit or GECK (just not as broken like newer versions are) with the same freedom to do whatever you want with the game people would play it for a long time to come. I have 11,085 hours in Skyrim, 6686 hours in FO4 and 911 hours in CP 2077 so far (recently started using a few mods in it). I used to make mods for Skyrim (over 6000 hours in the CK) but every new version for a new game they broke more and more things in it.
 
If CDPR gave modders something like the Creation Kit or GECK (just not as broken like newer versions are) with the same freedom to do whatever you want with the game people would play it for a long time to come. I have 11,085 hours in Skyrim, 6686 hours in FO4 and 911 hours in CP 2077 so far (recently started using a few mods in it). I used to make mods for Skyrim (over 6000 hours in the CK) but every new version for a new game they broke more and more things in it.
Correct. And that may still be possible to some extent, though I doubt it will ever compete with something like Bethesda in the modding regard.

If CDPR had built the REDengine for that purpose, we definitely would not have had the games we got. TW3 especially would have been nowhere near as cinematic. CP2077 could not possibly have had such amazingly detailed character scenes. All of that crafted stuff would have interfered with the modular nature of the game. Like Bethesda, CDPR would have had to shoehorn in a few "scenes" that relied on things like one-off animation packages for a dialogue scene...which I don't think I need to highlight can come across as pretty stilted or downright janky in Beth games.

It's not possible (yet!) to have really detailed and crafted things be open to modding. They need to be baked in. Let me try a metaphor:

Let's say I want to make a game that can be modded head to toe. Then, building a section of the game is kind of like building a sentence in Mad Libs. The engine says:

Define:
[Subject]
[Predicate]
Define Optional:
[Dependent Clause]
[Dependent Phrase]

Hence, my sentences will wind up being pretty rudimentary, but functional, and I can change out parts easily. I must have a subject and predicate, and the game will allow me to add in a dependent clause and/or phrase if I choose. So I can now create "scenes" based on the modular framework I am provided:

Define:
[Subject] = The sun_
[Predicate] = _rose
Define Optional:
[Dependent Clause] =
[Dependent Phrase] = _in fiery red_
Output:
The sun rose in fiery red.

Now, I can mod it:
[Subject] = {mod} The moon_
[Predicate] = _rose
Define Optional:
[Dependent Clause] = {mod} _quickly_
[Dependent Phrase] = {mod} _in ghostly blue_
Output:
The moon rose quickly in ghostly blue.

I can change around a lot of stuff, but I'm never going to wind up with a sentence that sounds truly crafted. It will always be a bit clunky in execution, but it can very easily be changed around, and there's plenty of opportunity for variety.

...

Now, by contrast, I can choose to craft a very powerful "scene" instead. Something way beyond the polish and detail that the modular engine could every account for:

Output:
Following the fall of the army, the dawn was a fire on the horizon, bathing the land in livid red, washing the field of defeat in a second coat of blood.

^ Nothing about that is even remotely possible with the options of sub/pred/clause/phrase that the modular system provides. I'd need to hand craft this, then insert it into the game outside of the modular system. The more I do this...the fewer things about the game will be modular.

It's a choice all developers need to make. Do I want this:

1632090722620.png

...or do I want this?


1632091061076.png

The more intentionally modular I make my game, the more unpolished it becomes. The more I hand-craft aspects of my game, the less modular it becomes. It's not possible, presently, to incorporate all of that detail into something that can be randomly changed. Computers are not powerful enough, yet.

That fact is a reality whether people subjectively prefer more modular games or more refined games. (And I'm someone that loves modding! Spent about 5 years making mods for Morrowind.)
 
Bethesda's Gamebryo / Creation Engine was specifically designed with the idea of including the Construction Kit as part of core game. It was included with the very first version of Morrowind to release on PC. The entire concept of the Bethesda approach was to provide powerful tools to players, allowing them to craft entirely new games from scratch if they wanted to. A massive focus of their business over the nealy 20 years since has been focused on community modding being front and center. They've even continued using iterations of the exact same engine since 2003.

CD Projekt RED has focused on creating extraordinarily cinematic and narrative experiences that rely on an engine that can create in-engine scenes with nuance and detail that rival live-action film. The games are also quite focused on creating distinctive moments, encounters, and environments. These things don't really jive well with modding. (The same is true of things like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Call of Duty. Sure, mods exist, but they'll be fewer and further between than games that were specifically designed with modding in mind, like Beth games or Minecraft.)

In order for games to work well with modding, the core game design needs to be built around a comparably simple set of functions. The more "hand-crafting" that goes into any aspect of a game, the more things will need to be baked into the final product and cannot easily be altered. That's not very conducive to mods.

Exactly. That's why it is not comparable in terms of modding.
 
Exactly. That's why it is not comparable in terms of modding.
Right. Two different designs for two different results. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and people will like one more than the other in most cases.

Hence, players that really want heavy-duty modding will probably like Bethesda's system a lot. Players that are looking for carefully crafted, cinematic experiences will likely enjoy CDPR titles immensely.

Anyone who wants hand-crafted, cinematic experiences in the level or detail provided by CDPR with all of the modularity and user-friendly toolsets provided by Bethesda games...I'd check back in with the gaming industry in about 10 years.
 
Haven't used much of the mods created for CP2077 so far, but I have a feeling that for now the majority of them are rather attempts to fix various aspects of the game, that were found broken or underdeveloped by players. It's most probably due to limited modding tools, I guess.

Maybe it's that CDPR would never release such complex modding tools as Bethesda because they don't want this game to become a playground filled to the brim with some POTENTIALLY ridiculous user-made content like unicorns or flying sausages etc? ;) Sure, once you buy the game, it's your right to enjoy it the way you want, but if we look at it as a certain work of art (games are works of art to some extent, right?), it isn't that obvious anymore that the devs would like to see us playing it however we wish with tons of modified things inside.

This seems to be a matter of individual approach to your own creation: CDPR made a game with an ambitious and mature story + certain carefully picked art direction and maybe they wouldn't like a player to experience some serious story sequences turned into a festival of absurdity because the user fancied adding some multiple very-not-lore-friendly mods? Imagine Viktor telling V of their grim prospects after the heist while wearing a clown costume and a Santa Claus hat ;)
Not saying that it's the case, but it's a possibility. There might be some serious technical obstacles as well of course.

For the record: I love Skyrim because of it's modding availability, but Bethesda's game development concept seems a bit different, like: "We are giving you a story to enjoy and some side quests to accomplish, but you also get a powerful toy from us. Take it, tinker with it and do whatever the hell you want". It might not be the case with CDPR's philosophy.
 
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