Immersive Suggestions

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I may be an immersion snob. That's always been my main focus when choosing and modding games.
I'd like to start a conversation about what makes games immersive, and will start off with some gameplay ideas that have been a constant pursuit in my endeavor to mod other games for immersion.

Firstly, I like RPG progression to be seamless and realistic. I want to get better at how I approach problems in a natural way.
No points to allocate or unrealistic perks to unlock.
I'd like Cyberpunk 2077 to advance the player character's skill at a certain task by doing that task more frequently and with greater success.
I want to learn by doing.
The other aspect of character progression that goes hand in hand with a cyberpunk setting is body modification.
I would like to see this implemented in a manner that avoids phantom requirements like level.
However, the player may need a certain constitution to withstand more complex procedures with a lesser impact on their body and performance while they heal up.
Healthy people heal faster.
As well, I'd like the implants come with more than a financial cost. If I augment my arms, maybe until the healing process (which is faster than normal due to advances in technology, as well as gameplay reasons to avoid alienating the player.) completes, my arms move slightly slower as my neurons relearn how to operate the new limb.

Also, on the topic of levelling, I'd like to see that mechanic avoided. How does my character immersively attach a number to themselves to indicate how skilled they are?
I want money and experience to be the bosses of the game. An enemy doesn't magically have more health than you because they've lived longer and done more.
They might, however, have better equipment and more focused skills than you. I want the difficulty to be a slow and subtle ramp as you're driven into encountering higher profile characters. Wanting to be a jack of all trades will eventually catch up to you as you find specific skills below the quality of a more specialized character.

Which leads me to encountering characters and completing objectives to advance your position in the game.
I hope that there really is a multitude of ways to solve every problem. My main goal when playing any RPG, is to see how viable it is to avoid killing. I want the option to complete every objective (even ones that require someone to die.) without ever properly getting blood on my hands. I want a character that can change the world and it's people without violence. I want to play an aweful person who walks around with a clean conscience because they've never committed a top-tier heinous crime like murder. They may be unkind, but they feel vindicated; righteous.

Next, I'd like to talk about gameplay elements.
I'd like my character's perspective to be one of a fully modeled and anatomically correct body. I don't want the perspective to be a floating head with arms for ears.
I'd also like to have an immersive way of determining vitals information until an implant is installed to display such information. Maybe before I can afford a cybernetic eye, I have to wear some heads up display glasses that tap into and display my blood pressure and heart rate. I want my vision to darken or become blurry when I get whacked in the head. I want to hear my heartbeat and uncontrollably blink.
And even with an implant, I don't want some unimmersive bar or number telling me how close I am to death, but rather a bar that fluctuates with my blood pressure and heartbeat to show when I'm sustaining blood loss as the pressure drops and the heartbeat slows. I want blood to be the cost of failure in battle.

And, lastly, I'd like to tie the third and fifth paragraphs together by asking that combat be dangerous and frightening. I want to know that I have as much chance of dying in combat as my opponent. I want scenes that thrust me into warfare with multiple foes to terrify me. I want anyone who isn't geared for combat defense to be realistically fragile. Damage should be instantly debilitating without pain suppression and immediate first aid technology. I want melee weapons to recoil when they encounter bone or steel without a military-grade strength implant. And even then, I want the bone to resist severing until it has a surface or force opposing the direction of impact to break against. I want bodies in the open to ragdoll, but someone against a wall to snap and crumple.


So, that's my wall of text on immersion. This is just a sliver of the thoughts I have on the subject and I will add more as they surface in my mind. If you read all of this, thank-you for sticking with it.
 
I may be an immersion snob. That's always been my main focus when choosing and modding games.
I'd like to start a conversation about what makes games immersive, and will start off with some gameplay ideas that have been a constant pursuit in my endeavor to mod other games for immersion.

Firstly, I like RPG progression to be seamless and realistic. I want to get better at how I approach problems in a natural way.
No points to allocate or unrealistic perks to unlock.
I'd like Cyberpunk 2077 to advance the player character's skill at a certain task by doing that task more frequently and with greater success.
I want to learn by doing.
The other aspect of character progression that goes hand in hand with a cyberpunk setting is body modification.
I would like to see this implemented in a manner that avoids phantom requirements like level.
However, the player may need a certain constitution to withstand more complex procedures with a lesser impact on their body and performance while they heal up.
Healthy people heal faster.
As well, I'd like the implants come with more than a financial cost. If I augment my arms, maybe until the healing process (which is faster than normal due to advances in technology, as well as gameplay reasons to avoid alienating the player.) completes, my arms move slightly slower as my neurons relearn how to operate the new limb.

Also, on the topic of levelling, I'd like to see that mechanic avoided. How does my character immersively attach a number to themselves to indicate how skilled they are?
I want money and experience to be the bosses of the game. An enemy doesn't magically have more health than you because they've lived longer and done more.
They might, however, have better equipment and more focused skills than you. I want the difficulty to be a slow and subtle ramp as you're driven into encountering higher profile characters. Wanting to be a jack of all trades will eventually catch up to you as you find specific skills below the quality of a more specialized character.

Which leads me to encountering characters and completing objectives to advance your position in the game.
I hope that there really is a multitude of ways to solve every problem. My main goal when playing any RPG, is to see how viable it is to avoid killing. I want the option to complete every objective (even ones that require someone to die.) without ever properly getting blood on my hands. I want a character that can change the world and it's people without violence. I want to play an aweful person who walks around with a clean conscience because they've never committed a top-tier heinous crime like murder. They may be unkind, but they feel vindicated; righteous.

Next, I'd like to talk about gameplay elements.
I'd like my character's perspective to be one of a fully modeled and anatomically correct body. I don't want the perspective to be a floating head with arms for ears.
I'd also like to have an immersive way of determining vitals information until an implant is installed to display such information. Maybe before I can afford a cybernetic eye, I have to wear some heads up display glasses that tap into and display my blood pressure and heart rate. I want my vision to darken or become blurry when I get whacked in the head. I want to hear my heartbeat and uncontrollably blink.
And even with an implant, I don't want some unimmersive bar or number telling me how close I am to death, but rather a bar that fluctuates with my blood pressure and heartbeat to show when I'm sustaining blood loss as the pressure drops and the heartbeat slows. I want blood to be the cost of failure in battle.

And, lastly, I'd like to tie the third and fifth paragraphs together by asking that combat be dangerous and frightening. I want to know that I have as much chance of dying in combat as my opponent. I want scenes that thrust me into warfare with multiple foes to terrify me. I want anyone who isn't geared for combat defense to be realistically fragile. Damage should be instantly debilitating without pain suppression and immediate first aid technology. I want melee weapons to recoil when they encounter bone or steel without a military-grade strength implant. And even then, I want the bone to resist severing until it has a surface or force opposing the direction of impact to break against. I want bodies in the open to ragdoll, but someone against a wall to snap and crumple.


So, that's my wall of text on immersion. This is just a sliver of the thoughts I have on the subject and I will add more as they surface in my mind. If you read all of this, thank-you for sticking with it.
Maybe V should be a Silent protagonist :eek: no Obviously they have to stay with the times
 
Maybe V should be a Silent protagonist :eek: no Obviously they have to stay with the times

Opinions vary (obviously) but I think there are few things less immersive than a mute protagonist.

The thing I hate is levelled items (setting rarity so that you only encounter them at 'high level' is fine, just not "for some reason I cannot point this weapon I found and pull the trigger because I am not high enough level"... which makes no sense at all). It was the one thing I really disliked about the magnificent Witcher 3.
 
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Opinions vary (obviously) but I think there are few things less immersive than a mute protagonist.

The thing I hate is levelled items (setting rarity so that you only encountering them at 'high level' is fine, just not "some reason I cannot point this weapon I found and pull the trigger because I am not high enough level"... which makes no sense at all). It was the one thing I really disliked about the magnificent Witcher 3.

I agree wholeheartedly. Having to wait until a certain level especially when you have a good weapon can be tiresome sadly. I dont think they are going to make a change to that in cases of players obtaining fairly overpowered weapons at early stages of the game
 
I dont think they are going to make a change to that in cases of players obtaining fairly overpowered weapons at early stages of the game

Oh I get that, I just think it is a lazy game mechanic, there are better ways, such as making using it effectively (i.e. to it's full potential) dependent on a high level skill or a combination of cyberware that a character just won't have early on.

I have fired a huge variety of small arms over the years and am an accomplished shot (albeit rather out of practice these days). I have also fired a variety of crew served and infantry heavy weapon here and there, including anti-tank weapons such as a Carl Gustav and various iterations of RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenades, rather than Role Playing Games :LOL:)… I got said rockets down range just fine. Did I actually hit anything? Er, yes but not very often as I was (so to speak) "too low level" & reloading was a rather slow and careful process :p
 
This topic confirms that there's a lot of people who don't want a classic level system for this game, in particular after CDPR announcing immersion as primary aim for the game. I really hope they will change what was seen in the gameplay, I would prefer to wait for the game to come out 6 months later but without a level system like in the witcher 3 than having something that would destroy immersion completely. This game could revolutionize RPGs and became not just a masterpiece, but a game-changer, a milestone for the industry, but devs need to be bold.
 
Oh I get that, I just think it is a lazy game mechanic, there are better ways, such as making using it effectively

Yep, that's the proper approach, connect biostats with effectiveness like strength with recoil for light weapons shooting with series, strength with floating crosshair for heavy semi weapons, reflex with reload speed etc.
 
I would like more immersive art effects added. Deeper shadows. Gloom. Frequent rain. Neon Glow and or Sparks of electricity around ever present signs and billboards. I want a darker looking Cyberpunk. The 45 minute preview is still too much like Grand Theft Auto. In my opinion Cyperpunk 2077 should look more like a Blade Runner video game. "Night City" evokes a darker feeling for me and always has since I played the paper RPG.

Consider the realism of living under the shroud of walls of 100 story buildings. The atmospheric effect of industry. I think the "poor" would still burn fossil fuel, and occasionally campfires/fire in barrels. Down at street level the light from the sun would be greatly diminished. It would be a "Night City".

Conversation Text NEXT TO the artwork of the NPC doing the speaking. Bottom of the screen is not very good.

I want to be able to frequently see my character. Perhaps reflections some car windows and glass store fronts.? Not 3rd person, but figure something out please? Not just cutscenes.

All NPCs should have Generic Name Tags until more information is learned about them, and only then do we know the name. Look how "Shroud of the Avatar" does this system.
 
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I understand people's concern over leveling and leveled items (aka level requirements to wear something). But to be honest... I like it. I think it gives good control over the balance. Frankly, I don't like completely unleveled world, like Morrowind or some mods for Skyrim. It simply gets boring if you get lucky and find something good in the early portions of the game. Why? Because you simply know that for the next 20-30 hours (or more) you won't get that lucky again and everything you will find will be much worse than this one stroke of luck you had before. I hate it. I like to constantly upgrade my gear and wear new things.

But I agree that there are other ways to control it and make the progression smoother. For example, first Mass Effect. There was no requirements to wear anything, except for the boundaries of the class you picked (like, as an Adept you weren't able to wear medium or heavy armors). Still, even without any level requirements they managed to slowly increase the gear you get as you progressed through the game, and there was constantly something new to find. But that is also unimmersive, because it simply used leveling and scaling for things like containers - so when you reached, I don't know, a locked container on Feros on level 12, you got items like Scorpion Armor III or IV. But if you changed the order of quests and went there much later, you would find Scorpion Armor V, VI or higher. Still, I like it either way, just don't give me any possibility of finding exceptional gear early on, because it removes the possibility of slowly upgrading gear in that slot. I want smooth progression curve.
 
Groups of NPC's ought to be designed as if having one or more strategic goals or perhaps emphasizing on the lack of any strategic goals, with ensuring chaos, confusion and drama. Presumably more unique ways for npc's to react to something would make the group of NPC's act more interesting during gameplay.

So.. something 'strategic', would be an achievable goal. If you don't know how to achieve a goal, or you don't know what your goal might be, there's really no strategy to it. as you wouldn't know if you succeeded or failed in any case.

I think a sensible NPC reaction in having to face combat or just the prospect of ending up in combat, could be to try retreat out of harms way and simply leave. A perhaps effective tactic, could be to split up, increasing the chance of one group getting away. Delaying the player might help others escaping. An evacuation might be more elaborate, if making sure to at least take the time to take some of the equipment with you as the npc's leave, maybe with the player being pinned down, or otherwise wasting time looking around not knowing there are still npc's there that are about to leave quietly.

Would be fun perhaps, if there was a way to plan an attack with meaningful options, so that you as a player could better prepare for a more favorable outcome in some situations, like maybe arrange for others to guard some exit point, or to simply help keep an eye on an area and follow an npc when you are not currently able to, being preoccupied with something else.
 
How can they ? What is game without a level? Is there even a challenge in that?
the challenge is that you cannot level up to overcome a difficult part, you need to get good. There's a lot of games whitout levels, A LOT, just not many RPGs (and that's the problem, we want CDPR to be bold and revolutionize the genre) (RPG is role-play and you don't need levels to play a role, at all).
 
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