Is this game an rpg?

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I recommend watching the following video, listen closely to what she says, word by word. It's 20 minutes of someone who knows and explains to the viewers and especially to those confused (who appears to be many), what ROLE-PLAYING truly is; AT GODDAMN LAST! someone who explains this clearly!! I scratch my head everytime someone says CP2077 is a poor RPG, even clueless youtubers saying Cyberpunk 2077 is not a role-playing game.

I only watched the first few minutes because she is already wrong there.

Choose what kind of person your v should be, but there is no real choice to make.
So lets compare:
Even in Mass Effect you can make bad/evil choices make your character a real ahole and this will give different est of choices through the game and Mass Effect isn't heavy on the RPG side either but at least it is there and it has consequences even in main story missions, like screwing your allies over and just leaving them.
Even an old game like Baldur's Gate series that is more of a full RPG game you can become badass evil and screw people over. Same with the old Kotor games.

This also makes you feel more good/evil or even neutral if you want.

On the other hand games like Borderlands you shoot you kill everything in sight more or less and there is some character development, but there is no way to play nice or bad or neutral or anything else you just run around and kill stuff and explore for better loot.

But according to her definition Borderlands is RPG and not a looter shooter and any game where you can define your character by increasing some stats or skills is an RPG, she seem to have no clue at all.

The definition would make Overwatch and Quake RPGs because in quake you can choose what wepon to use and pickup armor to increase survivability thus making it an RPG because you made a choice to go pickup the armor you are playing a character .....
 
Full sandbox MMOs make the best RPGs in my opinion. Essentially P&P but with pixels. Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights were good examples.

You can do your own thing of course in single player games too, but again you really need a sandbox style. You can only do so much in a game like Cyberpunk, due to the linear story and limited RPG friendly features. I would call Cyberpunk a story based action shooter/slasher.
 
I recommend watching the following video, listen closely to what she says, word by word. It's 20 minutes of someone who knows and explains to the viewers and especially to those confused (who appears to be many), what ROLE-PLAYING truly is; AT GODDAMN LAST!

It’s a pretty self evident explanation to anyone who’s ever touched a pnp game.

But it, rather expectedly, focuses entirely on storytelling and leaves everything else untouched.

As per explained, the game is but a nice very subtly branching storyline.

When branching storytelling came to the markets at around Fallout, RPGs still managed to put gameplay in the forefront along with the story, both working clearly towards the desired RPG experience. Today that’s not the case anymore and you only get half the package, which is why it is hard to consider a game CP77 an RPG. A bit of story branching coupled with a sloppy damage-buffer tree just isn’t enough to get past the finish line.

I do agree with her about the ”one open world” being a bad call. The way CDPR directed their CYOA shooter isn’t really suited for it. It would’ve been better as a hub world (even if you could freely travel between the hubs).
 
Ah, so when I spared Sasquatch, the VB's, and Placid. The game didn't decide to not have missions setup for these choices. It was all my fault that I didn't give two rats about Eve or Judy. Trying this direction of the character. It was my fault that Sasqatch was promoted in tons of videos. And in reality, she (and her gang) ended up being worthless to the story. Killing the VB's and Sasquatch are the real choices the game wanted me to make. Because I had to feel sorry for Eve and Judy.

The game did have choices. At the start. The whole flathead mission has multiple ways in dealing with it. Playing nice and paying the money. So you don't get in a firefight. Let Jackie go out on Dum Dum. Go to Stout first, and get her money to pay for the Flathead. If you do that right, you sleep with her. If you do it wrong, she gets fucked. You can also steel her money and the flathead.

THAT is the type of detailed choices people wanted. This all than got reduced down to nothing, as you progress. It's like they where "obligated" to match the demo and narrators words. ONLY with what we saw in the "demo". Majority of the game than didn't bother anymore.

Yeah, you are all about the game leading you by the hand, demanding every decision you make to almost have instantaneous consequences rather than making that decision based on how you role-play your V. That is not always the role-play, you know, expecting every decision to have an actual outcome; sometimes nothing happens, sometimes you don't even know what was the fate of the person, sometimes you don't even need to really know; they just passed by, or were just an obstacle in your main mission; it even applies in real life, just saying this as a curiosity.

About VBs, to spare them or not, is your own judgement, base on how you role-play and what you know about them. You may have totally missed the fact that they attempted to flatline evelyn just because you really didn't care about her, or just by not really inquiring into.


Yeah, you saw Sasquatch being promoted in gameplay videos because it looked cool as a boss, and what? Now, you are dissapointed because the developers decided not to get much out of that character, while focusing on others that we didn't expect them to have such a repercussion and interaction within the game (in order to not spoil, likely).

There is also the lore part, which is really important while role playing, and within this game, definitely important. You could've lore inserted in your head that could effect your own judgement, or.. even, maybe, you may get additional lore base on predetermined outcomes in future contents, books, even newer tabletops, and even then you may feel you took part of it. The problem with the lore, as the youtuber explained in that video posted above, is that the game doesn't do an excelent job giving the player insight about the world lore in a passively manner. One main problem being the lifepaths being too short.


If you didn't give a damn about Evelyn or Judy, then role-play choosing the available dialogues where the game makes your V not that interested in the fate of those characters, in making a genuine relationship with them. The game clearly gives you those options to role-play your V. Now, other different thing is to expect not to do anything with them, which would go contrary to what the game, the GM, is trying to tell. Of course you need to progress, and besides, there is a concrete reason why you do main missions with Evelyn and Judy. because you are out of desperation.
 
I only watched the first few minutes because she is already wrong there.

Choose what kind of person your v should be, but there is no real choice to make.
So lets compare:
Even in Mass Effect you can make bad/evil choices make your character a real ahole and this will give different est of choices through the game and Mass Effect isn't heavy on the RPG side either but at least it is there and it has consequences even in main story missions, like screwing your allies over and just leaving them.
Even an old game like Baldur's Gate series that is more of a full RPG game you can become badass evil and screw people over. Same with the old Kotor games.

This also makes you feel more good/evil or even neutral if you want.

On the other hand games like Borderlands you shoot you kill everything in sight more or less and there is some character development, but there is no way to play nice or bad or neutral or anything else you just run around and kill stuff and explore for better loot.

But according to her definition Borderlands is RPG and not a looter shooter and any game where you can define your character by increasing some stats or skills is an RPG, she seem to have no clue at all.

The definition would make Overwatch and Quake RPGs because in quake you can choose what wepon to use and pickup armor to increase survivability thus making it an RPG because you made a choice to go pickup the armor you are playing a character .....

You didn't get it. Recommend watching the entire video. No going everywhere like this.


Same thing, letting the game taking you by the hand. What is a reputation system? It may vary depending on the game. To be brief, you put the example of Mass Effect, which I replayed a few weeks ago, and it all goes down to limiting choices. "be Blue or be Red"; if you are an asshole, be in line with being asshole during your entire playthrough. If you are an angel, you are limited to be it. Forget about going grey at one point or redemption.

In Cyberpunk, there is no reputation system between good and evil limiting the way you think; you can make up you own mind, choosing dialogues that make your V looking as an asshole, and then the next dialogue being a good person because you feel the situation deserves it.

At last, no way to fully understand this, if you didn't listen what she is truly talking about.
 
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They sold the game as an RPG, then at last minute changed the genre so is not officially an RPG anymore. It's obvious why it isn't considered an RPG now.
 
They sold the game as an RPG, then at last minute changed the genre so is not officially an RPG anymore. It's obvious why it isn't considered an RPG now.

This claim always has been laughable for me.

"They change the genre in some info at last minute to 'action adventure game' so that makes it 100% no RPG according them"; when we might never know the reason of that decision. Everything is just speculation.

They may have changed it because for so many people, the game was going to be GTA 2077, so they decided to stick with that label in order to attract the GTA kids at the corner while still telling "RPG experience" from another end. Or, they may have done this because they thought people would not get it ( which I totally believe), but it's still speculation. And we can come up with many more.
 
My honest answer would be nearly but not quite and it is a shame that their first attempt was with such a well loved and influential pnp brand.
Its a bit like paying a session with an inexperienced gm who hasn't fully read the rules and can't cope with the pcs having a mind of their own.

I want to try to avoid any comparison with other games because a lot of what I read on here seems to be why isn't it grand theft auto or skyrim. Its not and I for one didn't want it to be. I hoped that CDPR would give us something new and I really honestly can see the intent but not the execution (hopefully only not yet but who knows)

The crux of the problem is I'm not sure they really knew how.
With the witcher games cdpr took an amazing set of books and short stories (which I never would have discovered if it weren't for the games) and then allowed you to play through a script from that storyline with some limited choices that affected your alliances and padded the surroundings with side quests that expanded the lore and made wonderful use of elements of the short stories. Is the witcher 3 a wonderful game yes but it is largely linear and in my opinion not an rpg, yet somehow I was more immediately drawn in to the world.

In CP it appears to me that they have had a really good go at assembling an rpg and all the elements that should make it one are there just not fully implemented.

They have faithfully reproduced the setting as I imagine it as a pimply teenager sat around with my buddies, let's be honest night city is awesome! Hats off to all the designers and artists.
Flying cars and the opportunity to chrome myself out would have been nice but I'll forgive them that for now because even without that it could still be great.

In the witcher there is only really one protagonist and whether you dress him in ermine or leather he's still Geralt you know his backstory and he's a surly double hard bastard with a soft spot for lost causes and weakness for the odd sexy sorceress.

In CP I've been given a free reign to create whosoever I choose... so long as its V. Initially I was really hopeful I started as a nomad and I felt I had an idea of where I was coming from, I can even deal with the Jackie montage as a trope to aggregate the three intros though it makes most sense for the rat. Simple things would have made that feel more real. I'm not really treated any differently and my background doesn't affect much but most gm run sessions would at least try to pay lipservice to it in some way or give you npc interactions that help make you feel loved or unwelcome because of it, it makes the player feel like you've considered their character.

I can choose my playstyle and skills which I would say is the most rpg element of the game, but unfortunately I would assume we mostly all ended up being a "well rounded" character
There isn't enough differentiation to force you to choose between stealth or guns blazing, hacking or mechanics or brute force. I haven't found that there were clear rewards for choosing one over the other but importantly there weren't any real limitations either. The only thing that kept me in stealth was my own self discipline. I could just as easily murder everyone, and given that seems to be the route to all the loot and experience you might as well just walk in the front door and kill everything that moves then jack and hack all the terminals. No-one is going to care or come after you anyway. A good rpg has consequences for the character either in its ruleset or in the fallout from the gm.

The main story is engaging, the main plot npcs are really well developed, I am really sucked in to some of their stories and I care about them, but I can get that from a book or a film too.

I've got to caveat here that I haven't finished the game yet so I can't honestly say but so far I'm not convinced that I will affect their outcomes or that my choices will make any difference to the story apart from an ending montage like the witcher.

Even this is forgivable to an extent any gm has a story arc planned and an idea of where the pc and npc will end up and how they hope that the skill sets will get them there. But the best gms (and digital rpg games) will get you there with the illusion of free will.

The main element that I feel is missing throughout is that option for tangential play, either in the main quests, sidequests or through random interactions in the wider world. Why don't the npcs make comments about me, why are the factions apathetic? I'm not meant to role play my character outside of the story and if I run to close to the npc or upset the police then my petulant gm spawns level 18 goblins with swords of cleaving just to remind me who's boss and make me hurry up and get back to the quest, oh look its ok (quick evasion roll) you've run around the corner and escaped. I don't even have to worry about losing fate points. I don't feel like the side quests, as fun as they are take enough from the source material to really expand the world that much or have any real use to my characters development.

Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk is all about the choices we as a society are/were making and the effects on our world and our humanity and how individuals chose to corrupt themselves and how that affects the people around them. I'm not sure I'm making the choices for V so it's not a mirror to my own shortcomings and limitations.

I realise cdpr have a challenge on their hands just to get the game working as intended, but when they've finished the paid for beta test maybe they can finish making the game too.

Sorry about the long post, I just feel really invested in this game (cyberpunk not 2077) and I hope that CDPR balance the character development so it matters, drop some additional content so my initial character creation and back story matter and introduce a soul to the amazing environment outside of the main quest. It has the scope and building blocks to be a truly great rpg, and if they don't finish this one there will never be a sequel. I guess just I'm hopeful for the sake of a bunch of 13yo kids I used to know.
 
This claim always has been laughable for me.

"They change the genre in some info at last minute to 'action adventure game' so that makes it 100% no RPG according them"; when we might never know the reason of that decision. Everything is just speculation.

They may have changed it because for so many people, the game was going to be GTA 2077, so they decided to stick with that label in order to attract the GTA kids at the corner while still telling "RPG experience" from another end. Or, they may have done this because they thought people would not get it ( which I totally believe), but it's still speculation. And we can come up with many more.

I dont know. I don't care. It is what it is 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
No.

It's a non linear FPS with some no consequence choices running towards:
Certain death

A bare bone RPG has no stats or skills. Character history and goals and then you run it from there.

Stats and skills are added to handle probability calls and items to in some way influence these.
For example: A sword does more damage than a dagger. Unless you succeed with a sneak and back stab roll.

But it is where the "industry" is today. "Run and gun" has replaced "Hack and slash", where you solve every problem by killing what seems to be the root of it. Bullet sponge enemies to make the game harder and incrementally better weapons to add some incentive for looting. Perks with guaranteed success once you have got them instead of skills. Dialogue choices with the same outcome regardless.

Sigh...
 
Cyberpunk 2077 was suppose to be and was advertised as a R.P.G before launch then right before launch it was downgraded to a action adventure game :cry: . As to why this is[ I dont know] :shrug: ??? I myself am disappointed that cyberpunk 2077 is not a r.p.g game like it was advertised
 
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It has some light RPG mechanics, but its more towards a FPS Action/Adventure game. Essentialy any game could be RPG with these criteria, only limited to your own imagination and abilty to immerse yourself to the world.
 
You can get immersed even if it's not RPG, like uncharted games and even they are not open world they still shows some fantastic views and some maps are really big.

In my opinion as CP is right now it would gave been better if it was done like uncharted adventure games with maps so and just keep it to maps and checkpoints and then they could have made the story a lot better and even done the lifepaths with different endings and even had 3 almost completely different stories.

As for any kind of multiplayer from this mess unless they do a complete rewrite of the engine and more or less the whole game. Multiplayer will not work.

I hate multiplayer but for people who do, they will not accept getting off car or bike and then it takes 5+ seconds to get the weapon out in which time other will have killed them already.
 
Well the company official website says this: "Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game."
Indeed, official GOG website
GOG store.png
 
RPG means 'Role Playing Game'.

Cyberpunk 2077 has options for playing various roles.

1. You can chose to customize your character (gender, background and looks in many details).
2. There are plenty of choices to make and consequences of these. Both in action and dialogues. And there's LOTS of it.

Cyberpunk 2077 is most certainly a RPG. You are able to play a role. You can chose to be good, bad, mean, indifferent or whatever, and everything you do or chose has consequences and outcome.

Well, it's not a PURE RPG. It's filled with some combat and fetch quests. But almost every game uses this to lengthen the game experience. A pure RPG would probably not sell as many copies without the combat, so they mix a bit of every other genre into the game. And perhaps a pure RPG would even be boring at some extend for many players?
 
I sit on the fence with this one. If i were able to completely create my character body, look and style and name them, then yes. But as it stands with the character contraints I would say it an adventure game.
 
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