Again: who defines that? You?
Why has it been called ActionRPG for nearly thirty years if it is not an RPG?
The same goes for pretty much every JRPG.
Why has it been called ActionRPG for nearly thirty years if it is not an RPG?
The same goes for pretty much every JRPG.
Comparing CybperPunk to Horizon Zero dawn, which has never crashed for me. CP is still in the Aloy baby stage of being trapped inside the cave and unable to get out? I wish it wasn't so, as I love the Witcher3 RPG aspects. The setting is so far off of a RPG?
I have lived in cities and playing in a city basically sucks-turds, it is why I stopped playing Grand Theft auto period.
They would of done better to have made a Witcher4 with Ciri as the main toon and Geralt as the some-time side kick getting old and maybe dying like Jackie? And that BS about gamers complaining about the Witcher 3 main story to long? NOT....
I have over 6k hours on all the Bethesda games and still playing. Why not post some of those complaints as now your reputation is so tainted who believes that lie?
Also making the game end? WITCHER 4 should have no level cap, no end of story? Why do you think Skyrim keeps selling products? Because the game never ends? Well ok there is a 250 level cap?
Modding with adult mods has Also made that so?
It doesn't even come close to a Sims game. The sale of cars is also spam?
How many people did they have working on C-P? The other mistake was changing direction mid-stream with Keanu Reeves getting on board?
Keanu Reeves was all about hyper-hyping and the insane ads about cars and fashions? Lame? With that ploy they basically were grabbing the infamous golden-calf-ring and like all WannaBs rich, they ruined there reputation to actually make more money?
A gamble that failed?
Can they fix the game along with there rep or stay a lame-factory-GAME-publiser? A pumping out garbage games?
I have lived in cities and playing in a city basically sucks-turds, it is why I stopped playing Grand Theft auto period.
They would of done better to have made a Witcher4 with Ciri as the main toon and Geralt as the some-time side kick getting old and maybe dying like Jackie? And that BS about gamers complaining about the Witcher 3 main story to long? NOT....
I have over 6k hours on all the Bethesda games and still playing. Why not post some of those complaints as now your reputation is so tainted who believes that lie?
Also making the game end? WITCHER 4 should have no level cap, no end of story? Why do you think Skyrim keeps selling products? Because the game never ends? Well ok there is a 250 level cap?
Modding with adult mods has Also made that so?
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It doesn't even come close to a Sims game. The sale of cars is also spam?
How many people did they have working on C-P? The other mistake was changing direction mid-stream with Keanu Reeves getting on board?
Keanu Reeves was all about hyper-hyping and the insane ads about cars and fashions? Lame? With that ploy they basically were grabbing the infamous golden-calf-ring and like all WannaBs rich, they ruined there reputation to actually make more money?
A gamble that failed?
Can they fix the game along with there rep or stay a lame-factory-GAME-publiser? A pumping out garbage games?
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You know, I've actually been wondering that too since CDPR changed the genre of the game in the info part of their official Instagram. I was wondering what the difference is between an open world action-adventure and an RPG. According to Wikipedia both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are classified as Action RPG's while Fallout 3 and Skyrim are considered an action role-playing open world. It honestly depends on who you ask because you will get different answers. I know for me, an RPG is any game where I can customize my character and make decisions that affect the story in some way. So I personally would classify Cyberpunk 2077 as an RPG and apparently so does Wikipedia.
I honestly don't know what the rules are for a game to call itself an RPG.
If it have level or progression of a character that might be enough. World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, Diablo and POE is also categorized as RPG. So I guess CP is as well or at least have just as much right to be categorized as such, since it does have levels and character progression/customization.
Maybe in the end it's not even worth talking about what is and what isn't an RPG, but whether a specific game meets expectations.
If we take Diablo 4 as an example, I doubt many people expect it to have a deep and elaborate story, where the player is on the edge of their chair deciding what to do. People expect a game, where you go out and smash a whole lot of monsters and gather loot and a story with some cool cutscenes which is barely making any sense. So if we assumed that Diablo 4 changed that and now you had to spend hours going through dialogs and doing things that didn't involve a lot of killing. The expectations simply wouldn't be met and people would most likely be extremely disappointed.
And to me that is sort of the issue with CP, because CDPR kept telling people that it was RPG first and action second. So everyone's expectations purely based on what they told, where that it probably were more about solving and doing missions in a huge variety of ways, where most of the time you could solve things without combat. And in some cases that is true. But I think most people after having completed the game, would agree that it is mostly combat first and then in rare cases the option not to.
Which to me is probably due to how action packed combat is, it's fairly fast and not especially dangerous, meaning that even if you are in a dialog, like with the maelstroms in the start and you end up in a fight with them. It's not like they will just kill you, it will just turn into another action scene, with you spamming healings if needed and just shoot the crap out of them. Whereas if certain dialogs could potentially lead to you being shot right there on the spot, if you screwed up to much it might be more interesting.
But then again, these missions would need to be a lot more in depth than they currently are, as most of the time the just end up in the same anyway.
And also your character stats doesn't really play a role in regards to the options you have, at least not in a major way. I think the Body stat might be the one which have the most options and some of the others basically just give you some dialog options, which might give you some extra information, but nothing that changes anything.
Personally I thought that your characters stats would play a much bigger role in what options you had, based on what CDPR said about all the options in quests and this being an RPG etc.
So ultimately I think the biggest issue in regards to CP as an RPG, is that it for a lot of people simply didn't meet the expectations of the type of RPG game that CDPR had told people it would be, and also why I think it's sort of fair to refer to it as more of an adventure game, because even the character progression is not especially well implemented in this type of game.
Whereas it works perfectly in a game like Diablo or World of warcraft. Because no one expect your characters stats or choices to make any difference to the game, the goal is pretty clear and known by people from the start of the game, get to max level, gather good gear by farming and kill some bad monster in the end.
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Which brings us to the point: Saying something is an "RPG" doesn't really tell much anything about the game,
It's semantics. Games have thrown these terms around arbitrarily since forever. Looking at a text description on a game is utterly useless.
The way I see it these type of games can be classified as an RPG in two areas. The first is narrative design, if one exists. The second is of a mechanical nature.
To elaborate on the first. You have quests, tasks, whatever. The primary narrative, side-quests, again, whatever. You could conceivably completely define a character and present these concepts to the player and tailor each and every part of them to this character. In doing so the player is assuming the role of this character persona and making decisions based upon it. Personally, I don't consider this "good". Those games can be entertaining but they leave a lot of RP potential on the table.
"Good" is when you offer freedom to define this character. The player has freedom to alter the character persona. Likewise, good is when you build contrasting options into these narrative elements. You can save the person you're tasked with rescuing. You can let them die. You can bend a knee before the intimidation of eagle face or backstab her and side with Maelstrom. "Good" is when those choices lead to results with, again, contrast. The NPC lives if you help them and dies if not. Eagle face ends up in a river or opens up new connections.
Obviously, all of this must be constructed ahead of time. Incidentally, you have to critically think about how you're going to build this contrast into the options, make them fit the game setting, the potential types of characters a player would want to make within this setting, etc. This is what makes it hard.
The mechanical side is where progression enters the equation. My character is a Fighter so they slash or stab things with a 1d10 big boy sword or smash them with a 1d6 or 1d8 quarterstaff (these values make no sense, by the way... Quarterstaffs are arguably more lethal than swords....), wear heavy armor, can kick open doors, etc. This Fighter doesn't run around flinging spells. Meanwhile, the super smart Wizard shoots lightning bolts out their eyes and fireballs out their ass, solves intricate puzzles and is wise beyond their years.
If the Fighter meets a sophisticated lock they have to find another way around it. Alternatively, they ask the Thief to do... thief stuff. That or they ask the Wizard to abra cadabra that fucker open. If the Wizard arm wrestles a giant they're probably not winning.
If it's not clear by now, the root requirement is limitations. Limitations of the character superimposed on the player. My character can do X or Y but not Z. As the player assuming this character I can do X or Y but not Z. If the character can do X, Y and Z, no matter what, it's an action game with a progression system. Granted, the character could conceivably be good at everything. Here, again, we get into whether it's "good" or not. Is it a good RPG on a mechanical level if my character is a master of every task in front of them? Personally, I'd say no. It's not.
In CP I think it's fair to say the narrative side has RPG characteristics. V is presented with choices in some circumstances. Do A and X happens, do B and Y happens. Unfortunately, the game finds a way to sabotage itself. In many cases your limited to doing A and getting X. There is no B. There is no Y. In other cases A and B simply don't matter in any meaningful way. Even if they do it's frequently extremely short-lived. Our pal Meredith ends up in a river, the "mole" is discovered and thanks you for your service then... quest over. Move onto the next brick in the yellow brick road.
That mechanical side is questionable to me (was in TW3 too). Every V can shoot, hack, melee, whatever. A hacker V is more better at hacking, sure. A hacker V can also kick in the front door, body checks notwithstanding, and shoot everything in the face. On VH difficulty. As a player you can create a low body/reflex build and with your bare hands (no gorilla arms) kick the shit out of Buck on VH by hitting him 9000 times and never getting hit yourself. Player ability completely overshadows character ability. Character limitations don't apply (a "fluid class system"... get the fuck out of here). If they do apply they aren't influential enough.
My preferred counter-example in an ARPG for this mechanical side is archery in Kingdom Come Deliverance. If Henry has bad archery have fun hitting anything with a bow. Once Henry gets good archery you can shoot the wings off a fly at 50m (a dramatic exaggeration, clearly). Henry can do X so the player can do X. Henry can't do Y so the player can't do Y. Obviously, KCD isn't perfect in this regard. It's at least trying and, in some cases, pulling it off reasonably well.
On a slight tangent, this part here is why some RPG "purists" think turn based, dice rolls, etc. are synonymous with RPG and "Action RPG" mechanics are not. In those old ISO's or games with similar mechanics your Fighter was doing fighter stuff. If they tried to do Wizard stuff, barring some type of unique character strength there, they were not going to pull it off. Either you couldn't do it at all or would have pitiful chances finding success.
Modern games tend to throw all this on it's head. It has a story, characters, progression, loot, equipment, etc. Thus, it's an RPG. To me this does not an RPG make. Those elements should exist in a good RPG. How they work is what determines if the game sufficiently satisfies the requirements. A low body/reflex Netrunner kicking the shit out of our boy Buck by "running the gauntlet" for an hour doesn't do it for me. The player being unable to hit fuck all with a bow when Henry has bad archery does it for me.
Modern games also get stuck in the combat plus narrative beside it mindset. You have a narrative with choices (sometimes) and consequences (sometimes). Those decisions ripple through the game world (nope). Congratulations, you completed the game. Did you opt to blow your brains out, get an extra 6 months or stick around in cyberspace? There ya go, roleplay your character persona. On the mechanical side we get 40 ways to destroy anything daring to step into our path and not much else.
^
This is what a proper wall of text looks like.
World of Warcraft is a cooperative problem solving/strategy loot treadmill with some RPG/story elements, an insistence on obsoleting it's own content and replacing it with new and more better content. Diablo is a hack and slash loot treadmill with RPG/story elements. I don't know if I played PoE. Of course, I've played so many video games by now it's hard to remember them all. I'd rate CP as a cinematic ARPG with looter shooter elements.
True RPG are in my opinion are game like Fallout 1 and 2, New Vegas, Diablo 1 and 2, Baldur Gate 1 and 2,
Divinity games, Gothic 1 and 2, Kotor 1 and 2, Morrowind, Risen, Vampire Masquarade games, Two Worlds 1 and 2, . Skyrim, Fallout 4, Borderlands, Final Fantasy, Cyberpunk 2077 are more action games. They are more simplistic, easy targeted to the majority of gamers of today who are just casuals.
For example Gothic 1,2 did not had any markers for quests, no difficulty setting, no hints, tutorials.
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It has some of the trappings of an RPG. The term RPG is somewhat nebulous to begin with. In recent years I've taken it to mean that there are a few elements that are present within the game in question:
1. A progression system by which you/your character grows stronger.
2. Some semblance of choice-making in your dialogue and gameplay options.
3. A setting that is wholly unlike the present day.
These three things can be emphasized or de-emphasized as the developer chooses in order to design a particular type of gameplay. Cyberpunk is probably best described as a looter shooter action RPG.
1. A progression system by which you/your character grows stronger.
2. Some semblance of choice-making in your dialogue and gameplay options.
3. A setting that is wholly unlike the present day.
These three things can be emphasized or de-emphasized as the developer chooses in order to design a particular type of gameplay. Cyberpunk is probably best described as a looter shooter action RPG.
Why are ppl always complaining about Keanu ?
I couldn't read any solid argumentation against him. People have no gamedesign knowledge, rant and doesn't even know which are the problems of the game.
They just need a human to rant on, and the only dude that personifies this is Keanu.
Keanu is one of the guys that made an excellent job in that game, and the game is far from having troubles coming from him.
On the contrary, gamedesigners made a poorly inspired job (game system is TW3 with less feat - no innovations : ok hacking, then what ? - tbh I and many others could have done the same if the job was just a copy : there was no need to "transfer" big studio stars for the job they made since we have now the results)
While core & engine programming was superb, all quest, AI, physic, shooting and other peripherical programming was rushed and lacked of time to make it work. Writting was very nice. Not superb, but very nice (could have been superb with more inspired gamedesigners that would have accepted and made a choice driven adventure). Art and adaptation is AAA, only lacks a tad in the tone in writing (mainstream gameplay and young adult subjects to describe CP is meh). QA was inexistant, for a game of that scale.
If you want to have a culprit of "who stole all the dev money", I have one strong suspect.
Starts with an "M" and finish by "arketting". At least with less uninspired promises there they would have droped the previous gen versions that limits the studio from innovating now (ressources are used, and are to be used now, to fix something that will die soon).
tbh, before release they could just have said "hi we're the guys who made TW3, we made a new game", marketting was done and they could have used time & ressources to put on their game.
I am one of those who knew that I would buy that game day 1, 7 years ago.
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I think you are right and one of the issues I think CP faces pretty fast, which is sort of the way they have handled combat. It is a weird mix. And maybe it's not even that closely connected to CP as it would any other RPG FPS game, like fallout.
When you aim your gun at a target and its right above them you expect to hit, that is how FPS games work. The most you add some "RPG" elements to this type of combat, people will complain. People didn't like the shooting mechanics in Fallout and you often hear people complain about it in CP as well. A lot don't seem to like when RPG and shooting is mixed, because it interferes with their expectation of whether they hit or not, if the cursor is on the enemy surely it is a hit!! but when that doesn't happen then it's bad shooter!!.
One of the main problems with CP in this regards compared to that of Fallout is that combat in CP is suppose to be fast paced with you sliding around, slowing time and doing all these crazy moves, sort of like it is a doom game or something
. But this doesn't really work, if you don't hit the enemies or you ending up sliding in front of them with a shotgun and shooting them 3 times and they still don't die, then it just becomes slightly silly.Whereas in Fallout combat is sort of slow and you are not expected to pull off a lot of crazy moves. So mixing RPG into this type of combat at least in my opinion seem to work better here than in CP.
That is not to say that CP combat is bad, I personally think it works fine, but then again im not a FPS shooter gamer. And therefore I wouldn't have mind that combat was even closer related to your skills than they are.
PoE is similar to Diablo 3, just miles ahead in my opinion, when it comes to pretty much everything related to what makes a good ARPG.
Path of Exile is the epitome of Isometric Action RPGs. Even better than Diablo II. As for People who do not consider Diablo an RPG, the game for which literally the term Action RPG was created, i will never find common ground with them. I mean in terms of gameplay the only difference with clasic isometric RPGs, is the fact that you control one hero instead of a team. Besides dialogue in Baldur's gate did not really affect the plot or the endings in any way.
In Pong you play the role as a paddle and it’s a game, therefore an RPG.
i would say yes as its free roam world style game with different options to pick from which affect the world your in , so i would says its rpg of some sorts yes.
Very simple: if you count TW2, TW3, DE:HR, DE:MD, DA2, DAI, ME2, ME3, Skyrim, FO4 or GreedFall as RPGs, then yes, CP2077 is one of them, without a shadow of doubt.
If you want to experience some real in depth RPG, one would go for Pacman or Frogger
By that logic you play Mario or Luigi in Marios bros, therefore it is an RPG (we aren't even talking Super Mario Bros just Mario bros.)