Characters and plot are way more interesting than "single parent Nate & Nora, ex solider or lawyer that tries to find their son in a retro futuristic post apocalyptic world while constantly nagged by vagrants to do their bidding". Unless you have kids and a family of your own its hard to relate to that and roleplay in your head.
Then you have Cyberpunk in which "you are V, a guy or a gal or both or whatever you wish to be in that regard. Your goal is to make it big in Night City while you are fighting against time to figure out how to save your ass after a heist gone wrong."
As for characters dont tell me you find Preston Garvey or Paladin Danse more interesting than River or Kerry Eurodyne?
There is no doubt that CP nails it when it comes to characters compared to FO4, both in Fallout 4 and Skyrim they are really generic and the voice acting and body language of the NPC is not very good for the most part.
If one assumed that it was equally bad in CP, I don't think one would connect especially well with those characters either. Rivers story is not more interesting than those found in FO4, its just presented better, in my opinion.
I don't think that is a weakness of Fallout, it is supposed to be an ruined world so stuff like this have value and almost everything you find in it is useful in some way. Picking up ashtrays in CP when you drive a car worth 175000 makes no sense, however.
If people don't like looting stuff, I can understand why the Fallout universe might not be for them. But most people like that you can customize your weapons, armors and build various things. But if there were no things to pick up this system wouldn't really work well in this universe I think.
You said that in Fallout 4 the main quest was vague and let you calmly explore sidequests.
I disagree. You wake up and the only thing you know is that your infant son has been taken away. The first people you run into has a psychic/rambling old woman who points you to diamond city and then you actually get on the trail of your son.
The fact that most people playing the game deviate from that path really fast and for a veeeery long period of time also points to it not being a very good RPG either since it WANTS it to be a linear story like CP2077. There is an urgency whenever you're on the trail of your son. Hell, the first time I played the game I got more than halfway through the main quest before I started doing sidequests just because of that.
HOWEVER, in CP2077 I knew that the game wasn't really playable after the main story, so I did every single side mission, crime report thingy and gig before I even embarked on the main mission (and then after the heist, I again did every single side mission, crime report and gig in the rest of the city before advancing the main quest again).
This wasn't about looting astrays at all (and I agree, picking up trash to sell it to venders is kinda shitty design, but it wasn't the discussion here.
Story is usually not very interesting without deep and engaging characters.
Because most stories have been done over and over in some form. They're not very interesting on their own in most cases.
What makes or breaks the story is the characters.
(I'm specifically talking about computer games here, though)
At least in Skyrim you can do that. Nothing even remotely similar in CP.
Look, Skyrim is such a different beast in gaming terms. The real enjoyment comes from the world itself. You can play Skyrim completely ignoring the MQ and side factions and still find a great game in there. Then you throw in the mod community and it jumps to a whole other level.
CP is... not a bad game. At least on PC. The combat is adequate. The MQ story, up until the last 5 minutes, is not terrible. There isn't really anything else padding the game though. A few of the side jobs are interesting but most of them and the NCPD stuff is incredibly repetitive and boring. There is no added fluff like more apartments, apartment or vehicle customization. You can't even customize V with cool aesthetic cyberware.
You just plow through the MQ on the rails provided and then in the end they don't even give you a satisfying conclusion. I think I would sum up my opinion of CP with one word. "Meh".
I disagree. You wake up and the only thing you know is that your infant son has been taken away. The first people you run into has a psychic/rambling old woman who points you to diamond city and then you actually get on the trail of your son.
The fact that most people playing the game deviate from that path really fast and for a veeeery long period of time also points to it not being a very good RPG either since it WANTS it to be a linear story like CP2077. There is an urgency whenever you're on the trail of your son. Hell, the first time I played the game I got more than halfway through the main quest before I started doing sidequests just because of that.
Yes and no, in regards to Fallout putting a lot of pressure on you. As you get out of the vault, you are told that you have been gone for 210 years and you don't know how long it have been from you saw your partner get shot until you wake up, but I assume its 10 years, since I believe I saw a kid at that age being your son. (Have never completed FO4)
I do however disagree that FO4 tries to urge you to go find him, you are correct that the old crazy lady tells you to go to diamond city, whereas Preston instantly send you to help some settlements. What I like about FO4 ways of handling quests is that nothing is really locked to you, you want to go explore the map you can do that, not like in CP with hidden "city is on lockdown" walls and also certain content being locked behind the street cred. Which in itself is not a huge problem, if it were integrated better into the game, but as it is now its just a quest/content experience bar.
HOWEVER, in CP2077 I knew that the game wasn't really playable after the main story, so I did every single side mission, crime report thingy and gig before I even embarked on the main mission (and then after the heist, I again did every single side mission, crime report and gig in the rest of the city before advancing the main quest again).
That to me is a huge problem, because I did exactly as you and played the side missions first and ignored the main quest, but that makes little sense since you are about to die in a few weeks. But you choose to do it anyway, because as player you know that the game will end afterwards. That is poor quest design for an open world game, but given that there are no non gig content in the game, there is really nothing to do if you were allowed to play on anyway.
This wasn't about looting astrays at all (and I agree, picking up trash to sell it to venders is kinda shitty design, but it wasn't the discussion here.
Think you misunderstood what I meant, my point was that looting all these random things, make sense in Fallout because you need them to craft and improve your settlements.
In CP you can collect a whole lot of things, but they can't be used for anything really except junk for selling or components. But the crafting system is rather broken, so even that makes little sense.
But let's imagine that for some reason it was possible in CP to run your own gang or BD studio/shop and to do that you could collect certain items, break them down and use that to improve your business. Sort of like the settlement system in Fallout, then it would make sense that there was a lot of things to collect and would make that a side mission in itself, for people that think something like that could be fun.
As it is now in CP, you might as well just have 2-3 tiers of "Generic food/water" and just let all the food you collect get transformed into that instead of an inventory filled with clutter, just because it need to look like there is a lot of different things to loot.
Story is usually not very interesting without deep and engaging characters.
Because most stories have been done over and over in some form. They're not very interesting on their own in most cases.
What makes or breaks the story is the characters.
(I'm specifically talking about computer games here, though)
I would disagree, for a single playthrough characters are very important, but its not really exciting hearing the Silverhand dialog the second time when you already know what is going to happen. To me player choice and how these changes your game experience is much more important.
I did the Covenant quest in FO4 today and first of all you are greeted by this mercenary hired to find a missing caravan and some missing person, you are also introduced to this having something to do with the institute as well. But anyway I decided to help him looking for this person so went to where she were kept, and the "evil" person there tells you that she is a synth etc. And basically ask you if you want to help them instead, which I chose to do and blew the mercenary head off. And got allied with the Covenant settlement as well. Were this quest presented with the performance equal that of CP, it would have been amazing.
Now imagine in CP, if you could choose to be loyal to Dexter and the story would actual work around that. That would be awesome as that would change one playthrough from the next and were it integrated correctly, it could maybe change the whole game experience from that point on, if there were factions and fixer loyalty etc. in the game.
The issue is that CP have almost no content where player choice matters.
For an open world game to be good, it needs replayability, exploration and lots of side content, otherwise there is no reason for it to be open world. And besides the side missions CP pretty much fail in all of them as I see it.
Not that it can't be fixed, because I think it can, but it just requires CDPR to add a lot of content and maybe open it up to modders.
There are so many plots and side-plots they could shove in without the dying part and still have V become a successful merc. It's a shame they went the cheap story route and didn't make up for it.
And the "you're dying" storyline seemed like a cheap and easy way to end a mission whenever a mission designer ran out of ideas--just pass out and wake up somewhere else.
Another thing CP could have made use of as well is the companion system in Fallout.
It's really nice that you can choose which companion you want to bring, what items they should use. And you can have a dog as well
Also in fights in CP, companions are like tanks, which is most likely because their AI is really bad, so half the time they run in cover just in front of you or just charges forward like maniacs. Not saying the AI in Fallout 4 is perfect, but at least slightly better in my opinion.
And they can actually do some damage as well, another cool thing is the bleed out solution, which means that they can't die but at least they can taken out of the combat.
Why do you think that choosing FO4 was a bad example? These games have lots in common, especially given how CDPR promoted CP, FO4 is not perfect either, which is not the point, but it does have some very good elements to it.
Why do you think that choosing FO4 was a bad example? These games have lots in common, especially given how CDPR promoted CP, FO4 is not perfect either, which is not the point, but it does have some very good elements to it.
It is sandbox mainly while CP is nto sandbox at all though OK, lets say they are both open world.
But I rahter meant that F4 is somehow controversial (specially for Interplays fans), which makes people discuss more how they dislike F4 rather the point.
Even mine first though was "From F4? Whatever it is... nope, no thank you".
i enjoyed fallout 4 a lot but completely lost interest after i played cyberpunk
cp2077 is just superior in every way
especially when it comes to stories and characters
yeah, they get stuck in the terran, repeat the same voice lines over and over and barely have anything interesting to say.
and their quests dont even compare to what we get in cyberpunk.
i prefer the temporary compantions. meaningful interactions with the environment and proper pathing
Even despite that, they ruin your stealth 10000 times less than companions AI in CP77. Sorry, but in order to be superior they actually need to do all things better, not only have slightly more interactions which stop anyway once you are done with their quests.
I don't understand the need to compare games, to be honest. It's like comparing two people because they look differently. CP2077 is CP2077 and FO4 is FO4
No one is forcing you to buy a new car.
That's the players decision, just like in fallout no one is forcing you to go plant your crops. Both of these things may be stupid but it's up to the player to make that decision. And that's part of the (I can do what I want to) in open world games.
All story based games, will have you doing a set quest line so you can follow the story. But it doesn't mean you have to rush to do it
No one is forcing you to buy a new car.
That's the players decision, just like in fallout no one is forcing you to go plant your crops. Both of these things may be stupid but it's up to the player to make that decision. And that's part of the (I can do what I want to) in open world games.
All story based games, will have you doing a set quest line so you can follow the story. But it doesn't mean you have to rush to do it
You are taking his comment a bit out of context. The point is that you are dying, so pretty much all the side content is utterly meaningless. Doing merc work, helping someone for eddies when you've got two weeks left to live is ridiculous. But without that merc work, there's really not much of a game. Doing the character missions is what makes a lot of the characters in this game "come alive", but it makes no sense for V to do those things.
And as an aside, in FO4 your character could perhaps be smart enough to realise that they don't know when Shaun was taken and that for all they know, Shaun actually lived and died a century ago. Further, they might also be smart enough to realise that it's a nasty world out there at this point, and that rushing will get them killed while doing nothing to help Shaun. It is possible. The same is not true in CP, where no amount of intelligence can get you out of CDPR's two-week trainride to the morgue.
No one is forcing you to buy a new car.
That's the players decision, just like in fallout no one is forcing you to go plant your crops. Both of these things may be stupid but it's up to the player to make that decision. And that's part of the (I can do what I want to) in open world games.
All story based games, will have you doing a set quest line so you can follow the story. But it doesn't mean you have to rush to do it
No, but there is no consequences if you do. In Fallout 1, if you did not find the chip in 150 days... there was consequences.
If you don't want to act "stupid" you just lose vast majority of the content with no differentece.
So there should be something to make the freedom work with the story—if you are doing story for open world game and do not wich players take your story part lightly.
It is sandbox mainly while CP is nto sandbox at all though OK, lets say they are both open world.
But I rahter meant that F4 is somehow controversial (specially for Interplays fans), which makes people discuss more how they dislike F4 rather the point.
Even mine first though was "From F4? Whatever it is... nope, no thank you".
F4 is partly sandbox, which in my opinion is a benefit if one also want a game to be open world. But just as CP, it is categorized as an RPG. Whereas truth be told, CDPR should probably have categorized it as an action adventure game, like GTA 5 is.
And had they done that, there would be no reason to compare it to Fallout 4, I would agree with that.
But for instance in CP you have camps which you also have in Fallout 4, but in FO4 for instance, especially with mods, you can end up with very dynamic fights.
For instance, I was going from one location to another and heard gunshots, so I went to investigate and some group of Rusty devils with robots etc. was fighting something. Way to high level for me as I play horizon. So I was just observing them, right next to me was a Gunner camp, which hadn't noticed me either. But as I was sitting there, a group of raiders caught me by surprise and started attacking me, which then drew the attention of the Rusty devils and the Gunners. So while I was fleeing like crazy they started fighting each other, however being wounded, I decided to hide behind a rock a bit away, however one of the Raiders was heading towards me, and just as I started shooting him. A huge bear jumped the raider.
To me this is really cool, because these fights are not scripted. It just happens that these groups were there at the given place at that moment. And the fact that these different factions will fight it out as well if they run into each other. Like some locations you visit show clear signs of other NPC having been there before you and killed most of the enemies, despite you knowing that normally they wouldn't have been.
Nothing like that happens in CP, it's all scripted and it will be exactly the same every playthrough. To me they don't really make good use of the open world, the factions, the police at all, compared to what they could do. Why not have gang wars? Territories being taken over by other factions etc. There are so many things they could do in Night city and yet they chose the absolute minimum, which is static placed camps and no interaction between factions or anyone for that matter.
In that regard, despite how buggy FO4 is as well, doesn't have the best shooting mechanic or inventory system either. In regards to being an open world RPG game, it is far superior compared to CP. Again because Cyberpunk should have been labelled an action adventure game, because it have very little to do with RPG.
But if they went the way of Fallout in regards to making a more dynamic world, CP would in my opinion, be a far better game than it is now.
We really didn't need another GTA game, if you ask me. It was my number one concern when I saw the first gameplay trailer. Yet time after time, they told people that it was RPG first and action second, but as we know now, it has hardly anything to do with RPG.
I don't understand the need to compare games, to be honest. It's like comparing two people because they look differently. CP2077 is CP2077 and FO4 is FO4
Because they are labelled the same, obviously it wouldn't make sense to compare CP to Fifa
But when they say that it is an open world RPG game, I think it's natural to compare them in regards to how they make use of these genres.
Otherwise they might as well just label all of them as "Generic game", but people discussing and talking about, what they think makes for a good game within a given genre I think is important. Because it can help let game studios know how to correctly label their games and what content players expect in them.
CDPR have been in the industry long enough, that they should be able to label their games correctly and know what it means when they say "RPG", "Open world", "Choice matters", "Everything you do have consequences". But apparently they got all of that wrong.
You are taking his comment a bit out of context. The point is that you are dying, so pretty much all the side content is utterly meaningless. Doing merc work, helping someone for eddies when you've got two weeks left to live is ridiculous. But without that merc work, there's really not much of a game. Doing the character missions is what makes a lot of the characters in this game "come alive", but it makes no sense for V to do those things.
And as an aside, in FO4 your character could perhaps be smart enough to realise that they don't know when Shaun was taken and that for all they know, Shaun actually lived and died a century ago. Further, they might also be smart enough to realise that it's a nasty world out there at this point, and that rushing will get them killed while doing nothing to help Shaun. It is possible. The same is not true in CP, where no amount of intelligence can get you out of CDPR's two-week trainride to the morgue.
The ripperdoc does not give you an exact time. He says maybe a few weeks.
And in most of the quest lines you trying to find help from different people.
When you talk about FO4 you're making assumptions on behalf of the character. But not actually what your character know's.
The same can be said about The witcher 3 you are given a sense of urgency to find Ciri, but Geralt seems they have time to go do other jobs, and help people out.
There are a lot of other games they give you this sense of urgency, but you are still able to take your time and do what you want.
