Great thread. I was going to post something similar in an existing thread about HoS in the Witcher forum, but it's somewhat buried already and feedback for CP77 would likely go better here.
It should be noted that I know near nada about the Cyberpunk world, so some feedback might seem off. Also, I only played TW3 at the end of December 2015, marathon-ing the game and finishing it in a week. So all the updates/improvements were already in place and I was able to distance myself from any release-day hype/disappointment/whatever. However, I haven't played HoS (which I heard is fantastic).
Finally, right now I'm in the middle (50h in) of a Fallout: New Vegas (modded) playthrough so I might use it for reference.
(I labelled each section in this post after writing about half of this because it really is a WALL of text, but I want to give as much feedback as possible to CDPR so that they can make CP77 even better.)
Leveling
About leveling in TW3, I actually thought they did a decent job when it came to unlocking active abilities. I threw all my points into swordsmanship (a few into general), and found that my strategy changed after unlocking the "spinning wheel of death" move. Previously I would just dodge then strike and maybe sign, but after that I threw on quen and spun into the group before rolling back out. Also, the ability to deflect arrows helped immensely against archers, since I no longer had to rush them first. After seeing how the sign tree can unlock alternative modes and testing out a few of them in a bit of post-story play, I think CDPR did pretty well. Can't speak for the alchemy tree though, in a glance it didn't look as fleshed out; then again I haven't tried it.
However, since Cyberpunk is going to have many different classes, I'd rather CDPR focus on differentiating each class instead of five different active ability upgrades for each class - that sounds like an impossible amount of work for the scope of the game they're looking at. This shouldn't be too difficult; the stealth-guns build I'm using in New Vegas right now obviously plays very differently from a melee fighter and from a scientist who cowers behind his companion meat-shield. And from Sard's posts in this thread, I gather Cyberpunk has an even
greater range of classes. So variety between classes almost covers itself.
Nonetheless, it's important that there's still progression within each class, which might be easier to design for certain classes and harder for others. Since I have little in-depth knowledge of Cyberpunk's classes, I'll just suggest a universal way to do this that can complement individual classes' abilities: equipment. While the essentials of the stealth build in NV doesn't change much throughout (stick to shadows, etc.), the equipment you get as you progress gives you more options when approaching a target.
Unlocking the sniper rifle allows you to take targets out from afar, whereas the early-game silenced pistol necessitates you sneaking up close. In Night City, it can mean the difference between sniping a target from another building or crawling up behind him. So in a sense, you would still be unlocking "active abilities" as you progress, just in the form of equipment. And you don't even have to restrict the sniper rifle to spawning at a certain level; just make it prohibitively expensive for early-game characters.
Loot
This talk of equipment brings me to another point of discussion: looting. To be frank, I didn't care much for the loot in TW3. Once I realized witcher gear sets existed, it was all I gunned for. The likeliest reasons I can hypothesize for this are:
1) Confusing categorization. I'm not even sure why I had five "Novigrad Sword"s that varied in class. Why was one a "magic item" and the other a "common item"? (or something similar) Perhaps it was really obvious and I missed it, but I think a Novigrad Sword should be a Novigrad Sword, and the only difference between individual ones should have been durability and/or runes. No need to change the class of the sword just because it has a svarog rune on it. In NV, a 9mm pistol is a 9mm pistol, so despite the vast number of guns I remained perfectly clear on what loot I already had and what I wished to keep. In TW3 I ended up just selling every sword except the Witcher gear ones, because I'd expended actual effort to obtain those.
2) Weapons mostly look and play the same. But to be honest, I'm letting CDPR off the hook for this one because it really can't be helped. No way in hell would a witcher ever be caught
firing a crossbow swinging a mace or a poleaxe, and there's really only one way to use a sword. Furthermore, there are no swords in TW3's universe that burn with literal fire or encase enemies in blocks of ice, so there's that. For Cyberpunk 2077, this should naturally not be the case since all manner of guns and technological weaponry can be invented. I'm hoping each weapon will play and feel different too. If it comes down to a choice between more-weapons-less-variety and less-weapons-more-variety (variety being how they play) then I agree 100% with EliHarel that the latter should triumph.
I'll say this about the loot I found, though. Despite the hordes of people claiming every armor piece except witcher gear looked goddamn ugly (which is kind of true...) I
HUGELY appreciated how every piece of armor had a place in the world. What I mean is that the armors were not "Light Combat Mail" and "Heavy Iron Armor", but instead "Skellige Gambeson" or "Redanian Halberdier's Armor". Excellent attention to detail. Of course the result is that none of them looked good on Geralt the Witcher but it was totally worth it. Not sure how this'll be done in Cyberpunk though, since a "Leather Jacket" is... a "Leather Jacket"... hm. Well, I'm not the brains behind the game. You have my support from the sidelines REDs!
Moving on.
Enemy Variety
Enemy variety was decent, I felt, in TW3. Actually, all things considered it was pretty good because different enemies did require different tactics, and I'd already forgotten about the 80-enemy statement come December whoops. That said, the fact that Cyberpunk features mainly humans might pose some problems.
I think the quickest way to solve it is to first assign a class to each enemy. By class, I mean one of the classes from the list the players pick from, not some arbitrary class like "Brute" or "Scout". This immediately provides variety and can lead to interesting situations if the player fights against someone from the same class as them.
Second, throw enemies of different classes together and if possible make their AI complement each other. For example, an enemy who can stun can do so first before their sniper lines up a shot. Or those with big guns can pin you down so their stealth man can get behind you while you struggle to escape the pin. Or there can even be three-way battles between two factions and you. This way, while you aren't actually making new types of enemies, you're dynamically creating new types of combat situations for the player to deal with.
The idea above actually came from TW3, funnily enough. After finishing the story, I realized I could spawn Imlerith and Eredin through the console. So I did so and fought them individually to check out their maneuvers. One time, I accidentally spawned both at once. What followed was one of the greatest fights I've ever had the pleasure to take part in. My tactics had to change, because Imlerith assaulted me up close and Eredin would warp to wherever my rolls took me. I only beat them after numerous attempts when I realized Eredin's AoE attacks would hit his friend as well. Thus I used Eredin's low EQ to wipe out Imlerith (which was tricky enough because it necessitated getting close to Imlerith), then soloed Eredin. I find this story particularly fascinating since the combination of two foes meant to be fought individually forced me to change tactics and come up with a whole new strategy. Food for thought, I suppose.
Dialogue
Dialogue in TW3 was excellent. I especially loved the opening scene - within two minutes the writers established just how in love Geralt and Yennefer were. Nonetheless, I felt the game suffered a little from the fact that Geralt was the protagonist; he had a personality that was 70% set in stone, so sometimes I felt like the dialogue prompts were there because dialogue prompts, not because there was a choice to make regarding Geralt's attitude towards the situation. In CP77 this should be different, since there'll be many skills and classes available. New Vegas is a great case study for this.
Also... I think the game should have a silent protagonist, since as I understand it Geralt needing to say something for every choice can severely inflate the cost of game development, thus limiting the number of choices possible. Just look at the divisive reaction to Fallout 4's voiced protagonist. If a silent protagonist can result in more choices, I say go for it.
Quest Design
I think TW3's quest design was a mixed bag for me. I'm not talking about the dialogue, which was mostly very well-written. I'm talking about the actual gameplay and availability of choice. While I appreciate the fact that you could make choices to influence the outcomes of quests (I haven't killed the Botchling but it's great that it's an option, etc.), I think TW1 still had the best quest design. For example, the quest in Act 2 of TW1 involving the autopsy and detective investigation has never,
ever been matched by any other quest in any game I've ever played except for the main quest of New Vegas.
In the case of TW1, while there are only really two outcomes (being right or wrong) the process of the investigation seemed to involve so many possibilities that you really felt like there were a load of choices (or suspects) to pick from. Also, you weren't making choices in cutscenes alone, you also made choices on who to question first etc. While it may have been a completely arbitrary choice, that's illusion of choice done 100% right. And your choices during the autopsy still really had an impact on the outcome anyway, so it works out.
For New Vegas, there are basically four separate factions to choose from during the second half of the main quest, and you could take them on all at once, but your actions for one faction are eventually going to piss another faction off. So the whole thing becomes a high-stakes game where you're constantly considering who to prioritize. Just like in TW1, you're not making a choice in cutscenes
alone; you're doing it by choosing which quests to take on first. If this was possible in TW3 I don't recall it. Thus I would greatly appreciate it if this could be done in Cyberpunk. In fact, it should be easier than in TW3 since you'll likely be able to choose factions to join, whereas in TW you're always playing Geralt the Witcher, from the School of the Wolf.
World
Last segment! My apologies for the wall!
I'll start this last part by saying the REDs did an absolutely phenomenal job with TW3's world design. I've read stuff about the game and it turns out huge attention was put into details like the layers of forests (apparently everything from the understory to the canopy to the emergent layer is there?!) and just the geography of the whole world. So that's a fantastic job done there. I personally felt the scale, as in the distance from village to village, was alright. The Pontar really helped separate Novigrad from Velen, so I never actually felt they were too close. Atmosphere in each area was also spot-on; I could immediately tell if I was in Velen, in the outskirts of Novigrad, or in Skellige. Amazing.
That said... I do have a minor (ok not really minor) issue with the world of TW3 and that is the Point of Interest system.
From what I've read, the POIs sprang into existence when the team had finally finished building the world and done all the quests in 2014, but realized the world was kind of empty. With not much time left they apparently put some of the team together to pump out the POIs while everyone else went bug hunting. Given this context, I guess I can see why it turned out the way it did. That doesn't make it less problematic though.
The biggest problem with TW3 is that the world, in my opinion, doesn't feel very
alive. It feels
lived in, which is very different, but sometimes not as if it is
being lived in. There are hundreds of pieces of suggested history like this:
Which are fantastic at making you feel like this world existed long before you set foot there. But when it comes to the inhabitants who occupy the world
now, it doesn't quite feel that way. And the POI system wasn't really the way to make up for that. The most obvious example is the MOUNTAIN of smuggler caches plaguing the seas of the Skellige Isles. If there are so many smugglers stashing their stuff, then where are the smugglers? Why don't we see them sailing about, retrieving items from their stash? For that matter, where are the raids that the people of Skellige so love to talk about? It's all talk and no action - you never see them leaving on raids, not to mention actually conducting raids.
I guess the lack of ships sailing the sea could've been an engine limitation, or perhaps they ran out of time. That's fair enough I guess. But in Velen, I think the trick to making the place feel more inhabited was not to fill it with places to go (POIs). It should have been to fill it with people/creatures to see.
90% of the time when you see a creature or a bandit they're pouncing on or preparing to pounce on your ass. That just makes them feel created for the player, and less like they were created for the world. In New Vegas, half the time when I stumble upon a mob they're fighting another mob: bandits fighting NCR troops, or even just normal people fighting off giant ants. In TW3, for example, monsters should have attacked villagers, especially the ones that go off to pick herbs. Wolves should've gone after lone bandits/villagers. Chorts should've been seen fighting fiends for territory. Griffins should've been seen fending off squads of soldiers. Maybe even a mix of Redanian and Nilfgaardian soldiers, so that when the monster is dead they turn on each other. Would've been pretty poetic. Hm.
You thus feel less like
the cog in the machine, and more like
a cog in the machine.
Also, having bandits actually moving from place to place would have made sense. They wouldn't just wait for prey, they'd go after their dinner. This actually has been done by CDPR, if I'm not mistaken, since NPCs in Novigrad and Velen's villages have daily schedules. Thus I assume they ran out of time for the poor bandits of Velen. Or maybe bandits in Velen didn't even exist before POIs. If that was the case...
Just make a smaller map. Especially now that the main focus of Cyberpunk is a city. I don't even mind cutting the wasteland outside the city walls if it means every inhabitant in this city had a schedule, and a majority of the inhabitants interacted with other inhabitants instead of only the player. And in a meaningful way too, like how the butcher in TW2's Flotsam chopped meat all day before heading to the tavern at night for a drink and staggering home later.
Not like how the two farmers on the outskirts of Novigrad talked about their "bad harvest" and how that made them a "shite farmer"
every time Master Geralt walked past them. At that point you're pushing the illusion a little too hard - it's a great piece of dialogue to add to the atmosphere but they didn't have to do it all the time to make the place feel alive. Just cut down the map size, make it hella intricate and full of NPCs who actually live a life, and I think/hope it'd be much better. Probably. I'm no game designer, so it's just my opinion.
Aaaanywayys I think that's it. I'd like to say that TW3 really is one of my favorite games of all, But the point of this thread is to help CDPR one-up themselves, and so I hope this post helps them out in some small way.
Once more, apologies for the wall!