Lifepaths are meaningless. There is no replayability.

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I agree that lifepaths are too short and have basically zero impact on the actual story. A short prologue and that's it - you get some neat dialogue options down the road but they don't impact the actual game. A damn shame 'cause we WANT to explore this amazing world more and get more of the story but most of it is just teased and then poof, it's gone.

I think it's impossible to integrate life paths with the main story at this time, but they can certainly be made more impactful, I think.

1) Give us a lifepath-specific passive or even a lifepath specific talent tree
Would actually make this a meaningful gameplay mechanic as opposed to a 20-minute interactable cutscene.

2) Give us a few extra additional interactions in the world based on our lifepath.
Having a corpo V run into a former subordinate out in the world, seeing their reaction, maybe getting some cool dialogue out of it... Or a Street Kid V running into a friend on the Maelstormers mission. String a few of these along the key locations tied in with some main quests so the players don't miss them, hide a few in the world for the completionists.

3) Give us a few lifepath-specific sidequests throughout the game
This one I'm honestly surprised hasn't been implemented yet. It can be a quest chain, it can even be 5 - 6 standalone quests. Like "V, you used to be a corpo, right? This Militech guy is paying big money for some Arasaka intel, find him here", and you could start an entire clusterfuck from there. It's really easy to bake into the story and would be enough of an incentive to get me to start a second playthrough.

True this. In the 2020 pen-and-paper game, each class has a single unique 'career skill'. It is used to give an edge to certain relevant checks (Techie has the skill 'jury-rig', Corpos have the skill 'Resources', solos have 'Combat Sense', etc. They aren't game changers, but they give you options to call in favours, acquire unique resources or mod things to a higher degree, gain initiative bonuses in combat, etc.

Having at least one unique 'largish' side-quest for each lifepath during the mid game, each of which impact the final confrontation/ending in some way would've added a lot more meaning here.

But, that being said, it sounds like most of development time was spent in preproduction (a la Bioware style) and actual development was rushed over less than two years - in which time they were desperately trying to build complex systems like driving in a city. They actually achieved an amazing amount considering. But yes - a revamp with some of the above roleplaying elements added in future would be a big improvement. We can hope ...
 
i created a topic about this but suggesting they have different passives or attributes to make them seem at least slightly different but i agree story wise there isnt much sadly
 
I am pretty sure ... if people stop complaining about how they got lied to ... I was not feeling to be lied to. I always knew whatever people imaginge will not be fully fullfilled ... and it is like that, that they will take this as a solid pile and build up upon it. Maybe CP2077 is not the game that we all whished it to be. I am sure its not even the game, the Team whished it to be. But they can now work upon being the next Games and DLCs to be the one we all whished for.
I have great fun playing through it even several times. The game has a way of emerging you into the story and world thats pretty unique.
Yeah the lifepaths are really just 1 hour difference in the game, and some minor dialogue changes in the rest, but so be it now. For 60 Bugs I got way more fun than in 99% of all the other games out there by now. Even with a Beta State its better than most games in Post Release Versions ... so fingers crossed they can shake off the shock now ... the [...] will disappear in the next weeks and months and then we can go forward here.
 
It's not feasible since the beginning. No studio can make a really long engaged main questlines with so many different back stories like that. Especially expect it have unique multiple variations for the entire main quests. In the end, at some point, they have to merge all of those branches into a single path. Otherwise, they must be scientists from Alpha Centauri.

I have seen may studios claimed the same thing and I have seen none could truly achieve that. So next time any studio, even Sony or Rockstar, promises something like this just take it with a grain of salt. If they could do as they promise, good. If not you won't be disappointed.

Y'know, they could... easily. Just release one Life-Path at a time, like a DLC each Life-Path...
Flesh each out as thoroughly as needed, you could still have replayability through romance options and other side activities.. hell even leaderboards for the races and other stuff could've made it replayable...

Reading this thread made me sad to start my second playthrough...
 
Play Dragon Age 1.

Like, sure, the backstories merge after about an hour of play, but the choice is still relevant throughout the entire game. For example if you play a noble human woman, you can marry to a man who's next in line for the throne of Ferelden, becoming queen. And you can ONLY do it as a noble human woman. If you're street trash or a mage, nope. If you're not a human, nope. You do also have to make choices that'll bring you close with the man; If you fail, no queendom for you.

On the other hand you'll have a lot more options in the dwarven or elven sections if you went for those races.

Yes, I agree that they could add something like that and they're definitely doable. But I think a lot of people expect the whole main story would change entirely base on your lifepath. Like if you're Nomad you would have a different way and reasons to destroy Corpo, or if you're Corpo you might have a story for your revenge and take over a high position in Corpo or something.

Like for DA, yes you could make Alistar a king of Ferelden and marry him or just take the crown for yourself(I believe?). But that doesn't impact the game that much(mechanically, not lore wise), you would still have to go through the same final quest like everyone else, at most with a few extra dialogues and just 1 extra choice variation at the end if I remember it correctly. In the end it's just a really big illusion of choice(but still pretty damn cool).

And in the end DA origin is a masterpiece of all time. Anything else would seem worse compare to it, imo :)
 
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All "life paths" converge into one after the prologue.At that point you're not playing "corpo" V or whatever,you're playing V.To make any meaningful change to this will require alot of work,work I'm not sure they are willing or able to allocate to one thing when so man things are jank within the game (and way easier to fix).
Y'know, they could... easily. Just release one Life-Path at a time, like a DLC each Life-Path...
There's nothing easy about it.Any narative addition would require bringing Keanu back which would cost them money and thats IF he even had the time (or willingness) to do it.Let's say they fleshed out the Corpo lifepath,added a few jobs,maybe a car and a safehouse.Would Johnny have nothing to say about any of this?
[...]you could still have replayability through romance options [...]
If the romances weren't shallow as all hell,sure,that would be an incentive but as it stands you get basically all of the romance content in one playthrough minus a couple of the sex scenes.Replaying the entire game for 5 minutes of content you haven't seen isn't worth it in my opinion.
hell even leaderboards for the races and other stuff could've made it replayable..
The races are fundamentally broken to their core and there is absolutely nothing redeeming about them.The AI constantly teleports behind you (and sometimes in front of you which I'm guessing is a bug),destroying the other racers has no impact whatsoever,they are tied to a questline so even if you wanted to do them again you can't and,like everything else in Cyberpunk, full of bugs (minimap wigging out,being yeeted into the shadow realm etc).

At this point putting leaderboards in would be like putting a bandaid on the Titanic while it's sinking.
 
I am pretty sure ... if people stop complaining about how they got lied to ... I was not feeling to be lied to. I always knew whatever people imaginge will not be fully fullfilled ... and it is like that, that they will take this as a solid pile and build up upon it. Maybe CP2077 is not the game that we all whished it to be. I am sure its not even the game, the Team whished it to be. But they can now work upon being the next Games and DLCs to be the one we all whished for.
I have great fun playing through it even several times. The game has a way of emerging you into the story and world thats pretty unique.
Yeah the lifepaths are really just 1 hour difference in the game, and some minor dialogue changes in the rest, but so be it now. For 60 Bugs I got way more fun than in 99% of all the other games out there by now. Even with a Beta State its better than most games in Post Release Versions ... so fingers crossed they can shake off the shock now ... the [...] will disappear in the next weeks and months and then we can go forward here.

I think the main problem isn't that CDPR was 'lying' (I don't think they were, just were forced to release the game with what they had after much backlash over delays) or that the game isn't 'fun'. I had a blast but what makes a lot of us here sad is just there is SO MUCH missed potential.

The game is a literal 11/10 in some aspects (detail, animations, worldbuilding, story), and a 'meh' 5/10 in others (AI, player choice impact, sandbox features, interactivity).

A lot of people are very heavily invested because they recognize the immense potential this game has, and they want it to be the best it can be, because if CDPR fixes it up, they will have the literal best game ever made on their hands.

Another reason we're so loud is that most requests are fairly realistic and have been done already, often by CDPR themselves (give us ripperdoc animations, give us the ability to interact with bought BDs, give us more quests and dialogue options) so it seems completely feasible that these end up in the game.
 
There's nothing easy about it.Any narative addition would require bringing Keanu back which would cost them money and thats IF he even had the time (or willingness) to do it.Let's say they fleshed out the Corpo lifepath,added a few jobs,maybe a car and a safehouse.Would Johnny have nothing to say about any of this?

First, I wasn't saying that actually making the game would be easy, just that the decision to make the game ONE life path and have others be DLC would've been an easy task for CDPR to make and a hell of a lot more better for everyone involved... well possibly considering how management and board directors handled the current state of the game we got... still might not've but hypotheticals being hypotheticals, moving onto my second point...

With how much the game has made already and with its current state, I don't think they'll have an issue with money for bringing Keanu back, also this almost looked like he was a part of the passion project rather than just doing it for money... so to reiterate, I don't think they'd have too much trouble to bring Keanu back. (Though hey, they might even give him a good amount anyway if they had released Life-Paths as DLC's, in accordance to it's obvious initial financial success, despite what's happened).

EDIT: Also, just because they're doing it one at a time, doesn't mean they wouldn't contract Keanu to be in the other DLC's if they were going to work one after the other on this, like they were basically planning to anyway with what was released (us having all three Life-Paths available to us)...


If the romances weren't shallow as all hell,sure,that would be an incentive but as it stands you get basically all of the romance content in one playthrough minus a couple of the sex scenes.Replaying the entire game for 5 minutes of content you haven't seen isn't worth it in my opinion.

If they had decided to make Life-Paths DLC's the romance options that are already present could've been more fleshed out and had more impact with players, NOT ONLY that but we could've maybe had more romance options. it could've even had more RP elements along with it too, with how if you have say, the Street Kid DLC, Meredith Stout wouldn't even dare do a thing romantically with you, considering your reputation or potential, whereas in the Nomad or Corpo Life-Path DLC, she would either use you for tactIcal reasons predominantly to either make a move onto Arasaka's tech or something to do with their security measures and beefing up Militech, or have her way with your dusty Nomad self and not given it a second thought because she doesn't really consider the player character NOTHING but a quick tussle in the bedroom...

Again, that's IF they decided to do Life-Paths as a DLC thing.


The races are fundamentally broken to their core and there is absolutely nothing redeeming about them.The AI constantly teleports behind you (and sometimes in front of you which I'm guessing is a bug),destroying the other racers has no impact whatsoever,they are tied to a questline so even if you wanted to do them again you can't and,like everything else in Cyberpunk, full of bugs (minimap wigging out,being yeeted into the shadow realm etc).

At this point putting leaderboards in would be like putting a bandaid on the Titanic while it's sinking.

Again, same thing, since they're focusing on other aspects of the game and didn't have time in general, I feel I'm making a redundant moot point but, digress... They could have the possibility of fixing all this if they just were to focus on one Life-Path at a time, then inter-wove them as things panned out, but even then, they'd have to have done this from the beginning, have 3 (for the Life-Paths that we know) different teams of writers and had this sorted before any solidified developments were made in the REDEngine for Cyberpunk 2077.

With that time sorted and out the way, fixing most if not all the glitches and bugs we've been seeing/getting/playing through would have the possibility of being squashed and fixed.

Mind you again... this is all IF they decided to do a single Life-Path and have the others be DLC's to be able to have fully fleshed out stories and an immersive world like they wanted...

AND AGAIN (see moot point and I'm going 'round and 'round), it might not've anyway because of how Management and the Board Directors handled the entire thing.

[*sigh*]
 
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I am pretty sure ... if people stop complaining about how they got lied to ... I was not feeling to be lied to. I always knew whatever people imaginge will not be fully fullfilled ... and it is like that, that they will take this as a solid pile and build up upon it. Maybe CP2077 is not the game that we all whished it to be. I am sure its not even the game, the Team whished it to be. But they can now work upon being the next Games and DLCs to be the one we all whished for.
I have great fun playing through it even several times. The game has a way of emerging you into the story and world thats pretty unique.
Yeah the lifepaths are really just 1 hour difference in the game, and some minor dialogue changes in the rest, but so be it now. For 60 Bugs I got way more fun than in 99% of all the other games out there by now. Even with a Beta State its better than most games in Post Release Versions ... so fingers crossed they can shake off the shock now ... the [...] will disappear in the next weeks and months and then we can go forward here.
Well, the reason why people are saying we were lied to is because we were lied to. It's not just aimlessly pointing the finger, CDPR's PR willfully mislead us into believing we were going to get a game we didn't through blatant misinformation. It's already been mentioned multiple times, but if you need I can list some of the ways in which what they actually said was more then just exaggeration of what we got. This can't be chalked up to hype, because this was about CDPR setting a platform that we built our hype off of, before pulling that platform out from under us.

Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if they tried to correct some of the misinformation before release, but they didn't, so what other way are we to see it but as deceit?

And I don't blame the devs. Because from everything I've seen thus far, they were just as much victims of this BS as we are. It's just unfortunate that it falls to them to work to fix this mess, which they probably wanted to avoid by doing it right in the first place. But anyway...
 
I can replay this game easily just by approaching the situations (side missions) differently each time I start a new character. Story is great of course but story branches are not the only reason to replay.

I am glad I don't put my heart into everything developers say before a game is actually released. Because I did not have much expectation I got more than I anticipated. A whole lot more. But they could certainly build on what they have so far. I hope they keep adding content.

I hate when media & gamers hate on a decent but flawed game. That kills them sometimes. I want more content.

Things I would like to see implemented:
Yes, more story branching would be nice. I won't argue.
Able to meet people in the world and start romances.
Have things dynamically change in the world based on your actions like what was "perceived" in Deus Ex. This game is not like that but could be if a player just wanted to be their own person and chaotic. You would be in the news and wanted even by the police or CORPO or the gangs. Story would be shot but you would be "famous". Until someone finally zeros you. :)
Try to be our own fixer of sorts although I do not know how that could be implemented without scripting it in.
More feedback from the NPCs walking around. They say stuff but it is just the same repeat phrases from everyone.
There is a lot in the game already and really nothing to complain about as far as money's worth. But more is welcome.

Your low standards are noted. 😐
 
Yea it feels like they took hours of gameplay scrapped it and repackaged it as a montage to save time.

Or for a dlc stripped out xD
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i played Corpo for 10 minutes and game forgot that i am Corpo so i am StreetKid again. I wanted to be ruthless cold Corpo and talk down to all npc's and instead of Jackie i wanted Meredith Strout be my companion for beginning.

Yes.. Definitely this for me too.
 
I am surprised there is no Japanese romance option. This is cyberpunk and arasaka is a huge part of the world. This should have been obvious step no.1
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I can replay this game easily just by approaching the situations (side missions) differently each time I start a new character. Story is great of course but story branches are not the only reason to replay.

I am glad I don't put my heart into everything developers say before a game is actually released. Because I did not have much expectation I got more than I anticipated. A whole lot more. But they could certainly build on what they have so far. I hope they keep adding content.

I hate when media & gamers hate on a decent but flawed game. That kills them sometimes. I want more content.
But expectations are natural. Otherwise no one would even look at this game a second time, much less actually buy it. And if people say they have low expectations then they are bombarded with "you had low expectations so of course you hate the game".

I am just keeping it real. Low or high expectations don't matter. Cyberpunk fails to meet it's own basic promises or standards.
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I am pretty sure ... if people stop complaining about how they got lied to ... I was not feeling to be lied to. I always knew whatever people imaginge will not be fully fullfilled ... and it is like that, that they will take this as a solid pile and build up upon it. Maybe CP2077 is not the game that we all whished it to be. I am sure its not even the game, the Team whished it to be. But they can now work upon being the next Games and DLCs to be the one we all whished for.
I have great fun playing through it even several times. The game has a way of emerging you into the story and world thats pretty unique.
Yeah the lifepaths are really just 1 hour difference in the game, and some minor dialogue changes in the rest, but so be it now. For 60 Bugs I got way more fun than in 99% of all the other games out there by now. Even with a Beta State its better than most games in Post Release Versions ... so fingers crossed they can shake off the shock now ... the [...] will disappear in the next weeks and months and then we can go forward here.
I am pretty sure if cyberpunk stopped crashing and pulling me out of immersion and if we gve EA and Bethesda a pass, I wouldn't be here. The game brought me here more than anything.
 
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Yet still marketed it as an RPG. We got finessed. It's why people are actually expecting a decent story and consequences to actions and not just another looter-shooter.

Exactly how I feel, currently CP2077 feels like a glorified Borderlands game with "Chouse" and ""Build", even tough the perks are cool and you can get a fairly OP character easily, I think the game is 1st, too easy and 2nd, no real actual choise. A ton of content has been scrapped. I think V needed a longer backstory on those 6 months and indeed, actually play them at least partially, two or three gigs before sandra dorsett, Jackie getting his guns being a live interaction and other stuff they might have done but oh well... it is what it is :)
Hope in a few DLCs they actually redeem themselves in terms of Immersiveness and RPG... because at the moment CP2077 sure does not feel like an RPG :)
 
Yet still marketed it as an RPG. We got finessed. It's why people are actually expecting a decent story and consequences to actions and not just another looter-shooter.
It's not even a good looter shooter! Don't get me wrong the combat and gunplay is pretty good, but the loot itself largely not memorable; poorly done. Don't even get me started on the clothing or "armor" system. The crafting is abysmal as well.

Aside from that, YEAH! I wanted this game so much, because I was led to believe this was an RPG! Not an action-adventure, or average looter shooter. (granted they did stealth change the description to "action-adventure").
 
When I start a new game I tardcharge thru the main missions for like half the game. I can't help it. If something was overwriting my brain i sure the b0rk wouldn't be screwing around with bareknuckle boxing side bets or running errands for creepy people who send me texts out of nowhere or scraping up cash to buy a fleet of used cars. Solving the main issue would be my only priority.

But that would make a pretty short game and nothing resembling "open world." You lose the sense of urgency of your main mission (Fallout 4 anyone? let's screw around in wooden shacks while YOUR SON IS MISSING) but it's inevitable in games like this.

And after I started exploring the world and just poking around, not just going down the list of things in my journal, I discovered there's a whole lot more going on than I suspected.

Plus - think of your characters. What other motivations do they have? What's their endgame once the Big Issue is solved, what do they want? Use questions like that to inform your gameplay and you will find some surprisingly rewarding experiences.

There's a lot they left out from what they sold us, no lie. But ferinstance I started as a Nomad and let that inform my choices in the game - and in that context, doing the Aldecaldo storylines became a much richer experience. There was no game mechanic that made it so; it's what I got out of the experience. And whatever they left out, CDPR put some pretty good story and action sequences into the game.

TL;DR don't rush through everything and don't hang your hat on a game mechanic telling you what's meaningful. Get into the messed-up head of your character and experience the game with their mindset, because it would be a shame to miss the good parts that CDPR *didn't* cut.

I returned to the scene of the crime and found a way to put my money where my mouth is.
I met Flaming Crotch Man who is a youtuber you will probably recognize.
I spared someone's life because I felt like this character would have given the poor bastard a second chance - and wound up avoiding a major disaster.

CDPR shot themselves in the foot because what's missing is so glaring that it's overshadowing what's there.
But there's a lot of good stuff in here. And the city is bigger than I realized.
 
First of all the people who saying we overhype ourselves and this game is fine we should let them fix it overtime are the ones who let this industry behaviour be normalised that they release a half finished game and ask more money for the actual content to be finished. Also I didnt follow the game i just wayched a few videos here and there and still it caught my eye that they used so.many superlativuses like " revolutionary ai, incredibly detailed character costumization, changing the gaming industry etc" and it is okay if you dont live up to all of these but they did not leave up to any of them. Also the story is okay the action is fun but the "most immersive world you have ever seen" is dead. When I watched that gta san andreas comparison it really saddens me that damn this 16 year old game has a way waaaay more lively and organic environment than cp77. Also im not all about graphics and physics but gta4 has vastly better physics than this game. They cut out so much content and they also did not finish the world and i paid 60 euros for this. and i rarely buy brand new games. And then excuses like you cant change your body types because they couldnt silve the rigging for different body types. thn how the hell can i do it in every other game with character costumization i have ever played?
 
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