My thoughts about character progression in the game.

[greeks]

I really like games that implement character progression in a clear and easy to process way. For example after improving my sneaking by one level I'm able to tell right away that I'm harder to detect by enemies. Or when I improve my stamina, I'm able to clearly tell that now I can run longer.

I have big issue with skills/perks/abilities/call them however you like, that improve my abilities by percentages. Like "now you can do this thing 1% faster", or "increase duration of this thing by 0.5%". Usually improvements are so negligibly small that I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference.

As I'm writing this I have my Cyberpunk opened in the background and I'm looking at my character stats and my character progression screen. My character is pretty low level and I don't have all that many perks and abilities unlocked. Most of the perks and abilities are represented by percentages. A percentage to base speed, base sneaking ability, base damage and so on.

Now, the problem is: percentage based skills systems are incredibly difficult to keep track of, as you have to do your own calculations based on the base skill level. It's even more complicated when skills are not represented by one consolidated number but are spread out over many different perks. I wanted to give an example of critical hit chance but I couldn't find the number. After a short search I've found it... in the Inventory screen. I don't even know which perk under which attribute would let me bring that number up. And I can't even tell if the base number in the Inventory tab is the base number or it's summed up with perks.

What I do like are systems that give you immediate benefits and advantages when you buy perks or level up stats. For example the Stamina bar expands and you can clearly see that it's longer than before. I like when I can unlock completely new skills or being able to access new game mechanics. But all of those new things have to offer something tangible and attractive. Something that will immediately make you think about benefits you could get by unlocking it.

Now, let's look at Cyberpunk's progression system. There is a lot of conditions you have to meet in order to benefit from some skills and perks. Some look very attractive but from my experience I can't even tell if they actually do anything. Some of them are very circumstantial or require some good timing in order to benefit from them. Some of them can gain you certain percentage to something for a few seconds after performing certain action. It just doesn't sound... fun. Things like that work really well in games that are focused on constant action and throw encounters at you all the time. But even then keeping track of all your stats and perks and preparing strategies and lines of attack just doesn't work well if all that isn't absolutely esential to your survival...

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Well,
The percentages, it may seem complicated.
(except for crit chance and crit damages. It's show on "statistics" page and since 1.2 it work properly)
For example, i take the hacking time/reload.
If they use percentage, it's because it will be so complicated to updating and showing the real time (in seconde for example). Because you can have x% with cyberdeck, x% with QH perk, x% with Breach perk, x% with cold blood,... You're right when you said "0,5% it's insignifiant", but when all percentage put together, it's really usefull.

Best example for me : system reset QH
Time base : more than 50s. with the goods perks, skills and deck, you can nearly re-use it directly after knock out an enemy.

 

[MortVickers2020]

The one that boggled my mind a wee bit was that when you get the ability to throw knives, your nice knife that you've upgraded DISAPPEARS after you've thrown it.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

The one that boggled my mind a wee bit was that when you get the ability to throw knives, your nice knife that you've upgraded DISAPPEARS after you've thrown it.

Yes
But you can craft rare knives, not really cheap (in 1.2+, it's not very expensive). But better than loose a legendary one
May they have planned some sort of throwing knives and did not have time to add them (like a lot of things)

 

[greeks]

Well,
The percentages, it may seem complicated.
(except for crit chance and crit damages. It's show on "statistics" page and since 1.2 it work properly)
For example, i take the hacking time/reload.
If they use percentage, it's because it will be so complicated to updating and showing the real time (in seconde for example). Because you can have x% with cyberdeck, x% with QH perk, x% with Breach perk, x% with cold blood,... You're right when you said "0,5% it's insignifiant", but when all percentage put together, it's really usefull.

Best example for me : system reset QH
Time base : more than 50s. with the goods perks, skills and deck, you can nearly re-use it directly after knock out an enemy.

The game sums up all the base skills and percentages and gives the player a numeric result. For example if you fire your weapon, the end damage against the enemy will be a sum of all of your percentages and numbers. The game already does the math. Spreading those numbers all over the place makes the character progression system look more complicated and convoluted than it really is.

But my original point is: being able to gain significant boost at a skill is better than having to laboriously gather fractions of percent of a skill over a long period of time. Obviously you'll get there in the end but it just doesn't sound very fun. You're leveling up but you can't even tell the difference. I think that's why a lot of people are complaining that the perks system doesn't work, or is broken or bugged out. Because the benefits are so small that they can't even tell what changed most of the time.

In DnD (the one I had contact with at least) max level is 20. And each level gives the player something extra. Something that really makes the difference. One more spell. One more skill. A new ability. Something that will make them feel like they got stronger thanks to getting to a new level.
That special feel is missing in games where the next level gives you miriads of minimal gains and only one point to spend.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

The game sums up all the base skills and percentages and gives the player a numeric result. For example if you fire your weapon, the end damage against the enemy will be a sum of all of your percentages and numbers. The game already does the math. Spreading those numbers all over the place makes the character progression system look more complicated and convoluted than it really is.

But my original point is: being able to gain significant boost at a skill is better than having to laboriously gather fractions of percent of a skill over a long period of time. Obviously you'll get there in the end but it just doesn't sound very fun. You're leveling up but you can't even tell the difference. I think that's why a lot of people are complaining that the perks system doesn't work, or is broken or bugged out. Because the benefits are so small that they can't even tell what changed most of the time.

In DnD (the one I had contact with at least) max level is 20. And each level gives the player something extra. Something that really makes the difference. One more spell. One more skill. A new ability. Something that will make them feel like they got stronger thanks to getting to a new level.
That special feel is missing in games where the next level gives you miriads of minimal gains and only one point to spend.

Maybe a "easy" solution could just be a better "statistic" page with all the infos.
Because yes, the game calculates that, but i think it's not easy to display "clearly"

 

[Didacgomez]

The game sums up all the base skills and percentages and gives the player a numeric result. For example if you fire your weapon, the end damage against the enemy will be a sum of all of your percentages and numbers. The game already does the math. Spreading those numbers all over the place makes the character progression system look more complicated and convoluted than it really is.

But my original point is: being able to gain significant boost at a skill is better than having to laboriously gather fractions of percent of a skill over a long period of time. Obviously you'll get there in the end but it just doesn't sound very fun. You're leveling up but you can't even tell the difference. I think that's why a lot of people are complaining that the perks system doesn't work, or is broken or bugged out. Because the benefits are so small that they can't even tell what changed most of the time.

In DnD (the one I had contact with at least) max level is 20. And each level gives the player something extra. Something that really makes the difference. One more spell. One more skill. A new ability. Something that will make them feel like they got stronger thanks to getting to a new level.
That special feel is missing in games where the next level gives you miriads of minimal gains and only one point to spend.

Its a matter of taste,in pen and paper there is a trillion experience systems...cp2077 is closer to cp2020/cpred system that is skill based(interlock system),you don't gain completely new abilities by levelling you spend points to be better in something in a scale of 0 to 10(you can convert to % if you want,works the same). I prefer that system over DnD since is closer to real live study/practicing,but is really a matter of taste.

 

[greeks]

Yes, that's one of the issues. When you have multiple spread out perks and skills that add just a little bit to the overall value, it's very easy to lose track of what your progress is and how much of an improvement that progress actually gives you. Altho I can't see how problematic it would be to present that data in a form of list of "additions" to your base skills. Just like in any pen-and-paper system where you actually have to have an easy visualisation of how many points you add to the dice roll.

The other issue is, in order to experience any actual improvement, you have to gather those small improvements over multiple levels, so leveling up loses it's value. Oh, you leveled up? Well done, now you can do something 0.5% faster. It will take you another 20 levels before you feel like you actually got better at it. And only if you keep spending your points on the same perk/skill/stat.

 

[Didacgomez]

Yes, that's one of the issues. When you have multiple spread out perks and skills that add just a little bit to the overall value, it's very easy to lose track of what your progress is and how much of an improvement that progress actually gives you. Altho I can't see how problematic it would be to present that data in a form of list of "additions" to your base skills. Just like in any pen-and-paper system where you actually have to have an easy visualisation of how many points you add to the dice roll.

The other issue is, in order to experience any actual improvement, you have to gather those small improvements over multiple levels, so leveling up loses it's value. Oh, you leveled up? Well done, now you can do something 0.5% faster. It will take you another 20 levels before you feel like you actually got better at it. And only if you keep spending your points on the same perk/skill/stat.

For visualization in a "character sheet" i completely agree,this is poorly implemented in the game.
But you are talking about a experience level that is class based,so obviously you find you will be better in melee or spell casting at each level.In skill based systems are class-less or class-lite, so you need to decide where you want to spend points to build your "class" or spend points in several trees to be "jack of all trades". For me its part of the fun of the game,to plan my progression so i know later it will pay off.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

In my opinion the adavntage of Skill point is not to allow good upgrade (as you said, 0.5% HQ damage per level in INT, it's not great)
But it's a little "plus".
The real benefit, it's it allow to unlock the perks. And there it is 5/10/15% bonus or 50/100% in stealth (possibly doing crit damage with HQ). If we add the progression of skills, you still add 5/10/15% even more. Finaly, you have a great amount of bonus.

But yes, it could be better displayed on "character sheet"

 

[ImmortalKombat]

The one that boggled my mind a wee bit was that when you get the ability to throw knives, your nice knife that you've upgraded DISAPPEARS after you've thrown it.

In 1.5 u get it back