Pen and paper-style restrictions

[Vodoka]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and decided to express my thoughts. What we've seen of Cyberpunk looks awesome, and it feels like there's going to be so much possibilities for different kinds of gameplay. But I do have some concerns and this is gonna be a long one, so bear with me.
What I'm worried about is trying to make the game have "too much freedom". Yes, it's based on a pen and paper game, which in theory let you try anything, but you obviously can not do everything. You can try getting buddy-buddy with everybody, but unless your character is suited for it, that won't be happening. You might even get penalized for doing something really stupid.

Right now in RPGs there's this stupid notion of "every player has to be able to do everything" which totally kills both immersion and replayability. Every character shouldn't be able to do everything, and if I can do it in one playthrough why would I start this game again?
Make it so that to be accepted to some gangs you need to mod your body beyond all recognition so you'll be shunned by rest of society. Make all NPCs killable so that quests can not be completed because player decided to be murderous dumbass. Make it so if players gets too many cyber augments police is going to start monitoring their moves and eventually take you in for rehab.
None of this wouldn't be impossible to implement in videogame, and I'll elaborate on each point next.

"The story doesn't need you to be in gangs."
Right, the story doesn't. But this doesn't have to be important things, just let players do things for them, run errands etc. Maybe let them raise through ranks, but that's not really an important aspect. The point is that gang missions would be something to do, they can operate independently from main story, if player wants to make being a clown or whatever their identity on expense of not being able to do missions for other more normal gangs, let them. There's lots of unique and crazy gangs in cyberpunk world, and not letting players encage with them would be disappointing.
There doesn't have to be full questlines or anything, simply make them hand out missions. Doesn't even have to be anything too complicated, just stuff like "kill agents of another gang," "steal this shit" or "help us fight gang war."
Yeah, basically infinite missions. But rather than actual tangible benefit, the point of this would be to let players have unique identity in the world. The important thing here would be to let player be member of just one major gang at a time. After all, why would rockers want in somebody who looks like a mime?
Meanwhile normal story can progress because main character is such a big deal that corps will hire them for whatever, no matter how weird they look. Maybe add in few lines with them going "I didn't know we were hiring freaks, but they tell me you are effective..." in reaction to some hidden appearance stat.

"You can make all NPCs killable but if it doesn't have SEVERE consequences then it doesn't matter."
Right, simply being able to shoot people without consequences would be stupid. Originally when I started writing this I just thought about blocking quests that the NPCs would give, since I just considered ramifications of killing select few quest NPCs, not random ones you see walking in the streets.
But there being consequences for killing random nameless NPCs would be great too, make you be wanted by police, with people refusing to give you quests because they know you are a fucking psycho and you'd be pursued by cops all the time. Though some of the gangs might not care about that, they might even be happy to have cold-blooded insane killer in their ranks.
Yes, things like this would make actual scripted stories of the game impossible to progress, but so what? That'd be just another way for players to engage with the game, if they start playing this like PS2-era GTA and going on a rampage killing random people in the streets and shooting quest givers to face for the hell of it, they clearly are not interested in playing the game for story.
It would result in unique player experiences.

"What actual effect would rehab have on player?"
Put some events on timer, being stuck in chair for weeks would make you miss out on them. Yes, not all events would be on timer, and smart players could still skirt on edge of Cyberpsychosis by doing timed events immediately and taking their time with regular ones. But this would require actual planning and understanding risks, if you just mod yourself with no care at all and disregarded warnings, you'd end up being hit with unexpected rehab.
Also afterwards augments you worked hard to pay for would be disabled, robbing you of previous abilities. That'd be plenty of reasons to avoid modding yourself too much.

"The game will feature illegal mod doctors who will operate under the law, so even if you do get all the augments available, the law shouldn't notice."
Cyberpunk has this thing called Humanity stat. It doesn't matter if augments you get are legal or not, but as you start becoming more machine and less human, that stat goes down, and your interactions with NPCs start being harder, they start avoiding you and police monitor you more, because it's not hard to notice when somebody is fully auged up. Sure, you could go for really expensive augments and look very much like human even when your body is 90% machine which would fool the populace and cameras, but people do not avoid you simply because you look like robot.
No, heavily auged people are avoided because they risk experiencing a cyber psychosis. Which basically means flipping out, and starting to kill everything that you see. Now how could this be implemented into gameplay? It's actually pretty simple, make random NPCs suddenly be displayed as hostiles with red outlines like the actual enemies we saw in gameplay demo, play the combat music... basically make the player feel that they are actually in risk of being killed by unknown enemies and that combat is happening. Having control be taken away from player would be lame, it'd be much more effective for them to be cause of the rampage themself.
Cyberpsychosis is big element of original game, so it'd be really disappointing to see it ignored, or simply be something that NPCs experienced, with player being immune to it.

So yeah, a lot of my suggestions might seem inconvenient or "unfun". I say fuck that, this would be fun and entertaining to me. The world is a game, yes, but it doesn't have to bend on every will of the player, things like this actually make it seem immersive and reactive. Real world has rules too, and we need to play by them, or live with our choices if we decide to break the rules.
These things don't get in way of gameplay, it'd be creating possibilities for new, different kinds of gameplay instead of just rolling through city questing and getting stronger all the time.
As for people who would be locked out of quests or main story because they killed NPCs... Like I said, that is their choice. Let their actions have consequences, even if the consequence is something as simple as stopping them from progressing. That'd be realistic too, if somebody is known to be a psychopath who just shoots people for the hell of it, why would anybody want to deal with them?
Though the possibility of doing infinite missions for gangs would mean that even people like that could get meaningful experience out of the game. Their playtime would be spend on doing random missions, evading the cyber police, and just wreaking havoc.
And none of this would really require that much new content either, just sensibly not letting the players access the content due to their own actions. I'm sure that even regular players would appreciate more hardcore experiences with the police, and avoiding the pursuits.

So yeah, that's about all I have on my mind now. I fully believe that CD Projekt could make a game like this, but also understand that this wouldn't be for everybody, maybe it's too restrictive or punishing, but I think it'd make for great immersive experience, and I can dream, right?

 

[EngryEngineer]

I do agree that, for me, there needs to be a balance between freedom and restriction, and I feel those restrictions are best when they aren't necessarily binary you can/cannot do x, but rather x may make y untenable. Based on everything I've seen of the game, and heard them say I am pretty confident that they are aware of this, and have mindfully incorporated this philosophy into their designs.

Yes, it's based on a pen and paper game, which in theory let you try anything, but you obviously can not do everything. You can try getting buddy-buddy with everybody, but unless your character is suited for it, that won't be happening. You might even get penalized for doing something really stupid.

I think it was in the reveal, but somewhere they said that you CAN try to keep everyone happy, but that ending is not going to be what that player is hoping for, so we are probably good here.

Right now in RPGs there's this stupid notion of "every player has to be able to do everything" which totally kills both immersion and replayability. Every character shouldn't be able to do everything, and if I can do it in one playthrough why would I start this game again?

I agree with this, both with skills/abilities AND with quest/organization/character/game choices, I'd prefer having to play multiple playthroughs to experience all of the content. The demo descriptions from journalists differing from what we saw implies this is likely the case for choices, so again going in the right direction.

Make it so that to be accepted to some gangs you need to mod your body beyond all recognition so you'll be shunned by rest of society.

They've said that true to 2020 form, short of going psycho there is no stigma to augmentation so I don't see this exactly playing out, but I do think that figuring out where V fits with the different types of society (corporate, underworld, gang, anarcho, etc) should and will be a part of the story.

Make all NPCs killable

They have confirmed that not all NPCs are killable, so points on this are kind of neither here nor there. In my personal opinion, the desire to be able to kill any NPC comes more from the player's perspective of knowing that you are playing a game, as even "madcap amoral unfeeling psychotic killers" still factor in "reasons" to kill or not kill and are not likely to just kill everyone they tire of, because every non-acceptable action increases chances of getting caught, fought, stopped, etc. Players don't really think about it beyond the idea of failing a mission or not getting future ones because deep down we are aware that we are playing a game and the consequences are similarly gamified and not true to the character's perspective.

Make it so if players gets too many cyber augments police is going to start monitoring their moves and eventually take you in for rehab.

This world has way more people than it has empathy, monitoring I see, pre-emptive rehab I don't. They are more likely to let a person (PC and NPC) go psycho/cross the line, and then either end them or take ownership, either way there isn't really a good chance of coming back from it unless you are one of the 1%. This is probably why they have said the PC probably won't have the ability to go full psycho.

"The story doesn't need you to be in gangs."
Right, the story doesn't. But this doesn't have to be important things, just let players do things for them, run errands etc.

I do hope we have the ability to work with many, if not all of the different groups in the city in some capacity, but they have emphasized that V is meant to be sort of a free-agent, so the idea of "joining" a gang is kind of out. As far as working with them goes, I think it is iffy to hope for being able to really identify/deputized as a gang because subversive organizations may utilize external talent at times, but they aren't going to want someone who isn't fully in to represent/false flag as a member. Someone who isn't going to go down with the crew is likely to be less discrete and/or work outside of the organization's agenda.

There doesn't have to be full questlines or anything, simply make them hand out missions. Doesn't even have to be anything too complicated, just stuff like "kill agents of another gang," "steal this shit" or "help us fight gang war."
Yeah, basically infinite missions. But rather than actual tangible benefit, the point of this would be to let players have unique identity in the world. The important thing here would be to let player be member of just one major gang at a time. After all, why would rockers want in somebody who looks like a mime?
Meanwhile normal story can progress because main character is such a big deal that corps will hire them for whatever, no matter how weird they look. Maybe add in few lines with them going "I didn't know we were hiring freaks, but they tell me you are effective..." in reaction to some hidden appearance stat.

IDK, my opinions from the last post apply here, but also infinite missions tend to feel very gamey and do more to expose the illusion than to provide more freedom, and the same goes for anything that NPC's will "react" to, without real consequence. If my choices are enough to make NPCs comment on them, but not actually change relationships/options then it is a superficial reaction that only serves the creation of dissonance like your point about killing NPCs requiring "SEVERE consequences".

"You can make all NPCs killable but if it doesn't have SEVERE consequences then it doesn't matter."
Right, simply being able to shoot people without consequences would be stupid. Originally when I started writing this I just thought about blocking quests that the NPCs would give, since I just considered ramifications of killing select few quest NPCs, not random ones you see walking in the streets.
But there being consequences for killing random nameless NPCs would be great too, make you be wanted by police, with people refusing to give you quests because they know you are a fucking psycho and you'd be pursued by cops all the time. Though some of the gangs might not care about that, they might even be happy to have cold-blooded insane killer in their ranks.
Yes, things like this would make actual scripted stories of the game impossible to progress, but so what? That'd be just another way for players to engage with the game, if they start playing this like PS2-era GTA and going on a rampage killing random people in the streets and shooting quest givers to face for the hell of it, they clearly are not interested in playing the game for story.
It would result in unique player experiences.

The only sort of organizations that would want a completely unhinged, "crazy" (ie: unpredictable) killer in their ranks are ones that aren't going to be mentally cohesive enough to form a real organization to begin with. This view is manufactured for movies/games, trust/reliability/reputation actually become more important the more a subculture deviates from the primary society.
The only way back from a complete break should require surgery, netrunning, etc to completely rewrite you as a person which should be nearly impossible to get without going somewhere else, since no one will want to work with you if you go on a rampage. Anything less reveals that again, the consequences aren't actually there, you are playing a game, this is all an illusion, so I guess yes unique player "experiences," but not character ones.

"The game will feature illegal mod doctors who will operate under the law, so even if you do get all the augments available, the law shouldn't notice.".

We don't know how or even if the PC can go psycho, signs point to that they will not be able to actually cross that line. We do know from the gameplay that the implants to cite a humanity cost, so the most likely scenario is that you will just not have the option of buying enough ware to snap. I think this is a good choice, because if we are being serious about consequences going on a rampage should probably end with the character being put down like a dog, in the very unlikely case that the player gets away, they should be wanted & hunted forever, should they find someone who is willing to give them a new identity (including extensive surgery) V2 will be starting all over with no reputation or repoire, so the only non-inconsequential result of a rampage is essentially a game over/new game.

So yeah, that's about all I have on my mind now. I fully believe that CD Projekt could make a game like this, but also understand that this wouldn't be for everybody, maybe it's too restrictive or punishing, but I think it'd make for great immersive experience, and I can dream, right?

What you describe is more permissive than any game I've ever played, because it removes the teeth from any of the potential consequences. The only real consequence outlined here is blocking the scripted narrative and turning the game into a GTA/Saints Row sandbox which trades immersion for a mayhem/power fantasy simulator.