Rant: Why do all of these loose ends exist? :[ (Spoilers)

[Elle-Iza]

As a tabletop role player and gm the storyline and overall atmosphere of a game are as important to me, as a good fighting system. One of the things I dislike about CP2077 is the lack of follow-up missions or woven quest lines, which makes the side missions seem unimportant and forgettable, and I can't comprehend, why there wasn't more focus during game development onto giving gigs and side-missions more weight.

For example: For "Trevor's last ride" we retrieve the body of the young Aldecaldo guy, so his family can bury him. The mission descriptions says, we should take the body to his parents, but when we have found him Dakota had sent a ride. We stuff him into the trunk, bam, car's gone, gig's closed.
Why can't we take him to his parents ourselves, express our condolences, and then learn from his parents, that his brother Jake got hurt when the both guys had been riding together. This way there would be a link to the Fortunate son side mission, and maybe from we could go and revenge the Wraiths/Raffen that had been responsible. 3 quests linked, and a new contact (the boys' family).

And all of those shards with dialogues you can never do anything with... I found this dead runner in Pacifica, could locate her stash, and there was a note from her father who was worried. Why not having the ability to contact him, let him at least know what happened to his child and then do something for him? Like getting rid of an old enemy that is pressing him for money (why his daughter went behind the wall to scavenge stuff in the first place)?
And there are dozens more that just end in
Mario: Joe?
Mario: Hey, Joe, are you okay?
Mario: Joe, say something?
Mario: Damn it, Joe...

 

[Milfguard2077]

i had a blast, loved the main story, and the sidequests - i only felt like the cyberpsycho quests didnt do anything in the long run, having chosen to kill or not kill them seems to have no real impact

but those little unresolved things or just sad bleak things, thats cyberpunk, life is worth a penny but costs a million. Like when you report Evelyn dead, and they are like "okay, give us a few days" I thought its a good balance and gave tons of atmosphere and a real sense of there is so much more here then me

unlike mass effect, you are the hero and your choices come around in the end and you change everything, saving everything!
cp77 isnt that way, you get caught up in it, it matters to you, but not so much the world or everyone else - classic cyberpunk, criminal hero, overwhelming tech, dystopian themes, and in the end it doesn't really matter (have you seen elysium? solid cyberpunk genre story telling)

 

[GogRelvas]

I do believe this choice in writing was to be coherent with Mike Pondsmith's cyberpunk. Which is, you the player are not here to save the world. You are here to save yourself and, if you can do some good in the middle, so be it; or it's a bonus.
I do feel, however, that the formula of open endings was applied too much which leads to predictability. When you start realizing it, in the middle of the quest it starts feeling all for naught as you already know there won't be a resolution. It would be better, in my opinion for some different endings for different stories in terms of closure. It would still give that sense that the player is only a piece of this huge world but it would make unpredictability a part of the world. Right now the world is predictable and "gamey" in that sense

 

[Didacgomez]

I do believe this choice in writing was to be coherent with Mike Pondsmith's cyberpunk. Which is, you the player are not here to save the world. You are here to save yourself and, if you can do some good in the middle, so be it; or it's a bonus.
I do feel, however, that the formula of open endings was applied too much which leads to predictability. When you start realizing it, in the middle of the quest it starts feeling all for naught as you already know there won't be a resolution. It would be better, in my opinion for some different endings for different stories in terms of closure. It would still give that sense that the player is only a piece of this huge world but it would make unpredictability a part of the world. Right now the world is predictable and "gamey" in that sense

I will go a step further saying that is not Pondsmith Cyberpunk writing style, but most of Cyberpunk stories/novels that I have read have loose ends... goes with the style and I agree normally protagonists are not some kind of hero; just a guy/girl that gets caught in the cross-fire(anti-hero fit better the definition). Still, if you abstract the protagonist you have 2 outcomes that make the world lorewise completely different (devil and sun/star/temperance are kind of "Man in the high castle" alternate reality) and not that predictable of what would happen in a sequel/follow-up (if any).

 

[Milfguard2077]

I do believe this choice in writing was to be coherent with Mike Pondsmith's cyberpunk. Which is, you the player are not here to save the world. You are here to save yourself and, if you can do some good in the middle, so be it; or it's a bonus.
I do feel, however, that the formula of open endings was applied too much which leads to predictability. When you start realizing it, in the middle of the quest it starts feeling all for naught as you already know there won't be a resolution. It would be better, in my opinion for some different endings for different stories in terms of closure. It would still give that sense that the player is only a piece of this huge world but it would make unpredictability a part of the world. Right now the world is predictable and "gamey" in that sense

i know what you mean, once i got the formula i felt fairly comfortable in the game sense. I feel like Main Quest was excellent, movie level. Side Jobs, great - HBO Series. and the Gigs (fixer calls) was a solid TV series. While the crimes and cops are like little "this is cyberpunk" commercials

The Assault in Progress stuff in the Kabuki district was really good, it brought up a lot of stuff on Jotaro Shobo, my favorite POS to kill, next to fingers... When you do those assaults you get lots of linking info to the quest.

Overall I feel like it comes together in the end very well, having waited for Fable, Mass Effect, and other games that brought us similar promises to cp77 I felt like we all knew how this would go. The Devs, they dream big, they tell you how big they are dreaming and then they have to figure out how to code it. It's definitely not a bad game, arguably the best single player game i've played. I know they plan to keep the franchise expanding in some way moving forward. I feel like this is a solid starting point for the franchise(which i think will deliver on a lot of the promises missed as it moves on), and a great offering to gaming in general

Post automatically merged: Apr 5, 2021

I will go a step further saying that is not Pondsmith Cyberpunk writing style, but most of Cyberpunk stories/novels that I have read have loose ends... goes with the style and I agree normally protagonists are not some kind of hero; just a guy/girl that gets caught in the cross-fire(anti-hero fit better the definition). Still, if you abstract the protagonist you have 2 outcomes that make the world lorewise completely different (devil and sun/star/temperance are kind of "Man in the high castle" alternate reality) and not that predictable of what would happen in a sequel/follow-up (if any).

i would say that good cyberpunk cant or shouldnt have a sequel, look at the poor matrix....

i would also venture that more cyberpunk for cdpr will not contain V again, unless its just a mention

 

[DarthNyquil]

As a tabletop role player and gm the storyline and overall atmosphere of a game are as important to me, as a good fighting system. One of the things I dislike about CP2077 is the lack of follow-up missions or woven quest lines, which makes the side missions seem unimportant and forgettable, and I can't comprehend, why there wasn't more focus during game development onto giving gigs and side-missions more weight.

For example: For "Trevor's last ride" we retrieve the body of the young Aldecaldo guy, so his family can bury him. The mission descriptions says, we should take the body to his parents, but when we have found him Dakota had sent a ride. We stuff him into the trunk, bam, car's gone, gig's closed.
Why can't we take him to his parents ourselves, express our condolences, and then learn from his parents, that his brother Jake got hurt when the both guys had been riding together. This way there would be a link to the Fortunate son side mission, and maybe from we could go and revenge the Wraiths/Raffen that had been responsible. 3 quests linked, and a new contact (the boys' family).

And all of those shards with dialogues you can never do anything with... I found this dead runner in Pacifica, could locate her stash, and there was a note from her father who was worried. Why not having the ability to contact him, let him at least know what happened to his child and then do something for him? Like getting rid of an old enemy that is pressing him for money (why his daughter went behind the wall to scavenge stuff in the first place)?
And there are dozens more that just end in
Mario: Joe?
Mario: Hey, Joe, are you okay?
Mario: Joe, say something?
Mario: Damn it, Joe...

I've found a LOT of shards that tell the rest of the story of side quests and gigs I did (with often tragic epilogues), so I can't really agree with your gripe.

The others are flavor text there to give us a snapshot of the harsh realities of living in Night City.

 

[Didacgomez]

i know what you mean, once i got the formula i felt fairly comfortable in the game sense. I feel like Main Quest was excellent, movie level. Side Jobs, great - HBO Series. and the Gigs (fixer calls) was a solid TV series. While the crimes and cops are like little "this is cyberpunk" commercials

The Assault in Progress stuff in the Kabuki district was really good, it brought up a lot of stuff on Jotaro Shobo, my favorite POS to kill, next to fingers... When you do those assaults you get lots of linking info to the quest.

Overall I feel like it comes together in the end very well, having waited for Fable, Mass Effect, and other games that brought us similar promises to cp77 I felt like we all knew how this would go. The Devs, they dream big, they tell you how big they are dreaming and then they have to figure out how to code it. It's definitely not a bad game, arguably the best single player game i've played. I know they plan to keep the franchise expanding in some way moving forward. I feel like this is a solid starting point for the franchise(which i think will deliver on a lot of the promises missed as it moves on), and a great offering to gaming in general

Post automatically merged: Apr 5, 2021

i would say that good cyberpunk cant or shouldnt have a sequel, look at the poor matrix....

i would also venture that more cyberpunk for cdpr will not contain V again, unless its just a mention

Indeed, I´m not expecting a sequel with V (maybe in one expansion a close-up with the 6 month; but I will not complain if its not the case). I was referring more in terms of world there are two contradictory world situations (I consider Arasaka/Saburo more protagonists than V). The mention of V final "destiny" would not be very surprising, Gibson did that with the poor Johnny Mnemonic also.

 

[Myajha]

Part of the reason why has been described above. Cyberpunk as a genre rarely answers all your questions, leaving quite a bit nebulous. Also you want to leave some room open for future DLC, so a lot of games also leave loose ends to fill in later.

But lets also not ignore the fact that a lot was cut from the game, and certain aspects were never filled in. Some of the writers and devs tried by filling in with the above mentioned shards, but not everything could be fixed that way.

So some of the loose ends are intentional, even warrented. Some are "fixed" with the story continuing in shards. The rest however, is simply management cutting things loose, and not enough time to or desire to go back and fix it.

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

As a tabletop role player and gm the storyline and overall atmosphere of a game are as important to me, as a good fighting system. One of the things I dislike about CP2077 is the lack of follow-up missions or woven quest lines, which makes the side missions seem unimportant and forgettable, and I can't comprehend, why there wasn't more focus during game development onto giving gigs and side-missions more weight.

For example: For "Trevor's last ride" we retrieve the body of the young Aldecaldo guy, so his family can bury him. The mission descriptions says, we should take the body to his parents, but when we have found him Dakota had sent a ride. We stuff him into the trunk, bam, car's gone, gig's closed.
Why can't we take him to his parents ourselves, express our condolences, and then learn from his parents, that his brother Jake got hurt when the both guys had been riding together. This way there would be a link to the Fortunate son side mission, and maybe from we could go and revenge the Wraiths/Raffen that had been responsible. 3 quests linked, and a new contact (the boys' family).

And all of those shards with dialogues you can never do anything with... I found this dead runner in Pacifica, could locate her stash, and there was a note from her father who was worried. Why not having the ability to contact him, let him at least know what happened to his child and then do something for him? Like getting rid of an old enemy that is pressing him for money (why his daughter went behind the wall to scavenge stuff in the first place)?
And there are dozens more that just end in
Mario: Joe?
Mario: Hey, Joe, are you okay?
Mario: Joe, say something?
Mario: Damn it, Joe...

the only quests that can have interactions like you would like, are those that occur outside of a fixer, or if the client specifically asks to meet you. The fixer's job is to be the middle man, separating the client from the merc, handling the exchange of money, vetting the merc/client. Its like you likely never meet the pizza chef at dominoes.

As for the shards and emails and finding the people, this is a bit unlikely. First off, your in a city, with tons of people. If you find a note with two first names, you think you could easily find the person? Then, would these people want to be found? Might seem like an invasion of privacy when some random merc reads someone else's emails and turns up on their doorsteps talking about private affairs. Also, for some of the gigs, the info is passed on to NCPD or the fixer, who may reach out to the concerned parties.

V is not a hero, they are doing their jobs, in a perfect rpg world, it might be nice if players could attempt to be an adventure hero, but since that doesn't really make a lot of sense and would be an oddity in this setting, they weren't going to spend a lot of resources making the small quests involve that type of interaction.

the quests where you take a job directly from the client often have a bit more interaction, basically anything that pops up in the side job category. like peralez, the monk quest, Sandra Dorsett, the job in afterlife, Brendan, Pepe, etc. These quests usually involve meeting an npc that wants the quest, and not the fixer/ncpd highlighting the location on your main map.

 

[AikoHayashi]

i had a blast, loved the main story, and the sidequests - i only felt like the cyberpsycho quests didnt do anything in the long run, having chosen to kill or not kill them seems to have no real impact

but those little unresolved things or just sad bleak things, thats cyberpunk, life is worth a penny but costs a million. Like when you report Evelyn dead, and they are like "okay, give us a few days" I thought its a good balance and gave tons of atmosphere and a real sense of there is so much more here then me

unlike mass effect, you are the hero and your choices come around in the end and you change everything, saving everything!
cp77 isnt that way, you get caught up in it, it matters to you, but not so much the world or everyone else - classic cyberpunk, criminal hero, overwhelming tech, dystopian themes, and in the end it doesn't really matter (have you seen elysium? solid cyberpunk genre story telling)

Yeah, killing the cyberpsychos afterward should fail the quest, maybe they will improve it someday especially now the reward from Regina really works

 

[IndifferentEmpathy]

i would say that good cyberpunk cant or shouldnt have a sequel, look at the poor matrix....

i would also venture that more cyberpunk for cdpr will not contain V again, unless its just a mention

This is good cyberpunk trope but its bad for videogame franchise.

Same protagonist + recurring side characters make people far more emotionally invested into what is happening to them. Even Dragon Age despite having new protagonist in each game had to rely on characters such as Morrigan or Varric.

Cyberpunk sequel starting from scratch would just make Witcher trilogy superior to Cyberpunk even more.

 

[Milfguard2077]

Cyberpunk sequel starting from scratch would just make Witcher trilogy superior to Cyberpunk even more.

It amazes me how people think witcher is better, the game formula is not all that different. setting is.

what cp77 has over witcher, is character freedom. customization, and more control over character development - way more rpg then the witcher

but people are still backed into that corner... also funny is that people had minimal expectations from the witcher, most people heard the w2 was good, so they picked up 3 (most players just played 3). going in blind without previous expectations of the franchise or fandom of the books - also seems to increase satisfaction

it reminds me of a study covered by radio lab, about how people think they want choices and options but the base human actually does not

Instead of funneling the player down pathways in cp77 they really opened it up, removing any time line from relic take over, removing limits from the skill tree based on class/life path - they took what they had and made it accessible to every player without limits and the vocal majority is upset.

where the witcher limits your character development, seriously to a character, and a lifepath (witcher) granted you level up and develop but its still not as open as cp77 - also the dialogue method is comparable... it just backs up the point - when you say "youre geralt a witcher" people accept that and play, when you say "youre free to personalize this character" people feel cheated out of specific options they would likely not have considered if just delivered a character

humans are interesting, amazing, and chaotic

 

[ChrissyVicious]

Its because this game isn't an rpg..this is why things just end..the story is too short and side conted is set up for bang bang they are dead..grab the item and we on to the next tiny filler mission to make people think this game has lots to do..when in reality this a very poor thought of game with not much to do and never really goes anywhere or does anything..

 

[JoshShaw]

Somewhat related to this, I was kind of frustrated that Anna (the good cop) seemed to have a story that didn't go anywhere. I found a shard about her informant planning to escape to the (I think) Wellsprings dock to get a ship and then the thread seemed to end. Did I miss something?

 

[Ayinde_Palmer]

Somewhat related to this, I was kind of frustrated that Anna (the good cop) seemed to have a story that didn't go anywhere. I found a shard about her informant planning to escape to the (I think) Wellsprings dock to get a ship and then the thread seemed to end. Did I miss something?

I found a shard that implied she killed the cops who tried to have her eliminated, on the body of an ncpd. Which option did you choose? nomad? or told her who was after her?

 

[JoshShaw]

I found a shard that implied she killed the cops who tried to have her eliminated, on the body of an ncpd. Which option did you choose? nomad? or told her who was after het?

I can't remember, beyond that she survived our encounter and agreed to leave. I was playing nomad so likely used that option. I just specifically remember the informant thing beyond I found a shard about him going to the docks really early on and then chased it up much later when I reached that area and found nothing. Thought I might find his body or something.