Save Scumming Revealed Poor Game Design

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Patch 1.1 has removed save scumming to reroll randomized loot. The mere fact that many players were practicing save scumming just shows how poorly the game was designed in the first place.

  • Save Scumming for Mod slots or to reroll gear to increase the rarity revealed the lazy way they implemented loot randomization
  • Save Scumming during crafting reveals the poorly designed randomization of weapon statistics
  • Save scumming (or multiple resting) to reset vendor inventories shows the problem with even having unreliable randomized vendor inventories.

If they think that the randomized nature of loot and crafting provides an element of game balance that anyone thinks is a good thing, then they clearly don't understand the minds of gamers. This leads to two possible reasons:
  1. They did it to save time in development
  2. Someone of some authority has forced them to implement it because they think it is a good idea and no one can change their mind.

This game would be greatly improved if loot randomization was removed. All items should have a fixed rarity and that rarity should have a fixed number of mod slots. Crafted gear should have a fixed stat profile. Another idea would be a method to upgrade gear to raise its rarity and subsequently its number of mod slots so that someone can use whatever item they think makes them look cool. This would mean that players who invest into other skill trees don't have to miss out on iconic weapons late in the game.

People like choice in their characters. They like to choose the items they use and the weapons they wield. They also like to PLAN out their character.
 
Not so much poor design in terms of the mechanics themselves but poor design in terms of the choice to implement them in the first place. OF COURSE players require constant "participation trophy's" by way of a shower (flood?) of near useless loot to reward them for the simplest actions. Hey CDPR, being buried in junk isn't a reward, it's a pain in the arse.
 
Not so much poor design in terms of the mechanics themselves but poor design in terms of the choice to implement them in the first place. OF COURSE players require constant "participation trophy's" by way of a shower (flood?) of near useless loot to reward them for the simplest actions. Hey CDPR, being buried in junk isn't a reward, it's a pain in the arse.
You are correct. I meant conceptual design, not mechanical
 
The only thing that save-scumming shows is that there is random loot and there is a way to change that loot. If you combine those two elements, there will 100% be players that savescum. FFS people savescum shiny pokemon and they don't even have different stats.
 
I can see lower tier stuff being randomized as something that makes sense, cause that way you work your way up with stuff that you know you can just get at every street corner anyway. If some mob drops a stupid hat with one slot, ok... You will maybe find a better one later.
The problem are the completely unique items in the game. If they have a bad roll on a 200 hours savegame... That really hurts and doesn't feel like it makes sense anymore.
Imagine your cars in the game being that way. You find the Caliburn... But oh, now it has the stats of one of the heavy duty trucks. Bad luck, you can still use your starter car which for some reason rolled with the stats of a fighter jet.
It's not like Diablo where Uniques weren't really unique... In Cyberpunk you find clothing that is one of a kind and now it is randomized and then fixed into these stats at some point so you either are lucky finding it with 4 slots after 100+ hours of playing the game or the game decided to screw you and you find it with 0 slots just for the lulz... But hey, there is a workaround! Start a new character, maybe you have more luck next time!
If the safe scumming "fix" was intentional they at least should give people an option to make up for it.
1. Maybe give you the blueprint of the Unique Item so you can remake it yourself and maybe be lucky enough to get what you want.
2. Maybe fix the stats you can't change (the Slots) on these Items so the only thing that is randomized and most importantly tied to your level is the pure armor stat.
3. Maybe give players the chance to simply upgrade the at this point randomized slots. You found it with 2 slots... Bad luck, but hey, you can still invest materials to add slots (this could be tied to which level of equipment you can craft yourself).
4. Make these Items not unique anymore, but implement something like a mixer, where you can just sell it to a black market character and at some point in the game an enemy of a fixed kind will randomly drop the armor again with different stats (ok, that idea sucks, but at least you would still get your "random" fix finding something you didn't expect).
 
The only thing that save-scumming shows is that there is random loot and there is a way to change that loot. If you combine those two elements, there will 100% be players that savescum. FFS people savescum shiny pokemon and they don't even have different stats.
Which is poor game design. It is possible to design a game in which save scumming accomplishes nothing and then people wouldn't need to do it. That would be better game design
 
If they think that the randomized nature of loot and crafting provides an element of game balance that anyone thinks is a good thing, then they clearly don't understand the minds of gamers.

That's how the Borderlands series does it and to tell you the truth, i love it. A story driver RPG, with quick paced FPS combat and looting potential of a diablo clone? Yes please!

It's far for perfect in Cyberpunk but still way better than the rigid New Vegas/Fallout 4 style.
 
Which is poor game design. It is possible to design a game in which save scumming accomplishes nothing
e.g. make it so reloading no longer changes drops? What CDPR just did?

Let me avoid beating around the bush. You are complaining about randomness in a looter shooter, a game type defined fundamentally by random stats on gear and a constant stream of loot. Are there games without random loot? Yes. The problem with them is that equipment drops in those games fundamentally fall into 2 categories: "a new item type" and "inconvenient to hold money". In the extreme, a dropped enemy weapon is just converted into ammo on pickup.

If you don't want random loot, play a different game type.
 
e.g. make it so reloading no longer changes drops? What CDPR just did?

Let me avoid beating around the bush. You are complaining about randomness in a looter shooter, a game type defined fundamentally by random stats on gear and a constant stream of loot. Are there games without random loot? Yes. The problem with them is that equipment drops in those games fundamentally fall into 2 categories: "a new item type" and "inconvenient to hold money". In the extreme, a dropped enemy weapon is just converted into ammo on pickup.

If you don't want random loot, play a different game type.
We are not complaining about randomness in general (also cool that Cyberpunk 2077 is now just a Looter Shooter, guess it's now not GTA V anymore or Fallout 4 or whatever is convenient for the narrative)... The problem is that non random loot (as in it is always at the same spot in the game) got random stats assigned that over one playthrough now can't be changed anymore at all as in these stats are random and not random at the same time while encompassing the worst out of both worlds. This was different before the patch.
 
We are not complaining about randomness in general (also cool that Cyberpunk 2077 is now just a Looter Shooter, guess it's now not GTA V anymore or Fallout 4 or whatever is convenient for the narrative)... The problem is that non random loot (as in it is always at the same spot in the game) got random stats assigned that over one playthrough now can't be changed anymore at all as in these stats are random and not random at the same time while encompassing the worst out of both worlds. This was different before the patch.
Cyberpunk isn't "just" a looter shooter, but it IS a looter shooter. That's not a narrative. That's a genre, unlike GTA V or Fallout 4.

And people are complaining about random loot generally, not just the uniques. Any one of a kind item should absolutely not be random. I'll stand by that with you. But people weren't just savescumming 1 of a kind items. They'd also do it for static high rarity spawns. The OP makes a point of that by saying "to reroll gear to increase the rarity". You couldn't do that with the unique items. This was mostly just sour grapes about random loot generally.
 
Patch 1.1 has removed save scumming to reroll randomized loot. The mere fact that many players were practicing save scumming just shows how poorly the game was designed in the first place.

  • Save Scumming for Mod slots or to reroll gear to increase the rarity revealed the lazy way they implemented loot randomization
  • Save Scumming during crafting reveals the poorly designed randomization of weapon statistics
  • Save scumming (or multiple resting) to reset vendor inventories shows the problem with even having unreliable randomized vendor inventories.

If they think that the randomized nature of loot and crafting provides an element of game balance that anyone thinks is a good thing, then they clearly don't understand the minds of gamers. This leads to two possible reasons:
  1. They did it to save time in development
  2. Someone of some authority has forced them to implement it because they think it is a good idea and no one can change their mind.

This game would be greatly improved if loot randomization was removed. All items should have a fixed rarity and that rarity should have a fixed number of mod slots. Crafted gear should have a fixed stat profile. Another idea would be a method to upgrade gear to raise its rarity and subsequently its number of mod slots so that someone can use whatever item they think makes them look cool. This would mean that players who invest into other skill trees don't have to miss out on iconic weapons late in the game.

People like choice in their characters. They like to choose the items they use and the weapons they wield. They also like to PLAN out their character.
This is all true, but at least we had an option to farm for rerolls. Not a desirable option, but it was there nonetheless. Now there is no option. I really hope this wasn't intentional and will be fixed soon.
 
e.g. make it so reloading no longer changes drops? What CDPR just did?

Let me avoid beating around the bush. You are complaining about randomness in a looter shooter, a game type defined fundamentally by random stats on gear and a constant stream of loot. Are there games without random loot? Yes. The problem with them is that equipment drops in those games fundamentally fall into 2 categories: "a new item type" and "inconvenient to hold money". In the extreme, a dropped enemy weapon is just converted into ammo on pickup.

If you don't want random loot, play a different game type.
That's nonsense.
Real P&P RPG can do without level items or random stats. You don't get a new weapon all the time. It's the same weapon only with bigger numbers. It's a cheap illusion, nothing more.

By the way, I think it was a mistake. Because Legandarys only drop into loot boxes from level around 32+. But since 1.1 everything is fixed. Does that mean if you explore too much between level 1 and 32, then you have no chance of ever finding legendary loot in boxes. Something is wrong there. Once the rarity has been determined, it is forever so, forever.
 
That's nonsense.
Real P&P RPG can do without level items or random stats. You don't get a new weapon all the time. It's the same weapon only with bigger numbers. It's a cheap illusion, nothing more.
Real P&P RPGs don't have you gun down several thousand enemies each with their own freaking weapons to loot. What you're talking about is scaling loot, btw, which this game ALSO uses. But you'll find dozens of tantos, knives, pulsars, etc, per level. If the game ALSO used scaling loot, only the first one at each level would matter. In fact, since you can level up gear with crafting, only the first one PERIOD would matter.
 
Cyberpunk isn't "just" a looter shooter, but it IS a looter shooter. That's not a narrative. That's a genre, unlike GTA V or Fallout 4.

And people are complaining about random loot generally, not just the uniques. Any one of a kind item should absolutely not be random. I'll stand by that with you. But people weren't just savescumming 1 of a kind items. They'd also do it for static high rarity spawns. The OP makes a point of that by saying "to reroll gear to increase the rarity". You couldn't do that with the unique items. This was mostly just sour grapes about random loot generally.
Let me appologize then. I hope you understood where I was coming from with the "just a looter shooter". I read some comment comparing the game directly to Borderlands 2, maybe I was a bit on the edge, cause these arguments get thrown around a lot. "But GTA 5 does this..." "Fallout 4 did that..." "The loot in Borderlands 2..." etc.
I agree completely with the notion that loot should be randomized, it basically was before as well. Save scumming was a way to work around it and if it was just locking in the rarity of items you find a hundred times over anyway I am totally for it. The problem to me is just that it affected unique items in an all around negative way, raising the chance they are completely useless by quite a lot randomly and with no way to salvage the situation.
 
Let me appologize then. I hope you understood where I was coming from with the "just a looter shooter". I read some comment comparing the game directly to Borderlands 2, maybe I was a bit on the edge, cause these arguments get thrown around a lot. "But GTA 5 does this..." "Fallout 4 did that..." "The loot in Borderlands 2..." etc.
I agree completely with the notion that loot should be randomized, it basically was before as well. Save scumming was a way to work around it and if it was just locking in the rarity of items you find a hundred times over anyway I am totally for it. The problem to me is just that it affected unique items in an all around negative way, raising the chance they are completely useless by quite a lot randomly and with no way to salvage the situation.
I think we're in agreement as well on where randomness does and does not belong. Randomness and one of a kind items don't go well together. Savescumming was a (bad) work around for this (bad) interaction. I really hope they rework uniques going forward, but the problem with taking out savescumming was not that they did it, but that they did it before reworking uniques. If they'd done that first, taking out savescumming just keeps players that can't help themselves from ruining their own experience trying to farm epics and legendaries from containers when they could be farming them from drops.
 
That's one of the reasons I postponed finding these Items:
1. I was under the impression they will be randomized when I look at them according to my level. If I collect them at Level 15 for example I can look forward to spending all my legendary parts in the future.
2. I hate save scumming, but knew it might be necessary unless CDPR patches in a possibility to rework these Items. So I basically procrastinated on collecting them even after Level 50.

The outcome of the patch now is a "Thank you for being patient and not abusing the system! Here, take these two middle fingers to your face plus almost all the Items you were so patient for being devalued!"

There is still hope this change wasn't intentional.
 
e.g. make it so reloading no longer changes drops? What CDPR just did?

Let me avoid beating around the bush. You are complaining about randomness in a looter shooter, a game type defined fundamentally by random stats on gear and a constant stream of loot. Are there games without random loot? Yes. The problem with them is that equipment drops in those games fundamentally fall into 2 categories: "a new item type" and "inconvenient to hold money". In the extreme, a dropped enemy weapon is just converted into ammo on pickup.

If you don't want random loot, play a different game type.
Is it a looter shooter or an open world RPG?
 
Is it a looter shooter or an open world RPG?
Both? Also a first person shooter and an action adventure game. A game can be more than one genre, but this game can't be one of the genres it is designed to be and get rid of randomness. What you're asking for is like asking for an RTS to be turn-based. Go play a TBS.
 
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