So I was thinking about fixing the wanted system overall and came with some ideas in terms of mechanics and gameplay:
1. Non-lethal and lethal: It would be more Immersive to make NCPD (1-3 Stars) non-lethal and deal with you using blunt weapons and teasers just like the trauma team. On the other hand making MaxTac units lethal and try to kill you instead.
2.Outcomes: If you go down by NCPD, you will get busted and pay a small fine of street cred and eddies maybe while if you go down by MaxTac you get flatliners or alternatively got wasted and respawn in front of a ripper doc with a greater cred and eddie fine maybe.
3. Solutions for police not able to chase with cars: Just like how elevators get disabled during wanted event, there can be roadblocks on streets that can be activated that would force you to escape on foot therefore it will be more doable to implement an on the feet chase.
What you guys think about it?
I think you have taken upon you a huge task here
The whole system is a difficult one to solve I think, not only from a technical point of view, which is obviously important. But to me such system need to include 4 things:
1. Technical
2. Realism / immersion
3. Lore
4. Story
So there are two types of crimes in the city at the moment as far as I know?
- Stealing a car
- Murder (Civilian, policemen)
Depending on which it is the police should react differently.
How police AI could work
The technical part of thing is how Night city works, there are lots of narrow streets, even those you would call the big ones doesn't really allow for a lot of room for cars to navigate. So having police cars chasing you down the street is probably not going to work very well. So for them to use the Police cars to make roadblocks on certain roads around you, could work. And obviously these should only be possible to drive through if you are using a heavy car, like a truck, pickup truck, some of the armoured Nomad cars (Can't remember their name). Also it would make sense for them to use nails or spike traps to explode the wheels.
The chasing of the player, should primarily be done by flying drones, which can pass over the traffic. Policemen could be dropped by those dropships in the area once the player is on foot and so they can start searching the area for you.
None of that seems to be impossible in a game like this as I see it.
If the player is seen stealing a car, the police should instantly draw their weapons, aim them at the player and yell for them to get out of the car. The player will then have the option to get out of car and surrender or simply drive off.
If the player surrender to them on the spot, they will be able to try to bribe them here to avoid going to jail. If they ain't able to pay a bribe they will be handled as of the section below (Player have surrendered)
If they choose to run off, then the above will be triggered, (roadblock and drones called in) and things will be handled like anything else, as in the section below "Capturing the player".
Capturing the player
Another thing they would have to handle is, how the police forces the player to stop, Which could be done by the policemen once they have spotted the player, will yell for them to not move. At which point the player will have a few seconds, maybe indicated by a timer on the screen counting down, which gives them the opportunity to surrender, which again is simply done by not moving, the player can turn around though, if they wish. If the player decide to keep moving, the police will use non lethal force trying to stop you. If you as player starts to shoot at them, quick hack etc. they will return fire trying to kill you, and there will be no more options for surrendering (The police shouldn't take crap from anyone
).
The longer the fight goes on and the more cops, civilians the player kills or damage in general the player does, like blowing up cars, throwing grenades etc. will increase the wanted meter and the more hardcore cops are called in, and at this point your only option is to get rid of the wanted status.
Player have surrendered
Once the player have been arrested, the police could move close to you and in some cases either knock you down and put you in handcuffs or simply put the handcuffs on you. At this point a flying police car is called in, that will land near you and a scene showing you being led into it and flown to the police station and thrown in a jail cell will play out, no cutscene, you as player will experience all this and obviously have no control during this time until you are in the jail cell.
This next part is the rough one, because of the three things above, realism, lore and story.
One would assume that a lot of the crimes player's are doing involve them murdering civilians. So how exactly does one get out of jail for that?
So both realism and story will have to be bend slightly for a system like this to work.
In regards to the story, V is about to die so spending a lot of time in jail wouldn't really work. Also assuming V having killed X amount of civilians, is simply let out again after paying X amount of money or a few days is fairly lame as well, but is probably where one would have to bend the "realism" the most, but think it would be acceptable and therefore we have to allow for this from now on
After a bit of time in the jail (couple of minutes), the player is told to report to an officer, which is like the guy in the Nomad lifepath at the border checkpoint sitting behind the fence thing at the entrance and it is here that the player will decide how to handle the punishment.
Jail time and punishment
The system should keep track of two things:
1. Destruction value
2. Civilians killed
Destruction value, is basically everything that the player is destroying during the police chase. So ramming into cop cars, ruining environment, hitting random cars, if they stole a car, the damage to it. etc. All these are added together and will make up the destruction value, which is basically what the player will be fined to pay. Players should be forced to pay if they have the money. But if they can't the value is then converted to jail time at a specific rate.
Civilian killed, is not something that can be paid off. But each of these will cost jail time.
So committing a crime, can involve both of these.
Serving jail time should be seen as hurting your reputation, fixers don't like you screwing around etc. So I think the idea that it hurts your street cred is a good one.
So the amount of street cred you lose serving jail time, could be that you lose 1 level of street cred per day in jail. So if you go all psycho and kill and destroy, you will get a longer sentence and therefore lose more street cred.
Either CDPR make the jail time part of the game itself, so you actually have to do some tasks etc. Maybe you can even pick up some contacts or missions here, get into jail fights, and what other things one could think could happen here, or they simply make a button where you serve the time and you are set free having paid the bill and the street cred, and you can continue the game normally.
Escaping the police
Since escaping the police should be a viable option, this would have to be overhauled as well, first of all to make it funnier, but also more immersive.
Therefore the police AI and "intelligence" should be severely increased in difficulty (Not meaning damage). But if the player gets away from the initial police and their drones. That doesn't mean that they won't keep looking. Therefore any cop in the city will now react to you if they see you and is not already busy with a fight or something and try to arrest you, if you get too close to them, which could trigger a whole new police chase as described above.
Also patrol officers as part of the random NPCs that walk the streets should be added including police drones in certain areas, like city center etc. that will patrol the streets. They could make it so the patrolling policemen and drones couldn't spot you in a car, only if its the stolen one, obviously.
So for players to completely remove any police looking for them, you won't be able to just run around the block anymore, but rather there will be places, like V apartment and maybe certain bars, where you as player have the option to lay low for a while or maybe in bars you can pay someone to help "screw up/delete" the police record so they can no longer track you.
However if the police is chasing you and see you walk into the apartment or bar, then obviously that option should no longer exist at these places and the player would have to find another place or get rid of the cops in whatever way.
Conclusion
Long post
But in the end, I think something like this could work, it's not overly complicated, only a few things to keep track off. And it offers a somewhat good and realistic solution to the current system. Also it include punishment, that the player can take and feel on, not only in regards to money, but also street cred, which currently is a sort of redundant stat, that could just as well have been connected to your actual level rather than a seperate one.
