[SPOILER] The 1.5 Patch and beyond Storytelling thread

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This is a thread for discussing the changes to the Cyberpunk 2077 game from the 1.5 Patch and theoretically any further Patch-based content until we get some proper content. Some actual new content has been added to the game and this the thread for discussing it--or at least that's the plan.

From what I can tell, here's the biggest things added with story effects:

1. The new apartments, which I'll get to.

2. More texts between you and your romance partner, which helps deepen the relationship and make it not so bare bones.

3. The fact you can wake up next to your partner in bed, which is a small deal but emergent storytelling.

4. The Fixer relationships have been fundamentally changed.

5. Immersion additions like playing guitar, making coffee, taking shower buffs, and sleeping buffs.

All of these things are definitely for the better and I think actually improve the quality of the main story significantly even if they're "subtle" changes.

1. The New Apartments: I mentioned this in the Ludonarrative Dissonance thread but the fact is that the new apartments and apartment customization now provide a visual sign of your rise to power. If you want your V to be motivated by wealth and materialism to explain why they're going outside to bust heads every night in the side content, you could worse than a home. Even if you've got a month to live, it doesn't sound INSANE to want to buy yourself a place to spend your last few weeks that's beautiful. There's a reason houses have been traditionally seen as symbolic signs of having "made it." You can get a penthouse mansion in the finale of some endings but you can't really enjoy it.

So, props CDPR.

2 and 3. Romance Texts and Waking up in Bed: We've got multiple threads about how the romances felt incomplete and rushed. The texts add the sense of a slower progression and the fact that you're keeping in touch with them inbetween missions. You also have, by waking up next to them, a sense that this is something happening beyond one or two nights. Canonically, V only knows their partner for a few weeks at most but that's a different thing than knowing them a couple of days or however you think the game COULD progress.

I really liked Panam talking about the "Peter Pan" case too.

4. Fixer Texts: The change to how your relationship with the Fixers progresses now actually fundamentally changes how the relationship with organized crime in Night City "feels." Before, you basically go into an area and people call you to go murder someone and you do a bunch of these then are done. Now, you have a reputation with each Fixer and they're slowly trusting you with bigger and bigger deals. This was already the case with Rogue and now it feels like all of them are gradually coming to like V. Except Mr. Hands. Now we have something unique about him in the fact Mr. Hands doesn't think shit about you.

There's actually a lot of writing on them at the end of the game in your journal too. One of the more fascinating things I liked was the fact that V actually despises Padre. It's interesting to note that (s)he's disgusted with the man's self-righteousness and hypocrisy by the end. They're also of the mind that Regina Jones is wasting her time trying to fix Watson but is glad they at least made the attempt.

5. Immersion activities: The buffs in particular encourage you to come back to your apartment and DO things like shower, drink coffee, and sleep. That encourages, again, a sense of time passing and your apartments being important to you.
 
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1. The new apartments

I bought Northern Watson and Japan Town ones for the sake of being curious and as expected. They really aren't feature I'm that interested myself.

That said, I can see them adding value for players. Roleplaying thing, I don't care to waste any time to ponder what's it's about but based on what I have read here and perhaps more when lurking in Low Sodium Cyberpunk reddit, there are players who like to take advantage from what game offers by blending game features. While sometimes discussed here, from low sodium reddit I have seen posts, screenshots and other things.

Apartments come into this in form of how players can add more flavor for their approach how they aim to experience the story. Like Someone comes up with Japanese V, goes for Reflexes / Blades among other things. Their V might prefer Mizutani for car or they may prefer Yaiba Kusanagi. New improved thrown knives mechanic might be big improvement, might prefer Tanto to knives though and wear certain fashion too and they may think that their V might want to move to Japan town.

I chose that type because it's so easy, but same could be said for someone who visions their V having a thing for bikes and feeling Northern Watson feels more like an environment where they V fits in. So it's about blending practical character building and game play with other things and apartments can contribute to that.




2. More texts between you and your romance partner, which helps deepen the relationship and make it not so bare bones.

Have got couple of those messages from Panam and I'm bit between the two what to think. Did I really needed these? Nope and it sort of adds more but also for someone who has already played the game and whom canon ending is the Star I don't know... for my first V who was also Nomad like my current one, it was important to get hell out of from city to get time to personal things with Panam, with little time there was left and and this feels a bit redundant feature.


3. The fact you can wake up next to your partner in bed, which is a small deal but emergent storytelling.

Hasn't happened yet, but again, like I wrote above.

4. The Fixer relationships have been fundamentally changed.

I'm not sure if this has added much. For me fixers has been like it's actually said in the game. They give you warm handshake and smile but really they are in business involving lot of death and they full well know they may be sending their mercenary to death.


5. Immersion additions like playing guitar, making coffee, taking shower buffs, and sleeping buffs.

Guitar thing is something that might be big feature for part of active user base, which I don't know if that is large part of user base.

Buffs are convenient regarding Attribute related skills though, but not essential.
 
Playing a tyger claw RP this scenario and I am living at japantown apartment. I go back regularly to sleep and catch the buff, I'll go shopping and do housekeeping when the buff is off. Yeah I feel like I am living there. I was surprised to find it more immersive than I thought I would. I've done watson, and maybe 60& of Japantown and find myself at lvl 31. This means I only have to concentrate on the starter zone and one other and the main quests to complete the game which I like as it gives me variation for other playthroughs.

I really like the changes to the mods and how damage mitigation works. At lvl 31 I've just acquired the armadillo mod and playing on very hard the game has been doable making use of the environment and cover. I really liked the Oda fight, was intense.

I find my skills are also levelling nicely as I play without the need for grinding them out.

Romance with judy has not started yet so cannot comment on that but I plan to kick that off next when we take over clouds.

I light some incense before I sleep. Something of a relax and wind down ritual.

not fussed about the guitar but if my RP was more a rocker boy then that would be excellent way of chilling. I'm not planning on buying the other apartments this playthrough, I'll save them for a new toon. I am not a completionist in the sense I have to do everything with one toon, I like lots of playthroughs with variety in each one and I have this with CP2077.

I hope the order of fixer quests is random
 
Progressing slowly in game and got more SMS conversations with Panam.

I think these conversations highlight certain factor for this sort of content, especially when they are introduced after release.

When we didn't had these conversations there were more freedom for player to make their own interpretation of NPC's. Now latest SMS conversation between Panam and V was about Panam asking how to deal with certain matter regarding leadership. Issue here is twofold.

1. Way I interpreted Panam is that she may ask things, she have her share of self doubt, but in the end she does what she does. There are several story segments where she demonstrates good and fast decision making in situations where she is either alone, or doesn't have full support of clan (Saul and who are backing him).

Panam is CDPR's character and of course additional content introduced later is continuation of that, but this is example of when sometimes less can be more. SMS conversations are that but also introduce fan service that, if I look popularity of Panam and Judy topics, has been requested but I think it's very difficult to make content like this and make it click with all the audience. Particularly one that also see Panam intellectually capable of assuming leadership of Aldecaldos which then may have important impact how player interprets the Star ending and close the book so to say.


2. I haven't found a way to get full preview of SMS messages V are going to sent. This wasn't an issue with previous content but on these conversations I have ended up selecting opposite option for what I thought my V would say.


3. These are very subjective things influenced by very individuality and cultural aspects and such. Yet compared to real life communications, some messages feel that their tone is bit off from target considering how Panam was established. I do appreciate creative work that can appreciate reality and I'm not sure if CPDR is hitting that mark here. I do wonder if process of creating this additional content has been fun or frustrating or both.
 
Progressing slowly in game and got more SMS conversations with Panam.

I think these conversations highlight certain factor for this sort of content, especially when they are introduced after release.

When we didn't had these conversations there were more freedom for player to make their own interpretation of NPC's. Now latest SMS conversation between Panam and V was about Panam asking how to deal with certain matter regarding leadership. Issue here is twofold.

1. Way I interpreted Panam is that she may ask things, she have her share of self doubt, but in the end she does what she does. There are several story segments where she demonstrates good and fast decision making in situations where she is either alone, or doesn't have full support of clan (Saul and who are backing him).

Panam is CDPR's character and of course additional content introduced later is continuation of that, but this is example of when sometimes less can be more. SMS conversations are that but also introduce fan service that, if I look popularity of Panam and Judy topics, has been requested but I think it's very difficult to make content like this and make it click with all the audience. Particularly one that also see Panam intellectually capable of assuming leadership of Aldecaldos which then may have important impact how player interprets the Star ending and close the book so to say.


2. I haven't found a way to get full preview of SMS messages V are going to sent. This wasn't an issue with previous content but on these conversations I have ended up selecting opposite option for what I thought my V would say.


3. These are very subjective things influenced by very individuality and cultural aspects and such. Yet compared to real life communications, some messages feel that their tone is bit off from target considering how Panam was established. I do appreciate creative work that can appreciate reality and I'm not sure if CPDR is hitting that mark here. I do wonder if process of creating this additional content has been fun or frustrating or both.

With regards to the messages. You need to go into the messages tab on your journal to see the full preview of the message you will send. I found this out on my current playthrough after a few tries lol.
 
With regards to the messages. You need to go into the messages tab on your journal to see the full preview of the message you will send. I found this out on my current playthrough after a few tries lol.
Informative!

@Willowhugger
While your goals to discuss about content, could you consider adding this information for your OP? Might make discussing about content a bit easier when people know how to access it.
 
Apartments are a miss for me as of currently, i can't change the decor, don't receive emails at any apart from the default one, cant change appearance in any apart from the default, cant move my pets in etc etc basically making them inferior and not worth it

Texts from your "partner" are a good and needed addition but they should've also added a option to invite them over, Mass Effect had a very simple icon to click to invite your partner upto your room in ME2, something similar would've been nice, being able to sleep at the aldecaldo camp would've been nice as well.

Upon starting a new game and getting to the point where Watson is open to me i felt....confused, typically i'd a got dropped of by Dexter then went on a clearing Watson spree ending up about lvl 15 an going to do the Heist, upon looking at the map i had not alot on show, main quests and gigs which all were high difficulty, took me abit of fiddling and the penny dropping to realise alot was unchecked and that i'd have to troll Assault in Progress to progress, turned into the most tedious start i've had in CP2077 tbh, i'll need to get used to it an work something out but initial thoughts on the actual start is it's way worse an hell lf a tedious, i got funny feeling i missed something though so im no 100% sold myself on it's bad just that it annoyed the fuck out me what i was doing.

Fixers progression nice i guess, trying to get the reward from a full stash ain't lol, i had to lift every item out my stash to figure out wtf i was giving an that was even more unnecessary tedium tbh, sorry i dont remember the name of every iconic/legendary/epic/rare item i keep :"p

Still no way to disassemble or stash Johnny's clothes -why?
 
After my playthrough with Nomad male V and the Star ending:


V and Panam

Text messages between V and Panam didn't ad to anything positive to my experience. At best they were something to be indifferent about, at worst they were restricting my view of my V or Panam.

The worst offender was SMS conversation covering corps, corpo's, Biotechnica deal. I don't know if that conversation is triggered by time passed in-game or V arriving to certain location, West side of City Center.

Options available for V in that conversation cover V's opinion about Takemura and Biotechnica deal. Available options for V in that conversation are awfully black and white (between this good or bad) which makes very little sense in settings, especially at that point of story where it's very clear that very few things can be judged by their face value.

Options make very little sense also as:
V may have done certain NCPD missions, some others that uncover that Biotechnica is quite messed up. There's also that at this point of game's lifecycle, there are lot of players whom have already played game and know about Biotechnica's nature and while there's probably audience for anything with product that has sold 15+ million, make believe play that player doesn't have that information is probably not going to fit in very well.

There's also that corpo, Takemura is one of the topics there and he's from different corporation and dialogue options available for V covering also him are awfully simple minded and naive in multiple levels to the point where they define V as V has no option available to express that V could be uncertain. Now expressing that would make V vulnerable and yeah... LOL

There are couple of more SMS conversations I remember. They trigger after V does certain things and concern Lizzy Wizzy, which conversation was fine IIRC. Then there's another that is again one about Kerry and US Cracks which again is either bad or hilarious or both. Curiously it's again something that isn't there in V's options to message.

I don't see anything but attempt to drive players ego with this content.

This is so awkward that it's actually hilarious. Here I'm some old guy far from the North, land of tribes that never were citizens of Rome, but if we lived in a reality where we could actually trust each others saying what we are, I would really love to hear how women who play male V / Panam path perceive this stuff. I mean from my point of view this is how to be a jerk simulation, choose between brand of a jerk: A or B. This has comedic value but I could lived without it.


Rest of the SMS stuff, I read them but I really didn't register them. There are messages from Blue Moon from US Cracks after "Every Breath You Take" and there's one detail I remember, I thought was ironic option but I'm not sure it really worked out like that.

This is sort of weird and a bit creepy kind of content for a game where we are supposed to view things through our character, V, but this aspect aims to stroke the ego of player, regardless of how we view our V.

I'm in for this ride, probably going to get story expansions. I'm sort of curious where they are going with Cyberpunk but if this is any indication for quality of future content, this is writing on the wall if I have ever seen any.
 
Out of all the Apartments, the Corpo and Glen ones are my preferred. Corpo even seems more sound insulated (as befitting it's designation) where you can barely hear the outside din. The Glen is surprisingly chic and intellectual - that little library perch is so inviting. It's too bad there isn't more to do inside to customize them, but for a character who's dying, the intent wasn't to pass away quietly in comfort.

There are some tweaks to some of the Gigs. I noticed one in detail, it actually changes some tactics used for Net running skills, but it seemed to be the only one.
 

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I don't want to complain about the new texts, because I'm grateful that CDPR didn't forget Kerry and River also exist and added something new for them too because when those Panam texts were first discovered a year ago, I thought there was 50/50 chance that Kerry and River won't get anything given how barebones their romances are.

That said, I assumed these new texts would be used as a way for V and the love interests to get to know each other a bit better, but I don't think I learned anything new about Kerry through these messages. They're nice, just ended up being used a bit differently than I thought they would be. Not necessarily a bad thing, of course.
 
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You have once again psoted one fine piece there Willowhugger. And as usual you create something for a good discussion.
This is a thread for discussing the changes to the Cyberpunk 2077 game from the 1.5 Patch and theoretically any further Patch-based content until we get some proper content. Some actual new content has been added to the game and this the thread for discussing it--or at least that's the plan.

From what I can tell, here's the biggest things added with story effects:

1. The new apartments, which I'll get to.

2. More texts between you and your romance partner, which helps deepen the relationship and make it not so bare bones.

3. The fact you can wake up next to your partner in bed, which is a small deal but emergent storytelling.

4. The Fixer relationships have been fundamentally changed.

5. Immersion additions like playing guitar, making coffee, taking shower buffs, and sleeping buffs.

All of these things are definitely for the better and I think actually improve the quality of the main story significantly even if they're "subtle" changes.

1. The New Apartments: I mentioned this in the Ludonarrative Dissonance thread but the fact is that the new apartments and apartment customization now provide a visual sign of your rise to power. If you want your V to be motivated by wealth and materialism to explain why they're going outside to bust heads every night in the side content, you could worse than a home. Even if you've got a month to live, it doesn't sound INSANE to want to buy yourself a place to spend your last few weeks that's beautiful. There's a reason houses have been traditionally seen as symbolic signs of having "made it." You can get a penthouse mansion in the finale of some endings but you can't really enjoy it.

So, props CDPR.
I aso like the apartments each one has somethin very unique for it. The one thing CDPR didn't just yet do, which I think could be awesome is make a specific apartment have an effect on your character depending on the lifepath you start with.
For example, the Corpo-styled apartment in Corp-plaza (or citycenter) would really make an old corp-V feel right at home and back to what she knew. But alright, I'm known to want to go just that oe step further.
All in all, the new apartments are cool and its sweet to go there as an exchange from the usual.
2 and 3. Romance Texts and Waking up in Bed: We've got multiple threads about how the romances felt incomplete and rushed. The texts add the sense of a slower progression and the fact that you're keeping in touch with them inbetween missions. You also have, by waking up next to them, a sense that this is something happening beyond one or two nights. Canonically, V only knows their partner for a few weeks at most but that's a different thing than knowing them a couple of days or however you think the game COULD progress.

I really liked Panam talking about the "Peter Pan" case too.
I haven't yet unlocked any of this with my playthrough. so I cant comment, but the promise of getting more than we had, can't be a bad thing now can it.
4. Fixer Texts: The change to how your relationship with the Fixers progresses now actually fundamentally changes how the relationship with organized crime in Night City "feels." Before, you basically go into an area and people call you to go murder someone and you do a bunch of these then are done. Now, you have a reputation with each Fixer and they're slowly trusting you with bigger and bigger deals. This was already the case with Rogue and now it feels like all of them are gradually coming to like V. Except Mr. Hands. Now we have something unique about him in the fact Mr. Hands doesn't think shit about you.

There's actually a lot of writing on them at the end of the game in your journal too. One of the more fascinating things I liked was the fact that V actually despises Padre. It's interesting to note that (s)he's disgusted with the man's self-righteousness and hypocrisy by the end. They're also of the mind that Regina Jones is wasting her time trying to fix Watson but is glad they at least made the attempt.
Yes. and I also like how the fixers give you something, along with a message on having made their turf somewhat more safe (or not really)
I especially like the green Quadra Type 66 that you get from Dino. It may be between my ears, but I have the idea its a bit faster on the go. And the Quadra's are damn stunning vehicles.
So yeah, this change also is ne good one.
5. Immersion activities: The buffs in particular encourage you to come back to your apartment and DO things like shower, drink coffee, and sleep. That encourages, again, a sense of time passing and your apartments being important to you.
I guess it was a matter of waiting until something was done with those things. But the fact you actually DO get a buff from those activites now is nice!
 
Sure thing! After 1.2 patch came out, people found Panam's text messages in the game files.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/mkjv61
https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/mo5lta
Thanks!

I had hopes that some of these were drafts left in game game files from earlier stages of development, but as these were introduced in 1.2 and there's even more in 1.5, this is how they decided to go.

Good that you made these available like this as this allows people who don't go male V and Panam route. There's more, but this is enough to demonstrate something.

Let's take second post to Low Sodium Cyberpunk from your links, romance path content where Panam ask V's opinion what do with Jax.

So our V can be from any background, StreetKid or Corpo and even with Nomad background, he was from different clan. He has some done some work with Panam and the Aldecaldos, but he doesn't have a jacket yet, he can become part of Aldecaldos but he ain't there when this conversation happens, so he is still, more or less, outsider. In messages Panam also writes how V has never even met Jax.

Then there's how our V may perceive Panam as his companion but also her current and possible future role in the clan.

So our V doesn't ask like, if Panam is possibly just looking to converse to just to share her thoughts to help her to come to her own decision. Options are just directly give her solution A or B. There's nothing like "I see, that's NOT good. So what's take about him, is he learning type?" or "Damn, good you are okay though. What's your take about it, what clan is thinking?" (consequences).

We doesn't gauge Panam's needs, what kind of support she needs neither on emotional nor intellectual level, nor her position in clan. He just goes for decision because he suddenly is universal expert how Aldecaidos should work it out. He's not supporting Panam as leader, but instead hijacking that role.

There's also how Panam express herself then, "... now I know..." "... you are my voice of reason... " Who talks like that really?


It's so fucked up. Panam asks for support, ends up supporting V's or rather players ego LOL.

It's even more hilarious considering we are kind of jerk population of Northern Europe. Estonians even have a word, it's Moose meaning bit like Elephant in porcelain shop for drunken Finns, but even here, being a jerk like that puts person in a bottom of social ladder very fast.

I don't know, it's their character, maybe they envisioned her like that from the beginning but things like this, sometimes less is more as they leave player room to make their own interpretation. Now I have this how to behave like an incel and be rewarded for it simulation in my game. Comedy gold, but could have lived without it.
 
Honestly, I received none of "new" Judy's messages in my previous playthrough in 1.5 (it's a mistake to keep Pyramid song and all other LI quests as the very last quests/things to do in the game before endings...).
So in my current playthrough, I received "some" from Judy and I won't gonna lie, I'm rather pleased. It's "fresh" and not too "serious". Happy each time I received one :)
 
Honestly, I received none of "new" Judy's messages in my previous playthrough in 1.5 (it's a mistake to keep Pyramid song and all other LI quests as the very last quests/things to do in the game before endings...).
So in my current playthrough, I received "some" from Judy and I won't gonna lie, I'm rather pleased. It's "fresh" and not too "serious". Happy each time I received one :)
Good for you as I got this:

Make decision over better informed person without any skin in the game and leave your companion to face the consequences if something goes wrong.

Because that's what you do, when you are in a relationship.

:ROFLMAO:
 
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