Suggestion: The next evolution of BD

[LoWhilll]

[I hope this will reach the developer team. I know you have had hundreds of suggestions like this one before, but please read my 'Why' and 'How']

Hi!

After buying Phantom Liberty ("PL"), I decided to start a new playthrough of the game. I now have 110+ hrs in my second playthrough, 200 hours altogether. And I have to say: It's been a real pleasure. I am really satisfied with the game. It's even better than I expected it to be after all the updates and the new DLC content. Thank you for this!

My suggestion (end game):
A new vendor in Dogtown that allows players to "restart" quests (please read my reasoning):

Why:
My goal for my second playthrough was to achieve everything. About 50 hours of playtime ago, I did a mistake in a quest. Upon realizing my mistake several days later, I almost quit my second playthrough in pure frustration.
(I didn't know the Judy quest line would stop, completely, because of the choices I made with Maiko. I thought she would message me again later, but instead, I received a text many days later that she deleted me as a contact. And now I will have to lose everything I have done the past 60 hours to correct my wrong. No way am I doing that.

This is a 'feeling' you really should avoid giving your players, as such level of disappointment is enough for poeple to not recommend the game to friends and family.

Hence I have a suggestion I hope you can consider. I have given this much, much thought, and I think my suggestion is without any risk of the "butterfly effect" and therefore relatively easy to implement.

How:
Requirements to unlock: Phantom Liberty DLC + All side quests completed + "NOCTURNE OP55N1" active.
- This way, only the choices in the ending will be affected by the player's "new" choices, since everything else that could be affected by restarting quests are already completed. And clearly, only people who seek this possibility will google this. If they find out that they can correct their wrongs if they continue playing, then they will become more motivated to explore everything and complete the rest of the game, instead of simply giving up - as I did in my first playthrough.

Once the requirements are filled, V will receive an text message with this ad:
"Ever wondered 'what if?' Introducing MEMORY DIVE – the next evolution of BD! Revisit life's crossroads, relive pivotal moments and explore alternate outcomes. See the other side of the choices you've made. Change your perspective, change your life. Come visit us at Petrochem Stadium and experience your untaken paths today!"

This SMS unlocks a new NPC that allows players can interact with, to simply restart a quest line:

• Interacting with the vendor will give the player a menu. The player is given a list of names of the person the quest is about. i.e. "Judy", "Panam", "River Ward", "Rouge", etc.
• Selecting a name will give the user a filtered list of quests connected to that character.
• Selecting a quest will prompt a warning: "Please note that restarting this quest will also reset the following quests *Quest B*, *Quest C*, (etc.) (etc.).
  Are you sure you want to start this quest over again?"

I hope hope you can consider this!

Best regards,
LoWhill

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Nope, I'm fine with choices and consequences that players have to live with. It's a thing in RPGs in general, and something that many pointed out Cyberpunk is lacking of.

 

[LoWhilll]

Nope, I'm fine with choices and consequences that players have to live with. It's a thing in RPGs in general, and something that many pointed out Cyberpunk is lacking of.

Would it be a problem for you, though? Could you just... not use the feature?

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Would it be a problem for you, though? Could you just... not use the feature?

Not really, but even if it's optional, it's no longer "choices and consequences that players have to live with". Like I said, it's generally a common thing in RPGs, a domain that Cyberpunk lacking a bit (i.e you can't do/experiment everything in a single playthrough).
In Cyberpunk, you are already able to do almost everything in the game no matter your choices and build. Many "complained" that choices in Cyberpunk didn't really matter. So if the game offer an option to replay and change every possible choices in the game, it matter even less.

A bit like respec... How many asked for "unlimited" respec... So in the same way, you have one respec if your build is completely wrong, but once you used it, you have to live with your build.

On side note, just my opinion, BDs are like movies, you have no control of the events you're watching. So it make no sense to me being able to "replay" a quest using a BD.

 

[LoWhilll]

In Cyberpunk, you are already able to do almost everything in the game no matter your choices and build. Many "complained" that choices in Cyberpunk didn't really matter. So if the game offer an option to replay and change every possible choices in the game, it matter even less.

I see your point. I would however really want to experience the different paths a conversation can go, too. Like, what happens if I choose the humble reply versus the aggressive reply? I really want to experience this, but not enough that I'm willing to reload from a previous save every time I speak with someone. And it's just not the same watching the different scenarios on YouTube either...

A bit like respec... How many asked for "unlimited" respec... So in the same way, you have one respec if your build is completely wrong, but once you used it, you have to live with your build.

Funny thing you mentioned this: I was not aware that I could respec only once. So, after 100hrs playtime, I wanted to try a full katana/throwing knife build. Because I could do this once, I thought it was unlimited and ended up with getting stuck with this build.

On side note, just my opinion, BDs are like movies, you have no control of the events you're watching. So it make no sense to me being able to "replay" a quest using a BD.

I agree! That's why I suggested this:

Once the requirements are filled, V will receive an text message with this ad:
"Ever wondered 'what if?' Introducing MEMORY DIVE – the next evolution of BD! Revisit life's crossroads, relive pivotal moments and explore alternate outcomes. See the other side of the choices you've made. Change your perspective, change your life. Come visit us at Petrochem Stadium and experience your untaken paths today!"

As you say: BDs are recordings of someone's memories. The idea with "Memory Dive" (or some other name) is that the user dive into their own brain - their own memories. The vendor isn't selling something pre-made, but a service. One way to explain this (in short), could be that "MD" is BD-tech combined with AI that creates possible outcomes for the user that are based on the user's memories. Kind of like a dream.

EDIT: I'm not super sure about this, but my interpretation is that BDs are not 100% "locked", but somewhat open for user input. For example watching a XBD of a lap dance, then I thought the user would be able to decide what they do with their hands?


The creators have spent so much time and effort into creating so many different scenarios, and I just find it so sad that they made it hard for players like me to experience everything. That's why I suggest this optional possibility.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I see your point. I would however really want to experience the different paths a conversation can go, too. Like, what happens if I choose the humble reply versus the aggressive reply?

Well, do another playthrough, maybe with another gender, another life path, another build, other choices,...

The creators have spent so much time and effort into creating so many different scenarios, and I just find it so sad that they made it hard for players like me to experience everything. That's why I suggest this optional possibility.

Common things in RPGs
Just an example, how many times you are able to replay BG3 (recent and highly praised RPG) and experience totally different playthroughs with various outcomes, consequences, branchings, rewards depending of the race you picked up, your choices, your build, your skills, even companions who are in your team...

That's the point of "role playing". You pick up a "role" and well, depending of the role you choose, you will get an experience that other "role" won't. If you ask me, the more different it is, the better

 

[GrimReaper801]

I agree with @LeKill3rFou.

I know that in this day and age a lot of people don't want to be forced to live with the choices they make in video games but I remember a time when even respeccing was not possible. If you ended up with a shitty build it meant you either started over or made the best of it while trying to optimize as much as possible. You didn't get a second chance. Or a third. Or a fourth. That's not to say I don't appreciate respecs, I do, but I feel like once is enough.

Offering the capability to just change history because you didn't like the outcome takes all the weight away from a choice. If you don't like the outcome, just change it! What's the point of having choices at all if you can just change it? Every choice you make is now essentially meaningless.

It also takes away from replayability in my opinion. You won't agree with me on that but I'm not one to give up on a game because I found out I made a terrible choice hours down the road. Quite the opposite in fact, it makes me want to replay to get the outcome I want. CDPR designed the game this way because they want you to start a new game and experience other avenues.

I'm going through a playthrough of BG3 on honour mode right now. Every choice, every mistake, every shitty roll is permanent. Can't even reload to a previous save. I'll have multiple playthroughs on honour mode, something that wouldn't happen if I could see everything in one playthrough. To me, that's the very essence of an RPG - choice and consequences. Sometimes these consequences are not what you expected or wanted but you have to live with them.

And, sure, the easy answer to all this is simply "don't use the feature then" and you're right on that. It's really that simple, don't use the feature. Thing is, what you're asking for is not that simple to do when you have branching paths that feed into each other in various ways and levels. Designing narratives so that one can be changed without destroying other narrative arcs' congruity and coherence means unavoidably making them simpler. That would affect everyone's experience and I don't want a simpler experience, I want the opposite. I want more choices, more branching arcs that feed into other branching arcs and so on.