This is a barebones RPG. Someone had to say it.

[PrincessAmanda]

Someone mentioned clothing.I have to say it's quite shocking how little options we have in therms of how do we look.
We can't even find or buy 10% of clothing that can be seen on NPC's.

 

[FLyingMonkeyPaints]

I would not say that the OP is wrong on any of his (her?) points.

I was hoping for something deep, even if flawed, like Skyrim. Individual NPCs in Skyrim have basic schedules and routines, they sleep at night, tend their shops during the day, and you can see them moving between the two if you catch them at the right time.

My biggest disappointment so far is the lack of faction affiliation that we were told would exist. V can never really gain favor (or disfavor) with the factions. I saved Royce's life in a huge shootout with Militech, but the Maelstrom gangers still try to kill me if I linger too near them on the street. How cool (and fairly easy to implement) it would be if instead when you walked by the Maelstrom gangers they said some thing like "Hey man, I heard what you did for Royce....you're all right".

Likewise I have raided and destroyed several Tyger Claws locations; it would be cool if their awareness of me expanded a bit, so whenever I'm in their territory I'd have to sneak around a lot and watch where I walk to avoid confrontations.

And the Police/Wanted system *is* a joke. Kill a civilian in a back alley, and instantly police officers and drones materialize and start hammering you until you run away or are killed. This is Night City, FFS...do the cops even care? Most of them are on the take anyway...unless it happens where they can see it, you should pretty much just get away with it. Even if they do see you, half the time they should just stop you and ask for a bribe to "make it go away". Maybe several game hours later you should get a visit from a detective saying "we're investigating [NPC name]'s death, we heard you might know something", leading to another cycle of fast talking or bribes to get out of it. Ongoing rewards and consequences are what makes an RPG game great.

I understand this is a VERY ambitious game, and there's no way to put everything in the game in a reasonable time frame. If CDPR can't commit resources to fixing all the gameplay shortcomings (not talking bugs here, but play) in future patches, then they really should release a modding toolkit for this game. Crowdsource it, and let the user community whoe loves Night City make it all it can be. Hell, I'd learn modding just to be able to mess with this game, it has *so* much potential.

Maybe CDPR will handle all this and fix these issues in future patches and make us all happy. But if not, the user mod community can do it if we have the tools and CDPR will get out of the way. In the end it might just be that CP2077 is the best sandbox and ends up being the best game in the world with insane depth, once mod support comes into it.

 

[vespa35]

No, it isn't. After decades of playing CRPGs and despite all of the issues associated with it's present state, overall, (in part, secondary to technological advances) this is the most immersive RPG I've experienced. It does things, and those things in ways, I've never seen before.

 

[Gillian_Seed]

Someone mentioned clothing.I have to say it's quite shocking how little options we have in therms of how do we look.
We can't even find or buy 10% of clothing that can be seen on NPC's.

Sadly how we look is basically rendered meaningless in a world where "how you look matters" but I will say that for what is there in terms of the clothing, I personally like it quite a bit in terms of the fashion and quality of the art design etc. Unfortunely that only makes it that much more painful seeing as they chose to make V's appearance a complete non-factor. Further more since they decided to tie stats to clothes, "my" V looks like a clown but then again it's not like I ever really notice. At this point I'm not even sure why they bothered with a character creator.

It's an RPG they said. How you look matters they said. Create your own V they said.

 

[FLyingMonkeyPaints]

There's tons of games where the art guys deliver big time, hell basically all of them trust me. They are beyond being professional and talented. The problem of this game isn't the effort in such departments, or the quality of things visually, or the audio (well besides some incostintency between the audio volume during some dialogues, the quality is still good) but more what it was designed to do. The missing features and so on, the lack of obvious QoL and the general direction of the game and how it was presented to us prior purchase.
This is the problem. It's a mediocre game, with so much talent in visuals and audio it's beyond understanding.
Well and yes at a technical level bugs, but that's understandable and even if there's many, they didn't really impact my experience to the point of all the rest that's missing and/or poorly implemented.
Art, visuals, audio, modelling, characters = 10
Game = 5
And I struggle to understand why is that.

I think it comes down to resource allocation, in the form of time and money. CDPR allocated a ton of those resources to visuals, talent (Keanu, a million languages, days of audio captures of vehicle audio, etc), and didn't have the capital left in the project for the gameplay. If they had gotten a talented but little-known voice actor for Johnny, how many more talented programmers and project planners would the cost difference buy? The game cost $300M by reports. That is a lot of money, but not an infinite amount. The larger a project is the more tightly it has to be properly managed to produce good results.

 

[bommis3]

Now as someone who only based my expectations off things that were shown in the gameplay trailers as actual possible gameplay options/possibilities, the game is fine. I have around 50 hours. This post is NOT about the technical/performance issues. that deserves its own thread and there is plenty of them.
But Lets face it, this is not the RPG a lot of us hoped for. it appears that a lot has been removed and the world interactivity and AI just feels bland.
I have been somewhat a fanboy over the last few months and had very strong faith in CDPR, but I'm certainly not a blind follower... This game has let me and a lot of others down in the RPG side of things. They either got overwhelmed with their original plan and scrapped elements to make the date, or its due to them settling for a more cinematic experience halfway through and went with the "Action/Adventure" tag that it is now touted as.

Feel free to add anything else that I've missed or that other games (some over a decade old) have done or done better.
I don't believe these are ridiculous requests or expectations for and RPG

• Character creation = Huge let down. don't deny it. and this isn't even me having huge expectations. Basic RPGs have had greater variety. No body sliders even JUST for things like making your character thinner, fatter or more jacked? I mean c'mon. Even GTA SA let you get jacked. it seems like they really focused on trivial things to build hype(looking at you genital customisation), rather than meaningful stuff that really lets you make your character an individual and like yourself.
• Getting new Cyberware is Severely underwhelming. Changing out bodyparts and literally giving up parts of your humanity and body is like swapping out a mod on a gun. *click* and thats it, only cutscenes we got were for the Palm and eye upgrades which were part of the story. Cmon, not even a small cut scene that then fades to black?
• No Barber? No Tattoo parlour? Give me a break. No change to your character after leaving the character creation is a joke. for a game that is all about creating your own merc and body modding being so prevalent in NC, it does not feel that way.
• No colour modding of your clothing. Found a cool Trench coat? No worries! but you've gotta have it in Fluro pink!!!
• No Finishers in combat??? we really immersive things like the ground cracking when you fall from height (really cool too) but cant add finishers to combat? only ones I've seen is 2 with a Katana and that is it. Skyrim, The Chronicles of Riddick (Old AF now) even The Witcher 3 had combat finishers with Weapons and hand to hand combat. especially with Melee and hand to hand combat being such a big thing, you'd think they'd have added this
• Where are the mini-games? Wheres the BD's? its a story continuation tool and thats it. i mean what happened to going into a bar and doing some cool mini activities those kinds of places?
• Where is the Adult content? there are barely any options for Joy toys (abysmal tb), no drugs? i dont need this stuff but the option is nice and adds to the atmosphere.
• The absolute lack of romance options, it seems they went for quality over quantity perhaps but cmon, Dragon Age, Mass effect etc had more. truly disappointing
• You cant interact with people aside from the Vendors, you cant even sit down at a chair and take in the world? NOTHING is interactive.
• Key Bindings are a disgrace. I'm sure most of you already know this. how many times have you ruined stealth because of that dodge mechanic?
• Dynamic world my a**. Mass numbers of NPC’s doesn’t make your world alive. Having them do unique things and responding to the world accordingly does. No ambulance for the injured, no fire trucks for fires, Police... don’t even get me started on the disgrace that is the Police AI.
  They specifically stated in the 48 minute deep dive there would be a silly amount (cant remember the number but was close to 1000) of Hand crafted daily routines for these NPC's. There is not.
• No police chases? Police Spawning out of thin air? Maxtac spawn out of thin air with No AV's like the teaser? again dont get me started on the Police system, my god how embarrassing.
• NPC’s in general just don’t react to you accordingly Depending on what you do. shoot in an Open area? no worries! everyone crouch!. It really does seem like CDPR really settled on having quantity of NPC’s over quality. I’d turn down the NPC crowd density in an instant if it meant greater variety and enabled better AI for more a more “alive” city.
• Police rarely say thank you for intervening and SAVING their lives in gang shootings.
• No karma/good & bad system, meaning a lot of choices mean Jack all especially when it comes to the way NPC's react to you i mean even Fallout characters reacted to you accordingly if you were a bad guy. Your characters “character” is borderline predetermined
• The clothing system is broken. Cowboy hates, Short denim shorts and Corset's end up being your best armour, while an Arasaka bullet proof vest is useless. Really takes you out of the world.
  Yes I know you can upgrade clothing to keep the stuff you want to be the best, but some Transmog would be nice
• Gear has no levels? I'm sorry but have i missed something? unless you are under the required level you cant see what level the gear actually is and its super annoying. it would be nice to be able to just take a glance at something and see if its a lower level and Bam scrapped.
• Cant pick up thrown knives.... god man..

As I said, I have around 50 hours now and enjoy it. But if I were expecting it to be the RPG and "Truly special game" that CDPR claimed they had... boy am I disappointed. It seems they got caught up in their own hype and thought "omg the public is going insane over rumoured Genital customisation put that in put that in!" but forgot that you still need the basics. I'm sorry but this game doesn't really do anything new.

There are a lot more immersion breaking and disappointing mechanics I just cant be bothered to list but honestly the game truly does seem half baked and unfinished. It reeks of placeholders and things that have been cut last minute to make the game playable for release. Somewhere along the lines things changed from RPG to "Action/Adventure" and it was seriously streamlined. And don't be fooled, this has hurt it badly. Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim and Mass effect remain untouched as immersive RPG's at this stage in MY OPINION.
Cheers

Although I basically agree to some points you mention, I feel that they are quite minor. CP2077 has a great setting and the city is amazing. I love the cyberware and hacking options. However, the biggest problems for me are gameplay related:

- Clothing system is strange, because armor stats are assigned
- The AI behaves stupid. I can shoot a rocket launcher at one enemy and the one next to him does not realize. Additionally, the cannot react well to hacking attacks.

Nevertheless, I am addicted and played for 30 hours now. I am impressed by the work the developers did and would like to see extensions in the future.

 

[CermanPunk]

While I agree with many of what was said here, I still think Cyperpunk 2077 still offers a lot in the RPG department besides its shortcomings. I would like to add a more positive take here.

What helps me for my RP experiences is the sandbox level design for most quests. I personally am okay with having a predefined character and am happy that I can shape V more than I could Gerald, accepting that I can only shape him within the bounds of his personality.

But that is RPing for me as well. It reminds me of acting which I do quite a lot in a semi-professional way. I have to stick to certain limits of the role and the authors behind it but can use whatever is given to me and also adjust my interpretation of the material. And so far I like both the choices dialogue offers and, as said before, the sandbox mission design.

Personally I decided my V wants to spare as many people as possible and sees himself more like a master thief kind of guy when he does jobs. I was surprised how few people I actually had to kill so far. Life as a master thief works quite well in Night City

That is something that RDR2 despite its great story and world really made it hard for me to fully embrace it: the total dissonance between behavior in the open world on the one side and the story (and reaction of major characters) on the other.

That does not mean that I would not love to have the more shallow feedback and reaction systems of RDR2 in CP as well. They would help with immersion. But if I had to chose, I would chose CP's offering. The simple fact that money means something in CP over RDR2 despite both dealing with a short-of-money protagonist (as far as the story claims) also helps me justifying all the side activities more than in RDR2 where you can do great stuff... but they are disconnected from what happens in all the other systems.

Another game often mentioned here is Skyrim. Yes I would love to have the endless content that game had, although I am not quite sure whether I would agree that RP worked that much better there. The sandbox was bigger there but it's ingredients also did not really interact. If I had to chose between Skyrim's many quests and tools and CP's well-scripted, written and told quests, I have a harder time choosing compared to the question above. It would depend on my mood... but tend more towards CP most days, I guess. Although, as I realized how deep into the story "Ghost Town" already is I am starting to feel afraid that it will simply be all too short for me in the end. I wonder whether CP simply does not offer enough (time-wise) to rally sink into the world.

I guess many had hoped that CP would be the first game that actually brought all of that together. That we would not have to chose anymore. And yes, there was a part of me that had hoped that as well.

Yet, as I am mainly spared the atrocious technical issues, CP offers me a lot to play my version of this character with in a sandbox that offers both great world-building, stories and a great background for suspension of disbelief and "storytelling in your head" that are the essential ingredients for RPing IMHO. It rivals games such as TW3, Skyrim or RDR2 there, IMHO. But it surely does not reinvent anything or surpass them. It adjusts ingredients differently. And so far in a mostly very good way. I do have the feeling that CDPR wanted a little bit more than that... and so did the fanbase. So I also do understand where the disappointment is coming from.

 

[Gorance]

Well you missed a lot of things but yes, your vision was good those 50 hrs... I agree. Loved the 80 hrs but this is not an rpg.. no real choice to be honest and i think they cut a shit ton of content of the game. And i know they were under pressure but part of me thinks that content was saved for the multiplayer and i hate that... I would like to believe that they cut the content so they can make end of 2020 release but when im in the world its weird. Like you said you cant get drunk.. cant sit and drink only if its part of a mission.. Why?... No barber or a tattoo artists..Dont get me started on that whole ripperdock scenes and chaning part of the body and the cut content of overpowered mantis blades but no... they cut the gorilla arms because they closed a lot of doors and u cant hack with the moonwire ...its just unfinished for me.
[/QUOTE]

 

[reaper1]

I understand this is a VERY ambitious game, and there's no way to put everything in the game in a reasonable time frame.

To be fair, it seems CDPR agreed and so decided to put nothing in the game outside of the set dressing and scripted sections.

 

[NevaEilhart]

Now this is getting midly irritating. I don't get why people still confuse RPG mechanics with gameplay mechanics.

Gameplay mechanics might have been cut down. The world lacks interactivity in some ways, sure. Nothing that can't be improved over patches.

RPG mechanics are hard coded in the game though. You have equipment, stats, abilities, choices, you can do things in whatever order you want, you have dialog options, and in a far more interactive way than what the Witcher 3 did. Your dialog options adjust to the context and your previous choices.

Honestly I'm really starting to wonder if any of the players complaining that there are no choices in the game actually played it. I guess they're just following the trend of bashing a thing just because their favorite streamer/youtuber made a clickbait video with a full caps title saying something about how broken the game is just to make easy clicks.

Just because you can't roam in the city to do some s**t because you find it "fun" doesn't mean it isn't a RPG at its core. It is. Actually it is so much it plays just as the tabletop version of it. Even gigs and NCPD jobs have some nice connection and story going. You just have to pay attention, read what you find, soak in the lore, and take your time.

I guess that's too much to ask for 2020 players.

 

[Guest 4406876]

Now this is getting midly irritating. I don't get why people still confuse RPG mechanics with gameplay mechanics.

Gameplay mechanics might have been cut down. The world lacks interactivity in some ways, sure. Nothing that can't be improved over patches.

RPG mechanics are hard coded in the game though. You have equipment, stats, abilities, choices, you can do things in whatever order you want, you have dialog options, and in a far more interactive way than what the Witcher 3 did. Your dialog options adjust to the context and your previous choices.

Honestly I'm really starting to wonder if any of the players complaining that there are no choices in the game actually played it. I guess they're just following the trend of bashing a thing just because their favorite streamer/youtuber made a clickbait video with a full caps title saying something about how broken the game is just to make easy clicks.

Just because you can't roam in the city to do some s**t because you find it "fun" doesn't mean it isn't a RPG at its core. It is. Even gigs and NCPD jobs have some nice connection and story going. You just have to pay attention, read what you find, soak in the lore, and take your time.

I guess that's too much to ask for 2020 players.

I finished 2 times, it's garbage. The only positive it has (besides graphics) is shooting feedback and the fact that enemies reacts to impacts that was my FIRST AND FOREMOST concern, turn out it's its strenght. The game is fucking empty, it's the same game over and over, and has 0 rpg elements that really matter or reasons to be played again without getting bored to death, or give you some freshness. It's a very very very mediocre open world game, that looks very very very good, but has no soul. It's a movie, a movie that's too long. It has devastatingly ugly decisions on pacing, character knowledge and player knowloedge is completely disconnected....it's...
it's a disater of a game.
This game also have NO gameplay mechanics besides 3 ways of entering a room, or killing atrocious AI that in the best scenario are stuck looking to a wall..
You're very brave to call it as with RPG mechanics in its core. Very very brave.

 

[NevaEilhart]

I finished 2 times, it's garbage. The only positive it has (besides graphics) is shooting feedback and the fact that enemies reacts to impacts that was my FIRST AND FOREMOST concern, turn out it's its strenght. The game is fucking empty, it's the same game over and over, and has 0 rpg elements or reasons to be played again without getting bored to death, or give you some freshness. It's a very very very mediocre open world game, that looks very very very good, but has no soul. It's a movie, a movie that's too long.

I probably don't have the same game installed on my drive then. Because my game has already been different between my first playthrough and the second I've just started. I had choices I didn't have on my first time, and the missions played differently. Odd right ?
I guess that might be a "bug" on my end...

 

[Guest 4406876]

I probably don't have the same game installed on my drive then. Because my game has already been different between my first playthrough and the second I've just started. I had choices I didn't have on my first time, and the missions played differently. Odd right ?
I guess that might be a "bug" on my end...

Yes it's definitively a different game.
Btw everyone is saying it.
Besides 2 non relevant differences in quests that make you go the same route despite picking different approaches or outcomes, the way the mission or quest play out is , in the end , the same. Yes there's different endings....different..I don't wanna talk about that , don't wanna spoiler anything. Or..yes you can either pick a path to see a "CUTSCENE" as reward , but in the end you get the same outcome and same reward no matter who you pissed of.

 

[Shadowcove]

It's puzzling to me how the game is so addictive, but so bland. It reminds me of an Assassin's Creed game more than a RPG. I think most of my enjoyment just comes from taking in the visuals, the story interactions, and the pseudo locational dmg results at the end of battle. Feels like the game could be so much more though.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

It's puzzling to me how the game is so addictive, but so bland.

This point of view I can well understand. There is a somewhat entertaining game under there somewhere and it raises its head every once in a while, just conveniently enough that it might keep the player going on even if it all feels so bland and uninspiring in general.

It's too bad, really. As with more polish and with certain design aspects (quite a number actually) done a bit differently, this game could really be something.

 

[Grindders]

you have dialog options, and in a far more interactive way than what the Witcher 3 did.

That's just not true. Let me quote myself:

As far as I know, there is only 1 mission in the game's story where choices and consequences play a big role. And that's The Pickup where V buys a spider bot.
In all the other story missions, the developers barely even try to create the illusion of choice: most of the dialogue contains only one answer choice and could easily have been replaced by cutscenes.

Now let's compare this to The Witcher 3, which has twice as long storyline. Almost every story quest has choices and consequences. Meeting the Baron's men and dialogue with them leads to different ways to meet the Baron himself. Next you go to The Pellar and can solve the conflict by peace or battle, next you meet Botchling and your decision leads to two different story quests.

I really don't understand why CD Projekt Red cut almost all the choices and consequences from the Cyberpunk 2077 storyline.

 

[LordSebanor]

Maybe CDPR could ask Rockstar Games how to implement the real feel of "street life" into CP. They did a very good job in the past..

 

[Metropolice]

Maybe CDPR could ask Rockstar Games how to implement the real feel of "street life" into CP. They did a very good job in the past..

To be fair, they got some experience there.

This here is a new one for CDPR in terms of modern-ish (futuristic, even) city life simulation and mechanics. My personal optimistic aspect is that it'll likely severely improve in the next game (or in this one over time).

 

[emcee009]

Personally, I didn't expect it to be an RPG. It didn't look like it would be in the previews or trailers, so I didn't get the impression that it was. Not particularly disappointed by that, though I do understand what you mean. It's not exactly clear what they wanted this game to be. The genitalia, for example - why is that even a thing in the character creator when they choose to omit it in sex scenes (the part of the game you'd EXPECT to see it most)? You're either going there, or you're not. If it's half way, then it just looks like a gimmick.

Also, the game lacks minor features that would have gone a long way with adding to open-world immersion. I think my main gripe with this aspect is when I walk up to people out in the street and click the option to "talk" - every NPC seems to have a curt, dismissive, meaningless response and they don't even bother to look at me when they respond!

I mean, I can see if it only stayed that way at the start of the game, but my street cred has gotten fairly high and people are still treating me like a nobody? I was surprised by how simplistic random interactions on the street felt, as older games did a much better job with this.

 

[JoshShaw]

Using this thread to push my somewhat related agenda a bit. Make all the romances playersexual, giving EVERYONE at least two options. River and Panam already have voiced same-sex romances (but you have to have opposite body type to access them, why?) so just patch them to ignore body type. thus making them bi, get V's voice actors in to do a few lines for straight Judy and Kerry and boom, everyone has more roleplay options. The gays are happier, the straights are happier, the game is a better RPG.

And as for character creation, blend the options for both sexes so all noses/mouths/hairstyles are available to each sex. Why this wasn't the case in the first place is beyond me. Mass Effect: Andromeda ended patching their CC in a similar way.