Was the first person view an attempt at cutting corners?

[Kyron_Lee]

Saw this post on Reddit earlier today https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/ks8abm
Can't test it myself as i have uninstalled the game until they patch it and release all the paid DLC's in a bundle, but apparently the animation during carrying an enemy body is pretty disturbing.

I think this is proof that the first person view was an attempt at cutting corners. When you look at your character through first person, you don't notice as many animations/little quirks/details as in 3rd person or isometric. With first person, you are free to block the player's view from what they aren't supposed to see (characters disappearing as soon as they are off screen, characters appearing out of nowhere when they are entering the screen, locations and objects not rendering when you are supposed not to see them, etc.). in other words, doing everything they can to avoid spending additional work making animations and creating locations.

In this particular example, if such an animation was seen within a third person view game, it would be immediately ridiculed. But in first person? Most people won't pay attention until someone points it out.

I mean, they claimed they made 3rd person view for immersion, but somehow Rockstar made both first and third person view in a more immersive game (Red Dead Redemption 2) so that's no excuse.


EDIT: Sorry in the last paragraph i meant FIRST person view

You don't really understand how games are made.. GTA is far less code than Cyberpunk off screen.

Did you know that when you turn your view away from an ncp, they do disappear, and in most games do..

If someone knows a game title that's leaves assets fully rendered at all times ingame regardless of player view please place it..

This OP is like a massive misunderstanding of game design and bases topic points off this misunderstanding..

Sorry yo.. Its sorta doesn't work the way you imply or perceive

 

[TouPoutsou]

I don't agree with people saying that Skyrim or GTA did both perspectives good because it's simply not true. In order for combat gameplay (primarily) to be top notch, the perspective should be optimized accordingly.

TPP is vastly superior for melee combat. You can have better dodge and several flashy animations and movesets that are impossible to pull off on FPP (imagine whirl on FPP). That's why the games with the best melee combat are always using TPP (think Dark Souls or any From software game, Nioh, God of War etc.)

On the opposite side, shooting is vastly superior on FPP. You can never have the precision you have with FPP on TPP, where the camera is up above your head on a diagonal angle. That's why the best shooters use FPP.

GTA has terrible combat gameplay anyway for me to comment on it further. Skyrim was clearly optimized for FPP and thus it's melee combat sucks big time. However on exploration both perspectives work perfectly and require zero optimization.

Personally i prefer exploring on TPP (and combat), simply because i can see better the surrounding enviroment. Our eyes have excellent peripheral vision. On FPP on games we don't. Several times on CP i got hit by a car looking ahead because peripheral vision is non existent. Believe it or not TPP reflects more on what you can actually see with your own eyes compared to TPP.

In a perfect world, for me a game that has both shooting and melee combat would change to TPP when using melee weapons and to FPP when using guns (and optimized accordingly for each playstyle), and would let you choose the perspective when exploring. And yeah, that's ALOT of extra work.

 

[Kyron_Lee]

I don't agree with people saying that Skyrim or GTA did both perspectives good because it's simply not true. In order for combat gameplay (primarily) to be top notch, the perspective should be optimized accordingly.

TPP is vastly superior for melee combat. You can have better dodge and several flashy animations and movesets that are impossible to pull off on FPP (imagine whirl on FPP). That's why the games with the best melee combat are always using TPP (think Dark Souls or any From software game, Nioh, God of War etc.)

On the opposite side, shooting is vastly superior on FPP. You can never have the precision you have with FPP on TPP, where the camera is up above your head on a diagonal angle. That's why the best shooters use FPP.

GTA has terrible combat gameplay anyway for me to comment on it further. Skyrim was clearly optimized for FPP and thus it's melee combat sucks big time. However on exploration both perspectives work perfectly and require zero optimization.

Personally i prefer exploring on TPP (and combat), simply because i can see better the surrounding enviroment. Our eyes have excellent peripheral vision. On FPP on games we don't. Several times on CP i got hit by a car looking ahead because peripheral vision is non existent. Believe it or not TPP reflects more on what you can actually see with your own eyes compared to TPP.

In a perfect world, for me a game that has both shooting and melee combat would change to TPP when using melee weapons and to FPP when using guns (and optimized accordingly for each playstyle), and would let you choose the perspective when exploring. And yeah, that's ALOT of extra work.

I like the FPP melee because its so daring to pull off.. Like if I go back to 95' I would have told you then I can't wait for FPP melee..

Preference plays a part but also.. Look I have 2000hrs in GTA online - I play exclusively FPP on foot. Preference also illusion of scale of area size dimishes with 3rd person.

IMO its too different formulas only these days most games are hybrids of genres.

FPP is equal to TPP. There a varying levels of quality in games however, if done well I'm not about to judge one way over another.

 

[DAlexanderNYC]

I don't think it was cutting corners; I believe it was an original concept they had from the beginning. However I do think they should've made two perspectives which would've appease everyone if they went down the Bethesda path. It especially makes sense in this kind of game where they give you so much choice and variety.

 

[Nexus_Neo]

Yep. If you actually see some videos about it, there use to be actu cutscenes that played in the third person...

 

[SakariFoxx]

The game was announced in first person from start, acting like it was some cut feature because you're unhappy is just dishonest.

Game has issue, the first person isn't one of them.

 

[Kyron_Lee]

Yep. If you actually see some videos about it, there use to be actu cutscenes that played in the third person...

As concepts yes. Does that automatically mean it belongs in game.. As goes with all things - I successfully wall ran today, up upon the buildings on certain ledges you can gain incredible velocity and shoot V through the air. Also I believe the Ncart rail was sabotaged - there are intermediate invisible walls along the line that you can double jump to continue along the top of the rail. From V's building through Citycenter around into Japantown - just before the view of Kabuki the rail is broken as if some idiots went through and broke it causing a good amount of work time to repair..

Look Chooms I think a lot is going on and this perceived "Cutting edges" isn't fair to say.

Some aspects were full heart, some were time constraints.. Others well.. That's all speculation. We will see in due time.

 

[Witzzard]

1 -If one reads up on the subject, you realize that most games cheat with their 1st person perspective (FPP). Two examples come to mind:
- The camera you view out from isn't aligning with where the characters eyes would be.
- You wouldn't be able to actually the guns hands or anything else if you hadn't raised them in front of your actual eyes (camera here). So they include false hands and gun placements...

And that comes from different reasons, one being that our actual viewpoint is on different axles than our arms/hands and our body not being staticly aligned with our head - and us just using a 2d axle mouse... to control things.
So they forgoe a lot of hassle by using shortcuts to allow for a false FPP, which just feels about right. And that's what you can see with Cyberpunk 2077 here.

2- Now they don't even spare animating stuff, when NPCs use the actual same animations. Although they can sometimes use lesser quality once and might not exactly have to deal with doing as many tansitions (players might stop mid-animation and do something else, which NPC might not do) or unique animations (PCs using specific finishing moves).



3 -The last thing to note is, that it's not cutting corners if you actually decide on that. (Well it cuts corners if you think having both as options should be natural...).

There's a difference in the feeling of perspectives here especially in respect to space.
With first person perspective you're ~ 1 to 3 feet away from anything, meaning for example a photo on a nightstand is 3 feet away from the camera, taking quite a bit screen space.
While in thirs person perspective you're ~12 - 15 feet away (might be more or less) form things, meanin the same photo on a nightstand is then something like 12 feet away and takes a lot less screen space.
So you'll see less in first person of your environment, but you'll see it more detailed. And your character normally won't block sight on something that's 4 feet in front of him.

And this also means you can do different things relatively easier/harder than in the other perspective. E.g. designing small cramped space which still hold explorable details. Horror Effects in terms of close scares. Inspection of smaller details in the game world.

There's also, though i think that's now quite well solved - the problem of fulcrum/lever length between camera and character, which impacts TPP a lot worse than FPP (one partial reason afaik why you get auto aim and hotspot actions in TPP a lot more).

But all of that still means, concentrating on one or the other can be quite beneficial for a given goal.
E.g. if you need to have more enviromental awarness (ledges in relation to the player characters feet), then it might be better to employ TPP. Or e.g. when driving a car...
If you want to do a Shooter in (slum) city enviroments with hidden details -> FPP might be a lot better. Or e.g. when talking to a character within the closed spaces of a car...

 

[FLyingMonkeyPaints]

Not corner cutting on the perspective choice (I prefer 1st person games), but once they realized if they never went to 3rd person they could cut corners on animations because of the perspective, they did so.

Same with the camera position being chin level. They just stuck a camera on the model's neck and never bothered with detailed head models or tracking, because of time constraints.

 

[SuperStrings]

I think that it definitely wasn't cutting corners. The first person definitely made the game for me. All of the emotional moments (whether it be with RIver, Panam, Judy, whoever) were all made way better and way more personal with that first-person perspective. The reason that all of these animations look wonky in third-person is that the game isn't made for third-person. I do agree, that maybe just chilling and running around in the city, that a third person camera would be nice to be able to see all around your character, but the first person just works so well with this game that the lack of third-person doesn't affect me much.

 

[lelxrv]

I also believe yes and no. FPP has it's own advantages on storytelling and immersion front. As well as game design. But also spares devs from crafting many full body animations. Hence we don't have proper reflections in the game.

 

[iamthesparky]

I really enjoyed the first person view, with the exception of driving.

First person combat and general movement is, to me, more enjoyable than third person.