Weekly Poll - 5/21/2019 - Crafting

[Rawls]

Crafting gear is soooooooo hard to get right. At first I thought about a "what do we want to be able to craft." I mean Cyberpunk has so many possibilities. On top of the usual weapons, armor/clothes, medicines, demolitions, and the like, there is also cyberware and netrunning related items. But ultimately I think we would all want to say, yes I want to be able to craft all those things. So the real question becomes, how do we want crafting the process to work? Should it be based around what the character can do? What we the player can do? There are lots of possibility. Three choices, and discuss in the comments.

 

[Mybrokenenglish]

@Rawls you really don't like numbers, do you?

I voted what I think is 1 (crafting...attributes), 4 (22 years old) and 8 (loot/crafting/economy balance).

So, I don't like crafting unless in survival or post-apocaliptic games. There's no way someone could seriously improve an AK47 with 3 nails, some glue and a lemon. Macgyver was cool, but it worked in specific situations were he had no access to real weapons. As a professional chemist, I know explosive compounds, but it doesn't mean I can make bombs with stuff you can buy in supermarkets, at all, at least in Europe. Still, homemade weapons and bombs can't match the real ones: you can make a nail bomb, but granades or C4 ar something else. Not an expert, but we all know it.
Cyberpunk 2077 looks like a place where you have an extremely easy access to any kind of weapon. If crafting is installing pre-built mods on weapons, I'm happy, no problems with that (I.E. bigger magazine or thermal scope or even installing some CPU/bio-connection that makes a normal weapon a smart weapon).
Armors? Why should I become some kind of superhero and craft my own costume in my bedroom when I can buy real protection at the corner shop? Same here, if I can install simple stuff on armor/clothes it's fine, like some neon lights or even better if something important gameplay-wise.
Crafting for neturunners, on the other hand, sounds perfect: you buy/find pieces of hardware here and there and make your own computer, even some small drone could work if buying the MTD012 "flathead" is too expensive for early game. Given that military grade hardware must be top of the line.
Very curious to see what a techie will be able to do, but it's very important that skills/attributes influence what we'll be able to do: install a scope? 1/10 techie required. Install smart weapons funcionalities? 10/10.

Number 8 is of course very important, not only for game balance, but also because if I don't want to create a character that makes a military grade weapon with 5 pieces of steel, a cpu, 2 AA batteries and 1 meter of insulating tape (if that's what a 10/10 techie is), then I want to be able to buy stuff that is at least as good as.

Plus, I hate wandering around and looting every corpse or drawers looking for junk I can use for crafting. Unless post-apocaliptic and/or survival games. It destroys pacing and makes the game artificially longer. I also hate the huge inventories. I know they're not making an immersive sim, though.

 

[Hoplite_22]

feel like it is missing the option "crafting machine made gear by hand is not going to happen" it's the wrong game for crafting. getting something custom done by some one with a off network future tech 3d printer is about as close to "crafting" as i would like to get.

 

[SigilFey]

1, 2, and 10

I'd say that crafting should be directly tied to how a weapon or piece of kit will work with your current build and in synergy with your other gear / cyberware. So, obvious things like:

• lighter weapons being faster to draw and fire, giving the character a "quick-draw" option during combat to increase their intimidation factor.
• a speed loader / magazine that halves the time it takes to reload.

But also, (just thinking waaay outside the box here):

• a "pressure-variable trigger"... It makes no difference whatsoever to the average character, but someone with the right level of hand modifications would be able to use it. Combined with the cyberware, the player can simply hold down the button and adjust their aim, and the gun will only fire when the shot will be a hit.
• combine an "active sighting interface" with the right level of cyber-eye, and aiming down the sights will now show trajectory paths and lead indicators for targets. Go into Kareznakov...and the character could even shoot grenades and other bullets out of the air.

The higher the level of stuff, the more complex the "puzzle" becomes in figuring out just what can synergize with what and how. And yeah, crafting station only. I wouldn't want this stuff just handed to me -- make me experiment and figure it out!

 

[Suhiira]

5 & 8

I'm REALLY on the fence about crafting.

I'm afraid electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, etc. are WAY outside the scope of CP2020/2077. There's no way in hell a character who spends most of their time pretending they're Laura Croft has the time/skills necessary to actually create stuff from scratch. While I'm a decent mechanic, electronics tech, and junior mad scientist chemist RL I don't begin to have the skills to create stuff from scratch.

This is one of those areas where suspension of reality for the sake of gameplay gets very, VERY, murky.

For anyone that thinks designing something as "simple" as a weapon is easy look at the initial deployment of the M16 in Vietnam. Something as "simple" as using the wrong type of gunpowder can make a huge difference.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

1 because RPG, 5 and 7 because of logic.

 

[Cybunknymph]

I watched TWD a bit and while many people thought Negan was a really awesome character, he was still a straight POS. Although, one thing he got right was understanding "people power". I think that's one philosophy that gave him most of the notoriety, and almost all of that was from other people believing in him so much.

I hope there is a focus on skills/talent from people all over the game and that is what will fill a need for crafting. Not entirely, but it will help to ease any "over the top" grinding that you see in other games. It's not what you can make from scratch, but who you know that can help mod your gear for you after you find what you need. Why would you want to keep your plain shotgun? Because Joe can turn it into what we saw in the demo.

Jesus Christ, m-my legs...

I really want to able to craft all sorts of stuff, but the grinding should be there for things that truly deserve it. I want to be able to grind for something if really want it, especially if it is something that will be unique for my character. The harder something is to get means the probability that you will see it on someone else is lowered. That will be the best way to keep people looking unique/different when the multiplayer happens.

And I want my character to be as unique as possible through creative crafting...not non stop grinding.

I am a beautiful and unique snowflake, Tyler.

I hope there is a way to, in punk fashion, modify all your stuff so that it will make your character more "bespoke".
Just like anyone who is really a "punk" will add patches and stickers to all of their stuff. Imagine if after all the things you crafted you could add "flair" to it by adding graffiti, lights, toys, more lethality ectect. Being able to artistically craft your stuff should be a mainstay, like you can continually make things function and look better/cooler throughout the game after you have crafted the base model for it. It would make crafting a more lasting experience and give people an incentive to hold onto loot that "grows on them". An increase in street cred could occur after that also.

 

[Tree_Fox]

I think modding would be better. Find a gun, take it to a work bench, add whatever parts you've looted to it (within reason).

 

[Snowflakez]

1, 7, 8.

First of all, slightly good news: Crafting is definitely a skill, that was announced on Twitter some time ago.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1022482194059730945

So yay for at least some character impact on the process.

Crafting should be a way to make money if players so choose, I don't particularly love the idea of it being nothing but a gold sink like it was in the Witcher 3 (a huge one, too, unless you have economy mods). It did make sense there though, because Geralt is handling the process himself. Here, it sounds like players will.

Anyway, regardless of the first two choices, its super important to get the balance right between what you loot, what you earn as rewards, and what you can craft. Personally, I'm fine with high-tier gear always being an option for someone with high crafting, but there should be plenty of powerful, unique rewards you can only get through looting and rewards as well.

But, for the most part, crafting should feel rewarding; especially if it's going to be attached to a skill.

 

[CyberBobber]

I find it kinda odd, Night City is full of big manufacturers and corps and I will be crafting my own stuff. Crafting is more suitable for Fantasy games like Witcher, where people really had to handcraft stuff. Yeah, I imagined Cyberpunk world to be more Industrial.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

I find it kinda odd, Night City is full of big manufacturers and corps and I will be crafting my own stuff. Crafting is more suitable for Fantasy games like Witcher, where people really had to handcraft stuff. Yeah, I imagined Cyberpunk world to be more Industrial.

Actually Crafting is the specialty of one of the role of the original PnP: The Techie.

 

[CyberBobber]

Actually Crafting is the specialty of one of the role of the original PnP: The Techie.

I trust in CDPR, but if they make us too self-sufficient and adventurous it will kill the "big city" vibe from the game, imho.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

1, 4 & 10.

And I wanted to vote 2 too.

I wouldn’t want the skills and stats, here nor anywhere else, to work as gates that guarantee success and trivializes the ability and what it produces.

 

[atomowyturysta]

Crafting in most, well, all games is a mix of hit and miss mechanics and features with the balance strongly favouring the miss part. So, how about no? Also, adding another feature, that adds next nothing to game is a waste of perfectly good time and resources that can be put into something more useful in an RPG game, like story, choices and shit.

 

[Snowflakez]

If the game is going to have the techie role, crafting is almost a necessity.

Their whole shtick is building, fixing, modifying. Take that away from them, they have nothing left, and may as well not be in the game at all.

Crafting is here to stay. Thankfully. Now we just need to see what form it takes and how well thought out it is.

EDIT: Reference - https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Techie

 

[SigilFey]

Actually Crafting is the specialty of one of the role of the original PnP: The Techie.

And that would be a brilliant implementation. Techie skills unlocking better crafting options. The other pathways will either need to pay for it or deal with what they've got.

It's exactly this type of exclusivity between roles that makes them interesting to play and encourages replayability.

 

[EngryEngineer]

1, 5, & 10. I think crafting of some sort is important for cyberpunk because of the DIY & device hacker aspects it brings with it. I don't think V should be able to just craft whatever on their own, they need to have the skills, knowledge, & tools to be able to do it (hence 1). If we assume V has the knowledge, skill, & tools to make something there is a good chance they can repair it, though my interest in that point is less on fixing crafted items and more on the ability to alter/re-purpose existing items. As far as 10 goes, I don't really want fixed point crafting tables, but I do think proper tooling is necessary and the tooling will be dependent on what is being done. You want to circuit bend a device to alter its input interpretation? You need an electronics repair kit. You want to manufacture a custom motherboard and processors? You need an electronics fabrication facility. I'm happy to take some hand-waving with it, it doesn't need to be super realistic, but being able to slap together 5 bits of wire & 2 batteries to create an EMP grenade in the middle of a fire fight is just something I'm completely over.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Crafting should optimally be helpful (even greatly), but not a be-all-end-all feature.

And also mechanically and thematically interesting even when the crafted item might not be of big use.

Not a ton of items. That just clogs the system (see Fallout 4). But fewer and of bigger difference and uniqueness (more like Arcanum).

 

[Guest 4149880]

Prey has one of the coolest crafting mechanics I've seen in a game. Two machines, one that breaks down raw or unneeded materials and another to materialize them into the object.

With the age of 3d printing I'd say by 2077 anything could be made in this manner. It also made collecting junk awesome and purposeful when you know everything can be reused even the items you craft and end up not using.

 

[Mawnark]

I pick 1,7,8 since I'm on the fence regarding how crafting should work and I think 5 is common sense. I am sure that crafting to increase stats and make money would be cool. It's an additional reward on top of having what you crafted. I'm used to the designated crafting locations in RPGs so that works. Not a fan of encouraging hoarding (6), maybe just for the techie skills.