What annoying game design trends should Cyberpunk avoid?

[gogmeister777]

It'd also be nice if I wasn't forced to make decisions that are clearly stupid or ill-advised just for the sake of story.

Heh, reminds me of that bit at the end of Fallout 3 when the radiation-immune Super Mutant refuses to go into the reactor room because of some philosophical nonsense, forcing the player to sacrifice themselves or an ally...just to make things dramatic.

The ending even had the cheek to make out that, no matter how much of a saint you'd been to everyone in the Wasteland, you'd somehow 'failed' the final test when it 'really' mattered and were a lesser person.

I think they changed it for the Goty edition/first expansion or something.

 

[Snowflakez]

The ending even had the cheek to make out that, no matter how much of a saint you'd been to everyone in the Wasteland, you'd somehow 'failed' the final test when it 'really' mattered.

Oh, this is my FAVORITE video game trope.

Because we don't feel like/aren't capable of designing complex or nuanced interactions with far-reaching impact, we're just going to boil down every single one of your choices and your character's entire personality to this one decision. And it's your fault!

This isn't necessarily something CDPR struggles with, but it's pretty funny and annoying to see it happen.

 

[Rawls]

Similarly, levelled loot is a big no-no for me. Bothered me in Witcher 3, it'll bother me here if it exists. Though I think I read that it wasn't a thing this time around. So good news, maybe?

OOoooooo good one. I hate this too. Also, good to see ya around Snow.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Heh, reminds me of that bit at the end of Fallout 3 when the radioactive-immune Super Mutant refuses to go into the reactor room because of some philosophical nonsense, forcing the player to sacrifice themselves or an ally...just to make things dramatic.

Bethesda even admitted that it kinda broke the story, but they were ”OK with it”. They don’t really give two shits about writing or narrative design in their games, but that’s no surprise.

 

[Maelcom404]

"Mature games" aimed for 16yo gamers teenagers.

Forced romances and sex scenes (that's just ... awkward, wanna play this with your family around?).

Childish duality (Good Guys vs Bad Guys).

Lacks of political balls (removing interesting content just to please a bunch of vultures in suits)

Following "The trend of the moment", instead of creating something very unique with it's own identity.

Putting a lots of effort in "side stuff" (like side animations when you reload, etc...), but the core mecanics and games are boring and redundant.

Over promising stuff they know they won't be able to deliver, only to sell pre-orders.

 

[Snowflakez]

Bethesda even admitted that it kinda broke the story, but they were ”OK with it”. They don’t really give two shits about writing or narrative design in their games, but that’s no surprise.

I think they give lots of shits, because that's how their games are made.

Spoiler: ot

But seriously, I think Bethesda gets some things right, too. Less so with Fallout, but part of that is because Fallout is a franchise with established history and mechanics, and so it became even more glaring when they messed it all up. Something like Elder Scrolls is... just what it is. You could argue that Morrowind and Daggerfall established some precedent, but it's still a wholly original IP, and I think they have more leeway to create what they create.

Anyway, if there's one thing I'd like CDPR to learn from Bethesda's mistakes, it's oversimplification. I don't just mean in terms of RPG mechanics (that too), but story as well. CDPR is good at making stories and NPCs that aren't black and white, so this is probably not something to worry about.

However, I hope they avoid those pitfalls with skills as well. Right now, we know skills can aid in dialogue and for physical checks like opening doors and such. I wonder if there are other, less obvious use cases, like Disco Elysium (by the way, how'd you like that game? It's my GOTY for sure).

Putting a lots of effort in "side stuff" (like side animations when you reload, etc...), but the core mecanics and games are boring and redundant.

What is a "side animation" when you reload?

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Disco Elysium (by the way, how'd you like that game? It's my GOTY for sure).

Disco is awesome. I just hope the developer doesn’t get stuck on that setting. I’d love to see a Cyberpunk game made like that; with phasebased combat (ala Wasteland 1, but a bit modernized and more comprehensive).

As for learning from Bethesda... I think Bethie ”kind of” has the right idea behind their design. Letting you go about your business freely. But what they lack severely is attention to detail in narrative design (choice&consequence, cause&effect, reactivity, quest/story urgency and general meaning to the world and gameplay, world/consequence persistency and player responsibility to his actions) and gameplay intrigue (the way skills/stats work, intrigue of interactivity, general mechanical presentation of gameplay). Daggerfall and Morrowind, inspite their clumsiness inherent to their age, still have much more interesting gameplay than what Beth has done since.

I’d love it if CP2077 was like a ”Bethesda game” with all that fixed.

 

[mzeebra]

What are the game design trends that annoy you the most and why? I know there's only 6 months till release, but better now than never.

- Repetitive and boring missions/side missions (just created to have something to do, not adding anything to the game)
- Generic (similar looking/acting) hostile and aggressive "enemies" everywhere
- Long directed static action sequences (like a car chase where you have to go through X and Y and Z)
- Weird controller gimmicks, button sequences etc

 

[AlexiaRevan]

Make long cutscene that you can't skip .

(I know I posted this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating . BW is guilty of this . Every Mass effect game start off with a long cutscene, that YOU are not allowed to SKIP . )


Quest where the only 'good way' to do said quest (even though the game say : Play the way you want), is trough Stealth .)

I suck at Stealth, give me a break...let me shoot my way in !

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Quest where the only 'good way' to do said quest (even though the game say : Play the way you want), is trough Stealth .)

I suck at Stealth, give me a break...let me shoot my way in !

Well, from what we saw Solo V will be terminator, so no problem for you.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Since I haven't seen either of these two complaints mentioned I'll throw them out there. Both of these are inspired by current games I've played.

Junk loot. Seriously.... Dear developers, stop it . Certain titles which shall remain nameless even have junk loot tabs in the inventory screen. You then get to find this trash littered in the game world, pick it up, admire it's uselessness and sell it to the closest hoarding NPC you find. I don't like seeing it, looting it, selling it or engaging with it in any fashion. It adds nothing positive to game play. If existing in-game economies need adjusted then adjust them directly. Please, stop tossing in trash as a secondary form of in-game currency. This falls right in line with the excessive loot commentary earlier in the thread (not sure if this is what those comments meant or not).

Second, marathon quest design. Perhaps this is a poor description but nothing else immediately comes to mind so we will go with it. By this I mean going to area A, talking to a NPC then having to go back to area B on the other side of the universe to perform the next step. Rinse/repeat this procedure four or five times. It's perfectly acceptable to make this type of trip once. It's highly irritating when you have to spend an eternity going back and forth, traversing the entire game world each trip, to have 30 second conversations. Forcing a player to do this isn't fooling anyone.

 

[Draconifors]

You then get to find this trash littered in the game world, pick it up, admire it's uselessness and sell it to the closest hoarding NPC you find.

Some games also have literal trash loot that is worth 0 or cannot be "gifted" to NPCs so is absolutely, thoroughly useless.

 

[G30M1]

Some games also have literal trash loot that is worth 0 or cannot be "gifted" to NPCs so is absolutely, thoroughly useless.

Ooh ooh wait *clears throat*

BuT iT'S sUpeR rEaLisTic~~!!!

Honestly, games need to draw a line somewhere with having a realistic game and having a fantasy game. And players demanding realism to games don't tend to think of how boring realism can be.

Loot someone in a 'realistic' game? Yeah, you're probably gonna find a gum wrapper in their pocket.... and no one wants that gum wrapper. Is it fun to find? .....nope.

 

[Eddrick_Martin]

A thing that I would like to have in Cyberpunk(and really all games) is if you're guarding someone from point A to B, the ability to heal them would be amazing. If babysitting/guard the slow moving NPC/protect the target is in the game, being able to heal them would help so much. It's so frustrating if they move so slow and are so weak. I could deal with those things though if I could heal them.

 

[Draconifors]

Ooh ooh wait *clears throat*

BuT iT'S sUpeR rEaLisTic~~!!!

Honestly, games need to draw a line somewhere with having a realistic game and having a fantasy game. And players demanding realism to games don't tend to think of how boring realism can be.

Loot someone in a 'realistic' game? Yeah, you're probably gonna find a gum wrapper in their pocket.... and no one wants that gum wrapper. Is it fun to find? .....nope.

I wasn't complaining, I was merely stating a fact. Hoarding literally worthless junk can even be fun.

 

[G30M1]

I wasn't complaining, I was merely stating a fact. Hoarding literally worthless junk can even be fun.

Didn't mean to come at ya ^^ The person before you said they didn't wanna see junk loot at all.
But I'm curious how you find it fun, now. I personally get bored seeing the same junk over and over. Maybe if there was a variety in junk that told a story about who or where you looted from?

 

[Draconifors]

But I'm curious how you find it fun, now.

It can only be fun in role-playing games. For example, a character with an obsession with a specific junk item, like broken rakes.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Problem is not junk, but worthless weapon junk, as unless they are actually made of junk they should have some value, but games using them tends to compensate the fact they made the player character overly strong by making the weapon they loot worthless, while in cyberpunk 2020 (and unless you are in a specific situation which forbid you to do so) you tend to grind every bit of money you can after a firefights and that include your former ennemies weapons which usually end up being a big part of the money you make (even if sometimes it can lead to other situations when looting a weapons which is unique or with a tracking device).

 

[Bloodartist]

I wasn't complaining, I was merely stating a fact. Hoarding literally worthless junk can even be fun.

It is fun that is subjective. Me, I hate the piles of garbage that I get in Witcher 3.

 

[BabalKabak]

Me, I hate the piles of garbage that I get in Witcher 3

Yeah I could literally loot every thing in every odd place. And the "basic" loot covered every type of items... it was too much, made me spend around 1/4 of the playtime just looking in every drawer in the game, organizing my inventory and resell the junk I didn't care about (that includes many valuable items too, lol). But Let's admit, at least we could do so, we were free to loot and resell, or not.

I hope that the distribution of loot type will be more coherent within the CP world, and that it will be made so we quickly know what is valuable and what we can let in the NPC's pockets. Unless I roleplay as a "vulture" kinda character, I don't want to be too much involved in micro-economy, aka reselling hundreds of cigs for one buck.