Why Gigs in Cyberpunk feels like a serious downgrade from Witcher contracts...

[somewherebeyond]

because they are bad mmo-stylish quests that's it. Gigs (kill, steal, rescue) and ncpd markers pretty much the same as monster nests / smuggling in witcher for me - artificial way to increase walkthrough size, most of side gigs don't have anything except call from fixer which is also bad, in some mmos side quests have more voice over than here. So most gigs in this game in terms of quality are worse than mmo quests. CDPR hit their all time low in terms of side content

i would gladly trade all ncpd / gigs for couple more story arcs like panam, judy, peralez

 

[CTPhipps]

because they are bad mmo-stylish quests that's it. Gigs (kill, steal, rescue) and ncpd markers pretty much the same as monster nests / smuggling in witcher for me - artificial way to increase walkthrough size, most of side gigs don't have anything except call from fixer which is also bad, in some mmos side quests have more voice over than here. So most gigs in this game in terms of quality are worse than mmo quests. CDPR hit their all time low in terms of side content

i would gladly trade all ncpd / gigs for couple more story arcs like panam, judy, peralez

I think they're all well-detailed, acted, and interesting with the Fixers being a fascinating bunch of oddballs.

I came to play an Edgerunner.

An Edgerunner does crime for money.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

because they are bad mmo-stylish quests that's it. Gigs (kill, steal, rescue) and ncpd markers pretty much the same as monster nests / smuggling in witcher for me - artificial way to increase walkthrough size, most of side gigs don't have anything except call from fixer which is also bad, in some mmos side quests have more voice over than here. So most gigs in this game in terms of quality are worse than mmo quests. CDPR hit their all time low in terms of side content

i would gladly trade all ncpd / gigs for couple more story arcs like panam, judy, peralez

Yeah. It feels like a MMO or a Ubisoft game with countless check-list activities. I thought CDPR was completely against those kinda stuff.
I completely agree that Gigs should have the quality of secondary quests like Panam or Judy. This was possible for Witcher 3, 5 years ago with a significantly less budget.
Gigs should be replaced by missing character stories like Stout or Evelyn.

 

[somewherebeyond]

I think they're all well-detailed, acted, and interesting with the Fixers being a fascinating bunch of oddballs.

I came to play an Edgerunner.

An Edgerunner does crime for money.

Can you compare side gig to peralez story arc? Damn never. Go kill somebody, go steal item, go steal car, go recover somebody. Ofc couple of these were okayish and had some backstory but around 9/10 were bad as is. And for me these bad quests made game experience worse.

 

[CTPhipps]

Yeah. It feels like a MMO or a Ubisoft game with countless check-list activities. I thought CDPR was completely against those kinda stuff.
I completely agree that Gigs should have the quality of secondary quests like Panam or Judy. This was possible for Witcher 3, 5 years ago with a significantly less budget.
Gigs should be replaced by missing character stories like Stout or Evelyn.

Uh, what? That would be just more side quests.

Gigs are great as is.

There's a lot of room to go wild with your playstyle and solve missions like puzzles. It's fun gameplay with lots of room for stealth, action, or hacking.

And doing random organized crime is fun if you're a paid criminal. These are really what I wanted from the game more than any main content. This is the meat and potatoes of being an Edgerunner.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

Can you compare side gig to peralez story arc? Damn never. Go kill somebody, go steal item, go steal car, go recover somebody. Ofc couple of these were okayish and had some backstory but around 9/10 were bad as is. And for me these bad quests made game experience worse.

That's not a good example because I think the whole mind-control X-Files thing is a terrible idea for Cyberpunk 2077. As much as I love the characters, it feels totally out of synch with the rest of the game's gritty noir style. A better example would be River's questline to deal with the serial killer.

That's what I really think is good for a critty cyberpunk game.

Sex, drugs, murder, and horror.

 

[CitizenMigraine]

Yeah. It feels like a MMO or a Ubisoft game with countless check-list activities. I thought CDPR was completely against those kinda stuff.
I completely agree that Gigs should have the quality of secondary quests like Panam or Judy. This was possible for Witcher 3, 5 years ago with a significantly less budget.
Gigs should be replaced by missing character stories like Stout or Evelyn.

My take on this is, let them patch the game with systems that were cut from the game. Hopefully, that will give us more mission variety, gang reputation, property investment, business ownership, character/vehicle customization and so on.

 

[somewherebeyond]

Uh, what? That would be just more side quests.

Gigs are great as is.

There's a lot of room to go wild with your playstyle and solve missions like puzzles. It's fun gameplay with lots of room for stealth, action, or hacking.

And doing random organized crime is fun if you're a paid criminal. These are really what I wanted from the game more than any main content. This is the meat and potatoes of being an Edgerunner.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

That's not a good example because I think the whole mind-control X-Files thing is a terrible idea for Cyberpunk 2077. As much as I love the characters, it feels totally out of synch with the rest of the game's gritty noir style. A better example would be River's questline to deal with the serial killer.

That's what I really think is good for a critty cyberpunk game.

Sex, drugs, murder, and horror.

I mean i would rather have deeper story quests than boring fetch quests, with deep idea, philosophy, dilemma...like what means to be human, they tried to approach these dilemma in lizzy sidestory but basically failed hard

And not to mention buy car quests, really, seriously. For me this game feels like grind fest, you grind cash to buy car, you grind rep for nothing, you grind skill xp....that just horrible design to start with.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

I agree with you even when it comes to Dream On its 10/10 but what are we actually doing in that mission. Listing to characters for 25-30mins, using cybersense and checking out a convoy for max 5mins thats it. And the decision we pick at the end of this quest is literally irrelevant, it doesnt matter. It goes nowhere, probably expansion bait.

So from a storypoint view yes, Dream On is probably the most interesting sidequest in the game but gameplay wise or choices are extremely underwhelming. Back to topic, yes gigs often feel very unpersonal and most of these fixers are very underutilized.

Yeah. There's not much action in that quest. Witcher 3 also had those slow paced quests with little combat. What I meant was that all side stuff should have the quality of "Dream On". This was possession 5 years ago with a far less of a budget in Witcher 3.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

Uh, what? That would be just more side quests.

Gigs are great as is.

There's a lot of room to go wild with your playstyle and solve missions like puzzles. It's fun gameplay with lots of room for stealth, action, or hacking.

And doing random organized crime is fun if you're a paid criminal. These are really what I wanted from the game more than any main content. This is the meat and potatoes of being an Edgerunner.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

That's not a good example because I think the whole mind-control X-Files thing is a terrible idea for Cyberpunk 2077. As much as I love the characters, it feels totally out of synch with the rest of the game's gritty noir style. A better example would be River's questline to deal with the serial killer.

That's what I really think is good for a critty cyberpunk game.

Sex, drugs, murder, and horror.

Agree, I would love to explore those themes with much more deeper storylines. But the game only touches those very superficially in side gigs. Actually Witcher 3 explored all 4 of these themes during a medieval fantasy setting in "Whoreson Junior" quesline.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

I mean i would rather have deeper story quests than boring fetch quests, with deep idea, philosophy, dilemma...like what means to be human, they tried to approach these dilemma in lizzy sidestory but basically failed hard

And not to mention buy car quests, really, seriously. For me this game feels like grind fest, you grind cash to buy car, you grind rep for nothing, you grind skill xp....that just horrible design to start with.

Lizzy Wizzy quest really intrigued me until I realise that it ended so quickly. It’s like ending Bloody Baron arc after telling the location of Anna, but not returning to the swamp with him.
(Comparing Cyberpunk to W3 because obvious reasons)
Also the economic system is not compatible with the amount of rides in this game. You really have to grind a lot to buy rides in higher ddifficulties.

 

[N3vErB0rED]

First off, I'm running the game on a GTX 1080 gaming laptop rig. To be specific, an Alienware 17 R5 with a i9 8950-HK @4.3Ghz turbo (all cores). 16 gigs dual channel (I can't remember what the clockspeed on the RAM is -- probably 2k+, but it's stock) RAM, 500gb SSD, Win10, and I can run the game anywhere between 60-120 fps with dynamic resolution set to 75% (1080p) to 100% (1440p) if the frames dip to 90fps. Settings are a myriad of medium through high with nothing on low (LOD is high), and contact shadows are enabled, all the facial and color enhancements are on and high. Granted, the game runs mostly in 90fps with dips into 60 with rare crunches at 30 fps. All-in-all, I'm shocked I don't have to play the game on low settings at all.

That being said, and in response to the OP: The "quests" are by design, contracts, and the flow is like a business dealing rather than some epic crawl through time and space, like the real world here in contemporary times. That means phone calls, interruptions in the flow of your day, constant demand as you get rep, etc. The missions that involve recurring characters are huge, like 10+ hours in some cases, they're just broken up between days to give the illusion of real world processes (like contacts sleeping, etc).

Spoiler: Cop Mission spoiler for example

The cop mission line starts with a dealing with corpo elite (which later branches to two distinct sets of missions totaling 10 hours) then ends up taking you through River's mission line, which also doubles as a love interest for female characters. I played Witcher 1-3, and there are similar quests in it that detail an epic tale or two, but I just don't see where we lose anything in the translation.

Perhaps maybe you feel different because the Witcher trilogy is your thing. Cyberpunk was never swords and sorcery, nor was it GTA; but, if you've played any other cyberpunk game offshoot like Shadowrun or Deus Ex, it takes on that kind of life -- as it's supposed to. Thankfully, it's not as banal as Deus Ex was. That entire series beginning with Invisible War was poorly implemented.

 

[somewherebeyond]

Yeah. There's not much action in that quest. Witcher 3 also had those slow paced quests with little combat. What I meant was that all side stuff should have the quality of "Dream On". This was possession 5 years ago with a far less of a budget in Witcher 3.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

Agree, I would love to explore those themes with much more deeper storylines. But the game only touches those very superficially in side gigs. Actually Witcher 3 explored all 4 of these themes during a medieval fantasy setting in "Whoreson Junior" quesline.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

Lizzy Wizzy quest really intrigued me until I realise that it ended so quickly. It’s like ending Bloody Baron arc after telling the location of Anna, but not returning to the swamp with him.
(Comparing Cyberpunk to W3 because obvious reasons)
Also the economic system is not compatible with the amount of rides in this game. You really have to grind a lot to buy rides in higher ddifficulties.

except couple quests every other feels mediocre to me in comparison to witcher. In witcher most side quests had deep story, lots of choices and consequences. Here we have half baked, unfinished quests and around 40 hrs of boring gigs done quickly by some intern.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

First off, I'm running the game on a GTX 1080 gaming laptop rig. To be specific, an Alienware 17 R5 with a i9 8950-HK @4.3Ghz turbo (all cores). 16 gigs dual channel (I can't remember what the clockspeed on the RAM is -- probably 2k+, but it's stock) RAM, 500gb SSD, Win10, and I can run the game anywhere between 60-120 fps with dynamic resolution set to 75% (1080p) to 100% (1440p) if the frames dip to 90fps. Settings are a myriad of medium through high with nothing on low (LOD is high), and contact shadows are enabled, all the facial and color enhancements are on and high. Granted, the game runs mostly in 90fps with dips into 60 with rare crunches at 30 fps. All-in-all, I'm shocked I don't have to play the game on low settings at all.

That being said, and in response to the OP: The "quests" are by design, contracts, and the flow is like a business dealing rather than some epic crawl through time and space, like the real world here in contemporary times. That means phone calls, interruptions in the flow of your day, constant demand as you get rep, etc. The missions that involve recurring characters are huge, like 10+ hours in some cases, they're just broken up between days to give the illusion of real world processes (like contacts sleeping, etc).

Spoiler: Cop Mission spoiler for example

The cop mission line starts with a dealing with corpo elite (which later branches to two distinct sets of missions totaling 10 hours) then ends up taking you through River's mission line, which also doubles as a love interest for female characters. I played Witcher 1-3, and there are similar quests in it that detail an epic tale or two, but I just don't see where we lose anything in the translation.

Perhaps maybe you feel different because the Witcher trilogy is your thing. Cyberpunk was never swords and sorcery, nor was it GTA; but, if you've played any other cyberpunk game offshoot like Shadowrun or Deus Ex, it takes on that kind of life -- as it's supposed to. Thankfully, it's not as banal as Deus Ex was. That entire series beginning with Invisible War was poorly implemented.

I think you misunderstood the OP. I don't want Cyberpunk to be just like Witcher 3. I just want Side stuff/gigs to be less like a grindy Ubisoft quest. I have no problem with the themes that CDPR chose. They just don't explore it.
If I'm gonna hunt down a Cyberpsycho, please let me explore his apartment or family to understand what what led him to the point of modifying himself to psychosis. These themes are in shards that you find. But it will be much more iinteresting if they let us experience it. "Show, don't tell" is valid for all forms of media.

 

[N3vErB0rED]

except couple quests every other feels mediocre to me in comparison to witcher. In witcher most side quests had deep story, lots of choices and consequences. Here we have half baked, unfinished quests and around 40 hrs of boring gigs done quickly by some intern.

It took me around 60 hours to complete the majority of quick missions around the city (still have most of the ones in the center to do on Series X. I think I know what you're talking about though -- the quests in Witcher where person A wants you to save person B right? Well, all the fixer in Cyberpunk does is act as intermediary, so that we aren't constantly in banal conversations with clients, among other reasons that are canon to the lore of Cyberpunk. The fixers aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but I wouldn't be opposed to more missions with face to face meetings with clients, and more heists though lol.

Edit: And reading your post above this one, I agree that investigations aren't deep enough. They really should have added a better depth to those.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

It took me around 60 hours to complete the majority of quick missions around the city (still have most of the ones in the center to do on Series X. I think I know what you're talking about though -- the quests in Witcher where person A wants you to save person B right? Well, all the fixer in Cyberpunk does is act as intermediary, so that we aren't constantly in banal conversations with clients, among other reasons that are canon to the lore of Cyberpunk. The fixers aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but I wouldn't be opposed to more missions with face to face meetings with clients, and more heists though lol.

Yeah. Fixers should be there for lore reasons. But they should give some personality to them. They can serve as what Bloody Baron was in Witcher 3. A guy who gives us quests but also has quests for himself. Dakota in Cyberpunk gave me few personal quests like rerescuing some of her friends but nothing helped build her character or motivations. So for me, she was just another source of exposition .

 

[CitizenMigraine]

Yeah. Fixers should be there for lore reasons. But they should give some personality to them. They can serve as what Bloody Baron was in Witcher 3. A guy who gives us quests but also has quests for himself. Dakota in Cyberpunk gave me few personal quests like rerescuing some of her friends but nothing helped build her character or motivations. So for me, she was just another source of exposition .

I always thought there was more to the Dakota quest line. I thought we were gonna build a base or something for recon, information, gear, vehicle fetch quests or SOMETHING. I also wanna know what's up with Mr. Hands. I've said it before...there's a story there!!

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

I always thought there was more to the Dakota quest line. I thought we were gonna build a base or something for recon, information, gear, vehicle fetch quests or SOMETHING. I also wanna know what's up with Mr. Hands. I've said it before...there's a story there!!

Yeah ... I as I said million times before, we are missing huge parts of this game. Maybe there's a definitive vversion of this game down the line just like the Snyder cut.
Maybe it’s called "Pondsmith Cut" or "Pawel Sasko Cut"

 

[Dixxy]

I think the problem with gigs is less their actual content, then how you are introduced to them.

First of all, Fixers are introduced poorly. I think the first Fixer I got a call from was Regina. I did not know who she was, why she was calling me and why she was all like "Hey V! My fav Merc! Do this and that for me, because reasons"...

This is especially jarring, because the game goes out of its way to say that Fixer relation is one of the most important things and you have this long talk with Dex as part of the Main Quest, just so you can get work from him... I think you should have had to meet every or most Fixers in person before they offer you Gigs. Youtuber "NeverKnowsBest" makes a few very good points about this:

(Warning almost 2 hours long)

The second major Problem is how you then get the gigs: You trigger a phonecall when you are near a Gig-marker on your map. You can't ignore the call and basically get an exposition dump by those fixers whether you want it or not (when you engage in Battle at least V cuts them short). It would be sooooo much more immersive, if for some of those quests you had to call the fixers and they gave you a mission at random.

Then, lastly, I think the game suffers from it's always on objective tracker, which leads you straight to the targets... Especially the "find something" or "steal something" missions would be so much more gratifying if you could just look for the bloody thing yourself and not just follow a marker (sometimes this is actually the case with a more generic "area of interest", but more often then not your led straight to your target).

Long story short: The gigs are actually great and not really inferior to the Witcher's side quests. They just need to be presented in a less robotic and more seamless fashion.

 

[JagoA]

And not to mention buy car quests, really, seriously. For me this game feels like grind fest, you grind cash to buy car, you grind rep for nothing, you grind skill xp....that just horrible design to start with.

Oh man completely forgot about this. The fact that car sales are marked the same as quests is one of my biggest annoyances about the game currently, and do nothing but litter the map. Exploring Night City I am actually surprised at how many unique locations are enterable (hotels bars clubs etc) I just wished they are marked on the map similar to servicepoints jobs etc.

Though I won't defend the game for having buildings with OPEN signs that you cant even enter (and some with no interactable door at all!!)

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

Yeah. Witcher had bugs like any other AAA game. It had significantly less bugs than RDR 2 PC port, that's for sure.
But Cyberpunk release is beyond the level acceptable. I feel like I'm paying 60$ to be a part of CDPR Quality Assurance team.

Feels pretty disappointing the way they made me feel like a game tester.
After buying all their Witcher games. I even bough two figurines they made with Dark Horse and a Xbox Cyberpunk Limited Edition Controller.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

I think the problem with gigs is less their actual content, then how you are introduced to them.

First of all, Fixers are introduced poorly. I think the first Fixer I got a call from was Regina. I did not know who she was, why she was calling me and why she was all like "Hey V! My fav Merc! Do this and that for me, because reasons"...

This is especially jarring, because the game goes out of its way to say that Fixer relation is one of the most important things and you have this long talk with Dex as part of the Main Quest, just so you can get work from him... I think you should have had to meet every or most Fixers in person before they offer you Gigs. Youtuber "NeverKnowsBest" makes a few very good points about this:

(Warning almost 2 hours long)

The second major Problem is how you then get the gigs: You trigger a phonecall when you are near a Gig-marker on your map. You can't ignore the call and basically get an exposition dump by those fixers whether you want it or not (when you engage in Battle at least V cuts them short). It would be sooooo much more immersive, if for some of those quests you had to call the fixers and they gave you a mission at random.

Then, lastly, I think the game suffers from it's always on objective tracker, which leads you straight to the targets... Especially the "find something" or "steal something" missions would be so much more gratifying if you could just look for the bloody thing yourself and not just follow a marker (sometimes this is actually the case with a more generic "area of interest", but more often then not your led straight to your target).

Long story short: The gigs are actually great and not really inferior to the Witcher's side quests. They just need to be presented in a less robotic and more seamless fashion.

I agree to most of your points. CDPR really should improve the presentation in the game. Witcher 3 was far better in that sense.

 

[Rudo_]

My post is not about bugs at all

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

IMO Witcher 3 and RDR 2 has best side stuff in video games. They have complex stories, nice cutscenes and fleshed out NPCs instead of just a Fixer with loads of exposition.

Fallout 2, 3 and NV