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

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

So I have been playing Cyberpunk 2077 for nearly 120 hours since the release. I really enjoy certain parts of the game but I can't shake this feeling of the game been unfinished. Considering the quality of Witcher3 at launch, this game extremely dissapointed me. I didn't have unrealistic expectations like many other people. Instead the quality and quantity of Witcher 3 set my expectations.
One of those disappointing aspects is Gigs & Cyberpsychos. I adore Witcher 3 more than any other AAA game because it's attention to side quests like Witcher contracts. In those quests, you experience the same quality as the main quest with cutscenes, new locations & set pieces just like the main quest. However in Cyberpunk, there are Gigs and Cyberpsychos instead of Witcher contracts. These quests feel like a serious downgrade from Witcher 3. Most Gigs start by getting a call from a Fixer. Then instead of talking with a particular NPC & starting the quest in a natural way, Fixer gives us a huge exposition dump followed by more exposition in the journal. This feels completely against what Witcher did with most of the quests. Witcher 3 delivered exposition with dialogue from NPCs all over the map & sometimes reading letters that you loot. It was never robotic as a Fixer call & opening the journal. Also this system greatly reduces the emotional impact of those side stories. How Am I supposed to feel anything about a character that I only heard from a Fixer? No, I should be able to speak to the victim or his/her/their family before the quest to immerse myself in the story.
I don't know what exactly happened but this feel very Ubisoft-like. Maybe CDPR had to rush those side stuff to throw out the game in December.
Just like I said before I really enjoy the parts of this game. Quests like "Dream On" are 10/10. But I really don't wanna play these Gigs again in Cyberpunk immediately after finishing the game, like playing Witcher contracts in Witcher 3.

 

[jj284b]

Gigs in CP are not supposed to be equivalent to W3 contracts... there are just a few monster contracts in W3... but amount of gigs in CP is insane.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Gigs in CP are not supposed to be equivalent to W3 contracts... there are just a few monster contracts in W3... but amount of gigs in CP is insane.

So what's there in the Cyberpunk to justify the quality and quantity of witcher 3 side stuff? Even character questlines like Kerry and Judy end so quickly. Fleshed out side content is really needed to build the world around it because main story is so short an fast paced.

 

[Krul2k]

Did you play W3 at launch?? Cmon be truthful it was buggy as old nicks knickers

 

[CTPhipps]

Really?

Man, I did not feel that at all.

The Gigs in Cyberpunk are easily the best sidequests in all of video games. The Witcher ones? Not even close.

Mind you, I still prefer Witcher 2 to Witcher 3.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Did you play W3 at launch?? Cmon be truthful it was buggy as old nicks knickers

My post is not about bugs at all

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

Really?

Man, I did not feel that at all.

The Gigs in Cyberpunk are easily the best sidequests in all of video games. The Witcher ones? Not even close.

Mind you, I still prefer Witcher 2 to Witcher 3.

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.

 

[CTPhipps]

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.

I freely admit my bias as a cyberpunk author. Basically, when we have quests like Geralt going to kill the Hag who ate a child or Geralt going to get some shit for the Pellar, I'm like, "This is okay." However, the quests that stick out in my mind from that game are the shitty ones rather than the ones like the Ghost on the Island. I remember Geralt getting some old woman's frying pan more than I remember deep intricate storytelling.

For me, though, every quest in Night City is absolutely full of an additional layer of fucked up and dark. The Side Gigs are full of stories of pornography, murder, slavery, revenge, and underscoring what an incredible shit town Night City is. Usually it's just, "Go to Place X, Sneak or Fight your Past Y Guards, upload/steal/kill, collect reward" but there's so many fascinating layers to everything.

Snuff Porn
Soviet Agents
Rescuing the wife of a snitch from the Tyger Claws

They put their heart and soul into what was essentially filler content for us.

It's exactly what I wanted from being a street merc!

 

[Krul2k]

Ok ok i'll bite then, read the shards and listen, some of the side quests are on par if not surpass those of W3 but thats just my opinion just like yours is yours and thats why we are here

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

I freely admit my bias as a cyberpunk author. Basically, when we have quests like Geralt going to kill the Hag who ate a child or Geralt going to get some shit for the Pellar, I'm like, "This is okay." However, the quests that stick out in my mind from that game are the shitty ones rather than the ones like the Ghost on the Island. I remember Geralt getting some old woman's frying pan more than I remember deep intricate storytelling.

For me, though, every quest in Night City is absolutely full of an additional layer of fucked up and dark. The Side Gigs are full of stories of pornography, murder, slavery, revenge, and underscoring what an incredible shit town Night City is. Usually it's just, "Go to Place X, Sneak or Fight your Past Y Guards, upload/steal/kill, collect reward" but there's so many fascinating layers to everything.

Snuff Porn
Soviet Agents
Rescuing the wife of a snitch from the Tyger Claws

They put their heart and soul into what was essentially filler content for us.

It's exactly what I wanted from being a street merc!

I agree. Themes of Cyberpunk are there. But all Gigs feel so superficial. I don't want to go somewhere and neutralize targets. There should be more story content.
Remember how Blood & Wine fixed the excessive white question mark problem in Witcher 3 base game by connecting those questions marks to a narrative thread like Knight Errands, Hanse Bases, Wine Wars etc. That improvement is not in Cyberpunk. In that aspects, side quests feel so superficial in Cyberpunk.

 

[Krul2k]

Answered your own problem

DLC solved W3 problems, so wait for dlc

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Answered your own problem

DLC solved W3 problems, so wait for dlc

They should have improved Cyberpunk from Blood & Wine. Alas, what has happened is already happend. Hopefully they fix those in a DLC.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

This is my favourite quest in the game. Problem is that most side quests are up to the quality of this quests in Witcher 3. No filler like go somewhere & kill this guy. Filler feels like random Bandit camps in Witcher 3. Even those camps had cool stories in letters.

 

[Satori88]

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.

 

[CTPhipps]

I agree. Themes of Cyberpunk are there. But all Gigs feel so superficial. I don't want to go somewhere and neutralize targets. There should be more story content.
Remember how Blood & Wine fixed the excessive white question mark problem in Witcher 3 base game by connecting those questions marks to a narrative thread like Knight Errands, Hanse Bases, Wine Wars etc. That improvement is not in Cyberpunk. In that aspects, side quests feel so superficial in Cyberpunk.

Ehhhh, that's kind of threading a needle there. Side Gigs are fundamentally and directly different from Side Quests.

When Side Gigs aren't one-shot criminal activities, they become Side Quests like Kerry's desire to menace Japanese Schoolgirls for some godforsaken reason that I suspect can be summarized as, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."

The Side Quests are connected to the Main Quest. The Side Gigs are independent and equivalent to Witcher Contracts.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

Did you play W3 at launch?? Cmon be truthful it was buggy as old nicks knickers

Q: Why exaggerate to make the situation similar? It's not.

Witcher 3 run on may 16 2015 on my dual core i3 3220 + GTX 660 2GB 30-40 FPS 1080p High settings.
The difference in optimization its night and day.
Cyberpunk for example I run on my 8 core(16 threads) + RX 580 4GB 17-20 FPS on 1080p low settings. (And that's with ConfigOverhaulCyberpunk set to Very Low. )

 

[Krul2k]

Atleast i didn't need to kill 10 giant rats, so tired of that quest tbh

[...]

 

[CTPhipps]

Yeah, Witcher 3 was buggy as hell, but this release is beyond buggy.

This is Fallout 76 levels of crash and MAY EVEN BE WORSE.

The hotfixes helped at least.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Ehhhh, that's kind of threading a needle there. Side Gigs are fundamentally and directly different from Side Quests.

When Side Gigs aren't one-shot criminal activities, they become Side Quests like Kerry's desire to menace Japanese Schoolgirls for some godforsaken reason that I suspect can be summarized as, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."

The Side Quests are connected to the Main Quest. The Side Gigs are independent and equivalent to Witcher Contracts.

If Gigs aren't supposed to replace Witcher contracts, I don't know what does.

Quest log in Witcher 3 had 4 sections
1) Main quests
2) Secondary Quests
3) Witcher Contracts
4) Treasure Hunts

Quest log in Cyberpunk have 5 sections
1) Main quest
2) Secondary Quests
3) Gigs
4) NCPD activities
5) Rides

Gigs, NCPD & Rides feel like
filler instead of fleshed out quests. Also there are far less of secondary quests in Cyberpunk comparing to Witcher 3.

 

[sL3nd3rmAnn]

Yeah, Witcher 3 was buggy as hell, but this release is beyond buggy.

This is Fallout 76 levels of crash and MAY EVEN BE WORSE.

The hotfixes helped at least.

The difference its night and day for me.
I didn't hassled for two days to even run Witcher 3 like i did with Cyberpunk 2077(cough flatline error).
It run well on my dual core and GTX 660 no like Cyberpunk runs on my pc (10-20 FPS without ConfigOverhaulCyberpunk ).
No major breaking bugs. No teleporting AI. Textures not loading. No broken graphical options(cough SSR).
The game looked next gen, crisp, clear, good not like cyberpunk which looks hazy, blurred, grainy.

Q: Can we really compare Witcher 3 after 1 month with this joke?.

 

[JagoA]

The quest system (gigs and police ncdp activites) is something that seems to me obviously something unfinished. Completely agree that walking by exclamation points on the map and getting a call + exposition dump by journals is super unsatisfying and unnatural.

It wouldn't necessarily be bad if some are like this, however i would much prefer most of the quest to actually be briefed with fixers in person, seems more RPG like to me and suits what I feel should be the slow and purposeful theme rather than going from exclamation to exclamation grind out what are mostly copy and paste quests.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

The difference its night and day for me.
I didn't hassled for two days to even run Witcher 3 like i did with Cyberpunk 2077(cough flatline error).
It run well on my dual core and GTX 660 no like Cyberpunk runs on my pc (10-20 FPS without ConfigOverhaulCyberpunk ).
No major breaking bugs. No teleporting AI. Textures not loading. No broken graphical options(cough SSR).
The game looked next gen, crisp, clear, good not like cyberpunk which looks hazy, blurred, grainy.

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.

Post automatically merged: Jan 4, 2021

The quest system (gigs and police ncdp activites) is something that seems to me obviously something unfinished. Completely agree that walking by exclamation points on the map and getting a call + exposition dump by journals is super unsatisfying and unnatural.

It wouldn't necessarily be bad if some are like this, however i would much prefer most of the quest to actually be briefed with fixers in person, seems more RPG like to me and suits what I feel should be the slow and purposeful theme rather than going from exclamation to exclamation grind out what are mostly copy and paste quests.

Yup, problem is that how they gonna fix that. Obviously, this game gonna be great with constant updates. But there's always gonna be a lot of sections that I might feel like "uggh ... not that repetitive gig again".