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

[ReneAensland]

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.

In all of video games? lol how?

Go here, kill someone. Leave.
Go here. Kill someone. Grab stuff. Drop off stuff.
Rinse and repeat. I started killing everything and having them kill themselves and inducing Cyberpsychosis when I found out my actions have 0 impact in the World.

The side quests are like sides of salad. Who TF wants a side of salad

 

[JagoA]

In all of video games? lol how?

Go here, kill someone. Leave.
Go here. Kill someone. Grab stuff. Drop off stuff.
Rinse and repeat. I started killing everything and having them kill themselves and inducing Cyberpsychosis when I found out my actions have 0 impact in the World.

The side quests are like sides of salad. Who TF wants a side of salad

I don't think it's fair to say gigs are sidequests of cyberpunk, if they are they are very low tier and not at all narrative driven. I think some of the side jobs have decent narrative value even if they ultimately do not impact the world at all.

Ex. Sinnerman, I fought the law, Beast in me (no matter how bad the actual races are... christ they were a snoozefest), happy together.

 

[Vixraine]

From last year, from these forums, from the Quest Design Coordinator:

Developer Spotlight with Quest Design Coordinator Philipp Weber

Hey Choombas! The Moderators got together and thought it would be cool to try and shine some light on one of our very favorite devs @Benzenzimmern (CDPR Quest Design Coordinator Philipp Weber). We also collected some frequent questions or discussions on the forums related to quest design. He...

forums.cdprojektred.com

We’ve heard that Cyberpunk 2077 will have main quests, side quests and street stories. Can you explain how these quest types are different?

Main quests are usually the largest quests in the game and are the ones players have to play to get to the end of the story. Of course we make a nonlinear game, so not all main quests are always required, but those are usually the ones that have the main characters and themes in them that we want to convey. If you wanted, you could only play the main quests and should still get a really good experience.

Side quests are all other quests we put into the game. They can be as large or even bigger as a main quest, or just very short. They are based on all the ideas and stories we want to tell that don’t have a place in our main story. Sometimes they also have a specific purpose, like introducing a new theme to the game, or telling the story of a specific community or location.

Street Stories are the bread and butter of a street merc like V, a bit like monster hunting for a witcher like Geralt. These are the jobs that V gets from fixers like Dexter DeShawn, and doing these jobs gives V more street cred, so she gets a reputation around the city. These jobs can be very varied and of course also benefit a lot from our different playstyles, so there’s often many creative ways to solve them. Street Stories are designed and implemented by our Open World Team, so as a quest designer I’m actually really looking forward towards playing them myself, because I don’t know them as well as other quests in the game and I’ll be able to play them almost as any other player.

We also have minor quests, which is just our term for short or smaller side quests. Sometimes they can just be a few minutes long, but they all should tell an interesting story nevertheless. This is often where we can be the most creative, because there’s not a lot of pressure. Many cool moments that people remember from Wild Hunt are from these smaller minor quests.

Sure sounds like the OP has the right of it, comparing Gigs/Street-Stories to monster hunting contracts.

Since video games are inherently restricted by hard-coded mechanical systems, what is it like having to mold your quests around those features?

It starts out as a bit of a challenge to see how we can tell our stories with the systems we have, but it ends up being really fun. Cyberpunk as an example has many different gameplay options, so naturally there’s always many different tools a player can use to solve problems.

At the beginning, we might feel like these features are a bit like shackles, so we sometimes can’t do all the things we want to in our quests, but with time, we usually find that despite these hard-mechanical systems, basically anything is possible. We can always be a bit creative to bend the systems or come up with different solutions to let us do whatever we want, so in the end, it feels like we’re molding the systems more around our quests than the other way around.

Most importantly, sometimes having restrictions can also make you more creative. If we could do anything in the world, we might get paralysed always thinking about a thousand possibilities, but with some restrictions, you know what to do, but you can still think of clever ways to circumvent these restrictions.

This dude talks like he is part of a well-oiled machine that is working on stories 60 hours a week (and by all accounts, they were working harder than that, even). I'd be interested to know what happened to the content and work being done by the hardcore teams described here.

I keep popping back into Night City, because i just can't get pieces of it out of my head. Gave it 85% before release of being my hands down favorite videogame of all time.

But I keep leaving again too, because no matter what I do I just cannot shake the feeling that I'm playing an earlier version of the game than the one being promoted over the last year. The talking points from 2016 and 2018 are like visiting another planet when you consider this the company that made TW3.

I remember being on the forums prior TW3-release breaking down screenshots and examining art assets to verify and illustrate that CDPR hadn't downgraded the game's visual quality. So I call a spade a spade, good or bad. (Looking back, looks like I got egg on my face for that after release, but even those issues were just post-processing effects and foliage quality)

This game has the bones. Gods, does it have the bones.

It can, and might still become one of if not the best videogames literally of all time. In its current form, however, I'm sorry to say that I find It painful interacting with most of the story and systems after a few dozen hours or so in.

Adding insult to injury, I also wind up feeling incredibly awkward interacting with this gritty world full of psychos, snuff-rapist-perverts, and literally nailing a man to a MFing /cross/, while playing as a V that the game seems decidated to protecting, like the world's most politically influential 13yr old serial-killer *cough* RPG protagonist *cough* waiting to grow up tall enough to see inside the literally Dickensian shops and culture paraded in their face.

I love this game, I'm glad we have it. I hope we get the game they wanted to release.
If at this point that is through the tireless work of CDPR themselves, rogue devs, or modders I don't much care.
Can't stop the signal, choombas.

 

[grave153]

I am soo angry with the storyline of this game. The prologues were great after seeing the opening credits after 6 hours. But in Act 1 should of been longer. Act 2 the game went downhill fast soo boring. Thought this game was going to be about defeating corporations, owing big houses and being rich. But no instead the whole Act 2 is about getting johnny out of your head and surviving the END. This campaign can be finished in 15 hours. This should of been 40-45 hours long main campaign for 8 years of development. I would of rather them get rid of all the boring gigs and side quests for main storyline.

 

[linegenrou]

I don't think it's fair to say gigs are sidequests of cyberpunk

that's because they're not, they're filler content
they're equivalent to the "spoils of war" question marks on the sea of Skellige in TW3.

 

[GrecoDrakken]

I love the journal in RDR too. I wish that they gonna add something like that for the next Wicher game.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2021

I read everything in games. Cyberpunk shards are interesting to read but most of them feels like important quest details that they present in a cutscene. Both Witcher 3 & RDR presented those details organically via dialogue and cutscenes while letters that you loot enhanced the experience.

Exactly some of them feel even like those anticlimatic pause text after some side quest in Mass Effect 1 where you have to read something that happened to your character, like a text adventure. Even some shards related to quests are wrongly placed, in places that are found after you finish the objetive. The fact gigs and NCPD calls are related, but the shard and database menu is badly designed makes it hard to keep track of everything.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Dragon Age Inquisition. All side quests in the world where go to place X -> kill everyone and then the bits of lore were distributed only thorugh letters.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2021

It could be something like dialogue choices. You have different thoughts that you can pick and choose to write down after the quests. Maybe with different style of writing depending on the lifepath

Those kinda quests were my least favourite part of inquisition. DAI also had countless generic side quests like Cyberpunk gigs. However most characters in Inquisition had real arcs unlike Cyberpunk. DAI took time to develop those characters while Cyberpunk rushed through it’s main quest.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

Dragon Age Inquisition was a pretty shallow and boring game, it was essentially an MMO without the social aspects. This isn't a game you want to copy.
TW3 was essentially a diametric opposite of Dragon Age both in terms of how it handled social commentary with finesse and nuance and both in terms of how it had meaningful side content instead filler chores.

This is just my opinion, but Witcher 3 was way more innovative & immersive than Inquisition.

 

[CTPhipps]

Those kinda quests were my least favourite part of inquisition. DAI also had countless generic side quests like Cyberpunk gigs. However most characters in Inquisition had real arcs unlike Cyberpunk. DAI took time to develop those characters while Cyberpunk rushed through it’s main quest.

All the character development is in the side quests.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

In all of video games? lol how?

Go here, kill someone. Leave.
Go here. Kill someone. Grab stuff. Drop off stuff.
Rinse and repeat. I started killing everything and having them kill themselves and inducing Cyberpsychosis when I found out my actions have 0 impact in the World.

The side quests are like sides of salad. Who TF wants a side of salad

Problem is how sides of the salad kept bothering me with phone calls wherever I went.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

I don't think it's fair to say gigs are sidequests of cyberpunk, if they are they are very low tier and not at all narrative driven. I think some of the side jobs have decent narrative value even if they ultimately do not impact the world at all.

Ex. Sinnerman, I fought the law, Beast in me (no matter how bad the actual races are... christ they were a snoozefest), happy together.

Gigs are not secondary quests like Sinnerman. But in Witcher 3, there were Witcher contracts alongside Secondary quests. Cyberpunk doesn't have something to fill the void of Witcher contracts. Cyberpunk really need something else than secondary quests because the game is so short comparing to Witcher 3.

 

[CTPhipps]

Gigs are not secondary quests like Sinnerman. But in Witcher 3, there were Witcher contracts alongside Secondary quests. Cyberpunk doesn't have something to fill the void of Witcher contracts. Cyberpunk really need something else than secondary quests because the game is so short comparing to Witcher 3.

If the leak was real, C2077 supposedly had two entire story arcs cut out of the game and possibly an additional one with the police.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

From last year, from these forums, from the Quest Design Coordinator:

Developer Spotlight with Quest Design Coordinator Philipp Weber

Hey Choombas! The Moderators got together and thought it would be cool to try and shine some light on one of our very favorite devs @Benzenzimmern (CDPR Quest Design Coordinator Philipp Weber). We also collected some frequent questions or discussions on the forums related to quest design. He...

forums.cdprojektred.com

Sure sounds like the OP has the right of it, comparing Gigs/Street-Stories to monster hunting contracts.




This dude talks like he is part of a well-oiled machine that is working on stories 60 hours a week (and by all accounts, they were working harder than that, even). I'd be interested to know what happened to the content and work being done by the hardcore teams described here.

I keep popping back into Night City, because i just can't get pieces of it out of my head. Gave it 85% before release of being my hands down favorite videogame of all time.

But I keep leaving again too, because no matter what I do I just cannot shake the feeling that I'm playing an earlier version of the game than the one being promoted over the last year. The talking points from 2016 and 2018 are like visiting another planet when you consider this the company that made TW3.

I remember being on the forums prior TW3-release breaking down screenshots and examining art assets to verify and illustrate that CDPR hadn't downgraded the game's visual quality. So I call a spade a spade, good or bad. (Looking back, looks like I got egg on my face for that after release, but even those issues were just post-processing effects and foliage quality)

This game has the bones. Gods, does it have the bones.

It can, and might still become one of if not the best videogames literally of all time. In its current form, however, I'm sorry to say that I find It painful interacting with most of the story and systems after a few dozen hours or so in.

Adding insult to injury, I also wind up feeling incredibly awkward interacting with this gritty world full of psychos, snuff-rapist-perverts, and literally nailing a man to a MFing /cross/, while playing as a V that the game seems decidated to protecting, like the world's most politically influential 13yr old serial-killer *cough* RPG protagonist *cough* waiting to grow up tall enough to see inside the literally Dickensian shops and culture paraded in their face.

I love this game, I'm glad we have it. I hope we get the game they wanted to release.
If at this point that is through the tireless work of CDPR themselves, rogue devs, or modders I don't much care.
Can't stop the signal, choombas.

Thank you posting dev's post

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

I am soo angry with the storyline of this game. The prologues were great after seeing the opening credits after 6 hours. But in Act 1 should of been longer. Act 2 the game went downhill fast soo boring. Thought this game was going to be about defeating corporations, owing big houses and being rich. But no instead the whole Act 2 is about getting johnny out of your head and surviving the END. This campaign can be finished in 15 hours. This should of been 40-45 hours long main campaign for 8 years of development. I would of rather them get rid of all the boring gigs and side quests for main storyline.

Actually, secondary quests are pretty good. Gigs are the boring part.
However, the whole main quest feels like Act I of a much bigger game. Velen part alone in Witcher 3 had a more coherent plot & an impact on the game world.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

Du

Exactly some of them feel even like those anticlimatic pause text after some side quest in Mass Effect 1 where you have to read something that happened to your character, like a text adventure. Even some shards related to quests are wrongly placed, in places that are found after you finish the objetive. The fact gigs and NCPD calls are related, but the shard and database menu is badly designed makes it hard to keep track of everything.

Didn't play Mass Effect 1 in a long time to remember that. Waiting for the remastered edition.
... & yeah menu system is really bad.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

All the character development is in the side quests.

That's how Bioware games worked since 2008. Problem with Cyberpunk is that characters like Meredith, Evelyn, Viktor don't have their own qquestlines.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

If the leak was real, C2077 supposedly had two entire story arcs cut out of the game and possibly an additional one with the police.

I didn't need a leak to understand that. Game is missing so much.

 

[CTPhipps]

That's how Bioware games worked since 2008. Problem with Cyberpunk is that characters like Meredith, Evelyn, Viktor don't have their own qquestlines.

Funnily, Victor shows up in the boxing quest and funeral and other places that make him actually relevant.

Meredith I think was always going to be a determinate one shot.

Evelyn's absence still pisses me off.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Funnily, Victor shows up in the boxing quest and funeral and other places that make him actually relevant.

Meredith I think was always going to be a determinate one shot.

Evelyn's absence still pisses me off.

Kinda felt like Viktor needed a quest to show his backstory or personality. After all he is one of the characters that call us in the end.

 

[GrecoDrakken]

Funnily, Victor shows up in the boxing quest and funeral and other places that make him actually relevant.

Meredith I think was always going to be a determinate one shot.

Evelyn's absence still pisses me off.

Meredith it's kind of like Keira Metz in TW3, but even Keira being a one night stand, has her own questline and her final quest is not sex. Meredith doest not, her 'questline' depends if you kill her or not, answering her text and having sex. So many side characters feel like that. I think that Pacifica was one of those questlines that feels a little short.

 

[CTPhipps]

Meredith it's kind of like Keira Metz in TW3, but even Keira being a one night stand, has her own questline and her final quest is not sex. Meredith doest not, her 'questline' depends if you kill her or not, answering her text and having sex. So many side characters feel like that. I think that Pacifica was one of those questlines that feels a little short.

I felt like the odd thing about Pacifica is I just murdered everyone in their favorite gang. They should probably be hostile.

I don't expect the casual Haitan refugees to attack me. They're not suicidal.

But maybe some, "There's the murderer."

 

[GrecoDrakken]

Didn't play Mass Effect 1 in a long time to remember that. Waiting for the remastered edition.
... & yeah menu system is really bad.

Here is hoping that those little tweaks they hinted for updating ME 1 to today standards are those things, which are few. I'm also waiting for it.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

I felt like the odd thing about Pacifica is I just murdered everyone in their favorite gang. They should probably be hostile.

I don't expect the casual Haitan refugees to attack me. They're not suicidal.

But maybe some, "There's the murderer."

I didn't kill them because I was expecting that they had a bigger role in the story, considering that Alt was part of their plan and in the end it didn't matter.

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Meredith it's kind of like Keira Metz in TW3, but even Keira being a one night stand, has her own questline and her final quest is not sex. Meredith doest not, her 'questline' depends if you kill her or not, answering her text and having sex. So many side characters feel like that. I think that Pacifica was one of those questlines that feels a little short.

All the districts needed an introductory quest to get familiarized with the culture. Game just rush the story between districts without not slowing down.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

I felt like the odd thing about Pacifica is I just murdered everyone in their favorite gang. They should probably be hostile.

I don't expect the casual Haitan refugees to attack me. They're not suicidal.

But maybe some, "There's the murderer."

I just murdered every gang in my first playthough as a solo gunner. Every gang should hate me right now. However, I feel like game fundamentally not designed to have a reputation system.
But I remember CDPR showing us a Van following us as a revenge aattempt in the 48 minute demo. That's still present in the game as a scripted event.

 

[GrecoDrakken]

All the districts needed an introductory quest to get familiarized with the culture. Game just rush the story between districts without not slowing down.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2021

I just murdered every gang in my first playthough as a solo gunner. Every gang should hate me right now. However, I feel like game fundamentally not designed to have a reputation system.
But I remember CDPR showing us a Van following us as a revenge aattempt in the 48 minute demo. That's still present in the game as a scripted event.

Yeah, districts and gangs have their stories and if I remember correctly on those trailers that showcase gangs, not even the database says things like the trailer. Exploration is not a big thing here, once you're given access to the open world, every mark is put on the map and there isn't actually the need to search to earn worldbuilding or storytelling, again like TW3 where everything had to be discovered. If I remember correctly, even the exposition shards feel a little poor, those that are earn and the ones that aren't earn (weapons and vehicles) are perfect.

The only reputation is street cred, but that's so easy to earn that it feels worthless. I remember only 3 missions where my level cap street cred actually matter. But almost everything is scripted here. :/

 

[Thilanka_Vithanage]

Yeah, districts and gangs have their stories and if I remember correctly on those trailers that showcase gangs, not even the database says things like the trailer. Exploration is not a big thing here, once you're given access to the open world, every mark is put on the map and there isn't actually the need to search to earn worldbuilding or storytelling, again like TW3 where everything had to be discovered. If I remember correctly, even the exposition shards feel a little poor, those that are earn and the ones that aren't earn (weapons and vehicles) are perfect.

The only reputation is street cred, but that's so easy to earn that it feel's worthless. I remember only 3 missions where my level cap street cred actually matter. But almost everything is scripted here. :/

I don't know the exact reason but exploration feels non-existent.

 

[NotCreatex]

If the leak was real, C2077 supposedly had two entire story arcs cut out of the game and possibly an additional one with the police.

I would believe it when I see it, but now keep doubting...

I just murdered every gang in my first playthough as a solo gunner. Every gang should hate me right now. However, I feel like game fundamentally not designed to have a reputation system.
But I remember CDPR showing us a Van following us as a revenge aattempt in the 48 minute demo. That's still present in the game as a scripted event.

I use non lethal build, yet non of them bother to plot a revenge. They only remember the things V did in prologue, everything else is nothing for them. There is one mission, first time I heard from these maelstroms knowing who I am. Other than that, scavenger also has one too, and there one time where I get recognized for revived from dead. They know who V is, just don't bother to make a move. After prologue, I should be big enough to take over the night city since everyone is afraid of me. A district system sounds good, anything that help to improve.

Kinda felt like Viktor needed a quest to show his backstory or personality. After all he is one of the characters that call us in the end.

Personally I don't think expanding quest line will make a good impact. It creates more conversation. I think the problem lie on the unconvincing Jali AI based facial animation. The perfect lip synch, but doesn't synch well with other animation like neck, eye, brow, etc. Their mouth will open and close perfectly on start and end of every sentence respectively while the head is still moving. It just feels unnatural. Not to mention most characters have slender neck. Sometimes they looks like bobble head when they fixed on a posture and talking. The occasional wedging of their posture somehow works, but weird at times. This also the reason why we don't see much of physical interaction between characters. Most of the time they stood there, crossing their arms, hands on hips, etc. Its not a bad thing, it speed up production and able to pack more lines. However, TW3 did way better with manual facial animation and has camera angle that show which character is talking rather than manually pan towards different characters do their things independently.