Why LEVELLING has to go in Cyberpunk 2077.

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I loved The Witcher 3... except its levelling system.

I have no problem with the MC gaining experience points and subsequently increasing its strength, but I do take issue in being shackled by the level of a monster or quest. Nothing breaks the immersion more than being swatted by a nondescript ghoul or wolf 5 levels higher than you after defeating a dragon or demon half an hour earlier. This is, in my opinion, the foremost pain point of TW3.

How do you solve it? I'm no game designer but I play a lot of games and I've seen people do it better. Dark Souls comes to mind. What is the real difference between the first zombies you encounter and the knights guarding the final boss? Their health? Damage output? Attack reach? All of those are correct but the real difference is more subtle. Its the enemies depth and complexity.

When you begin a game, you know little or nothing of its world or mechanics. You may bring a few transferable skills from other titles of similar genres (especially on console), but a game usually teaches you the fundamentals in its tutorial. Many games don't go beyond that, causing you to use the same moves, abilities and strategies throughout the story. It gets pretty dull, pretty quickly...

Great games however, are consistently building upon those core mechanics, forcing you to react faster (parrying), face new problems (multiple enemies in a tight location), exploit weaknesses (back-stabbing), use smarter strategies, etc. The monster's difficulty and your skill become intertwined and they grow throughout the story, finally culminating in a boss which combines much (or the entirety) of what you've learnt (think Pikachu and Snorlax in DS). A levelling system is a cheap imitation of this epic journey, replacing depth and complexity with artificial difficulty decided by a subjective number.

I also understand that guiding the player, especially in an open world game, can be very difficult and a levelling system is a straight forward fix. If the challenge the player is overcoming has a numerical value of +/- 2 with the MC, then someone with median skill should experience the thrill of the event has per the developer's design. If the difference is too high, come back later. If too low, it'll be a piece of cake. This is my second issue with a levelling system. It bans me from pursuing stories which I'm interested in. It also forces me to complete less appealing quests because I worry if I leave them, they'll provide less XP and be too easy.

I played a game recently which managed to avoid this problem - God of War (2017) (& BOTW apparently). Now granted, GOW isn't really open world and does have a levelling system which I'm currently bashing. However (slight spoiler ahead), the game gradually and elegantly opens up with the story through the shifting lake in the main area. Not only did this make me feel like I was directly and significantly impacting the world, but also allowed me to discover its depth (pardon the pun). Pairing a quest's access with progression removes the worry about difficulty and ensures the experience that the developer envisioned (in most cases). No invisible walls or locked doors. No need for overpowered enemies guarding entrances. No need for artificial barriers blocking me from quests. It was like eating a cake, where the more your cut into it, the move layers of cake you found within.

TW3 was a great game, but recent titles have since elevated shared aspects of game play. CD Projekt Red is one of my favourite developers who obviously cares tremendously about their games and players. I hope they can also draw a little inspiration from their peers on this topic.

Please let me know what you guys think. Let's get the conversation going and hopefully get a response from CD Projekt Red by pushing this up!
 
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I've never played CP2020, but I have extensive Shadowrun experience (both PnP and the new computer games) and the lack of levelling in that game works exceedingly well. In games with no levelling, it's usually total skill points that are used to measure relative power levels. I'm not that bummed by having inhabitants of one areas be tougher than a different area.
 
I SERIOUSLY doubt CP2077 "levels" are the same as the D&D ones most folks think of.
Wait and with luck CDPR will extrapolate on this further.

I'm far more concerned because every indication (so far) is they've scrapped the skill system from CP2020 in favor of an incredibly streamlined skill tree.
 
I SERIOUSLY doubt CP2077 "levels" are the same as the D&D ones most folks think of.
Wait and with luck CDPR will extrapolate on this further.

I'm far more concerned because every indication (so far) is they've scrapped the skill system from CP2020 in favor of an incredibly streamlined skill tree.

What?

There are skills (hacking, engineering, etc.), perks (presumably like TW3 perk trees), and attributes (6 PNP stats). The skills are used in skill checks. This much we know.
 
What?
There are skills (hacking, engineering, etc.), perks (presumably like TW3 perk trees), and attributes (6 PNP stats). The skills are used in skill checks. This much we know.
From what I can gather (and I may well be wrong) there's been zero mention of skills, just stats and apparently three "skill trees" you can improve; Solo, Netrunner, Tech. Presumedly once you get enough "experience" (not the same as Street Cred) you can increase one (maybe more?) level in one tree.
 
Some have said ”skills”, some ”abilities”, some ”perks”.

I don’t think it’s fully clarified how it really works and functions. It’s been rather superficial so far.
From what people are describing it as I expect a more open system similar to the one we saw in Witcher games. 3 trees in which you are free to invest equally, now it's just a question if there's linear progression in each tree or everything is up for grabs.
 
Some have said ”skills”, some ”abilities”, some ”perks”.

I don’t think it’s fully clarified how it really works and functions. It’s been rather superficial so far.
I've seen multiple previews specifically mention perks, skills and attributes, and they've all been described separately.

From what I can gather (and I may well be wrong) there's been zero mention of skills, just stats and apparently three "skill trees" you can improve; Solo, Netrunner, Tech. Presumedly once you get enough "experience" (not the same as Street Cred) you can increase one (maybe more?) level in one tree.

Oh, they've definitely been mentioned, on multiple occasions, actually. Hacking and engineering are both skills.
 
What?

There are skills (hacking, engineering, etc.), perks (presumably like TW3 perk trees), and attributes (6 PNP stats). The skills are used in skill checks. This much we know.

Yes, but will the skill choices/tress/whathaveyou be as diverse as CP2020 or will they be streamlined for the game? I'm wondering if it'l be something to the difference between the skill lists from ME1 vs ME2/3? I hope not. But, I also recognize that when games have a large skill list, it ends up that most of the skills don't get used, leaving the devs with the conundrum of how to make all the skills sufficiently useful.
 
Again, I'm VERY dubious that most of these reporters know the difference between a stat, perk, and skill.
 
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I've seen multiple previews specifically mention perks, skills and attributes, and they've all been described separately.

I’ve not seen them ”described” at all. But I have seen them mentioned in a mishmashed way where this preview mentions all three, and that other one only two of them, and that third one only attributes. The image here is very blurry.
 
I’ve not seen them ”described” at all. But I have seen them mentioned in a mishmashed way where this preview mentions all three, and that other one only two of them, and that third one only attributes. The image here is very blurry.

I guess we're looking at different previews. I hope it is clarified further, for your sake. Since it was in the demos, if one journalist were to ask the question (about perks, skills, attributes) I feel like they could get a relatively straightforward answer.
 
I guess we're looking at different previews.

Nah, I don’t believe so, but we might be reading into what’s said differently.

I tried to hunt for this particular clarification from the previews I read as they came out, but couldn’t find it. Just those vague mentions of this and that that sounded a tad conflicting in the next preview.
 
Nah, I don’t believe so, but we might be reading into what’s said differently.

I tried to hunt for this particular clarification from the previews I read as they came out, but couldn’t find it. Just those vague mentions of this and that that sounded a tad conflicting in the next preview.
I fully admit that it's possible I misunderstood what I read. I'm hoping not, but it's possible. I think I'll ask a few folks for clarification.
 
I tried to hunt for this particular clarification from the previews I read as they came out, but couldn’t find it. Just those vague mentions of this and that that sounded a tad conflicting in the next preview.
Exactly my point, no two previews seem to be able to agree with each other but most seem to indicate stats and a very limited set of skills, the exact thing you'd see from a skill tree with one branch for each role, Solo, Netrunner, Tech.
 
They probably weren't shown for a long time, so people didn't get a chance to get a good look at them. Could explain the discrepancies.
 
OP I do not agree at all!

When I think of RPG I think of as many things as possible being tied to a leveling system. I want character levels, stat levels, skill/perk levels. Hell I want my clothes, armor and weapons to have levels! Levels and levels and levels for everyone!
 
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