The one that sold more copies.
It's the same reason why CDPR decided to copy TW3's structure in Cyberpunk instead of TW2's.
It's the same reason why CDPR decided to copy TW3's structure in Cyberpunk instead of TW2's.
I think way bigger issue is that Cyberpunk is lacking. If this was named Night City 2077? Who would know, or would that make any difference.
To me, it wouldn't because I did not specifically draw my imterest from a cyberpunk worldsetting from the name 'cyberpunk' directly. At least, I never gave it that much thought within the knowledge I had of it.
I cant speak of others of ourse but those that more actively deal in this 'world' might. But then again I have also seen quite the amount of complaints that this was not the 'cyberpunk' which 'they' expected. So.. who's to say really.
Now speaking after 1,5years.. I do believe it could have functioned very much as a proxy.
A location within the cyberpunk landspace that has down this way. It would be very easy to make numerous installsments carrying a rather arbitrary name but all play a part in the cyberpunk universe.
Similar in how some movie franchises do(did) it, I remeber this thing about "The Dark Universe" which was meant to integrate various monster films into a franchise.
With the fact that the game carries the name of a whole franchise itself, it also carries that burden of being it personification , rather than being 'just' a part of it.
That's just a name. What matters is what's in the box. And to do that, you have to open it to see the content.
It's similar with the definition of cyberpunk. There may be a general description of the genre, but the manifestations can be varied, and I think Cyberpunk 2077 pretty much sums it up, when it comes to the "Cyberpunk Red" brand, which entails a lot of specifications.
It's similar with the definition of cyberpunk. There may be a general description of the genre, but the manifestations can be varied, and I think Cyberpunk 2077 pretty much sums it up, when it comes to the "Cyberpunk Red" brand, which entails a lot of specifications.
Absolutely. And I've been trying to argue this ever since CP2077 was officially announced. Cyberpunk 2020 is a tabletop PnP game. No CRPG is going to be a 1:1 translation of a PnP RPG. Ever. (It is possible to recreate PnP as a computer program, and there are a fair few programs that do exactly that. Those, however, are toolsets. The game itself is...still PnP.)
Any time a game is adapted to a different medium, there will be changes. Here, CDPR attempted to do what they do best: create a sweeping cinematic experienced based on the universe that Mike Pondsmith created. The results are not a PnP RPG experience -- they are a CRPG experience. Whether people want more of this, or less of that, it's entirely subjective. Most people I've spoken to like the game a lot. It simply didn't reach The Witcher 3 levels of oh-my-god-this-is-the-best-game-ever. Very few games ever will. And yet I had a lot of fun with it. I still say Night City is the most incredible urban environment I've ever seen in a game.
The RPG elements are there in spades. Has it been done arguably better in other games? Yes, I would agree. But there's no lack of them. It just didn't work out as monumentally as everyone hoped.
Personally, while there are definitely areas I'd like to see improved in future updates, expansions, or sequels, I'm not disappointed by what's here. The primary reason the game is getting this much flack is because CDPR made it. If this game had come from a developer no one had ever heard of before, the reviews would be praising it as "...a flawed gem that's still definitely worth your time!" There's nothing inherently wrong with the game -- it just didn't live up to many people's wildly steep expectations.
On the other side of that coin, once again, I'm sure it was a (likely somewhat painful) learning experience for everyone involved in the development. CDPR has always been extremely ambitious, and here, it seems they bit off a bigger chunk than they could readily chew. Balance is not easy.
To expand on @SigilFey s point, most tabletop RPG's don't translate well into video games, particularly when being designed for one person, whereas most table games are designed with groups in mind.
Well, this is actually wrong. Turned based games translate extremely well from table top PnP. I agree when it comes to real time games that it doesn't translate well. The thing is, for a PnP game, Cyberpunk 2020 was closer to realism than most other PnP games. There was no hit points, had more of a trauma system. There were no levels. No tiered loot. As much as I really like Cyberpunk 2077, best game I've played in years and I've bought 2 copies, CDPR really missed the mark on what made the PnP game so good
To be honest
This isn't a RPG game
We get to decide V's look
But
We are playing CDPR's V in CDPR's story.
We cannot deviate from the story and are forced down the path without a choice to venture outside of it.
We can choose the tools we use and how we implement them but your choices there don't effect anything either
Its just a flashy dress up story.
We pick our pretty clothes and pretty toys and frolick through their book. Knowing in the end nothing you really did will help their V out in the end
This isn't a RPG game
We get to decide V's look
But
We are playing CDPR's V in CDPR's story.
We cannot deviate from the story and are forced down the path without a choice to venture outside of it.
We can choose the tools we use and how we implement them but your choices there don't effect anything either
Its just a flashy dress up story.
We pick our pretty clothes and pretty toys and frolick through their book. Knowing in the end nothing you really did will help their V out in the end
Role playing game
What if im a bad guy and want to kill both Panam and judy.
All we get to play is the role of CDPR's V. Never our own.
We playing a story book. Definitely not an RPG
Well, they are important NPC's, if I was running tabletop and had an important NPC that was essential to the story/campaign I am running then I would not let them die either. I'd fudge die rolls etc.
It is not a sandbox RPG for sure. You have the night city world and an adventure to run a character through. This is pretty typical in ttrpg's. I mean, if I'm running a game and the players wish to kill an important NPC then fine, at which point we'd pause the game and go and do something else whilst I prepare more content or if the players kill the quest giver, then that's the RP over for that evening.
nothing wrong with wanting a sandbox open world rpg, but this rpg has a scenario and story for you to play with choices within that story you can make. Many ttrpg's follow this format else published scenarios would not be a big thing.
Post automatically merged:
There is no story without roles, and no role without a story.
You can't just decide to act like Adam Smasher mid-game, because that wouldn't make any sense if you start playing as V. Just like it wouldn't make sense for Geralt of Rivia to kill Ciri. Your LARP friends would be really pissed.
Besides, even in more "Sandboxy" RPGs, you can't generally kill important NPCs. For example, I think that you can't kill Valentine or Preston in FO4, nor Arngeir or Serena in Skyrim...
Bethesda had to learn from Morrowind on why allowing the killing of important NPC's is bad. It breaks the game
I doubt many expected 1:1 representation of PnP. What matters is how you translate "the feel", the main theme(s) of the setting through rpg mechanics.
And that was definitely doable.
Cyberpunk should have been more like Open world Fallout meets Deus Ex: No tiered weapons and gear ( instead using categorization based on manufacturer with distinctive, lore friendly properties), low numbers ( gritty, down to earth, low fantasy), realistic weapon/gear stats, optional wounds system ( on higher difficulties), good range of non combat skills ( medtechie, persuasion, barter, security, etc), cyberpsychosis ( negatively affecting different player stats), much greater variation of enemy types and stats/abilities, extensive/visual customization of cyberware, and above all else: no player/enemy levels.
It really feels like they did everything the opposite of 2020, and super oversimplified everything.
With hacking, I know it did not work well in PnP, but I think they went too far by turning it into magic spells with cooldown. Npcs should have different antimalware security programs, Breach should be about uploading greater variety of viruses, creating synergies with quickhacks ( based on encounters and types of enemies), different types of networks, etc.
I remember one of the most exciting things everyone talked about 2018 demo was when V uploads directly into enemy npc and access/manipulate it's neural network. It looked interesting and made the game stand out next to competition.
Without knowing the background that led to the design decisions, it is almost impossible to determine what was originally intended and what had to be adjusted over time as the project progressed.
If I remember correctly, the early presentations were always titled as work in progress and that content can change before release or be omitted entirely.
I can well imagine that this led to some compromises. Also to avoid feature creep.
Limited resources, limited opportunities.
Much of the criticism reflects personal expectations and desires. In the end there are always things that can be done better. Cyberpunk '77 is what it is today. I'm curious how it will be after the release of the expansions and further patches. And I'm very sure that my current playing time of 300h+ will get a few more hours.
If I remember correctly, the early presentations were always titled as work in progress and that content can change before release or be omitted entirely.
I can well imagine that this led to some compromises. Also to avoid feature creep.
Limited resources, limited opportunities.
Much of the criticism reflects personal expectations and desires. In the end there are always things that can be done better. Cyberpunk '77 is what it is today. I'm curious how it will be after the release of the expansions and further patches. And I'm very sure that my current playing time of 300h+ will get a few more hours.
Last edited:
^This.
If there's going to be any sort of cohesive narrative, you can't have main characters dying randomly. If you want to create a sandbox experience, you can't have a crafted narrative.
(And neither one of those things are required for nor prevent a game from being an RPG.)
I'm still very surprised to read this kind of assertion on this forum. Anywhere else, I think on social networks, it would be normal, but here, on this forum, where many players have objectively pointed out flaws inherent to the game that are far from personal expectations or desires, I don't understand that, a year and a half later, one can still read that. Loving a game and spending hundreds of hours on it, as I did, does not mean that the game is flawless, perfect. I love C2077 but that doesn't stop me from recognising its many faults. The criticisms made of it are more than legitimate.
Even today, players come to this forum every day to complain about bugs or mechanics that don't work or gameplay or story. If the criticisms are sometimes still the same as when the game was released (and whatever one may say, the game has not changed much since then), in a year and a half, their formulation has evolved towards something more precise and objective. All that certainly doesn't reflect the DNA of a great game (even if some aspects of the game - story, characters, NC - are great) regardless of the personal pleasure one may derive from playing it. Apart from the false debate of whether it's an RPG or not.
To continue to say that the other's speech is purely subjective (often in order to discredit it), even though the other has given a host of objective arguments in numerous subjects on this forum for example, is to show the greatest subjectivity. Some people did criticise the game as it is (and the game as it is today is open to criticism), not what they think it could or should have been. After that, everyone has their own opinion, but also their own arguments. Both are important and often go hand in hand.
As for hoping that the game will improve with future updates and an expansion, that's just hope and new expectations, we can't tell. New content doesn't mean better game. We'll see. Will new content bring new RPG mechanics or at least improve the RPG aspect of the game ? I don't think so. So CDPR probably won't address the lack of RPG mechanics in this way.
Absolutely. I totally agree with you.
Do not get me wrong. There are still many problems and shortcomings. And I certainly don't want to sugarcoat justified criticism. If that's how you understood it, I'd like to correct it.
Only sometimes do the differences between errors and the desire for new, additional features become blurred. I wanted to express that.
But that can be applied to a lot of RPGs though.
You can't kill Kreia - or any of your squadmates, for that matter - in KotOR 2, or Karth in KotOR 1.
You can't kill most of the quest npcs in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.
You can't kill most important story-related NPCs in Dragon Age Origins, same with Mass Effect series. Hell, you can't even hit NPCs in general, unless a dialogue prompt allows for it - same as KotOR in that regard.
In all of this games you can be a bad guy, but in certain occasions you would have to obey to the same rules as a good guy, in order to make the story function.
The more complex the technology and storytelling gets, the more effort is being put into presentation, staging and writing of story and characters, the harder it is to give player freedom to easily kill anyone and allow the story to progress. And in a game of the scale and production level as Cyberpunk, it is almost functionally impossible.
Last edited: