CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 + Phantom Liberty Expansion Thread

[Danikas]

Original Johnny concept art.

Anyway remember that random reddit "leak" from "game developer"

"Our original Johnny was heavily inspired by David Hayter's Solid Snake from the first MGS and believe it or not "

Could there be some truth to that?

 

[Yosharian]

It would have been so much better if they went with an unknown actor for Silverhand, I do have a soft spot for Keanu but he just doesn't add much to this character

 

[Quillon]

Not much different than Keanu Silverhand, tho why does he have black hair if its original concept/before keanu?

 

[Pegultagol]

If RDR2 is to be compared on its linearity of the missions and how restrictive its storytelling is, consider this:

I admit that RDR2's plot is pretty nonsensical and inexplicable with character decisions made for you at every turn making you feel completely helpless, exasperated, and mired in some creep toward inevitable and cursed fate. The narrative of how Dutch goes about bumbling around with his merry band of ignorant fools is really the worst part of the game.

However, many of your actions via the free character of Arthur Morgan are reflected in good/bad honor system that leads to different cutscenes, dialogues, items, and perks, not to mention the ultimate outcome in the life of the player character. It's a small difference in the big scheme of absurdity, but I feel it integrates quite naturally and there are umpteenth opportunities to influence it in either direction.

Furthermore you can dress your character however you want, with many options in beard and hair styles, not to mention crafting clothes that actually derive from the materials you hunt for and gather. The clothing sets offer small bonuses but they're not significantly tied to any gameplay contrivance and even serves immersive function to protect you from the elements. The weapons can be upgraded by parts and fittings, has various types of bullets that one can also craft, and there are challenges based on their skillful usage. It' just a small example of many of the choices at your disposal that might not affect the world per se, but does affect your representation interacting at all times in the constantly streaming, dynamic open world. The thing is, these type of facetious choices and light survival elements are the easiest things to implement in this type of game.

I feel CP2077 offers reactivity more contained in a mission, every mission handling pathways on which the player decision can influence the outcome. This is labor intensive, as the choices are heavily dialogue based and run on specific scripts and actions that only exist in one mission. The first few missions are especially fine examples, which offer many options that cater to player volition leading to diverse and compelling outcomes. But the majority of content exists in strait jacket narrative and a bubble of exclusivity not influencing other content in meaningful way. And I think the overall direction of story suffers from this as character development or relationship, let alone the world at large, feel particularly disjointed and existing in its own dimension. At least in the very end your ongoing relationship with Silverhand nets you another option to tackle the ending, but even then, supposedly hidden, as it's a secret! Why do they hide one single outcome toward which the player had contributed at many significant parts of the story?

Another glaring miss from this game that I felt was missed opportunity was the backdrop of ongoing Night City mayoral election. Even after some point in the game the winner was eventually declared on newscasts, I kept getting gigs and dialogs that still assumed the race was on and designed around sabotage or espionage for one candidate or the other. If CDPR was able to focus on a little reactivity of its proceedings and tie the loose ends this side story would've been a very nice chance to boost immersion and provide some cool atmosphere of a dynamic world. But done poorly, it produced a worse effect than would have if the missions were completely unrelated.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And the AI is almost non-existent in this game just like every other triple A game released in the last 5-10 years, hardly surprising they don't notice stuff like that

L4D2 was probably the last game that made any leaps in enemy AI, and it's over a decade old now.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If RDR2 is to be compared on its linearity of the missions and how restrictive its storytelling is, consider this:

I admit that RDR2's plot is pretty nonsensical and inexplicable with character decisions made for you at every turn making you feel completely helpless, exasperated, and mired in some creep toward inevitable and cursed fate. The narrative of how Dutch goes about bumbling around with his merry band of ignorant fools is really the worst part of the game.

However, many of your actions via the free character of Arthur Morgan are reflected in good/bad honor system that leads to different cutscenes, dialogues, items, and perks, not to mention the ultimate outcome in the life of the player character. It's a small difference in the big scheme of absurdity, but I feel it integrates quite naturally and there are umpteenth opportunities to influence it in either direction.

Furthermore you can dress your character however you want, with many options in beard and hair styles, not to mention crafting clothes that actually derive from the materials you hunt for and gather. The clothing sets offer small bonuses but they're not significantly tied to any gameplay contrivance and even serves immersive function to protect you from the elements. The weapons can be upgraded by parts and fittings, has various types of bullets that one can also craft, and there are challenges based on their skillful usage. It' just a small example of many of the choices at your disposal that might not affect the world per se, but does affect your representation interacting at all times in the constantly streaming, dynamic open world. The thing is, these type of facetious choices and light survival elements are the easiest things to implement in this type of game.

I feel CP2077 offers reactivity more contained in a mission, every mission handling pathways on which the player decision can influence the outcome. This is labor intensive, as the choices are heavily dialogue based and run on specific scripts and actions that only exist in one mission. The first few missions are especially fine examples, which offer many options that cater to player volition leading to diverse and compelling outcomes. But the majority of content exists in strait jacket narrative and a bubble of exclusivity not influencing other content in meaningful way. And I think the overall direction of story suffers from this as character development or relationship, let alone the world at large, feel particularly disjointed and existing in its own dimension. At least in the very end your ongoing relationship with Silverhand nets you another option to tackle the ending, but even then, supposedly hidden, as it's a secret! Why do they hide one single outcome toward which the player had contributed at many significant parts of the story?

Another glaring miss from this game that I felt was missed opportunity was the backdrop of ongoing Night City mayoral election. Even after some point in the game the winner was eventually declared on newscasts, I kept getting gigs and dialogs that still assumed the race was on and designed around sabotage or espionage for one candidate or the other. If CDPR was able to focus on a little reactivity of its proceedings and tie the loose ends this side story would've been a very nice chance to boost immersion and provide some cool atmosphere of a dynamic world. But done poorly, it produced a worse effect than would have if the missions were completely unrelated.

The problem is that CDPR should have been able to implement reactivity at both the micro and macro level because it was supposed to be an RPG. Hell, this is one of the areas that Witcher 3 excelled in -- I've played the game a few times through now and a lot of quests interact with each other(including temporally) and shape the overall narrative.
RDR2 never set out to create an RPG. They made a really good cowboy simulator with a lot of world interactions/reactivity.

 

[Zeriel]

If RDR2 is to be compared on its linearity of the missions and how restrictive its storytelling is, consider this:

I admit that RDR2's plot is pretty nonsensical and inexplicable with character decisions made for you at every turn making you feel completely helpless, exasperated, and mired in some creep toward inevitable and cursed fate. The narrative of how Dutch goes about bumbling around with his merry band of ignorant fools is really the worst part of the game.

However, many of your actions via the free character of Arthur Morgan are reflected in good/bad honor system that leads to different cutscenes, dialogues, items, and perks, not to mention the ultimate outcome in the life of the player character. It's a small difference in the big scheme of absurdity, but I feel it integrates quite naturally and there are umpteenth opportunities to influence it in either direction.

Furthermore you can dress your character however you want, with many options in beard and hair styles, not to mention crafting clothes that actually derive from the materials you hunt for and gather. The clothing sets offer small bonuses but they're not significantly tied to any gameplay contrivance and even serves immersive function to protect you from the elements. The weapons can be upgraded by parts and fittings, has various types of bullets that one can also craft, and there are challenges based on their skillful usage. It' just a small example of many of the choices at your disposal that might not affect the world per se, but does affect your representation interacting at all times in the constantly streaming, dynamic open world. The thing is, these type of facetious choices and light survival elements are the easiest things to implement in this type of game.

I feel CP2077 offers reactivity more contained in a mission, every mission handling pathways on which the player decision can influence the outcome. This is labor intensive, as the choices are heavily dialogue based and run on specific scripts and actions that only exist in one mission. The first few missions are especially fine examples, which offer many options that cater to player volition leading to diverse and compelling outcomes. But the majority of content exists in strait jacket narrative and a bubble of exclusivity not influencing other content in meaningful way. And I think the overall direction of story suffers from this as character development or relationship, let alone the world at large, feel particularly disjointed and existing in its own dimension. At least in the very end your ongoing relationship with Silverhand nets you another option to tackle the ending, but even then, supposedly hidden, as it's a secret! Why do they hide one single outcome toward which the player had contributed at many significant parts of the story?

Another glaring miss from this game that I felt was missed opportunity was the backdrop of ongoing Night City mayoral election. Even after some point in the game the winner was eventually declared on newscasts, I kept getting gigs and dialogs that still assumed the race was on and designed around sabotage or espionage for one candidate or the other. If CDPR was able to focus on a little reactivity of its proceedings and tie the loose ends this side story would've been a very nice chance to boost immersion and provide some cool atmosphere of a dynamic world. But done poorly, it produced a worse effect than would have if the missions were completely unrelated.

The problem is that CDPR should have been able to implement reactivity at both the micro and macro level because it was supposed to be an RPG. Hell, this is one of the areas that Witcher 3 excelled in -- I've played the game a few times through now and a lot of quests interact with each other(including temporally) and shape the overall narrative.
RDR2 never set out to create an RPG. They made a really good cowboy simulator with a lot of world interactions/reactivity.

But they changed the genre of the game from RPG in the twitter profile, man! C'mon, that fixes everything!

 

[AwesomeButton]

Lmao they didn't even have time to make the NPCs mouths' move when they speak, you think they are gonna bother with any of this in-depth sound design

And the AI is almost non-existent in this game just like every other triple A game released in the last 5-10 years, hardly surprising they don't notice stuff like that

Speaking of AI, I found Asscreed Origins to have surprisingly good AI - climbing ladders, raising alarms, carrying bodies of dead comrades, quest NPCs can be abandoned in the middle of an escort mission by deactivating the quest and they will stop and wait for the player to return.

They still behave as robots or get stuck climbing up and down ladders as they are calculating from what distance to fight, but all of the above is functionality that works.

 

[Gargaune]

It's not a bug though.. yes, not the 'biggest' issue, but at this point it's just more fuel for the fire.

Only because you're already pissed off at the game, otherwise it's not really indicative of anything if it's a mismatched prebaked reflection, stuff like this can slip through quality control even in productions with rock-solid development and testing processes. Obviously, that's not Cyberpunk's case, but this issue isn't an instance of "they couldn't even get that right", shit like this happens because it's so easy to miss in QA.

2070s. Yeah, tried that, didn't fix anything... I 'think' is because I'm using the Win7 version and I 'think' it's because some their rtx/dlss support comes from the Geforce Experience application (people also report installing this works), and if I'm unwilling to use an OS that spies on me, I'm certainly never going to use a programme that exists only for stream purposes and data collection.

I also have the 2070 and I don't install GeForce Experience, so it's not that, but it could be the OS. DirectX 12 on Windows 7 is, if I recall correctly, an "exceptional" per-game distribution and if that's the culprit, I don't know what to suggest. You could ask on nVidia's forums, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for a solution.

 

[IThinkTheWorldShouldBurn.]

I also have the 2070 and I don't install GeForce Experience, so it's not that, but it could be the OS. DirectX 12 on Windows 7 is, if I recall correctly, an "exceptional" per-game distribution and if that's the culprit, I don't know what to suggest. You could ask on nVidia's forums, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for a solution.

It doesn't matter, my experience wouldn't be any better with a few extra shinies and I have no intention of playing the game ever again so there's no point in seeking a solution. Every other game I have works and that's fine by me.

 

[IThinkTheWorldShouldBurn.]

But they changed the genre of the game from RPG in the twitter profile, man! C'mon, that fixes everything!

... and CDPR can go fuck themselves with extreme prejudice for doing.

Rewriting the narrative, the dirty bastards.

 

[Wesp5]

I believe also Half Life 2 and all its Source engine derivatives use prebaked cubic maps for a lot of normal lighting stuff and the editor can generate them automatically.

I can confirm that and the results can be similar to the one in the screenshot. The cube maps are calculated before dynamic entities are added, so when you look at mirrors in the museum map of Bloodlines, the doors to the stalls in the rest room are missing in the reflection. What I think is even worse in that CP screenshot though is the chair with the pink bottom. It has no reflection or shadow and looks like it is floating! I can't believe this is supposed to be with raytracing on...

 

[Twiglard]

I kinda like River and fam but

Just so you know, we don't use zoomer words around here. Unless it's to express disgust at zoomer/millenial culture and the decline of Western civilization.

What I think is even worse in that CP screenshot though is the chair with the pink bottom. It has no reflection or shadow and looks like it is floating! I can't believe this is supposed to be with raytracing on...

That doorway is emitting an area light, that's why.

It's not with raytacing on. Area lights work fine with shadows and reflections are realtime. The user might've turned on only the basic RTX and left the important bits off.

 

[moon knight]

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1099

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1097

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1100

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1089

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/1104


As always, modders are more creative than developers

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

As always, modders are more creative than developers

*looks at Fallout: The Frontier thread in different tab*
*I wild mix of disgust, horror, unpleasant surprise and disappointment creeps into mind*
Don't get me wrong, I love playing modded games and sometimes feel urge install thousand modifications until game can't run anymore (any moddable game), but even I would replace " as always" to "sometimes" or (in this case) "luckily".

 

[Outlander]

LMAO I just finished watching the Crowbcat video on this massive dumpster fire

Almost made me feel bad for all the morons that swallowed the hype. Almost.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

"Our original Johnny was heavily inspired by David Hayter's Solid Snake from the first MGS and believe it or not "

Could there be some truth to that?

"Arasaka? Cyberware? Keycards? An AV? Militech chief? Tech revolver? Mantis blades? You're that edgerunner... you were killed in Konpeki Plaza! Soulkiller? It can't be....?! ALT!!!"



(for those that didn't play MGS: snip)

 

[IThinkTheWorldShouldBurn.]

Just so you know, we don't use zoomer words around here. Unless it's to express disgust at zoomer/millenial culture and the decline of Western civilization.

'Fam' as a contraction of 'Family' has been around a LOT longer than zoomer's, the fact that they use it is simply a sign of their generations utter lack of originality (well, 'worthwhile' originality, any idiot can put tide pod on a pizza and claim "aww, how rando".)

 

[Semiurge]

The great:
- Photo mode and playing dress-up

Seriously? You list a cosmetic nonsense feature that also serves as a marketing gimmick much like a company logo on clothing, as a "great" feature? I don't doubt that gamers find the feature fun though, but come on. It's bad for the suspension of disbelief when you're playing.

Original Johnny concept art.

Anyway remember that random reddit "leak" from "game developer"

"Our original Johnny was heavily inspired by David Hayter's Solid Snake from the first MGS and believe it or not "

Could there be some truth to that?

It's known that concept artists trace real faces for their work, but that one looks very familiar, especially the second one from the right.

Not much different than Keanu Silverhand, tho why does he have black hair if its original concept/before keanu?

Perhaps they thought blonde haired prettyboy would've been too white for American gamers. In the film industry brunettes are a kind of compromise for that reason, and blue eyes translate as "Nazi!" in narrow American minds.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I admit that RDR2's plot is pretty nonsensical and inexplicable with character decisions made for you at every turn making you feel completely helpless, exasperated, and mired in some creep toward inevitable and cursed fate. The narrative of how Dutch goes about bumbling around with his merry band of ignorant fools is really the worst part of the game.

Umm, how? The writing in RDR2 is for the most part great. Also keep in mind that Dutch's gang, at least the important people like Arthur, Bill or Javier, are more-or-less trapped psychologically by what is essentially a sect. They've also known him for a long time, and owe him, especially Arthur - it's hard to turn your back on what is both a father, and a Cult leader that brainwashed you, at the same time, especially since things went pretty well for decades until the Blackwater heist. All of that can be learned easily from conversations and newspaper scraps etc.

The only bizarre part for me was how Hosea is this voice of reason, urging Dutch to keep a low profile, until he nonchalantly goes bonkers in Chapter 3. Even then, Chapter 2 was peaceful until the whole Leviticus Cornwall backfired on them, as was Chapter 3. Chapter 4 was short and about "one last job", which they did pull off, until the force of nature showed them what it thinks about the whole plan with tropical paradise. Then it all went downhill very quickly, and Arthur, both finally seeing that Dutch doesn't care about leaving that lifestyle, and knowing he was dying, just buys the time to get people like John or women out of the cult, while in the meantime helping Indians, among other things, to make up for his past deeds.

 

[Xeon]

I kinda agree the story and plot of RDR2's kinda sucks. Arthur and Hosea and even John were with Dutch for 15+ years and Dutch starts doubting them instead of the people who only have been with him for a few months like Micah. IIRC the all trouble started when he came along but despite all that, Dutch starts siding with him against everyone just because he strokes his ego. I like Dutch's character overall but holy shit.

I also kinda hate plots related to how much money you need for plot or whatever, I am in Ch6 at the moment and already have 7k cash and a lot of gold bars and jewelries from all the side quests and treasure hunts and I can't do anything about this. I think GTA5 handled the money a lot better in there, you pretty much start living like a king from the first heist mission and forget worrying about money that much and mostly do the heists because you are forced to or blackmailed to or something iirc and not because you still need the money.

I also really hate the gold objectives in RDR2, they are cancerous. At first I thought some of them might change outcomes or whatever but nope, its just to get gold for 100% or something which who gives a shit.

 

[ChildInTime]

Tons of concept art released on artstation.

https://www.artstation.com/channels/tag/TheArtofCyberpunk2077

 

[AwesomeButton]

I also kinda hate plots related to how much money you need for plot or whatever, I am in Ch6 at the moment and already have 7k cash and a lot of gold bars and jewelries from all the side quests and treasure hunts and I can't do anything about this. I think GTA5 handled the money a lot better in there, you pretty much start living like a king from the first heist mission and forget worrying about money that much and mostly do the heists because you are forced to or blackmailed to or something iirc and not because you still need the money.

If gambling with $100 budget, the smart strategy is to make 10 bets of 10 dollars or even 5 of 20 dollars, instead of 100 bets of 1 dollar. Likewise, when you are a criminal you want to engage in criminal activity as rarely as possible with the maximum payout. It's the videogames and movie scripts that struggle to come up with reasons for criminals to be criminals 24/7 because otherwise it would stop being "fun" for the audience.

 

[Sad He-Man]

Original Johnny concept art.

Anyway remember that random reddit "leak" from "game developer"

"Our original Johnny was heavily inspired by David Hayter's Solid Snake from the first MGS and believe it or not "

Could there be some truth to that?

Looks like even edgier version of Razorfist. This makes me appreciate Keanu more.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Original Johnny concept art.

Anyway remember that random reddit "leak" from "game developer"

"Our original Johnny was heavily inspired by David Hayter's Solid Snake from the first MGS and believe it or not "

Could there be some truth to that?

Reminds me off that "You're a white male!!!" guy