WHAT’S NEW IN NIGHT CITY? [PATCH 1.2 DEVELOPMENT INSIGHT]
March 19, 2021
Welcome to this special report of N54 News, bringing news from Night City to every Night Citizen stranded away from home! Stay with us if you'd like to learn more about some of the upcoming changes. I’m Gillean Jordan, and here’s what’s new in Night City:
NCPD Quick Response Team too quick?
You heard right! The NCPD Quick Response Team is under fire from concerned Night Citizens and corporations alike. The rapid deployment tactics they recently adopted forced mercenaries to think twice before pointing a gun at anyone, but will now be adjusted to give the other side some breathing room.
What was supposed to make Night Citizens feel safe on the streets resulted in a staggering drop of public trust towards NCPD officers.
“My choom, Jake, was in a shoot-out with Tyger Claws the other day, when he missed a shot and hit a pedestrian on the other side of the street. In an instant, the NCPD swarmed up on him and put him down. It’s like they appeared out of thin air right behind his back! It’s too brutal of a response for a regular accidental murder if you ask me!” — Mike from Kabuki, 28.
Aside from upsetting the local community, the NCPD's effectiveness resulted in a tremor in the corporate security market.
“Personal security in Night City has always been our priority. The recent spike in NCPD efficiency might seem like a step towards safety, but it isn’t. Upsetting the fragile balance in the security sector might soon result in more people cancelling their protection subscriptions and inviting gangs and terrorists to take over the city.” — Andrey Fomin, Militech PR Manager.
Regardless of how you look at the situation, it seems that the change will be a welcome one. We asked our experts to analyze the situation:
“This is an important step in addressing the behavior of the police in our game. It should decrease the problem of NPCs spawning behind players' backs and create an impression that it takes some time for the police to arrive at the crime scene after the crime has been reported. We've also added a recon "drone" unit to create the feeling of the police assessing the situation.” — Patryk, Lead Gameplay Designer & Łukasz, Technical Design Coordinator, CD PROJEKT RED
Vehicular manslaughter statistics higher than ever
Look left, then right, then left again — and then run for your life. As morgues are filling up with roadkill, it is now statistically safer to stroll through Kabuki Market with shiny new cyberware than to cross some of Night City’s intersections. The City Council approved a bill forcing vehicle manufacturers to update their steering firmware.
Soon, the mandatory update will allow for better synchronization between the CrystalDome system and the vehicle, resulting in a more fluid driving experience even when the image signal skips a frame or two.
In addition, drivers should also expect to be able to better personalize their driving experience by adjusting the sensitivity limits to a level they are comfortable with — providing a much needed breather for insurance companies.
Will this be a good change, or will it subject morgues, street sweepers and auto repair shops to economic hardship? Here’s an opinion from our expert:
"Analyzing feedback on our driving model suggested a lot of players were having issues with the speed of the steering. Most complaints came from players using keyboards on PC or were on platforms with lower frame rates, and centered around how hard it was to keep cars off the sidewalks and such.
We have added a Steering Sensitivity slider to the Options menu. This allows the steering speed for all vehicles and all input devices to be slowed down, without affecting the maximum turn radius.
When experiencing lower frame rates, our cars were harder to control. We traced this to some code that wasn't handling extreme changes in frame rate properly. The steering speed is now very consistent from 20 to 60+ FPS.
Last, we looked at a bunch of tweaks to individual cars and adjusted some of them that were too twitchy in low frame rates, including the player's Archer Hella." — Séamus, Senior Vehicle Programmer, CD PROJEKT RED
Rock&Roll for racers
No, it’s not a new genre of music! The brand new Rock&Roll vehicle subsystem will allow any unfortunate street racer who missed a turn and ended up stuck on a pile of garbage to quickly get back on track. The system will allow drivers to rotate or rock their vehicles back and forth in order to regain traction.
Gone are the days of abandoning a vehicle in the middle of the city just because things got out of control. Accidents happen and being in a rush isn’t a crime! Now, if somebody appears out of nowhere when you’re crossing a red light, you will still be able to make it to your meeting on time and let your insurance take care of the mess.
Still not sure whether you need the subsystem installed in your vehicle? Let our expert convince you:
"There are cases where our vehicles can get beached or high centered on stuff in Night City. We have now added an Unstuck feature that kicks in when you are accelerating and not moving. While holding down the accelerator, you can now rock the vehicle forward or back, or rotate it left/right." — Séamus, Senior Vehicle Programmer, CD PROJEKT RED
Update your neuroprocessor drivers or die
This is not a joke! It’s raining men in Night City and not for the reasons you’d expect. Just over the last month authorities recorded nearly 4000 fatal accidents caused by a neuroprocessor glitch causing users to dodge without intending to. The manufacturer has prepared an update to address the issue.
According to our survey over 30% of all Night Citizens experienced an irresistible urge to burst forward for no reason and the majority of affected people admitted that it put them in danger of falling from a high place. Manufacturer claims that the glitch is caused by a lack of perfect synchronisation between the user's brain patterns and the neuroprocessor.
The update will allow users to better personalize their chips and match software responses with their neural patterns. Aside from resolving the issue with sudden dodging, it will also mean that people will find it easier to move and use the chip, regardless of their handedness, abilities or personal preferences.
What do these improvements mean in layman’s terms? Our expert provided an explanation:
“Dodge on double-tapping a movement key can be turned off in the Controls settings. The Dodge action can still be performed by double-tapping the Crouch(toggle) action key (default C).
It should now be more feasible to move WASD bindings around the keyboard. There still remain a few bindings that need to be addressed, but these should be fixed in upcoming patches.” — Wojtek, Tools Programmer, CD PROJEKT RED
Thank you for tuning in to "What's New in Night City". We'll see you next time.
