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

[potatojohn]

Wish the choice of an ending was more obscure instead of "pick your own poison" list.

• Arasaka ending - if you use corpo lines more often than other
• Panam ending - if you use nomad lines
• Casino heist ending - if you use streetkid/anti-corp lines

Only the secret ending is actually buried in your choices. Who doesn't want to play through quests with Panam or any side-quests when they are better quality than fixer contracts?

This wouldn't work because you'd be railroaded based on your chosen origin. It's perfectly reasonable for a betrayed corpo to want to burn it all down, for example. I do agree in general though that ALL games of this type should make the ending "choice" automatic based on your decisions and who you sided with/against. Would make those choices have SO much more weight. When games let you be an anarchist asshole the whole game and then choose to save the world and democracy at the end it's just so fucking stupid. New Vegas, as with all things, leads the way.

No, that's stupid. The game should allow the player to be a hypocrite or to change their mind when they're making personal choices.

There is no lvl-scaling for enemies/quests. That's the problem.

Also, you don't need lvl-scaling in every open world game, just in open world games like Witcher 3, the new Assassin's Creed games or this one. I don't argue in favor of lvl-scaling (I prefer games that don't need it). But IF you design your game like Cyberpunk, you can't skip the lvl-scaling.

 

[KK1001]

Making an ideal C&C game is hard. There should essentially be two sets of choices:

1) Moment-to-moment gameplay, character: Basically, how you spec your character, the perks you use, the weapons you use, and your playstyle. Encounters should, to some extent, be able to compensate for most styles, but not every level needs to make every playstyle easy. This should SOMETIMES have a bearing on mission outcome (mostly when it comes to lethality, alarms, or peaceful resolution via charisma or persuasion stats).

• Pure hackers should be glass cannons pretty useless with most weapons, inaccurate with grenades, and should rely heavily on environmental deception, stealth.
• Heavy melee characters should be powerful up close, with either lots of health and armor or reliant on stealth kills, hacking to get away (why isn't there a mod to release smoke? missed opportunity).
• Various gun characters should exceed generally best at the range of the weapon, realism be damned: pistols very close, smgs, shotguns farther away (with appropriate damage falloff), rifles and sniper rifles further away.
• Tech characters should be the only ones capable of using using grenades, and the more OP tech shit should be gated at a higher level. Nix the crafting bonuses; no one cares about that shit. If you are going to keep it in, at the VERY least the tech characters should be the only ones capable of crafting interesting weapon mods.

The game does an OK job at this, but compromises its only difficulty though often lazy encounter design, an overabundance of ammunition and medkits, and a baseline default that makes hacking/shooting/nading still USEFUL beyond the early stages of the game even if you aren't specced for that.

2) Quest, story, characters. Basically dealing with any sort of scripts here.

• Micro/Dialogue: Assign values to dialogue choices; within a certain band the "default" outcome happens, but if you're a dick or really nice or whatever you get some "alternative" response; maybe they off you a hidden reward, or tell you to fuck off and you can't deal with that person again. Don't think anything like this exists. Even if this ends in failure states sometimes, the choice alone gives players agency. Many of the non-essential fixers should have this sort of option. If you weren't willing to gate the content entirely, after the final mission a fixer offer you involve some sort of twist or set up if you didn't listen to them or fucked them over. Sometimes this should feed directly into mission outcome.
• Reputational: Negative actions against the gang should accrue penalities (more expensive items, sending mercenaries after you, attacking you on sight) and positive actions should accrue bonuses. Could just be an environmental change of who owns the territory, or maybe one of their shops offers you a little item. Fucking something.
• Quest: Choosing X or Y at the end OR alternative how you want to start a mission. The player should always be presented with a couple of choices, but there should be 4-5 "invisible" choices and depending on you played (guns playing, sneaky, non-lethal, hacking, what stats you have in X or Y). Doesn't need to necessarily have huge ramifications but should be rewarding in its own right.
• Endings: As with before, you should always be given a final choice, but just as in real life your choices are always constrained by your past actions. We should get a sense of what happened to our companions, who controls what, and what happened to our player character.

The game does a REALLY bad job at this. I get that it is hard, but games like New Vegas exist to rip off of, and TW3 has way more C&C than Cyberpunk.

 

[gurugeorge]

Isn't the only real problem with the build/progression system that it's a whole mess of multiplicative percentages? Maybe if they mixed it up with some additive that would tone it down enough for it to not make you so ridiculously 800k per shot OP?

I can't help but think it's actually a genuine mistake somewhere.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The whole itemization system is a mistake. The scaling is just part of that MMO system. It was either used in a pinch or was deliberately decided to use the same itemization for the single player title and the MMO title.

Most likely the decision to use this system in CP77 preceded the decision to ship the MMO as a separate game at a later time.

 

[Yoomazir]

More than anything else it's the lack of body customization. I really wish V had access to the gang cybernetic upgrades, the Valentinos golden implants, the Animals beefed muscles or even the most radical ones from Maelstorm. Instead we have the lamest body ever created, penis 2 included.

 

[typical user]

Wish the choice of an ending was more obscure instead of "pick your own poison" list.

• Arasaka ending - if you use corpo lines more often than other
• Panam ending - if you use nomad lines
• Casino heist ending - if you use streetkid/anti-corp lines

Only the secret ending is actually buried in your choices. Who doesn't want to play through quests with Panam or any side-quests when they are better quality than fixer contracts?

This wouldn't work because you'd be railroaded based on your chosen origin. It's perfectly reasonable for a betrayed corpo to want to burn it all down, for example. I do agree in general though that ALL games of this type should make the ending "choice" automatic based on your decisions and who you sided with/against. Would make those choices have SO much more weight. When games let you be an anarchist asshole the whole game and then choose to save the world and democracy at the end it's just so fucking stupid. New Vegas, as with all things, leads the way.

No, that's stupid. The game should allow the player to be a hypocrite or to change their mind when they're making personal choices.

I wasn't precise with my previous post. I've meant the game should determine available endings based on your choices in dialogs. Planescape: Torment does this to a degree. If you make vows you turn more lawful, if you brake those vows or lie you become more chaotic. If you do good/bad things you shift your alignement to good/evil. CP2077 could've used that by making lifepath lines available to all and have characters start on different spectrum of corp/streetkid/nomad. Becoming vengeful ex-corp would be more natural.

 

[Turjan]

Went back to the Wraith camp (the one where you freed Saul) today, just to see how things are there. I'm at level 38 at the moment, and the fight was surprisingly nice. Of course, you could cheese it by camping on a mountain ledge the AI couldn't scale. In most other places, they really swarm you, even outside of the camp. Took ages to loot the place afterwards. I noticed I really need to upgrade my armor and weapons again.

That was all outside. Inside of the building, you still had the corpses from when you did Panam's quest. No idea how this looks if you kill everyone during the quest already.

 

[gurugeorge]

More than anything else it's the lack of body customization. I really wish V had access to the gang cybernetic upgrades, the Valentinos golden implants, the Animals beefed muscles or even the most radical ones from Maelstorm. Instead we have the lamest body ever created, penis 2 included.

I wouldn't say that's the worst thing about the game, but it would definitely improve matters if you could customize abilities and looks in sync more with the cyberware. It's exceedingly lame that it's only icons and just a few metal lines and bits and bobs here and there on your face and hands.

(In fact right from the start, the fact that you have cyberware metal spiders on your face that don't seem to have any function is quite lame.)

Again, the stats should come from the cyberware not from clothing (or only minimally from clothing, maybe like a bulletproof vest here and there or something).

What with all the improvements in graphics in recent years, you'd think developers would make more of an effort to have a 1-1 match between the icons of stuff you buy to enhance yourself, or your equipment, and how you actually look.

 

[KK1001]

In order of worst offender to least: bugs and general polish, challenge/balance, perk system, loot table/itemization, open world reactivity and interactivity, C&C, lack of customization/mini games, stripped features like the train

 

[AwesomeButton]

More than anything else it's the lack of body customization. I really wish V had access to the gang cybernetic upgrades, the Valentinos golden implants, the Animals beefed muscles or even the most radical ones from Maelstorm. Instead we have the lamest body ever created, penis 2 included.

Someone recently wrote about things CDPR should/would eventually patch back into the game after they had been cut.

I said the most realistic things to expect patched in as new functionality are the police system and other elements enriching the Cyber-GTA part of CP77.

Take a look at this article, I think it presents the mainstream opinion vey well. In a nutshell, without the journo fluff:

• More character customization
• Police
• More types of map icons
• Enhanced vehicle and weapon modification
• New Game Plus

I imagine CDPR will take cues partly from player feedback and from player/media reviews on what the public is missing most. It doesn't seem at all likely missing quest reactivity will be scripted retroactively into the missions, or if the gigs were interdependent, or fixer relations and relationships functioned as a system, that these things will be retroactively patched in.

I would be immensely happy if at least street cred is rebalanced and inserted as a blocking requirement so that gigs become available gradually instead of all at once. If we get a number of UI improvements like the ability to turn off undiscovered map icons like in Witcher 3, that would also be a big help and will genuinely improve gameplay. Currently many people just can't stop themselves chasing after exclamation mark icons and burn themselves out. The fact that you have to be on foot to get the call from the fixer is a good idea, though it makes little in-game sense, it can be utilized to the effect that the player would only be offered these side missions if he is exploring on foot, which suggests more leisurely.

 

[gurugeorge]

In order of worst offender to least: bugs and general polish, challenge/balance, perk system, loot table/itemization, open world reactivity and interactivity, C&C, lack of customization/mini games, stripped features like the train

So seeing as how the esteemed assembly is coming to a sort of consensus on the problems, what do we think is actually solvable in about a year's time by patching, what's baked into the game and fucked forever, and what's moddable?

IOW, clearly the game's not all bad, and has some promise and potential - so is it actually possible to bring it up to what it ought to be, if not a great RPG at least a game as good as TW3?

(Note: I see AwesomeButton's made a stab at this just above - anyone else got any summing up thoughts along these lines?)

 

[AwesomeButton]

In order of worst offender to least: bugs and general polish, challenge/balance, perk system, loot table/itemization, open world reactivity and interactivity, C&C, lack of customization/mini games, stripped features like the train

So seeing as how the esteemed assembly is coming to a sort of consensus on the problems, what do we think is actually solvable in about a year's time by patching, what's baked into the game and fucked forever, and what's moddable?

The balancing is moddable thankfully. Provided there are enthusiastic enough people to mod it, but with a playerbase of so many millions, I'm pretty sure there will be rebalancing mods out soon.

The cut reactivity will probably remain cut forever, unless there are literally unused assets sitting in the game's .archive files and commented out scripts, but I personally doubt that.

On what will probably be patched in, see my post above.

 

[Agame]

Several pages ago someone mentioned that you can walk in and around Arasaka compound while wearing Arasaka environmental suit. Well this is not the case for me, they shoot me on sight.

Pretty sure this is just bugged. I went in wearing my usual random hobo ensemble clothes and all guards were green (friendly) for the mission.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

In General , how do You like the game after release now, when it's patched to 1.06 ? I ve found it very good but sometimes im tired by these little bugs.

 

[JustMyOnion]

It's not a feature, it's a bug.

 

[AwesomeButton]

In General , how do You like the game after release now, when it's patched to 1.06 ? I ve found it very good but sometimes im tired by these little bugs.

- It could have contained 1/3 of the gigs and been better for it. They get old and there is more of them in proportion to the main quest in order for me to space out the main quest with gigs and still finish all the gigs by the time I'm ready to finish the main quest. That's how I did my first Witcher 3 run - ~350 hrs.
- It could have felt less janky if dialogue wasn't happening within the "open world" with the player free to move around, but the way it was done in Witcher 3.
- It's been fun for a while clearing out the map but at the 100th or so hour, I'm feeling the urge to just wrap up Panam's quest and finish the main quest.

 

[Agame]

I agree they will most likely prioritize fixing/adding in all the GTA systems to appease the masses. This has a double purpose as it will also feed into the multiplayer game. I think its very unlikely they would do anything major like reworking quests and reactivity. Any DLC content is going to be NEW SHINY STUFF because thats what sells, and cosmetics, emoting, fortnite dancing and other degenerate garbage like this will fit into Online version.

Much like Bethusduh games the biggest hope here will be modders, depending how much they can do and how much CDPR supports their efforts.

 

[Yosharian]

CDPR want to tap into that Borderlands-esque shoot-kill-upgrade-shoot-kill-upgrade gameplay loop. That's why level scaling, for both items and enemies, is used. It has NOTHING to do with creating a good open world, and everything to do with trapping the player in a simple skinner box in order to maintain engagement.

There is no lvl-scaling for enemies/quests. That's the problem.
Also, you don't need lvl-scaling in every open world game, just in open world games like Witcher 3, the new Assassin's Creed games or this one. I don't argue in favor of lvl-scaling (I prefer games that don't need it). But IF you design your game like Cyberpunk, you can't skip the lvl-scaling.

I meant that items and enemies are levelled, e.g. you must be level 21 to use this weapon, this blue item you picked up is better than the old legendary you were using, that enemy is too high level for you so you can't scratch him and he one-shots you, etc

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It was either used in a pinch or was deliberately decided to use the same itemization for the single player title and the MMO title.

Except Witcher 3 has the same system. Stupid then and stupid now.

 

[Grotesque]

I wonder what Keanu has to say about all this debacle.

 

[Mefi]

The "yellow piss filter" is actually better and works better because the game was made with it in mind. Don't forget DX has a blue-gray piss filter also

I have the Director's Cut of Human Revolution and it's more piss yellow than even the gold of the original. Fortunately found someone had figured out why earlier this year and done a mod to fix most of the underlying lighting issues caused by porting back this version from the Wii (?!!) version. Looks so much better.

Relevant to this thread, you can really see the influence of the level building upon Cyberpunk just going over a couple of the starting in ones of the last two Deus Ex games. But also how curiously constrained for space Cyberpunk's so frequently are even for the relatively larger buildings and which causes that 'window, gate, door, boxes stacked to get to roof' lined up near next to each other thing.

 

[DeepOcean]

I wonder what Keanu has to say about all this debacle.

Thank you CDPR for the bucketloads of money I'm making of the beta testers of your game?

 

[Tyranicon]

It was either used in a pinch or was deliberately decided to use the same itemization for the single player title and the MMO title.

Except Witcher 3 has the same system. Stupid then and stupid now.

It's rather funny how CDPR learned nothing from the feedback of Witcher 3.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Doubt the Keanu pays in attention to all this. Anyway, some people talk shit now, but the game will only keep getting better as the patches keep coming out. I bet the game will be firmly in the "very positive" Steam rating and will keep selling like hot cakes a year from now.

 

[Tyranicon]

Doubt the Keanu pays in attention to all this. Anyway, some people talk shit now, but the game will only keep getting better as the patches keep coming out. I bet the game will be firmly in the "very positive" Steam rating and will keep selling like hot cakes a year from now.

The game has good bones but needs a lot of work. Most of my personal issues besides bugs is the lack of AI. They wanted to grab the GTA crowd (for some fucking reason), but the lack of pedestrian, police and driving AI makes that a non-starter. You can't make a modern sandbox game without AI, full stop.

Then there's the itemization, the skill trees, the lackluster cyberware, the OP quickhacks, lack of a transmog.... etc.