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

[AwesomeButton]

Something more regarding side content.

I've played for 48 hrs now with my first and current character. I've cleared Kabuki, Little China and Japantown of all side content - missions and police work - which is available for my street cred level of 39.

While exploring japantown, I came accross a data shard, a bit out of the way, which contained what was apparently placeholder text describing Takemura's childhood and motivation. It was text written out of character and apparently intended for a writer to expand upon, which was probably copied and pasted into the game files by mistake.

By analogy with this data shard, I suspect that most of the data shards we find on dead bodies during "police help" missions may have been intended to be found in other places of the world and only unlock the respective shootout after being found. Maybe they were not even intended to be in textual form at all but they were never recorded as conversations between NPCs which the player could overhear.

I only saw DeepOcean 's post after I wrote mine, but yeah...

 

[Bara]

I think this is the first time in a video game where I've ever had pop-Out rather than pop-in be a issue.

Drive fast enough and the fake cars they put on streets in the far distance to make the game look busy delete themselves as your moving towards them and then real cars spawn in but in a lesser density.

 

[felipepepe]

Finished the game as a Nomad, tried all endings.

First, and foremost, the game is absolutely gorgeous, it's insane how much detail there's on the characters, the interior of cars, the design of side-quest set pieces, etc...

But, behind all the hype and AAA production values, the gameplay itself it VERY mediocre. Shooting is okay, but the game lacks enemy and gun variety. Feels worse than Fallout 4. The missions try to be Deux Ex but there's no multiple paths tied to skills, it's basically "kill everyone" or "sneak around". Your l33t hacking skills and cyberware don't open new paths, just help you sneak or shoot everyone. A lot of ideas in the game feel like they were abandoned mid-way, like the non-lethal combat... as far as I'm aware, there's ZERO benefits in killing enemies instead of stunning them, and you get a mod early on that makes all you guns non-lethal (WHUT?), so I'm not even sure why that exists.

Role-playing options are also very limited: you have all important choices always open, and the only real choices that have consequences are "did you do these side-missions paths until the end? Y/N". Stat-check are mostly just for flavour & extra dialog lines and MAYBE (like 3 times) to kill a character mid-dialog. It's a step back from every Witcher game, and those had a fixed character. I don't understand why your blank slate V has even less role-playing options than Geralt has, you are always everyone's bitch being ordered around and agreeing with everyone except Johnny.

The character system and crafting system are garbage, made even worse by the HORRIBLE level scaled loot. It was already dull in The Witcher 3, but it's made way worse here by the fact that you are playing a blank slate character in a cyberpunk world, someone that should be able to become anything... but I feel stuck in an endless cycle of +5% damage upgrades, and non-sense like "you can't be undetected underwater" perks. OH WOW, there's exactly zero missions where that might have been useful.

I spent the whole game trying to specialize in snipers & revolvers, that I crafted and upgraded until I had a legendary revolver with 550 DPS. It never felt rewarding or interesting. Then the game drops two blunt weapons, one a bat doing 1,100 DPS, the other a shovel doing insane 1,500 DPS. Killed Smasher in 30 sec by bashing him in the face with a broken shovel. And what to say about a game shipping with a mysterious 6th stat that can't be unlocked, teasing a DLC right on the stats menu?

The story was meh. The first-person camera and the insane production budget make it feel like you are playing a fancy Netflix series, and it has some cool moments (like the Arasaka ending) but also a lot of dumb shit (like why the fuck Arasaka even needs you). Behind the fancy presentation, it never feels as good as ANY Witcher game. I don't mean just "OMG, Bloody baron quest!!!", but it never delivers the depth of stuff like being bros with Iorweth in W2 or the witch hunt in W1. Casting Keanu Reeves was CD Projekt's best decision, his charisma salvages Johnny into something bearable, as he's very poorly written and entirely one-note. He's just an asshole, his backstory and beliefs make no sense and both his endings are terrible. Hanging out with Panan & her bros was probably the best part of the game, the other characters are all forgettable.

Overall, it's a AAA visual spectacle that has mediocre gameplay and uses extremely poor RPG mechanics just to provide superficial levels of customization. I legit think it would be a better game without the level & perk system, just having non-scaling loot and cyberwear instead of perks.

It's not a flawed gem, because it doesn't do anything interesting or well besides its visuals. Take a game like Kingdom Come: it's flawed, but there's interesting things to talk about its combat, quest design, "peasant simulator" world, etc... there there's nothing that other games haven't done before & better. It's a fucking gorgeous game, but what will that mean in 5 or 10 years? It might be saved by mods or years of new content & fixes but, right now, it's a mostly a visual experience and some closure to years of hype.

 

[Fenix]

all the sex scenes are weird as fuck and the opposite of being hot honestly.

Yeah, watched scene with Meredith and it is anything but exciting. If I ever play this game, I'll keep my pureness to myself.

 

[T.Ashpool]

20 years from now, future soyboys who didn't experience the false marketing pre release hype will discover this game and overrate it to hell because it's style and presentation. it will achieve vtmb: bloodlines or new vegas cult status.
and i will look down on them and smile.

 

[T.Ashpool]

 

[Robber Baron]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Cars launching into the air and disappearing in the horizon.
I watched people fall through the floor never to be seen again.
All those moments will be lost in time.
Like tears in rain.
Time to die.

 

[DeepOcean]

Ok, my crafting experience:

I got on a vendor machine that sells beverages at 10 dollars.

I scrap all those beverages.

I get alot of cyber juice.

I use the cyber orange juice and turn it into sniper rifles.

I get to a vendor and sell 50 sniper rifles.

Got infinite money and can farm crafting experience alot faster.

Soon, I will have more profit from arms sales than Militech.

 

[Shadenuat]

I don't understand why your blank slate V has even less role-playing options than Geralt has

They now need to voice act 2 characters?

 

[Zer0wing]

Except the game is released just in time to close the year 2020 and not any month earlier so shareholders could reap those dollarinos faster. Investors did this to us, not toxic snoy fanbase who are just lowly acolytes of the prestige polishness of Playstation Exclusives (which stopped being real just when snoy console become able to download patches thru the net). They don't change shit and only act as a falseflag for snoy to stop the refund by eliminating the store page. Because snoy hates refunds, they are this greedy and arrogant.
Buuuut, the precedent for this happened because of CDPRs managers who are in friends with Marcin and Adam. Pathetic sweatshop.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[aweigh]

There were no "death threats" sent to anyone.

 

[DalekFlay]

That's strange. I first commented that I notice more pop in which might be a way to handle worse performance on the consoles, when 1.04 came out. Now I don't know if I'm just used to it and people are noticing it now, or the devs are being even more tight with the streaming of assets. My driving around the busiest streets in the city center seems to still cost lots of fps, but in the less taxing parts of the city I'm driving around with fps in the upper 50s or more. Again I can't say if this is due to them dropping texture LOD more, or some other optimization. CDPR should definetly be pestered to say something about those changes, the problem is that no one can make them, and those with the power to require a response will not ask the question.

I just played a couple hours. I was in a big downtown section this time and one thing I noticed a LOT was light culling, not seeing lighting effects until you got really close to them like shop windows and neon signs lighting up the ground. And yeah, when I saw low-res signs and stuff it seemed to be just out of culling range, and zooming in would make them pop in. So... they culled down detail ranges somehow for consoles and left that shit in for PC, which is ridiculous. It doesn't even help performance at all, I assume because we're at a much higher baseline.

I have the space so I'm gonna install 1.04 and take some comparison shots with the lights I think, either that or prove myself insane.

P.S. NO FATTIES

 

[vota DC]

Ok, my crafting experience:

I got on a vendor machine that sells beverages at 10 dollars.

I scrap all those beverages.

I get alot of cyber juice.

I use the cyber orange juice and turn it into sniper rifles.

I get to a vendor and sell 50 sniper rifles.

Got infinite money and can farm crafting experience alot faster.

Soon, I will have more profit from arms sales than Militech.

Mistery solved, finally!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxVPPy5w9NA

 

[AwesomeButton]

and you get a mod early on that makes all you guns non-lethal (WHUT?)

Near the entrance to one of the cyberpsycho missions' "arena" area, I found a mod that "makes bullets non-lethal" (magic?), but it only works on the weapon you put that mod on.

Behind the fancy presentation, it never feels as good as ANY Witcher game.

but it never delivers the depth of stuff like being bros with Iorweth in W2 or the witch hunt in W1.

Same impression so far. Apparently it won't change until the end.

Take a game like Kingdom Come: it's flawed

Apart from the jump into linearity towards the end, what's flawed? It was a great game with good balance between open world shit and missions, and a lot of emergent gameplay possibilities. Unlike anything Vavra had done yet.

 

[AwesomeButton]

not seeing lighting effects until you got really close to them like shop windows and neon signs lighting up the ground.

You are right. A little after I wrote that post, I started up the game and went to see Regina Jones in her base. When I exited the elevator and turned the corner right, into her room, I saw her black friend there just as he was materializing out of thin air, the same way that cars do. Then there was a very easy to notice moment when I took one step towards Regina and suddenly big stacks of white smoke became visible through the big glass wall behind her back. They were not there until I took that step towards her. From then on I could walk around the place, turn around, but the smoke wouldn't be culled, it was staying there.

Yep, looks like they are just optimizing for PS4 and pushing the same code for all platforms atm. Probably they are working with minimal staff around the holidays, who knows. Anything to slow the torrent of PS4 refunds I guess I feel sorry for the devs butchering their own work.

Something interesting I came accross in Forbes that throws light and is related to one investor's question from the conference call, which was in the spirit of "couldn't you release just for PC and next gen":

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...efunds-for-ps4-and-ps5-after-gamers-cry-foul/

Part of the issue is that Sony and Microsoft require games released on PS4 or Xbox One to play on all versions of those consoles. You can’t just release a PS4 Pro game that doesn’t play on PS4 vanilla. Same for Xbox One X and Xbox One (and S).

The expectation is that a game released on PS4 will look and play better on PS4 Pro, where it could theoretically upscale to 4k or run at 60fps, but that same game will still look and play like a PS4 game on a base PS4.

So the logic is "it should work without a hitch on PS4 and look even better on PS4 Pro", and "It will run like shit on PS4 but will be playable on PS4 Pro" is not acceptable in any situation.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

The best part of this is the idea that "a bit" more time would be needed, not an entire year, minimum, to get some of the core features online.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Holy fuck, this isn't irony? https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/kgyfls/just_gonna_put_this_here/

I'm getting too old for how dumb kids are nowadays. I think they are joking, but they are actually clinically dumb.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

and you get a mod early on that makes all you guns non-lethal (WHUT?)

Near the entrance to one of the cyberpsycho missions' "arena" area, I found a mod that "makes bullets non-lethal" (magic?), but it only works on the weapon you put that mod on.

Behind the fancy presentation, it never feels as good as ANY Witcher game.

but it never delivers the depth of stuff like being bros with Iorweth in W2 or the witch hunt in W1.

Same impression so far. Apparently it won't change until the end.

Take a game like Kingdom Come: it's flawed

Apart from the jump into linearity towards the end, what's flawed? It was a great game with good balance between open world shit and missions, and a lot of emergent gameplay possibilities. Unlike anything Vavra had done yet.

There's like, an ocular mod that makes all of your attacks nonlethal, even the suicide hack. Not sure why an optics mod makes someone else putting an inch hole through their cranium non-lethal.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There's like, an ocular mod that makes all of your attacks nonlethal, even the suicide hack. Not sure why an optics mod makes someone else putting an inch hole through their cranium non-lethal.

I decided to play without cyberware at all (currently lvl 20). It's just so OP, and I'm already so OP that I'm too lazy to go and install it. At first I lacked the money, but now that I have the money I can't be bothered to go to the ripperdoc. So I never knew about this mod's existance.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Steam denied my refund. I'm not going to play it until they patch out my issues.

 

[DalekFlay]

I have the space so I'm gonna install 1.04 and take some comparison shots with the lights I think, either that or prove myself insane.

Welp never mind, even though GOG said the offline installers last night were still 1.03 it installed at 1.05 so I guess I'm stuck with this downgraded version for now. Lame.

EDIT: Okay you can revert to 1.04 in the Galaxy config menu, so I won't be able to do direct comparisons but hopefully I can at least see if I'm crazy or not by walking the same areas I just did earlier.

 

[Hellion]

 

[RRRrrr]

Any idea if it will go on sale this year? Do new releases go on sales so early?

 

[Bara]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Cars launching into the air and disappearing in the horizon.
I watched people fall through the floor never to be seen again.
All those moments will be lost in time.
Like tears in rain.
Time to die.

That all at least sounds more memorable than anything I've played in the game as of yet sadly. Like its okay but I feel like in just going through the motions rather than getting invested in any plot.