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

[AwesomeButton]

Not necessearily. Witcher 3 allows you to hide undiscovered landmarks. Cyberpunk doesn't allow you to do the same.

Whether you hide the markers or not, exploring will only get you more random loot. Every location of real interest is one a quest takes you to. Every person of any interest to talk to, a quest takes you to. Cyberpunk is the same, only worse in that the quests themselves are also spawned by a map marker 90% of the time.

There is more variety from one Witcher 3 set piece combat to another than there is between two back alley gangsta squads in CP77.

The context of the battlefield stands out more because you usually encounter the monsters in a forest, whereas Night City is already full of colorful stuff all around you. Also, Witcher 3 has a much greater enemy variety, obviously in outlook but also in AI and tactics than CP77 has.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

Cyberpunk 2077 just keeps on giving.

I haven't been this entertained by a video game for quite some time, not gonna lie.

 

[DalekFlay]

There is more variety from one Witcher 3 set piece combat to another than there is between two back alley gangsta squads in CP77.

The context of the battlefield stands out more because you usually encounter the monsters in a forest, whereas Night City is already full of colorful stuff all around you. Also, Witcher 3 has a much greater enemy variety, obviously in outlook but also in AI and tactics than CP77 has.

I'd agree with most of that. Cyberpunk is certainly extremely repetitive late game because you're so powerful (on "hard") that everything dies in one shot, and every encounter is similar, so you're just walking around clicking things. I guess Witcher's combat and encounters are more varied by default.

I don't think it's wrong to point out how similar the two games are when it comes to basic game structure and design though, and chuckling when people act like Cyberpunk is SUCH decline from TW3. That's more the thing I'm rolling my eyes at, rather than saying there's no reason to prefer one or the other. I prefer Cyberpunk I guess because the setting and stealth gameplay are more in my wheelhouse, but if people prefer medieval fantasy and melee combat, or like Witcher 3's greater story content, it's all good. I am laser focused on refuting the idea this game's core design philosophy is any different. The people who made Witcher 3 made a very Witcher 3 style game in a different setting with different combat.

 

[toro]

Lol.

Incompetent developers.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't think it's wrong to point out how similar the two games are when it comes to basic game structure and design though, and chuckling when people act like Cyberpunk is SUCH decline from TW3.

I agree, and that's not my objection. My big lament is for those parts of the game that remain unfinished, not the gamey parts but the interactive movie parts.

Imagine the gigs and "NCPD subcon" work would track the player's street cred better and only unlock work in portions. Also the street cred gain could be rebalanced so you don't max it out by cleaning two neighborhoods. I would remove "Assault in progress" completely and leave only "Suspected Organized Crime Activity", because I can't abide the player feeling like he has "cleaned" the city of crime. I would also implement V's reputation with each fixer so that the fixer entrusts more dangerous and lucrative gigs to V as V proves himself/herself.

Gig introduction should have been delivered through dialogues such as those for monster hunts in Witcher 3, with a possibility to accept/decline/haggle. This would have presented an opportunity to flesh out both V's character and the characters of fixers via dialogue and acting. I am willing to bet these things were planned but never implemented, and it's more than likely they will never be implemented. I regret that game could have been a really big deal and become a new yardstick for the genre of "open world pew-pew interactive movie" but with so many compromises done on the quality of the content, it's out of the question.

 

[res11]

Not necessearily. Witcher 3 allows you to hide undiscovered landmarks. Cyberpunk doesn't allow you to do the same.

Whether you hide the markers or not, exploring will only get you more random loot. Every location of real interest is one a quest takes you to. Every person of any interest to talk to, a quest takes you to. Cyberpunk is the same, only worse in that the quests themselves are also spawned by a map marker 90% of the time.

There is more variety from one Witcher 3 set piece combat to another than there is between two back alley gangsta squads in CP77.

The context of the battlefield stands out more because you usually encounter the monsters in a forest, whereas Night City is already full of colorful stuff all around you. Also, Witcher 3 has a much greater enemy variety, obviously in outlook but also in AI and tactics than CP77 has.

This is completely different from my experience in TW3. Yes there was a lot of enemy variety and I appreciate how they designed a large number of unique beasts, but they all fought essentially the same way. Every fight was just crafting a different shade of oil and then spamming quen and igni.

 

[DalekFlay]

Gig introduction should have been delivered through dialogues such as those for monster hunts in Witcher 3, with a possibility to accept/decline/haggle. This would have presented an opportunity to flesh out both V's character and the characters of fixers via dialogue and acting. I am willing to bet these things were planned but never implemented, and it's more than likely they will never be implemented. I regret that game could have been a really big deal and become a new yardstick for the genre of "open world pew-pew interactive movie" but with so many compromises done on the quality of the content, it's out of the question.

I think the game's... I don't know the right word, presentation? Immersion? Drive?... would have been greatly improved if you went to the fixers themselves to get jobs, and maybe met the client, and had some more dialog with personality defining choices. I think a ton of people who lapped up The Witcher 3 like chocolate milk but find this game's "roleplaying" disappointing would be complaining a lot less if that were the case. I don't even think it would have taken that much more time and effort compared to what they did, and with a fast travel hub right outside it wouldn't have added much tedious traveling either.

 

[Immortal]

B-b-b-but guys.. Muh Eurojank though..
You don't need it to work or be playable.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

 

[AwesomeButton]

This is completely different from my experience in TW3. Yes there was a lot of enemy variety and I appreciate how they designed a large number of unique beasts, but they all fought essentially the same way. Every fight was just crafting a different shade of oil and then spamming quen and igni.

True, in Vanilla on Normal, I can't say I did anything more complex than wildly clicking and trying to keep the enemy I want to hit in the center of the screen, so the targeting switches to him. There is of course the Yrden for Noon/Nightwraiths. Still, enemies had sometimes complex animations which you had to counter or evade on time, and now when I play with a rebalance mod that vastly increases enemy attacks' damage, I can appreciate the variety.

in games 90% of the experience is illusion, and a developer usuallly throws a huge amount of work into providing an illusion of some kind - illusion of variety, illusion of danger, illusion of uncertainty. Just remember zombies in Thief, how difficult it used to be to tell their state or how suspicious they were of you. That's why the ideal audience for a game is an impressionable teen.

 

[Immortal]

I think the game's... I don't know the right word, presentation? Immersion? Drive?... would have been greatly improved if you went to the fixers themselves to get jobs, and maybe met the client, and had some more dialog with personality defining choices. I think a ton of people who lapped up The Witcher 3 like chocolate milk but find this game's "roleplaying" disappointing would be complaining a lot less if that were the case. I don't even think it would have taken that much more time and effort compared to what they did, and with a fast travel hub right outside it wouldn't have added much tedious traveling either.

I mean, in my mind it feels pretty clear this was the original intention, along with the rest of the game being far more reactive / interactive.. The remnants of cut content are showing all throughout the game.

In your example, consider the fact that all Fixers have actual locations in the world that show up on your map but when you visit you just get the canned "called them on cellphone" dialogue options. Did they cut them because they thought it was tedious to visit? or because it was too much work to animate them? (They have procedural animation tools so I doubt it)

I'm not sure where they drew the line in the sand but there are so many unfinished concepts (Functioning Subway system, bars and clubs that have zero purpose other than to dance in, ect) in this game which is maybe the most depressing of all, coupled with all the false promises they made for the last two years.

 

[res11]

This is completely different from my experience in TW3. Yes there was a lot of enemy variety and I appreciate how they designed a large number of unique beasts, but they all fought essentially the same way. Every fight was just crafting a different shade of oil and then spamming quen and igni.

True, in Vanilla on Normal, I can't say I did anything more complex than wildly clicking and trying to keep the enemy I want to hit in the center of the screen, so the targeting switches to him. There is of course the Yrden for Noon/Nightwraiths. Still, enemies had sometimes complex animations which you had to counter or evade on time, and now when I play with a rebalance mod that vastly increases enemy attacks' damage, I can appreciate the variety.

in games 90% of the experience is illusion, and a developer usuallly throws a huge amount of work into providing an illusion of some kind - illusion of variety, illusion of danger, illusion of uncertainty. Just remember zombies in Thief, how difficult it used to be to tell their state or how suspicious they were of you. That's why the ideal audience for a game is an impressionable teen.

I was playing on Hard (blood and broken bones) on vanilla version. At a certain point the contracts became trivial no matter how high the suggested level of the contract is. Maybe I should replay the game using the enhanced edition mod.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think the game's... I don't know the right word, presentation? Immersion? Drive?... would have been greatly improved if you went to the fixers themselves to get jobs, and maybe met the client, and had some more dialog with personality defining choices. I think a ton of people who lapped up The Witcher 3 like chocolate milk but find this game's "roleplaying" disappointing would be complaining a lot less if that were the case. I don't even think it would have taken that much more time and effort compared to what they did, and with a fast travel hub right outside it wouldn't have added much tedious traveling either.

yes, I definetly imagined it as in Witcher 3 - getting the gig introduction in person.

I've played Witcher 3 a lot of time, and I've come to value how much they've done with so little that they had at their disposal - repeatable animations for gestures and face expressions. The rest was voice acting. And having only that they managed to convey so much character for NPCs and for Geralt during mission introduction. It's really genius what they did. Rewatch a few mission introductions and you will see what I mean. As you play for a lot of time, these pre-made and repeated animations actually turn into an advantage - you begin associating someone with the way he looks at the other characters, the way he sits, gestures with his hands, and these repeatable animations become this character's mannerisms, as if it's a real person. When you think of Yennefer, you imagine her expression and posture as much as her outfit and black hair.

All of this is a missed opportunity in Cyberpunk, because of economy reasons, and because it so much had to be first person.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I was playing on Hard (blood and broken bones) on vanilla version. At a certain point the contracts became trivial no matter how high the suggested level of the contract is. Maybe I should replay the game using the enhanced edition mod.

That's because you can get overleveled for them - your damage output scales with level but the quests have a fixed "Recommended level". Definetlly check out the Enhanced Edition, I can say it turned the game into a real RPG in many aspects. There is a real scarcity of money and materials, a real necessity for brewing potions and crafting bombs, perks are gained through a "learn by doing" system, it's a different game altogether, but the good part of the interactive movie remains untouched. Also combat is completely redefined. Three-four mistakes kill you, and hitting is always forward from the character's facing, the camera's facing is irrelevant, no more "center on screen to highlight enemy and then click the mouse".

 

[res11]

I was playing on Hard (blood and broken bones) on vanilla version. At a certain point the contracts became trivial no matter how high the suggested level of the contract is. Maybe I should replay the game using the enhanced edition mod.

That's because you can get overleveled for them - your damage output scales with level but the quests have a fixed "Recommended level". Definetlly check out the Enhanced Edition, I can say it turned the game into a real RPG in many aspects. There is a real scarcity of money and materials, a real necessity for brewing potions and crafting bombs, perks are gained through a "learn by doing" system, it's a different game altogether, but the good part of the interactive movie remains untouched. Also combat is completely redefined. Three-four mistakes kill you, and hitting is always forward from the character's facing, the camera's facing is irrelevant, no more "center on screen to highlight enemy and then click the mouse".

Do you think cyberpunk can be rebalanced in a similar way?

 

[Turjan]

I was playing on Hard (blood and broken bones) on vanilla version. At a certain point the contracts became trivial no matter how high the suggested level of the contract is. Maybe I should replay the game using the enhanced edition mod.

That's because you can get overleveled for them - your damage output scales with level but the quests have a fixed "Recommended level".

This game has similar issues. What is the wisdom behind scaling how fast you level with difficulty, but have mostly fixed level enemies? I switched to "very hard" and am now leveling like crazy. At "normal" level, you hardly level at all after 30.

 

[DeepOcean]

Also, most Witcher 3 side contracts are about an unique version of one of the monsters that roam the place, each contract, Geralt say stuff while he investigates which monster is causing the trouble and he talks about the behavior of the monster what serves to reinforce the fantasy that you are playing a monster hunter hunting creepy shit on the middle of nowhere.

The problem of the gigs is that they have the basic structure of a Far Cry outpost, they arent as generic because most of them try tell a little story the same was Witcher 3, but here, it doesnt work. Because, those little bits of lore worked really well to reinforce the fantasy of a monster hunter, knowing some sad story about some gangster mom hardly reinforces the fantasy of a professional mercenary.

Also, the vast majory of gigs are about you murdering gang scum on their little hellholes and while they improve a little in complexity when you move from Watson to Heywood or Downtown, you never have to make a complex heist, not even a simplified version of the one you did on Act 1 to grab the relic. I mean, if you had to do one bigger mission Alpha Protocol style where you have to do a complex heist, assemble a team and deal with the local fixer, at least one per district it would make a massive difference.

One example is the mission where you need to steal the datashard from the russian diplomat, that thing screamed for a bigger, more complex mission, the way it is, you just take an elevator, get there, grab the shard, the end.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Do you think cyberpunk can be rebalanced in a similar way?

The economy (eddies prices), loot (fewer weapon drops), weapon damage progression (even lock all weapons of a given model to do the same damage), perks and skills and attributes' effects, can all be rebalanced eventually. That's what I meant when I said I'm not that sorry about the balance issues and gamey things. It's the quests, reactivity and characterisation flavor that can't be modded in and, unless a miracle happens, can't be patched in by CDPR.

 

[Twiglard]

Speaking of the end,

Spoiler

My current character will probably go with Panam, if he gets that far - again, because he prefers human contact and human life, and the Nomad life.

Which is the right choice. The Nomads are a bit savage, but they're real people in a world made in equal parts of plastic, styrofoam, gelatin and silicone. I've got some good vibes twice in the penultimate mission on the Nomad lifepath:

Spoiler

V dying at Vik's clinic, then Panam getting all serious, emotionless and hyper-focused. I distinctly remember going like that for someone, once. The girl had great self-sabotage skills, even though I didn't have to save her life back then. That's how it looks like being for someone at their weakest.

And the second time, at the camp. It felt for the first time being around real people, especially at the end of the game after everyone either died or left. Shit, I moved my stash out of the apartment and grew disgusted with the city two-thirds in the game due to being so isolated.

There's one good gun in the game, and it's RT-46 Burya. Who needs an anti-materiel rifle when a pistol makes bigger holes.

 

[bloodlover]

Gig introduction should have been delivered through dialogues such as those for monster hunts in Witcher 3, with a possibility to accept/decline/haggle. This would have presented an opportunity to flesh out both V's character and the characters of fixers via dialogue and acting. I am willing to bet these things were planned but never implemented, and it's more than likely they will never be implemented. I regret that game could have been a really big deal and become a new yardstick for the genre of "open world pew-pew interactive movie" but with so many compromises done on the quality of the content, it's out of the question.

I think the game's... I don't know the right word, presentation? Immersion? Drive?... would have been greatly improved if you went to the fixers themselves to get jobs, and maybe met the client, and had some more dialog with personality defining choices. I think a ton of people who lapped up The Witcher 3 like chocolate milk but find this game's "roleplaying" disappointing would be complaining a lot less if that were the case. I don't even think it would have taken that much more time and effort compared to what they did, and with a fast travel hub right outside it wouldn't have added much tedious traveling either.

This was one of my main complains as well. Everything feels very static when you get the quest from a phone call.

Many things are done remotely (taking quests, getting the rewards for it, getting offers on cars) and they do make sense in the game's technological world but from a gameplay perspective it makes everything very dull. Going to the fixer every time to take and deliver a quest would have been bad in the end too but at least it would have been some form of interaction. It would have been nice to introduce them differently too, maybe make it mandatory to visit each fixer from the area at least once so the person behind the call is not just a random voice. It could have worked fine with your background too, as some fixers could get info on you and depending on your background you could get a different reaction or maybe even a different reward.

I am not sure if this will ever be fixed or if it can be fixed, even after fixing every single bug and making the game run on old consoles. (I am being optimistic here)

 

[Bad Sector]

As a matter of fact I suspect those shards with "chat history" were originally intended to be voiced and listened to. I can't imagine someone just decided to have all the premises written as dialogues "just because".

Well this one is actually pretty easy to asspull into ingame universe logic. Like text is cheaper to store than audio right? Maybe all phone devices come with speech recognition and a mandatory writer that stores all your calls which are then logged on your phone and kept for your own safety.

I do not remember if it is contradicted in some other message, but i do remember a couple of messages explicitly mentioning that these are typed messages and not spoken (there was a message about switching to a voice call and another about typing).

 

[Bliblablubb]

CDPR has a... strange interpretation of "meaningful C&C" in this game for sure.
During the mainquest you interrogate a ripperdoc, getting the option to punch him. And you really want to, he has a very punchable face. Since his clinic is a backalley dump and every NPC comments that he basically staples bathroom floor tiles on people... what would you lose? Pretty obvious choice, amirite?

WRONK!

By punching him, you lock yourself out of the ONLY ripperdoc that sells epic arm cybernetics, AND, even worse, the legendary hover legs.
Choices and consequences bitch! How could anyone not predict this, right?

"Fuck you player. Love, Bethesda Poland CDPR."

 

[DeepOcean]

CDPR has a... strange interpretation of "meaningful C&C" in this game for sure.
During the mainquest you interrogate a ripperdoc, getting the option to punch him. And you really want to, he has a very punchable face. Since his clinic is a backalley dump and every NPC comments that he basically staples bathroom floor tiles on people... what would you lose? Pretty obvious choice, amirite?

WRONK!

By punching him, you lock yourself out of the ONLY ripperdoc that sells epic arm cybernetics, AND, even worse, the legendary hover legs.
Choices and consequences bitch! How could anyone not predict this, right?

"Fuck you player. Love, Bethesda Poland CDPR."

I think most game designers on CDPR were high on heroine for the most part of the project, when the supply ended, nearby the release date, it is that they remembered they needed to ship a game. Only this explain how such a retardation like this escape Q&A.

 

[Twiglard]

Chocking is not about depriving people from air. That takes too much time. It's about blocking the flow of blood to the brain

The problem is that you need to compress someone's neck for several minutes after he's unconscious to choke/suffocate him. If anything, it looked more like the frail old man died from getting smacked onto the ground. Or a heart attack.

I tried to start a new game to do a netrunner build, gave up half way through prologue cos already I was feeling fatigue at scripted unskippable sequences.

Switch the dialogue skip option to holding the button, then it doesn't take that long.

materials science and engineering has made enormous advances in the past 40 years (1980 and beyond), and is in no way shape or form stagnant. What on earth would lead you to believe such a thing?

I'm not too much into engineering, but let's elaborate: carbon fiber ultralight aircraft, 3d printed rocket motors. It puts things into perspective.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Cyberpunk 2077 summarized in a single image: