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

[Quillon]

he has to much shit about him defined.

Such as...?

Everything apart from his/her looks which doesn't mean shit in the game. There is only one type of V, where he starts, his motivation, his 2 sidekicks, just consider the amount of times he speaks without player input... too much shit set in stone and lack of narrative options throughout which hurts both V and NPCs etc. Only at the very end you have options that would shape V going forward but what does it matter? There won't be a direct sequel which will take into account these wildly different endings and we'll play as V.

 

[Yosharian]

People discussing builds in this game


You don't need to build anything here. I speced into assault and started steamrolling everything at level 10. Then just to inject any kind of fun in the experience i decided to switch to stealth with the same character and without spending any points it was still easy as fuck, because the AI and their patrol routes are fucking retarded.

And about the first person view:

they still shit the bed here too, because their animation work is so far removed from Red Dead Redemption 2 it's almost pathetic in some cases. Especially when they try to sell you some dramatic moment and all of a sudden characters reset to their default animations as if saying "well i played my part, now a can relax".

Pure cringe

What difficulty are you using? I am on very hard, currently level 18, I have a stealth/handgun build and in combat I am the one who get steamrolled by everything. The only way I can steamroll is if I go full stealth.

Stealth pistol is broken in this game, you fail

 

[Turjan]

s your build improves game gets easier but never as easy to point where you can just play without saving.

only because of the constant crashes. a level 14 hacker is immortal, no way he'll ever even enter combat.

The game crashed exactly twice on me in well over 100 hours, once with 1.03 (release version) and once when saving the first time with 1.04.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Everything apart from his/her looks which doesn't mean shit in the game. There is only one type of V, where he starts, his motivation, his 2 sidekicks, just consider the amount of times he speaks without player input... too much shit set in stone and lack of narrative options throughout which hurts both V and NPCs etc. Only at the very end you have options that would shape V going forward but what does it matter? There won't be a direct sequel which will take into account these wildly different endings and we'll play as V.

I agree on the part about speaking without player input (to the degree that some of these statements showcase his personal outlook), but otherwise the rest do not develop V's personality. They are just narrative constraints which nonetheless leave V as more or less a blank slate generic character.

Which again is not to say that the lack of C&C is a good thing, but I think that we're both complaining of the same thing just from opposite perspectives.

 

[Gargaune]

Another compromise is the attempt to have a complex and branching main story in an open world setting. The compromises made in order to "sort of" have this are - abdication from any attempts to balance the player's power level vs enemies' level, and the most banal by now case of forced urgency of the main quest. Congratulations, GOTY! Now ask yourself - is having the open world worth it if you are losing the balanced power levels and turning the urgency fake?

I can not overstate how much I fucking hate this fake forced urgency. If you really have to go with urgency in the main quest line, then fucking enforce it. Otherwise, don't fucking do it. Is not doing something that fucking hard?

Spoiler

First, why does a street doctor know exactly what a piece of tech he has never seen before is doing to you? Why not instead have the player gradually figure out what is going on over the course of the game? And if that's too much work, at least don't have him right away tell the player exactly how little time he has left. And for fucks sake, ease up on the whole coughing up blood cliche. Yes, we get it, the PC is dying, he does not have fucking tuberculosis. Don't push the player with this fake urgency when the rest of your game is not made with any time limit in mind. What's that, Panam? You want me to waste a whole day with you and your buddies over a campfire while we wait for a convoy? Sign me up, it's not like I have anything better I should be doing. No, no, don't mind me coughing up blood.

Idiots. You'd think they would have learned something from the same problem in Witcher 3, but no, instead they made this aspect of it even worse.

Especially during Act 1, I fell for this. I didn't do any side missions there at all, and as a result, I discovered that I was underleveled for "The Heist". Yes, that can happen. Gear was shitty and level very low, which meant I had to replay one of those sequences several times, including a conversation and an elevator ride.
Despite that fake urgency, the story somehow expected me to know a few people at the beginning of Act2, people who I never met because you have to go outside of the main missions to actually interact with them. It's probably also the reason why I have that free gun from Wilson stuck in my inventory, because the associated quest doesn't close properly in Act 2.

And then, in Act2, I'm doing the opposite and am still somewhere at two thirds of the main quest. It's funny how more or less the whole world of the "main story" goes quiet on you while you do this.

Yes, this was something I complained about as well. The game would've worked better by having the protagonist work up to the Heist, literally. Something akin to Act 2 in Shadows of Amn, especially since you have the Street Cred metric so you'd have to achieve some level of reknown in your trade before Dex tapped you and Jackie for his big gig. The plot would've worked better and given the protagonist more space to liberally engage with the side content before the narrative urgency kicked in. Similarly to BG2, as long as the bar is set sufficiently low, players in a hurry could do a few gigs and get on with it while others could opt to postpone looking into Dex's job offer for a while longer and it would be much less narratively jarring than going street racing with a killer USB stick jacked into V's head.

The reasons I suspect this didn't happen, though, are because a certain segment of the modern general public might've been displeased at having to engage with any side content before getting to "the real game" and because the publicity segment comprised of journalists and Youtubers would've certainly hated it. As usual, marketing is the bane of artistic consistency.

Another aspect might be handling Jackie during a more open Act 1, since you'd expect your partner in crime to actually have your back despite CBP clearly being a solo game, but they could have just written their way around that with less dissonance than Act 2 currently has.

 

[Quillon]

blank slate generic character.

Blank-slate means there should be some room to write shit on(define the character yourself) there is very little in V's case.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

blank slate generic character.

Black slate means there should be some room to write shit on there is very little in V's case.

Oh, there is plenty of room. Issue is that there is nothing to write therein due to the lack of narrative C&C offered by the game.

This is all a matter of perspective though. I see a white piece of paper and say that it is blank since there's nothing written on it while you argue that the piece of paper is fully painted in white.

 

[Turjan]

Another compromise is the attempt to have a complex and branching main story in an open world setting. The compromises made in order to "sort of" have this are - abdication from any attempts to balance the player's power level vs enemies' level, and the most banal by now case of forced urgency of the main quest. Congratulations, GOTY! Now ask yourself - is having the open world worth it if you are losing the balanced power levels and turning the urgency fake?

I can not overstate how much I fucking hate this fake forced urgency. If you really have to go with urgency in the main quest line, then fucking enforce it. Otherwise, don't fucking do it. Is not doing something that fucking hard?

Spoiler

First, why does a street doctor know exactly what a piece of tech he has never seen before is doing to you? Why not instead have the player gradually figure out what is going on over the course of the game? And if that's too much work, at least don't have him right away tell the player exactly how little time he has left. And for fucks sake, ease up on the whole coughing up blood cliche. Yes, we get it, the PC is dying, he does not have fucking tuberculosis. Don't push the player with this fake urgency when the rest of your game is not made with any time limit in mind. What's that, Panam? You want me to waste a whole day with you and your buddies over a campfire while we wait for a convoy? Sign me up, it's not like I have anything better I should be doing. No, no, don't mind me coughing up blood.

Idiots. You'd think they would have learned something from the same problem in Witcher 3, but no, instead they made this aspect of it even worse.

Especially during Act 1, I fell for this. I didn't do any side missions there at all, and as a result, I discovered that I was underleveled for "The Heist". Yes, that can happen. Gear was shitty and level very low, which meant I had to replay one of those sequences several times, including a conversation and an elevator ride.
Despite that fake urgency, the story somehow expected me to know a few people at the beginning of Act2, people who I never met because you have to go outside of the main missions to actually interact with them. It's probably also the reason why I have that free gun from Wilson stuck in my inventory, because the associated quest doesn't close properly in Act 2.

And then, in Act2, I'm doing the opposite and am still somewhere at two thirds of the main quest. It's funny how more or less the whole world of the "main story" goes quiet on you while you do this.

Yes, this was something I complained about as well. The game would've worked better by having the protagonist work up to the Heist, literally. Something akin to Act 2 in Shadows of Amn, especially since you have the Street Cred metric so you'd have to achieve some level of reknown in your trade before Dex tapped you and Jackie for his big gig. The plot would've worked better and given the protagonist more space to liberally engage with the side content before the narrative urgency kicked in. Similarly to BG2, as long as the bar is set sufficiently low, players in a hurry could do a few gigs and get on with it while others could opt to postpone looking into Dex's job offer for a while longer and it would be much less narratively jarring than going street racing with a killer USB stick jacked into V's head.

The reasons I suspect this didn't happen, though, are because a certain segment of the modern general public might've been displeased at having to engage with any side content before getting to "the real game" and because the publicity segment comprised of journalists and Youtubers would've certainly hated it. As usual, marketing is the bane of artistic consistency.

Another aspect might be handling Jackie during a more open Act 1, since you'd expect your partner in crime to actually have your back despite CBP clearly being a solo game, but they could have just written their way around that with less dissonance than Act 2 currently has.

The disconnect between the open world play and the story runs deep. In Act2, you can have a conversation with Rogue, where she tells you she doesn't have anything for you to do, given the only thing you are known for is failing spectacularly on the only mission you ever did. I think street cred was in the mid thirties at that point.
That's probably the reason why you have two metrics, street cred and fame. I guess, as the game often doesn't explain anything.

 

[Turjan]

Does anyone else find it confusing that the game has two Megabuilding H10 locations? One of them is the location of your apartment. The other obviously isn't.

 

[Quillon]

blank slate generic character.

Black slate means there should be some room to write shit on there is very little in V's case.

Oh, there is plenty of room. Issue is that there is nothing to write therein due to the lack of narrative C&C offered by the game.

This is all a matter of perspective though. I see a white piece of paper and say that it is blank since there's nothing written on it while you argue that the piece of paper is fully painted in white.

Do you consider Shepard blank-slate too? Because V is more defined than Shepard whilst having the same customization options.(Shepard even has a custom first name )

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

s your build improves game gets easier but never as easy to point where you can just play without saving.

only because of the constant crashes. a level 14 hacker is immortal, no way he'll ever even enter combat.

The game crashed exactly twice on me in well over 100 hours, once with 1.03 (release version) and once when saving the first time with 1.04.

the game crashes on me with a 90% chance on hitting tab in the first few seconds. if it survives, it has a low chance of crashing any time, while i have tab down, aim switches from a camera and a human. i can replicate this behaviour at will. i launched the game perhaps almost a hundred times because i'm exceptionally stubborn, before i "fuck this shit" and gave up altogether with this dull piece of gosa.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

blank slate generic character.

Black slate means there should be some room to write shit on there is very little in V's case.

Oh, there is plenty of room. Issue is that there is nothing to write therein due to the lack of narrative C&C offered by the game.

This is all a matter of perspective though. I see a white piece of paper and say that it is blank since there's nothing written on it while you argue that the piece of paper is fully painted in white.

Do you consider Shepard blank-slate too? Because V is more defined than Shepard whilst having the same customization options.

To me Shepard's personality seems much more defined, although I'm not sure how to 'objectively' qualify that. V just seems like a bland average Joe ergo a blank slate.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's quite funny actually, on my first character I was so into the presentation of the main story that I really took Vik's phrase of "two weeks tops" seriously.

TWO WEEKS TOPS??? OMG I BETTER GET MY FINGER OUT OF MY ARSE AND FIGURE OUT THIS CHIP PROBLEM!!! And on that first character I did absolutely zero open world stuff, and only a few side-quests, only focusing on the 3 MQ parts, getting as far as finishing the first phases of the 3 main branches. In fact, I had almost no cognizance that there was an open world aspect to the game at all up to that point. I assiduously met Takemura on the very evening I got his message to meet, etc., etc.

And I think in some ways that first playthrough was actually a pristine, innocent experience with a high level of engagement and immersion - as some have said, you could have easily made the whole game like that, without any open world aspect, without much in the way of side-levelling reqs, and it would have been a fine cinematic action adventure experience.

But then I discovered the open world, and realized there's no actual time limitations - and that spoiled the experience somewhat (although there was compensating fun in doing the open world stuff).

Yeah that's the whole game in a nutshell, starting out innocently believing that this is an actual world that one can get immersed in, and then having that immersion destroyed by bugs, inconsistent storytelling, shitty AI, game-ruining balance issues, nonsensical characters, stupid Easter eggs, hilarious 'physics', etc

What I mean: compare the degree of mixing story exposition with gameplay systems in Witcher 3 vs in Cyberpunk 2077.

In Witcher 3 a typical quest is a cocktail of little activities, neither of them anything special, or complex, or remarkable - one example scheme would be some dialogue and haggling, some riding, some "follow the red", some dialogue, some combat. You switch these often enough and make each of them last long enough so that the player is entertained without being especially challenged with difficulty. Provide a little branching decision on top, short-term and long-term consequence, and you have a great Witcher 3 quest.

Now try to name quests in Cyberpunk 2077 which sucessfully combine, in a good degree, the following elements - dialogue, driving, hacking, sneaking, "scanning for clues", jump-and-climbing, shooting. There are a number of quests that mix the elements, but at least for me it never feels as good as in Witcher 3. To the extent to which this mixing is well executed, it's in the side missions. The main quest is too much on rails and too much leaning on dialogue compared to the Witcher 3 main quest. As for the gigs - some are well done (I can think of the one with the retrieval of the Samurai record and the car) but inevitably too small-scale compared to Witcher 3 side quests. As for the NCPD concerned citizen tasks - they are just trash combat with some text dump shard acting as a fig leaf, sorry.

V is more akin to the Warden in DAO - lifepaths instead of origins, but otherwise a blank slate.

My understanding of a blank slate is more extreme - the Vault Dweller is a blank slate for me. Yet in Origins there was a lot more paths to what you might become based on your gender and origin combination than anything you can get in CP77, even though CP77 only needed to provide for three origin stories.

I don't think that CDPR compromised by balancing between these two.

I did not mean that it compromises between these two, but that it compromises on both these fronts. One front is C&C - CP77 lacks branching main story and lacks interwovenness of side quests with the main quest, a step back from Witcher 3. The other front is the characterisation - CP77 comes up with excuses to not develop your main character. V's main motivation at the start is "to become rich and famous", which shoehornes all three "origin stories" into a motivation which doesn't necessearily agree with the origins' premises. This motivation soon switches to "try to save myself after my soul being Awakened a generic time bomb curse". Oh what a pity, we were just going to present your character from more viewpoints, but now his motivation is reduced to the most common instinct of every life form - to protect its life functions.

 

[Turjan]

s your build improves game gets easier but never as easy to point where you can just play without saving.

only because of the constant crashes. a level 14 hacker is immortal, no way he'll ever even enter combat.

The game crashed exactly twice on me in well over 100 hours, once with 1.03 (release version) and once when saving the first time with 1.04.

the game crashes on me with a 90% chance on hitting tab in the first few seconds. if it survives, it has a low chance of crashing any time, while i have tab down, aim switches from a camera and a human. i can replicate this behaviour at will. i launched the game perhaps almost a hundred times because i'm exceptionally stubborn, before i "fuck this shit" and gave up altogether with this dull piece of gosa.

Sure, but that doesn't seem to be the norm. Do you have an AMD rig? No SSD?

 

[Dodo1610]

Crazy this game actually has alternative quest solutions for the backgrounds, I could walk into the Arasaka Industrial complex by convincing a guard that I am still an Araska Counter-Intelligence officer and upload the hack without being bothered.
Why isn't there more stuff like this?

 

[Turjan]

blank slate generic character.

Black slate means there should be some room to write shit on there is very little in V's case.

Oh, there is plenty of room. Issue is that there is nothing to write therein due to the lack of narrative C&C offered by the game.

This is all a matter of perspective though. I see a white piece of paper and say that it is blank since there's nothing written on it while you argue that the piece of paper is fully painted in white.

Do you consider Shepard blank-slate too? Because V is more defined than Shepard whilst having the same customization options.

To me Shepard's personality seems much more defined, although I'm not sure how to 'objectively' qualify that. V just seems like a bland average Joe ergo a blank slate.

He is a bit of a (wo)man without characteristics. That's where the condescending talks by Rogue come in. Some people complained V himself would act too edgy, but I never saw that.

 

[Tyrr]

Doing all the side stuff in Watson before finishing act 1 can lead to some inconsistencies.

 

[Quillon]

blank slate generic character.

Black slate means there should be some room to write shit on there is very little in V's case.

Oh, there is plenty of room. Issue is that there is nothing to write therein due to the lack of narrative C&C offered by the game.

This is all a matter of perspective though. I see a white piece of paper and say that it is blank since there's nothing written on it while you argue that the piece of paper is fully painted in white.

Do you consider Shepard blank-slate too? Because V is more defined than Shepard whilst having the same customization options.

To me Shepard's personality seems much more defined, although I'm not sure how to 'objectively' qualify that. V just seems like a bland average Joe ergo a blank slate.

Shepard starting out as a commander and V's just a punk, yes being just another choom in this setting seems less defined by default but V is still a defined choom that we CAN'T personalize, call it generic or whatever but blank-slate it definetely is not.

 

[Turjan]

Doing all the side stuff in Watson before finishing act 1 can lead to some inconsistencies.

Now I wonder whether things in your apartment change during the game. I should check whether the "Vote Peralez" poster had been hanging there all the time.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

V is still a defined choom that we CAN'T personalize, call it generic or whatever but blank-slate it definetely is not.

Well, neither does the game personalize him. He has a biography and there's a storyline to follow, but there's not much in the way of personality or retrospection towards his own actions showing through.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

s your build improves game gets easier but never as easy to point where you can just play without saving.

only because of the constant crashes. a level 14 hacker is immortal, no way he'll ever even enter combat.

The game crashed exactly twice on me in well over 100 hours, once with 1.03 (release version) and once when saving the first time with 1.04.

the game crashes on me with a 90% chance on hitting tab in the first few seconds. if it survives, it has a low chance of crashing any time, while i have tab down, aim switches from a camera and a human. i can replicate this behaviour at will. i launched the game perhaps almost a hundred times because i'm exceptionally stubborn, before i "fuck this shit" and gave up altogether with this dull piece of gosa.

Sure, but that doesn't seem to be the norm. Do you have an AMD rig? No SSD?

that's the truly scary part: intel and nvidia, on ssd.

 

[Turjan]

that's the truly scary part: intel and nvidia, on ssd.

Interesting. Same here, but all rather old.

 

[AwesomeButton]

My impression is that 1st-person conversations can provide benefits with blank-slate silent protagonists, but once you start part-defining the player character (and V is very much that) and voicing them, the consistency gains start to wane in contrast to the dramatic assets of cinematic conversations. When you factor in Cyberpunk's character customisation and equipment options, it's an even bigger loss.

Yes, exactly this.

What's interesting is that you see a similar story with other embodiment-heavy games, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Warhorse went so far as to include helmet visor overlays and 1st-person horse riding for the sake of putting you in Henry's shoes, but they still popped the camera to 3rd-person angles for conversations.

The inherent problem is that of POV angle. First person may have seemed very immersive in the dawn of 3d games when the alternative was isometric. But no sane person will say that limiting his field of vision makes the experience more "immersive", in a modern narrative-heavy interactive movie-game. The problem of viewing angle in 1st person can only be solved with VR equipment but then there is the slight problem that most of the population would suffer from dizzyness.

I think the best compromise is that in the Hitman games - third person camera which follows the player character much more closely, nearly over his shoulder, and when you take aim, it's actually over your shoulder. GTA and RDR2 have good examples of the camera getting closer in more "story exposition" moments during a mission and then going back when a wider viewing angle would help the player. The school of thought that parrots "You ARE Gordon Freeman" as if that makes it true, has always been an excuse of technical limitations.

 

[Quillon]

Doing all the side stuff in Watson before finishing act 1 can lead to some inconsistencies.

Donno what the inconsistency here is but in my game Peralez won the election according to TV but to Stanley on the radio Holt's still in the lead

 

[Turjan]

I think the best compromise is that in the Hitman games - third person camera which follows the player character much more closely, nearly over his shoulder, and when you take aim, it's actually over your shoulder. GTA and RDR2 have good examples of the camera getting closer in more "story exposition" moments during a mission and then going back when a wider viewing angle would help the player. The school of thought that parrots "You ARE Gordon Freeman" as if that makes it true, has always been an excuse of technical limitations.

I'm actually used to moving in a game in third person while doing the fights in first person perspective. That's the ideal setup for me. I can see that this spoils stealth play to some extent though.
Regarding conversations, I don't have any strong opinions. There are advantages and disadvantages for anything you choose. This game seems to use third person perspective in a few scripted conversations.