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

[alyvain]

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.

I think that's a mistake. There is a fast travel "Megabuidliung H10" location, but it's actually H11 or something.

 

[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.

I think that's a mistake. There is a fast travel "Megabuidliung H10" location, but it's actually H11 or something.

I see. I should probably look what the markings on the building say.

 

[Tyrr]

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.

That one appears after you did his quest (not sure after the first or second). At least it isn't there in act 1.

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

The old mayor is still alive at this point.

 

[alyvain]

remember the struggle

 

[Mefi]

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.

Other than the cat and Misty's dreamcatcher, I know that

Spoiler

the stolen painting from space appears on your cupboard door while you have it in your inventory and there's a Militech box from banging that Militech woman

. Pretty sure I saw a model car (Nomad related?) which isn't there on two saves I've got in/close to apartment.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

However, given how slow the AI is reacting, you can often fool it by sneaking as fast as possible. Enemies often don't discover the fast movement, so you can get to the next cover easily. Sometimes it feels to me like an ostrich game. They won't see you if you don't look.

This is silly as hell, but it's kind of fun as there's some skill in exploiting the slow reaction times, especially if you upgrade your stealth tree a bit with the "slower reaction" perks. At a few points, I've been able to do some impossible shit like taking out enemies in front of other enemies just by exploiting how long it takes to for them to react. It's not in any way realistic, but it's also very easy to fuck up if not timed properly, so it's not really godlike either. Stealth, in general, is very godlike if you are patient, but if you were to do every single mission of this game purely stealth it would be like a 200+ hour game, which......fuck that.

The biggest truly godlike feature in the game that the devs need to nerf is hacking into cameras and killing enemies with quickhacks 1 by 1. You can just hack into a camera system and go from camera to camera killing enemies one by one with quickhacks. If they notice a dead body they will change their behavior and spread out a bit more, but the way they do it is very slow and ineffective so it's rarely a threat. The devs need to add a feature where they will notice and either come immediately to where you are or just shut down the camera system entirely.

 

[Gargaune]

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.

Not really onboard here, I'd say "narrative-heavy interactive movie-game" is a key factor. I think using the 1st-person perspective does add "immersion" in the sense that it enables embodiment, a core element of the Immersive Sim genre which we also enjoy a strong plot in. I'm in no way averse to 3rd-person cameras, I like TW3's just the way it is, but I dislike Montreal DX's 3rd-person stealth even as I prefer the 3rd-person cinematic conversation sequences. (An interesting side note here, DX4 does actually feature some very minor 1st-person cinematics, such as when Jensen's getting his papers checked at the metro.) As for Cyberpunk itself, I can respect the aspiration of doing (nearly) everything 1st-person and it does work out very well in some sequences, like those Juan_Carlo pointed out, but more often there isn't enough going on to offset the loss of characterisation from something like TW3.

It's a tricky matter of framing the relationship between player and character for a given experience and yet, while shifting perspectives might introduce a certain disconnect, it's one that I can stomach - a single over-the-shoulder perspective might be the most consistent, but I wouldn't want to play Deus Ex that way while, at the same time, I wouldn't want its dramatic character sequences to play out in first person. I feel like that inconsistency is a small price to pay for letting the experience get the best of both worlds.

 

[Gargaune]

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.

Someone at CDPR right now: "Oh, shit..."

 

[Zero Credibility]

The biggest truly godlike feature in the game that the devs need to nerf is hacking into cameras and killing enemies with quickhacks 1 by 1. You can just hack into a camera system and go from camera to camera killing enemies one by one with quickhacks. If they notice a dead body they will change their behavior and spread out a bit more, but the way they do it is very slow and ineffective so it's rarely a threat. The devs need to add a feature where they will notice and either come immediately to where you are or just shut down the camera system entirely.

For start why not disable camera switching for hacking a camera, limiting you to that one you hacked into? And only if you have access to a security terminal can you view every camera.

 

[Ibn Sina]

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 is much more of a bland superjoe both male and female version. Very monotone and serious sounding all the time. V has much more emotional range. Some of the quips he says are fucking gold.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

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.

It depends on the game. First-person has rarely been used in films just because it's incredibly restricted and, up until just recently when cameras were small enough to just strap to someone's head, was really difficult to pull off technically. Video games run into the same problems with first-person storytelling that films run into: it can be disorienting, it's difficult to identify with a character if we can't see them reacting to things, and it can be plain hard to convey some narrative details that are much easier to show via 3rd person (like, for example, things hidden from the POV character, stuff characters are doing off screen, and etc). There have been a few creative solutions to this in film and TV (Peep Show, for example, was entirely first person, but it would jump from character to character, so it wasn't restricted to just one person). However, I think video games, as a medium, are much more suited to fully FP storytelling than films.

Personally, I think its POV perspective is integral enough to the game's themes that it would hurt Cyberpunk to jump to 3rd person at any point in its narrative. Driving I don't mind, as it's mostly just a concession to the fact that it's much easier to navigate in a car in 3rd person. However, beyond that, Cyberpunk is a game about blurred identities and the threat of dissolution of the self allowed by the game's technologies, whether they are the relic that allows for Johnny to exist in V's brain, or Braindance technologies, or the slow and gradual replacement of the human body with technology (one recalls the Wizard of Oz's tin man's story about how he started replacing his parts with tin as he accidentally hacked them off until, one day, he had hacked all his human bits off and there was nothing but tin left). The game very effectively uses its first person perspective at various points to underscore these themes, especially in the bits that blur Johnny/V together to the point that you aren't immediately sure which one you are playing. Given that, it's kind of fitting that the player character rarely sees themselves anywhere in the game world, only at key points when they actively look into a mirror. Some of this might have been some weird limitation of the engine (the lack of mirrors, probably, although it's definitely strange that in a game so replete with beautiful reflections that seem to easily reflect everything in great detail, there are almost no places where the player can see themselves), but I think the decision to stick to first person in all other areas was intentional.

Kingdom Come wasn't a game about post-humanism, so I didn't really care or even notice when it shifted to third person for dialog. However, just switching to cinematic third person cut scenes at key moments was a laziest and easiest solution to the problem. The best, most innovative, and, I think, hardest solution is to find a way to make first person work with a narrative in a compelling way. I think Cyberpunk goes further toward accomplishing that than any game has in a long time, even if it fails at times (and it definitely does fail at times....I'm not at all claiming it's perfect in the way it tells its story, just that I don't think switching to 3rd person would have been the best solution to it).

 

[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.

I think that's a mistake. There is a fast travel "Megabuidliung H10" location, but it's actually H11 or something.

I just looked, and yes, it's actually building H11 on the building model itself. Which means it's easy to fix (just the name of the fast travel point).

 

[Child of Malkav]

The devs need to add a feature where they will notice and either come immediately to where you are or just shut down the camera system entirely.

Fuck that psychic guard shit. How would they know that their friends were killed or KOed by someone? And if they do, how would they know how that person operates? Yeah, maybe they can take out the cameras but you can ping in the game showing you all enemies and objects you can interact with and just quickhack them through walls. I don't want that "stop right there criminal scum" in my games. They should focus on how information propagates and allow you as the player to interrupt or control that chain of communication.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Fuck that psychic guard shit. How would they know that their friends were killed or KOed by someone? And if they do, how would they know how that person operates?

In a world where you can literally buy an array of deadly quickhacks in stores for like 50 dollars a pop they should be immediately suspicious of hacking if they see two or more of their fellow guards start mysteriously dying after sparks shoot out of their brain. Doesn't mean they should be able to immediately find you, I agree, but it would make logical sense for them to have some sort of counter measure beyond just wandering around, as if in a daze, while they continue to die, one by one, as you kill them.

 

[Turjan]

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.

Other than the cat and Misty's dreamcatcher, I know that

Spoiler

the stolen painting from space appears on your cupboard door while you have it in your inventory and there's a Militech box from banging that Militech woman

. Pretty sure I saw a model car (Nomad related?) which isn't there on two saves I've got in/close to apartment.

I guess the painting is the one in the golden frame? Just got the cat, as I found some cat food

Spoiler

while stealing Kerry Eurodyne's guitar from a fan

Good that, in 2077, cats don't need litter boxes anymore.
And yes, there's a model car with the name of V's former nomad clan (Bakkers) printed on it.
Not that anything of this matters, but these are nice little touches.

 

[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 is much more of a bland superjoe both male and female version. Very monotone and serious sounding all the time. V has much more emotional range. Some of the quips he says are fucking gold.

Hence V's even more defined than Shepard or Geralt.

We can't even fucking decide if V is a smoker or not previously. This here alone is contradicting what my V would have been if we could have a blank-slate V or a blank-er-slate V

 

[Turjan]

I just did two of Claire's races, and I'm not sure why i got the idea this would be difficult, given my driving skills.
If you have an accident, the other cars just wait in an orderly starting array.
If you really don't manage to catch the first car, it miraculously slows down (okay, this may be from Claire's shooting).
I wonder if you can actually fail these.

 

[Quillon]

I just did two of Claire's races, and I'm not sure why i got the idea this would be difficult, given my driving skills.
If you have an accident, the other cars just wait in an orderly starting array.
If you really don't manage to catch the first car, it miraculously slows down (okay, this may be from Claire's shooting).
I wonder if you can actually fail these.

If you drive good and look at the minimap you see other cars keep teleporting to keep up

 

[Child of Malkav]

Fuck that psychic guard shit. How would they know that their friends were killed or KOed by someone? And if they do, how would they know how that person operates?

In a world where you can literally buy an array of deadly quickhacks in stores for like 50 dollars a pop they should be immediately suspicious of hacking if they see two or more of their fellow guards start mysteriously dying after sparks shoot out of their brain. Doesn't mean they should be able to immediately find you, I agree, but it would make logical sense for them to have some sort of counter measure beyond just wandering around, as if in a daze, while they continue to die, one by one, as you kill them.

I agree, but not the psychic stuff. They should have other means of searching for you. For example one of them can take manual control over the cameras and look around for you, just as you can do the same. IDK. Something to that extent. But omniscient, psychic crap can go to one place: hell.

 

[TT1]

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.

Other than the cat and Misty's dreamcatcher, I know that

Spoiler

the stolen painting from space appears on your cupboard door while you have it in your inventory and there's a Militech box from banging that Militech woman

. Pretty sure I saw a model car (Nomad related?) which isn't there on two saves I've got in/close to apartment.

I noticed the monk altar as well and also the cat you rescue from your building.

I won all the fights and no sign of any trophy tho. Or the races.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Is FEAR's 2006 AI better than Cyberpunk's one?

FEAR's AI is better than every FPS I've played since. I don't understand why they don't just outsource that AI. Lazy devs can buy it and modify it slightly.

I don't know how game AI works, so it was probably heavily scripted to only work in the limited and confined spaces of FEAR's level design, but it's still really impressive.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Not really onboard here, I'd say "narrative-heavy interactive movie-game" is a key factor.

Yes, I didn't mean it for any type of game.

For start why not disable camera switching for hacking a camera, limiting you to that one you hacked into? And only if you have access to a security terminal can you view every camera.

Have you noticed how turning surveillance off from a computer actually does nothing. All the cameras that were working continue to work :D

 

[Turjan]

I won all the fights and no sign of any trophy tho. Or the races.

It's funny that your "romance" options are commemorated by a weapon (and an additional apartment), regardless whether you actually romanced them or not. At least I've got three of those so far.

Top left are Panam and Judy, the row below are River, Jackie and Dex. Top right is Saburo.

 

[Tyrr]

I just did two of Claire's races, and I'm not sure why i got the idea this would be difficult, given my driving skills.
If you have an accident, the other cars just wait in an orderly starting array.
If you really don't manage to catch the first car, it miraculously slows down (okay, this may be from Claire's shooting).
I wonder if you can actually fail these.

The most difficult part was to read "her" database info and still have the resolve to finish the quest.

 

[res11]

Is FEAR's 2006 AI better than Cyberpunk's one?

FEAR's AI is better than every FPS I've played since. I don't understand why they don't just outsource that AI. Lazy devs can buy it and modify it slightly.

I don't know how game AI works, so it was probably heavily scripted to only work in the limited and confined spaces of FEAR's level design, but it's still really impressive.

Apparently FEAR's AI is just standard shooter AI but is elevated by level design tricks.