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

[SpaceWizardz]

ITS NOT RPG IT'S A 2D SIDE SCROLLER

Spoiler

Even with the disingenuous presentation to try and make it seem more impressive it still showcases the fatal flaw where almost every decision converges to the same point near the end of the current quests as to not complicate further quests.
Witcher 1 and 2 are somewhat the gold standard for C&C/branching narratives with these larger budget RPGs, you shouldn't defend them actively getting worse at what they're good at.

 

[Justicar]

Even with the disingenuous presentation to try and make it seem more impressive it still showcases the fatal flaw where almost every decision converges to the same point near the end of the current quests as to not complicate further quests.
Witcher 1 and 2 are somewhat the gold standard for C&C/branching narratives with these larger budget RPGs, you shouldn't defend them actively getting worse at what they're good at.

In cyberpunk they put most efforts into the endings you have 4 different end missions and 5 unique epilouges in this regard they did better than in any Witcher game.

 

[snoek]

The witcher 3 had better sidequests tho. If Cyberpunk had consistently been as good as the start of the game it would've been amazing. The sidequests are often filler/meh.

 

[Justicar]

The witcher 3 had better sidequests tho. If Cyberpunk had consistently been as good as the start of the game it would've been amazing. The sidequests are often filler/meh.

Actual side quests like Panam storyline, River storyline, Judy storyline etc. are on par with witcher 3, gigs can sometimes feel like filler but they are some memorable ones too. I agree with you that there should be more quality side storylines each of the characters I mentioned could use a quest or two more.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

In cyberpunk they put most efforts into the endings you have 4 different end missions and 5 unique epilouges in this regard they did better than in any Witcher game.

Presenting a list of endings for the player to pick and choose after the point of no return with little to no relation to previous actions is cop-out design. It was lousy in Deus Ex and it's lousy here.
The exception being the friendship ending where it's just you and Johnny assaulting Arasaka Tower, trying to mimic the consequence of your relationship with Ciri in Witcher 3 except it's worse since players who didn't follow the script and are not friendly with Johnny get fuck all.

 

[Justicar]

Presenting a list of endings for the player to pick and choose after the point of no return with little to no relation to previous actions is cop-out design. It was lousy in Deus Ex and it's lousy here.
The exception being the friendship ending where it's just you and Johnny assaulting Arasaka Tower, trying to mimic the consequence of your relationship with Ciri in Witcher 3 except it's worse since players who didn't follow the script and are not friendly with Johnny get fuck all.

Sure thing the problem is they are linked to ingame actions you have to finish Panams storyline to get Nomad ending, you have to finish Johnny questline to get his ending and you have to pick specific dialouge options to get secret ending the only endings you have available if you rush main story is Arasaka ending and suicide.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Sure thing the problem is they are linked to ingame actions you have to finish Panams storyline to get Nomad ending, you have to finish Johnny questline to get his ending and you have to pick specific dialouge options to get secret ending the only endings you have available if you rush main story is Arasaka ending and suicide.

with little to no relation to previous actions

Finishing questlines is not decision making. People are already conditioned to vacuum up and finish all the quests and missions for EXP and storylines, these endings are a participation trophy rather than a consequence of decisions you've made.
To clarify: I'm arguing that Cyberpunk is a poor RPG rather than not an RPG at all.

 

[RRRrrr]

Presenting a list of endings for the player to pick and choose after the point of no return with little to no relation to previous actions is cop-out design.

It's extremely stupid. They should have had them being incompatible with one another to make replays more interesting. Like you either are pro-Arasaka and do the Arasaka ending, or you are anti-Arasaka and do the Rogue ending. Also, Panam's ending was sheer stupidity.

The only ending I like was Rogue's ending, but her motivation to help you was completely retarded.

Sure thing the problem is they are linked to ingame actions you have to finish Panams storyline to get Nomad ending, you have to finish Johnny questline to get his ending and you have to pick specific dialouge options to get secret ending the only endings you have available if you rush main story is Arasaka ending and suicide.

Except for the secret ending, none of the other endings depend on choices. You can do the questlines however you like and you will still get those endings. There is no choice except for completely abandoning the questlines in question.

Spoiler

Also, FUCK CDP for doing the secret ending in such an inane manner, and also it ending up being the exact same ending as the Rogue one except for Rogue being alive.

 

[Bad Sector]

Witcher 1 [...] larger budget RPGs

Eh

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Witcher 1 [...] larger budget RPGs

Eh

Use whatever the proper term for these "Biowarian" style cinematic story-driven RPGs are.

 

[blachan]

imagine marketing a game on how impactful your choices are and having the ending be a mass effect 3 esque red/blue/green choice wheel

 

[Bad Sector]

Witcher 1 [...] larger budget RPGs

Eh

Use whatever the proper term for these "Biowarian" style cinematic story-driven RPGs are.

Kotorlikes? :-P

I was pointing out the "large budget" part BTW, AFAIK Witcher 1 barely had a budget, let alone a large one.

 

[Semiurge]

You need to have some narrative motivation for the player to do shit

They got OMGTITS. That's enough motivation for most of their simp audience. That's why they got so butthurt over Judy being a vagitarian, why they pretend to like Panam. Or maybe they do like her, she's pretty close to a twitch thot experience after all..

Game writers seem to like the idea of dangling a carrot in front of players, only to take it away. A carrot in the shape of perfect titties or romances. You have Bioware's cursed romances - the drama with Morrigan/Alistair, and Garrus/Tali who either give you anaphylaxis or you give it to them. And now the cutest (citation needed?) waifu in CP77 is a dyke. I guess it's edgy.

 

[Gargaune]

ITS NOT RPG IT'S A 2D SIDE SCROLLER

Spoiler

I get what you're trying to say, but that schema looks better than it plays, there's a lot of insubstantial fluff in there. Take a closer look, you've got stuff like the choice between punching Fingers or having him available as a ripperdoc, which is altogether inconsequential. And then you've got nodes like "Accept Keys" or "Get On The Motorcycle" just padding the diagram. Flowcharts can make a lot of things look more "sophisticated" than they really are, here's one a guy made for Fallout 4 as a point of reference:

 

[Quillon]

punching Fingers or having him available as a ripperdoc, which is altogether inconsequential

if you punch him you won't get his unique cyberwares ...unless you've already purchased them from him before, which in a normal playthrough you prolly shouldn't have

 

[Gerrard]

ITS NOT RPG IT'S A 2D SIDE SCROLLER

Spoiler

 

[Gargaune]

if you punch him you won't get his unique cyberwares ...unless you've already purchased them from him before, which in a normal playthrough you prolly shouldn't have

Huh, fair enough, I never checked his store. Wasn't too excited with the cyberware in the game.

 

[typical user]

I've expected a game with over $300 000 000 budget to actually have a shitton of unique quests with at least same quality of Witcher 3, not Fo4 copypasta but worse.

But CDPR had better idea, to hire Keanu, ASAP Rocky, Grimes, rent Times Square ads, get Xiaomi, Xbox, Old Spice collabs and put Twitch streamers into the game.

The only good thing was including Ozob but even that feels like fanservice done by edgy teenagers.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I even like Silverhand as a character, he's a violent sociopath but he's a compelling screen presence and he's funny.

Did they do anything to fix Keanu's face in any of the patches?

 

[Gargaune]

Did they do anything to fix Keanu's face in any of the patches?

Don't follow, is it broken?

 

[gurugeorge]

I even like Silverhand as a character, he's a violent sociopath but he's a compelling screen presence and he's funny.

Did they do anything to fix Keanu's face in any of the patches?

Eh? I didn't notice anything untoward other than the occasional moment you get in every game where the lighting on a face goes weird sometimes (the effect is similar to the other thing you often get in videogames, where you have hatted heads where there's no shade, but rather lighting under the brim, and it looks really janky).

 

[Naraya]

I think he means the general look of JS face, especially his beard. It just looks bad, like artificial or something. Hard to put my finger on what's wrong with his face but there definitely is something off.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think he means the general look of JS face, especially his beard. It just looks bad, like artificial or something. Hard to put my finger on what's wrong with his face but there definitely is something off.

Yeah, I approached the game expecting a face like what I saw in the cinematic trailer, and was let down pretty bad when I saw something worse than the average quality of face models for story NPCs.

 

[gurugeorge]

I think he means the general look of JS face, especially his beard. It just looks bad, like artificial or something. Hard to put my finger on what's wrong with his face but there definitely is something off.

 

[Zer0wing]

I've expected a game with over $300 000 000 budget to actually have a shitton of unique quests with at least same quality of Witcher 3, not Fo4 copypasta but worse.

But CDPR had better idea, to hire Keanu, ASAP Rocky, Grimes, rent Times Square ads, get Xiaomi, Xbox, Old Spice collabs and put Twitch streamers into the game.

The only good thing was including Ozob but even that feels like fanservice done by edgy teenagers.

Having those hires and collabs should not be an excuse either, game's development costed around 120.000.000$, existing engine to iterate upon(no one writes game engines from scratch not even Id Software after Quake engine and before IdTech 5), experienced staff eager to work on the game twice as much as on TW3 and Mike Pondsmith himself. So it should be at least three times more dense.
But for some reason they have to pressure some dude Max to work on level design above all other important shit - https://www.maxpears.com/2017/02/25/cyberpunk-2077/
Hell, even artists were pushed to do level design - https://quixel.com/blog/2020/12/10/building-the-dark-future-of-cyberpunk-2077-with-megascans

With predictable results.