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

[Readher]

Pretty good writeup from plebbit:

Cyberpunk 2077's world looks so next gen yet feels so last gen.
At first i noticed the terrible driving and vehicle physics. Car deformation also sucks and is not even close to how GTA IV and V handled it on the Xbox 360...

I ignored it by telling myself this isn't meant to be played like a GTA game so that aspect shouldn't matter that much. Although the driving just feels bad, and even worse with M+KB. And there's a LOT of driving in this game.

But then i started noticing even bigger issues with this game's world.

NPCs, these are some of the worst NPCs i've seen in a current gen open world game. Their reaction to your actions is terrible and they are basically braindead. Crouching and half-assed running with terrible animation followed by a sudden stop are the only things they can do. Or better, they do absolutely nothing especially some bartenders and shopkeepers. Things like this made me try to take a deep look into the AI in general and my god it's so outdated:

NPC cars are following set paths. If you park your vehicle in front of them they just stop there. Not like in GTA where they can honk at you, move around it or even run through your car. There's no AI in the open world vehicles. They just follow predetermined paths. And this leads to another issue, police chases.

Police chases in this game are an absolute joke. At first i thought they were simplified because CDPR didn't want them to be too annoying. But you think back at the the npc cars' behaviour and how basic it is, and you see that the same thing is happening here. Police just spawns behind you, they can't even do proper chases. They can't chase you if you're a block or two away from them. It's like they're just glued to you when they spawn initially. Which leads to these dumb 10 second police chases. How is this called a next gen open world?

Cars also move like they are following rails if you look closely at how they turn. There are races in the game and if you lead the race, look behind you and you'll see some serious Matrix shit as the cars start teleporting behind you to keep up with you.

NPCs just spawn in and out randomly without order or meaning. CDPR said they handcrated over 1000s NPCs with different behaviour and daily routines. But then you follow any random NPC and they just disappear after a while. Cars also feel the same.

I was looking at at an argument going on between an old white man and a young white girl, i turn around for a second and the dude is now a young black guy talking to another black girl.

These are just initial impressions. I haven't even tried to immerse myself in Night City that much, yet i still saw these glaring outdated design issues. The world feels like smoke and mirrors.

I remember one of the recent trailers ending by "Welcome to the next generation of open worlds" or some shit like that. But guess what? This is not a next gen open world. Hell it's not even on par with current gen open worlds. Watch Dogs 2, GTA5, RDR2 all had a much more believable and alive world then this fake world. It LOOKS next gen, especially if you max the game out with RT, but it absolutely feels so last gen. The world's logic just feels wrong and not what you'd expect out of a AAA game.

I think everyone is being distracted by the bugs and surface issues right now. So with this post i'm trying to bring these bad design issues out, as they are much harder to fix, if they even get fixed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/kbckth/cyberpunk_2077s_world_looks_so_next_gen_yet_feels/

And to add something from myself, the lifepath dialogue options literally make a schizo out of your character. There is a scene where you can use Corpo option to act very respectfully and proper to a very highly situated, prim and proper character, only to be forced between two options that have your MC swearing every second word moments later, which causes said prim and proper character to visibly cringe at your choice of words. There was never any thought put into them, they just inserted them at random where they thought it'd be cool and didn't consider how they compare to the generic options later in the conversation.

 

[Naraya]

-41.5
(-11.46%)

can someone explain to me how finance works? why did their stock drop if the game's launch was incredibly successful? something like 8 million units confirmed sold in the 1st day

Because the game is dogshit and whilst this one has sold well the next one probably won't. Better to sell now at the peak.

Exactly, companies are not evaluated by their net worth but market potential (growth potential)

Additionally - I'm really interested in total number of refunds. Of course we will never know this number but I've read that usually for games it oscillates between 5-10%. In case of Cyberpunk I wouldn't be surprised for it to be substantially more.

 

[MasPingon]

For a game boasting alternative methods to solve quests, in the end more often that not everything degrade into a fight. Stealth is really flawed, enemy AI is dumb and hacking quite useless. The dev team should have paid more attention to games like Deus EX: Humarn Revolution to see a stealth/combat gameplay done right.

Worst example.

 

[Yosharian]

I think comparisons to GTA5 are a little unfair though. If we're being charitable (god forbid, on the Codex, but anyway) Rockstar have had 19 years to iterate on the GTA concept since the release of GTA3. Their open world driving mechanics, including things like car AI, physics and so on, are inevitably going to be leagues ahead of their competitors. This is CDPR's first foray into this type of game, and yeah their car AI is laughable and the car physics are pretty average. But this is also a role-playing game, not a GTA clone, even if it's decidedly RPG-lite.

Overall it's clear that CDPR bit off far more than they could chew with this game. I'm not sure if they deserve to get hauled over the coals for that, or if they should be commended for their ambition. But statements like 'lol GTA5's driving is so much better' lack perspective IMO.

 

[Hellraiser]

Nobody mentioned that you can install TITANIUM BONES in this game and thus become a cyber 'thal?

They just increase max carrying capacity though. Dunno if Cleve would approve.

 

[luj1]

Sawyerpunk continues:

Are you living under Sawyer's balls 24/7?

 

[Konjad]

First 3 hours or so were great, but the longer I played the shittier it got. 9 hours in and now it's quite shit and I slowly become bored - game mechanics are terrible, and the story starts to just lose its momentum and tricks to pull out, becoming cliche and repeating same stuff too many times (oh no, I'm betrayed... again... and again... and again...)

 

[Readher]

I think comparisons to GTA5 are a little unfair though. If we're being charitable (god forbid, on the Codex, but anyway) Rockstar have had 19 years to iterate on the GTA concept since the release of GTA3. Their open world driving mechanics, including things like car AI, physics and so on, are inevitably going to be leagues ahead of their competitors. This is CDPR's first foray into this type of game, and yeah their car AI is laughable and the car physics are pretty average. But this is also a role-playing game, not a GTA clone, even if it's decidedly RPG-lite.

Overall it's clear that CDPR bit off far more than they could chew with this game. I'm not sure if they deserve to get hauled over the coals for that, or if they should be commended for their ambition. But statements like 'lol GTA5's driving is so much better' lack perspective IMO.

The point is, it's a bad RPG and a bad open-world immersive sim, while CDPR claimed the game to be both.

“We believe that having a world you can interact with and which reacts to your presence is a key part of a good open-world experience,” Tost recently told GamingBolt. “Dynamic environments ultimately serve to fulfill that promise exactly: they help to enhance your immersion, the game world to become more alive and believable, and — what’s especially important when it comes to Cyberpunk 2077 — add a whole different level of weight and grit.”

https://dontfeedthegamers.com/cyberpunk-2077-immersive-believable/

Dynamic, immersive and reactive my ass. It just looks pretty, that's about it.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Straight out of the oven:



I'm dead set on 3080, given the price and results, but it's still interesting.

So at 1440p Vram of 8 gigs is borderline already, lol. At least with RT reflections on.

Probably an optimization issue, but still. People didn't want to believe this would happen when the new nvidia cards came out and others were calling out the measly 8 gig standard.

Edit: 6 gigs of Vram on 2060 is not enough for ultra settings in 1080p with RT reflections only.


Looks like "low" V-Ram cards will be doomed to rasterized gaming only for now?

I guess I got lucky with my 11 gigs for way too much money... On my previous rig with a gtx 970 the card did everything pretty well at 1080p until the v-ram became an issue with doom eternal, of all things.

 

[luj1]

+0.22% range mod? exactly what i want.

They took lessons from Soyer.... +0.3% dmg for a point of STR. Fucking idiot. You dont have to be a nuclear physicist to understand this only works in games with a high level cap of 100 like Diablo II

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think I just went into with lower expectations overall, so am able to get more out of it than I thought

This is the way.

Come to think of it, the history of RPGs can be seen as the history of game developers getting more and more bold - "Hey look, we can get away with even more shittyness and lazy design" - as the overall base of people playing games has been expanding. If you have a segment of the market that's unhappy with your cutting corners - just increase your overall market so that those voices are drowned in the multitude of sheep.
The only area in game development where requirements are constantly raising is the graphics technology.

So at 1440p Vram of 8 gigs is borderline already, lol. At least with RT reflections on.

Probably an optimization issue, but still. People didn't want to believe this would happen when the new nvidia cards came out and others were calling out the measly 8 gig standard.

Edit: 6 gigs of Vram on 2060 is not enough for ultra settings in 1080p with RT reflections only.


Looks like "low" V-Ram cards will be doomed to rasterized gaming only for now?

I guess I got lucky with my 11 gigs for way too much money...

I'm still feeling pretty comfortable with my 11 GB 1080ti hehe. Although I haven't looked into the vram consumption, the game seems to fill up all my available RAM - it stands around 6.5GB, which is pretty much my 8GB minus the Windows and other apps' shit.

 

[Yosharian]

So there is an interesting way to make money in the game, I've spoilered it in case people don't wanna know

Spoiler

Turns out you can buy soft drinks from vendors for $10, then disassemble them, then sell the components you get from them for more money than you paid for the original item. Lmao.

I'm not 100% sure but I think you get $60 worth of items from one soft drink.

More information, you can save in front of a machine and reload your save and the machine will be back to full stock lol

 

[Xeon]

Anyone have problems with motion sickness in first person games? can you turn off something in the options to help in this game? I can't play more than 30-45min at a time before turning it off.

 

[Druid Ardun]

What i was suprised the most is actually parkour. Pretty much everything can be scaled and their context sensitive slides over stuff, into windows etc works pretty flawlessly. World also isn't barred up by invisible walls like in TW3 so you can scale AC units to your goal, get intel through windows etc . Moreover seems like most of locations are designed with such thing in mind and there are usually more than one ways to get somewhere. Plenty of tech/power checks to open closed doors or unlock some stuff.

I did a side mission inside a 22 story building, but the main doors bugged out and remained locked even after loading saves, so I had to cllimb my way down from the 22th level. I was quite amused that it actually worked.

10/10 bugs enhance the experience.

 

[Readher]

Anyone have problems with motion sickness in first person games? can you turn off something in the options to help in this game? I can't play more than 30-45min at a time before turning it off.

Increase FOV (Field of View). It could also be that low framerate is what affects you, in which case you'd have to lower settings to get at least 60 (provided you even have the hardware to reach that, or can stomach turbo shit visuals otherwise).

 

[Ezeekiel]

Anyone have problems with motion sickness in first person games? can you turn off something in the options to help in this game? I can't play more than 30-45min at a time before turning it off.

Low framerate and refresh rate with fast camera movement can do it, also view bobbing can be turned off (when you run it's especially noticeable).
On top of that, make sure motion blur and chromatic aberration are off and if you use DLSS or similar at max performance mode you may want to enable sharpening via overlay or driver suite.

As Readher said FOV can make a big difference too, but in this game you can lose a chunk of your possible framerate if you incerase it too much.

FOV, fps+refresh rate and anything that blurs the image are usually the main culprits iirc.

 

[Grunker]

Although I haven't looked into the vram consumption

Most games will consume all of your vram, even games with very few hardware requirements. They pre-load it just in case. As such just looking at vram consumption will rarely tell you whether your vram is being used.

 

[orcinator]

I think comparisons to GTA5 are a little unfair though. If we're being charitable (god forbid, on the Codex, but anyway) Rockstar have had 19 years to iterate on the GTA concept since the release of GTA3. Their open world driving mechanics, including things like car AI, physics and so on, are inevitably going to be leagues ahead of their competitors. This is CDPR's first foray into this type of game, and yeah their car AI is laughable and the car physics are pretty average. But this is also a role-playing game, not a GTA clone, even if it's decidedly RPG-lite.

Overall it's clear that CDPR bit off far more than they could chew with this game. I'm not sure if they deserve to get hauled over the coals for that, or if they should be commended for their ambition. But statements like 'lol GTA5's driving is so much better' lack perspective IMO.

B grade GTA clones can pull it off but a huge studio with half a decade of development time can't?

 

[Lord of Riva]

After 27 hours and 18 mins I have beaten Cyberpunk 2077.

No I have not ignored most side content but it's not like i cleared the map. I am level 25 and have 41 Street Cred.

Sadly, I have to say that while there are some great story beats, in the end the game falls short when the Plot unravels. Since I started the side missions based on a) difficulty and b) map location I ended up making most content north in the map.

I could only Access one *real* ending,

Spoiler

Arasaka

Spoiler

In which you work with Hanako Arasaka to overthrow her brother and get the biochip removed by Arasaka specialists in return (As a Corpo I also was able trying to get back on Arasakas payroll, which gets basically ignored in the ending).

Turns out, and that is sadly something that I guessed basically after the heist, that saburo Arasaka has also been put on a Chip like Johnny silverhand and with your help takes over Yorunobus body and becomes basically immortal.

Meanwhile you get your biochip removed, but this ends up not working, you will die in a few months. You get to decide: Do you want to go back for a few months to night city or get imprinted as well and hopefully at some point are allowed to get a new body at some unknown point in the future but you give up your rights as an individual and become property of Arasaka in the process.

It is not necessarily the ending I would have chosen but I had no other options. Which is related to the mission design.

There are some more complex sideplots which allow you to have different outcomes, apart from the ending I describe above you can also just

Spoiler

suicide

, I am however not entirely clear on how to trigger this content.
I have progressed with Judy Alvarez side-content for example but after a Mission I have not received any further message from her even though the story has not concluded.

That is a general issues, a lot of missions are triggered through a factor and it is not entirely evident what the actual triggers are. This ends up killing the mainstory for me as well, you basically have to jump between the three leads you have in between which breaks the story telling to some extent.

I said the story unravels towards the end and the reason for that is two-fold. 1. The main conflict, namely what defines you and how does that relate to the happenings around you is neither set up well, nor is the writing good enough to hit the philosophical aspects adequately, it tries so hard to say anything relevant which in my opinion it absolutely fails to deliver. 2. Some of the aspects just do not make sense in the plot. For example are some of the fixers involved in the main mission. V talks as if they had some long standing business relationships but in my playthrough that was simply not the case.

I mean the leader of the Nomads and Panam contacted me as part of the credits roll: Granted, you have to play Panams mission in which you see the leader of the nomads, in my case at least, for like 3 seconds, arguing with her but the game assumes that I know who that guy is and that I would be interested in his Prep talk.

The conflict with Johnny was predictable

Spoiler

Basically he is taking over your body and his appearences are in fact the biochip taking over your decision making. Thats why he is giving out tips and "philosophical" questions, to make you behave more like him, it's basically just part of the process. Dr Hellman, a character you encounter later, warns you against exactly that. And since I played my character as an Antagonist towards Johnny, i suppressed his behavior any way I could.

Still the game hinges on the fact that you have a relationship with him, the great reveal is "You already have become more me, than you" and that simply did not really fly with how I played my character. Granted, you can tell him to just fuck off, which is at least acknowledging that possibility but then there is nothing interesting the story has to say. The setups simply did not work for me, the tarots, the philosophical impacts based on prior decisions which amounted to "hah, i told you, you have changed" simply did not work *at all* for my character.

I think this is somewhat related to the aspect why they thought FPP is a must, the last sequence actually was 3rd-Person, the game assumes you are playing yourself but *I* was not. I played a character and the game could not really handle that in my opinion.

Now I know some people believe the gameplay is shit, but it really is not. The same issues i mentioned in the post prior to this one are still relevant for the full game but otherwise the game plays really well, especially the main missions are pretty well designed. Granted, I did not have a stealth build and went in hacking and guns blazing, if stealth was not necessary but the game is pretty fun and well designed otherwise.

In the end what makes, or breaks, the game for me is replayability. There are still some sections I am unsure IF they are simple differences in Window dressing or if they are truly as dynamic as they seem so instead of trying to get the other endings with this character I will make a new one and try to change things around.

My conclusions hinge on that to some extent, if the story changes are miniscule the game suffers from a mediocre story that is pretty well told, up to a certain point at least and then fails or the game is *still* amazing and just isn't able to keep it going until the end.

just as evidence:

Spoiler

 

[Ezeekiel]

I'm still feeling pretty comfortable with my 11 GB 1080ti hehe. Although I haven't looked into the vram consumption, the game seems to fill up all my available RAM - it stands around 6.5GB, which is pretty much my 8GB minus the Windows and other apps' shit.

Do you have any RT features on?

 

[Child of Malkav]

I think comparisons to GTA5 are a little unfair though. If we're being charitable (god forbid, on the Codex, but anyway) Rockstar have had 19 years to iterate on the GTA concept since the release of GTA3. Their open world driving mechanics, including things like car AI, physics and so on, are inevitably going to be leagues ahead of their competitors. This is CDPR's first foray into this type of game, and yeah their car AI is laughable and the car physics are pretty average. But this is also a role-playing game, not a GTA clone, even if it's decidedly RPG-lite.

Overall it's clear that CDPR bit off far more than they could chew with this game. I'm not sure if they deserve to get hauled over the coals for that, or if they should be commended for their ambition. But statements like 'lol GTA5's driving is so much better' lack perspective IMO.

The point is, it's a bad RPG and a bad open-world immersive sim, while CDPR claimed the game to be both.

“We believe that having a world you can interact with and which reacts to your presence is a key part of a good open-world experience,” Tost recently told GamingBolt. “Dynamic environments ultimately serve to fulfill that promise exactly: they help to enhance your immersion, the game world to become more alive and believable, and — what’s especially important when it comes to Cyberpunk 2077 — add a whole different level of weight and grit.”

https://dontfeedthegamers.com/cyberpunk-2077-immersive-believable/

Dynamic, immersive and reactive my ass. It just looks pretty, that's about it.

CDPR never claimed that the game is an immersive sim. It's actually one of the first interviews they did after the 2018 gameplay reveal. They clarified it since then.

 

[kangaxx]

If anyone in the UK wants to buy a cheap 2070S I have one collecting dust. It'll do a job for this game if you're on a budget.

 

[Black]

Can't wait for downvotes. For some reason /r/pcgaming is sucking this game's cock harder than the official CP subreddit. Probably graphicsfags who need to jerk off to the visuals and justify their 3090 purchase.

The real cyberpunk is copy pasting your ribbit posts on the Cockdex. Truly a hellish dystopia.

 

[Readher]

Can't wait for downvotes. For some reason /r/pcgaming is sucking this game's cock harder than the official CP subreddit. Probably graphicsfags who need to jerk off to the visuals and justify their 3090 purchase.

The real cyberpukn is copy pasting your ribbit posts on the Cockdex. Truly a hellish dystopia.

I had a feeling that if I only posted it there or reposted it here manually, someone else would just come with screenshots of my post on reddit. Already happened once with my tweets to Josh Sawyer.

 

[Justicar]

Can't wait for downvotes. For some reason /r/pcgaming is sucking this game's cock harder than the official CP subreddit. Probably graphicsfags who need to jerk off to the visuals and justify their 3090 purchase.

The real cyberpukn is copy pasting your ribbit posts on the Cockdex. Truly a hellish dystopia.

I had a feeling that if I only posted it there or reposted it here manually, someone else would just come with screenshots of my post on reddit. Already happened once with my tweets to Josh Sawyer.

Nigga you use reddit you should be banned on codex.