What's the Kool Kodex Konsensus on this update, and the game overall?
I already own the base game but never played it due to
1. how unfinished it was
2. i remembered that CDPR had never made a game with good combat before
3. I realized i didn't actually like the witcher 3 that much.
So a few questions:
1. It sounds like this update actually realizes the vision it was supposed to have?
2. Is combat actually good?
2a. Does it have weight to it?
2b. Is it challenging?
2c. Is it actually encouraged to use your skills wisely to win encounters or is it just a powerfantasy with 50 different win buttons you can indiscriminately choose from at any time.
3. Is exploration worthwhile?
4. I've heard some side quests are great and some side quests are bethesda garbage tier "generated by an AI algorithm - go kill X in place Y - with no additional context" - is this true? What's the proportion?
5. Is the story decent? At least in this department CDPR has done well with that historically with the Witcher series.
In general see my answers to 4 and 5 as that sums up what I think about this game.
1. Which vision though, as that changed at least three times during development? Even CDP snuck in an in-joke in one of the notes you can find in the game referencing it being a theseus' ship. Last one was open world action adventure or however they marketed it in the last year before the base game released, hoping in to rake in GTA Online levels of cash with their own take on such open world multiplayer some time after releasing 1.0. What we have now is their attempt at salvaging whatever is possible from the singleplayer gameplay and engine so that the goodwill and brand name value don't evaporate completely, due in part to the backlash after the base game released and because it is clear on a technical level that Cyberpunk 2077 Online isn't something CDP developers would be able to make.
2a. Have no idea what you mean by weight, enemies are somewhat spongy but less so than in 1.0 (bear in mind it was almost 3 years ago since I played it previously) so it feels less like borderlands, until you fight some elite tanky gangoon (HMG ones) or a boss at least.
2b. On very hard it is until you get the most broken high level perks and/or cyberware. Both 1.0 and now 2.0 required you to use stealth takedowns in the early parts of the game to survive nearly every encounter. It's either that or cheesing gangoons with hit and run, since you can barely win 1v2 fights with regular popamole tactics on very hard at that point.
2c. It's more your build has 1 or 2 "I WIN" buttons later on, particularly things like Sandevistan or Berserk implants.
3. No, while there is some hidden stuff, almost everything is marked on the map and what isn't is level scaled trash loot useful for crafting, found in dumpsters or containers in back alleys.
4. I disagree with calling the latter bethesda garbage tier because unlike bethesda's radiant stuff, the bulk of those "gigs" as the game calls them at least try to give you 1 or 2 alternative paths into the gangoon/corpo lair that you need to find yourself (sometimes the execution in the level design is better than other times). This is actually the best part of the game, the small set pieces where it kind of feels like smaller scale deus ex with jankier stealth or Bloodlines (think the Astrolite quest, although the gigs in Cyberpunk usually have bigger locations like a two floor chopshop, you get the idea), where sometimes you get the bonus opportunity of using the open world to for instance parkour from some roofs or over walls using you cybernetic jumping legs, for a good sniping point or just to get a better insertion point for sneaking. Some paths are locked behind attribute checks, some behind cyberware and some just need you to make the effort to scout the area and look for them with your own eyeballs (I don't mean V's implants, I mean the actual human in front of the screen). The game certainly could use better level design for some of those - for instance the DLC has cases like where the alternative entrance is almost next to the actual entrance, and the whole gangoon lair itself is rather linear (think some of the linear segments of Deus Ex Human Revolution, like escaping the capsule hotel though the back or the Tai Yong Medical section).
Sure, if you're a storyfag these usually don't have much but some fluff and just sometimes a choice at some point, but after going through so fucking many scripted cinematic set pieces in the main quest and some of the side quests, you'll realize that's really the high point of the game (someone even mentioned ITT they would like a NG+ with just the gigs/no main quest, I can definitely see the appeal). Not to mention that after yet another fucking driving sequence where you just talk with NPCs from the passenger seat, or another fucking brain dance investigation, you'll want just to go to place X, get a short call and text from the fixer to explain the job without the cinematic bullshit, and fucking do the job like the merc V is, actually playing a game and having choice what to do rather than watching a movie or trying to pass a mandatory scripted action set piece. Rarely does the main quest try proper "open" level design like the gigs do (one of the better exceptions is the warehouse infiltration with Takemura, that's how the bulk of the main quest should have looked like).
5. Whether the story is good depends on individual preferences. It's a "no good ending" bleak tale with a theme reminiscent of the Kurgan's iconic line from Highlander "better to burn out than to fade away" (indeed "Never Fade Away" is both an adventure from the tabletop as well as an in-universe song title). Some people don't like Johny Silverhand (he's an angry and bit whiny rebel rocker at war with the whole world), either due to his character/constant interruptions or because he's not in line with the tabletop's depiction of him.
As a story I liked it, however the execution (main quest line) is definitely crap for the cinematic reasons mentioned in the answer to point 4 and because there's practically no branching until the very end. There's less C&C than Twitcher games, most skill/lifepath checks [tagged] dialog choices are just fluff with no consequences, similar to what Starfield does, although actually Starfield does use them as alternatives to persuasion sometimes (even for traits, shockingly), so possibly even worse than Starfield. In general I am also not a fan of how they forged the story concept into the (linear) main quest in an open world game about a merc that flew too close to the sun, there are lessons they could have taken from New Vegas at least to make it feel more open, if they had no idea how to fit a reputation system with various factions and more sandboxy experience fitting the open world map they have into their idea for the plot.
Furthermore CDP wrote V along the lines of a night city native street kid origin (I mean they only had to write Geralt in the past, so not surprising they had trouble accounting for different archetypes) where as a Nomad V and especially a Corpo V would talk differently, and the occasional choice tagged with your lifepath doesn't help with this.
