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

[Lord_Potato]

a good video game, with satisfying gameplay and clever mechanics.

Where's any of that in Phantom Liberty exactly?

Chimera combat is cool.
Same with all the Reed ending encounters.
Robospider section seems to be giving some people nightmares.
It's all quality shit.

 

[MasPingon]

a good video game, with satisfying gameplay and clever mechanics.

Where's any of that in Phantom Liberty exactly?

Aside from poor beginning with US president escort mission when I had my doubts, everywhere - main story, gigs, enviroment, writing, quest design, music, visuals, weapons, character system, activities. All of it is on different level, it's hard not to tell a difference with main game. Did you try it? Simple fact that it turns focus from emphasizing with teen lesbians, their dildos and love dillemas to Blackwall and threat from rogue AI makes it worth attention.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

I really, really didn't like Reed. Where Johnny is always straight with you and carries his hatred on his sleeve, Reed is always all remorseful about the things he has done... and will still repeat them all over again if an order comes down. The man acts like he is living in a different reality than everybody else and he still has the gall to lecture us about consequences.

 

[gurugeorge]

Phantom Liberty team must be different then the one who worked on CP2077, you can feel it with every line of dialog. It's like Fallout3 -> F:NV - same IP and engine, totally different game. It's interesting that most critique of DLC comes from fanboys of the main game in it's terrible state. It seems CDPR now got two communities - one care for romance, "immershun" and cinematic experience(Bioware and Betesda dropoffs) and the other want a good video game, with neat writing and quest design, satisfying gameplay and clever mechanics.

It doesn't seem all that different from the main game to me. I mean the main game is now pretty much what we should have gotten on initial release (granted there was no chance of it ever being a proper RPG, after a certain point). It feels to me like the team is just managed better, know the code, their tools, etc., better, and have a more gung-ho, less exhausted spirit. But it's still the same basic formula - intensively scripted but very immersive and very well done cinematic bits, interspersed with do what you like world wandering, side-gigging, etc. I've always thought CDPR were best encapsulated as "late stage BioWare done right." And this game is really like that. The game definitely leans towards the casual and cinematic, but within that frame it's mostly enjoyable and well done. I remember giving the game something like a 6 or 6.5 on release and predicting that if they could polish it up more, it could be like 7 or 7.5, maybe 8 in places (in the best moments and best quests), and I think my prediction has been borne out (contrary to some of the doomsayers here who predicted the game would be abandoned and forgotten).

I think the big difference is that whoever was in charge of the build and progression must be different, the whole sensibility of it is much different from the original implementation (although some perfume of the original system is still there - IOW, it seems like the team now understand better what the original design was "getting at" so to speak, and have realized it in a more coherent way).

And then plus of course they've been hugely influenced by all the most popular mods (like e.g. the police system - although they probably had something like that planned anyway).

 

[jackofshadows]

I think my favourite parts of this game are that you can be "sneaky" and just totally dismember a guy so that all that's left is like a limbless, decapitated torso and even then it may be missing like half of that, so basically just this bloody lump that may not even be the largest part of whatever's left of the guy. But if you pick it up and drop it in a bin, suddenly there's no sign of your foul play, despite having basically blendered a guy and shot bits of him around a 3 block radius of blood purée and cyberjunk.

I'm not saying this is the only game that does this, but the presentation really cracks me up here. Someone send a guy with a bucket and mop to clean up Fred who just got ginsued at the speed of sound by a chromed up street weeab.

Edited in some missing words.

Actually imagine if the game would recognize the state of bodies you want to dispose of and you couldn't hide them at all in cases like that. Would be pretty fucking neat as a feature for stealth playstyle.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I really, really didn't like Reed. Where Johnny is always straight with you and carries his hatred on his sleeve, Reed is always all remorseful about the things has do... and will still repeat all them all over again if a order comes down. The man acts like he is living in a different reality than everybody else and he still has the gall to lecture us about consequences.

On the other hand if you go with his ending and then

Spoiler

let Song Mi die

he transforms into something else and even ponders

Spoiler

leaving NUSA and becoming a solo in Night City

. He seems not burdened by his previous loyalties anymore and for the first time free to choose his future.

For him it actually feels like good ending

Spoiler

despite losing both Alex and Songbird

.

When you choose the other variant of his ending, he's clearly miserable and utterly resigned.

 

[Quillon]

Phantom Liberty team must be different then the one who worked on CP2077, you can feel it with every line of dialog. It's like Fallout3 -> F:NV - same IP and engine, totally different game. It's interesting that most critique of DLC comes from fanboys of the main game in it's terrible state. It seems CDPR now got two communities - one care for romance, "immershun" and cinematic experience(Bioware and Betesda dropoffs) and the other want a good video game, with neat writing and quest design, satisfying gameplay and clever mechanics.

Its the same game but more robust with 3 years additional development. And expansion being better than base game is no surprise given the scale of both projects and expansions don't have to deal with most things base game already dealth with. Still the difference is not big; f.i. PoE base game and white march have much bigger difference in quality than CP base and PL.

After finishing PL the only thought came to my mind: What a gigantic waste of resources; all this production quality wasted on an uninteresting shooter gaymplay with little to no replayability. Where as BG3's combat alone is enough for replaying it many times over. And that end game mission variance is bad design which they've done it with this and the base game; instead of spreading important choices that will effect the ending throughout the game/expansion, you can just reroll back to where the "choices that matter" begins and see different endings, meh.

 

[Justicar]

2 in 1

There is a mod that replaces all V lines with AI jensen lines



https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/10079?tab=posts

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

I really, really didn't like Reed. Where Johnny is always straight with you and carries his hatred on his sleeve, Reed is always all remorseful about the things has do... and will still repeat all them all over again if a order comes down. The man acts like he is living in a different reality than everybody else and he still has the gall to lecture us about consequences.

On the other hand if you go with his ending and then

Spoiler

let Song Mi die

he transforms into something else and even ponders

Spoiler

leaving NUSA and becoming a solo in Night City

. He seems not burdened by his previous loyalties anymore and for the first time free to choose his future.

For him it actually feels like good ending

Spoiler

despite losing both Alex and Songbird

.

When you choose the other variant of his ending, he's clearly miserable and utterly resigned.

Yes

Yes, after everybody around him died he finally realized he was a massive fuckup.

 

[Lord_Potato]

To be fair, Johny is also a massive hypocrite when you meet him. He opens up after Phantom Liberty a bit and admits he sees similarities between himself and Reed.

 

[Justicar]

In the new ending you get assaulted by a rabid nigger game went full esg bros its over.

BOOYAH

 

[abija]

So apparently nobody is triggered that after killing Hansen and nerfed maxtacs, the robot section + the actual ending mean several hours of press F to continue gameplay? It seems some people even reloaded saves to try different endings...

 

[jackofshadows]

The simp route ending was packed with action actually, lots of enemies to kill, it was pretty nice. I've seen on yt and it seem Reed route has that odd horror section (like imagine killing chimera and been unable to do anything to that far older robot), so people are divided on that. Not sure I'd enjoy that personally.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I haven't tried the expansion, but I'm kind of pissed off that they totally nerfed at least one of my builds.

I don't remember what exactly was in my build anymore, but I started with a Sandevistan that had a 15 second cooldown, then I loaded it with 3 of the top-tier mods that reduce cooldown. I put a lot of work into that. And I had all of the best katanas, all modded for extra speed. I did about a bajillion dps, and after exiting the Sandevistan slowdown, I only had to wait 3 seconds and then jump back in.

Now all the Sandevistans and katanas seem to rely on lots of jumping, and they have to be paired with optical camo.

 

[Yosharian]

Both melee and Sandevistan are as OP as they ever were, you don't know what you're talking about

 

[Wasteland]

Yeah, just pick up the "Apogee" Sandevistan. People talk a lot about other steps you can take to optimize the build--adding the Axolotl Cyberware for cooldown reduction, using Scalpel for guaranteed crits, or later on, using Byakko for insane attack speed once your crit rate is high enough--but really Apogee by itself is good enough to trivialize most content in the game, on Very Hard difficulty.

There are many ways to become overpowered in this game, but as far as I can tell Sandevistan+Katana is the current "meta." That combo has the best mix of perks and Cyberware bonuses. With the amount of mobility Katana offers, its melee-range restriction isn't even really a measurable downside. You can just spam dash and strong attack with the gap-closer perk and you'll magically fly to your target.

Here's an example.

I can't say whether this build is exactly as powerful in Cyberpunk 2.0 as it was in prior versions; it's true that you can't achieve near-perma-Sandevistan passively, anymore, but you can still become ludicrously strong. The same applies to netrunners, which now take longer to bloom, and require a little more work than they used to in the moment, but by level 40 or so you're right back to remote-killing whole buildings full of mooks from across the street. Probably the main overall difference in the balance of power is that Berserk builds can also now get insanely strong, though not as strong as Sandy/Deck builds.

 

[Yosharian]

Scalpel is just ridiculous when combined with Sandy

 

[lukaszek]

perhaps perma invisibility will be up your valley?

 

[Child of Malkav]

nerfed maxtacs

So I'm not the only one who noticed that maxtac during that mission is easy compared to their in the wild 5 star equivalent.

 

[MasPingon]

Yeah, just pick up the "Apogee" Sandevistan. People talk a lot about other steps you can take to optimize the build--adding the Axolotl Cyberware for cooldown reduction, using Scalpel for guaranteed crits, or later on, using Byakko for insane attack speed once your crit rate is high enough--but really Apogee by itself is good enough to trivialize most content in the game, on Very Hard difficulty.

There are many ways to become overpowered in this game, but as far as I can tell Sandevistan+Katana is the current "meta." That combo has the best mix of perks and Cyberware bonuses. With the amount of mobility Katana offers, its melee-range restriction isn't even really a measurable downside. You can just spam dash and strong attack with the gap-closer perk and you'll magically fly to your target.

Here's an example.

I can't say whether this build is exactly as powerful in Cyberpunk 2.0 as it was in prior versions; it's true that you can't achieve near-perma-Sandevistan passively, anymore, but you can still become ludicrously strong. The same applies to netrunners, which now take longer to bloom, and require a little more work than they used to in the moment, but by level 40 or so you're right back to remote-killing whole buildings full of mooks from across the street. Probably the main overall difference in the balance of power is that Berserk builds can also now get insanely strong, though not as strong as Sandy/Deck builds.

This little guy is also nice, it allows you to use Karenzikov at least 6 times in a row. And it doesn't take away your hacking abilities.

 

[gurugeorge]

Are there any other big famous cities in the tabletop Cyberpunk lore? I'm wondering where they'll go for the next game. I mean, they can't do NC again, and this game will probably still be going (what with mods gradually tweaking the game and introducing more content once the development has finally settled). So what other big famous cities are there in the lore?

And where will they go with the story? I mean it's got to be AI hasn't it? It's surely the biggest in-universe threat, it's topical (and will probably still be topical on release, maybe more so), and the whole atmosphere around AI is pretty well done in the game (e.g. in the Peralez quest, the Night Corp stuff - sinister, mysterious).

 

[lukaszek]

Are there any other big famous cities in the tabletop Cyberpunk lore? I'm wondering where they'll go for the next game

warsaw

 

[moon knight]

I mean, they can't do NC again,

I hope they do, there's a lot of shit they cut from the game that can be used in a sequel. It would also make a sequel easier, as they could focus on the other systems since they already have the city

 

[Justicar]

Top tier soundtrack

 

[Shig]

I mean, they can't do NC again,

I hope they do, there's a lot of shit they cut from the game that can be used in a sequel.

I agree. NC is more than deep enough for a sequel, and it is the most popular setting in Cyberpunk by a mile. If you really wanted you could do something like Tokyo, which has plenty of lore for it, but even that seems like pissing away a quality setting like NC.