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BrianDavion wrote:
So just beat the game myself

Spoiler:

I think there being "no happy ending" is intended, as Cyberpunk as a genre often tends to be pretty bleak. That said, the ending I got was.. actually reasonably happy. I choose to hit Arasaka with Panam, and... I think over all I got the happiest ending possiable. I road off into the sunset with Judy with my new family in the Nomads. there's a promise of maybe finding some contacts who might be able to help things (as it is the whole "your body is rejecting your mind" was pretty absurd pseudo science) so yeah, over all I feel that ending was a decent one, my V left night city behind her, with a feeling of something that I suspect she'd not had in a looooong time, real genuine hope

 LordofHats wrote:
The cyberpunk genre is cynical. That doesn't require it to be nihilistic, and with how little anything you do seems to impact you or the world around you it feels very nihilistic.

I freely admit I'm a total sucker for happy endings, especially in books and games where you spends many hours getting to that payoff.

Quite a few times now, I've been doing rescue/theft/sabotage missions and going full stealth and non lethal. Stealth/non lethal is always my preferred way to play if its an option.

But... Over hearing some of the conversations during my sneaky escapades, I have to stop and get my katana out and start carving these fiends up. This game goes to some dark places.

Also, game needs more takedown animations. And non lethal should take a bit longer to do.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Col Hammer wrote:


Also, what is the point of doing all of these side missions when I know

Spoiler:

I'm gonna eat my gun in the end? This is a bit of a downer for me...

You heard of fething spoiler tabs right?

I've heard of them, yes.

 nels1031 wrote:
Quite a few times now, I've been doing rescue/theft/sabotage missions and going full stealth and non lethal. Stealth/non lethal is always my preferred way to play if its an option.

But... Over hearing some of the conversations during my sneaky escapades, I have to stop and get my katana out and start carving these fiends up. This game goes to some dark places.

Yeah it does. One side quest I came across involved recovered a stash of meds from what turns out to be a ex-soldier with lots of cyberware and mental health issues. First time doing it, I accidentally provoked him (opened the door remotely then moved too much) and got in a fight. Second time, I successfully talked him down, got the meds and started walking away. Then paused at a muffled gunshot behind me. Went back in the room and... yeah.

The 'extreme' braindance scavengers (and makers/distributors- especially the father/son duo at the docks) are extremely nasty as well. You can do the latter without killing or even harming them, but after they rattle through the questions to clarify _which_ child murder BD you're asking about, well... I didn't see any point to not killing them.

Voss wrote:
The 'extreme' braindance scavengers (and makers/distributors- especially the father/son duo at the docks) are extremely nasty as well. You can do the latter without killing or even harming them, but after they rattle through the questions to clarify _which_ child murder BD you're asking about, well... I didn't see any point to not killing them.

The correct response is to kill one of them and walk away while the other cries, but video game torture has no consequences

Most of the NCP missions are like that, too. It's not to the same degree. But at least half of them essentially are about stopping a crime in progress that's essentially about someone realizing that the "victim" cheated (or worse...) someone, and that person came back with friends to get revenge. And then you show up and kill the people getting revenge.

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
The 'extreme' braindance scavengers (and makers/distributors- especially the father/son duo at the docks) are extremely nasty as well. You can do the latter without killing or even harming them, but after they rattle through the questions to clarify _which_ child murder BD you're asking about, well... I didn't see any point to not killing them.

The correct response is to kill one of them and walk away while the other cries, but video game torture has no consequences

You can lose access to two Ripperdocs and I know at least one of them has a unique item that can't be purchased anywhere else.

So I'm up to level 40 now, I'm at the point where I have to meet Takamura and it says it's the point of no return, so now I'm running around doing all of the side quests on the map. Cuz once I get to the end of a game, I usually drop it and never look back unless there's a new DLC. I rarely do 2nd playthrus. But I've really enjoyed it so far, the only bugs I've had are just graphic glitches that don't really bother me much.

 Necros wrote:
I rarely do 2nd playthrus.

I probably won't after I complete the game I'm in right now. The prologue Heist mission is just too much of a chore, unless its skippable after beating the game.

Had the same problem with Read Dead Redemption 2.

 Necros wrote:
So I'm up to level 40 now, I'm at the point where I have to meet Takamura and it says it's the point of no return, so now I'm running around doing all of the side quests on the map. Cuz once I get to the end of a game, I usually drop it and never look back unless there's a new DLC. I rarely do 2nd playthrus. But I've really enjoyed it so far, the only bugs I've had are just graphic glitches that don't really bother me much.

PSA: the "point of no return" is the mission titled "Nocturne Op55n1". The game should give you a pop-up telling you this before entering the mission entrance. Upon completing the game, you'll be returned to your last save before starting this mission.

 nels1031 wrote:
Quite a few times now, I've been doing rescue/theft/sabotage missions and going full stealth and non lethal. Stealth/non lethal is always my preferred way to play if its an option.

But... Over hearing some of the conversations during my sneaky escapades, I have to stop and get my katana out and start carving these fiends up. This game goes to some dark places.

Also, game needs more takedown animations. And non lethal should take a bit longer to do.

Well there are quite a few animations missing - I don't think there is even a opening car door one....

After about 100 hours sunk into two characters, and having seen pretty much all the game has to offer, I'm burnt out.

It's a nice game for what it is, the city looks amazing, but unfortunately it is not even close to what the developers marketed it as. A dang shame.

 BertBert wrote:
After about 100 hours sunk into two characters, and having seen pretty much all the game has to offer, I'm burnt out.

It's a nice game for what it is, the city looks amazing, but unfortunately it is not even close to what the developers marketed it as. A dang shame.

Its has alot of promise and I think (if CDPR stay viable) will become a really good game. But yeah the marketing was.....way way off.

Let me carry on with Vampyr though as leaving CBY2077 now till the game is fixed in Feb.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Necros wrote:
I rarely do 2nd playthrus.

I probably won't after I complete the game I'm in right now. The prologue Heist mission is just too much of a chore, unless its skippable after beating the game.

Had the same problem with Read Dead Redemption 2.

If they do a New Game+ mode (and DLC story missions like the witcher 3 ones), what it _really_ needs is an opt-out option. Either turning down Dex or slapping Jackie's hand away as he forces the plot-shard into your head. I was mildly disappointed (but not surprised) that wasn't an option already. I know I wouldn't let someone stick an unknown USB drive in my computer, let alone in my _head_.

Getting hunted for the break-in and all its consequences could be fun. More fun than dealing with Mr Abominable and the nonsense sci-fantasy metaphysics plot.

What's interesting is when you get dropped off at the end of the Heist, you can actually jump over the fence around the No-Tell Motel parking lot and wander off. The game doesn't unlock the rest of the world, and I'm not sure if encounters work properly after that, but in theory you could walk away and not get the post-bathroom 'surprise.'

BertBert wrote:It's a nice game for what it is, the city looks amazing, but unfortunately it is not even close to what the developers marketed it as. A dang shame.

After the Keanu announcement, I gotta say its exactly what I expected it to be (barring the details of the story). I would've been happier if it involved a decades old mystery and they applied the braindance investigation mechanics to the shard's stored memories, but it feels like they felt obligated to center the story around the big name actor they signed on. Which unfortunately is to the detriment of the main quest line and the game.

But other than that... maybe I just didn't pay enough attention to the marketing, but I honestly didn't expect more than this.

Yeah, that's the biggest part where they dropped the ball. It's not truly an open world game, they didn't commit.

Morrowind is the only open world game I know of where you can basically skip the MQ and still do it. Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3/NV/4 at least let you skip large parts of it.

They should have given you the following options:

or you turn down the quest, jackie gets upset, leaves you, and you go and sit in your apartment and drink, credits roll

which in fairness IIRC a game or two out there has done something like that, Farcry 4 anyone?

Well, yeah, you could have that happen.

Having played through what I think is all the content now sans 1-2 side missions I have to say my #1 issue with the game is that there are no branching choices. You can play through basically all the content in one go with the following exceptions that I know of:

This is fun and sad at the same time - so much missing....

That first video is basically everything that frustrates me about Cyberpunk. Like, I don't want to call the game bad for what isn't in it, but the comparison between Cyberpunk and games as much as 16 years old is stark and kind of shocking. The game doesn't even quite manage to hold up against ancient GTA games, let along the more recent generation of open world games like Red Dead Redemption. It doesn't even hold up to the last couple Elder Scrolls entries, who are maybe the most directly comparable games to what Cyberpunk is presenting itself as both in terms of content, exploration, and bugs XD

IT HAS CARS AND IS IN A CITY IT MUST BE GTA!

seriously the comparison is thin to say the least

BrianDavion wrote:
IT HAS CARS AND IS IN A CITY IT MUST BE GTA!

seriously the comparison is thin to say the least

I'm baffled at people knocking the comparison. It just seems like empty fanboying with no regard for the actual criticism being leveled, which isn't that Cyberpunk is bad "future GTA." The comparison is about Cyberpunk being shockingly short on content, interactions with the game world, and immersion with its visually meticulously crafted cityscape even when compared to a sixteen year old game that did nearly everything Cyberpunk marketed itself as doing minus RPG elements. Cyberpunk's RPG elements aren't anything to brag about either. CDPR changed the game's marketing from RPG to open-world action game. The idea that it's thin to compare the final game to other open-world action games just because it's got a little more RPG in the mix than others is kind of specious.

It's not like genre is that hard of a dividing line anyway. We can compare the game to any number of others; Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, and GTA. In pretty much all of these comparisons, Cyberpunk comes up short in most categories that aren't music/voice acting/core game play, and where Cyberpunk is strong, it's not strong enough for me to not notice its comparative shortcomings on all other fronts.

BrianDavion wrote:
IT HAS CARS AND IS IN A CITY IT MUST BE GTA!

seriously the comparison is thin to say the least

Thats not the comparision at all - Cyberpunk was marketed as being an immersive and deep RPG, a vital open world game - but a game more than a decade older has vastly more features to enable the illusion of a living world - 2077 has as another video said - the interactivity of a painting.

The second video talks about all the open world /rpg elements that are not present and likely reasons why it was changed - probably a year or so ago when it became a game about Silverhand/Mr Reeves

 Mr Morden wrote:
Silverhand/Mr Reeves

And I can't help but feel like this is why the game stopped being an 'RPG' and none of V's choices really matter, or feel they matter.

It's really more a game about Johnny Silverhand. The entire MQ is really driven by Johnny, his actions, and his choices. V is simply an unfortunate victim screwed over by coincidence and sucked into the crushing tide Johnny left in his wake. This is why I just can't enjoy the MQ I think, because 1) Johnny is an donkey-cave and I find almost nothing endearing about the character despite Reeves' performance being pretty good and 2) his choices and life are more central to the game than V, who has very little influence on how anything plays out aside from a few kill/punch options. Really, V's only choice is how angry/bloodthirsty they want to be about how things play out and these choices have no meaningful impacts on the game. It's certainly less exciting and less interesting than anytime you play as Johnny in a flashback, where the story's main beats actually play out and play out fairly well if we're treating Johnny's life story as a hardcore rocker boy's tragedy and self-destruction (which probably would have been a funner game and more endearing than Johnny making jackass comments as you wander the game world).

Much like The Predator, it doesn't help that you can see where the cuts were made. There are items and options in game that support non-lethal game play, but there's no feedback on that choice (it actually costs you cred and experience, for no upside). If you know the game was originally marketed as having a Nemesis system ala Shadow of Mordor, the non-lethal options suddenly make more sense. The game was clearly originally intended to have a GTA style police system. All the setting pieces are in game and called out in the very first mission; trauma team arrives to protect their client, if you interfere with trauma team cops appear up to MAXTEC showing up. The game literally foreshadows the exact same system from GTA and then replaces it with teleporting cops who can't chase you or remember you if you run more than a block away.

People are going to compare this game to GTA for the police system alone. The idea that we shouldn't is really silly.

It's really more a game about Johnny Silverhand. The entire MQ is really driven by Johnny, his actions, and his choices. V is simply an unfortunate victim screwed over by coincidence and sucked into the crushing tide Johnny left in his wake.

That's my biggest peeve about the whole thing. After the Witcher games I was excited to make my own character...
and this really feels like a bait & switch or ironic mockery of that concept. [Developers laughing at people wanting to play their own characters, basically] Though I don't really see Johnny's story as a tragedy. He's a monster that goes out of his way to earn his terrible fate.

The number of times where you should have a choice but don't is ridiculously high. The place where you _do_ have the most choice is in Judy's questline, and ironically that often feels like you're taking her agency away (as you can take over conversations, override her decisions and either spare or kill people regardless of what she wants).

Haven't finished with Panam yet, but I'm getting the same sort of vibe.

Takemura's just felt like following a trail of bad (and baffling) decisions that can't end anywhere but a trainwreck. He gets sympathy points from me solely on the basis of the difficulty of finding decent Japanese restaurants in this country.

Voss, I think you're proceeding from a wrong assumption there. This game was never about creating/playing your own character. Like the Witcher, you're still playing a preset character whose history is already written: V. Unlike the Witcher, you do get to choose what V looks and sounds like. But you're still playing V and experiencing V's story. You don't like V's story, so you're not really going to like the game by extension. Maybe the eventual multiplayer is what you're really after, if there's a way to play it solo if you don't like actual multiplayer. That would give you the sandbox it sounds like you want.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Voss, I think you're proceeding from a wrong assumption there. This game was never about creating/playing your own character. Like the Witcher, you're still playing a preset character whose history is already written: V. Unlike the Witcher, you do get to choose what V looks and sounds like. But you're still playing V and experiencing V's story. You don't like V's story, so you're not really going to like the game by extension. Maybe the eventual multiplayer is what you're really after, if there's a way to play it solo if you don't like actual multiplayer. That would give you the sandbox it sounds like you want.

Uh, no. Every one of your assumptions is wrong.

I don't have even the vaguest interest in multiplayer.
I don't particularly care about sandboxes or 'open world,' they tend to be boring, cheap filler content. There's honestly plenty (almost too much) of that as is.

V doesn't have a history. The lifepaths are honestly a joke. The nomad one doesn't even make sense, given that it centers around smuggling through a border check and 3/4's of the city's borders just don't have those- they're open roads into suburbia on the east side, and nothing stops you from wandering into Pacifica or Westbrook. But while the lifepaths are definitely underdone, that's not totally bad, as not having a super-defined history makes it easier to make a character 'yours.'

V's story is fine, V is, like most protagonist characters in these kind of games, is a blank slate- the experience in the game is only real meat to V's story. That's exactly what I want. The starting quests (the misisons leading up to the heist, and the heist itself) and the side quests (Judy & Panam quest chains) are _very, very_ good. The Heist and Pyramid Song are hands down some of the best experiences I've had in games.

But there's way too few of them, and way too few side characters done to that standard. The gigs and gang fights are fine filler content, but they don't have the depth those side quests do (which isn't surprising). But they could have done so much more with a few more characters and unfolding mini-stories like those. That's where the lost opportunity is. Its particularly galling since that's where the strength of the Witcher 3 was- not with Geralt, but with interacting with the crazy cast of side characters and small quest chains in different locations. Killing gangs/critters for an anonymous source is fine filler, but there needs to be a lot more of the meaty stuff, particularly things where you have decisions and interactions that matter, and affect other things (and people) in the world.

And they do exist and they can do them... but it feels like real depth and more in-depth side quests were sacrificed to Johnny's story instead, which is just wretched and awful, and seemingly purposefully defeats the point of playing your own character.

Take Kirk as an example. He's set up as the intro to the street kid background that gets you start on your first job, it goes badly and yadda yadda. He re-appears in chapter 2 with a new job. Now, I expected to this to turn into a multi-quest chain and interaction where you tie back into the backstory you chose, complications ensue and you get a payoff and Kirk gets his come-uppance in some fashion, possibly intersecting with Padre again and delving into life in Heywood and probably Pepe back in the Coyote Cojo (which I hope does mean 'lame' or 'one-legged'), since you do the original job on his behalf. Instead... you go to a point down the road, open a van, come back to him and <'surprise'>, but its over. That's it. There's no depth, no payoff. Just another rinky-dink side mission with no interaction or significance. Its a 'the only meaning is that there is no meaning' cheap gag. And its disappointing because the game can and does so much better than this.

What I object to is in the main quest being jammed in your head and literally over-writing your character. That is the problem. As far as major problems go, that's the _only_ problem I have with the game. The MQ is basically mental trauma aimed directly at the character's (and the player's) agency. Its an unenjoyable spectre that drags the rest of the game down, with an incoherent monster rambling insane platitudes and abuse at you while ignoring the fundamental fact that all the monstrous things he did 50 years ago obviously failed and achieved nothing.

Johnny spits something about 'the ends justifying the means' at you at some point and I honestly laughed. He has no end goal, and even if he did, none of his mindless slaughter achieved it. He set off a nuke in a city, and the people he hated so much are still in the exact same position they were (if not even better off). Why in the world would I care in the slightest about this madman's story? During V's recovery, grappling with the new memories, she/he tells Vik that Johnny hates everyone, even the fans he's singing to. He treats his lovers like disposable whores and his teammates/bandmates like garbage, and expects that they'll appreciate that he's killing people he hates anyway is somehow to their benefit and proves his devotion to their well-being. Its messed up. Its just a twisted abuse narrative intruding on a game that's otherwise fun.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Voss, I think you're proceeding from a wrong assumption there. This game was never about creating/playing your own character. Like the Witcher, you're still playing a preset character whose history is already written: V. Unlike the Witcher, you do get to choose what V looks and sounds like. But you're still playing V and experiencing V's story. You don't like V's story, so you're not really going to like the game by extension. Maybe the eventual multiplayer is what you're really after, if there's a way to play it solo if you don't like actual multiplayer. That would give you the sandbox it sounds like you want.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure story set in Night City, a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. You play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. You can customize your character’s cyberware, skillset and playstyle, and explore a vast city where the choices you make shape the story and the world around you.

Sounds pretty sandboy type game to me?

They seemed to have originally had options for your background that mattered - where Silverhand was just one of the influences but that seems to have all been cut out when they went for the story cetnered around their doubtless very expensive lead actor?

Looking at the second video I linked shows you the possibilities there were once considered.

Now will any of these element go back in - Personally I hope so However it is true I did not like Silverhand in the original lore - got the game as a present otherwise i would nto have bothered once I knew it was foccussed on him.

Suffice to say, I don't agree with either of you, but I have no interest in getting into a point-for-point debate over it.
Voss, you claim my assumptions are wrong, but then you went on to list quite a lot of reasons why they're actually right. Maybe I just didn't express myself clearly enough.
Mr Morden, we clearly have different ideas about what a sandbox is, because what you posted sounds much like the exact opposite of a sandbox to me.
Do not mistake me as a defender of the game or a white knight for CDPR. I'm not saying this is the best game ever; it is, in fact, just a 7.5/10 for me. I'm just not as hyper-critical of things.
Good evening, happy holidays, and I hope you both have games in your library that you do thoroughly enjoy playing.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Do not mistake me as a defender of the game or a white knight for CDPR. I'm not saying this is the best game ever; it is, in fact, just a 7.5/10 for me. I'm just not as hyper-critical of things.

Honestly, I think this is somewhat reflective of most of the thread. I'd also put the game at the 7/10 range.

I think the issue is more hype blacklash (clearly, CDPR was not prepared to deliver a product on par with what they'd built up in advertising and marketing), and other obvious missed potential within the game itself. I still like calling the game 'inperfect' because it's perfectly serviceable but I can't not see all the ways it could have been better. It's a case of the game being so okay it's disappointing. If not for the past three years of hype and big promises, with game play trailers that seemed ready to deliver, this game probably would have landed as a so-so game, topic of the week for its many bugs, and then forgotten about. But Cyberpunk was expected to be a huge release and an innovator in it's genre. The final product is certainly a huge release, but it's behind many of its contemporaries in almost all categories.

Voss wrote:

Johnny spits something about 'the ends justifying the means' at you at some point and I honestly laughed. He has no end goal

Mild spoiler for the first cut-scene with Johnny -