The problem isn't that it's linear, it's that they pretended it wasn't in all their promotional material and how the game's built. Just a massive amount of space full of nothing.
The problem isn't that it's linear, it's that they pretended it wasn't in all their promotional material and how the game's built. Just a massive amount of space full of nothing.
It never felt linear to me at all.
I mean the main story quests did of course but otherwise I always felt like I was exploring new areas and I was really only limited in the same way something like an Elder Scrolls game was in that if I go somewhere before I could handle it I'd just get murdered.
I guess it's just different tastes then. It's kinda comparable to a Bethesda game but worse in pretty much every way, so if you're ok with those you'll prolly be ok with this. But if you looked at any of the marketing, you might've been expecting something closer to a GTA or a Mass Effect type thing, or even something comparable to the witcher, and it couldn't deliver on that in the least. None of your choices seem to do anything, your trajectory through the game is more or less fixed no matter whatyou do. And the side quests feel like isolated islands completely disconnected from each other.
I guess it's just different tastes then. It's kinda comparable to a Bethesda game but worse in pretty much every way, so if you're ok with those you'll prolly be ok with this. But if you looked at any of the marketing, you might've been expecting something closer to a GTA or a Mass Effect type thing, or even something comparable to the witcher, and it couldn't deliver on that in the least. None of your choices seem to do anything, your trajectory through the game is more or less fixed no matter whatyou do. And the side quests feel like isolated islands completely disconnected from each other.
I think I get what you're saying but I mean the Mass Effect series was very linear when you get down to it and so is the GTA series if you're talking the plot (I mean unless you're talking GTA1/GTA2 but those were very different games).
In both at the end of the day the plot continued pretty much regardless of your choices. Which was actually a huge point of contention when the ending of ME3 shat the bed as badly as it did (see Also Deus Ex).
But, I mean, that's kind of a bedrock requirement when it comes to a developer wanting to tell a story. They can let you play in the sandbox but ultimately if the goal is to tell a story it's eventually going to do so.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Finally got to do some driving, died a lot to random thugs.
Love the radio stations and vibe of the city, and this was during the day.
Also, the effect of having the cyberware optics installed(where you see yourself from the desk) was super cool(and chilling).
+1
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I guess it's just different tastes then. It's kinda comparable to a Bethesda game but worse in pretty much every way, so if you're ok with those you'll prolly be ok with this. But if you looked at any of the marketing, you might've been expecting something closer to a GTA or a Mass Effect type thing, or even something comparable to the witcher, and it couldn't deliver on that in the least. None of your choices seem to do anything, your trajectory through the game is more or less fixed no matter whatyou do. And the side quests feel like isolated islands completely disconnected from each other.
I think I get what you're saying but I mean the Mass Effect series was very linear when you get down to it and so is the GTA series if you're talking the plot (I mean unless you're talking GTA1/GTA2 but those were very different games).
In both at the end of the day the plot continued pretty much regardless of your choices. Which was actually a huge point of contention when the ending of ME3 shat the bed as badly as it did (see Also Deus Ex).
But, I mean, that's kind of a bedrock requirement when it comes to a developer wanting to tell a story. They can let you play in the sandbox but ultimately if the goal is to tell a story it's eventually going to do so.
For a lot of these games that promote player choice it really comes down to how they stick the landing.
Two good examples would be Witcher 3 and ME3. Both have multiple endings (with slight variations).
The ending you get in Witcher 3 is based on prior choices.
ME3 simply presents the player with a choice of ending right at the end that is completely disconnected from everything the player has done thus far.
Players IMHO seem to prefer the former and kind of dislike the latter.
Now technically it really is all the same, in the case of Witcher 3 (and others like it) the player is picking an ending without knowing they are. But never discount the power of Smoke and Mirrors.
CP2077 actually leans more towards Witcher 3 in terms of how endings are determined, but it is also a bit more obvious.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
ME3 simply presents the player with a choice of ending right at the end that is completely disconnected from everything the player has done thus far.
I know this is the accepted wisdom and how it's always presented, and I can see why, but it's really not that cut and dried. The endings DO vary based on prior decisions and war readiness, etc etc. Just, I guess, not enough.
(My position on the ending was that the Extended Cut fixed almost all of the big problems - and there were many - I had with the original endings, so take that as you will.)
ME3 simply presents the player with a choice of ending right at the end that is completely disconnected from everything the player has done thus far.
I know this is the accepted wisdom and how it's always presented, and I can see why, but it's really not that cut and dried. The endings DO vary based on prior decisions and war readiness, etc etc. Just, I guess, not enough.
(My position on the ending was that the Extended Cut fixed almost all of the big problems - and there were many - I had with the original endings, so take that as you will.)
Like I said there are variations within each choice based on previous decisions, but the problem is you are presented with a choice of a Bad, Neutral, Good ending. It is in how the ending is executed as opposed to the endings themselves that is the issue. The better way to have done it is not provide the three options at all and just have the game give you one based on a handful of previous key decisions, ala Witcher 3.
In the case of the Witcher 3 it is really only 2-3 big choices near the end of the game that determine the ending. Again, like ME3, with slight variations based on previous decisions.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
ME3 simply presents the player with a choice of ending right at the end that is completely disconnected from everything the player has done thus far.
I know this is the accepted wisdom and how it's always presented, and I can see why, but it's really not that cut and dried. The endings DO vary based on prior decisions and war readiness, etc etc. Just, I guess, not enough.
(My position on the ending was that the Extended Cut fixed almost all of the big problems - and there were many - I had with the original endings, so take that as you will.)
Like I said there are variations within each choice based on previous decisions, but the problem is you are presented with a choice of a Bad, Neutral, Good ending. It is in how the ending is executed as opposed to the endings themselves that is the issue. The better way to have done it is not provide the three options at all and just have the game give you one based on a handful of previous key decisions, ala Witcher 3.
In the case of the Witcher 3 it is really only 2-3 big choices near the end of the game that determine the ending. Again, like ME3, with slight variations based on previous decisions.
It's not Good, Neutral, Bad though, is it.
But this isn't the Mass Effect thread (or The Witcher thread, to be fair), and fuck knows that game has been relitigated enough over the last decade, so I'll drop it.
I will say I just didn't find Night City that interesting to explore. After the 10th alleyway filled with heavily armed cyborgs I was pretty over it.
I know people like to pretend that the superfluous shit isn't important when it comes to in-game world building but it really is.
Another reason why I really didn’t like the way missions were handled (can you sense a theme). Putting all that stuff on the map waiting for you to run across it so your fixer could call you makes the world feel really dead. It would be 100% better to just have that stuff be non-interactable until you call your fixer to get a job. You could have lots of “pointless stores” or other things in their place until you got your job and it would have made the world feel way more alive.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Another thing that irks me is how the news or people don’t react to you.
Like. The news is all “it was a calm day only 30 murders” and I am sitting here like. “I am pretty sure I personally dropped 200 people and I am pretty sure they killed at least 10 to 15 while I was doing that”
Also, the fact that you become an Adam Smasher type super power but still random people on the street are like “yea I’m gonna fuck with them”.
I think it's supposed to be a stealth melee weapon, like it gets backstab bonuses or something? But if you're in stealth close enough to someone to hit them, you can just break their neck instead?
Y'all have inspired me to reinstall (and mod) the game. Just trying to figure out what kind of build I want to play this time.
Did you know that the monofilament wire is a brawling/strength/blunt weapon? And gets buffs from the brawling tree?
I haven't read the mod details lately, but I'm pretty sure the rebalance overhaul changes that.
Either way, mono wire sounds kind of fun. I've never played with that...
Rebalance overhaul does not change that. At least you still get brawler xp for using it (that is how I discovered it was a brawler weapon! I went to see if it was changed as I got brawler XP in the rebalance and found it was always brawler from the start)
I think it's supposed to be a stealth melee weapon, like it gets backstab bonuses or something? But if you're in stealth close enough to someone to hit them, you can just break their neck instead?
It has stealth synergy in that it’s a silent melee weapon that has range. But it doesn’t get bonus’s from that otherwise. You can always silent takedown someone if you get behind them (indeed even if they’re alerted so you can combat takedown people iirc, though they might need to be unaware of you. But you can takedown more or less all of the cyber psycho’s by way of blinding/deafening/move locking them and walking behind them regardless of your stealth skill
Edit: it also should have tech synergy since it charges… but maybe doesn’t even work with those I don’t actually know.
There's a setting in the rebalance mod's config files to change monowire to a blade weapon. It's disabled by default. Hm...
edit: oh it's off by default because to enable it you're also supposed to change the proficiency XP it gets in the redscript configs. So enabling it by default would be wonky.
I kind of like it better as a brawler weapon. If anything it should be cool/stealth but strength is OK just in terms of “blades are already really good”
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Judging by how immersive and detailed the story areas are, I'm guessing that's why everything else isn't as interactive.
[Like I said there are variations within each choice based on previous decisions, but the problem is you are presented with a choice of a Bad, Neutral, Good ending. It is in how the ending is executed as opposed to the endings themselves that is the issue. The better way to have done it is not provide the three options at all and just have the game give you one based on a handful of previous key decisions, ala Witcher 3.
I think this is the wrong takeaway. ME3's choice of endings basically mirror Deus Ex's, a game which also lets you choose your ending in the final hour. The difference is Deus Ex's (and Witcher 3's) endings don't come out of left field, they've been backgrounded throughout the game, so regardless of whether you're picking the button or it's just happening, the outcome feels authentic.
Anyway I haven't touched this since I gave up on it after so much broken shit and half the perks etc. secretly operating as mere placeholder text. I see they delayed some of the other fixes into next year, but all I wanna know is...did they make the minimap zoom out further when you're driving so you can actually see an upcoming turn??
[Like I said there are variations within each choice based on previous decisions, but the problem is you are presented with a choice of a Bad, Neutral, Good ending. It is in how the ending is executed as opposed to the endings themselves that is the issue. The better way to have done it is not provide the three options at all and just have the game give you one based on a handful of previous key decisions, ala Witcher 3.
I think this is the wrong takeaway. ME3's choice of endings basically mirror Deus Ex's, a game which also lets you choose your ending in the final hour. The difference is Deus Ex's (and Witcher 3's) endings don't come out of left field, they've been backgrounded throughout the game, so regardless of whether you're picking the button or it's just happening, the outcome feels authentic.
Anyway I haven't touched this since I gave up on it after so much broken shit and half the perks etc. secretly operating as mere placeholder text. I see they delayed some of the other fixes into next year, but all I wanna know is...did they make the minimap zoom out further when you're driving so you can actually see an upcoming turn??
They did change the minimap, but if it's not zoomed out far enough for you, there's several mods that fix it.
The rebalance mod linked a few posts up also fixes a ton of the other "broken shit and half the perks etc. secretly operating as mere placeholder text"
Of course, if you're on console I uhhh... I have no good suggestions.
In “yakuza: like a dragon” you can play every arcade game in the arcade (it costs you in game currency to do so) though they are licensed/already owned games by the parent company.
No I didn’t download 9 gigs of pachinko machines to play in the game what are you talking about?
Well. What I mean to say is that non-interactive cabinets that have video isnt something that really draws me in as a wow. Pretty sure they had that in Deus Ex
In “yakuza: like a dragon” you can play every arcade game in the arcade (it costs you in game currency to do so) though they are licensed/already owned games by the parent company.
No I didn’t download 9 gigs of pachinko machines to play in the game what are you talking about?
Well. What I mean to say is that non-interactive cabinets that have video isnt something that really draws me in as a wow. Pretty sure they had that in Deus Ex
Shenmue, back in the mists of 1999/2000, had playable classic Sega arcade games, that might've been the first example of it - and of course the Yakuza series is sort of a spiritual sequel, so it makes sense that tradition would continue.
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I think they (the arcade cabinets) were probably intended to be playable at one point. IIRC there's some rudimentary, unfinished scripting logic you can find buried deep in the game's files on PC that indicates as such.
I was hoping that modders might try to get them up to a playable state, but no such luck yet.
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Had my first real free-for-all during the Militech mission which went well
(was honest about the virus, didn't backstab Dex)
. I'm not sure if I want to go all in on cyberware, but it definitely feels like it'd help with hacking, even though this game seems to make you feel more guilty about it than Shadowrun Returns did.
Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
+18
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
There are a fair number of subtle touches to the game.
One that stuck out to my were the Nomads. When I first encountered them something in my brain was telling me they spoke weird, but I couldn't figure out why I felt that way.
Then it dawned on me, the Nomads speak modern day Standard American English, with some modern/future slang thrown in here and there. Whereas everyone else speaks what I can only really describe as, modern "Average American English", with plenty of future slang sprinkled about.
Or maybe to put it a different way.
Nomads speak like American actors do in films/tv. Generally proper sentence structure, few contractions and clear pronunciation.
Everyone else in Night City speaks like the average American in real life does, maybe quite likely like you do. Lots of contractions (IE: oughta), nothing approaching proper sentence structure and certainly few clear pronunciations.
Though admittedly my particular dialect uses German sentence structure, so I'm hardly "average" myself.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Yeah so I don't know what happened between the last time I played this and this time, but I've seen more janky weirdness in the first 5 or so hours with this character than all the 150+ hours across my other characters. I've got levitating NPCs, NPCs using the same idle activities (like leaning on a food cart) in the same spots so they're overlapping, NPCs walking right through me, hilarious physics bugs... I walked into a food cart in an area full of such carts and it was like everything exploded. Carts, boxes, trash cans, and papers just went everywhere and kept setting off other crap flying in every direction. It beat any Bethesda physics explosion I've ever seen.
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It never felt linear to me at all.
I mean the main story quests did of course but otherwise I always felt like I was exploring new areas and I was really only limited in the same way something like an Elder Scrolls game was in that if I go somewhere before I could handle it I'd just get murdered.
I think I get what you're saying but I mean the Mass Effect series was very linear when you get down to it and so is the GTA series if you're talking the plot (I mean unless you're talking GTA1/GTA2 but those were very different games).
In both at the end of the day the plot continued pretty much regardless of your choices. Which was actually a huge point of contention when the ending of ME3 shat the bed as badly as it did (see Also Deus Ex).
But, I mean, that's kind of a bedrock requirement when it comes to a developer wanting to tell a story. They can let you play in the sandbox but ultimately if the goal is to tell a story it's eventually going to do so.
Love the radio stations and vibe of the city, and this was during the day.
Also, the effect of having the cyberware optics installed(where you see yourself from the desk) was super cool(and chilling).
For a lot of these games that promote player choice it really comes down to how they stick the landing.
Two good examples would be Witcher 3 and ME3. Both have multiple endings (with slight variations).
The ending you get in Witcher 3 is based on prior choices.
ME3 simply presents the player with a choice of ending right at the end that is completely disconnected from everything the player has done thus far.
Players IMHO seem to prefer the former and kind of dislike the latter.
Now technically it really is all the same, in the case of Witcher 3 (and others like it) the player is picking an ending without knowing they are. But never discount the power of Smoke and Mirrors.
CP2077 actually leans more towards Witcher 3 in terms of how endings are determined, but it is also a bit more obvious.
I know this is the accepted wisdom and how it's always presented, and I can see why, but it's really not that cut and dried. The endings DO vary based on prior decisions and war readiness, etc etc. Just, I guess, not enough.
(My position on the ending was that the Extended Cut fixed almost all of the big problems - and there were many - I had with the original endings, so take that as you will.)
Steam | XBL
Like I said there are variations within each choice based on previous decisions, but the problem is you are presented with a choice of a Bad, Neutral, Good ending. It is in how the ending is executed as opposed to the endings themselves that is the issue. The better way to have done it is not provide the three options at all and just have the game give you one based on a handful of previous key decisions, ala Witcher 3.
In the case of the Witcher 3 it is really only 2-3 big choices near the end of the game that determine the ending. Again, like ME3, with slight variations based on previous decisions.
It's not Good, Neutral, Bad though, is it.
But this isn't the Mass Effect thread (or The Witcher thread, to be fair), and fuck knows that game has been relitigated enough over the last decade, so I'll drop it.
Steam | XBL
I know people like to pretend that the superfluous shit isn't important when it comes to in-game world building but it really is.
Another reason why I really didn’t like the way missions were handled (can you sense a theme). Putting all that stuff on the map waiting for you to run across it so your fixer could call you makes the world feel really dead. It would be 100% better to just have that stuff be non-interactable until you call your fixer to get a job. You could have lots of “pointless stores” or other things in their place until you got your job and it would have made the world feel way more alive.
I'm enjoying it so far, especially the highways with overpasses.
Like. The news is all “it was a calm day only 30 murders” and I am sitting here like. “I am pretty sure I personally dropped 200 people and I am pretty sure they killed at least 10 to 15 while I was doing that”
Also, the fact that you become an Adam Smasher type super power but still random people on the street are like “yea I’m gonna fuck with them”.
Did you know that the monofilament wire is a brawling/strength/blunt weapon? And gets buffs from the brawling tree?
I haven't read the mod details lately, but I'm pretty sure the rebalance overhaul changes that.
Either way, mono wire sounds kind of fun. I've never played with that...
Rebalance overhaul does not change that. At least you still get brawler xp for using it (that is how I discovered it was a brawler weapon! I went to see if it was changed as I got brawler XP in the rebalance and found it was always brawler from the start)
It has stealth synergy in that it’s a silent melee weapon that has range. But it doesn’t get bonus’s from that otherwise. You can always silent takedown someone if you get behind them (indeed even if they’re alerted so you can combat takedown people iirc, though they might need to be unaware of you. But you can takedown more or less all of the cyber psycho’s by way of blinding/deafening/move locking them and walking behind them regardless of your stealth skill
Edit: it also should have tech synergy since it charges… but maybe doesn’t even work with those I don’t actually know.
edit: oh it's off by default because to enable it you're also supposed to change the proficiency XP it gets in the redscript configs. So enabling it by default would be wonky.
I think this is the wrong takeaway. ME3's choice of endings basically mirror Deus Ex's, a game which also lets you choose your ending in the final hour. The difference is Deus Ex's (and Witcher 3's) endings don't come out of left field, they've been backgrounded throughout the game, so regardless of whether you're picking the button or it's just happening, the outcome feels authentic.
Anyway I haven't touched this since I gave up on it after so much broken shit and half the perks etc. secretly operating as mere placeholder text. I see they delayed some of the other fixes into next year, but all I wanna know is...did they make the minimap zoom out further when you're driving so you can actually see an upcoming turn??
They did change the minimap, but if it's not zoomed out far enough for you, there's several mods that fix it.
The rebalance mod linked a few posts up also fixes a ton of the other "broken shit and half the perks etc. secretly operating as mere placeholder text"
Of course, if you're on console I uhhh... I have no good suggestions.
No I didn’t download 9 gigs of pachinko machines to play in the game what are you talking about?
Well. What I mean to say is that non-interactive cabinets that have video isnt something that really draws me in as a wow. Pretty sure they had that in Deus Ex
Shenmue, back in the mists of 1999/2000, had playable classic Sega arcade games, that might've been the first example of it - and of course the Yakuza series is sort of a spiritual sequel, so it makes sense that tradition would continue.
Steam | XBL
I was hoping that modders might try to get them up to a playable state, but no such luck yet.
One that stuck out to my were the Nomads. When I first encountered them something in my brain was telling me they spoke weird, but I couldn't figure out why I felt that way.
Then it dawned on me, the Nomads speak modern day Standard American English, with some modern/future slang thrown in here and there. Whereas everyone else speaks what I can only really describe as, modern "Average American English", with plenty of future slang sprinkled about.
Or maybe to put it a different way.
Nomads speak like American actors do in films/tv. Generally proper sentence structure, few contractions and clear pronunciation.
Everyone else in Night City speaks like the average American in real life does, maybe quite likely like you do. Lots of contractions (IE: oughta), nothing approaching proper sentence structure and certainly few clear pronunciations.
Though admittedly my particular dialect uses German sentence structure, so I'm hardly "average" myself.
I got mine for $23 on Amazon(PS4), came with some day 1 swag, which was nice.
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/cyberpunk-2077
$40... Hmm......
It was amazing.
GOTY.