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Go find the new Cyberpunk thread

TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEONRegistered User regular
edited September 2023 in Games and Technology
NEW THREAD: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/248212/cyberpunk-2077-huge-2-0-patch-is-out-dlc-the-26th-good-reviews-so-far/p1?new=1

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIcTM8WXFjk

Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person RPG by CD Project RED, developers of the Witcher series. It is based on the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG created by Mike Pondsmith, who was a consultant for the video game.

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All your favorite streamers are in the game, like Keanu Reeves and Johnny Mnemonic.

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You play as V, and your overaching goal is to steal a computer program that contains the key to immortality. You can drive a car around, something the AI is less adept at. Your dick size is customizable.

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The developers have apologized for the buggy state the game was released in. They blamed QA, which is like blaming the servers for bringing out food that the chefs couldn't finish cooking.

TychoCelchuuu on
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Posts

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    This is the same argument that pop ups in regards to difficulty where people demand that x game have an easy mode for y reason . If you don’t like the way the game is set up it’s fine to not play it or return it or whatever.

    This whole respec thing is an excellent example. I think having a respec barrier meshes with most RPGs, other people disagree. Easy solution? Let players have a menu option to turn it on or off, or make it more/less expensive. Fast travel is another one. I can't even begin to want to try and understand why people would want fast travel off in most modern open-world games, but "just don't use" isn't the same as outright disabling it. Solution? Just give players the dang option to disable it from the menu. Something like the difficulty of Sekiro? Just give the players a dang easy mode where they've got 50% damage resistance and +50% damage or something; this isn't a fucking movie where a director is trying to focus the viewer's attention a certain way for a reason, it's a game. The point is fun and interesting experiences. Let players pick their own fun.

    This is the part I don't understand and I'm trying to see where you and jungleroom are coming from. Is it a self control thing? Like if the option is there you're going to be tempted to use it, like having a bag of chips out on the table instead of put away? Because to me it does seem the same.

    In essence, yes, but also, no.

    "self control" is an easy thing to say, but games are built and designed around their current systems, so simply refraining from using something is not the same as design that implements a different system. And there is absolutely something to be said for being forced into doing something you are not necessarily comfortable with rather than dismissing it after a few goes and thinking "nah" then getting rid of it without consequences, which you would normally do if the option is available without really thinking about it. Being forced into doing something causes you to have to actually put time into it, to actually have an accurate assessment on it because you've kept on using what you've got.

    And then you can often get more value out of a game because of that. For example, you could try a different build that you find more fun because you have played this other build for so long and have a comparison point, replay the entire game with this new fun build, and get even more bang for your money. Experimenting with builds from the start rather than swapping to them halfway is a completely different form of fun. You experience all the content with the new build, starting from scratch up to full power. It can be like playing an entirely new game.

    you could also discover something unexpected about this ability you initially dismissed, that turns out to be hella fun, and you wouldn't have realised because you just swapped back with a snap of your fingers. You just got some fun out of that too.

    It's one of those cases where less can actually equal more.

    My opinion is kinda mixed on this. On one hand, I'm all for options, especially accessibility options. On the other, I can see a case for a game being designed a specific way with the intention of pushing a player outside of their comfort zone, with that being the point of it, and if you don't enjoy that, the game wasn't intended to be played by you.

    The thing is both sides have a point. They're both right. There is no perfect answer.

    If I implemented a game I would probably allow for options, but if my game was one where I wanted people to be pushed out of their comfort zone, I probably would make some options fixed once you've started a playthrough. you want to play on easy, that's fine. But you don't get to swap down to easy halfway and back without some kind of consequence. This still makes people unhappy (a good point made in counter to this is that being forced to restart a multiple hour playthrough just to change the difficulty is sucky for people without a lot of time on their hands), but there's no perfect solution here. You try to balance things as best you can in that sense, but ultimately at some point in a design you just have to come to terms with that.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    @jungleroomx @shoeboxjeddy new thread over here boys

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    This is the same argument that pop ups in regards to difficulty where people demand that x game have an easy mode for y reason . If you don’t like the way the game is set up it’s fine to not play it or return it or whatever.

    This whole respec thing is an excellent example. I think having a respec barrier meshes with most RPGs, other people disagree. Easy solution? Let players have a menu option to turn it on or off, or make it more/less expensive. Fast travel is another one. I can't even begin to want to try and understand why people would want fast travel off in most modern open-world games, but "just don't use" isn't the same as outright disabling it. Solution? Just give players the dang option to disable it from the menu. Something like the difficulty of Sekiro? Just give the players a dang easy mode where they've got 50% damage resistance and +50% damage or something; this isn't a fucking movie where a director is trying to focus the viewer's attention a certain way for a reason, it's a game. The point is fun and interesting experiences. Let players pick their own fun.

    This is the part I don't understand and I'm trying to see where you and jungleroom are coming from. Is it a self control thing? Like if the option is there you're going to be tempted to use it, like having a bag of chips out on the table instead of put away? Because to me it does seem the same.

    Yes, the temptation. Dark Souls isn't a rewarding series because you beat down hard thing, it's a rewarding series because it forces you to learn, and then once things click it's an incomparable feeling to games that let you just tick down a difficulty slider to get past a certain spot then tick it back up.

    Once you get to a point where a game lets you just minmax every single encounter is when making builds, leveling, getting gear, and everything that goes with it becomes completely useless and the game should just kit you out and remove all player choice.

    D3, as we mentioned before, had this problem. Which is why you only had 1-2 functional builds per class, because you could instantly minmax every single thing and the endgoals of the game did not support any more. Which is also why it's a dead game and at least two other ARPG's released around the same time are far more alive, as they put more restrictions on builds and make player choice a responsibility as opposed to a "who gives a shit?" thing. Which makes figuring out builds in those 2 games a hell of a lot more rewarding that Diablo 3, where they just basically tell you what the best build is every single patch.

    Locking down build choices doesn't actually change the number of good builds, that's nonsense. It just prevents you from picking the good one once you find out what it is.

    The other 2 ARPG's I was talking about have dozens of good builds, all of which work with all content. So a game with choices but only a single good build sounds like a game I wouldn't want to play anyway, because the entire skilltree would be a noob trap except for the good one you mentioned.

    And yes, by itself locking down respeccing doesn't make more viable builds. Good content that doesn't just scale off to infinity is probably the biggest thing which allows this. But people have found interesting mechanics in both those games, in some instances in ways the devs didn't even intend to work, because respeccing would be painful.

    jungleroomx on
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    Personally I'm a console player and since mods aren't on the table it I'm limited in how much input I have on the game's presentation. My ideal mods would be things like giving the mantis blades wall hanging again, allowing access of cyberware and respec for free and from the character inventory screen, non-jank third person mode, etc. I can appreciate that some people want a more pure RPG type experience with regards to character sheet permanence/decision making, and those people can prob appreciate that I work a lot and really only have so much time for Cyberpunk playthroughs (esp considering the busted state of the game).

    A lot of that is stuff that maybe could be addressed (but probably won't) given time, so who knows. I'm in no rush to replay the game. I actually managed to play Cyberpunk mostly how I wanted, I only barely touched hacking towards the end with some side quests requiring it. The game dumped different orange rarity cyberdecks all over me but kinda discouraged me from going and trying most of them out (especially when I encountered a late game bug that made hacking completely unusable anyways lol...)

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    I mean, even if you can respec, I usually don't like doing it anyway.

    I like watching a build grow. Respecs are usually for fixing small errors, like a few skill choices that don't really work like I thought they would work.

    Ideally what I want is for a game to have respecs but for them to be limited by cost, with that cost being balanced so that it doesn't feel impossible to get (which is the same as not having one) but isn't too easy.

    Cyberpunk is not at the right place in terms of respecs.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • DuriniaDurinia Evolved from Space Potatoes Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    welp, I finished the game on hardest difficulty, doing the hard-mode "hidden" ending mission, and defeated the last boss using only a sex toy.
    (spoiler'd for both spoilers and mildly NSFW)
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    I think I can take a break now? I might need the pacing of Stardew Valley's new patch for a while...

    Durinia on
    For business reasons, I must preserve the outward sign of sanity.
    --Mark Twain
  • ChaosHatChaosHat Hop, hop, hop, HA! Trick of the lightRegistered User regular
    Respecs are a different issue than diablo 3 balance. The game wouldn't suddenly be better if they took it away. I agree that diablo 3 has low build diversity but it's a single player or co-op game so if you want to run something you find more fun or janky for the challenge, you're not really that punished?

    If it's a self control thing I guess I can respect that but then it's just an eternal battle of who's preferences we should prefer. I think I would favor the way that's more options for everyone since adding the option doesn't mean you have to use it. It feels like arguing that Pokemon should have to be played Nuzlocke style for everyone when you can just as easily opt into that level of difficulty while leaving the option there for others. Or saying that you have to care about your speedrun time to enjoy a game. It's much easier to arbitrarily make a game harder without developer assistance than the other direction.

  • Space PickleSpace Pickle Registered User regular
    Sometimes it's nice to be able to respec just to try out a new playstyle if you're bored of your current guy.

  • Zombie GandhiZombie Gandhi Registered User regular
    I didn't know that respecs don't change your stat choices, making me even more mad that they are expensive. I changed my mind about whether I wanted Tech or not, and early bad choices in a 60 hour game meaning I done fucked up annoys me. Particularly when the game has perks or abilities or gear that straight up don't work.

    And yeah it won't stop me from winning or playing more, but it isn't elegant or consequential, it just misses modern sensabilities.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    D3 got around the respec thing by doing seasons and I'm totally okay with that. In fact I think that breathed a lot of life into the game. I'm not a fan of pure respecs for free but honestly can't articulate why. I see why people like them and I understand why they like them. But it feels so hollow to me. I'd rather my choice matter a bit more? D2 implemented the 3 respecs right? That was nice.

  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    From the link Couscous posted last thread:
    -I would have tried to hit 100% but the all resist cyberware (Cataresist) doesn't work, so I just gave up at 50%.

    -Noticed Berserk, once the duration ends, actually reduces your resistance until you reload your save. It doesn't work in buffing resistances, but still deducts the resistance to "bring you back to normal"

    Completely aside from any other question, I think respecs should always be around in RPGs because devs constantly fuck up their systems. I can't think of many RPGs where all the skills worked as described, let alone intended, and that's in games that didn't come flying out half-baked like Cyberpunk. Players shouldn't need to rely on community testing to understand what the shit in the game actually does, it should just tell you.

    Personally I advocate for as much information as possible, so after it says "increases x by 10%" there should be a details button that brings up the formula it's calculated in and any notes, letting you know whether it's additive or multiplicative or whether there are caps or what the order of operations between different systems affecting the same thing are, but since no one is ever going to provide that skills should at least do something reasonably close to what they say they do, and failing that players shouldn't have to hurdle some gigantic barrier to respec to the build they thought they were getting.

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  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.

  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    I will say I think respeccing should be easier just cause there are quite a few junk perks you won't realize are junk until you've played around in the game a bit.

    But really I just think some perks should be consolidated.

    Dragkonias on
  • ED!ED! Registered User regular
    I've spent the last month mired in cRPGs (they really did a number on DOS2 to bring it up a notch and Pathfinder is slowly growing on me) to put some distance between CP77 - just to see if it really is as good as I think it is. . .and yeah I think it is. It is definitely the best game I played last year and one of the best narrative RPG's I've played. Is it as EPIC an RPG as TW3 - not even close. However I haven't felt more connected to characters in an RPG than I did in CP77. When you find Ciri (I hope this isn't a spoiler) versus when you find EP - leagues apart in investment. After the credits rolled on my playthrough (saving the second playthrough for the end of the year when some DLC drops) I was literally wishing you could just go back into the game and keep hanging out with your significant other or the other friends and fixers you made a long the way. I still haven't finished TLOU2 and as good (and emotionally draining) as that game has been - I have zero desire to ever go back and play it once I've (eventually finished). CP77, I could reliably mindwipe myself and leave a note for my now unremembering self saying "Boy howdy are you going to enjoy this."

    . . .having said that, the Commitment video CDPR put out was a load of hogwash.

    "Get the hell out of me" - [ex]girlfriend
  • EspantaPajaroEspantaPajaro Registered User regular
    Pathfinder is definitely a good one can’t wait for the sequel to come out . And DOS2 is great once you get the quirks of the battle system internalized .

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.

    There's two possible reasons I can think of that a developer might not do this.

    The first is that a lot of players enjoy working things out for themselves and don't really want to be deluged in numbers. They just want to intuit the game. Being drowned in maths can put them off. They have to think about those customers too.

    The second, and the more important one, is that this is a shit ton of work and they usually just straight up don't have time to add this in. It has to be correct after all. They can't typo these tooltips. Someone has to check them every time a formula is changed behind the scenes. That can quickly lead to total chaos and end up just being too much work. Usually tooltips are done in a single pass with some small corrections and then they move onto other work. They leave them a little general so they have the option to adjust things as they are balancing in the weeks up to release.

    Note that I am on the side of GIVE ME ALL THE NUMBERS I CAN TAKE IT so I'm not arguing against it. I'm just saying, there's reasons.

    Of course a third reason can also be "our ui design is shit and/or we didn't even think of it" which I'm sure happens as often as not.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • ED!ED! Registered User regular
    Pathfinder is definitely a good one can’t wait for the sequel to come out . And DOS2 is great once you get the quirks of the battle system internalized .

    I put a replay (or rather getting back into playing) D:OS2 to jump on Kingmaker because I had already put a chunky amount of time into D:OS2 before, and wanted a chunky amount of time into something I hadn't seen before. I'm also finding I like the systems in PK (and to a simpler degree POE2) a lot better than DOS2 which is kinda just "Beat on enemies until they fall - but strategically." I also forgot about Baldurs Gate 3 which I'm trying not to play despite paying full price for it. Feels like another Fort Joy in EA situation from Larian that I want to save for full release (will probably pick it up a month before release).

    . . .none of which has anything to do with CP77 other than showcasing the breadth of RPG's out there at the moment.

    "Get the hell out of me" - [ex]girlfriend
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.

    Reminds me of my issue's with DA:O; Melee weapons were rife with notes on bonuses but at no point did I get enough of the math to actually be able to figure out what damage *actually looked like*; I understand that the hammer has armor penetration value, but how much does armor absorb and how much armor do my enemies have on average? this says I get an extra 10% missile resistance but how much is that? What is the base speed of my weapon so I can tell how much a +4 influences?

    Like, if you're going to throw math at me give me enough to resolve the equation.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    As a quick Hacker, I really hate the "Permanently go into scan mode" glitch.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Gaddez wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.

    Reminds me of my issue's with DA:O; Melee weapons were rife with notes on bonuses but at no point did I get enough of the math to actually be able to figure out what damage *actually looked like*; I understand that the hammer has armor penetration value, but how much does armor absorb and how much armor do my enemies have on average? this says I get an extra 10% missile resistance but how much is that? What is the base speed of my weapon so I can tell how much a +4 influences?

    Like, if you're going to throw math at me give me enough to resolve the equation.

    Every skill in every single game that involves a stat change should always display the fixed or percentage change, full stop. There are faaaar too many games with skills that do nothing noticeable when you take them or will obviously be worth crap if you knew the value of the change, and just using word descriptions is virtually always a waste of the player's time and efforts.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited January 2021
    Gaddez wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.

    Reminds me of my issue's with DA:O; Melee weapons were rife with notes on bonuses but at no point did I get enough of the math to actually be able to figure out what damage *actually looked like*; I understand that the hammer has armor penetration value, but how much does armor absorb and how much armor do my enemies have on average? this says I get an extra 10% missile resistance but how much is that? What is the base speed of my weapon so I can tell how much a +4 influences?

    Like, if you're going to throw math at me give me enough to resolve the equation.

    Every skill in every single game that involves a stat change should always display the fixed or percentage change, full stop. There are faaaar too many games with skills that do nothing noticeable when you take them or will obviously be worth crap if you knew the value of the change, and just using word descriptions is virtually always a waste of the player's time and efforts.

    Basically, the best thing to do would be to not have the basically insignificant incremental stuff, and only have stat changes that have significant improvements, or actually change gameplay somewhat.

    Fencingsax on
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    https://youtu.be/omyoJ7onNrg

    Excellent work from Crowbat as always. There's a whole lot of over promising that I was unaware of. The thing about the NPCs having routines and lives and then smash cut to the NPCs simply walking in circles forever... Oof.

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    https://youtu.be/omyoJ7onNrg

    Excellent work from Crowbat as always. There's a whole lot of over promising that I was unaware of. The thing about the NPCs having routines and lives and then smash cut to the NPCs simply walking in circles forever... Oof.

    Yeah, it was a lot.

    Again, I know who I'm putting on the chopping block for this one. It's that douche who wrote a "counter" to all of the claims currently circulating about the game, just kind of further cementing my impressions that he's primarily responsible for launching a game that's the epitome of an upside-down pyramid where the entire thing was precariously balanced by the graphics (the pointy top part) instead of the games base.

    So now the poor employees have the arduous task of flipping a fucking pyramid.

    jungleroomx on
  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.
    WoW did this best, with a toggle for tooltips that is either “Stuff my eyesockets with numbers, math man” or “dear lord not the numbers keep it basic”

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  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    I've never believed any open world game that tries to claim that the NPCs all live their own lives. At this point it's just yeah, uh-huh, sure.
    It's like every person in Watch Dogs has their own detailed custom history. Sure, totally, they don't just take a bunch of details from a random list and leave it at that.
    Or in Sim City (the bad one), the people have their own homes and jobs that they go back and forth to. Unless you follow them, when they go straight to the nearest unfilled job no matter what they did yesterday, then drive to the nearest unoccupied home afterwards.

    And that's fine because the amount of stuff you'd need to add to make that work is ridiculous, and wouldn't really add much of value. Just don't make the claim in the first place.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    So a little into my Nomad playthrough as a blades/handguns lady and I think my favorite thing about Night City is that there's virtually no parking at places you're actually trying to go while in the city.

    Like just street upon street of stores that if you drove there? Go fuck yourself.

    Except it's Night City so as long as you don't actively murder anyone while doing so you can just pull up on the sidewalk because the cops are too busy pretending to do rather than actually doing their job.

    I'm pretty sure both my Vs would be crippled by parking tickets even if they'd managed to sell the goods.

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    klemming wrote: »
    I've never believed any open world game that tries to claim that the NPCs all live their own lives. At this point it's just yeah, uh-huh, sure.
    It's like every person in Watch Dogs has their own detailed custom history. Sure, totally, they don't just take a bunch of details from a random list and leave it at that.
    Or in Sim City (the bad one), the people have their own homes and jobs that they go back and forth to. Unless you follow them, when they go straight to the nearest unfilled job no matter what they did yesterday, then drive to the nearest unoccupied home afterwards.

    And that's fine because the amount of stuff you'd need to add to make that work is ridiculous, and wouldn't really add much of value. Just don't make the claim in the first place.

    That's cool and all that you don't believe it.

    I don't believe it either.

    But they flatly said it.

    At that's kinda not okay, that companies get to do this.

    Their marketing department should be in an institution somewhere because what they got some real crazy vibes going on.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    edited January 2021
    klemming wrote: »
    I've never believed any open world game that tries to claim that the NPCs all live their own lives. At this point it's just yeah, uh-huh, sure.
    It's like every person in Watch Dogs has their own detailed custom history. Sure, totally, they don't just take a bunch of details from a random list and leave it at that.
    Or in Sim City (the bad one), the people have their own homes and jobs that they go back and forth to. Unless you follow them, when they go straight to the nearest unfilled job no matter what they did yesterday, then drive to the nearest unoccupied home afterwards.

    And that's fine because the amount of stuff you'd need to add to make that work is ridiculous, and wouldn't really add much of value. Just don't make the claim in the first place.

    That's cool and all that you don't believe it.

    I don't believe it either.

    But they flatly said it.

    At that's kinda not okay, that companies get to do this.

    Their marketing department should be in an institution somewhere because what they got some real crazy vibes going on.

    For me, it's kind of like Disney World / Land. That place feels magical and clean and fully realized, until you go "backstage" and see that its all duct tape and bubblegum holding the illusion together. Goofy with his mascot head off, furiously dragging on a cigarette while cindarella calls him an asshole sure was a thing high school me saw when my marching band got to perform in the parades.

    I have no problem with how the NPCs and AI drive and behave in the world, and if I don't engage with it too closely it feels pretty well realized. Just don't try to follow people home or sit in one spot for 6 hours or whatever. Going backstage shows just how basic and/or fragile a lot of this actually is.

    syndalis on
    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    I am actually really enjoying the game because I had zero expectations. I don't really care about any of the stuff most people care about. I can jump around and punch dudes, and I get cool story cutscenes.

    I avoided an absolute shit ton of the overhyped advertising for this game because I wanted to go in fresh.

    I also had a pretty big argument a few months ago where I said the game would be buggy to fuck and got shot down about it, so I'm not even disappointed there too.

    But coming back and looking at what they said later on? What they said is not ok! I don't care myself that this stuff isn't there, and I never really expected them to put it in. But plenty of people did because they told them to expect it.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Yeah, but if we go after marketing departments for over-promising, we have to go after all of them. And Peter Molyneux would never get released.
    I can believe that someone came up with the idea, and thought it was viable enough to decide that yes, they were going to have that and mention it to marketing. Then it was bought to the people who actually had to make it happen, and they just laughed until it turned to crying and gave them an estimate on how much CPU time would be needed to make that happen, and they backed off.

    Like the Mantis Blade wall thing. I can believe that they had it at least in the semi-implemented stage, then realised how much it broke the level designs they were making, or that they couldn't make it fun. Things get cut from games all the time, we just mostly don't find out about it.

    The problem all goes back to marketing your game when the game is still being made, and the solution is to not market anything in your game until it's locked down. Good luck getting that to happen. Heck, it still happens with movie trailers, where they show scenes that end up being cut from the actual movie.

    Given that triple A games spend a huge amount of money on marketing, I assume there's a measurable payoff for it, so asking them to dial that back won't get results.

    I'd honestly be fine with games not even being announced until they're all ready to go (Origami King went from announcement to launch in like a month), but I don't see it becoming the norm.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Sterica wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    Oh my God I agree 10000%. Any RPG that says "moderately increases attack speed" without actually giving me the value can fuck right off. This should be visible to the player. Always.
    WoW did this best, with a toggle for tooltips that is either “Stuff my eyesockets with numbers, math man” or “dear lord not the numbers keep it basic”

    WoW's interface is still pretty awesome as far as ability to customize it is concerned

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  • ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    syndalis wrote: »
    klemming wrote: »
    I've never believed any open world game that tries to claim that the NPCs all live their own lives. At this point it's just yeah, uh-huh, sure.
    It's like every person in Watch Dogs has their own detailed custom history. Sure, totally, they don't just take a bunch of details from a random list and leave it at that.
    Or in Sim City (the bad one), the people have their own homes and jobs that they go back and forth to. Unless you follow them, when they go straight to the nearest unfilled job no matter what they did yesterday, then drive to the nearest unoccupied home afterwards.

    And that's fine because the amount of stuff you'd need to add to make that work is ridiculous, and wouldn't really add much of value. Just don't make the claim in the first place.

    That's cool and all that you don't believe it.

    I don't believe it either.

    But they flatly said it.

    At that's kinda not okay, that companies get to do this.

    Their marketing department should be in an institution somewhere because what they got some real crazy vibes going on.

    For me, it's kind of like Disney World / Land. That place feels magical and clean and fully realized, until you go "backstage" and see that its all duct tape and bubblegum holding the illusion together. Goofy with his mascot head off, furiously dragging on a cigarette while cindarella calls him an asshole sure was a thing high school me saw when my marching band got to perform in the parades.

    I have no problem with how the NPCs and AI drive and behave in the world, and if I don't engage with it too closely it feels pretty well realized. Just don't try to follow people home or sit in one spot for 6 hours or whatever. Going backstage shows just how basic and/or fragile a lot of this actually is.

    I used to follow people around in Cities Skylines once I had a city built up and I was bored. It was actually pretty cool. Instead of ruining the illusion, it gave me an appreciation of my own cities as I watched my tiny residents go to school, go to college, grow up and get a job, enjoy a stroll to the park, etc. The only problem was the difficulty in keeping track of someone permanently because the game didn’t launch with NSA tools or anything.

    I followed an NPC around in Cyberpunk because I knew they were supposed to have simulated lives, not knowing it would end up in them walking around in a loop, and was somewhat disappointed and went back to the good parts of the game.

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  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited January 2021
    klemming wrote: »
    Yeah, but if we go after marketing departments for over-promising, we have to go after all of them. And Peter Molyneux would never get released.
    I can believe that someone came up with the idea, and thought it was viable enough to decide that yes, they were going to have that and mention it to marketing. Then it was bought to the people who actually had to make it happen, and they just laughed until it turned to crying and gave them an estimate on how much CPU time would be needed to make that happen, and they backed off.

    Like the Mantis Blade wall thing. I can believe that they had it at least in the semi-implemented stage, then realised how much it broke the level designs they were making, or that they couldn't make it fun. Things get cut from games all the time, we just mostly don't find out about it.

    The problem all goes back to marketing your game when the game is still being made, and the solution is to not market anything in your game until it's locked down. Good luck getting that to happen. Heck, it still happens with movie trailers, where they show scenes that end up being cut from the actual movie.

    Given that triple A games spend a huge amount of money on marketing, I assume there's a measurable payoff for it, so asking them to dial that back won't get results.

    I'd honestly be fine with games not even being announced until they're all ready to go (Origami King went from announcement to launch in like a month), but I don't see it becoming the norm.

    I see your points and I respect them but this game is a very, very exaggerated example. It is the sheer level of lie going on that is a problem here.

    Yes all marketing can be bad. Usually though, they're not this blatant about it. This was completely disconnected from reality. That is the difference.

    Like, this is at the level where it feels like a parody.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    You know its funny cause I also took a break from CP2077 to play other games and I came to the conclusion that while the game has some things I like the general lack of polish and structure...everywhere...was proving a detriment to my enjoyment.

    I decided I would just wait until it gets the Realm Reborn treatment in a year or two with patches and expansions that actually finish the game then give it another shot.

    But its one of those things where there is no point in beating a dead horse. By now we all know what the game is and either you find it worth your time or don't.

  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    So a little into my Nomad playthrough as a blades/handguns lady and I think my favorite thing about Night City is that there's virtually no parking at places you're actually trying to go while in the city.

    Like just street upon street of stores that if you drove there? Go fuck yourself.

    Except it's Night City so as long as you don't actively murder anyone while doing so you can just pull up on the sidewalk because the cops are too busy pretending to do rather than actually doing their job.

    I'm pretty sure both my Vs would be crippled by parking tickets even if they'd managed to sell the goods.

    There's also virtually no CHOOH2/gas stations for all these cars. I think I saw one in the entire city. Maybe two.

    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    the cars have self-driving(ish), so arguably you can just get out and let it drive to a parking space a bit away

    still yeah, where are those? Underground?

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  • SimpsoniaSimpsonia Registered User regular
    I guess I'm a bit more charitable towards the game than most, since I didn't follow a lot of the marketing or pre-release promises in an attempt to avoid hype. To me, I see it as a [very] flawed gem similar to Dragon's Age 2. Both were flawed games with serious release timeline issues, but still accomplished some great things. Dragon's Age 2 is primarily known well for its excellent characters and companions' stories, but repetitive levels, and a jumbled, incoherent main storyline. Cyberpunk 2077 is similar in that it has some great characters, amazing character animations and very well acted dialogue, a solid and compelling, if linear, storyline that fits the main themes. At the same time CDPR was a small studio trying to accomplish something on the level of GTAV or RDR2, and just did not have the time, resources, or management to actually pull it off. So we were left with a game that did a lot of what CDPR does well (telling compelling stories), but flawed with many many bugs, many cuts to promises made. Ultimately, I also think CDPR was a victim of their own success. I'm not sure if any game could live up to the hype and scrutiny following the magnum opus that was Witcher 3.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    A massive success can be the worst thing to happen to a company that isn't prepared for it, or even one that is.
    Duke Nukem 3D turned 3D Realms into perfectionists who made Duke Nukem Forever like a dozen times then canned it and started over each time because things were moving away from them.
    Half-Life almost led to Valve doing the same thing for 2, but they avoided it at least until Episode 2 came out.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • GaddezGaddez Registered User regular
    klemming wrote: »
    I've never believed any open world game that tries to claim that the NPCs all live their own lives. At this point it's just yeah, uh-huh, sure.
    It's like every person in Watch Dogs has their own detailed custom history. Sure, totally, they don't just take a bunch of details from a random list and leave it at that.
    Or in Sim City (the bad one), the people have their own homes and jobs that they go back and forth to. Unless you follow them, when they go straight to the nearest unfilled job no matter what they did yesterday, then drive to the nearest unoccupied home afterwards.

    And that's fine because the amount of stuff you'd need to add to make that work is ridiculous, and wouldn't really add much of value. Just don't make the claim in the first place.

    About the only time I've seen this being remotely true would be Radiata Stories, wherein virtually every NPC was unique and they all were given specific daily routines.

    Also you could fight basically anyone in the game by kicking them twice.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Oh man I loved Radiata Stories. I should hook my PS2 back up and play it again.

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