Game Discussions Cyberpunk 2077 - official gameplay

[Jezzah]

16 hours in and I've hit level 13. Playing on Hard.

Time to be objective and give some thoughts especially on the negatives here.

I'm enjoying the game as a preface, to quote the very first post in the thread - is this the "end of gaming"? Sadly not, not by a long shot I feel.

- it's very "open world", yes I know that's always been the thing but it has that "homogenous" "samey" feeling I get from all open world games (aside from Witcher 3!) This is disappointing for me as after Witcher 3 I sort of hoped for better from CDP than a slightly better job over what say Ubisoft would do.

- Driving is at best an Ok experience, for game that placed alot on its wheeled experience it's so far a basic thing, no game has done driving round a city better than the original Mafia in any case. CDP havent failed here as such and its multi factor thing but it's not exciting me at all.

- Combat, whoa the big one, it's fairly crap really, the AI is largely as thick as I had hoped it wouldnt be. I had limited expectations of this from CDP, the AI largely pounds you but the reverse isnt so true. Many of the AI will on hard knock you in 2 to 3 shots. The same cannot be said for you whatsoever. Luckily (or sadly) the AI has the intelligence of a sprat and displays little to no creativity in taking you on. Many of the weapons give bonuses to certain damage but looking through them in the UI is painful and we go to
....

- The UI...which is truly uninspired and clunky to use. The game telegraphs a lot of information through the menus and UI and how much of it is actually useful or doing anything useful is anyone's guess.

- Looting...the whole place is very unsatisfying from a loot point of view, theres so much of everything nothing feels good to loot. I've picked up the gross national product of India in the form of Trousers and boots but very few stick out as items I'd think of keeping. This is a common problem with open world games. Everything goes into the recycler.

- Missions...thankfully this is one area that has received a little of the old CDP magic. But only just a little. The side missions which people seem to really like just havent lit me up that much. I've done maybe a dozen of them along with similar number of "gigs" and I'm pressed to remember any of them in any way. Theres certainly not the same quality here as we had in Witcher series.
The jobs come to you via the phone (often at worst possible times) and theres no agency to them other than this bloke or that bird want you to sort out their niff naff and trivia, it also doesn't seem to tall you what rewards to expect anywhere, which seem to be majority of the time money. The Car and Bike selling bits from the fixers over the phone borders on Spam also. Anyways I dont think we'll see side quests here with anything like the meat that Witcher 3 was able to put out there.

The little things...

• bugs, can get over them largely and some are entertaining.
• logic leaps in main missions where characters dont explain or acknowledge certain things that really they ought to. Difficult to explain this as I don't want to spoiler anything.

Anyway not an exhaustive list, trying to put this together while making chicken dinner I'm sure you guys will have seen or not seen the above and probably add to it better than I.

A bit meh sadly, a strong 7 game at the moment. Not the end of gaming.

 

[Revenant69]

Been playing for 22 hours now, and finally seen the title screen haha, did i get lost in those side missions..
So now i'm past the first impression, i can confidently say: this is the new Deus Ex. Yeah even more so than Human Revolution. I had that fuzzy feeling when playing my first missions but that was entirely validated once i started doing higher level street cred gigs.
You do have a complete freedom to solve almost every situation (apart from a very few scripted ones that are part of the main quest), and CDPR left a lot of options to approach every mission - from the front door, back door, roof, hacking your way through, or using your tech skills to lockpick doors, going long range, mid range, close combat, lethal or not.. your choice ! How you pick your equipment and cyberware is key, of course, and a beginner character will be a bit more constrained in the way they can solve gigs.
Setting aside that hotel mission that has scripted events (that first hiccup at the very first interaction was hilarious, reminded me of just every tabletop Cyberpunk/Shadowrun RPG i played, spend hours planning a heist to have it fall flat on its face at the front door...) - the gigs you take you can for most part do them your way entirely. There are a few notable exceptions like the fist fight tournaments, which are shown as side gigs in true CDPR tradition and have their own storyline / progression and interesting characters like those in Witcher series, or the Gwent tournament.
Playing in high difficulty, i did spend a lot of time picking a suitable set of cyberware that works in combination with my character abilities. The game at that setting starts being punitive if you do anything without a bit of preparation.


Like i said above, the immersion is up to par with Warren Spector + Paul Neurath games such as Deus Ex. Fantastic. The city is truly alive, packed with stories and events. Missions are intense and can be nerve wracking at times (that "hotel mission" has, let's say, some very tense moments).
As for performance: your rig will run it in "high" settings with no trouble. Turn off the useless effects such as motion blur, chromatic aberration or film grain, that eat performance for a worse picture quality and you'll be fine. It still looks really good in that setting.


Spoiler ahead for those who didnt do the Dex quest line yet: Did you clear the virus from the chip ? If not indeed the shooting will start really quickly for an obvious reason. If you want a mostly peaceful exit you should hack the chip before giving it, as the gang members will side with you and mostly take care of the fight.
Either way, it's a scripted mission as it's part of the main quest line. If you are having trouble during the first fights, i suggest reloading a prior save and doing quite a few side gigs to beef up your character before going in. Getting rid of a group of gang members should be relatively easy (they are the equivalent of Witcher 3 bandits - lowlifes with poor equipment). I also suggest getting used to ways of clearing bigger gigs (there are a few ones involving gangs in factories too, that are side gigs so not scripted) so you get a feel of how you should tune your character and your MO so you can clear them without too much trouble.
I play in difficulty mode "high" and it's quite ok for me - and i'm not really a FPS addict, like i said the game is not really a FPS. You do have the possibility to go guns blazing (or katana slashing) but that means setting up your character accordingly - for example for close combat you should have mods that allow you to slow time and get close without getting hit. Scouting gigs prior to doing them actually is also quite important. And prepare for things not going always your way - that's the nature of Cyberpunk, people will double cross you (that's really not a spoiler..) and some gigs have nasty "surprises".


Grenades do have an indicator on screen, this one should mean "side step the hell out of there, now !". But again if you are having trouble against these, no need trying to go any further there is an "end boss" that will decimate you unless you side with the gang - and even so you better pack EMP grenades. If you dont like shooting, i suggest going the Netrunner way (intelligence stat) and hack everything, including your opponents cyberware, which you can damage pretty heavily that way

Thanks for the summation, Surefoot. That's a big relief after all the negativity I've seen over on the game's Steam forum page. Talk about toxic gamers. One of my all time favorite open world games is RDR2 in the sense that it totally pulls me into the world to the point where I happily spend hours upon hours just randomly noodling around enjoying the environment and little side activities such as hunting, camping and playing cards; how does Cyberpunk stack up in that regard? Is it similarly immersive from that environmental standpoint or is it more action-y?

@Juniper no, I wasn't joking at all. 2020 has arguably been the best year of my life and I can only hope the same for everyone else. I know that plenty of people don't feel the same, but I hope for the best for all my friends, neighbors and forum peeps))

 

[Surefoot]

Funny quite a few of these criticisms were levelled at Deus Ex in a similar way.
Some side quests are quite epic though (and there are a few of those chained ones). Also it seems that the AI has different levels of competence / aggressiveness as i've noticed differences in tactics between stupid gang members and trained Militech soldiers.

(...) the AI largely pounds you but the reverse isnt so true. Many of the AI will on hard knock you in 2 to 3 shots. The same cannot be said for you whatsoever(...)

Playing in hard mode too. You really have to think about your build, combos of cyberware and traits. Definitely cannot go "jack of all trades" there. The tabletop RPG was quite lethal too and this is in line with it. With a proper build i can pretty much one shot enemies or first overload them with quick hacks and then finish them off - i also noticed blades are overpowered to a certain degree you can make mince meat of them pretty quickly with a suitable build. Also the game doesnt level NPCs with you so beware of the indicator above them when you scan them.
I'll concede that there is zero hand-holding and the game will definitely not help you become efficient if you never played the RPG before. The trick is you can read the datashards you have by opening the main "inventory / journal / etc." menu, then scroll under "journal" and you have a lot of info on the game mechanics (and world) in there.

Thanks for the summation, Surefoot. That's a big relief after all the negativity I've seen over on the game's Steam forum page. Talk about toxic gamers. One of my all time favorite open world games is RDR2 in the sense that it totally pulls me into the world to the point where I happily spend hours upon hours just randomly noodling around enjoying the environment and little side activities such as hunting, camping and playing cards; how does Cyberpunk stack up in that regard? Is it similarly immersive from that environmental standpoint or is it more action-y?

Spent hours walking around the city, taking sights, looking at life here and there, though there are less "side activities" as there's no "Gwent" in that one (there are clandestine fist fights though). Lots of little side quests though, some can be talked through and have quite a bit of flavour. "Hunting" equivalent here would be shooting at gangs, there are a lot of "crime in progress" dotted around the map and you can drop in and have fun getting rid of these punks. Spent a lot of time watching TV too haha there's a lot of stupid and gratuitously offensive stuff on there, plus the nonstop news, and the really bad taste ads. Walking around the markets and talking to vendors makes you "feel being there".

 

[Revenant69]

16 hours in and I've hit level 13. Playing on Hard.

Time to be objective and give some thoughts especially on the negatives here.

I'm enjoying the game as a preface, to quote the very first post in the thread - is this the "end of gaming"? Sadly not, not by a long shot I feel.

- it's very "open world", yes I know that's always been the thing but it has that "homogenous" "samey" feeling I get from all open world games (aside from Witcher 3!) This is disappointing for me as after Witcher 3 I sort of hoped for better from CDP than a slightly better job over what say Ubisoft would do.

- Driving is at best an Ok experience, for game that placed alot on its wheeled experience it's so far a basic thing, no game has done driving round a city better than the original Mafia in any case. CDP havent failed here as such and its multi factor thing but it's not exciting me at all.

- Combat, whoa the big one, it's fairly crap really, the AI is largely as thick as I had hoped it wouldnt be. I had limited expectations of this from CDP, the AI largely pounds you but the reverse isnt so true. Many of the AI will on hard knock you in 2 to 3 shots. The same cannot be said for you whatsoever. Luckily (or sadly) the AI has the intelligence of a sprat and displays little to no creativity in taking you on. Many of the weapons give bonuses to certain damage but looking through them in the UI is painful and we go to
....

- The UI...which is truly uninspired and clunky to use. The game telegraphs a lot of information through the menus and UI and how much of it is actually useful or doing anything useful is anyone's guess.

- Looting...the whole place is very unsatisfying from a loot point of view, theres so much of everything nothing feels good to loot. I've picked up the gross national product of India in the form of Trousers and boots but very few stick out as items I'd think of keeping. This is a common problem with open world games. Everything goes into the recycler.

- Missions...thankfully this is one area that has received a little of the old CDP magic. But only just a little. The side missions which people seem to really like just havent lit me up that much. I've done maybe a dozen of them along with similar number of "gigs" and I'm pressed to remember any of them in any way. Theres certainly not the same quality here as we had in Witcher series.
The jobs come to you via the phone (often at worst possible times) and theres no agency to them other than this bloke or that bird want you to sort out their niff naff and trivia, it also doesn't seem to tall you what rewards to expect anywhere, which seem to be majority of the time money. The Car and Bike selling bits from the fixers over the phone borders on Spam also. Anyways I dont think we'll see side quests here with anything like the meat that Witcher 3 was able to put out there.

The little things...

• bugs, can get over them largely and some are entertaining.
• logic leaps in main missions where characters dont explain or acknowledge certain things that really they ought to. Difficult to explain this as I don't want to spoiler anything.

Anyway not an exhaustive list, trying to put this together while making chicken dinner I'm sure you guys will have seen or not seen the above and probably add to it better than I.

A bit meh sadly, a strong 7 game at the moment. Not the end of gaming.

Interesting analysis of the gameplay. Sounds pretty underwhelming, honestly. I was kind of surprised by the praise of TW3 open world, though, because I personally thought that world was extremely generic and boring, I can think of numerous games that are vastly superior in terms of interesting environmental design, namely the last few Assassin's Creed games, pretty much anything GTA and the granddaddy of them all RDR2

 

[Gully Foyle]

 

[Surefoot]

I'll expand a bit on the comparison with TW3 since that has been brought up. CDPR did re-use their quest system and it's in many ways similar, but IMHO there is a fundamental difference. In The Witcher series you were bound to play as the titular character, whose job and abilities were pretty much fixed from the story itself. I did do hundreds of side missions and there are all a blur indeed, as it's always "someone disappeared - Geralt uses his vision to find clues - kill the beast and bring back the trophy". Again with a few exceptions when you'd bust a drug distillery or some other criminal underground, Geralt pretty much has one MO which is going in, and fight.
In CP2077 you do have a lot more choices in the way you want to play the game as you can tackle these side quests the way you want. You can go stealth or wide open, guns or blades, or the netrunner way hacking your way into everything and creating chaos, or bypassing most of the security by opening back doors and such... Most of these are like puzzles for you to crack in many ways possible, even creating your own solution. That's why i compared it to Deus Ex (which was quite buggy at release by the way) as it's similar in its emergent gameplay.

Oh also if you are not familiar with the RPG franchise (or Shadowrun) - get acquainted with the setting first. Read up these shards. I mean it. There are a lot of important information in there, how the world operates, and it's quite a bit different from The Witcher or even RDR2 as it expects you to play it the "cyberpunk way". Meet your local Fixer, ask questions around on what's happening, go into these bars, go around the various vendors and ripperdocs to get an idea of the offering, and do not hesitate spending a lot of time fine tuning your character. Their characteristics are much more important than in Witcher series... I know the quest system and the map are immediately familiar, but V is no Geralt, and the game will be punitive if you go anywhere unprepared.

 

[EUS]

Reminds me of a Spongebob character.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Reminds me of a Spongebob character.

I was going to say powdered Toast Man from Ren and Stimpy

 

[EUS]

I was going to say powdered Toast Man from Ren and Stimpy

Yes that too!

 

[EUS]

Handsome Squidward.
Sorry for continuing this,but it was driving me nuts not being able to place it.

 

[Gully Foyle]

For the non Cogscenti

https://imgur.com/a/2gIdCc7

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/2gIdCc7

 

[askavir]

I've got to say the game truly blossoms once you start Act II. Feels like the entire Act I was just an intro. I've been getting huge sidequest chains that seem longer than some entire games , and the list of great characters keeps growing. Now it also finally makes sense why we can pick different backgrounds and how it links to the rest of the game. I'm also having much more fun now during missions, scoping things out, checking everything to make a plan then going for a mix of stealth (pistol with silencer is gold for stealth), blades for close combat and a long range rifle to land some remote headshots. The more I play this game, the more I'm starting to love it.

 

[CMDR Dizzy]

So, the game is really starting to annoy me now. Stuck trying to get out of a building, and my health is at half before I start (try and increase it with med packs / whatever and it says "I cannot do that now"). I mean, seriously? I can't use boosters during combat? Is this right?

I get as far as the third room, and then I'm dead. I have no idea who is shooting me, so after the twentieth time of trying I tried to just hide and let Jackie do all the work. They still found me and killed me. This is on so-called "Easy" mode. I have no idea how people play at higher skill levels.

I really suck at FPS games and am not likely to "git gud" any time soon. Going to have to wait for a trainer/cheat I think, just so I can continue to play.

I have had an issue with caps lock accidentally being set on and it locks me into scan mode which prevents among other things consumables (med packs) from being usable. Not sure if it is related to your issue or not.

The starting health packs are only 15% health and then 3% for 30 seconds. The Maxdoc MK.1 are instant 40% health with no heal over time and a MK 2 which does 60%. Looks likely that there is another level for Maxdoc but I haven't found any yet.

Hope you have managed to complete your mission.

 

[Juniper]

I have had an issue with caps lock accidentally being set on and it locks me into scan mode which prevents among other things consumables (med packs) from being usable. Not sure if it is related to your issue or not.

The starting health packs are only 15% health and then 3% for 30 seconds. The Maxdoc MK.1 are instant 40% health with no heal over time and a MK 2 which does 60%. Looks likely that there is another level for Maxdoc but I haven't found any yet.

Hope you have managed to complete your mission.

Cheers, I cheated.

Spoiler

Tried to rewind back to a previous save before the All Foods mission started, because I realised I hadn't taken the virus off the credit chip. So I did, but still had to fight my way out including some serious mechanised armoured folk, but at least I had the gang on my side. Still died constantly, so I used the trainer to get past it.

I'm now into Act II, and the trainer is turned off, and I'm avoiding the plot now until I get more tuned up.

 

[Jezzah]

I was probably a bit harsh earlier, playing to your strengths is definitely the way to play the game.
I almost always play a techie/stealth character in these sorts of games, that side of the game is very strong, lots of options and all that.
I love looking at my adversary first and figuring out what hes going to be vulnerable to...flames, electrical etc etc. Its really important I think to be doing the damage they are weak against.
What annoys me here and what I alluded to earlier is then going looking for a weapon in my inventory that I can use against them. There doesn't seem to be a quick way to filter them out for their damage types.

Maybe I just need to be a little less of a loot goblin and a bit lazy and maybe try to have a few weapons spec'd out at all times.

 

[askavir]

Small stuff people may not have noticed:

• The trunks on owned vehicles provide access to the same stash as in owned homes.
• Since the 1.04 patch headshots are now a thing. Makes using silencer on pistols much more useful, as the headshot bonus + the stealth bonus vastly overcomes the silencer penalty.
• Holding V allows selecting which of your vehicles is called.
• Blades not only make short work of enemies at close range, but they also hit all the targets in front of you, making them perfect tool to get out of a tight spot. They also don't need reload, so they're perfect for close range combat.
• Blunt weapons (like pipes etc) do not kill enemies, which makes them perfect for incapacitating npcs.
• Do not underestimate the effect of shutting down cameras when trying to breach a building.
• Do not underestimate the effect of dodging while running at that last enemy to kill him with a sword.
• Make liberal use of healing injectors whenever necessary, they are very abundant.
• You can "parkour". Not as excellent as the parkour in Dying Light, but hopping up those crates and over roofs and walls will give you excellent strategic advantages when initiating a firefight, or allow stealth access in and out of buildings, or allow you to ditch the police when you've aggro them.
• Pedestrian crossings have "stop signs" written on the ground. If you see a bunch of cars weirdly stopped it's likely because they're behind a pedestrian crossing and lights are green for pedestrians.

Feel free to add more stuff!

 

[Jezzah]

Can you add cars you've stolen to your collection?

 

[askavir]

Can you add cars you've stolen to your collection?

Sadly no...

Only the ones you buy, or are gifted with during missions.

 

[Surefoot]

• You can "parkour". Not as excellent as the parkour in Dying Light, but hopping up those crates and over roofs and walls will give you excellent strategic advantages when initiating a firefight, or allow stealth access in and out of buildings, or allow you to ditch the police when you've aggro them

I did that indeed quite a bit, in some areas you do have access to the roofs and there you can parkour your way across and get the drop, literally, on some of your enemies (with that stealth trait that allows takedowns while jumping down on someone). Also allows for good scouting, scanning, and pre-hacking your way through.

I'd add:

• Always scout gig location if you can. Or at least circle them, get a hold of every entrance and exit, vantage points, NPC patrols.. Tactical knowledge is key.
• Get that "junk to craft materials" trait, then you can vacuum places without burdening your inventory.
• You cannot keep any stolen vehicle, you do have to buy them the proper way for that.
• Act 1 is indeed the intro, just as that first area in Witcher 3, and the game does open up a lot after that. If you havent seen the title screen yet, you are still in Act 1.
• At least in hard mode, gunfire is really lethal, always seek cover, and only fire back from cover, and do not stay in place for too long or grenades will come. AI can be like those Half Life marines at times, rushing you while you reload... Indeed you can abuse those injector medpacks, they are plenty around.
• Ripperdocs all have different offerings, both in selection and quality.
• Some quick hacks are rather powerful (blinding cybereyes, locking up weapons, electric shocks, etc.) but you really need a strong cyberdeck and appropriate character traits - running effective 8 RAM slots is a minimum. A trait allows these quick hack attack to spread to nearest enemies, it's a must have for taking on better equipped gangs, if you are going the Netrunner way. Always start with a Breach and load them up like a christmas tree, it's the season.
• Katanas are really OP. Didnt get to try the Mantis Blades but i guess they are too. A build using these time warps when you dodge, along with everything tuned to quickly moving, dodging and regenerating stamina upon each kill would mean you can "clean up" places really in an effective manner. Way of speaking of course, given the amount of splatter you'd create. Not for the faint of heart or the calm and stealthy kind.
• Pack EMP. Grenades, electric quick hacks, electric shock weapons... keep some of that. Bots are killing machines, and corporate armies do have small mechs which are otherwise impervious to your attacks.
• No need to be a pack rat, use these drop locations to sell all your loot after each gig. Only keep whatever you need to use.

 

[Mole HD]

Another tip...be aware of enemy netrunners hammering you with overheat or other quick hacks via the security system even when you're in cover...the Ai do fight back like for like. Identify the network locations in each room with the ping quick hack, cameras and the like and disable or use them to your advantage before entering a proper firefight...take out netrunners as a priority.

Quick hacks like contagion among grouped enemies thins the ground, you can use it whilst undetected...set it off and retreat to cover or use it via taking control of a camera when scouting an area. You can buy some excellent quick hacks in one of the earliest missions...a gift from T-Bug where you get the ping quick hack. The seller there has a great selection of some of the most useful.

Use the short circuit quick hack on bots.

Upgrade your cyberdeck at a ripperdoc (Not Victor, he only has the one option) at the first opportunity. The one installed as default only has 2 slots and very little RAM. Upgrade your leg implants to enable double jumping at any ripperdoc..they're available even with low street cred...the arm implants will need a minimum of 11 street cred, Mantis blades you'll need 20.