Cyberpunk 2078

[Relic]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Honestly, the toughest encounter in the game for me has historically been

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Going after Nash and the Raffen Shiv with Panam. Something about the way they're spread out and the obstacles in the way has, variously, made it easy to get pinned down (first run as stealth pistol) or chewed up by fire when awkwardly trying to get close (both of my last runs).

I took three or four tries before I managed, whereas I did the Chimera in one shot. Obviously, I was higher.level and much better geared by that point, so that makes a difference.

 

I'm playing on the second hardest difficulty, so probably why I was able to do that fight on my second try. I sprinted up to take out the sniper, and then defended the high ground. I randomly run into packs of enemies that take me out at close range cuz im always trying to katana stuff, but otherwise find the game to be pretty easy. Maybe i should play on the hardest setting. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Honestly, the toughest encounter in the game for me has historically been

  Reveal hidden contents

Going after Nash and the Raffen Shiv with Panam. Something about the way they're spread out and the obstacles in the way has, variously, made it easy to get pinned down (first run as stealth pistol) or chewed up by fire when awkwardly trying to get close (both of my last runs).

I took three or four tries before I managed, whereas I did the Chimera in one shot. Obviously, I was higher.level and much better geared by that point, so that makes a difference.

 

Yeah it took me 2 tries as well thanks to the huge nos of enemies,sniper and that pesky netrunner. I’ve found Panam missions on average to be tougher than the main quest with many more opponents to fight/sneak past. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Kalbear]

My thoughts so far after playing quite a bit with the release and doing nothing with PL yet (just got to the part where I could start it if I want to but am going to go scuba diving with Judy first):

Previously the game felt beautiful, big and broad but the minute-to-minute gameplay was fairly repetitive and dull with the build I had: ping things, see everyone through walls, and either disintegrate them with tech weapons or knock them all out via cyberattacks. None of the encounters - including the secret ending one - were particularly hard and there was no value in doing combat repeatedly, as nothing dropped worth a damn, experience wasn't particularly important and I had plenty of cash. Especially once you get out of the levels and nothing scaled - everything was just there to die almost instantly.

All of that has been fixed and made incredibly better for me. To the point where I actively look for things to go fight, because the fights are just fun. 

• Netrunning is no longer as ridiculously powerful as it was, especially since you can't just hit people through walls with iconic Ping. Still super useful and occasionally amazingly powerful (especially for hitting bosses/psychos) but not the breeze that they were.
• The cyberware system and how it scales with level (but if you want you can upgrade things if you have the components) means a constant increase in power that feels rewarding and fun, and the ware really make a big difference in gameplay and build. Having a limit on how much you can do is also a great mechanic, especially once you start getting David laughing maniacally from time to time in your head.
• Scaling enemies means that it's always going to have some level of challenge for me. Not usually incredibly hard, but I can't often just do whatever I want and futz around without any fear. 
• Crafting and drops means that there's always value in grabbing those guns and other components, at least until everything is fully maxed out and upgraded. And always value in killing more stuff, always value in exploring. Even if you're not interested in playing dressup using crafting to decompose iconic-level items is worth it.
• Getting more perks, bonuses and other things based on how you want to play is awesome and encourages both depth of gameplay and breadth of gameplay. 
• The other combat systems are even more fun. The focus/tech sniping is very rewarding and feels great, using a tech bolt shotgun is very satisfying, even punching things is fun. Sneaking is also really great, though it takes way longer so I don't do it as often - but pulling off a pure sneak is sweet as hell.
• Changing the health and grenade system to be a number of charges works very well in both reducing the management you have to do and giving you a lot of options, as well as improving those via perks.
• And that gets to the perks. The perks are almost all just sweet game changing things that make a massive difference, with enough amounts of perk points to give you a lot of flexibility in doing things but not being able to do everything. 

It feels in a lot of ways a lot more like an action RPG (like Diablo or Destiny) than a 'pure' RPG, and the result is just awesome for me.

 

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, IlyaP said:

By contrast, we had Morrowind, where every door could theoretically be opened, and had something behind it. I really would have liked to be able to go into buildings and explore them in greater detail, but I can appreciate how much extra work that would involve, and how it would blow up the install size as well, and offer nothing more than busy work for players. But it would have been cool to have, to know that there's something there. 

Morrowind was absolutely tiny in comparison, though, and later Bethesda games have very much moved away from that. Most of Boston in Fallout 4 was unusable, I think less than 10% of the buildings could be entered.

8 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Yeah the setting, ahh okay I’ll take a pass… this franchise would be great in graphic novels as well 

There's already a bunch: You Have My Word, Trauma Team, Blackout, Big City Dreams, Your Voice and Where's Johnny.

The video game is also based on the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG game, which is currently on its fourth edition, called Cyberpunk Red (the previous versions were Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk v3.0).

[Ran]

There's also Ten of Swords, which is basically a Phantom Liberty prequel that concludes with the cinematic trailer events featuring Solomon Reed and Songbird.

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, IlyaP said:

*Blink*

*Blink*

110...attempts...

I just...what.

Clearly I've missed out on nothing annoying whatsoever by avoiding souls-likes on the recommendation of my friends, who know how impatient I can get.

I always thought the same when I saw people talking up the difficulty of the dark souls games. I'd even tried Demon Souls and bounced off it hard without making any progress because of a lack of muscle memory with controllers. 

Then Elden Ring looked gorgeous, had a back story written by GRRM, and I decided to give it a go. Really struggled at the start and almost gave up with how bad I was and the lack of direction the game tells you, but once I got the fundamentals of combat down it was enjoyable and clear progress as I improved.

I think the main difference was the discussion around the games always talked up the difficulty as suffering but for the most part it wasn't. It's rewarding. The bosses are like puzzles and you've just got to find the solution that works for you and get used to it. Ended up sinking more than 500 hours into it, playing the Demon Souls remake, Dark Souls 1 and started Bloodborne before my ps5 went out of action. I'd say Elden Ring is definitely the one to start with, the beautiful zones are much more pleasant and there's a lot of QOL/UI enhancements that aren't in the earlier games.

Also to be clear - Malenia is an outlier. She's the hardest boss in the game with a move that's the most complex to dodge and very damaging to the fight if you get hit. Most of the others took a fraction of that time and even the other hard ones took a lot less than her.

[Ran]

Did the Temperance ending, by way of Don't Fear the Reaper. That was very satisfying -- and it was still a bit hard (a knockdown nearly killed me before I could get back up to heal, and then at one point a jump led me to be stuck in the geometry for a bit and I got knocked to 0 but Second Heart kicked in and getting up resolved the issue).

Now just need the Devil, and I'll have everything except SUperhero Landing down. I discovered that the reason my earlier attempt didn't work was tht apparently taking Quake leads to a bug where superhero landings are considered Quake attacks. So will probably reroll, do a Body-focused build, and leave off quake until after I go ahead and get that achievement. (I mean to cheese it -- non-lethal knock out baddies, pile them on top of one another, and let the landing kill them; this apparently works, or so I've read.)

I've never 100% a game before.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Ran

[Relic]

Whelp, ran into Matilda K. Rose and got my poop pushed in. Like, i couldn't even get her dwn under 75%. Her health regen was insane, and 2 hits from her took all my health. Not sure wtf is up with that fight, but i opted to steal her hammer and sneak past her instead. Didnt feel great, but not sure if im undergeared or something cuz that fight seemed impossible. 

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Relic said:

Whelp, ran into Matilda K. Rose and got my poop pushed in. Like, i couldn't even get her dwn under 75%. Her health regen was insane, and 2 hits from her took all my health. Not sure wtf is up with that fight, but i opted to steal her hammer and sneak past her instead. Didnt feel great, but not sure if im undergeared or something cuz that fight seemed impossible. 

If you could sneak to steal her hammer, sneak behind her and takedown -- the crystal cyberware that you rip off is the source of her Regen. Alternatively, target it in the fight first, to break it. Should be easier then.

[Ran]

Interesting story about CDPR using voice cloning in the game, so as to "keep" the Polish voice for Viktor Vektor after the original voice actor, Miłogost Reczek, passed away. They got permission from the family and hired another voice actor to give the performance, than used voice cloning to make the voice match.

I made another run at the superhero landing achievement... but I think the perk that sends out EMP pulses whenever you activate cyberwear is now over-riding the superhero landing the same way Quake did. So yet again have to roll back, re-do the perks and stats and cyberwear, and give it another try.

[karaddin]

It might also just be buggy, it was beforehand. Using it on already knocked out enemies didn't work at the time I tried it either, it took a bunch of tries against a scanner hustles in Northside where I could jump off a building for good height and used the poison grenade to get them low first. Scaling would make that even harder.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

It might also just be buggy, it was beforehand. Using it on already knocked out enemies didn't work at the time I tried it either, it took a bunch of tries against a scanner hustles in Northside where I could jump off a building for good height and used the poison grenade to get them low first. Scaling would make that even harder.

Just got it after much hair-pulling. I did not realize that my iconic Militech Berserk does not have the superhero landing capability. That would explain a lot. Bought a cheap something or other that did list it in its abilities, and cheesed it by setting difficulty to easy, and got it on my first try.

[karaddin]

13 minutes ago, Ran said:

Just got it after much hair-pulling. I did not realize that my iconic Militech Berserk does not have the superhero landing capability. That would explain a lot. Bought a cheap something or other that did list it in its abilities, and cheesed it by setting difficulty to easy, and got it on my first try.

Glad to hear they made it more doable then, it wasn't the good kind of challenging.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Guys should I crank up the difficulty to Hard? Been playing on normal and I’m around level 33 now and everything is pretty easy to deal with, just started PL and the chimera fight also wasn’t much of a challenge. Although me specialising in Precision Rifles and Pistols certainly helped.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Kalbear]

Hard is..well, it's not very hard if you're proficient at first person shooters. Very hard is quite an increase in difficulty though.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

21 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Hard is..well, it's not very hard if you're proficient at first person shooters. Very hard is quite an increase in difficulty though.

Got it, I think I’ll go up to hard in that case, I’m just waiting to build up my mantis blade perks a bit as right now they aren’t practical in a fight against multiple ranged enemies.

I’ve heard Mantis Blade and melee isn’t really viable unless you use Sandvistan Cyberware but I’m just having too much fun with quick hacks to give up on them.

Btw getting the double jumping and air dash perk REALLY opens up the world to much more exploration and difficult to reach places , would’ve done it a lot sooner had I known.can’t ever go back the sluggish movement of the past.

The PL story is good so far but the combat seems geared towards a gun build over melee/stealth so far.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

This video makes me so glad that I paid 35 USD for Cyberpunk + PL, and not 60 USD for the base Starfield game.

 

Unless I see a dramatic evolution, I’m done playing new  Bethesda Games. Can’t ever go back to this shit.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[karaddin]

There's one contrasting the main part of the pick up with a similar meeting in Starfield that I have to assume isn't the strongest scene in the game, but the comparison isn't flattering lol.

[IlyaP]

32 minutes ago, karaddin said:

There's one contrasting the main part of the pick up with a similar meeting in Starfield that I have to assume isn't the strongest scene in the game, but the comparison isn't flattering lol.

Also why compare two *completely* different games? No matter what you do, you're going to end up with one or the other looking less than flattering based on the skewed criteria used to judge both. Seems like a rather wasteful use of one's time, comparing apples and oranges, when they're just two different things that appeal to two different types of people. 

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

This video makes me so glad that I paid 35 USD for Cyberpunk + PL, and not 60 USD for the base Starfield game.

 

Unless I see a dramatic evolution, I’m done playing new  Bethesda Games. Can’t ever go back to this shit.

Patrick K. Mills would like to remind you that this is a really pointless exercise in comparing two completely different things. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/cyberpunk-2077-developer-defends-bethesdas-work-on-starfield-they-are-just-doing-something-different-with-their-time-and-thats-cool/