C2077 Is it playable?

Cyberpunk 2077
I spent some time playing CP the last couple days to test v1.5

The overall experience seems significantly smoother than I remember. I hadn't played since v1.1 though, so it's obviously had a lot of tweaking since then. I started a new game with the Corpo background and have played almost to the end of Act 1.

The most obvious difference, to me, is the AI of random NPCs. I accidentally tossed a grenade in the plaza near Misty's shop, and the reactions took me by surprise. CDPR wasn't kidding about overhauling the NPC AI. People don't just stand around anymore like nothing is happening or crouch in place with their hands on their head.

Everyone in the area immediately scattered, and I started running for fear of reprisal. I found myself in a herd of people trying to escape the area while cops converged on it, and we were still running on the next block. It was a vastly different experience from anything I saw in my original playthrough and felt a lot more real.

I'm also noticing less glitching with NPCs and the environment, although it still exists. I've been treated to things like this…

FE6BC9215B4F39F61F57B1AEA1C6C09023F2DDE9


on more than one occasion already which is disappointing. At least it seems to be less frequent than it was before.

As for the loot overhaul they promised, it's hard to tell. I haven't done much exploring outside of the main questline, but there does seem to be slightly less stuff lying around. I haven't come across any weapons yet other than inside quest areas or dropped from dead NPCs. There are still too many healing items scattered about though imo.

Combat AI seems about the same as I remember it. The patch notes mention that being improved as well, but so far I haven't seen anything I hadn't seen before.

They're definitely making progress. I've had enough fun just testing it that I wish I had time to do a full replay right now.
 
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Combat AI is vastly improved - and I've tested it quite extensively. Enemies now take cover wisely - and rush you when it's more appropriate. They react much better to what's happening around them, including when spotting dead bodies. They're much more aggressive - but also a lot more cautious when they can't find you.

It's literally night and day when it comes to balance and challenge - though I'm sure you can still find powerful builds that trivialize combat, but it's MUCH harder on "Very Hard" now. As in, it's an actual challenge at least for the first several hours.

That said, there's a VRAM bug present in 1.5 right now - which means if you run at max settings in 4K (or less if you have less VRAM) - it will eventually bog down severely in terms of FPS once you exceed VRAM capacity.

This happens mostly due to UI interaction - because the UI takes up a LOT of VRAM.

I expect it to be fixed soon, though - as a ton of people are reporting it.
 
Maybe it's due to not having played it in a year, but I certainly don't remember the combat being vastly different. Enemies took cover, threw grenades, etc, in v1.1.

In fact, I can say for certain it's not that different. In the few random fights with street gangs I've had so far, they still walk around objects looking for me, and I can just sit there and wait until they round a corner before I begin blasting them. Once that happens, they just stand there and return fire rather than dodging back behind cover.

I do seem to notice an improvement in combat animations though, and the various gangs supposedly use tactics differently from one another now, although I haven't fought enough of them yet to see that.
 
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Sounds like some big steps have been taken to make this better. A few more updates and it might be time for me to pony up some dinero and check it out. The glitch adjustments alone are very encouraging.
 
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In fact, I can say for certain it's not that different. In the few random fights with street gangs I've had so far, they still walk around objects looking for me, and I can just sit there and wait until they round a corner before I begin blasting them. Once that happens, they just stand there and return fire rather than dodging back behind cover.

I wonder what it means if we both feel two different ways about the same thing with certainty? ;)

I'll compromise and call it "markedly improved" rather than vastly - as I'm such a nice guy.

Now, I've never gotten that far into the game - but I HAVE spent around 30+ hours (36 hrs and 19 mins according to GoG) over the various patches - and about the only thing I've ever done is test AI, balance and mechanics.

That's because those were my personal biggest issues with the game, and I've refused to touch the "core story" until it was in a state I can accept - or from which a modded version would be passable for what this game promises to be for me.

I don't really see it as a "GTA RPG" - but much more like an open world Deus Ex - which was always a dream game of mine. There's no way I'll spoil that opportunity by playing a broken version of it.

While I fully agree that things like the police system and lack of immersion features were laughably inadequate at launch - they're things I can personally deal with, if the actual content is there. Well, as long as the game has good core gameplay - which, for me, requires decent balance/AI and mechanics.

Anyway, for specifics - these are among the more notable differences for AI:

1. Enemies now have (more) distinct behaviors. For instance, snipers now always seem to stay hidden and they're MUCH better at hitting you - even through obstacles. Enemies with close range guns will now close the distance consistently - like with shotguns.

2. Enemies are now MUCH more cautious when they can't get to you without big risk. Meaning, if you're peeking out behind a wall - they won't just rush you when you're spotted. They will stay behind and shoot you quite successfully when you pop out. Eventually - they WILL come to you - but they won't just rush to their death like lemmings.

3. If they spot a body - they're much faster to react and become suspicious than before.

4. Once you're spotted or a dead body is noticed - they're ALL aggressive or suspicious almost immediately (well, for the most part certainly). Before, it would frequently only be SOME of the enemies reacting appropriately.

5. Dodging enemies (with that cyberware thingy that blurs them out) are MUCH MUCH harder to hit. In fact, I've had fights where I simply could not hit them and had to resort to other measures. That was never the case before.

6. Netrunners are MUCH more consistent when hacking you. That's hardly as a surprise - as they finally fixed the "PC is hacked" bug that prevented them from being a threat - as that status would stick and you couldn't be hacked again :)

Those are off the top of my head.

Going by the official patch notes - that seems to line up rather well with their own stated changes - but I obviously can't guarentee that these things will be the case in every single fight - or that every single fight in the past worked differently.

Again, this is based on my personal experience with around 30 hours of specifically testing precisely these things.

Also, beyond the AI changes - enemies now deal MUCH more damage on Very Hard (which is definitely my recommended difficulty setting) - so any mistake you make in combat will be felt much more now. I consider that a good thing.

I should also note that all my tests with all patches have been on Very Hard difficulty. I don't really know about AI behavior on lower difficulties - but I do know there are SOME differences, specifically related to stealth gameplay.

Beyond that, if anyone is planning to play this soon - and you enjoy a meaningful challenge (obviously, this game will never be properly challenging across the board - as CDPR wouldn't know game mechanics if their lives depended on it) - but you can get enough resistance to have fun for quite a while - PLEASE consider using this single mod:

https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2932

That's about the only mod you really need now for a decent experience on Very Hard.
 
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I'll compromise and call it "markedly improved" rather than vastly - as I'm such a nice guy.

Sounds good ;). I don't agree with all of those examples, but I also don't think it's worth debating about. Fwiw, I'm up to 176 total hours played at this point.

I do agree that the AI in general has been improved a lot.

What are your thoughts on the loot system? Do you think they did enough for it to actually be considered "overhauled"? It seems like they did reduced the amount of loot somewhat, but it's not as big of a change as I was hoping for.
 
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Sounds good ;). I don't agree with all of those examples, but I also don't think it's worth debating about. Fwiw, I'm up to 176 total hours played at this point.

I do agree that the AI in general has been improved a lot.

What are your thoughts on the loot system? Do you think they did enough for it to actually be considered "overhauled"? It seems like they did reduced the amount of loot somewhat, but it's not as big of a change as I was hoping for.

I haven't tested the loot system very extensively in 1.5.

I have noticed there's less superfluous crap lying around - but that was never really my issue with the loot.

My issues with the loot would be:

1. Atrociously ugly and intrusive loot icons that you couldn't turn off in a smart way.

2. WAY too many healing/ammo items lying around (we're talking worse than Outer Worlds here).

3. Incredibly annoying and inconsistent loot interaction.

Now, I will say that 1.5 seems to have improved the interaction bit. I've yet to encounter an item I couldn't pick up.

But the icons remain terrible - and I have to use mods to get the immersion to a reasonable state. But I can deal with that - as I'm ok with mods.

My biggest problem is with the economy. I prefer a game where I have to be strategic about my resources. I DO NOT like having infinite ammo and healing items from the very beginning of the game - especially not on the hardest difficulty.

What makes it even worse is that you can just spam healing during combat - meaning you'll never actually be in danger if you're behind cover - unless they one-shot you.

Thankfully, there's that mod I linked above - that takes care of the worst of it.

There's also a loot mod that can reduce certain items - but it's not really easy to configure to my liking. That would probably require a complete economy redesign - and I'm not seeing CDPR doing anything like that.
 
I definitely agree with #2.

I can't say I was ever bothered by the loot icons. I do find the icons that pop up when you get within a certain distance to places, like a shop for example, to be quite annoying though. The range at which those show is a lot further than the loot icons. I wish they would just show on the map and not in the game world, and I'm surprised there's not an option to turn them off.

I've still experienced the inconsistent loot interaction too, and that's another thing where I'm really surprised it still exists at this point. I mean when several items are in close proximity to each other and it's sometimes difficult to grab the one you want.

For example, in V's apartment there are some items near the radio on the table when you first arrive there. The radio is on by default, and I wanted to turn it off. However, I couldn't turn it off without first picking up a bottle of water and a vodka that were near it because, no matter what I did with the camera, it would highlight one of those items instead of letting me interact with the radio.

Hopefully things like that will finally be fixed by the time I get around to doing a full replay.
 
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I'm a little sensitive to things like icon clutter - but that's because I'm trying to be as immersed as possible in a game like this.

I much prefer games like Skyrim or FO4 - where you're picking up the actual items in the world (unless they're in a chest/whatever) - and you don't see icons in the actual world for them.

But at least CP is an improvement over Witcher 3 in that way - because now you can see weapons dropped from enemies, if nothing else.

Thankfully, there's a good mod (Limited HUD) - which alleviates the icon issue for the most part. Loot icons are only visible when scanning - or whatever your custom settings.

Sad to hear there's still issues with the interaction. Yeah, it's sort of a mystery why that is.

I don't think I've had that particular issue in other open world games. PB/Beth games are usually quite easy when it comes to interacting or picking shit up.
 
love these glitches :lol:
 

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