This game is still in alpha.
I don’t know why people are being so defensive. We were looking forward to a great game and were mislead.
I’m personally just gonna hold off on playing anymore until they actually finish the game.
Probably cause the experiences differ wildly between people. I'm over 20 hours in, had one relevant bug (couldn't use my weapons anymore, which I found a workaround for), love the story (mainly the side quests so far, since I haven't done much of the main story by now), the world and having a blast with the game.
One is completely broken to the point where I can’t complete the quest because Johnny isn’t spawning.
And on top of that the Game crashes at least once per hour.
I do expect A LOT more when paying 70€ on a game. No, not RTX, but at least >20fps. The game is constantly hitching every N seconds.
Plus the PR was all about that stunning AI but it’s not there at all. Just compare the 48min E3 demo with actual gameplay.
You mean this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogihi-OewPQ
This is probably the first game that didn't get a downgrade visually, but got an upgrade.
Not sure what else do you mean by E3 demo.
>Plus the PR was all about that stunning AI but it’s not there at all. Just compare the 48min E3 demo with actual gameplay.
He's talking about the AI that got a downgrade, not the visuals.
He is talking about E3 gameplay demo, so I showed one. I would gladly see the one that showed AI downgrade.
Doom 2016, e3 vs release: https://i.imgur.com/I5mWucM.jpeg
Most of the time these are part of the open-world genre leading to lots of fun, like weird ragdoll physics. Tho they can be kind of a deal-breaker when they happen during scenes that are supposed to have an emotional impact.
Like when a character you are supposed to care for is about to die, and their gun suddenly flies inside their head to get stuck there, while the drama keeps playing out regardless of how absurd it look.
I had to literally lol at that, but it really took me out of the moment/the mood the scene was actually going for.
I only dive into a couple games a year (RDR2 last year), so I'm not going to waste my time until it's stable. I just want to buy the game, take a few days off of work, and immerse myself. If I want to debug things or deal with glitches, I can just go back to work.
Did anyone think it would come out polished? The repeated delays were already hinting that the CDPR was in trouble and couldn't cope with the workload. When they finally committed to a deadline to release in December, it seemed more out of desperation to appease the impatient public than an indication that they were nearly done with finishing the game.
So they released it in, as you said, its buggy alpha state. At least I trust CDPR to do right by its players and see the game to completion.
Still, since they are taking pre-orders, and since they had an announced date at the time they sold those pre-orders, delaying by more than half a year your part of a contract is not normally acceptable conduct. It's understandable and not at all abnormal that people who did pre-order were asking for their money's worth.
They have to fix the game, in 3 months they have to discount the game already, and if they are really unlucky the game is forgotten this time next year.
If they had nailed it, they would be sitting on literal gold, also for their next launch.
1) This game is not up to par. It's not as advertised, and for some of the most standardized systems (consoles), it doesn't even work. That's really bad on CDPR. False advertising is unacceptable to some.
2) This surprised nobody. Acting surprised is like being surprised you big mac doesn't look like the marketing materials. That's on the people pre-ordering and buying day of. If I bought it today, having seen all the reception, that's on me. Some people are extending "that's on you" that to pre-orderers.
3) It seems to work as well as any other AAA launch day game for players with certain setups. Some people see their footage or have that experience and think others are just being unrealistic expecting the big mac from the ad.
Personally, I feel like it's a friend complaining about getting scammed on craigslist after ignoring everyone telling them to do due diligence to make sure it's what you expect. Like, that really sucks and fuck scammers, but this was easily preventable, so I'm going to roll my eyes a little.
I played Watch Dogs Legion the other day. They don't even come close to comparing in terms of quality. Legion has functional AI and maybe a glitch every 2-3 hours (but I've had zero of them be game breaking, they're mostly geometry of physics related). Cyberpunk has weird things happening around every corner, sometimes quest breaking, sometimes visually hilarious, always showing the lack of polish.
Plus, I played a number of AAA games unpatched recently and none of them were as bad as this game. This really is quite something else.
I've noticed many faults of the game (crappy driving AI, cowering citizen AI instead of running away, etc), and I agree that this is much more similar to Deus Ex (e.g., mankind divided) or the witcher than GTA.
However, I haven't seen any game breaking bugs. I once saw my weapon glitch and be invisible .... until I changed weapons. I'm sure they exist, but I am having so much fun playing the game (even with potato graphics from a 4 year old card). I have hardly touched the plot, as I haven't even gotten to the events that were completely spoiled by the game's trailers, but I still feel like I'm exploring a living city.
I made this mistake with Witcher 3 and got bored. Didn't even see Yennefer or Ciri on my first two attempts, spent most my time looking for a grandma's lost frying pan and shit.
But for CP2077 I remembered that this is a CDPR game. Go on and dive into the main plot, that opens up a ton of new stuff and super-interesting characters.
The game is unbelievably awesome when it works.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work/play well.
I have crashes every 30-45min. Glitches are so commonplace it’s clearly beta quality at best.
I’ve gotten to the point where I know to have the best chance to actually play a mission I need to get to the right location (use waypoints since driving crashes the game), find the NPC for the mission, open dialogue and start a mission, ensure the mission has started (usually when the monologue starts from the NPC), close the game, reopen the game, and start playing the mission. After a mission, expect a crash.
It got old really fast having the game crash during a mission and being forced to play the same mission over and over even if it did help me find better loot.
Was missing Judy's dialog during the ripperdoc mission, other stuff is mostly just graphical glitches, nothing game breaking.
But as a fan of the "stealth archer" the stealth system is annoying, silenced weapons aren't actually silenced. Any shot will alert EVERYONE and they'll never calm down again, they'll even mysteriously know the gender of my character even if they never saw a glimpse of me :D
This is especially jarring for the few missions which are supposed to be "recon only" or "stealth only", where clearly getting noticed should be a mission failure. You sneak around for a long time and then you get noticed. No way to go back to stealth, so it's just a long sigh and out comes the shotgun ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just hope CDPR did not bet the farm on this thing. If so GoG will go with it.
Game companies can't win dealing with amnesiac/bipolar consumers.
The gaming community sucks, full stop. I'm part of several reddit communities for various games and in a majority of the cases those subreddits are a swamp, full of anger and bitterness. The more competitive a game is, or the more the game tries to monetize itself, the uglier the scene. It really is bad.
Years ago I worked close to one of Rockstar's studios. Sometimes I'd overhear RS employees talking over lunch, and more than once that chatting was them complaining about the toxicity they have to deal with.
A great case study is Final Fantasy 14 VS World of Warcraft. 2 pretty similar MMOs, vastly different communities. If you dig a little, it's immediately visible that the difference is not coming from game design, but from explicit community management and standards of conduct. The FF14 mods police the community with an iron fist, and are very explicit about what kind of behavior is toxic and off-limits - and the results are visible whether you play the game or look at the reddit.
Most companies though just don't want to invest in that, even to the minimum extent of setting clear guidelines and enforcing them when violations reported.
False advertising only works because consumers are buying games based on promises made in advertisements instead of based on the quality of the game that is actually released.
Sure CDP hyped the game up. But they're fools for believing it. How often do things ever live up to the hype, especially in business?
Hmm, maybe this backlash is naive kids learning how to be jaded.
However: people are getting refunds. In countries with consumer protection laws, it looks like there is little downside to buying in to the hype, if you can get your money back. This may eventually teach companies to rein it in a little.