Cyberpunk 2077: Nearly Three Weeks Later [Limited/Minor Spoilers Only Please]

[Krud]

So this question is for those who haven't finished the game but have been playing it for a couple weeks (which is where I am currently.) Are you enjoying it more or less than when you started? Are you burned out on it at all? Have you run into any game-breaking glitches where you had to just stop? I'm curious.

I've reached a point where my Street Cred is over 40 and my character level is around 30, with only 30% of the main quest(s) completed. I don't remember how many hours in I am, but currently my main quest is having me wait, while most of my remaining side quests are either pointless* car purchases or totally unrelated gigs. Outside of missions that demand it, I haven't fired a gun once. (Okay, that's not true, I once went full guns blazing on an early Big Bad in the prologue that I didn't seem to have an option to stealth past due to some dialogue choices I'd made earlier.)

Right now my stealth combined with my cybernetic legs allows me to go just about anywhere I want, and it seems most NPC's didn't get the memo about verticality, so I'm doing a lot of Death** From Above, which feels rather OP. I'm not finding a lot of middle ground in fights, I either wipe the floors with them or they one-shot me.

(* - I currently own four or five vehicles, none of which I purchased. I see no need to buy one so far.)
(** - Or rather knockout from above, though I'm not convinced the game always notices or cares whether I take someone out lethally or non-lethally. I'd been aiming for non-lethal just to see if it makes a difference at all like in Dishonored.)

I haven't played it in a couple of days, but I'm in no real hurry to get back into it. It seems like after playing through most of the main NPC's side quests they want nothing to do with you, and any subsequent dialogue is generic. And other than the main questline, it seems any curated/staged interactions are mostly used up, leaving just the generic NPC's who have nothing to say and seem generally unfazed that I'm sprinting down the road like Roadrunner and leaping onto buildings just because I can. It's like I'm daring the game to break on me at this point. I know there's at least one more side NPC (based on a romance guide article I saw), and perhaps more in the latter two thirds of the main quest, so hopefully that will pick up again soon. But otherwise I've got that same sense of aimlessness that I once experienced in the first Watch Dogs midway through that game.

So I guess my secondary question is, for those who are further in, does it get better? Is this just a lull in the plot and things pick up steam again? (Minor spoiler for context of progress: I'm currently waiting for a parade.)

 

[DXCHASE]

Steam is telling me i have 33.7 hours in the game but honestly i feel like its been longer. That time is going to be split now that i have a quest 2 to use, which is amazing, but thats a different story.

I went the opposite way than you, stealth, to me, is really bland in this game and it just breaks the pace of the game. I am at level 20 with my street cred about 25 or so. I've built up smg/assault/pistol dmg along with other shooting perks like, doing more dmg behind cover. The game seems to be more fun to play this way, if i was to stay stealth, id get bored.

This doesnt mean that i dont do stealth, i do and i find that even without building much up in stealth (outside of being able to move faster) its not hard to sneak up and break necks or even hide the bodies,using stealth is where i see the biggest weaknesses in the AI.

As far as bugs? I wish i could show you the gallery i have of pics of random glitching or the video of where im hitting an offramp in a bike and it stops me in mid air and i fall down while my bike sits 20-30 feet in the air. Nothing game breaking, i have a good a laugh with all my little bugs and glitches, this is why i also save often.

Overall i like the game but its certainly not a GOTY for me. Also, i feel that the character Keanu Reeves played should have been played by someone else.I love Keanu just as much as everyone else, but they couldve had someone else for this role, but i like trying to be johnnys friend.

 

[nikku23]

I completed the game a few days back. I am someone who focused on side missions and gigs for a while before getting back and finished the main quests. After finishing the main story, there is no real point in continuing with that play through, unless you have some achievements to complete or just want to complete or do something and continue in the world with a levelled character. My suggestion is to finish as much of side activities and every side quests (not gigs) before going past the point of return (game will let you know that) in main quest.

The gigs & NCPD hustles are mostly just a way for you to level up, maximize street creds, earn money & weapons crafting components. If you don't want them or got bored you can avoid them without any issues. I enjoyed most of them and left a few for my next playthrough. I tried different kind of methods for different gigs of similar manner. Like I tried stealth once, then assault next, then sniping & hacking and so on. It also helps in levelling up those skills.

Same for the cars. They are there for a style/variety factor I guess and for achievements. I haven't bought any of the cars until just before the point of no return, just for achievements and also there wasn't much else to do with all the eddies I have.

Side quests are something else I would say. They are much more closer to the lore of the game and are much more enjoyable and can have minor effects in how the game ends. Some of the side quests, in my opinion are as good as the main story, if not better. Panam's quest line for example. Also, some of those side quests can affect the endings and some epilogue dialogues. I will say finish as many side quests as you could so that you'll get that extra options when the ending comes. Please note that some side quests only shows up when you progressed enough in the main quest. So if no side quests are in your journal, finish 1 or 2 main quests.

Regarding bugs, I faced a few, but didn't break the game for me. Some serious ones were resolved in later patches or used work arounds. I have mentioned those in my review here in this forum. I have marked spoilers, so if you really want, you can have a look.

My guess about the game is how enjoyable the game is story or gameplay wise depends on the person and their expectations. I really liked the game, story and gameplay despite it lacking some features I expected. But I don't expect everyone to feel the same. I understand if someone doesn't like something about the game I liked or didn't care about. So just try to drop the expectations and try to enjoy, you may like it. or not...

 

[Krud]

I went the opposite way than you, stealth, to me, is really bland in this game and it just breaks the pace of the game.[/QUOTE}

I can understand someone thinking it's bland, but I found it challenging at first. I liked trying to see if I could, for instance, take out an entire mall of Animals without any of them seeing me. In those rare instances where it seems impossible (usually in a wide open well-lit area where a bunch of people are clumped together looking in multiple directions), the subsequent combat feels generic to me. Maybe not "bland", but not anything that makes me go "Yes! This is why I'm playing this game!"

Also, i feel that the character Keanu Reeves played should have been played by someone else.I love Keanu just as much as everyone else, but they couldve had someone else for this role, but i like trying to be johnnys friend.

Same. I like him, but I almost never forget it's Keanu Reeves. Once in a great while my brain just thinks of him as Johnny Silverhand, but then he'll say a line in a tone that is 100% Keanu-esque, and the immersion is broken. Would've benefitted from an unknown. But I imagine his involvement sold a lot of copies for CDPR.

 

[Frindis]

I'm lvl 29, got 50 street cred, 27% of the story completed, and 60 hours of playtime. Playing on hard difficulty and my character is basically a stealthy pistol/revolver shooting character with less cyberware. I'm quite squishy as I have almost nothing in Body, but with a good modded pistol I one-shot most enemies, especially while using the slow down ability. The lovely sound when you headshot someone in slow-mo is just so god damn satisfying!

Bugs? Yes, plenty of them, and thankfully my rapid saving has helped me avoid some really nasty ones where I would have had to start a long story sequence over again. The game is not perfect, but I am still having fun. I'm taking my sweet ass time with the main story and looking at what @nikku23 said, that seems to be wise. Some of the side stories have so far been a real treat and I am looking forward to seeing how they will affect the main story. The gigs have also been quite nice since they let you visit some closed areas and they do not take much time to complete.

 

[Krud]

The game is not perfect, but I am still having fun. I'm taking my sweet ass time with the main story and looking at what @nikku23 said, that seems to be wise. Some of the side stories have so far been a real treat and I am looking forward to seeing how they will affect the main story. The gigs have also been quite nice since they let you visit some closed areas and they do not take much time to complete.

I feel the same way. Granted, it helped that I had a major expectation overhaul before I started playing. I now look at it as mostly an FPS with some stealth and RPG elements. It's not what I was hoping for, but neither has it been as awful as I feared it would be based on reviews and videos. (I think PC gamers have avoided most of the hassles.)

My only real issue still is the AI. Only the scripted quests feel "real", the rest is that generic GTA/Skyrim vibe. I almost wish they had reduced the crowd size and beefed up each NPC's AI, but I understand why the feeling of a crowd mattered more to them at the time. Also, let's be honest, how often do we interact with large crowds and random people in real life? It's not as though we have a lot of firsthand knowledge of how that'd go down, and if the people standing behind newscasters is any indication, a lot of random bystanders act about as dumb as generic NPC's. I also wish my romantic interest in the game had more post-quest interactions (though maybe that will come later in the main questline, I don't know.)

 

[Frindis]

[...] and if the people standing behind newscasters is any indication, a lot of random bystanders act about as dumb as generic NPC's.

The glitching part of them is what annoys me from time to time. Sometimes they are embedded into the asphalt or you only see half the body when they are walking down/up the stairs. The part of them running around screaming and hiding in strange places I feel is a lot of the time hit and miss. The part of a whole crowd running away because you bumped into one person with your body is just stupid and frankly shows how unpolished the game is. The part when they actually do run or hide is not to far fetched from a real-life scenario. People often tend to do exactly what the other guy in front of them is doing in these scenarios, which is also why often people can walk past a person in the need of help because all the other people are doing it also. While we are not as crowd focused as a big herd following the leader straight down a cliffside, we are not exactly well adapted to coping with high stress and thinking as an individual. This takes an extreme amount of time and practice and thankfully why we have the military, police, ambulance workers who can cope with similar situations.

Oh, just to give a little example of how horrible some people can be at dealing with a scenario they are not used to: I watched a video some days ago where a person had a motor stop or similar on the highway and decided the best cause of action was to use his car jack as a warning sign. What happened next is that a car crashed into it, swirled into another car that fell several meters down from the highway. All thanks to a person having absolutely no clue how to handle the situation.

I also wish my romantic interest in the game had more post-quest interactions (though maybe that will come later in the main questline, I don't know.)

I hope so too and not just about how it can shape the ending. I do like the few messages you get from time to time as it kind of feels like you are in a relationship. It is not particularly in-depth, but at least it is something. I also hope there will be some more romantic engagements with them as it would be pretty strange if you could only have sex/cuddle just that one time and never again. Then again, maybe that makes it easier to get into more relationships since it was just that one time.