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Post by Jambowayoh on Sept 23, 2024 15:43:34 GMT
Everything is OP if you want it to be in the game. I think it raises a good argument that more single player games should lean into stuff being OP. Fuck balance for the sake of nothing.
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 23, 2024 16:02:58 GMT
Yep in this being op is part of the fun.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 23, 2024 16:06:00 GMT
Just play on easy
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 23, 2024 16:30:08 GMT
Playing on easy would be very dull and also give no incentive to lvl up. Hard is only easy because I’ve levelled up and got good loot. I will still die in a few seconds if I just stand still and shoot on hard.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 23, 2024 16:32:39 GMT
BY no means did I mean OP in a negative sense.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 23, 2024 16:40:09 GMT
The incentive would be getting abilities that are fun to use
It was more about the comment of balancing for nothing. Having OP options is fine but so is wanting a challenge while still using the cool stuff
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Post by 😎 on Sept 23, 2024 16:46:45 GMT
Yeah, that's one of my criticisms, is that the only challenge comes in the first couple of hours when you're underlevelled. It's too easy to build a game breaking build, even accidentally. Which, agreed, can be fun, but when you've got the game on the hardest difficulty level and it's still like that, there's something not quite right.
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Post by Nitrous on Sept 23, 2024 18:05:04 GMT
Contagion+overheat is all you really need. That and overclock. Made quick work of getting the first mission done in the DLC today anyway.
I didn't bother quick hacking in my original playthrough but this time I have.
Stealth with a silenced pistol, quick hacks, AR and sniper rifle from Panam are my usual weapons of choice.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 23, 2024 18:27:49 GMT
I think the most fun I've had is a heavy body build, Gorilla Arms, Berserk with some shotguns and LMGs to switch things up. Though Katana and Sandy is fun too. Quickhacks are kinda fun and it's how I did my first and last run, but have to admit I find leaping around punching /slicing / blowing things up more fun.
Its all fun.
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Post by Mark1412 on Sept 23, 2024 21:08:02 GMT
I platinumed this the other day ending a second playthrough and miss it dearly. I leaned into being a slow-mo shotgun wielding dealer of grizzly death and while it was beyond easy, it was so much fun. More action games should have slow-motion.
Also, the LMG where it reloads on air dash and has 150 magazine and frankly, combined with slow motion for 9 seconds or whatever it was, that was on par with the big daddy cheat at the start of Age of Empires where the enemy was messing around with wooden clubs and you got a nuke-slinging Bugatti.
Oh, and bullet-deflecting samurai swords. Game is so cool.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 23, 2024 21:25:13 GMT
There was a period around the 2000s when every game had bullet time. I think there was a film or something around then that might have featured it I think having roads to being super powerful is fine (and good) but rather than just getting stronger, it's nice to have paths that lead to specialisation, giving you lots of interesting tools to make use of. Think of how progress works in an RTS. Your units don't get stronger as you progress through the game, you just get a greater variety of them and by having more options, you can become strong by using them effectively. Balancing doesn't necessarily mean making things weak, but having a trade off or making you have to think about how you use something I think regardless of where you take your character in Cyberpunk, if you're working your way up the skill trees, you'll eventually become godlike. It's not a huge problem, the game is still tonnes of fun and it's not really a game I'm necessarily playing for the challenge. Though I'm not familiar with the source material for Cyberpunk, like Vampire the Masquerade, I get the impression you're suppose to be another cog in the machine, muddling through at the mercy of much bigger forces. I think VtM Bloodlines was similar to Cyberpunk where you feel that at the start of the game but quickly become very powerful, to the point of basically being a super hero. That's quite possibly a concession to it being a video game
Cyberpunk does do it quite well through it's story and interactions, but you kind of know if it kicks off, there's nothing you can't handle
Still though, as much as power fantasies are fun, I think there is merit in balancing a game to keep you in your place while still letting you explore all the options
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Post by 😎 on Sept 23, 2024 23:16:40 GMT
The original RPG is radically different in most aspects and setting so it’s not worth the comparison, although I would say one place they really could have leaned in is cyberpsychosis. That you can constantly swap out cyberware with no penalty to humanity is kind of incongruous, even if it is vaguely handwaved with “oh, Johnny Silverhand is already a cyberpsycho so he absorbed all the effects for you”
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 23, 2024 23:24:24 GMT
Cyberpsychosis is a big thing, also now I think of it it's not super effective game mechanic with Humanity and Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines.
I don't think the table top combat scales in quite the same way (but yknow you have a DM to make it a fucking challenge anyway). But the general gist of how the books are written is that any proper runner should go down in a massive blaze of glory nuking Arasaka Plaza, or bring down the president or something. Yknow Punk as fuck. So they nailed that bit of the scaling at least.
Sort of like if you actually manage to keep a D&D campaign going to level 20 you will inevitably punch a god in the face.
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Post by dfunked on Sept 24, 2024 6:53:51 GMT
Everything is OP if you want it to be in the game. I think it raises a good argument that more single player games should lean into stuff being OP. Fuck balance for the sake of nothing. One of my biggest gripes with modern gaming is when OP stuff in single player games gets nerfed straight away. Buff everything else instead you boring bastards! Power fantasy > chipping away at a massive health bar. This game was a great example of how to do it right.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 24, 2024 7:06:47 GMT
I will actually concede that the game maybe isn't as challenging as it could be. But the power fantasy is pretty important to me, and it's not always easy to balance that with providing a challenge.
I certainly don't want a punishing From Software level of difficulty. There's a reason why I don't even bother playing their games, as good and as revered as they are, because I know I'd get annoyed, then bored, and never finish the bloody things.
Probably stems from feeling utterly powerless in real life so I want accessible escapism. I want to feel powerful and feel my enemies are insects before me.
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Aunty Treats
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Post by Aunty Treats on Sept 24, 2024 9:06:01 GMT
I want to feel powerful and feel my enemies are insects before me. That's what it's like for me in real life. Must be why I like games to be challenging
Doom Eternal is the best example I can think of as a recent game that is challenging but still makes you feel incredibly powerful. It's about... balance
You can totally be OP in From's games by the way
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2024 9:47:08 GMT
As quite a bit of the gameplay day to day is basically immersive sim in quality. It seems the thing to do is just make the player more squishy.
You still need to do instant kills so making the baddies spongy would be awful. Just make it like Dishonored where you can do a fighty build but there's no real tank option for just taking shots to the face repeatedly.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 24, 2024 10:25:53 GMT
There might be a way to balance things by making tanky build less mobile.
Or, you can be tanky and agile but at the expense of humanity/empathy (based on my very vague understanding of the the TTRPG)
Maybe this could limit non-combat options. Or maybe even lead to cyberpsychosis but how you would handle this in a videogame is tricky. Maybe seeing swarms or enemies but then coming too and having a realisation that they were just civilians. That might get old though.
I'm just going into wishlist-for-sequel territory now, but it would be cool if there were meaningful options that allowed you to be a fully borged out Smasher-type, but at the severe expense of humanity.
Or even be a pretty much fully organic, maybe even using external old-school cyberdecks, which would keep humanity high but at the expense of combat durability. With the most balanced route being somewhere between the two.
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 24, 2024 10:58:37 GMT
So... err... I'm the only one that struggled with some of the combat encounters then...
Actually, mostly it was fine and most of the problems I ran into where not keeping my cyberware up to date and I think I undervalued cyberware in general. Not sure if it was an effect of the big changes that happened with the game, but I found the various different upgrades not to be very well explained. For cyberware, I think they could have included more obvious milestones that would encourage you to go visit a ripperdoc. Normally, I would completely forgot for a dozen or so hours and then go and blow all my money on topping things up, often with a focus on armour or health as I regularly felt squishy, so didn't get to play as much with the exciting stuff.
Most of time I was fine, but there were a couple of fights that really felt like I was underpowered. One that really stands out was the final battle of the DLC, which must have taken about a dozen attempts, as I was constantly dying in about three or four hits and had zero cover to work with. Boss battles were mostly a struggle too. The final boss of the main game actually glitched for me, with Smasher getting stuck in a loop, so I was able to finish him easily, but otherwise it would have been a nightmare as my weapons were barely scratching him.
Having said that, when I was about halfway through the game, it definitely felt like the upgrade system could allow for plenty of opportunities to become OP, not just one path to doing so. I don't think you necessarily just stumble into them, but the upgrade system did make me think this is a rare open world game that I actually could see myself replaying to play around with different builds.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 24, 2024 11:16:07 GMT
You can easily make a build that isn't OP by missing a few key bits or not realising how some things can synergise (which aren't always apparent!)
My first V was not OP at all as I hadn't invested anything in Body. Body is incredibly useful. That and Tech are pretty essential for every "OP" build imo - maybe not needing the full 20 points but 12 or 15 easily.
I've had multiple playthroughs, with beer different builds and play styles. It's very diverse.
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 24, 2024 11:24:57 GMT
Interesting. Cool and Reflexes were the ones I focused on. Maybe a little Intelligence.
Technical was perhaps the one that I put the least into, followed by Body (only put points in that towards the end when I felt I really needed more health).
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2024 11:38:31 GMT
I didn't use Tech or Body at all and ended up kinda OP. As I could stealth and even cloak, then unleash a hell of a lot of damage with a katana suddenly before diving for cover. By the end I could just move so quickly I could basically Matrix my way through the fuckers.
Along with a lot of instant hacking. E.g. that sniper isn't getting hacked to commit suicide while I deal with all the goons right in front of me with a sword etc.
I enjoyed it a lot.
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Post by drhickman1983 on Sept 24, 2024 11:41:26 GMT
Body increases HP, but the tree improves healing quite a bit, and Tech improves health items and License to Chrome let's you increase cyberware capacity and improves armor, so it's very useful anf can massively increase survivability.
Reflexes is a solid choice though, the dash and air dash can be amazing, especially when joined with the physics defying double-jump legs.
Next time I go back though I might try not using those builds, force me into a different playstyle.
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 24, 2024 12:53:43 GMT
Got a lovely hack now where they commit suicide. That’s normal but usually it cost 12+ ram depending on enemy but the one I just installed it reduces ram cost by 12 if I just performed a melee execution, which with my build is pretty easy. So I can now throwing knife then execute and get a free suicide on the next enemy. If the knife kills them with a crit I instantly get the knife back anyway so can kill again immediately if I didn’t get the execution. Just got access to the dlc so now I can buy the katana that goes with the knife.
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 25, 2024 21:13:00 GMT
Holy shit bucket the chimera robot boss fight in the dlc was hardcore as my ninja build. I am pretty sure last time I could just rip off the heavy sentry guns and made quick work of it but this stealth build it was painful. At least ten attempts. Epic though.
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Post by Nitrous on Sept 25, 2024 21:31:28 GMT
Holy shit bucket the chimera robot boss fight in the dlc was hardcore as my ninja build. I am pretty sure last time I could just rip off the heavy sentry guns and made quick work of it but this stealth build it was painful. At least ten attempts. Epic though. Did this today, (netrunner/stealth build) used the Silverhand pistol to blast its weak points and then used overclock to spam the short circuit quickhack at the drones that came in to fix it. Found the core (eventually) and then noticed some auto turrets on the ceiling that I assume I could have used the assistance hack on? I wont know now though and I'm not about to do that again to find out. Suspect they wouldn't last anyway.
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crashV👀d👀
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Sept 25, 2024 22:01:44 GMT
I didnt realise that core be turned into something until very late in the game.
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 26, 2024 12:51:18 GMT
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Post by peacemaker on Sept 26, 2024 12:53:48 GMT
Holy shit bucket the chimera robot boss fight in the dlc was hardcore as my ninja build. I am pretty sure last time I could just rip off the heavy sentry guns and made quick work of it but this stealth build it was painful. At least ten attempts. Epic though. Did this today, (netrunner/stealth build) used the Silverhand pistol to blast its weak points and then used overclock to spam the short circuit quickhack at the drones that came in to fix it. Found the core (eventually) and then noticed some auto turrets on the ceiling that I assume I could have used the assistance hack on? I wont know now though and I'm not about to do that again to find out. Suspect they wouldn't last anyway. I’m not that far into the main game so didn’t have silver hands epic gun yet. I saw the turrets mid battle and it wouldn’t let me hack them.
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Post by rhaegyr on Sept 26, 2024 13:00:43 GMT
I'm not sure how far into Phantom Liberty I am but I've just got the blueprints for the Black Sapphire and I'm finding the whole expansion a little boring - have I not got to the really good bits yet?
It seems quite heavy on story/dialogue but the characters aren't really that interesting and I find myself not really giving a shit about Songbird's situation or any of the characters involved.
Maybe my expectations were too high after Heart of Stone and Blood & Wine or I'm just a little burnt out on the game as a whole.
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