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Narrowmind has Cyberpunk 2077

Mar 2, 2024 @ 5:35am

Immersion

What would you rate immersion for you, 1-10?

Any other details would be welcome.

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Originally posted by Xengre:

Maybe 5-6 out of 10.

First, lets address the obvious point. Graphics are good but, at least imo, their relevance even on a RTX 4090 fade extremely fast after the first 1-2 hours. At that point I almost never even thought about graphics, as in at all.

Some of the story missions and side missions are immersive and kind of well done if not at times very linear/lengthy. Most missions, however, are not remotely immersive tbh.

The world, itself, when exploring doesn't really seem that immersive. It has a ton of details and NPCs, etc., but aside from the occasional cop crime scene or shoot out it feels too detached. NPCs don't do much aside from walk/stand around and most areas even at max settings don't have many NPCs which may not seem the case initially but certain locations in the city have easily 5-7x the number of NPCs you will find elsewhere and it feels much more authentic (like the area you make the trade for the Spellbook mission and a spot in Phantom Liberty DLC). The environment, itself, is detailed but not really utilized, either and often level design is kind of basic despite the details. Aside from a few missions I've not been impressed with the level design and optional routes, but those few were pretty nice which only makes me disdain the rest even more.

There is limited options in how you can interact with NPCs that actually matter beyond flavor text. You will rarely be able to meaningfully influence NPC interactions to get different results aside from some rare minor dumb body/intelligence checks (yes, you are reading that right the other stats are almost worthless in chat) or if you started corpo/nomad/streetkid (also very rarely makes a difference). There are only an extremely tiny select few quests that have different implications inter-quest due to prior actions in other quests as most completely standalone totally isolated from anything you've ever done.

Text messages are done in a way to appear rather realistic/immersive with dialogue behaviors and the delay texting, but they also are kind of obnoxious tbh.

There is a limited amount of interaction with the world such as buildings you can access, environmental actions like destruction, and the stuff you can hack is actually considerably limited in this game which is very sad. Hacking is powerful but they should have been more creative. Watch Dogs makes this game's hacking look bad, and I thought Watch Dogs did a poor job, too, which should tell you how I feel about it.

Many of the fixer interactions and overall quest chains just don't feel immersive or make sense. Like Regina... kind of a psycho and hypocrite. Further, some of them are very immersive breaking because of their details like Regina wanting you to merely "knock out" Cyberpsychos and after all that work you get a pair of pants for one of the most demanding questlines in the game. Cyberpsycho events, themselves, feel like they are setup to be really epic but they're too localized from the rest of the world and we don't see involvement of police, pedestrians, gangs, etc. during those missions actively... Only the after effects of the crime scene upon arrival. Those cyberpsychos never move from their location, either. Just a bunch of minor points that detract from the immersion.

Driving feels both a mix of good and bad. Overall, it feels extremely pointless to drive aside for the very lucrative NPCD missions that spawn and, of course, unlocking initial fast travel points. Due to traffic flow it also feels a little obnoxious (navigating it is not bad, but you will kind of get the idea driving why it doesn't feel as nice as something like some of the prior GTA games). Further, car handling makes an attempt to feel realistic but feels just atrocious in this game in reality, especially making driving from point A to be B far more inconvenient. This becomes extremely obvious when you get the hidden Murk car which is the fastest car in the game but has incredible steering that makes you (even ignoring its speed benefits) hate to drive any other car in the game ever again. It is obvious they didn't find the right balance for driving. Exploration, itself, is also problematic if you don't get the double jump or at least long jump cyberware because exploration and access to routes becomes so exceedingly restricted if you don't get these.

It does some good stuff but it also does a lot of not so good stuff that just kind of does not mesh well so immersion factor isn't the best but isn't bad. The game has VR mod that might also dramatically improve it but you need a very powerful PC and even with a RTX 4090 you have to have the resolution so high (unless you have a very low resolution VR headset) that the rest of your settings have to be very very low otherwise you wont get proper performance or will get double ghosting vision issues... Still, VR could potentially dramatically crank up immersion factor in the game. I haven't explored it further until I finish the last bit of my playthrough and then my give VR another run as initial experience was kind of poor on my RTX 4090 while I was still so early in trying to learn the game and it just came off jarring.

There are some locations that are done extremely well though most aren't given much effort by comparison. One example is a facility for people with mental issues that is tied to an a darker set of themes involving corruption and various atrocities. The place is quite small really but so well designed, based on online comments, it succeeds in often eliciting rage from players who tell stories of how they normally play the game non-lethal/stealth but turn that one location into a bloodbath after witnessing the things they do. Or quest chains like River's, the police officer, which come off way more authentic and natural than others. Unfortunately, the story attempts to paint an excessively dark broken city with its mission results / questlines to the extent it feels so forced it becomes near totally artificial feeling. This ranges from smaller quest outcomes and lore to basically every single ending in the game (a known problem, with the DLC trying to make it even more f'd up). This is due to an obvious desire to elicit emotion from the player but they end up overdoing it and destroying the balance.

The handling of Johnny as a construct of the mind appearing only visible to you is one of the stronger immersive elements handled very well. Meanwhile, voice acting of V and some other characters is so atrocious it makes the incident with Resident Evil 4 Remake's Ada Wong feel inoffensive by comparison... Or how dumb some of V's decisions and logic can be at times.

Missions are often heavily scripted in certain ways to reduce freedom and immersion, too, such as globally alerting the AI despite stealth success on what would have otherwise been some of the more interesting missions... or breaking quest chains for doing certain things. Quest dialogue not matching the results of actions achieved during quest... Characters dying no matter what even if you stop them from being attacked... or immortal characters and vehicles for "quest story purposes". So on. Worse is some of these weren't like this before but were restrictively repeatedly patched reducing options and making the missions far more rigid.

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Showing 1-15 of 39 comments

Protoman

Mar 2, 2024 @ 5:36am

6.
Pros: people having a seizure in the curb, lots of pretty lights and ads.
Cons: guns, gangoons, trash everywhere (even inside apartments).

Last edited by Protoman; Mar 2, 2024 @ 5:38am

Pickle

Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:03am

I turned off most HUD elements, except for map and ammo counter, the gun fights feels pretty great! I like not knowing what their health is at

Found myself walking a lot too, soaking in the environment. The city really feels alive,

The forced First Person (except for in cars) is also a great contributor to the immersion.
Sometimes the AI drivers will take you out of it, they still seem to be a wee bit buggy

The story and characters are the best part, though.

8/10 from me, anyway.

WLion

Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:17am

I haven't been able to get into the game myself. Something to do with the cinematic after the beginning where your character is gliding along in a T-pose while every other character is animating normally.

Narrowmind has Cyberpunk 2077

Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:17am

Sweet, thanks guys.

Narrowmind has Cyberpunk 2077

Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:24am

Originally posted by WLion:
I haven't been able to get into the game myself. Something to do with the cinematic after the beginning where your character is gliding along in a T-pose while every other character is animating normally.

There are still bugs like this after 3 years?... or were you an early player?

Jouchebag

Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:30am

Originally posted by Narrowmind:
Originally posted by WLion:
I haven't been able to get into the game myself. Something to do with the cinematic after the beginning where your character is gliding along in a T-pose while every other character is animating normally.
There are still bugs like this after 3 years?... or were you an early player?

I haven't seen anyone T-pose in v2.0+ in like a hundred hours.

I have seen other rare oddities, but it's not common like it was on release.

This is the most noticeable visual bug I've ran into on my most recent 2.11/12 run:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3171675078
And I figure this guy was hittin' switches and got stuck. It happens even to the best Cholos.

Last edited by Jouchebag; Mar 2, 2024 @ 6:38am

Narrowmind has Cyberpunk 2077

Mar 2, 2024 @ 7:18am

All interesting. Thanks a lot.

EJR

Mar 2, 2024 @ 8:11am

I give it a 8/10 at the least. Exploring Night City is one of my best experiences in modern gaming, exploring a cyberpunk city riddled with crime then driving out in the vast countryside of the Badlands is a pretty nice feeling.

Coming across some random encounters like gangs or random dudes chilling out, overhearing NPCs conversations, etc makes NC feel alive and I never tire of it. And the stuff they added later, particularly the monorail and enemy factions hunting you down, makes the city feel more alive and dynamic. Were they necessary? No, but they make Night City more believable as an actual city than just a game location/map.

Originally posted by you:
Hmm. No, I'm going to take some points off your assessment. It is actually a 6/10. Let me explain for the OP. So OP, in this game you have many buildings you can't enter like Mac N Cheezus among many others, you can't sit on the furniture scattered throughout NC, You can't have companions follow you around, you can't interact with the world like many npcs do around you such as working out etc, you can't customize your car like the nomad intro and claire likes to do, you dont need to eat/sleep or drink. All in all the game has some immersive qualities. But it lacks allot. Most can be fixed with mods tho.

I see your arguments but I strongly disagree.

What reason is there to explore every building, house, and apartment? Who just leaves their front door open? Why would I want companions following me around when I'm just a merc doing gigs across NC? You can interact with NPCs, they just shoo you away like normal people do unless your old buddes or have business with them. The requirement to eat or drink are Survival game mechanics and should stay that way unless the RPG calls for mechanics like that, which they rarely do.

Really the only points you said that have any standing is interacting with furniture and car customization, both of which aren't exactly necessary. Can you add them with mods? Yes, but they don't really add much to immersion in the grand scheme of things.

EricHVela

Mar 2, 2024 @ 8:30am

Nothing gets me more than a 5 at best and 1 usually as normal. CP'77 falls as 1, but there's a reason for that.

I can't put myself into a game even in first person. It's a story written by others in which I'm choosing to which page to turn. (CYOA they were called back in the day.) V is not me. No video game protagonists are me.

The character is a scripted thing in a scripted video game with hard-limit video game rules. So far, I am unable to bridge that separation, but I think that kind of separation is healthy.

I like the video game. It's a pretty video game. It's a fun video game. Its immersion level to me is no different than Pac-Man, though.

Maybe that's why I can never seem to get invested in any video game romances. Visualized charts and graphs of formulae that're supposed to represent a realistic character experiencing love and/or sex? I don't see it. I see polygons and someone else's dialog triggered by a button press.

It's fine that people can invest themselves in a video game as long as it's at a healthy level. I couldn't make any claims what's unhealthy, though. I only know that too much of anything is unhealthy but not what the measure of "too much" is for each individual person.

I do like the stories and intricacies of lore and following the knots and twists to their conclusions, but it stays there as fiction. I'll invest time to find those paths as a fun pastime.

Last edited by EricHVela; Mar 2, 2024 @ 8:31am

EJR

Mar 2, 2024 @ 9:05am

Originally posted by you:
Originally posted by EJR:
I give it a 8/10 at the least. Exploring Night City is one of my best experiences in modern gaming, exploring a cyberpunk city riddled with crime then driving out in the vast countryside of the Badlands is a pretty nice feeling.

Coming across some random encounters like gangs or random dudes chilling out, overhearing NPCs conversations, etc makes NC feel alive and I never tire of it. And the stuff they added later, particularly the monorail and enemy factions hunting you down, makes the city feel more alive and dynamic. Were they necessary? No, but they make Night City more believable as an actual city than just a game location/map.

I see your arguments but I strongly disagree.

What reason is there to explore every building, house, and apartment? Who just leaves their front door open? Why would I want companions following me around when I'm just a merc doing gigs across NC? You can interact with NPCs, they just shoo you away like normal people do unless your old buddes or have business with them. The requirement to eat or drink are Survival game mechanics and should stay that way unless the RPG calls for mechanics like that, which they rarely do.

Really the only points you said that have any standing is interacting with furniture and car customization, both of which aren't exactly necessary. Can you add them with mods? Yes, but they don't really add much to immersion in the grand scheme of things.

Most of my taste comes from Skyrim. For me, that game was so impactful it has set my standards. Things such as survival mechanics and being able to enter a bunch of buildings, being able to use furniture as well as having companions. It all adds up to a more immersive experience. There used to not be a high need for car customization. But now that you can actually enter races, it would be so much more immersive to be able to tune your car and what not to really bring that racing culture to life.

Then I suggest broadening your horizons more when it comes to RPGs, and I mean this in the most polite and least criticizing way possible. Not every RPG will be like Skyrim and it shouldn't, it is great to follow a formula but games also need to create their own signature than forge an already existing one; if Cyberpunk were like Skyrim then we'd be getting loading screens every time we walk through a door. I don't see how furniture is needed to enhance immersion, and companions only being with you on certain quests in Cyberpunk is IMO the best way to do companions in RPGs. But after hearing your reasoning with car races I do agree with you now, I still say they're not required but it would be nice.

#10

76561198856165040 has Cyberpunk 2077

Mar 2, 2024 @ 9:29am

Originally posted by EJR:
Originally posted by you:

Most of my taste comes from Skyrim. For me, that game was so impactful it has set my standards. Things such as survival mechanics and being able to enter a bunch of buildings, being able to use furniture as well as having companions. It all adds up to a more immersive experience. There used to not be a high need for car customization. But now that you can actually enter races, it would be so much more immersive to be able to tune your car and what not to really bring that racing culture to life.
Then I suggest broadening your horizons more when it comes to RPGs, and I mean this in the most polite and least criticizing way possible. Not every RPG will be like Skyrim and it shouldn't, it is great to follow a formula but games also need to create their own signature than forge an already existing one; if Cyberpunk were like Skyrim then we'd be getting loading screens every time we walk through a door. I don't see how furniture is needed to enhance immersion, and companions only being with you on certain quests in Cyberpunk is IMO the best way to do companions in RPGs. But after hearing your reasoning with car races I do agree with you now, I still say they're not required but it would be nice.

Thank you. It is something I need to work on admittedly. It has been hard to enjoy games as of late because I expect certain aspects of success stories to be carried over to a bunch of other games. A good example, is expecting Black Desert Online levels of character creation in games that came out after Black Desert Online with character creation. Of course such a mindset sours my acceptance of many games.
When it comes to companions,
I just like to have the company, so I don't feel so alone in NC. For furniture, it is nice to just stop playing for a while and sit down in Night City. It lets me just immerse, relax and take in the view/sounds etc. As for car races there is a mod called car modification shop that let's you tune your car. It hasn't been updated in a while last time I checked tho.

#11

ast

Mar 2, 2024 @ 9:49am

9/10
one of the most immersive games I've played.
I always like to visit NC again and immerse myself in its atmosphere, stories and characters.

#12

Jouchebag

Mar 2, 2024 @ 3:17pm

Originally posted by you:
Most of my taste comes from Skyrim. For me, that game was so impactful it has set my standards. Things such as survival mechanics and being able to enter a bunch of buildings, being able to use furniture as well as having companions. It all adds up to a more immersive experience. There used to not be a high need for car customization. But now that you can actually enter races, it would be so much more immersive to be able to tune your car and what not to really bring that racing culture to life.

Skyrim had no survival mechanics until it was modded in and later a Creation Club paid DLC. It can also be modded into Cyberpunk.

Skyrim has like 7-10 buildings per town... even including all the dungeon interiors I'm pretty sure there's just as much interior space you can go inside of in Night City. Skyrim also uses a system of rehashed resources that lets them make 20 "different" dungeons using the same pieces that have different layouts but look basically the same. CP77 seems to go to great lengths to make unique, detailed interiors.

Companions in Skyrim are a neat feature, but Bethesda's writing for companions is horrible. They're more pet than companion. Often referred to as "followers" because "companion" means friendship that you can't have with a character that has no backstory or conviction for being with the main character. They can also get in the way (many interiors are small, many caves are narrow) or cripple stealth play in non-immersive ways.

I can respect the love for Skyrim, but I really don't think you see the difference in attention to detail.

Last edited by Jouchebag; Mar 2, 2024 @ 3:54pm

#13

★REM★

Mar 2, 2024 @ 3:26pm

Originally posted by Narrowmind:
Originally posted by WLion:
I haven't been able to get into the game myself. Something to do with the cinematic after the beginning where your character is gliding along in a T-pose while every other character is animating normally.
There are still bugs like this after 3 years?... or were you an early player?

no there's not, that's a "him" situation.
In my family we play this game in three, on three different system with three different steam accounts, none of us ever seen bugs like this.

#14