Beat the Brat is busted as hell (spoilers I guess)

[ULTRA]

It's easy to believe that this is just a janky but ignorable quest after fighting the bot, the twins, Cesar, and even Buck. Then you get to Rhino and you can't ignore the truth anymore. They obviously intended this to be a bullfight boss, and yet the mechanic isn't working. The bounding boxes are inflated as ♥♥♥♥, the boss has literally tens of thousands of HP (about 4 times as much as any other non-boss NPC in the entire city including actual tanks), and does well over 1,000 damage per punch.

It gets even worse at Razor Hughes, who can magically break stunlock and who fights you in a ring that's about 2 dodges wide. Of course, he has more HP and does more damage than any other character in the game, as you might have expected after Rhino. Mysteriously, they don't remove the folding chairs during the fight like any rational human would, which allows you to push Hughes up on top of his corner and crouch below every single one of his attacks while you spam him to death with knee punches.

After you beat him, you walk away with no one saying anything to you. The mission goes into the completed section and you wait for a reward. And wait.

And wait.

The fighting ring quest is worse than it was in even the Witcher 3, which was the third such questline in a series of terrible fistfight questlines.

Now being a 92 year old man, I have played plenty of first person melee games with crappy collision. One could say, practically all of them. The Stone Golem's backhand in Hexen 2. The Black Guards and Vampire Knights with their magical flurry attacks in Dark Messiah. Enemies stabbing through enemies in Mount & Blade. Bandit chiefs 2-handing you from 10 feet away in Skyrim. Having to do parabolic math to get your wrench to line up in System Shock 2.

The difference between all these games and Cyberpunk 2077?

You didn't have to rely on exploits to make the fights work. You could still dodge, you could use another technique, you could adapt to the collision problems. In Hexen 2 you could leave a glyph of the ancients and backpedal. In Dark Messiah, you could throw something, use an ice scroll on the floor, line up enemies against a cliff, dozens of options. In Mount & Blade you could retreat or use a weapon with longer reach. In Skyrim you could sneak around or shield bash to interrupt. In System Shock 2 you could avoid enemies altogether and just run, on top of dozens of other attack options.

I honestly have probably not seen a worse fistfighting mechanic in a game that actually has one since, like, the Witcher 1. Even that silly thing in Death Stranding was better.

I leave you with this, a Youtube montage of a similar questline from Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a first person imm-sim-lite from 16 years ago, before the Witcher 1 even came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PpQDl8y73c

[ACG_Godman]

amen brother

[Dee]

see, this is what reviews should look like. educated and to the point. thanks!

[Duskguy]

I gave up after the twins. Tried Coronado or w/e where you could bet for his sniper rifle, and I had him to half HP before he could attack back. Once my stamina went flat and I backed up to regen, he 2 shot me. Strong attacks couldn't stun or interrupt him once he started fighting.

Also, is it bad that I remember playing the chronicles of Riddick and had no idea it was 16 years ago? Feels like yesterday.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Anarchist Jurisdictor:

Now being a 92 year old man,

Would be nice to see a proof of that....
--------
That aside.

There are more fights after Razor Hughes, and only Razor is seriously messed up.

Most bosses can be defeated using following tactic:

• Spam strong punch to stunlock them. (becomes necessary when fighting Razor, pretty much, before that it is optional)
  
• If you see a strong attack coming, run away from it. It has dark souls 2 hitbox and cannot be interrupted.
  
• Grab perks that give you regeneration of stamina and health and can stun enemies.

One annoying thing about Razor was the damn MUSIC in the area and having to sit through Vik's speech.

[Seva]

It gets worse when you use the slowtime cybernetics. You can basically run around strong punching them from behind without getting hit. The only time you die is from boredom.

[Edifier]

Note that this is a RPG. A game with stats and levels. If the enemy is too high level they'll destroy you. Without the right skills and stats invested into melee you won't be good at it.

Invest points and modification to melee and you'll be whooping their ass.

[ULTRA]

No lol, I was level 48 with over 600 hp, 1400 armor, 10 body with about 8 points into brawling, and fully modded legendary gorilla arms before even touching consumables and the enemies were still ridiculous sponges

Originally posted by Doom:

Originally posted by Anarchist Jurisdictor:

There are more fights after Razor Hughes, and only Razor is seriously messed up.

OK? How come the mission is sitting completed in my journal and the coach says nothing whether I talk to him in person or call him then? Is there seriously more of this line after the point where the game explicitly says "you won't be able to complete anymore side content so get it out of the way now?"

I'm not 92, I'm just old enough to have played every game inspiring every mechanic and quest in this game.

[VulcanLogic]

Funny story with these quests.

I beat the twins, and the army dude after them. Then I got a message from Fred saying I was in the final bout.

Beat the last guy, after restarting quite a few times and got the trophy for doing all the fights too.

Last night I'm driving around and get another text for a fight. Lol. It skipped at least one fight and sent me to the final, let me complete the quest line achievement wise, and then said I had another fight.

[SV_Mallet]

I managed to beat everyone fairly except rhino (though I was at level 30 at time with a body of 15). Eventually there is a bypass to rhino fight. There is a gig of killing someone in that facility .Accept it, go in before the fight, find him and kill him loudly. Everybody jumps you, and you shoot them with some power weapons, including Rhino. After that you exit the facility, the gig is completed and then a text from coach that he knows they are crazy (or something similar) and that's ok, you passed.
Also for the beatdown of army guy, wager your money first, beat him, then you get a text to watch out for him in the street. Start insulting him by comparing his sniper rifle to his small penis. Once he and his minions will attack, kill them all with weapons and take the rifle (Epic\iconic). Much better then the one you get from Panam.

[Dondu]

Originally posted by Anarchist Jurisdictor:

No lol, I was level 48 with over 600 hp, 1400 armor, 10 body with about 8 points into brawling, and fully modded legendary gorilla arms before even touching consumables and the enemies were still ridiculous sponges

hmm, i stunlock that razor dude, he cant do sh!t once ive understand his mechanic, he hit hard through got me half life with just one punch with my 2200 armor and 800 hp

[glenn3e]

I has enough stats and could wager for the rifle immediately. Beat him and he’ll sic his goons on you, beat them and get the rifle.