Roleplayer's Off Topic Thread #39

[The Good Doctor]

On 9/9/2023 at 8:58 PM, Celan said:

I can't really play without it, as I said. 

On my female V I also get the gorilla arms (lol). I don't like the idea of V getting her arms cut off for cyberware, but it's too useful for a reflex/ tech build to open doors and stuff. My male V is spec'ed to melee so he can beat people to death without the help.

That’s the same reason why I gave my Nomad V the monowire. It seemed the least intrusive in terms of losing body parts. I was not expecting kills with it to be so dang brutal.  

Gotta say, giving this game a fairer shake than before, I am really impressed with the character progression systems in it. You’ve got your typical skill/perk trees, which are nothing too special, but at least there are a fair number of perks that actually do more than the boring "+10% better at X" perks that most games pile on you.

But the cyberware is where the real cool stuff happens. I love how diegetic it is, moving through the game, doing mercenary work, earning money and street cred, and using it to physically go to the doctor and "level up" yourself with all these interesting and unique upgrades. I neglected the ripper docs a lot the last few times I tried to play the game, but I’ve realized now what a game changer they are. It’s like a whole separate leveling system that you’ve gotta go out and engage with yourself just like someone in that world actually would. Cool stuff, and pretty dang unique.

[The Good Doctor]

Something I like for roleplaying reasons is the ability to scan NPCs and see their criminal records. So if I’m taking on a gang hideout, I can see a guy’s only crimes are petty theft or anti-corpo propaganda and just knock him out, or if I see murder, kidnap, human trafficking, etc. I can feel pretty good about just offing him.

[BigBossBalrog]

So apparently Michael Kirkbride worked on another game. It was called Immortals of Aveum 

And it looks fucking awful (and was released two weeks ago without my realizing). Apparently it was compared to "Call of Duty meets Wizards with a heavy gear focus)  Super dissapointing,. 

[Elden Clown]

Hands down the only true to life spacesuit in Starfield.

[Elden Clown]

6 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Something I like for roleplaying reasons is the ability to scan NPCs and see their criminal records. So if I’m taking on a gang hideout, I can see a guy’s only crimes are petty theft or anti-corpo propaganda and just knock him out, or if I see murder, kidnap, human trafficking, etc. I can feel pretty good about just offing him.

Ya know I did kind of the same thing in Watch dogs. I'd listen into to convos and look at people's histories and depending on what they did or said I'd wipe their bank account. Like remember this one NPC bragging extremely about cheating on his girlfriend and was just like 

[Celan]

9 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

That’s the same reason why I gave my Nomad V the monowire. It seemed the least intrusive in terms of losing body parts. I was not expecting kills with it to be so dang brutal.  

Just be careful around fuel tanks. Not that I blew myself up or anything.   

They're talking about bringing in more of the tabletop balancing of cyberware with the 2.0 update, where you take a "humanity" hit for using too much of it. I think they wanted to ease people in and let you try a lot of things without having V go cyberpsycho. The mantis blades really did make me feel like that. With the finisher, I imagined blood dripping all over V and how terrifying she must be.

8 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Something I like for roleplaying reasons is the ability to scan NPCs and see their criminal records. So if I’m taking on a gang hideout, I can see a guy’s only crimes are petty theft or anti-corpo propaganda and just knock him out, or if I see murder, kidnap, human trafficking, etc. I can feel pretty good about just offing him.

Some of them are funny. Scan the Aldecaldos, they all have rap sheets, mostly for pissing off corpos.

If you are doing gigs, be sure to read the shards. A lot of them interconnect. Even the scanner hustles connect to other gigs.

[The Good Doctor]

14 minutes ago, Celan said:

If you are doing gigs, be sure to read the shards. A lot of them interconnect. Even the scanner hustles connect to other gigs.

I’ve been reading a lot of them. First connection I noticed was between several separate storylines. A good cop from one gig was trying to enlist the help of a dirty cop from another gig, who was in turn selling police data to the Tyger Claw gang, whose use of it we put a stop to in another

Dirty cop also looks like he’s planning to skip town, which makes sense as he’s being blackmailed by the Tygers, Regina, and potentially V. 

[The Good Doctor]

20 minutes ago, Celan said:

They're talking about bringing in more of the tabletop balancing of cyberware with the 2.0 update, where you take a "humanity" hit for using too much of it. I think they wanted to ease people in and let you try a lot of things without having V go cyberpsycho.

Not sure how I feel about that. Hope it’s not something they’ll hit us with retroactively, since I’m pretty chromed up at the moment.  

[Celan]

3 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Not sure how I feel about that. Hope it’s not something they’ll hit us with retroactively, since I’m pretty chromed up at the moment.  

Same. This is one reason I mentioned not liking substantial changes to an already established game. We'll see.

[The Good Doctor]

32 minutes ago, Celan said:

Same. This is one reason I mentioned not liking substantial changes to an already established game. We'll see.

I was thinking it was just going to be an overhaul of the perk trees or something; respecs are an option, so that wouldn’t have really bothered me unless they made it worse. But I definitely agree on the cyberware. It would be pretty unfair to suddenly saddle us with negative effects that we couldn’t have known about before.

Sucks because I like the idea quite a lot. Losing your humanity (however that gets reflected in the gameplay) would be a really cool price for the insane power ups you get from modding yourself. But damn, that’s the kind of thing you’ve gotta tell us about first!  

[The Good Doctor]

 

[Celan]

4 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I was thinking it was just going to be an overhaul of the perk trees or something; that wouldn’t have really bothered me unless they made it worse. But I definitely agree on the cyberware. It would be pretty unfair to suddenly saddle us with loads of negative effects that we couldn’t have known about before.

Sucks because I like the idea quite a lot. Losing your humanity (however that gets reflected in the gameplay) would be a really cool price for the insane power ups you get from kidding yourself. But damn, that’s the kind of thing you’ve gotta tell us about first!  

Apparently for V they are introducing it by showing a meter as to how much cyberware your body can handle, and you can take a perk to increase the limit at cost of HP. Note this is going to be included in update 1.7, not 2.0 which is coming out with the expansion.

[The Good Doctor]

Just now, Celan said:

Apparently for V they are introducing it by showing a meter as to how much cyberware your body can handle, and you can take a perk to increase the limit at cost of HP. Note this is going to be included in update 1.7, not 2.0 which is coming out with the expansion.

Sounds like more of a balancing thing than a huge change to gameplay. Eh. Guess I’ll join you in Camp "We’ll See". 

[The Good Doctor]

Found some more connecting gigs involving a Russian Fixer whose car I bugged way back in the day; now I’m stealing data from his penthouse regarding talks between Arasaka and the commies. You were right, the amount of interconnectedness between all this side content is really cool.

[ColonelKillaBee]

13 hours ago, Celan said:

I couldn't get past the tutorial in DOS, either. It's all good, I just don't enjoy that style of play. I want to get on with it, not spend an entire gaming session on one battle.

To each their own, but its not like that at all.

[Centurion]

I took a bunch of screenshots of all the cool armors, spacesuits, and clothes. I’ll upload those later. I’m currently cheating to create a massive battle cruiser and when I finalize the design on that I’ll take some screenshots and stuff

[The Good Doctor]

@Celan Looked up my home state of Missouri on the Cyberpunk wiki just to see where my people fit into that crazy world. Turns out it might be one of the best places to live (much like in real life ). There is no mention of it getting sucked into in any of the numerous civil or corporate wars, getting hit by any bioweapons or nukes, or being ravaged by crime like most other places. The government is described as "clean", the roads are good, and our only noted struggle is developing better barges for the lower river levels.

I’m guessing that Mike Pondsmith isn’t very familiar with St. Louis.

[Celan]

23 hours ago, ColonelKillaBee said:

To each their own, but its not like that at all.

In real time, I might pause twice, at most three times during a combat.

In turn based, I have to not only wait for my own turns to complete, but also the companions and all the enemies. It's maddeningly slow. I did notice that sword fighters do a lot more damage per turn rather than cantrips, which made it even more maddening as I was playing a mage.

5 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

@Celan Looked up my home state of Missouri on the Cyberpunk wiki just to see where my people fit into that crazy world. Turns out it might be one of the best places to live (much like in real life ). There is no mention of it getting sucked into in any of the numerous civil or corporate wars, getting hit by any bioweapons or nukes, or being ravaged by crime like most other places. The government is described as "clean", the roads are good, and our only noted struggle is developing better barges for the lower river levels.

I’m guessing that Mike Pondsmith isn’t very familiar with St. Louis.

He's from California, so probably not.  

Have you started Panam's quests yet? There are a couple of things to keep in mind once you reach those.

[The Good Doctor]

1 minute ago, Celan said:

Have you started Panam's quests yet? There are a couple of things to keep in mind once you reach those.

Not yet. I restarted for this playthrough so I’m back at the Arasaka heist. Left off right before going to the tower with Jackie.

3 minutes ago, Celan said:

He's from California, so probably not.  

I just find it hilarious we’re such a flyover state that the collapse of society canonically skipped over us.  It even describes Missouri as a relatively powerful state, which I’m guessing is only the case because most other ones are just so screwed up. 

[Celan]

Just now, The Good Doctor said:

Not yet. I restarted for this playthrough so I’m back at the Arasaka heist. Left off right before going to the tower with Jackie.

I just find it hilarious we’re such a flyover state that the collapse of society canonically skipped over us.  It even describes Missouri as a relatively powerful state, which I’m guessing is only the case because most other ones are just so screwed up. 

I would guess that NUSA states are more stable, at the cost of more repression.

[The Good Doctor]

12 minutes ago, Celan said:

I would guess that NUSA states are more stable, at the cost of more repression.

Probably not on Night City levels, but I’ve been getting the impression of NUSA being pretty chaotic itself, given the failure of the petrodollar, the loss of half their territory, and the wars going on in the streets of certain cities. 

I’ve been making a point to read as many files on the Fourth Corporate War I can find, as well. That was some messed up stuff. Nukes, weaponized plagues, biochemical attacks, and such. Really makes the whole of America feel like it’s spent the last few decades teetering on the edge of slipping into a post-apocalyptic state.

[Centurion]

Mark I Battlecruiser

[Centurion]

The Star Eagle and some cool outfits and stuff

I love the futuristic civil war hat on this one

[BigBossBalrog]

17 minutes ago, Centurion said:

The Star Eagle and some cool outfits and stuff

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I love the futuristic civil war hat on this one

Again the Antixeno armor just puts everything else to shame  The only problem I see with it is that it suits the "ground pounder" types way more then a space ship captain; I'd probably just rock a duster and cowboy hat 

[Centurion]

One thing I like about the weapons is they actually feel like slightly futuristic realistic firearms. Like I’m currently running the Beowulf and it’s a rifle that uses the magazine feeding system if the P90. But you can also find “old earth weapons” aka 1911, AK-47, and AS VAL’s which is pretty cool