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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 18, 2021, 10:43:49 AM »

I like it! To make it evil (or course): in true 80's RPG fashion, unless the player installs a seemingly throwaway piece of software (Don't Shoot Me In The Head Bro! v2.0) early in the game and keeps it installed to the very end (requiring them to pass up other highly useful and far more powerful progs that use the same slot), then they cannot win the game's *true* ending.

And! If it isn't bought and installed the first time the player visits a ripperdoc, it disappears from the game and cannot be acquired for the rest of that profile's game.

Bonus: if the player chooses this no-mod philosophy...let's give it an offhand name...The Path Of Nirvana, and doesn't install the software...they may win, technically speaking, but they don't *really* win. However, if they do install the soft and go with Nirvana (compromising it only slightly), they get the secret ending and truly win the game. (Something about True Enlightenment being only attainable through wise compromise, or some navel-gazing crap like that.)

Waitaminit...I just realized: "Don't Shoot Me In The Head Bro! v2.0"...Nirvana...whoops.

On a slightly less Cobain-y note (some shooting, but not self-inflicted), something odd happened yesterday that I found disturbing and/or amusing:

It was night, and I had parked my crotch rocket across the street from some 6th Street shithole (but, aren't they all?) because I had to go in there and save someone from a fate worse than White Trash death. So I stepped behind a nearby dumpster in preparation to unleash Contagion upon the lot of them.

It was then that I heard...water? Wait, that's...peeing. Someone's peeing. Someone behind me is peeing. Someone behind me is peeing on me.

I spun around and there's this bum, peeing. On me.

I don't handle such things well.

So after shooting the filthy bastard twice in the chest, I went back to ending a few 6th Street members' lives. A bit damp of trouser, perhaps, but at least I was entertained.

So kudos to CDPR for making such a funny tableau possible, but some retracted for making it a crime to execute him for his effrontery.

Speaking of massacres, I just realized that every time I played the "Stadium Love" mission, I failed it. The idea is to talk to the 6th Street guys having a rooftop party and enter into a shooting contest to win a gun. I'd always taken exception to their attitude and ended up killing them, which I believe fails the mission (I'd just never noticed that it was marked as a faliure). Well, whoopsy-doodle, right? Oh, well. C'est la vie.

And that's a funny thing about the dead in this game: the bodies of armed NPCs (bad guys and other hostiles) are marked by an X on your minimap (at least, until you completely loot their corpses). The bodies of "crowds" (bystanders, et al) are not. This I lament, as it would've made the aforementioned rooftop party massacre far more interesting on the minimap...

"Lookit all them Xs, Earl! You really killed the shit outta them assholes! You even killed all the chicks who were just shakin' their patooties!"
"You know what they say, Steve..."
"What's that, Earl?"
"All my Xs embrace both sexes."
"You're a clever man, Earl."

However, this post isn't ALL about being a complete psycho:

Restore Legendary Ping restores...you guessed it...Hunt's pudding in those little tin cans. No. I mean it restores being able to see hostiles through walls via Legendary Ping.

Cool Vs Don't Die From Explosions (aka Explosion Nerf) which makes explosions a bit more survivable. Apparently the game's code when calculating explosion damage is a bit weird (of course), and the author explains it in detail on the mod page.

So...yeah. Then again, having a small CHOOH tank blow your legs off might be a nice refresher after being pissed on by a bum.

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Doc_Brown on October 13, 2021, 01:15:55 PM »

It would have been interesting if they'd made the game exceedingly difficult, then have body modifications essentially lower the difficulty the more of them you installed (i.e. run faster, jump higher, take less damage).  But on the flipside, the lower your humanity the more likely you are to frenzy, your dialogue options would change/reduce in number, NPCs would treat you differently, etc.  Your average player would have to balance the pros and cons, while the really hardcore players would see if they could beat the game without any modifications whatsoever.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Somewhat Random Absurdity

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 13, 2021, 12:27:14 AM »

Cyberpunk. AGAIN.

The October Of My V's Humiliation: The Fashion Circus That Is Cyberpunk 2077

...but she breaks just like a little girl...

Hot pants! They're gettin' so hot...we might have to take 'em off.

"All right assholes" -- she says -- "I've had enough of this shit!" So on her behalf, I get to digging. After a bit of effort, I'm rewarded with a look that isn't exactly what I wanted, but it's close enough to just go with.

Try putting me in hot pants again and we'll see what happens.

Various shots (couldn't decide on just one, as usual):

Cover your crotch...

...or cover your ass?

Get back, Jojo.

These action shots leave a lot to be desired, but...oh, well. Whatever.

I should point out that the plain black helmet might not be what the mod's intent was? I don't know. I just stumbled across a combination of elements that resulted in an understated (that is: NOT NEON PINK BULLSHIT) fashion. Anyway, I think what I have here is the stripped-down version of Oda's helmet.

This is the version with Oda's helmet:

Grrr.

Angry helmet is angry.

How this came to be:

Arasaka Black Ops Armor (I'm using only a couple of the elements available)

Arasaka Cyberarms (Batman Black option)

Modular Netrunner Headset For Male And Fem V (the sunglasses/cyberwear set)

Clothing Color Variants (the Yoros...the pants, that is)

Ninja Boots Multicolor (the Black Red option)

The Netrunner suit is just vanilla I believe (no new textures), called "Military-Grade Aramid Netrunning Suit."

My V herself has a couple of cosmetic mods on display, but those are irrelevant here.

The Black Ops Armor requires the Arasaka Cyberarms mod, just to get the look the author intended; the armor renders any long-sleeved inner torso item sleeveless. So even if you're wearing a netrunner suit, she'll be bare-armed. So the Cyberarms mod has an option that makes them as V's default arm/hand textures, meaning you don't NEED to install the cyberwear. Very useful!

Ah, well. Anyway. I know this is all really, REALLY pathetic...but at least it's honest patheticness. 

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 12, 2021, 05:01:19 PM »

Gameplay changes: along with hacking being...less fun...I'm also seeing a bit of a un-fun trend in dealing with the cyberpsychos. For example, the one on the bridge who snipes the robot and the cops? Yeah, him. Well, I made sure to stay out of sight, but the bastard ended up seeing me immediately...through cover...from a long way away. I guess there could be a good reason for that (implants!), but he and a couple of others I've run across so far seem a bit more amped up than before.

Would it have been so bad if they had kept the game in development for another year...

Multiplayer mod?!? Oh, noooooo...no, no, no...ugh. I guess that's why they're turning the thing into a shoot-em-up.

As for the game itself:

I was a little mystified that there's an entire culture of body replacement going on and no one seems to be in the least bit concerned about it. Cindy Lou (who?) bops on down to the ripperdoc (in his oh-so-hygienic storefront office) and has both her arms lopped off in favor of concealed retractable swords. Or sometimes when a head gets chopped off in a minor sidewalk scuffle (these things happen), instead of blood it's some kind of android fluid. And so on.

I guess what bothers me most is that the gameworld is *too* casual about it; the concept's old hat to everyone, might as well not worry about it since there are other things to worry about, etc.. So they design an otherwise ordinary large metropolis and hang a story (as such) on it. The story itself is straightforward enough, not a lot of meat to it. Pad it out with a couple of red herrings, a crapload of side missions, and hooray: a game!

If translated to the printed page, it'd be novella-length at best. Still, we've all played games with even less going on...but this could have been so much more.

Granted, V whines a *lot* over his/her inevitable loss of self, thanks to the insidious engram of Johnny Appleseed Silverhand. However, I never really felt that this was much of a problem, as V doesn't seem to have much of a personality in the first place. Just another hustling rube (as Hannibal Lecter put it) in search of personal glory.

I'm sure that there's plenty of angst to be found should I start poring over the nine million readables littered all over the city, but I'm too busy doing a bewildering number of side gigs for fixers. Then I'll wander back to the main questline, and most likely end up berated in some way by Johnny.

What would've made it a bit more digestible, for me, is a more...hmmm...exotic setting? Instead of a filthy humdrum (albeit impressively designed) urban setting, why not a massive space station? Or Mars?

...ah, I know: they've all been done already. 

Y'know, I've muttered before that I'm not really a "cyberpunk" kind of guy...I'd be happier with Steampunk 1877. I like the idea of someone in the bowels of CDPR's thinktank trying to figure out how to fit a person's psyche onto a recording medium that isn't the size of a small city...wait! I know:

Your cochlear implant, an ingeniously-miniaturized wax cylinder machine courtesy of Professor Randall Hunting-Bowles, is taken over by the introduction of a psyche-overwriting cylinder (containing the personality of reviled Confederate officer Col. W.S.T. Beauregard Lee, the scalawag who masterminded the blowing up of a northern supply train with a bomb that ended up irradiating most of New Hampshire) devised by the nefarious Doctor James Bundlethwaite-Lackstaff, aided by his femme fatale social secretary, the stunning Bunny Tokugawa, aka "Yellow Peril" (a racist nickname which also, as a scandalously ribald easter egg, refers to her chipped front tooth)!

...I don't think I would ever have the energy to parse that sentence.

Anyway, that might have been more interesting...at least to me. The voice of a Southern Gentleman, in true Foghorn Leghorn style, taking me to task for sundry illicit peccadillos? AWESOME.

[Upon telling a lie to a quest-giver] "I say, I say boy...this is mendacity! MENDACITY, I say! You disreputable rapscallion!"

[Whilst looking at an old poster promoting a social gathering] "While I do not recall exactly the details of that fine evening, I do remember that the ladies were genteel and...quite delectable!" [chuckles reminiscently]

I think it could work. Then again, I suffered a lot of head injuries in my youth, so I may be mistaken.

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Doc_Brown on October 08, 2021, 11:15:35 AM »

I've never played Cyberpunk 2077, but my reasoning isn't due to the issues the game has had at- and post-launch.  It just never struck me as that interesting a setting as far as the cyberpunk genre goes.  There are others--whether in film, game, etc.--that just seem like a more interesting place to spend my time than Night City.  The one thing the original role-playing game did that does interest me is the whole the-more-cybernetic-you-get-the-less-human-you-become mechanic, and if that had been the focus of Cyberpunk 2077's game design I'd have been intrigued, but instead they just decided to make you play second fiddle to a famous character from the source material.  Missed opportunity.

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Starfox on October 08, 2021, 08:42:26 AM »

Yeah. I've started a new game with 1.31 and immediately realized a number of gameplay changes have taken place. Hacking was nerfed. Equipping several protection cyberware mod is not possible any longer (for example one can have a mod against shock or one against fire but not both at the same time. If you try to put a protection mod, it override any protection mod you already have installed). As far as I know this behavior was introduced with patch 1.3 or 1.31 because I never had the issue before.

The whole "adjusting gameplay" thing is a testament to the fact the game was released far from being ready. Balancing gameplay is something developers generally do last in the development cycle once everything else is taken care of. Once released you shouldn't have to adjust gameplay at all (except if needed for fixing a bug). the fact tat they are still adjusting gameplay almost a year after release is telling.  The Witcher 3 never had such gameplay adjustment troubles. There were features added with the DLCs but that aside, the whole "adjusting this and nerfing that" theme so dear to Cyberpunk 2077 was not that prominent.

New Johnny's (AKA, The Pimp) look... crap. New vests... crap. New car... jury's still out.

I'm really not impressed with the whole patch handling of this game.

I don't know what upcoming DLCs will be about but they really need to do something right on this title for once.

As far as I'm concerned the whole hacking was far better in the early versions of the game than now (which is ironic considering we are talking about Cyberpunk there). And I guess we have the upcoming multiplayer mod to thank for that (in an attempt to re-balance things between human players; and I don't mind as long as they leave the single player side of things alone).

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 07, 2021, 11:47:03 PM »

Thought I'd test my weird little theory (the one about cyberhacking being increasingly nerfed, not the one about the colors orange and pink being essentially the same thing) by running through the skills tutorial again. I had suspected, and it was true, I guess.

When facing the last three guys with your bright yellow training katana, you're tasked with defeating them with all the stuff you've learned. Before the patch, I found that I could run breach protocol on the biggest guy, zap him with Suicide, and then shishkebab the others while he blew his bot brains out.

But now, I can't even run breach on him at all. And Old Testament Job thought HE had problems.

[On a side note: here's a reddit thread concerning the latest problem with stealthy hacker builds. Distressing.]

And here's my favorite part, my TRULY favorite part of the new patch: apparently, you cannot hack people through walls using Legendary Ping anymore. A thread on the official forums brings this up.

I don't really see the point of playing a netrunner build (or even playing at all!) if they're just going to take all the fun out of it.

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 07, 2021, 06:11:53 PM »

I think they keep screwing with netrunning. It seems to take longer to hack someone (probably just imagining it, as I am the very soul of impatience), and now hostiles seem to hone in on me faster. Also, various gangs are touchier, with a casual drive drawing a lot more aggression than before...and I didn't even run over anyone first.

I haven't been able to confirm this, but I've seen complaints that they've made Contagion completely useless now.

Screw with it until they break it, then break it a little more.

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The Foxhole Gaming News Discussions / Re: Cyberpunk 2077

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on October 02, 2021, 03:26:18 AM »

Finally got to see the new Silverhand.

He'd look even better with a Flock Of Seagulls haircut.

Kinda...new wave punk Neo? Not sure I like it. Probably switch back to the original.

And I ran into an old flame.

Ah, Michiko. How's android life been treating you?

That's all for now. Tune in next time for absolutely nothing of value.

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Off (and insane) Topic discussions / Re: Random Crap 2021: The Downward Spiral Of Our Days

« Last post by Silver Sorrow on September 29, 2021, 09:38:00 PM »

Unfocused Rant Of The Moment: Metallica
...specifically, their so-called "Black Album"

In 1991, I was very much over Metallica. I had graduated to bands who had a better grasp of what constituted "metal," much to the dismay of my family.

[Side Note: around that time, one of my (slightly older) cousins asked me "do you like them because they worship the devil?" Which I thought to be an ironic question, as she was a Garth Brooks fan. ]

So when their self-titled tribute to Spinal Tap (but without the humor or the talent) was released, I pretty much ignored it. I had other, better things to wreck my hearing with.

[Another side note, but relevant in a way: my sensibilities were questioned one day when someone noticed that, with my Walkman knock-off, I had two cassettes: Obituary's Cause of Death and Genesis' Foxtrot. What could I say? I'm weird. So what?]

So fast forward a distressing number of years to Metallica celebrating the 30th anniversary of their first hugely-successful hemorrhoid. (Further anal polyps would be produced, but this was the first.) They commemorated their descent into becoming bonafide rockstars by some sort of turd-polishing process (translation: "remastering") performed on the existing materal. This release was made even more cringe-inducing by an ego-stroking showcase of several dozen nobody bands covering their songs.

Check that: even though MOST of the bands are unremarkable nobodies (at least to me), they started off strong by showing what happens when you put Elton John, Yo-Yo Mah, and Miley Cyrus in a room together.

Personally, I would've sealed the doors and released the gas. But...never mind that.

Anyway, they apparently decided to record a cover of "Nothing Else Matters," which...actually isn't a bad song. But there's something about Miley that makes anything much worse than it should be. The woman is like a reverse King Midas, in that everything she touches turns to shit. Couldn't that ugly hairy hillbilly just wander into a woodchipper already??

Okay, again: never mind. But the covers keep getting press...and I wonder what it's really all about. Is it some sort of petulant defiance on Metallica's part, a middle finger to the people who dismissed this album as a sell-out bid for rockstardom? Is it a desperate bid to justify themselves by pointing out just how popular the material is? (Which also begs a couple of questions: what did they promise and/or how much did they pay those bands to cover their songs, and, if given the choice, how many of them would have chosen material from another album?) Or is it something else?

But, most importantly: who cares?