- Joined
- May 30, 2018
- Messages
- 1,890 (0.74/day)
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- Cusp Of Mania, FL
| Processor | Ryzen 9 3900X |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix X370-F |
| Cooling | Dark Rock 4, 3x Corsair ML140 front intake, 1x rear exhaust |
| Memory | 2x8GB TridentZ RGB [3600Mhz CL16] |
| Video Card(s) | EVGA 3060ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming |
| Storage | 970 EVO 500GB nvme, 860 EVO 250GB SATA, Seagate Barracuda 1TB + 4TB HDDs |
| Display(s) | 27" MSI G27C4 FHD 165hz |
| Case | NZXT H710 |
| Audio Device(s) | Modi Multibit, Vali 2, Shortest Way 51+ - LSR 305's, Focal Clear, HD6xx, HE5xx, LCD-2 Classic |
| Power Supply | Corsair RM650x v2 |
| Mouse | iunno whatever cheap crap logitech *clutches Xbox 360 controller security blanket* |
| Keyboard | HyperX Alloy Pro |
| Software | Windows 10 Pro |
| Benchmark Scores | ask your mother |
Condolences. I believe I understand. Story of my daily life... both on my own time, and also coming from several different job situations where that was just how things worked anyway.
It really seems to be the way of things in a lot of studios these days. The biggest problem I have with the whole "fix it all up later" mentality is that it tends to leave so many compound issues and conflicts that prevent things from ever truly being fixed. Wind up carving out all of this stuff just to go back over it a second time when you have to finish an earlier task or deal with earlier issues. Just creates more complicated problems to solve and it compromises time, resources, and quality. And no matter which of those you focus on at that point, you still lose. It always ends up being a lot less than what it could've been. And certain things just stick out... things that don't make a lot of sense. You see things that are highly polished and amazing, while there are other things fucked-up that seem like they'd be the first things to get right.
With Cyberpunk you get this incredibly well-crafted imagery through Night City with its dizzying verticality and its many split personalities. It feels like a big space, and yet it's packed with nooks and crannies stacked on top of eachother, each of them oozing detailed, intricate layouts with many dense arrangements featuring large assortments of carefully-curated assets. It's just an all around engrossing place to be. People tend to equate pretty looks with superficiality - but I disagree completely. The fact is that it takes a lot of time and care to seamlessly assemble so many spaces like this with so much atmosphere and in itself, it adds a ton of impact. It's not extra fluff, but a fundamental that needs to be very strong in a game that is about a world. It has to be able to put you and keep you there everywhere you look. It is possibly the most difficult form of visual composition, up there with real-life architecture and other function/fully-interactive art. The hardest thing to do is make something always look good, like it's meant to be that way, from every angle the player approaches - to lead the eye no matter where it happens to look. This is easily fucked-up, but they nailed the visuals in a big way and it does a lot for the game. The overall construction and visual presentation of Night City is excellent. That is something I'm betting was what it was from the start and mostly grew straight out.
But then you see that the physics are only 50% in the game at all. A lot of things are baked-in animations. And if that's where they want to draw the line with the physics that can work for a game like this - it doesn't have to be like GTA, complete with a super-granular physics system. Most games do not have physics that are that good or the AI to account for a wider range of behaviors and hybrid-scripted events. But they do need to be tuned. A lot of CP2077's baked-in physics seemingly aren't tuned at all, like they got started enough that everything has a placeholder, but not enough that it flows in any convincing way. They're missing a lot of transitions that were clearly expected to be there, for one. People and objects are frequently misplaced and so many movements just don't line-up from one to the next, or wind up conflicting with the real physics underneath in obnoxious and hilarious ways.
People talk about the police chases. Ever notice how no cars can chase you on the main open platform? Or how nobody rides motorcycles except Jackie for a very short while in a very contained way? Or how all of the car rides are scripted? For real... they run an initial 'righting' sequence that seems to use very basic AI and pathfiding (that would probably look very funny from outside of the car,) but when they get close enough to the start point, the whole car jolts to it and then it is totally on rails. Anybody try those races out?
Makes you think maybe the physics and AI aren't even up for that stuff in their current state. During the few times you have followers, they teleport constantly and you're simply directed away from noticing it. Even if forgoing more detailed physics is an elective conceit, they didn't even iron the imitations out a little bit. That's arguably the bigger issue - they didn't commit early enough on where to go at that crossroads and it left them with no time to at least get all of those animations right and properly confine the real physics. It is totally oldschool in how rudimentary its functions are.
Don't mean to put that one thing under the microscope. There are many other examples and that was just the first that came to mind as one of those things that had to be unilaterally addressed (regardless of other features,) but wasn't. Which probably resulted in a lot more going back over stuff that was previously thrown in without a thought, if the problems still left to fix in the physics department are any indication.
I truly do not get it. I guess there is the problem of being "too locked-in" but I don't know if I fully buy that. Good leadership judgement makes the call of where that line is. But case-in-point there, the end result says enough about the leadership judgement. A fully completed component isn't inherently rigid. If anything, it is easier to change and add to, because it doesn't have problems. You can build whatever you want off of it, whatever you want to have utilize it, and not have to comb back over the bulk of it nearly as much. And creatively the door is open wider when you have the remaining time and resources left completely open to spinning off and adding more onto the core. You also have a very clear picture of the reality of what those time and resources are, so the planning is much easier. You know exactly what you have to work with. So in a sense you are far less encumbered.
I dunno, I would be very surprised if this was at all how they operated. You can kinda tell which studios work this way by just how 'tight' the games are. And then you have CDPR, which seemingly flipped the script on their "last" leg of development when an a-list performer sci-fi vet said he wanted to be more involved. If I was working there that would've been the point for me. That sinking feeling of trying to 're-gear' a massive project that's not even enough fleshed-out enough for a few demo passes on the musculoskeletal level. To me, that sounds like starting over with half of the time.
On a less serious note, I originally just came here to say I phased through a car on a motorcycle. Was sliding into an intersection going like 150kph and thought I'd be in the air but I clipped right through. I need to figure that trick out, it would be very helpful for me
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