If you played the game only once right on release, chances were high, you didn't notice many bugs. That is because many bugs were just stuff missing or not triggering. You notice that stuff more on multiple playthroughs and by reading about other peoples experiences.
Apart from that, for me the release version or maybe patch 1 were still the best. At least my experience got worse from patch to patch.
If you played the game only once right on release, chances were high, you didn't notice many bugs. That is because many bugs were just stuff missing or not triggering. You notice that stuff more on multiple playthroughs and by reading about other peoples experiences.
Apart from that, for me the release version or maybe patch 1 were still the best. At least my experience got worse from patch to patch.
I'll say that the release version was stable for me and I don't remember any bugs, admittedly it was quite a while back and on my first playthrough things may not have triggered where they should have. But patch 3 introduced so many bugs that I had to revert to patch 2. Just FYI my game is not moded.
If you played the game only once right on release, chances were high, you didn't notice many bugs. That is because many bugs were just stuff missing or not triggering. You notice that stuff more on multiple playthroughs and by reading about other peoples experiences.
Apart from that, for me the release version or maybe patch 1 were still the best. At least my experience got worse from patch to patch.
I'll say that the release version was stable for me and I don't remember any bugs, admittedly it was quite a while back and on my first playthrough things may not have triggered where they should have. But patch 3 introduced so many bugs that I had to revert to patch 2. Just FYI my game is not moded.
P.S. just to clarify I was talking about BG3 not Cyberpunk.
If you played the game only once right on release, chances were high, you didn't notice many bugs. That is because many bugs were just stuff missing or not triggering. You notice that stuff more on multiple playthroughs and by reading about other peoples experiences.
Apart from that, for me the release version or maybe patch 1 were still the best. At least my experience got worse from patch to patch.
I'll say that the release version was stable for me and I don't remember any bugs, admittedly it was quite a while back and on my first playthrough things may not have triggered where they should have. But patch 3 introduced so many bugs that I had to revert to patch 2. Just FYI my game is not moded.
I had this exact experience, I've been playing CP2077 since launch on the Stadia version, I didn't run into a single bug, the Stadia version might've been the least buggy version of the game, However it seemed like most of the bug complains came from the Playstation version, I'm also assuming that PC version would be somewhere in the middle of the 2 when it came to bugs.
If you played the game only once right on release, chances were high, you didn't notice many bugs. That is because many bugs were just stuff missing or not triggering. You notice that stuff more on multiple playthroughs and by reading about other peoples experiences.
Apart from that, for me the release version or maybe patch 1 were still the best. At least my experience got worse from patch to patch.
I'll say that the release version was stable for me and I don't remember any bugs, admittedly it was quite a while back and on my first playthrough things may not have triggered where they should have. But patch 3 introduced so many bugs that I had to revert to patch 2. Just FYI my game is not moded.
P.S. just to clarify I was talking about BG3 not Cyberpunk.
This is similar to my experience on console. Act 3 was always buggy, but I never had any issues in the early acts whatsoever. The patches and bug fixes are what unleashed a deluge of bugs that now showing up in early game as well. Some are old bugs that are much more frequent and others are seemingly brand new. It’s a shame.
Whilst you're likely getting an improved BG3 showing if you wait for further updates before a complete playthrough (which I'm going to do, need a new GPU anyway, as the game is more taxing than it was for me during early EA days):
The release of Cyberpunk included versions that were pulled from official shops full-stop. Official statements released adressing the release state of the game and player reaction. And a player reception that on all platforms went from "seriously hyped" to "mildly disillusioned" pretty darn quick, and that wasn't merely for technicals (prior to release there was apparently a lot of overhyping going on in terms of marketing features likewise). The Steam and Metacritic ratings alone are still trying to recover from that.
Just saying.
I may pick up Cyberpunk one day too though, as it seems to have (mild) elements from Deus Ex. Witcher 3 bored me quickly, as technically, it's a glorified cutscene with very little gameplay (such as the ho-hum combat) and a barebones character progression system that at times feels as if it was tacked on so the game could still be marketed as an RPG. Even the quests, whilst entertaining narrative wise, pretty much solve themselves, as witcher senses are mandatory and the quests are completely linear. It's like following the red dotted lines and fighting monsters in between, quest complete. Several people told me the expansions would improve on that some. But the first Witcher game at least had you actually gather clues and think for yourself on the occasion.
That's just my preference though -- CD Projekt view games sort of like movies. Whilst there is cinematic games I like, I generally prefer games being... games. In fact, I think the trend to go "cinematic" has massively hurt the potential games have as a medium, storytelling-wise also. Mind you, Larian too has blown lots of its budget of BG3 on cinematics... But they're still offering a systems driven game, not one where you follow the dotted lines to progress one cutscene to the next one, at which point you may as well release the damn thing as a Netflix series (to somewhat exaggerate).As a result, I wasn't actually too fond of Larian's Original Sin tbh. But I spent far more time on that than on either Witcher game.
I may pick up Cyberpunk one day too though, as it seems to have (mild) elements from Deus Ex. Witcher 3 bored me quickly, as technically, it's a glorified cutscene with very little gameplay (such as the ho-hum combat) and a barebones character progression system that at times feels as if it was tacked on so the game could still be marketed as an RPG. Even the quests, whilst entertaining narrative wise, pretty much solve themselves, as witcher senses are mandatory and the quests are completely linear. It's like following the red dotted lines and fighting monsters in between, quest complete. Several people told me the expansions would improve on that some. But the first Witcher game at least had you actually gather clues and think for yourself on the occasion.
That's just my preference though -- CD Projekt view games sort of like movies. Whilst there is cinematic games I like, I generally prefer games being... games. In fact, I think the trend to go "cinematic" has massively hurt the potential games have as a medium, storytelling-wise also. Mind you, Larian too has blown lots of its budget of BG3 on cinematics... But they're still offering a systems driven game, not one where you follow the dotted lines to progress one cutscene to the next one, at which point you may as well release the damn thing as a Netflix series (to somewhat exaggerate).As a result, I wasn't actually too fond of Larian's Original Sin tbh. But I spent far more time on that than on either Witcher game.
I agree, and honestly I don't think it's metacritic and steam ratings will ever really recover. A warning to those who want to release games too early. Although Larian seems to have gotten away with it because they made sure Act 1/2 were in very good shape knowing that most gamers (60% by some metrics) never even finish games.
There is a balance certainly between having a cinematic narrative experience with limited pathways versus a systems driven choose-anything-under-the-sun and see where it goes - in the Cyberpunk 2077 version of things you get a smoother narrative and it's easier to have high quality VA outcomes. In the BG3 version of things it's much easier to run into "clunky" outcomes or just break the game entirely if you get too weird in your choices. I think both options have value, depending on how well they reward exploration and if the world itself allows you to kind of do whatever.
With Cyberpunk 2077 you really don't have to follow the main story if you don't want to, there is a lot to do that is just exploration and there are a lot of rewards for poking around the city. It is, for all intents, a living, breathing city of the dystopian future - and exploring that Art is the biggest reward.
As for Netflix - the cost benefit to making a game into a actual cinematic experience is a massive loss in the richness of the experience. Netflix won't let you explore Night city, and get into the past lore, the stories of the legends of the city, the factions and so forth. I can't klep cars and sell them to El Capitan to unlock the option to buy even more unusual forms of transport. I can't get into city-wide fights with maxtac and the NCPD.
Also it will be open to whoever picks up the work and decides to put their own interpretative take on it. That's what ruined The Witcher series.
Finally, I have noticed investment in cinema is paying smaller and smaller dividends versus investment in games. D&D Honor among thieves cost $450 million to make and market and barely earned it's initial budget back, and didn't earn it's marketing budget. Cyberpunk 2077 sold 25 Million copies as of this last month although we don't have numbers on Phantom Liberty. That alone puts the revenue at 1.5 Billion /against a $450 Million Budget including marketing.
BG3 has a $125 Million budget and has earned something like $600-700 million so far.
There is a balance certainly between having a cinematic narrative experience with limited pathways versus a systems driven choose-anything-under-the-sun and see where it goes - in the Cyberpunk 2077 version of things you get a smoother narrative and it's easier to have high quality VA outcomes. In the BG3 version of things it's much easier to run into "clunky" outcomes or just break the game entirely if you get too weird in your choices.
That's oft kinda the point... some may perceive "weird" things happening like bugs. For others (like me) or the devs of such games, it's a gift from heaven if it hits. In Ultima 9 for instance, players built bridges over water with items that could swim and thus got to places they otherwise couldn't access (yet). https://www.it-he.org/u9_otwab.php In BG3's EA, I threw a bunch of skeletons about to rise when you pull a lever into a nearby firetrap, problem solved. There was also that story in Skyrim where people put buckets over people's heads, thus blocking their simulated "line of sight" and then they robbed them, er, blind.
About extremes: The Thief reboot didn't even let you jump wherever you wished. It also restricted where you could use rope arrows by making every action contextual; e.g. the rope arrow could only be shot in the few places of the levels where the UI said: "Here you can shoot a rope arrow now and climb that." They did this all because unlike the original Thiefs, they went for a cinematic experience. Levels were also far more linear to begin with. This was all done to ensure you would pass the checkpoints in the levels where cutscenes would advance the story because if you would miss them, nothing would happen. On the occasion, the cutscene style of storytelling even demanded YOU GET CAUGHT EVEN IF NOBODY SPOTTED YOU IN THE LEVEL BEFOREHAND. In doing so, they were developing fundamentally different games than the originals from the go... which was part of the reason why the fans of the original games rather went with say, Dishonored instead.
Bit OT though. That said, when I did the skeleton thingie in BG3's EA, throwing them into that firetrap before they rose... There is actually a scripted cutscene showing them rising each time you pull that lever. The cutscene, being a scripted thing after all (it's just a prebaked 3D movie, as cutscenes all are), showed the skeletons still rising in the place I had them removed from. That was only the cutscene, naturally. In the actual "gameplay", they rose in the firetrap and were dead. Larian's design, in particular for BG3, could be considered as a weird clash of going all-out cinematic and systems driven design... and this shows if you can "break" cutscenes that way. The devs of Thief, for instance, never had any traditional cutscenes in the gameplay happen, only in between missions. However, as Larian have argued, they went "cinematic" in a bet to attract a wider audience. And it seems to have paid off here.
There is a balance certainly between having a cinematic narrative experience with limited pathways versus a systems driven choose-anything-under-the-sun and see where it goes - in the Cyberpunk 2077 version of things you get a smoother narrative and it's easier to have high quality VA outcomes. In the BG3 version of things it's much easier to run into "clunky" outcomes or just break the game entirely if you get too weird in your choices.
That's oft kinda the point... some may perceive "weird" things happening like bugs. For others (like me) or the devs of such games, it's a gift from heaven if it hits. In Ultima 9 for instance, players built bridges over water with items that could swim and thus got to places they otherwise couldn't access (yet). https://www.it-he.org/u9_otwab.php In BG3's EA, I threw a bunch of skeletons about to rise when you pull a lever into a nearby firetrap, problem solved. There was also that story in Skyrim where people put buckets over people's heads, thus blocking their simulated "line of sight" and then they robbed them, er, blind.
Bit OT though. That said, when I did the skeleton thingie in BG3's EA, throwing them into that firetrap before they rose... There is actually a scripted cutscene showing them rising each time you pull that lever. The cutscene, being a scripted thing after all (it's just a prebaked 3D movie, as cutscenes all are), showed the skeletons still rising in the place I had them removed from. That was only the cutscene, naturally. In the actual "gameplay", they rose in the firetrap and were dead. Larian's design, in particular for BG3, could be considered as a weird clash of going all-out cinematic and systems driven design... and this shows if you can "break" cutscenes that way. The devs of Thief, for instance, never had any traditional cutscenes in the gameplay happen, only in between missions. However, as Larian have argued, they went "cinematic" in a bet to attract a wider audience. And it seems to have paid off here.
oof, Ultima 9, the death knell of that series once EA wrecked the IP. One of the worst games I have ever played.
I can't speak to Thief as I have not played it.
You know Larian solved the "throwing the skeletons into the firepit" problem by not letting you do it in the full game. If you throw any skeleton it triggers all of them, so you get the accurate cinematic now instead of them having to account for that.
I think that what wins is having cinematics at all. Cyberpunk 2077 is built around cinematics since the game is a giant cinematic. The cinematic experience never ends. Bg3's main UI doesn't quite line up with it's cinematics so they have the harder job here.
Long term I can't say which game will be the more successful one. On the one hand Cyberpunk 2077 screwed it's chances for GOTY because of it's bad release, but has made 1.5 billion+
Bg3 had the better release, but has a more niche audience. It's hard to say if it will outpace Cyberpunk 2077 financially but it will almost certainly win GOTY.
Frankly I see them as both successes and despite what some devs may want to believe the bar has been raised significantly. People are taking notice that a well-made game can net substantial returns AND deliver a more satisfying experience to the consumer. Which is the deeper experience? Watching the Witcher on Netflix? or playing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt? or reading the books?
I've read Andrej's books, watched the Netflix series and played The Wild Hunt game for a few hundred hours. I would say the game is the most in-depth experience of that world with the Books second, Netflix series a distant third.
Long term I can't say which game will be the more successful one. On the one hand Cyberpunk 2077 screwed it's chances for GOTY because of it's bad release, but has made 1.5 billion+
Bg3 had the better release, but has a more niche audience. It's hard to say if it will outpace Cyberpunk 2077 financially but it will almost certainly win GOTY.
Everything CD Projekt does will be more popular as long as Larian stick to making, what is at heart, a CRPG. They've given it a cinematic lick of paint, their systemic gameplay makes for really funny videos going viral too -- and let's not forget that CoOp neither Ultima nor Baldur's Gate 1+2 had in quite the same ways. But it's still what it is.
But that's fine! CD Projekt already exists... =) a CRPG on contemporary AAA budgets until recent not so much. The funny thing to me is that Bioware's Dragon Age:Origins was already pretty much "streamlined" back then in a bid to reach a broader audience than Baldur's Gate had reached (3 classes, less spells, less... everything... the console releases even had the RtwP combat further actionified). The sequels to Origins went a couple steps further each, which lead to people like Brent Knowles opposing the simple action combat in DA II leaving. Whereas BG3 didn't do the same streamlining near as much -- and is still eyeing at least Inquisition numbers, which was also released on far more platforms.
Mind you, no doubt there are quite a few people picking up BG3 precisely because Bioware hasn't done much of anything in years now... in particular in terms of presentation, it's basically Dragon Age all over. I wonder what were to happen if the game wasn't based on D&D (and Baldur's Gate). But on Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings or Star Wars. Still personally don't expect much to massively change on the CRPG market though, mind. But maybe all that "streamlining" will slow down or stop some, making each entry in each series much simpler than the past one for many years, as studios are afraid to alienate anyone (and budgets keep getting higher and higher). It's not merely Larian after all, more recent it was FromSoftware too opposing that trend -- and still selling (and making) the games they make.
That said, when I did the skeleton thingie in BG3's EA, throwing them into that firetrap before they rose... There is actually a scripted cutscene showing them rising each time you pull that lever. The cutscene, being a scripted thing after all (it's just a prebaked 3D movie, as cutscenes all are), showed the skeletons still rising in the place I had them removed from. That was only the cutscene, naturally. In the actual "gameplay", they rose in the firetrap and were dead. Larian's design, in particular for BG3, could be considered as a weird clash of going all-out cinematic and systems driven design... and this shows if you can "break" cutscenes that way. The devs of Thief, for instance, never had any traditional cutscenes in the gameplay happen, only in between missions. However, as Larian have argued, they went "cinematic" in a bet to attract a wider audience. And it seems to have paid off here.
Still personally don't expect much to massively change on the CRPG market though, mind. But maybe all that "streamlining" will slow down or stop some, making each entry in each series much simpler than the past one for many years, as studios are afraid to alienate anyone (and budgets keep getting higher and higher). It's not merely Larian after all, more recent it was FromSoftware too opposing that trend -- and still selling (and making) the games they make.