Lexx

Wow, are the sales dropping so hard that they finally put a game out on Steam? Looks like Diablo slow but steadily done for as a franchise.

Probably not going to happen at this point. Personally I'm just happy that stealth got fixed. I remember when playing the first time that saving in an enemy hideout was a bad idea, since on reload you could trigger the detection and your cover is blown. Started another playthrough yesterday. Went with the new "start at level 15"-option but instead of going right into Phantom Liberty, decided to do some more leveling first due to the level scaling with the item drops. Made it to level 26 already now. Goes quite fast, don't even have to do much for it. Just some gigs here and there, some side tasks, etc. and done. What I found out from doing this ... making money is a lot easier now. It took me like 1 or 2 hours until I had my first 100k eddies. Went to a ripper doc to start upgrading my gear. Could pretty much pick whatever I wanted since I had the spare change. Right now I'm hovering at around 100k again ... no need to upgrade cybergear again now, in 5 levels I'll get better stuff anyways. And this brings me to another point ... ... there is no reason to buy any weapon in stores anymore. Unless it's some iconic item, just forget it. You can't upgrade regular items anymore anyways, so in just a few levels later you will find something that does more damage and it costs you nothing. The game throws those weapons at you with every ganger you'll blast to scraps. Better to save the money for buying cars, clothes, and cyberwear, like god intended. Because of the level scaling. I can now pretty much do any task at any point. Before the 2.0 update. I had to carefully evaluate which task to pick and which to skip for now ("check the skulls") ... now I'll just do whatever is closest to me. It's like grinding down a checklist. Not sure if I like that. It also explains why I'm advancing in levels so fast. There's no point in the selection anymore, just do whatever is nearby. Saves lots of driving time through the city. One more thing... Is it just me or is the radio barely noticeable? First it seems the audio is quite low, even though I maxed it out. Second, I rarely manage to listen to a single song, since my travel time is usually super short. Those news announcements etc. feel kinda sparse as well. Even with the new Sasha Grey radio station. Barely ever hear anything out of it. Generally I think the radio is ok, but gotta say even the million years old Vice City did radio channels better. Anyways.. just some thoughts from someone who has sunk a crapton of hours into the game since last week.

I gave up on non-lethal weapons. If I need someone to survive, I'll stealth-strangle them. With the cyberpsychos I track their HP and try to not shoot them too much when they are about to die.

Well, you can always break them down to extra crafting materials. It's pretty much how I was able to get all my important weapons and implants to ++ state.

Yeah, makes no sense to me. Truth told, I wouldn't even care if all my gear resets to tier 1. I just want to keep my clothes and weapons, that's all. Now on a second playthrough I can't really enjoy it, because I feel forced to grind asap to get the cool stuff again. And once I got my cool stuff again, like half the games content is already finished.

Ok, finished the main game as well again. This time I went with Panam. Have to say it feels like this is probably the "best" ending. Or rather, the one with the most happy endings. Really sucks that there is no NG+. Kinda want to play the game from start again, but having to assemble all clothes and gear again ... bleh.

Yeah, noticed that too. Some scenes have surprisingly few frames. It's like "hey, the first thing was very popular, let's make a new thing! ... But with half the money, ok?!"

I recently replayed Mankind Divided and there's always alternative ways of dealing with the boss. In Cyberpunk it always ends in you slugging down on a bullet sponge. At least in the new update it feels a little more dynamic due to the random weak spots that show up, but still.

Damn, playing vanilla gigs after Phantom Liberty now is such a let down. Almost every side-mission is so short and simple, and half the time it's very samey. In comparison, gigs in Dogtown are full blown missions with multiple choices and actual consequences. Thanks to level scaling they aren't even hard. I just steamroll everything. Have to say, generally not that big a fan of the level scaling. Either it's too easy now, or too hard. And depending on your difficulty setting every combat encounter is like that. Played on Hard for a while, which make the sandbox interactions a little more interesting, but as soon as you hit a boss fight, they are just incredible bullet sponges that suck all the fun out of me. You know, thinking of it, I'm really missing some Deus Ex elements in the game. Where's my ventilation duct to walk around in, where's my alternative path to tackle boss fights, etc. etc.

Finished the Phantom Liberty story. Johnny was right, f- the suits. It's a good expansion. Only had a few bugs, nothing serious. Cutscenes are nice, story felt good. Some great moments in there. Still sad that I can't shoot Lizzy Wizzy in her face.

New Castlevania has dropped. Watched 5 episodes so far. Not bad, but at the same time it doesn't give me the same feelings as the first show had. Also I'm probably really bummed that it's only 8 episodes again and soon I'll have to wait another year or something until season 2 is out. Man, I hate waiting.

Yes. To start the expansion story, you'll have to meet with Alt. Don't think there was a level requirement to that.

Yooo, I just unlocked new vehicles. There's some sick new stuff available to buy. Looks like I'll need more money. Like, a lot.

I went with cool and reflex, since I'm a revolver guy, and for everything else I'm using Katana. Though, I have to say that knife throwing is really good as well. Stealthy, fast, usable distance is pretty far as well. Combine it with dash and/or optical camo and you can easily stealth whole areas now. Bit sad that I can't really do mechanical and hacking stuff anymore, but oh well. It's not really required anyways.

Got some more hours with the expansion. In short: - Still like the car. It just looks good. Only shame it kinda drives like ass. Not sure why they can't balance cars to not be so touchy. Hard to not crash into everything all the time. - Story presentation so far is pretty nice. Some cool moments, not too easy, not too hard. Felt a lot like Escape from New York in the beginning. Now it has opened up for me and guess I can go and do whatever I want. - visually still look amazing. There's few glitches here and there, but whatever. Still the best looking game I've played to date. - the new area has lots of verticality. This is one thing I don't like about the base game.. everything is flat and on ground level unless a gig makes you move into a predefined map.. and even then there's rarely any verticality.

Agreed, still more a fan of motorcycles, since they are more useful. Still need a change of pace for a bit now. : >

That new pre order something something car is pretty nice. Probably going to be my main wheels for a while.

It's supposed to start sometime around when you get to the voodoo boys.

I've tried the new update now. Can't feel a difference in performance. Not sure if the game looks better than before since I haven't played it in a while. The new mechanics are working exactly how I thought - all perks reset after loading a savegame and you can relocate them. Also I got a call from Viktor who told me that "new upgrades are available" or something and that I should go and visit a ripper doc. So I went to the next one and then all my implants were reset and I've assigned new ones. The whole implants mechanic is different now - looks and feels a lot better, imo. Also I've lost the suppressor on my revolver. Seems that suppressed revolvers are a thing of the past now. And the clothing system completely changed too. Went to the nearest clothing shop and assigned new clothes. Oh, shooting from vehicles seems to be working nice. Not sure yet when or if I would ever need that in regular gameplay, but will see later, I guess.

It's 2023, SSD is always necessary. Hell, even my backup server only runs on SSD now. Not buying anything else anymore.

Must be a hardware issue, since I don't have any ghosting in my game. It's honestly impressive to me how it manages to boost the fps so much with almost no visible impact. Only in rain did I notice weird artifacts.

Not that there was any to begin with.

This is interesting and explains the outward facing hole in the sub:

The grain thing just shows how much corruption there is in europe as well. I can understand both sides - ukraine who just want to move their grain through poland, etc. and the bordering countries who are worried about crashing grain prices because they can't compete with them. On the other hand, there are already rules that the ukraine grain can't be sold in european stores... but why does it happen anyways? Look at the people who are mixing the local stuff with it. This is where they have to crack down - give them huge fines or whatever, I don't know. I'm sure the authorities could find out who's behind it if they would try.

I mean, some do https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-calls-azerbaijan-stop-military-activities-karabakh-2023-09-19/