Cyberpunk 2077 - Unkillable Children, Story NPCs

I see you're still taking every opposing opinion personally.

I can assure you wolfgrimdark wasn't trying to insult you because that's not his style. He wasn't even talking to or about you, he was simply giving his opinion on that view. But you, as you seem prone to do, somehow took it as some kind of personal attack.

So let's not pretend that everyone who has a different viewpoint lacks intelligence. You're only making yourself look like a complete douche by doing that.



I have to judge statements by their content, not some imaginary reputation bar which I'm not aware of. Statements prefaced by "immersion is an excuse" (I said to me it's immersion breaking, not majorly, but significant enough to speak of it while being in the topic) followed by uninformed pejorative comments about people in that line of thought. So forgive me for not turning on the reputation bars of every user I don't know and taking it into account to respond when they speak about something. It wouldn't have changed anything, even if I had done so.

As for being a douche, I'm fine with that. I do not make a goal out of being nice to those that don't earn it.
 
Well there is not much I can do about how other people react, i.e. taking something impersonal and making it personal. I made a point of not calling anyone lame for having X opinion since that is silly. An opinion or idea is a singular thing and a person is not. So if I think a certain idea or argument is lame (e.g. immersion is a lame excuse) that doesn’t mean I think or believe that every idea or argument from that person is also lame by any means. Just that I disagree with one of them in particular and have my own opinion about it.

Of course lame is an inflammatory word I could have avoided, as well as the bigotry example, and was used as a form of hyperbole to make a point (emphasize my own opinion in other words), so I apologize if someone took that personally … as I was attacking the argument not the person. Yet understand I do, personally, think it is a lame excuse – although that is just my opinion. Not that the person is lame, as explained above, but the idea itself. Also the first thing that came to mind when I was reading the thread was just that example I gave – of how I see people hide behind some other rationale to explain why they don’t want something when [sometimes] it is clear that isn’t the case but a distraction. I wasn’t saying that was what everyone was doing -- as I have no way of knowing what the actual motives are from people in wanting to be able to kill children in games -- but it was my way of saying I also don’t necessarily believe everything people write on the forums.

Also, like many who post on forums, it is easy to react more strongly than needed (i.e. inflammatory words) but I didn’t think my comment was particularly personal or intense enough to be any big issue (although seeing the response apparently they were). Plus always being 100% PC, correct, and diplomatic can make for rather dry forum posting. So adding a little hyperbole doesn’t seem all that terrible as long as it doesn’t get personal. I will also add I just find the very idea of killing children to be extremely distasteful and offensive so that also raised my emotional “heat” when writing my reply.

I also backed up my statement on why I thought the argument for killing children due to immersion reasons was lame IMO. That seems to have been overlooked so I will reiterate. To me I find not being able to kill a child to be less immersion breaking than so many other things that occur in games, and would happen so less often, that I think it’s foolish, aka lame, to use it as an excuse as to why a developer should spend time and energy to make children killable, especially when they might suffer from the media and certain groups, if they do, when it offers up so little. I would rather see other things worked on that add immersion to the game, especially ones less high profile and in the end really don’t offer anything (again my opinion) to the game. I also personally feel killing children is just not a good thing, even in a game, unless there is a very specific reason to do so relating to a key game plot and it has a logical and core plot point behind doing so.

Instead of enabling child killing, either on purpose or by accident (per Vurt’s comment), I would rather see the developers doing other things that help with immersion in perhaps a more positive manner. Again just my opinion.

At least the follow up responses provide some more detail about both the reasons some want to have this feature as well as showing a bit more about the people doing the responding.

EDIT: Also I wanted to point out that I made a point of saying "Of course wanting the option to kill children doesn't mean you actually do (in the game or in life)" as a way to state I don't think people wanting this feature actually want to kill children. I also added I think adding it could have some negative repercussions for the game company as well.
 
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Now where did I put the popcorn…

Here:

tenor.gif


Lemme add something to the mix, maybe someone will care.
If people were living aside dinosaurs, what's the most efficient way to make "monsters" gone? Smash their eggs.
In videogames of past (and design crimes today) this can't help as trashmobs respawn.

I have to repeat my first post remark about gaming journalism. It's lowest possible nowadays.
 
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I do think it is disappointing by CD Project and does lessen immersion in the game world.

The game is advertised as being mature and adult oriented in nature with nudity and sexually graphic scenes so I would think there would not be so artificial elements such as invincible children in the game.

I get the argument that this would cause heat for the game, but still. I would say they should not put children in the game at all in the case that they would need to be make them un-killable. Just skip it altogether and remove them from the game world would make it less immersion breaking.

It also brings up what is exactly defined as children. Does this include teenagers? If so, that is doubly disappointing. Because in such a dark world, you would expect unpleasant and disturbing things taking place that involve dark concepts.

Let me give an example. I can see plot lines involving teens being forced to work as prostitutes in the game world, and you have to investigate and infiltrate the organization (which is underworld based) in order to save and free the children from the "slavers" who are doing this.

Perhaps the reason these underworld figures are abducting these teenagers is that say, elite and powerful, evil people in the society use these services (illegally) and you are trying to track them down and get their info and computer chips contained in the teens have perfect recordings of who these people are, for example.

(Updated) Let me clarify a bit more. perhaps some of these evil elites end up killing the teen after they are done in their "session". And/or, some of the teens involved are "recruiters", and help get new blood as prostitutes, and are evil and super loyal to the organization so that you have to kill them in the course of uncovering this stuff and making your way through this plot. (they actually attack you, in other words, forcing you to kill them)

Anyway, that scenario is just off the top of my head and the point is Cyberpunk is supposed to be a troubled futuristic world where anything goes, and that includes dark evil stuff. At least that was my impression. So this is a disappointing decision in my opinion.

Doesn't mean the game still won't be great, don't get me wrong, but just that it could have been better.
 
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I would be fine with breaking the game, as long as the game warns me when I killed an integral NPC. As far as children...just don't include them. I don't want to break immersion by having an inconsistent ruleset where "some" NPCs are killable, and "others" are not.
 
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A world without children would not be immersive.

It's not about wanting to kill children, you'd have to be a psychopath to want that. It's about destroying any immersion in the narrative you're trying to build because you decided to include certain NPCs that are immune to damage. To me personally it's not the biggest deal but since it's in the topic, that's my opinion. Anything that subtracts from the immersion of a RPG is bad, and I'd be much happier with simply not adding children models to the game at all so I don't have to witness these immersion-breaking moments.

The funny thing is that children are usually added to increase the realism and immersion of the setting, but then it accomplishes the contrary.

And on plot NPCs, same thing. If you're dumb enough to randomly kill NPCs fo the hell of it and at some point you notice you killed the only guy in town who can sell you a car, too bad. This is one of the things I love in games that allow it (such as Baldur's Gate or Dark Souls sagas). If you kill a critical NPC you really wanted alive, but you killed them for whatever reasons (reasons often being "they probably carry loot and I can kill them, so why not"), you'll suffer the consequences.
 
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Think of it this way, I am given a quest to kill an NPC at the local school. If children are not killable, I will walk into the school and cast my fireball and burn the school down to ground since the children cannot die but will end up killing the NPC. Now if children are killabel, I would wait for the NPC to come out of the school after it finished and then will kill him! See how the game play has now changed? Can you see how it added another layer to the game?

Exactly!! I dislike unkillable NPCs for that very reason, regardless whether they are children or essential quest givers. I like good old BG style of all killable NPCs and named quest givers - should be enough clue for me to not just a chuck a fireball in the area, it's also about choices and consequences!
 
Placement of children in open world games is usually crafted in the way that they aren't in harms way so to speak. So usually it's no biggie that they can't be killed.

It could potentially leave the game world in a pretty strange condition though, let's say an entire town or city block is killed off due to a giant battle taking place or a fire etc, but 100% of the children makes it.
 
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I don't want to break immersion by having an inconsistent ruleset where "some" NPCs are killable, and "others" are not.

While I get what you're saying, I'm surprised it's being made into such a big deal here. The inconsistent ruleset is the norm in these kinds of games. I don't remember people complaining about it so much in all the other open-world games that do it the same way, and that's the majority of them.

If it wasn't for the article, I'm pretty sure no one would have even mentioned it.
 
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Can we lock this thread? Killing children? Why is this even a discussion?
 
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Can we lock this thread? Killing children? Why is this even a discussion?

Lock the thread? Come on, lucky were talking about pixels not children.

Anyway, I’d like to see everyone be killable but have real consequences in place to greatly discourage going postal.

Like a working justice and legal system. Want to go on a rampage, fine but if your caught and sentenced to life in prison then a cinematic plays and credits roll, have ways to avoid this such as bribing a judge or intimidating a juror to get acquitted or hack to erase your record, etc. make this thing difficult to achieve though.

Make something cool from it rather than just go with the default solution.
 
Yes, I agree about the severe consequences. If you kill a child in the game, in such a way that is done out of pure evil (not connected to the plot or for some other explanation like self-defense, like I presented above) and the crime was uncovered, you would get terminator-like beings sent against you, and it would become very difficult to survive.

All kinds of possibilities. Also, another plot line involving "killing children" could be a serial killer is going around the city and you have to hunt them down and figure out who it is by studying the computer chips and bodies of the kids who get killed.
 
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I'm ok with this, I'm not ok with windows 10 exclusivity.
 
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It's very strange, and possibly unhealthy, that the bar so many gamers set for freedom of choice is whether they can indiscriminately kill people, including children.

And the inability to kill important NPCs is simply the cost of playing a game that works, and remains a viable game. CDPR is a pretty amazing game developer and this game will give us a lot of choices as to how to play it, but one thing no game with a specific story can do is rework itself as you mow through its plot critical characters. Substitutions (ala bits of Mass Effect) are just as immersion breaking and dumb as not being able to kill them.
 
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Exactly!! I dislike unkillable NPCs for that very reason, regardless whether they are children or essential quest givers. I like good old BG style of all killable NPCs and named quest givers - should be enough clue for me to not just a chuck a fireball in the area, it's also about choices and consequences!

But the consequence of that choice in every scenario would simply be erasing parts of the game. There WILL be important characters who will be able to be killed, but it will be a choice written into and accounted for by the game. It's a narrative. A flexible one to some extent, sure, but the goal is to give the player agency within a story. If you want a loose framework of a world in which to loose your id, play Rust or whatever people who like games like Rust play these days, and enjoy the very limited interactions possible in a game in which all you do is kill people.
 
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But the consequence of that choice in every scenario would simply be erasing parts of the game. There WILL be important characters who will be able to be killed, but it will be a choice written into and accounted for by the game. It's a narrative. A flexible one to some extent, sure, but the goal is to give the player agency within a story. If you want a loose framework of a world in which to loose your id, play Rust or whatever people who like games like Rust play these days, and enjoy the very limited interactions possible in a game in which all you do is kill people.

When did anyone say all we want is kill people? You seem to miss the point completely - I would like all NPCs to be killable because it adds immersion, and choices and consequences. As @lostforever; already mentioned, if you make some characters immune to death, you can simply chuck a fireball to the area and be done with it - which cheapens the game play in my opinion. There was one quest in Expeditions: Viking that was especially memorable to me which involves possible death of a child - you had to defeat the enemies quick enough to rescue the child who was tied to a burning stake. Even if you fail to save the child, you've achieved your objective and could move on, but I really wanted to rescue the child at the expense of my party being injured. I'd say that is a good choices and consequences. Plus, you could even turn on an option to not to land critical hit on enemies which prevents killing them but potentially take longer to reach the child. I loved that quest - depending on how you play, you could rescue the child without killing the enemies. So what makes you think it's about just killing people?

Also, who are you to tell me what to play (or not to play)? But if you want to go down that route, maybe you should play Rust, you seem one dimensional enough to enjoy it :)
 
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It must be the difference of culture but talking about killing children to add plots in such a casual way is just sick. It is not like we did not have a world of possible plots.

I love the 'kill a child in the game, in such a way that is done out of pure evil (not connected to the plot or for some other explanation like self-defense'.

You know self-defense is quite ok as an excuse to kill a 4yo, apparently.

or the 'Like a working justice and legal system. Want to go on a rampage, fine but if your caught and sentenced to life in prison then a cinematic plays and credits roll, have ways to avoid this such as bribing a judge or intimidating a juror to get acquitted or hack to erase your record, etc. make this thing difficult to achieve though.'

Some kind of American justice system simulation? Can you do an Epstein and be the hero of the day?

Well, I do not think CDPR will ever cater to this kind of thing.
 
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I'm ok with this, I'm not ok with windows 10 exclusivity.

Somehow I hadn't heard about the Win 10 exclusivity. That is bad news, indeed, if true. However, I don't see the system requirements listed on the Steam page? Where did you hear this?
 
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