Benefits of Missing Out: What 'Cyberpunk 2077' Taught Us About Non-Linear Level Design
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2023
- In this 2023 Level Design Summit talk, gain an overview of the design intentions behind the levels in the game, and look at how these intentions did not always fully receive the anticipated reception by players. It will elaborate on what the team was able to learn from this and, finally, how these lessons were turned into principles and techniques that can be applied by level designers to make those branching paths feel more rewarding and special, while still keeping things production-friendly.
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The gym example reminds me of the adage that "the reward for playing the game well should never be that you get to play less of it".
Thats why morality systems often feel bad in games. Playing the "bad guy" often gives you just some money or short term reward, where the "good guy" choice offers additional dialoge and follow up missions. The bad guy is often cut out of interesting content.
@@vast634This reflects reality. Noone wants to have something to do with a$$holes, be it in a real or digital world.
@@slawasaporogez6581 I guess you always choose the goodie good shoes character then? But thats not all players. Especially when they replay the game.
@@slawasaporogez6581 Though since this is in games, there should be interesting content based around no one wanting anything to do with you. Reflecting reality is well and good some times, but not when it's boring.
@@slawasaporogez6581 The thing with Morality is that it crosses some subjective thresholds. One society or group may see an action is noble while another group will see it as atrocious. This is why you see games made by Obisidan emphasize "gray areas" or complicated decision-making. They don't punish the player for making a "right or wrong" choice, rather showcase how both choices have their own respective consequences and it's up to the player to decide whether they made the right choice or not.
I could quickly tell that a ton of Cyberpunk’s missions, especially the Gigs, take a lot of inspiration from games like Deus Ex, System Shock, and Dishonored. I’ve found myself restarting missions over and over again just to see how many different ways I can complete an objective.
While Cyberpunk might not be as intricate as a true immersive sim, the fact that it often shares that DNA automatically makes it leagues above most action-rpgs. Other huge role playing games akin to Cyberpunk, Skyrim and Fallout 4 for example, try to include these elements but I’ve always felt like they fall short.
Cyberpunk is my favorite game ever, but it havin those imsim elements is what made me go back and play all the imsims of the last decade or so id missed out on .. I played the entire bioshock series, the entire dishonored series, deathloop, prey and deus ex MD all because of cyberpunk.. and I’ve kinda found my new gaming genre of choice : immersive sim/rpg blends r what it’s all about for me , and obviously cyberpunk is the pinnacle of that kind of genre in my opinion, but man arkane has some bangers under their belt as well.. absolutely fell in love with their games and DH2 and deathloop have become my 2 of my favorite games I’ve ever played next to cyberpunk
Finally a talk about games
IMO the original Deus Ex still had the best system for handling different playstyles: most skill checks are item-based, improving your skills makes you more resource-efficient. If you really wanna hack a high level door to bypass an encounter you can do it even if you haven't invested in your hacking skill, but you'll burn through your entire supply of icebreakers doing so. Armored enemies can be dealt with using LAMs even if you don't have the skills to use heavy weapons properly, and so on. And even with the proper skill allocation, you can't just default to hacking or lockpick everything you come across or you'll run out eventually, but at least you don't need to worry about stockpiling supplies for 3 levels just to get past a single door.
Many imsims (including the Deus Ex reboot) have skill checks that basically let you skip parts of the level if you took that skill, which is a very reductive approach to level design...
It`s good to see that the CDPR team is trying to learn from their mistakes, it`s much harder than riding the wave of success.
I guess we'll really experience what they've learned in the LD department when Phantom Liberty comes out.
Inspirational and great talk by Miles! I had the opportunity to hear his break down of the Witcher 3's world design earlier this year, and that too was very fruitful for me as an aspiring level designer. Hopefully we get to see more talks from him in the future!
This is an amazing talk, and really provides an insight into how good level-design is made. I think it made me understand why don't enjoy some parts of immersive sims as well.
I really hope they will apply those lessons to Phantom Liberty
Edit: I guess it makes sense that under an educational gamedesign video there are people who don't know shit about it
You can really tell the ones who watched the video and the ones who didn't in the comment section. Great talk from miles, hopefully this was implemented in phantom liberty
Why listen to a bunch of continued lies for the biggest video game scam of the last decade. Oh a cyberpunk story is extremely linear to boot.
@@EdgeO419 I know the classic saying is not to feed the trolls... but just this once.
A linear story is not the same as linear level design. You can say the story is linear (and you would be mostly wrong) but it is an objective fact that the level design is non-linear.
@@EdgeO419 its evident you didnt WATCH the video where they talk about how they know they made mistakes and didn't do what people wanted, how other games did it better and what they LEARNT FROM IT... KINDA THE WHOLE POINT OF THE VIDEO ... raging against cyberpunk is so 2020
@@Nermian The only way they can truly learn is by refunding all the millions of people they scammed. People like the ones in the video are the ones that came out and lied to our faces about CP2077 for years.
@@EdgeO419 Move on, my dude. It's 2023.
Reminds me a lot of establishing the tried & true hub "discovery" area with "exploration" adventure-paths. I appreciate the newer take.
25:30 I remember this mission was a mess for me and it was a bit my fault, but I was also being punished by the game for upgrading skills. See, instead of trying to ignore most of the guards, I thought to use my Quckhacks to just clear the ones in my way. This would have worked well, if there wasn't one problem. I also skilled the perk where the Quickhack would jump over to another enemy if he is in reach. The problem now became that due to the double layer of the map, the quickhack jumped over to people that I didn't intend to and therefore, the whole cover was broken easily and you basically had to take all of them out. And that takes time with Quickhacks only. I feel, for all the different ways, it seems that some were still prioritised like the complete stealth in this one.
Thanks
Fantastic talk. Looking forward to playing these upcoming levels!
How much Toast? Miles!
Great talk from Miles, it really shows the importance of perception in level design and highlights how altering it can change the perceived value of player choices within that level. Some of the concepts here are hard to articulate but easy to feel the consequences of. Its a shame that some of the comments seem to fail to grasp that this is a talk about level design to level designers and other industry professionals not a piece of marketing to get you to buy Cyberpunk or whitewash the launch issues.
I imagine these principles were be applied to the upcoming expansion.
You can bet that this will be the case 😉
Level design can't ever be great if the only movement mechanic is walking around and just jump 30 centimeters high , the only thing you can do is hack.
Also allot off these level design oversights are never thought about the way they talk about designing it , all this is never thought off during the design process but always added later on and then just mixed in to complete the scene. But they always talk as they where thinking about each piece in one frame , it's like someone watching over a replay and then giving comments on each move the player makes with insane thought and smart decisions! When in reality the player themself did not even think about any off the crap the caster talks about.
Another thing you should take into account: THE RUNES IN DISHONORED, you are pointed towards the direction but you have to make out the locations and they are always off the beaten path. They are the only way to gain power and you feel rewarded by searching and getting them. Instead your paths dont offer much. I prefer disonored system too. There are no levels, there are powers and witts. 😂😂😂 deus ex also gives extra points for doing stealth so you feel rewared afterwards. I liked your game but I hope if theres a 2 is better.
I truly hope there comes a day where AAA video games become easier create and don't take 5 - 10 years to develop. Unfortunately I wont be alive to see it, as I have cancer and only have a few years to live. Life doesn't get easier...
I hope you survive cancer.
it can be easier, this is a problem with incompetent game designers using too many resources to make up for their crap design.
@vighneshkoalapunani8851
I don't think this can ever happen (for logical reasons): Let's imagine technology would make it possible to develop a game like cyberpunk with a small crew in a year. Then there would be a lot of these since they'd be comparably cheap to produce. So there would be still room in the market for games that take 5 years to produce and involve 500 people.
Very interesting
huh, that's interesting, making multiple paths with different rewards
The problem is: players don't want to miss anything (loot, special visuals, etc), and then start wandering around all paths anyhow. During or after the mission is done.
@@vast634 I don't see the point of a role playing game where it doesn't matter what character you build, you all have the exact same experience because COD players need to look for every loot box or they cant sleep at night.
Not all games need to be made with their hand holding in mind, especially not every RPG. Most of RPG lovers actually really want their choices to have some kind of meaning and see it reflected in the game world and even better, the story and experience of their character. That's why people like them, it's kind of the whole point.
The level design was great in cyberpunk
Was it tho, i distinctly remember hard crashes, characters walking through walls\vehicles, bone distortion on models and NPC's despawning.
Small spaces with tons of cover, over and over and over again. None of the levels were unique or interesting.
What chu mean it was great. It is great!
@eoyibo it's hardly a LD problem
@@ivanbaxaliar I mean designing good AI pathing and barriers are part of level design.
I kind of agree with the commenters that there's not really much new or insightful here... The level design of 2077 suffered mainly from bland open world syndrome, where each "level" was just different sets of crates and cover objects, maybe a raised gantry or 2, nothing really that seemed unique in any way. He touches on it a bit about how they loaded up the generic path with cool stuff but then they left the alternate paths basically empty of *anything* making them just feel like a shortcut to skip content, which further added to the bland open world feeling. Even worse, no decisions you made about how to approach missions ever actually mattered... one of the great things in games like Deus Ex or Dishonored is that the game world reacts in small ways to you taking different kinds of approaches which helps make your decisions feel meaningful and can help distract from missed content because it feels like you get a little special prize for doing things your own way.
Overall, I think that cyberpunk missions tended to be a bunch of linear paths instead of a freeform level, and even then these freeform paths weren't created to be interesting or add to the gameplay but just so that they were there and they could say "look! It's non-linear". I really hope Phantom Liberty fixes this but if you're looking for a good talk on non-linear level design this might not be it. Instead you might want to hop over to this golden oldie about FO: New Vegas - th-cam.com/video/LR4OxNfzTvU/w-d-xo.html
The decisions mattered a lot and even entirely changed the outcome at times (the mission at Clouds, etc). You are low IQ and not offering much insight.
Another thing they should learn from Arkane/Eidos: MAKE POSSIBLE TO PLAY WITHOUT HUD!! What a disappointment. I dont want to see the “what to do now” on the upper right but on occasions without it the game is unplayable. Same with directions, I dont want a gps, but the characters dont tell you where to go. Compare that to mankind divided: the characters would say “behind the pharmacy” or whatever and I played that game with a clean empty screen. Same with Dishonored. The level of immersion you get is incomparable. All games nowadays should offer hudless options
Options for no HUD / no quest markers / quest log etc may not even be enough. You could disable them in Avatar, but reviewers apparently didn't do it and gave bad marks. Apparently most players have to be *forced against their will* to get a better game experience. This is similar to how an easy option on Dark Souls would just lead most players to make the game to easy for them.
however this design of an mission system is completely not what people expect from a game with diverging story based on your character. What players were expecting from the marketing was unique missions dependant on your build and actions in game not a system where all builds lead to the same result.
Exactly. I was also thinking that the first example shown pretty just much visualized two generic paths because stealth and combat are both always an option. The problem with the game isn't quite the level design but the independence of levels from each other.
It should make a difference whether you stealth around a level or kill everyone on rampage. This should affect the world around that level. Focusing like shown in the video on individual levels just makes it clear that it's not actually an open world game but a very big and fancy lobby to enter levels.
That's not how it should work.
Dishonored 2 did this better than any modern game I can think of
all the things he talks about may be true and useful but in practice, dishonored 2 vs 2077 on level design is not even a debate, its a joke. its better to study dishonored in that case
@@user-cv7kf1hb5z If night city was meant to feel like a lifeless, half assed, edgy 12 yr old level humor, oversaturated and boring place, then I guess they did a good job. The areas all felt like someone vomited a bunch of shitty assets and called it a game.
Practically every other large game has felt more immersive than cyberpunk. And the story was shit too, it was all just point a to point b "theme park" railroading. The characters were shallow cliches, the johnny character feels like an intentionally bad movie character that isn't even entertaining, the worldbuilding barely existed, etc. The loot was just endless clutter that made it all seem annoying and pointless, the combat and movement were extremely basic, the hacking had too many limitations and not enough variety to make it interesting, etc, etc, etc. I can't think of a single positive aspect of the game. It seems all the good things about the game are things people hoped it would be but which it never even attempted to be outside of false advertising.
This is true. I'd say any single level of Dishonored (or most of Arkane's other fare) is far, far better than any single level in Cyberpunk.
Two things though - first, Cyperpunk has a lot more levels than Arkane games do. One could argue this doesn't matter that much - why expend what (I'd assume) was far more effort and resources to make an experience that was worse? This question has answers - they were making an open world RPG rather than an immersive sim, and needed to make the equivalent to some rice and potato to bulk out the overall dish. Not nearly as flavourful, but hey, it's... still filling?
Second and to me far more important thing, Cyberpunk supports more playstyles than Dishonored did. This can go pretty bad actually, since the overall experience can get soupy the more options you introduce, but I'd say they'd overall did pretty well - and, more importantly, they knocked one of those playstyles out of the fucking park.
Cyperpunk has the best hacker experience in any first person game ever, it's not even close. Part of it is a passable hacking minigame, sure whatever, seen it, BUT for any level that has camera systems, which is most of them that matter, you can hack into them and scout out most of the level without ever entering it, tagging enemies, taking off isolated stragglers, removing major threats and manipulating the plentiful hackables to your advantage in all kinds of ways. You're not just unlocking boxes or disabling cameras, you're using your skills to get a complete view of a level and then exploiting that information to its fullest. They also have a super-slowdown for when you're doing your combat-based hacking, so you always have time to think up creative solutions and aren't stuck reacting on muscle memory. It's fucking sweet.
Really hope a game designer out there was watching and became as itchy to make a game that's centered around these concepts as I am itchy to play it. Maybe Arkane and CDP Red kiss and make a baby? One can dream.
@@daumantaslipskis5119 The hacking was worse than Watch Dogs which also failed to meet the hype but in the end is still a better game than Cyberpunk.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731 why is the hacking worse than Watchdogs?
This game would be better without being open world. Dishonored 1-2 and Deus ex mankind divided had maps FULL OF DETAILS. Very memorable and with lots of ways to complete the same objective. The way I play might be completely different from others. Cyberpunk is good but these games are just miles better. Throw away the open world and focus more on smaller sections
Players usually want to see ALL the content possible. Those exclusive paths can lead players to wander around a location unnecessarily long, so they dont "miss" anything. Especially when there are unique interactions.
I disagree. Too much thinking this way and you end up with assassin's creed with all its map markers, no mystery, no discovery, and no fun. And then people go all the way opposite to Elden Ring because it gives them real exploration.
@@PatGunn People will still explore the whole map to not miss any loot. Thats the problem with games that have lootdrops and lootchests everywhere. Or special events / NPC conversations. There is always the possibility that an important item is in an unexplored part of the map. Players will have the fear of missing out, and then look through the whole map anyways, leading to lots of backtracking. If the game is designed to block that via a timer, players will feel unsatisfied by getting forced to miss out on things.
That has nothing to do with preplaced mapmarkers. Chunking up a map into several detached paths will just make players spend more time following those paths, or otherwise make them feel like not getting the whole experience.
The only way to alleviate that would be to have no loot or special interesting content along those paths, and only at the chokepoints that everyone visits anyhow.
The leveldesigners should study actual player behavior, not in a staged lab setting, or internal play-tester that repeat the same level dozens of times, but from casual play-streams for example. Some players might not care to get all content, but a lot of players do so.
@vast634 I think that's fine. As long as it's a choice made by the player to explore it all.
@@vast634 some will, but catering to neurotic players, again, gets you the Assassin's Creed games with all those map markers and no real player agency. The right answer is to embrace options, smile on non-neurotic players, return options and mystery and discovery to games, and for the weirdos who really need to find everything, throw them some fiendishly difficult puzzles to keep them busy for years.
@@PatGunn The talk was about specific enclosed Mission-areas. Cyberpunk also hat the Assassins Creed style dotted mini-locations dotted all around the map. But those are obviously busywork and not very unique content.
Its fine to guide players to normally unvisited parts of the map, giving them some reason or hint to visit those locations, but should intentionally not have high value or unique rewards.
While it seems they learned some lessons (and the issues mentioned in this talk will definietly fix some of problems!), the main issues with cyberpunk is not the small scale gameplay. The issue is that there's no good overarching structure.
* The open world is a checklist of small, isolated and ultimately very similar content boxes (gyms, hideouts, night clubs) without any interaction or payoff besides loot/levels/cash. (Some of the side missions have great storylines, though!)
* The main story line is a series of linear segments of the same content boxes (although a bit bigger). The only thing the player gets to choose is the final mission and respective ending. These choices are unlocked by completing a linear segment of content boxes for each of the factions.
* Longer running side quests also are nothing but linear segments of content boxes.
Sounds like overthinking. Witcher 3 was more focused, and it was more fun to play. You wanna give players freedom, but you designing and restricting every part of that freedom. It's feels so synthetic.
Miles if you're reading this, I hope when the game updates when Phantom Liberty comes out that you have applied what you learned to all the legacy missions, NCPD and gigs setpieces around the entire map and not just for the parts added to the new area in the DLC. And if you aren't, you impress the importance of it to your boss. I'd be replaying this game for years and it would certainly make up for the disasterous launch.
Level design in cyberpunk was uncompelling
You are uncompelling. Also wrong.
True. I finished the game. Its a 7 at most. Nothing shines apart from graphics/music/style and lightning effects. Gameplay, traversal, feeling of reward.. sll of this was average
So what if you have non-linear level design while the whole game is linear like hell... and it's an "open world"!
Well, he makes the point what happens. You have different sections of discovery and exploration. The fault here is that he thinks only levels divide into that. But after each level should actually still be exploration which is the same independent of the path you pick in each level.
Like he is explaining so well why the way they operate does not work at all for an open world game. Kind of crazy.
Two low IQ people discussing things they don't understand. A story with 7 different endings and tons of branch quests is fundamentally not "linear". Also this has nothing to do with the level design, which is top class.
This game should not be so open and big. Its stupid. They should do it like Deus ex mankind. Best city in a game
The Snake Oil Salesman…
I think good old Thief games are way better at level design. Even Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has better level design than CyberPunk2077.
Edit: *Deus, not Deu.
As he said in the video: It's an open world game with a lot of content. They can't afford to make bespoke paths for everything as in smaller games like Deus Ex.
Omg, they are doing it again…
This will be interesting! Cyberpunk has one of if not the the best and most alive open world in videogame history, I will check this presentation out :)
No way. I own cp77, and I will buy the dlc, but the level design is odd and bland.
@@mxrandolph4539 what are you defining as level design? Because level design is pretty good, you might be confusing with gameplay or story'
@R0ization that is you, whom is confused. The level design is bland and odd. The map design is often in conflict with the small HUD map. Nothing on the map has a standout feature that made me think, darn, that was clever. Is the map non linear and organic, yeah. Is it fun? No.
@@yol_n also, what makes it 'good'?
@@yol_n No it isn't. It's generic, convoluted and gameplay choices don't matter.
But apparently we did not play the same Cyberpunk anyway, cuz I'm kinda missing the "best" and "most alive" in its open world. It's pretty and i adore it for that but that's also all there is to it.
first
Game was still amazing. Suck it haters
🤦♂️
Can me explain what is this content about and what is this
Chanel about, any company links to chanel.
Strong attempt to sound relatable and push the narrative "learning from our mistake to be better". This is not a game design talk, this is a commercial. I had to stop after 17 min after the cringe of it.
The level design of Cyberpunk 2077 is excellent. This is just about embodying a slightly different tenet in how said level design is approached. You are low IQ which is why couldn't keep up with the video and yet still feel the need to comment.
'Non linear level design' in cyberpunk's case is a good way to rebrand an unfinished mess that still barely playable almost 3 years later.
its not playable or you can't play it ? I can imagine your noob ass trying to copy online "pro" walkthroughs and fail miserably.
It taught them how to make boring missions
One way to comment this talk is, "you won't miss out on anything by not watching this GDC talk". Banal statements from start to finish and it hardly applies to 2077 itself.
2077's "non-linear" level design reminds me more of Splinter Cell Blacklist than of Deus Ex or Dishonored.
Also, there's a lot of self-appraisal and bravado injected in this talk. Guys, we know what 2077 is. Selling it as something magnificent (i.e. which it is not) is a waste of time. Have some dignity.
Are you deaf or something? The entire talk about is about the stuff they SHOULD have done but didn't. Yeah no shit they don't apply to Cyberpunk 2077 because they didn't do it and they are learning from it to do better in the next game or the expansion.
Also whether something is magnificent or not is subjective.