rbialo: That is exactly the kind of approach I'm talking about - shallow, at glance judgment with an aim to put a label on it. And that is most of the time wrong.
In this example - how can you call it a shooter if you can play it without a single shot fired (or a punch or a slash for that matter)? And except for some pre-scripted scenes, you may even chose not equip a weapon at all and still play it! Just because it is first person view and you can shot? Come on...

If anything, it would be sandbox RPG, yet is a much more then any single game provided as example of that group on wiki. CP2077 is more like the combination of all the good things from past games.
Well, an attempt to do so because having so much good integrated into one game results in what we see now - undelivered features and not optimal implementation of others. But that it is unfinished is not my point - we agree on that from the start.
My point is that it brings computer role playing experience to a new level. A lot of it is already there - it just needs more patience and open minded approach. And much more has a potential to come after patches / DLCs which I hope will come.

fotoman1949: The roots of the genre back in the P&P days are what you refer to as support structures. They defined your role within the game.

To use your driving a car analogy, you would be correct if that were the end of it. But in RPGs it isn't because you can choose which support structures to emphasize as you level up and assign points to your chosen things resulting in being a better car driver later than you were when you first started.

In those P&P days what you did with your character was up to the imagination and craftiness of the DM who could design interesting or very boring experiences.

Once computers and consoles came along and we started playing RPGs in them those stories became more professional and we tend to judge games in how good or bad the developers/DMs are at their craft.

But it's still what the game gives you as options for improving and fine tuning those support structures that define the genre.

rbialo: That is exactly the kind of approach I'm talking about - shallow, at glance judgment with an aim to put a label on it. And that is most of the time wrong.
In this example - how can you call it a shooter if you can play it without a single shot fired (or a punch or a slash for that matter)? And except for some pre-scripted scenes, you may even chose not equip a weapon at all and still play it! Just because it is first person view and you can shot? Come on...

If anything, it would be sandbox RPG, yet is a much more then any single game provided as example of that group on wiki. CP2077 is more like the combination of all the good things from past games.
Well, an attempt to do so because having so much good integrated into one game results in what we see now - undelivered features and not optimal implementation of others. But that it is unfinished is not my point - we agree on that from the start.
My point is that it brings computer role playing experience to a new level. A lot of it is already there - it just needs more patience and open minded approach. And much more has a potential to come after patches / DLCs which I hope will come.

rbialo: That is exactly the kind of approach I'm talking about - shallow, at glance judgment with an aim to put a label on it. And that is most of the time wrong.
In this example - how can you call it a shooter if you can play it without a single shot fired (or a punch or a slash for that matter)? And except for some pre-scripted scenes, you may even chose not equip a weapon at all and still play it! Just because it is first person view and you can shot? Come on...

If anything, it would be sandbox RPG, yet is a much more then any single game provided as example of that group on wiki. CP2077 is more like the combination of all the good things from past games.
Well, an attempt to do so because having so much good integrated into one game results in what we see now - undelivered features and not optimal implementation of others. But that it is unfinished is not my point - we agree on that from the start.
My point is that it brings computer role playing experience to a new level. A lot of it is already there - it just needs more patience and open minded approach. And much more has a potential to come after patches / DLCs which I hope will come.

Arachnarok_Rider: You can't avoid shooting entirely, nor can you avoid equipping a weapon. There's that Johnny interlude. And you can absolutely play shooters without shooting guns all the time. Ever seen Doom speedruns? How about the latest Doom Eternal speedrun? Not much shooting there, except when the level design absolutely requires it.

But the core of our disagreement is that you're suggesting that simply being able to sneak (or rush) past enemies to an objective constitutes enough player choice and player agency to qualify as role-playing. My problem with that is the lack of consequence. What is the difference between choosing stealth or hacking or shooting really? Where are the points of divergence that differentiate such choices? If there is nothing to differentiate choices then the options are equivalent and the choice is effectively meaningless.

It's like deciding on your footwear in this game. Will it matter at any point if you're wearing boots, sneakers, or heels? Not at all. It will have no impact on your sprinting. How about road rash after a bike accident? Nope, wearing hotpants or leathers makes no difference. And almost all missions are like that when it comes to how you execute them. Stealth, hacking, big hammer, big dildo, fists, shotgun, red pistol, blue pistol, tiger-striped pistol, it makes no difference. There is no point of divergence so all the choices must be equivalent and therefore meaningless.

And that is a problem if the game is supposed to be a deep RPG. If it's just a shooter "with RPG mechanics" then fine, no big deal. If it's just an action adventure game "with RPG mechanics" then fine, no big deal. But if the game tries to be the next Planescape: Torment then there's got to be some consequence to something at some point.

wayke: There are certain avenues you choose that change the world etc.

wayke: Not even a thing the exaggeration is strong with this one, Doom 1 - 2 were little puzzle shooters work out what weapon works best and be done with it.

rbialo: Try to compare CP2077 to what you know from other cRGP and you will end up disappointed. Cyberpunk is not your average "player as a superhero" RPG game.

It is a game where you create a character and have an adventure in Night City. While at it you are free to do whatever you choose but ultimately it is a story-tell about the city and certain events. And V - your character - is just a vehicle for that story to roll and way for player to experience it.
And of course - it is Cyberpunk cliche you could say - your character will have a strong motivation to become an important person or someone famous or influential or rich or powerful or all of that. Intentionally or accidentally you will take part in some great plot. But in the end whatever you do does not really matter. Yes, you will perhaps kill someone or destroy something, but overtime that someone will get replaced and that something will be rebuild. In the long run your character deeds will be forgotten and world will carry on ready for next character to step in and try hard to get into major league.

I personally like that it has this pen and paper session feel to it - you make a character and enjoy trying to role-play it. And do not get too attached to your character because it is the Game Master prerogative to decide if you will even survive.

Of course computer GM is not on par with human one. One downside is that you can easily trick it, out smart it or even use game engine limitations against it. Other one is that it is heavily limited to what was per-scripted and can't always react 100% according to what you decide to do.

And that is another reason why many are disappointed.

Real RPG were not meant to be played "against GM" but to follow the story together. So some times even if you - the human - could foresee something coming or know something cleaver, if you character was not supposed to know that you were not supposed to role play it. .
So if you chose "I'm in it to win it at al cost" approach you will be disappointed. But if you actually try to play an intended role of your character, you will discover a really great experience, something I dare to call the real role playing game.

P.S.
I understand that roots of that disappointment comes from that despite huge hype creation, CDPR did not manage to send clear message that CP2077 will be a totally different game then anything you know. Instead they played on known game-play experience to catch attention from as many player as possible. That created false expectation of what CP2077 will actually be like and when topped with large number of early life bugs, here we are with thousands of people unable to appreciate what they got.
But I wish players would finally stop tryig to simplify CP2077 experience to what Witcher3 or GTA or whatever other game provided and instead take it for what it really has to offer.
For it is a real gem.
Unpolished yet - bugs - but with really great potential of being a genre re-defining game.

chimera2025: It's funny because at first I thought that I was missing something and that I was somehow missing what the choice was in the game. I slowly began to realize that the choices were very few and not as consequential as I thought. That is when I had a sinking feeling and it occurred to me that the game was not nearly as deep as I thought it would be.

Arachnarok_Rider: Doom 1 and 2 were absolutely shooters. But you could prefer the shotgun or the minigun or the rocket launcher or you could kill enemies from this spot or from that spot or just run past them. So many choices!! But of course choices don't matter if they all boil down to the same thing, do they?

How about racing games where you can pick the color of your car? That's player agency, is it? Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, a car-driving RPG coming to a store near you some 25 years ago? And let's not forget the Carmageddon franchise, where you could choose your car and your strategy. That is some real deep role-playing right there, isn't it? No, of course not, because that's not role-playing.

And that's my point. If you cannot interact with the world, if all the choice you have is the shape and color of your weapon then it's not really much of a role-playing situation. It might still be loads of fun, but it's not really the role-playing kind of fun.

Arachnarok_Rider: Yeah, in this one quest that seems to have gotten the "poster boy" treatment, there actually is a later consequence of you doing something. Multiple, even. You can save or condemn Meredith, you can get a chance to sleep with Meredith, and there's a quest that gets a bit easier if you saved Brick. In this one quest.

But all the regular Maelstrom bangers, they're just walking lootbags. Kill them all, let them live, nobody will care one bit. And every Maelstrom banger you run into outside of this quest are the same. Just murder them all, nobody minds. Not even the next group of Maelstrom bangers. And the next. And the next. And this applies to every group in the game, cops included. Don't have to worry one bit about doing it "on camera" either.

urza7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-playing_game#Role-playing_shooter

And i hope all of you are happy now.

But you can't change the fact that it is a mediocre game on all front. Mediocre RPS elements, mediocre open world elements with high quality design. And thats the game oh sorry half the game the other half is somewhere in the dev's office PC if we are lucky, if not the other half of the game not exist.