> It was a narrative technique that I think balanced a sense of urgency while letting the player control which thread they want to pull on next What are you on

> It was a narrative technique that I think balanced a sense of urgency while letting the player control which thread they want to pull on next What are you on about? If I don't want to progress on the main story line, I can choose NOT to start the relevant mission. If I started it, I want to go on with it, NOT to wait for 24 hours. Not to mention that main story missions that consist in driving somewhere, going through a badly written dialog tree, just so you can wait to do it all over again is BAD WRITING. You want a good example of balancing the urgency of the main story, yet still allowing to explore the world? Fallout 3. All the beggars you meet demand water, the main goal is to sort out Project Purity, bring water to the wasteland. No forcing the player to progress in the main mission, no waiting, no nonsense. In short, good writing. Here is another example of this wait bullshit simply padding the gameplay duration: the racing missions. Have to text Claire, then wait, then call her, then go to the place (far away from a quick travel point), then wait some more, than waste time staring at nothing because some npc wants "to get into my head", but misses the queue marked by the dialog option expiring and keeps at it for another minute or so. And to top it off, have the game crash twice in a row before gate 25. This was the second race and in a tragi-comic moment, the whole text-then-wait-than-chat-then-wait happened while Clair was right next to me, after finishing the first mission. > The padding comes from the random events (Like assaults or robberies) that have no story No, I can chose to ignore those events, they are not in my way to finish the game. All the wait shenanigans is. > Are you really surprised "the fat fixer" gets what's coming to him? What's coming to him? Did we play the same game? He was more than correct in his dealings with V, he got them the best transport option and the "killing of V" comes at the end, when he though that might save him. And his death doesn't help anyone and definitely does not prove "how ruthless the corps are", since Takamura is NOT part of a corp anymore and he had all the reasons in the world to keep around "the best fixer in NC". The fixers death doesn't serve the story at all. Heck, keeping him around as an unwilling partner to V and have them work together to survive would made a better story than shoehorning a best friends ever thing between V and Welles, which failed badly. Ffs, the dude tried to undercut V for 2 of the story lines and a crappy montage doesn't change that. > The character of Alt Didn't get there yet. > the Johnny redemption arc The dude detonated a nuclear bomb in the middle of a city. There can't possible BE a redemption arc from that. I hope Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't mean nobody else will put out a cyberpunk themed game. Imagine if this game was made by Obsidian.