3 ms·

I think Cyberpunk has a good basis but as you say, it's heavy weight; they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think, but also it's a PC game so

I think Cyberpunk has a good basis but as you say, it's heavy weight; they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think, but also it's a PC game so it can be modded and improved as hardware gets better. The challenge - and you already see it on lower crowd density numbers - is getting enough unique and different characters. Cyberpunk seems to have a number (dozens?) of NPC characters making up the crowds, but it gets repetitive and you frequently see identical ones. Procedurally generated characters would already improve that, and some games do have it but they tend to pick from a fixed set of animation and behaviour stereotypes still. More of those stereotypes make it better (think GTA), but it's still fixed. I don't think going all in on procedural generation or even AI would fix it though; especially AI has a tendency to go for a mean / average character quickly. And in video games, you still want predictability. That said, maybe a different visual style (lower fidelity or 2d) would work.

freehorse 2mo ago
> they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think I assume something like that to be the case, as I played the game last year and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience. But apart from stuff like the NCPD-marked encounters spread around the city, you probably do not want to look too closely at the random npcs, as it does get repetitive fast. But they do give an image of a lively city, at least, as you walk through. But imo it had enough of random encounters, side quests etc around the city to give you reasons to explore and immerse into it outside the main story (which I did not hate anyway, but can def imagine playing the game without it).
- ghosty141 2mo ago
  > and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience I think I gotta explain myself a little better here. If you play the story it doesn't feel like that too much, but if you just walk through the city you often encounter quite empty roads and walkways. See here for example: https://youtu.be/0J55aRPrgOM?t=1285 https://youtu.be/0J55aRPrgOM?t=1285 Like mentioned above, you sadly can't properly fix it by just upping the population density since there are far too few models and you constantly notice the duplicate characters. An example of what kind of crowd density and aesthetic I think is necessary for big populated cities can be seen in Altered Carbon: https://youtu.be/aDrj-_dB09k?t=22 https://youtu.be/aDrj-_dB09k?t=22. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to dunk on the game, it's all just my personal opinion of what I want from a game with thats trying to nail the cyberpunk aesthetic.
  - freehorse 2mo ago
    Well, that's in the US (sort of), most people use the cars /s No, you are right. I see what you mean now, it does not have the population density that corresponds to a superpopulated megacity. There is a mod that makes it much higher (apparently activating a setting that gdpr had introduced but hidden) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgsRpxZU-0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgsRpxZU-0M But even then, apart from the absolute amount of people, there is imo an issue with how people are distributed as they increase. People irl are not distributed uniformly and walk alone, they cluster (walk together, hang out in groups etc). Even with increased density with a mod, model repetitions aside, it puts them in a way that feels imo fake/weird. And in a game you have the time to notice these details.

freehorse 2mo ago

> they did increase or tweak crowd density in an update I think I assume something like that to be the case, as I played the game last year and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience. But apart from stuff like the NCPD-marked encounters spread around the city, you probably do not want to look too closely at the random npcs, as it does get repetitive fast. But they do give an image of a lively city, at least, as you walk through. But imo it had enough of random encounters, side quests etc around the city to give you reasons to explore and immerse into it outside the main story (which I did not hate anyway, but can def imagine playing the game without it).

ghosty141 2mo ago
> and "empty streets like covid" definitely don't describe my experience I think I gotta explain myself a little better here. If you play the story it doesn't feel like that too much, but if you just walk through the city you often encounter quite empty roads and walkways. See here for example: https://youtu.be/0J55aRPrgOM?t=1285 https://youtu.be/0J55aRPrgOM?t=1285 Like mentioned above, you sadly can't properly fix it by just upping the population density since there are far too few models and you constantly notice the duplicate characters. An example of what kind of crowd density and aesthetic I think is necessary for big populated cities can be seen in Altered Carbon: https://youtu.be/aDrj-_dB09k?t=22 https://youtu.be/aDrj-_dB09k?t=22. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to dunk on the game, it's all just my personal opinion of what I want from a game with thats trying to nail the cyberpunk aesthetic.
- freehorse 2mo ago
  Well, that's in the US (sort of), most people use the cars /s No, you are right. I see what you mean now, it does not have the population density that corresponds to a superpopulated megacity. There is a mod that makes it much higher (apparently activating a setting that gdpr had introduced but hidden) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgsRpxZU-0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgsRpxZU-0M But even then, apart from the absolute amount of people, there is imo an issue with how people are distributed as they increase. People irl are not distributed uniformly and walk alone, they cluster (walk together, hang out in groups etc). Even with increased density with a mod, model repetitions aside, it puts them in a way that feels imo fake/weird. And in a game you have the time to notice these details.