I see many people saying Cyberpunk gameplay is better and i dont understand how so.
It's probably the people who prefer more options and quantity than quality which is valid way after all.
Cyberpunk does offer more weapons and playstyle but they are more shallow than Witcher.
For example: In Cyberpunk you have X encounter, to interact with the game you can either fight your way in, or sneak and use stealth or hack them. 3 majorly different ways to tackle your encounter.
The thing here is that: fighting your way in is the only one way that is decent enough imo and thats largely because of the good gunplay, you have good bunch of fun weapons to use which is indeed superior to the swordplay in Witcher 3 where you are stuck with 2 swords that barely evolve with movesets.
Aside from that the stealth in the game is barebones and totally underwhelming, the A.I is awful and the stealth mechanics are extremely shallow and amount to takedowns only, you can't even use stealth tools like in Splinter Cell or Metal Gear.
The hacking is just as barebones, the way to play your hacking is also extremely shallow, you click TAB and choose the hack from a menu and thats it, you watch the NPC do something.
For a game that claimed to give the player engaging different playstlye it sure as hell failed imo, because only firing guns was somewhat fun, and i say somewhat because good gunplay alone barely carried it, the enemies cover and shoot are are not interesting, their A.I is that of the equivalent to Drowners, and their weapons/abilities are nothing to write home about either.
Because of their lackluster variety and how they all play the same way, Witcher 3 actually is more fun to me, because you have a huge number of different enemies and many of them have something new, such as using Aard to knock down a flying monster, or using Yrden to attack specters, or using the Yrden trap against a centipede, or baiting the black spiders and avoiding their web attack, or using fire and chain bombing those monsters who explode, and many more which made fighting them more fresh.
In contrast the Cyberpunk gangs i fight are always acting the same and doing the same things.
Another point i want to show is the Boss Fights, in Cyberpunk i have only fought 1 decent boss and thats Oda.
Adam Smasher was even worse than Wild Hunt bosses, let that sink in.
And any Cyberpsycho on the loose was more or less the same, in Witcher we had a lot more interesting boss fights, like that Witch for example, or Caretaker or Toad and many more. all of which can be fought using different means bombs, signs or generic slash attacks.
The use of potions, bombs and witcher tools felt more satisfying to me despite them not being essential to use which is a minor design flaw but they were there and added the right depth to the gameplay. And ofcourse i cant forget Gwent, a fun minigame.
Cyberpunk offers stats that help alter your gameplay, like you can use your strength stat to open doors but thats hardly necessary when the same stat called engineering could also open doors and all of that is just a click of a button, i wish we could have had more uses to these skills than simply clicking on a door or a dialogue choice for something that barely mattered.
I dont want to sound like im dunking on Cyberpunk here, but when i compare them the only things i would agree that are better in Cyberpunk are simply: 1- Controls are more responsive and fluid. 2- Gunplay in Cyberpunk is better than Swordplay in Witcher
Aside from that i would give the nod to Witcher and balance wise Cyberpunk is a mess. Witcher doesnt claim to give you more classes than Witcher, it gives you one class which is of a Witcher and did a decent job at it. Variety and playstyle wise its good, lacking a bit on stealth and traps but overall good, but mechanically it was mediocre.
Cyberpunk claims to give you more playstyles but only one of them is decent and thats due to gunplay and more options not because mechanically its good, and the others are so shallow you cant even compare them to any game that does it.
Even Skyrim and Fallout stealth and gameplay system which people tend to criticize offer more depth than Cyberpunk.
Imo Cyberpunk greatest issue after performance and open world is its gameplay because the writing was good and the level design was good.
