Of course lighter calibres are easier to hit with. But how many .22 pistol rounds does it take to put someone down compared to a .44 magnum? How about body if they are wearing armour? And it's Cyberpunk, so what if they are a full-borg?
Not to mention that it is a game, and a bit of artistic license in some areas is prefereable to real life.
Whee! THIS one I -can- answer. Mostly. .22 pistol, I dunno. .22 rifle, just one. Two was overkill, really. And that to the toughest guy I know, too. Looong story. Anyway, feel free to look up wound trauma, stopping power, tissue elasticity, all that good stuff you've probably already glanced at.
It's really hard to predict. I have a chapter in one of my manuals entitled, "Why Ballisticians Go Grey" talking about the challenge of predicting what a round will do once that explosion goes off. Where it will go, how reliably, what it will do when it gets there, etc.
Certain calibres have much better one-shot-stop than others, on average. .357, for example, has or had the highest. Something to do with the cross section an energy. .10 mm/ .40 cal also quite good...anyway.
If you are hit, it's very, very likely you are going down. Just one bullet will probably do it, from anything .22 on up. But it might not! Good times. Apparently, the Mossad liked .22 because it is normally quite quiet, (an underpowdered .22 round sounds like a loud clap) and if it goes into the head through soft tissue or weak skull, will bounce around and make quite a mess. Job done. I dunno, never met a Mossad shooter. I've dropped deer with a .22 AND had the damn round bounce off the skull. I've also seen a deer take a .303 and keep moving. Un-predictable.
It is a game and fun is the objective. That's why Geralt in Witcher can take multiple hits from a long sharp piece of metal. Unless you are on Dark mode, in which case, ow.
But how much artistic license do you want in Cyberpunk 2020? Do you want John Woo or Collateral? I'd really prefer Collateral, but I'm a big Michael Mann fan and I run and play Cyberpunk in his world, not John Woo's.
I also like John Woo, of course. Just not for a game with a section about gunfights that says, "FNFF is not good, clean fun. Most of the data herein has been compiled from ballistics reports, police data, FBI statistics and other not-clean fun sources."
I loved that. When I got older and got into that world, I loved that what Mike and crew did matched what I learned pretty well.
Of course, WALL OF TEXT CONTINUE, that same sections says, "On the other hand, this is
Cyberpunk, right?So why are we telling you all this if we don't intend for you to go in with guns blazing?"
And then continues on to tell you "how to win every encounter, (you'll only get to lose once)" and that a firefight is dangerous. But you can handle it. That's why you're
Cyberpunk.
TL;DR - Cyberpunk handgun and firefight combat is supposed to be and is fun, but it's based on some very real-world perspectives and data and, oh, yes, you only get to lose a firefight once. Heh.