These are just some things i think CDPR should do to greatly improve the game experience, without requiring too much development time to implement. Of course, they should fix glaring bugs first before they tackle any of the below issues, where applicable (not all coders are responsible for the same bits of code after all). I've explained the why behind these suggestions after each one.
General
- Add minimap zoom while driving. The faster you go, the more zoomed out the minimap should be. Alternatively, add a Crew-style 3D GPS in-world - We already have a lot of AR functions in the game (cybereyes and such), why not a simple GPS line to follow?
- Add an option to disable the relic malfunction effect. It would still happen at scripted main story moments, but the random ones can really hamper some moments (the blade runner easter egg is amazing, but not with that effect).
Quests/Map
- Remove all car buying "sidequests" and messages. Make all vehicles available at the start of act 2. If you have the money, go get them. Preferably, add vehicle shops to completely replace the 'quest buy' thing entirely (there's no shortage of space in the city to add some dealers).
- Add a 'Do Not Disturb' mode to prevent any phonecalls from interrupting whatever you're currently doing. GTA4 already showed how annoying this kind of thing really is, there is no reason CP77 should repeat past mistakes. Only currently active main quests should be able to interrupt what you're doing, and only if you're *not* currently doing another main quest.
- Remove all crime activities from the map. Crime activities (hostile npc's and the evidence item to loot) should have a 33% chance of spawning whenever the player gets within 100m. If they spawn, they will stay active for 2 ingame hours and appear on the map, after which they will dissappear and will not spawn again for at least 7 ingame days. If they do not spawn, this check will not be performed again until at least 24 ingame hours have passed. This is meant to remove the cognitive dissonance of having a supermarket holdup last literally months.
- (This is a bigger one) Remove all gigs and sidejobs from the map. Every fixer on the map will still call to introduce themselves when you enter a new section for the first time (unless DND is on). They will instead tell you that if you want to get jobs from them, you have to go talk to them in person. They will then give you one job in person to complete, which you have to turn in in person as well. After that, you can call them to receive one sidejob/gig at random from their district at a time. This also applies to the Regina Jones city-wide jobs. This may require some new audio recording, but much of this could be done by reusing what's already there. This fixes the realism issue of feeling like the only merc in the entire town when there's hundreds of (often time sensitive) jobs which never get done until you get involved. It also fixes the issue of having to prove yourself to Dexter and Rogue being such a huge deal, yet all these other fixers just give you a list of 50 jobs each to do before they've ever even heard you speak, let alone do anything. It also fixes part of the random phonecalls issue mentioned above.
- Change the dialogue when you wake up at Viktor's after the failed heist. It should change from 'a few weeks tops' to 'a few months, maybe a year' or another much, much more vague indication. This is one of the major issues with the main quest line which causes a massive cognitive dissonance with literally everything else in the game. Increase the downtime between some main quest beats (Takemura and Rogue's investigations for example) to give the player more time *and* reason to do the sidequests.
- Change major questlines to not interfere with one another when one is active. This includes the Claire, River and Judy questlines. There should not be a fake forced choice for the player to make when neither questline is at all affected by how long you wait before doing them. While one may equally argue that there should simply be timelimits for quests which logically should have them, the tangled web of interfering quests would lead to a much, much more frustrating gameplay experience than would be worth it otherwise. To give an explicit example of what i mean with this point, Takemura should not be calling about having new info about 'the parade tomorrow' when you are *also* expected to do the Hellman operation with Panam at the same time (which is just one of the sequence breaks that happened to me on my playthroughs).
Economy
- Increase the payout for all missions to a more reasonable amount. During a casual 50 hour playthrough, even while doing a chunk of sidequests, i never had enough money to buy even a single worthwhile upgrade from the shops - As i levelled up, so did their offerings, and so did their prices (and often the upgrades were locked behind street cred!). There is no reason for the game to be so stingy with credits. This would also require the amount of money needed for Rogue to be increased (this makes it more believable as well). The amount of money needed to pay off Viktor should either be lowered or made more clear (why am i charged 21k credits for mods which cost less than 500 combined if i were to buy them anywhere else? More dissonance).
Vendors
- Change cyberware, weapon and clothing shops to always offer the exact same items, tailored to their location and theme. All items in the game should be available *somewhere* to buy at any given time (at white quality), given you have the required street cred (except for items which are logically bound to certain factions which do not have shops, like Johnny's items or the Aldecaldo-branded jacket). Currently, their inventory is randomized every time you load up the game/talk to the vendor, and often they offer items which do not fit their theme (why can i buy a ripped, dirty nomad tanktop from an upscale arasaka vendor downtown?). One vendor should have *all* variations of a specific clothing item at all times.
- Vendors should not show items for which you do not have the required character level of street cred. Given as all vendors (should) have specific item selections, this gives street cred a much more defined purpose as you can return at set moments to check the new inventory.
- All items at vendors should be levelled to the player's character level. However, a new option in a vendor menu should allow the player to select lower level items if they wish. This allows for crafty (pun intended) players to upgrade their way to higher levels instead, and players with less credits can still browse the items and buy some if they wish. Clothing items should all be priced consistently/the same at all levels (see the armor mod change below) unless its green or higher quality. IE: A dirty nomad tank top should always cost 10 credits, an Arasaka business suit should always cost 1000-5000 credits, regardless of level or street cred (if the item is available at said level/street cred).
- Vendors can still carry random assortments of green quality and higher rated items, but should offer all white quality items for their location/theme.
Itemization
- Armor rating should be removed from clothing entirely. All clothing which offers armor should get at least one mod slot. This mod slot can only take armor mods, and these mods can be installed and removed freely. As all (white quality) clothing is now available at clothing vendors per my earlier suggestion, armor mods should replace all white quality clothing item drops in the loot tables.
Sidenote: The vendor and itemization suggestions above are meant to make street cred feel much, MUCH more impactful as you can go back to your favorite vendors to check their stock at predictable intervals. It also makes street cred/level much less frustrating when trying to find or buy items you want. While the game should still get a plastic surgeon and hairdresser somewhere, at least this should make customization much less of a frustrating mess to wade through.
NPC Behaviour
- Police should never spawn in closer than 200m from the player when he commits a crime. However, police units already present inside that radius can respond. Police should never be able to spawn indoors. Police spawning is fine, however there should be some time before they actually reach the player after the player commits a crime.
- All lootable items inside safe areas should be removed (or made uninteractable), unless they're items specifically meant for the player to pick up. This should create a more believable environment where you can't just rob someone blind in front of their eyes.
These are just the main frustrations i have which i hope can be fixed fairly quickly, and which i hope CDPR (and other people) will see as reasonable to do to make the game a (much) better experience. There are other glaring issues (NPC's/crowds should behalve more naturally, shops, clubs and npc's should have schedules of being open or closed or where they should be at any given point, to name a few), though i think they would take a lot more time to implement than the things i've listed above.
I have not gone very deep into crafting and upgrading in my playthroughs, but i'm sure other people will have constructive suggestions for those. That said, i'm fairly sure the entire crafting and upgrading system will be replaced at some point down the line anyway.
General
- Add minimap zoom while driving. The faster you go, the more zoomed out the minimap should be. Alternatively, add a Crew-style 3D GPS in-world - We already have a lot of AR functions in the game (cybereyes and such), why not a simple GPS line to follow?
- Add an option to disable the relic malfunction effect. It would still happen at scripted main story moments, but the random ones can really hamper some moments (the blade runner easter egg is amazing, but not with that effect).
Quests/Map
- Remove all car buying "sidequests" and messages. Make all vehicles available at the start of act 2. If you have the money, go get them. Preferably, add vehicle shops to completely replace the 'quest buy' thing entirely (there's no shortage of space in the city to add some dealers).
- Add a 'Do Not Disturb' mode to prevent any phonecalls from interrupting whatever you're currently doing. GTA4 already showed how annoying this kind of thing really is, there is no reason CP77 should repeat past mistakes. Only currently active main quests should be able to interrupt what you're doing, and only if you're *not* currently doing another main quest.
- Remove all crime activities from the map. Crime activities (hostile npc's and the evidence item to loot) should have a 33% chance of spawning whenever the player gets within 100m. If they spawn, they will stay active for 2 ingame hours and appear on the map, after which they will dissappear and will not spawn again for at least 7 ingame days. If they do not spawn, this check will not be performed again until at least 24 ingame hours have passed. This is meant to remove the cognitive dissonance of having a supermarket holdup last literally months.
- (This is a bigger one) Remove all gigs and sidejobs from the map. Every fixer on the map will still call to introduce themselves when you enter a new section for the first time (unless DND is on). They will instead tell you that if you want to get jobs from them, you have to go talk to them in person. They will then give you one job in person to complete, which you have to turn in in person as well. After that, you can call them to receive one sidejob/gig at random from their district at a time. This also applies to the Regina Jones city-wide jobs. This may require some new audio recording, but much of this could be done by reusing what's already there. This fixes the realism issue of feeling like the only merc in the entire town when there's hundreds of (often time sensitive) jobs which never get done until you get involved. It also fixes the issue of having to prove yourself to Dexter and Rogue being such a huge deal, yet all these other fixers just give you a list of 50 jobs each to do before they've ever even heard you speak, let alone do anything. It also fixes part of the random phonecalls issue mentioned above.
- Change the dialogue when you wake up at Viktor's after the failed heist. It should change from 'a few weeks tops' to 'a few months, maybe a year' or another much, much more vague indication. This is one of the major issues with the main quest line which causes a massive cognitive dissonance with literally everything else in the game. Increase the downtime between some main quest beats (Takemura and Rogue's investigations for example) to give the player more time *and* reason to do the sidequests.
- Change major questlines to not interfere with one another when one is active. This includes the Claire, River and Judy questlines. There should not be a fake forced choice for the player to make when neither questline is at all affected by how long you wait before doing them. While one may equally argue that there should simply be timelimits for quests which logically should have them, the tangled web of interfering quests would lead to a much, much more frustrating gameplay experience than would be worth it otherwise. To give an explicit example of what i mean with this point, Takemura should not be calling about having new info about 'the parade tomorrow' when you are *also* expected to do the Hellman operation with Panam at the same time (which is just one of the sequence breaks that happened to me on my playthroughs).
Economy
- Increase the payout for all missions to a more reasonable amount. During a casual 50 hour playthrough, even while doing a chunk of sidequests, i never had enough money to buy even a single worthwhile upgrade from the shops - As i levelled up, so did their offerings, and so did their prices (and often the upgrades were locked behind street cred!). There is no reason for the game to be so stingy with credits. This would also require the amount of money needed for Rogue to be increased (this makes it more believable as well). The amount of money needed to pay off Viktor should either be lowered or made more clear (why am i charged 21k credits for mods which cost less than 500 combined if i were to buy them anywhere else? More dissonance).
Vendors
- Change cyberware, weapon and clothing shops to always offer the exact same items, tailored to their location and theme. All items in the game should be available *somewhere* to buy at any given time (at white quality), given you have the required street cred (except for items which are logically bound to certain factions which do not have shops, like Johnny's items or the Aldecaldo-branded jacket). Currently, their inventory is randomized every time you load up the game/talk to the vendor, and often they offer items which do not fit their theme (why can i buy a ripped, dirty nomad tanktop from an upscale arasaka vendor downtown?). One vendor should have *all* variations of a specific clothing item at all times.
- Vendors should not show items for which you do not have the required character level of street cred. Given as all vendors (should) have specific item selections, this gives street cred a much more defined purpose as you can return at set moments to check the new inventory.
- All items at vendors should be levelled to the player's character level. However, a new option in a vendor menu should allow the player to select lower level items if they wish. This allows for crafty (pun intended) players to upgrade their way to higher levels instead, and players with less credits can still browse the items and buy some if they wish. Clothing items should all be priced consistently/the same at all levels (see the armor mod change below) unless its green or higher quality. IE: A dirty nomad tank top should always cost 10 credits, an Arasaka business suit should always cost 1000-5000 credits, regardless of level or street cred (if the item is available at said level/street cred).
- Vendors can still carry random assortments of green quality and higher rated items, but should offer all white quality items for their location/theme.
Itemization
- Armor rating should be removed from clothing entirely. All clothing which offers armor should get at least one mod slot. This mod slot can only take armor mods, and these mods can be installed and removed freely. As all (white quality) clothing is now available at clothing vendors per my earlier suggestion, armor mods should replace all white quality clothing item drops in the loot tables.
Sidenote: The vendor and itemization suggestions above are meant to make street cred feel much, MUCH more impactful as you can go back to your favorite vendors to check their stock at predictable intervals. It also makes street cred/level much less frustrating when trying to find or buy items you want. While the game should still get a plastic surgeon and hairdresser somewhere, at least this should make customization much less of a frustrating mess to wade through.
NPC Behaviour
- Police should never spawn in closer than 200m from the player when he commits a crime. However, police units already present inside that radius can respond. Police should never be able to spawn indoors. Police spawning is fine, however there should be some time before they actually reach the player after the player commits a crime.
- All lootable items inside safe areas should be removed (or made uninteractable), unless they're items specifically meant for the player to pick up. This should create a more believable environment where you can't just rob someone blind in front of their eyes.
These are just the main frustrations i have which i hope can be fixed fairly quickly, and which i hope CDPR (and other people) will see as reasonable to do to make the game a (much) better experience. There are other glaring issues (NPC's/crowds should behalve more naturally, shops, clubs and npc's should have schedules of being open or closed or where they should be at any given point, to name a few), though i think they would take a lot more time to implement than the things i've listed above.
I have not gone very deep into crafting and upgrading in my playthroughs, but i'm sure other people will have constructive suggestions for those. That said, i'm fairly sure the entire crafting and upgrading system will be replaced at some point down the line anyway.