I understand the purpose of your Street Cred rating is that it unlocks more side content the higher it gets, but I think side content should be adjusted to also tie your level and main story progress to it. During my first playthrough, I tried to juggle doing the main story every now and again, with doing as much side content as I could. During my second playthrough, I tried prioritize doing all side content before touching the main story. Here are my thoughts:
Post romance depression: I have experienced it and many others have. Memes are also every where about it. When your romance calls, you stop what you are doing and head over to them ASAP. The only thing stopping these side quests from triggering is the in game time that passes. This needs to be rebalanced so you can't, or at least make it far more difficult, to progress one major side job chain over others. This would help in our over saturation of completing our romance side quests in a short amount of time relative to the rest of the game. Let it simmer a little bit, you know? Maybe even add more text conversations we can engage in while we wait for the next side quest to unlock.
Prioritizing side quests: You can complete all, or almost all, side gigs and NCPD scanner missions before you meet with Takemura. If you do this, then the Skip Time mechanic will be the number one thing the player will start to use in order to progress the main missions and later side jobs. Tie more of the gigs to main story progression so we can keep ourselves occupied with the gigs and scanner missions while we wait, without skipping time, for the next side job and main mission to become available. A small example I can think of that will also benefit from this is the Jinguji store, which for most of the game will have that very high rated side gig replacing its store icon. Save this gig for later in the story. It will allow the player to become familiar with the store and its location, as opposed to how it is now where it confuses people who found the store in act one, but can't find it on the map when act 2 starts.
Pay attention to the details of the side quests: In my second playthrough, right when Act 2 started, a made a beeline for my car in the garage, wanting to start my side quests ASAP. The amazing scene with the rogue Delamain AI happened, but then what happened in that same scene? Johnny appears in the passenger seat and V starts talking to him like they're buddy buddy. Keep in mind, this is immediately after the main story scene where Johnny tried to kill V. Side quests like this would be better served if they were unlocked later in the main story when our relationship with Johnny is more civil, at least after the diner scene. It ended up jarring me out of the game so much, I reloaded my save and did the diner mission first.
Post romance depression: I have experienced it and many others have. Memes are also every where about it. When your romance calls, you stop what you are doing and head over to them ASAP. The only thing stopping these side quests from triggering is the in game time that passes. This needs to be rebalanced so you can't, or at least make it far more difficult, to progress one major side job chain over others. This would help in our over saturation of completing our romance side quests in a short amount of time relative to the rest of the game. Let it simmer a little bit, you know? Maybe even add more text conversations we can engage in while we wait for the next side quest to unlock.
Prioritizing side quests: You can complete all, or almost all, side gigs and NCPD scanner missions before you meet with Takemura. If you do this, then the Skip Time mechanic will be the number one thing the player will start to use in order to progress the main missions and later side jobs. Tie more of the gigs to main story progression so we can keep ourselves occupied with the gigs and scanner missions while we wait, without skipping time, for the next side job and main mission to become available. A small example I can think of that will also benefit from this is the Jinguji store, which for most of the game will have that very high rated side gig replacing its store icon. Save this gig for later in the story. It will allow the player to become familiar with the store and its location, as opposed to how it is now where it confuses people who found the store in act one, but can't find it on the map when act 2 starts.
Pay attention to the details of the side quests: In my second playthrough, right when Act 2 started, a made a beeline for my car in the garage, wanting to start my side quests ASAP. The amazing scene with the rogue Delamain AI happened, but then what happened in that same scene? Johnny appears in the passenger seat and V starts talking to him like they're buddy buddy. Keep in mind, this is immediately after the main story scene where Johnny tried to kill V. Side quests like this would be better served if they were unlocked later in the main story when our relationship with Johnny is more civil, at least after the diner scene. It ended up jarring me out of the game so much, I reloaded my save and did the diner mission first.