My original character in this game was a sword-wielding blade/body/tech basically setup to 1-shot gods with Satori's strong attack headshots. It was a lot of fun for the first playthrough. Although I realized at level 50, he had level 17 blades and level 6 athletics because the auto-kill blade attacks he so-frequently got did not grant blades xp, and his reduced stamina attacking meant he never got athletics xp. Kind of strange. But I digress...
Now with 1.5, I've tried building two new characters, but I just can't get into either of them because this game has exactly 0 interest in how my character is built. I have no agency regarding the 6 months my character spent with Jackie after the prologue cinematic. For example, let's say you build a character to be a shotgun master. At level 1, you are full body, tech, and cool. You get a shotgun from the scavs in the first mission. Then, on the ride home with Jackie driving, what does the game do? It will force you to use a pistol. If you've disassembled your pistol, it will literally give you another rather than let you use a shotgun.
I also wanted to try building a ninja who never uses guns, just throwing knives/etc. Same issue, but this is even worse because the game forces me to get a ballistics hand. What if I don't want a cyber hand? I can understand that replacement eyes are kind of required for the game to function at a basic level, so that's fine. However, requiring players to get hand modification ignores a large number of possible play styles, be they hacker, ninja, or even someone that just wants to wait for smart weapons.
What if there was a shop that opened after the prologue where V got to spend, say, $1000 bucks. He could have a choice of archetypal items, each costing $1000, one for each "attack style" the game promotes: Slightly improved cyberdeck, melee non-lethal weapon, bladed weapon, shotgun, pistol, submachine gun, etc. It could even just be a prompt added to character creation that says, "what item do you want to start with?", and those items would have minimum stat requirements (i.e. you'd have to have int 6 to choose the improved cyberdeck, etc).
Also, it would be wonderful if V was allowed to pick his weapon for all car-chase combat. It really sucks to be forced into using a pistol.
Just my $0.02
Now with 1.5, I've tried building two new characters, but I just can't get into either of them because this game has exactly 0 interest in how my character is built. I have no agency regarding the 6 months my character spent with Jackie after the prologue cinematic. For example, let's say you build a character to be a shotgun master. At level 1, you are full body, tech, and cool. You get a shotgun from the scavs in the first mission. Then, on the ride home with Jackie driving, what does the game do? It will force you to use a pistol. If you've disassembled your pistol, it will literally give you another rather than let you use a shotgun.
I also wanted to try building a ninja who never uses guns, just throwing knives/etc. Same issue, but this is even worse because the game forces me to get a ballistics hand. What if I don't want a cyber hand? I can understand that replacement eyes are kind of required for the game to function at a basic level, so that's fine. However, requiring players to get hand modification ignores a large number of possible play styles, be they hacker, ninja, or even someone that just wants to wait for smart weapons.
What if there was a shop that opened after the prologue where V got to spend, say, $1000 bucks. He could have a choice of archetypal items, each costing $1000, one for each "attack style" the game promotes: Slightly improved cyberdeck, melee non-lethal weapon, bladed weapon, shotgun, pistol, submachine gun, etc. It could even just be a prompt added to character creation that says, "what item do you want to start with?", and those items would have minimum stat requirements (i.e. you'd have to have int 6 to choose the improved cyberdeck, etc).
Also, it would be wonderful if V was allowed to pick his weapon for all car-chase combat. It really sucks to be forced into using a pistol.
Just my $0.02