Dear CDPR.
Your game has a lot of potential, and I truly wish you well in your efforts to improve it.
Here are some ideas for improved game balance.
All of these are based on 30-40 hours of Very Hard difficulty with 3 different builds.
I don't really care about Normal or Hard modes - and if people are fine with the game as it is, then just leave them alone.
Personally, I enjoy a challenge and I would like an OPTIONAL way to play the game that makes me have to think and be careful about combat encounters. But that's me.
If that's not you, fine. Cool - enjoy what it is now.
Problem #1
For 90% of the fights, you can remain in cover and spam Inhalers upon receiving damage. This means you can't really die unless it's in 1 hit - and if you're hunted down, you can still spam them even during actual close combat.
Add a cooldown to these. Perhaps 10 seconds for common, 8 for uncommon, 4 for rare and 2 for legendary inhalers.
Prevent Inhaler usage after taking damage for at least 2 seconds.
Consider adjusting perks so that a max level character focusing on Body can reduce or get around these. But it makes no sense that low level characters are essentially immortal if they spam healing.
Problem #2
90% of the time - AI can't effectively respond to hacking combined with range or stealth. You can stand far away, take over cameras, ping all enemies - and go to town. You can be level 6-7 and have enough damage perks to destroy Very High challenge fights without a single problem.
Add a strict range limitation to the scanning device. Make sure that low level characters have to be very close to enemies or devices to hack them.
Consider making stealth hacking impossible unless you invest deeply into the Cool attribute or Stealth skill.
Consider increasing range for higher level characters with decent investment into Quickhacking or Breach Protocol.
Enemies NEED to be alerted immediately upon seeing an NPC being hacked or otherwise affected by player offensive abilities. If they are within visual range of a hacked NPC - they need to go on alert and aggressively move and search. DO NOT make them wait for a dead body when they're within 3 feet of a buddy being poisoned and shocked.
Problem #3
Tech Sniper Rifles (or any tech weapon, really).
Not only do these come with see-through-walls scopes - there's also no apparent range/penetration limitation on them.
Meaning, you can stand at range - see enemies even without pinging or tagging them - and you can effectively kill most of them through walls without a single problem. From the beginning of the game.
Consider making AI aggressively move upon the first hit until they spot the player. DO NOT make them stand around - alerted or not. Just make them move around aggressively and search - so that it's much harder to hit them with the Tech weapons.
Consider limiting the penetration power severely - and only let players with very high Tech weapon skills penetrate through multiple concrete walls.
Problem #4
Stealth is trivially easy.
Enemy AI takes way too long to actually enter into combat when they start spotting you. It's way too generous - and you can easily be spotted and then enter cover.
That's not really how spotting people works. Once you see any HINT of movement - you will either spot the person immediately, or at the very least go look for them instantly.
Consider reducing detection time - and make enemies much more aggressively active when alerted and on patrol. They need to be faster and more varied in where they look - and they need to be alerted immediately when they spot movement. They take way too long to respond, even to dead bodies.
Those are some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are better or more elegant solutions - but I would like to have these considered until others are found.
Thank you again for your attention.
Your game has a lot of potential, and I truly wish you well in your efforts to improve it.
Here are some ideas for improved game balance.
All of these are based on 30-40 hours of Very Hard difficulty with 3 different builds.
I don't really care about Normal or Hard modes - and if people are fine with the game as it is, then just leave them alone.
Personally, I enjoy a challenge and I would like an OPTIONAL way to play the game that makes me have to think and be careful about combat encounters. But that's me.
If that's not you, fine. Cool - enjoy what it is now.
Problem #1
For 90% of the fights, you can remain in cover and spam Inhalers upon receiving damage. This means you can't really die unless it's in 1 hit - and if you're hunted down, you can still spam them even during actual close combat.
Add a cooldown to these. Perhaps 10 seconds for common, 8 for uncommon, 4 for rare and 2 for legendary inhalers.
Prevent Inhaler usage after taking damage for at least 2 seconds.
Consider adjusting perks so that a max level character focusing on Body can reduce or get around these. But it makes no sense that low level characters are essentially immortal if they spam healing.
Problem #2
90% of the time - AI can't effectively respond to hacking combined with range or stealth. You can stand far away, take over cameras, ping all enemies - and go to town. You can be level 6-7 and have enough damage perks to destroy Very High challenge fights without a single problem.
Add a strict range limitation to the scanning device. Make sure that low level characters have to be very close to enemies or devices to hack them.
Consider making stealth hacking impossible unless you invest deeply into the Cool attribute or Stealth skill.
Consider increasing range for higher level characters with decent investment into Quickhacking or Breach Protocol.
Enemies NEED to be alerted immediately upon seeing an NPC being hacked or otherwise affected by player offensive abilities. If they are within visual range of a hacked NPC - they need to go on alert and aggressively move and search. DO NOT make them wait for a dead body when they're within 3 feet of a buddy being poisoned and shocked.
Problem #3
Tech Sniper Rifles (or any tech weapon, really).
Not only do these come with see-through-walls scopes - there's also no apparent range/penetration limitation on them.
Meaning, you can stand at range - see enemies even without pinging or tagging them - and you can effectively kill most of them through walls without a single problem. From the beginning of the game.
Consider making AI aggressively move upon the first hit until they spot the player. DO NOT make them stand around - alerted or not. Just make them move around aggressively and search - so that it's much harder to hit them with the Tech weapons.
Consider limiting the penetration power severely - and only let players with very high Tech weapon skills penetrate through multiple concrete walls.
Problem #4
Stealth is trivially easy.
Enemy AI takes way too long to actually enter into combat when they start spotting you. It's way too generous - and you can easily be spotted and then enter cover.
That's not really how spotting people works. Once you see any HINT of movement - you will either spot the person immediately, or at the very least go look for them instantly.
Consider reducing detection time - and make enemies much more aggressively active when alerted and on patrol. They need to be faster and more varied in where they look - and they need to be alerted immediately when they spot movement. They take way too long to respond, even to dead bodies.
Those are some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are better or more elegant solutions - but I would like to have these considered until others are found.
Thank you again for your attention.