Let's talk about gameplay related issues

+
I keep making some progress into the game (and yes, I know, still haven't finished it even once, I like to take my sweet time) and while I'm enjoying it, for the most part, there's still some real issues that needs to be adressed, regarding the gameplay, because they really affect the experience in a negative way.

1/Enemies in some quest never lose aggro and the player virtualy aggros the entire map when he/she gets into combat.

May sound ridiculous but it's exactly what happens. Now, to be fair, I can't blame CDPR for not taking the "you're leaving the quest area" route that's so annoying in certain games (yes, I'm looking at you RDR2...among many others) but keeping the quest going forever is not a solution...In fact, it's worst.

As an exemple, I'm gonna take a quest that's part of the main quest, so spoiler ahead:
"The quest being the one with Panam that takes place in a cave.
Well, first of, this quest is really poorly designed. It starts by Panam parking the car and V getting out and taking cover. The problem though being, because cover are irrelevent in this game (more about that later) by the time I was able to control my character, I was missing HALF of my health.

Second, with that much health gone, my first reaction was to leg it. I turned my hells and run the other direction but I realized that, no matter how far I run, enemies were simply not forgetting about me so, I tried to push the vice further for science.

And believe me, it was worth it.
How far do you need to go for the AI to forget about you? Well, I'm gonna go and guess the moon or Jupiter because as far as NC goes, they never do.
I was able to drive away back to the city with Panam following me (and clearly not realizing the enemies were millions miles away because she was shooting her rifle through the car's window like a lunatic).

Also, for those who're wondering, yes, you can do other quests with Panam. Tested and approved, it seems highly abusable. The only thing is that, since you're in an everlasting combat state, you can't save until you get back to where you were supposed to be in the first place and kill all enemies in the cave.
I have to admit, though, I didn't try to complete another quest while being followed by Panam...I kinda regret now, I'm curious to see if you can or if it breaks the game....whatever, I digress"

And that brings us to the second issue, which is that when you trigger a combat, you virtualy aggro the entire map.
To explain what I mean by that, the game only has a "combat" state and a "none combat" state. That was similar in The Witcher 3 and I remember it brough its share of problems but in CP, it's kinda the next level of nonesense.

So, basically, run away from enemies, if you meet another group that has nothing to do with the one you were fighting against, they will automatically be aggroed and attack you.
That's a huge problem for multiple reason (even appart from the most obvious ones).

First, because you aggro enemies from other areas, you can screw up some quests that you have to do stealthily just by running near their overall vicinity (every enemies in the building magically detect you just because you got close to it). To be honest, just the fact that you can potentially aggro every enemies from any quest whasoever is a big enough problem imo.

Second, it makes Netrunner far more annoying than they are and should be.
The game teaches you that Netrunners can proceed in their hacking as long as they see you (with their own eyes and through allies/cameras)
...No correction, the game doesn't teach you that but that's how they're supposed to be working (they follow the same rules as the player).

Except the issue of aggroing the entire map makes even that last statement wrong.
If you run away to get out of their line of sight and there's another group of enemies that are completely unrelated, they will use their line of sight too. Same if there's a camera in another building located milles away from where they are.

In fact, I'm 90% certain that they can use Police and even citizen's visions to hack you (I tested that so many times and it's impossible othrerwise...Unless the hacking system is bugged in other ways which is also a possibility)...

Either way, it makes Netrunners incredibly dumb to fight against because more often than not, they basically work like the "toxic" status in Dark Souls except it just happens and there's nothing you can do about it appart from killing them.

This game needs to have a predifined distance at which combat stops and other enemies on the map shouldn't aggro on you when you're running away.
About the first issue, I personally like the Sekiro method, which is, if you run away from a combat area, the combat ends and the situation resets (enemies are brough back to full HP, follower stay where they're supposed to be ect).

Those would be ideas on how CDPR could fix the issue but there's many others.

2/Cover are irrelevant and tools bypassing cover are way too potent.

That one is even more problematic than the first, because you'll be experiencing it all the time while playing this game and it trully ruins its tactical aspect.
Basically, the 101 of tactic in shooters (or games with shooter elements, like CP) is cover.

Taking cover keeps you away from taking damage but you need to expose yourself in order to deal damage yourself.
It's simple but this creates the situation where players have to move around and find a way to flank their enemies while making sure to be under cover, making the game interesting to play.

The problem with CP, though, is that cover are completely irrelevant. Stay behind it without shooting and enemies can still hit you just fine (sometimes cover makes litteraly zero difference and you take exactly as much damage as if you were standing in the open).

With that established, this is a problem for both enemies and the player.

From the enemy's front, it's unclear to me wether they're supposed to shoot through cover or not (the enemy types that are specifically supposed to be equiped with cover piercing/bypassing weapons, like snipers or Smart weapon weilders, are precisely the one who don't seem to be able to, for some reason and I get recked by regular goons using normal guns which may have the ability to ricochet their bullets at best) but it's a big issue for the reason I just mentioned.

If it's a bug, it should be fixed. A player taking cover who's not attempting to aim at anything should not take damage unless he/she's flanked by an enemy (obviously)...This is even more important considering that, unlike how Netrunner are suppose to work, the game tells you exactly that, making the Tutorial irrelevant.

Now from the player's point of view:

Some abilities are WAY too good and should be tweaked.

Smart weapons should not hit an opponent who's right behind cover, the curve is too extreme. If he's standing a few steps behind it, sure but not if he's right behind it.
Those weapons remove the downside of having to aim altogether, this is a big enough advantage.
Obviously the same logic should be followed for enemies if needed because, again, based on my testing, this is not how it works for them but I may be wrong.

Tech weapons should not pierce any cover (only the lightest)...And that one is actually the elephant in the corridor, at least for me personally.
In the current state of the game, it doesn't matter what seperates you from your enemy nor how many layers of cover are standing in front of you, Tech weapons just punch through everything when you charge them up.

This is ridiculous and makes Tech weapons (especially sniper rifles) not only the most broken weapons in the game but one of the most broken weapon I've ever seen in my life playing video games.
I managed to kill an enemy through the ground when I was standing on a rooftop..........Piercing multiple floors............Aiming at a target that were standing behind another building.......And a car...

It's just insane and highly abusable. You can litteral cheese everything in this game by just hidding behind a building or a wall and shooting targets through it. Even if they're 30 levels above yours, there's nothing they can do anyway. It's even more true since the AI tend to stay in a 3 square radius around its spawn point (which is another problem but not nearly as big as the ones I described here).
 
Top Bottom