Since i can't make a thread,
i'm closing in on 3,000 hours in cyberpunk, 74 hours with my current character on a "very hard" playthrough. But with the updates in 2.0, its been a struggle to have fun using power shotguns and the LMGs. I'm using a fresh character reclearing the world before I touch Phantom Liberty. 20 Body, fully invested in shotguns/lmgs & adrenaline, 20 Tech heavily invested in Cyberware, 15 Reflex heavily invested in mobility. The direction the perks and cyberware seem to be pointing me to is "be close to take less damage and pump out more damage" but it is entirely betrayed by the stamina system, idle sway, insane recoil, input delay, animation delays, perks and cyberware that i cant even tell if they are doing anything, and weapons that are so weak and ineffective they cant even make use of level 20 perks.
What exactly is the point of a legendary Defender if an entire magazine often struggles to kill a single random Scav on the side of the road and having the perk Onslaught that will refill 20% of my magazine after neutralizing an enemy... what good is 20% going to do for the next enemy? And the MA70 HB has a similar problem, being so weak and firing so slowly that i feel I'm wasting my time spending 10 seconds tickling 1 enemy to death in the middle of a fight against 3-8 other enemies that are closing... nope i'm dead. All while wasting every bit of stamina so i can't dash away or push to keep fighting. Often with the LMGs once i waste their entire belt killing 1 person, i have to switch to a shotgun. And to have them be any good i need to quick melee them with the 0 Stamina I have. If i can dash close enough to them with the 0 stamina i started with and manage to punch and fire... they are often slightly wounded and i have 0 stamina to get away. And the base movement speed is so slow, i might as well reload the save and save them the trouble. And try another roll of RNG Dismemberment the Placebo shotgun game to pretend shotguns are useful when they accidentally proc the effect that might trick you into thinking they have a purpose.
In previous versions of the game LMGs and Shotguns were Entirely propped up on the crutches of Crafting, Ricochet bonuses, and Berserk's ranged buffs. But now you need to be level 32+ before you can even get some decent Ricochet damage buffs and tiny modifiers on random cyberware. Berserk is now Melee only, when Melee never needed the help (even more true now). And we can't craft the mods or upgrade lmgs along the way to keep their damage relevant. It was surprising in 2.0, how weak Epic weapons were compared to Legendary. But I remained disappointed by how ineffective they continued to be.
Like most of the upgrade system, the perks, cyberware, weapons, and equipment at no point did i ever feel i made any progress. Each attribute and perk point felt like I was spinning my wheels and hoping for more points thinking, maybe this one will make this build viable... then maxing out the skill tree, rarity, and upgrade level and realizing it will never get better.
2.0 ruined the gameplay loop that made it fun. i hope i can find a way to care about the game going forward because i wanted to enjoy the expansion. But the changes might make that impossible.