Phantom Liberty was not tested in Very Hard

+
Hello :) I posted my review of CP over in the major post under General. I said that I felt CP didn't test the game in very hard and I will do my best to explain

- In my run, I was very lucky to loot a T5+ Tamayura with 2 mod slots. I put Pax and Swiss Cheese in it (T5). I had all relevant perks to working with that and silencers. With all of that, every enemy with a skull could not be taken out by that weapon, from a sneak attack. Most non skull enemies were the same way. It got to a point where I realized there is no point in me carrying around this pistol anymore. I left it in the stash

- Sneak attack and silencers were not the only issue I ran in to. I decided to do a Tech Weapon build just like I was pre 2.0. I noticed there was inconsistencies with wall penetration. My Burya would at times penetrate walls that the Nekomata would not. I had T5 C-Thru on both so it is clearly a base gun issue. Even if that issue was fixed, the health bar and rapid movement of enemies would present an issue. Most enemies were able to take a 3K + yellow text hit to the head and immediately heal. My stamina was usually gone by then so I had to just reset. It turned in to a very long and very boring trench warfare situation

- Weapons were not the only ones struggling to scale though. Quick hacks too. I will be honest that my Intelligence was the lowest but I still had access to Quick Hack Ques. I had a T5++ Rippler with an Iconic Short Circuit in the deck. This would tickle most enemies damage wise despite support from my Tech Weapons. The health pool of skull and non skull enemies is just insane

- Let us say those issues were fixed well the problem is that the enemies clearly don't have cool downs (or much of one). They can infinite dodge and sprint too. If I had infinite RAM then sure it would be fair but no such luck. When you implement a hard difficulty, it should be tactics/strategy or wit that wins. Clearly not the case here. Every enemy can be in your face, tank like a Main Battle Tank, and dodge until you are out of stamina

- Related to all of this.. The new weapons didn't make sense (plus the old ones). It was nice to see Omaha's and Kenshins that were T5++ but they didn't matter same with the new Militch Tech pistol thing. Their damage even with a full burst could not out damage a Burya. They were made irrelevant. Sure Iconics may of been a different story but with how they changed things.. They made it so Iconics couldn't be modified to how you play (such as less lethal or something)

I could keep going but I think this is enough to show my point.. That it is easy to see the Devs did not test this in Very Hard mode. If I am wrong well they chose to ignore a lot of things. Things that I would of detected in a beta test and advised against
 
- Weapons were not the only ones struggling to scale though. Quick hacks too. I will be honest that my Intelligence was the lowest but I still had access to Quick Hack Ques. I had a T5++ Rippler with an Iconic Short Circuit in the deck. This would tickle most enemies damage wise despite support from my Tech Weapons. The health pool of skull and non skull enemies is just insane

- Let us say those issues were fixed well the problem is that the enemies clearly don't have cool downs (or much of one). They can infinite dodge and sprint too. If I had infinite RAM then sure it would be fair but no such luck. When you implement a hard difficulty, it should be tactics/strategy or wit that wins. Clearly not the case here. Every enemy can be in your face, tank like a Main Battle Tank, and dodge until you are out of stamina
That's almost 100% related to low Int-Skill.
I play a Netrunner on very hard and I one-shot even skull enemies with quickhacks.

If you combine your skills with the right cyberware and take a look on how to put quickhacks in the queue in the right order you're even more OP as you've been as a Netrunner in the base game.
 
Kind of surprising that 15 Intelligence is considered low to this game but alright. Let us say that other than you that no one is having issues.. The inconsistencies or imbalance is still an issue

Imo a well designed game finds ways to make everything have a purpose. Using older games as an example.. A Tranquilizer rifle isn't going to do damage to the enemy but it will knock them out long enough for you to do what you need to then scoot. That is a tactical option

Phantom Liberty didn't seem to have any of that going on. Things were either so strong or so weak it was very noticeable. As I mentioned the Burya out shined the Omaha, Kenshin and the others. Partly because of the raw damage but also because they based Bolts on a % damage rather than flat
 
You never said your Intelligence was at 15, you said "I will be honest that my Intelligence was the lowest".
The lowest would be 3, not 15.

I can't tell much about the other playstyle as I don't play them 'cause I'm not interested in them ... always been a deckhead.

That's why I quoted the part about netrunning.
 
I'm playing a hybrid netrunner with a focus on sniper/power file/tech rifle/ pistol build. I have headshot modifiers and damage modifiers everywhere I can put them. You really can't take one of those skull guys down silently with the rifle. You can definitely do it with quickhacks, but taking a silent approach the only deadly way is to sneak and snap their necks. It's unfortunate they limit the play this much. Now if you focus on the non skull enemies, you can headshot them down all day and then time yourself on the skulls with some mind melts and stuff and just pop them quickly, but there will be an alert.
 
I also can only talk about Quickhacks but with these i also oneshot everything to a point were the game feels too easy (on very hard). I did that on my first char and on my second it became worse when i had Quickhack damage on every piece of cyberware.
 
I haven't started Phantom Liberty yet so I'm not sure if you are referring to Dog Town specifically. I started a new game and I am on the highest difficulty. I only use swords, no guns and I use quickhacks to supplement my melee attacks but I don't have the max points in intelligence.

With all of that said, doing a pure melee playthrough I haven't found the highest difficulty to be unbearable. It's challenging yes, that's the point of the highest difficulty, but I've only died maybe 2 or 3 times so far without any ranged weapons and I'm on the last mission of the main champaign.
 
Top Bottom