Several issues with Cyberpunk 2 decisions made by the devs

[Grantig]

So, there are some things which really annoy me...

1.
Okay, clothing is cosmetic now, but why is it still handed out as "special reward" or found in special locations?
Had a good laugh when Regina rewarded me with 2 clothings, worth 220 eddies or 2 crafting parts, for being especially good on the cyberpsycho-missions...

2.
Actually this annoys me the most:
The whole game is now a hunt for crafting parts as it seems to be the only purpose, as these are so hard to get. And it even ruins game fun.
Example: Had a "sneak in and kill someone" mission (with no requirement of being unnoticed), so I did that. And when I was done, I thought dammit, I need their weapons for crafting parts, and I went down and killed every single goon in the building, to get half of the parts for upgrading one weapon.
Is that the intended way to play now? That's sad on many levels.

3.
For some reason, when I get iconic weapons, they are often worse than regular ones. And they often can't even be upgraded with silencers/mods.
That's sad somehow.

4.
I'm not sure about the leven scaling of enemies. On one hand it makes the game a little more demanding, but, as it so many other games using that mechanic, at some point every cheap burglar is running around with "longsword +3 dragonkiller", you know...

That's all for now.

As not part of the topic, but after almost 3 years and so many patches, why are there so many day 1 bugs still out there, some already a meme to me like the floating radio in the nomad camp, some game breaking, like random times when you notice the game doesn't let you sprint/fight anymore...

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Okay, clothing is cosmetic now, but why is it still handed out as "special reward" or found in special locations?
Had a good laugh when Regina rewarded me with 2 clothings, worth 220 eddies or 2 crafting parts, for being especially good on the cyberpsycho-missions...

From what I know, it's unic clothes that you can't get anywhere else (Trauma Team). It seem to me to be a nice "reward"

3.
For some reason, when I get iconic weapons, they are often worse than regular ones. And they often can't even be upgraded with silencers/mods.
That's sad somehow.

Hum... I feel like the opposite. Iconics are generally better than "random" weapons, at least iconics which fit your playstyle. Yes, they don't have mods slots, but for me, it doesn't matter.
Their unic abilities and the fact that you are able to upgrade them make iconics worth than any random weapon.

 

[Nixilos]

I'll jump on this train. Here's some notes I took before I gave up on keeping track.

-Twitch drops & fomo gun.
-Regular dodge sucks, halts your momentum.
-No melee with kerenzikov and locks you in place unless you have dash. Inconsistent use time.
-Cyberware stat rolls suck and rerolling them is poorly designed.
-Perk trees gimmicky with limited synergy.
-Dash is fun for a minute but way too much in every way. Trvializes other options as well as vehicles.
-Still can't buy a Jackie Welles from Claire, shops are even less interesting than ever.
-Loot is uninteresting and lacking in diversity.
-Previously useful iconics gutted by not having mod slots. No point in the lizzie without status chance or crit short circs for instance. Modded Omaha is better.
-No expansion on cyberware appearance, doesn't even change the paper doll in the cyberware menu for cryin out loud.
-Feels like they baked some mod content that already existed into the base game without improving it. Probably the modders were enabling cut features but this didn't improve them much so what gives?
-Insulting downgrades to popular items like the malorian arms. Someone at CDPR likes to troll their playbase, can't convince me it's unintentional at this point.
-Cyberware capacity is bugged and fluctuates and mantis arms take up extra space unless you weapon swap to them at least once per save load.
-In 1.6 some vehicles that you did not own could persist and stay where you left them which was neat, in 2.0 even just opening a store menu 12 feet away can be enough to make those same vehicles disappear from right next to you.
-Npc movement unnatural and glitching out way more often, especially when scripted.
-Lipsync is a little off in this update, worse than I remember, mouth movements don't match dialogue as well as they used to and sometimes almost stop completely.
-Hover legs are gone and I was one of the few people that liked them.
-I remember hearing melee was getting reworked, I was afraid it would be too different when I liked the way it already was. They just bolted on finisher mechanics for everything, it looks and feels worse without really being much different. At least they don't trigger on accident I guess.
-Muzzle randomly upgraded to legendary on my fenrir somehow, that's new. I've seen mods downgrade themselves in the past but never attachment upgrades.
-I preferred when purchaseable vehicles were scattered about the city instead of just obtained through a terminal or web page. Why not both at least? The victory lap to buy your remaining vehicles at the end of the game as fast as you can was fun.
-Couldn't add vehicle and weapon customization too?
-Of all the things to leave untouched, hacking terminals are still just loot containers for quickhacks and components. The money is trivial even in the early game now. Lame.
-Kerenzikov stopped working somewhere between going to clouds and raiding the scav den for Evelyn, what else is new?
-Seriously loot is so boring. There's only a couple of interesting mods, damage penalties are too steep when you can't increase the damage by much without full investment in your build. Cyberware should have had mod slots and cyberware mods should have replaced most of the clothing loot. Leave clothes to the clothing shops and have us loot cyberware and cyberware mods along with our guns. Too afraid of making V like a scav? Too bad, shouldn't have changed the gear system and ruined the sense of progression then. You can only half ass your rpg elements so much and still have them be fun and interesting.
-Just playing through starting areas reveals all the same ol bugs are here and they have some new friends.

 

[Grantig]

Well, just now got La Chingona Dorada (Iconic Nue) and already have a normal Nue in my backpack, both Tier 5.

The normal Nue has the following advantages due to the iconic one:
- slightly better gunhandling (+0,15)
- +25% more headshot crit damage multiplier (100 to 125%)
- 2 slots for internal mods (which I often use for example to get the weapon undeadly).

The iconic has:
- A descriptive text about increasing headshot crit damage and burn chance for every headshot done. So, none if no headshot done. Also the amount of the bonus is unclear, does it even go beyond the missing 25% in first hand?
- And something about ammo regain when equipping the gun.

So all in all I'd say the normal Nue is better, at least untill the Iconic one gets updated to Tier 5+

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Well, just now got La Chingona Dorada (Iconic Nue) and already have a normal Nue in my backpack, both Tier 5.

The normal Nue has the following advantages due to the iconic one:
- slightly better gunhandling (+0,15)
- +25% more headshot crit damage multiplier (100 to 125%)
- 2 slots for internal mods (which I often use for example to get the weapon undeadly).

The iconic has:
- A descriptive text about increasing headshot crit damage and burn chance for every headshot done. So, none if no headshot done. Also the amount of the bonus is unclear, does it even go beyond the missing 25% in first hand?
- And something about ammo regain when equipping the gun.

So all in all I'd say the normal Nue is better, at least untill the Iconic one gets updated to Tier 5+

Not all iconics are better (also depend of your playstyle). Just a couple of examples :
- CRASH or Archangel are better than random Overture.
- Denny's baseball bat (gold plated bat) is better than any "random" baseball bat.
- The katana reward from wakako (BYAKKO) is better than any "random" katana.
- Scorpion knife (Stinger) is better than any "random" knife.

Beside, whatever your level, as soon as you have enough components, you can upgrade iconics to the next Tier, while with "random" weapon, you have to reach a specified level and be lucky enough to get good mods. So overall (and for me), iconics stay better than "random" weapons

 

[Paszkowski]

3. I agree, that some Iconics are better some are not. Example for better - Comrade's Hammer (1 shot explosive rounds revolver) and it's sister Laika (2 shots explosive rounds revolver, dmg cut by half but even more deady from CH). I think they are best 1H firearm in game, especially Laika.

Some iconics are very situational, like a revolver that needs to shoot at leg first and then to head, to deal crit damage. Not my style - when fighting multiple enemies, who has time to point to leg, then to head? I prefer Metel, a powerful non-iconic revolver that deals 150 base dmg on V+, plus 175% on headshot. Non-iconic but kicks better than lot of them.

I wonder which one from these sniper rifles you think is better, a typical Grad or Overwatch. Considering that stealth sniping is almost impossible in this game, in my opinion Grad looks much better because it can hit for 2500 crit dmg, when Overwatch I hit mostly 1100-1300 crit dmg.

1. a lot of great looking clothings can be found scattered at the corners and far reaches of the maps, in spaces not related with quest areas, etc. I feel that this is planned to reward players who like to wander through entire map, not only visiting main routes leading from one target to another. For those who don't wander, the shops have now a decent range of clothings for a decent prices. Not that high as they had pre 2.0.

 

[ahward]

My 2 cents on the iconic weapon blunder is that they actually kinda suck. A few really good ones exist still that are in a legue of their own. (Hercules, overwatch) but 95% of them feel like the gun was setup for someone else and not v. to be fair in context to an rpg, they actually were. it is true that iconics will have a tiny bit more base dmg but that is it. Some of the iconic affects are worse than a legendary mod that does something similar. Other affects get phased out of usefulness bc some perks can be unlocked that will do the exact same thing with every weapon u pick up.

it has become more of a situation where i level out of the gun i have been using And need to switch to an iconic version until i find the gun i want to replace it. With the craft-able iconic mod u can create right after the beginning of the dlc, u can basically build a weapon that stands leagues above the rest. U just need a 5+ tier frame to put it on And on top of that, u can slap on a legendary mod, legendary sights, and legendary muzzle to increase the gap. The devs shdve reworkd the iconic affects. Imagine dual weilding Jackie's pistols for example. Tis a shame how they handled this mechanic

 

[Orikon25]

Loot is a genuine problem because they half-assed the clothing changes by removing stats but not adjusting anything else.

This created a problem where finding legendary loot is supposed to be a good moment in gameplay, except now it's a dice roll -- either you're gonna find a legendary weapon, which is great, or you're gonna find a legendary piece of clothing which makes it feel like a waste of time and effort since it's completely pointless.

CDPR is on a victory lap right now where they're patting themselves on the back, grabbing the awards, and pretending like they finished and perfected the game. Yet one look at these forums is enough to deduct there's serious issues.

 

[Nixilos]

Imagine dual weilding Jackie's pistols for example.

At the very least you could make them auto reload on weapon swap and make the weapon swap speed very fast. Fiddly but at least vaguely reminiscent of dual wielding.

 

[--Kory--]

#2 is a regular open world RPG thing where one of the main components of gameplay is looting and more looting, for crafting. I would rather go to a merchant npc to pay for upgrades and crafted items than worry about looting corpses and boxes all the time. On top of that, what would be good is repeat missions that send you to plunder crafting material from various locations, so there's a dedicated and fun way of getting materials.

As you describe it bothers me as well to have to worry about loot on stealth missions, or on any type of mission for that matter.

 

[DjSpyder]

Just felt the need to point out, not all clothing is cosmetic only, the vest from Regina for example I think has a reload speed increase, or maybe a grenade recharge rate buff, it's one of those 2 I just can't remember off the top of my head.

This might be a sore topic for some people, but Most of the clothes found in Dogtown have some sort of buff, either reload, grenade, health item, upload speed etc.... So, if you have PL, you get all of that, and even in base game, Armor Vests and Helmets all have a stat still. Sure, it's much less significant than Pre.20 but again going back to regina, there is a perk to that vest, assuming it's a buff you actually care about, I've been sticking with armor vests, but at this point I'm so chromed out that I can probably lose the 25 armor and take a better stat.

Some of the other stuff I can't really argue with, the loop for loot is definitely an adjustment at best, although I don't hate it, I do wish crafting materials were a little easier to get due to their new importance, but overall, it's not terrible IMO, but I certainly understand the point.

Level Scaling for me is a big issue, not the enemies I'm fine with that, none of them are so hard I can't still feel a little OP at level 60, but the Skill checks/Money amounts, it's honestly broken some missions, where there is no way to earn back what you spend, or you are locked out of something that it makes absolutely not sense "Lore Wise" for you to be locked out of I've used this example before, But How is it I can hack into Randy's laptop no problem with 17 Intelligence, and I can hack every single defense at the farm when I get there, But I can't ping an IP address? that seems pretty basic compared to all of the other Netrunning I've done. It just feels wrong.

 

[Deekoe]

Honestly my biggest issues so far post 2.0 update have been the skill tree overhaul (not nearly as customizable for varied play styles.). As well as the crafting changes. Like the decision to only allow iconic weapons to be upgraded annoys me to no end.

 

[warlock75]

Honestly my biggest issues so far post 2.0 update have been the skill tree overhaul (not nearly as customizable for varied play styles.). As well as the crafting changes. Like the decision to only allow iconic weapons to be upgraded annoys me to no end.

That bothered me too. I hadn't played a Nomad all the way through before, so made a concept for PL. Ex-military, arms dealer and weaponsmith. Build would have been assault rifles, shotguns, light machine guns, obviously heavy crafting. And then 2.0 came along and now my only character designs are the ones they want me to have. *sigh*

 

[Orikon25]

Yep, precisely that. And the argument that "the old tree was mostly % points and the new one is full of actions" is false because the new one is full of % too, and the new "actions" are heavily biased towards the Body and Reflex trees.

The old tree had multiple "actions" too, except they were far more grounded and realistic compared to anime stuff like Air Dashes (how is that even possible without cyberware?). They mostly included stuff that was made mainstream in 2.0, so things like the ability to shoot while carrying bodies and performing air assassinations.

However, the new perk tree is definitely growing on me. It is not objectively better than the old one, it's just different. However that doesn't mean it's bad, and once you get used to it, its got charm.

 

[--Kory--]

There's a good amount of playstyles based on the different cyberware alone, not to mention the skill tree.

 

[Nixilos]

There's a good amount of playstyles based on the different cyberware alone, not to mention the skill tree.

Is there really? What's a good amount? Sure there are several little lego pieces here but they roughly fit together into about the same configurations.

-Choose an operating system (Berserk forces melee)
-Choose an arm (Wire all but forces hacking)
-Choose kerenzikov/ not kerenzikov (Kerenzikov forces guns)
-Choose between power / smart / tech guns same as ever.
-Choose between double jump / incorrect choices
-Choose defenses / healing (prioritizing armor is high investment for little return, you want layers)
-Opticamo vs no opticamo

What am I missing? What other playstyles are really represented in cyberware? OS/arms/legs gave the only real non passive impact on gameplay and that was always the case. There are plenty of incorrect choices regarding the rest I suppose, but it mostly condenses down to about 3 or 4 effective sets that have a few options within them that are pure preference and not terribly gamechanging.

The skill progressions lay out the classes for you, so there are 6 distinct playstyles that you hybridize between to various degrees. The new cyberware as far as I can tell has not added a single playstyle to the game that did not already exist, and to the contrary has imposed more limitations with the berserk/kerenzikov/monowire changes.

We got some gimmicks, but now if you want to use berserk with ranged you are limited to knives for example. Nothing has really changed but we lost some freedom. Oh but you can naruto run or yeet dudes, and everything explodes now so it's really impressive I guess.

 

[alphamachina]

Not all iconics are better (also depend of your playstyle). Just a couple of examples :
- CRASH or Archangel are better than random Overture.
- Denny's baseball bat (gold plated bat) is better than any "random" baseball bat.
- The katana reward from wakako (BYAKKO) is better than any "random" katana.
- Scorpion knife (Stinger) is better than any "random" knife.

Beside, whatever your level, as soon as you have enough components, you can upgrade iconics to the next Tier, while with "random" weapon, you have to reach a specified level and be lucky enough to get good mods. So overall (and for me), iconics stay better than "random" weapons

Iconics are only better because of the fact that CDPR made them arbitrarily the only weapons you can upgrade. They only did this specifically to give them an edge up on their non-"iconic" counterparts. It was a cheap way to enforce their already cheap "our iconics are better" implementation.

 

[SpaceWolf87]

I don't think that the iconic weapons sometimes being "|worse" than the normal weapons is a bad thing. However iconic weapons should have unique and interesting properties that are worth considering and unfortunatelly there are many iconic weapons that lacks in this regard.
Sadly same goes for the weapon mods. There are very few good ones but the rest is just straight up bad, unpractical or uninteresting.

Furthermore many iconic weapons often provide effect that is pointless in context with the perk tree. For example katanas that applies bleeding when certain condition is met or the leap attack which is something you'll get anyway by investing points into the blade tree.

That brings me to the perk tree. Players have enough perk points at their disposal that they can just pick everything related to the items they're using. There are barely any meaningful choices involved. No tradeoffs.

Cyberware now contains many small bonuses that are just there. Rerolling is only possible when upgrading and it feels like the whole system wasn't very thought out. Also operating systems seems to have a rather predefined hierarchy instead of providing variety of options for different playstyles.

By far the worst change in my opinion is inability to upgrade normal weapons or freely switch mods. Honestly such a pain.

I get the impression that CDPR tried to streamline customization options in the game but somehow it ended up being rather boring even in comparison to 1.6. When they said they were planning to introduce more build defining choices I expected something more exciting like e.g. trigger Short Circuit on critical hit used to be.
Overall it's a great game but the lack of more interesting and meaningful customization options really takes away a lot of fun.

 

[warlock75]

Overall it's a great game but the lack of more interesting and meaningful customization options really takes away a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's my problem with it. I have over 1000 hours played now and used to come back to it again and again, trying some new idea, a character concept, but that's all gone now. All you are now is your primary weapon, there's no real mix and match anymore.

I'm currently playing a corpo netrunner having finished PL before the main quest lines. I heard there are some new talking points when you do that. After this playthrough, the game is going to gather dust, I see no reason to come back to it anymore.

 

[Nixilos]

All you are now is your primary weapon, there's no real mix and match anymore.

Sort of, at least in my experience I went tech weapons, which anyone can do now cuz what are the odds you didn't level tech? Well with tech you can use a variety of weapons but they all serve one purpose, bolt shots. Easier or harder to master charge timings aside, it's boring. I've done crit tech and status tech before in 1.6, but now it pretty much does both of those for you. Instead of short circs on crit you mod a non iconic for emp bursts on full charge, and burn status is automatic on bolt shots assuming you've leveled up the skill progression.

I can use whatever I want but it's all the same more or less.

As for mixing and matching I did that, it's not optimal but I did it. Low spec netrunner with a variety of tech weapons and mantis blades. The problem I have with it is there's nothing left to experience with any of those, there's no build potential in any of those choices that I feel like I missed out on by hybridizing and there's nothing left in them that I want to try in another playthrough. I can do all the things. I can run in headfirst like an idiot with body 4 and feel no danger, or I can stealth with no perk or cyberware investment in that role. I can end a room full of enemies with ultimate hacks with just overclock, or blow them all up at once with contagion and a burn proc from a bolt shot.

What else is there for me to experience after this other than to find ways to make myself intentionally weak? Any niche build I can think of I don't want to have to play the ripper screen for the time it would take to organize the stats so maybe a low tech run? Meh, maybe.

Furthermore many iconic weapons often provide effect that is pointless in context with the perk tree. For example katanas that applies bleeding when certain condition is met or the leap attack which is something you'll get anyway by investing points into the blade tree.

That brings me to the perk tree. Players have enough perk points at their disposal that they can just pick everything related to the items they're using. There are barely any meaningful choices involved. No tradeoffs.

As for the iconics and perks that step on each other's toes that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's not terribly interesting but you can do contrarian things like use a katana in a no reflex build. I could see myself using byakko in a body build just because I can. I could undo all my blade perks and use it if I had something else I actually wanted to spend them on but I don't need a single perk other than overclock in the int tree.

Unless you want say, ALL the netrunner perks or want to be able to crouch run/air dash/have adrenaline perks all at the same time you are just so flooded with perk points that you will experience the best of whatever your kit has to offer, like you say the choices don't feel meaningful at that point.

On the other hand I STILL have builds I wanted to try in 1.6, guess that's where I'll be when I finally finish PL but my desire to play has really crashed and I'm only putting in an hour or two a night if that sometimes.