The police are now the worst part of the game

[Bassist117]

Alright get ready for a long one. To me, the police are hands down the most annoying part of this game. The absolute worst part is the immediate gaining of a start the second you hit someone with a car. Given that so many of the cars slide around like they're on ice skates, especially the Hoon which should be pretty much everyone's go-to until they can get the murkmobile this happens about 70% of the time I take a corner. Add onto that the AI that will just jump out into your path if you get too close and about half the time I'm behind the wheel I've got a star. Plus since we can now deal/receive damage in vehicles every single time I tap a MaiMai at 2 mph the person driving it dies and oh look, I've got a star again. This is especially annoying during delivery missions when you're trying to lose whatever enemies just spawned behind you and you can't avoid every single car in your way. and because you can't just kill the cops to get them off your tail, you have to lose them by which point its easier just to reload. It'd be fine if the cops were coming after you for something like, say, stealing a car, but for them to show up in the middle of a running gunfight to kill you just for setting off someone's airbag is just insane.

Next we'll talk about scanner hustles. Given that at least half of them are active muggings its inevitable that V is going to cause at least one civilian casualty. For me, this almost always came from the time bomb perk, a weakspot emp, or from a gas canister blowing up. Why the hell can Malestrom or the Scavs execute somebody with no reprecussions but if i come by 2 seconds earlier and accidentally kill that same civilian while taking out all of the criminals that the police asked me to they instantly know and are looking for me? Why would the police let V do their job for them if they weren't willing to accept the risks that comes with hiring an edgerunner?

Finally I have to ask what the point of all that work was. There's no way to get a wanted level except by killing people or getting to close to TT so the entire goal with a wanted level is to lose it as quickly as possible, something CDPR clearly knows as they've added in a free and non-optional way of immediately losing a wanted level. There is absolutely no point in getting to five stars unless you want to fight MaxTac and unless you're actively trying to reach that you won't ever encounter them. If we could pull off heists or the the police were treated like what they really are, the biggest gang on the block, then sure. If there was literally any other mechanic that affected the police then I'd understand, but to me it seems like a whole bunch of wasted effort on something that only made the game worse.

I can handle all that though. I've been playing cyberpunk since launch and so have stomached far worse problems. I'm more careful on and off the road and even though its less fun I'm still playing. What really upsets me is how utterly unimmersive it is and all of the myriad problems it creates with the lore. How is the NCPD an underfunded and understaffed institution full of corrupt and incompetent crooks with a response time measured in hours while simultaneously having near omniscient surveillance powers to notice the millisecond someone dies and a seemingly endless supply of manpower willing to die for their jobs? Why is the NCPD in the badlands where Militech already has contracts? Why are the police in Pacifica when the whole point of cutting it off from the rest of Night City was specifically for crime statistics and we hear multiple characters say that badges DO NOT enter Pacifica? And seriously, a peacekeeping force in Dogtown? That's the biggest oxymoron for what is supposed to be a combat zone.

So having said all that, here are a few proposals for how to fix what is in my eyes cyberpunk's biggest issue at the moment (excluding bugs of course). And no, an affinity system for the scanner hustles is not on here as it seems like a big ask this late in the game. I'm not a game designer or coder of any sort but these seem like relatively simple changes considering the changes that have already taken place.
1. Tone things way down. Have police come out to 1 out of every 5 crimes you commit or once you start making a real mess. Maybe the likelihood of a police response can come with the stars, with the cops not always sending a force over until you have 2 or 3 stars.
2. Add in some reason to get to 5 stars.Literally anything would work it could be some sort of reward for killing MaxTac or replayable robbery missions that you have to flee from (which would give a point to all the med/food stores). It could literally be just a 6 second cutscene of a stickup and then an automatic 3 stars or whatever once you leave whatever place you're in.
3. A better way to get the cops off your back than the facial cyberware. Maybe you could call the fixer of wherever you are and if you've done enough jobs for them they could clear your wanted level, or maybe its just a one-shot phone call and 5k eddies to one fixer (Regina or Dino maybe?) like Lester in GTA. This would add so much to the immersion and would be great for when we're trying to do a mission for El Cap.
4. Reskin the cops in Pacifica and the badlands. The first time I caused a ruckus in Pacifica pre 2.0 I thought it was really cool to have afterlife mercs come after me. They were harder to fight than the police and were a cool variation. Just switch things back to that for Pacifica/DT. We know that the people of Longshore Stacks will hire mercs to enact justice upon those who've wronged them so why not hire some for V when they get out of control? And why is NCPD going out into the badlands, a place that is just much not part of Night City as Pacifica is? Just bring back Militech, who already seem to have all sorts of contracts enforcing safety in the badlands (it should be Arasaka handling NC security but whatever). This part is pretty much only for the lore and MaxTac and Netwatch could still intervene at higher levels, which again would be lore friendly.

Anyways, that's everything I have to complain about out of my system. If you couldn't tell by the extremely long-winded post, I fucking love this game and just want to see it continually improve, which is why I was so disappointed to see them take such a large step backwards. I hope things continue to get better

 

[BabaBooey88]

Alright get ready for a long one. To me, the police are hands down the most annoying part of this game. The absolute worst part is the immediate gaining of a start the second you hit someone with a car. Given that so many of the cars slide around like they're on ice skates, especially the Hoon which should be pretty much everyone's go-to until they can get the murkmobile this happens about 70% of the time I take a corner. Add onto that the AI that will just jump out into your path if you get too close and about half the time I'm behind the wheel I've got a star. Plus since we can now deal/receive damage in vehicles every single time I tap a MaiMai at 2 mph the person driving it dies and oh look, I've got a star again. This is especially annoying during delivery missions when you're trying to lose whatever enemies just spawned behind you and you can't avoid every single car in your way. and because you can't just kill the cops to get them off your tail, you have to lose them by which point its easier just to reload. It'd be fine if the cops were coming after you for something like, say, stealing a car, but for them to show up in the middle of a running gunfight to kill you just for setting off someone's airbag is just insane.

Next we'll talk about scanner hustles. Given that at least half of them are active muggings its inevitable that V is going to cause at least one civilian casualty. For me, this almost always came from the time bomb perk, a weakspot emp, or from a gas canister blowing up. Why the hell can Malestrom or the Scavs execute somebody with no reprecussions but if i come by 2 seconds earlier and accidentally kill that same civilian while taking out all of the criminals that the police asked me to they instantly know and are looking for me? Why would the police let V do their job for them if they weren't willing to accept the risks that comes with hiring an edgerunner?

Finally I have to ask what the point of all that work was. There's no way to get a wanted level except by killing people or getting to close to TT so the entire goal with a wanted level is to lose it as quickly as possible, something CDPR clearly knows as they've added in a free and non-optional way of immediately losing a wanted level. There is absolutely no point in getting to five stars unless you want to fight MaxTac and unless you're actively trying to reach that you won't ever encounter them. If we could pull off heists or the the police were treated like what they really are, the biggest gang on the block, then sure. If there was literally any other mechanic that affected the police then I'd understand, but to me it seems like a whole bunch of wasted effort on something that only made the game worse.

I can handle all that though. I've been playing cyberpunk since launch and so have stomached far worse problems. I'm more careful on and off the road and even though its less fun I'm still playing. What really upsets me is how utterly unimmersive it is and all of the myriad problems it creates with the lore. How is the NCPD an underfunded and understaffed institution full of corrupt and incompetent crooks with a response time measured in hours while simultaneously having near omniscient surveillance powers to notice the millisecond someone dies and a seemingly endless supply of manpower willing to die for their jobs? Why is the NCPD in the badlands where Militech already has contracts? Why are the police in Pacifica when the whole point of cutting it off from the rest of Night City was specifically for crime statistics and we hear multiple characters say that badges DO NOT enter Pacifica? And seriously, a peacekeeping force in Dogtown? That's the biggest oxymoron for what is supposed to be a combat zone.

So having said all that, here are a few proposals for how to fix what is in my eyes cyberpunk's biggest issue at the moment (excluding bugs of course). And no, an affinity system for the scanner hustles is not on here as it seems like a big ask this late in the game. I'm not a game designer or coder of any sort but these seem like relatively simple changes considering the changes that have already taken place.

Yeah. It's pretty bad.

1. Tone things way down. Have police come out to 1 out of every 5 crimes you commit or once you start making a real mess. Maybe the likelihood of a police response can come with the stars, with the cops not always sending a force over until you have 2 or 3 stars.

In lore police charge a fee for calling 911. Drones are used to save on health costs, prevent death insurance payouts, bust unions, etc. Not the type of handwaving "drones see everything" nonsense recently concocted to avoid writing a simple witness/delay system.

4. Reskin the cops in Pacifica and the badlands.

Nah, just get rid of them in those plaecs. Cops in Pacifica, Badlands, and even Kabuki is pure nonsense that flies in the face of CDPR's own world building. What's more hilarious is the dispatch radio - police receive a mysterious call about a crime in the badlands then notify militech... because it's militech that show up.

Anyways, that's everything I have to complain about out of my system. If you couldn't tell by the extremely long-winded post, I fucking love this game and just want to see it continually improve, which is why I was so disappointed to see them take such a large step backwards. I hope things continue to get better

i feel the same. A shame it turned out this way. One of the other odd things is how much they hyped up districts. That stuff is indeed in the game, but they made it so subtle I could not tell a bit of difference between the districts in response weight or time - at least two mods within in a week of 2.0's release made them significantly more distinct.

 

[Nixilos]

There would have been some in lore psuedo technical reason why. For example, your pirated connection to the NCPD subcontractor bounty network instantly pings a body confirmed by your kiroshis for collection and then that body is checked for bounties which get wired into your anonymous account. Any pinged citizen registered in good standing and with no bounty information is flagged as a murder and NCPD are dispatched to investigate a potential cyberpsycho. Not because they know you did it, but because they know citizens are dying in that vicinity due to your connection to the system. When they get close and scan you, they see a kid running a scanner jammer with bodies in your wake, and if they are getting any information about you at all on their scan it's that you are borged the fuck out with illegal cyberware. Starts to make sense if you think about it that way. Vik just needed to say more about what he was signing the player up for with that little upgrade.

There aren't that many cops around considering the scope of the city and the number of people. These guys are seriously underequipped for their jobs. They are also in bed with most of the criminals they police. NCPD is just a group of corporate enforcers at this point. All their orders come down from on high. Corpos are in bed with gangs like the Tyger Claws. The freedom that cops have to interfere with the status quo on the streets is incredibly limited. Corporate enforcers do what Arasaka and Militech tell them to do or they don't live long, dispatch will see to it, same way they get rid of their near retirees without having to pay their pensions.

At least this is my headcannon on the matter. You have to work out the rest knowing that ncpd are an active system while the city itself is a snapshot in time in a weird way. You are just seeing a moment where these things are happening due to the limitations of how encounters are designed and spawned in the videogame. It's groundhog day every day so you just have to use your imagination some.

 

[Bassist117]

There would have been some in lore psuedo technical reason why. For example, your pirated connection to the NCPD subcontractor bounty network instantly pings a body confirmed by your kiroshis for collection and then that body is checked for bounties which get wired into your anonymous account. Any pinged citizen registered in good standing and with no bounty information is flagged as a murder and NCPD are dispatched to investigate a potential cyberpsycho. Not because they know you did it, but because they know citizens are dying in that vicinity due to your connection to the system. When they get close and scan you, they see a kid running a scanner jammer with bodies in your wake, and if they are getting any information about you at all on their scan it's that you are borged the fuck out with illegal cyberware. Starts to make sense if you think about it that way. Vik just needed to say more about what he was signing the player up for with that little upgrade.

There aren't that many cops around considering the scope of the city and the number of people. These guys are seriously underequipped for their jobs. They are also in bed with most of the criminals they police. NCPD is just a group of corporate enforcers at this point. All their orders come down from on high. Corpos are in bed with gangs like the Tyger Claws. The freedom that cops have to interfere with the status quo on the streets is incredibly limited. Corporate enforcers do what Arasaka and Militech tell them to do or they don't live long, dispatch will see to it, same way they get rid of their near retirees without having to pay their pensions.

At least this is my headcannon on the matter. You have to work out the rest knowing that ncpd are an active system while the city itself is a snapshot in time in a weird way. You are just seeing a moment where these things are happening due to the limitations of how encounters are designed and spawned in the videogame. It's groundhog day every day so you just have to use your imagination so

Don't try to justify bad gameplay mechanics with lore. All you end up with are ridiculously convoluted and implausible theories that contain more holes than they plug.

 

[Nixilos]

Don't try to justify bad gameplay mechanics with lore. All you end up with are ridiculously convoluted and implausible theories that contain more holes than they plug.

Choom like what even is that argument? What is a videogame if not exactly what you just described. We're not playing in full sims unfortunately.

If you mean you just don't like it then okay, but I don't personally find it overly intrusive nor difficult to deal with, without relying on the off button you get for it later either via cyberware.

If you mean I'm bad at convoluting things then eh you are probably right, I dunno, it was just my example of getting my head around it.

 

[Bassist117]

Choom like what even is that argument? What is a videogame if not exactly what you just described. We're not playing in full sims unfortunately.

If you mean you just don't like it then okay, but I don't personally find it overly intrusive nor difficult to deal with, without relying on the off button you get for it later either via cyberware.

If you mean I'm bad at convoluting things then eh you are probably right, I dunno, it was just my example of getting my head around it.

I was trying to say that I found your lore-based explanation lacking, but that it was moot point since its a video game. Came off more hostile than intended now that I read it back. My whole point was that it was a step backward and a pointless mechanic. I know what a video game is and I get that there are immersion breaking elements but the act of driving is rendered not fun in the city because of how careful you have to be. I was being dramatic when I said that the immersion was the worst thing, the driving is what really pissed me. Getting the cyberware happens after hours of gameplay and even then it's got a 20 min cooldown after its upgraded. The whole thing just slows down gameplay and, to me, seems like a massive waste of time, effort, and resources.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2023

Nah, just get rid of them in those plaecs. Cops in Pacifica, Badlands, and even Kabuki is pure nonsense that flies in the face of CDPR's own world building. What's more hilarious is the dispatch radio - police receive a mysterious call about a crime in the badlands then notify militech... because it's militech that show up.

They "need" to have some consequences for killing civilians so i suggested using Militech and edgerunners to maintain internal consistency while satisfying gameplay demands. It would be simpler to just replace the police with those instead of implementing a full-blown bounty system

 

[Nixilos]

Came off more hostile than intended now that I read it back.

Oh no worries about that we're chillin. I just found the statement a little humorous out of context.

The new police are just a fun way for infinite combat when all you wanna do is stress test your build in a hypothetical 'what if V of all people went cyberpsycho' fever dream. When I did it with my build you could have replaced the sound effects with mario ones and it would have made just as much sense. I had a gigantic cluster of them just herded into the center of an area I was dash dancing circles around while essentially throwing fireballs into the crowd. Not much more complicated or involved than mario but due to the context of the lore and the shiny graphics it felt a lot cooler than it sounds.

The driving gets easier the more you get used to it and get your steering sensitivity tuned. They changed the way it works in 2.0, the old wisdom was setting it to 0 sensitivity on kb&m but now you want it somewhere in the middle. It controls under/oversteer now it seems. I am mediocre at video games these days and I still schmoove in the vehicles it just took some practice.

 

[ShinAkira00]

There isn't anything wrong with the things you described, the issue is there are just too many cops on the street so these things get triggered more often. If they cut that number of cops down to 1/3 then it would be fine. That way they are spread out more instead of being on every street corner to notice every bad thing you do.

If I rack up a high wanted level then I'm fine with them swarming but if there are that many cops on every street corner then Night City would be the safest place on the planet.

 

[Nixilos]

There isn't anything wrong with the things you described, the issue is there are just too many cops on the street so these things get triggered more often. If they cut that number of cops down to 1/3 then it would be fine. That way they are spread out more instead of being on every street corner to notice every bad thing you do.

If I rack up a high wanted level then I'm fine with them swarming but if there are that many cops on every street corner then Night City would be the safest place on the planet.

I'm just not having the same perception of it. I still don't think that's a lot of cops considering how massive Night City is really supposed to be. We sort of forget that the space is still truncated first of all, the space is not actually as large as it should be realistically. We also are capable of traveling absurdly fast on foot to the point where vehicles can feel a bit slow sometimes. I have not encountered so many cops patrolling one area that it is difficult for me to believe, nor do i consider that a lot of cops.

It's also absurdly easy to lose them, any cover, any vertical escape path, and you just lose your wanted status. Car chases are a different matter there sometimes they have cheats, but sometimes you still juke them once and it's over.

They are also just not very hard once you get going right? I've ignored my wanted status to keep killing random gangers and even done scanners while the cops are screwing with me.

Did it get worse in 2.1 or something? I decided to finish out my playthrough on 2.01 before I consider updating.

 

[Netrunner2go]

Did it get worse in 2.1 or something? I decided to finish out my playthrough on 2.01 before I consider updating.

Stay away from 2.1 as long as you can… the patch broke whole systems like autofixer (gig spawns & bugged vehicle list), gang atks, random events like Trauma Team or the BFC9000 AV crashside which are just completely missing. Several map filter are gone, radio issues etc. Even oldschool bugs which were already patched out over several patches celebrate their returns… it’s a mess right now.

Would reroll my version if I could as well but sadly there is no way on consoles

 

[Bassist117]

There isn't anything wrong with the things you described, the issue is there are just too many cops on the street so these things get triggered more often. If they cut that number of cops down to 1/3 then it would be fine. That way they are spread out more instead of being on every street corner to notice every bad thing you do.

If I rack up a high wanted level then I'm fine with them swarming but if there are that many cops on every street corner then Night City would be the safest place on the plane

If there was nothing wrong I wouldn't have made the post. Driving is way worse because of it

 

[BabaBooey88]

There isn't anything wrong with the things you described, the issue is there are just too many cops on the street so these things get triggered more often. If they cut that number of cops down to 1/3 then it would be fine. That way they are spread out more instead of being on every street corner to notice every bad thing you do.

Regardless of presence, their behavior is not great by any means.

NCPD aggroing because of a fender bender in Watson/Kabuki is absurd and very much impacts driving around the city, not to mention they go straight to issuing you a death sentence for it. It's even a big stretch in most of Night City other than if you hit a rich or copo car. I'm sure that much context control is a big ask for them considering the game is finished (maybe), but more general context to their general aggro and how they're notified isn't. It was done before.

 

[AlienSpaceBats]

Absolutely no argument here!

It's a disjointed system that was implemented slipshod to silence some social media loudmouths that also ruins the nature of the open world encounters and runs counter to the setting already established. Because we all want to dick around and get those GTA 5 star wanted levels.

a) V/The player receives small missions as an NCPD subcon, which become chaotic messes because "the police" don't like you doing them, especially if you're firing a gun.

b) the NCPD is an understaffed and underfunded entity, yet there are now officers patrolling the middle of nowhere in Northside (in Maelstron gang territory), sometimes two to each side of the street. They ignore crimes in progress, walk through their own scanner hustles and aggro to you if you fire your gun during an activity given by them.

The entire system should have been left alone, especially as end of support grows closer. Now instead of a barebones system we've got an annoying, incoherent one that clashes with the rest of the game. If the last three years are any indication, I sincerely doubt CDPR will fix this to an acceptable level.

 

[Bassist117]

It's also absurdly easy to lose them, any cover, any vertical escape path, and you just lose your wanted

You're downplaying it by a pretty large margin but no, they aren't hard to fight or lose on foot but that still isn't the point I'm trying to make. The entire point of the post was to showcase how the police are an annoyance that actively subtracts from the enjoyment of the game, a change that as far as I can recall no one aside from the people who wanted future GTA were asking for and as a result time, labor, and resources went into this instead of adding gameplay mechanics that mattered or fixing the myriad other problems that need to be addressed. You're playing on a PC with access to to options and controls I don't have. For those of us stuck with the stock settings of the game and who have to play the current worse update it is a problem. So enjoy your different perception because its not one I or many others share

 

[Nixilos]

All of this was to say you can't introduce selective realism into your reasonings, so stop doing it. internal consistency is important to both good world building and a good argument

I mean I am introducing selective realism into my reasonings so it's not really accurate to say I can't per se but I know what you mean. I'm not sure you've given my argument a chance if you can't see the internal consistency of it, but hey maybe I'm the gonk, I can admit that.

I just think as has been said we're nearing end of support and this is the way it is now. Suspension of disbelief is a choice you make. Sometimes it's easier than others, but it's helpful to ask yourself "What would have to be true for this to be the way it is?"

It's the old arguments about lightsabers not making any sense. Like okay sure but there could be a thing that makes them possible. Think one up that works for you. It's science fiction which is fantasy adjacent.

I'm one of the more critical people of this game on this forum probably. I'm not blindly defending it or anything. It just so happens in this instance it works for me. I'm capable of thinking of ways that it would work this way. Reasons cops would walk right by gangers holding someone up too. Corruption. Is it a perfect explanation? Of course not, but it's enough to quiet the thought that takes you out of the fun for me, even if my take doesn't help you someone might like it who knows?

b) the NCPD is an understaffed and underfunded entity, yet there are now officers patrolling the middle of nowhere in Northside (in Maelstron gang territory), sometimes two to each side of the street. They ignore crimes in progress, walk through their own scanner hustles and aggro to you if you fire your gun during an activity given by them.

I always interpreted this as being relative. The amount of crime in NC is abundant, and the NCPD are not up to the task. Also it's likely copaganda talking points when they say this. You could have a cop on every corner of the entire city and they'd still insist they are underfunded and understaffed. They'd be right too, the megatowers are like towns/cities unto themselves though it's not well reflected in gameplay since we see like three floors of them. Imagine trying to police those things on top of the streets.

4. Reskin the cops in Pacifica and the badlands. The first time I caused a ruckus in Pacifica pre 2.0 I thought it was really cool to have afterlife mercs come after me. They were harder to fight than the police and were a cool variation. Just switch things back to that for Pacifica/DT. We know that the people of Longshore Stacks will hire mercs to enact justice upon those who've wronged them so why not hire some for V when they get out of control? And why is NCPD going out into the badlands, a place that is just much not part of Night City as Pacifica is? Just bring back Militech, who already seem to have all sorts of contracts enforcing safety in the badlands (it should be Arasaka handling NC security but whatever). This part is pretty much only for the lore and MaxTac and Netwatch could still intervene at higher levels, which again would be lore friendly.

This one I agree with.

 

[Netrunner2go]

the people who wanted future GTA (…)

If it even were like in GTA or WatchDogs it would be fine… but what we got is just embarrassing. GTA & WD are 10 years old and have way better, realistic and more enjoyable Police systems.

and yeah funny how pc player always think every flat lazy design isn’t that bad just because they can use mods to negate the official lame mechanics via mods… consoleros just can’t and have to deal with those crap the devs just sh*t on the road with every patch <.<

 

[BabaBooey88]

a change that as far as I can recall no one aside from the people who wanted future GTA

Not entirely, some of us wanted them to behave more like they do in lore, and add more dynamism to the city. My general philosophy on an open world is that it needs to at least facilitate some minimum believable behaviors and systems. Crime/Punishment is one of them.

How the system functions now has turned Night City into police state filled with hyper-vigilant cops, who are always aware, on the spot in a flash, and more aggressive than the booster gangs that inhabit the same world.

NCPD are indeed brutal in lore, so sometimes the heavy hand works, but they wouldn't engage nearly as much as 2.0 has them doing. That's because CDPR put no effort into the notification system that triggers "prevention". How they felt this is convincing is beyond me.

It just needs less overall aggression, more thouthful district variance for NCDP presence, and a witness report chance based on disctric - Said changes would make it leagues better imo. All are entirely doable and I know this because they have been done before by modders.

 

[ilmash]

Playing necromancer a little bit but around 800h mark I disabled "for testing" police system with mods. Aaaand forgot about it until about 40 hours later. Cyberpunk is so much better in 99% world interactions without police, as I'm typically only killing bad guys and sparing good citizens, but in all my chaotic good attitude I don't want to break immersion by realoding if civilian dies to some gangoons on reported criminal activity.

I came, solved a problem that NCPD couldn't, won't take any blame for minor casualities what were likely to happen anyway, since most of those events are scripted in a way that some civilian is like 2-3 seconds from dying since we arrive at the scene. NCPD trying to punish us for solving their problems was inconsistency for me since I sterted playing just before 1.2 patch and I think finally after almost 850 hours I'll stay with this system just turned off since it doesn't negatively impact my fun and au contraire, effects are only positive.

 

[EffYew2]

I don't like how quickly they show up. By the time you kill a couple of them the game has already spawned several more right on top of you. It just feels unnatural even compared to old ass games like GTA SA.

 

[TRocketto]

Alright get ready for a long one. To me, the police are hands down the most annoying part of this game. The absolute worst part is the immediate gaining of a start the second you hit someone with a car. Given that so many of the cars slide around like they're on ice skates, especially the Hoon which should be pretty much everyone's go-to until they can get the murkmobile this happens about 70% of the time I take a corner. Add onto that the AI that will just jump out into your path if you get too close and about half the time I'm behind the wheel I've got a star. Plus since we can now deal/receive damage in vehicles every single time I tap a MaiMai at 2 mph the person driving it dies and oh look, I've got a star again. This is especially annoying during delivery missions when you're trying to lose whatever enemies just spawned behind you and you can't avoid every single car in your way. and because you can't just kill the cops to get them off your tail, you have to lose them by which point its easier just to reload. It'd be fine if the cops were coming after you for something like, say, stealing a car, but for them to show up in the middle of a running gunfight to kill you just for setting off someone's airbag is just insane.

Next we'll talk about scanner hustles. Given that at least half of them are active muggings its inevitable that V is going to cause at least one civilian casualty. For me, this almost always came from the time bomb perk, a weakspot emp, or from a gas canister blowing up. Why the hell can Malestrom or the Scavs execute somebody with no reprecussions but if i come by 2 seconds earlier and accidentally kill that same civilian while taking out all of the criminals that the police asked me to they instantly know and are looking for me? Why would the police let V do their job for them if they weren't willing to accept the risks that comes with hiring an edgerunner?

Finally I have to ask what the point of all that work was. There's no way to get a wanted level except by killing people or getting to close to TT so the entire goal with a wanted level is to lose it as quickly as possible, something CDPR clearly knows as they've added in a free and non-optional way of immediately losing a wanted level. There is absolutely no point in getting to five stars unless you want to fight MaxTac and unless you're actively trying to reach that you won't ever encounter them. If we could pull off heists or the the police were treated like what they really are, the biggest gang on the block, then sure. If there was literally any other mechanic that affected the police then I'd understand, but to me it seems like a whole bunch of wasted effort on something that only made the game worse.

I can handle all that though. I've been playing cyberpunk since launch and so have stomached far worse problems. I'm more careful on and off the road and even though its less fun I'm still playing. What really upsets me is how utterly unimmersive it is and all of the myriad problems it creates with the lore. How is the NCPD an underfunded and understaffed institution full of corrupt and incompetent crooks with a response time measured in hours while simultaneously having near omniscient surveillance powers to notice the millisecond someone dies and a seemingly endless supply of manpower willing to die for their jobs? Why is the NCPD in the badlands where Militech already has contracts? Why are the police in Pacifica when the whole point of cutting it off from the rest of Night City was specifically for crime statistics and we hear multiple characters say that badges DO NOT enter Pacifica? And seriously, a peacekeeping force in Dogtown? That's the biggest oxymoron for what is supposed to be a combat zone.

So having said all that, here are a few proposals for how to fix what is in my eyes cyberpunk's biggest issue at the moment (excluding bugs of course). And no, an affinity system for the scanner hustles is not on here as it seems like a big ask this late in the game. I'm not a game designer or coder of any sort but these seem like relatively simple changes considering the changes that have already taken place.
1. Tone things way down. Have police come out to 1 out of every 5 crimes you commit or once you start making a real mess. Maybe the likelihood of a police response can come with the stars, with the cops not always sending a force over until you have 2 or 3 stars.
2. Add in some reason to get to 5 stars.Literally anything would work it could be some sort of reward for killing MaxTac or replayable robbery missions that you have to flee from (which would give a point to all the med/food stores). It could literally be just a 6 second cutscene of a stickup and then an automatic 3 stars or whatever once you leave whatever place you're in.
3. A better way to get the cops off your back than the facial cyberware. Maybe you could call the fixer of wherever you are and if you've done enough jobs for them they could clear your wanted level, or maybe its just a one-shot phone call and 5k eddies to one fixer (Regina or Dino maybe?) like Lester in GTA. This would add so much to the immersion and would be great for when we're trying to do a mission for El Cap.
4. Reskin the cops in Pacifica and the badlands. The first time I caused a ruckus in Pacifica pre 2.0 I thought it was really cool to have afterlife mercs come after me. They were harder to fight than the police and were a cool variation. Just switch things back to that for Pacifica/DT. We know that the people of Longshore Stacks will hire mercs to enact justice upon those who've wronged them so why not hire some for V when they get out of control? And why is NCPD going out into the badlands, a place that is just much not part of Night City as Pacifica is? Just bring back Militech, who already seem to have all sorts of contracts enforcing safety in the badlands (it should be Arasaka handling NC security but whatever). This part is pretty much only for the lore and MaxTac and Netwatch could still intervene at higher levels, which again would be lore friendly.

Anyways, that's everything I have to complain about out of my system. If you couldn't tell by the extremely long-winded post, I fucking love this game and just want to see it continually improve, which is why I was so disappointed to see them take such a large step backwards. I hope things continue to get better

I totally agree with Bassisty117 the new update 2.1 still has issues like the traffic, gangs and NCPD. Also why are the NCPD everywhere in the game it makes no since and is very annoying, I was play the game last night and my V was just minding her own business and all the sudden gang and NCPD just started attacking my V who was just sitting on her new bike parked and not bothering anyone. This needs to be changed to many NCPD they shouldn't be everywhere doesn't make the game fun makes it very annoying.

Fix other issues like the NPC traffic who seem to be on a murderess rampage and the NCPD just walk or drive by and ignore them, last night a NPCs was burning in there car and no fire department NCPD just walked by, but if I accidentally hit an NPC or get knocked into them by a gang attack the NCPD want to kill me this is overkill to much. Tone down the NCPD and they shouldn't be everywhere in the game on every corner.