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
