I'm not going to talk about the obvious issues of the game that everybody know here as we all played the game. I'm just going to explain why the game is basically dead on the long term unless CDPR makes a complete overhaul of the mechanics. This problem is pretty simple and it's about the main mechanics. This is not because the game was rushed. In the 2018 trailer you clearly see they were already going for that clunky idea.
The devs chose to make the game an RPG/loot/shooter that actualy look like Borderland mechanics. Enemies are bullet sponges and you have to optimise your build with weapons and abilities mostly to be able to face them. Cybernetics are anecdotic (except mantis, gorilla arm, etc that add fun and variety) compared to the amount of damages and armor that weapons and clothes respectively give you. This is the problem.
No matter if you like this kind of mechanic, it just doesn't work in a game like CP77. Plenty players already complained about it, it's too easy, even in the hardest difficulty. This mechanic pushes you to make a build so when you're done with a good one, the shooter part of the game is basically dead. Ok it's fun to slice five enemies in ten seconds or headshot everyone with your big revolver in slow mo but the difficulty just vanish so after some few time it gets boring. Considering that you built your armor too, enemies basically can't harm you now. Difficulty and so challenge completely disapear pretty quickly. Ok you take time to make your build but once it's done there is nothing left. They could make enemies even more bullet spongy but things will remain the same and having to put six shotgun shots in a brain is just dumb, especially if it's just a gangsta that doesn't have military bullet proof cyberware. Not even talking about the complete lack of coherence here which is what is suppose to create the core of immersive gameplay. No coherence = no immersion.
You'll tell me that there is still stealth approach. Sure, but the thing is stealth isn't really a choice anymore. You have multiple approaches but as the shooting one offers no challenge, in the end you'll just go stealth to grasp the little fun the game might still offer. And of course, stealth is also very easy as you have quick hacks and enemies are blind and deaf, they take way too much time to enter in combat mode even if you're in front of them and most are just looking at walls.
The overall system is bad for such a game. This is supposed to be an immersive story driven ARPG but it can't offer any immersion with its gameplay. There is no possibility for New Game + here as the game will be even more ridiculously easy if they implement it. As the story and the quests changes only slight details of the experience and don't have real consequences, the replay value is theoricaly inexistant. You might make a second character and make a different build but in the end, unless you're an absolute fanatic of character building (which most gamers are not because sorry but it's too niche), you'll simply just stop playing because it'll become completely boring.
They could add multiplayer. It could actually be really fun in PvP but why make such a huge setting with an entire city and desert if it's just to make it an arena where the only interesting and challenging thing would be to find other players to fight them ? I tell you, no reason, it'd just be a waste of the huge outstanding work already put in the artistic direction. PvE would be useless anyway for the reasons I explained above. Sure they could add story driven quests but the gameplay would remain the same.
So here is the thing, CDPR has to do a complete overhaul of the game main system if they want it to not just become very good in term of gameplay but simply to survive. Few suggestions below regarding this problem.
Create real emphasis on the cyberwares and make it the core of the character building.
CLOTHES
Clothes shouldn't provide any armor at all unless you have a bullet proof vest or some military gear. Your regular clothes would only provide you more space to carry grenades and health kits. And try to respect the mantra of this universe "style over substance". If you're dressed with very few armor and space to carry stuff because you're wearing a sexy jean shortie, you should get more XP or more rep when you kill enemies or complete a mission.
(Not necessary right now but would be very cool if you implement a reputation system according to what you wear. NPCs would react differently on how you'r dressed to create a feeling of character embodiment. Being dressed as a dirty nomad could close you some quests but open others and vice versa if you're dressed with fancy expensive clothes for example. And this could actually add replay value if you really want to stay in your character.)
WEAPONS
There is enough variety of weapons to be fun and offer multiple gameplay styles and situations but they shouldn't deal such high damages.
Guns should all deal around the same number of damages with just slight differences between the different types. With no decrease of damage depending on the range as most gunfights, if not all, are just close encounters. Cyberwares would increase your reload speed, precision for all guns and firerate for pistols. Why not even implement some kind of aimbot that you'd upgrade throught your Kiroshi and cyberhands ? Or a multilock thing like you'd lock three heads and then it'd do three super fast headshots, kinda like in Red Dead Redemption.
Melee weapons should deal damages accordingly to your cyberwares. If you have strong arms, it'd be logical to deal more damages.
ABILITIES
The ability system just shouldn't exist at all because it makes absolutely no sense. Right now you can have gorilla arms but might no be able to open a door because you don't have enough points in the strenght ability, this is just stupid. Same thing with discretion, attack and running speed. All this should be upgradable through cyberwares only.
Maybe just keep a spirit/social tree so you can perform different social interactions depending on it and a technical knowledge one so you can hack certain systems or open certain doors with it.
ITEMS
Reduce considerably the amount of items you can carry to make the cars useful. Keep the huge stash in your car trunk so when players get to a mission, they would have to prepare the encounter by choosing carefully their equipment.
Get rid of that legendary, epic, rare items thing, it makes no sense. Some items would provide different rarity types of components if you disassemble them but that's it. Every weapons would provide very little amount of legendary scrap, a little more of epic, a little more of rare and so on. Maybe give a bonus of rarer scrap for special technological weapons and cyberwares.
Allow disassembling and crafting only through your appartment stash to make your appartment actualy useful.
You'd craft mods for your cyberwares, weapons and some clothes that would then loose some item space but add a special modification.
In short terms, make the game way more realistic to create coherence and consequently immersion through the gameplay itself and not just with the storytelling. Please CDPR, I beg you to make the awesome and outstanding game that will define new standards for the AAA game industry.
The devs chose to make the game an RPG/loot/shooter that actualy look like Borderland mechanics. Enemies are bullet sponges and you have to optimise your build with weapons and abilities mostly to be able to face them. Cybernetics are anecdotic (except mantis, gorilla arm, etc that add fun and variety) compared to the amount of damages and armor that weapons and clothes respectively give you. This is the problem.
No matter if you like this kind of mechanic, it just doesn't work in a game like CP77. Plenty players already complained about it, it's too easy, even in the hardest difficulty. This mechanic pushes you to make a build so when you're done with a good one, the shooter part of the game is basically dead. Ok it's fun to slice five enemies in ten seconds or headshot everyone with your big revolver in slow mo but the difficulty just vanish so after some few time it gets boring. Considering that you built your armor too, enemies basically can't harm you now. Difficulty and so challenge completely disapear pretty quickly. Ok you take time to make your build but once it's done there is nothing left. They could make enemies even more bullet spongy but things will remain the same and having to put six shotgun shots in a brain is just dumb, especially if it's just a gangsta that doesn't have military bullet proof cyberware. Not even talking about the complete lack of coherence here which is what is suppose to create the core of immersive gameplay. No coherence = no immersion.
You'll tell me that there is still stealth approach. Sure, but the thing is stealth isn't really a choice anymore. You have multiple approaches but as the shooting one offers no challenge, in the end you'll just go stealth to grasp the little fun the game might still offer. And of course, stealth is also very easy as you have quick hacks and enemies are blind and deaf, they take way too much time to enter in combat mode even if you're in front of them and most are just looking at walls.
The overall system is bad for such a game. This is supposed to be an immersive story driven ARPG but it can't offer any immersion with its gameplay. There is no possibility for New Game + here as the game will be even more ridiculously easy if they implement it. As the story and the quests changes only slight details of the experience and don't have real consequences, the replay value is theoricaly inexistant. You might make a second character and make a different build but in the end, unless you're an absolute fanatic of character building (which most gamers are not because sorry but it's too niche), you'll simply just stop playing because it'll become completely boring.
They could add multiplayer. It could actually be really fun in PvP but why make such a huge setting with an entire city and desert if it's just to make it an arena where the only interesting and challenging thing would be to find other players to fight them ? I tell you, no reason, it'd just be a waste of the huge outstanding work already put in the artistic direction. PvE would be useless anyway for the reasons I explained above. Sure they could add story driven quests but the gameplay would remain the same.
So here is the thing, CDPR has to do a complete overhaul of the game main system if they want it to not just become very good in term of gameplay but simply to survive. Few suggestions below regarding this problem.
Create real emphasis on the cyberwares and make it the core of the character building.
CLOTHES
Clothes shouldn't provide any armor at all unless you have a bullet proof vest or some military gear. Your regular clothes would only provide you more space to carry grenades and health kits. And try to respect the mantra of this universe "style over substance". If you're dressed with very few armor and space to carry stuff because you're wearing a sexy jean shortie, you should get more XP or more rep when you kill enemies or complete a mission.
(Not necessary right now but would be very cool if you implement a reputation system according to what you wear. NPCs would react differently on how you'r dressed to create a feeling of character embodiment. Being dressed as a dirty nomad could close you some quests but open others and vice versa if you're dressed with fancy expensive clothes for example. And this could actually add replay value if you really want to stay in your character.)
WEAPONS
There is enough variety of weapons to be fun and offer multiple gameplay styles and situations but they shouldn't deal such high damages.
Guns should all deal around the same number of damages with just slight differences between the different types. With no decrease of damage depending on the range as most gunfights, if not all, are just close encounters. Cyberwares would increase your reload speed, precision for all guns and firerate for pistols. Why not even implement some kind of aimbot that you'd upgrade throught your Kiroshi and cyberhands ? Or a multilock thing like you'd lock three heads and then it'd do three super fast headshots, kinda like in Red Dead Redemption.
Melee weapons should deal damages accordingly to your cyberwares. If you have strong arms, it'd be logical to deal more damages.
ABILITIES
The ability system just shouldn't exist at all because it makes absolutely no sense. Right now you can have gorilla arms but might no be able to open a door because you don't have enough points in the strenght ability, this is just stupid. Same thing with discretion, attack and running speed. All this should be upgradable through cyberwares only.
Maybe just keep a spirit/social tree so you can perform different social interactions depending on it and a technical knowledge one so you can hack certain systems or open certain doors with it.
ITEMS
Reduce considerably the amount of items you can carry to make the cars useful. Keep the huge stash in your car trunk so when players get to a mission, they would have to prepare the encounter by choosing carefully their equipment.
Get rid of that legendary, epic, rare items thing, it makes no sense. Some items would provide different rarity types of components if you disassemble them but that's it. Every weapons would provide very little amount of legendary scrap, a little more of epic, a little more of rare and so on. Maybe give a bonus of rarer scrap for special technological weapons and cyberwares.
Allow disassembling and crafting only through your appartment stash to make your appartment actualy useful.
You'd craft mods for your cyberwares, weapons and some clothes that would then loose some item space but add a special modification.
In short terms, make the game way more realistic to create coherence and consequently immersion through the gameplay itself and not just with the storytelling. Please CDPR, I beg you to make the awesome and outstanding game that will define new standards for the AAA game industry.
