Hello all!
I've been playing CDPR's games since the first Witcher game nearly 10 years ago, and I've always enjoyed the worlds and games they've built. I was definitely a little bit distraught after hearing how cyberpunk was received on release, but I just got my PC back around the start of this month so I'm finally getting to play it.
I sorta joined the forums mainly to get this idea out there. I've been playing cyberpunk for close to 100 hrs now, and I've got two improvement ideas for the game. Everything else so far has been pretty fun; I'm currently playing on patch 1.23 on a nividia RTX 2060. I think the side quests and gigs are missing a really important dynamic. Sure you're building street cred, but all the gangoons you face don't act any differently around you if you kill them all or go for a non-lethal option. All these factions, but no reputation stats among any of them detracts from the authenticity of the world. I think if a respected or vilified system was implemented like in fallout NV; side quests would be 10X more enjoyable than they are right now. Because at the moment alot of them are just busy work.
My other suggestion is the driving mechanics need more work. I'm using mouse and keyboard, and the first issue I'm seeing with both bikes and cars (especially cars) is the clunkiness of just moving around. Movement and acceleration should not be tied/bound to the same key. I don't even see why the keybindings are so limited for vehicle controls in the first-place. It should be easy enough to implement the shift key as your acceleration button while in conjunction with W (or whatever key that is bound for forward motion). When you reach a comfortable speed release the shift key and you stay locked at the speed you're going until you release W. W on it's own will only reach like 5mph or 15 depending on the type of vehicle before you need to accelerate. I would also recommend incorporating this in with backing up as I've been in the Caliburn and before I know it the damn car has rocketed backwards into barriers, houses, civilians, etc. lol unless this is Vs moto "pedal to the metal" I really think it would help with being able to take in more of the amazing city that the team built.
Moving on from acceleration control, the different camera perspectives aren't necessarily an issue, but I feel like when I'm trying to drive a car I'm always going into 3rd person, and on the bike it's the opposite. Spatial awareness in 1st person in the car is really bad, and it gets worse depending on what vehicle it is. I'm not sure if there's a way to change the line of sight for the player or include side mirrors, but it's hard to stay on the actual road half the time. The interiors on the cars are really cool, but right now they're not very functional also sun glare is ridiculous at certain points and with some cars more than others. At some points I literally have to stop and pull over because I can't see anything.
For bikes, if everything else is considered, using the camera for steering and not the left/right or A/D is more realistic. You use your eyes and body to steer more than just turning the handle-bars to go left or right. Right now everything is so rough and the movements are typically too jerky to maintain control this goes for bikes and cars. But these are about all the things that are bothering me with gameplay/immersion. I hope these suggestions will help. If anyone else thinks these are good ideas, or if I'm just crazy I'd love to chat about it either way!
tldr; introduce faction reputation, fix vehicle steering, and create acceleration solution.