Why did you kill stealth netrunning?

[Xamalion]

I'm so mad about this tracing BS. There's one enemy, all the others are far away. I nuke him with Synapse Burnout, and I get traced. BY FUCKING WHO? This makes absolutely zero sense, even in universe. I hack someone from stealth, no one noticing it, so who can trace me back? Also, why can't I interrupt this? You could at least make a counter attack possible, like before. Or the mod that interrupted the tracing. You killed stealth netrunning completely by forcing me constantly into battles I don't want to have or playing a style I don't want to play. Thanks for nothing.

 

[Soylencer]

Because standing on a rooftop and dropping 9 enemies in 6 seconds with 4 button presses is not the encounter that the GM had in mind.

Signed, a former OP stealth runner.

 

[Kaonei]

I'm so mad about this tracing BS. There's one enemy, all the others are far away. I nuke him with Synapse Burnout, and I get traced. BY FUCKING WHO? This makes absolutely zero sense, even in universe. I hack someone from stealth, no one noticing it, so who can trace me back? Also, why can't I interrupt this? You could at least make a counter attack possible, like before. Or the mod that interrupted the tracing. You killed stealth netrunning completely by forcing me constantly into battles I don't want to have or playing a style I don't want to play. Thanks for nothing.

Well, you may be traced by another netrunner - or your location may be revealed by your victim's intrusion countermeasure system.
Use your imagination.
Not only it makes sense lore wise but also gameplay wise. I mean, it's a great reminder that almost every move you make on the net leaves traces.
Also, if you're being traced then it means there's still at least one enemy around. No one can trace you when everyone is dead.

If you want to be as stealthy as possible, you can lower the trace bar with some perks, or... you know... use untraceable quickhacks.

 

[nwg5817]

Combat on a timer and overclock is lame. Hate the skill tree hate the new netrunner.

 

[Masioj]

Well... you might like it or not, but now one thing you can do if you want to take down with hacks and prevent being traced is loading a Deafen quickhack on the victim first.

 

[jeffaubin24]

I don't know what game you're playing, but I'm playing the game right now on 2.0 and I am indeed playing as a stealth netrunner. It is going very well, although it does require more perk investment as well as more thought behind every encoutner.

There are ways to slow down the trace, and ways to accelerate how quickly you can do quickhacks. If you commit to being a stealth netrunner, you will absolutely be able to be just as OP as before.

It does require overclock, but that just makes sense with the world of Cyberpunk, and makes it a lot more fun. Who cares about the health you're losing too, because if you're doing it well the encounter should be over quickly enough and health regenerates stupidly fast outside of combat. There are also quickhacks that usually won't lead to a trace, like distract enemies and overload. Use the environment to your advantage.

The tracing mechanic still makes sense btw. It doesn't matter that the enemies are far away from each other, they are on the same network. This is obvious thanks to the fact that the PING quickhack shows every enemy, and the goal of the quickhack is to reveal everything on the network. There's also a gig where you disable someone's cyberware by plugging into one of their crew. If you send a hack through the network, it just makes sense that others on the very same network would be aware of it. You'll notice that things that don't appear when you use PING, such as fuel tanks, do not lead to a trace when they are hacked.

 

[Xamalion]

I absolutely makes zero sense, you know why? If you throw a fucking knive, no one notices! Despite all being in one system and connected. It also works to sneak on to someone and snap his neck...an no one fucking cares. This is just not thought through.

 

[sickzpack]

Sonic shock is your friend...

 

[Crimsomrider]

What's sad is tracing was in fact already in the game for a long time before 2.0 and in a much better state. It was actually performed by an actual NPC who would react if they received two invasive hacks in a row.

Nobody had an issue with tracing pre-2.0 precisely because it actually made sense and was immersive, done by a target who became aware of the hacking. Now however they removed that little immersive detail and made tracing a global feature so that every gonk on the opposite side of the compound who is completely unaware of what is going on is somehow magically performing the trace as soon as a single hack is uploaded.

So basically it went from a very immersive reactionary feature that made sense, to an immersion breaking gimmick that everyone now globally performs without any actual reaction.

It would make sense if tracing only starts once enemies are alerted/investigating, to have some sort of actual reaction by NPCs to a Netrunner's invasive presence on the network.

For example; Short Circuit a guy > another guard notices the fried body > everyone becomes alerted and now performs a trace to find you on the network.

This would then actually make sense and feel like a great stealth feature. Fail to remain undetected and everyone alerted will start triangulating you.

But right now all it serves is just as a playstyle punishment for stealth Netrunners. A single hack even on a fully isolated gonk that one shots them and everyone else is magically triangulating as they're just chilling and going about their day, while even the little gonk on the toilet without a care in the world on the opposite side of the compound is somehow magically performing a trace too.

 

[ToreadorVampire]

I absolutely makes zero sense, you know why? If you throw a fucking knive, no one notices! Despite all being in one system and connected. It also works to sneak on to someone and snap his neck...an no one fucking cares. This is just not thought through.

Makes sense from a balance perspective though. I don't recall seeing perks which allow you to queue up nine thrown knives against three different enemies, before any of them have time to blink

If you want to play an OP netrunner and faceroll, set the game on easy. All CDPR have really done with the change is allow people playing on Hard or harder difficulty to have a challenging experience with their own netrunner builds.

I am playing a very successful stealth netrunner and having way more fun than with my pre-2.0 netrunner build. Mainly this is because I'm no longer hilariously OP.

My V is a successful stealth netrunner because I take care of my position in case I am traced. I'm either (ideally) unreachable because I climbed/jumped to a position that's inaccessible to anyone who can't power jump. Or, I've got plenty of hard obstacles between me and the backup who'll be coming for me. There, ideally something which will bottleneck them into coming at me single-file so I can gun them down with Lizzie as they approach.

 

[ShinAkira00]

I'm so mad about this tracing BS. There's one enemy, all the others are far away. I nuke him with Synapse Burnout, and I get traced. BY FUCKING WHO? This makes absolutely zero sense, even in universe. I hack someone from stealth, no one noticing it, so who can trace me back? Also, why can't I interrupt this? You could at least make a counter attack possible, like before. Or the mod that interrupted the tracing. You killed stealth netrunning completely by forcing me constantly into battles I don't want to have or playing a style I don't want to play. Thanks for nothing.

There are perks that slow down tracing I think but it doesn't stop it. I'm not sure why they wouldn't include a perk or cyberware that maybe stops tracing once and has a cooldown. For sure stealth needed a nerf but they also needed to add support to supplement what was removed. I don't think they did that very well.

 

[jeffaubin24]

As ToreadorVampire says, you need other cyberware and/or perks to be able to spam throwing knives, and quickhacks are much more accessible. Makes sense that quickhacks would need more restrictions than knives in this case.

I absolutely makes zero sense, you know why? If you throw a fucking knive, no one notices! Despite all being in one system and connected. It also works to sneak on to someone and snap his neck...an no one fucking cares. This is just not thought through.

When I say they are all connected, I mean by a DIGITAL network. Think of it like this : You have multiple PCs in your house, all connected to the same wifi. I hack your wifi, and input a virus that slows down your download speed. Every user in the house will immediately notice the input of this virus, and (assuming they are all technologically literate) everyone will naturally start to look for the cause. However, on the very same network, if one of the PCs shuts down, the other PCs wouldn't necessarily be able to see it. So yes, on a DIGITAL network, it makes perfect sense that quickhacks would lead to a trace, but throwing knives or snapping necks wouldn't. It's simple logic, really.

Also, while I do think that having a netrunner that leads the trace was a cool mechanic that worked well, tracing is also a very basic mechanic that anyone connecte to a network could realistically be able to do. It's also quite slow, especially once you have an actual netrunner build. So clearly, the trace is not run by an expert.

 

[gregski]

1. IIRC there are perks/cyberware that can make tracing more difficult/slower
2. Netrunning has more of a supportive role now in stealth gameplay(creating distractions, recon) than being able to magically delete your enemies while staying invisible.
3. Detecting a netrunner in the network when he performs offensive actions makes perfect sense lore and gameplay wise. Maybe it could be tweaked a bit as to how many capable netrunners each enemy group has.

I feel like they made a clearer distinction between combat hacking and stealth hacking.

In stealth - you use hacks to create better environment for avoiding/eliminating enemies(quietly but with physical force)

But once you or some anomaly gets noticed(i.e. you mess up) - either in physical or virtual world - tough luck, you enter combat mode, where you can perform more offensive hacks as you don't really care about being detected at this point.

I just completed a stealthy attempt with more than 10 save reloads bc I messed up my stealth either tactically or technically, if felt so good being able to finally complete it.

 

[nwg5817]

It's an rpg. That means that you're going to face roll content if you over level. Gunners and melee face roll the game just as easily as netrunners did all things equal. There were plenty of mods that increase difficulty again stealth net runners without gimmicks and immersion braking. They added more netrunners that would counter. They gave the netrunners more hacks. Netrunner sucked early game and they would only get momentum mid and late game. If you just ran guns with a machine gun and a shotgun even on very hard you'd pretty much blow through content and if you were over level you'd even demolish smasher easily. There's really no difference in difficulty and challenge in an RPG where you can over level the content. All this is just an excuse to limit the skill trees and build expression in this game. It's not that a challenge wouldn't be appreciated but the gimmicky stupid Trace the level scaling the ram cost and the loss of the useful damons has just taken away a lot of fun play styles. The relic skills are also really weak sauce and seem to cater to melee and gun builds. It's fine to have a close up netrunner that uses smart guns and mono wire and that be cool. I would really like that. What I don't like is limiting the in the back netrunner smashing things. Also the cyberware limitations and all the other changes would have made it more difficult to become that level so it would have been balanced.

To me they took a game I liked with a play style and build diversity that I liked and removed it. But they didn't just remove it when you bought the DLC they just removed it completely from the game and you have to play an old version that may or may not be around to enjoy the game that you bought years ago.

 

[Spooke714]

I have a perc -30 tracing time and a Tier 2 Cyberdeck that has -40 tracing time and now I don't get traced at all. Maybe it's a bug, maybe not but I'm no longer getting traced.

Post automatically merged: Sep 27, 2023

Also I'd like to add that I've been stealth running for 14 levels now and I haven't got a single "Steath" experience point lol...

 

[jeffaubin24]

I have a perc -30 tracing time and a Tier 2 Cyberdeck that has -40 tracing time and now I don't get traced at all. Maybe it's a bug, maybe not but I'm no longer getting traced.

Post automatically merged: Sep 27, 2023

Also I'd like to add that I've been stealth running for 14 levels now and I haven't got a single "Steath" experience point lol...

Netrunning doesn't count as stealth, you will only level up netrunning that way. I think you actually need to attack people from stealth, like grabbing them or using throwing knives, to level up shinobi (I think that's what it's called, correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[ShinAkira00]

I just completed a stealthy attempt with more than 10 save reloads bc I messed up my stealth either tactically or technically, if felt so good being able to finally complete it.

That feels a bit restrictive though and maybe that's why it's so noticeable by players. There is no other build where you need to reload because you messed up once. Yes lorewise it makes sense for a hacker to take precautions but we can't discard realism for solo builds and be so rigid with stealth/netrunning. I'm fine with being a bit more strategic but I feel it still lacks support, especially at lower levels. You don't get some of the perks you need to play full stealth until level 25-30. That's just not good imo

 

[jeffaubin24]

That feels a bit restrictive though and maybe that's why it's so noticeable by players. There is no other build where you need to reload because you messed up once. Yes lorewise it makes sense for a hacker to take precautions but we can't discard realism for solo builds and be so rigid with stealth/netrunning. I'm fine with being a bit more strategic but I feel it still lacks support, especially at lower levels. You don't get some of the perks you need to play full stealth until level 25-30. That's just not good imo

I disagree. Level 25-30 is basically the halfway point of the game, and you should easily reach that if you're not just rushing through the main story. It makes sense for your build to become fully realized around that point in the game. Any time before that is too easy IMO.

I've only done 5 NCPD scanner hustles, about half the gigs (PL excluded), a couple of side jobs and I've barely touched the main quest. Only just finished Playing for Time, which is the first mission after the prologue. I would say I'm at about a quarter of the game , and I am already level 35. I've been rushing from gig to gig too, so it's not like I've been grinding random enemies eithers. It's really easy to reach that level, and still have a lot of content to experiment with your full build.

 

[Sulziig]

stealth netrunning is way more annoying/impossible on some missions because you cant get to enemies in time or faraway enough for the trace to stop so you get found and cant stealth

 

[Spooke714]

All of your attacks should start with Sonic Shock for "Stealth Netrunning".

There's also a mod on Nexus that removes the tracing.