NCPD are the provider of these crime reports most of the times AKA some of the blue icons stuffs, what do you expects??
Also, the blue boxes are more about smaller side quests that not even related to NCPD directly, unlike the crime events from the blue skulls & the blue bat icons.
Meanwhile, almost all side quests, gigs, & yellow discoveries are from "non-NCPD" reports. So I think it's pretty much balanced. You can simply ignored the semi randomly generated blue bat icons & lose practically nothing (except maybe harder to farm XP).
It would be true only if it had consequences. Like when a crime is commited you can often see some gang people threatening a random NPC, sometimes I kill them before they kill the NPC, sometimes the NPC dies, and well it makes no difference. Oh yes, sometimes I can hear the NPC saying "thank you". Amazing. And killing the gang members makes no difference neither. If all these small events and the way you decide to deal with it had some effects, even small, for exemple on your relationship with the police and with the gangs, or even something else, it would make a huge difference, and would be so much more immersive, you would feel that you are part of the city. Here it's just pointless and becomes very boring very fast, outside of the quests nothing makes you feel you are part of this world and none of your choices matters.
People previously said that it shouldn't be compared to GTA, I never played any GTA, I don't care about that, I just bought cyberpunk to play an RPG. I remember the first time my gf played Skyrim, at the very begining she saw a farm, wanted to kill a chicken to have fun, people in the village started to be angry and attacked her, she killed someone while defending herself, a guard showed up and she had to go to jail. It was funy and quite exagerate reactions but it stated clearly that you can't do anything you want without consequences. In CP it's just the opposite, nothing you can do has any consequences. I love playing this game for so many reasons, but this is something I miss too much, I thought I would be playing this game for a very long time but if they don't fix at least a part of these issues at one point, it will just become a fun and beautiful adventure game I played once and will forget about it...
I think it seems some players seems unable to see the distinction with this. Everything you wanted actually existed in the game & actually a lot. Like really a lot.
Here is the differences between the blue icons (open world):
+ Blue Bat: Assault In Progress. Neutralize the perps and secure evidence. This is a SEMI RANDOM Events that would appear continuously (maybe endlessly) in some rather specific parts of the map.
+ Blue Star: NCPD vs Crime encounters. You basically "voluntarily" helping the cops to resolve the gun fight. This is also SEMI RANDOM Events that would appear continuously/endlessly in some rather specific parts of the map.
+ Blue Skull: Organized Crime Activity. Basically like Assault in Progress, but way harder (more enemies) & you basically fight a whole gang while in operation.
+ Blue Box: Reported Crime. Neutralize any ongoing threat and secure evidence. This is a FIXED events & will not generated. This is the "secretly" gigs that player found exploring. There are actually some small stories within this events, both from shards & some dialogues.
+ Blue Borg Skull: Cyberpsycho Sighting. Boss fights against Night City’s cyber-enhanced nightmares. This is also a FIXED events & will not generated. Basically
Regina Jones quests. This has more elaborated quests & encounters, even some of them actually very intriguing to the whole plots & lore of the game. I think this is a must to finish for player, just like the yellow icons.
Meanwhile for
yellow icons, I would argue all of them
(includes all the gigs) actually very much integral to the whole stories, world, & lore itself. This is where
Night City stories exist & choices do matter or more impactful. Most of the rare items like iconic weapons are in this quests.
and then there are
SECRET ENCOUNTER stuffs. Basically some
hidden quests & places that CDPR intentionally keep hidden with no icons or reveals whatsoever. It appears so far only some of it managed to be in public (recorded) & some still hidden. This based on Pawel Sasko (quest designer dev) recent tweet:
