CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 + Phantom Liberty Expansion Thread

[Takamori]

This is what makes me sad and angry about this game, there is a good game inside this pile of shit. But sadly due to popamole decisions and the schizo game design it just didn't do justice.
If they stuck to a vision where they respected the Tabletop this would be GOAT.

 

[SoupNazi]

Can you name some? because I'm still on my "find more than one mission that isn't completely braindead" quest.

Off the top of my head:
- Takemura's float garage infiltration
- Takemura's float parade kidnapping
- Rescuing Saul
- Final mission for the Peralezes - after following the van
- Defiled Shrine for Wakako
- Getting conned by the "vintage" BD salesman (don't wanna spoil)
- Killing the Animals member in their fight club (that one is a bit too simple if you do the fight first)
- Getting Sandra Dorsett's databank
- Infiltrating Maelstorm with Rogue
- Infiltrating GIM

Those are all good-verging-on-great, with potentially just a few adjustment to either the level design or game design/functions that could make it excellent. Both Takemura's missions are absolutely the best, then rescuing Saul. The rest is slightly below those but still have the signs of a great potential and you can play around with them quite a bit.

You can also cheese all of these in the most boring way possible, but I guess it depends on how much you want to enjoy the game.

 

[Agame]

Just noticed that combat regen doesnt seem to ever work, annoying as I maxed Body to put a lot of points in that ability... Dunno if this has been all game or just got bugged recently.

Also I still consistently get 2-shot by enemies, even with good gear and lots of armor mods. Not sure if I am just missing something with armor system or its impossible to make tank build without exploits. I have not invested in the 'on hit' regen stuff so maybe that is a better avenue for tankiness.

 

[Derringer]

For me it was great because of the Hong-Kong setting. I played mostly for the story, can't say I was burning with anticipation of the next trash combat.

It was a competent open-world game that isn't filled with Ubisoft collectathons and is memorable for hot asian pussy.

7/10

I get why people praise it since it's an issue of standards vs literal garbage but AAA games really are homogenized messes at this point, notBotW clones from fucking Ubisoft brings it close to home.

 

[Agame]

And a simple fix for the stupid 'stimpack' spam trivializing healing would be make all healing over time/slow regen (like Witcher swallow). Would make combat harder and more tacticool.

 

[typical user]

Off the top of my head:
- Takemura's float garage infiltration

Can you elaborate what is great about this quest (put it in a spoiler)? If you mean scoping out and infiltrating Arasaka warehouse then I stealthed through it and found it pretty basic on that manner. Unless you mean the opening dialog with Goro which was decent. Spoiler below on my thoughts about him and endings:

Spoiler

It's quite sad you can't open his mind about how he was used by literal genocidal tyran and how they have twisted the honor code of japan samurais for their own gain. He seeks revenge when he should let it go and be grateful that now he is free. Goro is quite a mirror for Corpo V that I have played. Takemura does better job at showing how megacorps are bad than Johnny. Even the Arasaka ending it feels weird how Misty/Johnny out of nowhere tell you in your dying face how you have betrayed everyone including yourself when the alternative is almost praying for Deus Ex Machina when you plug yourself into Mikoshi.

The worst offender for balance is how devs went The Division/Destiny route with looter-shooter loot instead Fallout 2 with every weapon/armor having same numbers across the board and looking for natural upgrades (for example auto-shotgun surpassing double-barrel due to higher magazine size and fire-rate or Arasaka plate-carrier overpowering Samurai jacket due to kevlar plating). As it currently stands if you find some cool-design weapon you will throw it away if it has significantly lower DPS/damage than your current gun. But that's stuff that should be discussed for finished game. Devs won't fix that anytime soon (or ever as Witcher 3 didn't receive any official rebalance, only 1 mod from one of the devs, something like JSawyer-lite).

 

[DalekFlay]

After around 40 hours I finished yesterday the main plot of Cyberpunk 2077. I have enjoyed the game like a pig, mainly because of its plot, characters, setting and world. The game is truly brilliant in those respects. Where CD Projekt, as it is not surprising, stands out. However, the game has several problems in the rest of its facets. On its RPG side, resembling games like Fallout: New Vegas or the recent The Outer Worlds, it suffers from a poor dialog system in which only those decisions we make near the end matter. There are few dialogue options that depend on how we have constituted our character. There are no attributes like charisma, or abilities that give us extra dialogue. V is a predefined character, and only a few dialogue options depend on its origin. There's C&C, but in very small doses. As a looter shooter, resembling games like Borderlands, it pales because of an inconsistent AI (which sometimes gets stuck in the middle of a shootout, sometimes they are able to rotate and catch us from behind). And from an uninspired gear loot system. With weapons that only vary mainly at the level of numbers, and very few actually provide something new at the playable level. The interesting jumps are when we go from power weapons to smart ones, for example. But the game holds few surprises in this regard. Finally in its sandbox facet, resembling games like GTA, the game fails at the level of interaction with the city. Few leisure activities to do, NPCs with very poor routines and a broken launch cop system. It feels from several generations ago. Night city is undoubtedly the best city ever created in a video game in terms of physical design and setting. But it doesn't feel alive enough. There are many surprises, mind it. But it could have been much more.

I think this is the best analysis in the thread so far, cheers.

I enjoy the game a good bit because I love the setting, characters and core gameplay loop of stealth killing dudes in relatively unique locations. The yellow "side jobs" and "gigs" usually take you to a unique location for you to have a little playground time to sneak around, hack stuff, take dudes out, rescue someone or steal something or whatever. If you like Deus Ex/Thief type stuff it rubs that area of your brain enough to enjoy playing it.

However as you say, it could have been so much more. I think a lot of people expected a New Vegas style game with factions and choices that matter more and significant RPG aspects and none of that is really there. Obviously even Deus Ex has more choices and impact. I also think the all-out combat aspect is pretty weak, due to poor AI and the areas/missions not really being designed around barging in and blowing up the place. I expected these elements to be weak since it seemed more GTA than New Vegas, as you perfectly summarize, but it's still weaker than I expected.

However as an open world espionage treadmill with a cool story and setting, it pleases me well enough. People who didn't expect the world will probably come away a lot more satisfied.

 

[gurugeorge]

And a simple fix for the stupid 'stimpack' spam trivializing healing would be make all healing over time/slow regen (like Witcher swallow). Would make combat harder and more tacticool.

I'd like to see the enemies using airhypos (I think they're called) occasionally, I mean there are so many of the fuckers lying around everywhere you'd think they'd have the brains to use them. The only enemy I've seen use an airhypo is the special forces cyberpsycho on Pacifica pier, and the game seems to think that makes him super difficult. You don't want it too often ofc otherwise fights would drag on too much, but maybe once every fight if someone used it, it would be a pleasant surprise, and add a bit of realism and a teensy bit of challenge.

It's quite jarring when you're the only person in the whole of Night City who seems to have the brains to use these thing that are lying around everywhere, and huff them like there's no tomorrow.

And speaking of huffing them like there's no tomorrow, what happened to CDPR's cool thing of you building up toxicity? That would be a nice thing to add IMHO, given that the gameplay is set up as it is, and is unlikely to change any time soon. You could have the antitoxins be moderately available but rarer than the airhypos. That might balance it out a bit. You even have a biomonitor built into your cyberware, so it would make sense to tell you when you're getting into the yellow, then the red.

**********

Re. the combat AI, I really do think the game does have proper responsive AI in there somewhere, because it does seem to work perfectly well about a quarter of the time (maybe less, about 1/6 of the time if you're sniping the fools). For example, in both runs I've done at the old petrol station in the Panam quest, the AI has been pretty good, actually quite sneaky.

I think this is probably one problem they'll be able to fix in the not to distant future.

 

[SoupNazi]

Can you elaborate what is great about this quest (put it in a spoiler)? If you mean scoping out and infiltrating Arasaka warehouse then I stealthed through it and found it pretty basic on that manner. Unless you mean the opening dialog with Goro which was decent.

Totally agreed on Takemura. Also, best character in the game in my opinion / maybe tied with Johnny (in case of redemption).

When it comes to that mission:

Spoiler

Like I mentioned, it's imperfect. But it shows the potential the game has, and sadly has been missed (which is what the whole conversation was started about). The prep itself is great, one of the best one-on-one interactions in the game, but I'm talking about the mission itself - and hilariously, it has even better potential if you DON'T do the preparation (you can skip it).

- one "open" entrance you can shoot your way through
- one "closed" gate entrance that you were supposed to be able to tank through with a heavy vehicle (not sure if it's possible in the current game)
- "sideways" bridge you can stealth/shoot through
- stealth in by stealing a vehicle (would be an incredible moment if the game didn't just straight up tell you, but taught you that this /might/ be possible)
- stealth in by climbing the AC unit or whatever it is, then sneak through
- (my favorite) stealth in by climbing the "AC unit", then just run along the top of the fence to reach the side entry, completely bypassing the outside of the mission
- given you have the right augs / know the double-dodge exploit, jump in from an adjacent roof (like when in Deus Ex you could reach Maggie Chow's apartment by mine-climbing)
- knowing the crouch-slide-to-avoid-damage exploit, drop in from the construction site

Again, that's just off the top of my head and I haven't replayed it all that many times to explore everything, I'm almost certain there are more ways, and more ways could be easily added if the devs really paid attention to missions like this. Keep in mind this is just for the entry, afterwards you still have choices of:

- straight up sneaking through to one of the warehouse entrances
- underground tunnels via grates
- top floor entry
- shooting through

etc. And then inside the warehouse, you have a few more choices again.

All that said, the game doesn't encourage you to do any of this, it doesn't show you these things properly, there's no "Liberty Island" mission that teaches you that levels like that can be approached 20 different ways, so I'm not saying the game design is excellent as it is. All I'm saying is, it has potential and the game is systems-based enough for you to play around with it, and devise your own way of approaching the problem. I just wish the devs also thought about those ways, and included some responses to taking certain approaches so that the game recognizes your "innovative" thinking.

 

[SoupNazi]

And a simple fix for the stupid 'stimpack' spam trivializing healing would be make all healing over time/slow regen (like Witcher swallow). Would make combat harder and more tacticool.

I'd like to see the enemies using airhypos (I think they're called) occasionally, I mean there are so many of the fuckers lying around everywhere you'd think they'd have the brains to use them. The only enemy I've seen use an airhypo is the special forces cyberpsycho on Pacifica pier, and the game seems to think that makes him super difficult. You don't want it too often ofc otherwise fights would drag on too much, but maybe once every fight if someone used it, it would be a pleasant surprise, and add a bit of realism and a teensy bit of challenge.

It's quite jarring when you're the only person in the whole of Night City who seems to have the brains to use these thing that are lying around everywhere, and huff them like there's no tomorrow.

They do use the health items quite regularly, even the ones in "random crime happening" world events. It's just that the combat is usually too easy that you don't end up giving them the time to. But right now I'm using a revolver that basically gets everyone to 10 percent health with 1 shot, and if I leave them instead of finishing them off, even the most basic of grunts will then try to heal about 1/2 times.

 

[gurugeorge]

And a simple fix for the stupid 'stimpack' spam trivializing healing would be make all healing over time/slow regen (like Witcher swallow). Would make combat harder and more tacticool.

I'd like to see the enemies using airhypos (I think they're called) occasionally, I mean there are so many of the fuckers lying around everywhere you'd think they'd have the brains to use them. The only enemy I've seen use an airhypo is the special forces cyberpsycho on Pacifica pier, and the game seems to think that makes him super difficult. You don't want it too often ofc otherwise fights would drag on too much, but maybe once every fight if someone used it, it would be a pleasant surprise, and add a bit of realism and a teensy bit of challenge.

It's quite jarring when you're the only person in the whole of Night City who seems to have the brains to use these thing that are lying around everywhere, and huff them like there's no tomorrow.

They do use the health items quite regularly, even the ones in "random crime happening" world events. It's just that the combat is usually too easy that you don't end up giving them the time to. But right now I'm using a revolver that basically gets everyone to 10 percent health with 1 shot, and if I leave them instead of finishing them off, even the most basic of grunts will then try to heal about 1/2 times.

Oh well, that's good to know. Maybe I should finally bump up the diff to Very Hard, as the combat really is getting too easy (for my lvl 30).

 

[SoupNazi]

Oh well, that's good to know. Maybe I should finally bump up the diff to Very Hard, as the combat really is getting too easy (for my lvl 30).

Honestly, it's too easy even on Very Hard. As far as I can tell the only thing that really changes is enemy damage (i.e. how fast YOU get killed). Nothing else. It's good that it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, introduce more HP bloat, but there's definitely nothing in terms of more grenade usage and I doubt the health item usage is based on difficulty. Probably you just don't notice... but that's just my guess. I have only played full playthroughs on Very Hard from the start - test difficulty options sometime mid-game during my first run.

 

[Agame]

Oh well, that's good to know. Maybe I should finally bump up the diff to Very Hard, as the combat really is getting too easy (for my lvl 30).

Honestly, it's too easy even on Very Hard. As far as I can tell the only thing that really changes is enemy damage (i.e. how fast YOU get killed). Nothing else. It's good that it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, introduce more HP bloat, but there's definitely nothing in terms of more grenade usage and I doubt the health item usage is based on difficulty. Probably you just don't notice... but that's just my guess. I have only played full playthroughs on Very Hard from the start - test difficulty options sometime mid-game during my first run.

I think its literally impossible to ever make this game 'hard' with the current systems. With the ability to shoot through walls and hacking through cameras to kill entire groups means you could bump up enemies to aim bot one shot you on sight and its irrelevant. All it does is hurt 'in your face' builds like melee, shotguns etc. Not sure how they can ever make it challenging without completely overhauling the quickhacks.

 

[gurugeorge]

Oh well, that's good to know. Maybe I should finally bump up the diff to Very Hard, as the combat really is getting too easy (for my lvl 30).

Honestly, it's too easy even on Very Hard. As far as I can tell the only thing that really changes is enemy damage (i.e. how fast YOU get killed). Nothing else. It's good that it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, introduce more HP bloat, but there's definitely nothing in terms of more grenade usage and I doubt the health item usage is based on difficulty. Probably you just don't notice... but that's just my guess. I have only played full playthroughs on Very Hard from the start - test difficulty options sometime mid-game during my first run.

I think its literally impossible to ever make this game 'hard' with the current systems. With the ability to shoot through walls and hacking through cameras to kill entire groups means you could bump up enemies to aim bot one shot you on sight and its irrelevant. All it does is hurt 'in your face' builds like melee, shotguns etc. Not sure how they can ever make it challenging without completely overhauling the quickhacks.

There seems to be a lost opportunity for gameplay in some sort of game of wits between you and the enemy netrunner (and most full sized outposts have one). Like they could counter or block your quickhacks in some way. Time is slowed down during hacking anyway, so there's scope for another minigame maybe (I think the hacking minigame is ok, but you'd need something different that represented countermeasures, maybe something like a quick and not too big game of Battleships? Or maybe a mini-Pacman type of thing? Something where you have more error-correction possibilities the higher your abstract skill level.)

 

[SoupNazi]

I think its literally impossible to ever make this game 'hard' with the current systems. With the ability to shoot through walls and hacking through cameras to kill entire groups means you could bump up enemies to aim bot one shot you on sight and its irrelevant. All it does is hurt 'in your face' builds like melee, shotguns etc. Not sure how they can ever make it challenging without completely overhauling the quickhacks.

I disagree. One thing is that it could be made more difficult by implementing something like FEAR's AI, which is probably impossible. But second thing to do is to go hard on the rock-paper-scissor system the game tries to have, but doesn't commit to. Boiled down to the basics:

- high-powered single-shot weapons (pistols, revolvers, precision / sniper rifles) should be countered by melees who can dodge them. They can already do this. They just don't do anything else, just dodge while in place, instead of advancing, or getting to cover, or whatever.
- fast shooters (SMGs, assault rifles) should be countered by high-powered single-shots. Again, there's a hint of this - snipers are quite powerful and do a lot of damage. But they are never in the appropriate distance that would stop you from popamole headshotting them from cover even with your basic peashooter
- melee should be countered by fast shooters

That's just putting it simply, I'm way too drunk to elaborate, but even after half a bottle of scotch, I have this figured out.

Additionally, players who specialize in combat should not be able to get immunity from the damaging quickhacks (burn, shock which is quite easy to get) AND enemies should use quickhacks far more often. In my opinion enemies use quickhacks (and use them via cameras) only in the first mission against Maelstorm if you get in a fight with them to get the Flathead. After that they are rarely, if ever, used by the AI. Huge mistake. It should be that if you get so good at shooting (which involves player skill - which I like!), you can still get hampered or even wtfpwned by the netrunners, who are supposed to be powerful - but the game never uses them again post the mission to get the Flathead. I kept getting "overheat" in that mission, got it like 20 times just fighting my way out after the initial squabble over the price. Just in that one mission, which took what - 20 minutes, max? So 1 overheat per minute.

After that, I saw a message like that maybe 20 times more throughout the whole playthrough, so roughly 1 enemy quickhack per every 2 hours.

Edit: and of course as a netrunner character you SHOULD be able to get immunities or defend yourself from enemy quickhacks, but be more vulnerable to bullets and shit, like by not being able to equip heavier armor or whatever.

 

[Agame]

There absolutely should be some kind of defense against full netrunner characters, either some kind of duel off with enemy netrunner (not sure I like this) or some kind of diminishing returns to using quickhacks. Maybe enemy defenses slowly adapt over time from the first quickhack you use, so forcing you to at least fight some enemies with conventional weapons.

As cool as it is to shoot through walls I think the tech guns are a mistake, the only way to counteract them would be make every enemy in the vicinity bumrush your position after your first shot, doesnt seem like that great an idea as every fight would be exactly the same then.

Its entirely possible that CDPR could do some massive combat 2.0 overhaul at some stage but I see that as incredibly unlikely, beyond them just tweaking numbers here and there. At least with Witcher 3 mods could make game harder pretty easily as core combat in that game forces you to fight up close and risk getting hit. I cannot see mods doing anything with Cyberpunk to make certain character builds harder as they are baked in systems.

 

[SoupNazi]

So I spent some time with my feet up just having fun with the photomode.

https://imgur.com/gallery/paVU4mf

 

[Turjan]

So I spent some time with my feet up just having fun with the photomode.

https://imgur.com/gallery/paVU4mf

Nice pics. But I gave up at "Load 101 more images".

 

[typical user]

Can you elaborate what is great about this quest (put it in a spoiler)? If you mean scoping out and infiltrating Arasaka warehouse then I stealthed through it and found it pretty basic on that manner. Unless you mean the opening dialog with Goro which was decent.

Totally agreed on Takemura. Also, best character in the game in my opinion / maybe tied with Johnny (in case of redemption).

When it comes to that mission:

Spoiler

Like I mentioned, it's imperfect. But it shows the potential the game has, and sadly has been missed (which is what the whole conversation was started about). The prep itself is great, one of the best one-on-one interactions in the game, but I'm talking about the mission itself - and hilariously, it has even better potential if you DON'T do the preparation (you can skip it).

- one "open" entrance you can shoot your way through
- one "closed" gate entrance that you were supposed to be able to tank through with a heavy vehicle (not sure if it's possible in the current game)
- "sideways" bridge you can stealth/shoot through
- stealth in by stealing a vehicle (would be an incredible moment if the game didn't just straight up tell you, but taught you that this /might/ be possible)
- stealth in by climbing the AC unit or whatever it is, then sneak through
- (my favorite) stealth in by climbing the "AC unit", then just run along the top of the fence to reach the side entry, completely bypassing the outside of the mission
- given you have the right augs / know the double-dodge exploit, jump in from an adjacent roof (like when in Deus Ex you could reach Maggie Chow's apartment by mine-climbing)
- knowing the crouch-slide-to-avoid-damage exploit, drop in from the construction site

Again, that's just off the top of my head and I haven't replayed it all that many times to explore everything, I'm almost certain there are more ways, and more ways could be easily added if the devs really paid attention to missions like this. Keep in mind this is just for the entry, afterwards you still have choices of:

- straight up sneaking through to one of the warehouse entrances
- underground tunnels via grates
- top floor entry
- shooting through

etc. And then inside the warehouse, you have a few more choices again.

All that said, the game doesn't encourage you to do any of this, it doesn't show you these things properly, there's no "Liberty Island" mission that teaches you that levels like that can be approached 20 different ways, so I'm not saying the game design is excellent as it is. All I'm saying is, it has potential and the game is systems-based enough for you to play around with it, and devise your own way of approaching the problem. I just wish the devs also thought about those ways, and included some responses to taking certain approaches so that the game recognizes your "innovative" thinking.

That's actually pretty sad because I used super-jump and the game had trouble even acknowledging that I could easily hop on the roof. It's the same issue I pointed out on previous pages: too many solutions open for every type of build. Imagine if super/double jumping was expected by NPCs or the walls would have some sort movement detection if you try jumping above. All those cool ways you have listed that now I want to try wasted by this cyberware. If it was locked behind Stret Cred 30 then maybe but I easily farmed SC to level 20 in starting district by doing hand-placed side-jobs. I mean leg-implants should be late-game upgrades as they take depth away from the mission we are discussing. Although what you said is still better than just putting everything in one spot or making hard to miss when doing fixer gigs.

Speaking of exploration. I still can't wrap it around my head why developers insisted on minimap when I barely use it thanks to floating markers. It's only useful when driving since there is no GPS on the road like in Watch Dogs: Legion or traffic signs in Mafia: Definitive Edition. Once I turned the map off the game became much better when roaming on foot. Unfortunately the half-assed fast-travel system makes me want to utilize cars as the city is not that big and driving around is mostly pleasant.

Which again made me remember. The driving is almost perfect bar two issues: almost 0 mass and input lag. Vehicles react with slight delay when I have low framerate and they fly like crazy even on low speed or drift like in GTA IV. If the downforce was increased and lowered with increasing speed the driving would be golden. The input lag as far as I know is related to gamepad smoothing out option which for some reason is not disabled when you use K + M. There is a mod on Nexus Mods although I don't know if it is working on patch 1.06. Anyway it takes those 2 tweaks for cars/bikes to be pleasant to drive.

 

[MasPingon]

can we please permaban all those who post and reply with autoplaying videos, please?

Fuck yes, this thread is turning into plebbit because of salty retards.

It is becoming annoying I must agree. If I wanted to read reddit stupidity I'd go there, the people constantly linking to it especially with auto-play videos should get a warning and then the banhammer it is outta control.

This thread was taken over by people with low standards and digusting simps looking to get laid by cyber trannies. What did you expect? Observe this spacies and learn it's behaviour.

 

[res11]

So is it possible to defeat Oda with a shit build?

Trick question, there are no shit builds since the game is easy as fuck.

It was easy as fuck until this point for me, which is why I'm now stuck with a shitty build and shitty vanilla weapons

You should always get the fuck out of his melee range, always sprint around (absolutely no "regular' jogging) and try to cheese him on those construction walls. He often gets stuck there during those rapid melee combos. Just a game of hide and seek, and take it methodically and calm as if it were a Dark Souls boss - I also had around 160hp then and it probably took me 20+ tries.

Take solace that after that, nothing will be even remotely as hard.

Ended up using the cripple hack which somehow worked on him. The other hacks were completely useless.

 

[racofer]

can we please permaban all those who post and reply with autoplaying videos, please?

True. However, this is not an issue with Firefox.

 

[Semiurge]

(I love that it hums too, and does that thing of extra purring when you hit )

So the dildos will make that sound that rulers do when you bend one and let it go? Cool.

MUH BEAUTIFUL HALF-BREED! Mud Baby Ameri-mutt Master Race! This is the "hottie" that some people have been spunking over for 250+ pages. Also did you notice that both your 'hetero' romance options are with negros? Half-nagger Panam and half-nagger River Ward. MUCH SJW. SO PROGRESSIVE. MUCH WOW!

If you're of the anglo-saxon persuasion, here is a good demonstration of your ancestral prowess:

 

[Turjan]

Oh well, that's good to know. Maybe I should finally bump up the diff to Very Hard, as the combat really is getting too easy (for my lvl 30).

Honestly, it's too easy even on Very Hard. As far as I can tell the only thing that really changes is enemy damage (i.e. how fast YOU get killed). Nothing else. It's good that it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, introduce more HP bloat, but there's definitely nothing in terms of more grenade usage and I doubt the health item usage is based on difficulty. Probably you just don't notice... but that's just my guess. I have only played full playthroughs on Very Hard from the start - test difficulty options sometime mid-game during my first run.

When I tested the difficulty settings, I didn't notice any difference. Then again, it may have just bugged out *shrug*.

 

[DalekFlay]

Honestly, it's too easy even on Very Hard. As far as I can tell the only thing that really changes is enemy damage (i.e. how fast YOU get killed). Nothing else. It's good that it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, introduce more HP bloat, but there's definitely nothing in terms of more grenade usage and I doubt the health item usage is based on difficulty. Probably you just don't notice... but that's just my guess. I have only played full playthroughs on Very Hard from the start - test difficulty options sometime mid-game during my first run.

I definitely still die pretty quickly on "hard" at level 30ish, but then I haven't put much into body. Still it reminds me of Deus Ex 3's "give me Deus Ex" difficulty where you died super fast. Of course when you're playing stealthy, I think this is a good thing.