The new mod list I made has left me with very positive Initial impressions when it comes to the combat.
I've installed Cyberpunk Blackwall (
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/5814) and its recommended mods.
Most notable changes:
- slower player movement (by 20% when out of stealth)
- lower health for player and npcs
- higher damage from weapons, higher damage from headshots
- carry weight limit reduced
- limits on grenades
- armor is rebalanced
- more notable weapon sway
The effect was felt immediately when going through "The Pickup". Shootouts are resolved much quicker, popamole is greately reduced. Everyone gets killed in one-two automatic bursts or pistol shots, so what matters is that you spot the enemy first and fire off first. Just like in real life. You can't run around like it's Quake 3, and you have to peek carefully from cover to identify where they are shooting from. On lvl 3 I was getting killed from a couple of hits - so the penalty to getting shot once is having to immediately expend a health item.
Ammo is scarce, seriously scarce. On top of enemies dropping weapons and ammo more rarely, I've also installed a separate mod that reduces loot (
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2678) that's found freely in the world. By the time I reached Royce, I was with one clip in Dying Night and one in the Copperhead. If it wasn't for Jackie also shooting, I would have ran out of ammo before I could kill Royce.
Among the recommendations, there is Scissors Difficulty Options that adds an option for the game not compensating for weapon recoil, so you can't fire long bursts.
Overall pretty nice experience at least at lower levels. I'll add more impressions later, but it feels a lot like an RPG for now. Oh, there is also this thing: Wannabe Edgerunner: A Simple Cyberpsychosis Mod (
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/5646). I haven't fully tested it yet, but it introduces Humanity as a resource you lose as you put on more implants. Low Humanity leads to bad effects, culminating with a cyberpsychosis state. Better quality implants - smaller Humanity loss, etc.
The punchline is that Blackwall recommends Wannabe Edgerunner and is balanced around it, so that in order to stay competitve you have to add implants, of which Blackwall introduces new types... This will need more playing to properly test out, but it's pretty ambitious. Certainly more ambitious RPG design than vanilla.
The only thing I'm really missing from my old mod list is StreetStyle (
https://www.nexusmods.com/cyberpunk2077/mods/2975) which actually makes clothing choices important. I'll see if it conflicts and if I can make a compatible version in case it does.