I got the game soon after launch and started a sneaky hacker. Didn’t get very far before shelving the game until it was in a better place in terms of polish. Then I recently decided to give the game another chance and pick up where I left with the sneaky hacking. The character seems no longer viable now since my previous approach seems to be limited to however long it takes for the inevitable and unstoppable tracing to finish. Then the game gently pushes my nose into combat and rubs my face in the fact that I have not specced for that.
Is there any way left to level my sneaky hacker through sneaky hacking? Because I did like that playstyle and I don’t see myself leveling a fighter. If I wanted to play a shooter, I certainly wouldn’t do that in Cyberpunk 2077.
It shows which hacks are detectable at quick hack list. If they are, you can do the one hack that deafens the enemy, then some other hack that neutralizes them.
All my hacks are detectable now. What would be the first opportunity to find that deafening hack? Preferably in the starting area?
You’ll want the Memory Wipe quickhack. Wiki page has a bunch of info on it.
https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Sonic_Shock Was taking aboyt this, I think it can be found from that one netrunner that gives you reward hack for t-bug guest.
That doesn’t help with being discovered through quickhacks. This quickhack makes spotting you slower for enemies, when you are physically in their area.
iirc there are perks for re-setting trace progress using finishers, later in the game there’s memory wipe. iirc there’s also a combo pre-memory wipe that does the same job but needs queing perks to work.
Okay, this is starting to sound like they turned my build into one of those “slog through it, I promise it gets good after a few dozen hours” things. Maybe I wouldn’t even mind if they hadn’t already had exactly my playstyle in the game that I really enjoyed from the get-go and then they took it away for whatever reason. Well, BG3 still has rogues that work at lower levels, I guess.
Im not sure how the game was with that kind of build at launch, but i did a similar build on my last play-through after the big Phantom Liberty update. It starts out a little rough, you do have to level up to get higher skills that either slow tracking, or completely negate in some ways- so yes, it is kind of a “slog through it”, but arent most RPG builds that way? You have to complete them for them to be really effective?
At any rate, i always finished my hack stacks with a memory wipe if i wasnt sure the stack would kill, ran a deck that made hacks spread repeatedly to nearby enemies, so they kinda kept AOEing each other to death while i watched from the corners. If i started getting traced, i’d either quickly try to figure out who and eliminate before i was caught (if i didnt start with any hackers in the first place- usually the hackers are obvious when you scan them). By late game i could just roll up on a building, scan, dump hacks, wait a few seconds, and walk in to a building full of bodies…pretty OP, lol.
Last resort was always running away- id always make sure i had a clean way out. If you get far enough away (it’s not really too far) the tracking will fail since you’re out of range.
but arent most RPG builds that way? You have to complete them for them to be really effective?
That’s exactly the crux of the matter: I want a game where you grow more efficient. Start out doing the gameplay loop that I like, but badly, slowly and then get better at that gameplay loop.
This change made my favourite gameplay loop no longer viable at all at lower levels. You don’t start out a bad sneaker and then become a good sneaker, they completely removed the ability to effectively solve areas with sneaking altogether at the start.
I wanted to improve my viable but still flawed hacking skills, not play a different game altogether until stealth-hacking suddenly becomes available mid-game.
