No spoilers, but man, did it just seem to drag on and on or was it just me?
Here I thought it was going to be a fun little one-off... go to the kiosk, send in a job application... this might be good for a laugh... then it just... never... ends...
I'm glad I got the operative level, but jeeze louise, the mission board quests afterwards are more interesting than doing the questline.
I'm partway through it, playing as a character with good stealth and persuasion. The only other faction line I've done is the Ranger one, and this one is much more fun & interesting. My only complaint is that the missions are a little too quick & simple, especially considering I'm still trying to get the hang of travelling without fast-travelling but I always manage to make multiple jumps instantly by accident.
There were two parts that made me dislike the quest line.
First it was how the quests kept making me run back and forth across the whole length of Neon core multiple times just to talk to a single person. It got so tiring.
The other part was the final stealth mission. That shit was the worst fucking stealth mission I've ever played in a Bethesda game. The stealth mechanics were completely broken in that place and it was only possible for me to stealth it by save scumming 60-70 times in that building.
I had a real crazy time completing the final main Ryujin mission. My companion decided they wanted to randomly rejoin me in the middle of the mission, breaking my stealth just as I was trying to get past a hazardous corridor, all hell broke loose and I ended up having to kill a lot of guards.
I expected it to be more... cyberpunk? There was no real twist. There was no betrayal. The "hidden plot" was just a sentence in a note and not even really shocking. The coolest part about it was sneaking around and trying not to even be seen for bonus money.
It was really quite dull but could have been so much better if they just took a bunch of elements from popular cyberpunk media, having you start with the company, find out they're the ones doing fucked up shit, they try to kill you, you fight back and shut 'em down or take over. Or be more of a corpo hitman kinda thing; be the typical bad guy/heavy from those cyberpunk things. I found the preference to non-violence a bit weird considering the vibe they tried to set with Neon as a whole.
Even the mind manipulation thing is pretty lacking. It's only marginally useful in dialogues outside of that quest. It should have been an option any time you persuade anyone, anywhere.
I confess, I rather enjoyed the Ryujin questline. The last two stealth missions were a bit of a nightmare, first time through, admittedly. One you know what you're doing though [Starborn] they can be q lot of fun.
I did this questline fairly early in my first playthrough. I wanted money fast to pay my house so I figured, why not start in the greediest city! I struggled so much without any points in stealth doing those missions as they wanted. I ended up taking a break and doing something else for a while and I checked how many more missions there was (a lot...).
Aside from that I had a ton of fun, good opportunity too level up my persuasion.
It doesn't matter if you have one point in stealth, or 4 points in stealth. Stealth in particular feels broken in this game, even with chameleon suit, full stealth and using a chem like frostwolf the NPCs seem to spot me instantly from the other side of a massive room.
You're actually supposed to take your suit off entirely. If you're wearing a suit and not just apparel their ability to spot you gets really enhanced. Take the suit off and they'll detect you much slower
I first started one mission of stealth with the apparel they give us with the bonus stealth. NPCs were spotting me through grilled vent in the ceiling and they were VERY motivated to search for me for an eternity (I craved for a: "it must be the wind" line). I did it with 1 point in, it wasn't easy but less of a pain and NPCs could abandon the search with a nice "He got away". I still saved a bunch and repeat some sections for this one. I think the last mission or second to last I just given up and change status from detected to danger and undected again in repeat.
Take off your space suit. You probably have it set to not show when in settlements but you are still wearing it. That makes the stealth mission A LOT easier.
I also love the reward. The money's nice, sure, but the real reward is getting a [SPOILER] for free. I hope there are more missions that get you something like that. Also, the stealth suit looks pretty cool. Might make it my main outfit for looks alone
Ryujin questline was basically "fetch quests - the game"
I really dislike it. Also with Void Form you can just sprint through some of the stealth passages.