This thought occurred to me while playing CP2077, but it's prevalent in a TON of games - instant kills by sneaking up behind enemies.
I usually play stealthy if given the option, I find it more fun than just wading through people in an ocean of blood, but this mechanic is almost game breaking in most places it appears. No matter how outgunned you are, all you have to do is wait til the enemy NPCs backs are turned for an instant, low-risk kill. Sure, some games make you grab them first before the kill, leaving a slight window where you can be spotted by another enemy or whatever, but with the tiniest modicum of planning that risk is almost nil.
In the case of CP2077, the stealth kill is available right from the start as well, so for someone like me who likes to play the stealthy way, there's barely any reason to spec into any other shit (except for the abilities which make it easier for me to sneak around dudes for the instant kill, lol).
If instant stealth kills weren't a thing, there'd be much more challenge in trying to ACTUALLY be stealthy, i.e. sneaking around enemies without killing/incapacitating them, completing your objective, then sneaking back out unseen. Of course, there are some games that reward this playstyle (MGS for example). But plenty of other games (including '77, not trying to dunk on it exclusively it's just freshest in my mind) will give you bonus rewards for "not leaving a trace behind" (i.e. not having a combat alert) when you've actually left a trail of snapped necks.
I don't really know what I'd like to see instead - I guess games where there's better application of stealth are usually ones that are designed with the stealthy playstyle from the ground up (the Arkham series, MGS). And I appreciate they're trying to give you a reward for creeping up on people, but like I said, it's almost game breaking with its effectiveness in most games. What do y'all think?
MGS is a good example, and it shows what the main difference to "necksnapper" stealth action is: The guards in the MGS titles i've played didn't just stand around and waited until you crept out of your murder bush to do medically questionable choke holds, they all acted like an actual perimeter defense, regularly reporting on their radio that everything's clear - and if you took them out, somebody would get suspicious because they didn't respond to calls anymore and they'd send in backup to check what's wrong. The games made it abundantly clear that you're supposed to avoid and bypass guards, not just fight them faster and sneakier, and it was fun to figure out a safe route, hiding spots, distractions etc. So the difference was both a more realistic behavior of the mobs, a wide array of options to deal with them non-violently, and a level design conducive to the resulting gameplay.
I liked that a lot, but i agree that it was due to the game being focussed entirely on a stealth approach. A cyberpunk game should, in my opinion, have both options be viable. Elaborate heists are a core part of the genre, but so is over the top, guns blazing ultraviolence. I guess fully supporting both play styles all the time isn't realistic, but it seems plausible to have missions for both. When you're a criminal for hire in a cyberpunk setting, it makes perfect sense that sometimes, you do runs that are meant to be done 100% stealthy, where nobody realizes they've been compromised, but also hit jobs where everything's supposed to go up in a giant fireball.
Your last point is such a good one. Big open world RPGs these days seem obsessed with making it possible for players to do EVERYTHING in one play through. Why shouldn’t there be missions that are only accessible/completable if you’re specced in the right way? (Thats without getting into why they feel like they need to let players go down almost every story branch, no matter how contradictory, in a single playthrough).
It would add replayability, while making the actual gameplay more fun. It would also help with the problem of these games just being big maps with dots you have to cross off, if some of those dots aren’t achievable in every playthrough. Would make your character roll feel a bit more unique.
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