Fighting Random Street Gangs.

[Erogamez]

I've noticed, while wandering around Night City, that random street gangs can be seen here and there, in the corners and shadows. Naturally, it's possible to engage in combat with them, even though they don't appear to be related to any main mission, side gig, NCPD task or any other kind of goal.

I was wondering, though, if there are any benefits of fighting such characters (aside from being able to loot their weapons after defeating them). For instance, could I gradually earn more attributes, perks, money or street cred?

Or would fighting those particular random goons lead to nothing beyond the fight itself?

[Dessloch]

You can kill them for xp and loot and that's all.

[StormWing]

street rep and level exp as well as loot that could garner a couple thousand eddies in the later levels, story or narrative-wise it leads to nothing. your question about perks and attributes would happen through the exp you get from them, both street rep and level exp.

[Mentos]

It's mainly for street rep. I only fight them if I they happen to be close enough that I get shot at while passing by. Which happens alot.

[Lucus]

it's mainly for street rep, skill xp, xp and at higher levels money from selling their weapons.

Valentinos in Valentino Alley and VBDs on Pacifica Beach are probably the most favoured punching bags for players.

[Erogamez]

Thanks for the replies. They were helpful.

[Duuvian]

I've read Pacifica has the best xp providing random encounters though it might be too difficult at lower than max street cred level 50. Some areas are easier and some harder and Pacifica is supposed to be a more difficult area. That's useful for grinding skills that gain xp only when used in combat like weapon skills. My character is still not 20 skill in pistols and blades on my 20 reflex murder hobo nomad who used those types heavily when there were still quests to do, so I go to Pacifica if I feel like grinding xp for those. Maybe grinding the final quest would be better though, I haven't compared it. Other skills that don't only gain xp from fighting like from Pinging things over and over are easier to gain xp in; for example ninjitsu is relatively easy to get to 20 if you throw bodies into hiding places when doing the quests, though I've read if you're doing a no killing run that counts as killing them even if they were knocked out with non-lethal, something to consider if I do a batman street kid run or something after the expansion.

[shoopy]

Pacifica got nerfed, Heywood is the place now (specifically The Glen)
IMO it's even better than Pacifica used to be once you find the loop.

Pacifica probably still does work, but it's spotty. Heywood has pretty much guaranteed spawns around the Coyote once you've done Pepe's quest (you need to have done it for the loop to really work)

[Herp McDerperson]

Originally posted by Duuvian:

I've read Pacifica has the best xp providing random encounters though it might be too difficult at lower than max street cred level 50. Some areas are easier and some harder and Pacifica is supposed to be a more difficult area. That's useful for grinding skills that gain xp only when used in combat like weapon skills. My character is still not 20 skill in pistols and blades on my 20 reflex murder hobo nomad who used those types heavily when there were still quests to do, so I go to Pacifica if I feel like grinding xp for those. Maybe grinding the final quest would be better though, I haven't compared it. Other skills that don't only gain xp from fighting like from Pinging things over and over are easier to gain xp in; for example ninjitsu is relatively easy to get to 20 if you throw bodies into hiding places when doing the quests, though I've read if you're doing a no killing run that counts as killing them even if they were knocked out with non-lethal, something to consider if I do a batman street kid run or something after the expansion.

"20 reflex murder hobo nomad"

lol

[Duuvian]

Murder hobo is a trope in entertainment

Decent search result:
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/151143/what-exactly-is-a-murder-hobo

"Murderhobo", apparently a contraction of the slightly older term "murderous hobo", is a usually pejorative (but infrequently neutral or affectionate) term used to describe certain kinds of adventuring character, usually in Dungeons & Dragons or D&D-like games.

The murder(ous) part is because these characters primarily solve problems with violence/killing and are typically very quick to resort to violence, often even in situations where that's a really inappropriate response.

The hobo part derives from the American slang term "hobo", which specifically means not just a homeless person, but a homeless travelling worker; the hobo has no long term home and moves around from place to place looking for jobs (often carrying everything they own with them), which is a fairly obvious parallel to a traditional adventuring party who travel the world accepting quests.

Use of the term "murderhobo" itself generally comes in two contexts:

Referring to specific character or characters in a game who exemplify this behaviour, they just travel around fighting and killing and don't engage more deeply
Examination of how the design of a specific game (e.g. D&D) encourages this kind of character and playing/campaign style

The popular usage of the term on the modern internet appears to have spread from the online forum RPG.net, with this thread from 2007 the first apparent usage of "murderous hobo" as a term for player characters, and this 2011 post the first usage of the shorter form "murderhobo" to describe the behaviour. As evidenced in this 2010 thread, though born of a humorous reference to the standard activities of D&D characters, the concept was also being used to express dissatisfaction with a specific style of D&D game, where the characters were wandering warriors with no ties or connections to the world, just doing violence to earn money.
Credit to ForthrightRay and AllanBz in this reddit thread for some original research on that subject. Wiktionary claims origins from early Usenet, but doesn't evidence it.

Note that you can fairly describe a pretty traditional D&D character as a "murderhobo" even when that character is acting perfectly normally for a D&D character. D&D is a game which is mechanically focused on combat and combat is the expected solution to most significant problems a character faces; even the most noble Paladin can usually be summarised as a travelling itinerant who routinely kills things for money.

The takeaway is that "murderhobo" describes a spectrum of possible character types, ranging from traditional wandering mercenaries at the milder end all the way up to travelling serial murderers who recklessly slaughter NPCs at the extreme. What exactly it means for any given use therefore depends a lot on the context.

Final note: "murderhobo" is almost always a description of a character or playstyle, not a player; a statement like "My players are murderhobos!" should be parsed out as "My players are playing murderhobos", much like saying "I am a wizard" in this context probably means "I am playing as a wizard".
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Just posting this in case someone thinks it's purveying an idea that hobos tend to be murderous, which would be incorrect. Surely a very, very small fraction of a percent may be, but such is the case across all other designations the breadth of society.

This has concluded our test of the PSA system