Lore Difference between Tech and Netrunner

[Stray952]

So, in intro quest V and T-bug both hack doors (?), which honestly makes as much sense to me as anything else. However, after this, the game just randomly decides whether a door is pickable or can be ripped open. I don't remember any hackable doors after this intro mission, I could be wrong.

This got me wondering... like what is going on here? Where is the daylight between these two roles in the lore? Did it just not make it into the game?

It kind of feels like in a truly networked world, a netrunner should be able to do everything a techie could do but better, and when I look the tech perks, it kind of feels like CPDR thought that, too, but didn't put it in the game.

Looks like the perks are just... more health, more grenades, but those things are done better in other tech trees. Better cyberware, well ok, but thats the same as just upgrading your cyberware.

I could see it obviously being a viable role in a party system, but idk if its worth it to give up everything else to be the ultimate locksmith. Especially in a game that only engages with the player through combat.

[charly4711]

A techie is imagined as somebody tinkering with hardware while a netrunner is more about running daemons on his cyberdeck, simply put and not even going into the whole really going into cyberspace which V doesn't even do much outside scripted story events.

[grauf]

V is basically hard-locked into being a Solo, archetype-wise. Even if you can deviate into quickhacks, you're basically a script kiddie in comparison to an actual Netrunner. My point being, the archetypes present in Cyberpunk 2020 are not reflected in-game.

The door V hacks in the tutorial is probably just intended as an introduction to the hacking minigame. T-Bug can hack doors because she's integrated herself into the local network and by pulling one string or another can get the door to open, but V has to bypass it directly since he's not immersed in the net, possibly by rewiring it or picking it hence the Technical requirement.

Or someone at CDPR just arbitrarily decided that Technical and Body are the designated door stats, that's a good possibility too. But, I still think you're really undervaluing the Technical tree specifically for that middle branch and the extra cyberware it can afford you.

[Hidden Gunman]

I've never really bought into this netrunner label for your character. Apart from the scripted stuff there is no netrunning, you dont even get a netrun setup in your apartment for flavour, etc.

I think of my character as more of a 'cyber witch', and as Nix refers to hacks as spells that seems pretty apt. Sure, you can plug into hardware in a tactical sense, as you can plug into npc's, but thats pretty much the end of it.

[NorthernDavid]

Basically if you scan the door before you are checking if you can hack it, if you just walk up to it and see the options you are looking to either force it (body) or pick the lock (tech). The hackable doors do show up on scans (Sometimes it's the lock control next to the door that is hackable) but you do need to scan to check.