To be fair, most RPG's I play are JRPG's not western RPG's so this is new to me.

True, JRPGs are in a world of their own, so the transition to this action-rpg that plays more like an fps-rpg must be rough.

In this game there is a massive level scaling happening. I have not bothered testing the balance between player level and item level, but a level 40 pistol will easily murder a level 20 enemy in one shot. But a level 40 enemy will take a few shots and a level 50 enemy won't give a damn.

Talking about head armour and implants and stuff is just rationalization. Subdermal armour doesn't matter and enemies aren't that bullet resistant because they're wearing sunglasses and strawhats with 'dillo mods and whatnot.

Also, this isn't really an RPG. If it was an RPG then chances are that CDPR would have designed item balance without item levels. Rather than going through 50 different pistols or rifles of the same type, each new one somehow doing more damage than the previous, they would have made a system where a character's skill with the weapon would go up and the same weapon would simply be that much better with skill than without it.

Sadly, CDPR decided to go the Borderlands route of looter-scooter gameplay instead, and now a level 50 character with zero skill in pistols can go to a vendor and buy a level 50 pistol and that pistol does more per shot damage than a level 1 rifle. Because fucking item levels. Yay! Great design!!11 Such immersive!! Don't get me wrong, I don't mind Borderlands that much, they're reasonably fun arcade shooter games, but that is all they are.

In one of the chrome books of the original cp2020 there was some cyberware that let you put the meat into a jar you could transplant from body to body, cyborg to cyborg. There's no guarantee there's anything actually in the head that could be taken out by a one-shot to the head in this game

cuz the enemies are bullet sponge

Fun fact: In real life there are several factors that go into head shots which does make it possible, though admittedly unlikely, to survive a gun shot to the head. Things like the caliber of the bullet, the range it's shot at, etc. Now OPs problem of being directly above an enemy and shooting down with an assault rifle is a different thing all together.

Have you ever played RPG/shooter or shooter/RPG hybrids before?

Games like say..Deus Ex 1? Vampire: Bloodlines? Alpha Protocol? Fallout 3? FO: NV?

Head-shots don't always do an instant defeat on enemies. You need to pump points often into the proper stats & skills; and also take on enemies around or within your level.

Because enemies have levels. You, at level 1, are not going to 1 shot head shot enemies that are level 50.

I played Bloodlines about fifteen years ago.

If you have a modded weapon with insane crits and exploit the sneak crits mod

Everything's a 1 shot

I must say, recently (last night), I have been getting people to totally just fall over into the eternal slumber with head shots. I hit two different targets last night that exceeded 100K points. Yes, exceeded 100,000 damage.

You're not going to have a "modded weapon with insane crits and exploit the sneak crits mod" at level 1. lmao.