As you progress through Cyberpunk 2077, you’ll be acquainted with several different types of progression. There’s XP for leveling up your character and Street Cred for unlocking access to different vendors and better gear. Some of the most powerful Cyberware that Ripperdocs offer is only obtainable with higher Street Cred.
Street Cred Points are earned by completing Street Stories and earning Street Cred XP. They can be earned by doing all kinds of different things, whether it’s stealth kills, organized crime missions and so on.
Upon leveling up, you can increase five different attributes – Body, Reflexes, Intelligence, Cool and Technical Ability – while also gaining Perk Points to unlock different Perks. Skills are leveled by doing something associated with that particular skill type. For example, killing foes with machine guns and such will level up your Annihilation skills which are tied to the Body attribute. You can hit level 7 in just about every skill type but going further requires increasing the associated Attribute. So if you want to keep increasing the Annihilation skill type past level 7, the Body attribute must be increased. The max level for skills is 20.
So how do you go about earning XP, especially with how much it ties into your progression? The easiest thing to do is complete Gigs (which are also a good source of money), NCPD Tasks and side jobs. More substantial gains can be had from main jobs so prioritize those if you don’t feel like grinding. Make sure to also play mini-games like Breach Protocol since these reward XP.
Another option is to raise the difficulty since this also increases the amount of XP doled out by jobs. Just keep in mind that enemies will hit harder and soak up more damage on higher difficulties so make sure you’ve got a fairly strong loadout before doing so.