So, I was watching some youtube videos talking about some of the problems facing games like World of Warcraft and Anthem, and it reminded me of the main gripe I've always had with Shadowrun: the Reward Loop. Now, I love the lore of Shadowrun. The setting, the characters, the 'not a hero' approach that is so different from most games out there, all of it speaks to me. But ever since I started playing, I've come up against the same issue, time and again: there is no meaningful progression.
In other games, you do a thing, you get shinies (money or gear) and XP, which translates simply and easily to progression for your character. In D&D, this is whenever you get a new level, and you can usually count on leveling at least once or twice in a standard module. In M&M or Champions/HERO System, you get PP or CP, which you can use to improve your character. The costs are flat x amount of points equals y amount of improvement, depending on what you're doing. You get a couple fights under your belt, you probably already have enough points to improve something, maybe even one of your core abilities. Regardless, you know what the score is, and there is always a sense that your character is progressing.
In Shadowrun, that just isn't there. Unless you're looking for new shiny guns or need nuyen for something, your progression is essentially flatter than a coke that has been left open for three months. If you're a mage, or a technomancer, or someone wanting to improve your skills, you're looking at sometimes 10+ runs worth of XP to bump up a single die. There is a reason why people talking on the character creation section mention that what your skills and attributes are after chargen are pretty much what they will always be for the duration of a campaign, unless you're one of the really lucky ones who gets into a campaign that is going to last a decade or two. Standard run gives, say, 4-6 karma. That means a blade-focused street sammy needs to save up 10-14 runs worth of karma to go from a 6 to 7 in Blades. They actually have it easy, since they can also improve with nuyen, by getting ware, or new gear, and so on. Other archetypes, especially the ones that improve solely on karma (see: Awakened or Emerged), or their improvement relies on MASSIVELY expensive items (see: deckers and riggers) are looking at just as steep costs, and no progression in that time. The reward loop is broken for those archetypes, and advancement and progression feel stagnant. That is why so many people look at minmaxing their characters in chargen, because they know that they'll never be better than they are then.
Fixing the problem is easy enough. You just have to kill off a white elephant that has been haunting the game for multiple editions: the increasing karma costs for advancement. Reduce it to a fixed point per rank, and advancement becomes possible for people who haven't been playing the same character for forever. Make it a fixed cost per rank, and the minmaxing loses some of its steam, allowing people to try more varied character types because they can actually grow into their role, and be effective at it. With a fixed point per rank, the reward loop doesn't become an unholy grind that makes me start looking over my shoulder to see if EA has suddenly shown up and shoved a cash shop in the game to do RMT to buy your next skill rank.