It's been about a year since the last time I touched this game. Was eager to finally see the Russian mafia content.
Well, fuck me for being excited.
Whoever thought the the random encounter with the Russian goons who shake you down for all of your on-hand cash was a good idea, needs to be taken out back and put down like Old Yeller. They hit me at least once every day. They make handling money a constant hassle. Every transaction requires a dozen extra steps because you need to hit the ATM before and after. Did you work during the afternoon, and now it's evening and you have a wad of cash on you? Hope RNG doesn't fuck you over between now and tomorrow, cause the bank is closed in the evening (and all day Sunday).
The game is forcing you to gamble, and it utterly fucks you over whenever you lose. There is no way to mitigate the encounter once it has been triggered. You're just trying to move someplace else in the game from the word map, and surprise, you're now broke! This can happen while you are mid-quest, ostensibly with an NPC traveling with you (e.g. putting up flyers with Eve), and it'll still trigger. The only way to effectively counter this fucking bullshit is save scumming. You need to Quick Save every time you enter the world map, so that you can Quick Load whenever RNG inevitably screws you over for that day.
It makes the time I'm spending with the game needlessly frustrating, and I hate it.