1: Execution rules, is target is completely helpless or unaware of the attack, treat it as an autosuccess and only roll to determine DV.

2: Ruthenium doesn't make the baby jesus cry anymore.

3: Better autofire and spread rules

4: The more you defend in a single initiative the harder it becomes to continue evading.

5: Punks with guns are actually a threat.

1: The Confusion critter power no longer makes the baby Jesus cry.

2: The Glitch system.

3: Conversion of physical damage to stun against high rating non-hardened armor.

4: The ability to have a starting magic attribute lower than 6.

5: Last but not least, bringing deckers out of the basement.

In no particular order:

1) Vehical armor and body makes sense. No more completely shrugging off clips of regular armor and then blowing up when hit by a single AV round.

2) Sane prices for electronics. (10000 nuyen for a palm pilot?!?)

3) More than 2 drones in the main book.

4) RFID Tags

5) More art in the equipment section, though it still isn't as much as I would like

Bonus - Favorite non-change:
Troll bow adepts are still crazy wrong, and thats the way I like it.

1) Bonuses in cyberware (ie the recorder and display are now included in the cybereye exc.)

2) Light pistols are now weapons.

3) Bioware cost essence with no strange toxin/desease suceptability drawbacks.

4) Attributes matter during gameplay (not just during creation and Karma expenditrue)

5) 'Modern' tech (no laser sights that look like mini-maglights strapped to your gun)

1. The contact and gear-finding rules are 1000 times better, at the least. No more "equipment lottery."

2. Guns are properly balanced against each other. (Holdout<Light<Heavy<SMG<AR)

3. Delaying pieces of your action (i.e. Using a simple to sprint to a corner, then delaying your other simple. p.134

4. Long bursts, and the general upgrading of full-auto weapons. YEEEE-HAW!

5. The Ares Alpha Assault Rifle. Oh, how I love thee, mighty mighty Ares Alpha.

Things I hate with a passion:

1. Large pieces of the combat system seem woefully unbalanced, especially Ammo types and stun damage. Seriously, these imbalances are both simple and glaring, things a high-school algebra student could spot. Very sloppy, dev team.

OSUMacbeth

1: All the "Open Tests" are gone.

2: Everything is now One-to-One or "Single Staging" (to use an older edition term).

3: Technomancers need almost no to very little to cyber. Of course, "Riggers" now need very little also.

4: Mages and Adepts still wind up beating the snot out of their non-awakened counterparts after 300 karma is awarded (as long as everyone playing is a smart player anyway).

5: Ritual Spellcasting (replacing Ritual Sorcery) is now sooooooo much easier. In fact, so much so that everyone should be using it.

... and while I'm at it ....

Top 5 Things that I Hate about SR4 ...

1: Simplification appears to equal Stupification (Skills and Skill Groups clump things to much and illogically in many areas).

2: Skill Caps ... this makes Zero (0) sense. I can understand and even respect an Attribute Cap, but a Skill Cap is a hideously stupid decision IMO.

3: Specialization Rules ... With all the skill advancement now being an x2 modifier, one would think that Specialization could simply become an x1 and allow for the skill to be any degree higher than the base skill. See "Skill Caps" dislike above.

4: Stun Damage (from clubs) still has to be tracked on the Mental Condition monitor. Makes me want to find a troll, walk up, punch him in the shin once, and watch him fall over crying like a gnomish brat.

5: Vehicle Rules ... ALL OF THEM!!!. I would think that after all this time, someone could fix this crap as well.

1 Open tests are gone.

2 Full auto is not all miss all hit.

3 Not having to split your gaming group during hacking sections

4 Pictures of the weapons in the BBB

5 My LE book that cost me a metric ass ton!!

1. Better matrix rules
2. Cyber vision is just as good as natural vision
3. The ability to get a sniper rifle at chargen
4. Ruthenium isn't so crazy (especially the way you could get a higher bonus to the TN than being invisible was)
5. Cyber and bioware costs are down enough that you might actually get to change some cyber IN GAME.

In no particular order -

1: Cost reduction. The Sam who loses his uber gun, the hacker who loses his commlink, and the magic man who loses his sword of astral chopping are no longer royally screwed if they lose these items as it is possible to replace these without devine GM intervention.

2: The attribute+skill pool system. It's much more familiar to my players who may now be able to get over the Shadowrun system (They couldn't stand SR3 so we hardly ever player) and it makes more sense to me.

3: Rigging seems much simpler. Perhaps some of my players will ride the drone in my games now.

4: Magic's been synched up. The difference between Mages and Shamans are now just what sort of spirits they can summon (Only differing by one spirit) and their outlook on magic. Both Mages and Shamans can summon spirits for limited purposes or summon them and bind them for more powerful uses.

5: The Wireless Matrix. Maybe I can finally convince some of my players to put down the gun and pick up a commlink. Especially after some hacker punks turn off all their guns and cyberwear in the middle of a fire fight.

1: Skill and Attribute hard caps.

2: More thorough rules for IDs and SINs.

3: The revised systems for Contacts (hooray for logical Legwork!)

4: Augmented Reality

5: Simplified and streamlined combat rules.

Ok, so, that was hard. 'Cause really I'm HAPPY WITH THE WHOLE FREAKING BOOK.

Winter

In no particular order:

1. new dice pool mechanic
2. melee combat is now an oposed test
3. hacking in general (though I still wish it were called decking)
4. rigging and vehicle rules are now understandable to me
5. no force on spells