I'm curious about what you felt was worse about gta 5 and gta 4. It felt like a completely superior game to me
This is a bit nitpicky honestly and this is probably going to invite a stuffton of "Git Gud friend" comments(People noticing the same thing about AI Accuracy or the cops on both the GTA Forums and GameFAQs always get those kinds of comments) but here's what I can remember off the top of my head:
Pedestrians and cops alike all being hair-trigger starfishs that call the cops or fight you(Pedestrians) or randomly chase after you because you had the indecency to stand near them for a few seconds(Cops). There's mods to fix that, but still.
Worse ragdoll physics than IV and the inability to shoot guns out of hands without mods. I don't ever recall pedestrians stumbling around and clutching at their wounds when I shot them a single time, only the pedestrians collapsing every single time before getting up and running away at full speed. Thankfully, there's a pair of mods called Disarm and Bullet Impact Euphoria or something to restore that feature from IV.
Pedestrians feel like they're made of toilet paper and die too easily. It seems that fistfights only last a few seconds before the pedestrians drop to the floor dead(As opposed to IV, where it took more than a few punches and they drop to the floor incapacitated but barely alive, and writhe around on the floor). In IV, Pedestrians could writhe around on the floor in agony occasionally when they got shot/beaten/stabbed/etc for a long period of time before finally expiring, while in V they just writhe around for maybe half a second before ragdolling. Again, mods exist to fix that.
Paramedics in V are useless as stuff and can't even revive someone that took one too many paper cuts, but unlike IV the firefighters in V actually try to do their jobs.
AI accuracy in V compared to IV. I don't recall GTA IV's AI blindfiring at me across the map with perfect accuracy, or sniping me out of a helicopter/plane with their pistols.
The cops in V are apparently Robocop in disguise along with a dose of psychic powers, and the wanted system is a letdown. You can't even get away with murder in the middle of nowhere without the cops being alerted, and the cops occasionally feel like they can see through walls. Hiding somewhere does work, but the cops can occasionally and "coincidentally" happen to stumble upon you. IV probably had this too with the psychic cops, but at least IV didn't have police choppers spawning in your face, and at least IV let you get away with murdering more than two people before the cops got automatically alerted. Cops in V chase you for maybe 5 seconds at one star before giving up and shooting you in the back, while cops in IV would chase you at one star for quite a while before giving up and shooting you in the back. GTA IV's wanted level had more slightly interesting progression of Law Enforcement in a police chase, with Cops > NOOSE > The FIB. GTA V, meanwhile, is just Cops > More Cops and a helicopter> NOOSE > More NOOSE > Even more NOOSE. There is a mod that has the Army at five stars, though.
Rubberband AI in V. Somehow, a clunky SUV or a police car can activate invisible rocket thrusters and catch up to the fastest car in the game before ramming it off the road.
It's true that mods exist to fix most of the problems that I stated, but the features in the mods should have been in the base game by default, and you can't exactly take those mods into Online.
