I am currently on my second playthrough since patch 1.1 and noticed that the melee guarding function doesn't work anymore during any of the "Beat to the Brat" encounter.

Even light jabs go straight through my my guard and I have full stamina, when I'm guarding. They barley cost me stamina, when they hit, since I have all the important perks and I'm almost max level.

I remember my first ,pre-1.1, playthrough, where I could guard against any type of attack during this quest, almost making it laughably easy.

So, I don't know what happened, but I have to admit that only now, post 1.1 patch, I started to encounter a lot more bugs compared to my first playthrough. Almost 100% more. It might just be another one of Cyberpunks glorious gamebreaking bugs.

If you are doing Beat the Brat, it's not a bug. Blocking becomes less effective with each opponent, and at the last one it is utterly useless.