How Cyberpsychosis works and why V doesnt get affected. From Mike Pondsmith himself(creator of Cyberpunk).

[Alt]

https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/why_doesnt_v_get_cyberpsychosis/ipffmf4/?context=3
"Okay, so time to (partially) explain CYBERPSYCHOSIS.

First of all, Cyberpsychosis is a disorder that in part depends on the subject's overall internal susceptibility. Just like every person who drinks a lot at parties doesn't end up an alcoholic in the gutter, not everyone who gets loaded up on cyberware is going to automatically go cyberpsycho. You have to have an inherent susceptibility, which (in the TRPG) is represented by the player's Humanity Stat. Humanity is not just a measure of one aspect of personality, but an overall measure of several elements including the subject's ability to emphasize and relate with others, their ability to absorb and rebound from mental and physical stressors, their ability to show compassion and flexibility to others, and whether they are able to balance their worldview through other methods.

So, in some ways, I tend to treat cyberware as an addiction--heavy anabolic steroid use being my favorite model. Not everyone who juices ends up crazy mad with roid rage. But those who are more susceptible to the need to take more steroids are more likely to hit a point where they do flip into roid rage. (Take a look at this article from Livescience https://www.livescience.com/38354-what-is-roid-rage.html for a pretty good idea of how roid rage works--notice that it's got the same basic profile as cyberpsychosis).

David's starting Humanity was probably already pretty high. And before things went to crap, he had a loving mother, a career path, and no more hassle than the average poor guy in a wealthy Ivy League school. So he had lots of buffer. But even so, he still, even after losing all that, was able to make friends, build a replacement family, and (after some prompting) even get a girlfriend. And a mentor (Maine) to create a supportive father figure. So he could definitely handle the stress of added cyberware up to a point.

Most people in Night City don't have the level of Humanity to pull this kind of stunt off without going cyberpsychotic. So David is one in a million. And that's why Arasaka wants him.

V is a different case. We don't know V's background, but even if V was a full on Corpo, they were able to hold it together even when they ended up with a dead Rockerboy in their heads (Yah, tell me about it; Johnny Silverhand's been in my head for the last three decades.) In fact, having Johnny in their head probably helped V, because Siilverhand's rage and attitude probably acted as a buffer for the psychological hits V is taking. It's like having a time share with a guy who's already half cyberpsycho and doesn't mind if V slaps stuff on their shared body; he's already crazy and violent.

So that's a rough explanation of the roots of cyberpsychosis. If I ever get band width, I'm going to start writing/posting some stuff about what I had in mind as I put together the Night City universe. But for now, you'll have to go with what I've got here. Have fun, and remember not to chip mili-spec cyberware, like your mother warned you about.

And no, cyberpsychosis isn't caused by AI net demons. Gimme a break, chooms!"

[StarBreaker]

I would actually love to see a cyberpsychosis meter in the game, like if you get too high you start killing random people but it also gives you buffs to health and damage as maxtac come for you

[D0P3F15H]

引用自 Bahamut_A6M5：

引用自 SnuffSaid：

If the Relic can erase and alter every single aspect of a personality, memories, quirks, the whole nine yards, you would have to assume fixing psychological damage like PTSD would be child's play by comparison. You'd also have to assume that it must happen for Soulkiller to achieve it's goal. Johnny didn't have cyberpsychosis at the time he became an engram, so when Soulkiller has finished it's program any cyberpsychosis V picked up during the "walking ghost phase" would be eradicated along with their personality, memories and everything else.

But the Relic doesn't erase, rewrites. The Relic is rewritting V's neural pathways to accomodate Johnny's personality. And in the process, as V and Johnny interact, changes happens in both V's and Johnny's personalities, which leads to an even more amusing state: V's brain is also naturally creating neural pathways, as the Relic modifies others to fit the reshaped personality of Johnny. So, it's a process about sharing memories, quirks, psychological traits to create a new personality construct which isn't neither V nor Johnny and it's both simultaneously. I don't see the Relic working as perfectly as you intend, but rather a tool for creating an even "nastier" mess.

There's a major misunderstanding about how the Relic is supposed to work versus how it's 'working' in V's brain.

The relic chip is by design meant to carry an engram into a brain-dead or comatose brain, re-wire the neurons into a state that matches the engrams requirements, and write the new personality.

What happened with V is brain death from the bullet which started the process, but it also damaged the shard so everything happened at once. V was revived, the nano-machines started rewiring, and the Engram started downloading.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 Bahamut_A6M5：

引用自 SnuffSaid：

If the Relic can erase and alter every single aspect of a personality, memories, quirks, the whole nine yards, you would have to assume fixing psychological damage like PTSD would be child's play by comparison. You'd also have to assume that it must happen for Soulkiller to achieve it's goal. Johnny didn't have cyberpsychosis at the time he became an engram, so when Soulkiller has finished it's program any cyberpsychosis V picked up during the "walking ghost phase" would be eradicated along with their personality, memories and everything else.

But the Relic doesn't erase, rewrites. The Relic is rewritting V's neural pathways to accomodate Johnny's personality. And in the process, as V and Johnny interact, changes happens in both V's and Johnny's personalities, which leads to an even more amusing state: V's brain is also naturally creating neural pathways, as the Relic modifies others to fit the reshaped personality of Johnny. So, it's a process about sharing memories, quirks, psychological traits to create a new personality construct which isn't neither V nor Johnny and it's both simultaneously. I don't see the Relic working as perfectly as you intend, but rather a tool for creating an even "nastier" mess.

As far as I'm aware they are only "sharing" during the process itself, if Soulkiller had finished it's task unhindered, V would have been replaced entirely by Johnny. I say sharing but really, there is no Johnny, he is dead, his soul has been killed (subtle). The Relic is overwriting a living brain with virtual data, at that mind-boggling level of science, I really can't find any issue with the relic fixing psychological damage. It's already well beyond modern comprehension, it's also leaps and bounds beyond anything else we see in the setting in my opinion, it's kind of in that Kardeshev Scale Type II civilisation ballpark.

[Rialm]

He does not go rampage because he has one of the craziest dude in the world inside his head. If you can deal with that you are INVISIBLE. Also as an rpg makes sense, the player can change the personality of V every new game, so basically making him even more chaotic.

[D0P3F15H]

引用自 SnuffSaid：

引用自 Bahamut_A6M5：

But the Relic doesn't erase, rewrites. The Relic is rewritting V's neural pathways to accomodate Johnny's personality. And in the process, as V and Johnny interact, changes happens in both V's and Johnny's personalities, which leads to an even more amusing state: V's brain is also naturally creating neural pathways, as the Relic modifies others to fit the reshaped personality of Johnny. So, it's a process about sharing memories, quirks, psychological traits to create a new personality construct which isn't neither V nor Johnny and it's both simultaneously. I don't see the Relic working as perfectly as you intend, but rather a tool for creating an even "nastier" mess.

As far as I'm aware they are only "sharing" during the process itself, if Soulkiller had finished it's task unhindered, V would have been replaced entirely by Johnny. I say sharing but really, there is no Johnny, he is dead, his soul has been killed (subtle). The Relic is overwriting a living brain with virtual data, at that mind-boggling level of science, I really can't find any issue with the relic fixing psychological damage. It's already well beyond modern comprehension, it's also leaps and bounds beyond anything else we see in the setting in my opinion, it's kind of in that Kardeshev Scale Type II civilisation ballpark.

You're conflating Soulkiller with the Relic. They work with the same "subject" but are totally separate processes.

Soulkiller extracts the mind to create an engram, Relic writes the engram into a mind.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 D0P3F15H：

引用自 SnuffSaid：

As far as I'm aware they are only "sharing" during the process itself, if Soulkiller had finished it's task unhindered, V would have been replaced entirely by Johnny. I say sharing but really, there is no Johnny, he is dead, his soul has been killed (subtle). The Relic is overwriting a living brain with virtual data, at that mind-boggling level of science, I really can't find any issue with the relic fixing psychological damage. It's already well beyond modern comprehension, it's also leaps and bounds beyond anything else we see in the setting in my opinion, it's kind of in that Kardeshev Scale Type II civilisation ballpark.

You're conflating Soulkiller with the Relic, they work with the same "subject" but are totally separate processes.

Soulkiller extracts the mind to create an engram, Relic writes the engram into a mind.

I thought the Relic was just the name for the actual chip that houses the Soulkiller program? That made sense to me. It's a computer program on a memory stick.

[D0P3F15H]

引用自 SnuffSaid：

引用自 D0P3F15H：

You're conflating Soulkiller with the Relic, they work with the same "subject" but are totally separate processes.

Soulkiller extracts the mind to create an engram, Relic writes the engram into a mind.

I thought the Relic was just the name for the actual chip that houses the Soulkiller program? That made sense to me. It's a computer program on a memory stick.

No Soulkiller is the program that can encode a human consciousness into an engram that gets stored in Mikoshi. The Relic is the chip that the engram can be downloaded into to put into a "willing" body that will re-wire the brain and overwrite the personality.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 D0P3F15H：

引用自 SnuffSaid：

I thought the Relic was just the name for the actual chip that houses the Soulkiller program? That made sense to me. It's a computer program on a memory stick.

No Soulkiller is the program that can encode a human consciousness into an engram that gets stored in Mikoshi. The Relic is the chip that the engram can be downloaded into to put into a "willing" body that will re-wire the brain and overwrite the personality.

My mistake then. Semantic errors aside though I think the rest of what I said stands to reason.

[D0P3F15H]

引用自 SnuffSaid：

引用自 D0P3F15H：

No Soulkiller is the program that can encode a human consciousness into an engram that gets stored in Mikoshi. The Relic is the chip that the engram can be downloaded into to put into a "willing" body that will re-wire the brain and overwrite the personality.

My mistake then. Semantic errors aside though I think the rest of what I said stands to reason.

It's...not semantic?

When Johnny got the crazy BD wreath looking thing put on his head after bombing the tower and got his mind sucked out, that was Soulkiller.

The shard V was hired to steal from Konpeki was a Relic that happened to have Johnnys mind on it.

Soulkiller separates mind from body, Relic pushes mind into body. Two totally separate techs

[NorthernDavid]

One other factor with V and cyberpsychosis is the limits on how much cyberware V can get. In the game you can get I think 3 cortex, 3 integumentary, 3 cardio, 2 skeletal, 2 immune, 2 nervous sytem, and 1 each of eye, hand, arm, leg and operating system, for a total of 19 systems. In the most recent pen and paper you could have over 30 differing cyberware systems. If V would start with a high humanity in the pen and paper, it would take a worse than average level of humanity loss to push them over the edge with the number of systems you could install in the vanilla video game.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 D0P3F15H：

引用自 SnuffSaid：

My mistake then. Semantic errors aside though I think the rest of what I said stands to reason.

It's...not semantic?

When Johnny got the crazy BD wreath looking thing put on his head after bombing the tower and got his mind sucked out, that was Soulkiller.

The shard V was hired to steal from Konpeki was a Relic that happened to have Johnnys mind on it.

Soulkiller separates mind from body, Relic pushes mind into body. Two totally separate techs

That is literally the definition of semantics; I used the terms synonymously, which was an error, but it was clear to you (and everybody else) what I meant and it didn't obscure or confuse anything else I wrote. In fact it had almost nothing to do with the point I was making. Ironically we are definitely arguing semantics now either way, debating the definition of semantics.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 NorthernDavid：

One other factor with V and cyberpsychosis is the limits on how much cyberware V can get. In the game you can get I think 3 cortex, 3 integumentary, 3 cardio, 2 skeletal, 2 immune, 2 nervous sytem, and 1 each of eye, hand, arm, leg and operating system, for a total of 19 systems. In the most recent pen and paper you could have over 30 differing cyberware systems. If V would start with a high humanity in the pen and paper, it would take a worse than average level of humanity loss to push them over the edge with the number of systems you could install in the vanilla video game.

In that tabletop though aren't limbs and eyes etc. all independent? As in the left eye would be one slot, the right eye another slot, where as in the game they are represented as one slot. Taking that into account and I'd imagine they work out somewhat even.

[Vellari]

On a gameplay/mechanics level, could this have been an interesting way to balance/curve out the OP'ness of endgame?

For example, can only equip <random number> of implants, but there are more slots available, meaning you would have to make compromises depending on what build is going for instead of just be able to slot everything.

Not sure how to handle slotting more than allowed. Could just simple be hard "not able" or have some progressive negative effects (what ever they may be). Maybe have some new mechanism to negate said effects (what ever is applicable from tabletop or lore).

However, making the player actually go crazy/psycho is not a good idea as that is more or less "game over" and would just lead to unnecessary save/load cycle.

[SnuffSaid]

引用自 Vellari：

On a gameplay/mechanics level, could this have been an interesting way to balance/curve out the OP'ness of endgame?

For example, can only equip <random number> of implants, but there are more slots available, meaning you would have to make compromises depending on what build is going for instead of just be able to slot everything.

Not sure how to handle slotting more than allowed. Could just simple be hard "not able" or have some progressive negative effects (what ever they may be). Maybe have some new mechanism to negate said effects (what ever is applicable from tabletop or lore).

However, making the player actually go crazy/psycho is not a good idea as that is more or less "game over" and would just lead to unnecessary save/load cycle.

It would have been amazing if the game had actually been an RPG. Because in the tabletop the humanity loss from implants lowers the empathy stat, so that could have been conveyed in dialogue options in the game as you can no longer relate to people and your dialogue becomes limited to more aggressive or more detached options.

Though thinking about how good the game could have been as an RPG just makes me sad. Lol.

[Vellari]

引用自 SnuffSaid：

the humanity loss from implants lowers the empathy stat, so that could have been conveyed in dialogue options in the game as you can no longer relate to people and your dialogue becomes limited to more aggressive or more detached options.

That's a good idea, you'd be forced to brute force things....like a psycho in a way.