Why V Always Die? WHY CDPR?!

[mahmut]

Why we cannot save V's life?

[fauxpas]

Publicado originalmente por Delamain:

So what is your problem then? You get to choose what happens in the end, but none of these ends includes some Unicorn that magically fixes everything which was statet to be unfixable right at the end of the prologue.
Its just that one choice you dont get to choose because its simply impossible. Some people here consider this to be bad writing, but in fact its a rather well written story about a person driven mostly by desperation but also sometimes by hope.
The punchline is, V and Johnny both went the same way out of two different motivations but ended up in the same way: dead.

It's simple; we were sold a line that "choices matter" and were told we could shape a branching story and instead we get what amounts to a straight rail where the 'choice' boils down to a single dialog option.


The fact that apologists simply want to dismiss the issue with strawman about unicorns farting magical happy dust while ignoring several gaping plot holes is an issue as well.

[Piderman]

Publicado originalmente por fauxpas:

The fact that apologists simply want to dismiss the issue with strawman about unicorns farting magical happy dust while ignoring several gaping plot holes is an issue as well.

There is no strawman argument, because: "Why we cannot save V's life?" Together with these emojis below it, this is literally the thing your´e complaining about. You want a thing which is impossible per default because of the way, the story is set up and you just reject this fact.
And now please explain these "gaping plotholes" to me.
Short summary of the story:
Relic Job goes sideways because Yorinobu decides to kill his father. Hotel gets locked down, Jackie gets mortally wounded and dies during the escape, hands the Chip to V.
Deshawn shoots V (which triggers the chip) but later gets killed by Takemura, who takes V back to Victor.
His diagnosis basically: "fixed you up but cant do much about that chip, you got a few weeks at best"
Takemura reveals he knew all along that Yorinobu was Saburos Murderer, comes up with a plan to avenge him.
V learns about Evelyns deal with the Voodoo boys, meets "not-Alt Cunningham".
Takemura manages to convince Hanako about his version of the story, during the Arasaka assault on his hideout, he either dies or lives depending on Vs actions.
The rest is pretty much preparation for the assault on the Arasaka Tower with the help of not-AC in exchange to get her/it into Mikoshi, with various options. (Nomads, Rogue, etc.)

[fauxpas]

Reread the thread and decide whether you want to argue with the OP or me as we are two different people with two different, albeit related arguments.

The OP seems to merely want an ending where V doesn't die; I want multiple endings where my choices actually matter and I get to decide between actual different endings.


As for plot holes, well lets see; the first (and biggest) is the fact that V is doomed after the relic's magical pixie dust brought her back from the dead in the first place since the devs can't seem to actually decide how engrams and Relic tech actually works.

[Alecthelm]

Respect, you really try to Discuss with someone, who is ready to hold on to His superior Mindest of the Ingame Kanon, useless, but like said , Respect.

[Piderman]

Publicado originalmente por fauxpas:

As for plot holes, well lets see; the first (and biggest) is the fact that V is doomed after the relic's magical pixie dust brought her back from the dead in the first place since the devs can't seem to actually decide how engrams and Relic tech actually works.

Its explained multiple Times. You slot the chip into a recently deceased Body, where it begins the process of preparing the Brain tissue for the Engram and uploads it into the prepared parts.
Taking into account that Saburo is alread 150 years old at this point, its clear why this thing was invented to begin with. Not sure if it even was revealed in one ending, but i think Saburo planned to use Yorinobus Body for his resurrection, as this Dude was first and foremost his Son and therefore a perfect genetic match. (Yup. Big old Man is _such_ an ass)
The Chip did exactly what it was supposed to do. Also Dexters Gun used a rather small caliber, and therefore didnt do too much damage to Vs Brain. I think anything more potent would have been too much for the chip to repair.

V being doomed anyway even after Alt removed Johnnys Engram and basically stopped the chip from doing its thing is the result of the Chip already having the Brain changed too much as that it could do its thing without issues. Its basically fighting itself at that point which is obviously a bad thing.

[fauxpas]

Publicado originalmente por Delamain:

Publicado originalmente por fauxpas:

As for plot holes, well lets see; the first (and biggest) is the fact that V is doomed after the relic's magical pixie dust brought her back from the dead in the first place since the devs can't seem to actually decide how engrams and Relic tech actually works.

Its explained multiple Times. You slot the chip into a recently deceased Body, where it begins the process of preparing the Brain tissue for the Engram and uploads it into the prepared parts.
Taking into account that Saburo is alread 150 years old at this point, its clear why this thing was invented to begin with. Not sure if it even was revealed in one ending, but i think Saburo planned to use Yorinobus Body for his resurrection, as this Dude was first and foremost his Son and therefore a perfect genetic match. (Yup. Big old Man is _such_ an ass)
The Chip did exactly what it was supposed to do. Also Dexters Gun used a rather small caliber, and therefore didnt do too much damage to Vs Brain. I think anything more potent would have been too much for the chip to repair.

V being doomed anyway even after Alt removed Johnnys Engram and basically stopped the chip from doing its thing is the result of the Chip already having the Brain changed too much as that it could do its thing without issues. Its basically fighting itself at that point which is obviously a bad thing.

Yes, those are the rails that the story was set on; which depend on magical pixie dust bringing dead bodies back (instead of simply having the chip activate with a living body); misses the opportunity of showing V being overwritten and the lines between her and Johnny blurring until you can't tell who is who; while still being possible to separate the two fully and ignoring that you have magical pixie dust capable of bringing the dead to life; transferable engrams, and tech that includes full body replacement on the ... relative cheap with a handwave of "but too much damage was done". 🙄


But the truly funny thing is that even if you were correct in your estimation that cp77's story was well written you've still danced completely around the point I bring up that we were promised that 'choices matter'.

[♠.brT]

So this idea that the game doesn't have choices that matter really bugs me. It has been used in other games in the past and its always same basic arbitrary logic of "the consequences are not big enough"

And my question is would anything be big enough for you?

There are several endings, and they are pretty distinct in their outcomes for V and the characters around V.

The one thing that links almost all of them is the 6 months to live for V. that's it, that's the only thing. Everything else about them is different.

I mean come on, there is one ending where V can choose to to straight up END IT, bullet to the brain and its done. That's a valid ending, why is that not a good enough consequence?
There are some where V or Jhonny will use the help of their friends to deal with Arasaka, but at what cost? watching their friends die. Is that not a big enough consequence?

And then of course there is the best ending in my opinion, the one where V goes out with a bang, alone with just Jhonny, nobody else fighting for V, just V in a desperate suicide run where it if V dies, and fails to reach the end, its over, roll credits baby. Is that not a big enough consequence for you?

I don't get it. i genuinely do not get it. so to me, i see all this complaints of "choices don't matter" as "i didn't liked the fact that the ending made me sad".

And to clarify something, the 6 months to live issue, that consequence is tied to a decision that admittedly we didn't get to make, which is the job to steal the relic. But in any videogame story there will always be a choice that the player can't make, because at the end of the day, that choice is what gives us the rest of the story.
For example in ME2, Shepard doesn't get a choice on working with Cerberus. Or in ME1, Shepard doesn't get a choice of refusing his spectre job. There is always a choice that never existed to the player.

And in Cyberpunk, you don't get a choice of refusing the relic job. And the consequences for that job, is what get us the rest of the story.

Its like being mad about a movie where the bad guy having the oportunity to kill the good guy at the start of the movie chooses not to for some dumb reason. Well duh that dumb reason is what get us the rest of the movie.

[Wisp Cat]

Publicado originalmente por Delamain:

V being doomed anyway even after Alt removed Johnnys Engram and basically stopped the chip from doing its thing is the result of the Chip already having the Brain changed too much as that it could do its thing without issues.

Alt said V was going to die because V's *immune system* had changed too much.

But, also, V went from dead (end of act 1), to a few weeks to live (begining of act 2) to a few months to live (end of act 3). And, depending on your choices in the game may be taking actions which could increase that time further.

[Piderman]

Publicado originalmente por ♠.brT:

And in Cyberpunk, you don't get a choice of refusing the relic job. And the consequences for that job, is what get us the rest of the story.

Plus it gets us to -depending on our "oh so limitied" choices- such beautiful prologues like where Johnny took over Vs Body and actually changed somewhat as a person. I absolutely adored it where you buy this young boy an expensive guitar and admire his talent. I would consider even this as a good ending.

[♠.brT]

Publicado originalmente por Delamain:

Publicado originalmente por ♠.brT:

And in Cyberpunk, you don't get a choice of refusing the relic job. And the consequences for that job, is what get us the rest of the story.

Plus it gets us to -depending on our "oh so limitied" choices- such beautiful prologues like where Johnny took over Vs Body and actually changed somewhat as a person. I absolutely adored it where you buy this young boy an expensive guitar and admire his talent. I would consider even this as a good ending.

Yeah, every single ending (with the exception of the Arasaka ending) can be seen as "good" in their own way. Even the one where V chooses to end it i think can be seen as good, to me that was the way V finally accepted the inevitability of V's own actions, and instead of causing more pain and destruction in a city already full of it in order to avoid escaping that consequence , V's chooses not to be part of the problem of night city.

[fauxpas]

Love how I give three distinctive endings that I believe would make the majority of people satisfied who are dissatisfied with the endings and I get asked if anything would make me happy. 🙄


Since you brought up ME Saga let's talk about thier endings where they failed in making ones choices matter as well and the backlash the devs faced; and I'd argue that there were actually larger differences between the red/green/blue endings than thier is in cp77.

I suppose we could also talk about how ME(3) failed in handling the Rachni choice from ME(1) where the only difference is whether you fight the Queen you saved, or a retextured Queen cloned from Reaper samples.


Now, since you claim that you honestly don't understand what people mean by 'choices matter' I'll give you an example where cp77 got it right; the mission where you collect the flathead has branching options and conqueinces that are shaped by your actions; which is why that mission is the one the devs highlighted when talking about choice.

[♠.brT]

I wasn't criticising you or anybody for not liking the endings. that's just your opinion, that's fine.
If you don't like the endings, and you wish that they were different, that's okay.

But to claim that the endings do not provide choices with consequence? that is flat out false, and that is what i was asking about it. How much is enough, how many consequences do you need for an ending to be "okay my choices did matter in the end"

I pointed out how the choices you make have an impact of certain characters, you can choose to just say to hell with everything, end everything with a pistol, you get to see what the choice meant to the characters around V.

You can use your friends to help you, you get to see some of them die, and what that means for some of the characters around V.

You can choose to go on a suicide mission on your own, where the odds of survival are next to zero, but at least you don't risk the life of your friends for your own personal benefit.

Even when it comes to V, you have a choice, you can choose let Jhonny take over, or you can choose to keep fighting.

The only choice you don't get to have, is "save V permanently" and so far all i see is that this is the sticking point for you, you don't like the fact that you don't have the choice to save V permanently"

You can dislike that, that's fine. But to say that the game didn't give you a choice that matter in the end is basically saying that you didn't care about any other character but V . And I think that's pretty selfish.

As for ME3 and the fact that they didn't use the rachini queen properly, I'd argue that this is an example of what happens when a developer wants to give the player too many choices, eventually when you make a sequel, one of those choices will prevent you from making the story you want, and what do you do when that happens? Well Bioware decided to just say "screw it, the repears cloned her".

As for the color endings in ME3, you are right, they do provide a vastly more significant consequence than the endings in cyberpunk, but you kinda missing the point, the problem with the ME3 ending is that they didn't developed it, so they left too many unanswered questions about those endings and the players just had to speculate on what all of it meant. They eventually improved that a bit with the extended cut, and i'd argue that if the extended cut was part of the launch game, the endings would not have been slammed as hard as they were.

I still wouldn't have liked it, but my reasons had nothing to do with the ending and just the fact that Bioware missed the point of Mass Effect completely by spending way too much time explaining the reapers, and too little time saying goodbye to the characters we all cared about it, but they eventually fixed that with the citadel DLC.

Yes that mission with the flatbot is a good example of choices that matter in the game, but i'd argue that, its the same with the endings. Again, you have several choices on how you want to end the game, and they provide different gameplay, dialogue and outcomes. The only thing that is the same is the very end, when you get the final choice, and in that case you only got two choices, both of which are quite different.

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

We don't know with certainty that V dies in all endings. Only some of them explicitly make it clear. It's implied to be very likely, but it isn't explicitly or categorically stated that there isn't a cure somewhere - somehow - out there. In fact, it's suggested in at least one ending that there may be hope of one.

That said, while it's perfectly valid to not like the endings, personally I interpret them as being very much consistent with the broader themes of the game's narrative elements. This isn't a traditional hero's journey where success is implied. It's an exploration (in my eyes at least) of the struggle to find hope and meaning in the face of what may be ultimate futility.

It delves into identity, personhood, where one consciousness begins and another ends, existential nihilism, and how the idealistic struggle against power can still lead to cyclical iterations of futile outcomes despite best intentions. (Or less than pure intentions masquerading as heroism, as well.)

But it also does so in an (imo) clever meta sense by making use of the video games medium in a way you couldn't really have in other media. The game really has two protagonists, V and Johnny (and yes, contrary to popular belief, stories can have multiple protagonists.) But the (again, imo) clever meta bit, is that both protagonists are quite literally embodied by the player and within the player's agency.

Hence the biochip: two characters in one person, both affected directly by player actions. Our choices not only affect what happens to V, but how V relates to Johnny, which in turn affects where Johnny ends up both in terms of his characterization, and narratively.

Johnny is someone who suffered in his previous life (and still does now as an engram) from a great deal of cognitive dissonance. His ego drives him to believe he's the central figure in an idealistic struggle, but his actions betray other motives, as well as the simple desire for survival.

As in real life, people lie to themselves to justify actions. Sometimes this all boils down simply to the only resistance offerable being sheer defiance of the reality he finds himself in. And this is too thematically consistent with V's own situation to not be an intentional authorial device imo.

V, like Johnny, starts out with big dreams of "becoming a legend," but is given seeming opportunities to strike a blow against a powerful entity depicted as a dominant and ethically egregious force in Cyberpunk's world. But those motives, much like Johnny's, are blurred with self-interest - chiefly, mere survival, and existential fear.

We are given choices that let us struggle to undo Arasaka's machinations, struggle to forge relationships and a meaningful life for ourselves, and struggle to cure ourselves and avoid death... but those outcomes are never guaranteed, and seemingly thwarted at nearly every turn.

So the meaning derives not from victory, or at least not victory in any obvious or lasting sense, but from defiance and refusal to acquiesce: from hope for possible futures, rather than tangible gains in the here and now.

But it goes further than that in the opposite direction too. It gives us options where V doesn't aspire for any (even desperate or improbable) hope, but instead simply surrenders. Their only remaining sense of hope being for some semblance of peace in the finality of their own demise.

It's very dark, and while I agree it can be unsatisfying emotionally, I find that lack of resolution and the story's willingness to let us make those choices impressive and moving. It's true to the themes of the world, the story, and the characterizations on offer. It's even darker and more compelling (imo) if you view it through the lens of a metaphor for terminal illness, or even simply the terminal outcome of life in general.

So the TL;DR answer to "Why does V always" (seem to - we don't know for certain in some endings) "die?" is... because of authorial and thematic intent. Whether one likes it or not, and while it's certainly open to interpretation, there's enough thematic cohesion here to tell me this was very intentional. Because as you (and others) point out, they could have easily given us a "happy" ending if they wanted to. Clearly they did not, and had reasons for that.

[eurician]

Publicado originalmente por Delamain:

Publicado originalmente por fauxpas:

Dead now or dead in six-ish months is still dead. 🤦‍♀️

According to that logic, you hate any game that has a mortal main protagonist, i guess.

tsss is it so wrong that we don´t want another Mass Effect 3 ending-Desaster?

[Vivio]

the ending was just mass effect 3 levels of trash choices don't even matter it's just the same ending with a slightly different flavour

i miss the days when the hero overcame every odds and got the girl and lived happily ever to much bad endings that makes the games not even worth playing this days