How to save Bill Jablonsky?

[Maxmilian]

Title.
Is it even possible? Saw some posts on net that it is, but the pig always kills him even when I start slashing him to pieces, he ignores me and pops Bill.
Really bad scripting here.

[Graf Erik]

Ok, you can totaly save him by killing Vasquez before he has a chance to kill Jablonsky. I did this once with a sniper rifle.
It pretty much fails the entire questline though.

[Maxmilian]

Can you give some pointers? Vasquez seems to be immortal till he gets into position, and the moment I engage him he focuses on Bill. I tried using sniper on him but couldn't manage it, though I'm gonna try again if you say you did it.

[MrFizzlepop]

If you don't go after the transport at all, the gig fails, but Bill is alive.

I personally do not like that gig, too little world backstory lore, too much Christian religion messaging.

The game is a bit weak on options, but that's the easy brush off for that gig.


On another gig...

Say you don't like Iris Tanner's attitude, what with her saying it took you long enough to come rescue her and that you need to grab her van, which wasn't in the spec. Just stop and get out of the van on the way to delivering her. Iris will get out and you can get back in and drive away. Soon you get a call from Dakota ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you can't just leave Iris Tanner in the desert. She doesn't mention that you stole Iris's van, but I guess when you are dropped in the middle of nowhere after ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about Fixers and Mercs, your van isn't as big of an issue as you first made it out to be.

Maybe Dakota shouldn't have said "Fetch V." as the end of her request for that gig.

[Maxmilian]

Originally posted by MrFizzlepop:

If you don't go after the transport at all, the gig fails, but Bill is alive.

Not an option, that will fail the job. All I want is give Bill justice and for him to survive.

[Death Approaches]

have you never heard the phrase "because the director said so"?

why did <event> happen?

Bill in his civilian work clothes and with no cover, straight-line charges an armed, armoured NCPD officer with a weapon drawn. Bill was dead before he got out of the truck.

Bill could have easily contracted the fixer to send him a demolitions specialist 'runner to mine the road in front of the parked truck, and detonate the whole lot of them into a beautiful fireball of justice.

but that didn't happen, because the director said so. it's not "bad scripting" it's doing exactly what it was written to do.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Graf Erik:

Ok, you can totaly save him by killing Vasquez before he has a chance to kill Jablonsky. I did this once with a sniper rifle.
It pretty much fails the entire questline though.

This is impossible in the current game, even on normal. It used to be possible before but he is far too tanky now to 1-shot and you MUST 1-shot him for it to work (even a fast 2-shot will not work... more on that below). In theory, maybe if your difficulty is low enough and you are using a Legendary++ weapon with an extreme dmg build... "maybe" but I'm highly doubtful even then in the current game.

Other things that do not work. You cannot weapon glitch him even with legendary as he can still shoot regardless of it, nor can you stop it via ragdolling him by hitting him with something that causes his body to fly, nor any action that makes him double over or turn away like contagion. Even if he isn't facing the guy (totally opposite direction or thrown through the air) his bullet will travel through time and space to 1-shot bill no matter where he aims it is 100% scripted death.

They also removed the ability to kill the escapee who is sitting in the car having made him immortal (used to be possible, is not now). They've done a lot of nerfing to this mission's options. You either do the mission with Bill's death leading to the escapee offering you a new mission or you do what much of the community recommends which is never following the escapee and letting them escape so Bill survives and you avoid what is widely regarded as one of the crappiest missions to ever exist in literally all of video game history.

[yahboi1988]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

have you never heard the phrase "because the director said so"?

why did <event> happen?

Bill in his civilian work clothes and with no cover, straight-line charges an armed, armoured NCPD officer with a weapon drawn. Bill was dead before he got out of the truck.

Bill could have easily contracted the fixer to send him a demolitions specialist 'runner to mine the road in front of the parked truck, and detonate the whole lot of them into a beautiful fireball of justice.

but that didn't happen, because the director said so. it's not "bad scripting" it's doing exactly what it was written to do.

Exactly, dude hired an assassin and then last second decides he wants to be the one to kill Josh last second.

[Graf Erik]

Originally posted by Xengre:

This is impossible in the current game...

Honesty: Thats certainly a possibility.
Its been a while that I did this, at least a year. In my first post 2.00 playthrough I played along, and on the second I havent been there yet.
And you are definetly not supposed to do this, so yes, it might very well be that they patched that out to stop you from accidently failing the the whole quest line.

[Maxmilian]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by Graf Erik:

Ok, you can totaly save him by killing Vasquez before he has a chance to kill Jablonsky. I did this once with a sniper rifle.
It pretty much fails the entire questline though.

This is impossible in the current game, even on normal. It used to be possible before but he is far too tanky now to 1-shot and you MUST 1-shot him for it to work (even a fast 2-shot will not work... more on that below). In theory, maybe if your difficulty is low enough and you are using a Legendary++ weapon with an extreme dmg build... "maybe" but I'm highly doubtful even then in the current game.

Other things that do not work. You cannot weapon glitch him even with legendary as he can still shoot regardless of it, nor can you stop it via ragdolling him by hitting him with something that causes his body to fly, nor any action that makes him double over or turn away like contagion. Even if he isn't facing the guy (totally opposite direction or thrown through the air) his bullet will travel through time and space to 1-shot bill no matter where he aims it is 100% scripted death.

They also removed the ability to kill the escapee who is sitting in the car having made him immortal (used to be possible, is not now). They've done a lot of nerfing to this mission's options. You either do the mission with Bill's death leading to the escapee offering you a new mission or you do what much of the community recommends which is never following the escapee and letting them escape so Bill survives and you avoid what is widely regarded as one of the crappiest missions to ever exist in literally all of video game history.

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. Though you can kill Joshua after unloading on the pig as he's sitting in the car. You get the objective to call Wakako afterwards.

[Tokenn]

Isn't the point of it all is that Jablonski isn't supposed to be saved? Seems like one of the many tricks in the game to make us fail a quest...and figure it out on replay. I ended the Sinnerman job once when Rachel bribed V to take a hike...it wasn't until I replayed it that I made it through to the end and had my mind blown with a major WTF moment.

[Lorem Ipsum]

he's annoying. The mission makes me wish I could kill him myself.

[Root]

Yeah, but seeing Keanu Reeves in the 21st century version of DaVinci's "The Last Dinner" is really nice.

[FD_Stalker]

I found a weird outcome in my current 2.12 run, which is that I can't kill the cop in time but after getting 2 stars I did my best to unload 2 mag of smg bullets into target's head, even his is probably not dead, after I escaped from cops I contacted fixer, the conversation between wakako and I showing mission success...
9300 eddies into my bank
I went back to check the scene, cop was knocked out but still alive(how did he survive from my katana, I don't know), same as the target. Bill is dead. I couldn't loot target & he stuck in the car seat. Girl is in shock.

[Cyber Barbarian]

Vasquez could easily solo Adam Smasher and Morgan Blackhand at the same time, but only if they were trying to protect a neurotic guy with a death wish. True Night City legend. Whoever wrote this quest should switch to decaf or something ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[vvulf001]

I do this quest on every replay, but not the whole thing.
I can tell you exactly how to save Jablonsky, as long as you're not trying to do the full quest with Joshua Stephenson ("The Sinnerman") staying alive. It's worth doing the quest the proper way at least once, but it's quite long and I find it tedious on replays.
Now, I do the quest just for the quick XP.
Here's how:
1. After the chase part when Jablonsky tells you to get out of the truck...RUN. You're in a race to kill Stephenson before Jablonsky gets close enough to the NCPD (Vasquez) that he shoots.
2. You don't need any special movement abilities, just sprint right past the cop to the side of the vehicle where Stephenson is sitting.
3. Shoot Stephenson.
4. Run away. You'll need to find somewhere to hide for a bit as you'll be wanted by the cops (it doesn't last that long). I always have double jump by this quest, so I just run up the hill and jump up on top of some buildings.
5. Call Wakako, tell her "Job's done. Stephenson's in a better place."
6. Collect XP and Eddies.