A question about The Heist, Johnny and You. (SPOILERS)

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Anyone who has finished The Heist knows what happens next and where Johnny appears in the open world.

My question is how did you play? Did you go straight to The Heist, just doing the main missions and avoiding extra stuff like the side jobs, crimes in progress and so forth?
Or did you start them after The Heist, just for his extra input and commentary, or did you skip around? What did you find more enjoyable? Does it change the outcome of anything?
 
I did some NCPD stuff to get familiar with the game, how improving skills translated to gameplay and that. In the end I think that contributed quite a bit towards how it felt like V was this mercenary who he is supposed to be when I did the Heist mission.

In terms of story, I don't think there are major variables at play before Heist.
 
I did a kind of mix and match with my 1st playthrough. Went with Jackie to Vicks. Drove with Dex, then kind of just walked around exploring until I got bored. Then went back to the main quest.

It does not change the Outcome. All you miss is Johnny saying a line or two for some side quests. But nothing realiting to the story. Just him making dumb comments about the quest giver or the enviroment.
 
I did some stuff to grind my level before the heist in my first playthrough, also tried to clear out all the side quests in watson before I even started the heist in my second playthrough.

However, all the gigs with Regina including the cyberpysco missions really bugged out on my second playthrough doing them before the heist. So for the sake of avoiding the really annoying issue of the stack flow of gigs bugging on you, i'd probably advise getting the heist done first.
 
I normally get between lvl 10 - 15 depending on what build im doing an gather some recipes like armadillo mod an some cash for a car because i cant be arsed with Del's mission most times or just send Jackie to Vic for his bike fast :p
 
Before doing The Heist, I did every NCPD mission, cyberpsycho, side job, and gig available in Watson.

That pushed me to level 18 and 43 Street Cred, and outfitted me with legendary quickhacks and a legendary weapon, as well as the double-jump legs I can’t live without.
 
well, for me it's simple. I am passionate about chess, wargames {I know, about wargames; amazing for the woman I am}. I play Go, my bedside book is Sun Tzu "the art of war" . all this to say; Open the game.
I always open the game to the maximum, like a book that you explore. arrived at the PNR, I can start.
by opening the game, you have knowledge, the opportunities, logistics, perspective depending on where you are with the logic of the game. always open the game before launching, like a blind and deaf person, against a wall.
 
On my first playthrough I didn't do much side content before The Heist because I accidentally ran into the first cyberpsycho mission (Lt. Mower) way too early and that made me really afraid of the difficulty of assaults, gigs and everything else. Which was of course stupid, but I didn't know any better. And as a netrunner my character was also physically super weak in the beginning... not fun to get one-shot killed by everyone. :D

Now on my second playthrough as a stealth sniper character I do all of the assaults and NCPD-stuff before the heist - leaving most of the gigs and side mission for later, because I love Johnny's snarky comments.
 
on my second "play through" (see note below) I completed all missions available, prior to the heist (including paying back Vik).

allowed me to upgrade my character, to make the heist more enjoyable .

(as second play through i mean i abandoned the current progress of my character (15 hours in) as i didn't like the spec and restarted) - game made far more sense and not as daunting
 
Anyone who has finished The Heist knows what happens next and where Johnny appears in the open world.

My question is how did you play? Did you go straight to The Heist, just doing the main missions and avoiding extra stuff like the side jobs, crimes in progress and so forth?
Or did you start them after The Heist, just for his extra input and commentary, or did you skip around? What did you find more enjoyable? Does it change the outcome of anything?

For the first play-throughs I went pretty much with the main story and started doing the side missions after the Heist. In my recent play-through I went to Vik's, slipped out through the side door, and did every single mission and NCPD hustle available in Watson, and took my time really crawling into every corner, climb onto every roof (found some interesting things and spots I had never noticed on my way) and just enjoyed the game without any Relic malfunctions, while my choomba Jackie is sitting safe and sound with his girlfriend Misty, waiting for me to show up.
Then I went back to Vik's, paid off my debt, got the reinforced tendons, went to the Animal-looking ripper and got the Raven Microcyber MK.4, and snug out of Watson. After strolling through City Center I cruised through the badlands, and since there's nothing more left to do I'll continue the main story. (Or I'll make a new V and repeat that, because it was fun.)
 
I knew the map was locked off in the early parts of the story. But I didn't really know how it would get lifted. So I didn't even attempt any of the side missions. I also was doing more missions. Because I was expecting the start to go on longer. I had no idea that the Heist was where Jackie T-Bug and V got killed. I was thinking the story was going to play out in this on the run chase. Which ever side you picked (Dex/Eve) Than that's when you would be hunted down by Takemura. Which than that's where Jackie got killed. And for some reason load Johnny up in your head. I didn't know V was gonna get killed too. So I expected it just be a way to protect the chip. Which ended up making V learn Johnny's abilities. So V didn't want to remove it by choice and the loss of the engram.

Be a fight between respecting Jackie's dying wish. But also wanting to gain the benefits of Johnny's mind. Good VS Evil internal fight. I didn't want to play side missions to grind out levels. I usually did that in Pokemon. Just to be OP before I got to the first Gym. Just so I could experience where the game got harder etc. see its difficulty curve.
 
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Wait... before The Heist? How does that work?
When you're fast enough the "Here's nothing for you to see yet" invisible wall doesn't throw you back into Watson. ;) You can either steal a very fast car and drive out of Watson (the road high up in the North isn't blocked by police) or (what I do) you just take the monorail. (There are tutorials on YouTube.)
Once you're out of Watson just find a FastTravel point and you can go back and forth.
But: There are no mission or NCPD hustles available. And don't visit El Cojote Cojo before the Heist is over, unless you want your heart to be broken even more than the game breaks it anyway.

Have fun exploring. <3
 
There are no mission or NCPD hustles available.

Oh but there *are*. I just completed The Heist on my current run, but up to then I had been looking at the map and noted that there were a few question marks in the areas I couldn’t reach. When I selected them, the pathing sent me along the winding road up north to head toward Japantown, but of course I’d hit the “Turn Back”. (This happened mostly because my street cred was very high and that was the only lock on those missions.)

Are there the normal random gang encounters and such over there before you technically unlock it? Or is it empty?

Thanks for the tip!
 
For the first play-throughs I went pretty much with the main story and started doing the side missions after the Heist. In my recent play-through I went to Vik's, slipped out through the side door, and did every single mission and NCPD hustle available in Watson, and took my time really crawling into every corner, climb onto every roof (found some interesting things and spots I had never noticed on my way) and just enjoyed the game without any Relic malfunctions, while my choomba Jackie is sitting safe and sound with his girlfriend Misty, waiting for me to show up.
Then I went back to Vik's, paid off my debt, got the reinforced tendons, went to the Animal-looking ripper and got the Raven Microcyber MK.4, and snug out of Watson. After strolling through City Center I cruised through the badlands, and since there's nothing more left to do I'll continue the main story. (Or I'll make a new V and repeat that, because it was fun.)
My playthrough as well...I really dig the main story, but all the gigs and side quests kind of break the narrative.
 
My playthrough as well...I really dig the main story, but all the gigs and side quests kind of break the narrative.

Agreed. It was very strange that they put in hundreds of side quests, but didn't create any natural pauses in the timeline of the main narrative where you could sensibly go do that stuff.

Before the heist you have some opportunity to go do side missions in Watson, but even then you almost constantly have someone standing around waiting for you RIGHT NOW. The game won't penalize you for leaving Jackie sitting in Misty's, or waiting by All Foods, or leaning against the Delamain cab for WEEKS of game time (as I did) but it really breaks the narrative immersion.

And of course after the heist you have access to enormous amounts of side content, but the main story is constantly reminding you that you better hurry up and do the main story because you are literally dying and don't have much time! So sure, if you don't care that your brain is disintegrating, go have fun doing extra jobs for some spare cash you won't live to spend.

It basically made me put the main story out of my mind most of the time, because it didn't make any sense in the context of what V was doing, and that's a shame because ideally you'd care the most about the main story.
 
Yes, the way the main quest is handled is the worst thing about the game. Imo ofcourse.
...I wonder what will happen if I take Jackie from the stand, but don't drive to Vik, but go do other quests. The voodoo boys have an extra dialogue if you accept their quest, but do other missions. It will be nice if this does too.

But to answer the OP - my first time, I followed the main quest. The second time I did a few side missions - you have the time for one or two if you are meeting Evelyn first. And several before the maelstrom, as (imo) it is easy to pretend that you will need a few(2 max 3) days to ready yourself before you go 'talk' with the psychos:)
...now I want to go to Vik with 20k eddies and see what happens:)
 
I finished the Heist with Level 20something and 50 Street Credit because I wanted to install the Second Heart in order to kill Dex and his bodyguard.
Which doesn't work, unfortunately.
Now the only benefit I seem to have from this grind is probably the dialogue option for body 16. We will see...
Story wise, not sure who I can trust at this point, so far I just did some Delemain side quests. If I understand correctly I need to be friends with Johnny because otherwise he would see me as some sort of tumor and try to kill me?
 
I usually take a very slow in-depth approach to open-world RPG's like CP2077, but once I realized the rest of the game map was closed to you, I treated the opening of the game more like a tutorial level you need to get through before the real game started. So I went straight to The Heist.
 
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