Yea sadly i think your right about this. Jackie wasent really a huge loss for me, felt much worse with Evelyn and started considering what too do next playtrough too save her (i was pretty slow in getting too her). I thought i would save Jackie too btw, was sure i must have missed something and rerolled too stealth trough the heist perfectly.
I just felt weird at his funeral too! like wtf i barely know this character im supposed too hold a eulogy? Perhaps this is what they were going for? making you feel uncomfortable? Its also a bit weird that as a corpo you know him from before but its never really used exept for why V contacts him... Theres alot of these small things that i guess is worldbuilding but you know nothing about.
Someone brought up Jackie's death vs. Vesemir in The Witcher 3.
When Jackie died I honestly didn't really care at all. You meet him briefly in the hour long prologue, you drive through the city with him, see him in the cutscene thing and he seems like a dope that gets you into a bad spot with Dex. Then he dies super early on in the story - like before the actual game really gets underway since 'Act 1' is almost like an extended tutorial.
Vesemir starts the game with you in The Witcher 3 and they quickly establish him as a legitimate mentor - not a total dope. You see his relationship with Ciri, you see him caring for people and interact with him from White Orchard all of the way to the eventual showdown with the Wild Hunt. You see him bond not only with Geralt, but with Ciri and the other Witchers... not through quick hitting cut scenes, but through legit dialogue and interaction. So when he died it was a big deal to me.
As an example... when Jackie passes you end up going to meet his Mom. Why do I care about her? I've never really met her before - I guess I saw her in a cutscene maybe (don't even remember at this point, tbh). Misty is upset, but you have barely established any kind of real relationship with her... you basically just met her - she ends up being a character you get more attached to after his death.
If they wanted you to care about his death they should have involved his Mother and played up their relationship more early on. They should have given you a bigger dose of how in love he was with Misty. They should have showed you how he helped people in Night City and was one of the few 'good guys' around that actually wanted to help people - including you. They should have had him sacrifice for you and you sacrifice for him... this would have been
ANOTHER benefit of having the heist happen later in the game and/or being able to play out the cutscene to get to actually know all of these characters rather than them just briefly flashing in front of your face.