Johnny + V relationship is poorly written [Spoilers]

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Cause it doesn't make sense. Why do we need for Johnny to give V this option of storming Arasaka tower by him/herself? This is absolutely artificial choice with no logic behind it, which just shows that it was written with the requirement of good relationship with Johnny, when it shouldn't and doesn't matter in this scenario, cause in the end it's V who does all the work regardless of how much we like or dislike Johnny. If anything it's "The Sun" ending that should be gatekept behind good disposition with Johnny, cause this would actually make more sense, with Secret Ending being just sort of hardcore mode ending, but it should be available as V's decision even if he/she doesn't get along with Johnny.
Secret is not the only one that you don't take any pills and have both V and Johnny together-not counting suicide-?even if you end in "sun",the meaning of how you arrive there is different.
 
Secret is not the only one that you don't take any pills and have both V and Johnny together-not counting suicide-?even if you end in "sun",the meaning of how you arrive there is different.
It still doesn't make sense. When I was faced with a choice of an ending the suicide came up and I was like "Wait, if I can end it all just like that, why not at least try getting to the Mikoshi by myself. Worst case scenario - V will die (which the suicide ending already covers), best case scenario - V will make it and no one will suffer in the process. It's a win-win and the most logical way to do this, so why can't I take this route?". As it turned out, I could, but devs put a condition that I need to have a good relationship with a ducking terrorist responsible for the deaths of nearly 750 000 people, which is just stupid.
 
It still doesn't make sense. When I was faced with a choice of an ending the suicide came up and I was like "Wait, if I can end it all just like that, why not at least try getting to the Mikoshi by myself. Worst case scenario - V will die (which the suicide ending already covers), best case scenario - V will make it and no one will suffer in the process. It's a win-win and the most logical way to do this, so why can't I take this route?". As it turned out, I could, but devs put a condition that I need to have a good relationship with a ducking terrorist responsible for the deaths of nearly 750 000 people, which is just stupid.
I think that you have a slightly biased perception of Johnny(and the story is not as simple as Silverhand woke up with a Nuke and a Tequila onr morning,but its fine). You might want to think from another point of view: V is a "terrorist" also in all other endings except devil and suicide... he/she assaults a legitimate private business(with aldecaldo actually you piss off 3 corpos),you confront security forces(poor guys with family that need to work),possibly kill some non-combatant(collateral damage),you create massive economic damage and panic in the stock market... with that logic,no matter if you killed 10 or a million both V and Johnny are terrorists.
 
Oil Fields dialogue and dialogues options in hotel in Pacifica where Johnny takes V after collapse are imo the weakest parts in imo quite well written story between Johnny and V.

Choices like 'a guy who saved my life' and that one saying that V would take bullet instead Johnny are not something what I would choose (played so far 3x), because they make sense only in very limited 'more as very friendly' relation between Johnny and V. There is no place for most common case when they 'agree to work together because it's the best way for survival'. V and Johnny then both have more occasions to make favour to each other (and become friends) which imo are good written and personally I like it.

These two (one) poor dialogues would be imo no issue at all, if they were not so tied to secret ending. This is, how I see it, the biggest fail in otherwise well prepared main/side story plot.

This is completely inaccurate, there is literally options not to not say those lines. Just because dialogue shows up, doesn't mean V is thinking it, its just an option for some players.

you also don't need to agree to take a bullet for Johnny to get the secret ending. And being overly nice with Johnny at the gravesite is actually not going to get you the secret ending. You basically say/do two things that are like basic human decency level. And the rest is basically calling Johnny an ahole and a fuckup.

If every time you play the game you treat johnny the same way, you'll get similar dialog trees. Johnny isn't going out of his way to be an ahole to the player, in fact, after that first meeting where he realizes whats going on, he goes out of his way not to take control, and let's V do whatever V wants, even if its completely against Johnny's values. Most other people in NC would have made it survival of the fittest, not instantly agreeing to give up their second life on principle.

Also, every ending option, other than Hellman devil ending requires you to make specific choices at specific times, why would the secret ending be any different?
 
I've been hard on this game, very hard, but I have to disagree with the OP. Then I realized his/her mistake. It's not that their relationship is poorly written, it's not. But kind of like V and Jackie's relationship, it was poorly directed and a lot was cut and shortened that would have made the relationship work a lot better.

As I see it, when Keanu wanted more lines, instead of trying to figure out how to do it, and compromising with him, they bowed to his wishes and crammed his extra lines in without much thought to the story. This created the issues with Johnny's story seeming at time, not to make much sense. One minutes he's a complete asshole, the next he's your buddy, and the next he's an asshole again, without any real reason.

It's not that he's poorly written, he's not. You can see true brilliance behind his lines and his story. But they just gave Keanu extra lines, he read them as they directed him too, and they just shoved them into the story... somewhere.

The ending is again a product of the bad direction and lack of time. It's why certain endings are way more fleshed out then other endings. They just realized they wanted to get the game out the door by the end of the year, and decided to just finish where the game was, regardless of completeness.

It makes it seem poorly written, but really its just the managers and directors worried more about money then about the game and the players and their employees and screwing it up. Every problem in the game can be led back to this. Great developers, great voice actors, great story... poor execution by the directors and managers.
 
Cause it doesn't make sense. Why do we need for Johnny to give V this option of storming Arasaka tower by him/herself? This is absolutely artificial choice with no logic behind it, which just shows that it was written with the requirement of good relationship with Johnny, when it shouldn't and doesn't matter in this scenario, cause in the end it's V who does all the work regardless of how much we like or dislike Johnny. If anything it's "The Sun" ending that should be gatekept behind good disposition with Johnny, cause this would actually make more sense, with Secret Ending being just sort of hardcore mode ending, but it should be available as V's decision even if he/she doesn't get along with Johnny.

because that's crazy option V hadn't even considered. Also Johnny only shares that because he is close enough to V that he's down to die with him just to spare V's friends. And, he is close enough to V to notice why he has no answers on the roof. Going out Guns blazing together is something only some one close with you is down for generally.

Keep in mind as well, V and Johnny are doing this with no pills, this means this is the purest form of teamwork. V isn't suppressing Johnny, and Johnny isn't suppressing V. This allows V to get to sun on his own merits, without either ego being dominated.

This isn't a hardcore ending, this is the ending of a bro action movie where two people are willing to die for each other. Its also different in the mikoshi part.
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It still doesn't make sense. When I was faced with a choice of an ending the suicide came up and I was like "Wait, if I can end it all just like that, why not at least try getting to the Mikoshi by myself. Worst case scenario - V will die (which the suicide ending already covers), best case scenario - V will make it and no one will suffer in the process. It's a win-win and the most logical way to do this, so why can't I take this route?". As it turned out, I could, but devs put a condition that I need to have a good relationship with a ducking terrorist responsible for the deaths of nearly 750 000 people, which is just stupid.

Actual facts, militech was going to blow up Arasaka regardless of Johnny, Also, arasaka actually had an area denial nuke that was much larger in the building in case they lost NC to militech.

Johnny inserted himself into a militech mission so he could save alt before militech blew up the building her consciousness was trapped in.

even militech never intended for the bomb to blow up how it did.


And @Didacgomez is correct, V did the same thing Johnny did in every ending. The main difference is it seems like the attack didnt kill as many people, but that remains to be seen. Two endings suggest possible open war between militech and arasaka due to V's actions, and the other places Immortality tech in the hands of a megolomaniacal warmonger, who contemplated blowing up the whole of NC on the plane ride over to meet yorinobu.
 
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I'm done with my 100% walkthrough now, and there are a lot of things to discuss -- but the main one is the Johnny and V relationship line. While I liked the overall impression, there is a list of inconsistencies I cannot solve for myself:
- Johnny and V become friends quickly and suddenly. Johnny poses a threat to V at the beginning, and continues to be a dickhead further in the storyline, but at the one moment you get a bunch of friendly dialogue options. Furthermore, some of them are mandatory for the secret ending, while there was no space to actually change your mind.
- Oil Fields dialogue is a pure design failure. The only right dialogue to get to the secret ending is very unobvious, leaves no space to get to it on your own and is not supported by the story. There were no events which could change your mind towards becoming friendly to him, and "The guy who saved my life" option has absolutely no background, since Johnny didn't save your life before.

While being touching and well-written itself, this dialogue doesn't fit into the story.

- After choosing to return to their body, V says that they had a different deal with Johnny and V is sorry. It definitely wasn't mentioned before, since the actual deal was to separate V from Johnny and reimplant V back.
- You cannot be mean towards Johnny from the very beginning, while having reasons for -- or you'll loose your chances for the secret ending. This issue is tied with the one mentioned before ("friends because of nothing").

IMO it would be infinitely better to give Johnny and V a chance to become friends, and add story events related to them getting into troubles and dealing with them -- together or on their own.

These are the major story issues I want to point to; I have no will to criticize the rest of the story, which has no such flaws and is very soulful.
He did save V's life when V gets shot in the head, he also crawls you to victors at least once

and then Johnny stands up and says "you dont know how bad i want that to be true"

so its fine in the order of things
 
you also don't need to agree to take a bullet for Johnny to get the secret ending. And being overly nice with Johnny at the gravesite is actually not going to get you the secret ending. You basically say/do two things that are like basic human decency level. And the rest is basically calling Johnny an ahole and a fuckup.

If every time you play the game you treat johnny the same way, you'll get similar dialog trees. Johnny isn't going out of his way to be an ahole to the player, in fact, after that first meeting where he realizes whats going on, he goes out of his way not to take control, and let's V do whatever V wants, even if its completely against Johnny's values. Most other people in NC would have made it survival of the fittest, not instantly agreeing to give up their second life on principle.

Also, every ending option, other than Hellman devil ending requires you to make specific choices at specific times, why would the secret ending be any different?
Secret ending based on few sentences, in just one gig, which may be differently understandable/acceptable by player (based on English knowledge and view on Johnny) is nonsense (imo). The biggest irony imo is, that in game is regularly measured the relationship of V. to Johnny. There is HUGE counter in inventory, which player see thousand times during play, and which is, because of mentioned above, practically useless. This is my biggest gripe with whole main story in regards to secret ending. Other ends needs completion of side stories, this is huge difference to conditions needed for opening secret ending.

Just to note: I really like how are created stories and clues which are implemented into Cyberpunk 2077. During all these hundreds of hours and different plays I found (except above) just one other bigger issue (story related), and this is "Woodman case" (I killed him twice). But this is offtopic here in this thread.
 
I think that you have a slightly biased perception of Johnny(and the story is not as simple as Silverhand woke up with a Nuke and a Tequila onr morning,but its fine). You might want to think from another point of view: V is a "terrorist" also in all other endings except devil and suicide... he/she assaults a legitimate private business(with aldecaldo actually you piss off 3 corpos),you confront security forces(poor guys with family that need to work),possibly kill some non-combatant(collateral damage),you create massive economic damage and panic in the stock market... with that logic,no matter if you killed 10 or a million both V and Johnny are terrorists.
Would you look at that - Ive managed to enter Mikoshi without killing a single person, but sure, I'm a terrorist just like Johnny who so happened to kill hundreds of thousands of cyvilians.
because that's crazy option V hadn't even considered.
So he/she considered suicide, but not actually trying to get there, even if the result could be the same as suicide, while still having a chance to actually succeed? Yeah, this pretty much sums up why this is a bad writing.
Keep in mind as well, V and Johnny are doing this with no pills, this means this is the purest form of teamwork. V isn't suppressing Johnny, and Johnny isn't suppressing V. This allows V to get to sun on his own merits, without either ego being dominated.

This isn't a hardcore ending, this is the ending of a bro action movie where two people are willing to die for each other. Its also different in the mikoshi part.
And this is a "teamwork" how exactly? Because it doesn't seem that Johnny is helping in any way during that ending.
 
Would you look at that - Ive managed to enter Mikoshi without killing a single person, but sure, I'm a terrorist just like Johnny who so happened to kill hundreds of thousands of cyvilians.
[...]

It is not a necessary condition to kill anybody to be considered a terrorist even today, so 0 or 1e6 civilians deaths is the same.
 
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Would you look at that - Ive managed to enter Mikoshi without killing a single person, but sure, I'm a terrorist just like Johnny who so happened to kill hundreds of thousands of cyvilians.

So he/she considered suicide, but not actually trying to get there, even if the result could be the same as suicide, while still having a chance to actually succeed? Yeah, this pretty much sums up why this is a bad writing.

And this is a "teamwork" how exactly? Because it doesn't seem that Johnny is helping in any way during that ending.

As I said, militech who was at war with arasaka are the people who created the mission, where do you think an impulsive rockerboy got a pocket nuke, helicopters, soldiers, and kept arasaka at bay long enough to do anything?

Your V may have considered suicide, mines did not. option dialogue doesn't represent V's inner debate, its options available to the player.


Also, you think Johnny had no effect? V literally could barely stand up, and needed to be escorted to the roof by a small lady. The pills are what allow V to act in every other ending, but in this ending. they can do it without pills? why? its because V and Johnny are in sync. V is driving, but Johnny and V are in alignment.

The narrative idea for that whole scene is that Johnny and V by mentally coming to peace with one another created a new opportunity to succeed.

Now this is a game, so really at the end of the day you could power level and need no help at all. From anyone, but narratively, Johnny and V in sync is comparable to nomads+V, Hanako faction+V, or rogue's mercs+V.
 
As I said, militech who was at war with arasaka are the people who created the mission, where do you think an impulsive rockerboy got a pocket nuke, helicopters, soldiers, and kept arasaka at bay long enough to do anything?
So what? Johnny is the one who want's to detonate that bomb and unless he's an idiot, he bloody well knows what will happen to people in the city when nuke is detonated in it's center. He literally want to see people, innocent people, dead or dying.
Your V may have considered suicide, mines did not. option dialogue doesn't represent V's inner debate, its options available to the player.
As we see it's not a players decision either, because one of the most logicall solution for this whole ordeal is hidden behind very ambiguous requirement of good Johnny's disposition, which doesn't make sense.
Also, you think Johnny had no effect? V literally could barely stand up, and needed to be escorted to the roof by a small lady. The pills are what allow V to act in every other ending, but in this ending. they can do it without pills? why? its because V and Johnny are in sync. V is driving, but Johnny and V are in alignment.
This is your interpretation. It's a nice one, but it's not really confirmed by the game in any unequivocal way. Similarly I could ask how on earth V could run, shoot, drive, etc. after the Relic attack when he/she is brought to Pacifica by Johnny? And the answer could be very simple - convienience. This attack is so massive that V loses conciousnes, but it's no big deal, hop on that motorcycle and do some more side missions. Another massive attack - oh no, V is now so fibble that we need 100% synchronization with Johnny or we'll be thrown away from Animus. This is bad writing - the narrative is based on convienience, not logic.
 
So what? Johnny is the one who want's to detonate that bomb and unless he's an idiot, he bloody well knows what will happen to people in the city when nuke is detonated in it's center. He literally want to see people, innocent people, dead or dying.

As we see it's not a players decision either, because one of the most logicall solution for this whole ordeal is hidden behind very ambiguous requirement of good Johnny's disposition, which doesn't make sense.

This is your interpretation. It's a nice one, but it's not really confirmed by the game in any unequivocal way. Similarly I could ask how on earth V could run, shoot, drive, etc. after the Relic attack when he/she is brought to Pacifica by Johnny? And the answer could be very simple - convienience. This attack is so massive that V loses conciousnes, but it's no big deal, hop on that motorcycle and do some more side missions. Another massive attack - oh no, V is now so fibble that we need 100% synchronization with Johnny or we'll be thrown away from Animus. This is bad writing - the narrative is based on convienience, not logic.

going solo(duo with the voice in your head ) into arasaka is not actually the logical solution to anything at all. Its a very illogical solution to any goal.

The nuke is very small nuke, it wasn't actually meant to explode in the air, it was supposed to go down the elevator deep into the proto mikoshi(place where they stored soulkilled people for intellegience)and be detonated deep underground with no innocent casualties. Johnny even added an unplanned evacuate message to the plan that spider Murphy remarks on.

Arasaka stops the bomb from reaching their hidden underground proto mikoshi, detonating it early. Being detonated in the middle floors of the building instead of underground is what leads to the massive damage.

also, this strike was the turning point in a two year war, with both corporations bombarding earth from space, destroying cities, mass poisionings etc. The terrorist angle is revised history. This was actually just another skirmish in a two year war, that was the last straw for most world governments.

Johnny feels responsibility and rewrites himself as the main villain, instead of just an opportunist who takes advantage of the situation to try to save his ex whom he failed. His biggest sin is probably aligning himself with one corporation in a corporate war, just to get what he needs, Knowing firsthand that the average guy ends up holding the bill.

but the reality is the tower was the final battle in the war between arasaka and militech that went wrong, not a terrorist attack by a crazy rockerboy
 
I remember first meeting Johnny, where he tries to kill V in the apartment, and then I go to the garage to get the car, Delamain attacks, and V is like, "hey Johnny, did you see that?"..... I was like, huh? You just saw the ghost of a dead man try to murder you in your fucking apartment, and now you're casually talking to him like he's your best imaginary friend? Made absolutely NO sense. I had to write a note to myself, "don't pick up car in garage until you have a rapport with Johnny." As a player I shouldn't have to do that. Shame, because the dialogue is actually great, they just needed to control the order of things a lot more.
 
So what? Johnny is the one who want's to detonate that bomb and unless he's an idiot, he bloody well knows what will happen to people in the city when nuke is detonated in it's center. He literally want to see people, innocent people, dead or dying.
going solo(duo with the voice in your head ) into arasaka is not actually the logical solution to anything at all. Its a very illogical solution to any goal.

The nuke is very small nuke, it wasn't actually meant to explode in the air, it was supposed to go down the elevator deep into the proto mikoshi(place where they stored soulkilled people for intellegience)and be detonated deep underground with no innocent casualties. Johnny even added an unplanned evacuate message to the plan that spider Murphy remarks on.

Arasaka stops the bomb from reaching their hidden underground proto mikoshi, detonating it early. Being detonated in the middle floors of the building instead of underground is what leads to the massive damage.

also, this strike was the turning point in a two year war, with both corporations bombarding earth from space, destroying cities, mass poisionings etc. The terrorist angle is revised history. This was actually just another skirmish in a two year war, that was the last straw for most world governments.

Johnny feels responsibility and rewrites himself as the main villain, instead of just an opportunist who takes advantage of the situation to try to save his ex whom he failed. His biggest sin is probably aligning himself with one corporation in a corporate war, just to get what he needs, Knowing firsthand that the average guy ends up holding the bill.

but the reality is the tower was the final battle in the war between arasaka and militech that went wrong, not a terrorist attack by a crazy rockerboy

I would not even blame Arasaka,I would blame that they didn´t hire an engineer/good technician at all:
1617995245738.png

1617995219965.png

Note "foundation" not "middle of towers".
1617995331947.png

So main criticism (for me) is that Rogue,Johnny,Shaitan,Thompson,Spider + whoever get them a Nuke didn´t know that elevators have passive security mechanisms so even if you break the cables that elevator will sooner or later be stopped before hitting the underground(and no, the brakes don´t need energy or computers to work)-unless in 2077 they get rid completely of safety mechanisms due to evil corporations bribing government agencies, still executives suites tend to be in the upper floors-

Lorewise it is said (both in CP2020 Firestorm and CPRED) that Arasaka had their own nuke in the underground just as a weapon of denial in case somebody takes the tower/secure the Mikoshi installation.
 
I would not even blame Arasaka,I would blame that they didn´t hire an engineer/good technician at all:
View attachment 11207983
View attachment 11207980
Note "foundation" not "middle of towers".
View attachment 11207986
So main criticism (for me) is that Rogue,Johnny,Shaitan,Thompson,Spider + whoever get them a Nuke didn´t know that elevators have passive security mechanisms so even if you break the cables that elevator will sooner or later be stopped before hitting the underground(and no, the brakes don´t need energy or computers to work)-unless in 2077 they get rid completely of safety mechanisms due to evil corporations bribing government agencies, still executives suites tend to be in the upper floors-

Lorewise it is said (both in CP2020 Firestorm and CPRED) that Arasaka had their own nuke in the underground just as a weapon of denial in case somebody takes the tower/secure the Mikoshi installation.

pretty sure they probably disabled the emergency breaks ahead of time, but who knows.
 
going solo(duo with the voice in your head ) into arasaka is not actually the logical solution to anything at all. Its a very illogical solution to any goal.
Not unless you are a stealthy hacker who can nautralize entire squad in a mere seconds without anyone getting killed, and pass unnoticed to the Mikoshi. You know, like a thief, the title that V him/herself bring up several times during the whole game. But sure, having high disposition with a digitalized mind of a mass murderer, to be able to go solo as to not put anyone at risk is so much more logical.

As for the rest, Johnny did all of this of his own volition because he wanted revenge. It doesn't matter if it was Militech that provided the nuke or Arasaka who prevented the bomb from going all the way down. It was Johnny who set all of this in motion, because he thought that sacrificing thousands of people for his own reasons is ok. If you dabble with a thing like nuclear bomb it doesn't really matter if your itention is to just "rock the foundation" - you are using the tool of mass destruction with an enormous potential of taking lives. Not seeing a possible consequences of your actions if something goes not according to plan is not and shouldn't be an excuse. It's like with thief who when being caught on act by the resident of the house he/she is robbing in panic kills said resident. It doesn't matter that he/she just wanted to rob the place and disappear.
 
I would not even blame Arasaka,I would blame that they didn´t hire an engineer/good technician at all:
View attachment 11207983
View attachment 11207980
Note "foundation" not "middle of towers".
View attachment 11207986
So main criticism (for me) is that Rogue,Johnny,Shaitan,Thompson,Spider + whoever get them a Nuke didn´t know that elevators have passive security mechanisms so even if you break the cables that elevator will sooner or later be stopped before hitting the underground(and no, the brakes don´t need energy or computers to work)-unless in 2077 they get rid completely of safety mechanisms due to evil corporations bribing government agencies, still executives suites tend to be in the upper floors-

Lorewise it is said (both in CP2020 Firestorm and CPRED) that Arasaka had their own nuke in the underground just as a weapon of denial in case somebody takes the tower/secure the Mikoshi installation.
Oh man, so true. Makes me wonder why didn't they just... drop the thing down the shaft? Like, literally cut a hole and just drop the thing. Cutting the cables was the tropiest thing ever haha...
 
Also, Huh? Johnny and V have no reason to be friends? you literally have the dude around you non stop for 2-3 weeks. Share memories, feelings, get through life and death situations, And you did secret ending, so you met all his friends, helped him go on a date, get the band back together, straighten out his best friend, and defeat his enemies what other friend based story events could they have?
That is the problem from the players who don't role play. They don't project themselves into the character and don't play "honestly".
 
Oh man, so true. Makes me wonder why didn't they just... drop the thing down the shaft? Like, literally cut a hole and just drop the thing. Cutting the cables was the tropiest thing ever haha...
Personal theory without lore at all:story writers and software engineers...
 
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