[Spoiler Alert] About the endings

[Nekatinyz]

Here's the thing,
I think a made my stance with my first posts pretty clear. I really don't mind if a developer/writer decides to go for a bittersweet ending. I wrote about the dark aspect of Cyberpunk (not the only aspect, fatality made an excellent post going more in depth) and how it molds stories in that world.

I like the idea of a protagonist fighting against impossible odds. I like the idea where the whole world crashes around the main character as they loose everything. I like the story about loosing yourself and what that means (exploring the question of what are you willing to do to survive and is it worth it) And many others that CDPR managed to put in CP2077 through their endings and story as a whole. (I like my hero story happy endings also by the way, I am not some doomer bro)

Retro ended up asking a rather interesting question about the Soulkiller and what it all meant. A lot of people and I mean a lot have pondered that question in this thread. Are you just your thoughts, your memories or are you something more. Whether Soulkiller makes a copy of you or just extracts you from your body (and later puts you back in through Alt). Is V just a copy and if it really matters. Who's to say that copy V isn't the real V. he/she has his/hers memories, would they even know. (again, game Soma had similar questions)

It's really not a good idea to force a writer, in this case CDPR to outright change everything about the story they decided to tell.

Forcing them to write a happy ending just because you want it is the same as wanting Judy to be streight(bi) or Panam to be gay(bi) etc. just because you want to have your power fantasy and jerk of to it. (romance wise or ending wise)

I have always been against those things and probably will continue to be against it still.

But not to take this towards the Romance discussion lets take this back to the endings and the story as a whole...

Why the story?

Because it affects how the endings play out or in the case of Cyberpunk 2077 the story and the choices that you have play no part in them.

Like is said in the response to Retro I really think CDPR had no Idea what they were writing wen it came to certain things and Soulkiller is one of them. (just look at the contradictions you have in the game)

CDPR decided to tell a story like with Withcer1/2/3 though a platform based around player choice and agency. RPGs

And yet through the game and especially with the endings they are lacking. (to be more on point, what I'm trying to say is that the diversity of outcomes is what's lacking in this game)

No matter what you say or what you do you are pushed towards a singular outcome.

Are there some differences with outcomes, yes but more then not they are lacking or outright non existent.

Characters for the most part end up at the same place they would've ended up regardless and that is more true for V than anyone else.

The main story is totally divorced from the endings. It wouldn't have mattered if V decided to go on a weeks long sex and drugs induced binge he/she would've still ended up on that roof.

Why not give players the choice if you decided to make an RPG game.

Help Panam and get her ending, maybe help Panam and get Saul killed thus leading to her ending being locked or even better Panam says she'll help you but screws you over near the end as a way of her getting revenge (she helped V only to get the salvage for the Nomads and left V to fight Smasher alone)

The Arasaka ending, why not branch it. Arasaka helps you but actually they end up using you as a test subject/guanine pig and lock V's psyche away like they did with all those netrunners. But if you managed to save Takemure and because he's vouching for you they actually try to help you and not only use you.

The writing just makes no sense or is pointlessly convoluted in some cases. Why is V still dying if he's not the real V because he's being rejected by his/her body and yet Johnny isn't. (in Vs body) Alt already purged and fixed everything.
if V is going to die no matter what why not have him/her be the same V and not a copy and have them die 6 months later thus having your bittersweet ending.

If V is alive but dying why not make a epilogue chapter where you talk to the people you've met during your shitty ordeal to save yourself.

The point I'm trying to make is that this game lacks choices. Yes, some people want more, some people want happy ending, some people are satisfied etc. But the thing that can not be argued that for a RPG this game sure as hell lacks choices.

I wont even go into what was promised. 'You can't save the world but you can save yourself', what a load of crap lol

I'm probably forgetting a lot of things writing tis post (war and peace length post) and maybe I'll add to it if I remember more.

But holly does this game lack polish. The base is solid but it's everything else that is missing

My point why i want happy end, is not to jerk off(lol)
When i play game i am trying to be a hero of this game, i am doing choices, that i would if it was me,
i'm trying to understand the characters, to understand how i would feel about them.
I begin to sympathize with the characters that I like, this is why I want a good ending for my character and someone else, I stand in their place, I do not ask to redo the game for myself, here I write messages That the group would stay in the top and maybe someday cd pr red will see this, not in order to fulfill what we require, but that they would understand how we treat this, feedback for them, here we wrote a lot of interesting questions that the game does not have a clear answer to
This is my position

 

[Myajha]

they went public a long, long time ago, before TW2 even. if it has any bearings on what's happening now, it stems from underlining problems withing the studio itself (i.e. bad management believing they are holier than thou)



I feel like there is a chance that before Keanu Jhonny's role in the game was smaller, V was more in the center of the plot, and a player had more opportunities to affect it. but who knows.

I agree with your first point 100%. CDPR has mismanaged this entire project, and unfortunately their employees are taking a huge hit for it.

Keanu's roll was smaller, but my guess, a lot more of his envolvement came in the side quests and his snippets during gigs, not so much in the main story. Honestly I think the story was a lot more indepth in 2018 when he came on board, and if he wanted more lines, it would have increased the story, not made it smaller.

I'm pretty sure his extra involvement was in side quests and gigs, and that's where things changed to give him more time, but really that doesn't effect the endings at all.

 

[fridgeband]

It was bad enough that I can't even start my game.
I can run other games at very high settings, but I can not run cyberpunk at the lowest possible settings.
Makes no sense.
That was bad enough.
But the worst part?

Knowing that absolutely nothing I do in the game even if I could play it, nothing at all matters.

According to everyone, the endings are so SO bad, so TERRIBLE, that It's almost like a hidden blessing in disguise that I can't get the game to work.

I was going to keep the game and hope that in several years in the future maybe I would try to run it again and see if I could even get the game to start, but then I heard about these endings.
The combined weight of being completely unable to play the game, and the endings being in my opinion just as bad as mass effect 3 or deus ex human revolution, is unbearable.

I can't accept that.

I submitted a support ticket asking for a refund.

I am so crushed by how horribly wrong this whole thing went. I was very optimistic to say the least, but cyberpunk2077 didn't land anywhere good. It didn't even land neutral for me. It didn't land in the negatives, It landed so low that it broke the sea floor and fell into the deepest abyss. This is the kind of thing that regardless of any expectations, no matter how high, how low, or how non-existent, from any angle, would still feel crushing and depressing. I actually saw footage of people encountering hilarious glitches and bugs. Those didn't bother me so much. I laughed. I could have ignored that. I would have gladly accepted that, and I would have even asked CDPR to leave those glitches and bugs in because they're just so hilarious and accidentally good. I would have been fine with that if they got patched like 10 years later. I wouldn't care so much.

But I can't even play the game.

And even if I could, I can't find a single ending that anyone talks about that would have made me happy.

It's bad enough that I can't play, but even If I had been able to, I fear that I would have experienced an even worse regret. I would have been utterly demoralized by the endings. I am actually in a very strange way grateful that I can't get my game to start. I can't imagine how it is possible in the process of making this still extremely incomplete and unfinished game that nobody at CDPR thought to consider that maybe there should be some good endings? I'm genuinely curious? Did anyone ever think about that? I feel like nobody did, but I can never know what they were thinking.

I am somewhat concerned that I might not receive the refund since nobody replied to my support ticket yet.
At one point I got "Awaiting your reply" but nobody had replied.....

It's been a few days.

Even if I hadn't got a reply, all they really need to do is push the button and give me my money back. Forget giving me a reply, at least just refund me right? I would gladly take a refund even if they didn't have the time to type the words "here's your refund" It would be enough that see the game gone, and my money is returned.

But you know, I'm not really complaining about support or anything. I can't emphasize that enough. I am not complaining about my support ticket, I'm just sharing my personal individual experience on this cyberpunk journey.

Mass-Deus-Duke-X-Fallout-Cyberpunk2076-Nukem-Human Revolution-2-3-Electric-Boogaloo is worse than Tor-tanic. It's worse than mass effect andromeda. This is by far the most mind-shatteringly turbo disheartening disappointing release of any video game I have ever experienced in my life. It's by far the best game company with the best trust and the best reputation that was supposed to be making the biggest and the best game in a long time that is the opposite of the other corporations in the industry that consistently make terrible games and treat their customers terribly, and yet somehow they still managed to release a game even worse than anything I could have ever imagined coming from the usual corporations.

CDPR you were the chosen ones! Why did you make the choices you did?

I'm just telling my story here I guess.
Even if I don't get my money back, This is what I experienced.
I really love CDPR, I just don't know where they went, or where I can find them anymore.

The endings... well i always had a saying that even the bad novel can be saved by a good ending, but no novel can saved with bad ending. And it's not about good ending like good is winning/evil is losing. It's just, that sinking 50h into this game i'm beeing given just a hollow point at the end with the "punch line" that goes "nothings what you've done matters", feels just bad.

Ok, i get this - classic antient Greek tragedy - at the beginning hero hears his/her fate, and no matter what he/she will do, the fate has been sealed, and at the end we see it. Curtains.
But this was about giving people a choice to pick his/her ending. You just can not say "We are giving you a choice" and get "6 different" endings that in six months of the plot time are ending in the same depressing fashion.

It's just bad.
And it also for me is the biggest red flag for CDP. It was not a bugs, glitches, lucking many features (clothes, cyberware) - it's that people can be tricked with somethings just as important as a story. It's just wrong.

I really feels the same like with the Neverwinter Nights 2 ending, ending is practically the same - dark and deppresing with bittter end. It's also similar to the ME3 ending - where BioWare tried to reinwent the wheel and so we didn' get a proper last boss fight, all 3 endings were just bad, almost like without the connection with to lore. Uproar was the same by the way. I only hope that it will be "solved", like it was with NWN2 - with expansion pack that will fix this.

And the closing comment? Cyberpunk 2077 can't even cyberpunk. The whole setting (as Mike Pondsmith summarize it) is not about saving the world, because it's beyond salvation, it's about to save yourself.
Guess we can't even done this.
And so - there is not point in replaying Cyberpunk 2077, at least for me in any ways both with DLC or exepnsion packs if I'm stuck with the same bad ending. Like it goes?
Bad ending is a bad ending, Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one bad ending and another… I’d rather not choose at all.

Edit: grammar

Barsenthor, your post summarized my feelings about the endings in such a powerful way that I had to go back and quote your post at the bottom of my other post.
You said it in a way that I don't know I could have.

 

[Kikinho]

they went public a long, long time ago, before TW2 even. if it has any bearings on what's happening now, it stems from underlining problems withing the studio itself (i.e. bad management believing they are holier than thou because they made a lot of money once before)



I feel like there is a chance that before Keanu Jhonny's role in the game was smaller, V was more in the center of the plot, and a player had more opportunities to affect it. but who knows.

I thought they went public in 2017.

 

[Barsenthor]

The endings... well i always had a saying that even the bad novel can be saved by a good ending, but no novel can saved with bad ending. And it's not about good ending like good is winning/evil is losing. It's just, that sinking 50h into this game i'm beeing given just a hollow point at the end with the "punch line" that goes "nothings what you've done matters", feels just bad.

Ok, i get this - classic antient Greek tragedy - at the beginning hero hears his/her fate, and no matter what he/she will do, the fate has been sealed, and at the end we see it. Curtains.
But this was about giving people a choice to pick his/her ending. You just can not say "We are giving you a choice" and get "6 different" endings that in six months of the plot time are ending in the same depressing fashion.

It's just bad.
And it also for me is the biggest red flag for CDP. It was not a bugs, glitches, lucking many features (clothes, cyberware) - it's that people can be tricked with somethings just as important as a story. It's just wrong.

I really feels the same like with the Neverwinter Nights 2 ending, ending is practically the same - dark and deppresing with bittter end. It's also similar to the ME3 ending - where BioWare tried to reinwent the wheel and so we didn' get a proper last boss fight, all 3 endings were just bad, almost like without the connection with to lore. Uproar was the same by the way. I only hope that it will be "solved", like it was with NWN2 - with expansion pack that will fix this.

And the closing comment? Cyberpunk 2077 can't even cyberpunk. The whole setting (as Mike Pondsmith summarize it) is not about saving the world, because it's beyond salvation, it's about to save yourself.
Guess we can't even done this.
And so - there is not point in replaying Cyberpunk 2077, at least for me in any ways both with DLC or exepnsion packs if I'm stuck with the same bad ending. Like it goes?
Bad ending is a bad ending, Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one bad ending and another… I’d rather not choose at all.

Edit: grammar

 

[Myajha]

Knowing that absolutely nothing I do in the game even if I could play it, nothing at all matters.

According to everyone, the endings are so SO bad, so TERRIBLE, that It's almost like a hidden blessing in disguise that I can't get the game to work.

So I'm going to answer this part, and this is my opinion. Others may vary.

The game isn't bad, and the endings aren't TERRIBLE. They're actually not bad... some are more touching then others, but the game, is actually pretty good.

For one play through.

That there is the problem. It's not a game you want to play over and over again. Nothing really changes but the color of the window dressing.

Sure a happy ending would be nice, a ending where you made a difference would be nice, but lets be honest, unless you cheat , most RPGs with multiple endings its rare to get the best ending on your first play through until you realize what mistakes you made as you play it. Valhalla is a perfect example. I didn't know the five problem points in the game until I got the bad ending.

So one play through, games not bad. 6 out of 10. It has issues, and ignoring what I thought the game would be, and just concentrating on what we got... it's not bad. Not GOTY material, but I don't regret buying it and playing it.

The problem is going back and playing it again, and knowing that no matter what I do, or how I do it, it all remains the same that's the issue.

So no the endings aren't terrible, the game isn't bad, it's pretty good. It's just... not replayable.

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2020

I thought they went public in 2017.

So did I.

 

[Martynxas]

Best thing to do now is to wait for Jason shreiers articles, its gonna be shitshow

 

[BGM45]

I agree with your first point 100%. CDPR has mismanaged this entire project, and unfortunately their employees are taking a huge hit for it.

Keanu's roll was smaller, but my guess, a lot more of his envolvement came in the side quests and his snippets during gigs, not so much in the main story. Honestly I think the story was a lot more indepth in 2018 when he came on board, and if he wanted more lines, it would have increased the story, not made it smaller.

I'm pretty sure his extra involvement was in side quests and gigs, and that's where things changed to give him more time, but really that doesn't effect the endings at all.

as I said, it's just a guess, about Keanu. however, I would like to expand on it:

even though I don't know the devs personally and can't attest to their character, I can at least hypothetically imagine that having your idol working on your game might have given the especially fervent fanboys on the team some ideas. like changing the already planned script to accommodate this new cool superstar they clearly have enough money for. and then, as you said, someone took scissors in one hand, red pen in another, and went to town. who knows how much of the game that should've been we'll never see.

 

[Simuxas]

So I'm going to answer this part, and this is my opinion. Others may vary.

The game isn't bad, and the endings aren't TERRIBLE. They're actually not bad... some are more touching then others, but the game, is actually pretty good.

For one play through.

That there is the problem. It's not a game you want to play over and over again. Nothing really changes but the color of the window dressing.

Sure a happy ending would be nice, a ending where you made a difference would be nice, but lets be honest, unless you cheat , most RPGs with multiple endings its rare to get the best ending on your first play through until you realize what mistakes you made as you play it. Valhalla is a perfect example. I didn't know the five problem points in the game until I got the bad ending.

So one play through, games not bad. 6 out of 10. It has issues, and ignoring what I thought the game would be, and just concentrating on what we got... it's not bad. Not GOTY material, but I don't regret buying it and playing it.

The problem is going back and playing it again, and knowing that no matter what I do, or how I do it, it all remains the same that's the issue.

So no the endings aren't terrible, the game isn't bad, it's pretty good. It's just... not replayable.

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2020

So did I.

The thing about different endings is replay value, just like Witcher 3. I played it first time, I got bad ending "fuckme.jpg", started over and done things completely differently, sure I bit cheated with spoilers, but not too much and got the good ending that Geralt deserved. It was 5 years ago, I did another playthrough like 2 years ago, and I'm doing one right now. It keeps the replay value really high. And each time I find something new I havn't seen.

 

[fridgeband]

So I'm going to answer this part, and this is my opinion. Others may vary.

The game isn't bad, and the endings aren't TERRIBLE. They're actually not bad... some are more touching then others, but the game, is actually pretty good.

For one play through.

That there is the problem. It's not a game you want to play over and over again. Nothing really changes but the color of the window dressing.

Sure a happy ending would be nice, a ending where you made a difference would be nice, but lets be honest, unless you cheat , most RPGs with multiple endings its rare to get the best ending on your first play through until you realize what mistakes you made as you play it. Valhalla is a perfect example. I didn't know the five problem points in the game until I got the bad ending.

So one play through, games not bad. 6 out of 10. It has issues, and ignoring what I thought the game would be, and just concentrating on what we got... it's not bad. Not GOTY material, but I don't regret buying it and playing it.

The problem is going back and playing it again, and knowing that no matter what I do, or how I do it, it all remains the same that's the issue.

So no the endings aren't terrible, the game isn't bad, it's pretty good. It's just... not replayable.

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2020

So did I.

So what are all the endings again? (in spoiler warning tab only) Am I allow to ask this? If not, then don't answer.

Spoiler: MAJOR SPOILERS

All I heard to the best of my knowledge is that supposedly V dies in every ending, or ends up trapped in cyber-hell. I don't consider any of these to be "good endings"

 

[BGM45]

Best thing to do now is to wait for Jason shreiers articles, its gonna be shitshow

honestly, I think after Sony nuking the game any new information from Schreier will be met with tired "yeah, yeah, we know". although he'll have some great time gloating about all those people who defended CDPR after the "6 weeks" crunch email (embarrassed to admit I'm one of them).

 

[Simuxas]

So what are all the endings again? (in spoiler warning tab only) Am I allow to ask this? If not, then don't answer.

Spoiler: MAJOR SPOILERS

All I know is that V dies in every ending, or ends up trapped in cyber-hell. I don't consider any of these to be "good endings"

 

[fridgeband]

View attachment 11095499

Sorry Simuxas I was editing my post, please re-quote me again.

 

[Anrix1]

It's a matter of perspective.. you can claim that a Startrek teleporter disintegrates a person into energy therefore killing the host each time and reforming them and each time they are just a copy of a copy of a copy or that our memory is our essence, our soul.

Your premise is based on what Alt said. Not any other facts. Just because she said it kills the soul doesnt make it so. As science even in 2077 cant quantify what a soul is. Also it ignores advancement with the Soul Killer program.

Regardless the copy of V still only has 6 months to live cuz why not.

 

[Simuxas]

Sorry Simuxas I was editing my post, please re-quote me again.

Death, just instant death or prolonged death.

 

[neocyril]

My point why i want happy end, is not to jerk off(lol)
When i play game i am trying to be a hero of this game, i am doing choices, that i would if it was me,
i'm trying to understand the characters, to understand how i would feel about them.
I begin to sympathize with the characters that I like, this is why I want a good ending for my character and someone else, I stand in their place, I do not ask to redo the game for myself, here I write messages That the group would stay in the top and maybe someday cd pr red will see this, not in order to fulfill what we require, but that they would understand how we treat this, feedback for them, here we wrote a lot of interesting questions that the game does not have a clear answer to
This is my position

Hahaha my man.

I get you and agree with you, the same with Simuxas.

I think that 'happy' endings (or the one you find to your satisfaction) should be in the game. I wrote about the lack of choices and the lack of polish because they are facts. Those lack of choices are the reason you don't have your ending and I don't have mine.

It's funny how some people are angry (and they have a right to be) to the point where like Simuxas could read my post about endings lacking choices/not giving you an option to meet certain requirements that change the ending and be angry at it while writing the same thing I wrote. Which is again (and I feel like a parrot now) lack of choices.

Now in regards to the people wanting to change the whole game or as I put it jerk of to their power fantasy. There are people like that and that was intended for them. If you don't find yourself in that group it's not meant for you. I was just talking in general.

And just because I wrote that I love or don't mind sad/bittersweet ending doesn't mean I approve (like you and many others) of the endings (iterations that we got) we got.

I do find the whole discussion/ideas etc. about the game and endings interesting (entertaining). That's why I keep engaging in it. So please do continue voicing your opinions and I do hope this thread doesn't disappear so CDPR can see it.

But being angry to the point where someone disagreeing with you is a sin (not saying its you by the way) is funny to me.

All the best lads and I'll be here to support you

 

[Ikasyd]

Very happy with my suicide ending.

 

[Simuxas]

Very happy with my suicide ending.

 

[neocyril]

Very happy with my suicide ending.

Yours or Vs...

Ok I'm sorry that was dark

 

[Myajha]

So what are all the endings again? (in spoiler warning tab only) Am I allow to ask this? If not, then don't answer.

Spoiler: MAJOR SPOILERS

All I heard to the best of my knowledge is that supposedly V dies in every ending, or ends up trapped in cyber-hell. I don't consider any of these to be "good endings"

You are not wrong, and that's the problem. Good as in well written. Good as in emotionally touching. Good as in nodding your head and saying you want to go back and do it again and get the better ending for V.

Which doesn't exist. That's the problem. One play through, I don't regret the ending I got... if there was another ending available.

It boils down to one thing. We were told from the beginning that our choices mattered. Like so much in this game, management chopped that out in order to maximize profits.

Now we've got a game that has a well written ending, but doesn't give us any incentive to do it all over again.