[Spoiler Alert] About the endings

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Do you want more RPGs with happy endings?


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I think we all agree that not dealing with what happens afterwards is the problem. Like, I want to know what happens after the Crystal Palace in terms of MY canon ending. Does V get the info for Blue Eyes and then gets his cure, or does Blue Eyes fuck him over and make him have to do a bunch of other shit to get his cure? The problem that we all seem to agree on is that the endings were left on a cliffhanger, which is shitty to do if you do not intend to pick up on them. If there is no resolution via an expansion or if the story does not pick up in the sequel, then all that we did in the game was for nothing. That's the main issue I have with it all. You don't dangle hope in front of my face and then snatch it away and go 'sike!' and expect me to want to play again. So, if V isn't in the sequel or their story isn't concluded in some other way, I'm going to be upset. I get enough misery IRL. Don't need it in a game I'm using as escapism from IRL.
 
Maybe u should check Bioware games (Mass Effect, Dragon Age), they're more into the happy ending/MCU territory. CDPR games do not really deal with those concepts (altho TW3 ending where Ciri remains a Witcher was quite happy all things considered :coolstory:)
I mean I bought Baldur's Gate on release day... I have played almost all of their games, tho I can't stand the Dragon Age franchise. DAII is another game I had to quit because it's just a dreadful march into futility.
Seems lately (well the last 10 years or so) even Bioware has been contaminated with Edgelorditis. Plus of course EA running them into the ground deliberately.

But then you and I have the extreme opposite outlooks on life, given how you think only tragedies are worth experiencing.
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I think a big point of confusion is that V won't really "die". The engram will eat up the physical parts of his/her brain and nervous system and replace them with its own, but V's "spirit" is merging with the engram all the while. Yes, the individual identified as "V" will no longer exist in the same form, but the imprint that V leaves on "Johnny" will remain as part of the engram. They'll become one, so to speak
But that IS death. Losing yourself IS death.
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I think we all agree that not dealing with what happens afterwards is the problem. Like, I want to know what happens after the Crystal Palace in terms of MY canon ending. Does V get the info for Blue Eyes and then gets his cure, or does Blue Eyes fuck him over and make him have to do a bunch of other shit to get his cure? The problem that we all seem to agree on is that the endings were left on a cliffhanger, which is shitty to do if you do not intend to pick up on them. If there is no resolution via an expansion or if the story does not pick up in the sequel, then all that we did in the game was for nothing. That's the main issue I have with it all
That;
The idea of dangling hope and then removing it is a deliberate decision of the writers in attempt to be thought-provoking (I hope that's what they were going for). But it's just a neener-neener to the player.
...But also the mental 90 degree turns between side missions, apartment-getting, car collecting, finding legendary outfits on one hand and story on the other. Some people can separate that, I cannot. It feels stupid to try to find a cool jacket when the ending is what it is. Reading the beginning of this long thread I see a lot of people feeling the same way; Act II and III crashing on their will to explore, making the open world literally pointless.

Going back to the concept of Cyberpunk it is not supposed to be 40K (and even 40K allows for individual stories of success for that matter). Cyberpunk is supposedly about saving yourself, but this game even takes that away. Give me an ending where I am right back at the start, 0 money, 0 power, but I can start over. That's all I ask, I don't have to be the machine god of the universe (Although I LOVE the Paragon Control ending in ME3, it's the one I always take).
 
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I mean I bought Baldur's Gate on release day... I have played almost all of their games, tho I can't stand the Dragon Age franchise. DAII is another game I had to quit because it's just a dreadful march into futility.
Seems lately (well the last 10 years or so) even Bioware has been contaminated with Edgelorditis. Plus of course EA running them into the ground deliberately.

But then you and I have the extreme opposite outlooks on life, given how you think only tragedies are worth experiencing.
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But that IS death. Losing yourself IS death.
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That;
The idea of dangling hope and then removing it is a deliberate decision of the writers in attempt to be thought-provoking (I hope that's what they were going for). But it's just a neener-neener to the player.
...But also the mental 90 degree turns between side missions, apartment-getting, car collecting, finding legendary outfits on one hand and story on the other. Some people can separate that, I cannot. It feels stupid to try to find a cool jacket when the ending is what it is. Reading the beginning of this long thread I see a lot of people feeling the same way; Act II and III crashing on their will to explore, making the open world literally pointless.

Going back to the concept of Cyberpunk it is not supposed to be 40K (and even 40K allows for individual stories of success for that matter). Cyberpunk is supposedly about saving yourself, but this game even takes that away. Give me an ending where I am right back at the start, 0 money, 0 power, but I can start over. That's all I ask, I don't have to be the machine god of the universe (Although I LOVE the Paragon Control ending in ME3, it's the one I always take).
I have a strong dislike for the DA series myself (only DAO is good). When I discovered The Witcher, the first thing I though was "how come I have been wasting time on this shit when THIS exists?!?" :coolstory:

Bioware has been contaminated by EA's nonsense, I agree. But that has been so since DA2. TW2 couldn't have arrived at a better time.
 
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I like most of her(?) playthrus, and I had already started watching this one. I think I just sit thru the whole thing, and if I can stommach it, I will go back into the game. Judging by this part she seems to have taken several decisions I would have too.
I have to say that it's one of the best playthrough that I watched (and I watched quite a lot^^). I discovered her with Cyberpunk, then continuing watching her on Mass Effect LE and The Witcher 3 :)
(the funny thing it's because she end exactly with what I said previously "I miss Johnny... even if during more than half of the game I hated him...")
 
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I have a strong dislike for the DA series myself (only DAO is good). When I discovered The Witcher, the first thing I though was "how come I have been wasting time on this shit when THIS exists?!?" :coolstory:

Bioware has been contaminated by EA's nonsense, I agree. But that has been so since DA2. TW2 couldn't have arrived at a better time.
Heh... I agree with half of your post but I have only played Witcher 1, and not all the way thru. Reason? The game engine is superbad, not CDPR's fault, the Neverwinter Night engine is one of the worst ever. It took as long to load a single room house as to start up the game.
I have bought W2 and W3, but never got around to starting them because quite frankly I couldn't give to cents about Geralt. I just don't like him. I didn't like him in Witcher 1, I didn't like his portrayal in the show (never read the books). On the other hand I really care about Shepard, Nora and V.

DAII, incidentally has a lot of the same problems as this game: Marketing was all "Explore! Choices Matter! Be who you want to be!" and in the actual game you are railroaded deeper into disaster after disaster with no agency whatsoever and every single decision that could have prevented a disaster are not possible to take. You can't kill the stupid little elf girl to save her tribe, you can't just kill the stupid pirate and give the book to the Arashok when you first realize she has it, you just have to watch as everything gets worse and worse without agency, while also running around doing side quests that doesn't matter for no reason.
 
Heh... I agree with half of your post but I have only played Witcher 1, and not all the way thru. Reason? The game engine is superbad, not CDPR's fault, the Neverwinter Night engine is one of the worst ever. It took as long to load a single room house as to start up the game.
I have bought W2 and W3, but never got around to starting them because quite frankly I couldn't give to cents about Geralt. I just don't like him. I didn't like him in Witcher 1, I didn't like his portrayal in the show (never read the books). On the other hand I really care about Shepard, Nora and V.

DAII, incidentally has a lot of the same problems as this game: Marketing was all "Explore! Choices Matter! Be who you want to be!" and in the actual game you are railroaded deeper into disaster after disaster with no agency whatsoever and every single decision that could have prevented a disaster are not possible to take. You can't kill the stupid little elf girl to save her tribe, you can't just kill the stupid pirate and give the book to the Arashok when you first realize she has it, you just have to watch as everything gets worse and worse without agency, while also running around doing side quests that doesn't matter for no reason.
The Witcher games get far better graphically from 2 onward... I do like other characters more than Geralt himself (like Ciri and Yen), but he's fine. What I like the most about TW is the world, lore and the characters (for me Geralt is just the POV). Imagine experiencing this world with Ciri and Yen (or any of the other Witchers which I incidentally find far more interesting than our White Wolf) as the playable character for the whole game tho... that'd be so much better than Geraldo :coolstory:

DA2 is the greatest con in videogame history, there's just no other way to put it. Bioware lost my trust after that trainwreck. Cyberpunk has a whole lot of problems, some of them similar like u say, but I'd rate it higher (make no mistake tho, it is still a broken game and lacks certain features that were expected (taking lovers to your house/variety in romances and hookups, for example), Cyberpunk had the potential to be a masterpiece but it didn't came to be.

So, in conclusion, I like tragic stories best, BUT they have to be well-written, and things like DA2 just AREN'T :smart:
 
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in conclusion, I like tragic stories best, BUT they have to be well-written, and things like DA2 just AREN'T :smart:
Well written is all nice and dandy if it leads to anything but nihilism; and nihiism just renders the game pointless, which is the point of this thread. Remember, the argument that "Cyberpunk doesn't have any good endings" is false not only by other Cyberpunk media, but by the source material that talks about "mixed endings" and "just ending up on the street with a bunch of eddies would count as a good ending" (which is an ending we all would be fine with, honestly!!)

There is a reason, it seems, there is a save point just before the end decision, CPRD realized that the game completely lacks replayabilty with the story they told, so giving the players a chance to just rush thru the endings in a row and then uninstalling the game was a favor to the players.
 
There is a reason, it seems, there is a save point just before the end decision, CPRD realized that the game completely lacks replayabilty with the story they told, so giving the players a chance to just rush thru the endings in a row and then uninstalling the game was a favor to the players.
Disagreed :)
For me they simply wanted to create a way to be able to try all the endings (those available in function of our playthrough).
You quoted Mass Effect sooner.. Didn't you save before the endings and tried them all by loading this save ?
Which is the same except that you created your own point of no return manually ;)
(good or bad, matter of tastes... But when it's possible to try different endings, that's exactly what I do by myself^^)

Edit : And about replayability...
I'll take The Witcher 3 as example, which is considered as a masterpiece. On Xbox, on the base game copy (from 2015, so 7 seven years ago), 85% of players, so very large majority, never even finish the game. For Cyberpunk, the completion % is twice higher in two years, knowing that at the release and during the first months on Xbox, the game was quite disastrous.
 
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Disagreed :)
For me they simply wanted to create a way to be able to try all the endings (those available in function of our playthrough).
You quoted Mass Effect sooner.. Didn't you save before the endings and tried them all by loading this save ?
Which is the same except that you created your own point of no return manually ;)
(good or bad, matter of tastes... But when it's possible to try different endings, that's exactly what I do by myself^^)

Edit : And about replayability...
I'll take The Witcher 3 as example, which is considered as a masterpiece. On Xbox, on the base game copy (from 2015, so 7 seven years ago), 85% of players, so very large majority, never even finish the game. For Cyberpunk, the completion % is twice higher in two years, knowing that at the release and during the first months on Xbox, the game was quite disastrous.
Replayability and first time completion is completely different issues. You can't replay a game you haven't completed. Given that according to Valve the average completion for any game of any genre is about 20% that's pretty good anyway (look at me, I have some 100 games in my Steam catalog and 70 of them I have never even started, some of them have been lying there for years).

As for Mass Effect 3: No actually not. Of course it was rather easy to make up my mind... Red Ending (Destroy) would kill all the Geth and EDI, so that went right out, refused to do that one. Green Ending is the ultimate evil from my philosophical point of view; literally force all life in the galaxy to mutate according to my wishes without choice. So that's the Evil choice (although Bioware obviously pushed that one as the "Unicorns and Rainbows ending"). What's left is Paragon Control, so my Shepard sacrificed her life for that. (Note: Paragon Control and Renegade control are actually different).
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I have to say that it's one of the best playthrough that I watched (and I watched quite a lot^^). I discovered her with Cyberpunk, then continuing watching her on Mass Effect LE and The Witcher 3 :)
(the funny thing it's because she end exactly with what I said previously "I miss Johnny... even if during more than half of the game I hated him...")
I must say unfortunately that the beginning of Act II have very... uninspired writing. Also they made the pills literally Red an Blue? Really? That's almost comical. Tho they seem the opposite from the Matrix: Red pill ends the story (V commits mental suicide and let Johnny take over, the equivalent of not entering the Matrix).
Edit: also, it seems the game keeps pushing the "It's the journey that matters not the destination", something I just don't agree with on any level. Which makes me clash hard against the game I guess.
 
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I must say unfortunately that the beginning of Act II have very... uninspired writing. Also they made the pills literally Red an Blue? Really? That's almost comical. Tho they seem the opposite from the Matrix: Red pill ends the story (V commits mental suicide and let Johnny take over, the equivalent of not entering the Matrix).
Edit: also, it seems the game keeps pushing the "It's the journey that matters not the destination", something I just don't agree with on any level. Which makes me clash hard against the game I guess.
Nope, matter of words, but it's blue and orange :)
Orange pills > pseudoendotrizine from Misty, to let Johnny taking controls, free the demon so to speak (used during few quests to let Johnny use V body, only if V agreed to. Like during endings).
Blue pills > omega-blockers from Viktor, to shut down him (to use every times that you want to cut off directly a dialogue with Johnny. He simply "vanish").
 
Nope, matter of words, but it's blue and orange :)
Orange pills > pseudoendotrizine from Misty, to let Johnny taking controls, free the demon so to speak (used during few quests to let Johnny use V body, only if V agreed to. Like during endings).
Blue pills > omega-blockers from Viktor, to shut down him (to use every times that you want to cut off directly a dialogue with Johnny. He simply "vanish").
Blue pills = Go eat a dick, Johnny pills :coolstory:
 
Blue pills = Go eat a dick, Johnny pills :coolstory:
(okay, that's the second time I clicked "report" instead of the "reply" arrow. Not just used to the reply function being on the left on a forum, guess ;) )

Anyway I read somewhere that you can just walk away from him too like any NPC. Not sure if it's more or less pleasing yet.
 
(okay, that's the second time I clicked "report" instead of the "reply" arrow. Not just used to the reply function being on the left on a forum, guess ;) )

Anyway I read somewhere that you can just walk away from him too like any NPC. Not sure if it's more or less pleasing yet.
Most often, during important dialogues with Johnny, there is an option like : "Take pills - I heard enough of your bullshits !"
Which is, in my opinion, "better" than just walk away :)
 

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I think we all agree that not dealing with what happens afterwards is the problem.
I ranted about the endings many times before in this very same thread, and the lack of proper closure is indeed one of the problems I have with them. I know people say that they're intentionally left open-ended, but to me, the Sun and the Star endings feel more like teasers to new stories that CDPR most likely have no intention to follow up on.

Why is V going to Arizona specifically? Why the Crystal Palace? Why the need to send V to these two very specific places?

I think the Devil ending where V goes back to Earth and Temperance (for Johnny) feel like proper open endings. What V does, where do they go after they get back to Earth is left entirely up to us, there's no railroading in any way and that's good! That's how it should be if open endings is what CDPR wanted. And this applies to Johnny in Temperance ending as well. So why this frustrating specificity for the Sun and the Star endings? It feels pointless, because the game does nothing with it.
 
I ranted about the endings many times before in this very same thread, and the lack of proper closure is indeed one of the problems I have with them. I know people say that they're intentionally left open-ended, but to me, the Sun and the Star endings feel more like teasers to new stories that CDPR most likely have no intention to follow up on.

Why is V going to Arizona specifically? Why the Crystal Palace? Why the need to send V to these two very specific places?

I think the Devil ending where V goes back to Earth and Temperance (for Johnny) feel like proper open endings. What V does, where do they go after they get back to Earth is left entirely up to us, there's no railroading in any way and that's good! That's how it should be if open endings is what CDPR wanted. And this applies to Johnny in Temperance ending as well. So why this frustrating specificity for the Sun and the Star endings? It feels pointless, because the game does nothing with it.
Yeah but I have deep philosophical problems with both of those endings.
As far as I can tell (and a LOT of people have pointed out) it seems the devs preferred option is Temperance (they really seem to push you submitting to Johnny), while I, as I have pointed out, have a profound problem with submitting to a talking brain tumor, and corpos are literally only good as target practice.

(Boy, the idiot ball trope is a heck of a drug, right? Imagine if V had not been dumb enough to slot the chip in?)

That said, I repeat, after watching the endings on YouTube only Star and Suicide are acceptable endings to me. And I will never understand why people call the latter the easy way out, it is the very definition of "Not Fading Away" after all, you go out on your terms, nobody else have any power over you whatsoever (not even "Johnny") and you go out with a Literal Bang). It is, to my mind, probably the most heroic ending. Yes, your friends cry over you, but they will do that when you die in 6 months anyway.
 
Dead by Dex's bullet and Jackie would wake up later in the Delamain cab with Johnny in his head.
So Act 1 > Game Over > End Credits
Which probably would be more humane (to V)
(Tho I was more thinking of "Admitting the heist was frakked, go back packing to be prepared if Dex got angry enough, then go for the hills)
 
Just about that :
As far as I can tell (and a LOT of people have pointed out) it seems the devs preferred option is Temperance (they really seem to push you submitting to Johnny), while I, as I have pointed out, have a profound problem with submitting to a talking brain tumor, and corpos are literally only good as target practice.
I don't know if those who came to this conclusion played the same game as me... I'm not sure :D

At first... unlike many seem to think, Johnny is not the culprit... It's the Relic which overwrite V's consciousness by Johnny's one. And like V, he have no control about that (he wake up 50 years after his death, on a chip that he don't know how and why he ended on it and in the head of someone he doesn't know). Yeah he's there, but he did nothing nor asked to be there... The Relic saved V, but the Relic kill V too... not Johnny.

Then, during the whole game, Johnny say several times that he don't want to take V's body (he doesn't care, he just want his revange to Arasaka). And even in the Temperance ending, when V choose to let the body to Johnny, he try several times to change V's mind (Don't do it, it will change you ! Don't give up what you fought for !) and that until the very, very, very last moment.

So no Devs don't "push" players to choose this ending, it's even the opposite ;)
 
As far as I can tell (and a LOT of people have pointed out) it seems the devs preferred option is Temperance
I don't know if I am the odd one out here but I don't feel that is what the devs wanted or preferred there are so many moments to me where it feels like they want you to keeping going even in the ending when choosing to give johnny your body. Johnny will fight/tries to talk you out of going with Alt and giving up your body to him he wants you to live and all but that one ending is about V choosing to live with or without hope for a cure/fix to them dying
 
@CS554 would agree :)
But mostly because enough people die for no/stupid reason. V's life worth than other people ones ? Probably not. So it make sense.
Nothing to do about killing Johnny which in my opinion is a well written character... (even V ask "only if Johnny agree"). During a good part of the game, he's an asshole and a hateful person, but more you learn to know him, learn why he did what he did and even see him change during the story, you could even miss him at the end :)
I think we may have some confusion here.

Classes I took back in the say, it was about Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre. We never covered Schopenhauer, where the whole shaving one's beard with a shotgun is about will to live and Silverhand being Kurt Kobain in disguise as life is about suffereing anyway, comes from. My knowledge of Schopenhauer is cursory. Oh, for fuck sake I was kidding!

I have a bit humorous attitude towards philosophy at times. It went like this, back in the day, while I was interested I also had a life, and it happened that when we were going through Heidegger I had a hangover, so I was not at my best. Then, following Saturday it was about Sartre and one of the experiments was eating rocks, not real ones, it was a thought experiment, critique on Heidegger.... and I weren't all there when we covered Heidegger. One aspect about philosophy is that it can make our minds more flexible and oh boy, did I needed to be something really fucking extra flexible on that day and... perhaps it happened that my humor is sometimes difficult to decipher. The whole joke was that maybe it would be better to go after actual knowledge instead of ending up being trolled by shotgun and Kobain jokes and it's still IMO a bit hilarious that you actually can ponder Schopenhauer's philosophy in context of game. :LOL:


But really, what endings of game achieve3d, regardless if people like them or hate them is that it enables conversations like this. So we can once again go all about this, if it's the question, what's really worth what?
 
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