Really, I wanna know. The amount of times that I’ve seen people get extremely defensive and start listing off how many Scavs they’ve taken out, or what cyberware they have, or what they can do with their Sandevistan and Katana is just funny to me. A prime example of this is when I saw a clip on YT of Reed roasting V and calling them a discount Morgan Blackhand or something😂😂. The comments were just pure gold💀 they seemed so offended by what he said, and I was just like “Well…Reed just genuinely isn’t scared of V, even if he can’t beat them”
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It can be immersion breaking depending on the character. Not everyone is going to know V and it depends at which street cred you are but when you’re at 50 you’d expect some people to react accordingly.
Big deal characters though, it make sense they’d underestimate a newcomer. New promising people rising quick before dying quick must happen pretty often in night city.
Because it’s unrealistic, after V kills ~1000 people in one city they are bound to become famous and gangons should be running away from them. (Obviously this can’t happen because the game would become incredibly boring)
Honestly? Because they’re self-inserting and taking it as a personal insult.
There’s a major disconnect between the feats we accomplish and the way the world perceives us. Not necessarily about being afraid but at some point treating us differently than the washed up nobody we start as.
Obviously in the side quests this is easier said than done as many of them can be done at different points and it would be unrealistic to record that much dialogue… but as the main quest goes on we should be treated very differently.
I will always love the 2018 demo female V
Personally I think there are 2 main reasons.
– First one is the the difference between gameplay and storytelling. But that’s more or less CDPR fault, they have to make the gameplay engaging and great so the player wont be bored while playing a heavy focused narrative game. That’s also one of my main complaint about the “race against time” kind of story while you can take your time and do everything the game has to offer. Phantom Liberty managed to balance that quite nicely, sadly the base game still suffers from it.
– Second is the power fantasy. Gamers in general like to play powerful characters that can single handedly save the world and destroy every bad guy. So when they lose they see it negatively “why my powerful character can’t just do that? He’s/she’s the most powerful creature on earth!
I might add that a lot of people think that V single handedly did all the gigs, ncpd scanners and everything there is to do on the map but that’s just part of the gameplay, storywise I don’t think V ever bothered doing more than a couple of them. V isn’t the only merc in NC.
And imo I really liked when Reed name dropped Morgan Blackhand, it just shows that lorewise he’s still considered the top solo in Cyberpunk, even if gameplay V might be a god.
There is many reasons to this, but something bugs me off.
Street Cred 50 doesn’t mean you’re a legend of Night City. You’re a top merc, but not everyone needs a merc, the most of the people are normally living through their life. You’re the good person to contact when Fixers want something done smoothly and that is already a cool status given how Night City is.
But let’s be real : V isn’t a Legend of Night City. He’s one merc more in a hell of a big city where most people don’t even know you do exist. Most people can’t even realise how much of a beast V is when you reach the endgame.
You become a Legend by doing the secret ending, as the games want. Your only “**BIG JOB**” (and this is highlighted by Rogue when you first meet) is the Konpeki Plaza, and it ended quite badly.
You’re not “*The Real Deal*” and you will never “be” in Cyberpunk, the ending is there to be sure that the difference is made at that moment and not before. And for good reasons. This is a common thematic of the Cyberpunk world – you’re small. The World is so big, so vast and tentacular, also depraved and flithy that you **MAYBE CAN** not even make a slight difference in the end (if you take other endings than “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”)
When V survives Arasaka Tower and all of this challenges, he then becomes an absolute legend, owner of one of the most esteemed establishments where top mercs come, certainly from all around the world, and you get even contacts with the Blue Eyed Man, which is certainly not a job like DeShawn would provide given that the dude is basically an illuminati.
I don’t know but I feel the same way when people don’t properly respect Bill Russell or Michael Jordan
I’m too lazy to do it but somebody needs to take that marine copypasta and remake it about V for those type of people
ok something i wanna know: why did you bother to include that image in your post?
A lot of what V does is also not public knowledge. He’s not out there plastering his name all over the place. Seldom leaves witnesses or goes so fast people will just see some cyber psycho kill people. The gen pop isn’t going to connect all the dots to one guy. The people in the know largely view him as the up and comer and significantly underestimate him most of the time until he gets stuff done. While the narrative doesn’t always work, I think it holds out more often then not.
They don’t need to be scared but it would of been nice if they showed some respect after you’ve accomplished a lot in the city. Too many characters are just straight up disrespectful and condescending to V and I’m sitting there thinking “are they stupid or something? They gonna die”.
How they treated Aguilar is similar to how V should of been treated
My V never leaves anybody alive at the scene and usually does not get detected. So who are they gonna fear if they don’t know who I am.
Because there is nothing more terrifying in the Cyberpunk universe than 30+ lvl V…
PS. There is a terrible dissonance between in-game and lore V… Although even in lore he broke into Arisaka and killed Adom Smasher.
Everyone should crap themselves at the mention of V.
I’m quite satisfied with the character development. V has to climb the ladder but got an (bittersweet) ego boost after Konpeki Plaza. Though she still has to make it in the eyes of the fixers. The other characters are big mouth because it’s an NC thing.. not beneficial in acting submissive.
i feel like a lot of people just dont have a lot of social experience, could be insecurity, could just be narcissism… but in real life even if youre a “big homie” not everyone is going to know or care who you are and there will always be a bigger fish.
people here are acting like V with all of their plot armor are going to become godlike in night city, i get the logic but saying its immersion breaking when you have 50 street cred and every single human being doesnt piss themselves in your presence is fuckin delusional. youre some random jagoff in a city of LEGENDS who have been around for DECADES, guys like V have come and gone a million times, thats why no one pays you any mind. canonically speaking Vs experience in night city from relic to credits is what? a month?
you think in one month some random fuck is going to not only get the attention of every person, low to high, in all of night city… in one month…
like imagine if someone in real life ascended to the point of being absolutely no one to being the president in a month. thats what youre talking about. its completely absurd. 50 street cred is YOUR max, for all we know there are people in night city with 1000.
I think it’s ludonarrative dissonance, where people who are by gameplay standards really powerful, and it’s kinda immersion breaking when someone is like “ur a rookie” when you’ve taken down entire city blocks of people and done huge jobs. I think that’s where it comes from, and I think that mainly comes from how the game was marketed. How it was supposed to this super deep rpg game, and perhaps people read too deeply into the game that just didn’t have the proper direction to flourish it’s rpg elements. People were expecting fallout nv levels of flexing your character’s abilities through dialogue
To put it simply. Other people care more about shit then other people.
I just live with it cause actually caring about how someone feels about anything is just plain sad.
People giving a lot of headcannons about the endings where V turns the table and succeeds in everything. Regarding the endings, >!if they become the king/queen of Afterlife they succeed in the heist and the Blue-Eyes White Corpo heals them, if not, they find success as a fixer, manages to treat his situation, if taking the FIA deal V happens to find a solution to their cyberware allergy!<… If you deny any of them some might take this quite personal.
I definitely wanted street cred to play a bigger role in the game. In starfield there’s a ship you can get, it’s almost exactly the murkman car kind of deal. And occasionally when you pull up in it that games version of scavs get scared and warp out. Would have loved to see something like that in cyberpunk
The low level voodoo boys should be afraid to attack me after I kill their entire leadership base.
Maelstromers should know who I am if I killed their leaders and fought my way out of Allfoods.
The animals should at least give me some fear for beating Sasquatch.
After beating Oda, I should be at least somewhat well known. If Smasher hears about it, other people should as well.
In Dogtown, I should be extremely well known. Especially if you take the Reed path.
I mean, I don’t really mind that much. It’s just weird when I look back.
The game assumes V is following the main path, and not murdering hundreds of street gang members for their gear and experience.
Ignoring the street cred mechanic, when in the main path has V had an interest in advertising their prowess? My V is mostly a ghost, all anyone who survives remembers is items disappearing, or being choked out. In the few main paths missions that require open conflict, like defeating Nash in “Ghost Town”, there are no witnesses beside allies who don’t have an interest in advertising V.
It might be nice if there was an order/chaos mechanic in the environment, where for each gang that has faced the street menace of V, there was more vigilance, and more respect. And possibly more random violence, as they know their days are numbered.
But that’s not the focus of CDPR games. They’re not dynamic clockwork worlds, with persistent NPCs. *The CDPR model is theater*: the actors exist only for as long as they are visible. Turn around on the street, outside of jobs or cinematic set pieces, and the NPCs and cars can change. This isn’t a flaw, this is the central model for how the world works in *The Witcher* and *Cyberpunk 2077*.
It’s called roleplaying. You should do it sometimes.
I always played my V as someone who keeps her excellent murder capacity to herself. Call it a leftover from her time at Arasaka.
She doesn’t *want* most people to know what she did and how well she does it. She has a handful of Fixers she trusts, and those are the only people who need to know.
Judy knows V is capable, but does not know the full scale. Panam is a little more aware because you get into more combat with her.
But my V leaves no survivors ever, I head canon that those little data point hacks are her slipping into the local subnet and erasing any biometrics, video, etc.. that might exist of her.
So when she meets someone, and they are like, “Who the fuck are you?” they genuinely do not know.
There’s a great moment in Phantom Liberty that only happens if you killed all of the Voodoo Boys in Pacifica. There’s a mission where you have to talk to a netrunner who is hiding among a group of Voodoos, and you have to either talk your way past or sneak around. I told them that I killed Maman Brigitte and they tried to kill me. Wiped the floor with them and talked to the runner. He was also a Voodoo Boy. He tried to get smart with me, so I told him I wiped the Voodoo boys off the map in Pacifica. That shut him up real quick.
There is also A LOT of discussion about the Konpeki Plaza heist in this DLC. I think they tried to rectify how little your actions were known in the base game.
Street-cred should have more of an effect in some interactions, some places where you have a Cool or Body check on dialog should have a SC check instead, (especially now with level scaled stat checks), It would also be cool to walk around and have some gangoons comment on who you are, or what you’ve done, have some maelstrom fuckers shoot you on sight, or some scavs run away as soon as they see you, like in New Vegas for an example.
Also have some of the fixers show you some goddamn respect during personal interactions.
Lvl 60 V can rip Adam Smasher apart with their bare hands, it’s kind of silly to have random street goons calling them a little bitch.
It’s definitely immersion breaking when you consider the fact that V actually becomes the biggest baddest boogeyman in NC history, so far. They even include a mission where two thug wannabes damn near piss themselves when you confront them, if your street cred is high enough. Street cred isn’t integrated into the game anywhere near enough as it should be, and having a group of nobodies act like you’re not a well known merc is ridiculous.
have you seen the posts on this subreddit? people are OBSESSED with their V’s
Here’s the thing. V kills thousands of gang members, and half of that amount is with the police dispatchs. So one, the public and corporations don’t care about gangers because they aren’t productive members of their cog. When it’s normal citizens that involve the police and trauma, that’s when they care. Two, the police is taking credit for most of the gang land kills we do make. It’s very obvious that the police department is corrupt all the way up to the chief and V is just good publicity that they take credit for. Three, Vs exploits are not broadcasted and only the street cred and exploits that involve that certain faction are known within that faction. Four, as to why reg street thugs still fight us is because of ignorance and drugs.
Part of it is wanting the power fantasy of being so tough and widely known that your reputation precedes you like it does Aguilar, but it’s also the fact that in our moment-to-moment gameplay (if actually representative of V’s capabilities, which it seems to be) paints V to be a freak of nature, so ridiculously capable that most opponents that don’t have a death wish (and who know who V is) should see V as too big a threat to bother with, or at least one they’d have to take extreme precautions against.
Like, while the game does actually demonstrate V’s infamous reputation fairly often, with things like Vasquez commenting that you’re too big a risk, the Scavs being pressured into the deal with the Aldecaldos by V, or Angie being scared off by you having killed Sasquatch, it still feels like there’s a mismatch when you can quite literally slaughter armies of foes that really only legendary characters could handle, and yet the enemies you meet on the job don’t just tuck tail and run the second they see V’s face.
Here’s a list of some of the stuff we can kill. Imagine hearing that someone who pretty much singlehandedly killed all of these things after having come back from the dead is coming after you:
* MaxTac (both in free roam, and during PL)
* Adam Smasher
* Militech Chimera (Prototype Militech spider tank, hacked by >!Rogue AI/Songbird!< no less)
* Sandayu Oda
* Gang leaders or power players: Royce, Sasquatch, Placide and Brigitte, Nash, the Tyger Claws bosses (if you kill them), etc.
* Militech, Arasaka, Kang Tao, and more corporate security forces.
* Various different highly-chromed cyberpsychotic individuals, some of whom were former military with high-end implants.
* The numerous rank-and-file mooks of the various gangs that V tears apart as they cut a path through NC.
* Numerous Militech Centaur exoskeletons (Barghest, Cyberpsycho, Royce)
* Numerous Militech Minotaur robots (NCPD, Arasaka, Barghest)
* Numerous drones and other combat robots
* and more…
V meets a lot of very tough foes, but they seem to come out on top pretty consistently in straight up fights. They’re practically unstoppable short of getting the jump on them before they can react, or using a larger force like what Militech tried to do with David Martinez. Knowing this, and knowing all of the insane stuff they are connected to, V should honestly draw a lot more fear and hostility from people in general, both in good and bad ways.
On one hand, the street cred V wields should let them intimidate people like they’ve got [Terrifying Presence] or something, but on the other, it should also make people jumpy, paranoid, and less likely to cooperate when they know you’ve got a mountain of bodies to your name (ideally, this would be influenced by your choices to use lethal or non-lethal as well). Like, people would sometimes bend to your will out of fear, but may also just as easily pull a gun on you outright like they’re a Russian gangster and just saw John Wick walk up.
Part of it is probably actually defensiveness on the part of the player. You’ve spent all of this effort to get to this point in the game, and here’s this guy, talking to you as if you haven’t dine anything, almost like the game is telling you that you haven’t made any progress. It’s a bit silly, but also I get it, since one of the most frustrating things in a video game is when you’re input feels like it’s ignored. It’s the same reason moments of cutscene idiocy can be infuriating – if a player has been playing smart up until this point, having the protagonist do something stupid to push the plot forward can feel like the game is ignoring the player.
The other part is likely some narrative dissonance. Since you can play the elements of the game in roughly any order once you get past act 1, V could be max level and capable of mowing down dozens upon dozens of enemies in seconds. It makes sense that their street cred might not have influence on people who don’t pay attention or aren’t involved in happenings on the street-level, but when you know that you have the stats to drop an NPC with almost no effort, them bragging that they can kill you just kinda feels silly at the best of times and insulting at the worst.