Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[Jason Liang]

True Brujah were proto- NEETs

 

[fantadomat]

Sorry friend, but Ventrue is the patrician's choice

I'll concede in terms of setting and not VtMB itself. That being said, Old Brujah > Ventrue shmucks.

Old brujah were still a bunch of libtard cucks that got owned.

More like autistic Codexers, while some of the latter also fit into the niggardly behavior of the modern Brujah.

I become depressed every time this game ends.

Once you play a normal playthrough and then try out Nosferatu and Malkavian, I can't really see it having that much replay value.

More like a bunch of libtards larping as che guevara and getting owned by everyone.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Sailor Woedica]

More like a bunch of libtards larping as che guevara and getting owned by everyone.

 

[fantadomat]

More like a bunch of libtards larping as che guevara and getting owned by everyone.

My baldness is more sexy than his,also i am not as hip to wear shades in dark rooms.

 

[Lambach]

Holy crap, Retard Woedica makes a quality post.

Gehenna truly is upon us.

 

[Storyfag]

Still, in the end, Voivodes above all. I imagine you, hailing from Bulgaria, would agree.

Some of my medieval ancestors maybe, but I'm from a wee bit to the North-East.

Oh? Pardon me, then. I could have sworn I've seen you discussing the intricacies of Bulgarian life with fantadomat.

That being said, I don't really like the fleshcrafting shtick of the Tzimisce.

It is only a shtick if one is a Metamorphosist. I named the Voivodes on purpose. Like the Ventrue and the Lasombra, the Tzimsce have been and are a clan of lords. For those so inclined, Vicissitude is but a tool of power, not a philosophy to obsess over.

 

[GhostCow]

I finished the game yesterday, playing it for the first time in full (previously never made it past the tutorial). Overall, good game and every RPG fan should play it, but... I get an impression it's a little bit over-hyped.
- combat sucks

Combat sucks if you go with guns (for good lore reasons). Melee combat is fine. It's no Gothic or Mount and Blade but it beats the hell out of Elder Scrolls. Magic is pretty fun as a Tremere so it's odd that you didn't like it.

- some of the dungeons design is a disgrace (Warrens, Hallowbrook Hotel)

Everyone hates the warrens.

Overall - it's a good game, but IMO doesn't deserve to be put in the same league (as a whole package) as Planescape: Torment, BG2 or Deus Ex.

I'd put it over all of those games but that's mostly because I love edgy gothic stuff. I'd maybe put Planescape over it if there was a remake with half of the stuff that's described in text animated and if the combat was less shitty.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Oh? Pardon me, then. I could have sworn I've seen you discussing the intricacies of Bulgarian life with fantadomat.

Przyjaźni narodów, towarzysz Storyfag))

It is only a shtick if one is a Metamorphosist. I named the Voivodes on purpose. Like the Ventrue and the Lasombra, the Tzimsce have been and are a clan of lords. For those so inclined, Vicissitude is but a tool of power, not a philosophy to obsess over.

Yeah, I like them lorewise, just can't get past their visual design.

 

[Wesp5]

I played with latest unofficial patch from Wesp - version 10.5. Some of the bugs I had:
- game hanging on sisters (Tourette) encounter; needed to load earlier save
- stuck in environment 2 or 3 times
- stuck in Asylum once, one of the ladies kept blocking the door

Sadly these seem to be random issues or AI problems that we can't fix without the source code which we will never get. And which I wouldn't be able to understand anyway to be honest ! As for the endgame dungeons, the Venture Tower has enough variation in enemies and locations to make it cool in my opinion, Ming's Temple is a bit more boring and the Hallowbrook Hotel is indeed as bad as the endless warrens. Luckily I added shortcuts in the plus version of my patch to skip most of these in case you want to replay with another clan !

 

[Nano]

Don't let the "lucky" part above fool you. Wesp's Warrens shortcut has some genuine fucking nightmare fuel in it.

 

[Wesp5]

Wesp's Warrens shortcut has some genuine fucking nightmare fuel in it.

Well, I wouldn't want to cut the cool monsters completely, wouldn't I ? So I put all of them in one small sewer map...

 

[Lord_Potato]

Funny that this thread was ressurected exactly when I was finishing my first VtM: Bloodlines playthrough. I guess I was not alone.

So, I finished last night. Got the Anarch ending. They seemed like the most decent of all the monsters dwelling in the dark corners of LA.

As many of you wrote here, the game steeply declines around the Hollywood hub and becomes very combat focused. I began developping my Tremere blood mage as a jack of all trades with strong persuasion, lockpicking and hacking skills, but in the end had to invest heavily into guns (useful against certain monsters that are brutal in close range and humans) and melee (even with 4 str my PC cut through legions of vampires with my trusty Tal'mahe'Ra blade). Blood magic was also very useful, especially blood purge and blood shield. Blood punch proved to be very effective against those Tsimisce abominations in Hollywood sewers - thanks to it I had an easy ride there. Blood salvo helped to clear large mobs. And blood boil... it also helped with mobs, but was also just sweet. There was something deeply satisfying about my enemies exploding in fountains of blood (and deeply disturbing, when I found I like such a view).

From the final locations the Sabbath hotel was the most boring one, but the temple was not much better (although the traps and the animal puzzle offered some change from the endless mobs). The tower was kind of ok, I could once more use my lockpicking to find some shortcuts. But the final battle, despite nice presentation, was quite dissapointing. The guy you fight was foreshadowed to be a nasty motherfucker for most of the game... and then he dies quite easily, without even forcing me to use my reserves of blood sacks. The Chinese chick was much more difficult foe, at least for my katana+blood magic build. I had to throw everything I had against her, died half a dozen times and finally defeated her with last hitpoint and last drop of blood left... compared to that, the final battle seemed like a breeze.

The ending was hilarious, but underwhelming.

Spoiler

If the Assirian king in the sarcophagus was a regular mummy, dead and devoid of any supernatural powers, who killed all the people on board of the ship? And why did all the LA vampires feel the coming doom? Even Bennet who seemed to be one of the more reasonable of the bunch, finally freaked out and begged me not to open the thing. After watching the three possible variations of the ending available when siding with the Anarch faction, I watched the others on youtube. Wow... I was not aware I could ally with Ming Xiao, or even with Andrei! I guess I made too many pro-Anarch choices early on, in Downtown, and because of it, I was out of options later. Or maybe my persuasion was not high enough to convince Tsimisce to work with me (or even see the relevenat dialogue options). I stopped investing into social skills halfway through the campaign. Anyway, I treated Andrei with contempt on both our encounters, so maybe that's why. Also, LaCroix understood that I am an undercover Anarch. Which propably also closed some options. The game obviously reacted to my choices with serious consequences (lots of people dead, including my own sexy ghoul). I was greatly impressed by that.

However, when compared to a masterpiece such as Arcanum, VtM:B seems quite a barebones RPG. The character development system is limited, with all options visible from the start, and many of them not that useful (secuction or intimindation are rarely checked for example, persuasion is king), the game world is actually tiny, with four hubs and several "dungeons" most of them not exactly robust. On the other hand, short playthrough certainly makes replays viable - I am looking forward to my Malkavian replay somewhere in the near future, yet still did not manage to replay Arcanum since 2016 because of its scale. Overall, I enjoyed my time with VtM, despite the fact that I in general don't like vampire stories, lore and settings. However, I still think that Arcanum was THE Troika masterpiece. While I am looking forward to VtM: B2, I would very much prefer another journey to the majestic city of Tarant.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

character development system is limited

Seems in line with the Whitewolf system though.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

character development system is limited

Seems in line with the Whitewolf system though.

WW was always more about performative roleplay rather than mechanics. Doesn't work that well in cRPG format.

 

[DavidBVal]

character development system is limited

Seems in line with the Whitewolf system though.

WW was always more about performative roleplay rather than mechanics. Doesn't work that well in cRPG format.

Agreed, WW system was perfect for creative use of skills, and adequate for combat as well providing you didn't have too much combat in your games; otherwise it became repetitive. Maybe that's why Werewolf was pretty boring as a game, being far more combat-centered than Vampire.

 

[Lord_Potato]

character development system is limited

Seems in line with the Whitewolf system though.

I get it, but at least they could make all the abilities useful.

Lockpicking and hacking is very useful. Persuasion too - at least in the first 3/4 of the game, until they decided to force you into full combat mode. But secuction (and connected with that, Appearance stat) is barely useful. Same with intimidation. There should be more opportunities to benefit from those feats (and relevant stats/skills).

 

[Storyfag]

Spoiler

If the Assirian king in the sarcophagus was a regular mummy, dead and devoid of any supernatural powers, who killed all the people on board of the ship? And why did all the LA vampires feel the coming doom? Even Bennet who seemed to be one of the more reasonable of the bunch, finally freaked out and begged me not to open the thing. After watching the three possible variations of the ending available when siding with the Anarch faction, I watched the others on youtube. Wow... I was not aware I could ally with Ming Xiao, or even with Andrei! I guess I made too many pro-Anarch choices early on, in Downtown, and because of it, I was out of options later. Or maybe my persuasion was not high enough to convince Tsimisce to work with me (or even see the relevenat dialogue options). I stopped investing into social skills halfway through the campaign. Anyway, I treated Andrei with contempt on both our encounters, so maybe that's why. Also, LaCroix understood that I am an undercover Anarch. Which propably also closed some options. The game obviously reacted to my choices with serious consequences (lots of people dead, including my own sexy ghoul). I was greatly impressed by that.

Spoiler

Jack killed everyone and planted the bombs in the sarcophagus waaay back when it was en route from Turkey. As for the feeling of doom? Why is he smiling? Is that... the Father behind him?

Keep in mind that the Andrei ending has been added through a fan patch. Your ability to join the Sabbat is gated through the level of your humanity. Can't remember what - if anything - stops you from ever joining LaCroix or Ming Xiao. For Strauss, I think you at the very least need to have persuasion high enough to mine him for info regarding his opinion on LaCroix.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Ok, thanks for the clarification concerning the timeline of the events.

Spoiler

I never took Jack for a mass killer like that. To butcher the whole crew... I guess he told me "We're all monsters". Should have believed him.

As for who's standing behind Jack in the ending sequence: I thought it was the cab driver. But the black glow emanating from him sure was suspicious.

 

[Storyfag]

Ok, thanks for the clarification concerning the timeline of the events.

Spoiler

I never took Jack for a mass killer like that. To buthcher the whole crew... I guess he told me "We're all monsters". Should have believed him.

As for who's standing behind Jack in the ending sequence: I thought it was the cab driver. But the black glow emanating from him sure was suspicious.

Spoiler

Remember, wherever we go, it is the blood of Caine which makes our fate.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

So, as much as I enjoy this game the last third is not designed particularly well, fighting through all those endless mobs of samey enemies. Annoyingly, I got hit by a nasty bug that somehow still persists after years of patching and slows down my character considerably (after being hit by some movement restricting green goo, the effect never left). The thing is that I used a console workaround to get my character back up to speed and noticed only much later that the jumping movement is also restricted, meaning I can't really jump forward or high anymore.

The problem is that I am not going back several hours of fighting my way through all those fucking trashmobs again.

So, as per link above I used the command sv_accelerate 250 to go back to normal speed with my character. Do you have any ideas how I could get back my normal jumping/movement ?

I guess I could just finish the game without jumping being almost at the end but the restricted movement triggers me. I just hope there won't be any kind of mandatory jump.

Edit: Also, that Werewolf fight is bullshit.

Playing this game was fucking great and then it hits you over the head with its flaws right at the end, really unfortunate.

 

[DavidBVal]

So, as much as I enjoy this game the last third is not designed particularly well, fighting through all those endless mobs of samey enemies. Annoyingly, I got hit by a nasty bug that somehow still persists after years of patching and slows down my character considerably (after being hit by some movement restricting green goo, the effect never left). The thing is that I used a console workaround to get my character back up to speed and noticed only much later that the jumping movement is also restricted, meaning I can't really jump forward or high anymore.

The problem is that I am not going back several hours of fighting my way through all those fucking trashmobs again.

So, as per link above I used the command sv_accelerate 250 to go back to normal speed with my character. Do you have any ideas how I could get back my normal jumping/movement ?

I guess I could just finish the game without jumping being almost at the end but the restricted movement triggers me. I just hope there won't be any kind of mandatory jump.

Edit: Also, that Werewolf fight is bullshit.

Playing this game was fucking great and then it hits you over the head with its flaws right at the end, really unfortunate.

I was lucky with bugs, never got hit by one except for one letter that never arrived to the mailbox, but I was able to console through it.

I enjoyed the werewolf, to be honest. Was a welcome change of pace from obliterating everything to running for your life. Also, on my second playthrough I had forgot about it so it came as a fun surprise.

 

[Wesp5]

So, as per link above I used the command sv_accelerate 250 to go back to normal speed with my character. Do you have any ideas how I could get back my normal jumping/movement ?

You could try to adjust this with the console as well. The normal parameters found in the cfg file are: sv_jump_boost "25.0", sv_jump_maxspeed "350.0", sv_jump_boost_immediate "0".

 

[SausageInYourFace]

So, as per link above I used the command sv_accelerate 250 to go back to normal speed with my character. Do you have any ideas how I could get back my normal jumping/movement ?

You could try to adjust this with the console as well. The normal parameters found in the cfg file are: sv_jump_boost "25.0", sv_jump_maxspeed "350.0", sv_jump_boost_immediate "0".

Thanks, Wesp! Just finished the game for the first time. Unfortunately felt rushed at the end but up until then it was fantatsic, one of the most atmospheric ones I ever played.

Stupid question maybe but I noticed your name in the credits, thats probably due to the patch, right? Or were you originally also involved with the game?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Or were you originally also involved with the game?

He purchased the game when no one else would.