World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[TheEntitledOne]

Has anyone made any Fursuit Labs joke yet?

 

[Roguey]

I'm not playing a class if the character model is stuck with a nosering (unless someone makes a mod to edit it out).

 

[Vibalist]

The nose ring will be part of the best armor available to Tremere. So unless you want to gimp your character, you will have to wear it.

 

[Prime Junta]

The nose ring will be part of the best armor available to Tremere. So unless you want to gimp your character, you will have to wear it.

I wonder what kind of ring the male PC will get?

 

[Vincente]

The nose ring will be part of the best armor available to Tremere. So unless you want to gimp your character, you will have to wear it.

I wonder what kind of ring the male PC will get?

One ring to rule them all.

 

[ArchAngel]

The nose ring will be part of the best armor available to Tremere. So unless you want to gimp your character, you will have to wear it.

I wonder what kind of ring the male PC will get?

Dick ring of course. So you can give more pleasure to your "pronoun"

 

[Prime Junta]

The nose ring will be part of the best armor available to Tremere. So unless you want to gimp your character, you will have to wear it.

I wonder what kind of ring the male PC will get?

Dick ring of course. So you can give more pleasure to your "pronoun"

 

[whydoibother]

So who do I ask to confirm or deny the situation with stealth mechanics in this game?
So many other stuff would be enhanced with stealth, both mechanics and themes. You have the night, the play of light and dark, the masquerade in general, the sewers and back alleys, the very notion that all vampires area always hiding and in stealth from the rest of the world, etc.
I was already upset that The Witcher games had no stealth, despite the main character being a hunter, and ambush being the best way to hunt. But with vampires, in a MASQUERADE game, its getting ridiculous. Stealth is baked into its themes, and its a staple for the genre.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Have they definitively said no stealth? Because I agree that it's fucking absurd to leave it out

 

[normie]

I'm not playing a class if the character model is stuck with a nosering (unless someone makes a mod to edit it out).

a schnoz piercing is less offensive than the tramp stamp on the fem-malk in the first one tbh fam

the only possible design choice worse than the stamp would've been to put a pair of JNCOs on the player

 

[ArchAngel]

So who do I ask to confirm or deny the situation with stealth mechanics in this game?
So many other stuff would be enhanced with stealth, both mechanics and themes. You have the night, the play of light and dark, the masquerade in general, the sewers and back alleys, the very notion that all vampires area always hiding and in stealth from the rest of the world, etc.
I was already upset that The Witcher games had no stealth, despite the main character being a hunter, and ambush being the best way to hunt. But with vampires, in a MASQUERADE game, its getting ridiculous. Stealth is baked into its themes, and its a staple for the genre.

Did people actually use it in Bloodlines? I only used it in my Nosferatu run so I didn't need to spend Blood on Obfuscate all the time.

 

[Big Wrangle]

They discussed in a stream how Mist can be useful for infiltration, so there must be some stealth programming in there...

 

[whydoibother]

Did people actually use it in Bloodlines? I only used it in my Nosferatu run so I didn't need to spend Blood on Obfuscate all the time.

I used it occasionally. And of course Nosferatu as a clan has a very stealth feel, even if you don't actually in game mechanics sneak that much. Not that it matters, this game is meant to add to the first, not just deliver the absolute same game with a new script for the plot. They should expand stealth. Specifically seeing how games like Skyrim, nu-Deus Ex and "immersive sims" frequently have stealth and people love it in them, despite being basic. Know your audience.

 

[Big Wrangle]

The funniest thing in a Nosferatu run is that how in practise all you need is to keep your distance from the typical NPC and nobody makes a fuss. Then again I guess it's unintentionally logical since the last thing you'll worry about in LA is some person dressing in BDSM.

 

[whydoibother]

The funniest thing in a Nosferatu run is that how in practise all you need is to keep your distance from the typical NPC and nobody makes a fuss. Then again I guess it's unintentionally logical since the last thing you'll worry about in LA is some person dressing in BDSM.

The fact that I don't mechanically need to sneak, but I still choose to sneak, shows how good VtMB is about immersion and getting into the world. I do what makes narrative sense, even if it doesn't make mechanical sense. Mark of a good RPG.
On that note, fuck people who make armies entirely composed of Swadian Knights in Mount&Blade: Warband. Yes, its the minmaxed thing to do, but it just feels fucking bad to play. Mimaxers are the cancer enabling bad RPGs to be released by sending the wrong signals upstairs.

 

[Roguey]

a schnoz piercing is less offensive than the tramp stamp on the fem-malk in the first one tbh fam

the only possible design choice worse than the stamp would've been to put a pair of JNCOs on the player

I disagree, because your character is already a slut (has sex with some random vampire in a run-down hotel at the beginning of the game). Sluts gonna slut.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Mimaxers are the cancer enabling bad RPGs to be released by sending the wrong signals upstairs.

People min-maxing too much is not what's influencing poor RPG design. It's the attempt to dominate the mass market

 

[ArchAngel]

Did people actually use it in Bloodlines? I only used it in my Nosferatu run so I didn't need to spend Blood on Obfuscate all the time.

I used it occasionally. And of course Nosferatu as a clan has a very stealth feel, even if you don't actually in game mechanics sneak that much. Not that it matters, this game is meant to add to the first, not just deliver the absolute same game with a new script for the plot. They should expand stealth. Specifically seeing how games like Skyrim, nu-Deus Ex and "immersive sims" frequently have stealth and people love it in them, despite being basic. Know your audience.

My Nosferatu run was mostly about avoiding battle if and when possible. Where I could sneak my way to objective and out, I did. It was fun.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Thing is tho, stealth in Bloodlines was very crude and basically something you could do anyway if you cared but never actually needed to care unless you wanted max XP. Like, most of the time you were right in front of people (or in case of the launch version from what I recall, it just failed randomly when you were far away). Similarly, the lighting never really worked as a real cue of how much it would affect things, and even then it was based more on proximity than any actual stealth gameplay. And of course, Obfuscate basically rendered the entire feat useless at rank 2 if you had access to it (and you never really would spend more than 3 XP on it anyway, just one raise, skill book, and eventually just side effects from raising Dex for lockpicking, Obfuscate 2+ was just that you could just stealth kill everything on top). Similarly, none of the levels were really constructed with stealth in mind, with only the slight exception of the warehouse and even there the stealth route is basically skipping vast stretch of the level. Even a basic statless stealth system is likely to be an improvement.

Personally I'd imagine it might be that stealth doesn't have a stat, since stat based stealth is generally rather at odds are the fundamental of stealth needing to be based around level design. At least, I'd hope that's what they mean.

The funniest thing in a Nosferatu run is that how in practise all you need is to keep your distance from the typical NPC and nobody makes a fuss. Then again I guess it's unintentionally logical since the last thing you'll worry about in LA is some person dressing in BDSM.

Yea the Nos get-up in Bloodlines is almost hilarious in how ridiculous it is. You'd expect some sort of hobo trench and otherwise giving more visual cover, not trying to draw even more attention than the Malk get-ups (whole different topic of silly stuff there). I also wasn't too much of a fan of the Nos Clan bonus, it made ratsucking too convenient. If they're going to have Nossies in Bloodlines 2, one thing I would feel could greatly improve things having a map layout and non-combat feeding design that relies more on level verticality and alternate routes than the sewers.

 

[gaussgunner]

a schnoz piercing is less offensive than the tramp stamp on the fem-malk in the first one tbh fam

the only possible design choice worse than the stamp would've been to put a pair of JNCOs on the player

I disagree, because your character is already a slut (has sex with some random vampire in a run-down hotel at the beginning of the game). Sluts gonna slut.

I never asked for that. It was RAAAAAAAAAAPE!

 

[HansDampf]

Similarly, none of the levels were really constructed with stealth in mind, with only the slight exception of the warehouse and even there the stealth route is basically skipping vast stretch of the level.

And the Elizabeth Dane.
And the museum.
And the Downtown parking garage.
And Mitnick's sidequests.

 

[Cael]

a schnoz piercing is less offensive than the tramp stamp on the fem-malk in the first one tbh fam

the only possible design choice worse than the stamp would've been to put a pair of JNCOs on the player

I disagree, because your character is already a slut (has sex with some random vampire in a run-down hotel at the beginning of the game). Sluts gonna slut.

I never asked for that. It was RAAAAAAAAAAPE!

According to the "tolerant" left, it is not rape unless it is done by a conservative, and if you are with a conservative, you deserved it.

 

[Wesp5]

Similarly, none of the levels were really constructed with stealth in mind, with only the slight exception of the warehouse and even there the stealth route is basically skipping vast stretch of the level.

And the Elizabeth Dane.
And the museum.
And the Downtown parking garage.
And Mitnick's sidequests.

And the beachhouse and some more maps I would guess. Although in the original Bloodlines the stealth stat was pretty much broken: you were completely invisible already at level 6! I moved that up to 10 with the plus patch, but still the stealth gameplay was hit and miss with another bug there that I couldn't even fix at all, but most people never noticed .

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

That's really the problem, since it's all about the stat. The levels aren't built to function for stealth except through the stat simply rendering you invisible until certain proximity.

(Also a little shout-out to Wesp5 I noticed last playthrough that you'd added an exterior stage to the museum, the labyrinth under Grout's mansion, and the end of the pier for the Library quest, it was really neat stuff. Is that labyrinth actually meant to do something or is it just a neat place with a few bottles of morphine liquid pocket change and the newspaper?)

Similarly, none of the levels were really constructed with stealth in mind, with only the slight exception of the warehouse and even there the stealth route is basically skipping vast stretch of the level.

And the Elizabeth Dane.
And the museum.
And the Downtown parking garage.
And Mitnick's sidequests.

None of these actually reflect what is genuine stealth design. The Dane comes the closest, but the rest are effectively wide corridors where the only factor at play is proximity because actual line of sight only matters based on that proximity multiplied by the vague lighting. This is the key thing really, being stat-based the stealth in Bloodlines is about NOTHING except proximity. You can hack in the same room almost next to a guard to turn off the cameras because there is no design to the stealth beyond the ability to toss random debris to cause someone to go take a look. The Warehouse is the only place where there is a major alternate route that is almost necessary (unless you really like throwing crates and cans, or use Obfuscate) to take a detour through the rafters. In all other cases, what you have is a varying width of corridor with possible side rooms, and all you are asked to do is avoid proximity from point A to point B. This is where the problem comes in, because your route only matters within the 2-5 meters you can crouch right in front of someone's face, and why Warehouse is the only level where stealth was (possibly accidentally) designed for because the critical area of that level is swarming with enough goons that you can't depend on just that leeway in proximity so you need to figure out an alternate route. That is, unless you really like throwing boxes. Dane comes the closest to this, albeit that entire bit is optional since you can just use the deck cameras instead of going through the cops unnoticed. The other levels have barely any enemies in them in terms of the proximity question, in fact the hardest thing in sneaking through the giant parking garage is that Bloodlines is very uncooperative about when your character deigns to climb up vents.

Kamikaze Zen is almost like a microcosm that encompasses entirety of the stealth design's extent in Bloodlines, because it's literally a wide corridor with safe spots, and a single guard per stretch.

 

[Delterius]

guize stealth is that thing you do in bloodlines just in case there's extra exps for going stealthy but then the game ends and you realize it was just the warehouse and the dane since the museum technically awards you exp for not killing anyone which can totes be done with domination and crowd control instead so now you're sad and preorder another copy of BL2 to feel better