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

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,881
People say combat sucked in Bloodlines but I find stat based combat always superior to twitch based combat of Dark Souls or Witcher 2/3.
So in my point of view, combat didn't suck at all. What sucked were some combat encounters where there were way too many copy/pasted enemies to kill.

Bloodlines was an action game where stats determined damage. It was a clunky-playing one.

To attack an enemy with a melee weapon, approach the enemy and click on
the attack button. When pressing one of the directional keys along with the
attack button, the vampire will perform one of four different combo moves.
Each direction (forward, back, left and right) causes another combo move to
occur when the attack button is pressed.
Note: Some combos cause the character to travel great distances, so
experiment with combos to learn which one works better for you.
Additionally, some combos are directional and others are in great arcs
that can strike multiple enemies.

Remember to change up your combos to keep the enemy off balance and
allow you to connect for more damage. If you continue to use the same combo
over and over, the enemy will have an easier time blocking and countering.
When your character hits an enemy, the Melee combat feat determines how
much damage is caused and how easily an opponent can defend against your
attack. Depending on the effectiveness of your melee attack and the defense
of the target, several things may occur:
• The target can be sent flying back through the air.
• The target can be knocked off balance and open for another attack.
• The target can block your attack and leave the vampire staggered and
unable to attack for a moment.
• The target can dodge the attack.
• The target can dodge the vampire’s attack and counterattack.
If the vampire is on the defensive, use blocking to get the upper hand in a
melee battle. If the character is actively blocking (default key: Tab), you’ll get
a defense bonus equal to the vampire’s dexterity. When actively blocking,
different results can occur:
• The enemy is knocked off balance and open for a counterattack.
• The character defends against some of the attacker’s damage.
• The character cannot block the attack and is sent off balance.
A character can quickly turn the tide of battle by using a well-timed block to
knock an enemy off balance and set him or her up for a big combo attack.
To summarize, a higher Melee combat skill increases the chance of landing
crushing blows and clean hits while reducing the odds of being
counterattacked. On the other hand, a higher Defense Feat means the
character will be knocked around less and blocks will throw attackers offbalance
and reduce the damage taken.
(doesn't sound like RPG combat to me; additionally, none of this is necessary, thankfully, considering how awkwardly it feels)

It's an eternal source of frustration how nearly everyone except me gets how Bloodlines handles firearm accuracy wrong. The ranged feat doesn't affect the stock accuracy of weapons at all, just damage and how quickly the reticule shrinks after moving or firing. Troika made the stock accuracy of Santa Monica and Downtown guns absurdly bad because of utterly stupid ideas about how the game should be balanced.

Lol, that is what accuracy is. Very few people can move fast and shoot straight. The rest just try to make sure that between stopping to aim and shooting and hitting someone least possible time is spent.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
Joined
Mar 28, 2015
Messages
6,908
Location
Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
I bet you would also say that if you played more realistic shooters like Counter Strike where guns are also not 100% precise and stuff like recoil exists.

Just because you can hold and fire a gun it does not mean you are 100% capable to shooting anything with it. When you are special forces or cop level that also means you raised your gun skill in the game just like how it worked in Bloodlines.
If you are still doubting me, watch this:


I am not necessarily against what you are saying here but it just doesn't apply well into first person games in an enjoyable manner. Overall it doesn't lead to "this guy doesn't know how to aim a gun and shoot it, even if he did he'd have hard time staying calm in a stressful situation". The result is just really janky like it was in bloodlines.

One way to implement this would be to have a workable baseline then add specialisations into it. So if you specialise into particular type of weapons, they get more accurate, stable and precise for example but without having it entirely useless where it feels like you are shooting blindfolded while having a seizure. Guns don't seem to be big part of the game regardless but more disposable tools secondary to your vampire abilities.

Also just no to any action game where damage is determined by stats.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,076
Location
Azores Islands
People say combat sucked in Bloodlines but I find stat based combat always superior to twitch based combat of Dark Souls or Witcher 2/3.
So in my point of view, combat didn't suck at all. What sucked were some combat encounters where there were way too many copy/pasted enemies to kill.

Bloodlines was an action game where stats determined damage. It was a clunky-playing one.

To attack an enemy with a melee weapon, approach the enemy and click on
the attack button. When pressing one of the directional keys along with the
attack button, the vampire will perform one of four different combo moves.
Each direction (forward, back, left and right) causes another combo move to
occur when the attack button is pressed.
Note: Some combos cause the character to travel great distances, so
experiment with combos to learn which one works better for you.
Additionally, some combos are directional and others are in great arcs
that can strike multiple enemies.

Remember to change up your combos to keep the enemy off balance and
allow you to connect for more damage. If you continue to use the same combo
over and over, the enemy will have an easier time blocking and countering.
When your character hits an enemy, the Melee combat feat determines how
much damage is caused and how easily an opponent can defend against your
attack. Depending on the effectiveness of your melee attack and the defense
of the target, several things may occur:
• The target can be sent flying back through the air.
• The target can be knocked off balance and open for another attack.
• The target can block your attack and leave the vampire staggered and
unable to attack for a moment.
• The target can dodge the attack.
• The target can dodge the vampire’s attack and counterattack.
If the vampire is on the defensive, use blocking to get the upper hand in a
melee battle. If the character is actively blocking (default key: Tab), you’ll get
a defense bonus equal to the vampire’s dexterity. When actively blocking,
different results can occur:
• The enemy is knocked off balance and open for a counterattack.
• The character defends against some of the attacker’s damage.
• The character cannot block the attack and is sent off balance.
A character can quickly turn the tide of battle by using a well-timed block to
knock an enemy off balance and set him or her up for a big combo attack.
To summarize, a higher Melee combat skill increases the chance of landing
crushing blows and clean hits while reducing the odds of being
counterattacked. On the other hand, a higher Defense Feat means the
character will be knocked around less and blocks will throw attackers offbalance
and reduce the damage taken.
(doesn't sound like RPG combat to me; additionally, none of this is necessary, thankfully, considering how awkwardly it feels)

It's an eternal source of frustration how nearly everyone except me gets how Bloodlines handles firearm accuracy wrong. The ranged feat doesn't affect the stock accuracy of weapons at all, just damage and how quickly the reticule shrinks after moving or firing. Troika made the stock accuracy of Santa Monica and Downtown guns absurdly bad because of utterly stupid ideas about how the game should be balanced.
Lol, that is what accuracy is. Very few people can move fast and shoot straight. The rest just try to make sure that between stopping to aim and shooting and hitting someone least possible time is spent.

You are not playing as a person, you are playing a video-game character for entertainment.
 

Nano

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Joined
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Messages
4,647
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
The melee combat was way more entertaining than ranged combat. I enjoyed whacking enemies around with my katana.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Lol, that is what accuracy is. Very few people can move fast and shoot straight. The rest just try to make sure that between stopping to aim and shooting and hitting someone least possible time is spent.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution had this without making any guns bullet hoses (you could upgrade your character to reduce recoil and moving-while-shooting-accuracy so you could play more as a run and gunner).

Then there was Fallout New Vegas where meeting the skill requirements on any gun would allow perfect accuracy while aiming and standing motionless (and there were also perks that allowed you to run and gun better).
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
RE: Combat sucked in the original too


Yeah. Combat was probably the worst part of the original. I'm not sure whether combat in Bloodlines II is slightly better or slightly worse, but let's say they're neck and neck. The thing is however, in the original you had something to fall back to because the game had a backbone comprised of interesting characters, subplots, etc.

Therefore if this game can't reproduce that it will fall apart like a house of cards.
People say combat sucked in Bloodlines but I find stat based combat always superior to twitch based combat of Dark Souls or Witcher 2/3.
Bloodlines did "stat based combat" wrong. Deus Ex did it right by making your weapon skill affect how long it took for the crosshairs to tighten, with it occuring faster the higher your weapon skill, giving you direct feedback on where your shots will go. Once your crosshairs are tightened, you have the same accuracy as you do in any normal FPS. And with master weapon skill, your crosshairs tighten basically instantly.

In Bloodlines the crosshairs never tighten. Even with the highest possible ranged feat, they always stay wide apart even when standing perfectly still. This means you never know where your shots will go.

In Deus Ex weapon skill affects multiple things like reloading speed and movement speed while holding heavy weapons. In Bloodlines weapon skill only affects damage and (possibly) accuracy.

Bloodlines also has random damage, e.g. it's possible to see a weapon deal anywhere from 2 to 20 damage. Deus Ex, as well as every other action-RPG, avoids this and used fixed damage, and for good reason. Damage ranges exist in tabletop/turn-based RPGs to simulate the chaos and unpredictability of combat. This is not necessary in an action-RPG because that chaos is already there on account of it being an action game.

There's lots of other things Bloodlines does wrong, like how the 'block' move doesn't actually block anything and just marginally reduces damage, making it completely useless when you could have killed the enemy in the time it took to block. Or how enemies are almost always completely stationary when they attack, whereas in other FPS or action-RPGs they strafe and move around you. There's very little positive to say about Bloodlines' combat.

That being said, the combat in Bloodlines 2 looks even worse, which is quite an achievement.
 
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Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
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Messages
10,991
Location
USSR
I always said VTMB needs:
- stealth and AI from MGS5
- gunplay from Far Cry
- melee combat from Chivalry
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,881
RE: Combat sucked in the original too


Yeah. Combat was probably the worst part of the original. I'm not sure whether combat in Bloodlines II is slightly better or slightly worse, but let's say they're neck and neck. The thing is however, in the original you had something to fall back to because the game had a backbone comprised of interesting characters, subplots, etc.

Therefore if this game can't reproduce that it will fall apart like a house of cards.
People say combat sucked in Bloodlines but I find stat based combat always superior to twitch based combat of Dark Souls or Witcher 2/3.
Bloodlines did "stat based combat" wrong. Deus Ex did it right by making your weapon skill affect how long it took for the crosshairs to tighten, with it occuring faster the higher your weapon skill, giving you direct feedback on where your shots will go. Once your crosshairs are tightened, you have the same accuracy as you do in any normal FPS. And with master weapon skill, your crosshairs tighten basically instantly.

In Bloodlines the crosshairs never tighten. Even with the highest possible ranged feat, they always stay wide apart even when standing perfectly still. This means you never know where your shots will go.

In Deus Ex weapon skill affects multiple things like reloading speed and movement speed while holding heavy weapons. In Bloodlines weapon skill only affects damage and (possibly) accuracy.

Bloodlines also has random damage, e.g. it's possible to see a weapon deal anywhere from 2 to 20 damage. Deus Ex, as well as every other action-RPG, avoids this and used fixed damage, and for good reason. Damage ranges exist in tabletop/turn-based RPGs to simulate the chaos and unpredictability of combat. This is not necessary in an action-RPG because that chaos is already there on account of it being an action game.

There's lots of other things Bloodlines does wrong, like how the 'block' move doesn't actually block anything and just marginally reduces damage, making it completely useless when you could have killed the enemy in the time it took to block. Or how enemies are almost always completely stationary when they attack, whereas in other FPS or action-RPGs they strafe and move around you. There's very little positive to say about Bloodlines' combat.
Random damage is OK because not every shot will do same damage. It depends on multiple factors, mostly where it hits. And if the game does not have body part shooting random damage is only way to simulate this.

Also Deus Ex is a bad comparison. In Deus Ex you start as a hardcore and experienced police/military guy with enhancements. Of course your gun skill is already near max and all you invest into are masteries.

In Bloodlines you start as a random Joe that just got embraced. You cannot even choose your background and you just pick what skills you are proficient with. And I doubt anyone puts all their points into guns. I think combat was done OK. Guns missed as they should in RL (statistics show that cops miss a huge percentage of their shots and they are trained) and melee combat was messy as it is also often in RL. Nobody in RL does precise kung fu moves and takes down 5 people like they are Daredevil.
 

Wesp5

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,754
Deus Ex did it right by making your weapon skill affect how long it took for the crosshairs to tighten, with it occuring faster the higher your weapon skill, giving you direct feedback on where your shots will go.

This is exactly the same in Bloodlines.

In Bloodlines the crosshairs never tighten. Even with the highest possible ranged feat, they always stay wide apart even when standing perfectly still. This means you never know where your shots will go.

This depends on the guns in Bloodlines. Some stay wider apart than others because I guess not all weapons have the same accuracy even when handled perfectly.

In Deus Ex weapon skill affects multiple things like reloading speed and movement speed while holding heavy weapons.

Yeah, the weapon skill also affects if you can magically damage a target at all which I found really ridiculous at the time!

Bloodlines also has random damage, e.g. it's possible to see a weapon deal anywhere from 2 to 20 damage.

I think this is exaggerated, while there is some random damage fluctuation, it shouldn't be that high...
 

Squid

Arbiter
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
536
People say combat sucked in Bloodlines but I find stat based combat always superior to twitch based combat of Dark Souls or Witcher 2/3.
So in my point of view, combat didn't suck at all. What sucked were some combat encounters where there were way too many copy/pasted enemies to kill.
I agree with this if I want to play a RPG.

I don't mind twitch based combat, I like games that require my skill in combat but I don't want that in a RPG. I'd go play a FPS game if I want to test my skills. I don't mind Dark Souls and Witcher combat but they really take away from the idea of RPG if you ask me and make them at most action-RPGs. Stat based combat is how RPGs should be.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,452
Location
Romania
Missed shots, missed this missed that, simulate real life, accuracy, recoil etc.
So basically you want this kind of retarded shit cus it's realistic:
xcom.png
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
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Messages
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Location
Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
THAT face...

Speaking of which... don't they call that guy a thinblood in the demo? If he's a thinblood he shouldn't be malformed like that, like a regular Nosferatu.

You can definitely expect them to play fast and loose with the lore. They're already doing this whole 'from thin-blood to powerful vampire' thing, so...
Though in this case we run into a bit of a quagmire in that "Thin-Blood" in regards to how it's used in the setting is very fast and loose and often extremely dependent on the specific time period (ie, before 20th century, 12th Generation was already considered a Thin-Blood and 13th Gen was prone to kill-on-sight domain policy), and in regards to editions while Thin-Bloods in V5 can't have that particular weakness in previous editions since they were essentially sets of additional Flaws and scant Merits they COULD (and by default would) have Clan Weaknesses (though in previous editions the Nosferatu Clan Weakness could be taken as extra by ANY vampire, so that's just another layer of caveats to note).
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
RPGs are absolutely not superior "realism simulators". "Realism" in gun handling and stat-based combat are two very distinct (though related) issues. Many games have realistic gun handling (wandering reticles, bullet spread, reduced accuracy while moving etc.) but do not use RPG stats. Also, many games have RPG stats but don't use any stuff like this, just modifiers to damage or "forced" misses. My favorite example of a game that knows what it's trying to do and pulls it off brilliantly is the first Silent Hill, where the protagonist was "just some guy" so his aim was always crap and combat was deliberately clunky to reflect it.

In my opinion, the ideal action-RPG should use all the same systems advanced shooters do, and have those systems governed by character stats, in a perfect marriage of strong gameplay and character building relevance. I absolutely want my crosshair wandering all over the screen if my character's skill level sucks. Guys like Kem0sabe who expect character stats to be irrelevant in the gameplay can and should max their character skill levels. If you want to play a character who can shoot straight, build a character who can shoot straight. Not rocket science.

In this specific case, however, I don't need Bloodlines 2 to strive for this particular ideal; it should invest its development hours in what's important. I feel like they've made a strong declaration about this in their "you throw away guns" move; again, no matter what your stats, the player character is not going to be a United States Marine. Which is fine; nobody with an ounce of sense came to this thread expecting the world's best-designed first-person shooter.
 
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Kem0sabe

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RPGs are absolutely not superior "realism simulators". "Realism" in gun handling and stat-based combat are two very distinct (though related) issues. Many games have realistic gun handling (wandering reticles, bullet spread, reduced accuracy while moving etc.) but do not use RPG stats. Also, many games have RPG stats but don't use any stuff like this, just modifiers to damage or "forced" misses. My favorite example of a game that knows what it's trying to do and pulls it off brilliantly is the first Silent Hill, where the protagonist was "just some guy" so his aim was always crap and combat was deliberately clunky to reflect it.

In my opinion, the ideal action-RPG should use all the same systems advanced shooters do, and have those systems governed by character stats, in a perfect marriage of strong gameplay and character building relevance. I absolutely want my crosshair wandering all over the screen if my character's skill level sucks. Guys like Kem0sabe who expect character stats to be irrelevant in the gameplay can and should max their character skill levels. If you want to play a character who can shoot straight, build a character who can shoot straight. Not rocket science.

In this specific case, however, I don't need Bloodlines 2 to strive for this particular ideal; it should invest its development hours in what's important. I feel like they've made a strong declaration about this in their "you throw away guns" move; again, no matter what your stats, the player character is not going to be a United States Marine. Which is fine; nobody with an ounce of sense came to this thread expecting the world's best-designed first-person shooter.

My issue is not with stats governing game systems, it's how developers used that as an excuse for poor game design. Do you want a ranged combat system that is stat dependent but with the trade-off that it plays like shit?

I'm still to play an rpg shooter with stat dependent aiming that feels fun to play... they always feel like you are wrestling against the game systems during fights. My advice to devs is that if you can't master it, then ditch it, because people are paying good money to suffer through your shit design skills.
 

Zombra

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Do you want a ranged combat system that is stat dependent but with the trade-off that it plays like shit?
To be blunt, yes. No one is excited about weak gameplay, but if I have to choose between a sweet action game and an RPG where character build matters, I'll take the RPG every time.

My advice to devs is that if you can't master it, then ditch it, because people are paying good money to suffer through your shit design skills.
All or nothing, eh? That's valid. I don't mind mediocre gunplay, but personally I'd be fine with it if the player character in Bloodlines 2 couldn't use guns at all.
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines's Weird Dancing Is Back For The Sequel

There’s a lot to love in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, but the team brought something special back for the fans: dancing.

One of the first locations you become really aware of in Bloodlines 2, which is coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC in 2020, is the local club, Atrium. It has a lot in common with a goth club I used to visit in Chicago, which was called Neo and apparently used to be a regular hangout for the Wachowskis while they were working on The Matrix. Even though Neo has closed (RIP), I can see the same bones of it in Atrium, with its purple lighting and intense dancing.

In the demo that I saw last week at E3, there was plenty of blood sucking, demonic powers, and vampire faction in-fights. Personally though, I find that you can really judge a piece of vampire fiction based on what the clubs look like. Buffy The Vampire Slayer had The Bronze, which was both a hangout for the gang and a vampire feeding ground, and is considered a classic piece of vampire fiction. The Twilight series didn’t have any clubs at all, and is routinely mocked for being corny and bad. If Bloodlines 2didn’t have a club, I was pretty sure I could write it off, but the game’s developers clearly think clubs are as central to the vampire mythos as I do.

“Clubs are like supermarkets for vampires,” Cara Ellison said. (She’s a writer on the game, as well as a former Kotaku contributor and a friend of mine that I hadn’t realized would be in town for the Bloodlines 2 demo.) “You go there to look at the selection.”

There’s one other special thing about this club that fans of the first Bloodlines game may recognize. The wild, arm-flinging dancing from the first game has returned, with the developers carefully studying the original dance from the 2004 game.

“Night clubs are kind of core to the experience of being a vampire,” said Rachel Leiker, the lead user interface and experience designer on Bloodlines 2. “One of the things that people enjoyed from the first game is dancing, so of course we were going to have it in our game as well.”

“We actually took that directly from the first game and one of our animators studied it very intensely,” she said. “He actually did the motion capture for it in our game. He’s very dedicated. They did motion capture for a bunch of dances, and it was like a big party in the mocap room.”

From what I’ve seen of Bloodlines 2, it expertly captures the seedy feel of vampire movies like Queen of the Damned and or The Hunger, complete with plenty of leather pants and club dancing. You’ll get to do some murders too, using your vampire powers to traverse Seattle and feed from mortals. But for the Bloodlines diehards out there, rest assured that you’ll be able to hit the club both to dance and to grab a quick bite.
 

Rinslin Merwind

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In this specific case, however, I don't need Bloodlines 2 to strive for this particular ideal; it should invest its development hours in what's important. I feel like they've made a strong declaration about this in their "you throw away guns" move; again, no matter what your stats, the player character is not going to be a United States Marine. Which is fine; nobody with an ounce of sense came to this thread expecting the world's best-designed first-person shooter.
You do not to be a fucking US marine to not to do retarded shit such as throwing your gun away after killing shit load people with it. And you don't need to be a US marine to be decent gun user. Guns isn't rocket science, with enough dedication and training ( aka in-game it will be just leveling your skills) and viola - you are decent gunman.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
Throwing your gun away is dope, it's an action movie thing. You can always procure another one, what vampire worth its salt is going to fuck with bullets and ammunition? Just grab a gun and squeeze until empty, throw away and pick up some other weapon. The Chad way.
 

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