Game News Bloodlines update #12

[Sarkile]

In real life? Well, Vampire has a very strong LARP following if that's what you mean. Not sure I would want to cater a computer game to that particular crowd though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Please. Vampire was amde with tb in mind. Now ya gonna say that people actually play pnp Vampire in RL. LMAO.

No, I'm going to say that you are so eager to post a reply that you don't even read what you are replying to.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Another system is falling apart in RT

Don't be stupid. Getting rid of those annoying blood dots (as Redemption had them) i's not an example of "yet another system falling apart in RT". It doesn't affect the rest of the game in any way. All you do is compensate the blood dots you receive from Endurance levels with percentages. e.g. 1 level of Endurance = 10% more health.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Huh? That's true with D&D or any RPG for that matter. The DM can forego any of the rules if it will intervere with the fun, or story. Of course, that misses the point. Troika's big fish stated quite clearly that he would never try to make a tb system into a rt ssyem as that would force him to change things too much and would hurt the system's integrity. I guess that manifesto was changed quickly. LMAO

Tim Cain is free to make his own games and his own design decisions. I don't know what relevence Tim Cain's statements on turning a TB system into an RT system have to do with a game that's currently being designed by Leon Boyarsky, and not Tim Cain, who may or may not share the same philosophy.

The Vampire the Masquerade system has always been much more flexible than the D&D system, and the blood dots have very, almost insignificantly little effect on the content of the game, or even any of the other rules. Vampire: Redemption featured blood dots, and as it was a real time system, it did not work very well because you tended to get hit often, and the result was almost always fatal.

I wouldn't consider getting rid of the blood dots as making a sacrifice, either. D&D, GURPS and plenty of other turn-based systems used blood bars (e.g. actual numbers) instead of blood dots. It only makes sense that a rotting zombie will hit you for a lot less damage than getting hit by holy water. Blood dots were a relatively stupid idea to begin with.

 

[taks]

In real life? Well, Vampire has a very strong LARP following if that's what you mean. Not sure I would want to cater a computer game to that particular crowd though.

LOL! bunch of goth folk running around biting each other on the neck. that would be comedy gold

taks

 

[Elwro]

I never used too much WoD mechanic when playing Vampire (I thought it sucked), so I don't care if they change it in Bloodlines.

 

[Sol Invictus]

And, yes, it is disheartening to see respected developers of quality turnbased titles having to make questionable design decisions to accomodate realtime play.

I'd normally agree with that, but what the fuck relevence does that have? How the fuck is it a questionable decision to get rid of the annoying health dots and replace it with a regular blood bar with hitpoints? If anything, I'd say it was a tremendously good decision.

As Evan Brown said, "I don't see how a change to the rules is automatically a negative thing."

So no, there's nothing 'questionable' about it unless you're some kind of idiot who fails to see the obvious reasons for the change.

 

[Sol Invictus]

To address Volourn's 'troika fanboy' issue, I will say that I am not opposed to the real time or real time with pause implementation of D&D rules, so long as it carries all of the tactical options of turn-based D&D. Baldur's Gate did none of that, and even though I personally found it to be a good game, the combat was lacklustre.

 

[Volourn]

Exitium: i have no problem with thr actual changing of rules; it's the hypocrisy of people who seem to think it's bad when BIo does it but good when Troika does it. If Troika feels this will make the game better or more fun for their game's palyers; more power to 'em. That's exactly how BIO feels when they make thier changes.

And, oh, D&D has always about the DM making the rules fit their campaign. Period. The rules have always beena guideline.

edit: Your last post is far,a nd acceptable 9not that it matters what I think) LOL.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Changing Vampires combat rules - simpler or not - will break certain things. Duh.

Such as?

PLEASE CITE EXAMPLES.

 

[Sol Invictus]

single character turn-based combat is the fucking suck. teh suck!

That would depend on the skills available to the player, wouldnt it? In old games, and in simplistic ones, single-character turn-based combat is pretty god damned awful. Geneforge, for example - plenty of story choices, but absolutely nothing tactical unless you train monsters.

I'd beg to differ if the case in point was Fallout. There weren't many tactical options available to the player, and nowhere as much as I would hope. But all in all, it wasn't bad because combat was scarce and monsters weren't too abundant... but it was not very exciting. Fallout 2 is a good example of an even bigger shitfest because it had those parts of the game with the countless rats, ants and other annoying creatures. That was bad design, not actually the fault of a turn-based system.

Now, one way to fix that problem would have been to simply not have those locations, or to cut down on the number of fucking rodents. My solution, however, would be to include 'area' based attacks as a part of the character's combat repertoire, as well as plenty of other attacks, like a chain sequence, whirling attack or what have you.

Turn-based systems, single-character or not, have the potential to be better and more intense than any real time game, provided that the character is given a very large repertoire of abilities at his disposal. Party-based turn based games are still better, though, because they allow for much more tactical combat - e.g. flanking, varying unique abilities of each party member, etc.

Fallout would have been a lot better with the tactical options of Jagged Alliance 2. A lot of you would disagree with me, stating that the game should be about role playing and not about combat, but what's wrong with enhancing a role playing game with good combat? I really don't see why combat has to fucking suck.

what made the combat in fallout so great? you pointblank each other until someone falls down. you get to shoot at whomever you like, true, and can use a variety of weapons... but beyond that it wasn't overly interesting or all that tactical. you couldn't fire from behind cover. going full auto on someone from any angle had no discernable effect. at times, the single player combat was it's biggest downfall, making battles against a horde of mutants take half an hour when it could have been over in five seconds. none of the game elements in fallout were all that great, but it still shines in terms of story and rulesets.

Concur completely.

edit: fuck, I mistyped some things.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Don't be stupid....All you do is compensate the blood dots you receive from Endurance levels with percentages. e.g. 1 level of Endurance = 10% more health.

I explained my point twice in this thread. Hopefully you are able to read and comprehend simultaneously.

 

[Sol Invictus]

What point would that be? All you do is complain about random bullshit and make things out to be bigger issues than they are.

 

[DrattedTin]

Vampire was made with turn-based in mind.

Bloodlines was made with realtime in mind.

Pretty simple, eh?

 

[Volourn]

Case closed.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yep, that more or less sums it up, DrattedTin.

I just do not see anything pratical about the application of certain mutable TB rules in an RT game like the blood dots that aren't even practical in TB because what it does is simplify combat rolls to the point of hitting and missing, because all damage is the same. Vampire is certainly nowhere as complex D&D with its various resistances, physical/elemental-based attacks and so forth. The damage system in Vampire is just not applicable in a combat game, be it turn based or real time. In fact, it's rather annoying in any turn-based combat campaigns in Vampire because all combat only consists of rolling 1's and 0's.

That is crap.

It isn't as if they will 'break certain things' as Volourn stated, without pointing out any examples of what those 'certain things' could be.

 

[taks]

Turn-based systems, single-character or not, have the potential to be better and more intense than any real time game, provided that the character is given a very large repertoire of abilities at his disposal. Party-based turn based games are still better, though, because they allow for much more tactical combat - e.g. flanking, varying unique abilities of each party member, etc.

also providing that it is implemented ala toee where mutliple critter turns can occur simultaneously. por:romd did damage to the TB cause with zombies from HELL. gawd that sucked.

my only problem with SP TB type things would be cases where you don't have a lot of mass murder options... it would just take waaay too long to finish larger battles, which can be fun. i'm assuming the FOs gave you weaponry that filled the role of area damage of some sort? i suppose a massive great-cleave fest (ala HotU) in D&D is possible but....

taks

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah, the miniguns were a godsend.

 

[Shevek]

Exitium:

Notice that you are partaking in a fair bit of spin there. When did health dots become annoying ? hmm...

The relevance is that the player is getting hammered far more than he should. The move to RT or, perhaps, Troika's level/encounter design (or maybe a combination of the two) is facilitating this. That Troika has to fudge the rules for this distresses me. I would ask that you take my quote in context of my post instead of marginalizing it.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Notice that there are no combat heavy Vampire campaigns. The dots are the reason. I suppose in some way they serve to equalize campaigns by forcing the Storyteller to focus more on the story and the characters instead of having a dungeon romp ever so often.

Frankly, I and I'm sure many other people find Vampire to be boring precisely because of that. It's all about those fucking goths, emos and ravers who go about pretending to be something they're not while behaving all smug and intelligent about it, like they're better than everybody else while they live in their little fantasy world of bullshit.

Bring on the hobo killing.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What point would that be? All you do is complain about random bullshit and make things out to be bigger issues than they are.

Well, I'm happy that you are around to tell me and the others what to discuss and what is the right opinion. It would really work out if you were smarter though.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Implying that I'm stupid isn't the brightest thing you've said, VD. Everyone knows that I'm not. Stop making a fool out of yourself and coming up with a whole bunch of pathetic reasons to bitch about the things you bitch about.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Get ready to RRUUUUUMMBLEEEEEEE!

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, *all* Vampire campaigns aren't combat heavy. I call bullshit. It alld epends on the group just like with d&D or any other pnp rping ruleset. Stop trying to make poo up that you can't factually back up.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Implying that I'm stupid isn't the brightest thing you've said, VD. Everyone knows that I'm not.

Everyone? How very optimistic of you, Ex. Why don't you set up a poll thread then and see what everyone thinks of you?