Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[Cael]

No. That was the thread that some dorks decided to call Rogue a full caster class. Care to try again, my dear stalker?

Rogue? Wait what, have you been mauled in several different D&D threads? FOR DIFFERENT THINGS?

A taste fo' pain, I must say.

Which is sad because I actually adapted the WoD system into another game and ran a successful RPG campaign using it. However, I will never to admit to liking VtM because of people like you playing the same game.

I've never played a RL WoD game, sadly. And I'm not a particular fan of the setting either! Bloodlines is merely a good game. But I'll give you another chance Tell me, comrade, if Bloodlines is a "emo Goth game", what is Redemption?

ANEZKA!

CHRISTOF!

ANEZKA!

Bloodlines' writing has even the problem of taking the piss a tad too often about the setting. Hell, the entire hengeyōkai quest! I am supposed to find that serious? Deb of Night! Compared to

ANEZKA!

CHRISTOF!

I wonder what do pseudo-intellectuals like you think of "Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, oh Romeo?" or "To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…"

 

[Dayyālu]

I wonder what do pseudo-intellectuals like you think of "Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, oh Romeo?" or "To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…"

"Vedere adunque dovevi, amore essere una passione accecatrice dell’animo, disviatrice dell’ingegno, ingrossatrice anzi privatrice della memoria, dissipatrice delle terrene facultà, guastatrice delle forze del corpo, nemica della giovanezza e della vecchiezza; morte genitrice de’ vizii e abitatrice de’ vacui petti; cosa senza ragione e senza ordine e senza stabilità alcuna; vizio delle menti non sane e sommergitrice della umana libertà." (Boccaccio, 1355)

"You should have seen, Love is but a blinding passion of the soul, corruption of the mind, damaging and stealing memory, wastage of earthly faculties and of physical strength, enemy of youth and of old age: death and parent of vices and inhabitant of weak souls, senseless thing, without order or stability, a vice of insane minds and an oppressor of human freedom."




You make little sense. Initial accusation: "Bloodlines is emo-goth shit". We'll take a stereotyped view of what "emo-goth" is, thus cheap nihilism, cheap depression and introversion, often married to a stereotyped version of "damned love".

Bloodline's plot is mostly focused on power. The entire Sarcophagus thing is a battle between different power groups that were in an unstable balance, and every one of them is scared of\wants to gain its power. There's very little love , depression or introversion in Bloodlines, the only "love" the PC can get is a frankly damaged relationship with his own Ghoul (not real love, more like a drug addiction)) that ends as we know, without spoilers. There's sex in Bloodlines, mostly as sad as it can be (the stripper club, Romero, Jeannette) but little human love. You can be at best a noble demon with some NPCs, but in the end the entire game is a political power struggle in what is perceived as the end of the world.

Redemption is a traaaaagic loooooveee story. Pardon, a traaaaagic daaaamned loooove story that spans through centuries. It ain't well written either: Redemption has its positives, its writing surely isn't one. ANEZKA! Redemption's endings are pure cringe in that regard. Everyone is mostly miserable and sad.

See? Easy!

 

[Darth Roxor]

excuse me, it's not anezka but fair anezka

it's practically a homeric epithet in that game

 

[Cael]

I wonder what do pseudo-intellectuals like you think of "Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, oh Romeo?" or "To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…"

"Vedere adunque dovevi, amore essere una passione accecatrice dell’animo, disviatrice dell’ingegno, ingrossatrice anzi privatrice della memoria, dissipatrice delle terrene facultà, guastatrice delle forze del corpo, nemica della giovanezza e della vecchiezza; morte genitrice de’ vizii e abitatrice de’ vacui petti; cosa senza ragione e senza ordine e senza stabilità alcuna; vizio delle menti non sane e sommergitrice della umana libertà." (Boccaccio, 1355)

"You should have seen, Love is but a blinding passion of the soul, corruption of the mind, damaging and stealing memory, wastage of earthly faculties and of physical strength, enemy of youth and of old age: death and parent of vices and inhabitant of weak souls, senseless thing, without order or stability, a vice of insane minds and an oppressor of human freedom."




You make little sense. Initial accusation: "Bloodlines is emo-goth shit". We'll take a stereotyped view of what "emo-goth" is, thus cheap nihilism, cheap depression and introversion, often married to a stereotyped version of "damned love".

Bloodline's plot is mostly focused on power. The entire Sarcophagus thing is a battle between different power groups that were in an unstable balance, and every one of them is scared of\wants to gain its power. There's very little love , depression or introversion in Bloodlines, the only "love" the PC can get is a frankly damaged relationship with his own Ghoul (not real love, more like a drug addiction)) that ends as we know, without spoilers. There's sex in Bloodlines, mostly as sad as it can be (the stripper club, Romero, Jeannette) but little human love. You can be at best a noble demon with some NPCs, but in the end the entire game is a political power struggle in what is perceived as the end of the world.

Redemption is a traaaaagic loooooveee story. Pardon, a traaaaagic daaaamned loooove story that spans through centuries. It ain't well written either: Redemption has its positives, its writing surely isn't one. ANEZKA! Redemption's endings are pure cringe in that regard. Everyone is mostly miserable and sad.

See? Easy!

Isn't it funny that you define emo-goth as cheap nihilism, cheap depression and selfish introversion and then completely ignore that in favour of the tacked on love.

Even taking your goalpost shifting, isn't it funny that you completely ignore the fact that the serial killer based his murders on lost love, the Caitiff surfer was bemoaning lost love and that depressed actor was crying about the love and adulation he lost as an actor when he got vamped.

None so blind as he who won't see.

Now, try a definition of emo-goth as overwrought, over the top, emotional vomit, and suddenly most of the crap in Bloodlines is emo-goth, starting from Sebastian's slimy turn in the theatre.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Now, try a definition of emo-goth as overwrought, over the top, emotional vomit, and suddenly most of the crap in Bloodlines is emo-goth, starting from Sebastian's slimy turn in the theatre.

You're just fucking lying or you are retarded.

The game mostly makes fun of the vampire shit. I don't know what WoD larpers have to do with this game, really. I never heard of anyone liking this game for how "deep and sad" it is. It was always because of how it made fun of shit.

So, over the top means that it can't be emo-shit? You do realise that over the top is exactly why emos are laughed at?

Yeah, you're fucking retarded. Over the top, meaning intentionally exaggerated.

But sure, with your lying you're so much better than the fanboys that make you hate the game.

And btw, I understand the "fanboys" putting you off feeling, but just how many fanboys this game has that it puts you off? Seeing how much it puts you off the game must have sold millions and Troika is still alive doing emo-goth shit games.

 

[Tacgnol]

Yeah bloodlines was a hilarious satire of early 00s culture.

Any "over the top" emo or goth shit was clearly to take the piss out of those subcultures.

Also...

Spoiler

It's a fucking WOD game, of course it's going to have Goth shit.

 

[Cael]

The game mostly makes fun of the vampire shit.

... Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Someone doesn't know what WoD is and is insisting a VtM game is deliberately parodying what VtM is all about.

 

[Big Wrangle]

You're telling me that an adaptation of a tabletop is not allowed to have some fun with its source material? Also says the one who apparently didn't even play the game.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The game mostly makes fun of the vampire shit.

... Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Someone doesn't know what WoD is and is insisting a VtM game is deliberately parodying what VtM is all about.

So what is VtM all about? About parodying stuff? Because that's what I get from Bloodlines.

You're sounding more and more like mfkrdggrkglrlr in these pathetic attempts. Bloodlines being emo-goth shit is the most nonsense critique I ever heard about this game.

 

[Cael]

So what is VtM all about? About parodying stuff? Because that's what I get from Bloodlines.

What you get is your problem. It means precisely ZERO to me.

What you are saying is the equivalent of Baldur's Gate is a parody of DnD. I am sure it makes sense in that miniscule emo-wannabe fanboi brain of yours, but clear thinking people just laugh at you.

Just because some fucktard thinks that something is the way things should be doesn't mean that it is the truth. Otherwise, we'd all have drowned and died of thirst, boiled and frozen at the same time thanks to greenies vomitting their shit everywhere.

 

[Big Wrangle]

Even Baldur's Gate has some fun with your typical DnD scenarios, and a character like Minsc is pretty tongue-in-cheek. You can have fun with aspects of something without delving into post-modernism satire or whatever it's called.

Bloodlines focuses more on the power struggles and dynamics between the vampire factions. It's not primarly some deep and sad narrative about human existence and vampirism, though there are aspects of that in the sidequests. It uses those gothic elements as flavor and make things a bit more interesting. There is even one instance where Sabath breaks the fourth wall saying "those of you in the front seat will get wet."

Something that goes a bit into parody doesn't have to be one 100% of the time. Also, I just realized writing this that I'm on your ignore list anyways because you can't handle a little bit of mockery.

 

[Invictus]

Are there some higher res texture packs for this game? I recall some but those were done years ago so I don’t know if something more up to date came along afterwards?

 

[Multidirectional]

Textures are fine. Force Supersampling/MSAA + Anisotropic Filtering from your GPU. Needs nothing else.

 

[Old One]

Last time I used ReShade or something to tweak the graphics and make the shadows darker. Looked nice (with no apparent performance hit), but not strictly necessary. It made see-in-the-dark abilities slightly more valuable though, I suppose.

 

[Black Angel]

So in my previous post in this thread, I said I wanted to post an impression after finishing this game for the first time, well here it is.

I played through the game while having the Basic version of Wesp5's Unofficial Patch, and I'm glad the widescreen mod were included already, so I don't have to install multiple tweaks and patches like I had to with Arcanum. All in all, it was rather smooth experience, silky 60 FPS smooth despite playing on rather ancient laptop, with only one or two CTD on ~40 hours of gameplay, coupled with slowing down frame rate here and there but nothing too off-putting. There's some bugs and glitches that I can't exactly remember what they were, but following Wesp's advice all I need is to reload a previous save and the problems solved, since playing most RPGs I automatically save nearly every minute or two, especially when playing games that were notoriously buggy.

As for the game itself, all the good and the bad that has been said, I wouldn't repeat it again. But I do have some things I want to say about this game:

Spoiler

1. The character creation sheet was nice, lots of variables like primary attributes that's separated into Physical, Social, Mental, and then secondary ones like Talents, Skills, and Knowledge, etc etc. However, I feel like this whole system is... redundant? Dull? Boring? I'm not sure how to say it, but the point is, when it comes to the gameplay itself, the only numbers that matters is the Feats on the right side of the screen. None of the attributes itself really comes into play, because all that matters is the statistic they affected. The experience points accumulation that were then used to 'buy' attribute points is interesting by itself, and I can kinda see from where AoD's 'leveling' up system got their inspiration from, and I don't see anything's wrong with that, especially since with only this pool, you can also level up your Vampiric abilities and also Humanity, but like I said, the attribute-feats system felt dull to me because the attributes doesn't really come into play and all that you gotta pay attention to is the feats. I'd assume this implementation is actually inherent to the tabletop system itself, and if that's the case, I'm not sure I'll like it if the day come when I finally arrange a P&P RPG session . This is just me, though, since coming from robust cRPG systems like Fallout & Arcanum, where nearly every number you can see on character screen has at least one direct effect on gameplay, having to choose which of the Attributes I want to spend my experience points on, only to realize they don't really influence the gameplay directly and/or being checked and, only influence the Feats, I personally felt it somewhat bland in comparison.
2. I made the 'mistake' of playing Malkavians on my first playthrough. I realized it too late that the Malkavians were meant to be post-first playthrough only so we can see how the game was designed to make different playthrough plays differently, and yet.... I LOVE IT! I love it I love it I love it. The first time I glanced at Malkavians description, my curiosity exploded, since not many games allowed us to play actually insane characters. The only games I've played where the character have their sanity questioned is American McGee's Alice and its sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, hence why I was rather confident trying to play an insane character and already had a general idea that it might be equal to like playing a dumbass in Fallout/Arcanum. Except, the Kindreds are all rather understanding of my clan's shenanigans, so I still had access to most of the content, yet the best thing about this? The NPCs actually responded based on the literal wordings of my character's insane ramblings! It isn't like how, in other mediocre RPGs, the NPCs would just give some scripted responses based on seemingly different dialogue lines that's actually an exact same dialogue node of other characters, oh no. The Kindred immediately catches on that my character is a Malkavian, while the Kine's just shake their heads in confusion. It's rather questionable that the social checks dialogue from Persuasion and Seduction doesn't seems like insane ramblings, though. Anyway, I hope playing Malkavian for my first time doesn't cheat me of the experience when I replay it with different character. Oh well, I have experience the game once with Basic Patch, next I'll go for UP+.
3. Let's talk about the content.
   • Santa Monica is choke full of , but a questionable sequence appeared relatively early in the game right here: The Ocean House. Some people praises it, I see, and I agree it was rather atmospheric when you experience it for the first time. However, rationale kicks in and I wondered, "Wait a minute, I'm a fucking vampire. An insane vampire, on top of it. What's to be afraid of?". And so I marched on with vampiric courage, some jump-scare and heart-stopping moments here and there, and then I realize.... there's really nothing more to it. Like people said before, it's just go from point A to point B to point C. There's really no exploration in here, only keep going and force your way towards your objective. In the middle of suffering through it, I also realize.... this isn't a content I want to experience on my next playthrough. It felt like Temple of Trials all over again, except at least Temple of Trials doesn't last more than 5-10 minutes especially with the right build. Oh well, moving on...
   • Having Obfuscate means an easy zero kill-count at the Warehouse, but then I wondered how one can sneak past all these guys because I also actually tried using regular sneaking and, while difficult, I noticed some parts where it seemed impossible to by pass with regular sneaking without having to kill anyone.
   • Moving on, Downtown were filled with too, but the symptom of bad dungeon design is repeated with the Hospital. However, at least with the Hospital the build up to meeting another clan of vampire was nice, although having to return to her is tedious, and it's so dumb not having a shortcut of some sort so we don't have to actually backtrack. What's the point of that vent on the floor near the entrance, anyway? I was under an impression that that was meant to be the shortcut, but it's locked and I never got a key for it. Is it a content restored by UP+?
   • Up next is Grout's Mansion. Damn, I immediately got American McGee's Alice vibes from this place, right down to the checkered floors. The insane inhabitants, the interior designs, the puzzles, and Grout's character that we can deduce based on his audio logs.... this dungeon is probably the only one I got to love in this game despite having rather annoying enemies.
   • Hollywood is where I begin to notice that the place is relatively much smaller compared to Santa Monica/Downtown. I'd assume this is where they begin to start rushing things. Having said that, at least this place is still cool, full of neatly designed quests, and the whole snuff film sequence that also takes you through the whole area was also pretty cool.
   • The 609 King's Way was not bad, you enter the building from the topmost floor and make your way down to it. The enemies are annoying and the jump-scare attempts were cheap, but at least it's over before I know it, since the boss fight weren't that difficult. Having said that, the sewer that comes next can fuck itself, and the previously annoying enemies are now REALLY annoying enemies that can also fuck themselves. I know they were designed to hunt down Nosferatus, but damn at least allows a character with at least level 3 Obfuscate or even level 4 have some chance of bypassing them. Instead, they were scripted to wander the areas hyperactively, and the moments when I can bypass them with their backs turned to me, they notice me anyway. Not to mention it drags on, I heard that the UP+ allowed us to bypass the sewer entirely, I'm gonna get them for second playthrough.
   • It's clear Chinatown is where they finally drop the ball. The quest sequence is: rescue a kidnapped daughter -> gain information from a death-sentenced guy -> meet the guy who supposedly passed the sentence, and then kill him -> rescue yet another kidnapped. It just happens so fast, and before I know it, it's over already. At least the last sequence of the main quest here, which is getting experimented upon, is rather cool because of the puzzle/problem solving. And the sidequests here were also cool. Fixing broken bridges, doing creepy things for a creepy guy, helping out a Hunter... but it's not enough in the end. Props to Ming-Xiao seemingly unfazed by the development since our character's arrival, though. It's clear she's pulling the strings behind The Mandarin, but the fact that she doesn't seem to even flinch when we mentioned his description is rather unsettling. Bugged or intended? Hmm..
   • The Giovanni's weren't bad, either. It's rather cool you can have a miss-able sidequest in a one-time visit area like this. I don't remember anything particularly interesting about the catacombs beneath the mansion, but at least it doesn't drags on. The boss fight were also fine, not bad but nothing challenging either.
   • The Inquisition's mansion were also not that bad, it's actually neatly designed more as a hideout instead of a dungeon, so yet another sequence that doesn't drag on... if not for that boss fight. So fucking annoying, only one-two hits before he just teleported away since I was playing an Unarmed character. Kinda funny that the boss takes his time to push the button while our character just chat merrily with the Professor but, eh, at least it's over when I want it to. And here... we... go...
   • The endgame sequence is a fucking hell that I'm not sure I'm ready to experience sooner now. The Sabbat dungeon can fuck itself, although the bossfight was fine. The Temple dungeon can also fuck itself, and the most annoying bossfight of them all. Not only Ming-Xiao is an HP-sponge, severing her tentacles (which, I'd assume a way to deal highest damage to her) actually spawned a copy of her which, if you let them grow to full size, can deal full damage and takes 3-4 hits before they disappear). What's funny is that you can actually exploit her behavior since most of her melee attacks are actually medium-ranged so if you stick close right next to her, she doesn't deal any damage. But fucking hell her HP.... you really gotta cheese her here, I actually spend most of my hoarded XPs for Ranged Combat feat and waste bullets and fuels on her. But realizing about her stupid AI behavior kinda late, I didn't think of switching to Unarmed but whatever.... another funny thing about her is that her overall designs actually reminded me Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos from Bloodborne. Her eldritch appearance, using ranged puke (?) attacks when we're too far, right down to that charging move but unlike Ming-Xiao, Ebrietas wasn't a pushover. And in a way, her severed tentacles turning into a copy of her is kinda similar to Pinwheel, but at least Pinwheel wasn't an HP-sponge. Heh. And then the Venture Tower sequence, can also fuck itself. However, at the very least the Sheriff bossfight was quite cool in my book. The one-on-one melee between my two unarmed hands vs. his big ass sword can be over relatively quickly once you get a hang of it and also use your Discipline once in a while, and although the roof battle can drag on too long, at least it was spiced up by human NPCs not even caring about you and, instead, shooting at the giant bat flying around the tower like any normal humans should. They actually acted as a source of replenishment for blood, so I can spam Vision of Death (level 3 Dementation) on those Protean(?) transformed fuckers and also on the giant Bat itself. Using the spotlight to knock him down is also cool, and iirc the human NPCs can also shoot the Bat down, not sure if it's because they shot it in the head or having dealt certain amount of damage, but it happens.
   • Finally, the confrontation with LaCroix himself. Ah, so satisfying. At least the finishing touch were nice. I've gone to No Gods No Master Independent Wahmen that need no man vampire that let LaCroix 'have fun' with the sarcophagus and flip the fingers to Rodriguez, but I was also disappointed we got no ending slides to recount what happened across Los Angeles after our shenanigans.
4. For other sequence I didn't mention, like Elizabeth Dane and the Museum, they were actually cool. And most of all, what I love about them is how they scratch that Half-Life 2's problem solving itch. I didn't realize I had that itch until I played this game and realize, damn, that's nice. Not even New Vegas have this kind of problem solving, where grabbing objects CAN have actual gameplay purposes. The best of all is probably setting up network for the Nosferatu. I really, REALLY love how it get progressively harder with each sequence. That quest is probably the only saving grace as the game transitioned from midgame to endgame, a calm before the storm, the last spark of brilliance and creativity before we ended up in dark, uninspired dungeons.
5. Final thoughts, the game used Half-Life 2's engine, right? I'm wondering why Valve didn't want to do this again, i.e outsource the engine to aspiring RPG developers. Ignoring all the bugs and glitches, VTMB proven that the engine is a fine template for future Action-RPGs. Why is there no one modding RPGs with this engine? I meant, Garry's Mod's a thing, right?

Also, some irrelevant thoughts:

Spoiler

Having played Gothic right after finishing VTMB for the first time, I noticed a recurring theme between the two games: betrayal. In VTMB, we were betrayed by LaCroix, and he had a Blood Hunt called for our ass. In Gothic, since I joined the Old Camp first, I was betrayed by the whole Camp who prevented me from entering the base and attacked me on sight, only talking when the script allowed it and continued it by attacking me. In both games, we then have a chance to settle the score and have their asses for dinners instead. I'm just saying this, since I can't remember any other RPGs where being betrayed is kinda a huge part of the content, hence why it's irrelevant.

All in all, I've finally fulfilled the 2/3 part of experiencing Troika's legacy, so now I only have Temple of Elemental Evil left in the backlog. I love the atmosphere of this game, I love the lore and the writing, I love the level and environmental designs of the Final Nights of Los Angeles's World of Darkness, and despite of my discomfort with the character system I highly prefer VTMB's action-RPG gameplay to that of New Vegas. Maybe because the engine is an actually working system for an action-shooter? Even then, character's combat skills still the major influence on the gameplay mechanic, so it's still a huge plus compared to New Vegas's shitty shooting mechanics. Not to mention lockpicking and hacking are 100% handled by the characters instead of shitty minigames

Some screenshot:

Spoiler

For some reason the guys at The Confession turned into midgets when I danced around them

I'm the Queen on the Floor for tonight, baby!

 

[Old One]

So in my previous post in this thread, I said I wanted to post an impression after finishing this game for the first time, well here it is.

VTMB really lends itself to replays, despite how linear it is. Try a Nosferatu or a Tremere or a Gangrel next time, and you'll be amazed by how much new content there is to see. Malkavian, Nosferatu, and to some extent Tremere are the the most different from the "baseline" experience.

You won't regret having played Malkavian first, though. I've never seen anyone who did. I played Nosferatu first, and I've never had any regrets about it.

 

[Wesp5]

I'd assume this implementation is actually inherent to the tabletop system itself, and if that's the case, I'm not sure I'll like it if the day come when I finally arrange a P&P RPG session.

Yes, I think Troika took pretty much the whole character screen from the PnP game, only there are many more stats in that, but no feats that play out as a combination of those...

I also realize.... this isn't a content I want to experience on my next playthrough.

Once you know how the Ocean House works you can replay it in a few minutes!

What's the point of that vent on the floor near the entrance, anyway? I was under an impression that that was meant to be the shortcut, but it's locked and I never got a key for it.

That's indeed the shortcut, but you need to open it from below, as you can already use it to quickly get out of Pisha's room.

Not to mention it drags on, I heard that the UP+ allowed us to bypass the sewer entirely, I'm gonna get them for second playthrough.

The UP+ plus has a shortcut kind of compressing all these overlong maps into a small one containing the main enemies as well.

The endgame sequence is a fucking hell that I'm not sure I'm ready to experience sooner now.

With the UP+ you get shortcuts through all of the three final dungeons directly to the bosses !

I'm wondering why Valve didn't want to do this again, i.e outsource the engine to aspiring RPG developers.

Valve licensed the Source engine for several games, but after many of the difficulties during the development of Bloodlines were due to the fact that Valve basically sold Troika an unfinished engine and kept developing it so they had to start over and over again until they decided to stick with a somewhat working alpha, I guess no other RPG developer dared to fall for this too!

Why is there no one modding RPGs with this engine?

I guess because while the Source engine tools might be fine for linear shooters, everything more complex had to be added by Troika themselves using Python scripts.

I'm the Queen on the Floor for tonight, baby!

Indeed a great detail that I only noticed while doing the patch: wherever you dance, all the other dancers will group around you! Vampiric influence right there ...

 

[Multidirectional]

Black Angel seems like a lot of your frustrations with combat could be fixed by never going non ranged char again. That's what I always do now. Starting firearms are shit but Blood Buff + unarmed/melee is enough to get you through Santa Monica without even a single point investment. And starting with Glock at Downtown firearms become solid. You only need Unarmed at around 5 max to have a decent chance to feed during combat. I suggest trying Toreador next playthrough and going Max Payne on their asses. Dodging bullets at higher Celerity levels actually looks pretty cool. It's really easy to become really powerful at combat for lategame to become a cakewalk and still have solid diplomatic skills throughout game, with some meta knowledge. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed my second and third playthroughs even more than first one.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Wesp5, is there a way to force the game to always load the textures at maximum definition no matter how far you are?

 

[almondblight]

It's really easy to become really powerful at combat for lategame to become a cakewalk and still have solid diplomatic skills throughout game, with some meta knowledge.

Without meta knowledge it's pretty easy too. I played with a melee Brujah using persuasion, and particularly towards the end nothing put up much of a challenge. It's helps that so many stats seemed useless, so you end up having a ton for the more useful ones..

 

[Wesp5]

Wesp5, is there a way to force the game to always load the textures at maximum definition no matter how far you are?

I don't know, I'm no programer. Drog Black Tooth hacked the binary to remove low poly LODs of model, but I wouldn't know how to do that for all other textures or how the game handles these...

 

[Rahdulan]

Black Angel

You guessed the reason as to why sheet looks the way it does. Feats were just an aggregate for gameplay's sake.

 

[Okagron]

I suggest trying Toreador next playthrough and going Max Payne on their asses. Dodging bullets at higher Celerity levels actually looks pretty cool.

This is what i did in my first playthrough and i honestly had fun. Guess that's why i didn't find the sewers and the endgame dungeons to be terrible.

 

[Multidirectional]

Wesp5, is there a way to force the game to always load the textures at maximum definition no matter how far you are?

I don't know, I'm no programer. Drog Black Tooth hacked the binary to remove low poly LODs of model, but I wouldn't know how to do that for all other textures or how the game handles these...

It sounds to me like he's talking about Anisotropic Filtering. Though it needs clarification if he's talking about ground textures here.

 

[Black Angel]

Black Angel

You guessed the reason as to why sheet looks the way it does. Feats were just an aggregate for gameplay's sake.

Damn, that looks sexy! Too bad, I'd assume a sequel would probably implement an improved and expanded version of initially implemented cRPG system. A sequel taking place during the days of Gehenna.... dammit

Also, I forgot to add more to what I thought about the ending scene

Spoiler

I think missed an opportunity to have how much Humanity and how much Masquerade points left to affect the endings. Like, losing Humanity completely or only have 1 left the ending slide will show our character doing real nasty shit to fulfill their bloodthirst, and having 2 or 1 Masquerade point left you'll be hunted down by fellow Kindred, etc etc.