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

[Gargaune]

Deus Ex invented this system and has been using it with success in several game! The Werewolf game released lately did the very same thing only even more obvious...

You're taking what he said out of context, Semiurge's point was that it's not like Deus Ex:

Context dependent abilities are an insult to everyone. Either make their use completely free or don't include those abilities, either option is better than what we almost got.

Deus Ex doesn't implement vent crawling through preset contextual prompts. You've got some (conveniently oversized, I admit) ventilation shafts and, yes, you can open grates and crawl in to get various places, but they're not push-button takedown setpieces. Whereas what you see in that video is a bespoke solution to an individual encounter.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Wesp5 is saying that Deus Ex implemented it in a far less obvious manner. In BL2, you press a button to mist through a vent. As Adam or JC, you crouch walk into the vent. The end result is the same, just that DX obscures it with some minor interaction. Or that wall breaking aug in DX.

 

[Gargaune]

It's not the same, though, Deus Ex's vents aren't one-stop transitions from point A to point B. They can be, and often are, an alternative path through a level segment, featuring multiple exits at various points, it's not just a case of obscuring function behind cosmetic interaction. Additionally, they also function as a place to hide in the scope of stealth gameplay. Vents in Deus Ex are a fully-developed dimension of level traversal, whereas Semiurge's Bloodlines 2 video shows a contextual ability leveraging a singular setpiece shortcut, strategically placed behind an encounter - press button, get awesome.

Maybe I misunderstood Wesp5's angle on it, but nonetheless, these are not similar mechanics in anything other than theme. This Bloodlines ability is similar to the wall-breaking mechanic in DX3/4, though, you're correct on that one.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

On the topic of contextual prompts, RIP Thief.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Wtf, I see my post has been randomly moved to one of the hidden boards. Fuck you mods.

Post a link! I want to see the post.

 

[Gastrick]

Wtf, I see my post has been randomly moved to one of the hidden boards. Fuck you mods.

Post a link! I want to see the post.

I don't have a link and didn't save the text, but it's looking like I should from now on. I quoted another user to say I agreed and to segway into my own post and that's the reason why my post was removed. Infinitron is worried about posts that might offend women and thus hides them. I'll restate the most important part of my post, that I predict in 5 years, paradox will either get bought out or go bankrupt.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

I don't have a link and didn't save the text, but it's looking like I should from now on. I quoted another user to say I agreed and to segway into my own post and that's the reason why my post was removed. Infinitron is worried about posts that might offend women and thus hides them. I'll restate the most important part of my post, that I predict in 5 years, paradox will either get bought out or go bankrupt.

Such drama over inclusion in with Koolz' heavy duty tinfoil action because you quoted one of those series of posts. I can't wait for the sequel.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

...Infinitron is worried about posts that might offend women and thus hides them.

Guess he could always delete the whole site to be safe? Censorship works, just ask China.

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

 

[Semiurge]

whereas Semiurge's Bloodlines 2 video shows a contextual ability leveraging a singular setpiece shortcut, strategically placed behind an encounter - press button, get awesome.

And if anyone's thinking that the trailer only featured demonstrations of the simplest kind about game mechanics, don't kid yourself. Awesome Button™ navigation and combat is what we would've gotten.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Going by that gameplay demo I'm still surprised they didn't think that a sequel of Vampire Motherfucking Bloodlines would need facial animations/dialogue close-ups AT LEAST on par with the modern industry average.
Hell, on par with the original could have been enough, if nothing else.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

Might want to ask infinitron what his going rates for censorship are.

 

[Twiglard]

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

Might want to ask infinitron what his going rates for censorship are.

What, for keeping Codex servers hidden from the morality police? The guy keeps posting news for free for so many years and he gets blamed for nearly everything here.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

Might want to ask infinitron what his going rates for censorship are.

What, for keeping Codex servers hidden from the morality police? The guy keeps posting news for free for so many years and he gets blamed for nearly everything here.

Do you have proof that he's not responsible for the things he's accused of?

 

[Wunderbar]

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

Might want to ask infinitron what his going rates for censorship are.

What, for keeping Codex servers hidden from the morality police? The guy keeps posting news for free for so many years and he gets blamed for nearly everything here.

Do you have proof that he's posting news this for free?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Considering what's said in normal posts, I'd love to know what the bar for "might offend" is.

Might want to ask infinitron what his going rates for censorship are.

What, for keeping Codex servers hidden from the morality police? The guy keeps posting news for free for so many years and he gets blamed for nearly everything here.

Do you have proof that he's posting news this for free?

I doubt that posting news on the 'dex is that lucrative of a business. Infy just likes posting news.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Probably got a nice pay increase when obsidian got bought by microsoft.

 

[Wesp5]

Going by that gameplay demo I'm still surprised they didn't think that a sequel of Vampire Motherfucking Bloodlines would need facial animations/dialogue close-ups AT LEAST on par with the modern industry average.
Hell, on par with the original could have been enough, if nothing else.

This seems to be a problem with the Unreal engine. I haven't seen one Unreal engine game yet with facial animations as good as those of the old Source engine! The only thing coming close are the faces of Cyberpunk 2077...

 

[Ol' Willy]

The guy keeps posting news for free for so many years and he gets blamed for nearly everything here

Does anyone actually read these news?

 

[Ol' Willy]

The only thing coming close are the faces of Cyberpunk 2077...

Facial animations budget of CP77 is enough to develop two or three separate Bloodlines games

 

[Caim]

It's not the same, though, Deus Ex's vents aren't one-stop transitions from point A to point B. They can be, and often are, an alternative path through a level segment, featuring multiple exits at various points, it's not just a case of obscuring function behind cosmetic interaction. Additionally, they also function as a place to hide in the scope of stealth gameplay. Vents in Deus Ex are a fully-developed dimension of level traversal, whereas Semiurge's Bloodlines 2 video shows a contextual ability leveraging a singular setpiece shortcut, strategically placed behind an encounter - press button, get awesome.

Maybe I misunderstood Wesp5's angle on it, but nonetheless, these are not similar mechanics in anything other than theme. This Bloodlines ability is similar to the wall-breaking mechanic in DX3/4, though, you're correct on that one.

Unrelated, but wouldn't crawling around in a vent be very noisy and thus render you a sitting duck for enemies who hear you?

 

[Infinitron]

Going by that gameplay demo I'm still surprised they didn't think that a sequel of Vampire Motherfucking Bloodlines would need facial animations/dialogue close-ups AT LEAST on par with the modern industry average.
Hell, on par with the original could have been enough, if nothing else.

That was their goal and they pledged to improve facial animations back at PDXCON 2019, before everything fell apart:
https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=11270
https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=11288

 

[Roguey]

Going by that gameplay demo I'm still surprised they didn't think that a sequel of Vampire Motherfucking Bloodlines would need facial animations/dialogue close-ups AT LEAST on par with the modern industry average.
Hell, on par with the original could have been enough, if nothing else.

This seems to be a problem with the Unreal engine. I haven't seen one Unreal engine game yet with facial animations as good as those of the old Source engine! The only thing coming close are the faces of Cyberpunk 2077...

Unreal uses FaceFX middleware which gets the job done, but is no faceposer, and Valve is uninterested in putting in the work to make the latest version of Source available for license. Mocap would have blown up the budget to a number Paradox would be uncomfortable with (Bloodlines isn't exactly a proven multi-million seller and they've never spent this amount of money on a game before; going from 10 to 60 is scarier than 10 to 40).

 

[Wesp5]

Maybe I misunderstood Wesp5's angle on it, but nonetheless, these are not similar mechanics in anything other than theme.

You are right that the Bloodlines 2 method shown was kind of a shortcut of the usual vent crawling, but from a mapping point of view it is similar. Like you always have to design the maps to make these alternate ways possible! Some time ago Paradox announced that the player would be able to use all three of the traversal disciplines because they noticed that it would be impossible to implement three different ways into all maps. A first sign that HSL was clearly over their head...

 

[Larianshill]

Reminder that you can beat Dishonored 2 without any teleportation - or any powers, for that matter - on a pacifist, no-detection run. And if Dishonored 2 can pull it off...

 

[Gargaune]

Unrelated, but wouldn't crawling around in a vent be very noisy and thus render you a sitting duck for enemies who hear you?

Yeah, very likely. Plus, there's a whole lot of them, suspiciously Denton-sized, and remarkably bulletproof. But, you know, yippee ki-yay, motherfucker.

You are right that the Bloodlines 2 method shown was kind of a shortcut of the usual vent crawling, but from a mapping point of view it is similar. Like you always have to design the maps to make these alternate ways possible! Some time ago Paradox announced that the player would be able to use all three of the traversal disciplines because they noticed that it would be impossible to implement three different ways into all maps. A first sign that HSL was clearly over their head...

Certainly, Deus Ex's vents are still a deliberate design, with the level builder consciously mapping out where they go relative to patrols and obstacles, but they're not individual encounter setpieces. They're akin to a set of dungeon corridors, a part of the map, rather than a part of the encounter, as was the case in that Bloodlines 2 video.

To give you a non-Deus Ex comparison, what we saw in that sequence was similar to an oil spill under an enemy spawn in a Skyrim dungeon - a tailor-made option to resolve a singular encounter. The gameplay loop there is restricted to noticing and activating an insta-kill opportunity, and I think it's overly reductive to liken that to Deus Ex's vents, which are a full-fledged dimension of navigating levels.