Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

[ERYFKRAD]

Killing hundreds of people is OK but killing a nobody(or literal evil) by embracing makes you bad?

Something to be said for killing in self defense and killing in cold blood I guess.

 

[Bad Sector]

Killing hundreds of people is OK but killing a nobody(or literal evil) by embracing makes you bad? 'k...

I think the idea is that if someone attacks you with the intent to kill you is fair game.

 

[Hobo Elf]

No real reason. You can try to do it for LARP reasons (and I think there is an achievement), but the game straight up tells you to just feed or you're going to have a bad time with combat. Ultimately you are a Vampire and the only reason you use your medical skills to heal people is just so that they are worth more XP.

 

[Cyberarmy]

you're going to have a bad time with combat.

funny part is, while skills and passives help you in combat, real power came from weapon upgrades. After upgrading bonesaw, sawed off shotgun and blood leeching blade I became unstopable pretty quick.
Only enemy I have bad time against is, the fucking controls and locking system ...

 

[Cyberarmy]

Any reason for being good? You become feral like Bloodlines if too bad or you can keep play and just Murder anyone? I mean you are an undead after all.

Districts became populated with enemies and creatures the more you kill or didn't cure. (not curing is the worst thing because cured citizens give more exp. when embraced) Quests can fail but most citizens drop keys that unlock phat loot so it balances out a bit. No in game lockpicking is a bit strange but still a welcome change.
Also probably different endings.

 

[Barbie]

Districts became populated with enemies and creatures the more you kill or didn't cure. (not curing is the worst thing because cured citizens give more exp. when embraced) Quests can fail but most citizens drop keys that unlock phat loot so it balances out a bit. No in game lockpicking is a bit strange but still a welcome change.
Also probably different endings.

Endings don't have that much difference, other than Whether you feed on civilians determines end bosses strength and dialogue. If you don't feed on citizens, she's piss easy but if you feed on everyone albeit your power she is almost impossible to beat. The game hints at you at multiple locations this will happen though.

I recommend finding out the whole social circles and then seeing what happens if you feed on one of them. It's not huge changes, but the game accounts for it. For example if you kill the sick boys father near the church, the son becomes homeless. and if you feed on the first character the game suggests you to, you'll lock out of questline he offers later on.

There are a bunch of others as well, where feeding on someone does reflect. If I remember right killing a certain man makes the game stop talking about there being an active serial killer at the docks.

 

[Zombra]

Any reason for being good?

You mean, do the Little Sisters show up to thank you with a big gift wrapped box of money and xp? No.

 

[Hobo Elf]

funny part is, while skills and passives help you in combat, real power came from weapon upgrades. After upgrading bonesaw, sawed off shotgun and blood leeching blade I became unstopable pretty quick.
Only enemy I have bad time against is, the fucking controls and locking system ...

You'll still want levels because weapon rank increases damage but the scaling is determined by the difference in level. Enemies become damage sponges if you lag too far behind them even with upgraded weapons. You don't have to, but I hate dealing with damage sponges.

Districts became populated with enemies and creatures the more you kill or didn't cure. (not curing is the worst thing because cured citizens give more exp. when embraced) Quests can fail but most citizens drop keys that unlock phat loot so it balances out a bit. No in game lockpicking is a bit strange but still a welcome change.
Also probably different endings.

Not only that, but curing them also gives a nice chunk of XP that really starts to add up if you bother to make the rounds each night (in addition to any XP you get from killing enemies on the way to the districts). You could easily game the system and just cure NPCs for XP and not embrace anyone, though that would be pretty boring imo.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Being good rewards you with worse combat in a game with bad combat.

 

[Alphons]

Vampyr: Embrace the suck

 

[Cyberarmy]

Men, I'm nearing the end and this is literal nightmare.

-Combat is bad and boring. Using same tactics against same enemies. Over and over. Respawning enemies with such bad combat mechanics is such a bad decision. Worse controls than Ecstetica doesn't help either....
-Thrash loot everywhere. One cannot be poor with all them loot laying around in London.
-Weapon diversty is kinda non existant. Most weapons do similar things or can be upgraded in a similar fashion. Why need blood stealing off hand weapon when your main weapon can do it with much better damage...

I really want to hate this game but London's mood, NPCs, soundtrack and investigations (however basic they are) sucks me back in. Sadly this kind of game is the best vampire game we got for a long time, considering other shit around. It's sad that we only went backwards after Bloodlines...

 

[Hobknobling]

Sadly this kind of game is the best vampire game we got for a long time, considering other shit around.

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/games/nighthawks/

Waiting for this. Hopefully it doesn't suck despite being a vampire game. Wadjet Eye has a good track record but in a different genre.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

I really want to hate this game but London's mood, NPCs, soundtrack and investigations (however basic they are) sucks me back in.

Ye, def.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper is my fav representation of Victorian London in gaming so far.

There's a video from 1967 with James Mason of the place where Jack/Aaron killed Annie Chapman that had barely changed since, and the Sherlock game recreated that feel the best I've seen.



Used to be able to catch echoes of such places some years ago.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Sadly this kind of game is the best vampire game we got for a long time, considering other shit around.

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/games/nighthawks/

Waiting for this. Hopefully it doesn't suck despite being a vampire game. Wadjet Eye has a good track record but in a different genre.

I’m looking forward to this one. Apparently the dev originally pitched for Paradox, got declined, and decided to make his own IP. More power to him. Monopolies are bad anyway

 

[Ibn Sina]

Men, I'm nearing the end and this is literal nightmare.

-Combat is bad and boring. Using same tactics against same enemies. Over and over. Respawning enemies with such bad combat mechanics is such a bad decision. Worse controls than Ecstetica doesn't help either....
-Thrash loot everywhere. One cannot be poor with all them loot laying around in London.
-Weapon diversty is kinda non existant. Most weapons do similar things or can be upgraded in a similar fashion. Why need blood stealing off hand weapon when your main weapon can do it with much better damage...

I really want to hate this game but London's mood, NPCs, soundtrack and investigations (however basic they are) sucks me back in. Sadly this kind of game is the best vampire game we got for a long time, considering other shit around. It's sad that we only went backwards after Bloodlines...

Vampyr felt like playing with true vampire simply because it puts core emphasis on feeding, and feeding has consequences. In bloodlines, I felt like playing a midnight cape superhero, feeding is a non issue and is not taken into the perspective, and has no consequence. You can drain 95% of a blood of a man with no fucks given and he would be fine and dandy. Drinking more than 30% of blood should have been fatal to anyone.

 

[Zibniyat]

investigations (however basic they are)

Since it has been a while and therefore I may be misremembering things, but it does not make any sense to tie blood quality to how much information you (your character) knows about someone. It is completely illogical and I don't remember it being addressed by the game. Instead, you have one and the same person whom you can feed upon, but the quality of his or her blood was dependant on how much you know about them. How does that make any sense? Or did I miss something there?


I actually finished the game on normal difficulty without embracing anyone, or killing anyone who was not hostile outright, that is I had a completely "good ending". And I found that ending to be rather nice.

Edit: it was normal difficulty. I actually found the answer to my question, and it was my in first post in this thread, here if someone is interested: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...fe-is-strange-devs.96615/page-50#post-5898962

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Men, I'm nearing the end and this is literal nightmare.

-Combat is bad and boring. Using same tactics against same enemies. Over and over. Respawning enemies with such bad combat mechanics is such a bad decision. Worse controls than Ecstetica doesn't help either....
-Thrash loot everywhere. One cannot be poor with all them loot laying around in London.
-Weapon diversty is kinda non existant. Most weapons do similar things or can be upgraded in a similar fashion. Why need blood stealing off hand weapon when your main weapon can do it with much better damage...

I really want to hate this game but London's mood, NPCs, soundtrack and investigations (however basic they are) sucks me back in. Sadly this kind of game is the best vampire game we got for a long time, considering other shit around. It's sad that we only went backwards after Bloodlines...

Vampyr felt like playing with true vampire simply because it puts core emphasis on feeding, and feeding has consequences. In bloodlines, I felt like playing a midnight cape superhero, feeding is a non issue and is not taken into the perspective, and has no consequence.

That’s an interesting point. When vampires feed, more often than not they’re assaulting an innocent bystander. How does one make bloodsucking emotionally meaningful without making the gameplay clunky or unfun? Would players appreciate the design? Something to think about, I guess

You can drain 95% of a blood of a man with no fucks given and he would be fine and dandy. Drinking more than 30% of blood should have been fatal to anyone.

I really think the description/depiction of the feeding process should be decoupled from the literal volume of blood in a human body. Rather than blood itself, I think it makes more sense to describe it in terms of life force being drained using blood as a conduit.

 

[Wesp5]

My main problem with Vampyr and feeding was that there was no consistency between feeding on an innocent, which somehow made you more powerful, compared to feeding on an enemy, which should make you even more powerful but didn't. Also you could stop feeding fine in the middle of a fight, but couldn't stop draining people in a peacefull environment? That made no sense at all!

 

[Harthwain]

Also you could stop feeding fine in the middle of a fight, but couldn't stop draining people in a peacefull environment? That made no sense at all!

This is because you're supposed to make a hard choice by draining the "innocent" people, while in combat you drain some nobodies whose deaths are of no consequence from gameplay perspective. And this is also exactly the reason why the lust for blood should be a thing if you play as a vampire. Limitations and the lack of total control add more to the game than people think.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

My main problem with Vampyr and feeding was that there was no consistency between feeding on an innocent, which somehow made you more powerful, compared to feeding on an enemy, which should make you even more powerful but didn't. Also you could stop feeding fine in the middle of a fight, but couldn't stop draining people in a peacefull environment? That made no sense at all!

typical poor gameplay/story segregation

 

[Zombra]

My main problem with Vampyr and feeding was that there was no consistency between feeding on an innocent, which somehow made you more powerful, compared to feeding on an enemy, which should make you even more powerful but didn't.

"Should" according to who? You?
The xp in Vampyr is perfectly consistent. You get more Monster Power from cold-blooded murder than from self-defense, because it's a more monstery thing to do. Not that hard to grasp.

 

[Wesp5]

My main problem with Vampyr and feeding was that there was no consistency between feeding on an innocent, which somehow made you more powerful, compared to feeding on an enemy, which should make you even more powerful but didn't.

"Should" according to who? You?
The xp in Vampyr is perfectly consistent. You get more Monster Power from cold-blooded murder than from self-defense, because it's a more monstery thing to do. Not that hard to grasp.

So killing all those innocent family fathers who only attack me in wrong faith is not cold-blooded murder? Why don't I try to reason with them, or disable them without killing like it's possible in Bloodlines? Oh, because the game doesn't allow it.

 

[Zombra]

So killing all those innocent family fathers who only attack me in wrong faith is not cold-blooded murder?

Correct. Self-defense is neither cold-blooded nor murder. Astonishingly, this is still the case even if the people assaulting you have kids, or a belief system that says it's OK to kill you.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I think there’s room for multiple approaches. If you want to make a morality play involving vampires, that’s fine. If you want to make a game where the vampire PC is basically a superhero, that’s fine too.

 

[Funposter]

No real reason. You can try to do it for LARP reasons (and I think there is an achievement), but the game straight up tells you to just feed or you're going to have a bad time with combat. Ultimately you are a Vampire and the only reason you use your medical skills to heal people is just so that they are worth more XP.

Level scaling makes a full-embrace playthrough actually more difficult. Pacifist isn't easy either, since you'll generally be underlevelled, so the best balance is to embrace like 3 or so high XP NPCs to keep up with the level curve iirc

Edit: nvm Hard difficulty is a cakewalk on max embrace as explained in my own post two pages ago https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...fe-is-strange-devs.96615/page-53#post-6332205 I remembered the final boss scaling up to level 50 but I think I was confusing max embrace with the max anarchy aspect where it just becomes a tedious slog of killing vampires whenever you walk around the map