Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

[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.

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

You have some flexibility and can eat a few low level NPCs as well. As long as you just don't go all willy-nilly you'll be fine. I ate 2-3 low XP targets (worth in the 1000-2000 XP brackets) in each district to keep up with the normal enemies and then toward the end ate a 3-4 high (5000) XP targets. In the end I was still outleveling the final boss by a few levels. Doing side quests, curing illnesses each cycle and trying to get all the clues gives you enough XP to put you ahead of the final boss scaling curve. The first time I ignored all of this, ate everyone in the end regardless of how much or little XP they were worth and ended up getting walled by the final boss.

 

[Funposter]

You have some flexibility and can eat a few low level NPCs as well. As long as you just don't go all willy-nilly you'll be fine. I ate 2-3 low XP targets (worth in the 1000-2000 XP brackets) in each district to keep up with the normal enemies and then toward the end ate a 3-4 high (5000) XP targets. In the end I was still outleveling the final boss by a few levels. Doing side quests, curing illnesses each cycle and trying to get all the clues gives you enough XP to put you ahead of the final boss scaling curve. The first time I ignored all of this, ate everyone in the end regardless of how much or little XP they were worth and ended up getting walled by the final boss.

As stated in the linked post, I think the optimal amount to be perfectly on the level curve is 6-7 but that locks you out of the good ending. The truth is that the game is really difficult enough, even on Hard, for it to actually be much of a bother except maybe at the beginning when you have very few tools available to you. From what I recall (this was three years ago, after all) playing on Hard difficulty and going pseudo-pacifist was actually kind of hard up until Whitechapel, but after that it's a breeze. You're behind the curve but it's only by a few levels at any given time. The only time after Whitechapel that I really got shocked by how much I was outlevelled was the Leon Augustin encounter in the West End sewers, but I think that's because I'd forged ahead of the story a little bit. A quick look at a wiki says he was Level 32, and I know that I'd started West End at Level 21, so I'd probably made it to...idk, Level 24 by then?

 

[Hobo Elf]

You have some flexibility and can eat a few low level NPCs as well. As long as you just don't go all willy-nilly you'll be fine. I ate 2-3 low XP targets (worth in the 1000-2000 XP brackets) in each district to keep up with the normal enemies and then toward the end ate a 3-4 high (5000) XP targets. In the end I was still outleveling the final boss by a few levels. Doing side quests, curing illnesses each cycle and trying to get all the clues gives you enough XP to put you ahead of the final boss scaling curve. The first time I ignored all of this, ate everyone in the end regardless of how much or little XP they were worth and ended up getting walled by the final boss.

As stated in the linked post, I think the optimal amount to be perfectly on the level curve is 6-7 but that locks you out of the good ending. The truth is that the game is really difficult enough, even on Hard, for it to actually be much of a bother except maybe at the beginning when you have very few tools available to you. From what I recall (this was three years ago, after all) playing on Hard difficulty and going pseudo-pacifist was actually kind of hard up until Whitechapel, but after that it's a breeze. You're behind the curve but it's only by a few levels at any given time. The only time after Whitechapel that I really got shocked by how much I was outlevelled was the Leon Augustin encounter in the West End sewers, but I think that's because I'd forged ahead of the story a little bit. A quick look at a wiki says he was Level 32, and I know that I'd started West End at Level 21, so I'd probably made it to...idk, Level 24 by then?

Indeed. And you can sort of unfuck yourself by grinding sick patients by sleeping a lot on purpose. It's slow and dull and I wouldn't do it, but the option is there if you want. I like Vampyr, there aren't many vampire games out there especially ones where you get to actually larp as a vampire and it isn't just fluff. But there are a lot of weird things going on with this game. It's like the developers couldn't decide if they wanted the player to play as a vampire or not. I'd say that people buying a game where you can larp as an actual vampire would really want to live up that fantasy and eat people for power as they see fit. At the very least they could've laid down the rules really early and alluded to something that the main villain will grow in power the more the world goes to shit or something.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

 

[Funposter]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

The problem with a karma system is that it only works if Reid actually changes in personality to reflect it. As it stands, he can eat half of the population of London and still proudly espouses his shitlib opinions. It's retarded.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

The problem with a karma system is that it only works if Reid actually changes in personality to reflect it. As it stands, he can eat half of the population of London and still proudly espouses his shitlib opinions. It's retarded.

Then change his personality based on his karma meter? Maybe it's easier to just not bother with the morality play stuff?

 

[Wesp5]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

The problem with a karma system is that it only works if Reid actually changes in personality to reflect it. As it stands, he can eat half of the population of London and still proudly espouses his shitlib opinions. It's retarded.

Then change his personality based on his karma meter? Maybe it's easier to just not bother with the morality play stuff?

Bloodlines did something like this all the time, if your Humanity was low, you began to get other lines of dialogues.

 

[Funposter]

Then change his personality based on his karma meter? Maybe it's easier to just not bother with the morality play stuff?

This would work if Vampyr were actually a roleplaying game, but it's not. It's a choose your own adventure with lots of combat in-between the dialogue. The game doesn't need a sequel to work out all of the kinks, so much as it does an entire remake. The premise and setting are really cool but the execution was haphazard and not well thought out.

 

[Semiurge]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

The problem with a karma system is that it only works if Reid actually changes in personality to reflect it. As it stands, he can eat half of the population of London and still proudly espouses his shitlib opinions. It's retarded.

Then change his personality based on his karma meter? Maybe it's easier to just not bother with the morality play stuff?

Bloodlines did something like this all the time, if your Humanity was low, you began to get other lines of dialogues.

These low-humanity lines were mostly cosmetic weren't they, they didn't trigger special responses from npc's?

 

[Wesp5]

If we’re talking purely in terms of design, you could also make the blood drinking a matter of karma meter rather than a gameplay mechanic that gives you mp or xp. E.g. each night the PC can choose to drink from a blood bag or a willing donor versus going out hunting and sucking on someone non-consensually. Idk

The problem with a karma system is that it only works if Reid actually changes in personality to reflect it. As it stands, he can eat half of the population of London and still proudly espouses his shitlib opinions. It's retarded.

Then change his personality based on his karma meter? Maybe it's easier to just not bother with the morality play stuff?

Bloodlines did something like this all the time, if your Humanity was low, you began to get other lines of dialogues.

These low-humanity lines were mostly cosmetic weren't they, they didn't trigger special responses from npc's?

Sometimes they did, or they made the player attack right on. At least you could roleplay an asshole if you wanted !

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Red Embrace: Hollywood, a VN that was heavily inspired by Bloodlines, had a simple karma meter (one of three) that oscillated between "Humane" and "Vampiric" based on your responses in dialogue. Sufficiently high values gave you new dialogue options that could be used to get higher reputation rewards in some situations. These mechanics were dropped when they started making the following sequel because players found the meters unintuitive. I do not recommend the game and I wish I could get a refund.

 

[PanickedTushkano]

I'm in Chapter 5 and should be finished in a few hours. Some quick points:

The Good:
- Great atmosphere and music
- Surprisingly good character writing for the most part
- Fun, challenging combat
- Character progression gives enough room for 2+ replays
- Crafting, but it's kept simple and clutter is avoided and what you can craft actually matters
- Some good C&C, but...

The Bad:
- ...basically no moment-to-moment reactivity
- Travelling between districts can get annoying quickly, because
> weird map-layout with many passages being locked
> respawning enemies that are almost impossible to avoid and that give no experience
> curing people again and again
- Some weak character writing and questionable story moments (the romance, Mary etc.)
- Some dialogue options for our Dr. Reid are straight-up stupid
- Sometimes dialogue plays out no matter what, not accounting for what has happened or has already been said
- Outcomes of story decisions are difficult to predict
- Game tries to push player into "eating" people with loading screen-text and tries to make things go bad with unclear options during important dialogue
> inelegant, heavy-handed game design

I still mostly like it, but I feel like this one would have been better off if it had tried to tell a more straightforward story. The dialogue structurce is weird and doesn't really mean anything for the most part. The open world is also kind of fake and the player is pretty much pushed to do things in order. It usually works well for what it is, but in this case I think just like the story, the map would've worked better if it had been more restrictive.

Edit: Oh, and the ludonarrative issues are obvious enough as people have pointed out. In my opinion the chosen setting is a real problem as it's clearly not a fantasy setting, but the Guard of Priwen is everywhere and eventually you have not just masses of Skals, but even Ekons showing up in the open. Another issue I had with the narrative was that our character simply continues with his life as if nothing had happened whereas Mary turns evil/insane. Skals are mostly murderous maniacs, except a small community which are inexplicably peaceful and then there are also numerous moments where it's unclear how Vampires actually work. There are not real consistently applied rules as far as I can tell. Characters even recognize that at times ("don't really know how Vampires are actually made", except of course sometimes they do know). Eh, too many issues as that that wouldn't require some more thorough analysis.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

>from Life is Strange developers

that's all I need to know, this is going on my "never buy" list

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Red Embrace: Hollywood

Hmm, might give this a try. Thanks for the recc.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Red Embrace: Hollywood

Hmm, might give this a try. Thanks for the recc.

I don’t recommend it. I didn’t find it interesting. I spent like twenty hours playing hoping it would get interesting and it didn’t. Also, the devs are insanely woke and I got banned from their discord for accidentally offending fragile snowflakes when I was trying desperately to walk on fucking eggshells. So fuck this shithole game and fuck the asshole devs.