Thread 3802854

Like sire, like childe. I should have killed you that night. How could someone as low as you injure me? You think you've taken everything away, but I still have my VTMB Thread

regaining humanity via dancing is pretty cool, too bad base game does fuck all with whole thing except you going full Gangrel

Go ahead,
try to Dominate me again.

>>3802854 (OP)
This line convinced me that LaCroix did not set fire to the park, it was the last straw

>>3802947
possibly jack but, what do you mean last straw?

I like LaCroix more than Jack, who looks like he smells like shit and deflects whenever you call him out on his hypocrisy.

>>3802947
LaCroix accusing you of betraying him when you two are alone in the suicide bomber fight really makes you think.

what do you think the sheriff ended up doing with the remainder of his unlife when you do the lacroix route and open up the coffin with him?

Ventrue are cool. Disciplines for gaining power and wealth and the ability to tank the haters who can't stop seething.

>>3803622
Depends on if he was legitimately loyal to LaCroix or was bloodbound/dominated. If the former, I imagine he'd start killing Anarch shits until he got ashed or backup arrived. If the latter, my bet would be on him leaving. Who actually wants to stay in LA?

>>3803632
Ventrue are my personal favorites. Though I'd argue most of the first seven clans are fairly well designed in which disciplines they possess.

>>3803632
Hell yeah. Max stamina + Max fortitude + Max Presence while wielding the McLusky is the only proper way to play Ventrue.

Ecaterina The Wise > Lacroix
I least she isn't going to judge me for Cartaginese Larping

>>3802854 (OP)
I need to finish my Tremere playthrough
Is thaumaturgy good enough on its own for the final bosses or do I need to invest in guns?

Its so funny going to Vesuvius and seeing the strippers do the same dance animations from the nightclubs. They are just on stage next to a pole flailing their arms around. I mean the dance animations were already bad, but seeing VV autistically flail around is cherry on top.

>>3809044
Thaumaturgy is good and can be all you use if you know what you're doing. I still think it's fun to use it while shooting though, unless you're using the patch with casting animations.

>>3803632
It'd be cool if there was anything to do with wealth in this game. You can really only spend it on ammo, and ironically, there's not enough dollars in the game to fund a guns only playthrough. I checked.
I will say though, some of the most fun I've had in the game was dominating thugs and slowly walking towards them like some pansy anime villain then sucking em dry. What's cool is cool

>>3810335
There's special anti-synergy for cash and Ventrue too, which is funny. Since most of the times outside of ammo purchases where you need to spend money can be bypassed or reduced by persuasion, dominate, or presence. All of which Ventrue have.

i really loved Bloodlines but is there a Masquerade game that lets me play as a sinister, morbidly obese vampire like Pearl from Blade or Balthazar from Buffy

>>3810459
Gonna need to play the tabletop for that one. Fat freak could work as a Nosferatu, maybe as a Gangrel animal trait, or you could just be morbidly obese when you got the embrace.

>>3810466
Nosferatu would actually make a lot of sense (and Cryptophilia compulsion is actually pretty accurate for the existing fat vampire characters in pop culture). i've played 5e and pathfinder and may not have the energy to learn a new TTRPG but maybe i'll check out

>>3810447
>special anti-synergy
Yea, it's very discouraging. Same goes for Toreador, where you have to go out of your way to level both seduction and persuasion, and as I remember, you never really use the former outside of clubs, though I haven't had a female run so what do I know.
Having to choose between dominate or a speech check is a huge drag, I agree.

>>3810335
>there's not enough dollars in the game to fund a guns only playthrough. I checked.
There is if you do side quests and only buy a few guns from vendors. At least according to Jack during the tutorial the game doesn't really want you going guns only though.

>>3810732
i distinctly remember being in chinatown having no money at all. the fortune teller guy was bugged.

>>3811008
I never had a problem with money in this game even when prioritizing exp rewards over money rewards. Usually Venus's quest is enough to cover most of my basic expenses through most of the game when combined with all the little sellables. Picking up and selling the weapons enemies drop also gets you some chump change, if you're not using melee there's no reason to hold onto any melee weapons. I do usually put some points into finance and get the skill book and skill point from Fat Larry, so I'm probably getting better deals than most players who don't bother with the haggling feat at all. You shouldn't have to buy a lot of ammo anyways since certain levels have crates that spawn filled with ammo for your equipped guns.
If you really need cash and don't care about losing all your humanity, you can just kill the respawning police officers in the hub areas and sell their batons/guns.

My first (completed) playthrough was almost entirely guns because I didn't know that bloodbuff + fists is all you need for most of the game. By the time I was ready to fight Ming and Magilla I had enough to splurge on bloodbags and ammo, and this was without completing many of the sidequests because it was first playthrough. I was a Ventrue though so I did start with a haggling buff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQC9sToSdmM
There are so many good fucking songs in the unused OST. I could see why they weren't used since they didn't really fit with the tone of the game. But it's the kind of music you listen to when you're reflecting and contemplating on your life.

>>3803622
Seeing as he is not seen in LA by night he probably went into torpor or was given final death.

>>3803616
I can think of some reasons why Smiling Jack may have set the fire iykyk. Still seems weird for such a friendly face to be behind the fire. What do you mean though about the dialogue? I can't remember what LaCroix actually says.

>>3812151
>I anticipated you'd make it this far. . . I had no doubts about your capability. But I am not so easily betrayed. . . Did you ever think about what it takes to live as long as I have? To come this far? Consider that lack of judgement in your last few seconds.

>Still seems weird for such a friendly face to be behind the fire.
Jack killed everyone on the Dane and if you're a Malkavian he says he'd kill you if anyone took you seriously because of what you know about him and his plot.

It's an interesting theory that Jack set the fire but I don't think it's true. There's plenty of other dialogue from LaCroix admitting his backstabbing.

>It was a difficult decision to make. But I only did it for the greater good. The Kuei-Jin did not question my scheme, but I did it to bring all Kindred under Camarilla govern.
>Rodriguez was a sacrifice. Without a leader, there was confusion. The anarchs needed retribution. I called a blood hunt on you to satisfy their bloodlust and to assert leadership over them. There is at last unity amongst this city's Kindred. The Kuei-Jin's nights are numbered.
>As I've said many times before - someone with your skill is irreplaceable. I had no doubt you'd survive the ordeal.

>>3812001
I think I was struggling to beat either Ming or the demon girl and I was doing no damage to her except with the flamethrower (?) or at any rate some fire damage dealing weapon which you couldn't loot off of enemies. It was well over a decade so I couldn't tell you the details exactly. I also don't think I was using any patch. Anyway

>>3812007
Funny, I was going to link All That Could Ever Be as well before I saw that it's what you shared too. And I agree completely, I think this song is used for either the pier or the carnival in one of the WESP patches and it didn't fit at all. It felt like a cheap and "dishonest" way to cram in as much content as possible. Hollywood was lighting in a bottle, I don't think there's a better hub/music combination in all of video games.
I remember smoking in my room at night climbed out the window listening to these two song and looking at the filthy streets of Bucharest when I was 16. Close to being the best times of my life.

>>3812007
Funny, I was going to link All That Could Ever Be as well before I saw that it's what you shared too. And I agree completely, I think this song is used for either the pier or the carnival in one of the WESP patches and it didn't fit at all. It felt like a cheap and "dishonest" way to cram in as much content as possible. Hollywood was lighting in a bottle, I don't think there's a better hub/music combination in all of video games.
I remember smoking in my room at night climbed out the window listening to these two songs and looking at the filthy streets of Bucharest when I was 16. Close to being the best times of my life.

Best mods in 2025?

>>3812838
clan quest mod

>>3812838
Weapon Overhaul. Nothing beats making guns matter, both for you and the enemies.

Oh yeah, don't go for new clan mods. Tzimitshe are not worth it, Anteluvre (or however the fuck) clan pack is extremely unfriendly to the game's setting and the remaining mods add completely asinine bullshit like Blade/Crow/Dhampir and other moronic stuff.

Jeanette fucks nosfs. Do you think that Therese could be convinced to?

>>3813139
Never. I get the vibe that she is completely celibate, ignoring the weirdly sexual part of vampirism.

>>3809044
im about to finish mine but i went thaumaturgy/melee, first time trying plus patch too

>>3813144
>completely celibate

I pronounce the blast sentence and I soak the critical fallout. I make the decisions no one else will. Leadership... I wear the albatross and a VTMB Thread

>>3814609
If you made some good decisions once in a while, no one would say anything.

>>3814659
I want to say.. nigger
siding with sebastian (no homo) is the patrician's choice

>>3814890
>I want to say.. nigger
say that to my face fucker not online and see what happens

AHAHAHAHA, what a VTMB thread man, hoo-wee

The JRPGs? they're worthless man, like fake tits on a zombie worthless. Fun to watch though. Like the three stooges with chainsaws.

Of course, you're innocent. You're an asset to me; I'll take care of you. But there's one last thing I need you to do for me. The last order of business before we sleep easy. My protégé, it's time I told you about VTMB Thread

What if the sparkling water salesman made a business selling canned vitae to kindred? Then he would make so much money he wouldn't need to diablerize that ancient Assyrian king or whatever

>>3816876
I played all of Redemption without ever feeding. Just drank these weird coppery health potions I kept finding in dungeons

>>3803632
Ventrue is my favorite clan definitely. You can start with so many points in Persuasion and I like maxed Fortitude more than maxed Celerity since you are practically invincible in almost any circumstance and can do whatever you want. Plus I like Dominate in dialogue a lot more than the IM PICKLE RICK dialogue Malkavians have.

>>3816897
>I like maxed Fortitude more than maxed Celerity
Same. Celerity is fun for a little bit but I wish it had an option to just make you faster instead of making everything else slower. Celerity letting you reload faster or swing melee faster and move faster would've been fun but I get a little bored of how it makes everything slower.

So I've noticed some astrological references in this game, specifically the planets. Obv we first meet Merucurio, the first planet, an initiator and messenger. The Malk PC picks up on this. Another obvious one is Venus, second. She is feminine, tries to tempt people and get stories. A gossip. I don't know about Earth or Mars. Any help would be appreciated, thats why I bring this up. In Hollywood there is Red Spot and Golden Age Jewelry. Jupiter and Saturn. Hesiod said that the Golden Age was ruled by Saturn in the Theogony I think. So Abrams is Saturn. (Abrahamic religion being saturnian in nature, look at the black cube imagery employed by Jews and Muslims) And Astronomers say that Jupiter has a red spot. What about Pluto and Uranus? I also don't know about those two. But the game is very obvious with the first two, so I think it was trying to show us a pattern. (Yes, I did play Malkavian and yes I was alarmed at how much sense he made) So who is Jupiter in Hollywood, that guy behind the register? I don't think so, but I really hope someone can help with these correspondences. And what does it mean astrologically, is there an esoteric meaning to their roles and placement?

>>3818006
Samefag. So I just learned the Giovanni are associated with Jupiter, Jove-anni. But they aren't in Hollywood, but Redspot is, so idk. Also I found this cool video about constellations which I don't understand but its cool. Also anyone pick up on the Knox- Fort Knox- Gold-Golden Ghoul- Gary Golden- Living in the sewers- Gold in the centre of the Earth- VITRIOL- Lapis Philosophicum thing going on, or is it just me? Link to video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgSGHz9-mzU

>>3818006
Me again, if Mars is between Earth and Jupiter then we should ask what is before the Red Spot? Well it is the Grout Mansion and the Museum. But also in Hollywood we can wrap up the serial killer quest and he has red hair and is very violent, recklessly so. And he was introduced in Santa Monica, and makes us return there. Mars is on the edge of the asteroid belt between the inner and outer solar system, liminal, as they say. So this is a red violent liminal figure. Mars? And I have seen a sign for the Earth before, a cross inside a circle. LaCroix? We meet him around the time we meet Venus and before we finish the Mars bit. As leader of the Camarilla he is lawful, 'mundane' if you will. He rules the vampires as people, makes them coexist with humans through the masquerade. He also dies in some endings, Gehenna, the end of the world Finally, Earth is linked to Saturn. LaCroix is a lot like Abrams, he wears a suit, adopts a royal title (Prince and Baron) and rules a domain. Again any help thinking about this would be appreciated. Hope some of you don't discount this as nonsense.

>>3818006
>>3818022
>It's very likely that Red Spot was inspired by the real-life legendary Pink Dot; a quick delivery prepared-to-order grocery store located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA.
During Venus' quest, the Malkavian can tell her he'll become Mars to save her from Vulcan. The game actually takes place on Earth. But rly, Bishop Vick talks about Earth and Hell a bit in his dialogue. The phone call before getting the DMP tape in Hollywood having "the moon is a mysterious mistress" line.

In Chinatown you can mention seeing the Mandarin and calling him a silver-haired man and that he was coming out of the Golden Temple.

I didn't catch the Knox thing but it makes sense as both Knox and Gary are keeping valuable secrets.

The Malk will call Jeanette a rainy day child, which is probably in reference to her makeup. But it made me think of how you first meet Bach with Grout's mansion on fire and vamps are horrified by fire. The gargoyle made of stone. Isaac making reference to LaCroix's wooden soldiers.

Jonny in Chinatown's full name is Jonny Tiger. Then there's Ginger Swan in Hollywood. Beckett being a wolf and the two hitmen in Chinatown being referred to as wolves by the Malkavian. Ming turning into a squid type creature. The gargoyle being a monkey. The Malkavian TV interaction referring to you as a tuna, fish out of water. Malk calling Jezebel Locke a spider and her victim a fly, Pisha and her victims too.

I suppose LaCroix and Ming could be Jupiter and Neptune? Ming being the squid creature and in the Kuei-jin ending she sends you to the bottom of the ocean. LaCroix having the sheriff who can turn into a giant bat-type thing like Jupiter's eagle, the tower being the oak tree, Ventrue's symbols are a sword and scepter, Jupiter is often depicted with a scepter.

>>3818060
I like what you are saying about LaCroix as Jupiter and Ming Xiao as Neptune. LaCroix as Jupiter makes a lot of sense, and the bat/eagle comparison you made is convincing. The symbol of Jupiter also contains a cross. I am still not fully on board with LaCroix being Jupiter since I like the pairing in Hollywood with Saturn, but I can't deny you make a strong case. I had no idea there was a store called the pink dot, thanks for the info, could be that the name is just a jokey reference I'm reading into.
I also think Ming Xiao as Neptunian makes sense with the water squid thing going on.
The Nosferatu on the whole are very earthly living in warrens and using the sewers. They might also be Plutonic though, since they are demonic in appearance and are more below ground than surface types. Also the connection with gold and wealth again. I forgot to mention that of course Knox's master is a nosferatu.
I like what you're saying with the animal names, that hadn't crossed my mind but yeah. The spider fly thing did catch my attention. Pisha actually calls herself a mantis though, as she claims that she doesn't just drink, but needs flesh too.
I have no idea what you are getting at with the rainy day child bit, but I'll think about it. I thought it was an odd line when I played that part, but couldn't even piece together the eyeshadow part. Maybe its about how Jeanette is inside Therese as a persona and when its raining children play inside, idk.

>>3818060
Oh, one more thing. Did you notice "13" coming up a lot in this game. The vending machines, the clock in the opening cinematic having digits that add to 13, twice. The room with the thistle branch in the hotel having digits that add to 13. I am sure there are more. I get its the spooky number but maybe it means something more, again idk.

>>3818092
>The Nosferatu on the whole are very earthly
I like that interpretation especially with you pointing out Gary and gold.

>I have no idea what you are getting at with the rainy day child bit
Just different elements being used throughout the game with personalities. Her makeup looks like someone who was caught in the rain but it's also probably just because she's damaged and has cried.

Jeanette with water, Bach with fire, Knox and Gary with gold, Isaac and the wooden soldiers, stone gargoyle. The Chinese zodiac associates people with animals but also elements like that too. One of the thin bloods on the beach is named Copper, maybe because he hasn't accepted being a vampire so he's not iron which is associated more with blood. Malk also says Strauss wears an iron crown. One of the people the serial killer murders is named Muddy Mike who himself was a murderer, muddy obviously meaning his own hands were dirty too.

Also another thin blood is named Julius which is a name associated with Jupiter but it might be used for it meaning youthful instead. Then you have Lily and Rosa, Lily is delicate and needs protecting while Rosa is giving you information that can sting.

>>3818101
I did notice 13 on the soda machine but that was about it. What clock adds up to 13 twice? There might be more symbolism with it but it's also easy to start seeing symbols where it wasn't intentional or just reaching. But next time I play I'll pay more attention to that stuff.

Thought you might like seeing this pic, you can see this during the tutorial at which point it won't mean anything to you but it's pretty obvious what it alludes to after playing.

>>3818123
This clock first says 12:37. 3 + 10 = 13 This is the first thing we see in the game proper. After the cut to black transformation bit it shows 3:46 or 13 again. If this happened later I would discount it, but this is the first visual in the game, and it is repeated.

>>3818137
I was just rewatching this scene and I noticed 1) Lots of clocks to start the game, two shots of digital and one analog. The analog is pointing at nine, another significant number in the game. "Nines" Rodriguez. 2) Zaphod is a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe just something a troika employee liked, who knows.

>>3818140
meant to attach picrel

>>3818123
The Nosferatu you rescue in Chinatown was named Barabus too which has biblical significance. Jezebel the plaguebearer and Caine being obvious biblical symbols too. Heather Poe I'm not too sure of but heather is a plant too just like lily and rose. Poe could be Edgar Allen Poe. Fat Larry because he's fat but he doesn't give a fuck. A lot of name symbolism.

>>3818137
Oh, yeah maybe. My first guess would've just been that it's after midnight and that's probably when vampires are starting a new day and generally when spooky things are supposed to happen. And 3AM which is known as the witching hour. I wouldn't really see 13 in those clocks though. And it also just shows how much time has passed since your character was bitten lol.

Also Andrei I think during his call with Deb mentions a red star which is supposed to be Wormwood and a sign of end times for vampires too, more celestial stuff.

>>3818140
>>3818141
I might consider the nine thing. I haven't noticed much with numbers throughout the game otherwise. I think Nines is also just a reference to Trinity being three from The Matrix. There are a few Matrix references, Strauss looking like Morpheus is another one and greeting the player with "Hello, Neo(nate)". I'm sure if you go through everything you might find a lot of things that could match up with Matrix stuff too. Or Blade which VtMB also got a lot of inspiration from.

Aww, sweet!
A Malkavian thread!

>>3818160
Low IQ Vermin, fuck off
You're literally not the intended demographic for this game
Media illiterate bastard

>>3818149
Wow, can't believe I missed that Matrix stuff. I would also love to mention here the references to The Fog, with the Elizabeth Dane, and the Deb of Night radio show. More clock stuff from a movie of the same era as the Matrix here in picrel.

Theoretically speaking, would a brujah or toreador be able to save LaCroix in his ending? It would be the easiest thing in the world to pop celerity and carry him away from the bomb.

>>3818169
Is Dark City good? It had been something I thought about watching for a while but never got around to it.

>>3818211
Probably. You can get a high enough Celerity to let you slow down bullets. The explosion didn't destroy the whole building either so it looks like you'd only have to get a few floors down to be safe and not leave the entire building.

>>3818211
even without the player character being there i find it hard to believe a high level ventrue like him wouldn't instantly pop fortitude and just tank the blast the moment he knew what was up

>>3818230
LaCroix gets killed by a paper knife, he doesn't have a single fortitude dot

>>3818230
LaCroix is every player who thought they could put all their stats in social skills and win

I have been coming around to the Camarilla lately, as opposed to the Anarchs. When I first played I naturally felt a bit slighted by nearly being killed by the Camarilla, and we see Nines save the players unlife. I also can't dismiss that Nines is a likable guy, probably one of my favourite characters. But if we think about it the Camarilla and the Anarchs have very similar aims and taboos. With the Camarilla however it is codified and more predictable. How do the anarchs deliver "justice"? Barely controlled mob violence? If you can prove this wrong, please do. It is unfortunate that the Camarilla also declares bloodhunts, but the vampire state can at least mitigate the worst excesses. There is no apparent mechanism or law that prevents anarchs from basically devolving into Reign of Terror situations besides charisma and "we cool bro". Vibes based politics isn't the most reassuring. When Nines and Abrams suffer final death all of LA better hope they groomed successors. But as individuals they are disincentivized from doing so, because that would threaten their loose power, which again is largely 'vibes' based. LaCroix is an idiot, but the structure isn't totally bad. He can groom a successor and enjoy the knowledge that he is protected from a coup by the camarilla red tape. Would the primogens accept a coup? Not unless there was a reason, perhaps collusion with hostile powers for personal gain. What do the Anarchs have, loose networks of friends? Who is to say Damsel won't just fangirl some new smooth talking idealist?
I suppose the next question to ask is, if the structure of the Camarilla is better, what about the individuals? What lives are possible in these groups? I think this is a tougher problem. Nines and Jack are pretty cool, not gonna lie. But Grout was interesting, the Voerman's do well and LaCroix isn't all bad. LaCroix actually has some admirable traits if you get past his condescension. Its not like Nines and Jack aren't taking you for a ride either.

>>3818367
Cont.
Sure we can say that "no, the Anarchs are chill, look see", but what happens if they win and have to rule all LA again, like in the free state days. Wouldn't they have to change? Would they have public executions where people could dissent like LaCroix, or would it be show trials and backroom executions? We don't know. We do know they are hostile to any legalistic authority which reigns in their worst impulses. "If he is guilty why not have a little fun with him" This can lead to blood feuds, Jyhad unchecked, you know the story.

>>3818367
>Would the primogens accept a coup?
Yes actually the entire point of the Primogen Council is to check the Prince's power. The worst situation a Camarilla city can be in is with a strong (and cruel) Prince, and a weak Primogen Council. The second worse is weak Prince, strong Primogen though, because then things enter political deadlock and there is no daddy to put the house in order. But yes, Primogen would happily coup a bad Prince. It makes them look much better, and one of their number is almost always going to be the next Prince. In fact, if you can deliver to them proof of a Prince flagrantly violating the Traditions, they can kick it up the chain of command and get an Archon involved.

>what about the individuals?
Well they're vampires, one shouldn't sugar coat it. They're not good people, especially the older they get. The reason the Anarchs might come off as "cool" is that none of them are more than a century dead, save Jack, who is a monster in disguise. The upswing though is that the Camarilla is carefully arranged to sublimate the vampiric urge to kill each other into largely meaningless social games. Not to mention, the Primogen Council is appeasement for elders. They get a fancy position, that also surrounds them with their peers and causes them to waste much of their wickedness on someone their own side, while needing to play nice with their own clan at the absolute least.

>What lives are possible in these groups?
As long as you keep the traditions, the Camarilla actually doesn't harass you much. If a blood hunt is called you're expected to do your service but beyond that? Not much. And you can tuck tail and hide behind the sheriff and prince if some Sabbat fucks come to diablerize you. You'll probably owe them but less than you think and hey, it beats final death. In essence you either keep your head down and find non power seeking goals to keep you preoccupied, or you as a young'un trade your labor in exchange for favors from Elders.

>>3818367
One counter would be that the camarilla are purely parasitic and redundant, if we consider what Skelter claims. He says that the blood calls, and the vampires answer. There is a biological "governance", or cybernetics proper to vampires. The blood is a curse. It is notable that Skelter is black, he may know better than others how one's very body can be used politically. If we consider that the blood itself is a "natural" governing system of vampires then there really is no need for the Camarilla, and the Anarchs are "right". This isn't necessarily a good thing, but why listen to some asshole in a tower when the blood is already your master? There is the problem of Tzimisce and Tremere manipulation however, two feared and distrusted clans. They do manipulate the body, and could threaten the "natural" order. Perhaps this is why Tremere cleaves to the Camarilla, and the Tzimisce go Sabbat.

>vtmb will never have a worth successor
It hurts, bros.

>>3818371
>The reason the Anarchs might come off as "cool" is that none of them are more than a century dead, save Jack, who is a monster in disguise
Even they still have rules enforcers like that nigga (who is more than happy to relegate his work to a new meat but hey, exp points) who is perfectly okay with the player silencing that ghoul blabbermouth permanently and I think even finally does it himself if he fails the quest.

>>3818367
I think the real problem the Anarchs have with the Camarilla is that they have to start fresh in an organization that rewards longterm service. They're basically bottom of the proverbial food chain until they fully commit and work their way up. They're basically lazy and feel like they are entitled to special treatment because they've lived so long outside of the Camarillas influence. Others that already have power, like Isaac, are just afraid of losing it.

>>3819096
I think you're misrepresenting the Anarchs on that one, but either way, you're conveniently forgetting one key issue here: those at the superior echelon cannot die from old age, will never retire unless they wish too. So you're only chance up is to have them removed.
Add to that the fact that personal power in VtM is dependant on blood potency and age - the later those above will always have more, and the former only raisable through illegal diablerie.
At least one can see why the Camarilla can look like a scam to new entrants.

what do you suppose the deal was with the PC's sire, anyway?

>>3819149
Got into the wrong cab at the right time.

>>3819149
Rare vamp like Jeanette who enjoys the act of hooking up and who was pleasantly surprised by the quality of your one night stand, so they decided to keep you, only for LaCroix to go on a power trip because they sired you without a written invitation on his part.

>>3819174
I guess it's a little odd that the your Sire was Camarilla in a city that's majority anarch

>>3819149
Clearly not a 7th Gen vamp unless super young him/herself. Also, unless a secret one, would have been quite hard to pass up as a way for LaCroix to power up through Diablerie, even though quite below whatever an ancient sealed sarcophagus might hold.

>>3819187
it's weird how the vamp hit squad immediately break down the door. one wonders how they knew

>>3802854 (OP)
I like Yukie a lot and I have 8 humanity just for making a token effort not to be a complete and total bastard even though most of LA deserves what's coming to them vampire or not, so I'm gonna ask Yukie out on a real above board date fair and square after we slay the were-shark together.

>>3819145
Age and upward mobility certainly plays a part in it. I think part of the problem is that the scope of the game does not accurately represent how big the world actually is. I saw some numbers and you can roughly assume there is about 1 kindred for every 100,000 kine, and in some major cities, maybe 1 for every 10,000. There were roughly 6 billion people on earth in 2000, and that's 100,000 humans for every 60,000 kindred. Point of all these numbers is that with how many kindred are alive, and only a fraction of those having any real power, you could assume there is more than enough space for every kindred to have their own little personal power space and live peacefully.

>>3819301
Cont.
Also gotta consider there are a lot of vampires that just like the idea of freedom and dont desire anything other than standing around in a bar all day with their "friends", or running around with wolves like gangrel. A lot of kindred are probably not interested in playing the power games, so they wouldn't have to be given a piece of the pie... they just have to conform and play by the rules they naturally play by anyway because they're scared of the consequences, from human or vampire.

>>3819149
Mind diddled by Caine into doing the deed, possibly a patsy in the first place.

>>3819187
>would have been quite hard to pass up as a way for LaCroix to power up through Diablerie, even though quite below whatever an ancient sealed sarcophagus might hold.
But that's the point. LaCroix would not have benefitted enough from draining someone random of 7th generation to offset getting an Amaranth aura. He'd probably still have his muscle against pretty much the entirety of Camarilla and Anarchs in LA. And if the two hold out somehow, which is unlikely considering Strauss is definitely waiting for an opening like that just to take out an incompetent Prince, he'd have an Archon on his arse too eventually. If not worse.

>>3819430
Well, unless you always have to ask somebody with power above a city ruler for that, I remember that it is sometimes permitted, though a Prince or his muscle doing that would probably rattle up quite a few bloodsuckers. He could probably remind the higher ups that he needs more power to bring LA under Camarilla's heel. Then it's just the locals who would most likely be pissed about it (and that alone might be enough to do him in, since the dude seems to have passed up putting points into Fortitude, despite claiming to have been a soldier under Napoleon which should have taught him that shrugging off a bullet or bayonet is quite a handy ability to have, and Fort lets a Vamp to go even further). Might as well not work. The dude does plan to do an even crazier shit just expecting that the prize in the sarcophagus is worth it, though he might feel emboldened by the general feeling of dread accompanying its arrival.

As an aside, the 7th generation is when a vampire can use Level 6 of his Disciplines, correct? Man, I've known about Redemption and Bloodlines (and played B) since they came out and have even read some rules and stuff for the tabletop but only recently have learned that apparently the only difference between generations 8 to 13 is bloodpool and a number of points ta vampire can put into their abilities (though that alone is huge). Before I thought 13th gen was a Thinblood incapable of doing even Level 1 of his clan's disciplines but seems if he is willing he can just put all of his meager points into one Discipline and get it to Level 5 just like the 8th Gen can,

>>3819451
>I remember that it is sometimes permitted
"Thou art forbidden to destroy another of thy kind."
Even if it was somehow allowed, hypothetically, it would have every clan coming together to plot a diablerist's demise. Zero mistakes allowed from that point onwards, i.e. might as well go sunbathe right away. This is not Sabbat where it is not that much of a taboo.
>can use Level 6 of his Disciplines
Yeah, but even if LaCroix had Fortitude and Presence at 5 to get them and Dominate to 6, it would still not be worth it. At best he'd be slapped with a Blood Hunt and maybe kill a few before going down. His Nagloper friend (?) would have killed more anyway.
>apparently the only difference between generations 8 to 13 is bloodpool and a number of points ta vampire can put into their abilities (though that alone is huge)
And the number of points they can spend per turn.
>if he is willing he can just put all of his meager points into one Discipline and get it to Level 5 just like the 8th Gen can
Sure, but then he can still only spend one blood point per turn while an 8th generation vampire can spend 3.

>>3819388
Interesting theory. Maybe Caine got one of his higher generation followers to embrace PC as part of a plot, but it all relies on an amazing amount of luck to see the whole thing through, because there is no way Caine could anticipate PC would survive everything that they did.

>>3819530
>but it all relies on an amazing amount of luck to see the whole thing through, because there is no way Caine could anticipate PC would survive everything that they did.
7000 years of mostly suffering and boredom plus being a plot device that runs on plot devices would do that to a man.

>>3819530
I like that Caine is in the game kind of like an Easter egg but dislike chalking everything up to him. Why you were embraced, why your character got so strong, why you could suddenly resist LaCroix's domination attempts, why Andrei says you're so much stronger, etc. "Caine did it" ends up being a bit repetitive and shallow. I think Caine was to show how all vampires are connected and he's responsible for vampirism and what transpires but not that he literally directly orchestrated every event on purpose.

It could've been anything with your sire. Just someone who wanted a childe and was punished for it or became a bit careless. And then you were basically forcibly adopted by LaCroix and forced to work for him. That kind of thing has happened in real life many times. Maybe LaCroix was already planning on killing your sire and they thought they had a better shot if they embraced another. Maybe they were an Anarch who didn't want to follow Camarilla rules and that's why Nines was there and so incensed.

>>3819684
The generation of the fledgling will always come into question, and that raises far too many questions for people to just go with random chance. On the outside, yes, you can look at it like you're just some random douche that got picked up by a vampire, but when that vampire is one of the most powerful kindred that's currently active, it raises eyebrows. And to just get his/her head chopped off makes it even sillier.

>>3819794
cont.
I think it has been argued that PC is either a 7th or 8th gen vampire based on how strong they can get. Either number doesn't matter, because in the modern day, there is probably less than 1% of vampires active that are 6-8th gen. The vast majority of active vampires are under 60 years old, and generally high gen. A low gen vampire like the fledgling would be a huge target for others since no one knows them and no one cares about them, so it would be an easy meal for an insane power gain. Fledgling of that generation would be hidden away for centuries by their maker so that they would be trained to defend themselves properly.

>>3819808
I think the answer to this mystery of the gen is simply that Troika allowed themself some homebrewing with the source material because for a typical videogame rpg that needs to compress several thousand pages of lore and years of playing at the table in maybe 30 hours of content wod lore is simply not practical in terms of power snd timescaling. Videogames are gamey, thats just it. You could obviously make a true vampire wod game that makes you run around disoriented in 2005 with auspex 1 and being barely more dangerous than a buff human street thug for those 30 hours without any numerical character development but that would make a better adventure than rpg. Reaching a point where you single handedly kick the ass of an established tzimisce who is presumably of higher gen and hundreds of years old, probably by simply beating him with your bare fists is not happening in the week the pc even is a vampire at this point, unless they stem from the first elders that are not considered pure myths and there is what? Maybe a handful of those still existing in the whole world and they are pretty surely either asleep or so detached from existence that they dont randomly embrace humans in rundown apartments or even embrace at all anymore. Not even talking about directly taking part in petty micro politics or getting beheaded by a clown like Bastian.

So in the end all arguing about the PC's gen is just sugarcoating an unfortunate if necessary plot hole with headcanon to not break immersion.

>>3820468
well yeah, that's the other side of the argument, one that's been going on for decades now.

>>3820468
The taxi driver is Cain, he embraced the PC and dominated some hag into taking the fall because he is inscrutable, the end.

>>3820813
I prefer the idea that the player is the ancient vampire that was in the sarcophagus, and Caine just mind wipes you and frames a random clan appropriate vampire to "embrace" you

>>3820818
Yes, and then it is revealed that it was all just a dream

>>3820821
>Yes, and then it is revealed that it was all just a dream
Wow can I please get some spoiler tags, anon? Come on man.

>>3820468
Redemption just solves this problem by making Kristoff's Sire a really strong and important vampire and it came out earlier than Bloodlines. Ez.
Of course, saying that the devs just gave themselves some breathing room/didn't think that moment through is a valid stance but not particularly fun.

>>3821216
>in the prologue, wary crusader buys and wear the throat armor that protects you from being bit
>get bit in a cutscene anyway
Roofle owned scrub

>>3820818
that's just kotor 1's twist

Well, if it ain't the talk of the town; poster child of Camarilla benevolence. What errand does the [Spoiler]VTMB Thread[/Spoiler] have you doin' today, boy?

Well, if it ain't the talk of the town; poster child of Camarilla benevolence. What errand does the VTMB Thread have you doin' today, boy?

>>3812894
How do I install this with the latest gog version? Both come with their own version of the plus patch, cqm uses an older one.

Joining sabbat was the best plotline in any game I played. I just wanted power and independence, and ended up losing rest of my humanity and being a pawn only instead of being a pawn to a regular vampire I became a pawn to dirlewanger tier schizo. Probably like people get entrapped and blackmailed irl.

>>3827790
clan quest mod and the unofficial patch both install into their own separate folders, so you just need to use the separate launchers that should appear on your desktop after installing

>>3818211
Why would you want to save that fucking asshole to begin with?

>>3827803
To be fair, if you saw sabbatards in actions, their retarded """ideology"""", visited Andreis mansion and said "yeah, that's a splendid organization to join", you kinda do deserve to be a Tzimisce's doormat

>>3802880
>what is frenzy
Now of course, as a mechanic frenzy basically consists on making the game frustrating and even potentially soft-locking you if you're not careful with your saves. But it's there.

>>3828069
Probably gay stockholm

>>3821277
Not a bad one though

>>3820818
Never heard that theory. It's really cool. I'll scribble that down somewhere

>>3821277
>name character “Darth Revan”
>get introduced to Bastilla
>watch her sweat nervously
>get introduced to Jedi Council
>watch them sweat profusely
>???
>Profit

>>3819178
Funny, I remember the line as "a respected member of our community", but the actual line is "a loyal and upstanding member of our organisation", which is far less ambiguous, for sure. My thinking was that since the prince enforces traditions over all kindred (no V5 exclusivity bullshit), the Sire *could* have been an Anarch, but that would have been inconvenient for the story, since the execution would have raised tensions too high between the factions too quickly, effectively aligning the PC with the Anarchs by default.

>>3828071
Nothing wrong with Andreis mansion.
>you can twist and manipulate the fabric of mortal society and with that their souls, but making a head with legs out of a corpse is going too far

With sabbat it was that hispanic lady who wanted to make the sister of her ghoul addicted to heroin or something. So I found that distasteful and went to Hazel instead, and he was even worse, but I don't rememeber much.

>>3828248
Victoria was trying to help her descendant though. Her main problem is that she's a setite so she gets off on making people addicted to smack and she worships an evil chaos serpent.

The Sabbat being a bunch of deranged, hypocritcal lunatics is honestly lore accurate though. My main problem with the CQM's Sabbat route is how silly the final act gets.

>>3828217
>they camarilla, but will wantonly turn the PC into a vampire
>"loyal and upstanding", yet it being hunted and immediately found upon siring the player
>VERY ambiguous as to how powerful they are because you gets obscenely powerful
I know the PC's sire is there just for set dressing, but I feel like Troika accidentally made a character that's potentially very interesting

>>3802854 (OP)
Cursed Tremere blood hangs heavy on the air. Young too - squirming larva of the wretched brood who stole their immortality. Tell me childe, are you scared? Do I frighten you? is my VTMB thread unnerving?

>>3828380
I don't remember any of that but yes the sabbat are that but somehow I expected it to be different and more moustache twirly vs what I got, as as low humanity tzimisce. Tzimisce char model was also good for the clan, as well as the zulo form.

>>3828832
The Sabbat are such a mixed bag. None of them good, but not everyone falls into the "mwahahaha" sphere of things.

So, Bloodlines 2 is set to release on October 21st. Better late than never, eh?

>>3829771
>Better late than never
It's been too quiet. Really doubt they launch in October.

Hope they do. But I doubt it

>>3829843
Ok so new trailer just dropped today

https://youtu.be/1vt1FZSLUXg?si=Bsgdo2obo0Z4vonK

Looks like i was wrong. But imagine the bugs....

>>3829771
>Better late than never, eh?
In this case, better never. Fuck chinese room and their shitty "game". Fuck paradox for what they did to mitsoda.

>>3829847
Reminder
>four clans, two more as day one DLC
>still less than VtMB's seven

>>3828616
Didn't I kick your ass back in Beverly Hills, dude?

was looking around in the game files and found a conversation file for the ocean house. thought it was funny.

>WOOO. . .I am the Ocean House Hotel. Normally, you would enter this map and be treated to a nightmare-inducing experiment in terror. Unfortunatelty though, our people are still working on a mechanical problem with the doom buggies.
>May I have the ghost item?
>You got until the count of three to give me the ghost item.
>Where the hell am I supposed to get the ghost item now?
>If you give me the ghost item, I'll be your friend.
>You may. Here. Thank you for visiting Ocean House.
>Thanks, Ocean House.
>I am Ocean house, I comply. Here you are.
>Here, take my pendant.
>This pleases Ocean House. Here you are.
>Please enjoy the game. I am Ocean house.
>Bye, Ocean House.

>>3829926
clans won't matter outside of abilities. there's basically zero hints of any kind of lore awareness.

>>3829771
Does anyone genuinely believe this game will be good? Pretty sure most people would rather it just fuck off, none of this better late than never shit.

>>3830349
There are some people who don't seem too discerning who think the game will be alright, but it's getting a lot of criticism too even with bigger reviews. Looks boring, predatory DLC, etc.

Paradox is probably hoping to just make some money back but I don't see this being any real success. Paradox even said they don't want to work on it anymore for anything in the future.

>>3830359
>Paradox even said they don't want to work on it anymore for anything in the future.
That's a shame. They should sell it then and stop sitting on a good IP and crying about their mistakes.

>>3830393
Plenty of good IPs that are stuck with people who don't give a single fuck about them. Jade Empire and Overlord are my personal picks.

Eurogamer review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE7XHHus11w
>I can't hide it. I'm a little bit disappointed.
>And has it been worth the wait? ... I'm not sure.
>I'm concerned by how narrow the game is as a role-playing experience.
>Too often I've felt led through metaphorical corridors from point A to B, as though I'm playing a predetermined experience rather than shaping one of my own.
>I think it's telling that Paradox is leaning into the action part of the action RPG descriptor.
>From what I've played, this is more like an actional stealth game with some RPG elements rather than the other way around.
>And given the extensive and exhaustive resource material involved, a tabletop RPG that's been running for decades, that disappointed me.
>A character cringingly called Phyre, and who likes to announce their name at every given opportunity...
>Depending on which of the game's six clans you join, but note two of these you have to pay to unlock, which is grubby.
>Nice though they are to look at in these areas, there's little you can actually interact with. A problem that carries right across the game.
>For the most part, it feels like a place filled with non-interactive extras. This feeling extends to the building environments you enter.
>These halls and corridors are mostly empty with only occasional clusters of enemies there. It's a bit dull.
>Even the more central characters don't inspire much excitement when you meet them. They're nice enough to look at but predictable to the point of stereotype ... and the interactions with them feel stiff.
>But I also expect a preview build to be designed to showcase the best parts of the game I'm previewing and for the beginning of a game to grab and dazzle a player and convince them to stick around. I did enjoy some of what I played and I'm willing to give it another go, but I wasn't grabbed or dazzled.
I didn't expect such a grim review from a journo, her only positives were basically multiple "I liked the OP action a bit"

Never played the first game, does it hold up well as an RPG?

>>3830422
Meant to reply to you >>3829847

>>3830359
>predatory DLC
Eternal Paradox.

>>3830424
if you mean bloodlines, then leave this thread and go play it now, fag.

in all seriousness, the studio went bankrupt during development, it's clunky and some of the level design is nauseating... but man is it full of soVl

>>3830425
Cheers

>>3830422
Some people might have high expectations because it took so long to get here, but honestly it's the opposite for me. After all the shuffling around with development to get to here, it being even decent would be a pleasant surprise. Day one DLC (particularly something like one of the major clans) means there's no way I'm buying it at release at the very least though. I'll either pirate it if there's enough talk about it being good where I don't feel like waiting or just wait for some "definitive version" on sale years later for some fraction of the price when they've given up on milking it to see for myself.

>>3830559
People have high expectations because they like the original. It could be a somewhat okay game in its own right, but thinking of it as a Bloodlines sequel is guaranteed disappointment.

>>3830359
>Paradox even said they don't want to work on it anymore for anything in the future.
The original plan was to cash in on the old fans, give "a different flavour of the same shit" to ADHD zoomers, all while milking their predatory business model. They quickly realised that they can't have it both ways - you either make a proper, story & dialogue driven lore-rich Bloodlines sequel, or you make a fun bing bing wahoo for the zoomies. Appealing to old fans wouldn't have been lucrative enough by itself, so decided to sack the devs and start fresh. Any optimistm they had would have been gone by the time Chinese Room put out that first gameplay trailer (and everyone hated it). At that point they already knew that whatever they put out won't sell well enough to offset the development hell - it's obvious they just want to cut their losses, put something out, get paid and forget the entire ordeal.

>>3802854 (OP)
>childe

>>3830702
Vampires do this shit all the time. Embrace a vampire? They're not your child, they're your childe. The first vampire? Caine, not Cain. We do not do things all day, we do things all night. We do not live, we unlive. We do not X, we Vampire Word.

>>3830424
I played Redemption for the first time a few years ago, after sleeping on it when it came out, but I absolutely loved it, despite the jank.

>>3810459
>Blade's vamps suck as far as superpowers go
>in 2 and 3 regular vamps don't even bother doing vampire things
Vampire games for this feeling?

>>3830780
>Vampire games for this feeling?
Read “Passovers of Blood” by Ariel Toaff.

>>3830422
It feels silly looking at all of the optimistic anons in this thread and elsewhere. There was no chance in hell it was going to be a good game with all the years of development hell. The moment you know you're dealing a voiced, named protagonist you can generally kiss a well rounded RP experience goodbye, though I understand why some disagree. Having a narrator however, (which between you and me is sure to quip every few minutes) in a franchise built around discretion and brooding music and gloomy atmosphere is one of the dumber decisions you can take. No matter how good the game would otherwise be, which, realistically, would still be a somehow even worse Cyberpunk, given how they seem to have set the tone for modern action RPGs, that would still always be in the way.
But I was thinking about a realistic best case scenario, which let's say would be that the previous iteration of the game were the one getting released, and still what would you get? Gameplay would be jank but that's nothing new, save the refugees nonsense would be pushed but that's par for the course. I don't think they could come up with good writers to write compelling dialogue or generally create an atmosphere like in the 00s (this partly has to do with technology, the weird animations and models of the source engine contribute to the unease and tension- but obviously has more to do with lack of talent and passion). But really consider the zeitgeist. You could tell the original devs were really into goth culture, they didn't just slap in Marilyn Manson and Evanescence everywhere and they definitely didn't consider metalcore and the likes. What's the current day alternative? Probably e-goths and thots and the thinbloods on the beach would be listening to some mumble rapper instead of Darling Violetta.

>>3830815
I've written all this in something like a fever dream because I am indeed sick but it occurred to me to watch the first 5 minutes of gameplay and sure enough
>I know the back of my hand like the back of my hand
>Hand on heart, haha I don't have either
>Trite violins playing in moments of confusion. I guess the first Joker movie started that trend.
You can also tell from the first lines of dialogue that the voice in your head is a perceived evil yet wholesome figure with some secrets behind. Astarion-like. Likely gay

>look at the Bloodlines 2 footage
>a thug tries to brawl the protag for a bit unarmed, even jumps around a bit
>gets instantly bodied with superhuman strength
Reminds me of Bloodrayne 2 where one of the basic enemy grunt types were dudes and dudettes, often not even vampires, fearlessly trying to punch the heroine (or would swing a pipe at her if they felt bold) who was faster, stronger AND had double blades to make blood and body parts fly all over the place. One of the many little things that made 2 worse than the first game, where many enemies were normal humans and they not only smartly tried to use superior firepower to kill her but also believably ran away in fear if spooked enough.
Also, do Unreal Engine devs just don't bother with making a more unique interface or was there some study that showed that people don't care/react super positively to stock Unreal white UI?
Unsurprisingly it doesn't look like I will be a great fan.

I want to try this game again
I got up to the Malk mansion and then lost my save

What's a good clan for melee combat in some form. I don't mind the mage clan with blood magic but just don't want ranged since I don't want to manage ammo

How fucked is Malk? I tried a quick hour of it and it was confusing as shit but sort of made sense. Like you had no clue what the options meant but could ascertain if the dialogue was going to piss someone off or at least advance the dialogue

And plus patch or regular patch? I just want to be able to use dialogue for quests like persuasion but got told intimidation and seduction are mostly pointless

>>3830866
Brujah and Gangrel are the your best options for melee but with an insignificant amount of metagaming any clan can be fit to do anything. Play around with it, it's not a tough game

>>3830866
pick any clan other than malk and go with basic patch. persuasion is op; the others give good rp flavour, wouldn't call them useless at all. keep in mind dominate discipline gives you dialogue options too.

>>3830736
The word for vampire actually used to be "vampir", but because vamps kept referring to themselves as vampires the word eventually stuck around for mortal usage.

>>3830866
My first game with Malk was fine. Everyone acts like it gives away the whole story, but you won't know what any of that shit means on a first playthrough, so it doesn't matter. Malk has some great disciplines. Dementation has dialogue prompts, so its very useful to get what you want without seduce or persuasion, and it has some really funny interactions. Obfuscate is also downright broken, especially if you rush it early on. It makes some incredibly annoying stealth missions not so bad anymore, like the dane and museum. Every time I play this game, I loathe having to do the museum without Obfuscate, and the only other clan that gets it is Nosferatu, which has its own problems. The only other clan I would recommend on a first playthrough is Tremere, because it has unique interactions with a certain character and its just comfy.

>>3830928
this is true, the original serbian word was vampir and it becomes vampire in the vocative

>>3830424
just play it. also if you've played new vegas youll feel at home.

>>3830866
>What's a good clan for melee combat in some form.

You have a few options. Brujah has Celerity + Potence, so you can hit hard and move fast enough to dodge enemy counter attack. Gangrel that are focused on protean are highly debated. They do a truckload of damage but many players hate how clunky the claw swipes are. Nosferatu also have potence so they can hit like a mack truck and obfuscate helps with stealth sections.

Ventrue can become the single most tanky thing in the game with Fortitude + Presence and Dominate helps with utility in both dialogue and for stealth. They can go either melee or ranged just fine. Gangrel fortitude focus can work similarly.

>>3831450
no guns or melee? really?

>>3831450
This can't be true

>>3831452
You can see it in the trailer- you can use guns and weapons through telekinesis but you can't actually pick them up in your hands and hold on to them.

>>3831450
>no humanity
I ain’t buying this shit

>>3831450
Is this "removed" as in not a part of whatever the fuck they're sending to the press, something someone working on the game has said is no longer present? Or just completely made up I guess
It's not like I need to be convinced to not buy the game either way (because no way in hell is that happening), but that sounds kind of sketch

>>3831459
The no permanent guns or melee weapons thing has been 100% confirmed multiple times. It's actually pretty much the only thing they kept from the Hardsuit demo, which is wild because it was one of the most bitched about parts about that demo.

>>3831450
Having Gangrel probably would've been nice since it's a common complaint about Protean making Gangrel not feel as great to play in VtMB as it should

>>3831450
So it is now linear action with a bit of adventure?

>>3831450
>no guns no melee
huh???????????????????????
so how does combat work? am i going to be a vampire wizard casting lightning bolt at everybody?
there is no way this is true
>confirmed
how, in what way, and by whom, also source????

>>3831463
no permanent guns or melee weapons is one thing. the sega genesis punisher game had no permanent weapons too. but the screenshot says "no guns, no melee". bare fist combat is still melee

>>3831619
read at least some posts itt retad

>>3831621
it says "no melee weapons"

Aside from everything else, that detective thing worries me quite a bit. It sounds like it means unskippable sequences and a voice in your head telling you where to go constantly

>>3831982
so far it's looking like some awkward mix of Condemned and Beyond Two Souls

i mean who needs lockpick when you can just vapor squeeze yourself through any vent

>>3831983
I was thinking more Johnny Silverhand, but without any charm

>>3802854 (OP)
never trust a francy

>>3820813
way to tell me you have zero knowledge about vtm in general. lol

>>3820818
what's with this schizo theory?

>>3828248
>>but making a head with legs out of a corpse is going too far
>>out of a corpse

>>3830866
Ventrue with Fortitude and Dominate is great for melee. You can chop most of the things to bits and for the rest you command them to just die on the spot. The mass version even has a decent chance to work on other Kindred. Some of the bosses provide some challenge too but nothing too bad for as long as you have blood bags and ideally a few really powerful weapons that go through ammo very quickly just in case. And even then you only might want those special (late game) weapons for only one boss.

>>3831619
>so how does combat work?
Unarmed and powers, as every video out there shows in the dull repetitive "hello fellow modern spectacle fighter fans" detail.

>>3828719
"It seems that Tremere are very contentious..."
"You have made yourself an enemy for Unlife!"

>>3831601
I played gangrel once... horrible gameplay, gives op buffs to physical during frenzy, but you're a derpy retarded man bat you can't control and if it gets near an enemy you just slap it a bunch and slowly move to another enemy.
it's the vampire equivalent of using aim bot in fps games.

I started replaying a little while ago. I forgot how much I hate those fucking elevator buttons in the Skyeline Apartments

>>3834028
Fair. It can be quite tedious.

Here's your Deb of Night caller, fledgling

>>3834436
We all knew the writing would be bad. What causes this? Clearly it's all pink haired tumblr dykes who write shit like this, but who were the talented writers of the 00s? They didn't have lit degrees either. How does quality drop off so extremely?

>>3834436
is that really deb? oof... voice and face for radio indeed

>>3834439
Complex systems won’t survive the coming competency crisis.

>>3834436
>>3834439
ew. I eagerly await the Forspoken tier bad dialogue montages.

>>3834462
those are a couple of cunts "playing" and yapping non stop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKvWJc5v4Ts&t=3238s
>>3834542
One of the first few lines from the game is
>I know the back of my hand like the back of my hand

>>3834592
A lot of the dialogue options in Bloodlines were kind of goofy shit, but you also are playing a random person who suddenly got dragged into vampire society.
I hadn't really thought about it as there's one million other red flags, but if the PC in bloodlines 2 is supposed to be some elder vamp out of torpor that sounds like it would really limit the dialogue options that don't seem really wrong.

>>3834599
I'm not talking about whether the dialogue is fitting of an old vampire as much as I'm talking about the quality of writing in general. There's goofy then there's the type of writing that you'd find in a teenager's journal. Take
>Oh, wait, he's smoke on the goddamn wind, so you can't!
Nevermind the overall structure which is old trite. Consider each individual word. Look at ", so you can't". Imagine the fucking retard who needs to be shown consequence with "so", else she wouldn't understand it, so that's how she ends up writing it herself.

>>3834439
It's called catering to an audience, the audience in this case being quirk chungus types with fluorescent hair, ASD and gender dysphoria.

anything that scratches the same itch? I've played the choice of games vtm games and the princes of darkness mod
even tried playing a tabletop session with an LLM but that wasn't really any good

>>3834911
There's a lot of first person rpgs out there that are similar in some ways (though usually more light on the RPG parts), but you probably wont find many that really feel the same

>>3834911
other than the usual suspects of deus ex, new vegas and potentially KC:D I wouldn't know what to tell you
where's your itch? if you're talking about the atmosphere, there's a bunch of mid 00s action games that might be vaguely similar. obviously i'm thinking blood rayne

>>3834439
T-The writer was just roleplaying as one of the anarchs in a sort of letter right?
This isn't a true example of the general quality of writing, is it?

>>3834920
The last part kind of makes it clear what you're reading

>>3834914
>>3834916
I'm usually a crpg player but vtmb has insanely good atmosphere/lore/worldbuilding so anything like that or in the same universe would be rad

>>3834934
The only other WoD game I've tried to play is Redemption, but I gave up on it after being sent to a cave to kill goblins. It is not a very similar game. It's kind of a cursed IP.

>>3834934
Planescape? What can I say man, there aren't many 30 year old games which haven't been recommended in the last 20 years in which people have been asking for games similar to vtmb.
>>3834920
There are hundred million budget movies and triple a with worse writing. Realistically such shitty writing is not unexpected when you consider the type of people attracted to vampire games as I've written in torpor here >>3830815 >>3830819. The game is written by 40 year old tumblr dykes who are too untalented to work for Hollywood

triple a games i mean

>>3834938
Redemption is extremely based and I love it. Great story and writing. I think you gave up on the tutorial dungeon.

>>3834942
The RPG side of it is sort of a joke, but Cyberpunk does do a really good job on atmosphere, and I do think it's generally just fun to play. If you mean atmosphere as in a similar atmosphere to Bloodlines, I think you're kind of doomed

>>3834945
I did finish the tutorial dungeon, but something about dungeon diving and potion chugging in a vampire game was just really off putting to me. I remember fucking around in the town for a while as well, but everything is kind of a blur since it was a while ago.
I know the game eventually has a time skip as well, so maybe it changes tonally later, but between being kind of stuck with a very specific character concept on top of everything else I just got the impression there wasn't anything I wanted there.

>>3834946
I never cared to play it and I'll never play a game with constant narration to supplement batman vision, and cutscene dialogue

>>3834941
I've played planescape ages ago, but yeah I know what you mean
I quit when I reached that one fortress in space, not really sure why. might've been fatigue.

>>3834934
Its not a CRPG but consider playing "Vampire the Masquerade - Night Road". I liked it a lot. Its a text-only game where you play as a 10th generation kindred courier who delivers packages between high-ranking Camarilla figures in various cities in Arizona. There's stat checks, disciplines, etc. It has 650k words in total (The lord of the Rings is roughly 480k words, for reference). I recommend trying it out. Just pirate it if youre not sure

>>3835041
Night Road was alright, but I there wasn't as much actual branching in the sense of consequences for your actions, it's mostly just "do the same thing but in a different way". The decision making process also becomes largely trivial and unsatisfying once you realise that you don't choose what makes the most sense for the situation, you just pick the option that you have the most skill points in.

>>3834916
>where's your itch?
Not him but:
I want characters that aren't autistic high fantasy loredumps. I was fine with Morrowind because when it comes to most NPC interactions, the lore is mostly a backdrop - the characters themselves are mostly dealing with relatable, mundane, real-world issues, with some supernatural sprinkled in. I was not fine with stuff like PoE or DAO because I couldn't give a fuck about whatever unworldly shit anyone was yapping about. VTMB, in my opinion, has this balance worked out perfectly. Characters like Jack and Bertram give you a basic ADHD or sarcastic lore rundown while constantly showing awareness that this stuff might otherwise be dry as shit for you. The fact it's meant to be based in a contemporary setting rather than high fantasy, seems to help the characters stay grounded in "reality". Lore itself is not a problem - it being a crutch for every NPC interaction, is the problem.

I also like seeing my (in)decisions have a measurable impact on the game world, being able to make mistakes and continue with the consequences e.g. Wasteland, New Vegas, Disco Elysium (to an extent).

As far as theme or art direction goes, I think it's up to each individual game to achieve something that feels just right; I don't try to seek out a particular "vibe".

I tried Planescape and dropped it after I got tired of dealing with infinitely spawning enemies in a village. I should play Deus Ex some time.

>>3835041
yeah I played night road and I liked it. got me binging some other cyoa games too

>>3831450
Oh who gives a shit, it's been like a decade of one shitty newspiece after another so youtubers can make fag outrage videos. It's just a hate machine, it probably will never come out and who cares. That post reads like parody at this point. Just add No Game at the end.

>>3835442
It has a release date in October, so I wouldn't count on the never coming out part.

Oh, so THIS is why you people always recommend CQM...

>>3835883
I was thinking of finally trying that out, but never got around to it because I'm kind of afraid of the quality for multiple new quests. How the humanity change?

>>3835883
I never finished that quest because it kept bugging out. For what it's worth though, my thought on the CQM is that it's a very mixed bag. Worth playing through once and that's it unless you really like east L.A. as a hub. The Clan Quests are actually the weakest part.

>>3835883
This bitch is so fucking obnoxious.

>>3835219
I think you could at least try giving KC:D a chance

>>3835929
The quests that I've seen range from inoffesively boring to fucking annoying, I mostly ignore them.

>>3835956
I always play CQM because it has the Unofficial Patch (game is very buggy goes without saying) plus Camarilla Edition Lite which has features that make it more immersive like blood loss over time. Which the vanilla game should've included honestly. Other than that it doesn't change the feel of the game or do tasteless retarded reskins. Imo it's the best way to play the original game, it's the same but optimized. I never play it without it. The only thing is the clan quests which like you said are the weakest part. I've played the ones I've found once and then ignored them.

>>3837213
This board is so fucking slow that I've actually played through most of the added stuff in it. I didn't think any of the added quests were too bad aside from some really questionable mic quality a few times, but then I got to east LA and it was just a lot of walking around in a map that could have been half the size. They treat it like the easier alternative to hallowbrook hotel, but I'd rather just go through that in hindsight. Voice acting for that part was actually a fair bit better though.
That kuei-jin chick was the worst though. That quest was basically "Let's go through a list of places where you have a reputation to lose and risk pissing people off". The lore dump was kind of interesting though
Overall I'd say it was interesting for adding things the game didn't really bother to focus on (content for low humanity, any real clan specific lore other than some npc reactions if you aren't a malk or nos, something to actually do in the warrens, expanding on the sabbat), but a lot of those I just don't think are important to me. There's some good NPC designs in there too.
>>3837218
If nothing else there's little reason to not use it. It doesn't use the latest version of the unofficial patch, but I doubt that means much more than a few missing closets and some items moved around

>>3837270
>If nothing else there's little reason to not use it. It doesn't use the latest version of the unofficial patch, but I doubt that means much more than a few missing closets and some items moved around
Yeah my thoughts exactly

>>3837270
>That kuei-jin chick was the worst though
It was retarded, you're basically forced to go along with her on some unhinged binge because woo she's so wild and cool, and she just turns on you on a dime if you contradict her on anything. My memory is fuzzy on this bc I haven't done a run in a few years. But I still remember the eye rolling.

>>3837218
>which has features that make it more immersive like blood loss over time. Which the vanilla game should've included honestly.

Hard disagree. Blood loss over time puts you on a clock and disincentivizes you to just chill and enjoy the ambience of areas, which is one of the game's strongest factors. Not to mention, getting blood isn't actually difficult, just time consuming. So all passive blood loss does is punish you for taking in the atmosphere with a tedious and unchallenging bit of gameplay.

>>3837345
Yeah I wasn't a fan of blood loss, or blood heal. Or when people say the game would've been better with a day/night cycle.

Those things could've been interesting as sparsely used mechanics though maybe. Not constant things throughout the entire game but say in a quest you get injured and have blood loss that you need to manage until it's over could've been neat. But I usually find those kind of survival mechanics simply boring and tedious when constant.

>play a brujah with every possible melee advantage
>it's still significantly easier to just shoot Ming to death
Melee really is just kind of fucked against big enemies, huh

>>3837498
Unfortunately. Fighting these things as a non-Celerity melee character is tough as well. They hit you just as fast as you hit them and they do a ton of damage.

Jack does tell you during the tutorial that you need to learn how to fight both with melee and guns though.

>>3837345
>which is one of the game's strongest factors
I see your point but ambience is compounded by the immersion in the experience of, well, being a vampire in a nocturnal world of conspiracies and so on. And this
>blood loss over time
is part of it and a sensible addition to it
If you don't have an incentive to hunt for blood, you don't feel like a vampire do you? In pure vanilla it's just necessary for disciplines.
You're not wrong to say those mechanics can be tedious. You can find yourself in an annoying situation and I have plenty of times.
But it pushes you to plan out what you're doing, and because it's a mechanic that makes sense for a vampire, it immerses you more into the fantasy, which in turn enhances the atmosphere.

>>3837345
Also because it really is not that tedious. Blood loss is not so quick that you can't stop and take the world in at your own pace. If it was fast that blood is the only thing you can think of I'd say that's too much immersion for me lol. But it isn't, it's just an extra thing you have to keep track of and ultimately you have plenty of opportunities to feed or get blood in other ways through the game. For me it adds more than detracts.

>>3837383
>Or when people say the game would've been better with a day/night cycle
Kek well having to watch out for sunrise also sounds good on paper for me, but yeah in practice it would probably be too annoying considering some missions can be lengthy and you don't want them interrupted, plus you can't do anything in the daytime anyway.

>>3837566
I hate those fuckers

>>3837761
>>3837764
I play the tabletop, and the way the mods handle it is not lore accurate. No passive regeneration is tolerable and provides enough incentive to not burn through blood. Bloodlines doesn't deal in a day/night cycle, which is what actually passively drains your blood. One point to rise every evening, so for me, losing it on a timer is anti-immersion. Because of that, occasionally getting a blood tick down in the middle of the night is just annoying at best, actively telling me to get a move on and not enjoy the empty santa monica pier at worst. I can spend minutes at a time just enjoying the atmosphere of the game, so that becomes highly tedious for me to have my blood tick down.

It does have something to do with the kind of player you are, but plain and simple I find it annoying and actually quite immersion breaking.

>>3835883
I've always treated CQM as completely radioactive because I looked it up on YouTube and the quests were either boring garbage, edgelord garbage, or leftist garbage.
I'd be cool with it if it were actually of good quality, but it seems like a bunch of low-tier fanfic shit. Installing that crap is an active decrease to the overall quality of the game. I'd only consider playing it if I was so starved for content I had to have a fix no matter what.

>>3835219
Yeah, PoE is really, really bad about it.
I know exactly what you're talking about, and PoE is one of the worst examples.
Feels like Chris Avellone finally got let off of his leash and could do whatever he wanted, so he created an aggressively generic fantasy universe and filled it with his own angry spiritual angst while huffing the scent of his own farts.
There's no emotional core to it at all. If you don't buy in hard to the worldbuilding concept, then it's just endless eye-rolls. He expects you to be fascinated and in awe at a world concept that basically boils down to "Generic fantasy gods but... they're le bad???"
It's self-indulgent fedora core slop. A lot of buzzwords, I know, but I really aggressively hated that shit.
It feels like the fundamental premise is basically just a deconstruction of the D&D fantasy pantheon concept... And that's it. He obviously doesn't like D&D deities, and the goal was to explore the drawbacks of that cosmic premise. But that's not impressive or mentally stimulating enough to keep me sitting there hooked on it for however many dozens of hours, and there was no other hook to the setting beyond that.

>>3837868
>Bloodlines doesn't deal in a day/night cycle, which is what actually passively drains your blood. One point to rise every evening, so for me, losing it on a timer is anti-immersion
I didn't remember it that way bc I haven't read the rules in a long time but I get it.
I agree it's a personal thing because for me even tabletop-wise that doesn't really work for me because those mechanics are just there to reflect something happening and what's happening doesn't correspond to real life as much as the timed bloodloss does. Like irl you don't get hunger points when you rise, you get them over time as you digest food. Blood logically would work the same way, so a timer is more immersive for me. But yeah, preferences I guess.

>>3837903
I don't even know where it would fall on a political spectrum, but the east LA shit with the whorehouse and that girl you save there gave me serious tonal whiplash.
I haven't tried every single clan's quest (so maybe some are terrible?), but I think ultimately it just gives you more stuff to do if you don't want to play a certain way.

>>3838006
Modder fan fiction: not even once

>>3835883
It is kind of fitting, in the setting, and in the "vibe" of early 2000s, which is where many people would like to return to.
Neither all work and no play "rightoid", neither "demolish the society that tolerates us" leftoid.

Just an honest to God, faithful to the setting, wwyd kind of scenario.

>>3838029
One thing about the kuei-jin that the game doesn't really make clear is that they have some ghost qualities and aren't just chi vampires. I don't really know shit about Wraith so I'm kind of reluctant to say more, but I don't think some kuei-jin character having a backstory where they ended up in someone else's body after they died is the worst way to tease the concept.

>>3838029
why would you keep this though

>>3838006
>but the east LA shit with the whorehouse and that girl you save there gave me serious tonal whiplash.
I get that, it's a bit more explicit than the writers themselves would've gone. I do actually find The Mack something of a guilty pleasure. He's what every Lasombra player character actually comes off as, despite the constant assertion that they're suave, genius manipulators.

>>3838030
>One thing about the kuei-jin that the game doesn't really make clear is that they have some ghost qualities and aren't just chi vampires.
Having read the tabletop lore, I think Bloodlines made the right call keeping the Kuei-Jin as vague as possible. As it stands they're already the weakest part of the game (not even the most interesting part of Chinatown). If they'd gone full ching chong kung-fu ghost corpse I think it would've ruined the game's tone something awful.

>The Bet of Night
This shit has to be AI generated

>"Hey ChatGPT, I need a punny name for my VTMB inspired radio show, something like "The Deb of Night""
>"As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I have analyzed your request thoroughly. Based on your description, I recommend the name "The Bet of Night." The word "Bet" is phonetically similar to "Bat"—which is a nocturnal creature—thus providing an amusing and fitting pun that aligns with the themes of night and darkness associated with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. I hope this suggestion meets your creative needs."

>>3838064
I'm sure there will be no shortage of things to complain about in there, but doing a new version of Deb of the Night with a slightly different name isn't really what I'm worried about.

>>3838064
Just utterly incapable of making something original. Not that I care anymore.

>>3838109
It just looks too ridiculous to me, very much like something an AI would come up with. I refuse to believe someone put any real thought into it. "The Deb of Night" worked because it was a play on the common phrase "the dead of night", but with "The Bet of Night" there's no such thing as "the bat of night". It even sounds awkward, any English speaker would more naturally say "the night bat" here, like "the night owl". You can think of it as a small thing that clearly encapsulates a couple problems we've already seen, poor writing and devs trying to use nostalgia for a game they don't even understand

>>3838139
Night Al
but short for Allison

>>3838141
>a couple of fags on an anonymous whiskey taster's symposium come up with better ideas than actual paid, certified professionals

>>3838147
Many such cases

>>3837980
>Like irl you don't get hunger points when you rise, you get them over time as you digest food.
Reanimated corpses that run on fundamental components of creation mixed into blood do not have to work like hunger works on you IRL. Which, by the way, is the same RL that coincidentally lacks vampires. That anon's stance makes more sense even from a least subjective viewpoint.

>>3838163
>Which, by the way, is the same RL that coincidentally lacks vampires.
See, that's where you're wrong, kiddo.

>>3838164
>confuses the Fallen and their worshippers for proper vampires
Many such cases.

>>3838163
Vampires are real dumbass

>>3838064
I hope these faggots don't chicken out and delay again. I want the internet to tear this game a new one. I want it to tank Paradox's stock even though they insulated it by resurrecting the white wolf name again. I want this game to be a generation flop, a mega-flop, a flop so vile and catastrophic corporations stop doing IP necromancy for a few years at least.

A fella can dream, right?

>>3838437
Oh that's why I keep getting banned when I talk about the local... you know what, forget it.

>>3838386
>a flop so vile and catastrophic corporations stop doing IP necromancy for a few years at least
Paradox has already accepted flop status and dropped (not sold) the IP. The game coming out at all is pure damage control.

>>3810335
Once upon a time when I was in vacation I I went around to pick up and sell every gun I could find individually (since just the ammo is less valuable) and this was AFTER I maxed out finance
had just enough money to stack up the colt / shotgun / uzi to use burn the ammo against Andrei and clearing sewers
didn't buy any clothing upgrade tho, otherwise you're absolutely right
if the kuei jin temple didn't give you ammo for all currently equipped guns, and you're guns-only, it may soft lock the game
>>3804020
as much as I enjoyed 80% of Redemption, the very beginning nearly turned me away because Kat is able to turn Christoff when she really shouldn't be able to touch the guy considering his true faith

>>3812832
>that brief time period when internet wasn't as popular and you could impress your Berceni clan people with music like in VtM
quality times, balls

>>3838923
The game gives you so much chance for free melee training, that it's hard to imagine getting truly soft locked without actively trying to be. There's also a couple guys with guns to loot in the puzzle basement area of the temple

>>3838923
Were you doing side quests? I do all the side quests and pretty much have more than enough money to full stock up by the end of the game. I don't buy every gun available from vendors though, just a few throughout. But I can still buy all the armor, some blood packs, occult items, etc.

>>3838971
Ammo itself isn't all that expensive. I think the thing that would really hurt would be buying guns instead of finding one of them first. I usually just save guns for bosses and have a shit ton of extra money though, so I don't really know how that would normally go down if you really committed to only fighting with bullets. If you do stuff like save your trash look for after free finance training and are willing to subject yourself to not always using the best weapon, it probably would be doable. More so if you take the stealth/talking options when offered early-on
Sounds like it would be really frustrating more than anything since aiming feels way too shaky to me until you get to 10 in firearms where it's just perfectly stable

>>3839252
>>3810335

Its actually super easy if you dont go arena shooter mode and just use the best (latest) weapon available. Guns in that game have a surprising variety and just because its the newest one you are able to buy doesnt mean its the best one to use.

So you go for the .38, Glock, Shotgun and MAC-10 most of the games smaller enemies. Glock especially because it fires what 18? rounds per mag, is relatively accurate, the ammo is cheap. semi auto and has enough damage to even end weaker supernatural foes. Also you obviously use the weapon which has the most ammo lying around at the time. If you fight a bunch of triads with MAC's you use that etc. Thats really where the RP comes into play here. Actually dangerous supernatural obstacles are pretty rare and during mid Downtown you should be strong enough to borderline ignore mortals.
Obviously, if you insist on killing every single street thug and Tzimisce creature by fanning a full clip of magnum rounds into them and the surrounding environment you will run dry on funds pretty quick. Apart from that there are only a few enemies that are so dangerous that you need to go in guns blazing. Just wait after every shot/burst until your aim is focused again so you actually hit things. I did playtroughs with Malk, Tremere and Toreador all on ranged only and it worked fine every time. Toreador being the best obviosuly because celerity just brakes the game at five points.

>>3839466
Shouldn't Auspex temporarily improve the firearms skill too? Never did a ranged-focused character.

>>3839494
It does. Firearms skill you can easily get dots 4 and 5 for free with, but if you want to save exp on perception that's one way to do it. Personally I think just raising perception is better, and there's no benefit to raising ranged combat above 10. I only ever use it for hacking or stealth

>>3839500
>and there's no benefit to raising ranged combat above 10.
You still get more damage when going over 10. For melee too with Potence.

>>3839500
>>3839534
You get more damage and as far as I remember you actually get more accuracy because the "waving" of the weapon depends on the difference between the weapons requirements and your characters ranged total so the SWAT rifle is only perfectly still during scope view if you got over 10 ranged.
Also whats definetly the case is that the reduction of time it takes after a shot to aim accurately again and the kickback both apparently have no "cap" at 10, so full auto with a MAC for example gets better with auspex on.

I only take a second discipline to five dots after I'm mostly done with my build though so I maxed auspex only with my malkavian before late game because I found it also fitting RP wise. This said I never tried a stealth sniper, its probably great fun even though there is no dmg benefit.

>>3839534
With potence I think it's noticeable, but I never noticed anything significant for guns with auspex.
Out of curiosity I just tested it on the guard in the skyeline apartments with that late game sniper rifle. Clan Quest mod if that matters, but I doubt it.
It's 152 with ranged combat 10
176 with ranged combat 13 from auspex
176 with both auspex and bloodbuff to get it to ranged combat 15.
For laughs I also put presence in there and it was still 176
I suspect what matters is probably the difference between the enemy's combat defense stat and your attack one, and in practical terms 13 gets you to a point that doesn't matter for that particular NPC, but that's just a shot in the dark and as this is a fucking ancient game at this point I'm sure the actual answer is out there already

never would have thought vtmb warranted a full on discussion about combat like it's fucking dark souls. i don't get it, you just go in and kill. it's never that hard no matter what you do. am i missing something here?

>>3840447
Yeah, fuck figuring out what stats do and shit