Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2

[logincrash]

Every minute of playing this, I'm reminded of J1M's very insightful post.

Games should not be aiming for 100% realism because that makes the visual information too cluttered. Game graphics should be like a memory. Important things are emphasized, unimportant things are not.

UE5 is rendering all of this useless junk at the expense of MY frames that could be used to improve MY general gaming experience. Why? Because normalfags just LOVE slurping up this "realistic" slop. The games looked just fine in the PS3/360 "brown" era of gaming (which is a ******* misnomer because the brown era of gaming is the current day with all the vidya being filled with the most disgusting ********* out of sheer malice towards the main customer base of video games - the White man in his 20s-30s). But, no, game devs still insist on using this unoptimized trashfire of an engine just because there's a billion of "how to code very good game unreal engine fast saar" videos for Unreal and it's cheaper to outsource 95% of the work to literally ******** pajeets (Translator's note: it is not actually cheaper, since it costs ten times as much to unfuck the mess these maggots consider "work") while the rest of the dev team is just a gaggle of ******** who can only write the most propaganda-filled nonsense drivel and design the gayest ******* outfits you ever done seen in your life.
The Chinese Room is the perfect name for them because playing Bloodlines 2 is like willingly subjecting yourself to Chinese water torture - you're endlessly annoyed by the tiniest of niggles here and there and the process is so mentally taxing that you're starting to slowly go insane. Next thing you know, you're writing an unhinged rant on your local comfy racist Internet forum.
Anyways, my point is TOTAL UNREAL DEATH.

[mattig]

I've been watching arch's run of this game. It looks like hot garbage.

[Rand]

UE5 is rendering all of this useless junk at the expense of MY frames that could be used to improve MY general gaming experience. Why? Because normalfags just LOVE slurping up this "realistic" slop.

Don't forget the non-gamers running these companies.
They were trained in business school about the importance of presentations.
They love the pretty visuals because they look good in presentations to each other, the media, and investors.
Because they're ignorant moron NPCs, they also think pretty visuals are super-important to gamers as well, because they are stupid enough to listen to the media and the brown console peasantry that goes insane over FIFA and COD slop.

[GhostCow]

I played a little more of this and I really don't like the combat. I'm probably going to drop it. Even the halfassed combat in the first bloodlines was more fun for me

[logincrash]

Somebody's mentioned in this thread that this game is less Dishonored and more Batman Arkham and they were right. According to my extremely accurate expert calculations, you spend approximately 83% of the game in the Detective vision thing. You need it to grind for blood to unlock ****, to follow quest trails, and in some cases even DO the actual quests. So, you spend most of your undead nights in a muted purple-pink haze and all the rendering the engine is doing is moot.
You know what game saw the problem with the Batman Detective vision and fixed it? Shadow of Mordor. The devs made the Detective vision crucial in that game too, except they made the visibility nearly 0 when you're in it. It's still incredibly useful, but you can't spend your whole game with it on. You're forced to enjoy all the interesting environmental stuff and look at all the weird and ****** up orcs and ****. And in the end I remember Shadow of Mordor not as a nearly totally black-and-blue mess, but as a game with very nice graphics and locations.
I won't remember Bloodlines 2 the same way.

[DemoGraph]

You know what game saw the problem with the Batman Detective vision and fixed it? Shadow of Mordor. The devs made the Detective vision crucial in that game too, except they made the visibility nearly 0 when you're in it. It's still incredibly useful, but you can't spend your whole game with it on. You're forced to enjoy all the interesting environmental stuff and look at all the weird and ****** up orcs and ****.

Bloodrayne 1 had similar problem with slomo. IIRC, first slomo level was free, and devs routinely spawned dozens of enemies. You was highly incentivized to spend a lot of time in slomo (with short switches to blood-dependent rage or slomo+ time stop).

Bloodrayne 2 fixed by both nerfing slomo (it spent blood) and significantly improving other options: there usually were only 3-4 enemies at the time, you got fighting-style blade mechanics with multiple strike types, acrobatics and combos.

The game got several "gamey" limits - you can't pick up enemy weapons anymore, but instead have embedded vampire guns that shoot blood; enemies never swarm you or try to AOE you with machine guns or RPGs - but fighting puzzles became so abundant, that you don't reflect on this until you finish the game.

[logincrash]

Speaking of guns, I think it's hilarious that you can't wield guns in this game, yet they do like 500% more damage than your fists do when you shoot the guns using telekinesis. Fighting the first boss makes it obvious.

[Atlantico]

Some says it runs like ****, other says it runs on a potato. Where is the truth?

runs like ****
people turn on 17 layers of AI blur and framegen then say "yeah runs great!"

Runs fine. My potato can't do AI blur or framegen.

Not a thing in 2012

[logincrash]

I was trying to push through to the end but, the second I got into another one of the Fabien flashbacks, there was a sense of sheer dread at the mind-numbing boredom that was about to transpire. I just quit the game and deleted it right there.
These flashbacks are like the braindance sequences from Cyberpunk but on steroids. It's like every Mary Jane or Miles Morales mission in the Insomniac Spider-Man game. It breaks up the core gameplay loop and swaps it with a list of chores. Except Cyberpunk and Spider-Man had solid gameplay and some cool characters to look forward to while you were suffering through those tedious segments. Bloodlines 2 has nothing in it that is worth this suffering.
This game is ****. Do not play it. Do not even pirate it. Not only does it spit in the face of the fans of the original Bloodlines, but it also disrespects your time.
Anyone involved in the making of this garbage needs to be put in one of those car squishing things at a junkyard along with their families, just so we could spare humanity from whatever genetic defect lead to the creation of this travesty.

[Roguey]

I love the characters in the double-flashback sequences. Haha, he does the voices for the objects.

[J1M]

Somebody's mentioned in this thread that this game is less Dishonored and more Batman Arkham and they were right. According to my extremely accurate expert calculations, you spend approximately 83% of the game in the Detective vision thing. You need it to grind for blood to unlock ****, to follow quest trails, and in some cases even DO the actual quests. So, you spend most of your undead nights in a muted purple-pink haze and all the rendering the engine is doing is moot.
You know what game saw the problem with the Batman Detective vision and fixed it? Shadow of Mordor. The devs made the Detective vision crucial in that game too, except they made the visibility nearly 0 when you're in it. It's still incredibly useful, but you can't spend your whole game with it on. You're forced to enjoy all the interesting environmental stuff and look at all the weird and ****** up orcs and ****. And in the end I remember Shadow of Mordor not as a nearly totally black-and-blue mess, but as a game with very nice graphics and locations.
I won't remember Bloodlines 2 the same way.

I don't think looking for those blue symbols in the environment is worth it. You get 100 XP for each and you get 3000 XP for a quest. Plus unlocking a new ability requires several skill points. Unless my math is way off, I think you need to find like 100 blue symbols to buy one ability.

[J1M]

Speaking of guns, I think it's hilarious that you can't wield guns in this game, yet they do like 500% more damage than your fists do when you shoot the guns using telekinesis. Fighting the first boss makes it obvious.

I used blood explosion (Tremere) on the first boss. (Mark a ghoul that joins the fight, let him tag it and take the full brunt of the explosion.) I'm assuming they did not anticipate this because it did a full health bar of damage to him.

I don't like/understand how blood points work in this game. I get that you use one ability and then need to bite 3 people before you can use it again (which seems ridiculous, but let's pretend it's for gameplay reasons) and some upgrades might make this less arduous. However at other random points I find the blood points refilled through no action of my own. At other points I have died and the game has loaded back in time at a checkpoint, but my blood points haven't reset so I've used them, died, gone back in time with a reload, but have lost resources.

The same thing happens if you have a masquerade breach. You lose 100 of each special blood resource but also go back in time to your last checkpoint.

Also hilarious that you can only work on one quest at a time. (Can you even drop a quest?)

TLDR: No fun allowed.

[Roguey]

I don't think looking for those blue symbols in the environment is worth it. You get 100 XP for each and you get 3000 XP for a quest. Plus unlocking a new ability requires several skill points. Unless my math is way off, I think you need to find like 100 blue symbols to buy one ability.

The purpose of the blue marks isn't XP but increasing your health bar. It adds quite a bit over time.

[Atlantico]

I don't think looking for those blue symbols in the environment is worth it. You get 100 XP for each and you get 3000 XP for a quest. Plus unlocking a new ability requires several skill points. Unless my math is way off, I think you need to find like 100 blue symbols to buy one ability.

The purpose of the blue marks isn't XP but increasing your health bar. It adds quite a bit over time.

I did not know that. Is there any in-game indication that the health bar increases when you get the blue marks?

All I see is the +100XP

[Vaako]

Speaking of guns, I think it's hilarious that you can't wield guns in this game, yet they do like 500% more damage than your fists do when you shoot the guns using telekinesis. Fighting the first boss makes it obvious.

I used blood explosion (Tremere) on the first boss. (Mark a ghoul that joins the fight, let him tag it and take the full brunt of the explosion.) I'm assuming they did not anticipate this because it did a full health bar of damage to him.

I don't like/understand how blood points work in this game. I get that you use one ability and then need to bite 3 people before you can use it again (which seems ridiculous, but let's pretend it's for gameplay reasons) and some upgrades might make this less arduous. However at other random points I find the blood points refilled through no action of my own. At other points I have died and the game has loaded back in time at a checkpoint, but my blood points haven't reset so I've used them, died, gone back in time with a reload, but have lost resources.

The same thing happens if you have a masquerade breach. You lose 100 of each special blood resource but also go back in time to your last checkpoint.

Also hilarious that you can only work on one quest at a time. (Can you even drop a quest?)

TLDR: No fun allowed.

There is a mod which refills all your blood when you drink and also one which lets you use super sprint, blood drinking and glide etc through the city that you dont breach the masquerade which makes the game a little less tedious. But it also shows more the flaw with the mission design, how I hate these sequences where you have to play as Fabian or all the ******* dream sequences.

[mercerxiv]

Wait, some of you actually fell for it and bought this slop? Please tell me you've at least pirated it....

[Vaako]

Wait, some of you actually fell for it and bought this slop? Please tell me you've at least pirated it....

What do you think of us? Only finarfin buys all the slop.

[Finarfin]

Wait, some of you actually fell for it and bought this slop? Please tell me you've at least pirated it....

What do you think of us? Only finarfin buys all the slop.

Well usually this is the case but I didn't buy Bloodlines 2. Got it over GOG instead and got rid of it after maybe 3 hours.

[Roguey]

I did not know that. Is there any in-game indication that the health bar increases when you get the blue marks?

Yeah, watch your health bar, it goes up.

Wait, some of you actually fell for it and bought this slop? Please tell me you've at least pirated it....

I bought it and I feel it was worth the price for me in particular. Not really anyone else though. I like this kind of game. Budget Arkham Origins (that cost a ridiculous amount to make).

[rusty_shackleford]

outerworlds 2 is the better game and it's not even close

[Atlantico]

Yeah, watch your health bar, it goes up.

Oh yeah.

Two millimeters. UI design. What are its secrets?

[Atlantico]

outerworlds 2 is the better game and it's not even close

Better at sucking

[J1M]

Yeah, watch your health bar, it goes up.

Oh yeah.

Two millimeters. UI design. What are its secrets?

But it says +100 XP so you know it increased your HP.

[J1M]

Speaking of guns, I think it's hilarious that you can't wield guns in this game, yet they do like 500% more damage than your fists do when you shoot the guns using telekinesis. Fighting the first boss makes it obvious.

I used blood explosion (Tremere) on the first boss. (Mark a ghoul that joins the fight, let him tag it and take the full brunt of the explosion.) I'm assuming they did not anticipate this because it did a full health bar of damage to him.

I don't like/understand how blood points work in this game. I get that you use one ability and then need to bite 3 people before you can use it again (which seems ridiculous, but let's pretend it's for gameplay reasons) and some upgrades might make this less arduous. However at other random points I find the blood points refilled through no action of my own. At other points I have died and the game has loaded back in time at a checkpoint, but my blood points haven't reset so I've used them, died, gone back in time with a reload, but have lost resources.

The same thing happens if you have a masquerade breach. You lose 100 of each special blood resource but also go back in time to your last checkpoint.

Also hilarious that you can only work on one quest at a time. (Can you even drop a quest?)

TLDR: No fun allowed.

There is a mod which refills all your blood when you drink and also one which lets you use super sprint, blood drinking and glide etc through the city that you dont breach the masquerade which makes the game a little less tedious. But it also shows more the flaw with the mission design, how I hate these sequences where you have to play as Fabian or all the ******* dream sequences.

I'm not installing cheats. But I am pointing out that they aren't restoring the character state properly. Which is exactly the kind of bug I'd expect by a studio trying to program their first game by dragging arrows and boxes around in Unreal Blueprints.

[Roguey]

The consumables not being restored and the choleric point penalty when you get a masquerade breach is the game working as designed. Get gooding/time padding.

Proof of non-woke game:

[Vaako]

outerworlds 2 is the better game and it's not even close

Better at sucking

Just played Outerworlds 2 a few hours and it certainly has more rpg mechanics and a bigger openworld than "bloodlines 2", with actual loot. It might look worse and the movement certainly sucks compared to "bloodlines 2" but even the writing seems more interesting. First area you land in and the notes there certainly sound

► Show Spoiler

that it is a commie place.

And you have skill checks which is nice.

[Atlantico]

outerworlds 2 is the better game and it's not even close

Better at sucking

Just played Outerworlds 2 a few hours and it certainly has more rpg mechanics and a bigger openworld than "bloodlines 2", with actual loot. It might look worse and the movement certainly sucks compared to "bloodlines 2" but even the writing seems more interesting. First area you land in and the notes there certainly sound

► Show Spoiler

that it is a commie place.

And you have skill checks which is nice.

TOW1 has more RPG mechanics and a bigger openworld than Bloodlines 2. With tons of loot.

It is also the worst game I have ever played, probably. It has skill checks and looks like woke diarrhea. And the writing was so bad in made me literally angry.

So what you're saying is that TOW2 has better writing than BL2, ok. But everything else about TOW I hated so much that the writing needs to make up for that deficit to even consider TOW2 even playable. No in fact scratch that, I don't care if it is the best story in the world (and let's face it, it's not) the artstyle and "humor" is so painfully bad I couldn't even consider playing it. And won't.

[Kolgrim]

What a joke this channel has become. Gives it a 7 out of 10. Only praises the combat/powers and hasnt even bothered playing the first game.

Mack has always been a ****** he just got a pass because he could sometimes be funny. Some of the **** he's done and said in the past is crazy though. Stuff like:

Skyrim is the best RPG ever created.

Dark Souls is a **** series because you can't play it with a mouse and keyboard.

He deleted his Witcher 3 review after trying to organize IRL fights with people who were mocking his criticisms.

His blatant shilling of KCD2 which is most likely due to his love of Vavra and Mafia 1. If you didn't know Mack used to run a dedicated forum and website for that particular game.

Then of course there's the whole "I hurt me arm guys I can't even play games or make reviews and may have to retire" grift where he took donations for a month or so before miraculously healing one day.

[Bertram_Tung]

Paradox employee uses chatgpt to try to influence vtmb fan communities

[Vaako]

Better at sucking

Just played Outerworlds 2 a few hours and it certainly has more rpg mechanics and a bigger openworld than "bloodlines 2", with actual loot. It might look worse and the movement certainly sucks compared to "bloodlines 2" but even the writing seems more interesting. First area you land in and the notes there certainly sound

► Show Spoiler

that it is a commie place.

And you have skill checks which is nice.

TOW1 has more RPG mechanics and a bigger openworld than Bloodlines 2. With tons of loot.

It is also the worst game I have ever played, probably. It has skill checks and looks like woke diarrhea. And the writing was so bad in made me literally angry.

So what you're saying is that TOW2 has better writing than BL2, ok. But everything else about TOW I hated so much that the writing needs to make up for that deficit to even consider TOW2 even playable. No in fact scratch that, I don't care if it is the best story in the world (and let's face it, it's not) the artstyle and "humor" is so painfully bad I couldn't even consider playing it. And won't.

Well guess you play these games different than me then. I just ignore the main quest and explore, loot, steal, murder everyone which face or voice I dont like and read mostly the notes arround the world which arent that bad until now. In cities I only go to the merchant to see what they have then I depopulate that place. But yeah I dont plan on talking much with npcs in this one. And I certainly have more fun doing that then doing it in bloodlines. Where you cant even kill named npcs unless they are quest related. Oh and the game runs way better. Even if it looks *** but bloodlines2 isnt much better if its all just a facade and not interactible.