Junior Adventurer's Guild - June: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

[SpellSword]

Just made it to Grout's Mansion. Bishop Vick was a bit tricky I can see what Norfleet meant about needing to max ranged weapons. I'm definitely going to need more points invested in it going forward.

[Vergil]

I remember finding this on accident my second playthrough

► Show Spoiler

[Element]

The game is at its best when its confined to a hub area and is forced to interleave combat and social interactions. Hunting down dmp, 9th circle, tzimisce, kiki etc. You get the quest, utilize some skills, track down the quarry, fight, allocate xp, repeat.
Neither the melee nor the ranged combat is fun enough to carry the larger combat oriented maps. Unfortunately we get a lot more of them in the 2nd half of the game. The sewers are just by far the worst of the bunch.

[Element]

[1998]

Great artwork

[Vergil]

The game is at its best when its confined to a hub area and is forced to interleave combat and social interactions. Hunting down dmp, 9th circle, tzimisce, kiki etc. You get the quest, utilize some skills, track down the quarry, fight, allocate xp, repeat.
Neither the melee nor the ranged combat is fun enough to carry the larger combat oriented maps. Unfortunately we get a lot more of them in the 2nd half of the game. The sewers are just by far the worst of the bunch.

The final level is great and I enjoy enacting total Chinese death. The biggest issues with the warrens is the lack of blood outside of rats and the final post boss fight stretch not having a way to re up on ammo. The blood issue can be greatly helped by getting the refillable blood bag from Pisha as well.

[logincrash]

I forgot that the Giovanni were present in this game at all. Completely blanked on their involvement in the story.
In my memories it went Hollywood sewers -> Chinatown lab -> the Observatory.

[Vergil]

I forgot that the Giovanni were present in this game at all. Completely blanked on their involvement in the story.
In my memories it went Hollywood sewers -> Chinatown lab -> the Observatory.

To be fair their entire segment can be blitz'd past in like 5 mins while talking to maybe 3 NPCs.

[SpellSword]

Finished the museum, onto Hollywood.

---

I've encountered what I think is a bug. Heather has locked someone in the bathroom however if I pick the lock to the room in the bedroom the door is not interactable and will not open.

After picking the lock the use door icon does appear when I face it but pressing the button does nothing. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean the primary quest is toast, am I dead locked out of winning?

[Element]

Finished the museum, onto Hollywood.

---

I've encountered what I think is a bug. Heather has locked someone in the bathroom however if I pick the lock to the room in the bedroom the door is not interactable and will not open.

After picking the lock the use door icon does appear when I face it but pressing the button does nothing. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean the primary quest is toast, am I dead locked out of winning?

For the main quest you should be fine. It might lock you out of 'progressing' with the Heather 'quest'.

[Vergil]

After picking the lock the use door icon does appear when I face it but pressing the button does nothing. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean the primary quest is toast, am I dead locked out of winning?

It's weird that the door was locked in the first place it shouldn't be. Eitherway it really doesn't matter. Heather has zero effect on any quests.

[logincrash]

Make sure you switch your .44 Anaconda to fan (read "as full-auto as a revolver can get") mode. Default key is Tab. That quickly made it from a slow handcannon into a weapon of death on par with, if not better than, the SPAS-15.

Also

► Sad

RIP my sweet redheaded bimbo GF (ghoul flunkey)

[Vergil]

Make sure you switch your .44 Anaconda to fan (read "as full-auto as a revolver can get") mode. Default key is Tab. That quickly made it from a slow handcannon into a weapon of death on par with, if not better than, the SPAS-15.

I had no clue this feature existed holy shit.

[logincrash]

I had no clue this feature existed holy shit.

Yeah, same. I accidentally stumbled upon it when I failed to Alt+Tab by missing the Alt button. The Uzi also has an alternative fire mode, though it's nowhere near as useful as the .44 fan blasting.
Goes to show that one should always be reading the item descriptions.

[Vergil]

Finally did the Strauss ending. Pretty meh and abrupt but not the worst one possible.

Also like the little cameo at the end of my previous character (no clue if it's a coincidence or not).

[Vergil]

Gonna do a sprint through of the game as a Nos just to see what it's like and then I might check out the Antitribu mod since I want to play a ZEE MEE SHEE

[Vergil]

Damn I had no clue you could be so mean to Mercurio that after getting the astrolite he pulls a knife on you and tries to kill you immediately.

[maidenhaver]

I was impatient and made fun of him, but I assumed he could still kill me, so I wasn't mean.

[The_Mask]

I found out last time I played that you can exit the Last Round through the window in the washroom.

I don't think I found that out 20 years ago when I played it.

[Zothique]

I found out last time I played that you can exit the Last Round through the window in the washroom.

I don't think I found that out 20 years ago when I played it.

I've played this game long as fuck and I had no idea of this.

[logincrash]

Closing in on the finale.

► I like how much of a threat they actually made them.

Yiff in Hell, furfag.

► spoilerino

► Stealth is OP in this game.

► Now this is what we call "KNHO."

I want you to know, @Vergil, that I hadn't opened the console even once on this playthrough until I encountered this game-breaking bug.

The fucking elephant pillar isn't interactable, even though I got the jade statuette.

[logincrash]

I dun did it.
10/10 will definitely replay again
Credits and stats:

► Screenshot report

One would think that the Camarilla SWAT guys would wear some real neck protection.


For a second I thought it was actually LaCroix. The stealth is so broken that he didn't fire a single shot until I snuck behind him and put an entire SPAS-15 magazine up his ass.


Okay, I have to admit, Celerity + Ranged was a really good combo. That Magilla Gorilla didn't land a single hit on me.


Slit his throat for betraying me but still flew too close to the sun. Curiosity killed the cat and all that.




And here's the climax of the story, a nocturnal emission if you will.

[Vergil]

LaCroix never betrays you knowingly.

[logincrash]

Installed the Unofficial Patch Plus for a new playthrough.
Look how fucking gaudy this shit looks. Just an effect atop an effect atop an effect, like a teenager that just got into After Effects.



The original menu was nice and subtle, dark and with the word "Bloodlines" slowly appearing in the background.
This is just trash with every Clan icon vomited all over the screen and the stupid fucking fire on the bottom.
Eugh.

[Oyster Sauce]

Installed the Unofficial Patch Plus for a new playthrough.
Look how fucking gaudy this shit looks. Just an effect atop an effect atop an effect, like a teenager that just got into After Effects.



The original menu was nice and subtle, dark and with the word "Bloodlines" slowly appearing in the background.
This is just trash with every Clan icon vomited all over the screen and the stupid fucking fire on the bottom.
Eugh.

just wait

[Vergil]

Installed the Unofficial Patch Plus for a new playthrough.
Look how fucking gaudy this shit looks. Just an effect atop an effect atop an effect, like a teenager that just got into After Effects.



The original menu was nice and subtle, dark and with the word "Bloodlines" slowly appearing in the background.
This is just trash with every Clan icon vomited all over the screen and the stupid fucking fire on the bottom.
Eugh.

To be fair gaudy unnecessary add-ons that don't gel with the original experience is a good sample for the plus patch overall

[rusty_shackleford]

There's something about it that I can't place my finger on that makes the plus patch feel wholesome, the unfiltered modder neuroticism.

[Vergil]

A lot of my bitterness towards it come from people online treating it as a direct upgrade of the base game to the point of recommending it to new players and people assuming stuff added in it is vanilla.

[Vergil]

Finished the anarch ( ) path as a Nosferatu

► Playthrough thoughts

Nosferatu makes for a pretty schizophrenic difficulty. You can basically sleep through most of the game between potence and obfuscate. I played a pretty quick and lean playthrough avoiding most side quests so if you min maxxed you could probably make the disparity even more extreme. The notorious warrens are basically a non-issue as you can absolutely devastate anything in your path with potence or burrowing beetles and feast on rats. However certain parts like the boss fights against Bach and Ming Xiao are a nightmare if you don't stock up on blood bags (which isn't too big of a deal with all the money you save not buying guns and ammo). The actual levels before those bosses you can just turn invisible and run past everything which makes is a tax you pay for big day when it comes to the bosses. It reminds me a lot of Deus Ex Human Revolution pre director's edition. You can be a ghost through the whole game but if you don't focus on combat skills the bosses are going to fucking savage you.

Next I think I'm going to install the "antitribu" mod and see what a Tzimisce playthrough is like.

[Vergil]

So far I do not think I can recommend the antitribu mod