GuyUpNorth posted:I am awaiting the way this mod deals with your kin with anticipation. But so far it leads me to "Victoria betrayed the familia" and things proceed as usual... for Antitribu anyway, so exploding zombies galore. There is a change - singular - that comes into play with Victoria being a Giovanni. Suffice it to say that it is not very exciting. So with that being said, here's a sneak preview of the next update, because I feel like I might as well try something different: quote:Introduction
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Jul 7, 2015 00:52
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TheMcD posted:There is a change - singular - that comes into play with Victoria being a Giovanni. Suffice it to say that it is not very exciting. So with that being said, here's a sneak preview of the next update, because I feel like I might as well try something different: Looking forward to this.
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Jul 7, 2015 16:40
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They didn't even capitalize Giovanni in the alt dialogue. Ugh. On the plus side, all that money must make it pretty easy to stay in grenade clips.
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Jul 8, 2015 19:15
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 Well... I've got nothing. As you correctly predicted in the thread, the changes to the Giovanni mansion when the player character is a Giovanni are completely minuscule. It essentially boils down to "you can tell the doorman to let you in because you're part of the family and he does" and that's it. So gently caress it, let's try something different. I've wanted to do a narrative Bloodlines LP before I took this over, so let's try a narrative chapter. The answer to "why?" is the same as the answer to "why?" regarding most decisions made in this mod. "Why the gently caress not?". Note: As you may have noticed throughout the LP, Victoria is not a very nice person. As such, she is not above lying. If you notice something that doesn't sound right and isn't visible in pictures, chances are that she made it up to make herself look better in some way. Introduction Greetings! If you're reading this, that means you're interested in purchasing my book, "A Life of Despair and a Life of Unrecognized Genius: The Victoria Giovanni Story", by me, Victoria Giovanni! And with that, I would like to congratulate you on your excellent taste! You will be embarking on the greatest story never told - until now! The story of a Kindred genius that was never recognized as what it was, that defeated the odds and a system going against it, deposing a violent dictator and repulsing foreign invaders from Los Angeles. In this sample chapter, I had been tasked to recover the Ankaran Sarcophagus by soon-to-be ash pile Sebastian LaCroix, and after several heroics like defeating a local Sabbat cell, rescuing a Nosferatu from hunters and more, I had tracked it down to the Giovanni mansion in Los Angeles. We rejoin the story after recovering that information, during the last preparations before making my return to the family.  Chapter 27: The Triumphant Homecoming While there was no doubt that the family would welcome me warmly and we would easily be able to work out a deal to overthrow the despot LaCroix and take the city for ourselves, it never hurts to be prepared. As such, I had some business to take care of. Mr. Ox turned out to be a sub-par business partner - while I enjoy the idea of getting more and more money for things like stealing eyeballs and murdering people, there is such a thing as having too much money for us Kindred, and I was sure that somebody like him would have had some interesting artifacts for me, but no, all he had to give me was cash.  On the way out, a newspaper caught my eye - there was already a news story on the shootout in the Glaze club? Hadn't that just happened a few hours ago? Was the news media that fast, or had a night already passed? Was I passed out at some point during the Mandarin's experiments? The heroics I have been selflessly bringing to the Kindred of LA must have taking a toll on my lifestyle - the sacrifices I make for the sake of the community...  Now, before I describe what happened at the Giovanni mansion, I feel the need to make a bit of a clarification. When I say I am part of the Giovanni family, I mean that I draw my heritage from the mainline, Italian Giovanni, not the Californian Giovanni under Bruno Giovanni (whom I will be referring to as the "Californians" throughout this chapter). This might explain some things that happen throughout this story. However, I still figured that that difference was not going to be any sort of issue, we would surely be able to put aside those minor differences and work together to a larger goal.  Upon arriving at the mansion, my eye was immediately drawn towards a couple standing outside the fairly quaint fountain that marks the centerpiece of the courtyard - a fountain which, while impressive to American eyes, is nothing special to those of us that have seen Roma and Venetia. There seemed to be some tension between the two, so me being the gregarious friend to all I am, I decided to join them and mingle, maybe pick up some points of interest from the Californians.  However, my information gathering plan was cut short when I noticed that the woman was inebriated to the point that I wasn't entirely sure if she was still supposed to be functioning or not, and as such was not actually one of the closer inner circle of Kindred the Giovanni have, or even one of the outer inner circle of ghouls, but just regular Kine of the family. What little I managed to gather from her was that the two were Rosselinis and that they were married, but beyond that it was hard to even comprehend just what she was saying.  Of course, since I was concerned for the social standing of the husband, I brought the matter to his attention. He seemed unconcerned, as this was apparently a regular occurrence, but I continued to press the poor sod, for he did not know what he was doing to himself. He was about to tell a story of the last event they attended that would have been interesting, but it would turn out that my issue would be solved in a much more straightforward way.  The wife simply started vomiting up copious amounts of blood, which not only seemed to be a sign of an incredible health risk that should be dealt with immediately, but also ruined my best set of shoes, which would have been unforgivable if I wasn't the gracious person I am. The husband thought that this situation meant "time to leave" and not "call an ambulance immediately", and he dragged his half-conscious wife across the courtyard like a carcass, blood dripping from her mouth and all. It was a stunning display of lack of common sense, and would set the tone for what was to follow.  After cleaning my shoes as well as I could, I decided to make my way to the main entrance and get this evening of pleasantries and intrigue underway. And yet, my optimism was harshly destroyed by this hunk of a man they made doorman. When I say "hunk", I mean that literally, as in "he looked like he was roughly chopped off some sort of block", and his speech pattern was only a slight step up from the drunk, probably now dead woman I had just dealt with. In this case, the patterns seemed to indicate less "inebriation" and more "imbecile", to the point where he might just be giving Charles II von Habsburg a run for his money. While I knew that incestuous tendencies are a big part of the Giovanni lifestyle due to our insular nature, I had figured that we had at least figured out how to reduce the number of straight up brain damaged people - but apparently, the Californians saw no problem with this. It was at this point that I was doubting the integrity of this sub-group of our family - this was a private party, and they put a mentally handicapped person in charge of the door? Did nobody see the security risk here? Summoning up my saint-like patience and using the easiest words I could think of, I managed to get through to him and convince him that I was part of the inner circle of the family and therefore should be allowed in, even without an invitation. In retrospect, I really should have just Dominated him, it probably would have been the easiest thing ever and probably could have been amusing. Hell, I could have drawn an invitation in crayons and he probably would have bought it.  With that business cleared, I found myself inside the mansion. Once again, the interior decoration was nothing spectacular - in fact, for the refined tastes of those such as myself, it might even be described as tacky. It had the distinct impression of somebody particularly wanting to impress, as opposed to somebody that simply displays good taste, and as such, it falls flat on those that actually know some things about art (as is mandatory with the Venetian Giovanni such as myself) and aren't just impressed by shiny things.  While mingling with the guests was a possibility, I felt the need to make business quick, and as such, headed straight for the central set of doors that hid some sort of meeting room behind them, to meet with Bruno Giovanni. Or so was my plan, which was quickly shot down when the guards simply told me I couldn't enter. I tried all I could - I argued, they stayed stubborn. I dropped the power words "Ankaran Sarcophagus", "LaCroix" and more, they stayed stubborn. The only way I was getting in there was killing somebody, and I wasn't willing to do that, so I decided that I would continue with the original plan of stealing the sarcophagus - perhaps there would be some opportunity to contact the higher-ups later and maybe strike up a deal? Surely I would see success once I got to talk to some of the actual movers and shakers - surely they would see that my proposition would help them greatly? Surely not everybody with the Californians is this loving stupid?  After that disappointing outcome, mingling seemed like the best thing to do, but it wasn't very insightful either. A lot of low-level gossip, and pretty much everybody reacted in a way that suggested they only knew about it as a news item, which I suppose made sense, since all of the guests at the party seemed to be Kine, with the guards probably being ghouls, and all the proper Kindred I needed to talk to being in the meeting room I couldn't reach. However, there was something halfway interesting to be heard. Apparently, there was a "contest" of sorts - reading between the lines, I gathered that two people were going to be Embraced on that day (or as they put it, "accepted into the inner circle", and they would elect one to ghoul ("bring with them into the inner circle"), with there being three different people in the running for the ghouling. I talked with all three of them, and they were all eager to gain some dirt on the other two in order to move up in the pecking order - a natural thing for a Giovanni-would-be to do - but nobody was really willing to air their dirt to me in exchange for help, so the whole situation sort of went nowhere. And speaking of these three - if you're out there somewhere and are still looking for somebody to take you under their wing, I would be more than willing to do so. Just put the word out in Sacramento that you're looking for Victoria and leave your name so I know it's you.  And then there was Nadia. She was different from the others. She, above all, seemed like she didn't fit in with the Giovanni spirit of competitive favor-currying, rumormongering, character assassination and the likes. She seemed like the kind of person one could actually cooperate with, as opposed to the rest of the Californians. Persistence paid off, as she seemed to be more interested in the family "secrets" (i.E. things that any Kindred within the group would obviously know) than the others and knew something that could help me. Through some consistent pressing, I managed to get her to open up to me and show me what she had discovered.  We made our way to a study of sorts, with plenty of bookcases to be found. I gave the room a cursory glance to see if I could find the book that Pisha was talking about, but the literature around seemed to be a lot more banal - I guess it was to be expected, since this was a publicly accessible room and all. She gestured me towards a sword hanging in the corner and pulled it, which caused a bookcase to reveal a hidden corridor. While I knew that this mansion had to have had hidden passages - it wouldn't have been a proper mansion if it didn't, though I would have believed you if you told me the Californians skimped out on that - it was just that I had no idea exactly how to access them. She also revealed to me that there were many more passages, but that they were simpler to work out - you would simply push a certain spot of a wall and the wall would give way to reveal a passage, a large web of which spanned the mansion, allowing quick covert access to any part of it. I made a mental note to take a second look over the mansion for those hidden passages and followed Nadia down the corridor.  What we found would have been shocking if I wasn't in the know - a sort of hybrid of a embalming room and a morgue, obviously something to do with the Californians' necromantic pursuits, as is the norm with all of us Giovanni. Nadia was trying to stay cool, but was very much giving off an air of unease - since this stuff wasn't daily nature to her, I could wager that this would freak her out something fierce. I feigned surprise as to not come off as suspicious, but found myself legitimately surprised when I felt a scratch on my back. I didn't notice anything on the way in, what could be scratching me?  I turned around and was staring straight into the empty eye sockets of a skull. A skull attached to the rest of a skeleton, which was currently holding a sword and ineffectually flailing at me. The sword must have been incredibly ancient and dulled, because it could barely scrape the leather clothing I was wearing and probably couldn't have made a proper cut on my skin either. He'd have had a better time of it using the hilt to try and bludgeon me to death, a prospect that was however just as unlikely. Nadia, meanwhile, was staring vacantly into the void, completely ignoring the animate skeleton right in front of her. It seems like I had my answer as to why she was so cooperative - she was high as a kite and friendly to anything that was willing to talk to her. Brilliant - the one person willing to collaborate, and she wasn't her normal self. She also didn't react when I smashed it to pieces and took the sword for myself - a bit of sharpening and it would be a useful weapon.   With Nadia having drifted off into some sort of dream world, I took initiative and searched the room, finding the book that Pisha was looking for - turns out that it's a fairly low-level necromantic guidebook, certainly nothing I would have needed, but somebody that wasn't privy to our ways would have found it to be interesting, I guess. Furthermore, it turned out that the table they lay the bodies on also was some sort of elevator that led down to the crypt - a crypt being an excellent place to hide a sarcophagus, of course. Making a mental note to check that out, I left Nadia to her devices and returned to the upper level of the mansion to analyze the passages further.  Once I got there, it was actually simple to find the spots in the wall that could be opened - it was a rather rudimentary setup that indeed just required you to push a certain way. I leaned on the wall as to give it that specific push "accidentally", and stumbled into the hidden passage, face first. What I saw was rather interesting: The hallways were shoddily built - there were no walls, just the wooden supports, the floor was dirt, and the only part that seemed like any work was put into it was a one-way window that allowed you to peer into the central room where pretty much everybody had gathered.  Oh, and there was a skeleton there as well. At that point, my brain started firing on all cylinders, attempting to reason things out. Why was there a skeleton in the hidden passage? Was it supposed to keep watch? If so, what does it do when something happens? It's a skeleton with a lovely sword, it can't do anything! It can't talk, either! Does it just run to Bruno, rattling like it's Lassie trying to tell somebody that Timmy fell into the well? Furthermore, why is the skeleton attempting to kill me? Is it ordered to just kill on sight? What if somebody actually accidentally fell into the hidden passage? What is going on here? Have the Californians really gone insane? That's when all hell broke loose. Now, my recollection of the following events is fairly rough, but that's mostly because it was complete anarchy.  Apparently, everybody at the party was really fixing for a fight, because the moment they heard the skeleton's sword clanking against the wall, all the guards left their post and stormed towards my location, guns drawn and some already shooting. That wasn't the crazy part, though.  No, the crazy part was when the door to the meeting room was violently busted open and out stormed Bruno Giovanni in full medieval armor and wielding a battle hammer, flanked by knights, once again in full armor, and wielding swords and maces. While I was desperately trying to flee into a side hallway, Bruno started screaming something about cross-dimensional conspiracies and galactic wars that apparently revolved around the Ankaran Sarcophagus and I really don't loving know what he was talking about. At that point, I was convinced that the entirety of the Californians had gone mad, be it from Sabbat influences, some rogue Malkavian loving around, or just the general oppressive atmosphere of LA finally getting to the paranoid Bruno and through him to his family. No matter the situation, one thing was clear - they had to be culled, for the sake of Kindred safety. No way was a group of mad Giovanni running roughshod through LA going to cause anything but massive trouble. Like a rabid dog, they had to be put down.  The battle itself was insane. I took a defensive position in the entrance hall and laid down fire with my AK-47 while attempting to dodge sword-wielding Giovanni, with mixed success.  It spilled into the main chamber, with me trying somehow to lay down some sort of suppressive fire to keep knights with maces off my rear end and eventually deciding that the best action was to just straight up run and hope my lighter armor gave me better mobility as Bruno continued raving, summoning zombies and attempting to lock me into position through some other spell.  Succeeding in taking the high ground, I tried my best to somehow take down the knights while ducking fire from down below...  ...but that proved problematic, as Bruno was apparently not only capable of spells that immobilize, but also teleport, and I suddenly found myself right in front of a sword that seemed decidedly sharper than the ones the skeletons were wielding, though thankfully, a bullet from my revolver took care of him. As the fight was starting to draw to a close, with me having taken out most of Bruno's cohorts and summoned minions, he managed to pull his trump card:  He somehow managed to teleport me half-way into a wall!  So there I was, stuck in a wall with no way of getting out, with Bruno bearing down on me with his battle hammer while ranting about the Andromedans and the Beta-Centaurians. That was it, I thought. The illustrious career I still had ahead of me, cut short because the Californians proved to have terrible judgment when it came to picking guards for their secret hallways. The Kindred of LA would continue to be oppressed by the tyrannical regime of Sebastian LaCroix, or even worse, culled by the Kuei-jin that were encroaching on full-scale conquest of the city. And yet, I couldn't let it end like that. Summoning up every bit of willpower I could, I focused every drop of blood I had left into sustaining as much damage from Bruno's blows as possible and somehow managed to still pull the trigger on my rifle despite my predicament. I wasn't going to be able to reload due to a lack of a left arm, but it was the last shot I had, and as such, I unloaded into Bruno, hoping desperately that it would be enough to put him down.  And just barely, it was. Killing him dispelled his relocation magic, and I found myself back on solid ground, with full control over my faculties and limbs and nothing stuck inside a wall. I took some time to realize just what had happened - I just singlehandedly wiped out most of the Californians, including their leader, and as such once again saved the people of LA from a threat they didn't even realize existed. Furthermore, I did it because... I committed a social faux pas? I didn't even do that intentionally - well, I did, but I framed it like an accident, and for all they knew, it was an accident. I know we Giovanni take our social situations very seriously, but for the love of Caine, we're not Ventrue, guys! A bit of levity and a bit of a more casual attitude can go a long way to maintaining your respect and also your continued existence! Learn from the Californians' mistakes, friends!  After that, things get rather hazy. I vaguely recall dealing with some more scattered guards, who were no match for me, even in a rather banged-up state and probably experiencing a fair share of blood loss (and blood lust!) at the time.  I also kind of recall heading back down to the morgue-area, but I can't remember what happened to Nadia. I assume she eventually came down from her high and scampered off... if you're out there somewhere, Nadia, please get in touch! Even if it was due to the drugs, I would still love to have another chat with the only Californian that was actually helpful, and I would definitely take you under my wing.  My memories start coming back clearer at the point where I'm heading down to the crypt. That crypt was a quite strange place, even for a Giovanni crypt, as zombies were just randomly rising from the grave, even after I had driven pretty much everybody capable of necromancy from the mansion. There were still some sort of problems afoot here - this should not be happening. Furthermore, there were skeletons with crossbows at the other side of the hall, monotonously shooting some sort of magic bolt along the hall in regular intervals, not even caring whether they hit something or not. An excellent security system this is not.  It was at this point that I found something interesting - for some reason, there was a hockey mask just laying around in the crypt. No idea who put it there, but it was mine now. Any sort of protection I could get would be appreciated. Of course, I now looked more like an ax murderer with my shoulder pads, leather clothing and now a hockey mask, but honestly, at the rate I was going, I was going to be knee-deep in the dead anyway, might as well look the part. The sacrifices I went through for the sake of this town...  Furthermore, I picked up a mace - probably dropped by one of the skeletons, their medieval armory, while somewhat ineffective, was rather varied - that would very much come in handy against these boneheads. While it was kind of aggravating to switch between blades and blunt weapons to deal with each threat that arose, but it was a lot better than having to try and smash the skeletons against the walls - however, that probably would have been a lot more amusing.  Also, it turned out that the crossbow skeletons were in fact capable of aiming, they just needed me to be close enough so that they could actually see me, I guess. Really, it's anybody's guess just how these things operated - as we've previously established, the Californians were straight-up mad, so they could have cooked up any sort of reasoning for these things, and with most of those that were in the know now having met their Final Death, I suppose we will never know.  That wasn't the only strange thing I encountered by any stretch of the imagination, no. The next oddity I ran into was a skeleton that was pretty much fully armored. Once again, the questions rushed into my head the moment I dispatched it: Why is this skeleton wearing armor? Who made it wear armor? If it was some sort of better skeleton, why wasn't it guarding the secret passages instead of the entrance to the crypt? Given that everybody flipped their poo poo the moment I stumbled into one, you'd think they would want their best animate corpses on guard up there! Actually, let's ask one question again, WHY is the skeleton wearing armor? Do these people not understand how skeletons work? You raise a whole ton of them and use them as shock troops alongside your zombies, not some sort of bizarre elite troop! They're WAY too fragile to be given anything important - I thought that's why they had all those terrible weapons! I guess we could add "warfare" to the list of things the Californians had no clue about.  Advancing through the crypt, I found a series of traps, hidden passages and levers, all littered with zombies and armored skeletons. It really was a bizarre concept - was this supposed to stop me? I just tore through the actual Kindred upstairs, do they really think some zombies and skeletons are going to be a hindrance?  In one particularly strange series of events, I entered a long, hallway-like room, as the doors shut behind me. This would have been a perfect opportunity to unleash flamethrowers, or spinning blades, or a slowly falling ceiling, really, anything but more zombies. They just plop out half a dozen zombies like it's any sort of obstacle, I shoot them in the head, which instantly dispatches them, and once they were all dealt with, I was on my merry way again. Was falling into this trap a regular occurrence amongst the Giovanni hopeful and as such needed to be easily dealt with in case of emergency? This entire escapade had completely soured my opinion of the Californians - had I not ensured we would never be working together by killing their leader and assorted higher-ups, I would no longer be trying to get in touch with them. And to be honest, I probably will have more problems with them trying to get in touch with me. And then trying to murder me. Oh well, it hasn't worked yet, suckers!  While meandering and murdering my way through the crypt, the most threatening thing I ran into was this big skeleton knight, which was in full armor, had a massive weapon, and was also capable of casting spells. Why is a skeleton capable of casting spells and given better armor than even Bruno himself had? What in the gently caress was going on here? You can see why I'm going with the "insanity" answer - there is just no logical explanation for this. The Californians had gone absolutely mad. Not to mention, that skeleton had the most formidable defense I had seen in this entire mansion, but then again, being a skeleton in medieval armor, he was still very much susceptible to being bashed very heavily by a mace. It's these kind of design flaws that really ensured that the Californians were never going anywhere.  So there I was. I had just slogged through an immense number of zombies and skeletons, barely any of which caused me to break a sweat, and yet were all incredibly annoying in their own way. I had also just come off of destroying the California chapter of the Giovannis completely and utterly based on a complete accident. At that point, I was incredibly pissed, in the mood to spill some more blood, and wielding some righteous fury against anybody that would come between me and that sarcophagus, my instrument of destruction I would wield against LaCroix. So then I enter this large chamber and find the sarcophagus, only to find it claimed by two Kuei-jin that claimed that there was some sort of alliance between LaCroix and Ming-Xiao. Now, they say this as if it were going to change anything. For one, I was going to end up killing both LaCroix and Ming-Xiao, so really, driving a wedge between the two would be an interesting idea. Furthermore, these two shits are coming between me and that sarcophagus, and we've established that that would be a recipe for disaster. Finally, they were just being assholes about it, constantly repeating themselves with how there was an alliance and I was breaking the agreement and that they were going to kill me, and it just pushed me over the edge - as patient as I can be, sometimes that patience just runs out, especially when some people prove themselves to be unworthy of it. So I simply snarled an assortment of expletives at them and jumped into battle wielding my trusty grenade launcher, the weapon that comes out when the going gets rough and some serious damage is needed.  I've found throughout this quest to save LA that nothing much can stand up to the power of that grenade launcher, and those two idiots didn't last long either. In fact, they managed to put nary a single scratch on me - if that was supposed to be the best the Kuei-jin had to offer, then I would have had an easy time dealing with them. But that is for another time.  With the mansion pretty much vacated of all sentient life beyond a few shambling zombies, getting the sarcophagus out was a cinch, especially given that LaCroix already dealt with getting a delivery truck to transport it. Next time, we would find that things are never quite as easy as they seem. So there's that, a narrative chapter. Should I keep doing the narrative thing or switch back to my regular style? Please drop some comments in the thread.
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Jul 13, 2015 03:27
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Keep up with the narrative. Anything that keeps you saner through the rest of the mod. Plus, it's a fun read.
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Jul 13, 2015 04:17
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Bruno takes LARP very seriously.
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Jul 13, 2015 04:32
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TheMcD posted:
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Jul 13, 2015 06:14
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^Thid guy doesn't know what he's taking about, it was far more entertaining than simply showing us how bad the mod is. Trying to rationalize the bad parts makes it better! Keep it up!
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Jul 13, 2015 06:51
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I loved it. I'd really be interested to see you continue in this way!Xander77 posted:It was pretty bad. Go back to your regular style and feel free to skip the boring bits. Californian Giovanni spotted.
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Jul 13, 2015 08:12
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I'm gonna join the minority here and say that I didn't really like the narration. It was well written but I enjoyed the commentary on how terrible the mod was.
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Jul 13, 2015 10:07
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I like the narrative because I think there's only so many ways you can say "This poo poo is pants-on-head retarded," which I was on board with around about the time padded football vest were introduced as combat armor.
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Jul 13, 2015 10:12
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I enjoyed the narrative too.
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Jul 13, 2015 11:02
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I enjoyed the style of this update. I bet you can't write the next update in Iambic pentameter.
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Jul 13, 2015 11:58
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superstepa posted:It was well written but I enjoyed the commentary on how terrible the mod was.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:14
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superstepa posted:It was well written but I enjoyed the commentary on how terrible the mod was. I have to agree in part with this. I like the narration, but don't be afraid to "break character" and give us the actual, explicit annoyances, just to be clear.
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Jul 13, 2015 14:11
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Drop OOC annoyances in the bottom of any update or something if you feel like it. Victoria's earned sense of Italian superiority should make this trainwreck whole lot more entertaining, so keep it up.
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Jul 13, 2015 14:17
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Liked the narrative, agree that some OOC commentary on stuff would be good to include.
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Jul 13, 2015 22:37
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First of all, Gatz, McD, you're both deserving of saintly reward for putting up with this goddamn game and it's patches and specific awfulness. God on you guys. And good on everyone in the thread, providing a bunch of oWoD background info to make things make more sense in various places. Now then, this mod is loving awful and you should go through it however it makes it more bareable for you. The narrative is nice, though some OCC stuff to more blatantly point out "stupid poo poo in this mod" seems like a good idea. I never really got around to playing Bloodlines because of plethora of weird mods that make the nexus site seem both PG13 and perfectly well designed.
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Jul 14, 2015 05:20
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I didn't read the narrative and won't read it in the future. I don't really care if you do it or not, but I would super appreciate it if you put regular commentary in an italicized caption under relevant pictures so I could see stuff like, "Bruno was a complete dick, wielding a mace because this mod is stupid. He had a lot of health but wasn't any trouble." or, "Picked up a hockey mask, it does this..." Then I could be apprised of anything pertinent to your playthrough, which I was enjoying. I'm not saying your writing is bad, just that I will never read it and would really like it if I could still follow along.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:36
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^Jees man, what did narrative LPs kill your mom or something?
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Jul 14, 2015 21:00
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Armored knights. Armored knight... vampires? What else could they be, I suppose.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:02
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Vampires always strike in the knight. 
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Jul 14, 2015 21:08
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Alright, so going forward, it will be narrative narration with OOC mod commentary. And judging by what I'm going through right now, there will be a good bit of bitching in this update. I'm currently recording the next part and am at the Society of Leopold. Apparently, the developers of the mod thought it to be smart to wall off one of the ways you could get to an entrance, practically forcing me through combat. Also, apparently, there's some guy with a long distance flame thrower or rocket launcher on the roof. I'm not entirely sure, all I know is that one second I was undead and well with full health, then I saw a whole bunch of flame fly towards my direction from the roof, then I was dead, and this was after spending three minutes kiting a whole bunch of ground troops back to be able to deal with them one by one. Bah, this mod. Here I thought I was reaching the point where I had a good character build for the endgame, and then it just kicks me right in the dick again. EDIT: Video footage of the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwUW1QcGL2I Note that I always record without sound, since I play my own music while recording. TheMcD fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 23:25
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TheMcD posted:Alright, so going forward, it will be narrative narration with OOC mod commentary. And judging by what I'm going through right now, there will be a good bit of bitching in this update. How do people defend this mod? HOW? 
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Jul 31, 2015 00:15
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This mod keeps reaching new heights, of stupidity.TheRagamuffin posted:How do people defend this mod?
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Jul 31, 2015 00:22
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OK, I've been making progress (slowly but surely, I will not let this mod have the satisfaction of having me activate godmode without it utterly breaking me), and I can now confirm that the long-distance immolation weapon is in fact a grenade launcher. You know, the one that I've been using? The one that shits all over bosses? Well, regular enemies get that one now. And it shits over Victoria harder than it shits over bosses. Fun. Also included: RC cars with bombs strapped to them that I apparently can't destroy and that pack enough firepower to oneshot me.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:38
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Let it not be said that hunters are simpletons... though strapping explosives into RC cars sounds like "got wasted for brainstorming session" material.
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Jul 31, 2015 01:03
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whoever suggested strapping bombs to RC cars and sending them after vampires is a genius.
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Jul 31, 2015 04:03
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Well I mean its clearly doing the job better than the usual "Holy faith" or whatever they were prattling on about before.
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Jul 31, 2015 16:55
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 Alright, so going by the feedback I've gotten on the last update, it seems that the way to go forward that makes most people happy is to keep the narrative for the things happening in the game, while I additionally bring some commentary on the particular changes the mod makes and what I think of them. With that in mind, here's some stuff on the things we saw in the Giovanni mansion, since I don't want to edit it into the previous update retroactively: - When Victoria arrived at the Giovanni mansion, she started out stuck in the floor because I don't loving know, and I had to noclip out. That did not leave a good first impression, really, especially given there were barely any changes to the actual map (if any, I can't actually recall having noticed any). - The fact that the only Giovanni-specific change for the mansion is that you can tell the doorman to let you in frustrates me a lot more than it should, because it makes no sense whatsoever, given that you go right back to impersonating one of the Rosselinis once you enter. It's clear this will be reworked further down the line (although mod development has somewhat stalled and is showing signs of the "don't exactly hold your breath for further updates" mood that often hits projects like these), so why make this one minor change and then just call it a day? It would have made more sense if you still had to impersonate somebody as a Giovanni, since Giovanni or not, you're not part of Bruno's clique (at least not knowingly), so obviously you'd need an invitation to get in. - The additional skeletons strewn throughout the mansion. WHY? It makes no sense - both from a storyline perspective (as I described in character in the last update) and from a game design perspective, since all you're doing is dicking over stealth players that require these passages to get around in the mansion, what with Bruno busting out the doors the moment combat is engaged within the mansion. - Speaking of Bruno, I'm still baffled at him turning into a loving hammer-swinging knight, complete with an escort of armored knights while every other guard in the mansion remains unchanged. It sure made the fight more challenging, I can tell you that much. Of course, this segment would also not be complete without a questionable design choice, and in this case, it's his magic. The "lock player into place" spell is just annoying - I guess it could get hairy if multiple enemies are bearing down on you, but that should rarely be the case. The real problem is the teleportation spell, since as I could very much tell, teleportation without prevention of clipping into walls very quickly leads to problems. And of course, that means I had to bust out the noclip again. Twice in an update, not a very good sign. - The Giovanni book we found in the mansion, had Victoria not been too stupid to read it, would have given us another dot in Necromancy. Would have been useful, and I would probably have preferred it over what Pisha gave me for it. Oh well. - The hockey mask gives one point to Bashing and Lethal Soak in exchange for another Appearance hit, very useful. The mace is a lovely melee weapon that only shines because it gives bonus damage against skeletons, but so would have a sledgehammer or the like. - The skeleton knight boss in the crypt was a really annoying bastard, mostly because he just negates damage most of the time. I couldn't tell if he was supposed to be blocking with his shield or something, but a lot of the attacks just straight up didn't faze him. Actually, scratch that, I just went over the footage again, he doesn't have a shield, he's dual wielding maces. He could cast some sort of magic that was some kind of force emanating from him that dealt a bit of damage, but it didn't correspond with the times he was invulnerable and the times he wasn't, so it seems to me that he's just randomly impervious to damage at times. That's one way to make a boss harder - not that he was a challenge, since his melee attacks didn't actually hurt Victoria and the magic just did some minimal damage. - Bloodlines Antitribu Fun Fact of the Day: Misti, the stripper from Vesuvius we added to our ever growing list of members in Victoria's Legion, is trans. And by that I mean that she has a dick and that's the only thing that is mentioned about that (since she doesn't have any new dialogue or anything). I had no idea until I read a topic about this on the RavaFX forums, and I went into the game to check, and lo and behold,  there was indeed a dick there. (holy gently caress that texturing) I have no idea what to say about that beyond "this is a thing that exists in this mod, and I feel it is significant enough to bear pointing out", and I have no interest in attempting to decipher the developers' motives regarding this change. I am however quite confused, because I definitely recall very intently staring at Misti's crotch when I first found her at Vesuvius as to determine whether the pantyhose she wore constituted enough coverage to not require blackboxing her (the result of that investigation being "gently caress it, I'll just not show her from the neck down, problem solved"), and if I had seen a dick, I would have most definitely pointed that out. Hm, guess we'll just move on to the update proper. Narrative in italics, separate commentary in regular text.  Chapter 28: The Revolution Sweeps The Hunters and The Sabbat Part of me wants to say that this is the point where the situation starts getting somewhat out of hand. Part of me realizes that I had just spent the last few hours wiping out an entire local Giovanni chapter, including their leader, and destroying a supposed alliance between LaCroix and Ming-Xiao, which, if it did exist (to this day, I'm not entirely sure who exactly was lying regarding that, and anybody I could ask is very probably dead), must have sent somebody flying into a tizzy. Things have already gotten out of hand, and probably have been out of hand for a while before that. But this is where my personal situation started getting really crazy, not just the surrounding situations I was causing through my righteous crusade for the salvation of Los Angeles.  LaCroix was of course overjoyed that I brought him his sarcophagus - or at least feigning joy as hard as he could, which, to his credit, was pretty impressively hard. Of course, inside, he was clearly steaming, be it over me breaking up his alliance with the Kuei-jin that he wanted to keep a secret from me at all costs (which of course meant he denied it as vehemently as possible) or over me still not being dead and continually being a thorn in his side, defying his authoritarian rule simply by existing despite his intent to have me killed.  Furthermore, he was so "proud" of me that he gave me permission to sire a childe. I had to laugh internally when he said that - was he not aware that the Legion was growing in number for quite some time now, and included several Kindred that might as well have been my childer? Was this just another attempt at appeasing me while he continues to send me through death trap after death trap, figuring he'll deal with the childe once I'm dead? Joke's on him, I would have continued that regardless, since putting my master plan into action required him to open the sarcophagus. However, not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I thanked him profusely for this opportunity and promised not to waste this gift of his. I'll get into siring once we actually pick who we sire - spoilers, by the time I made the decision, I thought I had only one choice, so there wasn't exactly a lot of picking going on - but for now, I'd just like to point out the lack of a period at the end of that sentence. Also, the two voice lines for LaCroix granting this right are definitely the same voice, though I'm not entirely sure of their source - I guess it's just some unused stuff floating around in the game files.  Beckett was at our little get-together as well, since LaCroix wouldn't know his Assyrians from his Hittites if his unlife was hanging in the balance. Beckett didn't tell us anything I didn't know already - the sarcophagus being of Assyrian origin and being locked with a particular mechanism that required a special key to open, obviously because what was in it (or at least what was supposed to be in it) was the remains of Messerach, an old Assyrian king whose achievements are shrouded in mystery, and whatever it was that made these achievements possible led them to wanting to lock that corpse up good and tight. Of course, Messerach is nothing but a shriveled corpse that wouldn't have needed this kind of precaution, but it's there anyway. That wasn't news to me.  What was news to me was that Professor Johansen had been abducted by the Society of Leopold during the time I spent hunting for the sarcophagus, and he was the one I was going to have to seek out to "learn" about the way the key worked. That, and I had actually lost track of the key after I used it to set up the master plan - I kind of figured it would have stayed with the sarcophagus, but apparently somebody had beaten me to the punch and separated the two, and Johansen was as good a place as any to start, since the trip through the museum didn't yield any insight. In hindsight, I probably could have saved myself a lot of time if I hadn't tried to cover up my plan as much as possible by just letting the sarcophagus get out there and then having to retrieve it, though it did a great job of masking my involvement.  So now it was going to be my task to retrieve him - alone, of course, can't bring along any help, that would be terrible. I'm still not entirely sure if this was just another setup by LaCroix or just things going his way by chance, with me once again heading into even more hostile territory than the last time in what is once again assuredly a suicide mission. But of course, I was on a righteous quest and would not be deterred so easily. I was getting that professor and dealing a blow to the Society while I was at it, since weakening their local cell could only mean good things for the local Kindred.  However, before setting off for the Society's hideout, I had some other business to take care of. First and foremost, I brought the book I found in the Giovanni mansion to Pisha. She acted like it was some major tome that I had brought her, but I read the book, it wasn't anything mindblowing, at least not to somebody that knows a thing or two about necromancy like I do. But as long as she was happy, I wasn't going to complain.  Though I certainly felt like complaining about the reward she gave me. She claimed that she gave me a Key of Alamut, a very rare artifact that grants great resilience. In practice, while I could feel that enemy blows seemed to not hit as hard as they used to, I also felt like I couldn't take as much abuse as I could before holding it. I'm still not sure whether or not this thing is a net gain or a net loss, and I'm pretty sure it's some sort of knock-off and not actually an Assamite artifact. I'll have to have Beckett take a look at it some day, he'd probably be interested in it. Yeah, I don't get this thing. It's an artifact that increases your Soak ratings, which increases your defense, but has a drawback of reducing Wits, which reduces your defense. I don't get the developers' insistence that every artifact that gives you a bonus also has to give you a drawback - these things are supposed to be loving rewards, not situational items that sometimes come in handy and sometimes harm you. What a strange design choice.  And then there was the matter of choosing my childe-to-be. To me, the question was easy to answer: It had to be Heather, the first amongst many to join the Legion, the first one I saved from the hell that Los Angeles was. She would be the posterchild for the Righteous Revolution - somebody stuck in the dead-end that was LaCroix's Los Angeles, rescued from near death and given a purpose in unlife, joining the ranks of the Kindred as one of many, equal amongst all. She was all too eager to truly join the Legion as a fully-fledged member that could go out and fight for the downtrodden Kindred of the city, and I gladly obliged her. This was the point where the footage from last time ran out. Just want to point that out, because it explains what will happen once we get to the Society's hideout. Now, let's talk about siring. Siring is really rather simple. You pick your target from a few pre-chosen potential childer (of which we have two, Heather and Yukie), tell them you want to sire them, spend a few dialogue lines "convincing" them (pretty sure they won't say no), bite them (just a bit, which of course goes against the way the Embrace actually works, which is completely draining the target of blood and then giving it some of your own blood, because these fuckers can't get ANYTHING right), they fall over, some black smoke comes out, and then they stand up again...  ...having become a bit pastier.  The childe's stats also get boosted. Here's Heather before the Embrace...  ...and here she is after it. You'll note a large increase in a lot of skills and the disciplines being added. If we want her to improve more, I'm pretty sure I'd have to invest my own experience points, which is out of the question, I still need to boost Victoria's Necromancy further. Now, why did I not Embrace Yukie instead? Well...  ...this is why. You might notice her in the middle of that clusterfuck. I did not. I thought she had simply vanished and didn't think further about it because the companion system is broken to poo poo. However, for the sake of reference, I also Embraced Yukie after coming back from the Society hideout.  So once again, it's bite...  ...fall down...  ...and vampire! Now to check the sta-  Wait, a loading screen? What's going on now?  We then cut to the sheriff executing a male Giovanni, and apparently a male Nosferatu is next.  And apprently that was Victoria. YOU HAD ONE JOB, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS, AND YOU hosed IT UP. If you can poll the character's clan, then I'm pretty sure you can poll the character's gender, too! So that's what happens when you Embrace for a second time - a non-standard game over.   Anyway, after reloading an earlier save, I Embraced Yukie and checked the stats. Not quite as impressive, especially when you consider that the big defensive boost largely comes from the better gear I've gotten since I took the picture of Hunter Yukie's stats (back in Chinatown when we first gained her as an ally) - remember that gear transfers over between characters when you possess them. Suffice it to say that I will be sticking with Heather as my childe, because changing would mean going through the Society of Leopold again, and even with noclip and godmode, I don't want to loving see that place ever again.  Another side thing - we can convince Bertram to come along with us. This is largely pointless for us at this point, and he REALLY doesn't fit the Legion's style, so I just tell him to stay where he is.   However, while Heather was very eager to join me on the next mission, this was something I was going to have to do alone. Hunters are not to be trifled with, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing her this early - a fear that would be justified once I made my way through their complex. I would need some incredible firepower to make it through there with my unlife intact, and Mercurio would provide. With a pocket flamethrower and a Dragon's Breath shotgun in my arsenal, LaCroix's goons and the Society's hunters would have to think twice before messing with the Savior of LA. Oh yes.  Now this is what I'm talking about. When fire gets involved, things get very fun, and giving me more fire to play with is never a bad thing. Now, the flamethrower might have been nerfed a bit (more on that later), but the Dragon's Breath (and by the way, it's Dragon'S Breath, not Dragon Breath, nitwits) got bolstered a bit and is now actually a viable weapon against small groups. Also, here's the shot of the ammo for the Dragon's Breath:  Did they just copy that off a website or something? I don't believe so, because they misspelt "Massachusetts". The spell checker exists for a reason, guys! I hosed up spelling Massachusetts too, but nobody would have known if I didn't mention it because I used a spell checker!  Now, I distinctly remember arriving at the Society compound, but to be quite honest, I can't remember what exactly happened there. All I remember is fire. Lots and lots of fire. Beyond that, my next recollection was having left the compound on a boat. However, I have it on good authority that whatever happened in there, it left the Society devastated. And this is where I'll have to cut in for a bit. Now, remember what I said about only having footage up to a certain point? I only had that much when I asked about continuing the narrative. I didn't know what was in store for me, and just how much it would piss me off. I'm not wrapping this into a narrative, because the repeated deaths are instrumental in showing just how pissed off this poo poo got me, so the narrative is on hold (a shame, I wanted to go into Victoria wishing she could have a hideout half as badass as the one the Society has - that cave system is rad as hell and would have been a lot better for holding all the members of the Legion compared to us stuffing a dozen people into an apartment), we're back into "Let's Get Pissed At Dying A Lot And Curse The Names Of The Mod Creators, by TheMcD". Here's looking at you, MartianAgitator - if the next segments (Hallowbrook Hotel, Ming-Xiao's temple and Venture Towers) turn out as bad as this, and I have every reason to believe they will, you'll get your wish of straight commentary after all, at least for the parts that matter the most, the parts where the mod makes changes that get me pissed. I love how this LP is just me stumbling through this mod, being surprised by the twists and turns at every opportunity, and it even nosells my attempt to shift gears into a different style all like "nah, here, have some pain in the loving rear end combat again for you to bitch at".  We start off with this laser thing. Surprisingly enough, it does not instantly kill you, just deals some damage over time. Not even that much, to be honest. Kind of surprised - I was prepared for this thing to just murder me. Not to mention, you can safely crouchwalk under it!  Now, I don't have any hard numbers, but it feels like there's more guards here than before. Even if there aren't, they're packing more heat than the vanilla guards, and we all know that when guns get involved in Antitribu Mod, things get rough very fast.  Also, for some reason, they blocked off one side with rocks. This essentially makes sneaking a pointless endeavor and forces me into combat. Great, because we haven't had enough of that poo poo. So, the gameplan so far seems to be: 1) Retreat behind laser 2) Summon zombies 3) Fire a shot in the air to attract enemies 4) Hope for the best Let's put that into action, then.  Now that Victoria's got Necromancy 4, her summoning also brings in this ghostly lady that deals a lot more damage and is actually mobile compared to the zombies, which might as well be stationary for all the good moving is going to bring them. Now, to fire the shot.  Melee enemies are moving in and getting beaten up by our new friend, but she's taking heavy damage and fairly quickly goes down from focused fire.  The laser plan was smart in theory, but it turns out that the damage dealt to enemies is pretty much pittance. The zombies don't exactly fare much better in holding them back, either, so it's time to bring out the guns.  What follows is some cleanup with the AK-47, followed by some very careful and slow sniping with the revolver. It's hardly efficient, but it gets the job done without too much counter fire - though I am taking constant damage because the AI's aim is ridiculously good, and Blood Heal can only do so much.  This process of luring goes on for a while - after the melee enemies are dealt with, the ones with guns start coming out, though the ones on the roof are still an issue.  With that in mind, let's move up a bit and see if we can't get a good shot in with the sniper rifle...  ...what is that?  WHAT THE gently caress. So yeah, remember that grenade launcher I loved so much? The one that kills bosses like crazy? Well, guess what? Some regular enemies get that one too now. And guess what? Yep, they're just as pinpoint accurate with it as they are with other guns, while I need to get right up in somebody's face to deal any real damage. This essentially turns the grenade launcher from a very powerful but risky option to an instagib gun. So yeah... welcome to hell!  The plan this time around involves very carefully sneaking to the front door, out of the line of sight of the crazy guy with the grenade launcher and the legendary aiming skills.  The plan immediately goes tits up when going in through the front door means being instantly thrown into combat with about four other guys, one of which was carrying a grenade launcher but thankfully swapped it out for a melee weapon because I was right in his face.  Though that doesn't mean fire wasn't involved. Oh god, no. Fire is always involved. Thankfully, it's only a Dragon's Breath, which only hurts a good bit and isn't instakill.  The situation doesn't immediately go south, and some good usage of cover and the AK-47 dispatches the group that was bearing down on Victoria, and we have ourselves a bit of a breather while we attempt to work out the next step of the plan.  The next step involves taking care of this gu-  OH SWEET JESUS  So yeah, surprise, Dragon's Breath essentially turns into a firewall if fired along a corridor. And it hurts like a son of a bitch.  After some time to heal (and suck down some blood packs, which I've noticed I have way too little of), we can take down this guy with the sniper rifle, and while not without taking another face-full of phosphor and fire, at least it doesn't hurt that much this time. And that means we've cleared out this area and can explore! Wooooooooo!  Huh, hang on, this door here won't open, looks like there's something blocking it from the inside, what could that be? Well, it's a good thing the door opens from the other side the next time we try to open it.  ...what? It's an RC car. What's that doing he-  BITCH rear end gently caress rear end MOTHERFUCKING oval office SHITS. Jesus CHRIST, somebody give a raise to the hunter that worked that out - RC cars with loving bombs strapped to them. Why the gently caress does this exist? Just to torment me? What have I done to deserve this? Well, this is going to take some finagling to deal with. First of all, a change in plans - let's try going in through the back door. There's no more guards around the back of the building, thankfully. Though there is another RC car with a bomb...  ...that can blow your poo poo up real good.  The back door entrance seems a lot better to begin with, since it doesn't start in combat and should theoretically mean we can get plan things out a bit better.  First, the bombs. The modders put in one particularly nasty trick here - the password, while still three letters, is somewhat randomly generated. I have no idea how exactly they did it, but one time, the password was "rod", and another time it was "wod". The password to disable the bombs is different from the one to change the heat signature, too. Note: The reason I went in alone was because of the bombs. There was no way I was trusting the companion AI to not run headlong into that poo poo. The praying guy is easily enough dealt with through application of flamethrower.  Now, the back room full of people. Let's try firing the Dragon's Breath down there and hoping it hits the explosives somehow.  Well, that didn't work, and the guy with the grenade launcher apparently had something to say about what we did, judging by the fireball that's currently in my face and will lead to death about a split second later.  The next attempt is looking better. We managed to lure the guy with the grenade launcher out and he's now burning to death.  Wait... why didn't you burn to death?  poo poo. So there's a bit of a surprise - the flamethrower is no longer a one-shot kill, it just deals a fair bit of damage. It not being a one-shot kill against regular enemies is actually a pretty big strike against it, given that it's expensive, eats ammo like a motherfucker and has a reload time of two yonks.  After that, I decide to try the front door a couple times. Every time it's the same story - dead before I can do anything. The grenade launcher guy has his sights trained right on you and fires the moment he can - the first time was simply a random fluke that I could not reproduce.  And then the back door attempts start ending with the grenade launcher guy coming into the room and one-shotting me the moment I hit his line of sight, which is the moment he hits my line of sight. He can one-shot, I can't. Do the math.  Eventually, and I do mean eventually, I get a lucky break that leads to the grenade launcher guy not getting aggroed by the combat in the back room, which allows me to sneak up on him, set him on fire, then gun him down while he's burning. I make drat sure to quicksave after that, because I'm not doing that poo poo again.  The next point on the agenda is dealing with the RC car. I try shooting it.  It doesn't work. I try shooting it a lot, it doesn't work. From what I can tell, I can't destroy this thing, at least not in such a way that doesn't leave me open to getting blown up. So I guess I'm not entering that room, then! That room can go gently caress itself, let's check the other ones.  The one noteworthy new thing is this computer, which I presumed controls the new security stuff the mod added. Victoria can't hack it with her 7 Hacking, so we'll be going through this part without what this can do. However, here's what the things do: - "exp bots" (password: autobot) allows you to explode the RC car. When I did this, it almost killed me because the explosion set off the bomb next to the room I was in. loving BRILLIANT DESIGN, GUYS. By the way, the room that the RC car was guarding? Only contained vendor trash. More loving money we can't use because we have so much already. - "pulse gun" (password: impulse) disables an electro zapper thing that we'll see later. - "code" (password: bullseye) does nothing. It's supposed to give you a code for the shooting range where you fight Bach (which now has a keypad next to the entrance), but I guess that's not done yet.  With that floor done, it's time for the upper one - I have it on good authority that there's a guy with a grenade launcher in there, so the situation is kind of tricky. However, I figure that this is the one chance the grenade has for redemption. I can throw it around a corner and hide from the blast, the enemies have nowhere to run, and they're tightly clustered. If this doesn't work, then the grenades are utterly worthless.  The grenade flies into the room, I duck behind the wall, it explodes...  ...and nobody died, not even the guy I directly threw it at. gently caress those grenades.  The room is cleared out thanks to one particular quirk of the grenade launcher - if you line it up juuuuust right, you can have it blocked by a wooden pole.  Of course, once it comes to actually taking that guy out, hitting him becomes a bit more tricky when the main thing keeping you from not dying is not having a line of sight to him. Still, eventually, thanks to a bit of spraying, he gets taken out.  And I was actually able to feed on the last guy in an encounter again! It's not as easy as it sounds, when pretty much any enemy can easily put you in mortal danger - at least any ranged enemy, and you'll have taken the melee ones out before you get to the ranged ones since they're the ones that run right into your face first. It particularly comes in handy because I only brought three non-Elder Vitae blood packs, one blue, two normal. That's going to take some rationing.  There's nothing interesting here, either - just this weapon, which actually is better than anything we've found so far, but any melee weapon in this mod is bad because it involves getting up close against enemies wielding AK-47s and grenade launchers that can tear you to bits pretty much instantly.  The resistance down in the cellar is a bit less rough, just three guys, one of them a melee guy and none of them having fire available...  ...though once again I got surprised by an RC car that I didn't notice before it blew me the gently caress up...  ...but the biggest problem is this - the pulse gun. I just call it the electro zapper, because that's what it is, really.  Now, this thing is blocking the way to the cave system, and no amount of shooting it is going to solve that problem. As far as I can tell, the only option here is to either disable it through the computer (which Victoria can't), or tank the damage. I'm not counting out the possibility that there are other solutions, but I didn't notice anything, and Victoria has Inspection 9, so if there was something to be noticed, she should have been able to see it.  So tanking it it is, and we're off to the cave system.  Things don't exactly get better here, either. We start things off with two guys down at the bottom. My plan is to take one of them out, then sneak down, use Command, and eat up the second one.  However, because I have a revolver and they have Dragon's Breath shotguns and M4 rifles, this does not end well.  Another attempt, using the sniper rifle this time, goes better - if still not exactly great, since that one guy can just send a firewall in my general direction and it'll cause massive damage - and I can at least replenish the damage I took in that fight.  Nearby, there's a safe that contains one copy of the cell key (of which there are three for some reason), a much-appreciated blue blood pack and some useless morphine (I've recently worked out that the purpose of it is to give to your human companions for them to get extra damage resistance - i.E. the loving poo poo is useless).  Further down the cave system, we get some time to test out the Dragon's Breath. From what I can tell from playing around with it, it's not exactly useful against humans, except against very small groups, either one or two, since with those, you can stunlock them sufficiently enough to kill them without getting any return fire, which has value. However, against larger groups, it's probably best to stay away. Haven't tested it against vampires yet, it might be more useful against them if it has bonus damage (the vanilla one didn't).  And yes, as you may have suspected, Ash has been captured and requires rescuing. And as you might suspect, rescuing him here and having him "leave" means nothing, he's still at the apartment waiting for orders. We don't even get any reward for rescuing him, no XP, nothing. This sucks.  Also, in the cell next door is this switch that we can flip. I have absolutely no idea what it does, but it's marked with the Inspection sparkle, so it must be important, right?  Now, this is where things get really hairy. The enemy density has been upped in this area, so that means sneaking is no longer really an option, at least not for Victoria.  Of course, I only notice this once it's too late and I have to loving leg it back to the hallways with a hail of bullets making chase.  What follows is a very long and drawn out fight involving a whole bunch of long-distance shots, hiding behind walls, and taking breaks to use Blood Heal a lot.  Once the horde thins out, I attempt to take advantage of one guy that ended up behind the boxes, but it turns out that I probably should have noticed that the guy was wearing a helmet and therefore wasn't the best target for feeding, so I just shot him dead.  And it's a good thing that only one guy was left that was aggroed, because he sent Victoria into a frenzy, but it actually worked out as he couldn't deal with her and instead got sucked dry, which was what I wanted to do anyway! Hooray for efficiency!  And to finish things off, the wonderful double standard. I try to go Doom on this guy's rear end by blowing up the explosives next to him...  ...and he takes a grand total of one point of damage. loving poo poo. He gets gunned down by the AK-47 instead, which is a much more consistent method of killing.  We finally make it to the shooting range where Bach hangs out, and here's the keypad that the "code" thing at the computer earlier was alluding to. No idea what to put in, but we don't actually need to enter a code to enter the doors, so eh.  So now, it's time for the confrontation with Bach. Also, here's a shot of how Victoria looks now with her hockey mask.  Bach has a few problems. First, he now has an M4 rifle instead of a sniper rifle, but still pretty much peerless aim with it, so his firing capacity just went way up.  It's hard to tell, but this is him hitting with some magic poo poo that deals big damage despite me being in cover. He's very aggressive with magic/True Faith - if you're trying to take a passive approach, he'll just cast poo poo over and over and whittle your health down, so that's not an option. This leaves only one other option:  Running around like a nut with a flamethrower.  Of course, when doing so, you should probably pay attention to the grenade traps, which almost killed me here.  Also, it turns out that the flamethrower isn't that great either (if the fact that it doesn't instakill regular enemies wasn't enough of a tip-off), and the grenade launcher is still the weapon of choice. Bach goes down without much of a fight once that thing starts putting on the hurt.  And to cap things off, he gets the last laugh as the second grenade trap blows Victoria head-first into the ceiling. Still not dead, though, and that's all that counts.  And finally, Johansen is dealt with...  ...a thrilling escape is made...  ...and we're back at Venture Towers. Well, that sure was a lot to go through for just one small area, and I have the sneaking suspicion things aren't exactly going to be going better in the future. At least there's nothing stopping me from bringing some companions along next time, though, and we'll be seeing just what they did to the Hallowbrook Hotel then.
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Jul 31, 2015 23:05
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It hurts just to read about it. 
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Jul 31, 2015 23:37
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Poil posted:It hurts just to read about it. I have to wonder why they went with Misti being a Tran. I'm not saying neigh or yay on that subject (not a can of worms I want to open). I'm just wondering what the thought process was that led up to it. Outside of that small note - holy hell did the hunters get an armory upgrade!!
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Jul 31, 2015 23:52
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mauman posted:I have to wonder why they went with Misti being a Tran.
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Aug 1, 2015 00:20
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Have to admit, lovely mod or no the loving RC car explosives are hilarious.
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Aug 1, 2015 00:45
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TheMcD posted:
I can't help but imagine this happening with a cartoon *bonk* sound effect.
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Aug 1, 2015 01:55
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Poil posted:Considering the how the mod has been so far, they probably just did it for a "hilarious" joke. For example, just look back on the whole vampire slave harem gathering and how that works and it's really hard to imagine anything other than that. I don't really care if they add Tran people or not but "Haha the stripper has a dong lol" is not a good way to do it in my opinion. That's putting a lot in their mouth. Vampire enthusiasts (bloodies?) have trended toward the sexually open in my experience. I think making a stripper transsexual is the punk, in-your-face attitude this mod cringes toward combined with a desire to be a part of "dangerous sexuality". If the model's genitals happen to be indistinguishable through see-through pants, well, that just kinda fits the timbre of the mod. Maybe you need Inspection 12. Also, a grenade-launching sniper rifle is actually a really cool idea.
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Aug 2, 2015 13:58
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MartianAgitator posted:Also, a grenade-launching sniper rifle is actually a really cool idea. Like this?
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Aug 2, 2015 19:16
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MartianAgitator posted:That's putting a lot in their mouth. Vampire enthusiasts (bloodies?) have trended toward the sexually open in my experience. I think making a stripper transsexual is the punk, in-your-face attitude this mod cringes toward combined with a desire to be a part of "dangerous sexuality". If the model's genitals happen to be indistinguishable through see-through pants, well, that just kinda fits the timbre of the mod. Maybe you need Inspection 12. Could be, it would be a lot better. I just usually assume the worst and I've never actually met any vampire enthusiasts so that could explain it. 
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Aug 2, 2015 22:35
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I wonder how bullshit they'll make Ming-Xiao considering how much of a bullet sponge she is normally.
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Aug 2, 2015 22:51
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Accordion Man posted:I wonder how bullshit they'll make Ming-Xiao considering how much of a bullet sponge she is normally.
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Aug 2, 2015 23:36
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