Vampire: Bloodlines

I love the original, but you seem to have a rose tinted view of it. It gave experience point for completing and progressing quests, yes. But, often, it also gave bonus experience points for completing quests in the way the developers wanted them completed. So, not all builds were as viable.

Edited by djoki996 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 1:29:23 AM

Gotta agree. There are many quests where I felt railroad into completing a specific way to get extra exp - especially since the number of XP was finite over the course of the game.

Also this is forgetting how the last act of the game is infamous for becoming a borderline hack and slash slaughterfest where suddenly you need to be good at fighting if you wanna progress, and social/stealth no longer is a reliable option. Which is extra obvious for me because I recently replayed the game streaming it for friends and they complained about how little roleplay is involved in the last climatic levels.

Edited by Theokal3 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 4:55:04 AM

> Also this is forgetting how the last act of the game is infamous for becoming a borderline hack and slash slaughterfest where suddenly you need to be good at > fighting if you wanna progress, and social/stealth no longer is a reliable option

[sad and scared Toreador sounds]

Aaah, that! Thank you for clarifying!

That said, the devs do indicate that Fabian reacts to the way that the player acts—being, effectively, the single "karma meter character" in the game.

So there is, I gather, some impact from the player's actions. But it's an impact that comes less from choice of dialogue options and more from the player's choices elsewhere.

Otherwise, you would seem to be at least somewhat right. But conversely, it's one relationship in a game with a number of others, and it's a unique relationship, at that.

(Other relationships, from what they said, are indeed affected by the player's choices.)

On top of that, on a personal note, it reminds me of other video-game characters who would comment to themselves at times, like Garrett in Thief, and I tend to be fond of that trope.

So overall I'm actually quite positive about what they're doing with Phyre and her "passenger".

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 3rd 2024 at 3:41:03 PM

This doesn't meaningfully hurt my point, even if it wasn't perfectly equitable it still allowed for much more variation in play then combat-centric XP systems. Ergo it was good and this change could make it even worse.

This has no relevance, I'm talking about how the XP system allowed for a variety of modes of play. That the rest of the game didn't is irrelevant to my point.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 6:12:43 AM

Worst part? Before endgame, you'd actually want to focus on stealth/social, because those are the ones that give most xp.

Especially stealth. At least when it comes to main quests.

I feel it is relevant given that there isn’t much point in that variety of gameplay if the game itself doesn’t let you use that variety in a crucial part of the game. It’s like making a game where you can play as a variety of classes but only one class can beat the endgame.

To their credit they seem to have realized it, given the patches give you chances to get various books that grant free dots in combat skills

I mean, I wasn't making a judgement of the game as a whole. I was purely talking about the merits of the system in question. You're obviously correct that the system wasn't utilized to its fullest degree given how combat-centric the latter half of the game was but that isn't a problem with the system itself.

That's why I brought it up positively here as a counter-example to the new system. Despite BL 1's issues its XP system was designed to offer flexible options, as flawed as the execution was it's telling that the Chinese Room is unable or unwilling to recognize that and prefers to ape less mechanically flexible games.

Actually since we are talking about it, how do you guys think the xp system should be improved upon?

I mean, all that we know right now is that combat grants some XP. Depending on what else grants XP, and how it balances out, the change may not be negative at all.

As to it being telling... I mean, it might just mean that the XP system wasn't to them a salient part of the game: no game is the same thing to all players, after all, and different people would find different things important in it.

(Indeed, I didn't even remember the XP system offhand until it was mentioned.

I do very much remember the social and exploratory aspects of the game, however.

So, for me, a good successor to the first game needn't have its XP system, but I would want it to allow me to socialise with a variety of interesting vampires, for example.)

If you mean this game's XP system, then—speaking for myself, of course—I don't think that we know enough to be able to give much comment right now.

We know one part of the XP system—not all (as far as we know), and not how great a portion that one part makes up. *shrugs*

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 3rd 2024 at 6:37:38 PM

No, I mean Bloodlines 1's Xp system. Let's imagine for a second you were in Charge of Bloodline 2. How would you change it compared to Bloodline 1's?

Heh, in my opinion, toreador were probably the best fighters in the game. Especially when it comes to firearms.

People tend to underestimate the toreador because they are described as sweet talkers and artists. Both in universe and out, and then, toreador remind them why the mix of celerity, auspex, and presence is terrifying. And that's not even getting into the toreador whose chosen "arts" are martial arts.

Getting a larger amount of XP for completing a mission in a certain way does feel a bit like playing the original tabletop game, where the Storyteller might have a particular preference and bias for how you should play their game. I had a very demanding Storyteller, who would hide lots of potential subplots and alternate ways to reach the Coterie's goals, but him being a Killer DM, everything was as Nintendo Hard as it could be, so we almost never found these secrets. Whenever we did find the hidden things or completed a mission in a particularly clever way, we were always rewarded. The reward was usually a potential for some extra XP, or some other secret in-universe advantage for future chapters. At the same time, any reward was followed by him raising the difficulty further and every choice having an off-screen consequence, especially regarding local politics.

How would I replicate this on PC? By making missions difficult to complete on average, with multiple different ways to complete everything, with easily missed secret pathways and possible choices. Combat might be the seemingly easiest route to complete a mission, but it rewards less XP and means that your enemies will be tougher and smarter next time, while also closing off some potential options and encounters. The most rewarding way to complete a mission will mostly be the stealthy one, but talking your way out of trouble can also be the best choice.

Yeah... that's also not great.

Sure, it's bad when you have to go warrior to beat the game, but it's just as bad when you have to put points in persuade to beat the game.

Anyway, I think the game looks fine and I'm willing to give it a shot. I don't like the defined protagonist of Phyre because I want to play an Anarch and you're turned into the Sheriff as well as serve as an Elder.

A bit like Coteries of New York, this seems to be very Pro-Camarilla.

But I will deal.

The above is my experience with the original tabletop game, which is why I'm glad that Bloodlines simplified things and allowed me at times to just have a power-fantasy of a badass vampire. I think the most ideal way to handle XP, and difficulty in general, would be if the game could adapt itself according to the player's choices.

Pathfinder tabletop has you gaining xp for killing enemies... but, at the same time, you gain the exact same amount of xp for talking/sneaking/other past them.

I think that one would be great.

Ah! Hah, yes, that... that makes a lot more sense! XD;

Okay, hmm...

I think that, if it were me, I might take it even further:

I might drop "XP" entirely, simply awarding a level on completing a quest, and each level then providing a single pip to allocate.

(Which would likely call for a rebalancing of the number of pips involved, of course.)

Furthermore, I would likely drop any skills, stats, or pip-levels that provide only numerical upgrades; ideally all pip allocations would provide either a new skill, or an alteration in the behaviour of an extant skill.

This in turn might call for more skills to be added.

(I don't really find much reward in numerical upgrades: I want skills, new "toys to play with". See also: I almost always play fantasy RPGs as a magic-user of some sort.)

That said, this would all be subject to testing, of course: Would I find enough skills and skill-variations? Would the number become overwhelming? etc. etc.

As ever, the results of testing might well alter the plans.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 4th 2024 at 9:09:13 PM

I would make it exactly like the tabletop game.

.... Except that not possible. The Tabletop game only has a very vague system of XP distribution where you get a number of exp decided by the Storyteller at the end of each session. How would that translate in game?

Exactly, so you get XP after the credits roll.

A few EXP after every quest. You can finish the quest however you want, violent or otherwise.

the true XP was all the mortal we drain along the way

Sooo exactly the same way it was in Bloodlines 1, then.

I have said my issue with that one already personally: if you only get exp from completing quests, then unless some quests can be done a second times, the number of exp you can get in the game (and thus your progression) is finite.

Yes but that's a sacrifice you also make for game balance.