**Vampyr**

Another thread for me to necro due to my Xbox Game Pass! :)

I put aside my State of Decay 2 playthrough to have a quick go at this over lunch today. Really enjoyed the first hour of it - good setting, nice atmosphere, like the story set-up and the combat is okay too.

How did people manage their runs through the game? Do you have to be totally non-muderous to get good endings? (I've seen conflicting reports on this) Any recommendations for skills/builds? Some of the Skal enemies are tough when there're a few of them together and they out-level me.
 
mattyfez said:
I accidentally fed on a head nurse NPC, after that upgrade I'm pretty bad ass, but I'm looking a bit vampiry now lol
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I think I know who you mean. :)

I've not chomped on anyone yet and am just getting through with mad dodging and stamina management. I think it's just my long Dark Souls training that's carrying me through as I still don't have any of the cool vampire skills despite being near the end (I assume) of chapter three...

I like how the game manages your vampiric bloodlust - so whilst you don't need to kill people for their blood, it constantly shows you in vampire vision a highlight of all their juicy blood and how much xp they would be worth. "Look, thousands of xp just walking around by the canal completely alone, and this guy wasn't such a good guy anyway..." But it also shows you the social system of the areas and makes you aware of the impact of people on each other and as part of a community that you're also part of.

So it's basically down to the player whether to indulge. I am so far managing to be a "sucessfully fighting the urge for human blood" vampire. Though that may change if the fights get more difficult as I'm having to scrimp for every ability level with my meagre xp pool. I think this is really well done.

Despite criticims I've heard I'm finding the combat okay too. It's not quite fine-tuned enough to do the (seemingly) Dark Souls-inspired reading, dodging, striking, dodging mechanic it has and some of the moves feel genuine ******* in this system (broken tracking, moves interrupting other moves, poorly telegraphed attacks, camera issues and off-camera telegraphs, etc.). But I'm finding I'm mostly enjoying combat too (even if the xp reward for it is pitiful...).

Very much enjoying this overall. Another game that feels like it should have had more attention here and elsewhere.
 
I've been playing this (also via game pass) and it is such an odd game. Combat is terrible, Pele talk on and on (and stuff they say doesn't really affect anything) and that midway boss fight was stupidly hard (I believe it is the hardest enemy in the game?)

The investigations are all dull too, there's nothing interesting or challenging there.

It does some things right - tying levelling up to be good/bad is a good idea, the mood is oppressive and the location interesting - bad it is a real slog to play. I'm halfway through (have done all side quests and cured everybody along the way except for the last area, which I have just unlocked) and will finish it, but I'm going to start skipping conversations for sure.

It's such a strange game, yet midly compelling.
 
bobboberts said:
I've been playing this (also via game pass) and it is such an odd game. Combat is terrible, Pele talk on and on (and stuff they say doesn't really affect anything) and that midway boss fight was stupidly hard (I believe it is the hardest enemy in the game?)

The investigations are all dull too, there's nothing interesting or challenging there.

It does some things right - tying levelling up to be good/bad is a good idea, the mood is oppressive and the location interesting - bad it is a real slog to play. I'm halfway through (have done all side quests and cured everybody along the way except for the last area, which I have just unlocked) and will finish it, but I'm going to start skipping conversations for sure.

It's such a strange game, yet midly compelling.
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It was definitely the world that made it for me and sucked me in. I also liked the characters, though. In general anyway. There is a lot of talk, it's true, but I liked many of the stories and backgrounds of the characters. I didn't warm to Elisabeth at all, though, which is a negative given her centrality to the plot. I liked Edgar, Milton, Brannigan, Sean, the two ex-soldiers... quite a lot of them actually. I quite liked finding out their stories and I liked that most of the people were morally grey. You're right all this doesn't really develop the main plot or add anything that a bit of XP, but it all made me feel wrapped up in this dark and perilous world.

There were major positives and negatives attached to these interactions, though: the voice acting I thought was very good (in places excellent), but the facial animation was near non-existent.

I know a lot of people hate the combat, but I actually quite enjoyed it for the most part. It's a bit basic and while some of the abilities are nice, they're hardly game-changers and you're generally much better off focusing on passive and defensive upgrades.

What build are you sporting at the moment, out of interest? Have you invested in stamina upgrades? I levelled it straight to level six and then to eight later in the game, but I can imagine without that the combat will be horribly frustrating - and the game does nothing to signpost how important stamina actually is.

I assume you're referring to the
Mary
fight? I hear a lot of people found that really frustrating. Dark Souls veterans probably have an advantage here as the key techniques of strafing, dodging and stamina management that are the key to combat in this game will already be deeply ingrained. I don't know whether it's the hardest in the game or not, as I didn't die to any of the bosses, but I think I found the chapter five boss and the final boss a bit more frustrating as I kept getting hit by damaging or DoT attacks I couldn't see coming properly. It might be a build issue, though. A low stamina build with XP spread across offensive abilities is probably going to find everything much harder.
 
@strumpusplunket I've invested in stamina a lot, yes, because it was obvious to me that I needed to and the surgical knife to keep my blood stock high (mainly for the heal, sometimes for the claws).

The fight mentioned was due to a combination of DoT attacks you can't see on the playfield if you are locked-on to the target, the cheap one-hit kill, the reach of the weapon and the stupid amount of health you have to chip away at. I knew it was all about striking quick and then dodging, but it was a terribly paced fight. Normal enemies are very spongey too, so every fight is a chore.

The voice acting is good though, yes.
 
bobboberts said:
@strumpusplunket I've invested in stamina a lot, yes, because it was obvious to me that I needed to and the surgical knife to keep my blood stock high (mainly for the heal, sometimes for the claws).

The fight mentioned was due to a combination of DoT attacks you can't see on the playfield if you are locked-on to the target, the cheap one-hit kill, the reach of the weapon and the stupid amount of health you have to chip away at. I knew it was all about striking quick and then dodging, but it was a terribly paced fight. Normal enemies are very spongey too, so every fight is a chore.

The voice acting is good though, yes.
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Ah yeah, that s another problem, right enough - the lock-on is horrible! You really need to play not locked-on, and only activate it when you need to use a targeted ability like coagulation or shadow mist and then lock-off again straight after using it. I found myself in a world of hurt whenever I accidentally left lock-on activated after throwing a shadow mist (like, dammit, I'm trying to dodge away, why am I now in the middle of all these guys - oh, the damn lock-on!). It's a pretty poor mechanic, for sure.

I played that whole fight without using lock-on once and it meant I could see the damage markers on the ground and could back off easily. Without lock-on you don't even need to dodge them most of the time - you can just walk out of them before they activate. The whole view of the battlefield is bigger and clearer. Yep, the lock-on is awful! There's another boss fight with a not too disimilar mechanic coming up and you really don't want to be locked-on to him either!

I'd also recommend not using aggressive abilities in boss fights. Even at max level, claws only do the same damage as a couple of hits from a level three cudgel and the blood cost is too high. Ultimates are nice when they cool down, and coagulate and blood barrier can help get some free hits, but aggressive talents don't justify the blood cost.

I didn't find that boss had too much health, really. I went in with a level three barbed cudgel with stun upgrades and it chipped through her health nicely, and set me up for a few biting opportunities to top up my blood and regen stamina without backing off.

I agree the brawlers and chaplains are much too spongey, though, especially at high levels - and they're everywhere towards the end!

There are definitely a number of things I'd like to see improved in a sequel!
 
@strumpusplunket Yeah, I think I'll skip the lock on in future.

As for the non-combat mechanics, I just wish there was something a bit more interesting to do in the world than fetch/kill quests. I'm not sure what, exactly, but something to break up the pattern of walk around -> spend ages listening to somebody -> fight -> repeat.

I know that's unfair, because it apes most games in the genre, but it's more of an issue I guess just because of my disappointment with the combat.
 
So I completed this last night and, long before the end I started to really hate it. Damage-sponge enemies, uninteresting conversations, some truly awful boss fights and general crap combat throughout.

I really wanted to like it, the setting was great, playing "good" being hard was clever and the voice acting was well done. But in the end it was overlong, the many, many fights you were forced into (due to lack of alternative routes to avoid enemies) were exercises in attrition and that ending was really poor.

My lasting impression then is one of some genuine anger at points, disappointment and relief. Not a good look.
 
bobboberts said:
So I completed this last night and, long before the end I started to really hate it. Damage-sponge enemies, uninteresting conversations, some truly awful boss fights and general crap combat throughout.

I really wanted to like it, the setting was great, playing "good" being hard was clever and the voice acting was well done. But in the end it was overlong, the many, many fights you were forced into (due to lack of alternative routes to avoid enemies) were exercises in attrition and that ending was really poor.

My lasting impression then is one of some genuine anger at points, disappointment and relief. Not a good look.
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Ah, a shame it left you with a sour taste in the end.

I can definitely see how a number of elements of this game could put people off. My major gripe was proably the same as yours - the much-too-frequently-respawning level 30+ brawlers and chaplains that by the end, as you say, makes traversing the map a real chore. I had many moments of "oh come on, not these guys again!"

The bosses were... yeah, I can see what they were trying to do but it was a flawed outcome. I actually did enjoy pretty much all the boss fights, and I found I got into a good rhythm with all of them after a minute or two, but they needed some more variety and some of the mechanics needed more polish. I can definitely understand why others would dislike them.

I think I am just generally very forgiving of janky systems in RPGs so long as they have elements at their core that engage me (I played the hell out of pretty much all the Piranha Bytes games, after all...)
 
strumpusplunket said:
Ah, a shame it left you with a sour taste in the end.

I can definitely see how a number of elements of this game could put people off. My major gripe was proably the same as yours - the much-too-frequently-respawning level 30+ brawlers and chaplains that by the end, as you say, makes traversing the map a real chore. I had many moments of "oh come on, not these guys again!"

The bosses were... yeah, I can see what they were trying to do but it was a flawed outcome. I actually did enjoy pretty much all the boss fights, and I found I got into a good rhythm with all of them after a minute or two, but they needed some more variety and some of the mechanics needed more polish. I can definitely understand why others would dislike them.

I think I am just generally very forgiving of janky systems in RPGs so long as they have elements at their core that engage me (I played the hell out of pretty much all the Piranha Bytes games, after all...)
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That's the thing, I don't mind a bit of jank (I've played most of Spiders' output, Two Worlds, Risen etc) but having completed The Technomancer only fairly recently (which also had rubbish combat and respawning damage-sponge enemies) this felt far too similar.

Do any ARPGs have good combat any more? I have The Witcher 3 in my backlog and I know it isn't much better than it (it was pretty basic and not very good in 2). The Mass Effect series is good, but outside of that? I'm struggling to think.
 
bobboberts said:
That's the thing, I don't mind a bit of jank (I've played most of Spiders' output, Two Worlds, Risen etc) but having completed The Technomancer only fairly recently (which also had rubbish combat and respawning damage-sponge enemies) this felt far too similar.

Do any ARPGs have good combat any more? I have The Witcher 3 in my backlog and I know it isn't much better than it (it was pretty basic and not very good in 2). The Mass Effect series is good, but outside of that? I'm struggling to think.
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Ha, yeah, Two Worlds! That's another janky one I liked a lot! Hell, let's face it, that was a terrible series of games in many, many ways, but I really liked them! :)

It's a good question about RPG combat. It got me thinking back. Obviously, the Soulsbourne series is the real stand-out here. Dragon's Dogma also has really great combat (less difficult and intricate, but more varied and fun than DS). The Surge is pretty good at combat, too, though more prone to falling into the same repeated pattern than Dark Souls games. I hear Nioh and Kingdom Come have good combat systems, but I've still got to get around to those. Not a very long list!
 
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