Part 61: V - Rise of Evil

This update marks the point where I officially start flying pretty much blind as far as the original content this mod provides is concerned. Let's hope it won't bring too many problems - not that you'd notice, since I'd probably just omit the endless time I spend meandering around looking for where to go or what to do.



Anyway, we're now in the sewers before meeting and fighting Brother Kanker. I originally had some footage with the lead-in to this, but it was at the tail-end of the last batch, and I deleted that a while back, so we're just going to jump in in medias res.



Wooo, broken water effects!



Anyway, Brother Kanker. This guy is a motherfucker. A big one. In fact, before we start this...



...yeah, that's better.



Now, back to Kanker. True to the mod's mantra, he deals a fuckton of damage and will pretty much wreck your shit. But that's just par for the course. No, Kanker has a few extra things that really make him a motherfucker. In vanilla, he just uses Potence and hits you a lot. In this mod, things are a bit different. He's dropped Potence, and instead picked up Animalism, seen being used here as he howls...



...to summon a spectral wolf that can also wreck our shit. Also, as you can see, you can't see Kanker. That's because he also picked up Obfuscate, and he is in fact a cheating motherfucker, because he can attack without dropping Obfuscate. That's Obfuscate 7, and would put this fucker so high up the generation totem pole that it makes my head spin, but I'll just write that off as the modders wanting more difficulty without actually thinking over the implications. That's not the worst part, though. So far, we've established that he can wreck our shit, can summon wolves that wreck our shit, and can go invisible so he can sneak up on us and then wreck our shit. What could be worse than that? He's bugged.

To be precise, if you kill Kanker while he's using a discipline, the game bugs out, the combat never ends, the flyer never drops, and the ghost wolves never stop spawning. So, when is he "using a discipline"? From when he howls to when the wolf dies, he's considered to be using Animalism. From when he goes invisible to when he becomes visible again, he's considered to be using Obfuscate. The two can overlap (and in fact do fairly often, in that he de-obfuscates and immediately fires Animalism after that), and the time frame for you to actually kill him without it bugging out is rather slim.



Essentially, you've got to bring him down to a sliver of health, bring him over to the back of the arena (where the wolves appear), kill the wolf right after he summons it, then kill him in the little time you have before he obfuscates. How the fuck did this bug make it through testing? There's no way somebody went through this fight multiple times and somehow managed to kill him at that exact time every time. This is the real reason I turned on godmode - my main strategy for survival with bosses involves Necromancy, which right now summons zombies that can attack enemies - especially enemies that go into melee combat, like Kanker here. So with the zombies, it's practically guaranteed they'll kill him at the wrong time, and without them, I'd just get my face torn off. No thanks.



The guy eventually dies properly, we grab the flyer and get the fuck out.



On the way back, I run into these Anarchs again, and all of a sudden, they all whip out their weapons and proceed to do nothing. I have no idea why that happened.



So, next stop, the Brotherhood and Bishop Vick. Note that we're given an option to dominate this guy into following us. This shows up on a semi-regular basis with characters that are seemingly arbitrary. I'm not sure why exactly that is, though I haven't tested the possibility of dominating this guy, possessing him and sending him to Bishop Vick. It probably won't do shit.



We could also dominate the scared girl into following us. I pass on the opportunity for now. Let's see what changed as far as the combat section is concerned...



OH GOD

So it turns out that the models for zombies were expanded a fair bit, but that's not the important part. The important part is that much like Kanker, these zombies are cheating motherfuckers. They randomly jump between "zombie" and "regular" states - either they shamble around and do the slow, lurching attacks, or they suddenly start running around normally and do the regular unarmed attacks, which can really fuck with you.



Also - and I might be spitballing this a bit - it seems that there are more zombies than in vanilla.



And when some of them randomly remember how to be human and just run up to sock you in the face, things can get hectic.



And then this fucker shows up with a gun, a wonderful new addition by the modders. Because what I need when I start to get surrounded by zombies and am frantically trying to find a safe spot is some jackass shooting at me and doing pretty massive damage. This is where things officially switch from "problematic" to "oh god what the fuck do I do".



So of course I panic, and then I die. Not exactly my finest hour.



Take two it is, then. This time around, I dominate the scared girl, mostly out of a sense of "well why the fuck not, really" and an impending realization that the modders might just have designed things under the assumption that I'm using the companion system. I tell her to follow me, and that's all I can do for now, since she's already considered to be "in combat" for some reason and therefore can't be talked to. Oh well.



This time around, I take things slow, baiting enemies around the corner and taking them out with the pistol, which leaves less time for me to get caught reloading, and things go a lot better. Even the guy with the gun doesn't pose much of a problem now.



Meanwhile, our newest recruit in the Army of Darkness (proper name pending) is stuck on the stairs. Fuckin' ace. Then again, she could only flail at the zombies ineffectually, so maybe it's good she doesn't get herself killed, she might be useful as a blood doll later on.



The zombie cleanup proceeds well, and... wait, who's that over there?



JESUS CHRIST HE HAS A MACHINE GUN FUCKING HIT THE DECK



So yeah, the guys with the guns only don't pose a problem if it's only pistols and you're actively concentrating on taking them out. When some guy with a machine gun just pops out and takes a shot at you, you better be ready to duck and cover or else you can say goodbye to about 50%+ of your health bar.



The second encounter didn't go much better - I tried to summon zombies to make for a good distraction, but instead, the shithead just ran back to his original spot and the zombies didn't go that far, so I had to engage normally again.



The third round didn't go better either, but at least he's dead now. Tried to summon zombies closer this time, but it didn't work out again. Seems like the best strategy with these guys, if possible, is to run up and melee the fuck out of them, since the third strike that sends them flying interrupts firing and you can combo them that way. A straight up fight, guns vs. guns, goes very badly for the player.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, the gun the guy was using was that shitty Tec-9, the submachinegun that spreads more than the fucking shotgun. The accuracy the AI has with that thing is insane, and I hatch a particularly devious plan involving that later.



So, we make our way further through the crackhouse, taking out kung-fu-fighting bum zombies and other riff-raff...



...make the acquaintance of this jackass with a shotgun that really smarts, but since I got him around a corner, the damage was limited...



...and make it to the door to Bishop Vick. Which is locked. No, I don't know why it's locked. I also don't know where the key is. I guess it's time to go look-



GAH. Where did you come from? Well, it turns out that if your companions are separated from you to a certain degree, they're warped to your location. And since we're now out of combat (after I killed fucking everything that isn't in Vick's room), we can finally take a closer look at what we can do with our first recruit.



To start off, we have the standard "follow me" and "stay here" commands, followed by the possession mechanic. Disregarding that Possession is Dominate 5, this allows us to do exactly what Possession is - completely take over the person's body as if they were the character you're playing as. Not sure how exactly that is properly applied, I'll have to experiment more.



Talking about combat is just "use ranged", "use melee" and "don't fight at all", and given that these characters are sure to be squishy, I know what I'm picking. You might have clued in to my plan by now. You can take blood from them, but it puts them into the "trance" state and leaves them there until you change maps, so it's kind of annoying. Finally, you can change your companion's facial expression. Yes. No, I don't know why this is a thing, and I'm probably not going to bother with it.



And finally (the last "more" just leads to one "never mind" option), we can send her back to our haven, give her some gear (which is going to be pretty important) and send her back to where we found her, which I think might mean that she would be locked off to us if we did that after finishing this quest, since I'm fairly certain the door past the entrance gets locked. Then again, we can just noclip. Hooray for console commands!



Thankfully for me, I didn't have to go searching for the key, as I had just enough experience to push my Lockpicking to 4, which combined with Blood Buff makes 7, exactly what the door requires. But before that...



There we go. I gave her my Tec-9, since she's computer-controlled and therefore has the super-aim the enemies have. This should come in handy fairly well. I just need to keep her safe, and the zombies should be able to do the job of being a decoy fairly well. Let's do this, time to take out the Bishop!



Oh god, what happened to you? Why do you have a top hat now? Why do you have such a weird coat? Why do you have two guys with masks flanking you? What's going on here?



The fight begins, and it's a clusterfuck. Zombies everywhere, both friendly and enemy, the masked freaks are running around, one with a shotgun taking pot shots and one with a melee weapon chopping up a zombie, our new recruit immediately goes to town with her Tec-9, Vick is hanging back with his shotgun, laying down suppressive fire, and I'm just trying to figure out what the fuck I'm even doing here.



I decide that taking out the masked guys is probably the best course of action, since they're fairly good at taking out my minions, and I need those to draw Vick's fire, which would otherwise really fuck my shit sideways.



After summoning some more zombies a bit closer to the back, where the shotgun guy and Vick hang out (and promptly catching some buckshot with my face), you can see the effectiveness of the zombies once they actually manage to get somewhere - they completely clog up an enemy and make it very easy to take him out (the zombies don't care if you smack them in the face).



Vick then gets taken out in the most anti-climatic way possible - he retreats to a corner and focuses his fire on the closest thing, a zombie, while I and our recruit hammer him from afar (with our recruit doing most of the heavy lifting, given that she can actually hit consistently from long range).



The whole thing just keeps going until he dies. Once he went back there, he never fired a shot at me at all. I think I might be starting to figure this mod out. Maybe. Can't wait for the combat segment on the Dane that completely fucks me over and proves me wrong once again. For the record, I have no idea what's going to happen on the Dane. I do love me some pseudo-vague foreshadowing, but that wasn't one of those situations.



So we head to Max's place to get our reward, and we obviously pick the item, since it's going to be better, right?



WRONG, it fucking blows chunks. On paper, it might not seem too bad - double Blood Heal is great, and less Aggravated damage is always welcome, but the malus is really harsh. You lose one dot in Strength (important for Melee), Dexterity (Sneaking and Lockpicking) and Stamina (Bashing soak). Essentially, you're trading offense and utility for defense (more recovery, basically), and you're doing it in a mod where defense is already pretty much paper thin, and that extra probably won't really help that much.

And even if I were wanting extra defense, Victoria's defense is either preventive (summon zombies and have companions to give enemy more targets) or offensive (feeding on enemies to recover health and blood while in battle) in nature, so a Blood Heal boost doesn't really come in handy, and Aggravated damage is probably going to be less of a problem than Bashing on a general basis because once Aggravated becomes a problem, you're probably already dead anyway.



We also go and get our "reward" from the Anarchs. Stupid Anarchs. Give me some shit, don't just go "yeah, that's good" like your stamp of approval means anything. Least LaCroix gives me some stuff, even a swanky apartment!



Next up, I start a bit of a recruitment drive for the Army of Darkness. Prostitutes are a readily available target, so let's just go with that.



While equipping our new recruit with a Tec-9, I also pick up the quest Larry gives us, which should be a good way to test our new strategies.



When getting the third member of our army, I get slapped in the face with the limit and have to send somebody back to the haven, and learn that the name of the scared girl is Azara. I end up sending her to the haven and sticking with the prostitutes, might keep Azara around longer. Sort of a Number One Dime thing. Maybe I can ghoul her and eventually Embrace her, who knows.



While going through the options to give her a Tec-9, I notice that this one has an outfit change command - the others didn't. I wonder what this does...



NO, DAMNIT, THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT. PACK YOUR TITS BACK IN, WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET FOR CAINE'S SAKE, HAVE SOME DECENCY.



While getting my reward from Venus, it turns out that the companions have no problems clipping into doors and making them unusable - and you need to open both doors to get through, only one doesn't do it.



Possessing the character doesn't really seem to do anything...



...except plant Victoria in the door instead of the prostitute when I change back. Noclip to the rescue!



Next stop is the parking garage, and immediately the Superior Firepower doctrine I thought to be employing starts throwing up some problems - like the AI on the companions being really skittish about actually going into combat. Either that, or it's some weird attempt at cover taking AI, though I never saw her actually going out of cover. Also, she seems to be using a pistol despite me only giving her a Tec-9. Where'd she get that from?



Then I mess something up and they start going translucent...



...and start making Obfuscate smoke clouds oh god what's going on here I just wanted to have a Legion of Lecherous Lovers or something to go all girl power on people



It eventually fixes itself, but sadly, prostitutes are not known for having very good armor, so they eventually get knocked out through excessive gunfire (I want to say "killed", but I thought I saw one of the two get killed earlier, and then she suddenly reappeared just fine, so I don't know what's happening here.



And then it goes just about as you'd expect when there's two guys with machine guns focus firing on you.



One reload later, I notice that I have this weird object in my weapon list, and get enough Research to learn what it is. This is the "Heart of Darkness" - commentary on colonial administrations in Africa not included - and apparently it's worthless to me, since I neither have Obtenebration nor Vicissitude.

And no, I have no idea where it came from. I just discovered it in my inventory at some point, and I can't remember picking it up, so maybe it was a quest reward that got changed or something? I don't know!



Then the game crashes, and I'm pretty sure my last proper save is a while back (the autosaves accidentially got wiped when I went and experimented with something on an earlier save between recording this footage and writing this update). Bollocks. I guess this is as good a time to stop as any - I need to fuck about with this companion system and figure out just what the hell I'm doing here and how to manipulate the AI into maybe playing friendly in areas that aren't completely wide open like where we fought Vick.