Part 70: XIV - Unhappy Refrain

You know what? Screw the narrative thing. I say this for two reasons - one, the suspicion I had earlier was right, there's no way I'm getting something I'm remotely happy with out of this combat slog, and two, I really shouldn't be doing it when I'm not enjoying myself. The Giovanni mansion, for its faults, at least had some shit for me to work with, and it was largely only stupid, not aggravating. This upcoming shit? It makes me mad. Very much so - and maybe more than I've ever been during the rest of this LP. This upcoming part pissed me right the fuck off, and did so in multiple salvos, so I couldn't come down from being mad about the last thing before it slams me with the next thing. I'm not sure what the previous Peak Mad was... either the calculus puzzle in Update 4, or Grout's wife being a boss plus shitty platforming in Update 6... actually, wait, I forgot about those sewers in Update 9 where I both prefaced and ended the update with a massive ramble on how much I hate this mod. That was probably Peak Mad, and thinking about it, that might stay Peak Mad, if only because I've grown accustomed to the regular bullshit this mod throws at me, and now only the extraordinary bullshit really gets to me. Though there will be some of that, I guarantee that much. Fuck it, let's quit beating around the bush here, it's time for more shitty fucking combat.



So, blah-di-blah, Sabbat attack Venture Towers, Beckett is a smart-ass, head to Hallowbrook Hotel, let's do this shit.



Since this is endgame territory, we're decking ourselves out for war - full stash of ammo for every weapon we've got.



Now, here's something interesting I've found out - remember that Harbringer we ran into in the graveyard? Well, turns out that he was part of a quest I was supposed to get in Club Confession. Apparently - and I only know this from reading the quest descriptions in the files - there's supposed to be a Giovanni here that tells us to head to the graveyard, where we would then be attacked by the Harbringer, then things develop from there. I have no idea where that Giovanni is, and I can't talk to anybody in the club bar the blood doll and Venus. I presume the quest is broken because the second stage triggered without ever having triggered the first one, and that made everything completely go to hell.



I found this guy that somehow seems out of place, like he was added by the mod, but I can't talk to him. Oh well, at this point, I'm happy I don't have to do more shit in this mod.



We'll be bringing along some backup for the next part, though I'm not entirely sure just how much help the companions will be. I'd have picked Heather to come along, but she's gone. I have no idea where she is. In lieu of Heather, we bring along Edward and Yukie, which should be the most combat-effective team we have.



While picking up some blood, I notice that there's Elder Vitae for sale now. That's probably not exactly something that should be sold in a shop.



And with all the preparations done, we're off to Hallowbrook Hotel.



Now, what's different? Well, not a lot, really.



There seems to be a change to the AI - at least I'm having a much easier time than before due to enemies not being able to work with cover. They get shots off that hit cover, I get shots off that hit them, repeat until dead. Also, hardly any of the enemies have AK-47s or similar weapons, so they're not really posing a threat.



Take, for instance, this screenshot. I currently have three enemies taking shots at me - two from the front (they're hard to see, but they're there, trust me) and one from the side. It's very hard for them to get a shot off and actually hit when I stand still. It's weird, I'm not used to the AI not being able to shoot me.



There's this thing here, that I can supposedly switch on and off. I think. I fucked around with it so much I completely forgot whether I now had it on or off, and I couldn't tell if it made any changes. Par for the course, I guess.



For some reason, the eyeless blood dolls were replaced with various pedestrian models. So we have the eyeless blood doll in the sewers, but not here, where they originally were? What the fuck is the reasoning behind this change?



Interesting note - the doors that fly open and reveal enemies are apparently coded to do so when you walk past them, regardless of whether the enemy behind them still exists or not.



Apparently, the suicide bomber zombies are back, or there are grenade traps around, because I just walked through a door and then lost about 75% of my health to an explosion going off behind me. Tending towards grenade trap, because I couldn't see shit. Also, somewhere around here, the healing factor came back for some reason. I'm not complaining, but I have no idea how this glitch works.



Note that throughout this, our companions are wholly uncooperative. They could not give less of a shit about what's going on right now. Thankfully, between the enemies not really bringing any threats to the table, and the few threats that there are being nullified with the healing factor, there's no need for them just yet.



There's also some enemies that use Obfuscate, but thanks to their shitty weapon selection (is that a fucking mace? Seriously?), they don't pose much of a threat either.



Occasionally, there's an enemy of the exploding variety as well, but since they're also few and far between, no real danger either. Even if I didn't have the healing factor, this wouldn't be a problem.



After a while, I just get bored and start meleeing people. I probably should have started that earlier, because I was running somewhat low on ammo for the good guns (the AK-47 and the revolver).



The meandering continues, and we eventually bumble into what I hesitantly call a "boss" encounter with the three enemies that teleport whenever you hit them. It's tedious, but they're all wielding weapons that can't scratch Victoria at this point, so it's just boring.



Also, one of them teleported into a wall. Seems like that's a more widespread problem than I originally thought.



Moving on to the lower levels, we run into more enemies that can actually deal some damage, but it's still in small, manageable amounts, and nothing to really worry about.



We run into the place where Heather should get killed, but no cutscene plays, and there's no Heather. The Sabbat don't know where she went, either. Bollocks.



The fat bastard hits with that slowing attack, which sends Victoria into a frenzy just as the last shots kill the fat bastard. I'm not sure what exactly was working in tandem here, but the result of the situation is that the slowing effect never went away.



At least with the companions being warped down, they finally get off their ass and do something.



After a fair bit of slow-ass trudging, I get the idea of possessing a companion and then going back, which actually does fix the issue, though it still leaves the screen effect, but that should go away after a level transition, which is coming up soon.



The "boss" here is even more pathetic than before, it seems, because he now summons skeletons that don't do a fucking thing while I stand in one place and shoot the guy in the ass repeatedly.



Andrei's dialogue is unchanged...



...as is the boss fight. I think. At least he still hits like a truck and still jumps into the blood-water and surfaces somewhere else. He still goes down without much trouble thanks to the grenade launcher.



So, with that done, we're off to the Griffith Park seg- ...hang on, this is different. Why are we exiting out of a pipe and not the doors?



...this is new.



There's a computer here. "Directive" gives us the following: "Due to the increasing incidences of injury and to prevent entry of strangers and animals into the LA sewers, we now keep compliance with all security standards." "Office door", locked behind the password "freaky", allows us to open a door. I guess it'll be one of the doors coming up. Finally, "warning", locked behind the password "nasty", gives us the following: "All LADWP employees of Area A9 must not switch on all the pumps and open all the valves at the same time. It can lead to a malfunction of the electrical system, including the security system, in all sections of LADWP area A9." I didn't actually get to read the warning while I was playing through, since it was behind a Hacking 9 lock and I hadn't started cheating for stats yet (though that will come fairly soon). I only went back to check afterwards, which explains a particular contraption I ran into.

...hang on a second.




Oh god.



OH GOD.



THEY MADE THEIR OWN SEWER SECTION. DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE THESE MODDERS WROUGHT?

Video footage of the next section that you should probably watch to get the full Antitribu Mod Sewers V2 Experience. Watch to the end for the surprise twist ending. Note: No audio because I record all of this stuff without sound, since I'll be listening to my own music while playing instead, and I'd probably get copyright hits for that. Also, I have no idea why it's so dark. It looked fine before I uploaded it, pretty much like the footage I take screenshots from, just a bit lower res since I'm no longer directly uploading Lagarith footage. Set it to 480p, it helps a bit. Also, play your own music while watching, it's authentic!

Ugh. So we have the same shit again. Shitty fucking puzzles, shitty fucking Geodudes, shitty fucking map design. Isn't this just a grand old adventure?



And what's the first thing we run into? A whole bunch of shit stacked up for us to throw away. That's literally it.



I pick the shit up, and I throw it away. That's the entire extent of this "puzzle". Riveting fucking gameplay. There's not even any threats around. There's like two Geodudes and that's it. What a dumb design.



We see this fucking setpiece again - the two doors in the sewers. What do you want to bet that the right door is an office, and the left door is a storage room?



The right door is indeed the same fucking office (I presume this is the "office door" we unlocked with the computer). The only interesting bits are this telephone, which gives a strange message...



...and this set of fuses, which I presume I'm going to have to carry around through the entire god damn level because fetch quests are SO MUCH FUN.



As for the left door...



Wha-



SHIT. And that's literally everything that's in that room - an exploding zombie, and that's it. Fucking marvelous. "Haha, and now we'll take half the player's health away because that's fucking funny as shit!" Assholes.



Surprisingly enough, we quickly make it to the keypad, and the code is easily enough worked out (since there's two 1s and two 0s in there, it's just a matter of trying) as 1010. Could this segment be not as much of a pain in the ass as I thought it was?



Guess that's a "no".



This is Jenny. Jenny is apparently a "shocked head". I have no idea what that means. When we blow her up with a grenade launcher because of course that's what we do, we get a quest message that tells us we just killed "Jenny, head priest of the Dogs of War". I have no idea what that means. There's a sourcebook for the World of Darkness that's called Dogs of War, but that's about the military, and head priests wielding guns and casting magic are decidedly un-military. So I have no idea what the fuck this shit is. Apparently, Jenny will be a character that plays a larger role in the new story that will eventually come when this mod is more developed. I will not be sticking around to see when or even if that happens.



At this point, we backtrack, because I recall seeing another part of this sewer section, and it leads to an area with some switches...



...and some valves. So this would be what we would use to bypass the keypad if one couldn't work out the password for some reason. Of course, since I already bypassed the keypad, I just switched and turned these things and ended up very confused as to their actual purpose until I went and checked that terminal with boosted Hacking.



So instead, I just carry the fuses around, and the only way forward is through this pipe. The pipe leads to a level transition, and the transition leads to...



...hang on, I know this place.



Oh my god, this is the library level basement. You know, the one that the unofficial patch added? The last thing gatz went through before I took over the LP?



Well, this note is new.





Otherwise, still the same, with the stack of movable boxes and all. Jam fuse into fuse box (I guess it's a vacuum tube, but fuck it, it's a fuse box puzzle), elevator starts going.



And yup, sure enough, it brings us to the first area of the library. That's odd, why are we here all of a sudden? Did they just decide they had to use this, and yet not use the quest that came with it?



And sure enough, the door is locked. Key, key... hidden under a plant. Plant... where the fuck were there any plants?



Wait, those plants? How the fuck am I supposed to get up there? Is there a door or something? Wait, those ledges are marked with the Inspection sparkle. But I can't get up those either. ...wait a second.




OH MY GOD THEY ADDED A FUCKING BOX STACKING PUZZLE ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME HERE

Video footage of the next session that you should probably watch for the full experience. Again, no sound. This time, the darkness isn't quite as bad!



So yeah, now we backtrack to the cellar, grabbing all the boxes we can...



...getting aggravated by the fact that the elevator closes way to god-damn fast to make this a reasonable thing to do...



...getting companions stuck in the elevator and needing to mess around with them just to get it to move...



...then repeating the process on the higher level...



...attempting to stack that shit, fighting against the annoying box physics all the while...



...SOMEHOW making it on top the first ledge...



...making some very dicey jumps (and sometimes not making them)...



...until we FINALLY get that shitty fucking key.



And FINALLY we can enter this stupid fucking library.



The only interesting thing is "art's fair", and that's locked behind a Hacking 9 check...



...so fuck it, cheating it is. I want to see what's behind that one.



And it just unlocks some doors. Marvelous.



The library area has nothing much interesting, some skill books we can't read...



...this magazine, which I've never seen before. I can't read that third paragraph - "they've done it again with Vam-"? You'd think that would say Vampire, but I just can't see that.



Zooming in further doesn't really help when the texture is so low-res to begin with.



And once we grab the library card, this Tzimicse (sic) creation pops out and attacks us, though it only gets stuck fighting Edward and getting shot to bits by Victoria and Yukie. Boss killed, I guess?



Coming into the art gallery, we're immediately assaulted by nothing. Turns out that there's a few vases in here that have that poltergeist thing going. Also note that all the paintings are sparkling.



We have to slash them all up.



Because that unlocks this door. Because OF FUCKING COURSE THAT'S HOW THAT WORKS.



Then we use the library card...



...to directly open the secret passage. So you remove one stupid thing but add another one. Guess you can't take the dumb out of this mod, only relocate it. The passage leads us down to the spooky cavern.



Down there, we find somebody doing some sort of a ritual.



The ritual seems to be summoning this thing.



But then somebody shoots a Dragon's Breath round at it!



And it doesn't like that at all, so it burns up the one doing the ritual.



And now we get to fight this thing.



First of all, we can't actually harm it, so we need to stand near these pillars while it summons some lightning attack, which then destroys the pillar. We repeat that for all the pillars.



Also, we need to be moving around during the standing near the pillar, because if you don't move, the lightning can oneshot you.



Now that we can attack this thing, it gets a lifebar and a name. Of course, this is something the devs made up. Here's some more info on this character: http://bloodlinesantitribu.com/army...f-sanity/75491/

Note that the lich never uses Necromancy in this fight.



Instead, I do, and it completely murders him. Kind of a disappointing end for the Devourer of Sanity, but joke's on him, I'm already out of sanity to be devoured thanks to the rest of this fucking mod.



He gets a dramatic death scene...





...and drops this thing. Essentially, from what I can tell, it's a sword that can do some sort of force push thing with the alt-attack, which causes damage to you. Hardly all that extraordinary, but I guess it's kind of neat. We take the portal...



...and it drops us off right into the dialogue with Ming-Xiao as if nothing happened.

I guess that's enough for this time. Next time, we're finishing this shit. It's Griffith Park, Blood Hunt, Chinatown and Venture Towers all in one clean shot, so I can finally wash my hands of this shit.