Let's hear it for the underdog: defend feats that the majority finds useless

for example, inspection:

case in point, i decided to explore Hollywood's alleys with Auspex activated to increase perception and therefore inspection, and i found a Colt Anaconda lying around, unfortunately after having bought it from the Red Spot Store, i wish i had found it previously to spare the expense, and i found a Bush Hook also lying around, which suposedly you only are able to buy much later on, in chinatown almost after all the main quests.
i could give other examples, i'm sure, but these are the most recent and most important, to find powerful weapons just lying around before i am able to buy them, which i didn't when i explored the same alleys with a low inspection.
another example, i found a ring near the entrance to the abandoned hospital in downtown that no walkthrough mentioned.
this helps you get richer, this finding saleable items lying around.

somewhere else i already defended seduction, with bloodloss the ability to feed for free without fear of breaking the masquerade and incurring criminal violation to me becomes all important.

strangely enough, i decided that deffensive feats are not so important. i discovered that when you crouch when you activate Stealth, as in real life you offer a smaller target and therefore become harder to hit both from melee and ranged attacks. also, you can crouch behind obstacles and become harder to hit from ranged attacks, as in real life.
but this is another question, to me feats that are considered useless by others i find all important, feats that are all important to others, like deffensive feats in combat, i work ways around them (or their lack) and find them less useful than the majority would.

Well of course it depends on your clan. Nosferatu have very little need for defense. Between obfuscate, potence, and communion of bats for feeding you will almost never get hit. The only times you might have trouble are the plague motel and the Hallowbrook Hotel when you have to run the gauntlet of machine-gun toting sabbat with auspex, at which point you can use the duck-and-cover technique you described above.

On the other hand if your a Brujah who's going to duke it out face-to-face ever fight, defense is going to be really important because ducking behind things limits your maneuverability as well.

The trouble with inspection and seduction isn't that they are totally useless. It's that they are just time-savers. The only advantage they offer is to obviate some of the actual game-play. Place points in seduction and you can spend five minutes less stalking your prey. Place points in inspection and you can spend five minutes less opening cabinets and drawers. They don't actually make your character any better at anything that the player could not already do without spending the points.

As for seduction I am still of the opinion that blood is too easy to find in this game to ever make it worthwhile. I think to make it useful you would have to implement something like a frenzy check everytime you feed forcibly on an innocent, but not when you seduce them.

Sounds like all of those nick nacks (weapons and items) I placed around the maps finally paid of for someone. I think you're the first to mention them. We did this in an attempt to make Inspection viable again, sounds like it worked to some degree or another.

I agree with both of you on Seduction, but Seduction can do more than just net you quick blood. In some cases you can have sex with characters to earn extra XP, or go down a different quest path. I would like to implement Seduction in TFN to make it viable for gaining information, but not to the degree of Persuasion.

I think I mentioned the new items before when I found a nice gun while strapped for cash

why, thank you, zeromorph, though i would say, the other way around, i thank you.
i always felt perception was important, though even i have to admit not prioritary.
but i always found incredibly boring to have to check every square inch of a room with the cursor in hopes that the use cursor points that there is something to pick up, and even more so now with bloodloss, which will make me dread any second wasted on something as trivial as exploration.
for example i always apreciated that with malkavians, who get extra perception as startup bonus, the watch also shines, not only the prescription bottle.
i heard a tv show, they were talking about a book, about "psychiatric disorders" related to computer games, i am of the kind that has to pick up every bit of loot to feel i thoroughly explored a room.
and in other games i always endeavored to find "cheats" that highlighted loot, so i would be sure to find it. that as always been almost more important than the ability to combat. i am more of an explorer than a fighter.

and indeed now i am considering going back to Santa Monica and Downtown to check their alleys as thoroughly, or perhaps to restart the game again bearing this in mind.

you bet i enormously appreciate to find the colt anaconda and the bush hook lying around, the colt anaconda i regret not having found it before i bought it, the bush hook i apreciate having it without buying it before it becomes available at stores, indeed both are (english is my second language) money-saving in a game where sometimes you are as someone told strapped for cash.

and indeed the odd knick-knack, loot, to be found to satisfy my explorer and collector side and as a source of revenue is indeed most satisfactory.

on seduction...
this second time around i have been playing...
i have been cheating.
with persuasion and seduction as high as required (what?? seduction at level 10 to feed for free from hookers in chinatown?!?)
so yes.
lol i found it very amusing, in previous quests that were solely role-playing quests, i mean solved through dialogue, at certain stages in the dialogue i would get 4 dialogue options, all with different colours, all the colors of the rainbow: red for Dominate, blue for Persuasion, pink for Seduction, green for Intimidation. i always found it amusing. but for roleplay options i always opted for Persuasion.
i... never chose to solve one such quest through seduction. er... shyness??
with two exceptions:
at the medical clinic, on the top floor, when i am confronted with the security, i was thirsty, so i seduce him to feed on him to dispose of him.
and i also tried to have sex with romero as a means to solve Pimpin'. but gaining romero as a blood doll was not incentive enough, so i reloaded a previous save.

probably i will play once as a Toreador, and i will choose the history that maximizes seduction, and solve all such quests through seduction.



on that subject, in a future mod, could you arrange it that Presence the discipline enhances Seduction the feat?

Hi,
quite a lot said on this topic since my last login.
For defense skills, I usually level them up eventually, but at a rather low priority. Mostly playing Malks, I usually can solve combat with sniping and stealth kills. Or I get the russians to kill themselves. So I'm not sure if it really helps to get defense up.

For seduction, I agree with Lofgren, it's really easy to get blood, so seduction is not really needed. I can do all the roleplaying issues with persuasion (or Dementation, often that's more fun). Sometimes I build characters with higher seduction, but then I'm tempted to feed on blooddolls and that spoils the fun of the hunt.

For inspection, well usually I have more than enough money, and anyway, once you know where to look, you don't need inspection to find the items with your next character. Anyway there are only two items I'm interested in: the Glock in Santa Monica and the Desert Eagle in Chinatown.

For the suggestion of using Presence to enhance seduction, it has been stated in many topics that you can't do it easily, because starting a dialogue shuts all disciplines down. I'd like to do something like it, but I don't have a clue how i can make it possible.

-

you say so much in so little words!!!

not to disagree with you, just to point out my personal take on things.

vampires, as they are perceived at large, are growing from predatory to seductive.
even the game itself acknowledges it, in the game tips in the loading screens.
and in it's structure.
fear of breaking the masquerade, fear of loosing one's humanity,
all work against the simple pleasures of the hunt.
i never hunt.
i might force feed in combat to replenish my blood pool, depleted in combat,

but otherwise blood dolls are Caine-sent.
and seduction is a miraculous talent, divine gift.
hookers are all fine and dandy, but you pay for them and money is necessary for ammo or better weapons, and you still need to draw them to secluded locations and eventually force feed on them - i never got a hooker to tell me, it's a nice place here, let's do it here.
so, the ability to feed for free right where my kine is standing smack dab in the middle of the crowd, be it crowded streets or crowded clubs, is... priceless.

i don't think there are useless abilities.
and for sure not if you take the game in its whole, in its replayability, in its possibility to play several clans with several diferent playing styles.

regarding combat, some clans allow you to fight solely brawl, while others, still allowing you to choose to fight close combat, would allow you good melee skills; while other clans you had better fight ranged.
some clans have abilities that make of your body weapons, some clans give you power to wield deadly melee weapons, some clans either have abilities that make you expert marksman with anged weapons, still others have abilities that allow you to kill at a distance.

but there are other aspects to the game.

and in the whole you cannot really say that one ability is more useful, or at least one ability is totaly useless.

to take the most of the game your vampire must be well rounded, strong in all abilities.

that's what i feel.

if you are weak in some abilities you are missing on aspects of the game.

two more things.

vampires is a scizophrenic role play game.
schizophrenic because it has multiple personalities, sometimes it is an exploration game as well, sometimes it is a combat game, sometimes it plays like a first person shooter.
but to me being a roleplay game implies that dialogue plays a big part in the game.
story telling.

and with bloodloss thirst has become a driving force of the game.

so, to me, seduction, an ability that allows you to feed through dialogue options wherever you are with no fear to break the masquerade has become a fundamental (if not essential) ability.

i found the glock in santa monica!!!

but you bet i will scour hollywood looking for the anaconda and the bush hook.
and thanks for the tip on the desert eagle in chinatown.

and i will scour downtown as well.

believe it or not, i love in malkavian the bonus in inspection, and both insight and auspex.

i will scour every location with these on, to make sure i miss nothing.

and on the subject, i found some sellable trinkets as well in santa monica.

lofgren wrote:

Well of course it depends on your clan. Nosferatu have very little need for defense. Between obfuscate, potence, and communion of bats for feeding you will almost never get hit. The only times you might have trouble are the plague motel and the Hallowbrook Hotel when you have to run the gauntlet of machine-gun toting sabbat with auspex, at which point you can use the duck-and-cover technique you described above.

On the other hand if your a Brujah who's going to duke it out face-to-face ever fight, defense is going to be really important because ducking behind things limits your maneuverability as well.

The trouble with inspection and seduction isn't that they are totally useless. It's that they are just time-savers. The only advantage they offer is to obviate some of the actual game-play. Place points in seduction and you can spend five minutes less stalking your prey. Place points in inspection and you can spend five minutes less opening cabinets and drawers. They don't actually make your character any better at anything that the player could not already do without spending the points.

As for seduction I am still of the opinion that blood is too easy to find in this game to ever make it worthwhile. I think to make it useful you would have to implement something like a frenzy check everytime you feed forcibly on an innocent, but not when you seduce them.

You know, combat and disciplines do exactly the same: They shortend the duration of combat, ergo the time you save while doing something else than exploring and chatting around.
And yes, you do improve with seduction and inspection, just not in combat.
Reading this thread makes me looking forward playing my Malk again who has a very high inspection feat.

By the way I bet you could get through this game without using disciplines, etc and just using ranged weapons playing it like a Serious Sam game. You need persuasion, research, melee, security, seak etc. for what exactly?
You can easily brute force this game. You will piss off a lot of NPCs but as long as you do not lose 5 Masquerade pints in a row you are set.
And you do not even need maximum feat score in ranged even.
So why improve on sneak, research, stealth, security, etc? All they do is lettig you save time!

So belitteling Seduction and Inspection like this can backfire quite fast.