I have played the game again, and seen the portraits of Bumpley, Lam, and the Sherrif - but in the text underneath Monroe after the Ch 8 meeting, Tyler is still referred to as Tyler Duncan - when his surname is Sanders.
On a separate issue, you mentioned that the FBI ending comes up a lot. By contrast, I got it once (i.e. Ending 2). I am repeatedly trying to get Ending 11, but am not succeeding! Not sure why, when I am trying ‘to make waves in town with the authorities’. Please advise. Thanks.
Provided you have already established a good relationship with them, there’s various people who you can call for help against Perry. But what helps is, during Chapter 9 choosing to spend some time in the store. If you improve the security via Occult or video camera means, you will be given some more time to prepare. Use this time to call for Chastain or Jace or Monroe or Salem or the police - then arm yourself with a weapon. If you want a certain character to live, you need a ruthless rescuer - Chastain or Annis Kean. To get Annis barging in, you need to impress Zane Schafer in Chapter 9.
Hope that helps!
For people trying to have full ownership of the store at the end, you need high resources (3 is not enough, not sure about 4, but from a metagaming perspective you probably need the full 5, otherwise Resources 5 isn’t used for anything) and, when you talk to Buntley at the festival (don’t need to go out of your way to talk to him, it’s a mandatory interaction), tell him you want to pay the debt in full.
I think there was some name reshuffling at one point; when she shows up at the library, Monroe’s mum is first referred to as “Mrs. Monroe” to start with, and in the rest of the sequence she’s (correctly) referred to as “Mrs. Duncan”.
Things I can think of that might help for the FBI ending (even though I never got it):
Basically, anything that puts you on the media’s radar and gives the world hints of vampires, so that the Second Inquisition will get interested.
Thanks, I’ll look forward to playing it again after the update.
Just a few other thoughts that occurred to me after playing the game…
Perhaps it’s just me, but one of the things I found most engaging about playing a Hunter in the World of Darkness games is just how utterly despicable and monstrous most of the Vampires depicted in the game setting are. (Not that Hunters are necessarily any better…) From the themes of addiction and abuse wrapped up in ghouldom to the stomach-turning forms of human experimentation practiced by Clan Tzimsce - Vampires are caught up in a whole lot of absolutely vile practices, which are largely directed against those unable to defend themselves, and normally resonant enough of real world or historical abuse to have a real emotional impact.
Between that and being such an underdog, where the odds were generally stacked so far against you between the vampires’ supernatural powers and all the other resources at their disposal, it always felt immensely satisfying when you were able to turn the table on one of them and give them the reckoning they deserved.
I didn’t really get the same sense from any of the vampires in Jericho Heights. Some of the things they’re doing (e.g. mind-controlling Duke and forcing him to attack people) are certainly heinous, but the victims are largely people the main character isn’t invested in, and their consequences (e.g. Duke’s death) largely played out off screen. I understand that you wanted to keep the vampires open as romantic options, and give the MC the option of joining them, but wonder whether a Hunter story might have benefited from a more compelling villain?
The vampires also felt a bit too passive, and too easily manipulated, to be worthy opponents. It might have been interesting to have them come after the MC with all the tools at their disposal if he makes it clear that he knows about their existence and isn’t willing to play ball - have their contacts in the police frame him for crimes he hasn’t committed, mind-control those around him to make damaging accusations against him, trash his business, kidnap those close to him and use them to lure him into a trap or simply torture them to death as a warning etc.
Though I do think that the game could perhaps benefit from a more drawn out final act (between the Perry/Kyra attack and the final confrontation during the Festival), if for no other reasons than exploring personal relationships and wrap up some currently left-dangling plotlines, where the conflict could (and would be fun to) be played out, I think it’s important to remember that unlike what generally happens in WoD, where vampires are mostly just jockeying for position and influence between themselves, in the specific scenario of Out for Blood, the Young Vampires actually want to kill Chastain, so the two factions have enough problems of their own to be able to devote much resources against the MC.
Add that to the fact that these people are making so many Maskerade breaches (Chastain made an unauthorised childe; Kyra has an Instagram account with over 300k followers that even Jace says is incredibly obvious is made by a vampire) that it’s basically a toss-up on whether they’re lucky enough to be killed by the Inquisition (who’ll just kill them) or made an example of by the Camarilla (who might get… creative), and they’re probably going to get insta-ganked by SOMEONE if they go all out. I mean, a teenager has already told everyone that was willing to listen and plenty of people who weren’t that there vampires around, the Inquisition is probably revving up its engines before the game even starts.
Suppose you’re right: if you follow the WoD’s logic most of the Vampires in this specific scenario are realistically going to end up dead very quickly even if the MC chooses not to lift a finger to stop them. If the MC were fully aware of the situation, they could not unreasonably sit back and wait for events to take their course rather than risking their own life getting involved.
That creates a very different dynamic from most of the Hunter games I’ve run and played in, which have generally put the players up against competent and vicious antagonists who are directly threatening the PCs or those they care about and need to be stopped. Suppose you generally see the same thing in horror fiction - with vampires and other supernatural horrors aggressively going after their hunters once they realise what’s going on. For me, that tends to create a more compelling story - although these things are obviously subjective.
I think it would’ve helped if near the end if you try to manipulate or stand up to Chastain she just flips into full sociopathic monster mode. Making it clear that she is smarter than you, stronger than you and has spent decades killing nobodies exactly like you. That her affection towards us because of our grandfather will be dropped in a second if we even think of trying to make a move against her. I think that would’ve helped raise the stakes and opened up some more creative options than just hoping a 20 year old thin blood can take her out.
In one ending, if you broker peace between Chastain and the Young Vampires, Camarilla vampires actually come to town and stake Chastain “for later”, which I can only presume will be very, VERY unpleasant. One of them tries to mesmer you into forgetting what you saw, but if you have enough… Resolve, maybe? you resist the mesmerising, and you get an achievement (since Sunday’s patch you can get that achievement near the start, by resisting Chastain’s forget, causing her to throw a tantrum. It’s hilarious.)
That’s exactly what happens, though? Or, at least, that exactly what happens when she visits you while Monroe is hiding in the attic, and you try and FAIL to lie to her about helping her. She goes straight for the throat and unveiled threats.
Also, she doesn’t really have any affection for gramps, that’s just a story you’re being told all the time. If you resist her forget at the start of the game (since Sunday’s patch), she’s exasperated that she JUST got rid of one [family_name] and now has to deal with another. You can learn later on that gramps opposed her manipulations (and, apparently, her Presence), to the point she mobilised her town agents to ruin his life so much that it took all the fight out of him (it’s mentioned this is why the cancer killed him so fast - she made him so desperate that he had little will left to fight the cancer).
Oh I don’t think I’ve ever failed that check. I was either on her side or playing a character who was great at lying so for most of my playthroughs she’s just been kind of nice and seemingly easily manipulated.
I mean, if you were great at lying, then I suppose she IS easily manipulated, because that’s the point of being great at lying. I can’t get the lying to go through even with the Social stimulant, so for me she’s unmanipulateable. I’m sure there’s also people who just tackle Duke during his rampage, so for them he’s a pushover, but for me it’s hex to the face (I think I hexed at every opportunity the game gave me, no regrets) and watch him slip on oil puddles until I can convince him to stop.
So I was doing a bit of code diving and I found one of the endings (7), in which Monroe and Amanda are both still alive, and involves Monroe failing to reconcile with Amanda and fleeing town, (even if she is your “RO”). I was just wondering how you get that ending because in my playthrough they were able to reconcile, I’m not 100% sure how just by looking at the code
If this is the one I think it is,
it doesn’t NECESSARILY lead to Chastain being alive in the end. Due to how the game works, it checks multiple sets of variables and gives you an ending for each set. I think that’s the one I got in my first playthrough, where both the YV and Chastain survive the final confrontation, but then Chastain (and her dog - what the hell is IT with vampires and pet-killing?) got ganked by the Camarilla for being a Masquerade-risking moron.
Try this: play as if going the YV route. When you reach the gazebo at the end, step out and talk to Chastain instead of attacking. Then, try negotiating a truce.
Thank you! I’ve just tried on another playthrough - and did all the above, apart from giving Lacey the full details about Duke’s rampage, because…my MC failed the test in handling a pistol and accidently killed Duke. She didn’t want to upset Lacey, so only give her half the story.
End result? Not Ending 2 or 11 - but 7… No FBI turning up, since I got Ending 2 on an earlier playthrough. Apparently the FBI ending was happening too often, so the author may have rejigged things. But I’m finding Ending 11 to be elusive, after repeated tries in the last week.
I’ve just got Ending 7 for the third time!
I don’t know how to look at the code, so can only go on my playthroughs. On my latest try, I was sort of helping both Chastain and Monroe - in the hope that, in their truce, I would get invited to Bleakrest House, but that the FBI (alerted by my ‘making noises about vampires’) would storm in and lead me to Ending 11 (this was how I got Ending 2). Instead, I got no such invite from Chastain - and I got Ending 7, again.
I’m guessing that relationship and Path variables need to be taken into account. Chastain ended up as an ‘Acquaintance’, rather than a friend, on this occasion. Which might be why I didn’t get invited back to the house (despite Chastain and Jayfield saying that Chastain would reward my help to her).
All of my Path scores today were on ‘Knowledge’ this time. If the MC gets at least 27% on ‘Immortality’, it encourages Chastain to want to Embrace the MC, I’ve found. However, on my try yesterday - after reconciling the two vampiresses, Chastain offered to embrace my MC, but she refused. That led to Monroe leaving town, a month later (Ending 7 again).
Just came to me - try encouraging Mykaela to talk to other people about vampires, see if it helps.
According to monroe amanda was obsessed with the mc prior to his arrival in town. Love and obsession go hand and hand.
No, they do not, and I wish people would stop propagating that toxic crap. Monroe herself pretty much calls that concept bullshit in the ending if she kills Chastain.
But the reason Chastain was obsessed with MC is because she couldn’t get gramps to work for her and was forced to destroy him. She probably sees MC as a “second chance” to achieve victory over gramps.
Thanks for your advice.
Unfortunately, nudging Makayla to tell others about vampires didn’t help. What happened on my latest try was - successfully persuading Duke to stand down, presenting the vial to Trooper Stewart, finding the body in the park and telling Sherriff Ray about it, and going to the Sherriff later with Lacey and asking him to look at connecting the deaths of the two lads. Unfortunately doing the first two things meant there was no option to sight Jordan in Ch.5 - so I had no option to track him down in Ch.9. Result of all this… No FBI turning up at the end - but I did finally manage to get the Clan Thin-blood achievement instead, when I took a gamble. Having managed to get Ending 2 once, the related Ending 11 continues to elude me. I’ll keep trying - but I may switch my aim to the other two Endings I’ve not yet get, for now.
I did manage to save the store on a recent playthrough, by having 4 dots for Resources - and getting my relationship with Mayor Bumpley to ‘Friend’ status. Otherwise, yes, I offered to pay the debt in full to Bumpley whilst he was visiting ‘my’ stall at the festival.