Hey Mike! Awesome stuff! I was wondering what's your take on bossfights as in relation to the special routes. The thought that kept popping up in my head was this is awesome one can do these routes sneakily, but in the end there is a boss waiting who will be tough to fight. What I'm getting at is I don't recall the bosses having specific weaknesses to exploit, but that would have been a nice complement the sneaky approach. Like they are especially weak to the disciplines of the sneakier clans or such. Cheers!
Thank you. That is an interesting idea as I've never thought about it in those terms. One thing I love about the original game is how consistently the design is executed... in my opinion anyway. What I mean is the special routes are based on the player being observant and solving increasingly complex puzzles to understand where they are and how to effectively benefit from them. And several bosses are designed in this same way, with increasingly complex puzzles to solve that provide some "benefit" in the fight with them. Going back to Brother Kanker, which is one of the "simplest" special routes and the "trick" to fighting him is also very simple, as well as being tied to the special route itself. Or jumping forward to Bach, the "trick" to fighting him is understanding his teleport-immunity cycles and exploiting that to your advantage. So a lot of the bosses do have "tricks or exploits" that can be discovered by the observant and puzzle solving inclined players. The difficulty is that for players who can not, or do not want to try to, discover the special routes and how they work... special routes do not exist and all they get is endless combat... Which is almost all players going by how prevalent the sentiment is that as the game progresses it devolves into combat only. Because the boss exploits are designed and executed in the same way as the special routes, all these same players will probably also be unable or unwilling to discover, understand, benefit from the boss exploits.
@@MikeRobertsGaming Makes sense, thank you! I also gave it some thought and realized that most bosses respond well to Dementation (level 3) and Animalism (level 5) in particular, so there is some sneaky clan bonus too. Good point about Brother Kanker, I just recently discovered those valves (after I already beat him and was just looking around). But you are right, I played this game for an eternity (on and off) and I was amazed watching your videos, I never knew the cafeteria statue could be scaled, or never even seriously considered sneaking through the Golden Temple, for example. Or jumping on the box and over the fence and circling back out of the warehouse. I think part of it is that especially in the late game my character is always so powerful that even if the game throws a dozen enemies at it, (any of which could have been a proper bossfight in Santa Monica), I can hadle them pretty easily, so I was never forced to sneak around. Like with 10-11 defense I can pretty much stand there while 5 guys with sword give the air a good slashing around me. Then after the 10th - 20th run one just doesn't really keep looking for new ways/routes. Anyway, I wanted to say thanks again, it brought back good memories when I realized that I had also discovered in my first few games all those years ago that if I drop down the vent in the clinic I end up in the room with Malcom's key behind the morgue doors. Only I forgot it since, because I kept doing a "more optimal" route. But your video gave back that feeling of discovery and wonder I felt then. Also I forgot about the half ladder in the warehouse, never figured that one out. I'm really happy you made these videos, thank you!
Thanks, I think I'm doing ok. Hope you are also finding yourself well. Ever put off calling someone for so long it became an embarrassment? Then it became a double jeopardy circle, more embarrassing feeds into procrastination... which feeds back into more embarrassment... That's sort of how I feel about my procrastination in starting a video series I've been planning for a few months now. I'm sure I'll break the cycle and start any day now! 😉
I agree to disagree :)! Yes, Troika planned these special routes, but I don't think they telegraphed them as obviously as you believe. Take the "silent doors" on the Dane. All of them have a sound set which isn't played because of a wrong path in the sound archive. Which means that in 16 other maps about 40 other doors are silent too. Do you really think all of these are special route doors? No, this is a simple bug which just accidentally works on the Dane. Where you can go the special route even with these doors having sounds. I am not sure about the handles as well, you yourself claim that the unlocked doors at the warehouse and the monestary are intentional, how does this fit together with your theory that every special route door must be locked? It's not consistent at all! I never played the other two games of Troika but I never had the impression that they would handhold the player this much in the first place. No quest markers in the hud or on the maps! I can rather imagine that Activision's QA department played the game and asked Troika to mark or open some of these routes so that player can find them. It's very obvious in the Venture Tower cafeteria: the mapper made the sculpture in the middle climbable for everybody who can't lockpick the exit door which was quite a bit of work. Then somebody else unlocked this door and all his work went to waste forever...
"I agree to disagree :)! Yes, Troika planned these special routes, but I don't think they telegraphed them as obviously as you believe. Take the "silent doors" on the Dane. All of them have a sound set which isn't played because of a wrong path in the sound archive. Which means that in 16 other maps about 40 other doors are silent too. Do you really think all of these are special route doors? No, this is a simple bug which just accidentally works on the Dane. Where you can go the special route even with these doors having sounds. I am not sure about the handles as well, you yourself claim that the unlocked doors at the warehouse and the monestary are intentional, how does this fit together with your theory that every special route door must be locked? It's not consistent at all! I never played the other two games of Troika but I never had the impression that they would handhold the player this much in the first place. No quest markers in the hud or on the maps! I can rather imagine that Activision's QA department played the game and asked Troika to mark or open some of these routes so that player can find them. It's very obvious in the Venture Tower cafeteria: the mapper made the sculpture in the middle climbable for everybody who can't lockpick the exit door which was quite a bit of work. Then somebody else unlocked this door and all his work went to waste forever.." In the first video I said "... to me, in screaming letters that says okay the door without handles is part of a special route... or it's a bug. For me it's super important being that I am involved in fixing bugs that I be able to distinguish between those two." And I have done that, to as much an extent as possible in the time I've had working on my patch. In the first video I also said that "... the setting is different and the items are different but the concept is the same. So, the important thing is to understand the concept." The concept being that we are looking for the "odd" thing. When I referred to locked doors being part of the route it was because in that map locked and unlocked doors was part of the gag for that map/route. If a person watched... and understood to some level I suppose... all three videos they should know that locked doors aren't part of some "universal rule" because it isn't true in any of the videos, not even this one. The door at SOL fits because we are looking for the things that are different, or odd, or just make me go hum? That is the concept. Which at SOL is the "one" exterior door without handles. Also IMO if a person understands and follows the special route it leads to that "one" door using other gags and mechanics that are consistently used to the end of the SOL maps. My point about the unlocked door at the warehouse was that it isn't malformed in any way, it appears to work as coded and is even labeled in a way that matches the way it works. So it doesn't meet my criteria for being a bug. In the first Dee Dee video I said that in the beginning I thought all these things were bugs and was fixing them. Only to have to reverse many of those things as I learned more about the game and began to understand that not every odd or weird thing was a bug. My difficulty with your methodology is that a lot of your ideas are just stories to me. You imagine that QA asked for the changes in the game, or imagine what Troika would have wanted, or... Those are not things that can be checked or verified. A person can just say that makes sense... or not. However, in the case of the doors on the Dane that is something that can be checked but is probably beyond the technical capability of most viewers even if they were inclined to want to verify. Which I imagine most people would not be inclined to question given your status in the community as well as the simple fact that checking often requires a lot of effort and dedication. I think it was Kant that famously said ... ain't nobody got time for that! ... okay he didn't really say that but I did take it as his meaning :) The silent doors on the Dane are not because of a "wrong path in the sound archive" they are silent because the spawnflag is set to a value of 4096 which denotes a silent door. It is actually set to 4352 but the additional bits add other meanings. The point being I want players to check my statements, I want them to question, go in the game and check for themselves. I wish for players to check/experience the game/my patch for themselves. I hope these videos might help with that endeavor in case a player ever did want to investigate. In terms of the Ventrue tower door in the cafeteria, your idea is just another story to me, could be true for all I know. The point being I can't know and my methodology/definition for how my mod is executed precludes me from making those kind of changes... even if I were inclined to agree with your idea. The player can do the tower jumping puzzle regardless of if that door is locked or unlocked, I've done it many times, it's even in one of my videos. Same with the train puzzle, same with solving the Grout candle puzzle by solving the riddle.
@@MikeRobertsGaming Oh, you are right about the doors on the Dane, I compared the sounds on my current installation where I had more extracted than I fixed in the patch and assumed there was a pathing error which there wasn't. Still I believe your reasoning is too inconsistent. Are there other doors that were made silent for special routes? How can finding the odd thing point to those in a game with so many bugs? I believe we already discussed it, but the SOL backdoor handle is in the map, only somebody forgot to name the door itself so it isn't shown. Mistake or intention? Why not remove the handle instead? As for the Venture Tower, the unlocked door nearby is locked from the other side which nobody will ever see except if they do the sculpture climb, which to me is a definite hint that this was changed as an afterthought. Anyway, I agree with you that Inspection should be the thing to point to such routes, which is why I added one to the temple route now, where the handles were messed up all over the place too. Like only being on one side or not being a handle at all just a dynamic prop and more. In summary our viewpoints seem to differ in that I want the whole world to be consistent, in which exploration should make you find special routes without needing breadcrumbs!
@@wesp5 Just for clarification I disagree "that Inspection should be the thing to point to such routes", most strenuously! Not commenting on your decision, just clarifying that my viewpoint isn't at all as implied by your post. If our viewpoints were not different what would be the point of making another patch? They could hardly be more different. It's frustrating that I don't seem to be able to communicate that difference but I'll be trying again in the next Dee Dee video.
@@MikeRobertsGaming I'm pretty sure I get the difference, but I disagree with many of your interpretations. Like what kind of sense do silent doors make for a special route, when you can only notice they are silent once you open them? If their sound broke your stealth approach, it would be already too late! Even if Troika had planned it that way, it does not make sense, because it only validates the route after you have found it. Seeing a locked door is a much better approach, because in many places this actually makes sense, like the front door is open and guarded (beachhouse, warehouse, society, temple...) but a side- or back-door is locked and unguarded. Inspection is even better as a reward for players who invest in it.
Yea the Hunters Hunting quest with Ash Rivers in the Asp Hole. The player has two choices, the social change clothes route or this sewer combat route. They both pay the same XP but the combat route doubles the cash payout.
Hey Mike! Awesome stuff! I was wondering what's your take on bossfights as in relation to the special routes. The thought that kept popping up in my head was this is awesome one can do these routes sneakily, but in the end there is a boss waiting who will be tough to fight. What I'm getting at is I don't recall the bosses having specific weaknesses to exploit, but that would have been a nice complement the sneaky approach. Like they are especially weak to the disciplines of the sneakier clans or such. Cheers!
Thank you. That is an interesting idea as I've never thought about it in those terms. One thing I love about the original game is how consistently the design is executed... in my opinion anyway. What I mean is the special routes are based on the player being observant and solving increasingly complex puzzles to understand where they are and how to effectively benefit from them. And several bosses are designed in this same way, with increasingly complex puzzles to solve that provide some "benefit" in the fight with them.
Going back to Brother Kanker, which is one of the "simplest" special routes and the "trick" to fighting him is also very simple, as well as being tied to the special route itself. Or jumping forward to Bach, the "trick" to fighting him is understanding his teleport-immunity cycles and exploiting that to your advantage. So a lot of the bosses do have "tricks or exploits" that can be discovered by the observant and puzzle solving inclined players.
The difficulty is that for players who can not, or do not want to try to, discover the special routes and how they work... special routes do not exist and all they get is endless combat... Which is almost all players going by how prevalent the sentiment is that as the game progresses it devolves into combat only. Because the boss exploits are designed and executed in the same way as the special routes, all these same players will probably also be unable or unwilling to discover, understand, benefit from the boss exploits.
@@MikeRobertsGaming Makes sense, thank you! I also gave it some thought and realized that most bosses respond well to Dementation (level 3) and Animalism (level 5) in particular, so there is some sneaky clan bonus too. Good point about Brother Kanker, I just recently discovered those valves (after I already beat him and was just looking around).
But you are right, I played this game for an eternity (on and off) and I was amazed watching your videos, I never knew the cafeteria statue could be scaled, or never even seriously considered sneaking through the Golden Temple, for example. Or jumping on the box and over the fence and circling back out of the warehouse.
I think part of it is that especially in the late game my character is always so powerful that even if the game throws a dozen enemies at it, (any of which could have been a proper bossfight in Santa Monica), I can hadle them pretty easily, so I was never forced to sneak around. Like with 10-11 defense I can pretty much stand there while 5 guys with sword give the air a good slashing around me. Then after the 10th - 20th run one just doesn't really keep looking for new ways/routes.
Anyway, I wanted to say thanks again, it brought back good memories when I realized that I had also discovered in my first few games all those years ago that if I drop down the vent in the clinic I end up in the room with Malcom's key behind the morgue doors. Only I forgot it since, because I kept doing a "more optimal" route. But your video gave back that feeling of discovery and wonder I felt then. Also I forgot about the half ladder in the warehouse, never figured that one out. I'm really happy you made these videos, thank you!
Hope you're ok, Mike. Been kinda quiet of late
Thanks, I think I'm doing ok. Hope you are also finding yourself well. Ever put off calling someone for so long it became an embarrassment? Then it became a double jeopardy circle, more embarrassing feeds into procrastination... which feeds back into more embarrassment... That's sort of how I feel about my procrastination in starting a video series I've been planning for a few months now. I'm sure I'll break the cycle and start any day now! 😉
@@MikeRobertsGaming Breaks are good, we never expect content. Just good to know you're out there still grinding
Hey, do you have something new? Maybe another walkthrough?😊
Yea planned but no ETA, I've been procrastinating on it for a few weeks now!
Great explanation, Mike! I used to always struggle in the Giovanni catacombs...i wonder what intuitive layout i was just missing
Thank you, I appreciate that. Yea the struggle can be real at times, you should see me play Factorio... like a complete boss... not! :)
I agree to disagree :)! Yes, Troika planned these special routes, but I don't think they telegraphed them as obviously as you believe. Take the "silent doors" on the Dane. All of them have a sound set which isn't played because of a wrong path in the sound archive. Which means that in 16 other maps about 40 other doors are silent too. Do you really think all of these are special route doors? No, this is a simple bug which just accidentally works on the Dane. Where you can go the special route even with these doors having sounds. I am not sure about the handles as well, you yourself claim that the unlocked doors at the warehouse and the monestary are intentional, how does this fit together with your theory that every special route door must be locked? It's not consistent at all! I never played the other two games of Troika but I never had the impression that they would handhold the player this much in the first place. No quest markers in the hud or on the maps! I can rather imagine that Activision's QA department played the game and asked Troika to mark or open some of these routes so that player can find them. It's very obvious in the Venture Tower cafeteria: the mapper made the sculpture in the middle climbable for everybody who can't lockpick the exit door which was quite a bit of work. Then somebody else unlocked this door and all his work went to waste forever...
"I agree to disagree :)! Yes, Troika planned these special routes, but I don't think they telegraphed them as obviously as you believe. Take the "silent doors" on the Dane. All of them have a sound set which isn't played because of a wrong path in the sound archive. Which means that in 16 other maps about 40 other doors are silent too. Do you really think all of these are special route doors? No, this is a simple bug which just accidentally works on the Dane. Where you can go the special route even with these doors having sounds. I am not sure about the handles as well, you yourself claim that the unlocked doors at the warehouse and the monestary are intentional, how does this fit together with your theory that every special route door must be locked? It's not consistent at all! I never played the other two games of Troika but I never had the impression that they would handhold the player this much in the first place. No quest markers in the hud or on the maps! I can rather imagine that Activision's QA department played the game and asked Troika to mark or open some of these routes so that player can find them. It's very obvious in the Venture Tower cafeteria: the mapper made the sculpture in the middle climbable for everybody who can't lockpick the exit door which was quite a bit of work. Then somebody else unlocked this door and all his work went to waste forever.."
In the first video I said "... to me, in screaming letters that says okay the door without handles is part of a special route... or it's a bug. For me it's super important being that I am involved in fixing bugs that I be able to distinguish between those two." And I have done that, to as much an extent as possible in the time I've had working on my patch.
In the first video I also said that "... the setting is different and the items are different but the concept is the same. So, the important thing is to understand the concept." The concept being that we are looking for the "odd" thing. When I referred to locked doors being part of the route it was because in that map locked and unlocked doors was part of the gag for that map/route. If a person watched... and understood to some level I suppose... all three videos they should know that locked doors aren't part of some "universal rule" because it isn't true in any of the videos, not even this one.
The door at SOL fits because we are looking for the things that are different, or odd, or just make me go hum? That is the concept. Which at SOL is the "one" exterior door without handles. Also IMO if a person understands and follows the special route it leads to that "one" door using other gags and mechanics that are consistently used to the end of the SOL maps.
My point about the unlocked door at the warehouse was that it isn't malformed in any way, it appears to work as coded and is even labeled in a way that matches the way it works. So it doesn't meet my criteria for being a bug. In the first Dee Dee video I said that in the beginning I thought all these things were bugs and was fixing them. Only to have to reverse many of those things as I learned more about the game and began to understand that not every odd or weird thing was a bug.
My difficulty with your methodology is that a lot of your ideas are just stories to me. You imagine that QA asked for the changes in the game, or imagine what Troika would have wanted, or... Those are not things that can be checked or verified. A person can just say that makes sense... or not. However, in the case of the doors on the Dane that is something that can be checked but is probably beyond the technical capability of most viewers even if they were inclined to want to verify. Which I imagine most people would not be inclined to question given your status in the community as well as the simple fact that checking often requires a lot of effort and dedication. I think it was Kant that famously said ... ain't nobody got time for that! ... okay he didn't really say that but I did take it as his meaning :)
The silent doors on the Dane are not because of a "wrong path in the sound archive" they are silent because the spawnflag is set to a value of 4096 which denotes a silent door. It is actually set to 4352 but the additional bits add other meanings. The point being I want players to check my statements, I want them to question, go in the game and check for themselves. I wish for players to check/experience the game/my patch for themselves. I hope these videos might help with that endeavor in case a player ever did want to investigate.
In terms of the Ventrue tower door in the cafeteria, your idea is just another story to me, could be true for all I know. The point being I can't know and my methodology/definition for how my mod is executed precludes me from making those kind of changes... even if I were inclined to agree with your idea. The player can do the tower jumping puzzle regardless of if that door is locked or unlocked, I've done it many times, it's even in one of my videos. Same with the train puzzle, same with solving the Grout candle puzzle by solving the riddle.
@@MikeRobertsGaming Oh, you are right about the doors on the Dane, I compared the sounds on my current installation where I had more extracted than I fixed in the patch and assumed there was a pathing error which there wasn't. Still I believe your reasoning is too inconsistent. Are there other doors that were made silent for special routes? How can finding the odd thing point to those in a game with so many bugs? I believe we already discussed it, but the SOL backdoor handle is in the map, only somebody forgot to name the door itself so it isn't shown. Mistake or intention? Why not remove the handle instead? As for the Venture Tower, the unlocked door nearby is locked from the other side which nobody will ever see except if they do the sculpture climb, which to me is a definite hint that this was changed as an afterthought. Anyway, I agree with you that Inspection should be the thing to point to such routes, which is why I added one to the temple route now, where the handles were messed up all over the place too. Like only being on one side or not being a handle at all just a dynamic prop and more. In summary our viewpoints seem to differ in that I want the whole world to be consistent, in which exploration should make you find special routes without needing breadcrumbs!
@@wesp5 Just for clarification I disagree "that Inspection should be the thing to point to such routes", most strenuously! Not commenting on your decision, just clarifying that my viewpoint isn't at all as implied by your post.
If our viewpoints were not different what would be the point of making another patch? They could hardly be more different. It's frustrating that I don't seem to be able to communicate that difference but I'll be trying again in the next Dee Dee video.
@@MikeRobertsGaming I'm pretty sure I get the difference, but I disagree with many of your interpretations. Like what kind of sense do silent doors make for a special route, when you can only notice they are silent once you open them? If their sound broke your stealth approach, it would be already too late! Even if Troika had planned it that way, it does not make sense, because it only validates the route after you have found it. Seeing a locked door is a much better approach, because in many places this actually makes sense, like the front door is open and guarded (beachhouse, warehouse, society, temple...) but a side- or back-door is locked and unguarded. Inspection is even better as a reward for players who invest in it.
The second area with the train, is it from a sidequest? I don't remember it.
Yea the Hunters Hunting quest with Ash Rivers in the Asp Hole. The player has two choices, the social change clothes route or this sewer combat route. They both pay the same XP but the combat route doubles the cash payout.