Why are there only 4 clans?

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

The first one had 7.

[💚SuperMax💚]

And what are those 4?

[Minnzy]

Because taking things out and selling them as DLC is what Paradox wants... ok, calling out only Paradox for the "norm" now is unfair. It's just something people began accepting so now most people do it.

Originally posted by 💚SuperMax💚:

And what are those 4?

So far? Tremere, Brujah, Assasmites (Or whatever the ♥♥♥♥ they're called now) and most likely Ventrue.

[Amadeo]

Originally posted by How Bizzah:

Why are there only 4 clans? The first one had 7.

Because the original had three.

[CapJackRackham]

Originally posted by Amadeo:

Originally posted by How Bizzah:

Why are there only 4 clans? The first one had 7.

Because the original had three.

And they were?

[Amadeo]

Originally posted by CapJackRackham:

Originally posted by Amadeo:

Because the original had three.

And they were?

Malkavian, Nosferatu, and Vanilla.

[CapJackRackham]

Originally posted by Amadeo:

Originally posted by CapJackRackham:

And they were?

Malkavian, Nosferatu, and Vanilla.

If you want to pigeon hole Brujha, Gangrel, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue as Vanilla then that's up to you.

Fact is, there were 7 clans.

[Amadeo]

Originally posted by CapJackRackham:

Originally posted by Amadeo:

Malkavian, Nosferatu, and Vanilla.

If you want to pigeon hole Brujha, Gangrel, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue as Vanilla then that's up to you.

Fact is, there were 7 clans.

I didn't mean to imply that these clans were indistinguishable in the table-top RPG. I meant that, as far as VtMB went, it was practically the same clan with different disciplines.

If TCR ensures that there are clan-specific lines in every major dialogue, that the game incorporates clan quests, clan-specific Havens, artifacts, and other rewards, then their choice to limit the number of playable bloodlines will be justifiable.

[Hanok]

Because many of you well buy $29 DLC for the additional clans. Knowing this why would they give us a complete package from the start?

[CapJackRackham]

Originally posted by Amadeo:

Originally posted by CapJackRackham:

If you want to pigeon hole Brujha, Gangrel, Toreador, Tremere and Ventrue as Vanilla then that's up to you.

Fact is, there were 7 clans.

I didn't mean to imply that these clans were indistinguishable in the table-top RPG. I meant that, as far as VtMB went, it was practically the same clan with different disciplines.

If TCR ensures that there are clan-specific lines in every major dialogue, that the game incorporates clan quests, clan-specific Havens, artifacts, and other rewards, then their choice to limit the number of playable bloodlines will be justifiable.

To be fair, we had an element of clan specifics.

In terms of Havens,

Everyone had An apartment above Trip's Pawnshop.
Nosferatu had A room underneath Downtown in the sewers.
Tremere had A room inside the Tremere Chantry Downtown.
Some had the The 4th floor room of the Skyeline Apartments in Downtown.
Whilst others had to make do with the pawn shop only.

Dialogue - Again we had elements of clan specific.

We had extra dialogues when speaking to our own clan such as VV, Gary, The Prince etc...Max gave us extra upgrade on stats due to training us as a Tremere.

So there were elements in the original.

But the concern with TCR version of bloodlines 2 is that we have bits of extras like we had in bloodlines 1 but with less clans.

It's implausible to have a 1 character story such as Phyres yet have so much customised dialogue and rewards that eclipses what we had in the original. It's boarding on have different stories, and that is what they aren't giving us. We know this because 1 of the DLC will be a unique way of playing the game whilst the other DLC will be a new story.

Worse still...they said in the Narrative and RPG that the reason for 4 clans was to have various ways to fight. I'm paraphrasing here but he stated you can fight close combat with Brujha. There wasn't any real indication that we are getting any major differences beyond what we had in VTMB which as you said was basically the discipline's.

I'm be more than happy to be proven wrong upon it's release (Unless we are told prior to release).

[Clever Name]

Originally posted by W.R. Winter:

Originally posted by Amadeo:

I didn't mean to imply that these clans were indistinguishable in the table-top RPG. I meant that, as far as VtMB went, it was practically the same clan with different disciplines.

If TCR ensures that there are clan-specific lines in every major dialogue, that the game incorporates clan quests, clan-specific Havens, artifacts, and other rewards, then their choice to limit the number of playable bloodlines will be justifiable.

if that's your logic I hope you're prepared for the truth:

VTMB2 will have 2 clans.

Unless they're utterly incompetent, at the very least the Tremere should play very differently from the Banu Haqim.

Brujah will likely be the weakest playthrough, since they are so shallow as a clan. I suspect it will be the default vampire experience. I guess it would depend on just how often we're forced to do something stupid, like rebel against authority in the middle of talking to someone with authority.

Whatever the final clan is, will likely be less boring than Brujah, but not as sharply defined as the Tremere/Haqim should be.

[Axus]

Originally posted by W.R. Winter:

of course they'll play differently, point being they likely won't play much more differently than Tremere vs Ventrue in VTMB1.

From what we've seen so far, what makes you say this? The only direct evidence we have is from the second dev video diary with the narrative team where they say they are giving a lot of attention to clan-specific choices and outcomes. So far, it looks like the clans will be more differentiated than BL1's few dialogue choices here and there and a couple extra rooms.

[Anvos]

Originally posted by How Bizzah:

The first one had 7.

Well part of it is TCR is salvaging something from the HSL mess in a limited time frame. Then add in Phyre is supposed to have a certain narrative that some clans would derail, due to their divergent narrative clan nature. Plus it seems like their aiming for clans to actually be semi-distinct, without going full on divergent narrative.

[Amadeo]

Originally posted by W.R. Winter:

Originally posted by Amadeo:

I didn't mean to imply that these clans were indistinguishable in the table-top RPG. I meant that, as far as VtMB went, it was practically the same clan with different disciplines.

If TCR ensures that there are clan-specific lines in every major dialogue, that the game incorporates clan quests, clan-specific Havens, artifacts, and other rewards, then their choice to limit the number of playable bloodlines will be justifiable.

if that's your logic I hope you're prepared for the truth:

VTMB2 will have 2 clans.

You're an optimist! I'm fully prepared for the game to have one clan with four partially different sets of disciplines.

[CapJackRackham]

Originally posted by W.R. Winter:

Originally posted by CapJackRackham:

Dialogue - Again we had elements of clan specific.

there are other, more subtle differences like Toreador getting locked out of high humanity responses. humanity is never a problem for the other clans unless you're playing like a complete psychopath but as Toreador it's a somewhat significant.

I'm pretty sure Toreador can hit high humanity, it's just the gains and loses are doubled.

The Tremere can't raise Physical Attribute above 4.

But yes some are subtle whilst affecting others more significantly.

[CapJackRackham]

Originally posted by Anvos:

Originally posted by How Bizzah:

The first one had 7.

Well part of it is TCR is salvaging something from the HSL mess in a limited time frame. Then add in Phyre is supposed to have a certain narrative that some clans would derail, due to their divergent narrative clan nature. Plus it seems like their aiming for clans to actually be semi-distinct, without going full on divergent narrative.

You've hit the nail on the head...Phyre!

The time it takes to complete each dialogue section with us being able to see Phyre speak, all the work of giving a 1 character playthrough...this is why we have 4 clans. TCR have no experience creating an RPG...this is their first and it clearly shows. Spending too much time on aspects that matter little and not enough time on the aspects the fans wanted.

It's literally more like Swansong with combat than it is bloodlines (Based on what we've seen/read/heard so far).

Bloodlines had enough of a divergence from each other that it made it replayable even to this day so it's not due to being semi-distinctive. And if anything, it's technically worse by making them more distinctive because the the more distinctive they are, the more restrictive they are. This in turn leads to a lack of customisation and a lack of replayability.

Bloodlines you could play a stealthy Brujha, a brawling toreador etc. All that's gone if they are clamped down to basically 1 way of playing in order to make each clan unique. If it was going to take that route, you'd need every clan going to be in the game to ensure maximum replayability.

Otherwise you are relying on the dialogue being so different as to make it replayable which won't happen without creating a different way of playing (Which is 1 of the DLC).

The best we can hope for is dialogue options similar to bloodlines 1 but with 4 clans, it's already less than what we were expecting.