Grabbed this in the Fanatical bundle even though I knew about its bad reputation - loved Deathloop, Prey, and the Dishonoreds, so I thought it was worth a shot for seven bucks. It's striking to me how much worse it feels than any of those games, but I'm trying to enjoy it.

There are several things I find maddening, though. Can anybody who has played a while give me an idea on these?

- Sometimes you can stealth stake/melee cultists and vampires, but sometimes you can't - even if you have a stake weapon equipped, the option to stake never appears and if you press F anyway you just do a wimpy punch. Is this a bug, or is there any way to know who you can and can't stealth-kill?
- Sometimes you can UV shatter a vampire, but sometimes you can't - sometimes they just take a teeny bit of damage from the shatter instead. Is this a boss/sub-boss thing?
- The stake-thrower seems incredibly weak unless I do it from stealth, and even then it often doesn't kill the vampires. Am I doing something wrong?
- Those damned vampire nests... are there going to be several of them every time I boot the game, no matter how many I killed last time? Does this mean I should ignore them and let them grow, since they keep coming back anyway? Seems like about all I do anymore is try to stay on top of the nests since they're constantly respawning.
- I tried to upgrade Jacob's raven, but the perk that does damage only works sometimes: sometimes it injures enemies, sometimes it injures them a few seconds later, and sometimes it doesn't injure them at all. Also, sometimes it will pass right by a vampire without marking him (is the range really that limited without the upgrade?). Is this working as intended?
- Also tried out Jacob's ultimate at Level 5, and did virtually no damage to the cultists I was surrounded by. Is this working as intended?

I miss Deathloop.