Mod News Vampire Masquerade unofficial patch 3.6 primed and ready

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines; VTMB Unofficial Patch

A new version of the unofficial patch for <a href=http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/>Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines</a> has been released, this time going up to version 3.6. As before, it's meant to be applied over the official v.1.2 patch. Here are some of this version's changes:<blockquote>*Fixed player shown alive at wrong endings and restored warform hop.
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*Repaired Boris, Kerri, Mercurio, Heather and newscaster dialogues.
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*Fixed lockpicking and pickup sounds and some NPCs not staying dead.
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*Adjusted Heather's last clothes, more props and minor text issues.
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*Repaired Blood Strike, Salvo and Purge working sometimes not right.
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*Fixed two wrong auras in Santa Monica clinic and endgame taxi bug.
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*Restored Desert Eagle ammo model and fixed other inventory details.
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*Swapped several female hunters that were talking with male voices.
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*Fixed Domination, replica katana and Empire hotel lockpicking bugs.
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*Corrected conditions for Vandal, Trip and Mercurio during endgame.
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*Replaced broken female fire axe texture, thanks to Offkorn and Doe.</blockquote>Get the full notes and patch download at <a href=http://www.planetvampire.com/files/vtmbup36.zip>Planet Vampire</a>.
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Thanks to <b>Wesp5</b> for the heads up in our forums.

 

[Fez]

I see you learn fast.

 

[Wesp5]

Thanks to <b>Wesp5</b> for the heads up in our forums.

Just for those that didn't follow the older thread, comments on this forum
were reasons for several other changes that Role-Player didn't mention in his
announcement. These were among the following gameplay tweaks:

Added config and commands for multiplayer support, thanks to Exulx.
Made Trip sell bat and tire iron from start and added basic patch.
Restored lines of Andrei, Gary, Trip, Mercurio and for two endings.
Made serial killer react to violence and Bertram react to attacks.
Changed warehouse bonus xp to stealth and corrected magazine sizes.
Raised condition for Jeanette encounter and removed connected bug.
Made getting secret informations from Knox and Johansen consistent.
Swapped passive durations and security items between Ox and haven.
Delayed body armor until bloodhunt and repaired npctemplate* error.
Moved flamethrower to last Society level and Ra blade near Andrei.
Removed xp for Bruno and tutorial skipping and Empire clerk change.

It should also be noted that for anyone who thinks some of these changes
go to far I included a more basic patch that stays closer to the original:

Basic Patch:
------------
Extracting the vampire folder in BASIC over the regular vampire
folder will revert some of the more controversial patch changes:

+ No bonus xp for freeing Ash from the Leopold Society, letting
Julius go, leaving Zhao alive or getting Imalia's magazine.
+ No humanity changes with Copper, Imalia, Ash, Julius, Killer,
Wong Ho, Hannah, Jeannette, Tourette and the charity money.
+ Books are available again from Trip (but the duplicates will
stay in the other levels to ease the double usage exploit).
+ Occult items and blood are available again from Tseng (with
Galdjum instead of Fae Charm because of the Isaac issue).
+ CD quest restored to Nosferatu and second Imalia quest removed.
+ Larry quest condition restored and Jeanette encounter removed.
+ All weapon names and firing stats restored to originals.
+ All three restored occult items removed from the game.
+ Ox gives money as reward and Venus her original cut.
+ Conditions for Christopher and Johansen restored.
+ No SWAT rifle and armor buyable from Mercurio.
+ No crossbows buyable from Slater and Tseng.

Compared to the bug-fixes-only patch made without permission and
giving proper credit out of patch 3.3, the basic patch still includes:

+ Most enemies will drop their weapons on death.
+ All illogical spawning and respawning is removed.
+ Some enemies and all cops will carry different weapons.
+ Many dialogue lines, models and encounters have been restored.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Just for those that didn't follow the older thread, comments on this forum were reasons for several other changes that Role-Player didn't mention in his
announcement.

We usually don't mention all the information in changelogs. Sometimes the supplied changelog might be too long to feature on the main page and we point out several changes, and suggest readers are advised at the end of the post to look for the full list of changes in the files accompanying the patch; hence why the news item stated "here are some changes".

If you want the news item to mention all those changes, I can try posting them there but it can skewer the position of the previous news posts.

 

[Fez]

It's best if only the more interesting things are included. No one needs to see a three page changelog of minor details on the front page. If they want that then they can delve in to read it themselves through the provided links.

 

[Jaesun]

Glad to see you now have a Basic patch Wesp5. *thumbs up*

 

[MountainWest]

Yea, thanks for the basic patch Wesp. Perhaps this time I'll actually finish the damn game.

 

[Wesp5]

If you want the news item to mention all those changes, I can try posting them there but it can skewer the position of the previous news posts.

No problem, everything can stay like it is. Anyone interested can read the comments. I just thought that the info about the multiplayer and the basic patch was worth mentioning, especially as the latter was discussed here a lot and you guys were one reason I included it in the first place !

 

[Deacdo]

Is there a patch to upgrade the 1.35 edition? Don't want to dl the whole thing over again (I'm a little short on bandwidth).

 

[Wesp5]

Is there a patch to upgrade the 1.35 edition? Don't want to dl the whole thing over again (I'm a little short on bandwidth).

Sorry, there is no incremental update because this would mean another patch version to maintain and I have trouble with keeping the normal and basic versions separate and up-to-date already right now .

BTW, after 3.6 has been released I remembered this posting and went to look for a solution:

The problem is the game doesn't quite follow the P&P rules. It would be much more difficult (and imo better) if there was no health regeneration. Instead there should be a blood healing discipline as in P&P. So if the character gets hit, he must use some of his precious blood to heal himself - or in the case of aggravated damage, a lot of blood.

I found an unfinished Blood Heal discipline in the game and made it work ! The moment you activate it your heal rate will increase for the typical Blood Buff duration, otherwise your automatic heal rate will be much slower than usual and I also adjusted the connected history and powerup. It doesn't work on aggravated damage though and the original version will of course be available through the basic patch.

 

[Texas Red]

Wesp, can you help me?

First of all I cant get the quest from FAT Larry the salesman. He never mentions it and I dont have dialog option for it.

Second, Ash, the vampire owner of Asp Hole... I cant even *initiate* a conversation with him.

If I download the latest patch and install it, will I have problems? Can I continue playing my saved games?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

First of all I cant get the quest from FAT Larry the salesman. He never mentions it and I dont have dialog option for it.

You probably already know this but... Did you buy a weapon from his first? Larry will only give you the quest if you purchase a weapon only - no other type of equipment. Just making sure.

 

[Texas Red]

First of all I cant get the quest from FAT Larry the salesman. He never mentions it and I dont have dialog option for it.

You probably already know this but... Did you buy a weapon from his first? Larry will only give you the quest if you purchase a weapon only - no other type of equipment. Just making sure.

Hmmm, this might just work. I only bought shotgun ammo from him.

But this still leaves the problem with Ash open though.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I found an unfinished Blood Heal discipline in the game and made it work ! The moment you activate it your heal rate will increase for the typical Blood Buff duration, otherwise your automatic heal rate will be much slower than usual and I also adjusted the connected history and powerup. It doesn't work on aggravated damage though and the original version will of course be available through the basic patch.

If this could be made to work properly, it would certainly add a lot of challenge into the game. But it also requires significant changes in the original gameplay. For one thing, it looks like going against what Jack tells you when you get shot during the tutorial (something like "Those will close up soon. Better heal though."). So Did Troika leave this unfinished, or was it simply abandoned in favor of a simpler passive regeneration solution? I would advise against making it the default option in your patch. Especially if it can't be made to work completely. Make it an extra-challenge optional fix instead (similar to the basic patch option in the 3.6). In the same way you could do something about the vastly overpowered Blood Buff as well (changing the effects to +1 to all physical stats instead of maximizing them would be a good compromise here).

I hope you get the balance right if you are going for the Blood Heal. I think you should kill (or at least cripple as much as possible) the passive regeneration (including the regeneration during feeding) and make the Blood Heal brief (lasting a few seconds) but very powerful. I don't think you should be going after the perfect simulation of the P&P effects as they would probably make such a combat-centric game next to impossible - in P&P 1 blood point heals 1/7 of total hit points of bash/lethal damage and it takes 5 times as much blood to heal the same amount of aggravated damage. I think that for example 1 blood point for 1/3 of total hit points of bash/lethal damage with 3 times slower healing of aggravated damage would be a better option.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Sorry TWD, can't think of a way to handle the Ash problem. I know some NPCs will not talk to the PC if he or she fed on them - for instance, feeding on the scriptwriter whom VV will want you to steal the script from will break the quest since you can't talk to him afterwards.

I'm not sure this could be the case with Ash. If it was, you'd best reload a previous save. If not... Something else I can't think of, sorry.

 

[mr nobuddy]

Er, afaik, humans will only be unable to talk to you for a few minutes after you fed. Just leave the game going for 5 minutes (while still in the same "level") and you should be able to talk to them.

 

[Wesp5]

For one thing, it looks like going against what Jack tells you when you get shot during the tutorial (something like "Those will close up soon. Better heal though."). So Did Troika leave this unfinished, or was it simply abandoned in favor of a simpler passive regeneration solution?

I don't know. The graphics were in there but the actual heal effect was missing so it looked rather more unfinished than disabled. Regarding the tutorial this is no problem as I left the automatic healing in and only slowed it down to half it's original speed. This way the occult heal rate powerup and Cadaverous Flesh history still make sense.

In the same way you could do something about the vastly overpowered Blood Buff as well (changing the effects to +1 to all physical stats instead of maximizing them would be a good compromise here).

I could easily do this but wouldn't it leave players stranded in some situation if they hadn't increased security? How is Blood Buff (Corpus Vampirus) handled in the PnP game?

I hope you get the balance right if you are going for the Blood Heal.

The current solution was just done by rule of thumb, it would probably need some feedback of players so see if it works fine. But then the normal feed healing is still possible in cases of emergency .

 

[Zero Credibility]

I don't know. The graphics were in there but the actual heal effect was missing so it looked rather more unfinished than disabled. Regarding the tutorial this is no problem as I left the automatic healing in and only slowed it down to half it's original speed. This way the occult heal rate powerup and Cadaverous Flesh history still make sense.

I don't think that slowing regeneration to half speed would be enough to make the Blood Heal a very useful alternative. Now something like 1/10 of the original regeneration speed - that would do the trick.

I could easily do this but wouldn't it leave players stranded in some situation if they hadn't increased security? How is Blood Buff (Corpus Vampirus) handled in the PnP game?

Not this way. Blood Buff in P&P allows you to use 1 blood point to improve one of the physical stats by one point. Effects are cumulative, so you can continue using the blood until you max out the stat. Actually, the original P&P Blood Buff is mentioned in the traiteffects file (just before the Corpus Vampirus, with the "Blood Buffs are no longer used" comment on it). What with that and with the removed Blood Heal, it really looks like at some point in development the P&P system was "streamlined" to simplify the gameplay.

The current solution was just done by rule of thumb, it would probably need some feedback of players so see if it works fine. But then the normal feed healing is still possible in cases of emergency .

I think that you should tone down the feed healing as well. And as I said, make the blood healing regeneration short but powerful - so that it can be useful in combat. It works that way in the P&P system. Also, you mentioned Blood Heal wasn't working for aggravated damage - any progress on finding out why?

 

[Wesp5]

I don't think that slowing regeneration to half speed would be enough to make the Blood Heal a very useful alternative. Now something like 1/10 of the original regeneration speed - that would do the trick.

I don't know how the heal rate is measured but after setting it from 100% to 200% it takes ages to heal. Useful after a fight but not during.

Effects are cumulative, so you can continue using the blood until you max out the stat.

Wouldn't this then result in just the same effect only with more activations necessary?

I think that you should tone down the feed healing as well. And as I said, make the blood healing regeneration short but powerful - so that it can be useful in combat. It works that way in the P&P system. Also, you mentioned Blood Heal wasn't working for aggravated damage - any progress on finding out why?

Currently Blood Heal is short but twice as fast as normal although slower than while feeding. I don't know where to change that and don't think it should be done as feed-healing doesn't work good with multiple enemies anyway. No idea why Blood Heal does not work for aggravated damage...

 

[Zero Credibility]

I don't know how the heal rate is measured but after setting it from 100% to 200% it takes ages to heal. Useful after a fight but not during.

Ages sounds good. But millenniums would be better. That way waiting around until healed would only be a possibility if you have the powerup and/or history.

Wouldn't this then result in just the same effect only with more activations necessary?

Only much more blood expensive. It takes 4 blood points to raise just one stat from 1 to 5. The Corpus Vampirus effect is much cheaper. Late in the game this hardly matters as the physical stats will be high to begin with. But early in the game it almost looks like cheating to me. Just spend a few blood points and suddenly from a total loser you turn into a melee / unarmed / sneaking / lockpicking / bullet-proof superman. On the other hand, take a look at how expensive it is (in both xp and blood) to raise just two mental stats using auspex. Is it possible to modify the Blood Buff to give cumulative bonuses on all stats for multiple activations instead of maximizing them all immediately? Because I feel that would be a good compromise here.

Currently Blood Heal is short but twice as fast as normal although slower than while feeding. I don't know where to change that and don't think it should be done as feed-healing doesn't work good with multiple enemies anyway. No idea why Blood Heal does not work for aggravated damage...

Then I think that the Blood Heal should give approximately the same regeneration effects as the feeding. As for why aggravated damage cannot be healed... well in the P&P setting healing an aggravated damage besides blood requires a lot of time as well (a matter of days actually). So perhaps this limitation on Blood Heal was intentional. It would certainly make the aggravated damage a real problem for the player.

 

[Wesp5]

Ages sounds good. But millenniums would be better. That way waiting around until healed would only be a possibility if you have the powerup and/or history.

The problem with that is that the history slows it down even more and this would make no sense if is is completely slow to start with.

Is it possible to modify the Blood Buff to give cumulative bonuses on all stats for multiple activations instead of maximizing them all immediately? Because I feel that would be a good compromise here.

I'll check if that would be possible. What do you think about lowering the duration instead?

Then I think that the Blood Heal should give approximately the same regeneration effects as the feeding.

I think this would be too much as you gain a lot of health in very short time while feeding and Blood Heal would then make any need to feed during combat almost pointless.

 

[Zero Credibility]

The problem with that is that the history slows it down even more and this would make no sense if is is completely slow to start with.

Yeah, I thought that history speeds up the regeneration. I guess then ages would sound about right to avoid making the history pointless. Unless the history could be made to completely disable the regeneration (or cripple it so bad it's next to unusable) - that would work as well.

But let's define ages. Right now it takes approximately 3 minutes to heal full hit points of bash/lethal damage and 7 minutes to heal the same aggravated damage. I think that it would take at least triple durations to make Blood Heal a real alternative and to balance the fact that another way to heal the character is added to the (already easy) game. So around 10 minutes for bash/lethal and 20 minutes for aggravated damage?

I'll check if that would be possible. What do you think about lowering the duration instead?

I hope it is. If not, then I think it would be better to raise the blood cost rather then reduce the duration. From 3 blood points to 5 (or even 6) blood points. It is not the duration that is problematic when compared to the P&P but the absurdly low blood cost for such a powerful ability. This new cost would make Blood Buff worth using only in real emergencies.

I think this would be too much as you gain a lot of health in very short time while feeding and Blood Heal would then make any need to feed during combat almost pointless.

Good point. But Blood Heal doesn't do anything for aggravated damage, right? So the only way that it could be healed (besides waiting a long, long time) is feeding. Add to that the fact that healing major damage should not be cheap and you have two very good reasons to feed as often as you can.

As far as I can tell, feeding restores 1 blood point and 10-20% (best guess) of total hit points of bash/lethal damage every second. So in order for Blood Heal to have comparable effects it should last 1 second per blood point of its cost and restore 10% (I took the conservative figure here) of hit points per second. This actually isn't far from the values that the P&P system would give. Would a 3 second duration for a total 30% healing with a cost of 3 blood points be balanced? Or would a longer duration (but the same total healing and cost) be preferable?

 

[Wesp5]

So around 10 minutes for bash/lethal and 20 minutes for aggravated damage?

I haven't stopped the time but it could be. You can check yourself by choosing the Cadaverous Flesh history which right now is a little bit faster (180%) than the future heal rate will be (200%).

If not, then I think it would be better to raise the blood cost rather then reduce the duration. From 3 blood points to 5 (or even 6) blood points.

I think 4 would be okay but with 5 or 6 you'd only have one chance when picking a lock etc. What do others here think about this? Do we need to raise the blood cost?

Would a 3 second duration for a total 30% healing with a cost of 3 blood points be balanced? Or would a longer duration (but the same total healing and cost) be preferable?

The problem is I can't change the blood cost as far as I know and if the duration is too short it often happens that Blood Heal does nothing at all. So right now it stays as long as Blood Buff with an heal rate of 50%. You could change the Cadaverous Flesh history to test how quickly this would be...

 

[Zero Credibility]

The problem is I can't change the blood cost as far as I know and if the duration is too short it often happens that Blood Heal does nothing at all. So right now it stays as long as Blood Buff with an heal rate of 50%. You could change the Cadaverous Flesh history to test how quickly this would be...

One question - what is the blood cost of this ability?

 

[Wesp5]

The problem is I can't change the blood cost as far as I know and if the duration is too short it often happens that Blood Heal does nothing at all. So right now it stays as long as Blood Buff with an heal rate of 50%. You could change the Cadaverous Flesh history to test how quickly this would be...

One question - what is the blood cost of this ability?

I think it's one blood point as for all disciplines besides Blood Buff.