Mod News Vampire Masquerade unofficial patch 3.6 primed and ready

[Zero Credibility]

It looks to me that balancing this ability will be a problem. On one hand it is adding another way to heal the character in the already (on the whole) easy game, so crippling the regeneration is a must. But on the other hand, it could make some combat-intensive parts of the game more difficult. The sewers in particular. Monsters everywhere and they all deal heavy aggravated damage. Regeneration of aggravated damage will be very slow and Blood Heal doesn't help against aggravated damage at all. The only options left to the player are blood packs and rats. Or in the case of Ventrue characters, blood packs only. Hope they packed some.

A bit off topic. While I was testing the Blood Buff to see exactly how much blood it uses, I noticed for the first time that the character has a total of 15 blood points. Until then I always thought it was just 10 - a standard value for a modern vampire in the P&P setting. This actually goes a long way toward explaining how powerful the player character is in the game.

 

[Wesp5]

It looks to me that balancing this ability will be a problem. On one hand it is adding another way to heal the character in the already (on the whole) easy game, so crippling the regeneration is a must. But on the other hand, it could make some combat-intensive parts of the game more difficult.

We'll have to see how players live with it but in the end there are so many possibilities in Bloodlines to shape the character so it's impossible to check everything for balance. In the worst case the original version can always be found in the BASIC patch included.

I noticed for the first time that the character has a total of 15 blood points. Until then I always thought it was just 10 - a standard value for a modern vampire in the P&P setting. This actually goes a long way toward explaining how powerful the player character is in the game.

Interesting, I never cared about the actual numbers. I think instead of raising the Blood Buff cost I will make it raise all stats by +2 only instead. I also noticed that the symbol for Blood Buff itself was wrongly labeled as "Strength" and changed that for 3.7 as well...

 

[Zero Credibility]

Interesting, I never cared about the actual numbers.

These numbers are interesting because they show that the player character is not an average 13th generation modern neonate vampire, but a potentially much more powerful 8th generation neonate. I think you can get some information on the concept of generation from Tung. But very few vampires in the game would have generation that low - maybe only LaCroix, Strauss or some other primogen. This explains how the player character can survive all that the game throws at him. It is nice to see that Troika thought about that as well.

 

[ManofHonor]

Hello there, I just installed the unofficial 3.6 patch, and I've been having a bit of a technical problem with it, I've looked around for a solution but have found none (vice backing up saves, re-installing, and playing without the patch, which I would rather avoid)..

It seems that many exist doors have been changed into normal doors, the two that I attempted on several reloads were the door to exit Trip's pawn shop, and Mercurio's place. I attempted noclip, reloading inside the location, reloading outside the location and re-entering, and nothing helped.. The door will open partway and nothing will happen, the icon is also that of a normal door rather than an exit.


Any ideas on a fix?



Edit:

....

Barely literate? ... I resent that!


By the way, I posted this here because I did not see a technical support section (the only help section seemed to be for gameplay issues for all games)

 

[mr nobuddy]

Wesp, could you try to fix the elevator problem in the next patch, if you are planning one?

(if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's when an elevator like in the Ventrue Tower & the Asylum get 'stuck'. Because of this I couldn't finish my nosferatu game, because the elevator doors wouldn't open, neither in the cellar nor on the first floor.

 

[Wesp5]

It seems that many exist doors have been changed into normal doors, the two that I attempted on several reloads were the door to exit Trip's pawn shop, and Mercurio's place.

I think I never heard something like this. Did you updated to 3.6 and then used a saved game of an earlier patch?

 

[Wesp5]

Wesp, could you try to fix the elevator problem in the next patch, if you are planning one?

I don't know if I can do something about this as it seems to be random and never occurred to me...

 

[One Wolf]

I had that same problem with the elevator at the Empire Apartments, but luckily noclipping made it possible to gain access.

And Manofhonor, make sure that after you trigger the door you step back a few paces to allow it to open. I doubt that this is your problem, but hey, you never know.

 

[sheek]

Hey Wesp, are you planning a 3.7 any time soon? What kind of changes are you planning?

 

[ManofHonor]

It seems that many exist doors have been changed into normal doors, the two that I attempted on several reloads were the door to exit Trip's pawn shop, and Mercurio's place.

I think I never heard something like this. Did you updated to 3.6 and then used a saved game of an earlier patch?

Yep...

Might be a good idea to note that in the first post, the whole save game incompatibility thing is a rather large issue, but that's just my opinion...

 

[RGE]

(if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's when an elevator like in the Ventrue Tower & the Asylum get 'stuck'. Because of this I couldn't finish my nosferatu game, because the elevator doors wouldn't open, neither in the cellar nor on the first floor.

One time on the upper floor of The Asylum the elevator ceased to function. I'm pretty sure it happened because I saved the game before the elevator closed, and when I reloaded, the script that was supposed to reactivate the elevator wasn't running, so it remained in its saved state, which was 'unusable'. The elevators in Bloodlines are quite emo, and require that their passengers are gentle and don't rush and jump around and such.

Another time I was trapped inside the elevator in the tutorial, and had to noclip myself out again. All because I tried to bring some item with me inside so that I could throw it as a diversion. Very annoying. Death to elevators.

Watch the hair of the female Malkavian while she's going down in the Skyline Apartments elevator. Hehe. That's physics for you!

When it comes to bloodhealing I'd say that no changes are necessary, because too many enemies already do aggravated damage as it is. Gangrel claws and fire and sunlight do aggravated damage, and in Bloodlines even a Nosferatu with Potence do aggravated damage. But I've never had to use bloodpacks in the sewers, and could've easily used some in exchange for the few rats I drank. The small enemies are pretty easy unless there's a bunch of them at the same time, and the larger ones have their weaknesses, such as being slow and/or stupid. I'd say the Hallowbrook could be a greater concern, but I don't use a significant amount of bloodpacks there either. Lots of thugs to feed from, if need be. So if there's a change to make healing more difficult, I'm pretty sure I could handle it. And everyone else probably could as well. I wonder how many people actually rely heavily on bloodpacks?

Bloodbuff doesn't need to be changed either, but if it is, then perhaps the security ratings on locks need to be adjusted as well, since those would've been balanced with bloodbuff in mind. And by strict PnP rules, wouldn't bloodbuff also last for an entire 'scene'? Such as an entire fight, no matter how long it takes? That makes it possible to charge a point of blood for every point of attribute increase. And then again, PnP doesn't have nearly as much focus on fighting. Personally I rarely use bloodbuff in combat, because it doesn't last that long, and I don't like having to keep track of more than one discipline at a time. Better to use my precious blood for Potence, Celerity, Auspex or Obfuscate. Saves bloodpacks too. Apparently. (backpack full of potions, pocket full of cash, saving up for the apocalypse)

 

[Wesp5]

Hey Wesp, are you planning a 3.7 any time soon? What kind of changes are you planning?

Patch 3.7 has already been finished, because 3.6 included some game stopping bugs for players choosing the basic patch (no, this was not intended , it just shows the added difficulty to maintain two patches in one) and because of some important gameplay changes with the new Blood Heal discipline, Blood Buff and the Leopold Society clans that need some common testing ! Because 3dgamers didn't react at all the last time, the patch will first be available from http://www.patches-scrolls.de/ and also be mirrored on Planet Vampire itself (a separate thread here would be great too . The changelog is below:

v3.7 12.06.2007
----
Added Blood Heal discipline and slowed automatic heal rate by half.
Changed Cadaverous Flesh history and occult heal rate accordingly.
Restored Leopold Society clans and clan equipments for multiplayer.
Lowered Blood Buff effect by two points and corrected info symbol.
Lessened criminal levels of both crossbows and raised their damage.
Modified Eliza to raise brawl and lowered firearms book condition.
Made indirect disciplines not traceable and decreased maximal ammo.
Removed humanity gains from Milligan and fixed Wong Ho background.
Swapped lower dodge book with dodge powerup so reading makes sense.

Fixed several crosshair issues and wrong icons near the Dane crane.
Corrected several tutorial popups and mentioned camera adjustment.
Repaired critical basic patch bugs and restored overlooked changes.
Fixed clinic guard humanity loss and some other minor text issues.
Removed masquerade redemption and double xp for sending Patty away.
Made Potence fit description and finally fixed npctemplate* files.
Fixed an Arthur reward and Vandal, Slater, Ji and cabbie dialogues.
Removed player knowing the names of Ox's patron and asian vampire.
Prevented picking of two Temple doors and repaired Hollywood music.

 

[Fez]

Once the new version is available for download, then there can maybe be a news thread about it. No point making a thread for a patch people can't download yet.

Did you see there was another new "true" patch too?

 

[Wesp5]

Once the new version is available for download, then there can maybe be a news thread about it. No point making a thread for a patch people can't download yet.

The problem is Matthias told me he will upload the patch this evening and I'm not on the fast internet connection then anymore. So I made the announcements now as long as I am at the univerity. I guess an administrator will start a new thread here after it is available anyway.

Did you see there was another new "true" patch too?

No, I'm downloading it right now . The filesize shows that Acrimonius indeed started from scratch but it also hints that this patch won't fix very many bugs that are connected to the map files. Looking at the readme I think he found some issues that I will try to replicate but some things may bother true purists already. Can this patch still be called "true" ?

* Restored [] Malkavian lines where appropriate
* Gave roof guards sniper and assault rifles instead of shotguns and uzis
* Made flamethrower a tad easier to find
* Added zoom sway effect to SWAT sniper rifle, and increased based damage