Community VtmB patch controversy quelled and patch reboot

[mathboy]

In the real Vampire the Masquerade world, (PnP and stuff) are the guns named like in Bloodlines or like in the real world?

If you are able to send innocent people to a certain death in three places without losing humanity, then maybe Troika intended it to be that way?

 

[Zero Credibility]

In the P&P game guns have real world names.

And unless I'm mistaken, Troika also made a quest in which you send an innocent to a certain death and you do lose humanity. Replanting the Lily or something like that. So who knows what were their intentions.

 

[Drakron]

That makes sense since "replanting the Lily" is getting a replacement for Lily.

There is a difference of upholding the Masquerade and doing something for personal gain at the cost of innocent people ...

 

[Zero Credibility]

Sending Copper after the president/Nines/prince is doing something for personal gain at the cost of innocent people too.

Sending that reporter and that ghoul to their deaths is upholding the Masquerade. But the fact that you are upholding the Masquerade doesn't mean anything when humanity is concerned. You are getting them horribly killed, they are innocent and your humanity should suffer. If you directly kill that ghoul in Downtown you will lose humanity even while you are upholding the Masquerade. Choice and consequence. What is more important to you - the Masquerade or your humanity?

Also, let's not forget that neither of these two potential Masquerade breaches are actually your problem in the first place. The reporter is not your problem - he's Pisha's problem. Instead of telling her to clean up her own god damn mess, you are doing her dirty work in exchange for occult items. The ghoul is not your problem - she's Skelter's problem. Again you are doing the dirty work (this time for xp only) because he doesn't want to kill her himself. So your character is in fact killing for personal gain and should suffer humanity losses.

 

[Fez]

It'd have worked better if it wasn't easy to get masquerade and humanity points back. I never felt pressured enough with it.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Hell yes. Gaining new humanity points in the game should be very difficult - for example consistently choosing the "good" paths even if it costs your character xp or wealth many times during the game. And simply buying the points with xp should be expensive. But instead you can just dance for 5 minutes and you gain a humanity point. WTF?!

The 5 Masquerade points make no sense whatsoever. It should be 2 (or maybe 3 at most) points - the first time you get a warning and the second time you are a pile of ash with sheriffs footprints on it. And the opportunities to gain new Masquerade points should be few and far in between.

 

[Zomg]

But instead you can just dance for 5 minutes and you gain a humanity point.

Hah! Really? That's pretty funny. Rehab your Sabbat kitten strangler with the power of dance, dance, dance.

 

[galsiah]

But instead you can just dance for 5 minutes and you gain a humanity point. WTF?!

I didn't know that. WTF indeed.

The 5 Masquerade points make no sense whatsoever...

I'd agree with that if you violated the masquerade in front of a (Camarilla?) vampire. However, one violation which weren't seen by any vampire might well not be traced back to you. It shouldn't be an groundlessly omniscient system. It makes reasonable sense for a handful of violations to provide the evidence necessary in most cases.

I don't think the 1-for-1 system to earn points back makes much sense though. Breaking the masquerade is a definite loss, while putting right someone else's violation is only a gain if someone else weren't going to do it anyway. Most masquerade redemptions are quests from other vampires - it's reasonable to assume they'd have made sure someone put things right, even if you didn't. Other redemptions basically amount to a "Well done - you didn't violate the masquerade.". Cleaning up other vampires' mess should get you some credit; simply avoiding making your own mess should be the expectation.
On the other hand, when you do violate, there's usually no clear means for anyone else to put things right. Solving an easily solved problem, then creating an insolvable problem, is not balanced.

I think I'd prefer it if there were more opportunities to redeem masquerade points, but that each redemption only got you say 1/3 of a point back. I'd also have preferred if masquerade violations were usually gained for some real purpose. Almost invariably, you violate the masquerade because you weren't quite careful enough for an utterly safe road to clear of passers-by. I'd much rather that the game provided situations where you'd very likely violate the masquerade in the process of pursuing some worthwhile goal. That way it's in keeping with character motivations, rather than a consequence of the absence of a "Wait for street to clear" button, and player impatience.

 

[Rulion]

I only read the first two or three pages of this thread before the pointless bitchiness finally got to me and forced me to slap my grandmother around. Here's my amazing insights, aimed mostly at DU and mathboy:

1) You don't like the additions that were made to the game, things that strayed from simple bugfixes. So don't install it. Don't even urge Wesp to change things around or make options for people that throw bitchfits that span for several pages on the forum. Simply do not install Wesp's patch/mod and stop bleeding from the vagina. The amazing alternate solution is to use the True patch.

2) The True patch uses Wesp's work. He is not recieving credit for it. This is wrong.

3) Wesp is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He can make his mod/patch anyway he wants. He can replace the baseball bat with a dildo for all I care. But that doesn't undermine all the other fixes he made, which were copied without credit.


Really, that's all that matters. Arguing over semantics is retarded. Patch/mod - who the fuck cares? We all know what it does. Urging Wesp to take out the mod-like in his mod/patch changes is retarded. There's already an alternative - the True patch. The True patch is taking from Wesp and not crediting him. It's wrong. If you sent countless hours working on something and had it stolen, without recieving credit, you would be pissed.

Roqua is beautiful to me. Shag is even cuter.

 

[Blacklung]

God damnit would someone just tell me which unofficial patch is the most stable and whether I need the god damn official patch installed too? Enough with the net shenanigans. Give me results!

 

[Wesp5]

Are you suggesting your readme file isn't an accurate representation of what you've done?

Yes. It's not nearly accurate enough to describe why I did something and how great the changes actually are.

I hope he is. As long as he can keep the fan stuff out of it, it should be a decent patch.

I agree with you there but it really seems as if he wants to go the whole road from the start alone .

 

[Wesp5]

God damnit would someone just tell me which unofficial patch is the most stable and whether I need the god damn official patch installed too? Enough with the net shenanigans. Give me results!

You need the official patch in any case and I would recommend the next release 3.6 which shouldn't be a long way off.

 

[Wesp5]

Well, he is still a vampire. I don't think jail/mental institution is an option - not with the Camarilla maintaining the masquerade. So the options are: Dead, severely injured or dead (if Nines is the target), dead.

My thoughts exactly. Also as has already been stated here the game handles the whole issue inconsistently. When sending Patty to Pisha you loose Humanity and you don't kill her yourself. I think the balance here should be Masquerade/Humanity exactly as Zero Credibility said and in my patch I just fixed the few issues where this was not done. It may have not been as obvious because sometimes you loose humanity when sending someone to their death while on other occasions you gain humanity for letting them go.

This makes the boss fights very, very short - even the sheriff and the Ming Xiao die with three shots (that can be released in less then a second for a cost of just 3 blood points). Is this working like intended?

No, this is just a bug that I have already fixed for 3.6.

Also I noticed that blood shot and blood salvo only return blood from human targets. Why not from vampires? Or is this just working the same way in an unpatched game (as I said, it's been a while since I played it)?

I don't think I have changed something there unless it's another bug connected to the issue above but you can't feed from other vampires either or can you?

And a suggestion - why not put the galdjum in the Downtown haven and give the locket to Mr. Ox? Galdjum affects the disciplines, same as the other two items found in Tremere/Nosferatu havens - it even looks balanced compared to them. And the item that gives a lockpicking bonus would fit with Mr. Ox.

You are right, I never saw it from that point of view. I will consider it...

 

[Wesp5]

I think that it's a good idea to show that the hitman quest was a success, even if it might not have fulfilled their initial requests.

There is a misunderstanding here. It was always a success when getting the hitman to make peace. I never changed anything there, the readme pointed to a bug fix only.

and the death of Ash-look-alike (I never would've thought they'd kill him like that - I would've expected them to realise they'd been tricked when they got that close).

Maybe we are concentrating too much on killing here. If you steal the charity money you loose humanity, as someone else said here if you dance you win some. In that context just putting the Ash-look-alike or Copper in possibly mortal danger should be punished.

You mean that you only get one chance to do the gallery quest?

No, you only get one chance during that one dialogue to get the special encounter while the patch readme makes it sound as if making love with Jeannette is now possible all the time, because I didn't want to spoil the Jeanette/Therese twist there. I adjusted the readme for 3.6.

Because you really don't have to fight him, so doing so isn't the smart thing to do. And isn't his Desert Eagle reward enough?

I don't play WOD PnP but I would assume that you would get xp for each prominent fight you win. Isn't that so?

Perhaps they intended for that lock to be effectively impossible to pick? And the designer at the time didn't know about keycards or didn't want to use them? Or... something like that?

That probably was the reason but level 10 is unpickable that early in the game.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I only read the first two or three pages of this thread

... and clearly decided to reply without knowing what you were talking about. What a great idea! I think I'm going to have to start doling out the 'Illiterate' tag if you idiots can't be bothered reading what you're replying to.

before the pointless bitchiness finally got to me and forced me to slap my grandmother around. Here's my amazing insights, aimed mostly at DU and mathboy:

1) You don't like the additions that were made to the game, things that strayed from simple bugfixes. So don't install it.

I haven't. If you'd actually bothered to read the thread instead of engaging NerdRageâ„¢ mode and repyling like a retard, you'd have found that out already.

Mind you, what's really funny about this is that Wesp changes all his mod work based on what fans tell him... Go figure, huh?

Don't even urge Wesp to change things around or make options for people that throw bitchfits that span for several pages on the forum.

Never have. This was all about why Wesp made the changes he has and why I don't like them. Wesp responded saying why he changed those things and I've responded saying why I don't like his justification for that. That's all this has been. Again, read the thread.

Simply do not install Wesp's patch/mod and stop bleeding from the vagina. The amazing alternate solution is to use the True patch.

Yep, we talked about that too. Once again, try that reading stuff. It really helps.

2) The True patch uses Wesp's work. He is not recieving credit for it. This is wrong.

He is receiving credit for it. There's a readme in the true patch which has his name in it. The issue is he's not receiving proper credit because Tessera decided to be a bitch.

3) Wesp is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He can make his mod/patch anyway he wants.

Please point out to me where I said Wesp wasn't allowed to make the patch he wanted? All we've said is we're not installing it because we think some of the changes he's made aren't necessary and that's not the game I want to play.

He can replace the baseball bat with a dildo for all I care.

This is the thing, I do care.

But that doesn't undermine all the other fixes he made, which were copied without credit.

No, again, it's only the complete readme file wan't included as he requested which credited a whole lot more people than just him.

Really, that's all that matters. Arguing over semantics is retarded. Patch/mod - who the fuck cares?

That was Roqua's argument. Why are you directing this at me? I couldn't give it a shit what anyone calls it. By the way, adding to the argument with your own mis-guided reply doesn't help?

We all know what it does. Urging Wesp to take out the mod-like in his mod/patch changes is retarded.

Once again, never urged Wesp to take anything out. Feel free to point out the bit where I do though. It might actually make you read the thread and hey, you might even learn something.

There's already an alternative - the True patch. The True patch is taking from Wesp and not crediting him. It's wrong. If you sent countless hours working on something and had it stolen, without recieving credit, you would be pissed.

Read the last few pages and tell me if our discussion was anything about Wesp being credited. If you just want to froth at the mouth a bit more and reply without reading I can tell you now that nope, it wasn't. It was all about why he's made the changes he has and the justification he's using for those changes like re-naming all the weapons, re-balancing all the weapons, adding in the .38 to the tutorial then taking it out etc... As I've said repeatedly (and which clearly isn't getting through the extra thick skull of people such as yourself), I don't like the changes he's made and I haven't installed his mod because of it. Wesp has basically spent the last 5 pages trying to convince everyone why his changes are so super-fantastic, even the ones where he changed something he changed twice earlier already. That's all.

In future you should read the whole thread. THEN respond. It really helps to know what you're talking about.

 

[Wesp5]

Mind you, what's really funny about this is that Wesp changes all his mod work based on what fans tell him...

Now I will leave you two to bash out the personal attacks , but just some quick comments from me. To say I change "all" my work based on what fans tell me is exaggerated. I listen and then I decide if it makes sense from my point of view too. I've declined to do some changes and others were my own idea from the start.

Wesp responded saying why he changed those things and I've responded saying why I don't like his justification for that.

Yeah, but most of the time you didn't explain why you didn't like them except they were not done by Troika and you didn't like the Jeanette thing. The people actually arguing with me were RGE and to a limited degree Claw. If you don't like something, fine. If you can explain to me why and I can understand it, it may be changed. So while I thank Rulion for his support, indeed I'm still open to suggestions. But then this thread alone shows that some people find some changes okay and others do not. So I won't be able to please everybody .

No, again, it's only the complete readme file wasn't included as he requested which credited a whole lot more people than just him.

It was not only that. I think the whole "true" name is offending to my patches and taking much more than 90% of my work and then calling it "inspiration" as I recently noted they did in their latest patch is a real impudence!

It was all about why he's made the changes he has and the justification he's using for those changes like re-naming all the weapons, re-balancing all the weapons, adding in the .38 to the tutorial then taking it out etc...

It seems the PnP WOD uses real weapon names so this should justify that change, re-balancing "all" the weapons is again a complete exaggeration that is just based on some one liners in the readme without any actual playing to back it up and for the .38 and other re-changes I explained those already and you should be lucky that I tend to correct errors or misjudgments on my behalf .

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Wesp responded saying why he changed those things and I've responded saying why I don't like his justification for that.

Yeah, but most of the time you didn't explain why you didn't like them except they were not done by Troika and you didn't like the Jeanette thing.

The justification I use for not liking the changes you've made is no different to the justification you've used for making some of those changes in the first place.

It was all about why he's made the changes he has and the justification he's using for those changes like re-naming all the weapons, re-balancing all the weapons, adding in the .38 to the tutorial then taking it out etc...

It seems the PnP WOD uses real weapon names so this should justify that change

Keeping in mind that's not the justification you actually used to make that change.

re-balancing "all" the weapons is again a complete exaggeration that is just based on some one liners in the readme without any actual playing to back it up

"Complete" exaggeration? Haven't you adjusted the damage done when in zoom mode which affects a number of weapons, plus re-balanced a number of other weapons without a zoom mode, such as the flamethrower? Point is, you've messed with more weapons than you haven't. List all the changes you have made though. I'd lke to see the complete list.

and for the .38 and other re-changes I explained those already and you should be lucky that I tend to correct errors or misjudgments on my behalf .

Why would "luck" be a factor? All it shows me is you're just as likely to change it again in your next release because someone convinced you otherwise.

 

[Wesp5]

The justification I use for not liking the changes you've made is no different to the justification you've used for making some of those changes in the first place.

I see that differently. I argued with things like consistency or tutorial information or such, you just said that Troika wouldn't do it.

It seems the PnP WOD uses real weapon names so this should justify that change

Keeping in mind that's not the justification you actually used to make that change.

Yeah, I argued that the item names AND the models AND the real-world names of some weapons clearly pointed to the fact that Troika wanted to do this but probably just couldn't afford to. The PnP WOD rules are just another argument in that favor, nothing more.

"Complete" exaggeration? Haven't you adjusted the damage done when in zoom mode which affects a number of weapons, plus re-balanced a number of other weapons without a zoom mode, such as the flamethrower?

The zoom mode affects two weapons only and minor changes are not re-balances in my point of view. For 3.6 e.g I plan to adjust the magazine sizes to their real-world counterparts. This will mean one shot less for the Glock, the Ithaca and the Uzi. Will this re-balance the game? I don't think so. But lowering the magazine size of the Desert Eagle from 12 to 7 may be another issue, guilty as charged .

All it shows me is you're just as likely to change it again in your next release because someone convinced you otherwise.

If it would be that easy to convince me otherwise your argument wouldn't have been good enough .

 

[Zero Credibility]

I don't think I have changed something there unless it's another bug connected to the issue above but you can't feed from vampires either or can you?

Just reinstalled the vanilla 1.2 game and yes - thaumaturgy does return blood from vampires. Makes sense too - Troika made it impossible to feed on vampires to avoid the entire diablerie issue. But thaumaturgy doesn't return blood if it kills the opponent, so there is no problem. If you didn't make any changes regarding this, I guess it's a bug (maybe it's connected with the Eldritch Prodigy history?).

Maybe we are concentrating too much on killing here. If you steal the charity money you loose humanity, as someone else said here if you dance you win some. In that context just putting the Ash-look-alike or Copper in possibly mortal danger should be punished.

Speaking of this, can you please remove the humanity gain by dancing? It's too easy to maintain the high humanity even without this. And it really is a bloody stupid idea in the first place.

I don't play WOD PnP but I would assume that you would get xp for each prominent fight. Isn't that so?

But in a PnP game you would also make the Giovanni clan your bitter enemy - not a good career move at all. Since there is no such consequence in the game, there should also be no xp award for the fight in the first place.

I think I'll bother you some more about your patch.

Concerning the Ra blade - I don't think it really fits well in its current position. Sure, it's better then to simply leave it in the Sabbat infested hotel, but almost anything is better then that. Why would Mandarin have a vampire forged weapon? He barely knows anything about vampires. Unfortunately I have no idea where I would like to see the damn thing. Maybe in the Temple?

I noticed that Mercurio now sells the body armor. Sure, it's plausible, but the unique body armor was one of things that made the ghoul story special and worth of playing through. The player had to choose between saving Heather by telling her to leave or getting her killed but also getting a really great unique item. By having the armor for sale (even if it is available somewhat after you would get it from Heather) the consequences of saving Heather are practically removed.

And speaking of Heather - why isn't it possible to tell her to leave the first time you find her in your haven? I tell her to leave me alone when I return from the ship but she ignores me. OK. But when I return to my haven I suddenly forget all about that and I can't tell her to get lost? Not OK. Maybe you could use the dialog from later on (when she gives you her scholarship and you can tell her to leave) to give the player the option to dismiss Heather immediately?

 

[Wesp5]

Just reinstalled the vanilla 1.2 game and yes - thaumaturgy does return blood from vampires.

Hmmm, that may mean that it's a bug. Can you give me an example on which vampire this was definitely working? Because in 1.2 some vampires were not marked as vampires but as humans as you can see with Auspex or Protean. These would be Ash in the sewer, Lily in the chair, Barabus and Julius.

Speaking of this, can you please remove the humanity gain by dancing? It's too easy to maintain the high humanity even without this. And it really is a bloody stupid idea in the first place.

Great idea, but I wouldn't know where to start looking ...

But in a PnP game you would also make the Giovanni clan your bitter enemy - not a good career move at all. Since there is no such consequence in the game, there should also be no xp award for the fight in the first place.

I guess the Giovanni clan would end up your enemy in Bloodlines anyway after stealing the sarcophagus. And I just don't feel it's right to kill a boss monster without reward. Or are there other cases like this in Bloodlines that I can't remember? I mean you needn't kill the asian vampire and you may have made the Kuji-Yin your enemy but you get the xp.

Concerning the Ra blade - I don't think it really fits well in its current position. Sure, it's better then to simply leave it in the Sabbat infested hotel, but almost anything is better then that. Why would Mandarin have a vampire forged weapon? He barely knows anything about vampires.

While I'm not completely lucky with it's placement and would be open to suggestions I disagree about the Mandarin himself. He is obviously very much interested in anything regarding vampires, so getting himself a weapon claimed to be made by them seems plausible to me.

By having the armor for sale (even if it is available somewhat after you would get it from Heather) the consequences of saving Heather are practically removed.

There was a lot of discussion because of this on Planet Vampire before I got convinced to include it. The main argument was that without walkthrough most people wouldn't have gotten it in the first place because from a storyline point of view it made no sense to go to the haven at the one and only time when Heather would offer it. I think the price and the latter availability is balance enough.

And speaking of Heather - why isn't it possible to tell her to leave the first time you find her in your haven? I tell her to leave me alone when I return from the ship but she ignores me. OK. But when I return to my haven I suddenly forget all about that and I can't tell her to get lost? Not OK.

You are right, this sounds buggy. Looking at the text it is even worse: you can send her away and the first line she greats you with is "I'm so glad you're back. I've been waiting here just like you asked." There was a variable not being set correctly in one case and I fixed that for 3.6. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Zero Credibility]

Hmmm, that may mean that it's a bug. Can you give me an example on which vampire this was definitely working? Because in 1.2 some vampires were not marked as vampires but as humans as you can see with Auspex or Protean. These would be Ash in the sewer, Lily in the chair, Barabus and Julius.

I only had time to try it on the Sabbat vampires in the tutorial. But since applying the 3.5 patch it doesn't work on them either. Maybe they were marked as humans? But I seem to remember it actually working on everybody in the unpatched game.

I guess the Giovanni clan would end up your enemy in Bloodlines anyway after stealing the sarcophagus. And I just don't feel it's right to kill a boss monster without reward. Or are there other cases like this in Bloodlines that I can't remember? I mean you needn't kill the asian vampire and you may have made the Kuji-Yin your enemy but you get the xp.

Stealing the sarcophagus would certainly annoy the hell out of Giovanni, the same way that killing that asian spy must have annoyed the Kuji-Yin. But they wouldn't go overboard with their vengeance against you. Killing an influential elder is a different matter - and not one they will ever forget. Having an entire clan after your blood is a very bad thing, especially when the clan can command the dead. And I don't think the player should be rewarded for suicidal (at least in the PnP game) behavior.

While I'm not completely lucky with it's placement and would be open to suggestions I disagree about the Mandarin himself. He is obviously very much interested in anything regarding vampires, so getting himself a weapon claimed to be made by them seems plausible to me.

Eh, good enough. I would personally preferred if a powerful vampire, mage or hunter had it, rather then a ordinary human.

There was a lot of discussion because of this on Planet Vampire before I got convinced to include it. The main argument was that without walkthrough most people wouldn't have gotten it in the first place because from a storyline point of view it made no sense to go to the haven at the one and only time when Heather would offer it. I think the price and the latter availability is balance enough.

A shame. It really takes a lot of importance from the Heather storyline. You could move the availability a little more - to after the werewolf fight. That way it would only be available for the end game. Maybe that would help.

 

[mister lamat]

Stealing the sarcophagus would certainly annoy the hell out of Giovanni, the same way that killing that asian spy must have annoyed the Kuji-Yin.

the problem is, the giovanni all but disappear after the mansion and don't make a return to the game. without that the consequences of any actions taken at the mansion won't appear later due to the lack of location, storyline and art assets. that's not to say the player couldn't have been given the option to return later for some sort of 'showdown' (thumbs down) or populate other areas with what typically 'giovannian' character models there are or add more i guess if they felt the need and let them have a proper go at the pc. as stated, troika decided not to wrap up the story with the mansion even though the pc is offered an honest freedom of how to approach the situation. someone adding to the abandonware (roofles) could let that play out through their work and at that point are in brave new worlds. good on them.

the kuei-jin have the content for the confrontation to play out so the matter is a little less relevant in that case. their storyline continues and the reward content is always inherent when that happens, though it be in loot, character advancement, the currency of information, plain currency and plot development. all occupy a space on the scales.

what kind of reward do you give for being able to take down and elder, when one doesn't exist? having it be nothing is just fucking lame. original intent or not, nuts to that. since it has no payoff in the story however making it worthwhile in any sense is questionable at best. one experience point is an apt reward.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I don't know. I simply dislike when the game awards killing stuff just because you can, with absolutely no consequences attached. Usually it just ends with a lot of players going on killing sprees because of that extra point. And that is not something I'm looking for in a rpg.

 

[Wesp5]

I only had time to try it on the Sabbat vampires in the tutorial. But since applying the 3.5 patch it doesn't work on them either.

I checked out 3.6 and it works again. So it probably was connected to the other Blood Shot bugs.

Eh, good enough. I would personally preferred if a powerful vampire, mage or hunter had it, rather then a ordinary human.

Maybe Ming gave it to him to raise his interest in vampires in the first place.

A shame. It really takes a lot of importance from the Heather storyline. You could move the availability a little more - to after the werewolf fight. That way it would only be available for the end game. Maybe that would help.

I made it available before the endgame because then people still have the choice to go elsewhere than Mercurio. BTW, I also followed your suggestion about swapping the items of Ox and the downtown haven, thanks.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I made it available before the endgame because then people still have the choice to go elsewhere than Mercurio. BTW, I also followed your suggestion about swapping the items of Ox and the downtown haven, thanks.

That's precisely why I would like to see the armor available for sale only in the end game (if at all). If the player would like to use it somewhere else, he would actually have to pay attention to the Heather plot. Oh well, I hope that my suggestion about swapping items doesn't cause game balance issues (as pointed out by RGE).

And BTW, great work with the patch.