Community VtmB patch controversy quelled and patch reboot

[Wesp5]

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.

But there is no more else to use it other than the endgame after it becomes available.

Oh well, I hope that my suggestion about swapping items doesn't cause game balance issues (as pointed out by RGE).

I don't think the Galdjum is powerful enough to unbalance anything and nobody cared when I moved it from Hollywood to Chinatown. But it is indeed much more fitting for the Prince to offer you something like that instead of a pure security related powerup.

And BTW, great work with the patch.

Thanks, I'll try to do my best to improve the game in my understanding of a patch.

But now a message to the people disliking my approach, like Dark Underlord, RolePlayer or math boy. I still got no reaction from the guy doing the bug-fixes-only patch regarding my offer to continue from my work under certain conditions. As I really don't think that he will be able to redo the stuff I fixed in the last two years in any reasonable time, especially with Tessera already claiming to write additional stuff himself, if you want a more basic patch maybe YOU could ask him to work together with me? I fear that he stays with Tessera because he thinks he is the only one really supporting his project. You can reach him under the name Anaximander on the GameBanshee board. Maybe if enough of you convince him that Tessera's influence is bad and that restarting from scratch is stupid, he will reconsider...

 

[Zero Credibility]

But there is no more else to use it other than the endgame after it becomes available.

There is the werewolf encounter. And any remaining loose ends that that the player might be finishing. By making the armor available only from the end game, the importance of Heather storyline is increased a bit. As it is the player can simply buy the armor just one mission after he would get it from Heather.

And that reminds me. When buying blood from Vandal in the end game (by going to him from the taxi), Vandal for some reason forgets that he's pissed off with you for freeing Lily and sells you blood as if nothing is wrong. This doesn't make sense. If the player made a choice earlier in the game, consequences should still apply, even in the end game. So instead of ignoring previous events, the player should still be required to bribe or persuade Vandal in selling the blood if he hasn't done so yet (obviously the Replanting a lily quest is not an option any more at this point).

I don't know if it is the same with Mercurio if you rat him out to the prince - never tried it myself. But if it is, then Mercurio shouldn't be available to sell you anything, even in the end game. The player is given the option of going to Trip's pawnshop anyway. And yes, if Mercurio is selling the body armor, that means no body armor for sale for the player.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

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.

... and all you've said is Troika would do it. Case in point:

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.

They used a real name for the Steyr Aug, the .38 and the Colt Anaconda. Why would naming the other weapons with real names have been a problem, or do you really think they blew all the budget on getting the license fees for those few? By the way, did you know that "Jamie Sue" was an employee at Troika? She made some of the maps in Bloodlines.

Also speaking of item names, I see the "Tal'Mahe'Ra Blade" uses the internal name of "item_w_occultblade". You haven't renamed that to "Occult Blade" have you, especially given "Tal'Mahe'Ra" isn't a real name for any type of sword? Or did you leave that one alone because it's named after a fictional vampire clan? That said, I don't think renaming the weapons is a problem perse. You're entitled to do that. I just think you should admit that you're doing it because it's what you want, rather than trying to justify it as being something Troika would've done. After all, are you making a "fan patch" with changes that fans want or are you just making a "What Troika would've done" patch? Or are you trying to do both?

"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.

That's where I disagree. You've changed the damage the weapon does in zoom mode because you thought it was over-powered. To me, that's clearly a decision meant to balance the game. You might want to argue it's only a minor change but you still made the change, didn't you? So clearly you thought it was important enough to bother with.

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 .

I would've had to convince you to change over 90% of your mod based on what makes or doesn't make a better "RPG experience", helps with "immersion" or what "Troika would've done" (two entirely subjective things and the third something which will never be answered short of asking them). That was never going to happen. Especially not, given you've made the changes in the first place because you think it improves or meets all of that criteria. And now, as Acrimonious is working on fixing just those things that are in the initial release, there'd also be no point.

 

[Wesp5]

They used a real name for the Steyr Aug, the .38 and the Colt Anaconda. Why would naming the other weapons with real names have been a problem, or do you really think they blew all the budget on getting the license fees for those few?

I don't know, maybe Colt and Steyr don't bother about fees and see it as advertisement. Anyway, the mix up of real and fantasy weapons was what annoyed most people so I fixed that.

By the way, did you know that "Jamie Sue" was an employee at Troika? She made some of the maps in Bloodlines.

No, I didn't know, but Romero still refers to his rifle as "Jamie Sue" which is fine.

Also speaking of item names, I see the "Tal'Mahe'Ra Blade" uses the internal name of "item_w_occultblade". You haven't renamed that to "Occult Blade" have you, especially given "Tal'Mahe'Ra" isn't a real name for any type of sword?

Of course not, because that fits within the WoD while a Brokk 17C does not. As I stated already it's the sum that matters, models AND item-names AND real-world weapons AND WoD rules.

The zoom mode affects two weapons only and minor changes are not re-balances in my point of view.

That's where I disagree. You've changed the damage the weapon does in zoom mode because you thought it was over-powered. To me, that's clearly a decision meant to balance the game.

That is a misunderstanding. I agree with you that the zoom mode is re-balancing but this affects two weapons only, one of which was added by the patches in the first place. The minor changes were targeted at the other things I did with some weapons.

And now, as Acrimonious is working on fixing just those things that are in the initial release, there'd also be no point.

We should leave it like that but I still would ask you to contact Acrimonious to work with me unless you really think that with Tessera's additions his patch will end up like you would want it to be...

 

[Wesp5]

As it is the player can simply buy the armor just one mission after he would get it from Heather.

I don't think it matters much if it's available one mission later as it won't help much against the werewolf anyway.

And that reminds me. When buying blood from Vandal in the end game (by going to him from the taxi), Vandal for some reason forgets that he's pissed off with you for freeing Lily and sells you blood as if nothing is wrong. This doesn't make sense.

Agreed and I just fixed that for 3.6. Mercurio should already have reacted correctly in case you pissed him off.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I don't think it matters much if it's available one mission later as it won't help much against the werewolf anyway.

It might help a little in keeping him alive, but yes - not much.

I guess it's just a matter of my preference of quest awards over simply buying the item. If both options are included, then I feel there should be a significant game delay before the item becomes available for cash to avoid making the quest outcome irrelevant. And the current delay is just too short. Sure, moving the armor to the end game won't make much of a gameplay difference, but at least it would come too late to be used in anything but the two end game quests. That would give the Heather storyline and the choice between letting her go or getting the armor at least a little more significance then it has now.

 

[Wesp5]

Sure, moving the armor to the end game won't make much of a gameplay difference, but at least it would come too late to be used in anything but the two end game quests.

The problem that I see here is that no other item gets available during the endgame only and how should players know Mercurio or Trip would stock up that late in the game?

 

[Zero Credibility]

Trip shouldn't be selling the armor anyway. As for Mercurio, well the entire end game starts in the old haven right next to his place. Many players would visit him anyway on the way to the taxi for no other reason then to stock up on ammo. And once in the taxi, his equipment is just two short dialog lines away at any time. Besides, there is no way for players to know Mercurio has the armor for sale as it is now. He certainly never mentions it and the last few quests (the Giovanni, the hunters, the hotel, the park) don't take you anywhere near him. So unless you are visiting him regularly after every quest, the end game is possibly the best chance you have to notice he has the armor for sale.

 

[Wesp5]

As for Mercurio, well the entire end game starts in the old haven right next to his place. Many players would visit him anyway on the way to the taxi for no other reason then to stock up on ammo.

Can you actually visit him right there and then? That would be a reason for me to move the time the armor is available to that point, so you won't miss it if you need to buy blood later .

 

[Wesp5]

As for Mercurio, well the entire end game starts in the old haven right next to his place. Many players would visit him anyway on the way to the taxi for no other reason then to stock up on ammo.

Can you actually visit him right there and then? That would be a reason for me to move the time the armor is available to that point, so you won't miss it if you need to buy blood later .

P.S.: I checked that you can visit him then and this will be the time the armor gets available in 3.6.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Nice. Not sure (in retrospective, deleting my saved games wasn't a really good idea), but I think you can also enter the Trip's and the blood bank. If you can enter the blood bank this way, you may want to make sure that Vandal's dialog remains consistent when finding him this way as well. Also, what about Trip? Does he offer weapons for sale in the end game even if you never found out he does so in the first place (an unlikely scenario, but possible)?

And while you are at it, maybe you could take another look at Mercurio's dialog. I'm not at all sure about this (as I said, it's been a while since I played the unpatched game) but I think there's a part of the original dialog missing in your patch. When you first met Mercurio after having the blood hunt declared after you, didn't he used to say something in the line of "I heard about your problems with the prince, but I want you to know it's business as usual between us"? Or maybe I'm remembering that from some other game?

 

[RGE]

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?

I guess it depends on the Storyteller? I can't recall ever playing the game with a Storyteller who awards points for fights though. If the players get into fights that they shouldn't get into, just surviving them is enough of a reward. I'm pretty sure it said so during one fight with a couple of tough axe-guys, or so the Storyteller said after our min-maxed killmachine single handedly vanquished them. I believe the Storyteller said that the book recommended following the usual combat rules, without fudging the dice in case the foolish PC dies. Ho ho ho. For once, huh?

And for the record, I failed to get the body armor twice, and the second time I even tried to, but since I missed out on the Downtown haven, I of course didn't choose to visit my Santa Monica haven before reporting back to the Prince after Hallowbrook. So it was only the third time I actually got that armor, and experienced the dispppointment. I thought I'd get to look like one of those soldier-guys. Instead it looked just like the heavy leather. Bah.

Makes little sense to me that the ghoul would be the key to body armor, but perhaps it's meant as an abstraction of the fact that having a ghoul watch over your dormant body during daytime increases your safety somewhat? And since daytime doesn't matter in the game, you get something which does matter and also makes you safer. The 'hard choice' of keeping her around for the armor or letting her go is only a choice if you know of both the reward and of the danger. Playing for the first time, and not spoiling oneself , one would know of neither, though the second could be anticipated. And hey, if you like special cutscenes, it's win-win, isn't it? :D

I never much cared for her anyway. She's got very poor fashion sense, and even Knox and Patty have more appealing personalities. She's the only ghoul in the game who acts like a bloody doormat. Perhaps it's because of the blood bond? Ugh.

I don't know, maybe Colt and Steyr don't bother about fees and see it as advertisement. Anyway, the mix up of real and fantasy weapons was what annoyed most people so I fixed that.

The thing that annoyed me was that when I went for help online, people referred to weapons that I hadn't seen in the game. Such as a "kill-a-matic"? But I suppose that the same thing would also happen if a lot of people consistently referred to the fake named weapons by their real names. Though now that I've read some of the fake names, I don't think they're so bad that they had to be changed. Not much of a gun nut I guess.

Oh well, I hope that my suggestion about swapping items doesn't cause game balance issues (as pointed out by RGE).

I don't think the Galdjum is powerful enough to unbalance anything and nobody cared when I moved it from Hollywood to Chinatown. But it is indeed much more fitting for the Prince to offer you something like that instead of a pure security related powerup.

Even I don't think that the Galdjum is that powerful, but when it comes to balance, gametime is usually a better gauge than 'type of special place'. So that was my point when I suggested it as a reason for not having it in the Downtown haven. Also, it kind of looks like something one would find in a Nosferatu warren, doesn't it?

 

[Wesp5]

Nice. Not sure (in retrospective, deleting my saved games wasn't a really good idea), but I think you can also enter the Trip's and the blood bank. If you can enter the blood bank this way, you may want to make sure that Vandal's dialog remains consistent when finding him this way as well. Also, what about Trip? Does he offer weapons for sale in the end game even if you never found out he does so in the first place (an unlikely scenario, but possible)?

Vandal should be fine but I see another problem with Trip. If you don't know he sells weapons you wouldn't want to go to him anyway, so I changed the Cabbie dialogue to reflect this and also the possibility you messed up Trip and Mercurio which will send you to your haven instead.

When you first met Mercurio after having the blood hunt declared after you, didn't he used to say something in the line of "I heard about your problems with the prince, but I want you to know it's business as usual between us"? Or maybe I'm remembering that from some other game?

Maybe you mixed that up with the lines he delivers at the endings. I can't find anything like you remember and I haven't removed it for sure.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Vandal should be fine but I see another problem with Trip. If you don't know he sells weapons you wouldn't want to go to him anyway, so I changed the Cabbie dialogue to reflect this and also the possibility you messed up Trip and Mercurio which will send you to your haven instead.

So if neither are available the "I need weapons" (or something like that) dialog line won't even show up or will simply lead nowhere?
Sounds good.

Maybe you mixed that up with the lines he delivers at the endings. I can't find anything like you remember and I haven't removed it for sure.

I must have mixed that up with something else then. I just know that I expected him to say something like this and was surprised when he didn't have anything new to say at all. He is supposed to have some new lines after choosing the ending, right? Because I think I talked to him after siding with the Camarilla too and he still had nothing to say.

 

[Wesp5]

So if neither are available the "I need weapons" (or something like that) dialog line won't even show up or will simply lead nowhere?

It won't show up. I even did the same if you managed to never find out about Vandal.

I must have mixed that up with something else then. I just know that I expected him to say something like this and was surprised when he didn't have anything new to say at all. He is supposed to have some new lines after choosing the ending, right? Because I think I talked to him after siding with the Camarilla too and he still had nothing to say.

He says nothing special in that case only but has additional lines for the solo/anarch, prince and Kuji-Gin endings. Now that you told me about it some text from him about the bloodhunt would have been nice but it's just not in there .

 

[DarkUnderlord]

And now, as Acrimonious is working on fixing just those things that are in the initial release, there'd also be no point.

We should leave it like that

What? Come on, we can get another 5 pages on this at least!

but I still would ask you to contact Acrimonious to work with me unless you really think that with Tessera's additions his patch will end up like you would want it to be...

I'm actually wondering if anyone can make the patch I want. What's the best forum to hassle Acrimonious at? Might do an interview / article for Terra-Arcanum or something, just because we haven't done any new content for a while and a community bitch-fest seems like as good excuse as any.

 

[mathboy]

I'm actually wondering if anyone can make the patch I want.

Why don't we make it ourselves then?

 

[Zero Credibility]

It won't show up. I even did the same if you managed to never find out about Vandal.

Great.

He says nothing special in that case only but has additional lines for the solo/anarch, prince and Kuji-Gin endings. Now that you told me about it some text from him about the bloodhunt would have been nice but it's just not in there .

Had a feeling it was something like that.

Oh, and I have a question. Why do histories that modify the unarmed combat increase the feat instead of the appropriate skill like all other histories do? For example the Malkavian ninja - bonus to melee skill but unarmed feat (with no guns and no ducks).

 

[Wesp5]

Oh, and I have a question. Why do histories that modify the unarmed combat increase the feat instead of the appropriate skill like all other histories do? For example the Malkavian ninja - bonus to melee skill but unarmed feat (with no guns and no ducks).

I don't know. What do you mean with all other histories do it differently?

 

[Zero Credibility]

I mean that when histories give bonuses on anything but unarmed combat (melee, firearms, intimidation, whatever), they are always given on skills (in the form of blue dots on the character screen). But histories that improve unarmed combat (like the ninja) for some reason give a bonus not to the brawling skill but instead directly to the unarmed combat feat.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I'm actually wondering if anyone can make the patch I want.

Why don't we make it ourselves then?

Don't be gay. I have better things to do, like argue on the internets.

 

[Wesp5]

I mean that when histories give bonuses on anything but unarmed combat (melee, firearms, intimidation, whatever), they are always given on skills (in the form of blue dots on the character screen). But histories that improve unarmed combat (like the ninja) for some reason give a bonus not to the brawling skill but instead directly to the unarmed combat feat.

Ah, I'l see if I can fix that...

 

[Wesp5]

I'm actually wondering if anyone can make the patch I want.

Why don't we make it ourselves then?

Don't be gay. I have better things to do, like argue on the internets.

Well, I though the whole issue over and I could offer a compromise solution. What would you think if I included some files into my next release that would turn my patch into a more basic one? I guess the following changes should be possible without much work or increasing the patch size dramatically:

- No bonus xp for freeing Ash, killing Bruno, leaving Zhao alive
and getting Imalia her magazine.
- No humanity losses connected to Copper, Ash, Imalia, Wong Ho,
Hannah, Jeannette and Tourette.
- Books available again from Trip (but the duplicates will stay
in the other levels as well to ease double usage).
- Occult items and blood available again from Tseng (but Galdjum
instead of Fae Charm because of the Isaac bug).
- CD quest Nosferatu only again and Imalia magazine quest removed.
- Larry quest condition restored and Jeanette encounter removed.
- All weapon names and parameters restored to original state.
- All restored new occult items removed again.
- No body armor available from Mercurio.
- No crossbow available from Slater.

Would that be acceptable? Any other changes that are possible without including whole levels again, which would blow the patch size out of proportion, will be considered too!

 

[Jaesun]

Can you make each change/fix optional? Such as a user could select what change/fix they would like to have added, and not select which change/fix they don't want.

I don't know if you ever played Baldurs Gate/BGII but the WeiDU type of modding system would be the ideal type of format to make your patch.

This would greatly calm down the bitching masses, buy only selecting what fix they consider to be TEH TRUE PATCH!!11!1!.

 

[Wesp5]

I mean that when histories give bonuses on anything but unarmed combat (melee, firearms, intimidation, whatever), they are always given on skills (in the form of blue dots on the character screen). But histories that improve unarmed combat (like the ninja) for some reason give a bonus not to the brawling skill but instead directly to the unarmed combat feat.

Ah, I'l see if I can fix that...

P.S.: It seems that this was originally so but was replaced because it produced crashes.