1eyedking VTMB Unofficial Patch Butthurt Thread

[Urbanolo]

Lujo can you calm the fuck down already, you forgot to take your adderall.

Are we sure that it isn't Celerity's second account?

 

[Acleacius]

Wesp, please stop responding to Lujo, it's a waste of time. He's got a very high opinion of his opinion.

 

[Acleacius]

Here's a new quest for the sewers, in case anyone is interested. Wesp is considering using it but if he doesn't get a chance you can check it out if you want. I tried to post it here but the code is not reading it properly, so here's a link.

https://forums.planetvampire.com/bloodlines-modding/new-sewer-quest-taking-out-the-trash/

 

[Lujo]

Lujo can you calm the fuck down already, you forgot to take your adderall.

Are we sure that it isn't Celerity's second account?

Ok, I did find that funny.

I'm having too much fun, sorry.

Put yourself in my shoes, there's a guy telling me the damned crossbow does 30 damage at ranged 8, and there's another guy backing him up. And I've got the crossbow at 56 damage at ranged 6 on alt-tab. And a save game at canker to make a quick video. And the reason for giving me this thing is completely insane. And the guy's been fiddling with the game for 10 years and everyoe's so reverent of him... it's hilarious! :D

I can have a load of stupid trollish fun by sitting at my computer with a friend showing them the discussion and then just alt-tabing. I'm considering actually making a short demostrative vid ^^

 

[Wesp5]

Put yourself in my shoes, there's a guy telling me the damned crossbow does 30 damage at ranged 8, and there's another guy backing him up.

I didn't come up with the damage formula, I got it out of the walkthrough from GameFAQs and you can probably confirm it with Google from different sites. When I just tested the crossbow at Firearms 6 in the Red Dragon by killing all five NPC on the ground floor I got a damage of 28 for each one of them. Also since when does the crossbow shoot through vampire defenses when it has the very same damage type as the thirty eight and all other firearms? Or does your crossbow shoot flaming bolts already?

On the other hand you tell us you had a bug initiating automatic dialogue with all NPCs nearby for years which you fixed by using a Python version the Game Mod Loader creater advised me not to use. You claim it fixed the dialogue bug, but posted on Steam:

1) Mitnick never sent me the cameras for the nocturne theatre quest. I have the quest, but not the cameras. I found a throwing star in my box instead.
2) I tried using the console to give myself the cameras, but it turns out that giving yourself wireless_camera_3 gives you the squashed odious chalice
3) the squashed odious chalice didn't spawn in the Fu Syndicate, either, so the last one was a very luck bug for me
4) Gary asked for the compromising photo, I put it into my mailbox, nothing happened, so that quest is stuck

and

- As a Nosferatu (clan might not matter) I scared the food critic for La Croix. The quest log is stuck on "I ought to check my email", but I have allready checked my email and I think I even recieved my reward, but the quest won't go away.
- For some reason, something caused a lot of emails to disappear (certainly the two I got from Gary)
- The quest "Going the way of Kings" is stuck at "Isac has promised me a reward if I come later". I have come to him multiple times since then, nothing happened.
- There's an Item I've not seen (or don't remember having seen) outside of the UP+ patch which looks like a stone ring. It sayes it needs 6 research to identify, so I don't know what it is, but I have 8 research.

Everything of course is not due to the new Python version, but probably my fault. Anyone else here ever had these issues in one go? Anyone else here ever had the initiating automatic dialogue bug? Why don't you just check the console for Python errors and post the results here. Maybe we can finally find out what's wrong with your setup! It might well affect weapons for all I know...

About the basic patch changelog, you can find it in the patch readme, it's basically everything that has no "+ "in front of the line.

As for cleaning up your inventory. I already added an option to give the warrens items to Gary, following Acleacius' idea, but not playing it out as a quest which it isn't. Everything else is bad meta-gaming and keys are different, because exactly how you said, you can't know whether you will need an item later, but you know that a certain key will only fit a certain door and is redundant.

As for the Gimble option, I have decided to remove it for now because of this drama, but I became aware that this is just one big meta-gaming fight between you and Acleacius. The latter wanted a solution for his "good" vampire and got it, because he already knows that Gimble is evil. You dislike this because you already know you are missing a nice bossfight. Both is pure meta-gaming!

Let's look at it from the view of the characters. Our vampire wants to deliver someone to Vandal to be drained of blood. He found a nice girl that is just bored and out for exitement. On the other hand he found a weird guy who is connected with a case of missing persons and is so crazy that he cut his own arm off, knowing about which is one condition to send him to Vandal in the first place. I would choose Gimble even if I didn't know that he killed other people! So the behaviour of the player is completely reasonable.

Let's look at it from Gimble's view. He is out to kill the player, but suddenly got a typical magical vampire Persuasion tempting him with something that sounds great to his crazy brain. He might want to capture the player first before going to Vandal, but there just isn't a way to make this happen because he attacks you right on. What he really might wanted to do is lock you in when he leaves you behind for latter. I could probably do something like this in case I reactivate the whole alternative way. Which for now I won't...

 

[HansDampf]

I remember when I was first looking into mods and patches, in order to decide how I want to play this game. The shit drama around Wesp and Tessera that google vomited out was almost as exciting as the game itself.

 

[Krivol]

So, Wesp5 is another soul that is going to be Clevelanded by codex?

 

[makiavelli747]

It has a very high skill req (way over what the PC likely has at that point)

Yeah, right... With histories enabled as an ex-swat Toreador and ex-cop Gangrel you can get to lvl 8 firearms for 17 points w/o books.
For Toreador ex-swat gives +21 exp. points total..... for a price not being able to raise dexterity above 1
And after that Wesp asked me why he should've changed difficulty of skillchecks.....
I really can't argue with that kind of people.

 

[Wesp5]

And after that Wesp asked me why he should've changed difficulty of skillchecks.....

I probably didn't ask why, but how! Like you have only nine lines for answers and skillchecks during dialogue and with important NPCs these are already taken most of the time. Skillchecks for doors are hard-coded into the maps and for computers hard-coded into the terminal files. That's besides the fact that I wouldn't even know how to determine the history a character has choosen...

 

[Wesp5]

So, Wesp5 is another soul that is going to be Clevelanded by codex?

Hm, I don't even know what this is supposed to mean . Also is Celerity to be an alias for Tessera or someone else that is infamous here?

 

[Lujo]

Celerity is a grade-A loon, you don't wanna know Tessera is tame by comparison. EDIT: Although having seen his message board I'll grant it's hard to imagine a bigger loon. Both had some good points, mind you, but they seem to have been actually messed up in the head.

I'm typing up a helpful reply to wesp right now, quit spamming guys (this might lead to actual bugs being fixed and stuff)

EDIT: Noone's geting anything'd, either.

 

[Krivol]

Cleveland is - well, tried to be - a developer with strong support here. The he went mad, because... well, you will see, codex is... well, you will really see .

 

[Wesp5]

Yeah, I'm seeing already ! Good night...

 

[makiavelli747]

but how! Like you have only nine lines for answers and skillchecks during dialogue and with important NPCs these are already taken most of the time. Skillchecks for doors are hard-coded into the maps and for computers hard-coded into the terminal files.

oh, boy... by cutting down exp. rewards....
but checks for persuasion are still very low compare to others(in Santa-Monica max useful lvl for persuasion is 4, 5 for intimidation and 6 seduction), although its more useful skill

 

[Lujo]

Ok, let's try to have a conversation then. Or a proper bugreport / anaylsis.

Put yourself in my shoes, there's a guy telling me the damned crossbow does 30 damage at ranged 8, and there's another guy backing him up.

I didn't come up with the damage formula, I got it out of the walkthrough from GameFAQs and you can probably confirm it with Google from different sites. When I just tested the crossbow at Firearms 6 in the Red Dragon by killing all five NPC on the ground floor I got a damage of 28 for each one of them. Also since when does the crossbow shoot through vampire defenses when it has the very same damage type as the thirty eight and all other firearms? Or does your crossbow shoot flaming bolts already?

I tried to take a screenie of the crosbow and my stats to show you, but my basic print screen keeps taking a screenie of the loading screen despite me being in the game. This is a bummer because it would clear up that I'm not talking out of my ass and that the crossbow indeed does do 56 six with ranged at 6 for me and has before I put the new phyton in. Which is why, from my perspective, I have been given an insane nuke. Seeing that you found the 60 damage shocking, I suppose you didn't have the intention of giving anyone a 60 damage crossbow. All my talk about questionable decisions eroding confidence in the mod author - that's what eroded confidence causes. I didn't have trouble imagining you handing me a 60 damage crossobow and then defending that, because of the eroded confidence. And if your patch can result in people getting a 60 damage crossbow, I'm still doing a favor to you by informing you of this. If it were my mod, I'd be very eager to figure out how the hell that happened, because I'd know instantly that I broke the game by giving that to the player. If you don't believe me I suppose I could find some recording software and make you a clip so you can see for yourself.

If this is somehow a result of this beta patch, for example already applying boosted damage values for the crossbow, let me tell you right now - don't do it XD It's gamebreaking, and I hope you can imagine this.

http://vtmb.wikia.com/wiki/Crossbow this might be outdate or never functional, but that thing is that crossbows work against vamipers extra well because "they fire stakes at them". This is why hunters have them, and why Kuei-Jin have them (Kuei-Jin seem to be experimenting with ways to efficiently kill vamps it's a ongoing theme). If you're looking for an interesting thing to "restore", it might be fun although it would screw over guys who rely on tanking. Or something. I'm drunk currently, so take that particular suggestion with a grain of salt, if the crossbows don't currently go through soaking or whatever it's called there might be good reasons.

On the other hand you tell us you had a bug initiating automatic dialogue with all NPCs nearby for years which you fixed by using a Python version the Game Mod Loader creater advised me not to use. You claim it fixed the dialogue bug, but posted on Steam:

1) Mitnick never sent me the cameras for the nocturne theatre quest. I have the quest, but not the cameras. I found a throwing star in my box instead.
2) I tried using the console to give myself the cameras, but it turns out that giving yourself wireless_camera_3 gives you the squashed odious chalice
3) the squashed odious chalice didn't spawn in the Fu Syndicate, either, so the last one was a very luck bug for me
4) Gary asked for the compromising photo, I put it into my mailbox, nothing happened, so that quest is stuck

and

- As a Nosferatu (clan might not matter) I scared the food critic for La Croix. The quest log is stuck on "I ought to check my email", but I have allready checked my email and I think I even recieved my reward, but the quest won't go away.
- For some reason, something caused a lot of emails to disappear (certainly the two I got from Gary)
- The quest "Going the way of Kings" is stuck at "Isac has promised me a reward if I come later". I have come to him multiple times since then, nothing happened.
- There's an Item I've not seen (or don't remember having seen) outside of the UP+ patch which looks like a stone ring. It sayes it needs 6 research to identify, so I don't know what it is, but I have 8 research.

Everything of course is not due to the new Python version, but probably my fault. Anyone else here ever had these issues in one go? Anyone else here ever had the initiating automatic dialogue bug? Why don't you just check the console for Python errors and post the results here. Maybe we can finally find out what's wrong with your setup! It might well affect weapons for all I know...

Right, let's see about all this. My installation was GoG onto win 10, then your patch, started with the patch shortcut, game from scratch. There should have been no problems with it. The auto-dialogue bug fired up sometimes in Santa Monica, gave me grief all game up until I applied phyton (and until I restarted the computer after that, but not before). I happened to be Nosferatu so I didn't have to deal with the cabbie (which is game over with that bug if I recall correctly) which meant that because I have experience with it I could deal with the annoyance, and it was the most annoying in the Lily rescue quest, witch is sensible as it generally messes that up.

Phyton + restart fixed it, but I suppose if I make another playthrough I could probably make you a video of it so you can get familiar with it. I've seen you get reports about the Lily quest and you don't seem to know what's up with that, and really I absolutely wish I just taped it because it's obvious to the naked eye what's going on when you see that bug elsewhere and then there. For my next playthrough I can reinstal this same patch and not apply the phyton, I'll probably run into the bug again and if this happens I can probably tape it for you.

Now:

a) Mitnick

Right after the warrens, I happened to get a cluster of emails all at once, because when you find the warrens, in your patch, this seems to trigger both mitnick and gary. (Q: Is this normal for Gary in vanilla?) Since I haven't done any sidequests in Hollywood, or checked my email, I also got LaCroix mail at the same time as Mitnicks and Garry's ones. Before that I came to Hollywood and just rushed through the main quest.

The first Garry quest worked fine and the first mitnick quest did too. However, when I was supposed to receive the camera I needed from mitnick I found a throwing star in my mailbox instead. This is very important.

Q: Is the throwing star is "restored content"? If so, it is possible, not necessary but definitely possible, that the relevant camera got replaced with the throwing star. I don't know how it works on the back end, but it might be separate lists for the mailbox or something. So from my limited perspective me getting a throwing star instead of the camera seems like something that would be easy for you to mess up phyton or no phyton.

Another thing is that I don't remember how you get the cameras from Imalia. Again, fiddling with the cameras, making them stackable, replacing them with other stuff - this could have indirectly messed up Mitnick, which is why it might not have been a good idea at all. Especially if it didn't occur to you that you could, in that way, actually affect mitnicks quest chain, because then you did something without being aware of the concequences. And if those were the concequences of what you did, you were also dismissive of the person trying to tell you this reinforcing the growing mistrust in your mental abilities on part of a very dedicated, very patient long time multipe-game tester that gets a few brofists and agreements and various other positive smileys when he isn't making faces at annoying coders.

At the very least - if the phyton messed up mitnick OR the way items get distributed, then make sure you've covered it when you do make the patch fully compatible with it. Me applying phyton didn't cause a mess all over the place, I've completed plenty of quests and sidequests afterwards, and the game didn't exibit massive bugs like the auto-dialogue thing, but if this whole mail mess is related to phyton in any way then make sure it works or other people might have the exact same problem.

b) Squashed Odious Chalice

You seem to have replaced the camera_3 with the squashed odious chalice. The chalice didn't spawn in the Mandarin quest, where it's supposed to according to the gamefaq guide, and the door to the room after the flamethrowers didn't open, and I'm not sure but I think they were supposed to. So it's even possible that the chalice was there but I couldn't reach it. Anyway, I gave it to myself after that quest this way, by accident.

The reason I didn't immediately give myself the camera_1 is that the console never displayed the option.

So:

- I couldn't find the chalice in the Fu Syndicate no matter what I tried, might be a bug might be me not knowing something, might be it only spawns if you have the appropriate garry quest
- The console doesn't display the camera_1 (and at that time also the camera_2 I think) option
- Might be phyton related, might not be, in case it is people applying phyton might get screwed up by it

I think I eneded up giving myself a name plate somehow, and I seem to have somehow acquired a fae charm from a non-canonnical source, which is important related to Isac.

c) I did the first gary quest without a hitch, but the mailbox wouldn't accept the photo which I picked up much much earlier.

The logical explanation for this might be that the mailbox didn't register that photo as the photo. I've seen this exact thing actually reported before, google found it and didn't like the dismissive tone with which it was handled. If you've been messing with the item ID's (I have no idea of how the whole thing is structured) it's perfectly possible that you caused this.

In fact, looking at things it seems you have moved the Damsel quest with the wooden toy (that you inserted), and this might have also caused it.

Also, I haven't actually met VV at the time I got this email, I have no idea if this is a relevant global stat / parameter, but, again, later I met her and Garry still didn't take his stuff.

And then Gary's emails dissapeared. How or why this happened I have no idea, but both the first and the second email dissapeared.

Ultimately, if phyton's behind this, it'll get messed up.

So from my perspective there's quite a bunch of stuff you fiddled with here that didn't exactly need fiddling with, but might have caused this meltdown. Handwaving it as "random mailbox bugs", again, erodes trust in your judgement further, as you could have actually messed it up in a number of ways. And I have actually seen someone being told to "just give themself the xp they don't need the other posters but the first one" and being stuck on this exact problem before.

You did a lot with the posters, things related to them very likely are due to you. And whatever the reason was for your alterations there, if it was working fine before you fiddled with it, return it to the way it was, by all means, all of it. As enjoyable as the changes might be, they can not possibly be worth being screwed out of the quest altogether.

---

Then:

- Food Critic Quest

I happened to do the food critic thing for La Croix as a Nosferatu rather late. I seem to have also recieved the reward in the mail, but the quest seems stuck on "I ought to check my mail". I have allready, and the mail tells me that SL "hopes we will meet soon". So I suppose I'm supposed to check back with La Croix. If that's all there is to it, it wouldn't be a problem, but I can't do it because the door is now locked and I believe it'll only unlock once I have the sarcophagus (which I don't have yet).

So the problem with this one might have nothing to do with my installation, really, but with how that quest is meant to be resolved specifically and I'd be very interested to know this. Or when La Croix's door in the basement the Nosferatu comes in through gets locked, if just talking to him would end it.

- The Emails

Something did cause 2 of gary's emails to dissapear (a solved one and an active one). And possibly some other ones. I didn't delete any, they just dissapaeard. I would look into the potential bugs and screwups in the other quests before looking into this one, honestly.

- Isac's reward for "The Way of Kings"

THIS is weird. I've got this Quest stuck in my quest log as unfinished telling me to visit Isac after a while. The gamefqs guide with your stuff in it is a bit conflicted on it - in one place it says I'm supposed to get the gift after the ORIGINAL GANGSTER quest in Chinatown, in another place it says after the sewers in Hollywood.

This points me towards your alterations, rather than anything else, necessarily.

The guide says that you get the charm from Isac if you haven't purchased it from Tseng, a vendor in Chinatown, which could explain the delay - the game might be waiting for me to meed Tseng or something. IDK. If I knew the exact trigger for Isac to fork over the reward I could tell you if anything is actually wrong with it.

However, I do have a Fae Charm, which I don't think I could've got in ways other than your alteration and it seems you did a lot of fiddling with magic items around the place. If there's anything wrong, then this might be behind it, phyton or no phyton.

Also, the game says the time to visit Isac is after ORIGINAL GANGSTER. I've done it (albeit without saving the guy), and this doesn't seem to trigger Isac rewarding me.

---

There's also some king of stone ring thing that says it needs 6 research for me to know what it is. It seems to be somethign you put in, I've got more reseatch but it doesn't tell me what it is. No idea what's up with that, could be some phyton thing, could be a mistaken research value. I'd love to tell you what it is so you can tell me what it is, but I don't know what it is, and I don't remember where I got it.

---

About the basic patch changelog, you can find it in the patch readme, it's basically everything that has no "+ "in front of the line.

That is unclear. I've read it, and I've also found a disected version on the loonie board which is not flattering to either the loonies or you. Sad to say, I'd trade that sentiment and conclusion for a more in-depth list of what you've been fiddling with

As for cleaning up your inventory. I already added an option to give the warrens items to Gary, following Acleacius' idea, but not playing it out as a quest which it isn't. Everything else is bad meta-gaming and keys are different, because exactly how you said, you can't know whether you will need an item later, but you know that a certain key will only fit a certain door and is redundant.

In your place I would have the game clean up quest-related items automatically, fearing only that I mess up some item removal before the item becomes fully irrelevant. Because if I pulled that part off I would have less potential for active grief due to inventory overflow. Good clean design. But whatever.

As for the flavor stuff - a good idea would be that if you give it to garry, you might let him give the Nosferatu his haven right there. Getting your haven right before the Giovanni quest is annoying as balls, and is what made me just rush the main quest like mad this time around. So if it's possible to move that bit (might not be due to animations, I know).

As for the Gimble option, I have decided to remove it for now because of this drama, but I became aware that this is just one big meta-gaming fight between you and Acleacius. The latter wanted a solution for his "good" vampire and got it, because he already knows that Gimble is evil. You dislike this because you already know you are missing a nice bossfight. Both is pure meta-gaming!

I disagree that removing it because of the drama is the right way to go about it. But if that's the way you want to look at it... It's design. The reason I don't want this removed because "some guy said so" is that there could be plenty of powergamers who must've enjoyed the convenience of evading a fight and getting XP for it. Not because it makes sense but because it's just so damned convenient and because that's the way to squeeze the most experience out of the quest. I really don't have to be the next "guy who talked you into something", and I've enumerated why the thing was a bad idea from multiple angles. I would appreciate you removing it, although I'm pretty sure that it's in your best interest. Let's leave it there.

 

[Momock]

It has a very high skill req (way over what the PC likely has at that point)

Yeah, right... With histories enabled as an ex-swat Toreador and ex-cop Gangrel you can get to lvl 8 firearms for 17 points w/o books.
For Toreador ex-swat gives +21 exp. points total..... for a price not being able to raise dexterity above 1
And after that Wesp asked me why he should've changed difficulty of skillchecks.....
I really can't argue with that kind of people.

I think that nerfing Bloodbuff from +5 in all physical skills to +2 compensates the bonuses from the histories. I may be wrong, I haven't tried these yet.

PS: I've seen a guy crying about the items taking room in his inventory and wanting them to disappaer. Just leave them in the drawer in your flat?

 

[Lujo]

PS: I've seen a guy crying about the items taking room in his inventory and wanting them to disappaer. Just leave them in the drawer in your flat?

Easy thing to suggest, numerous problems with it:

a) you might not be aware of your flat having a drawer (does the one in Santa Monica have it at all? Am I meant to keep stuff in the fridge?) EDIT: Take me, 10 years of playing never occured to me.
b) You might be a Nosferatu or Tremere, so in case the first one doesn't, you've got a long time to go before you get the next one (yeah, ok, thare are containers in the SM flat)
c) Who exactly knows how containers refresh? This is one of the reasons why it never occured to me to drop stuff into them other than the mailbox.
c1) Just hink about it - you'd have know exactly how maps refresh in order to be sure some random thing won't make you lose all your stuff. (again 10 years playing I have no idea if something unrelated will eat my items)
d) You really don't know if and when you'll need an item. And then if an item is in your drawer it would mean a hike that'd be unnecessary if you just had it on you (the tremere book of summoning for example, looks like a flavor hint, isn't)
e) The game doesn't mention or encourage this in any way. (The inventory doesn't even look finite)

there's more, it's not as simple. It doesn't make any sense to ever drop an item, and the game is internally inconsistend about items dissapearing or not. The "keys are different" justifications are just private justifications, taken as a system the whole thing is clunky and if the game was made today that would absolutely be consistent.

Keep in mind I'm talking about quest items, stuff you need for actual one-time quest triggers, not flavor items like sewer diaries which don't have an actual use.

 

[makiavelli747]

I think that nerfing Bloodbuff from +5 in all physical skills to +2 compensates the bonuses from the histories. I may be wrong, I haven't tried these yet.

It's not just nerf vs. buff...
For example, you can start the game as Ventrue with persuasion 7. But you need only 4 in 1st location... that's why you spend all "free points" into combat and making "jack of all trades".
What i'm saying is that every choice you make in char list should be meaningful, especially if we want to make clans at least a little bit different.

 

[Momock]

It's not just nerf vs. buff...
For example, you can start the game as Ventrue with persuasion 7. But you need only 4 in 1st location... that's why you spend all "free points" into combat and making "jack of all trades".
What i'm saying is that every choice you make in char list should be meaningful, especially if we want to make clans at least a little bit different.

You can make a "jack of all trades" anyway in this game, there is too much useless skills like intimidation/seduction/finance (you can resolve everything with just persuasion), stealth (can be stealthy during all the game without spending a single point in it) or inspection. Outside of combat you just need persuasion, lockpick, hacking and scholarship (for the free points, and you need it for persusion anyway). All the rest is useless.

I think that trying to balance this mess is a lost cause. That being said... having 7 in one skill at the start of the game is still pretty insane.

Easy thing to suggest, numerous problems with it:

a) you might not be aware of your flat having a drawer (does the one in Santa Monica have it at all?)
b) You might be a Nosferatu or Tremere, so in case the first one doesn't, you've got a long time to go before you get the next one
c) Who exactly knows how containers refresh? This is one of the reasons why it never occured to me to drop stuff into them other than the mailbox
d) You really don't know if and when you'll need an item. And then if an item is in your drawer it would mean a hike that'd be unnecessary if you just had it on you

there's more, it's not as simple.

I understand your points but I disagree.

a) is just stupid. Of course you have a drawer at Santa Monica, your computer sits on it! (and you have the fridge anyway). This discalifies b) as well.

c) is a concern only for somebody who's playing the vanilla totally fucked up version of the game ("What if a bug erases my items?"). If not you'll probably be in hollywood before you need to make room in your inventory and at that time you understood how things work (that you have to visit your flat sometimes to see your email and to speak with your ghoul), so you know that you can leave your items here. And I think d) is bullshit too, you perfecly know that you're not going to need all these "journals" once you finished the related quests. You can just throw them anywhere.

 

[Wesp5]

Ok, let's try to have a conversation then. Or a proper bugreport / anaylsis.

Ok, so I've read all of this and of course most of it is somehow connected to Python! Python scripts make plus patch item unhide which are invisible in the basic patch, like the squashed chalice (BTW, the door does not open, you need to break the window). Python scripts put stuff in your mailbox and take it out of there. Python scripts are directly run from the terminal files or from the dialogue files. Basically the Python scripts connect all the separate game elements to make a working game out of it!

Now about the new Python version. This was added by a Python specialist who worked with Python on his system for something else and noticed that having both an old and a new Python version installed messed things up. So he made the new version work with Bloodlines too, which should only matter to people like himself. Much latter a Russian coder created the Game Mod Loader, which is the tool that makes the patch run out of a subfolder, but he did only make it compatible with the old Python version.

Then there is yourself. Do you honestly believe all the bugs you see are caused by a patch that works flawless for thousands of other people? Shouldn't there be complains over complains here and on GOG and on Steam and on PV if whole quest lines like Mitnick's or Gary's broke for everyone? As I'm not a Python specialist, like I don't know where the difference of the versions is, I was stumped, but then it just occurred to me reading your latest long report, what the cause of the issue might be. You wrote:

Phyton + restart fixed it...

Now with "restart" I figure you mean restarting the computer, not starting a new game. This is where all the problems may come from! It'a a long known fact that you shouldn't update the patch or anything else with Bloodlines without starting a new game as many variables and script states are stored in the save files in a way we don't know anything about. Maybe the same thing has happened here? Some old Python version scripts had already been saved and are now clashing with the new Python outside!

So sadly the only solution to fix this would be to start a new game from scratch. Or continue to use the console to advance. And as I wrote already, the console gives great Python script feedback once you enter a new map. It will list broken or missing stuff and it would help to confirm my suspicion if you could look for these. You already posted something like this on Steam, it often starts with an "AttributeError" and if you scroll back in the console you may find a section with "TraceBack" and "Syntax Error" reports.

If this is somehow a result of this beta patch, for example already applying boosted damage values for the crossbow, let me tell you right now - don't do it XD It's gamebreaking, and I hope you can imagine this.

This is something I still can't explain. Can you post the damage section of your item_w_crossbow.txt file here? When I test the crossbow it does only a third of the damage you see, exactly as it should be! There are no visible Python scripts in the weapon files, but as all the weapons are more or less hard-coded (like you could copy all the ranged weapon info into a melee weapon file and it would still do a melee attack and not a ranged one), we don't know how they are done. But then you said you already had the power-crossbow before the Python switch.

http://vtmb.wikia.com/wiki/Crossbow this might be outdate or never functional, but that thing is that crossbows work against vamipers extra well because "they fire stakes at them". This is why hunters have them, and why Kuei-Jin have them (Kuei-Jin seem to be experimenting with ways to efficiently kill vamps it's a ongoing theme). If you're looking for an interesting thing to "restore", it might be fun although it would screw over guys who rely on tanking.

That's only meta-gaming talk that has no real connection to the game. I just tested the crossbow on Andrei and I get a similar 26 damage as with humans! The only thing that is supposed to work better on supernaturals is aggravated damage and again only because they will heal slower, if they use healing at all. I plan to add this to the crossbow in the next beta, but already tested that it doesn't make more damage when you directly hit enemies. Also I will make the bolts themselves only availabe after Hollywood! This seems to fix both connected issues of the crossbow: my hate of having weapons disappear and probable balancing problems.

However, when I was supposed to receive the camera I needed from mitnick I found a throwing star in my mailbox instead.

Back to the Python problem, this is really weird. The Python script for the above is "mailbox.SpawnItemInContainer("item_g_wireless_camera_1"), but the throwing star is "item_g_wireless_camera_4". I can only explain that by a huge incompatibility of the two Python versions and info somehow already stored in your saved game...

Another thing is that I don't remember how you get the cameras from Imalia.

Imalia gives the cameras to you during dialogue and the Python scripts have worked without issues like this for years: "pc.GiveItem("item_g_wireless_camera_1"); pc.GiveAmmo("item_g_wireless_camera_1",2)"

Me applying phyton didn't cause a mess all over the place, I've completed plenty of quests and sidequests afterwards, and the game didn't exibit massive bugs like the auto-dialogue thing, but if this whole mail mess is related to phyton in any way then make sure it works or other people might have the exact same problem.

As other people do not at all have your problems my only explanation would be that serial quests like the ones from Mitnick and Gary and others that had already been started got broken by the Python switch because of incompatible data in the saved gamed. Quests started from scratch after the switch would only use the newer Python version code and thus work as intended!

I disagree that removing it because of the drama is the right way to go about it. But if that's the way you want to look at it...

No, that was bad wording on my part. I meant that the drama made me aware of something there...

Not because it makes sense but because it's just so damned convenient and because that's the way to squeeze the most experience out of the quest.

... and it's not that. That's as much meta-gaming as the arguments of Acleacius in the first place! But what I really noticed when I was thinking about it, that you were right in another point: You loose a very cool moment when a madman would attack you with a severed arm! As the UP is all about restoring content and not removing it, I think people have to experience this moment again...

 

[makiavelli747]

you can resolve everything with just persuasion

Well, you can't resolve Vandal's quest with persuasion if you have high humanity.

 

[Wesp5]

oh, boy... by cutting down exp. rewards....

Again this wouldn't work easily because all XP rewards are defined in one single file with no way to affect it after the game has started. The rewards themselves are called from the quest log files for which the same applies and while it would theoretically be possible to add new quest logs for certain histories, most of the time there would be no surplus lines in the dialogues to call them. Also what fun would it be to make the histories the same difficulty as the normal game? I always assumed the histories were ways to either make the game easier or harder, depending on what history you would choose.

but checks for persuasion are still very low compare to others(in Santa-Monica max useful lvl for persuasion is 4, 5 for intimidation and 6 seduction), although its more useful skill

I agree with that. Intimidation and Seduction are useless compared to Persuasion which is just to strong in the current game! But there is little I can do about it without voice-overs as answers to additional Intimidation and Seduction options which we don't have.

 

[Momock]

Well, you can't resolve Vandal's quest with persuasion if you have high humanity.

I didn't know this. They don't mention it in the wiki. But if you're right, well, that's the only case then. The only things that seduction and intimidation do that persuasion don't is robbing the dude in front of your home and getting free blood by seducing the stupid bitches in the clubs, witch is even more useless.

 

[makiavelli747]

But there is little I can do about

It takes about 30 minutes to adjust difficulty of every single persuasion line.

Again this wouldn't work easily because all XP rewards are defined in one single file with no way to affect it after the game has started. The rewards themselves are called from the quest log files for which the same applies and while it would theoretically be possible to add new quest logs for certain histories, most of the time there would be no surplus lines in the dialogues to call them.

What the hell are you talking about?
If you don't know how to reduce XP rewards I can do it for you, if you write exactly how many you want XP for each quest.

well, that's the only case then

You also need seduction in Giovanni mansion.

as answers to additional Intimidation and Seduction options

If you add options for intimidation and seduction in every single situation, then those skills wouldn't feel unique anymore. The problem with persuasion is that it solves everything, so simple solution would be cutting some of the lines entirely or raising the cost.
Back in day when I was modding bloodlines, I were adding extra checks for every line. Like for example you need persuasion 5 haggle 3 to get Astrolite for free. Then I removed social skills entirely, in one persuasion line I was adding charisma+scholarship, in other manipulation+subterfuge. To rob "the dude with broking car" I was using strength+intimidate, to intimidate Vandal/Doris charisma+intimidate. Then I started adding disciplines to dialogue... like when you can use Auspex to see Knox's lie... Then I realized how much nonsense I was adding and quit modding.

 

[Lujo]

Python scripts put stuff in your mailbox and take it out of there. Python scripts are directly run from the terminal files or from the dialogue files. Basically the Python scripts connect all the separate game elements to make a working game out of it!

Ok. If the phyton & game version incompatibility accounts for the game misreading item ID's, that could account for the game expecting something else in the mail to progress Gary's quest because it misreads the photo, and it also messed up Mitnick's quest because it sent me the star instead of the camera.

I've got the Society of Leopold done by then and the quests which are "hanging" are

- Isacs reward,
- conclusion of the restaurant critic,
- gary
- mitnick would be if I didn't use the console.

- There's an item that can't be identified in my inventory,
- Some of my emails dissapeared at odd times

- I couldn't find the saulocept in the goivani crypt (might not be a bug),
- one of the doors in the society of leopold froze the game, and
- I got stuck in the terrain in society of leopold once.

Then there is yourself. Do you honestly believe all the bugs you see are caused by a patch that works flawless for thousands of other people? Shouldn't there be complains over complains here and on GOG and on Steam and on PV if whole quest lines like Mitnick's or Gary's broke for everyone?

Absolutely. I don't believe it necessarily works flawlessly. I've playtested plenty of games which sold in huge amounts, but if you look at the completion numbers only small handfuls of people even got much further than the starting area - ever. I've got plenty of reason to believe the game isn't played often enough for you to get complaints if something is broken, especially since googling any issue produces a way to solve it via console, and people who play the game seem totally casual with giving themselves either stat points or no clip to get through whatever. Also, the game has a legendary reputation for being buggy so people expect bugs and don't bother reporting them. And it's a ten year old game, so not that many people are actually playing it. You also have a reputation, deserved or not, that you tend to cause bugs and then backtrack in later versions, I'm playing a beta patch and I've had an age old bug going on before I updated phyton. And some of these bugs would manifest in the same way if you messed up a value or ID or something somewhere - it seems way more plausible than believing these particular bugs are cause by some system wide thing. And I've seen some of these reported somewhere with replies being "meh, there are random mailbox bugs".

So not only do I believe the bugs could be caused by the patch, I also have my doubts about it working flawlessly. Just saying, I don't have to be right.

Now with "restart" I figure you mean restarting the computer, not starting a new game. This is where all the problems may come from! It'a a long known fact that you shouldn't update the patch or anything else with Bloodlines without starting a new game as many variables and script states are stored in the save files in a way we don't know anything about. Maybe the same thing has happened here? Some old Python version scripts had already been saved and are now clashing with the new Python outside!

So sadly the only solution to fix this would be to start a new game from scratch. Or continue to use the console to advance. And as I wrote already, the console gives great Python script feedback once you enter a new map. It will list broken or missing stuff and it would help to confirm my suspicion if you could look for these. You already posted something like this on Steam, it often starts with an "AttributeError" and if you scroll back in the console you may find a section with "TraceBack" and "Syntax Error" reports.

Yes, I mean a restart of my computer. Where would I look for broken stuff? Isac's quest is hanging, so maybe at his place?

What happened was that when I first put the new phyton in, I was getting the Andrei animation crash and the auto-dialogue bug was messing up the fight with him, but I got through that using noclip to bypasss the animation and mouse swinging to get out of dialogue. Then I played through the sewers where there was no dialogue, but after I got through them I still had that bug. Which means that the Andrei animation freeze bug, for example, happened before phyton got applied. Otherwise I wouldn't have had auto-dialogue with him. So you might have a bug there that's got nothing to do with python.

And you ABSOLUTELY have to hurry up and adjust your development version thingy for the current phyton, because without it people can get the always-auto-dialogue bug, which is awful and causes all sorts of crap around the place.

Then I only had problems with what I wrote above. Used the console to advance the Mitnick quest because I was sent camera_4 (star) instead of camera_1 , for whatever reason. Being told that you couldn't have affected mitnick with your changes made you me think you're mad, because you obviously could :D

This is something I still can't explain. Can you post the damage section of your item_w_crossbow.txt file here?

Activation
{
"Tag" "Primary"
"Type" "Attack"
"Ammo_Type" "CrossbowBolt"
"Ammo_Cost" "1"

"SkillRequirement" "8" // min. skill requirement used in dmg calculations
"BaseLethality" "16" // base lethality used in dmg calculations
"Dmg" "4 Lethal Ranged_Combat DMG_SLASH" // changed by Wesp


"Botch_Table" "Crossbow"
"Attack_Rate" "0.25"
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Min" "1.8" // The range of times for NPCs using this weapon to pause between, changed by wesp
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Max" "2.8" // attacks when at a distance of NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range inches, changed by wesp
"NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range" "120" // Attack times scale down to Attack_Rate at a range of 0, and up, changed by wesp
// proportionally as the range increases. If NPC_Attack_Rate_Base_Range
// is 0, the delay will not be scaled based on distance.

"Range" "45"
"KickPitchMin" "-2.00"
"KickPitchMax" "-10.00"
"KickYawMin" "0"
"KickYawMax" "-1.00"
"KickTime" "0.05"
"SpreadAngle" "3.0"
"CriminalLevel" "1" // changed by wesp
"Accuracy" "6"

Is that it? I can probably find something that takes accurate screenshots from the game? I've got lousy ranged and it says 56 damage with no buffs active. The skill requirement doesn't seem to apply as I've never had stable 8 ranged and I can use it fine. This was BEFORE any phyton fiddling ^^ So not only is the damage crazy for me, but I also should not have been able to use it.

That's only meta-gaming talk that has no real connection to the game. I just tested the crossbow on Andrei and I get a similar 26 damage as with humans! The only thing that is supposed to work better on supernaturals is aggravated damage and again only because they will heal slower, if they use healing at all. I plan to add this to the crossbow in the next beta, but already tested that it doesn't make more damage when you directly hit enemies. Also I will make the bolts themselves only availabe after Hollywood! This seems to fix both connected issues of the crossbow: my hate of having weapons disappear and probable balancing problems.

Yeah that's basically that.

Back to the Python problem, this is really weird. The Python script for the above is "mailbox.SpawnItemInContainer("item_g_wireless_camera_1"), but the throwing star is "item_g_wireless_camera_4". I can only explain that by a huge incompatibility of the two Python versions and info somehow already stored in your saved game...

But on the other hand if you haven't fiddled with the item id's, this problem couldn't possibly exist, because I'd be set to receive the camera 4, it would be a camera, and there would be no problem. I think I could easily make Gary's quest progress via console if I knew which item he was actually asking for. I went and put all the junk I've got in the mailbox to see what happens.

EDIT: LOLOLOL That photo was driving me NUTS because I knew you haven't fiddled with IT, but I knew it was your (to me unnecessary) fiddling with all this that caused it (phyton might have caused it but if you just didn't mess with it it couldn't cause it).

What's going on is that Gary's emails are your ones, but the quest line seems to be... some weird mix. What he wanted was the CD from the 2nd Mitnick quest (which is now a wooden toy for some reason). This implies the damsel quest hasn't been moved. I put it in with the photo, and both it and the photo dissapeared.

That's weird because this means he skipped Ming Xao poster quest (as he took the photo needed for the VV quest).

Now the mail is asking me for a name plate, which means he's asking for something else, let's see... I gave him the tape from the locked chest in santa monica, it dissapeared, but I didn't get anything or an email...

Anyway, I can't sit around trying to figure this out exactly which items you reassigned. What happened might have been due to conflicting phyton lines, or rather, references to item id's that you changed, but all those changes were unnecessary and updating to a new version can easily break just about everything related to them. Whatever the justification was - please, get rid of that, return the items and emails to what they were because people can have trouble that you did cause with you not understanding it. Like what happened with Mitnick, and since that couldn't progress I would not have been able to get the items for Gary anyway.

Imalia gives the cameras to you during dialogue and the Python scripts have worked without issues like this for years: "pc.GiveItem("item_g_wireless_camera_1"); pc.GiveAmmo("item_g_wireless_camera_1",2)"

It's ok, Imalia was fine, I was asking because I wanted to know the exact code for her quest to help me figure out what I figured out up there and it did, thank you.

As other people do not at all have your problems my only explanation would be that serial quests like the ones from Mitnick and Gary and others that had already been started got broken by the Python switch because of incompatible data in the saved gamed. Quests started from scratch after the switch would only use the newer Python version code and thus work as intended!

Lacroix quest wasn't a serial one, that thing might have a bug all of it's own, where's it's code?

Why Isac is hanging would still be a mystery, what's his actual code? Where can I look it up? He's hanging at the conclusion of his quest which shouldn't cause the kind of problems like Mitnick and Gary have and would be hard to explain away that way.

Mitnick and Gary's quests didn't mess themselves up in any vague way, the item ID's were the problem. How recent were your changes to them? Mitnick's quest was fine except one mailbox line somewhere isn't updated, and gary's quest, at the very least, just displays the wrong emails. You might had assed up while reshuffling his quests, too, though. In your place I would revert everything related to mitnick, gary, their items and quests to bugfixed vanilla - there seem to have been complaints about this before and it doesn't restore anything meaningful but can cause people to lose out on things and sour them about you and your patch.

There were other ongoing quests, like Pisha's which didn't get messed up, because you didn't mess with them (I'm guessing). Etc. Etc.

How and why my emails are dissapearing - that I have no idea about.