Yes, i usually play for long sessions and no, as of late, i stick faithfully with the Plus Patch (never changing back). Disciplines are of the Plus Patch too (like Blood Theft instead of Blood Salvo), but the cursor is gone and they operate instantly, without cooldown (cooldown from cursor, not from discipline icon).

Then this must be the reason. Bloodlines is known to create new glitches the longer you play in one go :(...

When I downloaded the VtMB from Galaxy I have 2 games on my computer. One is on the hard drive and one is in Galaxy. If and when I download the patch will both games be affected? The one on the hard drive--In the Options and under the gameplay tab, it says "game mod loader". There is no hot hand to activate. The game in Galaxy, in the same section says "9.7 Basic". Please advise. Thanks

This time, i took extra care not to sit down for long sessions of play. I regularly saved and quit game, then rest, then return later for more... Yet, game gets messed up again... I play always Plus Patch and run it from its desktop shortcut, never touching anything else. The series of issues i encounter this time, are:

1. First time i launched the game, fresh from plus patch installation, worked great. First time i saved, quit, then relaunched and load game, the plus patch new audio from status/quest screen has reverted back to normal, old game's one.
2. Similarly, most of the subtitles, especially from Malkavian voices, stop being displayed on screen. After some short playing sessions, they start appearing again, then they stop appearing again... Then it's random.
3. Near Hollywood, the discipline cursor disappears entirely, altogether. Unlike previous issue that i encountered over long play sessions (Tremere), when even the casting time disappeared (and disciplines "became" instanteneous, like in old game), this time round the casting time of the plus patch remains, while the cursor only is gone.
4. I don't know if it's a bug or not, but i played the Occult Nut history. Charisma capped at 3. Yet, i got Pearl of Dubai, the effect displayed normally, yet i didn't get the boost. As far as i can remember, special items use to give their bonus, even when you maxed or capped at a certain stat (sometimes when dots don't/can't display it, though, it still used to change the number at the part of the screen with numbers, but this time it didn't)... Is this as intended, or a bug?

Wait, so all this time bullets have been doing lethal damage and not bashing damage? Does that mean that every single description and in-game conversation (where it's explained that most guns are useless for vampires) is totally wrong with respect to actual game mechanics?!

This would explain why getting shot at the beach house hurts so damn much - they're only using the .38 which in theory should do hardly any damage at all, assuming decent stamina.

This would also explain why blood buff doesn't do much (or anything?) to reduce bullet damage, which is one of the reasons I use it (the other being to increase melee/unarmed feats).

I know, right? That is why Fortitude is so damn important, since it is the only thing that really helps against bullets and any other lethal weapon right from the start. By the way, does it work properly in your game? I've tested on three computers and it didn't work.

I'm running 9.8 and just tried it then - fortitude works for me, at least insofar as the character sheet turns all soak feats to blue and adds (+2) after all of them (started a new game with a Ventrue with 2 in fortitude just to test it). So, not sure what could possibly have happened for it to not work for you on any computer, let alone three separate installs...

Fortitude is definitely useful anyway due to many boss-ish characters using lethal or aggravated damage. Lethal can be soaked by armor, but it's a soak of 4 at best, which isn't much - and of course aggravated can only be soaked by fortitude (in the basic patch anyway - for some reason aggravated can be soaked by armor in the plus patch, albeit at 1/2 of the armor value).

Personally I find the Tremere Blood Shield to be better than fortitude though, since it reduces damage by 50% and isn't timed - it stays active until it absorbs so much damage it dissipates (which seems to take a while). The only downsides are that it's not masquerade-friendly (not a big issue, since you generally only need protection in combat zones), and that it adds a red tinge to the screen in first person mode.

As for the firearms, I'd definitely like to see them set to "bashing" instead of "lethal" - just checked the text files for the weapons and their damages are indeed set to "lethal".

Sure, I have completed the game with multiple characters over the years, and can generally complete most fights easily enough (once I get back into the swing of things anyway) - and the toughest enemies use weapons which correctly deal aggravated damage anyway - it's just that it makes no sense from a RP/plot point of view.

I could easily try this for the next plus patch, but wouldn't this make the game a lot easier?

True - since the game/patch appears to have always been done the way it is now (bullets = lethal), I guess there's a chance it will completely screw up the balance.

I noticed that there are separate feat entries for the various soak types (bashing, lethal, aggravated) - one set for mortals and one for kindred - but these are currently identical. So if guns were changed to "bashing" damage, then if these feat entries are used as-is (by the appropriate entities), does this mean that humans would also be able to use their stamina to soak damage from bullets? In which case, if bullets were to be changed to bashing, then the feat for mortal bashing soak should be changed so they can't use stamina to soak this damage?

From what (little) I've read about the rules for the World of Darkness - which I guess is mostly implemented in VtM:B - humans are supposed to treat bullets as lethal damage, while kindred (and certain other supernaturals I guess?) are supposed to treat them as bashing damage. However, everyone supposedly treats blunt melee objects as bashing damage.

Is there a possibility the game is already doing some extra calculation behind the scenes (ie not visible from the mod source?) - such as for example setting damage from bullets to bashing for kindred or something? Or can what we see in the mod code be considered the current "rule set" the game is using?

If the latter, then it's currently not set up to enable kindred to treat bullets differently than mortals. Which I guess means the options are to leave it as is - where kindred are just as susceptible to bullets as mortals - or change it to make bullets bashing, which either means mortals will also be able to add their stamina to soak bullet damage (if feats are not changed), or mortals will be unable to add their stamina to soak any bashing damage (bullet or melee) (if feats are changed).

Although I guess another option could be to add extra code to the mod to specifically allow kindred to convert bullet damage to bashing damage (if this doesn't already happen somewhere).

Which still brings us back to balance - any of these changes will no doubt mess with it, possibly in a big way. On top of that, unless extra code is added so that kindred and mortals can treat bullets differently, the problem of the rules of the VtM:B "Universe" not being properly implemented still remains either way.

That being said, for some reason I always thought that using blood buff while playing the basic patch made a significant difference in resistance versus bullets, although it could have been my imagination. It definitely made the beach house battle easier, but since I was using fists and some of the enemies were using bats, I imagine the increased damage I was doing combined with reduced damage of the enemy's bats made enough of a difference.

So, TL;DR: Yes changes will definitely mess with balance, and changes will either still not follow the VtM:B Universe's "rules", or require significant extra work to do so (unless, as stated above, the game does more than what I think it does based on the mod source).

I have good news :)! The game calculates the damage to vampires correctly even if the internal bullet type is lethal. I tested it by turning generic vampires into humans and immediately the firearm damage doubled! Also while testing this I checked the official 1.2 patch readme and I noticed that it is explained correctly there, only with "defence" listed instead of "vampires" which I fixed for 9.9!

Ah, so it was as I kind of suspected above - which means I wasn't imagining it when I thought I noticed blood buff making a difference to soaking bullet damage.

Definitely good to know - and good to know things were working as intended. Makes me wonder where these calculations are done though...

Good that you checked - I had completely forgotten that file exists, buried as it is under Docs/Help/Readme.

Although by your last point, I assume that you mean the readme file is wrong, but it's still implemented correctly?

I also assume that when they mention "Defense" in that table, they're actually referring to body armour as opposed to the combat defense feat. The way I understand it, combat defense is used to avoid being hit in the first place (calculations vary between melee and ranged I think), whereas body armour (or "Armor_rating") is used for soak. I really wish they had been more consistent/less confusing with the names for Defense, soak, armour, etc. as for the longest time I wasn't quite sure exactly whether defense added to soak or was separate.

At least you renamed "defense" to "combat defense" and changed many of the in-game descriptions, so at least in-game it's a lot clearer.

One other thing - any reason you made the aggravated soak feat use armor/2 + soak_pool, instead of soak_pool only (plus patch only I think)? Because that currently conflicts with the description for aggravated soak which says that "aggravated damage can be soaked through supernatural means only". Personally I wouldn't mind seeing aggravated damage only being soakable via supernatural means (as it does in basic, unless that was changed too?) - either that or the description of aggravated should match what actually happens. Or maybe add an option to the installer (aggravated soak can be soaked with armour/2 - on/off)?

The readme is correct too, only one "Defense" accidentally slid into the slot where "Vampires" should have been. That was my intention. I bet nobody reads the official patch readme nowadays anyway. Nobody even reads mine ;)! Hm, I can't remember really as this is a very old change and maybe someone convinced me to do it. I will revert it to the original way for 9.9!

I read yours! Though I didn't read the official one until you mentioned it, due to it being buried underneath a few directories.

Cool! Hopefully you won't get a complaints about it to change it back... ;)

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