Jakisthe

VERY nice :thumbsup:

Alright. 10 of you should check your PMs; I suspect you'll like what you find :biggrin:

Internet fixed! Well not really but bf is letting me use his computer! Newest copy tested! Flew to High Hrothgar! Levitated from HH to Volunruud! Everything working as intended! No bugs found! Writing up beta documentation now...

Annoyingly enough, my Internet isn't working ATM (thanks college!) and I'm writing this from my phone network. Anyway, MM fixed the few flaws I could find with the build yesterday, and although I haven't been able to test those changes, there wasn't much major. It's looking like you guys are gunna be in for a fun weekend! MM-I thought that being the case with the LOD at first when flying, but I was able to teleport into a city and that worked fine. At any rate, beta testers...don't try flying into a city!

Well, nskin, you have to recall that vampires have alternate methods for gaining health as well. -Hearts, which as MM points out are our means to replace potions -Battlefeeding, which is also a combat move -Blood Rend, for that area o' effect draining fun! -Drain, for the long range single target one -The greatly increased health regen in shade. I've been playing a Sire for my testing, and I've generally been able to get along fine. I think bottling blood, while another layer on top of the immersion, would either simply replace potions (which negates the point of taking them out) or replace hearts (which we....already have :happy:)

Tested; mostly very small issues. You know what that means! Probably! Although I've learned to bite my tongue with these situations so I'm not going to specify! :facepalm:

Nah, I'm a non-design student and I managed a free copy of Max (and Maya, some architecture software and a fluid dynamics program :biggrin: ) That said, 3DxMax and Maya are probably both overkill. I've never used Blender since I've used max for years now, but I imagine it would be easier to learn and implement quickly.

Alternatively, if you're a student at a marticulated university, you can simply get max for free :thumbsup:

Thanks for the encouragement Nik! And welcome to the thread! Don't be afraid to give suggestions/ideas :thumbsup: Death...honestly, I can't see it working. Not because of the technical side, as MM always seems to surprise me and as such I've learned never to underestimate him (although it still would be rather intensive, to my understanding), but because...well, when people die, I don't see anyone NOT loading up a save. Well, at least most people would do as such. Admittedly, there would be those who would follow through with it, just because it would up immersion, but as MM said, it's likely going to be a case of lots o' work for not too much payoff. It's possible to force an autosave/normal save with the RequestSave or RequestAutosave functions right at the point of death, and well, that might assuage some of that, if people didn't just load up the second to latest save... But even if they didn't, it would take some serious trickery to trigger a save at 0 health (since the game would be in the process of reloading a new save when we'd try to...save the death state) or forcing a save when the player is right about to die (which would require the system to check for a death, go back a few frames in time, and retroactively create a save in the past...which just sounds all kinds of wacky complicated). Please don't think it's a bad idea. I love it! I know I wouldn't load up the save...it just seems a little beyond the scope of the initial public release we have in mind. Later on? Well, maybe. Right now though? See above :tongue: . Great idea though!

Well, at no level is the vampire automatically AoS. What we managed to do was combine a hunger system with the AoS system, with stricter limits as the vampire goes up in levels. So, as a very new vampire, it's possible to be attacked on sight, but you'd need to be completely starving for it to trigger. On the other hand, if you're a Sire, then you get AoS'd quite a good deal sooner (but hopefully not annoyingly so). There should be a chart explaining it in these past few pages... I really need to update my original post :ermm: Yep! That's something we're trying to balance out, a process which will undoubtedly be expedited as we put out the beta. We've been tossing a few ideas around, like disabling spells, and remember, it does cost magica to maintain. Thoughts? Very cool. That said, I don't know how feasible it is, both from a programming standpoint or a gameplay one. Most people, I would assume, would just load up a save as soon as they die, kinda like how people save scum to avoid crimes. Still, it's an interesting idea! Thanks for the suggestion. In theory! More specifically, we have long term plans for the vampire, which contain changes to AI. These will not be implemented for a while, and certainly not for the beta or public release, but hopefully! See above. Suffice to say...if we can get everything working in accordance to the long term plans, you'd be very ultimate indeed :thumbsup: For now though, we're mostly working on the vampires themselves, the world and it's responses come after. Nothing planned at the moment :confused: Hah, no problem! Great to have feedback for these initial stages, however you can get them to us. Welcome to the thread!

Well, hopefully the optimal settings will work their way out of the woodwork in the beta. One idea we were tossing around, however, was that it would take 100% of your mana to cast...and then stay up for a certain amount of time, from a fledgling with 10 minutes, to a Sire with 5.

You scripted a multishot projectile launcher?

I'm going to guess that lock picking arc deals with the width of the "successful" lockpick area, which is smaller on master locks compared to expert, etc. Chow, you're right. The thing is, and MM has seen this as well, is that fighter or mage...well, they more directly tie to statistical bonuses, and their application is pretty easy to see (combat or magic). Stealthy...well, that's a bit harder. A lot of my initial ideas dealt with stealth and sneaking, although they turned out to be far harder to implement than the other boosts. Here's what we've been thinking: -climbing: I don't know how to do this, nor anything close to this. So far, the only possible avenue might be reversing gravity, but I don't know if that works. -lightsap: We were thinking that a negative magnitude magelight MIGHT work, but I can't say. That likely won't affect other lights in the area, but just..well, do nothing. -dark flame: a stealthy magic attack, this one is flat out impossible. If one person raises the alarm, everyone gets alarmed. -Sanguine form: You know, this might not be too hard. I know I saw a few spells which turned the player into a dragon, which seems a lot more complex than a bear or a skeever... -rapture: technically possible, since I've seen it with another mod, but it was pretty limited. -invisibility in fog/conjure local, ground level fog: these were meant to work together, but from MM plumbing the depths, there isn't actually all that much fog in the world...or rather, the fog that is there isn't attached to a texture but rather a lighting effect, which is considerably harder to detect. I...think. At any rate, it (like all the others) is.. difficult. Now that fear effect....I dunno where it would fit in by itself as a whole new spell, but I feel as though...that should be usable to help with one of the above issues...like a burst of fear that gets triggered to facilitate...something. I'll have to think about it. Otherwise, MM, I just know you'll make a ton of POCs which we'd have to pare down :tongue:

Taking away mist form is a good idea, but then it got me thinking...what do people think when you turn into mist without AoS or the mask on? Lol...probably overthinking that one. There can't always be plans for every possible scenario, I fear :whistling: Other than that, I don't know how many abilities should be taken away. I'm apt to say none; the vampire is already pretty weak as it, and even iff they are starving, don't wanna make it flat out unfair. However, what about implementing a cooldown? That way, they'd have to wait a bit between uses of Forma? I mean, a lot of the vampire powers are just that, powers, to begin with, and they mechanically fill the same slot on the UI...so the players has to take off forma to use a lot of them anyway. But I don't want it such that they just take off forma, cast whatever, and flip Forma back on...that just seems like it would be a hassle. With a cooldown, it seems like a tactical choice to me; when to have it up or not. What does everyone else think of that idea? Another part of me, while very happy that the shrine damage thing is working (and I fear loading up my character who, iirc, was parked in the locus of the solitude church :ohdear: ), but I really do worry if we're attatching too many negatives..MM has only been able to really progress by effectively duping the system and constantly feeding on a follower. I keep cheating myself, mostly to check for discrepancies and bugs, but for actual play...dunno how I feel about that... :unsure: Hi Chow! Welcome to the thread. About your comment though...I wouldn't count speed or mist out. We really have no idea the limits of either the magic in skyrim or the talents of their vampires, as both of those have documented instances already beyond what the player can do. Still, mist and speed are classic vampire powers, and this mod is about gameplay improvements AND lore so...we're bending it a bit :thumbsup: @nskin: Yes, I remember that you had explained the school situation for me; technically you're on the [maybe] list of all people to be participating in the beta. What will likely happen is that the beta will come out sooner than next weekend...but it likely won't be over before it. So you can still participate in it, but maybe not as soon as it goes out. How does that sound?

I know I DON'T want a tiny room with all the crafting areas all clustered together. Really makes it feel like the other areas of the house, not to mention other areas of the world, are useless. I can understand that it makes things more convenient, but it's just lazy, imo. It's almost like god mode of crafting, imo. I don't have anything against manequinns or weapon racks, as long as they're all in one place.

Sorry I've been so unresponsive over this...I had to get from New York to Houston to Chicago to Boston in these past few days... :wacko: Anyway! Looks like we're doing better than ever. I think we finally got a good idea of balance for starving, without it being toooo punishing..and the AoS being configurable will help dial it down for some people. nSkin, I'm gunna have to agree with Darksun on this one. That spell looks to be incredibly overpowered, even if you can't attack during it. You'll be able to do similar things with the time slow we have implemented, but we're trying to balance it. Also of consideration is the fact that we want to cut down on simply having spells to have spells...a lot of mods toss a bunch of spells at the player just because, but we want more than that.

Did someone say...MODEL? Not my best work, but that's what you get for a few minutes of work! :thumbsup:

We didn't have that planned, but it could be an option down the line depending on how easy we can tweak AI. Thinks to consider! That said, such an aspect almost certainly won't be in the beta, and probably not even the public, for a while. There are many, many other things planned, but we're looking to launch the beta once we have the player vampire [reasonably] well established.

Yes, I think I had finally figured out a way to combine sensical strengths and weaknesses for the hunger that comes with not eating...not my most cyclical or elegant work, but it makes it such that the vampire is faster, more...singleminded, and more brutal in their drive to get fed. Hopefully, it'll naturally lead to a whole new style of gameplay, where players balance their satiation with the unique benefits and negatives that come with the territory. Mostly passive ones, but they're noticeable for sure. Probably a good thing too that I didn't have every aspect wind back into something else; that would just make things more complicated :tongue:

Well, I can model things really well iff they're in 3DxMax, having used it for a very long time now, but getting them to that format is a hassle :confused: That said, thanks for the tutorial!

Least you can use nifskope...whenever I try to do anything, I don't even know where to look, much less how to activate the models for anything.

Very cool! I love martial art type fighting styles...even if my absolute favorite, capoeria, would be flat out impossible to implement :P As far as perks go, how about these for suggestions? Not to steal thunder; I just think they'd be fun.

Formus will likely take a while to implement, thanks to me having to make a model, skin it, set up it's skeleton, animate it, and [hardest of all] find how to make it work with Skyrim files, but it should be possible. As MM said though, the tricky bit beyond that is how flying works in the first place; it's a pretty weird one.

Make a Ceaseless Discharge armor set :tongue:

I'm gunna agree with elric on this one - having longer nights kinda defeats the purpose of the drawback. MAYBE a very slight dilation (like, something as small as night lasting 1.05x as long), but other than that...nah. Phil, thanks for all your input on the mod! Stay safe, and hopefully we'll have a public release by the time you get back :tongue: