The Night Stalker

[eyk003]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. And I love a discussion. Here are my responses & comments to what's been said so far:

 

1. LunaWolv & a couple others were involved in a discussion about the state of sneak in Skyrim and whether vampires should have a relatively more powerful sneak attack.

 

To comment I don't currently plan on tweaking vampire sneak attack damage. This is for two reasons. One, as it was mentioned, vanilla Skyrim already allows you to get ridiculous sneak damage bonuses provided you invest into the skill tree.

 

Two, and most importantly, I have a comprehensive vision of Skyrim's balance overhaul, one that is not centered on extreme realism or total hack n' slash. Among the things I want to address with this much larger and more ambitious project is to rebalance combat, including how sneak damage multiplier is handled. Since I fully mean for The Night Stalker to be a mod used alongside the balance overhaul, I'd like to leave those sorts of changes to my bigger project.

 

At the same time, I want to make minimal changes to The Night Stalker's numbers-tweaking so that it's balanced alongside any number of different mod environments. Quite simply, I'd like The Night Stalker to be compatible with any number of mods (balance-wise), so I'd rather not tweak the numbers of something like sneak damage bonus. BUT I am not against it. Certainly there have been some good arguments for and against the change.

 

2. LunaWolv asked about higher jumping

 

I'll consider it. I'm sure mechanically, this is easy to achieve. But I want to make sure that every change I make is meaningful and not frivolous, and that means focusing on the core features already outlined. I do love it when vampires can jump high though!

 

3. Eragonlordex asked about feeding on NPCs that are awake.

 

I've thought about this question long and hard. I even dedicated a small section to "Feeding" in the original draft of the proposal.

 

For now, I've decided against allowing players to feed on NPCs that are awake. It's not for lore or immersion reason--it's perfectly reasonable lore-wise that a vampire can overpower an unwilling victim to feed. The reason that I want to avoid easy feeding is that I want to reinforce the player's existence as a vampire. Feeding should always involve risk.

 

Having said that, Vampire's Seduction is designed to provide an alternative way for vampires to feed. Thralls, or NPC victims of Vampiric Seduction, will allow the player to feed on them, whether sleeping or not.

 

I am open to the possibility of allowing vampire players to sneak up on an unaware NPC and using the "pickpocket" command to feed. For now I'd like to stay away from this as sneaking-difficulty mods would screw up the intended gameplay difficulty of this change, and I want to keep this mod as stand-alone and compatible with other balance changes as possible.

 

4. Eragonlordex asked about claws

 

Claws are really cool. I'll give you that. But I won't promise this mod will add claws to the vampire, for mainly the reason stated above: I am working out a comprehensive Skyrim balance overhaul, and I just don't know yet how to handle something like claws. How much damage will it do? How fast will it swing? How much stamina should be spent using its power attacks? Should its power attacks have unique effects?

 

By the way, I'm not against the idea at all. Just that until I have a better idea of the exact changes I want to make to Skyrim's gameplay, I won't be able to tell you if and how I will implement such a feature.

 

-eyk

Edited November 20, 2011 by eyk003

[davi22pd]

maybe u can ask to Galejro who is thinking of a vampire society (http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/424348-skyrim-vampire-society-mod/) and WarRatsG from terran vampire revived ( http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/410370-terran-vampires-revived/page__st__390 ) that after he release his mod maybe he could put some ideas on this becouse i think if u put all ideas togheter will be a very great vampire mod Edited November 20, 2011 by davi22pd

[eyk003]

maybe u can ask to Galejro who is thinking of a vampire society (http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/424348-skyrim-vampire-society-mod/) and WarRatsG from terran vampire revived ( http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/410370-terran-vampires-revived/page__st__390 ) that after he release his mod maybe he could put some ideas on this becouse i think if u put all ideas togheter will be a very great vampire mod

 

Hi Dav22pd, thanks for your suggestion.

 

I've played Oblivion with Terran Vampires mod extensively. It was one of my favorite vampirism overhaul, and I think it'd be a great learning experience to work with these guys.

 

My vision with The Night Stalker vampirism overhaul is a little bit different, however. I was once one of those people who 120% did not understand Bethesda's decision to make vampires stronger as they went longer without blood. But now, I have changed my mind and it's important for me to respect Bethesda's original lore & gameplay vision of vampires.

 

I won't say I'm not a big fan of World of Darkness lore (Vampire: The Masquerade & Vampire: The Requiem), or that I wasn't creaming my pants over Hellsing when the anime first came out. I did both those things, and in Oblivion I was looking to make those fantasies a reality.

 

But with this mod I'm attempting to fully flesh out Bethesda's vision of vampires rather than completely restructuring it. If WarRatsG or Galejro shares this vision with me, it would be an honor for me to work with them. Otherwise though, I'd be perfectly happy with Skyrim's gamers having a choice of playstyles through multiple mods :]

 

-eyk

[Darksun45230]

This sounds fantastic.

 

My older brother is a HUGE Elder Scrolls fan and I haven't told him yet that Vampires are "meh" yet, and he loves vampires! Hell, I'd be tempted to try if Bethesda had implemented what you're suggesting. I eagerly await for the Creation Kit to emerge.

[dontbebeech]

Sunlight should kill you anyway, your level should only determine the time that you can stand in the sun until it kills you - say 10 seconds (ergo it will kill you eventually, even if you're of maximum level). There should be an artifact which will enable you to walk in the sun - an extremely rare one (like a ring or something). Vampire must fight physically, not with some bs magic, like punching/ripping motions with their arms, and should drain health by feeding, physically (biting/drinking blood). Vampires should be able to feed independently of a character's state (sleeping/e.t.c) - also, when they get someone to a low enough health, they should be able to finish them off by feeding on them. They also should receive physical stat boosts, like traditional vampires in folklore - like supernatural physical strength, blinding speed, extreme regenerative powers.

 

To balance this off, they need to be almost fatally (but never actually lethally) weakened by some plants (say, introduce verbane/verbena), should burn (die) in the sun in a matter of seconds (no matter for their level, if they're not wearing some artifact) and should be able to get staked (weakness to wood). There should be a join-able faction/guild of monster (vampire/werewolf) hunters that will, of course, hunt the vampires and do so effectively - ergo having some skills/powers/active effects/items (stakes, garlic, verbane e.t.c.).

 

Also, werewolves and vampires should be arch-enemies and werewolves, obviously, need to be on par with vampires.

 

(I've created a separate topic for this theme, but no one actually replied to it so...)

[dontbebeech]

Here is my original post:

 

1) better Vampires, actually stronger than humans, which would be extremely (physically) strong, blinding fast and would have extraordinary regenerative powers BUT they need to be BURNED by the sun, not just receive a small health hit; ergo if they don't get into cover from the sun in a few seconds - vampire players die. Plus some other cons like garlic/silver/introduce something like verbane/verbena plant which would be almost deadly to the vampires (not fatal probably). Also something like an amulet/ring that will render them immune to the sun effect (walk in the sun freely) but, of course, would get some balancing. Vampires should use their physical prowess instead of spells/e.t.c. and should drain health physically, feed on victims' blood (kind of like werewolves do, except that vampires should drink blood, not eat flesh). Vampire balancing: gets killed by the sun, almost lethally weakened by some plant, can be staked (when the script extender comes out).

2) better Werewolves; although they are good as they are in the game, they need to have more physical stat boosts, also - werewolves in human form should be really strong too and also have extreme regenerative powers. Balancing: gets extremely weakened by silver, some plant (like the wolvesbane in the folklore), whether they should transform during nights (moon) or at will is up for you guys to decide (ergo something like an uncontrollable transformation during full moon and urge to kill).

3) werewolves and vampires should be arch-enemies and have constant battles/hatred. Also - maybe create a rarest being like a hybrid/werepyre?

4) there should be a joinable guild, with their own special monster hunting items (stakes, silver, verbane, wolfsbane) and skills/permanent active effects, of monster hunters (vampire/werewolf hunters - i.e. Van Helsing).

[VreyAar]

I would only suggest making some story mods for the vampire gameplay on top of these mechanic changes.

 

Let Vampires take over a small town, or make a base in the caves where some other vampires dwell.

[davi22pd]

i think that the most important thing is the increase of power by increase of age.. becouse a young vampire at level 4 can't be as strong as a elder vampire of level 4

[Chancellour]

Love it so far, Eyk.

 

I'll have to admit, I was very much in favor of making vampires grow stronger as they fed instead of vice versa, but after reading your post, I can certainly appreciate the effort to keep it in line with the original intent of vampires in this game.

 

Either way, here are a few other suggested modifications that could possibly fit into your change set without dramatically altering your vision:

 

-Vampiric Seduction: Possibly introduce the concept of a random % modifier that sits on top of the base stat checks for success. This way, players could be given a chance, albeit small, that they could take over the mind of a more powerful being. However, failure could likely result in death as the paralysis sets in.

 

-Jump speed/run speed: Slight increases as your traverse up the tiers of vampirism. i.e. T1: 5%, T2: 10%, etc. Numbers here are arbitrary, I'd leave it up to you to find appropriate/noticable modifiers.

 

-Vision: What if vampire vision was not activated, but a passive ability? It could make the nights and darkness quite a bit brighter. But, during the day, everything is darkened and a slight edge blur introduced to further impose penalties for the vampire's aversion to the sunlight.

 

-Food: Positive effects no longer apply to anyone with any stage of vampirism.

 

-Disguising: An introduction of some type of clothing that could disguise stage 4 vampires. Chance of NPCs still noticing with a combined check of available lighting and distance away from NPC.

 

-Feeding: (This one could be very cool, IMO, and give you a more diverse set of skills to manage vampirism.)

 

Basically, there could be two types of feeding.

1. Silent feeding - which racks up VI points, but also takes you back to stage 1, as already implemented.

2. Ravenous feeding - this would be more of an uncontrolled, blood lust type of feeding where you are able to progress up the stages one feeding/stage at a time.

-----Benefit: This attack could be initiated on any NPC/enemy and it would be a direct contact (neck biting) type of confrontation that drains the health of the target for as long as you're able to hold on. The duration of bite could be figured by something similar to the stat checks you had for Vampiric Seduction.

-----Benefit: Per bite - progresses you 1 level up the vampirism tier. (Possibly implement an invisible "blood drank" meter where each level progression requires a different amount of "seconds of blood drank")

-----Downside: A very noisy engagement - target is very vocal about the onslaught and others in earshot are notified/warned.

-----Downside: During this attack, you are very vunerable/weakened to any other incoming damage since it is a single target attack.

 

 

Anyway, love your ideas thus far and hoping that you find this feedback helpful in some way. I certainly support your efforts in bringing something like this to reality!

Edited November 22, 2011 by Chancellour

[Eragonlordex]

Thank you for the feedback, Eyk =)

About the claws, they would look cool even if purely cosmetic, but as I know you're trying to do things right, maybe a power to "toggle" claws, and they would replace the common unarmed punching attack, with slashing with the claws, I guess. Perhaps doing little more damage than a common punch, and maybe the power attacks using a bit more of stamina, to counter-ballance? Or the opposite, doing less damage, but using less stamina and hitting faster. It's up to you, and I'm sure the outcome will be very carefully chosen.

Don't want to put any pressure on you, continue your work, I'm pretty sure the mod will turn out to be amazing anyway.

Thank you again.