[WIP] Belua Sanguinare Revisited

[nskin039]

This is a request. But I SO want to see someone do this. I think it would be epic that if you are facing a master/ancient vampire, they try to temp the PC, before they simply start attacking. They congratulate the player for getting that far (into the dungeon/lair) and then they offer their dark gift to you. Say something like, "Lay down your weapons, and kneel before me and accept my gift. Become my child and join me in immortality." Then if the PC accepts, he will walks over and talk to the vampire, then an animation plays where the vampire bites the PC. (then the PC now has vampirism either instantly (which would be better IMO) or the 3 day incubation period starts).

 

If the PC refuses the gift then vamp says something like "fool you should have joined me" and then immediately attacks (should be a hard boss as well).

 

This may not need to be implemented for all master/ancient vampires but it should be implemented to some. PLEASE do this! I'd do it myself but I don't have modding skills. :(

[Jakisthe]

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.

[MofoMojo]

In my monitoring of other mods, I thought of a tweak to check for and possibly implement. Since you effectively change races when you become a vampire all racism in the game is gone. Example if you are an elf race the Nords don't distrust you anymore. It would be really nice if you were still treated the same way as before you became a vampire. IMO since vamps are masters of trickery and disguise, NPCs should still view you as if you were your original race (they can't see that your are a vamp). Therefore the racisim should still exist. I am guessing that the mortal form power will bring the racism back while it is in use, but I think it should always apply (unless maybe you are a sire or something, but by that point you should be feared or AOS as well).

 

Nskin039,

 

This is definitely the case when you're in "mortal form" or using the "mask" (we actually haven't settled on a permanent name for this entrely) for the very reason you state. Because you've switched races. The Vampire races have their own form of response, as you've well seen. While not something I plan to implement for the intial public release it is probably a matter of adjusting a few conversation dialogue trees to get them to say their original lines on top of the vampire lines if you're NOT in mortal form. Might be nice for the immersion aspect.

 

-MM

[MofoMojo]

This is a request. But I SO want to see someone do this. I think it would be epic that if you are facing a master/ancient vampire, they try to temp the PC, before they simply start attacking. They congratulate the player for getting that far (into the dungeon/lair) and then they offer their dark gift to you. Say something like, "Lay down your weapons, and kneel before me and accept my gift. Become my child and join me in immortality." Then if the PC accepts, he will walks over and talk to the vampire, then an animation plays where the vampire bites the PC. (then the PC now has vampirism either instantly (which would be better IMO) or the 3 day incubation period starts).

 

If the PC refuses the gift then vamp says something like "fool you should have joined me" and then immediately attacks (should be a hard boss as well).

 

This may not need to be implemented for all master/ancient vampires but it should be implemented to some. PLEASE do this! I'd do it myself but I don't have modding skills. :(

 

Interesting thoughts, and something I had in mind for doing for my Basilica del sole Nastcosto mod, where the player took on the role of vampire hunter ala Immortal Blood, and this was the choice the player was given at the end. Something a little beyond scope of our initial release, but perhaps might make it in there.

 

-MM

[MofoMojo]

Status Update

The hunger stages and associated increases and decreases in certain....skills and abilities work.... has been done. It needs to go through a round of thorough testing and polish so that the effects are evident, but the basics are hooked up now and it's pretty much the last thing we needed to get done for the beta testing. I should have a lot of free time this weekend to pound on testing and tweaking if I don't get it done prior to then. I can't make any promises about when the private beta will start but I'm hopeful it's by April 7th or earlier.

 

Also added was support for AOS by Vampire Rank. As discussed there are 6 stages to hunger now.

• 
   
  
• Normal/Satiated
  
• Unsatiated
  
• Hungry
  
• Famished
  
• Ravenous
  
• Starving
  

 

You can turn AOS on for each stage of vampirism at and below a specific hunger stage. For instance, here's the out of box settings for when AOS will kick on for each of our Vampire Stages. Again, this is user definable.

 

F___R___M___P___S___Satiated

0___0___0___0___0___Unsatiated

0___0___0___0___0___Hungry

0___0___0___0___1___Famished

0___0___1___1_______Ravenous

1___1_______________Starving

 

So Fledglings and Risens will be AOS only when starving. Masters and Progenitors only when Ravenous and below, and finally Sires when Famished and below. At least this is what's implemented, Jakisthe and I are still discussing if those are what we want out of the box.

 

Finally each rank of hunger scales out based on what you set your BeluaMaxSatiatedLevel to be. For instance, out of the box that maximum is 100. So the stages scale out like this:

 

• 
   
  
• Satiated 100-81 satiation
  
• Unsatiated 80 - 61 satiation
  
• Hungry 60 - 41 satiation
  
• Famished 40 - 21 satiation
  
• Ravenous 20 - 1 satiation
  
• Starving 0
  

 

I've only just implemented this so it's going to require a few days of playtesting to ensure it feels correct. There are adjustments, both negative and positive that apply to the player when under effects of varying levels of Satiation weighing toward the negative, but balanced so that the player may consider trying to keep their hunger within certain ranges as Jakisthe pointed out earlier.

 

-MM

 

 

-MM

[nskin039]

The Vampire races have their own form of response, as you've well seen. While not something I plan to implement for the intial public release it is probably a matter of adjusting a few conversation dialogue trees to get them to say their original lines on top of the vampire lines if you're NOT in mortal form. Might be nice for the immersion aspect.

 

-MM

 

Immersion is the whole reason I mentioned it. Something to think about. It just seems sad, since everyone (for the most part) hates elves, and once a vamp you aren't hated anymore.

[nskin039]

Have you guys seen this mod:Spell Master The Time And Space? (see video below) http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=13811

 

When watching the video I couldn't help but think this should be a vampire power the whole time. I know you have something similar included, but I dont know a whole lot about it. And I don't think it slowed down time as much as this does. Something like this would be awesome to add for sires.

Justification: In lore powerful vampires often move so fast they become invisible. I HIGHLY recommed having something like this added at least for the sire level.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8q4IlA9fl0&feature=player_embedded

[nskin039]

Personally disabling attacking in this slowed time form may be justified to prevent it from being OP. Edited March 28, 2012 by nskin039

[MofoMojo]

Nskin039,

 

As you mention, we do have what we call "Vampire's Speed" which is just for the purpose of sembling that the vampire's can move so fast that others around them seem to slow down in time. We don't have anything quite that slow, but the Sire does slow down time pretty significantly.

 

Update:

• 
   
  
• The beta documentation has been updated with the new hunger mechanics.
  
• I've tweaked a few of the mechanics/bugs discovered while playing tonight
  
• I had forgotten to give Senso Morte (Sense the Dead) and Senso Sangue (Sense Blood) to the player in the latest script. Added that.
  
• Made some tweaks to Vampiric Command (Animal) spell so that if you happened to lose an animal under your command you could replace it.
  

 

In playtesting I finally became a Master tonight. Seems like a long road to Progenitor ahead of me, but Master is where you've shed your humanity and you get a truck load of new spells compared to other levels. I haven't even had a chance to play being a master, short of experiencing the cruel and unusual punishment from the sun.... and it's not even close to as cruel as being a Sire, or worse yet, a Sire that's starving.

 

Recall, I was a 1st level Vampire Fledgling. I'm now a 9th Level Vampire Master focusing on Health and Stamina, 1H and Heavy Armor this go around. Fights with Dragon's are no picnic, at least not fire breathing dragons. A steady supply of hearts has been required, which has really nailed the need to layoff eating hearts just because I'm going hungry. I love the balance. I really thought gathering hearts would be an easy way out of going hungry but so far I'm keeping them around more for replenishing my health which was the intent. I may even make satiation from hearts only work if you're already at full health. If I do that, I might boost their satiation restore amount a little more.

 

As a Master, I can finally tame wolves. They're relatively weak companions and didn't have any regenerative abilities. So... I tweaked them out just a tad tonight to have any creature under your control to get a base regen rate of 0.70. This way, companion animals will regenerate health after battles if they don't die.

 

One very memorable moment while playing tonight. I don't even recall where I was, but it was in a Fort up in the mountains north by north east of Whiterun. Night had fallen, I had just taken out some Necromancer's and Conjurers. Walking a little further north and out of no where a Dragon lands in front of me. My three wolf companions attack, my follower Lydia attacked, my reanimated victim from a bite during a previous battle defended me. In the course of the battle, the wolves quickly died, followed by the reanimated corpse. The dragon resettled about 100 feet away and from the woods, more wolves came in for the attack simply because they are allied to you. It was all fun until the Dragon snatched me in his mouth and spate me out.

 

A few things I learned across my playtesting so far. Mods that increase your KillMove chance, or mods that disable the "Last Man Standing" requirement for KillMoves, can interfere GREATLY with Feed Attacks, because the kill moves kick in before the opponent staggers and bleeds out. You can use them, but feed attacks are so much fun.

 

I really want to get this out to you all soon for testing. It's getting so close now!

 

-MM

Edited March 28, 2012 by MofoMojo

[Darksun45230]

Have you guys seen this mod:Spell Master The Time And Space? (see video below) http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=13811

 

When watching the video I couldn't help but think this should be a vampire power the whole time. I know you have something similar included, but I dont know a whole lot about it. And I don't think it slowed down time as much as this does. Something like this would be awesome to add for sires.

Justification: In lore powerful vampires often move so fast they become invisible. I HIGHLY recommed having something like this added at least for the sire level.

 

I disagree. Time control with the mod in it's current state is just fine.