[WIP] Belua Sanguinare Revisited

[phil11]

Npcs with garlic shouldn't be easy vampire victims, but it would be cool if you could use something like the steal mechanic with a vampire to destroy garlic in enemies pockets or something- that is, if you could sneak up on them. Perhaps if you did this you could immediately feed on them.

It wouldn't make sense if loot was determined upon searching a body; I can definitely remember reloading several times after killing specific enemies, and they always dropped the same thing.

 

Phill11, I'll have to think about the other things in your post a bit before replying on those. If you're a good enough pickpocketer, you can steal the garlic. Note, that carrying garlic will damage you starting at Master Level. Currently it's 1dmg/sec/clove at Master, 2dmg/sec/clove at Progenitor and hehe....50dmg/sec/clove at Sire. Given our recent conversations, I'm sure this will drive some people crazy. :) But, if you stole the garlic from them then you'd be able to feed from them. In combat, good luck. There's certainly ways to detect what NPCs that are in close proximity have in their inventory. I can do that but I don't want the player to have to read it. What if there was a sort of....I dunno....visible indicator like a very light shader effect applied to the NPC if they're carrying it? Or what if I had a shader effect applied to the player? For that matter, I might even be able to repel the player away, to some extent if the person is wearing garlic. *might* I don't know if some of the havok functions work against the player since they have no mass.

 

Oh cool, you're comment about their inventory gives me hope that it's decided when they spawn. I extended the loot tables for common citizens, nobles, etc,. to also have a chance to be carrying garlic.Of course that means MANY of them won't be carrying garlic unless their inventory is reconsidered when you enter the cell/region.

 

I did remember that garlic damaged the carrier (50dmg/second, holy crap), and that is why I thought it would be cool if the player could steal it and immediately discard/destroy it. I mean, it's not like a powerful vampire would deliberately walk around with garlic if they could help it. They'd use their superhuman strength to throw it out of the atmosphere the second they removed it. Perhaps destroying the garlic would alert the NPCs nearby. That way you couldn't simply steal all their garlic and pick them off like ants.

 

Another thing.. is there not going to be a way to feed on NPCs you sneak up on? If you snuck up on a nongarlic-carrying NPC it seems logical that you should be able to lunge for their throat or something while they're unawares.

Edited March 1, 2012 by phil11

[FranzLiszt]

I agree with phil on the sneaking/feed. If there is anyway to do it, it would be awesome.

[chow404]

I just wanted to ask if you could implement a way so that when you become starved you lose controll and try to drain any huminoids around you?

[MofoMojo]

I just wanted to ask if you could implement a way so that when you become starved you lose controll and try to drain any huminoids around you?

 

That could be interesting, but unlikely something we'd implement. There are negatives to being hungered, Kill On Sight, which I think is going to be where we go with the recent talks along with other negatives (and positives) to being starved that adding this wouldn't really compliment.

 

So, on feeding. I've re-architected feeding a bit to be more in line with Jakisthe's vision. Originally I mentioned that I can't keep track of how much we drained because well, there's no stat for blood (I don't think I said that in those exact words) but ... we are doing damage to victims now on feeding so here's how the new implementation worked. Consider the following that Jakisthe wants to have as a levelling requirement:

 

Harvest the blood of 18 people at least halfway, 2 people all the way(kill), and sleep for 24 hours.

 

Now, again, at this present time it's impossible for me to know that you've fed from two different actors. I don't want to keep track of an array of unique actors that you've fed within a certain rank at this point so I'm going to ignore that. But, I had always wanted that if you were fully starved and you drank from a non-essential character, it would kill them and that feeding on someone should do damage relative to the amount you are starved. So I removed the "Fed Count" and replaced it with a "Total Satiation Damage Perentage" essentially. Meaning, I'll interpret having to drain 18 people half way as meaning I have to a total of 900% damage to spread across multiple people. Let me use a simpler example:

 

To go from Fledgling to Risen you have to

 

Harvest the blood of 1 person at least halfway, and sleep for 12 hours.

 

• 
   
  
• If you're 64% satiated, that's 36% starved, and you feed on a victim. You've done a total of 36% damage, you need 50% to advance.
  
• Now you're fully satiated.... you feed on another victim. I would add 0% to the total. While I allow the script o adjust it so you ALWAYS do a 25% minimum amount of damage to the target, I calculate that AFTER adding the damage percentage . I might make this count as 1% so that if you are in combat enough and you use FEED ATTACK enough you'll be able to level that way, but it will be a slower process but at least count some.
  
• Two hours go by, you're now 92% satiated and you feed. You do 8% damage, so now your total is 44%.
  
• 12 hours go by, you're now 50% satiated and you feed. You do 50% damage, so now your total is 94%, well above the requirement for Fledgling to Risen and you are allowed to change.
  

 

So, rather than feed on 1 person for half their blood you just have to drain a total of 50% of blood from any number of opponents. 10% here, 20% there, 15% there, 5% there.

 

Note: Right now its insta change. I think I'll add in the sleep stuff and give players the OPTION to advance each time they sleep so it's not annoying if you like to use Vampire Feed Attack. Oh and Vampire Feed Attacks may require a specific amount of stamina to use. It's a little overpowering right now.

 

Thoughts? Was that clear enough?

[MofoMojo]

I agree with phil on the sneaking/feed. If there is anyway to do it, it would be awesome.

 

Ok, I've added sneaking and feeding. It's a little twisted. I didn't think you should have all the fun. The way I worked it. You will be able to feed as long as you are sneaking, and the NPC you want to feed from has not detected you. That doesn't mean that other NPCs don't see you, so be wary.

 

As it stands, until I can get this fleshed out a bit, it WILL alarm your victim. He probably won't like being fed on...however oddly, the stable boy outside of Whiterun doesn't give a rats but. I think he's a fang banger.

 

-MM

 

Edit: Also added that you cannot feed from people that have garlic in their inventory. You can piokpocket the item out of their inventory, and then feed on them assuming you don't get caught, and don't die carrying the garlic. Remember the garlic does dmg at Master level and above. It's only VERY deadly at Sire though.

Edited March 2, 2012 by MofoMojo

[FranzLiszt]

@ MM

Thats Awesome! I totally agree with the draw backs as they are only logical.

Maybe there could be a spell that calmed people when you did this at sire. It might resemple Dracula forcing his will on another or whatever.

Anyway, good work!

[MofoMojo]

@ MM

Thats Awesome! I totally agree with the draw backs as they are only logical.

Maybe there could be a spell that calmed people when you did this at sire. It might resemple Dracula forcing his will on another or whatever.

Anyway, good work!

 

Thanks FranzLiszt. That's a possibility.

 

Status Update:

82% fully complete for phase 1. OF 212 features tracking, 176 are done. There's still some big ticket items I'm not even accounting for in the spell department as I see no way to implement them. The list of things to do is relatively small. consisting of about 40 items. Many of those are simple things to implement. Some I'm at odds with and others are just partial implementations or pseudo place holders until I can get a better understanding of the mechanics. Here's the list of what's NOT done. Sorry for the formatting, it's straight from Excel.

 

 

Level	Type	NAME	Description	Implemented	SPELL	MGEF	PERK	NOTES
0. General	Bonus		Provides for more Undead "followers"				mm_BeluaMoreUndeadPerk	Should implement a spell which adds this as ability
1. Fledgling	Weakness		Aversion to Garlic					Eating garlic drains 1/2 health? I say not at Fledling level yet.
1. Fledgling	Spell+	Bite	Drains health of target while stealthed. Absorbes 10% a second. Detection check every second. Can kill target. If it does, target arises as a neutral+aggressive zombie after 10 seconds. Must be sneaking. Chance of detection every second.	Pseudo	mm_BeluaVampireBiteFledgling	mm_BeluaVampireBiteMGEF		Draining is in…it's an aimed spell though, looks much like original drain. Currently brings back the dead if they're under the caster's level. 
2. Risen	Bonus		6% Increase in Illusion Magnitude					
2. Risen	Bonus		Feed Corpses					Can feed on corpses to get health back? Count as feeding?
2. Risen	Weakness		Garlic Allergies					Feeding on Garlic drains 1/2 health, magica, stamina
2. Risen	Spell+	Breath of Frost	Player can use voice to do cold damage shot that also has a chance to paralyze					Currently setup as a power. It can be used once a day. It does 25 damage over 4 seconds and will paralyze the victim for 5-15 seconds. 
2. Risen	Spell+	Light Sap	Douses lights from torches, etc,.					Can douse a light source when aiming at it
3. Master	Bonus		10% Reduction in movement noise			mm_BeluaAbVampiricStep		
3. Master	Bonus+		Raise Dead cost 1/2					
3. Master	Bonus+		Walking makes no sound					
3. Master	Bonus+		Zombies created by bite are created instantly, and are allied to the player					
3. Master	Weakness		Enhanced Garlic Allergies					Eating garlic does 75% health, and drains magicka and stamina
3. Master	Weakness		No longer be blessed by divines					Coming within range of a divine's symbols will hurt you
3. Master	Weakness		Stamina is health bound					Stamina maximum stamina modified by Health total
3. Master	Weakness+		No Fastravelling by day					…how about just no fast travelling while they're taking damage in the sunlight?
3. Master	Spell+	Command	Command Certain Animals					Bears, Skeevers, Cats and Wolves can be given commands (how about attack in your defense?)
3. Master	Spell+	Darken	Equipped weapons do fire dmg/absorbs health					Fire Damage? We're weak to fire…perhaps something else? Cold damage? Also the spell name is darken. What if we actually cast a shader effect on the equipped weapon that was basically like thick dark whispy smoke coming from the weapon?
3. Master	Spell+	DarkFire						Not hostile? Does not cast light, Deals 2 dmg/sec to health, 1dmg/sec to magicka and stamina
3. Master	Spell+	Fear	Area of effect spell that has a chance to fear enemies that are at the same or lower level of the player					
3. Master	Spell+	Flicker or Blink	Player can cast, which will cause them to blink out and back in, causing combatants to lose them. Similar to 100 Level Sneap Perk					
3. Master	Spell+	Into the Shade	Vampre will be able to turn invisible/into a shadow form if the light level isn't too high. Cannot cast in combat. Could Flicker and then cast!					
3. Master	Spell+	Invisibility	Player turns invisible for a duration					Perhaps move to Progenitor level? See "Into the Shade" spell.
3. Master	Spell+	Raise Dead	Player can cast on corpse and re-animate the recently departed. This will scale with the player. They will not be able to raise anything higher than their own level.					
3. Master	Spell+	Telekenisis						
4. Progenitor	Bonus		10% Reduction in movement noise					
4. Progenitor	Bonus		Attacks with axes and swords replenish health					I'd say 2 and 5…maybe 3 and 6?
4. Progenitor	Bonus+		Running makes no sound					
4. Progenitor	Weakness	Deadly Garlic Allergies	Eating garlic kills you					
4. Progenitor	Spell+	Charm	Vampire will be able to have influence over lower level NPCs to turn them against others in combat					
4. Progenitor	Spell+	Detect Blood of the Living	Vampire will detect the blood of the living in a 100 ft radius	Partial	mm_BeluaBloodOfTheLivingCloak	mm_BeluaBloodOfTheLivingCloakEffect		Currently a 30 second thing. Like to make this permanent toggle.
4. Progenitor	Spell+	Light Sap	Light Sap AOE					Light sap but AOE spell
5. Sire	Bonus		Turns Invisible when standing for 2+ seconds and it's foggy					What if they … turned transparent, we increased their invisibility value, and put a fog shader around the player? Not sure if SetAlpha impacts shaders. I don't think it does which means this may be doable. 
5. Sire	Weakness		Attack On Sight					
5. Sire	Weakness		Potions have no effect					
5. Sire	Spell	Allure	Removes the Attack on Site flag temporarily. 					This will need to loop through the crime factions one by one and a) Remove from the list, b) Keep track of which ones were removed, c) Add them BACK to the list once the effect is over. Otherwise players could use this to negate crime altogether (which actually happens when they become a vampire...all sins are forgiven)
5. Sire	Spell	Bite	Bite kills will now create a fully fledged follower					
5. Sire	Spell	Call of the Storm	Conjure stormy weather					
5. Sire	Spell	Enthrall	+100 to speech and removes AOS flag for duration	Partial/need to remove AOS KILL	mm_BeluaVampireEnthrallSire	mm_BeluaVampireModifySpeechcraft		
5. Sire	Spell	Phase Walk	Able to phase out and walk through walls, etc,.	Psuedo	mm_BeluaPhaseWalkSpell	mm_BeluaPhaseWalkEffect		Currently this is implemented as a teleport spell

 

 

 

Some of these things I'm implementing a little differently and really need to get feedback from Jakisthe, and so I've marked as not done but it's really already in there. Such as Bite's reanimating corpses. And some things are items we might need to strike off the list, such as Phase Walk and just relable Phase Walk as "Blink". I smell a preview release coming shortly.

 

-MM

Edited March 2, 2012 by MofoMojo

[thunderclam]

If no one has suggested it yet, I think some vampire-slaying stuff would be good too. The basic idea I had was a faction like the Vigilant that exclusively hunts vampires and pays top dollar for proof of kills (Vampire Dust). Pretty simple to implement with the possibility of expanding on it for quests, new locations, etc. I wish I had time to learn CK cuz then I'd just make this small mod (to start with) myself.

[Jakisthe]

So, seems to be a few new points of contention (which are welcome!):

 

-leveling up: A few views. The first being that it should simply be time (real time, so no wait n watch), which I think works rather well. I mean, if it's based on real time, it'll have the player doing things/exploring/experimenting naturally with their vampire powers; no one is just going to do nothing for a few real time hours.

The second is that it could be tied to level...which is interesting. On the one hand, it doesn't allow for super powerful early vampires, but on the other, that seems like a very artificial limiter to place on players, especially in a game like this. I see it as a parallel to lockpicking. You can still pick a master lock at lvl 1 in lockpicking; it's just incredibly hard. I don't want to put an arbitrary number limit on a vampires power.

 

ok, I had this cool idea planned out around supporting ranking vampirism based on two OR conditions. You could level 5 levels from your current level (along with fulfilling drain and feed requirements) to get to the next level, or satisfy the feed and drain requirements and simply be greater than X level to get to the next level. Either one worked and it's easily doable but... I striked it all out.

 

I think we're trying too hard. I think we should just put in three conditions. Feed requirements, Drain (i.e. Kill via FEED) requirements, and DaysPassed since becoming the current level and Player Choice (striking realtime). As much as I'd like to not have player circumvent the levelling by just "WAITING" I think the best thing is that game mechanics should encourage them NOT to do it but not necessarily prevent them from doing it. My personal oppinion. To be quite honest, while some of the vampiric powers at Sire and Progenitor levels are fairly strong, they also have some major consequences and impact on mana and stability that if a player at level 1 wanted to be a vampire, they'd have a hard time surviving. Think about it. Sire's have roughly 7dmg/sec in sunlight. You have 100 health at level 1. you're going to last 14 seconds in the sunlight. You have 100 stamina. You'll be able to slow time for 5 seconds, and if you're trying to SPRINT and slow time at the same time...yeah, good luck with that. At Master (or was it Progenitor) I give you blood rend which allows you to absorb health. If you're mostly a fighter, you'll have 100 magicka. That spell costs 10 per second, and 10 per second/target. 1 target you'll be able to drain for 5 seconds. Two targets in battle, 3.3 seconds, three targets, just over two seconds and your mana is gone. I think we should focus on making sure the game mechanics don't support early levelling. Consider Player choice (after meeting the hard requirements) and please don't hold it to the current mechanics:

 

I'm a fledgling, I'm level 1. I have 100 health and I want to be a Mage. I want to level my magicka as opposed to my health. Somehow I contracted vampirism and I'm a Fledgling. I read the release notes and know that I'm going to take 2dmg/sec in the sunlight as a Risen and just don't want to do that yet. Because I've used my "attack for blood" attack in battle as it's useful, and satisifies my drain requirements but more importantly gives me 1 extra follower. I've satisifed most all conditions to go to the next level but I don't want to. I need to feed to keep from going starved and my last victim satisfies my last conditional requirement. I am prompted with the following:

 

You sense that you're feeding has made you stronger, you feel the power's of the Risen within your body. Do you

<button> Resist against my inhumanity and remain a Fledgling

<button> Given in to my inhuman nature and become a Risen

 

Thoughts?

 

Hmm...yeah, I think for the sake of elegance, that just seems like a better idea. Something is still nudging me in the back of my mind that SOMETHING about vampire level should have a chance of being automatic, but I also realize I need to stop myself before I come up with some wacky system based on the cycles of the moon and whether or not the player had went to a hidden tree and walked around it x degrees...or something. Still, the idea of having control, implicit control, over yourself on the sliding scale of humanity we've implementing is great. So, I say go for it!

 

Another idea I'm toying with in my head atm is...complicated.

 

Two parts to this leveling concept. One of them is incredibly drastic, so heads up...

-MM points out that no new perk trees. While an incredibly sad fact to begin with, this means no vampire tree. Unless we take something out..well, what about restoration? That's a holy tree...

-IF we were to take out resto and replace it with vampirism, I was thinking that you could level up your "vampirisim" via blood drinking, spell usage, and waiting real time..the formulas for which I'd need to poke around with, but it wouldn't be through the normal "use spell a thousand times".

-Once you get the required "lvl of vampirism", instead of spending perks (as it wouldn't be tied to your base player level), you spend dragon blood to unlock spells/the next tier, with higher tiers costing more blood to unlock (so, like, I dunno, Sire spells cost 4 each, progenitor 3 each, etc).

-Deleveling (however that ends up being >_>) would simply take away the spells in a vampire class...you'd still have all the other benefits/negatives. So, a "twice deleveled Sire" would have all the passive positives/negatives of a Sire, but could only use the spells of a master. This, obviously, is a very simple way of looking at deleveling/starvation, but...it's a thought.

 

Obviously, this is theortical, and MM would know better than I would if it's even possible. Still, I think that would be able to factor in player choice (deciding what to unlock), the need for progression via "naturally vampiric ways" (spending nights, feeding, using abilities) and placing a flexible barrier on advancement (as low level characters CAN kill dragons, it's just harder).

 

 

The biggest problem with this is we can't conditionally replace restoration. It's either replaced or it's not. That doesn't mean we can't COMBINE Restoration Perks with another Perk tree, or combine Pickpocketting with Sneaking to create a Vampirism Tree (like the Game Jam did for Lycanthropy) but this introduces a HUGE potential for mod incompatibility and everyone knows what I feel about compatibility. I don't want people to have to disable our mod, to switch out to another character where they DO use Restoration skill or whatnot. Trust me, my first venture into modding after the CK released (and hacking prior to) was trying to create a new Skill and Perk Trees and so far, it can't be done. We have to replace, and I don't like replacing. I may be swayed in the future. My mind does change.

 

Second, converting dragon souls to perk points requires external hooks, such as Script Dragon or SKSE. I know C and C# so it's not that big of a deal, but it intrdocues another level of complexity. Both SKSE and Script Dragon require recompiling and rereleasing whenever Bethesda pushes out a game update which means our mod is effectively broken until that happens and the player updates. I'm not big on external dependencies for that reason.

 

Well shucks. Man, I really wish we could make perk trees...that's instrumental to so many aspects of...well, the future of modding this game, but c'est la vie. And, of course, that we can't conditionally replace them....but you're right. Stability and independence of updates is incredibly important, and I am very much willing to take the hit (so to speak) so it makes sense. I agree entirely on not wanting to meddle in things that we barely know what we're poking around in, and possibly causing some serious player issues.

 

I'm wondering though: disabling restoration at progenitor? I assume this is a LOT less troublesome than replacing it, but (as should be ridiculously apparent to anyone and everyone who's read even a lick of this) you know more about coding than I do.

 

-Deranking: Oh boy. A rough one if ever there was one. What's important here, moreso than anywhere else, is that it 1) is possible, so people don't feel stuck on one level or another and 2) it's not done via waiting, since that's incredibly dull. Other than those two stipulations, I'd need to have a long theorycrafting session to hammer out a solution, since it also factors in starvation, player choice, and the aforementioned metaphysics....to say nothing of game balance :pinch:

 

Eh, forget the metaphysics of it, that's just me. I like the quest idea simply because it forces the player to do something while they are starved. Alternatively, we can ALSO make that player choice at the start based on our current mechanics. Give the player the choice of staying in their current form or deranking if they meet the proper criteria rather than all this if below some percentage and starved for x days you'll automatically derank discussion. I'd rather them be enjoying the game, whether they "WAIT" through it or not, rather than force them into realtime limits. Am I giving in to allowing them to just WAIT or SLEEP it out? Sounds like I am. I think it started with giving in to customization. If players are going to be allowed to customize the experience to some degree, then let's stick to our original mechanics. You don't feed, you get to starving level, when you've starved long enough you're given the following option:

 

You've hungered for long enough and you can feel your vampiric nature slipping away. Do you:

<button> Fight with all will to maintain myself or

<button> Allow that part of me to slip away and become a Fledgling

 

I think we're wrestling too hard to solve a relatively easy problem if we just step back. The hunger values, durations, maximums will all be configurable with the v1 release and will support NOT allowing you to regress at all if you want. And since these can be changed on the fly...well.

 

-MM

 

True. I tend to try and wrap complicated things up in a way that they wouldn't become complicated, which only makes it more complicated! And here I was saying I'd try and take marginally backed securitized mortgage parallels out of the process! Curse my economist tendencies...Anyway. Is there a way such that it can check for SLEEP instead of just WAIT? Wait is such a bizarre, game-y construct, but sleep is a large part of vampire lore and effectively balances the game a little more (you actually need to have intent and safety to sleep, instead of just strangely blowing through a few days time while standing in a blacksmiths trough). If not, I'll make the concession for the point of simplicity, and, as you said, they'll all be editable.

 

@Leeira

I agree with you about vampires being altered biologically. My idea stems from past discussion of vampires needing to rest on soil from their homeland, with this related to the ability to cross water. I was thinking this could be a very inelegant solution. Better ideas are needed for it.

Is the unable to cross water thing still being thought of? It seems like it would be insanely difficult to program.

 

The idea of people carrying garlic is really cool!

 

In regards to crossing water. Actually there are two things here. 1 is, for the most part, completely doable, neither are being considered at the moment:

 

1. 
    
   
2. Part of the quest mechanics in the game allows the player to "loot" dirt from a grave, their grave, what have you. We alter the PlayerVampireQuest script so that when they change to becoming a vampire they are loaded into a cell that has a graveyard, or a crypt, or whathaveyou that contains a chest or coffin (however it happens) with dirt in it. You can take one handful of dirt, and it stays in your inventory for 24-48 hours. As long as you have this dirt you can safely enter water. If you don't, you take damage. Or
   
3. The player can't cross water, i.e. over bridges or anything without the above mechanics in part 1.
   

 

The first of the two, entering water is doable. Detecting that they're crossing OVER water, not so much. Again, neither is currently being worked on.

 

TES Lore supports that there is a tribe of vampires that actually PREFER to live under icy frigid waters, and we've given our players the ability to "breath" underwater since, as the undead, you have no reason to breath. I wouldn't mind implementing the 1st mechanic above once we get to fleshing out the quests if Jakisthe's is interested in doing it. Right now Jakisthe's intentions are that vampires can't swim. This has not been implemented yet, as I I'm having a hard time with that. The potential for players getting stuck underwater are there, although Phase Walk in it's current implementation could and would get you out of being stuck. Actually, my implementation of Phase Walk is really what I had intended to be "Blink" only with a much greater range.

 

-MM

 

Hmm...if only weight had an impact on swimming..but alas! Oh well. This part is honestly more for flavor; considering that vampires can swim (or at least some can, which is good enough for me), I can foresee them just swimming normally and walking on water if they have "grave dust". Incidentally, I do love the idea of grave dust, as that is very classic, very immersive, and very interesting. Still, it'll likely be a later inclusion since quests are post-main vampiric changes.

 

some ideas and personal meanings.

 

1. the garlic idea could be weary cool. hmm the visible marker can be like a white detect life smoke around them as it could be that your vampiric nose or eyes pic it up.

 

Interesting idea. I created an effectshader for steam rising off the body for when you're in sunlight as a visible indicator (although there's an indicator of health dropping and an audible indicator to at the onset). Also the same for garlic damage. I'm thinking just a very light shader effect. Not so light that you have to really look for it to see it, but light enough that it's not intrusive to normal play. Maybe they'd leave little...."scent" trails if that's possible.

 

Hmm. Trails. Were you thinking trails like footprints (as in, they'd leave a record of where the actor had walked on recently), or more of a general glow like detect life? Either way, I think it should follow in similar function to detect life: added on when sneaking, forced upon the player when starving. Thus it becomes non-instrusive while health is maintained, but heightens their senses to danger when they're most susceptible to it.

 

2. i think that people shal not atack you based on your vampire level as sire but soly upon how starved you are. this is because i meen that once you become a vampire your body wil stay as it is forever and then even if you are a 1000 years you would still look the same as when you were bitten, unles you starve yourself ofcause.. but maybe vampire hunters have some items that react to vampiric auras and if you are an old vamp you vil have a stronger aura. this could trigger some thing as if you did attak a man but instead of a guard talking to you it could be a vampire hunter that says get out of town before i slay you (like the warning you get if you trespass) but this warnig before you are attaked are like 50% posible to happen as not all vampire hunters hate the vamps but do it to protect the fellow humanoids.

 

Ok, I'm definitely getting an overall sense that everyone else is onboard with "no marked for attack just because you're a sire" and it seems like everyone is ok with "marked for attack if you're starving". So I'm open to that change. Jakisthe?

 

Indeed. That said, I still want to have the vampire receiving an initial boost to speech as they start out, only to slowly fall (yet still perhaps being higher than normal, even at sire) and the mark when starving. To what degree/what the cutoff will be for starvation, well, I don't know...there doesn't seem to be much room for a gradation of "marked for attack"; it's very binary. So we'd have to think "why would (for instance) X lvl of starvation not mark me, but X+1 would?"

 

Or, alternatively, it could be that you get marked earlier as you go up in levels (so a starved sire is marked sooner than a starved progenitor, etc) and the spell needed to mask their condition is contingent on starvation level. How's that sound to everyone? This would, in theory, allow for even fledglings to be marked, but it would require them to be VERY hungry...and with no way of masking as such. Still, if you've let yourself get into that state...well..welcome to vampirism!

 

Now then, as for the Silver Hand and the Vigilants. I don't want your character to be 100% safe as long as they follow the rules of the game. I want you to be sought out, or at minimum I want the random Vigilants that travel from location to location to attack you if they see you. I am, for the sake of ease, assuming they've dedicated their lives to eradicating "Evil" and have the necessary means to recognize that you're a vampire. Let's just call it a sixth sense about them.

 

the hide from being detected as a starved vampire spell that you talked about could be more like an enchanted hooded robe insted of a spell. yes it would make you use not so cool clothing/armor as before but as a starved vampire this is a smal problem.

 

Not sure if I'm onboard with "armor" (i.e. robes, gloves, hood, or other) having to be used to provide the effect. Maybe it's such that if you're that hungy then you better go kill some things and feed on them before entering a town and do your business well before you get back into that state. I've upped the hunger count down from 10 hours to 24 hours for now...but that may need to be tweaked down. It's really not that difficult to actually stay fed, which reminds me...perhaps feed attacks should restore only 1/2 as much as regular feeding.

 

-MM

 

Armor is, frankly, very easy to obtain and, more specificially, very easy to get some variant that completely hides yourself. Now, I'm not saying I'm against specialty vampire armors, but I don't think they should be a big aspect of staying hidden, since humans would have...a way of sensing vampires other than sight, especially starved ones. For the sake of balance, we're putting it to starvation, but in the meantime, armor is essentially a non issue.

 

Other bits which I am loathe to try and multiquote because I am terrible at keeping track of my quote unquote tags :wallbash: :

-Feeding on unaware people: yes, this is considered a crime, and one which is noticeable by others. A "charm victim automatically while feeding" is something that'll hopefully eventually make it in, but as it is now, that's part of the fun. Just try not to raise too much attention when you drain the lifeblood of someone :P

-My own crappiness at responses: yep...I estimate (aka, know) that I will be RIDICULOUSLY busy till next Wednesday (3 finals, 14 page paper, accounting work, econometrics study/report all due on Tuesday :ohdear: ), after which I will issue a report to MM on my findings and we can discuss solutions.

-Spells: Oh spells. U so fickle. I'm fine with phasewalk equaling blink, since I had thought from day 1 that such a spell would be impossible to implement as in my head, but hey, that's why this topic ends in a question mark! Which I now wish I could change..but anyway. They're going to be hardest things to add, I think.

-Beta testing: Once I finish my tests, convene with MM via email, and get it all hammered out (likely around next week depending on how fast I am), I am very much for running a beta test through signups. Yes, signups. Since this is such a large undertaking, I'd wanna make sure that the testers would give...a "full report" of their findings, instead of effectively letting it out into the wild as a beta and letting people play it, not necessarily get back to us, and forgetting about it. I hope you guys understand the logic behind this; it's 4 in the morning and I am nearly starting to hallucinate!

Edited March 2, 2012 by Jakisthe

[FranzLiszt]

Hey, is the new vampire going to be marked "undead"? Because if so, a removal of the restoration tree perks would be very beneficial.

My character in skyrim is a normal vampire and with the 70 restoration perk "necromage" I am way powerful.

Necromage makes all spells 25%ish more effective on undead. And if you are a vampire you count.

So all of my enchantments do more.

As an example, I have a robe that grants 125% magika regeneration but it actually does 154% with necromage

same with other effects such as restoration spells.

Just wondered if you guys had noticed this.

Otherwise:

YAY for play-testing (eventually), i just got skyrim for the PC yesterday so I can actually help with testing the alpha/beta/whatever.

Edited March 2, 2012 by FranzLiszt