Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - Pop's Difficulty and Enhancement mod

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - Pop's Difficulty and Enhancement mod

A mod for VTMB that greatly increases the health of npcs and also enhances disciplines among other things. This file requires the unoffical patch 2.8 to work properly

POP'S DIFFICULTY AND ENHANCEMENT MODIFICATION FOR VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE BLOODLINES

*None player charectors (Npcs).

Are much healthier and more standardized. Humans have 400hp,stronger ones like cops and

thugs have 500hp,the best such as hunters,swat and ghouls have 600hp. Vampires have between

800 and 900 hp. Also each level of body armor or fortitude decreases damage done by 5% to a

max of 50% with a lesser effect on aggravated damage. No changes to zombies,rats and dogs.

Much harder (better) combat experience. In testing with a Tremere I was happy to find out

that you must actually pick a fighting style and raise it early if you expect to survive

long,enemies just keep getting back up. You'll need to rely on your disciplines much more

now. This mod doesn't make the enemies hit any harder,so fights will be more drawn out but

not frustrating. The Gargoyle's immune to just about every discipline now. Tzimisce ghouls

more resistant.

*Bosses.

Boss types have much higher levels of health,damage done to them reduced by armor and

fortitued (see above). Obfuscate works on most of them. Humans can be knocked down.

*Guns.

Altered for better playablity. All gun crosshair bloomage decreases as skill increases.

Increased clip size for most guns. Value of guns increased 3 fold,price of ammo cut in half.

Most minimum crosshair sizes reduced. Damage,range and over all handling increased. Similiar

fire arms now have the same crosshair size: hand guns=size 5,shot guns size=18,Machingun

size=10,Sniper rifles size=0. Dropped ammo is equal to the new clip size. New sound fx files

fit perfectly. Sword fx=stealth kill music removed. Ithaca fx= Same as before but with

missing pump fx. Anaconda fx= whole new sound. Alterations done on top of the 2.8 patch

weapon tweaks. Unless stated other wise the following changes are for both modes of fire.

-Anaconda increased range,less bloomage while shooting/running w/skill,new sound fx,dmg +1.

-Crossbolts 1 dollar per bolt,dmg +1.

-Desert_Eagle increased range,crosshairs size and run bloomage,dmg +1.

-Flamethrower increased clip size 150 to 200.

-Glock quicker firing,increased accuracy,range,decreased bloomage from shooting/run w/skill.

-Ithaca less bloomage while running/shooting with skill,2x clip size,new sound fx.

-Mac_10 Less bloomage while running/shooting with skill,3x clip size,smaller crosshairs.

-Remington700 smallest crosshairs,double damage while zoomed,1 dollar per round.

-Remington700_swat smallest crosshairs,double damage while zoomed,1 dollar per round.

-Spas less bloomage while running/shooting with skill,3x clip size.

-Steyr_aug 3x clip size.

-Sword new sound fx,removed music from stealth kill.

-Thirty_eight smaller crosshairs,quick firing,less bloomage due to shooting/run w/skill.

-Uzi larger crosshairs,less bloomage due to shooting/running with skill increase,3x clip size.

*Stealth.

Sneaking is now harder and enemies will notice you much sooner unless you keep your skill at

a higher level. This can cause a problem in the tutorial when you need to be stealthy. Most

builds can pass it. Trance,Nightwisp Ravens,Hysteria or Obfuscate will get you by. If your

looking to actually sneak by,you'll need a stealth level of 4.

*History tweaks help to balance them with the new system. More info shows up in game. I wanted

to redue all the histories from the ground up but after playing with them for a few days I

never want see them again.

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Name Old New

-Blunt fangs -2bp -6 bp

-Perv +2bp,Subterfuge maximal 1 +4 bp,no penalties

-Slut +2bp,Raising Mental costs more +4 bp,no penalties

-Long foot Maximum Dex 1 Maximum Dex 2

-Low born -2bp,Raising Knowledge costs more +4,no penalties

-Chica +1 firearms firearms +2

-Deceptive strength Blood buff Duration 200% Blood buff Duration 400%

-Chupacabra Fortitude max 3 Fortitude max 4

-Doomseer Obfuscate 50% Obfuscate 75%

-Batshit Demetation lasts longer (didn't work) Dementation costs less

-Eldritch Prodigy Thaumurgy dmg 140% Thaumurgy dmg 180%

-Infernal Auspex 50% duration,Dominate max 3." Auspex 25% duration,Dominate 5

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*Disciplines.

Much stronger or more durable than before. Compensating for the fact that the new hp levels

of the npcs won't change the effectiveness of damage-oriented disciplines I've lengthened all

delay timers for offensive spells as stated below, also all damage spells are weaker...I

never liked the way you used to be able to cast Blood strike/Burrowing beatle like a machine

gun..now they seem more like disciplines. All damage has been removed from mental disciplines

and used to increase rate of success in there respective fields. Animations have been added

or cleaned up,some have been altered or taken out but most are unchanged example: most npcs

fully play out Blood Purge or Blood suckers communion now,Tzimisce Creation 1 no longer

effected by Mass Hallucination since the effect wasn't designed for something so tall which

caused the disk like partical normaly on the ground to be at chest or waist level. Most npcs

are immune to affects which they do not have animations for. Example Tzimisce Creations 1,2

and 3 are immune to Vision of death and suicide etc.). Even with all the down grading

Targeted disciplines are by far the most powerful. It's now obvious if the discipline has

worked or not so no need to keep damage floaters on.

Tweaked disciplines changes include the following.

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ANIMALISM Old/Bp/New Dam%/Duration Old/Range/New Old/Delay-timers/New

NightWisp Ravens 1 1 Na/4x 600/800 5.0 12

Burrowing Beetle 1 1 50%/Na 600/800 0.3 8.0

Spectral Wolf 2 2 Na/Na 600/600 4.5 45

Blood suckers communion 3 2 50%/Na 600/800 9.0 45

Pestilence 3 3 Na/2x 900/900 12 90

*Notes* The damage disciplines here are much stronger then the ones in Thamagurty. Nightwisp

works on boss types at reduced capacity. Spectral wolf works on nearly everyone

including boss types,good for delays and damage. Blood suckers communion more

efficient (cost less). Pestilence....removed damage (still causes death),doubled

incapacitate timers. This is the only discipline outside of Thaumagurty that's

self-sustaining.

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AUSPEX

New= 4 minutes plus 30 seconds per level,for a max of 360 seconds (6 minutes).

Old= 20 seconds plus 4 seconds per level,max 36 seconds.

*Notes* Much more useful for ranged combat and sneaking now,Obviously uses much less blood

over time.

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CELERITY

New= 90 seconds.

Old= 14 seconds

*Notes* Extremely useful in all those long fights.

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DEMENTATION Old/Bp/New Dam%/Duration Old/Range/New Old/Delay-timers/New

Hysteria 1 1 Na/4x 600/800 4.0 12

Mass Hallucination 2 1 Na/2x 220/440 4.0 6.0

Vision of Death 2 2 Na/Na 600/800 4.5 45

Berserk 3 2 Na/3x 600/800 10 60

Bedlam 4 3 Na/Na 900/900 12 90

*Notes* Hysteria works on most boss types. Mass Hallucination effect doubled (not timer).

Vision of Death (see Suicide) is the only mental discipline still doing damage to

bosses. Berserk (see Possession). Bedlam...matched effects as close to originals as

possible. Added disoriented animation (head shake) for all Dementation resisted

effects.

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DOMINATE Old/Bp/New Dam%/Duration Old/Range/New Old/Delay-timers/New

Trance 1 1 Na/4x 600/800 4.0 12

Brainwipe 2 1 Na/2x 250/500 5.5 6.0

Suicide 2 2 Na/Na 600/800 4.5 45

Possession 3 2 Na/3x 600/800 10 60

Mass Suicide 4 3 Na/Na 900/900 11 90

Notes* Trance works on most boss types. Brainwipe universal 10 second duration,works on

everyone except bosses. Suicide chance raised (10-15%) now equal with Mass Suicide,

removed damage,its all or nothing now. Possession...removed damage and outright kills,

combined and increased chance for possession accordingly (roughly 10%). Mass Suicide

follows same rules as Suicide. Added disoriented animation (head shake) for all

resisted Dominate attacks that didn't have animations.

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FORTITUDE

New= 180 seconds (3 minutes).

Old= 25 seconds

*Notes* Life saver.

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OBFUSCATE

New= 10 plus 5 seconds per level,max 30 seconds.

Old= 18 plus 2 seconds per level,max 26 seconds.

*NOTES* The most powerful discipline in my opinion. Get this one up as soon as possible,

being able to run basically doubles the timer. Useful during boss fights. 1x damage

per level.

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POTENCE

New= 180 seconds (3 minutes).

Old= 25 seconds

*Notes* Makes fights considerably shorter.

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PRESENCE

New= 90 seconds.

Old= 16 seconds

*Notes* Nothing's changed accept the duration,same as celerity.

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PROTEAN

New= 180 seconds (3 minutes).

Old= 25 seconds

*Notes* More dependable,less chance of shifting back in the middle of a fight.

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THAUMAGURTY Old/Bp/New Dam%/Duration Old/Range/New Old/Delay-timers/New

Blood Strike 1 1 10%/Na 700/1000 0.2 2.5

Blood Purge 2 2 10%/Na 180/180 6.0 16

Blood Shield 3 3 Na/Na Na/Na 12 12

Blood Salvo 3 1 10%/Na 500/800 1.2 4.0

Blood Boil 4 3 Na/Na 1100/1100 4.5 24

*Notes* Thaumaturgy now lives up to the hype and is very user friendly due to the reduced

blood cost,and lowest delay timers of any targeted discipline. Strike/Salvo travel

much faster,roughly 6 times faster and return to you regardless of your position,also

Salvo's radius is equal to its range. Designed to act as supplemental offensive

weapons,and primary means of feeding so don't expect it to save you from boss types.

Purge animation works on almost everyone now and is extremely useful. Blood shield

takes twice as much damage to negate. Added a slight delay animation (knock back) for

those that survive Blood Boil. Reduced damage (50-75%) to those that survive Blood

Boil,including those in the blast radius. No more damage floaters without animations

or effects.

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Key:

Dam%= Approximent strength as compared to orginal values.

Example= Blood purge is roughly 10% as strong as it used to be.

Delay-timers= amount of time you must wait after using discipline to use it again.

Bp= Blood points.

Na= Not applicable.

Duration= A multiple of the orginal number Example 2x is twice as long as the orginal.

Range= Indicates range or radius depends on the discipline,default is range.

Boss types= Any npc that has a health bar during a fight.

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*Misc.

3rd person camera movable with keypad.Improved xp table.The orginal 2.8 patch gave out 317 xp

by games end,this one gives out 451. That may sound like alot,but its not. This balances out

the reward to mission type,also somewhat needed with the higher difficulty. Hunger and damage

frenzy checks more common. Npc's blood pool values changed,standard is 14,prostitutes 8,bums

6. Without this you could just drain everyone much quicker then you could beat them. This way

the option's still there buy takes much longer,also stays true to what Jack tells you about

feeding off different humans in the tutorial.

*Bugs.

I haven't increased the hp of the 2 or 3 vamps you come across in the tutorial this is to

allow the cut scenes to play out correctly. Tin can bill and Hannah aren't dying when

scripted to.

*Tips.

Pick a fighting style (brawl,melee) and raise it early. Eventually get firearms up,some of

the latter fights are very difficult to impossible without them. Keep blood packs on you and

be ready for all boss fights. Make a permenant save before going on missions,save more often.

Ming is especially hard to beat. Obfuscate has a higher stealth attack and works on most

bosses now,use it. Celerity and guns work great together. Remember stealth is alot tougher

now for none obfuscated players.

*Installion: Frist you must download and install the unoffical patch 2.8,then add the vampires

folder (from this mod) to your vampire root directory,default

C:\Program Files\Activision\Vampire - Bloodlines,overwrite and that's it.

To skip the opening cutscenes,extract the file provided in the "Skip Opening Movies folder" to

your Vampire/Python/Theatre directory.

*Credits.

The camera control and opening scene bypass are both taken from the PnP mod. The experience

table is a modified version of the one that came with the unoffical patch 2.8 and inspired

by the experience mod,which I used as a template with reduced rewards. Sound files taken from

Narfs weapon tweak mod. XehutL for the stealth.txt file I used (saved me alot of trouble).

Last but not lest Dan and WeSp (whose name I couldn't find on the entire readme file and who

I had thought was one of the orginal coders because I kept seeing his name while tweaking :)

for a great patch.

All discipline work (including clean up of animations and effects) done by me..Pop,as well as

Npc overhauls,final product with reguards to weapon tweaks (not sound files) and experience

table and of course this read me.