True Patch Gold: Enabling Clan Histories

[Robutt]

Are there any histories that are actually disadvantageous? Or make the game harder to play than without them? That's mostly what I'm worried about.

I don't mind a challenge, I'd just like to be aware of it before I select it.

[Tessera]

Are there any histories that are actually disadvantageous?

No. Or at least, none that I am aware of.

The clan Histories simply add a different "flavor" to your gameplay. In most cases, the Histories will make your character stronger in one area, at the expense of being weaker in another area. The devs at Troika were doing that sort of thing all the way back in Fallout II, as well as in Arcanum.

For example, I always play my Malk with the "Ninja!" history enabled. She's extremely potent with melee (both bare-handed and with melee weapons). But as payment for all of that extra melee power, she can never raise her Firearms skill above "0." Which in turn has quite an effect upon how I play the game... I basically never use guns at all during the course of the game, except in the two or three places in the late game where there really isn't any better option for a Malk (such as during the endgame fights with the Chiropteran Behemoth and Ming Xiao). For the majority of the game, my Malk attacks using stealth kills, Dementation, melee weapons, and good old-fashioned vampire brawling (forcibly feeding on an enemy and draining them dry).

So really, the purpose of the Histories are to induce the player to try different playing styles, instead of being locked into some boring and repetitive mode that would eventually become stale. They add some variation and so, they also add replay value to Bloodlines.

Bear in mind that many of the clan Histories were not fully balanced by Troika prior to releasing the game, which explains why they were left disabled by default. Hence they are also left disabled by default after installing the True Patch. I do recommend enabling them... but only if the player understands what I just said about game balance.

[Robutt]

Has anyone else tried making a mod that balances them? I saw someone else mention they made one earlier in the thread but their link is dead now.

[Tessera]

Several people have tried their hand at either re-balancing the Histories, or even creating new ones.

I have checked out a couple of those mods and I was not happy with them. More often than not, the problem is this: some modders... especially younger modders... are unable to resist the temptation to make their personal favorite Histories be overpowered. In Wesp's "patch," for example, that is most definitely the case with most of the Histories that were supposedly "fixed" within Wesp's junk.

A few years ago, a couple of our own Forum veterans were working on re-balancing the Histories. Cylnar and Schu started a joint Histories project... but I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea whether or not they ever completed that project. I never really followed up on it myself, because in my case I always play the same character and she always uses the same history... so for me personally, there is little interest in any of the other Histories.

Back when Acrimonious and I were developing version 5.04AT of the True Patch, we decided that any attempts on our part to re-balance the Histories would, by default, include a certain degree of subjectivity on our parts. We were not comfortable with that fact, being that our primary goal was to produce a bona-fide patch... and not a mod. So in the end, we decided to leave most of the Histories alone and to also leave them disabled by default.

If you do decide to check out a Histories mod made by someone else, then please make sure that it is 100% compatible with the True Patch before installing it. I suspect that some of those mods may not be compatible with our version of the game.

[Cylnar]

A few years ago, a couple of our own Forum veterans were working on re-balancing the Histories. Cylnar and Schu started a joint Histories project... but I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea whether or not they ever completed that project. I never really followed up on it myself, because in my case I always play the same character and she always uses the same history... so for me personally, there is little interest in any of the other Histories.

Well, originally Schu and I were working on separate projects to rebalance and add new Histories to the game. When we found out that we were both doing this, we decided to combine our efforts. I eventually became frustrated with the fact that if there are too many Histories (I had a lot of ideas) the game just gets stupid and won't load any, or something. So I gave my most current work to Schu and he completed his "VTMB Re-Balanced Histories Mod" which can be found right here on tessmage.com by just following the link embedded in the name.

Schu also made another mod which adds a whole new clan to the game (high difficulty): Schu's Oni Mod. These two mods are the only mods on the net that I know of that were specifically designed for use with the TPG (though they would likely work with vanilla 1.2 or the UPchuck).

I may make another Histories mod someday, but if I do, it will replace the existing Histories. Most of the Histories in the original files are "stat shufflers" which change the starting priority of various stats, though the same effect may have different names depending on the clan and gender of the player. The ones I was thinking of were more extensive, and mostly clan-specific.

[Tessera]

These two mods are the only mods on the net that I know of that were specifically designed for use with the TPG

...

What about MY mods, you turd..?

How soon they forget... 

[beetle]

I think it was implied that he meant mods not made by you.

[Cylnar]

These two mods are the only mods on the net that I know of that were specifically designed for use with the TPG

...

What about MY mods, you turd..?

How soon they forget... 

I think it was implied that he meant mods not made by you.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Mods that people other than you have made for the TPG. :laugh: :angel:

[Tessera]

Oh, cut the crap and just come right out with it, Cylnar. You want me to get an abortion..!!!

[Cylnar]

LOL

[elanaahova]

They are like the merits and flaws of the P&P version of the game. Essentially, they change the prioritization of the attributes (most of them are this) or give some advantages in exchange for some disadvantages.
For example, Malkavians have, among others, Complete Batshit (increase effect on Dementation, but also increases the XP cost on Auspex or subterfuge, I don't remember which one), which is my favourite, or Tessera's favourite Ninja!, impressive for a melee-oriented Malkavian.

What is the significance / game play wise / in changing the priority of attributes?  Plz help me understand this.  Game manual is vague. 

[Tessera]

No significance, really. Just a bit more variety. You can win the game with practically any combination of traits. The purpose of the Histories is mainly as a roleplaying choice. Some of them will have a subtle effect upon the course of the game, however... simply because they compel you to play your character a bit differently.

But that's pretty much all that they do. It's just another way to mix things up and add a little variation to the game.

[Tessera]

Copied over from the members-only section of this board...



True enough. Troika did a lousy job on the clan Histories, probably because they were being rushed and they simply didn't have the time to play-test them all. In my estimation, about half of the Histories are working pretty good, but the other half are broken to varying degrees. So yeah... that's why Troika ended up disabling the Histories, when Bloodlines was finally released.

So... why didn't we "fix" the Histories with the True Patch..? The answer is somewhat complicated, but it boils down to a few reasons. The clan Histories are optional, for one thing. And they are largely subjective in nature. All of them involve boosting one or two stats, in exchange for crippling one or two other stats. So, which stats should we choose, when we're setting up one of the Histories..? Like I said -- it's largely subjective. Furthermore, every single History would require extensive play-testing, in order to be absolutely sure that none of them caused the player character to become overpowered or under-powered. The time involved would be prohibitive... which is no doubt the reason that Troika never finished tweaking the Histories in the first place.  

In the end, I decided that editing the clan Histories fell under the purview of a mod... not a patch. And since the True Patch is not a mod, but is indeed a bug-fixes-only patch, I felt that any changes to the Histories would be inappropriate. If anything is going to be done with the numerous clan Histories, then that work should be left to competent modders.