Seeing the mechanics of the game

[Nathaniel Prime]

I'm really interested in seeing how the inner mechanics of this game work. Like, what gives you XP, how much, and when? Does being tutored by vampires do anything except unlock disciplines? What determines how much Lettow offers you for the second set of deliveries? What bonuses do the laptop, intrusion kit, and all the car stats do exactly?

I'd love to be able to discover this stuff! Can you recommend a way to do that?

[Marshall]

The only real way is to go through the game files, and risk spoiling unseen content for yourself. So, keep that in mind if you do go looking.

The files you want are in "steam/steamapps/common/Vampire The Masquerade — Night Road/scenes".

Each scene has a .txt and a .json file associated with it, and I don't know what word processor you use but the .txt is probably the more readable of the two. Looking through it you'll see stuff like 'Dialogue choice that disaparages the Camarilla' followed by '*set traditionalist %-5', which means that your 'tradition conviction' bar has moved a bit towards 'Defy the Traditions'. Or '*if auspex > 0' followed by a choice that you can only see/select if you have any dots in auspex. From my memory, cash rewards is usually determined by something like '# of missions' + 'reputation with faction' by default, and then modified by your relevant skills if you choose an option to negotiate for a better reward.

You can also potentially mod the game through these files, but you can also potentially break the game too, so be careful. I've done a bit of both myself, and from what I've found you have to make the exact same changes to both scene files. So, you need to have a program to edit the .json as well as the .txt file, and keep track of your changes.

As an example, the biggest gameplay change I've done was to effectively remove the messy critical system. There have been several threads griping about it, at least one of which I've joined in on, so I won't rehash that here. What I did was I went into the 'standard_mods' files and changed the following:

"*if clan = "Brujah"
*set mess (X+hunger_penalty)
*if mess < 0
*set mess 0
*else
*set mess (X+hunger_penalty)
*if mess < 1
*set mess 1"

The 'X' in those were originally 4 for the Brujah and 5 for everyone else, IIRC. From what I understand, the higher they are, the more successes needed to trigger a messy critical. I made them really high at first just to test that it made the change I wanted in-game, and I was finally able to see what success without frenzy looked like in combat. I haven't experimented with more reasonable numbers yet, because I haven't felt like replaying again yet, but I've set them to 12 and 13 for the moment.

If you do break something if you decide to try modding, just delete the file and verify the game to make steam redownload it. Well, my desire to give complete answers got away from me there a bit, but I think I covered everything.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Hmm? There is no folder called "scenes" in steam/steamapps/common/Vampire The Masquerade — Night Road/

Where else might it be?

[Marshall]

That's strange.. You found the game folder itself though, right? All the CoG games I own have the same basic folder structure. Try this:

Right on the game in your library, select properties. Go to the 'local files' tab, and click the 'browse' button. That should open the game folder for you, just to make sure you have the right location. If there isn't a 'scenes' folder there, try verifying the installation I guess.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Strange, it is just not there. I verified the local files - nothing. The only thing called "scenes" in my steam folder is some file related to Aground. I wonder why I'm not seeing anything.

[Marshall]

The only thing I can think of is that I'm on linux and maybe I have a different file/folder structure because of that? I wouldn't have assumed my OS would make a difference, but if you're on windows perhaps you just have an .exe file with all the scene data packed away inside it, or something like that.

So, the data is presumably there, but I don't know how to help you view it I'm afraid. Perhaps someone on the official CoG forums could provide more insight.

[Candidate Guillot]

I know this thread is old, but there is still a way to see the scene code on Windows. You need to go to the Choice of Games website and find the game you want to look at there. When you click onto the game on Choice of Games, the web adress will be something like:

https://www.choiceofgames.com/insert-game-title-here/

You then need to add to the web adress so it shows:

https://www.choiceofgames.com/insert-game-title-here/scenes/startup.txt

This will take you to the overview of the games scenes in your webbrowser. From there you can replace the "startup" part with the name of the scene you want to look at (there will be a list of them at the startup page).
Be aware that you will not be able to look at the scenes past a certain point (the free trial) UNLESS you make an account on Choice of Games and pay for the game again on the Choice of Games website. If you do this, you can look at the paywall scenes so long as you are logged in with the account that bought the game.

I know that it majorly sucks to have to pay twice for a game, but this is the only way I know how to see the code and if there is a way to sync your steam library with the Choice of Games website, I don't know it.

Hope this helps.

[Nathaniel Prime]

Oh, sweet. That is awesome, thanks!

[Candidate Guillot]

Happy to help!
And of course, this tip only allows you to VIEW the code, you cannot make changes to the game like suggested above, but I still find it really helpful especially because these games vary wildly in how obvious it is which choice correlates with which stat.

[Orgol]

Originally posted by Marshall:

I'm on linux

Might I ask how are you able to play it on Linux? Any special configuration used, Wine?

I just get a white screen whenever I try to play, be it with Proton or the Native Linux runner.

[Candidate Guillot]

Would just like to add that you now CAN link your steam library to the Choice of Games website. There will be a link to do so on your account page after you have created an account on Choiceofgames.com.
Just wanted to mention it, since the info in my previous post is now slightly outdated.

[Marshall]

Originally posted by Saeros:

Might I ask how are you able to play it on Linux? Any special configuration used, Wine?

I just get a white screen whenever I try to play, be it with Proton or the Native Linux runner.

Sorry for the late reply; I've not played the Night Road in a while and likewise stopped checking in on the forums. Anyway, I'm on Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, and I'm not using special config options to run the game. It just works, and I can just see the game files, for whatever reason.

Edit: Nevermind, that last update to all the CoG games took away my scene folder. And for all of them I mean, not just Night Road. Based on file sizes, now it looks like the game files are in a .pak file I don't know how to read. Hopefully someday someone will figure it out, or CoG will walk back this anti-consumer decision, but until then I'm probably not gonna buy another of their games.