I think there should ALWAYS be a chance of hunters spawning on the hub maps and hunting you - even if you have zero masquerade violations. And by hunt I mean actively moving around trying to kill you, not sitting quietly in the same spot waiting patiently to be stealth killed or standing around with their torches burning so you can see them three blocks away. Maybe they could even be waiting for you in your haven...
The toughest hunter encounter I ever got was playing the Final Nights (I had masquerade violations capped at four so I could go through the whole game with them wandering around). A group of pretty strong ones ended up camped outside my haven in Santa Monica while I was inside, and I wasn't very well armed at the time. It took more than a couple of tries before I finally made it out of that alley alive, err... dead-ish. Another time I was outside The Abyss and I think it was cops shooting at me (I up the damage of cop guns a lot). I knew if I could make around the corner I could hide behind the dumpster long enough to obfuscate and heal up, but as soon as I turned the corner - BAM! a group of hunters started tearing me a new one. I was toast - and I loved it! I actually felt like I was playing a game where I had to stay on the edge of my seat and be ready for anything.
Something to keep you on your toes. One of the big problems of the game is its predictability. I know where I have to go. I know where the shadows are on the main streets where I can feed. I know where and when juicebags will be walking around and even how good their 'pedigree' is. Randomizing passwords was a good step, though I would take it to it's logical conclusion and make them truly random gametime generated passwords, so you couldn't just read the list and guess (I know: cheaters gonna cheat...).
The game needs more random elements - the 'random encounters' you get in most games. Even the 'fixed' encounters could be switched up - how many guys? where do they start? what are they armed with? Maybe one time is 3 mooks with 38's, and the next it's two guys with shotguns (or sledgehammers or bush hooks). Maybe a guard is wandering outside, or maybe he's inside guarding a door. Without that, yeah, you can try different tactics and different builds, but it's the same movie, over and over (albeit a good movie).
This turns the game more combat focused, yes... but what's the alternative? You can randomize dialogs to a degree, like you did with seducing blood dolls, but you can always leave and try again with them. With plot required conversations that really doesn't work out so well... Maybe you could force a conversation with a police officer to let you explain your way out of situation before a conflict starts (but be sure you're not stuck in a conversation with one cop while a second is popping caps in your ass).
