The Vampire Experience Could Be Better

XomRhoK

Shagreth wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I don't hate the art team since they have made some pretty amazing things in ESO, but this Scion model just doesn't feel right.

Honestly, do you see this being changed? I don't. We're kinda stuck with this model, and there's absolutely nothing I like about it, just an ugly daedra. Right now it's the thing that bugs me the most, along with a few issues I see with how vampires are performing.

Theoretically one morph of Blood Scion still can be changed, if ZOS have the courage to admit a slip, same with the one morph of Vampiric Drain. In Vampire Feedback thread i leaved the suggestion how to do this.
Quote:
"1) Vampiric Drain. After latest revamp Vampiric Drain lost half of the damage and don't looks like flow of blood anymore. I know that you(ZOS) don't like to change the visuals of things that are already in the game, because someone can liked it, so my suggestion is to merge both current morphs of Vampiric Drain into one(Drain Vigor seems useless anyway) and other morph make oriented on damage with old Invigorated Drain visuals and sound, maybe with a slightly wider blood flow than before or with visuals similar to new vampire NPC drain skill, something that looks and sounds like a flow of blood.

2) Blood Scion. He tall, bulky, glows and looks like horned Xivkyn, not a vampire, he has human-like stance and moves and he uses weapon. But, again, i know that you don't like to change the visuals of things that are already in the game, so my suggestion is to merge both current morphs of Blood Scion into one(Perfect Scion seems useless anyway) and other morph make look similar to Bloodknight NPC, maybe without helm and with less armor. Bloodknight NPC has not so bulky armor, has no horns, don't glows, has a more predatory stance, uses his claws to attack. Due to claw attacks make this morph restricted to use weapon skills while transformed, this will add uniqueness to the morphs. Also scale down both Blood Scion and Bloodknight at leaast at 10%, because now they looks too huge."

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Can't you mesmerize the stablekeeper?

Logged onto my vampire after reading this and used Mesmerize on the stablekeeper.

It works, but it does not work on Bankers and non-merchant NPCs.

NPCs are supposed to shun you, I believe. But bankers... Sounds like an oversight.

Bankers are fine with your stage 4 vampirism, they don't care from whom to take money, very realistic touch on that
I suppose, @Vevvev just tried Mesmerize them and visual effect didn't show up, so she decided that it not working, but effect didn't show up, because they don't need to be Mesmerized.

Edit: After i read @Sypher post i assume it can be bug, i have not problems, as a stage 4 vampire, to use(without Mesmerize) bankers and guild traders at least in Mournhold, Rawl'kha, Vivec city.

Elvenheart

I wish the spammable was one of those skills that said it does x magic damage or x physical damage, whichever is higher...at least the one that uses health. That would make it good for stamina users

Vevvev

XomRhoK wrote: »

I suppose, @Vevvev just tried Mesmerize them and visual effect didn't show up, so she decided that it not working, but effect didn't show up, because they don't need to be Mesmerized.

I was testing it on the banker in Solitude. They just refuse to talk to you and the effects never show up, but that was reported as a bug with the new zone.

Myyth

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Myyth wrote: »

My biggest pet peeve right now is that my vampire won't be able to train his mount skills at the stable. It is too much hassle to reduce stages then feed again just to train your mount. So I won't bother.

Can't you mesmerize the stablekeeper?

Thanks for the tip, I was trying to mesmerize the Hew's Bane stable master and it does not work. So assumed it was the same for all of them.
But I just went to Vurkhel Guard and I was able to mesmerize the stable master.
Guess some you can, some you can't.

I am also able to use the Banker in Vurkhel without mesmerizing.
Weird how its so inconsistent.

Lord-Otto

Bugged. Of course. Seems the DLC regions are more likely to bug out, perhaps? If ZOS can't fix the bugs, they better remove this unnecessary feature.

Zipadeedoodah

The update is alright.

The visual updates on the skills and feeding are really nice, but the 3% extra cost on my non vampire skills in Stage 1 really stinks when doing veteran HM content. I'm going to have to cure my vampirism, and that makes me sad.

I wish that stage 1 didn't have a skill cost detriment for non vampire line skills, so that players could be a vampire for fun, without having it negatively affect their non vampire related builds.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

It seems a lot of people have not realized the Blood Scion is just like the Blood Knights you see around Greymoor Keep, it is just Lamae Bal's take on it, it is not a Vampire Lord.

Paradisius

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

It seems a lot of people have not realized the Blood Scion is just like the Blood Knights you see around Greymoor Keep, it is just Lamae Bal's take on it, it is not a Vampire Lord.

The end result may be that way, but semantics aside we have to acknowledge that was the original intent. Why else showcase Vampire Lord all over their media sites and reference the Vampire Lord statue when describing the Vampire ultimate? Why call it Vampire Lord in the quest? Because they wanted to make it a Vampire Lord, but their lore team said "No, you cant do that, theyre not Vampire Lords" Which would be fine if they didnt go through with a transformation.

In the end its alot of misleading advertising at best and as Ive already said, terrible middle ground no one wanted/asked for

ApostateHobo

Vampire definitely still needs a lot of work. Most of the skills are basically useless, there's no reason to go past stage 1, a few things are bugged, and certain things just don't make sense like the skill cost increase for example. Really wish they had pushed back the release further because from everything I've seen greymoor as a whole looks very rushed (on ps4 so I haven't personally played it yet).

barney2525

Myyth wrote: »

My biggest pet peeve right now is that my vampire won't be able to train his mount skills at the stable. It is too much hassle to reduce stages then feed again just to train your mount. So I won't bother.

Which is completely contrary to ALL vampires in ALL genres - which is my pet peeve about this change.

Vampires are Seducers. Vampires blend in with the locals. Vampires exert their will on others because the humans Don't Realize that they are dealing with Vampires.

Turning them into Obvious Monsters is ridiculous and contrary to what Vampires are all about.

IMHO

Spectral_Force

One of my biggest peeves with vampirism (specifically peeves, not outright issues) is some of the responses you get from people in Stage 4. First up, the non-quest givers and non-merchants (the "clutter" NPCs) always blurt out a generic "huh?" or "yes?" even though the "important" NPCs are pretty terrified of you. But that's not the main issue. The main issue is what some of the NPC responses actually are. Quite often they refer to you as "creature" or "thing", treat you as if you're not intelligent, and ask you to not "eat" them. In other words, some of these responses are clearly meant for a werewolf - I haven't tried talking to people in WW form, and it may well be that these responses are universal for both Stage 4 vamps and werewolves in WW form. If they are indeed drawn from a common pool of responses, then I'd imagine werewolf players sometimes getting calm, "I'm not dealing with you"-type responses would also be quite jarring.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Spectral_Force wrote: »

One of my biggest peeves with vampirism (specifically peeves, not outright issues) is some of the responses you get from people in Stage 4. First up, the non-quest givers and non-merchants (the "clutter" NPCs) always blurt out a generic "huh?" or "yes?" even though the "important" NPCs are pretty terrified of you. But that's not the main issue. The main issue is what some of the NPC responses actually are. Quite often they refer to you as "creature" or "thing", treat you as if you're not intelligent, and ask you to not "eat" them. In other words, some of these responses are clearly meant for a werewolf - I haven't tried talking to people in WW form, and it may well be that these responses are universal for both Stage 4 vamps and werewolves in WW form. If they are indeed drawn from a common pool of responses, then I'd imagine werewolf players sometimes getting calm, "I'm not dealing with you"-type responses would also be quite jarring.

They see an undead monster standing before them, how would they know your intelligent, perhaps they think your a bloodfiend, they would not be saying those lines to a Werewolf anyway, they should run away screaming.

Spectral_Force

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Spectral_Force wrote: »

One of my biggest peeves with vampirism (specifically peeves, not outright issues) is some of the responses you get from people in Stage 4. First up, the non-quest givers and non-merchants (the "clutter" NPCs) always blurt out a generic "huh?" or "yes?" even though the "important" NPCs are pretty terrified of you. But that's not the main issue. The main issue is what some of the NPC responses actually are. Quite often they refer to you as "creature" or "thing", treat you as if you're not intelligent, and ask you to not "eat" them. In other words, some of these responses are clearly meant for a werewolf - I haven't tried talking to people in WW form, and it may well be that these responses are universal for both Stage 4 vamps and werewolves in WW form. If they are indeed drawn from a common pool of responses, then I'd imagine werewolf players sometimes getting calm, "I'm not dealing with you"-type responses would also be quite jarring.

They see an undead monster standing before them, how would they know your intelligent, perhaps they think your a bloodfiend, they would not be saying those lines to a Werewolf anyway, they should run away screaming.

Don't know man, my reactions to a blood-sucking fiend and an 8-foot tall bipedal dog would be starkly different, though both would involve a great deal of begging for my life.

I suppose I should've provided some examples from within the game.
1) Dunmer male voice line, in a calm, collected tone: "It would be bad form, if I'm seen talking to you."
2) Nord female voice line, panicked, but trying to appear calm: "Good creature, nice creature, j-just... just leave me alone."

The first example is definitely more fitting for Vampires. It's an attempt to reason with the player and it shows that the person simply doesn't trust you instead of being terrified. It's helped along by the fact that it's not technically illegal to be a Stage 4 vampire, but people still don't want to deal with you.
The second example is much more fitting for Werewolves, since it's spoken like something you'd say to a big angry dog. You're trying to sound assertive and mask your fear, while also showering the dog with "nice" words to hopefully get on its good side. I'd argue that using this sort of language when talking to a vampire would actually have the opposite effect - if someone called me a "creature" IRL I'd get pretty mad; and now imagine saying that to a powerful and arrogant undead that preys on human blood and is probably three to five times as old as you.

Sephyr

ApostateHobo wrote: »

Vampire definitely still needs a lot of work. Most of the skills are basically useless, there's no reason to go past stage 1, a few things are bugged, and certain things just don't make sense like the skill cost increase for example. Really wish they had pushed back the release further because from everything I've seen greymoor as a whole looks very rushed (on ps4 so I haven't personally played it yet).

While I have a ton of issues, qualms, and problems with the current iteration of vampirism, I thought I'd try to be a little more constructive than what I have been. Here's how I run my vampires between all the stages.
Note: This is with magicka in mind. I have no idea how Stamina vampires work yet, but I'll get to that cross when I bridge it.

The first thing we need to address is the elephant in the room. In order to get around the skill costs, you have to build utilizing vampirism's abilities in mind along with replacing one of your sets with something that will either help you sustain or run with a group that you can properly synergize actively with. I'm not sure how well Spell Parasite is with resource returns, but there's a lot of DLC sets out there that return magicka as a flat value. Don't get the ones that simply add recovery as it won't work while you're in Mist Form.

Eviscerate. I use Arterial Burst as my new spammable while being Stage 4 (yes, you heard me right) it's super cheap to cast and I'm sitting on 13-14k tooltips just with sets and CP stacked for damage alone with just enough to make my DoTs hurt. Damage won't go up or down depending on the stage thankfully, but I've seen more timid builders linger around Stage 2-3 for the passives that come along with it.

So at Stage 2, we've got a passive that can feed directly into raw damage via Mist Form since it works with it. At Rank II of Strike from the Shadows, it's as follows;

While you are at vampire stage 2 or higher

When you leave Sneak, invisibility, or Mist Form your Weapon Damage and Spell Damage is increased by 300 for 6 seconds.

Pairing this with Mist Form as an alternative to block not only still gives you 75% damage reduction for as long as you can hold the channel, when you pop out, you get 300 weapon/spell damage at your disposal for 6 seconds. I always toggle this when flipping between my bars as I'm able to keep that uptime and it's less reckless than the Fury skill.

Stage 3. We're almost to the end of the road here. The passive we get to utilize here is Undeath. Pair this with Mist Form for that 75% cost reduction along with that 30% when you're at low health. This will save you in some pretty tight situations. With Vampire Ability costs down even further at this stage, you're able to hold the channel a lot longer which may just in fact save a wipe from happening.

Stage 4. End of the line. We've got -100% health recovery. We also have Unnatural Movement. While this Stage isn't for most, this is how I personally use it. Since all of the above costs less (my spammable and Mist Form), I can use Blood Mist to keep my health up when it's low, especially since I can practically sit in it. It doesn't deal that much damage, but you're able to keep yourself alive while taking 75% less damage so long as you're not knocked out (which if you are, try to quickly reset it). If it gets too bad, the sprinting for 3 seconds to go invisible I'm able to stay in there, so long as I can remain sprinting, for almost a minute and a half (literally) and I don't have all that much Stamina. So I can either let the tank reset the boss and I can get people up, or I can quickly dash in and out of combat while my Magicka recovers.

Let's also look at the Ultimate. So the transformation in and out of the form knocks off about three seconds total. You're stunned going in and stunned going out, I think I did see some immunity frames in between them (that could be wishful thinking on my part). Perfect Scion, while one in theory could squeeze out a little more DPS due to the strain on your resources being less and giving you a chance to 'recover', I've opted for Swarming Scion. Since I run Stage 4, I need every possibility for health returns I can get. Nightblades have an excellent toolkit for that, Necros do as well to some degree as well, but it's always good to have that choice available. People are also opting to just not use the ultimate at all, which there's no shame in that either.

And I do get it. The line is confusing, it feels rushed, it could be SO much better. It's only slightly more engaging and there's nothing at all that screams "BiS, meta, awesome skill line". Let me be perfectly honest here, I'm running it because I'm stubborn and I want to run it, as much as I hate it right now. It's only slightly more engaging with little to no actual trope of vampirism aside from maybe the drain. But if you can take anything away from the above, hopefully you can see the methods in my delusion.

Jcarson0408

Completely agree, they tried to make vampire more like werewolf in that you have to be proactive to gain the benefits, but they seemed to miss why that works with werewolf, with werewolf, need to tank or heal? No problem, just take it off your skill bar, the debuff with werewolf, the increased disease damage, only happens while in werewolf form. So it's perfectly viable for me to quest with werewolf and then tank without it on my WW. Vampire doesn't have that, it's three debuffs, there is no time its not up, you want to tank, stam dps or heal? Well either be worse at it then mortals in the same role or get cured IDIOT. Oh what's that? You do want to mag-dps but using your classes skills? Well extra ability cost on that too. The new vampire experience is a class that only has one skill line and it's mag dps and the devs crippling your ability to do any other role. Healing sorcerer may be less viable then say warden but the devs don't intentionally put an ability cost increase on your healing spells for sorcerer or cause it to take more damage with no/reduced health regen. Vampire shouldn't feel like a class and it shouldn't feel like a half baked class at that.

Josira

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

It seems a lot of people have not realized the Blood Scion is just like the Blood Knights you see around Greymoor Keep, it is just Lamae Bal's take on it, it is not a Vampire Lord.

True. but then it could of been something unique. not "oh we just cut the wings off of vampire lords,and forced them to smoke copious amounts of hard drugs"
What we got wasnt something new mechanically and appearance wise. it was a poorly done reskin with nothing new.

What they could of done is gone for either a more undead look,to go along with the fact that they are probably closer to undead then daedra(Unlike the Vampire Lords) or they could of gone with a bat like look,something new that has not been done before in TES. Bat like nose,bat like ears,no horns, less humanoid and more hunched creature but still with an aura of authority that vampire lords command. Not the Aura of Escaped Clown the blood scions we get now have.

It could of been something that delved more into Vampire's magic to do with Bats,it could of been something amazing and yet.. "BLOOD FRENZY TICKS ALL THE BOXES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A VAMPIRE"

When I first heard they were adding a transformation to the Vampire Skill Tree,me like many others thought: "Yes they are adding vampire lords!"
Then when I saw threads come up about it being likely more something else,something called Blood Scion I had my doubts. first I hated that idea then I realised: "oh if they did that maybe we will see something truly unique then!"

[snip]

[edited for bashing/baiting]

SolidusPrime

Ya I don't think anyone is excited to be a vampire right now. It's just...not fun.

Shagreth

ApostateHobo wrote: »

Vampire definitely still needs a lot of work. Most of the skills are basically useless, there's no reason to go past stage 1, a few things are bugged, and certain things just don't make sense like the skill cost increase for example. Really wish they had pushed back the release further because from everything I've seen greymoor as a whole looks very rushed (on ps4 so I haven't personally played it yet).

Is that so? I still haven't played much, and I was really looking forward to Greymoor. I think the whole situation with the virus has contributed, just not sure how much. Still mournful about the vampire situation, it's such a missed opportunity, I just hope it doesn't take them years to revisit some of the issues that most of the community seems to be complaining about.

Sephyr

Shagreth wrote: »

ApostateHobo wrote: »

Vampire definitely still needs a lot of work. Most of the skills are basically useless, there's no reason to go past stage 1, a few things are bugged, and certain things just don't make sense like the skill cost increase for example. Really wish they had pushed back the release further because from everything I've seen greymoor as a whole looks very rushed (on ps4 so I haven't personally played it yet).

Is that so? I still haven't played much, and I was really looking forward to Greymoor. I think the whole situation with the virus has contributed, just not sure how much. Still mournful about the vampire situation, it's such a missed opportunity, I just hope it doesn't take them years to revisit some of the issues that most of the community seems to be complaining about.

That's the thing, they had most of this put together before the virus was even declared a pandemic. They just changed how it all works from the pre-PTS to the PTS with a lot of us growing from confused to outright balking at the idea of some of these changes. I've yet to see one person incorporate the drain properly, including that new "Ultimate Vampire Experience" build floating around on YouTube.

Shagreth

Sephyr wrote: »

That's the thing, they had most of this put together before the virus was even declared a pandemic. They just changed how it all works from the pre-PTS to the PTS with a lot of us growing from confused to outright balking at the idea of some of these changes. I've yet to see one person incorporate the drain properly, including that new "Ultimate Vampire Experience" build floating around on YouTube.

So we can't use the argument that things weren't sufficiently tested, they were, feedback was there (was it overwhelming?) and they still went with it? I thought it was just rushed, between fighting for the virus, fighting with deadlines and screaming CEO's etc. Well, I don't know what really happened, there can't be such a huge disconnect with what people wanted and what they actually went with, it's just strange. Again, here's hoping for some changes, after playing for a while I see how underwhelming it is to play as a vampire. Is it better? Yes, but by a rather small margin.

Sephyr

Shagreth wrote: »

Sephyr wrote: »

That's the thing, they had most of this put together before the virus was even declared a pandemic. They just changed how it all works from the pre-PTS to the PTS with a lot of us growing from confused to outright balking at the idea of some of these changes. I've yet to see one person incorporate the drain properly, including that new "Ultimate Vampire Experience" build floating around on YouTube.

So we can't use the argument that things weren't sufficiently tested, they were, feedback was there (was it overwhelming?) and they still went with it? I thought it was just rushed, between fighting for the virus, fighting with deadlines and screaming CEO's etc. Well, I don't know what really happened, there can't be such a huge disconnect with what people wanted and what they actually went with, it's just strange. Again, here's hoping for some changes, after playing for a while I see how underwhelming it is to play as a vampire. Is it better? Yes, but by a rather small margin.

Let's put this further into perspective;

When you have a stream specifically about the re-vamp and not display any of the skills or answer community questions with developers specifically there who also worked on the line for the first half of the stream? There is a VAST disconnect. The reality is, I've been developing and play testing from the comfort of my own home for years. Not on the scale of an MMO such as this, but it's not very different from other AAA MMO developers who do. The only thing that isn't is proper server maintenance when something goes wrong.

Second, the pre-PTS players displayed something that was much more vampiric in nature and actually felt like you were playing a vampire. This was, again, before there was a global declaration of a pandemic. So yes, there is a huge disconnect between what people wanted and what we ultimately got. Could it (the virus) have mucked around with it a little bit? Sure. Transitions between working environments can be and feel very weird, but at the same time this was all in the works and most I guarantee was already made before they even got the shelter in place order. Note; That's my speculation on careful observation of what news was released, teased, and sprinkled throughout livestreams, the forum, reddit, twitter, and facebook.

Gorrdained

Nice to see a feed buff. I remember in Skyrim a mod were vampires got a buff pending on what they would feed on.
Feed on nord get some of their racial buffs. feed on daedra ect. other vampires they all gave a certain buff. would be nice if this would stack with food buffs.

Nova Sky

A vampire thread being necro'd. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Feljax

Been playing a vamp for years. I agree, there are definitely issues. And on the subject of the scion, it definitely could use a visual rework. I'm not a fan.

An interim fix that would make the scion more visually tolerable would be to make the eyes glow. Maybe something along the lines of the spiderkith eyes collectable with a tad more of a bright aura emanating. Perhaps different colours for the two different morphs. Right now, one of the most unsettling things about the scion are the eyes with pupils. It just looks...wrong. Glowing eyes would be a quick and easy to implement fix while they come up with something better.

ZOS_Bill

As this thread is now over two years old, we have decided to close the discussion. If there are no recent threads on this topic, please feel free to start a new thread.