Suggestion For Upcoming Vampire cost changes

IAVITNI

Have the cost increase scale based off time since Essence Drain was last used.

Instead of the cost increase/decrease scaling based off time last fed have it scale of the last time drain was used.

Something like every second cast of a vampire skill that isn't drain increases your vampiric stage by 1. Using Drain Essence decreases vampiric stage by 1.

John_Falstaff

And then it's going to be "o-o-ouch, I used Essence Drain and forgot I have trial in an hour, you have to find a replacement for me, folks".

Chrlynsch

I don't get it could you elaborate more?

IAVITNI

Chrlynsch wrote: »

I don't get it could you elaborate more?

John_Falstaff wrote: »

And then it's going to be "o-o-ouch, I used Essence Drain and forgot I have trial in an hour, you have to find a replacement for me, folks".

well I should have said more than just the OP. I'll update it with the below.

Instead of the cost increase/decrease scaling based off time last fed have it scale of the last time drain was used.

Something like every second cast of a vampire skill that isn't drain increases your vampiric stage by 1. Using Drain Essence decreases vampiric stage by 1.

Vevvev

Or you could have it reduce your healing taken instead of increasing your normal ability costs. It'd fit more with vampire lore.... if the feeding reversal wasn't true but since we get health regeneration reduction as well it only makes sense.

Tessitura

Vevvev wrote: »

Or you could have it reduce your healing taken instead of increasing your normal ability costs. It'd fit more with vampire lore.... if the feeding reversal wasn't true but since we get health regeneration reduction as well it only makes sense.

Gonna have to disagree with you there. It's might fit more but in a game where healing yourself is how you stay alive, this would hurt more then ability cost increases. Unlike other games, you are expected to carry your weight more in this one. There is not a single build I can think of that doesn't heal it's self in some way. If you have this one guy with a perma heal debuff on them it will drag the whole group down. The healer has to work harder and the guy with the debuff has to heal himself much more often, which is less time spent doing is job for the group.

Vevvev

Tessitura wrote: »

Gonna have to disagree with you there. It's might fit more but in a game where healing yourself is how you stay alive, this would hurt more then ability cost increases. Unlike other games, you are expected to carry your weight more in this one. There is not a single build I can think of that doesn't heal it's self in some way. If you have this one guy with a perma heal debuff on them it will drag the whole group down. The healer has to work harder and the guy with the debuff has to heal himself much more often, which is less time spent doing is job for the group.

Doesn't stop healers in PVP from doing their jobs. I mean my healer even with the 50% healing debuffs keeps entire groups alive in the madness that is Cyrodiil. Where the healing debuffs will hit the hardest would be PVP which is why it's not a good idea to have said bebuff go past 40%

Lilly_Elessa

I have a more simple suggestion for how to handle the new vampire other-skill cost increase... Don't.

Like, really just simply don't increase the cost of other skills. It's fine to not give a cost reduction to other skills, but increasing the cost of other skills simply for the passive existing on your character (aka being a vampire) is terrible. For the vampire rework supposed to be a big thing, I have not heard a single person in any of my ESO groups looking forward to these vampire changes. Not a single one. No one. Nada. Zilch.
Instead I'm seeing a giant wave of people planning to cure their vampires. Because being a vampire will now be universally detrimental.

Tessitura

Vevvev wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

Gonna have to disagree with you there. It's might fit more but in a game where healing yourself is how you stay alive, this would hurt more then ability cost increases. Unlike other games, you are expected to carry your weight more in this one. There is not a single build I can think of that doesn't heal it's self in some way. If you have this one guy with a perma heal debuff on them it will drag the whole group down. The healer has to work harder and the guy with the debuff has to heal himself much more often, which is less time spent doing is job for the group.

Doesn't stop healers in PVP from doing their jobs. I mean my healer even with the 50% healing debuffs keeps entire groups alive in the madness that is Cyrodiil. Where the healing debuffs will hit the hardest would be PVP which is why it's not a good idea to have said bebuff go past 40%

It's a perma debuff that would stack with the other healing debuffs, so try 90% less healing in pvp with your idea, really think that won't hurt the group? It's just not a good idea, it's far worse then a cost increase. People can't stack cost increase debuffs on you, so it's a isolated penalty that is no where near as bad as a healing debuff that cna be stacked with other healing debuffs.

Vevvev

Tessitura wrote: »

It's a perma debuff that would stack with the other healing debuffs, so try 90% less healing in pvp with your idea, really think that won't hurt the group? It's just not a good idea, it's far worse then a cost increase. People can't stack cost increase debuffs on you, so it's a isolated penalty that is no where near as bad as a healing debuff that cna be stacked with other healing debuffs.

I didn't say put it at 40% I said don't make it go past 40% because even I understand just how insane a 90% healing debuff is. With how focused vampires are at dealing with low health scenarios, their damage reduction that increases at low health, and the ability to heal their health by %'s I think its a much better debuff than a debuff to sustain.

MashmalloMan

Lilly_Elessa wrote: »

Instead I'm seeing a giant wave of people planning to cure their vampires. Because being a vampire will now be universally detrimental.

Thats exactly the outcome ZOS should be looking for. I'm willing to bet over 70% of competitive players choose to become vampire on Live, whether it be for passives or using 1 ability.

Undeath passive trumps +20% Fire Damage taken.

+10% stam/mag recovery trumps -25% hp regen and +15% fire damage taken, especially for pve dds. To be optimal, it's practically required for a damage dealer.

It's a problem that they're looking to solve. By offering a more well rounded vampire toolkit with abilities you want to use. This is basically how Werewolves work, to be a Werewolf, you should want to use Werewolf abilities. Increasing regular ability costs while decreasing vampire ability costs rewards players who fully invest as a Vampire and go up the stages. The idea is to push people out of using Vampirsim specifcally for passives. It should be a choice, not a necessity.

People would all be Werewolves if for only +20% poison damage taken, you gained +10k resistance and +10% max stamina passively in human form. Can you really say you're a Werewolf if you get the curse just for passives?

Vampirism is luckily not attached to an ultimate, so the pros/cons need to be weighed at every level and the stages attached to passives handle this. By giving Dark Stalker on stage 1, they now have to come up with a minor con to justify giving a passive like that to anyone who isn't feeding. It's very strong.

I think they may have gone a little too far with the cost increase/decrease, but they're on the right track and thats what the pts will be for, my idea for stage 1 vampirism would be a little different. I think stage 1 should have very minor cons so that there is an option like on live to reduce your stages if you're trying to avoid issues in a specific piece of content.

For example, remove the increased cost to regular abilities at stage 1, but increase Vampire ability costs. This would be used to punish players who want to use a small amount of vampire abilities in their build like on live without taking on the cons of being a stage 2-4 vampire. Vampire abilities ARE a pro in themselves and without a real negative to using them at stage 1, players will flock to the skill line like they do on live for 1-2 abilities.

To illustrate this, lets say there were 0 cons on stage 1, well 1 ability gives you +1k weapon/spell damage as a toggle for taking no outside healing. This will basically push every Damage Dealer in a pug group scenario to slot this ability, personally, I already rely on self-healing in pug dungeons, you're telling me an ability can now give me +1k weapon damage for minimal consequence? I'll take it, this scenario is a problem.

Here is an example:

Regular cost: +0%/+3%/+6%/+10%
Vampire cost: +15%/+0%/-15%/-30%
Fire Damage Taken: +5%/+10%/+15%/+20%
HP Reg: -10%/-30%/-60%/-90%

So in this scenario, you're saying to yourself, I like some of the vampire abilities, but don't really need the all passives, I'm okay to take 5% fire damage and -10% hp regen at stage 1. Those are negligble, I really just want to use 1-2 vampire abilities and the increase in cost of +15% to these abilities is a fair trade. Think about Mag pvp builds that require mist form as their escape tool or Mag Necro's that want an aoe stun. I'm sure they would rather increase 1 vampire ability cost, instead of increasing all of their other 11 slotted abilities.

The goal is to basically make stage 1 a "vampire lite" setup while making stage 3/4 a full fledge "vampire lord" setup. 2 sides to the spectrum. If regular ability cost is increased at Stage 1, becoming a Vampire for 1-2 abilities seems very punishing. At least in my scenario, choosing to have 0 vampire abilities on your bar is only a minor inconvenience with the fire damage taken at stage 1.

Abyssmol

Cost increase for other abilities shouldn't be part of the package. Magicka cost is already way higher than stamina cost. Adding a % increase to the already costlier magicka skill is a bull of crap...

Lilly_Elessa

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Vampirism is luckily not attached to an ultimate, so the pros/cons need to be weighed at every level and the stages attached to passives handle this. By giving Dark Stalker on stage 1, they now have to come up with a minor con to justify giving a passive like that to anyone who isn't feeding. It's very strong.

Dark Stalker is powerful... For a stealth build. In PvP. That is one small case in a very large game. That trait isn't useful for PvE (other than crime, which is really more of its own category of ... minigame?), or whatever else you people do in PvP over there with the hitting each other and bombing and stuff.
But a broad penalty to everything else you do is absolutely not justified by this one niche passive. Even if it is extremely powerful within its one small niche, vampire is not only for that one small niche. That's what the Legerdemain, Dark Brotherhood, and Thieves Guild skill lines should be for (and the fact that they are somewhere between bad at it and flat out aren't, is an entirely different discussion).

MashmalloMan wrote: »

I think they may have gone a little too far with the cost increase/decrease, but they're on the right track and thats what the pts will be for, my idea for stage 1 vampirism would be a little different. I think stage 1 should have very minor cons so that there is an option like on live to reduce your stages if you're trying to avoid issues in a specific piece of content.

...

Here is an example:

Regular cost: +0%/+3%/+6%/+10%
Vampire cost: +15%/+0%/-15%/-30%
Fire Damage Taken: +5%/+10%/+15%/+20%
HP Reg: -10%/-30%/-60%/-90%

This is still fairly flawed; If I were given numbers similar to these, or just generally following this concept, I would never go to rank 4 vampire. Not without further incentive to do so somewhere else, which as far as we've seen could only potentially come from Undeath. Even focusing on using the vampire skills - which, as they were presented in the preview, I would absolutely not, but ignoring that - you only have at maximum 6 skills from vampire, and realistically probably more like 4 will be on your bar. If you slot a "passive" ultimate (to only use the vampire ultimate actively), and some other "passive" skill so you don't care about their cost, you will still have a high cost increase to over half of your other skills. Sure, vampire may have your spammable skill, but most rotations don't actually have you just spamming your spammable, you spend a lot of time recasting all of your dots and buffs as soon as they end for maximum up time. And the vampire we've seen provides... maybe one of those dots, which may not interact very well with the vampire skill cost reduction anyways since its cost is a health drain?
Even flawed though, it is better than always getting an increased cost to skills for ... Existing as a vampire. Which will hurt a very large number of people who wanted to be vampire in the first place simply to be a vampire, not for any passives or skills or whatever.