PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Vampire & Werewolf

Elusiin

XomRhoK wrote: »

Hi, devs from ZOS, i waited something related to vampires for 3.5 years, any set, skin, skill and at last we will have Chapter about vampires and revamp of vampire skills. At first i were very excited, i hoped for motivation to feed, bite animation for feeding, new interesting, thematic vampire skills. I got motivation to feed and bite animation, but after i saw the direction you have chosen for skills and their visuals i don't wait this skills anymore, all that bothers me now is that you not ruined vampire skills which i use now, on Live servers. And it seems you will ruin all three of them for me..
I don't really care about exact numbers of the skills, i care for visuals, interesting mechanics, interactions and feeling of satisfaction of using skill. All i ask is, please, keep at least one morph in each skill that close by mechanics and visuals to current vampire skills on Live servers.
1) Bat Swarm ultimate.
I will not use current version of Blood Scion ult no matter how ovrpowered it will be, because it looks completely out of place for me, huge Xivkyn, not vampire at all. So, please, move bat swarm visuals to another regular vampire skill. Bat Swarm is so vampiric in visuals, feeling and so satisfying, don't tie it with Blood Scion, because not all vampire players want to use transformation skill for role play reasons, and not all who don't mind transformation will use this interpretation of Blood Scion. Bat swarm visuals can be given to Blood Mist(Swarming Mist) or to some gap closer or dash.
2) Blood Mist.
Firstly, you decreased damage of Blood Mist compared to Baleful Mist by 50%, it were weak AoE already, but i used it in overland content when fought with several monsters and it were very good to trigger some proc sets, because it attacked each 0.5 second on several targets. Now damage is non existent even for overland and it attack each 1 sec, and became worse at triggering procs. Please, increase damage and lower heal, maybe even lower mitigation to exchange for damage.
Secondly, about visuals. Why you made this big red circle under mist? Wanted to make visuals more readable in combat?
But those for whom it really matters anyway turn on color cues in menu, and those who prefer more smooth visuals can't just turn off your new animation of the skill. Please, change visuals to something smoother and more similar to Baleful Mist on Live servers. I am not the artist, colors could be a little brighter but here the direction i am talking about:

3) Vampiric Drain.
Again, you decreased damage by 50% and increased healing which often was already redundant. I used Invigorating Drain for damage too, it gave good vampiric feeling, that you draw life from enemies. Now it became pure resource recovery skill. Please, return back damage to skill, and reduce healing.
Visuals lose all vampiric feel, colors not fit, beam glows, player glows, enemy glows, sometimes i feel more like Ghostbuster than vampire. Again, seems you wanted make skill more visible in combat, but experienced players can see beam to their target without highlight and casual players often bother more about satisfaction from visuals, not about readability in combat. If you really want to highlight target of the skill make it option in menu, don't tie it to the visuals of the skill, because those who don't like it can't turn it off. Current version of Invigorating Drain looks and sounds like blood flow, please, keep this feeling, if you want to make it more visible just make wider current visuals of the skill. And if you want to highlight what resource this skill recover, highlight it by small colored details, not by recoloring entire visuals of skill:


Hope something will be done, or, because of my visual preferences and way of usage of the current skills, i will be left without any vampire skills to use, after 3.5 years of waiting...

See if vampiric drain were instead a toggle like mend wounds, it would serve as a buff to your light and heavy attacks, it could be used for damage as well as resource return, and you could build heavy/light attack sets to further buff it. I feel that would be the best route to take that ability. I also like the bat swarm idea, we really need a gap closer for the kit to be viable on its own to justify the 20% cost increase to non-vampire builds. I feel if the developers could make the kit have enough mechanics to stand alone, the 20% cost increase would be fully justified, but right now it feels no two vampire abilities synergize well with one another and lack of sustain is a major weakness (vampiric drain, as it currently is, is ineffective for sustain in PvP and requires you be low hp to actually heal, which means being near/in execute threshold, and you're susceptible to being bash interrupted anytime you use, or force pulsed, or toppling charged, it's just too bad as a channel ability in PvP).

XomRhoK

Elusiin wrote: »

XomRhoK wrote: »

Hi, devs from ZOS, i waited something related to vampires for 3.5 years, any set, skin, skill and at last we will have Chapter about vampires and revamp of vampire skills. At first i were very excited, i hoped for motivation to feed, bite animation for feeding, new interesting, thematic vampire skills. I got motivation to feed and bite animation, but after i saw the direction you have chosen for skills and their visuals i don't wait this skills anymore, all that bothers me now is that you not ruined vampire skills which i use now, on Live servers. And it seems you will ruin all three of them for me..
I don't really care about exact numbers of the skills, i care for visuals, interesting mechanics, interactions and feeling of satisfaction of using skill. All i ask is, please, keep at least one morph in each skill that close by mechanics and visuals to current vampire skills on Live servers.
1) Bat Swarm ultimate.
I will not use current version of Blood Scion ult no matter how ovrpowered it will be, because it looks completely out of place for me, huge Xivkyn, not vampire at all. So, please, move bat swarm visuals to another regular vampire skill. Bat Swarm is so vampiric in visuals, feeling and so satisfying, don't tie it with Blood Scion, because not all vampire players want to use transformation skill for role play reasons, and not all who don't mind transformation will use this interpretation of Blood Scion. Bat swarm visuals can be given to Blood Mist(Swarming Mist) or to some gap closer or dash.
2) Blood Mist.
Firstly, you decreased damage of Blood Mist compared to Baleful Mist by 50%, it were weak AoE already, but i used it in overland content when fought with several monsters and it were very good to trigger some proc sets, because it attacked each 0.5 second on several targets. Now damage is non existent even for overland and it attack each 1 sec, and became worse at triggering procs. Please, increase damage and lower heal, maybe even lower mitigation to exchange for damage.
Secondly, about visuals. Why you made this big red circle under mist? Wanted to make visuals more readable in combat?
But those for whom it really matters anyway turn on color cues in menu, and those who prefer more smooth visuals can't just turn off your new animation of the skill. Please, change visuals to something smoother and more similar to Baleful Mist on Live servers. I am not the artist, colors could be a little brighter but here the direction i am talking about:

3) Vampiric Drain.
Again, you decreased damage by 50% and increased healing which often was already redundant. I used Invigorating Drain for damage too, it gave good vampiric feeling, that you draw life from enemies. Now it became pure resource recovery skill. Please, return back damage to skill, and reduce healing.
Visuals lose all vampiric feel, colors not fit, beam glows, player glows, enemy glows, sometimes i feel more like Ghostbuster than vampire. Again, seems you wanted make skill more visible in combat, but experienced players can see beam to their target without highlight and casual players often bother more about satisfaction from visuals, not about readability in combat. If you really want to highlight target of the skill make it option in menu, don't tie it to the visuals of the skill, because those who don't like it can't turn it off. Current version of Invigorating Drain looks and sounds like blood flow, please, keep this feeling, if you want to make it more visible just make wider current visuals of the skill. And if you want to highlight what resource this skill recover, highlight it by small colored details, not by recoloring entire visuals of skill:


Hope something will be done, or, because of my visual preferences and way of usage of the current skills, i will be left without any vampire skills to use, after 3.5 years of waiting...

See if vampiric drain were instead a toggle like mend wounds, it would serve as a buff to your light and heavy attacks, it could be used for damage as well as resource return, and you could build heavy/light attack sets to further buff it. I feel that would be the best route to take that ability. I also like the bat swarm idea, we really need a gap closer for the kit to be viable on its own to justify the 20% cost increase to non-vampire builds. I feel if the developers could make the kit have enough mechanics to stand alone, the 20% cost increase would be fully justified, but right now it feels no two vampire abilities synergize well with one another and lack of sustain is a major weakness (vampiric drain, as it currently is, is ineffective for sustain in PvP and requires you be low hp to actually heal, which means being near/in execute threshold, and you're susceptible to being bash interrupted anytime you use, or force pulsed, or toppling charged, it's just too bad as a channel ability in PvP).

I like how Drain Essence skill feels at live servers, i am talking mostly from position of casual PvE. Toggle like Mend Wounds could work for me only if visuals of the skill will vampiric and skill will feels right, i don't want just another Absorb Health glyph on my weapon, but for some reasons ZOS can make good visuals for NPCs but can not for players. I agree that in PvP it's very difficult to use, if you use it as the only healing skill and some one interrupt you, you will without heal for 3 seconds at the moment when you need it most. Before Drain Essence at least had a stun to help heal at least for one tick. ZOS can tweak the skill, make it non interruptible if you health below 25-40%(unstoppable hunger) or make it non interruptible while you in Blood Scion form or both.

lucoiso

Vampire

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?

Yep.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?

Iplay with a copied character and create a new, but i just bought from crown store.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

Yes.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?

Only for roleplay... Vampire have only one DPS skill and is melee and too weak, and the animation is so simple and ugly lol (sorry). And the stage 4, puf...

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?

Only mesmerize and the invisible sprint passive skill. The other are so weak and ugly. xD

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?

No, im Magicka DPS and i will use only the invisible sprint passive. The skill line is too weak and the only DPS skill is for melee damage, i hate it.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

I think yes, the new skill line is good only for roleplay.

How does feeding feel overall?

Good, but the it is hard to feed, i think the distance its too long. Sometimes the feed option dont appear and sometimes he have a fight with Blade of Woe xD

I like the new skill line only for roleplay, but for DPS, Tank and Heal is so... meh...

Blood Scion: Ugly and have no benefits except the HP increase. but the skill ends so fast
Eviscerate: I hate this skill, sorry. So simple, ugly and only meele. And have no sound???
Blood Frenzy: Hmmm... I like a bit, but i die so much fast (yeah, im a noob), this skill = suicide for me.
Vampiric Drain: Only change the animation light, decreased the damage and removed the stun after the skill, now is just a weak health recovery skill.
Mesmerize: The best skill, the animation and the effect, i like so much.
Mist Form: I like, but the Blood Mist morph animation have no sense. When i jump, the "red ground" jump with me and omg, the ground effect cause so much laggy.

I will use only mesmerize, i think xD
The new vampire is good for roleplay, but so weak to play the game content.

And why the npc's skills are so much cool than ours? I wanna be a NPC now lol

Alexium

My thoughts. Allow us to use Ult vampire form like werewolf one please. Make timer and the feed ability without sneak. Also add lesser bats version to the healing blood mist. IMHO. Thanks.

And please make this uber-giant lesser, smaller or something.

karekiz

I feel if we want to play more like a vamp we need more skills to play with that aren't niche style channeled, or toggled buffs. Its hard to make a "vamp" build out of whats essentially just a spammable nobody will use and a limited time toggle effect.

Vevvev

Alexium wrote: »

And please make this uber-giant lesser, smaller or something.

Yes, please scale this thing down some. Its really weird being so massive when werewolves are supposed to be ravenous beasts, but are like little puppies in comparison to the Scions.

benkorah

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?

I play all 3 roles, more or less equally.

As a Tank:
The Mesmerize and Scion abilities have the potential to fit into a tanking build, and a playstyle that rewards damaging yourself could allow tanks to deal more damage while soloing. However, I find that resource management is one of the most challenging aspects of tanking, so none of the benefits of vampirism justify the base cost increase to non-vampire skills. My tank will almost certainly be curing his vampirism if the cost increase goes live.

As a Healer:
The blood frenzy ability has the ability to raise the skill cap for healers, but realistically, I don't see myself using it much. The base cost increase to non-vampire skills isn't great for healers, either.

As a DPS:
A melee playstyle which rewards flirting with death could possibly be used by players much more skilled than myself to increase their damage output, but the playstyle is unappealing to me and would require skill beyond my own. So I will likely only use the vampire skill line in overland content, while the cost increase to non-vampire skills makes my somewhat less effective in group content.

In Summary:
The new vampire skill line will be fun to play with in overland content, but if I remain a vampire I will be overall less effective in challenging group content, primarily due to the +5% cost increase to non-vampire skills at stage 1.

Cameron991

karekiz wrote: »

I feel if we want to play more like a vamp we need more skills to play with that aren't niche style channeled, or toggled buffs. Its hard to make a "vamp" build out of whats essentially just a spammable nobody will use and a limited time toggle effect.

Omg right!i wanna strictly use vampire abilities but they synergize with each other

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Vampire
  • If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
  • Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
  • Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
  • Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
  • How does feeding feel overall?

1- Yes

2- in combat, there's little to make me feel like a vampire aside from the Ultimate. Eviscerate just looks like a basic attack with a little red behind it. Blood Frenzy is so hard to notice that I have trouble telling whether it's active or not at times.

3- Not even a little. With respect, it doesn't seem like tanks and healers were even given any consideration with these changes. I play as a tank and I'm not entirely sure what I'm even supposed to do with these abilities in a group setting. Draining my own health and being unable to be healed by the healer and being smacked around by a boss at the same time? It's entirely too much on top of the ability cost increase eating into skills that are necessary to perform your group functions since tank/heal functions don't have vampiric alternatives. Yes, you can drop your Vampire Stage down to 1 but what does that leave you with? Abilities that you still can't use in that role and a bunch of passives (including the only one that'd arguably be useful for tanks) that no longer function.

4- No. I straight up feel weaker outside of the Blood Scion ultimate. I don't recall any part of TES lore which has vampires running out of gas faster than mortals. I can't block as many attacks, I can't cast as many spells and the Blood Scion transformation burns out incredibly fast. I feel like it'd balance out better if there was some way to extend your transformation like werewolves can.

5- Fine. The range is a little awkward but the animations are cool.

Vevvev

I've been thinking that to make vampiric drain more viable in PVP it needs some kind of CC tied to it. If they're afraid of putting a stun on it they could very easily put a snare on it instead. This would make it safer to use since your foe would have a harder time running up to you and bashing your face in.

It'd also be nice to make it look like a drain spell instead of a "Sunbeam" as my little brother called it. The look on his face when he saw it was one of disgust. It doesn't look like a vampire spell at all.

TornixDM

Werewolf

Is your play pattern as a werewolf different with these changes?
not really
Do you find playing a werewolf as enjoyable as what’s currently live?
moreso
Do you have any other general feedback?
ferocious roar needs a look at its meant to increase speed of heavy attacks but it doesnt really work

bol

Vampire

Apart from some skills needing some rebalancing, but enough was said about that already, the thing that bothers me most is that even at Stage 1 vampire you are already getting negative effects. Which means, that you need to dedicate your character to vampire and can not just switch it off / on when required. Werewolves have that options, as there is no 5% increase to cost for all skills just for being a werewolf.

I find the stages themselves a bit of a weird idea, because there is really no use for the middle stages. You are either gonna go stage 1 or 4, the two middle stages really have no purpose that I can see and are simply skipped with food.

I have tested it on magsorcDD and it seems stage4 is the way to go. The build should work very well in 4man content which is run without a healer anyway and you are healing yourself. For trials it is not really good and you get stuck with a permament 5% cost increase even if you don't plan to use any vampiric skills, which basically means you need 2 characters. One for 4man content and one for trials.

Fata1moose

My thoughts on the vampire changes:

The ultimate looks bad and it needs to change. It's far too bulky and tall and the shadowy effects that surround it distract too much from the actual model. The vampire ult should be taller than your average humanoid like they are in Skyrim, but they shouldn't be so bulky or as tall as they are now. This is a magic based stealth creature they should be agile and convey a swiftness. As for the smoke effects surrounding the model please just get rid of these so we can appreciate what will hopefully a better model that are closer to these:




As for ability and passive changes the extra cost to non-vampire abilities needs to go away, it makes hybrid builds too difficult and restrictive. I wanted to do a mix a vampire skills with necromancer skills but with this current cost change that's not really viable.

Zardayne

Werewolf and Vamp abilities need to scale off of the highest stat so that either can be used with stam or mag.

Irfind

I know i will get eaten alife but vamps shouldnt able to use dawnbreaker (with all this criminal act rework)

Skill description
Arm yourself with Meridia's sacred sword and dispense her retribution, dealing 1944 Physical Damage to enemies in front of you and an additional 2331 Physical Damage over 6 seconds.

Its kind of against the LORE !?

Chrlynsch

Werewolf Tanking

https://youtu.be/IrWzeJlYp84

Having a dedicated wolf tank that could build for self survivability is a great improvement to werewolf "Fun Runs".

Werewolf is far from being a requirement for tanking, but with the tormentor fix on pts, wolf groups will now have a much easier time completing content as a pack.

Tank ended trying different set variations throughout the run, but ended up on Vycosa, Tormentor, alkosh.

Notes from the run:

-The double action of pounce/carnage, makes taunting multiple enemies very cumbersome and costly.

Solution: Make Feral pounce automatically apply carnage on pounce. This morph is currently outshined by brutal pounce and brutal carnage, the change would give this morph an edge for werewolf tanks and pvp encounters.

-Tremorscale doesn't proc when used with tormentor.

-Some attacks that could be blocked normally with sword and board or ice staff will result in insta death to the werewolf tank.

Solution, turn sword & board / Icestaff block passive into a major buff called Major Brace.

(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) Gain Major Brace. When you deal damage with a gap close ability, taunt the enemy to attack you for 15 seconds.


-Butal pounce doesn't apply an aoe taunt like other aoe gap closers do with tormentor.

Kilcosu

it is disheartening to see that in the first week of PTS several bugs were reported to zos through the in game feedback and bug report feature.

now we are in week 3 with zero fixes to things pointed out day 1.

I remain hopeful for release day bug fixes but now I am not so sure

Sephyr

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Vampire and Werewolf changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Vampire
  • If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
  • Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
  • Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
  • Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
  • Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
  • Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
  • Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
  • How does feeding feel overall?

1) Yes.

2) Not available as bites were broken at the time.

3) Not with Stupefy in terms of being Stage 4 and interacting with merchants, however that's because I wasn't able to do the quest

4) No. A thousand times no. The penalties are way too harsh for a mediocre ultimate that delivers little to no payout. Stage 4 has no real benefit even with the reduction cost to vampiric abilities and the rewards aren't worth the risk even in PvP. I could see heal-bots using a couple of things from the line, but other than that this doesn't feel visceral at all in terms with the game world. I am yet again being punished for feeding.

5) Not at all.

6) Again. Not at all. Magicka ranged DPS here; in every instance the line falls short. I have no use for the slash since I'm melee. I have no use for ult gen as my class does that for me well enough. Stamina returns on a magicka skill is like going to McDonald's for a salad.

7) If Lamae is going to mimic things through blood rituals, she should actually mimic things and give us what these new vampires have. Including wings. Otherwise--no. It doesn't.

8) Feeding is clunky af. Give us custom binds for Feeding and the Blade of Woe by completely removing them from the synergy key. People who are on console or don't play with addons have been asking for this since Dark Brotherhood was released and it should've been a priority in the first place.

Vevvev

After some theory crafting with some people we came to the realization that the current PTS vampires have very little control over their vampire stages compared to live. Granted on live there are not nearly as many vampire abilities but with that 4 hour vampire stage timer that you cannot manipulate on the PTS it could be detrimental if you run into a fight where you need to reduce your stage. Sure you can drink the blessed bloody mara but not everyone could be carrying one due to the rarity of the recipe and the fact its only available during a single event. Maybe make it so the non-spammable vampire abilities can shed some time off the timer? Not a whole lot of time since it'd make it a pain to keep the stages up, but enough for it to be manipulable?

XomRhoK

Some more ideas, without much hope that it will be implemented, but to show how it could be done.

1) Blood Frenzy. Moved to passives: Increse your weapon and spell damage up to 1200 based on your missing Health.
It will free skill slot for another active skill, AOE damage, DOT or gap closer, for example. Anyway, in my opinion, Blood Frenzy will be used similar to passive, it will be toggled on before gank or burst, or Health loss will be bypassed by some item set or healing passives of some classes and will never be toggled off during fight. Also 1200 wp/sp damage can be replaced by more damage and healing done stats, to also power Vampiric Drain skill, because it healing power don't scales from spell damage. With my suggestion gankers can just lower their health before gank and bursts can be timed with health decrease, but overall this skill as a passive will shift from ganks and bursts to helping vampire to survive, become hard to kill, as it should be, in my opinion.

2) Mist Form. Moved to passive: When you use block you dissolve into a dark mist, reducing your damage taken by 75%, entering this form removes and grants immunity to all disabling and immobilization effects and you can move with normal speed. You use magicka for block and while you holding block your Magicka Recovery is disabled.
Again it will free slot for another active skill, maybe real AOE damage instead of Blood Mist. Basically it become magicka block, but because it's a passive player can just don't put skill points into it and leave stamina block. It will act similar to Elusive MIst, additional speed and restriction to heal can be added based on balance. It will need work to make proper visual effects to using skills while blocking, but it can be done, some smoke/mist around 3D model while player performs skill.

3) Bat Swarm dash. High level passive or item set, 5pc bonus: When you use roll dodge you are turning into swarm of bats, additionally to standart functionality of roll dodge you also damage all enemies at your path for X magic(or stamina) damage.
If you can't put such skill into standart vampire skills put it at least as item set, at vampire centric chapter there is not a single vampire themed item set... Make something similar at least for next DLC.

Thevampirenight

Justice system issues I do have.
Vampiric Drain shouldn't be a crime. One it looks like any other magical effect beam effect attack. Another lore wise though drain spells are considered vampiric. Vampires are not the only ones that can use such abilties. Vampiric Drain is a type of Absorption spell, Nightblades can use them and they are also spells that can be taught at a mages guild or at a church from someone that hands out spells for healers its a type of self heal by taking attributes from the enemy. Absorb Health, Absorb Stamina have never been crimes in any of the other TES Games and Vampiric Drain was not a crime in Tes Skyrim. Either make other abilties like it in the game give the same crime effect or just remove it from Vampiric Drain. Also I'm sure most npcs don't know what Vampiric Drain looks like so this being a crime is really unrealistic and doesn't scream horrific vampire.

Blood Frenzy the visuals are so lacking for this one. Does Blood Frenzy screams horrific vampire? Nope nothing about it screams vampire at all. Other then that your draining your life force for blood frenzy. Even then that isn't shown. When using blood frenzy you veins should burst open and you should bleed out and blood covering your entire figure. That would make it worthy of being a criminal act. Because it actually freak out and scare the populace. What is shown is that there is this weird colored thing that goes around the vampire. Nothing about it screams vampire at all. It could be mistaken for any kind of spell actually some might even think of it as a shielding spell the way it looks and there is no way npcs could tell its a vampire ability none. Unless they make it where it covers you all in blood and gore that bursts out of you then well it shouldn't be a criminal act.

Blood Scion and Mist Form are perfectly fine with being criminal acts though.
As these do scream horrific vampire. People would know what Mist form looks like because mist is a thing they would see at times and I'm sure many npcs have had seen the book Immortal blood at some point and would know the legends about Vampires and Mist. They would know what mist looks like and so that would clearly expose a vampire for what it is. Its the only Vampiric ability that stands out as a Vampiric ability. While Blood Scion would clearly not be a normal thing and people would get scared of it and so those two make the most sense as criminal the rest doesn't at all make sense.

Werewolves not only is being seen in that form a criminal offense that gives you a bounty. But also I'm guessing each use of a werewolf ability is criminal as well that is really unneeded. Being in werewolf form already gives you a bounty so why the extra bounty when casting its abilities? That does need to be changed as well.

Though I do like that being in werewolf form gives you more bounty then using Vampire abilties.
Given the nature of lycanthropy and the beast form being a deadly killing machine it makes sense that the populace is far more fearful of them and lycanthropes taken far more seriously while vampires may be feared or hated or just shunned. Werewolves are dealt with far more extreme prejudice because one werewolf could do far more damage then a vampire.
As the Dawnguard loading screen said-As a vampire, people may comment on your unusual appearance, but they don't ever attack you or shun you like they do the werewolf.

Okay I'm sure many have mentioned this and many agree on this one. The ability cost weakness is down right stupid mechanically and most people here will agree on this.

One thing is the goal according to them is to make vampire more active, so you have feed to benefit from the vampire and be this more powerful vampire. I think Zenimax expects people to use stage four even with the ability cost weakness. But that is not going to happen. Nope what is going to happen here is when people do run vampire they at best will only stick with stage one now instead of four. Some players will build around using the Perfect Scion to benefit from the passives. Like invisibility, they would just run Perfect Scion then use it to escape while remaining stage one. They won't feed because the power lies within stage one now because one that ability cost weakness is just 5 and well that can be worked with 20 nope they won't bother with it.

No one but those roleplaying as a vampire will go to stage four. It will just be the same as it is now and people will not feed they just won't its not worth doing. Heck even the 5% alone would likely draw a lot of cures because that isn't worth it either. For them so that is why this ability cost weakness is so stupid.

If there has to be an ability cost weakness then all abilties should do 5/10/15/20 percent extra damage to go along with it. In a way that would actually make it worth it maybe to go stage four. Abilities will cost more but also do far more damage, do far more healing and do far more. Without a trade off like that its not worth it and vampires already have that no health regen weakness at stage four. Which in a way will be a bigger deal and far more punishing all by itself.

So the better idea is just to remove the ability cost weakness because vampires already have more weaknesses then is needed. Fire weakness, Fighters guild, Prismatic enchant weakness. Health Regen Weakness. So they have four weaknesses here that are a big draw back for running it. Ability cost added to that just hurts the skill line and it will likely will only be ran for a few of the abilties and that is it.

I do like the way they designed the hypnotic gaze to work with merchants in stage four. Its really a throw back to Oblivion how npcs won't talk to you because your a stage four vampire and its neat to see that return. Vampires should feel powerful not weaker when at higher stages. This ability cost weakness actually makes them weaker and players just won't play the way you want them to here they just won't.

So Vampire skill line gets an overhaul but what the gist of what will likely happen is the following.
1.Vampire's still won't feed.
2.Vampire will less likely be used at all now because of ability cost weakness and because there is no extra magic, stamina regen being the biggest reasons why players will take the skill line to begin with.
3.Vampires will likely get the werewolf treatment from high end groups. You seen as a vampire some might kick over it and Vampires will likely be treated as if they got nerfed to the group hard and killed off.
4.It will likely be harder to get vampire bites because many might cure it.
5.They will be niche for certain play styles and roleplay builds but that is it.
6.Vampire stage four invisibility will be useful for gathering shards and running from fights and pve questing in pvp zones but I doubt anyone would run stage four with the high ability cost weakness and health regen weakness for anything but this to be honest with you.
7. Abilities need to be toned up like the vampiric drain to have far better damage, and Blood Mist also needs to be toned up to make it something players will use.
I could be wrong but that is how I see it going here.

emilyhyoyeon

I just don't understand why the reaction to the buff that vampirism provided that made it a minmax tool (regen) was not to remove the buff, but to replace the buff with a debuff. Like, why not just remove the regen passive? I just don't get it

Also what's with the -10% vampire ability cost at stage 1? You only have the vampire skills if you're a vampire, so it's impossible to have the abilites at regular cost, ?

XerShade

Yeah sorry, but I think I'm going to just wear Night's Silence now and get a skin for my dark elf. These changes make zero sense, there have been many stamina based vampires in the lore already. If you wanted a Magicka Werewolf skill line then actually make a new transformation line like a lich, daedra, ghost or something. The whole reason being a werewolf makes sense to be stamina based is you are literally transforming into a beast with the claws and the teeth and the rawr. If you're going to make a magicka counter part to the stamina based werewolf then we need a whole new line, vampires are supposed to be an in between. These changes are actually kind of insulting to the lore as a whole. Now excuse me, I have a date with a heavy armour hammer wielding orc vampire in the imperial arena.

XomRhoK

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Justice system issues I do have.
Vampiric Drain shouldn't be a crime. One it looks like any other magical effect beam effect attack. Another lore wise though drain spells are considered vampiric. Vampires are not the only ones that can use such abilties. Vampiric Drain is a type of Absorption spell, Nightblades can use them and they are also spells that can be taught at a mages guild or at a church from someone that hands out spells for healers its a type of self heal by taking attributes from the enemy. Absorb Health, Absorb Stamina have never been crimes in any of the other TES Games and Vampiric Drain was not a crime in Tes Skyrim. Either make other abilties like it in the game give the same crime effect or just remove it from Vampiric Drain. Also I'm sure most npcs don't know what Vampiric Drain looks like so this being a crime is really unrealistic and doesn't scream horrific vampire.

With current PTS visuals Vampiric Drain hardly looks like a crime, the only thing citizens can say: "Look, Ghostbusters!". But with Live servers visuals it definitely look like a crime for me, blood flows from someones body to the player, looks very vampiric to me.

Sasha1378

To me, the main problem with the current PTS build vampire is the Regen. Vampires are by essence bound to blood, it's their main source of energy. Therefore, the stages for the Regen debuff should be inverted. I feel like a vampire Regen should be close to normal (albeit a little lower, because they are undead) when they are sated (stage 4), and close to none when they are starved (stage 1).

It would make it more logical, and wouldn't interfere with the remake idea of a humanity trade for vampiric powers.

It's quite puzzling why you made a sated vampire have no Regen except the criminal ultimate and some strong but also criminal spells/abilities. I mean, why make it illegal? To RP the fact they heal on blood? It may be a simplistic opinion but I think that forbidding a vampire to heal on enemies is quite frankly stupid. On allies? Ok. But on enemies...

This whole criminal abilities thing they introduced with the Necromancer is weird to me. That or it's not pushed far enough. Like, make it so some stuffs are illegal in cyrodiil when used on one of the two opposing faction. But not on NPCs who are attacking you and your allies anyway, like opposing factions in other regions. I mean, it's weird enough you can't help but side with your enemy while in their side of Tamriel (quests n such are for the Dominion in Dominion territory, even if you are not Dominion yourself). You often attack NPCs from your own realm when abroad in this game. So adding a layer which dictates your actions on top of this nonsense IS nonsensical. All the people who have played vampire until now can't have abilities that will be considered illegal from now on. At least on a new thing in-game like a Necromancer it had some sense. But not on an already existing character, with time invested in it, and money too (for some at least).

These are my 2 cents on the matter.

Thevampirenight

XomRhoK wrote: »

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Justice system issues I do have.
Vampiric Drain shouldn't be a crime. One it looks like any other magical effect beam effect attack. Another lore wise though drain spells are considered vampiric. Vampires are not the only ones that can use such abilties. Vampiric Drain is a type of Absorption spell, Nightblades can use them and they are also spells that can be taught at a mages guild or at a church from someone that hands out spells for healers its a type of self heal by taking attributes from the enemy. Absorb Health, Absorb Stamina have never been crimes in any of the other TES Games and Vampiric Drain was not a crime in Tes Skyrim. Either make other abilties like it in the game give the same crime effect or just remove it from Vampiric Drain. Also I'm sure most npcs don't know what Vampiric Drain looks like so this being a crime is really unrealistic and doesn't scream horrific vampire.

With current PTS visuals Vampiric Drain hardly looks like a crime, the only thing citizens can say: "Look, Ghostbusters!". But with Live servers visuals it definitely look like a crime for me, blood flows from someones body to the player, looks very vampiric to me.

I have to agree with you there at least. The Live version would be more realistic being a crime then this new version.
Because it actually looks like blood is being transferred out and into the vampire with that animation.
Because of that I can see it up to a point for something that looks like its stealing blood and transferring it to be a criminal act.
However this is not and well it should not be a crime.

If they kept the old animation for it sure it might make sense but this nope. That doesn't look criminal to me.

ApostateHobo

karekiz wrote: »

I feel if we want to play more like a vamp we need more skills to play with that aren't niche style channeled, or toggled buffs. Its hard to make a "vamp" build out of whats essentially just a spammable nobody will use and a limited time toggle effect.

This! They're treating it like it's a class or something that we have to be fully dedicated to, yet we have very little to work with to actually make effective builds.

Ulthlian

XomRhoK wrote: »

Some more ideas, without much hope that it will be implemented, but to show how it could be done.

1) Blood Frenzy. Moved to passives: Increse your weapon and spell damage up to 1200 based on your missing Health.
It will free skill slot for another active skill, AOE damage, DOT or gap closer, for example. Anyway, in my opinion, Blood Frenzy will be used similar to passive, it will be toggled on before gank or burst, or Health loss will be bypassed by some item set or healing passives of some classes and will never be toggled off during fight. Also 1200 wp/sp damage can be replaced by more damage and healing done stats, to also power Vampiric Drain skill, because it healing power don't scales from spell damage. With my suggestion gankers can just lower their health before gank and bursts can be timed with health decrease, but overall this skill as a passive will shift from ganks and bursts to helping vampire to survive, become hard to kill, as it should be, in my opinion.

2) Mist Form. Moved to passive: When you use block you dissolve into a dark mist, reducing your damage taken by 75%, entering this form removes and grants immunity to all disabling and immobilization effects and you can move with normal speed. You use magicka for block and while you holding block your Magicka Recovery is disabled.
Again it will free slot for another active skill, amybe real AOE damage instead of Blood Mist. Basically it become magicka block, but because it's a passive player can just don't put skill points into it and leave stamina block. It will act similar to Elusive MIst, additional speed and restriction to heal can be added based on balance. It will need work to make proper visual effects to using skills while blocking, but it can be done, some smoke/mist around 3D model while player performs skill.

3) Bat Swarm dash. Item set, 5pc bonus: When you use roll dodge you are turning into swarm of bats, additionally to standart functionality of roll dodge you also damage all enemies at your path for X magic(or stamina) damage.
If you can't put such skill into standart vampire skills put it at least as item set, at vampire centric chapter there is not a single vampire themed item set... Make something similar at least for next DLC.

Awesome ideas! This will make vampires more different from mortals. I think it would feel unique and cool. Third and second suggestions would look great as a passive for the skill line. Even without additional effects, just change of visuals. I really hope that they can implement this

Cameron991

Ulthlian wrote: »

XomRhoK wrote: »

Some more ideas, without much hope that it will be implemented, but to show how it could be done.

1) Blood Frenzy. Moved to passives: Increse your weapon and spell damage up to 1200 based on your missing Health.
It will free skill slot for another active skill, AOE damage, DOT or gap closer, for example. Anyway, in my opinion, Blood Frenzy will be used similar to passive, it will be toggled on before gank or burst, or Health loss will be bypassed by some item set or healing passives of some classes and will never be toggled off during fight. Also 1200 wp/sp damage can be replaced by more damage and healing done stats, to also power Vampiric Drain skill, because it healing power don't scales from spell damage. With my suggestion gankers can just lower their health before gank and bursts can be timed with health decrease, but overall this skill as a passive will shift from ganks and bursts to helping vampire to survive, become hard to kill, as it should be, in my opinion.

2) Mist Form. Moved to passive: When you use block you dissolve into a dark mist, reducing your damage taken by 75%, entering this form removes and grants immunity to all disabling and immobilization effects and you can move with normal speed. You use magicka for block and while you holding block your Magicka Recovery is disabled.
Again it will free slot for another active skill, amybe real AOE damage instead of Blood Mist. Basically it become magicka block, but because it's a passive player can just don't put skill points into it and leave stamina block. It will act similar to Elusive MIst, additional speed and restriction to heal can be added based on balance. It will need work to make proper visual effects to using skills while blocking, but it can be done, some smoke/mist around 3D model while player performs skill.

3) Bat Swarm dash. Item set, 5pc bonus: When you use roll dodge you are turning into swarm of bats, additionally to standart functionality of roll dodge you also damage all enemies at your path for X magic(or stamina) damage.
If you can't put such skill into standart vampire skills put it at least as item set, at vampire centric chapter there is not a single vampire themed item set... Make something similar at least for next DLC.

Awesome ideas! This will make vampires more different from mortals. I think it would feel unique and cool. Third and second suggestions would look great as a passive for the skill line. Even without additional effects, just change of visuals. I really hope that they can implement this

Yeah there are so many of us who would like some more active abilities for the vampire to feel more like a play style and less like a self toggle. We want more vampire like abilities like gap closer and aoe that look super vampire like. We have a bunch of threads that clearly vote they want these changes to make vampires more viable as a play style With some more active offensive skills

Qbiken

WEREWOLF FEEDBACK UPDATE 2:

Pounce
As said during the first 2 weeks of PTS testing, this skill needs to get reworked so werewolfs aren´t locked out of using their gap closer for 5 seconds after using it the first time. The mechanic with Carnage is interesting and I´m happy it got added to werewolfs, but if the price you´ve to pay is being unable to gap close once every 5 seconds, then I´d rather not have the skill being reworked at all.

Previous suggestions regarding this skill has been to make it work differently depending on how close you´re to your target. While that might work in a 1v1, I´ve a strong feeling it will malfunction in a situation with many targets. My new suggestion is to make Brutal/Feral Carnage apply when the gapcloser connects to its target. Feral pounce remains a pure singel target damage skill, while Brutal Pounce still keep its AoE element.

Hircine´s Bounty/Fortitude/Rage
Now before I continue explaining why this skill needs to get reworked, I want to clarify that I´ve no problem with the kiss curse of Hircine´s Rage. Getting Major Berserk but getting 23% extra damage taken is a fair trade off and I hope ZOS uses this approach for other classes and skills in the future.

As it stands right now, I´ve no real problem with Hircine´s Fortitude. Hircine´s Rage however is still absolutely garbage from both a PvE and PvP perspective. Did some werewolf duels with @Chrlynsch on the PTS. Tried both Hircine´s Rage and Hircine´s Fortitude. After our duels I checked my combat metrics to see how many times I managed to activate the additional effects (Major Berserk and getting the extra 3k stamina back). The avarage duel lasted anywhere between 5-10 minutes.

With Hircine´s Rage I managed to get the major berserk buff twice during a few 5-7 minute duels, and one of those times was right after the duel started.

With Hircine´s Fortitude I managed to see the extra "stamina gain proc" around 5-6 times during a 5 minute duel.

I really don´t see the point of having powerful extra effects on Hircine´s Rage if you´re never going to benefit from it. Only time you´ll ever be able to get the major berserk buff is when you´re out of combat or run between objectives. Why do you make a combat related buff almost impossible to get while being in actual combat, but super easy to get when out of combat?

As suggested before, lower the HP threshhold to 80% or higher in order to get the major berserk to proc, or let it proc from overhealing (aka whenever you reach 100% HP or "higher").

Piercing Howl
This skill remains bugged and doesn´t do 25% more damage vs targets who are facing you. However, it still does 25% more damage vs feared targets as stated in the description of the skill.

General feedback
Why are so many skills appealing to improve the stamina sustain for werewolfs?
- Feral Pounce gives stamina back
- Hircine´s Bounty (with morhps), assuming you manage to proc it. Then we´ve Hircine´s Fortitude that adds up to 666 more stamina recovery depending on the potency of the heal.

Werewolf doesn´t struggle with sustaining their stamina. The biggest pain point since the cost increase with Scalebreaker has been how expensive the heal is. I´m fine with having to invest something into magicka sustain to manage my heal, but the amount of effort and trade offs you´re forced to make in order to be able to sustain your heal in PvP is beyond absurd. Remove some of the excessive stamina sustain from either Feral Pounce or Hircine´s Bounty/Fortitude and give it something that makes managing the magicka a Little less harsh.