PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Vampire & Werewolf

navystylz_ESO

Vevvev wrote: »

Tethalion wrote: »

Regarding Vampire:

The changes to vampire are extensive, as advertised, but not user-oriented. You don't need a lot of research to see that the majority of your player-base utilise vampire in conjunction with other elements of their avatar. This iteration pushes vampire dangerously close to a role-play / niche-play, only, element. If this is the intention, then I'd say you haven't gone far enough, but if it's not the intention, then these changes will alienate the majority of your users.

Recommendation: weave the increased costs between vampire & non-vampire skills, i.e.: after casting a vampire skill, the cost-increase for non-vampire skills are nullified for 2 seconds (just an example).

You actually have a good idea, but instead of weaving the costs into the abilities why not have it so that slotting a vampire skill increases non-vampiric skill costs? If you want to play as a vampire for the passives you get hit with the health recovery and flame damage debuff, but if you play for the active skills it hits sustain of non-vampire stuff. Combine the two and you get the intended effect ZOS has originally planned.

Everyone would just take frenzy without enough trade off that ZOS intended. The ability wouldn't be able to be as strong if it would be super easy to use without the penalties.

Noxavian

brennz wrote: »

Noxavian wrote: »

Could you agree that at least the *option* to have wings would be beneficial? Like if Perfect Scion remained like the base form and didn't give wings, yet Swarming Scion gave wings? That way both people that like the wings and that dislike the wings can be happy?

It is just my personal opinion that the wings always looked like crap. I hated them in Skyrim and I'm personally glad they took them off here. This is entirely subjective, though, and I do not think my opinion is more important than anyone else's. Just wanted it voiced that not everyone likes chicken wings on their kick butt vampire lord

Then that's why the option to have wings would be good. Why are you glad they took them off when you already have an option to go wingless? Just have 1 morph give no wings and 1 morph give wings therefore all parties are happy.

Literally no reason not to. You'd be happy, and I would be happy.

navystylz_ESO

Kilcosu wrote: »

Transforming into and out of the blood scion interrupts the natural flow of combat and 20 seconds really feels awfully short, and holding a staff in the models hands just looks funny. i'd almost rather it disappear and shoot inferno blasts from the hands while weaving arterial burst.

We know this already possible with Symbiosis from Psijic. Feels like an oversight to make Blood Scion use weapons at all.

Hollyniss

This was the thing I was looking forward to the most and it's...disappointing to say the least. The vampires still look the same stage 1-4. The transformation is hideous and bland. Gigantic wingless bats, in a loincloth. The khajiit vampire scion form looks like the other races so it's not unique unlike the bone goliath transformation. The other races still have no fangs and the textures for the stages are still horrible...and the cost of regular abilities increased? Really? We wanted a vampire update/overhaul and we got screwed. Awesome.. I'm hoping this will change upon release but I'm not holding my breath...

Hollyniss

As for the Death Hounds, they look like the dogs from the Resident Evil movie. They don't look like their Skyrim counterparts. Also they don't have the cool shadowy effects that the ones in Skyrim did. So not worth the money.

goldbond2000

Werewolf feels really fun to play so far.

Pros
-addition of passive major brutality and major savagery makes this really appealing for beginners and penny-pinchers who don't want to spend money on potions
-addition of hircine's rage gives a strong burst option with a higher level of risk/reward
-I found myself experimenting with rotations for the first time in a while on WW, instead of the usual 3-4 part dynamic rotation using relequen and bloodmoon and kena
-thank you for not turning kena into a tank set
-WW has excellent aoe damage options now too with roar, brutal pounce, claws and heavy attacks...love, thank-you

Cons
-Brutal pounce feels a little clunky, triggering carnage on the second hit followed by claws often causes the character to do the pounce animation again if you activate claws of life as the next ability in your roation (ie: LA-Pounce-LA-Pounce-LA--claws)-this will show the following animations-->LA-pounce-LA-caranage swipe-LA-pounce
-heavy attacks are still clunky and animations feel herky-jerky, even with the morph of roar that speeds up heavy attack speed

Narvuntien

I was playing around with a vampire build for PVE and... I have no idea why anyone would.

Obviously Frenzy is a good ability but it means you got to slot some consistent self-healing.

But you get getting punished for being a vampire with your non-vampire skills getting more expensive. So in theory that encourages you to play more vampire skills but the only other one worth using is Arterial Spray and it is a Magicka melee range skill which makes it pretty much useless in practice for anyone other than MagDK, which a) has some trouble sustaining b) I am not sure burning embers will be able to give out enough healing to handle Frenzy.

The Blood Scion Ulti, has too long a transformation animation compared to its lenght of time you can sustain it to be much use in PVE.

Pretty much none of the passives for the higher levels of vampirism have any advantage for PVE. Simply it is the same as it was before you will not need to feed at all as a PVE vampire and feeding makes it much much harder for you.

On the plus side I still did 30K (3 mill self buffed) under the high lag of the PTS so if you just want to be a vampire for RP reasons you'll be able to do content at least.

Feizao

Feeding:
No longer works in combat with cloak. must be sneaking. New feed eliminates build that fed on players in pvp.

Increase/Reduce Cost:
doesn't incentivize build diversity. might as well make blood scion a toggle with pre slotted skills.

OmniDo

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?

Yes, though the skill line was different, so other than the ultimate, there was no equitable comparison. I had max ranks in the original drain skill and its morphs, only to be replaced with the new melee ability which I will never use. The new drain had no ranks at all, but is still equally worthless.

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

It was okay, but I didn't much care for the automatic "insta-death" of the mobs, simply because I used a single ability once, and the infinitely respawning mobs made the entire concept of lurking scavengers meaningless.

[*] Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

No. Using an ability that no one could possibly know I used (the buff which increases damage at the cost of health) should not be criminal. It's not like I broadcast to the public: "Hey everybody! I'm spending health so I can do more damage... that I won't be able to do because the guards are immortal..."

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

What does this question even mean?

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

No.
In the trailer we see a vampire transform into bats and fly away. Where is my: "flock of bats" travel form? Any reason why this can't be a thing? Just make it a mount, and voila.
Additionally, why is there no equivalent skill to attack at range? What if I don't want to be melee?
Lastly, since when do vampires arbitrarily become worse at magick, just because they're stronger?
Um... yeah, no.

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

No.
Tank? With what? Mist form? Yeah, no.
Heal? Uh... myself maybe, and only because I have to now since apparently I can't be healed by anyone else while I have my self-buff on...
DPS? Sure, if I want to settle for melee. Ranged? Forget it. The arbitrary non-vamp skill cost renders that option impossible without severely gimping myself.

[*] Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

*Blinks*
Do you even Elder Scrolls lore bro?
This entire shift in vampires is an abysmal, atrocious, fan-boi service retcon that makes me want to vomit.
But, I get it. Gotta change things to suit the largest percentage of complainers.

[*] How does feeding feel overall?

Now this change was better. Only beef I have with it is one of the animations, where your character spits out some blood after biting the NPC. It isn't moonshine, it's blood. That stuff is LIFE to us, not some bad tasting brew.


All in all, I like the extra skill development, but the changes to the lore, stages, and pigeonholed ability limits make my beloved vampire decidedly and definitively non-competitive, as well as far less entertaining than his current live-server counterpart.
I will likely keep vampirism anyway, but only for nostalgia, and since vampirism has always been my jam since Morrowind and Oblivion, I will be unwilling to make any further investment into zenimax if these changes persist.
It's been a good couple years, but this is not my first rodeo. So far, the MMO gaming industry is 0-for-5 with bad development/management decisions, ranging from MxO, to SWG, to DDO, to SWTOR, to WoW, and it looks as if ESO is following suit.
History is the greatest teacher, and in 20 years, people still don't learn.

Noxavian

OmniDo wrote: »

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?

Yes, though the skill line was different, so other than the ultimate, there was no equitable comparison. I had max ranks in the original drain skill and its morphs, only to be replaced with the new melee ability which I will never use. The new drain had no ranks at all, but is still equally worthless.

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

It was okay, but I didn't much care for the automatic "insta-death" of the mobs, simply because I used a single ability once, and the infinitely respawning mobs made the entire concept of lurking scavengers meaningless.

[*] Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

No. Using an ability that no one could possibly know I used (the buff which increases damage at the cost of health) should not be criminal. It's not like I broadcast to the public: "Hey everybody! I'm spending health so I can do more damage... that I won't be able to do because the guards are immortal..."

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

What does this question even mean?

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

No.
In the trailer we see a vampire transform into bats and fly away. Where is my: "flock of bats" travel form? Any reason why this can't be a thing? Just make it a mount, and voila.
Additionally, why is there no equivalent skill to attack at range? What if I don't want to be melee?
Lastly, since when do vampires arbitrarily become worse at magick, just because they're stronger?
Um... yeah, no.

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

No.
Tank? With what? Mist form? Yeah, no.
Heal? Uh... myself maybe, and only because I have to now since apparently I can't be healed by anyone else while I have my self-buff on...
DPS? Sure, if I want to settle for melee. Ranged? Forget it. The arbitrary non-vamp skill cost renders that option impossible without severely gimping myself.

[*] Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

*Blinks*
Do you even Elder Scrolls lore bro?
This entire shift in vampires is an abysmal, atrocious, fan-boi service retcon that makes me want to vomit.
But, I get it. Gotta change things to suit the largest percentage of complainers.

[*] How does feeding feel overall?

Now this change was better. Only beef I have with it is one of the animations, where your character spits out some blood after biting the NPC. It isn't moonshine, it's blood. That stuff is LIFE to us, not some bad tasting brew.


All in all, I like the extra skill development, but the changes to the lore, stages, and pigeonholed ability limits make my beloved vampire decidedly and definitively non-competitive, as well as far less entertaining than his current live-server counterpart.
I will likely keep vampirism anyway, but only for nostalgia, and since vampirism has always been my jam since Morrowind and Oblivion, I will be unwilling to make any further investment into zenimax if these changes persist.
It's been a good couple years, but this is not my first rodeo. So far, the MMO gaming industry is 0-for-5 with bad development/management decisions, ranging from MxO, to SWG, to DDO, to SWTOR, to WoW, and it looks as if ESO is following suit.
History is the greatest teacher, and in 20 years, people still don't learn.

Can very much agree with the bat-swarm thing. Was thinking for sure that the Blood Mist morph would turn the player into a swarm of bats (deals damage and heals for 100% of damage dealt.... makes sense for a swarm of bats, not a red fart cloud)

Excelsus

For Vampire:

The new FX is brilliant, my only complaint is the aoe morph of Hypnosis, its a bit overcooked, I get a little dazed myself watching the spiraling blooms of purple and crimson cover the screen. Eviscerate and Blood Frenzy are powerful additions, they look and feel good to use but I would like Eviscerate to scale off of your highest offensive stat like Soul Trap. If we're going to add weapon damage to the passives and Blood Frenzy the spammable should be accessible to stam builds otherwise they have little reason to be a vampire and stamina vampires are both in lore and in game. The ultimate feels a bit weak as others have said, particularly the Perfect Scion. Its too short a duration and too much dead time transforming for too little of an effect. Perhaps make Perfect Scion the stamina morph and use the poisonous claws from Skyrim: while transformed your light and heavy attacks leave a poison dot on enemies for x damage.

For Werewolf:

Great job with the skill updates, its almost universally better. Pack Leader morph feels useful again particularly in solo play.
Like others said pounce/carnage doesn't really work as a combo and should depend on the range of the enemy. The skills are clunky individually and a mess to use together, greatly slowing down dps. Also Hircine's Bounty/Rage should trigger on over heal or a smaller threshold - you're almost never at 100% health in pvp or pve. I did notice a bug with Call of the Pack not applying after a period of time and the roar that increases your heavy attack speed doesn't apply to your first heavy attack - it also seems out of place? Likely it was designed to interface with the light/heavy change, it doesn't synergise with the werewolf's current rotation.

SBB

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

No, no longer useful in PVE. Unless you are playing exclusively with vampire skills and other utility skills back bar, running vampirism in PVE will be a determent overall. Therefore, no one will be running vampirism in PVE end game content when this goes live. The skill cost inflation for non-vampire skills (and no stage 2 10% regen) kills it. Even as a tank in vKA at stage 3, the cost of regular tanking abilities was high. I felt tanking without vampirism was much better overall.

However, I also think players shouldn't feel obligated to be vampires to stay competitive in PVE anymore. Moving away from that meta will be a good move. Let's let Roleplay builds be vampires and werewolves.

Ruder

Additional feedback:

Werewolf

Hiricine's Fortitude - gain % health and stamina recovery based on the healed amount
The recovery duration is ONLY 2 seconds which is USELESS, please extended the duration of the recoveries to 6 or 8 seconds.

BUGS:
Call of the pack passive - this passive does not work when you engage in combat, the duration when you transform (with Pack Leader morph) is 70 seconds out of combat, but If you transform in Combat or engage immediately the WW timer is only 38 seconds.

Pack Leader - Minor Courage buff is not being granted

Noxavian

Excelsus wrote: »

For Vampire:

The new FX is brilliant, my only complaint is the aoe morph of Hypnosis, its a bit overcooked, I get a little dazed myself watching the spiraling blooms of purple and crimson cover the screen. Eviscerate and Blood Frenzy are powerful additions, they look and feel good to use but I would like Eviscerate to scale off of your highest offensive stat like Soul Trap. If we're going to add weapon damage to the passives and Blood Frenzy the spammable should be accessible to stam builds otherwise they have little reason to be a vampire and stamina vampires are both in lore and in game. The ultimate feels a bit weak as others have said, particularly the Perfect Scion. Its too short a duration and too much dead time transforming for too little of an effect. Perhaps make Perfect Scion the stamina morph and use the poisonous claws from Skyrim: while transformed your light and heavy attacks leave a poison dot on enemies for x damage.

For Werewolf:

Great job with the skill updates, its almost universally better. Pack Leader morph feels useful again particularly in solo play.
Like others said pounce/carnage doesn't really work as a combo and should depend on the range of the enemy. The skills are clunky individually and a mess to use together, greatly slowing down dps. Also Hircine's Bounty/Rage should trigger on over heal or a smaller threshold - you're almost never at 100% health in pvp or pve. I did notice a bug with Call of the Pack not applying after a period of time and the roar that increases your heavy attack speed doesn't apply to your first heavy attack - it also seems out of place? Likely it was designed to interface with the light/heavy change, it doesn't synergise with the werewolf's current rotation.

Hypnosis is the best looking ability the vamps have, they need to copy that theme that they used for it and move it to the rest of the abilities IMO.

It looks really cool and feels like a proper ability.

Can completely agree with the Perfect Scion morph though. Really feel like it needs to have a new effect entirely. Nothing else will fix it. The poison claw one sounds cool, but then I would ask that the other morph get life drain/blood magic ranged heavy/light attacks.

Also think the ultimate should summon death hounds or a gargoyle in someway.

IsmeldaHuine

I play ESO because it is the only game where you can play a vampire (except for single player games) but on the Liver Server server I never feed because it makes me weaker, and so on the PTS i do the exact same because ranking up is making me weaker with more fire damage, no health regeneration and higher cost in all skills. I will still play a vampire but never use any of the passive except for the first one. Even the Mist Form is better on the live server right now as I can compensate all cost with Darloc Brae set.

RiskyChalice863

I think this is probably a nerf to a lot of current Vamp builds. I use vamp on my Magplar right now, for Elusive Mist, better sustain, and damage resistance at low health. Because of the extra ability cost, I’ll probably have to stay at Stage 1. That means I won’t get the damage resistance anymore, and instead of having 10% higher recovery, I’ll have 5% higher costs. Elusive Mist will be better as a toggle and I’ll get some spell damage out of Elusive Mist, but it’ll be an overall nerf to that character.

That said, I’m hoping to run a stage 4 vampire on my Magicka Necromancer. The idea will be to use Thrassian Stranglers (assuming you don’t lose the buff super easily) with high HP heavy armor sets like Plague Doctor and/or Warrior Poet. Thrassian Strangler combined with the Vampire toggle and extra spell damage out of mist form will drive an absolute boatload of damage. It should also make my HoTs strong enough that sustained damage won’t be more of a problem to heal through on this build than on other builds. And, even with the 40% extra damage, I’ll be hard to burst down due to all the health. If people attempt to burst me down and get me low but don’t kill me, I’ll be able to burn them with outrageous damage on the Vampire spammable while the Unnatural Resistance passive counteracts Thrassian Strangler’s extra damage taken. Meanwhile, the 20% extra cost on non-Vampire abilities won’t be a big deal, since Blastbones and the Mender and whatnot are really cheap (so 20% increases aren’t actually that much), while the tethers are free, and I’d be using vampire abilities as my spammable, stun, and mobility. Even if a couple abilities are much more expensive (armor buff and burst heal), the Vampire would be so cheap that sustain should be really good.

Alucardo

Vampire

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
Used a template because I'm on EU, so N/A

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone to bite me. When I asked in zone people would write "just buy it in the crown store", which obviously skips the need for the quest.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
Didn't really bother with the justice side of things.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
It makes sense, and I'm glad it's an option, if that's what you mean.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
The changes on PTS have definitely brought it up to standards, but in general I'm not a fan of the skill line. From my experience the risk vs reward simply wasn't worth it.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
I PvP, so I'm generally balanced between defence and damage. PTS Vampire does not suit me at all because of negatives far outweigh the positives.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
I would say yes, it does. You feel more like a vampire now than you do on live. Currently on Live, Vampire just feels like a group of passives with a few small debuffs, but nothing you can't handle.

In my honest opinion, for this vision of Vampire to work, I would look at reducing some of the damage and bolstering defences/healing so you don't need to reach into outside skill lines so often. Like being a Werewolf, you should embrace your current choice. For example, Werewolves have everything they need in just 5 buttons. They have defence, healing, damage, target debuffs, major brutality, Savagery.
Vampires should be the same. But they are EXTREMELY squishy, and using wards/heals outside of their skill line comes at great cost, and will run you dry of resources almost instantly.

How does feeding feel overall?
Badass. The cutscenes were pretty great, though I accidentally killed a few people with the Blade of Woe accidentally. I discovered if you stand back further the feed option would appear, which helped a lot. The feed scenes look well done, giving it far more of an impact than the old one.

Werewolf

Is your play pattern as a werewolf different with these changes?
Yes, not much has changed really, though I'm more inclined to add pounce into my rotation now for the additional damage.

Do you find playing a werewolf as enjoyable as what’s currently live?
Gameplay wise it's about the same, but the extra buffs on PTS are very welcome. I'd actually consider pack leader now, when I would usually always opt for Berserker because the damage was too good to pass up.
Overall the Werewolf changes are nice.

XomRhoK

Vampire

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

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
It's almost the same story, with nice touches on new aspects of vampirism. Learning part too short maybe, just use skill once and thats all. At first i were afraid, that you made tutorial too attached to new skills, so it will be problematic to change them, because they are built in tutuorial, but gladly the most bad skill, in my opinion, "Blood Frenzy", don't mentioned in tutorial.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
Yes, good addition to gameplay.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
Like the idea of stage 4 vampire and merchants interaction.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
Don't know what you mean by "feel up to date with the current modern game". Skill line is fun to use or not, and doesn't matter how modern the game is.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
This section i chose to give all my feedback on skills, so it will be long answer.

About new animation and effects of vampire skills
In general i don't like new animation and effects of vampire skills, they often too bright, there are many unneeded glows and sparkles, many effects use purple and pink colors, not matching for vampire theme, in my opinion. As opposed to this all new vampire NPCs have cool, blood themed, moderate effects with nice sounds. Even Necromancers will envy to some bone effects. Please, ZOS, make animation and effects to new vampire skills closer to those from new vampire NPCs, of course not all effects must be blood themed, but will be good if they keep overall palette and modesty.

- Blood Scion ultimate
Model of Blood Scion looks completely out of place, in my opinion. He huge, bulky, slow moving demon, he has nothing to do with a vampire, he looks more like Xivkyn or Molag Bal than a vampire. And don't tell me that all vampires in ESO come from Molag Bal, i'm sure few people wanted the vampire transformation to look like demon. Blood Scion uses standard animations, it includes attacks with fists, not claws while he unarmed, and it looks bad and sometimes comical.

Details that spoil his appearance the most are the horns, height, shoulders and hips armor(armor make him even more bulky, demon-like). Also absolutely unnecessarily glow and smoke coming from Blood Scion's model. All this is even more surprising amid how good the model of last Greymoor boss is, they almost the same, but all that little details make them so different.

Suggestions for appearance: Model of last boss in Greymoor almost perfect. Take as a basis model of last boss in Greymoor, ESO's Vampire Lord, remove horns, make same amount or even less armor and scale model to the size of maximum height High Elf. At the next picture all scaled close to in game sizes, except Vampire Lord, he scaled to High Elf height and without horns.

Bosses can keep their size, horns and fancy armor as sign of their royalty and seniority. And in perspective of lowering the size of player's transformation ZOS can consider to scale down sizes of Blood Scion NPCs(Blood Knights, if i remember correctly) and last boss. Last boss is unnecessarily huge, in my opinion.
Important cosmetic thing concerning sight through walls. Bloos Scion must see through walls, not through himself, his body must be not transparent, otherwise he start looking like shadow or transparent ghost.

From the point of mechinics and logic of skill i don't realy get for what purpose vampire transform at all. He don't use his claws, he don't get new skills or new features to his skills, all Blood Scion features are passive and not interesting.

My thought and ideas about Blood Scion ultimate:

This ultimate can be middle ground between severely limited Werewolf transformation and almost total freedom of regular classes. Blood Scion can be restricted to use weapon skills, after transformation he will be without weapon and will use his claws for Light and Heavy attacks, but he will be able to use any other skill from non weapon skill lines.
Also, while player in Blood Scion form, all vampire skills will receive additional features. More on this features below, in appropriate skill section.
Additional stats looks ok, but i don't like "instantly healing to full health" part, firstly it takes away necessity to heal, more specific it takes away necessity to use Vampiric Drain ability, one of the few active damaging abilities from vampire kit. Secondly this heal overlaps with Battle Roar passive of Dragon Knights. In this regards i also not sure about "you heal for 33% damage you deal" part.
20-30 second timer seems ok, but i think there must be opportunity to prolong this time, for example, by biting Mesmerized players, NPCs. More on this part in my suggestions to Mesmerize skill.

- Eviscerate
At current state of animation and sound effects this skill looks like fairy's slap not a vampire claws hit, almost no sound and pink and purple effects. In my opinion, good example how claws hit should look and sound is Venomous Claw skill from DK's skill line, i compared this two skills in the video below. Venomous Claw sounds much more harsh and looks sharp.


As for functionality this skill seems ok, but, i think, one of the morphs should scale from Stamina, even if it will be use Health as resource.

- Blood Frenzy
Visiualy nothing special, but sometimes, especially in fights with several enemies hard to understand is it toggled on or off.

As for the skill itself, I really don't like it. From position of casual gameplay it feels more like a chore, not like interesting mechanic. From position of more dedicated players, i think, it will be used by one-hit-kill-gankers and snipers(not very vampiric gameplay, in my opinion) or it will be easily mathematically calculated and compensated by some healing set and will be toggled on all fight, without any interesting gameplay around this skill. This vampiric skill also stimulates the use of non vampiric heal, some HoT, because it compensate HP drain more fluid and get 600 wd/sd buff from toggled Blood Frenzy, while heal of Vampiric Drain don't benefit from Blood Frenzy. On top of that, vampire skill line already had one toggle and one channeling skills, Mist Form and Vampiric Drain, expensive ultimate which just transforms player and stun(7 second Immovability), so we end up with not so dynamic skill line where not that much to interact with. In my opinion, better to give that skill slot to more dynamic, interactive or spammable skill.

- Vampiric Drain
First of all about visuals. It's too bright, especially unmorphed skill, it almost hurts the eyes. In the video below i made comparison of dark environment before and after using the skill.

Secondly, i much more like visuals of old Drain Essence skill, it sounds and looks like blood flow, new Vampiric Drain skill looks out of place, enemy glow, player's character glow, the size of the beam is huge, colors don't match vampiric theme.

Please, return blood flow feel to this skill.

In terms of use, damage became too low, before i used this skill even when i don't need healing, it feels very good, very vampiric to drain life from your enemy, now damage component is too low. At least one morph must be damage oriented. Also i don't like new 22 meter range, it feels wrong, not vampiric, too far away from victim.

My thought and ideas about Vampiric Drain:

While in Blood Scion form Vampiric Drain can additionally restore Magicka and Stamina and cannot be interrupted.

- Mesmerize
Visually looks ok, except purple pink colors in effects.

In my casual gameplay i didn't find much use too it, maybe will be usefull in PvP. Like interaction between stage 4 vampire and merchants through this skill.

My thought and ideas about Mesmerize and combat feeding:

Follow up mechanic can be added to Mesmorize.
Desription of the skill:
Seduce enemy, disorienting him (putting him to sleep) for 1.5-2 seconds. Single target. Melee range.
While in disoriented state player or NPC can be bitten ('X' button or 2nd press of Mesmorize skill button if target already disoriented, with fast animation of bite in neck, or some sort of drain if bite animation can't be done), bite do X damage, restore 20% of Health and gain 10-15 ultimate points. Player can't Break Free from Disoriented state, but desorient will break from any direct damage taken.
While in Blood Scion form this ability become ranged, and pull enemy to you(with Vampiric Grip from TES: Skyrim in mind, but more fast and suited for ESO, similar to Silver Leash and Fiery Grip skills). In this form bite instead of gaining 10-15 ultimate points will prolong Blood Scion form for 7-10 seconds.

Clarification:
First of all about Disoriented state, as i know were in game before, but act alittle bit different and not used anymore, so ZOS can rework this state as i meantioned in skill description or create new state, Sleep, for example, with same properties. Disoriented state must be immune to Break Free, because player need little window to execute the bite and to all animations were executed properly, otherwise bite will looks bad and never hit the neck. Animation must be fast, maybe some collisions if another player will hit targeted player with direct damage and wake up him, but with fast animation i think it will look fine, or for the period of bite animation targeted player may go in Stun state, he will can Break Free, but again with fast animation it will look fine. After Disoriented state or bite targeted player must recieve standart Immovability buff, to prevent abuse, player under Immovability buff can not be Disoriented.
Duration of Disoriented state must be short, enough to execute bite from melee range, but not enough to set up dangerous combinations.
In my opinion, this combo of (pull +) stun + bite more interesting than just a mass stun.

- Mist Form
Because new Blood Mist morph acts almost like Devouring Swarm and Swarming Scion ultimates i join those who offered to make this morph looks like swarming bats, instead of blood mist. It will pleased those who don't want to use transformation ultimate for their vampires. Proper visuals already in the game, at last boss of Greymoor there is moment with this visuals:

This bat swarm fit perfectly, little adjustments and awesome skill is ready. And Blood Scion can use something more unique.

As for new toggle mechanic, from one side i like that it can be toggled for 1 second, because it can be used as cool alternative to block in some cases, from other side i a little worried about abusing of this and Strike From The Shadows passive, maybe mist form must be 2x-3x cost, but with first 2-3 seconds for no additional cost and with same magicka per second rate starting from 3-4th second.

Also now on PTS Mist Form have a delay/animation cast before enter mist form, and can be toggled off instantly, because of that i often not intentionally turned it off. I pressed Mist Form, because of delay/animation i thought i didn't press button, pressed it again and turned skill off.

My thought and ideas about Mist Form:

While in Blood Scion form Bat Swarm appears around mist (as described above), while in mist form player can press skill button again, to skill act like gap closer, cloud of bats will fly to the enemy. For this mechanic to work Mist Form need to act like on live servers, not toggle.

- Stages of Vampirism
I think, it will be right to encourage and give a reasoning to use feeding mechanics even for players who want to stay at low stages of vampirism, it will give them more feel of vampire gameplay. To achieve that i suggest to make Vampirism Stage 1 more like role play option, player's character will have normal skin color and vampiric/red eyes, will have all vampire active skills, but no passives, no strengths such as decreased cost of vampire skills, and will have several weaknesses such as lower health recovery and some weakness to fire damage. But for transition to Vampirism Stage 2 player will suffer no additional weaknesses, he will receive one vampire passive skill and strengths such as decreased cost of vampire skill. The only thing player will need to sacrifice to transition to Stage 2 is appearance of his character, his skin will become pale. This will make happy role players who want to play as disguised vampire and will encourage and give the reason to feed for players who want to stay at low stages of vampirism. Transition to over stages will follow standard route.

- Vampire passives
My point of view and suggestions for vampire passives:
Dark Stalker passive: Decreased the time it takes to enter sneak by 90-100%
Clarification:
With regards to Drak Stalker passive, i personaly don't like the fact that vampires run in sneak mode, i personally like the feeling of crouching, sneaking, i like the pace and animation, and i forced not to take Dark Stalker passive, because it take away this feeling from me. For those who like running in sneak mode there is Unnatural Movement passive now. And almost insant sneak mode can allowed some interesting gameplay to go sneak in the middle of the fight to buff your damage by sneak attack.

- Unnatural Movement passive: If you continuously Sprint for 3 seconds you automatically enter sneak, and can continue to Sprint in sneak mode. Reduce the cost of sprint by 50%.
Clarification:
From expirience that i have on PTS invisibility on sprint feels odd and immersion breaking if you try to hide your vampirism, you constantly become invizible while you run through town and when you run with quest NPCs. Invizibility on sprint encourage to skip encounters, you just run through all monsters to the goal. Sneak on sprint feels the same in my opinion, but not so immersion breaking and you can't anymore avoid encounters at least in narrow places.

- Strike From The Shadows passive.
I don't like concept of this passive it fits one-hit-kill-gankers and encourage Mist Form weaving each 6 seconds.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
As i understood from new vampire tutorial Lamae just gave you this new powers by her will, including Blood Scion form. Don't know how main antagonist recieved his powers, i don't read texts to avoid sploilers. After all, now you create lore, just don't go over the top.

How does feeding feel overall?
As i understand feeding only works from a certain distance, to not to overlap with the Blade of Woe. Overall i like new feeding animations. I saw three different animations of feeding, the animation of one with blood flow often miss distance and starts to show up on close distance and looks not correct. The other two in front and from behind neck bites, bites feel too fast, vampire don't suck a single drop of blood from the neck, he just bite it and immediately release it, needs longer bite animation. Camera often too close, and i'd prefer option to turn off this camera, to just look at this animations from my regular angle.
Also feeding process lacks consistency, sometimes i can feed on someone sometimes not. Seems it depends on NPC's and player's positions and environmental obstacles. Also not always clear on which type of humanoids i can feed, i fed on Xivkyn, but can not fed on Goblin (maybe because of position or environmental obstacles).
I don't like the fact that feeding don't restore Health, seems weird.
I don't like the fact that feeding now always kills the victim. This is fun in overland content, where i can kill bandits from behind, but not fun at the towns, i want to role play cautious vampire, for example, but i can't feed on without leaving corpses all over the town. But i have some suggestions for this problems.

My suggestions on feeding
Even if positions or environmental obstacles such as limited distance or slightly different height interfere feeding play old one or new blood flow animation and allow to feed, i'd prefer to see slightly not perfect animation rather than tormented by the question why can't I feed on.
Make feeding restore Health, it feels right.
You can keep both options in the game, to kill NPCs after feeding and to leave them alive, just make that if you Mesmerized NPC with the skill you can feed on him in front, from close range, by using standart 'X' button, appropriate feeding animation already in the game.

GrumpyDuckling

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Do you have any other general feedback?

I like that we can passively add Major Brutality to our human form builds by slotting Hircine's Bounty on our skill bar (as an archer without simple access to Major Brutality, I appreciate this greatly).

Could you perhaps look into expanding the passive 15% stamina recovery that human form gets for slotting the Werewolf ultimate to apply to ANY Werewolf skill that is slotted while in human form? I ask because this would allow a skill like Hircine's Bounty (one that cannot be activated/pressed in human form) to passively provide both Major Brutality and give 15% stamina recovery to someone who slots this skill in human form. Thank you.

Qbiken

Do you have any other general feedback?

I would like to point out once again that I think the Major Brutality and Major Savagery you get from slotting Hircine´s Bounty and Roar should only benefit people who are transformed in werewolf form. If werewolfs can´t slot "non-werewolf" abilites and benefit from their passive while transformed, I don´t find it fair that someone who isn´t transformed into a werewolf should be able to benefit from the passive brutality and savagery for having werewolf ability slotted.

BalticBlues

Question (I cannot use PTS on PS4):
Do health bars have a non-healable indicator?

Problem:
Vampire skills like “Blood Frenzy” or “Mist Form” prevent healing from other group members. Healers waste resources trying to heal Vampires while they are are using these skills. This can result in bug reports by healers who find that heals sometimes are “not working".

Solution:
Non-healable group members could be indicated by a color change of their health bar, for example a purple health bar instead of a red health bar. Seeing somebody with a purple health bar then would instantly tell healers not to waste healing on them at this time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Related Question:
What happens if healers use limited group heals on Vampires while they are non-healable?
Example:

1. group member 1 is vampire, going on “Blood Frenzy” (non-healable), 30% health
2. group member 2 is no vampire, 50% health
3. group member 3 is no vampire, 70% health

If the healer now uses a GROUP HEAL for the TWO LOWEST group members:

• is the heal going to group member 1 and 2, losing the heal on the vampire?
• or is the heal going to group member 2 and 3, because member 1 cannot be healed?

birdeye

First off, I have played a vampire charcter since the game launched and the lore of my own charcters are based around being a vampire. I have always actually used vampire ablities and not just the passives.

I primarly play a tank and I do find some usefulness in a few of the vampire ablities on a tank but overall the vampire skill line seems to geared more towards dps charcters. I do undersatnd that the vampire skill line has always been a bit more orinted towards stealthy characters and that some changes have been done to encourge people to play vampire and not to just have vampire for the passives. That being said with increase normall abliity cost the fact skill line is more geared toward dps I don't see many tanks being able to maintain vampire. With every other skill line in the game there seems to be way to mix the ablities to make it work with pretty much any build. With the changes as is I don't see that as being possible for tanks.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a penality I'm saying that normal ablity cost penality should be adjusted so that even tanks can still maintain vampire without having to worrying about resources. Another option would be to get rid of the normal ablity cost penality all together and increase the base cost of vampire ablities that decrease with more vampire ablities you have slotted on your skill bars.

RedReign

Vampire

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

+) Used a template character, so not applicable.

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

+) Used a template character, so not applicable.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

+) Yes with the exception of the mechanic that causes NPCs not to speak to Vampires of a certain stage, because this requires you to either wait 4 hours to decrease their stage or purchase a fountain that does it for them which of course costs real world money and seems like it was starting to edge "Not-quite-pay-to-win" mechanics into the game.

Aside from that I adore the idea that using vampire abilities in public is now a criminal act. It really solidifies the feeling of being a vampire in the Elder Scrolls world.

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

+) Yes, the new Vampire set up fits into the world beautifully and feels more like playing an actual vampire now.

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

+) Aside from needing more stamina options, yes. These skills are beautiful to look at and play wonderfully on a magicka build. However I think more stamina options (especially for the single direct damage ability) are needed and that Perfect Scion needs a new pass as currently its clearly the weaker of the two morphs.


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

+) Not at all. The +20% cost to non-vampire abilities makes this completely useless in all content except for solo-overland PvE. The -100% Health Recovery is a bit much too, I love the idea while in combat but out of combat it needs to be removed so that vampires aren't constantly dying from tripping over small ledges. I primarily play as a DPS or a Healer and if the negatives remain what they are I can't see myself using vampire at all, which is tragic because overall it's an amazing new skill line.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

+) Not quite, the Blood Scion needs to have wings and more importantly the basic look of vampire needs to be changed. I'm actually surprised that after 6 years of players begging for this that it hasn't happened here in this patch. The white overlay is far far too strong and needs to be reduced to make the character look pale but not glowing white. Perhaps dropping the character down to the lightest skintone for their race and keeping the eye/vein effects of each stage intact. I love the idea of looking more inhuman as stage increases but having the skin tone be a flat white is ugly and unenjoyable, especially since it overlays over top of your body markings, many of which are fantastic looking. There has to be a balance between looking like a vampire and looking just awful.

I realize this is a complaint about visuals, but I promise it's a lore thing that bothers me. In Elder Scrolls lore vampires were able to blend in with polite society easily, aside from their eyes and peculiar habits it was hard to identify a vampire. They also have a traditional bat-like theme and appearance which is sadly missing from Blood Scion without the wings. As it stands they appear more Daedric than they do Vampiric. I also think the glowing blue/black/red flame effect is far too over the top and damages the look of the high quality Scion model.

How does feeding feel overall?

Visually feeding is great. There are a few clipping issues with some animations but that seems unavoidable. The Feeding option does have an issue where it conflicts with Blade of Woe to the point that it makes it difficult to get the one you want to pop up. Perhaps changing feed to a different button or making something like "Press X for Blade of Woe, Hold X to Feed" would work? As it is I struggle to get the Feed option to pop up and end up with Blade of Woe more often than not.

SirLeeMinion

Vampire:
Should be great for RP... but then I don't RP. Will cure.

Werewolf
The pounce mechanic is not enjoyable to use and looks terrible.
The number one complaint for WW on a pazillion pages is that the heal is too expensive... and the heal is still too expensive.
More enjoyable to play? Well, I cured most of mine last summer. I don't see anything here that will change this.
The passives that replace essence of weapon power may be nice for new players. Everyone else was already chugging these. I guess it leaves tri-pots as an option now. WW still feels inferior to regular builds so... good for RP (?)

Overall, I'd say it's good to see the combat team not over buffing and over nerfing for a change. Nonetheless, there's nothing in this iteration of vamp or WW that appeals to me. pass.

Caelc

Good morning fellow doggies. I can't try this out on pts but I am preparing myself. So, inside dungeon and trial i assume it is still relequen and bloodmoon? Monster set maybe selenes with the buff? keeping in mind dont have zaan

outside of dungeons, relequen is really not great since you kill fast, what would you pair with bloodmoon? Tzo? to give you the crit and crit dmg + bonus? New moons? something new and exciting?

thanks,

i have started the farming.

GrumpyDuckling

Qbiken wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

I would like to point out once again that I think the Major Brutality and Major Savagery you get from slotting Hircine´s Bounty and Roar should only benefit people who are transformed in werewolf form. If werewolfs can´t slot "non-werewolf" abilites and benefit from their passive while transformed, I don´t find it fair that someone who isn´t transformed into a werewolf should be able to benefit from the passive brutality and savagery for having werewolf ability slotted.

I would like to point out that this argument about "fair[ness]" is inaccurate and irrelevant.

All classes and builds have either better skills that grant Major Brutality or access to weapon skill lines that grant them. For those who wish to gain Major Brutality by slotting Hircine's Bounty, the cost of consuming a skill slot is more than enough to warrant that (and a choice one should be able to make if they want to play specific builds, such as a pure archer, for example). Werewolf form also benefits from the passive Major Brutality granted by Hircine's Bounty more than human form because the Savage Strength passive, which only works while in Werewolf form, adds an additional 18% weapon damage on top of Major Brutality. It is inaccurate to say that slotting Hircine's Bounty in human form for Major Brutality is not "fair."

Concern about Roar and Major Savagery in human form is just irrelevant because Expert Hunter (from Fighter's Guild) is superior in every way.

Qbiken

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

I would like to point out once again that I think the Major Brutality and Major Savagery you get from slotting Hircine´s Bounty and Roar should only benefit people who are transformed in werewolf form. If werewolfs can´t slot "non-werewolf" abilites and benefit from their passive while transformed, I don´t find it fair that someone who isn´t transformed into a werewolf should be able to benefit from the passive brutality and savagery for having werewolf ability slotted.

I would like to point out that this argument about "fair[ness]" is inaccurate and irrelevant.

All classes and builds have either better skills that grant Major Brutality or access to weapon skill lines that grant them. For those who wish to gain Major Brutality by slotting Hircine's Bounty, the cost of consuming a skill slot is more than enough to warrant that (and a choice one should be able to make if they want to play specific builds, such as a pure archer, for example). Werewolf form also benefits from the passive Major Brutality granted by Hircine's Bounty more than human form because the Savage Strength passive, which only works while in Werewolf form, adds an additional 18% weapon damage on top of Major Brutality. It is inaccurate to say that slotting Hircine's Bounty in human form for Major Brutality is not "fair."

Concern about Roar and Major Savagery in human form is just irrelevant because Expert Hunter (from Fighter's Guild) is superior in every way.

I'll have you know that one of the most broken bugs that had ever been abused in this game was related to ww skills being used while in human form. I'd rather not have people abuse or take advantage of ww related perks without actually playing one anymore.

If you want the benefits from werewolf related skills and passives, you should play as one in my opinion.

And as a bow/bow build you can run brutality potions and get both brutality and savagery without sacrificing anything.

WoppaBoem

So we go from a skill line that has some very usufull skills to more usefull skills oke great.
So we go from a skill line that gives awesome sustain and tankiness to skill line that just completly destroys sustain and that is good how????

You guys want us all being vamp 100% focused with skills and everything no more Vamps using normal skills or else!!!

Bad design such a let down, this is not change this is you used something for a long time and we think that is very bad get out of the vamp skill line NOW

GrumpyDuckling

Qbiken wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

I would like to point out once again that I think the Major Brutality and Major Savagery you get from slotting Hircine´s Bounty and Roar should only benefit people who are transformed in werewolf form. If werewolfs can´t slot "non-werewolf" abilites and benefit from their passive while transformed, I don´t find it fair that someone who isn´t transformed into a werewolf should be able to benefit from the passive brutality and savagery for having werewolf ability slotted.

I would like to point out that this argument about "fair[ness]" is inaccurate and irrelevant.

All classes and builds have either better skills that grant Major Brutality or access to weapon skill lines that grant them. For those who wish to gain Major Brutality by slotting Hircine's Bounty, the cost of consuming a skill slot is more than enough to warrant that (and a choice one should be able to make if they want to play specific builds, such as a pure archer, for example). Werewolf form also benefits from the passive Major Brutality granted by Hircine's Bounty more than human form because the Savage Strength passive, which only works while in Werewolf form, adds an additional 18% weapon damage on top of Major Brutality. It is inaccurate to say that slotting Hircine's Bounty in human form for Major Brutality is not "fair."

Concern about Roar and Major Savagery in human form is just irrelevant because Expert Hunter (from Fighter's Guild) is superior in every way.

I'll have you know that one of the most broken bugs that had ever been abused in this game was related to ww skills being used while in human form. I'd rather not have people abuse or take advantage of ww related perks without actually playing one anymore.

If you want the benefits from werewolf related skills and passives, you should play as one in my opinion.

And as a bow/bow build you can run brutality potions and get both brutality and savagery without sacrificing anything.

You're letting your prejudice from a former bug influence this. There is no abuse involved with this. What you are advocating for simply takes away player options.

Alucardo

Please fix the NPCs screaming "Guards! It's a mangy werewolf" when you're in human form. I keep getting bounties and attacked by random people even when I'm in my human form and haven't changed.