Vampire revamp: YAY or NAY

WraithShadow13

This is just to have an easier look for the devs, to see the general approval rating of these changes. Today, in the livestream, Community Manager Gina Bruno confirmed that what we have currently is what is going to live.

As such, i'm asking you all: Are you happy with this current revamp Vampires?

The answers are simple but please leave clear and constructive feedback on this. We're not here to be angry and complain but to add suggestions to fix, explain the likes/dislikes, and in general, discuss if the community feels this revamp is ready for live. Or, more apt NOW, any and all changes to make AFTER it goes live.


As such, please vote on whether or not you're happy with the current state of the Vampire reVamp, and give a little of your opinion why.

Vevvev

No, BUT

It could have been better.

Stage 4 is so weird right now as its geared to have you use the vampire abilities, but then has the worst possible debuffs to make that happen. The most notable alongside the non-vampire cost increases is the -100% health regeneration. Feeding does not heal you and vampiric drain heals only a percentage of lost health. So unless you slot a non-vampiric heal, or are smart on using the health siphon on the ultimate, you're going to be constantly be below 100% health.

Another issue is the visuals as they don't feel vampiric, and the way Blood Frenzy works doesn't fit within TES universe. It almost feels like the devs don't even know the lore of their own game and it shows. Sadly there is no changing their minds now as they're going to push it live and get feedback there. Who knows what the future holds for the vampire rework.

Sephyr

No

• Eviscerate needs a Stamina version to make Stamina builds more effective.
• Drain Vigor needs to drain what ever resource stat is the highest.
• Frenzy/Fury could be changed to a Bat Teleport.
• Wing stubs on the Blood Scion model.
• Make the feeding system less punishing for engaging with Vampirism as the current iteration on the PTS is still just as non-engaging as it is on Live. Feeding progression should add weapon/spell damage to replace Frenzy/Fury.
• Blood Mist needs a flurry of bats as a visual.

Aside from that though, I'm just completely underwhelmed and just uninterested in beating the dead horse any further.

navystylz_ESO

No

• Frenzy hit too hard. Simmering frenzy will never be used.
• Vampire ability reduction gutted--40% down to 24%
• Vampire Lord armor is garbage.
• Micromanaging health is annoying.
• Zero reason to be stage 4 vampire. Too many penalties, and for what?
• ZOS is clearly out of touch with their own community. They're the only ones that thing 6.0.3 vampire is fine
• It's all good. Saved me $130.

Glurin

Yes, BUT

Some of the vamp abilities might need a little fine tuning to get them dialed in, which is not unexpected, but otherwise I think it's in a pretty good spot overall right now. Probably should wait for a bit before deciding on that fine tuning though. Give people a chance to really dig into it.

Rake

No

No

Paradisius

Yes, BUT

The Vampire rework is a step in a good direction, making a more active skill line that feels more like a choice you pick if you want to play that fantasy. However, the skills that were brought to the table give mixed results, some are good, some are amazing, some are..less so. They dont easily fit into many builds and you have to build around them (which fair enough, that was their point).

But with the 6.0.3 patch, it left high stage Vampirism in a weird place. They reduced the ability cost increase (which is fine, now its not as oppresive as before, no issues there for me), but they also reduced the Vampire skill cost reduction. Which would have been fine if they were balanced around the new 24% at stage 4, rather than balanced around stage 4 40%. In its current 6.0.3 iteration, the abilities cost a questionably high amount even at stage 4(Blood Scion is 250 ultimate instead of 200, Blood for Blood costs 1.7k health instead of I believe 1.3k at Stage 4. Vampiric Drain costs as much as a class/weapon spammable yet does less damage, and costs as much as something like Healing Springs or Radiant Regeneration yet gives far less healing output than those abilities. Mist form and the stun are fine, really good skills in the rework. That leaves....

Blood Frenzy. This ability imo has been nerfed to oblivion with 6.0.3 (Probably due to the parses where there was 100% uptime on simmering frenzy, yet ignoring the fact that it was on a parse dummy where they arent being hit). The changes to the Vampire cost reduction already make this ability a steep 1.4k health a second (vs the 900~1k health a second prior), but then they decide to make the cost increase by 20% per second without an upper limit. So before I could have Sated Fury up most of the time at the cost of a slot self heal, and simmering frenzy I would have 60~70% uptime due to the increased cost (which capped at 100% mind you). Now I dont even bother slotting it. It kills you to quickly and the reward gained is not worth the risk.

Overall, I like the rework. I would have preferred some different abilities but what they gave us is still something I can use. The downsides come with the fact that in order for these abilities to even be considered using, you must be stage 4. Most because all of these values Ive mentioned, is seen on a Stage 4 character. Stage 1 and 2 will most definitely not use these abilities, and stage 3 only might.

Spectral_Force

It needs more work

It needs more work.
I can appreciate what they were trying to achieve with this rework, but a lot of these changes simply miss the mark. Blood Frenzy, Drain, and Scion all need a whole lot of tweaking. The visuals can still be hit-and-miss (again, mostly Frenzy, Drain and Scion). The abilities don't synergize with each other as much as we were led to believe. Though Feeding received updated animations (which I'm really pleased with), it's still a very barebones mechanic - all it does is kill the target and advance your stage; it doesn't even heal you, for god's sake! Some decisions were made purely because they sound cool in theory - Kyle was adamant about -100% Health regen at Stage 4 because "it's the price you pay". There were a lot of missed opportunities for Vampires in general - like the nighttime buffs mechanic was scrapped entirely. NPCs get a lot of cool abilities and animations, a few of which look even better than what the player gets. Tanks and Healers have barely any reason to stay a Vampire now. The Vampire Lord set was gutted. And a lot of these have been discussed since Week 1, too, and we've offered plenty of ways to fix these on a budget.
Also I'd like to point out that Gina didn't use a single Vampire skill during that entire "Vampire showcase". Not the spammable, not the Mist, not the Drain, and definitely not the Frenzy.

TheSeraphim

No, BUT

It has no idea what it wants to be, and doesn't fill enough uses like a aoe,gap closer, useful buffs/debuffs

-You must be a class with a garbage spammable
-You must be a class with decent self-healing
-You must be a class/experienced enough player that is ok with suiciding in melee range in order to do damage
-You must have awful aesthetic taste in monster mashes.
-You must have decent sustain or remain stage 1
-You must work for the ZOS marketing team
-You must have a gap closer/ hope your enemy lets you sprint up to them while you glow spooky
-You must enjoy death (your own)

If you meet most of this criteria you may find Vampire usable.

"STAND STILL OPPONENT I NEED TO RESTORE 1 BURST HEALS WORTH OF HP OVER A CHANNEL WHILE DEALING PIDDLY DAMAGE, PLEASE DON'T BASH ME"

They have turned a skill tree were people picked it for 1 passive to a skill tree 95% of the population will ignore or everyone will get it just for the damage toggle depending on the patch.

Nagastani

Yes, BUT

TheSeraphim wrote: »

It has no idea what it wants to be, and doesn't fill enough uses like a aoe,gap closer, useful buffs/debuffs

-You must be a class with a garbage spammable
-You must be a class with decent self-healing
-You must be a class/experienced enough player that is ok with suiciding in melee range in order to do damage
-You must have awful aesthetic taste in monster mashes.
-You must have decent sustain or remain stage 1
-You must work for the ZOS marketing team
-You must have a gap closer/ hope your enemy lets you sprint up to them while you glow spooky
-You must enjoy death (your own)

If you meet most of this criteria you may find Vampire usable.

"STAND STILL OPPONENT I NEED TO RESTORE 1 BURST HEALS WORTH OF HP OVER A CHANNEL WHILE DEALING PIDDLY DAMAGE, PLEASE DON'T BASH ME"

They have turned a skill tree were people picked it for 1 passive to a skill tree 95% of the population will ignore or everyone will get it just for the damage toggle depending on the patch.

Oh my is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Heavens if only someone would have said almost the exact same thing a couple weeks earlier.

WraithShadow13

No

For me, personally, I'm losing out on my favorite Ultimate. I love Bat Swarm as it is now. Unfortunately, i hate the scion form. It looks cool, and i would totally love to fight those in greymore but as a personal preference, i DO NOT want to turn into it myself. I was the same with VAmp lords in skyrim.

But yeah, i agree with a lot of what is being said here, by both sides. I really feel like they mishandled the revamp and a lot of it really doesn't feel vampiric as much as it shoulda/coulda/woulda. The power cost is too high, the health regen being zero at rank 4, the animations as a whole... The thing just seemed... generic and not even generic vampire generic. This seemed like they had unused nightblade abilities and just tossed them in.

I didn't even KNOW the feeding didn't heal at all, that is just an insanely huge oversight.

The whole thing just seemed like a misstep with good intentions.



Thoughts:
I think Frenzy should be a light/heavy replacement, like the psijic line has. Just a wild series of slashes and bites that regens health. They have the harrowsfiend animations already in-game, so give us THAT as a more Frenzied looking attack.

Having a gap closer would be nice, especially if it were the bat teleport that is already used by the NPC's.

There needs to be a health regen mechanic, to make up the cost of the zero health regen. ESPECIALLY IF HEALTH REGEN IS AN IMPORTANT STAT IN GAME!!! Either feeding gives you X a higher regen for a short burst after feeding or having bleed effects return health to you but having that Vampiric healing ability is moot if you turn off their ability to generate health. There are a lot of great ways to turn blood into health and they did none of them.

Scion form dislikes could be easily solved by a single trait point. I would gladly pay one to three points if they let me use batswarm WITHOUT transforming into something that doesn't even look vampiric.

It might just be me but perfect scion makes no sense. Bat Scion has the aoe damage but in such a short burst, "No drawbacks" seems to be a bit too vague and useless.

Scion Form seems like it would be better if worked like werewolf form. It could turn your bar into a single one with all the vamp skills and it would even use feeding to extend the time transformed. I just don't agree that it should have been the Ultimate of the class as it is.

In a game where PVP and bosses can easily oneshot the average player, this revamp seems to intent on players being low on health more than being or doing anything vampiric.

daemonor

No

No. I expected the 5+1 full vampire playstyle to be at least viable and competetive, and it sure as hell won't be. I am not comparing apples to oranges but werewolf rework was a success in my eyes, they made the playstyle viable with those changes.

Let me state my opinion again for those picking strawman arguments:

I don't ask for any particular changes/buffs or nerfs, or suggesting making vampires into anything that i fancy. I just wanted a full bar vampire playstyle to be fleshed out and viable in veteran dlc dungeons and trials and pvp and the execution of how they woulda done it didn't matter, just the success of the idea.

ShadowHvo

No

This revamp utterly ruined the vampire for PvE, and even worse for stamina characters.

It is a giant penalty for little gain. What a shame.

I wish the old vampire skill-line would remain, at least it was useful.

Noxavian

No

ShadowHvo wrote: »

This revamp utterly ruined the vampire for PvE, and even worse for stamina characters.

It is a giant penalty for little gain. What a shame.

I wish the old vampire skill-line would remain, at least it was useful.

BIG TRUEEEEE.


If I had known this is how the rework would of turned out, I would of been against it.

Our only hope now is unfortunately hoping they add more bloodlines in the future...

XomRhoK

No

WraithShadow13 wrote: »

The answers are simple but please leave clear and constructive feedback on this. We're not here to be angry and complain but to add suggestions to fix, explain the likes/dislikes, and in general, discuss if the community feels this revamp is ready for live. Or, more apt NOW, any and all changes to make AFTER it goes live.

They have thread full of feedback for almost 4 weeks(6 weeks if count pre PTS feedback) and 15 pages length, seems they don't care much.
They not only did not introduce new interesting skills, but also managed to screw up the old ones, in usability, diversity, visualy and soundwise. Hard to believe they managed to achieve that.
They have on paper some basic understanding of what they want to achieve, but they lack ability to look two steps forward and use feedback in time. They keep repeating mantra that PTS is a different environment and players always come with new ideas how to use skills and items, so we need to see it on Live servers, but players already calculate and saw half of the problems and already discribed them on PTS forums, but almost nothing changed.
Even though I don't like most skills and passives in current build, i more concerned about visuals and sound, because mechanics and numbers can be changed, we saw it already, but visuals and sound almost never change, because some players could like them, even if most of the players don't. It saddens me greatly. I start to think that it's Rob Garrett bring his vision on visuals from Riot Games and League Of Legends...

Cerbolt

No

They seem to want us to go full vamp at stage 4, yet none of the abilities seem to be good enough to support that. So I'm not really sure what they're trying to achieve.

Michaelkeir

No

4 and a half years. I've been with this game for all that time. I've put up with a lot of crap and remained silent. When they butchered necromancers (my favorite play style in the Elderscrolls universe) by making it not have melee pets or a real summon ultimate I started to get vocal, but I kept the faith. Now vampires (my 2nd favorite play style in Elderscrolls games) have been butchered I'm seriously trying to find a reason to stay.

All of my vampire characters are themed purely for vampirism. That means feeding regularly and staying in Stage 4. Have been for years. With these changes how can I tank vet dlc dungeons without running out of resources at stage 4 on my Blood Knight tank? How can I sustain as a stage 4 stam nb while using my vampire powers and sustain while surviving and doing the same dps as I do on live when the new vamp skills seems catered to mag builds? Don't get me started on my Blood Matron healer who's resources are poo now since this revamp. Good luck healing vet dlc dungeons with her.

And let's not even discuss how the regular vampire npc's seems to have better themed kits then we do as Lamar Bale chosen elite. They have a whole lot. A few examples are.....
- A melee and ranged dark blood themed spamable.
- A bat themed placeable AoE.
- A blood spit conal attack.
- A blood themed ranged pull/gap closer.
- And a better looking drain.
- And lastly better looking vampire lords.
If you haven't seen the video that's floating around showcasing them you should. It's an eye opener.

I'm just so disappointed it's sad. I love this game. I really do. But the direction the devs are taking it is not a good one. They seem to mostly cater to drawing in New players and ignoring the vet players. I guess new players complain a lot less. They don't communicate with us and with all the lag and other performance problems that from the looks of it aren't going to get better, it's not looking good. With the next elderscrolls game years away, I need something to scratch my vampire/necromancer itch until ZoS can get it together.

Spectral_Force

It needs more work

Michaelkeir wrote: »

And let's not even discuss how the regular vampire npc's seems to have better themed kits then we do as Lamar Bale chosen elite. They have a whole lot. A few examples are.....
- A melee and ranged dark blood themed spamable.
- A bat themed placeable AoE.
- A blood spit conal attack.
- A blood themed ranged pull/gap closer.
- And a better looking drain.
- And lastly better looking vampire lords.
If you haven't seen the video that's floating around showcasing them you should. It's an eye opener.

If anyone hasn't seen the video, I'll make your life a little easier:

The NPC ability showcase starts around 2:07.

Deathlord92

•Eviscerate needs a stamina morph

•the cost reduction in non vampire abilities needs to go its to much of a drawback

•the nerf to blood frenzy needs to be reverted back to pts 6.0.2

• I like the vampire lord as I did in skyrim but it looks a bit underwhelming maybe buff the ultimate a little

Deathlord92

I have read through the comments and I’m loving some of these ideas really hope zos reads through em

Glurin

Yes, BUT

ShadowHvo wrote: »

This revamp utterly ruined the vampire for PvE, and even worse for stamina characters.

It is a giant penalty for little gain. What a shame.

I wish the old vampire skill-line would remain, at least it was useful.

The only thing they "ruined" was everyone defaulting to taking it for a free 10% recovery boost and completely ignoring the rest, which was the whole point of the revamp in the first place. They wanted it to be more than something that was just....there. Now you actually have some options, and feeding is a much more prominent aspect than before. (Which, you know, is the quintessential feature of all vampires whether sunlight turns them to dust or makes them glitter.)

Even if you never slot a single vampire skill on your bar, it still feels much more vampire than the current model.

Universe

No

Well like other players I left my feedback here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/522294/pts-update-26-feedback-thread-for-vampire-werewolf/p1

ZOS seem to ignore most of the feedback given in that discussion...
Creating a new discussion for feedback is of no use.
Curing Vampirism is now the priority , but I will wait until Update 26 launch date.

Dracane

No

Unfortunately no. For me, it is worse than before. If it wasn't for the massive cost increase, I would still use it more or less though. It is not worse in every way, yet the negative overshadows the good.

technohic

Yes, BUT

I can make it work and plan to use it; but I think they could have done a little better by trading giving a free weapon and spell damage buff out of mist/invisibility and giving invisibility while sprinting in exchange for severely reducing the cost increase or eliminating it.

Tessitura

Yes, BUT

So I actually like a lot of the ideas here, its better then what vampire was in my opinion. Has a lot of fun tools, and even despite the weirdness of growing more ugly as we feed instead of less, which goes against the usual grain of Elder Scrolls vampire, I still like the idea of growing stronger the more we feed and gaining passives. The visuals are not as impressive as the npc ones but they are good enough, plus I really like that people respond to you being a vamp now. Running away, guards attacking, people not talking so you have to hypnotize them... All fund and good stuff.

Now onto the "but' part of this.... It still needs work and attention, numbers need adjustments, and I honestly believe it would benefit from having a gap closer attached to one of its abilities... Personally think Eviscerate is the best option for this. Blood Frenzy is one of the most interesting skills here for me, I know a lot of people don't like this one, but I do. Trading your own blood for power is just classic blood magic to me and I love it. But the skill gap to use this is really high, which normally I am all for but this can just be frustrating at times with how harsh it can get. Maybe bring its base cost down some? The ult still as a animation lock on it that basically stuns you and Hypnotize and it's morphes still probably need soem adjustments to what it considers "Looking at"

All and all, I like the direction, and will enjoy this new skill line, but it does need work, and with ZoS's history on that, it does not inspire a lot of hope. Like, necromancer is still waiting on a solution to stalking Blastbones. So it could be a long time before some of these issues are addressed and I don't like that.

SGT_Courtney

No, BUT

Let Vampires spend some time on the ash heap just like Werewolves did.

Universe

No

SGT_Courtney wrote: »

Let Vampires spend some time on the ash heap just like Werewolves did.

Just because Werewolves were weak in the past doesn't mean that it should happen to other aspects of the game.
This is a narrow point of view...nerf just BECAUSE.

ZOS should strive to make builds and different playstyles viable, but not ruin something because other playstyle was worse at some point.

ShadowHvo

No

Glurin wrote: »

ShadowHvo wrote: »

This revamp utterly ruined the vampire for PvE, and even worse for stamina characters.

It is a giant penalty for little gain. What a shame.

I wish the old vampire skill-line would remain, at least it was useful.

The only thing they "ruined" was everyone defaulting to taking it for a free 10% recovery boost and completely ignoring the rest, which was the whole point of the revamp in the first place. They wanted it to be more than something that was just....there. Now you actually have some options, and feeding is a much more prominent aspect than before. (Which, you know, is the quintessential feature of all vampires whether sunlight turns them to dust or makes them glitter.)

Even if you never slot a single vampire skill on your bar, it still feels much more vampire than the current model.

I disagree.

It feels like a hollywood vampire, not an elder scrolls vampire.

Vampirism is a duality in strength and weakness, not some sort of magicka lycanthrope as so many seems to believe it is. This new revamp is utterly useless for stamina character, as the abilities provide nothing - and while the passives would be good enough, it cannot even be considered with the immense penalties attached.

Stamina characters are effectively trading 100% health regen, 20% fire weakness, 12% increased ability cost ACROSS THE BOARD. for 50% reduced sprint cost and 30% reduced damage taken under certain thresholds.

That is not even remotely comparable.

Was the old vampire skill-line balanced? No. It wasnt. But all they had to do, was to include it more severely into the justice system.

Instead they gutted the vampire, ruined the long standing and unique mechanic to how Vampires feed and function in lore, and they're pretending it is good and useful to everyone.

This revamp will satisfy nobody but the mundane quester, the passive visitor who checks out the game once or twice. Us, the long standing veterans, are yet again punished for our blind loyalty in a company that truly will never deserve it again.

I only ever played ESO, and followed its entire life cycle because of my love for TES vampirism, so excuse me for massively disagreeing with your misguided opinion of how vampirism should be treated in the elder scrolls universe.

TheInfernalRage

No

1. I still have no idea why being a vampire increases your ability cost. Can anyone point to me the lore related to it?
2. How can a vampire of the highest order lack health regeneration?
3. Nerf to Frenzy is over the top and shows the devs have no sense of direction (again).
4. When you strike an enemy with your bloody hands, why is that magic damage instead of physical? Lore?
5. Nerf to Frenzy... lazy ***!

Derra

No

I wouldn´t even know where to begin a fair critique of the new vampire skillline.

I just don´t.

Nothing works together.
You get punished even when not utilizing anything - why?
It´s just a hot mess.

Someone explain to me why a player would want to be a vamp. It does nothing better than a non vampire. The only thing it lets you do is use a reskinned necro ult on every class with either excessive cost or massive drawbacks on using any other skills.
Vamp offers nothing.
It tries to mimic werewolf - which it shouldn´t imo - and fails even at that by offering a toolkit that´s incomplete and most of the times plain worse than not using it would be.

Glurin

Yes, BUT

TheInfernalRage wrote: »

1. I still have no idea why being a vampire increases your ability cost. Can anyone point to me the lore related to it?
2. How can a vampire of the highest order lack health regeneration?
3. Nerf to Frenzy is over the top and shows the devs have no sense of direction (again).
4. When you strike an enemy with your bloody hands, why is that magic damage instead of physical? Lore?
5. Nerf to Frenzy... lazy ***!

1. There isn't any. It's strictly a mechanic introduced to try and give a little more impact to vampirism. It's fine as long as it stays manageable without turning them into magicka werewolves.

2. I think it's pretty much the trade off for the fact that sunlight based weaknesses just aren't practical in this environment. This one is really only a problem at stage 4 though, where health regen just goes away completely, and even then it's mainly all about making sure you've got a heal slotted for when you stub your toe too many times running to the next objective.

3. The direction on Frenzy is crystal clear. It's not supposed to be something you just toggle on at the beginning of combat and leave on through the whole fight. It's meant for short bursts. As far as the nerf being over the top is concerned, that part may be true. Simple enough to fix though. Wouldn't need much more than a base cost adjustment or a little tweak to how quickly the cost increases while active.

4. It's supposed to be a kind of blood magic strike, but it does feel more like you're just scratching at someone's face with your fingernails.