So...Vampire is now a playstyle, and not a Passive, it seems.

Kel

Too many drawbacks to vampire.

Extra fire damage

Loss of health regen

Fairly sizable cost increase to non-vamp skills


Anything outside of a RP vampire build just doesn't seem worth it now.
(Nothing wrong with RP, btw...)

Vevvev

Kel wrote: »

Too many drawbacks to vampire.

Extra fire damage

Loss of health regen

Fairly sizable cost increase to non-vamp skills


Anything outside of a RP vampire build just doesn't seem worth it now.
(Nothing wrong with RP, btw...)

I know several RPers that are not exactly happy about the vampire feeding reversal due to the fact it really messes with the established lore in TES games after Bethesda implemented the ability to drink blood. Oblivion allowed players to actually drink blood from NPCs and so they decided to implement the vampire stages we know today to make you want to. The more blood you drink the more human you become and this feeding reversal flies in the face of that. Instead not drinking blood keeps you perfectly normal and drinking blood turns you into a hideous monster people fear. Ruins the whole aspect that made Elder Scrolls vampires appealing to roleplay as.

D0PAMINE

You can't blame people for using Vampirism for the passives. Undeath was perfect on tanks.

TropicsDelight

JMadFour wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS went out of their way to turn Vampire from being just a regen passive, to being an entire playstyle that you need to commit to and build for. The skill cost increase seems to be a way to encourage actually playing as a Vampire, rather than just getting a bite, putting two points into a passive and then ignoring everything else.

Unfortunately ZOS buckled under the pressure of the massive forum complaining and reduced the class skill costs AND the vampire skill cost reductions. I am not sure now how viable some of the more costly vampire skills are actually going to be with the nerf to the cost reduction for those vampire skills. I had wanted to play a fairly heavy true vampire build using blood mist quite a bit.

The vampire skill cost reduction nerf that ZOS implemented to placate the enraged masses of people who don't actually want to PLAY a vampire has likely caused that to be far less viable. I fear ZOS nerfed efforts to actually be a vampire for people who will ultimately drop the skill line regardless of the easing of the non-vampire skill costs because it is not META..

Glurin

Don't blame us. All we wanted was to make sure it didn't turn into a magicka werewolf. Playing as a vampire means more than just throwing a bunch of skills labeled "vampire" on your bar.

TropicsDelight

Glurin wrote: »

Playing as a vampire means more than just throwing a bunch of skills labeled "vampire" on your bar.

It should at the least be a blend of vampire skills and other skills. If it is purely a couple passives and zero vampire skills people are running the system is broken in the completely opposite way.

I am hopeful that I will get a healthy amount of use out of both vampire and necromancer skills and figure out a way to blend them into a functional playstyle. I am not sure right now looking at things if that is possible. But one thing I know for certain is that atm my vampire character is running 0 vampire skills as there is not a single one that warrants taking up a slot or casting over something else. My character is a vampire in looks and the occasional feeding to stay at the stage 2/3 level and a couple passives that might as well be a armor buff. I am hopeful the changes can allow it to morph into something more.

bmnoble

True I mainly used Vampire for the Undeath passive on my tank and the extra regen passive.

The active skills they had were not really good enough to take up a slot on my skill bars, I use to use the bat ultimate quite a lot.

Until some genius on the ZOS combat team decided to rework the ultimate cost to the point where it erased all the cost reduction you could get from being a stage 4 vampire.

The ultimate ended up costing slightly more than it would have at base cost before the changes but in stage 4, before I would back bar it while keeping warhorn on the main bar of my tank, once they ended up costing the same after the changes I just stopped using the vampire ult all together.

Still willing to play around with the changes once it goes live to decide whether I will keep the character a vampire or not.

I would not have minded the increase in normal skill cost as much if they had left ultimate cost untouched, basically shoe horns you into staying stage 1 if you want to use other ultimate's besides the new vampire one.

Glurin

TropicsDelight wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Playing as a vampire means more than just throwing a bunch of skills labeled "vampire" on your bar.

It should at the least be a blend of vampire skills and other skills. If it is purely a couple passives and zero vampire skills people are running the system is broken in the completely opposite way.

Actually I think the reversal of the feeding system helps a great deal there. Even if you don't have any of the active skills slotted, the fact that you have to feed now to get access to those passives makes it feel far more vampiric than before. Definitely a step up from the old system where in order to become more vampire you had to, well, not be one. Can't just ignore it and get all the power anyway anymore. Sure, that may not be how it works in Oblivion, but frankly other than the sunlight damage, there was nothing there that made me want to feed in Oblivion. (Ok, the skin condition too. )

Austinseph1

Honestly I like playing the class as a whole, vampire is too stuck to classes that have strong self HOT's which shows a fair lack of balance and foresight for the skill like itself. If you want vampire to be something you play into, it needs more skills that allow you to play on it's weaknesses and not rely on the 2-3 classes that it could actually use it effectively. They want you to treat vampire as a class of its own but it isn't implemented well enough to do that on classes that don't have the class heals to do so. It's a poor execution tbh. It before it was unrestricting, now it's too restricting to be attractive unless you are still obsessed with Twilight.

Mr_Walker

As it always should have been.

HorrorShow

Extremely weird to have an expansion themed around vampires and use it as a chance to make as few people as possible want to play as a vampire.

These devs seem to be all about 'subverting expectations'.

idk

I think players will be fine losing the sustain passives if they do not like the rest of the vampire line. It is only 10% and really not even a full 10% for many due to the way such buffs stack. If someone struggles with sustain without the vampire passives then they probably struggled with them.

Olen_Mikko

Most of my chars are vamps purely because passives. Now i'll have to get rid of vampirism.

And i think it's good. No more easy perk and regen / dmg boost.

VoxAdActa

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

Bekkael wrote: »

Maybe.

But since singleplayer TES games are dead and never coming back, it's either play ESO or nothing.

Wtf bro? are you living under a rock or something?

I think this player is expressing skepticism wrt whether or not we'll ever actually see TESVI, since as of the most recent Bethesda communication on the subject, it was still "years" away.

I, for one, agree. I believe we'll see TESVI just slightly after we see Half-Life 3.

I hope I'm wrong.

MartiniDaniels

Rake wrote: »

vampire is now unplayablestyle for any stamina

Why? Everybody is saying NMA cost increase "is easily manageable" and "barely noticeable", but 8% of stage 3 (Improved Undeath) and 5% of stage 2 (strike from shadows) are somehow making vampire dead?

Mesmerize - unblockable magicka stun, technically better then turn evil if you have access to minor protection and minor endurance (and almost everybody has access to them one way or another).

Mist - now can be used offensively and as magicka blocking, so less necessity in S&B blocking. Yes, you can't block cast, but your rally can gather stacks and mist cancelling is good way to get whopping extra 300 WD.

Blood Frenzy - i'm not sure if there will be empty ability slot for it, but if you can find one, that is nice to increase your burst.

And what's most important, in medium we have +15% WD, so those 300 and 660 will be higher. And they will be even higher on stamDK and stamplar.

And vampire will be even tankier now with undeath which works all the way from 100% HP (if it works as described) and reduced fire susceptibility.

While stage4 is too extreme, stage2 and stage3 look interesting. But of course without real world testing and build adaptation it is hard to say.

Dusk_Coven

Looks like it's in keeping with their stated focus on Power Fantasy and Play Pattern.

They added powers hoping to define the Vampire power fantasy and worked on the experience of being a vampire in more than just a combat context.
They looked at the play pattern of people exploiting the extra skill line just for the passive and decided to take some action on that.

Uryel

Well, took them 5 uears or so, but they FINALLY made vampires interesting.

I'm gonna miss my simple life drain with almost no drawback on my one vampire character (out of 10), I might have to redesign her a bit... But this update might give me a reason to turn a fgew other characters into vampires.

The most stupid thing about vampires until know was the minor benefit for almost now drawback, meaning it was the default go-to line for anyone in need of some sustain, and also meaning that the world was plagued with fugly stage 4 everywhere just for that. A skill line that benefits everything and everyone imparts no choices, and thus is a bad mechanic in the first place.

Now, what I REALLY want to know is, are we finally getting a different key for feeding and for the Blade of Woe ? Can we remap those ? Not being able to has been a pain in th bottom for way too long.

Bekkael

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

Wtf bro? are you living under a rock or something?

It's actually 'WTF, sis', since I'm a lady, not a guy.

Vevvev wrote: »

Think he means they're no longer getting updates. I don't know.

No, she didn't exactly mean that either.

VoxAdActa wrote: »

I think this player is expressing skepticism wrt whether or not we'll ever actually see TESVI, since as of the most recent Bethesda communication on the subject, it was still "years" away.

I, for one, agree. I believe we'll see TESVI just slightly after we see Half-Life 3.

I hope I'm wrong.

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. Anyone that possesses any deductive reasoning skills can clearly intimate that as long as ESO is making money, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that a singleplayer TES game will be made to compete with it. There was no other reason for them to stop making singleplayer TES games that were so popular and sold so well, except for this MMO. It's the same fate that befell the KOTOR franchise when EA decided it wanted a big Star Wars MMO for continuous cash-flow, instead of allowing BioWare to make KOTOR3.

That's what happens when corporate overlords control games, and not the creative minds that actually make them. C'est la vie.

Foefaller

Vevvev wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

Too many drawbacks to vampire.

Extra fire damage

Loss of health regen

Fairly sizable cost increase to non-vamp skills


Anything outside of a RP vampire build just doesn't seem worth it now.
(Nothing wrong with RP, btw...)

I know several RPers that are not exactly happy about the vampire feeding reversal due to the fact it really messes with the established lore in TES games after Bethesda implemented the ability to drink blood. Oblivion allowed players to actually drink blood from NPCs and so they decided to implement the vampire stages we know today to make you want to. The more blood you drink the more human you become and this feeding reversal flies in the face of that. Instead not drinking blood keeps you perfectly normal and drinking blood turns you into a hideous monster people fear. Ruins the whole aspect that made Elder Scrolls vampires appealing to roleplay as.

Except that the in-game lore book Immortal Blood implies that this is an aspect unique to Cyrodillic (and with Skyrim, Volkihar) vampires, and *not* a universal thing. I remember lore nuts complaining about how vamps in Skyrim were implemented because they didn't get any sort of freezing breath or move-through-the-ice abilities like the lore mentions, and had the same "stronger with less feeding" mechanic they were led to believe was unique to Cyrodill.

Lotus781

The coolest thing is the new animation for feeding but i wont be going past stage one so i'll never see it.

TheSeraphim

"We replaced people grabbing Vampire just for a passive with people grabbing Vampire just for a toggle, WE DID IT TEAM!"

Vevvev

Foefaller wrote: »

Except that the in-game lore book Immortal Blood implies that this is an aspect unique to Cyrodillic (and with Skyrim, Volkihar) vampires, and *not* a universal thing. I remember lore nuts complaining about how vamps in Skyrim were implemented because they didn't get any sort of freezing breath or move-through-the-ice abilities like the lore mentions, and had the same "stronger with less feeding" mechanic they were led to believe was unique to Cyrodill.

What made the Order vampires special is that the deal with Clavicus Vile allowed them when well fed to blend into society perfectly. Volkihars even while well fed were burned in the sunlight and couldn't perfectly blend in like the Cyrodellic vampires could.

tomofhyrule

Bekkael wrote: »

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. Anyone that possesses any deductive reasoning skills can clearly intimate that as long as ESO is making money, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that a singleplayer TES game will be made to compete with it. There was no other reason for them to stop making singleplayer TES games that were so popular and sold so well, except for this MMO. It's the same fate that befell the KOTOR franchise when EA decided it wanted a big Star Wars MMO for continuous cash-flow, instead of allowing BioWare to make KOTOR3.

That's what happens when corporate overlords control games, and not the creative minds that actually make them. C'est la vie.

Well, this is depressing.

I know I can't be the only person who finally caved and got ESO since they're taking their sweet time with TESVI. They did announce it though, so going back on that is kinda poor form - and the announcement was made long after ESO was a thing. I get that they're doing that new space IP first and then they wanted to focus on TESVI, so I wasn't even expecting anything before 2021 at the earliest... I think the latest rumors are putting it in 2024, at which point ESO will be 10 years old.

And if these forums are anything to go by, everyone will have left by then. Heck, with the amount of complaining on the forums, I'm surprised that there's anyone in game with me right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun with ESO, but I'd definitely prefer a single player game. It's also not like people don't go back to games - I've been itching to replay Skyrim as old as it is since it was so much fun.

But I will say if they only cared about money, then there's one small thing they could start doing: everyone knows the casual-came-from-Skyrim crowd are the ones who'll spend the most on cosmetics and post their wishlists in the Crown Store forum...so why don't they ever release some of the stuff we've been asking for for ages?

Sylvermynx

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Bekkael wrote: »

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. Anyone that possesses any deductive reasoning skills can clearly intimate that as long as ESO is making money, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that a singleplayer TES game will be made to compete with it. There was no other reason for them to stop making singleplayer TES games that were so popular and sold so well, except for this MMO. It's the same fate that befell the KOTOR franchise when EA decided it wanted a big Star Wars MMO for continuous cash-flow, instead of allowing BioWare to make KOTOR3.

That's what happens when corporate overlords control games, and not the creative minds that actually make them. C'est la vie.

Well, this is depressing.

I know I can't be the only person who finally caved and got ESO since they're taking their sweet time with TESVI. They did announce it though, so going back on that is kinda poor form - and the announcement was made long after ESO was a thing. I get that they're doing that new space IP first and then they wanted to focus on TESVI, so I wasn't even expecting anything before 2021 at the earliest... I think the latest rumors are putting it in 2024, at which point ESO will be 10 years old.

And if these forums are anything to go by, everyone will have left by then. Heck, with the amount of complaining on the forums, I'm surprised that there's anyone in game with me right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun with ESO, but I'd definitely prefer a single player game. It's also not like people don't go back to games - I've been itching to replay Skyrim as old as it is since it was so much fun.

But I will say if they only cared about money, then there's one small thing they could start doing: everyone knows the casual-came-from-Skyrim crowd are the ones who'll spend the most on cosmetics and post their wishlists in the Crown Store forum...so why don't they ever release some of the stuff we've been asking for for ages?

Eh, I'll probably be dead (or at least unable to play games) by the time TES VI lands (if it ever does). Yeah, I like ESO - but I LOVED the SPMR games.... I don't have enough hours left in my life to equal the hours I spent in Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim.

/grumble.

FatFred

Destroying dark creatures is what I am doing for a living .😏

Foefaller

Vevvev wrote: »

Foefaller wrote: »

Except that the in-game lore book Immortal Blood implies that this is an aspect unique to Cyrodillic (and with Skyrim, Volkihar) vampires, and *not* a universal thing. I remember lore nuts complaining about how vamps in Skyrim were implemented because they didn't get any sort of freezing breath or move-through-the-ice abilities like the lore mentions, and had the same "stronger with less feeding" mechanic they were led to believe was unique to Cyrodill.

What made the Order vampires special is that the deal with Clavicus Vile allowed them when well fed to blend into society perfectly. Volkihars even while well fed were burned in the sunlight and couldn't perfectly blend in like the Cyrodellic vampires could.

...untill Skyrim, it seems, when suddenly not even the highest stage of vanpirism caused sun damage.

And the vampires of the Illiac Bay also seemed to work differently from Oblivion; You were not outed as a vampire, though your transformation did make you unrecognizable to who you were before. They were also affected by holy places, something no other playable strain has had to deal with, and you had to kill a living creature at least once per day or you'd stop regenerating stat, and you *didn't* become stronger as a tradeoff.

So, I don't believe that becoming stronger by holding off on feeding is an universal trait of all supposedly 100+ strains of Tamrellic vampires.

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun

Bekkael wrote: »

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. Anyone that possesses any deductive reasoning skills can clearly intimate that as long as ESO is making money, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that a singleplayer TES game will be made to compete with it.

That's kinda ignoring the fact that they are making another singleplayer TES game though. FFXIV making money didn't stop other FFs from being made. SWTOR making money didn't stop Fallen Order from getting made. CoD: Warzone making money won't stop the next CoD from being made. Hell, ESO making money doesn't stop Skyrim from getting constantly re-released/remastered.

You think only one game from an IP can be active at any given time? Why? As long as the experience is different, the games aren't automatically cannibalizing each other just because they both have, "The Elder Scrolls" somewhere on the box.

There was no other reason for them to stop making singleplayer TES games that were so popular and sold so well, except for this MMO.

They make other games too. Yes, TES is popular. So is Fallout. As these games get bigger, it takes more time to make them. That's all. Yeah, it's been a minute since Skyrim came out. And the gap between Fallout 4 and 5 will probably be even bigger than that. It is what it is.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I know I can't be the only person who finally caved and got ESO since they're taking their sweet time with TESVI. They did announce it though, so going back on that is kinda poor form - and the announcement was made long after ESO was a thing.

They haven't gone back on anything. They said back when they initially teased TES6 that it wasn't coming until after Starfield drops. I don't know why people are acting like that's some kind of revelation or that that Bethesda suddenly decided that they stopped liking money and cancelled the game outright.

Bekkael

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Bekkael wrote: »

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. Anyone that possesses any deductive reasoning skills can clearly intimate that as long as ESO is making money, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that a singleplayer TES game will be made to compete with it. There was no other reason for them to stop making singleplayer TES games that were so popular and sold so well, except for this MMO. It's the same fate that befell the KOTOR franchise when EA decided it wanted a big Star Wars MMO for continuous cash-flow, instead of allowing BioWare to make KOTOR3.

That's what happens when corporate overlords control games, and not the creative minds that actually make them. C'est la vie.

Well, this is depressing.

I know I can't be the only person who finally caved and got ESO since they're taking their sweet time with TESVI. They did announce it though, so going back on that is kinda poor form - and the announcement was made long after ESO was a thing. I get that they're doing that new space IP first and then they wanted to focus on TESVI, so I wasn't even expecting anything before 2021 at the earliest... I think the latest rumors are putting it in 2024, at which point ESO will be 10 years old.

And if these forums are anything to go by, everyone will have left by then. Heck, with the amount of complaining on the forums, I'm surprised that there's anyone in game with me right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun with ESO, but I'd definitely prefer a single player game. It's also not like people don't go back to games - I've been itching to replay Skyrim as old as it is since it was so much fun.

But I will say if they only cared about money, then there's one small thing they could start doing: everyone knows the casual-came-from-Skyrim crowd are the ones who'll spend the most on cosmetics and post their wishlists in the Crown Store forum...so why don't they ever release some of the stuff we've been asking for for ages?

Yes, it really is depressing. I was deadset against ever playing ESO for a long time, because I knew if it was successful, we probably wouldn't ever get another real TES title. But since no new games seemed to be coming from BGS except Fallout (and we see how those have turned out), and my other favorite RPG maker, BioWare, were also declining, I gave in and started on ESO. I actually left ESO, then came back, then left it... It's like the most dysfunctional relationship, ever, since I'm in love with singleplayer TES, but I keep settling for sloppy seconds ESO. 🤦‍♀️

I wish I actually believed we would ever get another Elder Scrolls title, but I don’t believe anything Pete Hines or Todd Howard claim anymore.

At least the people who like gritty, dystopian RPGs have Cyberpunk to look forward to. Unfortunately, that’s not my kind of game at all. ☹️ My kingdom for a well done, high fantasy RPG! Just one more great one before I die and I’ll be content...just one.

Bekkael

@Skykaiser_Ọlọrun

No, I don't think only 1 game from an IP can be made at a time, but clearly Zenimax Media know that ESO would empty out if there were a new TES title. I only play this game to kill time waiting for another TES, and I know I'm not the only one. So, the owners of BGS aren't going to let them make another game in this franchise unless/until ESO fails, and I expect the same thing for Fallout, now it has its own MMO-style game. It's just that simple.

Nova_J

JMadFour wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS went out of their way to turn Vampire from being just a regen passive, to being an entire playstyle that you need to commit to and build for. The skill cost increase seems to be a way to encourage actually playing as a Vampire, rather than just getting a bite, putting two points into a passive and then ignoring everything else.

Naturally, the vast majority of the Vampire players, who were only Vampires for the cheap, easy min/max sustain passive (and the cheap easy damage reduction passive, for Tanks) are not pleased by this. I can see how they'd be upset with seemingly getting the easy sustain basically taken from them. They'll need to find other ways to make that up.

Personally, I am more interested in seeing how people will make the new Vampire work in all manners of content.

The reality is, most people who have Vampire characters only had them for the Regen and/or Undeath Passives. Not really interested in actually playing as a Vampire, just throwing a couple skill points for min/maxing. ZOS seems to be explicitly discouraging that with this new Vampire skill line. This sentiment seemingly even made it into quest dialogue for the new Vampire Intro quest, if what I am reading is correct.

People will complain for a bit. A LOT of people will cure their Vampires and write them off as pure trash because min/max. Some folks will make the new Vampire work with specific Vampire builds for all content. Maybe the new Vampire won't ever be allowed into Vet Trials or whatever. Maybe they will. We'll see.

In the long run, Vampire will have a significantly smaller, but significantly more devoted playerbase, imo.

When the new vamp changes drop it's going to be a [snip] show. The changes they made are a hot mess lol. I dont know why people are so happy with mediocrity, but they focused waaaaay to much on the "we dont want people playing for passives" narrative, You guys are acting like it wasn't a complete choice and was required to be vamped out lol. Most of the endgame players I know dont even use vampires, the ones that do only do it because they love vamps and think they are cool.
The new changes are going to make vamps so damn stifling, I dont like that they've traded build flexibility and diversity for this limited playstyle.
They might as well rename this into the new Bloodfiend skill line lol that's basically what vamps will be in Greymoore.

[Edit for censor bypass.]