THe PTS died for me when they announced no more changes to vampires before 6.04 even dropped

nk125x

@ZOS_GinaBruno, please answer a simple question - What is the point of feedback if you are going to totally ignore the last 2 weeks of feedback.

ATM The new vamp skill line is in a bad place, only has 2 usable skills - Mist-form and maybe Memorize (if it worked as advertised). Eviscerate might be used by magblades as it is cheaper than the current spamable.

At a rough guess there is going to be a large majority of people not using your "BIG SELLING" point for the new chapter. If you did a straw poll of your customers you will find that the current vamp skill line is preferred to the mishmash of rubbish you are about to dump on us, your customers!

Vevvev

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason. I don't know what they're expecting to be honest because when it hits live the outcry is going to get bigger when people get their hands on it and quickly run into the issues we did on the PTS. I know the forums have a reputation of being the place that people go to complain, but when you have people testing it saying "Yeah, this doesn't work." or "This doesn't even feel like a vampire." you know you got problems.

nk125x

Vevvev wrote: »

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason. I don't know what they're expecting to be honest because when it hits live the outcry is going to get bigger when people get their hands on it and quickly run into the issues we did on the PTS. I know the forums have a reputation of being the place that people go to complain, but when you have people testing it saying "Yeah, this doesn't work." or "This doesn't even feel like a vampire." you know you got problems.

What got me is them saying that they wont change anything even though they still have open feedback chains and 2 weeks left.

Well if they aint going to take our feedback what is the point of a pts?

Vevvev

At this point its just finding bugs.

Thing about the bugs is the large person bug is still there and my character's jaw continues getting messed up by something.

Its getting annoying to have to bar swap to return to normal size every single time this happens, and to mount up to fix my character's jaw. If they won't fix vampirisim before live then I hope they get these things fixed, because if they don't its going to be an even worse experience.

Lotus781

nk125x wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason. I don't know what they're expecting to be honest because when it hits live the outcry is going to get bigger when people get their hands on it and quickly run into the issues we did on the PTS. I know the forums have a reputation of being the place that people go to complain, but when you have people testing it saying "Yeah, this doesn't work." or "This doesn't even feel like a vampire." you know you got problems.

What got me is them saying that they wont change anything even though they still have open feedback chains and 2 weeks left.

Well if they aint going to take our feedback what is the point of a pts?

Your bug finders, why pay someone todo it when you will all do it for free.

Baharoth77

I like that they are making changes, I like that they are expanding on the Vamp, I like the new feed mechanic, it makes more sense to me honestly. I like the new melee move and appreciate all your hard work, That being said....

What I don't like is the Kiss Curse concept. I am so tired of hearing kiss curse I could nearly vomit. You say you are trying to help lower skill players and lessen the skill gap. Then you add blood frenzy and a huge health cost per second cant be healed by others mechanic to make vampires work?? Cost increases to normal skills on top of fire damage and 100 percent health regen??
All of this on something as important to a lot of people as the vampire skill line?? I think that is what people are up in arms for. People grow very attached to their character it can be for role playing, combat style, whatever. Upending that because of somebodies vision especially when the changes have been met with huge disapproval is kind of upsetting.

We love your game, but we love our characters too. Perhaps a less extreme change would have been met with better love and affection.

Trying to stay positive, love a few of the vamp changes, Really dislike others. Once again we do appreciate you guys, We just don't like our toons and builds getting screwed up.

technohic

I think reserving the last couple weeks for bug cleanup only is a good idea. Problem is the bugs tend to make it through anyway. And they didn't really give that as the reason. Pretty much just said they disagree with the feedback and want a downside. I'm personally ok with that but realize I'm not the majority nor do I really have a deep concern about being a vamp for lore or immersion

Kidgangster101

What they should do is tie the cost increase to non vampire moves to blood frenzy.

While blood frenzy is active your non vampire moves cost 20% more. It gets rid of a skill gap because you can turn it on and off as needed. It keeps it nice and simple. It gives a lot of weapon/spell damage so it does need a downside, but this doesn't kill vampire as a whole.

Elvenheart

I wish they would reverse the graphics for vampire stages so that you look most human at stage 4 when you are well fed. Or, I wish they would implement a pale skin/bright blue eyes a la Underworld style vamps 🙂. Or at least a plain mortal skin option that reverts you to your prevamp look. And I liked the idea of tying the strength of blood frenzy to the vamp stages. It would make sense that a power like that would get stronger the higher stage you are. And I do wish some of the graphics for the effects were toned down… I hate when I try to hypnotize everyone that I hear an explosion and then a large red and purple cloud explodes all around me. That seems rather unsubtle and should alert guards when I’m using it on a merchant. “Kyne preserve us, a vampire!”

Rake

Zos is holding their ground
They say take it or leave it.

I wonder how many people will take it.

Glurin

nk125x wrote: »

If you did a straw poll of your customers you will find that the current vamp skill line is preferred to the mishmash of rubbish you are about to dump on us, your customers!

Well of course the old one is "preferred". A huge portion of the people who have it took it by default for the free regen passive. That's one of the things ZoS set out to fix. It's not in the least bit surprising to see people saying they are going to cure themselves after that goes away.

Paradisius

I believe that in terms of skill functionality, they are hard set on what they think would fit their idea of a Vampire.
They reduced the ability cost increase in 6.0.3 so its a good step forward, its overall less oppressive in terms of using normal abilities. But in the process they lowered Vampiric cost reduction without changing Vampire skill values (As the values were balanced around the 10/20/30/40 progression) So now the Vampiric abilities cost too much to even consider using unless you are a stage 4 Vampire, at Stage 1 Eviscerate is a whopping 2.1k health per cast, Blood frenzy is 1.8k health per second with a +20% cost increase per second without a limit. Mistform toggle is ~1k magicka per second, Blood Scion is over 300 ulti. And the funniest one is Vampiric Drain is the cost of my AOE dps abilities (little over 3k). This makes stage 4 a must to even use these abilities.

I can live with them having their own hard-pressed view of the Vampire, but at least make the skills be cheap enough to even consider using outside of stage 4. Prior to this change alot of feedback I saw was "Ability cost increase is too much, high stage Vampirism must use Vampire abilities and thats limiting" where as, ironically, its now "The Vampire abilities cost too much, in order to even consider using them I have to be a max stage Vampire, this is very limiting"

Elvenheart

My vampire character has no plans to “cure” herself of the gift, no matter what. She was so determined to be a vampire as soon as possible that she did the solo quest at a low level before they fixed the scaling issue, using a bow and kiting techniques to get through it. She’ll use what vamp skills she can as a stamina nightblade (poor thing), and just do her best to make the best of things while hoping for a brighter (but no direct sunlight) tomorrow! 🌞

nk125x

Glurin wrote: »

nk125x wrote: »

If you did a straw poll of your customers you will find that the current vamp skill line is preferred to the mishmash of rubbish you are about to dump on us, your customers!

Well of course the old one is "preferred". A huge portion of the people who have it took it by default for the free regen passive. That's one of the things ZoS set out to fix. It's not in the least bit surprising to see people saying they are going to cure themselves after that goes away.

So by your argument, surely they are going to "fix" the undaunted and fighters guild skill lines as people just use passives in those skill lines

OmniDo

They didn't make Vampire more fun to play, they made it more irritating, and mathematically inferior to all non-vampires.
Like...what was the point?

The reasoning for becoming a Vampire was always the same:
They're immortal FFS.
If you're not immortal, then you're mortal, which means inevitably, your character will die and be forced to move on against their will or before their own chosen time.

And yes, immortal undead are going to have perks, and extra regen only made sense.
I'm not going to embrace Vampirism if the outcome means I will become weaker.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

But of course, all perks need a disadvantage.
They already had one: Increased damage from Fire.

But because of power creep (something that has nothing to do with anything but ZOS Management decisions), and player skill (which is inevitable in a static and closed system), those disadvantages were nullified.

ZOS didn't make a round world where the day and night cycles were different across the lands.
ZOS didn't make their retconned vampires vulnerable to sunlight
ZOS didn't really didn't think the whole thing through, which inevitably led to the outcome we currently have.

So what did they do?
They:

1. Slapped on disadvantages that made no sense
2. Nerfed the characters maximum capabilities (which is asinine in and of itself, since Vampires do not grow weaker with age and experience, but quite the opposite...)
3. Retconned the entire Vampire experience so that it is completely backwards to their original staple (stage mechanics)

It would be a highly improbable stretch to even conclude that any proper critical thinking or analysis was done here.
But it wouldn't be the first time, and it likely won't be the last.
I guess we will all do what we've always done: Adapt and overcome.
Sometimes though, as JOSHUA once said: "Strange Game. The only winning move is not to play."

Xebov

Vevvev wrote: »

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason.

The reason is very obvious. Every bigger patch when stuff changes ppl hop on the PTS. Test it for 10mins, or make up their mind based on something someone posted on reddit or yt, and give some feedback. Its that way for the bigger chunk of feedback. Then they draw a picture like its the end of the world and ppl will flee the game if it goes live. There is no point in making fine adjustments based on that feedback. Its way better to release it to live and see what happens when ppl are getting custom to it.

In case you wonder, yes it also works that way for software development as ppl tend to like the things they know more than things they dont know yet.

Vea

Maybe they want to collect more data from pvp and bg too when the patch will go live and then make adjust a few week after release. I hope...

nk125x

Xebov wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason.

The reason is very obvious. Every bigger patch when stuff changes ppl hop on the PTS. Test it for 10mins, or make up their mind based on something someone posted on reddit or yt, and give some feedback. Its that way for the bigger chunk of feedback. Then they draw a picture like its the end of the world and ppl will flee the game if it goes live. There is no point in making fine adjustments based on that feedback. Its way better to release it to live and see what happens when ppl are getting custom to it.

In case you wonder, yes it also works that way for software development as ppl tend to like the things they know more than things they dont know yet.

Come on talk about the wild changes in Blood Frenzy , initially one morph increased the cost by 10% per sec - Next we know its 20% for both morphs, effectively making the skill unusable.

Vea

Xebov wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

They're standing their ground and won't make any changes till it hits live for some reason.

The reason is very obvious. Every bigger patch when stuff changes ppl hop on the PTS. Test it for 10mins, or make up their mind based on something someone posted on reddit or yt, and give some feedback. Its that way for the bigger chunk of feedback. Then they draw a picture like its the end of the world and ppl will flee the game if it goes live. There is no point in making fine adjustments based on that feedback. Its way better to release it to live and see what happens when ppl are getting custom to it.

In case you wonder, yes it also works that way for software development as ppl tend to like the things they know more than things they dont know yet.

Why ask for a feedback then? Some probably did what you said, but some of us tested for 20/30/40 hours. I just really hope they need to collect more data and then make some adjustment.

Xebov

Vea wrote: »

Why ask for a feedback then? Some probably did what you said, but some of us tested for 20/30/40 hours. I just really hope they need to collect more data and then make some adjustment.

Mostly to find bugs, unintended behaviour or unusable parts. The rest of the useable feedback will likely go into further observations. So for example, some ppl will say that skill x is unusable, so they can gatehr data in the weeks after the patch to see if this is realy the case and gather more specialized feedback around how it is actual used and what needs to be fine tuned.

I understand that some ppl are frustrated because they spend countless hours testingit, but there is little way around getting stuff into a live environment at some point to get a wider array of metrics and see what happens once ppl got used to it.

usmcjdking

Xebov wrote: »

Vea wrote: »

Why ask for a feedback then? Some probably did what you said, but some of us tested for 20/30/40 hours. I just really hope they need to collect more data and then make some adjustment.

Mostly to find bugs, unintended behaviour or unusable parts. The rest of the useable feedback will likely go into further observations. So for example, some ppl will say that skill x is unusable, so they can gatehr data in the weeks after the patch to see if this is realy the case and gather more specialized feedback around how it is actual used and what needs to be fine tuned.

I understand that some ppl are frustrated because they spend countless hours testingit, but there is little way around getting stuff into a live environment at some point to get a wider array of metrics and see what happens once ppl got used to it.

Thanks for stating what I was about to.

It's not that they don't listen, it's that the devs can't tune appropriate to very selective feedback. The Vamp feedback they have is an incredibly small sample size to work with - they need more data.

Vea

@xebov @usmcjdking I totally agree on that, they need more time and more data. This is my hope and I can understand they cant base the game balance on 30 peoples. I only hope they will continue to look at it, I will cure some and then I will see how they adjust.

DT-ARR

I realized it was game over the second i heard and saw that smug faced d.bag of a developer say, “yeah i nerfed youre favorite class” on the live stream.

Reminded me of trying to communicate with a social justice warrior. No amount of logic or reasoning can get through to them.

Seriously though...This entire patch reminds me of a 4th grade science project. The devs put the notes on a tri fold piece of cardboard with some ripped off clip art. All the adults know its *** but the kids worked really hard on it so it has to be released.

DT-ARR

(duplicate)

Vevvev

DT-ARR wrote: »

I realized it was game over the second i heard and saw that smug faced d.bag of a developer say, “yeah i nerfed youre favorite class” on the live stream.

Reminded me of trying to communicate with a social justice warrior. No amount of logic or reasoning can get through to them.

Seriously though...This entire patch reminds me of a 4th grade science project. The devs put the notes on a tri fold piece of cardboard with some ripped off clip art. All the adults know its *** but the kids worked really hard on it so it has to be released.

That's an interesting way at looking at things. I personally didn't like the back and forth between Gina and the guys when they talked about the -100% health regeneration, among a few other things. Came off as unprofessional to be honest and the lack of actually showing off the skills themselves was disappointing.

YandereGirlfriend

Xebov wrote: »

Vea wrote: »

Why ask for a feedback then? Some probably did what you said, but some of us tested for 20/30/40 hours. I just really hope they need to collect more data and then make some adjustment.

Mostly to find bugs, unintended behaviour or unusable parts. The rest of the useable feedback will likely go into further observations. So for example, some ppl will say that skill x is unusable, so they can gatehr data in the weeks after the patch to see if this is realy the case and gather more specialized feedback around how it is actual used and what needs to be fine tuned.

I understand that some ppl are frustrated because they spend countless hours testingit, but there is little way around getting stuff into a live environment at some point to get a wider array of metrics and see what happens once ppl got used to it.

Some things are blindingly obvious though, like the dumpstering of the Asylum Destro. Any development process that actually respected the feedback of its players would have walked that one back after the first week but instead we have seen literally nothing on this topic from any developer or PR spokesperson.

In their "advanced metrics" they'll soon see its usage drop to 0% but by that time it will be well past too late to do anything about it. We know how they roll, once something is dumpstered it stays that way and usually never comes back.

nk125x

Do you know what I would like @ZOS_GinaBruno and her cohorts to do on one of the live streams - Run Vet content with the new stuff they have added to the game. Lets see them survive a vet boss using all the vamp skills and the Asylum Destro.

We could all take bets on their survival time... i'm less than 10 secs

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun

Xebov wrote: »

Vea wrote: »

Why ask for a feedback then?

Mostly to find bugs

No, they made an entirely separate Bug Report thread for that. The feedback thread was for feedback.

Elvenheart

NPC: “Kyne preserve us, a vampire!” <cowers in fear>
PVP Player: “Hah, a vampire!” <equips inferno staff>
Vet dungeon and trial groups: “Oh lord, a vampire!” <kicks vampire from group> 🧛‍♂️

redgreensunset

Xebov wrote: »

Vea wrote: »

Why ask for a feedback then? Some probably did what you said, but some of us tested for 20/30/40 hours. I just really hope they need to collect more data and then make some adjustment.

Mostly to find bugs, unintended behaviour or unusable parts. The rest of the useable feedback will likely go into further observations. So for example, some ppl will say that skill x is unusable, so they can gatehr data in the weeks after the patch to see if this is realy the case and gather more specialized feedback around how it is actual used and what needs to be fine tuned.

I understand that some ppl are frustrated because they spend countless hours testingit, but there is little way around getting stuff into a live environment at some point to get a wider array of metrics and see what happens once ppl got used to it.

Then they could at least be honest about that instead of pretending that pts testing is anything they pay any kind of attention to except to gather notes and expect free work from their players. Pts testing is really just making people work for nothing then maybe being bothered with what they tell you 3-6 months later in case you get more corroborative evidence.

Dragonredux

Elvenheart wrote: »

PVP Player: “Hah, a vampire!” <equips inferno staff>

The Game: "You cannot equip this item in combat"