A Proper Vampire Overhaul - Suggestion thread for ZOS -

ZaroktheImmortal

Point being you're asking for vampires to be pretty much unplayable. Or do you have some better explanation how when we can't control time of day people are going to be able to get around as vampires and do whatever it is they would do in this game? Vampire players being killed in sunlight just doesn't work for an MMO.

Hexi

ZaroktheImmortal wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

ZaroktheImmortal wrote: »

Honestly I get tired of people complaining about oh this breaks lore. Thinking more on if it fits lore to 'is this fun'. At the end of the day it's a game and the most important thing for me is that it's enjoyable to play. And playing a character who can't do anything a good portion of the time is not enjoyable.

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics. Why is your opinion more important than mine?

So all vampire players should have to not be able to play the game a good portion of the time cause it 'breaks lore' for you? Why should everyone who plays vampires in the game have to their game pretty much unplayable to appease you? At that point few if any would bother playing a vampire simply because they'd be unable to play the game. You want a game where you can't go out in the sun without taking damage? Play Morrowind. This is an MMO where we literally cannot just pick what time of day it is.

[snip]

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

[Minor Edit for Bait]

Rovaeden

Hexi wrote: »

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

No.
You said

Hexi wrote: »

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics.

so the point you were making was that YOU do not value gameplay mechanics over lore consistency.

You do not get to make a very clear statement about your preferences and then when someone calls you on them being illogical turn around and claim it was their fault.

Hexi

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

No.
You said

Hexi wrote: »

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics.

so the point you were making was that YOU do not value gameplay mechanics over lore consistency.

You do not get to make a very clear statement about your preferences and then when someone calls you on them being illogical turn around and claim it was their fault.

I could quote several of my older posts where I say that you obviously can't put sun damage into an MMO. Here's one from 3 days ago, cba going back further.

"Skyrim completely ruined TES Vampires with the removal of sun damage. I get why they did it, but it still took away from the experience. "

Rovaeden

Hexi wrote: »

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

No.
You said

Hexi wrote: »

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics.

so the point you were making was that YOU do not value gameplay mechanics over lore consistency.

You do not get to make a very clear statement about your preferences and then when someone calls you on them being illogical turn around and claim it was their fault.

I could quote several of my older posts where I say that you obviously can't put sun damage into an MMO. Here's one from 3 days ago, cba going back further.

"Skyrim completely ruined TES Vampires with the removal of sun damage. I get why they did it, but it still took away from the experience. "

Sure. I completely agree.

How does that help move THIS discussion forward?

I would just like to add that I believe that actual Day / Night cycles in ESO would be badass IF we had meaningful avenues of gameplay and a fully fleshed out vampire system a-la Vampire The Masquerade. I would ADORE it if ESO had fully realized sewers and crypts below all the cities so that Vamps could RP, explore, travel around the city and interact with the underworld or with whatever during the day. Hell, even rare drop or crafted daylight rings would be preferable to just having sun damage ignored.
SO what?! That isn't the game we have. If zos added it I would sub for life.
Regardless, all this is far, far beyond the scope of these discussions. We have a trainwreck of a vampire overhaul as a matter at hand and it would be nice to get as many people as possible to offer constructive feedback and pressure ZOS into fixing this garbage.
You seem passionate about vampires, your positive contribution would be greatly appreciated, if you would make some.

Hexi

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

No.
You said

Hexi wrote: »

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics.

so the point you were making was that YOU do not value gameplay mechanics over lore consistency.

You do not get to make a very clear statement about your preferences and then when someone calls you on them being illogical turn around and claim it was their fault.

I could quote several of my older posts where I say that you obviously can't put sun damage into an MMO. Here's one from 3 days ago, cba going back further.

"Skyrim completely ruined TES Vampires with the removal of sun damage. I get why they did it, but it still took away from the experience. "

Sure. I completely agree.

How does that help move THIS discussion forward?

I would just like to add that I believe that actual Day / Night cycles in ESO would be badass IF we had meaningful avenues of gameplay and a fully fleshed out vampire system a-la Vampire The Masquerade. I would ADORE it if ESO had fully realized sewers and crypts below all the cities so that Vamps could RP, explore, travel around the city and interact with the underworld or with whatever during the day. Hell, even rare drop or crafted daylight rings would be preferable to just having sun damage ignored.
SO what?! That isn't the game we have. If zos added it I would sub for life.
Regardless, all this is far, far beyond the scope of these discussions. We have a trainwreck of a vampire overhaul as a matter at hand and it would be nice to get as many people as possible to offer constructive feedback and pressure ZOS into fixing this garbage.
You seem passionate about vampires, your positive contribution would be greatly appreciated, if you would make some.

The thing is, this isn't VtM: Online.

If they put too much effort into what are essentially novelty skills, people would get angry because there are so, SO many things broken and/or missing from the game still after all these years. How about the fact that we *STILL* have no viable melee magicka options when battlemages were such an iconic thing. Where are the summon weapon skills? Where is illusion magic? The whole system of "classes" was a stupid idea in the first place. Why? Because after all the balancing and tweaking, every class plays pretty much exactly the same with few differences so what's the point?

Rovaeden

Hexi wrote: »

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

Rovaeden wrote: »

Hexi wrote: »

I was just making a point about you telling people to stop "crying about lore". Some people don't want the lore and setting to be butchered at the altar of "muh gaymeplei". You obviously can't make an MMO where you can only play 1/3 of the time, don't be daft.

No.
You said

Hexi wrote: »

And I value internal consistency more than gameplay mehcanics.

so the point you were making was that YOU do not value gameplay mechanics over lore consistency.

You do not get to make a very clear statement about your preferences and then when someone calls you on them being illogical turn around and claim it was their fault.

I could quote several of my older posts where I say that you obviously can't put sun damage into an MMO. Here's one from 3 days ago, cba going back further.

"Skyrim completely ruined TES Vampires with the removal of sun damage. I get why they did it, but it still took away from the experience. "

Sure. I completely agree.

How does that help move THIS discussion forward?

I would just like to add that I believe that actual Day / Night cycles in ESO would be badass IF we had meaningful avenues of gameplay and a fully fleshed out vampire system a-la Vampire The Masquerade. I would ADORE it if ESO had fully realized sewers and crypts below all the cities so that Vamps could RP, explore, travel around the city and interact with the underworld or with whatever during the day. Hell, even rare drop or crafted daylight rings would be preferable to just having sun damage ignored.
SO what?! That isn't the game we have. If zos added it I would sub for life.
Regardless, all this is far, far beyond the scope of these discussions. We have a trainwreck of a vampire overhaul as a matter at hand and it would be nice to get as many people as possible to offer constructive feedback and pressure ZOS into fixing this garbage.
You seem passionate about vampires, your positive contribution would be greatly appreciated, if you would make some.

The thing is, this isn't VtM: Online.

If they put too much effort into what are essentially novelty skills, people would get angry because there are so, SO many things broken and/or missing from the game still after all these years. How about the fact that we *STILL* have no viable melee magicka options when battlemages were such an iconic thing. Where are the summon weapon skills? Where is illusion magic? The whole system of "classes" was a stupid idea in the first place. Why? Because after all the balancing and tweaking, every class plays pretty much exactly the same with few differences so what's the point?

I completely agree.
Again, so what?

How does this move this discussion forward?

What constructive advice do you have to add?

Spectral_Force

I don't think it's appropriate to call for any sort of consistency when it comes to vampirism in Elder Scrolls. When you look at how it functions in different games throughout the series, it's anything but consistent. In Daggerfall, vampirism gives you flat bonuses, and you have to continuously feed if you want to fast travel or rest to regenerate resources, i.e. not feeding made you weaker; you also took sun damage (as well as damage from holy places) whether you were fed or starving. In Morrowind, you couldn't feed at all, and also took sun damage always. In Oblivion, you got stronger the longer you went without feeding, but also suffered more drawbacks; you didn't take sun damage if you were at Stage 1 (well-fed). In Skyrim, you also got more strengths and weaknesses the longer you went without feeding, but you no longer took sun damage. And that's only if you look at "strengths and weaknesses" in general and sun damage. If you were to pick them apart in terms of their exact advantages and disadvantages, the special abilities they get access to, how you get cured, and how obvious it is to others/how "illegal" it is to be one, you will see increasingly less consistency. One thing is consistent, however: every ES game introduces a different strain of vampire, which is primarily a way to explain why vampirism works differently in every game.
ESO is no different: it's a different strain of vampirism and doesn't have to function like in other games. I will give you that reversing how vampire stages work breaks internal consistency in ESO itself, sure, and the whole "Lamae just changed her mind so her vampires are now different" is a blatant retcon, but that's to be expected from a game that's being continuously updated and overhauled and rebalanced. I will argue, however, that from a strictly gameplay perspective, feeding to get stronger was a good decision. It's game design 101: you have an optional mechanic (feeding) that takes some effort on behalf of the player (going out to hunt some NPCs). If you want the player to engage with that mechanic, you want to reward them for the effort (make their character stronger). Pre-Greymoor, vampire characters would never feed, because why bother if that will make you weaker in almost every way? Granted, for some trials with excessive fire damage you would drop yourself back to Stage 1, but 4 was the "default" stage. How well ZOS succeeded at incentivising players to feed to advance their stage? Just look at the general reaction on the forums. But reversing vampire stage effects was fundamentally a good decision.

Fata1moose

Vampire Scion skins for event tickets. Such as things closer to the vampire lord or the armored variants found in Greymoor. That way if you like the way the ult looks you can keep it while others the prefer the Lord look can have it as well. Would also be nice if the Scion wasn't a giant. The best part of this idea is killing off Indriks as the event item. They've been around for long enough.

Rovaeden

Spectral_Force wrote: »

I don't think it's appropriate to call for any sort of consistency when it comes to vampirism in Elder Scrolls. When you look at how it functions in different games throughout the series, it's anything but consistent. In Daggerfall, vampirism gives you flat bonuses, and you have to continuously feed if you want to fast travel or rest to regenerate resources, i.e. not feeding made you weaker; you also took sun damage (as well as damage from holy places) whether you were fed or starving. In Morrowind, you couldn't feed at all, and also took sun damage always. In Oblivion, you got stronger the longer you went without feeding, but also suffered more drawbacks; you didn't take sun damage if you were at Stage 1 (well-fed). In Skyrim, you also got more strengths and weaknesses the longer you went without feeding, but you no longer took sun damage. And that's only if you look at "strengths and weaknesses" in general and sun damage. If you were to pick them apart in terms of their exact advantages and disadvantages, the special abilities they get access to, how you get cured, and how obvious it is to others/how "illegal" it is to be one, you will see increasingly less consistency. One thing is consistent, however: every ES game introduces a different strain of vampire, which is primarily a way to explain why vampirism works differently in every game.
ESO is no different: it's a different strain of vampirism and doesn't have to function like in other games. I will give you that reversing how vampire stages work breaks internal consistency in ESO itself, sure, and the whole "Lamae just changed her mind so her vampires are now different" is a blatant retcon, but that's to be expected from a game that's being continuously updated and overhauled and rebalanced. I will argue, however, that from a strictly gameplay perspective, feeding to get stronger was a good decision. It's game design 101: you have an optional mechanic (feeding) that takes some effort on behalf of the player (going out to hunt some NPCs). If you want the player to engage with that mechanic, you want to reward them for the effort (make their character stronger). Pre-Greymoor, vampire characters would never feed, because why bother if that will make you weaker in almost every way? Granted, for some trials with excessive fire damage you would drop yourself back to Stage 1, but 4 was the "default" stage. How well ZOS succeeded at incentivising players to feed to advance their stage? Just look at the general reaction on the forums. But reversing vampire stage effects was fundamentally a good decision.

This is an excellent breakdown of these concepts!

I wholly agree with feeding to get stronger and not only from a thematic standpoint but also, as you so elegantly illustrated, from a game play perspective as well.

Deathlord92

I like some of your ideas except eviscerate I believe it should have a stamina morph vampires I imagine especially when frenzied are physically powerful as well. Anyways everyone who likes being a vampire should get to enjoy it surely.

Rovaeden

I think vampire abilities actually should scale off of the highest resource pool so everyone can gain benefit from them in such a way as it improves the function of their build.

Darkstride

Regarding Blood Frenzy, I feel like it should only drain health each time you use an ability rather than being a continuous drain. It would be a more strategic and controlled buff. You manage it as long as you can sustain it. If you are in danger it's more because you directly mis-managed it.

One morph could make the damage boost only apply to vampire abilities, but at a greater strength- good for those want to play primarily vampire.

The other morph could negate the added ability cost on all non-vampire abilities- good for those you want to play hybrid.

Aside from that, Eviscerate and it's morphs need to have a more visceral impact. As it is now, it feels like a slap. It has no weight or aggression in it. It barely even makes sound.

Edit: Blood Scion is goofy.