Vampire - Apparance Stages

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Hi..a little noob quest about lore.

There is a explanation why a vampire well fed and more powerful as well, lookslike a hungry and weak being?

I thought with the rework a vampire should keeping "eating" to be a stronger vampire and would be more a pale human, as many vampire lords (in Elder Scrolls and vampire movies)


Rada al-Saran, the vampire lord is a good example.

red_emu

Because a lot of people were requesting something that would make vampires less ugly, so ZOS being ZOS made sure that won't happen.

mairwen85

Because ZOS reversed the requirements to gain power for the stages but not the appearance.

Original concept:

• blood hungry makes you more monstrous and feral (less human)
• well-fed means calmer and more human (more control)

The idea being that feeding was the means to retain control over the condition.

New concept:

• feeding makes you more powerful
• hunger makes you weaker.

With the gain in power, the player character becomes more dangerous and loses their connection to their former self, ergo more monstrous.

The issue is how you view the stages. Is feeding a ghoulish method to gain power? I think yes, and given that the final stage is total transformation, it makes sense in the sequence that you would get uglier as that power increases; you are in effect becoming less your mortal self and more that final vampire stage.

OmniDo

mairwen85 wrote: »

Because ZOS reversed the requirements to gain power for the stages but not the appearance.

Original concept:

• blood hungry makes you more monstrous and feral (less human)
• well-fed means calmer and more human (more control)

The idea being that feeding was the means to retain control over the condition.

New concept:

• feeding makes you more powerful
• hunger makes you weaker.

With the gain in power, the player character becomes more dangerous and loses their connection to their former self, ergo more monstrous.

The issue is how you view the stages. Is feeding a ghoulish method to gain power? I think yes, and given that the final stage is total transformation, it makes sense in the sequence that you would get uglier as that power increases; you are in effect becoming less your mortal self and more that final vampire stage.

Except that this is totally backwards to traditional Elder-Scrolls Lore.
Being "Well fed" doesn't equate to "appearing monstrous".
This is backwards logic to the N'th degree.

The entire appearance of Vampires in ALL Elder Scrolls Lore is designed to reflect this.
"Monstrosity" equals Feral nature, and simply gorging on Blood doesn't make one monstrous.
The entire point of vampirism is that blood is a "Requirement" to maintain their survival, although traditional Elder Scrolls Lore does not indicate that all Vampires must feed, simply that if they do not, they will become more feral and hence less human.

If the Stage-4 appearance is intended to reflect "monstrosity and feral nature" while simultaneously having no direct correlation to the amount of blood consumed, then well...the Elder Scrolls lore master has some serious explaining to do.

Zenimax' primary motivation for the stage change was to pander to the forum crowd.
It had no logical or even sensible basis.

Vevvev

They actually had intended to change how the vampire's looked but after the appearance got leaked on the Pre-PTS people complained, and rightfully so. What they showed us was a vampire literally soaked in blood that was not able to be hidden with skins or even armor. That being said, if you took the blood splashes away the skin actually looked pretty good and made more sense for a fully fed vampire than our current version.

Here's a picture of what probably would have been the new stage 4 appearance.

mairwen85

OmniDo wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Because ZOS reversed the requirements to gain power for the stages but not the appearance.

Original concept:

• blood hungry makes you more monstrous and feral (less human)
• well-fed means calmer and more human (more control)

The idea being that feeding was the means to retain control over the condition.

New concept:

• feeding makes you more powerful
• hunger makes you weaker.

With the gain in power, the player character becomes more dangerous and loses their connection to their former self, ergo more monstrous.

The issue is how you view the stages. Is feeding a ghoulish method to gain power? I think yes, and given that the final stage is total transformation, it makes sense in the sequence that you would get uglier as that power increases; you are in effect becoming less your mortal self and more that final vampire stage.

Except that this is totally backwards to traditional Elder-Scrolls Lore.
Being "Well fed" doesn't equate to "appearing monstrous".
This is backwards logic to the N'th degree.

The entire appearance of Vampires in ALL Elder Scrolls Lore is designed to reflect this.
"Monstrosity" equals Feral nature, and simply gorging on Blood doesn't make one monstrous.
The entire point of vampirism is that blood is a "Requirement" to maintain their survival, although traditional Elder Scrolls Lore does not indicate that all Vampires must feed, simply that if they do not, they will become more feral and hence less human.

If the Stage-4 appearance is intended to reflect "monstrosity and feral nature" while simultaneously having no direct correlation to the amount of blood consumed, then well...the Elder Scrolls lore master has some serious explaining to do.

Zenimax' primary motivation for the stage change was to pander to the forum crowd.
It had no logical or even sensible basis.

It is backwards, as I mentioned in the original concept. I don't see the point you're trying to make.

(and as for all TES lore, only where Porphyric Hemophilia is the strain of vampirism).

TX12001rwb17_ESO

You feed to draw out the beast and look more and more like your blood scion, notice how stage 4 has the same eyes the Blood Scion form does.

RavenLake

The changes were necessary. Vampires are monsters, not pretty things. Good call ZOS.

Ectheliontnacil

RavenLake wrote: »

The changes were necessary. Vampires are monsters, not pretty things. Good call ZOS.

Visually they didn't change anything, just reversed the effects of feeding.

mairwen85 wrote: »

OmniDo wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Because ZOS reversed the requirements to gain power for the stages but not the appearance.

Original concept:

• blood hungry makes you more monstrous and feral (less human)
• well-fed means calmer and more human (more control)

The idea being that feeding was the means to retain control over the condition.

New concept:

• feeding makes you more powerful
• hunger makes you weaker.

With the gain in power, the player character becomes more dangerous and loses their connection to their former self, ergo more monstrous.

The issue is how you view the stages. Is feeding a ghoulish method to gain power? I think yes, and given that the final stage is total transformation, it makes sense in the sequence that you would get uglier as that power increases; you are in effect becoming less your mortal self and more that final vampire stage.

Except that this is totally backwards to traditional Elder-Scrolls Lore.
Being "Well fed" doesn't equate to "appearing monstrous".
This is backwards logic to the N'th degree.

The entire appearance of Vampires in ALL Elder Scrolls Lore is designed to reflect this.
"Monstrosity" equals Feral nature, and simply gorging on Blood doesn't make one monstrous.
The entire point of vampirism is that blood is a "Requirement" to maintain their survival, although traditional Elder Scrolls Lore does not indicate that all Vampires must feed, simply that if they do not, they will become more feral and hence less human.

If the Stage-4 appearance is intended to reflect "monstrosity and feral nature" while simultaneously having no direct correlation to the amount of blood consumed, then well...the Elder Scrolls lore master has some serious explaining to do.

Zenimax' primary motivation for the stage change was to pander to the forum crowd.
It had no logical or even sensible basis.

It is backwards, as I mentioned in the original concept. I don't see the point you're trying to make.

(and as for all TES lore, only where Porphyric Hemophilia is the strain of vampirism).

How was the original concept backwards? In skyrim you had to feed in order to look more human and keep your vampirism at bay.
Basically all vampires in fiction worked that way: Dracula seemed younger and healthier after being able to feed as much as he liked. Vampire diaries it's the exact same thing, if they don't feed they turn into lifeless husks, whereas blood allows them to look human. The list goes on, but you get the point.

mairwen85

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

RavenLake wrote: »

The changes were necessary. Vampires are monsters, not pretty things. Good call ZOS.

Visually they didn't change anything, just reversed the effects of feeding.

mairwen85 wrote: »

OmniDo wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Because ZOS reversed the requirements to gain power for the stages but not the appearance.

Original concept:

• blood hungry makes you more monstrous and feral (less human)
• well-fed means calmer and more human (more control)

The idea being that feeding was the means to retain control over the condition.

New concept:

• feeding makes you more powerful
• hunger makes you weaker.

With the gain in power, the player character becomes more dangerous and loses their connection to their former self, ergo more monstrous.

The issue is how you view the stages. Is feeding a ghoulish method to gain power? I think yes, and given that the final stage is total transformation, it makes sense in the sequence that you would get uglier as that power increases; you are in effect becoming less your mortal self and more that final vampire stage.

Except that this is totally backwards to traditional Elder-Scrolls Lore.
Being "Well fed" doesn't equate to "appearing monstrous".
This is backwards logic to the N'th degree.

The entire appearance of Vampires in ALL Elder Scrolls Lore is designed to reflect this.
"Monstrosity" equals Feral nature, and simply gorging on Blood doesn't make one monstrous.
The entire point of vampirism is that blood is a "Requirement" to maintain their survival, although traditional Elder Scrolls Lore does not indicate that all Vampires must feed, simply that if they do not, they will become more feral and hence less human.

If the Stage-4 appearance is intended to reflect "monstrosity and feral nature" while simultaneously having no direct correlation to the amount of blood consumed, then well...the Elder Scrolls lore master has some serious explaining to do.

Zenimax' primary motivation for the stage change was to pander to the forum crowd.
It had no logical or even sensible basis.

It is backwards, as I mentioned in the original concept. I don't see the point you're trying to make.

(and as for all TES lore, only where Porphyric Hemophilia is the strain of vampirism).

How was the original concept backwards? In skyrim you had to feed in order to look more human and keep your vampirism at bay.
Basically all vampires in fiction worked that way: Dracula seemed younger and healthier after being able to feed as much as he liked. Vampire diaries it's the exact same thing, if they don't feed they turn into lifeless husks, whereas blood allows them to look human. The list goes on, but you get the point.

No, lol, the current implementation is backwards in comparison to how it worked in morrowind through to skyrim. That's what I was saying in response to OmniDo. Is it really that hard to read what I write? Maybe I need to work on making myself clearer...

I always thought the original implementation was fine save for requirements to make it a meaningful choice; my first comment posted was in relation to the current implementation. It is counter to established lore, and despite the lore-explicit mention in Greymoor on this change of feed/power mechanism it just feels wrong. But with that, we need to accept that somehow Lamae Bal underwent some form of ascension to become a blood goddess and was able to change her strain, but not for all, only a select few. That I feel is more problematic than reversing how vampirism works.

Fur_like_snow

Because they turned vampire into a blood fiend simulator. Blood fiends are those weak enemies you see frequently around graveyards that attack the player in packs. Instead of becoming stronger as you feed blood is like a drug/poison that destroys your body(increased damage from sources) and mind(increased cost to known spells). It’s like reverse drug addict vampirism the more you use(blood) the further you progress in rank and gain the “look”.

Ratzkifal

RavenLake wrote: »

The changes were necessary. Vampires are monsters, not pretty things. Good call ZOS.

Funny you say that because the way vampirism works, everyone is at stage 1 now all the time instead of stage 4 for minimal drawbacks, meaning that all the mainstream vampires out there are pretty things, not monsters.

Banana

Natural skin in the crown store would be good

Grianasteri

Can I just say, the whole - no one will interact with you at stage 4+ is in my opinion, extremely frustrating & totally unnecessary. There is simply no point to it, other than what, to dissuade people from being at Stage 4? Most folk do not sit at Stage 4 anyway.

Each stage lasts 4 hours, that's a long time to wait to train your mount when you may only be online for an hour or two. Or to repair your gear (& sell for those without the shop assistant). Just all the normal stuff folk take for granted, that as a Stage 4 Vamp you cant do, unless you pop potions to go up & down levels, which not everyone has & we should not need to spend money/resources & time just to use a shop for goodness sake.

Also, back in yee olde Elder Scrolls, Morrowind at least, not sure about the subsequent games as I cant remember, but wearing a mask/helmet stopped anyone knowing you were a vampire - this made a huge amount of sense.

Either remove the entire mechanic altogether, or let wearing a helmet/hat that covers the face, remove the mechanic.

Rant over.
.

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Banana wrote: »

Natural skin in the crown store would be good

I know, I have one good skin to hide stages, but this isnt the issue.

supersonic_kitten

The annoying thing about it is that it seems on other vampires, Fennorian for example, the stage appearances are reversed? In the Greymoor tutorial, when he's hungry he looks like a sated stage 4 vamp, and when he's fed he looks like a stage 1 vamp. Doesn't make sense. Unless it's explained somewhere later in the story that he's some other strain of vampire or something (I haven't played Greymoor story yet).

supersonic_kitten

prtpj1ub17_ESO wrote: »

I know, I have one good skin to hide stages, but this isnt the issue.

I'm curious, what skin is that?

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Grianasteri wrote: »

Can I just say, the whole - no one will interact with you at stage 4+ is in my opinion, extremely frustrating & totally unnecessary. There is simply no point to it, other than what, to dissuade people from being at Stage 4? Most folk do not sit at Stage 4 anyway.

Each stage lasts 4 hours, that's a long time to wait to train your mount when you may only be online for an hour or two. Or to repair your gear (& sell for those without the shop assistant). Just all the normal stuff folk take for granted, that as a Stage 4 Vamp you cant do, unless you pop potions to go up & down levels, which not everyone has & we should need to spend money/resources & time just to use a shop for goodness sake.

Also, back in yee olde Elder Scrolls, Morrowind at least, not sure about the subsequent games as I cant remember, but wearing a mask/helmet stopped anyone knowing you were a vampire - this made a huge amount of sense.

Either remove the entire mechanic altogether, or let wearing a helmet/hat that covers the face, remove the mechanic.

Rant over.

For a mechanic issue, as speaking with npcs. The stable dunmer in vivec city speaks with my vamp no matter the stage, so lvlup my mount never been a issue
For other npcs, did you tried to use your Mesmerize skill?

prtpj1ub17_ESO

Would be fun and amazing for more immersion if we vampires need to cover our face depending which the stages, but a think this works better for single player games.

On stage 4 we have the debuffs and weakness are stronger because we are well fed and more vampire as ever, so, why not have the apparence of a "healthy" alive being? We are full of blood in our veins and body.

The stage 1, vampires should be more feral, uncontrollable. The minor debuffs could be see as the feral vampire feel less pain because of hungry and frenzy. On that stage npcs would run in fear. The body is stronger as a husk, but have the disadvantage of no one will speaks with you. Could be something like a WW transformation near npcs
With that, stage 4 could last less, and vampires will need to feed more times.

Vevvev

supersonic_kitten wrote: »

The annoying thing about it is that it seems on other vampires, Fennorian for example, the stage appearances are reversed? In the Greymoor tutorial, when he's hungry he looks like a sated stage 4 vamp, and when he's fed he looks like a stage 1 vamp. Doesn't make sense. Unless it's explained somewhere later in the story that he's some other strain of vampire or something (I haven't played Greymoor story yet).

Its explained in the vampire quest.

Lamae used rituals to reverse the effects of blood on her bloodline because she felt like they were hiding in the shadows and only slaking their thirst to hide their discovery.




Of course now if they slake their thirst they get discovered so.... not sure how this stage reversal is helping your children Lamae.

OmniDo

Retconned nonsense.
Lamae changed her dialogue because the ZOS gods compelled her to.

Vevvev

OmniDo wrote: »

Retconned nonsense.
Lamae changed her dialogue because the ZOS gods compelled her to.

Agreed, the whole thing is just stupid now.

Lord-Otto

"Embrace your ravenous nature, my Scion!"
- Got it! Never feed and stay at stage 1 to not get weaker. Thanks, mommy! (0w0)/

tomofhyrule

supersonic_kitten wrote: »

The annoying thing about it is that it seems on other vampires, Fennorian for example, the stage appearances are reversed? In the Greymoor tutorial, when he's hungry he looks like a sated stage 4 vamp, and when he's fed he looks like a stage 1 vamp. Doesn't make sense. Unless it's explained somewhere later in the story that he's some other strain of vampire or something (I haven't played Greymoor story yet).

This is the major issue with how the setup is done. I didn't know that they retconned Lamae's dialogue, but that at least handwaves it. Pity that so few people get to see that since they're vamps already or did Fenn's stuff first, or bought the skillline, etc.

I get how vampirism works in lore and it made sense - the longer you go hungry, the more feral you become. I also get that it was broken in game as vampirism was basically required for endgame content because of the recovery passive, which made the lore of 'vampirism is a rare curse to be avioded at all costs!' a bit wrong since almost everyone was a vamp and there were practically no downsides.

Now it's backwards from TES lore, but it still makes sense in a way: the more you feed, the more you give in to your bestial nature. I can buy it. The Doylist version is just that the devs wanted people to actually play as vampires if they wanted to get the curse, which is why they have the cost increase/decrease for skills. Yeah, everyone can argue that they ruined it because it's not a free source of mag/stam regen anymore, but it's no longer a requirement for endgame players.

(No skin off my nose either way. Werewolves are cooler.)

It's just a bit annoying that half of Fenn's story is "pls my flask" when the entire playable vamp line was flipped.

prtpj1ub17_ESO

tomofhyrule wrote: »

but it still makes sense in a way: the more you feed, the more you give in to your bestial nature.

I disagre a little on that part. If I read this, without any information, I will probably think you are talking about werewolves and not vampires.
If TES brought a new concept on vampires before, ok, its the rules of this fantasy world....but they prefered to make something already known and changed that on ESO.
The more vampire feed he can control better his bestial nature, the thirst, etc.

I know, I know, I did read the rest of your post, but I would like to comment only that part