Update 26 Changes to How Feeding Affects Vampire Stages -- Please Reverse Back

GrumpyDuckling

Update 26 reversed how feeding affects Vampire stages, but there was never a solid explanation for why that decision was made. The only thing said about the change was that it "forces [us] to embrace [our] dark side to retain [our] most deadly powers."

"A CURSE AND A BLESSING"
"With Update 26, the team has also changed the way you must manage the four stages of the blood curse. You can increase your stage by feeding on NPCs, but they also slowly decrease over time, forcing you to embrace your dark side if you wish to retain your most-deadly powers."
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58225

But why? It used to be that the longer a Vampire went without feeding, the deeper into Vampirism they went. That played better -- feeding would bring us closer to a regular form, but the longer we went without feeding, the more the hunger set in and the more of a Vampire we became.

Post Update 26 reversed that and made it so if we don't feed, our Vampirism and thirst for blood lessens (huh?). That, plus the way that passives and stages are set up (ramping ability costs for other skills) means that for most of the game play in ESO I am incentivized NOT to feed as a Vampire.

Please reverse the Update 26 changes to how feeding interacts with Vampirism stages.

Vevvev

"We'll forces vampires to feed to become stronger!" - devs

"Yay!" - community

Devs reverse the stages but keep the weaknesses getting worse, turns the health regeneration debuff up to 11, and adds a non-vampire cost increase that scales up as they feed.

Despite the passives being stronger now the debuffs far exceed their usefulness and players either cure or don't feed at all except for certain builds.

Add on the terrible design choices with the vampire abilities and you get the vampire rework in a nutshell. Now if all the vampire abilities healed you for a fraction of the damage they did depending on your stage it might have been more beneficial to feed, but as it is now you need a mythic item to make the vampires feel like vampires.

ImSoPro

I bet if they kept supernatural recovery but made it a stage 4 passive the changes might’ve looked better as far as “retaining power” while forcing people to have to feed to keep their favorite passive. Similar to how undeath is available at stage 3.

ESO_Nightingale

Vevvev wrote: »

"We'll forces vampires to feed to become stronger!" - devs

"Yay!" - community

Devs reverse the stages but keep the weaknesses getting worse, turns the health regeneration debuff up to 11, and adds a non-vampire cost increase that scales up as they feed.

Despite the passives being stronger now the debuffs far exceed their usefulness and players either cure or don't feed at all except for certain builds.

Add on the terrible design choices with the vampire abilities and you get the vampire rework in a nutshell. Now if all the vampire abilities healed you for a fraction of the damage they did depending on your stage it might have been more beneficial to feed, but as it is now you need a mythic item to make the vampires feel like vampires.

the magic morph of the vampire spammable is really underrated imo.

Vevvev

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

"We'll forces vampires to feed to become stronger!" - devs

"Yay!" - community

Devs reverse the stages but keep the weaknesses getting worse, turns the health regeneration debuff up to 11, and adds a non-vampire cost increase that scales up as they feed.

Despite the passives being stronger now the debuffs far exceed their usefulness and players either cure or don't feed at all except for certain builds.

Add on the terrible design choices with the vampire abilities and you get the vampire rework in a nutshell. Now if all the vampire abilities healed you for a fraction of the damage they did depending on your stage it might have been more beneficial to feed, but as it is now you need a mythic item to make the vampires feel like vampires.

the magic morph of the vampire spammable is really underrated imo.

Until the Ring of the Pale Order came out I used it almost exclusively! It actually is pretty good and on Breton in light armor that skill gets incredibly cheap! The 3.3% extra damage at rank 4 and thr guaranteed critical hit makes it a competitive option to BfB, but if you have a high critical chance BfB just outright beats it damage wise due to it's damage scaling ramping up much higher.