ZOS What was the motive for such a punitive approach to the vampire skill line?

Nephthys

I’d like to understand why the developers chose to take such a punitive approach to the vampirism skill line. I know this topic has been discussed in the past, but I am not willing to let it go, giving the false impression that we are all happy with it now. Almost all of my past vampire friends sadly cured their characters because of the mess that was made of it. So….

My werewolf can remove the ultimate from her bar and proceed to play her class without any negative consequences. She can even choose to be a magic healer and provided she does not switch to werewolf mode, she is just that, an effective healer, no punishment for that.

Of the many other skill lines that are on offer, both class & non-class, I can not think of a single one that punishes us for take it.

Yet my vampire character seems to have taken the full senseless wrath of the developers. Just the act of having the vampirism skill line present, even if not a single skill or passive is taken, punishes my character so severely that she is completely unplayable, unless I choose to play in pure vampire mode. Just about all my other skills have been rendered useless.

Many of us enjoyed having a vampire skill on our bar, or not having any but role-playing a vampire. Many of us like to be able to offer other players a vampire bite, without necessarily embracing the whole vampire skill tree.

So why? Please tell me why you have taken such a punitive approach to just one of the many skills that can be taken in this game. There surely is a reason. I'd just like to hear it.

YandereGirlfriend

This answer is easy: because vampire used to be "mandatory" for end-game PvE play due to the permanent 10% Magicka regeneration bonus. That was back during a time when sustain was incredibly hard to come by so anyone wanting to min/max their character was basically obligated to become a vampire for the passive.

In the "re-vamp" they wanted to correct this but went too far in the other direction. On top of that, they made most vampire skills senselessly niche and/or weak to the point of uselessness.

And then, of course, in PvP, lots of players still feel compelled to take vampire because the 30% mitigation passive is "too good to pass up" - which is itself another problem.

TLDR; There have been innumerable good suggestions on how to improve the vampire skill line supplied by the forum over the last year but the developers appear to be too proud to consider any of them.

adriant1978

I think it's clear that ZOS has been infiltrated by followers of Hircine who are determined for us to see lycanthropy as a blessing and vampirism as a curse.

Ryuvain

Vampire passives are always on, so they always receive a negative.

I would personally give werewolf players some kind of always active buff as well. To differentiate them from mortals and have a real decision instead of werewolf being completely free. Opinions.

master_vanargand

I wish I hadn't increased the cost of the skill.
I want Stage 1 to be 0% at least.

Vevvev

Yandere pretty much hit it on the head. It was meta, it was popular, everyone wanted a rework to make it better, but ZOS didn't want to make it the end all be all of builds. And if the player chose to become one they had to make it a commitment. Sadly they both succeeded and failed so catastrophically hard you have lots of mixed opinions on it, and of course the people that have always hated vampires enjoy watching us cry and weep about it.

The Vampire rework is also a mixture of extremes with it being super powerful on the defense and offense, but only when you're close to death meaning your performance is ruined by healers. The other end is if you pick it for only the passives then you get very powerful but that Magicka/Stamina bar is going to drain incredibly quickly. You can cut off the healers for increasing your damage but now you're very prone to dying and need to be self sufficient, and by being self sufficient now you're not as powerful a DPS as you could be and miss out on certain buffs making this exponentially more of an issue. All paths of the vampire with the exceptions of the vampire healer and tank all lead to a solo build. Vampire is not group friendly and that is the death nail in the coffin.

Add in their changes to the Pale Order Ring and the skill line is back to being worthless outside anything but solo play. It wasn't always this way as the vampire rework on the pre-PTS and PTS itself were actually really good! Like, incredibly good.... so good they made sure it never saw the light of day. Vampire appearance changes were scrapped, Brain Drain morph of Vampiric Drain was replaced with that mess called Drain Vigor, Blood Frenzy had an uncapped 20% cost increase per second added onto the base ability which was something not even Simmering Frenzy had since the cost increase had a cap, and Blood for Blood after launch was so powerful they nerfed it and Eviscerate by reducing the damage scaling based on missing health, removed the 3.3% damage boost for leveling the ability up from Blood for Blood, and then made BfB stop you from being healed by others for 5 seconds.

It's quite clear the devs didn't know what they were doing with the vampire skill line and added what they thought would be compelling gameplay, saw the players using it differently, realized just how powerful it was, and then smashed it into the dirt to the point it's in its current lackluster form. The buff to drain on the current PTS won't be enough to save that ability as it'd still be niche, but at least they took one of our ideas (not sure who suggested it first) to buff the morph effects. Shame they nerfed the damage even further into obscurity. sigh

Kharner

I agree that they should take another look at the skill line as a whole, but to say that being a stage 1 vampire renders your class useless is being needlessly hyperbolic, and arguing in bad faith. I have run DPS, and heals in vet content as a stage 1 vamp perfectly fine, the downsides are extremely minor at stage 1. A lot of tanks in PVE even go for stage 3 vamp just for the DR.

I think the nerfs to blood for blood were excessive, and drain should just be redone again. Simmering frenzy has a place, and if used correctly results in massive dps boosts, but at a cost. Mist form is still very strong in both pvp, and pve. Mist form can let you avoid certain veteran 1 shot mechanics. The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

itscompton

Stage 1 should get the sneak speed buff in return for the lost health recovery and fire damage taken as a fair trade. But having a trade of vampire ability cost vs. regular ability cost at that stage is ridiculous. What exactly are they lowering the cost of Vampire abilities from at that stage, some fantastical stage 0 that doesn't exist outside of tooltip numbers?

Vevvev

Kharner wrote: »

The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

Except Perfect Scion. Swarming Scion is indeed great, but it's other version is in dire need of a redesign to be comparable.

Merforum

Vevvev wrote: »

Kharner wrote: »

The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

Except Perfect Scion. Swarming Scion is indeed great, but it's other version is in dire need of a redesign to be comparable.

Yes swarming is better morph. But if you say Perfect Scion is bad that means the negative effect aren't that bad (because the point of that morph is to remove those while in that form). Maybe they should increase that morph's time to 45s-1min and/or lower cost.

I was one of the only ones I think saying vamp was still OK even after the changes, and I didn't remove it from any toon. Although I didn't have it on every single one like min/maxers. Nice to see people finally admitting the only reason they had vamp on all toons was for the mag regen which was obvious but everyone was pretending that wasn't the case at the time.

While I still think level 1 vamp should just have the fire/heath recovery penalty and NOT the cost changes, and only lvl 2-4 have those, after the increase of all stats, the cost increase on vamp is not noticeable hardly at all, even at level 3 where I usually have it. IMO Vamp seems to be well balanced at the moment, but if you aren't using any of the skills or passives then yes you will be having a few minor neg effects, because IT'S A CURSE.

WW should also have some type of negative effect at all times, which makes it a CHOICE to have it, something like poison/disease penalty even out of WW form. I see some people slot hircine bounty just for the major brutality, don't know if it is intended to allow slottable effect to be active while not in WW form but it does. If the neg effect was put on WW at all times it would be a curse like it is supposed to be.

Vevvev

Merforum wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Kharner wrote: »

The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

Except Perfect Scion. Swarming Scion is indeed great, but it's other version is in dire need of a redesign to be comparable.

Yes swarming is better morph. But if you say Perfect Scion is bad that means the negative effect aren't that bad (because the point of that morph is to remove those while in that form). Maybe they should increase that morph's time to 45s-1min and/or lower cost.

I mean... think of it. Let's actually compare Swarming Scion to Perfect Scion on it's strengths vs weaknesses.

Swarming Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• Damage dealing AoE over 20 seconds that heals for 15% of all damage it does

Perfect Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• No non-vampire ability cost weakness
• No health recovery weakness
• All vampire passives active
• 24% reduced vampire ability costs
• Around 10 ultimate cheaper

Perfect Scion looks like it wins on paper, but the devil's in the details when you consider Swarming Scion's strength, the bat swarm. The damage per target the bat swarm deals makes up for the health recovery you'd get back, Swarming Scion deals additional damage for being in the form applying constant pressure to enemies around you, the 10k extra magicka and stamina actually boosts the damage of the bat swarm making the tooltip inaccurate when viewing it as a mortal, and if you're running Swarming Scion odds are you're already a stage 3-4 vampire and have the passives you want.

The only reason to pick Perfect Scion over Swarming Scion is if you're fighting a magDK, and even then we're overlooking another problem... while a Perfect Scion you're still flagged in the game code as a vampire. Fighter's Guild abilities will still tear you a new one with their 20% increased damage meaning you don't actually lose all your weaknesses. You only lose your stage weaknesses, and you've probably already built around them for being this committed to being a vampire.

Merforum

Vevvev wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Kharner wrote: »

The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

Except Perfect Scion. Swarming Scion is indeed great, but it's other version is in dire need of a redesign to be comparable.

Yes swarming is better morph. But if you say Perfect Scion is bad that means the negative effect aren't that bad (because the point of that morph is to remove those while in that form). Maybe they should increase that morph's time to 45s-1min and/or lower cost.

I mean... think of it. Let's actually compare Swarming Scion to Perfect Scion on it's strengths vs weaknesses.

Swarming Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• Damage dealing AoE over 20 seconds that heals for 15% of all damage it does

Perfect Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• No non-vampire ability cost weakness
• No health recovery weakness
• All vampire passives active
• 24% reduced vampire ability costs
• Around 10 ultimate cheaper

Perfect Scion looks like it wins on paper, but the devil's in the details when you consider Swarming Scion's strength, the bat swarm. The damage per target the bat swarm deals makes up for the health recovery you'd get back, Swarming Scion deals additional damage for being in the form applying constant pressure to enemies around you, the 10k extra magicka and stamina actually boosts the damage of the bat swarm making the tooltip inaccurate when viewing it as a mortal, and if you're running Swarming Scion odds are you're already a stage 3-4 vampire and have the passives you want.

The only reason to pick Perfect Scion over Swarming Scion is if you're fighting a magDK, and even then we're overlooking another problem... while a Perfect Scion you're still flagged in the game code as a vampire. Fighter's Guild abilities will still tear you a new one with their 20% increased damage meaning you don't actually lose all your weaknesses. You only lose your stage weaknesses, and you've probably already built around them for being this committed to being a vampire.

Exactly right, level 5 vamp looks good on paper but the swarm is way better. But that is because the negative effects and skill cost increase isn't that big of a deal that this thread seems to be wanting to point out. The Scion should be about half the ULT cost or twice the duration of swarming and might still not be worth using.

StarOfElyon

Nephthys wrote: »

I’d like to understand why the developers chose to take such a punitive approach to the vampirism skill line. I know this topic has been discussed in the past, but I am not willing to let it go, giving the false impression that we are all happy with it now. Almost all of my past vampire friends sadly cured their characters because of the mess that was made of it. So….

My werewolf can remove the ultimate from her bar and proceed to play her class without any negative consequences. She can even choose to be a magic healer and provided she does not switch to werewolf mode, she is just that, an effective healer, no punishment for that.

Of the many other skill lines that are on offer, both class & non-class, I can not think of a single one that punishes us for take it.

Yet my vampire character seems to have taken the full senseless wrath of the developers. Just the act of having the vampirism skill line present, even if not a single skill or passive is taken, punishes my character so severely that she is completely unplayable, unless I choose to play in pure vampire mode. Just about all my other skills have been rendered useless.

Many of us enjoyed having a vampire skill on our bar, or not having any but role-playing a vampire. Many of us like to be able to offer other players a vampire bite, without necessarily embracing the whole vampire skill tree.

So why? Please tell me why you have taken such a punitive approach to just one of the many skills that can be taken in this game. There surely is a reason. I'd just like to hear it.

I really HATE the increased cost to non-vampire skills. I also very much dislike the way the vampire skill line feels like little more than an extension of the Nightblade skill line.

Xahran

@Merforum
The penalties are a big deal considering what you get for them. Right now all the vampire skill line can be summarised in elusive mist (just this morph), undeath and swarming scion (which is still not always good for the cost)

All vampire skills either are quite expensive rendering the cost reduction from higher stages moot, or have very punishing penalties that reward only a solo gankblade.

* Stage 4 passive is good but not worth the penalties. Give it like extra movement speed that sticks for a few secs when out of invisibilty or just anything to sweeten the deal.
* Blood frenzy is actually good but make so it is disabled when you get cced or switch bars so you aren't forced to double-bar it.
* Vampire ult is still rather expensive for how short it is. I suggest keeping its cost at lower stages and give it a unique extra cost reduction at higher stages which would make stage 4 worthwhile for once.
* Eviscerate is a short ranged, single target, spammable with a slow animation that is only barely better than other spammables if you are already dying, a state you don't want to be in for long in any game mode. Blood for blood makes things worse with both hurting you and disabling heals from allies rendering it bad no matter how you think about it. Either reduce Blood for blood's cost or remove the heal from allies penalty. Also make Arterial burst has like 20% heal on damage dealt, instead of the crit bonus, so you can stay longer in low hp state.
* Vampiring drain. Uhm ... just remove that skill already. Give us a gap closer or a hot that gets better at low hp to keep with the theme.
* Don't have ideas for mesmerise or blood mist though.
* Maybe nerf Undeath to up to 25 or 20%.

As you can see I never suggested to make vampirism more accessible by reducing its stage penalties or blood frenzy's cost, because I still believe vampirism should still be a curse with good benefits and harsh penalties, as I don't want vampirism to be a must have like it used to be, nor I would like to see all of Tamriel's population turn into vampires, but right now the skill line feels like its main uses are like 3 skills, gankblade and role-playing. Myself I would rather modify all the skills and passives so they don't feel like a 4th skill line for gankblade as they are currently, and have more general use for everyone just like Psijic does.

StarOfElyon

I just got my first nightblade character to CP and I don't think being a vampire should be necessary for pvp but it feels as though it is. This is part of what I mean when I say that vampirism feels like nothing but an extension of the nightblade class.

And still 99% of the pvp population that aren't werewolves will be vampires because Undeath is so strong. Vampirism is really flawed in its design.

Amottica

It seems WW and vampire lines, and the effects of having the skill line, are not comparable by any means.

A vampire is a vampire 100% of the time and has access to their skills 100% of the time. As such it makes sense that any negative effect have a 100% uptime. Of course, we can manage the impact of that negative effect by managing our vampire level.

A WW is not permitted access or use of any skill unless they are in WW form which also means they are restricted on the choice of ultimates if they do plan on being in WW form. As such it makes sense they do not receive further punitive effects when they are not in WW form.

So the reality is both skill lines are punitive to a degree.

Stx

I have no idea what you're talking about because you don't go into any specifics in your post.. just a bunch of dramatic statements and opinions.

I only have one vampire character currently but he is super powerful. Mist form is one of the most powerful abilities in the game, and the vampire spammable hits harder than any other instant magicka spammable.

I don't think the vamp tree is perfect, but its a lot better than before in my opinion, and at the end of the day, most players are taking the skill line for:
1) the passives
2) RP
3) to add Mist form to their pvp kit

Basically all the same reasons anyone has ever used vampire. I don't see the issue, but maybe you could add some specifics to your case.

Merforum

Xahran wrote: »

@Merforum
The penalties are a big deal considering what you get for them. Right now all the vampire skill line can be summarised in elusive mist (just this morph), undeath and swarming scion (which is still not always good for the cost)

All vampire skills either are quite expensive rendering the cost reduction from higher stages moot, or have very punishing penalties that reward only a solo gankblade.

* Stage 4 passive is good but not worth the penalties. Give it like extra movement speed that sticks for a few secs when out of invisibilty or just anything to sweeten the deal.
* Blood frenzy is actually good but make so it is disabled when you get cced or switch bars so you aren't forced to double-bar it.
* Vampire ult is still rather expensive for how short it is. I suggest keeping its cost at lower stages and give it a unique extra cost reduction at higher stages which would make stage 4 worthwhile for once.
* Eviscerate is a short ranged, single target, spammable with a slow animation that is only barely better than other spammables if you are already dying, a state you don't want to be in for long in any game mode. Blood for blood makes things worse with both hurting you and disabling heals from allies rendering it bad no matter how you think about it. Either reduce Blood for blood's cost or remove the heal from allies penalty. Also make Arterial burst has like 20% heal on damage dealt, instead of the crit bonus, so you can stay longer in low hp state.
* Vampiring drain. Uhm ... just remove that skill already. Give us a gap closer or a hot that gets better at low hp to keep with the theme.
* Don't have ideas for mesmerise or blood mist though.
* Maybe nerf Undeath to up to 25 or 20%.

As you can see I never suggested to make vampirism more accessible by reducing its stage penalties or blood frenzy's cost, because I still believe vampirism should still be a curse with good benefits and harsh penalties, as I don't want vampirism to be a must have like it used to be, nor I would like to see all of Tamriel's population turn into vampires, but right now the skill line feels like its main uses are like 3 skills, gankblade and role-playing. Myself I would rather modify all the skills and passives so they don't feel like a 4th skill line for gankblade as they are currently, and have more general use for everyone just like Psijic does.

Sounds like we agree the negative effects are not a problem, and a few passives/skills could be tweaked. I think undeath is fine as it is though, this is the new meme like 'nerf proc sets'. People are using vamp with undeath more in PVP just because the health recovery got nerfed big time and it makes a bit more sense to use, not OP in the least.

As others have stated though I think the vamp passives/skills do make NB more OP than they should be in PVP. But shade and cloak are already insanely OP by someone who knows how to exploit them fully. 'Dark stalker' passive maybe should have movement speed buff or cost reduction at level 1, instead of sneak buffs.

I think blood frenzy should be removed as the level 2 passive already gives 300 w/s dmg just for leaving stealth. Both those together are insane. But I think they should add a requirement to be in combat for that skill or passive to be active, because the main problem is PREBUFFing. In other words, you have to use mist/stealth/cloak DURING COMBAT to get 300 w/s dmg buff NOT BEFORE combat. Also not be able to prebuff bloodk frenzy, only use it in combat.

Merforum

Amottica wrote: »

It seems WW and vampire lines, and the effects of having the skill line, are not comparable by any means.

A vampire is a vampire 100% of the time and has access to their skills 100% of the time. As such it makes sense that any negative effect have a 100% uptime. Of course, we can manage the impact of that negative effect by managing our vampire level.

A WW is not permitted access or use of any skill unless they are in WW form which also means they are restricted on the choice of ultimates if they do plan on being in WW form. As such it makes sense they do not receive further punitive effects when they are not in WW form.

So the reality is both skill lines are punitive to a degree.

Just a slight correction, you can slot WW abilities and get the 'while slotted' benefit when not in form. Having ult slotted gives 15% stam rec bonus and insanely having 'hircine bounty' slotted gives major brutality, 'roar' gives major savagery, the second 2 have the actual skill greyed out but you still get the 'while slotted' bonus. But the main point is that if there is no negative effect while not in WW form then it is not a curse at all. BTW people compare vamp to ww because the game treats them as mutually exclusive.

The_Lex

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

This answer is easy: because vampire used to be "mandatory" for end-game PvE play due to the permanent 10% Magicka regeneration bonus. That was back during a time when sustain was incredibly hard to come by so anyone wanting to min/max their character was basically obligated to become a vampire for the passive.

In the "re-vamp" they wanted to correct this but went too far in the other direction. On top of that, they made most vampire skills senselessly niche and/or weak to the point of uselessness.

And then, of course, in PvP, lots of players still feel compelled to take vampire because the 30% mitigation passive is "too good to pass up" - which is itself another problem.

TLDR; There have been innumerable good suggestions on how to improve the vampire skill line supplied by the forum over the last year but the developers appear to be too proud to consider any of them.

TL;DR:

Because ZOS has an affinity for massive pendulum swinging changes.

Seriously, it’s all they either know how to do or are capable of doing.

Vevvev

Merforum wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Kharner wrote: »

The ult might be a bit too expensive in my opinion, but nobody can deny how strong it is.

Except Perfect Scion. Swarming Scion is indeed great, but it's other version is in dire need of a redesign to be comparable.

Yes swarming is better morph. But if you say Perfect Scion is bad that means the negative effect aren't that bad (because the point of that morph is to remove those while in that form). Maybe they should increase that morph's time to 45s-1min and/or lower cost.

I mean... think of it. Let's actually compare Swarming Scion to Perfect Scion on it's strengths vs weaknesses.

Swarming Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• Damage dealing AoE over 20 seconds that heals for 15% of all damage it does

Perfect Scion:

• Can see enemies through walls
• Heal for 15% of all damage done
• 10k health, magicka, and stamina
• Instant full heal
• No non-vampire ability cost weakness
• No health recovery weakness
• All vampire passives active
• 24% reduced vampire ability costs
• Around 10 ultimate cheaper

Perfect Scion looks like it wins on paper, but the devil's in the details when you consider Swarming Scion's strength, the bat swarm. The damage per target the bat swarm deals makes up for the health recovery you'd get back, Swarming Scion deals additional damage for being in the form applying constant pressure to enemies around you, the 10k extra magicka and stamina actually boosts the damage of the bat swarm making the tooltip inaccurate when viewing it as a mortal, and if you're running Swarming Scion odds are you're already a stage 3-4 vampire and have the passives you want.

The only reason to pick Perfect Scion over Swarming Scion is if you're fighting a magDK, and even then we're overlooking another problem... while a Perfect Scion you're still flagged in the game code as a vampire. Fighter's Guild abilities will still tear you a new one with their 20% increased damage meaning you don't actually lose all your weaknesses. You only lose your stage weaknesses, and you've probably already built around them for being this committed to being a vampire.

Exactly right, level 5 vamp looks good on paper but the swarm is way better. But that is because the negative effects and skill cost increase isn't that big of a deal that this thread seems to be wanting to point out. The Scion should be about half the ULT cost or twice the duration of swarming and might still not be worth using.

Ah, sorry I misunderstood you! My bad but yes, the cost decrease on Perfect Scion does need to be amplified more, the duration amped up, or a gap closing attack similar to Materialize on the old Clouding Swarm ultimate.

buttaface

Vamp is fine, near perfect with just the -slightest- tweak buff of normal skill costs. All it needs.