So...Vampire is now a playstyle, and not a Passive, it seems.

JMadFour · May 2020

It seems to me that ZOS went out of their way to turn Vampire from being just a regen passive, to being an entire playstyle that you need to commit to and build for. The skill cost increase seems to be a way to encourage actually playing as a Vampire, rather than just getting a bite, putting two points into a passive and then ignoring everything else.

Naturally, the vast majority of the Vampire players, who were only Vampires for the cheap, easy min/max sustain passive (and the cheap easy damage reduction passive, for Tanks) are not pleased by this. I can see how they'd be upset with seemingly getting the easy sustain basically taken from them. They'll need to find other ways to make that up.

Personally, I am more interested in seeing how people will make the new Vampire work in all manners of content.

The reality is, most people who have Vampire characters only had them for the Regen and/or Undeath Passives. Not really interested in actually playing as a Vampire, just throwing a couple skill points for min/maxing. ZOS seems to be explicitly discouraging that with this new Vampire skill line. This sentiment seemingly even made it into quest dialogue for the new Vampire Intro quest, if what I am reading is correct.

People will complain for a bit. A LOT of people will cure their Vampires and write them off as pure trash because min/max. Some folks will make the new Vampire work with specific Vampire builds for all content. Maybe the new Vampire won't ever be allowed into Vet Trials or whatever. Maybe they will. We'll see.

In the long run, Vampire will have a significantly smaller, but significantly more devoted playerbase, imo.

xF1REFL1x · May 2020

All my toons are vampires for the regen passive. They probably wont be after this patch but we will see. From what I am hearing healers will be better equipped for the regen loss anyway. I'm not a role player but can understand why you and others will be happy to play the vampire more often now. No matter what... good players will figure it out and move on. Vampires are cool but I"m kind of happy not to have to hide the vampire skin anymore... lol. Wether you are a trial, pvp, or role player... I hope you all enjoy the game!

JMadFour · May 2020

xF1REFL1x wrote: »

All my toons are vampires for the regen passive. I probably wont be after this patch but we will see. From what I am hearing healers will be better equipped for the regen loss anyway. I'm not a role player but can understand why you and others will be happy to play the vampire more often now. No matter what... good players will figure it out and move on. Vampires are cool but I"m kind of happy to not have to hide the vampire skin anymore... lol. Wether you are a trial, pvp, or role player... I hope you all enjoy the game!

eh, I'm not certain how I will make it work, but I'm gonna check it out and see how it works as a playstyle. I give no guarantees on my end.

Bekkael · May 2020

Maybe.

I had one of my characters become a vampire for 2 whole days, a couple years ago. She was so fugly that I had to cure her since I can't stand to play hideous characters. I had a werewolf for quite a long time, but since I used the skills less and less over time, I ended up curing her too. So, no interest in playing as a monster again.

It sucks to have something you love taken away though, so I have a lot of sympathy for those who are upset over the vampire changes. I have mourned all the changes they have made these past years to my beloved DK, my Sorc, my NB...and the list goes on. If you play this game long enough, something (or many somethings) you love will end up getting gutted and changed all around. That seems to be all MMO devs know how to do, and my single, most hated thing about the genre. But since singleplayer TES games are dead and never coming back, it's either play ESO or nothing.

ManM · May 2020

Yep, you lose your own class identity as you go up in stages, with stage 4 letting you experience what it's like to be a generic bloodfiend, aka, a fragile trash mob. I just wish they edited the quest dialog to better match the reality of the new vampire experience. They tried to imply drinking blood is making you stronger, but the actual gameplay makes you become frail and useless as you drink more. I'm not sure how they got to be so far off from their stated design goals, but, it is what it is.

There was a poll in the PTS forum about the vampire rework. Currently, it's at 22% votes positive, 78% negative, and that's among the people who enjoy trying new things and tweaking. This trainwreck is going to decimate the vampire population in game, which may very well be what they were trying to do.

Kiralyn2000 · May 2020

JMadFour wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS went out of their way to turn Vampire from being just a regen passive, to being an entire playstyle that you need to commit to and build for. The skill cost increase seems to be a way to encourage actually playing as a Vampire, rather than just getting a bite, putting two points into a passive and then ignoring everything else.

Well, yes. Didn't one of the devs just say that outright? Or did I just see a bunch of people repeating that when the PTS first launched?

Rake · May 2020

vampire is now unplayablestyle for any stamina

JMadFour · May 2020

ManM wrote: »

There was a poll in the PTS forum about the vampire rework. Currently, it's at 22% votes positive, 78% negative, and that's among the people who enjoy trying new things and tweaking. This trainwreck is going to decimate the vampire population in game, which may very well be what they were trying to do.

Well, I mean, it's not like anybody was actually a vampire to begin with, yeah?

I think they set out to make Vampire be something you don't just throw 2 extra skill points to and forget about. Which is what it is now, for the most part on live servers.

Whether they succeeded in doing that, remains to be seen.

MEBengalsFan2001 · May 2020

Being a vampire vs. not being a vampire...

Instead of playing as High Elf dps if a player wants to improve their magika recovery they simply need to swap their race over to Breton a race designed around sustain.

I played as a vampire both High Elf and Dark Elf and I also played as a Breton non-vampire and out of all of them I prefer my main as a Breton.

JMadFour · May 2020

Rake wrote: »

vampire is now unplayablestyle for any stamina

Vampire was always Magicka based tbh. that's not a major change.

It's always been Vamp = magicka, Werewolf = Stamina.

TheSeraphim · May 2020

JMadFour wrote: »

Vampire was always Magicka based tbh. that's not a major change.

It's always been Vamp = magicka, Werewolf = Stamina.

Is that why in Morrowind Vamparism increased your strength, dexterity, hand to hand, blunt weapon, heavy armor? Among other things?

Is it also why in Oblivion Vamparism increased your strength, speed, hand to hand, among other things?

JMadFour · May 2020

TheSeraphim wrote: »

JMadFour wrote: »

Vampire was always Magicka based tbh. that's not a major change.

It's always been Vamp = magicka, Werewolf = Stamina.

Is that why in Morrowind Vamparism increased your strength, dexterity, hand to hand, blunt weapon, heavy armor? Among other things?

Is it also why in Oblivion Vamparism increased your strength, speed, hand to hand, among other things?

This isn't Morrowind. Or Oblivion. or Skyrim. Or Arena. Or Daggerfall.

One would think that after 6 years of this game, people would have come to terms with that already.

In ESO, it has always, from day 1, been Vamp = Magicka, Werewolf = Stamina. That's how the game and the skill lines were designed. I offer no opinion on whether it is good or bad thing. Just the facts.

Sephyr · May 2020

JMadFour wrote: »

ManM wrote: »

There was a poll in the PTS forum about the vampire rework. Currently, it's at 22% votes positive, 78% negative, and that's among the people who enjoy trying new things and tweaking. This trainwreck is going to decimate the vampire population in game, which may very well be what they were trying to do.

Well, I mean, it's not like anybody was actually a vampire to begin with, yeah?

I think they set out to make Vampire be something you don't just throw 2 extra skill points to and forget about. Which is what it is now, for the most part on live servers.

Whether they succeeded in doing that, remains to be seen.

There's a good portion of us that wanted the line to be more engaging than just passives. I myself only used it to give vampirism to friends and guildies freely and there's a slew (or rather used to be) of casual RP/PvE guilds that would try to engage with the line on Live. There was indeed a good portion of us actually trying to create vampiric builds.

With the changes on PTS, it's just as lackluster if not more disappointing. And it's not because recovery was yeeted from the toolkit. Here's some of my issues along with what direction they could look (meaning it's not a fully balanced idea, rather a direction they could indeed look) to fix this mess.

You're punished for feeding with the -100% health regen debuff. This would've been better as a -100% flame resistance (including Dunmer passives) as well as removing any temporary or permanent immunity to Burning. Or if the -100% health regen thing is to be a staple, as the player nears Stage 3 we should gradually be getting back health regen. Maybe +5% per hour as an example.
The abilities seem to be a rather incomplete toolkit along with no clear direction. Drain Vigor for instance is a magicka drain, but returns Stamina. This would be better suited to return the resource that the character uses the most. Personally, I'd rather have it return more health that way Stage 4 uptime is just a smidge more viable with the -100% health regen debuff in mind.
Speaking of Stage 4, there's no real benefit to maintain the stage unless you're material harvesting. Spell/Weapon damage should go up per stage, not have a flat value based solely just the passives--essentially reworking Fury/Frenzy into those passives where you're required to use invisibility, stealth, or Mist Form.
Feeding on NPCs and enemy players should return missing health as well as give players incentive to keep actively feeding, adding a bonus to weapon/spell damage or even resource recovery.

It's also worth noting that there's no daily quests of any kind for both infections and that's a rather large opportunity missed since Dark Brotherood came out because the system can be easily tweaked to allow vamps and werewolves to have their own set of dailies to further engage in the line as well as get another chunk of experience dedicated only to those lines. This would allow more intuitive leveling for Lycanthropy to boot, but that's a little more off topic.

Other than that? I'm rather just underwhelmed because there's no true incentives still. You'll have people hovering at one or two stages for bomb builds or building super niche playstyles centered around AFKing in Mist Form.

Tommy_The_Gun · May 2020

Basically... vamp is now a sudo-NB skill line with some NB style passives, like dmg bonus from stealth, some siphoning style dmg / healing abilities and free invisibility, available for every class.

I guess it will work best on ganker or bomber builds, as it enables that play-style on other classes. I might be wrong, but giving easy access to invisibility to all classes ? It might have been a mistake. Non-vamp skill cost is there to make people use mostly vampire skills, but for ganking (quick attack from stealth to burst some one down) you actually don't need to use that many skills. Ulti + 3-4 skills... and since you have a huge dmg boost from stealth / mist, I think we will see Necro, Wardens, Sorcs or Templars being better assassins than Nightblades... which will be hilarious, but I am pretty sure it will happen.

Lotus781 · May 2020

Wow where have you been for the last six months?

JMadFour · May 2020

Sephyr wrote: »

JMadFour wrote: »

ManM wrote: »

There was a poll in the PTS forum about the vampire rework. Currently, it's at 22% votes positive, 78% negative, and that's among the people who enjoy trying new things and tweaking. This trainwreck is going to decimate the vampire population in game, which may very well be what they were trying to do.

Well, I mean, it's not like anybody was actually a vampire to begin with, yeah?

I think they set out to make Vampire be something you don't just throw 2 extra skill points to and forget about. Which is what it is now, for the most part on live servers.

Whether they succeeded in doing that, remains to be seen.

There's a good portion of us that wanted the line to be more engaging than just passives. I myself only used it to give vampirism to friends and guildies freely and there's a slew (or rather used to be) of casual RP/PvE guilds that would try to engage with the line on Live. There was indeed a good portion of us actually trying to create vampiric builds.

With the changes on PTS, it's just as lackluster if not more disappointing. And it's not because recovery was yeeted from the toolkit. Here's some of my issues along with what direction they could look (meaning it's not a fully balanced idea, rather a direction they could indeed look) to fix this mess.
You're punished for feeding with the -100% health regen debuff. This would've been better as a -100% flame resistance (including Dunmer passives) as well as removing any temporary or permanent immunity to Burning. Or if the -100% health regen thing is to be a staple, as the player nears Stage 3 we should gradually be getting back health regen. Maybe +5% per hour as an example.

The abilities seem to be a rather incomplete toolkit along with no clear direction. Drain Vigor for instance is a magicka drain, but returns Stamina. This would be better suited to return the resource that the character uses the most. Personally, I'd rather have it return more health that way Stage 4 uptime is just a smidge more viable with the -100% health regen debuff in mind.

Speaking of Stage 4, there's no real benefit to maintain the stage unless you're material harvesting. Spell/Weapon damage should go up per stage, not have a flat value based solely just the passives--essentially reworking Fury/Frenzy into those passives where you're required to use invisibility, stealth, or Mist Form.

Feeding on NPCs and enemy players should return missing health as well as give players incentive to keep actively feeding, adding a bonus to weapon/spell damage or even resource recovery.

It's also worth noting that there's no daily quests of any kind for both infections and that's a rather large opportunity missed since Dark Brotherood came out because the system can be easily tweaked to allow vamps and werewolves to have their own set of dailies to further engage in the line as well as get another chunk of experience dedicated only to those lines. This would allow more intuitive leveling for Lycanthropy to boot, but that's a little more off topic.

Other than that? I'm rather just underwhelmed because there's no true incentives still. You'll have people hovering at one or two stages for bomb builds or building super niche playstyles centered around AFKing in Mist Form.

I see. Interesting points all.

CMDR_Un1k0rn · May 2020

Good.

Vampires will no longer suck, because you will have to suck.

I am quite happy with the changes, and tanking is just fine without vampirism. Been doing it for months. Actually, I am going to be making a werewolf tanking build in Greymoor as that will be viable thanks to one certain set from a very easy dungeon...

DISCLAIMER: Viable means it is a plausible build, not optimal.

starlizard70ub17_ESO · May 2020

Rake wrote: »

vampire is now unplayable style for any stamina

Vampire has been less playable for stamina classes for a long time. Now because of the changes to skill costs, they're less playable for magic classes also. Soon, instead of seeing what vampire passives will work well with a given class build, now you're looking to see what class passives will work with a vampire build. (I'm thinking of magic warden vampire with jewelry of reduced magic skill cost, or magic regen would work.)

SydneyGrey · May 2020

I love the expanded vampire skill line. Extra skills are always great.

Chilly-McFreeze · May 2020

JMadFour wrote: »

TheSeraphim wrote: »

JMadFour wrote: »

Vampire was always Magicka based tbh. that's not a major change.

It's always been Vamp = magicka, Werewolf = Stamina.

Is that why in Morrowind Vamparism increased your strength, dexterity, hand to hand, blunt weapon, heavy armor? Among other things?

Is it also why in Oblivion Vamparism increased your strength, speed, hand to hand, among other things?

This isn't Morrowind. Or Oblivion. or Skyrim. Or Arena. Or Daggerfall.

One would think that after 6 years of this game, people would have come to terms with that already.

In ESO, it has always, from day 1, been Vamp = Magicka, Werewolf = Stamina. That's how the game and the skill lines were designed. I offer no opinion on whether it is good or bad thing. Just the facts.

You can't argue that current vampirism doesn't benefit stam builds too.

Noxavian · May 2020

JMadFour wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS went out of their way to turn Vampire from being just a regen passive, to being an entire playstyle that you need to commit to and build for. The skill cost increase seems to be a way to encourage actually playing as a Vampire, rather than just getting a bite, putting two points into a passive and then ignoring everything else.

Naturally, the vast majority of the Vampire players, who were only Vampires for the cheap, easy min/max sustain passive (and the cheap easy damage reduction passive, for Tanks) are not pleased by this. I can see how they'd be upset with seemingly getting the easy sustain basically taken from them. They'll need to find other ways to make that up.

Personally, I am more interested in seeing how people will make the new Vampire work in all manners of content.

The reality is, most people who have Vampire characters only had them for the Regen and/or Undeath Passives. Not really interested in actually playing as a Vampire, just throwing a couple skill points for min/maxing. ZOS seems to be explicitly discouraging that with this new Vampire skill line. This sentiment seemingly even made it into quest dialogue for the new Vampire Intro quest, if what I am reading is correct.

People will complain for a bit. A LOT of people will cure their Vampires and write them off as pure trash because min/max. Some folks will make the new Vampire work with specific Vampire builds for all content. Maybe the new Vampire won't ever be allowed into Vet Trials or whatever. Maybe they will. We'll see.

In the long run, Vampire will have a significantly smaller, but significantly more devoted playerbase, imo.

This isn't why most people are complaining. The design of the abilities and kit are the reason why people are complaining..... Not sure where you got the idea everyone was complaining because the kit wasn't just for the passives anymore.

Paradisius · May 2020

Noxavian wrote: »

This isn't why most people are complaining. The design of the abilities and kit are the reason why people are complaining..... Not sure where you got the idea everyone was complaining because the kit wasn't just for the passives anymore.

I second this completely, I for one actually preferred 6.0.2 Vampirism and prior, the kit was a mixed bag but was cheap enough at stage 4 to be enticing to use. Now? its not only a mixed bag but very dangerous to play with. Most newer players who havent tested the PTS and just see the "cool" Vampire trailer they sent out will go out in the world, turn on blood frenzy, and wonder why they died in the time they took to blink.

If your going to have dangerous to use abilities, at least make the highest stage of vampirism the most viable choice for them, not just to break even with normal abilities without any changes to their risk/reward

JMadFour · May 2020

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

Soon, instead of seeing what vampire passives will work well with a given class build, now you're looking to see what class passives will work with a vampire build.

and I feel like this was the whole intent of the rework.

I'm interested, but not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun · May 2020

Or maybe people are unhappy with the rework because it turns vampires into some overly-specific, gimmicky skill line with unimpressive looking abilities (woo...Eviscerate spam...how thrilling...). Cutting down the line's flexibility to turn it into a lolDPSonly option? Harsh penalties that don't justify the mediocre abilities you get in return? Blood Scion looking like a generic-brand version of the Vampire Lord they knew everyone had been expecting?

No, the problem lies entirely with the 10% magicka/stamina regen being gone.

Gabrielzavadski · May 2020

Bekkael wrote: »

Maybe.

But since singleplayer TES games are dead and never coming back, it's either play ESO or nothing.

Wtf bro? are you living under a rock or something?

Noxavian · May 2020

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun wrote: »

Or maybe people are unhappy with the rework because it turns vampires into some overly-specific, gimmicky skill line with unimpressive looking abilities (woo...Eviscerate spam...how thrilling...). Cutting down the line's flexibility to turn it into a lolDPSonly option? Harsh penalties that don't justify the mediocre abilities you get in return? Blood Scion looking like a generic-brand version of the Vampire Lord they knew everyone had been expecting?

No, the problem lies entirely with the 10% magicka/stamina regen being gone.

Yeah no clue where this guy got the idea that most people are upset because of losing the 10% regen. Must not of been reading the PTS forms too much

Vevvev · May 2020

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

Bekkael wrote: »

Maybe.

But since singleplayer TES games are dead and never coming back, it's either play ESO or nothing.

Wtf bro? are you living under a rock or something?

Think he means they're no longer getting updates. I don't know.

Glurin · May 2020

Noxavian wrote: »

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun wrote: »

Or maybe people are unhappy with the rework because it turns vampires into some overly-specific, gimmicky skill line with unimpressive looking abilities (woo...Eviscerate spam...how thrilling...). Cutting down the line's flexibility to turn it into a lolDPSonly option? Harsh penalties that don't justify the mediocre abilities you get in return? Blood Scion looking like a generic-brand version of the Vampire Lord they knew everyone had been expecting?

No, the problem lies entirely with the 10% magicka/stamina regen being gone.

Yeah no clue where this guy got the idea that most people are upset because of losing the 10% regen. Must not of been reading the PTS forms too much

Well, to be fair, there are a few threads and a sprinkling of posts where people are complaining about exactly that. But yeah, I wouldn't say that it ever represented the majority.

Deathlord92 · May 2020

I have played a vampire assassin in oblivion skyrim and eso. I play a vampire stamblade and I don’t care about losing the regen passive but I feel like adding the cost increase on non vampire abilities is to much sure I’m definitely going to try and make it work even if I have to stay at stage 1 vampire some of us like playing a vampire simply for role play.

Noxavian · May 2020

Glurin wrote: »

Noxavian wrote: »

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun wrote: »

Or maybe people are unhappy with the rework because it turns vampires into some overly-specific, gimmicky skill line with unimpressive looking abilities (woo...Eviscerate spam...how thrilling...). Cutting down the line's flexibility to turn it into a lolDPSonly option? Harsh penalties that don't justify the mediocre abilities you get in return? Blood Scion looking like a generic-brand version of the Vampire Lord they knew everyone had been expecting?

No, the problem lies entirely with the 10% magicka/stamina regen being gone.

Yeah no clue where this guy got the idea that most people are upset because of losing the 10% regen. Must not of been reading the PTS forms too much

Well, to be fair, there are a few threads and a sprinkling of posts where people are complaining about exactly that. But yeah, I wouldn't say that it ever represented the majority.

True, I can agree with this. There has been a few posts and threads here and there, but it is no where near what the actual complaints have been about.

emilyhyoyeon · May 2020

Deathlord92 wrote: »

I have played a vampire assassin in oblivion skyrim and eso. I play a vampire stamblade and I don’t care about losing the regen passive but I feel like adding the cost increase on non vampire abilities is to much sure I’m definitely going to try and make it work even if I have to stay at stage 1 vampire some of us like playing a vampire simply for role play.

I'm the same way. One of my main OCs in TES is a vampire mage (who I use to tank with in ESO). I never made her a vampire for the current buffs, it just coincidentally helped. I also do vet HM content and the nonvamp ability increase is awkward. 3% at stage one is an improvement from the previous 5%, but numbers add up. oh well. I think I prefer this over everyone using vampirism for the regen passives, though.