Vampirism?

Scardan · March 2021

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

All of this sounds like rationalization... They seem to be bending over backwards to let people have vampiric powers with no downside... even though that's never been how it's been presented.

Vampirism and Lycanthropy should grant great power, but at a COST. Presently, there is no cost to either one, and I don't think that's either appropriate, balanced or consistent with the lore.

Vampire is literally the weakest thing you could do to your class right now.

It is genuinely better 9/10 times to not be a vampire than it is to be one.

-extra ability costs
-100% negative health regen
-abilities are very niche and the better ones cost a crap ton of HP
-All melee range abilities despite not having a single bit of mobility in their kit.
-The ultimate is extremely expensive for what it does and is a re-skin of the existing Bone Goliath ultimate. Essentially making it to where if you're a necromancer you have to ignore the Bone Tyrant ult completely if you're a vampire.
-Extra fire damage
-Extra fighters guild/prismatic damage
-Almost all of the abilities have 1 useless morph and 1 okay morph.
-Has abilities that discourage group play

Where's this 'no cost' you speak of? Cause clearly we are not playing the same vampire.

Currently the only purpose vampires serves is:

-Bow Snipe/nightblade ganking
-Very top tier leaderboard pushing raids because you can cheese Blood Frenzy to get slightly higher numbers **if** you have a hardcore group of players. Even then, this is only cheesing eviscerate/blood frenzy just to get higher numbers in a situation where all players involved already have maxed out legendary top 1% gear.
-Running invis through questing

That's it. Those the vampire's options for play generally. In all other scenarios you are better off not being a vampire.

I want to throw something positive about vampire, although I cured myself, because the playstile was not my thing. Being pure necro is more fun for me personally.
PvE solo builds around Swarming Scion if your class gain Ultimate fast are good for soloing things, Swarming Scion + heals + Salted Fury or other morph of Blood Frenzy is pretty strong. DoT builds around Mist Form are good to soloing things in PvE. Mist Form is good in PvP. Increased fire damage can be countered with dunmer race, health regen is not useful in fight anyway, out of combat you can drink a potion or heal with skill. Melee range - next patch makes daggers good for mag users in PvE, increased cost in next patch will be not that painful anymore if people are right about much easier sustain.
I have not seen many people in PvP using Fighters Guild spamables, plus vampire have good damage mitigation at stage 4 + mist form.

starkerealm · March 2021

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

Have to remember that mist form and blood scion are still great abilities. You can even stay stage 1 for both.

Blood Scion is an 'ok' ultimate for the cost. It's even marked up to 'good' in some cases. But it also isn't good enough to be 'wow, awesome!' cause at the end of the day it's nothing but a big stat steroid and a moderately ok AoE.

Mist Form is literally not useful in anything but PvP. This by itself limits its 'greatness' heavily. If it had a morph that flavored the ability to be way better in PvE, I'd agree it'd be a pretty gerat skill.

Blood Scion's self heal elevates it to relatively decent, especially on the swarm. It's major use is in the sewers, because it will let you track targets through walls (briefly). It's situational, but not bad.

Mist Form is an amazing skill in a few rare situations. It pushes mitigation by an additional 75% (this is above your 50% armor cap), so it can be useful to soak off a serious hit, and can give you near tank mitigation on a DPS. It's important to think about this one as a kind of "in-place-of-blocking" skill, rather than looking at the speed buff or the damage morphs. The situations where it's useful are quite rare, but in those moments, being able to pull it out and slot it in a flex slot can be very useful.

Bradyfjord · March 2021

RedMuse wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

[snip]

Hate to break it to you but vampires in folklore were never meant to be effected by Sunlight, this is a stupid hollywood phenomenon bestowed upon us by the 1922 movie Nosferatu.

This right here. I have major beef with modern, ie post-Nosferatu depiction of vampires in general, because sunlight was never a source that destroyed or burned vampires. "At worst" they went dormant during the day, a lot of the time they were unaffected. Even Dracula in his Bram Stoker incarnation wasn't affected by daylight, that came much later.

I enjoyed how Dracula was portrayed in the novel. He was encountered in both night and day, and the characters never knew what to do about him. But I also liked how Anne Rice's novels portrayed their vampires because they had more humanity to lose, so a weakness to sunlight (and strict sleep schedule) helped make them more interesting. These are better as books than movies, because much of the action was internal.

ESO, in my opinion, does a decent job of giving us tradeoffs for being/not being a vampire. I preferred the first iteration of eso vampire, but I wouldn't say it was something I liked. I don't like the new vampire at all. It has nothing to do with how they are depicted because this is a game, but that eso vampires are just not fun to play.

Morgha_Kul · March 2021

I think if it were me, I would have revamped Vampires so there were the several clans, implemented somewhat like the Mage Guild, with passives and abilities specific to the clans. You would only be able to be in ONE clan, of course.

So, for example, if you joined Clan Berne, you would be more melee, brute force focused. Clan Aundae would be more magical, with more shapeshifting and illusion. Clan Quarra would be stealthier, more insidious and terrifying.

Actually, I would do all the factions that way, the Dunmer Great Houses, the Tribunal Temple, the Breton Orders of Knighthood, and so on. They could even include some story missions, repeatable missions, and the like.

starkerealm · March 2021

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Clan Quarra would be stealthier, more insidious and terrifying.

Except for the part where Volrina Quarra isn't a vampire yet... so the Quarra clan isn't even founded yet.

Snowy_Wyndra_Karn · March 2021

barney2525 wrote: »

I made character a vampire to get the achievement dye ....

kept him as a vampire for the stealth bennies and to 'bite' other players who wanted to be vamps.

But that's it. Probably will feed on a npc once for the achievement at some point

This is exactly the same for me.

I never go past Stage 1.

starkerealm · March 2021

delenn35 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

I made character a vampire to get the achievement dye ....

kept him as a vampire for the stealth bennies and to 'bite' other players who wanted to be vamps.

But that's it. Probably will feed on a npc once for the achievement at some point

This is exactly the same for me.

I never go past Stage 1.

Stage 2 has a pretty nice, from stealth, weapon/spell damage bonus, which is kinda tempting. Stage 3 still has low health resists. Stage 4 has invisibility while sprinting... which is bonkers.

So, not faulting you, but there is some neat stuff there for stages 2 through 4. (Though Stage 4 has a lot of serious drawbacks.)

WhereArtThouVampires · March 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

delenn35 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

I made character a vampire to get the achievement dye ....

kept him as a vampire for the stealth bennies and to 'bite' other players who wanted to be vamps.

But that's it. Probably will feed on a npc once for the achievement at some point

This is exactly the same for me.

I never go past Stage 1.

Stage 2 has a pretty nice, from stealth, weapon/spell damage bonus, which is kinda tempting. Stage 3 still has low health resists. Stage 4 has invisibility while sprinting... which is bonkers.

So, not faulting you, but there is some neat stuff there for stages 2 through 4. (Though Stage 4 has a lot of serious drawbacks.)

Invisibility while sprinting is absolutely not bonkers for anything other than going through questing.

phermitgb · March 2021

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

So, I got on my Imperial character today, for the first time since they changed Vampirism. He is one, and I found myself perplexed... because apparently now there is no need to feed.

One of the fundamental things about being a vampire is that it requires that you feed to avoid becoming a monster. That's the curse. Now, however, there is no need to feed. Indeed, feeding is now what turns you into a monster.

Am I the only one that thinks this is backwards?

Also, I continue to be disappointed with how unaffected by sunlight vampires are. I get that you can't have it do damage as it's "supposed" to... but it should do SOMETHING. Perhaps an even greater penalty to fire damage, an inability to heal, or something of that sort...

Vampirism is supposed to be a CURSE...
(Lycanthropy too, actually)

"Am I the only one that thinks this is backwards" - I don't know about that particular question, but you could easily make the argument that the act of feeding IS what makes you monstrous, in the sense that you accept that preying on sentient beings is how you gain your life sustenance and if you're okay with that than you're a monster. As for whether having more "blood" in you either makes you MORE vampiric/a-more-powerful-vampire, OR feeding staves off the increased inhumanity that comes from being a ravenous monster, is basically a 50/50 choice. Now, I'll admit, it's a tad frustratingly confusing that ESO basically went all one direction at first, and has almost completely reversed direction in the current iteration, but *shrug* that's MMO design logic for you.

as for being a "curse"...*shrug* - Elder scrolls in general has taken several classic fantasy tropes (like "elves", "demons", and "vampirism") and shifted them sorta sideways to create something half-familiar, and half-distinctive, which, quite frankly, is a feature I've always enjoyed about the elder scrolls worlds and lore. Before ESO, vampirism was basically a "disease" for lack of a better term/description, and it gave you some measure of power, in exchange for a certain degree of RP impact/pushback from the world around you. Which was cool - get more power, get screwed in some of your RP interactions, open up some more RP options with certain people - like the era of gaming from which it came, there was a lot of closing doors on some options and opening up others.

Now, with ESO, it's more of a basic game power mechanic - with an attempt to create a cost/benefit arrangement - combine that with the fact that various segments of online communities will do nothing but *** endlessly about everything, and ESO basically had to pick some cost/benefit arrangement and just accept that half the community was going to complain regardless - doesn't matter which half - roughly half the community was going to be dissatisfied for REASONS!!...

so, right now vampirism is..I honestly don't have any vampire characters, and don't care anymore myself - but whichever direction they went in, as long as there's a cost/benefit balance (and apparently there is - you get benefits, you get downsides, and you still feed, which has an "effect", I don't care which direction it goes in as long as there are two directions, one where you starve and one where you feed, one where you're more powerful and one where you're...I dunno...more "normal"??)

so, to answer your Original Post question - meh. To feed to AVOID becoming a monster doesn't, in my mind, make any more/less sense than feeding to BECOME monstrously powerful - it's one direction or the other, they both work, and as long as there's a cost/benefit calculation going on, I"m satisfied

Lycanthropy - same thing, basically - some people ascribe to the "lycanthropy is a curse" philosophy, others "lycanthropy is a power" philosophy - in ESO's case, it's more of a power than anything else, and...*shrug* - sure why not. I *sorta* wish it worked more like vampirism sometimes, and sometimes I'm glad it doesn't - it's different, and a little more "committed" to the moment rather than your total character lifestyle - whatever - it's experimental, I get some positives out of it, and I get some negatives from it - works for me in a general game balance and gameplay experience sort of way, so I'm satisfied

anyway, my overall point is - I feel like you're taking your own personal perspective and applying it as a universal constant, and I don't think that's warranted - YOUR PERSONAL perspective of how vampirism *should* work is fine, all things considered, but it's not the ONLY way to think of vampirism, and apparently, the current dev team of ESO thinks differently than you do, so...you got screwed, in that respect. I feel for you, but I'm not sure that your personal discomfort necessarily warrants a total redesign of vampires - although, again, I care so little for vampirism in general, that if the devs DID suddenly decide to redesign entirely in your favor, I'd probably just cope with that just fine as well

Morgha_Kul · March 2021

phermitgb wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

So, I got on my Imperial character today, for the first time since they changed Vampirism. He is one, and I found myself perplexed... because apparently now there is no need to feed.

One of the fundamental things about being a vampire is that it requires that you feed to avoid becoming a monster. That's the curse. Now, however, there is no need to feed. Indeed, feeding is now what turns you into a monster.

Am I the only one that thinks this is backwards?

Also, I continue to be disappointed with how unaffected by sunlight vampires are. I get that you can't have it do damage as it's "supposed" to... but it should do SOMETHING. Perhaps an even greater penalty to fire damage, an inability to heal, or something of that sort...

Vampirism is supposed to be a CURSE...
(Lycanthropy too, actually)

"Am I the only one that thinks this is backwards" - I don't know about that particular question, but you could easily make the argument that the act of feeding IS what makes you monstrous, in the sense that you accept that preying on sentient beings is how you gain your life sustenance and if you're okay with that than you're a monster. As for whether having more "blood" in you either makes you MORE vampiric/a-more-powerful-vampire, OR feeding staves off the increased inhumanity that comes from being a ravenous monster, is basically a 50/50 choice. Now, I'll admit, it's a tad frustratingly confusing that ESO basically went all one direction at first, and has almost completely reversed direction in the current iteration, but *shrug* that's MMO design logic for you.

as for being a "curse"...*shrug* - Elder scrolls in general has taken several classic fantasy tropes (like "elves", "demons", and "vampirism") and shifted them sorta sideways to create something half-familiar, and half-distinctive, which, quite frankly, is a feature I've always enjoyed about the elder scrolls worlds and lore. Before ESO, vampirism was basically a "disease" for lack of a better term/description, and it gave you some measure of power, in exchange for a certain degree of RP impact/pushback from the world around you. Which was cool - get more power, get screwed in some of your RP interactions, open up some more RP options with certain people - like the era of gaming from which it came, there was a lot of closing doors on some options and opening up others.

Now, with ESO, it's more of a basic game power mechanic - with an attempt to create a cost/benefit arrangement - combine that with the fact that various segments of online communities will do nothing but *** endlessly about everything, and ESO basically had to pick some cost/benefit arrangement and just accept that half the community was going to complain regardless - doesn't matter which half - roughly half the community was going to be dissatisfied for REASONS!!...

so, right now vampirism is..I honestly don't have any vampire characters, and don't care anymore myself - but whichever direction they went in, as long as there's a cost/benefit balance (and apparently there is - you get benefits, you get downsides, and you still feed, which has an "effect", I don't care which direction it goes in as long as there are two directions, one where you starve and one where you feed, one where you're more powerful and one where you're...I dunno...more "normal"??)

so, to answer your Original Post question - meh. To feed to AVOID becoming a monster doesn't, in my mind, make any more/less sense than feeding to BECOME monstrously powerful - it's one direction or the other, they both work, and as long as there's a cost/benefit calculation going on, I"m satisfied

Lycanthropy - same thing, basically - some people ascribe to the "lycanthropy is a curse" philosophy, others "lycanthropy is a power" philosophy - in ESO's case, it's more of a power than anything else, and...*shrug* - sure why not. I *sorta* wish it worked more like vampirism sometimes, and sometimes I'm glad it doesn't - it's different, and a little more "committed" to the moment rather than your total character lifestyle - whatever - it's experimental, I get some positives out of it, and I get some negatives from it - works for me in a general game balance and gameplay experience sort of way, so I'm satisfied

anyway, my overall point is - I feel like you're taking your own personal perspective and applying it as a universal constant, and I don't think that's warranted - YOUR PERSONAL perspective of how vampirism *should* work is fine, all things considered, but it's not the ONLY way to think of vampirism, and apparently, the current dev team of ESO thinks differently than you do, so...you got screwed, in that respect. I feel for you, but I'm not sure that your personal discomfort necessarily warrants a total redesign of vampires - although, again, I care so little for vampirism in general, that if the devs DID suddenly decide to redesign entirely in your favor, I'd probably just cope with that just fine as well

A considered response.

However, the point I'm making is that Vampires in pretty well every story, suffer from a hunger that drives them to feed, something they have difficulty controlling. Even Dracula found himself struggling when Johnathan Harker cut himself shaving. So, I feel that same sort of thing should exist HERE.

That is kind of what happened before. If you didn't want to suffer from the ill effects of vampirism, you would need to feed. Now, the effects were honestly pretty trivial (I usually didn't bother even considering them), but they were something, at least.

Now, there's nothing to make vampires suffer the need to feed.

Vevvev · March 2021

And mistform got buffed and nerfed this patch. It won't deactivate when falling, but now stamina and health regeneration have been turned off alongside magicka regeneration. I understand the health regeneration being turned off but the removing of stamina regeneration just completely killed my uses for it in PVE as a sprint alternative when I used up all my stamina.

starkerealm · March 2021

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

delenn35 wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

I made character a vampire to get the achievement dye ....

kept him as a vampire for the stealth bennies and to 'bite' other players who wanted to be vamps.

But that's it. Probably will feed on a npc once for the achievement at some point

This is exactly the same for me.

I never go past Stage 1.

Stage 2 has a pretty nice, from stealth, weapon/spell damage bonus, which is kinda tempting. Stage 3 still has low health resists. Stage 4 has invisibility while sprinting... which is bonkers.

So, not faulting you, but there is some neat stuff there for stages 2 through 4. (Though Stage 4 has a lot of serious drawbacks.)

Invisibility while sprinting is absolutely not bonkers for anything other than going through questing.

Bonkers in the sense that it's borderline unusable. I'd normally say, "except for theft," but because of the spin up time, it's pretty dicey there as well.

No, it's bonkers, but not in a good way, more in a, "how the hell did this happen?" kind of way.

Fun, but not useful. There might be some edge cases, like MoL runners, not sure.

QuebraRegra · March 2021

RedMuse wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

[snip]

Hate to break it to you but vampires in folklore were never meant to be effected by Sunlight, this is a stupid hollywood phenomenon bestowed upon us by the 1922 movie Nosferatu.

This right here. I have major beef with modern, ie post-Nosferatu depiction of vampires in general, because sunlight was never a source that destroyed or burned vampires. "At worst" they went dormant during the day, a lot of the time they were unaffected. Even Dracula in his Bram Stoker incarnation wasn't affected by daylight, that came much later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varney_the_Vampire

Morgha_Kul · March 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

Clan Quarra would be stealthier, more insidious and terrifying.

Except for the part where Volrina Quarra isn't a vampire yet... so the Quarra clan isn't even founded yet.

Well, they could either leave that one out, or state that the clan was originally under a different leader (and name).