Vampires and Werewolves

FURYBlakhart · May 2014

Would like to see changes made to Vampire / Werewolf mechanics in-game. Both in terms of acquiring them and in their operation.

Personally, and I think most would agree, that Werewolf feels inferior to Vampire in many regards. I would love to see them more in-balance with each other. I would also like to see some alterations made to how the game deals with them.

I'll break it into 3 parts:
1) Vampires > Werewolves

2) The ease of acquiring one of these trees

3) Ways of impacting the choice to become a freak of nature. Consequences vs benefits.

Firstly, Vamps seem superior to Werewolves in many ways.

Now I hate cries for nerfs and im not necessarily advocating a Vamp nerf (bugs aside). However one of two things has to happen: Either Vamps need a nerf to bring their powers back down in line with WW, or WW need a buff to put their power in line with vampire. You really cannot have any other opinion unless you actively want Vamp or WW to be that much stronger than the other. Personally I would prefer to see WW buffed

Vamps have 3 active skills. One is a pretty impressive Essence drain with both a CC and recovery attached to it. One is a huge damage reducer and one of them is a decent AoE which can be morphed to give health feedback. Overall pretty impressive.

The passives are pretty impressive as well: Including extra damage mitigation when low on health and increased recovery rates for both magicka AND stamina.

Not only this - But Vamps dont even have to change form to exploit their bonuses.

The consequence of added threat of fire is mostly nullified by something as simple as fire resistance gear.

Now look at WW.

Have an Ultimate with a huge cost just to get into the form to utilize this tree. You have a very limited amount of time to remain in werewolf form.

As a werewolf you gain enhanced Stamina, Armor and Run speed. The stamina is nice, especially since you are a creature of stamina. Run speed is also nice. The extra armor is nearly useless.

Active werewolf abilities are limited to 2. One is a lame leap that does very little other than bringing you into contact with your opponent. The Roar is nice, especially against groups of MOBs...but it is very niche. It also tends to spread your enemies wide apart and youre chasing them all down.

As for passives:

Pursuit: Increase to stamina. Not very useful when you only have 2 abilities to use anyway.

Blood Rage - A necessary passive just to help build the ultimate points to use the entire tree anyway. I dont see vamps requiring a passive just to help produce ultimate points.

Savage Strength - Again, theres only 2 abilities. The increase stam is nice to help enhance the werewolf form and damage... however you then have to kill 5 times to get it to max stack...and by then your time in werewolf form has taken a huge hit. It has a VERY limited window of usefulness.

Call of the pack - another passive just to help give more time in WW form, and only good if your fellow mates are WW as well.

What I would change is letting Pursuit and Savage Strength be granted in both WW and humanoid form. Maybe halve the bonus in human form, but still grant a passive that is useful during non-transofrmational periods.

I'd also like to see some impressive health changes. Werewolves are hardy, strong, powerful creatures. Why they have no health bonus is beyond me. Vamps can suck their enemies life energies... why not grant WW some bonus health on top of the stamina.

2) The ease of becoming a Vamp or WW.

I will be honest. I think that PLAYERS should NOT be able to turn other players. Bloodmoon and Blood Ritual should be removed from the tree lines.

There are too many vamps / WW already.

There should be more a few more NPC's that grant the "diseases" available, but take other players out of the equation. Continue to make it so the disease will only afflict during particular phases.

I also think the quest line should be much harder. Not necessarily higher level - but harder than it is. All I had to do for WW was zone into a solo instance, and keep respawning it until I got a non - elite troll I could kill. It was easy as cake.

The path to becoming one of these monsters should be LONG and GRUELLING. It should be something you settle down to achieve in a MONTH of gameplay. Not 4 hours.

It should not be a path for everyone to have and it should not be easily available. I hate to say it but this is one of those things I liken to when SWG put Jedi in the game. It was initially supposed to be something extremely rare and exotic... but then more and more people got it until they had to open the floodgates. Only issue with Vamp and WW in ESO is that its too damned easy.

3) Consequences and impact on gameplay.

The consequences of becoming a monster are ridiculously low, nearly nonexistent.

Vamps take more fire damage.... this is nearly negated out just by a few fire resist trinkets.

They can travel in the sun without penalty...and no one seems to care that they are bloodsucking freaks!

Werewolves would be harder to "spot" but again, theres no consequences.

Firstly:

Any WW or Vamp player should immediately LOSE the Fighters guild abilities and bonuses. Look at all the Undead/Monster hunting/killing slant on the Fighters Guild. Silver Bolts, arcane shields and protections - extra damage against dead things. Make them unable to utilize these undead/monster slaying abilities.

Certain shopkeepers and places of business should not be accessible to Vampires. Same goes to Werewolves. What merchant wants to deal with a creature that can tear him limb from limb at a whim and then suck his blood?

Guards should attack Vamps and any werewolf in werewolf form.

It should not be possible to use the persuade lines with NPC's.

The sun should HURT vamps. Killing them outright in sunlight is silly - but they should be weaker than they currently are during the day.

Werewolves should have uncontrollable killing rampages close to the full moon cycle.

Theres so many consequences that could be added to the game for these lines.

It's as if Zenimax has said "oh ok, here you can be a werewolf or vamp. Take all of these extra cool abilities. Yea, hey, its all free and clear - no real penalty for it."

Time for some changes.

AlienSlof · May 2014

I agree with most of what you've said there - except about making it harder to get the disease. One of my characters is carried over through all the ES games since Morrowind, and he LOVES creating more vampires!

That aside, I do agree with the rest. I've had no interest in playing as a werewolf for exactly the points you make here. It seems little more than a 30sec glorified dog, not a strong, hard-to-kill killing machine. Without mods, Skyrim's werewolves were little better. There are no real consequences to being one, even if you change in public.

Vampires similar. Weakened in daylight, but still able to function enough for the player to continue questing, etc. Stronger at night. Stage 3 and 4 vampires should be chased off, shunned, etc by NPC's - they're supposed to be scary bloodsucking monsters, not normal members of society!

I found roleplaying the weaknesses to be as much fun as the strengths. It required the player to think out strategies and work-arounds.

rawne1980b16_ESO · May 2014

It's a bit late now to change the ease of becoming a Vamp/Werewolf.

The majority of folks that wanted it already have it.

murklor007neb18_ESO · May 2014

To be perfectly accurate here, its not vampire > werewolf.
Its vampire >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> werewolf.

As it stands being a werewolf is completely pointless - its worse every single way compared to your normal form (and broken but lets assume for a moment that things actually arent bugged). There are still gigantic flaws of the WW that simply cannot be overcome, most notably having zero healing (you're dead if you engage more than 1 VR mob, which kind of goes against the whole "murder machine" idea) and the cost STILL being too high for the little time it gives. 200 ultimate - fine. Current cost and 10 minutes of werewolf with the choice of turning back - fine. High cost and mere seconds of werewolf time? Not fine. Even if you do engage that one mob that you may or may not be able to kill, you've spent 75% of WW form on him. Feed? Yeah that'll take another 15% of your time and give you 30% in return.

Its *** and it will always be *** until ZOS get their act together and realize it.

Tootall2186 · May 2014

I've often had this conversation with some of my friends. Aside from the normal, what super power would you want, conversation. We often talk about vamps, werewolves, and the like. I've always been a fan of werewolves myself. Not the, only able to change in a full moon ww though. More of the underworld, twilight(no wolves please) change at will type. Being stronger while under a full moon. But able to change at will. Also in line with changing at will. Your normal human form is now much stronger and durable since you're now one with the pack. Going into your true form grants you your Hercules strength and durability.

I do feel that the in game ww is severely lacking. There should be human form passives as well as active abilities you can use in human form as well. You should also be able to transform into a ww at any time. Make it take up a skill slot on your bar. Not an ultimate spot that takes forever to fill up and only lasts seconds. It's on your bar to transform, then once you transform it's still on your bar but as a de-transform skill. But let it then open up your transformed abilities/skills you can choose from along side with your normal human skills.

And why should our armor disappear all together? Why can't our armor magically expand and cover our now massive bodies? We can throw fire and lightning and come back from the dead, etc. But we can't make our clothes/armor grow with a transformation?

Both ww and vamps should be weaker during the day. Granted, a human ww should be weaker than a vamp during the day. But a transformed ww during the day should be on par with a vamp during the day. Also both should be stronger at night. Ww in both forms like stated above. But ww should always, hands down, be the absolute strongest during a full moon. I want to go hulk up in this *** and make the ww something to fear if you cross one during a full moon.

Monkeyshoeslive · May 2014

Some really good ideas in that both these posts. When I first heard you could be a bad ass rabid killing machine I was so excited. Then I saw what WW actually is and my excitement b***r went away. WW needs to be perma form, or at least like a (sigh) WoW Druid.

Edit: I didn't realise that that word would get censored. Go figure.

Edit 2: by editing it became uncensored. Go figure

Edit 3: for posterity sake I'll re-censor it

FURYBlakhart · May 2014

Glad to see some constructive comments going on. I am glad to see I am not the only one who thinks WW is severely underwhelming.

Aside from the whole underwhelming aspect I would really like to see more synergies and impact on the gameplay itself... the idea of having high level vamps / WW shunned or even attacked by guards, etc.

Anyone else?

RDMyers65b14_ESO · May 2014

I guess I am in the minority here. I have one toon that's a vampire and one that's a werewolf. The werewolf which is 10 levels lower is far more powerful than the vampire from what I've seen. Both are Templars so it's not a class difference.

And in RP, I have seen the anti-vampire shown from other players. It's good to see the theme.

liquid_wolf · May 2014

You need to balance Vampires x Werewolves x Humans.

All three of those should be equal/equivalent in power and capability. Clearly the Fighters Guild Abilities help with this, but in terms of bonuses there seems to be something lacking from the Human part of this equation.

What is the BENEFIT of staying human? Simply not getting the poison/fire drawback?

There definitely needs to be MORE benefits to staying human. People need to really think of Vampirism and Lycanthropy as a CURSE, because they really do LOSE something.

Sure, they gain... but there also has to be that LOSS.

A lot of the daylight/social suggestions would be nice.

How about making them attackable by their fellow players when you see them transform or using their abilities?

Vampire who is in Stage 3/4 and a Lycanthrope who has transformed? Each kill provides some kind of token/item useable as a reward for some group that wants to hunt them down.

Same goes for vampires and werewolves who need to kill for tokens/benefits as well.

Just throwing out ideas... improve on them as you see fit.

WntrWolf · June 2015

I'd kill to have a non aggressive travel form for the WW. Why would I use a horse when I could run faster in wolf form. I'd like the vamp tree be able to summon a blood thrall to fight beside you. It's what they do. Other then that I'm happy with each in their own way. I have both and play them happily. I don't find one is more then the other I've so e pretty sick this play as both

MornaBaine · June 2015

Welcome to the club of those of us who have been begging ZoS to fix vamps and werewolves since day 1. Prepare to be completely ignored. Here's your card.