Yes I know a couple threads have touched on this already. But I’d like to flesh it out more and hopefully really get the attention of those making these changes. I would love to know if they have been paying attention at all to the feedback on vampires in these forums for the past 5+ years.
And, on the positive side, I AM looking forward to the Blade of Woe style feeding animations that have been brought up. That REALLY needs to be a thing. I am CAUTIOUSLY optimistic about the very briefly mentioned new abilities and I really hope the one whose name we don’t yet know is a gap closer like every NPC vamp in the game already has.
So we know that vampires will be getting some new abilities though we don’t yet have much in the way of info on what those are going to look like. And we know that they are “reversing” the way the vampire stages work. But so far I don’t think we have critical information on that either outside of, “You’ll have to drink MORE blood to get to/maintain Stage Four” rather than the reverse which is what we have now.
I’m not going to argue too much about whether or not this conflicts with the lore of previous TES games. The truth is there’s always been debate on that issue and the previous games have a lot of conflicts with each other as well. I think ZOS “covered” the issue well enough when they made the vampire strain we have in ESO a completely new one and gave it its own lore. Many roleplayers who chose to play their vampires as having the Noxiphilic Sanguivoria, the in-game strain of vampirism, were happy with how it worked.
But now we crazy RPers are forced to deal with a sudden “retcon” to the lore of the game itself. Suddenly the very nature of vampirism has changed with no logical explanation for this. This is not good world and lore building on the part of ZOS.
Now I know many people are excited by the addition of a “vampire lord” form (I believe it’s been said this will be a new Ult, no word on if its in addition to or replacing the current “bats” Ult), especially players of Skyrim who have long asked for this Ult.
Personally, I think it’s great that we have here an instance of ZOS actually listening to players and trying to give them what they ask for. My problem is with the fact that it’s badly and lazily done. Allow me to explain my reasoning.
They have said they are making changes to the vampire quest and my hope is that they are JUST talking about mechanics and not the story and the lore itself. But part of me is afraid they are going to try to justify these changes to the lore of their own game by altering the story of the quest as well. ZOS nobody likes retcons. Please don’t. And please don’t change THIS bit of Lamae’s dialogue in order to cover up the fact that you goofed when you didn’t give us a way for our vampires to look completely normal/mortal they way you also went back and changed Lamae’s appearance in the hope we wouldn’t notice you left out something we really should have had from the beginning.
For those of you wondering, Lamae originally looked like this:
What would have been far better is to have introduced a NEW strain of vampirism into the game, whether that be the Volkihar from Dawnguard or simply a similar entirely new strain as they did with Noxiphilic Sanguivoria.
Then, in the current vampire quest, there could be a bit of dialogue with Lamae Bal offering you a choice as to which form of vampirism you would like to have. After all, Lamae is the FIRST vampire and the lore is that she actually founded more than one strain of vampirism. So it would be completely lore appropriate for her to offer a choice like that. And, if you choose the Noxiphilic Sanguivoria you get the Bats Ultimate and if you choose whatever they choose to name the NEW vampire strain, then you get the Vampire Lord Ultimate. All other powers and passives remain the same between the two. So what if your vampire is already a Noxiphilic Sanguivoria vampire and you want to try the new one? Curing your vampire and obtaining a bite in game (either from another player or the regularly spawning bloodfiends) or via the cash shop so you can re-do the vampire quest and change to the new strain is a relatively simple process.
In addition, if you choose to keep the Noxiphilic Sanguivoria, the current settings for the stages and how you advance through them should remain the same as well. And if you choose the new vampire strain, THEN the stage advancement changes come into play for you. The game play between the two now becomes very interesting without making one OP over the other and is left to player preference. You know, playing the game the way you want to. And it honors the lore already established by the game.
Now, my next concern centers on the two different potions one uses with vampirism, The Double Bloody Mara (introduced first) and the Disastrously Bloody Mara which was introduced with this most recent Witches Festival. It’s important to know both the ingredients in these potions and their effects.
The Double Bloody Mara works this way:
It reeks of cold blood, herbs, spices, and alcohol. Down the hatch!
If you drink this as a Vampire, it will reduce your vampirism level by one stage, similar to feeding.
The Disastrously Bloody Mara works this way:
It reeks of cold blood, brimstone, wood smoke, and alcohol. Down the hatch!
If you drink this as a Vampire, it will immediately increase your vampirism all the way to Stage 4.
We don’t know if these potions are going to be changed but I am betting that they are not going to be. And the important thing here is to pay attention to the ingredients needed for them. The recipes for these potions are obtained only during the Witches Festival and while the market is pretty much well flooded with the Double Bloody Mara recipe now, the newer Disastrously Bloody Mara is, of course, still far harder to come by.
The older potion, the Double Bloody Mara, is composed of ingredients that are easily farmed in game. But the Disastrously Bloody Mara, which takes you straight to Stage Four, the stage considered “best” for gameplay by many players, has an ingredient, “Dragons Blood” that is literally locked behind a paywall. Sure you can buy it at very high prices from traders in game but if you like to or need to farm your own ingredients then you HAVE to have the Elsweyr Chapter. And the gameplay to get it is far more difficult and (here’s the important thing) time consuming to obtain. Don’t imagine for a moment that this is NOT by design and working completely as intended by ZOS.
We also don’t yet know if the timer of the various stages is going to change. I hope not but if the intent is to keep players chugging Disastrously Bloody Maras to maintain their preferred stage then there’s a good chance it will indeed be shortened from its current six hours. And while I HOPE that doesn’t mean that they are going to return to the original ludicrously short times we had to deal with originally, such a change is still going to have a dramatic impact on gameplay...and not to the player’s benefit.
Now for those of you who will say, “Just wait for PTS to see if your fears are founded!” well, most of us know that by the time something hits PTS it’s too late. Changes are never made to anything once they hit PTS UNLESS an actual bug with the way things work is discovered. NEVER has a change been made simply because players made it plain that they did not LIKE how something was working and asked for changes. It took us literal YEARS to get the stage timer changed on vampires. And with the way ZOS has decided to simply churn out new content and ignore older problems I’m pretty sure that trend is going to not only continue but get worse.
Will bringing our concerns to the fore NOW help? Honestly, probably not. ZOS has demonstrated little concern for the preferences of players when it comes to vampires. They can change my mind by not ramming these largely unwanted changes to vampirism down our throats and keeping the good things from the current vampire system while ALSO finally giving us a few of the simply cosmetic things we’ve been begging for since launch like…
A “mortal” skin that can return your vampire to their pre-vamp appearance at will. Yes, it can be a cash shop item as far as I’m concerned though I’d be far happier if it were added as Stage 0 so long as they keep the six hour stage timer as well. That’s the main one.
Fixing the vamp skin overlay so that tattoos show properly.
Fixing the vampire skin so that your original chosen makeup default shows properly instead of being completely washed out.
And, although I have no hope for it actually happening, a NEW vampire skin that merely gives you the pale skin of Stage 1 WITHOUT the gross veins AND allows you to retain your original eye color. Put THAT in the cash shop and I will buy it ZOS, promise.
ZOS I get it that you want to fan service the Skyrim and Dawnguard fans. I really do. It doesn’t even actually bother me because you’d be crazy if you didn’t. There’s too much money to be made there and I’m honestly kinda surprised you didn’t do Dark Heart of Skyrim right after Morrowind. But please, I’m begging you, don’t spit on the lore you’ve already established for your own game while doing so. And PLEASE show us that you’ve actually been LISTENING to the players of vampires who have been supporting your game all these years even while lamenting the haphazard state of vampires in their original and even current incarnations.
So dear readers who have borne with me this long, please share your own concerns about the upcoming changes to vampires. Hopefully @ZOSGinaBruno can get permission to ally some of our fears.
