An Idea of how Vampires and Werewolves Could Have Been Done : V - Skyrim

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:25 am

Glad to see that this has received largely positive responses.

I like the idea of different feeding systems but the way you scaled the benefits and drawbacks Was to high IMO. For example the +30 frost and stamina damage seems a bit much. Other than that I would like to see these ideas implemented.

As for the wolves the only problem I have is basing their attack damage and armor rating on a specific skill. I don't think that lycans or vamps should have a natural physical damage resistance when in beast form. As for weapon skill It is forcing you to choose a specific play style if you want to be a were-creature. I think it would work better if you could talk to Eorlund at the skyforge to make you armor for your lycan form. Light armor would give you a small armor boost and a small reduction to speed, while heavy would give you a large reduction to speed but high armor. Then players would be free to build there character however they wanted and armor perks such as fists of steel and conditioning would carry over into beast form.

I absolutely love most of those ideas, I really hope that someone with some influence reads them and takes them on board. Only one thing I didn't like, the damage and armour being based on existing skills in light/heavy armour and melee. My werewolf character is a two handed, heavy armoured warrior and his beast form would be somewhat gimped by your suggestion of how that works. If you want to be a werewolf or a werebear then you want that simply because you think they're cool and would be fun to play. I love werewolves but I'm not so interested in
the bears. It would be a shame if I had to choose based on my existing skillset rather than personal preference.

I understand where you two are coming from. It would be disappointing to find out your two-handed build had to settle for a werebear when you'd rather they be a werewolf. It was a suggestion for how to help differentiate them. I do however have a solution. If your werewolf/werebear strikes could level up their respected combat skill, and the damage they take could level up their armor skills, would that be something you'd be for? That way, you could still have your desired form and be have the two forms having different skill sets to help them feel different.

The armor and damage skills were the two things I was most iffy on how well they would work, because of the problems you bring up. I definitely feel they should have at least some armor rating, whether it's derived from heavy/light armor isn't the really important part to me.

As a suggestion vampire wise I would put forward the idea of a sneak based feed attack. Similar to when you approach a sleeping NPC in sneak you get a feed or pickpocket option I think a similar thing would work as a way to combine feeding and attacking. If you sneak up on an NPC and activate them you could have the option of pickpocket or drain. If you choose drain then you grab the NPC and bite them fataly, which would count as a feed as well as a kill. It would be one more way of feeding, and also it would be pretty badass.

Yes. This is another thing I would have liked to have seen included in Skyrim as well.

Glad that people have taken to this idea so far. Keep up the discussion so hopefully someone at Bethesda will see this and implement some or all of these mechanics.

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:21 pm

There is no mention of it in the game though. No quests relating to it.

Well it's obvious that court mage is a member of the order.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:27 am

I like it. This how Vampirism and Lycanthropy should be. Nice. Bethesda why haven't you hired this person yet?

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 9:54 am

I like it. This how Vampirism and Lycanthropy should be. Nice. Bethesda why haven't you hired this person yet?

Unless the OP can code, I can understand why Bethesda wont hire him.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 2:05 am

Unless the OP can code, I can understand why Bethesda wont hire him.

Well bethesda should at least consider his ideas.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:12 am

Glad to see that this has received largely positive responses.

I understand where you two are coming from. It would be disappointing to find out your two-handed build had to settle for a werebear when you'd rather they be a werewolf. It was a suggestion for how to help differentiate them. I do however have a solution. If your werewolf/werebear strikes could level up their respected combat skill, and the damage they take could level up their armor skills, would that be something you'd be for? That way, you could still have your desired form and be have the two forms having different skill sets to help them feel different.

The armor and damage skills were the two things I was most iffy on how well they would work, because of the problems you bring up. I definitely feel they should have at least some armor rating, whether it's derived from heavy/light armor isn't the really important part to me.

Yes. This is another thing I would have liked to have seen included in Skyrim as well.

Glad that people have taken to this idea so far. Keep up the discussion so hopefully someone at Bethesda will see this and implement some or all of these mechanics.

If this was the case I would be all for it. Leveling the skills in lycan form could make it even more enjoyable. For example playing in human form with my preferred one handed fighting style and then switching into a werebear which would level my two handed skill making my damage go up. This would add to the effect of feeling that your were form was progressively getting stronger

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:24 pm

Hello everyone

As most of you know, several people, myself included, have complained at length about how vampires and lycanthropes were handled in Skyrim. The lack of significant drawbacks made playing either of them lackluster, little more than a slight boost in abilities, rather than the mixed blessing/curse they should have been. Dawnguard improved some things, such as making werewolves more viable at higher levels with the new perk tree, but I can’t help but feel for all that it apparently did right, there are still some massive oversights and baffling design decisions that hurt it, in regard to both vampires and lycanthropes.

That got me thinking, what would be a better way of addressing these abilities in Skyrim, as well as future games. After thinking about it for quite a while, I have drafted the following ideas that I feel would be a better system for Skyrim’s vampires and lycanthropes than what we currently have. Some of these ideas will be familiar, as I have stated them in various threads throughout my time here, but I figured it was high time to pool all of those posts together to create a concentrated thread about them, rather than juggling 30 conversations across various threads.

So let’s start with vampires. Specifically with the Cyrodiilic strain of vampires. We’ll start here because of their backwards feeding mechanic. You get stronger the less you feed, at the cost of your ability to blend in. Just a heads up that this is a long, long piece. I started writing it and didn't realize how long it was until I was done. For your convenience, I'll break it up into various Spoilered chapter things.

Cyrodiilic Vampires

Spoiler

Largely, I feel the Cyrodiilic strain should be kept how it was in Oblivion, with the powers you gain in Skyrim added as well. You take on sun damage at higher levels and people don’t want to have anything to do with you. However, I also feel feeding should be encouraged, which is why I’d have the Cyrodiilic vampires have a huge boost to speech/barter when at level 1. This I feel fits well with the Order’s MO of manipulating people, and would provide at least marginal incentive to people to keep themselves well fed besides the townspeople trying to kill you. Feeding should also only regress you one stage, rather than reset you back to stage one each time. Vampiric Drain’s effect should also be strengthened, but that will be developed further below.

Location wise, I feel that the vampires of the Order would be best suited to the western half of Skyrim, and other areas that lack considerable amounts of snow. While they could be found in various caves and other hiding spots, several high profile NPCs should be of this strain as well (such as Sybille Stentor), indicating that the Order has begun to move in on Skyrim. In the case of that quest that Sybille gives you, you should be tasked with eliminating Volkihar, becoming an unwitting pawn in the Order’s schemes of ousting their competition.

Non-Cyrodiilic Feeding Mechanic:

Spoiler

Now that we’ve gotten the Cyrodiilic strain out of the way, let’s take a look at feeding. In my opinion, only the Cyrodiilic vampires should be encouraged not to feed (and even that’s debatable). Other vampires, such as the Volkihar and the new Vampire Lords, should be encouraged to feed at regular intervals. And here is where I propose a new feeding system. Vampirism should keep stages with these two strains, but in a different way. Here’s the rank system I propose:

Vampire Fledgling: What you are when you first turn.
Blooded Vampire: Lowest form of vampirism after you level from feeding for the first time.
Vampire Mistwalker: Second Stage
Vampire Nighstalker: Third Stage
Master Vampire: Highest level of vampirism.

Rather than increasing in a level of vampirism by not feeding, you would grow a level after feeding on X amount of people, either by feeding on them in their sleep, or by the current method Vampire Lords use to level up and gain perks. Currently I was thinking that you’d level to Blooded after 10, Mistwalker after 25, Nightstalker after 75, and Master Vampire after 100 victims.

As previously stated, you would regress if in power if you didn’t feed regularly. If you were a Master Vampire, and you didn’t feed for three days, you’d regress to Nightsalker and have to regain your Master status. If you didn't feed for another three days, you'd regress to Mistwalker, and so on, all the way back down to Blooded Vampire.

With vampires under this feeding system, there wouldn’t be the current system of seesawing drawbacks and bonuses. Being a vampire in the early stages would be a hard (un)life. Your weaknesses would be maximized and your bonuses would be negligible. However, if you survived long enough to reach the highest levels of vampirism, the reverse would be true. You’d have maximized strengths and lesser weaknesses. These effects would be determined based on what type of vampire you were. A Master Volkihar would have different abilities than a Master Vampire Lord, and thus feel different in combat. We’ll start looking at this proposed new system with the Volkihar.

The Volkihar

Spoiler

The Volkihar are ice based creatures, and as such many of their abilities would factor the cold. They’d also be much more about up close combat, rather than the Cyroidiilic strains emphasis on Sneak and Illusion.

Constant Abilities throughout stages: Water Breathing, Night Eye, +15 unarmed damage, Vampiric Drain, and the ability to access 4-5 Volkihar dens throughout Skyrim (homes located under the ice).

Blooded Vampire: 5 points of damage per second in sunlight, 100% weakness to fire, 10% resistance to frost, 5 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric drain does 5 points of damage per second.

Vampire Mistwalker: 3 points of damage per second in sunlight, 75% weakness to fire, 40% resistance to frost, 10 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 10 points of damage per second. Also gains the ability Freeze: a once a day power similar to Ice Form.

Vampire Nightstalker: 2 points of damage per second in sunlight, 40% weakness to fire, 75% resistance to frost, 20 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 15 points of damage per second. Also gains the ability Snow Veil: A once a day power similar to Frost Cloak that also increases the regen rate of H/M/S while damaging nearby opponents.

Master Vampire: 1 point of damage per second in sunlight, 10% weakness to fire, 100% resistance to frost, 30 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 20 points of damage per second. Also gains the abilities Snow Storm: A once a day power similar to Blizzard that can be used without charging and Frozen Forms: A once a day power similar to Ice Form, but with an area of effect.

As a Volkihar, most of the ordinary denizens of Skyrim would want little to do with you. Thus there would be several Volkihar Dens scattered throughout Skyrim that you could use to establish homes. They’d mostly be found in airpockets that could be accessed by diving into lakes and finding the tunnels leading to them, or by finding the part of the frozen surface of the lake you could “activate” to go through the ice and enter your home. They’d provide safe storage, a bed to rest, and other benefits to the player to make up for the fact they wouldn’t be welcome in most other places, and would offer a variety of qualities of life (I’d really like one to be in a sunken ship, but logistics might pose a problem).

There’d also be a few Volkihar dens (mostly in the east) that had others of your kind where you could go to exchange gear and buy supplies and other such needs, and I’d suggest there being an item called Veil of the Volkihar, which would allow you to disguise yourself in towns when worn that could be acquired after a fairly long Volkihar questline.

Vampire Lord

Spoiler

As for the Vampire Lords, it’s difficult for me to say what should be done with them. It needs to be a sort of marriage between the outcast Volkihar and the Cyrodiilic strain that blends in with its prey.

Constant Abilities: Night Eye, +10 unarmed damage, Vampiric Drain.

Blooded Vampire: -40 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 5 points of damage per second, NPCs hostile. 100% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic.

Vampire Mistwalker: -30 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 10 points of damage per second, NPCs hostile. 75% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Also gains Vampire Seduction.

Vampire Nighstalker: -20 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 15 points of damage per second, NPCs not hostile when not transformed. 40% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Vampire Seduction becomes stronger.

Master Vampire: -10 to H/M/S and regen rate is normal in sunlight. Vampiric Drain does 20 points of damage per second, NPCs not hostile when not transformed. 10% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Gains the Power Bat Form, which allows them to turn into a flock of bats even when not transformed (continuously drains magicka). NPCs will become hostile if they see you transform to or from this state.

However, I feel that they should have increased sun damage in their transformed states. This would encourage those who wish to utilize the Vampire Lord form to blot out the sun when they feel like transforming. To that end, the stat reduction is strengthened by 1.5 when transformed in sunlight and the weakness to sunlight weapons/magic is doubled.

Vampire Summations

Spoiler

In effect, the three vampire forms would be set to different playstyles. Those favoring Rouge builds would find the Cyrodiilic Order more to their liking than the Mages, who would gravitate towards Vampire Lord. Volkihar would be for Warriors, allowing them to continuously keep their enemies drained of stamina and unable to do power attacks/move quickly.

Shared bonuses across all vampires regardless of stage would be:
Night Eye
+10 unarmed damage boost (+15 for Volkihar)
Vampiric Drain
+5% H/M/S regen rate at night
Disease Immunity
Poison Immunity

Shared weaknesses across all vampires regardless of stage would be:
20 point extra damage when hit with Silver
20 point extra damage when hit with sunlight weapons/magic
No H/M/S regen when wearing silver equipment

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to lycanthropes. (Don’t worry, this will be considerably shorter.)

Lycanthropes

Spoiler

Werewolves overall seem to be fine now, minus a few tweaks. These tweaks would largely be necessary to help make them different from another lycanthrope many of us have wanted to come across since we first heard about them: Werebears. One of these tweaks would be to include both werebears and werewolves, in pre-transformed states on the roads, and in transformed states in the wilds. I know we have wild werewolves already, but there’s one problem: They can’t infect you. I really think that has to be changed so that you can become a werewolf without having to join the Companions.

For starters, let’s look at what all lycanthropes should have in common:

Forced lunar transformations twice a month (Companion’s werewolves would be exempt, as would those wearing the Ring of Hircine). Transformations would last from 8 PM to 530 AM, and you would be notified about it several hours before the transformation sets in, giving you plenty of time to get out of town before you change.
Night Eye ability in both human and beastform
+10 Unarmed Damage when in human form (+20 for Werebears)
Ability to toggle between various howls/roars and Night Eye
+5% H/M/S regen rate in human form
20 points extra damage in both human and beast form when struck by silver weapons.
H/M/S don’t regenerate when silver items equipped
No rested bonuses while having the beastblood
Disease Immunity

To make werebears feel different than their werewolf counterparts, I propose the following:
Base their damage on Two-Handed Skill.
Base their armor on Heavy Armor (AR rating of 350 at 100 skill level)
Give them 300 extra Health and Stamina upon transforming.
Their sprinting speed should be a little faster than a horse, but gobble stamina. Conversely, their power attacks would use little stamina.
Their normal walking speed should be a tad slower than human form.

Werewolves on the other hand:
Base their damage on One-Handed Skill
Base their armor on Light Armor (AR rating of 175 at 100 skill level)
Gain only 100 extra Health and Stamina upon transforming
Very fast sprint speed and slow rate of stamina depletion while sprinting
Power attacks use more stamina than werebears.
Faster walking speed than human form.
Give them the ability to Sneak.

Werebears would have Roars, similar to werewolves’ Howls. These are the ideas for Roars I currently have:
Fear Roar (Stronger than werewolves’ similar Howl)
Disarm Roar (Disarms nearby opponents)
Adrenaline Roar (Roar that causes werebears H/S regen rate to skyrocket for 60 seconds similar to Histskin and Adrenaline Rush. Longer cooldown than other Roars)

So there you have it. My ideas for how vampires and lycanthropes should have been done for Dawnguard. Maybe some of this will be implemented in later DLCs, but I’m not exactly holding my breath about it.

Any thoughts, suggestions, comments?

EDIT: Forgot to add that both Vampires and Lycanthropes would continue to have disease immunity, while the vampires also held onto their poison immunity.

I agree with a lot there though being an outcast is not good, it breaks quests and getting attacked by everyone was one of the most hated things in morrowind and skyrim so no need to repeat it.

There are no cyrodiil strains in skyrim, they are all volkihar vampires but vampire lords are volkihar that is closer to the source as they are either first generation volkihar vampires (Harkon, Serana and Valerica) or second gens (player) Vampire lords are purer versions of volkihar, the rest are "thin-bloods" and are disliked by the court who are purer.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:25 am

I agree with a lot there though being an outcast is not good, it breaks quests and getting attacked by everyone was one of the most hated things in morrowind and skyrim so no need to repeat it.

There are no cyrodiil strains in skyrim, they are all volkihar vampires but vampire lords are volkihar that is closer to the source as they are either first generation volkihar vampires (Harkon, Serana and Valerica) or second gens (player) Vampire lords are purer versions of volkihar, the rest are "thin-bloods" and are disliked by the court who are purer.

Still doesn't mean some vampires of the Order can be pure as well, since their civil and elitist attitude against other clans is obvious, not to mention they worship Molag Bal when most of the other clans(excluding the Volkihar) don't.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:01 am

Still doesn't mean some vampires of the Order can be pure as well, since their civil and elitist attitude against other clans is obvious, not to mention they worship Molag Bal when most of the other clans(excluding the Volkihar) don't.

Who would want to worship him, he's the daedric equivalent of slannesh!!! Oh and I don't think the orders would want to be "given" the gift by Molag Bal.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:39 am

I agree with a lot there though being an outcast is not good, it breaks quests and getting attacked by everyone was one of the most hated things in morrowind and skyrim so no need to repeat it.

There are no cyrodiil strains in skyrim, they are all volkihar vampires but vampire lords are volkihar that is closer to the source as they are either first generation volkihar vampires (Harkon, Serana and Valerica) or second gens (player) Vampire lords are purer versions of volkihar, the rest are "thin-bloods" and are disliked by the court who are purer.

This is largely the problem I'm trying to address. The whole "Pure-Bloods" and "Thin-Bloods" thing is a huge mistake in my opinion, as it makes the vanilla variant of Skyrim's vampires completely pointless. There's no point in being the regular variety of vampires when you could be the same type of vampires, but with a super form, and no extra downsides. It's a bad design decision that should never have been made, let alone have been incorporated into the story.

I included an option for those wishing to be Volkihar and take part in most of the story to blend in as well, if they get an item by doing quests that would be accessed by Volkihar living in isolation. I don't think being Volkihar should break the game and prevent quests from being accessed. Instead, it should reveal a whole other side of Skyrim that mortals no little about, Volkihar society. Imagine being able to access entire settlements hidden under the ice, where you could receive new quests from your vampiric brethren.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 12:16 am

Still doesn't mean some vampires of the Order can be pure as well, since their civil and elitist attitude against other clans is obvious, not to mention they worship Molag Bal when most of the other clans(excluding the Volkihar) don't.

What are you talking about? I said court, not order. The court are the vampires in castle volkihar.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:08 am

Still doesn't mean some vampires of the Order can be pure as well, since their civil and elitist attitude against other clans is obvious, not to mention they worship Molag Bal when most of the other clans(excluding the Volkihar) don't.

Well considering how they went to vile I don't think bal would be pleased about that to me personally I think bal would not really like you paying respect/worshiping other daedra who knows maybe vile and bal are buddies.

Plus we still don't know what the price tag vile added to cyrodil vampires and there is always a heavy price tag when dealing with vile.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:23 am

This is largely the problem I'm trying to address. The whole "Pure-Bloods" and "Thin-Bloods" thing is a huge mistake in my opinion, as it makes the vanilla variant of Skyrim's vampires completely pointless. There's no point in being the regular variety of vampires when you could be the same type of vampires, but with a super form, and no extra downsides. It's a bad design decision that should never have been made, let alone have been incorporated into the story.

I included an option for those wishing to be Volkihar and take part in most of the story to blend in as well, if they get an item by doing quests that would be accessed by Volkihar living in isolation. I don't think being Volkihar should break the game and prevent quests from being accessed. Instead, it should reveal a whole other side of Skyrim that mortals no little about, Volkihar society. Imagine being able to access entire settlements hidden under the ice, where you could receive new quests from your vampiric brethren.

By the nine(eight)!!! Immortal Blood was a lie, the only thing that supports the book being true is that we encounter the vamp hunter in Skyrim, it was obviously written by a biased source.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:03 am

By the nine(eight)!!! Immortal Blood was a lie, the only thing that supports the book being true is that we encounter the vamp hunter in Skyrim, it was obviously written by a biased source.

Yeah I agree I don't really trust the immortal blood book all that much in my opinion.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:43 am

Well considering how they went to vile I don't think bal would be pleased about that to me personally I think bal would not really like you paying respect/worshiping other daedra who knows maybe vile and bal are buddies.

Plus we still don't know what the price tag vile added to cyrodil vampires and there is always a heavy price tag when dealing with vile.

I don't think Bal would care if you pay tribute to other Daedra, unless of course it is Boethia, then you have a problem. Just because they made a pact with Vile, doesn't mean they don't consider Bal as their ultimate deity. Hell, Bal created vampires. They even acknowledge the Bloodmatron, Lamae.

In Morrowind, Bal had to ask Vaermina for a cure for vampirism after some discussion of sorts, so it is safe to say Bal does speak to other Daedra, including the ones from the house of troubles which includes him, Mehrunes Dagon, Sheogorath.

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:54 pm

This is largely the problem I'm trying to address. The whole "Pure-Bloods" and "Thin-Bloods" thing is a huge mistake in my opinion, as it makes the vanilla variant of Skyrim's vampires completely pointless. There's no point in being the regular variety of vampires when you could be the same type of vampires, but with a super form, and no extra downsides. It's a bad design decision that should never have been made, let alone have been incorporated into the story.

I included an option for those wishing to be Volkihar and take part in most of the story to blend in as well, if they get an item by doing quests that would be accessed by Volkihar living in isolation. I don't think being Volkihar should break the game and prevent quests from being accessed. Instead, it should reveal a whole other side of Skyrim that mortals no little about, Volkihar society. Imagine being able to access entire settlements hidden under the ice, where you could receive new quests from your vampiric brethren.

I actually like the pure-blood and thin-blood situation because it makes sense in a way, the further they are down the bloodline from harkon and his family, the weaker they get. The thin-blooded vampires do have a point in the story, they are the nomadic vampires who are scraping by while the purer court are ones who can live among the mortals or at least have more civility. Also thin-bloods do not mean they are always weak, they still get stronger with age, they just lack the bat-like form. It creates a good rift between the court vampires and the wild vampires.
Thing is vanilla vampires are not really missing out because it seems only the first two generation of vampires would get the bat-from anyway (it is unknown if those you sire have a vl form though vingalmo says something about them being special or something)

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:02 am

By the nine(eight)!!! Immortal Blood was a lie, the only thing that supports the book being true is that we encounter the vamp hunter in Skyrim, it was obviously written by a biased source.

You and the other "fans" trusted the book before the Volkihar were modified and completely changed to what they were written to be. Immortal Blood was accurate with Movarth and was accurate with the Cyrodiilic vampires. The fault lies with Bethesda, not the "biased" book.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 1:23 am

I don't think Bal would care if you pay tribute to other Daedra, unless of course it is Boethia, then you have a problem. Just because they made a pact with Vile, doesn't mean they don't consider Bal as their ultimate deity. Hell, Bal created vampires. They even acknowledge the Bloodmatron, Lamae.

In Morrowind, Bal had to ask Vaermina for a cure for vampirism after some discussion of sorts, so it is safe to say Bal does speak to other Daedra, including the ones from the house of troubles which includes him, Mehrunes Dagon, Sheogorath.

Hmm now that I think about it is bal pals with dagon, sheo and namira? I mean sheo says asks the PC is bal asking for him I always took it as sheo just being insane again. *Shrug*

Eh honestly to me bal seems like the possessive type maybe its just me.

edit:I personally did not trust the book even before dawnguard was announced

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:28 pm

Or an other theory is that the voilkars Ice powers were just superstitious babel from the lame brained nords.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:33 am

You and the other "fans" trusted the book before the Volkihar were modified and completely changed to what they were written to be. Immortal Blood was accurate with Movarth and was accurate with the Cyrodiilic vampires. The fault lies with Bethesda, not the "biased" book.

EXACTLY, We know know that the voilkar weren't what they appeared during Immortal blood, how do we know that Morath himself wrote the book, he suppose to be hundreds of years old, he is a deceiving member of the order, we cant trust it!!!!

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:00 pm

Hmm now that I think about it is bal pals with dagon, sheo and namira? I mean sheo says asks the PC is bal asking for him I always took it as sheo just being insane again. *Shrug*

edit:I personally did not trust the book even before dawnguard was announced

Pretty much. They aren't always at each other's throats like Bal vs Boethia.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:39 am

By the nine(eight)!!! Immortal Blood was a lie, the only thing that supports the book being true is that we encounter the vamp hunter in Skyrim, it was obviously written by a biased source.

That is the apparent truth now that Dawnguard and Skyrim have contradicted it, which again, is something I criticize as stupid design and story decisions. In my opinion, Bethesda should have used Immortal Blood as a template for the vampires in Skyrim, not shamelessly copy/pasted their work from Oblivion and then added a few bells and whistles, only to alter it even further with Dawnguard's Vampire Lords.

I actually like the pure-blood and thin-blood situation because it makes sense in a way, the further they are down the bloodline from harkon and his family, the weaker they get. The thin-blooded vampires do have a point in the story, they are the nomadic vampires who are scraping by while the purer court are ones who can live among the mortals or at least have more civility. Also thin-bloods do not mean they are always weak, they still get stronger with age, they just lack the bat-like form. It creates a good rift between the court vampires and the wild vampires.
Thing is vanilla vampires are not really missing out because it seems only the first two generation of vampires would get the bat-from anyway (it is unknown if those you sire have a vl form though vingalmo says something about them being special or something)

But answer me this. What point is there in playing as the Thin-Bloods? They don't have all the powers of the Vampire Lords, but have exactly the same weaknesses. From a gameplay perspective, they're completely redundant. They don't add choice, because you could simply be a Vampire Lord and choose to not transform, and be exactly the same as they are.

From a story perspective, the Vampire Lords could have simply been a whole new strain of vampires, who looked down on the indigenous population of vampires and sought to wipe them out in order to make room for themselves. This would have open the way for a whole new type of vampire to play as, radically different from what we got in Dawnguard, and possibly even a whole new faction to play that would pit us against both the Dawnguard and the Vampire Lord strain.

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:41 am

You and the other "fans" trusted the book before the Volkihar were modified and completely changed to what they were written to be. Immortal Blood was accurate with Movarth and was accurate with the Cyrodiilic vampires. The fault lies with Bethesda, not the "biased" book.

Ahem...The order did not know much about the volkihar, Movarth had to tell the priest what the volkihar could do. Nothing in the book or the game contradicts anything, the vampires in skyrim did not really defy anything from the book (they just do not display the ability to reach through ice, obviously this may be a gameplay mechanic limit) and the book does not say they can't blend in or have certain powers.

» Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:12 pm

Ugh I hate all these mixed feelings, why cant the community be united for once :sad:

» Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:28 am

That is the apparent truth now that Dawnguard and Skyrim have contradicted it, which again, is something I criticize as stupid design and story decisions. In my opinion, Bethesda should have used Immortal Blood as a template for the vampires in Skyrim, not shamelessly copy/pasted their work from Oblivion and then added a few bells and whistles, only to alter it even further with Dawnguard's Vampire Lords.

But answer me this. What point is there in playing as the Thin-Bloods? They don't have all the powers of the Vampire Lords, but have exactly the same weaknesses. From a gameplay perspective, they're completely redundant. They don't add choice, because you could simply be a Vampire Lord and choose to not transform, and be exactly the same as they are.

From a story perspective, the Vampire Lords could have simply been a whole new strain of vampires, who looked down on the indigenous population of vampires and sought to wipe them out in order to make room for themselves. This would have open the way for a whole new type of vampire to play as, radically different from what we got in Dawnguard, and possibly even a whole new faction to play that would pit us against both the Dawnguard and the Vampire Lord strain.

Vampire lords are rare, it only exists in the first generation and the second, so other vampires are not redundant. They still get stronger with age and still are deadly and if they want more power they could still be a vampire lord by allowing a first gen vampire to bite them. The only new thing they will get is the ability to transform. So they are not really weak, they are just not as powerful as a progenitor or the its progeny, makes sense really. If you were bitten by a vampire elder, would you really expect to be just as powerful?