Well I don't "hate" them, it's just as you said - only reason to be one is role-playing, and even that's a pretty weak reason as there are no quests related to them at all(you have to become a Werewolf if you want to finish the Companions questline) - only way to become one is "go to a cave and let some vampire dude attack you".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1Vsnf6LGs

Werewolves are extremely underpowered if you don't think smart. Blindly charging in through traps, spells and what not will get you killed.
No, if you use your fear cleverly and maintain your blood thirst, while watching out for traps and mages, then lycanthropy can be useful.
Hell I use lycanthropy my level 46 character to clear out humanoid dungeons all the time and you know what? it's easy as pie.


Why the vampire hate you ask?

Well most of the vampire bonuses can be gained via perks, which makes it useless to the playstyles it should aid.
And the feeding is a complete chore, lending one to wish for there to be feeding finishers to make it less of an annoyance.

Lorewise they don't fit at all with what we previously knew of the vampires in Skyrim. And hell, a cyrodillic vampire shows up:
Movarth Piquine, whom which you can contract the Skyrim vampirism from.
This would almost confirm the fact that it's not Sanguinaire Vampiris or volkihar vampirism, but just a downgraded Porphyric Hemophilia.

To the wider audience the vampirism resembles that which is shown in the Twilight saga: demonic/snake eyes, unchanged face (in most stages)
and the ability to walk in the sun, albeit with disabilities in Skyrim. This also can give the impression of Bethesda trying to buy into new audiences.
Most loyal fans could see as betrayal on Bethesda's part, for they are selling themselves out to a worse fanbase, and for what? more money?


I myself am greatly saddened by the lack of the frostwalker vampirism which we were told about in Immortal Blood.
And just like Bethesda now only making TES games in human/non-alien provinces, this angers me a lot.
So I take my anger out on Bethesda and the vampirism which they so created. For I can do nothing else to sate my need for.. retribution?

Anything is underpowered if you do not think smart. There, destroyed your comment. I rather level up my character and certainly I do NOT want to re-roll the dungeon the get my loot.
This is my opinion and you have yours, so please do not attack on me.

I do not wish to attack you. And hell, a trip to Finland would be very expensive under our current economy! hehe.

Nah I'm fine with your opinion. Even I sometimes just run through a humanoid filled dungeon without the form to gather my loot quicker.
But I just find that sometimes people complain about the lycanthrope form being underpowered at later levels and often these people are just not using it to it's full potential. Even a mate of mine who recently gained it via the companions questline said it felt "crappy," when all he was doing was just charging at the enemies thinking he could "one shot pwn them."

When I discovered how easy it was to kill vampires, that's when I decided not to be one.

IMO vampires and werewolves in this game dont have that WOW factor.

Vampirism in this game is a disease. Literally. And when it's full blown you have to do a lengthy side quest to cure it. Would have been much more cool if you had to do a lengthy side quest to become one instead. Team that up with better powers that scale and a vampire faction. Hell the faction could only have two NPC vampires in it and it would still be cool. In other words, if they made it so you really had to earn it and it gave you more power it would be awesome.

Werewolves aren't disease based but are a curse not a gift. This is especially noticable in higher levels when fear gets resisted and damage mitigation stays the same as when you got it. Luckily they're fast so you can run away and hide your shame.

There's a mod that switches the vampire progression stages. You're strongest after you feed and gradually become weaker. Makes more sense that way and it's more fun, because I feed more often and get strongest before venturing off without having to worry about turning into a monster in stage 4 in order to be stronger. The vampire stages were implemented poorly and made everything a chore. You had to constantly watch what stage you were and hardly ever got to make use of the strongest abilities. For mages, most abilities are wasted though as they cast those spells themselves already and are not limited to once a day. I like the drain abilitiy though.

They should make a mod where you can sneak feed anyone or assault feed, turning it into an attack. It's much cooler that way.

It's stupid though that no other vampires recognize you for what you are and you have no option to talk about it to them. Even the girl in the dark brotherhood does not recognize you as one of her own. It's like it's just a stat and all people do is complain about your eyes.

It's even like that with base races. I mean guards effortlessly deduce what type of character you're playing calling you sneak thief or commenting on your desturction magic, but they can't deduce you're an elf. I played a dark elf and no one in the Gray Quarter mentioned me as one of them. It's like picking a race is purely cosmetic.

Isn't fast travel instant and free ? xD Oh yeah, you have to first find the location before you can fast travel

I love both werewolfes and vampires in TES games. Usually my ''dark warrior'' is werewolf and the evil mage is vampire

My only complaint really about werewolfes is the fact that I can't pick up the loot while in beast form :/
In next TES game I demand that both werewolfs and vampires get their own separate special skill/perk tree.

The races ARE cosmetic. You only get one special ability that doesn't really amount to a special ability. Other than that, there is no difference between a hulking orc or a skinny woodelf.

There's hidden stats that make characters stronger based on size. A High Elf for instance does 8% more damage than a Breton and also runs 8% faster.

From my understanding, the game doesnt give you a chance to become one of the Volikair.. it seems it is all of the Cyrodil-based vampirism due to the spread of a certain power vampire that you have to hunt down in a certain quest.. a vampire who is named in Immortal Blood, who was turned by someone from cyrodil.

Which is Boon docks since Skyrim has its own origin Story of where their Vampires Came from, very gruesome and unforgiving origin Story.

I hate both vampires and werewolves - but vampires even more. I have sworn to kill everyone of these damn creatures, but it's too bad some of them are essentials. I can never get over that I'm not able to kill the most loathsome vampire, Babette - even she is not important for quests she's still essential.

Does being a vampire put you in forced 3rd person?

That was blatantly ignored due to laziness. They shouldnt have bothered putting these so-called vampires in at all.

Having actual vampires (+ faction, abilities and questline) in Skyrim would be like having a really awesome cake. The vampires that are currently in the game are like having a cake made of cyanide, razor blades and decomposing garbage... best avoided.


Note: I still really do enjoy Skyrim. Doesnt change the fact that the vampires were a crapshoot.

they should have added muffle, and +18 points to hand to hand, +50 points to health and magicka.

I believe the fully justified hate is because its utterly illogical to have vamps that become weaker by feeding, cant attempt to feed on actual enemies and can drink infinite gallons of blood from a single npc without causing any effect upon them at all.

Also the enemy vampires are indistinguishable from bandits.

Bandits rush at you and attack you with weapons and spells... Vampires do exactly the same thing. The only difference is in their name and their weapons' magical ability to curse you with a rushed and lackluster game mechanic.

The benefits are also pathetic. Only characters that could find a use for it would be thieves... And they're already invisible so that 25% bonus to sneak is meaningless.

Because Sky Vamps are actually worse than Oblivion Vamps, which I thought would have been impossible to achieve. Not sure how you get more bad than worst.

Agree. I was kind of dissapointed in the fact... theres vampires in Skyrim.... cool... no townsfolk ackowledge the fact they exsist... aside from Morthal.

it would have been cool if you could transform like the werewolves at level 4 vampirism.

As my wife has pointed out to others (not on these forums) she has read the books and they are not werewolves simply native americans who can turn into large wolves because of an incident of sorts with spirit walking by one of their ancestors. Not werewolves. The werewolf bashing comes from the underwear (underworld) movies which is a whole other POS I will not get into which tried to pass off large badgers on steroids as werewolves.

Being a werewolf is underrated, First off you get 20 base damage from claws with an added damage based on level, 11-15 +5, 16-20 +15, 21-25 +25, 26-30 +30, 31-35 +35, 36-40 +40, 41-45 +50, 45 up +60. So 80 damage per hit level 45 up. Also you can get 3 different howls depending on which one you want: Initial howl-Fear nearby foes up to level 25 for 30 seconds; First totem howl-Detect life in a large radius around your location for 60 seconds; Second totem howl-Summon two wolves to fight by your side. You can pick one of these howls to use as many times as you want, howling costs no magicka nor needs recharging. Also you can get the Ring of Hircine to transform into a wolf one more time per day. The only bad thing about being a werewolf is the no resting bonus, but really I never even go near a bed anyway. So it's pretty clear that being a werewolf is much better then a vampire in my opinion. Negative fire resists is a big no-no.

I gave my opinion on vampires here

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1330093-milk-drinker-insult-should-be-replaced-with-vampire/page__hl__vampire__fromsearch__1

...and I can't understand for the life of me why vampires are so underrated when they are the best at Illusion and Sneaking, apart from having some other cool bonuses, and when it's so easy to feed if you join any guild and you wait until they go to bed -in fact you don't need to Sneak-. Vampires are the best characters in the game, imo, at least the most fun to play for me

If they would bring back Wereboar we wouldn't be in this mess.