Hi everyone! Did you miss this thread?
Let's continue our discussion of how vampires and werewolves could have been improved for Dawnguard. You can read the original thread http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1392951-an-idea-of-how-vampires-and-werewolves-could-have-been-done/, but just in case you don't feel like doing that, I've taken the liberty of including the original post below.
And the second thread http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1393917-an-idea-of-how-vampires-and-werewolves-could-have-been-done-thread-2/.
But why stop there? There's even more content in the third thread, which you can read http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1394274-an-idea-of-how-vampires-and-werewolves-could-have-been-done-thread-3/page__p__21174368#entry21174368.
And if you really want to read absolutely everything that's been said about this before, the fourth thread is http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1395025-an-idea-of-how-vampires-and-werewolves-could-have-been-done-thread-4/page__p__21190790#entry21190790.
So let the discussion continue!?
Original Post from Original Thread:??
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.??
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 Vampire 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 150 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 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.
?
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, instead of just simply hitting a target in front of you.?
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 Lords?
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 negated 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.??
Obviously, one of the major advantages to the Vampire Lord strain would be to... well, transform into Vampire Lords. This presents a major power boost to the character and allows them to inflict serious damage to their opponents very quickly. However, this power should not be without it's downsides. 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. This would also negate the Sun Damage from enchanted weapons. 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??
Night Eye ability
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?(More against Vampire Lord varieties)
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. Additionally, Lycanthropes would still be able to change at will once a day, or an unlimited number of times with the Ring of Hircine.?
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 when struck by Silver weapons in normal form
40 points extra damage when struck by Silver weapons in Beast form.?
H/M/S don’t regenerate when silver items equipped?
No rested bonuses while having the beastblood??
Disease Immunity.
More extreme Silver penalties could be as follows:
Equipping Silver gear prevents H/M/S from regenerating as well as your transformations.
Having any Silver in your INVENTORY at all prevents transformations and your H/M/S from regenerating.
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.
Some have argued against basing the damage werecreatures do and the amount of damage they take on a certain skills makes railroads you into being a two-handed person when you want to be a werebear, despite the fact that up until then you had been using magic or one handed. This is a valid point, but I feel that it could be addressed by having your skills level up when you give/receive damage in your transformed state. That way, you could continue to grow stronger without "tainting" your non-melee character by forcing him to pick up a sword now and then. But getting back to how to make the werebeasts different from one another:
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.??What are your guys’ thoughts??
EDIT: Forgot to add that both Vampires and Lycanthropes would continue to have disease immunity, while the vampires also held onto their poison immunity.?
?EDIT EDIT: I feel I need to emphasize this point. The above thoughts are what I feel should have been implemented rather than what we got in Dawnguard. Pointing out what Dawnguard has largely established is pointless in arguing against these points because this is about what I feel should have been done instead. You're free to point out what things you think work in Dawnguard but remember that these ideas were largely a retrospect, looking at the baffling design and story mistakes Bethesda made with its new DLC, and what I feel they should have done instead.??
EDIT EDIT EDIT: The following is Werewolf&Vampire's hypothesis as to how the current vampire design decisions came about. Posted with permission. You can read the full thread http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1389968-vampires-in-skyrim-and-the-bethesda-crew/.??
EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Altering Werewolf/Vampire appearance:
Spoiler There has been a lot of talk about customization the looks of werewolves. In my opinion, the fact that you can't alter your vampire's appearance with the new person in Riften is a considerable disappointment, and I hope at some point it gets addressed, at least in regards to the human form of vampires.
Now, about werewolves. We've heard before that there was once talk of different models for male and female werewolves, as well as different models for them depending on their race, but this was scrapped at some point. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not have it be tied to race, though I can see why some would. Nor would I want it to be based on hair color. Instead, I think it would be nice to be able to change your beastforms look, including eye and fur color, as well as adding the scars and whatnot.
Currently, as there is no other werecreature clan besides the Companions (and even their status as such is debatable) I think the best place to alter your werewolf's beastform would be the Underforge. You could go there, transform, and activate the basin, which would activate the character creation esque menu to let you change your werewolf's appearance. You can see possible fur colors/patterns that you could choose from http://www.cosmosmith.com/wolfpage.html.
EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Vampire Lords and Lycanthropic Followers:
Spoiler Personally, I've always found it a little silly that your gifted followers refuse to transform when traveling with you, save for scripted events. I'm not sure if Serana transforms at all, but you there's only a handful of times in the vanilla game your friends transform into werewolves.
I feel this should be addressed. It doesn't make sense that your followers would refuse to transform, unless they have some moral stance against it. But even then, I think with a high enough speech check, you should be able to convince them to transform when they need to. A dialogue tree could facilitate setting the options for the AI to consider transforming, with various things such as:
Are we in a town?
Is it day or night?
What kind of enemy am I fighting?
Will transforming save my life?
Has the player character transformed?
Etc.
You set up the requirements, and the AI will activate them automatically if the situations line up correctly. Alternatively, you could just tell your follower you want him/her to transform right now and they'll do it on the spot.
This would give you more cause to use these characters beyond simple RP, and allow them to bring their skills to the forefront.
It'd also be neat to see their abilities come into play in dialogue. With their heightened senses, it'd be nice if your followers occasionally mentioned that they heard/saw/smelled someone and would warn you of the danger.
Also, there should be more followers with these abilities than what we currently have. Various vampire and lycanthropic followers, each with different personalities and whatnot. Some just as beastlike in their human forms as when transformed, others much more meek and quick to run while normal, but more vicious when transformed.
Also, thought this mostly dealt with the transformations for VL and Lycanthropes, I'd like Volkihar and Cyrodiilic vampire followers included as well.
» Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:19 pm 
