Vampire Race

ArchivedUser

The vampire and undead being highly known as as the ruler of the night. Who knows how many vampires are walking this continent or even this very earth. If you ever come into contact with one just pray that these legendary rulers of the night have no use for you or that you haven't provoked its hunger.

Racial abilities
Blood lust- As the fight continues to bloody the land and the fighters the vampire slowly loses its mind. Doing more damage but losing its ability to think and maneuver with intelligence.

Blood Sphere- As the vampire kills other humans/humanoids the blood is drained from the body and can be used to for abilities rather than mana

Create lesser vampire- The vampire drains the blood from a humanoid by mannually sucking the blood from its victim creating a slave that follows its masters very will.

Vampire kin- Summons vampiric animals that obey the summoner depending on the lvl may be higher ranked monsters or monsters with versitile abilities for scouting,tanking,support.

ArchivedUser

Sounds like a cool idea. The only issue I have with it, is that it sounds more like a class rather than a race. The different races would most likely only have a few passives that fits it's fantasy, not active spells. Vampires are imo really cool, and I love the fantasy around them, but I'm not sure they would fit into the world of Ashes, since we know the developers are going for a LotR themed game. Dwarfs, elves, humans and orcs/ogres are more likely to be put into the game, but perhaps an alteration of the idea of a vampire would fit in.

ArchivedUser

The way it was put it certainly sounds like a class, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to rewrite it into the augment system.

You recive a small stacking bloodreserve every time you dmg an enemy attacked with the augmented spell/attack beforehand for a certain amount of time. When the time runs out, the next spell used will cost less mana, drawing from the bloodreserve instead first.

I don't like classical vampires tho in mmos. You are going to be weaker during dayhours and stronger in nighthours? For an MMO that's not really something you want or even can balance I dare to say. How will you ever justify that you are only at 3/4 of your strength during this siege that happens during dayhours? You will be op in the next one? Even if it's only a slight thing, at least the traditional vampire is not an option in my opinion.
Some culture that has some vampiristic characteristics tho could be interesting.

So what would you like to see in a race to "feel" like vampires? stalkers of the night, draining blood by bite, necromantic tendencies?
What's their background that they prefere the night? Are they people that were forced underground and adapted to the dark better than the light?
Why did they perfect the skill of stalking? Were they threatened underground if they made too much noise?
Why are they obsessed with blood? Is there a need or is it some cultural thing to use the blood of the enemie.

ArchivedUser

Vampires are far more superior than other standard races, so we aren't likely going to see Vampires as a race or maybe even at all in Ashes.
I like the idea though. The problem is with Vampires in MMOs, they lean too much towards strength than weaknesses. Just look at ESO as an example.
If they ever should make Vampires appear as a class (or as a perk/talent/whatever) in Ashes, they should have the standard weaknesses, so it would lean toward risks/rewards, than just multiply pros and almost non cons. Otherwise players would have the feeling of being forced to becoming a vampire, to be able to compete with others.

But it could defiantly be interesting having vampire players in the game. But it might be hard to balance, so I doubt we are going to see Vampires in Ashes.

ArchivedUser

I dont know if they have a list of weaknesses that monsters or maybe even some races might have. I think that since its an undead creature it would have several downfalls and strengths. First of a weakness to fire,holy energies from like a the clergy like class or from the pallydin class. Depending on the races I would think that they would put in several weaknesses in and strengths for each one because it makes it more realistic.. Think like this would an human who just started adventuring have the same magic resistance or magic talent like a high elf who been living for almost twice that of a human. I feel that they wouldn't have to balance things out with the races but balance things out with the classes and abilities. Because If a race is cut out due to being overpowered in a fantasy game I would feel discouraged. Its a game about monsters with unhuman abilities that could possibly wipe out human civilization as we know it. This might be a case for another race but I would love it if they put monstrous demihuman types into the game.. Aka like goblins,hobgoblins,murlocs, and who even knows they could try to be a trail blazers and put in the first mmo where you clould be slimes with strong acidic abilities witch could degrade your opponents armor over time. sorry got off topic :P
But lets say these monsters are in the open, it would cause others to gather and join other guilds to combat others increasing the teamwork within this game. I honestly believe that depending on the race and the lore in this game each should get its unique passive and or actives that make the race known but it also needs weaknesses to make it so that one isnt invincible.. That said Keep the racial passives powerful.. and the weaknesses like x3 fire damage for undead races as x4 holy damage it will make things interesting

ArchivedUser

[quote quote=4616]Sounds like a cool idea. The only issue I have with it, is that it sounds more like a class rather than a race. The different races would most likely only have a few passives that fits it’s fantasy, not active spells. Vampires are imo really cool, and I love the fantasy around them, but I’m not sure they would fit into the world of Ashes, since we know the developers are going for a LotR themed game. Dwarfs, elves, humans and orcs/ogres are more likely to be put into the game, but perhaps an alteration of the idea of a vampire would fit in.

[/quote]

Yes. I can see where you are coming from saying that it could be a class. But I would hardly not it enjoy it as much. Ive played one game where there was an option of being a vampire as a class. I tried it.. Simply said I didn't enjoy it much at all. When I hear about vampire its more of a race and less of a class in my opinion. First off vampires would be categorized as an undead race. So just because of that they should get several Weaknesses and resistances for that fact, but then also you need to factor in the vampirsm. Which could add even more weaknesses and add a couple of strengths. They mentioned that they would add more races when as game runs.. I would just like them to think of vampires when adding more races

ArchivedUser

The real question here is how different are the races going to be? If it's mostly cosmetic then you could almost go with anything, including a Vampire race.

Personally I want minimal racial bonuses. I'd rather play the race I want to play without having feeling pigeonholed into the "best one" for my class.

ArchivedUser

well racial bonuses are to show the difference between races. Each race should have strengths and weaknesses that other players can use to their own advantage. You cannot compare a human and have it the same as an orc. Because human are a weak fragile race while the orcs are stronger by default. The racial bonuses can be used to make a strong classes.. but its also the same in any game that the racial bonuses can favor the players going to one class. The reason to make them powerful isnt just to make player overpowered but it be able to put a weakness system in. Such as if your an Skeleton lich or skeleton warrior type race you would be weak towards holy, blunt, and fire type damage so they would have bonus effects and more damage towards people of that certain race. Even if they do things like this it isnt a requirement to play whatever race attributes to the most favoring class. Because its meant for fun really and you have the options to do what you like. Be it role playing or just soloing monsters on the plains. Just cosmetic races would ruin the game for me tbh. There are different races for a purpose not just for being seen.

ArchivedUser

What if being a vampire was treated like a status, as seen in Elder Scrolls Online. You get but by another player, which you can either cure or embrace the new status.

Here's an explanation.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Vampirism_(Online)

ArchivedUser

that whole vampireism thing makes it more like a disease in all honesty. I hated that whole thing and didn't really enjoy it. it would be a race under the undead category and not just some creature that just happened to be bitten. A vampire is a no longer living creature... not just a victim that survived the attack.

ArchivedUser

Nice idea, though vampireism I think would be better as a disease then a race, where you would have to get infected and such to become one, and it being something rare to come across. Aside from that the abilities and skills you wrote about are really neat.

ArchivedUser

I... Want... To... Be.... Myself.... In... This... Game... PLEASE ADD VAMPIRES! I love the idea of vampires in the game. Vampires would be my no.1 race! I don't really know why, but its such a amazing thing. Maybe all races will have some advantages and disadvantages! That would be cool to see :D

ArchivedUser

Vampires as a race has the problem that their natural enemies are pretty much anything else.
It has multiple branches which it could go in but I don't see them working out unless they want to redefine vampires as a whole.

I follow fruitporn in that vampirism is a human disease, a mutation. Depending on what interpretation is being followed, they could be little more than blood crazed beasts or on the opposite side, the most arrogant of nobility.

If they want to make the vampires a race of goody two shoes that get along with other races, they'd have to redefine their entire existence of parasitizing on humans. In my honest opinion, that is an unneeded hurdle that a new MMORPG should not tackle in a vanilla release of their game unless they go full blown dark gothica on the world, which in the initial videos doesn't look like it.

Perhaps as an expansion I'd say ;-)

ArchivedUser

Vampires are, along with werewolves, one of if not the most popular choice for an outside the norm race. The inherent problems with vampires is that in the games they do show up in they are incredibly difficult to balance. Like Selesnya said their traits vary wildly depending on the interpretation. I feel that most player characters are looking for more of the ancient bad-ass vampire nobility than the blood starved wretches found in woods. Consider the following.

There are 3 potential ways races may be treated in this (or any) game.
The first you have already mentioned as being purely cosmetic, in most games that choose this method you may see a much larger variety of races chosen though a lot of the fantasy of that race is lost.
The second is the exact opposite, more commonly seen in table-top games than video games, massive bonuses to racial stats causing specific race class combos to be infinitely more prevalent than others. For example Orc barbarians and Elven archers.
The last option is a mixing of the two where only subtle bonuses are provided to certain races that min-maxers might pay attention to, but is largely ignored by the player-base.

Now depending on the games choice vampires may or may not be possible. If you choose the first option Vampires are available but they so closely resemble humans that there isn't much of a point. Pale and red eyed doesn't exactly qualify the amount of bad-assery we expect. The second option would cause vampires to exceptionally overpowered in some cases and completely worthless in others. Vampires under this category would be the strongest/fastest/most intellegent race in the game, but have massive drawbacks to compensate. This can include massive weakness to fire, inability to play during daylight hours and more. This if balanced correctly is the coolest option though it may leave the race seeming inaccessible to some. The last option would have vampires with slight resistance loss and only slight bonuses to certain stats, leaving them as just a human lookalike with different stat weights.

Basically Vampires are watered down to a color palette swap in every scenario except the one that allows for massive racial differences. This opens up a whole new issue of how they need to be balanced, but how does one balance what is, in most lore, the top of the food chain? In some cases they have been balanced poorly (cough ESO cough) but since every one has the potential to become one its seen as a non-issue by devs. I am all for passive racial bonuses, especially as too many active abilities makes it too similar to a class, and detracts from the class fantasy. Vampires are unique in the day night cycle they go through so perhaps passives that have there positives doubled at night, and the negatives doubled during the day? Something like -
[VAMPIRE - Racial passive - all passive bonuses are doubled at night, all passive debuffs are doubled during the day.]
This could extend to additional inherent vampire passives as well as class passives. If vampires are not a unique race and they follow the elder scrolls route of allowing each race to become a vampire through their actions (sub-race) than this passive would extend to their previous racial passives. (Think of an orc/vampire barbarian at night).

In any case these are just some of my thoughts, if the devs do decide to take on the challenge of adding vampires or other sub-races it will be up to them to correctly balance them.

ArchivedUser

If they make it to the game I feel they should only be playable in darkness hours only or suffer severe penalties. Vampires traditionally are not a race but a curse bestowed on a person regardless of the race. I do hope that there is some supernatural race/class in the game just not sure vampires are really needed or wanted. Just my 2 cents

ArchivedUser

I would prefer a Undead race just like in other MMO's over a pure Vampire race.

Instead i would like to see a similar system to ESO - however it would need to be very well balanced otherwise it will end like Vampire in ESO where Vampire was insane at the very beginning of the game.

ArchivedUser

BraneGames said:

Sounds like a cool idea. The only issue I have with it, is that it sounds more like a class rather than a race. The different races would most likely only have a few passives that fits it's fantasy, not active spells. Vampires are imo really cool, and I love the fantasy around them, but I'm not sure they would fit into the world of Ashes, since we know the developers are going for a LotR themed game. Dwarfs, elves, humans and orcs/ogres are more likely to be put into the game, but perhaps an alteration of the idea of a vampire would fit in.

Acccttttuuuuaaaallly .... if you read further into the other tales of Tolkien, there are Werewolves, Ghasts and other creatures not seen in the LotR Trilogy or even The Hobbit. So its possible to consider inclusion of some variants such as Vampires. I have seen nothing confirmed or explicitly denied though. So we wait to see

ArchivedUser

I personally hope they avoid this. Using ESO as an example of how good intentions can go so very wrong. The cycle of the amount of exploits, nerfs, buffs, next round of exploits, shows how hard throwing a "special" class or set of abilities on top of everything else can cause. It either becomes the go to meta for those that like to exploit, or is nerfed so far its functionality is laughable (ESO werewolf). 

ArchivedUser

Kasage said:

Nice idea, though vampireism I think would be better as a disease then a race, where you would have to get infected and such to become one, and it being something rare to come across. Aside from that the abilities and skills you wrote about are really neat.

I agree with this. Rather than make it a selectable class/race choice it sounds more accurate to have it as a rare disaease your character can be infected with.

Make it super rare! Legit, only 0.5% chance to be afflicted with and give it a quest chain to heal and remove. Once you choose to remove it, your character is permanently cured and immune! Forever regret your decision later!

Twist said:

If they make it to the game I feel they should only be playable in darkness hours only or suffer severe penalties. Vampires traditionally are not a race but a curse bestowed on a person regardless of the race. I do hope that there is some supernatural race/class in the game just not sure vampires are really needed or wanted. Just my 2 cents

I agree that if it is introduced it should have its own major trade offs. Personally I'd do something like lower stats in day time (attack/defence/evasion that sort of thing) - unless you are equipped with a specific piece of equipment that negates this effect (ring / amulet). Which you can acquire through a different quest chain. The trade off is now you have a near useless equipment slot used up instead.

The next penalty I would give is that they can no longer be healed by clerics and purification spells do not work on them. Instead they get increased natural health regen, life steal and get bursts of heals when they defeat an enemy. Maybe also give them a natural 30% resistance to debuffs / shortened duration.

I think those are fair trade offs without going over the top.

ArchivedUser

Vampires are cool and all BUT maybe just for once we might have a game where we are not beaten over the head with the same monsters again and again. Now that would be refreshing. TBF though, I like your spin on the Vamp, nice job