Really Disappointed with the Scribing Skills

Imperial_Archmage

The grind for all the scripts is beyond obnoxious, the questline to unlock the system a completely uninspired take on "Fantastic Beasts and All the Old Zones We Have to Run Around to Find Them" and the actual customization options incredibly limited and very lackluster. I want to particularly hammer in that last point because the VFX for a lot of these skills are just terrible even in a game that is notorious for its outdated skill visuals and graphics.

I went into this being so excited to finally be able to add some cool new shock skills to my lightning sorcerer's extremely limited repertoire only to be utterly disappointed. We finally got a shock spammable with the shock focus script on Wield Soul but it looks so puny and ineffectual that it makes even the anemic looking lightning staff light attack look good by comparison, and that's really not saying much! Even flashier skills like Soul Burst and Elemental Explosion are marred by very sloppy editing because when modified (which is the whole point of Scribing, lest we forget) the new VFX are very poorly overlayed onto the original skill visuals (instead of being replaced with a separate spell ID) and sometimes the casting animation isn't even updated at all. Honestly, most of them look like they were put together on a Friday afternoon by whichever intern was unlucky enough to be at the office that day, and I don't think I am being harsh with that characterization, not at all. I guess all the experienced graphic designers and 3D artists were too busy, no doubt hard at work on churning out the latest slate of hyper visually stimulating Crown Crate gambling mounts...

ESO has been in dire need of updating skill visuals for years and this could have been the opportunity to finally begin the process but it was completely squandered, in my opinion.

Pelanora

Anemic looking AND sounding lightning staff, and the fire staff is worse. Just embarrassing to fire off. They don't feel fast, don't sound fast, certainly don't look or sound powerful.

AndyMac

I got the orange glow for trap beast - I have to look hard to see any difference ☺️

These could use a buff.

Yamenstein

AndyMac wrote: »

I got the orange glow for trap beast - I have to look hard to see any difference ☺️

These could use a buff.

Gotta be subtle with these. All the fancy ones probably lined up for crown store. Like every other cosmetic they have to offer.

tsaescishoeshiner

I liked how various effects for Elemental Explosion and Wield Soul look. In fact, I'm using Wield Soul (magic damage) just because the visuals and sound are really nice. I also liked shock and physical damage for it on PTS.

Were there particular skills you don't like the visuals for?

I think trample's ground effects don't look to good.

silky_soft

Wait till you use 2h. You don't even know if it's gone off or miss fired.

Scaletho

But after all this lame ordeal you have a chance to get a "free" horse! A boring, absolutely common horse that is everything but free! How generous!

NOT!

flizomica

It's definitely a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I was disappointed with the lack of flexibility on damage types on different skills. On the other hand, I've been able to quickly find several skill combinations that filled in gaps in several of my character's kits and made them feel better to play. I think it just needs more choices on existing skills.

I also feel like scripts should have been a one-time-grind and fully account-wide, but that ship has sailed.

Elsonso

I found the whole thing interesting in that I really have no need for the rather limited number of Grimoires that they are offering. I suppose I can just collect Ink (slowly) while they update the available Grimoires (slowly) until there is something that meets my needs. I am not feeling the need to change everything just to incorporate these skills.

Julia_Nix

The only useful thing I found so far is the pull script that lets you replace silver leash with a magicka based pull ability which is good for my non DK tanks. I tried some new scribing skills while doing overland stuff but quickly got bored with them and returned to may original build skills. I will wait for someone to make proper build involving scribing skills because I just don't have enough Ink to test them all myself since drop rates for the ink are miniscule.

colossalvoids

From what I've seen so far it's so underwhelming that I'm shocked they've tried to tie it up with "players asked for this stuff" aka spellcrafting. It's not even close yet (and the dream could be buried already).

Also got surprised how vfx and sound teams can be so out of date in a semi modern game, especially after arcanist being not that bad in ESO's standarts.

xylena_lazarow

silky_soft wrote: »

Wait till you use 2h. You don't even know if it's gone off or miss fired.

Right? What in Coldharbour do they have against instant cast melee? Cast times on melee are horrible. Aren't ranged CASTers supposed to be the ones with cast times, because being at range means you're safe to cast? Even if Smash was instant it would still be underwhelming when Cleave (instant but also underwhelming) functions almost identically.

Overall the Scribing system is really cool though. It adds a lot to PvP builds, fixing holes in playstyles and class toolkits. Wield Soul is a PvP swiss army knife. Instant cast and 41m range lol. Contingency is real good too. However, the Script grind is idiotic, I paid $40 for Scribing, not time gated rng chores. This isn't F2P, it cost me $40, I'd like my product now thanks.

Luke_Flamesword

Yeah, some skills are weird but overall I like whole system. Don't forget that now we just got foundation for this and I'm sure that there will more skills every year (when they introduced companions we had only 2 and now we have much more options) which is great because it will bring more excitment with every major update to see what's skills will be next.

Personally I think it shines most in roleplaying and customizing characters for less demanding content.

I don't know why people complain about grind - style pages in Infinite Archive is real grind. I have 15 characters but with this dailies system I will have covered all of them in couple months without even grinding, but just playing a game. My main have almost everything and that's not even week from release and I don't grind much - just making all quests for one time per day. yeah, ink is now a bit a problem, but it does matter only on begining when we build everything from scratch. Inks will be slowly come by just playing and in future there will be no problem with it. Probably it would be good to give option at least one ink per day from some quest or other source.

edward_frigidhands

They will probably make additions in the future. It's still a new system and hopefully feedback like this thread helps them out.

tsaescishoeshiner

The second problem is that no one will really be able to "experiment" with all the skills because ink is so rare/expensive. On PTS, it was helpful to try out the different effects to see if they were worth investing in. IE to test the range and targeting of the 2H grimoire, comparing different effects.

As it is people are disincentivized to experiment. Unlike morphing skills or outfits, which are cheap to do. It's closer to spending transmutes on your build—but at least transmutes can be consistently farmed (though really time-consuming if someone wanted to seriously experiment with a lot of different sets).

A way to experiment with the grimoires would be helpful, promote using the system, and save people on ink.

Imperial_Archmage

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I liked how various effects for Elemental Explosion and Wield Soul look. In fact, I'm using Wield Soul (magic damage) just because the visuals and sound are really nice. I also liked shock and physical damage for it on PTS.

Were there particular skills you don't like the visuals for?

I think trample's ground effects don't look to good.

As I already said in my original post, I was mostly looking forward to unlocking new shock skills for my sorcerer because the Storm Caller line is so lacking. The shocking focus script on Wield Soul is absolutely pathetic and it's the first time we've ever had a shock spammable. The shocking focus scripts for Soul Burst and Elemental Explosion are fine but they were very sloppily put together and you can still see parts of the original morphs alongside the new one, it's very jarring to see the pale blue/green of soul magic overlayed with the shock colors. About the only one that looks good is trample and not to be cynical but it's very obvious why that was given the most attention...

shadyjane62

I don't understand a lot of what has been said in this thread because after grinding my way thru to end on scribing I find it underwhelming so much so I haven't done anything with it.

I have ridden the horse.

master_vanargand

I wish I had more freedom, but the combinations I want are restricted and not available.
*sigh*

FlopsyPrince

I cannot see going through that grind more than once or perhaps twice on each server, for my main on that server. What a painful slog.

NyassaV

Art and animations department are too busy with the Crown Store.

amig186

Too many restrictions on signatures and affixes as of now. All I wanted was to be able to pre-buff major sorcery as a templar, and only the healing version of Wield Soul lets me do that. But it only lasts 10 seconds and costs twice as much as Degeneration from the Mages Guild tree, which lasts 20 seconds (though isn't pre-buffable, obviously).

Zormac

Scaletho wrote: »

But after all this lame ordeal you have a chance to get a "free" horse! A boring, absolutely common horse that is everything but free! How generous!

NOT!

How is it not free? You literally claim it for free from the store. And it's a multi-rider horse, so definitely not common. It's the first free multi-rider horse they've ever given away.

TaSheen

It's not free because you have to pay for the chapter in order to get access to scribing....

MudcrabAttack

I initially wrote it all off as too weak or having cast times that are too long, but then realized that the 2second channel staff skill can be coupled with the assassins script, and the result for each cast is damage comparable to two whirling blades, but over a larger area. With everything hit taking minor vulnerability, minor brittle (if that affix is used) and off balance when you use lightning wall of elements after casting the scribed skill once in a while. Lightning staff buffs direct damage better

Shagreth

ESO has too many choices but only like 10 are truly viable, meanwhile this power of choice should be shifted and be about how you can actually customize your build via skills etc. When was the last time in the last 10 years they gave us new class abilities? Never. Now we get a few breadcrumbs in the form of scribing and it's all very limiting and behind tons of farming, it's ***.

ESO can satisfy my housing thirst, somewhat (Fallout 76 is much better tbh) but when it comes to builds and customizing my gameplay.. it fails, miserably. FFXIV on the other hand has almost zero customization, but at least everything looks cool as hell. WoW, even though I HATE to admit, will always be the king of this. Look at all the crazy specs (amazing themes too!) they are giving us with War Within, that actually makes me excited to grab and play my class and try all the new toys. I can never feel that with ESO via sets, cause I know I'll just keep using Whorl etc. and generally I hate borrowed power. I haven't played WoW in years, but I am actually thinking of coming back.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno The current iteration of scribing feels boring and limiting, but it has potential, provided you actually go on and add new and exciting abilities. Pressing a button should give us a small dopamine hit, but instead what I get now is a slightly orange tinted Trap that's even hard to notice the difference even while fully zoomed in. I am not saying you should give us beams that can destroy the moon like FFXIV, but something cool would be nice for a change. Arcanist has a few skills you can use as a reference.

ZOS_Kevin

Shagreth wrote: »

The current iteration of scribing feels boring and limiting, but it has potential, provided you actually go on and add new and exciting abilities. Pressing a button should give us a small dopamine hit, but instead what I get now is a slightly orange tinted Trap that's even hard to notice the difference even while fully zoomed in. I am not saying you should give us beams that can destroy the moon like FFXIV, but something cool would be nice for a change. Arcanist has a few skills you can use as a reference.

First, thanks for the feedback and share your experience in other games. That summary gives a good benchmark for how you view skills in ESO vs. other things you have played.

So the plan is to support this system over time, just like many of our other systems. We think the close to 4000 total combinations of skills is a good starting point, but it is just that, a starting point. If there isn't something that resonates in the current suite of skills, we will add more and will look to player feedback to inform some direction.

Also remember that we are trying to think holistically about skill design. For example, the Arcanist was mentioned. But for every one person who loves the look of some of those skills, we've also gotten player feedback that some of the Arcanist skills are too flashy and wished they were more muted. Not saying we won't do skills like that in the future, just want to put in perspective that we are looking at accommodating all kinds of players here, so building out that variety of skills and the visuals associated takes time and feedback.

Elsonso

I, for one, find the Arcanist to be too neon green. It is hard to see through the green beam, as well.

I really don't want Scribing skills to be that bright.

Erickson9610

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Shagreth wrote: »

The current iteration of scribing feels boring and limiting, but it has potential, provided you actually go on and add new and exciting abilities. Pressing a button should give us a small dopamine hit, but instead what I get now is a slightly orange tinted Trap that's even hard to notice the difference even while fully zoomed in. I am not saying you should give us beams that can destroy the moon like FFXIV, but something cool would be nice for a change. Arcanist has a few skills you can use as a reference.

First, thanks for the feedback and share your experience in other games. That summary gives a good benchmark for how you view skills in ESO vs. other things you have played.

So the plan is to support this system over time, just like many of our other systems. We think the close to 4000 total combinations of skills is a good starting point, but it is just that, a starting point. If there isn't something that resonates in the current suite of skills, we will add more and will look to player feedback to inform some direction.

Also remember that we are trying to think holistically about skill design. For example, the Arcanist was mentioned. But for every one person who loves the look of some of those skills, we've also gotten player feedback that some of the Arcanist skills are too flashy and wished they were more muted. Not saying we won't do skills like that in the future, just want to put in perspective that we are looking at accommodating all kinds of players here, so building out that variety of skills and the visuals associated takes time and feedback.

I'm really excited to hear that Scribing will be supported over time! Though, I have to wonder if the focus will primarily be on the Grimoires, or if maybe new Scripts might be introduced as well? For instance, there are no Scripts for effects such as Major/Minor Mending, Major/Minor Fortitude, Stealth, Detection, Thorns, or a gap closer functioning as the opposite of Pull. There's definitely potential to expand in the direction of new Scripts in addition to designing new Grimoires to apply them to.

Blood_again

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Also remember that we are trying to think holistically about skill design. For example, the Arcanist was mentioned. But for every one person who loves the look of some of those skills, we've also gotten player feedback that some of the Arcanist skills are too flashy and wished they were more muted. Not saying we won't do skills like that in the future, just want to put in perspective that we are looking at accommodating all kinds of players here, so building out that variety of skills and the visuals associated takes time and feedback.

Mentioning different players love different effects level while adding more and more visuals. Is it possible that client settings may save the party?
I guess that even the existing checkbox "Hide additional visual effects" have doubled the count of happy players. Could some kind of slider "Bright ---o--- Pale" solve the future battles inside the community?

Galeriano2

Animations for many of these skills feel unfinished and bugged.

DrNukenstein

They don't enable new build possibilities/playstyles

Rather they just give players access to buffs/debuffs they might have a hard time sourcing otherwise at the expense of using skills that just don't feel good to use compared to non-scribing skills. The DW skill is super redundant in particular. Another throwing knife that no one wants to use? You just had to give every class access to a skill that feels like concealed weapon for scribing to be a win to the majority of the playerbase.

There is an exception though... The potential healing and shielding skills are absolutely cracked and will further entrench the tank meta over the next few months in PvP. Who doesn't have room for a shield, hot and buff of their choice (probably protection!) to fire with their resolving vigor or hardened ward?

So far scribing is a big L. At best it's a disappointment, at worst it's more fuel for the stalemate meta