Teased Class Skill Styles (U44)

MashmalloMan

Currently on the PTS, you can find these skill styles under the menu, but none of them (as far as I'm aware) can actually be accessed right now.

I vaguely remember this happened in U43, but I couldn't find any posts about it. Are these the same teases from back then or is there anything new here? I think overall, they sound and look like they'll be pretty cool.

LunaFlora

probably won't be added in q4 or q1 if there's no way to use them yet.

maybe a way to acquire them is in u45

MashmalloMan

Here are my initial thoughts on these without ZOS's input on the context of them:

Arcanist: Blue, not entirely sure about the intent, probably leaning into Tentacular Dread's random frost element they picked? Could have been picked to stand out, but I don't really see a theme here like I do for the other classes.

NB: Purple/Black is what I'd consider more of a Shadow colour palet found in other media like movies, tv shows, and comics. This is the only class with an ultimate skill style. I currently use Purple blockade for NB, these will further support that look. Neat.

Templar: Ice Blue is surprising. I would have expected Red/Orange to evoke Holy Fire found from Vampires Bane or Yellow/Black to evoke Unholy Magic found from skills visuals like Eclipse.

DK: Blue for the classic Coldharbour Blue Flames. Cool, fits, still fire, but blue fire. Many skills like Contingency or Meteor have this look to them, so it could be fun to match that.

Warden: Orange to lean into a more Autumn nature theme. Neat, I'm sure some people would have wanted Ice themed skills, but many of the Magic morphs already look Blue and could pass for Ice Skills. I think they were going for something a bit more drastic as we see with all of these class choices.

Necro: Red/Black to evoke a grimreaper death feel, really love that, enough said.

Sorc: Red lightning like Reverse Flash from DC comics. Almost evil... also they appear to have a 4th because Winged Twilight has a remodel, not just a recolour. It may or may not even be sold/unlocked with the other 3, I have no idea, but exciting to see nontheless. The icon looks really awesome alone.

MashmalloMan

LunaFlora wrote: »

probably won't be added in q4 or q1 if there's no way to use them yet.

maybe a way to acquire them is in u45

Oh yeah I don't doubt that, they specifically announced the 3 pack for Frost Stampede, Volley, and Meteor. That you can purchase and use on the PTS right now. They would have done the same for Class skills if they were ready.

Erickson9610

LunaFlora wrote: »

probably won't be added in q4 or q1 if there's no way to use them yet.

maybe a way to acquire them is in u45

I think they'll be in the Crown Store. There's that other Skill Style pack in the Crown Store on the PTS, which themes three skills after ice/frost, so it's likely that each of these Class bundles of 3-4 will also be sold in the Crown Store, since the skills in each bundle are all the same color. Maybe it'll be sold in the Crown Store during Update 44?

MashmalloMan

Erickson9610 wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

probably won't be added in q4 or q1 if there's no way to use them yet.

maybe a way to acquire them is in u45

I think they'll be in the Crown Store. There's that other Skill Style pack in the Crown Store on the PTS, which themes three skills after ice/frost, so it's likely that each of these Class bundles of 3-4 will also be sold in the Crown Store, since the skills in each bundle are all the same color. Maybe it'll be sold in the Crown Store during Update 44?

Maybe but I think they came up in a similar way in U43 too, they were later removed during the subsequent patches because it was apparently added by mistake.. vs this time, where they advertised in the patch notes that you could purchase the Frost pack in the crown store for those 3 abilities.

Also, who knows. The 3 Frost skill pack is named after the New Life Festival, maybe it will be free during that event period, an unlock for a goal we meet, or hell... you need to buy it with crowns. Any of the options is fine in my books as long as they continue to sprinkle skill styles into unlockable content like we found with Gold Road. That really pushed me to complete achievements, the proper reward structure I've been wanting.. vs mounts, pets, titles, and the majority of skins/tattoos, that just don't do it for me anymore because I have 100s of options and I'm rarely going to remove what I already like for something pretty dull vs a crown store unlock I may have.

Skill styles are just way more fun to play around with, especially on alts when you aim for a specific theme.

IncultaWolf

These look really cool, can't wait to get them!

LunaFlora

Erickson9610 wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

probably won't be added in q4 or q1 if there's no way to use them yet.

maybe a way to acquire them is in u45

I think they'll be in the Crown Store. There's that other Skill Style pack in the Crown Store on the PTS, which themes three skills after ice/frost, so it's likely that each of these Class bundles of 3-4 will also be sold in the Crown Store, since the skills in each bundle are all the same color. Maybe it'll be sold in the Crown Store during Update 44?

we'll see in the coming months , but i think update 45 is likelier

Erickson9610

Either way, it won't be the end of the world for me. I don't think I'll use my Class's Skill Styles. I'll try to collect them if they're tied to achievements like the new ones of U43 and U44 were, but those Skill Styles specifically don't appeal to me enough.

Though, I would be interested to see how the Summon Winged Twilight Skill Style looks like, if it's similar to how the Slate-Gray Summoned Bear Skill Style is a texture swap, rather than a VFX recolor.

xDeusEJRx

Imagine if they made the lava whip green to spite the players who kept asking for a Stam whip back in the day

emilyhyoyeon

I need the purple nightblade ones so bad.

I would've liked to see orange/gold for the sorcerer ones. I don't get why there isn't a way to offer like 7 different basic color for every skill style from the get-go though.

MashmalloMan

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I need the purple nightblade ones so bad.

I would've liked to see orange/gold for the sorcerer ones. I don't get why there isn't a way to offer like 7 different basic color for every skill style from the get-go though.

Pull on your tinfoil hat, but have you ever looked at how the market for Phone technology progresses each year? There is a logical reason to not release the best, end all, be all today, when you need to think about tomorrow too.

That said, although recolours are probably easy to adjust, make, and package by just tweaking a colour slider in most game engines, it may not be that simple for ESO, this engine was based on 2007 tech. Plus, they have a pipeline and dedicated staff for everything, with potentially 10+ more years of content to make. Would most of the playerbase even care about new skill styles for future updates, if there were 100s to pick from via a colour wheel or dye system like the outfit station today? Even that is curated, and most of us just want the blackest black or the whitest white. Idk, I think it would dilute it.

In the end, it's money. It's always money :P

MashmalloMan

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Imagine if they made the lava whip green to spite the players who kept asking for a Stam whip back in the day

Honestly, that might be why they did a complete 180 and went with blue lol. Probably the same reason Warden's are autumn themed instead of frost themed.

tsaescishoeshiner

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Imagine if they made the lava whip green to spite the players who kept asking for a Stam whip back in the day

I think they should! Green would fit in with the other class colors. If anyone were to have a complaint about that, they might need to step outside for a while lol

Hagrett

Here's hoping that they will complete a full theme further down the line. I like the idea of the blue styles for templar, but would prefer to keep all the skills uniform rather than a hodge podge of different colours.

Ezhh

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Though, I would be interested to see how the Summon Winged Twilight Skill Style looks like, if it's similar to how the Slate-Gray Summoned Bear Skill Style is a texture swap, rather than a VFX recolor.

I don't know if it's still the case, but when I checked a couple weeks back, the winged twilight could be previewed on PTS, I think it was under collectibles. I don't have PTS atm to go back and check. It didn't seem possible to preview any of the others.

The sad thing for me about these skills is that they often don't cover the set of skills I'd use on a class. I'd love the blue jabs/backlash for my plar, but without a matching beam style it would feel unfinished. Likewise for the DK, whip and breath will be nice to recolour, but then FoO is stuck still being orange, so for me it's mostly going to be a no unless the number of the class skills in the packs goes up, at least if these are crown store, which I'm expecting them to be. I don't want to throw crowns at something that feels incomplete.

Lystrad

Ezhh wrote: »

The sad thing for me about these skills is that they often don't cover the set of skills I'd use on a class. I'd love the blue jabs/backlash for my plar, but without a matching beam style it would feel unfinished. Likewise for the DK, whip and breath will be nice to recolour, but then FoO is stuck still being orange, so for me it's mostly going to be a no unless the number of the class skills in the packs goes up, at least if these are crown store, which I'm expecting them to be. I don't want to throw crowns at something that feels incomplete.

I feel the same way about arcanist. In theory I like the idea of the blue abilities, and I can probably make something work with just those, but if the crux spinning around me stays green then I'd be better off just keeping my spells green. If they have a way to make crux match the color of the generator on the other hand, that'd be great.

SkaiFaith

Warden's Scorch, blazing orange is what I'm looking for here. I'm ok with having these as bundles in the crown store, I just hope for a decent price that's not exaggerated... Hope to see them soon.

MoonPile

People are gonna be up in arms when more see the Sorc Twilight style. To a comedic degree, the complete opposite of all anyone has asked for regarding that thing for the last decade: to make it less intrusive.

I showed the change to my friend who no longer plays. They go: "I don't get it... isn't that worse?" Yes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1g6rwuq/new_summon_twilight_style_incoming/

TX12001rwb17_ESO

The problem though is making all these attacks colors they should not be, if you make Arctic Wind an Orange color then the opponent may think your using a fire skill, as cool as they are I think they should be disabled in PvP.

Elvenheart

Sadly, I see that Grim Focus isn’t one of the skills in the screenshot 😢

Turtle_Bot

DK blue flames seems pretty cool and fits with existing themes in the game (coldfire balistas, blue fires in coldharbour, many NPC/boss daedra have blue flame abilities, etc).

NB and warden ones seem, interesting, at least for a niche themed character (warden being like the evil/flame druids from high isle chapter and NB maybe a shadow mage depending how purple or dark the colours are).

The rest just seem meh/completely disconnected (at least the concepts since I haven't actually seen the skills in game yet) and not properly thought out for the classes they are given to.
To me it seems like:
- necro should have gotten the ice blue colouring templars got to fit the necro "cold/dead" theme
- Sorc should have gotten the Azure blue colouring with white mixed in to suit the lightning theme of the class (changing the crystals colour to match "lightning colours"
- Templar/Arcanist should have gotten something else entirely like a corrupted light colour (black/yellow similar to living dark) for plar and maybe a muted purple colour (similar to sorcs crystal magic colours) for arcanist that keeps the arcane/rune theme, just less, in your face green.

I'd have to see them in game, but not really impressed with the themes "chosen" for most of these.

seventyfive

Missed opportunity to enable an alternative to Nightblade's "Swallow Soul" icon.
Despite being a min-maxer, the pure visuals of that icon make me actively avoid any builds utilizing it

FabresFour

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Templar: Ice Blue is surprising. I would have expected Red/Orange to evoke Holy Fire found from Vampires Bane or Yellow/Black to evoke Unholy Magic found from skills visuals like Eclipse.

I particularly liked the Templar with blueish-frost spells because it reminds me of the restorarions spells from TES: Oblivion, which was blueish-white LOL

fizl101

I wouldn't mind a red flappy if it was the size of a torchbug (or maybe a nixad, I'm not picky), but please make it smallllllll

xylena_lazarow

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

as cool as they are I think they should be disabled in PvP

NO. You can pry my blue DK from my cold dead hands. If you play at the level where your opponent's class actually matters, you've also reached the point where you can easily tell what class they're running, or at least use a UI addon.

Tommy_The_Gun

I really don't understand this direction. I always thought that "colour codes" are a part of game design. If you got hit by "red skill", then it is NB. If you got hit by "Green skill", then it is Warden etc.

Right now they are just making a mess, nothing more. Players will be confused as heck as "identifying" a class will be more tricky than it needs to be.

xylena_lazarow

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Players will be confused as heck as "identifying" a class will be more tricky than it needs to be.

If we can understand shiny Pokemon, we can understand Orange Wardens. It's not that hard I promise.

MashmalloMan

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

- Sorc should have gotten the Azure blue colouring with white mixed in to suit the lightning theme of the class (changing the crystals colour to match "lightning colours"

I initially didn't understand the red colouring for a storm class, but the more I played live since, the more I started to notice it from NPCs.

Infinite Archive has a minotaur that does this delayed red lightning knock back. Lots of the visuals during the Greymore chapter with Vampires and Harrowstorms have red lightning/winds. I'm sure there is other area's it appears in the game I'm still not aware of. I guess they're going for that evil, dark, red, hot topic theme.

I would be a tiny bit disapointed if it looked like blue lightning for the purple skills because that would kill any hope I had about them changing the magic damage in the class to shock lol. That said, I would take a passive that procced a small lightning tick or concussed too if it meant purple shock was somehow out of the question for whatever dumb reason.

ZOS will take another 20 years before they make meaningful, fun, or thematically interesting class changes, so who am I kidding. Bring on the azure blue vfx so I can at the very least pretend.

Nihilr

Agreed with everyone else on the Winged Twilight. Should have been a different model or something.

Still waiting on alternatives to Warden/Necro summons also. The model options for *summons* should be what changes, not just colors.

Necro could have Blast-zombie instead of Blast-bones.
Warden could have Vines/snakes instead of Shalk, & Falcons/Gryphons instead of cliffracers, & Nixads/Moths/Butterflies/Torchbugs instead of Netches (Wardens aren't specific to Morrowind region, so why are the skills Morrowind creatures + BEAR???)

Those are the skills my husband and I will pay for. Crown store. RIGHT. NOW.

Turtle_Bot

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Bring on the azure blue vfx so I can at the very least pretend.

That's all we can ask for, because we sure as the nerf hammer existing aren't getting any new interesting shock abilities anytime soon (if we're lucky they might add shock damage to one of the other scribing abilities, maybe).