Will Werewolf's bloodstains on the muzzle ever return?

Erickson9610 · October 9

When starting ESO after coming from TES V: Skyrim, one of my favorite improvements to Werewolf between the games was how fast-paced it felt in ESO, how much energy went into the sound design and animations of Werewolf, and — notably — how ESO's Werewolf gained bloodstains on the muzzle when feeding, whereas Skyrim's Werewolf did not.

Even ZOS seemed proud of this level of detail. From their Creating ESO: Werewolf article, they wrote:

The werewolf’s model and combat animations need to convey a sense of unrestrained savagery. Werewolves use their incredible strength to leap through the air towards their unfortunate targets; they devour them with fervor. They often hunt in packs, destroying everything they can hunt down. We used references like video of hyenas gorging on a zebra to get the feel just right, adding touches like bloodstains on the muzzle after a good feast.

Here's one of the few screenshots I took back in 2017, which shows how the muzzle bloodstains look on a Werewolf Berserker:

As a disclaimer, I would consider myself an avid werewolf horror fan. I usually play TES V: Skyrim with some extra blood mods to make scenes feel more visceral. Naturally, I had to try ESO's Werewolf to see how it compared to Skyrim's Werewolf. For the longest time, I considered ESO's Werewolf to be the superior roleplaying experience on all fronts.

I recall reading about a bug in these earlier versions of the game where feeding on the corpses of fallen enemies in Cyrodiil would cause their bodies to turn bloody, and sometimes this wouldn't disappear when those players respawned. This is likely the reason that the bloodstain mechanic was removed, but as far as I can tell, the issue was only about the bloodstain effect on the corpses, rather than on the player's own Werewolf form.

Is there a chance that ESO's Werewolves will get to have this old bloodstain mechanic reinstated for themselves only? After all, the Werewolf NPCs in the Hircine's Gift tutorial quest still have it when feeding:

I would love to have this graphical feature again, even if it was only a client-side toggle.
@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Silvains_Demon · October 9

Huh, didn't know about this. Your werewolf posts are rather interesting.

IncultaWolf · October 9

I also miss this feature, it was removed years ago with no explanation. It might even be a bug the team isn't aware of.

JaxontheUnfortunate · October 10

I second this bring back the viscera

Soarora · October 10

Vampires no longer get bloody after feeding on players too, and I don’t recall that being in patch notes. I wonder if perhaps they are related and there’s a bug with triggering the overlay.

IncultaWolf · October 10

@ZOS_Kevin Can you confirm that this isn't just a bug that's persisted for years?

Silvains_Demon · October 10

@IncultaWolf we can just @ ZOS?

Dojohoda · October 10

I hope we can get the stain back on the werewolf. Years ago, players in Cyrodiil would get markings on them for a while after being attacked by a werewolf player. I do not remember when that stopped.

Here is an cropped screenshot from September 2016. The markings show on the face and arms in this picture:

Erickson9610 · October 10

Soarora wrote: »

Vampires no longer get bloody after feeding on players too, and I don’t recall that being in patch notes. I wonder if perhaps they are related and there’s a bug with triggering the overlay.

Interestingly, you still get bloody if you use the Blade of Woe (screenshot taken on the current PTS):

For those curious, this is how Vampire feeding used to look (screenshot taken on the PTS on July 20, 2019):

The Werewolf bloodstains vanished in 2018 when the Devour mechanic was reworked with the Wolfhunter update. I'd wager that the Vampire bloodstains vanished in 2020 when the Feed mechanic was reworked with the Greymoor update. Since there's been no update to the Blade of Woe, the bloodstains from that synergy still remain.

Djennku · October 18

The bloostains still pop up, but only very briefly for half a second when the animation is happening, and doesn't stay around much longer.

Erickson9610 · October 21

Djennku wrote: »

The bloostains still pop up, but only very briefly for half a second when the animation is happening, and doesn't stay around much longer.

This does not appear to be the case:

At no stage is there a bloodstain on the character model. There is blood VFX when feeding, but that was there even before the bloodstain VFX vanished.

Regardless, the suggestion in this thread is to bring back the bloodstain VFX for as long as it used to remain.