Ayleid Motif Style Idea!

Cellithor

Since launch, we have only had one true full Ayleid Crafting Motif in the form of the base game's "Ancient Elf" motif. I think Meridian is intended to overlap with Ayleids in some way, but I really think we need a full on Ayleid Motif that really screams Ayleid. The aesthetic could match that of the armor on the apex Ayleid mounts from Ayleid Crates! (Pictured below). It would be an awesome antiquity lead based motif from treasure maps in West Weald, Gold Coast, or Grahtwood. Please make it happen ZOS! @ZOS_GinaBruno

emilyhyoyeon

This would be great. I love ayleid stuff and was pretty said we didn't get very much this past year in Gold Road. That one ayleid bone motif/style really missed the mark for me on what I was looking for.

I guess this style would/could be armor pieces to go along with the Silyanorn weapons since the Silyanorn stuff is already quite similar to the Nenalata mounts. Or could just be a totally new Nenalata motif.


Side note but kind of related, I'm so happy to see the ayleid crates back since I finally have enough seals to grab the Nenalata horse One of the few apex mount styles that I actually like lol.
My girl Anarie finally has her mount

(if anyone's wondering the motifs here are jephre paladin chest, shoulders and heavy welkynar hands, legs and feet; the dyes are obsidian black and wolf pelt brown)

AnduinTryggva

I unfortunately have to say that for me they completely destroyed the Nenalate mounts with the design of the mouth section of the mount armor... without it it would be such great mounts for us roleplayers.

Cellithor

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

This would be great. I love ayleid stuff and was pretty said we didn't get very much this past year in Gold Road. That one ayleid bone motif/style really missed the mark for me on what I was looking for.

I guess this style would/could be armor pieces to go along with the Silyanorn weapons since the Silyanorn stuff is already quite similar to the Nenalata mounts. Or could just be a totally new Nenalata motif.


Side note but kind of related, I'm so happy to see the ayleid crates back since I finally have enough seals to grab the Nenalata horse One of the few apex mount styles that I actually like lol.
My girl Anarie finally has her mount

(if anyone's wondering the motifs here are jephre paladin chest, shoulders and heavy welkynar hands, legs and feet; the dyes are obsidian black and wolf pelt brown)

That's awesome! I don't know why they won't give us a complete Ayleid Set. The two best Ayelid aesthetic sets are Silyanorn and Eld Angavar, but those are only weapons. For some reason they will not make actual armor styles.. Only weapons. Any plans to make a good Ayleid armor? @ZOS_Icy @ZOS_GinaBruno

TaSheen

Would I like an Ayleid armor motif? Depends. If it comes with crotch, back, and hip flaps, and huge outrageous shoulders, no! I'd have to see it before I'd know if I thought it was usable....

ThelerisTelvanni

Well I agree we need at least one actually good Aylied set of gear. Maybe a faithful recreation of the Oblivion elven set?

Untill then this is my go to version for Aylied themed characters:

Nerouyn

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Side note but kind of related, I'm so happy to see the ayleid crates back since I finally have enough seals to grab the Nenalata horse One of the few apex mount styles that I actually like lol.

Yeah it's a good one. Shame it's in crates. I have some gems and seals stashed but do I want to throw them down on this? And if so, which one?

The horse is a classic. Looks great.

But they're reworking wardens. If I end up liking the rework then I might regret not spending those on the bear.

The senche and wolf also look cool. On the fence about the camel and guar.

Cellithor

ThelerisTelvanni wrote: »

Well I agree we need at least one actually good Aylied set of gear. Maybe a faithful recreation of the Oblivion elven set?

Untill then this is my go to version for Aylied themed characters:

That's cool! What are the motifs?

TaSheen

Nerouyn wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Side note but kind of related, I'm so happy to see the ayleid crates back since I finally have enough seals to grab the Nenalata horse One of the few apex mount styles that I actually like lol.

Yeah it's a good one. Shame it's in crates. I have some gems and seals stashed but do I want to throw them down on this? And if so, which one?

The horse is a classic. Looks great.

But they're reworking wardens. If I end up liking the rework then I might regret not spending those on the bear.

The senche and wolf also look cool. On the fence about the camel and guar.

Reworking wardens? Um....

FabresFour

I really liked the Ayleid helmet from the PvP event. But I wish the rest of the outfit were better.

Nerouyn

TaSheen wrote: »

Reworking wardens? Um....

Yes, confirmed in a dev note attached to a minor change to some warden ability this year.

Putting all of their power into a few abilities and then sprinkling the remainder with utilities only useful in the most obscure circumstances was not a winning design.

I like what they did mechanically with necros and arcanists though so I think the gameplay department has much improvement since warden's release, am hopeful the rework will be good, and not playing my wardens in the interim.

TaSheen

Nerouyn wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Reworking wardens? Um....

Yes, confirmed in a dev note attached to a minor change to some warden ability this year.

Putting all of their power into a few abilities and then sprinkling the remainder with utilities only useful in the most obscure circumstances was not a winning design.

I like what they did mechanically with necros and arcanists though so I think the gameplay department has much improvement since warden's release, am hopeful the rework will be good, and not playing my wardens in the interim.

Huh. Well, I play mine all the time, because all my mains (and a good proportion of other alts) are wardens. So I hope they don't make changes that make me hate the class.... *sigh*

BasP

Nerouyn wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Reworking wardens? Um....

Yes, confirmed in a dev note attached to a minor change to some warden ability this year.

Putting all of their power into a few abilities and then sprinkling the remainder with utilities only useful in the most obscure circumstances was not a winning design.

I like what they did mechanically with necros and arcanists though so I think the gameplay department has much improvement since warden's release, am hopeful the rework will be good, and not playing my wardens in the interim.

You mean this comment? "We are also trying to add more sources of damage to their damage focused skill line, Animal Companions, so we can slowly look at shifting passive damage, such as Piercing Cold and the density of Glacial Presence, out of their tanking focused skill line."

Truth be told, that doesn't sound like a grand rework to me. A couple of buffs would be nice though.

Nerouyn

TaSheen wrote: »

Huh. Well, I play mine all the time, because all my mains (and a good proportion of other alts) are wardens. So I hope they don't make changes that make me hate the class.... *sigh*

I hope we both end up liking the new them.

Personally I'm blown away by the current visuals but apart from the bear, basically what you see in the tutorial is all the class has to offer for most of the rest of the game. Unless you pvp, because that's what a lot of their utility abilities seem aimed at.

BasP wrote: »

Truth be told, that doesn't sound like a grand rework to me.

Original and for the most part current warden has damage spread between two skill lines and healing also spread across two. And buffing across all three, to at least some extent.

I have to apologise. I can't point you to an example, but several times post necros and arcanists they've made comments along the lines of they think that specialised (i.e. one line each for tanking, damage and healing) skill lines work better and are looking at wardens with that in mind.

The comment you quoted is another example though - shifting damage out of the tanking line.

Personally I don't think that's the big problem and hope they don't stop at that, but it is a big change.

TaSheen

@Nerouyn - I hope we both like a rework too. I never pvp, so I have no idea how that works for wardens....

BasP

Nerouyn wrote: »

Original and for the most part current warden has damage spread between two skill lines and healing also spread across two. And buffing across all three, to at least some extent.

I have to apologise. I can't point you to an example, but several times post necros and arcanists they've made comments along the lines of they think that specialised (i.e. one line each for tanking, damage and healing) skill lines work better and are looking at wardens with that in mind.

The comment you quoted is another example though - shifting damage out of the tanking line.

I admittedly didn't quote that whole developer comment, because it went on to say: " To clear up some of the confusion and concern we saw during PTS testing, we are NOT looking to remove morph diversity that helps frost mage DPS shine, like Arctic Blast or Winter’s Revenge. Our main concerns are on how much passive damage frost Wardens rely on to do reliable damage, and how it is allowing tankier Wardens to often out-damage others in PvP with little to no draw backs."

So it seems to me that they don't intend to remove the Frost Damage from Winter's Embrace (and I think that doing so would probably upset a lot of Warden mains, even if the magicka morphs of AC skills will be changed to deal Frost Damage). I figured that they mostly wanted to change that skill line's passives, and since that comment ZOS has indeed made changes to Piercing Cold in U43 and Glacial Presence in U44. I'm personally still waiting for the additional sources of damage to the Animal Companion skill line mentioned before though (unless the new Class Set that buffs AC damage by 10% counts).

Aside from that, a new damaging morph has also been added to one of the Necromancer's "Tanking" skills recently (Ghostly Embrace), which doesn't really fit with the narrative of ZOS wanting to limit DPS skills to one specialized skill line.

But I could very well be wrong, of course, and I sincerely hope that ZOS will make some changes to the class in 2025 that you'll like!

TaSheen

Oh, if it's looking mostly like changes to the Frost Warden thing, no worries from me, I never use those. I've never been a fan of ice magic, never will be....

Now, if they choose to triple down on the ice magic thing, making it the only option for wardens at all, I will just quit playing entirely.

Nerouyn

TaSheen wrote: »

@Nerouyn - I hope we both like a rework too. I never pvp, so I have no idea how that works for wardens....

I don't PvP either but having to go through Cyrodiil for shards etc. I realised that's where much of the utility of all of the abilities I have absolutely no use for seems to be.

Like Nature's Grasp and Frozen Retreat have little to no use in PvE. Maybe in some obscure dungeon I've never seen cos gosh they bore me, but in PvP that degree of mobility for yourself and others has real value. And at least originally (because I think they changed it at one point) Frozen Retreat could be used to sneak players into keeps.

And I think the class was also geared very heavily towards stam, which I don't do on principle because magic uses magicka. Stamina morphs are bonkers.

I also hate spamming insta cast attacks so rarely slot Dive.

For me, 95% of combat is Subterranean Assault, Fetcher Infection, Winter's Revenge and Budding Seeds.

Occasionally Arctic Blast. Most of the other heals I never use.

Beautiful animations and effect, but boring as.

BasP wrote: »

So it seems to me that they don't intend to remove the Frost Damage from Winter's Embrace (and I think that doing so would probably upset a lot of Warden mains, even if the magicka morphs of AC skills will be changed to deal Frost Damage).

Well I don't think they'd remove damage entirely from the ice line. In the base games, the only ice magic is destructive and I think the tanking lines from other classes tend to have at least one damage ability. I just think they're moving more in the direction of specialized lines.

Though if I'm wrong and wardens won't change significantly, I'm happy with what they've done with arcanists. I deleted 5 fully horse trained, trait researched, and levelled wardens to make those. Nearly finished with horse training. Again.

I still have many other warden chars because I love nature magic and had high hopes for the class but know they may never be more than storage mules.

TaSheen

@Nerouyn - I'm the other way. I LOVE stamina melee characters. I have magicka characters but they're the ones that get little play - I don't know why I made them anyway, since I've never been happy with magicka in TES games.

Nerouyn

TaSheen wrote: »

@Nerouyn - I'm the other way. I LOVE stamina melee characters. I have magicka characters but they're the ones that get little play - I don't know why I made them anyway, since I've never been happy with magicka in TES games.

Your being stam might explain why we differ on wardens. I can see how many of their abilities are tailored towards them plus you have all of the weapons.

Magicka players are stuck with 90% of spells belonging to other classes, and for damage, the destruction staff which ignoring the insta attacks I find tedious, has 2 damage spells.

Scribing looks good. Have bought but not tried it yet. Twelve additional spells would be a huge boon to poor magic starved wardens. But I already enjoy all of arcanists so will probably stick with those. The only thing they lack which I'd love to see is some kind of perma pet, preferably in the ult slot like warden's have. Also preferably class themed or an option for that.

TaSheen

Nerouyn wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

@Nerouyn - I'm the other way. I LOVE stamina melee characters. I have magicka characters but they're the ones that get little play - I don't know why I made them anyway, since I've never been happy with magicka in TES games.

Your being stam might explain why we differ on wardens. I can see how many of their abilities are tailored towards them plus you have all of the weapons.

Magicka players are stuck with 90% of spells belonging to other classes, and for damage, the destruction staff which ignoring the insta attacks I find tedious, has 2 damage spells.

Scribing looks good. Have bought but not tried it yet. Twelve additional spells would be a huge boon to poor magic starved wardens. But I already enjoy all of arcanists so will probably stick with those. The only thing they lack which I'd love to see is some kind of perma pet, preferably in the ult slot like warden's have. Also preferably class themed or an option for that.

I'm okay with arcanists too, but my main love (as a former hunter in WoW for nearly a decade) is wardens. I would like for the bear to hold aggro better (more like some of the tamed pets in WoW), but it still suits me quite well.

I'm sure that's why we seem to be a bit at cross-purposes with how wardens are set up!