AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Fair enough.

But this does not solve the lack of such for other tank builds like my nightblade tank.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Can someone please explain to me what makes Scribing so different from Spellcrafting? They both are similar in concept — customizable skills. You choose what your skills do. What in particular makes people upset that we got Scribing and not Spellcrafting?

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

I still really don't grasp scribing.

Is there anything worth scribing for my stamblade DD in PvE?

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Spellcrafting would have similarly been balanced. You could for example craft yourself a brand new Frost Bolt attack, decide on the type of attack (ST, DoT, Direct, etc), then you could choose a method of improvement such as reduced cost, increased/reduced, increased range vs on touch effect. That sort of idea. And from doing this, you could make yourself a full Frost Mage Warden, or a full Shock Mage Sorc, or a full Summoner Sorc through Flame Atronachs, Familiars, Dremora summons, etc. Ultimates would have been craftable as well.

The “balance issue” of it comes from the new functionality, not the actual numbers. In other words, you could craft Muffle from Skyrim, to reduce your footsteps sound for sneaking. You could summon new creatures, which would allow for more powerful minion/easy-to-use Oakensoul like builds. You could make currently bad builds such as PvE non-pet Shock Mage Sorc, into a powerful DPS since you’d acquire many more abilities.

How would you be able to make a Muffle spell if you could only make damage spells? Was it explained that you'd be able to make any kind of spell, not just damage and summon spells?

From what I understand, Spellcrafting would let you craft any kind of ability from the ground up, whereas Scribing lets you customize specific customizable abilities to serve different purposes.

Scribing could do many of the things that Spellcrafting was said to do, though — we just need ZOS to introduce new Grimoires that have some of that functionality — such as a summon Grimoire that can have its damage type customized, or a "Muffle"-like Grimoire or Script which reduces your detection radius or grants invisibility.


I do understand the frustration of not having all of these options available to us at the start, though. I know Scribing will receive updates yearly, so eventually it'll have plenty of options for any build. Actually, it's because Scribing skills can be introduced for any skill line — rather than just for the 5 schools of magic — that Scribing will offer more flexibility for some builds than Spellcrafting ever could.

No it’s not only damage skills that you could craft. It is all types of abilities from the schools of magic throughout past Elder Scrolls games.

In the showcased gameplay we saw Oakflesh, Muffle, Summon Flame Atronach, and some other stuff. The scribed Soul Magic skills are somewhat like Spellcrafting, but the rest aren’t like and easily could’ve been new Active Abilities instead.

The frustration of having all options available at the start has nothing to do with it. These are fundamentally different features. Spellcrafting was a massive feature which was purely Elder Scrolls-like, adding the TES Schools of Magic, and was focused on build fantasy and fun. Scribing is just some random new feature here to fill holes in existing builds and to provide further incentive to purchase DLC.

Sorry it’s just not for me, imo 2024 has been a total letdown unfortunately.

Oh, so players wanted skills for each school of magic? The appeal behind Spellcrafting was the ability to make any kind of magic at will?


I don't understand how the Soul Magic Grimoires are "somewhat like Spellcrafting" but the other Grimoires aren't. Do all Spellcrafting skills have to be purely magical in nature?


I apologize for the constant questions about Spellcrafting — I've never been interested in using magic in any TES game, and I don't know how those systems worked in those games. Even in ESO, I don't like running Magicka builds.

Scribing has been an appealing feature for me because it can give me new options for martial builds, like the Traveling Knife Grimoire, which I use in PvE. The Scribing system could also potentially give Werewolves a 6th skill to pick from if a Werewolf Grimoire is ever implemented, which would be huge for the build diversity of that playstyle, given how Werewolves can only pick from skills within their own skill line.

If Scribing was solely about the schools of magic, where every ability costed Magicka and belonged to some new skill line, then it would be a total letdown for me.

Yes pretty much. The only reason ESO survived past the first year, is because it is an Elder Scrolls game. Tons of people love these games and their lore. Spellcrafting is an established Elder Scrolls feature which for a game that is so limited in its build archetype support, would have provided infinitely more *actually usable* options for all types of builds compared to Scribing, particularly builds that are not supported by the current classes. It also is just way more interesting to interact with and is made for fun, as opposed to farming Dailies to get Scripts and adding a rare material Luminous Ink to change affixes, prioritizing grind instead of fun.

Heck, the first thing that confused me when I began ESO back in 2014 was where I could go to purchase Frost spells lol, and my brother wanted to go buy some Illusion spells for his character… only find out this was not possible. Heck this game didn’t even have a Justice System in the past (could not steal items)… so making this more of a true Elder Scrolls game should be their primary goal since that is their audience. Gold Road was meant to be a TES4 Oblivion-callback chapter which totally failed on nostalgia.

As for Soul Magic - some Apprentice-level Destruction school spells would be Fireball, or Chain Lightning, or Ice Spike. These would just function like single target spammables, and maybe could even add a small DoT to them. So what I mean about Soul Magic skills having some relation to Spellcrafting, is that Wield Soul can be created into a spammable like those.

The thing about “martial builds” - all of those new weapon skills like Travelling Knife should simply be new active abilities to those skill lines. Vast majority of choices available through Scribing are just straight up non-sensical, useless, and only exist because they need to put a ton of random options for the sake of Scribing having its “4000 combinations”. Spellcrafting is much more fun and build relevant, vs the artificial nature of Scribing.

So pretty much, a player like you who totally avoids Magicka in all Elder Scrolls games can at the very least use Spellcrafting to create buff skills or new Ultimates for yourself. And then the new martial or werewolf abilities you enjoy through Scribing, would just be added as new Active Abilities.

And I’ll just add one more thing. Spellcrafting is a massive expansion onto the Mages Guild. If ZOS wanted to, they could have given a minor equivalent to the Fighter’s Guild in the form of essentially the current Scribing system for just those martial skills. Spellcrafting and (some of) Scribing can coexist, aka the best of both worlds if you are someone who makes it a point to avoid all Magicka in the series.

I see. If we had gotten Spellcrafting, then there'd be no reason to assume that we would have also gotten Active Abilities for the other skill lines. I think the idea of a "martial Spellcrafting" via the Fighters Guild is an interesting idea, but naturally you'd expect just skills for the weapon skill lines. You'd also not expect the Fighters Guild equivalent of Spellcrafting to do anything for Werewolves, given how they're enemies.

I'm sure I could've used Spellcrafting skills as buff abilities the same way I use Scribing skills as buff abilities. After all, after hybridization, suddenly it makes sense for a Stamina Templar to slot Radiant Oppression as their execute — with a limited Magicka pool and the execute ability scaling off your highest offensive stats, it doesn't really matter that you're expending Magicka for a skill if your target is bound to die soon.


Though, I really want to emphasize how Scribing is the best outcome for a Werewolf player. Regular Spellcrafting would've been new spells in some new skill lines, which we can't use in Werewolf form. It would've powercrept Werewolf even further — which Scribing in its current form currently does, at least until Werewolf gets a Grimoire that only they can use.

Unlike other playstyles, Werewolf doesn't benefit from the addition of new skills and skill lines outside of their own, and there's no guarantee that Werewolf ever would've been given more Active Abilities as compensation just because of Spellcrafting — there was no precedent for having more than 5 Active Abilities per skill line before Scribing. With Scribing, however, ZOS intends to add new abilities to any skill line, so while it hasn't happened yet, it's possible that Werewolf might actually benefit from this system in the future.


Basically, if Spellcrafting had the guarantee to be expanded into any skill line, including Werewolf, then it would've been alright in my book. Though, I find that unlikely, given that TES werewolves don't have an inclination for casting magic (though naturally Hircine's Bounty is somewhat of an exception to that rule).

I don't expect any future Werewolf Grimoires to be allowed to have elemental damage types (despite Werewolf Behemoths flaunting their ice breath, fire stomp, and so on) but that's not a problem for the Scribing system, which supports martial damage types. Maybe Spellcrafting could've given Werewolf a new spell to debuff or buff with, but again — that's an unlikely stretch, due to Spellcrafting necessitating Magicka and Werewolves not having an inclination for it.


I shouldn't say that Spellcrafting is more limiting than Scribing because it wouldn't allow Martial skills to be made, but from my perspective, it seems that way. Hopefully the Scribing system is expanded enough to be close enough to what players hoped for from the Spellcrafting system.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Spellcrafting would have similarly been balanced. You could for example craft yourself a brand new Frost Bolt attack, decide on the type of attack (ST, DoT, Direct, etc), then you could choose a method of improvement such as reduced cost, increased/reduced, increased range vs on touch effect. That sort of idea. And from doing this, you could make yourself a full Frost Mage Warden, or a full Shock Mage Sorc, or a full Summoner Sorc through Flame Atronachs, Familiars, Dremora summons, etc. Ultimates would have been craftable as well.

The “balance issue” of it comes from the new functionality, not the actual numbers. In other words, you could craft Muffle from Skyrim, to reduce your footsteps sound for sneaking. You could summon new creatures, which would allow for more powerful minion/easy-to-use Oakensoul like builds. You could make currently bad builds such as PvE non-pet Shock Mage Sorc, into a powerful DPS since you’d acquire many more abilities.

How would you be able to make a Muffle spell if you could only make damage spells? Was it explained that you'd be able to make any kind of spell, not just damage and summon spells?

From what I understand, Spellcrafting would let you craft any kind of ability from the ground up, whereas Scribing lets you customize specific customizable abilities to serve different purposes.

Scribing could do many of the things that Spellcrafting was said to do, though — we just need ZOS to introduce new Grimoires that have some of that functionality — such as a summon Grimoire that can have its damage type customized, or a "Muffle"-like Grimoire or Script which reduces your detection radius or grants invisibility.


I do understand the frustration of not having all of these options available to us at the start, though. I know Scribing will receive updates yearly, so eventually it'll have plenty of options for any build. Actually, it's because Scribing skills can be introduced for any skill line — rather than just for the 5 schools of magic — that Scribing will offer more flexibility for some builds than Spellcrafting ever could.

No it’s not only damage skills that you could craft. It is all types of abilities from the schools of magic throughout past Elder Scrolls games.

In the showcased gameplay we saw Oakflesh, Muffle, Summon Flame Atronach, and some other stuff. The scribed Soul Magic skills are somewhat like Spellcrafting, but the rest aren’t like and easily could’ve been new Active Abilities instead.

The frustration of having all options available at the start has nothing to do with it. These are fundamentally different features. Spellcrafting was a massive feature which was purely Elder Scrolls-like, adding the TES Schools of Magic, and was focused on build fantasy and fun. Scribing is just some random new feature here to fill holes in existing builds and to provide further incentive to purchase DLC.

Sorry it’s just not for me, imo 2024 has been a total letdown unfortunately.

Oh, so players wanted skills for each school of magic? The appeal behind Spellcrafting was the ability to make any kind of magic at will?


I don't understand how the Soul Magic Grimoires are "somewhat like Spellcrafting" but the other Grimoires aren't. Do all Spellcrafting skills have to be purely magical in nature?


I apologize for the constant questions about Spellcrafting — I've never been interested in using magic in any TES game, and I don't know how those systems worked in those games. Even in ESO, I don't like running Magicka builds.

Scribing has been an appealing feature for me because it can give me new options for martial builds, like the Traveling Knife Grimoire, which I use in PvE. The Scribing system could also potentially give Werewolves a 6th skill to pick from if a Werewolf Grimoire is ever implemented, which would be huge for the build diversity of that playstyle, given how Werewolves can only pick from skills within their own skill line.

If Scribing was solely about the schools of magic, where every ability costed Magicka and belonged to some new skill line, then it would be a total letdown for me.

Yes pretty much. The only reason ESO survived past the first year, is because it is an Elder Scrolls game. Tons of people love these games and their lore. Spellcrafting is an established Elder Scrolls feature which for a game that is so limited in its build archetype support, would have provided infinitely more *actually usable* options for all types of builds compared to Scribing, particularly builds that are not supported by the current classes. It also is just way more interesting to interact with and is made for fun, as opposed to farming Dailies to get Scripts and adding a rare material Luminous Ink to change affixes, prioritizing grind instead of fun.

Heck, the first thing that confused me when I began ESO back in 2014 was where I could go to purchase Frost spells lol, and my brother wanted to go buy some Illusion spells for his character… only find out this was not possible. Heck this game didn’t even have a Justice System in the past (could not steal items)… so making this more of a true Elder Scrolls game should be their primary goal since that is their audience. Gold Road was meant to be a TES4 Oblivion-callback chapter which totally failed on nostalgia.

As for Soul Magic - some Apprentice-level Destruction school spells would be Fireball, or Chain Lightning, or Ice Spike. These would just function like single target spammables, and maybe could even add a small DoT to them. So what I mean about Soul Magic skills having some relation to Spellcrafting, is that Wield Soul can be created into a spammable like those.

The thing about “martial builds” - all of those new weapon skills like Travelling Knife should simply be new active abilities to those skill lines. Vast majority of choices available through Scribing are just straight up non-sensical, useless, and only exist because they need to put a ton of random options for the sake of Scribing having its “4000 combinations”. Spellcrafting is much more fun and build relevant, vs the artificial nature of Scribing.

So pretty much, a player like you who totally avoids Magicka in all Elder Scrolls games can at the very least use Spellcrafting to create buff skills or new Ultimates for yourself. And then the new martial or werewolf abilities you enjoy through Scribing, would just be added as new Active Abilities.

And I’ll just add one more thing. Spellcrafting is a massive expansion onto the Mages Guild. If ZOS wanted to, they could have given a minor equivalent to the Fighter’s Guild in the form of essentially the current Scribing system for just those martial skills. Spellcrafting and (some of) Scribing can coexist, aka the best of both worlds if you are someone who makes it a point to avoid all Magicka in the series.

I see. If we had gotten Spellcrafting, then there'd be no reason to assume that we would have also gotten Active Abilities for the other skill lines. I think the idea of a "martial Spellcrafting" via the Fighters Guild is an interesting idea, but naturally you'd expect just skills for the weapon skill lines. You'd also not expect the Fighters Guild equivalent of Spellcrafting to do anything for Werewolves, given how they're enemies.

I'm sure I could've used Spellcrafting skills as buff abilities the same way I use Scribing skills as buff abilities. After all, after hybridization, suddenly it makes sense for a Stamina Templar to slot Radiant Oppression as their execute — with a limited Magicka pool and the execute ability scaling off your highest offensive stats, it doesn't really matter that you're expending Magicka for a skill if your target is bound to die soon.


Though, I really want to emphasize how Scribing is the best outcome for a Werewolf player. Regular Spellcrafting would've been new spells in some new skill lines, which we can't use in Werewolf form. It would've powercrept Werewolf even further — which Scribing in its current form currently does, at least until Werewolf gets a Grimoire that only they can use.

Unlike other playstyles, Werewolf doesn't benefit from the addition of new skills and skill lines outside of their own, and there's no guarantee that Werewolf ever would've been given more Active Abilities as compensation just because of Spellcrafting — there was no precedent for having more than 5 Active Abilities per skill line before Scribing. With Scribing, however, ZOS intends to add new abilities to any skill line, so while it hasn't happened yet, it's possible that Werewolf might actually benefit from this system in the future.


Basically, if Spellcrafting had the guarantee to be expanded into any skill line, including Werewolf, then it would've been alright in my book. Though, I find that unlikely, given that TES werewolves don't have an inclination for casting magic (though naturally Hircine's Bounty is somewhat of an exception to that rule).

I don't expect any future Werewolf Grimoires to be allowed to have elemental damage types (despite Werewolf Behemoths flaunting their ice breath, fire stomp, and so on) but that's not a problem for the Scribing system, which supports martial damage types. Maybe Spellcrafting could've given Werewolf a new spell to debuff or buff with, but again — that's an unlikely stretch, due to Spellcrafting necessitating Magicka and Werewolves not having an inclination for it.


I shouldn't say that Spellcrafting is more limiting than Scribing because it wouldn't allow Martial skills to be made, but from my perspective, it seems that way. Hopefully the Scribing system is expanded enough to be close enough to what players hoped for from the Spellcrafting system.

Unfortunately Scribing will never get close to fulfilling even half of what Spellcrafting would allow. But far more importantly is the fun factor and significance to TES that this feature had.

I’m pretty sure it makes zero sense for Scribing to create a spell for Werewolves btw lol. So I’m sure Spellcrafting could get away with it too. Or of course, just add new Active Abilities to Werewolves and Weapon Skill Lines.

But hey I guess we’ll see how Scribing progresses. I will be on other games but maybe something interesting will come along in a few years.

Why wouldn't it make sense for Scribing to make new abilities for Werewolf? If it's completely martial (like a biting skill, or a channeled claw attacking skill) then how would it not fit for Werewolf? Any proposed additional Active Ability for the skill line could be designed as a Grimoire to have much greater flexibility than a regular skill would have.

Spellcrafting couldn't pull it off because all Spellcrafting skills must cost Magicka and be magical in nature. Only if Werewolf is allowed to have a skill which is magical in nature (possibly with inspiration taken from Hircine's Bounty, Werewolf Behemoths like Balorgh, or a gift from Hircine himself) would Spellcrafting make sense for Werewolf. Scribing doesn't have that magical theme requirement, and it makes new skills for existing skill lines, so it's far more likely to give something to Werewolf than Spellcrafting would be.


Scribing has shown us skills like Torchbearer (a torch), Trample (our mount), Smash (our two-handed weapon), and Shield Throw (our shield) being used as weapons, and all of these objects are by default physical in nature. We only enchant those physical objects somehow, although some configurations of these skills don't imply the use of magic at all. Smash, for instance, can be configured with Physical Damage, Wayfarer's Mastery, and Interrupt — none of those Scripts make the skill seem magical in nature.

The same can be said for potential Werewolf Grimoires. While it would be awesome to have more creative Grimoires with all sorts of functionality and damage types, Werewolf players would benefit from literally anything, even something purely physical in nature. Of course, we may even get multiple Grimoires for any Skill Line over time, as is the case with the two Soul Magic Grimoires.


It doesn't really make sense that we need to Scribe a Grimoire to be able to throw our shield or swing our greatsword a particular way, but that's just the system that was put into place. I'm sure it won't make sense to need to Scribe a Grimoire in order to be able to bite someone (as that certainly isn't a requirement to use our teeth when biting someone at the Werewolf shrine) but theoretically the pieces are in place to make substantial gameplay changes for a lacking playstyle.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

Spellcrafting would have similarly been balanced. You could for example craft yourself a brand new Frost Bolt attack, decide on the type of attack (ST, DoT, Direct, etc), then you could choose a method of improvement such as reduced cost, increased/reduced, increased range vs on touch effect. That sort of idea. And from doing this, you could make yourself a full Frost Mage Warden, or a full Shock Mage Sorc, or a full Summoner Sorc through Flame Atronachs, Familiars, Dremora summons, etc. Ultimates would have been craftable as well.

The “balance issue” of it comes from the new functionality, not the actual numbers. In other words, you could craft Muffle from Skyrim, to reduce your footsteps sound for sneaking. You could summon new creatures, which would allow for more powerful minion/easy-to-use Oakensoul like builds. You could make currently bad builds such as PvE non-pet Shock Mage Sorc, into a powerful DPS since you’d acquire many more abilities.

How would you be able to make a Muffle spell if you could only make damage spells? Was it explained that you'd be able to make any kind of spell, not just damage and summon spells?

From what I understand, Spellcrafting would let you craft any kind of ability from the ground up, whereas Scribing lets you customize specific customizable abilities to serve different purposes.

Scribing could do many of the things that Spellcrafting was said to do, though — we just need ZOS to introduce new Grimoires that have some of that functionality — such as a summon Grimoire that can have its damage type customized, or a "Muffle"-like Grimoire or Script which reduces your detection radius or grants invisibility.


I do understand the frustration of not having all of these options available to us at the start, though. I know Scribing will receive updates yearly, so eventually it'll have plenty of options for any build. Actually, it's because Scribing skills can be introduced for any skill line — rather than just for the 5 schools of magic — that Scribing will offer more flexibility for some builds than Spellcrafting ever could.

No it’s not only damage skills that you could craft. It is all types of abilities from the schools of magic throughout past Elder Scrolls games.

In the showcased gameplay we saw Oakflesh, Muffle, Summon Flame Atronach, and some other stuff. The scribed Soul Magic skills are somewhat like Spellcrafting, but the rest aren’t like and easily could’ve been new Active Abilities instead.

The frustration of having all options available at the start has nothing to do with it. These are fundamentally different features. Spellcrafting was a massive feature which was purely Elder Scrolls-like, adding the TES Schools of Magic, and was focused on build fantasy and fun. Scribing is just some random new feature here to fill holes in existing builds and to provide further incentive to purchase DLC.

Sorry it’s just not for me, imo 2024 has been a total letdown unfortunately.

Oh, so players wanted skills for each school of magic? The appeal behind Spellcrafting was the ability to make any kind of magic at will?


I don't understand how the Soul Magic Grimoires are "somewhat like Spellcrafting" but the other Grimoires aren't. Do all Spellcrafting skills have to be purely magical in nature?


I apologize for the constant questions about Spellcrafting — I've never been interested in using magic in any TES game, and I don't know how those systems worked in those games. Even in ESO, I don't like running Magicka builds.

Scribing has been an appealing feature for me because it can give me new options for martial builds, like the Traveling Knife Grimoire, which I use in PvE. The Scribing system could also potentially give Werewolves a 6th skill to pick from if a Werewolf Grimoire is ever implemented, which would be huge for the build diversity of that playstyle, given how Werewolves can only pick from skills within their own skill line.

If Scribing was solely about the schools of magic, where every ability costed Magicka and belonged to some new skill line, then it would be a total letdown for me.

Yes pretty much. The only reason ESO survived past the first year, is because it is an Elder Scrolls game. Tons of people love these games and their lore. Spellcrafting is an established Elder Scrolls feature which for a game that is so limited in its build archetype support, would have provided infinitely more *actually usable* options for all types of builds compared to Scribing, particularly builds that are not supported by the current classes. It also is just way more interesting to interact with and is made for fun, as opposed to farming Dailies to get Scripts and adding a rare material Luminous Ink to change affixes, prioritizing grind instead of fun.

Heck, the first thing that confused me when I began ESO back in 2014 was where I could go to purchase Frost spells lol, and my brother wanted to go buy some Illusion spells for his character… only find out this was not possible. Heck this game didn’t even have a Justice System in the past (could not steal items)… so making this more of a true Elder Scrolls game should be their primary goal since that is their audience. Gold Road was meant to be a TES4 Oblivion-callback chapter which totally failed on nostalgia.

As for Soul Magic - some Apprentice-level Destruction school spells would be Fireball, or Chain Lightning, or Ice Spike. These would just function like single target spammables, and maybe could even add a small DoT to them. So what I mean about Soul Magic skills having some relation to Spellcrafting, is that Wield Soul can be created into a spammable like those.

The thing about “martial builds” - all of those new weapon skills like Travelling Knife should simply be new active abilities to those skill lines. Vast majority of choices available through Scribing are just straight up non-sensical, useless, and only exist because they need to put a ton of random options for the sake of Scribing having its “4000 combinations”. Spellcrafting is much more fun and build relevant, vs the artificial nature of Scribing.

So pretty much, a player like you who totally avoids Magicka in all Elder Scrolls games can at the very least use Spellcrafting to create buff skills or new Ultimates for yourself. And then the new martial or werewolf abilities you enjoy through Scribing, would just be added as new Active Abilities.

And I’ll just add one more thing. Spellcrafting is a massive expansion onto the Mages Guild. If ZOS wanted to, they could have given a minor equivalent to the Fighter’s Guild in the form of essentially the current Scribing system for just those martial skills. Spellcrafting and (some of) Scribing can coexist, aka the best of both worlds if you are someone who makes it a point to avoid all Magicka in the series.

I see. If we had gotten Spellcrafting, then there'd be no reason to assume that we would have also gotten Active Abilities for the other skill lines. I think the idea of a "martial Spellcrafting" via the Fighters Guild is an interesting idea, but naturally you'd expect just skills for the weapon skill lines. You'd also not expect the Fighters Guild equivalent of Spellcrafting to do anything for Werewolves, given how they're enemies.

I'm sure I could've used Spellcrafting skills as buff abilities the same way I use Scribing skills as buff abilities. After all, after hybridization, suddenly it makes sense for a Stamina Templar to slot Radiant Oppression as their execute — with a limited Magicka pool and the execute ability scaling off your highest offensive stats, it doesn't really matter that you're expending Magicka for a skill if your target is bound to die soon.


Though, I really want to emphasize how Scribing is the best outcome for a Werewolf player. Regular Spellcrafting would've been new spells in some new skill lines, which we can't use in Werewolf form. It would've powercrept Werewolf even further — which Scribing in its current form currently does, at least until Werewolf gets a Grimoire that only they can use.

Unlike other playstyles, Werewolf doesn't benefit from the addition of new skills and skill lines outside of their own, and there's no guarantee that Werewolf ever would've been given more Active Abilities as compensation just because of Spellcrafting — there was no precedent for having more than 5 Active Abilities per skill line before Scribing. With Scribing, however, ZOS intends to add new abilities to any skill line, so while it hasn't happened yet, it's possible that Werewolf might actually benefit from this system in the future.


Basically, if Spellcrafting had the guarantee to be expanded into any skill line, including Werewolf, then it would've been alright in my book. Though, I find that unlikely, given that TES werewolves don't have an inclination for casting magic (though naturally Hircine's Bounty is somewhat of an exception to that rule).

I don't expect any future Werewolf Grimoires to be allowed to have elemental damage types (despite Werewolf Behemoths flaunting their ice breath, fire stomp, and so on) but that's not a problem for the Scribing system, which supports martial damage types. Maybe Spellcrafting could've given Werewolf a new spell to debuff or buff with, but again — that's an unlikely stretch, due to Spellcrafting necessitating Magicka and Werewolves not having an inclination for it.


I shouldn't say that Spellcrafting is more limiting than Scribing because it wouldn't allow Martial skills to be made, but from my perspective, it seems that way. Hopefully the Scribing system is expanded enough to be close enough to what players hoped for from the Spellcrafting system.

Unfortunately Scribing will never get close to fulfilling even half of what Spellcrafting would allow. But far more importantly is the fun factor and significance to TES that this feature had.

I’m pretty sure it makes zero sense for Scribing to create a spell for Werewolves btw lol. So I’m sure Spellcrafting could get away with it too. Or of course, just add new Active Abilities to Werewolves and Weapon Skill Lines.

But hey I guess we’ll see how Scribing progresses. I will be on other games but maybe something interesting will come along in a few years.

Why wouldn't it make sense for Scribing to make new abilities for Werewolf? If it's completely martial (like a biting skill, or a channeled claw attacking skill) then how would it not fit for Werewolf? Any proposed additional Active Ability for the skill line could be designed as a Grimoire to have much greater flexibility than a regular skill would have.

Spellcrafting couldn't pull it off because all Spellcrafting skills must cost Magicka and be magical in nature. Only if Werewolf is allowed to have a skill which is magical in nature (possibly with inspiration taken from Hircine's Bounty, Werewolf Behemoths like Balorgh, or a gift from Hircine himself) would Spellcrafting make sense for Werewolf. Scribing doesn't have that magical theme requirement, and it makes new skills for existing skill lines, so it's far more likely to give something to Werewolf than Spellcrafting would be.


Scribing has shown us skills like Torchbearer (a torch), Trample (our mount), Smash (our two-handed weapon), and Shield Throw (our shield) being used as weapons, and all of these objects are by default physical in nature. We only enchant those physical objects somehow, although some configurations of these skills don't imply the use of magic at all. Smash, for instance, can be configured with Physical Damage, Wayfarer's Mastery, and Interrupt — none of those Scripts make the skill seem magical in nature.

The same can be said for potential Werewolf Grimoires. While it would be awesome to have more creative Grimoires with all sorts of functionality and damage types, Werewolf players would benefit from literally anything, even something purely physical in nature. Of course, we may even get multiple Grimoires for any Skill Line over time, as is the case with the two Soul Magic Grimoires.


It doesn't really make sense that we need to Scribe a Grimoire to be able to throw our shield or swing our greatsword a particular way, but that's just the system that was put into place. I'm sure it won't make sense to need to Scribe a Grimoire in order to be able to bite someone (as that certainly isn't a requirement to use our teeth when biting someone at the Werewolf shrine) but theoretically the pieces are in place to make substantial gameplay changes for a lacking playstyle.

No I think you misunderstood me. I am totally in support of Scribing adding Werewolf abilities!

I’m only saying that it makes zero sense in terms of how we are learning things on our characters. A Scribing altar is not going to teach Werewolves how to bite for the first time. It doesn’t actually make sense, but Scribing still supports it. Likewise Spellcrafting is assumed to only be magical, but that doesn’t have to be the case. My point was they could easily have expanded Spellcrafting to do the same thing with a few Stamina cost “spells” and then just require a Werewolf transformation to equip the skill.

I agree that it makes no sense how our characters are learning anything with Scribing. Martial Scribing skills aren't "spells" to be learned — they're just new techniques. Smash, for instance, is just another way to swing our two-handed weapon; realistically, we could've learned how to do that without Scribing, like from a tutor from the Fighters Guild.

At least with Spellcrafting, it'd make sense that we are crafting these spells which couldn't be used before. I'm not sure where werewolves would go to learn how to do martial things like biting in combat (maybe there'd be a tutor in some Hircine-related expansion for that) but Spellcrafting would've at least reasonably explained how a werewolf is suddenly able to use a new spell.

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Scribing was nothing more than clik bait to get you to buy Gold Road which I despise.

Aurielle wrote: »

Vahndamme wrote: »

Can the art team do something real with Templar jabs? @ZOS_Kevin

We can all agree that jabs current animation is just not cutting it. A sped up or cut short version of the first jabs would've looked better than what it is now. A yellow painted Nighthollow Staff with some weird ass spear movement. I agree fully that the studio should cater to an audience as wide as possible. But let's be honest, we all know how the new jabs animation falls with the majority of the population, especially the templar mains/enjoyers.

It's been many patches since the change, and majority of people just stopped asking or stopped playing Templars and thus stopped asked or just stopped playing all together.. But the sentiment remained the same entire time, the animation needs to change.

What does this have to do with scribing?

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.

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

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.