Templar refresh moving up is excellent news! Warden refresh is looking pretty good so far too, I look forward to levelling up my new warden character when the time comes

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Please keep the Bear!

love,
@baratron, and her four Wardens.

We will be keeping the Warden's bear, fear not!

And the team has also seen the requests for potentially offering skill styles for the Warden's ultimate to allow for other animals to be used instead of a bear. It is something we are actively discussing, but nothing has been solidified since we have to be very cognizant of animation memory.

Can we get to a point where other players don't see the bear, like having it be either totally invisible or translucent? Much like Sorc pets, they're quite obstructive. At the very least, that'd be nice in towns.

You also take inspiration from GW2's Soulbeast Ranger specialization. It's a mechanic where the player merges with their pet. Perhaps a morph of the pet could do something similar here. It'd be nice to participate in that skill line without needing the obstructive bear.

I actually think this approach makes a lot of sense for the Sorcerer instead. Overload used to give a third bar. They could bring that tech back with set lightning themed skills so that non-pet sorcs could use that without having to delete pet sorcs.

As a warden class main skill line, i dont know why Druid focus on ice magic instead of magic of 4 seaons. i hope zos could make new warden class skill focus on weather(or 4 seaon), animals and natural creatures(plants or trees something), let ice magic blend into the magic of 4 season plz

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Please keep the Bear!

love,
@baratron, and her four Wardens.

We will be keeping the Warden's bear, fear not!

And the team has also seen the requests for potentially offering skill styles for the Warden's ultimate to allow for other animals to be used instead of a bear. It is something we are actively discussing, but nothing has been solidified since we have to be very cognizant of animation memory.

thank you @ZOS_Erin , as a Warden main, I am happy this is finally being considered. I love my bear but would love a wolf or feline pet.

I’m concerned that the new Scorch visual effect gets blocked much too easily in PVP.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom We all understand the impact of layoffs and hope yous can weather this difficult time. But I think many people are curious about why decided to postpone Sorc updates until after the Templar update. Because you said, "To get the classes out as quickly and effectively as we’re able to…"
Does this mean that refreshing Sorc is encountering difficulties, such as design philosophy or underlying code, and therefore requires more time to resolve these issues?

It would be great if you could provide a clear explanation, like you do with the Warden refresh.

That's a fair question. The swap is not due to difficulties. This is more on the effectiveness end of things. Sorc will need a bit more time in the visual effects/ arts departments than than Templar. Having that work done for Sorc right after Warden isn't the most effective for the team. So the adjustment was made.

This is also not to say Templar won't get a visual update. It will. It just most likely will not require a wider overall like Warden and Sorc.

Thanks for responding @ZOS_Kevin appreciate the candid and direct explanation.

A follow up question (if the team is able to answer) but I am curious the direction the team is looking/intending to go for Sorcerer. (Lightning, Pets or Arcane (Crystals) for themes, mobility or shields or something else for defensive mechanics, etc.) since there has been a lot of discussion about these aspects of Sorcerer for quite a long time now. Understand if these haven't been decided yet, but curious to know the teams thoughts all the same.

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Please keep the Bear!

love,
@baratron, and her four Wardens.

We will be keeping the Warden's bear, fear not!

And the team has also seen the requests for potentially offering skill styles for the Warden's ultimate to allow for other animals to be used instead of a bear. It is something we are actively discussing, but nothing has been solidified since we have to be very cognizant of animation memory.

What about the wings? That's the deal breaker for me!

Tbh the bear doesn't even look much like a bear so....

Umbracat449 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin thanks for posting the link to the article, definitely some interesting stuff here, with a few issues that some like @React have pointed out already (so I won't bother repeating).

I also hope that with the team looking to take on board feedback for future refreshes that the team can try to find a good balance between making things fun to use, feel powerful but also not feel overwhelming.
It is a hard point to reach but I think as long as the team can put forward their intentions/reasons for why some of the more debated things are designed the way they are, that would help those of us genuinely trying to give constructive and informed feedback a better understanding of the underlying intentions/goals that we can then give feedback to try and work towards instead of having to try and speculate and just throw things at the wall hoping we maybe get something right.

FabresFour wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom We all understand the impact of layoffs and hope yous can weather this difficult time. But I think many people are curious about why decided to postpone Sorc updates until after the Templar update. Because you said, "To get the classes out as quickly and effectively as we’re able to…"
Does this mean that refreshing Sorc is encountering difficulties, such as design philosophy or underlying code, and therefore requires more time to resolve these issues?

It would be great if you could provide a clear explanation, like you do with the Warden refresh.

Let me throw a thought out there: while the Templar rework revolves around character animations, visual effects in general, and balancing, the Sorcerer has all of that plus the reinterpretation of its pets.

I imagine reworking those pets—giving them a newer, more interesting model, while still keeping their gameplay fun and everything else that comes with it—is a pretty major complication for the Sorcerer class.

Personally, the Sorcerer rework is the one I’m most interested in seeing, precisely because it seems like the most complicated one from an overall scope perspective. It’s a very interesting class conceptually, and there are so many different ways it could be modernized—which makes it significantly more complex to work on than any of the other classes. Maybe only the Warden comes close, because of all the different animals involved, plus the bear... And, well, the Warden got a massive delay because of the amount of work involved.

I imagine Templar and Nightblade are two classes that are relatively much easier to rework on compared to Sorcerer.

I will say that while this is the most likely reason for pushing Sorcerers refresh back, it would still be nice to hear it from ZOS themselves though so that we don't have to speculate.

As for Sorcerers refresh being pushed back itself, I don't mind it since I would rather ZOS get it right than try to rush it out and mess it up, but it would be nice to have an official reason from ZOS.

Pinktraining wrote: »

I recall someone compiling a list suggesting that each of Sorc's abilities has hidden cast time or flight time, which explains the cumbersome experience of using abilities like Liquid Lightning—these hidden extra times are hard-coded into the animation.

However, aside from Warden, ZOS should have explained the rationale behind the spawn order of each class (and the reasons for subsequent changes) to players from the beginning, instead of letting players speculate or complain.

For example, if the Necromancer's spawn time is so late because they wanted to use Sorc to test things out, such as pet AI, summoner gameplay (or to avoid the Necromancer's style overlapping with Sorc's), then ZOS should have clearly explained the reasons for this arrangement to players.

I'm probably not the first person to post about this issue (hidden cast times/animation delays) Sorcerer (and some other classes abilities) has, but it is a consistent frustration for the class that often gets completely overlooked in most discussions.

Seeing a statement from ZOS that its being acknowledged/the team is aware of it, would definitely be nice.

Lols i posted your summary of cast times and their issues (with credit) in reply to pinktrainjng saying sorc NEEDED cast times.

I think you've misunderstood the difference between "cast time with explicit indication" and "animation delay without any explicit indication." For the former, let's take Dark Conversion as an example. While these skills are slow, the animations are smooth, and the skill's cast time is predictable. For the latter, like Liquid Lightning, although nominally instant-cast, the animation has unstable, random delays, and there are even instances where the skill doesn't activate correctly after the animation ends.

As I've mentioned in other posts, instead of allowing these instant-cast skills with "unstable, random delays," it would be better to change them all to "cast time with explicit indication" and provide some compensation (such as reduced cost or increased power). After all, Sorc has always had many skills with cast time; you could even say that skills with cast time are part of Sorc's identity.

However, if ZOS is going to rework Sorc's visual effects/animations and make them as smooth as Dragoon's, then I think any rational player would choose the smoother animations of the reworked version over the current one.

Umbracat449 wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

If we refer to the settings of other fantasy games, spell classes should be relatively cumbersome to operate but powerful.

ZOS should add cast time to all Sorc skills, and then compensate by relatively increasing their power or reducing their cost.

Want to to try that again?

You're just misleading people. At the time this was published, ZOS hadn't yet indicated any major changes to Sorc's visuals/animation.

Also, based on information at the time, I was hoping ZOS would add cast time to skills to replace the current problematic animation delays, making class identities more in line with the traditional image of a spellcaster. Is there a problem with that?

I am a Warden Main and this is interesting to see. I like the improvement to the Betty and excited about the Spriggan, that was an unexpected nice touch. The idea of making it just about Nature in general is a nice path. Very pleased to hear we will still have the Bear. Will our Skill Styles be affected, like Murder of Crows for Swarm and the Nocturnal Crow for Cliff Racer?

Arunei wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

So you are "pivoting away from the Morrowind-specific visual theming to better represent the natural world across all regions in Tamriel", by using a gryphons? So not only is it just changing zone-specific animal, it's also a large visual.

Meanwhile the betty netch stays the same, so it's just going to be even more random collection of animals like how the bear felt random before.

Speaking of the betty netch. Why does it have to float "whimsically" around? Just make it smaller and no beam, but have it float behind us like the old one. Instead of all these distracting visuals.

Why does the Spriggan need bright pink flower petals and butterflies affects?

The Lotus Flower is nice, but the visual of that has never been much of a bother.

I hope there will be styleskills from the start to change visuals, especially to make them more subtle and subdued if they are big and flashy, or make a more coherent look.
Right now every class refresh feels like some deadline to when I can't use the class as much anymore, such as my DKs, because there's so much more bright effects that just look cartoony and we have to plead and shout to get a single subtle skillstyle for one skill.

Gryphons aren't just native to Summerset, but also to High Rock, Hammerfell, and Elsweyr. It isn't about where the creature in question appears only in ESO, but more to do with where they exist lore-wise. Gryphons are far more widespread than Cliff Racers are. And the whole point of the animals being "random" is because they're supposed to represent creatures in general, not just a specific kind like birds, bugs, or mammals. I will agree that as cute as the Netch is, though, it still would prove to be something of a distraction.

Cliff racers, striders and hackwings (which looks almost identical) are also found all over, doesn't make them a good look for skills. Same way are similar beetles found all over.
ESO really likes resusing assets and have the same animals appearing in way too many zones. Like how Telvanni Peninsula had elks running around at first until they removed them after many complaints.

A class that uses animals, really need to have skillstyles so people can change the looks of them, this has been a request for ages when it comes to Wardens, and now with the refresh the old looks should also be taken into consideration, because people have used it for years for characters. I literally made my warden a dunmer so the skills made more sense (minus the bear). It will not make sense if he will be calling forth magical gryphons and spriggans that blast him with overly pink stuff.

Looking forward to the Templar refresh. It will help me decide whether I will, or will never, return to ESO.

Hey! I don't know if ZOS reads this but I genuinely appreciate the update and transparency about the current status of the Warden class refresh. I’m genuinely not trying to be dismissive of your efforts or anything like that but I do wish there was something similar regarding the progress of "cross save/cross play."
In my opinion "cross-save/cross-play" is far more important for the long term health of the game or at least for me personally and many other players.
I currently play on PS4 and I just can’t afford to upgrade to a PS5, however, I do own a decent PC and an Xbox Series X both of which can run the game much better than my PS4. Cross save would allow me to move my progress to one of those platforms which would make a huge difference for me and many others who have the same issue.

I also read somewhere about some "company restructuring" and I’m a little worried that this may have affected or slowed down the progress of "cross-save cross play"
Have you considered scaling it back a bit? Like instead of trying to merge all platforms and servers all at once maybe you could start by merging the console servers and then PC later? I'm suggesting this because on some servers it already takes a long time to find groups for content outside of peak hours and weekends and since players from Africa, Asia, and Australia also play on the EU servers that makes it more difficult because we have to log in at specific times to find enough players for group content or even some openworld activities.
Even if merging the console servers only resulted in a small increase in the overall player population I genuinely think it would still have a significant impact, having a larger pool of players is always beneficial.

look I completely understand that cross save/cross play is a complicated feature to implement and I would just appreciate the same kind of update regarding its current development and whether it is being worked on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this