Would you like the ability to craft/customize your own abilities/spells?

idk

aliyavana wrote: »

I don't see how spellcrafting can be balanced in an mmo

OP doesn't seem to be speaking of spellcrafting as Zos or TES would consider it. Asixlskg he wants more morph opportunities which is likely not going to happen for the reason you bring up.

It's hard enough for Zos to balance what we have and have both morons used to some degree. Adding more choices will just make the issue more complicated. As such it's not likely.

In the end there will still be BiS builds.

WrathOfInnos

It could definitely be balanced. I wish people would stop trying to prevent features with their negativity.

There are plenty of examples in game that demonstrate how the balance would work. Let me use a hypothetical spellcrafted damage skill, that deals instant fire damage from full range. This skill's damage output would have to be:
- Slightly less than Dragonknight whip, since ranged skills should be lower damage than melee
- Slightly less than force pulse, since anything using multiple elements should get a slight boost (precedent set by oblivion spellcrafting, and balances the use of sets like Netch and Sun)
- Slightly more than crushing shock, since no interrupt utility (and we can take from FP vs CS that an interrupt is worth a 10% damage reduction)
- More than the direct damage component of flame reach, but less than the direct + DoT (instant damage skills would have lowest magnitude, longest duration DoTs would do the most damage overall).

Now if this hypothetical skill were to have additional effects added (buffs, debuffs, healing) it would have to reduce damage slightly and/or increase cost. It would be easy enough to develop a system that allows the player to say what effects are wanted, then the game calculates magnitudes, durations, and cost to be balanced.

Maybe it wouldn't be perfect immediately, but that's no reason to write off an entire system that's been discussed since release.

Katahdin

They did this in the single player games.

Not going to work in an MMO

Nyladreas

aliyavana wrote: »

I don't see how spellcrafting can be balanced in an mmo

Simple, every effect will have a certain value, lets say power points, and there will be a max limit of power points per spell...

And you could only take effects from other spells/skills your class knows.

Example spell: DOT

Lets say you want to make it deal more damage - the duration will decreaase and cost will increase but it wont let you go over certain treshold to not make it OP. So instead of 9K damage we'll get 15k damage, cost will double, duration cut from 9 seconds to 3. Know what I mean?

Example spell 2: Buff
Let's say we take NBs cloak... we wanna make it stamina instead of Magicka and last longer, the cost will double. Or you want cloak to have a 30% damage buff instead of a stun.... But it will only last 1.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds with a possible resource cost increase.

If you try to keep it at 3 seconds, with the stun and damage increase and no cost increase... It just wont let you create the spell. Know what I mean?

It's a harsh example but you get the idea.

idk

@WrathOfInnos

Obviously it can be balanced in as much an MMO can be bakabed Just as obvious, it would increase the challenge with balancing.

The bigger question, is this really needed. Will it expand the game Enugu for the effort to be worthy. Probably not. A want to have item isn't necessarily something both good and warranted.

deepseamk20b14_ESO

No. Balancing is already a nightmare without letting players be involved in screwing it up. The only way to keep it close to balanced would be to make it so bland and restricted no one would use it anyways.

Thealteregoroman

idk wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos

Obviously it can be balanced in as much an MMO can be bakabed Just as obvious, it would increase the challenge with balancing.

The bigger question, is this really needed. Will it expand the game Enugu for the effort to be worthy. Probably not. A want to have item isn't necessarily something both good and warranted.

@idk



...you for real? Is Outfit system needed? Poisons? Housing? CROWN CRATES? Polymorphs?!?! I can keep going here.

Thealteregoroman

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

It could definitely be balanced. I wish people would stop trying to prevent features with their negativity.

There are plenty of examples in game that demonstrate how the balance would work. Let me use a hypothetical spellcrafted damage skill, that deals instant fire damage from full range. This skill's damage output would have to be:
- Slightly less than Dragonknight whip, since ranged skills should be lower damage than melee
- Slightly less than force pulse, since anything using multiple elements should get a slight boost (precedent set by oblivion spellcrafting, and balances the use of sets like Netch and Sun)
- Slightly more than crushing shock, since no interrupt utility (and we can take from FP vs CS that an interrupt is worth a 10% damage reduction)
- More than the direct damage component of flame reach, but less than the direct + DoT (instant damage skills would have lowest magnitude, longest duration DoTs would do the most damage overall).

Now if this hypothetical skill were to have additional effects added (buffs, debuffs, healing) it would have to reduce damage slightly and/or increase cost. It would be easy enough to develop a system that allows the player to say what effects are wanted, then the game calculates magnitudes, durations, and cost to be balanced.

Maybe it wouldn't be perfect immediately, but that's no reason to write off an entire system that's been discussed since release.

@WrathOfInnos when this system gets implemented, I will be the first person to be twerking in the forums and I will have the best grandiose forum post known to man WITH LITTERAL clapbacks. LOL.

Mic1007

It’d be fun for all of five minutes before someone gets the perfect combos for max DPS and then everyone is forced to run that combo to stay competitive.

So no.

LordSemaj

Screw max dps. I'd immediately create an unholy number of Damage Over Time spells with the maximum duration and paltry ticks of damage.

Then I'd have two hotbars of DoTs and just casually cast one after another until you're taking 6000 unblockable dmg per second.

idk

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

idk wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos

Obviously it can be balanced in as much an MMO can be bakabed Just as obvious, it would increase the challenge with balancing.

The bigger question, is this really needed. Will it expand the game Enugu for the effort to be worthy. Probably not. A want to have item isn't necessarily something both good and warranted.

@idk



...you for real? Is Outfit system needed? Poisons? Housing? CROWN CRATES? Polymorphs?!?! I can keep going here.

Lol. You do have an point. However, many more will want such systems vs the strong lack of supper ideas like this have received.

So yes. This idea is not needed nor wanted on so many levels by so many people. This is just a dressed up idea if asdind another tier if mirohs that died many times due to lack of support. The extremely minimal benefit this would bring us most certainly not worth the effort of additional skil points it would require. Yes, it would require skill points.

Spacemonkey

Honestly for the whole 'BALANCE' issue;

Spellcrafting could simply be a 'utility' game; usable outside combat (like horse riding) - to detect, place traps, affect mobility, jump, etc....

or even

spellcrafted abilites could simply be locked out of PvP alltogether.

Armatesz

Mic1007 wrote: »

It’d be fun for all of five minutes before someone gets the perfect combos for max DPS and then everyone is forced to run that combo to stay competitive.

So no.

Just like how the staggers and stuns in the game atm are broken? I could juggle people in air for like 30 seconds. That is broken.

kypranb14_ESO

As far as everyone ranting about "everyone will have the same build"...

What if we could only use 1 spellcrafted ability at a time?

Surely there is enough variations between classes, and enough possibilities with Spellcrafting so that not every person on X class would run the same exact spellcrafted ability? (I mean, meta-gamers will be unoriginal and go for whatever ability augments their class the best, but most people seem pretty casual on PC. Maybe their just trash though.)

Jarryzzt

There were threads on this, were they not? With Youtube videos where a designer now no longer with ZOS was gushing about a spellcrafting system that was sort of kind of implemented but, thankfully, not actually deployed in the game?

Because what he was talking about a) could never be balanced, period, because it entailed far too many permutations (multiple schools each with multiple spells and multiple morphs per spell); and b) would likely wreck the whole class-based build design approach since the optimum DPS would probably be found in mixing the >100 different spell morphs and not class abilities. Plus I recall him mentioning that the crafted spells could be traded, which just helps the in-game economy so much...

The point is, what was described in that video struck me as a sort of a - how did this idea ever make it out of design meetings and into actual coding, because he was demoing parts of it. But as I said, thankfully, it isn't in the game...

---

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

As far as everyone ranting about "everyone will have the same build"...

What if we could only use 1 spellcrafted ability at a time?

In a spherical vacuum, perhaps. What the video was describing, however, was a whole song and dance about exploring dungeons, unlocking doors, et cetera, to gather the pieces of a spell's blueprint. You don't build an edifice like that and then say - oh by the way, as a consequence of all this work here's one ability you can use. [And even in this case you'd likely see the meta gravitate towards ~5 "most frequently used" because they happen to fit existing builds best.]

----

And, of course, lost in the whole spellcrafting debate is - what about stamina characters? Unless you want to add stamina morphs to spellcrafted abilities which sort of defeats the whole point of SPELLcrafting.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

Balancing nightmare, no thanks.

On the other hand....

If they were to introduce spell crafting then can I create a signature melee move?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

aliyavana wrote: »

I don't see how spellcrafting can be balanced in an mmo

NO!

This is another spell crafting thread, and this is 100% the response. Balance would go from difficult to impossible.

Mettaricana

Remove morphs and give us glyphs like diablo 3 so we can have like 6 variations of the base skills that can be changed in town or at skill reset place

Dawnblade

In ESO - no thanks.

Can't imagine it would actually work without either being basically cosmetic or totally unbalanced - not to mention it would probably involve lots of grinding with more crap to fill the limited storage in game.

EvilCroc

I would like to see visual customization, not balance.
green lightning for sorcs (elven hero knows how to do it)
white or light blue healing for templars etc.
Weapon and guild skill effects matching class (green or orange rearming trap for Dk's)
All these nice things.

Gilvoth

craft my own spells / skills?
sounds awesome
i vote "yes"

Garwulf

I would prefer the removal of Strict Classes first. And by this I mean any character can choose a specific range of abilities from the complete ability Set. Sick of your Dragon knight. Retrain them into a night blade etc. Would at least make the game slightly more interesting .
I have one main character. It has been changed so much due to ZoS' interference that I really do not want to play it as much anymore. It has has done most of all the Questing, is a Grand Overlord in PVP . There is little incentive to play another character. Just means I rarely play anymore. Play other MMOs etc instead.

Somber97866

All this could have been avoided if the classes would have been singularly based. For example you would be either tank, sorcerer, healer or assassin. To get more complex builds then sub skill lines would have to be earned. Seperation of pvp skills to pve skills. When you start pvp your character would start off like in boot camp with provided basic armor and weapons and skills based for combat with other players. All armor and weapons used in pvp stay in pvp and and can be bought or earned. As you level in pvp you graduate to higher campaigns seperating lower level players from the more advance, unless player is willing to reset character ( pvp side )to stay in lower ranking. All skills cost magic just some are elemental based and some are physically based. Stamina would have been for all the roll dodge,sprinting and blocking. Heavy attacks replenished both. The element of your abilities would depend on the enchantment in main hand of weapon. ie: main hand on dual wield is poison so abilities would be poison based until you switched to abilities on bow on back bar and abilities would change to lightning due to enchantment on bow.

Iluvrien

And here I was naievely thinking that the reason we haven't seen Spellcrafting is because the designer who (presumably) was working on it, and pushing for it, left the company. (we miss you Konk).

Then I see stuff like the following from the competitive content crowd:

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

Spellcrafting was permanently shelved for a reason: it'd destroy balance.

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No because everyone will be forced to use the exact same build to be competitive. There is already a lack of build diversity as is.

altemriel wrote: »

well yes, even if spellcrafting could be an awesome thing to add to the game. ZOS has troubles with balancing the already existing skills, not even 20 x more skills.....that would be dissaster

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

NO!

This is another spell crafting thread, and this is 100% the response. Balance would go from difficult to impossible.

And I have to wonder if the reason we haven't seen this system isn't because ZOS didn't have the motivation or ability to produce it as per the vision outlined in 2014... but because the endgamers have been telling them that they shouldn't.

Dear Azura I hope that isn't the case. I really hope that the Guild meetings that ZOS has had in the past haven't covered that ground. If the real reason that the system we saw (and got so excited about in those early days) hasn't been implemented in game is due to the playerbase itself, and more specifically the competitive content crowd and their concerns about balance, then what little patience I still have with that group is going to evaporate on the spot.

Competitive content is the reason that crafting got nerfed.
Competitive content is the reason that class and racial abilities get "rebalanced" continuously.
If competitive content is the reason we aren't going to see spellcrafting too... then how can the argument that it is a positive aspect of the game stand? An entire system that has the capacity to add breadth and depth to all aspects of play gets excluded on the basis of how badly it could be implemented with regards to endgame.

meaghs

Armatesz wrote: »

Simplest thing is the ability to customize the ability to have aoe or singular attack. Secondary effect is something like elemental or poison or disease and the like and 3rd would be if it is mind altering on enemies or does it cause some kinda of stagger of some sort. Throw out ideas if you feel like it. Got other ideas but brainfarting.

This was a planned feature. It would have been.. might be awesome!
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Spellcrafting_(Online)

Thealteregoroman

idk wrote: »

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

idk wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos

Obviously it can be balanced in as much an MMO can be bakabed Just as obvious, it would increase the challenge with balancing.

The bigger question, is this really needed. Will it expand the game Enugu for the effort to be worthy. Probably not. A want to have item isn't necessarily something both good and warranted.

@idk



...you for real? Is Outfit system needed? Poisons? Housing? CROWN CRATES? Polymorphs?!?! I can keep going here.

Lol. You do have an point. However, many more will want such systems vs the strong lack of supper ideas like this have received.

So yes. This idea is not needed nor wanted on so many levels by so many people. This is just a dressed up idea if asdind another tier if mirohs that died many times due to lack of support. The extremely minimal benefit this would bring us most certainly not worth the effort of additional skil points it would require. Yes, it would require skill points.

ok.......@idk You got me there on the skill points crayons133

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

idk wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos

Obviously it can be balanced in as much an MMO can be bakabed Just as obvious, it would increase the challenge with balancing.

The bigger question, is this really needed. Will it expand the game Enugu for the effort to be worthy. Probably not. A want to have item isn't necessarily something both good and warranted.

@idk



...you for real? Is Outfit system needed? Poisons? Housing? CROWN CRATES? Polymorphs?!?! I can keep going here.

ok you got me there on those skill points! @idk

dday3six

Fully customizable, no. That could not be balanced, there are too many variables. Imagine as a dev team you’re trying to design new content but you have a massive list of builds that players might bring to the table.

I would like more options beyond just morphs though. Similar to how Diablo 3 has Runes, Mass Effect 3 has evolutions, or Tera has glyphs that allow for further additions to skills besides the base.

On the note of D3, too. I’d love it if sets were more influential on builds by adding special effects or additions to skills akin to D3’s system.

Somber97866

You call what we have now balance? There's only two magic builds that are really broken! What are you talking about. Game is a stam game now.

logarifmik

meaghs wrote: »

This was a planned feature. It would have been.. might be awesome!
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Spellcrafting_(Online)

Oh, my gosh! That looks exactly as I thought of! Quests, adventures, research lead to a real spellcrafting. Looks neat.
Regarding balancing, there is a very funny moment, comrades. No one specify what exactly they mean by this word. Really, what so badly desired balancing exactly means?
(1) Making all possible builds equal? No way, and I shouldn't describe why, right? And equal where? Singleplayer PvE? Group PvE? Singleplayer PvP? Group PvP?
(2) Making all possible builds competitive in PvP? But what does competitive mean? We can say, that all builds are already competitive, because you always have a non-zero probability to win a fight. Is that what you want? Done.
(3) Making quantity of weak combinations or useless sets as less as possible? Check (1), and again, specify the ground.
It sounds like we miss the understanding of what we are talking about here. I hear only crowd wailing "it's not possible to balance" and nothing constructive on the subject from one side, when "positivists" mostly speak logic from another.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

No, because the way ZOS is going now. there would be a gold cost per spell cast or you could buy "spell creation tokens" from the crown store that you would have to use every time you made a spell.

Micro-pay monetization sucks the fun out of things for me.