Any news from spellcrafting?

pkuronen

Spellcrafting has been in game data for years but I did not find any actual plans or timeline for it. Does anyone have more information on spellcrafting?

Anything that would deepen the spell creation process would be very welcome.

swippy

last i heard, the dude masterminding that system left the company years ago. i've been considering it a lost cause.

Sylvermynx

I remember spellcrafting in - um - Daggerfall? Way too long ago apparently.... Anyway, it was horribly nit-noidy, and there are a lot of things I'd much rather ZOS spent time on, not to mention that I'd prefer to see.

pkuronen

A shame. Then we can just wait for the wind blowing that direction.. one day.

AlienatedGoat

The last we heard about it was an announcement from Quakecon 2014. It was postponed after the system developer left the company.

Considering that Murkmire was also pretty well under wraps since it was first discovered, that should give you some comfort. Murkmire is coming out soon.

I have little doubt that spellcrafting will make it into the game in the next year, albeit in a slightly changed form from what we saw last.

Earrindo

The question with spellcrafting, as far as I'm concerned, is whether it will be purely cosmetic, or actually changes gameplay.
Either way, I am pretty skeptical that they will ever release such a system.
Cosmetic changes to abilities (different animals for the warden and sorc abilities, changing the color of different spells, more dramatic spell effects, etc) would be more profitable as a crown store offering, rather than a chapter feature.
Gameplay changes present so, so many problems as far as balance goes. Would it be a matter of moving secondary effects around? Would it be an additional, customizable class tree that we can tailor craft to support each players playstyle?
Would it be a normal new skill line with no passives but multiple morphs for each ability?
There's a lot of ways to skin that cat, but all of them have the potential to absolutely wreck what little balance we have left.
The psijiic skill line is great, because it adds some cool abilities, but is by no means mandatory, nor did it replace anything, it simply added some cool alternatives and situational skills.

Spellcrafting is a pandoras box of trouble if it effects gameplay, and I suspect the devs would rather just avoid that particular headache altogether.

The only scenario I can envision where it might work out alright is if they complete their crusade to homogenize the classes (each class has a tanking/healing/DPS skill line, as the warden does) then spellcrafting would be a cool opportunity for players to specialize and enhance their toolkit for the role they prefer.
For example, warden spellcrafting would unlock an additional skill line. Each ability can be researched to either be a passive or active skill, and to either enhance healing, survivability, or DPS.
I imagine it as being a kind of choose your own adventure interpretation of alternate advancement. Similar to how EQ2 manages AA actually. You choose paths that support your playstyle.

Anyhow, I remain skeptical, but we shall see.

Faulgor

The last we heard were datamined UI elements for the different magic schools in the Dragon Bones patch earlier this year.

Narvuntien

I'd expect it to be a kind of scroll system that you quick slot so you basically replace a potion with a spell also with a cooldown.

I mean you already use potions to give classes without some buffs access to buffs. The spells would have be rather basic to avoid brokeness but I think you could make it workable.

Lord_Wrath

I wouldnt expect anything more extensive than the type of updates weve gotten the past two years.

mocap

Narvuntien wrote: »

I'd expect it to be a kind of scroll system that you quick slot so you basically replace a potion with a spell also with a cooldown.

this is awesome idea actually! This will prevent OP builds (depending on scroll price) and give us new level of variety of gameplay. Where can i buy scroll of Summon Familiar for my templar?

wolfxspice

occasionally i still go watch the quake con video, the concept of going around and finding mat's to make abilities going back to eyevea and putting it all together, it sounds really cool, the way they pitched it, and showed it off, i wish they would finish it, but i have a feeling they threw it in the same pile as the pvp justice system (a really fun and cool idea that they never finished because too many people cried about it) in this case it's about balance and how nothing else should be added until they fix whats in the game already.

Beardimus

I just can't even imagine the mayhem another element would add to balance. They having a hard enough job as it is.

I'm all for new stuff but the sleeping changes they making are adding enough to think about

idk

swippy wrote: »

last i heard, the dude masterminding that system left the company years ago. i've been considering it a lost cause.

Yes, the dev that was to build it did leave but it does not appear he or anyone really started working on it.

Zos mentioned it during an ESO Live or something over a year ago indicating it was something they were considering picking up again at some point. Basically non-committal, iirc. Silence ever since.

Davor

I want my Pass Wall dang it. Been ages since it was in the game. Also love to have some mark and recall spells and levitation.

TheShadowScout

pkuronen wrote: »

Spellcrafting has been in game data for years but I did not find any actual plans or timeline for it. Does anyone have more information on spellcrafting?

Last I heard, it had been shelved indefinitely because...

swippy wrote: »

last i heard, the dude masterminding that system left the company years ago...

...this.

I never liked the idea of letting people create their own abilities either, that seemed like it would end up everyone running the same "most effective" combination... though I do hope they will someday revive the system as -Scrollcrafting-, because if selfmade spells were -consumables-, it would not be so much of an issue.

johnbonne

I've just come from another forum to make reference to Morrowind's spell-crafting and why it doesn't fit with online gaming philosophies, it's here if anyone's interested (warning: this post is from someone who's OK with rolling 3d6 in order upon character creation):

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17624512787#post-10

To get to the OP's point though, it's unlikely Spellcrafting won't feature in ESO because of balance reasons. Spellcrafting will undoubtedly lead to simulations that find the best build, leading to all the fun being sapped out of it only to be nerfed, and then the cycle begins anew. In a single player roleplaying game it works because it affects nobody else. So you can make a spell that costs too much mana to even use and you can't get your gold refunded. Reload a save. So you can one-shot a boss with that spell, nobody else really cares how low you adjusted the difficulty to.

In this instance the devs have to choose between freedom of roleplay and fairness between all players, and to be fair to them with how they've designed classes it's plausible spellcrafting could feature. However, I don't believe it to be worth the amount of pain and misery it'd be for their moderators to deal with and their programmers to fix, especially the latter with how fine-tuned it's required to be.

Faulgor

swippy wrote: »

last i heard, the dude masterminding that system left the company years ago. i've been considering it a lost cause.

Nick Konkle leaving had nothing to do with it. Spellcrafting was still talked about quite some time after he left.

https://twitter.com/TESOnline/status/865640403571101701

And the datamine I mentioned above:
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/83aau2/datamining_there_appears_to_be_some_new/

olsborg

Spellcrafting was the brainchild of Nick Konkle. Who quit from ZOS a little while after quakecon 2014, or was it 2015. Well he quit or was fired, im unsure.

Gatviper

Assuming it would take any form like it was back in TES Daggerfall (and assumption is the mother of all ****-ups, I know) it would throw all current abilities and balances out the window, because everybody would be able to do everything, and balance as a tangible force in the ESO universe will cease to exist.
There can only be speculations how (if) they would implement spellcrafting in this game, but I bet it would be severely restricted unlike in Daggerfall, and possibly tied in to Crown Shop.

zaria

Sylvermynx wrote: »

I remember spellcrafting in - um - Daggerfall? Way too long ago apparently.... Anyway, it was horribly nit-noidy, and there are a lot of things I'd much rather ZOS spent time on, not to mention that I'd prefer to see.

Spellcrafting was some of the coolest things in Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion.
It obviously made magic very strong and you could make all sort of cool spells like an spell who absorbed health and magic over time and afraid of you. One fun move in Oblivion was to make goblin warlords permanent hostile to goblins

On the other hand as its possible to make so OP that system will not work in ESO. ESO will rater get an system more like alchemy there you mix effects.

Nevasca

I might be wrong but didnt they say on stream that they were either looking at or working on spellcrafting again? Been a while tho

Numerikuu

For the last time... it's not going to happen. This is an MMO. Something like that would bring utter chaos to the balance of this games combat.

jcm2606

Honestly, I hope we don't see it. Unless they dumb it down severely, or completely replace the current system with it (in such a way that classes basically give you access to specific "tokens" you can use when crafting spells), all it would do is break balance completely, and render classes actually pointless. If they were to dumb it down, the outrage would be cataclysmic.

Anrose

Spellcrafting is a terrible idea in terms of combat balance.

However, ZOS loves to introduce systems, sets, and abilities that the community warns them is a bad move. Then they throw all feedback in the garbage, sending these systems, sets, and abilities to the live server, and they turn out to be incredibly imbalanced.

So expect Spellcrafting in the 2019 Q2 chapter, I guess.

eso_nya

looking at the "awesome" implementation of jewelry crafting....nope, i dont want another extremely grindy and pointless system added to the game.

cant imagine it any different than offering u spells that r weaker than anything already in the game, but u will need to farm special materials/tokens and do some sort of research for month/years.

Red_Feather

I wouldn't even know how it'd work but it sounds exciting. Warframe adds new mechanics and systems all the time and that's what makes it so popular.

susmitds

Red_Feather wrote: »

I wouldn't even know how it'd work but it sounds exciting. Warframe adds new mechanics and systems all the time and that's what makes it so popular.

Warframe is not an MMORPG and certainly does not have popularity close to that of ESO.

Red_Feather

susmitds wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

I wouldn't even know how it'd work but it sounds exciting. Warframe adds new mechanics and systems all the time and that's what makes it so popular.

Warframe is not an MMORPG and certainly does not have popularity close to that of ESO.

What's your point. Is this a matter of feeling threatened by change unless it's the shortest distance between two points.

idk

Faulgor wrote: »

swippy wrote: »

last i heard, the dude masterminding that system left the company years ago. i've been considering it a lost cause.

Nick Konkle leaving had nothing to do with it. Spellcrafting was still talked about quite some time after he left.

https://twitter.com/TESOnline/status/865640403571101701

And the datamine I mentioned above:
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/83aau2/datamining_there_appears_to_be_some_new/

This is what I alluded earlier. Zos merely mentioned they were thinking about it. Until and unless we hear something more substantial we have no reason to consider someone has moved on to actually thinking about the design vs just thinking about adding in the future.

johnbonne

Red_Feather wrote: »

I wouldn't even know how it'd work but it sounds exciting. Warframe adds new mechanics and systems all the time and that's what makes it so popular.

I wouldn't say that's what makes it popular (though consistently released content is good), rather its flashy combat, charitable free-to-play model and sandbox design make it popular. Your reference to Warframe would be better if it had Spellcrafting (Spacecrafting?), and had shown itself worth developing. The reason why I'm against ESO having spellcrafting is because if it's OP it negates years of work developing classes, and if it's underpowered it's useless in the eyes of the players (at least, those who min-max and push min-maxing on others). It has to be neutered to be implemented but the opposite to be enjoyed.

That said if Digital Eclipse were to have a crack at it, I'd have every hope they'd succeed and that's based on their previous efforts, proven competence and repeated communications with their playerbase.

susmitds wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

I wouldn't even know how it'd work but it sounds exciting. Warframe adds new mechanics and systems all the time and that's what makes it so popular.

Warframe is not an MMORPG and certainly does not have popularity close to that of ESO.

If you can provide metrics to prove this, I'd like to see them. I can only assume ESO and Warframe's numbers on consoles, but Steam Charts reports significantly more success on Steam alone:

Warframe:
https://steamcharts.com/app/230410

ESO:
https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Apologies to the OP for potentially derailing the thread. No disrespect intended, merely a curious pursuit of information. ^^

iiYuki

I really doubt spell-crafting will ever be added and even if it was it would be massively limited and lock you into specific choices. Spell-crafting opens up for massive balancing problems.