Are spellcrafting/1 hand & rune off the table?

cmetzger93

In a twitch stream a few months ago Mike Finnigan said “no such thing” when asked about one hand and rune skill line and we haven’t heard about spellcrafting in a while. It seemed this would be the time to do it since we got a class last year.

I know nobody has a crystal ball but do you think these ideas have been shelved indefinitely or could they make a comeback? It seems they would make the game a lot more interesting since all we got this update was a mini game (although entertaining nevertheless)

Animus-ESO

cmetzger93 wrote: »

In a twitch stream a few months ago Mike Finnigan said “no such thing” when asked about one hand and rune skill line and we haven’t heard about spellcrafting in a while. It seemed this would be the time to do it since we got a class last year.

I know nobody has a crystal ball but do you think these ideas have been shelved indefinitely or could they make a comeback? It seems they would make the game a lot more interesting since all we got this update was a mini game (although entertaining nevertheless)

Good question. I my self have been wishing for spell crafting for such a long time. They have it mostly figured out balance wise. If they just add some stam abilities in there the system would really breath some fresh air into this *** game.

I been here since beta and this is the only MMO where ive seen it get progressively worse every patch. One Tamriel gave me alot of hope this game was really going to turn around. But after wolf hunter they started spiraling back down.

A melee magic weapon would also be an amazing addition to this game. If it gave us a decent damage ult, spam-able and a weapon line source of major sorcery it would really complete a lot of incomplete mag classes. *cough cough* Magdens and Magcrows *cough cough*

WrathOfInnos

Spellcrafting would be easier to balance after all the skill standardizing over the last few updates. No idea if that’s part of the reasoning behind it though. We can hope.

MashmalloMan

I think they were only putting down rumors about 1h + rune because people data mined an icon that shows 1h + rune, except the icon has been in the game for a very long time and is used for the skills tab in keyboard + mouse mode.

It could still be a thing, but not yet at least. Maybe next year.

Spell crafting on the other hand. While they haven't spoken about it in detail, they always felt it was something they would revisit eventually. In an interview with Rich and a Russian interviewer spell crafting was brought up and Rich said something along the lines of the team is still interested. You might have to do some digging to find it, someone on the forums transcribed it.

Spell crafting was not possible for this year, they must of forseen that because they knew what was on their roadmap. Here is why I think spell crafting is possible for a chapter next year:

1. Combat vision:
   • You can not introduce a system like spell crafting unless the existing abilities in the game strike a solid foundation of balance. This is where ZOS's damage/cost standards come in to play that they worked on throughout 2019. These standards are still not entirely complete, the DOT damage for example is very weak at 1.5x. Many class spammables are just not worth using, ironing out these issues over the next 2-3 DLC's is paramount in making Spell Crafting possible.
   • Class identity. General skill lines like spell crafting should be used as complimentary to your class, ZOS has stated they don't want every class to be amazing at everything. They want Classes to seek other skill lines for the tools they don't necessarly have, but the class should still start with specialized building blocks. For example, pull abilities. DK's were originally the only class to have 1. Now you can get it from the fighters guild, except DK's probably still prefer their class version because it costs magicka and interacts with their passives. In the current context of the game, spell crafting would just push every magicka class to use fire executes or dots, potentially removing class skills from their bars to use them. Without proper class identity, spell crafting would further cement every class as playing 1 specifc way.
   • CP rework needs to be completed. Releasing the possiblity of creating 30+ skills without a CP system that they believe will stick is a poor idea.
   • Races are the very first choice you make in the game, they are the foundation of your build. They tried at the beginning of 2019 to make the races more competitive and for the most part, they did a good job, but they need to do some slight tweaks. Orc is still ahead, sustain races like Wood Elf and RG are undervalued, not many people are happy that Wood Elf lost a sneaking passive. Khajiit doesn't have enough damage or sustain to ever come out ahead over Orc, they are a jack of all trades, however they feel weaker than Dark Elf which struck that balance very well. Argonian is very niche.
2. Performance improvements. They can't release a bunch of skills without completely shooting themselves in the foot. The performance of ESO needs to meet a reasonable level before they can trust the servers to hold up.
3. 6 classes rounds out the game in a nice way. Since the launch of ESO, Warden and Necro like NPCs have been seen fighting the player. It only made sense that these classes would eventually release in some form. As it stands, I haven't noticed any NPC's that use skills that imply the need for a new class. While class identity isn't perfect, all damage types and styles can fit within the classes we already have.
4. Mini games! With Greymoor, ZOS designed 2 mini games that obviously serve as a structure for the future of the game. This system can be used to design new mini games like tavern card games, drinking games, etc. In the original announcement of spell crafting, ZOS mentioned they wanted the player to explore the world for these tomes or runes they'd collect. The implemenation of a mini game means they can easily retro fit it for spell crafting tomes you unlock in caves and dungeons by exploring the world.

So with those things in mind, I think it was rather premature to assume spell crafting could come in 2020. These are things ZOS is probably trying to fix before they release something like spell crafting. In my opinion, they could complete these tasks within the next year. The part that removes that hope for me is the fact that they haven't touched class identity or skill audits since Update 24. They've released 2 updates so far and nothing but performance improvements that didn't work. My fear is this will continue and we will get another RP mini game for next year. We don't need new classes, we don't need more mini games. Players want more ways to play their class which a new weapon and spell crafting could tackle.

Starlock

In some ways, I'm more in favor of higher level changes to how some of the combat mechanics work that would make the introduction of some of these things somewhat less necessary.

For example, the main reason I have been itching hard for a magicka-melee weapon is because I refuse to use staves on every character who is built around magicka. It is still very possible to build a good character this way, but if higher level changes were made to how resource recovery and attack damage worked? They were actually toying around with some of that in one of the earlier PTS runs and I wish they would have kept some of those proposed changes. They were going to have LA/HA scale with your highest resource, which would have been AMAZING. Even better would be if they disentangled weapon HA from resource recovery entirely and let the player choose what resource is restored for each bar. Put another way, if the player wants their dual daggers to recover magicka instead of stamina, let them.... but they have to pick one or the other.

Asdara

i hope its not off the table, this game desperately need some fresh air

tsaescishoeshiner

MashmalloMan wrote: »

[*] 6 classes rounds out the game in a nice way. Since the launch of ESO, Warden and Necro like NPCs have been seen fighting the player. It only made sense that these classes would eventually release in some form. As it stands, I haven't noticed any NPC's that use skills that imply the need for a new class. While class identity isn't perfect, all damage types and styles can fit within the classes we already have.

1. Monks. Southern Elsweyr in particular has monk NPCs that use cool elemental/martial abilities. Also one of many historic TES classes
2. Almost all the Necro abilities we got don't look like necro skills we saw in the past, even tho, yes, we have seen lots Necromancers

As far as I can tell, the Necro class doesn't use a lot of new character animations for skills, which I imagine are harder to design than a skill that uses a preëxisting character animation but a new skill effect

It's hard to tell what's on or off the table, but I think a lot of these ideas that they haven't confirmed in the past are neither on nor off the table, but just in a drawer somewhere

Sovaliah

As a mag-dps main, I desperately want some other type of weapon to use besides destruction staves. I feel like just short of healers, magicka DPS is the most stunted in terms of player agency choices of weapons. I'd LOVE to have the option for a magical 1h or honestly I'd be satisfied with existing physical weapons having magicka morphs.

Bradyfjord

I wish we could have a 1h/rune skill line, spell crafting, and new classes like bard and monk. But with the lag the servers are experiencing (it's present even on good days) I feel they should be investing their attention primarily on performance. I've read that the poor server performance may be software rather than hardware that is to blame, but whatever it is needs to be improved. Once the lag is dealt with, then we can have a realistic discussion about other changes and improvements. At least, that's my opinion.

DarcyMardin

Soon.

idk

We know spellcrafting is not off the table, but it is on a shelf last time Zos mentioned it. iirc, they still have an interest just not enough to be working on it right now. I would expect that in some form or fashion it will make it's way into a chapter sometime in the future.

One hand & rune, well, I do not recall Zos making a comment on this, though they may have. A weapon that can use an existing design is more likely to happen than having to develop an entirely new shape for every motif in the game. I expect Zos will add a new weapon at some point and it is likely to be a magicka based weapon since there are already 3 distinctive stamina weapon lines with DPS as a focus already in-game. Time will tell us for sure.

Maybe ask these questions for the next ESO Live.