Dragon Shouts and Greybeards as a faction and skill line.

PhantomGaming

Let me preface this with saying so far Greymore has been awesome and I have love elder scrolls online. I am a huge elder scrolls fan overall. But I was hoping for just a bit more skyrim with friends though in the Greymore expansion. While dragonborn can learn to shouts easily by absorbing dragon souls. Anyone can with enough time and effort. So my suggestion is implementing the Greybeards as a faction and word walls throughout the map. By finding them you level up with the greybeards and slowly you can unlock a few shouts. You can't learn as many as you could in Skyrim but given time you can learn a few. It would be cool as it could be implemented as a lore mini game and tied back to the dragons in Elsweyr and be an expansion on the antiquity system. To those who are wondering if greybeards exists during the events of ESO they do as they were founded in the first Era by Jurgen Windcaller. ESO takes place in the second Era. So they have been established for a quite some time by now. I think it would be a really awesome way to connect some of the content and antiquity system. You can use antiquities to find word walls by collecting leads or stumble on them in the word map. You can notes down with them and level up with the greybeards. Eventually you can learn to shout. Fus Ro Dah of course should be an ultimate.

Edit: I want to start the discussion of this before making some type of poll so people reading this please comment. I am new to the forum but and old player. Was a beta tester so I have been around for a while typically just a lurker though XD.

Sturmfaenger

Elder Scrolls is much more than Fus Ro Dah. Lets explore that instead.

Vevvev

Imagine grinding for several years just to learn the first word of a shout, because that's how long in lore it takes and ZOS refuses to progress the in game year. The only reason in Skyrim you could even learn shouts in such a short amount of time was due to your dragon blood granted to you by Akatosh. In ESO you're a higher form of Soul Shriven and that doesn't give you the mystical power to learn shouts quickly as you are not Dragonborn. ((Before you ask, the flame breath spell Dragonknights have is not a shout.)) If anything the Soulless One is already insanely powerful enough as it is, and ends up joining secretive orders and organizations like the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, and Psijic Order. They also can be turned into a second generation vampire by Lamae Bal herself if you pursue that path, or a monstrous werewolf, and are immortal as they cannot truly be killed.

the1andonlyskwex

I actually wish the Elder Scrolls would go back to their roots, where things like dragons are essentially relegated to myth. The daedra are way more interesting.

Chilly-McFreeze

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I actually wish the Elder Scrolls would go back to their roots, where things like dragons are essentially relegated to myth. The daedra are way more interesting.

But the daedra stories are sucked dry since MW/CWC/SS.

CMDR_Un1k0rn

Seriously. No.

Just no.

Not even gonna' bother explaining, just rather point you to UESP.

VaranisArano

Consider that Ulfric Stormcloak took ten years to learn two Shouts from the Greybeards.

I know ZOS likes lengthy grinds, but surely that's a little excessive.

xclassgaming

no

no skybaby pandering

Ratzkifal

You are not the first one to suggest this. Honestly, the Psijics are a much more exclusive club to get into. And besides, who says our characters haven't been with the Greybeards for years? We have an age slider that we can move all the way to the right if we wanted to after all...

The most important thing about it though is that its introduction does not water down the Thu'um. It still needs to be special and different from all the other stuff we do.
My proposal for this is to have the Greybeards be a guild skill line that only consists of ultimates.
That way you can only ever use a maximum of two shouts which keeps us within the rules of what is possible. It also helps with the balance because in order to gain these abilities, you need to give up on the other ultimates you could use in their place.
And lastly ultimate abilities already have the perfect framework to incorporate the use of one to three words of a shout. Just like incapacitating strike can change its effect once you have more ultimate than a certain threshold, you can use a more powerful version of the shout using more than one word if you gain more ultimate.

Morphs are the only pain point I see with the system. How do you design morphs for dragon shouts?
I'd be alright with them not having any morph choices at all just to stick true to the lore.

idk

The Greybeards came into play because the use of the Thu'um was out of control. They decided that it should not be used for war and Jorgen Windcaller developed a new philosophy.

In other words, it works fine in a single-player game for a player's character to learn the shouts to fight off the dragon invasion. However, it would make no sense and very much go against the Greybeard lore to have a game where pretty much everyone knew the shouts and used them in combat.

And yes, anyone who took the time to read UESP on the subject would be aware of this.

JamuThatsWho

No.

Ratzkifal

idk wrote: »

The Greybeards came into play because the use of the Thu'um was out of control. They decided that it should not be used for war and Jorgen Windcaller developed a new philosophy.

In other words, it works fine in a single-player game for a player's character to learn the shouts to fight off the dragon invasion. However, it would make no sense and very much go against the Greybeard lore to have a game where pretty much everyone knew the shouts and used them in combat.

And yes, anyone who took the time to read UESP on the subject would be aware of this.

It should not be used for War. Correct. And yet we have Grundwulf and Ulfric use it for war.
Also, it explicitly should be used "in a time of need" and I am sure whatever that chapter or DLC revolves around would include a "time of need".

Also, consider the Psijics. Before Summerset you would have probably found it silly if someone suggested that the Psijics could be a guild skill line. Look at the UESP. It clearly states that the Psijics vanished with their island and yet here we are. The Greybeards make more sense than the Psijics to be honest. How does it make sense that literally everyone and their grandma can stop time now? The dragon shout can only slow time, not stop it...

idk

Ratzkifal wrote: »

idk wrote: »

The Greybeards came into play because the use of the Thu'um was out of control. They decided that it should not be used for war and Jorgen Windcaller developed a new philosophy.

In other words, it works fine in a single-player game for a player's character to learn the shouts to fight off the dragon invasion. However, it would make no sense and very much go against the Greybeard lore to have a game where pretty much everyone knew the shouts and used them in combat.

And yes, anyone who took the time to read UESP on the subject would be aware of this.

It should not be used for War. Correct. And yet we have Grundwulf and Ulfric use it for war.
Also, it explicitly should be used "in a time of need" and I am sure whatever that chapter or DLC revolves around would include a "time of need".

Also, consider the Psijics. Before Summerset you would have probably found it silly if someone suggested that the Psijics could be a guild skill line. Look at the UESP. It clearly states that the Psijics vanished with their island and yet here we are. The Greybeards make more sense than the Psijics to be honest. How does it make sense that literally everyone and their grandma can stop time now? The dragon shout can only slow time, not stop it...

Regardless of fine lines, it still makes little sense to have everyone running around using shouts. It would be jumping the shark and would cheapen the game unless Zos made a shouts an utter joke because they would have to be super weak compared to how they are in Skyrim. The Summerset defense would work well to justify every bad idea someone could think of but is irrelevant to shouts.

khajiitNPC

I’d only be behind this if you could learn one shout and that’s it, there’d be many available to learn, but once you learned one, you’re stuck with it. Outside of that — it takes years to master even one shout, so I’m kinda on the fence as far the idea goes. But lore especially in Elder Scrolls, have been extremely flexible. Most players are NPCs and don’t understand what the lore really is — they haven’t reached that point yet.

Iccotak

The whole point behind the Shouting mechanic in Skyrim was to make the player feel special - they were unique in world where everyone can use magic and use swords.

The Dragonborn stands out.

To give everyone shouting powers would ruin that feel, especially in PvP.

If I want to be a Shouting hero of legend then I will play Skyrim.

ESO is not a single player game

PhantomGaming

@khajiitNPC I was thinking you could learn multiple but only ever use one at a time and more of a lore based game were you really have to explore and hunt for stuff to earn the shouts you get. Make it random per player so you can't just find out were shouts are from a wiki.

VaranisArano

Ratzkifal wrote: »

idk wrote: »

The Greybeards came into play because the use of the Thu'um was out of control. They decided that it should not be used for war and Jorgen Windcaller developed a new philosophy.

In other words, it works fine in a single-player game for a player's character to learn the shouts to fight off the dragon invasion. However, it would make no sense and very much go against the Greybeard lore to have a game where pretty much everyone knew the shouts and used them in combat.

And yes, anyone who took the time to read UESP on the subject would be aware of this.

It should not be used for War. Correct. And yet we have Grundwulf and Ulfric use it for war.
Also, it explicitly should be used "in a time of need" and I am sure whatever that chapter or DLC revolves around would include a "time of need".

Also, consider the Psijics. Before Summerset you would have probably found it silly if someone suggested that the Psijics could be a guild skill line. Look at the UESP. It clearly states that the Psijics vanished with their island and yet here we are. The Greybeards make more sense than the Psijics to be honest. How does it make sense that literally everyone and their grandma can stop time now? The dragon shout can only slow time, not stop it...

Shouts can be used for war. Most of the Draugr that shout were Tongues in life.

Thing is, the Greybeards don't train people to use their Shouts for war. Look at Ulfric. He knows Unrelenting Force (the first one you learn) and Disarm. That's pretty suitable for a pacifistic order. Ulfric misused his knowledge, and they weren't happy about it. They wouldn't intentionally train a bunch of non-Dragonborn people they know are planning on using Shouts to fight, even if it didn't take years to learn. (Then again, we do have the absolute idiocy that is the Psijic Order letting known Necromancers join their Order, thanks ZOS!)

Of course, the Greybeards aren't the only group out there who knows how to Shout. Its just that the Way of the Voice is by far the most effective. So its possible that we could learn from others, but we'd expect their Shouts to be much, much weaker than the ones we learn in Skyrim.

Iccotak

VaranisArano wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

idk wrote: »

The Greybeards came into play because the use of the Thu'um was out of control. They decided that it should not be used for war and Jorgen Windcaller developed a new philosophy.

In other words, it works fine in a single-player game for a player's character to learn the shouts to fight off the dragon invasion. However, it would make no sense and very much go against the Greybeard lore to have a game where pretty much everyone knew the shouts and used them in combat.

And yes, anyone who took the time to read UESP on the subject would be aware of this.

It should not be used for War. Correct. And yet we have Grundwulf and Ulfric use it for war.
Also, it explicitly should be used "in a time of need" and I am sure whatever that chapter or DLC revolves around would include a "time of need".

Also, consider the Psijics. Before Summerset you would have probably found it silly if someone suggested that the Psijics could be a guild skill line. Look at the UESP. It clearly states that the Psijics vanished with their island and yet here we are. The Greybeards make more sense than the Psijics to be honest. How does it make sense that literally everyone and their grandma can stop time now? The dragon shout can only slow time, not stop it...

Then again, we do have the absolute idiocy that is the Psijic Order letting known Necromancers join their Order, thanks ZOS!

The thing with MMO storylines is that there's no room for player moral choices - you play the role of the hero. Period.
You don't get a role play choice to be the "bad guy".

So the Psijiics probably having observed you can tell that you are a person who uses their necromancy for good

As for Thu'um - No, If I want to be the Dragonborn of Skyrim then I will play Skyrim

Sylvermynx

I don't find the Shout option to be ideal in an MMO. It's.... too much like "insta kill" and no prevent mech.

Mr_Walker

Iccotak wrote: »

The whole point behind the Shouting mechanic in Skyrim was to make the player feel special - they were unique in world where everyone can use magic and use swords.

Totally untrue, it was to shout enemies off towers and cliffs.

Glurin

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

The whole point behind the Shouting mechanic in Skyrim was to make the player feel special - they were unique in world where everyone can use magic and use swords.

Totally untrue, it was to shout enemies off towers and cliffs.

And clear the dinner table.

Perashim

I would much rather have different vampire bloodlines, different werebeast forms, and a cultist skill line (based off what daedric prince you choose) than shouts. Keep those loud noises in Skyrim.

Bradyfjord

Perashim wrote: »

I would much rather have different vampire bloodlines, different werebeast forms, and a cultist skill line (based off what daedric prince you choose) than shouts. Keep those loud noises in Skyrim.

I wouldn't mind having Daedric Artifact like quests where by the end of the quest we get a couple passives and a niche type skill/ultimate, but be tied to the use of the Artifact. That is, you must wear/wield the item for the passives/skills to be of use.

MasterSpatula

Good idea, OP. I'd also like to add that we should all be able to catch Corprus and be cured of it, becoming permanently immune to disease. We should also all, each and every one of us, be able to use Sunder, Keening, and the Moon and Stars ring.

We should also all become Sheogorath.

Hapexamendios

Fus Roh Zzzzzzzzz

Glurin

Ok, I don't know why some of you are so vehemently opposed to the idea. I mean, yeah, I don't see an entire skill line with us all running around as new dragonborn using every shout that Skyrim had. But it might be cool if we could pick up one or two shouts. Even if it's just Unrelenting Force as an ultimate ability. That's not unreasonable.

Glurin

Iccotak wrote: »

The thing with MMO storylines is that there's no room for player moral choices - you play the role of the hero. Period.
You don't get a role play choice to be the "bad guy".

Well it's not unprecedented. I've played two where you could. Technically three if you count the fact that you're working for groups like the Illuminati in TSW, though I guess that's kind of grey since you're saving the world and such, but doing it for your organization's selfish purposes.

Anyway, both DC Universe and City of Heroes allowed you to play the villain. The Going Rogue expansion for City of Heroes even had an alignment system that basically awarded either good or evil points based on your actions.

Bradyfjord

@Glurin TSW was a badly executed idea. I wish it had worked out better.

Edit: I loved the idea of it. A modern day setting, with all the legends and urban myths thrown in.

idk

Iccotak wrote: »

The whole point behind the Shouting mechanic in Skyrim was to make the player feel special - they were unique in world where everyone can use magic and use swords.

The Dragonborn stands out.

To give everyone shouting powers would ruin that feel, especially in PvP.

If I want to be a Shouting hero of legend then I will play Skyrim.

ESO is not a single player game

This is another reason it would be in poor taste for Zos to add a skill or skill line where we could do shouts. It would be silly having a dozen players in a raid all doing shouts. More so in PvP where you could have dozens of players all shouting at each other. I guess they could call that a shouting match.

Bradyfjord

I think there are a few things that should happen regarding this topic.

The Nerevarine is the one chosen by Azura to fulfill her prophesy.
The Hero of Kvatch is the only one who could end the Oblivion Crisis.
The Last Dragonborn is the only one who could absorb dragon souls and learn to shout like he did.

I have no problem if our adventures take us before the Greybeards, or other lore group. We might have a questline that leads to something cool. Examples other than Dragon Shouts:

• New Weapon Skill Disguised as a Guild Skill (Alteration/Illusion Schools are often requested)
• New Craftable Gear Set
• New Motifs/Costumes/Personalities/Emotes
• New Mount

I doubt the Greybeards, specifically, would be interested in teaching anything to anyone. I think they are waiting for Tiber Septim to come and end the civil war that is ravaging the Empire. But the above suggestions are fertile enough that we don't need to go to the font of Skyrim/Dragon Shouts. It's bad enough that they brought dragons into the game as it is.

Sarousse

What's the point as we already 2-shot everything in game with bare hands ?