how about new cosmetic options: skill skins?

Thrain

In every MMO, one key element is the quest for achieving the perfect character customization.
Zenimax already gave us a quite large toolkit, including motifs, outfit styles, costumes, skins, non combat companions, body and face marks and adornments of all sorts.
One thing that we don't have, but would perfectly fit into this toolkit, without causing additional server load and interfering with crucible systems, would be the introduction of skill skins.
This means, a character can be customized to a higher degree to perceive the perfect visualization and match the backstory of them. For instance, a magicka DK who serves Molag Bal could become a coldfire DK, where all fire skills turn blue. Another idea would be a fallen templer, maybe even a vampire, whose skills basically turn dark or red.
The options are basically endless and dont require vast modifications of the combat system, since a significant change (or improvement) can be achieved by just swapping colors.

When making use of this poll, please note that we are not talking about how these skill skins are distributed to the playerbase. Obviously putting them into the crown store is an option, but not necessarily the only one. A skill skin can be an achievement of any kind, or a loyalty gift, or an event goodie as well.

feel free to vote and comment.

lolo_01b16_ESO

i dont like the idea beacuse [reason in comment]

In my opinion being able to identify what skills other people are using is an important part of this game. In pvp you have to be able to recognize enemy skills in a split second to be able to react to them. And in pve I also want to know what others are casting, so I can act accordingly.
If they ever think about skill cosmetics it should be only changed on your screen, so everyone else can still see the basic visuals.

Salvas_Aren

yes, i would like to have it

Well, when the animation remains the same?

Also the skill skin could be deactivated for Cyro and BGs. In PvE you can still ask.

Thrain

yes, i would like to have it

lolo_01b16_ESO wrote: »

In my opinion being able to identify what skills other people are using is an important part of this game. In pvp you have to be able to recognize enemy skills in a split second to be able to react to them. And in pve I also want to know what others are casting, so I can act accordingly.
If they ever think about skill cosmetics it should be only changed on your screen, so everyone else can still see the basic visuals.

since the animation would be the same and only the color would change it wouldnt be a big deal and you still would have the same time to react and start counterplay.
and also in high apm fights youre reading your opponent instead of watching the whole animation - which gets cancelled sometimes anyway

Karmanorway

i dont really care

Because im a stamsorc, we dont have any class skills xD

Syldras

i dont really care

I don't care. Only wanted to add that there are already visual effects which change if you have a "personality" active - only in emotes, though. So for example, there is an emote where you toy with a magical (but normal looking, normal fire color) flame. With the "Telvanni Magister" personality, the flame is replaced by a blue light orb. So, the idea is not completely new.

willjones1122

yes, i would like to have it if its not a crown exclusive feature

Pretty sure this is what "spellcrafting" will be reduced to. But i think it would be fine as long as they were attainable in game for the most part. As for pvp it's generally animation/aoe to watch for not color. As long as the new effects are just color swaps and don't glare out the screen(anymore than they already do, lol) it shouldn't be an issue.

Athyrium93

yes, i would like to have it

I love the idea, dark skills for my templar are high on my list of wishes, she has a whole goth theme going and while it's okay with the light color animations, it would be bomb with black/dark skills!
And maybe I would try a sorc then, I love the idea of them, and the skills look so fun but I hate lightning animations in this game.

Cameron991

yes, i would like to have it

I was thinking of something like this along time ago I would love it! I think it would be cool to add some new looks to thinks just to help add some cosmetic flavor to the game imo. Yes keep the same animations but have like theme packs for your spells like how we got the bear skin for warden. For example maybe have like a vampiric theme(since we didn’t get a vampire class sadly). I’m not sure what class it would be for but sorc could go well with it get rid of the electricy and add bats with red and black mist to abilities to make it more vampiric. Like the streak abilitiy would be the same animation but with the mist and bats and such. And the vampire theme could really work with all classes to help people thematically feel more like vampires. I think it would be great

Thrain

yes, i would like to have it

willjones1122 wrote: »

Pretty sure this is what "spellcrafting" will be reduced to. But i think it would be fine as long as they were attainable in game for the most part. As for pvp it's generally animation/aoe to watch for not color. As long as the new effects are just color swaps and don't glare out the screen(anymore than they already do, lol) it shouldn't be an issue.

i hope spellcrafting will be something different than just change the color of your skills.

i would like to see a "coldfire package" as example which basically turns all your fire (even light attacks from inferno staff) into coldfire

the same thing could be done for lighting to get yellow or even red lighting
like i said the options are almost endless

and even tho its "only" skins...in my opinion it would be a big imrpovement for our charakter customization
which id love to see in the future

LuxiasCaelum13

i dont like the idea beacuse [reason in comment]

It's a terrible idea, and for various reasons.

First: because the options are endless. Okay, let's assume you are a dragonknight and you want to create a backstory where you choose to serve Molag Bal. Obviously it would be nice to see that RP choice in the character by making the flame skills blue, but how about everything else?. And if i'm a DK who chose to serve Nocturnal? Should my skills become purple? What if i'm a nightblade devout of Lorkhan? Should my shadow skills have a night-blue, lunar hue attached to them? In order to make that, the game should first be able to recognize some decisions made by the player, and make calculations all the time to be able to apply the neccesary changes. And if my character wants to serve multiple daedric princes/divines? Should my skills have multiple colors?. RPing is extremely personal, and it's impossible to design every single case.

Second: Recognizing skills is crucial for all content. In PvE you want to know where you can step and where you can't without crowding the screen with effects. If you have red, green, purple, yellow, orange and god knows how many colored circles in the ground you won't see anything. The same goes for PvP, where you need to know what skills are your enemies and teammates casting, to respond accordingly. This only would make things more confusing.

Third and last: resources. All those things consume time and resources, and performance is bad enough now to give more work to the server. ZoS is even thinking about butchering AoEs for performance's sake, so adding a ton of calculations more would only give more trouble. Imagine if the game had to guess your aalegiances each time you cast a skill to pull the proper visual effects, lag spikes would be criminal. If PvP is bad right now imagine if you add that load to the server. Imagine being inside a trial where all players have made one or more RP decisions, with the server trying to display every skill with the right color. Lag, disconnects and crashes would be commonplace (well, more than they are now).

So...no, it's a bad idea. At least now. Maybe in the future if they manage to do something about the horrible performance, or if they make skills less "shiny", so the game doesn't die by SFX overdose.

Chevaliemew

yes, i would like to have it if its not a grindy feature

Just let my stam DK breath fire instead of vomit

Daemons_Bane

i dont like the idea beacuse [reason in comment]

I'd prefer it as it is now.. Having sorcerer rainbows is not on my wishlist

amm7sb14_ESO

yes, i would like to have it if its not a crown exclusive feature

I would be down with this. I voted yes.

Radiance

yes, i would like to have it if its not a crown exclusive feature

I chose this one bc I would genuinely like the option to change my Spell Colors but I know it's not going to happen and if it did it would most Certainly be behind a paywall so it's essentially the same as saying "No."

Cloudless

yes, i would like to have it if its not a grindy feature

Still waiting for a kagouti reskin for the Warden's bear...

caperb

i dont really care

What do we need all those cosmetic items for?

Selminus

path of exile made a lot of money on this i cited it here months ago

Palidon

How about just more skins available via the Crown Store would be nice.

barney2525

i dont like the idea beacuse [reason in comment]

Let them fix the stuff that is already broken before adding more superfluous code into the mix please

IMHO

Salvas_Aren

yes, i would like to have it

Selminus wrote: »

path of exile made a lot of money on this i cited it here months ago

If skill skins are easy money, then I dont understand how Zeni can ignore this.

nemvar

Skill skins are honestly a no-brainer purely from a money perspective.

If properly implemented, this would be extremely lightweight for the server. No more expensive than telling other people what color your boots are.
In fact, this is more lightweight on the client than all those fancy mounts from a resource perspective as in some cases, it would quite literally just be a color matrix instead of a new texture or even model.

It does remove visual clarity, but we are already allowed to make axes look like daggers, which is arguably a bigger problem for balance. If you can't tell that that's a stamDK at a glance, something is wrong with your game sense. And it's not like you stop being able to recognize funnel health just because it's blue.

This would probably work best with pet skins, which there is already precedent for.


they would make fat stacks of dosh
they will probably have to invest resources into refactoring ability code to get this to work (good for everyone), I make this assumption because if this weren't the case, we would probably have seen it added already
if done right, the negatives can be kept in check. Let's hope this condition is met.

Hagrett

My previous response was kind of childish, but in keeping with the topic: skins would be a welcome addition imo. Bonus points if I could alter my sorc pet appearances.

How about pvp? Would this be something that people would want to see disabled in Cyro/BGs?

tinythinker

I'm for it Been suggesting that and variations on it - there's so many things that can be reskinned and added as in-game rewards. The art team is cranking out stuff for the Crown Store, they can make a lil more for achievements.

Psiion

Greetings,

We have removed a few posts from this thread for Bashing. Please remember that Bashing is against the Forum Rules, which can be found in full here. Thank you.

E-Zekiel

yes, i would like to have it

If I could choose a morph look that'd be nice. I don't do stam DK because I don't like green fire.

zvavi

yes, i would like to have it

Turn it off in PvP, make it crown exclusive (imo).

But I mean. What does it matter if the servers are not working well anyway

Athan1

i dont need it but would like to see it in the game

Not sure how OP has envisioned this, but if I understand correctly, this could be something like a palette swap for skills? As such this wouldn't interfere with gameplay in any way, and would only be an aesthetic change. For example, blue flames for DK skills or black light for Templar skills. This is an interesting idea. A couple of colours could be available for each class.

Realistically speaking, this won't happen, and if it does, it'll be super expensive.

Ajaxandriel

yes, i would like to have it if its not a crown exclusive feature

Being able to replace the ghost cliff racer of Warden's Dive into a ghost hawk would be awesome.

Iccotak

i dont like the idea beacuse [reason in comment]

sounds unnecessarily complicated
But to be fair some abilities should get visual options. Specifically summons

I have an Argonian Warden character and would like Black Marsh themed creatures for the "Wild Guardian"

Thrain

yes, i would like to have it

zvavi wrote: »

Turn it off in PvP, make it crown exclusive (imo).

But I mean. What does it matter if the servers are not working well anyway

tbh i would love to have this in pvp as well
it just would fit so great in the character customization we already have

being able to change the color of fire or shock skills would bring us some fresh air into 6 year old skills
therefore it should be also for pvp
*in my opinion^^