Weapon Skill Lines, and How New Lines COULD be added

merpins

So for the longest time, people've been wanting a new weapon skill line, if not multiple of them. From the arguments of Crossbows and Spears, to wands and spell books and MANY others, there are valid reasons for new skill lines to be added. However I believe there is a slight problem with the weapon skill lines that would need to be addressed before adding new skill lines would make sense, lest every skill line be a two-handed or niche skill line.

Here's the proposal: cut sword and shield in half into two skill lines. Now hear me out. Keep all the skills that exist in "Sword and Shield," and put them in the new skill line that would be called "Shield," then make a brand new skill line called "Sword" (or one-handed, I suppose to mirror two handed). This would create a new skill line, but set the scene for new skill lines down the road and give access to something else for everyone that uses those skill lines.

Here's how this works: you can use the sword skill line by itself, but you'd be kinda gimped when it comes to your damage since you're only getting half out-put by wielding one sword. Same with shield but worse, since shield doesn't let you attack with it, not really anyway. But by wielding the second option, you'd gain access to the second skill line. So, with what's currently there, you get the sword skill line AS WELL as the sword and shield skill line if you wield a sword and shield, and you get access to the sword skill line as well as the dual wield skill line if you wield two swords.
This would open up the option to add more one-handed weapon skill lines. A one-handed crossbow skill line for range, a wand skill line for magic, short spears, thrown weapons, the options open up with this, since you'd be able to customize them by dual-wielding with the other weapon skill lines. Then, ZoS would only have to make alternate versions of the existing skills in skill lines, changing slightly based on the other weapon in your hand. Magic sword and board? That's wand+shield. Ranged Dual Wield? Two crossbows or a crossbow and sword. The combinations are vast here, and it would open up diversity in the game even further without much of a huge change, since it's only additive.

Ratzkifal

Your proposal also addresses an issue that came up with Redguard racial passives. Redguards in ESO get bonus XP to onehand&shield, which is somewhat unprecedented and also a kick in the face in terms of their identity as they are known to be swordmasters, which isn't really (explicitly) acknowledged by their passives. Bosmer, who are in a very similar situation at least have bonus XP gained towards bows, which does address this, but since there is no "onehanded" skill like there was in older games, Redguards got a bonus to onehand&shield instead.
With your proposal, Redguards could get a bonus to "onehanded".

Also I like that you made it so that dualwield counts as onehanded still, which is exactly how it should work if they were to untangle onehanded and shields from one another.

Gonna say no to wands though. We never needed wands to cast magic in any TES game. I get that right now ESO requires you to equip something to function properly, but I would rather have a "magic focus" that sits in the palm of your hand, because that comes the closest to hand-held magic so to speak.

The biggest issue that you haven't addressed yet when it comes to adding new weapons is how these will be fitted retroactively into older motifs, arena weapon loot and why we should do the stupid trait research for 9 traits all over on the new weapons, even if timeskips can be bought for writ vouchers now.

My wishlist for weapons: Brassknuckles (for "unarmed" combat), Onehand&Spellfocus, Spears, Conjuration staff, Alteration staff. Alas, my wishlist is long and if everything were made to appeal to me, then ESO would be a very different game, so I doubt there is hope for most of these, despite how badly we want them.

Darkstorne

Ratzkifal wrote: »

The biggest issue that you haven't addressed yet when it comes to adding new weapons is how these will be fitted retroactively into older motifs, arena weapon loot and why we should do the stupid trait research for 9 traits all over on the new weapons, even if timeskips can be bought for writ vouchers now.

That's why I think one handed and spell/rune is the only weapon line we're likely to see here. Just like one hand and shield share the same weapon motifs with dual wield, so too would one hand and spell/rune. The spell part would only need to be a particle effect, not a whole new unique model for each motif like shields are, so it's not creating any extra work for ZOS on that front. It provides something the community is asking for, and for relatively little effort.

Crafting though... yeah I imagine we'd now need to research another 9 traits on the spell/rune component. But at the same time, it can be good to have something to grind for in a new expansion, and at least with crafting this is something the economy benefits from since everyone knows the new items they find will be highly sought after on guild stores, unlike antiquity and psijic grinds which were entirely personal.