Tenth Anniversary Gift; Spellcrafting?

TaSheen

Well.... ESO is the most fun I've had since Skyrim released. I love it the way it is, and most suggestions for changing it leave me hoping they never happen.

FeedbackOnly

#keep the dreams alive

I want capes

Tyrant_Tim

merpins wrote: »

That's all I want really. To have fun. ESO hasn't been that fun for me in a while. Arcanist was pretty fun, but more reasons to keep playing classes I already have would be welcome, and spellcrafting would do that.

You hit it right on the head, games are supposed to be fun, first and foremost. For so many people that play RPGs, that fun is in making a character that is personalized to you.

Creating a role, and playing it, any barriers to that goal we can take down, only benefit the player, people lose track of that.

MashmalloMan

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

merpins wrote: »

That's all I want really. To have fun. ESO hasn't been that fun for me in a while. Arcanist was pretty fun, but more reasons to keep playing classes I already have would be welcome, and spellcrafting would do that.

You hit it right on the head, games are supposed to be fun, first and foremost. For so many people that play RPGs, that fun is in making a character that is personalized to you.

Creating a role, and playing it, any barriers to that goal we can take down, only benefit the player, people lose track of that.

Yeah I've never understood the naysayers to a mechanic like spell crafting. The ones so worried about their "meta".

Well that argument went out the window with hybridization, so keep supporting the direction the game is taking. Next step has to be spell crafting..I'm convinced it's year 10 for the game.

There is no reason to stifle a games progression because of worries regarding what may or may not be meta when no matter what they do, there will always be a meta in something so driven by 1 overarching statistic, DPS.

There is other areas they need to tackle to adjust the meta problem. Sets, skills, class passives. They're all out of wack.

Spellcrafting would have been more of a problem back before CP 2.0 when Martial and Magical damage types were separated by a huge gap. Nowadays the only main determining factor of a build is your resources where as before... Well everyone should remember. Stam builds couldn't even use anything Magical damage type related and vise versa.

Plus, spellcrafting as proposed would be based on a similar system to Enchanting + Scrying where you combine different materials for set outcomes. It wouldnt have infinite possibilities, it would be curated and follow a ruleset.

Example, there could be a summon glyph and a damage type glyph, the damage type could determine cost and auxillary effects.

So maybe a fire summon would make a Fire Atro that could cause burning while a shock summon would make a Storm Atro that could deal AOE damage.

Then, you pick a modifier glyph. Maybe it makes it an ult, maybe it makes it last longer, maybe it adds utility like debuffs.

They have so much material to pull from too. Just reuse animations, vfx, sound FX and models. Can steal from NPCs like they do for sets.

Northwold

The question that comes up whenever anyone brings this up is this:

How, in an MMO, do you balance it without it becoming in practice the same three or so spells whatever you craft?

Answer that and spellcrafting could work and not be a total waste of time. No one ever has.

They're not deaf. People have been asking for it ever since release. There are obvious reasons why it would never, ever work the way people want.

Surragard

I’d be interested to see the player bounty system we were first told about before Thieves’ Guild. I always thought it was interesting to collect bounties on other players.

Finedaible

ZoS will never do anything interesting as long as they remain paralyzed in absolute fear of the spreadsheet god becoming anrgy at them slightly upsetting balance.

Tyrant_Tim

Surragard wrote: »

I’d be interested to see the player bounty system we were first told about before Thieves’ Guild. I always thought it was interesting to collect bounties on other players.

This is yet another feature I think about from time to time, and I imagine how much fun it would be to have a matchmade cops and robbers where you queue into different towns(maps) and play as either a guard roaming around looking to catch a thief in the act, or as part of the thieves trying to steal as much as possible within a given time.

While this wouldn’t quite be what was discussed years ago, it would add a level of engagement to the Thieves Guild that is lacking.

WrathOfInnos

Northwold wrote: »

The question that comes up whenever anyone brings this up is this:

How, in an MMO, do you balance it without it becoming in practice the same three or so spells whatever you craft?

Answer that and spellcrafting could work and not be a total waste of time. No one ever has.

They're not deaf. People have been asking for it ever since release. There are obvious reasons why it would never, ever work the way people want.

It hasn’t been long since they rebalanced every skill to use standardized values. This seemed like step one toward developing a spellcrafting system. Now they can just use these same standard values to create dozens, if not hundreds, of craftable spells. Nothing would be overpowered because it is all based on the same spreadsheet.

The system would obviously not allow full freedom, the player cannot choose the damage output, or combine several effects.

It would do some very interesting things, such as allowing elemental spells without requiring a certain class or weapon type. It could also fill various gaps in builds, like providing a shock damage spammable, or maybe a heal over without a restoration staff. Players will get very creative with the options, especially when it interacts with certain proc set conditions (think of Elemental Catalyst on any class, or a full frost damage build with Ysgramor + Frostbite).

Tyrant_Tim

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

The question that comes up whenever anyone brings this up is this:

How, in an MMO, do you balance it without it becoming in practice the same three or so spells whatever you craft?

Answer that and spellcrafting could work and not be a total waste of time. No one ever has.

They're not deaf. People have been asking for it ever since release. There are obvious reasons why it would never, ever work the way people want.

It hasn’t been long since they rebalanced every skill to use standardized values. This seemed like step one toward developing a spellcrafting system. Now they can just use these same standard values to create dozens, if not hundreds, of craftable spells. Nothing would be overpowered because it is all based on the same spreadsheet.

The system would obviously not allow full freedom, the player cannot choose the damage output, or combine several effects.

Exactly, every change of late seems headed in that direction. Spellcrafting would be fine given the state of the game, as the necessary changes we needed, things like Hybridization, allow just about everyone to participate.

MasterSpatula

Never, ever understood why anyone thought this would be a remotely good idea in a multiplayer game.

Tyrant_Tim

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Never, ever understood why anyone thought this would be a remotely good idea in a multiplayer game.

Then read the thread? There have been plenty of explanations to why this system would work.

Faulgor

There's no argument against spell crafting that couldn't be applied to weapon crafting, yet nobody has an issue with that.

People just want more skills to use with their existing characters, to fulfil the role playing fantasies they have.
If your response to adding new skills to an MMO is "that's crazy, it can't be done", your knowledge of the genre is so limited that you are unlikely to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion.

FlipFlopFrog

I'd LOVE spellcrafting, being able to make your entire build out of spells that YOU create adds so much flexibility and imagination to our characters. Pleeeeassee be Spellcrafting ZoS!!

jad11mumbler

Gretchen, stop trying to make Spellcrafting happen, it's not going to happen.

Drammanoth

Polearms, Unarmed, Crossbows (also for the Bow skill line) + some Craft tree perks.

Doesn't seem that much, does it?

LunaFlora

Drammanoth wrote: »

Polearms, Unarmed, Crossbows (also for the Bow skill line) + some Craft tree perks.

Doesn't seem that much, does it?

that does seem like much.
polearms would also require weapon styles for it from every past weapon style.
same with crossbows.

unarmed or a one handed skill line would not require that so that would be not that much.

Animar111

Add water magic based skill line, And if our polymorph’s would come with its own set of skills I’d be more than happy. Too many things look cool in the game but serve no real purpose.

ThelerisTelvanni

To be honest:
I NEVER liked the idea of classes in TESO after we were freed of them, in TES V Skyrim. But Oblivion had classes and spellcrafting back in the day. So both work together. I loved travening the world in Oblivion, lerning new spells and crafting new spells with the learned spell effects. It was super motivating for me and I enjoyed it a lot! I think spellcrafting was one of the reasons I loved playing as a mage in Oblivion. Traveling from one Mages Guild hall to the next, getting there permission to enter the arcane universety, learning new spells and finaly getting permission to enter the universety and creating you own spells was awsome! I LOVED the Guild quests in Oblivion and the Mages guild felt so awsome! I always love to replay it! From todays ponit it is just sad that there are so few different ways to apply these spell effects to play with. Skyrim added the elemental walls and so on. But skyrim was also missing a lot of spells and spell effects. It is sutch a shame that Skyrim never had spellcrafting!

I personally think that adding the schools of magic and a good spellcrafting system along with it, will defenetly benefit the game a lot!

The stone tablets are not my favorit way to do the spellcrafting but they are better than no spellcrafting. I perfer collecting spells and spellbooks. Maybe some quests to recover old Aylied, Velothi or Direnni stuff that was lost, in order to obtain new spell effects. There are so many ways to aqire new spells and I'd love to see them all as a mage player

ThelerisTelvanni

After reading some of the comments I honestly do not understand why there might be any problems with the system.

In Oblivion you had a spell effect. Lets say fire damage.

After that you had to choose the way to cast it. In Oblivion you were able to choose between self cast, on touch and on target. So lets take on target for the example.

At the end you had to choose the magnitude of the effect and the range if you wanted to make the spell an area of effect.

Once everything was choosen you were presented with a magica cost and a price to pay for crafting the spell. If you wanted you were able to add additional effects. Like a weekness to fire damage.

Each spell effect was also limited in the magnitude by the amount of skill you had in the respective school of magic. So capping spell effects to prevent the spells to be OP seems possible to me.

Yes balance is key here, but I do not see why there is no way to make a formular to allow X damage in the area y for duration z and give it a propper magica price and have a balanced spell at the end.

I also do not see why there needs to be a removal of existing spellslines or entchanting (???) since that makes no sence at all. Spellcrafting coexisted with entchanting in Oblivion without a problem.
I understand spellcrafting and the schools of magic as an addition. Not a replacement. And if you already know a spell effect from your class and other skillines, I see no reason to not include it into the spellcrafting system. The entire argument that you have to scrap the existing skillines and entchanting seems totally illogical to me. And I honestly do not understand the reasoning here.

To me creating my own spells and ultimates sounds awsome! And I want to see it!

TaSheen

I never found it fun or engaging. And I think if it's added, it will be as a less engaging option than the people who are frothing at the mouth for it will be expecting - because that's how ZOS handles additions to the game in general.

I'd be happier to see additions to alchemy to change colors in spells/skills, or make new dyes; or even a "make scrolls" skill.

Of course, if spellcrafting shows up, I'm not required to use it. So whatever.

Bo0137

I would like to agree on Spellcrafting being ideal for the 10th anniversary and it being absolutely possible to implement.

I believe people overreact "balancing" with the concept of spellcrafting because they think such update would bring a massive amount of spells (at once). I really think that wouldn't be the case. From Zenimax's history, they like to release these new systems' content little by little. I see spellcrafting happening with 5 or 6 skills at launch; 1 or 2 new skills every year.

Balancing spellcrafting would be as difficult as balancing, let's say, the psijic order line (in terms of amount of content). New skills, if few, should learn from the balances brought to mythic items (also in terms of amount of content) and should not be as difficult as balancing classes skills - because spellcrafting skills would be available to all classes.

There is no need to overcomplicate spellcrafting; Zenimax wouldn't do so. In my opinion, two morphs per skill are fine. The sweet thing I believe most people want is more skill options for their bars - not more morphs for the same skill. The once showcased "morph the skill at will" from the 2014 stream in my opinion doesn't fit into today's ESO.

Erickson9610

Bo0137 wrote: »

The sweet thing I believe most people want is more skill options for their bars - not more morphs for the same skill.

This reminds me of Werewolf's current balance situation. Only 5 predetermined skills can be used by Werewolf — no other skills can be used. If Spellcrafting somehow gave Werewolf access to more than just those 5 skills, then I absolutely would use it.

ZOS, please don't exclude werewolves from this feature if it is implemented.

Tyrant_Tim

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Bo0137 wrote: »

The sweet thing I believe most people want is more skill options for their bars - not more morphs for the same skill.

This reminds me of Werewolf's current balance situation. Only 5 predetermined skills can be used by Werewolf — no other skills can be used. If Spellcrafting somehow gave Werewolf access to more than just those 5 skills, then I absolutely would use it.

ZOS, please don't exclude werewolves from this feature if it is implemented.

I highly doubt ZOS would take time to animate Werewolves to cast spells.

Not only would it look weird, as it’s already weird enough looking when they use soul gems, but it’s against the entire premise of being a savage monster. I’ve never heard of a Werewolf casting spells in lore, if you have I’d love to hear about it.

Tyrant_Tim

I also believe that it’s a bit ridiculous that players can stay a Werewolf indefinitely without ever dropping it, @Erickson9610, if entering Werewolf was a timed occurance, it could be allocated a lot more power to compensate.

But that’s another topic entirely.

Erickson9610

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

I highly doubt ZOS would take time to animate Werewolves to cast spells.

Not only would it look weird, as it’s already weird enough looking when they use soul gems, but it’s against the entire premise of being a savage monster. I’ve never heard of a Werewolf casting spells in lore, if you have I’d love to hear about it.

It was miserable being unable to revive people with soul gems as a Werewolf before Wolfhunter added that feature. Could you imagine not being allowed to revive people because you picked, say, Redguard as your race? Like the arguments in favor of Spellcrafting, the more options to fit into our own builds, the better.

Also, some werewolves do cast spells — consider Balorgh casting elemental magic in March of Sacrifices, or how you can cast some elemental magic yourself as a Werewolf Behemoth in Stone Garden. Werewolves using magic isn't a total stretch in the lore of The Elder Scrolls.

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

I also believe that it’s a bit ridiculous that players can stay a Werewolf indefinitely without ever dropping it

Werewolves in TES II would automatically transform and be stuck in form for the entire day of a full moon. In TES III, this was changed so they would automatically transform for the duration of every single night, and be unable to revert form until morning.

In TES V, Beast Form was a power which could only be used once a day, and rather than forcing the player to turn into a werewolf every night or every full moon's night, it gave them the option to continue to play as a werewolf for as long as they kept roleplaying as one, by devouring more corpses. ESO takes direct inspiration from TES V's implementation, giving Werewolf a high Ultimate cost, but allowing them to retain their form for as long as they can keep roleplaying as a savage beast.

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

if entering Werewolf was a timed occurance, it could be allocated a lot more power to compensate.

That's why we have Blood Scion and Bone Goliath. Those are actual Ultimate abilities and not playstyles locked behind a special ability bar. They are timed, cannot be extended, and would benefit from Spellcrafting.

zaria

Northwold wrote: »

The question that comes up whenever anyone brings this up is this:

How, in an MMO, do you balance it without it becoming in practice the same three or so spells whatever you craft?

Answer that and spellcrafting could work and not be a total waste of time. No one ever has.

They're not deaf. People have been asking for it ever since release. There are obvious reasons why it would never, ever work the way people want.

I say it depend on your class, role and content you play, For me dummy humping is pretty irrelevant.
If you get stuff who was inferior to class skills but filled in gaps it would be nice.

Tyrant_Tim

@Erickson9610, within the lorebook, “The Totems of Hircine” Werewolves are described to be without magic…



So one theory to how Balorgh was able to access magic, is that the power is granted to him through the tattoos he bares. One such citation would be regarding a lorebook from Craglorn titled, “Nirncrux, a Study” where it explains the process of empowering beings with Nirncrux tattoos.

So if Werewolves are to ever have the ability to use spells from that system, they would need to create a lorefriendly reason, and perhaps having unique body markings to show which types of spells you have slotted would be enough.

But then again, Balorgh used spells native to nature, so perhaps the book described him tapping into natural energies as an explanation.

Castagere

New weapon lines and abilities and some real costumes based on races. I don't understand we we can't get more racial clothing in the game.

Tyrant_Tim

Castagere wrote: »

New weapon lines and abilities and some real costumes based on races. I don't understand we we can't get more racial clothing in the game.

Don’t quote me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if later down the road the styles of the class sets became “class-specific styles.”

About new weapon skill lines and abilities, I agree.

We have yet to receive Alteration Staves, Illusion Staves, Conjuration Staves, and Mysticism Staves, and they wouldn’t even need to revise old motifs to implement them, we could use the pre-existing staff motifs.