Are these hints of spell crafting incoming?

BXR_Lonestar

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'm with you. Spell crafting sounds like fun at first, but I think back on my days playing oblivion and skyrim

Did you by any chance mean oblivion and morrowind? since skyrim has no spell crafting system (unless you specifically mod it in, tho last time I did pay attention to skyrim's modding scene there was no spellcrafting mod....)

Yes, sorry.

In my experience, spell crafting in the single player games was so broken and OP that it was basically gamebreaking. Nothing was a legitimate threat anymore. That's fun in a single-player game, but in a multiplayer game environment, this could really be problematic. That is, if spellcrafting is similar to how it worked in the single player games.

It would not be able to give that level of freedom. I imagine ESO spellcrafting would simply remove the magnitude slider. The damage, and in some cases duration, would be automatically set in a way to maintain game balance, which would not be difficult now that all skills follow the same coefficients from a spreadsheet. The player still gets to select spell type and effects.

In that case, would it not be better to simply release a new global skill line? Alteration magic, illusion, etc.? Because I think the point of spellcrafting is to have freedom of really customizing your combat abilities, but if they're going to keep a tight lid on it to maintain balance, then that means there will be far less freedom, which defeats the purpose of it in the first place. I think this is the conundrum that they've been dealing with on the topic of spellcrafting, and IMO, if it is just going to be some watered down system to keep it from being gamebreaking, they may as well just release a different skill line.

aspergalas4

Melivar wrote: »

[snip]

Why would we need an emote to be pretend spell crafting if there is going to be an actual action to be done with real spell crafting.

So instead, we'll let them pretend to spell craft so they will stop asking.

I've supported this game in the hopes things will improve and the systems will be expanded upon 'eventually', as have many others. Patiently might I add, because this game has had other factors stymying its development (financial bottom line being put over the quality of the live service being one).

This 10 year anniversary is more or less the last opportunity to show the community they care about the longevity of the game going forward. And if this did turn out to be a "troll" which contextually just comes across as an insult to the loyal playerbase who have wanted this feature for years I think that would be enough of a hint this game is now past it's peak and it was time to move on. They need to show they are invested in its future by broadening it at its base, and not just stacking a bit of story content and a few dungeons every year whilst we play with the same increasingly dated set of spells and abilities.

I think ESO has been arguably one of the most frustrating games to watch develop because there are a substantial amount of missed opportunities that are the result of a rather clever business model with profit being the only objective superseding everything else. It would be nice if customer satisfaction was given a bit more attention, giving players what they want and opportunities to grow the game and in turn increase its consumer base were acted upon. Spell Crafting being one such opportunity amongst many.

[edited to remove quote]

Nihilr

Fata1moose wrote: »

I think I’d rather just have school of magic skill lines like the destruction, alteration, illusion, etc. Would be more straightforward and easier to balance.

Then give us new weapons in spears, crossbows and 1H+magic the latter would pair well with the skill lines. Could make some diverse builds.

I hope it isn't absolute, but basically from what I gathered in old interviews is that they won't be doing those things because consoles are limiting our options? I mean they've added new classes, so I think it's sorta a lie.

[snip]
[edited for bashing]

OtarTheMad

Nihilr wrote: »

Fata1moose wrote: »

I think I’d rather just have school of magic skill lines like the destruction, alteration, illusion, etc. Would be more straightforward and easier to balance.

Then give us new weapons in spears, crossbows and 1H+magic the latter would pair well with the skill lines. Could make some diverse builds.

I hope it isn't absolute, but basically from what I gathered in old interviews is that they won't be doing those things because consoles are limiting our options? I mean they've added new classes, so I think it's sorta a lie.

[snip]

It’s not a lie really. The older consoles had memory issues, it’s why TG and DB don’t have any active skills and probably why a new class took so long. The new consoles are better.

EDIT- The only thing that could be a lie is in an interview from a few years ago a dev, not sure who Rich or Matt idk, said that the current game can’t run on those consoles it launched on in 2015. But I think you can still get the game and new chapters on PS4 and XBox one.

[edited to remove quote]

Ragnarok0130

Starlight_Knight wrote: »

I just hope that whatever it is its fleshed out and not like a lot of things in ESO where it has the bare minimum of said feature just to say it has it.
So if it is Spell crafting, please let it be actually decent and not just craft 5 spells that's essentially just a new skill line disguised as "spell crafting"

In order to be able to effectively balanced it's 100% likely that it will be as you described. If it is spell crafting that is the new system the ESO players who have been fantasizing about it for years while thinking about Oblivion's spell crafting will be woefully disappointed.

Ragnarok0130

Kendaric wrote: »

merpins wrote: »

The amount of disappointment from the playerbase when Zos announced a new class instead of Spellcrafting last year was pretty sharp. It was an instant "we were hoping for this" outcry from a good majority of people, before it shifted to hype for a new class. Players had been speculating for months what it could be, all the hype behind this NEW THING, that many players were convinced it couldn't be a new class and had to be something more, so many thought spellcrafting and were hyped. I wouldn't be surprised if it was spellcrafting, or something built from the corpse of what was once spellcrafting. I hope something actually useful, and not a bunch of out of combat benefits.

Even if it were or mostly or just cosmetic changes we could make to our abilities it would be a huge boon. Being able to, for example, having a falcon/owl/raven instead of cliff racer for wardens or replacing a sorcerer's lightning spells with fire ones would be a huge boon for RPers.

LOL ZoS isn't balancing or constructing anything around RPers as they have no effective measurement for success other than visuals which they could already sell to you in the crown store if they wanted to like how those of us who preordered the warden chapter have the slate grey bear skin. ZoS will have to consider the end game when designing the system or it will be dreadfully overused due to being OP or almost completely unused eliciting cries of despair from those who have been harping about spell crafting for years wondering why ZoS wasted their time on a system that has no use in the game's most difficult content.

Ragnarok0130

Elvenheart wrote: »

It could always be the ability to craft companion gear. 😉

I think this has a better possibility than spell crafting but we'll have to see.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I hope not. I can't think of anything worse.

I honestly can't understand why someone would feel this way.

I honestly can't understand why someone wouldn't. The last thing I want is more micromanaging of my characters.

But you don't have engage with the system at all unless you want to. Like the normal crafting skills, it will be another option for those who want that. It most likely won't have any effect on you if you choose to ignore it.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that you have a choice to not engage in the system. Mostly because we have 0 details on how it would work.

.

If you don't' buy the chapter you can 100% avoid the feature unless it's part of the base game update. I have a feeling that they would want to keep that system part of the chapter much like the jewelry crafting system was part and parcel of Summerset.

Nihilr

OtarTheMad wrote: »

It’s not a lie really. The older consoles had memory issues, it’s why TG and DB don’t have any active skills and probably why a new class took so long. The new consoles are better.

Either way, the same reason was used as to why we won't get new weapon skill lines or spellcrafting, the "limitations of memory for consoles." If we ever get it, it will break the trust of their players. I do agree with what others have said. I think they are simply playing it safe--but they likely have more capability to do these things. I think the game in its entirety is so vast and interesting that "end game" players should have less say at this point. I say "to heck with balancing" and we add more features so we keep the casual-train going. Add 1H&Rune/Tome design with magic effects in the opposing hand. Add H2H combat with magic and melee versions (Enemies have these skills already). (Tomes and runes won't necessisarily need new style pages)

Add spears/polearms with slightly pointier versions of existing staff designs, make it a dlc so they get paid for this extra work.

***If consoles are limiting this stuff, give console players ultimatums to migrate their accounts to PC so we can progress.***

Maybe that's extreme, but it would make it easier for the developers too without needing to port everything to consoles every update too. And balancing for one system is also easier. idk...

OtarTheMad

Nihilr wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

It’s not a lie really. The older consoles had memory issues, it’s why TG and DB don’t have any active skills and probably why a new class took so long. The new consoles are better.

Either way, the same reason was used as to why we won't get new weapon skill lines or spellcrafting, the "limitations of memory for consoles." If we ever get it, it will break the trust of their players. I do agree with what others have said. I think they are simply playing it safe--but they likely have more capability to do these things. I think the game in its entirety is so vast and interesting that "end game" players should have less say at this point. I say "to heck with balancing" and we add more features so we keep the casual-train going. Add 1H&Rune/Tome design with magic effects in the opposing hand. Add H2H combat with magic and melee versions (Enemies have these skills already). (Tomes and runes won't necessisarily need new style pages)

Add spears/polearms with slightly pointier versions of existing staff designs, make it a dlc so they get paid for this extra work.

***If consoles are limiting this stuff, give console players ultimatums to migrate their accounts to PC so we can progress.***

Maybe that's extreme, but it would make it easier for the developers too without needing to port everything to consoles every update too. And balancing for one system is also easier. idk...

It can be frustrating for sure. One of the other reasons they gave for no new weapon lines was sets and motifs in the game and that they’d have to add a new weapon to all of them but you have ways around that. That frustrated me because we lost Frost Staves to tanking. A new tanking staff should have been introduced instead, like an Alteration Staff.

I think Spellcrafting was initially dumped because the person who thought it up, Nick Konkle or whatever his name was, left the company.

aspergalas4

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Nihilr wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

It’s not a lie really. The older consoles had memory issues, it’s why TG and DB don’t have any active skills and probably why a new class took so long. The new consoles are better.

Either way, the same reason was used as to why we won't get new weapon skill lines or spellcrafting, the "limitations of memory for consoles." If we ever get it, it will break the trust of their players. I do agree with what others have said. I think they are simply playing it safe--but they likely have more capability to do these things. I think the game in its entirety is so vast and interesting that "end game" players should have less say at this point. I say "to heck with balancing" and we add more features so we keep the casual-train going. Add 1H&Rune/Tome design with magic effects in the opposing hand. Add H2H combat with magic and melee versions (Enemies have these skills already). (Tomes and runes won't necessisarily need new style pages)

Add spears/polearms with slightly pointier versions of existing staff designs, make it a dlc so they get paid for this extra work.

***If consoles are limiting this stuff, give console players ultimatums to migrate their accounts to PC so we can progress.***

Maybe that's extreme, but it would make it easier for the developers too without needing to port everything to consoles every update too. And balancing for one system is also easier. idk...

It can be frustrating for sure. One of the other reasons they gave for no new weapon lines was sets and motifs in the game and that they’d have to add a new weapon to all of them but you have ways around that. That frustrated me because we lost Frost Staves to tanking. A new tanking staff should have been introduced instead, like an Alteration Staff.

I think Spellcrafting was initially dumped because the person who thought it up, Nick Konkle or whatever his name was, left the company.

It's a lame excuse given that for spears for example they could probably just mesh the dagger motifs onto the staff motifs for 99% of the styles (i.e. the dagger blade and maybe guard depending on design onto the staff "pole"). With a little cleaning up if there's big clipping issues it wouldn't be that arduous a task for an experienced Digital 3D sculptor to go through them all.

Ice staff as a tanking alternate was a suboptimal but totally well thought out and not lazy solution when they could of just made a battlestaff tanking skill line that used the staff motifs but as a melee weapon. But that would require new anims which as we know are very difficult to implement doubly so when there is no monetisation to be had there for a small business like ZoS.
Really totally understandable but not ideal decisions that do not capitalise very well on what are obvious wins for both ZOS and the player base. I hope this changes going forward.

Comment edited because pointing out what looks like lazy decisions is bashing.
[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Elvenheart

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'm with you. Spell crafting sounds like fun at first, but I think back on my days playing oblivion and skyrim

Did you by any chance mean oblivion and morrowind? since skyrim has no spell crafting system (unless you specifically mod it in, tho last time I did pay attention to skyrim's modding scene there was no spellcrafting mod....)

Yes, sorry.

In my experience, spell crafting in the single player games was so broken and OP that it was basically gamebreaking. Nothing was a legitimate threat anymore. That's fun in a single-player game, but in a multiplayer game environment, this could really be problematic. That is, if spellcrafting is similar to how it worked in the single player games.

It would not be able to give that level of freedom. I imagine ESO spellcrafting would simply remove the magnitude slider. The damage, and in some cases duration, would be automatically set in a way to maintain game balance, which would not be difficult now that all skills follow the same coefficients from a spreadsheet. The player still gets to select spell type and effects.

In that case, would it not be better to simply release a new global skill line? Alteration magic, illusion, etc.? Because I think the point of spellcrafting is to have freedom of really customizing your combat abilities, but if they're going to keep a tight lid on it to maintain balance, then that means there will be far less freedom, which defeats the purpose of it in the first place. I think this is the conundrum that they've been dealing with on the topic of spellcrafting, and IMO, if it is just going to be some watered down system to keep it from being gamebreaking, they may as well just release a different skill line.

If you think about it, Spellcrafting WOULD be a new skill line, but you would just have a little more flexibility with each skill because there would be the minigame of “crafting” the skill before having it in the skill line, so your version of the skill line would end up somewhat different than someone else’s based on the choices you make. I just imagine our flexibility will be limited, so we cannot do something that would be crazily overpowered. The final skill we craft would end up being very similar to existing skills in the game. The fun would be in the steps we take to craft it, and the choices we make to make it feel appropriate to our characters.

Just consider our existing skill lines, we already have lots of skills that do practically the same thing, but look different or have a different theme. I don’t really feel like Spellcrafting would add anything new and totally different to the mix, but I’m looking forward to it anyway because I’ve always been drawn to magey like characters that would love to dabble in their own spell creation. 🧙‍♂️

MudcrabAttack

SilverBride wrote: »

But spell crafting has always seemed like a big tedious chore in my mind and its function really vague, so I don't get a good picture of what its purpose would be.

The purpose would probably just be more options for gameplay. I have no idea what to expect, but I’ve been wishing for more ways to pick up status effect damage other than having to use dual wield with a flame and poison enchantment, perhaps by sprinkling different status effects around other skills

Or stretching out a bursty skill so that it turns into a long channel time available to all classes, similar to the 5-second beam that works well on Arcanist, but with a different behavior like short range single target effect, or channeling aoe that surrounds your character for a bit of time

virtus753

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

But spell crafting has always seemed like a big tedious chore in my mind and its function really vague, so I don't get a good picture of what its purpose would be.

The purpose would probably just be more options for gameplay. I have no idea what to expect, but I’ve been wishing for more ways to pick up status effect damage other than having to use dual wield with a flame and poison enchantment, perhaps by sprinkling different status effects around other skills

Just about all damaging abilities and proc sets already do set off the status effect related to their damage type. You can run a skill like Poison Injection for Poisoned and Wall of Elements with an inferno staff for Burning. They’re just so much less reliable at proccing those effects that glyphs are often used to ensure the hardest hitting ones get maximal uptime. Dual wield glyphs can also both go off simultaneously with the same light attack, with each glyph proc able to apply its own associated status effect at the same time. Very few skills can set off multiple status effects at once like that right now (Ele Sus and Force Shock are the ones coming to mind).

So I see a couple of issues:

1) Either they would have to make your desired status effect replace the current one at a cost of the current damage and identity of those skills and proc sets, or they would have to rebudget all our skills and proc sets if they could be made to proc multiple status effects simultaneously.

2) Either way, though, glyphs would still be a much more effective way to maximize status effect damage due to the current scheme of how status effects are procced. An AoE DoT like Elemental Blockade has only a 1% base chance to apply a status effect upon doing damage to a target. That can be increased through things like CP, Elemental Force, and the charged trait, but it will still always be much less than the chance of a glyph applying the effect, since the glyph has 20 times the base chance. Even a single target direct damage ability or set proc has only a 10% base chance, half that of a glyph. Making skills able to proc different status effects than they currently do won’t change those chances to get the effect to proc, meaning they still wouldn’t proc nearly as often as when applied with glyphs. You’d have to overhaul the way that works (requiring a rebudget for everything that can proc them) in order to be able to swap status effects freely among glyphs, skills, and sets while maintaining the damage we currently get out of them.

Seraphayel

Are people waiting for Spellcrafting since 2014 in for a nice surprise today?

Kendaric

Seraphayel wrote: »

Are people waiting for Spellcrafting since 2014 in for a nice surprise today?

We'll find out soon

Elsonso

Seraphayel wrote: »

Are people waiting for Spellcrafting since 2014 in for a nice surprise today?

Maybe. They might do well to keep the pitchforks handy, though. Just in case. Always good to be prepared for a good forum brawl. A stock of oil and torches are sometimes good to have, too.

RMW

Maybe the picture means they'll let us customize the colors and effects of our skills ...
If so I'm gonna have some fun

Wolfkeks

RMW wrote: »

Maybe the picture means they'll let us customize the colors and effects of our skills ...
If so I'm gonna have some fun

Hey making all skills pink way my idea lol
Though if we can really customize skills and give them colors... Cyrodiil will def be a fun place to be

Dark_Lord_Kuro

There was some datamining this morning?, wich im not allowed to discuss on the forum. All ill say is go check it out as it does remind mee of something.

RupzSkooma

It was a long 10 years bros.
RIP to fellow comrades who couldn’t make it tho

UNSeki

Dang, truly a "they hated Jesus because he told them the truth" moment. Rejoice with the new Scribing update!

I'm keeping my judgment for when we actually see how it works, but it seems interesting. At the very least, it should make PvE playing more fun.