The Weather System Needs an Overhaul

Shagreth · September 2023

Weather is rather bland, there's only a handful types of weather and modders can't fix things this time around. For the most part, I only see the typical rain pattern, with some thunder mixed in. I recall more extreme weather in the past, with lightning that could really catch you off guard, but maybe that was taken out due to the aging playerbase. Jokes aside, some more weather types would be nice, especially extreme ones, have a thunderstorm that blots out the sun with sever lightning, sandstorms, heavy mist etc. And for those that are not fans of this - add a slider almost every mmorpg I've played has one. Do it, for max immersion.

@ZOS_GinaBruno can add a special weather type for Gina too, light rainfall, with the possibility of spiders

Pelanora · October 2023

Wind! Heavy snow! Sideways rain!

Grizzbeorn · October 2023

Pelting rain, extreme thunder, chain lightning!

Zodiarkslayer · October 2023

I like a dense fog. It is the most atmospheric weather type.

But I am not sure, if it is technically possible. A good looking weather system needs an intricate physics system, realistic lighting technology and high quality textures.
ESO is not really known for any of these...

Well, we have at least ink rain in Apocrypha now. 😅

Shagreth · October 2023

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I like a dense fog. It is the most atmospheric weather type.

But I am not sure, if it is technically possible. A giid looking wether system need an intricate physics system, realistic lighting technology and high quality textures.
ESO is not really known for any of these...

Well, we have at least ink rain in Apocrypha now. 😅

Indeed. For the most part the graphical fidelity & effects of ESO are.. passable. Makes me wonder if they'll surprise us with any updates regarding this when the game turns 10. New character models would be nice, at the very least. But somehow I feel that nothing like that will ever happen, people (and the devs themselves) seem to dislike change, or maybe it's a budget issue.

Veryamedliel · October 2023

Would I like more weather types? sure.
Do I want the dev team to spend their time on it while there's so much more other and more important things to do/fix? Definitely not.

If there's a couple of devs with some free time on their hands, sure, why not. But I don't think you'll find any. Best we can hope for is that any new DLC/chapters gets some new type of weather added to the environment, which they in turn can apply to whatever weather system they have in place. Even the re-colouring of the basic rain to ink in Apocrypha is a welcome change imo. The only downside is that it's unusable on any other map.

Four_Fingers · October 2023

It rains too much in my house. lol

tomofhyrule · October 2023

I'd really like a way to choose weather, either through a /script command or a new housing item (like the hourglass). We know the weather is client-side, but after over a week of nonstop rain, I'd like something other than rain in my game. Besides, the different weathers wreak havoc with screenshots.

Dr_Con · October 2023

it would be nice to see subtle zone-wide effects in certain zones when a difficult boss or event is up. I think one problem is that the bosses are almost always up, so we only get local weather effects (harrowstorms, for example).

In any case, I would love to see meaningful change in the weather system and potentially the ability to control weather at houses through a collectible.

Shagreth · October 2023

Veryamedliel wrote: »

In any case, I would love to see meaningful change in the weather system and potentially the ability to control weather at houses through a collectible.

A collectible that controls the weather is definitely coming.

And yeah, weather is client side, which is not so cool either, it should be server based.

Anumaril · October 2023

One thing I keep on noticing is that rain never feels "heavy". It always feels like no more than a light drizzle. I think a big part of this is that we barely can even see the rain itself, and we hardly see any splashes on the ground or on objects. We also don't hear the sound of it on our actual characters (if you wear plate armour you should be able to hear the *clink* *clink* *clink* of the rain hitting the metal).

All of these things would drastically improve the atmosphere of rain in ESO.

TaSheen · October 2023

Please, no new character models. I've had two games chase me away when my characters were changed to look NOTHING like I made them.

And considering the mess they've made of the jabs and flurry animations, not to mention the grim focus permaglow.... yeah, just leave the character models alone.

Elsonso · October 2023

Four_Fingers wrote: »

It rains too much in my house. lol

It just rains too much in some places, period. Like all of High Isle.

geonsocal · October 2023

nothing worse than being rained on while also being zeroed down and gated...

it can get a bit depressing...

Shagreth · October 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Please, no new character models. I've had two games chase me away when my characters were changed to look NOTHING like I made them.

And considering the mess they've made of the jabs and flurry animations, not to mention the grim focus permaglow.... yeah, just leave the character models alone.

It's for the future of the game, if anything.

Also, having zero faith in the devs is a little sad. The whole reaction with the jabs change was hyperbolic. Take a look at the arcanist, they did a fantastic job, and I can name a bunch of other things where they didn't fail.

Jaimeh · October 2023

Shagreth wrote: »

I recall more extreme weather in the past, with lightning that could really catch you off guard, but maybe that was taken out due to the aging playerbase.

I still see heavy lightstorms, with sound effects that can really give you a jump scare, I don't think they were taken out.

Carlos93 · October 2023

Ash rain.

Shagreth · October 2023

Jaimeh wrote: »

Shagreth wrote: »

I recall more extreme weather in the past, with lightning that could really catch you off guard, but maybe that was taken out due to the aging playerbase.

I still see heavy lightstorms, with sound effects that can really give you a jump scare, I don't think they were taken out.

You're right, I just saw one in at my Cyrodilic Jungle House. New zones zones don't seem to have them at all though. They should, buff the rain to make it a real downpour too.

Wolf_Eye · October 2023

As long as the really extreme weather is not commonly seen (which makes sense), I think it would be fine. But I would have to echo other people and say that I would prefer them to work on other things at the moment.

CoronHR · October 2023

i would love for a lot of the weather types suggested here to appear in game

i have a strong feeling though that there will be mobs of people screaming about how they can't see

Grizzbeorn · October 2023

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I like a dense fog. It is the most atmospheric weather type.

Totally off-topic, sorry, but I used to love driving Route 1 along the coast of Maine between Rockland and Lincolnville Beach in the summer mornings. The fog was so thick; definitely had that vibe.
But it was also a bit nerve-wracking, especially in the dark; you could see less than a meter in front of your vehicle, and that road is super-curvy.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · October 2023

I have been begging for a long time now to have the ability to toggle weather and day/night cycles. I absolutely hate logging in to the game and it's night time. If I enter a new zone for the first time and it's night, I'll log off and play something else until the day cycle is back.

@ZOS_Kevin

El_Borracho · October 2023

RDR2 had downright gorgeous weather. Probably the best I have ever seen in a videogame.

It was also one of the more annoying aspects of the game as you could not see anything in thunderstorms, even during the day. While one may argue that it was more realistic, it was also a pain when you unsuspectingly stumbled into a bandit camp or upon a mountain lion that you could not see. Before you could understand what was going on, let alone find a target to attack, you were dead.

While ESO could beef up the light showers, I don't want a white out blizzard, or a haboob, or a hurricane, or anything that is going to effect a player's ability to see or not see adds, cliffs, or farming nodes.

Shagreth · October 2023

El_Borracho wrote: »

RDR2 had downright gorgeous weather. Probably the best I have ever seen in a videogame.

It was also one of the more annoying aspects of the game as you could not see anything in thunderstorms, even during the day. While one may argue that it was more realistic, it was also a pain when you unsuspectingly stumbled into a bandit camp or upon a mountain lion that you could not see. Before you could understand what was going on, let alone find a target to attack, you were dead.

While ESO could beef up the light showers, I don't want a white out blizzard, or a haboob, or a hurricane, or anything that is going to effect a player's ability to see or not see adds, cliffs, or farming nodes.

I explicitly said that there should be an option. That's not a hard thing to do, most mmorpg's have it, for extra performance, visibility etc.

Caligamy_ESO · October 2023

It would be nice if weather wasn't also client side only, always annoyed me when I found out it was stormy on my screen and bright and sunshiny on everyone else around me.

ESO_Nightingale · October 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

Wind! Heavy snow! Sideways rain!

There's a planet out there where it rains glass sideways

Wolf_Eye · October 2023

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

Wind! Heavy snow! Sideways rain!

There's a planet out there where it rains glass sideways

Even better, the planet known as HD 189733b has temps over 2,000 degrees F and winds of over 4,000 mph (hence the "sideways rain").

So it isn't just raining glass sideways, it's raining liquid molten glass sideways!

Shagreth · October 2023

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

It would be nice if weather wasn't also client side only, always annoyed me when I found out it was stormy on my screen and bright and sunshiny on everyone else around me.

It also makes RP quite difficult. Imagine someone mentioning the weather/time and it's just a completely different thing for everyone else lmao @ZOS_GinaBruno that really needs to change. Same goes for songs played with instruments. Please make it the same for everyone around.

FeedbackOnly · October 2023

I support this!

SeaGtGruff · October 2023

Given that weather is handled on the client side, maybe there could be some optional settings that let you adjust how intense we want to let the weather be, what types of weather, etc.? I don't know that I'd like to have really thick fog as in Arena and Daggerfall, but an occasional thunderstorm similar to Oblivion's might be cool.

However, I think some players have complained in the forums about bright, flashy effects due to their photosensitivity, which is why I think it would be good for there to be weather-related settings so we could adjust it on an individual basis.

Shagreth · October 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

However, I think some players have complained in the forums about bright, flashy effects due to their photosensitivity, which is why I think it would be good for there to be weather-related settings so we could adjust it on an individual basis.

Please. There are a million other examples I can mention that are brighter than a lightning strike. If they have such a severe problem then probably gaming isn't for them. I have a relative with actual issues (seizures) and of course he stays away from most games.

Anyway, even if the weather is server side -- there can be an option to increase/decrease its effects. You got it a bit wrong.