The artwork... problem? (new weapon skill lines)

UNSeki · February 2024

In an somewhat recent interview with Creative Director Rich Lambert, this ancient request was briefly addressed. As you can see, one of the most obvious and important issues with adding a new weapon skill line, supposedly, is the colossal amount of artwork that this would require.

https://wccftech.com/elder-scrolls-online-shadow-over-morrowind-qa-creative-director-talks-necrom-chapter-community-requests/

Of course, the statement is correct in context. But there is something unaddressed here.

For most people, we ask for new weapons not necessarily because we want new in-game models, but because we want variety, novelty and more identity added to combat. That being said, there are definitely ways to work around this issue while still achieving our goal.

The gap: in ESO, it’s possible to wield a single weapon in one hand and nothing on the other one. It’s also possible to wield nothing on both hands. This, however, has no impact on how you play, and it’s only a cripple for the player.

We can fill this gap.

Throwable daggers and axes, wielded on one hand only, could conserve existent artwork, while adding a new skill line cleverly. Art-wise, this would only require new animations for the skills and new VFX (a given).
A grimoire/scroll could be either 2-handed or 1-handed. A book/scroll logically wouldn’t use the same materials as other weapons, so we could even get a new crafting station. It could actually reuse existent artwork in the game as well.
Spell on your hands, skyrim-style. Or runes in the air too. No need for any new weapons, though it would require new animations, obviously, and a new spell system in order to equip them.
Martial arts. Again, no new weapons required, other than maybe simplified and standardized knuckles for some flavour. Of course, the animations could be more demanding, but not necessarily. If we drew from the air bender archetype (wind magic does exist in the TES universe), this could even end up similar to how Overcharge (the sorcerer ultimate) already works in game.
Finally, restoration staff models can be reused for a new type of staff (alteration, illusion, mysticism?) and make a Protection skill line, same as Destruction staves which share a same asset for different types of effects. Alternatively, we could even split all these staves into separate skill lines, as many have suggested before in order to balance frost staves better.

Respectfully, I think that it's clear this is not the main challenge to adding new weapons. The community has been long asking for new skill lines, yet the main problem mentioned by the developers does not really seem to be a true barrier. Thus, I ask for more transparency, as it feels that there's an actual design decision behind the lack of new skill lines which is not being talked about.

Kite42 · February 2024

I'd love to have a spellsword option: 1H weapon and magic in the off hand - that, to me, is elder scrolls. Could have throwable molotov potions too.

I would not like to balance it, however

merpins · February 2024

1. one-handed weapons is a possibility, but they'd need to be really overtuned to work. Why? Because weapons are balanced around dual wielding or two-handed. A single handed weapon skill line, like dagger, would need to be twice as strong mechanically to make up for the downsides of only wielding one weapon. Thus, damage over time effects wouldn't be a thing in these new skill lines, since you could just swap to your backbar and get double the effectiveness. There are workarounds, sure, like making it so wielding one weapon will increase that weapon's damage proportionately, similar to a 2-handed weapon. But that's pretty convoluted, imo. As the guy above said, one handed and spell is possible, but I'd say unlikely.
2. Another magic weapon skill line would be neat. I'd propose just use staves, and add a generic magic skill line. Destruction is taken by the initial skill line, so making this work in universe logically might be challenging for the devs, but it could work. Maybe.
3. That's just how class skills kinda work, and like 1, it would run into problems. Not gonna happen in ESO most likely, though it might appear in the new spellcrafting-like system they're releasing, or as a guild skill line.
4. Probably gonna be a class, if anything, at some point. Maybe a guild skill line, though if it was a guild skill line, I would have expected it with Elsweyr, since that's where the majority of martial arts is practiced in Tamriel. Unlikely to happen due to the nature of the game's release and lore, but again, possible as a class or guild skill line.
5. See 2.

Thormar · February 2024

UNSeki wrote: »

Thus, I ask for more transparency, as it feels that there's an actual design decision behind the lack of new skill lines which is not being talked about.

Prior to this year's reveal, the prevailing opinion among some of us was that there were likely "actual design decisions" preventing ZOS from introducing Spellcrafting/Scribing, and that "more transparency" would have been appreciated, but here we are.

Moving on.
As I see it, keeping the main feature of a Chapter under wraps is important to ZOS, likely for many reasons, but marketing may be at the top.

Additionally, I am speculating here, I suspect that given all the related work that goes into working in a new feature, especially on a game this far down the road, they are probably committed to a Chapter's main feature at least 3/4 years ahead of time. Might seem like a long time, but it is maybe just enough to let them handle the design and integration of the feature with preexisting systems, as well as deciding on the revenue model around the feature. It's likely they also have to consider how its systems hinder/facilitate those of the feature for the year after, etc. Again, I am just speculating.

All of which is to say if the lead time on a Chapter's main feature is at least 3 years, it could very well be that work is already underway on any one of the skill lines mentioned in the OP, with a potential release on the cards anywhere between 2026 and 2028.
Or... maybe it really is as RL says, and we won’t get anything anytime soon.

Personally, my take here is the too many motifs (“hundred different motifs in the game”) statement is likely misdirection so they can keep it all under wraps to enhance the surprise when it’s all finally revealed. As mention above, very few of us believed Spellcrafting/Scribing was on the cards, but it is finally here.

So who knows, work on a Weapon skill line may already be pretty far along...
It's likely too that they maybe aim to bring into the game more than one weapon skill line, with each introduced in a relevant Chapter.

BenTSG · February 2024

Well even if it *is* the truth, there's nothing saying they have to make a new weapon have every motif anyways. They could very well make a new weapon in a handful of new motifs, and then either start adding the older motifs to the new weapon, or simply keep with making new motifs include the weapon or have it limited to a few styles. Especially now, they can even play the angle that since said weapon is new to the world, it's why it doesn't have every style. For example, if we ever got crossbows from a big dwavern thing that was just discovered, it wouldn't make sense for every race, alliance and order style to suddenly have a design for this new weapon that has just been discovered and isn't quite in the world yet, right? So it'd be limited to one, if not a handful at most, styles to begin with, then go from there over time. So I don't understand why ZoS is so adement on using this excuse as their reasoning if they are actually using it as their reason, and not to mask their plans.

UNSeki · February 2024

Thormar wrote: »

UNSeki wrote: »

Thus, I ask for more transparency, as it feels that there's an actual design decision behind the lack of new skill lines which is not being talked about.

Prior to this year's reveal, the prevailing opinion among some of us was that there were likely "actual design decisions" preventing ZOS from introducing Spellcrafting/Scribing, and that "more transparency" would have been appreciated, but here we are.

Moving on.
As I see it, keeping the main feature of a Chapter under wraps is important to ZOS, likely for many reasons, but marketing may be at the top.

Additionally, I am speculating here, I suspect that given all the related work that goes into working in a new feature, especially on a game this far down the road, they are probably committed to a Chapter's main feature at least 3/4 years ahead of time. Might seem like a long time, but it is maybe just enough to let them handle the design and integration of the feature with preexisting systems, as well as deciding on the revenue model around the feature. It's likely they also have to consider how its systems hinder/facilitate those of the feature for the year after, etc. Again, I am just speculating.

All of which is to say if the lead time on a Chapter's main feature is at least 3 years, it could very well be that work is already underway on any one of the skill lines mentioned in the OP, with a potential release on the cards anywhere between 2026 and 2028.
Or... maybe it really is as RL says, and we won’t get anything anytime soon.

Personally, my take here is the too many motifs (“hundred different motifs in the game”) statement is likely misdirection so they can keep it all under wraps to enhance the surprise when it’s all finally revealed. As mention above, very few of us believed Spellcrafting/Scribing was on the cards, but it is finally here.

So who knows, work on a Weapon skill line may already be pretty far along...
It's likely too that they maybe aim to bring into the game more than one weapon skill line, with each introduced in a relevant Chapter.

That's a good point. To be clear, the aim of this thread is not to bash the devs or be hostile.
In fact, I had written a draft for this thread before the release of the latest chapter, so I realize some of the points might not be as strong now with the addition of Scribing — and yes, I do appreciate this new addition to the game.

Mostly, I'm just concerned with the generally dismissive attitude we seem to have gotten towards this topic while not addressing the crux of the issue in a clear manner. Artwork shouldn't be what hinders the possibility of a new weapon skill line to be added to the game; I wanted to show that players would not mind this issue as it can be solved in a myriad of ways.

Sure, keeping players in the dark is one thing, but the current position from ZOS seems less like that and more like an indirect but certain rejection. Yet, the explanation for such rejection doesn't seem much satisfying from a player's perspective. I wish we could move from this situation, because it could cause apathy or even animosity for some players, especially those long time veterans who have been craving for something refreshing of this sort.

Caligamy_ESO · February 2024

FFXIV had this same issue and to address it they just made newly introduced weapons limited in style appearances and consisted of weapon models from new content (the ESO equivalent would mean new weapons would be available in newly introduced motif styles.) They did however go back and very slowly start adding in styles obtained from older content and trials though.

I see no reason why its not a feasible option in ESO, I just suspect more they don't wanna do it as a whole. We already know balancing is not exactly ZOS' forte because even after 10 years we're still constantly being yoyod back and forth on base game skill changes and overhauls.