I wish, but that's never happening. Any cosmetic or shiny thing is a crown store advertisement basically, that's definitely not going anywhere no matter how bad the performance is. It's a game, sure, but that a secondary thing to the store now.

I'd welcome such an option for two reasons.

(1) When I'm travelling I play on an old laptop that is barely able to handle the game. Its good enough for activities like crafting dailies and doing survey. But in crowded places my FPS sits below 20 and it takes a while until all fluff is loaded. Some characters around me are just black silhouettes for a while. An option to switch the fluff of would likely increase my FPS in such places quite a bit.

(2) I anyway dont care about fashion. I dont care how other players run around in this game. And some custom animations and mounts are annoyingly flashy and intrusive and just feel out of place.

I really do not care about other peoples cosmetics for the most part. I have some “flashy” cosmetics but they match my characters in a lore-friendly way. But I also know people will never stop asking until this is a feature… so…

I would rather have the option to show a simplified rendering than hiding all cosmetics.

Some mounts, for example, look lovely and don't do the flashy effects; so I'd like to see others using them. But when I'm in combat especially I don't want to be blinded or lagged out because of all the skill effects. I'd like a more basic rendering so I can easily see what is happening without the eye strain and flashiness of the current effects.

It would also be nice if we could tone down our own cosmetics and skill effects too. I find those things tiring to watch and just utterly unnecessary. I play another game where cosmetics and combat don't look like a fireworks display and it's genuinely lovely. There is plenty of room for expression and fun, but it doesn't look out of place in the game world. I really wish ESO was more like that, because we really don't need all the bling and flashy effects to enjoy the game IMHO.

I don't think they should add this option, but I would use it if it existed.

Sometimes. On certain characters.

Rather than a single toggle to disable every kind of cosmetic, perhaps there should be individual toggles for types of cosmetics. For instance, a toggle to turn Skill Styles off if you need to know what abilities your opponents are using, or a toggle to turn Personalities off if you don't want to see those. Definitely a toggle for Mementos, and one for Mounts.

Maybe instead of just one single default appearance for Mounts, there can be a small list of randomized default Mounts that are drawn from — also affecting Trample.

I don't think these toggles should be applied to individual characters or users, though — while it would let you further "block" someone who is using Mementos or flashy Mounts at you, it would also mean those assets have to remain loaded if you want to see those cosmetics from anyone else, including yourself. Maybe each individual cosmetic you don't want to see could be put on a blacklist, or you could have a whitelist of approved cosmetics.

The way this setting is described, everyone who already chooses to make their characters unimmersive would look effectively just as unimmersive as they do now.

And the majority of players I see (PC EU) dress their characters much more immersively than the default shiny red rubedite and mix-matched default armor motifs.

People pay good money in this game to present their characters the way they want to, via mounts and various appearances. Good money. I'd prefer my character was not then stripped of all that by a setting.

If I didn't care about anyone else seeing my character in the way I want them to be presented I'd play a single player game instead.

As for performance, I'm playing on a 10 year-old PC. Performance is fine!

Generally, I'd say no.

But I can see them offering some godawful flashy (but popular) thing in the future that will give me a headache, so I think maybe togglable by categories might be the way to go.

Separate toggles for polymorphs, mounts, skins, for example.

There will never be.
Because that would drop the crate sales by a wide margin.
Imagine if other players could opt out of seeing your four-legged-and-armed-with-swords horse? Would you spend 220$ to get it?

I've voted for other, but I lean more into having the option to say no, I don't want to see that because it's distasteful or it causes physical irritation. I say other just to include the reason why it's probably not going to happen, or may require mods/addons, and that's that cosmetics are adverts, their users advertisers. That's not a criticism of them, that's just a statement of fact. The best advertisement for the crown store is not the crown store, it's the people showing off the things they've bought from it.

So by all means, I'd love to see sliders to turn down/off some of the more intrusive effects. If people are more concerned about how others see their purchases and need their choices validating, I'd say that's a problem more with them than it is me.

AzuraFan wrote: »

Being able to show off is part of the appeal of these items for some players. If that was to go away, less would be sold in the crown store. And people who had spent crowns on cosmetics they want to show off would not be happy.

Players that want to show off won't be toggling these effects, so they can show off to each other. Only those of us that don't care about them will be toggling them off.

When I see someone on a bright and loud mount I feel something, but it's not the admiration they are looking for.

In my view ESO suffers from insane cosmetic bloat. All those crazy mounts with their crazy animations are not a good direction to go. The focus should be on the core mechanics of the game. That's what suffering so significantly now days.

AzuraFan wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Players that want to show off won't be toggling these effects, so they can show off to each other. Only those of us that don't care about them will be toggling them off.

The point is to be able to show off to everybody, not just to a subset of the playerbase.

There are things other players do that bother me, but I'm not constantly asking for options to turn stuff off. I'd rather ZOS work on fixing bugs, new content, and QoL updates that will benefit everyone, rather than adding tons of options that cater to every player's whim.

Anyway, because a setting like this would devalue cosmetics for a portion of the playerbase, and the advertising aspect of it, I doubt we'll ever see a setting for this. But I don't always understand ZOS's reasoning for doing something, so I could be wrong.

Why should players that do not admire loud flashy mounts or emotes etc. be forced to see them just to make the players that use them happy? Why should what some want take priority over what others don't want?

The more realistic atmosphere this game once had was one of the biggest draws for me. These things ruin my immersion and make it feel like a cartoon. A toggle for these effects would make the game way more enjoyable for me again.

I honestly do not care what other people are showing off. Frankly, I'm disappointed that people specifically want to show off to everyone else — what do they gain from that? How do they want me to feel about it? Should I be in awe, or compliment them? Do they care or even know that I walk right past them, ignoring them? Nothing of value is gained, as I don't go buy or earn the cosmetics they were using, as I wasn't paying attention to them in the first place.


I respect that each player wants to roleplay a character they crafted for this world. I don't really agree with the idea that toggling cosmetics increases immersion, but it's a popular argument made in favor of this setting.

I also know that some cosmetics are used for harassing others, so — in a multiplayer game — there needs to be a setting to hide those, like the in-game block functionality. I know the argument "it's a multiplayer game, deal with it or go to a singleplayer game" is popular, but I disagree that players shouldn't have tools they can use to deal with harassment without getting moderation involved.


As far as competitive PvP goes, I think it's necessary to have an easily-accessible setting for this to make the gameplay more readable. Being allowed to hide, obscure, and outright mislead others about certain aspects of your character is not healthy for a competitive PvP game. Everyone having access to the setting to simplify details for the sake of fairness would be like allowing everyone to use addons in PvP, which is currently allowed.

Further, the potential performance gain would be akin to intentionally dropping your graphics settings to the lowest values to reduce lag, which is something anyone can do to get a performance boost.


Finally, I do want to say that I myself use cosmetics. I don't do it to mislead others about what my equipment or skills actually are, but rather I use them to look cool; I don't show off to people, but sometimes I get compliments from others and I'll thank them. Sometimes I'll customize my characters to look a certain way, then set up their equipment to match their theme.

I absolutely want more cosmetics added to this game, and I really only see myself hiding other players' cosmetics if they become intrusive or give me a disadvantage. I think everyone should be allowed to control what they see in their game.