Regarding skills/sets, do you prefer Form or Function?

Erickson9610 · July 1

Here's a quick poll asking you whether you prefer your skills and/or item sets to have excellent...

...Form, meaning they fit your character, share the same theme, and look appealing
...Function, meaning they are the most effective to use for your use case

Ideally your skills/sets will have good function and good form. Which one is more important to you?

Frayton · July 1

Form

As a casual, form.

If I was chasing meta, function.

reazea · July 1

Function

Skill styles are a joke and a totally unnecessary addition to the game. In my view they're a complete waste of dev time and I'm insulted that the money I've spent on ESO has gone to such nonsense.

Desiato · July 1

Function

Form is completely irrelevant to me. Even if I wasn't "chasing the meta". I play eso as a game according to the rules.

I guess in some sense form may have some value to me, but only in the sense of exploring gameplay opportunities -- like different play styles.

Sheridan · July 1

Form

Form. For example, I will always use the staff and Magicka simply because I am a sorcerer. Running with two swords or something like that does not fit me. And I am not very fond of subclassing; if I ever take anything "from the side", it would be something from the other "mage" classes only.

Alaztor91 · July 1

Form

There was always some sort of compromise, since Weapon/Guild/World/etc skills didn't always match the particular ''theme'' you wanted for a character.

Nowadays it seems you also have to ditch 2/3 of your Class skills unless you want to underperform. When I selected Necromancer in the character creation it was because I wanted to play a Necromancer, not fire green lasers from a book or spit fire from my mouth.

This game is literally funded by cosmetics; how can ZOS not figure out that if I don't like how my character skills look then there isn't really much reason to play at all.

LunaFlora · July 1

Function

i like form, but i chose function as i don't need all my skills to match the same theme.

MorallyBipolar · July 1

Function

Form over function is a fail every time. EVERY TIME

Major_Toughness · July 1

Function

If aesthetics fit, then cool, otherwise make your outfit fit the skills.

AzuraFan · July 1

Form

Obviously both, like you said. But form over function. By form, I don't mean theme, but what makes sense for a class.

With subclassing, form has gone out the window.

Adaarye · July 1

Function

Function. I do a lot of content solo. In an arena, function def rules.

Erickson9610 · July 1

The poll was updated to include item sets, since that is a significant factor to consider alongside skills. I don't imagine many people will vote differently if item sets are included in the conversation, but if they would, then they can specify with a written response how they feel about the Form vs Function of skills vs of item sets.

I'm also surprised to see such an even split between the poll options for so long. I assumed most of the community here would have voted one way more heavily.

Tandor · July 1

Form

Strictly speaking it's form, but in reality it's often a mixture of both. I don't chase meta so far as function goes, but that doesn't mean I'd totally sacrifice function just to get the right "look" or "feel".

Deimus · July 1

Function

If a skill is bad I'm not using it. I love how Grave Grasp looks especially the Ghostly Embrace morph, but both morphs are bad for PvP so it's never going on my bars same for Mist Form I'll slot it, because I like the look and I always end up swapping it for RaT since it's so much better as a skill.

They've also made "Form" a selling point so eventually all skills should have an aesthetically pleasing look for most players. Just make the skill bar Icon match the style we're using.

JustLovely · July 1

Function

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Form over function is a fail every time. EVERY TIME

Exactly

Freelancer_ESO · July 1

If I'm playing for fun, form over function.

If I'm playing for rewards, function over form.

Hapexamendios · July 1

Function

I play for fun and I prefer function. I'm not really interested in skill styles and I feel that sometimes the form ruins the function. Take the classic examples of templar jabs. The old form felt very smooth to me and functioned well whereas the new form is very wonky and off putting ruining the functionality for me.

Vaqual · July 2

Form

Function is really what I am after, but form is the deal breaker. If something is strong, but I can't reconcile it with my character because it looks silly or otherwise unacceptable, I won't be using it.

The changes in the last few years have really made it easier to build somewhat competitive kits with my self-imposed restrictions.

Zodiarkslayer · July 2

Function

Fashion follows function. Isn't that what they say?

bmnoble · July 2

Form

Both ideally look cool and be useful at the same time.

Doesn't have to be the best in slot but does need to be good enough at what it is trying to do, to justify getting one of the spots on my skill bars for harder content.

Danikat · July 2

Form

I'm a casual player, I don't do vet dungeons or trials and I'm not chasing achievements. As we're repeatedly told on this forum a lot of the game, especially open-world zones, is easy, and IMO that means I don't need top DPS or perfect rotations or whatever, I can play what I enjoy.

So I pick skills and weapons that fit my character, then figure out attributes and item sets which work with them.

Importantly though I want the flexibility to fit my idea of who my characters are, not get locked into someone else's stereotype for each class. For example I know some people see templars as ESO's answer to paladins - the classic knight in shining armour who is a heavy armoured tank or DPS type and always the honourable hero who tells himself everyone else looks up to him. My templar is...not. She's a templar because I wanted her to use what will come to be called destruction and restoration magic and that was the best fit, but the overall playstyle is closer to a sterotypical nightblade - she relies on stealth and daggers alongside magic to get the job done.

I want the flexibility to be able to customise my characters to how I want them to play, not be limited by rigid definitions of the form and function of each class.

GloatingSwine · July 2

Function

Function, except the ones that have floaty balls on like Pearlescent Ward. I hate those with violent passion.

CalamityCat · July 2

Function

Function definitely, but if the form is stupidly flashy and intrusive eg banner then I won't use it. I can't use banner for even one quick dungeon and it's making me feel some motion sickness kinda thing.

Aside from banner I do still hate the arcanist visuals as the same green throughout is horrid. The skill icons really don't "tell" a player what they might do. Where with my warden there are different colours and I can easily see what each icon will do. So that stuff definitely matters, but I do really prefer function in what I choose.

My ideal is always to have at least a setting where we can have skills with minimal animation and flashy details. So I can see what's going on, but it's less of an eye strain if I'm in larger PvP or trial battles. We definitely have a lot of unnecessary flashy stuff in ESO combat, both from monsters and player skills.

Morvan · July 2

I prioritize function but I still choose things over their thematics when I can, so I kinda do both.

ForumBully · July 2

Function

Back in the day there used to be a metric for whether a set was playing for you, or enabling you. Bloodspawn was the bar for a proc set, in that it bolstered your defense and gave you some ultimate which enabled you to be more effective if you used your skills well.
Sets that did damage for you or healed you were the sets generally thought of as the "bad procs" or crutch sets.
Since then the game has strayed very, very far away from the Bloodspawn philosophy of a good proc that enables you to use your skills more effectively and we're buried in sets that play for you

Jaimeh · July 2

Ideally both. On the one hand, a class should have skills that are thematically appropriate and visuals that also fit its theme, but it should also have a skill set that's well-rounded and covers a variety of functions effectively. On the other hand, as a DPS I have to use the skills that are the most effective, since my role is based on damage output, but it does bother me to use skills that don't fit my character's identity at all. Alas, subclassing has made it so.

Blood_again · July 2

Both depending on content.
Form for questing and RP.
Function for PvP and endgame.

mistformsquirrel · July 2

Form

Form every time. My goal is to play a character in a fantasy world. I don't care if a skill does 15% less damage or whatever if it looks good and fits the idea of the character I have in my head, I'm happy.

There is a single exception to that and that is if a skill feels fundamentally useless; and I don't mean "there's better options" I mean "there is no circumstance in which having this on my bar would be worth it, even if it looks cool, because it's so far behind everything else that literally an empty slot is probably doing as much good."

The main skill that is the target of that ire for me is the Storm Calling skill Mage's Fury - it requires the enemy to have such an unbelievably low level of health already that there's just zero reason to ever use it. Maybe it's better on hard targets where 20% HP lasts longer?

But in regular casual overland play it's just... casting it takes longer than any benefit you get from it.

And I hate that because I *adore* how it looks. It reminds me of the Thane from Dark Age of Camelot; and it'd be a great option for my druid to have a Call Lightning spell. But it's that bad - bad enough that looking cool cannot cover for it.

That said there's a lot more skills that I dislike the look of but are functionally strong (ie: most of the Aedric Spear line... love the idea of a spear weapon, the animations themselves are cool... but 'I have a lighstaber spear that comes out of nowhere when I use skills but otherwise I'm wielding something else' bugs the crap out of me. Also not really a fan of the floating blades skill for dual blades, which feels like a complete WTF to me. (If it were in another tree, like some sort of metal-manipulation magic? Okay sure. But why is it in Dual Blades? Name one rogue in the history of fantasy who's casually summoned a sphere of blades around themselves because "I have two swords so I can do that"??)

YMMV of course. It's not wrong to prioritize one or the other, and ideally both would be catered to evenly.

mistformsquirrel · July 2

Form

I want to add something to the above that I didn't mention but feel is important:

Having skills match theme for me does not necessarily mean they all have to come from the same class or be the same color mind - my druid has Ardent Flame, Animal Companions and Stormcalling skills and they all feel cohesive. Because I've created a package where that set of abilities feels cohesive.

YMMV again of course, but I just felt it was important to say that "Just because all my skills aren't the same color doesn't mean that I don't feel like I have a solid theme" - I came up with the theme then picked powers based on that theme, rather than picked powers for their well... power, and tried to come up with an explanation after the fact.

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Regarding skills/sets, do you prefer Form or Function?

Regarding skills/sets, do you prefer Form or Function? 66 votes