Dragonknight and weapon visual rework

Wup_sa · January 7

After watching the livestream and seeing few of the new animations for dk and 2-handed I must say, that they just look absolutely horrible, like animations from Temu.

I hope we get to keep the old animations as options and have the new ones as just skill styles, or the other way around.
Please just don't do another u35 with the templar animations and let feedback fall to deaf ears.

Lord_Hev · January 7

This is precisely why I am so vehemently against it, to the point I type in BOOMER CAPS. There is zero trust to be had. Look at what happened with the templar jabs animation change. And all that controversy and there has yet to be an inclusion of an OPTIONAL original jabs animation.

I have OCD memorized EVERY SINGLE SEVEN CLASSES AND THEIR ANIMATIONS. And now each and every one of them are going to get butchered when I have grown attached to each animation and how they look on all of my characters!

React · January 7

I thought a couple of them looked okay, but I also do not have confidence in their ability to do a wide variety of skills well after the recent "animation memory reduction" and the older jabs animation change.

It will be very telling when they introduce these animations for testing. If theyre received with overwhelming negativity and the studio forces them live regardless, I think itll be a pretty strong indicator that nothing has changed behind the scenes.

JeroenB · January 7

My concerns come from a slightly different perspective: I strongly dislike the flashy, glowy aesthetic that the developers seem to like now. Mounts, recall animations, costumes -- so often they are an assault on the eyes now, and they're going to do the same for combat skills? At least with the cosmetics it's only other players who use them, they are not forced on my characters.

ceruulean · January 7

Well the animations are still works-in-progress, so they're not gonna look great until release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l5wkml7RFY

Lord_Hev · January 7

JeroenB wrote: »

My concerns come from a slightly different perspective: I strongly dislike the flashy, glowy aesthetic that the developers seem to like now. Mounts, recall animations, costumes -- so often they are an assault on the eyes now, and they're going to do the same for combat skills? At least with the cosmetics it's only other players who use them, they are not forced on my characters.

Very much yes. All the stuff shown on the stream are so obnoxiously extravagant, flashy, and bloated. Literal visual nausea.

Lord_Hev · January 7

ceruulean wrote: »

Well the animations are still works-in-progress, so they're not gonna look great until release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l5wkml7RFY

Holy nostalgia. Footage so ancient it has racial ultimates! Imagine having access to that? Instead, we get "subclassing" and scribing... ridiculous. Thank you for the trip down memory lane, I'll go back to being depressed over current eso and its visual bloaty mess.

Wup_sa · January 7

React wrote: »

I thought a couple of them looked okay, but I also do not have confidence in their ability to do a wide variety of skills well after the recent "animation memory reduction" and the older jabs animation change.

It will be very telling when they introduce these animations for testing. If theyre received with overwhelming negativity and the studio forces them live regardless, I think itll be a pretty strong indicator that nothing has changed behind the scenes.

The fiery breath imo was the only "decent" one. The armor buff and searing strike on the other hand made my eyes bleed.

We can only hope, that theres much negativity towards the animations during pts, so we have a chance for this not to go live.

Lord_Hev · January 7

Wup_sa wrote: »

React wrote: »

I thought a couple of them looked okay, but I also do not have confidence in their ability to do a wide variety of skills well after the recent "animation memory reduction" and the older jabs animation change.

It will be very telling when they introduce these animations for testing. If theyre received with overwhelming negativity and the studio forces them live regardless, I think itll be a pretty strong indicator that nothing has changed behind the scenes.

The fiery breath imo was the only "decent" one. The armor buff and searing strike on the other hand made my eyes bleed.

We can only hope, that theres much negativity towards the animations during pts, so we have a chance for this not to go live.

No trust. It may be presumptuous and overtly pessismistc of me, but I fully expect all of the "newer" players or players that hardly play dragon knight are going to "love" all the flashy animations because it looks so EPIC and new. Big wow.

metheglyn · January 7

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

React wrote: »

I thought a couple of them looked okay, but I also do not have confidence in their ability to do a wide variety of skills well after the recent "animation memory reduction" and the older jabs animation change.

It will be very telling when they introduce these animations for testing. If theyre received with overwhelming negativity and the studio forces them live regardless, I think itll be a pretty strong indicator that nothing has changed behind the scenes.

The fiery breath imo was the only "decent" one. The armor buff and searing strike on the other hand made my eyes bleed.

We can only hope, that theres much negativity towards the animations during pts, so we have a chance for this not to go live.

No trust. It may be presumptuous and overtly pessismistc of me, but I fully expect all of the "newer" players or players that hardly play dragon knight are going to "love" all the flashy animations because it looks so EPIC and new. Big wow.

I'm not a new player and Dragonknight is my most played class (I have three of them, I enjoy the class so much) and I liked the new animations. However, if the majority truly dislike them and ZOS reverts the changes, that'll be fine, too.

tomofhyrule · January 7

I'll wait to see them before I judge.

The thing with the basegame animations is that they are shared between a lot of different things, so really the only "DK specific" animation we have right now is the lava whip. Meanwhile, all of the DLC Classes get unique animations for every thing.

I also would love if the tooltips get some love as well. The Arcanist ones are written with lore in mind, and then every other class is just "get more max health lol."

I'm just hoping that this leads to more balance so I can bring my pure DK to things and not have to hear "but you have to Subclass because you need to provide X, Y, Z buffs." Trials post-Subclassing have been so unfun.

Soarora · January 7

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'll wait to see them before I judge.

The thing with the basegame animations is that they are shared between a lot of different things, so really the only "DK specific" animation we have right now is the lava whip. Meanwhile, all of the DLC Classes get unique animations for every thing.

I also would love if the tooltips get some love as well. The Arcanist ones are written with lore in mind, and then every other class is just "get more max health lol."

I'm just hoping that this leads to more balance so I can bring my pure DK to things and not have to hear "but you have to Subclass because you need to provide X, Y, Z buffs." Trials post-Subclassing have been so unfun.

The tooltips are getting the flavortext from what I’ve seen!

metheglyn · January 7

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'll wait to see them before I judge.

The thing with the basegame animations is that they are shared between a lot of different things, so really the only "DK specific" animation we have right now is the lava whip. Meanwhile, all of the DLC Classes get unique animations for every thing.

I also would love if the tooltips get some love as well. The Arcanist ones are written with lore in mind, and then every other class is just "get more max health lol."

I'm just hoping that this leads to more balance so I can bring my pure DK to things and not have to hear "but you have to Subclass because you need to provide X, Y, Z buffs." Trials post-Subclassing have been so unfun.

I do think the ultimate goal of the class refresh is to make pure classes competitive with subclassing. I hope they accomplish that. I don't do much group content, and certainly no trials, so I haven't felt pushed to subclass. I certainly wouldn't want to wreck my DK fantasy by adding in skills from another class.

CaptainVenom · January 7

Lord_Hev wrote: »

No trust. It may be presumptuous and overtly pessismistc of me, but I fully expect all of the "newer" players or players that hardly play dragon knight are going to "love" all the flashy animations because it looks so EPIC and new. Big wow.

*sigh* almost every single post I see about visual reworks are less about "It's bad" and more about "I don't like it".

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I'll wait to see them before I judge.

This is the most logical decision everyone should be making, or, at least, it's the you and I are making.

Lord_Hev · January 7

metheglyn wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

React wrote: »

I thought a couple of them looked okay, but I also do not have confidence in their ability to do a wide variety of skills well after the recent "animation memory reduction" and the older jabs animation change.

It will be very telling when they introduce these animations for testing. If theyre received with overwhelming negativity and the studio forces them live regardless, I think itll be a pretty strong indicator that nothing has changed behind the scenes.

The fiery breath imo was the only "decent" one. The armor buff and searing strike on the other hand made my eyes bleed.

We can only hope, that theres much negativity towards the animations during pts, so we have a chance for this not to go live.

No trust. It may be presumptuous and overtly pessismistc of me, but I fully expect all of the "newer" players or players that hardly play dragon knight are going to "love" all the flashy animations because it looks so EPIC and new. Big wow.

I'm not a new player and Dragonknight is my most played class (I have three of them, I enjoy the class so much) and I liked the new animations. However, if the majority truly dislike them and ZOS reverts the changes, that'll be fine, too.

If these are completely optional that you can equip like skill styles. I would be perfectly fine with that. It's the force change/replacer that irritates and fills me with dread. Seeing as how they couldn't accomplish such a simple request with templar jabs that has been spoken HEAPS here on the forums for years now... and this is why I believe these changes to be a serious issue.

JeroenB · January 7

CaptainVenom wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

No trust. It may be presumptuous and overtly pessismistc of me, but I fully expect all of the "newer" players or players that hardly play dragon knight are going to "love" all the flashy animations because it looks so EPIC and new. Big wow.

*sigh* almost every single post I see about visual reworks are less about "It's bad" and more about "I don't like it".

I don't quite understand your point here -- these are purely aesthetic changes, so entirely subjective. If someone doesn't like them, they are "bad" -- for that person.

I hate the modern sparklefart mounts. Apparently a lot of other players like them, to the extent that they spend crowns on them. That's great for those players' in-game experience, and bad for my in-game experience. Both can be true at the same time.

Estin · January 7

Some of the visuals looked cool, some looked too flashy. I do like how searing strike has its own animation now instead of just being the same as vampire slap. Looks like it's following necro's way of doing skulls too by having a different animation play each time. It had a down swipe and an upper cut. I will be fine with the animations as long as they don't end up being like the flurry/jabs rework, and if they weave well. If they still weave smoothly, I really got no problem with them. If all that has changed is animation and the timings are the same unlike what supposedly needed to be done with jabs and flurry, then I wonder if they can (or will) release skill styles with old animations. My only complaint is that fiery breath and whip looked a bit too messy compared to what we currently have, but I will have to see for sure once it hits PTS and zoom out the camera instead of having it so close.

Seraphayel · January 8

I think they look great and I’m happy they’re doing this.

Pepegrillos · January 8

I think they are trying to address one of the biggest complaints people have about ESO, which is that the combat is extremely floaty. A lot of that has to do with animations and how skills feel when you use them. I guess we'll have to wait and see how they feel when pressed.

Vaqual · January 8

If Searing Strike really hides the Weapons during the animation now this will be a huge loss. Any animation that gets downgraded that way won't find its way onto my bar anymore.

Soarora · January 8

Now, I don’t DK, so I don’t have a strong connection to how the skills currently look. But I compared the current versions of whip and the version shown in the videos and the new whip looks blatantly better. Current whip looks so pitiful I laughed. It doesn’t even hit the target unless you’re right next to it… and DK already had a bigger melee range before melee range was increased so that’s not an excuse (and whips are mid-ranged weapons). One morph is hardly even visible. It does not feel like slinging a lava whip like the new animation seems to.

BardokRedSnow · January 8

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

MincMincMinc · January 8

Lord_Hev wrote: »

JeroenB wrote: »

My concerns come from a slightly different perspective: I strongly dislike the flashy, glowy aesthetic that the developers seem to like now. Mounts, recall animations, costumes -- so often they are an assault on the eyes now, and they're going to do the same for combat skills? At least with the cosmetics it's only other players who use them, they are not forced on my characters.

Very much yes. All the stuff shown on the stream are so obnoxiously extravagant, flashy, and bloated. Literal visual nausea.

You just described every proc set animation for the past 9 years.

Imagine designing a game where spammables had simple animations and only game changing skills like ults or CC have fancy easy to see animations.

Any reason valkyn skoria has meteor animation? One is a 2-3k damage proc set, the other is a death sentence for your group. We could quite literally make valkyn invisible and nobody would notice or care. If anything the caster for noob lore rp reasons could be the only person to see it.

Compare the dlc class animations vs the original animations. Oldschool highlighted important skills so we could actually see what is happening in combat. Surprise attack as a spammable has a subtle animation......abyssal impact giant tentacle spam is such a bloated animation that masks actual important things happening in combat.

We wonder why people have issues seeing charm's subtle blue circle......meanwhile half the skills in the game do giant colored circles overlapping with giant tentacles and lazer beams.

Radiate77 · January 8

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

For real man, all of the new animations look incredible. So much better than what we have, and sure they are flashy but have we been living under a rock?… the entire game is filled with bright animations, and the better a skill is conveyed, the easier it is to tell what exactly is going on.

Wup_sa · January 9

Radiate77 wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

For real man, all of the new animations look incredible. So much better than what we have, and sure they are flashy but have we been living under a rock?… the entire game is filled with bright animations, and the better a skill is conveyed, the easier it is to tell what exactly is going on.

And there's a large amount of us that hate the flashy moves. They mostly look too edgy, poorly done, etc and imo only ultimates should look flashy, not regular skills.

Not to mention these skills are something we have gotten used to and being the reason some play certain classes, which is why the original skills need to remain and have the new ones as skill styles for those who enjoy them.

LukosCreyden · January 9

They still haven't fixed the character's grip woth two-handed weapons (the handle clips straight through your fingers) so I do not hold much hope for the animation updates.

Radiate77 · January 9

Wup_sa wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

For real man, all of the new animations look incredible. So much better than what we have, and sure they are flashy but have we been living under a rock?… the entire game is filled with bright animations, and the better a skill is conveyed, the easier it is to tell what exactly is going on.

And there's a large amount of us that hate the flashy moves. They mostly look too edgy, poorly done, etc and imo only ultimates should look flashy, not regular skills.

Not to mention these skills are something we have gotten used to and being the reason some play certain classes, which is why the original skills need to remain and have the new ones as skill styles for those who enjoy them.

I’m not a fan of flashy either, because as soon as your game becomes a light show, everything else looks bad by comparison.

Unfortunately, people were not vocal enough when it truly started to become a problem, hence the Arcanist, so it’s gotten to the point where we now need these animation changes to make the skills look good by comparison.

You’re also talking to someone who has been playing Dragonknight for over a decade. I still remember playing my MagDK before they buffed it for Homestead, getting clowned on for playing the worst class in the game, where the Maelstrom leaderboards were all filled with StamDKs and not a single one was Mag. If I can get past my nostalgia to call an improvement when I see one, I’m sure anyone can.

That said, before Subclassing, you had everyone running around with Spiked Armor, Flames of Oblivion, Coag, and Seething Fury stacks… you couldn’t see anything on your character.

It was to the point where why even bother customizing your armor?

Wup_sa · January 9

Radiate77 wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

For real man, all of the new animations look incredible. So much better than what we have, and sure they are flashy but have we been living under a rock?… the entire game is filled with bright animations, and the better a skill is conveyed, the easier it is to tell what exactly is going on.

And there's a large amount of us that hate the flashy moves. They mostly look too edgy, poorly done, etc and imo only ultimates should look flashy, not regular skills.

Not to mention these skills are something we have gotten used to and being the reason some play certain classes, which is why the original skills need to remain and have the new ones as skill styles for those who enjoy them.

I’m not a fan of flashy either, because as soon as your game becomes a light show, everything else looks bad by comparison.

Unfortunately, people were not vocal enough when it truly started to become a problem, hence the Arcanist, so it’s gotten to the point where we now need these animation changes to make the skills look good by comparison.

You’re also talking to someone who has been playing Dragonknight for over a decade. I still remember playing my MagDK before they buffed it for Homestead, getting clowned on for playing the worst class in the game, where the Maelstrom leaderboards were all filled with StamDKs and not a single one was Mag. If I can get past my nostalgia to call an improvement when I see one, I’m sure anyone can.

That said, before Subclassing, you had everyone running around with Spiked Armor, Flames of Oblivion, Coag, and Seething Fury stacks… you couldn’t see anything on your character.

It was to the point where why even bother customizing your armor?

I'm on the same boat. Been playing DK for around 6k hours now.

To me the current skills look just as they should. They are what I've gotten used to and grown to love and some of the new visuals just don't look nearly as detailed as the current visuals.

Searing strike for example (new one hides your weapon and the claws no longer have the burning outline), lava whip is in the same cathegory as it's no longer a whip, instead you just spew fire out of your hand with a downward slash. The magma armor might be the worst one out of those since the visual is a huge explosion and all you get is a tiny stone plate on your body (current one incases you in stone). The 2-handed animations also don't look right, they look forced and janky, especially berserker strike.

And to me at least changing drastically some visuals will make the character just unfun to play as (templar after u35), for example if DKs armor buff no longer has spikes and follows similar trend to magma armor, it would hurt the characters visual for me very badly, that I mostlikely would no longer play the class, at least not like I've used to.

SkaiFaith · January 9

Honestly, very much liked the new skills they shown. They got me pumped for Warden coming next!

Before seeing them I was afraid, but now I am glad and confident

Lord_Hev · January 9

I do not care to argue subjective. It does not matter if they "look better". Some of us have grown attached to animations to classes we have played for 12 years. It is completely unnerving to have a skill I have used for such a drastically long time suddenly change its animation without my wanting of it. There is no reason not to have options, since now clearly, they have the architecture to implement this(skill styles and more case-in-point that newest merciless resolve one that changes the animation -entirely- to a throwing ball animation)

Seeing as how STILL they have yet to address templar jabs all this time with any communication, and now that we have skill styles, they still have not made any inclination at adding old jabs as a skill style. I am strongly against these new animations because they are all forced.

BardokRedSnow · January 9

Radiate77 wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Tough crowd lol, as a DK main I am excited, I thought it looked great. I also love the switch to red and blue flames instead of the ugly green poison/toxins.

It looks way better than what we have now.

For real man, all of the new animations look incredible. So much better than what we have, and sure they are flashy but have we been living under a rock?… the entire game is filled with bright animations, and the better a skill is conveyed, the easier it is to tell what exactly is going on.

Plus, having day one animations that look like it came out of original DOOM makes me feel like a bum lmao, if the game's gonna be flashy as you said I wanna be flashy also.

Idk maybe they could have an option to switch between old and new but eh I believe most fans, especially new ones, will much rather have the new flashy updated animations.

People are just afraid of change, but me I've been begging for this since new classes were introduced.