For the love of the divines. Please revert or change molten weapons.

YandereGirlfriend · March 9

Arcanasx wrote: »

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that an ability visual effect that completely replaces your weapon model, with something entirely different, wouldn't be well received.

You'd need a sample size larger than a forum thread to make that determination.

Varana · March 9

This should be reverted or changed as soon as possible.

As the OP said, some people use their weapon style to see which bar they're on.

Most people choose weapons styles deliberately.
Overriding that, with a potential 100% uptime, is a no-go.
If this persists, we can also just rework old styles and stuff, because forcibly changing appearance is apparently a thing now.

@ZOS_Erin @ZOS_Kevin

laniakea_0 · March 9

I don't mind visual effects that go beyond the texture change this ability granted before but I do not want it to obstruct the base model of my weapons. Molten Weapons is one of those abilities where players aim for 100% up-time during combat. as a result, that's way too much time where we don't get to see the base weapon model. you really should reserve these kind of model changes for abilities with a far lower visual up-time, such as Ultimate Abilities!

Aside from this, here's my suggestion for what might be a good looking effect for molten weapons:
The blade should be orange to white hot. fire should surge through/along it when you first activate it. afterwards perhaps there could be some smaller flames, heat distortion effects in the surrounding air and viscous liquid dripping effects coming from the blade, although it shouldn't look like your blade is actually losing material. something like bubbles or deformations moving outward along the blade could be an interesting texture animation for this. another thing that might work here is an additional visual effect when hitting targets with LAs and HAs.

Jestir · March 10

I like the new animation but hate it replacing our weapon styles

randconfig · March 10

randconfig wrote: »

I like the animation and the visual, I just wish the weapon style wasn't completely replaced/that you could see your actual staff look underneath the visual effects

Just to clarify, it doesn't mean the entire visual effect has to be fully transparent either. You can cover parts or even most of the staff style with a molten rock style, but the main part of the staff, the tip, should still have some or all of the tip of whatever equipped staff style visible.

I love the frenzy-flame looking glow effects at the tip though, so for sure keep that. We can always customize that glow using skill styles later down the road, just like with nightblade's red glow.

Blend visual effects, don't let one completely mask the other. That's the approach I think should be taken for all visual effects/cosmetics to give the most customization and options to the players.

That said, if it isn't changed, I'll survive. The thing that really gets to me is the small radius of the super-heated ward, it pains me to see my big dude's feet/legs clipping through it instead of being fully within the ward's visual effect... I beg you ZOS to fix this T_T

Vaqual · March 10

Can't be bothered to read all, but I am (also) voting for a style to suspend the weapon override and keep the actually equipped look.

Alaztor91 · March 10

Guess that ZOS learned nothing from the whole Grim Focus perma-glow issue from a while back(or even old Bound Armor lol). Sure, old Molten Weapons wasn't really the most subtle effect, but it didn't completely replace your weapon with another one, even something like Tome-Bearer's Inspiration doesn't go that far and it was probably the worst offender.

Isn't cosmetics(and subs, I guess) now the sole revenue generator with the upcoming Battle Passes? Why would you design skills that invalidate the stuff you are trying to sell? I mean, we already know that some weapon styles are locked behind the premium tier so designing skills that override the appearance of worn weapons/armor seems like a bad idea if you ask me.

Cosmo_Nova · March 10

Don't get me wrong, the weapon styles look cool as hell and whoever modeled them did a good job. But just because something looks cool doesn't mean it's a good fit for my character. My DK is Akaviri-themed and losing the flaming katanas I used to have is a bit of a disappointment.

Honestly I wonder if these would be better repurposed as an arms pack.

Jestir · March 10

They could definitely package those as an arms pack instead 😉

BardokRedSnow · March 10

All I heard in cyrodiil from people was how sick the igneous weapons were, which they are, though I understand the complaint of it replacing the weapon entirely. I guess for that specific skill there could be an option to show or hide weapons, like with the blue azura flames changes.

I have no use for it on a two hander build and rally's animation honestly is cooler to me and more tame. But sometimes I do envy others using it lol, it is impressive looking.

Number_51 · March 10

Welcome to Grim Focus Permaglow part II. See you in a couple years.

Personofsecrets · March 10

And it shouldn't make an off putting whip noise too. How did that idea pass through design? How could a designer say "yea, it should have a whip sound?"

alternatelder · March 10

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Can you guys give me the tools and I will create a free/unlocked skill style as the overlay we have here so that we have an option to not mute our own selected motif style and can actually use this skill. I will do it for 100% free. I will even put in the extra work to add in a bonus weapon skin for each weapon type.

Thoriorz · March 11

I play HA build, no "op" damage, but I just like that style, etc., etc.
Now I've implemented this Molten Weapons skill and I'm completely disgusted. I have my character's "look" just how I imagine my character, I have Shade Polymorph, I have a weapon style (I don't know the exact name, but it has a dark purple glow), the whole color is Void Pitch dye on weapon, just a dark/void style, and now? That stupid glowing effect from Molten Weapons... I mean, sorry, but why isn't it just a subtle glow on the weapon or something like that, why is it a completely redesigned look for the weapon? Or some option to set whether I want to redesign the look or not! I understand that people who don't care about their look or don't have any special weapon looks might welcome this and like it, but people like me are just disgusted! I currently have two options: either destroy the look I like and use the skill, or just leave my weapon as it is and not use the skill (which I also don't want to do).

Given your ideas about transparency and better communication, @ZOS_Kevin, can you pass to devs this feedback and ideally do something about it? I hope that the whole "better communication" thing doesn't just apply to things that interest you, but also to things that interest/concern the players...

ADarklore · March 11

I agree that it should not completely re-skin your weapon style, could be just a 'heated' glow over top of our existing weapon style. This is really apparently when you bar-swap and both staves look exactly the same now, so you cannot tell anymore by your weapon style whether or not the bar-swap actually worked.

I think they definitely need to reconsider this, and just add a glow and not a complete weapon replacement.

preamp · March 11

I also don't want the look of my weapons completely changed. I agree that the visual effect should not change the original weapon.

twisttop138 · March 11

Soarora wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

i like the new Molten Weapons, but i understand why others do not.

Exactly same camp as me. I think they look very cool and I’m glad that it only affects the caster now. But I understand the double staff “I don’t know what bar I’m on” situation and wanting to see your motif of choice (especially with there being SO MANY crown store lava themed weapon packs).

Same. Monday we did an all pure class DK trial and as someone who's never played dk dps outside of subclassing ardent on my arc, I was blown away. The animations are amazing and the class is crazy fun to play. I'm leaving my DK as a tank but gonna level up a new one for dps. I do however understand that people may not like it and I'm bummed for them.

Xarrant · March 11

I came here to say the same thing. Very difficult to know what bar I'm on unless I set the skill trays to always on and then you're forcing me to continually confirm what bar I'm using. Please revert of give us the option for shutting it off.

ZOS_Erin · March 11

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

alternatelder · March 11

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

This is discussed on Reddit as well, and an idea that might work is the same lighting overlay effect that Arcanist has would be a good alternative. At least with that effect you can still see your staff and able to determine which bar.

Thank you for this reply, it is appreciated, however, we went through this same thing with NB grim focus glow. I hope now you can reconsider any updates to other classes that may have the same effect that players might not like, optional effects are something you need to work on, though I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the tech capabilities you have.

FieryPhoenix · March 11

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

@ZOS_Erin Could you please pass along that we’d like the old skill animations to be given back to us as skill styles? That way people who like the new animations for dragon knight (also Templar jabs) can keep them, and those that don’t at least have an option here?
Not all of us wanted new animations.

Personofsecrets · March 13

@ZOS_Erin

Pleade pardon my piling on here, but can can molten weapons PLEASE not making a whipping sound? The previous sound was perfect. DK skills that are not whip shouldnt make whipping sounds. The sound being now attached to molten weapons is jarring and immersion breaking.

Personofsecrets · March 13

alternatelder wrote: »

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

This is discussed on Reddit as well, and an idea that might work is the same lighting overlay effect that Arcanist has would be a good alternative. At least with that effect you can still see your staff and able to determine which bar.

Thank you for this reply, it is appreciated, however, we went through this same thing with NB grim focus glow. I hope now you can reconsider any updates to other classes that may have the same effect that players might not like, optional effects are something you need to work on, though I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the tech capabilities you have.

Is grim focus fixed?

alternatelder · March 13

Personofsecrets wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

This is discussed on Reddit as well, and an idea that might work is the same lighting overlay effect that Arcanist has would be a good alternative. At least with that effect you can still see your staff and able to determine which bar.

Thank you for this reply, it is appreciated, however, we went through this same thing with NB grim focus glow. I hope now you can reconsider any updates to other classes that may have the same effect that players might not like, optional effects are something you need to work on, though I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the tech capabilities you have.

Is grim focus fixed?

It's no longer a permanent glow just for having it slotted.

Personofsecrets · March 13

Personofsecrets wrote: »

@ZOS_Erin

Pleade pardon my piling on here, but can can molten weapons PLEASE not making a whipping sound? The previous sound was perfect. DK skills that are not whip shouldnt make whipping sounds. The sound being now attached to molten weapons is jarring and immersion breaking.

I'd like to provide a small update.

I logged in today and noticed that the molten weapons sound is no longer making a whipping noise. My previous observation of the whipping noise was from 2 days ago.

I will still comment that the sound which is being made is quite strange and loud. Whatever happened makes the sound that I'm hearing today better as there isn't a confusing whipping sound, but I still think that the sound could be more good by being less cluttered and loud.

EDIT: I'm hearing the whipping sounds again. I don't know why this is? Maybe it's about being grouped or not grouped. VERY strange.

Destai · March 13

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

Thank you all very much for the feedback regarding the weapon overrides on the Dragonknight's refreshed Molten Weapons ability. The team is currently discussing possible avenues for addressing this and we will have more updates soon.

@ZOS_Erin First off, thanks for coming here and engaging us, it is truly appreciated. Just wanted to provide some feedback, I hope none of this comes across as adversarial or hostile. It's entirely constructive in spirit.

Alright - so, taking a step back, there's been a few fiascos around animations*. The ones I see mentioned most are the Jabs animation changes in U35 and the NB Grim Focus PermaGlow. So why were they fiascos, right? What can be learned from them?

The Jabs change was controversial because there wasn't much, if any, vocal demand for an animation change, and the "skin" we got was a Daedric skin on an Aedric spear line. To further compound the issue, none of the PTS feedback changed the direction in already sour update.

NB Grim Focus was controversial for two main reasons. First, it obscured the weapon skins that people put a lot of effort and money into defining, just by being slotted. Second, again just like Jabs, there were mountains of feedback asking for a change. We got the current state I think after like 2 years of asking.

I say all of this so your teams understand the context of why these things are so sensitive. You guys are obviously far more engaged, so some of the concerns have already been addressed. However, it seems like the core design principles need some updates in hopes these issues don't pop-up each class or weapon refresh.

It's easier to never release a controversial skin update, than it is to pull it back. Some people like the new skin, some people don't. That's harder to manage, as I'm sure you're seeing, than had it never been released. So, how do you get there? How do you prevent those fiascos?

As design principles, I suggest the following:

Treat weapon and armor skins as sacrosanct. Their appearance should be the predominant appearance at all times.
Skills that affect the character appearance on weapons or armor should only accentuate those slots. Arcanist's Tome-bearer Inspiration is a good example. The effect is shown, but doesn't fundamentally alter the weapon it's impacting. The old Molten Weapons was a great example too.
Effects should be temporary and depend on skill activation. Skills have at most a ~30 second duration. I think there's a few that are 60 seconds, but still. No appearance alteration should exceed that duration. I would say that Grim Focus is still an issue, because it alters weapons just by being slotted. It's not permanent technically, but still overstays its welcome.
Animations/Skins should be lore appropriate. Again, the Jabs animation is the big example here.

*Yes, I understand that animations and the skins/appearance are different. As a layman, I use "animation" as it's the most easily communicable umbrella term