Permanent Skill Effects Are Ruining Weapon Visuals

Athory · March 12

Hey all!
In the last few months I’ve been very, very critical of ESO and everything ZOS has done with the game in some aspects, especially with Subclassing, Scribing, and other changes. But it seems like you're working to fix a lot of that mess, and that’s great!

The work you did with the Dragon Knight was amazing. Really nice job!

But please, @Zos_Kevin, please pass this message to the design team because of this:

Please… someone stop this. Just stop.

There are people on the team who create amazing weapons for us in-game. The designs are fantastic, and some of these weapons we even buy with Crowns in the store. So why does ZOS add effects to our weapons that end up hiding the models we actually paid for?
Even if players believe these effects look nice at first, sooner or later they get tired of them, and we can’t change/hide them.

Please… someone… stop this. We don’t need effects like this. Just stop it, please.
Don’t add these “permanent” effects to our weapons just because we use one skill.

opaj · March 12

The Molten Weapons look cool, but yeah, I choose my weapon styles carefully.

There's only one character of mine who will continue to use the updated Molten Weapons...and that is a gimmicky unarmed character who doesn't use weapons to begin with.

Malyore · March 13

This also goes for crown store weapon packs. There have been many that I don't buy just because they have a VFX. With ZOS introducing a toggle for this soon, it means there are weapon styles I would have wanted from the past, but no longer have access too.
Hopefully the toggle can be used on permanent skill VFX as well.

virtus753 · March 13

Athory wrote: »

Hey all!
In the last few months I’ve been very, very critical of ESO and everything ZOS has done with the game in some aspects, especially with Subclassing, Scribing, and other changes. But it seems like you're working to fix a lot of that mess, and that’s great!

The work you did with the Dragon Knight was amazing. Really nice job!

But please, @Zos_Kevin, please pass this message to the design team because of this:

Please… someone stop this. Just stop.

There are people on the team who create amazing weapons for us in-game. The designs are fantastic, and some of these weapons we even buy with Crowns in the store. So why does ZOS add effects to our weapons that end up hiding the models we actually paid for?
Even if players believe these effects look nice at first, sooner or later they get tired of them, and we can’t change/hide them.

Please… someone… stop this. We don’t need effects like this. Just stop it, please.
Don’t add these “permanent” effects to our weapons just because we use one skill.

A lead dev has already responded with an acknowledgment:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8440879#Comment_8440879

Athory · March 13

Oh ok, I didn’t see that. Thank God they’re looking at this, and I truly hope they completely abandon the idea of hiding our weapons with effects.

Major_Toughness · March 13

Great you lot ruined Grim Focus now you're going to ruin this really cool Molten Armaments design.

ZoS should just implement a toggle for these effects rather than getting rid of them. I'm glad there are skill effects in the game which actually promote the identity of the class I am playing.

Athory · March 13

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Great you lot ruined Grim Focus now you're going to ruin this really cool Molten Armaments design.

ZoS should just implement a toggle for these effects rather than getting rid of them. I'm glad there are skill effects in the game which actually promote the identity of the class I am playing.

They don’t need to get rid of the effects entirely. The problem is how big and intrusive they are. When the effect covers all the weapon, it ends up hiding the weapon style and motifs we actually paid for.
ZoS could easily keep the class identity while making the effect smaller or less opaque, so it still looks cool without completely covering the weapon.
And honestly, the best solution would be a toggle option for effects. That way people who like the big flashy visuals can keep them, and those of us who want to actually see the weapon styles and motifs we bought can do that too. Everyone wins.

Ratzkifal · March 13

Yeah, imagine you bought a cool flaming sword from the crownstore for your DK because you expected that the DK refresh would be a big success and then you can't even see it in combat because you have these glowy paddles that look like they dropped straight from Ragnaros in World of Warcraft.

I think the current look should be turned into a skill style (or an outfit style), because I know there are people who like them. However the default should be kept more subtle than this, especially because Molten Armaments isn't actually that strong of a skill.

Emeratis · March 13

I personally would prefer a settings toggle because there are times the weapon effects are annoying and times I want them to be longer personally. I do understand and agree sometimes I prefer to see my weapon skins and track my bar based on the style I put on them if I'm running two staves like on a healer. On the other hand, one of my big pain points is trying to get a perfect screenshot using a buff or spell effect only for it to fall off before you line up the shot perfectly. The latter could be remedied by my frequent request of a possible screenshot mode where we can pause animations and toggle effects though.

emilyhyoyeon · March 13

My issue with a toggle for ''effects'' is that theres many things I'd want to hide/turn off, but also things I don't want to turn off.

It would suck to have to deal with the new DK molten armaments visual just because I might want to keep the visual effect of an arms pack where my choices would then be: use the molten visual or lose the visual on the arms pack.

If certain things were split up, how would the devs draw the line? How many individual toggles for different types of effects could they even add? Realistically I could only see a toggle distinction between skills and cosmetics; as in, a blanket toggle for on/off all skills effects and another toggle for on/off all cosmetic effects.

Number_51 · March 13

Could be a per character setting similar to "Hide Mount Stamina Upgrade," "Hide Mount Speed Upgrade," and "Hide Mount Capacity Upgrade". Use "Hide Weapon Effect" and "Hide Armor Effect". On that note, I'd kill for a "Hide Mount Effect". No more flashbangs.

Athory · March 14

As @Ratzkifal said, I believe the best solution would be to turn all these weapon effects, like Molten Weapon, Inspired Scholarship, etc., into Skill Styles. We already have this feature in the game, so I believe ZoS could implement this change very easily. Even better, they could add them to the Crown Store, the market, and so on… but without forcing the skill to overwrite the motifs we love.

katanagirl1 · March 14

Athory wrote: »

As @Ratzkifal said, I believe the best solution would be to turn all these weapon effects, like Molten Weapon, Inspired Scholarship, etc., into Skill Styles. We already have this feature in the game, so I believe ZoS could implement this change very easily. Even better, they could add them to the Crown Store, the market, and so on… but without forcing the skill to overwrite the motifs we love.

This seems like a solution that makes everyone happy and generates more money for ZOS. I can’t see why they aren’t doing this already.