I fully understand what is being proposed here and I have to say, it's a hard no! but also with a, why is this even needed/asked for?

We can already bar swap between activating abilities (since bar swapping is not tied to ability GCD), allowing players to easily swap to get other weapon abilities during their rotations (especially if they are timing their button presses and not just button mashing). This also comes with the benefit of responsive/reliable animation cancelling of those abilities, something that is very much utilized at the high end of gameplay in ESO, especially in PvP where the meta combo tells are very well known so animation cancelling them is the best way to increase their chances of landing.

For those who don't want to/can't bar swap, there's always the Oakensoul Mythic and even non-Oakensoul 1 bar builds, where they don't have to bar swap at all.

EDIT: To add to this, as someone else mentioned, ZOS is also introducing skill scrolls into the game with the Night Market, which is basically this idea, but in a very limited/restricted way. (End EDIT)

I will say that abilities with cast times (not channels, actual cast times) tend to have some janky interactions with bar swapping, so there is definitely an issue for ZOS to look at there in terms of bug fixes/QoL improvements, but that does not mean ZOS needs to go and completely upend this games core combat designs/philosophies to do so.

You also mentioned that passives would be tied to the currently active weapon, that would be insanely unbalanced since you could cast any weapon ability while keeping the strongest weapon passives currently active. Imagine things like Wall, Crushing Shock, Dizzy Swing, Snipe, etc. all being cast on a Dual Wield front bar, gaining all the benefits of the Dual Wield BiS DPS passives applied to those abilities, or casting them from a sword and shield bar, gaining all the defensive benefits of the sword and shield passives while having all the damage of those active skills.

If passives would "temporarily swap" to the other weapon for that specific cast to try and balance this, that would only add significantly more checks and calculations to the server load for every single ability cast, further nuking the games already struggling performance under high load situations.

But, even beyond the balance and technical issues with implementing such a suggestion, it also completely goes against the design of the game (and the ES series in general), where slotting a specific weapon is significant because it is supposed to enforce choices/limitations/challenges/themes/roles into a build instead of just simply taking the numerically best of everything to make an overpowered build that surpasses everything else in the game (something that the poor implementation of sub-classing has really exposed recently).

We talked/were asked about 5 skills vs 10 skills during alpha testing over 10 years ago and they decided 5 was better/a cleaner look/made you more "in tune" (my words) with your skills. So I don't see anything changing.

BUT-

I love this idea! I say lets try it!

For the record- I wanted more than 5.

aspergalas4 wrote: »

I've explained why I've suggested this feature previously. I never said you can't bar swap between abilities, I said the bar swap itself acts a cooldown because you can't use any skills while you are swapping thus slowing down a rotation and making it more complicated than it needs to be in certain builds.

This paragraph is completely contradictory.

How does bar swap act as an additional cooldown when it's able to be freely used between the GCD for ability casts, the effect itself is instantaneous and the animation is less than the ability GCD, thus not interfering with ability GCD and thus not slowing down the rotation at all?

As for being "more complicated" that is why I mentioned mythics and builds such as Oakensoul (and such builds are not limited to Oakensoul) and 1 bar builds. It is very easy to make "1 bar builds" that still utilize both bars using abilities with "while slotted on either bar" on the secondary bar to gain their benefits on the main bar.

There's also other less complex builds such as Heavy Attack builds, Beam builds, pet builds, the new (literally within the next hour or so when maintenance ends) flame breath DK build that have far simpler rotations than traditional weaving builds, all while still putting out as good (or better in the case of beam) numbers as the most complex bar swapping weaving rotations out there.



As for not impacting the servers, imo, you are severely underestimating just how easy it is to tip the strain on the server to disastrous levels. The reason bar swapping doesn't currently impact the servers is because there's no need to bar swap (running the various checks, recalls, and associated lines of code) every single GCD (let alone twice per GCD). As such, in practice, these checks at most get ran once every 5-10 seconds, and even if they were being done every GCD, it requires individual button presses from a dedicated input to trigger these checks, whereas what you are asking for would require the checks for bar swapping (and ALL associated lines of code) to be ran twice per input and the trigger for this double work-load would be any (or even multiple) of 6 inputs all with numerous other potential functions that all depend on what's slotted on that particular input slot, rather than limited to a single dedicated input that doesn't have any other function (potential or not).

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

aspergalas4 wrote: »

I've explained why I've suggested this feature previously. I never said you can't bar swap between abilities, I said the bar swap itself acts a cooldown because you can't use any skills while you are swapping thus slowing down a rotation and making it more complicated than it needs to be in certain builds.

This paragraph is completely contradictory.

How does bar swap act as an additional cooldown when it's able to be freely used between the GCD for ability casts, the effect itself is instantaneous and the animation is less than the ability GCD, thus not interfering with ability GCD and thus not slowing down the rotation at all?

As for being "more complicated" that is why I mentioned mythics and builds such as Oakensoul (and such builds are not limited to Oakensoul) and 1 bar builds. It is very easy to make "1 bar builds" that still utilize both bars using abilities with "while slotted on either bar" on the secondary bar to gain their benefits on the main bar.

There's also other less complex builds such as Heavy Attack builds, Beam builds, pet builds, the new (literally within the next hour or so when maintenance ends) flame breath DK build that have far simpler rotations than traditional weaving builds, all while still putting out as good (or better in the case of beam) numbers as the most complex bar swapping weaving rotations out there.



As for not impacting the servers, imo, you are severely underestimating just how easy it is to tip the strain on the server to disastrous levels. The reason bar swapping doesn't currently impact the servers is because there's no need to bar swap (running the various checks, recalls, and associated lines of code) every single GCD (let alone twice per GCD). As such, in practice, these checks at most get ran once every 5-10 seconds, and even if they were being done every GCD, it requires individual button presses from a dedicated input to trigger these checks, whereas what you are asking for would require the checks for bar swapping (and ALL associated lines of code) to be ran twice per input and the trigger for this double work-load would be any (or even multiple) of 6 inputs all with numerous other potential functions that all depend on what's slotted on that particular input slot, rather than limited to a single dedicated input that doesn't have any other function (potential or not).

No, you just aren't understanding what is being proposed.

This is a QoL feature. That is, its intent is to make our experience as a player better/easier/more fun/whatever. It's not about making you stronger, or making your build more efficient on the numerical end. It's not about parse numbers, its not about improving your build so it has an advantage over others. Its about making combat feel better (and therefore more fun) and giving more choice to players. When you bar swap it is in itself technically like activating its own skill because you press a button to swap your weapon over, you are not casting a skill whilst this happens, yet it is part of a player's rotation. My aim is to reduce the amount of times its needed.

So a rotation might be as follows:

skill 1
skill 2
bar swap
skill 3
bar swap
skill 4
skill 5
bar swap to begin different rotation
skill 6
skill 7
skill 8
bar swap
skill 9
bar swap
skill 10
etc...

With my proposal this can become

skill 1
skill 2
skill 3
skill 4
skill 5
bar swap to begin different rotation
skill 6
skill 7
skill 8
skill 9
skill 10

This is completely optional. You can play the first example if you want to, but currently you cant play the second because weapon skills are locked to whichever bar the weapon is equipped on. Despite swapping anyway to use them. Its clunky when you swap weapons a lot to make us of both your weapon type skills. Being able to equip either weapon types skills on either bar and having that quickly auto swap and swap back would give a greater sense of control to combat. And reduces the necessity to bar swap as frequently in certain but not all builds.

Your technical points are moot, the game can handle more frequent bar swaps. You are only swapping between two data sets per character as it is.

aspergalas4 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

This is still one of those things that really looks like a solution in search of a problem.

You're trying to make it so you can slot weapon skills on a bar that does not have that style weapon equipped. That's it. The current setup of the game treats the two bars as separate (so some mechanism for the game to recognize which weapon is unequipped would first need to be built). Then, the obvious question of how the animations would look if you are using the wrong weapon would come up.

All to save... what, the need for barswapping twice? I feel like this is less about quality of life and more about "I want to be OP by being able to squeeze out more stuff and have fewer weaknesses."

Besides, if you really really really want to cast Blade Cloak without your DW active, that's going to be possible with the Night Market. They're introducing Skill Scrolls for three skills specifically (Blade Cloak, Momentum, and Defensive Posture) that you can slot and use like potions.

I disagree this isn't a QoL change. This is very much a QoL change because it builds on an existing feature/system (bar swapping) to make the overall combat feel better. Without actually changing or adding any skills, or buffing/nerfing anything. It will literally just make combat feel better. It doesn't make you any more powerful, or less. It's purely a UX improvement for us players.

As for animations they don't need to be changed for this. They are all self contained to their respective skills anyway. I see no reason why you can't hold a bow then suddenly perform the "whirlwind" animation with your dual wield weapons before it goes back to holding your bow when the animation completes.

This isn't about any specific skills, its about widening our options for our builds/rotations. Which again in itself, is a QoL improvement.

Not all QoL changes are for the positive, or impact players the same way.

There would need to be some changes made to avoid abuses, and we may not like them for what many see as a non issue.

While there are some of the pros listed... cons need to be discussed first.

Core game mechanics are harder to adjust than non core mechanics. Requiring a weapon to be in your hand to use it is from what I understand a core mechanic. And goes back far into gaming history. And not just ESO. In call of duty one cant launch a rocket from a rocket launcher in your inventory while having your pistol out.

Second, a lot of weapons and gear sets require you to be using a weapon actively. Allowing an equipped but non active back bar gear sets effects would cause balance issues, complicating matters significantly. For this to work without having to redo most of the gear sets impacted and hwo they function you would need to disable any benefit form a back bar weapon on the front bar skill. Which would almost invalidate the purpose of having a back bar weapon.

The abuses: in pvp someone could have a sword and board and be spamming something like combat prayer while having.the defensive bonuses of the active weapon. Or have a 2hander and be able to spam Snipe from a distance.

I wont even go into scribing weapon skills...

You would have to nerf some stuff quite a bit to the point where bar swapping is just probably preferable anyway just to balance it.

Radiate77 wrote: »

Anyone have a TLDR?

If the idea is that we should have all of our 12 abilities present, and using an ability of an unequipped weapon would auto-equip said weapon without needing to manually do so, then yes.

Great idea.

Throne and Liberty, despite it’s flaws, manages to implement this into their game and it works well enough.

The refined idea is you can slot either weapon you have equipped's skills to either bar and it auto swaps your weapon to the one the skill uses before swapping back, if the skill is slotted on the bar of the other weapon you have equipped.

So for example, you have Two-Hand Front Bar, and Dual Wield Back Bar. On your Front Bar you have Twin Slashes, you activate it on said Front Bar, your character then auto swaps from Two Hand to Dual Wield to pop the skill then immediately switches back. This takes away the need to weapon swap as frequently in combat thus making combat feel much smoother overall.

That is an interesting proposition.

Surprisingly, I find myself not hating this, and that's saying a lot considering the mountains of weird suggestions I've seen here on the forums.