I agree, I'd be perfectly fine with spears or something that just use staff motifs, if that's such a big concern. A lot of staff styles can easily be used as spears too.

Reworking One Hand and Shield into Spear and Shield/net would simplify a lot of the loot tables as well. Instead of three different types of One Hand weapon that offer no change other than a cosmetic one, that can be altered at an outfit station (and that requires multiple fills of the sticker book for no additional benefit), we could instead have a new weapon that is incorporated into a skill line that can offer a tank/grapple playstyle or an advancing and intimidation playstyle.

A two handed version could be introduced to the Two Hand Weapon skill line, perhaps even offering a bonus to critical chance? This would require additional sticker book treatment and people would need to run content again to get these spears from previous sources, but I doubt people would mind that much. Well some people would probably mind, but those people will whinge on anything.

I would absolutely love the addition of spears/lances as a new weapon skill line, but I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with just using the staff motif for them, though it would require an immense amount of work not just to create new models for each existing motifs but then to consider new research lines, adapting into crafting writs, adjusting motif completion achievements (or implementing a new achievement specific to spears instead).

Though not to undermine what we already have, if we had spears or lances as a new gateway to tanking I would much prefer it comes with "greatshields". I do not imagine them matching well with the current size of shields we have. I'd vizualize more so a large shield with its new set of animations like walking forward with the shield braced in front, and possibly its unique array of skills and passives as an extra option to pick in tanking.

Not that I expect an update like this to be lightweight to produce, but the Monster Hunter Lance fan in me would love to feel truly unyielding not just in function but in appearance too.

spears would be awesome indeed.

Though the Argonian picture is of them fishing

I don't pushing for spears is a good idea at the moment. The game has a million other things it needs first and the dev team at ZOS is probably still stretched thin from the round of layoffs Microsoft indulged in last year.

In order to implement spears you'd need to make completely new and unique animations specifically for them. You can't recycle the Two Handed animations since it won't make sense to swing a spear around like a greatsword. Next, you have to either implement them as a new Two Handed weapon or create a new weapon line exclusively for them. If you do the former then you'd need to make completely new animations for all 6 of the existing Two Handed weapon skills. You'll also need to consider how a skill like "Uppercut" would work and look on a spear. You'll also need to come up with a unique effect for the Heavy Weapons passive, and you'd need to adjust how Forceful works since it doesn't make sense for you to be able to hit enemies that are spread out in, say, a crescent formation horizontally in front of you when you thrust forward with a thin spear.

With this in mind it's easier to just make a new weapon skill line with its own bespoke passives and skills. But then you'd have to implement 6 new skills with their own effects and animations, and you have to program in 4 new passives.

On top of that you're going to need to go back and add in a new arena weapon to the 4 existing arenas, along with Asylum Sanctorum. You'll also need to go back and add in a spear to every single gear set in the game that has melee weapons.

So as you can see there's a lot of work that needs to be done to implement spears to the game properly.

And we still haven't really answered the question "why do we need spears, anyway"? ESO's combat isn't nearly complex enough to warrant spears. This isn't like Dark Souls where spears have a host of advantages and disadvantages compared to the other weapon types. We don't have stats like counter rating, stagger rating, or durability (on weapons anyway), or mechanics like counter hits and shield stability (where a spear because of its small impact point would bounce off a shield whereas a mace could break through the shield easily). The only thing spears would have to distinguish themselves compared to Dual Wielding and Two Handed is range. But even then the other 2 weapon types already have a 7 meter range. Is that seriously not enough? Would having another meter or 2 really make a difference? Why not use a bow or staff if you want to stay ranged? Or just use Stampede to close the distance?

Finally, let's think about how spears would affect the endgame and the meta of ESO for a second. If they are added to the game as Two Handed melee DPS weapons then they would either be dead on arrival because they'd be weaker than Dual Wielding/the Maelstrom greatsword, or they'd be stronger which would make Dual Wielding and the MA greatsword obsolete. Either way, something is becoming obsolete, which is not a good thing at all. If they're added as tanking weapons so they can be an alternative to One Hand and Shield then you still have the same problem. Either they're worse, in which case they're dead on arrival, or they're better and One Handed and Shield becomes an obsolete skill line.

With all this in mind I think we should be asking for a more complex combat system that can accommodate spears before asking for spears themselves. Otherwise we'll just get yet another half baked implementation of a 1/4 baked idea.

Yes, Spears would be great.

It would also be the perfect opportunity to convert Aedric Spear into Aedric Champion, as a precursor to opening up the skill line to other Light weapons instead of just a Spear.

*I’m looking at you Light sword Molag Baal finisher*

Vaqual wrote: »

Well if they are brave enough to say "we rework classes one by one", they shouldn't be afraid of saying "we introduce spear motifs one by one". Just do it done at this point. This is the most sensible weapon/combat style to introduce by far.

Agreed. They could even make it a whole post-release road map of Motifs being added, pushing people into older areas of the map to hunt down the new Spear motifs.

After seeing what ZOS did with the new DK and 2H animations I think the biggest obstacle would be creating 100+ Spear styles if they want to keep Motif parity with the other weapons, and incorporate them to loot tables/stickerbook system.

A lot of Spear Styles could be created by using existing Staff styles and replacing the ''head part'' with a Dagger style from the same family, and some like Imperial Champion or Spear of Bitter Mercy need no modification at all. You don't even have to change existing Motif Achievements since you can just make it so that unlocking the Staff style also unlocks the Spear one(similar to Robe/Jerkin) and apply it retroactively.

Doing this allows ZOS to update the Motifs over time instead of doing it all at once since Staves and Spears would share the same ''style pool''(similar to how it currently works for 1H Weapons and Melee 2H Weapons)

Alaztor91 wrote: »

A lot of Spear Styles could be created by using existing Staff styles and replacing the ''head part'' with a Dagger style from the same family...

Just want to say wow, this is brilliant and would work with even curved daggers, giving certain Spears a Glaive-ish appearance.

Sometimes the most simple answer is the right one.

I would absolutely love a spear + shield and 2H polearm/spears skill line.

Thought there are several other skill lines ideas that wouldn't even need new models/style motif updates, like if we made skill line for:
martial arts/fists
spellsword
sword singer

That said, I'm happy with the current team's focus on modernizing all the existing skill lines, considering there are so many unused skills already in the game (like 90% of the Mage's guild skill line, and Vampire needing a complete rework).

Alaztor91 wrote: »

After seeing what ZOS did with the new DK and 2H animations I think the biggest obstacle would be creating 100+ Spear styles if they want to keep Motif parity with the other weapons, and incorporate them to loot tables/stickerbook system.

A lot of Spear Styles could be created by using existing Staff styles and replacing the ''head part'' with a Dagger style from the same family, and some like Imperial Champion or Spear of Bitter Mercy need no modification at all. You don't even have to change existing Motif Achievements since you can just make it so that unlocking the Staff style also unlocks the Spear one(similar to Robe/Jerkin) and apply it retroactively.

Doing this allows ZOS to update the Motifs over time instead of doing it all at once since Staves and Spears would share the same ''style pool''(similar to how it currently works for 1H Weapons and Melee 2H Weapons)

This would probably work best if it were a polearm skill line and not strictly spears. This way you could introduce not just spears but Halbards and Glaives.