We already have a direct answer from ZOS on this from a thread where several people brought it up:

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

The team wanted to chime in on this conversation with some additional context. For the U50 Werewolf Refresh, we are not considering custom cosmetic markings, adornments, or other such options. However, what is currently in discussion is allowing players to pick their fur colors, regardless of morph choice, using the Skill Style system. The release date for fur color Werewolf skill styles is still TBD as we weigh this effort against other class refresh efforts.

New were-models, other than the female Werewolf, are not currently being discussed. New models require new rigs and animations, all of which have a significant impact on memory and performance.

Considering a lot of their team's work is going towards the class refresh visual overhaul it makes sense and it's likely we won't see it until after those are wrapping up.

Emeratis wrote: »

We already have a direct answer from ZOS on this from a thread where several people brought it up:

ZOS_Erin wrote: »

The team wanted to chime in on this conversation with some additional context. For the U50 Werewolf Refresh, we are not considering custom cosmetic markings, adornments, or other such options. However, what is currently in discussion is allowing players to pick their fur colors, regardless of morph choice, using the Skill Style system. The release date for fur color Werewolf skill styles is still TBD as we weigh this effort against other class refresh efforts.

New were-models, other than the female Werewolf, are not currently being discussed. New models require new rigs and animations, all of which have a significant impact on memory and performance.

Considering a lot of their team's work is going towards the class refresh visual overhaul it makes sense and it's likely we won't see it until after those are wrapping up.

what is weird to me is that they make it sound like its a big effort to make 2 or 3 fur colors available for choice rather than morph...that seems like a super easy thing to do?

I very much want to see a werebear. Not the least of which is because one of my characters is canonically a werebear.

I know they're not looking at alternative models at this time, but I do hope that is something they'll consider in the future. After all, we've seen several examples of Polymorphs that do not use the standard humanoid shape or sounds (i.e. the various Spriggan colors, the Bone Colossus, the Factotums, the various Atronachs, the Reaper, the Hunger, the Minotaur, the various Scarecrows, the Animated Armors, the Wraith of Crows, the new Nereid, and Molag Bal), but still are rigged to the standard humanoid skeleton so they can animate properly.
They could easily do the same with a werebear over the werewolf skeleton.

In Skyrim, the werebears did have a different model, but they still used the standard werewolf animations. As such, it was a trivial mod to make players able to use the werebear as their form since it was just a model replacer (I got that one and I love it). That proved that a werebear using werewolf animations looks perfectly fine, so all we'd need is essentially a polymorph.


Also, since it would be a new model, that means they could make it a "premium" Skill Style, so we could buy it. I know I would pay bank for that.
(And then after that, they could pull the same thing with the Spriggan polymorph and give the model to Finn to make it a Dungeon boss, which I would also love to see).

As for a new skill line, I can't see that happening. There is no reason for them to spend a lot of dev time to try to make something that would be so minisculely different. But there is no reason that a werebear can't be made as a premium skill style for the werewolf transformation, especially considering how many people have hinted that they would be interested in such a thing.

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

they should add more werewolf morphs so you can pick from a choice of different were creatures.

Or at least the werewolf behemoth as an optional morph / model which is at least werebear-ish

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

what is weird to me is that they make it sound like its a big effort to make 2 or 3 fur colors available for choice rather than morph...that seems like a super easy thing to do?

ESO uses a moderately complex shader. Changing a colour is not a simple case of: change Red to Blue. You have to know what the RGB/HSV of each of those colours are and modify the shaders, then debug those changes which can be a mammoth task, as well as ensure the new colour doesn't lose fidelity or increase performance in every lighting environment. And that has to work across multiple types of GPUs each of which have their own pitfalls and may require their own custom lines of code.

TLDR; It IS a big effort.

Edit: Typos

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

what is weird to me is that they make it sound like its a big effort to make 2 or 3 fur colors available for choice rather than morph...that seems like a super easy thing to do?

ESO uses a moderately complex shader. Changing a colour is not a simple case of: change Red to Blue. You have to know what the RGB/HSV of each of those colours are and modify the shaders, then debug those changes which can be a mammoth task, as well as ensure the new colour doesn't lose fidelity or increase performance in every lighting environment. And that has to work across multiple types of GPUs each of which have their own pitfalls and may require their own custom lines of code.

TLDR; It IS a big effort.

Edit: Typos

In the case of model retextures (such as for Feral Guardian, which has the base brown as well as grey from Slate Gray and white from Snow Bear) they are implemented as literal texture swaps.

If you looked at the old Werewolf model textures, you'd find that the brown fur still has parts of the texture that match the grey of the grey fur texture, implying the artists literally took the grey texture as the base and applied some color filter (but missed a few spots). The eyes are notably more yellow on the brown fur texture, implying they accidentally applied the same color correction to the eyes.

That indicates to me that maybe the original work file for the old Werewolf texture was lost. However, judging based on the concept art shown for the white and black fur color styles for the new model, maybe this new Werewolf will be easier to make Skill Styles for, since it's trivial to adjust the color of individual components (such as skin color, fur color, eye color, etc) when you still have access to the image layers of the work file.

My hope for werewolf skill styles is more than just palette swaps over time. Early on it's fine, and I do want fur patterns/colors that are more unique like the helkarn wolf and that should be easy enough to do once they get a model established. I do also want reimaginings over time that fit with other lore flavor but use slight variants on the model such as werebear, wereboar, wereshark, skeletal werewolves we see in game, zombie werewolves like in the original cinematic, a daedric looking lycanthrope (shout out to 16 Accords of Madness Hircine Edition), changeling who could have spectral partial transformations like Selene), etc.

I know we won't get this soon, but longterm down the line it would be nice if the team explored this. I only have one character who is a werewolf, but if I like the skill line, I have a few characters who could dip into lore/story friendly reflavoring of the werewolf model/line. I admit I like the potential of skill styles reimagining some skill lines and werewolf has several conceptually that some players are already asking for and others that I know some people would like. I hope they realize that skill styles have so much underutilized potential right now, even for ones that may seem more niche.