It's been a long time since I posted here. I won't get into the details, but I didn't anticipate ever posting here again. However, recent changes to Two Handed Weapon skills and Dragon Knights make it necessary.

First, the changes to Two Handed Weapon skills. Frankly, they look terrible.
Every move causes giant orange flashes, screen blur or screen shake, or some combination of these effects. It reminds me of watching someone play one of the more recent Street Fighter games, or Marvel Rivals, or something like that, with the constant deluge of flashes and effects. It's ugly, unrealistic and incredibly disruptive, too. After only a few minutes playing, these effects cause headaches and nausea. I'm not the only one reporting this.

To combat this, I suggested to the devs that they use the customization system already in the game to make it possible to remove these effects entirely. If we can change the colour or appearance of effects, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to just remove them entirely.

However, the problems don't stop there. The animations themselves look terrible. The character swings the weapon in an unrealistic way, and the animations overlap one another in such a way that the character ceases to move naturally. For example, if I use Uppercut, and press the Critical Rush attack, the character does the Uppercut, but transitions into the Rush attack instantaneously. If I've already activated a third attack, it will transition into THAT instantaneously too, each new animation cutting off the one before. This makes the character look ridiculous, twitching his way through every fight at warp speed. There used to be some sense of the WEIGHT of each attack. The body takes a moment to compensate for the momentum of any attack. Not now. Now, everything looks absurd.

All of this concerns me greatly, because it has been implied that this is the future of ALL the skill sets.

Then there's the changes to the Dragon Knight. There have been changes to the function of some skills that I don't like. For example, I used to morph my Magma Fist skill to provide me with a quick heal. Now, there's no such effect. I can't heal myself anymore, unless I use the Dragon Blood skill, which comes much later, with its MUCH more invasive magic effect. The character in question is supposed to be a barbarian who doesn't use magic. I had rationalized him throwing a rock from the ground, it's going to be impossible to rationalize him glowing with firey bones inside his chest.
Then there's his Molten Armaments skill. In the past, this made his axe, which I named "Skullcrusher," glow with firey ripples. I used this to represent his berserker rage. It was a bit too magical, but I could tolerate it. Now, Skullcrusher is replaced entirely with a giant goofy looking axe with lava blades and a silly face on it. I don't WANT my weapon being replaced, I CHOSE a specific axe with a specific look and equipped it in my outfit. I don't want it replaced.

But, this is all more or less cosmetic. There is the gameplay issue too. It's not a new problem.

One of my other characters is Argonian, but I've decided he's actually DRACONIAN, descended from dragons. To support this, I gave him the Fire Breath skill. It looks great. However, it does SO much damage, it has rendered all other attacks completely irrelevant. Why would I attack with my sword or staff and do 4000 damage when I could attack with fire breath and do 25000+ and in a CONE to boot? Arcanists have that green beam attack that has the same problem. There's NO BALANCE.

Again, I'm concerned because this lack of balance seems to be the plan for all the classes. Game balance is one of the most critically important elements of any game. Don't screw it up.

I've been here a long time, since before the beginning, even. I was here in beta testing, and I've never questioned whether I wanted to play the game... until now. Don't screw it up. The game has been around this long because people liked it AS IT WAS. Don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Hopefully, my concerns will prove to be unfounded, but as it is, I can't use any of my Dragon Knights or use 2H weapons anymore. If things go as I fear they will... I don't know if I'll be able to go on playing. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way.


Now, I'm sure there are people who like the new animations and effects. That's fine. The problem is that the original effects have been REPLACED. People who liked it as it was have no recourse.

(This seems to be a trend lately, where things people already like are being discarded or reinvented in counterproductive ways. We're seeing it here in ESO, but I've also seen it over at Lord of the Rings Online, with increased speed in the animations, reinventing the classes... all that. It's not just gaming either, it's crossing lots of media. Star Trek was once a thoughtful show where characters wrestled with moral questions, and had rational, mature and intelligent conversations. Now, it's been replaced with shallow action and childish, shallow, profane conversation. Comic book characters are being replaced, too. You're a fan of Captain America? Screw you, we're replacing him with Falcon. Oh, you were a fan of Falcon? Screw you, he's Captain America now, got to perpetuate that political agenda. You liked Wolverine? Too bad, he's written off now, and replaced with a female. You liked Thor? Well, he's written off now too, and also replaced with a female. You identified with Iceman when you were growing up? Surprise, he's gay now, you don't get to identify with him anymore. It goes on and on... but that's a rant for another time and place).

Instead of adding something new for new fans to enjoy, the original fans are having the things they were already enjoying ripped away. Truly, I would not be here complaining if the original animations remained an OPTION.

Let us CHOOSE whether to use the new animations or keep the old ones.