Update: The Warden and Class Refresh

Vaqual · September 1

Good job communicating those designs early. I hope you are also considering some skill styles to replace creatures, since the theme really lends itself to it. Halloween Warden with Crows and Bats needs to happen.

pdbrierleyb16_ESO · September 1

I really like class refreshes from a combat/gameplay POV but I'm getting worried about the impact on those of us who roleplay.

I have an Argonian who was a poison-breathing assassin but now after the DK refresh he's just a DK for no real reason.

Warden has got my particularly worried as my Warden is a Fungimancer/Shroomtender/Mycoturge and the entire character and concept is built around the Fungal Growth ability. I appreciate the idea of moving the character away from Morrowind (shalks, cliff racers etc) but mushrooms are a big part of Elder Scrolls lore, with anyone roleplaying a Telvanni or similar using surely using it.

It may seem really minor but I've invested time and bought Crown items to build this character out so (selfishly) can we please get confirmation that the Fungal Growth skill/replacement will still be fungus/mushroom based? I don't want to worry about losing my character's identity every time we get a class update.

If that's not confirmed at this date, will the team please consider adding skill styles that more closely reflect the original styles of those abilities?

@ZOS_Kevin

Umbracat449 · September 1

So long as we don't lose the wings.

If the wings go i will be heart broken.

Freelancer_ESO · September 1

It is always interesting to see concept art.

The animations look pretty but, for actual usage I'd likely be using the new VFX thing to hide some of that especially on that Gryphon as it is probably too flashy for the amount we'd probably be using it.

The varying Lotuses could be nice for fitting with player theme preferences.

I think with the Netch it is hard to tell at this point which version will be more distracting.

Personally, I think it might have made more sense to add another Nature class and mildly tweak warden vs reworking Warden with three lines.

The class doesn't really follow a clear theme as is so many of the people that use the class have come up with their own definitions/views of what the Warden should be which will make trying to make it fit all of those definitions and following a theme be quite difficult.

AScarlato · September 1

I am 100% in favor of them moving towards a more traditional druid/ranger theme with more mass appeal than mushroom and bugs and reptiles. I mean now that that expansion is ancient I don't see that appealing to as many people.

But it would be nice if they had that theme as free Skill Styles so anyone already invested in that can keep it, and everyone else can move onto the new animations. Perhaps they can release theme packs moving ahead for other themes too if they want.

noblecron · September 1

I do have a suggestion for the betty netch. Keep like how you want it but give us a skill style that turns it into a nixad. Then those who like the netch cna have the netch and those who want something else can have something else. For morrowind animals, skill styles of those and the bears please as I know some who do love the morrowind theme

Umbracat449 · September 1

noblecron wrote: »

I do have a suggestion for the betty netch. Keep like how you want it but give us a skill style that turns it into a nixad. Then those who like the netch cna have the netch and those who want something else can have something else. For morrowind animals, skill styles of those and the bears please as I know some who do love the morrowind theme

A nixed would be genius and they are pretty feisty, they'd be a great fighting partner

Arunei · September 1

As cool as this all is, I have the same confusion about a Gryphon replacing the Shalks instead of the Cliff Racer? There are all kinds of things that could have replaced Scorch's animal that is more broad. Hoarvers are a BIG one that tend to be all over the place and it would be cool for Wardens to have something seen as more "gross" to swarm their opponents with lol.

But the gryphon coming up out of the ground is...weird. It would make more sense if it pretty much worked the same way as the Cliff Racer does, from portal from behind the player in the air.

On the matter of Sorc being pushed back (most likely swapping places with Temp but who knows honestly?), I'm actually not surprised. I'm willing to bet Warden's rework is making the devs see just how much work Pets and summons are going to take. I wouldn't be surprised if Sorc actually gets pushed behind NB rather than just swapping spots with Temp.

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

So you are "pivoting away from the Morrowind-specific visual theming to better represent the natural world across all regions in Tamriel", by using a gryphons? So not only is it just changing zone-specific animal, it's also a large visual.

Meanwhile the betty netch stays the same, so it's just going to be even more random collection of animals like how the bear felt random before.

Speaking of the betty netch. Why does it have to float "whimsically" around? Just make it smaller and no beam, but have it float behind us like the old one. Instead of all these distracting visuals.

Why does the Spriggan need bright pink flower petals and butterflies affects?

The Lotus Flower is nice, but the visual of that has never been much of a bother.

I hope there will be styleskills from the start to change visuals, especially to make them more subtle and subdued if they are big and flashy, or make a more coherent look.
Right now every class refresh feels like some deadline to when I can't use the class as much anymore, such as my DKs, because there's so much more bright effects that just look cartoony and we have to plead and shout to get a single subtle skillstyle for one skill.

Gryphons aren't just native to Summerset, but also to High Rock, Hammerfell, and Elsweyr. It isn't about where the creature in question appears only in ESO, but more to do with where they exist lore-wise. Gryphons are far more widespread than Cliff Racers are. And the whole point of the animals being "random" is because they're supposed to represent creatures in general, not just a specific kind like birds, bugs, or mammals. I will agree that as cute as the Netch is, though, it still would prove to be something of a distraction.

VixxVexx · September 1

No mention of the melee spammable seen on warden npcs in morrowind. Cliffracer changer are great, but ranged spammables that arent crushing schock remain suboptimal in this game.

spartaxoxo · September 1

I really hope you don't know bring significant any further significant nerfs to DK and WW and instead buff up older classes using the class mastery system.

One of the oldest and most consistent complaints about ESO from newer players and the primary reasons many don't stick around is combat doesn't feel modern. A lot of people don't want to micromanage and they want the weight and feel of attacks to feel impactful. DK being so powerful brought a lot of people in because it felt better clearing more content.

Lowering the DK and WW to current standards undoes some of that. For example, people don't want to have to only use WW for Stamina. Something like a highest resource cost and some light sustain buffs for the classes struggling to keep up with DK and WW (seems like sorc already was with their class mastery so it shows it's doable) would be preferable to constant nerfs arising from players not really thinking about long term but how unfun things are to play right now.

Since class mastery is temporary, it should be utilized more to ensure that this important aspect isn't lost. Combat Refreshes are a long time plan so the focus should be on stop gap measures not permanent nerfs that undoes how good they feel to play immediately.

Short term thinking for long term plans undermines the benefits of modernizing the game because it forces them down to old standards

nightbringer1993 · September 1

Honestly, as a necromancers, this warden refresh will just give me more reasons to stay away from ESO up until necromancer is finally refreshed and playable.

baratron · September 1

Please keep the Bear!

love,
@baratron, and her four Wardens.

tsaescishoeshiner · September 1

Very promising! Please keep the ability to tether to allies (Nature's Grasp) and to teleport them to you (Frozen Retreat) in the game in some form!

Even if they leave Warden, these are very fun social/exploration abilities in housing and overland when you try to climb statues or trees or players houses. I don't know if they'll stay with Warden, but they could also be great for World or Guild skills.

Sadras · September 1

Now this is a really interesting update, thanks for the insight! (Enough to make me log in and get back on my Warden.)
Love the gryphon and the idea of seasons especially. Implementing seasons would really make it feel like a true nature magic class.

But can we optionally keep the Morrowind flavour? I really like it, and I'm still really attached to it (having played through the Morrowind chapter on my fresh Warden back then on my old account; the nostalgia is real), especially the cliff racer and the netch. Optional swap-outs are cool, and having options makes playing different races as Wardens more rewarding too, but I'd be sad to lose the Morrowind identity for when I want it.
On that note, a big plus for me would be to have optional alternatives for the bear as the constant companion, much as I like it. Like a big wolf to match the upcoming Skyrim zone for example. (But also don't take the bear away from those who want to keep it. Animals are a big part of identity for a ranger fantasy after all.)

Radiate77 · September 1

@ZOS_Kevin hey sorry to bother you, but any chance we could get the new Warden ability sigil artwork as Forum avatars after the team is done finalizing them for the class?

I’m a huge fan of the Gryphon one.

tomofhyrule · September 1

I am really happy to see an update on this. My biggest fear was that one of the themes would be tossed, and my Skaal just fits all three of them so perfectly. I'm really eager to see how this all is going to look.

Thank you for also including concept art as well. It may not be comprehensive, but it's really cool to see how the new things will look.

My one concern is the fact that a release date can't be shared. While I understand - and support! - the idea that things should be given the time they need, the fact remains that this is the second of seven Classes to get a refresh, and all other new Combat features (e.g. new Classes) are on hold until this is done. If Warden is not able to make the next patch (U52, which is slated for January, meaning that the PTS should be sometime in November), that will mean that Warden's refresh would be 12 months or more after DK's. If each refresh takes an entire year - again meaning that nothing new Combat related can be added until then - that's a long time to wait.

allochthons · September 1

I think these look great!

I would like to re-emphasize the visual clutter issue, though. If a reworked warden is casting skills that bring up the gryphon, netch, and spriggan, along with their bear, and the necro is casting blastbones, colossus, and has a healing ghost, and a skeletal archer, a sorc has 2 combat pets, two arcs are beaming in two different colors, everyone's weapons are on fire due to Igneous Weapons, someone is wearing Maw of the Inferno and Geoff is stomping around, and Banner is covering the ground AoE visuals...

You can see the issue. Individually, they're all awesome. Together, the game is really hard to play. Especially people learning mechanics and where the AoEs spawn and what they look like.

I know we're getting sliders to help with animations/visual effects (one or the other, I can't remember). That may help. But until we can test those, I would like to know the devs are keeping the visual clutter issue in mind.

meekmiko · September 1

Looks and sounds pretty cool so far, well, all except for Sorcerer's refresh being pushed back now for Templar.
I was already bummed with Warden's refresh being in front of any of the base classes, but now a longer wait for my main class is a big 'ol ouchie. 😢

Although maybe I'm just bitter as I've never liked playing Warden. I am however looking forward to Templar's refresh though so, eh, I'll still be excited to see it when that comes out. 😌

...Just pleaaase make the Sorcerer refresh epic whenever it does finally release. 🙏

FlipFlopFrog · September 1

The spriggan would fit better if it replaced the netch imo. Seeing as you already get vines around you why do you need a spriggan for that ability as well?

I just want to say though, I really really appreciate the fact that we got a thorough update on the warden refresh and some details about the next one, that's a good step in the right direction, thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Faltasë · September 1

Come to think of it while I like the new netch I do think it being rotating around the character does seem more distracting than the tether. Why not just have it next to the character behind like the original netch, but just smaller and not rotating around the character? I feel like that should be reserved for like .. an armor theme effect or something.

RaidingTraiding · September 1

I'm not a fan of the new scorch. I really liked the beetles, it was an iconic look for warden. Also this new design looks like it could be very clunky. IMO gryphons are overused and I never really liked how ESO gryphons look to begin with. I honestly thought it was cutting dive / screaming cliff racer when I first glanced at it, and honestly that would be a better fit than scorch.

I also agree that the netch twirling around your character is way more distracting than the old netch. The blue/green tether always gave warden a cool distinctive look imo. When I think of warden I always think of beetles and netch. This new netch to me looks more like a non combat pet doing an idle animation or something.

It'd be nice if you could keep the old styles with the new skill theme system they have. Same with 2H, I don't like how flashy it is for something that's supposed to be a melee weapon. I really liked it before ESO started trying to look like a korean mmo.

Leighlaa · September 1

As someone who has used the IA warden set with different "seasons" and a really pretty warden-only animation... I am a FAN of this direction for the animation! While I love morrowind, I appreciate giving wardens the SEASONS in addition to other critters. I'm hoping that the seasons will be implemented *both* in the morphs we choose AND the skill styles we can purchase/earn.

Ashryn · September 1

I like the Gryphon and Spriggan, but am not a fan of the netch. I would definitely prefer a nixad and please, please, please can we have the choice to replace the Bear with a Wolf?

Radiate77 · September 2

Ashryn wrote: »

I like the Gryphon and Spriggan, but am not a fan of the netch. I would definitely prefer a nixad and please, please, please can we have the choice to replace the Bear with a Wolf?

My hope is that we will get a Wolf familiar for Sorcerer on it’s rework, similar to how in Skyrim the familiar was a wolf.

TheMidnightSorceress · September 2

I want to give feedback on how I think the old "animal companions" should be reintegrated into this new style.

Everyone wants different animals. Some people have dunmer characters and want to keep their Morrowind themed animals. Some people want the ultimate to be a bear, some people want a wolf, some people want a kagouti. The clear solution is to have lots of different skill styles to allow people to pick whatever animals they want.

I think that keeping in line with the new style of seasons and petals and vines, the base visuals of the animal companions should be something along the lines of the mounts in the Wild Hunt crate. An animal that was summoned from pure natural energy. And then make lots of skill styles:

So Feral Guardian's base style might look something like a spriggan bear, but then players get options of skill styles if they want, to turn it into a brown bear, a polar bear, a direwolf, a kagouti, a lion, etc.
Betty Netch's base style could be something like a wisp of nature energy that floats around you, but skill styles allow it to turn into a netch, a swamp jelly, a nixad, a torchbug, maybe even a watchling, etc.
Dive's base style would be a nondescript winged creature, but then you get skill styles for a cliff racer, a crow, an eagle, a bat, baby gryphon, etc.

amuridee · September 2

I really like almost all of the changes in the current Warden rework.

The one change I’m not particularly fond of is **Betty Netch**. The new version feels like we’re simply placing a non-combat pet Netch next to the player without any meaningful visual effect. Personally, I much preferred the old version, where the Netch had a visible beam connecting it to the player.

I think bringing back that beam animation, or something visually similar, would make the skill feel much more impactful and satisfying to use.

tomofhyrule · September 2

I do find it interesting that the new version of Netch doesn't have the pet carat over it.

It does really make me think about the recent changes they made to a lot of the proc sets that spawned pets - in that they are trying to change these temporary pets to proc effects. See the change to Mad Tinkerer a bit ago that was designed to make it just an effect instead of a full pet that needed AI pathing. Same here with Spriggan and Gryphon, as they are animated as effects instead of spawned actors.

That does also mean that, if the skill is just an effect, that a Skill Style could easily replace it since it's not actually an actor with AI. I could totally imagine that new Netch could be swapped out with a wisp or something else via a Skill Style.

I'm also wondering if the pet AI is what was getting in the way and delayed things, since there is one skill (that had better still exist) that would probably still be a pet needing AI, and that's bear. I doubt Bear's going anywhere, especially since it was pretty well the highlight of the OG trailer and even was the first Skill Style long before Skill Styles were a thing. But I'm sure they're trying to update the pet AI, and that's probably a bit of a roadblock. It makes sense that they're delaying Sorc for that since Sorc is a lot of pet stuff.

Those kinds of pets have a few more restrictions on how they could be replaced with Skill Styles since they attack as unique entities and have animations, so any skill styles would need to use the same skeleton. I can see why they're sticking to mostly recolors (but even still, we have seen that different animals can use the same basic skeletons like how Giant Bats and Twilights share animations)

Necrotech_Master · September 2

looking at the spriggan, it seems kind of useless? its not a summon its an animation

speaking of the visual obstruction, a spriggan summon would be a better visual than the current "warden trees" ultimate and would keep the spriggan around for like 6-10 sec instead of basically being nothing more than a visual animation, and it replaced the trees, it would also reduce some of the visual clutter of that ultimate lol

peacenote · September 2

Fun to see the work in progress.

I like the addition of new animals, but hate to lose any old ones. Give me all the animals!!! I kinda hope scorch has one morph of gryphon and one morph of shalks.

Mostly, above all else, for Warden, I want to know if it's going to be a priority to keep the class as an effective, unique, BIS healer. So far, support roles are discussed significantly less in the reworks, with damage and PvP being the loudest voices. If "The Warden’s skill lines are role-centralized, reducing their effectiveness when attempting to utilize their entire kit." translates to "all lines are now DPS/damage centric so they can be leveraged in DPS and PvP roles" that, to me, would be a huge bummer.

Soarora · September 2

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do find it interesting that the new version of Netch doesn't have the pet carat over it.

It does really make me think about the recent changes they made to a lot of the proc sets that spawned pets - in that they are trying to change these temporary pets to proc effects. See the change to Mad Tinkerer a bit ago that was designed to make it just an effect instead of a full pet that needed AI pathing. Same here with Spriggan and Gryphon, as they are animated as effects instead of spawned actors.

That does also mean that, if the skill is just an effect, that a Skill Style could easily replace it since it's not actually an actor with AI. I could totally imagine that new Netch could be swapped out with a wisp or something else via a Skill Style.

I'm also wondering if the pet AI is what was getting in the way and delayed things, since there is one skill (that had better still exist) that would probably still be a pet needing AI, and that's bear. I doubt Bear's going anywhere, especially since it was pretty well the highlight of the OG trailer and even was the first Skill Style long before Skill Styles were a thing. But I'm sure they're trying to update the pet AI, and that's probably a bit of a roadblock. It makes sense that they're delaying Sorc for that since Sorc is a lot of pet stuff.

Those kinds of pets have a few more restrictions on how they could be replaced with Skill Styles since they attack as unique entities and have animations, so any skill styles would need to use the same skeleton. I can see why they're sticking to mostly recolors (but even still, we have seen that different animals can use the same basic skeletons like how Giant Bats and Twilights share animations)

This is actually a great point. I prefer the existing netch but it makes sense for optimization and clarity as to what is and isn't a pet for it to look more like a visual effect.