General:2023 Necrom Brian Wheeler Interview

This interview with Brian Wheeler, Lead Combat Designer for The Elder Scrolls Online, was conducted in-person on April 13th, 2023 at the Elder Scrolls Online Celebration event. It was a casual interview, held in the Asylum Bar and Arcade at Area 15, Las Vegas. There was a great deal of background noise so there is no audio recording of this interview, and these comments are not verbatim. The UESP members present during the interview were Alarra, baratron and Wicked_Shifty.

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Player vs Player Questions & Answers

Brian Wheeler

Will there be a new Battleground in Update 38 or 39?

We've talked about it, but nothing so far. We're experimenting more with the Battleground events, trying to get more participation into [them].

I know there won't be anything new in Cyrodiil for a while, will there?

We're trying to add things into Cyrodiil that don't affect performance. Such as messaging.

If a guild owns a keep and a guard gets killed, members of that guild will get a message that there are x enemies in the area. For example, 6 enemies, though it doesn't differentiate between factions. After a while, you'll get a message that no more enemies have been killed.

If a guild owns the keep AND resources, members of that guild will get advance warning that the keep is going to be attacked. It's a "We need to get to the keep" warning before the keep gets flagged.

[The message] will go out to every member of that guild in Cyrodiil playing on the correct Alliance. We don't want messages going out to AD members of a DC guild! The messaging will work even within [Cyrodiil] delves, but not in the Imperial City.

You can configure alerting to be in the upper right corner of the screen, or in the chat box, or disable it altogether. It won't be in the center of screen, that's reserved for scrolls.

[We're] Still debating WHEN new stuff can go into PvP because we're waiting for the data from the hardware updates. It won't be as early as Update 39.

Cyrodiil was fast for the first couple of months on the new PC-NA servers. Then Update 36 went in, with new optimizations, [which slowed it down again]. 37 introduced some [code] which is trying to address that.

The biggest thing to reinforce with the PvP is "We Know. We hear". We'll keep trying to add quality of life things [until it's possible to add new content].

Any thoughts for a new Battleground type?

We've talked about it. The idea of Battleground weekends was to get people to play more, deal with the MMR issue. We could create a new map or a new ruleset.

Matt Firor has a quote that "We can do anything but we can't do everything". There are technical limitations, art limitations etc. It's a time and resource management thing.

How do you feel about having two Midyear Mayhems so close together?

The May [2023 event] is the one which got moved to when we knew the new hardware [would be in place]. The June one is when it should be.

We talked about separating them, but there's a lot of data behind events. Moving an event is no small task. We have to get the hardware people involved. [Brian did explain this in more detail, and apparently it isn't even as simple as Cyrodiil events requiring more campaigns to be opened - the actual timing, as in what time of day an event starts, is vitally important.]

New Arcanist Class Questions and Answers

The Runeblades ability from patch v9.0.4, showing how its cost varies according to the character's highest resource.

Note: ZOS pronounce the class name as "arcanist" not "arcane-ist", but Brian doesn't care which pronunciation people use.

How does Arcanist compare to previous DLC classes, specifically - does it have a ranged Stamina arsenal like the Warden and Necromancer?

We're doing something a bit different with Stamina and it might change in PTS. We have three abilities which change cost depending on which your highest resource is.

Runeblades is the main spammable in the damage line and it has cost variability based on highest resource. The vibe with the Arcanist class is that they should have this variability. Though it's an experiment. Other classes have five or six Stamina morphs at the most.

In terms of viability and range, we wanted this class to be semi-middle-long range, as opposed to long range like Shards and Snipe. It has lots of 22 meter abilities, and will be affected by Reach in Cyrodiil.

Does the Arcanist have Stamina healing abilities like Green Balance?

There is a Stamina morph option of the spammable heal.

Does the Arcanist have a "gimmick" mechanic like Corpse Consumption?

Yes - the gimmick mechanic is called Crux. Mechanically it's a combo point system. Zenke said the "Crux thingies" should be called Crux.

Some abilities will create Crux and others will spend them. When you spend them, you spend ALL that you have. So that the ability heals more, or does more damage, or grants a period of crowd control on an ability that didn't have one before, or the duration of [a] Major or Minor [buff] is increased.

Not all abilities use [the Crux system]. There are two abilities per skill line that don't interface with it. At one point in testing we tried all of them, but it felt like they were forced. We started narrowing it down, and found that people wanted to load the abilities on their bar whether they had Crux or not.

A lot of people are finding that this class is the most cohesive because it has the most tools to handle the real-game scenarios. That's why the Tank line has a taunt. It has a 15 meter range - not as much as the Undaunted Inner Fire, but not super melee either. This may change in PTS.

How can we test out the Arcanist class?

As you know, PTS cycles 1 and 2 are gathering feedback, PTS cycles 3 and 5 are balance changes, [cycle] 4 is still trying to get in the balance changes from 3.

Fans can help by making Arcanists on PTS and doing the content they want – overland, Dungeons, Trials, etc. Post about their experiences, do bug reports in game. [/bug]

We'd like constructive feedback – here's the experience you were in, here's the abilities you used, here's the experience you had, and how did you feel about it? Did [the skill] meet its aim? Did it last long enough? DETAIL. We are looking for feedback about the icons too – are they too similar or not?

Does the Arcanist class have any combat pets?

No. The DPS Ultimate summons a Watcher that does damage. Some people may consider that a pet, but it's a visual effect. Not [a real pet] like a Sorcerer summon or a Warden bear. [In one morph] you can redirect [the Watcher] by pressing the Ultimate again. It's not like Shifting Standard where it moves suddenly, instead it does damage as it moves.

The other effect is auto-tracking of a target.

Do any Arcanist abilities count as CRIMINAL ACTS like some Necromancer abilities?

No criminal stuff. We talked about it though. The only [magic] that's really illegal [in Tamriel] is necromancy and undead stuff, this is not that. We decided that this can't be a scary class even though it has a Hermaeus Mora vibe. We didn't want Arcanist to be a new Sorcerer skin, but its own class. That's why it couldn't be purple and black [referring to a comment made about the class color scheme in his earlier panel interview, where some fans complained that they didn't like the bright green]. We didn't want the icons/ability coloring to resemble the Sorcerer or Mages Guild or Psijic lines.

The idea of the [Arcanist's] black book is like a cookbook. Just like recipes, some abilities you know off by heart, you can be precise with, you know exactly what they'll do. But others are more "I hope it works". That was the background for the class.

Abyssal Impact is what CJ calls the "Akira arm". It throws out the black BLERGH [Transcriber note: I cannot reproduce the sound he made]. You can call on it but you're not fully in control. It's more visceral. This is how the art has been designed too. "Not geometric". There isn't randomness in the move itself, it's "the vibe".

How did you decide on colors for the Arcanist abilities?

I spent about three days colorpicking all of the abilities [in ESO so far]. "What color is Jabs?". I came up with color swatches for all the classes. Icy blue for the Warden, deep dank electric blue for the Necro, bright blue for lightning for the Sorcerer. I played a game with anyone at the studio who wandered past. Could they guess which class each color was from?

CJ said, "There's only so many colors in the spectrum." [Eventually Brian chose a palette of electric green, similar to the wristbands we were wearing at the event.]

[Some colors can't be used.] Red, blue, green – everyone associates them with Health, Magicka, and Stamina. Even in tooltips, people have seen the red text of "This is a criminal act" and mistaken [the ability] for costing Health.

Was the Arcanist class intrinsically tied to the Necrom story?

When Rich wanted to bring in a new class, it wasn't tied to the story yet because we hadn't got to that point in the conversation. In January 2022, I hit the ground running with Erin Schulte, my producer. We sat down with Rich and came up with the criteria. What are the absolutes that this class must have? At that point, Hermaeus Mora and the story came into play.

My job as the lead is asking the questions about what we really need to make it work, and to fit in with what the rest of the studio is doing.

[If we went with a] Bard class, how do we make that fit the story? [referring to a question at the panel interview about whether ZOS would ever give us a Bard class]

The Arcanist class was so much more free than being boxed into a [pre-existing]name. This person who is thirsty for knowledge, and wants to find out as much as they possibly can. They went through the Mages Guild, and the Psijic Order, and still wanted to know more. Then they stumbled into Hermaeus-Mora...

"It's the UESP class!"

We did talk about a giant eyeball ability but it wouldn't work in low ceiling places.

I've also heard people ask for an Unarmed skill line or class.

With a Monk or Unarmed class, we would have to deal with [fans'] expectations again. It would paint us into a box.

We're trying to make sure that we have as much possibility to be creative. That's why we called the class "Bob" forever. It's still called Bob internally – I have meetings on my phone that say "Bob playtest". Maybe April/May 2022 was when the name Arcanist was decided.

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We are very grateful to Brian Wheeler for his time, and would like to thank everyone involved with setting up the Elder Scrolls Online Celebration event 2023.

Notes

1.Match-Making Rating, i.e. the number assigned to a player in order to match them with other players of similar skill in player vs player environments such as Battlegrounds. The MMR "issue" is that infrequent players may find themselves matched against players of much higher skill and lose interest quickly. Different Battleground games favor different skillsets, so by encouraging everyone to try all of the games rather than only Deathmatch, players should find themselves with a more realistic MMR.

2.Matt Firor, Studio Director of Zenimax Online Studios and Game Director of ESO.

3.In patch v9.0.4, six skills have cost determined by highest max resource.

4.Michael Zenke, current ESO Loremaster.

5.In the Crux system, an Arcanist may have up to three triangles floating around their body to show how much Crux they have available, so players don't need to look down at the UI.

6.CJ Grebb, ESO Art Director.

7.Rich Lambert, ESO Creative Director.