Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Uryel

Trying to be heard and falling on deaf ears is getting tedious, and obviously useless as the patch will go as planned on Monday, effectively killing Bosmeri stealth bonus. Yet, once more, here goes nothing.


So, this is the ONLY change I am going to discuss here :

Stealthy: Reduces detection Radius by 3m […] → Hunter’s Eye: Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m.

Please note that I left out the previous damage bonus from stealth or the new speed bonus from dodge roll, or any other change whatsoever. I’m ONLY discussing the removal of stealth. I couldn't care less about dodge roll, bonus damage from stealth, whatever. For all I care, a damage reduction when drunk could replace the dodge roll or anything, I wouldn't care. I'm ONLY talking about stealth itself.


1 – Removing stealth goes against the lore

It might be weird to open a plead against stat changes with the lore, but it’s the Elder Scrolls we’re talking about here, not just any game. It’s one of the longest standing, most established game series, and certainly one with the richest and most beloved lore. So it does matter. Maybe not to everyone, but to some.

The Maths Team has been using the lore as an excuse to remove stealth from the Bosmers, saying « they are good hunters so they need to see stuff », and thus they want to replace a bonus to stealth by a bonus to stealth detection. But that doesn’t make sense, neither lore-wise not hunt-wise.

As someone pointed elsewhere, a hunter is stealthy. Bosmers are hunters out of necessity from the Green Pact. Animals don’t sneak around, hunters do. It’s all about remaining hidden while the prey is blissfully unaware of your presence. Bosmers are exceptionnal hunters because they are amazing archers, even sometimes credited to having invented the bow, and because no one and nothing knows they are there before they strike. That's stealth at its finest.

But let’s focus on the lore. I can only talk about what I know, and my first Elder Scrolls was Morrowind, back in 2002. So I can say that for every Elder Scrolls game since 2002, Bosmers have been known as stealthy and thieves. Others might confirm it was true even before that, but ever since 2002, they have had bonuses to stealth.

Morrowind ? Stealthy Bosmers. Oblivion ? Stealthy Bosmers. Skyrim ? Stealthy Bosmers. Elder Scrolls Online, at least up to early 2019, and hopefully much later on ? Stealthy Bosmers.

But this could just be game habits and tropes, so let’s look at the lore behind it :

- The Jaqspurs are elite scout troops and hunters ("words and philosophy" book in the Elder Scrolls games), and a scout is... Stealthy, yes. A scout that is seen isn't of much use.
- They are known as thieves ("Valenwood : a study"), to the point even a bosmer shopkeeper will be wary of another bosmer entering their shop. And thieves are stealthy.
- They are known to be very adept at hiding, at the very least in woodlands ("Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Aldmeri Dominion" and "Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/The Wild Region").
- They are famous for their guerrila tactics, which require stealth. Couldn’t find the book that references it, though.
- Their most famous poem / epic is titled "The One Thousand Benefits of Hiding"
- They do worship Baan Dar, the trickster spirit they borrowed from the Khajiits.
- And last but certainly not least, their most well-known rite is "the rite of theft".

And so on. Seriously, if one was to boil down Bosmers to 3 points, it would be that they are amazing archers, they are amazing at stealth, and they don't eat or even damage any plant. Stealth is integral to Bosmers.

So please, Maths Team, do not use the lore as an excuse to remove stealth from them, it doesn’t work. Stealth is probably even MORE a part of the Bosmers than even their hunting ability. They have « the rite of theft », not « the rite of hunt ».


2 – This change is entirely useless in PvE and only marginally useful in PvP

As per @ZOS_Gilliam ‘s own words, « Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!) ».

Indeed, there are exactly ZERO enemies in PvE that do sneak. None that I have ever encountered, at least, and I’ve been playing for almost 4 years now. The only times an enemy goes « sneaking » is when you meet a nightblade NPC that cloaks. So, in PvE, stealth detection is entirely useless, since nothing sneaks. Ever. As for the cloaking nightblade mob, you don’t need to detect stealth, since you KNOW they are coming at you while cloaked. You just need either an AoE damage or a timely block.

So, the new racial passive is absolutely, completely, entirely useless in PvE. And that’s made even worse by the fact that, aside from the insignificant +1% Alliance Point gain the Bretons have, there is no other racial passive that has no use in PvE.

As a PvE-only player, I am not pleased by a change that I percieved as only good for PvP, but others, more PvP-versed than I am, have commented that it is also useless in PvP. From what I understand, stealth detection is only marginally used in PvP, and having it on the Bosmers might even make things worse. One of the reported major annoyances I read about was the sniping sneaky bosmers archers. One of the most obvious ways to dispose of a sniper is to sneak upon them to backstab them, but this might be even more complicated if they see you coming even easier than before. But I really am not all that well versed in PvP, so I’ll let the experts discuss that point.

What I think about the ganking archer PvP "problem", though, is that within a week of the change gankers will have switched to Khajiit to make use of the crit bonus instead. Gankers gonna gank. This will solve nothing, but will hurt people who made use of stealth outside of PvP.

Whatever anyone's point of view on the PvP part may be, it’s pretty obvious that this change has no benefit in PvE whatsoever, which would make the Bosmers the ONLY race that has a significant racial trait that has no effect in PvE.


3 – Most racial changes are adjustments, this one is a fundamental change

I understand changes do come when a balance patch happens. And for most of them, those changes seem to be fair game. Some might not be well recieved, others could be debated, but they are adjustments. They don’t really break or remove something entirely.

For instance, I’m not overly fond of the Nord change that replaces a percentage of damage reduction by a flat amount of physical / spell resistance, but that’s merely because my own Nord stamina sorcerer tank already stacked enormous amounts of resists, and I would much rather have a percentage reduction to top it all… But that doesn’t break anything. It’s fairly simple to adapt, and it stays within the same philosophy. We could debate the Altmers now regenerating their lower ressource pool, which is kinda awkward, lore-wise, for instance, but it doesn't sudenly say "now Altmers will be hulking melee warriors on par with Nords and Orcs, screw magicka !".

Removing stealth from Bosmers, however, is a complete paradigm shift. The idea is that « races should all be unique », but… Really, why should they ? Lore-wise (again, I know), Khajiits and Bosmers have always been contenders for the title of the sneakiest thief. It’s part of their racial identity and has been for almost 3 decades.

But let’s leave the lore out, I’ve already discussed that point. Let’s talk gameplay. For the past years, people have been creating bosmers taking into account the fact they are stealthy. Could have been because they wanted to use it, or simply as « oh well, I’m not gonna use it, bummer, but Bosmers are cool », but it was taken into account. Assuming people created a Bosmer for what they bring to the table and not for the cool factor, it’s likely stealth was a desired characteristic.

By entirely removing the stealth bonus from a race, the Maths Team is likely removing the reason some characters were created, and giving free race change tokens to people isn’t going to fix that. Not with one or three tokens per account, and even if they were providing one token per character it wouldn’t fix the issue, because race change is a solution only for people who only care about stats and nothing else. That’s not everyone.

Minmaxers and highly competitive players might be willing to switch out of a race and into another in the blink of an eye to squeeze that 2% bonus damage or whatever, because that’s all they care about, but are they everyone ? Nope. Are they the majority ? I doubt it. One could think they are, based on forum activity, but let’s be realistic, most people NEVER come to the forums, especially the casual players. It took me over THREE YEARS to come here, and that was ONLY because the Maths team threatened my favorite gameplay to be taken away from my favorite character.

So, aside from people who play by the stats only, here’s what it feels like : people grow attached to their characters. They can get around a minor stat adjustment or an annoying quirck, but something unwanted that radically changes how their character plays is generally unwelcome. And of course, looks are part of the identity of a characters. It’s even more important after years of costume collecting, dyes unlocking and whatnot. Many people wouldn’t change their Bosmer into a Khajiit, not because Khajiits are ugly or whatever, but because it would break the character’s identity, the whole feel of playing it. Switching race is only fun if you WANT to do so, not if you have to do so to retain the same gameplay. And not changing race but losing a major part of your character identity nonetheless isn't fun either.

Removing stealth from the Bosmers means that, for a lot of people, their characters will have to change into something that feels entirely different, will have to change gameplay completely, or go to extreme lengths to retain the same gameplay (more about that below). And that is NOT fun.

Also, if the Maths Team talks about adding variety, I don’t see how encouraging people from 2 different races to play a single race will encourage variety.


4 – Stealth is part of the gameplay, don’t treat it as if it doesn’t exist

There is a huge contradiction in that update. One one side, « Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game », so they’re taking it away from the Bosmers, but on the other hand, they were initially boosting Khajiit’s stealth (don't know if that's still true, didn't care, I have no Khajiit and don't intend to have one). Doesn’t make much sense to me aside from the sheer will to force an artificial, stat-based-only difference between the two races, even though they do share this trait in the lore and have been sharing it in games for almost 3 decades. Stealth exists, stealth is part of the gameplay, and stealth is helluva fun

Stealth isn’t a major part of the gameplay, I’ll give you that. But it isn’t negligible either. There are TWO entire DLCs that revolve around sneaking, a huge amount of items that exist only to be stolen, and a whole justice system that benefits from being able to avoid being seen by the guards. There are achievements and housing items to unlock with said achievements that call for picking merchant lockboxes. So, it’s entirely possible that a Bosmer (or Khajiit) character was created with that in mind, to be a thief / assassin. I know mine was, at least.

Sure, stealth has no place in trials and most « end game » content, but… Does everyone focus on that ? I don’t think so. And even so, it’s entirely possible to have separate characters for different contents, for instance one really optimised character for competitive gameplay, and a stealthy little Bosmer for when you feel like picking pockets and are curious about what’s behind that locked door.

And even in « normal » gameplay, understand non-competitive PvE, stealth can be very useful, or just fun. Bit in a hurry but really need that skyshard ? Avoid all combat and stealth your way through the delve. Farming some gear that drops in overland zones ? Stealth your way to the delve / public dungeon boss. You can pickpocket easier. You can breeze through restricted area, heist, assassination missions and whatnot. This, of course, means a slightly less powerfull character in intense combat situations, but it is a gameplay choice that is available, and a pretty efficient one at that. If you have a bounty you can just sneak into town anyway. You can’t do all that without the +3 meters bonus. And that gameplay choice won’t be available anymore to Bosmers when the update goes live. Be Khajiit, or play entirely differently.

For a comparison, here is an exemple. I play a Bosmer stealthy character, and my wife plays a Breton stealthy character. We both use the same gear, one set that boosts our stealth by 2 more meters, and one that removes the movement penalty when sneaking. While she can sneak, I can sneak ALOT easier and better. I can come so close to a guard that I could scratch his back with the point of a short sword, but she can’t. If she comes this close, she’s caught. It doesn’t mean she can’t sneak around, but in many situations where my character can go undetected, hers can’t. Her current Breton character stealth abilities is tomorrow’s Bosmer stealth ability.

3 meters makes a HUGE difference in PvE, when you're sneaking about. There is currently no gear that gives such a high bonus. Stacking stealth gear, you can get +4 meters. If you want to retain mobility, you either have to be a vampire at stage 4, and / or a magblade. There is a set that removes stealth movement penalty, though, but it doesn't have a bonus to detection radius, meaning that by gear only, you get +4 meters OR +2 meters and no penalty.

When that change goes live, the only way to replicate that level of stealth with a Bosmer would be to be a magbalde and / or a vampire for the movement penalty, and TWO sets that give stealth radius bonus. And we'd still be short of a 1 meter bonus, still making stealth slightly more difficult. Also, those specific sets are stamina sets, effectively ruling out the magblade. As far as I remember, there is only one dropped set that gives that sort of stealth bonus in light armour. None craftable. That doesn’t leave much room for character customisation. Also, as stated before, character looks might matter, and being a vampire stuck on stage 4 to retain your gameplay might not appeal to everyone. Not even mentionning the drawbacks that inherently come with being a vampire.

A stamblade could use the skill morph that provides a bonus to stealth mobility, but seing this is a magicka ability, it would deal pretty low damage. I know, I've tested it. When my character is buffed, the stamina version of this skills has 10k damage on the description. The magicka version, still for my character, is about 3k, and does no longer apply a debuff to enemy resists. So, as I mentionend earlier, to retain stealth mobility, one would have to go to such extreme length as to gimp one of their best combat skills (combat not being the strongest point of a thief already). Or one could use that PvP skill that boosts speed, but you uncloak for a while when casting it. And that's also one less combat skill in the bars. So, to sum it up, lower stealth bonus, no mobility or even lower combat prowess.

Basically, when that change goes live, stealthy Bosmers are screwed. They will be left underperforming in stealth even though it's one of the most defining traits of the race, with no means to compensate by gear only. Either they will get to +4 meters bonus instead of +5 or +7, or +2 and retain mobility, or +4 and mobility IF they are a vampire or a magblade or chose to be even less efficient in combat. And that is if they go full sneaky. I fail to see where this adds any "choice value". Wanna sneak ? Be Khajiit.

This update will kill the fun of all casual player who merely enjoys stealing sh*t and escaping the law. Among other things


5 – How to avoid that problem

You get it by now, if you read everything up until here, I’m advocating for the complete removal of the new « Hunter’s Eye » increase to stealth detection, and for keeping the reduced stealth detection radius from « Stealthy » as it is. I’m not even talking about keeping the 10% bonus damage done in stealth. Change everything you wish, I don’t mind, so long as the stealth detection radius that has no use whatsoever doesn’t make it to live, and that the bonus to stealth is kept.

But… IF it goes live anyway… And obviously it will... At the very least they should provide us with another way to retain that bonus. Someone suggested that adding a stealth bonus to the Legerdemain skill line would allow to compensate, and that’s not a bad idea. I don’t know what other solution would be best. A Legerdemain bonus would certainly make stealth available to everyone, and that would be pretty nice too. But the simplest solution is to drop that ridiculous stealth detection bonus that, again, has no use whatsoever, and keep the stealth bonus as it is.

It's been stated somewhere that they are considering a way to retain stealth, but it won't be live on monday. For all we know, it may not be live before a year or two. Still, stealth is gonna be broken on monday. Break sh*t first, think of a repair "later", that's not good business practice. The proper thing to do would be to delay the racial changes until a proper way to deal with retaining stealth is found.

And to end with a personal feeling, I don't understand that ill-percieved need to differenciate races and make everything unique. We have almost 3 decades and 5 games worth of lore and gameplay advocating for stealthy Bosmers, and there is no need for that to change. Especially not after lots of people spent years building their characters around that. They really should reconsider.

Aela_Dragonrider

My 2nd Main is a Bosmer thief for whom the Hunter's Eye passive will be of little to no use what so ever. She has no use for Stealth Detection, only uses bow so the movement bonus is redundant, doesnt care about more pen, and only dodge rolls to escape attacks.

If the devs insist on implementing this passive, maybe they could do this: change the Bosmer's Stealthy passive to have 2 morphs. One would give Stealth radius and something else, the other would be Hunter's Eye.
They could do the same with the Altmer: 1 morph would be roughly what they have now, the other what is on the PTS
Same for other races: allow the utility passive to be morphed.
That way everyone-the min/maxers and the lore-conscious-can hopefully calm down and go home happy? content? not enraged?

Or even better - Split every race's utility passive to have 3 possible morphs: Warrior, Mage, Thief. Warrior would give physical related buffs, Mage would give magic buffs, Thief would give stealth and movement related buffs. You wanna be tougher and stronger? Pick the Warrior morph. Want more power to your spells? Take the Mage morph. Want to be stealthier and quicker? Choose the Thief morph.

It wouldn't be easy to come up with unique versions of the passive for every race and how to handle stamina-related bonuses. But, if done right, I think it would go a long way in opening up all races to all play styles without losing uniqueness or breaking lore.

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

Uryel

Aela_Dragonrider wrote: »

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

I'd add to that that my Nord is all about standing tall and laughing in the face of the enemy, and was geared accordingly. I recently downgraded his resists after learning about the resists cap. I was already well above it.

So, getting a racial bonus that brings me back to where I was before the downgrad has no beneficial effect whatsoever. Guess I'll be able to remove some of my resist / HP gear for some stamina sustain, then. However, the percentage of damage reduction was extremely good, as it was on top of maximum resists.

So, that change doesn't just only shoehorn Nords even more into their tank role, it also doesn't bring anything to the table, and even removes useful stuff, for those who were already eared up for resists anyway.

It's still far from being as bad as what happens to the Bosmers, and is even alot tamer than the Altmers now regerenating their lowest ressource pool, but it's a "meh" for me. I'd love more choices like you suggest, but I believe we're never goin to see that.

hakan

Uryel wrote: »

Aela_Dragonrider wrote: »

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

I'd add to that that my Nord is all about standing tall and laughing in the face of the enemy, and was geared accordingly. I recently downgraded his resists after learning about the resists cap. I was already well above it.

So, getting a racial bonus that brings me back to where I was before the downgrad has no beneficial effect whatsoever. Guess I'll be able to remove some of my resist / HP gear for some stamina sustain, then. However, the percentage of damage reduction was extremely good, as it was on top of maximum resists.

So, that change doesn't just only shoehorn Nords even more into their tank role, it also doesn't bring anything to the table, and even removes useful stuff, for those who were already eared up for resists anyway.

It's still far from being as bad as what happens to the Bosmers, and is even alot tamer than the Altmers now regerenating their lowest ressource pool, but it's a "meh" for me. I'd love more choices like you suggest, but I believe we're never goin to see that.

it is said that 6percent dmg reduction is more like 2-3percent because diminishing returns. i believe this is much better. flat 4k is also around 7,5 percent reduction.

KanedaSyndrome

How about we disjoint racial skills from actual race. Let it be some morphs that we choose, regardless of which race we picked. That way we get to play the race we want while still having fun with the passives we'd like to use.

De-Couple Racial Traits From Race

Bosco916

The changes look great. Ofcourse, I've mained a Breton since May 2014 and they've never been at the top, so I'm naturally liking what's in-store.

So many people are up in arms because they feel they're losing out on this that and the other, it's as if nobody else is. I thought the goal was balancing, is it not?

Shadows_Blade

Fun and enjoyment

Fun and enjoyment come in many forms. Some people like to crunch numbers, others enjoy PVP and I enjoy sneaking around on my stealthy Bosmers. I logged in yesterday and it felt as if my Bosmers had been ***, defiled, mutilated… This was a horrible feeling. An essential part of who these characters are had been stolen from them and the fun of playing them stolen from me.

This had nothing to do with game balance. The developers said as much, according to them, stealth is not that important. Unless you are a thief or just like to sneak and role play, it is not important. It does not help with world bosses, dungeons or trials. It just makes playing the game fun. So why would they remove stealthy and replace it with hunter's eye? Something that I have not put any points into nor do I intend to. There is no one to see with it unless you play PVP and I do not. Nor should racial skills be related to PVP. Other than accidentally roll dodging I use that skill about two or three times a month. Hunter's eye is a pointless replacement for something that was at the core of Bosmer identity, stealth.

I would be a fool to continue paying for something that is no longer fun. I have canceled my recurring subscription and when it runs out, if this thoughtless decision is not reversed, I may quit the game all together. After almost three years and many hundreds of dollars spent they have chased me away with one careless act.

I was not happy about all eleven of my characters loosing points from their main statistic with the change from percent to flat racial bonuses. It did not however ruin the game for me. The loss of stealthy on my Bosmers did. I encourage other like minded players to be heard and the makers of ESO to reverse this ill conceived decision. Fun is not all about numbers or being the best; sometimes it is just about playing your characters in a way that makes you happy.

Cundu_Ertur

Shadows_Blade wrote: »

Fun and enjoyment

Fun and enjoyment come in many forms. Some people like to crunch numbers, others enjoy PVP and I enjoy sneaking around on my stealthy Bosmers. I logged in yesterday and it felt as if my Bosmers had been ***, defiled, mutilated… This was a horrible feeling. An essential part of who these characters are had been stolen from them and the fun of playing them stolen from me.

This had nothing to do with game balance. The developers said as much, according to them, stealth is not that important. Unless you are a thief or just like to sneak and role play, it is not important. It does not help with world bosses, dungeons or trials. It just makes playing the game fun. So why would they remove stealthy and replace it with hunter's eye? Something that I have not put any points into nor do I intend to. There is no one to see with it unless you play PVP and I do not. Nor should racial skills be related to PVP. Other than accidentally roll dodging I use that skill about two or three times a month. Hunter's eye is a pointless replacement for something that was at the core of Bosmer identity, stealth.

I would be a fool to continue paying for something that is no longer fun. I have canceled my recurring subscription and when it runs out, if this thoughtless decision is not reversed, I may quit the game all together. After almost three years and many hundreds of dollars spent they have chased me away with one careless act.

I was not happy about all eleven of my characters loosing points from their main statistic with the change from percent to flat racial bonuses. It did not however ruin the game for me. The loss of stealthy on my Bosmers did. I encourage other like minded players to be heard and the makers of ESO to reverse this ill conceived decision. Fun is not all about numbers or being the best; sometimes it is just about playing your characters in a way that makes you happy.

Welcome to the forums; and I agree.
I came to ESO for the lore, to keep playing in Tamriel. This ain't Tamriel anymore.

Tommy_The_Gun

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

To summarize, we decided to focus more on racial balance this update because racial choice was one of the larger outliers to our core mantra of the game - freedom. We wanted to expand the horizon for choice and present players with a self-reflecting question of “What is my playstyle or ideal build?”, providing options to help reach that individual answer. Now, instead of having a single race that focuses almost exclusively on a specific playstyle, you can pick based on a personal level.

Goals & Process

1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

The intentions were correct. But in the end you did not achieved your goals. I would even dare to say that the racial rebalance is a total opposite of your goals. Almost all races are actually more limited now and further shoehorned into one role, often without even being bis or even close to bis at that role.

What I am trying to say is: try to look at all 10 races separately and without any bias or favouring specific race, then again look at your original racial rebalance goals and try to place a " ✔ " check mark to all of your goals at each race. If you cant do this then it means that you still have job to do, until you actually can place that " ✔ " check mark.

This is at least my opinion. But seeing varius forum posts it seems that I am not the only one, but rather 70% seems to think that way.

Asardes

I've realized that changes aren't that great. About 500 max stat less for DD/healer build, which is almost inconsequential.

A_Silverius

Give Bosmer stealth back please.

SahrotChurasu

Put simply, I don't think these changes have changed all that much. When it was announced that the racial passives were going to be reworked sometime this year, with the goal being to allow for greater build diversity, I had hoped that meant the issue of having racial bonuses set to either all Stamina or all Magicka would be addressed. Bretons, for example, have racial passives that are only of use to Magicka builds; there are no bonuses to anything Stamina-related, and you'd be put at a significant disadvantage if you wanted to make your Stamina-focused character a Breton. It's the same way with Redguards and Stamina builds - if you want to create a Magicka-focused character, Redguard passives will not help you much at all.

It seems to me like this may be the biggest barrier to overcome in working toward this idea of giving every race a fair chance at every role. An issue, for example, is that healing is primarily Magicka-based; if you want to heal, you're best off picking a race with Magicka-related bonuses, which, naturally, leaves the races with only Stamina-related bonuses off the list. Tanking, on the other hand, remains (for the most part) Stamina-based, because blocking with a shield costs Stamina, and most tanking-relevant skills cost Stamina, so the races to pick for tanking have Health and Stamina-related bonuses, plus a little resource return. The Argonians and Bretons are the "sturdiest" of the Magicka-focused races, but their passives are not structured toward tanking to quite the extent Nord or Imperial passives are - they would better serve the group as healers.

It was my hope that we would get something like morph options for racial passives, or something to that effect, that would give players the option to make a Redguard Magicka Sorcerer, for example, or a Breton Stamina Nightblade, without being at a significant disadvantage in terms of (at least) attribute bonuses. Ideally, it seems like racial passives ought to strictly be the "flavor" parts of what we have already. A Breton, for example, ought to have its current spell resistance bonus that doubles when affected by a debuff - that's a great "flavor" bonus. But then, it might have a choice of either Magicka or Stamina Recovery first, a reduction to either Magicka or Stamina cost second, and perhaps a choice of either 2000 Magicka or 1000 Stamina third. To keep in line with the backgrounds of each race, traditionally magically-inclined races could be given a chance at a higher-than-average base Magicka, as always, but they wouldn't be at a disadvantage in a Stamina role, either.

The idea may be unpopular, and there are good reasons to be against it, but I'm not the biggest fan of the old-fashioned way of setting races apart in RPGs stat-wise by relying on stereotypes. In this series, it's easy to see that there are warriors, wizards, and all kinds of people in every race. The average Breton may be more inclined to learn magic than the average Nord, to get back to my earlier example, but that Breton is just as likely to join the Lion Guard, or any of the other military orders that are just as large a part of their culture as any school of magic. Why is that part of their culture not reflected in their stats? It would almost be easier, or it might make more sense, to not include bonuses to attributes at all, in my opinion, because the people of Nirn are like the people of Earth, mostly. Culture is more important than race in shaping the average citizen.

Anyway, I decided to weigh in on this because in a perfect world, all of my characters would be Orcs. They're my favorite race, and there's a strong tradition in Orcish culture of wise-women, shamans, and alchemists practicing what might rightly be called hedge magic. This part of their culture can't be seen in their stats from Morrowind or Oblivion, though, and neither can it be seen in ESO - or at least, not yet, despite the fact that there are more Orc NPCs than ever practicing magic.

Silver_Strider

SahrotChurasu wrote: »

Put simply, I don't think these changes have changed all that much. When it was announced that the racial passives were going to be reworked sometime this year, with the goal being to allow for greater build diversity, I had hoped that meant the issue of having racial bonuses set to either all Stamina or all Magicka would be addressed. Bretons, for example, have racial passives that are only of use to Magicka builds; there are no bonuses to anything Stamina-related, and you'd be put at a significant disadvantage if you wanted to make your Stamina-focused character a Breton. It's the same way with Redguards and Stamina builds - if you want to create a Magicka-focused character, Redguard passives will not help you much at all.

It seems to me like this may be the biggest barrier to overcome in working toward this idea of giving every race a fair chance at every role. An issue, for example, is that healing is primarily Magicka-based; if you want to heal, you're best off picking a race with Magicka-related bonuses, which, naturally, leaves the races with only Stamina-related bonuses off the list. Tanking, on the other hand, remains (for the most part) Stamina-based, because blocking with a shield costs Stamina, and most tanking-relevant skills cost Stamina, so the races to pick for tanking have Health and Stamina-related bonuses, plus a little resource return. The Argonians and Bretons are the "sturdiest" of the Magicka-focused races, but their passives are not structured toward tanking to quite the extent Nord or Imperial passives are - they would better serve the group as healers.

It was my hope that we would get something like morph options for racial passives, or something to that effect, that would give players the option to make a Redguard Magicka Sorcerer, for example, or a Breton Stamina Nightblade, without being at a significant disadvantage in terms of (at least) attribute bonuses. Ideally, it seems like racial passives ought to strictly be the "flavor" parts of what we have already. A Breton, for example, ought to have its current spell resistance bonus that doubles when affected by a debuff - that's a great "flavor" bonus. But then, it might have a choice of either Magicka or Stamina Recovery first, a reduction to either Magicka or Stamina cost second, and perhaps a choice of either 2000 Magicka or 1000 Stamina third. To keep in line with the backgrounds of each race, traditionally magically-inclined races could be given a chance at a higher-than-average base Magicka, as always, but they wouldn't be at a disadvantage in a Stamina role, either.

The idea may be unpopular, and there are good reasons to be against it, but I'm not the biggest fan of the old-fashioned way of setting races apart in RPGs stat-wise by relying on stereotypes. In this series, it's easy to see that there are warriors, wizards, and all kinds of people in every race. The average Breton may be more inclined to learn magic than the average Nord, to get back to my earlier example, but that Breton is just as likely to join the Lion Guard, or any of the other military orders that are just as large a part of their culture as any school of magic. Why is that part of their culture not reflected in their stats? It would almost be easier, or it might make more sense, to not include bonuses to attributes at all, in my opinion, because the people of Nirn are like the people of Earth, mostly. Culture is more important than race in shaping the average citizen.

Anyway, I decided to weigh in on this because in a perfect world, all of my characters would be Orcs. They're my favorite race, and there's a strong tradition in Orcish culture of wise-women, shamans, and alchemists practicing what might rightly be called hedge magic. This part of their culture can't be seen in their stats from Morrowind or Oblivion, though, and neither can it be seen in ESO - or at least, not yet, despite the fact that there are more Orc NPCs than ever practicing magic.

It had first appeared to be going that direction in 4.3.0 but was never fleshed out. Magic Redguard does benefit from the weapon ability cost reduction and Dunmer/Khajiit just got fully opened to both specs. Original Spell Recharge passive would have opened up Stamina Altmer but that was changed into a meaningless utility passive, leaving Stam Altmer in the dark again. The rest of the races just sort of got the short end of the stick in that regard as well. They had a shot and blew it.

SahrotChurasu

Magic Redguard does benefit from the weapon ability cost reduction and Dunmer/Khajiit just got fully opened to both specs. Original Spell Recharge passive would have opened up Stamina Altmer...

Yes, thank you! I meant to say that these new changes have clearly improved the situations of a few races - namely Khajiit, Bretons, Imperials, and Redguards, to my eyes. The Khajiit seem to have received the most positive changes, but it seems to me that Bretons, Imperials, and Redguards received only clear improvements to what they had before, too, whereas the other races were not so lucky - and a few were particularly unlucky.

The Argonians, for example, have been further restricted to a healing role, because where they used to have a bonus to both Healing Done and Healing Received, they now have only an (albeit larger) improvement to Healing Done. And, for whatever reason, they no longer have a resistance to poison damage, and their bonus to Max Health is smaller than it was before.

An attempt was made to push the Nord race further into the tanking role, but the only good thing they've gotten is a way of generating Ultimate when taking damage. Their bonus to Max Health is small, their bonus to Max Stamina is mediocre, and their "flavor" passive that used to reduce incoming damage has been turned into a simple bonus to resistances. A tank will probably be either pushing or past the resistance caps, so what was a useful passive before has been made less useful.

The new Dunmer passives are a more complicated case. On the one hand, their bonuses to Max Stamina and Max Magicka are now equal, only slightly below the maximum possible bonus (2000), and they've got an equal bonus to both Spell Damage and Weapon Damage, too. The issue, though, is their Resist Flame passive. It takes the place of what could be (and is, in the non-hybrid races) a passive to give them better sustain, either in Magicka or Stamina, so they're still a little behind the others. I don't mean to say that they aren't in a better place - they certainly are, on the Stamina side especially - but it's not perfect. And, to sort of get away from the stats, I think it's a little disappointing that they've lost their flair for Fire Damage.

On the same note, it's a little disappointing to see that the Bosmer have lost their stealthiness, but I understand the idea behind their changes, I think. They're hunters, so the stealth detection bonus does make sense, but the bigger issue is that their unique bonus will not be useful to end-game players, who are likely pushing or past the penetration cap. Still, the stealth thing is a little bothersome, because you'd think the smallest race would have an easier time sneaking around!

The Orcs now share the maximum possible bonus to Max Stamina (2000) with Redguards, Imperials, and Wood Elves, but to set them apart as the "berserker" damage-dealing race, they've been given a bonus to Weapon Damage and a way of returning health by dealing damage, too. All in all, their situation is the same or better, but it's a little sad to see that their "oddball" bonuses - their bonus to healing received, and their bonus to melee attack damage - have been replaced. They've kept their main "flair" bonus (to sprint speed), and functionally, they're about the same now as they were before, but something about the old bonus specific to melee damage did more to make them feel unique. Healing Taken was a rarer bonus, too.

With the Altmer, not much has changed. What used to be a bonus to elemental damage is now a bonus to Spell Damage, which is an improvement for Altmer Magicka Templars and Nightblades, in fairness, or any build that makes use of non-elemental damage, but their new Spell Recharge passive is not much of an improvement. It would be a great passive if Stamina Altmer builds were a thing, but the rest of the Altmer passives are still only relevant to Magicka, so they're not.

That brings me back to the idea in my earlier post. If the goal is to create build diversity, it seems like the biggest thing to tackle, at the core, is the issue of having Stamina-designated races and Magicka-designated races. There can't be much in the way of diversity if there's a clear divide between the two. If you want to create a Stamina DPS character, for example, your options are: Redguard, Orc, Imperial, Bosmer, Dunmer, Khajiit, or Nord. Some are more optimal than others, because of differences in either sustain or pure damage, but that's 7 of the 10 races with bonuses relevant to Stamina, which is great! The issue, though, is that you'll likely never see an Argonian, Altmer, or Breton Stamina character, because those races don't have any passives to benefit Stamina builds. Of the 7 Stamina options, 5 (Redguards, Orcs, Imperials, Bosmer, and Nords) have the same issue: none (or very few) of their passives are useful to Magicka builds, so chances are you'll never meet a Magicka character from that half of the race roster. Or, if you do, that player has accepted to play at a disadvantage.

I'm not sure how to fix the problem, but these changes have allowed for a little more build diversity. As mentioned in the comment I quoted above, Stamina and Magicka options have been improved for the Dunmer and Khajiit, but I fear a few races have become more restricted - namely, the Argonians and Nords. I'm just not sure how much can really be fixed, or how much more build diversity can be created, without changing a few things at the core of how these racial passives were designed.

Mecanista

code65536 wrote: »

RIP Dunmer.

Unless you intend to play a hybrid, there's absolutely no reason to pick Dunmer over Altmer for a mag class.

In the current patch, Dunmer-vs-Altmer was a question of damage-vs-sustain. With the high amount of fire damage at play, Dunmer did slightly higher DPS than Altmer, but Altmer had better sustain. Dunmer had 9% max mag (6%+3%) vs. Altmer's 10%, so that was not a substantial difference.

Now with these proposed changes...

1. The magicka deficit between Dunmer and Altmer is larger.
2. Replacing Dunmer's higher flame damage with weapon damage (useful only for a hybrid) means that Dunmer now does less DPS than Altmer (as they have the same spell damage bonus).
3. Dunmer doesn't have Altmer's sustain.

So whereas in the past Dunmer lost sustain in exchange for slightly more damage versus Altmer, now they've lost sustain and lost damage. So... why would anyone pick Dunmer?

Suggestion: Give Dunmer fire abilities an additional X spell damage. It would make them once again a meaningful alternative to Altmer and is consistent with their lore background.

That's what you get for worshiping false gods and Daedra.
Jokes aside, I thought the Dunmer would get the upperhand, but then I realized that Weapon damage isn't Staff damage.
They totally gave the Altmer the "Master Race" title for magicka users.

keto3000

This passive should be renamed so its not confusing:

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Elemental Talent: 4% Fire/Shock/Ice damage → Increases your Spell Damage by 258.

Lady_Alec

I'm so frustrated my wood elf thief character I worked so hard to make a sneaky thief can no longer sneak to save her life. Stealth was my thing and it's extremely frustrating that the game play style I worked very hard to build up has been made so much less effective due to this change.

Cundu_Ertur

Lady_Alec wrote: »

I'm so frustrated my wood elf thief character I worked so hard to make a sneaky thief can no longer sneak to save her life. Stealth was my thing and it's extremely frustrating that the game play style I worked very hard to build up has been made so much less effective due to this change.

You may like this thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459007/wood-elf-bosmer-losing-stealth-passive-an-open-letter

edit to add: quite agree, too.

Koronach

Lady_Alec wrote: »

I'm so frustrated my wood elf thief character I worked so hard to make a sneaky thief can no longer sneak to save her life. Stealth was my thing and it's extremely frustrating that the game play style I worked very hard to build up has been made so much less effective due to this change.

I hear you, I didn't like Argonian passive changes. I'm over all of them except the removal of poison resistance. It bothers me because it's part of their identity and it's cemented into ESO's lore in lore books and NPC dialogue. They claim they reviewed the lore and wanted to preserve the established lore, you kind of failed here. These examples kind of show the failure to preserve established and cemented lore within ESO.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/462221/argonians-losing-their-resistance-to-poison-an-open-letter/p1

This should be fixed because that is clearly broken. If they want the passives to be unique give Argonians disease resistance, immunity, and some poison resistance to match the lore (Immune to Knahaten flu and Llodos plague but only states poison resistance) and Bosmer poison resistance, immunity, and some disease resistance. This makes them different and more lore friendly since they don't want races having the same exact passives.

GrumpyDuckling

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

As always, we’ll be closely monitoring this thread, and are very excited to hear your feedback on the matter!

Did that monitoring include Wood Elf feedback? I ask because it doesn't seem like it. Here is a quick recap of what you pushed to live:

• You gave a 10% top speed bonus after a roll dodge to an agile race. Agility is not the same as top speed.
• You decided to remove sneak passives, which directly contradicted the in-game description of the race.
• You removed the sneak passives just before the TG and DB event (not great timing).
• You offered a small note about the future of sneak through a class rep thread, without an ETA or details.
• You mentioned how enemies of Tamriel can't be bothered to sneak, but then created a stealth detection passive.
• You decided that the action of performing a dodge roll creates a 6 second boost to penetration power.

zyk

Lady_Alec wrote: »

I'm so frustrated my wood elf thief character I worked so hard to make a sneaky thief can no longer sneak to save her life. Stealth was my thing and it's extremely frustrating that the game play style I worked very hard to build up has been made so much less effective due to this change.

I don't have any Bosmer characters, but I feel for you.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again.

There are times when changes are necessary to solve a significant issue in a game. It's never pleasant to have something taken away, so you hope the devs only do this when absolutely necessary.

The Bosmer stealth passive was not game breaking or OP in any way. This change was COMPLETELY whimsical and unnecessary. I think the ZOS execs responsible for allowing this change should be ashamed of themselves for taking something away from characters that players have thoughtfully developed over years.

I'm shocked that ZOS was not responsive to the concerns about Bosmer passives before the changes went live. It paints them as very stubborn and kind of heartless IMO.

Jaraal

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

As always, we’ll be closely monitoring this thread, and are very excited to hear your feedback on the matter!

Did that monitoring include Wood Elf feedback? I ask because it doesn't seem like it.

They most certainly have been monitoring feedback. Snipping texts out of posts, deleting posts, issuing warnings, closing and reopening threads on the subject.

The level of excitement however, remains hidden. But I'm sure there are Bosmers everywhere trying to detect it.

Koronach

The only feedback they listen to, are the top 1% Streamers/Class reps. They don't care about race or lore just padding those numbers to attract new subscribers. ZoS, destroying lore and peoples enjoyment of pve, pvp, and rp for the top 1%.

Jaraal

Koronach wrote: »

The only feedback they listen to, are the top 1% Streamers/Class reps. They don't care about race or lore just padding those numbers to attract new subscribers. ZoS, destroying lore and peoples enjoyment of pve, pvp, and rp for the top 1%.

Seems like that would backfire on them, as the other 99% are buying the vast majority of houses, outfits, mounts, pets, etc. How many casual role player dollars are they willing to sacrifice in order to make a few elite PvPers stop complaining? And yet, even PvPers are saying a lot of these racial changes are garbage. Three meter "stealth detection", when they can actually see you first? Really?

markdeloma

Well I don't understand why bethesda sell Imperial race? It's the weakest and most boring class (especially for magic classes)

JediCody

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

To summarize, we decided to focus more on racial balance this update because racial choice was one of the larger outliers to our core mantra of the game - freedom. We wanted to expand the horizon for choice and present players with a self-reflecting question of “What is my playstyle or ideal build?”, providing options to help reach that individual answer. Now, instead of having a single race that focuses almost exclusively on a specific playstyle, you can pick based on a personal level.

Goals & Process

1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

The intentions were correct. But in the end you did not achieved your goals. I would even dare to say that the racial rebalance is a total opposite of your goals..

Nords and Imperials and now more viable than ever for Tanking.

Stam DPS is no longer shoehorned to being nearly only Redguards. Orc, Khajit, and Dark Elf are all separated by an incredibly small fraction of absolute DPS.

MagDPS is won't be exclusively High Elfs anymore.

Healers on the other hand, yea, I can see your point.

One final note I consider is that each race is supposed to have its' flavor. Redguards are naturally attuned to be martial artists'. High Elfs are naturally attuned to being a caster. And so on. It's like the real world... you can be 5'9 and be great at basketball, hell, you could be in the NBA, but the dude that is 6'6 already has a built-in natural advantage. I also don't expect a woman to squat 315 lbs. to depth., but she can absolutely make it happen via hard, tough work... but a male will always have an easier time doing it reaching that number.

max_only

Elijah_Crow wrote: »

@ZOS_Gilliam We appreciate your work here and though I’m generally pleased with the changes, the loss of Bosmer Stealth in exchange for detection pains me.

When I have played any Elder Scrolls game in the past, the first thing I do at race selection is to pick a stealthy race and then and the first thing I do in game is try to find out how to join the Theives Guild and when done I move on to the Assassin / Dark Brotherhood / Morag Tong, etc.

The immersion of the world along with the ability to open containers and pick up most every item (particularly if it wasn’t mine) was something key in the gameplay for me.

Being able to choose if I wanted to fight or if I wanted to sneak past an encounter is why I choose the Bosmer race at launch when I created my character.

The addition of the Justice System (which was quite a wait) and the Theives Guild and Dark Brotherhood really brought this gameplay loved from the single player games to ESO and it’s been great.

What concerns me now beyond how it impacts the gameplay I have come to enjoy, is how it will impact new players coming to the game.

I know I’m not alone in the love of this play style and for new players coming to the game, the only option the character creation screen is going to really suggest if this change happens is Khajiit.

Leaving one race with an affinity for stealth gameplay isn’t expanding choice, it’s limiting it for those looking for a similar play style

My preference would be for the Bosmer to retain their stealth bonus. As has been suggested, the detection isn’t helpful when many inhabitants of the world “cannot be bothered to sneak” and would result in the only racial passive with no PvE purpose.

If that doesn’t happen I feel a better choice than what is presented, is to remove the Stealth affinity from all races and move it into the Legerdemain skill line. At least this way you are not funneling every new player who is looking for this play style into a single race.

Thank you for your time.

Well said. Some more publicity/streams on the topic couldn’t hurt either.

max_only

JediCody wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

To summarize, we decided to focus more on racial balance this update because racial choice was one of the larger outliers to our core mantra of the game - freedom. We wanted to expand the horizon for choice and present players with a self-reflecting question of “What is my playstyle or ideal build?”, providing options to help reach that individual answer. Now, instead of having a single race that focuses almost exclusively on a specific playstyle, you can pick based on a personal level.

Goals & Process

1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

The intentions were correct. But in the end you did not achieved your goals. I would even dare to say that the racial rebalance is a total opposite of your goals..

Nords and Imperials and now more viable than ever for Tanking.

Stam DPS is no longer shoehorned to being nearly only Redguards. Orc, Khajit, and Dark Elf are all separated by an incredibly small fraction of absolute DPS.

MagDPS is won't be exclusively High Elfs anymore.

Healers on the other hand, yea, I can see your point.

One final note I consider is that each race is supposed to have its' flavor. Redguards are naturally attuned to be martial artists'. High Elfs are naturally attuned to being a caster. And so on. It's like the real world... you can be 5'9 and be great at basketball, hell, you could be in the NBA, but the dude that is 6'6 already has a built-in natural advantage. I also don't expect a woman to squat 315 lbs. to depth., but she can absolutely make it happen via hard, tough work... but a male will always have an easier time doing it reaching that number.

Your assessment is missing 3 races. So Tommy the Gun is still right, they didn’t achieve their goals.

JediCody

@max_only

Right on, I see your point.

That said, better balance has been achieved. I don't really see how it can be objectively argued that balance was better before this update.

A quote I am fond of is the following: "All perfection in this life has some imperfection bound up with it."

I for one applaud and am proud of @ZOS_Gilliam and ZOS for making these changes that have vastly improved diversity in ESO.

Koronach

JediCody wrote: »

@max_only

Right on, I see your point.

That said, better balance has been achieved. I don't really see how it can be objectively argued that balance was better before this update.

A quote I am fond of is the following: "All perfection in this life has some imperfection bound up with it."

I for one applaud and am proud of @ZOS_Gilliam and ZOS for making these changes that have vastly improved diversity in ESO.

Not when they claim they want to preserve established lore and break it. All for a stupid reason such as not wanting shared passives.