The Freedom to Choose: Should Racial Skill Lines be Swappable?

Terra_Soul

I came across a dilemma when I was going to create a new character. The Nord has the physical features that my long time reoccurring character has, yet the Imperial racial skills suits him the best. I was wondering if there was any plan in opening up the ability to switch racial skill lines to make race choice possibly more of an aesthetic thing as it currently is in Star Wars: The Old Republic, seeing as pre-order folks can already break race/alliance bounds. I know the skill lines are meant to keep a race feel more unique compared to the others but I am sure I am not the only one who has thought about changing a race/class combination they want to play because the racial skill line doesn't mesh well with their class choice and that they don't want to be lesser at a particular role based on their race. An example of this may be someone wanting to play a Breton Dragonknight but the Orcs' skill line works much better for how they wish to play and they play an Orc instead just to have complementary skills to their play style despite wanting to be a Breton for role-play or aesthetic reasons. I would absolutely love to see an opportunity to mix skill lines with race, even if it is implemented as a long in-game process, rare item, or even a privilege bought in the ESO store.

Thank you for any consideration,
Terra

bantad87

The racial are really not that game changing at all. Play the race you want.

Terra_Soul

I am hesitant to believe that to be honest. Even a 5% bonus to something could make or break a situation. It has happened to me far to many times to count in my years of playing MMO's. Thank you for taking the time to respond though.

bantad87

I only say the racials are not game breaking, or even important, because of the way Zenimax has created their soft and hard cap stat system.

In ESO it is incredibly easy to cap any stat, let's take for example magicka regen. By simply putting points in light armor and stormcalling, I've overcharged my magicka regen, and I'm not even Altmer. Were I Altmer, any points invested in my racial at this point would be redundant. So now any points I might have used in that racial are split into my other trees.

The racials simply allow you to take points from a skill tree and put them elsewhere. This game rewards stat versatility, and if I save a few points in my racials I have to make it up elsewhere, like health regent or stamina regen.

bantad87

The best comparison is the Nords health regen vs the Altmer magicka regent, 15% vs 9% respectively.

The Alter player will cap his magicka regen through his racial, while a Nord will cap his health regen through his racial. The Altmer must now cover his health regen deficiency with gear enchantments, and the Nord must cover his magicka generation with gear enchantments. In the end, both races will have capped health and magicka regent, they just got there different ways.

AshTal

Personally I would prefer if the Racials where tweaked to bring them more in line with each other, currently some of the racials are much much worse than others. I think the two that spring to mind instantly are Argonians and Bosmer. We wont ever get away from the fact that PvPers and Hard Core Raiders will want to min max stats to get the most bang for their buck however playing a race you want to should not cripple end game power level.

Bretentious

I'm not going to say that any one race is definitively more powerful than any other, but I will say that I have seen a LOT of Imperials, Khajiit, and Altmer running around. Whether that's because of racials or simply preference I don't know.

Terra_Soul

Let's look at imperials' racials for a second. At max ranks they get +12% to health and +10% to stamina as well as their ability to have a 10% chance to restore 6 Health on a hit. Unless I am sorely mistaken, Health and Stamina pools have no cap and a tanky or dual-wielder that already has a large pools can have an even larger one then any other race (Orc's get a +6% Helath and Stamina and Nord's get 3% to max health) which not only greatly impacts survivability but also damage output depending on the build and mobility for longer sprint time. Whereas if Bantad is correct you can cap health and magicka regen by other sources(I was in the beta and pre-ordered but haven't had much time to play so I can't confirm) making it less of an Impact than +12%/+10% to max health and stamina. I remember in Warcraft that going from 40k HP to 44k Hp was a pretty big deal and although we are looking at smaller numbers it's still being able to take 12% more damage from whatever source can save someone with decent reliability end-game. There will always be min-maxers and racial traits like these will eventually make the "Superior" races snuff out races that give racials that can be met or capped otherwise. Khajiit or Bosmer stealth is one of these things. Stealth may cap, but having no place to see it on your stat sheet a lot of people will invest just to be sure they are as sneaky as possible. Maybe taking a harder crack at making racials equal is more of a reasonable request, but I would certainly still like to see the ability to choose or at least customize the racial line because humans IRL would have a huge range of skill line abilities and we are talking a world with humans, cats, lizards and elves, and each one is identical in natural talent? I don't think so.

Terminus

An interesting problem you seem to be facing,
I can understand the loyalty to a race and wanting to gain a different set of racial skills.
For example, I'd love to have the bonuses of the Argonians as an Altmer, because I plan to be a support healer.

However, having to choose is all part of the game; do you want to make the character you like based on the way they look, or based on passives?
As you mentioned, if we can choose any race with any passives, we'll begin to see one passive list identified as "superior" and used by everyone.

Fantastic discussions and analysis, a pleasure to read compared to some of the other stuff on these forums!

Terra_Soul

Why thank you I am currently playing a wood-elven archer(somewhat cliche in elder-scrolls(probably due to the racial archery experience boost) but not in the rpg the character concept originated from) and I am currently quite happy with his racials, but 6 out of my 7 other re-occuring characters I plan to create have the same problem with race vs. the passives that fit best.

I want to be the race that's closest to who they are, but I don't want to fall behind the power curve with un-helpful racials to my characters play style. I would love to see a dev at least look at this and if it never comes to fruition then so be it. I would just like to get my idea to be heard by a higher-up and I'm sure it would make a lot people happy.

I can see on the developer's side why they didn't do this in the first place however, given that if racial lines are interchangeable than the only thing that separates races is look. There is a certainly valid argument which that may lessen racial pride and the feeling of being somewhat unique, but this game was supposedly based on the notion of letting a player play how they want to. I feel like these racial skills are making the line between hardcore end-game min-maxers and people who want to play the character they envisioned. It seems to rare that those lines cross and a player can have both. I also feel as if racial skill interchangeability could create more racial pride because than everyone can be any race they want to in any role and be equally suited to that.

I absolutely love this game and I'm certainly not trying to sound like I am complaining if that is the case, I simply though that maybe if I posted somthing about many other's as well as I may be able to get the character they truly want, giving up neither form nor function if a Dev takes this idea to heart, or even just consiers it. Sure Nord Sorcerer's and Altmer Dragonknights CAN exist, but Nord Dragonknights and Altmer Sorcerer's simply are a bit more effective and thus more people play these pre-set stereotypes.

P.S I haven't had the time to explore various discussions on the Forums but if this is one of the "Fantastic discussions" I fear there may be many not worth my time due to "discussions" simply becoming complaining >.<

AshTal

I play an Argonian and they and the Bosmer probably have the worst Racials. Imperial Racials make the best fighters and high elves make the best mages. The Dev team did say they would bring the racials back into line with each other but this is now harder said than done, after launch if they try to nerf or buff any racials they will be met with a cry of "I only picked Imperial because of the health benefit". That said the longer they leave it the worse it will become.

My only hope is they don't try to sell us Racial ability swaps in a cash for power shop. I would probably trade my Argonians abilities for the high Elfs however.

Ozgul

Great topic as mentioned was looking to find it (was hard) and I didn't want to open a new one.And yes I like the orcs as they look (they coud have made em more crude) anyway I am playing orc dragonnight cause I want to be the crude tank and cause of racial.But these days I have been looking into racials more analaysed em on bete then decided to play orc and I saw the imperial as being the perfect tank and supperio than all others.I mean the nord has 3% hp and imp has 12% and a chance to heal while the nord has extra armor which you cap extremly easy....So as mathematical speaking it isn't "fair" cause of the summed up % and the caps.If there were no caps I am willing to argue which one is better considering orcs have more hp regen althou they lack stam and health compared to imps but imps have a proc heal ... and so on and so on but orcs have sprint... But having the fact that you can simply put 2-5 points less in health playing as imperial and still cap it , then put these points in stamina which is 10% more effective or magica if that is your focus is simply stronger.I don't care even if you are a pure magica use still imeprial is the supirior race cause of the summed up % of stats given ( not even mentioning the proc heal since it is trigger in mele and lets say you wanna be mage).Even then the imeprial is the best choice.... so if other racials get buffed or imperial ones nerfed woud be nice and one more thing to make races unique.Cause I want to give some sugggestions not just whining and so on this is a discussion.All races can have primary racials for stats and secondary for uniqueness like the lizzards have the swim speed thingy which is usless.... but suits up with the race and makes it unique.SORRY FOR MY SPELLING ENGLISH ISN'T MY FIRST LANGUAGE!

Phadin

Keep in mind the Imperials is a limited race. You have to buy the imperial edition to even choose that race in the first place. given the role of Imperials in the lore as well, it is not surprising they might have a slightly better racial advantages.

I do agree some of the racial skills such as Argonian ones could be better, but ultimately, I don't think the difference between Imperial and Argonian are going to make a huge difference in the game. Racial abilities are part of the character you choose. You get to choose your race, but you get the benefits... and penalties... associated with that choice.

I chose the races for my characters based on what I wanted them to look like, and I'll deal with the racial skills that I got accordingly. Being Argonian naturally made me want to make that character a healer, due to his Restoration skill bonus... while my Khajiit went with medium armor as his primary armor. Racial skills represent the talents those races are naturally inclined to. They shouldn't be swappable.

Terra_Soul

I am going to partially disagree with Phadin on "Racial skills represent the talents those races are naturally inclined to." Look at the human race IRL. I don't see a natural talent to the whole race. I know it's a game but I feel putting a staple on all individuals based on race simply is not fair or very realistic, but that is just my opinion, take it as you will.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Terra_Soul wrote: »

I came across a dilemma when I was going to create a new character. The Nord has the physical features that my long time reoccurring character has, yet the Imperial racial skills suits him the best. I was wondering if there was any plan in opening up the ability to switch racial skill lines to make race choice possibly more of an aesthetic thing as it currently is in Star Wars: The Old Republic, seeing as pre-order folks can already break race/alliance bounds. I know the skill lines are meant to keep a race feel more unique compared to the others but I am sure I am not the only one who has thought about changing a race/class combination they want to play because the racial skill line doesn't mesh well with their class choice and that they don't want to be lesser at a particular role based on their race. An example of this may be someone wanting to play a Breton Dragonknight but the Orcs' skill line works much better for how they wish to play and they play an Orc instead just to have complementary skills to their play style despite wanting to be a Breton for role-play or aesthetic reasons. I would absolutely love to see an opportunity to mix skill lines with race, even if it is implemented as a long in-game process, rare item, or even a privilege bought in the ESO store.

Thank you for any consideration,
Terra

No. Why destroy racial uniqueness?

Ozgul

As I said if you wanna swap racials make 2 categories primary and secondary the primary will give the stats and will be swappable the secondary are to keep the racial spirit and uniqueness.

Rahaya

Yes, you are mistaken. Health and stamina pools both have caps, just as magicka does.

Stautmeister

Dunmer is one of the best actually. Obtaining close to 1k extra fireresist makes all deadric fights laughable

PBpsy

kstauthamerb16_ESO wrote: »

Dunmer is one of the best actually. Obtaining close to 1k extra fireresist makes all deadric fights laughable

Add a fire staff +Flame talent+ the fighters guild passives and you get comedy.

NTclaymore

Play as who you wanna play. The racial buffs are good but not crucial