My Attempt at Racial Passives

Aett_Thorn · May 2015

So I know that there are many threads about this already, but I didn't want to side-track any of them with a new ideas that would likely get buried anyways.

The prevailing theory is that the racial abilities are not balanced, and I agree. There are some races that get lackluster choices that do little, and other races that get good bonuses and even damage-dependent-stat increases, allowing them to do more damage with either weapons or magic, in addition to having larger pools of resources. While the lackluster bonuses are enough to get some changes made, I also feel like the stat increases are causing a part of the problem. However, unlike some of the other suggestions I've seen, I also want race to matter. I don't think that Redguards should necessarily make good mages, nor should High elves be great at weaponry. But each race should give bonuses that allow them to be played in multiple styles.

As such, here are my overall ideas, that will be expanded upon in the race-specific sections below:

1) Increases to the health pool are fine.

2) Increases to Stamina and Magika pools will be replaced with cost decreases for the respective pool at various scales. If this conflicts with other passives in the racial line, then the old racial cost decrease skill will be adjusted to something else.

3) "Fluff" passives need to be worth it in order for people to think that they are useful. Many of these will be adjusted.

4) Extra XP gains in a single line are fine and won't be touched.

With just these four rules in place, I went through each of the racial skill lists and made the following (spoiler tags to keep the post a reasonable size):

Altmer

Spellcharge: Increase in-combat magika recharge by 3/6/9%

Gift of Magnus: Lower spell costs by 2/4/6%

Elemental Talent: Increase damage with Fire, Cold, and Shock effects by 2/3/4%

Argonian

Amphibious: Increase swim speed by 50%. 10/15/20% chance for restorative potions to have double the effect.

Swamp Dweller: Increase Poison and Disease Resistance by X/2X/3X. Increase poison and disease damage dealt by 2/3/4%

Hist Skin: Increase in-combat health regeneration by 10/20/30% and healing received by 2/4/6%

Bosmer

Y'ffre's Endurance: Increase in-combat Stamina regeneration by 3/6/9% (since other passives got increased, this needed to be balanced)

Woodland Resolve: Increase Poison and Disease Resistance by X/2X/3X, Decrease stamina costs of skills by 1/2/3%

Stealthy: Reduce stealth detection by 1m/2m/3m, increase damage from Stealth by 3/6/9%

Breton

Gift of Magnus: Lower spell cost by 2/4/6%

Spell Resistance: Increase spell resistance by X/2X/3X

Magika Mastery: Increase spell critical by 2/4/6%

Dunmer

Dynamic: reduce magika and stamina skill costs by 1/2/3%

Resist Flame: Increase Flame Resistance by X/2X/3X. Passive chance to purge burning effects of 10/20/30% per tic

Flame Talent: Increase spell damage with flame effects by 2/5/7%

Imperial

Tough: Increase max health by 4/8/10%

Conditioning: Reduce stamina skill costs by 2/4/6%

Red Diamond: Melee attacks have a 10% chance to restore X/2X/3X health
[/spolier]

Khajiit

Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase armor by 1/2/3% for 4 seconds after entering combat

Stealthy: Reduce stealth detection radius by 1m/2m/3m, increase damage done while in stealth by 3/6/9%

Carnage: Increase weapon critical by 2/4/6%

Nord

Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase armor by 1/2/3% for 4 seconds after entering combat

Northern Resolve: Increase Cold resistance by X/2X/3X. Increase healing received by 2/4/6%

Rugged: Increase damage reduction by 2/4/6%

Orc

Brawny: Increase max health by 2/4/6%. Reduce stamina skill costs by 1/2/3%

Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase armor by 1/2/3% for 4 seconds after entering combat

Charger: Reduce Sprint Cost 4/8/12%, Increase Sprint Speed 3/6/9%. Activating a charge skill increases weapon damage by 2/4/6% for 4 seconds.

Redguard

Exhilaration: Increase in-combat Stamina regeneration by 3/6/9%

Conditioning: Decrease Stamina skill costs by 2/4/6%

Adrenaline Rush: Restore X/2X/3X Stamina when damaging an enemy with a melee attack (once per 5 seconds)

Changes to percentages could be altered to keep balance. But I feel like this way we could still get some racial balance while keeping the flavor of the races.

Aett_Thorn · May 2015

Sigh...apparently this was too big to fit into one post. I will add the rest in this post as soon as I get a chance.

RoyJade · May 2015

I don't agree with all the passive change you describe (amphibious and resist flame because I prefer a flat bonus instead of a proc, robust because the 4 sec armor bonus is even more useless than the health regen), but the idea is very interesting.

And the error is in the "[/spolier]" just after imperial ^^

Aett_Thorn · May 2015

Here is the second batch of racials.

Khajiit

Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase healing received by 2/4/6%

Stealthy: Reduce stealth detection radius by 1m/2m/3m. Increase damage done in Stealth by 3/6/9%

Carnage: Increase weapon critical by 2/4/6%

Nord

Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase healing received by 2/4/6%

Northern Endurance: Resist Cold damage by X/2X/3X. Reduce stamina skill costs by 1/2/3%

Rugged: Increase damage reduction by 2/4/6%

Orc

Brawny: Increase max health by 2/4/6%. Decrease Stamina costs of skills by 1/2/3%

Robust: Robust: Increase in-combat Health regeneration by 10/20/30%. Increase healing received by 2/4/6%

Charger: Reduce Sprint cost by 4/8/12%. Increase Sprint speed by 3/6/9%. Activating a charge skill grants 2/4/6% increase weapon damage for 4 seconds.

Redguard

Exhilaration: Increase in-combat Stamina regeneration by 3/6/9%

Conditioning: Reduce stamina cost of skills by 2/4/6%

Adrenaline Rush: Restore X/2X/3X Stamina when you hit an opponent with a melee attack. Can happen once every 5 seconds.

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_GaryA, if you could fix my error in the opening post, you can delete my two replies.

Aett_Thorn · May 2015

RoyJade wrote: »

I don't agree with all the passive change you describe (amphibious and resist flame because I prefer a flat bonus instead of a proc, robust because the 4 sec armor bonus is even more useless than the health regen), but the idea is very interesting.

And the error is in the "[/spolier]" just after imperial ^^

I am definitely open to suggestions for these. I do not pretend to be an expert on what the community wants, they were just ideas that I had.

And thanks for pointing out the error, but it won't let me edit the OP, so I just posted them in a second post.

Brasseurfb16_ESO · May 2015

ZOS will never be able to truly balance racial passives if they keep using multiplicative values. A better way to balance them would be to use fixed values and base those on current sets of items.

For instance, Khajiits Carnage passive grants 6% critical weapon chance
an epic set grants 3% critical chance
so you have a value equal to 2 bonuses from an epic sets.

Argonians Mending passive grants 6% extra healing recieved
any set bonuses grants a 4% extra healing recieved.
so in this case you only have a value equal to 3/2 bonuses from an epic set.

So for Mending to be on par with Carnage, Mending should atleast have 8% extra healing recieved as a bonus would an Argonian character wants to have the exact same bonuses as Khajiit by just by switching gear..

Same could be done with most of the racial passives if those would use fixed values. For instance an epic VR14 magicka set gives 911 Magicka.

So Gift of Magnus could give a 1822 magicka bonus instead of 10%, and passives like Brawny 1002 Health and 911 Stamina at 2/2.

The most difficult to balance would probably be the extra damage while stealthed, health on hit and other specific passives like those.

Edit : A couple of VR14 epic set values
- Max Health : 1002
- Max Stamina/Magicka : 911
- Armour/Spellresist : 1800
- Health/Stamina/Magicka regen : 121
- Weapon/Spell Critical Chance : 3%
- Healing Recieved : 4%

Those are all values wich can already be used to balance most of the racial passives.

RoyJade · May 2015

For amphibious, I will prefer a flat % bonus to all potions, like the passive was before 1.6. Or the same effect as now, but with increased values.
For resist flame, I don't really know. Perhaps just a fire resistance, but small better than now.
And for robust, the change you have done in your second post seem good, but it's the same as Hist skin now. Perhaps one with a bonus life regen and 1-2-3% bonus healing and the other with just a better bonus healing (2-4-6, or 3-6-9) will be better.

I don't really know how to balance the game, honestly. So, another suggestions would be good.

Cathexis · May 2015

It would be nice if orcs got a berzerk style buff like that but I think that it needs to be on a different kind of skill proc because right now it just pigeon holes you into using charge abilities. Make it off something like killing blows would be more useful and extend the time to like 10 seconds so its actually useful.