Thoughts on Rebalancing Racial Abilities

Cathexis

Was just thinking as I was going through the champion points calculator that an easy way to rebalance racials would be to reintegrate them as pre-spent points into the champion tree. That way if players are dissatisfied with their racial bonuses they could reboot them with a champion reset.

Thoughts?

TheSunAlsoRises

no, i don't want them to take away the swim speed bonus and the OP 6% to healing received on my argonian.

Cathexis

TheSunAlsoRises wrote: »

no, i don't want them to take away the swim speed bonus and the OP 6% to healing received on my argonian.

It wouldn't be taken away, just redistributed if you skill reset.
You could still restat into your core racials upon reset. It wouldn't be taking anything away.

shane.roberts25b14_ESO

the problem is there are some racial skills that are not in the champion trees, such as redguard restore stam on melee hit, argonian swim speed, nord 6% overall damage reduction, etc. Also, adding all racials to the champion system would pave the way for seriously OP builds. Imagine a heavy dk tank with 21% stam regen boost, 6% overall damage reduction, 6% increase to charge damage, 30% increase to health regen, 7% increase to flame damage, 10% chance to restore 3X health on melee hit, restore 3X stam on melee hit, etc! It would be insane!

Aett_Thorn

shane.roberts25b14_ESO wrote: »

the problem is there are some racial skills that are not in the champion trees, such as redguard restore stam on melee hit, argonian swim speed, nord 6% overall damage reduction, etc. Also, adding all racials to the champion system would pave the way for seriously OP builds. Imagine a heavy dk tank with 21% stam regen boost, 6% overall damage reduction, 6% increase to charge damage, 30% increase to health regen, 7% increase to flame damage, 10% chance to restore 3X health on melee hit, restore 3X stam on melee hit, etc! It would be insane!

True, but maybe if each CP only got you a very small way to each one, then we might be okay. Especially if it meant that you couldn't fully flesh out the other trees.

Let's say that we create a new CP tree, and call it racials. All of the racial abilities are in there, and as a given race, you get each of them set to maximum (or, at certain character levels,some of them unlock at maximum rank). But, in order to max them out as a member not of that race, it would cost you 100 CP. So if you want an Altmer who swims well? 100 CP. The health regen as well? Another 100 CP.

Meanwhile, you keep the max number of CP you can earn the same, so if you go after passives from this new tree, you are essentially giving up on buying other CP skills and the passives from the constellations.

It's certainly an interesting idea, OP, even if it would cause problems. And I think that it would still need balancing, since you'd still get races that get these bonus unlocks that aren't as good as others.

Cathexis

A serparate tree for racials might work although 100cp is a huge cost; the idea behind the mechanism was to be able to respec racials with patch changes as necessary.

Yes that might mean stacking more powerful racials from many trees, but the effect of less powerful racials could be ramped up to provide competitive benefit.

Alternatively racials could be grouped according to their race so that outrageous combinations couldn't be spec'd for.

Zanen

I don't believe there's actually much racial imbalance left in the game at this point.

Fix argonian, maybe tune up the resists and perhaps carnage, pretty much done IMO.

The perceived problem isn't due to imbalance, it's mostly due to people wanting a different race now that the meta has changed so much.

Every race has a build where it's strong, and every race is weak if you build to its weaknesses, that's not going to change because that's what's intended. They've always wanted race to be meaningful.

There's a ton of threads proposing ways to revamp the races and make that choice less meaningful and they all miss the point IMO.

Much simpler just to give argonian the missing 6% health/magicka passive than redesign the whole system and anger everyone who still likes their choice. Race change would be nice too due to all the changes they've made, but I think they're waiting to give all the people who rolled stamina when it sucked a day in the sun before everybody can just race change their fully leveled magicka builds.

Cathexis

@Zanen no racial imbalance? you're joking right? There's massive racial imbalances.

Compare orcs and imperials
Compare bretons and altmers
etc etc

Theres massive imbalance when you take into consideration hybrid builds are dead.

Basically anyone who rolled a magicka class on a stamina race or vice versa is getting [snip].

Race change via crown store would be a happy compromise.

I don't see how giving people more options would anger people who like their choice, since it doesn't affect them in any way whatsoever.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

C0pp3rhead

Racials do need a little work, some more than others. And no, making racial passives accessible through the Champion system or any other system doesn't belong in an ES game. Race has always played a big role in the ES series, and had a huge impact on how you played. Bretons had a 50% magicka resistance. Nords were immune to cold damage and highly resistant to shock. Argonians were completely immune to poison damage and could breathe underwater. Khajiits could see in the dark. Wood elves could rally beasts to fight for them. Dunmer could summon ghosts and had 75% fire resist. Altmer were even immune to paralyze in one of the earlier ES games. Unfortunately, they had to completely rethink race and it's strengths/weaknesses for this game because most abilities were either OP or unsuitable for this game.

The point is: race holds a special significance in this game series. Every race has its strengths and weaknesses. As it stands, no race has an outright weakness or vulnerability. However, several races have significantly fewer strengths.

Erock25

Races with +X% bonuses to Mag Regen, Stam Regen, Magicka, Stamina, and Health are a in a much better place with scaling than a Khajit, Argonian, or Nord. Pre 1.6, because of soft caps (well Argonian got nerfed other ways too), these races were fairly balanced. ZOS should have rebalanced racials with 1.6 and given Khajit, Argonian, Nord free race change.

Zanen

Cathexis wrote: »

@Zanen no racial imbalance? you're joking right? There's massive racial imbalances.

Compare orcs and imperials
Compare bretons and altmers
etc etc

Theres massive imbalance when you take into consideration hybrid builds are dead.

Basically anyone who rolled a magicka class on a stamina race or vice versa is getting [snip].

Race change via crown store would be a happy compromise.

I don't see how giving people more options would anger people who like their choice, since it doesn't affect them in any way whatsoever.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

Of course anyone who rolled a magicka class on a stamina race is going to be at a disadvantage, point is that's been true from the beginning and isn't going to change as meaningful combat character diversity is a core aspect of the IP.

Bretons still make better magicka tanks/healers than altmer, and orcs? orcs are the most mobile race in the game and aren't saddled with a passive that only works when you're in melee like Imperials are. Very underappreciated race particularly for PVP. People complain about Nords too and they take 12% less damage than any other race when they're resistance capped.

The meta currently favors burst damage over everything, that isn't a problem they can fix by tweaking racials though. Be easier to address if it were.

People will rage over anything, if you really think people wouldn't throw a fit over eliminating meaningful racial diversity from an elder scrolls game I don't know what else to say.

Cathexis

@Zanen I hardly see it as eliminating meaningful racial diversity, since you are giving players more options and a greater capacity to customize. The notion that giving people more racial options to switch between at a fair price is somehow devaluing the experience is just silly. If you like a certain set of racial traits you play with them, if you don't you play with different ones, but having the option doesn't hurt anyone, since anyone can already play as any race anyway.

The notion that its been that way since the beginning is also completely false. They have made so many changes since the beginning.. I have been here since day one and I know for me the race and class I have now is not the race and class I had picked at the start, nor does it balance as it once did at the start. I have gone from full on range dps with runspeed build to overload/2h charge/heals to swordboard/heals to swordboard/destro staff back to swordboard/heals, not by choice, but because the changes that are implemented affect my class choice (orc sorc) so violently that it requires rebuilding from the ground up every time there are even minor changes. One particularly strong recent example is the advent of the bi-division of scaling between magicka and stamina and the death of hybrids (which did work before).

also i didnt dream of suggesting that the favour for burst damage would be fixed by racials, but racials need to be more flexible in terms of the direction of magicka and stamina building than they currently are, OR they need to let you respec your racials OR they need to allow for purchasable race changes to compensate for the major shifts in the functions of skills.

Zanen

I'm just telling you it isn't ever going to happen in ESO.

Khajiit are going to be sneakier.

Nords are going to be more frost resistant.

Altmer are going to be more powerful casters.

Dunmer are going to be pyros.

The races are going to be different, meaning some combinations of race/class/build are going to be flat out better than others. It's an elder scrolls thing they're just not going to drop. Race change will help, they probably should have given everyone that option with 2.0, but like I said I think they wanted to reward the folks who were off-meta before (assuming they even have the manpower to implement it).

Whatever ZOS does with the planned racial pass, (which I agree is needed BTW, I just don't think things are as dire as folks make out or a major systemic revamp is warranted) Dunmer are still going to be really good for Dragonknight, Altmer are still going to be really good for Sorc, Breton is still going to be really good for Templars and Bosmer for Nightblade. The stam races are still going to be stam races and the melee races are still going to be melee and the magicka races will still be magical and it's still going to suck when you decide you'd really rather play your character differently, that's an elder scrolls thing too and it's where the replay value is.

If ESO was still sub-based they NEVER would have considered providing race changes.

Every race should be best at something though, and right now there are a few races that aren't, that's what we can hope will change, not only because it would be better balanced but because it would mean there are enough playstyles different enough to benefit from different racials, which is what I think is the real problem here.

Maybe instead of giving everybody access to the same stat increases we should be asking for the unique racials to be good enough to be worth taking, or even for gameplay that rewards something other than stacking stats high enough to break mechanics.

Oh and BTW I completely agree with you on all the changes making a mess of peoples builds, I'm in the same boat and it sucks, but no I meant the idea that some races are better than others for certain things has always been there and it goes back to Arena. That's not what's changed, it's the meta that's changed and that's where much of the discontent is coming from. It was inevitable and worse because the game launched with so many things that needed to be changed.

Cathexis

@Zanen I understand that there is a history of specific races working best with specific builds in the past, and that meta is a problem, but there is a huge problem with making certain races most effective with certain classes in an MMO with a heavy pvp component. Especially when the game makers have (on numerous occasions examples given by other posters in other posts) espoused a platform of build diversity and control. It's not fair to waste the time of hundreds of players that way. Making a game look like you can play any way you want and be competitively, but secretly make certain class/race combos superior makes for a [snip] and unbalanced game environment. Its not fun to level a character for months only to find out that your character is the wrong one. It discourages players from playing the game. Personally, I think that's the worst thing you can do.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

C0pp3rhead

The problem with current racial passives is this: they were designed for a system with softcaps. Your extra 10% magicka didn't matter because you were probably going to meet the softcap anyway. The extra 10% magicka just gave you a little more flexibility when deciding where to allocate attributes or enchants.

In previous Elder Scrolls games, you might start out with 30 strength and 50 intelligence. Through careful skill leveling, you could increase your base attributes up to 100 rather quickly. In other words, race didn't matter so much at later levels. This game is the reverse. Several passives are more powerful at later levels. Because they decided to go with a system of passives, they set themselves up for a system in which certain races were better suited for certain builds and classes.

Right now, the problem is NOT that certain races have bonuses to stam regen or max magicka. The problem is that certain races have very excellent passives while other races have not so great or even bad passives. (The amphibious passive nets my main 1,600-ish healing once every 45s at best, while swimming is a liability in PvP and useless in PvE.) Several races have excellent passives, and need no tweaking. Other races have awful passives and need major tweaking.

My earlier post still stands though. Making racial passives universally acceptable is pointless and not aligned with previous iterations of this series.

Glurin

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

The problem with current racial passives is this: they were designed for a system with softcaps. Your extra 10% magicka didn't matter because you were probably going to meet the softcap anyway. The extra 10% magicka just gave you a little more flexibility when deciding where to allocate attributes or enchants.

The simple solution then is to reintroduce some diminishing returns. Would solve a number of other problems as well IMO. Doesn't have to be the old softcap system. It can be a straightforward, "the higher your stat, the less you get out of it" sort of thing. This is how you create a system where min/maxing has value, but will not make or break a character.

Bodycounter

In my opinion the only racial passives that fell behind were Khajiit, Nord and Argonian. And ZoS could change these three races within a week to balance them just by changing one of their passives each. Everyone else is in a viable spot.

Im strongly against CP being attached to racial passives. The people who have the time to grind are already in an incredible strong spot. People who started with Tamriel unlimited can literally do *** against veterans with 600+ CP, even if they have the same character level. It's okay for me, that players who invest time get some benefits, but the discrepancy between casual players and grinders will get greater and greater with time (and there are some serious abilities to unlock with CP, that will destroy balance, if enough people start to get their).

Cathexis

@Bodycounter I definitely agree that the cp system provides a hugely imbalanced benefit to players that can invest more time. However, just as a counter argument, the benefit gap is so huge anyway, I don't see how fitting racials into the cp system would fundamentally have any impact.

Zanen

Cathexis wrote: »

@Zanen I understand that there is a history of specific races working best with specific builds in the past, and that meta is a problem, but there is a huge problem with making certain races most effective with certain classes in an MMO with a heavy pvp component. Especially when the game makers have (on numerous occasions examples given by other posters in other posts) espoused a platform of build diversity and control. It's not fair to waste the time of hundreds of players that way. Making a game look like you can play any way you want and be competitively, but secretly make certain class/race combos superior makes for a *** and unbalanced game environment. Its not fun to level a character for months only to find out that your character is the wrong one. It discourages players from playing the game. Personally, I think that's the worst thing you can do.

I'm reminded of the beta days when forums were full of people who hadn't played the game yet insisting racials didn't matter despite all the testers insisting they did.

We gave ZOS a lot of feedback on just your point here, it's always been an issue.

Would help if there was more information on mechanical stuff in-game for the casual types who don't do research. The lack of player information as a design choice in ESO is the biggest pet peeve I have with the game.

It is, without doubt , a design choice though. The carrot they offer you for figuring out all the games mechanics result in those who haven't getting the stick. All the changes just made a mess, and fixing stamina builds was another thing they got tons of feedback on way before launch.

The issues we're seeing in the PC community are exactly why they decided to postpone console launch for six months, which became a year, if they'd had the resources the game would have probably been better off if they'd delayed PC launch too.

mtwiggz

Really not too sure why everyone is on this change racial passive train lately.

In most MMOs there are many decisions you make upon character creation that you are stuck with. Race being a main one in ESO, as we all knew when we created the character, or should have known anyways.

Wouldn't make sense for an Orc to be super magical, as Orcs are brutes.
Wouldn't make sense for a Breton who has a magical lineage to have stamina passives.

As the game has changed and some builds may not be so great anymore, as Magicka NBs, yet you chose a race with magicka passives - you're stuck with it. As you should be.

Now some racial passives are just dumb, as the Aragonian swimming passive. There's very little that passive will do for you in game. I believe it should be changed to something actually beneficial, but upon character creation players knew - or should have known - that they would have this passive and that it's mostly useless.

golfer.dub17_ESO

Really not too sure why everyone is on this change racial passive train lately.

Because:

Now some racial passives are just dumb. There's very little such passives will do for you in game.

Asking for Racial Balance isn't the same as asking for Super-Magicka-Orcs or Triathlon-Running-Bretons. It's asking for all races to have equally viable passives.

Also, I don't care what other games are doing, what is 'the norm', etc. I care only about what works and what doesn't.

Cathexis

@golfer.dub17_ESO +1

Nerouyn

Personally I think the racial abilities make for small but real differences and in a way which almost certainly contributes to there being eg. a glut of Altmer sorcs, Dunmer dks, Bosmer nbs etc. I don't think that's ideal.

Simplest solution (other than getting rid of racials entirely) would be to implement bonuses (through enchanting, vet system etc.) which dwarf racials at end-game so that eg. the 10% bonus to (base) magicka regen that Almer get effectively only increases total magicka regen by a teensy weensy amount. Maybe 1-2%.

Or make sure that each class has abilities which can take proper advantage of racials. Like sorcs can benefit from +stamina regen courtesy of dark exchange.