Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Lab3360

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

The cash grab is so obvious, it's painful. This is not a Beta. People were chosing race to achieve certain playstyles and stat combinations in a game they paid for initially and (most of us) monthly. Changing those core values to keep the game fresh and make it more balanced is very appreciated - but there is a moral obligation to give paying customers the chance to reconsider their choice without drawbacks (especially financially). Yes, even for a company dedicated to make profit.

Temporary free race changes for every character > lvl 50 is the absolute minimum loyal & supporting customers can expect. I'm subbed for many years now - that sub will be dropped permanently the moment those race changes go live without ZOS accepting their responsibility to give their customers above-mentioned chance to reconsider their race choice for every single developed character.

I'm all for the changes themselves, but I will not support such greedy & shady business behaviour.

Yeah.

I probably will not buy the new chapter, since they decided to nerf every one of my builds in a shameful way to make it seem like they were making new improvements to the game. These are not new improvements.

My characters will perform worse due to the changes. How the %$#@ is this an Up date. This is a downgrade.

Then on top of it, you sell race change tokens right after release of this info like its some sort of coincidence. Like fallout 76 Atom store.

I wont tolerate another nerf like this.

You sell youre new Chapter with a nerf just so you can later nerf the new OP Class which you will turn right around and nerf within weeks of the release. Its the same pattern in the illision of balance, which too is an out right lie.

I could go on an on about these shenanigans.

Thanks for the Unrewarding esperience..

Youre next Chapter is a "No Thank you"
just like 76.

preedb16_ESO2

"Spellcharge: 9% Magicka Recovery → Spell Recharge: Restore 575 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever is higher, "
This.. Nice of you to offer stam return if that pool is higher, for a magic race that has no other bonuses for stamina builds.. Makes sense...

Soldier224

Thx ZOS for

Dark Elf
Increases Experience gain in Dual Wield Skill Line by 15%, reduces damage taken from Lava by 50% → No changes
Dynamic: 6% Max Stamina and Magicka → Increases your Max Stamina and Magicka by 1250.
Resist Flame: 3% Max Magicka and 2079 Flame Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 600 and your Flame Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Burning status effect.
Destructive Ancestry: 7% Flame damage and 2% Frost/Shock Damage → Ruination: Increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 258.

It´s more suitable to the lore than before. Dunmer were always Allrounder in the lore. And now it is finally lore fair.

MartiniDaniels

preedb16_ESO2 wrote: »

"Spellcharge: 9% Magicka Recovery → Spell Recharge: Restore 575 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever is higher, "
This.. Nice of you to offer stam return if that pool is higher, for a magic race that has no other bonuses for stamina builds.. Makes sense...

it's D - Diversity

Raudgrani

Nice. So you nerf Nords *even* more, by changing the previous "all-round" 6% into resistance? Dunno about the ulti generation, might just be pessimistic - every 10 seconds? Well that's not much, certainly not in PVP. Sure it might be good for a TANK, but do we really want to push Nords into even more niche tanking role? They were not best at it to start with, so why force them to stay there?

And Redguard... Ffs., you *increase* what made these meta? Why do you want ever stamina DD to be Redguard? Why?

And... You *decreased* Khajiit stamina recovery to literally... NOTHING? Great. You just made Khajiit impossible to use for competitive damage dealing, really - this makes them good for nothing at all, they were already struggling with stamina recovery; 75 recovery? Really? What are they supposed to be used for? Pickpocketing alone? Redguard was already the "button masher handicapped" choice over Khajiit. Khajiit will now have the vigor of a 50 year old obese chain smoker.

With these changes - there's no such thing as a serious end game Khajiit DD anymore. Every stamina damage dealer HAS to be Redguard or gtfo. Khajiit is out, Bosmer is out - only remotely viable alternative is now Orc. I don't know, but I'm getting a weird feeling this some kind of "real world" political correctness thing? Everyone needs to be a Redguard. Seriously, it's ridiculous. Pathetic.

MacMurroughTheFirst

Idk I find it really hard to believe that everyone has done the math perfectly with whatever else is changing with update 21. Not doubting but... well, I guess I kind of am.

Everytime there's a change, there's a lot of "this has completely broken the game" or the dramatic "this is the end" from just reading the patch notes alone and then people actually get to test it and find out it's not so bad or if it is that there months to submit feedback. Maybe we just wait til monday and give it a test?

Princess_Ciri

the change from 9% recovery on high elf to 575 mag/stam every 6 seconds after using a class ability is reeeeeeally bad for high elf healers

My sustain is so great at the moment, this is going to wreck it. I appreciate that this puts high elves in a good places for dps but for healing it's rip. I don't want to be forced to play Breton zzzzz

Seraphayel

WhiteKhajiit wrote: »

My Magicat is finally viable for vet content! So excited.

This one. As a newly in love with Khajiit player I am very happy that my upcoming Magbuilds for Khajiit will work very well. I hoped for changes and I got them, finally Magicka Khajiits are more than just good. Love it!
__________________

Oh and all the others crying that they have to change multiple races: LOL. Please get real, your race choice doesn't matter in no way as much as you make it sound. You don't have to race change at all.

Overall the changes are exactly what you could expect from ZOS, nothing really substantial. I still like most of them.

MaxJrFTW

lassitershawn wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

High Elf - Good changes all over the place. I'm finding it difficult to say anything negative about them.

Argonian - Again, good changes. I still don't understand why they want to make Argonians the healer class, lorewise they are not healers.

Wood Elf - Pretty good stuff. I can see Wood Elves becoming a lot more popular in PvP, especially if that 20% speed increase stacks with the major expedition from the bow. A bit OP even?

Breton - Much needed buff to the cost reduction racial. I will be changing my magplar main from Argonian to Breton.

Dark Elf - 3% Max Magicka → Increases your Max Health by 600. This is not a good change, makes no sense whatsoever, and 600 health is an insignificant amount to justify losing 3% magicka.

Imperial - New go to race for pvp, and tanking?

Khajiit - I feel like they're trying to make them a "trick of all trades" race, but lorewise they are not. Argonians would be better suited for this.

Nord - Are these nerfs? Look like it to me, and it honestly doesn't make any sense.

Orc - Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500. That's an unnecessary nerf. I'm on board with the other 2 though.

Redguard - WUT? Redguard sustain was so good that if you were not playing a redguard as a stamina class, you were simply doing it wrong. And their solution to this was to make their sustain even better...WTH!

Nord is substantially buffed. 4k resists is stronger than the not-really-functioning 6% mitigation and increased ulti gen is extremely important, especially in the context of PvE tanks where you can get off more warhorns.

3960 resistance = 6% dmg reduction. So yeah "stronger". Oh btw, bleeds ignore resistances.

9% health = 3150 at 35k hp which pretty much every tank has. Now they get only 1000.

Lost the health recovery racial completely, that was 200-300 health recovery in most cases.

I don't play a nord, so i'm not claiming to be an expert, but that doesn't look like a substantial buff to me.

Jules

Raudgrani wrote: »

Nice. So you nerf Nords *even* more, by changing the previous "all-round" 6% into resistance? Dunno about the ulti generation, might just be pessimistic - every 10 seconds? Well that's not much, certainly not in PVP. Sure it might be good for a TANK, but do we really want to push Nords into even more niche tanking role? They were not best at it to start with, so why force them to stay there?

And Redguard... Ffs., you *increase* what made these meta? Why do you want ever stamina DD to be Redguard? Why?

And... You *decreased* Khajiit stamina recovery to literally... NOTHING? Great. You just made Khajiit impossible to use for competitive damage dealing, really - this makes them good for nothing at all, they were already struggling with stamina recovery; 75 recovery? Really? What are they supposed to be used for? Pickpocketing alone? Redguard was already the "button masher handicapped" choice over Khajiit. Khajiit will now have the vigor of a 50 year old obese chain smoker.

With these changes - there's no such thing as a serious end game Khajiit DD anymore. Every stamina damage dealer HAS to be Redguard or gtfo. Khajiit is out, Bosmer is out - only remotely viable alternative is now Orc. I don't know, but I'm getting a weird feeling this some kind of "real world" political correctness thing? Everyone needs to be a Redguard. Seriously, it's ridiculous. Pathetic.

Ok.
Nords are literally OP buffed. 4k resistance of EACH? Almost STATIC minor heroism is a nerf to you - HUH?
Khajiit just got 8% spell and weapon crit - the most desirable stat in a PVE DPS kit and yet you say they have 0 chance of being competitive - HUH?

paallterrain148

The day of the nords is upon us. Although dunmer is looking like a pretty solid choice for PvP Stam toons with good sustain, like a nightblade.

I'd like redguard a lot more if it was 4% cost reduction of all stamina abilities instead of 8% on weapon abilities.

I'm sad to see the argonians fall, considering I have like 5 argonian stamina toons that are all going to need to be changed.

Didgerion

High Elf will buff templars too much:

Spell Recharge: Restore 575 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever is higher, after activating a Class Ability. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds. Reduces damage taken by 5% while you are using an ability with a cast or channel time.

This one will make Jabs spamming even stronger.

Don't recall any spam-able channeling abilities for other classes.
What about reducing damage by 5% while having a shield active? ... sounds a little too OP isn't it?...so does 5% reduction while jabbing.

VoiDGhOs7

These changes are complete garbage as expected, most of them don’t make sense and some of them are going to be overpowered as hell. Worst thing is that they took the feedback on sustain being bad and made it even worse by removing the percentage scaling and replaced it with flat numbers. Very good idea adding a spell damage passive while you’re struggling not running out of resources. Solid choice of balancing btw, 5on4 btw, either start using your brains on game balance or stop promising stuff that will never happen.

silvereyes

Jules wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

i knew those announcements from the stream were missing the bad parts, frankly race changes should be free for a limited time. 1 race change simply is not going to be enough.

This sounds really good in theory, but it's not possible with the current race change tokens. There is no system in place for tokens to expire, and they can't just make the tokens free on the store, or people will hoard them.

Of course, they could always make a new kind of token that expires, but then how do you differentiate in the UI between expiring tokens and non-expiring ones? How do you display to the user how long they have to use the expiring ones? There is a non-trivial amount of work to make it happen. Frankly, I don't think they have enough time, since PTS is in just a few days, and they usually spend most of the PTS cycles fixing bugs and tweaking the combat changes they've made.

The only viable option really is to utilize the existing race change tokens. Obviously, they don't want to give out more than they need to, lest they hurt crown store sales.

The problem is that they seem to be trying to come up with a global flat number of tokens to give away to everyone, rather than a nuanced approach as some others have suggested (e.g. 1 per max level toon, etc). The *average* might very well come out to only about 1 token needed per account, in aggregate, but that's a small consolation for the most dedicated min/max players who want to change all of their toons to the new meta.

I doubt very much that anything will change, though. I don't recall them giving any free race change tokens when they performed their last mass racial passives update in Shadows of the Hist. They don't want to set precedent of offering free tokens every time they make a racial balance change that disrupts the meta.

I'm actually surprised they are offering any this time. They know that anyone with 8+ competitive toons has sunk so much time into the game that they will buy the tokens no matter what, despite complaining about the cost. Re-rolling and grinding out mount upgrades, crafting research, learned recipes/motifs, Mages/Fighters Guild, Undaunted, Psijic Order, Thieves Guild, PvP rank, etc is just too much for anyone to contemplate.

About the best we can hope for is probably a deeply discounted sale on race change tokens, and maybe even deeper discounts as an ESO+ limited time exclusive.

Concisely and brilliantly said. And yet still as on point and logical as you were, it is still incredibly upsetting that this is the business model.

Thanks, and yes, it's upsetting.

I wonder ... is it too late to ask for a way to get account bind-on-pickup race change tokens in-game? Perhaps purchased with master writ vouchers and/or transmute crystals?

Raudgrani

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

For the people complaining about the changes, it was a long time coming. But I'm still baffled why they're buffing Redguard sustain over nerfing it. You're buffing the other stam races but making the top sustain one ever better?? It makes no sense.

How is literally removing stamina recovery completely for Khajiit equivalent of "buffing" them? I really want to know. It's now like wearing some undesired pieces of Invigorating that you intend to transmute later.

Derra

mendesbettonrb18_ESO wrote: »

ZOS, please consider giving at least more than one race change token per account, your most dedicated players are the most affected by the racial changes and only one token is not gonna be enough. Please, do good by your supporters.

I agree with this. Imo atleast 3 tokens should be given.

Yamenstein

Don't mind the changes. Some things can be slightly adjusted but still refreshing. I was expecting worse.

With that said it would be awesome if we could get a racial change token, to avoid people cheating the system make it so it's a token bound to the character somehow? That way whether it's level 1, 20 or 50 you can change the race for just that character. Multiple that by the number of characters the player has on the account.

IzzyStardust

That's a beeg nerf to Dark Elf Magblades lol - waiting to see.

WeerW3ir

Can we not have these changes? Some races was very bad already. And these changes just made them worse. Okay. Percents to exact numbers are okay. But at many races its *** on high lvl. Dunmer. Is total kill. Why? And khajiits??? Nerfing them down on their OWN CONTENT? WTF ZOS.

Altmer could have maybe 3-4 sec proc instead 6. Argonian is what. Why made it into skyrim... -_-

matsuobasho

Thank you for destroying Dunmer. My all time favourite race.

A jack of all trades in a MMO is a terrible and poor choice.

TorvenTool

To call 200 more stamina payback every 5 seconds a buff is nonsense.

Trancestor

.

Monsieur

MacMurroughTheFirst wrote: »

Idk I find it really hard to believe that everyone has done the math perfectly with whatever else is changing with update 21. Not doubting but... well, I guess I kind of am.

Everytime there's a change, there's a lot of "this has completely broken the game" or the dramatic "this is the end" from just reading the patch notes alone and then people actually get to test it and find out it's not so bad or if it is that there months to submit feedback. Maybe we just wait til monday and give it a test?

Well this time we aren’t getting a 30CP buff to lessen the impact of the nerfs. So it’s a pretty substantial change.

Qbiken

IronWooshu wrote: »

idk wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Inig0 wrote: »

ZoS we’ve gone so far past the time where you can reasonable make changes to the races like you have. I’ve personally leveled 14 characters with the intention of playing a specific race on that character to sever specific needs. Setting aside the clear in balance and lack of freedom you’re giving people you’re also costing us hundreds of dollars to re adjust ourselves to something we’ve made decisions on that costed us hundreds of hours in leveling alone.

You are directly costing your player base money and time.

The only solution I see is making races a cosmetic choice with no combat influence. Perhaps add a system where you choose the passives because frankly you’re just forcing people who genuinely care about performance to buy tokens and race change. This is unacceptable.

Honestly you, the min/maxers that tell is what is BiS take the fun out of end game so I feel no sorrow for any of the min/maxers on these changes who have the shell out money.

It is the theory crafters that do the math, then test it out, that determines what works extremely well. The game is about math and especially at end game. So those who are into the end game the most welcome their information as a good place to start with testing their own builds.

These change may not have the impact one might think.

The way I see it is that min/maxers will still have BiS options but the next best option in DPS drop-off won't be that far off that it will make that big of a difference in the end game just by them removing the % passives.

The only people who will notice is the leaderboard runners and they make up .01% of the playerbase. The rest of us do veteran trials for the loot, skins, titles, achievements and not the leaderboards. Now PUG trial groups and guild trial groups that aren't running leaderboards will take Orcs, Khajiit, Nords as DPS options rather than JUST Redguards because this games playerbase has a hive mind like personality.

IronWooshu wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Honestly you, the min/maxers that tell is what is BiS take the fun out of end game so I feel no sorrow for any of the min/maxers on these changes who have the shell out money.

I present to you the salty casual archetype that motivates ZOS changes. They won't play the game according to its rules, so ZOS will change the rules to support them.

I present you the elitist snob who force these changes, I can gurantee you its not the casual player who forces the changes. Its the snobs who make end game players feel forced to have to use BiS to get a Trials group.

That sits on you because ZoS see's this and wants diversity, the casual player doesn't care because they enjoy the race they play the most regardless that its BiS.

During all my years playing this game, I´ve never seen or heard any pug/chill/progression group ditch someone for not picking "BiS" race for a DD.
Please show me any "elitist" player advocating for Khajiit to get spell-crit for example?? It´s the casual majority for sure that pushes changes like these. And if the casual player doesn´t care what race they pick, why is it such an issue what they bring to a trial for example? A PUG group is the definition of casual, so why would they bother what race you show up with?

Ertosi

silvereyes wrote: »

I doubt very much that anything will change, though. I don't recall them giving any free race change tokens when they performed their last mass racial passives update in Shadows of the Hist. They don't want to set precedent of offering free tokens every time they make a racial balance change that disrupts the meta.

I'm actually surprised they are offering any this time. They know that anyone with 8+ competitive toons has sunk so much time into the game that they will buy the tokens no matter what, despite complaining about the cost. Re-rolling and grinding out mount upgrades, crafting research, learned recipes/motifs, Mages/Fighters Guild, Undaunted, Psijic Order, Thieves Guild, PvP rank, etc is just too much for anyone to contemplate.

About the best we can hope for is probably a deeply discounted sale on race change tokens, and maybe even deeper discounts as an ESO+ limited time exclusive.

More free race tokens aren't going to happen because they're counting on that extra revenue from meta-chasers. If it wasn't true, they'd do the right thing and offer free race changes for a limited time.

And it's not just the end gamers hurt by these changes. I've got a full stable of alts but do my own thing and certainly don't follow meta, and I've got barely a toon that's not horribly affected by this. Bosmers losing their stealth and extra damage from stealth is ruining my ganker. No more extra stealth damage for my Khajiit either. And my poor, poor fire mage Dunmer is losing their max magicka and bonus to fire damage. The change from elemental damage to spell power is going to severely hurt my altmer thunder mage. And these are all ancient toons with all Guilds unlocked, crafting done, massive skill points, etc.

But despite all of that, don't fall for buying those Race Change Tokens or else you're giving the powers that be exactly what they're looking for from these changes. Don't reward bad behavior.

Edit: And forgot my HPDK Nord is losing their health recovery. Good grief, if I hadn't already canceled my sub on the 15th due to not being shown any new upcoming features on par with the last two years, these racial changes would have certainly driven me to it.

Seraphayel

Derra wrote: »

mendesbettonrb18_ESO wrote: »

ZOS, please consider giving at least more than one race change token per account, your most dedicated players are the most affected by the racial changes and only one token is not gonna be enough. Please, do good by your supporters.

I agree with this. Imo atleast 3 tokens should be given.

Sorry, I usually don't support ZOS when it comes to things like this but even one free racial change is very generous and absolutely not necessary to hand out. Requesting more than that is ridiculous.

None of the changes made to any race forces you to race change.

Princess_Ciri

themaddaedra wrote: »

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

the change from 9% recovery on high elf to 575 mag/stam every 6 seconds after using a class ability is reeeeeeally bad for high elf healers

My sustain is so great at the moment, this is going to wreck it. I appreciate that this puts high elves in a good places for dps but for healing it's rip. I don't want to be forced to play Breton zzzzz

Welcome to the prettiest race of Tamriel!

Bretons are the basic *** of Tamriel, why did ZOS make their sustain so insanely OP, now I either have to race change to Breton or struggle with magicka sustain on my favourite character I don't want to race change I've been High Elf since I started playing QQ

It was about time you'd put an end to that filthy racism

it's ok, Liofa came to my house and threw a brick through my window with a note on it that said 'High Elf Templar Healers will still be great' so i'm not scared anymore.

Kalante

These changes are mostly nerfs.

Trash.

themaddaedra

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

the change from 9% recovery on high elf to 575 mag/stam every 6 seconds after using a class ability is reeeeeeally bad for high elf healers

My sustain is so great at the moment, this is going to wreck it. I appreciate that this puts high elves in a good places for dps but for healing it's rip. I don't want to be forced to play Breton zzzzz

Welcome to the prettiest race of Tamriel!

Bretons are the basic *** of Tamriel, why did ZOS make their sustain so insanely OP, now I either have to race change to Breton or struggle with magicka sustain on my favourite character I don't want to race change I've been High Elf since I started playing QQ

It was about time you'd put an end to that filthy racism

it's ok, Liofa came to my house and threw a brick through my window with a note on it that said 'High Elf Templar Healers will still be great' so i'm not scared anymore.

If only i knew it was so easy to convince you..

Cundu_Ertur

The good news is that I'll save a bunch of crowns by deleting at least one of my formerly stealthy Bosmer, so I won't need an extra character slot. Sadly one is my main crafter, so I'm stuck with him.
[sarc]
I mean, it makes perfect sense that the smallest race in the game is just as easy to spot in hiding as the very largest.
[/sarc]