Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Ash_In_My_Sujamma

I was expecting a way to spec your race to the desired role while having some standard lore based passives. But hey, I didn't have that before, I don't have it now so I gained and lost nothing.
Overall I like the changes except from two.
1. The 20% bosmer move speed is a bitt too much imo and I suspect that it will be toned down before release.
2. The imperial. Imperial is lacking compared to other races. It lacked before, it lacks even more now. I am not even gonna talk about the max stat loss difference compared to the other class percentages cause now everyone got the same nerf. Red diamond change is nice I guess but the new passives for imperial are very very situational compared to the other race changes. It's neither a versatile race (like dunmer or khajiit) nor a solid one (like breton or orc) anymore. It's just for one and only role. Block focused tanking.
So I think that imperial should have something extra added to their passives to balance it with the other races. For instance add a medium value of mag and stam return with red diamond. Or make red diamond like engine guardian so that it has a 15% chance to return 1750 hp or mag or stam on direct attack (luck was a major element on imperial perks on tes games). Just don't leave imperial like that it is not a good change imo as it is.

mcagatayg

welcome orc master race, it seems redguard is worse than wood elf now on terms of recovery aswell, orc seems to be in the middle of all with extra wep dmg

ComboBreaker88

Wow. You've completely ruined argonian. So if I had 30,000 health as an argonian I would have gained 2,700 health. But now I only get 1,000??? That's a huge loss. And healthier down and recieved nerfing self heals by 60 percent?? Is that for real. You haven't created diversity with this line up. You've made it so literally everyone will be playing 2 races. Give each rave their own unique strengths and weaknesses, not this mid tier garbage. You continue to give zerg mentality in pvp the front and center promotions. Without real diversity and a lack of real progression you may as well go unplug the servers now.

Gravord

So, lets summarize:
- altmer and dunmer even stronger than before
- imperial red diamond garbage as it was
- orc made into mandatory noob choice for poison injection/2h nabs inp pvp even more than before
- straight up nerf to nord tanking, resist caps are easy to reach, 6% mitigation was better
- breton templar healer even better
- redguard even more buffed as pve stam build

Very good reasons to change passives, nicely shown though process aaand totally wrong conclusions and changes. Instead narrow the gap between races its made wider than before and will end up with even more restrictive race choices for specific roles.

Sirvandal

wrote:

" We'll also be granting one free race change, per account.

So this is al about selling crowns for racial tokens???? Nice way to hammer your loyal players with 8+ diff toons they play. Its a bloody laughter this. Shame on you @ZOS_GinaBruno

Hymzir

LOL... Wouldn't enjoy being the fella whose job is to wade through the furore of backlash these changes are generating.

I read through a few pages of the community's response and picked up a distinct feeling of unhappy campers about. To be fair, there are also some people who are happy - a reason to play as a magicka based kitty? Yay! I suppose my plans, for going magicka based khajit necromancer with the upcoming expansion, wont be utterly deranged after all.

At the end of the day, it still stands that these changes are necessary and long overdue. While I do not think all of them are well though out, taken as a whole, this list is an improvement over the previous set up.

The move away from percentage based mechanics is something I whole heatedly approve, though given their abundance in the system, not sure how much of a a difference it will ultimately do. Percentage based systems are what I generally ascribe as "lazy design" mentality. They are easy to set up, they feel easy to understand, and look smart. But the problem with such designs is, that people in general, do not understand the full weight of the exponential function. Percentage based systems will almost always go out of whack, and lead to stats way outside of the expected boundaries.

Setting up a system based on fixed numbers, will help to keep the system in check, but is also a lot harder thing to do correctly. And given the number of moving parts in ESO mechanics, it's not something I would tackle. Well not without one seriously hefty pay check at least.

The thing to keep in mind is, that math is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Coming up with solid mechanics is not an easy task, and ESO has never, in any of it's incarnations, had solid math behind it. Balancing this mess is a thankless task.

As far as racial bonuses and traits go... Well this is my actual feedback fort he devs:

Racial bonuses do not matter.

At all.

You really should just remove them from the game. They do not serve any positive function.

Each race is already distinct as is. They are distinct in their appearance and with the cultural and social trapping that come with them. Those differences are enough to make each race feel different. And that is all that should matter about picking your race.

Character identity and aptitude should be left for the player to decide.

Even if you want to force some sort of objective racial aptitude differences into your made up world, the scope of those difference would still tend to mean, that there is enough variance within each race for outlier individuals to appear. Case in point: Shalidor, the immensely powerful nord archmage. What if I want to play as Shally 2.0? Well, not gonna happen with these, or the previous, racial bonuses.

The second thing to keep in mind, is that online environment fosters competitive game play. And it does it to such a degree, that even people who do not usually care about min-maxing their characters, will feel the pressure to conform to what ever is considered to be meta.

This is partly due to social pressure (imagine showing up for the raid sporting your magicka based orc healer? You would face massive amount of derision for running sucha sub-optimal and unorthodox build) and partly due to being constantly measured against other players. Even if the difference in capability is less than 5%, you will constantly be reminded that you are not as powerful as people running other builds. And that your lack of power is not due to your personal ability, but due to simply picking the non meta race for your build.

The end result is, that people will crunch the numbers, and the top choice will present it self. And then people are encouraged, by the mechanisms i mentioned above, to adopt a build using those choices.

As things stand, with these racial bonuses, there is absolutely no point in playing a magicka based DPS character that is not a a high-elf! There is no incentive what so ever to be a magicka based red-guard, nor is there a reason to play as a stamina based breton at all. No matter what your playstyle is, there is a bis race for it. And no matter what race you want to play, there is an optimal playstyle for it.

Playing against the racial stereotype would be like playing with one hand tied behind your back. Sure you can do it, even be successful with it. But you'd be constantly gimping yourself, and the other players around you would also, both actively and passively, constantly remind you of said fact. And that would get old real quick.

For some players, a cool character concept is enough to put up with the constant reminders and derision. But you'd hafta be pretty dedicated to your idea, to keep up with all the crap you'd take for running an orc healer.

Finally... Moving to flat bonuses is gonna reign in some of the more extreme builds people have come up with. There is going to be a significant power reduction for some builds. And people utilizing those builds are gonna resist these changes.

Most will adapt I think. The shield nerfs from last update, already shifted the meta somewhat away form max mag stacking, and many stam based builds weren't stacking stam all that high anyway. For stam, the focus has been weapon damage and now mag is also swinging towards max spell damage. I bet you can come up with some atrociously high spell damage scores for your high elf mag sorc and break the expected boundaries once more.

So to sum it up, all that will really happen is, that the meta will shift some. People who are constantly race changing, in their pursuit of the meta, will whine about the cost. Most players will adjust their builds a bit. New bis race choices for various builds and play styles will emerge and things will keep on trucking pretty much as they have been so far.

Some diversity in builds is lost, some diversity of choice is gained, but in general, the fact remains, that going against the grain of your race is still a really bad idea.

So, once again - just remove racial bonuses from the game completely and let players play the way the want. All that these bonuses accomplish is to reinforce a tight set of "good" and "bad" build choices.

carlos424

As magicka dps you now almost have to go altmer. All this does is address the power creep. Less resource pools and recovery across the board.
Why not just use a system that gives each character a set amount of points that can be put into different categories? Something like how the cp trees work. Then any race could actually play any role.

VoiDGhOs7

These changes remind me of Wrobel testing pvp sustain on a dummy with elemental drain orbs and synergies. The devs might have been exposed the to very high dose of carbon monoxide to explain such kind of way to change race passives.

Downey

Thank u so much for posting this b4 I spent more money on this game...the game will never b completely balanced unless u do 1 race and 1 class...LEAVE STUFF ALONE!...I'm a veteran player and am completely sick of having to redesign my toons every patch bc u decide to f with something!...by the looks of this alot of races that were chose for certain builds got screwed...y play a dark elf dk now? A high elf works the same with better mag recovery...if this stupidness is actually implemented, ur going to lose alot of vet players that have spent, and continue to spend, alot of money on ur game...I wish Zos and the ESO community the best as they move forward into the era of hand holding noobs...may Talos guide u all

Rimasaurus

Since the point was to balance race passives, I had hoped they would make Breton little more viable race for Stamina DD. There's nothing there that makes my Breton werewolf any stronger in terms of damage.

Star_Carrier

These changes are garbage. Races that gave health are getting nerfed for what? We already can’t survive in pvp, the health is needed to cushion the damage. If they wanted to make unplayable races more desirable then they failed because all they will see is a shift to what will now be meta. 1 race change token? What a joke. Obvious cash grab by ZOS.

JerryAlder

Changes are prob very good BUT u need to let us adjust FOR FREE. Give me 15 race change token or like a possibility for one week to change ones per char. Until then RIOT!!

Ajaxduo

Bosmer should really have a ranged damage bonus instead of the movement speed considering it's easily accessible...

jediprime74

I must admit that I am not pleased with the changes to Imperial passives. Those of us who purchased the Imperial race actually shelled out more money to get that race and its passives. As for me, that was the entire reason I purchased the race. Specifically for the passives.

As to the race change tokens, as someone who has played since the game launched on consoles, I feel that we should get one race change token for each character. One token for players who have several characters is unconscionable. I will likely need to change at least one third of my current stable of characters due to the passives changes.

Thanks ZOS. Glad I spent the money on a race that is getting severely nerfed. Glad I took the time to level up and play more than one race so now I have to pay for the privilege of adjusting the characters due to your changes.

Kadoin

I can already see all the ultra-tanky builds in Cyrodil and BGs resulting from these terrible changes. I can see it now! 'Go tank or get spanked' will be plastered all over the PvP section and proc sets will rule even harder than they ever have before.

megageeklizzy

To all these people asking for free/extra race changes: I know I'm not in the majority here, but people do actually role-play in this game. The race we choose to role-play becoming useless can cripple us. We aren't going to get rid of the characters whose stories we have been working on over the years, and the fact that you are now making it even harder to use our RP characters for actual gameplay is insulting. I know this was made by the combat team, and something like people role-playing may not even have occured to you, but this is not a simple matter of "yeah spend money on a race change it'll be fine". Some of us don't really have the choice without losing one of our favorite ways to play.
On a side note, I don't think lore can count as any sort of excuse for this ***. Half of Tamriel is going to suddenly change race.

amir412

For me, the ideal balance to races would be:
Should revert the 2k flat stats to 10% max stats buff, So we dont get pushed into pigeon hole weapon/spell dmg monkeys and we can keep creating unique builds with max stats that compenstate the loss of pushing weapon/spell dmg.

Keep the changes to these races for better balancing:
* High Elf - Keep the regen instead of the magicka return, its nonsense.
* Argonian - Good change, it was a carry race for too long.
* Wood Elf - Its so predicted that the speed buff will be fail in Cyrodill, beside that its good.
* Breton - Finally get some love.
* ORC - A good change, race seems to look more appealing.
* Imperial - Still needs a buff, but anything is good.
* Nord - Slight nerf to dmg reduction, but the other buffs compenstate it.

The rest should remain the same as they are in live, except for
* Khajiit - Could use a buff, literally turned into role play with the new changes.
--

* Redguard - Should be untouched.
* Dunmer - Should be untouched.

That way u dont force players to race change to still be comptetive and spend lots of money on race change, which i know its hard for u to understand, But its totally un-fair for ur play base.
Giving us 1 token after such drastic changes is absurd and will make many players quit.

Masel

Let me give you a statement on why I see these changes as an overall improvement. First, let me clear a few things up that people do not seem to understand when they look at these changes:

1. Flat stats are a buff, NOT a nerf. These get amplified by all % buffs you have and will translate to at least the same stat density as before, in many instances even more. In no CP content and instances where you have warhorn available, this is a significant buff especially.
2. On magicka races, sure you can say that altmer is the best race when it comes to the pure dps output while neglecting any sustain component. However, that's neglecting additional factors that come in. Khajiit has spell crit, magicka recovery that effectively translates into roughly the same sustain that altmer gets, they have max magicka AND 8% spell critical, which will benefit more from additional critical damage you have in group content and will be especially effective on templars and nightblades. Factoring in sustain, bretons are incredibly strong in that regard, so much so that they are a valid choice for any class that struggles with sustain and also allows using BLUE food in most instances, plus giving resistance and a flat recovery that always ticks. Also people seem to neglect the additional health that khajiit gets, which is very valuable in many instances. Dunmer is the most versatile race now since it can do both specs and also gets health. If you wanted to min/max 100% dunmer is not the ideal choice for dps (again neglecting the aspects from above), but the difference is ~1k magicka and 60-70 magicka per second. The altmer sustain component also only functions when you actually cast a class ability, whereas breton and khajiit have a passive that always ticks.
3. Stamina races are very very close to each other, especially in actual fights. People seem to think redguard is still the ultimate best, but this is not the case. Bosmer, orc, khajiit, dunmer are all viable. Redguard requires you to deal DIRECT damage now to benefit from the adrenaline rush, which is a significant reduction in effectiveness from what we had before, since it will not proc on DoT-abilities. The weapon cost reduction also requires you to cast abilities to be effective. Bosmer is 100% on par with redguard sustainwise. 258 recovery that ticks all the time is a lot and will net you a higher gain than the passives redguards have in many instances in PvE and PvE. Orc has higher damage compared to these two, but a bit less sustain. Khajiit is still a very viable choice and the sustain is basically unchanged from what they had before. I'm not 100% satisifed on the imperial side because they don't really have anything that benefits their role as a DD in pve, but for tanking they definetely became better.

In order to prove some of this, i made an excel sheet where i implemented these into a standard build for stamina and magicka DDs in PvE. Magicka build was (as far as i remember) Zaan, Siroria and Sorrow/Spell Strategist, while the stamina version uses Relequen+Advancing Yokeda+Velidreth.
Formula is the same as above.

Here's the comparison of effective spell power and weapon power:



Here, altmer comes out as the clear winner, and for stamina, dunmer puts out the highest damage. This does not yet factor in sustain components. In order to do so, I introduced a ranking system that basically just ranks races based on damage and sustain with equal weights. The weights can ofc be adjusted, so if sustain is more important to you, the ranks will change accordingly.



With equal weights, altmer still comes out on top, but not by much. Shifting the weights towards sustain more and more makes breton the best choice.

Shifting the weights to 30% sustain and 70% damage yields the following:



And the other way around:



It all depends on what you need, and the gaps are not as cear and big as many make them seem.

wodkamanostrab16_ESO

Ajaxduo wrote: »

Bosmer should really have a ranged damage bonus instead of the movement speed considering it's easily accessible...

I don't understand why they don't give Bosmer an additional bow racial other than the +% experience one. It would make so much sense not only lorewise but also make the Bosmer unique. In my opinion the bow weapon skill line is also the most neglected one by ZOS.

x48rph

Omg, no. Why would you change the stealthy passive for bosmers. Being sneaky is the heart and sole of being bosmer. Hunting, right of theft, ect.. all require being sneaky. Increased detection radius is useless garbage that doesn't even fit. Not to mention that the increased damage from stealth was the only real reason to roll one for pvp..... Please recosider this.

Aluneth

Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »

I was expecting a way to spec your race to the desired role while having some standard lore based passives. But hey, I didn't have that before, I don't have it now so I gained and lost nothing.
Overall I like the changes except from two.
1. The 20% bosmer move speed is a bitt too much imo and I suspect that it will be toned down before release.
2. The imperial. Imperial is lacking compared to other races. It lacked before, it lacks even more now. I am not even gonna talk about the max stat loss difference compared to the other class percentages cause now everyone got the same nerf. Red diamond change is nice I guess but the new passives for imperial are very very situational compared to the other race changes. It's neither a versatile race (like dunmer or khajiit) nor a solid one (like breton or orc) anymore. It's just for one and only role. Block focused tanking.
So I think that imperial should have something extra added to their passives to balance it with the other races. For instance add a medium value of mag and stam return with red diamond. Or make red diamond like engine guardian so that it has a 15% chance to return 1750 hp or mag or stam on direct attack (luck was a major element on imperial perks on tes games). Just don't leave imperial like that it is not a good change imo as it is.

This, please don't leave the Imperial like this.

mikemacon

As a Breton mag sorc main, I thoroughly approve of the incoming buffs to Bretons an nerfs to the filthy Thalmor.

Vein667

Thank you. Really. (sarcasm)

Now i have to change my orc tank to another race cause u decided make them more damagy. And I`ll have to spend crowns to buy name change token too cause im not gonna have nord with orcish name.

And why u nerfing everything except redgards? U afraid that ppl will call u rasist or what?! All my stam dds r khajiits and i dont wanna reroll them to redgards cause u wished make cats hybrids, and let little girls and boys play magicka khajiit.

I really hoped you will make nords more damagy than tanky. Really hoped.

Well now I hope you will relook what you`ve done ZoS. It not very good changes at all.

x48rph

Also lets not forget about name change tokens too. A lot of people pick lore appropriate names for their characters. Since your completely gutting people's builds you should at least allow us to change everything for free.

evoniee

khajiit trollking is nerfed. im ok with it.
the only cons for khajiit stam is the stam regen, also ok with it.

MythicEmperor

Dark elf doesn’t need to be a hybrid. It was never great at stamina, but it at least competed with Altmer giving the players choice. Why change that?

Jaimeh

I think the changes are good for the most part; they will promote diversity* in both PvE/PvP, except in the case of end-game dps. There, people will still want to min-max, and right now the best choices seem to be Altmer/Redguard, for mag/stam respectively.

The passives that benefit hybrid playstyle will work for PvP and the easier PvE content, and I think choosing a race for lore or appearance reasons, that's suboptimal for a given role, will be less punishing overall. We will see more races as tanks and healers, but these roles have always been more varied in terms of race anyway, at least compared to DDs.

Two things pop out as strange to me: I expected Redguard sustain nerfs, and I didn't expect the complete removal of fire damage for Dunmer, and I'm hoping the latter will be amended before changes go live, because it's completely disadvantaging the class as it's proposed right now.

Finally, I think it's kind of paradoxical how promoting playstyle diversity is done by making the races as uniform as possible. The same thing has been happening with class skills, and I wish they could have kept each race/class' unique flavour, and bring it on par with the others by adding things, not nerfing. This, however, is an inevitable result of the CP system, power creep, and not having PvE/PvP separated, and unless we see these adressed, balance will simply be: nerfing across the board, with small increases here and there that are not significant enough to promote a given playstyle. ZOS' 'play-as-you-like' motto, still does not apply to their own end-game content.

*except where minor toughness is concerned

Mettaricana

Altmer seems kinda pointless compared to most of these races give them a lil stam to co.pliment that recharge passive

Aluneth

Masel wrote: »

1. Flat stats are a buff, NOT a nerf. These get amplified by all % buffs you have and will translate to at least the same stat density as before, in many instances even more. In no CP content and instances where you have warhorn available, this is a significant buff especially.

I'm curious, what % buffs? As a stamina Warden, where do I get 'all' these % stamina buffs? Undaunted?

Explain to me how a +2000 stamina, will give me the same (or more!) as 10% of 40k+?

amir412

Aluneth wrote: »

Masel wrote: »

1. Flat stats are a buff, NOT a nerf. These get amplified by all % buffs you have and will translate to at least the same stat density as before, in many instances even more. In no CP content and instances where you have warhorn available, this is a significant buff especially.

I'm curious, what % buffs? As a stamina Warden, where do I get 'all' these % stamina buffs? Undaunted?

Explain to me how a +2000 stamina, will give me the same (or more!) as 10% of 48k?

I'll explain, this dude has no idea what he is talking about xD

I tested the current build that i have, Right now its:
39,699 Stamina.

Without redguard and undauted i sit at:
34,224
Add the 2k redguard passive
36,224
Add 6% undauted again:
38,397

So overall i lost like, 1,302 stamina which is like 100 in tool tips - Not that bad, but its sure better now to stack weapon damage - Which in my opinion really destroy build diversity.

I would love to get insight if i forgot something in this calculation, i was testing this on a DK knight, beside undauted, i couldnt recall another % max stat buff.