Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Dont_do_drugs

still interesting to see, how class rep answers concerns and explains maths, but isnt able to adress the dunmer/mdk issue a single time. says everything.

FrancisCrawford

xaraan wrote: »

Argonian

Increases experience gain in Resto Staff Skill Line by 15%, extra 50% Swimming Speed → No changes
Resourceful: Gain 3% Max Magicka and restore 4620 Health, Magicka, and Stamina when you drink a potion → Increases your Max Magicka by 1000. Restore 3600 Health, Magicka, and Stamina when you drink a potion.
Argonian Resistance: 9% Max Health and 1485 Poison and Disease Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 1000 and your Disease Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Diseased status effect.
Quick to Mend: 5% Healing Done and Received → Life Mender: Increases your Healing Done by 4%.

Developer Comment:
Argonians by nature are resilient creatures, adapting to their surroundings and accumulating themselves to the environment. Their ability to shrug off potent diseases makes them harder to take down, and their connection with the Hist empowers their will for life. Their bonus to Healing Done makes them gifted at healing themselves or their allies, while their resource return after drinking a potion helps them stay in the fight. Regardless of their role, their ability to recuperate and get back into the fray is something to respect.

Previously Argonians offered far too many stats and they were mathematically twice as good as some races. This retracted from the unique feeling we wanted each race to have, since their bonuses were all over the place. Now they should have more of some stats that make them stand out a bit more, while they’ll have less in other areas that weren’t in line with that vision.

So Argonians were destroyed here...

1- whoever is doing your math (according to dev comment) that said Argonians are mathematically twice as good as other races -- do not let them do your accounting.

2. I expected the potion passive to get hit (for the second time mind you), but tbh it was the only thing going for the race over using a different race, especially for anything DPS related. You could say, at least I'll get some good regen out of this build if not the bonus damage.

So now what do I get out of playing an argonian? I get 3600 boost to my three stats when I drink a potion - which for one, requires a consumable to even get use out of and second only works on cool down since tied to consumable. Not to mention that you hardly ever get a benefit from all three bonuses b/c you don't always need all three stats back and extra when you are full is zero. But fine, I expected this to get hit.

But health bonus less? 1000 to health instead of 9%, this is a HUUUUGE nerf to a tank build. Heck it's even a nerf to a DPS build, as 9% of around 17k health would be a 1530 bonus.

The 1K magicka change instead of 3% is virtually no change on a magicka build that got over 30K magicka and would be a "buff" to a class that doesn't stack magicka and gets no benefit from the buff. And loss of poison resistance.

And 4% healing done now instead of 5% done and recieved. Little nerf and major nerf.

So exactly what are Argonians supposed to excel at now? Was the goal in your redesign team to find a couple different races to take the place of Nords in being the least desirable?

NOTHING given to them to compensate in a DPS build for being nerfed across the board at support?

I thought "zos will probably destroy my favorite race" for tanking, but at least maybe my DPS argonians will get something out of it. I should have known better.

The potion passive is stronger in PvP (because it's bursty) than PvE. It was obvious all along that Argonians would get clobbered to the point they weren't good in PvE anymore.

FrancisCrawford

waitwhat wrote: »

For a redguard stamblade, the 10% would equal anywhere from 6-8k stamina.

I question the arithmetic on that bit.

Cundu_Ertur

technohic wrote: »

The moment you realize all those cloaking, wood elf, snipers are getting a speed buff...

They lose the stealth and the 10% bonus to hitting from hiding. So..... not really. And we don't know for sure if it stacks or not. If they just use the existing minor/major expedition skills to implement it, then the bow passive wouldn't change at all.

technohic

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

The moment you realize all those cloaking, wood elf, snipers are getting a speed buff...

They lose the stealth and the 10% bonus to hitting from hiding. So..... not really. And we don't know for sure if it stacks or not. If they just use the existing minor/major expedition skills to implement it, then the bow passive wouldn't change at all.

The 10% damage is nothing compared to never being able to catch them. And I doubt it would be major expedition as it would be pointless with them already being bow specialist as their lore flavor

Stx

Wasn't one of the stated goals to open up more roles for each race? Redguard, breton, altmer, and a few others are pushed heavily toward one role.

I appreciate the lore friendly racials, and they look well balanced... but players will still be forced into certain races for certain roles, which sucks.

Brrrofski

I get you want to make more races able to fill roles and for there not to be that ONE race for a role. Good for new players.

But, let's be honest, most of the population that play this game at above a casual level (where racial passives really matter - pvp or endgame over) chose their race BECAUSE of what they wanted to do with it. Or have race changed (with real money) to another BECAUSE of the role they want to play.

Changing things like this without a method to choose a new race is horrible. So many people will have characters who are now not optimised for what they selected. Like I can't even imagine how many people changed from Breton to Argonian for their healer for instance. That potion passive was great for sustain and you had 5% healing given. Well the sustain has been needed and you lose the healing given. So now a Breton is probably the better choice.

My PVP redguard stamplar is now vastly inferior to an orc for instance. Orc gets movement speed, sprint cost reduction, max health, max stam, weapon damage AND a slightly weaker version of adrenaline rush (that also heals). My redguard has max stam, reduced cost on weapon abilities (which won't apply to my main damage skill in power of the light and jabs, and a slightly buffed adrenaline rush which in pvp isn't all that great if you're going super defensive.

I'm not against most these changes for the most part, but to make changes so big without a way for players to change their race without paying for it (and paying a lot) is terrible. It really needs to be 1 free race change token (character bound like those research level up rewards) for each level 50 character.

ExpatJohnny

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_BillE
Please see my previous comment in the thread. In addition, will all players now have the race/alliance cap lifted so they may switch an old dark elf character to a high elf, for example?

Galarthor

Tbh, the only thing I am really worried about is the 20% speed buff on fpr Bosmers. Those perma-dodgers will be right back to where they were with before the necessary Swift nerf. You can rest assured, they will proc this passive on cooldown and thus run 75% of the time at such high speeds that the game can once again not keep up with it and you won't be able to hit them even when they are not dodging for a second or two.

Give them Bosmer something else. Don't break the game again by introducing speeds that your game cannot handel @ZOS_Gilliam

BlazingDynamo

Where is the balance in these numbers? My Imperial gets 12% health and 10% stam so you change it to both 2000 flat? That's gonna be a good 1-1.5k hit in his health.

The percent to flat changes are bad. Seems lazy and a nerf for no reason. We asked for balance not nerfs.

FrancisCrawford

Jamdarius wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

RIP Dunmer.

Unless you intend to play a hybrid, there's absolutely no reason to pick Dunmer over Altmer for a mag class.

In the current patch, Dunmer-vs-Altmer was a question of damage-vs-sustain. With the high amount of fire damage at play, Dunmer did slightly higher DPS than Altmer, but Altmer had better sustain. Dunmer had 9% max mag (6%+3%) vs. Altmer's 10%, so that was not a substantial difference.

Now with these proposed changes...

1. The magicka deficit between Dunmer and Altmer is larger.
2. Replacing Dunmer's higher flame damage with weapon damage (useful only for a hybrid) means that Dunmer now does less DPS than Altmer (as they have the same spell damage bonus).
3. Dunmer doesn't have Altmer's sustain.

So whereas in the past Dunmer lost sustain in exchange for slightly more damage versus Altmer, now they've lost sustain and lost damage. So... why would anyone pick Dunmer?

Suggestion: Give Dunmer fire abilities an additional X spell damage. It would make them once again a meaningful alternative to Altmer and is consistent with their lore background.

RIP my MAGDK main....

Quick arithmetic suggests a 5% or so hit to DPS for a Dunmer DK, probably a little less. That's because the spell damage buff fully compensates for the max magicka loss, and so we're only talking about the 7% fire damage buff, which isn't a true 7% buff because it's additive with others.

My Altmer pet sorcerer is losing more than that.

electromagnets

How on earth[ is taking away the 7% Flame damage from Dunmers “maintaining racial individuality”. Come on. And this is only the tip of the homogenization iceberg.

On top of that, I only get to race change ONE out of my FIFTEEN characters for free? Are you ******* mental?

Does this mean I have to start counting the days until Ashes of Creation releases? Perhaps.

Nord_Raseri

wait, what? my nord health tank's been nerfed. and my nord nb will have less stam, but at least my nord stamsorc will have slightly more...But that ult generation looks nice on my stamsorc (don't really need it on any of my other builds due to cleave/heroic slash and or bloodspawn)

technohic

Galarthor wrote: »

Tbh, the only thing I am really worried about is the 20% speed buff on fpr Bosmers. Those perma-dodgers will be right back to where they were with before the necessary Swift nerf. You can rest assured, they will proc this passive on cooldown and thus run 75% of the time at such high speeds that the game can once again not keep up with it and you won't be able to hit them even when they are not dodging for a second or two.

Give them Bosmer something else. Don't break the game again by introducing speeds that your game cannot handel @ZOS_Gilliam

Agree here. If you want them to just be quick, maybe just a 5% full time boost. I mean, a stam sorc Bosmer will be crazy fast.

Thorstienn

@ZOS_Gilliam great right up.
I think the team did a good job overall (1st draft and we haven't seen any other changes yet).
I thought it was going to either make racials "cosmetic" or just smash the meta as a cash grab. But instead it seems like a nice balance of smoothing the passives down.
Now if you stacked Max resources or recovery, yeah you got nerfed.
The only one I disagree with is Dunmer; without a flame buff, and instead pure hybrid focus when hybrids are not really viable, they got hit too hard. In saying that, who knows, you may bring back soft caps, and hybrids will become viable.
Overall, not much changed so not a cash grab;
Altmer was king of Mag bedside DK with Dunmer, now Altmer is king with Khajiit good for NB and Temp and, Breton for Sorc maybe Temp and Dk (sustain)
Stamina was redguard. Still is redguard, but khajiit as well for NB and Temp and Orc niche.
Tanks and healers dont really change.
Finally, Bosmer and Nord! Bosmers stealth passive, went from niche to way too super niche: surely something better!
Nord: undecided on the mitigation change, bit damn, can Nords get some offensive love? They are big Vikings!

Ultimately, good job. Now just need to fix the performance so can enjoy experimenting with these changes for years to come.

BlissfulDeluge

They all look decent, mostly, but I think that the Altmer sustain changes are a bit too much. The cooldown of the passive is too long to justify the low amount of resources it restores. Other than that, I like the High Elf.

The orcs I think could use a little more health. Yes, the damage increasement is nice, but the heavy hit to their health pool is rather tough to bear.

Love the Khajiit changes, but the tri-stat passive could use a bump up.

Nothing to complain about with the Bretons!

Argonians are fine... could use a little more health and magicka, and I don't like the healing done debuff, but meh.

Dark Elves take too heavy a hit to their resources, imo. Doubling the ones given by their Dynamic passive would be good.

As for the other races, that's not my battle. I do think that changing the passives overall is good, but were it up to me, the passives ought to be possible to preselect and mix and match (with certain restrictions, like say, not allowing two spell/weapon damage passives, etc)

karekiz

Nerf imperial heal a tad - Buff their stats. 2.5-3K hp/stam

Reason: Imperials have no other thing going for them other than "I haz lots of raw stats". No boost to wep/spell dmg or even resource regen. They should in general have more raw stats due to lack of other racial role advantage.

Orc: Boost the base stat increase

TheRealPotoroo

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

TheRealPotoroo wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Wood Elf

• Increases experience gain in Bow Skill Line by 15%, decreases fall damage taken by 10% → No changes
• Y’ffre’s Endurance: 21% Stamina Recovery → Increases your Stamina Recovery by 258.
• Resist Affliction: 6% Max Stamina and 1485 Poison and Disease Resistance → Increases your Max Stamina by 2000 and your Poison Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Poisoned status effect.
• Stealthy: Reduces detection Radius by 3m and Increases Damage Done in Stealth by 10% → Hunter’s Eye: Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m. After you use Roll Dodge you gain 20% Movement Speed for 3 seconds.
  • A quick note on why we changed the Stealthy passive: Previously this passive was shared between Khajiit and Wood Elf, and didn’t help them feel distinct enough from each other. Additionally, since Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!), we wanted to take away some of the focus from the passive and build that into their other passives instead. We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives.

Developer Comment

The thick forests of Valenwood have imprinted the importance of the ability to hunt in the Wood Elf race, and as such they have a natural adeptness for detecting potential threats. Quick to react and well versed in the poisons of nature, they can outlast and outwit their opponents. These traits are demonstrated with their natural speed boost when tactfully engaging combat, and their unparalleled Stamina Recovery.

Surely Hunter's Eye would reduce your detection radius in Stealth, not increase it. Not only are Wood Elves the smallest race in the game, who in their right mind would choose to make themselves more detectable?

I read that as meaning that you can detect hidden things 3m earlier than anyone else. Which is useless in PVE where nothing hides. The developer comment reinforces this by saying 'adeptness for detecting potential threats.'

So much for my Bosmer thief then.

<sigh>

This is why I insist that it is impossible to balance the game until PVE and PVP are utterly separated. Yet again my PVE character is getting screwed because of a change meant for PVP. ZOS simply refuse to learn.

scurrdi

Just got a chance to read through this. Overall I applaud the attempt to balance the races as I agree that this is an issue, however I think that this misses the mark in several ways. There are several positives here so I will highlight them as well.

Positives:

1. I agree with going to flat values, for the reasons stated by the Combat Team. I also think that this will put a little more emphasis on sustain since your pools will naturally be lower. While I enjoy the high resources, it seems that the original "sustain nerf" that ZoS intended with Morrowind has slowly crept back into play via CP increases and other factors.

2. I think the idea of providing a unique buff to each race is nice, but can be challenging to apply effectively. Each race should stand out in it's own way and I think there was a good attempt at that. Without seeing it in action I can't comment any further.

3. I very much like the change to Breton (not sure if 7% is too much yet) but it makes a clear distinction in playstyle between Argonian and Breton for healers, making either very viable.

Negatives:

1. From a DPS perspective, you have still put Redguard well above the other classes. While there was a slight nerf to Redguard sustain in the form of changing stam recovery, since most stam players don't stack stam recovery (some exceptions in PVP) this has less impact as I think was intended. However, since direct damage is so prevalent in every build I can think of, especially with weaving LAs, then the stam sustain boost will make a big impact.

1A. I believe that High Elves have now firmly secured their place in the magic DPS world as you effectively gave them a buff for certain classes that use a mix of magic and elemental damage while also providing them with an extremely strong sustain option that is not present in dark elves. Particularly for classes who struggle with sustain (Sorc, DK) High Elf now becomes the obvious choice.

2. I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated with the changes to the more "tank oriented" races. I agree that the Argonian potion passive needed a nerf, but to make the max health bonus only 1000 when it was 9% before and remove the healing received all together really knocks them down dramatically, especially when you compare it to the changes made to the other classes.

2A. The Nords took a nerf as well for PVE but a buff to PVP (IMO). The Ult gen is a nice unique touch, but I always felt that the uniqueness of the Nords was their unique 6% mitigation. Made them very hardy tanks, but didn't necessarily provide as much support. PVE tanks don't have much difficulty getting up to the soft cap so the extra raw resistances doesn't help much, and in PVP it will just make them tougher while giving them faster Ult Gen to make those permablock DKs even tougher.

2B. Considering that the Imperial Race is hidden behind a required purchase of the Imperial Edition, I'm surprised that these folks got such a buff. Aside from that, you as developers have continually nerfed Block Sustain for the past 1.5 to 2 years, yet you decide to make a buff for this specific race? Not only does it feel counter-intuitive, it also makes it the clear #1 choice for tanks to consider, especially when you consider the additional passive healing that requires minimal effort on the player, and their higher resources than Argonian.

3. Personally I find it funny that we are getting a Khaijit themed Chapter Update and we are making effective nerfs to the race. This one does not agree, though I do understand your attempt to make the Khaijit more of a "jack of all trades" option, I don't forsee people running it because it's lack of ability to focus on a single option when it comes to more end game content.


Final thoughts, I think everyone knows this but it's worth saying, so long as combat metrics and other elements exist, there will always be "the top race" for each role and class. While I applaud the effort, I don't forsee this element changing and I worry that you will just be doing this again in 6 months or a year and further frustrating your player base by forcing changes to their characters that they may not enjoy. While the goal is to make the differences minimal between the races, one will always be higher than the others and therefore be the one that all players turn to once the PTS hits.

I hope that this not the final version (I know it won't, but I don't know how much change there will be) and you take our feedback into consideration. Thank you!

FrancisCrawford

LittlePumpkin030 wrote: »

in regards of the Token, I think a fair and square Solution will be that you get as many Tokens as you have Characters, but they expire like within 30 days or so, that it is fair for everyone, even if you have 5 Chars or 15. and you cannot stock them in your account and save hundreds of dollars.

Even bolder -- just make race changes entirely free for a brief period.

By "brief" I mean perhaps 1 month, and clearly announced. Even folks who are traveling for a couple weeks should be able to take advantage of that.

JHartEllis

Getting rid of the 10% bonus stealth damage passives will make one-shot ganking harder to pull off, which is probably a good thing on net (especially from those mostly on the receiving end :P), and it won't make gankers as race-locked, but overall this is a big dps loss to a popular playstyle. I hope there are other things added (maybe fun new stealth-oriented sets) to address this.

Exhilaration: 9% Stamina Recovery → Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Weapon abilities by 8%.

Cost reduction is 2.5-3x as powerful as recovery based on the experimentation of Worm's Raiment vs Hircine's Veneer, so this is a HUGE buff if you're mostly using Weapon abilities. Coupled with removing the melee attack restriction for the stamina rush, Redguards with bows are going to be super strong since bow builds are relatively Weapon ability heavy.

My nord feels even heartier after this. Whee!

Sandman929

Since everyone is looking in different directions and whining about race change tokens...

"Red Diamond: 10% Chance on Melee Attack to heal for 6% of Max Health → When you deal Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to heal for 1750. Reduces the cost of your Block and Bash abilities by 5%."

No cool down here, huh? That's an interesting choice. Is this value impacted by Major/Minor Mending, CPs, etc?

Vrienda

Woop. Stam DK just became more viable for my Dunmer main.

ShonenTrash

I cannot say I am happy about Imperial passives at all. My Imperial DPS mains are taking a big hit in survivability and damage for what? A sucky version of Green Lotus or Siphoning Attacks that isn't even guaranteed and a flimsy block/bash reduction that isn't noticeable at all?

I'm sure my fellow Imperial tanks can benefit off it, but I think they wouldn't notice the reduced costs over Sword and Shield passives. I've never even complained in a forum like this, but please ZOS give us who ***PAID*** for the race something worth bragging about.


EDIT: sorry, I really am. I was a bit frustrated at the changes that I denied looking at the changes in another perspective. If this comes off as good, well, I hope it makes other players happy.
I will keep to my opinion, because it really does feel Imperials had the most lackluster change out of everything. I'm surprised to see the already meta races are getting even more buffed too, and the only reason why I don't want to change to Redguard is because I love how my Imperial looks, and gee I'd rather not change to an Orc. So I am thoroughly biased to this. Then again, it still leaves me a very bitter aftertaste.
I hope there's at least a someone who is happy with the changes c: once again, I'm sorry

luen79rwb17_ESO

Imperials omg... Will that chance to heal be enough to add to survivality?

Khajiit definately needs some love. Get rid of that health recovery and add to magicka and stamina recovery please

PaigeWimberley

Why oh why do you guys have to keep touching the magDK? Their fire damage passive was THE ONLY reason to choose them over the High Elves because the damage was worth it over the sustain. Now they can't do dps AND can't sustain. Why are they even in the game anymore?

I understand you are trying to bring in some hybrid type stuff, but geez... why do all the magic builds have to be high elf or get out?

Crazy...

SodanTok

technohic wrote: »

The moment you realize all those cloaking, wood elf, snipers are getting a speed buff...

Maybe we should less focus on what nightblades are getting from somewhere else and focus on nightblade nerfs if NBs are issue ^^ All those bosmer that arent cloaking would like to have stuff too.

Lady_Rosabella

@ZOS_Gilliam So, as a person who has been playing since 2014, I now have 11 characters all maxed out in bag space, research, mount training, etc....and you are giving me ONE RACE CHANGE TOKEN?! That means if I want to change the race of my other 10 characters I have to pay 30k Crowns to do so? You make changes to every race and you expect players to give you their hard earn money to change, their already established characters, to the race they should be now? My husband, also playing since 2014 and has 11 characters, will also be in the same situation as I am. So there is another 30k Crowns to pay. We both just resubscribed for another full year in January and are starting to regret our decision, after already giving ZO$ $300 for our subs now you want even more for your race changes? And if we want to utilize the best race, for the best class/play style, we have to give ZO$ up to another $300? Well played, well played...you have found yet another way to squeeze money out of your players. Sounds like this game has now officially gone to P2W, at least for people who have established characters already.

I'm just glad we found out about all this before we pre-purchased Elsweyr!

Minno

Davadin wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Emmagoldman wrote: »

Nord might be really fun as an ult machine but maybe thats were it would be limited to. I would set my nord stamdem cenetered on permafrost or set it to magden to spam the healing ult. What would you add to it @Minno?

Could run it a few ways. Armor it gets is basically between 2-3 protective traits on jewels. If you pair that with light armor/medium, you can roll other traits for extra dmg and I dare say extra dmg set.

Question: For a stamDK, what if im already a 5-heavy 7th legion + Sprig build? I can swap my Selene to BS for even moar ultigen, but what do you mean using dmg trait or dmg set? like, using Robust trait on jewels and damage 2nd set is already a given for DK who wants more damage than a love-tap....

In your case probably no change, you'll just have beefier armor values enough to use selenes over bloodspawn (but probably not since more ult coming in means more sustain for DK plus the stam recovery 2pc is hard to beat). But for someone that doesn't want to run that specific setup (example, wants to run 5pc medium armor instead of 5 heavy), can find other ways to stat swap to make their build more attractive for playing (in pvp).

elijafire

Will we be getting free respecs and free race change tokens for EACH toon we have?