Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

KuroDark

Yeah, at least 1 or 2 more race changes would be good. If not, you are probably trying to get us to buy more race changes.

Wildberryjack

Cinbri wrote: »

Wildberryjack wrote: »

Again I say, let Dunmer keep their fire damage bonus please. It makes them unique. TY.

It doesnt make them unique, but only pigeonhold into playing only 1 class of 6.

Disagree. And I have a non-DK Dark Elf. He uses a fire staff. See what I did there? Fire staff.

Cundu_Ertur

AbbyMeowCat wrote: »

Nords are not supposed to be a tank-only race. Nords live to kill and enter Sovngarde. Most are warriors, archers and even mages like Farengar. They are Vikings. They love to fight instead of just holding block. This way Nords will be viable for all 3 roles.

So what you're saying is they come from a land of ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow?

Reaver-Stormhamre

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

AbbyMeowCat wrote: »

Nords are not supposed to be a tank-only race. Nords live to kill and enter Sovngarde. Most are warriors, archers and even mages like Farengar. They are Vikings. They love to fight instead of just holding block. This way Nords will be viable for all 3 roles.

So what you're saying is they come from a land of ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow?

ahAAAAAAAHaaahAAAH!

Cinbri

@Masel is it known how those 258spd/wpd buff will be incorporated, will it be recalculated by minor/mojor sorcery/brutality?

ChefZero

First of all, thx for that @ZOS_Gilliam , very good explanation. Pls move on like this.

It's a very good decision to change from % to flat stats. Especially additiv % bonuses are too potent in a game like ESO and should reworked in general to make futher balancing easier. It seems like your team is thinking more about how to optimize the game to make balancing easier. Because in the current state it's impossible to offer diversity and balance, so pls keep it up.

Also good job with deleting elemental passives because it's a killer for diversity. Elemental passives only affects damage in some builds of some classes while with these changes many builds can profit from it damage and defense wise. 99% of the mDK playerbase are dunmer at the moment, so best example how right and important this change is.

Also, thank you for trying to follow the lore of the races during the changes. Also good example are Dunmer because they were never S-Tier magical races lore wise, rather battlemages. Of course it's a big change in balance but it's legit and not unusal in MMO histories.

Don't be sad if ppl blame you for PvE balance. It's not your fault, PvE endgame content is just bad designed. If it's only about DPS the combat-balance-whatever team will never be able to balance around it. Min/maxer will always find the best and that will become meta.

Some hints in general: unique passives are cool, but impossible to balance, so handle them carefully.
Global passives (like race or guild passives for example) have to be adjust more before balance classes. Extreme builds are only possible (I'm not talking about sets) cause of the massive amount of additive buffs ingame. Changing more passives to flat or multiplicative stats will smooth very high values a bit and offer more diversity without the need of softcaps.
Ppl are to strong so adjusting something down a bit is better than raising something else most time.
I like the implementation of more proc based regen cause flat regen is just boring (and easier to balance of course). Pls handle more like this way.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.

• When we’re balancing numerical bonuses, this is our general procedure with the values you see. The system works by looking at the total power a bonus provides and comparing it to a bonus from a 2-4 item set. For example, if we have 2000 Stamina, we would compare that to a 2 piece value of Stamina, which is 1096. The final result would be 2000/1096 = 1.82 set bonus efficiency. We did this for each bonus a race provides so they would all be roughly equal in the power they provide.
• We decided to find a healthy standard for total racial power provided and used that budget (roughly 6.5 set bonuses) for the power that each passive would grant. We used the previous version of Redguard and Altmer as our target goal. Note that some of our hybrid races will be a slightly higher value, since their power is divided. Most of the races received buffs to reach this figure.

This system to evaluate balancing show a huge problem in my opinion. Race passives are still to strong. If I compare the 6.5 of a race with a set like draugr hulk (total 5,3) the difference in power will noticeable shown. Especially for PvE balance this factor is too high.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

As a closing note, we want to reiterate that all players will have a refund of all of their character’s racial passives if they’ve spent any, so remember to reallocate any points into these on your characters once the changes go live. We'll also be granting one free race change, per account.

Pls one race&name change token bind on char per level 50 character otherwise many will become angry.

All in all I'm very happy and surprised by many brave decisions that you have made. Keep it up!

Vercos

this is going to kill my magdk.. you guys destroyed dunmers. They're not the best at nothing anymore, now we can be decent at both mag and stam builds, but not the best. you guys should really consider to add back the flame damage bonus again.

Nord_Raseri

add weapon damage to the nord(on top of the other changes) and I'd actually be fine with the changes.

fakingfocused

I will stay Nord no matter what. They look like they will stay in a decent spot. Always love my Nord in pvp. I just wish they would change the 2h xp gain to a dps advantage instead. Make them Like a relevant 2h dps in pve. Or have some overall sort of damage dealing bonus to close the gap in pve dps, As like the missing bererker side of nords.

Twohothardware

fakingfocused wrote: »

I will stay Nord no matter what. They look like they will stay in a decent spot. Always love my Nord in pvp. I just wish they would change the 2h xp gain to a dps advantage instead. Make them Like a relevant 2h dps in pve. Or have some overall sort of damage dealing bonus to close the gap in pve dps, As like the missing bererker side of nords.

With the current changes Nord will be the desired Race that raid groups will want as their tank so Nord will finally see some activity again.

Dracane

Cinbri wrote: »

Is it known how those 258spd/wpd buff will be incorporated, will it be recalculated by minor/mojor sorcery/brutality?

It's 258 base spell/weapon damage being added to you. They will be affected by all spell/weapon damage % that you have.

BlondyIronBlood

About time my Redguard got something good going for him, ohoho yes I'll gladly take those changes plz

Greg11jkalfa

These changes are ok for the most part. But I think you need to remember that the games is nearly 5 years old. People have become very familiar with what races suit what roles, i.e. Dark Elves are for fire builds, Argonians are for healer builds, Nords are for tank builds, etc. The changes to Bretons, Khajiit, High Elves, Imperials, Redguards, and Orcs aren't anything too big. But, removing detection radius and stealth damage (not to mention a copy paste roll bonus from the meduim armor line) from Wood Elves, taking away the bonus to flame damage from Dark Elves, and changing the flat damage reduction for Nords to just spell and physical resist, those things are not welcome changes. They're defining traits of each them, and entire builds have been made based around them. I'm probably the only one to feel this way, and knowing my luck, the changes I don't want will stay, and the ones I really want will be nerfed. I sat back and took losing the 3rd sorcerer bar like a good boy. But I refuse to let 3 of my favorite races lose the things that make them so special.

Greg11jkalfa

Greg11jkalfa wrote: »

(not to mention a copy paste roll bonus from the meduim armor line)

I meant bow skill line to be clear.

Deathlord92

Greg11jkalfa wrote: »

These changes are ok for the most part. But I think you need to remember that the games is nearly 5 years old. People have become very familiar with what races suit what roles, i.e. Dark Elves are for fire builds, Argonians are for healer builds, Nords are for tank builds, etc. The changes to Bretons, Khajiit, High Elves, Imperials, Redguards, and Orcs aren't anything too big. But, removing detection radius and stealth damage (not to mention a copy paste roll bonus from the meduim armor line) from Wood Elves, taking away the bonus to flame damage from Dark Elves, and changing the flat damage reduction for Nords to just spell and physical resist, those things are not welcome changes. They're defining traits of each them, and entire builds have been made based around them. I'm probably the only one to feel this way, and knowing my luck, the changes I don't want will stay, and the ones I really want will be nerfed. I sat back and took losing the 3rd sorcerer bar like a good boy. But I refuse to let 3 of my favorite races lose the things that make them so special.

I love my Breton passives amazing for magblade is it so much to ask for stam racial passives on my Breton I’m sure I’m not the only one who favour a race not suited for there class my case stamblade but I do it anyways because I play Breton assassin in previous elder scrolls if not thn I just have to try magblade Breton passives are to nice not tho as I mentioned before Breton should have more spell resistance thn nord

IronWooshu

Greg11jkalfa wrote: »

These changes are ok for the most part. But I think you need to remember that the games is nearly 5 years old. People have become very familiar with what races suit what roles, i.e. Dark Elves are for fire builds, Argonians are for healer builds, Nords are for tank builds, etc. The changes to Bretons, Khajiit, High Elves, Imperials, Redguards, and Orcs aren't anything too big. But, removing detection radius and stealth damage (not to mention a copy paste roll bonus from the meduim armor line) from Wood Elves, taking away the bonus to flame damage from Dark Elves, and changing the flat damage reduction for Nords to just spell and physical resist, those things are not welcome changes. They're defining traits of each them, and entire builds have been made based around them. I'm probably the only one to feel this way, and knowing my luck, the changes I don't want will stay, and the ones I really want will be nerfed. I sat back and took losing the 3rd sorcerer bar like a good boy. But I refuse to let 3 of my favorite races lose the things that make them so special.

The damage mitigation on the Nord is a trash passive on live currently, the resistances we are getting are way better. The only thing I want to see changed is either Nord is given 258 Weapon Damage and/or the Ultimate Gain is reduced to 5 ult every 5 seconds which is equivalent to Hide of the Warewolf set.

Yamenstein

megageeklizzy wrote: »

@ZOS_Gilliam
Any news on whether you guys are even looking at this? Dev tracker is pretty quiet...hard to tell if you're just ignoring us or working desperately to get through 41 pages of complaints. A "we're considering changing things" would be nice. Or even a "don't waste your time figuring out stats, we're gonna do what we're gonna do, YOLO". Just so we'd know.

Again, not that it matters for those of us who RP, as we're just going to be stuck with really bad stats if you go through with this. We're at your mercy as far as these racial changes, but you're at our mercy as far as sales. Not everyone is willing to shell out more money. Some of us will just stop doing new content that will be further and further out of reach. Not that I ever buy the dungeon DLCs anyway, but maybe I'll stop subbing, too.

Not trying to be totally negative, as I know there's a lot going on with development right now, and it takes time to come up with new changes. I just really think you're making a mistake here and would like to know if you have any plan to rectify it.

Mate, it hasn't even come out on PTS yet. If it was me I would be there laughing at all the comments. They can't "rectify" anything without seeing the impacts.

So many people are getting upset over this when the changes, for the most part, aren't that bad. If you don't like change then maybe instead of playing a MMORPG then you should go play a single game where all they really change, again for the most part, is performance based on bugs and glitches.

Yamenstein

Vercos wrote: »

this is going to kill my magdk.. you guys destroyed dunmers. They're not the best at nothing anymore, now we can be decent at both mag and stam builds, but not the best. you guys should really consider to add back the flame damage bonus again.

It's good that they are not the best at nothing anymore. Hopefully now they can be the best at something

You should check out how they perform when PTS goes up.

Masel

Cinbri wrote: »

@Masel is it known how those 258spd/wpd buff will be incorporated, will it be recalculated by minor/mojor sorcery/brutality?

That is one of the first things we asked, and they will be affected by all buffs available.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

I bet that the main reason this thread has received so much feedback is because it was posted by Gilliam (as we still think to believe that he is making a difference there for the better). I hope he will read though all comments and check game data to make adjustments where needed.

Sekt_Tiberlus

Excuse me for my bad english, but... What are you doing ZOS? Why you nerf the Saxhleel? Who asked you for this? Why you do not listen to argonian community? Why you listen to some kids instead that cry "NERF LIZARDS!1111". We never ask you to nerf them. They actually need to be enhanced and you know that. I don't see any passives that will make me strong as dps for example, but don't play healers or tanks, i play as argonian damage dealer on all my 9 characters. I don't want to play redguard or any other race. But i also do not ask to nerf other races like some angry kid. Argonian is most superior race in magic, stealth and art of war according to lore, one of many reasons i like them. All you did its just removed the half of their passives like healing recived, posion resist, immune to status effect... Those passives don't even bothered anyone, but they are very cool lore features and you removed them. And you don't even try to compensate it by adding some new strong features for them! If its so complicated for you to buff them, just don't change anything at least. You made everything more worse.

Removing Argonians' poison resistance/immunity is blatantly ignorant of many points of lore:
1) a quest in Bleakrock Isle, in which an Argonian boasts her resistance to poison,
2) Black Marsh's rampant poisonous clouds (not to be confused with just the pestilent air there too,)
3) TES:3 and TES4: showcasing Argonians with extreme poison resistance, effectively immune.

Listen, ZOS, we, fan of TES play our favourite race not because of their mechanics. We play cause we like them. And we want do any role with our race without any serious disadvantages(but there are lot of them). But, i will not ask you to enhance their stats, add some more magicka or stamina, thought it would be right cause saxhleel are superior in magic than elves according to lore. But not, we just need to freedom of choice. I have no skill of speechcraft, but i found a very interesting post there in topic that i want you to notice. Add passives morfs.

Auroan wrote: »

I don't know who you have on your player counsel, or whatever it is, but clearly they're not doing a good job with feedback if this is the conclusion to Racial Balancing for Equality. The only thing this did was change the meta of one Race, to another Race. The reason Racial Passives have failed, and will continue to fail, is because the Core Concept of Freedom of Choice that's implemented into ESO falls into almost all categories, EXCEPT for Racial Passives.

Everyone has access to Light, Medium and Heavy armor, regardless of Race, Class, etc. Everyone has access to all Weapons, regardless of Race, Class, etc. Everyone has access to all Guilds, Gear Sets, etc., regardless of Race, Class, etc. You get my point. But the ability to have a Passive that grants Sustain instead of Damage? Nah, you need to be a specific Race for that. The ability to have a Passive that grants Max Resources instead of Sustain, or Flat Resistances instead of Max Health, etc.? Nah, you need to pick specific Races for that.

Solving the issue of Racial Inequality is literally as simple as applying the Core Concept of Freedom of Choice the rest of the game implements, to the Racial Passives. Everyone should have access to choose whatever Passives they want, regardless of Race, in a balanced way.

The Racial Passives should be divided into 3 Categories: Minor Passives, Major Passives, and Unique Passives.

3 Minor Passives that should contain the Basic Fundamentals of Gameplay, which includes things such as Resources, Sustain and Damage.

1 Major Passive that should contain an Advanced, more Role Specific Skill, such as Block Cost Reduction (Now Introduced to Imperials), Ultimate Regen (Now Introduced to Nords), and Adrenaline Rush (Now Buffed for Redguards).

1 Unique Passive that should contain a Unique Skill that corresponds to the chosen Race that has minimal influence on Gameplay, as to not establish a Meta Race, while also staying true to the Lore of the Race, such as Swimming Speed (Argonian), Reduced Fall Damage (Wood Elf), and Reduced Detection Status (Khajiit).

While current Skills require you place a Skill Point in them before Morphing, Racial Passives should be the opposite, where players Morph their Racial Passives first to choose which Resource, Damage Modifier, etc. they want. To prevent Bonus Stacking and promote Diversity, each Minor Passive can only be used once. For example, Morphing Minor Passive 1 into Stam Regen will prevent Minor Passive 2, or 3, from being able to select Stam/Mag Regen. Because there is only 1 Major Passive, the selection doesn't matter.

The number of Skill Points you can put into Passives should be Capped. While 3 Skill Points into each section (as it currently is) should still maintained, not all Passives should have the ability to be leveled to Rank 3. Minor Passives should be Capped at the use of 6 Skill Points. 3 Points into a Priority Stat, 2 Points into a Secondary Stat, and 1 Point into a Lesser Stat. This will promote Role Stemming and Priority Placements as individuals choose what's most important to them, or choose to put 2 Points into each section for a Balanced approach.

For Example, if I wanted to be a Khajiit Mag DPS that relied more on Sustain then Raw Damage, my Passives would be as followed:

Minor Passive 1: Morph> Magicka Regen
Rank 1: +100 Magicka Recovery
Rank 2: +179 Magicka Recovery
Rank 3: +258 Magicka Recovery

Minor Passive 2: Morph> Max Magicka
Rank 1: +1000 Max Magicka
Rank 2: +1500 Max Magicka
Rank 3: +2000 Max Magicka

Minor Passive 3: Morph> Spell Damage
Rank 1: Spell Damage +100
Rank 2: Spell Damage +179
Rank 3: Spell Damage +258

---

Major Passive: Spell Charge: 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.

---

Unique Passive: Increases Experience gain in Medium Armor Skill Line by 15%, 5% bonus change to successfully pickpocket. Reduce detection radius by 3m and Increase damage from Stealth by 10%

---

The above example is Rough Foundation that I came up with on the spot at this very moment using the Core Concept of Freedom of Choice that ESO has implemented into almost all Categories. In order to create Racial Equality, all you need to do is simply allow players to CHOOSE how they want to play. This isn't Rocket Science. By allowing players the choice of what their Passives are, the burden of playing a Race they don't want to is lifted, as with the burden of being outscaled by other Races simply because of who they are. A player should never be forced to sacrifice their Identity in order to be "viable" in PvE, or PvP content.

Weps

I like every change but the Dunmer.
And Khajit needs a little bit more love.

Yasha

Dark elf and Khajiit have been wrecked- you've turned them into jack of all trades masters of none and taken away passives that made them feel unique in the first place.

On top of that you have turned the identity of these races on its head: dark elf has gone from a top tier magicka race with a unique synergy for flame damage builds to a better stamina race; khajiit has been shunted from the bursty stam race to a high damage magicka race. It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the other races have kept their original flavor intact and gotten some juicy new toys that further flesh out and complement their overall theme- like the nords ulti-regen passive, the breton mag reduction, redguard weapon cost reduction, woodelf speed boost, etc.

Given that every character I have apart from my crafter is either a dark elf or khajit, some of which I have been playing for years, these changes are infuriating.

Masel

Yasha wrote: »

Dark elf and Khajiit have been wrecked- you've turned them into jack of all trades masters of none and taken away passives that made them feel unique in the first place.

On top of that you have turned the identity of these races on its head: dark elf has gone from a top tier magicka race with a unique synergy for flame damage builds to a better stamina race; khajiit has been shunted from the bursty stam race to a high damage magicka race. It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the other races have kept their original flavor intact and gotten some juicy new toys that further flesh out and complement their overall theme- like the nords ulti-regen passive, the breton mag reduction, redguard weapon cost reduction, woodelf speed boost, etc.

Given that every character I have apart from my crafter is either a dark elf or khajit, some of which I have been playing for years, these changes are infuriating.

Khajiit have the only passive bossting enchant damage and everything else that is not a proc set (pets too for example): Critical Chance. They will produce incredible dps and even have an edge when you consider that other races can not boost their enchants, especially since enchants are such a big chunk of damage nowadays...

They got additional resources and are very much a top contender for damage dealers.

Azurya

@ZOS_Gilliam
you leave me with mixed feelings about this all........ let me explain it

I play 15 characters, 5 Dunmer, 3 Khajit, and now this comes.........
though I must admit that I played my dunmer-NB with a staf AND 2 swords most of them
I trust you, as an addicted player yourself, and khajit player yourself, that especially YOU know what you are doing.
I am looking forward to try these changes myself on PTS, but feeling a bit mixed on what I read so far.

I will write here after trying it.
Keep the good work going!!

Yasha

Masel wrote: »

Yasha wrote: »

Dark elf and Khajiit have been wrecked- you've turned them into jack of all trades masters of none and taken away passives that made them feel unique in the first place.

On top of that you have turned the identity of these races on its head: dark elf has gone from a top tier magicka race with a unique synergy for flame damage builds to a better stamina race; khajiit has been shunted from the bursty stam race to a high damage magicka race. It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the other races have kept their original flavor intact and gotten some juicy new toys that further flesh out and complement their overall theme- like the nords ulti-regen passive, the breton mag reduction, redguard weapon cost reduction, woodelf speed boost, etc.

Given that every character I have apart from my crafter is either a dark elf or khajit, some of which I have been playing for years, these changes are infuriating.

Khajiit have the only passive bossting enchant damage and everything else that is not a proc set (pets too for example): Critical Chance. They will produce incredible dps and even have an edge when you consider that other races can not boost their enchants, especially since enchants are such a big chunk of damage nowadays...

They got additional resources and are very much a top contender for damage dealers.

They get a tiny amount of resources and recovery spread thinly over the three stats for no apparent reason. The addition of spell crit might give them good magicka based damage against a dummy or in pve, but comes with the opportunity cost of losing something that would have been useful for a stam build, and only the most edge-case builds are going to benefit significantly from both the stam and the mag crit.

Meanwhile, they have also been stripped of their identity as a prime race for stamina builds and are outclassed even by dark elfs in that department. Not only do the changes provide nothing for my 6 khajiit toons, they seems completely arbitrary and lacking relevance to the race itself.

At least since Oblivion, Khajiit have been described as: "Unmatched by any other race in acrobatic ability and agility, Khajiit excel at stealth classes such as the Thief, Acrobat, or Monk ... Their stunted Willpower and lack of proficiency in magic skills makes them ineffective mages. "

There are so many better changes that could have been proposed for the Khajiit that would have been in line with their racial flavor and helped bolster the way they have functioned in ESO since launch. So very disappointing.

Get rid of the ridiculous and unimaginative spell crit, boost the regen and max stats and drop the magicka, and come up with a new passive that is more fitting of a khajiit and adds some real flavor- they have claws right? How about bleeds on melee attacks? The point is something useful, imaginative, and consistent with what a Khajiit has always been about.

Grymmoire

Once again I remain perplexed as to why the approach to balancing seems to require another complicated formula, which will invariably led to unintended consequences and probable bugs to be weathered by we, the players.

If racial passives are such a headache and concern, why do they even exist? To give us the illusion that the races are indeed following lore? Or do they exist simply to further pigeonhole and direct the "freedom" of play so oft expressed?

Let's be honest, except for the differing looks and allegiances and the underlying base health, magicka and stamina assigned, the choice of class, attribute distribution, skills, CP distribution and gear should really be the defining distinctions.

So why all the complicated formula, math and added calculations required for racial passives and these proposed new "adjustments" to begin with. If easier balance is the goal, with a potential to lessen server lag and calculations, just remove the damn racial passives and balance underlying health, magicka and stamina pools: then let the players then decide how best to build their avatars and what roles to have them fill; that is freedom of choice.

Please, consider following the old axiom KISS.

As an aside, since these changes are being touted as following lore, why is it that Argonians live in areas of poison; poison themselves in rituals but now are proposed to be resistant to disease??? In PvP for one, I have never seen nor been killed by disease on my varied avatars but poison runs rampart on my recaps...just saying odd choice there. I can predict dodge-rolling Wood Elf Poison Bow users sprinting merrily along if this goes through, collecting Argonian skins for their shoe collections.

John_Falstaff

@Yasha , I'm taking less radical position - khajiits definitely have affinity for magic in other parts of the lore, and I for one welcome them springing into some relevance in magicka department at least. The 'balance' in spiritual sense somehow fits khajiits inside my head. ^^ So symmetry of racial passives doesn't feel terribly wrong. The only thing is that yes, it does feel that what opportunty for excellence khajiits head got spread over both departments, and now it's hard to utilize both at once, so half the racials stay dormant on most builds, while the other half is weaker than it could've been.

But I guess we'll see. @Masel does have a point about enchantments (which aren't buffed by weapons/spell damage), and crit scales well with raid buffs... so here's hoping. Maybe khajiit tanks got a tiny bit of improvement too, because tanks need resources and regen on both sides (not to say flat 75 is a lot, I still feel that should be bumped).

Seraphayel

I very much hope Dunmer changes will go through just that we get rid of the sentiment that Dunmer is the best (only) choice for DK.

I wished for more Magicka nerfs for High Elves to bring them down a bit but overall I am very pleased with the changes.

CurvedSwords123

Redguard WEP skill reduction needs to be expanded to atleast fighters guild as well.