Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

zaria

Yasha wrote: »

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.

Have an feeling lots of Khajiit and Dunmer players selected race first then build.
Lots of players has asked for this and its plenty of Dunmer / Khajiit envy now.

Dunmer magDK took an hit, that was pretty much an one trick pony and was vulnerable to class or combat system changes.
other magic builds was probably buffed and they are very strong in stamina.
Now we might tilt Dunmer a bit towards magic, this can also be relevant for other races down the line.

zaria

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@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).

Also remember its many Khajiit types / furstock some are more magic inclined.
Even if we only have one khajiit race we can play.

Fun thought Ohmes-raht is released with Elsweyr as an slightly OP race just to pop the head of people buying lots of race changes.

Kesef

Some_Guy wrote: »

I've been playing this game since it was sub, spent hundreds of dollars to help keep this game going (and get/keep my craft bag ), and now you want me to pay to change all 15 of my toons (yeah, I paid for those too, and they're all max level) because you want to change how everything works?!?
I'm all for rebalancing, keeping the game fresh and fair, but some of us have been loyal and PAYING into this game for years. I think we deserve more than a single race change tokens if you're going to push such a mass change. You want do a 1 only per max level character? Fine. You want to work some system that gives more tokens based on how long the player has been playing? Ok. You even want to verify how much that player has dumped into the game to see the $1,000+ I've ALREADY PAID YOU, and work something out based off that? Dangerous territory, but alright. You want to charge me to deal with the changes to the game that I've been paying into for 4+ years (subbed since day 1)? Not fine.
The changes are interesting, but not enough for me to spend another $300 to min/max all over again.

Most changes still work for races that were designed for something specific (i.e. macgicka/stam build). They are not so drastic as to have to change every single character race. I doubt you regularly play EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER to the max end-game level, where that whole .5% increase in whatever will make such a dramatic difference between a flawless victory and faceroll defeat (sarcasm, if you did not catch it). This sounds ridiculously exaggerated and dramatic.

That said.. I DO agree there should be more than ONE free race change token. One per current character sounds fair to me.

Cundu_Ertur

One token per four characters as of 01Jan19.

Pheeenixxx

@ZOS_Gilliam

ORC

Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500

not 1500 Health and Stamina???

Kesef

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

MincVinyl wrote: »

Bosmer's getting stealth detect seems like a completely useless passive, there is almost no instance where I think I run into stealthed players these days other than nightblades (which stealth detect doesn't matter). I would rather see more damage to stealthed enemies, or something that would actually be useful in combat. I know lore is important, but don't have it determine ingame buffs/usefulness of the race. Also why does the speed only last 3 seconds and not 4 like the bow hasty retreat passive, it would make more sense to have these overlap.

otherwise great to see that the game isn't just
stam build ---> orc
mag/tank/stam ---> argonian

side note i'm a pvp player, but i'm pretty sure stealth detect has no place in pve aswell.

As in current passives in pve it at least give ability to steal everything, now that's completely useless passive. Khajiits and dunmer are put to "hybrid" roles which are out of meta.. well, maybe in PVP some viable hybrid can be builded, but in PVE cats and dark elves are now far behind altmer and redguard which were directly buffed.

... New passives still give Khajiit's pickbocket bonus and 5m reduced detection range (up from 3m) ..Not sure how that takes away the ability to "steal everything?" Increase to both stats does not mean they have to be a hybrid.

Not sure where you are getting information to stats that Khajiit and Dark Elves are behind Altmer and Redguard from? Sounds like a random "fact" just thrown out there.

Commancho

So overall:
Altmer - best magicka race
Redguard - best stamina race
Nord - best tank
Khajit - best ganker


Such a variety...

Moonsorrow

Commancho wrote: »

So overall:
Altmer - best magicka race
Redguard - best stamina race
Nord - best tank
Khajit - best ganker


Such a variety...

This is what i have been saying here, so no change in variety happened and people get some fun builds nerfed so a fix that did fix nothing. I just cannot see the point in all of this.

People also just unhappy about things like Stealthy passive split between bosmer and khajiit. Its like Race Change token selling changes just for changes instead of fixing anything. Where is the promised freedom?

ZOS_Gilliam

Greetings everyone! First the combat team would like to thank you all for the feedback you’ve provided, and we want you to know that we’ve been closely monitoring the direction of the conversations thus far, and will be discussing them internally for potential adjustments if the feedback stays similar after PTS goes live. While we won’t be making any changes for the first PTS, there might be tweaks for PTS week 2. On that note, we’d like to clear up some commonly asked questions.

“Why are some of the stat values different when comparing races?”

In the initial post we referenced how each race had been balanced around our set bonus efficiency system, which aims to break down all the bonuses into a mathematical value of comparison. Each race uses a number as their benchmark (~6.5 set bonuses), and the values of their individual passives all add up to reach it. That means that not every bonus is compared one to one; such as the Orc’s Brawny passive vs the Imperial’s Tough and Imperial Mettle passives, nor were they compared point for point to their current bonuses on Live.

“Why are these stats lower than what I’m used to?”

Similarly to the note above, not all of the stats have been converted 1:1 in our adjustment from percentages to flat bonuses. The bonuses to Health, Magicka, and Stamina in particular will be lower compared to previously, since these will not scale with your Champion Point’s bonus of 20% increase. This is because they do not apply to your base stats, similarly to food or 5 piece bonuses. With this in mind, we increased some other areas of racial bonuses to make up for the potential loss of power.

Again, thank you all for the perspectives granted, and we look forward to seeing even more feedback once you get your hands on it this week, on the PTS!

Moonsorrow

If these changes secretly really ARE just about real money for Q1 report..

I`ll have you know, there is way more potential in your Crown Store. Currently, whoever is running it is tired and has only recycled ideas going on.

Even i could take it into a next level and massively increase income from it with cool stuff that would not be P2W and would also fit the lore. Not even joking.

@ZOS_Gilliam

Thanks for your honesty, about the stat situation. Not many here (class reps included) have been wanting to admit that there will be nerfs to many builds, and while some races do gain something instead (like Breton % cost reduction buff is nice) then many do not, especially if built on their strenghts on character creation already with some racial passive in mind.

It`s just not us being negative here for the sake of being negative, many of us just used the old passive bonuses to create powerful and fun characters, that are now nerfed and the nerfs did not bring variety since some are still way better than some, so the feeling left is.. why even change anything at all then?

And do not get me wrong, i am here voicing my opinions because i love the game. And someone has to, for those who do not even yet understand they will be nerfed. Not all do understand it until it hits live.

Change must happen yes, but change should be such that it keeps the fun that is and increases the fun that can be. Increasing options instead of limiting them. I just feel sad that all the "play how you want" thought seems to be destroyed instead of enhanced little by little.

Commancho

It seems that the worst race will be imperial....

Imperial gets slightly more raw HP & Stamina which compared to other races is nothing <no sustain, resistance, damage, unique perks>...

With the additionaly nerfed healing the only niche build we had for imperial - DK health tank - makes no sense anymore, because 6% heal of max hp with 10% chance was worth much more with 50k+ hp than flat 1750HP with 15% chance <which will probably get halved in Cyrodiil and completly useless>. I mean seriously, this perk was barely useful before nerf...

Additionaly 5% of Block & bash cost reduction is not worth much as most recommended builds will get you to around 50-60% reduction! What's even the point of playing this race anymore?!

My suggestion:

[*] Increases Experience gain in One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Gold gain → No changes
[*] Tough: 12% Max Health → Imperial Training: Increases your Max Health by 2000. Increases your Physical Resistance by 3960.
[*] Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Imperial Mettle: Increases your Max Stamina by 2000.
[*] Red Diamond: 10% Chance on Melee Attack to heal for 6% of Max Health → Imperial Spirit: When you Take Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to heal for 1750. This effect can occure every 1s.


This would get imperial race where they belong to - heavy armored infantry with great morale. Perfect for tank builds, but not overpowered. Right now, this what you are suggesting will send this race into eternity of oblivion and regret.

vet7years

I think Twice-Born Star might become vital for dark elves to help get the dual damage capabilities if a hybrid build is going to be able to happen. Plus haikejo for the enchantments to give the extra points to both.

MartiniDaniels

Commancho wrote: »

It seems that the worst race will be imperial....

Imperial gets slightly more raw HP & Stamina which compared to other races is nothing <no sustain, resistance, damage, unique perks>...

With the additionaly nerfed healing the only niche build we had for imperial - DK health tank - makes no sense anymore, because 6% heal of max hp with 10% chance was worth much more with 50k+ hp than flat 1750HP with 15% chance <which will probably get halved in Cyrodiil and completly useless>. I mean seriously, this perk was barely useful before nerf...

Additionaly 5% of Block & bash cost reduction is not worth much as most recommended builds will get you to around 50-60% reduction! What's even the point of playing this race anymore?!

My suggestion:

[*] Increases Experience gain in One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Gold gain → No changes
[*] Tough: 12% Max Health → Imperial Training: Increases your Max Health by 2000. Increases your Physical Resistance by 3960.
[*] Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Imperial Mettle: Increases your Max Stamina by 2000.
[*] Red Diamond: 10% Chance on Melee Attack to heal for 6% of Max Health → Imperial Spirit: When you Take Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to heal for 1750. This effect can occure every 1s.


This would get imperial race where they belong to - heavy armored infantry with great morale. Perfect for tank builds, but not overpowered. Right now, this what you are suggesting will send this race into eternity of oblivion and regret.

+ totally my thoughts. Imperials will be out of tanks now with this changes to nord and mediocre stam dps weaker then all others stamina races. Only some pvp ww builds look viable.

MartiniDaniels

vet7years wrote: »

I think Twice-Born Star might become vital for dark elves to help get the dual damage capabilities if a hybrid build is going to be able to happen. Plus haikejo for the enchantments to give the extra points to both.

No, pve hybrids are stillborn and they remain the same and in pvp all hybrids were rotating around stacking ton of weapon damage and then applying to spells with pelinal set. Of course such builds receive nothing from equal bonus to weapon/spell damage.

Yasha

vet7years wrote: »

I think Twice-Born Star might become vital for dark elves to help get the dual damage capabilities if a hybrid build is going to be able to happen. Plus haikejo for the enchantments to give the extra points to both.

Hybrid builds are for the most part just weak no matter what you do unless building a tank - but the dark elf passives aren't geared towards tanking at all. Meanwhile, on most builds either the mag or stam damage bonus is going to be wasted/ irrelevant.

Its the same with Khajiit; it is an extremely bad and unfair decision on the developers part to arbitrarily make two races into "hybrids" (ie weaklings). I mean, I see that they have kept the split bonuses fairly high (with the double 258 spell/weapon dam on DE and 8% double crit chance on Khajiit) to compensate for this, but in practice we are essentially losing one potential bonus.

It means we can build a decent mag or stam character with these races, but not a great one. How is that 258 weapon damage going to help a mag DK (or other mag build)? Or visa versa if you build a stam based toon? And to top it off, DE also lose their defining passive with the fire damage. Why would you do that when the changes are partly meant to add flavor to the racials???

AyMistr00s

i hope u do acknowledge that this is a new red year for the dunmer people.
u just destroyed the reason for a dunmer to be flame-magician and forced them into nightblading.

gepe87

That bosmer bonus is too good for pvp. Even mag characters (magblade and magsorc)

MartiniDaniels

Yasha wrote: »

vet7years wrote: »

I think Twice-Born Star might become vital for dark elves to help get the dual damage capabilities if a hybrid build is going to be able to happen. Plus haikejo for the enchantments to give the extra points to both.

Hybrid builds are for the most part just weak no matter what you do unless building a tank - but the dark elf passives aren't geared towards tanking at all. Meanwhile, on most builds either the mag or stam damage bonus is going to be wasted/ irrelevant.

Its the same with Khajiit; it is an extremely bad and unfair decision on the developers part to arbitrarily make two races into "hybrids" (ie weaklings). I mean, I see that they have kept the split bonuses fairly high (with the double 258 spell/weapon dam on DE and 8% double crit chance on Khajiit) to compensate for this, but in practice we are essentially losing one potential bonus.

It means we can build a decent mag or stam character with these races, but not a great one. How is that 258 weapon damage going to help a mag DK (or other mag build)? Or visa versa if you build a stam based toon? And to top it off, DE also lose their defining passive with the fire damage. Why would you do that when the changes are partly meant to add flavor to the racials???

One of the variant i heard from somebody is to give dunmer high magicka and high weapon damage.. i.e. something like 3000 magicka and 400 weapon damage - then it will work on existing hybrids.

Commancho

This would make Dunmer ridiculusly overpowered. Simply move extra 600hp into stamina and magicka, for example instead of +1250 stam + 1250 mag + 600 hp, we could have +1500 stam +1500 magicka. This will help a little when min-maxing, because it's easier to organise my build when I have to worry only for 1 atribute.

psilverelf

LLawlietW wrote: »

Why was redguard buffed? how does that make sense when they are already considered the best race for stamina dps. and then the second best option khajiit gets nerfed. i just dont understand how that is supposed to make sense at all. now khajiit has more health recovery than stam... but yea lets buff adrenaline rush

Redguard definitely did not get buffed:

Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Increases your Max Stamina by 2000.

This is approx 1500+ loss to stamina and over 200 loss to DPS, They did the same to Imperial.

Smexerz

I think that the timer on the Nords passive for ultimate is to long, its like 30 ultimate per minute if attacked continuously which means its not gonna be impactful for anything but pve tankbuilds, if at all.

Nerouyn

I don't love High Elf's spellcharge.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Spellcharge: 9% Magicka Recovery → 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.

Previously high elf had a clear advantage for magicka characters, and I don't mind playing elves, so I have more than one.

But this new racial has two problems for me.

One of the reasons I play ESO at all is that it doesn't have cooldowns. I avoid the few it does have (eg. on sets) like the plague. To now find a cooldown in my racials is a kick to the balls.

Thanks so much!

Also, why only class abilities? Why not any ability?

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

To summarize, we decided to focus more on racial balance this update because racial choice was one of the larger outliers to our core mantra of the game - freedom.

By unnecessarily limiting this to class abilities, you transparently limit freedom. Not that I particularly have anything against racial abilities but this punishes players for any build which doesn't include and frequently use them.

I already disliked that wardens have a class passive (savage beast) with both of these problems. Now I'm lumped with another.

More generally I'm pleased that the +10% magicka/health/stamina bonuses are gone. That's a nerf for my multiple magicka high elves but I always felt both that those bonuses were too generous and also that they rewarded single stat playstyles so much that it it seemed stupid to go any other way with those races. The new flat bonuses are better on both counts for my tastes.

I also appreciate the changes to other races which make them more versatile, eg. khajiit and may have to think seriously about which of my characters I might want to main once I'm done with all of the tedious character grinds for my wardens.

However, only giving one race change token with such significant changes to racial passives seems miserly. I'm sure many players would feel cheated by that. Also many players choose names to match races. I did. Personally if I were going to change any of my characters it would be elf -> dark elf so I could happily keep the same name, but there are probably lots of players who would also want to change names and would accordingly feel doubly cheated.

Lylith

smh.

worse than i expected, and i expected it to be bad.

wishlist14

Audens wrote: »

The Dunmer change is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. There is now no reason to choose Dunmer over Altmer for mag DPS. Or for anything really, other than an RP hybrid build.

These changes are not set in stone, this is why devs are asking for our opinion but so many ppl are gettiing upset rather than giving constructive feedback and constructive criticism.

wishlist14

Dear Devs,
Crudos to you for taking the leap forward and balancing out the race passives. It really needed an overhaul so thank you. It upsets me to see that some think it is about $$$s even though this is just a long needed progression in line with other changes. Anyway, Id like to offer my constructive feedback. I's really like to see khajiit get more stamina regen rather than health regen to be fair. I would not find the health regen that useful. I also think that the Redguards have hogged the spotlight as top stamina class for long enough and I'm sorry but I don't see it has been balanced enough in kedping with other races.
I realise that non of these race chages have been finalised but those are the two things that kind of stand out most to me.
Also, I would love to be able to play a dps pve build on a Nord. Ive been playing eso for years now and have not been able to play a Nord because at first i was forced to just play them as a tank and then they were broken. I realise you are balancing he out but i still dont want to tank on my nord.
Overall I absolutely love your ideas and how much respect you've shown to each race lore wise. To me eso will essentially always be about the lore. Please help me play a Nord damage dealer . Thank you much love and respect for your amazing work. I take off my hat to you our Dev team ❤❤❤

WrathOfInnos

@ZOS_Gilliam Thanks for the details. Can you provide any info on why the racial stat bonuses won’t benefit from the 20% CP multiplier? Or in a more general sense why this multiplier applies inconsistently? I’ve always found it confusing that it works on most (but not all) set bonuses, enchants, jewelry traits, base stats and assigned attributes, but does not work on food, mundus stones, and some sets. Maybe this could be standardized to make it more intuitive when comparing different sources of resources.

Moonsorrow

So where are the math guys now who earlier where here saying their calculations?

Facts have now arrived, and.. i told you so.

I wish everyone will go check at PTS and make a copy of their current character from live with current gear and see the results.

Check your stats and come here and see if the math given you was correct or not.

The small flat numbers and how they are calculated are a big nerf for many.

CurvedSwords123

Why isn't the Redguard max Stam bonus coupled with something else like the wood elves get?

actosh

Dont force Imperials red diamond on rng.
Yeah 15% is not that bad, but a guaranteed heal with a cd sounds way better. And still, it heals only 40% of what leeching heals with a light attack.

Give imperials something more usefull and the stats need to be upped to compete against other races, especially nord with that ultgen/resistances.

Lylith

zyk wrote: »

I think ZOS is going to really regret disrupting characters players have played for years to such a high degree.

yep. absolutely goddamned right.

they spend SO much time tinkering with aspects of the game that should simply be left alone.

if zos is looking for something to fix, there is NO LACK of truly broken mechanics needing sorted.

racials isn't it.