Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Lylith · January 2019

Tonturri wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

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

'To such a high degree'

Either the racial passives were so important that this change is toning them down and that's good...or they aren't actually as important as you make them out to be and, well. Follow the train of thought, see where it goes.

JykJax · January 2019

i'm very curious if it could be available a public statics by Zos for chars at 50, class, race, main attribute.
Just to see the number of Dunmer Magicka(every class) and Khajit stamblade versus the other combinations.

John_Falstaff · January 2019

Masel wrote: »

...

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.

Enchant damage, you say? ^^

Yasha · January 2019

wishlist14 wrote: »

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.

Many people are giving constructive feedback, but are naturally also upset. I think you are being extremely naive to expect that these changes will be rolled back or altered in any significant way based on player feedback. You only have to look at the post from the combat team on this thread that says "there might be tweaks" to understand that.

A possible "tweak" is not going to be something like giving DE back their racial flavor, it will at the most amount to adjusting some numbers while keeping the new and extremely bad "hybrid" idea intact.

The overall concept behind these racial changes is solid, and I especially like how they talked about giving the racials more thematic "flavor". I think they have succeeded with that on some racials (like woodelf, nord, and breton), but have really let the ball down on others - to the point of actually stripping away DE's unique flavor/theme.

AbbyMeowCat · January 2019

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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!

Thank you but I hope when this goes live for all players there would be more variety and creative options for all the 3 roles for all races and not encourage and compel players to race change to do the best possible way for one role. Like back then and currently 90% tanks were Argonian, for example because easy-mode.

For instance, not forcing fearless Nords and brave Imperials to be Tank-Only race when they have great warriors and battlemages too, etc.

The Redguard and Khajiit for example will be able to perform all 3 roles but some races still can’t do as well. What about Wood Elf spinners?

You also have to think of the players who do not have Any Race, Any Alliance which already heavily damaged the ESO lore in the Three Banners War when it was implemented, yes?

So I believe a rework for some races are still to be expected, yes?

Thank you again and we will be waiting for those tweaks.

XomRhoK · January 2019

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam
I think racial changes, proposed in this update, don't really achieved stated goals:

1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

For example, in terms of lore and storytelling, i were always bothered with imperials Red Diamond passive. All imperials are vampires? Or all of them have amulet of kings?

So i get other variant of racial passive that, in my opinion, allows all races choose any roles: tanking, healing, or damage dealing, have more unique racial gameplay flavor and lore friendly(as far as my lore knowledge goes).
If you like overall idea and direction of this racial passives, please, leave comment and share you thoughts and suggestions about what do you think fit better for particular race in gameplay or lore direction. I created new thread with same post, so you can leave your comments and suggestions here

Passive divides at:

Flavor. Extra experience gain in one skill line, some minor buff, all types of resistance, almost same as in game
Utility. Some minor adjustments to some speeds; snare, buff, debuff duration to add some flavor in gameplay
Tanking.
Damage/healing. This passives get bonus damage in %, but it's a overall damage, from any source, so it can be utilized by any build: magika, stamina, hybrid or proc.

All core passives without any particulat numbers, because it's a work for balance team. From my point of view tanking and damaging passives must give arount 5-10% bonus in survavability or damage, for peope get reason to use them, but be fine if they can't. Almost all passives without names yet, only some of them to highlight feeling/flavor. Races goes in same order as in devs post.

High Elf

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Destruction Staff Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Generic Experience gain
Utility: More speed while channeling
Tanking/Healing: More healing done
Damage: Make more damage to targets with any elemental status effects on them

Coment

All passives emphasize affinity of High Elf to magic and in particular elemental magic. Elemental status effects can be applied by magic or enchants, so it can be utilized by any build. Maybe for balance in group content it must be elemental status effects applied by you only.

Argonian

Flavor: Increases experience gain in Resto Staff Skill Line by 15%, extra 50% Swimming Speed. 2310 Disease Resistance. Immune to the Diseased status effect. 2310 Poison Resistance. Immune to the Poisoned status effect
Utility: Shorter snare duration
Tanking: More HP recovery
Damage/Healing: Additional damage/heal at critical strikes or bonus damage/heal after critical strike for a period of time

Coment

Passives reflects severe conditions of the swamps, lizards regeneration, inclination of Argonians to thieve and assassin professions in lore and other TES games(as far as i know). Disease Resistance can be deleted for balance purposes.

Wood Elf

Flavor: Increases experience gain in Bow Skill Line by 15%, decreases fall damage taken by 10%. 2310 Disease Resistance. Immune to the Diseased status effect.
Utility: Sneak cost less stamina. Smaller detection radius
Tanking: Hard target: Less damage from direct ranged attacks. Less damage from physical AoE damage.
Damage/Healing: Concentration: More damage/heal if there are no enemies in close range

Coment

Passives reflects Wood elfs small size, sneaking and camouflage abilities. Also their affinity to ranged combat.

Breton

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Light Armor Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Alliance Point gain. 3960 Spell Resistance.
Utility: Shorter debuff duration
Tanking: Dragon skin: Damage shield while blocking, with recharge time, scaled from HP.
Damage/Healing: After using ultimate gives bonus damage for period of time. Scales buff duration or damage according to overall ultimate points spent

Coment

Passives reflects Bretons resistance to magicka, thier shield ability from previous TES games. Tanking ability similar to Concentrated barrier passive from Psijic skill line, and need to be with less visible damage shield, because not everyone like additional visual effects and this passive built in race, so you can't just avoid it.

Dark Elf

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Dual Wield Skill Line by 15%, reduces damage taken from Lava by 50%. 2310 Flame Resistance. You are immune to the Burning status effect
Utility: Longer immovability duration
Tanking/Damage/Healing: Endurance: All stamina and magicka skills cost less, it gives more option in itemization in tanking, damage or healing

Coment

As far as i know lore, Dark elfs live can be both good warriors and mages, and severe conditions of thier homeland contributed to this. However this passive can be hard to balance, because most other races have splitted tanking and damage bonuses, while dark elfs can completely ignore one direction and focus only on damage through itemization, for example.

Imperial

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Gold gain
Utility: More speed while blocking
Tanking/Damage/Healing: Better equipment: Weapons, armor, enchants, potions, food, drink have better bonuses

Coment

Hard one to get right flavor passives, because Imperials know as diplomats, traders and light infantry, but seems this passives fits well, they get better equipment or better instruments, materials to create their own, by using thier personality and trading skills. However maybe have same problems with balance as Dark elfs, because of opotunity to be more specialized in tanking or damage.

Khajiit

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Medium Armor Skill Line by 15%, 5% bonus change to successfully pickpocket
Utility: More speed while sneaking
Tanking: Acrobatics: faster/longer distance roll dodge. Roll dodge cost less
Damage/Healing: More damage/heal against low HP targets

Coment

Passives reflects Khajiits acrobatic, sneaking, thieves skills

Nord

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Two Handed Skill Line by 15%, 15 extra minutes on drink buffs. 2310 Cold Resistance. You are immune to the Chilled status effect
Utility: Break free cost less
Tanking: Reduse damage taken based on missing health
Damage/Healing: Valor: More damage/heal the more enemies you hit in last several seconds. One enemy - 0,5 average buff, two enemies - 1 average buff, three enemies - 1,5 average buff, boss - 1 average buff.

Coment

Nords know as fierce, strong and enthusiastic warriors, and this passives reflects this well, in my opinion.

Orc

Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Heavy Armor Skill Line by 15%, extra 10% Inspiration gain
Utility: More speed, less stamina cost sprint
Tanking: Armorer: More armor rating of any armor. Two additional piece bonuses in heavy armor, if you use one piece of heavy armor you get three pieces bonuses, if you use three pieces of heavy armor you get five pieces bonuses
Damage/Healing: Battle anger: Every direct damage attack/heal adds stacking buff that increases damage/heal power, this buff decrease fast if you stop do direct damage.

Coment

Armorers, fearsome warriors in heavy armor, seems fit the lore

Redguard

Flavor: Increases One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, 15 extra minutes on food buffs
Utility: More damage or less cost bash ability
Tanking: More block mitigation
Damage/Healing: More damage with low range skills

Coment

According to wiki Redguards the most naturally talented warriors in Tamriel, so this passives gives bonuses at close range combat, but not only for weapon, battle mages builds also possible. Because with close range passive redguards need to be in close range to the enemy they can better utilize block and bash mechanics so buffs to them seems usefull

Of course such changes need more balance work and also need some additional coding, but this changes can be done at Elsweyr chapter release, better if it will take more time, but will be better executed.

Once again, if you like overall idea and direction of this racial passives, please, leave comment and share you thoughts and suggestions about what do you think fit better for particular race in gameplay or lore direction. I created new thread with same post, so you can leave your comments and suggestions here

hakan · January 2019

XomRhoK wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam
I think racial changes, proposed in this update, don't really achieved stated goals:
1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.

3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.

5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

For example, in terms of lore and storytelling, i were always bothered with imperials Red Diamond passive. All imperials are vampires? Or all of them have amulet of kings?

So i get other variant of racial passive that, in my opinion, allows all races choose any roles: tanking, healing, or damage dealing, have more unique racial gameplay flavor and lore friendly(as far as my lore knowledge goes).
If you like overall idea and direction of this racial passives, please, leave comment and share you thoughts and suggestions about what do you think fit better for particular race in gameplay or lore direction.

Passive divides at:
Flavor. Extra experience gain in one skill line, some minor buff, all types of resistance, almost same as in game

Utility. Some minor adjustments to some speeds; snare, buff, debuff duration to add some flavor in gameplay

Tanking.

Damage/healing. This passives get bonus damage in %, but it's a overall damage, from any source, so it can be utilized by any build: magika, stamina, hybrid or proc.

All core passives without any particulat numbers, because it's a work for balance team. From my point of view tanking and damaging passives must give arount 5-10% bonus in survavability or damage, for peope get reason to use them, but be fine if they can't. Almost all passives without names yet, only some of them to highlight feeling/flavor. Races goes in same order as in devs post.

High Elf
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Destruction Staff Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Generic Experience gain

Utility: More speed while channeling

Tanking/Healing: More healing done

Damage: Make more damage to targets with any elemental status effects on them

Coment
All passives emphasize affinity of High Elf to magic and in particular elemental magic. Elemental status effects can be applied by magic or enchants, so it can be utilized by any build. Maybe for balance in group content it must be elemental status effects applied by you only.
Argonian
Flavor: Increases experience gain in Resto Staff Skill Line by 15%, extra 50% Swimming Speed. 2310 Disease Resistance. Immune to the Diseased status effect. 2310 Poison Resistance. Immune to the Poisoned status effect

Utility: Shorter snare duration

Tanking: More HP recovery

Damage/Healing: Additional damage/heal at critical strikes or bonus damage/heal after critical strike for a period of time

Coment
Passives reflects severe conditions of the swamps, lizards regeneration, inclination of Argonians to thieve and assassin professions in lore and other TES games(as far as i know). Disease Resistance can be deleted for balance purposes.
Wood Elf
Flavor: Increases experience gain in Bow Skill Line by 15%, decreases fall damage taken by 10%. 2310 Disease Resistance. Immune to the Diseased status effect.

Utility: Sneak cost less stamina. Smaller detection radius

Tanking: Hard target: Less damage from direct ranged attacks. Less damage from physical AoE damage.

Damage/Healing: Concentration: More damage/heal if there are no enemies in close range

Coment
Passives reflects Wood elfs small size, sneaking and camouflage abilities. Also their affinity to ranged combat.
Breton
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Light Armor Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Alliance Point gain. 3960 Spell Resistance.

Utility: Shorter debuff duration

Tanking: Dragon skin: Damage shield, while blocking, with recharge time, scaled from HP.

Damage/Healing: After using ultimate gives bonus damage for period of time according to ultimate points spent, scale damage or time of buff

Coment
Passives reflects Bretons resistance to magicka, thier shield ability from previous TES games. Tanking ability similar to Concentrated barrier passive from Psijic skill line, and need to be with less visible damage shield, because not everyone like additional visual effects and this passive built in race, so you can't just avoid it.
Dark Elf
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Dual Wield Skill Line by 15%, reduces damage taken from Lava by 50%. 2310 Flame Resistance. You are immune to the Burning status effect

Utility: Longer immovability duration

Tanking/Damage/Healing: Endurance: All stamina and magicka skills cost less, it gives more option in itemization in tanking, damage or healing

Coment
As far as i know lore, Dark elfs live can be both good warriors and mages, and severe conditions of thier homeland contributed to this. However this passive can be hard to balance, because most other races have splitted tanking and damage bonuses, while dark elfs can completely ignore one direction and focus only on damage through itemization, for example.
Imperial
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, extra 1% Gold gain

Utility: More speed while blocking

Tanking/Damage/Healing: Better equipment: Weapons, armor, enchants, potions, food, drink have better bonuses

Coment
Hard one to get right flavor passives, because Imperials know as diplomats, traders and light infantry, but seems this passives fits well, they get better equipment or better instruments, materials to create their own, by using thier personality and trading skills. However maybe have same problems with balance as Dark elfs, because of opotunity to be more specialized in tanking or damage.
Khajiit
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Medium Armor Skill Line by 15%, 5% bonus change to successfully pickpocket

Utility: More speed while sneaking

Tanking: Acrobatics: faster/longer distance roll dodge. Roll dodge cost less

Damage/Healing: More damage/heal against low HP targets

Coment
Passives reflects Khajiits acrobatic, sneaking, thieves skills
Nord
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Two Handed Skill Line by 15%, 15 extra minutes on drink buffs. 2310 Cold Resistance. You are immune to the Chilled status effect

Utility: Break free cost less

Tanking: Reduse damage taken based on missing health

Damage/Healing: Valor: More damage/heal the more enemies you hit in last several seconds. One enemy - 0,5 average buff, two enemies - 1 average buff, three enemies - 1,5 average buff, boss - 1 average buff.

Coment
Nords know as fierce, strong and enthusiastic warriors, and this passives reflects this well, in my opinion.
Orc
Flavor: Increases Experience gain in Heavy Armor Skill Line by 15%, extra 10% Inspiration gain

Utility: More speed, less stamina cost sprint

Tanking: Armorer: More armor rating of any armor. Two additional piece bonuses in heavy armor, if you use one piece of heavy armor you get three pieces bonuses, if you use three pieces of heavy armor you get five pieces bonuses

Damage/Healing: Battle anger: Every direct damage attack/heal add stacking buff that add damage/heal power, this buff decrease fast if you stop do direct damage.

Coment
Armorers, fearsome warriors in heavy armor, seems fit the lore
Redguard
Flavor: Increases One Hand and Shield Skill Line by 15%, 15 extra minutes on food buffs

Utility: More damage or less cost bash ability

Tanking: More block mitigation

Damage/Healing: More damage with low range skills

Coment
According to wiki Redguards the most naturally talented warriors in Tamriel, so this passives gives bonuses at close range combat, but not only for weapon, battle mages builds also possible. Because with close range passive redguards need to be in close range to the enemy they can better utilize block and bash mechanics so buffs to them seems usefull

Once again, if you like overall idea and direction of this racial passives, please, leave comment and share you thoughts and suggestions about what do you think fit better for particular race in gameplay or lore direction.

This is the best approach ive ever seen tbh. May need some adjustment.

rage607 · January 2019

I have an imperial DK health tank with shields based on Max health and with your changes you are now lowering his Max health quite a bit.

That is not an improvement. Please stop messing around with stats.

Tanks are always suffering when these kind of changes are done.

Vomalash · January 2019

ZOS_Gilliam / ZOS
Nord is not strong... again (pve dd)

all races can be dd in pve content, except for Nord
balance*

(Altmere may be a tank, even better than the Nord)....racism

rexagamemnon · January 2019

Holy crap, the furries really will be the best and OP race.

Deathlord92 · January 2019

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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!

I love what you guys are doing to my favourite race the Breton tho I would really prefer keeping his spell resistance at 3960 Breton should have more thn a nord but I’m not complaining I’m excited about these changes also I was hoping to have my Breton as a viable stamblade as I’m currently playing a Breton stamblade because I favour Breton race and stamblade class 😊

ComboBreaker88 · January 2019

If this patch goes live, I'll definitely be putting g the game away until you can figure out how to actually give diversity instead of reducing all builds and races into the exact same thing. And what you've done to the argonians is just flat out shameful. You nerfed that race by 60% across the board. Disgusting.

StarOfElyon · January 2019

After stumbling upon Gilliam's YouTube channel today and seeing his breakdowns, I'm confident he knows what he's doing here. We just have to give him time people.

For those who haven't seen it https://www.youtube.com/user/Scrubmydinner

Fuzzybrick · January 2019

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

JiDul · January 2019

RIP Argonian tanks. Love how Bretons are competing with High Elf for BiS Magicka race though. Weird seeing Dark Elves be much more stamina viable now. But Redguard remains BiS for sustain on any Stamina class. So now Orcs are less tanky and more damage viable which is nice Bow/DW Orc Nightblade seems viable now. Finally NB gank builds get a nerf though. The only thing that bothers me is they are making Khajiit basically suck. That recovery change is a HUGE nerf. Yeah you can play him Magicka now but he cant contend with Breton and High Elves. Id sooner pick an Argonian before Khajiit even with the Argonian nerfs. Also this new season focuses on Elsweyr the homeland of the Khajiit.. Yet they made them the worst race.

JobooAGS · January 2019

JiDul wrote: »

RIP Argonian tanks. Love how Bretons are competing with High Elf for BiS Magicka race though. Weird seeing Dark Elves be much more stamina viable now. But Redguard remains BiS for sustain on any Stamina class. So now Orcs are less tanky and more damage viable which is nice Bow/DW Orc Nightblade seems viable now. Finally NB gank builds get a nerf though. The only thing that bothers me is they are making Khajiit basically suck. That recovery change is a HUGE nerf. Yeah you can play him Magicka now but he cant contend with Breton and High Elves. Id sooner pick an Argonian before Khajiit. Also this new season focuses on Elsweyr the homeland of the Khajiit.. Yet they made them the worst race.

Idk, khajiits have parsed higher, in fact by at least a 2k margain ahead of breton which is parsing 2k higher than altmer for magicka

Seraphayel · January 2019

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

This applies to classes, not to races. And if they used this approach the scissor would complain about why the stone is killing them. Stones would complain about why they can't roflstomp scissors and paper at the same time etc. Neverending story.

gp1680 · January 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

This applies to classes, not to races. And if they used this approach the scissor would complain about why the stone is killing them. Stones would complain about why they can't roflstomp scissors and paper at the same time etc. Neverending story.

I agree with this. But all ZOS does from update to update is change the identity of the rock, the paper, and the scissors. So what is their purpose for making these changes? I mean, the game’s been “unbalanced” since inception. Do you really think these racial changes bring anything new to the table except to create a new rock, paper, scissors?

Fuzzybrick · January 2019

All I'm saying is, in WoW vanilla warlock<sorc, so I made 2 warlocs.. An orc and undead. Undead warlock > sorc every time.

Retro68 · January 2019

Well, looks like I'll be deleting about half of my builds when I go on today. Rather pointless now that the reason I was building them up for will soon be nerfed/removed... Thanks ZOS.

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

Agreed 100%.

Deathlord92 · January 2019

wishlist14 wrote: »

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 ❤❤❤

Uryel · January 2019

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.

This is ludicroulsy bad. Probably the worst change you've made to the game in all the years I've been playing, and that's saying something. Even more ludicrous than the recent nerf to the nightblade's path of shadow. So incredibly bad that I crawled from below the rock I usually hide under to actually post, which has happened like... Twice in 3 years ?

Bosmers ARE stealthy. Check with the lore team, if you have to, even though you say you worked with "other teams". They should remain so.

So, Khajiits get a major boost to their stealth (+2m !), and Bosmers get f*****. Amazing. So, of course, on a more personal note, what am I supposed to do with my very stealthy PvE-only bosmer ? I don't give a damn about stealth detection, that's for PvP, and I don't do that. I don't CARE about that. The whole point of my character is that she can sneak anywhere, anytime, effortlessly. Am I supposed to race-change her into a Khajiit to keep her efficiency, and to hell with the looks ? Or maybe just change completely the playstyle I really enjoy because some [Self-censoring the expletive] decided that everything should be "unique" (understand, overspecialised and minmaxing-friendly), and as such it's not fashionable to have a comparable bonus on two different races ?

Seriously, there are lots of things you guys made over the years that have been very questionable, but you're going way to far in that "let's make everything specialised to please the minmaxers" trend. Gotta love all your so called "let's have freedom and all", while you're actually doing otherwise.

By the way, on a related note, if you wanted people to have freedom in character development, there wouln't be a need to chose morphs based on the ressource they use, we could chose based on the effect of the morph itself... But of course you need to specialise in either magicka or stamina, so we don't really, unless we play hybrids, and everyone will tell you that hybrids aren't all that great. Whatever... I could detail why and how it would be alot better for that so called freedom of choice to remove magicka and stamina and have only one ressource instead, with only minimal adjustments to the game mechanics, I've actually thought it through thoroughly, but never bothered to do so because I knew no one would listen. It's freedom-friendly, not minmaxing friendly, and despite all your talks, freedom of choice is NOT something you're encouraging.

I guess I'm just gonna have to play something different entirely because obviously it's impossible for 2 races to have similar mechanics. I haven't been this pissed by a change log in about 15 years. Congrats, that's quite an achievement.

Alexsae · January 2019

Coming from a pvp perspective, DE Vamps get to keep their flame resistance...in fact they get it buffed.

Meanwhile, Argonian werewolves now get ZERO poison resist. Where is the balance? Please rethink this.

Inig0 · January 2019

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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!

I was really pleased to see you guys introduce the methodology for balancing the racial with racial power like youve talk about previously. How do you weigh things like ulti gen or crit chance into racial power? The ult gen one is really tough because there arent many set bonuses like it and the crit one is also very difficult to consider because it has a variable effectiveness based on present buffs like major force. Im concerned those two passives/ effects being anywhere in the racial bonuses weigh too much to balance with things like base stats. @ZOS_Gilliam

killa_shroomz · January 2019

I feel like these changes are making very core changes to what some races were chosen for in the hope of balance in the wrong places. The classes you feel were "always exceptional at x" retain their feeling, while some races lose it entirely. High elf retains it's ability to be great spellcasters, Also you said charging up a skill makes them more powerful. It just reduces some damage they take while doing a cast or channel. (I think) They also restore stamina or magika while casting a class ability, but gain no bonus to max stamina or Stam (specifically) recovery.
The dark elf is losing its fire damage which affects the reason a large number of people chose that race. Then you give them some stamina and health, and then weapon and spell damage. So, (imo) you are taking a class that excelled at fire magical (anything) roles, and turning them into OK stamina and magical damage dealers, with a bit of extra health. My dark elf Templar didn't have the regen of a high elf, or cost reduction of a Breton, but I got extra damage with fire. A trade I could decide if I wanted. So now my dark elf Templar is going to be subpar to a high elf and Breton because they don't get stamina additions, just changes to the magical passives they have.
Not also added stamina or health passives that remove the extra magika they once had (ie dark elf) , just changed magical passives. This class that was also predominantly magical, is getting reduced and molded into OK at both. Does that make sense? You are not removing high elves very powerful magical abilities to mesh them into wielding stamina also. Why do this to dark elves and khajit? These 2 races become OK at both, while most other races gain stamina or magical presence.

The rest of this is personal feelings and not as important as what I wanted to say above, but still relevant I feel to the race changes.

You removed the wood elf and khajit bonus damage from stealth. You previously removed the bonus damage from stealth against enemies(I don't remember if it was a stun or the bonus damage you removed). So now the only bonus damage from stealth is from the night blade passive. Which I think we are going to see disappear soon, simply because people don't like being killed by someone that plays and builds a sneaky class. Which you put all these additional ways to counter. I personally dislike people using damage shields, and so do a lot of other people, but those players are not getting direct damage reductions for playing that specific way.

I see a lot of comments about "Well, now my magical wood elf is going to be viable". That is like saying my magical redguard will be viable now.(wood elves gain nothing magical, so I'm not even sure why I am seeing these posts. Anyway) If you pick the wrong race and class combo and level that character to 50, you made a mistake. That's OK, it's part of the learning process and part of the community's responsibility to help new players. That doesn't always happen, but usually, it does. The game company should not be responsible for taking a community worth of mistakes and changing the whole game to make those mistakes viable, while simultaneously coming out with harder and harder content those people will never be able to play because it is "OK" for you to make a bad choice.

This is all in my opinion of course. Thank you for reading and allowing us to share our opinions. No harshness meant.

NobleMatias · January 2019

I have to say the changes are very balanced, and pretty much most people complaining about them are bias because their race choice used to be meta, but now the gap is so close you really cant say one race is the best. Flat stats was a perfect choice and I appreciate ZOS combat team and Gil for the much needed changes to race and game balance. The only two races I would have a look at would be the Nord and Imperial, If I look at their stats side by side it would seem as if the Nord has much more power in a broad spectrum, and the imperial is secluded to only two small stat increases and shoehorned into a sword and board build. basically the imperial only has 1000 health and 500 stamina compared to a Nords ultimate gen, cold resist and chill immunity. I would make an imperials stats just a tad higher to compensate for the lack of diversity or just make them more diverse In what unique stats and capabilities they have. I am sure ZOS has done the math and I can test and see this. Great job guys and gals.

The next big thing to look at would be the champion point system, I believe it should have never seen the light of day, but I understand why it was implemented. It was implemented to give players a sense of power progression after lvl 50, but honestly a very lazy way to go about it. If you made a skilltree somewhat like Skyrim In that you can choose a path with a branching subclass system. There would be many different paths a character could choose, but of course you would have the 3 main types or Mundus paths being warrior, mage, and thief with branched and intertwined paths for hybrid play styles and builds. These paths would not feature so much stat bonus but more unique skills and abilities that are made up by you guys. It would stop the power creep and mind numbing stat increases the champion point system offers, and at the same time bring self uniqueness to a players play style and build. This would allow players to feel special about what they have created.

Uryel · January 2019

NobleMatias wrote: »

I have to say the changes are very balanced, and pretty much most people complaining about them are bias because their race choice used to be meta

They are balanced indeed, I'll give you that. It doesn't mean they are necessary, welcome, or even justified by any need. Not some of them, anyway. And if there is one thing I cannot be accused of, it's being meta. The word itself gives me the creeps. There used to be a word for "join the bandwagon and do just like everyone else", and that word was "mainstream", but hey, kids those days and all that.

Personnaly, I'm crossed because those changes go along the same line as previously, but even further, and that line is "let's say we're giving more freedom of choice and more open possibilities when we're actually making sure pople will fit nicely in the tiny boxes we have designed".

I'm an old timer. My first MMO was Anarchy Online, and since then I've seen my fair share of games with a large variety of game mechanics. Over the years I've noticed an oversimplification of general mechanics in games (a direct consequence of the commercial success of World of Warcraft, that everyone wants to replicate, which means appealing to larger crowds rather than giving some complexity to the enthusiast), and unfortunately ESO has been strolling along that path quite merrily. But I could forgive that, because the game universe itself is pretty amazing, and well, I don't have time to tinker with a build for months just to realise it's crap and start again from scratch. Somewhat simple, I'm fine with. "MMORPG for dummies", though, is getting a bit annoying. Even more so because I really love this game. I'm pretty sure the sheer amount of crowns I've spent over the years is proof enough of that... Along with the fact that I gifted it to my wife and we're now playing together most evening, and SHE is also spending some crowns. Good thing we don't have kids, eh ?

So, ok, we don't have support classes or proper crowd control. We merely have the holy trinity of heal, tank and damage dealer. There was a time in MMOs where support and control would be proper classes, but ok, one make do with what one has. For the support, I've made a magblade that fights with a restoration staff on both bars (a nirnhoned one on the "damage" bar, mind you !), a "life stealing" vampire. Every attack heals and / or buffs myself and / or the party. But I can only play her with friends, because shes "not a proper healer". Whatever, she's amazing at what she does, but doesn't fit in a tiny box. As for the control... Well, proper crowd control doesn't exist in ESO, and can't exist with the immunity mechanic, and was nerfed even more with Murkmire, so let's forget about that. I do miss my gravity / radiation controler from City of Heroes, but that was long ago, back in the days where keeping a group of enemies incapacitated until you killed them all wasn't considered outlandish.

But recently, the trend was to "bring something unique to the party". Apparently, it's too complicated to have multi-use skills. I'm especially thinking about "path of shadows", which was nerfed really hard in Murkmire. The base skill has absolutely ZERO use, it's only once morphed that you get to chose between healing OR damaging. Previously, you had damage in the base skill, and either a larger damaging area for one morph or a damage enemies / heal allies morph. The latter was simply one of my favorite skills, but obviously, it wasn't a main damage skill nor a main heal skill, so it got removed. Not specialised enough. Didn't fit in tiny boxes.

So, my point is, all this talk about changes to "bring more freedom of choice" and "bring unique things to the party" is simply preposterous. The whole point is to please single-minded minmaxers, at the expense of people who actually try "non meta" stuff. The change with Khajiits and Bosmers is spectacular in that respect : one becomes even better at hiding, the other entirely loses this ability but becomes super good at spotting hidden characters. I smell PvP interference in my PvE. And that is happening even though Bosmers have been spectacularly good at sneaking since at the very least 2002 and the original "Morrowind". Probably even before that, but I never played Arena or Daggerfall so I wouldn't know.

But hey, this change is specialised, perfectly fits in tiny boxes, and infuriating AF. As mentionned by someone above, these changes do have an impact on the reason a race was chosen in the first place. They might be inconspicuous for the newcomers, but not for people who have been around for a while.

Also, there is one major flaw in the reasoning. Well, several, but at least this one. Every race needs to be overly specialised in something, and balanced. I'm fine with balancing, but why specialise ? This reasoning relies on the fact that everyone starts the game with complete knowledge of the races' bonuses and chose them exactly for that, and that only. However, again, that's only true for minmaxers. Lots of people will go with what they feel look nice, or chose from whatever is available in the alliance they feel would be good for them... Whatever the reason, the stats are not always the main reason. But assuming they are... Why do we not have a complete description of the effects of racial passives at the race selection screen ? If racial passives are this much of a matter, shouldn't the ingame information be at least available from start ?

But of course, if it's a matter of chosing between lore and stats, then why not go any further ? Obviously, Bosmers are no longer supposed to be stealthy, even though it's been one of their most defining traits in the lore along their archery prowesses in the whole history of the elder scrolls... So why not go even further and forgo the lore entirely ?

We talk about freedom, right ? Then make people able to chose any 3 passives from every racial passive in the game. I mean, since obviously lore doesn't matter anymore no matter what has been said, at least THAT would be freedom, would allow strong specialised characters, would let people be inventive if they wish to, and could even lead to a new sort of token for the crown store : "change passives". But of course, not gonna happen. Doesn't fit in tiny boxes. If it did happen though, I'd happily spend crowns for my 7 characters in order to do just that...

I'll go even further along the path of freedom of choice : let's remove "magicka" and "stamina", and have only one pool called, say, "energy". Every current build ? Still viable. What is currently hybrid, and not so efficient ? Suddenly viable. EVERY morph in every line would suddenly become a viable morph, because we wouldn't need to chose according to the ressource we're specialised in (when there is one available, else it means that most of the time we don't even use the skill at all). We could chose based on the effect we want. A staff suddenly becomes a viable ranged weapon for a sword fighter. Now that would allow some creativity with builds. Sure, it would require some adjustments to some sets and a few skills, Pelinal's set would become moot, but generally speaking it's perfectly doable and would remove the worst flaw this game has had since it came out : required overspecialisation. I had thought about a more detailed post about that, explaining in great length why it would be amazing, how to do it properly, and so on. Until today and the details about the racial changes, I was even considering actually writting it and submitting it to public opinion. As of today, I realise it's moot. It doesn't fit in tiny boxes.

Even putting aside the coding work, it will never happen, because the clear will behind the changes is that we should specialise even more. No "let's heal a bit and damage a bit" skill, this should be removed because it's not "unique" enough. No real crowd control, let's make sure that you can't be knocked down for many seconds after you've been stunned for half a second. No two races with any overlapping field of expertise, that's not "unique" enough. Magicka OR stamina, and then chose your morphs from that, because THAT fits in tiny boxes. Specialise more, play mostly by the stats, and google it all, because no detailed information will be provided at character creation and very little after that. Let's go several step further the path to dumbed down town. What's the next step ? Being unable to attack at all when wielding a restoration staff ? That would certainly be "unique" !

Well, while I'm on the matter of skills... Why the heck are all class abilities magicka ones until morphed ? In a game where specialisation is mandatory and becoming even more so, it's a bit weird that you'd have to use a skill for a long while before you can make it fit. Special mention to the new "path of shadows" that will take one of the precious 5 spots on the skill bar doing nothing useful until it can be morphed. Why are informations about the morphs not available before morphs actually become available ? Some addons can do that, but "virtually", they can't read informations about something that isn't there, so they actually have their own database for that, meaning a non up to date addon will get it wrong... That could, and should, be a built-in game function. But of course, it's taken like 4 years to have built-in proper search functionalities for guild traders announced, so I guess I'm asking way too much here.

Also, will the infinite loading screens ever get fixed ? I gave it a try today, I counted almost 10 real life minutes before I could actually enter some area. Plenty of time to make some tea, and even let it cool off a bit. Maybe some work on fixing the bugs and some quality of life improvements would be more urgent than messing with the classes, breaking lore, and removing some interesting options, don't you think ?

My point with this long-winded, angry post, is simply that the reasons announced to make these changes are so obviously lies that I'm actually angry for real. Those changes, along with the ones that occured in the previous overhauls, are not giving people more choices, they are removing choices. They tend to incite more specialisation, more "meta" play, and ALOT less creativity. They are made to please minmaxers and other stat crunchers, but do nothing positive for the average player. Best case scenario, the average player won't see much of a difference and won't care. Worst case scenario, the average player will feel their character is broken and ragequit. I sure will feel like my Bosmer is broken when her stealth will be taken away.

Also, saying they try to "respect the lore" while removing stealth from the Bosmers is especially infuriating. Blantant lies or complete disregard of the lore ; expectations of short memory from the player base or simple blunder ; I can't tell, but I certainly don't like it. But the changes that would indeed bring real freedom of choice, like free passive selection or a way to chose the morphs for what they do rather than what ressource they use ? We'll never see them, of course. I'm betting the official reason would be "it breaks the lore" or such, while it's actually that... Well, I'm sure you know what I'm gonna say by now, if you read it all : it doesn't fit in tiny boxes.

helios777 · January 2019

An awful decision by ZOS when it comes to the racial changes

Zombi_Cat · January 2019

10/10 - Balanced, and really unique. If you keep it like it is, I really think it'll accomplish the whole 'effective combos/universal applicability/gameplay uniqueness/mathematical balancing' thing fantastically! The new buffs sound and feel like they really fit their respective races. A new, better meta and more distinguished races for everyone!

Dakatar · January 2019

Regarding the removal of Stealthy from Bosmer / Wood Elf:

Uryel wrote: »

"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."

This is ludicroulsy bad. Probably the worst change you've made to the game in all the years I've been playing, and that's saying something. Even more ludicrous than the recent nerf to the nightblade's path of shadow. So incredibly bad that I crawled from below the rock I usually hide under to actually post, which has happened like... Twice in 3 years ?

Bosmers ARE stealthy. Check with the lore team, if you have to, even though you say you worked with "other teams". They should remain so.

The above is spot on. Team, please take a good look.