Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

xaraan

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, 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.

Not much for the dismissive nature of the first sentence. The changes to Argonian are not balanced. Making them fight for runner up at support (where racials matter the least compared to DPS) and come in last place for mag dps and not even worth testing in stam dps roles =/= balance. I have 15 argonians, you think the 10 dps I have are because they were meta best? spoiler: no. And my first Argonian: my DK tank that has been Argonian since launch wasn't picked b/c it was meta best either.

I certainly expected to see the potion passive nerfed (though I might disagree that it needed it, I could see people believed it enough that it would get one), I did not expect to see them take a hammering on every single passive and not get much in return for doing a little better at DPS. Not asking for anything crazy, but it would have been fair.

TheTraveler

megageeklizzy wrote: »

It feels like Dunmer are being made almost entirely useless. I won't be race-changing mine, as I role-play them, and I am frankly very unhappy with the fact that they will now be far less effective. I hope some of these changes are reconsidered. Many do not make sense from a lore standpoint at all or from a gameplay standpoint in terms of balance. The constant power creep is already bad enough without a major unexpected nerf.

Absolutely. I can't understand the removal of the magica buff the Dunmer race had. And the flame damage is a buff they've had since at least Morrowind, and possibly earlier Elder Scroll games, which fit in perfectly with the lore. At least these buffs still made them useful as magica toons, but now there are literally only two races left that are any good as magica users, especially when it comes to DPS.: Altmer and Breton. Seems that ZOS has decided magica users besides Altmer have to be relegated to the healer ranks and stay there... but wait, they have nerfed Argonians, previously an obvious healer choice into oblivion... I bet a lot of Argonian healers are having nerd rage upon reading these patch notes.

They have not made the races more equal, they have made them less equal.

TheTraveler

code65536 wrote: »

I can see competitive tanks going for score race-changing to Nord for that ultgen...

Yep, a cash-grab by ZOS unless we get a race-change token for every toon. Because some races have now become more niche and some have become useless. My orc tank will now be better off as a DPS than a tank, except that I have already mastered sword and shield on him. So it's either sit without a tank and gain yet another DPS toon by learning a new weapon skill line, or race change to Nord.

Not to mention my other toons in which I carefully selected race (already spent about 4 race change tokens to get it just right) that have already invested in skill lines that would now benefit from yet another race change.

I have 12 toons on the NA server, 9 of them are CP 810. I have 8 toons on the EU server. Can you imagine how much I'd have to pay to try and recover from these ridiculously over the top changes?

TheTraveler

Minno wrote: »

jlb1705 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

jlb1705 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Only one I'm worried about is the Redguard. Given how hard that race is pushed as "The Choice for StamDPS," buffing Adrenaline Rush feels like a mistake.

Is it not balanced by this part though?:

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

This line is definitely a nerf - not just the difference between 9% and 8%, but the difference between passive recovery and cost reduction to only weapon skills. It sounds like the cost reduction wouldn't apply to things like Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade, Relentless Focus, Razor Caltrops, Resolving Vigor, Rearming Trap, etc.

You forget weapon abilities could also include ultimates.

Ultimate abilities consume ultimate and not stamina, therefore the Redguard passives didn't affect them either before or after these changes.

I think you are misreading the benefit. Instead of some Stam recovery percentage, you'll get a cost reduction on potentially all weapon abilities. Includes staffs, swords, etc. And might include ultimate costs, something that isn't a Nerf, at least in my eyes. Plus they still get some Stam recovery out of it anyway.

Don't you think stamina abilities instead of weapon abilities would have been more in line with what it was previously? Why radically change characters that players have been playing for years and have spent time and money on fine-tuning them? Small changes I can go with. But these people have been trying to reinvent the wheel here and it smells like cash grab to me.

TheTraveler

jaws343 wrote: »

Everyone saying RIP Dunmer and all I see is Dunmer looking pretty good as potential stamblade in PVP. The extra stam and mag paired with the weapon damage has potential. Get a few more cloaks off.

Yes, and what about the people who have already invested in Dunmer as magDKs? They have completely removed the 3% magica buff that came with resist flame.

TheTraveler

Silver_Strider wrote: »

tpanisiakb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm overall okay with it, but tanking Argonians can expect to lose 1.5-2k health. Hoping ZOS can meet us in the middle over that. 1000 is not a good compensation for losing 9% max health especially if we're losing healing received.

We've been relegated to being Healbots only now, which sucks honestly. We lost poison immunity as well so that's going to sting a bit in PvP too. Not really thrilled about these changes honestly.

Even the healing has been nerfed...

TheTraveler

Gilcroixb14_ESO wrote: »

Alpheu5 wrote: »

Can we please start moving away from the need to use actual consumables to take advantage of Resourceful? I was hoping this whole rework would address this problem because it's still the only passive that requires you to go out of your way and spend gold (or time farming) to constantly take advantage of it. Having it be a sustain tool is great and all, but having it come with an out-of-pocket expense makes it extremely costly the longer it's used.

This ^

That has been the worst racial in game since beta. I can't believe it's been 5 years and it's still there. It's linked to something you try your best not to use , because it costs you, not only that but potions are not needed for much of the content. You can go days without ever having to use one. where other races have their bonuses tied to using weapons or spells , which is something you do constantly.

There are other racials that would seem to fit much better than potions. Scaly skin would give physical resistance. There is a lot of Shadowscale lore for stealth abilities. As someone who has walked across my share of swamp lands while deer hunting, I can tell you it is very difficult and tiring. Which makes me think argonians would have been better as a stamina race rather than magicka. I have never understood why they have magical healing abilities either. Since reptiles regenerate physically , you would think health regeneration would fit much better.

I don't really understand the + health for Dark elf instead of magikca.

I liked the Breton changes , not sure Nords should get the same spell resist bonus as a Breton though.

Don't you realize that you could have used ANY potions? I have so many potions that I pick up from the game itself in combat that I don't have space to keep them and have to sell them. Since I made an argonian toon, I could palm off all my useless potions onto her, since my other toons use custom made potions. But maybe I should not be saying this, in case ZOS decides to nerf Argonians even MORE...

TheTraveler

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Left4Daud wrote: »

Wood elves losing disease immunity and stealth bonuses for a worthless detection bonus?

I just don’t get why you guys are trying to reinvent the wheel with these changes. You didn’t need to take anything away from our beloved characters, small tweaks to the numbers over a series of monitored updates would have more than sufficed.

Now wood elves will have these unexciting passives for the next two years until you decide to smash everything and change it again.

I’m just not enthused about this and I know nothing I say will have any influence over the balance direction so I won’t even bother making suggestions. All I can say is that if I wasn’t so attached to my wood elves I’d delete them after seeing this news, that’s how much of a let down it is.

First time since Morrowind that Bosmer get no bonus to sneaking. That's what chaps my hiney.

I can't believe that they took away the stealth bonus. That was one of Bosmer's main selling points. Watch all the Bosmer stamblades change to Kahjit now. Kajhit is now the only remaining stealth toon. Tell me that's not removing race diversity... Cash grab!

Sabretusks

Okay, so I logged into the PTS, and yeah... both of my Orc PvE tanks were hit pretty hard with the health and stamina adjustments. I would hope that if you don't give Orcs a fair amount of base stats, you should adjust something where tanks can get additional resources. Maybe passives from heavy armor or something? All I know is that I'm missing about 2k health and stamina and I don't see any way to get that back.

Uryel

TheTraveler wrote: »

Absolutely. I can't understand the removal of the magica buff the Dunmer race had. And the flame damage is a buff they've had since at least Morrowind, and possibly earlier Elder Scroll games, which fit in perfectly with the lore.

TheTraveler wrote: »

I can't believe that they took away the stealth bonus. That was one of Bosmer's main selling points. Watch all the Bosmer stamblades change to Kahjit now. Kajhit is now the only remaining stealth toon. Tell me that's not removing race diversity... Cash grab!

Precisely. I say these changes reek of PvP interference. I suppose some of these changes make sense from a PvP point of view, but I don't give a rat's bottom about PvP. Dunmers have had fire bonus for several games now (in Morrowind, it was actually "destruction spells" bonus, but that's the closest you could find back then), Bosmers have been stealthy for as far as I remember, and that was precisely why I played one in EVERY Elder Scrolls so far, for the stealth and bow combo...

Here we clearly have a team that spits on the lore. If they want to add freedom and diversity, there are some way more ballsy solutions, like letting people pick their own passives at creation. That's not even more lore-breaking than this, and that would at least achieve that so-called goal of adding diversity. But no, let's spit on the lore AND f*** up the players in the process, shall we ?

TheTraveler

Here's an idea: Why not give every race 4 set passives, but let the player choose the 5th one. That would TRULY allow for racial diversity.

Uryel

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Right now there are a lack of effective options in picking your race/class combination.
]This is mainly due to the fact that many of the racial bonuses are percent increases of stats, rather than flat ones. This means races that provided a bonus to a stat that you didn’t focus into gave very little tangible impact.

Well, in a game that wants you to specialise, this should be pretty obvious. But the opposite is going to be true, too : if you DID specialise in a stat, flat values will lower the benefit compared to a percentage. From what I read, it's obvious to me that some of my characters will lose some max stamina, for instance.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Not every race provides a completely unique gameplay element.

Why should they ? Again, we have this "unique" nonsense. I still don't understand how you guys can pull both "let's have more variety" and "let's make things unique" together as if they were the same thing. Variety means the possibility to make different things. Uniqueness means restrictions to make sure things do not overlap. At least the way you guys use them. So, they are completely different, and even opposed, things.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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.

Sorry for the language, but I call bulls*** on that.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, then racial choice wouldn't be tied to alliance choice. Well of course we can pay more to have real freedom there, but that's not "core".

If your "core mantra" was freedom, there would be no problem in having a skill like the previous version of "path of shadow" in the game, that did damage and healing, both subpar, but both amazing for support or solo, instead of having something "unique" and mutually exclusive.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we wouldn't have to specialise in either stamina or magicka to be efficient. We wouldn't be forced to pick a morph from the ressource it uses rather than the effect we want to use. We wouldn't have our damage tied to the size of a ressource pool (which, with the planned changes, means a damage nerf for those who had specialised alot, since flat values will return less than percentage for specialised characters, by the way).

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd be picking whatever passive we like at creation, or purchasing a "respec passives" token from the crown store when the update goes live.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we'd be free to play the character we love the way we like them, and not be forced to endure ludicrous changes such as fire damage boost removal from Dunmers or stealth removal from Bosmers, which have been some major defining traits for those races throughout the whole history of the Elder Scrolls.

You're not "expanding the horizon for choice", you're restricting it. And spiting on the lore as you do so.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling. This was one of our more challenging but exciting tasks

Well then, the team should probably get back to work, because this goal was utterly failed.

TheTraveler

biggda76 wrote: »

rip dunmer vs altmer conflict

Yes, they have dumbed down the game to simple choices now. Welcome, age of the Altmer. Luckily I already had a few. But I had a few Dunmer too. They shall henceforth be retired. At least stam builds still have a bit of variety to choose from, though I am very sad for all the thief and assassin Bosmers.

Fuzzybrick

Instead of "fixing" racial passives... "Fix" load times.

anadandy

JiDul wrote: »

Finally NB gank builds get a nerf though.

At a cost to every non-ganker Bosmer in the game (aka PVE and other class PVP - we do exist).

Moonsorrow

Uryel wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Right now there are a lack of effective options in picking your race/class combination.
]This is mainly due to the fact that many of the racial bonuses are percent increases of stats, rather than flat ones. This means races that provided a bonus to a stat that you didn’t focus into gave very little tangible impact.

Well, in a game that wants you to specialise, this should be pretty obvious. But the opposite is going to be true, too : if you DID specialise in a stat, flat values will lower the benefit compared to a percentage. From what I read, it's obvious to me that some of my characters will lose some max stamina, for instance.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Not every race provides a completely unique gameplay element.

Why should they ? Again, we have this "unique" nonsense. I still don't understand how you guys can pull both "let's have more variety" and "let's make things unique" together as if they were the same thing. Variety means the possibility to make different things. Uniqueness means restrictions to make sure things do not overlap. At least the way you guys use them. So, they are completely different, and even opposed, things.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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.

Sorry for the language, but I call bulls*** on that.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, then racial choice wouldn't be tied to alliance choice. Well of course we can pay more to have real freedom there, but that's not "core".

If your "core mantra" was freedom, there would be no problem in having a skill like the previous version of "path of shadow" in the game, that did damage and healing, both subpar, but both amazing for support or solo, instead of having something "unique" and mutually exclusive.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we wouldn't have to specialise in either stamina or magicka to be efficient. We wouldn't be forced to pick a morph from the ressource it uses rather than the effect we want to use. We wouldn't have our damage tied to the size of a ressource pool (which, with the planned changes, means a damage nerf for those who had specialised alot, since flat values will return less than percentage for specialised characters, by the way).

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd be picking whatever passive we like at creation, or purchasing a "respec passives" token from the crown store when the update goes live.

If your "core mantra" was freedom, we'd be free to play the character we love the way we like them, and not be forced to endure ludicrous changes such as fire damage boost removal from Dunmers or stealth removal from Bosmers, which have been some major defining traits for those races throughout the whole history of the Elder Scrolls.

You're not "expanding the horizon for choice", you're restricting it. And spiting on the lore as you do so.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling. This was one of our more challenging but exciting tasks

Well then, the team should probably get back to work, because this goal was utterly failed.

Thanks for this, it is nice to see others also here who say things as they are.

Sometimes feedback might sound harsh, but someone has to say it for those who do not even yet understand what all these mean. And what the path ahead will be like for the entire game if this is the chosen way of "freedom" (less options and nerfs to anything that is not a meta pve dps pretty much)

The last couple of days been feeling a bit lonely sort of since not many here seem to defend common sense in middle of all these changes. Even i am almost stunned that the feeling of "play how you want" is being hammered down and everyone, dps, healers and tanks are being pushed to just even smaller circle of variety.

As i said in another thread, wish i could rewind everything back to Summerset launch situation, before the speed nerfs and current racial nerfs, the nerf to 1h enchants efficiency (that are making tanks actually have even less freedom, you know this if play a serious tank). Even class rep @Liofa said that he did warn them about the health flat amount stat to racials and the 1h enchant nerf to be limiting choices actually, and did give alternative solution, but was not able to do anything to stop them.

So the whole "play how you want" is more and more "play how WE want", sadly.

I mean seriously, what does ZOS loose if we have more creative and fun builds using % bonuses and imagination if someone wants? What was the benefit from this racial bonus flat stat roulette?

Funny thing is, more freedom would be if racials were taken off completely from all races, if not bother to make them actually properly be equal in opportunity. But i feel that the decision has been made already, and it is to take away all the outside of the box building, variety and fun.. now and in future.

Year of the Dragon is upon us, one really must find the inner dragon to endure this prison called freedom. *keeps pressing Green Dragon Blood when taking massive Oblivion damage from all these nerfs*

silver1surfer69

The thing with the race change is, that it completely changes the looks of ur char. On my first char i did e race changes and it completely took the personality away.

hakan

silver1surfer69 wrote: »

The thing with the race change is, that it completely changes the looks of ur char. On my first char i did e race changes and it completely took the personality away.

What do you mean? i want to change my dunmers face so i was counting on this race change, so i need to design her from the start? Like i cant do small changes cuz it will show a different template?

Bilskirnir

Why are there differences when a base value is converted?

For example:

Wood Elf

• Increases experience gain in Bow Skill Line by 15%, decreases fall damage taken by 10% → No changes
• Y’ffre’s Endurance: 21% Stamina Recovery → Increases your Stamina Recovery by 258.
• Resist Affliction: 6% Max Stamina and 1485 Poison and Disease Resistance → Increases your Max Stamina by 2000 and your Poison Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Poisoned status effect.
• Stealthy: Reduces detection Radius by 3m and Increases Damage Done in Stealth by 10% → Hunter’s Eye: Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m. After you use Roll Dodge you gain 20% Movement Speed for 3 seconds.


Dark Elf

• Increases Experience gain in Dual Wield Skill Line by 15%, reduces damage taken from Lava by 50% → No changes
• Dynamic: 6% Max Stamina and Magicka → Increases your Max Stamina and Magicka by 1250.
• Resist Flame: 3% Max Magicka and 2079 Flame Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 600 and your Flame Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Burning status effect.
• Destructive Ancestry: 7% Flame damage and 2% Frost/Shock Damage → Ruination: Increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 258.


Nord

• Increases Experience gain in Two Handed Skill Line by 15%, 15 extra minutes on drink buffs → No changes
• Stalwart: 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
• Resist Frost: 9% Max Health and 2079 Cold Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 1000 and your Cold Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Chilled status effect.
• Rugged: 6% damage reduction → Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 3960.


Orc

• Increases Experience gain in Heavy Armor Skill Line by 15%, extra 10% Inspiration gain → No changes
• Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500.
• Unflinching: Healing Received by 5% and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Healing Received by 4%. When you deal damage with a weapon ability you restore 380 Health and Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.
• Swift Warrior: 4% Melee attack, 12% Sprint cost reduction and 10% Sprint Speed → Increases your Weapon Damage by 258. Reduces the cost of your Sprint ability by 12% and increases your Movement Speed while Sprinting by 10%.

Its for a general balance?
Thank you for giving an explanation.

Uryel

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Funny thing is, more freedom would be if racials were taken off completely from all races, if not bother to make them actually properly be equal in opportunity.

I've actually suggested something along those lines in a previous post. It was more a provocation than a serious suggestion, though, intended as a mean to show that it actually is possible to give people more freedom of choice. What they are doing is restricting choices while calling it better choices.

What I had suggested was to let someone pick any 3 passive from every available passives in the game.

For instance, pick +stealth passive that Khajiits and Bosmers currently posses, the +fire damage the dunmers currently posses, and + max magicka of the Altmers, and BAM, you get a super sneaky magDK. No idea how it would perform, but it would be possible.

Since they are already majorly breaking the lore by taking away the stealth from the Bosmers and the fire damage boost from the Dunmers, might as well go full on and let players build their character as they see fit. There could be a "easy mode" where people get recommended passives, an "advanced mode" where you handpick the passives, and even a business opportunity in the form of "passive respec token" sold in the crown store. THAT would be more freedom of choice.

Uryel

hakan wrote: »

What do you mean? i want to change my dunmers face so i was counting on this race change, so i need to design her from the start? Like i cant do small changes cuz it will show a different template?

An appearance change will show your character.

A race change will keep most settings, but not all of them. The haircut you use might be #2 on Bretons and #7 on Imperials, for instance, so the same setting will have different results. You might need to tweak adornments, haircut, skin tone and whatnot, but overall you'll have roughly the same thing. There will be difference, though, since for instance a redguard nose is generally shorter and wider than an Imperial's nose.

Changes will be more significant between men / mer races, and if you switch to / from a beast race from / to a humanoid race, changes will obviously be drastic.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Bilskirnir wrote: »

Why are there differences when a base value is converted?


Its for a general balance?
Thank you for giving an explanation.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5750139/#Comment_5750139

“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.

Moonsorrow

Uryel wrote: »

What I had suggested was to let someone pick any 3 passive from every available passives in the game.

For instance, pick +stealth passive that Khajiits and Bosmers currently posses, the +fire damage the dunmers currently posses, and + max magicka of the Altmers, and BAM, you get a super sneaky magDK. No idea how it would perform, but it would be possible.

Since they are already majorly breaking the lore by taking away the stealth from the Bosmers and the fire damage boost from the Dunmers, might as well go full on and let players build their character as they see fit. There could be a "easy mode" where people get recommended passives, an "advanced mode" where you handpick the passives, and even a business opportunity in the form of "passive respec token" sold in the crown store. THAT would be more freedom of choice.

Fully agree on that, and i did suggest something like that previously also. It would be so much better than what is planned now, people would be happy, no one would get nerfed, year of the dragon would be great again, after the positive hype from the Elsweyr announcement and racial passives like that, everyone would be happy. I mean, one would think they want players to be happy. More options, more fun.

And it would totally fit the lore, races could keep their "flavor" passives even, like the less damage from lava to Dunmers and so on to keep that in races. And then add the optional passives as like Personality Passives or Birth Signs or what ZOS wants to call them. It would bring in massive amount of fun build options for theory crafters to play with. Win-Win for everyone.

But sometimes i feel that simple and good solutions are too hard for game developers to see and they go on weird ways that get their player base just wonder and type "no one wanted this.." in their guild chat instead of "did you hear about the awesome new changes coming?!" positive feelings.

So much potential in this game, awesome and talented personalities as developers also. But somehow i feel there is something that is destructive to itself by slowly destroying some of the good parts in the game. It is a mystery to me. Wish i could see behind the scenes and pinpoint the problem. Might be that it currently is a bit too much pve dps (meta numbers as a base line) oriented when changes are planned, and because of that forgetting pvp and pve outside of the box builds and variety.

I hope someone reading this does not see it as too harsh or something, this is as constructive an honest feedback can be. As said before, i love the game really much, so from that comes also the desire to defend the fun things we still have.

Bilskirnir

Thx a lot @Lightspeedflashb14_ESO !
(Yeah, i must admit that i had not read all the pages.)

TheTraveler

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Bilskirnir wrote: »

Why are there differences when a base value is converted?


Its for a general balance?
Thank you for giving an explanation.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5750139/#Comment_5750139

“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.

...but why? What happened to player tweaking and letting the players themselves have some responsibility in how they build their character? What is the rationale behind comparing racial bonuses to set bonuses? Most of the sets are not equal and balanced, some are meta and some are very niche, but since there is a large variety to choose from, that's ok. What is the goal and the philosophy behind it, and why can't races cater to different player's playstyles? Have you guys even considered the idea of letting the player choose some of the passives such as was possible in earlier Elder Scroll games?

PS. I say this as a person with 20 characters over two servers and who has played and explored every race that ESO has to offer. I found it fun and a challenge to try and maximize each race's build to fit in with lore and function: for example, have my kahjit stamblade do the thieve's and assassin's guild questlines, etc. There is a problem, yes and that is that races are area (faction) bound. I did buy the any race, any place capability, and I suppose it's too much to ask to make it a free for all in this regard, because then ZOS would lose the cash people have to pay for the privilege.
But as things are now, you're going to find a heck of a lot of magica users in the Aldmeri Dominion...

CurvedSwords123

rexagamemnon wrote: »

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

Yup, this youtuber asiangod did an analysis on it. Khajits are on top for both Magicka and stamina DPS, especially with Crit builds. Redguards are now on the bottom. NBs are still pulling the highest numbers. Gilliam of ZOS at work...

Uryel

TheTraveler wrote: »

as things are now, you're going to find a heck of a lot of magica users in the Aldmeri Dominion...

And of course, you're gonna find a lot of ninjas and counter-ninjas there too. That's gonna be fun for the other alliances to try and play stealthy in PvP, with the Dominion havong both the best stealthy race and the bost counter-stealth race.

So basically, Dominion, Master Race ?

ChefZero

TheTraveler wrote: »

...but why? What happened to player tweaking and letting the players themselves have some responsibility in how they build their character? What is the rationale behind comparing racial bonuses to set bonuses? Most of the sets are not equal and balanced, some are meta and some are very niche, but since there is a large variety to choose from, that's ok. What is the goal and the philosophy behind it, and why can't races cater to different player's playstyles? Have you guys even considered the idea of letting the player choose some of the passives such as was possible in earlier Elder Scroll games?

They already explained it twice or more. It's about having a way to derive a factor. Besides, they only talked about the small bonuses. The inbalance starts with the 5 pcs bonuses.

We already have a tool like that called mundus stones. Choosing racial passives would only produce more balancing problems. Something like that would give powerful build's more steroids.

Praise the Lord that we never got racial actives...

MotokoHutt

So here is a lore video for anyone interested in how Orc's in ESO are nothing like how they should be lore wise. Please watch this excelent video by the team at shoddycast and see how Orc's should actually be represented.

ZOS I know you want a race to fit the connan babarian ascetic weilding big weapons in weak and flimsy bear skins but STOP breaking the already well established lore of an iconic elder scrolls race. These stats are just not acceptable, I have spent the past few days testing them on PTS and Orc's in this state are just diabolically lore breaking and handicapped in most scenarios compare to other races.

For reference.
Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500.
Unflinching: Healing Received by 5% and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Healing Received by 4%. When you deal damage with a weapon ability you restore 380 Health and Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.
Swift Warrior: 4% Melee attack, 12% Sprint cost reduction and 10% Sprint Speed → Increases your Weapon Damage by 258. Reduces the cost of your Sprint ability by 12% and increases your Movement Speed while Sprinting by 10%.

(Link to ShoddyCast's video on Orcish lore)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhC-m2QSL00

Uryel

ChefZero wrote: »

Choosing racial passives would only produce more balancing problems. Something like that would give powerful build's more steroids.

So, rewarding creativity is a flaw, now ? Man, I don't want to live on this planet anymore. Also, note that the idea of self-chosing the passives was more of a provocation than anything else. If we're gonna break the lore this heavily, might as well go full-on crazy. That would cause balancing issues, yeah, but that would be freedom, not just talk about freedom.

Also, balancing is an issue only in PvP, and as metionned previously, even though I get it's important for those who care about that sort of stuff, I personnaly care more about PvP causing my PvE to change drastically for no reason at all. Stealth detection has no place and no use in PvE, this is a strictly PvP inspire change, and a ill-inspired on at that. It has no place in PvE whatsoever.

ChefZero wrote: »

Praise the Lord that we never got racial actives...

<sarcasm>True that, just look at other games who have them, such as Guild wars 2, for instance, they are such a huge problem... </sarcasm>

Yffre, give me patience, because if you give me strength, some people will die.