Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

Cundu_Ertur

Malada, I think you mean 3m hiding bonus. We never had 5m. The Khajiit did, for a week in PTS, but it was way too much. 3m hiding bonus is fine. I don't mind the speed bonus after a roll dodge. It's not great, but not bad. What I would like to see would be that we get our stealthy hiding bonus (which Bosmer have ALWAYS HAD) back, keep the roll dodge, but replace the penetration after roll-dodge with some kind of bow improvement: better crit chance or damage with a bow, better penetration with a bow, just a flat bonus to damage with a bow, just something which justifies the lore of Bosmer being the best at archery.

Malada

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Malada, I think you mean 3m hiding bonus. We never had 5m. The Khajiit did, for a week in PTS, but it was way too much. 3m hiding bonus is fine. I don't mind the speed bonus after a roll dodge. It's not great, but not bad. What I would like to see would be that we get our stealthy hiding bonus (which Bosmer have ALWAYS HAD) back, keep the roll dodge, but replace the penetration after roll-dodge with some kind of bow improvement: better crit chance or damage with a bow, better penetration with a bow, just a flat bonus to damage with a bow, just something which justifies the lore of Bosmer being the best at archery.

The only 'practical' reason for roll dodging is if you're evading or gonna perform some kind of counter attack and evade to whatever extent.

Now, again, 1k baby

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Malada, I think you mean 3m hiding bonus. We never had 5m. The Khajiit did, for a week in PTS, but it was way too much. 3m hiding bonus is fine. I don't mind the speed bonus after a roll dodge. It's not great, but not bad. What I would like to see would be that we get our stealthy hiding bonus (which Bosmer have ALWAYS HAD) back, keep the roll dodge, but replace the penetration after roll-dodge with some kind of bow improvement: better crit chance or damage with a bow, better penetration with a bow, just a flat bonus to damage with a bow, just something which justifies the lore of Bosmer being the best at archery.

Crit dmg is no good because the Khajit followers who came in thru the side door won't allow that.

Like I said, it seems they opened the door to these changes, maybe it was actually for good reasons however it just seems everyone is getting a pay day but us.

Nords are getting a nice mitigation boost. Wow. Amazing. Very convenient.

Orc change specs were terrible in the beginning, a certain streamer -rightfully- brought this up and guess what... it was fixed.

Khajit got everything they wanted, got the magic crits fixed I see.

Am I being unfair? I don't think so because looking over some of these changes it certainly looks like these are almost being tailored to builds and not truly reflecting the culture.

For example, for 2 years now I've had Dunmer DPS Tank at Mit Cap. Easily done. You just have to take time to read and do a little maff. Changes should not be made based on a complaint that lacks relevance when there is a method available.

You know, it's like this '***on' Guild Master who complained and complained about Marksman having 2H weapons, Destruction Staves. Viper having a Bow. She never once gave any thought to the fact there's a whole science around building things called 'Engineering' and that players should be free to build to *their* specs. To think and to Engineer builds that work for 'us'. Then One Tam comes out and starts burning books with 'smart loot'? Not to smart if you ask me. There's a word for that from the 1940s however the narration is in German.

Point is because of one or two people making dumb, selfish decisions all of us are being punished and I'm getting tired of it.

Mr_Wolfe

The_Lex wrote: »

As I posted in another thread:

I'd like to know which developer was truly committed to the Elder Scrolls series and universe before coming to ESO. By committed, I mean, more than a few play-throughs of a game to catch the flavor of the series or because the game was "cool to play" when it was released. Some of these racial passives show zero basis in established lore. Sure, they can be "shoehorned" into lore somehow, but that's not the same thing. And the established lore surrounding racial abilities can be made to work with an MMO - so that's no excuse either.

Well, they had an official 'loremaster' but he left recently. Right before these changes were announced, in fact.

Moonsorrow

Please keep old Bosmer Stealthy racial passive.

ZOS, you still have time to change that for the Wrathstone live patch. Imagine how many people you will make happy with that. Do it for once and see how it feels. There is no bad side doing so, people will just say "whoa, they actually listened to us!".

Benefits are, then there are 2 races for stealthy playstyle. You wanted people to have more choices. Having only Khajiit as choice is not more, its less. So please make sure Bosmer is a possibility for Stealthy players still.

You will get only good feedback from doing it. So please do the right thing.

I do not beg often, but when i do, i go full /kneelpray on it. Pretty please?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

hakan

Uryel wrote: »

rage607 wrote: »

Won't change anything in that regard, but PvE raiders will most certainly suffer with more tanks being one shot, etc.

Forget PvE raiders, PvE casual are being hit really hard. I play a thief, and it's not roleplay. I sneak everywhere, hit the delve boss and him only, steal sh*t, whatever... I'm not into raids, not into veteran stuff, I just like to go wherever I damn well please and laugh as the guards don't see me.

So of course I made a Bosmer. Stealthy, tiny, good with bows, what is there not to love here ? Well apparently some PvP whiners complaiend that Bosmers were too god with a bow and they couldn't win, so stealth bonus is being removed from them. It makes no sense lorewise, hurts no one in raid contentes, but makes us not-too-casual-but-certainly-not-hardcore players absurdly annoyed. Either I lose my gameplay, or I go khajiit and lose my character's identity. None of which is satisfactory.

But hey, we get a stealth detection bonus ! Super cool, considering there isn't a single stealthed enemy in PvE. And now we can dodge roll for more penetration. Amazing, considering how little use it has in PvE, aside maybe in trials, I wouldn't know.

This update reeks of PvP and screws the non-competitive players really bad. But hey, look ! Dragons ! Necromancers ! Excitement !

Well, I'm not paying one more cent until I have a way to retain my stealth without tuning into a khajiit or taking extreme measures (like full stealth set for a still underperforming stealth level, vampire and looking like I fell from the ugly tree and hit all the branches on the way down, or morphing one of my most powerful skill into a version that doesn't use the ressource I use thus gimping its damage but providing a speed boost, or even better, having to use a PvP skill in PvE that does nothing but boost movement just so I can keep PvE-ing normally).

Yeah because they listen whiners, so thats why it got nerfed /s.

karthrag_inak

Malada wrote: »

Khajit got everything they wanted, got the magic crits fixed I see.

Bull. Moving crit % to crit damage was never asked for, and is going to be, for the majority of the stam jiit player base, a net nerf compared to live now. requiring over 70% crit for 10% crit damage to actually outweigh the old 8% crit bonus is going to move this outside of the vast majority of folks' reach. The only folks i see applauding this are non-jiit.

jiit were doing fine with 4.3.2 but, well, leet-non-jiit endgame -magicka- folks cried hard enough for this change to happen based on jiit -magicka- performance, so it was shoved in across the board with neither comment nor explanation.

Deathlord92

I still want to my Breton to have stam racial passives his am assassin he wields swords daggers axes poisons he doesn’t use a stick

Malada

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Please keep old Bosmer Stealthy racial passive.

ZOS, you still have time to change that for the Wrathstone live patch. Imagine how many people you will make happy with that. Do it for once and see how it feels. There is no bad side doing so, people will just say "whoa, they actually listened to us!".

Benefits are, then there are 2 races for stealthy playstyle. You wanted people to have more choices. Having only Khajiit as choice is not more, its less. So please make sure Bosmer is a possibility for Stealthy players still.

You will get only good feedback from doing it. So please do the right thing.

I do not beg often, but when i do, i go full /kneelpray on it. Pretty please?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

The only thing I can't understand about this is why do we have to beg? I am not begging for them to do the right thing. You know it's like everything else, people are given authority and put into positions for a reason. It should have been obvious from the get-go that there are mistakes, some of which have been fixed I'll give em that.

Adding the move speed bonus wasn't a bad thing however I find it suspect with the ahhh 'increase detection radius' and making us first roll dodge before getting a weapon pen bonus that we really don't need. Anyone else also notice this? It's like we're being trolled. You know it's like you don't like the Patriots because of their record and the fact they have a great team with tons of experience so instead of wearing gloves or braces or coming onto the field with the proper gear you force the team to come to every game going forward wearing a pink dress and an inner-tube, denied of the gear they need because you want to force them to lose while other teams are getting practically everything they want.

However this ends up it should be obvious to all parties that nerfing a Sneak or Stealth attack bonus -alone-, then taking it out on one race out of spite is not going to protect you from your own laziness, carelessness, recklessness and in general a complete lack of competent decision making in places like Imperial City. Don't blame me because you're greedy. It looks like I'm going to be very busy in Imperial City for the foreseeable.

Jaimeh

Please consider raising the Dunmer max stats to 2000; this way mag and stam DPS won't have to be pigeon-hole'd to Altmer/Orc, and players can have more (equally strong) choices. For example, if a magicka DD likes extra stamina sustain, they can pick Altmer; if they want fire resistance because they are a vampire, they can pick Dunmer. Conversely, if a stamina DD likes extra health, they can pick Orc; and if they like fire resistance they can be a Dunmer. @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam

Moonsorrow

Malada wrote: »

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Please keep old Bosmer Stealthy racial passive.

ZOS, you still have time to change that for the Wrathstone live patch. Imagine how many people you will make happy with that. Do it for once and see how it feels. There is no bad side doing so, people will just say "whoa, they actually listened to us!".

Benefits are, then there are 2 races for stealthy playstyle. You wanted people to have more choices. Having only Khajiit as choice is not more, its less. So please make sure Bosmer is a possibility for Stealthy players still.

You will get only good feedback from doing it. So please do the right thing.

I do not beg often, but when i do, i go full /kneelpray on it. Pretty please?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

The only thing I can't understand about this is why do we have to beg? I am not begging for them to do the right thing. You know it's like everything else, people are given authority and put into positions for a reason. It should have been obvious from the get-go that there are mistakes, some of which have been fixed I'll give em that.

Adding the move speed bonus wasn't a bad thing however I find it suspect with the ahhh 'increase detection radius' and making us first roll dodge before getting a weapon pen bonus that we really don't need. Anyone else also notice this? It's like we're being trolled. You know it's like you don't like the Patriots because of their record and the fact they have a great team with tons of experience so instead of wearing gloves or braces or coming onto the field with the proper gear you force the team to come to every game going forward wearing a pink dress and an inner-tube, denied of the gear they need because you want to force them to lose while other teams are getting practically everything they want.

However this ends up it should be obvious to all parties that nerfing a Sneak or Stealth attack bonus -alone-, then taking it out on one race out of spite is not going to protect you from your own laziness, carelessness, recklessness and in general a complete lack of competent decision making in places like Imperial City. Don't blame me because you're greedy. It looks like I'm going to be very busy in Imperial City for the foreseeable.

Well, trying the polite way of saying what the majority of players feel about it. While yeah, "begging" seems like odd way of going at it.. i feel it might work better this time than the "changes suck im gonna uninstall" that many saying already.

Just hoping they would see that having bosmer be also a choice for stealth play as it is now is just a positive thing and that they do not have to change something that is not broken. People do not need/want the dodge roll racial, but rather keep the old stealth radius one. It does not break balance if it stays like that, but will keep many bosmer players happy. Win-win for players and for ZOS imo.

Some know i can do sarcastic crusades on bad changes.. so atleast am trying to stay constructive and polite this time. Even begging rather than doing some witty comments all over the forums.

Malada

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Malada wrote: »

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Please keep old Bosmer Stealthy racial passive.

ZOS, you still have time to change that for the Wrathstone live patch. Imagine how many people you will make happy with that. Do it for once and see how it feels. There is no bad side doing so, people will just say "whoa, they actually listened to us!".

Benefits are, then there are 2 races for stealthy playstyle. You wanted people to have more choices. Having only Khajiit as choice is not more, its less. So please make sure Bosmer is a possibility for Stealthy players still.

You will get only good feedback from doing it. So please do the right thing.

I do not beg often, but when i do, i go full /kneelpray on it. Pretty please?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

The only thing I can't understand about this is why do we have to beg? I am not begging for them to do the right thing. You know it's like everything else, people are given authority and put into positions for a reason. It should have been obvious from the get-go that there are mistakes, some of which have been fixed I'll give em that.

Adding the move speed bonus wasn't a bad thing however I find it suspect with the ahhh 'increase detection radius' and making us first roll dodge before getting a weapon pen bonus that we really don't need. Anyone else also notice this? It's like we're being trolled. You know it's like you don't like the Patriots because of their record and the fact they have a great team with tons of experience so instead of wearing gloves or braces or coming onto the field with the proper gear you force the team to come to every game going forward wearing a pink dress and an inner-tube, denied of the gear they need because you want to force them to lose while other teams are getting practically everything they want.

However this ends up it should be obvious to all parties that nerfing a Sneak or Stealth attack bonus -alone-, then taking it out on one race out of spite is not going to protect you from your own laziness, carelessness, recklessness and in general a complete lack of competent decision making in places like Imperial City. Don't blame me because you're greedy. It looks like I'm going to be very busy in Imperial City for the foreseeable.

Well, trying the polite way of saying what the majority of players feel about it. While yeah, "begging" seems like odd way of going at it.. i feel it might work better this time than the "changes suck im gonna uninstall" that many saying already.

Just hoping they would see that having bosmer be also a choice for stealth play as it is now is just a positive thing and that they do not have to change something that is not broken. People do not need/want the dodge roll racial, but rather keep the old stealth radius one. It does not break balance if it stays like that, but will keep many bosmer players happy. Win-win for players and for ZOS imo.

Some know i can do sarcastic crusades on bad changes.. so atleast am trying to stay constructive and polite this time. Even begging rather than doing some witty comments all over the forums.

Look, all I know is over the years I've spent... 'alot' on Crowns, subscriptions and everything else for this game. (Too much)

Why shouldn't I be a little frustrated at the changes being made, esp when other races pot holes are getting cleaned up and we're left with a bunch of non-nonsensical changes ripped off a 5pc set that no one ever uses? What if they took the Orc and replaced their passives with the "Night's Silence" set?

When the streamers demanded Orc get fixed that got done in just a couple days. When others went to whomever or whenever they got what they wanted for Nord and Khajit. Why am I paying all this time and money for a platform that intentionally excludes me to save face? There's a word for that in the business world it's called a 'Stakeholder'. Why shouldn't ZOS listen to the people paying them, investing in them? Still, there comes a point where feelings are regardless to the point being made.

Pardon me for causing trouble however I didn't start this. If you're going to ignore -some- of us and produce some very bad changes -outside of the demonstrated consistency- to fix said changes then what do we have to lose by going on a little Crusade now and again. They're not on here fighting for what's right, they're fighting for what they want. If they want to stay silent or approve of this bad setup so that one of us doesn't snipe them once in awhile then it's only fair that some of them should feel our pain. And boy are they going to feel it. The point has to be made to them that winning the game or being successful therein, does not include complaining or asking the Devs to nerf out legitimate builds because you're too lazy or cheap to think about why you keep dying. Believe it or not, sniping is not as easy as described. And it will still occur so if we realize this then why nerf Bosmer at all? I would also say if you don't like the Sneak bonus add some permanent weapon penetration. Shouldn't matter because they're handing out weapon and spell damage.

Not to mention, the current round of Bosmer updates seems to be pulled directly from the "Way of Air" set. I've rolled thru the forums hundreds of times and never seen this set mentioned before. Maybe someone will find it now that I said it however I've never seen "Way of Air" ever brought up in any meaningful discussion. Why model the Bosmer bonus after an existing set to start with? Especially one that is very rarely used. Again it don't make no sense.

I'll leave it at this, if you don't like what I'm saying or if I'm wrong for saying it then prove me wrong. Let's see what they do.

Malada

If this helps, I noticed with several races they're getting like 2x 129 Wep Dmgs or 2x 129 Spell Dmg buffs or whichever.

I think that's great.

So to compensate Bosmer players for removing the Stealth Sneak bonus (if it must be removed which I don't recommend) then go ahead and please compensate us with:

2x 1487 Weapon Penetration, comes to 2974. These 1487 values are taken directly from sets, same as the 2x 129 (258) weapon and spell dmg buffs being handed out to other races.

Why not? You're handing out weapon and spell dmg buffs and I believe you're handing those out for the right reason.

Ok let's give Bosmer 2974 Permanent Weapon Pen and then leave the 10% move bonus in roll dodge.

That is a very fair arrangement and would make everyone happy. People hate snipers, so the stealth bonus is gone. Bosmer need to be compensated for dmg loss and this gives us a dmg bonus directly in line with other races who got theirs from the same concept. If you got a problem with it, stack mitigation. Nords are getting 4k mitigation for example so there is an option for counter play.

rabidmyers

give argonians something to help them with stam dps

VoltrenXytech

seriously.... your removing argonian poison resist and immunity to the debuffs..... why?

Moonsorrow

Malada wrote: »

I'll leave it at this, if you don't like what I'm saying or if I'm wrong for saying it then prove me wrong. Let's see what they do.

Never said you are wrong.

Just telling what all the people from the game i know keep telling me, and that is that they want to keep their Bosmer thief characters with their current Stealthy passive and not want dodge rolling bonus that gives nothing to them. They just want to have more choice than 1 (Khajiit) for stealthy characters, they like bosmers and their lore.

There is a very big player amount that play bosmers as main and love their lore and passives. I see no logical reason to alienate and make them unhappy. When keeping that stealthy passive is not away from anyone and is not "op" or anything.

Just keep it the way it is and people (and cute bosmers) are happy.

Not everything has to change "just because.." unless there really is a good reason. There is none. More reason to keep it actually, so there is atleast 2 races to pick for stealthy play, Bosmer and Khajiit.

More choices and freedom was the goal of these changes, right? So having just 1 stealthy race is not more, its less.

So: Keep Bosmer Stealthy passive. Let us steal undetected!

#BosmerThuglife

Cundu_Ertur

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Malada wrote: »

I'll leave it at this, if you don't like what I'm saying or if I'm wrong for saying it then prove me wrong. Let's see what they do.

Never said you are wrong.

Just telling what all the people from the game i know keep telling me, and that is that they want to keep their Bosmer thief characters with their current Stealthy passive and not want dodge rolling bonus that gives nothing to them. They just want to have more choice than 1 (Khajiit) for stealthy characters, they like bosmers and their lore.

There is a very big player amount that play bosmers as main and love their lore and passives. I see no logical reason to alienate and make them unhappy. When keeping that stealthy passive is not away from anyone and is not "op" or anything.

Just keep it the way it is and people (and cute bosmers) are happy.

Not everything has to change "just because.." unless there really is a good reason. There is none. More reason to keep it actually, so there is atleast 2 races to pick for stealthy play, Bosmer and Khajiit.

More choices and freedom was the goal of these changes, right? So having just 1 stealthy race is not more, its less.

So: Keep Bosmer Stealthy passive. Let us steal undetected!

#BosmerThuglife

If there's only going to be one thief race, then there should be only one magic race and one warrior race. The other 7 races can be crafters and mules. <= this is sarcasm. kinda.

The whole idea that each race needs its own passive is nonsense, especially since there are only so many things that can be buffed.

tldr: I agree

VoltrenXytech

so your response to " races are not unique enough" was to blend them further together and make a few of them completely useless now..... you couldnt even roughly follow the elder scrolls passive perks i mean WTF you got rid of all stealth ability the khajits had, took argonians posion immunity and resistance to the wood elves, and made all stats a static nuber in stead of a flexible percentile? i mean there are some dumb moves but that was really stupid, if you want unique give wood elves the ability to release a poison nova on crit, or argonians the ability to randomly heal their team mates for 25% of there max health, something like those, not more boring minuscule and useless stat increases, "OH BOY 4% BETTER HEALING" more like oh boy someone was too lazy or were spiteful of argonians and gave us a useless skill.....hell i could list off a unique skill for each playable race that would be better than anything in this update

Cundu_Ertur

VoltrenXytech wrote: »

WTF you got rid of all stealth ability the khajits had, took argonians posion immunity and resistance to the wood elves, and made all stats a static nuber in stead of a flexible percentile?

Actually, Khajiit are the only ones with stealth, it's in their last passive now, just not where it was before. Bosmer lose their stealth entirely and get a garbage detection passive that's unusable in PVE.
The flat numbers are, generally, a buff.
I agree about the poison, Bosmer should have had disease, Argonians poison immunity with resistance to both poison and disease.

Kesstryl

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Just a reminder: taking stealth away from the Bosmer is like taking magic away from the Altmer, making Nords allergic to mead, or making Orcs pretty.

^^ Reading this made my day, and yes, I totally agree. My main is a Bosmer.

Uryel

Kesstryl wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Just a reminder: taking stealth away from the Bosmer is like taking magic away from the Altmer, making Nords allergic to mead, or making Orcs pretty.

^^ Reading this made my day, and yes, I totally agree. My main is a Bosmer.

Same.

@ZOS_Gilliam , would you kindly rethink that horrid patch of yours ? Thank you very much.

grizzly375

So, I take it this abomination is going live next week, and we're still only getting three tokens? I've held off playing any of my toons for the last several weeks because I don't want to be any more pissed off about this, but I guess hoping for something better was in vain.

Hope the money grab in token sales compensates for the loss of dedicated PAYING players, like myself.

Have fun with the new builds!

onegunholiday

I feel like these changes will just force people to become more creative with their gear to reach desired effect. I think most of these passives were a little excessive to begin with. Imo, some of these minor nerds were needed.

Uryel

Trying to be heard and falling on deaf ears is getting tedious, and obviously useless as the patch will go as planned on Monday, effectively killing Bosmeri stealth bonus. Yet, once more, here goes nothing.


So, this is the ONLY change I am going to discuss here :

Stealthy: Reduces detection Radius by 3m […] → Hunter’s Eye: Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m.

Please note that I left out the previous damage bonus from stealth or the new speed bonus from dodge roll, or any other change whatsoever. I’m ONLY discussing the removal of stealth. I couldn't care less about dodge roll, bonus damage from stealth, whatever. For all I care, a damage reduction when drunk could replace the dodge roll or anything, I wouldn't care. I'm ONLY talking about stealth itself.


1 – Removing stealth goes against the lore

It might be weird to open a plead against stat changes with the lore, but it’s the Elder Scrolls we’re talking about here, not just any game. It’s one of the longest standing, most established game series, and certainly one with the richest and most beloved lore. So it does matter. Maybe not to everyone, but to some.

The Maths Team has been using the lore as an excuse to remove stealth from the Bosmers, saying « they are good hunters so they need to see stuff », and thus they want to replace a bonus to stealth by a bonus to stealth detection. But that doesn’t make sense, neither lore-wise not hunt-wise.

As someone pointed elsewhere, a hunter is stealthy. Bosmers are hunters out of necessity from the Green Pact. Animals don’t sneak around, hunters do. It’s all about remaining hidden while the prey is blissfully unaware of your presence. Bosmers are exceptionnal hunters because they are amazing archers, even sometimes credited to having invented the bow, and because no one and nothing knows they are there before they strike. That's stealth at its finest.

But let’s focus on the lore. I can only talk about what I know, and my first Elder Scrolls was Morrowind, back in 2002. So I can say that for every Elder Scrolls game since 2002, Bosmers have been known as stealthy and thieves. Others might confirm it was true even before that, but ever since 2002, they have had bonuses to stealth.

Morrowind ? Stealthy Bosmers. Oblivion ? Stealthy Bosmers. Skyrim ? Stealthy Bosmers. Elder Scrolls Online, at least up to early 2019, and hopefully much later on ? Stealthy Bosmers.

But this could just be game habits and tropes, so let’s look at the lore behind it :

- The Jaqspurs are elite scout troops and hunters ("words and philosophy" book in the Elder Scrolls games), and a scout is... Stealthy, yes. A scout that is seen isn't of much use.
- They are known as thieves ("Valenwood : a study"), to the point even a bosmer shopkeeper will be wary of another bosmer entering their shop. And thieves are stealthy.
- They are known to be very adept at hiding, at the very least in woodlands ("Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/Aldmeri Dominion" and "Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition/The Wild Region").
- They are famous for their guerrila tactics, which require stealth. Couldn’t find the book that references it, though.
- Their most famous poem / epic is titled "The One Thousand Benefits of Hiding"
- They do worship Baan Dar, the trickster spirit they borrowed from the Khajiits.
- And last but certainly not least, their most well-known rite is "the rite of theft".

And so on. Seriously, if one was to boil down Bosmers to 3 points, it would be that they are amazing archers, they are amazing at stealth, and they don't eat or even damage any plant. Stealth is integral to Bosmers.

So please, Maths Team, do not use the lore as an excuse to remove stealth from them, it doesn’t work. Stealth is probably even MORE a part of the Bosmers than even their hunting ability. They have « the rite of theft », not « the rite of hunt ».


2 – This change is entirely useless in PvE and only marginally useful in PvP

As per @ZOS_Gilliam ‘s own words, « Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!) ».

Indeed, there are exactly ZERO enemies in PvE that do sneak. None that I have ever encountered, at least, and I’ve been playing for almost 4 years now. The only times an enemy goes « sneaking » is when you meet a nightblade NPC that cloaks. So, in PvE, stealth detection is entirely useless, since nothing sneaks. Ever. As for the cloaking nightblade mob, you don’t need to detect stealth, since you KNOW they are coming at you while cloaked. You just need either an AoE damage or a timely block.

So, the new racial passive is absolutely, completely, entirely useless in PvE. And that’s made even worse by the fact that, aside from the insignificant +1% Alliance Point gain the Bretons have, there is no other racial passive that has no use in PvE.

As a PvE-only player, I am not pleased by a change that I percieved as only good for PvP, but others, more PvP-versed than I am, have commented that it is also useless in PvP. From what I understand, stealth detection is only marginally used in PvP, and having it on the Bosmers might even make things worse. One of the reported major annoyances I read about was the sniping sneaky bosmers archers. One of the most obvious ways to dispose of a sniper is to sneak upon them to backstab them, but this might be even more complicated if they see you coming even easier than before. But I really am not all that well versed in PvP, so I’ll let the experts discuss that point.

What I think about the ganking archer PvP "problem", though, is that within a week of the change gankers will have switched to Khajiit to make use of the crit bonus instead. Gankers gonna gank. This will solve nothing, but will hurt people who made use of stealth outside of PvP.

Whatever anyone's point of view on the PvP part may be, it’s pretty obvious that this change has no benefit in PvE whatsoever, which would make the Bosmers the ONLY race that has a significant racial trait that has no effect in PvE.


3 – Most racial changes are adjustments, this one is a fundamental change

I understand changes do come when a balance patch happens. And for most of them, those changes seem to be fair game. Some might not be well recieved, others could be debated, but they are adjustments. They don’t really break or remove something entirely.

For instance, I’m not overly fond of the Nord change that replaces a percentage of damage reduction by a flat amount of physical / spell resistance, but that’s merely because my own Nord stamina sorcerer tank already stacked enormous amounts of resists, and I would much rather have a percentage reduction to top it all… But that doesn’t break anything. It’s fairly simple to adapt, and it stays within the same philosophy. We could debate the Altmers now regenerating their lower ressource pool, which is kinda awkward, lore-wise, for instance, but it doesn't sudenly say "now Altmers will be hulking melee warriors on par with Nords and Orcs, screw magicka !".

Removing stealth from Bosmers, however, is a complete paradigm shift. The idea is that « races should all be unique », but… Really, why should they ? Lore-wise (again, I know), Khajiits and Bosmers have always been contenders for the title of the sneakiest thief. It’s part of their racial identity and has been for almost 3 decades.

But let’s leave the lore out, I’ve already discussed that point. Let’s talk gameplay. For the past years, people have been creating bosmers taking into account the fact they are stealthy. Could have been because they wanted to use it, or simply as « oh well, I’m not gonna use it, bummer, but Bosmers are cool », but it was taken into account. Assuming people created a Bosmer for what they bring to the table and not for the cool factor, it’s likely stealth was a desired characteristic.

By entirely removing the stealth bonus from a race, the Maths Team is likely removing the reason some characters were created, and giving free race change tokens to people isn’t going to fix that. Not with one or three tokens per account, and even if they were providing one token per character it wouldn’t fix the issue, because race change is a solution only for people who only care about stats and nothing else. That’s not everyone.

Minmaxers and highly competitive players might be willing to switch out of a race and into another in the blink of an eye to squeeze that 2% bonus damage or whatever, because that’s all they care about, but are they everyone ? Nope. Are they the majority ? I doubt it. One could think they are, based on forum activity, but let’s be realistic, most people NEVER come to the forums, especially the casual players. It took me over THREE YEARS to come here, and that was ONLY because the Maths team threatened my favorite gameplay to be taken away from my favorite character.

So, aside from people who play by the stats only, here’s what it feels like : people grow attached to their characters. They can get around a minor stat adjustment or an annoying quirck, but something unwanted that radically changes how their character plays is generally unwelcome. And of course, looks are part of the identity of a characters. It’s even more important after years of costume collecting, dyes unlocking and whatnot. Many people wouldn’t change their Bosmer into a Khajiit, not because Khajiits are ugly or whatever, but because it would break the character’s identity, the whole feel of playing it. Switching race is only fun if you WANT to do so, not if you have to do so to retain the same gameplay. And not changing race but losing a major part of your character identity nonetheless isn't fun either.

Removing stealth from the Bosmers means that, for a lot of people, their characters will have to change into something that feels entirely different, will have to change gameplay completely, or go to extreme lengths to retain the same gameplay (more about that below). And that is NOT fun.

Also, if the Maths Team talks about adding variety, I don’t see how encouraging people from 2 different races to play a single race will encourage variety.


4 – Stealth is part of the gameplay, don’t treat it as if it doesn’t exist

There is a huge contradiction in that update. One one side, « Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game », so they’re taking it away from the Bosmers, but on the other hand, they were initially boosting Khajiit’s stealth (don't know if that's still true, didn't care, I have no Khajiit and don't intend to have one). Doesn’t make much sense to me aside from the sheer will to force an artificial, stat-based-only difference between the two races, even though they do share this trait in the lore and have been sharing it in games for almost 3 decades. Stealth exists, stealth is part of the gameplay, and stealth is helluva fun

Stealth isn’t a major part of the gameplay, I’ll give you that. But it isn’t negligible either. There are TWO entire DLCs that revolve around sneaking, a huge amount of items that exist only to be stolen, and a whole justice system that benefits from being able to avoid being seen by the guards. There are achievements and housing items to unlock with said achievements that call for picking merchant lockboxes. So, it’s entirely possible that a Bosmer (or Khajiit) character was created with that in mind, to be a thief / assassin. I know mine was, at least.

Sure, stealth has no place in trials and most « end game » content, but… Does everyone focus on that ? I don’t think so. And even so, it’s entirely possible to have separate characters for different contents, for instance one really optimised character for competitive gameplay, and a stealthy little Bosmer for when you feel like picking pockets and are curious about what’s behind that locked door.

And even in « normal » gameplay, understand non-competitive PvE, stealth can be very useful, or just fun. Bit in a hurry but really need that skyshard ? Avoid all combat and stealth your way through the delve. Farming some gear that drops in overland zones ? Stealth your way to the delve / public dungeon boss. You can pickpocket easier. You can breeze through restricted area, heist, assassination missions and whatnot. This, of course, means a slightly less powerfull character in intense combat situations, but it is a gameplay choice that is available, and a pretty efficient one at that. If you have a bounty you can just sneak into town anyway. You can’t do all that without the +3 meters bonus. And that gameplay choice won’t be available anymore to Bosmers when the update goes live. Be Khajiit, or play entirely differently.

For a comparison, here is an exemple. I play a Bosmer stealthy character, and my wife plays a Breton stealthy character. We both use the same gear, one set that boosts our stealth by 2 more meters, and one that removes the movement penalty when sneaking. While she can sneak, I can sneak ALOT easier and better. I can come so close to a guard that I could scratch his back with the point of a short sword, but she can’t. If she comes this close, she’s caught. It doesn’t mean she can’t sneak around, but in many situations where my character can go undetected, hers can’t. Her current Breton character stealth abilities is tomorrow’s Bosmer stealth ability.

3 meters makes a HUGE difference in PvE, when you're sneaking about. There is currently no gear that gives such a high bonus. Stacking stealth gear, you can get +4 meters. If you want to retain mobility, you either have to be a vampire at stage 4, and / or a magblade. There is a set that removes stealth movement penalty, though, but it doesn't have a bonus to detection radius, meaning that by gear only, you get +4 meters OR +2 meters and no penalty.

When that change goes live, the only way to replicate that level of stealth with a Bosmer would be to be a magbalde and / or a vampire for the movement penalty, and TWO sets that give stealth radius bonus. And we'd still be short of a 1 meter bonus, still making stealth slightly more difficult. Also, those specific sets are stamina sets, effectively ruling out the magblade. As far as I remember, there is only one dropped set that gives that sort of stealth bonus in light armour. None craftable. That doesn’t leave much room for character customisation. Also, as stated before, character looks might matter, and being a vampire stuck on stage 4 to retain your gameplay might not appeal to everyone. Not even mentionning the drawbacks that inherently come with being a vampire.

A stamblade could use the skill morph that provides a bonus to stealth mobility, but seing this is a magicka ability, it would deal pretty low damage. I know, I've tested it. When my character is buffed, the stamina version of this skills has 10k damage on the description. The magicka version, still for my character, is about 3k, and does no longer apply a debuff to enemy resists. So, as I mentionend earlier, to retain stealth mobility, one would have to go to such extreme length as to gimp one of their best combat skills (combat not being the strongest point of a thief already). Or one could use that PvP skill that boosts speed, but you uncloak for a while when casting it. And that's also one less combat skill in the bars. So, to sum it up, lower stealth bonus, no mobility or even lower combat prowess.

Basically, when that change goes live, stealthy Bosmers are screwed. They will be left underperforming in stealth even though it's one of the most defining traits of the race, with no means to compensate by gear only. Either they will get to +4 meters bonus instead of +5 or +7, or +2 and retain mobility, or +4 and mobility IF they are a vampire or a magblade or chose to be even less efficient in combat. And that is if they go full sneaky. I fail to see where this adds any "choice value". Wanna sneak ? Be Khajiit.

This update will kill the fun of all casual player who merely enjoys stealing sh*t and escaping the law. Among other things


5 – How to avoid that problem

You get it by now, if you read everything up until here, I’m advocating for the complete removal of the new « Hunter’s Eye » increase to stealth detection, and for keeping the reduced stealth detection radius from « Stealthy » as it is. I’m not even talking about keeping the 10% bonus damage done in stealth. Change everything you wish, I don’t mind, so long as the stealth detection radius that has no use whatsoever doesn’t make it to live, and that the bonus to stealth is kept.

But… IF it goes live anyway… And obviously it will... At the very least they should provide us with another way to retain that bonus. Someone suggested that adding a stealth bonus to the Legerdemain skill line would allow to compensate, and that’s not a bad idea. I don’t know what other solution would be best. A Legerdemain bonus would certainly make stealth available to everyone, and that would be pretty nice too. But the simplest solution is to drop that ridiculous stealth detection bonus that, again, has no use whatsoever, and keep the stealth bonus as it is.

It's been stated somewhere that they are considering a way to retain stealth, but it won't be live on monday. For all we know, it may not be live before a year or two. Still, stealth is gonna be broken on monday. Break sh*t first, think of a repair "later", that's not good business practice. The proper thing to do would be to delay the racial changes until a proper way to deal with retaining stealth is found.

And to end with a personal feeling, I don't understand that ill-percieved need to differenciate races and make everything unique. We have almost 3 decades and 5 games worth of lore and gameplay advocating for stealthy Bosmers, and there is no need for that to change. Especially not after lots of people spent years building their characters around that. They really should reconsider.

Aela_Dragonrider

My 2nd Main is a Bosmer thief for whom the Hunter's Eye passive will be of little to no use what so ever. She has no use for Stealth Detection, only uses bow so the movement bonus is redundant, doesnt care about more pen, and only dodge rolls to escape attacks.

If the devs insist on implementing this passive, maybe they could do this: change the Bosmer's Stealthy passive to have 2 morphs. One would give Stealth radius and something else, the other would be Hunter's Eye.
They could do the same with the Altmer: 1 morph would be roughly what they have now, the other what is on the PTS
Same for other races: allow the utility passive to be morphed.
That way everyone-the min/maxers and the lore-conscious-can hopefully calm down and go home happy? content? not enraged?

Or even better - Split every race's utility passive to have 3 possible morphs: Warrior, Mage, Thief. Warrior would give physical related buffs, Mage would give magic buffs, Thief would give stealth and movement related buffs. You wanna be tougher and stronger? Pick the Warrior morph. Want more power to your spells? Take the Mage morph. Want to be stealthier and quicker? Choose the Thief morph.

It wouldn't be easy to come up with unique versions of the passive for every race and how to handle stamina-related bonuses. But, if done right, I think it would go a long way in opening up all races to all play styles without losing uniqueness or breaking lore.

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

Uryel

Aela_Dragonrider wrote: »

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

I'd add to that that my Nord is all about standing tall and laughing in the face of the enemy, and was geared accordingly. I recently downgraded his resists after learning about the resists cap. I was already well above it.

So, getting a racial bonus that brings me back to where I was before the downgrad has no beneficial effect whatsoever. Guess I'll be able to remove some of my resist / HP gear for some stamina sustain, then. However, the percentage of damage reduction was extremely good, as it was on top of maximum resists.

So, that change doesn't just only shoehorn Nords even more into their tank role, it also doesn't bring anything to the table, and even removes useful stuff, for those who were already eared up for resists anyway.

It's still far from being as bad as what happens to the Bosmers, and is even alot tamer than the Altmers now regerenating their lowest ressource pool, but it's a "meh" for me. I'd love more choices like you suggest, but I believe we're never goin to see that.

hakan

Uryel wrote: »

Aela_Dragonrider wrote: »

Then maybe my Nord main could get some damage boosts from her passives to complement her role as DPS. More resistance is nice but she's all about smashing things with 2h axes, not tanking stuff.

I'd add to that that my Nord is all about standing tall and laughing in the face of the enemy, and was geared accordingly. I recently downgraded his resists after learning about the resists cap. I was already well above it.

So, getting a racial bonus that brings me back to where I was before the downgrad has no beneficial effect whatsoever. Guess I'll be able to remove some of my resist / HP gear for some stamina sustain, then. However, the percentage of damage reduction was extremely good, as it was on top of maximum resists.

So, that change doesn't just only shoehorn Nords even more into their tank role, it also doesn't bring anything to the table, and even removes useful stuff, for those who were already eared up for resists anyway.

It's still far from being as bad as what happens to the Bosmers, and is even alot tamer than the Altmers now regerenating their lowest ressource pool, but it's a "meh" for me. I'd love more choices like you suggest, but I believe we're never goin to see that.

it is said that 6percent dmg reduction is more like 2-3percent because diminishing returns. i believe this is much better. flat 4k is also around 7,5 percent reduction.

KanedaSyndrome

How about we disjoint racial skills from actual race. Let it be some morphs that we choose, regardless of which race we picked. That way we get to play the race we want while still having fun with the passives we'd like to use.

De-Couple Racial Traits From Race

Bosco916

The changes look great. Ofcourse, I've mained a Breton since May 2014 and they've never been at the top, so I'm naturally liking what's in-store.

So many people are up in arms because they feel they're losing out on this that and the other, it's as if nobody else is. I thought the goal was balancing, is it not?

Shadows_Blade

Fun and enjoyment

Fun and enjoyment come in many forms. Some people like to crunch numbers, others enjoy PVP and I enjoy sneaking around on my stealthy Bosmers. I logged in yesterday and it felt as if my Bosmers had been ***, defiled, mutilated… This was a horrible feeling. An essential part of who these characters are had been stolen from them and the fun of playing them stolen from me.

This had nothing to do with game balance. The developers said as much, according to them, stealth is not that important. Unless you are a thief or just like to sneak and role play, it is not important. It does not help with world bosses, dungeons or trials. It just makes playing the game fun. So why would they remove stealthy and replace it with hunter's eye? Something that I have not put any points into nor do I intend to. There is no one to see with it unless you play PVP and I do not. Nor should racial skills be related to PVP. Other than accidentally roll dodging I use that skill about two or three times a month. Hunter's eye is a pointless replacement for something that was at the core of Bosmer identity, stealth.

I would be a fool to continue paying for something that is no longer fun. I have canceled my recurring subscription and when it runs out, if this thoughtless decision is not reversed, I may quit the game all together. After almost three years and many hundreds of dollars spent they have chased me away with one careless act.

I was not happy about all eleven of my characters loosing points from their main statistic with the change from percent to flat racial bonuses. It did not however ruin the game for me. The loss of stealthy on my Bosmers did. I encourage other like minded players to be heard and the makers of ESO to reverse this ill conceived decision. Fun is not all about numbers or being the best; sometimes it is just about playing your characters in a way that makes you happy.

Cundu_Ertur

Shadows_Blade wrote: »

Fun and enjoyment

Fun and enjoyment come in many forms. Some people like to crunch numbers, others enjoy PVP and I enjoy sneaking around on my stealthy Bosmers. I logged in yesterday and it felt as if my Bosmers had been ***, defiled, mutilated… This was a horrible feeling. An essential part of who these characters are had been stolen from them and the fun of playing them stolen from me.

This had nothing to do with game balance. The developers said as much, according to them, stealth is not that important. Unless you are a thief or just like to sneak and role play, it is not important. It does not help with world bosses, dungeons or trials. It just makes playing the game fun. So why would they remove stealthy and replace it with hunter's eye? Something that I have not put any points into nor do I intend to. There is no one to see with it unless you play PVP and I do not. Nor should racial skills be related to PVP. Other than accidentally roll dodging I use that skill about two or three times a month. Hunter's eye is a pointless replacement for something that was at the core of Bosmer identity, stealth.

I would be a fool to continue paying for something that is no longer fun. I have canceled my recurring subscription and when it runs out, if this thoughtless decision is not reversed, I may quit the game all together. After almost three years and many hundreds of dollars spent they have chased me away with one careless act.

I was not happy about all eleven of my characters loosing points from their main statistic with the change from percent to flat racial bonuses. It did not however ruin the game for me. The loss of stealthy on my Bosmers did. I encourage other like minded players to be heard and the makers of ESO to reverse this ill conceived decision. Fun is not all about numbers or being the best; sometimes it is just about playing your characters in a way that makes you happy.

Welcome to the forums; and I agree.
I came to ESO for the lore, to keep playing in Tamriel. This ain't Tamriel anymore.