Bosmer Racial change that is illogical and unnecessary

thegreatme

I already had to pick a Bosmer over a Breton (like I originally hoped for) for my main toon because the skill lines were more in line with what I wanted -- the big thing being Sneak (also Bretons weren't short enough).

Now they nerf any of the racial stealth passives that are completely essential to not only my play style, but anyone who doesn't want to play a cat specifically for a good stealth character? Not a happy camper, don't want to turn my toon into a cat to get that play-style back. It would be nice to have just (1) human-ish race that's naturally gifted in going undetected, which is 100% in line with Bosmer lore.

It also seems to contradict lore in some ways rather than enhance it. Khajiit may be physically capable of being better at sneak than other races, but aren't they known and stereotyped for it too? In Skyrim they wouldn't even let Khajiit into most of their cities because they don't trust them not to steal (unless you're the Dragonborn). They're widely stereotyped as sneakthieves, so wouldn't they be watched more, rather than less?

Really though, essentially forcing someone to pigeonhole their character into being a furry doesn't sit well with me and it really mucks with the play style I've been comfortable and happy with since Day 1.

There are endless ways to get myself better Stam pools and stam boosts, better damage rates and penetration; all this does is take away play style flexibility for those of us that relied on a stealth build without wanting to be a cat, and my play style is to be a sneaky CP 380+ elf who can creep through an entire public dungeon solo and only engage with enemies when interacting with a quest marker forces me out of stealth or a dungeon Boss comes up, and is amazing at thieving for gold, which is more or less exactly in line with Wood Elf lore (minus being forced out of stealth to swipe that scroll out from under a camp of NPCs).

And then citing lore as the reason? Doesn't sit well with me Chief. It just makes me not want to play anymore because a core mechanic of PvE and sneak-thief play style has been taken away for a mechanic that only matters in PvP, and there's a lot of people who want nothing to do with PvP or only want to do it on the rare occasion.

We have skills already for detecting other players in Stealth or completely dashing their stealthiness (Magelight, for instance), albeit temporarily or just by being smart. There's not much of anything that makes up that detection radius the same way other than armor passives that literally every single race has access to and some which can use them BETTER than Bosmer now that aren't Khajiit.

Thaliff

It's almost like they should just disable racial abilities in PvP and stop trying to balance them at the expense of PvE players. This change sucks for my main, who except for some Cyro for the speed and heal abilities, is PvE focused.

TheTraveler

So is it for definite official now? I was holding back on a race change hoping that ZOS would relent and give the Bosmer their stealth back. But now that the Thieve's and assasin's event is on, I need to change to a cat quickly so as not to miss out on tickets, and let my dear little carefully crafted Bosmer girl go, if they're still ridiculously insisting on removing her stealth.

Cundu_Ertur

If you want stealth, the only option is Khajiit. Which is complete and utter lore-breaking GARBAGE. So it seems now using the race change is about the only option.

Or you can waste hours and hours and hours scrounging around for certain items from certain sets to try to make up for the lost stealth. Give up on using whatever set package you had before, you have to sacrifice one of them. Yes, night terror loses a whole set despite being a 3 item bonus, you can only have 1 full and 2 partial sets with it, unless you have monster helms + weapon sets. It could actually work well with 1 full, 1 monster, 3pc Night Terror, and a weapon set build if I'm counting right. But that's a full set of end-game PVE stuff, and I keep hearing endgame PVE'ers don't care about stealth in any case.
And even with that, you're still down a meter from what we had before.

TheTraveler

Yeah one of the Night Silence sets helps too, IIRC.
Thing is, I have a Kahjiit on my other account, who is a NB and using sets, so I'm ok there, but for my EU account, I was using a Bosmer templar, because I simply don't enjoy playing NB.

Oh well, race change, here we come, I guess. It really pisses me off, because I had already changed my Dunmer NB on my other account into a Kahjiit for the stealth, and you really miss the toon you had lost. A Kahjiit seems so... I don't know, characterless to me. It's simply not the same. And it's not just beast-race racism; I actually enjoy playing Argonians more as a more interesting race, but Argonians have been nerfed out of the game so my Argonian is also going for a race change.

Cundu_Ertur

Night Silence (two trait craftable) is like the Shadow Dancer (light farmed) set and the Vampire skill of moving at normal speed in stealth.
Night Mother's Embrace (medium farmed, 5pc) and Night Terror (medium farmed, 3pc) each give a 2m hiding bonus and reduced cost of stealth.

If you go to a site with recommended builds you will never see any of these sets ever listed as a top tier set, though you may see NME as an acceptable starter tier set, maybe.

So, yeah. Them's the choices; scrounge around for garbage tier sets or race change.

The 'why' of it completely escapes me. WHY. If it was stealth gankers in PVP, well they are all Khajiit now; status of that problem is not fixed at all. If it was a misguided belief that Bosmer had never been stealthy in the lore or previous games, we've proven that they have been and are supposed to be stealthy, and proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. If it was to introduce more stealth vs counter-stealth gameplay, why try it on two races IN THE SAME ALLIANCE.

It was a silly, pointless, and hateful change.

Ogou

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night Silence (two trait craftable) is like the Shadow Dancer (light farmed) set and the Vampire skill of moving at normal speed in stealth.
Night Mother's Embrace (medium farmed, 5pc) and Night Terror (medium farmed, 3pc) each give a 2m hiding bonus and reduced cost of stealth.

If you go to a site with recommended builds you will never see any of these sets ever listed as a top tier set, though you may see NME as an acceptable starter tier set, maybe.

So, yeah. Them's the choices; scrounge around for garbage tier sets or race change.

The 'why' of it completely escapes me. WHY. If it was stealth gankers in PVP, well they are all Khajiit now; status of that problem is not fixed at all. If it was a misguided belief that Bosmer had never been stealthy in the lore or previous games, we've proven that they have been and are supposed to be stealthy, and proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. If it was to introduce more stealth vs counter-stealth gameplay, why try it on two races IN THE SAME ALLIANCE.

It was a silly, pointless, and hateful change.

Well those sites would be giving recommended sets for damage (or healing or tanking) not for the express purpose of sneaking and stealing. If you look at a guide for sneaking these sets would probably come up as this is what they are made for.

And ZOS did say that they made the changes to make Khajiit and Bosmer more unique.

I don't like the changes either, and I totally disagree with ZOS that having 2 races with sneaking bonus makes them too similar but you are exaggerating a lot here.

thegreatme

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

The 'why' of it completely escapes me. WHY. If it was stealth gankers in PVP, well they are all Khajiit now; status of that problem is not fixed at all. If it was a misguided belief that Bosmer had never been stealthy in the lore or previous games, we've proven that they have been and are supposed to be stealthy, and proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. If it was to introduce more stealth vs counter-stealth gameplay, why try it on two races IN THE SAME ALLIANCE.

Exactly. A lot of the hardcore PvPers will most likely willingly change their toons races to fit their playstyle and don't really care about race or backstory or looks, they'll go for what's most effective, so if they like to stealth-gank? They'll just all change to khajiit. Or maybe they'll keep Bosmer because now they can find other stealthers in PvP easier, but how often are people stealthed and not just either duking it out or full-tilt running away honestly?

Point being, the change caters all to PvP and not really anything else.
Screws over PvE.
Screws over roleplayers.
Screws over anyone who doesn't want to change their toon into a cat to keep the stats they had all along and are being ripped out from under them.

Honestly I would have been happier if they just increased khajiit stealth range instead of took it away from Bosmer completely.

Wompatom

I've played a Khajit Stamblade forever and used one of the race change tokens to switch to Bosmer because 1. I always tossed up between the two races when I started and 2. The new passives are AMAZING for a stamblade guerilla playstyle.

In full medium armour I've noticed absolutely ZERO difference in how close to can get to mobs without getting detected and yes that's without using cloak.

I understand for RP purposes you're upset but in practice there is no difference unless you're wearing robes or plate in which case you're not RPing properly to begin with if you want to be sneaky.

wedgebert

Wompatom wrote: »

I've played a Khajit Stamblade forever and used one of the race change tokens to switch to Bosmer because 1. I always tossed up between the two races when I started and 2. The new passives are AMAZING for a stamblade guerilla playstyle.

In full medium armour I've noticed absolutely ZERO difference in how close to can get to mobs without getting detected and yes that's without using cloak.

I understand for RP purposes you're upset but in practice there is no difference unless you're wearing robes or plate in which case you're not RPing properly to begin with if you want to be sneaky.

Then you're doing something weird. Ever since the nerf, I've been detected much easier than before.

Cundu_Ertur

wedgebert wrote: »

Wompatom wrote: »

I've played a Khajit Stamblade forever and used one of the race change tokens to switch to Bosmer because 1. I always tossed up between the two races when I started and 2. The new passives are AMAZING for a stamblade guerilla playstyle.

In full medium armour I've noticed absolutely ZERO difference in how close to can get to mobs without getting detected and yes that's without using cloak.

I understand for RP purposes you're upset but in practice there is no difference unless you're wearing robes or plate in which case you're not RPing properly to begin with if you want to be sneaky.

Then you're doing something weird. Ever since the nerf, I've been detected much easier than before.

Same. Detected much more easily now.

Jaraal

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

It was a silly, pointless, and hateful change.

I believe the point of the gutting of Bosmer core values is to force players who prefer the stealth playstyle to convert to Khajiit, so that the people less inclined to play cats will be more invested in purchasing the upcoming Khajiit chapter when it drops.

Silly, yes. Hateful, possibly. I think indifference (to long established TES wood elf tradition) is a more fitting word. They will sell out an entire race in order to sell more product. So pointless? No. The point is to make money at the expense of customers who have invested years into a certain playstyle. Lore is just words on paper to them. It's numbers on paper that they pay closest attention to.

AngelFires333

I'd rather play as a mudcrab than a khajiit.
They're ridiculous creatures.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8i5NLyXZdc

anadandy

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

wedgebert wrote: »

Wompatom wrote: »

I've played a Khajit Stamblade forever and used one of the race change tokens to switch to Bosmer because 1. I always tossed up between the two races when I started and 2. The new passives are AMAZING for a stamblade guerilla playstyle.

In full medium armour I've noticed absolutely ZERO difference in how close to can get to mobs without getting detected and yes that's without using cloak.

I understand for RP purposes you're upset but in practice there is no difference unless you're wearing robes or plate in which case you're not RPing properly to begin with if you want to be sneaky.

Then you're doing something weird. Ever since the nerf, I've been detected much easier than before.

Same. Detected much more easily now.

Same. My Bosmer has always been 100% medium with every single stealth/sneak related passive etc. I run the exact same routes I always have and I get detected much more often. Particularly when node farming, used to be able to grab stuff right under a trash creatures nose - they may have detected me for a nano second but all I had to do was back away an inch and they lost me. Not anymore.

max_only

Elijah_Crow wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

If anyone knows any gaming journalists, maybe bringing outside attention will sway them.

Ask the streamers and the podcasters.

Shimmer did a youtube discussion about the changes and the bosmer loss of stealth got some airtime. (Keep in mind this was back in January and nothing changed from it.)

https://youtu.be/CQ3SZ08WoTI?t=1767

Go to about 29:30 into the video, (the real stealth discussion starts about 31:00). One person STRONGLY thought the loss of stealth was a big deal.

Other then that no one seems to care, it's all about dps meters.

I can’t tell who is who in that video except for Shimmer

The guy who explains the problem the way we have been talking about it, who was that? Jason they said?

Ok It appears the person who ws "Who uses stealth in Pve?" was Jason.

The other one who gives a long speech about keeping stealth I think is named Steve.

EDIT: I should also note that he appears to identify himself as a "Streamer's husband", maybe Shimmers husband?

....and that would be me. Steve / @MMOCrow on twitter / @Elijah_Crow / Shimmer's husband..lol

I've participated in the feedback and have done my best to call attention to it. I still disagree with the change and among other threads, posted my thoughts here as well.

My hope at this point is that the stealth detection range reduction is added to the Legerdemain skill line since they seem determined not to reverse this direction. I understand what they are trying to do, but I think the change falls extremely short of the goals. I still support the game and understand that sometimes the implementation leaves something lacking even though at first glance it might look good on paper.

You can read my thoughts on it here.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5782647#Comment_5782647

Elijah_Crow wrote: »

Oh, and the others on the stream were @sylviermoone (GM of Angry Unicorn Traders), @Philgo68 (Creator of Master Merchant) , Zason, @Shimmer , and me. And of course everyone participating in the stream chat.

Thanks for the clarification, keep up the good fight

TheTraveler wrote: »

So is it for definite official now? I was holding back on a race change hoping that ZOS would relent and give the Bosmer their stealth back. But now that the Thieve's and assasin's event is on, I need to change to a cat quickly so as not to miss out on tickets, and let my dear little carefully crafted Bosmer girl go, if they're still ridiculously insisting on removing her stealth.

I keep hearing stores like this and it’s sad. Not because I’m of being a Bosmer fan, but of how disposable we are meant to treat our characters and our decisions.

Jaraal

Elijah_Crow wrote: »

My hope at this point is that the stealth detection range reduction is added to the Legerdemain skill line since they seem determined not to reverse this direction.

That still makes Bosmer just as stealthy as 7 other races, and less stealthy than 2 races. But Elder Scrolls lore has for decades highlighted wood elves as being masters of stealth. And there are several quests in the game that mention and/or feature Bosmer stealth in the dialogue. Are they really going to reword those quests, and bring the voice actors back in for editing sessions?

wedgebert

Jaraal wrote: »

That still makes Bosmer just as stealthy as 7 other races, and less stealthy than 2 races. But Elder Scrolls lore has for decades highlighted wood elves as being masters of stealth. And there are several quests in the game that mention and/or feature Bosmer stealth in the dialogue. Are they really going to reword those quests, and bring the voice actors back in for editing sessions?

No, that costs money. They'll likely just leave them wrong, just like the ones about Agronian poison resistance.

Cundu_Ertur

Don't forget our status as archers. Supposed to be the finest archers, with no equal. Instead, Orcs and Dunmeri have better damage, Reguards and Imperials lower cost for Bow abilities.

Seriously, Bosmeri no longer exist as a playable race.

Koronach

wedgebert wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

That still makes Bosmer just as stealthy as 7 other races, and less stealthy than 2 races. But Elder Scrolls lore has for decades highlighted wood elves as being masters of stealth. And there are several quests in the game that mention and/or feature Bosmer stealth in the dialogue. Are they really going to reword those quests, and bring the voice actors back in for editing sessions?

No, that costs money. They'll likely just leave them wrong, just like the ones about Agronian poison resistance.

I don't understand how they can be ok with such an epic lore fail. Lore books and quest dialogue say your race has or is resistant to something, but you aren't.

Gwaurin

max_only wrote: »

TLDR
Altmer have always been better with arcane skills. These are just facts of this universe.

Finally, stealth detection is useless in pve all the time. Full stop. If they gave Orcs a passive to hug other players instead of a useful lore friendly passive I would be here about that too.

So orcs aren't allowed to give hugs? Oh, REEEEAAALLLLY? HmmmMMMM? I'll have you know I hug my AXE all the time. I even sleep with it on my carved stone bunk wrapped in hides. And I let my axe hug other players too. That's what the hugs on the axe are for. SHARING. After all, sharing is caring.

Sorry bout your sneaky nerf, Bosmer were always the best scouts and snipers but ... "if I find your hand in my pocket, I'll going to cut it off."

rossk25

Omg I just got back into eso after a year of not playing. And I return to my bosmer not having a stealth radius but instead a detection radius?

Seriously? Why is this even a thing that needed to be done? When will detecting stealth ever be useful in PvE? The most ridiculous change ever.

MartiniDaniels

@rossk25
You may leave feedback in this thread if you want, there are consolidated community concerns on bosmer losing stealth, so every message from new player counts:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459007/wood-elf-bosmer-losing-stealth-passive-an-open-letter/p1

max_only

Welcome back to eso. On the plus side, you can sort of text search in the guild store interface so if you can’t steal it anymore, you can buy it jk

Ertosi

This change to Bosmer still makes me sad. It was such a nonsensical change. I've had my Bosmer since One Tamriel and loved his old sneaky playstyle.

Since the recent racial changes, it's become much harder for him to sneak up on dates victims in Cyrodiil. The new racial passive of better detection is so utterly useless, he's been forced to seek other means of earning his keep.

ProbablePaul

Uryel wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

They are actually keeping a part of the game mechanic; a game mechanic is more general than a passive alone, meaning that anything pertaining to stealth would fall under that umbrella, whether that be decreased or increased detection radius. There are no errors in logic here, just your interpretation of it.

Err... Explain again how removing something entirely and replacing it by something else entirely is "keeping" it ?

You're going to a restaurant and order a meal. The waiter brings you an entirely different meal. You complain. The waiter says "Ah, come on, you're getting a meal anyway, and this one is actually even tastier than what you ordered". According to your own logic, you have no reason to complain, it is a meal, after all.

Your analogy doesn't work because the roles and circumstance doesn't translate well, but also because it concerns subjective feelings towards the meal, i.e. it's tastiness(?), ideas like that can't be proved right or wrong with logic. But, because of that, I like it as your example illustrates exactly what's wrong with max_only's argument.

Although, because I don't think you're being sarcastic I'll try to respond using your analogy, let 'getting a meal', be stealth game mechanics and let 'a meal with chicken' be the old passive and 'a meal with pork' be the new mechanic: max_only is claiming that the dev's have contradicted themselves, not because they've taken the meal with chicken and replaced it with pork, but because the recent changes took away the meal entirely. The same is being said when people cite the lore, in that bosmers are always given a meal, but the recent change has taken their meal away, entirely. Which is not true, but representing it that way bears more weight (to those that agree with that, mind you) and ultimately has a greater impact. The truth is that the devs have provided bosmers with a meal, just not one as desirable as some would like. The point being that the devs are not being 'illogical.'

However, max_only is very keen to point out in his post following yours that I'm being really obnoxious with all of this.. and I would agree with that if I were doing this for the sake of being correct. But I'm not, I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the devs know how to better communicate these ideas than we do; most developers are required to take math courses that teach proofs, if they majored in computer science(most, if not all, do). Now truth be told, computer science doesn't create the best logicians, but insulting the dev's logic when nothing is wrong with it, is not likely to get something from them, especially when max_only misses the mark in his own reasoning.

max_only wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

max_only 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.

A quick note on why we changed the Stealthy passive: Previously this passive was shared between Khajiit and Wood Elf, and didn’t help them feel distinct enough from each other. Additionally, since Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!), we wanted to take away some of the focus from the passive and build that into their other passives instead. We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives.

Developer Comment:
The thick forests of Valenwood have imprinted the importance of the ability to hunt in the Wood Elf race, and as such they have a natural adeptness for detecting potential threats. Quick to react and well versed in the poisons of nature, they can outlast and outwit their opponents. These traits are demonstrated with their natural speed boost when tactfully engaging combat, and their unparalleled Stamina Recovery.

Look at your logic that I bolded. Enemies can’t be bothered to sneak about.
Then look at the change you made. Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m

So enemies can’t be bothered to sneak yet Bosmer can detect sneaking better. Your own explanation invalidates your own logic.

...
Also, they're reasoning seems pretty spot on, as both races have their own distinct version of a stealth detection passive.

No, they do not. The Khajiit increase their ability to go into and remain in stealth. The Bosmer completely lose any and all bonus to this. Instead, the Bosmer get an improvement to their ability to see through stealth, which is completely different and not stealth at all by any definition, and which did not belong in any way to the previous iteration of the passive which was shared by the two races. Let's review the old passive: Bosmer and Khajiit both had a 3m reduction to the distance at which they would be detected in hiding, and both had a 10% bonus to damage done from stealth. The Khajiit keep part of that previous passive (and even improve with regard to that part) in that their new reduction is 5m instead of 3m but they lose the additional damage; the Bosmer keep exactly NONE of it, losing both the bonus to damage and in being able to hide. Note: detecting hidden things was not any part of the previous, shared passive.

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Your comment about enemies sneaking about is missing the point, as they were elaborating on the sneaking mechanic being a non-universal one.

You're missing the point. The devs explicitly acknowledge that being able to see hidden things is completely unimportant in PVE, and then go right on ahead and give Bosmer this useless ability.

If you're going to make an argument against what someone said, you shouldn't remove the parts of their argument, especially if the parts you're removing agree with the points you're making.

Also, they're reasoning seems pretty spot on, as both races have their own distinct version of a stealth detection passive. Your comment about enemies sneaking about is missing the point, as they were elaborating on the sneaking mechanic being a non-universal one. Maybe you mean for them to clarify what they meant by, "We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives."? Because the current, truest version of the wood elf passive is reduced detection, not increased detection. Although, their proposed passive is still a version of the passive, none-the-less; they never said they'd be identical.

Aaaaand, no, you're missing the point of my entire post, and the same point OP missed as well - what you interpret and what was said are two different things.

Regarding what the devs said, "We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives." They are actually keeping a part of the game mechanic; a game mechanic is more general than a passive alone, meaning that anything pertaining to stealth would fall under that umbrella, whether that be decreased or increased detection radius. There are no errors in logic here, just your interpretation of it.

Though, (and again) I did admit that the dev's confusingly said they would be 'keeping parts of each racial passive' implying that those parts that would be kept would be the ones we've seen before. But once they mentioned 'supporting that game mechanic' they could potentially do anything with stealth, and still technically be correct by calling it a version. Where in this case, instead of keeping the passives as we knew them, for bosmer they kept the three meter radius, except gave them increased instead of decreased radius; for khajiit, the khajiit kept the decreased radius, but they changed the size of the radius.

As for my post, the point was to encourage the OP to, rather than call the devs out on their logic, simply ask for the passive to return to the bosmer, instead. Why? OP didn't know what he was talking about, and I was trying to substantiate that.

You are the one missing the error. The part I’m discussing is not:

“We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives”

I’m discussing this quote:

“(many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!)”

Which concludes with them coming up with

“Increases your Stealth detection”.

You are the one interpreting what they said. They made a hypothesis, and a claim, and then came up with the wrong conclusion. Enemies don’t stealth -> now you can detect stealth enemies. Illogical.

“But once they mentioned 'supporting that game mechanic' they could potentially do anything with stealth, and still technically be correct by calling it a version.“



What is this clown court? Is this Bird Law? You are making it too complex for a very simple formula. You are technically correct. They kept the word “stealth”. They could have changed the stealth color and you’d be technically correct. I guess.

Enemies do not stealth, their words, not mine. Therefore you can detect stealthed enemies. ???
Enemies do not eat, therefore you can starve out enemies.
Enemies do not laugh therefore you can make them laugh to death.

Focusing on what's in the parentheses for the gist of a statement is likely to lead you down the wrong path, considering what parentheses are used for.

But also, don't get me wrong, after I saw the addition of extra penetration after dodge rolling, I wanted the passive reversed, but then again, I don't mind waiting to see what the devs do with the game, I like where they're taking it, but I digress. Anyways, my goal is not for the sake of being correct, my goal is not to discourage you or others from asking for what they want, nor am I trying to tell you what you're doing is wrong. But, I just don't think this approach is going to get you anywhere; it might even cause more harm than good for what you're trying to achieve. I thought I was helping, but maybe not.

On another note, I was thinking about these passives the other night, and while comparing Bosmer to Khajiit I thought their passives should be switched because cats are biologically better at seeing things in the dark, or in the shadows. Also, Bosmer's are known to be archers, hunters using long ranged weapons, requiring an undisturbed steady aim. Being able to detect enemies within 3m might help to see encroaching enemies sooner, but it doesn't provide more time to steady a shot like being well hidden does. Although, they are hitting some things on the head; consider the etymology of the word 'hunting' which mostly means "to search for diligently" or "to chase", which fits the devs decision.

Either way, good luck.

wedgebert

ProbablePaul wrote: »

However, max_only is very keen to point out in his post following yours that I'm being really obnoxious with all of this.. and I would agree with that if I were doing this for the sake of being correct. But I'm not, I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the devs know how to better communicate these ideas than we do; most developers are required to take math courses that teach proofs, if they majored in computer science(most, if not all, do). Now truth be told, computer science doesn't create the best logicians, but insulting the dev's logic when nothing is wrong with it, is not likely to get something from them, especially when max_only misses the mark in his own reasoning.

I'm a software developer who majored in computer science, and there wasn't much in the way of math that taught proofs. I was required to take a bunch of calculus classes and I don't remember a single proof being required. The last time I remember having to actually do a mathematical proof was high school geometry.

I think you overestimate what it means to be a developer. Just because they did these racial changes, it does't mean they have some long term goal in mind with them in terms of gameplay. What I took away from their posts was more along the lines of "racial passives are all over the place and we'd like to assign them a more consistent point value to make balancing easier".

So they sat down and mess around until they had something that was good enough. Then they saw Bosmer and Khajiit sharing a passive and thought that, despite the complete lack of complaints, that they better do something about that.

I like to imagine the conversation went something like this

• Dev 1: Who gets to keep stealth?
• Dev 2: Well, Elswyr is coming up soon and none of us play Bosmer, so let's let Khajiit keep it
• Dev 1: What do we give Bosmer in return?
• Dev 3: Uh, well, I think they're hunters so better vision so they can see the Khajiit better?
• Dev 4: By our math, that's only worth 1 set piece, so we need more to balance it
• Dev 2: What if they could roll and do more damage?
• Dev 1: That sounds cool, maybe they could run faster too.
• Dev 5 (only one who read the lore): But guys, they're supposed to be stealth archers who live on the tops of trees, none of that makes a lick of sense. You don't roll on tree branches or be a good hunter by squinting.
• Dev 3: Who cares, we don't have a loremaster right now and it's almost lunch time.

Koronach

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

They are actually keeping a part of the game mechanic; a game mechanic is more general than a passive alone, meaning that anything pertaining to stealth would fall under that umbrella, whether that be decreased or increased detection radius. There are no errors in logic here, just your interpretation of it.

Err... Explain again how removing something entirely and replacing it by something else entirely is "keeping" it ?

You're going to a restaurant and order a meal. The waiter brings you an entirely different meal. You complain. The waiter says "Ah, come on, you're getting a meal anyway, and this one is actually even tastier than what you ordered". According to your own logic, you have no reason to complain, it is a meal, after all.

Your analogy doesn't work because the roles and circumstance doesn't translate well, but also because it concerns subjective feelings towards the meal, i.e. it's tastiness(?), ideas like that can't be proved right or wrong with logic. But, because of that, I like it as your example illustrates exactly what's wrong with max_only's argument.

Although, because I don't think you're being sarcastic I'll try to respond using your analogy, let 'getting a meal', be stealth game mechanics and let 'a meal with chicken' be the old passive and 'a meal with pork' be the new mechanic: max_only is claiming that the dev's have contradicted themselves, not because they've taken the meal with chicken and replaced it with pork, but because the recent changes took away the meal entirely. The same is being said when people cite the lore, in that bosmers are always given a meal, but the recent change has taken their meal away, entirely. Which is not true, but representing it that way bears more weight (to those that agree with that, mind you) and ultimately has a greater impact. The truth is that the devs have provided bosmers with a meal, just not one as desirable as some would like. The point being that the devs are not being 'illogical.'

However, max_only is very keen to point out in his post following yours that I'm being really obnoxious with all of this.. and I would agree with that if I were doing this for the sake of being correct. But I'm not, I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the devs know how to better communicate these ideas than we do; most developers are required to take math courses that teach proofs, if they majored in computer science(most, if not all, do). Now truth be told, computer science doesn't create the best logicians, but insulting the dev's logic when nothing is wrong with it, is not likely to get something from them, especially when max_only misses the mark in his own reasoning.

max_only wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

max_only 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.

A quick note on why we changed the Stealthy passive: Previously this passive was shared between Khajiit and Wood Elf, and didn’t help them feel distinct enough from each other. Additionally, since Sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!), we wanted to take away some of the focus from the passive and build that into their other passives instead. We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives.

Developer Comment:
The thick forests of Valenwood have imprinted the importance of the ability to hunt in the Wood Elf race, and as such they have a natural adeptness for detecting potential threats. Quick to react and well versed in the poisons of nature, they can outlast and outwit their opponents. These traits are demonstrated with their natural speed boost when tactfully engaging combat, and their unparalleled Stamina Recovery.

Look at your logic that I bolded. Enemies can’t be bothered to sneak about.
Then look at the change you made. Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m

So enemies can’t be bothered to sneak yet Bosmer can detect sneaking better. Your own explanation invalidates your own logic.

...
Also, they're reasoning seems pretty spot on, as both races have their own distinct version of a stealth detection passive.

No, they do not. The Khajiit increase their ability to go into and remain in stealth. The Bosmer completely lose any and all bonus to this. Instead, the Bosmer get an improvement to their ability to see through stealth, which is completely different and not stealth at all by any definition, and which did not belong in any way to the previous iteration of the passive which was shared by the two races. Let's review the old passive: Bosmer and Khajiit both had a 3m reduction to the distance at which they would be detected in hiding, and both had a 10% bonus to damage done from stealth. The Khajiit keep part of that previous passive (and even improve with regard to that part) in that their new reduction is 5m instead of 3m but they lose the additional damage; the Bosmer keep exactly NONE of it, losing both the bonus to damage and in being able to hide. Note: detecting hidden things was not any part of the previous, shared passive.

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Your comment about enemies sneaking about is missing the point, as they were elaborating on the sneaking mechanic being a non-universal one.

You're missing the point. The devs explicitly acknowledge that being able to see hidden things is completely unimportant in PVE, and then go right on ahead and give Bosmer this useless ability.

If you're going to make an argument against what someone said, you shouldn't remove the parts of their argument, especially if the parts you're removing agree with the points you're making.

Also, they're reasoning seems pretty spot on, as both races have their own distinct version of a stealth detection passive. Your comment about enemies sneaking about is missing the point, as they were elaborating on the sneaking mechanic being a non-universal one. Maybe you mean for them to clarify what they meant by, "We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives."? Because the current, truest version of the wood elf passive is reduced detection, not increased detection. Although, their proposed passive is still a version of the passive, none-the-less; they never said they'd be identical.

Aaaaand, no, you're missing the point of my entire post, and the same point OP missed as well - what you interpret and what was said are two different things.

Regarding what the devs said, "We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives." They are actually keeping a part of the game mechanic; a game mechanic is more general than a passive alone, meaning that anything pertaining to stealth would fall under that umbrella, whether that be decreased or increased detection radius. There are no errors in logic here, just your interpretation of it.

Though, (and again) I did admit that the dev's confusingly said they would be 'keeping parts of each racial passive' implying that those parts that would be kept would be the ones we've seen before. But once they mentioned 'supporting that game mechanic' they could potentially do anything with stealth, and still technically be correct by calling it a version. Where in this case, instead of keeping the passives as we knew them, for bosmer they kept the three meter radius, except gave them increased instead of decreased radius; for khajiit, the khajiit kept the decreased radius, but they changed the size of the radius.

As for my post, the point was to encourage the OP to, rather than call the devs out on their logic, simply ask for the passive to return to the bosmer, instead. Why? OP didn't know what he was talking about, and I was trying to substantiate that.

You are the one missing the error. The part I’m discussing is not:

“We still want to support that game mechanic however, so we kept parts of each the Wood Elf’s and the Khajiit’s version of these passives”

I’m discussing this quote:

“(many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!)”

Which concludes with them coming up with

“Increases your Stealth detection”.

You are the one interpreting what they said. They made a hypothesis, and a claim, and then came up with the wrong conclusion. Enemies don’t stealth -> now you can detect stealth enemies. Illogical.

“But once they mentioned 'supporting that game mechanic' they could potentially do anything with stealth, and still technically be correct by calling it a version.“



What is this clown court? Is this Bird Law? You are making it too complex for a very simple formula. You are technically correct. They kept the word “stealth”. They could have changed the stealth color and you’d be technically correct. I guess.

Enemies do not stealth, their words, not mine. Therefore you can detect stealthed enemies. ???
Enemies do not eat, therefore you can starve out enemies.
Enemies do not laugh therefore you can make them laugh to death.

Focusing on what's in the parentheses for the gist of a statement is likely to lead you down the wrong path, considering what parentheses are used for.

But also, don't get me wrong, after I saw the addition of extra penetration after dodge rolling, I wanted the passive reversed, but then again, I don't mind waiting to see what the devs do with the game, I like where they're taking it, but I digress. Anyways, my goal is not for the sake of being correct, my goal is not to discourage you or others from asking for what they want, nor am I trying to tell you what you're doing is wrong. But, I just don't think this approach is going to get you anywhere; it might even cause more harm than good for what you're trying to achieve. I thought I was helping, but maybe not.

On another note, I was thinking about these passives the other night, and while comparing Bosmer to Khajiit I thought their passives should be switched because cats are biologically better at seeing things in the dark, or in the shadows. Also, Bosmer's are known to be archers, hunters using long ranged weapons, requiring an undisturbed steady aim. Being able to detect enemies within 3m might help to see encroaching enemies sooner, but it doesn't provide more time to steady a shot like being well hidden does. Although, they are hitting some things on the head; consider the etymology of the word 'hunting' which mostly means "to search for diligently" or "to chase", which fits the devs decision.

Either way, good luck.

If you're going to try and defend the devs then look at this thread and try to defend this lore breaking nonsense. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/462221/argonians-losing-their-resistance-to-poison-an-open-letter/p1
It's not about Bosmer but lore breaking nonetheless.

Jaraal

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Although, because I don't think you're being sarcastic I'll try to respond using your analogy, let 'getting a meal', be stealth game mechanics and let 'a meal with chicken' be the old passive and 'a meal with pork' be the new mechanic: max_only is claiming that the dev's have contradicted themselves, not because they've taken the meal with chicken and replaced it with pork, but because the recent changes took away the meal entirely. The same is being said when people cite the lore, in that bosmers are always given a meal, but the recent change has taken their meal away, entirely. Which is not true, but representing it that way bears more weight (to those that agree with that, mind you) and ultimately has a greater impact. The truth is that the devs have provided bosmers with a meal, just not one as desirable as some would like. The point being that the devs are not being 'illogical.'

But the devs have told players that don't PvP: "Here's your meal with pork instead of chicken, except if you want to eat it you have to go into the bathroom and stuff it into your nose one piece at a time until you are full."

max_only

ProbablePaul wrote: »

However, max_only is very keen to point out in his post following yours that I'm being really obnoxious with all of this.. and I would agree with that if I were doing this for the sake of being correct. But I'm not, I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the devs know how to better communicate these ideas than we do; most developers are required to take math courses that teach proofs, if they majored in computer science(most, if not all, do). Now truth be told, computer science doesn't create the best logicians, but insulting the dev's logic when nothing is wrong with it, is not likely to get something from them, especially when max_only misses the mark in his own reasoning.

Emphasis mine.

I never called you obnoxious. If you’re feeling obnoxious that’s on you.

Challenging someone’s logic isn’t an insult. Coming to an Incorrect conclusion on one (ultimately small) topic doesn’t insult an entire person. If being corrected makes you feel insulted, that’s on you.

I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the devs know how to better communicate these ideas than we do

They aren’t gods, they’re humans. They are capable of making mistakes and I don’t know of many who would say they are better communicators than anyone else. In fact, lack of communication is a constant sore spot for forum residents.

You want me to change my wording to suit you. Sure, I admit I could have been more precise in my choice of language. I’m not changing it now. At this point the only thing that will be accomplished is a pedantic circle jerk.

Edit. You don’t have to major in computer science to be a game dev. You are maybe thinking of engine coders? Game engines are written by one company (unreal) and licensed as a tool kit to another (zenimax). It’s why you can download the unreal engine suite from steam and make your own game right now. Customizing the suite/tool kit (the complex math you are thinking of) is something Unreal does, then they hand the bucket of custom tools to a dev like Zos. It’s almost a WYSIWYG set up. This is why we can’t have things like underwater exploration. When they ordered their bucket of legos from Unreal, they didn’t ask for the underwater option.

BXR_Lonestar

Honestly, I think the Bosmer race changes would be okay if they would remove the requirement to roll dodge in order to get the extra armor penetration. I do like that they get extra speed when they roll dodge, but to tie the increased armor penetration to a roll dodge really hurts the utility of that racial bonus.

I do agree that wood elves should also maintain their sneakiness and that stealth detection is only mildly useful in one area of the game (PVP), but honestly, sneaking isn't as big of a factor in this game as it is in the single player games, where you could bypass entire conflicts by just sneaking. I'm not sure that 2m decrease in people's ability to detect them is make/break for most builds.

I'm not a huge wood-elf player, but I would like to see them decouple the increased armor pen from the need to roll dodge so that it was active all the time - maybe even increase it from 1480 to a flat 2k armor pen. That alone would give more build flexibility in terms of what armor you could wear. Maybe even remove stealth detection and replace it with increased damage while using bows. Doing this would make the race very attractive for those who want to be stamina/range focused characters.