Bosmer Racial change that is illogical and unnecessary

BlueRaven

Agreed.

It’s not like bosmers caught ZOS’s short straw when it comes to possible sets. Bosmers caught ZOS’s “we don’t really care” straw.

wedgebert

BlueRaven wrote: »

Agreed.

It’s not like bosmers caught ZOS’s short straw when it comes to possible sets. Bosmers caught ZOS’s “we don’t really care” straw.

I always thought it was the "We completely forgot Bosmer were still in the game" straw.

BXR_Lonestar

I just didn't like the racial changes to Bosmer in general. I do like that they still have superior sustain, which is why I haven't used any of my race change tokens on him. But the character was built purposely so I could play through the AD storyline and I don't intend to ever use him in PVP. So the ability to stealth detect is entirely useless.

I also think the extra armor penetration on roll dodge is completely stupid. I do like the bonus speed on roll dodge and I think it fits the Bosmer decently well. However, I think the extra armor penetration should just be active all the time. Its such a niche racial ability that you can't really plan to build around it. And it is not like Zos is not unwilling to give other races racial passives that give them a DPS advantage (Orc, Dunmer, Altmer, Nord). Adding 100% uptime on the additional armor penetration would be a net increase in DPS through increasing an alternate - yet vital - stat. It also allows for better build diversity.

Finally, if they wanted to increase the amount of armor penetration that the Bosmer racial provides to 3,000, I'd be more than willing to trade off the extra armor penetration and 100% uptime for that extra armor penetration in exchange for the lousy stealth detection passive. In the alternative, I might suggest that rather than getting increased stealth detection, the Bosmer passive grant increased range while using a bow (Up to an extra 5 meters). This would play into the idea that the Bosmer are superior bowman - a theme that seems to run through the storylines in ESO.

MartiniDaniels

How it should be:
- redguards should be best in pure melee builds like DW/2H, and rise those to competitive level
- orcs better in mixed builds DW/bow
- bosmers best at bow/bow
- khajiits best at crit builds

How it is now - orc, orc, orc, orc.

"We are happy with balance like it is now" (c) ZOS

thegreatme

BlueRaven wrote: »

It’s not like bosmers caught ZOS’s short straw when it comes to possible sets. Bosmers caught ZOS’s “we don’t really care” straw.

Mhm. That increasingly seems to be the case, if recent events are anything to go by.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

How it should be:
- redguards should be best in pure melee builds like DW/2H, and rise those to competitive level
- orcs better in mixed builds DW/bow
- bosmers best at bow/bow
- khajiits best at crit builds

How it is now - orc, orc, orc, orc.

"We are happy with balance like it is now" (c) ZOS

Bows honestly feel underpowered and every test I've done between bows and melee, bows do a lot less damage than melee fighting. Both in PvE, and PvP. Heck, for PvP I've just been told to nix using bows entirely because of counters for it. Apparently being a Bosmer even before racial changes didn't make a difference with that, despite that allegedly they are supposed to be the superior archer class.

anadandy

Just saw this E3 article: https://wccftech.com/elder-scrolls-online-e3-2019-interview-focusing-on-performance-improvements-team-is-aware-crossplay-is-what-players-want/

This was Rich's response to whether animation cancelling is here to stay. Emphasis mine.

Okay. Is animation canceling going to stay in the game for the foreseeable future?

Yep, it’s part of the game at this point, because we’re, you know, five years old now. Taking that away and removing that is going to alienate a lot of our player base because they’ve learned this system and kind of how it works.

But apparently alienating Bosmer players by removing the stealth they had for 5 years (plus 20 years of elder scrolls lore) is A-OK. This is the second such answer from the Devs. The other was at Bethesda game days when asked if they would add justice consequences to things like WW and Vampire. No, they said, because that would be a major change in player's gameplay after 5 years - "we could do that yesterday but not today."

I'm sick of their inconsistent BS and rather than addressing it they just close down any discussion once they get tired of ignoring it.

Koronach

anadandy wrote: »

Just saw this E3 article: https://wccftech.com/elder-scrolls-online-e3-2019-interview-focusing-on-performance-improvements-team-is-aware-crossplay-is-what-players-want/

This was Rich's response to whether animation cancelling is here to stay. Emphasis mine.

Okay. Is animation canceling going to stay in the game for the foreseeable future?

Yep, it’s part of the game at this point, because we’re, you know, five years old now. Taking that away and removing that is going to alienate a lot of our player base because they’ve learned this system and kind of how it works.

But apparently alienating Bosmer players by removing the stealth they had for 5 years (plus 20 years of elder scrolls lore) is A-OK. This is the second such answer from the Devs. The other was at Bethesda game days when asked if they would add justice consequences to things like WW and Vampire. No, they said, because that would be a major change in player's gameplay after 5 years - "we could do that yesterday but not today."

I'm sick of their inconsistent BS and rather than addressing it they just close down any discussion once they get tired of ignoring it.

I agree with you and as long as they keep ignoring legit issues, I will ignore renewing ESO+ and buying new content.

wedgebert

Koronach wrote: »

I agree with you and as long as they keep ignoring legit issues, I will ignore renewing ESO+ and buying new content.

After the locking of the Bosmer Open Letter for being "unconstructive", I believe I will be joining you on this.

Since it's unconstructive to have a civil discussion, presumably because the devs don't read the forums or don't care, the last bit of desire in me to play since the Wrathstone update has vanished.

thegreatme

anadandy wrote: »

But apparently alienating Bosmer players by removing the stealth they had for 5 years (plus 20 years of elder scrolls lore) is A-OK. This is the second such answer from the Devs. The other was at Bethesda game days when asked if they would add justice consequences to things like WW and Vampire. No, they said, because that would be a major change in player's gameplay after 5 years - "we could do that yesterday but not today."

Which is funny because as I recall in Skyrim, turning into a werewolf or even looking too vampirish around anyone else in towns and cities was an automatic criminal action. Stage 4 vampires were automatically attacked, as were transformed werewolves.

Alienating players only matters when they say it does I guess, and when they decide it doesn't matter you just get a silenced thread. Disappointing.

Jaraal

wedgebert wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Agreed.

It’s not like bosmers caught ZOS’s short straw when it comes to possible sets. Bosmers caught ZOS’s “we don’t really care” straw.

I always thought it was the "We completely forgot Bosmer were still in the game" straw.

It would be interesting to see statistics on the percentage of people who play Bosmer both before the racial passive upheaval, and after. Anecdotally, I find that I encounter far less Bosmer characters in game than I did before the change.

BlueRaven

I would be curious too.

However, I know of at least 2 people across my guilds who ONLY make Bosmer's. Any class, any role, the race is bosmer.

I think there will always be a subset of people who play/have bosmers no matter how bad their stats are. I have two (A nb and a warden) and I refuse to race change them. Although I also refuse to put points into Hunters eye.

Jaraal

BlueRaven wrote: »

I would be curious too.

However, I know of at least 2 people across my guilds who ONLY make Bosmer's. Any class, any role, the race is bosmer.

I think there will always be a subset of people who play/have bosmers no matter how badly their stats are. I have two (A nb and a warden) and I refuse to race change them. Although I also refuse to put points into Hunters eye.

I ended up turning my once sneaky Bosmer into a tank. I like my Khajiits, but I don't like having to choose one race if I want to be an effective thief or stealthy player.

Cundu_Ertur

BlueRaven wrote: »

I would be curious too.

However, I know of at least 2 people across my guilds who ONLY make Bosmer's. Any class, any role, the race is bosmer.

I think there will always be a subset of people who play/have bosmers no matter how bad their stats are. I have two (A nb and a warden) and I refuse to race change them. Although I also refuse to put points into Hunters eye.

Before the change I had 3: 1 nightblade, 2 wardens (one stam, one magicka with a little bit of stam). After the change I added a Necromancer for a total of 4. I still have all of the race tokens just sitting in the character logon screen. I also have one of each other race except for Redguard and Orc.

edit to add much later:
And, yeah, out of 4 level 50+ Bosmer I have exactly 0 ranks in Hunter's Puddle 'o Puke Eye.

thegreatme

Seems like after a year of this and no retraction or fix in sight for bosmer, any "Stealth" mechanic they were going to make more open and universal to all races isn't anything like a proper thief-stealth line but vampirism overhauls.

So yay if you want to be a vampire bosmer and suck it up (no pun intended) if you don't want to be a bloodsucker I guess?

Even then it hardly seems like any form of fix for the racial passives problem that Bosmer have fallen under since they were changed.

max_only

It’s like I said

I have a Bosmer stam Sorc in pvp and this passive either doesn’t work or is a detriment. I was running a scroll and ran right over stealthed players, I did not have a 3 meter warning ahead of time. I ran over a khajiit and an elf like that.

Another time I was in stealth and walking and I was discovered by another stealthed character at the same time. I might have discovered them half a second earlier but it brought me out of stealth thereby ruining any strategic “advantage”.

I wish I recorded my play sessions just for this kind of thing.

Jaraal

max_only wrote: »

It’s like I said

I have a Bosmer stam Sorc in pvp and this passive either doesn’t work or is a detriment. I was running a scroll and ran right over stealthed players, I did not have a 3 meter warning ahead of time. I ran over a khajiit and an elf like that.

Another time I was in stealth and walking and I was discovered by another stealthed character at the same time. I might have discovered them half a second earlier but it brought me out of stealth thereby ruining any strategic “advantage”.

I wish I recorded my play sessions just for this kind of thing.

Similar to my experiences in Cyrodiil.

I was crouched in the bottom of a delve waiting for the boss to spawn during an event, apparently by myself, for a good five minutes with my "eye" closed. When the boss finally spawned, an enemy player who had been crouched right next to me the entire time started lighting up the boss.

And this was with three points into Hunter's Eye.

It is most definitely not a benefit in any way, shape, or form. I don't know how they thought that part of the passive was going to work, but it's obviously not working as intended.

BlueRaven

Just as a matter of principle I have not put points into that passive on either of my two remaining bosmers.

MindOfTheSwarm

max_only wrote: »

TLDR
In short, thank you for your hard work on these updates, just one problem: stealth detection is does not provide any benefit to PVE gameplay and very limited benefit in pvp. Please change that one part back to stealth radius reduction because it is useful in both pvp and pve as you have pointed out in your own notes.


Wood Elf

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

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 what 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.


Rethink this please.

Edit: here is how bad this change is as tested on the PTS
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/455172/a-visual-of-khajiits-new-stealth-capability-stacking-is-quite-extreme/

The Lore

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Bosmer

Their agility makes them well-suited as scouts and thieves.

chameleon-like ability to hide in forested areas.

They often rely on their forest-coupling skills to make use of guerrilla tactics. The title of their most famous poem, the Meh Ayleidion, means "The One Thousand Benefits of Hiding".[15]

The Bosmer are one of the few who worship the trickster Baan Dar, the trickster spirit of thieves and beggars

There are many other deities with significant Bosmer cults, such as Hircine.[59] They also worship the moon gods Jone and Jode.[59][61] Ancient stories of the supernatural, enigmatic Wilderking abound in Greenshade.[62] Like the Nords, the trickster spirit Herma-Mora appears in their legends (and they insist he is not to be confused with the Daedra Hermaeus Mora). And, of course, in a culture replete with trickster spirits, they do not forget the greatest trickster of all: Lorkhan.[59]

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Varieties_of_Faith:_The_Wood_Elves

The Rite of Theft
The Rite of Theft is a cherished Bosmeri custom, though one which outsiders have trouble appreciating.[72] The Bosmer steal from each other, and upon return of the stolen item, they demand a boon commensurate to the item's worth.[73] In ancient times, the Bosmer Vanirion the Thief was renowned for demanding over two hundred payments after invoking the Rite.[71] In more modern times, the Bosmer of Greenshade are particularly infamous for their thievery.[49]

TES Arena: They are well suited towards any class, although their nimbleness serves them best in any art involving thievery.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Races#Wood_Elf

TES Daggerfall: "Wood Elves hail from the province of Valenwood. You are part of a small, fair-skinned people known to be extremely agile and quick. Wood Elves have a natural affinity for the bow and arrow, and all members of their race have some ability with that weapon. There are well-known Wood Elves in most every class, but the arts of thievery are their particular forte

TES Battlespire: Hailing from the forests of Valenwood, the Wood Elves are the finest archers in all of Tamriel. These cousins of the High Elves and Dark Elves are nimble and quick as the wind. Because of their curious natures and natural agility, Wood Elves often become thieves (No Khajiit in this game)

TES Morrowind: Bosmer had +10 sneak in that game. Khajiit only had +5 https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Bosmer

In Shadowkey, it’s Argonians who are noted for being Thieves, Khajiit for dodging and Bosmer for healing.

TES Oblivion: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Bosmer Once again, +10 sneak for Bosmer, only +5 sneak for Khajiit.

TES Skyrim: Khajiit have +10 sneak and Bosmer have +5.


In this chart, in the Skills Row, click on the last yellow icon for Bosmer. It’s +10 sneak. For Khajiit it’s +5.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Races
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Races

We are asking for sneak radius. The sneak radius we always had.

Bosmer have 3 trickster gods as well. Baan Dar, Lorkhan and the Woodland Man aka Herma-Mora

If you want to make us unique from Khajiit then keep the sneaking part the same (reduce stealth radius) but give us bonus to lockpicking instead of pickpocketing. Or if it’s going to be the last passive we earn, let it be reduce stealth radius and further stamina recovery. Or, my personal favorite, let us cannabalize eligible corpses like werewolves but we incur an immediate death penalty if done in the wrong company. or really anything else as long as we keep our stealth radius reduction. Another idea is bonus to range damage of any kind (that will help a Bosmer casters too since you said you didn’t want to punish people for not choosing a magic race for a magic class. Something like that would be in keeping with the lore.

The Bottom Line

We aren’t sad because we can’t gank people. If anything, Khajiit with their higher crit and larger radius will be better gankers anyway.

Also, not one of us is asking for the extra damage, just the radius reduction. Also, if we cared about pvp we’d want to keep the passive like what is on offer because the offered passive stacks with Hasty Retreat. And stealth DETECTION is only useful in pvp, and is never used in pve. So sorry to burst that bubble, we aren’t gankers.

Also, it is fine that you can complete stealthy quests with a non-stealth race, the game would be unbalanced if it were impossible. The bottom line is that a Bosmer is not as noticeable as a Nord when crouched. It’s not realistic. Bosmer have always had a higher sneak bonus than other races, as I pointed out above, it’s not hard to understand. 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.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Gilliam
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_Lawrence_Schick

Yes, agreed. I don't get the having to role to get the Physical Penetration buff. Just give it flat. Furthermore, if ZoS do not want them sharing the sneak passive of Khajiit's then they should instead double down on the detection passive and give it something else. For Example: Increases your Direct Damage abilities by 2% when hitting an enemy's flank.

MindOfTheSwarm

To be honest they could simply make them the Stamina version of Altmer's with a couple of differences. Something like this would suit the woodland hunter feel nicely:

Keep everything else the same and change final passive to something like this:

Hunter's Eye:

Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 1m and gain 3% Movement Speed.
Gain 400 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank II - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 35
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 2m and gain 6% Movement Speed. Gain 900 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank III - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 50
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 3m

Gain 10% Movement Speed. Gain 1500 Physical and Spell Penetration. Deal 2% more Direct Damage when flanking a target.

Now I am aware that ZoS removed percentage based buffs for good reason, but this has a specific mechanic behind it.


On a side note I feel that all classes should have their passives reworked so that they can play Stamina or Magicka and benefit from their passives equally.

Xarc

bosmers are perfect as they are actually.

Dr_Ganknstein

Necro af

Dr_Ganknstein

Necro af

Cundu_Ertur

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

To be honest they could simply make them the Stamina version of Altmer's with a couple of differences. Something like this would suit the woodland hunter feel nicely:

Keep everything else the same and change final passive to something like this:

Hunter's Eye:

Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 1m and gain 3% Movement Speed.
Gain 400 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank II - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 35
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 2m and gain 6% Movement Speed. Gain 900 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank III - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 50
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 3m

Gain 10% Movement Speed. Gain 1500 Physical and Spell Penetration. Deal 2% more Direct Damage when flanking a target.

Now I am aware that ZoS removed percentage based buffs for good reason, but this has a specific mechanic behind it.


On a side note I feel that all classes should have their passives reworked so that they can play Stamina or Magicka and benefit from their passives equally.

No. This changes nothing.
Bosmer are supposed to be stealthy. The detection 'bonus' is complete and utter garbage. Anything that retains this abomination is unacceptable, as it is completely contrary to every bit of lore about the Bosmer.

Cundu_Ertur

Xarcus wrote: »

bosmers are perfect as they are actually.

Only if you know absolutely nothing about the lore. And never attempt to USE the detection garbage.

MartiniDaniels

IMO bosmer is underperforming race (in comparison to nord and orc), because you need bow to make roll-dodge passive effective and bow is now meh in PVP. Maybe this will change with new Asylum bow as well as master's bow buff and perfected version. But on live master's bow is notably worse (because most popular classes just auto-purge it's effect) then BRP DW or S&B backbar.
I played quite a lot with all 3 backbars and wherever you replace bow with DW or S&B it is very noticeable.

thegreatme

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

To be honest they could simply make them the Stamina version of Altmer's with a couple of differences. Something like this would suit the woodland hunter feel nicely:

Keep everything else the same and change final passive to something like this:

Hunter's Eye:

Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 1m and gain 3% Movement Speed.
Gain 400 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank II - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 35
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 2m and gain 6% Movement Speed. Gain 900 Physical and Spell Penetration.

Rank III - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 50
Increases your detection radius in Stealth by 3m

Gain 10% Movement Speed. Gain 1500 Physical and Spell Penetration. Deal 2% more Direct Damage when flanking a target.

Now I am aware that ZoS removed percentage based buffs for good reason, but this has a specific mechanic behind it.


On a side note I feel that all classes should have their passives reworked so that they can play Stamina or Magicka and benefit from their passives equally.

The only way I would find stealth detection even slightly palatable would be if they increased detection range by a large margin, such as Rank 1: 4m, Rank 2: 8m, Rank 3: 12m, otherwise its pretty much useless as you need to be right on top of enemies anyway to detect them and considering you can stack multiple gear sets for detection reduction (which is especially insane for Khajiit).

Bosmer is honest to god one of the worst races and I say that as someone who mains bosmer and refuses to let go. Add onto that the Nightblade nerfs which for the majority of players might as well not even be a class anymore since the vampire rework is probably going to push them past 6 feet under now that you're going to be able to have things like Sorc, Templar, and Necro who can get an invisibility sprint to surprise-nuke people in PvP.

Stx

Honestly I love my bosmers racials, but I agree that hunters eye is 100% useless.

The thing about bosmer racials is you have to build around them similar to redguard or argonian.

But pretty much the only character I pvp on is a bosmer using bow and considering how often you dodge roll in pvp I think the overall power of bosmer racials is fantastic.

If they simply reverted the stealth detection to stealth skill I think everyone would be happy.

BlueRaven

Arzyel Gaming just came out with an ESO Race guide;

https://youtu.be/cND3nvv379s

"The Penetration bonus is good but hard to use effectively because of it's proc condition (roll dodge). [Good For] Stamina characters but not among the top ones for PVE or PVP."

/sigh

Jaraal

BlueRaven wrote: »

"The Penetration bonus is good but hard to use effectively because of it's proc condition (roll dodge). [Good For] Stamina characters but not among the top ones for PVE or PVP."
/sigh

That's what's so amusing about this "passive"..... it's not a passive. It's an active. You have to activate it to work. Not only that, but it's a detrimental active to magicka based characters, who don't build for stamina restore to activate their racial active.... err... passive.

It's just a bad idea all around.

MincVinyl

Realistically the pen should have just been a "passive" 1500 which is still half of the damage bonus that orc got when compared to a 2-4 piece bonus. The speed being after the roll dodge makes sense and is a good trade of losing a gcd and stam to gain the speed buff, but the pen being hidden behind a defensive mechanic just does not work in any rotation. As it stands in pvp/pve at the end game meta bosmer really has no place. You must go off the beaten path just to look like a bosmer.