Detached, Tone Deaf, and Disrespectful

bellanca6561n

The changes to racial passives assume we have no emotional investment in our characters. Toss us a race change token, add another character slot and all is well. Characters are just game gear.

Can't detach racial passives from race, many say, because that would render races as merely cosmetic. And we read pleasantly phrased lore reasons for the changes - lore from a single player game - that are not only at odds with the story of this game (Nord Archmages, Redguard Psijics, Orc Master Mages, Dunmer warriors, Wood Elf battlemages) but they play into destructive stereotypes in the real world that need no encouragement here.

What makes a racial choice interesting, more engaging, more immersive is indeed the lore - lore as history, not destiny: lore as culture. When we create a character we choose an alternate culture that stimulates our imagination. And this is what fantasy roleplaying games are meant to do. And online gaming most enlightened and revolutionary quality is its ability to become a narrative told by its audience.

Assigning constantly changing inherent abilities to supposedly ancient races and cultures, encouraging players to abandon characters they've developed over years, to serve frequent bewildering revisions in how developers interpret this fantasy world disrespects players, the online gaming medium, and the lore of the game itself.

Keep these passives separate. Let us choose how we build our characters rather than having to abandon and rebuild them on a regular basis. Allow our characters to develop and evolve as we do as players.

Skwor

I see it as just the opposite. The devs are in touch with the needed racial changes and this is a very future positve change for the direction of the races.

Tasear

Except dummer vs altmer I think racial offer us diversity without limitating as much. We have new passives with races to engage in combat. What makes you feel different?

Ogou

But the changes allow more diversity in the way we play those races. If you truly choose the races for the lore I don't see how the changes affect that.

Skwor

Ogou wrote: »

But the changes allow more diversity in the way we play those races. If you truly choose the races for the lore I don't see how the changes affect that.

And in truth these changes overall align better with the lore.

Koronach

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

MartiniDaniels

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

It's how ZOS diversity works. Wanna make distinctive passives? Rip off poison immunity from argonian and remove disease immunity from bosmer. Wanna make warden healer desirable in the group? Rip off 10% HP bonus from horn. It's always simpler to delete something, then create new mechanic.

Ogou

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

It's how ZOS diversity works. Wanna make distinctive passives? Rip off poison immunity from argonian and remove disease immunity from bosmer. Wanna make warden healer desirable in the group? Rip off 10% HP bonus from horn. It's always simpler to delete something, then create new mechanic.

But argonians got the disease immunity and the bosmer got the poison immunity now.

LaveniaRose

But the whole point of the racial passives change, was to achieve the OP's goal. Now if he wants a bosmer battle mage, he gets a bit of extra stam and maybe he doesn't need tei-stat food. It still allows min-maxing and makes the drawbacks of using a stam race for magicka toon significantly lower. I really think ZOS tried hard to accomodate their entire player base with these changes.

MartiniDaniels

Ogou wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

It's how ZOS diversity works. Wanna make distinctive passives? Rip off poison immunity from argonian and remove disease immunity from bosmer. Wanna make warden healer desirable in the group? Rip off 10% HP bonus from horn. It's always simpler to delete something, then create new mechanic.

But argonians got the disease immunity and the bosmer got the poison immunity now.

They both have both before, sorry for tautology.

zaria

LaveniaRose wrote: »

But the whole point of the racial passives change, was to achieve the OP's goal. Now if he wants a bosmer battle mage, he gets a bit of extra stam and maybe he doesn't need tei-stat food. It still allows min-maxing and makes the drawbacks of using a stam race for magicka toon significantly lower. I really think ZOS tried hard to accomodate their entire player base with these changes.

Yes and they did it with Khajiit and Dunmer even if dunmer took an nerf and some Khajiit builds took an small nerf.

It will change the meta, think altmer pet sorc with necro and other min / max builds will come out weaker.
An Altmer PvP magblade in heavy armor is probably buffed significantly.
Note this might be very relevant once phase one of screaming stop. Unintended consequences and ZoS is a bit like the moon and craters.

On the other hand I get an feeling that ZoS looked at build, saw it was lots of Khajit magic builds and Dunmer stamina ones so they adjusted the racials. Think most Khajiit and Dunmer selected race first.

Grabs tail. i like the idea to move to fixed values over +%. Old idea of mine but less of an nerf than I expected, this is an buff in group content

Ertosi

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

I feel the same way about Bosmer's losing their disease resistance. They've had it since Oblivion. Even bigger is their loss of sneak bonuses in return for the redundant speed bonus from tumbling that most already have from using bows.

VaranisArano

I think ZOS assumed that most people either min-max OR role play.

If you min-max, you have to be prepared to follow the meta whereever it goes.

If you role play, you have to be prepared for the meta to leave you behind eventually.

ZOS definitely doesn't cater to the people who want to have their cake and eat it too - being both attached to their character/class/race and remaining meta. We already saw that with Murkmire, and Morrowind before that.

Tigerseye

Racial abilities are inherently prejudiced.

There, I said it.

Obviously, we all know that certain races, in real life, tend (on average) to be slightly more adept than others, in certain specific ways.

It would be silly to deny it.

However, that is just a tendency, it is not a hard and fast rule.

Many individuals go against those stereotypes.

Making it so that you can only play a certain race on the erroneous assumption that your individual character must, automatically, adhere to these set, racial stereotypes, is not only wrong, but it is also limiting and boring.

Not least, because it forces people to choose the same races, over and over, to play certain classes and builds; or know that they will be left underperforming (and that other players will know that they are), if they deviate from that.

It also runs counter to various storylines, in the game, that suggest that individuals of certain races can and should (if they want to and are able) break free from their racial (or species) stereotypes.

For example, the storyline of the blacksmithing hireling, Urbek.

Agenericname

VaranisArano wrote: »

I think ZOS assumed that most people either min-max OR role play.

If you min-max, you have to be prepared to follow the meta whereever it goes.

If you role play, you have to be prepared for the meta to leave you behind eventually.

ZOS definitely doesn't cater to the people who want to have their cake and eat it too - being both attached to their character/class/race and remaining meta. We already saw that with Murkmire, and Morrowind before that.

That's fine unless you're trying to sell the proverbial cake.

wsmith97ub17_ESO

I think the changes are very well done. OP and those like them are afraid of change and their own shadows apparently.

VaranisArano

Tigerseye wrote: »

Racial abilities are inherently prejudiced.

There, I said it.

Obviously, we all know that certain races, in real life, tend (on average) to be slightly more adept than others, in certain specific ways.

It would be silly to deny it.

However, that is just a tendency, it is not a hard and fast rule.

Many individuals go against those stereotypes.

Making it so that you can only play a certain race on the erroneous assumption that your individual character must, automatically, adhere to these set, racial stereotypes, is not only wrong, but it is also limiting and boring.

Not least, because it forces people to choose the same races, over and over, to play certain classes and builds; or know that they will be left underperforming (and that other players will know that they are), if they deviate from that.

It also runs counter to various storylines, in the game, that suggest that individuals of certain races can and should (if they want to and are able) break free from their racial (or species) stereotypes.

For example, the storyline of the blacksmithing hireling, Urbek.

Racial abilities are a part of the TES Lore.

We see plenty of examples where individuals do not follow the stereotypes of their races.

Nevertheless, Shalidor, an amazing 1st era mage and scholar, founding the College of Winterhold and creating Shalidor's Maze at Labyrinthian, was still a Nord and shared in the racial passives of other Nords.

Velvelya

Tigerseye wrote: »

Racial abilities are inherently prejudiced.
.

Good lord.


I'm not sure how you can call it prejudiced that arogonians have a higher disease reistance than a Breton when they live in a nasty swamp and are lizards. Or that Kahjiit are catlike and more stealthy then a *** Nord.

rexagamemnon

I would like to have seen more of a customizable approach to the racial passives, have a select number of passives to choose from for your race. So say there are 9to choose from but you can only pick 4or5. And have them based off the races lore. So high elves all Magicka and spell damage, redgaurds all stamina and health passives passives, imperials as there are two “breed” or “ethnic groups” that one emphasizes more stamina and the other magika, Imperials would have passives to choose from that include health, magika, and stamina. I’d like to see that in the future

MartiniDaniels

Most funny is that they get rid bosmer of lore-required stealth bonus so now all that mass of people who role-play bosmer thiefs of hearts (me included) now are off the ship with all their role-play. We should change our RP to become scouts probably, but basically there is nothing to scout and that skill still won't dispel cloak. Dunmer was ripped of of lore-required fire affinity... this is just a backstab, not only to min-maxers, but to people who roleplay too.

VaranisArano

Velvelya wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

Racial abilities are inherently prejudiced.
.

Good lord.


I'm not sure how you can call it prejudiced that arogonians have a higher disease reistance than a Breton when they live in a nasty swamp and are lizards. Or that Kahjiit are catlike and more stealthy then a *** Nord.

See, the prejudice comes in when you take that Khajiit are catlike and more stealthy than a Nord and come up with:

xxthir13enxx

Y’all just a bunch of Racists!!!!!

Velvelya

its a stereotype to assume they're all skooma addicts and thieves.

Its not prejudiced to say "Well based on their genetics they are probably good at being sneaky." it has everything to do with their physiology. They see in the dark, the have better hearing than humans, and they most likely have the balance and fluidity of...cats.


Being sneaky doesn't equal being a thief.

Tan9oSuccka

At first glance, these changes are minor.

People are freaking out, but Redguards appear to still be Stam Kings and Altmer Mag.

Why is everyone panicking??

BloodMagicLord

"What makes a racial choice interesting, more engaging, more immersive is indeed the lore - lore as history, not destiny: lore as culture. When we create a character we choose an alternate culture that stimulates our imagination. And this is what fantasy roleplaying games are meant to do."

This is completely subjective. You're trying to speak on behalf of the entire community with an extremely biased statement based entirely on your own personal opinion and what YOU want from the game.

Personally I think the new changes are great, it's really about time that they started making the racial passives more interesting and also more equal. Honestly what is the point in having nine races when about half of them are simply worse than their counterparts, to the extreme of the current status of Nord, being a completely useless halfway between tank and stam dd that has absolutely no race defining ability whatsoever. Well the newly announced patch at least gives nords something, a nice passive and a reason to pick them from a build perspective.


Not everyone is a roleplayer, lots of players, myself included, want good, balanced pvp and well thought out endgame content, with a healthy variety of build options for all playstyles. This is not what we were getting before, but the newly announced changes both to races and in other areas are a massive step in the right direction that somewhat restored my faith in ZOS

The way I see it, ESO is absolutely full of lore and story that i'm constantly seeing when I play even though I don't care too much for it anymore because I played the game for so long, but it's certainly there. I don't think that making some much needed balance changes mess with that very much at all, however in my opinion the endgame pve and pvp crowds were being completely neglected and I've been crying out for changes like this for well over a year.

Rain_Greyraven

You forgot slap in the face, and tying your argument up to make the devs Fascist.

Jesus....the outrage culture and their first world problems.

Beardimus

Tasear wrote: »

Except dummer vs altmer I think racial offer us diversity without limitating as much. We have new passives with races to engage in combat. What makes you feel different?

Agreed, but i concur with the OP as I'm dunmer!

DaveMoeDee

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

It's how ZOS diversity works. Wanna make distinctive passives? Rip off poison immunity from argonian and remove disease immunity from bosmer. Wanna make warden healer desirable in the group? Rip off 10% HP bonus from horn. It's always simpler to delete something, then create new mechanic.

No thank you to trying to be original with the racial rebalance. We don't need this again down the road. Conservative is the way to go.

The only problem with the rebalancing is that we all have characters already and chose races for reasons that in many cases they are nullifying. But going forward, these improvements seem good for the game. It just sucks as someone with 15 characters.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Koronach wrote: »

Lore wise the removal of Argonian poison resist bothers me. We literally come from a land filled with disease AND poisons.

If Argonians have such great resistance why did I have to keep finding copper-tongued skinks for Jee-Lar day after day?

DocFrost72

<snip> but they play into destructive stereotypes in the real world that need no encouragement here.

Stop. Just freaking stop, that has no place in this discussion at all. Not a single instance of "I'm allowed to think Nords are drunkards" has ever been the leading factor to "this real life group is bad."

And we won't even mention how you low key just accused zos of somehow promoting RL racism.

I agree with the very base of your idea (race passives could be disentangled with respect to combat buffs) but dude, I'm tired of this nonsense in my day to day. Don't bring it to ESO...

ezio45

Im rather happy with the changes. I think most of the races serve a propose now and there are some real choices to consider when choosing a race. Is it perfect? no

darkelf needs more stam and mag to really help it occupy a space as a stam dps with mag or a mag dps with stam. It would be very good at fulfilling that role and that role is helpful and needed

kahjiit needs slightly better sustain and it could be a great option for high crit builds

or and imperial need to be more different. id like to see orc be more of a tank stam dps, imperial is good as s classic tank and i dont think it should be changed