Racial Changes and Lack of Proposed Diverse Gameplay

IINordoxII

TL;DR: We need more diverse options for certain races such as Breton which are currently too one dimensional in their viable build options.

This is not intended to be one of many complaint threads but rather some constructive feedback from a non-min/maxer player's perspective..

First off I think many including myself seem to agree that moving away from percentage based bonuses to flat stats is a step in the right direction. My main concern in particular is the viability Magicka vs. Stamina build options among each race. Of course some races will and arguably should be better at one than the other based on lore, but all races should have some passives translate over to the two main different build types in this game, i.e. magicka and stamina.

The Devs stated one of their goals was to provide diverse gameplay/ role options among each race. In some cases I think they succeeded in this. For example, the Khajit now have weapon and spell crit which is great for those Magickats (Magikhajits?) out there who previously would've had wasted passives. Also there's some, albeit a very small amount, of recovery for both magicka and stamina. I don't play a Magicka Khajit but I'm happy for you guys.

Even Imperials and Redguard while primarily good for stamina builds have some of their passives transfer over to their non-main/ meta build type. Red Diamond, regardless of it being "good" or not, now procs on all direct damage. If the wording is as seems this means, melee and ranged, stamina and magicka. All build types can utilize at least this one passive. Redguards have reduced ability cost for all weapon abilities, which presumably includes not just 2 handed, SnB, and dual wield but also staffs . This is obviously great for those Magicka Redgaurds out there.

Here's the rub for me personally. I try to play a stamina Breton templar against all reason and logic. I know I'm weird, but for me it's more important to play what I want (isn't that this games mantra after all?) than crunching numbers and trying to min/ max. Breton passives actually look great for pure Magicka builds but only Magicka builds. The main problem is that they offer nothing at all, zip, zero, zilch for Bretons who don't care to chase the meta and want to play as stamina.

Even if Breton's are inclined towards magicka builds, which is fine imo and lore accurate, then they need to have something for stamina builds. For example maybe they could get a stamina cost reduction on abilities in addition to magicka and/ or some stamina regen to go with the magicka regen. They'd still have more max magicka making them better suited to magicka builds for those concerned about min/maxing but at the same time provide something for stamina Breton who want to play the race because they like the lore/ aesthetics but don't want to play magicka or be totally handicapped. Not everyone wants to min/ max and chase the meta but most probably don't want to completely gimp themselves with a race that has no useful passives whatsoever for their preferred race/ build combo.

If you got this far, thanks for reading

ChunkyCat

Ok.

IINordoxII

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Ok.

Very original and insightful. Be careful not to cut yourself with all that edge.

CipherNine

Lore should have nothing to do with racial passives. There is even things in game that prove that.
In Oblivion you created the character you wanted no matter the race by choosing what mundus sign you were born under. That determined your affinity to warrior, mage or stealth type character. race didn't matter.

In ESO, Shalidor is the greatest mage of the 1st era. He is a NORD! But wait Nords have no magicka passives. well that don't make sense lorewise then. Shalidor should be a terrible mage. He is a Nord. Also why is there a mages guild in Nord cities. They are just drunken warriors if you want to use the Lore defense.
ZOS used a redguard to advertise the Necromancer. Where the magicka passive for redguards. Whats with all this lore breaking stuff? since so many of you seem to think everyone in a certain race is all the same.

IINordoxII

@CipherNine: I hear you. I agree lore should be less limiting in terms of how it translates into gameplay mechanics and in this case racial passives. Nords should be able to be viable mages and as you pointed out the lore actually supports this rather than contradicts it.

I'm coming from the perspective/ presupposition that ZOS isn't going to dramatically rework the changes they proposed. More likely than not, they will go forward with the basic template they laid out in their racial passive changes preview. So, based on that I'd like to see some meaningful changes to that template that provide more build diversity at the very least.

Thalidar

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

mxxo

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

My Bosmer Healer even ate a Khajiit in hope to gain more magicka ;D

Honestly.. there is ZERO love for Bosmer.

IINordoxII

mxxo wrote: »

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

My Bosmer Healer even ate a Khajiit in hope to gain more magicka ;D

Honestly.. there is ZERO love for Bosmer.

Was it raw and wriggling, Precious?

Thalidar

mxxo wrote: »

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

My Bosmer Healer even ate a Khajiit in hope to gain more magicka ;D

Honestly.. there is ZERO love for Bosmer.

Maybe Altmer or Breton might work better 😉

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

You get 20% movement speed after dodge roll. Same as Stam.

Silver_Strider

I tend to agree with OP that more could've been done to open up some racial diversity in ESO. Despite all the naysayers, there's plenty of places racials could open up to allow more options to the game as a whole, instead of simply locking a race into a specific group.

Lord_Eomer

I think if ZOS can make something like based on maximum resources passive behave differently than it can address players concerns who wanted to Play Altmers/Bretons/etc. as Stam build.

Aedrion

Changes are bad pretty much across the board.

What they should have done is make each racial passive have two morphs. Each morph tweaking the passive in another interesting way to open up diversity between races.
For example the Kajiit crit chance could have been either +8% spell crit + some magicka regen or +8% weapon crit + some more % crit dmg.
That way, each race would have had its own unique passives but they would click with a wider variety of playstyles.

What we got was the expected. An unbalanced, uninspired number tweak that buffed some races, nerfed others and slammed yet some others into the ground.

I know it's not on PTR yet but I doubt they're suddenly going to change their minds and actually make class passives diverse. All we're likely to see is some more tweaking before this goes live.

mxxo

Thalidar wrote: »

mxxo wrote: »

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

My Bosmer Healer even ate a Khajiit in hope to gain more magicka ;D

Honestly.. there is ZERO love for Bosmer.

Maybe Altmer or Breton might work better 😉

Dw, i have 5 different Healers atm. But i love my Bosmer nevertheless. (Actually even 6, but 1 is in another role atm)

AcadianPaladin

I agree with OP. I play Bosmer. Only Bosmer. And I favor magicka. I had hoped the incoming racial changes would provide a bit of help to my wood elven wizards. Before the changes my magic Bosmer were BiS for Cute and could block better than most mages. Nothing is changing. What a lost opportunity. I agree with OP.

Oblivion offered much better support to magic Bosmer. Heck, even Skyrim did also.

ESO's whole concept of worshipping either magicka or stamina is questionable at best and has no historical link to Elder Scrolls 'lore'. Don't compound the problem by tying races to this faulty concept as well.

Thalidar

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Thalidar wrote: »

I feel the same way about Bosmer. Nothing even remotely magicka based.

You get 20% movement speed after dodge roll. Same as Stam.

Lol, yep that definitely strengthens my magicka skills... but to be fair we had none before anyway.

It's just a shame I lose my most useful skill in the process to get the pvp based skill.

eso_nya

Did anyone ever complain about how the outfit system allows to change the looks of stat sticks?

Did anyone ever hear of ppl complaining that vampirisim is a stat stick that comes with a [snippy] looks drawback?

Have there been any lore complains that the atronach birthsign in oblivion granted max magicka and removed magicka regeneration?

...babysteps

JobooAGS

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I agree with OP. I play Bosmer. Only Bosmer. And I favor magicka. I had hoped the incoming racial changes would provide a bit of help to my wood elven wizards. Before the changes my magic Bosmer were BiS for Cute and could block better than most mages. Nothing is changing. What a lost opportunity. I agree with OP.

Oblivion offered much better support to magic Bosmer. Heck, even Skyrim did also.

ESO's whole concept of worshipping either magicka or stamina is questionable at best and has no historical link to Elder Scrolls 'lore'. Don't compound the problem by tying races to this faulty concept as well.

Bosmer mag sorc, dodge roll for a speed burst after streak. More stam and regen for dark conversions. Can drop shackle or amberplasm for spell strat or spinners

Sotha_Sil

Every race is strong in a role. I call that diversity. Choose the race for your role. Period. We can't have every race strong at every role, that defeats the whole point => it would mean no diversity, a race would be just cosmetic.

Silver_Strider

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

Every race is strong in a role. I call that diversity. Choose the race for your role. Period. We can't have every race strong at every role, that defeats the whole point => it would mean no diversity, a race would be just cosmetic.

Limiting a race to specific roles is equally limiting to diversity, especially when 1 or 2 races are overshadowing their competition almost completely that you start seeing nothing but X Race for Y role. If anything, having every race be at least somewhat competent in a given role, without being so completely dominate in that role would be more diverse than the current system, which is why I like the changes made to Khajiit and Dunmer so much, since they are now free to pursue other roles outside the current norm and at least for Khajiit, where it was overshadowed by Redguard in PvE and Bosmer in PvP, it now has options available to it than being 2nd fiddle to either of those races. Even Dunmer has a fighting chance in regards to Stamina DPS now, something that it didn't have before and while some racials could be adjusted more so they aren't so clearly 1 dimensional (Breton is purely geared towards Magic still, Nords are still nothing but Tanks, etc) these changes are looking far more attractive overall than nothing but the same thing for the last 5 years.

Ertosi

Aedrion wrote: »

Changes are bad pretty much across the board.

What they should have done is make each racial passive have two morphs. Each morph tweaking the passive in another interesting way to open up diversity between races.

This right here. When the upcoming racial changes were first made known, they mentioned each race would have options for each role. Silly me assumed that would mean racial morphs which would have been amazing. Instead, the races just got watered down and in a manner that still left many races typecast for specific roles. Once again, the minimal-effort route was taken and the solution failed to live up to expectations as well as it's stated purpose.

mjharper

Agree. I was looking forward to some, any, sense that Nord mages might be a thing, even if they were only given a buff to cold damage - which would be limiting, but something at least. But the proposed changes don’t address such diversity at all.

eso_nya

Ertosi wrote: »

... When the upcoming racial changes were first made known, they mentioned each race would have options for each role.

I missread that at first too from "Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing."
I think they didnt want to say "every race should have something for every role" but, "when u decide wich role u pick, there will be more than one race to go for".

Next new system: Race advisor. U can pick a role in char creation and it highlights the two races that r good for it xD

Katheriah

Good thing we all know it doesn't matter what race you are. You can always become a stealth archer.

IINordoxII

@Ertosi: Based on ZoS's original description of their intentions for update 21 I too initially thought we'd get more diversity and meaningful choices. I dared to hope I could play a somewhat viable stam Breton but it looks like the lines are too clear cut between stamina and magicka races.

They are basically saying "Breton = magicka and only magicka, Bosmer = stamina and only stamina, like it or gtfo."

AcadianPaladin

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

Every race is strong in a role. I call that diversity. Choose the race for your role. Period. We can't have every race strong at every role, that defeats the whole point => it would mean no diversity, a race would be just cosmetic.

If every race is strong in a role and everyone chooses the race for their role then every member of each role would be the same race. For example, all magsorcs might be Altmer (if that is the current meta magsorc flavor). I should think that more folks deciding to choose Bosmer magsorcs and Orc magsorcs would contribute to diversity, not detract from it.

Tholian1

I don’t like the idea of race determining role. Classes, skill morphs, attributes and gear should be what determines role.

Joy_Division

IINordoxII wrote: »

TL;DR: We need more diverse options for certain races such as Breton which are currently too one dimensional in their viable build options.

This is not intended to be one of many complaint threads but rather some constructive feedback from a non-min/maxer player's perspective..

First off I think many including myself seem to agree that moving away from percentage based bonuses to flat stats is a step in the right direction. My main concern in particular is the viability Magicka vs. Stamina build options among each race. Of course some races will and arguably should be better at one than the other based on lore, but all races should have some passives translate over to the two main different build types in this game, i.e. magicka and stamina.

The Devs stated one of their goals was to provide diverse gameplay/ role options among each race. In some cases I think they succeeded in this. For example, the Khajit now have weapon and spell crit which is great for those Magickats (Magikhajits?) out there who previously would've had wasted passives. Also there's some, albeit a very small amount, of recovery for both magicka and stamina. I don't play a Magicka Khajit but I'm happy for you guys.

Even Imperials and Redguard while primarily good for stamina builds have some of their passives transfer over to their non-main/ meta build type. Red Diamond, regardless of it being "good" or not, now procs on all direct damage. If the wording is as seems this means, melee and ranged, stamina and magicka. All build types can utilize at least this one passive. Redguards have reduced ability cost for all weapon abilities, which presumably includes not just 2 handed, SnB, and dual wield but also staffs . This is obviously great for those Magicka Redgaurds out there.

Here's the rub for me personally. I try to play a stamina Breton templar against all reason and logic. I know I'm weird, but for me it's more important to play what I want (isn't that this games mantra after all?) than crunching numbers and trying to min/ max. Breton passives actually look great for pure Magicka builds but only Magicka builds. The main problem is that they offer nothing at all, zip, zero, zilch for Bretons who don't care to chase the meta and want to play as stamina.

Even if Breton's are inclined towards magicka builds, which is fine imo and lore accurate, then they need to have something for stamina builds. For example maybe they could get a stamina cost reduction on abilities in addition to magicka and/ or some stamina regen to go with the magicka regen. They'd still have more max magicka making them better suited to magicka builds for those concerned about min/maxing but at the same time provide something for stamina Breton who want to play the race because they like the lore/ aesthetics but don't want to play magicka or be totally handicapped. Not everyone wants to min/ max and chase the meta but most probably don't want to completely gimp themselves with a race that has no useful passives whatsoever for their preferred race/ build combo.

If you got this far, thanks for reading

Then play a stamina Breton Templar.

Nothing is stopping you. In fact the choice will be even better next patch. They do have something for stamina builds. Being able to cleanse more is very useful. Throw shards for extra burning light procs and resource return for allies.

Why are you so concerned with losing a little stamina oriented stats when you put right in the tl;dr "non-min/maxer"?

I am competitive, i.e. someone who does care about those little stats, and I've played a nord magicka templar from the Launch. Grand Overlord in PvP, used to heal vet trials, tanked DSA, I've done all of it. Play what you want to play and have fun. Playing skillfully is going to matter a lot more than the little stamina regen you're asking for.

Ruckly

This game have way to much socialism and resocialism.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton_(Morrowind)

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton_(Oblivion)

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton_(Skyrim)

I see a very clear pattern. Does the Breton deviate in ESO or is it still a Breton.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Breton_(Online)

Still in the same ballpark.

If you don't like stamina Breton don't play stamina Breton. Carrots aren't going to magically turn into chocolate cake because you keep writing to congress about texture and flavor of carrots and how they can't compete with chocolate cake. If you don't like a race don't play it. Breton is clearly a magicka race not a stamina race. It always has been. Magicka Breton stamina Redguard. This is very basic stuff. Magicka Breton stamina Redguard. If you can't figure out how stamina or magicka works then Magicka Breton stamina Redguard.

Magicka Breton stamina Redguard.

Wiki links don't work but if you scroll down to BY GAME you will find them.

MartiniDaniels

This is sad. Also problem is that altmer is very specific type of elf, basically if you wanna roleplay tolkien-like elf-healer and be effective - you are out of options. Same for drow-like priest etc.
Actually it's not so bad with dps role - you have a wide variety to select after this patch, and they are more or less in line. Redguard and altmer are ahead but only slightly.
With tanks.. it's ok.
But healers - you have only 3 races for healing, all others are FAR behind.

Ruckly

The proposed racial changes I am seeing are a direct downgrade.

Spell Recharge class skills!?!?!?

Y'ffre's Endurance flat recovery!?!?!?

Spell Resistance magicka recovery!?!?!?

Unflinching procing on weapon ability!?!?!?

Swift Warrior increases weapon damage by 258!?!?!?

There must be some crazy scary people out there to cause stuff like this to happen.