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“Passive” Aggression Against the Bosmer... A Letter to the Developers
Lifeonerth
✭✭
Dear ZOS Team,
You do not know me, but I am without doubt one of your biggest and most devoted fans. I have spent thousands of blissful hours immersed in the wonders of your version of Tamriel since I discovered it several years ago. I have also spent truly obscene amounts of money investing in this world you have created and the character that allows me to become part of that world. It gives me goals to achieve and rewards for doing so and allows me to feel empowered. It gives me an invaluable means of escape. For me, this game has been a life saver.
About ten years ago, an “invisible” chronic illness that is progressive, incurable, and for the time being untreatable, finally took me out of the world of functioning human beings and left me house-bound and basically bed-bound. It causes pain and suffering on a scale that even most doctors and specialists cannot begin to imagine. It forces you into a twilight world of profound isolation at the time when you most need support. Without the escape of video games, and TESO in particular, I don’t know how I would cope. TESO is much, much more than “just” a game to me, and I have spoken to many others in a variety of situations who also feel this way.
In investing so much of my time, money, and extremely limited energy into this game world you have created, I have placed a very great deal of faith and trust in you. I have consistently defended you when others spoke against you, but even the most devoted of players has their breaking point. The proposed changes to the racial passives just may turn out to be mine, and I suspect that of many others as well.
My main is a Bosmer. My favorite playstyle is a stealth based bow user. I play her as a stamblade dps and often stick with bow/bow. Under the proposed changes to racial passives, the identity, core functions, and soul of the Bosmer have been gutted as far as I am concerned. “Wood elves” have *always* been stealth ranger specialists, going back to at least the original Morrowind single player RPG game (the earliest I played) and likely beyond. To say that every race should support every play style equally negates the rich lore of the Elder Scrolls that Bethesda and their fans have poured their hearts into for several decades now which is what drew many of us to ESO to begin with, myself certainly included.
Stealth detection has never been part of the inherent Bosmer toolkit and it does not make sense here. It is not truly useful in PVE, which is how the vast majority are playing, and even in PVP it is not necessary because there are already multiple skills, abilities, and even potions that allow for more powerful stealth detection if that is an issue. Now, if I want to viably use stealth myself, I have to give up one or both of my 5 piece dps gear sets for one or both of the only 2 sets in the game that reduce stealth detection radius, Night Terror and Night Mother’s Embrace, neither of which are good for dps. Basically this means my only effective option for a stealth based dps playstyle is now the Khajiit, which got a huge boost to its stealth bonus, which used to equal that of the Bosmer.
But I don’t want to play my main character as a Khajiit, and I am far from alone in this. If the Khajiit as a race is being chosen less often, it is not because it is somehow weaker than other races, it is human nature. This is by definition a *role playing game.* Even if a player does not actively roleplay their character, they are invested in that character’s identity, or they become so over time as they play. We engage in fantasy role playing games because we want our characters to represent at least some aspect of ourselves, just a stronger and more idealized, more empowered version of ourselves. It is much more difficult for a lot of us to project ourselves into a cat than a human-like elf. It’s fine for an exploratory secondary character, but not for a main, not for many of us. Of course there are exceptions, but to pretend that these changes are for the good of the player base to enable more diverse play within each race is frankly an insult to our intelligence. This does not feel like I am being empowered, it feels like I am being forced into a main role I do not want.
I also find the timing of promoting race change tokens in the crown store ahead of this announcement to be tacky. Is this what these sudden radical changes to racial passives are about? I have never backed the people who complain about “cash grabs” in the Crown Store, but this whole thing is going too far even for me. I have not heard anyone complaining about racial passives before this, certainly there cannot be enough of a genuine issue to justify this kind of sweeping, radical, across the board change. It isn’t rebalancing if every race is changed and many changes are standardized across all races, which further guts the identity and soul of the races. If you did not like a certain race before, you could just choose a different one. Each playstyle had multiple options. If every race suits every playstyle then there is no point to having races at all, they become merely cosmetic. One change I can understand for example is the Altmer elemental damage being changed to a general increase in magicka damage, as that does allow for more flexibility, but switching from a percentage increase to a fixed, flat value is more limiting.
As previously stated, the glaring exception here is the Khajiit. The Khajiit was not by any means a weaker choice before these changes. Is the dev in charge of this somehow personally invested in Khajiits? Is this some misguided attempt to promote the upcoming Elsweyr chapter, or is it just about driving Crown Store sales of race change tokens? The one thing I can guarantee is that it is NOT in the best interests of the players. Most of these changes are not. Many of these changes constitute nerfing, particularly switching from percentage increases to fixed, flat values that are lower than what we could achieve with thoughtful allocation, etc. ourselves.
Nerfing is a bad business practice that is bad for players and bad for the company bottom line. All it does is *** off the most loyal players (who also spend the most money and impact profits positively in myriad other ways) and ultimately drive a number of them to leave the game. You can rebalance without nerfing. To give someone a set of skills, abilities, and benefits upon which they spend years building a complex and detailed character identity and game strategy, acquiring numerous gear sets, and perfecting their skills with using that character working towards very difficult “endgame” content then to just arbitrarily make major changes to the fundamental core of how that character functions for no good reason is cruel. It feels like betrayal. I cannot state emphatically enough that this is a mistake.
I fervently hope that someone on your team will come to their senses and rethink all of this. There is literally no reason to choose the Bosmer as a race if these changes are implemented. Many of us who prefer stealthy, ranged playstyle have always felt we were less supported than other playstyles, but this is incredible and intolerable. Please leave the Bosmer stealth bonus alone. Please take all of this back to the drawing board or just don’t “fix” what wasn’t broken. Cats and lizards will always be less frequently chosen. There is nothing wrong with that. It is ok to incentivize people a bit to choose these options but don’t try to force our hands by removing other viable options.
Sincerely,
Lifeonerth
Xbox One NA Server
Gwenellyn, Bosmer DPS Stamblade
Grand Master Crafter
Edited by Lifeonerth on January 25, 2019 12:40AM You do not know me, but I am without doubt one of your biggest and most devoted fans. I have spent thousands of blissful hours immersed in the wonders of your version of Tamriel since I discovered it several years ago. I have also spent truly obscene amounts of money investing in this world you have created and the character that allows me to become part of that world. It gives me goals to achieve and rewards for doing so and allows me to feel empowered. It gives me an invaluable means of escape. For me, this game has been a life saver.
About ten years ago, an “invisible” chronic illness that is progressive, incurable, and for the time being untreatable, finally took me out of the world of functioning human beings and left me house-bound and basically bed-bound. It causes pain and suffering on a scale that even most doctors and specialists cannot begin to imagine. It forces you into a twilight world of profound isolation at the time when you most need support. Without the escape of video games, and TESO in particular, I don’t know how I would cope. TESO is much, much more than “just” a game to me, and I have spoken to many others in a variety of situations who also feel this way.
In investing so much of my time, money, and extremely limited energy into this game world you have created, I have placed a very great deal of faith and trust in you. I have consistently defended you when others spoke against you, but even the most devoted of players has their breaking point. The proposed changes to the racial passives just may turn out to be mine, and I suspect that of many others as well.
My main is a Bosmer. My favorite playstyle is a stealth based bow user. I play her as a stamblade dps and often stick with bow/bow. Under the proposed changes to racial passives, the identity, core functions, and soul of the Bosmer have been gutted as far as I am concerned. “Wood elves” have *always* been stealth ranger specialists, going back to at least the original Morrowind single player RPG game (the earliest I played) and likely beyond. To say that every race should support every play style equally negates the rich lore of the Elder Scrolls that Bethesda and their fans have poured their hearts into for several decades now which is what drew many of us to ESO to begin with, myself certainly included.
Stealth detection has never been part of the inherent Bosmer toolkit and it does not make sense here. It is not truly useful in PVE, which is how the vast majority are playing, and even in PVP it is not necessary because there are already multiple skills, abilities, and even potions that allow for more powerful stealth detection if that is an issue. Now, if I want to viably use stealth myself, I have to give up one or both of my 5 piece dps gear sets for one or both of the only 2 sets in the game that reduce stealth detection radius, Night Terror and Night Mother’s Embrace, neither of which are good for dps. Basically this means my only effective option for a stealth based dps playstyle is now the Khajiit, which got a huge boost to its stealth bonus, which used to equal that of the Bosmer.
But I don’t want to play my main character as a Khajiit, and I am far from alone in this. If the Khajiit as a race is being chosen less often, it is not because it is somehow weaker than other races, it is human nature. This is by definition a *role playing game.* Even if a player does not actively roleplay their character, they are invested in that character’s identity, or they become so over time as they play. We engage in fantasy role playing games because we want our characters to represent at least some aspect of ourselves, just a stronger and more idealized, more empowered version of ourselves. It is much more difficult for a lot of us to project ourselves into a cat than a human-like elf. It’s fine for an exploratory secondary character, but not for a main, not for many of us. Of course there are exceptions, but to pretend that these changes are for the good of the player base to enable more diverse play within each race is frankly an insult to our intelligence. This does not feel like I am being empowered, it feels like I am being forced into a main role I do not want.
I also find the timing of promoting race change tokens in the crown store ahead of this announcement to be tacky. Is this what these sudden radical changes to racial passives are about? I have never backed the people who complain about “cash grabs” in the Crown Store, but this whole thing is going too far even for me. I have not heard anyone complaining about racial passives before this, certainly there cannot be enough of a genuine issue to justify this kind of sweeping, radical, across the board change. It isn’t rebalancing if every race is changed and many changes are standardized across all races, which further guts the identity and soul of the races. If you did not like a certain race before, you could just choose a different one. Each playstyle had multiple options. If every race suits every playstyle then there is no point to having races at all, they become merely cosmetic. One change I can understand for example is the Altmer elemental damage being changed to a general increase in magicka damage, as that does allow for more flexibility, but switching from a percentage increase to a fixed, flat value is more limiting.
As previously stated, the glaring exception here is the Khajiit. The Khajiit was not by any means a weaker choice before these changes. Is the dev in charge of this somehow personally invested in Khajiits? Is this some misguided attempt to promote the upcoming Elsweyr chapter, or is it just about driving Crown Store sales of race change tokens? The one thing I can guarantee is that it is NOT in the best interests of the players. Most of these changes are not. Many of these changes constitute nerfing, particularly switching from percentage increases to fixed, flat values that are lower than what we could achieve with thoughtful allocation, etc. ourselves.
Nerfing is a bad business practice that is bad for players and bad for the company bottom line. All it does is *** off the most loyal players (who also spend the most money and impact profits positively in myriad other ways) and ultimately drive a number of them to leave the game. You can rebalance without nerfing. To give someone a set of skills, abilities, and benefits upon which they spend years building a complex and detailed character identity and game strategy, acquiring numerous gear sets, and perfecting their skills with using that character working towards very difficult “endgame” content then to just arbitrarily make major changes to the fundamental core of how that character functions for no good reason is cruel. It feels like betrayal. I cannot state emphatically enough that this is a mistake.
I fervently hope that someone on your team will come to their senses and rethink all of this. There is literally no reason to choose the Bosmer as a race if these changes are implemented. Many of us who prefer stealthy, ranged playstyle have always felt we were less supported than other playstyles, but this is incredible and intolerable. Please leave the Bosmer stealth bonus alone. Please take all of this back to the drawing board or just don’t “fix” what wasn’t broken. Cats and lizards will always be less frequently chosen. There is nothing wrong with that. It is ok to incentivize people a bit to choose these options but don’t try to force our hands by removing other viable options.
Sincerely,
Lifeonerth
Xbox One NA Server
Gwenellyn, Bosmer DPS Stamblade
Grand Master Crafter
26
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Vapirko✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭You’re not going to like this but here’s what I’ll say. First the devs have decided to balance PvE and PvP together. As far as we know this will not change and sacrifices are made on both sides. Stealth in PvP is very powerful with the way bow and NB skills interact. 10% extra wpn damage from sneak from NB passives, 10% extra damage from stealth from Bosmer passives, minor berserk on demand, reduced detection radius, these are very, very powerful passives in PvP when it comes to bow gank builds and they were stacking to produce some really OP hits when people combined Bosmer with stamina NB class. ZOS knows this and this is one step at scaling back that kind of damage. You’ll stilll be able to play a stealth bow style, still have access to the wpn damage boost and minor berserk from the NB class, the only thing that changes is that you now need a set of you want additional powerful effects and that make sense. To be fair the stealth detection reversal doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, but stealth gameplay in PvP has become way too easy. You’ve already got access to cloak. If you want further abilty to stealth then I think it’s fair to ask that you use a set bonus.15 -
Aliyavana✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Im sorry, but I really dislike pvp stealth snipe builds and I wont miss that playstyles interaction with the bosmer racial. I am excited that the speed buff for bosmer will be usable for everyone. Sorry about your irl condition tho.Edited by Aliyavana on January 24, 2019 6:56AM17 -
Thannazzar✭✭✭✭✭
✭The bosmer detection instead of stealth buff sucks. Detection is pointless outside PVP.
16 -
Kadoin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Hey, you could be nerfed 28x in a row like me. I'd take those nerfs over ANY of the ones my builds have seen in the past.0 -
Hotdog_23✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I feel for you Lifeonerthv, and I am glad you have found an outlet you can use to connect and interact with to the outside world besides the immediate surrounding you are in. I feel that in your circumstances ESO or another game is actually healthy for you mentally and physically. So I implore you not to give up on it without having some other connection to take its place. I can tell form your response that you do enjoy ESO and care about it deeply.
It is difficult to change how one does do things or have enjoyed but at the same time life is ever changing with new challenges and obstacles for us to face the same as ESO is ever changing. My wish is for you to look at this change as a new challenge to face and conquer in game the same way you have in life faced challenges in real life.
Charge on with your Bosmer knowing that in the end you will be stronger for it because new changes and dangers await ahead for Tamriel that you and your Bosmer must face and defeat because the enemy can now see you, watch the smugness change in his eye change to fear as the arrows hunt for his beating heart.
5 -
Darkstorne✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭You say you pretty much only play PVE? You don’t NEED to be a Bosmer for stealth to be “viable”. And after the patch hits, you won’t NEED stealth-boosting 5 piece bonuses to remain “viable”. Your playstyle will still work just fine if stealth radius in PVE is your main concern.7 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Thannazzar wrote: »The bosmer detection instead of stealth buff sucks. Detection is pointless outside PVP.
Yeah, if they want to show that bosmers have sharp eyes, then they should add crit chance ("headshots") instead of that detection.. and i think it's also nearly useless in PVP too. 5% crit will do, ZOS ^^2 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Darkstorne wrote: »You say you pretty much only play PVE? You don’t NEED to be a Bosmer for stealth to be “viable”. And after the patch hits, you won’t NEED stealth-boosting 5 piece bonuses to remain “viable”. Your playstyle will still work just fine if stealth radius in PVE is your main concern.
Well, there is other side of gameplay, like overland wandering, and stacking stealth radius allows you to be nearly invisible and one-shot even 42k mobs with 2H ult restoring it immedeatily which is kinda fun, and stealing also works amazing. Now with this nerf, thieving as bosmer will become pointless.2 -
Yamenstein✭✭✭✭✭Darkstorne wrote: »You say you pretty much only play PVE? You don’t NEED to be a Bosmer for stealth to be “viable”. And after the patch hits, you won’t NEED stealth-boosting 5 piece bonuses to remain “viable”. Your playstyle will still work just fine if stealth radius in PVE is your main concern.
Tsk. Change = bad. Even if it doesn't affect the person complaining.
Don't think the stealth changes are going to impact anyone that bad, but people always have to find something to complain about.Crown Crates are a trap. Don't fall for the gamble! Balance? What Balance? Balance, smellance.
Necro for them RP feels.4 -
Derra✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭As sorry as i feel for your RL condition - bringing it up in hope to give more weight to your argument victimizing yourself is IMO entirely self centered and not a display of good character.
If you feel the need to bring that up to support an argument - the argument was probably not so good to begin with.<Noricum>
I live. I die. I live again.
Derra - DC - Sorc - AvA 50
Derrah - EP - Sorc - AvA 5019 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭As sorry as i feel for your RL condition - bringing it up in hope to give more weight to your argument victimizing yourself is IMO entirely self centered and not a display of good character.
If you feel the need to bring that up to support an argument - the argument was probably not so good to begin with.
Well, OP probably meant that for some people their characters are more then just spreadsheets with numbers, so removing one of the defining racial passives also may ruin RP experience, which is bad in RPG.10 -
alanmatillab16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »As sorry as i feel for your RL condition - bringing it up in hope to give more weight to your argument victimizing yourself is IMO entirely self centered and not a display of good character.
If you feel the need to bring that up to support an argument - the argument was probably not so good to begin with.
Well, OP probably meant that for some people their characters are more then just spreadsheets with numbers, so removing one of the defining racial passives also may ruin RP experience, which is bad in RPG.
A changing the detection radius of the character does not "ruin" roleplay. You are roleplaying a sneaky Bosmer NOT someone who can stand 2m closer to a target. You can still sneak around perfectly well, remember not every thief/assassin is a Bosmer.
Losing that 2m will not suddenly turn your character into a drunken Nord in a pottery shop.6 -
MartiniDaniels✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »MartiniDaniels wrote: »As sorry as i feel for your RL condition - bringing it up in hope to give more weight to your argument victimizing yourself is IMO entirely self centered and not a display of good character.
If you feel the need to bring that up to support an argument - the argument was probably not so good to begin with.
Well, OP probably meant that for some people their characters are more then just spreadsheets with numbers, so removing one of the defining racial passives also may ruin RP experience, which is bad in RPG.
A changing the detection radius of the character does not "ruin" roleplay. You are roleplaying a sneaky Bosmer NOT someone who can stand 2m closer to a target. You can still sneak around perfectly well, remember not every thief/assassin is a Bosmer.
Losing that 2m will not suddenly turn your character into a drunken Nord in a pottery shop.
First - it's 3m. And second - this number matters, stacking it with medium armor and night mother you are really invisible in overland if not staying just in front of mobs in few meters. Without this 3 meters, they notice you much earlier.7 -
Yasha✭✭✭✭✭WTF. But seriously, WTF are u complaining about? Bosmer will be possibly the best stamina class, especially for a bow build or werewolf, while Khajiit have been turned into a hybrid turd.2
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Heimpai✭✭✭✭✭This will make it easier, you’ll have better regen and you’ll be able to outrun anyone not a bosmer (pvp wise) i understand what you mean though, it’s nice not cloaking and people close enough to touch you but can’t see you
And the new sustain makes it top 2 in pve, according to some people‘s results anyways..all we can do is wait and see, then adjust accordingly2 -
icontrive✭✭✭I’m excited about wood elf next patch. Speed buff after roll dodge plus speed buff from the bow. Going to be Usian Bolt out here.2
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alanmatillab16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »MartiniDaniels wrote: »As sorry as i feel for your RL condition - bringing it up in hope to give more weight to your argument victimizing yourself is IMO entirely self centered and not a display of good character.
If you feel the need to bring that up to support an argument - the argument was probably not so good to begin with.
Well, OP probably meant that for some people their characters are more then just spreadsheets with numbers, so removing one of the defining racial passives also may ruin RP experience, which is bad in RPG.
A changing the detection radius of the character does not "ruin" roleplay. You are roleplaying a sneaky Bosmer NOT someone who can stand 2m closer to a target. You can still sneak around perfectly well, remember not every thief/assassin is a Bosmer.
Losing that 2m will not suddenly turn your character into a drunken Nord in a pottery shop.
First - it's 3m. And second - this number matters, stacking it with medium armor and night mother you are really invisible in overland if not staying just in front of mobs in few meters. Without this 3 meters, they notice you much earlier.
2m, 3m oorah the effect is the same. The point of stealth in ESO is not to be invisible like it is in WoW, you are supposed to be using positioning, planning your route through mobs etc. Not just picking the correct race and stacking x and y armour.
As for your comment about the armour stacking, the OP was on about having to use those armours now AFTER the change.3 -
Elwendryll✭✭✭✭✭
✭I understand the frustration. But please don't hate the Khajiit. A lot of people have been looking forward to seeing changes in the racial passives, maybe you didn't interact with them, but they do exist.
I understand the devs point of view with this. Khajiit and Bosmers had a nearly similar passive. And it makes more sense to give stealth to the Khajiit.
I totally understand your frustration, and want to express my support on this, but you shouldn't hope any reversal on racials. Devs are not trying to push people toward cats and lizards. A ton of people are already playing them. There is already a ton of Khajiit mages out there. By buffing the Khajiit like that, they are just mathematically bringing in line one of the most loved TES race.
I hope you will still find enjoyment in this game, and I'm truly sorry for this loss.PC - EU - France - AD
Main character: Qojikrin - Khajiit Sorcerer Tank/Stamina DD - since March 25, 2015.
Guildmaster of Oriflamme: Focus on 4 player endgame content.
Member of Brave Cat Trade, Panda Division and Toadhuggers.
All 4-man trifectas - TTT, IR, GH2 -
bharathitman✭✭✭✭We absolutely understand your frustration and where your argument is coming from. But unfortunately the game developers cannot please everyone and regrettably a change that a majority of the people like will still end up upsetting some players.
Lore-wise I have to agree with other people that stealth changes make more sense on a Khajiit than a Bosmer. I think that you are underestimating how popular Khajiit's are, tbh I think ESO has made them even more popular than ever before. Cats are extremely popular nowadays both in real world and this fascination has also boiled down to ESOEdited by bharathitman on January 24, 2019 11:34AM0 -
klowdy1✭✭✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Thannazzar wrote: »The bosmer detection instead of stealth buff sucks. Detection is pointless outside PVP.
Yeah, if they want to show that bosmers have sharp eyes, then they should add crit chance ("headshots") instead of that detection.. and i think it's also nearly useless in PVP too. 5% crit will do, ZOS ^^
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/455092/raid-buffed-dps-comparison-of-each-race-by-class-tests-graphs-interpretation-and-final-score#latest
This was still on the front page when I looked for it. This shows bosmer stamblade coming in second in overall dps, based on a 20 parse average, and they are extremely close to orcs, in firs place. Adding 5% crit would be ridiculously OP without also taking something away. You may not like the racials, but they seem to be very powerful, regardless.3 -
MajBludd✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭This game will change with every patch, update, dlc, chapter, etc.
The sooner you realize this is gonna happen, and most likely a lot more than you'd like, the better off you'll be.
How you handle changes is all on you.3 -
Megatto✭✭✭✭✭If a few changes to the racial passives are going to make you abandon the world that you love, then did you really love that world after all?
People are saying that High Elves will become better than Dark Elves with fire damage, but I won't let that affect me.
The Dark Elves are my favourite among the races of Tamriel and I'm not going to let a few adjustments in Racial passives change that, because there's so much more to a character than the amount of damage it can deal, like you described earlier
"Even if a player does not actively roleplay their character, they are invested in that character's identity, or they become so over time as they play. We engage in fantasy role playing games because we want our characters to represent at least some aspect of ourselves, just a stronger and more ideallized, more empowered version of ourselves."
I really like that quote, I have to say.
But yeah, don't let a few changes affect your character, otherwise you might as well play a generic shooter game instead
You gotta adapt to changes to overcome them, or something
Remove loot boxes or riot0 -
karpok✭✭✭Well I think the point here is not about dps or playstyle. But realy about lore and culture.
The greatest thing about elderscroll is no doubt its world and lore. Adapting game concept is a good thing but the tweaking should not collide with the overall world culture built year after year. Or it won't be RPG anymore.--
Soumar, Aldmeri Sorcer0 -
Girl_Number8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Lifeonerth wrote: »Dear ZOS Team,
You do not know me, but I am without doubt one of your biggest and most devoted fans. I have spent thousands of blissful hours immersed in the wonders of your version of Tamriel since I discovered it several years ago. I have also spent truly obscene amounts of money investing in this world you have created and the character that allows me to become part of that world. It gives me goals to achieve and rewards for doing so and allows me to feel empowered. It gives me an invaluable means of escape. For me, this game has been a life saver.
About ten years ago, an “invisible” chronic illness that is progressive, incurable, and for the time being untreatable, finally took me out of the world of functioning human beings and left me house-bound and basically bed-bound. It causes pain and suffering on a scale that even most doctors and specialists cannot begin to imagine. It forces you into a twilight world of profound isolation at the time when you most need support. Without the escape of video games, and TESO in particular, I don’t know how I would cope. TESO is much, much more than “just” a game to me, and I have spoken to many others in a variety of situations who also feel this way.
In investing so much of my time, money, and extremely limited energy into this game world you have created, I have placed a very great deal of faith and trust in you. I have consistently defended you when others spoke against you, but even the most devoted of players has their breaking point. The proposed changes to the racial passives just may turn out to be mine, and I suspect that of many others as well.
My main is a Bosmer. My favorite playstyle is a stealth based bow user. I play her as a stamblade dps and often stick with bow/bow. Under the proposed changes to racial passives, the identity, core functions, and soul of the Bosmer have been gutted as far as I am concerned. “Wood elves” have *always* been stealth ranger specialists, going back to at least the original Morrowind single player RPG game (the earliest I played) and likely beyond. To say that every race should support every play style equally negates the rich lore of the Elder Scrolls that Bethesda and their fans have poured their hearts into for several decades now which is what drew many of us to ESO to begin with, myself certainly included.
Stealth detection has never been part of the inherent Bosmer toolkit and it does not make sense here. It is not truly useful in PVE, which is how the vast majority are playing, and even in PVP it is not necessary because there are already multiple skills, abilities, and even potions that allow for more powerful stealth detection if that is an issue. Now, if I want to viably use stealth myself, I have to give up one or both of my 5 piece dps gear sets for one or both of the only 2 sets in the game that reduce stealth detection radius, Night Terror and Night Mother’s Embrace, neither of which are good for dps. Basically this means my only effective option for a stealth based dps playstyle is now the Khajiit, which got a huge boost to its stealth bonus, which used to equal that of the Bosmer.
But I don’t want to play my main character as a Khajiit, and I am far from alone in this. If the Khajiit as a race is being chosen less often, it is not because it is somehow weaker than other races, it is human nature. This is by definition a *role playing game.* Even if a player does not actively roleplay their character, they are invested in that character’s identity, or they become so over time as they play. We engage in fantasy role playing games because we want our characters to represent at least some aspect of ourselves, just a stronger and more idealized, more empowered version of ourselves. It is much more difficult for a lot of us to project ourselves into a cat than a human-like elf. It’s fine for an exploratory secondary character, but not for a main, not for many of us. Of course there are exceptions, but to pretend that these changes are for the good of the player base to enable more diverse play within each race is frankly an insult to our intelligence. This does not feel like I am being empowered, it feels like I am being forced into a main role I do not want.
I also find the timing of promoting race change tokens in the crown store ahead of this announcement to be tacky. Is this what these sudden radical changes to racial passives are about? I have never backed the people who complain about “cash grabs” in the Crown Store, but this whole thing is going too far even for me. I am frankly disgusted by this. I have not heard anyone complaining about racial passives before this, certainly there cannot be enough of a genuine issue to justify this kind of sweeping, radical, across the board change. It isn’t rebalancing if every race is changed and many changes are standardized across all races, which further guts the identity and soul of the races. If you did not like a certain race before, you could just choose a different one. Each playstyle had multiple options. If every race suits every playstyle then there is no point to having races at all, they become merely cosmetic. One change I can understand for example is the Altmer elemental damage being changed to a general increase in magicka damage, as that does allow for more flexibility, but switching from a percentage increase to a fixed, flat value is more limiting.
As previously stated, the glaring exception here is the Khajiit. The Khajiit was not by any means a weaker choice before these changes. Is the dev in charge of this somehow personally invested in Khajiits? Is this some misguided attempt to promote the upcoming Elsweyr chapter, or is it just about driving Crown Store sales of race change tokens? The one thing I can guarantee is that it is NOT in the best interests of the players. Most of these changes are not. Many of these changes constitute nerfing, particularly switching from percentage increases to fixed, flat values that are lower than what we could achieve with thoughtful allocation, etc. ourselves.
Nerfing is a bad business practice that is bad for players and bad for the company bottom line. All it does is *** off the most loyal players (who also spend the most money and impact profits positively in myriad other ways) and ultimately drive a number of them to leave the game. You can rebalance without nerfing. To give someone a set of skills, abilities, and benefits upon which they spend years building a complex and detailed character identity and game strategy, acquiring numerous gear sets, and perfecting their skills with using that character working towards very difficult “endgame” content then to just arbitrarily make major changes to the fundamental core of how that character functions for no good reason is cruel. It feels like betrayal. I cannot state emphatically enough that this is a mistake.
I wanted to stay with ESO for as long as it existed. I was a fanatically loyal player, but this just makes me feel that ZOS is NOT loyal to me. When I read the description of the upcoming changes to the races, particularly the Bosmer, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. If this change is implemented beyond the PTS I may finally decide to leave the game, and if so I will want a refund for the pre-order of the deluxe Elsweyr as well as the remaining unspent balance of the huge stockpile of Crowns I bought during the recent sale.
I fervently hope that someone on your team will come to their senses and rethink all of this. There is literally no reason to choose the Bosmer as a race if these changes are implemented. Many of us who prefer stealthy, ranged playstyle have always felt we were less supported than other playstyles, but this is incredible and intolerable. Please leave the Bosmer stealth bonus alone. Please take all of this back to the drawing board or just don’t “fix” what wasn’t broken. Cats and lizards will always be less frequently chosen. There is nothing wrong with that. It is ok to incentivize people a bit to choose these options but don’t try to force our hands by removing other viable options. You will not like the results.
Sincerely,
Lifeonerth
Xbox One NA Server
Gwenellyn, Bosmer DPS Stamblade
Grand Master Crafter
Putting the nerfs aside this post really touched me, showing a side of the game rarely seen. I truly hope your irl gets better in all ways, Gwenellyn.
I do agree with you on the crash grab push whole heartedly, as we all saw when the race change tokens went on sale. I can understand your passion for your characters and have a good idea how much time you invested in them. The wood elf though will be in a better position then most races but I understand that Zos has a habit of taking away the playstyles and unique builds that you and many others have known and love to play. They push new content and events first and sadly performance is the last concern. At this stage in the game's life, we should have a much smoother performance then what we have now, which is worse.1 -
Girl_Number8✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭MartiniDaniels wrote: »Thannazzar wrote: »The bosmer detection instead of stealth buff sucks. Detection is pointless outside PVP.
Yeah, if they want to show that bosmers have sharp eyes, then they should add crit chance ("headshots") instead of that detection.. and i think it's also nearly useless in PVP too. 5% crit will do, ZOS ^^
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/455092/raid-buffed-dps-comparison-of-each-race-by-class-tests-graphs-interpretation-and-final-score#latest
This was still on the front page when I looked for it. This shows bosmer stamblade coming in second in overall dps, based on a 20 parse average, and they are extremely close to orcs, in firs place. Adding 5% crit would be ridiculously OP without also taking something away. You may not like the racials, but they seem to be very powerful, regardless.
That is with buffs while beating on a dummy, it was not in PvP where you have to defend yourself and burst down real players.Edited by Girl_Number8 on January 24, 2019 1:24PM0 -
Jaimeh✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I understand where you're coming from OP, I was also very sad for dark elves losing their fire damage perk, and I generally don't like the removal of elemental damage passives. But here is the thing: from all the provisional testing, the races seem more balanced than ever, and it's logical to me that in order for ZOS to do that, they have to make them as uniform as possible, and flatten their unique identities somewhat. The same thing has been happening to classes as well, and while I don't particularly like that, as long as PVE/PVP remain unseparated, there's no other way. ZOS can't cater to all playstyles: the RP'ers, the PVE end-gamers, the PVPers... but the way they are going about balancing this time around means that no spec will be significantly disadvantaged, and for most types of contents, the passives do not matter at all anyway. If you are interested in a particular playstyle, then something has got to give, and you might have to race change. It's not ideal, I'm also attached to my toons, but if I have to, I will make new ones, to be able to participate in the game activities I enjoy the most. I know it's not much consolation, but these are not the final changes, and stuff may yet change.Edited by Jaimeh on January 24, 2019 1:57PM1 -
StormChaser3000✭✭✭✭✭
✭OP, I think extra crouch stealth is somewhat overrated. I'll give you 2 examples from my Midyear Mayhem adventures:
1. My main is Altmer Sorc had to go to ICP to get achievements. Since in the process I wanted to lose as less telvar as possible I was running around stealthed (crouching). Hadly anyone was able to see me. On the way back to the base I bumped into a group of 4. They noticed me since I wasn't hidden. I quicky run behind the corner and stealthed in the room. They searched the room, even came relatively close to me to kill mobs but didn't notice me. I safely came back to the base.
2. When I was creating my Stamblade alt a year ago and still was a noob I made a big mistake and chose.... prepare to hear that.... NORD. After enjoying ICP in a group with some snipers with my Sorc I got curious about that playstyle and started quickly putting that Stamblade together. Close to the end of Mayhem I brought her to ICP for a stealth test (she was and is still pretty weak, needs further upgrades to all equipment).
After the test I got a couple conclusions:
2.1. If you are a sniper and about to attack someone you should stay far away from enemy. The further the better, since some of them have revealing spells and it doesn't matter what is your crouch visibility radius.
2.2. When the enemy doesn't suspect that you are around normal stealth radius is more than enough to sneak away if you don't plan to attack. But even if they know(see the story of my Sorc on sewers) it's quite easy to escape too.
2.3. If you bumped accidentally into a quarrelsome Zerg group which surrounded you, cloak is the only chance to save yourself (unless there are revealing spells). When I was assisting with taking a flag in ICP we got surrounded by x10 people zerg group. I managed to escape death and run away from the middle of massacre only thanks to the cloak.
I do plan to change my Stamblade's race into Khajiit, but only because right now I have like ALL wrong passives xD, I like cats
and I steal a lot in game. But if I played as a Bosmer, I'd keep it, especially since in PvP zones it's also beneficial too see stealthed enemy before they see you. 2