Wood Elf/ Bosmer losing stealth passive, An open letter.

wedgebert

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

A_Silverius wrote: »

wedgebert wrote: »

Just did my first "stealth" since the patch and I have to say it feels terrible. I guess I have to go get some sets together because I must have rolled out of a really big tree onto my head and forgot to not say "hi" to everyone I'm trying to sneak by.

Its worse when you get caught between one of those lantern guys and one of the npcs and you get caught, you get removed from stealth, you take a penalty to the time limit and a hefty bounty. With that 3m stealth, bosmers could easily pass by without notice in tight corridors.

I'm finding heists and sacraments on my Bosmer to be completely not fun. I'm going to either change him to a Khajit or just stop doing event stuff.

To be fair though, heists were never that fun from a stealth standpoint. The timer meant it was more "have the path already memorized and use invisibility pots/abilities" than "methodically sneak your way to the goal"

FrancisCrawford

wedgebert wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

A_Silverius wrote: »

wedgebert wrote: »

Just did my first "stealth" since the patch and I have to say it feels terrible. I guess I have to go get some sets together because I must have rolled out of a really big tree onto my head and forgot to not say "hi" to everyone I'm trying to sneak by.

Its worse when you get caught between one of those lantern guys and one of the npcs and you get caught, you get removed from stealth, you take a penalty to the time limit and a hefty bounty. With that 3m stealth, bosmers could easily pass by without notice in tight corridors.

I'm finding heists and sacraments on my Bosmer to be completely not fun. I'm going to either change him to a Khajit or just stop doing event stuff.

To be fair though, heists were never that fun from a stealth standpoint. The timer meant it was more "have the path already memorized and use invisibility pots/abilities" than "methodically sneak your way to the goal"

So I'm a casual about heists. I zoom right past mobs' noses undetected and even so screw up somewhere and miss the timer. That was still more fun.

Anyhow, I now have a Khajit stamblade thief character named "Grumpy Ex Wood Elf".

max_only

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

A_Silverius wrote: »

wedgebert wrote: »

Just did my first "stealth" since the patch and I have to say it feels terrible. I guess I have to go get some sets together because I must have rolled out of a really big tree onto my head and forgot to not say "hi" to everyone I'm trying to sneak by.

Its worse when you get caught between one of those lantern guys and one of the npcs and you get caught, you get removed from stealth, you take a penalty to the time limit and a hefty bounty. With that 3m stealth, bosmers could easily pass by without notice in tight corridors.

I'm finding heists and sacraments on my Bosmer to be completely not fun. I'm going to either change him to a Khajit or just stop doing event stuff.

Thankfully I powered through the dlc it once I saw the announcement. The radius reduction helped no doubt. For my one Nightblade character he can just spam cloak more often. It’s my warden hunter that I fear for, he used it the reduction in Vvardenfell a lot.

MartiniDaniels

Well, I probably found a place where new passive is good - VMA.
So I took together senche's and nocturnal's favor on my favorite DK WW tank, worked quite easy, even though nocturnal's favor felt like trash in half of arenas, while rocking in other half. And i'm not VMA master at all, it is usually world of pain on my magblade, and here on bosmer ww it was pretty casual, and those extra recovery and speed helps a lot.
Uptime of hunter's eye and senche was ~50% on last boss.

max_only

did You detect stealth in vMA?

MartiniDaniels

max_only wrote: »

did You detect stealth in vMA?

Nope I noticed those dremora's going to invisibility for couple of seconds before ambushing, but i can't dispel them at will though they were very close

max_only

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

did You detect stealth in vMA?

Nope I noticed those dremora's going to invisibility for couple of seconds before ambushing, but i can't dispel them at will though they were very close

Other than Hunter’s Eye being active in ww, I haven’t noticed a significant difference with my Bosmer, but because of event fatigue I’ve only been playing the bare minimum on my thief/assassin. The rolling and the penetration part of the passive I could take or leave (and I’m glad to see it’s working out well), it’s the detect part that needs changing. We already agree on that though lol

As for the dremora, they are visible at first, then they go invisible with lines radiating from them to prepare you to block correct? This is not a mechanic that is affected by the passive. Further proof that there aren’t any pve enemies we could use it on.

Jaraal

max_only wrote: »

did You detect stealth in vMA?

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Nope

It's got to be there somewhere!


Keep looking!

wedgebert

Jaraal wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

did You detect stealth in vMA?

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Nope

It's got to be there somewhere!


Keep looking!

Are you now saying that Bosmer need "Improved Stealth Detection Detection"?

Ratzkifal

I was doing the heists on my Imperial. It may just be my imagination but you can feel the 3% reduced sneak cost (could also be my CP, but I think I put most points into block cost reduction there to reach 75 for the treasure hunter perk). But that's pretty much it.
I can get farther, but I am so easily detected that I need invisibility pots and gear if I haven't memorized the "perfect route" every time. The sacraments aren't very different in that regard, but at least you can kill all the witnesses to make it easier to stay undetected the whole time.
I wish I could do this on my Bosmer like I used to.

max_only

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I was doing the heists on my Imperial. It may just be my imagination but you can feel the 3% reduced sneak cost (could also be my CP, but I think I put most points into block cost reduction there to reach 75 for the treasure hunter perk). But that's pretty much it.
I can get farther, but I am so easily detected that I need invisibility pots and gear if I haven't memorized the "perfect route" every time. The sacraments aren't very different in that regard, but at least you can kill all the witnesses to make it easier to stay undetected the whole time.
I wish I could do this on my Bosmer like I used to.

I might change one character to Imperial just for this.... it’s painful to think about though.

Everstorm

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm going to either change him to a Khajit or just stop doing event stuff.

Yeah, I caved, my Stamblade is now a cat. She does a very cute "ja ja" when making her mount sprint so it's not all bad. I do notice the reduced stamina regeneration. And I very much miss the reduced falling damage, which also feels so dumb when changing to a cat.
ESO+ was already paid till June so plenty of time to make up my mind if I want to continue spending money on this game. Wonder if they are actually going to do something with that half vague promise from class the reps meeting.

OsManiaC

First time from my side that I cannot get full rewards -- too many alerted / dropped time.

Oh I can detect the stealth mode NPCs.. if there are any..

I really would like to talk with the related person who thought this passive needs to be changed. What was he/she talking about?

A_Silverius

OsManiaC wrote: »

I really would like to talk with the related person who thought this passive needs to be changed. What was he/she talking about?

According to the developer's comments on the changes regarding Wood Elves: "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."

And then we got stealth detection.

Jaraal

wedgebert wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

did You detect stealth in vMA?

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Nope

It's got to be there somewhere!


Keep looking!

Are you now saying that Bosmer need "Improved Stealth Detection Detection"?

Yes, because clearly NPC stealth is overpowered! Maybe all those times I fell out of the tree as a little kid and whacked my head without dying scrambled my detective abilities? That could explain why we Bosmer can't see all those stealthy, hidden little skeevers running across our path and tripping us up, making us roll around like drunken clowns everywhere!

wedgebert

You might be on to something.

While doing heists I'll often times lose 1:00 of time because I was spotted even though my stealth icon never stopped saying Hidden.

There must be a very stealthy person there seeing me and somehow communicating that to its friends!

Wildbloom

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Well, I probably found a place where new passive is good - VMA.
So I took together senche's and nocturnal's favor on my favorite DK WW tank, worked quite easy, even though nocturnal's favor felt like trash in half of arenas, while rocking in other half. And i'm not VMA master at all, it is usually world of pain on my magblade, and here on bosmer ww it was pretty casual, and those extra recovery and speed helps a lot.
Uptime of hunter's eye and senche was ~50% on last boss.

I second this. In vMA I dodge like a champ, and the 10% is surprisingly noticeable. I think the speed increase and stam recovery are our two big niches that make bosmer stand out, but the argument that stealth detect has no use is still valid.

What other race has a racial that's 50% useless 99% of the time? I really do miss the extra bump we had in staying hidden dearly, as sneaking just isn't the same without it. Possible, but not as fun and not nearly as easy.

max_only

OsManiaC wrote: »

First time from my side that I cannot get full rewards -- too many alerted / dropped time.

Oh I can detect the stealth mode NPCs.. if there are any..

I really would like to talk with the related person who thought this passive needs to be changed. What was he/she talking about?

It was presented by Gilliam, his boss is Brian Wheeler, and his boss is Rich Lambert iirc

There’s a form to leave feedback for the class representatives (players who Zos sometimes talks to, but their power is unknown)
Link : https://goo.gl/forms/gGFVynPcDcZn5yiH2

This is The official thread if you want to see all the Zos replies:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/453551/upcoming-racial-balance-changes-for-update-21/p1

Cundu_Ertur

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I wish I could do this on my Bosmer like I used to.

Your Bosmer was tortured to death. There is nothing left to be done.

max_only wrote: »

OsManiaC wrote: »

First time from my side that I cannot get full rewards -- too many alerted / dropped time.

Oh I can detect the stealth mode NPCs.. if there are any..

I really would like to talk with the related person who thought this passive needs to be changed. What was he/she talking about?

It was presented by Gilliam, his boss is Brian Wheeler, and his boss is Rich Lambert iirc

There’s a form to leave feedback for the class representatives (players who Zos sometimes talks to, but their power is unknown)
Link : https://goo.gl/forms/gGFVynPcDcZn5yiH2

This is The official thread if you want to see all the Zos replies comprehensive list of all ZOS replies on this subject:

FIFY

16BitForestCat

Sign me on as another player who's suuuuuuper angry that Bosmer lost their lore-friendly sneak. Five years, since beta days, I played a sneaky Dragonknight Bosmer as a main. Now all of a sudden, I'm being told, "Make them a Khajiit or forget about your fun days of sneaking on that character." If I'd wanted to make my main character a Khajiit, I'd have rolled a friggin' Khajiit for my main. I wanted a tiny sneaky elf as my main for OC canon lore reasons, so I made a tiny sneaky elf.

I've tried doing my usual murder-kill circuits on my Bosmer ever since this terrible change, and my poor main just can't do it now. I used to have tons of fun sneaking, killing, and looting, and now it's just not as enjoyable anymore. There's little more frustrating than traveling your well-loved paths and getting detected at every turn when you used to be able to slide right through. I spend more time crouching in one place waiting than I do actually engaging in the criminal content that was such a big part of my character's lore. I don't buy video games to sit around waiting for already glitchy NPC's to move away.

And now my Bosmer is less useful to other players as well--and we all know Bosmer haven't exactly been regarded as an in-demand top-tier race in ESO as it was. I used to be the one sent in to scout around group dungeons without aggroing enemies so my fellow casual players who don't do much group stuff could figure out our strategy; now I'm just good at...not dying as much as others when I fall off something? Don't get me wrong, that's a useful passive when you explore as much as I do and keep running off cliffs, but I'll take sneak over reduced fall damage any day, if I had to choose at all. And I never had to worry about choosing in the past five years! It was fantastic! And I wouldn't even mind if EVERY race had the opportunity to be as sneaky as Bosmer used to be (would love that, in fact, since I have many sneaky chars)...I just want my old sneakiness back. If you're not gonna let me have 120% Chameleon, at least let me have that!

I'm ugly laughing at how many pages this thread has gotten up to. There's no way it can be denied that this is a bad change when this many people in just one spot are complaining.

BlueRaven

Did the race changes go live yet for consoles?

anadandy

BlueRaven wrote: »

Did the race changes go live yet for consoles?

All those Bosmer get gutted tomorrow (March 12)

Cundu_Ertur

16BitForestCat wrote: »

I'm ugly laughing at how many pages this thread has gotten up to. There's no way it can be denied that this is a bad change when this many people in just one spot are complaining.

To be honest, there are a few of us with multiple posts. There weren't that many Bosmer to start with. A fair number of those are so happy with the improvements in the other two passives from the racial change that they don't want to rock the boat. There are some who think that the roll-dodge mechanic is great and don't want to rock the boat. Not many people come in here to try to say the detection part is great, mostly on account that it isn't useful in PVP (potions and Magelight have much better range) and cannot ever even proc in PVE.

If ZOS ever provided feedback (Ha!! as if), one interesting bit would be what the percentage of the playerbase each race represented. If Bosmer weren't at a lower percentage than imperials (who are behind a paywall) after this change I would be surprised. There are some hold-outs who are holding off on race-changing to Khajiit on the off chance that the devs will recognize their error and revert the change, but their hopes are dwindling and the number of Bosmer will likely continue to drop.
I'd also like to know what races have unpopular and untaken passives. It seems Bosmer and Altmer share a racial bonus of having 3 extra skill points.

wedgebert

Yeah, one nice thing about Blizzard is that they expose a lot of their information via publicly available APIs. So sites like https://realmpop.com can exist. It's a shame that they're not doing so great at game design in WoW (BFA was like a whole expansion worth of racial rebalances).

I'd love to know the racial and class distributions of ESO. If for no other reason that I picked my most played WoW alt by picking the least place race (excluding Pandas because I have self respect) and then the least played class for that race. Gnome Monk FTW!

Be fun to do something similar in ESO. Maybe pick some under used skill trees as well.

Jaraal

Maybe after they are done forcing people to convert their stealth characters to Khajiits ahead of the Khajiit chapter going live, they will make Bosmer relevant again. But I gave up hope of player input influencing their decisions long ago. They have a proven track record of making us deal with their unpopular and puzzling game changes, because their ever changing vision is far more important than happy players.

Tasear

Alaya wrote: »

You can't even buy the tickets yet: those come at the end of the month.

I miss my stealthy bosmer, the 3m detection bonus simply isn't worth anything, not even in PvP where you can use much better skills to find players. By the time you see the players, they're already on top of you, so what's the point?

The dodge roll is iffy. I've been utilizing it as I do dungeons and quests in DLC, but it's not an easy thing to use in a lot of places honestly.

Everything else they've given us is okay, we can live with it, but I really wish they'd revert their change to stealth instead of giving us another useless passive.

I'm sure many of you remember when they gave us that fall damage reduction. Guess this means we can just roll ourselves off cliffs faster.

What if they increased the range?

wedgebert

Tasear wrote: »

What if they increased the range?

The question is, why? This isn't something anybody asked for. Especially not Bosmer as a trade for our stealth. We lost a fun and useful PvE (non-endgame) trait and sorta useful PvP trait for something that is 99.9% useless in PvE (I thinks someone said it might work in vMA or something) and every so barely useful in PvP.

It'd be easier and better PR to just give it back than continue to double down on the mistake.

Truthsnark

I support all of my fellow Bosmers here and want my stealth radius reduction back. Nobody picked a Bosmer because they were lighting up the leaderboards, guys. They picked em because of the stealth benefit and they didn't want a tail. I am so annoyed that I now have to farm more gear and deal with clunky gear swapping to maintain both my stealth speed and my stealth radius reduction at a lower level than I had before.

No problem with the dodge roll whatever if that's your jam, but the stealth detection is completely useless. Thanks for taking a useful passive that a lot of people chose their characters for, telling us that NPCs don't stealth, then giving us stealth detection. Super great, awesome.

max_only

wedgebert wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

What if they increased the range?

The question is, why? This isn't something anybody asked for. Especially not Bosmer as a trade for our stealth. We lost a fun and useful PvE (non-endgame) trait and sorta useful PvP trait for something that is 99.9% useless in PvE (I thinks someone said it might work in vMA or something) and every so barely useful in PvP.

It'd be easier and better PR to just give it back than continue to double down on the mistake.

It doesn’t work in vMA. So you can change that to 100%

Cundu_Ertur

Tasear wrote: »

Alaya wrote: »

You can't even buy the tickets yet: those come at the end of the month.

I miss my stealthy bosmer, the 3m detection bonus simply isn't worth anything, not even in PvP where you can use much better skills to find players. By the time you see the players, they're already on top of you, so what's the point?

The dodge roll is iffy. I've been utilizing it as I do dungeons and quests in DLC, but it's not an easy thing to use in a lot of places honestly.

Everything else they've given us is okay, we can live with it, but I really wish they'd revert their change to stealth instead of giving us another useless passive.

I'm sure many of you remember when they gave us that fall damage reduction. Guess this means we can just roll ourselves off cliffs faster.

What if they increased the range?

It could be 3 miles and it would still be completely useless in PVE. And it still isn't what Bosmer are about.