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

Sylvermynx

Great rant Ratz! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and agree with pretty much all of it. Of course most of you know I don't play my Bosmer as stealthy, so I'm less bothered than most of you (though I do get it, I really do, at least from a "trashing the lore since the beginning" aspect).

Jaraal wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

If they didn't let khajiit keep it to promote Elsweyr then they really don't know lore at all or common sense doesn't exist at ZoS.

I've been saying this all along.

There is a faction of anti-fur and/or anti-scale players who refuse to play non-humanoids, for whatever reason. They may have taken a lesson from the lack of interest in Murkmire (Guess why they gave it away for free instead of trying to charge people for it?) and decided that they needed to make Khajiit more appealing, in order to sell more copies of the upcoming Khajiit chapter. They know how many players love the Justice playstyle, as much as they are aware of how many people use the stealth aspect of PvP. So I believe they made a planned decision to make Bosmer unattractive for these builds, in order to force people to play cats in the hope that they can get used to the race, or decide that "Hey, cats aren't all that bad after all."

I'm absolutely positive the gutting of the Bosmer lore wasn't an accident. You know darn well they have regular meeting to discuss strategy, and I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that that is why the previous loremaster left the company and was replaced with someone more sympathetic to the marketing direction they ultimately decided upon.

I can see that there's actually quite a bit of that around. I (on a dare from a friend) made an Argonian. Got her to level 16. Deleted her a couple days ago - I just can't do Argonians. Now, I have several Khajiit over two accounts. And I might need a third account if the playable Khajiit are really sub-racially differentiated enough to matter.

As for Murkmire, it's just another swamp. (The only swamp I like is Hjaalmarch.... which isn't in ESO of course!) I like the delves, and the lore, but I don't want to spend a lot of time there.

JadeCoin

wedgebert wrote: »

Then again, they're not going back and rewriting the dialog for Argonian poison resistance or stealthy Bosmer either. So they don't seem to care about what their own game says with regards to racials.

Very true. Taking the path of least resistance in both cases, perhaps.

wedgebert wrote: »

Maybe because it's in Hammerfell that the number of Reguards is skewed so high, even their current guild leader is a redguard. I assume the near even distribution of most other races is an attempt at diversity.

Given the location and history of Hew's Bane, Redguard does make sense. The Khajiit harmonize with the desert setting as well, "warm sands" and all of that. It's a pretty far cry from Valenwood, or Skyrim for that matter. It's the setting for a film like Casablanca, full of smugglers and refugees and other unsavory types. The Thieves' Guild count has more to do with regional and thematic flavor than anything, I think.

wedgebert wrote: »

The interesting one is Khajiit. Of their six members, two of them are merchants, one is a former merchant, and another is your smuggler assistant. So 66% of the Thieves Guild khajiit members are basically merchants.

And I think that goes to public perception of khajiit. That of wandering merchants with a penchant for sticky fingers. They use their stealth abilities for smuggling, not out and out thievery.

You want something stolen, you ask a Bosmer, you want it sold, you ask a Khajiit.

This goes to show that the definition of what "distinct" means is too narrow in Update 21. You can distinguish races in a lot of different ways. Zenimax chose the most coarse-grained approach possible. It wasn't the only one available to them.

In my opinion, ZOS broke with the lore before they took stealth away from Bosmer, or poison resistance from Argonians. They broke with it when they chose their definition of "distinct." The lore doesn't base its distinctions on having zero overlap between races. Like any good story, it's more subtle than that, less ham-fisted. There is overlap in the lore, and if you refuse overlap on principle, then you're turning your back on the lore. A definition of "distinct" here should be drawn with surgical precision, but the one they gave us is the work of a butcher's cleaver.

Ratzkifal

@wedgebert That statistic is very interesting. Maybe we should expand it and go through every outlaw refuge in ESO to count the total amount.

@JadeCoin

JadeCoin wrote: »

In my opinion, ZOS broke with the lore before they took stealth away from Bosmer, or poison resistance from Argonians. They broke with it when they chose their definition of "distinct." The lore doesn't base its distinctions on having zero overlap between races. Like any good story, it's more subtle than that, less ham-fisted. There is overlap in the lore, and if you refuse overlap on principle, then you're turning your back on the lore. A definition of "distinct" here should be drawn with surgical precision, but the one they gave us is the work of a butcher's cleaver.

Very true and great point! There is a lot of overlap among the Daedric Princes too. Imagine what that would look like if they tried to make them "distinct".

Oh, Boethia and Molag Bal have too much scheming and plots in common.

Mephala and Hermaus Mora have too much secret knowledge in common.
Mephala and Namira have too many spiders in common.
Mephala and Nocturnal have too much secrets in common.
Namira and Nocturnal have too much darkness in common.
Namira and Peryite have too much foulness in common.
Mephala and Boethia have too much murder in common.
Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon have too much violence in common.
Molag Bal and Meridia have too much subjugation in common.
Azura and Nocturnal have too much times of the day in common.
Malacath and Namira have too much hate for non-ostracized people in common.

The list goes on.

BlueRaven

Interesting poll on what the “worst” race is.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/469292/worst-race#latest

Woodelves and argonians lead the pack so far. I voted woodelf myself, but argonians are not that great either.

wedgebert

BlueRaven wrote: »

Interesting poll on what the “worst” race is.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/469292/worst-race#latest

Woodelves and argonians lead the pack so far. I voted woodelf myself, but argonians are not that great either.

From what I've read in the better Argonian threads, I think they'll win that poll. Bosmer might not exist from a lore standpoint, but at least out passives are focused on stamina. Argonian's don't have a lot going for them. 1000 health and magicka is nothing to write home about. The potion passive is nice and all, but you're likely wasting most of the benefit in one or two of the resources. The real kicker is is the healing done passive. As pointed out in the Argonian-racial-passives-mathematical-balance-why-healing-done-is-a-crap-stat-and-alternatives thread (that is sadly dead it seems), it's weighted to heavily in terms of set pieces for little benefit.

In that respect it's like Hunter's Eye. Neither our 1,500 pen boost nor the 6% extra healing is likely going to save anybody from having to use another damage/healing ability. If it takes me 10 attacks to kill you without HE and it still takes 10 attacks with it, then I'm getting zero benefit. Likewise with Life Mender, if it does't reduce the number of heals I need to cast, what good is it?

At least for Bosmer we get a constant stamina recovery (even if it's mathematically weaker than equivalent recovery granted by Resourceful (258 vs 267 base, with potion speed enchants, it can be raised to 533 recovery in all stats), and 2000 stamina is better than the split 1000 health / 1000 magicka Argonian's get.

BlueRaven

Yeah the argonians have 3 bland racials, while wood elves have 2 good ones and one that’s just a hot mess. /sigh

Ratzkifal

BlueRaven wrote: »

Yeah the argonians have 3 bland racials, while wood elves have 2 good ones and one that’s just a hot mess. /sigh

Yeah, I felt so too. Comparing pairs of passives, Bosmer is clearly in a better spot and their performance is better too, but Argonians have no completely useless passive. That's why I voted Bosmer, even though current performance would probably suggest Argonians are worse...

KMarble

Jaraal wrote: »

There is a faction of anti-fur and/or anti-scale players who refuse to play non-humanoids, for whatever reason. They may have taken a lesson from the lack of interest in Murkmire (Guess why they gave it away for free instead of trying to charge people for it?) and decided that they needed to make Khajiit more appealing, in order to sell more copies of the upcoming Khajiit chapter. They know how many players love the Justice playstyle, as much as they are aware of how many people use the stealth aspect of PvP. So I believe they made a planned decision to make Bosmer unattractive for these builds, in order to force people to play cats in the hope that they can get used to the race, or decide that "Hey, cats aren't all that bad after all."

Emphasis mine. If people refuse to play one race or another, adding or taking away skills will NOT change that.

Jaraal wrote: »

It's more subtle than that. People think, Murkmire, ugh, I don't like lizards. Don't want to go to lizardland, etc. But they didn't give anyone a reason to like Argonians.[/b]

There were plenty of people claiming Argonians were over-performing back then. Had the devs tweaked Argonians' racial skills back then to make them even stronger/better, the outcry would had been absurd. Also, there is a very likely possibility that the devs already knew that racial skills would be messed with again at the beginning of this year, so there was no reason to give Argonians something new just to have it taken away a couple of months later.

Jaraal wrote: »

However,] there are lots of people who have stated Not gonna play a furry, don't like cats, not excited about a Khajiit expansion...
And if you like playing a certain way, but now the way you play has been reduced to (coincidentally?) one race that you don't care for.... are you going to change your playstyle, or are you going to use your race change token? Because, guess what.... you might find your resistance to the race broken down and decide that it's actually fun playing a cat. Maybe there is something appealing about a Khajiit land after all.

Again, emphasis mine and again, people who refuse to play a race will refuse to play a race, period, end of story. The people who go as far as using what they perceive as a derogatory word to look down on players who chose Khajiit would NOT change to one just because they get an extra 3 m in stealth. I created a Khajiit just before the last New Life festival, so unrelated to this, and have yet to level her up. I still steal with my Bosmer. To me, there is no appeal to turn her into a Khajiit.

YOU CAN STILL PLAY A THIEF AS A BOSMER (or any other race). TAKING AWAY STEALTH FROM BOSMER IS NOT AN INCENTIVE TO CHANGE RACE. ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE WHO, FOR SOME REASON REFUSE TO CREATE KHAJIIT CHARACTERS.

Jaraal wrote: »

and when you are on the fence about spending the cash on the new chapter, a little kitty love might be just the thing to get you to reach for that credit card.

Dude, people are hyped because DRAGONS! and OMG!!!NECROMANCERS!!! ZOS doesn't need to give an extra "bonus" to the race associated with the zone to convince people who are on the fence. Aside from the extra stealth being something very niche, it isn't mandatory to play with the race from the zone being released.

This conspiracy theory of yours is just that, a conspiracy theory. Quite frankly, it makes it hard to take you seriously.

JadeCoin wrote: »

If I'm right, it does explain why they're not communicating with us. I mean, what could they say?

"We understand that this has a heavy negative impact on your playstyle, but our focus and priority at the moment is endgame combat, meaning PvP and group PvE. Justice system play is marginal to our concerns and currently sits on the back burner, though we may revisit it in the future. Until then we do not plan to make any changes directed at improving conditions for the group you belong to. Thank you for your understanding."

It's not like that would douse the flames.

Yeah. I'm coming to the same conclusion you did. It's a niche play style, and one that doesn't allow for a lot of bragging rights (aka social media views).

max_only

JadeCoin wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I'd rather have (part of) the reduction come my racial choice rather than a set, because Bosmer have always been a sneaky race.

I agree. I would even add that whether the bonus comes from race or from a set does have tangible results. @Truthsnark mentions some of them: having the bonus as part of the racials results in your freedom to choose a different set without sacrificing effectiveness. That additional set might be Night's Silence, freeing you up to be a non-vampire. It might be a flavor set, or a damage set. "You haven't lost anything" is false because I can point to what we've lost: we've lost variety that doesn't sacrifice stealth.

I know that a lot of classes (including my primary dps) just went through nerfs on the PTS, but what makes this one so irksome is that it wasn't taken away to level the playing field. Stealth was taken away from Bosmer specifically, and explicitly, so that Khajiit could be naturally better at it. Can you imagine the uproar if they took away DK's wings, in order to give them to another class...?

Thank you.

JadeCoin

Out of curiosity, which sets did you all run on your Wood Elves before the racial passive changed, and are they different now? Will you use the new stealth set?

Alucardmike

JadeCoin wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which sets did you all run on your Wood Elves before the racial passive changed, and are they different now? Will you use the new stealth set?

I used two stealth sets. (I only know the german names)
But now, I am using a cheap trousers...

I have no money, because Y'ffre took away the natural stealth, a Bosmer had. So I have no "work".

Ratzkifal

JadeCoin wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which sets did you all run on your Wood Elves before the racial passive changed, and are they different now? Will you use the new stealth set?

Relequen, Spriggan, vMA/Master's Bow on a stamwarden. I liked that I didn't really need to invest further into stealth to get decent results. It allowed me to go thieving whenever I felt like it and be good at it without needing any additional gear.

On my Imperial, who I created first, I always went Nightmother's + Night Terror when I went thieving because it was just too difficult to do on tank equipment and a nonstealthy race.

Cundu_Ertur

Originally: Night Silence + one full set of whatever I wanted + 2pc of another set.
Now: Night Silence + Night Mother's Embrace + 2pc (currently trying shacklebreaker). I respecced one guy, and he's in 4pc Magnus Gift + 5pc Shadow dancer + Night Terror jewelry. He's a weirdo ice warden.

SpringEternal

JadeCoin wrote: »

Out of curiosity, which sets did you all run on your Wood Elves before the racial passive changed, and are they different now? Will you use the new stealth set?

I used to just swap in Night Terror jewelry when on a stealing spree. Too disheartened to bother since the new passives. I'm in no rush to get the Elsweyr expansion, so no plans to use the new set.

Jaraal

My Bosmer hit the stealth cap with 7 pc medium armor passive, Stealthy racial passive and 3pcs of Night Terror. Adding another stealth set (5 pcs of Night Mother's Embrace) gave him no extra benefit. So his 5 pc set was Night's Silence (remove the speed penalty of Sneak), and 2 pc Shadowrend set. That set is nice because if you get caught and beat on by a guard or NPC, it will proc a spectral Clannfear that will off tank while you slip away. And when you get out of aggro range, the Clannfear will disengage and return to your side.

Not going to steal at a snails pace, so my Bosmer thief is retired. What a waste of time maxing the Legerdemain, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood passives.

anadandy

I won't use the new set - I'm not giving up weapon damage, or critical just to get the stealth my Bosmer always had. Probably a silly line to draw but it's the principle for me.

Truthsnark

Well, since I don't do group content on my main, my Bosmer has always geared to be a thieving machine.

Original: 7 piece Medium passive, Bosmer passive, 5 piece Night's Silence, 5 piece Night Mother's Embrace, Velidreth set

Now: 7 piece Medium passive, Vampire stage 4, 5 piece Night Mother's Embrace, 5 piece Night Terror, Velidreth set

Presuming everything goes to Live as is -

Elsweyr: 7 piece Medium passive, Vampire stage 4, 5 piece Night Mother's Embrace, 3 piece Night Terror, 4 piece Darloc Brae

That being said, I would love to drop vampirism and get my character's identity back by a reversal of the terrible decision to remove the stealth bonus from Bosmer.

BlueRaven

anadandy wrote: »

I won't use the new set - I'm not giving up weapon damage, or critical just to get the stealth my Bosmer always had. Probably a silly line to draw but it's the principle for me.

Me too. And I am playing my bosmer quite differently now then I did when I had stealth. Even little things like when I was waiting for geysers, I would crouch down in stealth as it felt natural. Now I just stand there. For delve dailies I just burn things down in front of me when I use to try and slip past them in stealth. I have just kind of have a "why bother" approach with my bosmer now.

Cundu_Ertur

I ran up (in stealth, naturally) to a guy who was hiding in Cyrodiil once. He didn't see me and never noticed I was there. I'm glad I didn't have the passive-that-shall-not-be-named, because it would have tipped him off and I may have not seen him at all.
I just keep my overland gear in PVPland; it's not like I'm going to get any better at PVP all of a sudden by changing gear. So I'm still at 2/3 of what should be my natural stealth passive.

MartiniDaniels

Ton of different sets, mostly mix 5 medium+2heavy or 5 heavy+2medium, no sets with bonus to stealth. Still was able to steal almost everything if I was acting smart and cautious. After racial changes i'm detected from 10 meters by any NPC side glance, so I just removed all skillpoints from legerdemain, now only use stealth when going AFK.

Cundu_Ertur

I forgot to say, my two main-line Bosmer have 5M, 1H, 1L armor setups (for the Undaunted passive bonus); while my experimental and goofy ice warden one is in 5l, 2m. So a 25% and 10% stealth bonus from the medium armor passive, plus the 2m from one set or another.

barney2525

is this "letter" still going on?

Cundu_Ertur

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

BlueViolet

I never bothered swapping out sets on my Bosmer, I always found she was already perfectly good at moving unseen with just her racial passives and added extras from other skill lines.

Now, she just sits unused in my char vault because with the loss of her racial she's just crap, and I refuse to compensate for ZoS idiocy by swapping out my damage sets to replace something they took away from Bosmer, so they could probably sell more copies of Elsweyr.

( I don't know if that is actually true, but my bitterness is enough to consider it could be )

anadandy

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

#Roadto60

I find it interesting that in the PTS Feedback on Class changes thread, one of the questions was "Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?"

Why wasn't this asked when they announced the racial changes? Afraid of the feedback? Knowledge that they were going against the "spirit"of the races?

BlueRaven

anadandy wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

#Roadto60

I find it interesting that in the PTS Feedback on Class changes thread, one of the questions was "Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?"

Why wasn't this asked when they announced the racial changes? Afraid of the feedback? Knowledge that they were going against the "spirit"of the races?

Or maybe they learned the value of that question after they made the race changes.

CassandraGemini

BlueRaven wrote: »

anadandy wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

#Roadto60

I find it interesting that in the PTS Feedback on Class changes thread, one of the questions was "Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?"

Why wasn't this asked when they announced the racial changes? Afraid of the feedback? Knowledge that they were going against the "spirit"of the races?

Or maybe they learned the value of that question after they made the race changes.

I doubt that. If they really knew their decision regarding the passives of Bosmer and probably Argonians, too, were just outright wrong, there'd be no reason why they couldn't just "unchange" them again and make all of us happy. That would really show that they do indeed listen to their player-base and shut everyone up who keeps saying that they don't, and don't even really care about anything we think.

One could argue, of course, that this discussion only displays the opinions of a "vocal minority" or something, and that there might be people who actually like their Bosmers the way they are now. But then I figure at least someone would feel obliged to jump in here and defend the new passive, but all I ever see are people wondering how this thread is still alive. No one ever goes: "Hey, what do you even want? I personally love Hunter's Eye!"

Still, to me it seems that ZoS either doesn't care that no one who does come out here and talk about their feelings, seems to like the passive, or that they tell themselves just what I've said before: That we're nothing but a vocal minority here and that not complaining about something openly basically equals liking it, no matter how far off they are with that point of view.

Wildberryjack

ZOS, give Bosmers back their stealth. You changed the racials to give us MORE choices in race when it came to classes. That was a good thing. But for someone wanting to play a sneaky thief we now have only ONE race choice to max our play style whereas before we had TWO. Give us a choice in race for this play style please.

BlueRaven

CassandraGemini wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

anadandy wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

#Roadto60

I find it interesting that in the PTS Feedback on Class changes thread, one of the questions was "Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?"

Why wasn't this asked when they announced the racial changes? Afraid of the feedback? Knowledge that they were going against the "spirit"of the races?

Or maybe they learned the value of that question after they made the race changes.

I doubt that. If they really knew their decision regarding the passives of Bosmer and probably Argonians, too, were just outright wrong, there'd be no reason why they couldn't just "unchange" them again and make all of us happy. That would really show that they do indeed listen to their player-base and shut everyone up who keeps saying that they don't, and don't even really care about anything we think.

One could argue, of course, that this discussion only displays the opinions of a "vocal minority" or something, and that there might be people who actually like their Bosmers the way they are now. But then I figure at least someone would feel obliged to jump in here and defend the new passive, but all I ever see are people wondering how this thread is still alive. No one ever goes: "Hey, what do you even want? I personally love Hunter's Eye!"

Still, to me it seems that ZoS either doesn't care that no one who does come out here and talk about their feelings, seems to like the passive, or that they tell themselves just what I've said before: That we're nothing but a vocal minority here and that not complaining about something openly basically equals liking it, no matter how far off they are with that point of view.

You do get some people defending it. There was some people recently making the case for it in the “worst race” thread. (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/469292/worst-race/p1)
I am wondering if the thinking is; “OK, we should have paid more attention to the backlash around the Bosmer changes. (Who knew stealth was important to people, right?) So in the future let’s ask about the “spirit” of the item we are changing first.”

“What about Wood Elves and argonians?”

“Well we cant walk back those changes now. People will be demanding another round of free race changes, and I guess there IS a set of people who do like the changes, and they will start complaining. Maybe in a few years we will rebalance them all again.”

EDIT: I am hoping that they do walk the stealth change back. My bosmers feel like they lost a lot of their personality. They just feel like a “generic stamina race” now.”

CassandraGemini

BlueRaven wrote: »

CassandraGemini wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

anadandy wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Yes.
Thanks for the bump.

#Roadto60

I find it interesting that in the PTS Feedback on Class changes thread, one of the questions was "Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?"

Why wasn't this asked when they announced the racial changes? Afraid of the feedback? Knowledge that they were going against the "spirit"of the races?

Or maybe they learned the value of that question after they made the race changes.

I doubt that. If they really knew their decision regarding the passives of Bosmer and probably Argonians, too, were just outright wrong, there'd be no reason why they couldn't just "unchange" them again and make all of us happy. That would really show that they do indeed listen to their player-base and shut everyone up who keeps saying that they don't, and don't even really care about anything we think.

One could argue, of course, that this discussion only displays the opinions of a "vocal minority" or something, and that there might be people who actually like their Bosmers the way they are now. But then I figure at least someone would feel obliged to jump in here and defend the new passive, but all I ever see are people wondering how this thread is still alive. No one ever goes: "Hey, what do you even want? I personally love Hunter's Eye!"

Still, to me it seems that ZoS either doesn't care that no one who does come out here and talk about their feelings, seems to like the passive, or that they tell themselves just what I've said before: That we're nothing but a vocal minority here and that not complaining about something openly basically equals liking it, no matter how far off they are with that point of view.

You do get some people defending it. There was some people recently making the case for it in the “worst race” thread. (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/469292/worst-race/p1)

I am wondering if the thinking is; “OK, we should have paid more attention to the backlash around the Bosmer changes. (Who knew stealth was important to people, right?) So in the future let’s ask about the “spirit” of the item we are changing first.”

“What about Wood Elves and argonians?”

“Well we cant walk back those changes now. People will be demanding another round of free race changes, and I guess there IS a set of people who do like the changes, and they will start complaining. Maybe in a few years we will rebalance them all again.”

EDIT: I am hoping that they do walk the stealth change back. My bosmers feel like they lost a lot of their personality. They just feel like a “generic stamina race” now.”

Good grief... I was about to write that I couldn't actually find anyone specifically defending the Hunter's Eye passive in that other discussion, as opposed to just saying that other races were worse off than Bosmer, but then I found the person who was really trying to make a case for that passive... yeah, don't know what to say, didn't expect that. My only consolation at this point is that it was just the one guy instead of a whole counter movement to this discussion here

I have a feeling you might not be too far off with your assumption about ZoS's thinking, though...

And considering the loss of personality, that's exactly the way I feel about it, too. I don't much care about the meta (I mean, I do want to be competitive to a certain extent in PvE, but not to the point where I let the race I choose and the sets I wear be dictated by it. I can do my rotation just fine and do decent damage without a meta-build), so that doesn't factor too much into my reasoning why I don't like the new passive. But the fact that my girl used to be so superior in all the stealth-related content like the Brotherhood and Thieves Guild stuff, and now gets hopelessly outperformed by Khajiit, even though the lore tells me that she should be able to basically walk through a room full of people, stealing from everyone left, right and center, without being noticed even once, is... I don't know, it just bothers me to no end. Sometimes I can't help but imagine her sitting in a corner, depressed and full of self-doubt, wondering if she's getting old, or what other reason there could be, she's so bad at all the things she loves all of a sudden.