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

Truthsnark

Yeah, to be crystal clear, I want our stealth bonus back. Losing the flexibility to gear myself as I wanted and the lore behind my character is not replaceable by equipping one more stealth set (and a pretty mediocre stealth set at that). I certainly do not look at this as equivalent, even though if it makes it to live I'll probably use it.

Ratzkifal

JadeCoin wrote: »

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...?

Although I am not exactly sure if this was indeed their reasoning, it certainly feels that way. The lack of communication makes "what it feels like" the only thing we have. If classes were treated like this, the uproar would be huge!

KMarble

Jaraal wrote: »

I guess if you could access and read the code you could get the raw numbers, but that's beyond my field of expertise.

Not only I have no idea how to do this, I doubt my computer would be able to run with yet another software and the game.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I measured it in a duel last time. You could try to get another player to help you. Just get yourself a home, place furniture in regular intervals and then say "three bookcases away".

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try it as soon as the PVP part of the event starts.

JadeCoin

Ratzkifal wrote: »

JadeCoin wrote: »

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...?

Although I am not exactly sure if this was indeed their reasoning, it certainly feels that way. The lack of communication makes "what it feels like" the only thing we have. If classes were treated like this, the uproar would be huge!

Well, we did have this communication in the patch notes:

"We also wanted to have more of a distinct play pattern on how Wood Elves and Khajiit both engaged with Stealth, so we’ve repurposed Wood Elves’ passive into one that deals with turning their proficiency of Stealth into a proficiency of hunting Stealthed targets."

The stated reason for removing stealth proficiency from Wood Elves is so that they will be distinct from Khajiit, where "equally proficient at stealth" is cashed out as "not distinct." In point of fact, ensuring that Bosmer and Khajiit are not equally skilled at being stealthy is in fact the only rationale they've ever really given us for the change.

wedgebert

That was less communication than a single statement. As soon as those changes were announced, Bosmer players registered their complaints regarding both the lore-breaking aspect and uselessness of the stealth detection in PvE (and PvP it turns out).

The only other thing I think they "communicated" was that they had plans to make stealth more accessible to all races, and until then Bosmer could at least enjoy having a "nice combat buff" until then. Which showed that the developers weren't paying attention to the players or their own changes because any decently optimized PvE character can't make use of Hunter's Eye in normal content and gets marginal at best benefit in veteran.

ZOS isn't really communicating with the players so much as they're occasionally communicating at them. And given the level of awareness they're showing when they do communicate (or make future changes like adding another stealth armor set that puts Khajiit almost back into the 100% chameleon realm again) shows how little they care (or even undrstand) about stealth gameplay.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

The crying of the Bosmers in Valenwood can be heard to the Rawl'kha.

Surely the Khajiit need to do something about this, maybe burn the damn forest to the ground and get rid of the entitled feeling shorties once and for all. I bet the majority of the Altmer won't disagree on this.

Let us build a big fleet for the Dominion in the process, of what ever tree is left after the burning...

Ratzkifal

Well, seeing how on Shor people are camping the daily quest locations to kill pacifists, this PvP week has quickly turned into a stealth event. It's only about how good can you sneak up to the quest giver.
Unfortunately for all EP and DC players, Shor is completely yellow and Bosmer are better at detecting the sneaking players...

Koronach

The stated reason for removing stealth proficiency from Wood Elves is so that they will be distinct from Khajiit, where "equally proficient at stealth" is cashed out as "not distinct." In point of fact, ensuring that Bosmer and Khajiit are not equally skilled at being stealthy is in fact the only rationale they've ever really given us for the change.

So they took the stealth passive away from the race that has always been known as stealthy thieves. I wouldn't push that stealth detection passive on anyone but. Shouldn't Khajiit have it since they have night eye and can see people hiding in the shadows better? 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.

Ratzkifal

Koronach wrote: »

The stated reason for removing stealth proficiency from Wood Elves is so that they will be distinct from Khajiit, where "equally proficient at stealth" is cashed out as "not distinct." In point of fact, ensuring that Bosmer and Khajiit are not equally skilled at being stealthy is in fact the only rationale they've ever really given us for the change.

So they took the stealth passive away from the race that has always been known as stealthy thieves. I wouldn't push that stealth detection passive on anyone but. Shouldn't Khajiit have it since they have night eye and can see people hiding in the shadows better? 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.

If you dig really deep (not even that deep imo), which ZOS doesn't seem to have done, Bosmer are stealthier than Khajiit. Their forest coupling ability is better for stealth than the soft paws and camouflage fur patterns of Khajiit. The only reason Khajiit had a better sneak skill in Skyrim was because a lot of the skills Khajiit were known for got removed in Skyrim and had to be included somewhere.

In Oblivion Bosmer had a +5 to acrobatics and +10 to sneak and marksman! Note how in Oblivion stealth was weighed as equally important to Bosmer as their bow skills.
Khajiit had +10 to acrobatics +5 to athletics, +5 to security (aka lockpicking) and +5 to sneak.
Seeing how Khajiit's greatest bonus (besides hand-to-hand) doesn't have an equivalent in Skyrim, it's quite obvious why they would boost their sneak, which pushed them ahead of Bosmer in Skyrim.

In ESO we do have acrobatics! It's called dodgerolling. That wasn't a thing in Skyrim unless you had a perk and even then it served pretty much no purpose. So I am wondering why Khajiit doesn't have a reduced dodgeroll cost. Having detection does make sense on Khajiit too, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone really. Their sneaking is more important than detecting enemies as Nightvision doesn't necessarily mean you'll detect better. It just means darkness doesn't protect you. It's a different story if they have better smell and hearing senses too, but even then not at the cost of their sneak skill. NEVER at the cost of anyone's sneak skill!

BTW Argonians were pretty good at lockpicking in Oblivion and Skyrim, which is why I consider them to be a "stealth race" too. Dunmer weren't exactly as good with sneaking as with using weapons that assassins would choose. Both of them were also good at athletics, which would increase your running speed. Bosmer didn't have a bonus to that, so the dodgeroll movement speed doesn't even make sense there!

No matter from where I look at it, the Hunter's Eye passive is not based in already existing lore nor previous games and would need new lore like the Altmer passive (which btw is very logically lacking, thanks to Alteration not being an exclusive Altmer thing).

As much as it pains me to say, the current version of Bosmer in ESO are nothing like the Bosmer in lore or previous games. They are more like adorable stamina goblins. Or Falmer.
Dunmer would go balistic if their race got all it's ties to fire removed. The small outburst from the fire damage removal is proof of that. Dunmer LOVE fire.
Altmer would go (and have gone) balistic if they weren't magical anymore.
Redguards have their weapon mastery.
Bretons have magic and magic resistance.
Nords are hard to kill.
Orcs deal lots of damage and are hard to kill and come charging at you, which makes you pee your pants in fear.
Khajiit still have stealth whenever they are lacking martial arts.
Imperials are the jack of all trades.
Argonians... well they have alchemy, disease and poi- I mean... They are slightly magical?
At least the nerfs to sustain food will probably put Bosmer in a better spot as archers, so at least that is coming back.

Sorry for the rant.

Jaraal

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.

Cundu_Ertur

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

The stated reason for removing stealth proficiency from Wood Elves is so that they will be distinct from Khajiit, where "equally proficient at stealth" is cashed out as "not distinct." In point of fact, ensuring that Bosmer and Khajiit are not equally skilled at being stealthy is in fact the only rationale they've ever really given us for the change.

So they took the stealth passive away from the race that has always been known as stealthy thieves. I wouldn't push that stealth detection passive on anyone but. Shouldn't Khajiit have it since they have night eye and can see people hiding in the shadows better? 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.

As much as it pains me to say, the current version of Bosmer in ESO are nothing like the Bosmer in lore or previous games. They are more like adorable stamina goblins. Or Falmer.

There are no Bosmer in the game now at all. Imga, maybe, sure. Or Ohmes -- maybe that was the plan, to turn all Bosmer into Khajiit for the expansion.

Ratzkifal

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 still feel like it's a conspiracy theory. Sure, I guess it could be possible for a guy from the marketing team coming into the room and saying "Buff Khajiit. I don't care! I don't wanna hear it. You are buffing Khajiit because it will be better for sales" and then leaving. That however wouldn't mean that ZOS has no common sense. If it's about money and their hands are "tied" then they still would have found a way to make the patch less ridiculous than it is now.

You can play Elsweyr on any race and Khajiit are free and you can race change for free (especially from Bosmer to Khajiit). I don't get why this would somehow earn them more money. I feel it's more likely the combat team was acting careless or there was miscommunication between the teams rather than ZOS doing it out of evil intend.

Also, I doubt our old loremaster had anything to do with that. He seemed more like someone who puts gameplay before lore whenever "necessary". The deus ex machina that created the Ebonheart pact to have three geographically neat alliances suggests that anyway.

Even if we say that in the second era the Nordic hatred for Elves died down a little because of the Akaviri, the Argonians did practically nothing and the Dunmer had no reason to free them. My headcanon is that the Argonian slaves were offered freedom for fighting by desperate slave owners who worried about losing their land more than their slaves or if the Akaviri invasion led to an argonian slave rebellion but also to massacres among them, causing the Argonians to have stakes in the fight and grudge against the Akaviri, leading to them getting rewarded with freedom for it.

Jaraal

Ratzkifal wrote: »

That however wouldn't mean that ZOS has no common sense.

I struggle to find the common sense in eradicating decades of established lore.... for any reason. It could only be one of two things.

(1) They planned as a group to gut Bosmer for a reason, or

(2) They let one person make all the racial balance decisions, and lore (or the stated "racial diversity" plan) didn't really matter to that individual.

And ZOS has a long history of making gameplay decisions that don't make any sense and/or are unpopular. Look at the PTS section here and see pages and pages of things that the vast majority of players were against, but got pushed to live anyway. Like the removal of the NB burst heal that they introduced this week.... look at the uproar that has created, yet you can virtually guarantee they will stick with the implementation of it as they have already seen fit.

KMarble

Jaraal wrote: »

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?)

I don't know about other people, but the reason I wasn't excited for Murkmire has nothing to do with creating an Argonian as a character.

AFAIK you don't have to have a Khajiit to enter Elsweyr, the same way you didn't have to have a Dark Elf to go to Morrowind and Clockwork City, an Orc to go to Orsinium or a High Elf to go to Summerset.

JadeCoin

Jaraal wrote: »

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 don't have the inside track on this or anything, and as others have already emphasized, the lack of communication can only give rise to speculation. But my feeling is that they in fact don't know how many players love the Justice playstyle, or don't understand those players, or don't really understand what the playstyle entails. Or at least the combat team that did the racial rebalancing doesn't.

There is combat that involves stealth, but Justice playstyle stealth isn't combat. So it just doesn't factor into a combat-centric reordering of the racial passives. They're blinkered in that respect.

The reason I feel this way is that if you look at the racial "diversity" and "choices" they created, it's all centered around group PvE (options for the "classics": mag dps, stam dps, healer, tank), where stealth is irrelevant, and around PvP, where stealth equates to ganking and measures against ganking. They separated Bosmer and Khajiit to make them distinct in PvP, and the heartbreaking impact on lore-immersed Bosmer thieves was just a casual side effect of the changes that actually mattered to the folks in charge. I think that Justice system stealth wasn't really on their radar at all, or if it was, it was an afterthought.

That's why I'm not optimistic about an upcoming overhaul of the stealth system, at least not with the current team in charge. Justice system play doesn't look like a priority for them.

anadandy

Jaraal wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

That however wouldn't mean that ZOS has no common sense.

I struggle to find the common sense in eradicating decades of established lore.... for any reason. It could only be one of two things.

(1) They planned as a group to gut Bosmer for a reason, or

(2) They let one person make all the racial balance decisions, and lore (or the stated "racial diversity" plan) didn't really matter to that individual.

And ZOS has a long history of making gameplay decisions that don't make any sense and/or are unpopular. Look at the PTS section here and see pages and pages of things that the vast majority of players were against, but got pushed to live anyway. Like the removal of the NB burst heal that they introduced this week.... look at the uproar that has created, yet you can virtually guarantee they will stick with the implementation of it as they have already seen fit.

I've said it before - but I honestly think its as simple as someone looked at the passives, saw that Khajiit and Bosmer both had a passive called "Stealthy" and they didn't want that. So they made up some new names (Hunter's Eye) and shoehorned some crap to make them work. explain them.

Edit: I originally said make them work - but they don't work.

Jaraal

KMarble wrote: »

I don't know about other people, but the reason I wasn't excited for Murkmire has nothing to do with creating an Argonian as a character.

AFAIK you don't have to have a Khajiit to enter Elsweyr, the same way you didn't have to have a Dark Elf to go to Morrowind and Clockwork City, an Orc to go to Orsinium or a High Elf to go to Summerset.

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. 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.

I'll be honest, when I first started playing, I chose the Bosmer because I liked the race and the stealth playstyle from the other TES games. I had zero desire to play a cat man. But once I discovered how much I liked stealing and how lucrative it was, I made a Khajiit thief only because of the +5% to pickpocketing, which I had gotten pretty adept at. And that small percentage has added up to a large sum of gold over time. Now, I actually enjoy playing my Khajiit, although my Bosmer main will always be my primary character. So I speak from personal experience when I say that little changes (or even huge changes like reversal of established lore) can push players in directions they may not have gone without outside influence.

Nobody is saying you have to have a Khajiit player to play in a Khajiit zone. But you may like cat people a little bit more if they provide something you need. You may actually grow to love them, 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.

JadeCoin

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.

JadeCoin

Jaraal wrote: »

Nobody is saying you have to have a Khajiit player to play in a Khajiit zone. But you may like cat people a little bit more if they provide something you need. You may actually grow to love them, 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.

If the team discussed which race to change with regards to stealth proficiency, under the assumption that they "had" to take it away from one or the other, then it does seem likely that the upcoming chapter factored in somehow. But perhaps only in the sense that if they had to anger one group of players (who would, they hoped, cool down eventually), it would be a bad idea to anger the ones who play Khajiit, immediately before the release of a chapter they were sure to purchase. Hype about Khajiit might also make it more palatable to switch from elf to kitty with the free race change token. And then I'd imagine that dialog and storylines for the new chapter had been written, featuring the Khajiit as thieves, which no one would be changing retroactively.

Then again, it's also possible they just looked at the existing passives and thought, which one is the closest fit?

Khajiit have pickpocketing bonus => thieves.
Bosmer can fall from heights without damage => acrobats.

To anyone with a deep knowledge of the lore it seems laughable, but the thought process may have been as simple as that.

wedgebert

JadeCoin wrote: »

And then I'd imagine that dialog and storylines for the new chapter had been written, featuring the Khajiit as thieves, which no one would be changing retroactively.

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.

On a side note, I went through the wiki and compiled a list of all the NPC Thieves Guild members and their races.

Of the 34 members/associated NPCs listed, it's skewed towards Redguard and Khajiit with 6 members each. Imperials with 4 members, Argonian, Bosmer, Altmer, and Orc with thee members, and finally Dunmer and Nord with two.

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.

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.

Ratzkifal

Jaraal wrote: »

Nobody is saying you have to have a Khajiit player to play in a Khajiit zone. But you may like cat people a little bit more if they provide something you need. You may actually grow to love them, 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.

Maybe I just don't agree because that would never work on me... I never liked or cared for Redguards, so I never made one, despite them being BiS on stamina for so long. The fact that everyone was saying "go Redguard" actually pushed me further away. Similarly I don't have facebook. The more people tell me to get it, the less I want to get it. The only reason why I would ever race change is because I am personally not satisfied with my character and feel like they don't meet my expectations.
Meta never mattered in that to me, but the lore always has. It was to my expectations that those would go hand in hand most of the time though... That it doesn't anymore sure feels a bit like betrayal and that's the reason I stopped subscribing nor prepurchased Elsweyr. I'll need a concrete sign of good will from ZOS first before I'll consider it.
The fact that we have nothing official, not even a "soon" from them is also the reason I stopped recommending the game to my friends. Even though none of them stuck around, I got like seven friends to buy the game before. I used to be damn excited about it damnit! Give the Bosmer back what is theirs! You are making Y'ffre cry!

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.