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

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.

Ratzkifal

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

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.

Pretty sure that if the guy was sneaking and you saw him, Hunter's Eye would have changed nothing. It's just that if two people are sneaking and the non-Bosmer comes too close, he'll know an enemy is about to reveal him before the Bosmer does. Without Hunter's Eye, both Bosmer and enemy will learn they are about to be revealed at the same time. Unless one of them is facing the other direction or they are wearing different gear etc.

Still, the fact is that Hunter's Eye gives information to the enemy before you, which is a fundamental flaw of "bonus" and applies before you even get to benefit from it.

Ostacia

Just sticking my head into the thread to see if I can play my sneaky Bosmers again and offer support to other sneaks

MartiniDaniels

Btw, we may be sure that issue is well-known:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5987559#Comment_5987559

Masel wrote: »

As a matter of fact, I told them to change orc (reduce health or stamina). I told them that players think the altmer stam passive is weird, I told them that bosmers want their stealth back and gave them reasoning why it'd be good to listen to that feedback. They decided not to and changed foods instead.

I guess ZOS screwed up with racials, if they plan to nerf most popular food as counter-balance to damage races, which actually solves nothing (breton becomes OP) and now there is a little outrage ongoing on PTS. Maybe they will left food alone as it is and review racials instead? (and return stealth) it's basically just a few tweaks

It will be good if somebody new creates thread for this on PTS section. I think majority of us were too vocal in last months and another thread "from bosmer cornerclub" maybe met with skepticism.

rfennell_ESO

max_only wrote: »

In the developer notes it states that “many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!” The conclusion to replace it with 3 meter stealth detection is a contradiction because if enemies can’t be bothered to stealth, then we don’t need to detect stealth enemies. There isn’t any pve content available in the game that uses stealth detection. In pvp, 3 meters is actually a negligible amount of stealth detection because of how pvp is currently played. Stealth is used from a distance in order to stack bonuses from the Bow skill line. Stealth in melee range, at the pace of the current pvp climate, requires a skill (Vampire or Nightblade) or a potion. Being able to detect within 3 meters is not enough time to even block before a blow from stealth. “Gankers” will not disappear with the removal of this Wood Elf passive, they will just switch to Khajiit for the crits.

The stealth detection radius change was the minor change.

Losing the 10% damage bonus (which, in case some were unaware of also applied to shadowy disguise use) was a huge hit to many nightblades that picked wood elf for this exact purpose.

Ratzkifal

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

max_only wrote: »

In the developer notes it states that “many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!” The conclusion to replace it with 3 meter stealth detection is a contradiction because if enemies can’t be bothered to stealth, then we don’t need to detect stealth enemies. There isn’t any pve content available in the game that uses stealth detection. In pvp, 3 meters is actually a negligible amount of stealth detection because of how pvp is currently played. Stealth is used from a distance in order to stack bonuses from the Bow skill line. Stealth in melee range, at the pace of the current pvp climate, requires a skill (Vampire or Nightblade) or a potion. Being able to detect within 3 meters is not enough time to even block before a blow from stealth. “Gankers” will not disappear with the removal of this Wood Elf passive, they will just switch to Khajiit for the crits.

The stealth detection radius change was the minor change.

Losing the 10% damage bonus (which, in case some were unaware of also applied to shadowy disguise use) was a huge hit to many nightblades that picked wood elf for this exact purpose.

@rfennell_ESO In terms of combat balance, it was a minor change, but in regards to the lore in conjunction with the removal of the bonus damage from stealth, it's quite a major change. It also is a major change in regards to available options that fit the stealthy playstyle.

Cundu_Ertur

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

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.

Pretty sure that if the guy was sneaking and you saw him, Hunter's Eye would have changed nothing. It's just that if two people are sneaking and the non-Bosmer comes too close, he'll know an enemy is about to reveal him before the Bosmer does. Without Hunter's Eye, both Bosmer and enemy will learn they are about to be revealed at the same time. Unless one of them is facing the other direction or they are wearing different gear etc.

Still, the fact is that Hunter's Eye gives information to the enemy before you, which is a fundamental flaw of "bonus" and applies before you even get to benefit from it.

He was looking the other way, in stealth, and I had my NME on in stealth. My 'hidden' indicator never changed. The way I understand it, the 'bonus' of the new passive (which I refuse to get) would have alerted them before I would have been close enough to have seen them. They started looking around just as I saw them, though, so I think their 'hidden' had changed to 'detected.'

On another note, I've noticed lately that my Night Silence seems to have been nerfed or something; I'm not moving as fast I had been before in stealth. I used to move with a 'fast walk' animation in stealth (the same as if I wasn't in stealth at all), but now I move in a crouch. Maybe it was just a general walking speed nerf or something. I don't follow all of the change notes religiously.

Jaraal

CassandraGemini wrote: »

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

The only people saying that Hunter's Eye is a good passive are those with niche playstyles built around the bow Hasty Retreat passive and Senche's Bite, Eternal Hunt, Morihaus, and other sets....... where they were already rolling around to begin with. Of course you're going to like extra speed and penetration (if you aren't already near the effective cap) when you don't have to change a thing about the way you play. But virtually no PvE players, and most PvP players who would rather be dealing damage than rolling around on the ground burning stamina like the Hunter's Eye passive.

Jaraal

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

The stealth detection radius change was the minor change.

Losing the 10% damage bonus (which, in case some were unaware of also applied to shadowy disguise use) was a huge hit to many nightblades that picked wood elf for this exact purpose.

Agreed. The 10% extra damage from stealth is why the Stealthy passive was removed from both Bosmer and Khajiit. The built in detection radius reduction was just collateral fallout. Yet, they saw fit to restore that part of it to one race, and not the other race..... who are traditionally known as masters of stealth.

Cundu_Ertur

Jaraal wrote: »

CassandraGemini wrote: »

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

The only people saying that Hunter's Eye is a good passive are those with niche playstyles built around the bow Hasty Retreat passive and Senche's Bite, Eternal Hunt, Morihaus, and other sets....... where they were already rolling around to begin with. Of course you're going to like extra speed and penetration (if you aren't already near the effective cap) when you don't have to change a thing about the way you play. But virtually no PvE players, and most PvP players who would rather be dealing damage than rolling around on the ground burning stamina like the Hunter's Eye passive.

Even then, the defence was about the rolling in the dirt past of the passive with nary a peep about the detecting things part (if I recall correctly). And even then it was with the explicit acknowledgement that even the rolling around bit was pretty much rubbish in PVE.