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

max_only

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

They really screwed over long-time paying customers who poured hours of their time into stealth gameplay just so that Khajiit could shine during their DLC didn't they?

Yes.

Jaraal

deepseamk20b14_ESO wrote: »

I’ll use bosmer as an example since that’s what I am.

You have 4 trees. Name them what you will. Assassin, mender, defender. Whatever, probably not the best lore friendly titles for a wood elf but hear me out. You get 5 different passives right? You get to choose from the trees. Maybe you want mainly assassin passives that have stuff like sneak and extra damage from flank or behind. But you really like having a bit of disease/poison resistance and it’s in the defender tree. Go ahead and mix and match. Balance comes from following the “triad” as one tree may favor DPS and the others healing and tanking. Picking all passives from one tree would make you BiS essentially for that tree, but depending on your build and play style, taking a passive or two from another tree won’t be a bad thing either.

I don’t know. That’s the easiest way I can think of to keep things not only lore friendly but also gives people a choice to “play as you want”.

Kind of sounds like the current CP trees.


Play as you want sounds like a great idea, but if you want to create the giant orc master of stealth who is a shadowy assassin and blends into the background due to thousands of years of his people living in trees, well..... how can they write story dialogue around that?

The fact of the matter is that all TES races have had the same narrative for the last 20 years. To all of a sudden up and musical chair and Chinese fire drill what everyone is used to and expects from their familiar world is just plan inexplicable. And if it's just to balance a small percentage of niche PvP playstyles, or to gimp Bosmer to force people to like Khajiits and thus be more inclined to purchase the Khajiit expansion, then all the more egregious. And then top it off with completely ignoring any concerned dialogue about it, and it's just a really bad deal all around.

darthgummibear_ESO

3 months later and the only response from ZOS is "be nice".

MartiniDaniels

deepseamk20b14_ESO wrote: »

Okay, this racial passives thing has clearly got people in a tizzy and though I could care less, I suppose being constructive is better than not at this point since people are so set in their ways.

What if......

ZOS introduces a system where when you chose your race, you get to pick your passives? Now I’m not saying the whole list of EVERY passive from every race is in your face but let’s say four or five lore friendly sets of passive you are able to choose from and can do to an in game shrine and change when you want?

I’ll use bosmer as an example since that’s what I am.

You have 4 trees. Name them what you will. Assassin, mender, defender. Whatever, probably not the best lore friendly titles for a wood elf but hear me out. You get 5 different passives right? You get to choose from the trees. Maybe you want mainly assassin passives that have stuff like sneak and extra damage from flank or behind. But you really like having a bit of disease/poison resistance and it’s in the defender tree. Go ahead and mix and match. Balance comes from following the “triad” as one tree may favor DPS and the others healing and tanking. Picking all passives from one tree would make you BiS essentially for that tree, but depending on your build and play style, taking a passive or two from another tree won’t be a bad thing either.

I don’t know. That’s the easiest way I can think of to keep things not only lore friendly but also gives people a choice to “play as you want”.

Exactly this was described by devs when ZOS started campaign about racial changes. That any race can play any role through choices of passives.
Instead of this we received 6 races with 2k stamina, which lack any lore connection or diversity and there are simply one best race for everything - Orcs, while others are just weaker versions of orcs with slight nuances.

Zephiran23

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

Ratzkifal

cameronmccrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

There is only one delve in Clockwork City where it could possibly be an "advantage" (very minor, pretty much insignificant), but I doubt it even works there, because the game treats players and NPCs differently on a regular basis, so it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't doing anything there too.
In PvE, detection is a useless stat and if you take into account that the rest of hunter's eye is a detriment to dps when you actively try to take advantage of it, it's pretty much a useless passive overall. Getting to spend 3 SP elsewhere is its biggest perk.

Jaraal

cameronmccrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

Yes, when you spend 90% of your game time (like me) stealing for a living.


I've made tens of millions of gold from being stealthy, and all that money goes into purchasing blueprints and materials to create furnishings for all my homes. But ZoS is not concerned with players like me, they are only concerned with chasing a constantly moving target of mythical PvP balance, at the expense of the majority of PvE players. It hardly makes financial sense to make parts of the game unattractive to the most players, but what do I know. I assume they have marketing gurus..... but it seems strange to make your game most appealing to a smaller segment of your customers at the expense of everyone else. And yet, with that said, I don't think I've seen an increase in the number of "Wow ZOS you've really made PvP fair for everyone!" threads. Seems like more of the same "Nerf Sorcs", "NB gankers still out of control", "Wardens still overlooked" and so forth threads filling up the PvP and test server forums. So whatever balance they are chasing doesn't seem to have been achieved with the 'new and improved' racial passives.

(edit) Sorry, I thought you meant player detection in stealth. Active Stealth Detection is only functional in PvP, and has been shown to have only negative effects (giving your presence away to hidden enemies before those without Stealth Detection). My personal experience in Cyrodiil wth Rank III of Hunter's Eye was that I was unable to see crouched enemy players six feet away from me, and could only detect their presence after casting Evil Hunter. So I can't even say that it has actual benefits in PvP, either.

hmsdragonfly

Jaraal wrote: »

cameronmccrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

Yes, when you spend 90% of your game time (like me) stealing for a living.


I've made tens of millions of gold from being stealthy, and all that money goes into purchasing blueprints and materials to create furnishings for all my homes. But ZoS is not concerned with players like me, they are only concerned with chasing a constantly moving target of mythical PvP balance, at the expense of the majority of PvE players. It hardly makes financial sense to make parts of the game unattractive to the most players, but what do I know. I assume they have marketing gurus..... but it seems strange to make your game most appealing to a smaller segment of your customers at the expense of everyone else. And yet, with that said, I don't think I've seen an increase in the number of "Wow ZOS you've really made PvP fair for everyone!" threads. Seems like more of the same "Nerf Sorcs", "NB gankers still out of control", "Wardens still overlooked" and so forth threads filling up the PvP and test server forums. So whatever balance they are chasing doesn't seem to have been achieved with the 'new and improved' racial passives.

(edit) Sorry, I thought you meant player detection in stealth. Active Stealth Detection is only functional in PvP, and has been shown to have only negative effects (giving your presence away to hidden enemies before those without Stealth Detection). My personal experience in Cyrodiil wth Rank III of Hunter's Eye was that I was unable to see crouched enemy players six feet away from me, and could only detect their presence after casting Evil Hunter. So I can't even say that it has actual benefits in PvP, either.

Dude don't blame PvP for this, no one in PvP asks for a stealth nerf on Bosmer.

BlueRaven

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

cameronmccrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

Yes, when you spend 90% of your game time (like me) stealing for a living.


I've made tens of millions of gold from being stealthy, and all that money goes into purchasing blueprints and materials to create furnishings for all my homes. But ZoS is not concerned with players like me, they are only concerned with chasing a constantly moving target of mythical PvP balance, at the expense of the majority of PvE players. It hardly makes financial sense to make parts of the game unattractive to the most players, but what do I know. I assume they have marketing gurus..... but it seems strange to make your game most appealing to a smaller segment of your customers at the expense of everyone else. And yet, with that said, I don't think I've seen an increase in the number of "Wow ZOS you've really made PvP fair for everyone!" threads. Seems like more of the same "Nerf Sorcs", "NB gankers still out of control", "Wardens still overlooked" and so forth threads filling up the PvP and test server forums. So whatever balance they are chasing doesn't seem to have been achieved with the 'new and improved' racial passives.

(edit) Sorry, I thought you meant player detection in stealth. Active Stealth Detection is only functional in PvP, and has been shown to have only negative effects (giving your presence away to hidden enemies before those without Stealth Detection). My personal experience in Cyrodiil wth Rank III of Hunter's Eye was that I was unable to see crouched enemy players six feet away from me, and could only detect their presence after casting Evil Hunter. So I can't even say that it has actual benefits in PvP, either.

Dude don't blame PvP for this, no one in PvP asks for a stealth nerf on Bosmer.

Several pages back there were people defending this change saying that “stealth” is pointless in pve and stealth detect was more useful because no one used stealth in PvE except for RP.

I agree with you though, MOST people were not asking for this change, but there were people defending it.

SidraWillowsky

darthgummibear_ESO wrote: »

3 months later and the only response from ZOS is "be nice".

This is my main takeaway- a well-written, thoughtful, and poignant OP that resulted in nearly 70 pages of largely constructive discussion is met with zero response or even acknowledgment beyond chastising people for arguing...

Jaraal

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

cameronmccrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I've started playing in Elsweyr and so far, on a non-Bosmer character, I haven't seen any content where stealth detection would be an advantage. Anyone else seen a situation where it would have helped?

Yes, when you spend 90% of your game time (like me) stealing for a living.


I've made tens of millions of gold from being stealthy, and all that money goes into purchasing blueprints and materials to create furnishings for all my homes. But ZoS is not concerned with players like me, they are only concerned with chasing a constantly moving target of mythical PvP balance, at the expense of the majority of PvE players. It hardly makes financial sense to make parts of the game unattractive to the most players, but what do I know. I assume they have marketing gurus..... but it seems strange to make your game most appealing to a smaller segment of your customers at the expense of everyone else. And yet, with that said, I don't think I've seen an increase in the number of "Wow ZOS you've really made PvP fair for everyone!" threads. Seems like more of the same "Nerf Sorcs", "NB gankers still out of control", "Wardens still overlooked" and so forth threads filling up the PvP and test server forums. So whatever balance they are chasing doesn't seem to have been achieved with the 'new and improved' racial passives.

(edit) Sorry, I thought you meant player detection in stealth. Active Stealth Detection is only functional in PvP, and has been shown to have only negative effects (giving your presence away to hidden enemies before those without Stealth Detection). My personal experience in Cyrodiil wth Rank III of Hunter's Eye was that I was unable to see crouched enemy players six feet away from me, and could only detect their presence after casting Evil Hunter. So I can't even say that it has actual benefits in PvP, either.

Dude don't blame PvP for this, no one in PvP asks for a stealth nerf on Bosmer.

The reason they removed the Stealthy passive from Bosmer and Khajiit was because of the 10% damage bonus from stealth. They gave Khajiit back the stealth, minus the damage modifier, and then decided to give Bosmer a PvP only racial skill (Stealth Detection)

This change was certainly not made with PvE in mind, at all. And nobody is blaming players specifically, although there were plenty of complaints about stealth gankers before the rework.

darthgummibear_ESO

If they gave bosmer back their stealth, i would PAY FOR A RACE CHANGE. Hear that, ZOS?

Jaraal

darthgummibear_ESO wrote: »

If they gave bosmer back their stealth, i would PAY FOR A RACE CHANGE. Hear that, ZOS?

I would be against them financially profiting from an unfortunate mistake, but it would certainly be better than playing a fake Bosmer.

Ratzkifal

Jaraal wrote: »

darthgummibear_ESO wrote: »

If they gave bosmer back their stealth, i would PAY FOR A RACE CHANGE. Hear that, ZOS?

I would be against them financially profiting from an unfortunate mistake, but it would certainly be better than playing a fake Bosmer.

Then again, we need to reward them backtracking and listening to feedback...

Cundu_Ertur

If they do.

wedgebert

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

If they do.

They did. First they said they wanted lore friendly changes and then they backtracked by removing Bosmer from the game.

Left4Daud

Honestly they probably put this thread on ignore back in February and haven’t looked since.

Jaraal

Left4Daud wrote: »

Honestly they probably put this thread on ignore back in February and haven’t looked since.

Well they certainly noticed the uproar about unblockable/undodgeable Silence with Incapacitating Strike. So they do respond to feedback when they choose to.

I can't completely give in to pessimism yet. Somebody has to care about lore and racial (passive) discrimination. Somebody in authority must be able to see that only giving one race a completely useless passive in PvE is not fair to the majority of Bosmer players. What if they took the 10% sprint speed bonus away from Orc and replaced it with +10% increase in siege repair efficiency? Bet that would go over well.

Left4Daud

“In addition to their increased sprint speed, we’ve decided to give Orcs a 2 meter reduction to stealth detection. We want players to be able to fulfill the Wood Orc racial identity.”

Oh, Wood Elves live in the Valenwood too? Who knew!

-ZOS, probably

jarydf

Sigh

I left for 2 months and they still have not given the Bosmer back their stealth?

Just give them their thing back ffs...

Alaya

https://youtu.be/tPO6dg3Dyec

On a scale of 1 to broken, how broken is this? User is wearing 5 for Night Mother's Embrace, 4 for Vesture of Darloc Brae, and 3 for Night Terror. It's not the sets that are broken, it's the fact that only Khajiit can get away with this.

Left4Daud

I mean it’s kind of broken in my opinion, but they proved they were aware of this “issue” during the Wrathstone PTS when they addressed the initial Khajiit racial change (which allowed the same level of stealth tomfoolery).

Based on that I’d have to imagine it’s “working as intended.”

Jaraal

There used to be a stealth radius hard cap, where Bosmer and Khajiit got no extra benefit from wearing 2 reduction sets, and you would get detected by guards at the same distance wearing just one set. That's why they were best to play as thieves, because you could equip a sneak speed penalty set at no cost of detection.

Apparently, when they got rid of the Stealthy passive for both races, they changed the way stealth radius is calculated with the new Khajiit Feline Ambush passive. None of this was possible before the revamp. So, instead of having two of the ten races that were pretty good at stealth, they cut it down to one race that is overpowered at it.

But, since the naysayers keep coming in here proclaiming that ZOS is 'happy with the new racials', then I will dress all my Khajiit thieves in three sets and my Bosmer main will keep loging in once a day to do writs. And I will still come in here and protest how they threw my guy under the bus and made liars out of all these quest NPCs who still believe that wood elves are the masters of stealth.

Avran_Sylt

BOSMER - The agile hunter

• Acrobat => Keen Eye
• • Bow Bonus
  • (Remove Falldamage Bonus)
  • 3m increase to Stealth Detection
• Hunter's Eye => Hunter's Guile
• • (Remove Stealth Detection)
  • 3m reduction to Detection Radius while in Stealth
  • Rolldodge Stuff

KHAJIIT - The curio collector

• Cutpurse
• • Medium Armor Bonus
  • Keep Pickpocket Chance
  • Add 5% increase to Fence sales

darthgummibear_ESO

Are they ever going to address this? It's total crap that they completely screwed over bosmer players just to make Khajit look better for the dlc. I'll never play khajit...I don't like animorphic races, and I don't want a tail. Give my bosmer stealth back.

Ratzkifal

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

BOSMER - The agile hunter

• Acrobat => Keen Eye
• • Bow Bonus
  • (Remove Falldamage Bonus)
  • 3m increase to Stealth Detection
• Hunter's Eye => Hunter's Guile
• • (Remove Stealth Detection)
  • 3m reduction to Detection Radius while in Stealth
  • Rolldodge Stuff

KHAJIIT - The curio collector

• Cutpurse
• • Medium Armor Bonus
  • Keep Pickpocket Chance
  • Add 5% increase to Fence sales

Yes, that sounds great. Bosmer were never as good at Acrobatics as Khajiit and even though taking reduced fall damage is testament to knowing their way around high places, not falling in the first place is more in line with them I feel, so I wouldn't be too bummed out over it.

Alternatively to the fence sales, Khajiit could also get more fence interactions per day because they are so charming the fence can't say no. I'd be really happy with either of those.

Kadoin

This thread makes me to know people are still crying about this change. It really does.

Cundu_Ertur

Thanks for the bump!

KMarble

Alaya wrote: »

https://youtu.be/tPO6dg3Dyec

On a scale of 1 to broken, how broken is this? User is wearing 5 for Night Mother's Embrace, 4 for Vesture of Darloc Brae, and 3 for Night Terror. It's not the sets that are broken, it's the fact that only Khajiit can get away with this.

What a surprise! Not. It's even worse than what I predicted some time ago.

This is really bad news, no matter how they "fix" it, someone will lose.
Assuming that what has been said in the forum is true, the devs have no intention of messing with racial skill lines any time soon,, so they'd have to lower the radius given by the new set to maybe 1m, which is basically useless to any race other than Khajiit, and even so, the gain is so small it might not be worth using the set.

The other option they have is to take 2m out of the Khajiit racial, meaning that they too will have a mostly useless racial skill.

There is a third less likely scenario, where they'd rework that set and give it completely different bonuses. Or just take it off the game all together. I don't see this happening.

Bottom line is, unless they revert the stealth on wood elves, people playing them will never get the same radius as we had before.

Sorry to keep on bothering you, @ZOS_GinaBruno , but could you please let the devs know about the video above?

Left4Daud wrote: »

I mean it’s kind of broken in my opinion, but they proved they were aware of this “issue” during the Wrathstone PTS when they addressed the initial Khajiit racial change (which allowed the same level of stealth tomfoolery).

Based on that I’d have to imagine it’s “working as intended.”

But that was fixed. They lowered their max stealth from 5m to 3m.

I disagree with it being "kind of broken". When the char can stand up and wave on the face of a guard with a bounty, it's completely broken.

Ratzkifal

KMarble wrote: »

Alaya wrote: »

https://youtu.be/tPO6dg3Dyec

On a scale of 1 to broken, how broken is this? User is wearing 5 for Night Mother's Embrace, 4 for Vesture of Darloc Brae, and 3 for Night Terror. It's not the sets that are broken, it's the fact that only Khajiit can get away with this.

What a surprise! Not. It's even worse than what I predicted some time ago.

This is really bad news, no matter how they "fix" it.
Assuming that what has been said in the forum is true, the devs have no intention of messing with racial skill lines any time soon,, so they'd have to lower the radius given by the new set to maybe 1m, which is basically useless to any race other than Khajiit, and even so, the gain is so small it might not be worth using the set.

The other option they have is to take 2m out of the Khajiit racial, meaning that they too will have a mostly useless racial skill.

There is a third less likely scenario, where they'd rework that set and give it completely different bonuses. Or just take it off the game all together. I don't see this happening.

Bottom line is, unless they revert the stealth on wood elves, people playing them will never get the same radius as we had before.

Sorry to keep on bothering you, @ZOS_GinaBruno , but could you please let the devs know about the video above?

Left4Daud wrote: »

I mean it’s kind of broken in my opinion, but they proved they were aware of this “issue” during the Wrathstone PTS when they addressed the initial Khajiit racial change (which allowed the same level of stealth tomfoolery).

Based on that I’d have to imagine it’s “working as intended.”

But that was fixed. They lowered their max stealth from 5m to 3m.

I disagree with it being "kind of broken". When the char can stand up and wave on the face of a guard with a bounty, it's completely broken.

I mean, there is also the option of introducing a cap to stealth radius so that you can only ever get a maximum bonus of 7m. That wouldn't require any changes to racials or sets. Or they could turn those radii into named buffs so only major and minor whatever-it's-called stack.