The story of a confused Bosmer

KMarble

The first thing I remember is waking up in a cell and a very tall woman barking orders at me, saying to stand back as she was about to open the door to my cell. I had no idea what was going on, so I followed her orders, picked up a weapon from a dead body and began hacking away at anything that would attack us.

She eventually told me I was dead and was in Oblivion, but honestly nothing she did or say make sense. Meeting Sir Cadwell was the bright spot of that day, and when he told me he thought she and the "prophet" were a little soft in the head, it made perfect sense and gave me some clarity to keep on going. (I could go on a tangent here, but that's a story for another day)

Eventually I was back(? Not sure, since like I said, I don't remember anything prior to the prison) in Tamriel, and told to roam the land finding people to help. I didn't know what to do, how to fight, who to believe in...For a while I didn't even know I was a Bosmer. Even that, I had to be told.

I had no money, no home and no one. I fought because I was told to - and because I needed the money. I used things I found or took from people I killed. Every single weapon I had in my hands felt...wrong somehow. I used them, sure, but didn't feel right until I found my first staff.

The very first time I used a staff I knew that was who I was - a sorcerer! I learnt everything I could about magicka, even joined the Mages' Guild (granted, I also joined the Fighters' Guild, but in my defense, I needed the money). I have no loyalties other than to my friends and my pocket. I didn't go into missions out of a sense of loyalty. I knew from the get go that I was a tool, and if I failed my missions, whomever hired me would find someone else - a stronger, better fit fighter.

So I went through the Aldmeri Dominion, doing odd jobs here and there, hoping to come across someone or something that would unlock the memories I knew would be somewhere inside my head. Nothing in Auridon seemed familiar, and I was excited to learn I was going to Grahtwood next. Surely the land of the wood elves would bring me some much needed answers, or at least, clues to my past.

My heart sank when I first step foot in Grahtwood. It didn't feel like home, it was oppressive. Even though the land didn't bring back memories, nor did I find anyone who knew me, the people and situations I've met in Grahtwood did confirm that not only I looked like a Bosmer, I was one of them.

I knew it in my heart, and in every fiber of my being that I was a wood elf, and I was proud of it. I also discovered that even though I was a sorcerer, I wasn't a very good one. Sure, I could complete my missions, but I was just decent and I knew, even back then, that I would never shine as a sorcerer. I stuck to it, though, because I couldn't do any other job.

Somewhere along the way I stole something for the first time. What can I say? Maybe I needed whatever it was and didn't have the money for it. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe I was trying to see if I could steal and get away with it. It doesn't matter. What matter is that at that moment I found out something I was really, really good at. I might be a mediocre sorcerer, but I am a very good thief.

...Or was. This last Morndas I woke up feeling funny. I have some unfinished business in Vvardenfell, so I decided to drop by, and I felt odd. The world felt odd. I decided to take it slow that day and didn't do much. I went to bed wondering if I'd just woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something. Then yesterday I went to the Clockwork City, and I found out I'm not that good at stealing anymore.

There is this one bag by a group of students who are playing dice - if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. The bag is just tossed against a wall, and everybody is too preoccupied with the game to pay attention to it. I've ran past it a hundred times. Heck! I stole from it dozens of times. I took pride in doing it too, because it isn't easy - what with all those people around and the guards walking by.

Every single time, until yesterday, I was able to steal from that bag. Not anymore. I spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out a good angle of approach. I've tried every trick I know, I even put on some magical gear that is said to make me less detectable. The loot inside that bag was too good to pass, so I got a bounty for it.

What happened to me? Which deity is so angry with me that they thought to punish me is such a cruel way? They took away the only thing I was good at. Why?

anadandy

twing1_

Cuz ZOS's rebalance wasn't done as well as it could have been.

Heres this:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459197/racial-rebalance-v4-3-x#latest

I wish I could help you out... But I'm only dreaming

Cundu_Ertur

If I could I'd give a +insightful, +agree, and +awesome.

KMarble

twing1_ wrote: »

Cuz ZOS's rebalance wasn't done as well as it could have been.

Heres this:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459197/racial-rebalance-v4-3-x#latest

I wish I could help you out... But I'm only dreaming

Yes...sadly I (the player) was aware of it before it came to pass. I haven't said much about it, though, because I needed to try. That bag in CWC was the test.

So, to all the people who have said to not worry because there are sets in the game that will replace Bosmer's racial, that is the answer. The set I used did not.

I'll do more experiments, using the set we can craft along with the one that drops.

BlueRaven

Acrolas

I'm a Bosmer.
I can no longer /teatime in a guard's face while burdened with 200 stolen items and a 250,000 gold bounty.

But otherwise very little has changed. I might have to be slightly more careful in areas with less environmental obstacles.
But my IC teammates like me because I can point out any bomb scrubs in Barathrum Centrata so it all balances out.

DocFrost72

I don't agree with the message but I gave you an awesome cause that was a fun read.

OsManiaC

There is a really basic fix for it. Make it old version in pve/against npc only. They took away the best thing.

Cundu_Ertur

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

DocFrost72

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

Nights silence and Shadowdancer are redundant if you already have stage four vampirism, so you can run both detection radius sets.

KMarble

Acrolas wrote: »

I'm a Bosmer.
I can no longer /teatime in a guard's face while burdened with 200 stolen items and a 250,000 gold bounty.

But otherwise very little has changed. I might have to be slightly more careful in areas with less environmental obstacles.
But my IC teammates like me because I can point out any bomb scrubs in Barathrum Centrata so it all balances out.

I'm a wood elf sorcerer. I'm passable at PVE quests (meaning I don't die). I'm mediocre at best when it comes to group content - as in, if I was worse the group would have to carry me. I don't do PVP - no Cyrodiil, no IC, no BGs.

The thing I do well in this game is steal. I'm patient and know how to wait and find the perfect angle. This patch took away my play style. I'll (hopefully, learn and adapt - if possible), but for now I am at loss.

I don't want PVPers to stop having fun. In fact if we were told that taking away stealth from wood elves was done to enhance performance in Cyrodiil, I'd gladly give it up without any complaint. But that is not the case, is it?

I just want something I already had and wasn't bringing any other race or play style down.

anadandy

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

Nights silence and Shadowdancer are redundant if you already have stage four vampirism, so you can run both detection radius sets.

If you want to be a vampire.

DocFrost72

anadandy wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

Nights silence and Shadowdancer are redundant if you already have stage four vampirism, so you can run both detection radius sets.

If you want to be a vampire.

Are we building meta or no?

zaria

Still not get that change, stealth is an basic mechanic. They gave out 2000 resources to most, 258 weapon or spell damage to many and so on. So why just stealth to Khajiit?
I get the more proc like abilities but basic ones

Number_51

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

There is definitely a way to run all 3, in fact you can run all 3 plus 1 piece of monster set. I've been running this setup on my Bosmer thief since very near console release. One of the sets used to have a different name and you couldn't get it at max level, but you're not fighting, you're sneaking... so it didn't matter. Anyway, the trick is to use Night's Silence, only on your back bar. You will keep the speed bonus as long as you crouch before bar swapping. It used to be more difficult since you had to dual wield on both bars. Easiest setup now is (other combos are possible though):

3 Night Terror jewelry
3 Night's Silence body armor and 1 2h or 2 1h weapons on back bar *
3 Night Mother's Embrace body armor and 1 2h or 2 1h weapons on front bar
1 monster helm or shoulder

* For the Night's Silence set, I recommend heavy chest and light belt to maximize stats if you have the Undaunted Mettle passive. Everything else is medium.

Also... +1 Awesome for OP.

alanmatillab16_ESO

KMarble wrote: »

The thing I do well in this game is steal. I'm patient and know how to wait and find the perfect angle. This patch took away my play style. I'll (hopefully, learn and adapt - if possible), but for now I am at loss.

.

No, it didn't.

For it to have removed your playstyle (the same one as my Nord Thief) after the patch it must have been impossible for any race other than Bosmer to have been a thief BEFORE the patch since by your definition only the Bosmer passive was what made it possible.

Jaraal

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

Yep, all my thieves run 3x Night Terror, 5x Night's Silence, and 2x monster set. But as of Monday, my Bosmer main can't steal from a blind man, however.... my Khajiit thieves have actually gotten stealthier. They can now sneak past aggro mobs that they never could before, and can steal undetected things they would usually get caught for in the past. Not sure what ZOS did for the cats, but they made them better thieves.

KMarble

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

KMarble wrote: »

The thing I do well in this game is steal. I'm patient and know how to wait and find the perfect angle. This patch took away my play style. I'll (hopefully, learn and adapt - if possible), but for now I am at loss.

.

No, it didn't.

For it to have removed your playstyle (the same one as my Nord Thief) after the patch it must have been impossible for any race other than Bosmer to have been a thief BEFORE the patch since by your definition only the Bosmer passive was what made it possible.

Before the patch I'd never used a stealthy set. I could get to the backpack I mentioned and steal from it without alerting any of the NPCs around it. I was actually looking forward to acquiring those sets so I could become even more stealthy.

Do you know how some players test different gear and weapons, then create a whole rotation for them, and then practice to become good at it? I do the same with my Bosmer, but with stealing. I go through the same areas and objectives over and over again, trying to figure out the best way to approach them - you can say I made a game within the game to be able to steal without getting caught.

Is a rotation not part of the play style? What I do before stealing was my "rotation" for lack of a better term. It doesn't work anymore. And, unlike stamina chars, I have to change my entire set so I can go back to "fighting the good fight", i.e. doing quests and whatnot.

This patch did take away my play style, which was to waltz in, steal and go back to killing things. The distance and position I used to use until Monday don't work anymore.

BlueRaven

Wow.
It appears they moved this from the general forum to this forum, without at least putting a “moved to” signifier in general. /sigh

anadandy

Wish I could say that surprised me.

Aela_Dragonrider

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

If I could I'd give a +insightful, +agree, and +awesome.

What he said ^

Awesome read, @KMarble!

uFuqinwitme

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I know you're a busy woman, but I think its personally insulting to the OP of this post that this has stealthily been moved to another section of the forums without a moderator informing of such, and extremely insulting to Bosmers in general for viewing the justified vent on a racial passive that was made worse in Gilliam's "Universally Applicable" viewpoint as "fiction and roleplaying".

BlueRaven

Hey mods!!!!

This is a criticism of ZoS's removal of Stealth.

This is is in the wrong forum, it should be put back into general.

Arato

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Night terror is an overland set with +2m stealth at the 3 item point. Night Silence is craftable and only negates the movement penalty at 5 items. Night Mother's Embrace is overland with +2 stealth at the 5 item point. There is no way to run all 3 that I can think of. Unless you can grow an extra head. Note that night terror and night mother's embrace also decrease the stamina cost for sneaking. Shadowdancer is a light armor set that also negates the movement penalty at 5 items, but most gives magicka bonuses. I can't think of any other good sets for stealth. I think the night terror is better used if you have Maelstrom-like weapons equipped.

I just finished grinding for NME jewelry, I ended up buying the bows. Still need to transmute to get the traits I want for the rings. I'm trying NME (2 bows + jewelry) + NS (armor, less head and shoulder) to see how that works for overland. I can really feel the loss of the bonus, too.

See here's the thing. Most people already used those items AND had the racial stealth, so no you suggesting this is #1, not helping anyone out with something new they didn't know about and #2, not replacing what was lost.

Ratzkifal

Let it be known that whenever you critisize ZOS and say "I ... XYZ" it's roleplaying and can be dismissed/banished where nobody will see it.

Arato

If you're disatisfied with the change and especially of the way ZOS has been treating their community since the changes with a wall of silence, moderation and trying to hush everyone from complaining, be sure to cancel your subs, don't buy crowns, cancel Elsweyr preorders. Because that's the only way they'll listen to us that isn't you know, literally torches and pitchforks and physical violence.

Kalle_Demos

Arato wrote: »

If you're disatisfied with the change and especially of the way ZOS has been treating their community since the changes with a wall of silence, moderation and trying to hush everyone from complaining, be sure to cancel your subs, don't buy crowns, cancel Elsweyr preorders. Because that's the only way they'll listen to us that isn't you know, literally torches and pitchforks and physical violence.

Done.

Minyassa

BlueRaven wrote: »

Hey mods!!!!

This is a criticism of ZoS's removal of Stealth.

This is is in the wrong forum, it should be put back into general.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

JayAstrophel

Super cool post!
I agree, though, definitely needs to be moved back.

Swergdach

Brilliant!