Suggestion to ZoS: Make three racial passives selectable instead of inherent?

SpyroRue

Something that has really really bugged me with ESO, is how people feel compelled to play specific character races simply for the maximum stats to help in a trial or pvp group. While it is negligible in a single player game like Skyrim, it kinda isn't fair for players in MMO. A friend of mine suggested the idea that ZoS could have avoided this problem, simply by allowing us to select a combination of 3 "racial" passives on character creation. Not only would it allow us to not feel like we have to play a specific race for the most ideal stats regarding our role, and Stam/Mag choice, but it also encourages us to play what we want, and for our characters to be what we imagined.

A wood-elf could simply be an arcane genius, a master mage to be, instead of been hindered with useless stamina passives. Not all Khajiit are stealthy, some might bumble around, and others prefer to be a brute force. Not all high-elves are mages, cant they be expert swordsman? One could have a unique vision for their character, and the passives as they are restrict us - that is in end game content and meta. Just an Idea... might bring some more character diversity and interesting build combinations.

Ackwalan

How about instead of changing the racial passives, a new passive be added. Lets say something like a birth passive. This passive would be selectable by the player. For example, a Libra (or whatever game term) is born during a hearty star constellation and has a bonus to combat.

VaranisArano

Racial passives are from the TES lore, so no, they shouldn't be substantially altered for MMO gameplay just to benefit players who feel the need to min-max. Bad enough that we already have bad lore like the Bosmer passive changes without going "Well, Shalidor was a Nord and a great mage, so clearly Nords should have some bonuses to magic, right?" Individuals of every race can go counter to their racial talents, but those racial talents nonetheless exist in the series lore.

And no, it won't bring any more diversity with the sort of players who players who feel the need to min-max in the first place. You can offer as many options as you want, but only a select few are ever going to be the meta - see the many, many gear options we have in ESO.

So we'd be throwing out the lore in favor of offering "diversity" of choice, only to see that anyone who cared about the BIS race is still choosing from the few most effective combos. No thanks.

Ackwalan wrote: »

How about instead of changing the racial passives, a new passive be added. Lets say something like a birth passive. This passive would be selectable by the player. For example, a Libra (or whatever game term) is born during a hearty star constellation and has a bonus to combat.

Like the Mundus stones?
In the older TES games, those birthsigns were chosen during character creation. Skyrim made them more changeable at the drop of a hat for greater character customization through the stones.

We've already got a changeable bonus, so I'm not sure how adding another one would help the "problem" of people wanting to min-max AND play their favorite race.

redgreensunset

SpyroRue wrote: »

Something that has really really bugged me with ESO, is how people feel compelled to play specific character races simply for the maximum stats to help in a trial or pvp group. While it is negligible in a single player game like Skyrim, it kinda isn't fair for players in MMO. A friend of mine suggested the idea that ZoS could have avoided this problem, simply by allowing us to select a combination of 3 "racial" passives on character creation. Not only would it allow us to not feel like we have to play a specific race for the most ideal stats regarding our role, and Stam/Mag choice, but it also encourages us to play what we want, and for our characters to be what we imagined.

A wood-elf could simply be an arcane genius, a master mage to be, instead of been hindered with useless stamina passives. Not all Khajiit are stealthy, some might bumble around, and others prefer to be a brute force. Not all high-elves are mages, cant they be expert swordsman? One could have a unique vision for their character, and the passives as they are restrict us - that is in end game content and meta. Just an Idea... might bring some more character diversity and interesting build combinations.

Races are never going to be equally viable if you're as into minmaxing as you claim here. The racial passives does not create that big a difference unless you're super into scoreboards so this is never going to work the way you want it to.

And as others have stated the passives are (supposed to be) lore rooted. I would much rather they took that route again (like giving the bosmer their stealth passive back and made Argonians immune or resistant to poison) instead of further breaking lore.
You can still make an altmer or breton stamdk, or a nord magsorc and quite frankly unless you're ery number obsessed you're not going to notice the difference.

SpyroRue

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play. I know its lore related but this isnt a good platform to have that. People get told they gotta switch to certain races for certain builds in groups and such, no one should have to. No one should have to ask "Which race should I be for this role?" Its not fair, and silly.

And realistically, yes there may be some inherent traits... Not all aspects need to change, such as swimming faster as argonians, or poison resist etc... but everyone is an individual, not all bosmer should be pushed into stamina, not all High-elves should be pushed to be magica. Yes lore wise its a inherent generalized trait, but just like people Individuals would vary, and would be cool to pick what we want, rather than have passives that are not all that relevant to that particular character and role.

Just an idea.

thorwyn

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play.

Eliminating the useless passives and picking the best ones instead would just increase the power creep. Picking a race is one of the few remaining decisions that can not be reverted by spending some gold coins.

redgreensunset

SpyroRue wrote: »

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play. I know its lore related but this isnt a good platform to have that. People get told they gotta switch to certain races for certain builds in groups and such, no one should have to. No one should have to ask "Which race should I be for this role?" Its not fair, and silly.

This is always going to happen, no matter what. Why? Because one class/race combo will always be marginally better than another a X, Y or Z. If your group is that number obsessed then it is not going to change. And if you don't like lore in an Elder Scroll game you're in the wrong place.

SpyroRue wrote: »

And realistically, yes there may be some inherent traits... Not all aspects need to change, such as swimming faster as argonians, or poison resist etc... but everyone is an individual, not all bosmer should be pushed into stamina, not all High-elves should be pushed to be magica. Yes lore wise its a inherent generalized trait, but just like people Individuals would vary, and would be cool to pick what we want, rather than have passives that are not all that relevant to that particular character and role.

Just an idea.

Again if you want an Altmer Stamcro or a Bosmer Magsorc those are perfectly viable unless you (or your group) is totally number obsessed and if they/you are then nothing is going to change because one race/class combo will always be more viable, have bigger numbers than another. If you're feeling pushed then you will always feel pushed.
In fact ESO is probably the MMO that has the most lenient and flexible approach to class/race combo unlike say WoW where some races simply can't play a class. It isn't even a question of viability, it's a question of them being locked out from said class. In ESO any class/race combo is viable unless you want to squeeze that last bit of dps/resource management/person or group buff out of it in which case yes your choice is narrow. But it's the same for gear, why are you forced to wear certain specific gear? Answer is, to a large degree you're not because plenty of gear is viable to run, unless you want that last bit of minmaxing numbers, which is only really needed in vet trials, speed and no death runs and if you want to end up at the very top of scoreboard. Apart from those scenarios, then it s a no. And if your group demands it, then you may want to have a talk about them as to why they're that number obsessed but that's not the game's fault and nothing is ever going to change it because it's a "people problem" not a game problem.

vestahls

If you don't like TES lore and game rules, don't play a TES game. If you remove the lore and base mechanics, this game is just like any other.

Luke_Flamesword

What you think about passives morphs like with regular skills? Of course without completely change race lore. For example we have Bretons with 100% magicka passives:

* Increases Max Magicka by 2000
* Increases your Spell Resistance by 2310. This effect is doubled if you are afflicted with Burning, Chilled, or Concussed. Increases your Magicka Recovery by 100.
* Reduces the Magicka cost of your abilities by 7%.

Breton should still be a mostly magicka race so morph shouldn't change it too much. We can morph it to:
* Max Magicka by 2000 to Max Stamina by 2000 or even Max Stamina 1000 and Max Magicka 1000
* WE don't touch Spell Resistance (it's important part of being Breton) but we can morph Magicka Recovery to Stamina recovery
* Third passive without morph

As you can see - ZOS can give players some options without changing too much and I think that some races deserves more flexibility.

Dovakhan

Well...lore-wise, it could work. Not all Nords are axe-addicted brutes for instance. There are some geniouses, like Shalidor. And likewise, there are Redguards who have gone as far as for being accepted into the Psijic Order.

And I certainly would like my Nord stamsorc to have some Orc attributes, and not having to trade what I wanna play with what's best stats-wise.

Deathlord92

I love playing a bosmer and Breton always have it would be nice to play them how I want to.

BigBragg

I have a friend who played a Bosmer Magblade for years, and she does well in both PvP and the vet trials she runs. If you want to play it, you can find a way.

BlueRaven

VaranisArano wrote: »

Racial passives are from the TES lore, so no, they shouldn't be substantially altered for MMO gameplay just to benefit players who feel the need to min-max. Bad enough that we already have bad lore like the Bosmer passive changes without going "Well, Shalidor was a Nord and a great mage, so clearly Nords should have some bonuses to magic, right?" Individuals of every race can go counter to their racial talents, but those racial talents nonetheless exist in the series lore.

And no, it won't bring any more diversity with the sort of players who players who feel the need to min-max in the first place. You can offer as many options as you want, but only a select few are ever going to be the meta - see the many, many gear options we have in ESO.

So we'd be throwing out the lore in favor of offering "diversity" of choice, only to see that anyone who cared about the BIS race is still choosing from the few most effective combos. No thanks.

Ackwalan wrote: »

How about instead of changing the racial passives, a new passive be added. Lets say something like a birth passive. This passive would be selectable by the player. For example, a Libra (or whatever game term) is born during a hearty star constellation and has a bonus to combat.

Like the Mundus stones?
In the older TES games, those birthsigns were chosen during character creation. Skyrim made them more changeable at the drop of a hat for greater character customization through the stones.

We've already got a changeable bonus, so I'm not sure how adding another one would help the "problem" of people wanting to min-max AND play their favorite race.

Many racial passives in ESO are not from ES lore. There are racial passives in ESO that don’t even follow ESO’s own lore very well.

Ratinira

SpyroRue wrote: »

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play.

Without min-maxing you are able to play any way you want you character to play right now.
What prevents you from playing any race you wish if you dont care about the DPS amount in high end content?

badmojo

Thats like making the 3 armor types only different in appearance. Why should we feel required to wear a certain type of armor? Lets take it to the extreme and make all characters statistically the same and only cosmetically different, then nobody will feel forced into making any choices that matter.

No.

Ratinira

badmojo wrote: »

Thats like making the 3 armor types only different in appearance. Why should we feel required to wear a certain type of armor?

And remove classes too! Why should I make choice between necro and sorc? I want to be light-armored templar, who breathe fire, cast spells from daggers and run around surrounded by daedra, bears and skeletons! Why this game is limiting me?!

VaranisArano

BlueRaven wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Racial passives are from the TES lore, so no, they shouldn't be substantially altered for MMO gameplay just to benefit players who feel the need to min-max. Bad enough that we already have bad lore like the Bosmer passive changes without going "Well, Shalidor was a Nord and a great mage, so clearly Nords should have some bonuses to magic, right?" Individuals of every race can go counter to their racial talents, but those racial talents nonetheless exist in the series lore.

And no, it won't bring any more diversity with the sort of players who players who feel the need to min-max in the first place. You can offer as many options as you want, but only a select few are ever going to be the meta - see the many, many gear options we have in ESO.

So we'd be throwing out the lore in favor of offering "diversity" of choice, only to see that anyone who cared about the BIS race is still choosing from the few most effective combos. No thanks.

Ackwalan wrote: »

How about instead of changing the racial passives, a new passive be added. Lets say something like a birth passive. This passive would be selectable by the player. For example, a Libra (or whatever game term) is born during a hearty star constellation and has a bonus to combat.

Like the Mundus stones?
In the older TES games, those birthsigns were chosen during character creation. Skyrim made them more changeable at the drop of a hat for greater character customization through the stones.

We've already got a changeable bonus, so I'm not sure how adding another one would help the "problem" of people wanting to min-max AND play their favorite race.

Many racial passives in ESO are not from ES lore. There are racial passives in ESO that don’t even follow ESO’s own lore very well.

Yes. I do believe I said that myself.

What isn't in keeping at all with the lore and past TES gameplay is letting players pick and choose from the racial bonuses normally assigned to the specific races. That ZOS ruined a few racial passives lorewise is not reason to throw out the lore entirely.

Racial passives/bonuses/skills are attached to race choice in TES games.
What the OP wants is closer to choosing birthsign or the major/minor skills from previous TES games.

Massa2034

SpyroRue wrote: »

Something that has really really bugged me with ESO, is how people feel compelled to play specific character races simply for the maximum stats to help in a trial or pvp group. While it is negligible in a single player game like Skyrim, it kinda isn't fair for players in MMO. A friend of mine suggested the idea that ZoS could have avoided this problem, simply by allowing us to select a combination of 3 "racial" passives on character creation. Not only would it allow us to not feel like we have to play a specific race for the most ideal stats regarding our role, and Stam/Mag choice, but it also encourages us to play what we want, and for our characters to be what we imagined.

A wood-elf could simply be an arcane genius, a master mage to be, instead of been hindered with useless stamina passives. Not all Khajiit are stealthy, some might bumble around, and others prefer to be a brute force. Not all high-elves are mages, cant they be expert swordsman? One could have a unique vision for their character, and the passives as they are restrict us - that is in end game content and meta. Just an Idea... might bring some more character diversity and interesting build combinations.

Continue to complain about any specificites of any race/class, and then we gonna have a "beautiful" game.

btw make your bosmer arcane genious, and l2p with it. Passiv are good but they dont make you a good player

Darkstorne

Morphs for racial passives could help address this, but ultimately min/maxers will still find "the best" races for specific playstyles and classes, and convince the masses that this makes other race choices irrelevant and wrong. You can play an Orc MagSorc in Trials today and not have any issues. Don't get hung up on "the meta".

hakan

You can be a genius mage wood elf or whatever you want. you already do.

you dont need to have passives for it. you can go in trials. other players not accepting you is on them not on zos.

as people above me said for "records" yeah you need to get what you can. for everything else (including vet trial runs) you can do it no matter what.

Tandor

SpyroRue wrote: »

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play. I know its lore related but this isnt a good platform to have that. People get told they gotta switch to certain races for certain builds in groups and such, no one should have to. No one should have to ask "Which race should I be for this role?" Its not fair, and silly.

And realistically, yes there may be some inherent traits... Not all aspects need to change, such as swimming faster as argonians, or poison resist etc... but everyone is an individual, not all bosmer should be pushed into stamina, not all High-elves should be pushed to be magica. Yes lore wise its a inherent generalized trait, but just like people Individuals would vary, and would be cool to pick what we want, rather than have passives that are not all that relevant to that particular character and role.

Just an idea.

There is no reason for anybody to be forced into any race choice for any purpose in the game, so if anyone does feel pressured by their group or guild for that reason then it's time to find a different group or guild. It is a lore-based game, and there is no better platform for lore-based racial passives than a lore-based role-playing game.

Olauron

SpyroRue wrote: »

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play. I know its lore related but this isnt a good platform to have that. People get told they gotta switch to certain races for certain builds in groups and such, no one should have to. No one should have to ask "Which race should I be for this role?" Its not fair, and silly.

And realistically, yes there may be some inherent traits... Not all aspects need to change, such as swimming faster as argonians, or poison resist etc... but everyone is an individual, not all bosmer should be pushed into stamina, not all High-elves should be pushed to be magica. Yes lore wise its a inherent generalized trait, but just like people Individuals would vary, and would be cool to pick what we want, rather than have passives that are not all that relevant to that particular character and role.

Just an idea.

Individual traits are traits that you get with level up. The way you distribute attributes describes character as an individual. The way you select skills and passives describes character as an individual.
Racial traits have nothing to do with the individual traits. Racial traits are inherited, racial traits are starting conditions for the development of the character.
You should accept that in Tamriel races are different and some races are better in some (or many, if you look at lore) fields than other races, just like you should accept that dogs have better sense of smell than humans, and cheetah are faster than humans.

Wing

thorwyn wrote: »

It's not all about min-maxing, its about bieng able to play the way your want your character to play.

Eliminating the useless passives and picking the best ones instead would just increase the power creep. Picking a race is one of the few remaining decisions that can not be reverted by spending some gold coins.

in theory there should be no power creep by allowing you to chose whatever passive, they should all be balanced, if they are not then that is clearly a flaw, as one race should not be optimal, especially not to the point were picking any passive could be considered "power creep"


and i personally am for anyone being able to pick any passive, because its essentially de coupling a cosmetic component from a mechanical one, two things that should not go hand in hand.

people should be able to play whatever race they WANT appearance wise without having racials that run counter intuitive to there intended play style.

and DONT EVEN TRY to tell me "oh racials dont really matter" blah blah blah, Devs confirmed when they overhauled racials way back when that they were ballanced around a full 5 piece set and a half. having conflicting racials is worse then wearing hundings rage as a magicka dps, or julianos as stamina dps, etc.


there is NO GOOD REASON to be against any race any passive because anyone COULD have any passive, its just a cosmetic choice not too. but i guess every stamina should be an Orc because *** reasons?

Ratinira

Wing wrote: »

but i guess every stamina should be an Orc because *** reasons?

None of my 8 stam characters are orcs. What am I doing wrong? 🤔

J2JMC

badmojo wrote: »

Thats like making the 3 armor types only different in appearance. Why should we feel required to wear a certain type of armor? Lets take it to the extreme and make all characters statistically the same and only cosmetically different, then nobody will feel forced into making any choices that matter.

No.

This is such a terrible example because you can literally change the appearance of your armor type while keeping the passives for the armor, which is what most people want when asking for the ability to select racial passives.

VaranisArano

Ratinira wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

but i guess every stamina should be an Orc because *** reasons?

None of my 8 stam characters are orcs. What am I doing wrong? 🤔

Yep. My one orc was a Magplar. My Breton is a stam sorc. So I'm really, really doing something wrong.

santhoranb16_ESO

thorwyn wrote: »

Eliminating the useless passives and picking the best ones instead would just increase the power creep. Picking a race is one of the few remaining decisions that can not be reverted by spending some gold coins.

While im against of pickable passives , the race actually is not a remaining decision...its changed per race-change token already. The last really remaining choice is class, which is not yet changeable. Even alliance is now changeable already.
And all giftable for gold.

BXR_Lonestar

SpyroRue wrote: »

Something that has really really bugged me with ESO, is how people feel compelled to play specific character races simply for the maximum stats to help in a trial or pvp group. While it is negligible in a single player game like Skyrim, it kinda isn't fair for players in MMO. A friend of mine suggested the idea that ZoS could have avoided this problem, simply by allowing us to select a combination of 3 "racial" passives on character creation. Not only would it allow us to not feel like we have to play a specific race for the most ideal stats regarding our role, and Stam/Mag choice, but it also encourages us to play what we want, and for our characters to be what we imagined.

A wood-elf could simply be an arcane genius, a master mage to be, instead of been hindered with useless stamina passives. Not all Khajiit are stealthy, some might bumble around, and others prefer to be a brute force. Not all high-elves are mages, cant they be expert swordsman? One could have a unique vision for their character, and the passives as they are restrict us - that is in end game content and meta. Just an Idea... might bring some more character diversity and interesting build combinations.

Honestly, I think it is fine how it is. You can select any race you want. Want to be an Orc magika sorc? Go for it. High Elf tank? Why not? A sneaky Nord thief? Sure! All of those things are viable so long as your not aiming for the super-top end of PVE content. I'm sure you could gear out the previously mentioned characters so you could even make it through Maelstrom.

But picking a character to "roleplay" doesn't mean you are going to have a character that is optimal. And that is perfectly fine. I don't see many true "roleplayers" in trials and high-end dungeon content anyways. You just need to pick what you are going to use that character for and go with that. And with up to 18 character slots available, there is no reason why you can't have a few optimized characters and a few characters to role play with.

So I'm really not sure what the big deal is, but IMO, I think things are fine as is.

Olauron

Wing wrote: »

there is NO GOOD REASON to be against any race any passive because anyone COULD have any passive, its just a cosmetic choice not too. but i guess every stamina should be an Orc because *** reasons?

Well, if the biology written in lore is not good enough reason, can we also have khajiits breathing under water and dunmers with tails?

WARchief10K

vestahls wrote: »

If you don't like TES lore and game rules, don't play a TES game. If you remove the lore and base mechanics, this game is just like any other.

3 second cooldowns aren't part of "lore" yet you still enjoy the game, but trying to tell someone else wanting positive changes it's removing lore and base mechanics?

clown crates, aren't part of lore, yet you still play the game as the company treats people like on call disposable funds.

really we can't get customized character creation passives that obviously characters in the lore would have?

This is literally the toxicity found in this community. It's ok for the company to make drastic changes that are lore breaking, but the little guy that just wants something fun as not all high elves have to be mages, his/her idea? smashed.

Deathlord92

I do very well on my Breton stamblade I also have a bosmer stamblade to I like to play around with different builds on both for pvp stamblade/magblade/hybrid. I have no problems on my Breton stamblade in vet dungeons to. Play what is fun that’s all that matters.