Suggestion: Race Skills

JessPushToPlay

I've got another suggestion: race skills! ACTIVE race skills! A way to make your toon more personalized. Each race would have 1-3 skills you can use on your primary or secondary bars.

A few EXAMPLES:
Khajiit - Claw slashes, morphs to poison or daze damage (a bit like DK's Venomous Claw)
Argonian - Tail whip; daze/stagger, group AOE
Orc - Battle Cry, causes fear, etc

These would be skills specific to the race & their heritage. I'm not sure about the other races but was considering the Wood Elves could have something tied to the Green Pact or maybe their ties to the Woods, etc.

YandereGirlfriend

I wasn't here for it but I've heard that there used to be Racial Ultimates back in the beta days (or perhaps even earlier).

I would imagine that they would have been somewhat like the Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim skills that the races had access to.

I can't really imagine making 3 different racial skills but having one for each race sounds both reasonable and like a nice callback to the mainline TES games.

mikey_reach

That sounds good for a single player game but for an mmo, there wouldnt be any reason to choose other races once people figure out which one of those race skills is the best for pve/pvp. At that point race would matter a lot more than it does now.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

I dont hate the idea in theory, but in practice, if these skills were strong enough to use in end game content, it would be just one more thing forcing a particular race on a players and make balancing harder than it already is.

Araneae6537

If they were more for flavor, mostly only useable in overland PvE, etc., then I think it could be fun and not upset balance. However, I am reluctant to support adding anything further to racial abilities or passives while what we already have is still messed up. Bosmer have the poison resistance that should belong to Argonians, are missing the reduced detection radius that they should have, and finally have a completely useless passive that is actually detrimental in PvP (the one place it had any possibility of being useful) and without basis in lore.

Muttsmutt

please no.
i don't want more reason why my argonians can't do this or that.

VoidCommander

mikey_reach wrote: »

That sounds good for a single player game but for an mmo, there wouldnt be any reason to choose other races once people figure out which one of those race skills is the best for pve/pvp. At that point race would matter a lot more than it does now.

This is already the case. Getting into endgame content usually requires you to play a specific race in order to reach dps requirements. Adding in racial abilities to allow for more diversity would be great I think, to help mitigate the extreme one-sidedness of "Breton is recovery" or "Orc is high damage."

YandereGirlfriend

Surprised by the amount of negativity in this thread toward the topic.

Folks seem to fear build-diversity and more creative freedom.

erio

I dont want to have to race change all my pve toons. Nty

AcadianPaladin

The idea does not appeal to me for concern that it would further pigeonhole various races into stam or mag molds. I only play Bosmeri archers and mages, for example, and their race already discourages wizardry.

Wolfpaw

JessPushToPlay wrote: »

I've got another suggestion: race skills! ACTIVE race skills! A way to make your toon more personalized. Each race would have 1-3 skills you can use on your primary or secondary bars.

A few EXAMPLES:
Khajiit - Claw slashes, morphs to poison or daze damage (a bit like DK's Venomous Claw)
Argonian - Tail whip; daze/stagger, group AOE
Orc - Battle Cry, causes fear, etc

These would be skills specific to the race & their heritage. I'm not sure about the other races but was considering the Wood Elves could have something tied to the Green Pact or maybe their ties to the Woods, etc.

I like it.

idk

VoidCommander wrote: »

mikey_reach wrote: »

That sounds good for a single player game but for an mmo, there wouldnt be any reason to choose other races once people figure out which one of those race skills is the best for pve/pvp. At that point race would matter a lot more than it does now.

This is already the case. Getting into endgame content usually requires you to play a specific race in order to reach dps requirements. Adding in racial abilities to allow for more diversity would be great I think, to help mitigate the extreme one-sidedness of "Breton is recovery" or "Orc is high damage."

A specific race is not required to get into end game content. A great example is back when vMoL was the newest and most challenging content in the game I ran with a healer using a khajiit. I do not think one could have found a less optimal race for a healer yet we managed to clear vet MoL many times with them healing. I have also cleared many vet HM trials with a friend using an argonian for DPS.

The player's skill is the biggest factor in how well they perform and it significantly outweighs the benefit of any class. It is only with truly competitive groups where min/max is important.

Ryuvain

Khajiit claw slashing? Count this one in.

Races are already imbalanced tbh.

Drdeath20

Elf-enslave- an AoE fear like the necromancers have

Faulgor

I'd prefer to have just racial ultimates. You know, like the powers in the single player games. They could even serve as inspiration.

e.g.
Breton: Dragonskin, big shield
Orc: Berserk, trade recovery for damage and health
Redguard: Adrenaline Rush, negate stamina cost for a few seconds
Nord: Battle Cry, fear everyone around you

Just some buffs (which you can mostly get elsewhere through the minor/major system) for flavor, nothing that would be BIS for all classes in a rotation.

Urvoth

There are already so many abilities and ultimates in the game that having a few racial ones likely wouldn't mess with balance all that much and would only add build diversity. A racial spammable, for instance, has to be way better than all the class spammables, weapon spammables, guild and world spammables, etc, to really change up balance. The same is true for ultimates, stuns, buffs, etc. As long as a racial ability is on par with the non-class specific options, it won't really mess with balance very much.

zaria

idk wrote: »

VoidCommander wrote: »

mikey_reach wrote: »

That sounds good for a single player game but for an mmo, there wouldnt be any reason to choose other races once people figure out which one of those race skills is the best for pve/pvp. At that point race would matter a lot more than it does now.

This is already the case. Getting into endgame content usually requires you to play a specific race in order to reach dps requirements. Adding in racial abilities to allow for more diversity would be great I think, to help mitigate the extreme one-sidedness of "Breton is recovery" or "Orc is high damage."

A specific race is not required to get into end game content. A great example is back when vMoL was the newest and most challenging content in the game I ran with a healer using a khajiit. I do not think one could have found a less optimal race for a healer yet we managed to clear vet MoL many times with them healing. I have also cleared many vet HM trials with a friend using an argonian for DPS.

The player's skill is the biggest factor in how well they perform and it significantly outweighs the benefit of any class. It is only with truly competitive groups where min/max is important.

Note that back then Khajiit was an pure stamina race unless today.
Today Khajiit works well enough as healers although not bis.

Most guilds has an dps requirement for vet trial groups, reaching this qualifies you, yes its easier on an Altmer magsorc than an Bosmer magsorc. They can also have class requests but this is more common for healers and tanks.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Surprised by the amount of negativity in this thread toward the topic.

Folks seem to fear build-diversity and more creative freedom.

That sounds great until you play it out in practice. Lets give Khajiits a claw slash as a spammable. If its weaker than current spammables, it doesnt see much use outside of RP or casual overland. If it's stronger than your current spammables (lets say its stamina based, would make sense), now all stamina players at end game are Khajiits. That removes diversity. Dont get me wrong, we already have a situation where most DPS fall into a handful of races, but you do have options. If there is a mandatory racial skill, that would change.

As stated before, it could be done, but they would have to be really careful about how they did it. I think most people that are skeptical about the idea are reacting based on past experiences. ZOS does not have a great record of not turning things into a quick cash grab, which an OP racial skill could certainly be.

Faiza

Muttsmutt wrote: »

please no.
i don't want more reason why my argonians can't do this or that.

This! I'm very tired of being told what I should play and how by "tHeOrYcRaFtErs" and tryhards.

All this would do is lead to more, "You can't use a wood elf for a magicka build!!"

Mythreindeer

Meh. Not more skills, improved balance for the crap ton that already exist.

JessPushToPlay

Faulgor wrote: »

I'd prefer to have just racial ultimates. You know, like the powers in the single player games. They could even serve as inspiration.

e.g.
Breton: Dragonskin, big shield
Orc: Berserk, trade recovery for damage and health
Redguard: Adrenaline Rush, negate stamina cost for a few seconds
Nord: Battle Cry, fear everyone around you

Just some buffs (which you can mostly get elsewhere through the minor/major system) for flavor, nothing that would be BIS for all classes in a rotation.

Yea, that would be good, too. I was thinking if not Ultimates than if there's a few choices (say 3) you can only have 1 as active & locked out of the others unless you switch them out on your combat bar. That might help the skills from being too powerful... although I'm not sure I'm worried about that as some of the other commenters above have mentioned this.

Jackey

Thought this would be about racing for some reason
Mount racing with an active skill line applied to your mount, PvP and PvE racetracks let's goo

JessPushToPlay

If anything- this could help balance races a bit better. Example: gives a stamina-high race a limited time magicka boost for limited time so you might choose to use a magicka skill over a stamina or something like that.

Araneae6537

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Surprised by the amount of negativity in this thread toward the topic.

Folks seem to fear build-diversity and more creative freedom.

For myself and I think many others, the fear is poor implementation. The passives aren’t even decent on some races (bosmer, especially). Also, there is the potential to detract from build diversity unless there were different abilities or morphs to choose from. It’s fine that certain races are BiS for certain roles, but all should remain viable options. Ideally, there should be different ways to handle things, like maybe argonians and orcs can make great tanks through shear toughness while an altmer would have to rely more on magic shields, etc. Maybe all are BiS and some are more difficult to play, but all are viable options.

Nord_Raseri

JessPushToPlay wrote: »

I've got another suggestion: race skills! ACTIVE race skills! A way to make your toon more personalized. Each race would have 1-3 skills you can use on your primary or secondary bars.

A few EXAMPLES:
Khajiit - Claw slashes, morphs to poison or daze damage (a bit like DK's Venomous Claw)
Argonian - Tail whip; daze/stagger, group AOE
Orc - Battle Cry, causes fear, etc

These would be skills specific to the race & their heritage. I'm not sure about the other races but was considering the Wood Elves could have something tied to the Green Pact or maybe their ties to the Woods, etc.

Nord was the race that had Battle Cry, not Orc. Orc had Berserker Rage. Although, I'd be fine if those were switched

VoidCommander

erio wrote: »

I dont want to have to race change all my pve toons. Nty

The last time they overhauled the racial passives, they gave everyone a TON of free race change tokens. If they introduced racial ultimates, they would likely do the same thing.

SydneyGrey

This would be amazing, but I doubt they'll ever do it because it would be really difficult for them to balance it all for PvP.

I'd love it in a single-player game, though, like the next Elder Scrolls game.