Racial Passives Should be Picked

Strider__Roshin

You're not good at balancing. Allowing people to pick their racial passives is an easy way to make everyone happy.

Wolfpaw

Racial combat stats should be all the same for balance, & non combat racials should be race unique.

My2c

Nairinhe

I'd say remove all combat passives and leave only flavor stuff.

Ratzkifal

There is no reason to keep calling it racial passives if they have nothing to do with race they belong to. What you want is a "choose your destiny" kind of deal where you can choose the passives you like. Calling it racial passives would set completely wrong expectations.

VaranisArano

We already have a pickable bonus: the mundus stones.

The issue I have is that because ESO has an endgame, racial bonuses end up being much more consequential than they are in the other TES games.

YandereGirlfriend

ESO has races and those races have different strengths. That's just the way it is and the way it always has been.

Absolutely no reason to change it.

ealdwin

They could also add Birthsigns... just throwing that out there.

Tommy_The_Gun

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO has races and those races have different strengths. That's just the way it is and the way it always has been.

Absolutely no reason to change it.

I know at least one, that has no clear strengths...

Ratzkifal

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO has races and those races have different strengths. That's just the way it is and the way it always has been.

Absolutely no reason to change it.

I know at least one, that has no clear strengths...

Supposedly it has. They just aren't currently realized.

Strider__Roshin

VaranisArano wrote: »

We already have a pickable bonus: the mundus stones.

The issue I have is that because ESO has an endgame, racial bonuses end up being much more consequential than they are in the other TES games.

End game, PvP, other players.

itsfatbass

Strider__Roshin wrote: »

You're not good at balancing. Allowing people to pick their racial passives is an easy way to make everyone happy.

So is this about balancing or keeping people happy? I can't tell from your post. I'd say this, we don't develop this game and the devs will do as they wish. We just need to adapt and adjust. EZ PZ LEMON SQUEEZY.

Hakkanistorm

It would be much more interesting if there were both bonuses and penalties in the race.
If you have chosen a bonus, you will receive a corresponding penalty.

MrGraves

Nairinhe wrote: »

I'd say remove all combat passives and leave only flavor stuff.

completely agree. I don't see a harm in the passives such as bosmer taking less fall damage etc, even the racial resist to frost, poison etc is mostly fine as it's more situational and you aren't always against frost enemies or poison enemies. skill training is also fine as it doesnt effect endgame stats.

Either that or if it were just a starting bonus to attributes and those attributes capped out once you leveled them. such as high elves have an extra 20 points to magicka starting out and it caps out at 100, unless equipping say, sets / enchanted items that bring it beyond the attribute cap.

katorga

If you could pick your bonuses....3-4 would end up being "The Best", and everyone would use them. ZOS would nerf them every 3 months, and probably charge a 3000 crown race passive change token to change them. Just saying.

Narvuntien

Unless you are min-maxing they don't matter and you don't need to min-max to complete all the content in the game.

This is a non-issue, play the race you want to

danno8

Been saying this for years.

Choose what "stars" or "signs" you were born under.

Your "malleable" soul allows you to change it up after completing the Molag Bal main story and getting your soul back, for a gold cost of course.

Tired of the unnecessary racial passive musical chairs every 6 months.

danno8

katorga wrote: »

If you could pick your bonuses....3-4 would end up being "The Best", and everyone would use them. ZOS would nerf them every 3 months, and probably charge a 3000 crown race passive change token to change them. Just saying.

Ummmm, that's what it is right now. Maybe you were being tongue in cheek?

Yes people would pick the "best" for what they were trying to do, but that "best" would change depending on tank, healer, DPS or more balanced options for PvP/WvW.

Luke_Flamesword

Choosing race should be more choice of aestethics and personal preferences (you love Bretons, you play Bretons) so race passives should give more race flavour and less crucial statistics. At least give us choice to different options - why I'm forced to be magicka character with Breton? Spell resistance is typical for Bretons and is universal, so it can be here. But why at least I can't transform magicka bonus to stamina bonus? Bretons and Altmers also fights in heavy armor with sword, not only with magic...

Some choices there will be really nice and are really needed. Giving player to choose between 2000 magicka or 2000 stamina didn't change balance at all, so it shouldn't be a big deal...

NordJitsu

I would permanently quit ESO and seriously consider quitting TES games in general. That’s how bad of an idea this is.

Racial passives should sensibly follow from the lore for your race. They do a pretty good job with that and making them effective.

JohnOfMarkarth

NordJitsu wrote: »

I would permanently quit ESO and seriously consider quitting TES games in general. That’s how bad of an idea this is.

Racial passives should sensibly follow from the lore for your race. They do a pretty good job with that and making them effective.

No no. In other games... racial bonuses are barely of any determination really. They are nice boosts on the start but end very close to there.

Now in ESO? They are downright determinants. Which is too much, too powerful and too constraining

MrGraves

JohnOfMarkarth wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

I would permanently quit ESO and seriously consider quitting TES games in general. That’s how bad of an idea this is.

Racial passives should sensibly follow from the lore for your race. They do a pretty good job with that and making them effective.

No no. In other games... racial bonuses are barely of any determination really. They are nice boosts on the start but end very close to there.

Now in ESO? They are downright determinants. Which is too much, too powerful and too constraining

ESO also is an MMO which means it's a bigger issue when some races are just better than others stat-wise like that. In single-player TES, you aren't being compared to the top players and having everything "balanced" just because the people at the top were doing too good at the game. Normally I would like it to stay closer to lore, but they keep making decisions in the game that break lore anyway and/or are just not immersive. And race change is expensive and it's harder to get INTO vet content when you aren't pulling top damage. So yea IDK I think racial passives need to be either chosen to go tanky/stam/mag or removed aside from flavour.

VaranisArano

danno8 wrote: »

Been saying this for years.

Choose what "stars" or "signs" you were born under.

Your "malleable" soul allows you to change it up after completing the Molag Bal main story and getting your soul back, for a gold cost of course.

Tired of the unnecessary racial passive musical chairs every 6 months.

You pretty much already have that, though. The "Birthsigns" from earlier TES games became the Mundus Stones in Skyrim, and now they are changeable bonuses in ESO too.

My Nerevarine was born under the sign of the Lady. I've got no clue what my Vestige was born under, but she can swap her Mundus stone whenever she pleases, including to the Lady if she wants.

Racial passives are tied to your race in past TES games and aren't changeable, though admittedly they are more consequential in the early game and less so by end game in the single player games.

honey_badger82

I have brought this up in a previous post. They could easily keep each race to lore without making such a great impact on the performance of races in the end game. The whole pretext of the current system is the same as "white men cant jump" while it may hold true to the majority there are those born who indeed can jump and are currently making millions shooting balls through hoops.
In my opinion the racial choice should be cosmetic. Adventuring heros are not the atypical of their race so should not be constrained to the niches we currently are.

YandereGirlfriend

I feel as though lots of people posting in this thread are new to the Elder Scrolls series and don't fully appreciate the lore or what racial traits and abilities have meant throughout the history of the series.

I also think that most of the people posting in this thread (including myself) aren't elite enough players where our choice of race actually makes a difference in terms of what content they can or cannot do.

Unless you are literally in one of the tiny handful of top-shelf PvE guilds competing with each other for trials scores then your choice of race is not what's holding you back from accomplishing your objectives in the game.

danno8

VaranisArano wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Been saying this for years.

Choose what "stars" or "signs" you were born under.

Your "malleable" soul allows you to change it up after completing the Molag Bal main story and getting your soul back, for a gold cost of course.

Tired of the unnecessary racial passive musical chairs every 6 months.

You pretty much already have that, though. The "Birthsigns" from earlier TES games became the Mundus Stones in Skyrim, and now they are changeable bonuses in ESO too.

My Nerevarine was born under the sign of the Lady. I've got no clue what my Vestige was born under, but she can swap her Mundus stone whenever she pleases, including to the Lady if she wants.

Racial passives are tied to your race in past TES games and aren't changeable, though admittedly they are more consequential in the early game and less so by end game in the single player games.

I think it would be fine if we had both Birthsigns and Mundus stones.

Then make racials more fluff. Like swim speed(5%), faster skill progression, walk speed (5%), run speed (5%), poison/chill/burning/concussion status resistance, gold acquisition (1%), XP acquisition (1%) etc... Nothing that would affect DPS or sustain or tanking meaningfully.

MrGraves

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I feel as though lots of people posting in this thread are new to the Elder Scrolls series and don't fully appreciate the lore or what racial traits and abilities have meant throughout the history of the series.

I also think that most of the people posting in this thread (including myself) aren't elite enough players where our choice of race actually makes a difference in terms of what content they can or cannot do.

Unless you are literally in one of the tiny handful of top-shelf PvE guilds competing with each other for trials scores then your choice of race is not what's holding you back from accomplishing your objectives in the game.

For doing content on norm, no. However, a lot of users may not be LEET enough for vet trials etc that doesn't mean they don't want to be. I would like to get into DLC vet trials but every patch that comes out changes everything, maybe just a little at a time but by the end of a year I have to completely start over with a build and that isn't only limited to my armour sets etc.

I don't think anyone should have to race change constantly (which costs money and as an RPG game there are many, text rpers or not, who create a character and wish to keep that character with it's race) your chars race may not be the defining trait of your build but at the end it and every other little thing like you class nerfs + race changes and weapon changes and now the armour and CP changes. every little bit counts even for a casual player. I know alot of players who are struggling as is because it's just getting harder and harder to GET to the point where your build is good for what ever content you like to do. I don't need to be the top or anywhere near the top player but I would like to be able to do vet trials (besides craglorn) and still balance my life outside of ESO. I like there to be a challenge but having to relearn the game every couple of months and refarm gear, redo all skills and if I were one of those top players, have to pay IRL money to change race constantly.

YandereGirlfriend

MrGraves wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I feel as though lots of people posting in this thread are new to the Elder Scrolls series and don't fully appreciate the lore or what racial traits and abilities have meant throughout the history of the series.

I also think that most of the people posting in this thread (including myself) aren't elite enough players where our choice of race actually makes a difference in terms of what content they can or cannot do.

Unless you are literally in one of the tiny handful of top-shelf PvE guilds competing with each other for trials scores then your choice of race is not what's holding you back from accomplishing your objectives in the game.

For doing content on norm, no. However, a lot of users may not be LEET enough for vet trials etc that doesn't mean they don't want to be. I would like to get into DLC vet trials but every patch that comes out changes everything, maybe just a little at a time but by the end of a year I have to completely start over with a build and that isn't only limited to my armour sets etc.

I don't think anyone should have to race change constantly (which costs money and as an RPG game there are many, text rpers or not, who create a character and wish to keep that character with it's race) your chars race may not be the defining trait of your build but at the end it and every other little thing like you class nerfs + race changes and weapon changes and now the armour and CP changes. every little bit counts even for a casual player. I know alot of players who are struggling as is because it's just getting harder and harder to GET to the point where your build is good for what ever content you like to do. I don't need to be the top or anywhere near the top player but I would like to be able to do vet trials (besides craglorn) and still balance my life outside of ESO. I like there to be a challenge but having to relearn the game every couple of months and refarm gear, redo all skills and if I were one of those top players, have to pay IRL money to change race constantly.

Sure, but you're conflating a bunch of the game's problems into the same argument. In reality, they are all separate problems and should be treated as such.

My point still remains though - your time will be infinitely better spent simply by practicing your rotation and learning to increase your Light Attack ratio than it will be grinding sets or gold for a race-change token.

An elite DPS will out-parse you, your friends, and me with an Argonian stamBlade even if we were all using Orcs. That's because they are flawless at their rotation and we are sloppier at ours. Their race isn't doing the work for them, their skills are.

In terms of what anyone trying to get into progression raiding should prioritize:

1. Your rotation
2. Your rotation
3. Your rotation
4. Your sets
5. Your race

Focusing on your race is going to hold you back in the long term. Do the harder work and practice to ace your rotation.

MrGraves

I don't focus on my race, but changes that ZoS makes between that, class, sets and CP you kind of have to worry about where the game is moving forwards and what that means for you in all aspects. it's not just "oh a race got nerfed." it's one month your race, 3 months later your class weapons etc, then your armour. there gets to a point where, ofc, the meta, which I don't even follow changes entirely bit by bit and no one is really gonna operate the way they do currently even in terms of who they take with them into trials. the race passives as they are now in ESO just isn't a very good way to do things in a game where you have to compete with every other player at everything. esp when there's 9 or 10 depending on if you have imperials or not. ZoS can't balance that with the 100+ CP stars and 400+ sets and then classes that become more and more alike every major update, outside of actual performance.

VaranisArano

danno8 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Been saying this for years.

Choose what "stars" or "signs" you were born under.

Your "malleable" soul allows you to change it up after completing the Molag Bal main story and getting your soul back, for a gold cost of course.

Tired of the unnecessary racial passive musical chairs every 6 months.

You pretty much already have that, though. The "Birthsigns" from earlier TES games became the Mundus Stones in Skyrim, and now they are changeable bonuses in ESO too.

My Nerevarine was born under the sign of the Lady. I've got no clue what my Vestige was born under, but she can swap her Mundus stone whenever she pleases, including to the Lady if she wants.

Racial passives are tied to your race in past TES games and aren't changeable, though admittedly they are more consequential in the early game and less so by end game in the single player games.

I think it would be fine if we had both Birthsigns and Mundus stones.

Then make racials more fluff. Like swim speed(5%), faster skill progression, walk speed (5%), run speed (5%), poison/chill/burning/concussion status resistance, gold acquisition (1%), XP acquisition (1%) etc... Nothing that would affect DPS or sustain or tanking meaningfully.

I guess where I'm stuck is that the Birthsigns are the Mundus Stones, just by a different game mechanics. Maybe its silly of me, but I'm sitting here like "but they're the exact same thing!"

And yeah, the tough thing is that the racial passives should have some impact - think about Nords taking 50% less frost damage in Skyrim or Dunmer taking less fire damage in Morrowind - while not being incredible crucial in the endgame. How do we balance that with wanting players to feel like they are playing a character of their race? There's always going to be a meta for anything that's consequential enough to feel unique.

If I'm playing a Dunmer, that fire resistance is pretty integral to the race, not just as a gameplay mechanic in past TES games but also from the lore. If the racials are mere fluff, then me playing a Dunmer vs a Nord is really only about looks. Now, maybe that appeals to players who are basing their character choices on "I like how that race looks but I don't want to follow their stats." As for me, I'm playing a Dunmer because I want to play a Dunmer, and they should feel and play like a Dunmer.

Do I have to give up that unique feel to Dunmer gameplay conveyed by that fire resistance because it makes them a great choice for vampire players who want to mitigate fire damage in PVE group content and PVP?

Starlight_Whisper

I am against it. Choices should matter to at least some small percent say like 1 percent

danno8

VaranisArano wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Been saying this for years.

Choose what "stars" or "signs" you were born under.

Your "malleable" soul allows you to change it up after completing the Molag Bal main story and getting your soul back, for a gold cost of course.

Tired of the unnecessary racial passive musical chairs every 6 months.

You pretty much already have that, though. The "Birthsigns" from earlier TES games became the Mundus Stones in Skyrim, and now they are changeable bonuses in ESO too.

My Nerevarine was born under the sign of the Lady. I've got no clue what my Vestige was born under, but she can swap her Mundus stone whenever she pleases, including to the Lady if she wants.

Racial passives are tied to your race in past TES games and aren't changeable, though admittedly they are more consequential in the early game and less so by end game in the single player games.

I think it would be fine if we had both Birthsigns and Mundus stones.

Then make racials more fluff. Like swim speed(5%), faster skill progression, walk speed (5%), run speed (5%), poison/chill/burning/concussion status resistance, gold acquisition (1%), XP acquisition (1%) etc... Nothing that would affect DPS or sustain or tanking meaningfully.

I guess where I'm stuck is that the Birthsigns are the Mundus Stones, just by a different game mechanics. Maybe its silly of me, but I'm sitting here like "but they're the exact same thing!"

And yeah, the tough thing is that the racial passives should have some impact - think about Nords taking 50% less frost damage in Skyrim or Dunmer taking less fire damage in Morrowind - while not being incredible crucial in the endgame. How do we balance that with wanting players to feel like they are playing a character of their race? There's always going to be a meta for anything that's consequential enough to feel unique.

If I'm playing a Dunmer, that fire resistance is pretty integral to the race, not just as a gameplay mechanic in past TES games but also from the lore. If the racials are mere fluff, then me playing a Dunmer vs a Nord is really only about looks. Now, maybe that appeals to players who are basing their character choices on "I like how that race looks but I don't want to follow their stats." As for me, I'm playing a Dunmer because I want to play a Dunmer, and they should feel and play like a Dunmer.

Do I have to give up that unique feel to Dunmer gameplay conveyed by that fire resistance because it makes them a great choice for vampire players who want to mitigate fire damage in PVE group content and PVP?

I get where you are coming from.

At some point though the fact that this is an MMO ends up overriding the character creation variability.

Or we simply give up and say that Dark Elf with huge flame resistance are the only tanks allowed in the game, or at least in any dungeon that has a lot of fire. Only Altmer are useful for magic, and half the races are only good for RP or niche builds.

I would honestly prefer that to changing the passive every update.