Definitively Balancing Racial Skills

twing1_

TL;DR:

ZOS's previous attempt at balancing the races has proven itself impermanent. With the latest round of racial skill adjustments, I wanted to again hypothesize that the racial skills can only truly be balanced if each race is created within strict guidelines that every other set of racial skills also adheres to. That being said, here is an example of what a balanced set of racial skill guidelines could look like, and what a rework of each race's skills would look like in adherence to it:

Guidelines:
1. Each race will be allotted 3000 maximum resources distributed between magicka, stamina, and health, with health receiving a 10% increase consistent with all other sources of health in the game
2. Each race will have a small defensive bonus of relatively equal value
3. Each race will have access to a sustain tool for at least one of their resources
4. Each race will be granted the equivalent of two 2-4 piece item set bonuses, copy pasted directly from pre-existing item sets in the game wherever applicable
5. Each race will reflect traditional TES lore and be given non-combat flavor passives to support this.

Altmer
-Increases experience gain with destruction staff by 15%. Increases experience gain by 1%.
-Increases maximum magicka by
2000. Increases maximum stamina by 1000
-Reduces damage when casting or channeling by 5%. Heavy attacks restore an additional 10% of the resources they normally would.
-258 spell damage

Argonian
-Increases experience gain with restoration staff by 15%. Increases swim speed by 50%.
-Increases max magicka and stamina by 1000. Increases maximum health by 1100.
-Increases disease resistance by 4620. Drinking a potion restores 4000 magicka, health, and stamina.
-4% healing done, 657 critical chance

Bosmer
-Increases experience gain with bow by 15%. Increases chance to pick pockets and force locks by 10%.
-Increases maximum stamina by 2000. Increases maximum magicka by 1000.
-4620 poison resistance. While the effects of one of your alchemical potions or weapon poisons are active, restore 412 magicka or stamina, whichever maximum is higher. 4 second cool down.
-129 stamina recovery, 1487 offensive penetration

Breton
-Increases experience gain with light armor by 15%. Increases alliance point gain by 1%.
-Increases maximum magicka by 2500. Increases maximum health by 550.
-2310 spell resistance. When you use an ability, restore 309 magicka. If the ability used does not damage an enemy, the magicka restored is doubled. 6 second cool down.
-Reduces the magicka cost of abilities by 8%

Dunmer
-Increases experience gain with dual wield by 15%. Reduces damage taken from lava by 50%.
-Increases maximum magicka and stamina by 1500
-4620 fire resistance. When you deal direct damage, restore 618 magicka or stamina, whichever maximum is lower. 6 second cool down.
-258 spell/weapon damage

Imperial
-Increases experience gain with 1h and shield by 15%. Increases gold gain by 1%.
-Increases maximum magicka and stamina by 750. Increases maximum health by 1650.
-1155 physical and spell resistance. When you deal direct damage, restore 258 magicka, stamina, and 516 health. 5 second cool down.
-Reduces the cost of abilities by 5%

Khajit
-Increases experience gain with medium armor by 15%. Reduces fall damage by 10%.
-Increases maximum magicka and stamina by 1250. Increases maximum health by 550.
-Reduces the radius you can be detected while sneaking by 3m. When you deal critical damage, health recovery is increased by 129 for 6 seconds.
-Increases critical damage and healing by 6%, 657 critical chance

Nord
-Increases experience gain with 2h by 15%. Increases duration of drinks by 15 minutes.
-Increases maximum stamina by 2000. Increases maximum health by 1100.
-4620 cold resistance. When you take or deal damage, generate 5 ultimate. 10 second cool down.
-2974 physical/spell resistance.

Orc
-Increases experience gain with heavy armor by 15%. Increases crafting inspiration by 10%.
-Increases maximum stamina by 2000. Increases maximum health by 1100.
-4620 shock resistance. When you deal damage, restore 824 health. 4 second cool down.
-258 weapon damage.

Redguard
-Increases experience gain with 1h and shield by 15%. Increases duration of food by 15 minutes.
-Increases maximum stamina by 2500. Increases maximum health by 550.
-2310 physical resistance. When you deal damage, restore 516 stamina. 5 second cooldown.
-Reduces the stamina cost of abilities by 8%

Analytical justifications for these changes are found later on in the bulk of this thread and comments.

DISCLAIMER: The last time ZOS balanced the races, they tried standardizing them into a quantifiable "item set bonus" values, but they failed to give each race an equitable number of these item set bonuses. The following suggestions are in no way, shape, or form being implemented into the game in any version of reality. The following suggestions are instead nothing more than my attempt at definitively balancing the races in a way that grants every race the exact same number of stats so that no further adjustment will be needed in the past, present, or future.


Now then. This post has to do with rebalancing all of the racial passives across all of the different races, as I believe ZOS way of doing it has so far been inherently wrong. This is because ZOS doesn't stick to certain unbreakable guidelines when designing racial passives. Each race seems to be doing its own thing. There's no set of rules that each and every race is being forced to follow, other than the "roughly 6.5 item set piece bonuses", which has proven itself to be too variable and impermanent, as evidenced by some races having a much greater number of "item set bonuses" than others*. This can also be evidenced by ZOS repeatedly making changes to racial passives, hardly even a year after the entire racial rework.

*maths found in this post: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/560455/for-information-all-races-set-bonus-equivalent-worth-in-current-patch#latest

I hypothesize that in order for the racial adjustments to end, every race needs to be given the exact same number of stats as all of the other races. The only way this can be done is if very specific guidelines are established to quantify exactly how many stats each race gets. Each and every race's skills must adhere strictly to these guidelines, otherwise they will be inherently imbalanced. This is the basis of my hypothesizing, and the foundation of which the remainder of this post will be built off of.

GUIDELINES
1. Each race will be allotted 3000 maximum resources to play around with, no more and no less (with the exception of health bonuses receiving a 10% increase consistent with all other sources of health in the game). These can be distributed in any which way between Magicka, Stamina, and Health, so long as the total sum of these bonuses neither exceeds nor falls below the 3000 pre-adjusted maximum resource mark. The only races with more than 3000 total maximum resources have a health bonus, which will receive a 10% increase in accordance to the 10% increase in health over stam or mag found elsewhere in the game (evidenced by set bonuses granting 1096 stamina/magicka but 1206 health and attribute points granting 111 mag and stam but 122 health). For example, a race can have 1000 max stam, and 2000 max mag, while another can have 3000 max stam but no health and magicka. A race can also have 1000 max stam, 1100 max health (on account of the 10% increase), and 1000 max magicka. A race cannot have 3000 max stam and 1100 health, as the sum of these exceeds the 3000 pre-adjusted maximum resources limit. Nor can a race have 500 max stam, 550 max health, and 500 max magicka, as the total sum of these falls below the pre-adjusted 3000 maximum resources.
2. Each race will have a small defensive bonus of relatively equal value. In most cases, this will be a consistent numeric value of bonus resistance to a particular type of damage, and immunity to a specific status effect. The addition of the three new status effects (sundered, hemorrhaging, and overcharged) make it so that almost every race can have an immunity to a different status effect. It works out almost too perfectly. There are two exceptions, because there are two more races than status effects, and I will address these later.
3. Each race will have a sustain tool for at least one of their resources. The effectiveness and ease of use of this sustain tool will be dictated by the offensive power of the race through an inverse relationship. That is to say that, generally speaking, the more offensive power a race has, the less access it has to main resource sustain. And vice versa: the lower the offensive power of a race, the more access it has to primary stat sustain. In cases in which a main offensive stat is being restored (magicka/stamina), the value of these resources being restored is equivalent to what one set bonus of 129 recovery would grant, after taking into account a reasonable % modifier. This is to ensure that these racial sustain bonuses maintain their strength relative to bonuses to natural recovery, which can be modified with % modifiers like Major/minor endurance/intellect and light/medium armor passives. The coefficient I decided to use was 1.6x, because I thought it would be reasonable to assume 5 pieces of light/medium armor (for a total of a 20% bonus) on top of a major buff to recovery (at a bonus of 40%). Thus, each of the resource sustain tools will recover 1.6x129 main stats every two seconds, or 206 resources every 2 seconds. In cases of health restore tools, this value is doubled to account for the heals being halved for PvP by battle spirit.
4. Each race will be granted the equivalent of two 2-4 piece item set bonuses. In certain situations, because endgame builds will utilize only one or the other, additional set bonuses will be granted strictly as magicka or stamina counterparts to the existing 2 set bonuses. But that is the only exception. For the most part, these bonuses are copy pasted directly from current 2-4 piece set bonuses already found in the game. There are a few exceptions where liberties were taken. In these instances, 2-4 pc set bonuses were derived from existing mundus stones or 5 pc set bonuses, given the relationship between other 2-4 pc bonuses and their corresponding mundus stone or 5 pc set bonus values.
5. Last and certainly not least, each race will overall more or less reflect traditional TES lore and be given non-combat flavor passives to support this. Because of (my perceived notion of) balance, not all elements of the lore can be reflected. But the general feel of each race's lore must be preserved. Most of these flavor passives are unchanged from what they currently are on the servers.

My logic behind these guidelines is that by giving every race equal amounts of max resources, independent of the questionably quantifiable "set bonuses", it leaves less room for variance between the races. Further restricting races to having similar defensive bonuses (numeric value-wise) and requiring them to have a sustain tool further reduces the room for negotiation on these "set bonuses" by dropping the overall number from ~6.5 to exactly 2. Furthermore, copy pasting these bonuses directly from pre-existing item sets or deriving them from mundus stones/5pc set bonuses (as these have consistent conversion rates to 2-4 pc item set bonuses) maintains the balance between races by feeding off of the balance currently found in the game.

And without further ado, here is what the racial bonuses would look like under these balance guidelines:

ALTMER - Top magicka DPS race. I don't like their off-stat sustain, as it doesn't seem to fit the lore, but like the idea of having a bit of off-stat utility for PvP balancing

Maximum resources: 2000 magicka 1000 stamina (1000 bonus stamina for utility. Mainly a PvP balance addition, to help bridge the gap between them and the dunmer in that department. also helps make up for the loss of spell recharge)

Defensive bonus: 5% damage resistance while casting (unchanged - Altmer, lore wise, have very weak defenses. This is reflected by this admittedly weak defensive passive)

Sustain tool: Fully charged heavy attacks restore an additional 10% of the resources they normally would. (This is to keep Altmer damage dealers' sustain low as they will primarily be weaving light attacks, while also providing a sustain tool for altmer healers to take advantage of to compete with Breton healers. This also synergizes quite nicely with their defensive bonus, as heavy attacks are considered channeled/cast time abilities)

Set bonuses: (unchanged)
1. 129 spell damage
2. 129 spell damage

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with destruction staff by 15%. Increases experience gain by 1% (unchanged)

ARGONIAN - Argonian are falling behind in the DPS race a bit. I like their emphasis in survivability through healing though. Could use some help on the stamina side for lore.

Maximum resources: 1000 magicka 1100 health 1000 stamina (granting the extra 1000 to stamina to more closely resemble the bonuses granted to them in previous games)

Defensive bonus: 4620 disease resistance.

Sustain tool: When you drink a potion, you restore 4000 magicka, health, and stamina (I really don't think the nerf to this passive was justified. If we do the math, a potion can be used once every 45 seconds. 4000 main stat restore/45 seconds = 177 resources/2 seconds, which falls below our mark of 206 resources/2 seconds [again, calculated by taking the natural bonus of 129 resources/2seconds and multiplying it by 1.6x to account for major endurance/intellect and an additional 20% medium/light armor passives] I'm not too worried about this, however, because it also restores off stat and health on top of it.)

Set bonuses:
1. 4% healing done
2. 657 critical chance (boost to argonian dps parses, while also reinforcing their depiction as thieves/rogues in TES lore. also helps them out in healing roles)

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with restoration staff by 15%. Increases swim speed by 50% (unchanged)

BOSMER - I wanted to give bosmer back some stealth for lore reasons, even though it's only in their flavor passives. I also wanted to open them up to more Magicka roles. One notable difference here is the division of their sustain: half of it now comes from a new sustain tool that can be specced for magicka recovery.)

Maximum resources: 2000 stamina 1000 magicka (max mag to boost efficiency in magicka roles)

Defensive bonus: 4620 poison resistance.

Sustain tool: While the effects of one of your alchemical potions or weapon poisons are active, restore 412 magicka or stamina, whichever is higher, every 4 seconds. (emphasizes their proficiency in alchemy while also opening the door to magicka bosmer)

Set bonuses:
1. 129 stamina recovery (having a hard 129 stamina recovery emphasizes their natural agility, even when specced for magicka)
2. 1487 offensive penetration (converts their penetration bonus into an actual set bonus)

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with bow by 15%. Increases chances to pick pockets and force locks by 10% (lore change. Bosmer have always been stealthy thieves. Wanted to compensate for their loss of combat stealth by aiding their thievery in non-combat scenarios)

BRETON

Maximum resources: 2500 magicka 550 health (boost to health to emphasize the Breton's increased hardiness in comparison to the other elven races on account of their human ancestry)

Defensive bonus: 2310 spell resistance. (note that this value is lower than the other resistances to specific damage types. This is to account for spell resistance resisting flame, frost, lightning, and magic damage, whereas resistances to a single element only resist one)

Sustain tool: When you use an ability, restore 309 magicka. If the ability used does not damage an enemy, the magicka restored is doubled. This can occur once every 6 seconds. (reducing their sustain in damage dealer roles on account of their cost reduction being buffed, while also boosting their sustain in healing roles to give them a bit of an edge over altmer in that role)

Set bonuses: (relatively unchanged)
1. Reduces the cost of magicka abilities by 4% (this one is hard to quantify, as there are currently no 2-4 pc item set bonuses that provide this. 5pc bonus of the armor of the Seducer provides a similar buff, and used hundings/Julianos as a relative comparison to find a coefficient that would translate this 5pc set bonus into a 2-4pc (2.31). 4.3% was the magic number, and rounded down as is consistent with all other aspects of the game)
2. Reduces the cost of magicka abilities by 4%

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with light armor by 15%. Increases alliance point gain by 1% (unchanged)

DUNMER - I like where they are at in current parses for the most part. Wanted to emphasize the duality of their nature as both skilled warriors and casters in comparison to the altmer, according to lore. Steered hard into utilization of both stat pools (for added combat utility for roll dodges, break frees,etc on the magicka side of things and more magicka utility for crowd control, self buffs/heals, nb cloaks, etc on the stamina side of things).

Maximum resources: 1500 stamina 1500 magicka (retaining their equal split in offensive capabilities, while adhering to the 3000 max resource limit)

Defensive bonus: 4620 resistance to fire.

Sustain tool: Dealing direct damage restores 618 magicka or stamina, whichever maximum is lower. 6 second cooldown (Altmer spell recharge. Seemed a lot more fitting on a hybrid race)

Set bonuses: (unchanged)
1. 129 spell/weapon damage
2. 129 spell/weapon damage

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with dual wield by 15%. Reduces damage from lava by 50% (unchanged)

IMPERIAL - They are being established as as the swiss army knife race. They are well suited for any role. Could still use some help in the DPS race, both as magicka DD and as a stamina DD

Maximum resources: 750 magicka 1650 health, 750 stamina (spreading these out among all three resources to play into the jack of all trades identity. Damage concerns addressed in set bonuses)

Defensive bonus: 1155 spell resistance 1155 physical resistance. (note that the sum of these values is less than the resistances other races have against a single element, but are on pace with Breton and redguards spell/physical resistances, respectively
This is again to account for the greater number of damage types these resistances shield against, compared to the more specific resists)

Sustain tool: When you deal direct damage, restore 258 Magicka and stamina, and 516 health. 5 second cool down. (again, based off of 206 (129x1.6) offensive resources restored/2 seconds. Because they restore both Magicka and stamina, each one is being restored at half of this value. They are given health sustain at twice this value, to account for battle spirit halving the healing done in PvP. The extra health restore on top of the magicka/stamina restore falls in line with tri Stat bonuses receiving 1.5x the value of single offensive Stat bonuses, consistent in all other parts of the game.)

Set bonuses:
1. Reduces cost of abilities by 2.5% (again hard to quantify, but 2.5% cost reduction to all abilities is derived from battlefield acrobat granting a 6% bonus at the 5 pc level. Using the ratio of 300 weapon damage = 2.31x 129 weapon damage from hundings rage, we were able to derive the single set bonus to reduction in all ability cost at the value of ~2.5% (6/2.31=~2.59), which is pretty similar to the current PTS value for imperials cost reduction bonus)
2. Reduces the cost of abilities by 2.5%

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with 1h and shield by 15%. Increases gold gain by 1% (unchanged)

KHAJIT - I think they are at a pretty good place in terms of balancing magic cats against stamina cats. They could both use a slight boost all around to keep them more competitive with the other races, however. Removed their sustain to be more in line with the other races that possess 2 damage oriented set bonuses, but gave them higher max resources to compensate.

Maximum resources: 1250 magicka 550 health 1250 stamina (boosting offensive capabilities while staying true to 3000 max resource limit)

Defensive bonus: Decreases the radius enemies can detect you while sneaking by 3m.

Sustain tool: When you deal critical damage, increase health recovery by 129 for 6 seconds. (removed main stat sustain to bring them more in line with the other races that have both set bonuses dedicated to damage oriented bonuses)

Set bonuses: (values changed to match the values of two 2-4 pc item set bonuses)
1. +6% critical damage and healing (another hard one to quantify as set bonuses, but derived 6% from the shadow mundus stone by looking at other mundus stones that are valued at ~1.85x 2-4 pc item set bonuses. 11/1.85= ~6%. this is also the current value given to khajit on the PTS, if their crit bonus is to be looked at as the sum of two separate 2-4 pc item set bonuses.)
2. 657 critical chance (with the nerf to crit chance that cp 2.0 brings around, khajit would be lacking with only bonuses to crit damage. Splitting their bonuses up to one of crit damage and another to crit chance would help bring them up a bit after the change)

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with medium armor by 15%. Reduces fall damage by 10% (swapped passives with bosmer in this regard to give bosmer back some aspect of stealth. Also, as cats, it seems fitting Khajit should receive less fall damage because cats always land on their feet)

NORD - Nords were definitely overtuned in terms of resistances the nerf was certainly warranted. Could use a bump in the DPS race to keep up with other races in that department

Maximum resources: 1100 health 2000 stamina (bonus to stamina to keep them competitive as DPS)

Defensive bonus: 4620 cold resistance.

Sustain tool: When you take OR deal damage, generate 5 ultimate. 10 second cooldown. (modified to support nords in roles other than tank. Because there is no set bonus to ultimate generation, this is probably the hardest sustain tool to quantify. That being said, there doesn't seem to be an issue with its current value on live, so I've left it unchanged.)

Set bonuses:
1. 1487 resistance (only changed the values to accommodate the 2 set bonus limit established in the guidelines, resulting in a small increase)
2. 1487 resistance

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with 2h. Increases duration of drinks by 15 minutes (unchanged)

ORC - The health restore on the current orc iteration is a bit strong, toned that back a bit and gave them back their stamina at the cost of run speed

Maximum resources: 2000 stamina 1100 health (unchanged)

Defensive bonus: 4620 Shock resistance. (not a very lore-based change. I just imagine it would be particularly difficult to give an orc a concussion. It also makes me happy to use bonus resistances to each of the elemental damage types in my racial rebalanced)

Sustain tool: Restore 824 health when you deal damage, 4 second cooldown (again basing it off of our value of 206 [129x1.6] resources/2 seconds, to try to match natural recovery that can be boosted by percent modifiers. The heal also gets halved by battlespirit, so we doubled the value to protect against this.)

Set bonuses: (unchanged)
1. 129 weapon damage
2. 129 weapon damage

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with heavy armor by 15%. Increases crafting inspiration by 10% (unchanged)

REDGUARD - Could use a slight boost to help close the gap between orc/dunmer a bit.

Maximum resources: 2500 stamina 550 health (bump to stamina to boost their offensive capabilities slightly, the rest allocated into health)

Defensive bonus: 2310 physical resistance. (snare reduction was pretty trash on redguards,
and physical resistance would work very well to establish their lore as masters of all things physical. Note again that this value is less than the resistances other races receive toward specific damage types, on account of physical resistance resisting physical, poison, and disease damage )

Sustain tool: Dealing direct damage restores 516 stamina. 5 second cool down. (Nerfed to balance out the buff to their stamina cost reduction abilities, balanced to a level similar to the Breton's current sustain tool due to the new similarities between their set bonuses)

Set bonuses:
1. Reduces the stamina cost of abilities by 4% (again, hard to quantify. But chose to reduce stamina cost of all abilities to mirror breton, and also stick to my established quantification of cost reduction in terms of set bonuses derived from Seducer 5 pc bonus)
2. Reduces the stamina cost of abilities by 4%

Flavor passives: Increases experience gain with 1h and shield by 15%. Increases duration of foods by 15 minutes (unchanged)


You will notice most of the races remain relatively unchanged from what they currently are, other than a slight bump in offensive power to the races that are currently under-performing. This is quite intended. My goal in this hypothetical and very fictional racial rebalance is to provide better balance to the races by establishing a set of standardized rules that racial passives must follow, while also maintaining each race's unique feel and viability for the roles they currently are associated with. I also want to help bridge the gap between some of the races in the latest DPS parses, while more or less maintaining the structure of the current hierarchy. The overall goal is to once and for all end the racial tweaks that ZOS keeps making every now and then, by balancing the races in a way in which each race is true to the lore and also allocated the exact same value of item set bonuses as all the other races, just allocated differently.

It is also important to mention that under this proposed system, if a race is over or under performing, it would be incredibly easy to make adjustments without upsetting the overall balance. This is because it's designed to be very cookie cutter, where item set bonuses can individually and very easily be replaced with an item set bonus of another kind. No more total overhauls or micro adjusting required, just plug and chug.

P.S. If this looks familiar, this is because I initially published a very similar thread back when the racial pass was being done. I've since updated it to current set bonus values, and made a few balance changes, specifically regarding the sustain tools, to ensure that each race is in line with all the others.

Go nuts.

EDIT 1: edited imperial's set bonuses to reflect set bonuses derived from battlefield acrobat's 5 pc bonus, which includes reduction in ability cost to block, dodge, etc.

EDIT 2: removed immunity to status effects throughout all the racial passives. Doubled resistances to specific damage types to make up for the loss of status effect immunity. The resistances that shield against multiple specific damage types (physical and spell resistance) were left at the original values, because these are admittedly stronger resistance types than specific damage resistances.

Urzigurumash

Although I enjoy Bosmer's Poisoned immunity on live, and would enjoy Orc's proposed immunity to Concussed, I suspect that immunity to status effects is not desirable because it may interfere with other sets and passives - such as DK's Combustion passive, or Warden's Glacial Presence passive. As it is on live a MagDen speccing into crit would be very unlucky to get in a Battleground against 8 Nords. It is one thing for a certain class to be able to shut down important elements of a build, but perhaps it is better racial passives don't have such strength.

Kuratius

I would avoid passives that only proc on damage done. I'd keep the proc condition of e.g. the spell recharge passive to be ability casts.
The changes you made to High Elf and Dark Elf with regard to sustain are a bit weird, particularly removing the altmer spell recharge passive. I get that you wanted to make the passive synergize better, but heavy attack builds generally already oversustain, so the extra magicka is not all that useful.

That said, I think the idea of the dark elf passive is nice, but I think it'd probably make sense to make it restore a split of magicka/stamina, with altmer restoring less main resources (and more of the off-resource) and dunmer restoring more of the main resource and less of the off-resource. I think keeping the proc condition of the dunmer passive on damage done is fine, though I'd probably prefer if it was also upon skill cast, like high elf.


For the imperial passive, was changing it to only magicka/stamina intentional? Or was that an oversight? It is supposed to be all costs, e.g. health, ultimate, block, etc. as well, and there are sets that reduce all costs that you can use as a reference.
I'd also probably modify the proc condition to inclusive OR for damage done or damage blocked

ExistingRug61

Kudos on the work you put into this.

You are right with the comment that it is unlikely that ZOS will ever change to such a system like this directly - I think they will stick with their approach. The best we can probably hope for is that their continued tinkering fortuitously somehow arrive at something like this.

Nevertheless I appreciate the amount of theorycrafting that goes into these sort of posts, as it promotes some interesting discussion.

Some things I would note:

1) Assigning the fixed cap to 3000 stat to each race can become problematic when some races focus on one and others get a distribution. It is very hard to balance this. For example Breton with its 2500 mag and 550 health is a much better bonus than Argonians 1100 health and 1000 stam and mag.
Not just because its focused, but because if a player wanted off stats it would be better to get it from tri-glyphs or traits as these give the stats at a 1.5x ratio. ie: under the above proposal, stat wise Breton + tri glyphs > Argonian + mag glyphs, at the same set cost/opportunity cost.
That said, I don't know how you can correctly factor this in in general as there is no established set worth for bi-stats that we can use.
ie: its easy enough to say 3000 mag or stam or 3300 health is equivalent to 1650/1500/1500 under the tri-stat standard, but what is the equivalent bi stat value for races that only get two stats?

2) I agree with the point above regarding status effect immunity. I think that was removed for good reason.

3) A couple of the resistances given are a bit funny, but it might just be due to the terms you've used.
The terms spell resist and physical resist as currently defined in the game apply to all magicka and all stamina damage types respectively. ie: Spell resistance applies to magic/fire/frost/lighting and physical resistance applies to physical/poison/disease/bleed. Which is now a bit confusing terminology wise.

Thus, the resistance values for breton, imperial and redguard are significantly stronger than all the other races as currently listed.
Unless what you meant by spell resistance was a new "magic damage resistance" that only applies to magic typed damage (and not fire/frost/lightning) and physical resistance was a new "physical damage resistance" that only applies to physical damage (and not poison/disease/bleed). In which case they are on par.

Renegader

i will just say one thing. im happy at least zos are the ones to choose and not the forums

twing1_

Kuratius wrote: »

I would avoid passives that only proc on damage done. I'd keep the proc condition of e.g. the spell recharge passive to be ability casts.
The changes you made to High Elf and Dark Elf with regard to sustain are a bit weird, particularly removing the altmer spell recharge passive. I get that you wanted to make the passive synergize better, but heavy attack builds generally already oversustain, so the extra magicka is not all that useful.

That said, I think the idea of the dark elf passive is nice, but I think it'd probably make sense to make it restore a split of magicka/stamina, with altmer restoring less main resources (and more of the off-resource) and dunmer restoring more of the main resource and less of the off-resource. I think keeping the proc condition of the dunmer passive on damage done is fine, though I'd probably prefer if it was also upon skill cast, like high elf.


For the imperial passive, was changing it to only magicka/stamina intentional? Or was that an oversight? It is supposed to be all costs, e.g. health, ultimate, block, etc. as well, and there are sets that reduce all costs that you can use as a reference.
I'd also probably modify the proc condition to inclusive OR for damage done or damage blocked

Good point about the imperial passive, that definitely was an oversight. Tbh I didn't even know their racial on live included block and dodge etc.

I made an adjustment to the value of these bonuses, by deriving it from the battlefield acrobat 5 pc bonus.

From hundings rage and similar item sets, we know a 5 pc bonus without a conditional proc = ~2.31 x a single 2-4 pc item set bonus, so I was able to reverse engineer a value of ~2.59% ability cost reduction for this particular bonus (battlefield acrobat 6% reduction / 2.31 = ~2.59). I also reverted their second item set bonus back to ability cost reduction as well, in response to the next comment.

twing1_

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

Kudos on the work you put into this.

You are right with the comment that it is unlikely that ZOS will ever change to such a system like this directly - I think they will stick with their approach. The best we can probably hope for is that their continued tinkering fortuitously somehow arrive at something like this.

Nevertheless I appreciate the amount of theorycrafting that goes into these sort of posts, as it promotes some interesting discussion.

Some things I would note:

1) Assigning the fixed cap to 3000 stat to each race can become problematic when some races focus on one and others get a distribution. It is very hard to balance this. For example Breton with its 2500 mag and 550 health is a much better bonus than Argonians 1100 health and 1000 stam and mag.
Not just because its focused, but because if a player wanted off stats it would be better to get it from tri-glyphs or traits as these give the stats at a 1.5x ratio. ie: under the above proposal, stat wise Breton + tri glyphs > Argonian + mag glyphs, at the same set cost/opportunity cost.
That said, I don't know how you can correctly factor this in in general as there is no established set worth for bi-stats that we can use.
ie: its easy enough to say 3000 mag or stam or 3300 health is equivalent to 1650/1500/1500 under the tri-stat standard, but what is the equivalent bi stat value for races that only get two stats?

2) I agree with the point above regarding status effect immunity. I think that was removed for good reason.

3) A couple of the resistances given are a bit funny, but it might just be due to the terms you've used.
The terms spell resist and physical resist as currently defined in the game apply to all magicka and all stamina damage types respectively. ie: Spell resistance applies to magic/fire/frost/lighting and physical resistance applies to physical/poison/disease/bleed. Which is now a bit confusing terminology wise.

Thus, the resistance values for breton, imperial and redguard are significantly stronger than all the other races as currently listed.
Unless what you meant by spell resistance was a new "magic damage resistance" that only applies to magic typed damage (and not fire/frost/lightning) and physical resistance was a new "physical damage resistance" that only applies to physical damage (and not poison/disease/bleed). In which case they are on par.

For the resistances, I did intend for physical to resist all types of physical damage and spell to resist all types of magical attacks.

My thought process behind this was that these two bonuses are granted to only the races that have no item set bonuses dedicated to damage done. Both redguard and breton are solely sustain races, with neither being granted bonuses such as damage, critical damage, or critical chance that would help them deal damage. As a result, for min/max number pushers, these races will always be behind in the DPS race. Therefore I thought they were deserving of slightly stronger defensive bonuses, which also highlights their lores as master's in all things physical with an aversion to magic, and magical mastery while being a bit more sturdy than full-blooded elves for redguard and breton respectively.

For the case of imperials, I made adjustments to their set bonuses in response to the prior comment about their current passive reducing the cost of all abilities, not just magicka/stamina skills. I derived a value from the battlefield acrobat 5 pc set bonus to reflect this, and while I was at it I also changed their second item set bonus back to this ability cost reduction (similar to how it currently is on PTS) to follow the same rule of thumb for the stronger resistances argument I made for the bretons and redguards. This way it stays true that all of and only the races without a dedicated set bonus to increasing damage numbers are given slightly stronger defensive bonuses. The immunities to these respective status effects too, are considerably weaker than the immunities to other status effects as well, which helps balance it out even more.

luen79rwb17_ESO

Racials need to go. Or make it a miniscule buff to whatever.

Ratzkifal

I feel some of these are needlessly complicated.
One reason I like what ZOS did to Hunter's Eye in this PTS is that they turned this overly complicated skill that's very niche into raw stats, which are much more easy to grasp. If it included stealth as well it would be perfect :P
Similarly Red Diamond went from being a passive where you have to do math to figure out how good it is to just being 6%, which is a lot easier to understand (even if it's not immediately obvious that it applies to everything).

AyaDark

This look more balanced and more logick in it, than PTS current version.

twing1_

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I feel some of these are needlessly complicated.
One reason I like what ZOS did to Hunter's Eye in this PTS is that they turned this overly complicated skill that's very niche into raw stats, which are much more easy to grasp. If it included stealth as well it would be perfect :P
Similarly Red Diamond went from being a passive where you have to do math to figure out how good it is to just being 6%, which is a lot easier to understand (even if it's not immediately obvious that it applies to everything).

Are you referring to the sustain tools?

The other max Stat, defensive, and simple item set bonuses I feel are extremely simple and cookie-cutter.

Even the sustain tools though, the math is already done and described. Every sustain tool that restores main stats (Magicka or stamina) restores exactly 206/2 seconds, and the health restores double that.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

While some minor changes might need to be made to those passives, I will say that your premise and execution is very well done. I normally despise these hypothetical reworks of entire systems, but you are definitely on to something with this. Establishing hard and fast rules seems like an obvious step towards balance.

The cynic in me believes they will micro manage racial passives every year or two just to drive in sales of race change tokens, but the optimist in me believes they might listen to solid proposals like this one.

Ratzkifal

twing1_ wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I feel some of these are needlessly complicated.
One reason I like what ZOS did to Hunter's Eye in this PTS is that they turned this overly complicated skill that's very niche into raw stats, which are much more easy to grasp. If it included stealth as well it would be perfect :P
Similarly Red Diamond went from being a passive where you have to do math to figure out how good it is to just being 6%, which is a lot easier to understand (even if it's not immediately obvious that it applies to everything).

Are you referring to the sustain tools?

The other max Stat, defensive, and simple item set bonuses I feel are extremely simple and cookie-cutter.

Even the sustain tools though, the math is already done and described. Every sustain tool that restores main stats (Magicka or stamina) restores exactly 206/2 seconds, and the health restores double that.

Yeah the sustain tools are the problem. Take Breton for example:

Sustain tool: When you use an ability, restore 309 magicka. If the ability used does not damage an enemy, the magicka restored is doubled. This can occur once every 6 seconds. (reducing their sustain in damage dealer roles on account of their cost reduction being buffed, while also boosting their sustain in healing roles to give them a bit of an edge over altmer in that role)

Why not just have it be recovery like now? I see that you are trying to give each race a niche they can shine in, but I feel like this isn't the right way to go about it. Why punish Bretons for wanting to deal damage? Why can't it be enough that two races are good at the same thing why must one be clearly the better choice between them? The current Breton passives don't arbitrarily descriminate between specs.

Or Khajiit:

When you deal critical damage, increase health recovery by 129 for 6 seconds.

What's the point of having this weird proc condition? Not only does that mean load on the server for constantly having to make checks, it also does not nearly enough to even warrant a proc condition. They might as well just have 129 health recovery active at all times - not gonna make a big difference.

That's what I mean by needlessly complicated. I feel we should simplify the racial passives without dumbing down the system, instead of adding more complexity with no good reason.

Strider__Roshin

I think you put way more thought into this than ZOS did.

DonGodJoe

Racials are what makes Races different apart of each other.

Im saying, no to your idea

As far im aware you can raid or play pvp no matter what race.. its all just min/maxing and gaining or losing advantage above or under other race you face against or play with...

Meta is mainly what makes issue in mmo games.
Someone makes tests, find out that race A and class A makes 120k dps with S+ set and everyone goes for it.. while game offers you race B and class D with S/A tier sets where you do 100-110k dps but no one cares because its not the most performing "meta" option.

ESO_Nightingale

immunity to status is pretty gross. its great that they removed it, it shouldn't be in the game.

WrathOfInnos

It’s a tough balancing problem, but I will say that there’s no way resources split between resources are balanced with those fully into one stat. Last time I attempted something similar when evaluating racial passives I found that the best examples in game were Shacklebreaker’s 5pc set bonus and tri-stat armor glyphs.

Shacklebreaker shows that 2065 Magicka + 2065 Stamina is equal to other 5pc set bonuses, such as the 2550 Magicka on Alfiq or the 2550 Stamina on Draugr Hulk. This means that about 0.81 bistat resource equals 1 Magicka or Stamina.

Tri-stat glyphs have an even easier ratio. Basically if you get Mag + Stam + Health, then the magnitude on all 3 is halved. This also maintains the trend that 10% more health is given than Magicka or Stamina. So it results in 1 Magicka = 1 Stamina = 1.1 Health = 0.5 Magicka + 0.5 Stamina + 0.55 Health.

It’s always tricky though, since the game doesn’t even follow its own rules. By this method you can use Altmer/Breton/Redguard/Bosmer as the starting point for 2000 primary resource. Dunmer gets bistat so should be 1620 Mag + 1620 Stam (actually 1910 on the latest PTS balance). And Khajiit should be 1000 Mag + 1000 Stam + 1100 Health (actually 915 of each).

It’s all slightly subjective, but there does need to be some consideration that splitting between multiple resources is inherently weaker than having it all in one.

kojou

Overall I agree with your balancing strategy. I think this is actually much better than anything the combat balance team has come up with so far.

There are numbers I would probably tweak different directions, but that is just more matters of opinions.

I will add that removing status effect immunity is required per the new CP system. There are specific CP stars that will be negated by immunity to status effects, so any racial passive design going forward should have those removed. I like the concept of giving more races resistance to something though.

twing1_

kojou wrote: »

Overall I agree with your balancing strategy. I think this is actually much better than anything the combat balance team has come up with so far.

There are numbers I would probably tweak different directions, but that is just more matters of opinions.

I will add that removing status effect immunity is required per the new CP system. There are specific CP stars that will be negated by immunity to status effects, so any racial passive design going forward should have those removed. I like the concept of giving more races resistance to something though.

I've edited the op to remove immunity to status effects.

While I personally don't see immunities to these as being an issue, a large amount of feedback has convinced me that these immunities do not belong on racial skills.

To make up for the loss of status effect immunities, the values for specific damage type resistances were doubled (to 4620). In the case of the races that were granted physical or spell resistance or a combination of both, I left these values at the original value (of 2310, or 1155 if both were granted) because they protect against more than one damage type, and are inherently stronger than the single damage type resists. This should help bridge the gap between some of the defensive bonuses across all races.