Instead of a new class, just make some racial skills !

Fhritz

It may sounds weird but please listen, and feel free to debate later!

In the game, few skills are "unique" for any character : Only the class skills are something that make a build feel different from another. Templar have jabs, Nightblade have cloak, sorcerer have pet, warden have (an annoying) bear...
But what about race? Only a few passive? That's good, sure, but it doesn't give a "race identity", the passive are globally the same and mostly stat oriented.
Like armor, adding an unique skill for each race may be a great way to improve variety! We can imagine some claw attack for Khajiit, tail sweep for Argonians (like in the Blackwood trailer), a Drunk ability for Nords (oops, i'm not sure about this skill ), and so on...

Wouldn't that be great? What do you think?

Darian_Rath

The game had that once. Didn't go so well for balancing from what I remember. Anyway, they removed racial skills waaaaaay back. I think it was even before One Tamriel.

Fhritz

Darian_Rath wrote: »

The game had that once. Didn't go so well for balancing from what I remember. Anyway, they removed racial skills waaaaaay back. I think it was even before One Tamriel.

Yeah, but with the state of today's version of eso, it may be a good idea to add or bring back this feature, i mean eso is almost entirely different now

Ratzkifal

People have suggested this before. There aren't really many unique racial abilities described in the lore, but some do come to mind.
For example Dunmer could summon an ancestral spirit to aid them.
And Bosmer are described to have chameleon like skin that allows them to blend in with nature.

In previous games we had racial powers, like the voice of the emperor that pacified everyone or Orc's blood rage. But I am not sure those would be healthy while something like the Nord battle cry is something that anyone should be able to replicate unless it's specific to people who know the Thu'um (which in theory any Nord could if they spent years training).

Over all I don't think these racial active abilities need to come back, but I am missing some racial identity from the playable races in their passives. More flavor passives would be appreciated, even if some happen to overlap with the specialty of other races (Bosmer stealth for example).

zaria

Darian_Rath wrote: »

The game had that once. Didn't go so well for balancing from what I remember. Anyway, they removed racial skills waaaaaay back. I think it was even before One Tamriel.

They had racial ultimates I think but this was very early beta.
I say its an very bad idea unless its mostly for fun, say an Argonian tail sweep or Bosmer doing an werewolf style eat victim.
Stuff you do in an duel for fun or you know you win or on the last boss in an random normal dungeon.
However its not best in slot outside some marginal niche settings.

Race requirements for trials does not bring fun feelings. ZoS know this.

Fennwitty

They'd be fluff or overpowered. Even without active skills ZoS seems to struggle balancing races on the best of patches.

Orion_89

Sounds good. For bretons it may be a spell reflection ability, wich morphs can either stun an enemy or absorb some magic.

Hapexamendios

Bring in the Breton 25% magic resistance and race change tokens would sell like hotcakes.

Starlight_Whisper

I want racial ultimates 👀

Folkb

You'll just run into more balancing issues unless they are just for fun.

Urvoth

Fennwitty wrote: »

They'd be fluff or overpowered. Even without active skills ZoS seems to struggle balancing races on the best of patches.

For ultimates, yeah, they would likely either be fluff or make racial choices really, really important. If zos added an active ability or two, it wouldn't be hard to have a good middle ground, and there's a lot of options for random stuff that's situationally useful. Something like a major sorcery/brutality buff, stun, single target dot, etc., would all likely be fine and things you can often get outside the class toolkit anyway.

ADarklore

I think there are too many problems related to anything involving RACE. They had so many problems over the years trying to balance racial passives... any little bump to one and suddenly you have millions of Altmer running around Tamriel... a bump to Redguard and that's all you'll see... or a bump to Imperial and suddenly it's labeled "pay to win". They have enough problems trying to balance classes... we don't need race becoming a BIS factor again.

Red_Feather

How about a new slot for a faction skill that can be taught from each group in tamriel. Anyone can learn any skill and slot it there. It'll be a skills for utility, fun and flavour. Nothing for tanking, healing, dps parses.

francesinhalover

I disagree, racial skills would make X class must have, the current system is really good And can easily become better in the future.

Let's avoid META or BIS the best we can.

BlueRaven

I remember during the beta they wanted to give Bosmers a pet, but at the time they could not figure out how.

I would love to see something like that return.