Racial passives suggestion? Maybe?

p00tx

There are currently a handful of different arguments both for and against getting rid of racial passives. Both NefasQS and SawmanUK have posted informative and entertaining videos on Youtube that outline their respective viewpoints, and their videos got me thinking.

Nefas argues that we should get rid of racial passives, with his primary argument revolving around the premise that they, in their current iteration, create a balancing issue, and that getting rid of them would serve a couple of purposes.

1. Getting rid of them would allow more simplistic balancing, which could improve on the heavy handed combat adjustments that have us all feeling pretty defeated each patch. Fair point, and I can see the logic in this.
2. It would allow players to choose their favorite race based on aesthetics alone, without having to take passives into account. This really only affects end gamers in both PvE and PvP (where a few percentage points can mean the difference between spots on leaderboards) in the long run, since the majority of players will not feel a marked difference in character performance after gaining or losing the existing passives.
   
   Sawman offered a counter argument, stating the loss of passives would lend itself to the already disappointing homogenization of characters, which is also a valid argument.
   
   
   My hot take on the hot take of a hot take:
   
   What if, instead of making each race a static thing with hard and fast rules about their performance, we created a submenu in the character creation screen that gives you 3 points to spend on a list of passives that all races can choose from equally. Offer a variety of things that suit different playstyles, like sustain options that cater to mag, stam and hybrid builds. Dmg options that do the same, a few mitigation options, and 1 mandatory lore friendly option like the fall dmg one or the swimming speed one.
   
   This allows each player to create either a perfect lore friendly character that suits their aesthetic, roleplay persona and/or playstyle, create a fun off-meta build, or to create a perfect meta dmg/healing/tanking machine. As long as we're not obsessed with controlling how others build their characters, it leaves room for everyone to win and enjoy the game the way they like.
   
   Please keep your responses to this civil and productive, and keep in mind the breadth of player preference and experience in this community. Also, please ignore my terrible formatting. I'm dumb and don't understand how these tools work.

Amottica

The old racial passive graning a % increase in stats and/or regen did add quite a bit. However, when Zenimax converted these to static stats it flattened out the benefit of racial passives leading to much less of a balancing challenge.

As for letting players choose their race based on aesthetics, I understand Zenimax originally announced letting us change our racial passives. Instead made it so we change our race altogether instead of just passives. If this is the case, it seems they doubled down on keeping passives tied to the race.

This also addresses the suggestion of letting us choose the passives separate from choosing the race.

I think Sawman has a good point. We already had a narrow difference between class builds, leaving the magicka/stam divide the significant difference into build types, but that is also narrowing with homogenization. The more we make things the same the more boring this game will get.

Your formatting is fine. I think all that view the post will appreciate it is not formatted into a single paragraph.

Everest_Lionheart

Racial passives don’t really matter unless you play deep into the endgame and you are going for trifecta runs and need to squeeze every but out of your character for your defined role. The 4 man dungeon trifectas can be done with just about any race performing any role though for sure there will always be 2-3 races that outperform all others. Still it depends on your specific build and play style and whether your racial passives boost the stats you need to cover for some other weakness.

Trial groups are different, but again it only matters when running the hard modes where it is essential to squeeze out everything you can though you could argue you don’t need extra DPS or resistances to clear this content but optimizing your build could shorten the encounter and therefore make you deal with less mechanics.

Zama666

hmm...

I thought that was the point of racial passives - they are fixed. You don't get to choose. And this why you can have multiple toons.

If they don't make a big difference till high end, leave them. they negligible to everyone else
For end game, guess you have to rely on skill, and enhancements (sets, pots, buffs) to over come perceived weaknesses or capitalize on what one has.

ZOS can always change them. Getting rid of them takes away from the game I feel.

Maybe a new line can be introduced - Culture.
Spend time in the some of the cities, adopt some of the passives? And it is temporary and not 100%
i.e. An Imperial hang around Nords, get better at drinking and more frost resistance temporarily? But loses some diplomacy?
it would have to be figured out...

Question

What are the balancing issues with Racial Passives? Have an example to share?
(They all seem beneficial - depending on the circumstance)
How much do they effect the game

Tanks,

Z

p00tx

Zama666 wrote: »

hmm...

I thought that was the point of racial passives - they are fixed. You don't get to choose. And this why you can have multiple toons.

If they don't make a big difference till high end, leave them. they negligible to everyone else
For end game, guess you have to rely on skill, and enhancements (sets, pots, buffs) to over come perceived weaknesses or capitalize on what one has.

ZOS can always change them. Getting rid of them takes away from the game I feel.

Maybe a new line can be introduced - Culture.
Spend time in the some of the cities, adopt some of the passives? And it is temporary and not 100%
i.e. An Imperial hang around Nords, get better at drinking and more frost resistance temporarily? But loses some diplomacy?
it would have to be figured out...

Question

What are the balancing issues with Racial Passives? Have an example to share?
(They all seem beneficial - depending on the circumstance)
How much do they effect the game

Tanks,

Z

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of division on the topic, understandably, so it's really hard to find a point of compromise. Not that it matters, because devs will do what the devs will do. I can't totally speak for the argument for dumping static racial passives, but my interpretation of it is that the original video about it was aiming to alleviate some of the variables affecting overall dmg numbers, and once you hit a certain level of dps and you start to work through DLC group content, those numbers start to make a difference (I'm a biological scientist, so I don't have the engineer brain needed to provide a whole bunch of clever equations to prove my observations here. This is merely my interpretation.). The more variables you have, the harder it is to balance sets, buffs, debuffs, and skills in a way that won't tip the scales too heavily in one direction or another. We've all seen the result of the attempted balancing that's been done recently, and it's clear that something needs to be altered to make that a less painful process for all involved, from the players to the devs.

I know I'm a pretty outspoken critic of a lot of the dev's decisions, but even I have to admit it's got to be rough trying to make everyone happy in all aspects of the game at once. I definitely wouldn't want the job. Simplifying the whole structure before trying to build on it seems like the most logical option to me, whatever that looks like.

I'll link Nefas's video here, in case you want to watch it, since he explains it better than I currently am.

vhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=Aam1IkKPFG0

Zama666

p00tx wrote: »

Zama666 wrote: »

hmm...

I thought that was the point of racial passives - they are fixed. You don't get to choose. And this why you can have multiple toons.

If they don't make a big difference till high end, leave them. they negligible to everyone else
For end game, guess you have to rely on skill, and enhancements (sets, pots, buffs) to over come perceived weaknesses or capitalize on what one has.

ZOS can always change them. Getting rid of them takes away from the game I feel.

Maybe a new line can be introduced - Culture.
Spend time in the some of the cities, adopt some of the passives? And it is temporary and not 100%
i.e. An Imperial hang around Nords, get better at drinking and more frost resistance temporarily? But loses some diplomacy?
it would have to be figured out...

Question

What are the balancing issues with Racial Passives? Have an example to share?
(They all seem beneficial - depending on the circumstance)
How much do they effect the game

Tanks,

Z

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of division on the topic, understandably, so it's really hard to find a point of compromise. Not that it matters, because devs will do what the devs will do. I can't totally speak for the argument for dumping static racial passives, but my interpretation of it is that the original video about it was aiming to alleviate some of the variables affecting overall dmg numbers, and once you hit a certain level of dps and you start to work through DLC group content, those numbers start to make a difference (I'm a biological scientist, so I don't have the engineer brain needed to provide a whole bunch of clever equations to prove my observations here. This is merely my interpretation.). The more variables you have, the harder it is to balance sets, buffs, debuffs, and skills in a way that won't tip the scales too heavily in one direction or another. We've all seen the result of the attempted balancing that's been done recently, and it's clear that something needs to be altered to make that a less painful process for all involved, from the players to the devs.

I know I'm a pretty outspoken critic of a lot of the dev's decisions, but even I have to admit it's got to be rough trying to make everyone happy in all aspects of the game at once. I definitely wouldn't want the job. Simplifying the whole structure before trying to build on it seems like the most logical option to me, whatever that looks like.

I'll link Nefas's video here, in case you want to watch it, since he explains it better than I currently am.

vhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=Aam1IkKPFG0

@p00tx thank for sharing!

Perhaps like Pvp there is non CP...maybe there would be a NON RP (racial passive) option?

For me not being a dps driven person, I like the RP - ...makes me proud to be Imperial...well rounded!

Hotdog_23

One potential fix would be to allow us to choose our race in the armory system. This way I could have my Nord tank, Brenton healer and Dark Elf DPS all in one character. Keep the flavor of each race as it is.

 Stay safe

Mrtoobyy

I love that races are different wich add a dynamic feel to the game. However, I would love to try out q system such as you describe. In oblivion there is a great character creation system IMO. Would be cool to atleast try it out in this game just to see how it would play out

Jarl_Ironheart

I think racials are fine as is. They do not add enough power to warrant a race swap nor do the racial create a balance issue. They may add like a 5% power increase but they doesn't mean anything plus putting a bad player with a "meta" race doesn't mean they will beat a good player with none meta race.

Castagere

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

I think racials are fine as is. They do not add enough power to warrant a race swap nor do the racial create a balance issue. They may add like a 5% power increase but they doesn't mean anything plus putting a bad player with a "meta" race doesn't mean they will beat a good player with none meta race.

Try making a Redguard that is magic based and see how that goes.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

But then how would ZOS use "balance" as a guise to make racial adjustments every few years to extort race change tokens out of end game players? Think of the Shareholders!

p00tx

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

But then how would ZOS use "balance" as a guise to make racial adjustments every few years to extort race change tokens out of end game players? Think of the Shareholders!

Touche...

ESO_Nightingale

I think they should just delete all racial combat based passives. Keep stuff like the 1% exp boost and destruction staff bonus exp gain

AinSoph

Let's be honest, this is really only an issue because the tokens cost 3k crowns but Race Change (as well as appearance change) should be free/cost in-game gold.

Jarl_Ironheart

Castagere wrote: »

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

I think racials are fine as is. They do not add enough power to warrant a race swap nor do the racial create a balance issue. They may add like a 5% power increase but they doesn't mean anything plus putting a bad player with a "meta" race doesn't mean they will beat a good player with none meta race.

Try making a Redguard that is magic based and see how that goes.

I have... I also made magic based nords and stamina based high elves. The racial passives are not a proven. If you're a meta chaser and the 1% of the 1% top players then yes but for everyone else, literally no

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Castagere wrote: »

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

I think racials are fine as is. They do not add enough power to warrant a race swap nor do the racial create a balance issue. They may add like a 5% power increase but they doesn't mean anything plus putting a bad player with a "meta" race doesn't mean they will beat a good player with none meta race.

Try making a Redguard that is magic based and see how that goes.

I have... I also made magic based nords and stamina based high elves. The racial passives are not a proven. If you're a meta chaser and the 1% of the 1% top players then yes but for everyone else, literally no

The numbers could have changed, but last I checked (doing parses with no racial passives) from a DPS perspective (certainly where racial passives matter the most), something like a nord Mag DPS is going to be about 5% behind say a Dark/High Elf. So on the bleeding edge of DPS, it could be 5-7k DPS. For most players its half that or less. Not counting RP, Race matters most to a PVE DPS, followed probably by a good open world 1vXer in PVP, but after that, its splitting hairs. One of the best tanks in the game (tons of leaderboards and WRs) played a khajiit forever.

Most builds/playstyles can use the racial passives at hand and build around them. PVE DPS, one race is objectively better than another.

boi_anachronism_

Ok so speaking as someone who has completed all vet raids multiple times and was working towards hms I really think this is an endgame issue. We are talking about something like 5k dps on average which to the average player really doesn't mean much. Any class as it stands can break 90k. You can easily clear all vet content with 70k. Most people are not going to worry about changing their race and play style for what is, for most people, a negligible difference. This argument in my personal opinion serves to highlight the disconnect between the endgame 2% and the rest of the player base. Frankly the racial passives are following the same ideas as every ES game before them. High elf had mag buffs, nord had cold resistance, dark elf had fire resistances. These all make perfect sense. Yes it's an MMO buts it's still elder scrolls. All of this is opinion but at the end of the day I really can't find a good rational for this and I'm saying that as someone who generally agrees with many of nefas ideas.

Mik195

As someone who mains a Bosmer, I'd rather like to have 3 racial passives instead of only 2.