Races - Do you think we need another Race balance pass?

Twohothardware

Yes

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Argonian, Wood Elf and Redguard need a tiny buff. The rest are fine.

Breton has pretty close to the same passives as Wood Elf and Redguard except being Magicka. They all only need small buffs, but they need something because hybridization increased the dps gap between them and the top race choices like Dark Elf and Khajiit.

Mik195

Yes

Yes, no race should have racials that are only applicable to pve or pvp. Bosmer having 1 racial that can only be used in pvp needs to be corrected or every race should have 1 pve only, 1 pvp only and 1 for both.

FantasticFreddie

Yes

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Argonian, Wood Elf and Redguard need a tiny buff. The rest are fine.

Argonian: I'd lean in a little bit to the resourceful. Maybe give them resistances to physical damage as well as disease and poison, since they are lizards that live in swamps with that scaly hide. Up the max mag and stam pools by 1500, and the potion bonus to 3500.

Redguard: Man, I don't even know. Reduce the cost of all stamina skills by x%? Increase max stamina by 5k?

Wood Elf: Increase damage with bow by x%, and make the penetration a sensible number. 1000, 1200, something like that.

Twohothardware

Yes

I think with Breton they could just increase the max magicka to 3000 and with Redguard the max stamina to 3000 and it would make them more viable dps choices if you want to build for more sustain.

Right now Dark Elf gets 3820 total bonus resources, Khajiit gets 2745, and Imperial gets 4000.

FantasticFreddie

Yes

Twohothardware wrote: »

I think with Breton they could just increase the max magicka to 3000 and with Redguard the max stamina to 3000 and it would make them more viable dps choices if you want to build for more sustain.

Right now Dark Elf gets 3820 total bonus resources, Khajiit gets 2745, and Imperial gets 4000.

Breton is in a fairly decent place as a pve healer and in defensive pvp roles-- 3 of my healers are breton and it's considered BIS.
It's not a good tank, but ranks I think 3rd place, below Nord and Imperial

Twohothardware

Yes

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

I think with Breton they could just increase the max magicka to 3000 and with Redguard the max stamina to 3000 and it would make them more viable dps choices if you want to build for more sustain.

Right now Dark Elf gets 3820 total bonus resources, Khajiit gets 2745, and Imperial gets 4000.

Breton is in a fairly decent place as a pve healer and in defensive pvp roles-- 3 of my healers are breton and it's considered BIS.
It's not a good tank, but ranks I think 3rd place, below Nord and Imperial

I would place Argonian in third place for tanking.

Bretons lore-wise are suppose to be among the most adept in magic and a lot of the concept art shows them in heavy armor carrying melee weapons. I think they should be rebalanced to lean more into that.

LesserCircle

Yes

Yes, I don't like hybridization but here we are, so we need changes to all the races that are still geared only towards stamina or magicka.

the1andonlyskwex

Yes

I think it's needed, but I don't think it will actually happen because ZOS is afraid of being accused of monetizing game balance (because race changes cost real money).

FantasticFreddie

Yes

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I think it's needed, but I don't think it will actually happen because ZOS is afraid of being accused of monetizing game balance (because race changes cost real money).

They have made changes numerous times in the past

the1andonlyskwex

Yes

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I think it's needed, but I don't think it will actually happen because ZOS is afraid of being accused of monetizing game balance (because race changes cost real money).

They have made changes numerous times in the past

They haven't made any significant changes in ages, and the last change they made that had any real impact resulted in an absolute uproar on the forums (including a very long thread of people demanding more free tokens over a very minor balance tweak). Based on the reaction they got last time, I doubt they'll make significant adjustments ever again.

Heck, even removing/equalizing racial bonuses would be controversial because of people that picked a specific race for min/max reasons and who would prefer a different race cosmetically.

merpins

Step 1: Remove the second three passives from races, and buff the initial flavorful passive of each race to make them more distinct. They can add a little power to your build, like Orcs getting movement speed, but nothing too impactful.
Step 2: Add Birthsigns, like from TES 4 Oblivion. You choose a birthsign at the same level intervals as you would gain your normal racial bonuses.

That would fix my problem with racial choices. Your race should be a flavorful choice with minor impact to your build, which only really impacts PVP (if you don't have imperial edition). Your birthsigns should effect combat.

Tannus15

Yes

all races with +258 weapon and spell damage need that removed and given something less "important"

I honestly don't care what, but it's way too impactful. it's almost a full 5pc bonus, Julianos is +300 for context.

Twohothardware

Yes

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

I think it's needed, but I don't think it will actually happen because ZOS is afraid of being accused of monetizing game balance (because race changes cost real money).

They have made changes numerous times in the past

They haven't made any significant changes in ages, and the last change they made that had any real impact resulted in an absolute uproar on the forums (including a very long thread of people demanding more free tokens over a very minor balance tweak). Based on the reaction they got last time, I doubt they'll make significant adjustments ever again.

Heck, even removing/equalizing racial bonuses would be controversial because of people that picked a specific race for min/max reasons and who would prefer a different race cosmetically.

They can give some free race change tokens just like they did last time they did a Racial balance pass.

Ingenon

No

I'm fine with the balance as it is. Recently I made a new character, went looking for a PvE DPS build, and found this.

It says "ANY race can be FINE for DPS on all modes"

Tannus15

Yes

Ingenon wrote: »

I'm fine with the balance as it is. Recently I made a new character, went looking for a PvE DPS build, and found this.

It says "ANY race can be FINE for DPS on all modes"

Fine, sure.

But if you're not dark elf then you're doing less dps than if you choose anything else. That's not an opinion, that's objective fact.

Cundu_Ertur

Yes

The Bosmer 'perk' of anti-stealth isn't just completely opposite to the lore, but is also entirely and completely 100% useless in all situations outside of Cyrodil and of questionable value even there. Bosmer need to have some kind of bonus to stealth.

Caligamy_ESO

No

Just delete the passives and let the people play what they want to play, everyone will be on the same level and wont feel any need to pick for some minute bonus.

Sauce_B055

Yes

Ideally, racial passives should come with a fun out-of-combat bonus such as the Argonian swimming perk.
But all combat-related statistics like damage, recovery, max stats etc should be tied to a "character background" that you can select for any race.

WrathOfInnos

Yes

Races absolutely need another balance pass. The game has changed so much in the last few years.

For example, there was no cap on crit damage when Khajiit received this as a bonus, so it was a useful stat. Now it just means that Khajiit lose their main damage passive if they are in a coordinated group with warhorns and EC. IMO no race should become weaker as the group becomes stronger.

Bosmer suffers from a similar issue, with penetration becoming useless over the cap. Every race will reach the cap when planning group content, so you end up just losing a passive.

Sustain races have similar problems, where group sustain will be planned around Dunmer, so Redguard, Breton, Imperial, Argonian and Bosmer all just oversustain compared to better races. There is no way to turn sustain into damage in the current meta. Previously we had mechanics like Templar beam scaling higher if you had full Magicka (making Breton viable), or strong and expensive spammables like Crystal Weapon or Daedric Tombs.

I find Dunmer, Altmer and Nord to be in a good spot right now. All the others are lacking.

LunaFlora

No

merpins wrote: »

Step 1: Remove the second three passives from races, and buff the initial flavorful passive of each race to make them more distinct. They can add a little power to your build, like Orcs getting movement speed, but nothing too impactful.
Step 2: Add Birthsigns, like from TES 4 Oblivion. You choose a birthsign at the same level intervals as you would gain your normal racial bonuses.

That would fix my problem with racial choices. Your race should be a flavorful choice with minor impact to your build, which only really impacts PVP (if you don't have imperial edition). Your birthsigns should effect combat.

the birthsigns are the constellations which we already choose with mundus stones.
they already affect combat. and we can choose and change them freely.

LesserCircle

Yes

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Races absolutely need another balance pass. The game has changed so much in the last few years.

For example, there was no cap on crit damage when Khajiit received this as a bonus, so it was a useful stat. Now it just means that Khajiit lose their main damage passive if they are in a coordinated group with warhorns and EC. IMO no race should become weaker as the group becomes stronger.

Bosmer suffers from a similar issue, with penetration becoming useless over the cap. Every race will reach the cap when planning group content, so you end up just losing a passive.

Sustain races have similar problems, where group sustain will be planned around Dunmer, so Redguard, Breton, Imperial, Argonian and Bosmer all just oversustain compared to better races. There is no way to turn sustain into damage in the current meta. Previously we had mechanics like Templar beam scaling higher if you had full Magicka (making Breton viable), or strong and expensive spammables like Crystal Weapon or Daedric Tombs.

I find Dunmer, Altmer and Nord to be in a good spot right now. All the others are lacking.

You are the kind of player ZOS needs to listen to, you know what you are talking about.

WrathOfInnos

Yes

LesserCircle wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Races absolutely need another balance pass. The game has changed so much in the last few years.

For example, there was no cap on crit damage when Khajiit received this as a bonus, so it was a useful stat. Now it just means that Khajiit lose their main damage passive if they are in a coordinated group with warhorns and EC. IMO no race should become weaker as the group becomes stronger.

Bosmer suffers from a similar issue, with penetration becoming useless over the cap. Every race will reach the cap when planning group content, so you end up just losing a passive.

Sustain races have similar problems, where group sustain will be planned around Dunmer, so Redguard, Breton, Imperial, Argonian and Bosmer all just oversustain compared to better races. There is no way to turn sustain into damage in the current meta. Previously we had mechanics like Templar beam scaling higher if you had full Magicka (making Breton viable), or strong and expensive spammables like Crystal Weapon or Daedric Tombs.

I find Dunmer, Altmer and Nord to be in a good spot right now. All the others are lacking.

You are the kind of player ZOS needs to listen to, you know what you are talking about.

Thanks, I do have some ideas about how to fix it.

Khajiit should go back to having 6% critical chance, replacing the 12% critical damage. This would be balanced with elves, and still function in group PVE content. It would be weaker in PvP (Khajiit is strong there) where most opponents have crit resistance, and would not stack well with Mechanical Acuity.

Bosmer should get their sneak bonus back, and the 950 penetration should be replaced by 2-3% critical chance. This is for the same reason as above, crit chance is unlikely to be negated by group buffs, and brings the race up to par in PVE without overbuffing it in PVP (where penetration > crit).

Orc is close to balanced, but IMO needs their Stamina bonus increased to 1500. It is understandable to keep them below the full 2000 since they have some extra survivability, but trading 1000 stamina for 1000 health has never been a fair compromise.

Redguard needs their 8% cost reduction to apply to all skills, class skills have become so good and versatile that few weapon skills are used. They also need a small damage passive (like Bosmer), maybe changing Adrenaline Rush from a stamina return into a flat 129 Weapon/Spell Damage.

Breton also needs 8% cost reduction on all skills. Limiting it to Magicka doesn’t work well in the hybrid meta. They can lose the additional 100 Magicka Recovery, and instead get a small damage passive like 129 Weapon/Spell Damage.

Those changes would put sustain races approximately 2% behind damage races for DPS. I believe an easy way to close this gap in PVE is to make a set like New Moon Acolyte viable. I think this was the original set intent, it just missed the mark slightly and was later nerfed into uselessness. Currently it gives 5% cost penalty, but the damage output is not good, worse than several sets without “curses” (Kinras, AY, Pillar of Nirn, even Order’s Wrath). The penetration 4pc and undertuned 5pc are the problem. I would like to see it become something like:

2pc: 3% crit chance (unchanged)
3pc: 129 weapon/spell dmg (unchanged)
4pc: 3% crit chance
5pc: 14% crit chance, increase cost of all abilities by 8%

This would be a total of 20% crit chance on the set, or 3% more than AY’s 17%, resulting in about 2% DPS gain. NMA would not make a good front bar option like AY, and therefore the cost increase would apply to skills on both bars, and cancel out the sustain bonuses of Breton/Redguard/Bosmer. Altmer and Dunmer would struggle to sustain with this steep cost increase, and it would not justify the small damage increase. They would simply wear other sets (gear diversity is great).

Organized groups would not give up 1-2 support sets for sustain sets (Stone-Talker, Hollowfang, Worm, Hircine, etc.) because the increase is too small to justify losing things like Powerful Assault, Pillager or Pearlescent. In PVP this set would not be anything great, again because of crit resistance, the importance of sustain, and the fact that it gives less burst damage than Mechanical Acuity (also true for PVE burst like for troublesome trial trash packs).

One additional benefit of a high-damage low-sustain set is that heavy attack builds would gain a new set option. They have unlimited sustain, but currently lack DPS. It would also synergies well with one-bar builds like Oakensoul, since they do not care about a bonus like AY carrying over to a back bar, and AY is not available in staves (which should be fixed IMO).

Argonian and Imperial need work as well, but those will require more thought. It’s not clear what they are intended to be, with bonuses to health, and tri-stat sustain. They have no damage, fall short of Nord for tanking, and still do not make great healers.

Mesite

No

I remember the last time they changed. They didn't give out enough change tokens to recover.

However, I currently have no argonians, wood elves or redguard. Maybe you have a point.

I don't want to have to re-roll my toons to fit in with the new meta after the next lot of passive changes.

WrathOfInnos

Yes

Mesite wrote: »

I remember the last time they changed. They didn't give out enough change tokens to recover.

However, I currently have no argonians, wood elves or redguard. Maybe you have a point.

I don't want to have to re-roll my toons to fit in with the new meta after the next lot of passive changes.

Fair point, I also would not want the meta to get scrambled to where everyone has to buy several race changes. I just want the weak races brought up to be equal to the strong ones.

I find it odd from a lore perspective that Nords are the heavily armored, low damage tank race in ESO, while Orcs are built around speed, offense and healing. However I don’t think this should be swapped at this point in time, it would cause too many issues and force people to spend $ on race changed. Better to perform small changes, raising the floor, and not destroy the current top races for each role.

Tyrant_Tim

Yes

Khajiit is way too heavily loaded with Critical Damage, I would appreciate it going back to Critical Chance, at a value less than 12%.

Bosmer needs a passive that increases the speed they enter stealth, with a stealth detectable radius reduction, and a slight increase to crit damage all of the time… maybe 6%, with a more heavy ended increase to crit damage from stealth being another 10%. Landing at a total of 16% critical damage from stealth.

Redguard needs some weapon damage in its passives, and CP sustain needs an overhaul to make using Redguard for sustain advantageous, because in Battlegrounds and other no-cp areas, the race is amazing.

exoib

Yes

Most races are in a good spot and I'm in favor of buffs and don't think any race deserves a nerf. But I do think Argonians, Woodelves and Redguards deserve some buffs:

1) Argonian: The resourceful passive can give slightly more resources with each potion since they don't have any sustain passives and according to lore they are meant to thrive in perilous environments. 3125 of each resource is a bit too low in my experience of playing an Argonian support character (tank and heal), 5000 of each resource will be a nice buff. Also the "Life Mender" passive is a bit too weak, even races who are not meant to heal like Orcs have better healing output from the extra weapon and spell damage passive, increasing the healing done to 12% from 6% will be a very balanced buff for the lizard folk consistent with their lore of tackling numerous diseases in Black Marsh

2) Redguards : On paper they look good for a stamina oriented race for beginners, but in terms of sustain they are still far behind Bretons or Imperials because of hybridization, the 8% reduction to weapon abilities is very niche since most classes use class skills rather than weapon skills, so buffing it to 20% seems in line with other races, they don't have any unique damage or resistance passives, so adding an unique resistance line for example like the Breton's "Spell Attunement" passive makes sense. "Increases your Physical Resistance by 2310. This effect is doubled if you are afflicted with bleed, poison or disease. This way they can be a mirror image of Bretons and not feeling like they are squishy which also conflicts with Redguard lore.

3) Wood Elves : Personally I think they are the most balanced race of all the 3 weakest races I mentioned. Something like having an unique damage boost when using ranged attacks can put them in a good spot with bow playstyles and makeup for their lack of weapon and spell damage.

Thank you for reading

Tannus15

Yes

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Races absolutely need another balance pass. The game has changed so much in the last few years.

For example, there was no cap on crit damage when Khajiit received this as a bonus, so it was a useful stat. Now it just means that Khajiit lose their main damage passive if they are in a coordinated group with warhorns and EC. IMO no race should become weaker as the group becomes stronger.

Bosmer suffers from a similar issue, with penetration becoming useless over the cap. Every race will reach the cap when planning group content, so you end up just losing a passive.

Sustain races have similar problems, where group sustain will be planned around Dunmer, so Redguard, Breton, Imperial, Argonian and Bosmer all just oversustain compared to better races. There is no way to turn sustain into damage in the current meta. Previously we had mechanics like Templar beam scaling higher if you had full Magicka (making Breton viable), or strong and expensive spammables like Crystal Weapon or Daedric Tombs.

I find Dunmer, Altmer and Nord to be in a good spot right now. All the others are lacking.

I actually think it should go the other way. Remove the "good" passives and leave in the niche ones which full groups don't need.

the khajiit passive allows you some build options, mora is just flat out better than kilt or maybe you run more light armour for crit chance without as much penalty. breton or redguard give you more sustain than you need most of the time, but it can be nice for situations like vSS HM portals or vCR portals.

the problem is that altmer, dunmer and orcs all get 258 spell/weapon damage which just stomps all over these situational benefits. It's a huge damage increase that you get in all situations.

These passives all need to be removed.

Racial passives that give benefits that we don't need in full groups are good. They either allow for off meta builds or benefits in niche situations.

Racial passives that just straight up make every other race worse are not good.

Technically this should include +1.5k / 2k max resource, but that has a lot less impact. An altmer is a better stam dps than redguard because 2k max stam isn't as good as 258 weapon damage. Orcs are better magicka dps than Breton for the same reason.
If that's not ringing any alarm bells then I don't know what to tell you.

merpins

LunaFlora wrote: »

merpins wrote: »

Step 1: Remove the second three passives from races, and buff the initial flavorful passive of each race to make them more distinct. They can add a little power to your build, like Orcs getting movement speed, but nothing too impactful.
Step 2: Add Birthsigns, like from TES 4 Oblivion. You choose a birthsign at the same level intervals as you would gain your normal racial bonuses.

That would fix my problem with racial choices. Your race should be a flavorful choice with minor impact to your build, which only really impacts PVP (if you don't have imperial edition). Your birthsigns should effect combat.

the birthsigns are the constellations which we already choose with mundus stones.
they already affect combat. and we can choose and change them freely.

Didn't really wanna go into my reasoning, since I've done it a few times before. so I'll just post a quote here that I've said before on this matter:

merpins wrote: »

Zos adopted the standing stones from TES 5, which was a simplification of the Birthsigns in TES 4. Birthsigns were basically your racial passives in ESO, except not tied to your race... Imo, they should bring back birthsigns. Sure, the TES 4 birthsigns are the same as the standing stone options, similar to horoscopes as you will, but they don't have to be. They can be based on the moons, or based on the time of year, or just concepts. You were born on the "day of change," therefore you get this ability, as an example.

Add birthsigns. You get a single passive based on your race, which can be a bit more powerful than the initial ability is right now but doesn't really affect combat. Then, you get a birthsign choice at level 5, 10, and 25 as you do normally with racial choices. Just make it pop up when you go to level your character kinda like leveling in TES 5. These passive skills then rank up as you level up, and can have points put into them just like the normal racial skills system. Then make it so you can reset them at a shrine, like when you reset your skills (they might need to add a new shrine for this, probably Arkay as the god representing birth in this universe).

Additionally, you know what else was just the constellations we already chose with mundus stones? The CP skill trees. They are also based on this. So were the skill lines in Skyrim. The theme is not an issue. And racial choices also effect combat, and are a choice you make in this game. 250 weapon/spell damage doesn't sound like a lot, but it's so valuable that it overshadows a 12% increase to crit damage, it's close to a 5 piece set bonus. It will effect your damage, and having it tied to a race just makes that race super powerful. And removing it will just mean Khajiit becomes best. Then removing that would just make... Look, removing bonuses like this removes player agency and choice. Making it a choice from a list with other options is an option that benefits everyone in a way that doesn't make people stronger. It just makes people more diverse with their options, builds, and racial choices.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

If bosmer can get stealth back, I say yes.

The not-exactly-combat oriented passives for khajiit and bosmer feels mixed up. Khajiit has been known for their excellent eyesight, including in the dark, and acrobatic skills, and bosmer for stealth and thievery (For longer than khajiit have).
Although I don't think khajiit should get the detect passive instead, because it's a terrible passive. They both can have stealth.

rpa

No

No. Balance is just an eupheism for nerf. If a change for change is needed let players choose the set of passives they want for their character and let race be a cosmetic choice.