Would you like to CHOOSE your racial passives?

Gray_howling_parrot

Let me explain - what I’m asking for/questioning y’all about is taking the first passive / keeping it (things like swim speed for argonians, sprint speed for orcs, etc.). But for your other 3 passives - things like recovery, weapon/spell damage, max stats, resists, etc, would you like to be able to choose these?

This way combat passives can still be used and applied, but your race can be more cosmetic and personal rather than what would be best for a build like it is currently.

DMuehlhausen

Just like a lot of skills you should just throw out the fluff ones cause there would only be like 3 or 4 chosen.

Szalord

Totally yes. Either we get to choose our bonuses, or we remove the performance-altering bonuses completely. Either way would be great to be able to choose a race purely based on cosmetic considerations.

HatchetHaro

This has been suggested many times already, and throughout many years of objective testing and even pushback from prominent endgame players, ZOS still has refused to pull combat bonuses out of racial passives.

Aside from the racial fluff bonuses (swim speed, etc.), I would at least like to see the combat bonuses be done more like the Rune Page system in LoL, where you are given 3 x 3 possible choices and you can only pick one from each row corresponding to damage, survival, and utility. This way, the racial passives can still be tailored to each race to put emphasis on certain playstyles (not roles), but players would also have more flexibility to mix and match their setups depending on their target content and roleplay fantasy.

Sakiri

If you got to choose they wouldn't be racial bonuses.

And everyone would pick the exact same ones anyway.

FayJolyn

Gosh yes, I love my Argonian tank but apart from the swimming speed I would like to swap out my passives honestly. Nord is just too good, for tanking compared to other races.

Tandor

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

tom6143346

No leave it as it is.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

If only I get to give bosmer stealth back, maybe a pickpocket bonus too.

furiouslog

How about if two people who have the Ring of Mara decide to make a baby alt, then they can pick the passives for that alt from the pool of passives among the parents? That, it will be hard to implement, but also extra confusing.

TaSheen

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Exactly

Mik195

I'd really like my wood elf to have 3 passives or every other race be forced to have one pvp-only passive too.

Gray_howling_parrot

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

TaSheen

Cooperharley wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

Of course it would - because everyone would choose the "meta" racials even if they were totally inappropriate for a given race.

Gray_howling_parrot

TaSheen wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

Of course it would - because everyone would choose the "meta" racials even if they were totally inappropriate for a given race.

I don’t think any combat bonus is inappropriate for any race. Every single one of them technically engages in all types of combat lol. Play how you want - remember?

Sure there’d be meta choices, but then you could play whatever race with whatever combat bonuses you choose while keeping your racial passive/bonus in the first slot. There’s meta choices for each role race wise currently, I think this would heavily broaden the number of races in each role - wood elves and redguards as healers or nords as mages. Both are present in lore, but not realistic with current passives.

Dawnblade

Nothing that changes the math in combat should be tied to cosmetics - so just get rid of combat bonuses.

kojou

I get what you are going for, but then they wouldn't be racial passives, they would just be passives. Technically you can choose a set of passives by choosing a race, so there is that...

I wouldn't complain if they took another pass at making them more equivalent, the overall impact to game play by them is so minimal there are other things I would rather they address like the gross imbalance of foods and drinks, and how a "Blue" food can be more powerful than a "Gold" one, etc.

barney2525

leave things as they are.

otherwise there will only be 1 group of passives and no decision making.

just another step toward a generic bland game.

noblecron

I'd prefer it if there were no racials or the racials didn't impact the overall meta of the game.

Tandor

Cooperharley wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

What I meant by "random" was that coming across say a dozen Redguards they'd all have a different set of racial passives, so that effectively the racial passives for that race would be completely random as you'd never know what to expect when you encountered one.

I get the point about player choice, but like I said earlier that would involve a different system, not racial passives at all. I certainly wouldn't be against players being able to choose say one bonus skill/ability from a pool to be added to all the existing passives, but leaving the racial and other passives as they are currently.

ToRelax

Of course not. I'm already playing Dunmer.

HatchetHaro

TaSheen wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

Of course it would - because everyone would choose the "meta" racials even if they were totally inappropriate for a given race.

barney2525 wrote: »

leave things as they are.

otherwise there will only be 1 group of passives and no decision making.

just another step toward a generic bland game.

If everyone chooses just one group as the meta, then the passives are imbalanced. The thing is, there are multiple metas in this game, and many different ways to build and augment your setups depending on the content you do and the gear you wear.

A race could have choices between Weapon Damage and Crit Chance and Penetration (all desirable stats); PvPers could pick the Weapon Damage, raiders might prefer the Crit Chance, and dungeon players might get more results from the Penetration stat. Another race can provide entirely different stats, perhaps even thematically, like higher elemental damage, or increased direct damage.

As it stands right now, there are already "meta" racials; they're just locked to certain races. The only races that matter in PvE for dps are Altmer, Dunmer, and Khajiit. Players playing a non-optimal race for their role are (and have many times been) denied access to core teams, and for what, playing a race they like the look of? In a role-playing game?

Gray_howling_parrot

Tandor wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No, they can't be random if they're racial passives, what you're suggesting is a replacement system of character bonus skills chosen from a pool. I'm fine with the existing racial passives which I reflect generally in my character creation although they're not set in stone as I have no interest in meta builds.

Everything about the system I suggested is against randomness, as is the system currently. It’s about choice and id liken it more to combat specialties or training if you will. When I think of a racial passive I think of definitely swim speed and an argonians ability to level resto staff faster.

Not really about meta builds at all, but people make posts fairly commonly about balance between races for instance - this would allow for player choice is all.

What I meant by "random" was that coming across say a dozen Redguards they'd all have a different set of racial passives, so that effectively the racial passives for that race would be completely random as you'd never know what to expect when you encountered one.

I get the point about player choice, but like I said earlier that would involve a different system, not racial passives at all. I certainly wouldn't be against players being able to choose say one bonus skill/ability from a pool to be added to all the existing passives, but leaving the racial and other passives as they are currently.

Im talking about taking the racial passives that are combat-related (not swim speed for instance) and making them combat specialties that you choose when creating your character essentially. It's not about the name "racial passives," which I think you seem to be stuck on. I'm referring to the current racial passives that are combat-related, placing them in a pool of choices and terming them something like "combat specialties."

Redguards would have "Wayfarer" as their racial passive like they do now when increases the duration of any eaten food by 15 min and the extra XP gain w/ 1h & shield, but then you could choose combat specialties for that character for example. You'd have 12 redguards like you said all with the OG, racial passive, but then you'd choose 3 combat specialties out of the pool that we currently have in slots 2-4 under the racial skill line allowing you to tailor your character to a playstyle rather than trying to pick a meta race and pair it with your role you have in mind.

Fischblut

I've just been doing writs on my Khajiit magplar, and thinking about old time when I almost swapped her race to Breton for nice passives. It's like you've heard my thoughts

I would love to choose passives!

Kalle_Demos

No. Racial skills/stats have always been an important part of the Elder Scrolls franchise and gameplay and it should remain that way. Flavor and diversity are good things. I think a better way to approach this would be to add a Racial CP tree or perhaps Racial Skill Lines. Every race has it traditions and legacies of the Warrior/Mage/Rogue archetypes. A separate racial system could give players the option of leaning into an archetype flavored by cultural/racial significance and lessening the gaps in the style of gameplay thy want to pursue should their chosen Race not be ideal. All without rendering the base Racials irrelevant.

Alaztor91

Would be nice, wouldn't really fit with the lore, but ZOS already forgot about it when they made Dunmers better mages than Bretons or better fighters than Redguards.

Would probably reduce the demand for race change tokens, which I assume is one of the main reasons why racial passives still have combat-related bonuses.

YandereGirlfriend

No, this is a TES game and in TES games races have unique attributes associated with them.

HatchetHaro

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

No. Racial skills/stats have always been an important part of the Elder Scrolls franchise and gameplay and it should remain that way. Flavor and diversity are good things. I think a better way to approach this would be to add a Racial CP tree or perhaps Racial Skill Lines. Every race has it traditions and legacies of the Warrior/Mage/Rogue archetypes. A separate racial system could give players the option of leaning into an archetype flavored by cultural/racial significance and lessening the gaps in the style of gameplay thy want to pursue should their chosen Race not be ideal. All without rendering the base Racials irrelevant.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

No, this is a TES game and in TES games races have unique attributes associated with them.

Fun fact: Skyrim's racial bonuses don't go much beyond higher starting levels in certain skill lines + higher survival vs certain elements + one special niche active power (only two of which deal damage) only available once per day. You know, mostly fluff stats. In Oblivion and Morrowind, they just don't go beyond higher/lower starting attributes and skill levels at all, all of which are capped at 100 anyways.

Another fun fact: ESO is a multiplayer game by design, where stats offer competitive advantages. The usual shtick about "wanting racial diversity" should only apply to fluff passives like swim speed and gold gain and crafting and maybe resistances to certain statuses.

Sakiri

People that way to play say, an argonian tank, are going to play an argonian tank, regardless of passives.

OP likes to stir the pot now and again, so it's not surprising to me who it is, and I've vehemently disagreed with just about everything he's ever put up on youtube.

You don't *need* meta. Stop trying to make it possible with everything.

Elvenheart

I do get to choose my racial passives. I choose them by choosing a race. If I decide I don’t like them, I can change to a different race conveniently with a race change token (something I’ve done only once and for a different reason).

Ingel_Riday

Yeah, I'd like to choose... but I understand why I can't.

All my characters are magicka characters, and that means:

- Dunmer (hybrid magicka/stamina)
- Altmer (combat magicka)
- Breton (sustain magicka)
- Khajiit (Crit Damage)

That's it.

Orcs are combat stamina, Nords are tanks, Imperials are tanks, Argonians are tanks (?), Bosmer are stealth stamina, and Redguards are sustain stamina. Not making any of them, unless I want to have a magicka character with non-synergizing racial passives. They're out.

It'd be great if I could pick and choose 3 racial passives, because then I could be a Bosmer warden without being shoehorned into stamina builds... but that's not what ESO is going for. They want races to be important, and the passives are how they enforce that.

I get it. Means I have an army of elves & cats along with a few Bretons (very few, because the extra sustain is predominantly good for healers. Altmer, Dunmer, or Khajiit are all better for dps).