Race should mean something. It should not be a choice that only affects how you look. Seeing an altmer should mean you can register they are naturally good with magicka and destruction magic, like every other TES game ever. Same goes for every other race. Keep to the way TES has been.

That third option is very, very distracting. o_O

Racial passives should be part of race choice, for the exact same reason that the spell creator wasn't a part of Skyrim. If they were decoupled, you would not be playing an honor-bound native of Orsinium who grew up in a warrior culture as an orc, nor would you be a stoic member of a shamanistic culture as an Argonian. Instead, you would just be caster-suite of passives with racial skin 6, or whatever other options you pick from a spreadsheet. Racial passives as they stand are more than just numeric bonuses; they also inform the player of the world and culture that a character comes from, and losing that would be taking away something that is hugely important to an Elder Scrolls game.

Squirrel.

I pick my races based on aesthetics and theme before racials.

Making everything mostly cosmetic is what I hated about GW2. I like the way the races in ESO have significant differences, benefits, and cons.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

So many min/maxer polls on the subject of racials ATM.

Well, 2 polls about it anyway. One that's written in an incredibly biased way that's basically trying to trick people into voting to decouple racial abilities from race, and then this one that simply presents the question and the options in an unbiased way that lets people make up their own minds.

No. They don't make such a big deal at end game that people should be so worried for racials. Even if they did, players need to get past the wanting everything mentality. It's as if they want to just pick five powers from racials and then pick whatever class powers from all the different classes to mix and match - ESO already offers a ton of variety and with all the balance issues, racials aren't one of them.

Yes, classes were preset skill preferences. Class meant even less than anything, ever, and your class had nothing to do wigh the skills you used if you were doing it right.

DeLindsay wrote: »

AngryNord wrote: »

DeLindsay wrote: »

Since we have "Classes" instead of the way all other ES games were made

Again: Skyrim is NOT "all other ES games". Classes have been in every ES game except Skyrim, and the 90s spin-off Redguard.

Not remotely correct. Both Morrowind and Oblivion had a starting set of traits if you will then you could literally make your character into anything you wanted as you had the option to level everything. In ESO as a NB, I do not have access to Templar abilities as an example so I could never choose to level some of those. In the end of both games I literally had every single "skill" available in the game maxed and used what I wanted to freely.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Classes

Theyre called "classes", sir.

TES games also never had abilities that werent spells. Block, attack. Power attacks were added later and you could slash or thrust or chop with weapons in Morrowind. Oooh whoopdeedoo.

Everyone here can focus on any weapon or armor or sneaking too.

I'm always on the fence with this question. I like that ESO has a meaningful racial choice - it's a welcome change after Skyrim's gutted character creation. It works fine and I'd rather have this than no racials at all.

But if it was a single player game, I'd want both racial traits and traits chosen by the player (Daggerfall, come baaack!) It's not and I have no illusion of getting any complex system like this, so maybe a mix: the last three passives stay, the first (Expertise) is decided by the player. It isn't important anyway, just gets you to 50 a little bit faster, but would give a trace of our character's individual traits. Because each of them is a person, not a race.

I'm not interested in the competitive side of the game, so I don't know how racials affect balance, but I don't think they can make or break a build? Someone tell me if Redguard mages are miserable.

SirPuppingtonVonHat wrote: »

Racial passives should be part of race choice, for the exact same reason that the spell creator wasn't a part of Skyrim. If they were decoupled, you would not be playing an honor-bound native of Orsinium who grew up in a warrior culture as an orc, nor would you be a stoic member of a shamanistic culture as an Argonian. Instead, you would just be caster-suite of passives with racial skin 6, or whatever other options you pick from a spreadsheet. Racial passives as they stand are more than just numeric bonuses; they also inform the player of the world and culture that a character comes from, and losing that would be taking away something that is hugely important to an Elder Scrolls game.

See, that's the thing. Who gets to decide if you're playing a native of Orsinium? You could be a Wood Orc from Valenwood, much more agile than your northern cousins (oh. OH. the sprint passive must be Wood Orc! now it makes sense) You could be an Orc thief - so very honor-bound. You could have been raised by a pair of Argonian alchemists.

What do you mean by spell creator?

There are actually several parts to this:
First it has been a TES thing that race always carried bonuses. At least as far back as Daggerfall.

Second, race are limited by faction for most players*. This can in turn have effect on the PvP balance.

The third issue is related to the second: giving the pre-orderers what they were promised.
They might be willing to decouple racial look & racial abilities down the road or allow the "all faction/all race" thing to be bought by everyone later. But for the time being it has to stay or risks pissing of pre-orderers/Imperial edition owner.
I was and still am fully aware that my Pre Order & Imperial edition bonuses will be made avalible to the general palyerbase some day. This usualyl happens latest with intriduction of a ingame realmoney store.

On the other hand this is a MMO. Ideally race should only be a graphical thing. But it is not used this way in most MMO. Even WoW has racial bonuses. Compared to WoW the "all classes/all races = all roles" concept is actualyl a lot freeer, even if they have not fully archieved the balance there yet.


*Imperial Editon gives you imperial Race (good tanks; not bound to alliance). Pre order Explorers pack lifts race/faction restrictions totally, regardless of edition

tordr86b16_ESO wrote: »

zgrssd wrote: »

There are actually several parts to this:
First it has been a TES thing that race always carried bonuses. At least as far back as Daggerfall.

Second, race are limited by faction for most players*. This can in turn have effect on the PvP balance.

The third issue is related to the second: giving the pre-orderers what they were promised.
They might be willing to decouple racial look & racial abilities down the road or allow the "all faction/all race" thing to be bought by everyone later. But for the time being it has to stay or risks pissing of pre-orderers/Imperial edition owner.
I was and still am fully aware that my Pre Order & Imperial edition bonuses will be made avalible to the general palyerbase some day. This usualyl happens latest with intriduction of a ingame realmoney store.

On the other hand this is a MMO. Ideally race should only be a graphical thing. But it is not used this way in most MMO. Even WoW has racial bonuses. Compared to WoW the "all classes/all races = all roles" concept is actualyl a lot freeer, even if they have not fully archieved the balance there yet.


*Imperial Editon gives you imperial Race (good tanks; not bound to alliance). Pre order Explorers pack lifts race/faction restrictions totally, regardless of edition

I'm Imp pre-order owner and I can tell you right now, it would be a relief if they decoupled the racials and made them available for everyone. It would mean I would be pigeonholed and would be free to play as a nord.

What's stopping you now?