Long read so here is an extremely lazy summation.
TL;DR
- ZOS should allow us to buy race changes or racial passive changes (whole set, not pick and choose)
- Why I thought melee crit khajit sorc would work
- Why it didn't work
- It is a win-win for everyone. More money for ZOS. More happy players.
- Racial passives are not irrelevant
I have made a couple of topics about this before and I apologize for repeating them, but for me it is a huge issue and something that could be easily remedied by ZOS, that would give them extra cash flow to keep improving this awesome game.
A few days prior to the early access release of this game, I had the brilliant idea to make a melee crit based Sorcerer. I'm not sure if anyone here has played Age of Conan, but I was modeling my character after the post Khitai Dark Templar. This was a melee class that was dependent on critical rating (because of a certain skill, Void of Madness, that proc'd effects with crits) to do damage and to heal itself. So Critical Surge was going to be my Void of Madness and my character was going to dominate. I wanted to stack crit to the extreme so of course I rolled a Khajit. I was sure my plan would work out extremely well.
Things were looking great throughout the 1-50 experience. I was 2h/bows crit build and I was having a ton of fun. Then, pre-nerf VR levels happened and I was reading the never ending stream of stavess are OP comments on the forums so I decided to give it a whirl. My vision of a melee based crit build quickly vanished before my eyes. Everything was easier with staves. I begrudgingly used them while giving forlorn glances at my 6% melee crit, sneaking radius reduction + bonus dmg, and health regen racial traits.
Of course, I refused to give up on melee weapons. With Destruction and Restoration at level 50, I decided to try my hand at DW and Sword and Board, leveling them from the teens to the max while questing through pre-nerf VR content. Everything I could do with staves, I could do with melee (albeit with a much smaller margin for error) besides soloing dolmens, group delves, and world bosses. Things were looking up for my melee crit based Sorc, that is, until I got serious about group content and PVP and also installed a DPS meter add-on.
No matter what I tried, because of a combination of flat out more damaging skills, fight mechanics that favored range, and of course the all powerful Spell Symmetry, I was doing at least twice as much damage on average with my ranged magicka staff builds. I was disheartened, but at least I thought with a group PVE tank build I would benefit more from melee weapons. NOPE! Wrong again. Tanking with staves completely outperformed melee. My last hope was PVP. I just knew that I would excel with melee. Many, many hours later and there is literally no situation in PVP I can't handle better with staves. Not to mention crit builds in PVP are obsolete with the overpowered Impenetrable trait on armor.
So here I am, with a VR9 Khajit Sorcerer, using resto/destruction set up in Trials, PVP, and solo PVE. I didn't want to play this way, but I was forced to because I like to get every ounce of potential out of my character. I look at my racial passives and see 100% waste. I look at PTS server and see that they are upping magicka/stamina/hp soft caps. I look at high elf / breton / dark elf passives and think how I would not hesitate for a second to pay $20 to ZOS to be able to change my race and/or change my racial passives (aka still a Khajit, but a Khajit with 4% more elemental dmg, 10% more magicka, and 9% more magicka recovery).
I know from my previous topics that there are a lot of people very against what I suggest. I just don't understand why. Especially if they go the route of letting you pay for racial passive swaps, I just don't see any downside at all. ZOS gets more money and there are more happy people in the game. I know race changes aren't usually present in MMOs, but in the grand scheme of things, these racial passives are a large chunk of overall character potential. 4% damage, 10% magicka, and 9% magicka regen are HUGE compared to the big fat zero use I am getting out of Khajit passives. I also know people will suggest I reroll, but I'd quit before leveling another Sorc (I still have two classes I need to level), and I would hate to scrap a character I have spent over 300 hours on.
Long read so here is an extremely lazy summation.
TL;DR
- ZOS should allow us to buy race changes or racial passive changes (whole set, not pick and choose)
- Why I thought melee crit khajit sorc would work
- Why it didn't work
- It is a win-win for everyone. More money for ZOS. More happy players.
- Racial passives are not irrelevant
I have made a couple of topics about this before and I apologize for repeating them, but for me it is a huge issue and something that could be easily remedied by ZOS, that would give them extra cash flow to keep improving this awesome game.
A few days prior to the early access release of this game, I had the brilliant idea to make a melee crit based Sorcerer. I'm not sure if anyone here has played Age of Conan, but I was modeling my character after the post Khitai Dark Templar. This was a melee class that was dependent on critical rating (because of a certain skill, Void of Madness, that proc'd effects with crits) to do damage and to heal itself. So Critical Surge was going to be my Void of Madness and my character was going to dominate. I wanted to stack crit to the extreme so of course I rolled a Khajit. I was sure my plan would work out extremely well.
Things were looking great throughout the 1-50 experience. I was 2h/bows crit build and I was having a ton of fun. Then, pre-nerf VR levels happened and I was reading the never ending stream of stavess are OP comments on the forums so I decided to give it a whirl. My vision of a melee based crit build quickly vanished before my eyes. Everything was easier with staves. I begrudgingly used them while giving forlorn glances at my 6% melee crit, sneaking radius reduction + bonus dmg, and health regen racial traits.
Of course, I refused to give up on melee weapons. With Destruction and Restoration at level 50, I decided to try my hand at DW and Sword and Board, leveling them from the teens to the max while questing through pre-nerf VR content. Everything I could do with staves, I could do with melee (albeit with a much smaller margin for error) besides soloing dolmens, group delves, and world bosses. Things were looking up for my melee crit based Sorc, that is, until I got serious about group content and PVP and also installed a DPS meter add-on.
No matter what I tried, because of a combination of flat out more damaging skills, fight mechanics that favored range, and of course the all powerful Spell Symmetry, I was doing at least twice as much damage on average with my ranged magicka staff builds. I was disheartened, but at least I thought with a group PVE tank build I would benefit more from melee weapons. NOPE! Wrong again. Tanking with staves completely outperformed melee. My last hope was PVP. I just knew that I would excel with melee. Many, many hours later and there is literally no situation in PVP I can't handle better with staves. Not to mention crit builds in PVP are obsolete with the overpowered Impenetrable trait on armor.
So here I am, with a VR9 Khajit Sorcerer, using resto/destruction set up in Trials, PVP, and solo PVE. I didn't want to play this way, but I was forced to because I like to get every ounce of potential out of my character. I look at my racial passives and see 100% waste. I look at PTS server and see that they are upping magicka/stamina/hp soft caps. I look at high elf / breton / dark elf passives and think how I would not hesitate for a second to pay $20 to ZOS to be able to change my race and/or change my racial passives (aka still a Khajit, but a Khajit with 4% more elemental dmg, 10% more magicka, and 9% more magicka recovery).
I know from my previous topics that there are a lot of people very against what I suggest. I just don't understand why. Especially if they go the route of letting you pay for racial passive swaps, I just don't see any downside at all. ZOS gets more money and there are more happy people in the game. I know race changes aren't usually present in MMOs, but in the grand scheme of things, these racial passives are a large chunk of overall character potential. 4% damage, 10% magicka, and 9% magicka regen are HUGE compared to the big fat zero use I am getting out of Khajit passives. I also know people will suggest I reroll, but I'd quit before leveling another Sorc (I still have two classes I need to level), and I would hate to scrap a character I have spent over 300 hours on.
Then give us the option to change the racial passives without changing race, or make all races equal at the endgame.I completely disagree from a RPG standpoint. Your character should have investment, not just as a set of skills but as a whole character. Your race is integral to who you are and using currency (ingame or real) to change that doesn't fit. Now, that being said, if there was a lore friendly method (quest line?) that could allow for a race change, then perhaps that could work.
Obviously, if we can change race, then there would be no need to have a separate racials change. I was just saying that if the hardcore RP'ers object to being able to change race as too "unrealistic," then being able to change or equalize the racials would be an acceptable alternative to me.I would support:
Paid Race Change
Paid Faction Change
Paid Appearance/Name Change
I'm not sold on a racials change because they're called racials / racial passives for a reason, that being that they're tied to your character's race.
It might be interesting to see them as choosable secondary attributes in character creation. Like say, out of a pool of (random number) 15, you could choose any 3 for any race you chose. They would be separate from racials and slightly less potent. Just an idea off the top of my head.
Skyhawk462 wrote: »An option to change race might possibly be beneficial...but to change racial Passives? This would basically make race selections meaningless and purely aesthetic. There should be a little planning and consequence involved in creating your character. If you really are unhappy with what you have created, why invest so much time with it in the first place? I am perfectly happy with the race and passives, but I sometimes wish I would have made a dragon knight instead of a night blade, but there were things that appealed to me about the class I chose to begin with.
claytonjhouserb14_ESO wrote: »Racial change? yes! Racial passive change? Ehh. This is highly unlikely for many a reason I am sure you are already aware of. It is called racial passive for a reason. It defines that race and to take it from that to add it to another makes an abomination
I hope we never see things like racial changes. What's next class changes? There has to be at least a little incentive to roll a new character. I don't want to see it taken further than the current respec system.
No, only youI hope we never see things like racial changes. What's next class changes? There has to be at least a little incentive to roll a new character. I don't want to see it taken further than the current respec system.
Maybe I am a hypocrite for being against class changes (for the exact reason you mention), but I do not see how being able to change a race has anything to do with incentive to role a new character. Do you think people are expected to have multiple of each class with different races?
No, only youI hope we never see things like racial changes. What's next class changes? There has to be at least a little incentive to roll a new character. I don't want to see it taken further than the current respec system.
Maybe I am a hypocrite for being against class changes (for the exact reason you mention), but I do not see how being able to change a race has anything to do with incentive to role a new character. Do you think people are expected to have multiple of each class with different races?
But yes, players are expected to reroll and try different class/race combinations.
If it makes you feel any better we all have characters that are maybe not perfect or choices we would have made differently (racial or otherwise) based on current broken stuff and imbalances.
OrangeTheCat wrote: »Why not just reroll? It's what I did.