Are Imperials unbalanced?

BBSooner · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

IMO it would be cool if we could pick heritage as a sort of "sub-race" that would give slightly different stats based on some characteristic:

Nord

Winterhold-born: Magicka passives
Eastmarch-born: Health passives
Reach-born: Stamina passives

Beyond that, I imagine there will always be times when we can point at racial passives and say they aren't balanced because class X plus build Y.

I'd be alright if they left the stronger passives alone and just buffed stuff like argonian, nord, etc.

Folkb · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

BBSooner wrote: »

IMO it would be cool if we could pick demographic as a sort of "sub-race" that would give slightly different stats based on some characteristic:

Nord

Winterhold-born: Magicka passives
Eastmarch-born: Health passives
Reach-born: Stamina passives

Beyond that, I imagine there will always be times when we can point at racial passives and say they aren't balanced because class X plus build Y.

I'd be alright if they left the stronger passives spoke and just buffed stuff like argonian, nord, etc.

that would be cool

Zabernat · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Aeratus wrote: »

Imperial is way too strong, but the devs won't nerf them because they are part of the Imperial Edition.

Imperial Edition = pay to win existing from day 1.

1. I don't believe that
2. I haven't bought the imperial edition
3. Racial bonuses are just that, bonuses. Even without soft caps every potential stat boost has diminishing returns as you continue to invest in it and those aren't unbalanced by the existing passives

Rosveen · February 2015

Yes, they are unbalanced, no, they don't need a nerf. Weaker races could use a buff. But I don't play competitively, so I don't particularly care either way.

Realistically speaking, they will never nerf Imperials. People will explode if a race they paid $20 for gets nerfed.

Aeratus · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

DeLindsay wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

My concern isn't pvp. In pvp, there are lots of factors involved...

But in PVE, 10% stam is already +5% dps. Moreover, +12% health means you can allocate the health points into stam than you normally would otherwise. So imperial will be doing at least about 7-8% more dps than another race.

All leaderboards in trials are very close at the top. There are also lots of very close SO speedrun attempts that have narrowly missed. The top ranks are separated by a few seconds. That's why balance is important.

For PVE dps, racials shouldn't attribute to more than 1-2% advantage in dps. Otherwise, this game can't be a serious PVE game. And most people are PVEers.

I'd love to see your statistics to back up that ONLY groups with 12 Imperials are at the top while mixed groups or groups that lack Imperials altogether are near the bottom or don't make the leaderboard at all. Without said statistics your complaint on the issue is nothing more than words on the internet.

Looks like you aren't able to understand a concept presented in a more abstract form, and are just replying with strawman arguments.

cubbyhomesb14_ESO · February 2015

Racials only matter to min/maxers. They give a slight edge, but it's nothing game breaking.

DeLindsay · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Aeratus wrote: »

Looks like you aren't able to understand a concept presented in a more abstract form, and are just replying with strawman arguments.

So my asking for you to back up your claims that the ONLY way to be competitive on the Leaderboards is with a group full of Imperials is a strawman argument? Good to know.

bosmern_ESO · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Imperials are fine, All other races passives are going to be a lot better as well.

MorHawk · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

DeLindsay wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

Looks like you aren't able to understand a concept presented in a more abstract form, and are just replying with strawman arguments.

So my asking for you to back up your claims that the ONLY way to be competitive on the Leaderboards is with a group full of Imperials is a strawman argument? Good to know.

Yeah, that's not a strawman at all. Don't know what he's on about with that.

MorHawk · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

Rosveen wrote: »

Yes, they are unbalanced, no, they don't need a nerf. Weaker races could use a buff. But I don't play competitively, so I don't particularly care either way.

Realistically speaking, they will never nerf Imperials. People will explode if a race they paid $20 for gets nerfed.

Yeah, again I'm really regretting the way I phrased it. I should have asked simply "Are racials balanced?".

Okay, buff all other races. Fine. Again, it's the same effect. Regardless, a fix is needed.

clocksstoppe · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

Every single person here knows imperials have broken racials and are pay2win on top.

xaraan · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Verdwhisper wrote: »

If anything, take away health buff, give imperial somthing useful, stam regen, health regen or magicka regen, rework red diamond, it is useless!

First of all: Red Diamond is awesome. And if we are voting for stuff, I'm gonna go with no on taking away Health buff for regen.

flintstone · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

You over rate Racials.....I've tried almost all of them and they don't make a big difference one way or another (small amount of help at best). You can balance out with enchant and skill points very easily.

MorHawk · February 2015

Yes, Imperials need to be nerfed

flintstone wrote: »

You over rate Racials.....I've tried almost all of them and they don't make a big difference one way or another (small amount of help at best). You can balance out with enchant and skill points very easily.

Balance out with something everyone has access to? You make my brain hurt.

eliisra · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Because I'm tired of the nerf bat. How about making other racial attribute bonuses on the same level as Imperial instead?

You have races that only gets 0-3% extra attributes. This while Imperial gets 22%, a very noticeable advantage without soft-caps.

Remember that attributes are much more valuable than the other stuff you get from racials, because attributes affects the strength of your skills. How hard you hit, how strong a shield is, how much you heal for and so on, all this is boosted by attributes. While a bonus like like recovery, swim speed or resistance, only adds that one thing.

Panda244 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

What you guys have to realize, is that no softcaps doesn't mean anything. Unless you would previously hit the softcap. My Imperial on live has 2.4k magicka, 1.9k stamina and 2.9k health, no softcaps have been hit, so changing their passives to compensate doesn't do anything.

The Imperial passives are no different than the Altmer passives in a certain sense, so if you nerf Imperials by 2% to bring their 12% max health down to 10%... It's not huge, it's just stupid.. What they should do is bring the other racials on par with Imperial, which again, is a little stupid, because Imperial is a Buy-to-play race, and should have SOME advantage.

Gyudan · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

I have 7 active characters, 3 of them being stamina-based and only one is an imperial. Each race can be used in an optimal setup even when min/maxing.

dodgehopper_ESO · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

I think the assessment that Imperials are overpowered is just wrong. I play only one Imperial, and a slice of every other race that I'm able to. I've found that most of the races are pretty interesting and great options. Every race gets something, and you can't discount the alternatives. Someone previously mentioned that Dunmer get 6 percent magicka which is wrong. Dunmer get 6% magicka and stamina on one trait, and 3% more magicka and a huge fire resistance trait on another. They also do more flame damage than other races. 7% more flame damage, which is one of the dps favorites. To exclude the flame damage bonus and flame resistance is just not fair, not fair at all.

Argonians lose a little bit in the upcoming patch, but how can you say that high levels of disease and poison resistance (that bosmer also have) is bad? Those two resistances are huge in pvp and even in pve. A lot of players and enemies like Disease for the debuff, and poison is fantastic as a dps bonus... it is also inherent to the Archery skill line. I'll grant you that Argonians get hurt by changes to potions, and they might need a reworking, but personally I find my argonian is awesome.

Red diamond is a joke. It is a melee only ability, which is nice for people who are melee builds, but its a throwaway stat for players who want to do healing or magicka builds (Just like Orcish sprint is a throwaway if you don't sprint/charge). Most races have a throwaway trait so that's not a big deal. The point is this, racial traits are really like added freebie enchantments. Its always been like this in the Elder Scrolls. I'll agree that a handful of races could use some love, but most of them are fine as is.

Nord for instance is a very good race, but the cold resistance is generally worthless... except when its not. I personally believe they need to either make a Class or a skill line that increases the use of Cold damage, purely because it comes only from Ice Staves. Lightning and fire on the other hand are pretty commonplace either because Fire is also used in class lines (DK and Templar) or Lightning (Sorcerer). The other problem is that the proc on cold is really not that good as it stands. I personally think they should take a page from skyrim and have it start to drain stamina (with cold resistance helping to resist that). On the whole though Nord is a pretty great race with 6% flat rate damage resistance, and a potent health regen. I personally think that a flat health regen is a lot better than Red Diamond any day and other 'less loved' races have them: Khajiit, Orc, Nord.

It is my personal hope that the Champion system will help level out these concerns about race, because ultimately I agree they should be equal. Just bear in mind that racial traits are like permanent enchantments, and always have been that way in TES games.

Natjur · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Lots of racial passives are now unbalanced, all racial passives just need to be removed and just play a race cause of its looks and lore, not min\max

MSG1000 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Guys, you do realize that the life steal passive only has a 10% chance to grant 6% health back on melee hit?

I was just reading this thread

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/152091/racial-disparity-with-full-list

and the OP didn't put the 10% chance and no one corrected him.

Statistically, at 10% chance for 6% it means Imperials get only 0.6% back per swing. I've watched my health bar, it adds just a little bit every once in a while but is quickly negated by another monster attack. If you're on the edge in PVE of killing something by the end of the fight it might save you.

Panda244 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

MSG1000 wrote: »

Guys, you do realize that the life steal passive only has a 10% chance to grant 6% health back on melee hit?

I was just reading this thread

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/152091/racial-disparity-with-full-list

and the OP didn't put the 10% chance and no one corrected him.

Statistically, at 10% chance for 6% it means Imperials get only 0.6% back per swing. I've watched my health bar, it adds just a little bit every once in a while but is quickly negated by another monster attack. If you're on the edge in PVE of killing something by the end of the fight it might save you.

The only time that racial is ever OP is if you throw caltrops down on a zerg, for some reason it procs off caltrops and because 100 people can stand in caltrops... Well you get the idea... When I'm tanking 20-30 people in Cyrodiil I don't really need GDB because it procs so much. But that's a simple change to the skill/racial and it's fixed.

MSG1000 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Panda244 wrote: »

MSG1000 wrote: »

Guys, you do realize that the life steal passive only has a 10% chance to grant 6% health back on melee hit?

I was just reading this thread

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/152091/racial-disparity-with-full-list

and the OP didn't put the 10% chance and no one corrected him.

Statistically, at 10% chance for 6% it means Imperials get only 0.6% back per swing. I've watched my health bar, it adds just a little bit every once in a while but is quickly negated by another monster attack. If you're on the edge in PVE of killing something by the end of the fight it might save you.

The only time that racial is ever OP is if you throw caltrops down on a zerg, for some reason it procs off caltrops and because 100 people can stand in caltrops... Well you get the idea... When I'm tanking 20-30 people in Cyrodiil I don't really need GDB because it procs so much. But that's a simple change to the skill/racial and it's fixed.

Thank you. This is a bug issue, not a balance issue. The rates for Red Diamond are based on just your character swinging around melee weapons. Caltrops shouldn't be counted.

Panda244 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

MSG1000 wrote: »

Panda244 wrote: »

MSG1000 wrote: »

Guys, you do realize that the life steal passive only has a 10% chance to grant 6% health back on melee hit?

I was just reading this thread

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/152091/racial-disparity-with-full-list

and the OP didn't put the 10% chance and no one corrected him.

Statistically, at 10% chance for 6% it means Imperials get only 0.6% back per swing. I've watched my health bar, it adds just a little bit every once in a while but is quickly negated by another monster attack. If you're on the edge in PVE of killing something by the end of the fight it might save you.

The only time that racial is ever OP is if you throw caltrops down on a zerg, for some reason it procs off caltrops and because 100 people can stand in caltrops... Well you get the idea... When I'm tanking 20-30 people in Cyrodiil I don't really need GDB because it procs so much. But that's a simple change to the skill/racial and it's fixed.

Thank you. This is a bug issue, not a balance issue. The rates for Red Diamond are based on just your character swinging around melee weapons. Caltrops shouldn't be counted.

Not just melee weapons, melee attacks. Flame Lash can proc it, Unstable Flame can proc it, if you're a Nightblade, Surprise Attack and Killer's Blade can proc it. I love the racial but it's never a life saver... Just a weak potion with a low chance of working.

MSG1000 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Some of those maybe ok, but the numbers from Caltrops are terrible. Though on PTS I noticed that it went from 184 HP on proc to about 1100. IIRC the health numbers are 9x from live and this is like 20x.

I'm glad for (the hopeful) buff if they fixed bugs associated from it.

Aidantwab16_ESO · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Well seeing as I was just having a toss up this morning between being an imperial and being pretty or being a Breton and being useful, I'm gonna say that no, I don't think Imperials are that OP.

UrQuan · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

I really don't think this poll is trending the way OP expected it to...

Personally I don't think Imperials are OP or in need of being nerfed. A couple of the other races should probably have their passives adjusted to be a bit better, but others are fine. You're never going to have perfect balance between the races, but the difference between Imperials and most other races aren't big enough that it's a problem as far as I'm concerned.

Aidantwab16_ESO wrote: »

Well seeing as I was just having a toss up this morning between being an imperial and being pretty or being a Breton and being useful, I'm gonna say that no, I don't think Imperials are that OP.

You don't think Bretons are pretty?

Aidantwab16_ESO · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

If bretons had the imperial faceshape/face-textures but kept all of the breton skin/hair/eye color choices there would be no reason to play any other race imo LOL

Tapio75 · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Wait.. Imps gonna be available to all? Yes, it the same thing as if WOW would start selling Collectors edition stuff in their store for everyone..

Collectors edition stuff is no longer worth anything if it loses its prestige exclusivenes.

I mean.. I do have that nice statue and the book plus huge box but they mean absolutely nothing in the game world like Imps and their horses do.. It was almost too much they were available from upgrade for cheap price. I mean i do understand that being in business means you have to make profit but it also means that you need to keep some things as prestige from collectors stuff and so forth..

Pirhana7_ESO · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

What makes them too strong? for every class type i would make i would choose a race other

MorHawk wrote: »

Simple question, you all know the history. No softcaps, and about to be opened up to the public, so after this the crying over nerfs would be exponentially greater. If this is broken, it needs to be fixed, and now.

Whats makes Imperials too strong? For every class and play style i would choose a race other than Imperials. Even as a tank i would go Nord or Orc over Imperial

Atarax · February 2015

No, Imperials are fine as is

Imperial passives are fine, they scale great (I play woodelf on my main); other class passives (particularly Argonians) need some help though.