Confirmed: No race change, no racial rebalancing, only "tweaks" to certain races

Kobaal · June 2015

in before lock.

Junkogen · June 2015

HobnailedBoots wrote: »

AnAngryGinger wrote: »

@firstdecan No actually it was a unprofessional post in which they accused the OP of doing something they didn't.

No it wasn't. OP's post was deliberately misleading and intended to cause trouble. She asked him politely to not do what he absolutely did. Quit being hostile toward someone competently doing their job to support someone who probably doesn't have one.

How is it deliberately misleading? Name one thing that I said that was untrue. I'm just going by what I read and see on ESO Live. I have no ulterior motive other than to start a discussion on a topic I care about. The latest update on ESO Live seemed like a flip-flop to me.

Some of you make it seem like I'm trying to start WWIII. Is this not a discussion forum for discussing topics?

Tandor · June 2015

Junkogen wrote: »

HobnailedBoots wrote: »

AnAngryGinger wrote: »

@firstdecan No actually it was a unprofessional post in which they accused the OP of doing something they didn't.

No it wasn't. OP's post was deliberately misleading and intended to cause trouble. She asked him politely to not do what he absolutely did. Quit being hostile toward someone competently doing their job to support someone who probably doesn't have one.

How is it deliberately misleading? Name one thing that I said that was untrue.

"No race change"

They said in the ESO Live that formed the basis of your title that they're considering that.

Furor · June 2015

Your title does read, "Confirmed: No race change, no racial rebalancing" both of which are untrue...

AnAngryGinger · June 2015

So yeah how about that lock? No meaningful discussion here.

Junkogen · June 2015

Alright. Here are my sources:

ESO Live 16:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N17KZ_ZCK0

A racial rebalancing question is answered at about 35:00. Okay, I stand corrected and if given the opportunity I would change my original post. They did say that they would start with tweaks to the less powerful races. And then Jessica says that they want to do racial rebalancing at the same time they allow people to respec their race.

Okay, my bad! I'm sorry about saying that they promised us race change for this next major update. However!

She said in the forums:

"We talked about this a bit in last Friday's ESO Live, during our Ask Us Anything segment (around the 45:45 mark.) We are planning some small tweaks to racial passives in our next major update (with Imperial City.) After that, we'll reevaluate. Long-term we may consider putting race changes in the Crown Store." - ZOS_JessicaFolsom

So, to me, it seemed like in ESO 16 they were definitely planning on doing racial rebalancing after the minor tweaks and they would also offer race changes at such a time. THEN, this latest statement makes it seem like the race change and rebalancing is not at all a certainty, coming soon(tm), but rather something they're still mulling over and wondering if they're even going to do it.

UrQuan · June 2015

Junkogen wrote: »

Alright. Here are my sources:

ESO Live 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N17KZ_ZCK0

A racial rebalancing question is answered at about 35:00. Okay, I stand corrected and if given the opportunity I would change my original post. They did say that they would start with tweaks to the less powerful races. And then Jessica says that they want to do racial rebalancing at the same time they allow people to respec their race.

Okay, my bad! I'm sorry about saying that they promised us race change for this next major update. However!

She said in the forums:

"We talked about this a bit in last Friday's ESO Live, during our Ask Us Anything segment (around the 45:45 mark.) We are planning some small tweaks to racial passives in our next major update (with Imperial City.) After that, we'll reevaluate. Long-term we may consider putting race changes in the Crown Store." - ZOS_JessicaFolsom

So, to me, it seemed like in ESO 16 they were definitely planning on doing racial rebalancing after the minor tweaks and they would also offer race changes at such a time. THEN, this latest statement makes it seem like the race change and rebalancing is not at all a certainty, coming soon(tm), but rather something they're still mulling over and wondering if they're even going to do it.

Whether they put race changes in the crown store and whether they allow one-time race changes following a major racial passive rebalancing are two separate things which may or may not have any relation to each other.

Junkogen · June 2015

Furor wrote: »

Your title does read, "Confirmed: No race change, no racial rebalancing" both of which are untrue...

Okay, fair enough. But it was based on my misinterpretation. I was operating under the belief that the race change would be included in this next major update.

You are correct that they have not ruled out rebalancing or race change. However, it is now only something they're considering doing and not actually doing.

MissBizz · June 2015

BigM wrote: »

OK lets say they do race changes. But you never bought the Imperial Edition so you could play any race in any Alliance? So will they only be able to pick from the other two in that Alliance or will they have to also buy the Imperial Edition if they want to go to a race out of their Alliance?

Never seen anyone say how it will actually work!

Solid point (PS - imperial edition didn't give you any race/any faction... well, maybe preorder did (I think that it was actually the explorers pack you got with preorder which included this), but I bought imperial in April and didn't get it)

but that is interesting. Maybe you would be forced to purchase the adventurers pack first (if you didn't already have the any race ability)

HobnailedBoots · June 2015

xaraan wrote: »

The only thing I've heard them say is that the racial changes will happen, but that they will make changes first before rolling them out. This is exactly what I expected - the changes first. A future patch will probably have the change option added to store (hopefully not too far in the future).

Probably those races were mentioned b/c the health regen bonus is what is the most useless one in the game and hopefully they are changing that one.

When have they ever said rave changes WILL happen? I feel like this forum has a serious problem with putting words in the developers mouth. The most recent statement from a ZOS rep on here that I read said that race changes would be something they might consider after tweaks. "Might consider" being a very key phrase. All these posters are getting upset about broken promises that were never promised.

Junkogen · June 2015

HobnailedBoots wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

The only thing I've heard them say is that the racial changes will happen, but that they will make changes first before rolling them out. This is exactly what I expected - the changes first. A future patch will probably have the change option added to store (hopefully not too far in the future).

Probably those races were mentioned b/c the health regen bonus is what is the most useless one in the game and hopefully they are changing that one.

When have they ever said rave changes WILL happen? I feel like this forum has a serious problem with putting words in the developers mouth. The most recent statement from a ZOS rep on here that I read said that race changes would be something they might consider after tweaks. "Might consider" being a very key phrase. All these posters are getting upset about broken promises that were never promised.

That's not entirely true. If you watch ESO Live 16 at 35:00 she said that they want to release balance updates at the same time they allow players to respec their race. That sounds, to me, like they're actually going to do it and that it's planned and now in the works. Now, the message is that it's just something they're thinking about.

tengri · June 2015

Ah, you all worry too much; race changes will come sooner or later - there is no way around it.
I am very confident that Z is gonna *** up those "small tweaks to racial passives" so bad that the outcry for real race changes can not be ignored any longer... even by them.

Sau · June 2015

There will definitely be a race change option in the future, I believe. They would be crazy to leave money on the table for something they could get quite a bit of income from by having it in the Crown Store.

Junkogen · June 2015

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have the gut feeling the tweaking might revolve around how 'niche' some of the passives are for the beast races. I'm all game for unique passives but honestly the passives on my dunmer have far more utility than my orc. Something like swift is very specific for orcs (increased speed/decreased cost and a boost to i believe 3 charge attacks- crit charge,invasion and the templar one) while the dunmers fire resist or flame talent seem to have a far broader use, lots skills can be effected by the flame talent tree.

This is the biggest issue for me. Some races have universally useful passives where others are strapped with very niche passives. Also, like you said, fire damage resist is a lot more useful than than say cold damage, which is a lot less prevalent. I just hope they take that stuff into consideration. Sure, some racial passives are cool like the increased swim speed, but it shouldn't count that much compared to fire resistance.

Also, the game is very different from launch with the soft caps removed and now there being more stamina abilities. That wasn't the case at launch.

Junkogen · June 2015

Sau wrote: »

There will definitely be a race change option in the future, I believe. They would be crazy to leave money on the table for something they could get quite a bit of income from by having it in the Crown Store.

I don't know. It certainly seems, from the most recent comments, like race change has been moved into Limbo right next to spellcrafting. Before, based on earlier comments, I was hopeful. But now, I don't think race change is coming any time soon at all. I think it's something that we might see in a year, at best, if we're lucky.

firstdecan · June 2015

AnAngryGinger wrote: »

@firstdecan No actually it was a unprofessional post in which they accused the OP of doing something they didn't.

It was curt, but hardly unprofessional. And to be honest her response only supports the OPs thread title. She did her job as a community manager, and tried to spin a negative comment in a more positive light. There's only two potential issues you could have with her response.

1 - The curt \ blunt tone. She came out very directly and stated the thread title was misleading. It wasn't a personal attack, she was simply addressing the messaging in the OP's title. She was not kind about it, but it was not rude.

2 - The inaccuracy of her statement. She basically confirmed the OP's thread title is accurate, but wanted to spin it in such a way that they make people feel they are still open to the community desires. ZoS can be judged on their own track record regarding delivery, but her job is to make ZoS seem like the white knight regardless of ZoS' actual performance.

As far as professionalism goes, that's not an area where she has faltered.

To keep it on track, the OP is correct, and here is the supporting evidence. They are only implementing racial tweaks, and have announced no plans to allow race changes (they'll get a round tuit).

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

This thread title is deliberately misleading, and frankly untrue. Please refrain from doing that. Seriously, rumor-mongering is not helpful to anyone.

To clarify, we have not said "No race change, no racial re-balancing." We have stated (both here on the forums and in ESO Live) that we are starting with small adjustments to existing racial passives, first.

Muizer · June 2015

I hope race change will never be an option. It's just too ridiculous to contemplate.

HobnailedBoots · June 2015

Furor wrote: »

Your title does read, "Confirmed: No race change, no racial rebalancing" both of which are untrue...

Muizer wrote: »

I hope race change will never be an option. It's just too ridiculous to contemplate.

It defeats the entire purpose of playing the game. If you can pay to change your race - why not make it so you can pay to skip 50 levels?

Nyghthowler · June 2015

I wish they would remove ALL racial passives; then the continual crying about nerf/buff/race change would stop.

BigM · June 2015

Furor wrote: »

Your title does read, "Confirmed: No race change, no racial rebalancing" both of which are untrue...

Unless he is just talking about the update. To say he meant it as never going to happen I didn't take it as such!

Wing · June 2015

le sigh

I was really looking forward to race change, wanted to change my altmer to a khajiit.

they said they would allow a race change when they rebalanced racials, sweet.

then it turns into tweaking a few races and sometime in the "long term" they would "re-evaluate" the ability to race change.

. . .srsly?

over a year now and we still don't have a barber shop that has been asked for since day 1, and I doubt we will get it till year 2. this is ridiculous. ive stayed a subscriber since beta and bought into the calm before the console release storm of DLC.

but console release has come and gone, and were still waiting on an imperial city that was talked about at quake con a year ago, and have had zilch for content going on 6 months now.

I don't mind paying a sub fee to help the game, but what have I been helping? console kiddies for the past 6 months? why am I paying for their game

Wing · June 2015

Muizer wrote: »

I hope race change will never be an option. It's just too ridiculous to contemplate.

its in the lore dude, there are in game quests that deal with it, so obviously not "too ridiculous to contemplate"

PBpsy · June 2015

Junkogen wrote: »

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have the gut feeling the tweaking might revolve around how 'niche' some of the passives are for the beast races. I'm all game for unique passives but honestly the passives on my dunmer have far more utility than my orc. Something like swift is very specific for orcs (increased speed/decreased cost and a boost to i believe 3 charge attacks- crit charge,invasion and the templar one) while the dunmers fire resist or flame talent seem to have a far broader use, lots skills can be effected by the flame talent tree.

This is the biggest issue for me. Some races have universally useful passives where others are strapped with very niche passives. Also, like you said, fire damage resist is a lot more useful than than say cold damage, which is a lot less prevalent. I just hope they take that stuff into consideration. Sure, some racial passives are cool like the increased swim speed, but it shouldn't count that much compared to fire resistance.

Also, the game is very different from launch with the soft caps removed and now there being more stamina abilities. That wasn't the case at launch.

Dunmer Fire Resist has been nerfed bugged into more or less uselessness for quite some time now. While the fire talent doesn't do much except if you are a DK or temp and use inferno staves or the less nice morph of one of the bow skills. The Stam/Magicka is of course nice but it is the only thing that is generally useful. The Fire resist /Flame talent are quite useless in many cases.

Junkogen · June 2015

PBpsy wrote: »

Junkogen wrote: »

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have the gut feeling the tweaking might revolve around how 'niche' some of the passives are for the beast races. I'm all game for unique passives but honestly the passives on my dunmer have far more utility than my orc. Something like swift is very specific for orcs (increased speed/decreased cost and a boost to i believe 3 charge attacks- crit charge,invasion and the templar one) while the dunmers fire resist or flame talent seem to have a far broader use, lots skills can be effected by the flame talent tree.

This is the biggest issue for me. Some races have universally useful passives where others are strapped with very niche passives. Also, like you said, fire damage resist is a lot more useful than than say cold damage, which is a lot less prevalent. I just hope they take that stuff into consideration. Sure, some racial passives are cool like the increased swim speed, but it shouldn't count that much compared to fire resistance.

Also, the game is very different from launch with the soft caps removed and now there being more stamina abilities. That wasn't the case at launch.

Dunmer Fire Resist has been nerfed bugged into more or less uselessness for quite some time now. While the fire talent doesn't do much except if you are a DK or temp and use inferno staves or the less nice morph of one of the bow skills. The Stam/Magicka is of course nice but it is the only thing that is generally useful. The Fire resist /Flame talent are quite useless in many cases.

Well, even with the fire resist nerf, you still have the stamina and magicka boosts, which are what really help in this post-soft cap game environment. Every single Argonian passive is meh. It's like "Oh, well, it's better than nothing, I guess." Find me a build that people make specific to Argonian. I've seen a Blood Mage build, but the person really wanted to be a Breton. Nords don't have it all that great, either. I definitely feel for my alcoholic comrades.

I guess we'll see what these "tweaks" do. I just don't have a lot of faith in them after what they did with the potion/nightblade catalyst elimination. I just don't see what they're seeing when it's pretty well-known to everyone outside of ZOS which racial passives really provide the most usefulness. I just think they're clinging too tightly to trying to keep them too unique. This is an MMO, not a single-player game. We're playing against other people and those racial bonuses matter.

I personally feel like when they balance these that they should be thinking like a min-maxer. That's the only true way to get them even close to being balanced. Otherwise, just bring back the soft caps. Because whatever they're using to balance these things is just not working.

Junkogen · June 2015

Wing wrote: »

le sigh

I was really looking forward to race change, wanted to change my altmer to a khajiit.

they said they would allow a race change when they rebalanced racials, sweet.

then it turns into tweaking a few races and sometime in the "long term" they would "re-evaluate" the ability to race change.

. . .srsly?

over a year now and we still don't have a barber shop that has been asked for since day 1, and I doubt we will get it till year 2. this is ridiculous. ive stayed a subscriber since beta and bought into the calm before the console release storm of DLC.

but console release has come and gone, and were still waiting on an imperial city that was talked about at quake con a year ago, and have had zilch for content going on 6 months now.

I don't mind paying a sub fee to help the game, but what have I been helping? console kiddies for the past 6 months? why am I paying for their game

I hear you. I got my hopes up, too. This latest update from them has me reconsidering whether I even want to continue playing. I was operating under the assumption that I should just keep playing my Argonian because I would be able to race change anyway. Now, that's not the case. Now, any time I put into my Argonian is less time I put into a race that I would rather play. On the other hand, who knows what they'll do with this "tweaking" that they'll be doing.... Sheogorath is definitely running the show at ZOS. Curse you, mad god!!!

UrQuan · June 2015

PBpsy wrote: »

Junkogen wrote: »

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have the gut feeling the tweaking might revolve around how 'niche' some of the passives are for the beast races. I'm all game for unique passives but honestly the passives on my dunmer have far more utility than my orc. Something like swift is very specific for orcs (increased speed/decreased cost and a boost to i believe 3 charge attacks- crit charge,invasion and the templar one) while the dunmers fire resist or flame talent seem to have a far broader use, lots skills can be effected by the flame talent tree.

This is the biggest issue for me. Some races have universally useful passives where others are strapped with very niche passives. Also, like you said, fire damage resist is a lot more useful than than say cold damage, which is a lot less prevalent. I just hope they take that stuff into consideration. Sure, some racial passives are cool like the increased swim speed, but it shouldn't count that much compared to fire resistance.

Also, the game is very different from launch with the soft caps removed and now there being more stamina abilities. That wasn't the case at launch.

Dunmer Fire Resist has been nerfed bugged into more or less uselessness for quite some time now. While the fire talent doesn't do much except if you are a DK or temp and use inferno staves or the less nice morph of one of the bow skills. The Stam/Magicka is of course nice but it is the only thing that is generally useful. The Fire resist /Flame talent are quite useless in many cases.

My dunmer vampire inferno-staff using dragonknight really likes the dunmer racial passives... The funny thing is, I didn't pick her class, weapon, or vampirism based on the racials at all. I just did it based on what i thought would make her the BAMF I wanted from a female dunmer.

PBpsy · June 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

PBpsy wrote: »

Junkogen wrote: »

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have the gut feeling the tweaking might revolve around how 'niche' some of the passives are for the beast races. I'm all game for unique passives but honestly the passives on my dunmer have far more utility than my orc. Something like swift is very specific for orcs (increased speed/decreased cost and a boost to i believe 3 charge attacks- crit charge,invasion and the templar one) while the dunmers fire resist or flame talent seem to have a far broader use, lots skills can be effected by the flame talent tree.

This is the biggest issue for me. Some races have universally useful passives where others are strapped with very niche passives. Also, like you said, fire damage resist is a lot more useful than than say cold damage, which is a lot less prevalent. I just hope they take that stuff into consideration. Sure, some racial passives are cool like the increased swim speed, but it shouldn't count that much compared to fire resistance.

Also, the game is very different from launch with the soft caps removed and now there being more stamina abilities. That wasn't the case at launch.

Dunmer Fire Resist has been nerfed bugged into more or less uselessness for quite some time now. While the fire talent doesn't do much except if you are a DK or temp and use inferno staves or the less nice morph of one of the bow skills. The Stam/Magicka is of course nice but it is the only thing that is generally useful. The Fire resist /Flame talent are quite useless in many cases.

My dunmer vampire inferno-staff using dragonknight really likes the dunmer racial passives... The funny thing is, I didn't pick her class, weapon, or vampirism based on the racials at all. I just did it based on what i thought would make her the BAMF I wanted from a female dunmer.

I didn't have a clue what the passives were when I created my main.It was going to be Dunmer by default.. But by lvl10 stealthy Nightblade fire mage made so much sense.

Saint_JiubB14_ESO · June 2015

MissBizz wrote: »

BigM wrote: »

OK lets say they do race changes. But you never bought the Imperial Edition so you could play any race in any Alliance? So will they only be able to pick from the other two in that Alliance or will they have to also buy the Imperial Edition if they want to go to a race out of their Alliance?

Never seen anyone say how it will actually work!

Solid point (PS - imperial edition didn't give you any race/any faction... well, maybe preorder did (I think that it was actually the explorers pack you got with preorder which included this), but I bought imperial in April and didn't get it)

but that is interesting. Maybe you would be forced to purchase the adventurers pack first (if you didn't already have the any race ability)

You are correct, imp ed does not grant 'any race', preorder explorer's pack and crown storeadventure pack are the only way to get it.

Dixa · June 2015

Junkogen wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

This thread title is deliberately misleading, and frankly untrue. Please refrain from doing that. Seriously, rumor-mongering is not helpful to anyone.

To clarify, we have not said "No race change, no racial re-balancing." We have stated (both here on the forums and in ESO Live) that we are starting with small adjustments to existing racial passives, first.

I wasn't trying to be misleading at all. This is what I gathered from what I've read and saw on ESO Live. I'm not rumor mongering. I'm just confused and frustrated.

you read something, jumped to an extremist conclusion and then posted that conclusion.

they have been saying for months 'small tweaks'. these words are your own.

Elder_III · June 2015

I blame the public education for the lack of basic reading comprehension that spawns most of the tripe on this forum. I get frustrated by some things ZoS does (lack of info, good or bad mostly), but the crap the Community Managers have to put up with is dismal.

*Yes I'm old, grumpy, and completely right.

Below is how I imagine MMO Community Managers feel most days.