Update 11: Racial passives changes or rebalancing?

Junkogen · June 2016

With the announcement of the long-awaited "barber shop" and race change, will there also be any racial passives changes done by the developers to make the races more balanced? You can't put the Altmer passives next to an Argonian's and say they're balanced. I remember back when they first announced that they were working on the barber shop that they said they would not make any drastic racial passives changes until a race change option was in place. The idea being that they might make a currently poor choice for a magicka-based character, now a good choice and they wanted to give players the option to switch. Is this still a possibility?

Is there still hope for Argonians and Nords, the despised step-children of all the racial passives?

rotaugen454 · June 2016

If not, my Nord Templar "The_Brave_Sir_Robin" will become a Redguard. I hope it lets me keep the long red hair and mustache.

Junkogen · June 2016

rotaugen454 wrote: »

If not, my Nord Templar "The_Brave_Sir_Robin" will become a Redguard. I hope it lets me keep the long red hair and mustache.

I know, right? Right now, the choice to switch feels like a "no brainer." That's how bad the passives imbalance is. There have been those of us begging the developers for this day. Now the end is near and I cling to the hope that they might finally change the Argonian passives and make me want to stay a lizard-folk after all.

Acrolas · June 2016

Just to prove that Argonians have okay passives, the dungeons are going to be a potion-drinking contest, a timed swim in a river of slaughterfish, and surviving poison damage for 60 minutes in the belly of a giant ogrim with irritable bowel syndrome.

For the Pack. *Argonian jazz hands*

SanTii.92 · June 2016

Well Argonians are better tanks than altmers, so there is that. Tho I agree, and while there is no mention of any kind of balance I expect some things to be polished.

AlnilamE · June 2016

Well, the Altmer need to compensate for the fact that they are stuck-up and boring, and not cool like Argonians. :-P

Junkogen · June 2016

Acrolas wrote: »

Just to prove that Argonians have okay passives, the dungeons are going to be a potion-drinking contest, a timed swim in a river of slaughterfish, and surviving poison damage for 60 minutes in the belly of a giant ogrim with irritable bowel syndrome.

For the Pack. *Argonian jazz hands*

Rather than fix the passives, I can actually imagine them doing something like this. They've treated the Argonian passives like their Alamo. While they have freely changed everything else in the game, they have dug in their heels and refused to change the passives beyond percentage adjustments.

rotaugen454 · June 2016

Junkogen wrote: »

Acrolas wrote: »

Just to prove that Argonians have okay passives, the dungeons are going to be a potion-drinking contest, a timed swim in a river of slaughterfish, and surviving poison damage for 60 minutes in the belly of a giant ogrim with irritable bowel syndrome.

For the Pack. *Argonian jazz hands*

Rather than fix the passives, I can actually imagine them doing something like this. They've treated the Argonian passives like their Alamo. While they have freely changed everything else in the game, they have dug in their heels and refused to change the passives beyond percentage adjustments.

"Remember the Argonio!"

Gothlander · June 2016

They will change the racial passives once they've milked you.

Gothlander · June 2016

And that will be a few months after the race change patch so that they get as many players as possible to pay for race change.

Van_0S · June 2016

Junkogen wrote: »

With the announcement of the long-awaited "barber shop" and race change, will there also be any racial passives changes done by the developers to make the races more balanced? You can't put the Altmer passives next to an Argonian's and say they're balanced. I remember back when they first announced that they were working on the barber shop that they said they would not make any drastic racial passives changes until a race change option was in place. The idea being that they might make a currently poor choice for a magicka-based character, now a good choice and they wanted to give players the option to switch. Is this still a possibility?

Is there still hope for Argonians and Nords, the despised step-children of all the racial passives?

Expect it to come after a year or no ETA.

The devs are slow as a snail in bringing changes to the game and delivering content.( mostly poor written story)

Lastly, the balance is a joke.

Nerouyn · June 2016

Junkogen wrote: »

Rather than fix the passives, I can actually imagine them doing something like this. They've treated the Argonian passives like their Alamo. While they have freely changed everything else in the game, they have dug in their heels and refused to change the passives beyond percentage adjustments.

Not true.

Amphibious originally gave +15% to potion effectiveness, compared to +12% health, magicka and stamina. One of the nightblade siphoning passives also used to give +20% potion effectiveness. That plus 15 or 35 percent effectiveness to every effect that potions can give made them the most versatile passives in the game.

Granted potions aren't needed a lot in regular PvE. But the same is true of most racial passive effects. They have little to no impact. But in dungeons or PvP, +15 / 20 / 35% potion effectiveness - especially combined with potion cooldown reduction enchants - could give you a big boost to whatever you needed when you really needed it.

They didn't remove those effects because it was unpopular or weak. And it was a major change.

Agree though the current passives are lackluster. Though I've never been a fan of racial passives for this game at all. In the single-player TES titles they didn't matter so you could just play what you wanted. No multi-player so need to worry about balance plus you had the option to mod them.

Junkogen · July 2016

Nerouyn wrote: »

Junkogen wrote: »

Rather than fix the passives, I can actually imagine them doing something like this. They've treated the Argonian passives like their Alamo. While they have freely changed everything else in the game, they have dug in their heels and refused to change the passives beyond percentage adjustments.

Not true.

Amphibious originally gave +15% to potion effectiveness, compared to +12% health, magicka and stamina. One of the nightblade siphoning passives also used to give +20% potion effectiveness. That plus 15 or 35 percent effectiveness to every effect that potions can give made them the most versatile passives in the game.

Granted potions aren't needed a lot in regular PvE. But the same is true of most racial passive effects. They have little to no impact. But in dungeons or PvP, +15 / 20 / 35% potion effectiveness - especially combined with potion cooldown reduction enchants - could give you a big boost to whatever you needed when you really needed it.

They didn't remove those effects because it was unpopular or weak. And it was a major change.

Agree though the current passives are lackluster. Though I've never been a fan of racial passives for this game at all. In the single-player TES titles they didn't matter so you could just play what you wanted. No multi-player so need to worry about balance plus you had the option to mod them.

I know the history. Thank you, though. Also, the potion cooldown reduction glyphs don't work. It's been reported repeatedly, but to no avail. They haven't even acknowledged it. So there's that.