Keep them, just make it less valuable.

I'm against complete removal, but I would like rework for them. Passives which directly affect power or resource management just leads to a specific race for specific build scenarios and that really kills variation. Or it causes that players who still goes for variation to have disadvantage. I understand that Redguards are naturally anti magicka, but even in game there was a quest with a woman who became mage after long studies against all the odds. But racial passives kinda kills this scenario to become true from player point of view. So it would be cool if we either have some sort of a tree (HP, magicka and stamina for example) and having racial traits based on what we pick (with possibility to reset it ofc), or if we have something which does not directly affect power of our characters. For example Redguard having quest rewards increased for (0.5 * each stamina point) golds. Something like that clearly says that Redguards are favoured for stamina players, but does not give them power advantage.

Getting rid of the racial passives isn't going to fix any problems, it's just going to create more problems down the line and off-balance other areas of the game. Terrible idea.

Honestly speaking, I want balanced gameplay above all else in any MMO I play and racial passives are a very large issue for me because of how blatantly imbalanced they are. I agree that some races should be better in certain areas over others but only ever so slightly superior. I could tolerate maybe a 3% max magic difference between Altmer and any of the non-magical races, it would be Lore Friendly while not being a huge game changer either, but when the difference is a staggering 10%, on top of the other magic related passives Altmer have over them, that's just too far an extreme for me to realistically look at and say that it's fair. I'm not saying that a Nord or Redguard should be as powerful as an Altmer in magic but I want the difference between them to be much smaller than they currently are.

I wouldn't care if they were removed all together but I'd prefer they remained, just at a much smaller percentage.

What would be the point of having races then?

Lore and flavor should always take a back seat to game play and balance, especially in an MMO. What works in a single player game does not always work in an MMO.

IMO racial passives and racial bonuses can and should exist in games, but should be more focused on aspects which do not directly affect character power or combat effectiveness (like if a race is magical, maybe they perform crafting of enchantments better).

Some minor (+/- 1%) differences between races are ok, but when the difference between optimal and sub-optimal gets into the ranges seen in ESO, it creates a world where players feel shoehorned into playing specific race / class combinations instead of playing whatever they actually would choose absent combat benefits.

MercTheMage wrote: »

What would be the point of having races then?

Races have different stories. characters, lore, aesthetics, etc - there are plenty of reasons to have diverse races.

What makes no sense is having a lot of different races, yet clearly pushing players to play only certain race / class combination because of the combat benefits.

The game forces you to choose a specific race for certain roles .

Magicka DD > High Elf , Dunmer
Stamina DD > Redguard , Khajit , Orc , Imperial
Healer > Breton , High Elf , Argonian
Tank > Imperial , Argonian , Orc , Nord

Choosing these races will make a huge difference in terms of performance .

I am talking about 4-5k DPS difference . I am talking about not being able to sustain a build without being an Argonian . Running out of Stamina if you are not Redguard as Stamina DD .

Races are absurdly unbalanced at the moment . Of course there should be a difference between them but not this much .

Surely if races are as unbalanced as some people claim then you should work towards building your character around these imbalances as opposed to nerfing more stuff, or removing it altogether?

I'm sick of having everything nerfed by complaints from the community or by ZOS directly - you're free to create whatever character you want and to play however you want, if you're that bothered by these apparently vast imbalances then either create your character in a different race, or work around it on your desired race.

Its not a big deal and if you're a decent player then the racial passives are an extremely minor hindrance at best as there is a plethora of work-arounds you can implement as opposed to just having these nerfs handed to you.

I only play Bosmer - for three TES games in a row now. And my Bosmer happens to love magic. It can happen, just as I'm sure there can be magically inclined orcs and physically imposing Altmer - just as previous TES games have allowed.

I'd be fine with a pool of inherent talents you choose from during char creation that help define their focus.

Naked...

yet another pointless thread causing arguments about imaginary changes

bravo

Sucking away even more distinctiveness form our characters just to replace it with more generic % bonuses that are available to everyone else from things like gear and the Champion System?

No thanks. ESO has gone too far in that direction as it is.

Character choices, and ideally all of them (class, role, CPs, morphs, race, etc,) should matter, should have a perceptible difference, should make my build different than yours.

I play the worst race on a wrong spec: a Nord magicka templar. I can do all the content in the game just fine. And I do it well enough that people who runs raids every week ask and invite me to join their groups.

That being said, the issue here is that some races just aren't very good in with respect to what they offer. Argoninas are really strong. That's fine. They've been bad for so long, i think it's great players who chose the Argonian race from the get-go aren't punished for choosing a race.

And I don't necessarily think having the meta bandwagon hoppers pay 3000 crowns because they heard on youtube that x race was OP is bad thing. On the contrary, it's a nice source of income for ZoS that comes from the pocket of sorts of peolple who ought to come from, those just interested in power.

The problem is that players who chose bad races who feel like their race let them down. That should never happen is a fantasy game. And not just race: class, morph, ability, ultimate, role, etc., all of this stuff should bring enough to the table to make players feel that their choice is making a solid contribution in some way. Nords for sure: Health recovery is terrible, the game is full of fire damage and very little cold, and their signature passive is hit with so many diminishing returns it plays little role. The only race pigeon-holed into being a tank and they are still overshadowed in that role. Bosmer and Khajiit seem to me pretty narrow in their function, though the Khajiit 8% critical passive is strong and unique enough that at least they have something to hang their hat upon that is very difficult for other races to get. I don't play either so I can;t say for certain. I also think Bretons are meh, but it's at least they offer enough that they can compete and people won't feel let down.

Then what would be the point of having different races in the game?