Just a way to monetize unbalanced racials.

I have 14 characters, soon to be 15. I avoided using my Khajiit Nightblade due to my preference for human like characters, so I changed her to a Redguard Nightblade a few weeks ago. I purchased a few more race change tokens for future use. I am in process of leveling all of my stamina based characters Alliance war skills to 7. My PVP experience may contribute to future race changes. For those that made a race change, why did you?

I turned my High Elf MDK into a Dunmer MDK, and I do not regret it

I've always been one for lore and roleplay. Dunmer is my favorite race so I picked Dunmer. Dragonknight is my favorite class (at the moment) so I picked Dragonknight as a Dunmer.

I can't say I regret my decision. To me the racial bonuses you get are more a way of saying "Inherently I am better at this thing, but I prefer being another thing."

In my opinion you shouldn't pick race based on how their racial stats will be with a specific build. A Redguard makes the best Stamina Dragonknight, but that doesn't mean no other race can be a Stam Dragonknight. In terms of max stamina stats Dunmer is only a little behind Imperial, but I think the reason Imperial is a recommended for Stam Dragonknight is because of the max health bonus on top of their max stamina bonus, which allows them to stay alive longer. Basically what I'm saying is just because Dunmer lacks the racial stamina bonuses, or other useful bonuses, for being a Stam Dragonknight compared to other race options doesn't mean Dunmer shouldn't be picked. Now apply this belief to any race really.

I came back and made this character and I don't regret it. If you want purely the absolute best performance then go with the race that provides more bonuses towards your build, which at this time is Redguard for Stam Dragonknight. If you want to pick your favorite race then you should, but don't expect them to perform better than the best, unless of course your favorite is the best.

Think of it as simply not having the best inherent skill for whatever class or build you chose. To me it just doesn't matter much unless you're looking for the best. The only exception I would have to this is if the race you picked is actively preventing you from doing even remotely well as your current build. Altmer as a Stam Dragonknight is an example of that.

If things don't turn out well with my character I think I'd rather just switch build than race. That's just me though. If you're unhappy with your race choice then do whatever, just seems weird to switch race to me.

:EDIT: As another note I think I'd rather just start over with a new character than race change. I decided to start over with a Dragonknight character purely because I was too lazy to farm a bunch of medium armor just to level the crafting skill and research traits. That was on my Imperial.

Apparently, in ESO race is a social monetary construct

I would guess that the majority of players don't care about lore or immersion.

When I was much younger and played MMO games, all of my characters had a back story, and I tried to relate to them... even though I didn't roleplay, I did try to feel the character, like reading a story with my toon as the main character.

After 20 years of MMO games, I don't care anymore. I play for fun, I make a cool character and play the game, I enjoy some of the stories... but if I want to change race, I don't even give it a second thought. I doubt many people do.
I changed the race of my main months ago, and recently bought 2 more tokens while they were on sale. My wife bought a couple too.

Khajiit always wins. Mag or Stam. Maybe slightly lesser endgame stats. But still

Khjiit always wins

I'm a weird one. I'm all for the lore and making personalities and backstories for my characters, and having their decisions be made in-character, but I do notice how much some of those passives can make a difference, so it's kind of a battle there for priorities.

Regardless, I am a very picky quester when it comes to my characters, if I can't feel too interested in their character, be that the backstory/personality/appearance and all for them, it becomes increasingly hard to continue questing on them for much longer because it becomes less about the enjoyment of the adventure of that character and more of a means to an end.

Add to that the fact that I am a pretty indecisive and constantly change my mind of these kinds of things and you'll know why, despite my love for the quests of this game, I've still never gotten the Tamriel Hero title before.

In short: I've bought more race change (and name change, and appearance) tokens than I feel okay with admitting, some of those characters have been deleted, some of them have been changed more than once...and I typically regret it and feel guilty about it eventually XD

I really need to learn better self-control in this regard...but I'm happy to say I haven't bought any from this sale yet. Yet.

Having constant LAG because distance to server, plus the server's ever increasing LAG specifically after each update, I fell for temptation to change my main Brent sorc to an Altmer sorc for that 5% extra damage in hopes that it will boost damage enough to counter the LAG.

That was the worst, most stupidest thing I've ever done in the realm of ESO, wasting crowns on 2 Race change tokens.

Needless to say, that was also the shortest "life" of an Altmer I've seen. A full hour before I used token nr2 to change back. The main reason was not lack of damage, in fact, I must admit that on a vet trial sorc one does notice an 5% increase in damage. Nope it was the size that got to me, my Brent was set at smallest, then bang you are now the largest of them all...it just did not feel right.

I've learned my lesson and will not change a working character again. I did change my master craftsman from Imperial templar to a Nord templar and get this, she is set on tallest, but its a Nord, the bigger they are the more meat and mead they can have at a mammoth BBQ

greylox wrote: »

Race passives actually lessen variety in this game unfortunately.

I had a thought about that. I don't think it would hurt to rework the racial passives so that they don't offer any stamina/health/magicka boosts and instead provide bonuses to certain skill lines, most likely weapons and armor.

A better idea would be to add a Specialization system to the game though. At, say, level 10 you get to pick a specialization between Stamina, Health, Magicka, or whatever you would think better choices. For the case of this I'm going with the S/M/H format. When you pick the specialization you get a passive boost to whichever one you picked, have that be Stamina, Health, or Magicka. In addition abilities costing Magicka or Stamina would cost less to cast and perhaps for Health you gain a passive boost to resistances .

I feel like this would allow people to pick whatever race they want for whatever build while still allowing certain races to keep their superiority in their roles. Redguard would still remain the best choice for, say, a Stam DK, but all other races could do better in the same role than they do now. You could have an Altmer Stam DK who does better in their role than they currently are while still allowing Redguard to rein as the champ for Stam DK.

Mic1007 wrote: »

Think of it as self-actualization: the toon is now able to become his or her ultimate true self.

You should use that race change to be an orc!

Tamriel needs more orcs.

wolf486 wrote: »

I kind of agree. My main character is a bosmer stamblade and he's quite bad (well I'm quite bad). Difficult character to get the hang of in pve for myself so I don't get one-shotted.

Bosmer and Khajit make really good stamblades. May want to look at your playstyle. I have a bosmer stamblade and have absolutely ZERO issues with survivability in PvE.

I use Viper's/Briarthorn for soloing and use Bloodthirst and Killer's Blade for health regen. If I need extra survivability, I'll swap out Vipers for Bahrah's Curse set. As a melee spec, you really need to pay attention to AoE and heavy/special attacks...and ALWAYS interrupt.

Kambo wrote: »

As a side note I wouldn't mind if Hybrid builds became more viable. Having a Dunmer Hybrid DK would be the best IMO.

I currently run an Orc hybrid DK tank. S&B front bar, frost staff back. Makes tanking those fights where the boss moves a lot (Lord Warden) trivial.