What's Wrong With Decoupling Character Passives From Race?

bellanca6561n · November 2018

I was looking at another of one of those...polls, this one about some talk of upcoming "rebalancing" of racial passives.

Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?

Roll a character. During the process choose the passives you want, limited of course. Assume every character, regardless of race, has their own individual abilities based on the player who created them, and let that be an end to it.

Shalidor was a Nord. We see Redguard and Orc mages among the NPCs. Plus this is the 21st Century after all, for what that's worth

Glurin · November 2018

bellanca6561n wrote: »

I was looking at another of one of those...polls, this one about some talk of upcoming "rebalancing" of racial passives.

Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?

Nope.

The passives are what define the race.

mxxo · November 2018

For me it would be enough if some passives would be choosable to keep the nature of the races. But some would be rly nice. So you would still feel like playing an orc but he wouldnt be the worst mage.

MasterSpatula · November 2018

Everyone thinks they want all the freedom, but limitation provide the structure that makes for a better game.

Drummerx04 · November 2018

In before "this is like asking for vampire passives without being hideous"

Claudman · November 2018

I like racial passives because they're racial passives. Remove that and they're just passives. I don't like it when the race in a fantasy or sci-fi game where you can play aliens and such has literally no meaning. Then every alien or such is just a reskinned human..

Ackwalan · November 2018

That would mean, only a few passives would ever be used, since everyone would gravitate to the meta.

Elsonso · November 2018

bellanca6561n wrote: »

I was looking at another of one of those...polls, this one about some talk of upcoming "rebalancing" of racial passives.

Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?

Roll a character. During the process choose the passives you want, limited of course. Assume every character, regardless of race, has their own individual abilities based on the player who created them, and let that be an end to it.

Shalidor was a Nord. We see Redguard and Orc mages among the NPCs. Plus this is the 21st Century after all, for what that's worth

Personally, I'd rather they do the opposite. The race should be part of the character and help define what the character can do. Otherwise, it is just a cosmetic. and I would really dislike that.

As other have suggested, it would not solve any problems. It would just make it so that people had to remember a number of passives written on that web page they don't understand, rather than just picking the race they are told to pick.

Viserys_Varanis · November 2018

I feel bad for the people playing Cyrodiil on Aldmeri with 80% of their teammates being nightblades sitting somewhere around Alessia Bridge ganking.

Jolipinator · November 2018

Lore.

idk · November 2018

Clearly Zos chose to not decouple passives from race. We know this very well.

With the original announcement from Zos that they were working on bringing us race change they thought it would be we kept our character's current appearance and just chose the passives of another race.

Along the way they change their mind. In order to bring change one must provide a reason to Zos they find compelling and it probably would need to address whatever unknown reason they abandoned decoupling passives from race in the first place.

Sorry to bring logic into the discussion. Continue on.

Drummerx04 wrote: »

In before "this is like asking for vampire passives without being hideous"

LOL. You just might have derailed the thread.

NupidStoob · November 2018

Race should only ever impact talent and not actual prowess in certain fields. That any run of the mill high elf will be a better magicka char than any nord is stupid and not realistic at all. There are great warrior highelfs and there are great nord mages, yet with the current system one role will always be better on the other class.

The first passive for each race usually incorporates talent well.

This game has so many things to balance for that removing one of the variables would actually be a good thing. One less thing to worry about. Make race cosmetic and maybe keep some small unique things about them like less fall damage, more poison/disease resist, swim speed etc. but take away the hard stats/sustain bonuses you might get. At that point looking at class balance will be a lot easier.

Just think about it, next patch the only real balance changes we get will be for races. The game has so many bigger balance problems than race, yet ZoS decides to waste their effort on that and we sit for another couple months without the bigger problems being addressed.

Nestor · November 2018

If you can't make an effective character with a given Race, your not thinking about it hard enough.

Recremen · November 2018

Well some races being better at certain things is written in the lore, except for all those times where it isn't, or where the lore contradicts itself, etc. But then we just ignore it because we prefer to cherry-pick the lore bits that reinforce our existing proclivities. Which in this case is primarily traditionalist gaming culture which says that races need to be so different that they have measurable game mechanic effects, which just happens to reflect the incredibly racist and unscientific real-world attitudes at the time when this sort of design feature was first put to paper. But it's tradition, so we have no reason to re-examine our approach or expectations to better reflect a rich and dynamic game world, and instead can resolve ourselves to contentedly calcify our perceptions until all characters are little more than race memes. After all, who doesn't want every Khajiit to be a skooma-addled sneakthief and every Redguard to be a big dumb warrior?

Sarcasm aside, even lore giants like Michael Kirkbride have chimed in saying that it's pretty *** up we have these huge race differences when there's no need for them mechanically, nor any lore to support this kind of essentializing of complex people. The only "lore" that supports these game mechanics is the fact that most (but not all!) other TES games have also had such elements in them. Even if we just go by these mechanics, there's been an incredible amount of inconsistency across titles. Just take Breton for example. Usually they get a spread of "magicka" and "intelligence" related racial bonuses, but in Shadowkey they got Fatigue and Health recovery bonuses. What do we do, ignore that because it doesn't fit the primary pattern? Give them both so they're good at everything?

I say just throw it all out the window and have these "race" passives be turned into something else that's uncoupled from race selection entirely. I chose Khajiit for my main for RP purposes, not because I was super duper excited about a health regen build. Sure, I get by on my build with whatever passives my race came with/gets changed to, but it's sort of dumb and unnecessary. We aren't adding value by making our race choice matter in relation to combat mechanics, we're just reinforcing a decades-old tradition of robbing game worlds of their complexity and shoehorning people into either suboptimal performance or catering their role to their race.

Elsonso · November 2018

Personally, I think they should matter because I come from a very long gaming history where they have.

DanteYoda · November 2018

bellanca6561n wrote: »

I was looking at another of one of those...polls, this one about some talk of upcoming "rebalancing" of racial passives.

Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?

Roll a character. During the process choose the passives you want, limited of course. Assume every character, regardless of race, has their own individual abilities based on the player who created them, and let that be an end to it.

Shalidor was a Nord. We see Redguard and Orc mages among the NPCs. Plus this is the 21st Century after all, for what that's worth

Its because the majority on the forums are meta chasers, so they've all gone high elves, redguards etc.. when it changes it will mess them up..

I personally think its great to remove the passives, it made ESO forced cookie cutter by race... Its actually a good move for a change.. Meta ruins gaming imo.

Abigail · November 2018

NO.

Indeed, ESO racial passives should be bolstered. What OP is asking for is total and complete homogenization. How utterly boring.

idk · November 2018

Abigail wrote: »

NO.

Indeed, ESO racial passives should be bolstered. What OP is asking for is total and complete homogenization. How utterly boring.

And I agree with this. Especially that I like that the choice of race has actual game value. It is boring when it does not. That could very well be why as far as my previous post is concerned.

LeHarrt91 · November 2018

I like the races being somewhat different from each other but i like the idea of racial passives with lore friendly morphs perhaps.

D0PAMINE · November 2018

It would be nice to at least choose mag,stam or health buff, but I agree it's part of what defines races.

Tandor · November 2018

NupidStoob wrote: »

Race should only ever impact talent and not actual prowess in certain fields. That any run of the mill high elf will be a better magicka char than any nord is stupid and not realistic at all. There are great warrior highelfs and there are great nord mages, yet with the current system one role will always be better on the other class.

What if you substitute orc for nord?

I get that some people want everything homogenised so they can just pick the FOTM meta until it changes with the next update when they can resume complaining. Meanwhile, the rest of us are playing a role-playing game.

Recremen · November 2018

Tandor wrote: »

NupidStoob wrote: »

Race should only ever impact talent and not actual prowess in certain fields. That any run of the mill high elf will be a better magicka char than any nord is stupid and not realistic at all. There are great warrior highelfs and there are great nord mages, yet with the current system one role will always be better on the other class.

What if you substitute orc for nord?

I get that some people want everything homogenised so they can just pick the FOTM meta until it changes with the next update when they can resume complaining. Meanwhile, the rest of us are playing a role-playing game.

First of all, people can already switch to FotM by paying for a race change token. Second, if build homogeneity were an issue with decoupled racials, then why isn't it already a problem given the ability to roll alts or buy race change tokens? Third, and for me most importantly, how on earth does a BS racial passive add to your role-playing experience? THAT is the real homogeneity here. You might as well rob all characters of any feature that's outside the stereotype for their race. No clever and charming Razum-Dar, he's a skooma addict sneakthief now. No scholarly Shazah or warrior Khali anymore, they're skooma-addled sneakthiefs too. Such roleplay!

Dawnblade · November 2018

Tandor wrote: »

NupidStoob wrote: »

Race should only ever impact talent and not actual prowess in certain fields. That any run of the mill high elf will be a better magicka char than any nord is stupid and not realistic at all. There are great warrior highelfs and there are great nord mages, yet with the current system one role will always be better on the other class.

What if you substitute orc for nord?

I get that some people want everything homogenised so they can just pick the FOTM meta until it changes with the next update when they can resume complaining. Meanwhile, the rest of us are playing a role-playing game.

Having racial benefits that confer no actual combat game-play benefits would support role-playing much more than the current racial passives which feed right into FOTM meta chasing.

It is the fact that certain race to class / resource combinations are more powerful combat (game-play) wise compared to other choices that pushes players to make meta choices over role playing / aesthetic choices when picking a race.

As for me - the current system is boring as anyone concerned about making the most of their character doesn't really have a choice in race as certain race to class / resource combinations are more powerful from a game-play standpoint.

And for those that are just into role playing and saying the meta doesn't matter - well then it won't affect your role playing in any way if combat / game-play wise the races are more balanced than they are today.

John_Falstaff · November 2018

People cry that decoupling passives mean homogenization of races. No, homogenization is seeing crowds of faceless redguards and dunmers (sometimes altmers) walking around (in PvE at least). Passives don't define race; look does. It's an RPG, and those hollering about 'just change your race' are diluting the game by treating their characters like blobs of pixels with numbers attached. Some of us want to play races we love and still be good at our roles.

Recremen · November 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

People cry that decoupling passives mean homogenization of races. No, homogenization is seeing crowds of faceless redguards and dunmers (sometimes altmers) walking around (in PvE at least). Passives don't define race; look does. It's an RPG, and those hollering about 'just change your race' are diluting the game by treating their characters like blobs of pixels with numbers attached. Some of us want to play races we love and still be good at our roles.

lol for real.

"Why did you pick Imperial?"

"My RP is that I'm a good tank."

"Oh so there wasn't really any interest in the rich cultural heritage of Imperials, the dichotomy of casting off the shackles of elven slavery only to turn around and begin empire building, or their fascinating social structures/arts/religion/etc.? Do you even know if you character is more Nibenese or Colovian?"

"My toon isn't Nibbenees or Colovbian he's an Imperial. And a good tank."

EDIT: not to say that playing this way or ignoring the lore is an invalid way to enjoy the game, just to point out that RP stands for roleplay. Stat management is usually a very important part of roleplay games, but you can have stat management without shoehorning yourself into a particular race.

John_Falstaff · November 2018

@Recremen , good attempt, but no. Doesn't work like that in MMORPG. In single player, sure, but in competitive multiplayer game, you don't make some races best at one thing and others at other, considering that there are more races than things that really matter in the gameplay. People can RP what they want, and then they go on their character to a dungeon and bloody tank it, and they can imagine that he spent his youth in gyms and whatnot for all I know. Their business; and not your business to prevent them from playing race they like and being good at what they do.

Recremen · November 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Recremen , good attempt, but no. Doesn't work like that in MMORPG. In single player, sure, but in competitive multiplayer game, you don't make some races best at one thing and others at other, considering that there are more races than things that really matter in the gameplay. People can RP what they want, and then they go on their character to a dungeon and bloody tank it, and they can imagine that he spent his youth in gyms and whatnot for all I know. Their business; and not your business to prevent them from playing race they like and being good at what they do.

@John_Falstaff

I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say to me, and believe you may have misread something I wrote.

Abigail · November 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Doesn't work like that in MMORPG.

Thank you for the laugh.

John_Falstaff · November 2018

@Recremen , I've looked back into what you wrote earlier - and yup, I've misread you; apologies for that. I have read your response as advocating for leaving racial passives as they are because it's lore-friendly, but looking upwards along the thread, you're after the opposite, so I must've understood you wrong. I've been reading too many "but <race> is naturally good at fighting lore-wise, they should be best fighters" gibberish, must be getting too snappy; sorry.

But generally yes: in MMO, rules change. People shouldn't feel peer pressure for choosing 'inferior' race (which they like) for their role (which they like).

@Abigail , good thing you're laughing; reading you, I can only cringe. You know, that second-hand embarrassment thing.

Hoolielulu · November 2018

I want vampire passives without being hideous.

Recremen · November 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Recremen , I've looked back into what you wrote earlier - and yup, I've misread you; apologies for that. I have read your response as advocating for leaving racial passives as they are because it's lore-friendly, but looking upwards along the thread, you're after the opposite, so I must've understood you wrong. I've been reading too many "but <race> is naturally good at fighting lore-wise, they should be best fighters" gibberish, must be getting too snappy; sorry.

But generally yes: in MMO, rules change. People shouldn't feel peer pressure for choosing 'inferior' race (which they like) for their role (which they like).

No worries, buddy!