How about having lineage ...

So i may choose an orc who is born of orcs ... I get increase in the orc passive

But if I choose an orc with orc and Breton lineage then I get a mix of orc and Breton passives

This allows a bit more importance in choosing not only a race but your characters birthline

John_Falstaff wrote: »

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.

In a fantasy RPG, passives do frequently define the race. Going all the way back to Dungeons and Dragons, which was a heavy influence on the Elder Scrolls series, races were not equal in every role. It's perfectly fine that Elder Scrolls does not treat races interchangeably.

The problem that ZOS has, and what I am hoping they overcome, is that players don't have enough reason to be something else. There will always be a best combination, but in ESO, the best stands out as clearly superior over alternatives. This leads to FotM cookie cutter builds.

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@lordrichter , it's nowhere near fine because ESO is also MMO. It must cater to both MMO and RPG parts, it's a multiplayer game. Makes it cardinally different case, and can't compare to all other single-player RPGs. The game has bloody leaderboards in it, of course people will look at superior combinations, we have competitive element built right into the game - so there will be always peer pressure. Racial bonuses must go.

Plenty fine. MMORPGs do not need to have everything with an interchangeable parts. Really.

A mini cp point system might be kewl. Put points into what u want and be able to change them.
Roll a characrer because you want not because the passives you want.

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@lordrichter , anything to back that statement, aside from 'really'? I did lay out my arguments.

No, pretty much just that. I don't know what to tell you. I have said plenty across a number of threads. Besides, this is not my problem to design a solution for. I can tell you that Elder Scrolls races are not interchangeable in design, and that does need to step aside for multiplayer games. ZOS just needs to do it right.

When you save Eyevea, you see mages of literally every single race in there afterward.
Yet you can't have Redguard, Orc, Bosmer or Khajiit mages in the game. Well, ok ... you CAN, but they'll always have a bit less magicka sustain and total magicka than a magic-based race. This drives me crazy since I like all those races, but prefer to play magicka characters. LOL.
Oh well, it is what it is.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

What's Wrong With Decoupling Character Passives From Race?

In one word: LORE

In more detail... you are basically asking what would be wrong with decoupling -physical- advantages brought on by millenia of natural selection and genetic adaptation. Kinda like asking to "decouple" gills and webbed toes from amphibeous argonians or "mystic connection with magical forces" from elven races or any of the other fluff that makes a fantasy race what they are. Might as well "decouple" size from giants and horns from minotaurs while you are at it, huh? Yeah, its like that.

John_Falstaff wrote: »

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).

...and here we get to the better question:
Should the way the racial perks are depicted in the ruleset as of now change to allow for more options?
And, well, my thoughts on the matter are on record: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/442350/character-background-passives
The racial perks ought to be an -advantage-, but not an insurmountable one. Not an "must be this race to play that" pigeonholing. A leg up sure at the beginning, sure, but no "percentage bonus on top of everything" at the end... just like it was in older TES games!!!
And there could very well be other passives that take this spot, freely selectable "background" passives... well, see the link

SugaComa wrote: »

But if I choose an orc with orc and Breton lineage then I get a mix of orc and Breton passives

Nope.
The powers that be decreed that in the elder scrolls universe, a child has the "racial traits of the mother", and wrote it into their lore; so there is that. Your orc with breton lineage would still have orc racial passives, though some breton-ish looks as "traces of the father" would be present.
Thats it.
...which brings us back to thinking about -how- those racial traits ought to be depicted in the rulework, and what else might be considered for character passives... like background...

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Shalidor was a Nord...

...and worked really, really hard to get to the same level altmer reach easily. And since they lazed around at that level, secure in their supposed superiority, while he kept working very, very hard... he became a legend as the lone nord archmage, and noone cares much about the many altmer archmages since they are a dime a dozen throughout Tamriels history, hiding on the Summerset Isles and never doing all that much for the most part...
(Imagine... some altmer level 50 sorcerors with 300 CP who spend all their time posting on the forums about how great they are instead of actually playing and a single nord level 50 sorceror with 3000 CP and no cap thanks to spending decades questing and grinding... that's most altmer mages compared to Shalidor! )

@TheShadowScout

What are you even going on about? Natural selection? Genetic adaptation? The TES races were created by gods. There is only a single lorebook (Notes On Racial Phylogeny) that mentions anything even close to "natural selection", and even that was speculative hypothesis. I'm not sure why you link it as proof when it's been observed to be false. That book has also been shown to be demonstrably false regarding some of its other claims, so while it's a nice snippet that gives us insight into the TES world's scholarly community it's hardly a definitive source to go based True Lore claims off. And sorry, gills? Webbed toes? Not finding anything in the lore on those. There's a single reference to an Argonian with webbed hands in one lore book, but we see that all the in-game Argonian models don't have that.

In any case, some minor thing like the ability to breath water is hardly the same as one race being automatically stronger or smarter than another. There isn't any lore proving that Altmer, for instance, are automatically good spellcasters. They make big claims, sure, but every race claims they're the best at everything. How are we supposed to believe an Altmer's "mystic connection with magical forces" is any more potent than a Bosmer's, a Nord's, a Redguard's, a Khajiit's, etc. when they all ALSO have rich magical traditions including but not limited to magic of The Green, wind-related magic, sand-related magic, and the Lunar Lattice, respectively? How are we supposed to believe that Orcs are the ultimate warriors when literally every race goes on and on about their time-tested martial traditions? There's even a lorebook about how a Khajiit martial arts master gets wrecked by a Dunmer janitor at his own style, and the Khajiit literally invented the system.

And that's not cherry-picking exceptions to the rule, that is the rule.

When it gets down to it, a thorough examination of the lore does not reveal evidence to keep essentializing the TES races. Instead, we are confronted with an incredibly diverse population of all races filling an enormous variety of roles in society. The idea that racial passives are "lore" is one of the worst cases of the tail wagging the dog that I've seen. The reason we have racial passives isn't because it's been spelled out in the lore, the reason we have them is that it's been a part of game design forever and too few people are brave enough to question it or subvert it.

Because it's a dumb idea to remove racial passives from races, that's why.
/thread

They should have been decoupled years ago.

@TheShadowScout

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Some were, in the lore. Others changed other time... what else do you think to call that?

Which races changed over time? Is it "none of them"? I'm pretty sure that's the answer. We do have some that changed via magickal means, such as the Chimer changing to the Dunmer, the Aldmer changing to the Altmer and Bosmer, or the Altmer changing to the Orsimer, but that was all done magickally, through Dawn Era shenaynays, etc.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

And of course, the argument is even stronger for those races that -were- created by divine fiat - their racial traits come from godly intervention after all, and thus would not be "freely selectable" or something like that, yes?

The argument is not stronger as there is still no actual references to base it on. Pick a race and go over their creation myth. Show me where it says they were gifted above all the other races in some particular trait by the gods themselves. The only one I can think of is the Khajiit (Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi to her Favored Daughter), who claim to be the best at everything in their creation myth (though I think it's fair to interpret this as a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing). Even if you could find a creation myth to support your claim (and I'm pretty certain you can't) it would still have to be interpreted through the lens of the reporting culture, which is more likely to stem from a desire for self-promotion than actual truth. At the end of the day, there isn't a lorebook where Y'ffre reaches down to the Bosmer and gives them a stealth bonus.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

The others... do you really want to try and make a case that millenia of "warriors supreme!" culture has nothing to do with redguards excelling at sword swinging? Or millenia of living in frozen skyrim has nothing to do with nord cold resistance?

Redguards having a complex warrior-revering culture gives them an exciting history and nuance. It does not make them automatically good at swinging swords, no, and certainly not automatically better than members of other races, who all also have rich warrior traditions. Redguards were and are portrayed as having a rich and fully-developed society, with farmers and artisans and politicians and warriors and everything. It is absolute folly to think that having a warrior aspect to their culture (which again, EVERYONE has) led to selective pressure across the whole population for more warrior-like traits. At the end of the day most people were probably growing crops and building cities. And no, Nord cold resist doesn't make sense from living in Skyrim as there's no reason to believe it had that much of a selective pressure when they went and built houses and fires and warm clothing. A 9% cold resist is a huge deal which has no real-life corollary. We don't see adaptations among real human populations with that sort of power.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

...and neither are people -required- to put skill points into those passives, are they now?
So its entirely possible to make an altmer that is not a good spellcaster. Your point?

Sorry, do you actually care about basing your argument on what's in the lore, or are you just BSing for the sake of it? You aren't providing evidence with those kind of snide remarks, you're just avoiding the argument.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

But I also want to preserve the lore that is saying: "The Altmer are the most strongly gifted in the arcane arts of all the races" or telling us "Redguards are also physically blessed with hardy constitutions" - just in other ways, ways like in older TES games where those racial traits gave a leg up at he start instead of a advantage on top of everything.

Recremen wrote: »

How are we supposed to believe...

Because the game designers wrote it into their racial descriptions!
Duh!

First, you are using the in-game character select or user manual descriptions, which are being used to explain the racial bonuses, as the definitive lore source, when that (the game mechanics) is literally the thing I am calling into question. Maybe you just searched the UESP lore page and didn't follow up, but I did, and that isn't a description from in-game lore. Like I said, totally wagging the dog over here. Second, while I think the idea of an initial leg up with equal caps is much less onerous, it is still goes fundamentally against the complexities that we see in actual character actions across both the lore and the NPCs. There's just no reason in Morrowind, for example, for Redguards to start with such huge negatives to their mental states compared to other races, especially when you can choose your class to indicate what your character was already supposed to be trained for. I have more on why this line of reasoning doesn't hold water, but it looks like I need to save some of it for later in the post.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Actually, that would be just that.
Not that it would matter, because there -always- are exceptions to any rule, and when it comes to racial traits, the exceptions will actually be a large enough group to be the majority among the common people.
Maybe less so among the adventurer heroes, simply because those who are "not good enough at what they do" may not survive to make it to "hero" status (and remained soul shriven in coldharbour or whatnot), but still...
And in any case, a racial advantage that remians undeveloped does not mean much. No matter how magical an altmers blood is, they still will not be winning a spell battle against an orc shaman if they trained as a musician instead of a sorceror... yes?

No, it isn't. I don't know how many of the in-game lorebooks you've read, but we constantly see characters acting and excelling outside the supposed calling of their race. Giving examples is not cherry-picking data, it's illustrating the point with some of the more memorable examples. Additionally, you seem to not understand how exceptions and majorities work. If people acting out of the expectations for their race is an exception, then they don't become the majority when you examine a larger portion of the population. That's not how scaling statistical data works. They ought to still be a tiny minority, but they are not.

This is also not about racial advantages being underdeveloped as there is still no lore evidence for those existing. You can come up with all kinds of hypotheticals when you presuppose your conclusion to be true, but that's not what you ought to be doing if you want to build a convincing argument. Find in the lore where it says that a particular race automatically has a stat advantage over the others in some area. The only thing that exists is the game description for the racial passives, which are the very things under fire. You can't make a great case for them if they are their own (and only) supporting evidence.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Truth. The reason it is part of the lore is that it is part of the initial TES game design after all.

But that does not mean you get to ignore the game design when suggesting things... ESO -is- an "Elder Scrolls" game after all, so it follows that it adhers to the elder scrolls design, right?

Want to question or change the game design?
Buy the lincense!
Then you may make whatever changes you like.

But as for us here, well... we should strive to think of possible gamne improvements -within- the existing "Elder Scrolls" design, not throw away everything and make up something else.
If you like something else better... some other design policy... make your own game.

And here's where we come back around to why game design decisions are a bad place to pick up lore secrets. Take a look back at all the racials through all the TES games. I know I did. There are loads of inconsistencies and one game (Battlespire) where there WERE no racial passives! Which Altmer racials are the true lore, for instance? The one where they got Paralyzation immunity? The one where they got bonus Max Magicka but a weakness to almost everything? The one where they get a little extra Magicka, a once-per-day Magicka Recovery buff, and fatigue resistance, but no Attribute changes because those don't exist suddenly? The one where they get Nothing, because again Battlespire did an entirely different thing where you literally got to pick and choose these sorts of advantages?

Which of those is the real canon?

It's also pretty silly to try and give a final dismissal of any attempts at criticism with a "you don't own the license for the game so nuts to you" argument. Player feedback has repeatedly been a vital part of the development cycle, and I know you yourself have participated in it. And what wonderful changes they've made as a result of constructive criticism! We have armor dyes, costumes, an outfit system, player housing, and universal horse stats all thanks in part to player feedback and messaging. Or do we have to pretend that only the most current game mechanics are the real lore? Are we sure that feeding horses apples for speed isn't canon?

Ackwalan wrote: »

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

They already do, but as I said before they need to use $ to do it, because of this race passives will always be bound to certain race.

What about being able to choose passive morphs, and nords could take a bonus to magicka, but the bonus would be better if they choose health, and lower than what a high elf would have?