how about morphable passives....something that might make hybrid builds viable?

example.....high elf able to "fall from grace" to trade their max magicka for stam regen.

Thlepse wrote: »

Lorewise, Redguard is and should be the best stamina based DPS race because that's what a Redguard is. A master swordsman.
Argonians are also known to be quite tanky and resistant as a race and they deserve to be a serious consideration for tanking. Same thing goes for Nords and Orcs.
Nords are sturdy from nature, and to be honest, I wouldn't like to see a Nord using a bow for example, it feels so unnatural. I don't care about the ''every race should fill every playstyle''. I chose to play the game cause of the awesome TES lore.
Orcs are a savage and brutal race. You can build your own Orc character by choosing to go for a, let's say, magicka based playstyle, but you can't skip an Orc's nature. Your choices should matter, and if you chose to go down the ''wrong'' path for the race you chose then you should be punished somehow and the game opted to punish you by lowering your stats and your effectiveness.
Imagine if you were a Redguard mage. In a world where everyone around you is master at the art of swords and stuff, you chose to try something different and teach yourself some fancy spells. Well, no! You might be good at it but it's not in your blood. Let's say that you get a 3% chance to miss on every single target skill you cast

Now, why should a race be changed, or nerfed, or should feel like all races are the same? That's not a race problem. Races are designed perfectly fine (well not entirely, Wood Elves and Nords need some love, perhaps even Khajiits).

It's the game's mechanics, stats, meta or call it whatever you want that defines what race is the best. In a meta where the one with the best resource management wins, it's 100% natural that people will choose to roll Argonians or Redguards. BUT that's perfectly ok, because those races SHOULD be the best at this. It's the overshadowing of other races that makes them less relevant and that's where these race changes should be focused in my opinion.

PS. Sorry for the long post, still not entirely sure if this is the correct topic to post my thoughts on the matter.

The Skyrim game disagrees with you especially with all those Nords firing bows at dragons overhead... Why shouldn't a Nord use a bow? In fact a Nord by his sheer mass is probably the best archer as he can pull the Bow with the greatest draw weight.

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Don't make me cry... I miss being able to tank effectively with my wood elf. She was my favourite character. Even tanked and finished the last 25% of Lord Warden when ICP was at it's hardest. Oh the memories and the fun back then.....

That guy had like 50k hp when tank meta was 30k hp tops. Good old days when you could experiment with your build and be relevant aswell.

Abigail wrote: »

NO.

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

Well, from my point of view, fixed race passives are boring. They limit the range of any character. If it's an Altmer, it's magic based. Redguard, it's swinging or shooting steel.

Among the most interesting stories ever told involve a protagonist defying expectations. And the most moving coming of age tales involve people being able to do what they were told - usually by parents - they couldn't do.

Oh sure, you can play a sword swinging Breton if you want but folks are going to think you're either daft or ignorant.

I'd love to be able to just choose 1 of the "15% xp gain towards (X)" and 3 combat passives the from the current pool. That way you could tailor your racials to your playstyle. You could have a khajiit with all magicka passives for a healer, a wood elf with tanking passives, a brawler build with a mix of tank and damage passives for pvp, or a roleplay character with swim speed, better pick-pocketing, and less fall damage.

Dawnblade wrote: »

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.

3 1/2 years ago I chose my race specifically for the racial passives ... those passives fit into the class I wanted to play (RP). RP'ing includes, but isn't limited to, the stereotypical group of people talking 'in character' doing quests or socializing. It also includes solo players who enjoy getting totally immersed in gameplay and their chosen role in the game (race + class). Sometimes this doesn't include combat, but sometimes it does (pve / pvp).
I entered this virtual world through my character, a character chosen specifically for race (racial passives). I've spent the past 3 1/2 years with that character, gone though the ups and downs of this virtual world on that character - survived all the various patches, the VR & CP system, gear changes, and class changes -- when things got really rough (Morrowind ... cough ... cough) I fell back on my character's 'roots' (racial passives) ... those 'roots' defined my character, they were my strength and were integral to my style of play (how I have fun in the game).

Because I have spent half my time pvp'ing and the other half pve'ing, I can tell you that racial passives DO matter to pve'ers ... racial passives DO matter to RP'ers ... consistency matters to game immersion ... after all, this game is, first and foremost, an mmorpg.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Well, I suppose that tells us something about the quality of your thoughts. Nedes? Atmorans? Yokudans? Ring a bell?

I guess that tells us something about the quality of your research, or the lack thereof. What physical and/or magickal changes occurred over time to these races? That was your argument, right, that there were specific changes made over time? Please reference the lorebooks, character dialogues, etc. which lays out the actual differences between Nedes and their descendants, Atmorans and theirs, or Yokudans and theirs. Oh wait there aren't any and your whole argument is founded on completely baseless inference. We have no reason to believe that these "changes" were anything but a shift in name and cultural, except possibly in the case of Aldmer which I'll address in the next section.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

We do have some that changed via magickal means, such as the Chimer changing to the Dunmer, the Aldmer changing to the Altmer...

...which was not magical at all, just... you guessed it.
The aldmer who settled the summerset isles changed over time into the altmer, not through divine intervention. So did the ones that changed into chimer, though turning those to dunmer was obviously a daedric fiat, same with the orsimer origin.

Also, its kinda a point of pride with the altmer that they remain closest to altmer. You'd think they'd have noticed some great magical transformation messing up their story there, huh?

There is no description of there being a physical difference between Altmer and Aldmer. If you're going to make these wild claims then reference the sources and explain why you feel comfortable making such inferences. The only thing we have to go on is that Altmer are considered to have come from the Aldmer (with nothing actually being stated about physical changes) and the Aldmer were descended from the et'Ada, and this process is described as "Each generation was weaker than the last, and soon there were Aldmer." If we're going to make any inferences here then it is necessarily a magickal change as these people became more mortal and less et'Ada with each passing generation. There is certainly no adaptation over generations.

So the Aldmer -> Altmer being out of the way, and with you admitting that all the other races got their shape via magickal processes, we have one strike against your apparent thesis that racials make sense as some kind of slow environmental adaptation. I know people love the UESP (me included) but these claims are simply not backed up upon a careful review of the source material.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

No reference... except the racial descriptions in the lore, you mean?

My point stands, when a racial trait is acquired by divine intervention, like for example orsimer getting their mystical elven blood transformed into physical toughness when trinimac became malacath, then it follows that this trait is even more coupled with the race then a trait merely aquired through generations upon generations of living in ther lands of ice and snow, right? Because the latter could plausibly be gotten by another tribe living there (and thus the case could be made for reachmen having a mix of breton and nord passives); but something that took aedric or daedric power to bring into being?

Yes, that is precisely what I mean. There is simply no evidence for racial abilities in the lore beyond the character select descriptions, which as I've said, and will apparently have to keep repeating, are internally inconsistent.

And your point does not stand, it falls flat on its face with a complete lack of evidence. There is nothing in The True Nature of Orcs or other such source material which states that Orcs had their "mystical elven blood transformed into physical toughness" or anything of the sort. This is a fabrication of your own design. It is not even mentioned in your beloved character select descriptions. Where, then, are you drawing this info? If you are going to play lore scholar then back up specific claims with specific evidence.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Pick a race and go over their creation myth...

...and you get only myth and self-congratulations, yeah, yeah, we know.
But the more objective racial descriptions are a different matter, because while the former are the race themselves telling a story that makes them look good in their eyes, the latter is basically the original developers telling the players how they wanted each race to be.

Descriptions which, again, are internally inconsistent. Which version of Breton are we going with? The one where their elven blood gives them magickal powers or the one where "hardiness is also part of their heritage"? (Shadowkey description) Which developer stance do we cherrypick when deciding the true lore? And if races can be so easily essentialized, why does the race description fail to actually describe the majority of that race? That's just bad data science at that point. You could never pull that off in real life. "The French are a haughty but highly charismatic people known for their bardic and culinary traditions. They gain a +15 when composing Classical music for the piano and once per day may create a Food that provides extra health regen for one hour." It's completely ridiculous but that's exactly the kind of thing going on in these racial descriptions and bonuses.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

We don't see adaptations among real human populations with that sort of power.

Really?
You are saying, if I get my pasty white arse down to africa I will be handling the burning sun just as well as a pigmentally enhanced african native? Puh-leeze!

You mean like the literally millions of pasty white people who already live in Africa? Yeah, I think you'd do fine. In fact why don't we break this down more thoroughly so you can see how negligible "race" differences are. We know that dark skin can give an effective SPF of 13 and up to double the amount of protection from UV radiation (courtesy of Harvad's Beth Israel Dermatology group). Wow, amazing, that means like a 50% resistance to fire, right?? Or at least to ionizing radiation??? No, that means twice the protection from sunburn-causing UV radiation that hits the earth, only a fraction of which passes through the atmosphere to the ground, and which is measured on the order of milliwatts per meter squared (courtesy of the UV index). That is, the difference in protection is in fractions of a single-watt range. Our CP passives don't even have that much granularity. But you want to say that 9% frost resist makes sense as an evolutionary trait? When, again, there is no evidence in the lore that such evolution even took place? Honey no.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Yes, I am doing exactly that.
Because the lore is not limited to the in-game lore, even more important then that are the developer mandated descriptions. Because the in-game lore is always a subjective thing, written to be shaded through the fictional origins point of view... but the developer descriptions is the -actual- makers of the world telling the players how they decided things should be.

Sorry if that is unclear to you.

The developer descriptions which are, again, entirely inconsistent between games? It seems a lot more likely that the incredible wealth of in-game depictions, which feature incredibly complex people who can't be so easily shoe-horned into a race description, and which were ALSO made by the developers, should be considered as more authoritative than a single character creation description that has no supporting evidence and is purely fueled by industry tradition instead of an honest look at the game universe. The only thing "unclear" to me is why you'd value these inconsistent blurbs meant to convey game mechanics over the actual world and characters as they appear in game. It's just more cherrrypicking what you want to be canon. What other game mechanics are we supposed to assume are hard canon? The persuasion wheel from Oblivion? Magickal mount summoning with a whistle? Are attributes canon or not canon?

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

And I say it doesn't. No more then D&D giving elves +1 to bow and longsword did. Does that mean every elf in D&D campaining must be an archer or swordsman? I have seen enough elven mages to know this is not so. Played one or two, even.

And once again, a race having a perk that makes them a bit better at one thing does not mean every single one of that race must be that one thing, nor does it mean everyone who is that thing must have had a perk giving them an edge at it.

You saying that it doesn't and providing evidence that it doesn't are two different things. I never made the claim that every single one of a race must be the one thing that their race has a bonus to (you're just strawmanning at this point), my argument is that it doesn't make any sense for the perk to exist at all. I can't speak to the lore for D&D, but in TES games the racials are simple not supported anywhere outside the character creation screen. There is no explicit reference to them in the rest of the lore and there are no logical inferences to make in support of them. There is no description of magickal imbuing or slow evolutionary changes to account for them or any other such evidence. They exist in a total lore vacuum and nothing would be lost, nor any inconsistencies introduced, if they were gone.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Except the developers made it so anyway, most likely to depict those races (seeing how the redguards share that penalty with nords and male orcs) are more physically inclined then mental. Which makes quite a bit of sense considering their depiction, yes?

No, most likely it's a boring game design tradition with no basis in the rest of the game world. If the devs wanted to show that redguards were more physically inclined then why didn't they keep that messaging up in the rest of the game, such as when they were writing the lorebooks, designing the NPCs, etc? If we're trying to draw sense from their depiction, then we don't come to the conclusion that they're more physically inclined. We come to the conclusion that they're a diverse people with a myriad of interests and professions, same as every other race. That conclusion is backed up by dialogue, books, and the wide gamut of NPCs in the games. Even the rare bits which might support such essentialization (such as some of the generic dialogue options about races in Morrowind) are inconsistent both internally and externally. We could ignore these inconsistencies if we want to be dishonest, but that's not where truth lies.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Once again, you are postulating a connection where none exists.
A race having a perk benefitting one thing does not mean every one of that race will be that thing.
Someone being that thing does not mean they must have had a perk benefitting it either.

And again, strawmanning. I never made that argument. Try reading whole paragraphs instead of drawing conclusions from your misreading of the first sentence. If racials are supposed to make sense, then there should be some logical reason for their existence. We have already ruled out evidence for divine intervention (again, feel free to provide believable counterexamples where the gods are described as giving a racial bonus to their favored people). All that's left is this supposed evolution over time, and as I've been saying there just isn't evidence for such physical changes to have taken place. If there was selective breeding pressure to cause these racial advantages then we should see most of the race filling that role. The whole point of a species/race advantage is that it is more likely to lead to survival and the passing on of the relevant genes. But if these races are living in complex societies where people can fill much more niche roles then we specifically don't have those pressures! The "good archery" genes aren't going to get passed on to every Bosmer because the "good mammoth herder" or "good Spinner" genes were just as successful. That's one of the interesting quirks of civilization, you don't see these overwhelming selective pressures.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Once again, racial trait is NOT an expectation.
Its an perk, one that some will develop, and others won't.
Citing examples from those who deceloped in other directions then the one their race has an advantage in means nothing, because -duh- of course the majority will develop as needed by their life and not as advantaged by their race. So if an altmer grows up as the heir to an farm, they will develop farming skills and not sorcery. But that will not exactly make them "act out of the expection", now will it? Because there is NO expection, no matter how magical altmer blood may be, noone expects all altmer to be mages, just like noone expects all bosmer to be archers, or all orcs to be warriors, or all khajiit to be thiev... no, wait, that last one is expected I guess!

No, it really has to be the expectation, otherwise the trait isn't going to get passed on. If the majority of people are specifically not playing into their race's "specialization", yet still breed just as successfully, then that supposed "specialization" will disappear over time. There isn't anything driving the trait to remain in the population and random mutation will breed it out. This has been observed, for example, in certain types of GMO that managed to cross-breed with wild vegetation. For instance, the Bt gene found in various modified pesticide-resistant crops was observed to enter wild strains. Within just a few generations the Bt gene was completely gone from the wild population, however, as its advantage (being resistant to a particular pesticide) was useless in the wild, where said pesticide was not sprayed. So if Altmer aren't all mages, Bosmer aren't all archers, etc., then these racial advantages should actually disappear pretty quickly, via this very mechanism of evolution that you are alleging to justify the existence of said racials.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

The one place where expectations come into it is the realm of heroes. No farmers here, just fighters and mages, rogues and whatever else gets the job done. Here there are expectations... like that a wood elf will win the archery contest again this year, or that the "best spellslinger" prize will most likely be contested by a breton and a altmer.
And if a argonian wins the archery contest, or a nord trounces both the breton and altmer contestants... that would be an exception, and thus noticed more then five years of bosmer archery wins of altmer mage prizes.
Still doesn't mean that argonian traded his swimming speed for bow skillz, or the nord handed in his cold resistance for more magica, I say!

Sorry, what? Source? How does this even help your argument? These are just more hypotheticals that presuppose your conclusion, and it's completely out of left field besides. Who specifically are these heroes? Where are these archery competitions? Why can you not seem to decide if heroes are the expectation or the exception? This whole paragraph is a trainwreck of [citation needed]. Honestly, just to take one example, when we see fiction of famous archers I can hardly recall any being Bosmer. Take books like The Gold Ribbon of Merit, Vernaccus and Bourlor, or The Black Arrow. These exceptions are just piling up! It's exceptions all the way down!

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

This is also not about racial advantages being underdeveloped as there is still no lore evidence for those existing.

Wrong.
Racial descriptions.
Right from the "overgods" of the world, the great makers, the first creators, the ones who made the big decisions.

You may want to keep nitpicking that this is not lore because you seem to limit the term to the in-game lore... but as I said, the objective OoC descriptions are just as much part of the game lore, and stronger then any in-game book as they are not shaded by any subjective filter.

Dude if the "objective OoC descriptions" don't match up with anything in the rest of the game then they are just not reliable descriptions. It's much more likely that these gross essentializations of entire races are merely products of historic and unexamined game design traditions than actual word-of-god unassailable fortresses of True Lore. Especially since, again, they are internally inconsistent and you have to pick and choose which ones you want to be the real lore.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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?

Read it again. Not the stats, but the racial -descriptions-!
See?

Even in TES:Battlespire, they had the "racial traits" in the race descriptions. And those are the "true lore" you ask for, while the game stats are just the depictions in that particular game.

And that is the core of my argument...

I stand by the descriptions, and argue about the depictions.
You seem to want to throw it all away, give the work of the original developers the finger, and make up your own ideas.
And I disagree with that, I still say we should stay within the descriptions, and change the depictions in the game rules to make them less... exclusive. Make it possible for people to play as they want, even if in some combinations they might have to play a bit more to reach the same effect - but have a way that -lets- them reach the same final effect, no matter where they start from.

Oh so not the stats, but instead the race traditions are the "true lore" by your standards. Cool, more proof of inconsistency. Where did the Altmer description for immunity to paralyzation go? It was in the race description for three of the games (Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire). What of the Redugards? Their descriptions for Arena and Daggerfall only say that "legend has it that the Redguard are innately more proficient at weapons than any other race." Doesn't sound too sure of itself. Oh and here's some from Shadowkey "Redguard, common for Ra' Gada, hail from the continent of Yakuda [sic]. They have descended from a long line of warriors and mystic seers." Wait so Redguards are magic now? That would explain why their class in TES: Legends is Battlemage. But also reveals some inconsistency. HMMMMM. Which to pick which to pick. There's more inconsistencies, of course, but it hardly seems right to make an exhaustive list of all of them just for this post.

I'm not giving the original developers the finger any more than they've given themselves the finger, repeatedly, by reinventing, reimagining, broadening, and adding nuance to the races of Tamriel with each new game, even if we're just limiting ourselves to your sacred game descriptions. So which game descriptions are we going to pick to decide the nonsense direction an entire race is supposed to take? Make sure to pick only the juiciest cherries when deciding or you might wind up with fake lore!

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

That was not what I said.
I said, if you want to -change the basics-, you have to buy the license for that privilege.
Or make up your own fantasy world, with your own lore and rules.
But starting any criticism of an -elder scrolls- game with "throw away the elder scrolls flavor and do what I say" is pretty arrogant I think... so I for one try to make my suggestions in ways that keep to the flavor of the elder scrolls, and work with the depictions of them in the game rules, instead of saying "forget everything we had in the prior games and do something completely different"

That is completely within the spirit of what you said and what you are saying. You didn't say "change the basics" you said "change the game design". I don't know why you want to limit my criticism of the game design elements to thinks that you've independently decided are the essential and immutable aspects of TES game design, especially when they are specifically not immutable and have evolved over the course of the series' history. The racial descriptions have changed, the stat bonuses/special abilities have changed, and the in-game depictions through lorebooks, dialogue, and NPCs have continuously given a very nuanced depiction of the races which exudes complexity and resists essentialism. We're better off with the race descriptions giving a brief culture overview than having these inconsistent attempts to tie in racial buffs to a series that I firmly believe has the depth to move past such tired and silly mechanics.

Recremen wrote: »

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Well, I suppose that tells us something about the quality of your thoughts. Nedes? Atmorans? Yokudans? Ring a bell?

I guess that tells us something about the quality of your research, or the lack thereof. What physical and/or magickal changes occurred over time to these races? That was your argument, right, that there were specific changes made over time? Please reference the lorebooks, character dialogues, etc. which lays out the actual differences between Nedes and their descendants, Atmorans and theirs, or Yokudans and theirs. Oh wait there aren't any and your whole argument is founded on completely baseless inference. We have no reason to believe that these "changes" were anything but a shift in name and cultural, except possibly in the case of Aldmer which I'll address in the next section.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

We do have some that changed via magickal means, such as the Chimer changing to the Dunmer, the Aldmer changing to the Altmer...

...which was not magical at all, just... you guessed it.
The aldmer who settled the summerset isles changed over time into the altmer, not through divine intervention. So did the ones that changed into chimer, though turning those to dunmer was obviously a daedric fiat, same with the orsimer origin.

Also, its kinda a point of pride with the altmer that they remain closest to altmer. You'd think they'd have noticed some great magical transformation messing up their story there, huh?

There is no description of there being a physical difference between Altmer and Aldmer. If you're going to make these wild claims then reference the sources and explain why you feel comfortable making such inferences. The only thing we have to go on is that Altmer are considered to have come from the Aldmer (with nothing actually being stated about physical changes) and the Aldmer were descended from the et'Ada, and this process is described as "Each generation was weaker than the last, and soon there were Aldmer." If we're going to make any inferences here then it is necessarily a magickal change as these people became more mortal and less et'Ada with each passing generation. There is certainly no adaptation over generations.

So the Aldmer -> Altmer being out of the way, and with you admitting that all the other races got their shape via magickal processes, we have one strike against your apparent thesis that racials make sense as some kind of slow environmental adaptation. I know people love the UESP (me included) but these claims are simply not backed up upon a careful review of the source material.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

No reference... except the racial descriptions in the lore, you mean?

My point stands, when a racial trait is acquired by divine intervention, like for example orsimer getting their mystical elven blood transformed into physical toughness when trinimac became malacath, then it follows that this trait is even more coupled with the race then a trait merely aquired through generations upon generations of living in ther lands of ice and snow, right? Because the latter could plausibly be gotten by another tribe living there (and thus the case could be made for reachmen having a mix of breton and nord passives); but something that took aedric or daedric power to bring into being?

Yes, that is precisely what I mean. There is simply no evidence for racial abilities in the lore beyond the character select descriptions, which as I've said, and will apparently have to keep repeating, are internally inconsistent.

And your point does not stand, it falls flat on its face with a complete lack of evidence. There is nothing in The True Nature of Orcs or other such source material which states that Orcs had their "mystical elven blood transformed into physical toughness" or anything of the sort. This is a fabrication of your own design. It is not even mentioned in your beloved character select descriptions. Where, then, are you drawing this info? If you are going to play lore scholar then back up specific claims with specific evidence.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Pick a race and go over their creation myth...

...and you get only myth and self-congratulations, yeah, yeah, we know.
But the more objective racial descriptions are a different matter, because while the former are the race themselves telling a story that makes them look good in their eyes, the latter is basically the original developers telling the players how they wanted each race to be.

Descriptions which, again, are internally inconsistent. Which version of Breton are we going with? The one where their elven blood gives them magickal powers or the one where "hardiness is also part of their heritage"? (Shadowkey description) Which developer stance do we cherrypick when deciding the true lore? And if races can be so easily essentialized, why does the race description fail to actually describe the majority of that race? That's just bad data science at that point. You could never pull that off in real life. "The French are a haughty but highly charismatic people known for their bardic and culinary traditions. They gain a +15 when composing Classical music for the piano and once per day may create a Food that provides extra health regen for one hour." It's completely ridiculous but that's exactly the kind of thing going on in these racial descriptions and bonuses.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

We don't see adaptations among real human populations with that sort of power.

Really?
You are saying, if I get my pasty white arse down to africa I will be handling the burning sun just as well as a pigmentally enhanced african native? Puh-leeze!

You mean like the literally millions of pasty white people who already live in Africa? Yeah, I think you'd do fine. In fact why don't we break this down more thoroughly so you can see how negligible "race" differences are. We know that dark skin can give an effective SPF of 13 and up to double the amount of protection from UV radiation (courtesy of Harvad's Beth Israel Dermatology group). Wow, amazing, that means like a 50% resistance to fire, right?? Or at least to ionizing radiation??? No, that means twice the protection from sunburn-causing UV radiation that hits the earth, only a fraction of which passes through the atmosphere to the ground, and which is measured on the order of milliwatts per meter squared (courtesy of the UV index). That is, the difference in protection is in fractions of a single-watt range. Our CP passives don't even have that much granularity. But you want to say that 9% frost resist makes sense as an evolutionary trait? When, again, there is no evidence in the lore that such evolution even took place? Honey no.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Yes, I am doing exactly that.
Because the lore is not limited to the in-game lore, even more important then that are the developer mandated descriptions. Because the in-game lore is always a subjective thing, written to be shaded through the fictional origins point of view... but the developer descriptions is the -actual- makers of the world telling the players how they decided things should be.

Sorry if that is unclear to you.

The developer descriptions which are, again, entirely inconsistent between games? It seems a lot more likely that the incredible wealth of in-game depictions, which feature incredibly complex people who can't be so easily shoe-horned into a race description, and which were ALSO made by the developers, should be considered as more authoritative than a single character creation description that has no supporting evidence and is purely fueled by industry tradition instead of an honest look at the game universe. The only thing "unclear" to me is why you'd value these inconsistent blurbs meant to convey game mechanics over the actual world and characters as they appear in game. It's just more cherrrypicking what you want to be canon. What other game mechanics are we supposed to assume are hard canon? The persuasion wheel from Oblivion? Magickal mount summoning with a whistle? Are attributes canon or not canon?

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

And I say it doesn't. No more then D&D giving elves +1 to bow and longsword did. Does that mean every elf in D&D campaining must be an archer or swordsman? I have seen enough elven mages to know this is not so. Played one or two, even.

And once again, a race having a perk that makes them a bit better at one thing does not mean every single one of that race must be that one thing, nor does it mean everyone who is that thing must have had a perk giving them an edge at it.

You saying that it doesn't and providing evidence that it doesn't are two different things. I never made the claim that every single one of a race must be the one thing that their race has a bonus to (you're just strawmanning at this point), my argument is that it doesn't make any sense for the perk to exist at all. I can't speak to the lore for D&D, but in TES games the racials are simple not supported anywhere outside the character creation screen. There is no explicit reference to them in the rest of the lore and there are no logical inferences to make in support of them. There is no description of magickal imbuing or slow evolutionary changes to account for them or any other such evidence. They exist in a total lore vacuum and nothing would be lost, nor any inconsistencies introduced, if they were gone.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Except the developers made it so anyway, most likely to depict those races (seeing how the redguards share that penalty with nords and male orcs) are more physically inclined then mental. Which makes quite a bit of sense considering their depiction, yes?

No, most likely it's a boring game design tradition with no basis in the rest of the game world. If the devs wanted to show that redguards were more physically inclined then why didn't they keep that messaging up in the rest of the game, such as when they were writing the lorebooks, designing the NPCs, etc? If we're trying to draw sense from their depiction, then we don't come to the conclusion that they're more physically inclined. We come to the conclusion that they're a diverse people with a myriad of interests and professions, same as every other race. That conclusion is backed up by dialogue, books, and the wide gamut of NPCs in the games. Even the rare bits which might support such essentialization (such as some of the generic dialogue options about races in Morrowind) are inconsistent both internally and externally. We could ignore these inconsistencies if we want to be dishonest, but that's not where truth lies.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Once again, you are postulating a connection where none exists.
A race having a perk benefitting one thing does not mean every one of that race will be that thing.
Someone being that thing does not mean they must have had a perk benefitting it either.

And again, strawmanning. I never made that argument. Try reading whole paragraphs instead of drawing conclusions from your misreading of the first sentence. If racials are supposed to make sense, then there should be some logical reason for their existence. We have already ruled out evidence for divine intervention (again, feel free to provide believable counterexamples where the gods are described as giving a racial bonus to their favored people). All that's left is this supposed evolution over time, and as I've been saying there just isn't evidence for such physical changes to have taken place. If there was selective breeding pressure to cause these racial advantages then we should see most of the race filling that role. The whole point of a species/race advantage is that it is more likely to lead to survival and the passing on of the relevant genes. But if these races are living in complex societies where people can fill much more niche roles then we specifically don't have those pressures! The "good archery" genes aren't going to get passed on to every Bosmer because the "good mammoth herder" or "good Spinner" genes were just as successful. That's one of the interesting quirks of civilization, you don't see these overwhelming selective pressures.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

Once again, racial trait is NOT an expectation.
Its an perk, one that some will develop, and others won't.
Citing examples from those who deceloped in other directions then the one their race has an advantage in means nothing, because -duh- of course the majority will develop as needed by their life and not as advantaged by their race. So if an altmer grows up as the heir to an farm, they will develop farming skills and not sorcery. But that will not exactly make them "act out of the expection", now will it? Because there is NO expection, no matter how magical altmer blood may be, noone expects all altmer to be mages, just like noone expects all bosmer to be archers, or all orcs to be warriors, or all khajiit to be thiev... no, wait, that last one is expected I guess!

No, it really has to be the expectation, otherwise the trait isn't going to get passed on. If the majority of people are specifically not playing into their race's "specialization", yet still breed just as successfully, then that supposed "specialization" will disappear over time. There isn't anything driving the trait to remain in the population and random mutation will breed it out. This has been observed, for example, in certain types of GMO that managed to cross-breed with wild vegetation. For instance, the Bt gene found in various modified pesticide-resistant crops was observed to enter wild strains. Within just a few generations the Bt gene was completely gone from the wild population, however, as its advantage (being resistant to a particular pesticide) was useless in the wild, where said pesticide was not sprayed. So if Altmer aren't all mages, Bosmer aren't all archers, etc., then these racial advantages should actually disappear pretty quickly, via this very mechanism of evolution that you are alleging to justify the existence of said racials.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

The one place where expectations come into it is the realm of heroes. No farmers here, just fighters and mages, rogues and whatever else gets the job done. Here there are expectations... like that a wood elf will win the archery contest again this year, or that the "best spellslinger" prize will most likely be contested by a breton and a altmer.
And if a argonian wins the archery contest, or a nord trounces both the breton and altmer contestants... that would be an exception, and thus noticed more then five years of bosmer archery wins of altmer mage prizes.
Still doesn't mean that argonian traded his swimming speed for bow skillz, or the nord handed in his cold resistance for more magica, I say!

Sorry, what? Source? How does this even help your argument? These are just more hypotheticals that presuppose your conclusion, and it's completely out of left field besides. Who specifically are these heroes? Where are these archery competitions? Why can you not seem to decide if heroes are the expectation or the exception? This whole paragraph is a trainwreck of [citation needed]. Honestly, just to take one example, when we see fiction of famous archers I can hardly recall any being Bosmer. Take books like The Gold Ribbon of Merit, Vernaccus and Bourlor, or The Black Arrow. These exceptions are just piling up! It's exceptions all the way down!

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

This is also not about racial advantages being underdeveloped as there is still no lore evidence for those existing.

Wrong.
Racial descriptions.
Right from the "overgods" of the world, the great makers, the first creators, the ones who made the big decisions.

You may want to keep nitpicking that this is not lore because you seem to limit the term to the in-game lore... but as I said, the objective OoC descriptions are just as much part of the game lore, and stronger then any in-game book as they are not shaded by any subjective filter.

Dude if the "objective OoC descriptions" don't match up with anything in the rest of the game then they are just not reliable descriptions. It's much more likely that these gross essentializations of entire races are merely products of historic and unexamined game design traditions than actual word-of-god unassailable fortresses of True Lore. Especially since, again, they are internally inconsistent and you have to pick and choose which ones you want to be the real lore.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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?

Read it again. Not the stats, but the racial -descriptions-!
See?

Even in TES:Battlespire, they had the "racial traits" in the race descriptions. And those are the "true lore" you ask for, while the game stats are just the depictions in that particular game.

And that is the core of my argument...

I stand by the descriptions, and argue about the depictions.
You seem to want to throw it all away, give the work of the original developers the finger, and make up your own ideas.
And I disagree with that, I still say we should stay within the descriptions, and change the depictions in the game rules to make them less... exclusive. Make it possible for people to play as they want, even if in some combinations they might have to play a bit more to reach the same effect - but have a way that -lets- them reach the same final effect, no matter where they start from.

Oh so not the stats, but instead the race traditions are the "true lore" by your standards. Cool, more proof of inconsistency. Where did the Altmer description for immunity to paralyzation go? It was in the race description for three of the games (Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire). What of the Redugards? Their descriptions for Arena and Daggerfall only say that "legend has it that the Redguard are innately more proficient at weapons than any other race." Doesn't sound too sure of itself. Oh and here's some from Shadowkey "Redguard, common for Ra' Gada, hail from the continent of Yakuda [sic]. They have descended from a long line of warriors and mystic seers." Wait so Redguards are magic now? That would explain why their class in TES: Legends is Battlemage. But also reveals some inconsistency. HMMMMM. Which to pick which to pick. There's more inconsistencies, of course, but it hardly seems right to make an exhaustive list of all of them just for this post.

I'm not giving the original developers the finger any more than they've given themselves the finger, repeatedly, by reinventing, reimagining, broadening, and adding nuance to the races of Tamriel with each new game, even if we're just limiting ourselves to your sacred game descriptions. So which game descriptions are we going to pick to decide the nonsense direction an entire race is supposed to take? Make sure to pick only the juiciest cherries when deciding or you might wind up with fake lore!

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

That was not what I said.
I said, if you want to -change the basics-, you have to buy the license for that privilege.
Or make up your own fantasy world, with your own lore and rules.
But starting any criticism of an -elder scrolls- game with "throw away the elder scrolls flavor and do what I say" is pretty arrogant I think... so I for one try to make my suggestions in ways that keep to the flavor of the elder scrolls, and work with the depictions of them in the game rules, instead of saying "forget everything we had in the prior games and do something completely different"

That is completely within the spirit of what you said and what you are saying. You didn't say "change the basics" you said "change the game design". I don't know why you want to limit my criticism of the game design elements to thinks that you've independently decided are the essential and immutable aspects of TES game design, especially when they are specifically not immutable and have evolved over the course of the series' history. The racial descriptions have changed, the stat bonuses/special abilities have changed, and the in-game depictions through lorebooks, dialogue, and NPCs have continuously given a very nuanced depiction of the races which exudes complexity and resists essentialism. We're better off with the race descriptions giving a brief culture overview than having these inconsistent attempts to tie in racial buffs to a series that I firmly believe has the depth to move past such tired and silly mechanics.

Holy God.

I feel sorry for the poster who tries to respond to this. ^^

@Recremen I didn't want to quote your long post just above because it is so long but essentially my response is this: Nord actually was 100% Resistant to Frost and 50% resistant to lightning along with its really strong innate physical resistance in Morrowind. The 9% to Frost they get in ESO is fairly mellow by comparison. If I remember rightly Nords also had a frost punch and some kind of shout type effect in Morrowind as well. I could look it up but it really isn't that important.

At the same time I think your French example makes a good point about the ridiculousness of racial descriptions in games, but in all seriousness the racial descriptions in games is meant to bring you into a game world so you can understand what the different people groups are kind of like and about. It is a shallow level bit of information to immerse you in the world. Imperials are known for being lucky, good planners, conquerors and merchants. Nords are known for being loud, rolling around in the snow, and generally capable of drinking large amounts. They're also really good at taking a beating and keeping on fighting. Dunmer are known for beautiful artwork, magic, mushrooms and bugs, and weird daedra/tribunal stuff (honestly in my view the Dunmer is the race that Bethesda did the best job of fleshing out).

Anyway before this gets derailed too much I just want to say that I agree with @TheShadowScout that the real issue here is lack of soft caps or the way the bonuses races get are calculated. Fixed numbers would go a long way toward making the differences matter without mattering. Frankly, I had hoped that Racials and Champion Points would have involved one another in the realm of soft caps. This would have been a great way for them to balance the races, but no that's not what they chose to do.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

And that is what I am saying in a nutshell, keep that TES flavor, and change the -way- those differences are depicted, to make the races still different in some ways but not "must be that to play this" different!

And that is why I am an opponent of "percentage on top" passives, and would argue for "leg up at start" functions; instead of just saying "ditch it all and forget TES flavor".

Players dictate the meta, not the game, not the racial passives. What isn't 'meta' today can easily become 'meta' with the next patch, or the one after that. It doesn't matter what the racial passive change are ... there will always be a segment of players that:

a.) figure out how to squeeze some miniscule advantage from a racial passive, resulting in the creation of a new meta build; and
b.) see the grass greener somewhere else and complain loudly on the forums.


As long as competition exists in this game, there will always be meta builds; as long as people continue to substitute meta builds for game experience (i.e., game mastery), we either learn to accept and play along with the majority's meta preference, or we ignore the meta majority and have fun doing our own thing.

Yeah I agree, it would be nice if either the passives were chooseable or the remaining ones tied to race weren't about combat effectiveness. It'd be a much nicer Tamriel if people played races they wanted to rather than felt pressured to for stats.

It would be cool to see some Altmer warriors running around, and Khajiit mages. Of course, there already are some, but it's a shame that it has to be a sacrifice for stats for RP/cosmetic preferences, which keeps a lot of people from doing what they truly want.

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Maryal , with all respect, in many cases it's far from 'minuscule'. Take Altmer for instance; 10% of max magicka. With, say, 30k base max magicka, that would amount to extra ~300 spell damage. It's huge. If someone wants to play, say, khajiit mage, they'll have tough time compensating for such loss with skill alone, and someone similarly skilled will always blow them out of the water playing an altmer. People tend to underestimate just how much the racial passives matter.

My comment was directed to @TheShadowScout comment. Assuming changes were made in line with their suggestion, racial passive differences would likely be miniscule. The issue regarding racial passives was that they contribute to meta prejudice (for lack of a better term). I merely pointed out that, in a competitive gaming environment, people will take even a miniscule advantage and turn it into a meta build. Whether racial passives stay as they are now or change, there will always be meta chasers. In the end, we can't change how other people think or what they do ... we can only change ourselves. In other words, we can either go along with the meta majority or we can reject the meta and create our own fun.

Because of lore. The racial passives for the most part is accurate to lore except for a couple of things. I mean you can currently play a Nord/Redguard/Orc mage if you want and be effective. What you should be asking for is maybe a CP system that ties to you're prefer role. I don't really have an idea but that's what I would be asking for.