MyNameIsElias wrote: »

I would love for them to seperate races and racial passives. Redguard has really strong passives, but it's not the race i want my character to be

But to completely seperate them would be against the elder scrolls flavor!

So again, the middle way might be seperating the -strong passives- from the racial perks, leaving those still following the elder scrolls flavor but changed to something more "boost at the beginning" rather then "percentage on top in the end"... and making up some new passives for the strong perks to become attached to.

That way everyone could have the race they want, some races still would have it easier to become a strong warrior and others easier to become a strong mage... but in the end, those perks would not be an insurmountable advantage in the endgame that practically dictates "must be this to play that" as so many min/maxxing people will tell you... but just an easier road for some, and more work for others.

I for one would not mind working more to reach the same height for having a non-super-effective race/class combo on my characters.

@Thlepse , I don't understand you. Suppose you're minority. You're on orc born and raised by powerful mages on Artaeum. Since when you're supposed to be struggling with magic? Why? You just made an example of why orc would be struggling with magic, and you made it a pure upbringing case: clan, social circumstances. Nothing of that is actually racial. It's social. In Artaeum, minority of orcs don't have clans to hinder them, so why would they be struggling all of sudden?

Point in case, the assumption that all orcs are brought up in their clans and have no affinity for magic is very much like assumptions that all Canadians are born in hockey teams and have natural affinity for hockey. Current racial passives have little to do with race; they're national passives at best, or even occupational passives. Genes don't convey a skill of cutting purses or affinity for swordsmanship.

Iluvrien wrote: »

And yet even fixed value bonuses won't stop endgame players excluding "non-optimal" racial choices, no matter how thin the margin of optimisation.

The issue is not the racials system. The issue is the pressure that endgame and endgame players put on it.

Racial system is an issue because in its current state, it puts the meta-minded people in the right. One thing when someone mocks your bosmer tank because of some minuscule differences that matter only in that person's head, and completely another - when someone mocks your bosmer tank and and he's sort of has a point at that, and you realize it.

Recremen wrote: »

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Yeah, riiight. Like the nedes one day decided to just do a image makeover?

We do know from the lore that they were somehow different enough to be called a different name, and yet that their descendants became various other cultures, mixing with aldmer to become bretons, or mixing with cyro-nords and refugee akaviri humans to become imperials... so, are you saying there were no changes and bretons and imperials have the same physical characteridtics???

Oh Nedes? You mean the ones that are not at all different from the Nord game model?

[sarcasm]I wonder how anyone could tell them apart...[/sarcasm]

Seriously though, how do you come by that assumption?
Where in your much vaunted in-game lore does it say nedes are nords by a different name?
I mean, usually when two things have a different name, they are somewhat different, right?
That goes double for fantasy games where one group (known as the game developers) .named pretty much everything.

(unless its two different languages naming the same thing... do you have evidence for that, then? That "nedes" means "nord" in the chimer tongue?)

Recremen wrote: »

The ones that were wiped out by conquering Yokudans and assimilated into the Breton and Colovian peoples? ... Yeah, they did not "become various other cultures", they were consumed by them.

So which one?
Were they consumed or assimilated?
Make Up Your Mind!

Now, the thing here is, you have a place where nedes and direnni aldmer live together, and a era or so later you have bretons living in that place with a history of "mixed human and elven blood". You say, the bretons "assimilated" the nedes, "consuming" them like a cannibal feast so that no trace of the nedic people remains, I say the bretons are the -descendants- of the nedes and armorous direnni, having changed in race and culture over time, and so the nedes have in a way -become- the bretons.

And you have a place where nedes live as slaves of ayleid elves, and a era or so later you have imperials living in that place with a history of akaviri influences and glory tales of their successful slave uprising and invasion repulsing. You would say, the imperials "assimilated" the nedes, "consuming" so that no trace of the nedic people remains, I say the imperials too are the -descendants- of the nedes, with some akaviri men and cyro-nord blood thrown into the mix, having changed in race and culture over time, and so the nedes have in a way -become- the imperials.

And now we compare bretons and imperials... two descendant people of the nedes... and notice they are different! Woooo, surprise! Then we compare them all to the nords, who are according to you exactly like nedes... different again, oh my! And no daedric curse this time, just... time. And the passing of it.
So maaaybe there is something about races changing over time after all, huh?

(You are totrally right about the yokudans tho, they wiped out -everything- when they conquered the alik'r... and then got their own image makeover over time, and became known as the redguards, which may or may not have involved some change in physical attributes, since we never saw an yokudan of that time, we could not say. Maybe the redguards are half a head taller, or the yokudans had daker skin, or lighter, or whatever... the only onces who can decide that are the people at ZOS at this time, since they hold the creative license to make such decisions)

Recremen wrote: »

There is nothing to support your "change over time" hypothesis.

See above.
There is more then enough indication supporting it in the lore, and no indication at all to support a "races never change over time unless daedra ex machina" hypothesis you seem to enjoy...

Recremen wrote: »

Moreover, breeding between two subsets of humans does not lead to differences like a sudden affinity for being a warrior or a ridiculous frost resistance power. It leads to mixing of minor physical traits, not some kind of new environmental adaptation.

True.
Unless some trait was not so minor, like, oh... magical, maybe?

So it stands to reason, in a magical world like tamriel, if humans intermingled, a dominant magical trait might intermix with a different magical trait from the other side and maybe, just maybe combine into something new like alchemy recipes?

(and yeah, I know this is just a fluff construct the developers wrote into their lore to justify races being different because they wanted them be different for more game diversification. Doesn't change a thing, because that is STILL the vision the creators had for their elder scrolls!)

Recremen wrote: »

Specifically, there was at most a magickal change from Aldmer to Altmer as they became more removed from their et'Ada ancestors. There is no accompanying physical change mentioned, no adaptation to their environment, nothing.

How and where did you spot a "magical change", like the well documented ones with the orsimer and dunmer???
I only ever found a vague mention of the aldmer who stayed on the Summerset isles "becoming" the altmer... and while you are right that there is no physical change mentioned, there also is no mention of a lack of physical changes, and that begs the question, why the change in name then?

And the next question, why are they not the same as all the others, ayleids and chimer, which also sprang from aldmer settlers? And we -know- from the game that the altmer went golden-skinned, the aylaids a bit more bronze and the chimer somewhat silver... I mean, that does sound a lot like some sort of change, possibly "adaptation to living in different regions" to me, right? (the bosmer are a different story, and may actually have been the first mer to intermingle with men to change their elfy bloodlines. )

Much like a great many european people could trace their origins to middle eastern regions if we only went back a couple ten millenia... but despite that common origin you would find quite a bit of difference between an iberic celt and a noseman if you picked them from history and compared them, right?

Recremen wrote: »

You ought to call it literally anything else, since it is not described as an adaptation at all. In The Monomyth this process was described thus : "Some had to marry and make children just to last. Each generation was weaker than the last, and soon there were Aldmer." This is not an adaptation to the environment, this is very specifically a weakening of the spirits over generations.

And what else would you call a change over generations?
Especially a spiritual weakening -only- experienced by those who settled on the oh so limited -mortal- plane, and not their cousins who fled to more etheric realms???

It actually is a very common theme in myth if you think about it. Immortals who loose their immortality throgh life on the mortal plane. Because they change in reaction to mortal life around them. Or their children do, depending on the story.

Recremen wrote: »

Where does it say that all orcs are tough except in the game manual/character select descriptions, the very thing I am saying is not supported in the rest of the lore?

So you deny those parts of the developers writings that disagree with your point of view, and place in-world -subjective fiction- over OoC - objective description-???
(even tho those descriptions do change a little as they retcon their fluff through changing game mechanics - I said it before, the one "theme" that is shared counts, and the latest info supersedes prior info - as always in fictional universes plagued by changing circumstances and works)

Also, the descriptions never say "all", they are not an all-encompassing thing, they are a general thing.
When they say that "orcs are tough" only fool would assume that would apply to -every- orc... but it can be assumed that orcs value toghness, and the tougher an orc is the higher in status he or she will be..., and that the enduring of hardships is something orsimer grow up with, yes?
How's that for a few snippets from the "rest of the lore"?

Recremen wrote: »

Lets use one of your own arguments as an example : you claim that it's possible for someone of a particular race not to "develop" their racial affinity. But you also claim that the character select descriptions are the True Lore. Those descriptions don't give any leeway for people not developing their alleged racial affinity. At least one of your stances is wrong, and as I've been showing it's more likely that both of them are.

Not so.
I say again:
The racial perks mentioned in the descriptions are just that - and true across the -race-.
If any -individual- develops them (aka, spends skill points in these passives) is up to their -upbringing-

The lore of the racial descriptions do not preclude any individual of that race not following the racial affinity, just like someone with an genetic affinity for sports could still choose to become a nerdy couch potato much to the aggrivation of their sporty dad, or someone with an affinity for languages could still leave that unused if they never ever listened to anything but their villages native speech. Not that any race has such an great affinity in RL anyhow, as you did mention - here its just minor stuff like not getting sunburned as quickly, or doing better at high altitudes and so on. Obviously the developers of this fantasy world wanted it to be more noticable... far beyond the scope or realism noticable.
So?
That IS their choice. They decide how they want to build their fantasy world.

Just like the makers of D&D decided elves should have more agility and less constitution, plus a bit of night vision, plus some bonus to finding secret doors and resistance against sleep... hmmm... maybe charm too, cannot recall, its been -ages-, and a bonus with sword and bow.

But that sort of decision IS the game developers prerogative, is it not?

And who knows, maybe the game designers argued about this just like we do now, back in the day. Obviously they in the end choose to go with noticeable differences, and thus... that became the "TES flavor".

You can keep disagreeing with it, I for one will not waste my efforts trying to argue for a rewrite of the past to suit my ideas, and instead feel content to woth with what we have...

Recremen wrote: »

You're stretching pretty badly with that. While you certainly should take the lorebooks with a grain of salt, comparing them to comics is an incredibly poor and intellectually bankrupt move, especially as superpowers actually exist in the TES universe. Are we supposed to believe that these depictions aren't realistic within their own universe?

Do you know how many "realistic" descriptions we had in our universe that ended up thrown out because they were blatantly subjective? Especially the ones about how great the authors race is and how subhuman all the other races are... we here in the german speaking bits of europe had quite a bit of trouble with these eighty-five or so years ago...

And thus the in-world books should be seen in the scope of the society they are written for - how accurate do you think books were during the middle ages, when people often made their money selling tall tales as supposed "truth about the new world" (whatever "new world" they were currently "discovering")?

Heck, forget the real world, how -accurate- would you count anything written by Narsis Dres, having met the bufffoon in your questing???
And how many of the other books are written in the same state of mind by their authors you just did not meet?

So I say, the racial descriptions depict the -writers- intent, much like the writers notations as to what, say, spidermans powers are spoosed to be as they envision them... while the in-world fiction ranges from... Oscorp internal memos to JJJ's Daily Bungle articles on spiderman.

And that is why I find it a little annoying when someone tried to pick and choose what lore they deem "acceptable". Or when they make false conclusions in the light of "If there is no explicit mentjon, it does not exist, no matter how much logical indication there is for it".
Because what exists and what does not - that untilately is also the developers call to make. All we can do here is point out what would be likely, and what would be clashing with something mentioned somewhere...

Recremen wrote: »

I know what I want and make suggestions based on that, same as everyone else. I'm not doing anything fundamentally different than any other critique or suggestion. It's not any different from suggesting jewelrycrafting, housing, the outfit system, stealing, a provisioning overhaul, etc., all of which were player suggestions at one point. Not that player suggestion was the only thing leading to those systems, but I'm not going to feel bad about suggesting a different direction to take things.

I think the difference is in suggesting -additions- and -adjustments- to the existing system, and suggesting throwing the existing flavor away and doing it anew from scratch.

Recremen wrote: »

The argument, abbridged for your convenience, is this : If a species has some particular attribute, then there is selective pressure for that attribute in the population. If members of the species which do no express that attribute are just as likely to survive and pass on offspring, then that attribute ceases having a selective pressure and eventually disappears.

Ah, so if a attribute had no -physical- value,. but still a -coultural- one, then it would be bred for despite being non-essential to survival, just from cultural pressure? Like, say... looking good? Or twirling a sword well in case od redguards?

Recremen wrote: »

You mean the reasons that were already ruled out by carefully stepping back to the source material and not finding evidence for it/giving scientific reasons for their nonexistence? These are reasons you are making up, not ones that are explicitly stated or even indirectly implied.

You "ruled out" being lizardlike as possible cause for any argonian racial perks?
How about the daedric curses that made orsimer and dunmer what hey are - ruled out as cause for any racial perks they might display, hmm?
And the magically gifted elf blood due to their diluted but still valid et'ada ancestry... ruled out?
How and when did you rule that out?
In your own mind, and then just assume because you think so that is how it is?
You do realize that is not how the world works, right?

Again, just because it is not mentioned where you like it does not mean you can call it "ruled out", (and most of it is, though much of in in form it logical connections - one thing is mentioned here, another thing there, the logical assumption is they are somehow connected, like argonian lizardish body and their swimming bonus...); you would have to bring -evidence aagainst it- to make that claim.

Do you -have- evidence that any of those things are NOT the case? Hmm?

Recremen wrote: »

I've continuously addressed these points and done my research before responding by going back over the source material to be sure I actually know what I'm talking about. I'm asking for evidence because I have the utmost confidence there is none, and am sure that you would come to the same conclusion if you actually put the work in.

Already gave more then enough "evidence" from the racial descriptions, and some from secondary lore as well.
You keep reminding me of someone who goes "If it isn't in the bible, it isn't evidence" whenever someone brings something they do not like.

Recremen wrote: »

I mean in TES, sure, "creationism" is specifically the thing that happened.

Truth, that.

But "natural selection", or sometimes "unnatural selection" also seems to be a thing. Though I guess that often reflects in combat prowess and which race drives out the other, or gets conquered and enslaved, or intermixes with their conqueroirs into a new race, etc.

Recremen wrote: »

I read the texts, try to determine if there is mention or implication of some kind of evolutionary effect, and report my findings.

So you are saying... what? That there is no evolution in tamriel? That the aldmer never changed into altmer, ayleids, chimer, maormer? That the nedes never changed to bretons and imperials? That the minotaurs never devolved from their state of alessian times? That everyone is and has forever been the same???

Did you find any mention or implication that noone ever changed? If not, how can you be sure it didn't happen? Especially when we have indications it happened, unless some races were prone to random renaming ceremonies for no good reason...

Recremen wrote: »

The massive Nord diaspora living perfectly healthy lives in non-cold environs begs to differ, as do all of the non-Nords who DO live in the cold regions (Orsimer frost resist when?). Ditto the Dunmer, plenty of whom in their own province don't live near volcanoes, but in lush fungal forests.

Why the faulty reasoning again?
If we assume a nord has cold resistance which we know they have in the elder scrolls universe... then how does that have anything to do with them also living in non-cold regions (where they often strip because they feel too hot. And yeah, that may be just a "fer da lulz" comic relief, but...)

A better case could be made for the nord cold resistance -not- being tied to their habitat, but... I dunno, some gift frm Kyne so they can climb mountains and shout in the winds?

Recremen wrote: »

They might, but I suspect there's strong selective breeding pressures for Argonians to keep scales regardless of how useful they are in Black Marsh. A beautiful scaly Argonian gets more tail and breeds more successfully than their scaleless mutant cousing Keego, I'd wager.

Most likely, indeed.
But the same could be said for all those well muscled ra'gada-traditionalist warriors showing off their well honed pecs while practicing with their curved swords to all the sentinel girls, rrright? Even if they later inherit their fathers farm and never go on to become a great swordsman, it still is what their culture decrees as "desirable", is it not? While all those redguards who instead study books remain virgins (and thus according to internet memes, become wizards by default), with the occasional wedgie given by the warrior jocks, I imagine (or maybe I am just watching too much highschool anime )

Recremen wrote: »

Also (and not super important to this convo but just as an aside) the "kids have the traits of the mother" is possibly not strictly 100% true, as I recall there being a stink about certain ESO families where the kids of some interracial couples appear to be the race of the father.

Well, it IS in the lore, and the in-game lore you so highly value...
As for those families, I had always assumed the kids were from a prior engagement (as I assume people die a lot because planemeld and monsters and stuff, and their widows/ers remarry). Is there any evidence I missed contrary to that notion?

Recremen wrote: »

But that's not the context with which these stories are delivered. They aren't memorable because of race dynamics, they are standalone feats that are interesting and make for good stories.

True enough. But they are standalone feats that are performed by -unlikely- protagonists. And thus newsworthy! And thus make for a better tale as the hundreth-and-first bosmer who's best at arrows in his generation, or altmer who is the greatest spellsinger of the age (in their own mind anyhow).

It does not need to be pointed out explicitely to work that way, since this is how stories become remembered. The First. The Best. The Last. The Worst. And... The Unlikely One.

Ask yourself, what story will be more widely spread, the reigning champion punching out some noob in the first round, or the unlikely nobody somehow standing up to the champion for the duration? Which story will they make a movie about in hollywood?
And likewise, that's the kind of story they will make a book about in Tamriel.

Recremen wrote: »

How is it common knowledge if nobody mentions it or observes it first hand?

Its common enough that when someone asked the developer to "sum up the race in a few short lines", THAT is what gets mentioned.

Again, that is what the racial descriptions are, the "common knowledge" depiction of the races flavor, as decreed by the game developers. Admittedly, changing in some details, as fluff often does with game system changes... but the gist of it remains, and the latest info supersedes the prior as things may or may not be retconned to fit the newest game incarnation.

But I guess you will just say you do not accept those, again, huh?

Recremen wrote: »

Well, as I've pointed out many times already, the inconsistencies are a pretty good indicator that the True Lore is more complex than a couple of sentences in a character select screen. I do trust the descriptions to be evocative and quick insights into the culture of the races (like yeah, Altmer have historied magickal traditions, Imperials have spent their time soldiering and dealing to build an empire, the Nordic homeland gets chilly in the winter, etc.), but saying that a whole race has an affinity for blacksmithing or whatever is just too much of a stretch for me.

Oh? Don't let a middle earth dwarf hear that!

But yeah, blacksmithing as -racial- perk may be a little far-fetched. Not so crafting in general, if you assume a nomadic people where everyone has to maintain their own gear perhaps... and orsimer were nomadic for many a century, thanks to some jerks always destroying their orsinium...

In the end, I think I would prefer to stop here and not continue to exchange arguments with you, as it is pretty clear we both made our respective points, and we won't change our respective minds, so lets just agree to disagree on those points, shall we?

I still stand by my opinion that is is a better way to think about ways to -add- and -adjust- the existing "Elder Scrolls" flavor rather then just throw it out and do without it. Not in the least because that is a good deal of how I like it, even when it may not get me the most effective characters at times (since I always build for character and not for META)