MLGProPlayer wrote: »Since when does a race represent every individual member that belongs to it?
Going by this logic, the Morag Tong and the Welkynar should not exist because elves cannot be gifted assassins and swordsmen.
Shalidor should not have existed because Nords cannot be gifted in magic.
There should not be any non-Altmer/Dunmer on Artaeum because only Altmer/Dunmer are gifted in magic. The Orc and Redguard members we run into surely can't be real (they're probably some kind of illusion). Orcs and Redguards are simply not proficient enough in magic to meet the standards of the most powerful mage cult in the world. Right?
bellanca6561n wrote: »I was looking at another of one of those...polls, this one about some talk of upcoming "rebalancing" of racial passives.
Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?
Nope.
The passives are what define the race.
But to completely seperate them would be against the elder scrolls flavor!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
John_Falstaff wrote: »@Thlepse , being born and brought up in your clan is a huge assumption on the part of someone's personal story. Same thing with everything that is defined by upbringing. So no, such passives are not lore friendly in slightest, because they mix up social factors (brought up in a clan and thus have no affinity for magic) and genetics (born an orc, and doesn't matter if brought up in Artaeum). Passives like that prevent people from actually having their own individuality.
Drummerx04 wrote: »In before "this is like asking for vampire passives without being hideous"
MLGProPlayer wrote: »Since when does a race represent every individual member that belongs to it?
Going by this logic, the Morag Tong and the Welkynar should not exist because elves cannot be gifted assassins and swordsmen.
Shalidor should not have existed because Nords cannot be gifted in magic.
There should not be any non-Altmer/Dunmer on Artaeum because only Altmer/Dunmer are gifted in magic. The Orc and Redguard members we run into surely can't be real (they're probably some kind of illusion). Orcs and Redguards are simply not proficient enough in magic to meet the standards of the most powerful mage cult in the world. Right?
bellanca6561n wrote: »Plus this is the 21st Century after all, for what that's worth
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.
dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »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.
It is made worse with the fact that Altmer and Dunmer get bonus elemental damage on top of their bonus magic%. You just can't compete with a guy who is doing 15% more fire damage than you.
This is why fixed number bonuses are better. They make such benefit types more powerful at lower levels and less meaningful at higher levels (which would be wonderful).
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.
bellanca6561n wrote: »Wow....that made for some interesting reading. I was keenly curious about how people felt. And now I know. This has been my first Elder Scrolls game and, thus, my first exposure to the lore and such.
Personally, my favorite races are Dunmer and Redguard but I never felt *forced* into those decisions. Someone, objecting to these racial passives, said in another topic, "I want to make beautiful characters again," in this case hoping for some Nord love in the changes. Well, I'll confess that looks figured ABSOLUTELY into my character creation decisions but beauty is subjective.
But I became concerned that there might be something else behind people complaining about being forced to become a Redguard or what may be behind this notion of, "...beautiful characters."
It wasn't just the strange zone chat in the Alik'r, or the fact that my sole Redguard using the bank in Belkarth was the only character getting mud packs thrown at her in that bank. The complaints that Dunmer gals all have "a resting *** face" and "You can't make a Dark Elf female look like a Western woman." There was also this,
[Snip]
You see this sort of thing in every game and we've seen lots more of it in the past couple of years for obvious reasons. But it got me to wondering if there wasn't something fundamentally wrong about the idea of fixed racial traits, something insidious and irresponsible beyond gameplay.
The majority of ESO players view their characters as gear. And they choose gear based on their play style and their desire to be effective players. But most of these are not wholly fantasy races. Thus darker motives come into play. And thus I wondered if racial passives, if not the creators of a problem, nonetheless exacerbate it.
Just let players make the characters they want, the characters attractive to them, with attributes consistent with the game's mechanics. Does it violate the lore? When you have all races represented in the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild, as well as singature NPCs cast against stereotype, I think not.
More lore breaking, in my view, is the legion of Redguard player characters choosing white skin and blue eyes. And why do you think that happens? It's okay to not find dark skin attractive. Quite another to make a dark skinned race a white race because of the racial passives of Redguards.
[Edit to remove inappropriate content]
MLGProPlayer wrote: »Since when does a race represent every individual member that belongs to it?
Going by this logic, the Morag Tong and the Welkynar should not exist because elves cannot be gifted assassins and swordsmen.
Shalidor should not have existed because Nords cannot be gifted in magic.
There should not be any non-Altmer/Dunmer on Artaeum because only Altmer/Dunmer are gifted in magic. The Orc and Redguard members we run into surely can't be real (they're probably some kind of illusion). Orcs and Redguards are simply not proficient enough in magic to meet the standards of the most powerful mage cult in the world. Right?
Imagine yourself, being a young and good looking Orc (good luck on the last one). Everyone in your clan learns from a very young age to swing a battle axe or a sturdy shield or is just hammering the anvil. Who would teach you the art of arcane magic? The crafter? The savage sword master? You can't have access to the very deep mysteries of magic inside your clan. Your only choice is to leave your clan behind and travel in some place where you will find someone to teach you. There you are, you are a minority like Shalidor was among Nords. You can either be a minority or a wanderer who chose to leave his clan and his kin to chase his own ambitions.
And yes, Orcs and Redguards aren't proficient enough to meet the standards because their society doesn't support that.
You CAN be an Orc/Redguard/Wood Elf/Khajiit/Nord mage but you can't be as good as an Altmer/Dunmer/Breton is. This is my POV and it's based entirely on TES lore.
bellanca6561n wrote: »Can we just STOP tying character passives to RACE?
Because money. ZOS needs to sell those darn race change tickets
Frankly, it's very clear ZOS is waaaaaay overthinking on how to balance this game and they don't want to admit that the only way to fix it so they can move on to something better and more meaningful, is to bring back Soft Caps!!
When we had soft caps, the game was much more balanced than it is today. Racial passives didn't matter as much, because you could compensate for them with your armour, passives, food, potion, and enchantment choices. There was a tonne of diversity to this game.
But some moron in the upper levels decided that they were going to try to keep players chasing the proverbial carrot and screwed everything up.
The only other thing that would be taken into consideration would be the CP passives. Since we would be dealing with soft caps, there is no need to worry about these passives... but we have Non-Cp campaigns, and the only way to make things fair in those would be to automatically put everyone entering those areas on predetermined even stats where is doesn't matter what their passives, armour, etc is.
ZOS needs to figure out what they want this game to be. Either take the Elder Scrolls out of it and turn it into every other MMO, or have the stones to let your balls drop and stand above all other MMOs and adhere to Elder Scrolls Lore and concentrate on bringing out good content, plus fixing performance and stop focusing so many resources on trying to fix a balancing issue that can only be solved in one way!! Seriously... I've lost enjoyment in this game, only because of sick and tired of having to rotate characters and relearn the meta or a new way to play because some f - nuggut either doesn't know what they are doing, or hates the Player Community so much that he's making these changes on purpose to kill the game.
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???
TheShadowScout wrote: »Get your darn story straight:
...so what are you saying? That the aldmer were magically changed into altmer, or that there are no differences???
Make up your mind! Or are you arguing just to argue?
TheShadowScout wrote: »...and what else would you call it if an et'Ada turned from magical immortal aedra (aka, "our ancestors" in elvish) to mortal aldmer "with each passing generation" if not an "adaptation to their new habitait (the mortal plane) over generations"???
TheShadowScout wrote: »If you find inconsistencies in the -descriptions- please reference.
The stats are a game-mechanic thing, and I touched upon that already, depictions in the game, not descriptions in the lore.
TheShadowScout wrote: »Oh? So how many orcs with altmer racial traits have you seen in any TES game?
Yeah, it does not say that any "mystical elven bllld was transformed into toughness" in the lore, it only says that they orcs were trandformed from altmer followers of trinimac into orsimer when trinimac weas turned into malacath. And it says that altmer are all "magical" and orsimer all "tough".
Logic would indicate that is what the "magical transformation" was about, the looks aside, yes?
TheShadowScout wrote: »
TheShadowScout wrote: »
I actually -have- seen published roleplaying supplements that did that sort of thing. But I agree that it can get ridicoluos for real life. Not quite so much when you throw non-human races, divine blessings and magic of all sorts into the mix tho.
But ewven in real life there -are- some differences, as has been mentioned... though obviously nothing like magical fire resistance or somesuch.
But that is what games are for you, cutting everything down to quick and immideately noticable effects, right?
TheShadowScout wrote: »...the sunburn on my relatively fair skinned bohemian shoulders I deal with every summer says different. So do the many, many hours I spend cooling off in my bathtub when it gets too much for me.You mean like the literally millions of pasty white people who already live in Africa? Yeah, I think you'd do fine.
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.TheShadowScout wrote: »You mean the in-game lore which is -supposed- to be "written from the (fictional) authors perspective and knowledge"???
That's kinda like saying... comics prove the existance of spiderman!
TheShadowScout wrote: »Sadly for you, the developers decided they -wanted- the perk to exist back when they made the first elder scrolls game.
And that... is that.
TheShadowScout wrote: »And yet you keep arguing that the game designers were idiots to make that decision, and you know better, so the licenseholders should bow down to your wisdom and throw out all the stuff you dislike.
While I argue that this is what we have in the elder scrolls setting, so we should not expect them to change it, but try and think of ways to work within what we have, and adjust the stuff to make it better.
TheShadowScout wrote: »You did do exactly that, citing "characters acting and excepping outside the supposed calling of their race" as one of the reasons why you think racial perks make no sense.
TheShadowScout wrote: »Even if the developers have to make it up, like... mystic elf blood (pure or misex with nedic blood), daedric curses, warrior culture, living in the lands of snow and ice, being lizads or kitties...
TheShadowScout wrote: »But you keep disregarding all that because it does not fit your narrative, it seems. Demanding more "proof" for "racial perks". And I say, we have enough proof for that in the lore, and it would be more fruitful to think about -HOW- those perks get depicted rather then try and argue them into non-existance contrary to the game developers intentions.
TheShadowScout wrote: »
TheShadowScout wrote: »What, you mean like nords living in cold lands and often stripping when going to warmer climates? Madness? No, wait...
How about the dunmer settling all those volcanic areas, that one must be a rumor then... no wait...
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.TheShadowScout wrote: »So you are saying, because not argonian swims in black marsh they will loose their scales?
Okay, actually its entirely possible that might happen - someday. Depending on how the hist made them in the first place I suppose...
But since we -know- it didn't happen until TES-V:Skyrim, well...
TheShadowScout wrote: »Well, that -would- depend on the genes, if the trait was dominant, or worse, present in -every- set of genetics due to something in their genetic makeup... and the "kids have the traits of the mother" thing does suggest something strange is going on with TES genetics anyhow...
TheShadowScout wrote: »And I am saying, the exceptions just get -noticed- for -being- exceptions!!!
Noone cares about how many altmer great mages did nothing that a dozend other altmer great mages also did in ntheir career, but the -one- nord mage who did things, that one is remembered!
Noone cares about how many bosmer were best at arrows, but the one archer you did -not- expect, the one breton, nord or dunmer who shoots their arrows with such skill, that one is remembered.
Noon ecares about how many redguard sword singers there are, but if one non-redguard swordsmaster bests one, that one would be remembered.
Noone cares how many highwaymen lived and dies in the middle ages, but the -one- in sherwood forest who defied expectations of a harsh life and early death as the nobles guards hunted them down, that one is remembered
Noone cares about how many women got caught up in the troubles of the hundred year war, but the -one- that did not meekly accept her face as a prize or damsel in distress but picked up a sword and fought with the french, that one is remembered.
Noone cares how many non-caucasian people quietly sat in the colored section of the bus, but the one who refused, that one is remembered.
Et cetera.
To be memorable, you must either achieve great things, good or bad... or break expectations in some major way.
Why would it be differne tin elder scrolly legends?
TheShadowScout wrote: »Wrong.
Since lack of mention does not equal lack of existance.
Noone mentions a dogs ability to run faster then a human in RL lore much, do they? Because its just common knowledge. So neither would they mention other "common knowledge" racial perks, right? Not until Tamriel enters their version of the renaissance where people start getting more inquisitive about such things (which as of yet may be more like... things only wierdo mages do, and get lynched for as "necromancers" when they cut up corpses to see what the differences really are)
TheShadowScout wrote: »And what makes you think the game design decisions are -not- true lore? Since that is what we know the developers -choose- their game to be like? What they -wanted- it to be like?
Even if sometimes a bit iffy, like when they changed their mind about orcs being NPC mobs and such...
...but that IS the priviledge of the license-holder, they -can- retcon and change things if they so choose. Even when fans disagree with it (Solo shot first!)...
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?
So which one?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.
See above.There is nothing to support your "change over time" hypothesis.
True.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.
How and where did you spot a "magical change", like the well documented ones with the orsimer and dunmer???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.
And what else would you call a change over generations?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.
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-???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?
Not so.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.
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...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?
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.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.
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?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.
You "ruled out" being lizardlike as possible cause for any argonian racial perks?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.
Already gave more then enough "evidence" from the racial descriptions, and some from secondary lore as well.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.
Truth, that.I mean in TES, sure, "creationism" is specifically the thing that happened.
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???I read the texts, try to determine if there is mention or implication of some kind of evolutionary effect, and report my findings.
Why the faulty reasoning again?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.
Most likely, indeed.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.
Well, it IS in the lore, and the in-game lore you so highly value...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.
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).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.
Its common enough that when someone asked the developer to "sum up the race in a few short lines", THAT is what gets mentioned.How is it common knowledge if nobody mentions it or observes it first hand?
Oh? Don't let a middle earth dwarf hear that!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.
MLGProPlayer wrote: »Frankly, it's very clear ZOS is waaaaaay overthinking on how to balance this game and they don't want to admit that the only way to fix it so they can move on to something better and more meaningful, is to bring back Soft Caps!!
When we had soft caps, the game was much more balanced than it is today. Racial passives didn't matter as much, because you could compensate for them with your armour, passives, food, potion, and enchantment choices. There was a tonne of diversity to this game.
But some moron in the upper levels decided that they were going to try to keep players chasing the proverbial carrot and screwed everything up.
The only other thing that would be taken into consideration would be the CP passives. Since we would be dealing with soft caps, there is no need to worry about these passives... but we have Non-Cp campaigns, and the only way to make things fair in those would be to automatically put everyone entering those areas on predetermined even stats where is doesn't matter what their passives, armour, etc is.
ZOS needs to figure out what they want this game to be. Either take the Elder Scrolls out of it and turn it into every other MMO, or have the stones to let your balls drop and stand above all other MMOs and adhere to Elder Scrolls Lore and concentrate on bringing out good content, plus fixing performance and stop focusing so many resources on trying to fix a balancing issue that can only be solved in one way!! Seriously... I've lost enjoyment in this game, only because of sick and tired of having to rotate characters and relearn the meta or a new way to play because some f - nuggut either doesn't know what they are doing, or hates the Player Community so much that he's making these changes on purpose to kill the game.
How on earth would soft caps make this game more balanced? I guarantee a large chunk of the player base would leave immediately if they uncapped CP. They would be rewarding players for time spent playing the game instead of their skill.
Synthwavius wrote: »What if my redguard's mother was an altmer? It doesn't make any sense to not have any magika passives in such case.
Then your Redguard would be an Altmer, as in ES lore the race is determined by the mother with minute features being given by the father.
You'd be an Altmer that kind of maybe looks a little bit like a tall yellow redguard with angular features
If you're gonna comment about RP then at least learn the lore
In SP games you're a demi-god, ofcourse your race wont matter in the late game.Also to those referencing the previous elder scrolls as an argument for keeping racials significant, Im sure you are entirely fine for racials to only be significant in the early to mid game and meaningless in endgame, just like the SP games.
Facefister wrote: »In SP games you're a demi-god, ofcourse your race wont matter in the late game.Also to those referencing the previous elder scrolls as an argument for keeping racials significant, Im sure you are entirely fine for racials to only be significant in the early to mid game and meaningless in endgame, just like the SP games.
It wasn't you though, either someone powerful enough helped you and/or you exploited a powerful artifact. Why I can't solo vCR+3 when I am such a "god"?Facefister wrote: »In SP games you're a demi-god, ofcourse your race wont matter in the late game.Also to those referencing the previous elder scrolls as an argument for keeping racials significant, Im sure you are entirely fine for racials to only be significant in the early to mid game and meaningless in endgame, just like the SP games.
Precisely, in eso you are practically a demi god. I mean you died and resurrected multiple times and kicked molag bal's and other daedric princes' ass.