JobooAGS wrote: »

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.

It has nothing to do with being a demi-god, and everything to do with how skills and attributes work in the single-player games vs. the MMO. Lets use Altmer as an example:

In Daggerfall, High Elves start with the following racial attributes:

STATS:

Male High Elf character modifiers:
+10 Intelligence
+10 Willpower
-10 Strength
-10 Endurance
Female High Elf character modifiers:
+10 Intelligence
+10 Personality
-10 Strength
-10 Endurance

SPECIAL ABILITY:
High Elf Special Advantage:
Immunity to paralysis

Now, Daggerfall has a stat cap of 100, and every level gives you a certain amount of points to spend. High Elves definitely have 1/10th of an easier start as a mage, but a Redguard who puts his effort towards his intelligence can reach the same ability once both are at the cap.

Unfortunately, in Daggerfall, these racial bonuses are actually overwritten when you choose a class! So, in conclusion, what you get for choosing a high elf is:

Immunity to Paralysis.

That's good, but that's nothing that makes playing a Redguard wizard unviable.

So we move on to Morrowind:

Base Attributes
Strength 30 30
Intelligence 50 50
Willpower 40 40
Agility 40 40
Speed 30 40
Endurance 40 30
Personality 40 40
Luck 40 40

Skill Bonuses:
Destruction Destruction +10
Enchant Enchant +10
Alchemy Alchemy +10
Alteration Alteration +5
Conjuration Conjuration +5
Illusion Illusion +5

Special Advantages:
Ability: Resist Common Disease Resist Common Disease: 75%
Ability: Weakness to Shock Weakness to Shock: 25%
Ability: Weakness to Frost Weakness to Frost: 25%
Ability: Weakness to Fire Weakness to Fire: 50%
Ability: Weakness to Magicka Weakness to Magicka: 50%
Ability: Fortify Maximum Magicka Fortify Maximum Magicka 1.5x INT (150% more Magicka)

Here we are getting somewhere! Now our racials are affecting attributes and skills.Now, like Daggerfall, Morrowind has a base cap of 100 for attributes and skills. You can go way over this using spells, enchantments, or alchemy, but the situation ends up the same as in Daggerfall:

While leveling, an Altmer will have a much easier time using magic than a Redguard. They'll have more INT and WILL, and 1.5x more magicka than a Redguard on top of that. They'll fizzle less and be able to cast more spells before needing to use a potion or, if they are cool and good, absorb more magicka using the Atronarch.

However, in this situation, when the Redguard and High Elf are in the same situation - both at the skill and attribute cap of 100 for whatever school of spellcasting they want to be in - they will be functionally the same except for the special advantages / disadvantages. A 100 INT / DES Redguard Battlemage's fireball will not cause 15-25% less damage than a 100 INT / DES Altmer Battlemage's Fireball. They will be able to cast it more before running out of mana, but check it out: In this situation they have weaknesses that are relevant to the entire game, and can possibly outweigh the bonus INT.

Sure, you can fire off a few more fireballs before downing a blue bottle - but on the other hand, fighting other mages is MUCH tougher on an Altmer than on a Redguard. And you fight mages through the entire game, so this is a viable choice with no clue "superior" option. Do you want to put more effort into alchemy, or be more careful around mages? Other than that, your playstyle once you hit the cap isn't going to be worlds apart.

Oblivion:

Male

+10 Intelligence
-10 Strength and Speed

Female

+10 Intelligence
-10 Strength and Endurance

Skills

+10 Alteration, Destruction, and Mysticism
+5 Alchemy, Conjuration, and Illusion

Traits

High Elf Enhanced Magicka ability (FormID 00047ADC): Fortify Magicka 100 points on Self, constant
High Elf Disease Resistance ability (FormID 00047AD7): Resist Disease 75% on Self, constant
High Elf Elemental Weakness ability (FormID 00014D52): Weakness to Fire, Frost & Shock 25% on Self, constant

Alright, so now the stats that are actually effected are even less. We get a boost to intelligence, and a boost to six skills. The weakness to fire has been lowered. Again, in Oblivion, we have a skill cap of 100. You level up based on every 10 skill increases to a major skill, so an Altmer will reach the cap faster, but again - A Redguard can also reach the cap. The damage of an Altmer and the damage of a Redguard at the cap will also be the same.

Now, Altmer do have the most Magicka, definitely. But, again, Magicka in the single-player games isn't tied to a % increase to damage in any form, just the ability to cast more spells. If we look at destruction, that 100 Mana, at 100 skill, would help you with one extra cast of the expert tier Destruction spell "Dire Enervation," a stamina drain spell, or an extra cast of any Journeyman level destruction spell. Not a game-changer.

Skyrim:

Highborn ability (FormID 00105f16): High Elves are born with 50 extra magicka, constant
Highborn greater power (FormID 000e40c8): Regenerate magicka faster for 60 seconds, once per day.

Base Magicka Regeneration is increased by 2500% for 60 seconds.

Resist FatigueCC (FormID xx000874): Your High Elf blood gives you 25% resistance to fatigue.
Height: 1.08
In addition to Flames, Altmer start with the spell Fury.

They get the only attribute bonus in skyrim - a 5 level equivalent boost to Magicka. Skillwise, the Altmer start with a lot of bonuses to spellcasting, so it's easier for them to get right to spellcasting out of the gate. However, nothing is stopping a Redguard from using a trainer to catch up, and the Redguard not having a bonus to Magicka just puts him in the same boat as every other race in Nirn instead of being particularly deficient at magic.

And, yeah, Skyrim has a skill cap of 100. At which point, these two characters, who had vastly different journeys, will not do different damage based on their choice during character creation.

Summary

The biggest differences between the (good) single-player racial abilities and the (really bad) MMO ones are the following:

1) The single-player games all based damage solely around the skill, which meant that two characters with the same skill level were equally skilled. The difference wasn't in how powerful the skill they would end up with would be, just how much effort it took to reach that level of skill.

2) Because there is a skill cap, eventually all characters can max out their effectiveness.

3) The Special Advantages and Disadvantages had gameplay effects that remain relevant to your choice of character through the game. In Morrowind and Oblivion, the choice between an Altmer and any other race for a spellcaster was not as "clear cut" because their weaknesses were actual weaknesses. If you didn't want to deal with magicka weakness, it makes sense to choose any other race.

4) Racial abilities could be compensated for using birthsigns or custom classes in all the RPGs except for Skyrim.

5) In a single-player game, you have no responsibility to other players. In an MMO, you are seen as having this responsibility, and making a choice that makes the game harder actually has an effect on the people you play with. In the single-player games, playing a Redguard wizard would be challenging, but the person you are challenging is yourself. If you queue for a DLC dungeon as a Redguard wizard, you are forcing other players to participate in your "challenge" whether they want you to or not. This can get you blacklisted from certain types of content, something that cannot happen in a single-player game (and won't usually happen in an MMO, where racials do not have a disparity over like, 1% max.)



* Some of you may point out that I left out Battlespire. I have no regrets!!!!

Facefister wrote: »

I am talking about Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Especially in Skyrim, you were a demi-god. In the SP games race does only matter until you find out who you and your capacities are. I base this on the lore and not on gameplay mechanics.

These also apploies to NPCs, not just the PCs. An Altmer and a Redguard who are equally skilled at magic will do equal damage with a fireball, whether they are the PC or not: It's skill that determines how hard your fireball hits, not race. In addition, you can achieve equal skill levels with both races before progressing the main quest in all three games.

Facefister wrote: »

If you rely/blame your entire success/failure on the 10% more magicka or whatever else your race brings, then you're not good at all and you're not able to play at the top "1%" to begin with. I mean I've got the beast personality and skin with my Redguard HealSorc. If you want to play a Khajiit MagSorc then play it. If you want to play an Altmer StamBlade, do it. There is no content you can't do.

Again, it's not about "not being able to finish." Because of the clear differences in power level between the races, choosing a suboptimal race isn't seen as a challenge, it's seen as disrespectful to the other players, no matter what your level of play is. This is why you used to see threads where people got kicked for playing an off-meta race in normal dungeons, even though most of those are trivial: Because wasting other players time is considered a bad thing, and this is an MMO, which involves social interaction. The fact that the world's best player can be a khajiit MagSorc or whatever doesn't change how that perception filters down to the rest of the playerbase.

Why decouple passives from race?

REASON NR 1 - It will allow ALL factions to choose passives NOT AVAILABLE in their faction.

Currently players are LIMITED to three races if they have friends in a certain faction unless of course you buy the ANY RACE ANY ALLIANCE token.

REASON NR 2 - It will allow interesting combinations of abilities and expand game play variety.

Facefister wrote: »

Again, I am talking about the lore, not the mechanics or engine limitations.

The lore doesn't actually show that race affects how much damage your fireballs can do, either. ESO's implementation of racial abilities isn't more "lore-friendly" than Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, or Battlespire - they are all trying to implement lore.

The difference is that every other Elder Scrolls game attempts to reflect racial lore into the game by giving members of a race a head-start if they progress on skills and attributes that are reflected in their culture, while ESO attempts to reflect the lore by knee-capping every race but one or two when it comes to damage.

Again, nothing in the lore says that an Altmer Battlemage's fireball hurts worse than a Redguard Battlemage's. In the lore and in every game except for ESO, equally skilled Altmer and Redguard Battlemage fireballs will do the exact same damage. In ESO, an Altmer fireball will do 25% more damage, period. That isn't about lore, it's straight up about mechanics. The entire rest of the series matches the lore better.

I am playing this game for three years now and I have yet to encounter a case where a person got kicked because of his/her "off-meta" race.

Do you play this as a single-player game? Every week there are threads on this and on the subreddit either from people who get kicked or turned down from guilds based on race choice, or people posting to brag about how they kick people from groups based on race choice for wasting their time.

Mangeli200194 wrote: »

First off yeah I'm a IRL redguard myself so don't skin me alive for saying this but racial passives are like my friends from Grundschule (long long ago) saying that "Oh you must be good at drumming then". BS. Just saying. Racial passives lore wise imo represent the upbringing of the character and should not be tied to the race itself. Instead of having a khajiit racial passive there should be "skirmischer passives" or "mage passives". Would make more sense that way.

For what it's worth, the single player games did, kinda, lean towards the idea that the racial passives were, primarily, regional. The census agent in Seyda Neen would ask you, "where are you from?" Leading to the racial selection menu. Now, it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't know your race on sight, but it might make sense that the stat modifiers received were based more on your homeland, and your character happened to correspond to that provinces primary population.

Oblivion did away with this, and simply mocked you for your racial choice, while Skyrim resorted to a simple, "who are you?" (I also don't remember Daggerfall or Arena caring much on the subject.)

So, there's some element of truth to the idea that the base skill bonuses were more to do with your character's cultural background, rather than their genetics.

That said, the permanent bonuses and racial powers were explicitly tied to a character's race. Bretons and Altmer had increased magicka because of their Aldmeri heritages, Nords had increased cold resist, Dunmer had their fire resists. Argonians have their resistances to diseases and poisons. Those do seem to be biological. As do the attributes (before their removal), though those also incorporated an element of training as well.

The problem I come back to is, Race in the single player games was a first step. It suggested a build, but let you ignore that and wander off to your heart's content. But, ultimately it's a capped system. Your Breton may have more magicka than a Nord, but they won't be a "better" mage, they'll just find that road easier.

Race in ESO is far more significant. It's taken what was a minor, and limited, buff set, and turned it into the baseline for the entire game. So instead of it being a starting point, race becomes the end of the road. The same example above doesn't apply because in ESO, your Breton will be a better mage than a Nord (assuming they have similar builds).

The central problem here is very simple. It's the attribute pool scaling. If that didn't exist, we wouldn't have this problem. (With a few outliers like Argonians and Redguards.) Because your stat pool increases the effectiveness of that resource type, we're always going to face problems with one race being better suited to a particular role based on their attribute modifiers. (Again, looking back at the single player games, there were finite hard caps, which meant some things would come easier, while others would be harder, but there was a finite end point.) If you wanted to get your Nord's intelligence to 100, you could do that. It'd just be harder than making your Altmer or Breton a super-genius.

To be honest, short of a full stat/skill overhaul, I'm not sure how to address any of this. I'm also not 100% certain that would be a good idea.

At this point, I'm kind of inclined to agree with the point that, maybe, the racials should be stripped entirely from the game, and racial passives should be reworked into some kind of framework skill tree, where you have to pick nodes, and in the process give up others, while shaping your class.

There is already a big fat system with lots of race-independent passives, it's called "champion points". So why not simply dump racial passives altogether. Easy. Who cares for real differences between races; just give your char a fancy name and let him wear a dress, isn't that enough roleplaying for you?

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

P.S.: If Jujutsu was a thing in Elder Scrolls, I'm pretty sure it would be dominated by Altmer.

You 3-stripe white belts know what I'm talking about...

I favor the Orc or Nord at Jiu jitsu, honestly. They have a lower center of gravity and they are obviously more muscularly built. All things being equal my bet is on them.

starkerealm wrote: »

Mangeli200194 wrote: »

First off yeah I'm a IRL redguard myself so don't skin me alive for saying this but racial passives are like my friends from Grundschule (long long ago) saying that "Oh you must be good at drumming then". BS. Just saying. Racial passives lore wise imo represent the upbringing of the character and should not be tied to the race itself. Instead of having a khajiit racial passive there should be "skirmischer passives" or "mage passives". Would make more sense that way.

For what it's worth, the single player games did, kinda, lean towards the idea that the racial passives were, primarily, regional. The census agent in Seyda Neen would ask you, "where are you from?" Leading to the racial selection menu. Now, it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't know your race on sight, but it might make sense that the stat modifiers received were based more on your homeland, and your character happened to correspond to that provinces primary population.

Oblivion did away with this, and simply mocked you for your racial choice, while Skyrim resorted to a simple, "who are you?" (I also don't remember Daggerfall or Arena caring much on the subject.)

So, there's some element of truth to the idea that the base skill bonuses were more to do with your character's cultural background, rather than their genetics.

That said, the permanent bonuses and racial powers were explicitly tied to a character's race. Bretons and Altmer had increased magicka because of their Aldmeri heritages, Nords had increased cold resist, Dunmer had their fire resists. Argonians have their resistances to diseases and poisons. Those do seem to be biological. As do the attributes (before their removal), though those also incorporated an element of training as well.

The problem I come back to is, Race in the single player games was a first step. It suggested a build, but let you ignore that and wander off to your heart's content. But, ultimately it's a capped system. Your Breton may have more magicka than a Nord, but they won't be a "better" mage, they'll just find that road easier.

Race in ESO is far more significant. It's taken what was a minor, and limited, buff set, and turned it into the baseline for the entire game. So instead of it being a starting point, race becomes the end of the road. The same example above doesn't apply because in ESO, your Breton will be a better mage than a Nord (assuming they have similar builds).

The central problem here is very simple. It's the attribute pool scaling. If that didn't exist, we wouldn't have this problem. (With a few outliers like Argonians and Redguards.) Because your stat pool increases the effectiveness of that resource type, we're always going to face problems with one race being better suited to a particular role based on their attribute modifiers. (Again, looking back at the single player games, there were finite hard caps, which meant some things would come easier, while others would be harder, but there was a finite end point.) If you wanted to get your Nord's intelligence to 100, you could do that. It'd just be harder than making your Altmer or Breton a super-genius.

To be honest, short of a full stat/skill overhaul, I'm not sure how to address any of this. I'm also not 100% certain that would be a good idea.

At this point, I'm kind of inclined to agree with the point that, maybe, the racials should be stripped entirely from the game, and racial passives should be reworked into some kind of framework skill tree, where you have to pick nodes, and in the process give up others, while shaping your class.

I disagree with your suggestion to strip it all down. The racial bonuses are flavor after all. Argonians do breathe underwater and have innate natural enhancement for aquatic life (just look at that croc tail go). The rest of what you said here I essentially agree with. This is why for years and during the Tamriel One changes I really didn't like some of the things they were doing. Race was already a problem when this game had soft caps but they made it worse in Tam1. The point I've made in many of my past posts on the topic is that there are many ways to skin the cat here. I can't necessarily suggest any one way to go but there are some obvious ones which would improve the situation. Soft Caps is one way. Finite stat bonuses is also another way (and one they should do no matter what in my view). Finite stat bonuses are also nice because nowadays there isn't really any true 'level' out in the game world. A level 10 gets scaled to the map just as much as a cp 40 or 160. Because of this a finite stat bonus simply gives someone a 'leg up' in their innate traits but doesn't limit them so much toward end game.

Let me give you guys an example. Many of you play a Dunmer Magician. You will notice that a Dunmer magician has a low starting health. In order to solve this squishably low starting health I have to use a set/enchant to get him in the more reasonable (don't one-shot me) level of health. You could also do this by wearing heavy armor. The point is you have to do something to step outside of your competency or you'll be very soft. The character will still hit super hard but you need to do a little something to shore up the obvious weakness. When we had soft caps players were doing a lot more of the 'shore up the weakness' bit than they did when there was no cap at all on stats.

JobooAGS wrote: »

Hmm, interesting. If you were the lead of the racial balance team, how would you change the racials in this case?

This is a little complicated because of the role that Stamina and Magicka play in so many of the game's combat calculations.

The ideal solution would be softcaps, for all the reasons people listed on this page. However, this would be a bigger challenge because it involves a major change to the games balance systems. You'd need multiple teams for it.

An example of what dodgehopper_ESO is talking about (unsure if we are allowed to mention other MMO names on here), there was a really old MMO where multiple races could play paladins. Two of the Paladin races were considered very hard to level because the races were traditionally made for casters, and started with very low strength. This made leveling them up fairly difficult compared to a short beefy paladin.

However, at end game, you'd end up with stats relevant to the Paladin's role (health) being equal due to reaching the cap. This didn't mean a skinny caster paladin and a short stocky paladin were the same at max level though, because, while equally good at the primary job of paladins - taking hits - they differed significantly on the secondary roles of paladins, with the casters being good off-healers and short stocky dudes being able to deal more damage while they tanked.




If we're just talking about a racial balance pass:
I don't have any formal game design training, and coming up with solutions is significantly harder than analyzing problems.

With that in mind,

1) Recategorize all racial passives into two groups: Passives that affect the leveling game, and passives that affect the entire game. These would roughly correspond to Skill Bonuses and "Special Advantages" in the main TES gameline.

2) Skill bonuses make up a majority of character racial bonuses in the single-player series. Be very generous with these since they don't affect balance. Here's where you can go crazy with designs.
a) Every race should get an armor leveling passive, a weapon leveling passive, and a third leveling passive. Make the third something optional but nice to have - Throw Fighter's Guild at Redguard, or Mage's Guild at Altmer, or Legerdemain at Khajiit. These are exciting (they would significantly shorten existing grinds) but won't affect group play.
b) You can open the door to more interesting leveling options here, too. What if Khajiit Nightblades start with Siphoning Strikes unlocked? This would give them a significant and unique advantage for "thieving" gameplay, but again, one which does not lock Khajiit into a "StamDPS or Bust" role later in the game.
c) If you wanted, you could even entirely replace these passives by starting each character with certain skill lines pre-leveled to a certain amount based on your character race. This would require some number testing to figure out the sweet spot, though.

3) Special Advantages. These should effect the entire game, but in a secondary way to fulfilling a major role. Less of these, because you actually have to be careful with them.
a) A Nord's Frost resistance is a good example here. It can be really handy in a variety of situations or timeframes, but it won't lock you into or out of a role. Defense bonuses are especially good because what defenses are used is going to vary by content, so not having something like frost defense can be helpful, but not having it won't be stigmatized.
b) Throw in some active abilities too. You don't even have to design a whole skill line - Bring back an Ancestor Ghost type ability for Dunmer, give Bosmer Mark Target, whatever. This is another traditional MMO racial option.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

P.S.: If Jujutsu was a thing in Elder Scrolls, I'm pretty sure it would be dominated by Altmer.

You 3-stripe white belts know what I'm talking about...

I favor the Orc or Nord at Jiu jitsu, honestly. They have a lower center of gravity and they are obviously more muscularly built. All things being equal my bet is on them.

They would be up there, for sure. One of the first lessons I got hit in the face with was that size really DOES matter, contrary to some opinions.

But there's something about limb length that seems to be a big trump card. Since most Altmer sit in the 6-and-a-half to 7-foot range, they have enough mass to make it REALLY matter, particularly the more technical the game becomes.

I mean, we all know that guy or gal who's never gonna pull off a triangle just because their legs are too short and/or meaty. Then there's that tall skinny kid who has enough length to body lock even the fattest kid in the gym (I happen to be one of those) and whose guard you're almost never going to pass just because their legs go on for days.

Keep it the way it is. It's the sustain and healing bonus in Argonians is what makes them great tanks and healers in end game content, with dunmer you get the max stam and mag with fire resist and flame damage etc...

I personally feel that if you're worried about not getting to play a friggin nord sorcerer or a kitty cat magblade that the "racials" aren't going to help you any at all anyway.

Where as those passives that actually help end game players will be taken away or nerfed to the ground to the point where they are useless. All because you want to be able to save 3 seconds on that delve boss kill or have "class balance" while you save Auridon from all those evil mudcrabs as you role play as shalidor.

@TheShadowScout

TheShadowScout wrote: »

[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?)

I didn't say the Nedes are Nords by a different name, I said they use the same game model. The following NPCs, shown in order, are Nedes but all use a Nord character model. Lamae Bal (Nedic former priestess and immortal First Vampire), High King Durac (vampiric Nede king), and all the Nede NPC from the quest Window on the Past in Stonefalls.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Were they consumed or assimilated?
Make Up Your Mind!

Those don't mean different things in this context. I'm not talking about some "cannibal feast", as you put it, and don't know why you took that so literally.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

Through miscegenation, which is not evolution. No "slow change over time", but instead a direct mixing of traits, and even then your own sourcebook says that "The Breton caste was only allowed to marry humans, so over time their Elven blood became more diluted, and the Nedic appearance predominated," meaning that there indeed was not a physical change among this human population. The meaning of the book is clear. The transformation from Nede to Breton was a cultural one brought on by enslavement and eventual elevation, a transition brought about through privilege and breeding, but clearly not any overt evolutionary process. It's no different from how real-life European tribe intermarried and went through cultural transitions into the populations we know today, and it is just as onerous to assume some kind of vast evolutionary powers were gained and lost in the process.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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 again,we have no evidence of any kind of slow change over time or evolutionary process with which racials could be justified. We have intermixing of different Nedic populations, but nothing to support the idea that they were adapting to their environments or any other such nonsense. I don't have any direct NPC references here, but since we don't have mention of any kind of physical change I'm completely comfortable with the null hypothesis that there wasn't any change.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

Descendants of which Nedes? You do know that there was more than one wave of human migration from Atmora and that they were all named "Nedic" people, right? From the 3rd Pocket Guide's Skyrim section we have "It was a not a single invasion but a series of them over hundreds of years, creating many different Nedic cultures", and from the Loremaster's Archive, Lady Laurent explains that "the catch-all term 'Nede' is applied so broadly to Merethic-Era humans as to be almost worthless. It is indisputable, to my mind, that all the human tribes of Northern Tamriel (pre-Ra Gada, of course) had their origins in mythic Atmora, but that they emigrated here from different parts of it, and at different times, over a period of many lifetimes. Each tribe came with its own culture, and their cultures were further mixed and admixed after arrival in Tamriel."

So no, the idea of a single Nedic people changing over time into multiple new races is pretty directly contradicted. Everything we've thus far discussed supports the above, too. You have at least one distinct Nedic people who came to Tamriel and were enslaved by the Direnni (this group's culture eventually becomes that of the Breton). Then you have another distinct population enslaved by the Ayleids (these are the Cyrodiilic population). Then you have the group led by Ysgramor who (quite obviously) are now the Nordic culture. And finally you have the Deathlands Nedes who are part wiped out by the Ra Gada, part assimilated into all the other Nedic peoples. There might be more than that, of course, but those are the distinct groups in the lore. At no point do we have some kind of evolutionary process being described, nor do we need an evolutionary process to explain the modern-day cultures of humans in Tamriel.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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...

Consider the "above" to have been thoroughly debunked.

The "races haven't physically changed over time" is what's called the "null hypothesis", and is the basic assumption going in to the investigation. To use a real-world analogy, it is like saying the French would remain the French and Japanese would remain Japanese. For our purposes, if the application of time does not result in a physical change, then for the time being we must go with the null hypothesis. As I've shown, we cannot find any specific evidence that time has changed these populations, and so we assume for now that there indeed has not been any change. I could understand your confusion if any of your attempts at finding evidence of changed proved fruitful, but as I have shown you are mostly just confused about your history.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

This is a different argument from your evolution = racials hypothesis, but even this follows the same pattern of inquiry : where is the mention of the magical traits and intermingling of them? We can endlessly speculate all day long but unless you can find a mention of this process in the lore, that's all you've got : baseless speculation. I'm not here to discuss an endless list of could-bes and might'ves. Make a case for your claims.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

I presume that, if any change were to have occurred at all between Aldmer and Altmer, it would follow the same pattern of degredation from et'Ada to Aldmer, which was, as previously quoted, a progressive weaking through generations. As the et'Ada were spirits, not flesh-and-blood mortals, my presumption is that the process is necessarily magical. Biological processes don't really make sense for spirits, right? Name changes occur naturally as cultures shift, so I don't see any issue there. As various groups of Aldmer left Summerset and were (magically) changed into the other types of elves, it's possible that the need for the remaining population to redefine themselves and achieve a racial identity became an important nation-building tool. This is no mere speculation, of course, as we can see racial purity is an important aspect of Altmer culture both in lorebooks and in quest/NPC interactions. As we had a whole expansion pack dedicated to the Altmer earlier this year I hardly think I need to provide specific examples, but I am more than capable of doing so on request.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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. )

You do know that not all Altmer are gold-skinned, right? Some of them look like nothing but pointy-eared white people. Saying "golden-skinned" is a useful generalization but hardly fully representative. As for Ayleids, the only NPC I can think of is their last King, and he's not visibly different than any particular Altmer, even uses the same game model. There's one reference to Ayleid skin tone that I can find elsewhere in the lore, from the Last Year of the First Era series, which is historical fiction written at the earliest in the 2nd Era, when Ayleids had all but disappeared. I wouldn't go saying that had such a significantly different skin color as a fact quite yet. In any case, what adaptation does a slightly different gold skin color give, exactly? And can we even be sure that any physical differences, if there are any at all, were not also Daedric fiat? They did worship a boatload of them, after all.

It's definitely silly to call the Chimer skin "silver". In ESO their skin is quite gold (various Chimer NPC in the quest Window on the Past). And if there were a difference between their skin and Altmer (and there does not seem to be) the book Changed Ones describes how Boethiah "demonstrated the right way to weir their skin". So we're back to nothing happening or Daedric fiat.

It's curious that for your Bosmer account you picked the one Altmer description meant to highlight their impurity, instead of the multiple magical Y'ffre-related transformation descriptions we get from other sources, like The Ooze: A Fable, or in the Wood Elf Racial Motif book, or Varieties of Faith, or Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi to her Favored Daughter. While I would not be surprised if there were some truth the the "mannish wife" thing, it is clear that the Bosmer got their current form through the intervention of Y'ffre.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

So first, you're talking about tens of thousands of years of change, when Nirn is by all accounts only a few thousand years old. Second, these differences in real-life populations are superficial physical ones. As I went over before, we don't have these massive race differences between real life populations which could manifest in any kind of race-wide power or useful and reductionist description. The evolution angle is dead, please bury it because it is starting to stink.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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???

Like I said, "literally anything else". There is no adaptation happening. Aldmer had, as far as we know, the exact same terrible limitation of only being able to survive through reproduction, living on through their children. That's not an adaptation to the environment, that's literally the same thing as what their spirit parents had to deal with. The alternative is that Aldmer were somehow immortal and we just don't know about it, which does not hold up to scrutiny. The transformation was purely a weakening and limiting of complexity over generations as the aspects of the et'Ada began to die off. There is not even a real-world biological analog for this sort of thing, it was a mystical/sprity process.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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)

I think it's pretty presumptuous of you to assume that these are OoC descriptions when they're so internally inconsistent, no more reliable than the in-game lorebooks themselves. And as I've stated before, I'm not just talking about lorebooks, but the actual characters and NPCs themselves. You can't get a more objective perspective on the races than taking stock of the specific individuals who make up that race, and when we do so we see that there is an incredible variety of characters who can't be so easily reduced to a two-sentence stereotype. I'm glad you at least admit that you're cherrypicking your data points, but you should at least be consistent about it. The most recent game, TES Legends, has some changes for you. The Argonian race is now "known for its natural endurance". Dunmer are "renowned for both their magical prowess and their stealth", so no more warrior recognition for them. Enjoy your new retcons!

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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"?

I see some fine descriptions of Orc culture, but culture isn't equivalent with a biological hegemony. Incidentally, both of those books are told from the perspective of people outside Orcish culture. We see that some Stronghold orcs, for example, are herders, not strictly hunters as your first book claims. We also see plenty of timid and weak-looking orc NPC, so there are more than enough examples to go around showing that there is not this overwhelming selective pressure for Orcs to be strong and tough. As a cultural ideal it's undeniable, but biology is a different story.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

You are making up a fictional distinction there. I'm just splitting hairs here to try to show you why your argument is internally inconsistent, but the race descriptions do not say that individuals need to develop or spend skill points in their racial affinities. You are making it up, suddenly deciding that game mechanics actually are an important part of race descriptions, but only for this one argument, and again inconsistent with other games in the series because for the vast majority of them you didn't have to spend skill points, you just had the abilities right away.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

"So?" What do you mean "So?" Half of our conversation has been dedicated to teasing out whether or not racials make some kind of logical sense. I've shown quite thoroughly that they do not make sense biologically, so I consider that part of the argument settled. You can keep your "the devs made it this way even if it doesn't make sense" argument but good gods, if you're going to concede the point you could have been less long-winded about it.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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")?

A book written with bias still contains a wealth of mundane statements unrelated to the bias. Even something ridiculous like an essay about how the earth is secretly flat will contain references to real-world things like the declination of the sun, the orbit of the moon, mention of other celestial bodies, maybe even some math. We can reject the thesis of a flat earth without rejecting the existence of the sun and the moon. Likewise, when we look at the in-game lorebooks, we should not consider everything in them to be flights of fancy. We can assume that various cultures participated in warfare. We can assume that drinks like sujamma and rotmeth exist. We can assume that Aedra and Daedra play important roles in mortal religions. You seem to be suggesting that we can't trust even the most rudimentary inferences about the elder scrolls universe by what's in the lorebooks, and I find that most distasteful.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

We actually have four books written by Narsis Dren to check, so why don't you have a read? There's On Stepping Lightly, Dren and the Cursed Coffin, Dwemer Dreams, and the Draugr crafting motif book. These all contain nuggets of worldbuilding which, even through Dren's narcissism, prove interesting and invaluable. For example, we can infer from his cursed coffin tale that Nords had something called "barrows" in which they burried their dead. Said barrows are filled with traps and magic items. And wouldn't you know, that all tracks from what we know in-game! Who'd have thunk that we could tease out so much useful information from an unreliable author. Almost like the writers specifically intend for us to use them in this way and consider the context clues for what is or isn't realistic, reliable information! After all, how did you know Narsis Dren was a buffoon without having used your context clues to discern it? It was obvious, the writers intended it to be obvious, and they still conveyed useful information about both the world and his character through his tales and exposition.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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...

But you literally also are picking are choosing what you deem as "acceptable". You pick and choose which race descriptions to use, even so far as to pick and choose what specific sentences to believe. And it's not a "false conclusion" to use evidence and reasoning to determine that a lack of mention of something, coupled specifically with the mention of other mutually exclusive things, means that the original subject of inquiry does not likely exist. It is the only actual supportable conclusion.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

Like the provisioning or horse training systems? Those weren't adjustments, they were completely done over. And if you want to get technical I'm not suggesting that the "racials" go away and start from scratch, I'm suggesting that they take the same system and change the name from "racials" to "background" or "advantages" or some other such thing, and decouple it from race. This leaves your choice of race open for pure roleplay consideration based on your character and how they fit (or don't) into some niche of their people's culture.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

No, that is specifically not how it works. It has to influence the ability or likelihood of reproducing, and in civilized societies looking good or possessing some niche skill is not enough. Ugly people breed plenty as do people of all professions. Truly grotesque people (missing half your face as a birth defect (or fur (or scales))) would probably actually have a hard time breeding and passing on such traits, but people in a normative range would not.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

Lizards breath water, can't get poisoned, and resist disease? Mmmmm no.

As already mentioned, yeah, the daedric curses were not described as having some racial benefit. The only changes mentioned were to physical appearance. While we can never truly rule it out until a loremaster says "yeah that ain't it", we also can't make a wild speculative claim that it had anything to do with these supposed racial abilities. Besides it would kind of defeat the purpose of a curse to give you superpowers.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

Until such evidence is presented as it can be "ruled in", you by default rule it out. Otherwise you can make any wild claim you want. And no, for any of it to be there in "logical connections" your claims would have to not be continuously refuted. You appear to have conceded the evolution angle, the divine fiat angle has no direct evidence, and when we look at the individual NPCs in the game we see diversity (which, as I've pointed out in regards to the evolution side of things, means there's no logical reason for the trait to continue to exist, if it ever did at all). The only thing that I can't refute is the racial descriptions themselves (obviously), but that was not and is not what I set out to do. I set out to describe the ways that the racials don't make sense and aren't supported by the rest of the lore and the in-game depictions through both lorebooks and NPCs. I did so.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Already gave more then enough "evidence" from the racial descriptions, and some from secondary lore as well.

You can't use the racial descriptions as evidence for why racial descriptions make sense, that's just circular reasoning. And I've refuted all your "secondary" lore claims.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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???

Have you not been following along? It's not like this post is the first time I've given evidence that evolution didn't happen in Tamriel. I can't speak for the minotaurs as I don't know their lore, but they don't exactly have racial bonuses (that we know of) for me to complain about. Ditto the Maormer. Not exactly a lot of lore on them to derive a conclusion. The rest, though, I've covered pretty extensively at this point.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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...

No, renaming happens naturally over time within a culture. There's always a good reason for it (new national identity, change of state religion, empire building, whatever) but there's no reason to assume that a new name means a distinct new people with magic racial bonuses that defy any evolutionary sense. It's not that I can say with 100% certainty that it didn't happen, but when the evidence just isn't there it would be foolishly speculative to claim it did.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

Do you like, forget your own argument when I don't quote our entire exchange for you? I said that the selective pressures weren't there for evolution to make sense, you countered that Nords live in cold areas and Dunmer live near volcanoes, then I countered that there are Nord populations who don't live in cold regions and Dunmer populations who don't live near volcanoes. If there were evolutionary selective pressures for the cold or fire resistant traits, then why are they supposedly present in segments of the population that don't experience those pressures? And why aren't they present in populations who live in similar circumstances, like the Orcs living in frozen frozen Orsinium? It doesn't make sense, and as already pointed out (and as you've already conceded) it is far outside what is actually seen in real evolution.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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 )

No, it cannot. The nonwarrior Redguards breed just fine. There's a difference between "desirable" and "so hideous no one will breed with you", and in civilized societies there are more desirable traits than a single thing like being able to swing a sword. You are definitely watching too much highschool anime. Being a banker or a cobbler or a caravaner or even a bandit is still going to get you laid because having a job (any job) and being able to function in society is THE selective pressure for species that form civilizations.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

I am well aware of the lorebook in question, I'm just saying that there have been in-game examples which contradict it, on the offchance you didn't know. We can speculate that the kids were from prior engagements, but we do not know and should not assume. Like I said, it was just as aside, and only possibly not true.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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.

No, you are missing the point. They are not "unlikely" protagonists. They are just protagonists. You are making some really wild claims here. Stories get remembered for so many more reasons than just "the first, the best, the last, the worst, and the unlikely one". There is more to storytelling than some game of superlatives. I'd say that we probably have more stories that don't follow that format than do. We have stories of drama, or irony, ones that are profound or humorous, ones meant to teach life lessons or cultural values, etc. And that's where the stories I mentioned fall. The Gold Ribbon of Merit and Vernaccus and Bourlor are tales of irony, while The Black Arrow is a tale of drama. I'm sorry but you just don't know what you're talking about when it comes to storytelling.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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?

Seems a stretch that these are the "common knowledge" depictions of the races. Is the TES series so shallow that racial abilities get more focus than the culture of the people these descriptions are about? And why are you so intent on cherrypicking which ones are the real descriptions? It seems to me, as I've already said, that these are little more than explanations for game mechanics. You're putting so much stock in something so very trivial and lacking in nuance.

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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...

No, crafting as a race perk is pretty freaking ridiculous too. Crafting and tool usage are the foundational hallmarks of civilization. Being nomadic would not apply any more of a selective pressure for such a trait than any other type of living. In fact, culturally speaking, you'd be less likely to have advanced crafting skill because your people would lack the sophisticated tools, machinery, and resources that stationary settlements allow. No advanced forges or deep mines or anything of the like. Also some tribes of the Khajiit more known for being nomadic? Where's their crafting bonus, by your logic?

Bigevilpeter wrote: »

Passives has always been race dependant in every ES game, it is neccesary for game immerssion

Yes but it could be made to be more MMO friendly without breaking the lore. Add some choices in passives so we could switch between setups easier, but why do things good for players when you can empty their pockets?

I hate racials in ESO. They are forcing the players to choose a race that they don't wanna play with. Because the racials give too much stats
For example: Redguard gives +10% max stamina and +9% stamina recovery. That's a lot. Every stamblade palys redguard because redguards are the best race for stamina players.
I think racials should give only 1-2% stats. Like +2% max stamina and +1% stamina recovery.

In WoW it's much better because the racial passives are giving very little bonus, so actually we can choose every race without regrets. Well, except in PvP because the racial abilitys (not passives) matter in PvP.