Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

HatchetHaro · January 2019

Argonians and Nords now sit at the bottom of the DPS barrel with these changes, and I'm not sure I like that.

The thing is that while these changes are "mathematically" balanced, in reality, the different roles they affect are already imbalanced in terms of how racial passives interact with them. The key here is what I like to call the "effective ceiling".

PvE DPS is the de-facto metric in determining which racial passives are better, simply because their effectiveness is so easily measured and have an obvious determinable ceiling; tanking, healing, and PvP don't really have that ceiling, as in most of the difference in performance in those roles at the highest level still lie in player skill. Case in point, Woeler, by all means a brilliant tank, runs a Khajiiti for his taunting needs, but you don't see many, if at all, people running non-BiS races for damage-dealing in the end-game; people are even taking into account the damage difference between Altmer and Dunmer and about how "huge" that is.

While I'm fine with the nerfs made in terms of Argonian effectiveness in tanking, healing, and sustain, I still find their lack of damage-dealing passives to be really unappealing, which sucks because I love Argonians. Nords, not so much, so I don't really care for them, but I still have to make a point for giving them some of that DPS buff because I'd like to be fair to all the races.

Fact of the matter is that right now, Dunmer (considered BiS for magicka atm) magsorcs are dealing 6% more damage than the worst race for it, without accounting for Engulfing Flames. This is the number that causes raiders to frown upon people not using the "absolute BiS" races, and I have personally encountered many instances of this "segregation" in my >2 years of raiding end-game, despite a good track record as an end-game dps.

(I've tested it on Murkmire PTS a couple of weeks ago with Dunmer, Argonian, and Khajiiti, all with the exact same non-pet Magsorc build and exact same rotations, self-buffed and taking multiple 3mil parses with each toon, truncating the extremes and calculating the averages.)

I'm going to assume that stamina numbers are similar between Redguards and Bretons; I haven't tested it though, but I plan on doing it sometime during this week. However, the sustain buff to Redguards is entirely unnecessary; they already have the best stamina DPS sustain among all the races, with Adrenaline Rush almost exactly equivalent to chugging a crafted stamina potion on cooldown; buffing it to direct damage sources rather than just melee, buffing those numbers, and giving them weapon ability cost reduction is really overkill.

While I am glad to see that Khajiiti are receiving a buff to their spell crit that brings them up from bottom of the barrel for magicka DPS to somewhere among the top, and am also glad to see that Dunmer magicka damage is being nerfed while their stamina damage is being buffed, I would still like to see something damage-related for Argonians that wouldn't affect their tanking/healing/PvP ability.

These are my proposed changes to the racial passives right now:

High Elf

Elemental Talent: Increases Spell Damage by 258 129.

Altmer are a bit too powerful, what with their Magicka sustain and raw Magicka damage.

Argonian

Resourceful: Increases your Max Stamina and Magicka by 1000. Restore 3600 2400 Health, and 3600 Magicka and Stamina when you drink a potion.
Quick to Mend: Increases healing done by 4%, and increases Weapon and Spell damage by 129 for 5 seconds upon receiving any healing.

I'm actually trying not to be biased here and buff them too hard, but I really do love Argonians. Also, I believe these will level the playing field a little in terms of raw damage, while being faithful to the lore of Argonians being resilient lovable hunks without affecting their nerfed utility.

Breton

Magicka Mastery: Reduces the Magicka cost of your abilities by 8% 5%.

Breton sustain is unmatched, but I would like it dialed down a little. Still best, just not by that much.

Dark Elf

Dynamic: Increases your Max Stamina by 1250 750 and Max Magicka by 1250 1500.

They're elves. I believe that their magic damage was nerfed a tad too much.

Khajiit

Robustness: Increases your Health Recovery by 100 and your Stamina and Magicka recovery by 75 150.
Feline Ambush: Increases your Weapon and Spell Critical Chance by 8% 5%. Reduces your detection radius in Stealth by 5m.

8% in Weapon Crit was actually already pretty OP, and that along with their new Lunar Blessings passive would put them at a bit too much damage. Same for Spell Crit. This tones that down a bit while also giving them better sustain.

Nord

Stalwart: Increases your Max Stamina by 1500 2000. When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

This should put them on the same level as Imperials and Redguards in terms of damage; perhaps a tiny bit more from their ultimate gen, but they won't have the sustain for it.

Orc

Unflinching: Increases your Healing Received by 4%. When you deal damage with a weapon ability you restore 380 250 Health and Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.

Honestly, I don't know about Orcs right now; I think they're going to be really good at damage but since I'm going to propose nerfs to Redguard sustain I think something similar should happen here. For now, take this with a few more grains of salt than my other proposed changes.

Redguard

Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Weapon abilities by 8% 5%.
Adrenaline Rush: When you deal Direct Damage, you restore 950 600 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds.

Just trying to get them more on par with Bosmer; right now they're just ballin OP, and these proposed changes would still keep them at the top for stamina sustain.

These are just off the top of my head; numbers can be tweaked, but my goal for these proposals is to balance out dps between races while maintaining their differing utility.

Now, I'm not saying that these are perfect; the update still hasn't even dropped on the PTS, so I have no idea of knowing whether these flat resource increases apply before or after the % buffs from other passives such as Inner Light or Undaunted Mettle. I am looking to spend much of my time testing on the PTS, and get as much data as possible both before and after the changes. In the end, I am hoping for better work done on the racial passives.

clocksstoppe · January 2019

High elf feels way stronger than all others for no reason. 4% elemental damage to 258 spell damage is absolutely insane.

Not very happy that my magDK just got ruined, Hybrid style builds won't work as long as damage scales with max resoruce pool. Why convert 3% max mag into 600 health? Might as well just delete that entire passive because it's now useless (noone is going to run a magdk anyways)

Look at nord: its 9% hp got turned into only 1k health, it would have been 1.5k based on the dunmer change. Nord could actually use some good racials.

Wood elf lost the stealth damage bonus for no reason. You should have removed the stealth detection bonus instead, as it's useless.

Overall it doesn't seem like these changes are actually driven by maths, instead you just nerfed all of them to be flat instead of percentage and there is still an imbalance between altmer, argonian, redguard, and the rest. Please revise how in some places 6% turns into 500 and in other places 3% turns into 1k. Like seriously, it's 4th grade maths..

KefkaGestahl · January 2019

I'm happy. My one character is a khajiit with a health recovery build. I was afraid they would remove the health recovery altogether, but if they don't listen to the haters, the khajiit will still be well positioned to make a health recovery build work even though it may be less effective.

preedb16_ESO2 · January 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

Only one I'm worried about is the Redguard. Given how hard that race is pushed as "The Choice for StamDPS," buffing Adrenaline Rush feels like a mistake.

Hold that thought..
Exhilaration: 9% Stamina Recovery → Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Weapon abilities by 8%.
Instead of 9% stam recovery, they get 8% cost reduction that only applies to weapon abilities, not class abilities or anything else.. Overall probably a nerf, except for spin2win PVPers that only use steel tornado..

Tarrin · January 2019

Bosmers for PvE? Nope.
I don`t want to be for PvP only. Ugly race update.

DIslike & unsubscribe.

Derra · January 2019

Those changes look lovely.

The only thing i disagree with are dunmer. They went from having a solid niche in magica DPS pve and DK in pvp to being a jack of all trades - which isn´t bad per se but doesn´t work in eso so far.
I´d love some extra fine tuning on our slaver friends.

lassitershawn · January 2019

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

High Elf - Good changes all over the place. I'm finding it difficult to say anything negative about them.

Argonian - Again, good changes. I still don't understand why they want to make Argonians the healer class, lorewise they are not healers.

Wood Elf - Pretty good stuff. I can see Wood Elves becoming a lot more popular in PvP, especially if that 20% speed increase stacks with the major expedition from the bow. A bit OP even?

Breton - Much needed buff to the cost reduction racial. I will be changing my magplar main from Argonian to Breton.

Dark Elf - 3% Max Magicka → Increases your Max Health by 600. This is not a good change, makes no sense whatsoever, and 600 health is an insignificant amount to justify losing 3% magicka.

Imperial - New go to race for pvp, and tanking?

Khajiit - I feel like they're trying to make them a "trick of all trades" race, but lorewise they are not. Argonians would be better suited for this.

Nord - Are these nerfs? Look like it to me, and it honestly doesn't make any sense.

Orc - Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500. That's an unnecessary nerf. I'm on board with the other 2 though.

Redguard - WUT? Redguard sustain was so good that if you were not playing a redguard as a stamina class, you were simply doing it wrong. And their solution to this was to make their sustain even better...WTH!

Nord is substantially buffed. 4k resists is stronger than the not-really-functioning 6% mitigation and increased ulti gen is extremely important, especially in the context of PvE tanks where you can get off more warhorns.

KingKobra · January 2019

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

The cash grab is so obvious, it's painful. This is not a Beta. People were chosing race to achieve certain playstyles and stat combinations in a game they paid for initially and (most of us) monthly. Changing those core values to keep the game fresh and make it more balanced is very appreciated - but there is a moral obligation to give paying customers the chance to reconsider their choice without drawbacks (especially financially). Yes, even for a company dedicated to make profit.

Temporary free race changes for every character > lvl 50 is the absolute minimum loyal & supporting customers can expect. I'm subbed for many years now - that sub will be dropped permanently the moment those race changes go live without ZOS accepting their responsibility to give their customers above-mentioned chance to reconsider their race choice for every single developed character.

I'm all for the changes themselves, but I will not support such greedy & shady business behaviour.

100% this.

JobooAGS · January 2019

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

JobooAGS wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

High Elf - Good changes all over the place. I'm finding it difficult to say anything negative about them.

Argonian - Again, good changes. I still don't understand why they want to make Argonians the healer class, lorewise they are not healers.

Wood Elf - Pretty good stuff. I can see Wood Elves becoming a lot more popular in PvP, especially if that 20% speed increase stacks with the major expedition from the bow. A bit OP even?

Breton - Much needed buff to the cost reduction racial. I will be changing my magplar main from Argonian to Breton.

Dark Elf - 3% Max Magicka → Increases your Max Health by 600. This is not a good change, makes no sense whatsoever, and 600 health is an insignificant amount to justify losing 3% magicka.

Imperial - New go to race for pvp, and tanking?

Khajiit - I feel like they're trying to make them a "trick of all trades" race, but lorewise they are not. Argonians would be better suited for this.

Nord - Are these nerfs? Look like it to me, and it honestly doesn't make any sense.

Orc - Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 500. That's an unnecessary nerf. I'm on board with the other 2 though.

Redguard - WUT? Redguard sustain was so good that if you were not playing a redguard as a stamina class, you were simply doing it wrong. And their solution to this was to make their sustain even better...WTH!

Redguard lost 9% regen and also max stam

Exhilaration: 9% Stamina Recovery → Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Weapon abilities by 8%. I'd have to run some tests to have more accurate numbers but on paper this doesn't look like a nerf. It's 100% a buff for aoe builds.

Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Increases your Max Stamina by 2000. Translates into a minor loss of stamina, but every class got the same treatment so it's not a nerf or a buff, it's simply a balance change.

Adrenaline Rush: When you deal damage with a melee attack you restore 792 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds. → When you deal Direct Damage, you restore 950 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds. Considerable buff to a racial that was already overpowered.

Bosmer with 5 med and being a nb already beats adreniline rush significantly. Even being a warden or sorc still beats this. 950 every 5 seconds is 380 regen. Bosmer's regen still stacks with regen multipliers.

The cost reduction for weapon abilities is interesting and can use some test work.

Bosmer has the same max stam now as redguard. Is is a bosmer buff and a redguard nerf.

Edit for numbers

.12 animal companions from Warden + .2 from 5 med + .2 from potion + .12 cp = .64
258*1.64 = 423
Sorc replace the .12 from warden and add .2 for sorc passives assuming you are slotting bound arraments or atro
Nb add .1 for relentless and instead of .12 from passives, make it .15.

Lab3360 · January 2019

Congratulations

Now all the races feel exactly the same.

Jitterbug · January 2019

Looks good, altho I don't think I get the Nord changes.

preedb16_ESO2 · January 2019

I have 10 level 50 characters @ 1096CP, briefly scimming over these changes and I am looking at having to reroll at least 5 to different races.. And we get ONE free race change, per ACCOUNT?
4x2500 crowns=10k crowns=~50 euros?? Well, I guess it's gonna be either that, or buy Elsweyr.. Or spend it on a brand new fresh and interresting game that isn't ESO..

Ertosi · January 2019

Tasear wrote: »

Khydan wrote: »

Can someone please translate this for me? Who got nerfed and who got buffed? How is my boy Breton doing?

Balance

You misspelled "nerfs"

IronWooshu · January 2019

idk wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Inig0 wrote: »

ZoS we’ve gone so far past the time where you can reasonable make changes to the races like you have. I’ve personally leveled 14 characters with the intention of playing a specific race on that character to sever specific needs. Setting aside the clear in balance and lack of freedom you’re giving people you’re also costing us hundreds of dollars to re adjust ourselves to something we’ve made decisions on that costed us hundreds of hours in leveling alone.

You are directly costing your player base money and time.

The only solution I see is making races a cosmetic choice with no combat influence. Perhaps add a system where you choose the passives because frankly you’re just forcing people who genuinely care about performance to buy tokens and race change. This is unacceptable.

Honestly you, the min/maxers that tell is what is BiS take the fun out of end game so I feel no sorrow for any of the min/maxers on these changes who have the shell out money.

It is the theory crafters that do the math, then test it out, that determines what works extremely well. The game is about math and especially at end game. So those who are into the end game the most welcome their information as a good place to start with testing their own builds.

These change may not have the impact one might think.

The way I see it is that min/maxers will still have BiS options but the next best option in DPS drop-off won't be that far off that it will make that big of a difference in the end game just by them removing the % passives.

The only people who will notice is the leaderboard runners and they make up .01% of the playerbase. The rest of us do veteran trials for the loot, skins, titles, achievements and not the leaderboards. Now PUG trial groups and guild trial groups that aren't running leaderboards will take Orcs, Khajiit, Nords as DPS options rather than JUST Redguards because this games playerbase has a hive mind like personality.

Vapirko · January 2019

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

Wood Elf speed boost is too powerful. Especially since it will stack with Major Expedition. Instead of 20% untyped/stacking, it should just be Major Expedition for 3 seconds, or Minor Expedition if you want a stacking bonus.

We saw how powerful stacking speed was in the Swift meta, 20% is better than three swift now. A better bonus than three jewelry traits with a roll? Way too powerful! Way out of line with all the other bonuses.

Everything else looks okay, with maybe a couple minor tweaks.

Yeah I can't believe this. Its a straight up buff to roll dodging cloaking stamblades. Absolutions BS.

metabLast3r · January 2019

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

The cash grab is so obvious, it's painful. This is not a Beta. People were chosing race to achieve certain playstyles and stat combinations in a game they paid for initially and (most of us) monthly. Changing those core values to keep the game fresh and make it more balanced is very appreciated - but there is a moral obligation to give paying customers the chance to reconsider their choice without drawbacks (especially financially). Yes, even for a company dedicated to make profit.

Temporary free race changes for every character > lvl 50 is the absolute minimum loyal & supporting customers can expect. I'm subbed for many years now - that sub will be dropped permanently the moment those race changes go live without ZOS accepting their responsibility to give their customers above-mentioned chance to reconsider their race choice for every single developed character.

I'm all for the changes themselves, but I will not support such greedy & shady business behaviour.

All this. The changes don’t bother me really, apart from testing them during the PTS to make a concrete decision. However, 1 race change token??? You have got to be kidding me.

Chufu · January 2019

The Orc race is one of honor and code. Well known for their aggressive combat style, we wanted to showcase this by helping them keep up the fight with their new recovery when utilizing any weapon. Their previous bonus to Melee Damage was too niche, and we wanted Orcs to feel powerful with less restrictions. Since we’re giving them more damage and aggression, we also wanted to dial back on some of their defensive power.

Yes, I like! More smashing!

Bye bye MagWarden, here comes the BowBowWarden for the raid!!

So far the other racial changes are nice as well. I can understand though that you don't want to lose the unique-forms of your races, but for gameplay i still think it's not very nice that not every class is good at being stamina or magicka at the same time. From a raiding perspective: even if you are trying to do the hardest content, i still believe it should be possible to play what i want without losing too many stats.

But yeah from my point of view, I'll try to switch to Bow-Chars now instead of Magicka and hope that helps to catch up on dps. Magicka + lightweaving is still not my favorite playstyle.

But i like the race changes you made for now, i just think you could maybe think about that aspect that still some races will be favorised for endgame content (pve or pvp).

Sun7dance · January 2019

Unflinching: Healing Received by 5% and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Healing Received by 4%. When you deal damage with a weapon ability you restore 380 Health and Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.

What does that mean exactly?

1.) Any light, medium and heavy attack included?
2.) Can dot ticks proc this too? (injection or endless hail for example)

Vapirko · January 2019

Ahh hey ZOS, how come Woodelves go from 6% stam to 2000 max stam, and Orcs go from 6% to 500? I mean I get that we have health as well, but surely 500 is too *** low, yeah?

Golnebo · January 2019

I just want to say that it seems unfair that we will get just one race change token for free. I have 13 characters of which I play at least two for PVE and at least two for PVP regularly.
Like you say yourself with these upcoming changes I will be able to pick my specific playstyle based on a personal level, which I think sounds like a good idea. Except I don't get to pick my specific playstyle based on a personal level because you want to me to pay real life money for doing so.
For me, that is not going to happen, so I am stuck with at minimum three characters that I play regularly but have not the right racial passives for my best personal experience.
Therefore I hope you reconsider the one free race token.

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO · January 2019

@ZOS_Gilliam I know that “Greetings” from the past, Gilliam the Rogue, not so behind the scenes at ZOS are ya now.......lol

silvereyes · January 2019

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

i knew those announcements from the stream were missing the bad parts, frankly race changes should be free for a limited time. 1 race change simply is not going to be enough.

This sounds really good in theory, but it's not possible with the current race change tokens. There is no system in place for tokens to expire, and they can't just make the tokens free on the store, or people will hoard them.

Of course, they could always make a new kind of token that expires, but then how do you differentiate in the UI between expiring tokens and non-expiring ones? How do you display to the user how long they have to use the expiring ones? There is a non-trivial amount of work to make it happen. Frankly, I don't think they have enough time, since PTS is in just a few days, and they usually spend most of the PTS cycles fixing bugs and tweaking the combat changes they've made.

The only viable option really is to utilize the existing race change tokens. Obviously, they don't want to give out more than they need to, lest they hurt crown store sales.

The problem is that they seem to be trying to come up with a global flat number of tokens to give away to everyone, rather than a nuanced approach as some others have suggested (e.g. 1 per max level toon, etc). The *average* might very well come out to only about 1 token needed per account, in aggregate, but that's a small consolation for the most dedicated min/max players who want to change all of their toons to the new meta.

I doubt very much that anything will change, though. I don't recall them giving any free race change tokens when they performed their last mass racial passives update in Shadows of the Hist. They don't want to set precedent of offering free tokens every time they make a racial balance change that disrupts the meta.

I'm actually surprised they are offering any this time. They know that anyone with 8+ competitive toons has sunk so much time into the game that they will buy the tokens no matter what, despite complaining about the cost. Re-rolling and grinding out mount upgrades, crafting research, learned recipes/motifs, Mages/Fighters Guild, Undaunted, Psijic Order, Thieves Guild, PvP rank, etc is just too much for anyone to contemplate.

About the best we can hope for is probably a deeply discounted sale on race change tokens, and maybe even deeper discounts as an ESO+ limited time exclusive.

mendesbettonrb18_ESO · January 2019

ZOS, please consider giving at least more than one race change token per account, your most dedicated players are the most affected by the racial changes and only one token is not gonna be enough. Please, do good by your supporters.

pie_ka33 · January 2019

My favourite toons are my dunmer magblade and magdk. Seems like these toons are going to take a serious hit. I don’t want to change to another race because of lore and appearance. Doesn’t feel like an improvement to being able to play the game as I want.

MartiniDaniels · January 2019

IronWooshu wrote: »

idk wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Inig0 wrote: »

ZoS we’ve gone so far past the time where you can reasonable make changes to the races like you have. I’ve personally leveled 14 characters with the intention of playing a specific race on that character to sever specific needs. Setting aside the clear in balance and lack of freedom you’re giving people you’re also costing us hundreds of dollars to re adjust ourselves to something we’ve made decisions on that costed us hundreds of hours in leveling alone.

You are directly costing your player base money and time.

The only solution I see is making races a cosmetic choice with no combat influence. Perhaps add a system where you choose the passives because frankly you’re just forcing people who genuinely care about performance to buy tokens and race change. This is unacceptable.

Honestly you, the min/maxers that tell is what is BiS take the fun out of end game so I feel no sorrow for any of the min/maxers on these changes who have the shell out money.

It is the theory crafters that do the math, then test it out, that determines what works extremely well. The game is about math and especially at end game. So those who are into the end game the most welcome their information as a good place to start with testing their own builds.

These change may not have the impact one might think.

The way I see it is that min/maxers will still have BiS options but the next best option in DPS drop-off won't be that far off that it will make that big of a difference in the end game just by them removing the % passives.

The only people who will notice is the leaderboard runners and they make up .01% of the playerbase. The rest of us do veteran trials for the loot, skins, titles, achievements and not the leaderboards. Now PUG trial groups and guild trial groups that aren't running leaderboards will take Orcs, Khajiit, Nords as DPS options rather than JUST Redguards because this games playerbase has a hive mind like personality.

So you think you won't notice lose of 2k resource? I am not end game 0.01% but i notice those difference evreytime (for example when you use witchbrew or maxmagicka/maxhealth food, difference is really noticeable).

Yolokin_Swagonborn · January 2019

If you had a race with 10% max stamina or magicka, and your final build was around 40k magicka or stamina, then these changes are nerfing you by HALF. You will lose effectively 2000 of the 4000 resources in your max pool (39600/1.1) = 36,000 + 2000 = 38,000

If you ran a Breton or High Elf Magicka build with 40k magicka, you now have 38k magicka. I guess Magnus is an indian giver.
If you ran a Redguard Stamina damage build with 40k stamina, you now have lost effectively 200 weapon damage.
If you ran a 50k health imperial tank, you now have 46.6k Health

This isn't "Balance" this is nerfing the top damage dealing builds in the game. This is the price of power creep.

Jameliel · January 2019

Ridiculous changes as usual. Some make sense, others make none at all even with their explanations. Looks like a typical zos cash grab setup.

IronWooshu · January 2019

zyk wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

Honestly you, the min/maxers that tell is what is BiS take the fun out of end game so I feel no sorrow for any of the min/maxers on these changes who have the shell out money.

I present to you the salty casual archetype that motivates ZOS changes. They won't play the game according to its rules, so ZOS will change the rules to support them.

I present you the elitist snob who force these changes, I can gurantee you its not the casual player who forces the changes. Its the snobs who make end game players feel forced to have to use BiS to get a Trials group.

That sits on you because ZoS see's this and wants diversity, the casual player doesn't care because they enjoy the race they play the most regardless that its BiS.

gepe87 · January 2019

My Dunmer RIP. And I thought that I could make a mag bosmer. Such disappointment. I knew that those change will please only half of eso population.

Note: Forget hybrid build while dev clearly show a mag/stam division.

Jules · January 2019

silvereyes wrote: »

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

i knew those announcements from the stream were missing the bad parts, frankly race changes should be free for a limited time. 1 race change simply is not going to be enough.

This sounds really good in theory, but it's not possible with the current race change tokens. There is no system in place for tokens to expire, and they can't just make the tokens free on the store, or people will hoard them.

Of course, they could always make a new kind of token that expires, but then how do you differentiate in the UI between expiring tokens and non-expiring ones? How do you display to the user how long they have to use the expiring ones? There is a non-trivial amount of work to make it happen. Frankly, I don't think they have enough time, since PTS is in just a few days, and they usually spend most of the PTS cycles fixing bugs and tweaking the combat changes they've made.

The only viable option really is to utilize the existing race change tokens. Obviously, they don't want to give out more than they need to, lest they hurt crown store sales.

The problem is that they seem to be trying to come up with a global flat number of tokens to give away to everyone, rather than a nuanced approach as some others have suggested (e.g. 1 per max level toon, etc). The *average* might very well come out to only about 1 token needed per account, in aggregate, but that's a small consolation for the most dedicated min/max players who want to change all of their toons to the new meta.

I doubt very much that anything will change, though. I don't recall them giving any free race change tokens when they performed their last mass racial passives update in Shadows of the Hist. They don't want to set precedent of offering free tokens every time they make a racial balance change that disrupts the meta.

I'm actually surprised they are offering any this time. They know that anyone with 8+ competitive toons has sunk so much time into the game that they will buy the tokens no matter what, despite complaining about the cost. Re-rolling and grinding out mount upgrades, crafting research, learned recipes/motifs, Mages/Fighters Guild, Undaunted, Psijic Order, Thieves Guild, PvP rank, etc is just too much for anyone to contemplate.

About the best we can hope for is probably a deeply discounted sale on race change tokens, and maybe even deeper discounts as an ESO+ limited time exclusive.

Concisely and brilliantly said. And yet still as on point and logical as you were, it is still incredibly upsetting that this is the business model.