Tbh, the only thing I am really worried about is the 20% speed buff on fpr Bosmers. Those perma-dodgers will be right back to where they were with before the necessary Swift nerf. You can rest assured, they will proc this passive on cooldown and thus run 75% of the time at such high speeds that the game can once again not keep up with it and you won't be able to hit them even when they are not dodging for a second or two.

Give them Bosmer something else. Don't break the game again by introducing speeds that your game cannot handel @ZOS_Gilliam

Jamdarius wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

RIP Dunmer.

Unless you intend to play a hybrid, there's absolutely no reason to pick Dunmer over Altmer for a mag class.

In the current patch, Dunmer-vs-Altmer was a question of damage-vs-sustain. With the high amount of fire damage at play, Dunmer did slightly higher DPS than Altmer, but Altmer had better sustain. Dunmer had 9% max mag (6%+3%) vs. Altmer's 10%, so that was not a substantial difference.

Now with these proposed changes...

1. The magicka deficit between Dunmer and Altmer is larger.
2. Replacing Dunmer's higher flame damage with weapon damage (useful only for a hybrid) means that Dunmer now does less DPS than Altmer (as they have the same spell damage bonus).
3. Dunmer doesn't have Altmer's sustain.

So whereas in the past Dunmer lost sustain in exchange for slightly more damage versus Altmer, now they've lost sustain and lost damage. So... why would anyone pick Dunmer?

Suggestion: Give Dunmer fire abilities an additional X spell damage. It would make them once again a meaningful alternative to Altmer and is consistent with their lore background.

RIP my MAGDK main....

Quick arithmetic suggests a 5% or so hit to DPS for a Dunmer DK, probably a little less. That's because the spell damage buff fully compensates for the max magicka loss, and so we're only talking about the 7% fire damage buff, which isn't a true 7% buff because it's additive with others.

My Altmer pet sorcerer is losing more than that.

wait, what? my nord health tank's been nerfed. and my nord nb will have less stam, but at least my nord stamsorc will have slightly more...But that ult generation looks nice on my stamsorc (don't really need it on any of my other builds due to cleave/heroic slash and or bloodspawn)

@ZOS_Gilliam great right up.
I think the team did a good job overall (1st draft and we haven't seen any other changes yet).
I thought it was going to either make racials "cosmetic" or just smash the meta as a cash grab. But instead it seems like a nice balance of smoothing the passives down.
Now if you stacked Max resources or recovery, yeah you got nerfed.
The only one I disagree with is Dunmer; without a flame buff, and instead pure hybrid focus when hybrids are not really viable, they got hit too hard. In saying that, who knows, you may bring back soft caps, and hybrids will become viable.
Overall, not much changed so not a cash grab;
Altmer was king of Mag bedside DK with Dunmer, now Altmer is king with Khajiit good for NB and Temp and, Breton for Sorc maybe Temp and Dk (sustain)
Stamina was redguard. Still is redguard, but khajiit as well for NB and Temp and Orc niche.
Tanks and healers dont really change.
Finally, Bosmer and Nord! Bosmers stealth passive, went from niche to way too super niche: surely something better!
Nord: undecided on the mitigation change, bit damn, can Nords get some offensive love? They are big Vikings!

Ultimately, good job. Now just need to fix the performance so can enjoy experimenting with these changes for years to come.

Just got a chance to read through this. Overall I applaud the attempt to balance the races as I agree that this is an issue, however I think that this misses the mark in several ways. There are several positives here so I will highlight them as well.

Positives:

1. I agree with going to flat values, for the reasons stated by the Combat Team. I also think that this will put a little more emphasis on sustain since your pools will naturally be lower. While I enjoy the high resources, it seems that the original "sustain nerf" that ZoS intended with Morrowind has slowly crept back into play via CP increases and other factors.

2. I think the idea of providing a unique buff to each race is nice, but can be challenging to apply effectively. Each race should stand out in it's own way and I think there was a good attempt at that. Without seeing it in action I can't comment any further.

3. I very much like the change to Breton (not sure if 7% is too much yet) but it makes a clear distinction in playstyle between Argonian and Breton for healers, making either very viable.

Negatives:

1. From a DPS perspective, you have still put Redguard well above the other classes. While there was a slight nerf to Redguard sustain in the form of changing stam recovery, since most stam players don't stack stam recovery (some exceptions in PVP) this has less impact as I think was intended. However, since direct damage is so prevalent in every build I can think of, especially with weaving LAs, then the stam sustain boost will make a big impact.

1A. I believe that High Elves have now firmly secured their place in the magic DPS world as you effectively gave them a buff for certain classes that use a mix of magic and elemental damage while also providing them with an extremely strong sustain option that is not present in dark elves. Particularly for classes who struggle with sustain (Sorc, DK) High Elf now becomes the obvious choice.

2. I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated with the changes to the more "tank oriented" races. I agree that the Argonian potion passive needed a nerf, but to make the max health bonus only 1000 when it was 9% before and remove the healing received all together really knocks them down dramatically, especially when you compare it to the changes made to the other classes.

2A. The Nords took a nerf as well for PVE but a buff to PVP (IMO). The Ult gen is a nice unique touch, but I always felt that the uniqueness of the Nords was their unique 6% mitigation. Made them very hardy tanks, but didn't necessarily provide as much support. PVE tanks don't have much difficulty getting up to the soft cap so the extra raw resistances doesn't help much, and in PVP it will just make them tougher while giving them faster Ult Gen to make those permablock DKs even tougher.

2B. Considering that the Imperial Race is hidden behind a required purchase of the Imperial Edition, I'm surprised that these folks got such a buff. Aside from that, you as developers have continually nerfed Block Sustain for the past 1.5 to 2 years, yet you decide to make a buff for this specific race? Not only does it feel counter-intuitive, it also makes it the clear #1 choice for tanks to consider, especially when you consider the additional passive healing that requires minimal effort on the player, and their higher resources than Argonian.

3. Personally I find it funny that we are getting a Khaijit themed Chapter Update and we are making effective nerfs to the race. This one does not agree, though I do understand your attempt to make the Khaijit more of a "jack of all trades" option, I don't forsee people running it because it's lack of ability to focus on a single option when it comes to more end game content.


Final thoughts, I think everyone knows this but it's worth saying, so long as combat metrics and other elements exist, there will always be "the top race" for each role and class. While I applaud the effort, I don't forsee this element changing and I worry that you will just be doing this again in 6 months or a year and further frustrating your player base by forcing changes to their characters that they may not enjoy. While the goal is to make the differences minimal between the races, one will always be higher than the others and therefore be the one that all players turn to once the PTS hits.

I hope that this not the final version (I know it won't, but I don't know how much change there will be) and you take our feedback into consideration. Thank you!

Getting rid of the 10% bonus stealth damage passives will make one-shot ganking harder to pull off, which is probably a good thing on net (especially from those mostly on the receiving end :P), and it won't make gankers as race-locked, but overall this is a big dps loss to a popular playstyle. I hope there are other things added (maybe fun new stealth-oriented sets) to address this.

Exhilaration: 9% Stamina Recovery → Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Weapon abilities by 8%.

Cost reduction is 2.5-3x as powerful as recovery based on the experimentation of Worm's Raiment vs Hircine's Veneer, so this is a HUGE buff if you're mostly using Weapon abilities. Coupled with removing the melee attack restriction for the stamina rush, Redguards with bows are going to be super strong since bow builds are relatively Weapon ability heavy.

My nord feels even heartier after this. Whee!

Woop. Stam DK just became more viable for my Dunmer main.

Imperials omg... Will that chance to heal be enough to add to survivality?

Khajiit definately needs some love. Get rid of that health recovery and add to magicka and stamina recovery please

technohic wrote: »

The moment you realize all those cloaking, wood elf, snipers are getting a speed buff...

Maybe we should less focus on what nightblades are getting from somewhere else and focus on nightblade nerfs if NBs are issue ^^ All those bosmer that arent cloaking would like to have stuff too.

Davadin wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Emmagoldman wrote: »

Nord might be really fun as an ult machine but maybe thats were it would be limited to. I would set my nord stamdem cenetered on permafrost or set it to magden to spam the healing ult. What would you add to it @Minno?

Could run it a few ways. Armor it gets is basically between 2-3 protective traits on jewels. If you pair that with light armor/medium, you can roll other traits for extra dmg and I dare say extra dmg set.

Question: For a stamDK, what if im already a 5-heavy 7th legion + Sprig build? I can swap my Selene to BS for even moar ultigen, but what do you mean using dmg trait or dmg set? like, using Robust trait on jewels and damage 2nd set is already a given for DK who wants more damage than a love-tap....

In your case probably no change, you'll just have beefier armor values enough to use selenes over bloodspawn (but probably not since more ult coming in means more sustain for DK plus the stam recovery 2pc is hard to beat). But for someone that doesn't want to run that specific setup (example, wants to run 5pc medium armor instead of 5 heavy), can find other ways to stat swap to make their build more attractive for playing (in pvp).

The only thing I didn’t like was that khajiit got a higher reduced stealth detection radius of 5m while wood elves just get 3m. That makes anyone wanting to play with the justice system in the game HAS to choose khajiit. So now my wood elf thief is at a big disadvantage in the justice system. As Khajiit get a higher pickpocket chance bonus AND increased detection reduction radius. That’s my only dislike of these changes

One race change per account is bizarre when players have up to 15 characters, potentially with massive time and monetary investment poured into them. It costs ZOS nothing to make this right and many of us have already paid real money to change races due to realizing the shortcomings of the old race system when it was too late to make a meaningful choice.

A race change per character costs ZOS nothing and fits the precedent for major updates that I would argue was set when we went from veteran levels to CP.

At absolute minimum, you have to at least offer one plus X race changes,where X is equal to how many a person has paid cash for in the past.

Thanks ZOS! - It's great to see this well written explanation of the upcoming changes and what metric was used to determine how it's being balanced. It's obvious some actual thought was put into this process, rather than just taking a hammer to the more obvious problematic racial passives. I hope we see more posts like this in the future when broad changes are being implemented.

Little nervous to see the changes to Dunmer, but since they're coupled with across-the-board racial changes, I'll withhold judgement until I can actually test how well it works out for myself.

Peaks were cut and bottoms were made better for the general population. The changes to flat values instead of percents might be helpful to prevent super high values, but we'll see.