Upcoming Racial Balance Changes for Update 21

xaraan · January 2019

Anoregon wrote: »

Regarding Argonian: I know this is likely not a very popular idea, but at this point I feel like they just need to drop the potion mechanic of Resourcefulness entirely. Attempts to keep it balanced are hamstringing any efforts to actually bring Argonian racials in line with everyone else. As it's the only racial that is both intelligently/manually triggered as well as having a gold/resource cost it has to be very strong in order to seem worthwhile at all, but making it strong enough to be attractive at large means it's going to be overpowered when used to its max potential. As we can tell from the various tweaks to it over the past few major updates, ZOS has been having a hard time trying to find a sweet spot here, and I doubt such a sweet spot actually exists that would be satisfying to both the players and the devs.

I'd much prefer just scrapping the mechanic entirely and moving the freed up "racial budget" to the more consistent and, yes, more mundane options that all the other races possess. Now that Argonian tank strength has been nerfed, why not give them a little something to make them more attractive options for stamina or magicka damage roles?

At this point I'd agree.

I like the passive, but if it's going to hamstring the balance, scrap it and give them other bonuses. The nord ulti bonus would have fit better for this race IMO, but cats out of the bag on that now.

In the end, support passives are less powerful than dps passives in the end game. If you can do the job of support that is all that matters, bonuses or not. But for DPS, if you are missing out on those passives, then you will always be behind another equally good player.

Cundu_Ertur · January 2019

MassTerror23 wrote: »

Ive

Xvorg wrote: »

Funny thing? ZoS decides to go full lore with the race changes in the same patch they deliver necromancer...

Inconsistency at its best.

Vehemorth wrote: »

I suggest you add a Name + Race Change token instead of a Race Change. Some characters are bound to their name. For example, I have a Magicka DPS Sorcerer that is a High Elf named Mithrandir. This won't make any sense to roll a Breton, as it won't fit the name and I really don't want to spend money to change the name too.

Why? Because Mithrandir means The Gray Wanderer in Elvish. Derivative of the elvish words "mith" meaning grey and "randir" meaning pilgrim or wanderer.

This is a name made up by the elves as an endearment to the wizard Gandalf from Lord of the rings. This name won't really work for a class that's not an Elf. Also, race changing enables the ability to change the gender and in case the player doesn't like how a race looks like, it will be stuck with a name of the opposing gender.
__________________________________
Regarding the bonuses: I am happy with how the game changes. It doesn't affect how I see things, only make what I already like better. You only need one character for each role.
- Stamina DPS: Red Guard Nightblade (Vampire)
- Magicka DPS: High Elf Sorcerer (Vampire)
- Healing: Breton Templar (Vampire)
- Tanking: Imperial Dragonknight (Vampire)

Buffs: High Elf, Breton, Imperial, Red Guard
Neither: Argonian, Khajiit, Nord
Nerfs: Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Orc

Explain how wood elves are nerfed.

Stealth went from a 3m better at not being seen radius to a completely useless-in-PVE 3m buff to seeing hidden things. Wood Elves now have no bonus to stealth at all. This is apparently how the Wood Elves get to keep part of their previous stealth mechanic -- by keeping exactly none of it. It is not clear if the movement bonus would stack with the bow line skill Hasty Retreat (I don't think it should, and I don't think it will), so Bow using wood elves don't really get anything to make up for what they lost if it doesn't stack. The stam and stam regen will probably be slight buffs for those who don't spec everything towards maximizing those things, but I'm not sure how those numbers all shake out. Bosmer lose disease resistance entirely, but get a buff to poison resistance, so that's kind of a wash.

edit to add: If I'm reading some other comments correct, the stam regen is a buff even for an optimized regen build.

ZeroC · January 2019

Interesting changes!

Typical_T_ReX · January 2019

@ZOS_Gilliam I want to highlight you because you specifically are good with numbers and just want to bring this to your attention.

Dark Elf gains:
- Max Health by 600
- Max Stamina and Magicka by 1250
- Weapon and Spell Damage by 258.

Orc Gains:
- Max Health 500
- Max Stamina by 500
- Healing Received by 4%
- restore 380 Health and Stamina from weapon abilities
- Weapon Damage by 258.

I can understand making Dark elf more viable by making it appealing, but should it be MORE damage than the class renown for its brawling? Dark Elf has MORE health, more then TWICE the max stam, and the SAME weapon damage ( twice as much if you consider some hybrids can make use of the spell damage as well. )

Sure the Orc gains restore health and stam, but those are under specific conditions where Dark Elf comes out of the box stronger for a stam dps.

My only suggestion is boosting at least the max health of orc to 1,000. This is not out of line with any other changes, but makes it a clear deciding factor between Dark Elf and Orc.

You can choose more damage with the jack of all trades class in Dark Elf ( see the problem here? ) or the class built for getting in the thick of it with orc.

Eweroun · January 2019

great they are starting to work on balancing and seeing a lot of stuff happening. But over the last years people have been adjusting their race already to min-max. I'm totally fine with the idea that sometimes a change has to be made.

But this is like a extremely big chance, an overhaul of everything.
What I would do if I was ZOS is giving not a single race changing token, but just give a pop-up on the first connection with every char in a way like "do you want to change your race or not"?
--> no > everything stays like it is
--> yes > you go to race selection screen, chose your new race and done

@ZOS_Gilliam 1 race change token is just laughing at people, my dear. We deserve more than that. make it one token for every level 50 char or something like that or 5 tokens per account and then it's fine to me. I don't need 14 or 15; but pls don't laugh with people by changing everything and then let us pay for these changes.
(or make a super-extremely-nice budget crown sale of those tokens; and not the 15% off discount)

CatchMeTrolling · January 2019

Imperials should be part of the base game by now, I’m perplexed after so many years they aren’t. It’s also weird that the race that you have to buy is average at best as a whole.

ezio45 · January 2019

Not too bad lol feedback: @ZOS_Gilliam

highelf: The gain resources back ever 6 seconds is pretty weak That mean roughly every rotation your getting 1k resources backs. I dont see myself investing in this perk. Id prefer something like when you use a class ability you gain x amount of recovery for x seconds. Or if your really trying to gimp highelf recovery and it seems like you are. Maybe do an attack buff instead to gain x damage from class abilitys for x seconds.

Also I think you kinda shot yourself in the foot on this one lol zos stated one of the goals was to give more effective options for roles. Highelf was an effective option for healers along with argonian and breton. The nerf to recovery for highelf essentially rules it out as a healer whose most important stat is sustain. so you went from 3 healer options down to 2.

Argonian: Not bad, I think i was expecting worse tbh, good job

Woodelf: I think this is one of the weaker classes from these changes, it really doesnt seem like it has a purpose. It needs passives that are more clear cut. Really the stam recovery and 2k stam are the only useful passives.

Dark elf: Again not bad, I would say its an effective option for stam or mag dps now

Imperial: good

khajiit: I dont like the recovery passive. Its very underwhelming. 75 to recovery is basically a full set of invigorating and that is also a weak buff. It needs work, id say out of all the passives so far this is the worst.

Nord is cool, i like it

Orc is a little underwhelming too

redguard pretty good

ezio45 · January 2019

zyk wrote: »

My initial impression is that I don't like it. I didn't like the preamble about freedom, and there's a lot of things that instantly rub me the wrong way like:

Spell Recharge: Restore 575 Magicka or Stamina, based on whichever is higher, after activating a Class Ability. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

I don't have a high elf character, but this description is what I hate about building characters in ESO in a nutshell: stupid arbitrary conditions: why tie racial recovery to using a class ability?

I would have much preferred it if the current system was tweaked.

ya I dont really like that passive either, I think this change pretty much rules out highelf as a healer. So now theres only argonian and breton

KuroDark · January 2019

Aren't Imperials naturally good with both magic and weapons?

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO · January 2019

Additionally again looking from PvE perspective:

Set stat bonuses such as weapon and spell damage were a bit better than bonuses such as max stanima and max magicka. Now the max stamina and max magicka stats are even 10% worse. Therefore, people will look to avoid having any magicka or stamina bonuses unless the 5 piece bonus is very good. They loose those stats as % resource racial bonuses were removed.

Iarao · January 2019

Previously Argonians offered far too many stats and they were mathematically twice as good as some races.
i'm not buying it. you KNEW what you were doing when you consistently nerfed other races, imo. no oopsies.

i smell race&name change token sale churn with this whole thing. some of us play several toons. ONE free race change per acct is wrong. we need one per toon. AND A NAME CHANGE AS WELL. for each toon. otherwise this just smells like a money grab to me.

Weper · January 2019

I think racial passives should be removed so we can play with our favorite race. With the racial passives we are forced to play with the meta or at least with a viable race. Or maybe they could nerf the passives so they give only low stats like 1% Stamina Regen, 1% Magicka regen, etc ...

ezio45 · January 2019

iCaliban wrote: »

Regarding pet sorcs: this batch of changes looks like a massive nerf to max mag stacking pet sorc dps toons.

problem: Pets do not benefit in any way from max spell power.

Currently pet sorcs are ~10-15k dps behind other mag dps specs. This will further become a problem after these racial changes (assuming most pet sorcs are high elves)

its only like a 2k difference, ill take it. I really dont like the recovery loss as a sorc we already have terrible sustain but maybe theyll fix that this pts, hopefully

mav1234 · January 2019

I don't understand how this could be seen as breaking the homogeneity of magicka pve dps. Altmer is simply better than every other option. Sure, Breton has cost reduction, but the extra spell damage while still maintaining some sustain puts them far ahead of Breton. And not to mention dark elf, which has both lower dps and no sustain compated to altmer.

Imo, Altmer needs to lose entirely or see a serious reduction in the sustain passive they have OR a reduction in the damage passive or max mag passive.

Davadin · January 2019

ezio45 wrote: »

Not too bad lol feedback: @ZOS_Gilliam

Nord is cool, i like it

literally.

Matthros · January 2019

Honestly I am fine with the changes so far but since there will be PTS cycles these values may be adjusted so I will decide when the final values go live.

I can still switch my dark elf DK to Stam or Mag when I feel like it.

Maybe I will switch my Kahjiit NB to Mag and my Dark Elf NB to Stam to switch it up.

I am pleased with the changes for my Orc Stamsorc, Breton Magplar, and Imperial DK Tank.

Somber97866 · January 2019

DARK ELF MAGDK............it was fun while it lasted. But leave it to ZOS to want to make you pay more money for everyone else fun. We'll everyone, hope you like Altmer and Redgaurds in pve this patch.

Lord_Eomer · January 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

What about this for dunmer:

- 2000 magicka
- 1250 stamina
- 1250 health
- 258 spell/weapon damage

Basically, they trade 192 magicka recovery for 1250 health. But otherwise they can hit the same DPS numbers as Altmer. Get rid of the damage reduction passives.

When Dunmer had magicka recoevery passive?

trowlk · January 2019

I you intend to transform Dark Elf's passive, Ruination should increase their Spell and Physical penetration, instead of increasing their Spell and Weapon damage

Salyyn · January 2019

Trancestor wrote: »

Please make it something like this and you won't trigger anyone with yet again more nerfs and force people to buy tokens:

High Elf

Spellcharge: 9% Magicka Recovery → Spell Recharge: Restore 575 Magicka after activating a Magicka Ability. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds. Reduces damage taken by 5% while you are using an ability with a cast or channel time.
Gift of Magnus: 10% Max Magicka → Syrabane’s Boon: Increases your Max Magicka by 2500.
Elemental Talent: 4% Fire/Shock/Ice damage → Increases your Spell Damage by 258.

Argonian

Resourceful: Gain 3% Max Magicka and restore 4620 Health, Magicka, and Stamina when you drink a potion → Increases your Max Magicka and Stamina by 500. Restore 3600 Health, Magicka, and Stamina when you drink a potion.
Argonian Resistance: 9% Max Health and 1485 Poison and Disease Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 1500 and your Disease Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Diseased status effect.
Quick to Mend: 5% Healing Done and Received → Life Mender: Increases your Healing Done and Recieved by 4%.

Wood Elf

Y’ffre’s Endurance: 21% Stamina Recovery → Increases your Stamina Recovery by 258.
Resist Affliction: 6% Max Stamina and 1485 Poison and Disease Resistance → Increases your Max Stamina by 2000 and your Poison Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Poisoned status effect.
Stealthy: Reduces detection Radius by 3m and Increases Damage Done in Stealth by 10% → Hunter’s Eye: Increases your Stealth detection radius by 3m. After you use Roll Dodge you gain 10% Movement Speed for 4 seconds.

Bosmer

Gift of Magnus: 10% Max Magicka → Increases your Max Magicka by 2500.
Spell Resistance: 3960 Spell Resistance → Gain 2310 Spell Resistance and 100 Magicka Recovery.
Magicka Mastery: 3% Magicka Cost Reduction → Reduces the Magicka cost of your abilities by 7%. Gain flat reduction of snares by 15%.

Dark Elf

Dynamic: 6% Max Stamina and Magicka → Increases your Max Stamina and Magicka by 1250.
Resist Flame: 3% Max Magicka and 2079 Flame Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 750 and your Flame Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Burning status effect.
Destructive Ancestry: 7% Flame damage and 2% Frost/Shock Damage → Ruination: Increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 175. Increases your flame damage by 4%.

Imperial

Tough: 12% Max Health → Increases your Max Health by 3000.
Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Imperial Mettle: Increases your Max Stamina by 3000.
Red Diamond: 10% Chance on Melee Attack to heal for 6% of Max Health → When you deal Direct Damage you have a 15% chance to heal for 2000. Reduces the cost of your Block and Bash abilities by 10%.

Khajiit

Nimble: 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stamina Recovery → Robustness: Increases your Stamina and Magicka recovery by 150.
Stealthy: Reduce detection radius by 3m and Increase damage from Stealth by 10% → Lunar Blessings: Increases your Max Health, Magicka, and Stamina by 750.
Carnage: Increase Weapon Critical Chance by 8% → Feline Ambush: Increases your Weapon and Spell Critical Chance by 8%. Reduces your detection radius in Stealth by 5m.

Nord

Stalwart: 6% Max Stamina and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
Resist Frost: 9% Max Health and 2079 Cold Resistance → Increases your Max Health by 1750 and your Cold Resistance by 2310. You are immune to the Chilled status effect.
Rugged: 6% damage reduction → Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 3960.

Orc

Brawny: 6% Max Health and Stamina → Increases your Max Health and Stamina by 1250.
Unflinching: Healing Received by 5% and 20% Health Recovery → Increases your Healing Received by 4%. When you deal melee damage you restore 760 Health and 380 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.
Swift Warrior: 4% Melee attack, 12% Sprint cost reduction and 10% Sprint Speed → Increases your Weapon Damage by 258. Reduces the cost of your Sprint ability by 12% and increases your Movement Speed while Sprinting by 10%.

Redguard

Exhilaration: 9% Stamina Recovery → Martial Training: Reduces the cost of your Stamina abilities by 5%.
Conditioning: 10% Max Stamina → Increases your Max Stamina by 2500.
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 850 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds.

This. I would actually be quite okay with *this* being what goes live. The current list ZoS has made is very sporadic in it's arrangement, akin to if someone took a bunch of darts and threw them at the board simultaneously. The above, however, is very clear and sticks with what we had before as far as range, while still converting with proper balance.

saganblackblade · January 2019

Any chance of also receiving name change token?

I feel the changes are pretty fair overall. I am wondering about the khajiit passives being so low in value but that being said we go khajiit for crit not other stats. Just hlad to see it didnt get crit chance wrecked.

ezio45 · January 2019

Deloth_Vyrr wrote: »

@ZOS_Gilliam

While I am super excited with changes that will create for variation amongst races, the changes to Dark Elves (specifically when compared against High Elves) don't actually help race diversity at all, but rather eliminate it.

As far as Magicka DPS is concerned right now on live, Altmer and Dunmer are more or less neck in neck. Depending on class/build one can edge out the other but they are a good example of different but equal.

With the proposed changes, that parity is gone and Altmer becomes the de facto choice with Dunmer lagging far behind.

Currently in live Dark Elves get 9% extra magicka, with High Elves having 10%. So only a 1% difference.
1250 max magicka vs 2000 however is a staggering difference, and the extra stamina and health do not do anything to make up for it.

The Dunmer design here seems to be aimed at building a hybrid, as its stats are split between stam and magicka (and a bit of health even). Meaning its not going to excel at anything. Hybrid stam/mag builds just aren't viable, they don't work. A player has to dedicate to one or the other... but doing so will mean choosing Dunmer wastes half the benefit of these passives, and gets less overall.

I ask you please re-visit the Dunmer passives without trying to pigeonhole them into a hybrid, jack of all trades. All this will do is make them an inferior race for any one role.

this is true

SugaComa · January 2019

Audens wrote: »

The Dunmer change is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. There is now no reason to choose Dunmer over Altmer for mag DPS. Or for anything really, other than an RP hybrid build.

Not true ... Altmer has only 750 less max magica and slight increase to resource management , but dunmer has more stam, better for blocking and breaking free

If you read the whole article these passives are designed to add flavour not define a build ... I think they're subtle enough to allow min\maxers the tools to do so but also players like me who like to experiment a little wiggle room for making something interesting and off kilter

ArcadenceBlaine · January 2019

Yall are Messing the game up again, and my friends are gonna leave.

Very disappointing

(edit) I know how to fix it.. Just trash this crap.

nouagea · January 2019

All I'm saying is that we get 1 race AND name change token per account (I'd say per character but I don't think ZOS would let it slide) to maintain the lore continuity of naming conventions. This will be one hell of a cash-grab by ZOS if they think some of us are going to pay 35 bucks for race and name changes per how ever many toons might be changed.

Lord_Eomer · January 2019

trowlk wrote: »

I you intend to transform Dark Elf's passive, Ruination should increase their Spell and Physical penetration, instead of increasing their Spell and Weapon damage

Spell and Weapon damage buff is much better and should not be replaced.

Lord_Eomer · January 2019

ArcadenceBlaine wrote: »

Yall are Messing the game up again, and my friends are gonna leave.

Very disappointing

(edit) I know how to fix it.. Just trash this crap.

lol! good luck changes are best so far

Anoregon · January 2019

Weper wrote: »

I think racial passives should be removed so we can play with our favorite race. With the racial passives we are forced to play with the meta or at least with a viable race. Or maybe they could nerf the passives so they give only low stats like 1% Stamina Regen, 1% Magicka regen, etc ...

Honestly I wouldn't hate this, but I think the best option is just to overhaul existing racials so that one of the two options happens:

-All racials have morphs that allow the player to focus on magicka or stam

or

-Most racials are chosen from a unified pool available to all races, with the only traits being locked to race being the more thematic things like swim speed, elemental resists, weapon line XP, and stealth detection.

I understand that it's important to adhere to lore concerns, but the current model is skewed too heavily in that direction to the detriment of just being a satisfying gameplay experience. Every race should be capable of playing every roll without feeling like they are gimping themselves by playing the "wrong" race. I just don't see lore/RP concerns as a good enough justification for reducing player freedom/choice to the degree that the current racial bonus setup does.

citats · January 2019

Keeping the status effect immunity of some classes definitely seems like a mistake to me. These effects are circumstantial and offer nothing when fighting enemies that don't use the negated status effect and offer too much when fighting enemies that rely on that status effect for their build to be successful.

Wood elf's new stealth detection passive is a waste of "overall race power" as it is also circumstantial. It only does anything when you're fighting a nightblade, and it is not useful on classes/builds which already get this bonus in other ways (like stamsorc's hurricane which already pulls a nightblade out of stealth). I really hope this bonus does not contribute to your calculation of race power.

Somber97866 · January 2019

Ok, so who at ZOS has the dream of the hybrid meta?