Seraphayel wrote: »

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

This applies to classes, not to races. And if they used this approach the scissor would complain about why the stone is killing them. Stones would complain about why they can't roflstomp scissors and paper at the same time etc. Neverending story.

I agree with this. But all ZOS does from update to update is change the identity of the rock, the paper, and the scissors. So what is their purpose for making these changes? I mean, the game’s been “unbalanced” since inception. Do you really think these racial changes bring anything new to the table except to create a new rock, paper, scissors?

Well, looks like I'll be deleting about half of my builds when I go on today. Rather pointless now that the reason I was building them up for will soon be nerfed/removed... Thanks ZOS.

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

I wish zos would figure out a fundamental aspect to making a good mmo great... You don't balance. Race's and classes are supposed to be unbalanced. One race/class should always be better than the next. Rock paper scissors...

Agreed 100%.

Coming from a pvp perspective, DE Vamps get to keep their flame resistance...in fact they get it buffed.

Meanwhile, Argonian werewolves now get ZERO poison resist. Where is the balance? Please rethink this.

I feel like these changes are making very core changes to what some races were chosen for in the hope of balance in the wrong places. The classes you feel were "always exceptional at x" retain their feeling, while some races lose it entirely. High elf retains it's ability to be great spellcasters, Also you said charging up a skill makes them more powerful. It just reduces some damage they take while doing a cast or channel. (I think) They also restore stamina or magika while casting a class ability, but gain no bonus to max stamina or Stam (specifically) recovery.
The dark elf is losing its fire damage which affects the reason a large number of people chose that race. Then you give them some stamina and health, and then weapon and spell damage. So, (imo) you are taking a class that excelled at fire magical (anything) roles, and turning them into OK stamina and magical damage dealers, with a bit of extra health. My dark elf Templar didn't have the regen of a high elf, or cost reduction of a Breton, but I got extra damage with fire. A trade I could decide if I wanted. So now my dark elf Templar is going to be subpar to a high elf and Breton because they don't get stamina additions, just changes to the magical passives they have.
Not also added stamina or health passives that remove the extra magika they once had (ie dark elf) , just changed magical passives. This class that was also predominantly magical, is getting reduced and molded into OK at both. Does that make sense? You are not removing high elves very powerful magical abilities to mesh them into wielding stamina also. Why do this to dark elves and khajit? These 2 races become OK at both, while most other races gain stamina or magical presence.

The rest of this is personal feelings and not as important as what I wanted to say above, but still relevant I feel to the race changes.

NobleMatias wrote: »

I have to say the changes are very balanced, and pretty much most people complaining about them are bias because their race choice used to be meta

They are balanced indeed, I'll give you that. It doesn't mean they are necessary, welcome, or even justified by any need. Not some of them, anyway. And if there is one thing I cannot be accused of, it's being meta. The word itself gives me the creeps. There used to be a word for "join the bandwagon and do just like everyone else", and that word was "mainstream", but hey, kids those days and all that.

Personnaly, I'm crossed because those changes go along the same line as previously, but even further, and that line is "let's say we're giving more freedom of choice and more open possibilities when we're actually making sure pople will fit nicely in the tiny boxes we have designed".

I'm an old timer. My first MMO was Anarchy Online, and since then I've seen my fair share of games with a large variety of game mechanics. Over the years I've noticed an oversimplification of general mechanics in games (a direct consequence of the commercial success of World of Warcraft, that everyone wants to replicate, which means appealing to larger crowds rather than giving some complexity to the enthusiast), and unfortunately ESO has been strolling along that path quite merrily. But I could forgive that, because the game universe itself is pretty amazing, and well, I don't have time to tinker with a build for months just to realise it's crap and start again from scratch. Somewhat simple, I'm fine with. "MMORPG for dummies", though, is getting a bit annoying. Even more so because I really love this game. I'm pretty sure the sheer amount of crowns I've spent over the years is proof enough of that... Along with the fact that I gifted it to my wife and we're now playing together most evening, and SHE is also spending some crowns. Good thing we don't have kids, eh ?

So, ok, we don't have support classes or proper crowd control. We merely have the holy trinity of heal, tank and damage dealer. There was a time in MMOs where support and control would be proper classes, but ok, one make do with what one has. For the support, I've made a magblade that fights with a restoration staff on both bars (a nirnhoned one on the "damage" bar, mind you !), a "life stealing" vampire. Every attack heals and / or buffs myself and / or the party. But I can only play her with friends, because shes "not a proper healer". Whatever, she's amazing at what she does, but doesn't fit in a tiny box. As for the control... Well, proper crowd control doesn't exist in ESO, and can't exist with the immunity mechanic, and was nerfed even more with Murkmire, so let's forget about that. I do miss my gravity / radiation controler from City of Heroes, but that was long ago, back in the days where keeping a group of enemies incapacitated until you killed them all wasn't considered outlandish.

But recently, the trend was to "bring something unique to the party". Apparently, it's too complicated to have multi-use skills. I'm especially thinking about "path of shadows", which was nerfed really hard in Murkmire. The base skill has absolutely ZERO use, it's only once morphed that you get to chose between healing OR damaging. Previously, you had damage in the base skill, and either a larger damaging area for one morph or a damage enemies / heal allies morph. The latter was simply one of my favorite skills, but obviously, it wasn't a main damage skill nor a main heal skill, so it got removed. Not specialised enough. Didn't fit in tiny boxes.

So, my point is, all this talk about changes to "bring more freedom of choice" and "bring unique things to the party" is simply preposterous. The whole point is to please single-minded minmaxers, at the expense of people who actually try "non meta" stuff. The change with Khajiits and Bosmers is spectacular in that respect : one becomes even better at hiding, the other entirely loses this ability but becomes super good at spotting hidden characters. I smell PvP interference in my PvE. And that is happening even though Bosmers have been spectacularly good at sneaking since at the very least 2002 and the original "Morrowind". Probably even before that, but I never played Arena or Daggerfall so I wouldn't know.

But hey, this change is specialised, perfectly fits in tiny boxes, and infuriating AF. As mentionned by someone above, these changes do have an impact on the reason a race was chosen in the first place. They might be inconspicuous for the newcomers, but not for people who have been around for a while.

Also, there is one major flaw in the reasoning. Well, several, but at least this one. Every race needs to be overly specialised in something, and balanced. I'm fine with balancing, but why specialise ? This reasoning relies on the fact that everyone starts the game with complete knowledge of the races' bonuses and chose them exactly for that, and that only. However, again, that's only true for minmaxers. Lots of people will go with what they feel look nice, or chose from whatever is available in the alliance they feel would be good for them... Whatever the reason, the stats are not always the main reason. But assuming they are... Why do we not have a complete description of the effects of racial passives at the race selection screen ? If racial passives are this much of a matter, shouldn't the ingame information be at least available from start ?

But of course, if it's a matter of chosing between lore and stats, then why not go any further ? Obviously, Bosmers are no longer supposed to be stealthy, even though it's been one of their most defining traits in the lore along their archery prowesses in the whole history of the elder scrolls... So why not go even further and forgo the lore entirely ?

We talk about freedom, right ? Then make people able to chose any 3 passives from every racial passive in the game. I mean, since obviously lore doesn't matter anymore no matter what has been said, at least THAT would be freedom, would allow strong specialised characters, would let people be inventive if they wish to, and could even lead to a new sort of token for the crown store : "change passives". But of course, not gonna happen. Doesn't fit in tiny boxes. If it did happen though, I'd happily spend crowns for my 7 characters in order to do just that...

I'll go even further along the path of freedom of choice : let's remove "magicka" and "stamina", and have only one pool called, say, "energy". Every current build ? Still viable. What is currently hybrid, and not so efficient ? Suddenly viable. EVERY morph in every line would suddenly become a viable morph, because we wouldn't need to chose according to the ressource we're specialised in (when there is one available, else it means that most of the time we don't even use the skill at all). We could chose based on the effect we want. A staff suddenly becomes a viable ranged weapon for a sword fighter. Now that would allow some creativity with builds. Sure, it would require some adjustments to some sets and a few skills, Pelinal's set would become moot, but generally speaking it's perfectly doable and would remove the worst flaw this game has had since it came out : required overspecialisation. I had thought about a more detailed post about that, explaining in great length why it would be amazing, how to do it properly, and so on. Until today and the details about the racial changes, I was even considering actually writting it and submitting it to public opinion. As of today, I realise it's moot. It doesn't fit in tiny boxes.

Even putting aside the coding work, it will never happen, because the clear will behind the changes is that we should specialise even more. No "let's heal a bit and damage a bit" skill, this should be removed because it's not "unique" enough. No real crowd control, let's make sure that you can't be knocked down for many seconds after you've been stunned for half a second. No two races with any overlapping field of expertise, that's not "unique" enough. Magicka OR stamina, and then chose your morphs from that, because THAT fits in tiny boxes. Specialise more, play mostly by the stats, and google it all, because no detailed information will be provided at character creation and very little after that. Let's go several step further the path to dumbed down town. What's the next step ? Being unable to attack at all when wielding a restoration staff ? That would certainly be "unique" !

Well, while I'm on the matter of skills... Why the heck are all class abilities magicka ones until morphed ? In a game where specialisation is mandatory and becoming even more so, it's a bit weird that you'd have to use a skill for a long while before you can make it fit. Special mention to the new "path of shadows" that will take one of the precious 5 spots on the skill bar doing nothing useful until it can be morphed. Why are informations about the morphs not available before morphs actually become available ? Some addons can do that, but "virtually", they can't read informations about something that isn't there, so they actually have their own database for that, meaning a non up to date addon will get it wrong... That could, and should, be a built-in game function. But of course, it's taken like 4 years to have built-in proper search functionalities for guild traders announced, so I guess I'm asking way too much here.

Also, will the infinite loading screens ever get fixed ? I gave it a try today, I counted almost 10 real life minutes before I could actually enter some area. Plenty of time to make some tea, and even let it cool off a bit. Maybe some work on fixing the bugs and some quality of life improvements would be more urgent than messing with the classes, breaking lore, and removing some interesting options, don't you think ?

My point with this long-winded, angry post, is simply that the reasons announced to make these changes are so obviously lies that I'm actually angry for real. Those changes, along with the ones that occured in the previous overhauls, are not giving people more choices, they are removing choices. They tend to incite more specialisation, more "meta" play, and ALOT less creativity. They are made to please minmaxers and other stat crunchers, but do nothing positive for the average player. Best case scenario, the average player won't see much of a difference and won't care. Worst case scenario, the average player will feel their character is broken and ragequit. I sure will feel like my Bosmer is broken when her stealth will be taken away.

Also, saying they try to "respect the lore" while removing stealth from the Bosmers is especially infuriating. Blantant lies or complete disregard of the lore ; expectations of short memory from the player base or simple blunder ; I can't tell, but I certainly don't like it. But the changes that would indeed bring real freedom of choice, like free passive selection or a way to chose the morphs for what they do rather than what ressource they use ? We'll never see them, of course. I'm betting the official reason would be "it breaks the lore" or such, while it's actually that... Well, I'm sure you know what I'm gonna say by now, if you read it all : it doesn't fit in tiny boxes.

10/10 - Balanced, and really unique. If you keep it like it is, I really think it'll accomplish the whole 'effective combos/universal applicability/gameplay uniqueness/mathematical balancing' thing fantastically! The new buffs sound and feel like they really fit their respective races. A new, better meta and more distinguished races for everyone!

NobleMatias wrote: »

I have to say the changes are very balanced, and pretty much most people complaining about them are bias because their race choice used to be meta, but now the gap is so close you really cant say one race is the best. Flat stats was a perfect choice and I appreciate ZOS combat team and Gil for the much needed changes to race and game balance. The only two races I would have a look at would be the Nord and Imperial, If I look at their stats side by side it would seem as if the Nord has much more power in a broad spectrum, and the imperial is secluded to only two small stat increases and shoehorned into a sword and board build. basically the imperial only has 1000 health and 500 stamina compared to a Nords ultimate gen, cold resist and chill immunity. I would make an imperials stats just a tad higher to compensate for the lack of diversity or just make them more diverse In what unique stats and capabilities they have. I am sure ZOS has done the math and I can test and see this. Great job guys and gals.

Not much for the dismissive nature of the first sentence. The changes to Argonian are not balanced. Making them fight for runner up at support (where racials matter the least compared to DPS) and come in last place for mag dps and not even worth testing in stam dps roles =/= balance. I have 15 argonians, you think the 10 dps I have are because they were meta best? spoiler: no. And my first Argonian: my DK tank that has been Argonian since launch wasn't picked b/c it was meta best either.

I certainly expected to see the potion passive nerfed (though I might disagree that it needed it, I could see people believed it enough that it would get one), I did not expect to see them take a hammering on every single passive and not get much in return for doing a little better at DPS. Not asking for anything crazy, but it would have been fair.

code65536 wrote: »

I can see competitive tanks going for score race-changing to Nord for that ultgen...

Yep, a cash-grab by ZOS unless we get a race-change token for every toon. Because some races have now become more niche and some have become useless. My orc tank will now be better off as a DPS than a tank, except that I have already mastered sword and shield on him. So it's either sit without a tank and gain yet another DPS toon by learning a new weapon skill line, or race change to Nord.

Not to mention my other toons in which I carefully selected race (already spent about 4 race change tokens to get it just right) that have already invested in skill lines that would now benefit from yet another race change.

I have 12 toons on the NA server, 9 of them are CP 810. I have 8 toons on the EU server. Can you imagine how much I'd have to pay to try and recover from these ridiculously over the top changes?

jaws343 wrote: »

Everyone saying RIP Dunmer and all I see is Dunmer looking pretty good as potential stamblade in PVP. The extra stam and mag paired with the weapon damage has potential. Get a few more cloaks off.

Yes, and what about the people who have already invested in Dunmer as magDKs? They have completely removed the 3% magica buff that came with resist flame.

Gilcroixb14_ESO wrote: »

Alpheu5 wrote: »

Can we please start moving away from the need to use actual consumables to take advantage of Resourceful? I was hoping this whole rework would address this problem because it's still the only passive that requires you to go out of your way and spend gold (or time farming) to constantly take advantage of it. Having it be a sustain tool is great and all, but having it come with an out-of-pocket expense makes it extremely costly the longer it's used.

This ^

That has been the worst racial in game since beta. I can't believe it's been 5 years and it's still there. It's linked to something you try your best not to use , because it costs you, not only that but potions are not needed for much of the content. You can go days without ever having to use one. where other races have their bonuses tied to using weapons or spells , which is something you do constantly.

There are other racials that would seem to fit much better than potions. Scaly skin would give physical resistance. There is a lot of Shadowscale lore for stealth abilities. As someone who has walked across my share of swamp lands while deer hunting, I can tell you it is very difficult and tiring. Which makes me think argonians would have been better as a stamina race rather than magicka. I have never understood why they have magical healing abilities either. Since reptiles regenerate physically , you would think health regeneration would fit much better.

I don't really understand the + health for Dark elf instead of magikca.

I liked the Breton changes , not sure Nords should get the same spell resist bonus as a Breton though.

Don't you realize that you could have used ANY potions? I have so many potions that I pick up from the game itself in combat that I don't have space to keep them and have to sell them. Since I made an argonian toon, I could palm off all my useless potions onto her, since my other toons use custom made potions. But maybe I should not be saying this, in case ZOS decides to nerf Argonians even MORE...

Okay, so I logged into the PTS, and yeah... both of my Orc PvE tanks were hit pretty hard with the health and stamina adjustments. I would hope that if you don't give Orcs a fair amount of base stats, you should adjust something where tanks can get additional resources. Maybe passives from heavy armor or something? All I know is that I'm missing about 2k health and stamina and I don't see any way to get that back.

Here's an idea: Why not give every race 4 set passives, but let the player choose the 5th one. That would TRULY allow for racial diversity.

biggda76 wrote: »

rip dunmer vs altmer conflict

Yes, they have dumbed down the game to simple choices now. Welcome, age of the Altmer. Luckily I already had a few. But I had a few Dunmer too. They shall henceforth be retired. At least stam builds still have a bit of variety to choose from, though I am very sad for all the thief and assassin Bosmers.

JiDul wrote: »

Finally NB gank builds get a nerf though.

At a cost to every non-ganker Bosmer in the game (aka PVE and other class PVP - we do exist).

The thing with the race change is, that it completely changes the looks of ur char. On my first char i did e race changes and it completely took the personality away.