How do you feel about racial changes and lore?

Tasear · February 2019

Do you think zos stays true to vision of lore? Is lore important with changes?

Turelus · February 2019

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Tasear · February 2019

Turelus wrote: »

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Yeah I feel like biggest thing with altmer's Change is it simply doesn't fit with lore or immersion.

Turelus · February 2019

Tasear wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Yeah I feel like biggest thing with altmer's Change is it simply doesn't fit with lore or immersion.

I mean TES has always had a somewhat flexible lore, things have changed over the previous titles before. Also with this being an MMO we have to accept some things need to change for game balance reasons.

The first release of the racial passive changes I felt pretty much hit the right mark for lore purposes, there could be some tweaks but mostly it made sense.
However since the community backlash about balance we've had changes which suddenly make less sense lore wise.

I just feel like we're stuck in this place of lore or balance, but not both.
I don't understand why they couldn't just lower Altmer's damage a little, and keep magicka regen, or keep the stealth focus of the Bosmer/Khajiit but make it a little weaker but improve them elsewhere.

Tasear · February 2019

Turelus wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Yeah I feel like biggest thing with altmer's Change is it simply doesn't fit with lore or immersion.

I mean TES has always had a somewhat flexible lore, things have changed over the previous titles before. Also with this being an MMO we have to accept some things need to change for game balance reasons.

The first release of the racial passive changes I felt pretty much hit the right mark for lore purposes, there could be some tweaks but mostly it made sense.
However since the community backlash about balance we've had changes which suddenly make less sense lore wise.

I just feel like we're stuck in this place of lore or balance, but not both.
I don't understand why they couldn't just lower Altmer's damage a little, and keep magicka regen, or keep the stealth focus of the Bosmer/Khajiit but make it a little weaker but improve them elsewhere.

Yeah but forgetting lore will lower immersion and engagement of players overtime. That's one thing eso has right which is lore in world. It's what makes players so attached to their characters. It's that culture that makes eso special. I just hope they don't forget about human factors with balance because I rather have imperfect game that people are immersed in to and love rather than opposite.

Ozby · February 2019

I personally do not care about the lore and the racial's being related to it, how ever I have always seen Altmer as magika strong people and the stam passive seems silly to me. If its silly to me then its going to be worse for those who do care about the lore and like Altmers. I am feeling a bit sad about all the racial changes so far as I was kinda hoping any race could fill any role effectively, but it does not seem it will be that way. This is just how I feel on the subject anyway @Tasear
PS: I still really want a Nord frost Mage

Tasear · February 2019

Ozby wrote: »

I personally do not care about the lore and the racial's being related to it, how ever I have always seen Altmer as magika strong people and the stam passive seems silly to me. If its silly to me then its going to be worse for those who do care about the lore and like Altmers. I am feeling a bit sad about all the racial changes so far as I was kinda hoping any race could fill any role effectively, but it does not seem it will be that way. This is just how I feel on the subject anyway @Tasear
PS: I still really want a Nord frost Mage

Yeah I am not much of a lore person either but it's those little things that even casual lore wise people see like stamina on altmer. I also brought subject up because seems like agrument for altmers even bosmers seems to come down indentity with culture in game aka lore for people.

RaddlemanNumber7 · February 2019

I agree, it was a mixed bag. But I think that was more by accident than design.

It's clear that lore was low down on the list of priorities, as was the fact that the game has been running for 5 years and people have become heavily invested in particular racial bonuses.

Lowering the ceiling, balance and wider player choice were clearly more important design factors. This is why Dark Elves accidently moved back towards their lore image of "a balance of blade, bow and destruction magic" and away from niche flame damage, while Wood Elves lore emphasis on Stealth and Bow damage were just ignored in favour of more generalised Stamina bonuses.

It also looks like their high priority design objectives included singling out Khajiit as the flavour of the moment (can't think why

) and so they came away with their lore aspects intact as well as getting a wide range of good choices for mag and stam roles.

Altmer and Bosmer 3rd passives makes no sense from any view point, lore or otherwise. They're just bonkers.

MLGProPlayer · February 2019

Turelus wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Yeah I feel like biggest thing with altmer's Change is it simply doesn't fit with lore or immersion.

I mean TES has always had a somewhat flexible lore, things have changed over the previous titles before. Also with this being an MMO we have to accept some things need to change for game balance reasons.

The first release of the racial passive changes I felt pretty much hit the right mark for lore purposes, there could be some tweaks but mostly it made sense.
However since the community backlash about balance we've had changes which suddenly make less sense lore wise.

I just feel like we're stuck in this place of lore or balance, but not both.
I don't understand why they couldn't just lower Altmer's damage a little, and keep magicka regen, or keep the stealth focus of the Bosmer/Khajiit but make it a little weaker but improve them elsewhere.

The saddest thing about all this is that balance is actually worse than it was after the first round of PTS and ZOS has somehow engendered even more community backlash.

leb91han · February 2019

Very bad . Races needed some minor adjustments not this much changing. Its a cash grab only : making arguably the most used races just mediocre now to force you to change, mainly dark elves redguards and high elves . The live races are excellent as they are plus they are great with lore. But the new changes are very bad . I mean its awesome as it is now dunmer fire kings thus magic dd and if u want a bargain u could lower the dmg and gain some sustain u go altmer and if u want even better sustain u go breton just great formula. Why to ruin it ? Obviously cash grab . And now khajiits are great with magic like seriously ? For real ? Lol as far as i know khajiits are master thiefs and skooma smugglers . I wanna see any stamina players reaction if their race stamina sustain goes and changes to magicka . Altmers the best the strongest the most powerful race with magic ( wether u like it or not and if u dont go f*** urself) now regenerates stamina . Ye what a nice joke . If u ingane tp to summerset and u get the beautiful art and u read the tip it says : here civilization and magic was born , here lives the altmer . Now high elves are hybrid . Just looooooooool what a bs .

Koronach · February 2019

I posted this in another thread, this sums up how I feel with what they did to Argonians on here.
Since when were Argonians ever tanks? Our stats have always been in int,agi, and speed, we had a handicap in endurance. Also we never had a bonus in restoration magic it was mysticism and illusion so how are we such good healers? That int boost was mostly toward alchemy back when it was based on that stat. It was also used for the Illusion and Mysticism magics and not healing. Yet we are the only race to have members hatched into the Dark Brotherhood as Shadowscales and trained to kill from a young age. Yet we end up being shoehorned into life saving roles like tank and healer. Don't even get me started on the idiotic and lore breaking idea to remove poison resistance.

hakan · February 2019

i like dunmer have both stam and magicka for lore reasons but i believe magicka should be a little bit higher? i dont recall any fire booster moves tbh. doesnt really offer anything in stamina and magicka. i wish they also had speed or sneak bonus i saw in previous games.

bosmers third passive doesnt do anything for pve and its weird. base penetration would be better.

for argos, i agree with the guy above. they are completely different( even tho i like those passives)

altmer doesnt make sense now. Redguard looks perfect to me but i dunno. ditto bretons.

orcs seem overtuned but i rather make other races to be in the same spot as orcs.

Kulvar · February 2019

Altmer
Best magician, the less sturdy of all races => Yes
Dunmer
Offense jack-of-all-trades => Yes
Bosmer
Forest hunter, bow masters => Yes
Orsimer
Brawler, best Imperial troopers => Yes
Breton
Best battlemage => Yes
Redguard
Sword masters => Yes
Nord
Sturdy viking => Yes
Imperial
Defense jack-of-all-trades => Yes
Khajiit
Sneak, swift, agile => Yes
Bonus to their magic => No
Argonian
Jack-of-all-trade with a lack of sturdiness => No (they have +Max Health instead of +Max Stamina)

Razorback174 · February 2019

When an entire race has a tradition called the "right of theft", and then has their useful stealth bonus removed for an increase in detecting others and a useless, clunky roll-dodge active passive skill, you know ZoS has ignored the lore.

When an entire race that is famous for unmatched magical talents gets a stamina-restoring passive instead, you know ZoS has ignored the lore.

eso_nya · February 2019

The concept is stupid.

When u look at fantasy books/movies, the mainheros or "intresting persons" r the odd ones. "leaving the shire", "leaving menzobaranzan", "dwarf growing up among humans", "ogre becoming intelligent from magic amulett", "elf befriending a dwarf" and so on. what makes those characters cool and intresting is that they break with stereotypes and do the unexpected thing.
A fantasygame advertising "do what ever u want"-freedom, trying to push u into a "u should really pick breton if u want a healer"-meta is just wrong.
I'd be okay with passives making a certain chosen path more difficult or easy. For competitive endgame, after i maxed out my char, the combateffectiveness _should_ be equal, no matter what looks or lorebackground i picked.

e.g. If i roll an orc wizard, who left his home cause he couldnt stand the stupid brutes in his clan anymore, i should be able to become as strong as the next best guy who copy pasted some meta-alcast build. Because my orc is smarter than others and has an untypical strong magicka manipulation talent.

Turelus · February 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

It's a mixed bag.

Some races I feel still stick close to the theme or lore of their race established in previous games, others I feel have moved away from that in order to try and give ESO races more flavour.

Overall I think they still match up mostly to what you would expect of them, it's just tiny little things (like stamina regain from magicka skills) which annoy me.

Yeah I feel like biggest thing with altmer's Change is it simply doesn't fit with lore or immersion.

I mean TES has always had a somewhat flexible lore, things have changed over the previous titles before. Also with this being an MMO we have to accept some things need to change for game balance reasons.

The first release of the racial passive changes I felt pretty much hit the right mark for lore purposes, there could be some tweaks but mostly it made sense.
However since the community backlash about balance we've had changes which suddenly make less sense lore wise.

I just feel like we're stuck in this place of lore or balance, but not both.
I don't understand why they couldn't just lower Altmer's damage a little, and keep magicka regen, or keep the stealth focus of the Bosmer/Khajiit but make it a little weaker but improve them elsewhere.

The saddest thing about all this is that balance is actually worse than it was after the first round of PTS and ZOS has somehow engendered even more community backlash.

Indeed. I kind of feel this is something they should have been more careful with change on, or given the update more time to go through the processes.
Make it an Elsweyr update and give us six months to find what's right for the racial passives, we're going to end up with something rushed for release at this rate of changes each week.

validifyedneb18_ESO · February 2019

Altmer is a little bland, Dunmer is still cool AF and even more so with all that stam now.

Most other races seem to have maintained their style and niche, with a few exceptions. Not woodelf though, wood elves are fine.

Fur_like_snow · February 2019

Orc is once again physically the strongest race. Our strength and aggression causes the weaker Mer and men to cower in fear. All is right in Tamriel, at least until the Breton and Redguard become jealous of our many victories and march upon Orsimer.

martijnlv40 · February 2019

eso_nya wrote: »

The concept is stupid.

When u look at fantasy books/movies, the mainheros or "intresting persons" r the odd ones. "leaving the shire", "leaving menzobaranzan", "dwarf growing up among humans", "ogre becoming intelligent from magic amulett", "elf befriending a dwarf" and so on. what makes those characters cool and intresting is that they break with stereotypes and do the unexpected thing.
A fantasygame advertising "do what ever u want"-freedom, trying to push u into a "u should really pick breton if u want a healer"-meta is just wrong.
I'd be okay with passives making a certain chosen path more difficult or easy. For competitive endgame, after i maxed out my char, the combateffectiveness _should_ be equal, no matter what looks or lorebackground i picked.

e.g. If i roll an orc wizard, who left his home cause he couldnt stand the stupid brutes in his clan anymore, i should be able to become as strong as the next best guy who copy pasted some meta-alcast build. Because my orc is smarter than others and has an untypical strong magicka manipulation talent.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. I take it you mean to change the passives to possible paths, with the same across each race. You can't pick all, but if you want magicka, spell resist and health regen it should be possible. Give the races different bonuses to how fast you can acces different passives (so Alter, Breton -> magicka, spell resist -> Breton, Health recovery -> Khajiit). It's really different from the way it is now, and it will never change to this way, but it would be awesome and give ultimate freedom. I haven't seen this, but I'm quite sure this idea has be somewhere on this forum already.
UNLIMITED FREEEEEEDOOM.

Cundu_Ertur · February 2019

Kulvar wrote: »

b]Bosmer[/b]
Forest hunter, bow masters => Yes

How so? In what way is a Bosmer a better archer than a Breton? And what of their stealth that has been a consistent aspect of their identity since they were first called 'Bosmer?'

This person has it right:

Razorback174 wrote: »

When an entire race has a tradition called the "right of theft", and then has their useful stealth bonus removed for an increase in detecting others and a useless, clunky roll-dodge active passive skill, you know ZoS has ignored the lore.

When an entire race that is famous for unmatched magical talents gets a stamina-restoring passive instead, you know ZoS has ignored the lore.

Cundu_Ertur · February 2019

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Altmer is a little bland, Dunmer is still cool AF and even more so with all that stam now.

Most other races seem to have maintained their style and niche, with a few exceptions. Not woodelf though, wood elves are fine.

I have no idea what your objective is here, but I cannot understand how you think losing stealth is in any way 'fine' for a race that had the best stealth in Morrowind and Oblivion, and which had a stealth bonus in Skyrim? The class recommendation has always been "woodelves make excellent scouts, thieves, and archers," and Morrowind also included agents in that list, and guess what, all of those class implementations (except the Oblivion iteration of scout) had sneak as a class skill. Between the Meh Ayeidion, Rite of Theft, forest coupling and more, there is probably more lore basis for stealth with Bosmer than there is with Khajiit. And you want to chuck all that away, for what? A useless PVP-only bundle of junk, that really isn't even any good for PVP? I don't think you even play a Bosmer. I doubt you even play anyone in AD. Though if you do, it may explain why the map of cyrodiil is so red and blue when I go there.

Lord-Otto · February 2019

Short answer:
#$/^& ZENIMAX!!!

Long answer:
How anyone could give Altmer stamina racials is beyond stupid. I picked that race, what? Like fifteen years ago? When came Oblivion? Anyway, I picked that race for PURE. MAGICAL. DESTRUCTION. Despite the drawbacks back then. Some considered Bretons the best in Oblivion, I stayed true to my High Elves, the most magic-infused race in the whole game. And when I played the other games afterwards (started with Oblivion), I stayed true and identified myself with it. Well, my virtual self.
And now ZOS come along and just meddle with more than twenty years of lore legacy. Just !@#$^ off, ZOS.

Dracane · February 2019

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Short answer:
#$/^& ZENIMAX!!!

Long answer:
How anyone could give Altmer stamina racials is beyond stupid. I picked that race, what? Like fifteen years ago? When came Oblivion? Anyway, I picked that race for PURE. MAGICAL. DESTRUCTION. Despite the drawbacks back then. Some considered Bretons the best in Oblivion, I stayed true to my High Elves, the most magic-infused race in the whole game. And when I played the other games afterwards (started with Oblivion), I stayed true and identified myself with it. Well, my virtual self.
And now ZOS come along and just meddle with more than twenty years of lore legacy. Just !@#$^ off, ZOS.

So did I.

And Altmer was just vulnerable at the beginning. You had 3 ways to bypass their magic weakness later on and ended up enjoying their pure supremacy. Breton was the easy mode choice. In that regard, ESO and Oblivion are similar now.

twing1_ · February 2019

@Lord-Otto I believe this would put some of your concerns to rest as well.

From a lore perspective, dunmer are supposed to be athletically superior to altmer, as they are both proficient warriors and mages. Conversely, altmer are supposed to be the superior mages of the two.

Right now, this is not being accurately depicted. The magicka power between the races is very negligible (125 max magicka being the only difference) and in terms of their athleticism there isn't a clear victor either (because dunmer have a marginal amount of stamina utility through 1875 max stam and altmer also have a marginal amount of stamina utility through off-stat sustain).

To remedy this, the off-stat sustain tool currently found on the altmer should be given to the dunmer to emphasize their hybrid nature and superior athleticsm. In compensation, the altmer should receive a small bonus to magicka use that DOES NOT increase their raw damage nor their magicka sustain, as they are already in a heated race for the top magicka dps spot. Increases chance to apply status effects would work nicely here.

Detailed analysis of this:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/457979/lack-of-racial-identity-between-altmer-and-dunmer#latest

Stx · February 2019

My largest issues with the current racials and lore is altmers having stamina restore and orcs having a sprint bonus.

Oh, and argonians being made into healers for some reason...

Lord-Otto · February 2019

Dracane wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Short answer:
#$/^& ZENIMAX!!!

Long answer:
How anyone could give Altmer stamina racials is beyond stupid. I picked that race, what? Like fifteen years ago? When came Oblivion? Anyway, I picked that race for PURE. MAGICAL. DESTRUCTION. Despite the drawbacks back then. Some considered Bretons the best in Oblivion, I stayed true to my High Elves, the most magic-infused race in the whole game. And when I played the other games afterwards (started with Oblivion), I stayed true and identified myself with it. Well, my virtual self.
And now ZOS come along and just meddle with more than twenty years of lore legacy. Just !@#$^ off, ZOS.

So did I. And Altmer was just vulnerable at the beginning. You had 3 ways to bypass their magic weakness later on and ended up enjoying their pure supremacy. Breton was the easy mode choice. In that regard, ESO and Oblivion are similar now.

Right. xD

@twing1_
Yup, agree. Personally, I'm for penetration. But elemental effects could also be nice. Just gotta give us back Force Pulse and we're back in business.

Silver_Strider · February 2019

Are you kidding me? I've listed several reasons as to why Argonian racials have been the most lore unfriendly racials of any race.

From Daggerfall to Oblivion, Argonian's have always had low Endurance, which equated to low health in those games so for them to suddenly have the same health as Nords made absolutely no sense. Then, there's the whole Shadowscale/Guerilla Warfare lore that is constantly flaunted in our face but is never represented in their racials at all. No Stamina, no sneak related passives, nothing. The only mildly Lore Friendly passive was Argonian's ability to recover health quicker than other races, which has now somehow magically extended itself into affecting others as well apparently. I can see the potion passive as somewhat lore friendly as I can see the parallels between that and how Argonians are altered by ingesting Hist Sap so I'll give it a pass. THEY REMOVED POISON RESISTANCE AND I AM NOT OK WITH THAT!!!!!!!!!!

Lore really doesn't seem to be a part of ZOS' reasons for changing passives, at least when it comes to Argonians.

validifyedneb18_ESO · February 2019

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Are you kidding me? I've listed several reasons as to why Argonian racials have been the most lore unfriendly racials of any race.

From Daggerfall to Oblivion, Argonian's have always had low Endurance, which equated to low health in those games so for them to suddenly have the same health as Nords made absolutely no sense. Then, there's the whole Shadowscale/Guerilla Warfare lore that is constantly flaunted in our face but is never represented in their racials at all. No Stamina, no sneak related passives, nothing. The only mildly Lore Friendly passive was Argonian's ability to recover health quicker than other races, which has now somehow magically extended itself into affecting others as well apparently. I can see the potion passive as somewhat lore friendly as I can see the parallels between that and how Argonians are altered by ingesting Hist Sap so I'll give it a pass. THEY REMOVED POISON RESISTANCE AND I AM NOT OK WITH THAT!!!!!!!!!!

Lore really doesn't seem to be a part of ZOS' reasons for changing passives, at least when it comes to Argonians.

Like Khajiit, from my limited understanding of Scalie-lore, Argonians have lots of different clans that are all quite different. ESO seem to have retconned Argonians here, and used this as the justification. Personally I think its been quite well done, they have a sort of mysticism of high resource gen from potions, and then tankiness from the healing taken (and now done).

I'm not saying everything is perfect, I just dont care for the change in direction of lore, it was done 4 years ago and quite frankly I quite like some of the reconning of lore in ESO.

Silver_Strider · February 2019

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Are you kidding me? I've listed several reasons as to why Argonian racials have been the most lore unfriendly racials of any race.

From Daggerfall to Oblivion, Argonian's have always had low Endurance, which equated to low health in those games so for them to suddenly have the same health as Nords made absolutely no sense. Then, there's the whole Shadowscale/Guerilla Warfare lore that is constantly flaunted in our face but is never represented in their racials at all. No Stamina, no sneak related passives, nothing. The only mildly Lore Friendly passive was Argonian's ability to recover health quicker than other races, which has now somehow magically extended itself into affecting others as well apparently. I can see the potion passive as somewhat lore friendly as I can see the parallels between that and how Argonians are altered by ingesting Hist Sap so I'll give it a pass. THEY REMOVED POISON RESISTANCE AND I AM NOT OK WITH THAT!!!!!!!!!!

Lore really doesn't seem to be a part of ZOS' reasons for changing passives, at least when it comes to Argonians.

Like Khajiit, from my limited understanding of Scalie-lore, Argonians have lots of different clans that are all quite different. ESO seem to have retconned Argonians here, and used this as the justification. Personally I think its been quite well done, they have a sort of mysticism of high resource gen from potions, and then tankiness from the healing taken (and now done).

I'm not saying everything is perfect, I just dont care for the change in direction of lore, it was done 4 years ago and quite frankly I quite like some of the reconning of lore in ESO.

I'd be fine with the retconning some of the lore if it made sense. ZOS has shown Argonians as Shadowscales in the Dark Brotherhood DLC and in Murkmire. Hell, in Murkmire, Shadowscales are practically romanticized as this higher authority throughout the region. There's an achievement for finding that Shadowscale throughtout Murkmire and it turns out, she was also a random encounter in Summerset where she explains to have been there for some Shadowscale business. Then we also have Argonian thieves Like Walks-Softly and Seeks-The-Dark to further muddy the waters. Every time I see an Argonian in some criminal element, it leaves me wondering, "Where TF is our Sneak passives?" kind of like how all Bosmer players are right now too. It's just nonsensical to me at this point.

Kulvar · February 2019

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Like Khajiit, from my limited understanding of Scalie-lore, Argonians have lots of different clans that are all quite different. ESO seem to have retconned Argonians here, and used this as the justification. Personally I think its been quite well done, they have a sort of mysticism of high resource gen from potions, and then tankiness from the healing taken (and now done).

I'm not saying everything is perfect, I just dont care for the change in direction of lore, it was done 4 years ago and quite frankly I quite like some of the reconning of lore in ESO.

Bonus to Healing Taken is soon to be removed by Wrathstone update.
Except in racials, where did you see a retcon ? Shadowscales are still around and we see nothing related to them in the racials. We met several Shadowscales (and not only in the Dark Brotherhood DLC)

dave_harter_ESO · February 2019

Bosmer were the masters of stealth in oblivion and pretty much most games in the series. For the Bosmer to be mediocre at stealth is a pretty awful change.