But at the end of the day, are the races fairly balanced? (PVE)

Silver_Strider · February 2019

They're better balanced than Live but that's hardly the issue. The issue is that more could've been done. Some races, like Dunmer and Khajiit became fully opened to play both sides of the DPS field, while Altmer and Redguard got something to open up their racials for Stamina or Magic roles respectively, be it the original form of Spell Recharge or the cost reduction on Weapon skills applying to Destro/Resto staff. I thought that was going to be the trend of this patch but instead, we just got more of the same, with Nord Tanks, Argonian healers, etc. or something that doesn't really do much in the grand scheme of things, such as the current form of Spell Recharge or Hunter's Eye. I would've liked to see Bosmer get Magic Regen alongside their Stamina Regen, with the "Whichever is Higher" clause added so that Bosmer could go Magic or Stamina without being totally gimped. I'd have liked for Argonian to get Max Stamina added to Resourceful and the potion passive toned down to be a Bi-Stat Restore, granting Health and the higher of the 2 Resources. I'd have liked Nord to received literally ANYTHING to break free of Tank only status and so on.

I expected more of this hybridization to reach other races. That's my real issue with this patch. That and the balance issues.

Cundu_Ertur · February 2019

Royaji wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

Couldn’t agree with you more. I think the upset comes primarily from min maxed dps types who have a lot of high elves and redguards and are now going to be pushed off the top place. Otherwise there’s no reason to really complain as most races are well within reach of one another, and as you say player skill will make the differences a non issue for probably 99% of the player base.

The loudest whiners are people who are complaining about Bosmer loosing 3m reduction os stealth detection radius and Altmer fanboys who want their precious Altmers to be uncontended magicka BiS and cry foul because they got a (albeit not the greatest) diverstiy utility passive instead of pure magicka power increase. Real min/max DDs are pretty happy with new racials.

Bosmer players have a point though because their Stealth passives could be considered an integral part related to their lore which really matters. It's like taking away Altmer Magicka identity or Redguard Stamina identity. Altmer players on the other hand... lost nothing in that regard and are just complaining because, as you said, are not the superior race anymore.

I'm not denying they have a point. Even though to me 3 meters from this passive are really not that relevant since just Night Mother's Embrace and Night Terror make you nearly undetectable already. And ZOS did promise to give this potential passive back through other skillines at a later date too. My point was that none of that is actual min/max talk.

No, they promised that Bosmer would have the same stealth as any Nord or Orc, which is a load of carp from a lore perspective. And if they want to re-work stealth at some future point, they should have held off on removing stealth until that was ready, and just kept the previous bonus (without the bonus to damage from stealth) for both Khajiit and Bosmer with the note that future changes were possible.

hakan · February 2019

The overall damage gap lowered, yeah.

As for lore-breaking, thats still a thing even in live version of the game. Orcs having the fastest speed, Argos doesnt have anything in stamina or sneaking etc.

I wish they did a better racial changes but, ehh.. i guess we will wait for the next racial update.

SodanTok · February 2019

I think the issue isnt much of balance about the DPS they are hitting under ideal conditions its more about what they offer outside. Some races simply can do their job well but also easily change to job of other races while others are limited in their place and cant move away from it. Strongly biased I would say Orc is 2 jewelry enchants from doing bosmer's job but bosmer cant ever do Orc's job.

Lord_Eomer · February 2019

Azyle1 wrote: »

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

I think we hit the best balance in like 4.3.2 or something and I know things changed since then, but let's ask ourselves this question....

Are the races fairly balanced? Can all the races contribute in someway, somewhere?

Orc - DPS Stamina (Damage)
Dunmer - DPS Stam / Mag (Damage)
Khajiit - DPS Stam / Mag (Damage / little Sustain)
Breton - DPS Mag / Heal (Damage/Sustain)
Alter - DPS Mag (Damage)
Argonian - Tank / Heal
Nord - Tank
Imperial - Tank / Stam DPS
Woodelf - Stam DPS (sustain)
Redguard - Stam DPS (sustain)

"But Orc is the best Stam DPS!"

So? There will always be a best. I'll play Khajiit, and probably out DPS 99% of Orc and Dunmer on my Stamblade/StamWarden. Why? Cause I'm really good at knowing my rotations and how to play. Orc doesn't ALWAYS out dps a khajiit anyways. Look at the test, you will see.

"Breton is the best DPS for mag!"

I heard Altmer with sustain food is fine.

I feel like, compared to live, we are closer to balanced than not.

I'm not going into things like Bosmer stealth, spell recharge and lore stuff. That's a different topic. But based on posts and other such.... I think we will be OK folks.

Now that said... I think I am a little worried that some changes will be more PVP based ( like do people REALLY play this game for the PVP only? ) So, that is something to look out for in the future.

You are mostly with wrong information, Breton are not best DPS for Magicka.

You should try out your self soon.

Races are pretty balance, its between sustain or damage.

#StopComplainingWrong

I never said they were. The forums think otherwise.

Try Magicka Regen Food on Altmer and see parses, they really outshine others.

You will soon see this on Live Server, Altmers are still Magicka DPS king!

Vertilvius · February 2019

Vapirko wrote: »

Couldn’t agree with you more. I think the upset comes primarily from min maxed dps types who have a lot of high elves and redguards and are now going to be pushed off the top place. Otherwise there’s no reason to really complain as most races are well within reach of one another, and as you say player skill will make the differences a non issue for probably 99% of the player base.

But as to your last point, yes a good number of people play this game primarily for the PvP aspect and now that’s it seems like this aspect of the game is getting some attention we are very happy. PvE is largely way too easy rn and people have been saying this, even complaining about it, for quite some time. Now that some racial passives are only useful in PvP this should curb some of the power in PvE as you’ll need to adjust builds. Even so the difference is going to be so minimal. Basically you can apply the conclusion you’ve come to in the first part of your post, which I complete agree with, to the part concerning PvP.

PvE is too easy lol tell that to a lot of people trying to get their raisin skin.

danielclarkb16_ESO · February 2019

I'm not sure why racial passives should have anything to do with combat mechanics at all? Surely if ZoS were reworking the racial passives, would it not have just made more sense to give them passives that affect gameplay in other ways, like giving other races something similar to Argonians where they swim faster?

ankeor · February 2019

Dummy tests fails to address a few things. For example stam dps wise Dunmers and Orcs have almost the same dps and sustain. But Orcs have 1k health more. So they can go 7 medium with 7 stam enchant and still be fine. Dunmer has close to 2k magicka but it is irrelevant. If they build 7 med no health enchant they would be squishy. In order for Dunmers to get the health on a more comfortable place they need to sacrifice stamina and minor crit-recovery-cost reduction bonuses. In PvP magicka may be useful but again Orcs has even more passives to help them in PvP. So what am I going to do with this hybrid race? Stamina? Orcs are better? Magicka? High Elves are slightly better. If it is a class with poor sustain then Breton can better. Having both spell and weapon damage doesn't mean anything because you can only use on them. Dunmer will be a hybrid race in a game where hybrid builds does not work efficiently.

MLGProPlayer · February 2019

susmitds wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

nsmurfer wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

Looking from the macro level, the races are balanced. But, we look at micro level and comparison the passives of individual races, their in-combat implications at various different situations, their set value strength and synergies with existing passives, there are cases when certain races are better than a similar other race in almost every single situation (Imperial vs Nord, Dunmer vs Khajiit, etc).

But The difference between say, Khajiit and Dunmer is what? 800 dps max? That isn't even big enough to warrant worrying over a score run / Leader Board Run.

It's not the DPS though. It's the opportunity cost. What I mean here, say that if Khajiit did better as tanks than Dunmer, it would have been fine. But higher resource total+Flame resists means Dunmer will be better tanks too. Same with healers, where spell damage means Dunmers win with more consistent heals.

Sustain passive of Khajiit is already accounted for by the fact that Khajiit primary resource is lowest of all races and less than half of Dunmer. Even comparing the utility passive, Flame resists is better than Sneak bonus outside of Thief roleplay.

There is just no compelling reason to be a Khajiit gameplay wise as they lack a niche they excel at. Same for Nord.

Exactly my issue. Dunmer and khajiit are essentially very similar. Both are raw DD races. Except Dunmer is a top-tier race in that aspect (2nd in average) while Khajiit is a mid-tier race (4th in average). Combat wise, why choose the 4th Khajiit when you can choose the 2nd Dunmer? This is compounded by the fact the exact next race, DD wise, Imperial has much higher resources, over twice the sustain, ultimate cost reduction etc. This means people want raw damage will go Dunmer and people want to be Jack of all trades will go Imperial.

I can play my KHajiit on Stamina dps and still out dps other people due to skill. I am not severely gimping myself. I do not see a HUGE problem with this.

Again, do I think the races still need tuning? Yes.

In general is Orc is a little overtuned and Khajiit/Bosmer could use some love but.. baby steps.

Exactly this. I have two Khajiits, one Imperial, two Altmers and three Argonians and I won't race-change anyone. All I hope is that ZOS continues to tweak races to balance them further after the changes go live. Don't leave the races as it is on PTS for the next three years to come and we are all fine.

But we all know that won't happen. ZOS has never touched racial balance after a racial balance patch. They leave it as is until the next balance pass 2-3 years later when they just reshuffle the meta again.

Finedaible · February 2019

I'm disappointed that they took away role diversity in post 4.3.2 patches for no apparent reason. It's like they perceived races were TOO balanced, and decided to throw a wrench in the plans so they could sell more race change tokens down the line after the free ones were spent.

Take Khajiit for example, they had flexible stats with little stat bonuses and no weapon/spell damage bonuses, and increased crit rate which was their staple for all these years. Before patch 4.3.3 (the change from 8% crit % to 10% crit dmg/healing) I was actually looking forward to trying out a healer role on my Khajiit, but now they will probably be the worst (most unreliable) Trial healers in the game. Critical damage/healing is not any good if it can't be used reliably, you'll always have to depend on RNG for heals.

LiquidPony · February 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Azyle1 , I'm not sure parses (those with 800 dps difference) were done with high warhorn uptime. I suspect the gap between khajiits and orcs/dunmers will skyrocket with raid buffs since khajiit's racial is additive with Major Force. And raid-buffed scenario is the one we should care about most.

It's not going to skyrocket. It will be a small difference.

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance) and a 58.1k Orc Stamblade solo parse (100% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance). In both cases about 86.5% of DPS is critable.

Just looking at *while Major Force is up*:

Khajiit = 1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1.09 * 0.815) = 6.47% damage increase = 5.6% DPS increase
Orc =1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1 * 0.815) = 6.73% damage increase = 5.8% DPS increase

Averaged over 33% uptime:

Khajiit = 2.16% damage increase = 1.87% DPS increase
Orc = 2.24% damage increase = 1.94% DPS increase

The difference that Warhorn is going to make with Khajiit has been vastly overstated and I'm not sure why. The same is true of The Shadow--in fact, the two parses I referenced above were using The Shadow.

And the same reasoning applies in the other direction ... for Khajiit stam toons that are not Nightblades and for Khajiit magicka toons that are not Sorcs, they will get a larger benefit from Minor Savagery/Minor Prophecy than anyone else because they have a higher built-in crit damage modifier to multiply by increase crit chance. Which is also a very small difference.

karthrag_inak · February 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance)

Could you please elaborate on how you have 81.5 crit chance? Thanks

ankeor · February 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Azyle1 , I'm not sure parses (those with 800 dps difference) were done with high warhorn uptime. I suspect the gap between khajiits and orcs/dunmers will skyrocket with raid buffs since khajiit's racial is additive with Major Force. And raid-buffed scenario is the one we should care about most.

It's not going to skyrocket. It will be a small difference.

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance) and a 58.1k Orc Stamblade solo parse (100% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance). In both cases about 86.5% of DPS is critable.

Just looking at *while Major Force is up*:

Khajiit = 1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1.09 * 0.815) = 6.47% damage increase = 5.6% DPS increase
Orc =1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1 * 0.815) = 6.73% damage increase = 5.8% DPS increase

Averaged over 33% uptime:

Khajiit = 2.16% damage increase = 1.87% DPS increase
Orc = 2.24% damage increase = 1.94% DPS increase

The difference that Warhorn is going to make with Khajiit has been vastly overstated and I'm not sure why. The same is true of The Shadow--in fact, the two parses I referenced above were using The Shadow.

And the same reasoning applies in the other direction ... for Khajiit stam toons that are not Nightblades and for Khajiit magicka toons that are not Sorcs, they will get a larger benefit from Minor Savagery/Minor Prophecy than anyone else because they have a higher built-in crit damage modifier to multiply by increase crit chance. Which is also a very small difference.

Major force is not the only buff/debuff you get in raids. Minor brutality, minor vulnerability, off-balance, tons of penetration etc. It all adds up to increase the damage and widens up the gap between these races. Only thing you can get in raids that truly benefits the khajiit crit passives is minor savagery which is something already you have on solo parses as a stamblade.

ankeor · February 2019

.

LiquidPony · February 2019

karthrag_inak wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance)

Could you please elaborate on how you have 81.5 crit chance? Thanks

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking?

81.5% is the mean weapon critical chance reported by Combat Metrics. Rele/AY/Kra'gh, 7 medium, Shadow mundus, 2 x Daggers.

ankeor wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Azyle1 , I'm not sure parses (those with 800 dps difference) were done with high warhorn uptime. I suspect the gap between khajiits and orcs/dunmers will skyrocket with raid buffs since khajiit's racial is additive with Major Force. And raid-buffed scenario is the one we should care about most.

It's not going to skyrocket. It will be a small difference.

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance) and a 58.1k Orc Stamblade solo parse (100% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance). In both cases about 86.5% of DPS is critable.

Just looking at *while Major Force is up*:

Khajiit = 1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1.09 * 0.815) = 6.47% damage increase = 5.6% DPS increase
Orc =1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1 * 0.815) = 6.73% damage increase = 5.8% DPS increase

Averaged over 33% uptime:

Khajiit = 2.16% damage increase = 1.87% DPS increase
Orc = 2.24% damage increase = 1.94% DPS increase

The difference that Warhorn is going to make with Khajiit has been vastly overstated and I'm not sure why. The same is true of The Shadow--in fact, the two parses I referenced above were using The Shadow.

And the same reasoning applies in the other direction ... for Khajiit stam toons that are not Nightblades and for Khajiit magicka toons that are not Sorcs, they will get a larger benefit from Minor Savagery/Minor Prophecy than anyone else because they have a higher built-in crit damage modifier to multiply by increase crit chance. Which is also a very small difference.

You did not add minor brutality (comes from DK tanks) to the equation tho.

It's 25.8 additional Weapon Damage for an Orc/Dunmer compared to a Khajiit/Bosmer/Redguard. I don't know what that's going to be, a quarter of a percent damage increase, or something near that, to things that are affected by Weapon Damage (e.g., not Relequen)?

And yes, min-maxing is the result of the synergy of a bunch of little increases. But in this case, there really isn't that much more to factor in. I'm fairly certain you'll see the top raid DPS numbers being hit by Orc/Dunmer, but Khajiit will be right behind them.

ankeor · February 2019

Orc/Dunmer will be the best stam dps but... Orc has 1k health which increases with other modifiers. 7 medium, no health enchant and yet you have more than enough health with an Orc. It is not the case with Dunmer tho. For certain endgame content where you need enough amount of health. If Dunmer ever wants to reach that health then it needs to sacrifice dps for it.

susmitds · February 2019

ankeor wrote: »

Orc/Dunmer will be the best stam dps but... Orc has 1k health which increases with other modifiers. 7 medium, no health enchant and yet you have more than enough health with an Orc. It is not the case with Dunmer tho. For certain endgame content where you need enough amount of health. If Dunmer ever wants to reach that health then it needs to sacrifice dps for it.

Actually now with gold food, any race has enough HP for trials as long tank has ebon.

kylewwefan · February 2019

These guys got me once thinking a race change would make me so Much stronger and OP. It did not.

Now, some race are more magic or Stam inclined than others and changes can help those a good bit.

I doubt anyone will be able to tell the difference really.

LiquidPony · February 2019

ankeor wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Azyle1 , I'm not sure parses (those with 800 dps difference) were done with high warhorn uptime. I suspect the gap between khajiits and orcs/dunmers will skyrocket with raid buffs since khajiit's racial is additive with Major Force. And raid-buffed scenario is the one we should care about most.

It's not going to skyrocket. It will be a small difference.

I've got here a 57.6k Khajiit Stamblade solo parse (109% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance) and a 58.1k Orc Stamblade solo parse (100% crit damage, 81.5% crit chance). In both cases about 86.5% of DPS is critable.

Just looking at *while Major Force is up*:

Khajiit = 1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1.09 * 0.815) = 6.47% damage increase = 5.6% DPS increase
Orc =1 + (0.15 * 0.815) / (1 + 1 * 0.815) = 6.73% damage increase = 5.8% DPS increase

Averaged over 33% uptime:

Khajiit = 2.16% damage increase = 1.87% DPS increase
Orc = 2.24% damage increase = 1.94% DPS increase

The difference that Warhorn is going to make with Khajiit has been vastly overstated and I'm not sure why. The same is true of The Shadow--in fact, the two parses I referenced above were using The Shadow.

And the same reasoning applies in the other direction ... for Khajiit stam toons that are not Nightblades and for Khajiit magicka toons that are not Sorcs, they will get a larger benefit from Minor Savagery/Minor Prophecy than anyone else because they have a higher built-in crit damage modifier to multiply by increase crit chance. Which is also a very small difference.

Major force is not the only buff/debuff you get in raids. Minor brutality, minor vulnerability, off-balance, tons of penetration etc. It all adds up to increase the damage and widens up the gap between these races. Only thing you can get in raids that truly benefits the khajiit crit passives is minor savagery which is something already you have on solo parses as a stamblade.

None of these things change the percentage gap, though. They may change the absolute gap, because obviously as DPS increases a build that does 1-2% more DPS will do more absolute DPS.

But a Khajiit will get just as much of a percentage buff out of penetration or Major Courage or Powerful Assault or Minor Vulnerability as any other race.

*Edit: and actually, it's worth clarifying one point here. Buffs that add flat weapon damage will give more benefit to builds with lower starting weapon damage. So Major Courage and Powerful Assault will actually give slightly more benefit to Khajiit/Redguard/Bosmer than they will to Orc/Dunmer. That is, +258 weapon damage is a ~3.33% damage increase for a build with 4500 weapon damage and a ~3.13% damage increase for a build with 5000 weapon damage.

Colecovision · February 2019

For stam it's just the orc health bonus. Without it, it would be pretty balanced, even if khajiit is slightly under tuned for pve. I test with at least 17k health. So the orc health bonus is just converted to stam after race changing. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but it appears to be headed live. I don't get it.

karthrag_inak · February 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

81.5% is the mean weapon critical chance reported by Combat Metrics. Rele/AY/Kra'gh, 7 medium, Shadow mundus, 2 x Daggers.

What about if you didn't have stacked crit chance? How would both toons do with, say VO/Hundings/Vele?

LiquidPony · February 2019

karthrag_inak wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

81.5% is the mean weapon critical chance reported by Combat Metrics. Rele/AY/Kra'gh, 7 medium, Shadow mundus, 2 x Daggers.

What about if you didn't have stacked crit chance? How would both toons do with, say VO/Hundings/Vele?

I don't have the time or the motivation to test gear that I won't actually be using in most raid situations.

I have tested Rele/Veiled Heritance/Veli (and Rele/Veiled Heritance/Kra'gh with The Shadow setup) and it comes in slightly lower than AY but is still a totally viable setup on all races.

On a stamsorc, VH is maybe 200-400 DPS lower than AY, with Khajiit taking a slightly higher DPS (~100) loss than Orc/Dunmer (but well within the margin of error given the small number of parses).

On a stamblade, I parse between 56.5-57.5k with AY on a Khajiit and 55.5-56.5k with VH. On an Orc, that's more like 56-57k with VH and 57-58k with AY. But I haven't tracked a large enough selection of good parses to really be sure of those numbers.

In the VH setup on a stamblade, I have 69.1% mean crit chance.

DoobZ69 · February 2019

@Royaji

Royaji wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

If asking if the races are balanced and stating its ok if theyre not is balanced then they were always balanced. So yes theyre balanced.
But no, theyre not balanced.
Breton can tank, dd, heal.
Bosmer can dd, tank but not heal.
Stated goal was universal role application. Result - fail.

Good job stating your goal in your own mind and then complaining that it was not what was actually happing in reality.

@lordrichter

lordrichter wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

If asking if the races are balanced and stating its ok if theyre not is balanced then they were always balanced. So yes theyre balanced.
But no, theyre not balanced.
Breton can tank, dd, heal.
Bosmer can dd, tank but not heal.
Stated goal was universal role application. Result - fail.

Actually, ZOS's stated goal was nothing of the sort.

Here's the stated goal from the lead developer, which has been up for months. Please note the "When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role". The key word is any here which also implies every role and is thus universal. Even if they didn't say they wanted all races to do all roles the very fact that a race has passives which benefit in some way to all major roles (tank/dps/heal) and another only has passives which benefit a select number of them indicates that the races are, in fact, not balanced.

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hi all,
When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role.

The combat power provided by each race should be more equalized.

Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up.

The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

That's all for now. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

And to the guy who indicated that a Bosmer can heal......... well I just don't know what to say. I guess the logic here is that if a person without arms and legs can float then they can swim. Yes, technically they can. I also can walk to work for 2 hours and back every day. Good job in solving that mystery, genius.

Elsonso · February 2019

DoobZ69 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

If asking if the races are balanced and stating its ok if theyre not is balanced then they were always balanced. So yes theyre balanced.
But no, theyre not balanced.
Breton can tank, dd, heal.
Bosmer can dd, tank but not heal.
Stated goal was universal role application. Result - fail.

Actually, ZOS's stated goal was nothing of the sort.

Here's the stated goal from the lead developer, which has been up for months. Please note the "When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role". The key word is any here which also implies every role and is thus universal.

I have to disagree. That is not what the statement says.

DoobZ69 · February 2019

lordrichter wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

If asking if the races are balanced and stating its ok if theyre not is balanced then they were always balanced. So yes theyre balanced.
But no, theyre not balanced.
Breton can tank, dd, heal.
Bosmer can dd, tank but not heal.
Stated goal was universal role application. Result - fail.

Actually, ZOS's stated goal was nothing of the sort.

Here's the stated goal from the lead developer, which has been up for months. Please note the "When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role". The key word is any here which also implies every role and is thus universal.

I have to disagree. That is not what the statement says.

There's room there for interpretation. Regardless, there is a difference of "balance" when a race being picked for a role has restrictions while another does not. There is no justification for picking a Bosmer for a healing role but there is little argument against a Breton for any role. So a player who wants to pick Bosmer+healer role can but a player who wants to pick breton+healer is rewarded. Imbalance.

Razorback174 · February 2019

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hi all,
When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role.

The combat power provided by each race should be more equalized.

Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up.

The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

That's all for now. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

Dear lord, they've failed on all accounts if this was their goal!!

Especially that last part! In what world does a race that exercises the "right of theft" lose ALL semblance of stealthiness?? In what world does a race known for their unparalleled magical abilities gain a STAMINA regen passive??

Why are Orcs now the only acceptable stamina race?
Why are Bretons now the only acceptable magic race?
Why are Nords only good for tanking and absolutely nothing else?

I was hoping this patch would bring diversity, but it's only shifted the meta even more. Orcs are the new Redguards, Bretons are the new Altmer, Nords are the new Argonians. The rest? Sub-par by comparison.

Was it worth it? If it meant having previous racial identities gutted and outright erased in some cases, I certainly don't think so.

Browiseth · February 2019

wasn't the whole point of these changes to make it so races aren't pidgeonholed into specific roles?

Royaji · February 2019

DoobZ69 wrote: »

Here's the stated goal from the lead developer, which has been up for months. Please note the "When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role". The key word is any here which also implies every role and is thus universal. Even if they didn't say they wanted all races to do all roles the very fact that a race has passives which benefit in some way to all major roles (tank/dps/heal) and another only has passives which benefit a select number of them indicates that the races are, in fact, not balanced.

You are misinterpreting that statement. It is not about "I've selected a race and should be able to play it as any role". It is "I've selected a role and there should be several races I can select that work well for the given role". And in this regard the update is a success.

If your given gameplay role is tank, Imperial, Nord and Argonian are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is magicka DD, Altmer, Breton, Dunmer and Kajiit are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is stamina DD, Redguard, Orc, Bosmer, Kajiit, Dunmer and even Imperial are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is healer Breton, Altmer or Argonian are effective choices.

This is the goal that was being solved and it was solved. Which only reinforces my interpretation, since yours was indeed a complete miss. It was not what ZOS was solving. People who were hoping that somehow all races would make competitive tanks or mag DDs were building their own dreamcastles while ignoring the reality that was happing outside.

Seraphayel · February 2019

@Royaji

Great post!

DoobZ69 · February 2019

Royaji wrote: »

DoobZ69 wrote: »

Here's the stated goal from the lead developer, which has been up for months. Please note the "When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role". The key word is any here which also implies every role and is thus universal. Even if they didn't say they wanted all races to do all roles the very fact that a race has passives which benefit in some way to all major roles (tank/dps/heal) and another only has passives which benefit a select number of them indicates that the races are, in fact, not balanced.

You are misinterpreting that statement. It is not about "I've selected a race and should be able to play it as any role". It is "I've selected a role and there should be several races I can select that work well for the given role". And in this regard the update is a success.

If your given gameplay role is tank, Imperial, Nord and Argonian are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is magicka DD, Altmer, Breton, Dunmer and Kajiit are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is stamina DD, Redguard, Orc, Bosmer, Kajiit, Dunmer and even Imperial are effective choices.
If your given gameplay role is healer Breton, Altmer or Argonian are effective choices.

This is the goal that was being solved and it was solved. Which only reinforces my interpretation, since yours was indeed a complete miss. It was not what ZOS was solving. People who were hoping that somehow all races would make competitive tanks or mag DDs were building their own dreamcastles while ignoring the reality that was happing outside.

Agreed. Shifted meta to make money. The house always wins.