Racials: Why Move from Percentages to Set Numbers?

tizodd · February 2019

Percentages scale so much better. Something like 258 spell power might be awesome at level 10, but not so much at cp810.

DeadlyRecluse · February 2019

There's been a move away from % buffs in general, except for those coded into the major/minor system.

I suspect it's because it's easier to balance static values--258 spell power is 258 spell power, with a possible +25% from major+minor sorcery. It's easy to keep "in check," as it were. Same with +2000 Magicka. Percentage-based buffs allow for people to push the envelope more than ZOS intended, I think (see: 60k magicka pools via %buffs and max mag sets).

IMO, removing %buffs removes a lot of niche playstyles (like stacking high stam or HP regen via racials, for example). But it seems to be the direction we're going.

tizodd · February 2019

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

There's been a move away from % buffs in general, except for those coded into the major/minor system.

I suspect it's because it's easier to balance static values--258 spell power is 258 spell power, with a possible +25% from major+minor sorcery. It's easy to keep "in check," as it were. Same with +2000 Magicka. Percentage-based buffs allow for people to push the envelope more than ZOS intended, I think (see: 60k magicka pools via %buffs and max mag sets).

IMO, removing %buffs removes a lot of niche playstyles (like stacking high stam or HP regen via racials, for example). But it seems to be the direction we're going.

Well I guess that makes sense. I've never been a min-maxer so for me, percentages just seem like the way to go for scaling. But I can understand how min-maxers could essentially abuse percentages.

Grianasteri · February 2019

tizodd wrote: »

Percentages scale so much better. Something like 258 spell power might be awesome at level 10, but not so much at cp810.

258 additional spell power is still an effective buff at CP810.

But apart from that, I can see pros and cons. With set numbers, there is no ambiguity. What you see is what you get. I can see how and why many prefer that.

DaveMoeDee · February 2019

tizodd wrote: »

Percentages scale so much better. Something like 258 spell power might be awesome at level 10, but not so much at cp810.

They want racial passives to matter less.

Stx · February 2019

Racials as a flat bonus is better for most builds. To gain a benefit from +10% magicka you would have to stack magicka. But if you were stacking magicka and you also had a +6% stamina racial, you would gain almost nothing from it.

The way it is now, if you gain 1850 magicka and stamina, you get the full value of your racial, no matter how you choose to gear or stat your character.

EmEm_Oh · February 2019

Flat numbers might be due to less calculations done on the back end, which could have resulted in game-play that resulted in trusted values and dmg. Percentages will vary so much, just because the numbers change so much due to so many external reasons (PvP bonuses in groups, or even around one player, etc.). As long as the numbers are consistent across everyone's toons, you won't notice "more power" or "less power", but you may notice your gameplay improving.

tizodd · February 2019

EmEm_Oh wrote: »

Flat numbers might be due to less calculations done on the back end, which could have resulted in game-play that resulted in trusted values and dmg. Percentages will vary so much, just because the numbers change so much due to so many external reasons (PvP bonuses in groups, or even around one player, etc.). As long as the numbers are consistent across everyone's toons, you won't notice "more power" or "less power", but you may notice your gameplay improving.

Yeah I considered this might be part of the reason too. Less computing needs to be done on each attack/debuff/heal/etc when it's a set number as opposed to a percentage.

LiquidPony · February 2019

tizodd wrote: »

Percentages scale so much better. Something like 258 spell power might be awesome at level 10, but not so much at cp810.

258 spell damage is awesome at level 10 and CP810. Not sure why you'd think otherwise.

Tasear · February 2019

Makes race matter less so bring the things into balance.

Thevampirenight · February 2019

This could also maybe have helped with improved performance less calculations needed to be done with the racial passives. This might not be the last time they will change percents to flat values. Though most might be against the change to flat. At least the theory crafters. I do think doing might help improve performance in the long run we will see what happens.

Here is why I think this really does increase preformance racial passives with all the races are around or over 100 Percentage Value numbers that have to be calculated by the server. So lets say there is 15 million players. Among all those players, just a estimate, there is 100 varying racial passives with % Values instead of flat ones. All those players will all those racial passives at various ranks. Would make that something like 1,500,000,000 More calculations if you times 15 million players by 100 in terms of % value passives that is a lot of calculations the server must preform not to mention all the other things out there that have those passives alone. Flat Values don't need to be calculated as much. By removing all that they might have improved performance by removing 99 percent of calculating % values. Now that I look at it I think it has helped the game just because they changed the racials to flats in terms of performance. So if a estimate there is 5 million, on pc, five mill on xbox and five mill on ps4. Five mil times 100 is 500000000
More. By removing the % values and making them flat this removes 500000000 calculations the server needs to preform and this would in fact improve performance. Because that would be 500,000,000 less server calculations. That is a lot here you guys that is a lot.