ZOS, Your Lackluster Communication Concerning Wood Elf Racial Changes is Frustrating

GrumpyDuckling · March 2019

ZOS, since mid-January, members of this community have created threads and written posts -- many with logical, lore-based, well-reasoned arguments -- against the current Wood Elf racial changes that you pushed to live, and you persisted in ignoring most of them. It's frustrating to read and listen to comments about how you "listen" to the community, and then watch you let excellent feedback that was grounded in logic and lore just fade into the void. Sithis would be proud of you -- I am not. I just don't understand how you ended up so far off with the Bosmer changes.

Do you even feel the slightest bit of embarrassment that your own community of players felt compelled to lecture you, multiple times, in many threads and posts over the past month and a half, about Wood Elf lore because your changes did not align with lore?
Did you even realize that your changes directly contradicted the in-game description for the Wood Elf race -- the one that a player reads when they are creating a character -- because it listed "stealth" as part of what makes a Wood Elf a "dangerous foe?" Your own game was informing your "millions" of players about one of the benefits of the race (one that made sense according to lore), and then you pulled that rug from out under them with a significant change after they had created their characters.
Were you aware of how contradictory your statements were, in the first racial changes preview, when you wrote that "sneaking isn’t a universal mechanic to the game (many enemies in Tamriel can’t be bothered sneaking about!)" as justification for removing Wood Elf stealth bonuses, and that you then proceeded to lecture us in the comments about how Wood Elves have adeptness for detecting potential threats as justification for giving them a detection radius bonus? C'mon now.
Did you think that it made sense to give Wood Elves a faster overall speed after a roll dodge? You called it a "...natural speed boost when tactfully engaging combat," but where did that come from? Nothing in lore talks about Wood Elves having natural speed boosts that would affect their overall speed. Wood Elves are agile, but they don't move at an overall faster speed than other races -- they simply perform agile moves with more efficiency and grace (see definition of agile: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agile). Also, after nerfing speed across the board, you decided to give Wood Elves an unjustified overall speed bonus that you then had to cut in half before live because of PVP balance implications. Why are you so hung up on insisting that Wood Elves get an overall movement speed bonus that both contradicts lore and caused enough balance issues that you had to nerf it before live?
Did you think adding a penetration bonus for a short duration after performing a roll dodge would be well-received by players? It's a situational bonus that fits oddly into PVE, and most often would only see use in PVP counter-play. Also, how is it that performing an acrobatic move the drains stamina magically gives a Wood Elf the power to penetrate more?

I assume I will never get an answer to these questions, but they were born of my frustration. Your attempt at communicating thus far has been weak. We have a single note from the class rep meeting thread that reads: "Note: Reps specifically asked about the community’s concern that bosmers are trading stealth for different buffs. We were told that ZOS saw these concerns and would work on creating more options/systems for stealth gameplay outside of race. With these additions, stealth gameplay will open up to more players, and also allow bosmers to have the nice combat buff [while] still having avenues to be as stealthy as before."

This one note is most definitely better than nothing, but it's frustrating that just before the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild events were scheduled to start you still decided to strip Wood Elves of their stealth, and that you have left your players clueless about what the stealth changes are and when they would occur. Also, that note only discusses stealth, and it doesn't explain what is going on with the rest of the changes that didn't make sense (see bullet points above).

@ZOS_Gilliam
I am disappointed. I had hoped for logical, lore-based, and balanced changes. The Wood Elf changes fell far short of that.

martijnlv40 · March 2019

I think it's an unwillingness to dive into the rabbit hole of angry people, and say you won't change anything because the way you designed it is the way to stay, and the players have no to little input.
I get that they don't want to, but a new, general post made by them with no replies further explainging why certain changes were made and why they stand by it, would be a great middle ground and most likely sooth a lot of people.

Alucardo · March 2019

I don't see what's wrong with the Bosmer changes. Personally I really like where they are now. I've also seen some pretty sweet builds come out that really play on their strengths (ie: Kris's Ghost stamplar). The speed after dodge rolling made up for the massive swift (and across the board movement speed) nerf, and synergises nicely with the bow passive.
Just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it won't for the people who learnt to adapt and come to love these changes.
Have your opinion by all means, but don't you dare drag the community into it. I'm part of the community and I want them left as they are.

Beardimus · March 2019

I don't get the 'lore' argument directed AT Zos. They are the lore/law on lore lol. In fact as Laurence said the 'lore' is plastic / malable, we are all the lore. It's not a good argument.

I get feel around your toon however. I wasn't happy with Dunmer bland direction as felt we lost some of our edge, what made us Dunmer (my view) however ive embraced the change for what it is, as my main is my main and ill never change him regardless the direction they want them in.

And I'm talking as a person with a Bosmer Thief rolled explicitly for TG content, admittedly tho they are not my main. However way i see it, my sneak performance difference in PvE won't matter much. And the gains in PvP i think will outway. Thus I'm ok with it, and it is what it is.

Humans just don't like change.

Tommy_The_Gun · March 2019

I just want to point out, not only Wood Elves. Argonians and even Khajiits got hit pretty hard (tbh. I think Wood Elves & Argonians are the current worst races when it comes to passives). The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/453551/upcoming-racial-balance-changes-for-update-21/p1
Their original goals:
1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

VaranisArano · March 2019

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I just want to point out, not only Wood Elves. Argonians and even Khajiits got hit pretty hard (tbh. I think Wood Elves & Argonians are the current worst races when it comes to passives). The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/453551/upcoming-racial-balance-changes-for-update-21/p1
Their original goals:
1. Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.
2. Equalize the overall power that each race provides by using our set bonus efficiency system, which compares the total amount of power that a bonus provides under equal terms.
3. Retain and enhance the unique feeling and gameplay patterns that each race allows.
4. Improve the sense of progression that the racial passives provide when leveling up.
5. Achieve the above goals while still obeying our rich and structured lore and storytelling.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

So, with the exception of changing around who's the King of the Mountain, we're in exactly the same boat as we were before this update?

Sounds like business as usual to me. As you say, just another meta shift.

Moreover, the "useless" part is, as we know, really only aimed at top-tier end-game content where efficient completion of content is king. The sole exception to that, really, is the Bosmer stealth passive. Since its the only change that had a big impact on the regular, non-top tier gameplay of Bosmer players who did Justice System content. Which is probably the reason people are most frustrated with that change.

However, I don't see the point in asking ZOS to justify themselved again, as the OP does. Either players accept the justification already, or will learn to live with it, or they really just want their stealth back and nothing less is going to satisfy them.

Nerftheforums · March 2019

Your lack of understanding of maths and game mechanics is embarrassing to say the least.

Cundu_Ertur · March 2019

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Your lack of understanding of maths and game mechanics is embarrassing to say the least.

Your lack of understanding of the lore and background of the game is embarrassing to say the least.

Everstorm · March 2019

Alucardo wrote: »

I don't see what's wrong with the Bosmer changes. Personally I really like where they are now. I've also seen some pretty sweet builds come out that really play on their strengths (ie: Kris's Ghost stamplar). The speed after dodge rolling made up for the massive swift (and across the board movement speed) nerf, and synergises nicely with the bow passive.
Just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it won't for the people who learnt to adapt and come to love these changes.
Have your opinion by all means, but don't you dare drag the community into it. I'm part of the community and I want them left as they are.

Note how you did not mention the increased stealth detection radius. It is useless, turning that back to the reduced detection radius Bosmer used to have would not in any way affect what you just wrote.

GrumpyDuckling · March 2019

Alucardo wrote: »

Have your opinion by all means, but don't you dare drag the community into it. I'm part of the community and I want them left as they are.

@Alucardo , you can't be serious.

In the very first line I say, "ZOS, since mid-January, members of this community have created threads and written posts -- many with logical, lore-based, well-reasoned arguments -- against the current Wood Elf racial changes that you pushed to live, and you persisted in ignoring most of them."

That's a statement of fact. Just because you want the changes left as they are, it does not change the fact that members of this community have created logical, lore-based, well-reasoned arguments against the current Wood Elf racial changes. You can absolutely have your opinion, but to say "don't you dare drag the community into it" sounds like you are just trying to shut down the voices of other members of the community who you disagree with. Not cool.

GrumpyDuckling · March 2019

Beardimus wrote: »

Humans just don't like change.

Eh, I don't think that this is an example of humans not liking change. Some of the Wood Elf changes were just illogical or directly contradicted the reason people made their character.

Seraphayel · March 2019

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

This is just not true.

The meta barely changed. Former meta races are still in an excellent spot and the differences between the best Stamina and Magicka races are smaller than before.

No race was limited more by the changes and there were added more options, Stamina Dunmer and Magicka Khajiit. On top of that they gave Redguard and Imperial the option to benefit Magicka builds as well due to the cost reduction for weapon skills or the cost reduction on every skill + Magicka return from Red Diamond.

No race is useless. And a lot more than 3-4 races are viable (every race is viable btw) or better said, competitive in their respective roles.

Altmer, Breton, Dunmer, Orc, Redguard and Khajiit are the top DPS pics with Bosmer not being that far apart. Imperial is quite good now, too. It's true that Nords and Argonians are the weakest DPS races but they were never meant to be DPS races to begin with.

On the Bosmer topic: it seems like a lot of Bosmer players enjoy their new strength for Stamina builds now, the players that didn't choose Bosmer for Stealth in the beginning. ZOS increased the DPS potential for Stamina Bosmer a lot and it seems like a lot of people like that.

Koronach · March 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

This is just not true.

The meta barely changed. Former meta races are still in an excellent spot and the differences between the best Stamina and Magicka races are smaller than before.

No race was limited more by the changes and there were added more options, Stamina Dunmer and Magicka Khajiit. On top of that they gave Redguard and Imperial the option to benefit Magicka builds as well due to the cost reduction for weapon skills or the cost reduction on every skill + Magicka return from Red Diamond.

No race is useless. And a lot more than 3-4 races are viable (every race is viable btw) or better said, competitive in their respective roles.

Altmer, Breton, Dunmer, Orc, Redguard and Khajiit are the top DPS pics with Bosmer not being that far apart. Imperial is quite good now, too. It's true that Nords and Argonians are the weakest DPS races but they were never meant to be DPS races to begin with.

On the Bosmer topic: it seems like a lot of Bosmer players enjoy their new strength for Stamina builds now, the players that didn't choose Bosmer for Stealth in the beginning. ZOS increased the DPS potential for Stamina Bosmer a lot and it seems like a lot of people like that.

You keep telling yourself that, I know you are pushing hard for those last two forum stars. This racial change was a lie and Argonians got shafted hard. Removing poison resistance is one of the most lore breaking things I have seen so far. Multiple quests state Argonians having it. Argonians gained no new roles and are worse at the roles they were good at. ZoS/Beth lie like always, yeah doesn't surprise me. They seriously messed up with Argonians imo, healers and tanks? What a bunch of bs we should be good at mag and stam not tanking.

Seraphayel · March 2019

Koronach wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

This is just not true.

The meta barely changed. Former meta races are still in an excellent spot and the differences between the best Stamina and Magicka races are smaller than before.

No race was limited more by the changes and there were added more options, Stamina Dunmer and Magicka Khajiit. On top of that they gave Redguard and Imperial the option to benefit Magicka builds as well due to the cost reduction for weapon skills or the cost reduction on every skill + Magicka return from Red Diamond.

No race is useless. And a lot more than 3-4 races are viable (every race is viable btw) or better said, competitive in their respective roles.

Altmer, Breton, Dunmer, Orc, Redguard and Khajiit are the top DPS pics with Bosmer not being that far apart. Imperial is quite good now, too. It's true that Nords and Argonians are the weakest DPS races but they were never meant to be DPS races to begin with.

On the Bosmer topic: it seems like a lot of Bosmer players enjoy their new strength for Stamina builds now, the players that didn't choose Bosmer for Stealth in the beginning. ZOS increased the DPS potential for Stamina Bosmer a lot and it seems like a lot of people like that.

You keep telling yourself that, I know you are pushing hard for those last two forum stars. This racial change was a lie and Argonians got shafted hard. Removing poison resistance is one of the most lore breaking things I have seen so far. Multiple quests state Argonians having it. Argonians gained no new roles and are worse at the roles they were good at. ZoS/Beth lie like always, yeah doesn't surprise me. They seriously messed up with Argonians imo, healers and tanks? What a bunch of bs we should be good at mag and stam not tanking.

Was a lie when there are more "meta" races now and there are even two new competitive options (Dunmer Stamina / Khajiit Magicka)? I think some players are just drama queens in that regard because they simply don't like some changes.

Forum stars? What? Couldn't care less about stuff like that, I just don't stop this "races are worse than before" nonsense because it's just not true.

Argonians deserved a nerf from a PvP perspective and they got it. They're still excellent picks for Tanks, Healers and PvP in general. There was no indication that Argonians would become more competitive for PvE DPS. To expect that was a mistake. The removal of the poison immunity was right but I agree, they should have kept some poison resistance. I am having an Argonian Templar myself and I am very content with it, still.

Koronach · March 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

The whole racial rebalance in general imho was a failure since all it did was a simply meta - shift. No other possibilities were added. Most races have become even more limited to do one specific role than before.

As a result we ended up with 3 - 4 races out of 10 to be vailable to do content. Some races ended up being useless (out preformed by other races in what they were good at), Some races (like Nords for example), although bis for tanking role, ended up being shoehorned into that one role.

This is just not true.

The meta barely changed. Former meta races are still in an excellent spot and the differences between the best Stamina and Magicka races are smaller than before.

No race was limited more by the changes and there were added more options, Stamina Dunmer and Magicka Khajiit. On top of that they gave Redguard and Imperial the option to benefit Magicka builds as well due to the cost reduction for weapon skills or the cost reduction on every skill + Magicka return from Red Diamond.

No race is useless. And a lot more than 3-4 races are viable (every race is viable btw) or better said, competitive in their respective roles.

Altmer, Breton, Dunmer, Orc, Redguard and Khajiit are the top DPS pics with Bosmer not being that far apart. Imperial is quite good now, too. It's true that Nords and Argonians are the weakest DPS races but they were never meant to be DPS races to begin with.

On the Bosmer topic: it seems like a lot of Bosmer players enjoy their new strength for Stamina builds now, the players that didn't choose Bosmer for Stealth in the beginning. ZOS increased the DPS potential for Stamina Bosmer a lot and it seems like a lot of people like that.

You keep telling yourself that, I know you are pushing hard for those last two forum stars. This racial change was a lie and Argonians got shafted hard. Removing poison resistance is one of the most lore breaking things I have seen so far. Multiple quests state Argonians having it. Argonians gained no new roles and are worse at the roles they were good at. ZoS/Beth lie like always, yeah doesn't surprise me. They seriously messed up with Argonians imo, healers and tanks? What a bunch of bs we should be good at mag and stam not tanking.

Was a lie when there are more "meta" races now and there are even two new competitive options (Dunmer Stamina / Khajiit Magicka)? I think some players are just drama queens in that regard because they simply don't like some changes.

Forum stars? What? Couldn't care less about stuff like that, I just don't stop this "races are worse than before" nonsense because it's just not true.

Argonians deserved a nerf from a PvP perspective and they got it. They're still excellent picks for Tanks, Healers and PvP in general. There was no indication that Argonians would become more competitive for PvE DPS. To expect that was a mistake. The removal of the poison immunity was right but I agree, they should have kept some poison resistance. I am having an Argonian Templar myself and I am very content with it, still.

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before. All they did was nerf all our passives and didn't help out in areas that we needed it at all. I'm sorry but your views are different than those of us that feel shafted. If lore doesn't matter to them even though they lied about that, then I'm happy playing for free and logging in less. I'm looking through past threads in combat section, I don't see thread after thread of "Argonians are OP in PVP or Poison immunity on Argonians is OP"

A_Silverius · March 2019

Everstorm wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

I don't see what's wrong with the Bosmer changes. Personally I really like where they are now. I've also seen some pretty sweet builds come out that really play on their strengths (ie: Kris's Ghost stamplar). The speed after dodge rolling made up for the massive swift (and across the board movement speed) nerf, and synergises nicely with the bow passive.
Just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it won't for the people who learnt to adapt and come to love these changes.
Have your opinion by all means, but don't you dare drag the community into it. I'm part of the community and I want them left as they are.

Note how you did not mention the increased stealth detection radius. It is useless, turning that back to the reduced detection radius Bosmer used to have would not in any way affect what you just wrote.

True, 3m stealth detection is useless because 99.9% of the time people are using stealth detection abilities and potions which are far more useful.

We can make the argument that maybe its to counter people who are stealth gankers, the first problem with this is that the only stealth gank race now is Khajiit who are on the Aldmeri Dominion with the Bosmers. Tell me why are we suppose to counter our own allies?

The second problem is that stealthed gankers are doing 1 of two things, ganking you from far away with a bow or ganking you starting with a gap closer like teleport strike. Tell me how is 3m stealth detection going to help in these two accounts?

The only use for 3m stealth detection is to chase down stealthed enemies who are retreating which means that this passive has a very limited situational moment where it is useful. And its completely useless in PvE.

Seriously, give Bosmers back our stealth ZOS. #FightForYourRite

Cundu_Ertur · March 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

On the Bosmer topic: it seems like a lot of Bosmer players enjoy their new strength for Stamina builds now, the players that didn't choose Bosmer for Stealth in the beginning. ZOS increased the DPS potential for Stamina Bosmer a lot and it seems like a lot of people like that.

I like that aspect, but it doesn't change the fact that the detection bonus is completely and utterly without the slightest possibility of use in PVE, ever. It doesn't change that it is completely 180 degrees away from the lore. And, as improved as the Bosmer are in terms of Stamina, the situation is that the Bosmer went from being below the bottom of the stamina barrel to just the bottom of the barrel, and in a few isolated cases maybe even the middle of the barrel. They suck significantly less, sure, but they still aren't BiS.

What about Bosmer is even represented in the game now?
Bosmer are supposed to be the best archers, bar none, and completely unmatched in it. But in ESO Bosmer are tied for last in terms of using a Bow; Dunmer and Orcs get a weapon damage bonus to bows, Redguards and Imperials get an ability cost reduction for bows. So that is not represented. Bosmer have always been stealthy, they have never not been stealthy, but suddenly they have no bonus to sneaking around. So that's not represented. Bosmer are culturally obligate carnivores, per the Pact, and as such had always had been resistant to disease. Bosmer drinks are made out of the juice of rotting flesh FFS. But now Bosmer get the Argonians' poison resistance while Argonians have Bosmers' disease resistance. So of the things that have always defined what the Bosmer are, as a people, not one single one is represented in the game now.

It's like these changes were made by people who only heard about TES lore from third hand sources. And, yes, the refusal to answer this, or explain this, or even acknowledge this is a problem.

Ogou · March 2019

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Koronach · March 2019

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Yes, yes they did. They said they wanted to give more races options for other roles. They completely failed because they cherry picked what races and didn't give all of them the same treatment.

Ogou · March 2019

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Yes, yes they did. They said they wanted to give more races options for other roles. They completely failed because they cherry picked what races and didn't give all of them the same treatment.

ZOS stated their goal as

Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.

There is a difference between allowing more effective options for a specific role ( you can choose between nord, imperial or argonians for a tank depending your personal preferences) and making every race equally good at all the roles (which is impossible without removing racial passives altogether).

The racial changes drastically reduced the difference in effectiveness between the races which are supposed to be good at a specific role (except maybe for healers). How is that not giving effective options when picking a race for a specific role?

Amphithoe · March 2019

*Elves

Koronach · March 2019

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Yes, yes they did. They said they wanted to give more races options for other roles. They completely failed because they cherry picked what races and didn't give all of them the same treatment.

ZOS stated their goal as

Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.

There is a difference between allowing more effective options for a specific role ( you can choose between nord, imperial or argonians for a tank depending your personal preferences) and making every race equally good at all the roles (which is impossible without removing racial passives altogether).

The racial changes drastically reduced the difference in effectiveness between the races which are supposed to be good at a specific role (except maybe for healers). How is that not giving effective options when picking a race for a specific role?

They didn't give us more effective options at all. All they did was make us worse at our roles, as against lore as our roles are. Face it dps is the most played out of the three. So because I like playing an Argonian I will never be able to be a top dps. Yeah that's some epic freedom of choice, be a healer or tank and be ok at it since you got nerfed and other races got buffed passed you. Ok be a dps but be considered crap because you will never be a great dps.

Ogou · March 2019

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Yes, yes they did. They said they wanted to give more races options for other roles. They completely failed because they cherry picked what races and didn't give all of them the same treatment.

ZOS stated their goal as

Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.

There is a difference between allowing more effective options for a specific role ( you can choose between nord, imperial or argonians for a tank depending your personal preferences) and making every race equally good at all the roles (which is impossible without removing racial passives altogether).

The racial changes drastically reduced the difference in effectiveness between the races which are supposed to be good at a specific role (except maybe for healers). How is that not giving effective options when picking a race for a specific role?

They didn't give us more effective options at all. All they did was make us worse at our roles, as against lore as our roles are. Face it dps is the most played out of the three. So because I like playing an Argonian I will never be able to be a top dps. Yeah that's some epic freedom of choice there.

But they did give us more effective options. If you want to be a magicka DPS you can choose between Altmer, Dunmer and Bretons. For stamina DPS you have Orcs, Redguards, Khajiit, Dunmer and Bosmer. For tanks you have Nords, Imperials and Argonians. I don't play a healer but I think the options are Breton, Altmer, Khajiit or Argonians. And all of these are pretty close to each other in terms of effectiveness.
Again, ZOS never said they wanted every race to be equally good at every role. You can say that you wanted that to happen or you're disappointed that's not the direction they chose to take. But you cannot say that they failed at their stated goal.

VaranisArano · March 2019

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

When they say they want to make all races more viable for other roles, yeah you kind of expect to be better at dps if you sucked at it before.

ZOS never said that.

Yes, yes they did. They said they wanted to give more races options for other roles. They completely failed because they cherry picked what races and didn't give all of them the same treatment.

ZOS stated their goal as

Allow more effective options when picking a race for each role in tanking, healing, or damage dealing.

There is a difference between allowing more effective options for a specific role ( you can choose between nord, imperial or argonians for a tank depending your personal preferences) and making every race equally good at all the roles (which is impossible without removing racial passives altogether).

The racial changes drastically reduced the difference in effectiveness between the races which are supposed to be good at a specific role (except maybe for healers). How is that not giving effective options when picking a race for a specific role?

They didn't give us more effective options at all. All they did was make us worse at our roles, as against lore as our roles are. Face it dps is the most played out of the three. So because I like playing an Argonian I will never be able to be a top dps. Yeah that's some epic freedom of choice there.

But they did give us more effective options. If you want to be a magicka DPS you can choose between Altmer, Dunmer and Bretons. For stamina DPS you have Orcs, Redguards, Khajiit, Dunmer and Bosmer. For tanks you have Nords, Imperials and Argonians. I don't play a healer but I think the options are Breton, Altmer, Khajiit or Argonians. And all of these are pretty close to each other in terms of effectiveness.
Again, ZOS never said they wanted every race to be equally good at every role. You can say that you wanted that to happen or you're disappointed that's not the direction they chose to take. But you cannot say that they failed at their stated goal.

Yes, that's certainly true for anyone who isn't trying to compete for limited trial slots with a group who is looking for the mathematically-meta most-efficient race/class combo possible.

At least, I have to assume that's how the OP is approaching this. Because unless players can't possibly reach the level of DPS required to complete the content on a given race, all matching your race to your role does is make it easier to reach the level required to complete content. In some cases it makes it a LOT easier and certainly makes it easier to get higher DPS than is needed.

But if the real issue is "Nobody wants me to bring my Argonian DD to trials even though I can totally get high enough DPS with them!"...then I'm not sure the issue lies with ZOS.

Or even, "Nobody wants my Argonian Tank anymore because Nord Tanks do it better, even though I can still tank the trial just fine!"...again, I'm not sure the issue lies with ZOS.

Rikumaru · March 2019

I love new wood elf. Pre patch I wanted to make a wood elf, but it just was straight up bad. Now it's actually the best race for medium setups imo. I don't want them to change it personally.

Cundu_Ertur · March 2019

Rikumaru wrote: »

I love new wood elf. Pre patch I wanted to make a wood elf, but it just was straight up bad. Now it's actually the best race for medium setups imo. I don't want them to change it personally.

How much of that is due to the stealth detection passive, and how much is the other two passives and the remaining part of the third?

kojou · March 2019

The only passive I really don't like is the detection one. It is fairly useless in all parts of the game.

There are good reasons why no one runs the "Way of the Air" and one of them is giving up a set bonus for a useless amount of detection radius.

On the other hand all my wood elves have more stamina and regen than they did before the patch and the movement speed after roll isn't completely useless.

wedgebert · March 2019

I'm also completely mystified as to many of the changes. I play a Bosmer because I like playing a sneaky character (and dislike playing anthropomorphic animal races like Khajiit) and have done so since at least Oblivion (don't remember my Morrowind character).

If you took a Skyrim or especially an Oblivion or Morrowind player who never heard of ESO you'd have a hard time getting them to understand that ESO has a race that gets bonuses to seeing hidden enemies, bonuses when using their agility to dodge, and always lands on their feet (taking less fall damage), and it also has the Khajiit!

Acrobatics was always the Khajiit forte (until the skill went away in Skyrim due to the increased consolification of the series), and that skill governed things jumping and how much fall damage you took. Plus Khajiit had the racial vision powers (night eye in those games, since, like ESO, enemies didn't stealth).

You could easily make the case that Khajiit and Bosmer should have their main passives swapped. Khajiit are the agile pickpockets, Bosmer are the stealthy hunters with the bow accuracy that lets them kill quickly (extra crit chance/damage).

But honestly, like most people who chose Bosmer for non-meta/cuteness reasons, not having stealth hurts. The roll-dodge passive is pretty stupid. No other race has to expend so much of a resource for such a negligible buff. The poorly thought out Altmer "Spell" recharge isn't great, but at least it procs on a something you were going to do anyways. Outside of PvP, I don't roll very much (and in PvP I'm too busy sucking and being dead to roll). In PvE, even if you have 0 penetration otherwise, it's not worth rolling for the buff because you'll get way more damage using the stamina on any other ability. Hell, I think you'd do more damage using magicka to cast Soul Trap.

But most of us aren't asking for a useful PvE change to dodge roll. Or even for our disease resistance back (and let the Argonians have their poison back). We just want our stealth back. It doesn't hurt anyone else, it's not much use in PvP for the same reasons that Detection isn't (but at least there's a tiny chance of it helping unlike the detect chance), and it let's us enjoy our old PvE playstyle.

And regarding lore being plastic, that's not really true. Yes, ZOS can change things around however they want because they're the authors, but at a certain point we're not playing an Elder Scrolls game anymore and that's not good for business. Taking stealth way from Bosmer is no more lore breaking than making Orcs beautiful mages, or Altmer tough tanky warriors.

Rikumaru · March 2019

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Rikumaru wrote: »

I love new wood elf. Pre patch I wanted to make a wood elf, but it just was straight up bad. Now it's actually the best race for medium setups imo. I don't want them to change it personally.

How much of that is due to the stealth detection passive, and how much is the other two passives and the remaining part of the third?

Oh don't get me wrong if they change the det passive to a sneaking passive I wouldn't care at all. I just don't want the usefulness of wood elf to take a hit from it is all. Wood elf is honestly so amazing right now from a combat standpoint.

validifyedneb18_ESO · March 2019

you are why devs probably dont bother reading stuff salty people on the forum write.

wedgebert · March 2019

Rikumaru wrote: »

Oh don't get me wrong if they change the det passive to a sneaking passive I wouldn't care at all. I just don't want the usefulness of wood elf to take a hit from it is all. Wood elf is honestly so amazing right now from a combat standpoint.

How much of that is from Hunter's Eye though? 1500 pen isn't a lot, not even 2.5% damage (~660 pen reduces damage by 1%). If you're rolling defensively, yes it can help, but that probably means you don't have the highest uptime. Whereas if you roll offensively, it's DPS loss because a single use of any class power is going to do more damage and likely cost less stamina.