Jaraal wrote: »

The only people saying that Hunter's Eye is a good passive are those with niche playstyles built around the bow Hasty Retreat passive and Senche's Bite, Eternal Hunt, Morihaus, and other sets....... where they were already rolling around to begin with. Of course you're going to like extra speed and penetration (if you aren't already near the effective cap) when you don't have to change a thing about the way you play. But virtually no PvE players, and most PvP players who would rather be dealing damage than rolling around on the ground burning stamina like the Hunter's Eye passive.

If the players who defend the changes could consistently distinguish between the changes to stealth and the changes to roll-dodge, I think it would clarify the debate a lot. The two get lumped together, and I'm not sure it helps us. I doubt that the majority of Justice system players with Bosmer thieves care much about the roll-dodge bonus or, if they do, that they'd mind putting up with it in return for getting their stealth back. Personally, I'm not a fan of the roll-dodge change, but it is true that there are niche playstyles which use roll-dodge boosts, and that those existed before the bonus was ever given to Bosmer.

What I'd like to point out, is what the patch notes didn't say about the stealth radius change. They didn't say:

"We recognize that there is a need for increased stealth detection in certain playstyles which revolve around stealth detection, and that no racial passives currently serve that need. In order to fill this demand, we have given a stealth detection bonus to Bosmer."

I've quoted it before, but what they said was:

"We also wanted to have more of a distinct play pattern on how Wood Elves and Khajiit both engaged with Stealth, so we’ve repurposed Wood Elves’ passive [...]"

My point is, no players were clamoring for increased stealth detection, not even "niche" players. Does anyone actually run Way of the Air for the stealth detection bonus rather than the roll-dodge boost? This demand didn't preexist the change; ZOS invented it in order to give Wood Elves something, anything, stealth-ish other than stealth radius reduction. The change looks, feels, and plays like something contrived and artificial, forced onto the race for a lack of any actually good ideas. And they didn't even try to give it a better paint job than that in the patch notes.

Yeah this thread is about stealth, not dodge roll. Whatever your feelings are about the dodge roll situation, our Bosmer stealth bonus can coexist with it (and should, because we should have stealth, #nevergiveup).

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Tl;DR of what's behind the spoiler - 22 roll-dodges in 80 seconds, 6 kills, in the end enemies put elemental rage upon themselves to hide in it, as defensive measure, otherwise it will be 8 kills. Tell me now, how hunter's eye was useless to him.

So what you're saying is that he was originally so low on penetration that the extra 1500 from Hunter's Eye turned him into an elite player? Ok.... Seems more like rolling to avoid being snared or damaged, or to get the actually effective plus 430 weapon damage and 657 extra weapon crit for 5 seconds from the Senche's Bite set.


Nice to see that he found a way to overcome the passive giving away his presence before anyone else. Looked like he was staying far, far away from the action for the most part to achieve that. Frankly, I would think that the Resist Affliction and Y'ffre's Endurance passives would be of more use to a good player.


And yes, I agree the focus of this discussion should be upon the loss of stealth. But it still doesn't make the rest of the passive worthwhile, either. They might be more inclined to rework something that is underperforming in all areas, rather than something that is only broken in one portion of it.

A few more random thoughts, for what they're worth:

When the combat team decided to rework the racial passives, I'm guessing that they had (at least) two goals that were in some ways at odds with each other:

(#1) Balance the races, i.e., make them all "equally good" or "equally viable"
(#2) Keep the races distinct, i.e., make them "not the same"

They needed both things in order to avoid an outcome everyone dislikes: balance turning into homogenization.

The path they took to accomplish their first goal was, at least in part, to look at sets and equate racial passives to a number of set bonuses. I think the inspiration for Hunter's Eye is pretty clearly Way of the Air.

It seems like the path they took to accomplish Goal #2 was to make each race not equally good at everything, but equally fit to some purpose/playstyle, where the purposes/playstyles were distinct. So, for example, a race strong in sustain might be the best choice for solo play, whereas a race strong in damage might shine in group play where there is support from the group for sustain.

It's Goal #2 that explains why they were so determined to separate the Bosmer from the Khajiit. I also think that when they thought about "fit to some purpose" they probably wanted that purpose to be as cohesive or unified as possible. So, for example, a PvP playstyle based on roll-dodge didn't "pair up" in the right way with stealth, whereas the ganker playstyle did.

To challenge their reasoning without undermining their two goals, we'd have to ask:

- Are there sets other than Way of the Air that you can model Bosmer "balance" on? What would those sets be?
- Would it be possible to define a separate purpose/playstyle for Khajiit and Bosmer that would still allow them to share stealth bonuses?
- Is there an alternative way of keeping the races distinct, other than "fit for distinct purposes" or "fit for distinct playstyles"?
- Is "cohesion" in the passives actually necessary to accomplish Goals #1 and #2, especially at the cost of violating what should have been

(#3) Stay true the lore!

JadeCoin wrote: »

To challenge their reasoning without undermining their two goals, we'd have to ask:

- Are there sets other than Way of the Air that you can model Bosmer "balance" on? What would those sets be?
- Would it be possible to define a separate purpose/playstyle for Khajiit and Bosmer that would still allow them to share stealth bonuses?
- Is there an alternative way of keeping the races distinct, other than "fit for distinct purposes" or "fit for distinct playstyles"?
- Is "cohesion" in the passives actually necessary to accomplish Goals #1 and #2, especially at the cost of violating what should have been

(#3) Stay true the lore!

The problem is that their idea of "balance" is 100% PvP based.

They have the ability to alter your stats the second you enter a PvP zone, and they already do that to some point. A lot of the Alliance War passives are useless in PvE, and aren't even turned on until you zone into Cyro or a Battleground. They could certainly do the same with racial skills, ie: have one effect in PvP, a different effect in PvE. They are quite capable of making Hunter's Eye work this way:



Hunter's Eye

Rank III - Unlocked at Bosmer (Wood Elf) 50

Increases your ability to detect players in Stealth by 3m while in Player vs Player combat.

Decreases your ability to be detected while in Stealth by 3m everywhere else.

Gain 10% Movement Speed for 6s and a bonus to Physical and Spell Penetration of 1500 for the duration after using Roll Dodge.



They wouldn't have to take anything away from the current new passive, and they could return the lore friendly portion of the old passive so players can sneak through hostile monsters and be able to steal as they previously have for almost 5 years. And it still removes the old 10% damage from stealth bonus that they wanted to get rid of.

It's a win/win solution for both sides of the debate.

JadeCoin wrote: »

To challenge their reasoning without undermining their two goals, we'd have to ask:

- Are there sets other than Way of the Air that you can model Bosmer "balance" on? What would those sets be?
- Would it be possible to define a separate purpose/playstyle for Khajiit and Bosmer that would still allow them to share stealth bonuses?
- Is there an alternative way of keeping the races distinct, other than "fit for distinct purposes" or "fit for distinct playstyles"?
- Is "cohesion" in the passives actually necessary to accomplish Goals #1 and #2, especially at the cost of violating what should have been

Darkstride, Shadow Walker, Nightsilence would all be better than Way of the Air. I think Night Mother's Embrace would be ideal, if we replaced the weapon damage with a permanent penetration. We can even keep the movement speed on dodgeroll, because who says that a set needs to exist to be the model for Bosmer?

Hypothetical Bosmer set:
2item stam reg
3item stam reg
4item 1500 physical pen (just like Kra'gh or a stamina Flame Blossom)
5item 3m stealth radius. Gain 10% movement speed after dodgerolling for 6 seconds.

Put 2000 max stamina and poison resistance on top of that and everything is alright. Reduce the 1500 if you feel like they might get too strong and you have your 6.5 item set boni.

For making Khajiit and Bosmer distinct in stealth, I'd think about aggressive stealth vs defensive stealth. Make one better at escaping and the other better at getting closer. An effect that comes to mind is "getting hidden faster", which you can take advantage off even while you are in combat as long as you can avoid damage and not stay within detection range of the enemy. The one whose trying to attack benefits from cost reduction and speed way more. Speed is needed to catch up, cost reduction is needed to still have stam left to win the fight.

But in the end, I feel like goal 1 and 2 have already been accomplished well enough looking at every other passive that Khajiit and Bosmer have. One focuses on sustain, the other on crit. One is hybrid, the other is stamina. One has resistances, the other has not.
Right now I feel like Redguard and Bosmer are way too similar though. Both are stam sustain. One is better at weapons the other better at staying mobile, yet Redguard has snare reduction. They are both not stealthy. They pretty much fill the same niche, but one works as a tank and the other doesn't. That's all the distinction there is. If Bosmer were sneaky and had permanent peneration, they'd still be distinct and so that Bosmer aren't better Redguards, they could make Redguards sustain a bit better than Bosmer.

I wrote this in the worst race thread but I will reiterate it here;

The racial "Hunter's Eye" have turned Wood Elves into a "one-trick-pony" race.

When you pick a bosmer, AND you PvP, AND if you get the right gear, AND you play them in a particular niche way, suddenly the Bosmer racial kinda makes sense.

But if you PvE a Tank or DPS, or not play this niche build, then the racial is pointless. It's ike this race should have a "INTENDED FOR A PARTICULAR PLAYSTYLE IN PVP ONLY" warning sign placed on it.

Or maybe they can make them work for BOTH PvE and PvP?

And all they have to do, seriously, all they have to do is put back the original 3m stealth bonus back in. Then they can do whatever they want to the rest of it.

Jaraal wrote: »

So I'm in a delve in Cyrodiil last night, doing dailies on my Hunter's Eye equipped Bosmer tank. I get to the Boss's little room, he's not up, so I wait, crouched in the back of the alcove.

A minute passes by, and I see an enemy player cutting through the yard trash. She enters the room, sees me, and stealths. My weapon is drawn, expecting a fight.... none comes. Ok, this is another PvEer, trying to get boxes, like me.

I wait for a minute, can not for the life of me see this other player. The room is so small..... how can I, the new master of stealth detection, not see her? So I cast Evil Hunter.... and boom, there she is, no more than six feet away!

I'm sorry. I don't care what they thought they were doing, but this passive is just not working! Yes, I miss the stealth the most, but I can't even find a silver lining for this new racial skill.

Such usefulness, much wow.

I was thinking about turning my goofy ice warden into an even more goofy ice warden tank at some point, just for giggles.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

That's consistent with my testing. 3m are nothing in ESO. It can't even be explained with a translation from yards, being smaller than meters, because even for 3 yards it's a bit short. Hunter's Eye just gets your detection up enough that the enemy is just barely out of melee range when you detect them and that won't do you any good. Not to speak of Nightblades, who you only start to see through cloak if they bump into you!

All of this makes me wonder whether they aren't planning to roll out (no pun intended) more sets like Way of the Air, making stealth detection stacking a thing.

Which still begs the question of why anyone would use it when there are already more effective measures in the game that defend against both ordinary stealth and cloaking.

JadeCoin wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

That's consistent with my testing. 3m are nothing in ESO. It can't even be explained with a translation from yards, being smaller than meters, because even for 3 yards it's a bit short. Hunter's Eye just gets your detection up enough that the enemy is just barely out of melee range when you detect them and that won't do you any good. Not to speak of Nightblades, who you only start to see through cloak if they bump into you!

All of this makes me wonder whether they aren't planning to roll out (no pun intended) more sets like Way of the Air, making stealth detection stacking a thing.

Which still begs the question of why anyone would use it when there are already more effective measures in the game that defend against both ordinary stealth and cloaking.

Oh don't worry. ZOS won't be stopped by such things. They'll just nerf detect pots, expert hunter and mage light, because everyone and their mother has been complaining about those. And once that is done, these sets will become popular! Great design, isn't it? /s

wedgebert wrote: »

Nothing like stacking a few stealth detection sets so you can see the enemy coming right before they easily murder you because they're wearing sets with useful bonuses instead of stealth detection.

Except if the sets work like the Hunter's Eye passive and alert them to your presence long before you can detect them, wouldn't stacking such effects just make the enemy prepare for you even earlier? Makes zero sense to me.

JadeCoin wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Oh don't worry. ZOS won't be stopped by such things. They'll just nerf detect pots, expert hunter and mage light, because everyone and their mother has been complaining about those. And once that is done, these sets will become popular! Great design, isn't it? /s

Surely they wouldn't. That would be like introducing swift jewelry and then nerfing existing sources of expedition or something. Or giving Minor Toughness to a new class and then taking it away from Warhorn.

Wait, that makes no sense either! They would never do those things!

max_only wrote: »

I see under 50 Bosmer and it makes me sad.

What do you mean by this?

I suspect because they don't know what was lost, more likely than not. But don't feel bad if you run into my goofy ice warden guy, he's still under 45 just because I keep screwing around with his build.

Well, you can feel bad about the whole "no stealth" garbage nerf, if you want. I think we all still feel that one.

max_only wrote: »

I see under 50 Bosmer and it makes me sad.

Btw I appreciate you all keeping hope alive in this thread. I don’t respond on everything because I don’t want Zos to say I’m padding my own thread with posts.

I joined this thread after someone suggested that it was only a few select people who cared about this topic anymore. I didn't contribute before that because I didn't have a forum account; I was just reading and silently supporting your posts. I made a forum account so that I could participate in this thread.

Based on my experience, I actually think there are a lot of players who are negatively impacted by this. Just that many of them are not the type of endgame players who normally get worked up about nerfs or whatever, enough to be active in the forums.

I hope someone else will come along and suggest that we should shut up. It might inspire the next person to do the same thing I did, stop being silent and join the conversation.