Bosmer/Wood Elf, another open letter about stealth, combat abilities and flavor

Taloros · July 2019

Hello, fellow players,
hello, ZOS people,

I'd like to express my thoughts about the current state of Bosmer/wood elves in ESO.

The good:
- They look cute.
- They have a funny background - eco-cannibals.

The bad:
- Their racials are somewhat below the curve.
- The loss of their stealth bonus was a hard hit, and seems not to fit to the lore.

Currently, their stats don't give them much of an identity, in my opinion. For example, Orcs are tough, physical brawler types. Redguards never tire. Khajit are stealth, lucky jack of all trades. But what about Bosmer? A bonus to weapon damage and stamina regeneration makes them... what? Good fighters. Nice gameplay wise, but lacking flair. A bonus from dodge-rolling and bonus to stealth detection neither contributes to their flavor, and is even near irrelevant combat wise.

So, what's your opinion?

Blinkin8r · July 2019

My opinion is that
1: Nobody cares
2: Bosmer are fine
3: There's already a thread on this with a cult-like following so go post in there.

NB4Lock

MartiniDaniels · July 2019

Blinkin8r wrote: »

My opinion is that
1: Nobody cares
2: Bosmer are fine
3: There's already a thread on this with a cult-like following so go post in there.

NB4Lock

^ that thread was closed and now homeless bosmers are spamming all over the forum instead of one thread. I.e. ZOS made bad decision as always

Koronach · July 2019

Blinkin8r wrote: »

My opinion is that
1: Nobody cares
2: Bosmer are fine
3: There's already a thread on this with a cult-like following so go post in there.

NB4Lock

1: people do care
2: doesn't change the fact Bosmer and other races lore is broken as f*** now.
3:they closed it because they hope it goes away if they ignore it.

MartiniDaniels · July 2019

Koronach wrote: »

Blinkin8r wrote: »

My opinion is that
1: Nobody cares
2: Bosmer are fine
3: There's already a thread on this with a cult-like following so go post in there.

NB4Lock

1: people do care
2: doesn't change the fact Bosmer and other races lore is broken as f*** now.
3:they closed it because they hope it goes away if they ignore it.

They closed it, because it became bosmers vs trolls battleground. I don't like fact that it was closed, but I understand mods. That thread became sub-forum with its own rules under the cover of "open letter", obviously after several warnings, mods don't have other choice..

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO · July 2019

I think the Bosmer are in a good place with racial abilities, with the exception of Hunter's eye.

Acrobat, Y'ffre's Endurance, and Resist Affliction are good bonuses that mesh well with the lore, in my opinion.

As far as Hunter's Eye goes, I like the first part of the ability, "Increases your stealth detection radius by 3 meters". I mean, as a race of feral hunters, having heightened senses fits that archetype quite well, and has real in-game benefits, particularly for PvP.

The second part, though, just seems really disjointed. If it were me, I'd rename it to "Natural Hunter" and remove the roll dodge part. I'd give them a flat physical and spell penetration increase of 750, and reduce the time it takes them to enter stealth by 100%.

Them's my two septims.

WildRaptorX · July 2019

.

Cundu_Ertur · July 2019

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I think the Bosmer are in a good place with racial abilities, with the exception of Hunter's eye.

Acrobat, Y'ffre's Endurance, and Resist Affliction are good bonuses that mesh well with the lore, in my opinion.

As far as Hunter's Eye goes, I like the first part of the ability, "Increases your stealth detection radius by 3 meters". I mean, as a race of feral hunters, having heightened senses fits that archetype quite well, and has real in-game benefits, particularly for PvP.

The second part, though, just seems really disjointed. If it were me, I'd rename it to "Natural Hunter" and remove the roll dodge part. I'd give them a flat physical and spell penetration increase of 750, and reduce the time it takes them to enter stealth by 100%.

Them's my two septims.

Actually, it's the first part of Hunter's eye that is truly bad. From a lore perspective, Bosmer have NEVER -- NOT ONCE -- been noted as being particularly observant. Their skill at hunting was a by-product of their skill at hiding. This is referenced in several lore books, every past game where racial skills existed, and the first 5 years of ESO itself. There is absolutely not the slightest shred of lore justification for the detection passive. There is much more lore justification for Bosmer being sneaky than there ever was for Khajiit.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO · July 2019

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

From a lore perspective, Bosmer have NEVER -- NOT ONCE -- been noted as being particularly observant. Their skill at hunting was a by-product of their skill at hiding. This is referenced in several lore books, every past game where racial skills existed, and the first 5 years of ESO itself. There is absolutely not the slightest shred of lore justification for the detection passive. There is much more lore justification for Bosmer being sneaky than there ever was for Khajiit.

I've been playing Elder Scrolls since "Daggerfall", and I think you're right.

But I really can't see the devs taking the Stealthy passive away from Khajiit characters.

And ESO has made minor adjustments to the lore. You COULD make the argument that, since Bosmer culture is organized around the hunt, that they've trained themselves to be observant. But that's a quibble and I'm not invested in it one way or the other. I DO think the stealth detection makes more sense for Khajiit, since heightened senses makes more sense (see what I did there?) for a feline race.

But I do think a reversion of the Hunter's Eye passive to its previous form makes the most sense, and would make most of the player base happy.

Cundu_Ertur · July 2019

We're not asking that Khajiit lose their hiding bonus: they are the other top-tier thievery race, too. The issue is that Bosmer, who have always been one of the two top thievery races, are now guards with not one single bonus to being thieves. Both races should have the hiding bonus. I personally think that Dunmer and Argonian should also have a half-strength bonus to hiding, too, to reflect their similarly consistent, albeit lesser, affinity for stealth.

The previous stealth bonus, which included a damage bonus out of hiding, is gone forever, and that's fine. It's just the bonus to hiding. There is no valid reason to limit that to one race. It means there is one, and only one, valid choice for a thief character at this point.

CP5 · July 2019

This is an mmo, making race choice matter less by having an identical passive makes that choice matter less. And since stealth is so simple in eso there isn't an alternative to detection radius for bosmer to have. And since bosmer use bows, why do they need to be able to sneak closer to targets? Hunters hunt, that makes sense, the passive is just weak and to niche.

Koronach · July 2019

CP5 wrote: »

This is an mmo, making race choice matter less by having an identical passive makes that choice matter less. And since stealth is so simple in eso there isn't an alternative to detection radius for bosmer to have. And since bosmer use bows, why do they need to be able to sneak closer to targets? Hunters hunt, that makes sense, the passive is just weak and to niche.

Yeah it's an MMO with lore, they shouldn't be able to just remove something from a race when they have in game lore backing it up. Like Bosmer stealth and Argonians being resistant to both Poison and Disease.

CP5 · July 2019

Again, stealth in eso boils down to proxi, something the renown archers, shooting from a range, wouldn't need nearly as much as you guys go on about, so the stealth bosmer have isn't able to be reflected in gameplay mechanics. Also, if we want to be 'lore friendly' then that includes things like immunity to damage types, which would only break the game in a few critical areas. Gameplay comes before hard commitment to lore, and frankly the current racials, while perhaps not the best balenced, still reflect the races. As for thieving, if you're going that route then run stealth gear, the combat you run into isn't demanding enough to require you run anything serious there anyway.

Koronach · July 2019

CP5 wrote: »

Again, stealth in eso boils down to proxi, something the renown archers, shooting from a range, wouldn't need nearly as much as you guys go on about, so the stealth bosmer have isn't able to be reflected in gameplay mechanics. Also, if we want to be 'lore friendly' then that includes things like immunity to damage types, which would only break the game in a few critical areas. Gameplay comes before hard commitment to lore, and frankly the current racials, while perhaps not the best balenced, still reflect the races. As for thieving, if you're going that route then run stealth gear, the combat you run into isn't demanding enough to require you run anything serious there anyway.

Nobody ever said Bosmer having stealth passive was OP or Argonians having both resistances was OP. When they have dialogue and lore books stating a race has something, they should have it. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/462221/argonians-losing-their-resistance-to-poison-an-open-letter/p1 https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/459007/wood-elf-bosmer-losing-stealth-passive-an-open-letter#latest What they did was just bad.

Cundu_Ertur · July 2019

CP5 wrote: »

This is an mmo, making race choice matter less by having an identical passive makes that choice matter less. And since stealth is so simple in eso there isn't an alternative to detection radius for bosmer to have. And since bosmer use bows, why do they need to be able to sneak closer to targets? Hunters hunt, that makes sense, the passive is just weak and to niche.

So Altmer and Bretons are exactly the same because they share a 2000 point bonus to magicka? Bosmer, Redguards, Orcs, and Imperials are all exactly the same because they share a 2000 point bonus to stamina? Please, that's a nonsense argument. The passive for Bosmer would be (if they get the hiding bonus they should have) +3m bonus to hiding, +10% movment and +1500 penetration for 6s after a dodgeroll. Which would still be different from the Khajiit +3m bonus to hiding, +10% critical damage/healing. There's more than enough differences there to make each race distinct, and that's without considering the remaining passives.
As for "weak and niche," how is the detection garbage anything other than even weaker and more niche? It ONLY works in PVP and is hardly worth having even there.

CP5 wrote: »

Again, stealth in eso boils down to proxi, something the renown archers, shooting from a range, wouldn't need nearly as much as you guys go on about, so the stealth bosmer have isn't able to be reflected in gameplay mechanics. Also, if we want to be 'lore friendly' then that includes things like immunity to damage types, which would only break the game in a few critical areas. Gameplay comes before hard commitment to lore, and frankly the current racials, while perhaps not the best balenced, still reflect the races. As for thieving, if you're going that route then run stealth gear, the combat you run into isn't demanding enough to require you run anything serious there anyway.

Yeah, there's no way there could be racial resistances to poison, disease, fire, or cold.
As for stealth being reflected in gameplay, IT HAD BEEN FOR 5 YEARS. Previous to ESO, it had been in every game that had racial skill bonuses.
As for Bosmer being 'renowned' archers, that too is not at all the case: Orcs, Dunmer (both with +258 damage with bows), and Redguards (-8% cost for bow abilities) are better at actually USING bows than any Bosmer.

Taloros · July 2019

Koronach wrote: »

Yeah it's an MMO with lore, they shouldn't be able to just remove something from a race when they have in game lore backing it up. Like Bosmer stealth and Argonians being resistant to both Poison and Disease.

The change in resistances is puzzling, I agree.

Why did Bosmer get poison immunity? They seem to be very similar to Altmer, who don't even have a minor resistance to poison. Is it from their meat heavy diet or what?

Argonians are reptiles. It makes sense that diseases and possibly even a lot of poisons designed for mammals don't work on them, just as chocolate is bad for dogs, but fine for humans.

Bosmer are the smallest of all races, which would make poisons more dangerous to them, relatively speaking: the same dose is bigger for a Bosmer than for a Nord, for example. If anything, I'd given them negative resists to poison and disease. Small-framed cannibals who don't eat their apple a day shouldn't be particularly healthy individuals.

Cundu_Ertur · July 2019

Taloros wrote: »

Koronach wrote: »

Yeah it's an MMO with lore, they shouldn't be able to just remove something from a race when they have in game lore backing it up. Like Bosmer stealth and Argonians being resistant to both Poison and Disease.

The change in resistances is puzzling, I agree.

Why did Bosmer get poison immunity? They seem to be very similar to Altmer, who don't even have a minor resistance to poison. Is it from their meat heavy diet or what?

Argonians are reptiles. It makes sense that diseases and possibly even a lot of poisons designed for mammals don't work on them, just as chocolate is bad for dogs, but fine for humans.

Bosmer are the smallest of all races, which would make poisons more dangerous to them, relatively speaking: the same dose is bigger for a Bosmer than for a Nord, for example. If anything, I'd given them negative resists to poison and disease. Small-framed cannibals who don't eat their apple a day shouldn't be particularly healthy individuals.

Bosmer in previous games had resistance to disease (along with Argonians, Altmer, and Redguards). I tried to find some lore to back that up, but there isn't any that I could find. There is also no lore to support the notion that Bosmer are resistant to poison. There's a questline in Greenshade involving Bosmer who take poison before a certain defeat to kill the tribe that is attacking them, and the questline in Khenarthi's Roost involves a Bosmer killed by poison. Argonians have a lot of lore to support both resistances -- some of it in this very game, and in dialog that came out AFTER the Wrathstone update.

Deathlord92 · July 2019

Bretons are all I care about 💪

LukosCreyden · July 2019

@Taloros Bosmer are most certainly NOT below the curve. In fact, they are doing very well now.

Sure, the stealth detection is complete pony, but apart from that, there isn't any problems.

UndeniablyAVG · July 2019

I play PVP almost exclusively and think that wood elves have great racial passives and are possibly one of the best stamina races.

Also, it's been this way for a while now... maybe it's just time to accept that this is how things are.

SodanTok · July 2019

Bosmer are one of best PVP races in the game and equal in PVE to all stam races but Orc.
This is not opinion, this is fact.

OP post is full of contradictions or errors. Claims bosmer get weapon damage while they do not. Claiming bonus to dodge rolling doesnt contribute to flavor yet somehow being jack of all trades by having magicka passives is contributing to flavor of khajiit is just cherry on top.

Just another thread about bosmer from someone that knows very little about the game. I sense pattern in that.

thegreatme · July 2019

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

But I really can't see the devs taking the Stealthy passive away from Khajiit characters.

And ESO has made minor adjustments to the lore. You COULD make the argument that, since Bosmer culture is organized around the hunt, that they've trained themselves to be observant. But that's a quibble and I'm not invested in it one way or the other. I DO think the stealth detection makes more sense for Khajiit, since heightened senses makes more sense (see what I did there?) for a feline race.

But I do think a reversion of the Hunter's Eye passive to its previous form makes the most sense, and would make most of the player base happy.

Its funny because I've been thinking all this time, "Wouldn't Hunter's Eye make more sense for Khajiit than Bosmer?". Previous TES games had them with abilities such as Night Eye for better night vision and such. They'd make more natural guards than Bosmer do simply because they can actually see as well by night as by day. But what do I know about lore?

I'm not saying Khajiit should lose stealth, I think they should have both had some kind of bonus. I'm just saying if they were going for "lore-friendly" changes, they got their cats confused with their elves.

templesus · July 2019

Personally? I think
1. Screw the lore
2. This is an MMO, not a single player role-play game, it should balanced as such
3. Screw the lore

MartiniDaniels · July 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

Bosmer are one of best PVP races in the game and equal in PVE to all stam races but Orc.
This is not opinion, this is fact.

OP post is full of contradictions or errors. Claims bosmer get weapon damage while they do not. Claiming bonus to dodge rolling doesnt contribute to flavor yet somehow being jack of all trades by having magicka passives is contributing to flavor of khajiit is just cherry on top.

Just another thread about bosmer from someone that knows very little about the game. I sense pattern in that.

Another fact is that you can see bosmers in trials extremely rare. Tbh I don't remember when I saw one in my guild runs last time. And bosmers are worst tanks and worst healers, basically only thing in which bosmers are really good are medium armor PVP nightblades and stamsorcs.

Anyway, all this threads are mostly about replacing really useless stealth detection - testing showed that race with less stealth detection, i.e. every other race will have his stealth eye in alerted state due to risk of detection from bosmer, but bosmer don't have any indication about that. Which means that other race have initiative to react first and actually ADVANTAGE if both players are in stealth. This is only passive from all races which has negative impact on own race. This just shows that no thought was put into this change, ZOS didn't even tested how it works, they simply felt that bosmers needs a little bit of something else and so they added this garbage stealth detection instead of stealth radius "so races will be distinct".

thegreatme · July 2019

templesus wrote: »

Personally? I think
1. Screw the lore
2. This is an MMO, not a single player role-play game, it should balanced as such
3. Screw the lore

That might fly if they weren't using lore to justify their changes.

Minyassa · July 2019

It was a toon-killer for me. I made my Bosmer specifically to do thieving stuff. I didn't want a cat. I wanted a sneaky elf. Now he's useless, so I don't play him. The end.

Good thing I hadn't spent any money customizing him from the Crown Store yet. If I'd been able to play him as intended, I would have. Now he's not worth it as he's no longer viable.

A_Silverius · July 2019

templesus wrote: »

Personally? I think
2. This is an MMO, not a single player role-play game, it should balanced as such

That is a good point, which is exactly why Bosmers should get their stealth reduced detection radius back. Please refer to this post for a detailed explanation and demonstration. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5999677/#Comment_5999677

msalvia · July 2019

Taking stealth was stupid, I agree. But bosmer are still basically where they've always been--a low-end choice for stam dps. They've always been the "Everything I can do, redguards does better" race (being both sustain-focused). But unless you're looking for leaderboards, they're totally viable in everything. When 80% of the playerbase doesn't know what a rotation is, I'm not really worried about peoples' race choices for dps.

And take comfort! At least you're not khajit, who wins the "most likely to be light attacking and spamming snipe all dungeon" award, so that's a plus from losing the RP stealth stuff.

thegreatme · July 2019

msalvia wrote: »

Taking stealth was stupid, I agree. But bosmer are still basically where they've always been--a low-end choice for stam dps. They've always been the "Everything I can do, redguards does better" race (being both sustain-focused).

That's one of the things with Bosmer too. I noticed there's a pretty big survivability difference between Bosmer and a lot of other races. Bretons and Nords, for example, because those are ones I've played first-hand to compare with. I've played some other races and I've dueled people playing Bosmer.

When my level 19 Breton can wipe the floor with a level 45 Bosmer no-contest and no trouble whatsoever, even when I'm playing sloppy on purpose, and there's still a survivability difference the size of a grand canyon, stealth matters. Its a valid playstyle, PvE or PvP.

Even my endgame Bosmer is squishier than a lot of other toons, even ones with lower CP. In most cases, its dodging or stealthing away from enemies that keeps me alive longer than others. Because that's what Bosmer were built to be good at. Small, stealthy guerilla fighters, basically.

If our sustain is better, cool! I'm not complaining about that. I just think giving us Detection instead of Stealth was a bad call and a skill nobody wanted, regardless of what race they tacked it onto.

Its been said before that its completely useless in every facet of PvE, only questionably valid for PvP, and in the case of PvP, its more detrimental than it is helpful.

It would honestly be such an easy fix so I don't have an answer to why ZoS can't change it other than they simply don't care.

Jaraal · July 2019

CP5 wrote: »

Again, stealth in eso boils down to proxi, something the renown archers, shooting from a range, wouldn't need nearly as much as you guys go on about, so the stealth bosmer have isn't able to be reflected in gameplay mechanics. Also, if we want to be 'lore friendly' then that includes things like immunity to damage types, which would only break the game in a few critical areas. Gameplay comes before hard commitment to lore, and frankly the current racials, while perhaps not the best balenced, still reflect the races. As for thieving, if you're going that route then run stealth gear, the combat you run into isn't demanding enough to require you run anything serious there anyway.

This is obviously from a PvP perspective.

I played my Bosmer as a PvE thief, or used stealth to sneak past enemies that I didn't want to fight at the time. Bows or being able to detect hidden players meant nothing to me in Justice gameplay. And even if I stack three stealth sets, it's still a waste of time as I can use a Khajiit with three sets to become virtually invisible.

But I started playing the game as a stealthy Bosmer. Why should I have to change races just because someone thought it was a good idea to turn our core lore value into some niche PvP only racial that is actually detrimental to Bosmer PvP ers?

thegreatme · July 2019

Jaraal wrote: »

This is obviously from a PvP perspective.

I played my Bosmer as a PvE thief, or used stealth to sneak past enemies that I didn't want to fight at the time. Bows or being able to detect hidden players meant nothing to me in Justice gameplay. And even if I stack three stealth sets, it's still a waste of time as I can use a Khajiit with three sets to become virtually invisible.

But I started playing the game as a stealthy Bosmer. Why should I have to change races just because someone thought it was a good idea to turn our core lore value into some niche PvP only racial that is actually detrimental to Bosmer PvP ers?

Not only that but since when are Stealth and Archery mutually exclusive and/or detrimental to each other? If you're hunting animals in the forest, or conversely PvPers in the war zone assuming you care to use stealth, being sneaky and unseen is still a contributing factor to actually hunting successfully.

This might not "matter" in all PvE instances bc NPCs are rather stupid compared to actual real life animals, but it sure does break immersion, and in the case of PvP, the players certainly aren't completely stupid to watching out for enemies looking to spring on them.

So saying stealth doesn't matter to a ranged bowman is pretty dumb and silly imo. Sure, you've got range, but it doesn't matter if your enemy can see you from a mile away. Especially when you got a big, floating flag of color floating above your head that every enemy PvPer can see from even further than they can see your character.