Racial balance patch revisited - DD meta as strict as ever

alainjbrennanb16_ESO · August 2019

some race passive's might as well not be there like the dumners, all are pointless apart from the last one

danara · August 2019

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I dislike racial stats as much as I dislike gender stats in an rpg and wish racials had no more impact than gender (cosmetic). The racials were restrictive and poorly crafted before the rework. As OP said, the deck has been reshuffled but the racials remain just as restrictive and poorly crafted after the rework.

My Bosmer has played 4k hours in Oblivion, 4k hours in Skyrim and 6.5k hours in ESO. Only in ESO does her race actually restrict/limit her.

DUDE, i think you should take a break !

You played for 2 years in a row, that s a lot..

But to speak about racial stats, they have to exists, perfect balance doesnt exist, there will always be a class which provided a few more dps than others, and this is the same for race.
Then the combo race + classe = will be the meta...

But i feel your pain, i have 8 argonians healer, i would love a little buff and why not a nerf of the potion passive (op in pvp) for pve

Runefang · August 2019

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Runefang wrote: »

pretty sure Altmer are BiS for Magicka dps not Breton.

Altmer can't sustain a full damage build, even with Worm, Ele Drain, and orbs on cooldown. They need to do one of the following:

- Use Clockwork Citrus instead of Bloody Mara, resulting in a loss of 2217 Magicka (2.0 standard set bonuses) and 2526 Health (2.09 standard set bonuses), and about the same sustain as Breton. This massive amount of stat loss is not worth the 258 Spell Damage (2.0 set bonuses).
- Replace 2 spell damage jewelry glyphs with magicka recovery glyphs, resulting in a loss of 348 spell damage to achieve the same sustain as Breton. Clearly it is not worth losing 348 to gain 258 from the Altmer passive.
- Replace the Shadow Mundus with Atronach Mundus. Without diving too deep into the numbers here, this results in a significant DPS loss. The Shadow Mundus adds about 8% DPS to most builds, and giving that up for the roughly 4% DPS from Altmer's 258 Spell Damage is not worth it.
- Wear False God's Devotion instead of Siroria. This one is a little tricky, since it depends on several factors. To achieve the same sustain as Breton, you'd need to be killing enemies pretty often in FGD, so it doesn't work well on some boss fights. On the other hand Siroria is not really viable for some boss fights either, so you may be comparing to a different damage set entirely. The main thing that kills this option for me is that there are several fights where I need Breton passives + FGD to sustain, in which case Altmer has to resort to one of the other poor options listed.

On top of all that, I find Breton's spell resistance to be far more useful than the off-stat resource return Altmer has. It really is a shame the way these races landed, since the first cycle of the race rebalance PTS had excellent balance across the board. Altmer had a little more sustain than it does now, and was nearly perfectly balanced with Breton. Khajiit was also performing very similar to those 2 races (before the crit chance was taken away and replaced with crit damage). Only Dunmer was a little behind, but it was subsequently buffed to be more in line, and has the benefit of swapping between stamina and magicka builds easily.

Overall the logs show Altmer generally topping the charts for DPS though, admittedly some Bretons appear and even Dunmer too so the differences can't be that great. Altmer are also topping 21m dummy parses for scalebreaker.

False God's did make the difference since Siroria is rarely a viable choice and when it is the fights are typically so short you don't need much sustain. Top Yolnahkriin parses don’t even run Siroria and that’s basically a pure parse fight.

When I ran vAS HM on my Magsorc and Magden which are both Breton and I had so much Magicka I didn’t know what to do with it. And it’s more of the more resource intensive fights I know of.

MLGProPlayer · August 2019

danara wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I dislike racial stats as much as I dislike gender stats in an rpg and wish racials had no more impact than gender (cosmetic). The racials were restrictive and poorly crafted before the rework. As OP said, the deck has been reshuffled but the racials remain just as restrictive and poorly crafted after the rework.

My Bosmer has played 4k hours in Oblivion, 4k hours in Skyrim and 6.5k hours in ESO. Only in ESO does her race actually restrict/limit her.

DUDE, i think you should take a break !

You played for 2 years in a row, that s a lot..

But to speak about racial stats, they have to exists, perfect balance doesnt exist, there will always be a class which provided a few more dps than others, and this is the same for race.
Then the combo race + classe = will be the meta...

But i feel your pain, i have 8 argonians healer, i would love a little buff and why not a nerf of the potion passive (op in pvp) for pve

I'm not a fan of tying in-game performance to cosmetics so I would jsut get rid of racial passives altogether. Just give each race an RP passive (i.e. faster swimming, smaller detection radius, etc.).

Alternatively, they could also give a group of races the same buffs. For example, if Breton, Altmer, and Dunmer are the magicka races, then give them all the same passives. Then do the same for the stamina races (there are more than 3 here).

WuffyCerulei · August 2019

Includes Breton mains too now.

Uryel · August 2019

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

danara · August 2019

Uryel wrote: »

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

I am sorry to tell u this : but some of us play in order to be the Best, to be in the top of all the tanking... For those guys, yeah Bis and meta is a huge things, that is why you are see right Now 8 stamcro all running the same stuff and the same build doing the same rotation...

MLGProPlayer · August 2019

danara wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

I am sorry to tell u this : but some of us play in order to be the Best, to be in the top of all the tanking... For those guys, yeah Bis and meta is a huge things, that is why you are see right Now 8 stamcro all running the same stuff and the same build doing the same rotation...

And that's precisely the problem that needs to be addressed. There needs to be more variety in endgame.

Browiseth · August 2019

Uryel wrote: »

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

@Uryel nothing happened to "play however you like". some people like to play to win, that's what they enjoy.

it seems like you're the one who expects everyone to play the game with your mindset. pretty funny actually.

Uryel · August 2019

Browiseth wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

@Uryel nothing happened to "play however you like". some people like to play to win, that's what they enjoy.

it seems like you're the one who expects everyone to play the game with your mindset. pretty funny actually.

Well, mathematically, "play to win" means someone else has to lose. Which means that balance should be achieved to give everyone a chance. Forcing a "meta", to quote the masses, isn't achieving anything.

Also, where in my post is there anything that makes you think I want people to have my mindset ? Just pointing out that those fancy words are extremely hollow, and often missused. Like "meta", for instance. It means "above" or "encompassing", not "mainstream". Meta-magic would be the magic that improves magic. Metacognition is thinking about how you think. "Meta" alone means nothing, it's just a prefix for something else. I still can't fathom how it came to be used that way, but whatever. If there is anything in my post that goes along the line of "thou shalst all be liketh meh", it's merely "why the heck do you guys use words without even caring about their actual meaning ?".

Browiseth · August 2019

Uryel wrote: »

Browiseth wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

All this nonsense about "meta" and "BiS"... Big, fancy words for saying "copy-paste that build and be one with it". What happened to "play however you like" ? Can't believe some people actually defend the idea that there can be only one way to play, either. This game has potential for creativity, but the dev team itself tries very hard to limit that.

@Uryel nothing happened to "play however you like". some people like to play to win, that's what they enjoy.

it seems like you're the one who expects everyone to play the game with your mindset. pretty funny actually.

Well, mathematically, "play to win" means someone else has to lose. Which means that balance should be achieved to give everyone a chance. Forcing a "meta", to quote the masses, isn't achieving anything.

Also, where in my post is there anything that makes you think I want people to have my mindset ? Just pointing out that those fancy words are extremely hollow, and often missused. Like "meta", for instance. It means "above" or "encompassing", not "mainstream". Meta-magic would be the magic that improves magic. Metacognition is thinking about how you think. "Meta" alone means nothing, it's just a prefix for something else. I still can't fathom how it came to be used that way, but whatever. If there is anything in my post that goes along the line of "thou shalst all be liketh meh", it's merely "why the heck do you guys use words without even caring about their actual meaning ?".

what?

i have no idea what you're talking about, it sounds like you're trying to change the subject to distract me.
anyway, typically in games the "meta" is defined by what the playerbase has, on the whole agreed on what is the "best" or "most efficient" method of play. it's a bit of a loose term as it's incredibly contextual and dependent on the game, community, etc.

there's nothing inherently wrong with a "meta", it's just a byproduct of players who enjoy being competitive seeking the most competitive method of play and coming to an agreement on what that method is exactly.

as i understand, it comes from the old DnD communities. it's short for "meta-gaming", in which you stop thinking as your character would and think as a player trying to take advantage of the system

KerinKor · August 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS went into the racial rebalance with the goal is making races more balanced. Instead, all they did was reshuffle the meta.

ANYTHING ZOS does will have this effect, it's IMPOSSIBLE to balance everything to the 5th decimal place so the rabid min/maxers will ALWAYS find something to state as the BEST and the elitists will swarm to it until the next change.

UrbanMonk · August 2019

Well I've a Nord Mag Warden specifically for PVP. Seems balanced to me.

Vlad9425 · August 2019

I switched my NB from Wood elf to Orc just to see how much of a DPS difference there would be and I was shocked how much stronger Orc is. It was almost 4K higher dps than wood elf which is a bit ridiculous...

MLGProPlayer · August 2019

KerinKor wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ZOS went into the racial rebalance with the goal is making races more balanced. Instead, all they did was reshuffle the meta.

ANYTHING ZOS does will have this effect, it's IMPOSSIBLE to balance everything to the 5th decimal place so the rabid min/maxers will ALWAYS find something to state as the BEST and the elitists will swarm to it until the next change.

The gap between Orc and Redguard/Bosmer/Khajiit is like 2-3k DPS (if not more). That's huge.

gepe87 · August 2019

I like dunmer racials. It opened more versatility to other mag classes instead of old BIS magDk dunmer.

Elwendryll · August 2019

It's clear that Orcs parse higher in the optimal dps setup. The thing is:

1. I don't exactly play the optimal dps setup.
2. Even if I did, I would probably not hit the maximum dps possible. By far more than 2-3k. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that case

3. Even if I did, If I can hit let's say 95k dps but orcs hit 98k I'm really fine.
4. Depends on context, but I prefer my race (khajiit) for the extra side bonuses that orcs don't have, and the added flexibility. Dps is cool, but it's not the only thing that matters, I would even say that with the amounts of fights that may require to hold dps back anyway because of mechanics, being an orc doesn’t change much.

I know orcs players, I do more dps than some, less than others, they're all good, but some are better, that's all. They would probably also do more than me on my own setup.

Yeah, orcs are better. And what?

NupidStoob · August 2019

For Stamina:

Dunmer and Orc parse the same, but Orc has 1K more HP. If you can sustain using artaeum there is pretty much no difference as 19K hp on a stamcro is plenty for everything.

Redguard is still a good choice for classes that rely heavily on weapon abilities such as stamsorc.

For Magicka:

Altmer and Dunmer are both as strong if not stronger than Breton. I sustain just fine on Dunmer Sorc with ele drain, absorb glyph and orbs. Don't even need worm or PFG. Breton is definitely better for not so experienced players, but if you wan tot push for highest damage you go Altmer or Dunmer.

No matter how ZoS changes races there will always be something that is BiS from a min maxed point of view.

BlueRaven · August 2019

They just need to implement a catch up system outside of race and all of this will go away.

The races are clearly imbalanced but if there was a system that the player could put points into that can even that out, it would go a long way. Right now some races have a clear advantage and that’s it, end of story.

Also just because you feel the imbalances don’t effect you personally because you don’t consider yourself a “meta” player, it does not mean the race advantages are fair or designed well.

Coatmagic · August 2019

Stebarnz wrote: »

They had to give motivation to sell all those sweet, sweet racial change tokens!

This is $$$ZOS$$$ we are talking about.

This ^ ~

First time round crys and screams it was the end of the world but obviouosly enough racial change tokens were purchases by those that have to be in the top % to make this a viable money making scheme for use on a regular basis.

master_vanargand · August 2019

All Altmer have no sword talent and all Redguard have no magic talent?
Stupid! This is racial discrimination.

Racial traditions? Where is it in ESO?
ZoS is not willing to preserve racial traditions.

I think Racial Skills should be removed.
And let me choose the talent.

Are whites only magical talents and blacks only swords talents?
No! Absolutely not.

shimm · August 2019

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Remove god damned useless stealth detection from bosmer and give permanent 700-900 penetration instead of penetration on roll-dodge (keep speed on roll-dodge as it is).

This is the best suggestion I’ve seen to remove the near useless “hunter’s eye” with something that would be useful and not over-buff....

Ratzkifal · August 2019

@Uryel Meta in this context comes from metagaming. You can play a battleground or a trial with any setup and team whatsoever and you can win if you are good. The "meta" comes from you thinking about the game from a different angle (top-down, above). You think about what setup has the best synergy and highest efficiency. The end result of your metagaming is what's called "the meta" because it is the most effective way of playing the game and is as such all encompassing and engaging with it a game beyond (above) the game.
Some people also say META stands for "Most Effective Tactic Available", which is also plausible.

Uryel · August 2019

Browiseth wrote: »

i have no idea what you're talking about, it sounds like you're trying to change the subject to distract me.

Linguistics, mate. That's what I'm talking about. The fact you mention "meta gaming" as the source means I am absolutely RIGHT in saying "meta" is missused as a word by itself. Using the prefix only as an abbreviation leads to confusion. But hey, maybe I'm metathinking this one too much.

Anyway, I'm not trying to confuse you or anything. Just talking about linguistics, that's all.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

@Uryel Meta in this context comes from metagaming. You can play a battleground or a trial with any setup and team whatsoever and you can win if you are good. The "meta" comes from you thinking about the game from a different angle (top-down, above). You think about what setup has the best synergy and highest efficiency. The end result of your metagaming is what's called "the meta" because it is the most effective way of playing the game and is as such all encompassing and engaging with it a game beyond (above) the game.
Some people also say META stands for "Most Effective Tactic Available", which is also plausible.

Yeah, I ended up getting that, after weeks of reading it the contextual definition formed itself. I still have no idea for the precise meaning of "BiS", though. From what I gather, it's almost a synonym for "meta", but not quite exactly. Still kind of confusing, especially when english is not your main language. I know lots of things get often ridiculous abbreviations in english, best exemple I can think of is "U" instead of "you", "m8" instead of "mate" and the like. It's a nightmare for non native english speakers, unless they have a really good skill level in the language. And don't start me on "they" used as a singular form to replace both "he" and "she" and remain neutral. This one took me ages to figure, but it's kinda smart once you get used to it.

Our friend above is a perfect exemple of what is wrong with abuse of abbreviations. Took me long enough to figure the use of "meta" in that contexte, but now I get it. But I can't even criticize improper use of a word (technically, that's not even a word, only a prefix, or as you mention it, possibly an acronym) without being explicitely accused of "imposing my mindset" and implicitely be talked to as if I had no prior knowledge of gaming. All the while by someone who barely grasps the meaning of the word they're using. No offense intended, but language are meant to facilitate communication, not complicate them even further, and that requires proper understanding of the words being used, not borrowing fragments of words without accurate knowledge of their meaning.

Anyway, back on track. The so-called "meta", since I'm to call it that, is the most efficient way to tacke a situation, allright. What I really meant in the first place is that, if the player were restricted to said "meta" to actually win, it's either that they would be really, really bad at the game, or that the mechanics were really, really ill-concieved. Kinda like the so-called "elite" missions in the first Guild Wars, which did require some specific skills from specific classes to win them. I remember a spot where you couldn't go any further if you didn't have a necromancer able to teleport to a corpse. It feels contrieved, forced, and as such is boring AF.

I'm fine with a "most efficent way to win", really. I'm not fine with "if you don't' play build X from website Y, you cannot win and we won't even let you join the team". I'm not fine with people not even willing to try their own builds and then complaining when other people want to. I'm not fine with people who copy / paste builds they never gave a thought about because they are "meta", barely know how to play them, whine because "X is OP, nerf it", and THEN still manage to berate people who don't use one of their copypasta builds but instead have been creative and spent days, weeks even, honing their personal ideas. WHere do they think those copy / pasted builds come from anyway ? At some point, someone had to try them, refine them, until they became viable.

"Meta" is basically the death of creativity, but sadly it's been the norm for at least as long as I've been playing online, so at least 2 decades. Some favor the destination and don't care about the journey, and berate those who care for both. To quote our friend above again, some people do play to win, and well, so do I. But I'd rather die a dozen time to figure what I can come up with to win than just read some post and copy the idea. Feels more rewarding. I'm not much into instant gratification, anyway.

Ratzkifal · August 2019

@Uryel BiS means Best in Slot. The most effective tactic available dictates the best item in slot. It describes the item that gives you the most bang for your buck on that specific item slot. As an example, a sharpened destruction staff is BiS on magicka Sorc because any other trait or other element or other set would result in less damage.
These things are pretty closely related but describe different subjects.

Anyway, this is not a linguistics thread, so let's start talking about races again instead of derailing it. Ideally it shouldn't matter what race you pick as the maximum output should be equal on all of them in specific circumstances and through different paths leading there. That way races can be actually diverse and suit your specific needs and preferences without gimping you.
People like lizards? Then that shouldn't automatically mean that they can't get into hardcore raiding groups. Let people have fun! And that's why balance is so important. People who like lizards more than cats don't want to be forced to play cats when they want to go into hardcore content, so it's ZOS job to make it so that neither lizards nor cats are meaningfully superior to oneanother. And Argonians are currently left behind. Bosmer and Altmer are fine balance-wise but they each have problems that call the entire reason for having racial passives in the first place in question.

luen79rwb17_ESO · August 2019

6 months later I can say that there's definately more variety now than what we had previous years when it was only Altmer/Redguard.

usmcjdking · August 2019

DD meta has nothing to do with the actual racials being balanced, outside of Dunmer and Argo, they're all well balanced. Mechanics, build variety and lack of viable raid roles is what kills races.

Lisutaris · August 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

bigelle.x3_ESO wrote: »

There can only be one best setup and that's what the high end pve players will run. The races are more or less in a good spot in terms of balance.

My point is that the balance isn't any better than it was before the patch. It was a complete waste of resources.

MagKhajiit here!
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Uryel · August 2019

Ratzkifal wrote: »

@Uryel BiS means Best in Slot. The most effective tactic available dictates the best item in slot. It describes the item that gives you the most bang for your buck on that specific item slot. As an example, a sharpened destruction staff is BiS on magicka Sorc because any other trait or other element or other set would result in less damage.
These things are pretty closely related but describe different subjects.

Hey, I was close enough :P Thanks for taking the time to explain, appreciated.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Anyway, this is not a linguistics thread, so let's start talking about races again instead of derailing it.

Yes, sorry about that.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Ideally it shouldn't matter what race you pick as the maximum output should be equal on all of them in specific circumstances and through different paths leading there. That way races can be actually diverse and suit your specific needs and preferences without gimping you.
People like lizards? Then that shouldn't automatically mean that they can't get into hardcore raiding groups. Let people have fun! And that's why balance is so important. People who like lizards more than cats don't want to be forced to play cats when they want to go into hardcore content, so it's ZOS job to make it so that neither lizards nor cats are meaningfully superior to oneanother. And Argonians are currently left behind. Bosmer and Altmer are fine balance-wise but they each have problems that call the entire reason for having racial passives in the first place in question.

Yeah, that makes sense. In solo Elder Scrolls, races have always given bonus at start, and some gimmicks that could be replaced by something else should the need arise. I'm thinking Khajiit night vision skill, for instance. It's a nice skill to have at start, but you could always get a night vision spell later on if you chose Bosmer, for instance. During my last Skyrim playthrough, I played a Nord thief / archer. Rough start, but smooth as can be once he had leveled enough.

I didn't mind the racial passives in ESO either. They provide boosts, so when you try to get the maximum out of something, it's nice... Provided that every little somethings you could get from those boosts would actuall be of use and interesting for someone. Also, provided that you could rely on it, because if you build a character and it gets broken several years later because racial passives gets changed, and I mean that as changed entirely, not adjusted, then it really, really sucks.

Let's take the Bosmers as exemple. Built mine to be an archer / thief from the start, over 4 years ago. Would the passives work like in sole Elder Scrolls, the removal of stealth from her would basically mean my sneak skill would be down from 100 to, say, 90. No big deal, some sneaking around will fix it. Here ? Well, nothing can fix it and I'm stuck with an entirely useless PvP only passive. So yeah, there is something wrong with racial passives.

How I would make it : at character creation (or through a special "passive selection token" that would be given to every character when the system is implemented), you would get the flavour passive that would be ficed and determined by racial choice. For Bosmers, for instance, that's the bow / less fall damage thingie. Then, you get to chose 3 character passives in a pool that consists of most former racial passives. I could understand that some passives would be restricted to some races, if there was a good lore reason, but there shouldn't be so many. You want resistance to both poison and illness ? Pick those two passives. Want stam, stam regen, stealth ? We got you covered. You want to give a shot at being a hybrid mage / thief and want stealth, stam regen, mag regen ? All this on a lizard ? Sure, here you go.

That would even be easier now that all racial passivs have been "adjusted" to numerically equivalent values. Well, truly they haven't, there are still major inconsistencies between them, but it's something that can be done.

Alaya · August 2019

Keep in mind their original plan was to make it so that every race could be -anything- (or so how I remember it anyhow). They wanted it so if you wanted to play a mag character from a stam race, you could and you'd have racial bonuses to that. That's not what we ended up with.

I don't give a flying eff about the meta, I've never followed it, I simply want to HAVE FUN, but when one of my characters core racial skill which I've been using since I started playing gets taken away from my character and replaced with the most useless passive I've ever seen in an MMO, that kills my fun.

Racials have been core identities in previous Elder Scrolls games, but since this is not your ordinary Elder Scrolls game (being that it in an MMO) what race you choose defines whether you get to play with the "big guns" or if you're more or less regulated to just being deadweight to others simply because you chose the wrong race (and now class it seems thanks to Elsweyr).