"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Auzsi wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

And don't think roleplayers or TES fans care about combat bonuses, they will always going to pick the race they like or played in the main titles and just ignore the racials. My point still stands combat bonuses should be removed or converted into another system (sw damage boost, crit damage boost, healing boost etc.) TES lore does not support them and most roleplayers and casuals just don't care about them, while flavor bonuses should stay where they are because they are part of the lore.

If you want to be stealthy pick a bosmer (LOL), if you want to swim faster pick argonian, if you want some fire resistance pick dunmer etc. That's how it should be, it's part of the lore, but no player should be pigeonholed into certain roles or playstyles based on their choice of race, especially when the entire tes franchise is about freedom and do whatever you want.

And race choice in mmos should never be a meta. If it is then something is poorly designed.

Two out of your three examples of "flavor bonuses" (stealth and fire resistance) are combat bonuses. Dunmer + Vampire for the fire resistance has been a strong choice in PVP for a long while.

Like, really, unless the racial passives are made completely inconsequential for gameplay, it's always going to have an impact on the meta.

See also, the guy complaining about being pigeonholed over a 5% pickpocket bonus and 2 meters of stealth radius.

Picking a khajiit for pickpocket or stealth bonus is not the same as picking an argonian and doing less damage than a dunmer for some unknown reason and being kicked out from certain groups. "Flavor bonuses" are part of TES lore and they should always come with the race you pick. Yes "flavor bonuses" can still have an impact but they are niche, won't impact your overall performance in your prefered role. Since everyone will bring something to the table it will not enforce a meta, but potentially they can still give a reason to pick certain races and provide flavor as it should be in a TES game.

As opposed to this "combat passives" imroves your performance, pigeonhole races into certain roles, turning character creation into a meta and at the end of the day hinder diversity in an ecomsystem where it's already at the rock bottom. The idea of having races with "flavor bonuses" then pick a background with "combat bonuses" then a class with identity (this does not exist in this game) provides palyers an interesting and deep character creation where they they can tailor their toons to their liking, giving them identity, provide flexibility and freedom of choice, while being true to TES lore.

The order should be for all players pick the race they like and then it comes with perks which make sense to be there, and not checking a guide and pick the race it suggest. Before you saying it's not the players fault, it's on the system.

Finally you are right. in multiplayer games there will always going to be a meta, you can't avoid that. But there is a difference between meta and meta. It can be fun and diverse or boring and stationary. This "dual wielding dunmer" is among the worst metas i have ever seen in mutiplayer games and it's here since they dropped that stupid hybridization. (more than a year now). And then players surprised to see end game players leaving and guilds disbaning.

Vampires being mandatory in pvp is just another bad design. There is a good reason why the game mode is on life support.

Regarding lore, there are those who care and those who don't and the game generally does a great job of letting people choose how they want to play. There are a million things that defies lore and logic that people are allowed to do just because it's fun, like maximizing damage resistance while wearing a towel or zooming around at mach 2 as a tiny Wood Elf Tank.

Racial passives aren't even something you can see, it doesn't affect others any more than your choice of Mundus does.
Appearance should not come with a statistical compromise. Just imagine if the outfitter reduced your resistances because you made your heavy armor look like light armor. That would be silly, wouldn't it?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

Racial Passives aren't inconsequential in terms of roleplay and lore, so it does have an impact even for players who aren't playing end game PVE content or PVP.

That's the whole point of tracing racial passives back to their origin in the TES games. Someone can be a solo-only, overland questing only player who wishes this was Skyrim and still have a valid opinion on racial passives because they aren't just meaningless combat/flavor bonuses. Role-playing, lore, and basic gameplay are not inherently less valuable to ESO just because they are easier.

Like, yeah I eventually learned that I loved ESO's PVP. But I'm a TES gamer first and foremost. I'm here for The Elder Scrolls.

I understand the tension this causes MMO players who begrudge choosing the meta race on top of the meta class, weapons, gear sets, builds, etc. However, I think the preponderance of a meta race in the end game is more of a symptom of meta-chasing than it is an actual problem. Remove racial passives and those endgamers will complain about chasing after the next thing...and we'll have removed something I loved about the Elder Scrolls to placate people who won't be satisfied because the very nature of meta-chasing means they can't be satisfied.

Lots of TES playes (including myself) don't like ESO racials. In terms of design and race identity they used to be very different in those games. i got about 800 hours in oblivion and more than a 1000 is skyrim and i never felt the pressure to pick a specific race to make my build optimized. I picked the race which suited the concept. Here if i do it there is a decent chance it will ends up being suboptimal which can even ruin my role playing experience in some cases.

Racial passives should remain tied to race, otherwise they wouldn't be racial. That being said, they shouldn't be removed, as they do give each race a modicum of identity, meta endgame cookie-cutter stuff notwithstanding. On the other hand, players should be able to choose a passive or two from a list of options when creating a character, regardless of race. To be clear, this would be in addition to racial passives. Call it, uh, personal passives, to differenciate between the racial, weapons/armor and skill ones.

merpins wrote: »

Suggested this in the past:

Zos adopted the standing stones from TES 5, which was a simplification of the Birthsigns in TES 4. Birthsigns were basically your racial passives in ESO, except not tied to your race... Imo, they should bring back birthsigns. Sure, the TES 4 birthsigns are the same as the standing stone options, similar to horoscopes as you will, but like...

Add birthsigns. You get a single passive based on your race, which can be a bit more powerful than the initial ability is right now but doesn't really affect combat. Then, you get a birthsign choice at level 5, 10, and 25 as you do normally with racial choices. Just make it pop up when you go to level your character kinda like leveling in TES 5. These passive skills then rank up as you level up, and can have points put into them just like the normal racial skills system. Then make it so you can reset them at a shrine, like when you reset your skills (they might need to add a new shrine for this).

Personally, I'd love to play Bosmer and Argonian much more than I currently do, but can't justify since I do end game PVE dps. I've got soooo may great Argonian names on the backburner, but can't justify using them. Recently made an Argonian named "Funk-Soul-Brother" and I'll tell ya I wanna play him, but again... The deeps.

This. There are lore friendly ways to achieve the ends you want and that would make the game better. Why so many of you go straight for loretrashing and chaos that makes things worse for everyone is beyond me.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Auzsi wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

Racial Passives aren't inconsequential in terms of roleplay and lore, so it does have an impact even for players who aren't playing end game PVE content or PVP.

That's the whole point of tracing racial passives back to their origin in the TES games. Someone can be a solo-only, overland questing only player who wishes this was Skyrim and still have a valid opinion on racial passives because they aren't just meaningless combat/flavor bonuses. Role-playing, lore, and basic gameplay are not inherently less valuable to ESO just because they are easier.

Like, yeah I eventually learned that I loved ESO's PVP. But I'm a TES gamer first and foremost. I'm here for The Elder Scrolls.

I understand the tension this causes MMO players who begrudge choosing the meta race on top of the meta class, weapons, gear sets, builds, etc. However, I think the preponderance of a meta race in the end game is more of a symptom of meta-chasing than it is an actual problem. Remove racial passives and those endgamers will complain about chasing after the next thing...and we'll have removed something I loved about the Elder Scrolls to placate people who won't be satisfied because the very nature of meta-chasing means they can't be satisfied.

Lots of TES playes (including myself) don't like ESO racials. In terms of design and race identity they used to be very different in those games. i got about 800 hours in oblivion and more than a 1000 is skyrim and i never felt the pressure to pick a specific race to make my build optimized. I picked the race which suited the concept. Here if i do it there is a decent chance it will ends up being suboptimal which can even ruin my role playing experience in some cases.

Yeah, you've never felt the pressure to pick a specific race in the single player TES games because they don't have an endgame and don't have any competitive gameplay.

In ESO, you do, because there's an endgame and competitive play, and you've decided to prioritize not having a "suboptimal" experience.


I'm not trying to strawman you here, just trying to explain why I'm arguing against the logical endpoint of the argument that "anything that makes me feel pressured to choose between a race I don't like and a suboptimal build needs to go." Or in the case of this thread, needs to be made freely available to everyone to pick and choose from, i.e. you can pick Dunmer fire resistance as a non-Dunmer.

At the extreme, this happens even in non-end-game activities, like the guy complaining about feeling suboptimal as a thief if he didn't pick Khajiit.

For a less extreme example, look at Dunmer fire resistance which has been a racial bonus to Dunmer since TES 3 Morrowind, but which also has a tangible boost to Dunmer in PVP and PVE particularly when combined with vampirism. That alone has guaranteed that Dunmer were always a solid choice for group/competitive content even back when they weren't the undisputed meta choice.

My point is that you can't have lore-friendly, gameplay-impacting, TES-style racial passives AND have every single race be optimal. The Devs simply cannot satisfy every min-maxer AND remain true to the TES style racial passives.

One of them is going to get the short end of the stick. Which one gets the short end of the stick is just a matter of priorities.

And we're going to have to agree to disagree about priorities, because I don't want to lose lore-friendly, gameplay-impacting stuff like Dunmer fire resistance just because someone feels pressured to play a Dunmer.

No! In skyrim i did an altmer with an elven sword and a fireball then i did a bosmer with the same stuffs they did EXACTLY the same amount of damage with them. Both character was optimized, not because of the lack of end game, but because that's how they designed it. In oblivion racials were almost non existent, they only had the bare minimum. And you really calling 258 sw damage TES style racials? funny

By the way i never stated they should remove all racials.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Auzsi wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Auzsi wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

Racial Passives aren't inconsequential in terms of roleplay and lore, so it does have an impact even for players who aren't playing end game PVE content or PVP.

That's the whole point of tracing racial passives back to their origin in the TES games. Someone can be a solo-only, overland questing only player who wishes this was Skyrim and still have a valid opinion on racial passives because they aren't just meaningless combat/flavor bonuses. Role-playing, lore, and basic gameplay are not inherently less valuable to ESO just because they are easier.

Like, yeah I eventually learned that I loved ESO's PVP. But I'm a TES gamer first and foremost. I'm here for The Elder Scrolls.

I understand the tension this causes MMO players who begrudge choosing the meta race on top of the meta class, weapons, gear sets, builds, etc. However, I think the preponderance of a meta race in the end game is more of a symptom of meta-chasing than it is an actual problem. Remove racial passives and those endgamers will complain about chasing after the next thing...and we'll have removed something I loved about the Elder Scrolls to placate people who won't be satisfied because the very nature of meta-chasing means they can't be satisfied.

Lots of TES playes (including myself) don't like ESO racials. In terms of design and race identity they used to be very different in those games. i got about 800 hours in oblivion and more than a 1000 is skyrim and i never felt the pressure to pick a specific race to make my build optimized. I picked the race which suited the concept. Here if i do it there is a decent chance it will ends up being suboptimal which can even ruin my role playing experience in some cases.

Yeah, you've never felt the pressure to pick a specific race in the single player TES games because they don't have an endgame and don't have any competitive gameplay.

In ESO, you do, because there's an endgame and competitive play, and you've decided to prioritize not having a "suboptimal" experience.


I'm not trying to strawman you here, just trying to explain why I'm arguing against the logical endpoint of the argument that "anything that makes me feel pressured to choose between a race I don't like and a suboptimal build needs to go." Or in the case of this thread, needs to be made freely available to everyone to pick and choose from, i.e. you can pick Dunmer fire resistance as a non-Dunmer.

At the extreme, this happens even in non-end-game activities, like the guy complaining about feeling suboptimal as a thief if he didn't pick Khajiit.

For a less extreme example, look at Dunmer fire resistance which has been a racial bonus to Dunmer since TES 3 Morrowind, but which also has a tangible boost to Dunmer in PVP and PVE particularly when combined with vampirism. That alone has guaranteed that Dunmer were always a solid choice for group/competitive content even back when they weren't the undisputed meta choice.

My point is that you can't have lore-friendly, gameplay-impacting, TES-style racial passives AND have every single race be optimal. The Devs simply cannot satisfy every min-maxer AND remain true to the TES style racial passives.

One of them is going to get the short end of the stick. Which one gets the short end of the stick is just a matter of priorities.

And we're going to have to agree to disagree about priorities, because I don't want to lose lore-friendly, gameplay-impacting stuff like Dunmer fire resistance just because someone feels pressured to play a Dunmer.

No! In skyrim i did an altmer with an elven sword and a fireball then i did a bosmer with the same stuffs they did EXACTLY the same amount of damage with them. Both character was optimized, not because of the lack of end game, but because that's how they designed it. In oblivion racials were almost non existent, they only had the bare minimum. And you really calling 258 sw damage TES style racials? funny

I'm discussing stuff like Dunmer Flame Resistance because it's a traditional TES passive that Dunmer have had since Morrowind AND its the sort of racial passive that people like the OP want to make available to everyone and other people would want to remove because it's a gameplay-impacting bonus that makes Dunmer more optimal than other races in certain content.

The logic of "I shouldn't feel forced to choose between the race I want or a suboptimal build" goes beyond 258 sw damage which I don't really care about.

That logic also applies to stuff like Dunmer flame resistance, which I do care about.

Then why not remove the 258 sw damage? (or convert it into selectable backgrounds or something) and keep the fire resistance. That was my point the whole time. Keep passives which should be there based on TES lore and remove others which causing the meta problem. 99% of the min/maxers pick dunmer for the damage boost and not for the fire resistance.

If they're going to stay with this new hybrid system for class balance they need to update Races that offer sustain for only magicka or stamina like Breton and Redguard. These races give you lower dps than Dark Elf, High Elf, and Khajiit and the sustain is no longer needed like it used to be because you can mix magicka with stamina skills.

Arcturus wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

Looking from another perspective if your main goal in game is end game content why does the aesthetics of the race matter? Picking a race based on bonuses would make more sense than picking a race based on appearance. For some the aesthetics and the traits matter and it would be unfair to make a change for what is essentially a small portion of the player population.

I do endgame just as much as I do the easy content. I'm not an endgame bot, and I don't want to be forced into playing an ugly race with lore I don't like. None of my endgame friends/guildies likes being forced into playing a certain race and the "play how you want" from ZOS isn't being respected here at all.

Play the way you want does not mean (and never meant) that you are guaranteed that you can play anything and be optimal at endgame content.

Every race is viable. That's all ZOS aspires to.

Sources:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Play The Way You Want
We strive to provide freedom and flexibility that allow you to transform your character fantasy into a gameplay reality. We value diversity of choice and playstyle with abilities, weapons, and armor. Some combinations of these tools are more effective than others, but every character should have the capacity to protect their group, mend allies, or devastate foes.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/624269/eso-developer-deep-dive-core-combat-values/p1

"One of our mantras for ESO is "play the way you want," and in this case, it means any class can fulfill any role (tank, dps, support/healer). To better achieve this ideal while also maintaining the unique fantasy flavor of each class, all class kits need to include the basic tools required to fulfill each role. To be clear, our goal is for every class to be viable, not necessarily optimal, in any role without heavily relying on non-class skill lines."
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/57025

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

To people saying racials don't make a big difference, how many people have you seen clearing a vet trial without wiping too much as non efficient races with the wrong roles/classes?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Arcturus wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

No. There's not much left in the game that gives identity to anything anymore. It's a tiny bit of flavour to make each race a little bit different.

"Let's defend racials in the name of diversity and identity and ignore the fact that these features are making 9 out of 10 dd's a dunmer wearing dual daggers".

This quite pinpoints the tension between the single player RPGs of the Elder Scrolls vs the MMO-style end game that has a meta.

Both are true.

Racial passives do give a unique gameplay-based identity to the different races, which fits well wirh role-playing and what many TES players want from the series' lore and gameplay (see complaints about Bosmer and Argonian passive changes not making sense based on past lore.)

Min-maxing, meta following MMO players who're more concerned about the stats than the roleplay are naturally going flock to the one meta choice, no matter how many options they're given.

Like, here's a non-combat example: there was one player complaining that they felt pigeonholed into playing Khajiit for thieving because of the extra 5% pickpocket and 2m stealth bonus.

Unless racial passives are made completely inconsequential (to the disappointment of roleplayers and fans of TES racial passives) there's always going to be someone who's not happy that they have to pick a certain race to get certain stats.

9 dual dagger-wielding dunmer out of 10 damage dealers isn't saying as much about the state of racial passives. It's just saying that 9 out of 10 damage dealers would swap to dual axe-wielding Redguards if that's how the meta winds shifted.

I just don't understand why some people defend racial passives that they're not even going to use as they only engage in content where you can go fully naked and not have any difficulty whatsoever.

I'm not telling anyone how to play, I enjoy the easy content too, but if I only played in let's say Overland and never did harder content then I wouldn't open my mouth about racial passives because I wouldn't even be making any meaningful use of them and they'd be entirely inconsequential.

Looking from another perspective if your main goal in game is end game content why does the aesthetics of the race matter? Picking a race based on bonuses would make more sense than picking a race based on appearance. For some the aesthetics and the traits matter and it would be unfair to make a change for what is essentially a small portion of the player population.

I do endgame just as much as I do the easy content. I'm not an endgame bot, and I don't want to be forced into playing an ugly race with lore I don't like. None of my endgame friends/guildies likes being forced into playing a certain race and the "play how you want" from ZOS isn't being respected here at all.

Play the way you want does not mean (and never meant) that you are guaranteed that you can play anything and be optimal at endgame content.

Every race is viable. That's all ZOS aspires to.

Sources:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Play The Way You Want
We strive to provide freedom and flexibility that allow you to transform your character fantasy into a gameplay reality. We value diversity of choice and playstyle with abilities, weapons, and armor. Some combinations of these tools are more effective than others, but every character should have the capacity to protect their group, mend allies, or devastate foes.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/624269/eso-developer-deep-dive-core-combat-values/p1

"One of our mantras for ESO is "play the way you want," and in this case, it means any class can fulfill any role (tank, dps, support/healer). To better achieve this ideal while also maintaining the unique fantasy flavor of each class, all class kits need to include the basic tools required to fulfill each role. To be clear, our goal is for every class to be viable, not necessarily optimal, in any role without heavily relying on non-class skill lines."
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/57025

Well then, I guess the whole Play how you want is a facade. Sad.