ESO Racial Passives Need to Be ELIMINATED | The Elder Scrolls Online 

eso-u.com/articles/does_eso_need_to_get_rid_of_racial_passives - Written form.

hard disagree. it's a staple of the series and I'd rather see weaker races buffed so that there are more meaningful choices this did get me thinking a little though. it would be nice if we could either have something like the CP system, where each race got a larger pool of passives that could be slotted in/out, OR something like skills where for example khajiit could morph crit damage into crit chance

I would agree with this if class fantasy actually existed in this game instead of classes in their current form with absolutely zero class fantasy and class identity. I feel like racial fantasy and identity is the only thing this game has left at this point. If they remove it, literally every race will feel the exact same and every dps, tank and healing spec will feel the exact same as every other dps, tank and healing spec. I'm finding this game is getting more and more boring as my DK tank feels identical to my NB tank and my stam NB feels identical to my stam Sorc in terms of how they play, rotation, what abilities they use and what sets they wear. I really wish the classes had unique mechanics and played drastically different from every other class, requiring the use of different "meta" sets across the classes for the same roles, instead of all classes and specs feeling the exact same regardless of the class you're playing.

At this point, why not remove class? If we remove passive, do hybridization, there's really not much that hold the point of having a class system.

I agree just based on aesthetics. I hate to change the way my main character looks in order to optimize. It's a key self-identity issue. Dissolving them into other systems could work, or just selecting "trained in the way of the Khajiit," "trained in the way of the Argonians," etc passive options would be an easy wholesale replacement option.

Why not… Zos has pretty much destroyed any class identity in the game already.

You are right all other races should except dark elf superiority.

I think it would be interesting to have a choice in passives that are similar to the passives already in the game. Throw on some restrictions for which tier they are in so you dont get 3 passives of spell damage, maybe massage the numbers for balance, and youre good to go. the UI would need to be good to avoid new player confusion though

OMG, yes please! I am sick and tired of trial groups refusing my wood elf nightblade simply because I am not the optimal race. I love my wood elf and would never change it. And maybe the new racial passives could be stealth related as they removed that from wood elves back in the murkmire patch and it was one of the main reasons I picked would elf and now it’s gone and we have useless stealth detect.

I've always just accepted that none of my 16 argonians will ever come close to dps ceilings

i agree. racial passives should be lore friendly features, but limited to simple things like argonians faster swimming, or wood elfs movement speed. basically, keep that first experience passive that races have like increased experience using a bow/s+s/ 2h etc and a little fun bonus that doesnt affect combat numbers. and make passives acquirable by certain achievements in a starter zone pertaining to those races.

I think it would be a great thing if they would consolidate all of the available racial skills under a single "Racial Skills" header in the skill tree. That way, the player can decide how they want to build their character and what racial passives are important to them based on how many skill points they have available. They could even put a hard cap on how many total skill points can be spent in that tree for "balance" purposes.

Just make it so we can choose from a pool of passives to slot for each character. 3 slots with each slot having a few options for us to choose from. Keeps the passives, adds more variety and eliminates the issue of having to put optimization over cosmetics.

It sucks I can't play the race/class combo I want if I want to PvP or raid. I'm all for letting players look how they want to look.

That's actually a really cool idea! One could change the racial passives to some kind of "knowledge of the lands" skill line which you can unlock via exploring specific areas. For example completing shadowfen gives you access to the argonian passives. And the races itself could get lore or role play passives like the fast swimming argonians have. Maybe something like faster riding speed for khajiit when riding on a senche or better luck for redguards(? the desert-people) for spawning chests while traveling through the alik'r desert.

I agree with you, like playing as redguard butttt we all know redguards are one of the worst races in the game to play with, "they're supposed to be the most talent warriors in tamriel and they're the worst to play any roll, as a tank you prefer to use a nord or imperial, as a dps definitely you use an orc or dark elf, you can even use a High elf instead of redguard and we do need changes.

I do agree with this to a certain extent, as someone who tanks and has tanked vet hard modes on a wood elf tank I can say that it does feel strange going from it to a nord on the same class, I think something along the route of picking your "birth passives" or whatever you would like to them would be a more rounded option than to just give all passives to all races, kinda like putting in skill points and could be reset like that, just have it so u can have 3 slots for passives and get to pick 3 from the list of ones already available to still limit builds and still let u make a choice rather than just having all of them given to you

I can agree. I’m a magcro main and hit 115k, but Bretons are my fav race so I swapped, got some shit for it, but can still pump out 112k. It honestly really doesn’t matter.

My first playing and went for dark elf, I’m trying to get a dark mage build going on…any tips on weapons and armors I should look for?

Either make them vanilla, so it doesn't matter which race you pick, or, provide some sort of "cost" system where you can choose to pick 3 passives, but not get 3 OP passives, as many already stated. My favorite race is Wood Elf. I don't have a single one anymore because it gimps the groups I prog with to a noticeable degree. I would like to change all 18 toons to Wood Elf, but I can't, simply due to the other races being FAR SUPERIOR in content simply due to racial passives. Pissing into the wind and calling it rain I guess. The Dev's open contempt for their CUSTOMERS has been obvious for some time now.

I would change my race instantly if they eliminated racial passives. Please push for this.

Seems a lot of dps like necessitating everyone being a dunmer in parse to keep up.

I do agree that when there is a new patches/changing passives spending crowns to change the race is absurd. I also agree that a standard across all races would be nice. I feel that they should allow people to customize the passives as well. If someone wanted an orc magic caster they should be allowed to remove the ones they currently have and add (example) what's high elf passives are. Or like some games people add points into passives

Imho this game is not only "min-maxing". Everything in this game has its own identity that is reinforced through the passives. This also incudes each race having its own identity with different passives. Every TES game had something like this. You take that away and all that is left out of race choice is pure aesthetics. At this point, one can easily make a point that while we are at it, we should also make WW & Vamp to be a pure aesthetics choice, right ? Same with Weapons. Bow is trash, so let me just use a skin so I can pretend I use a Bow, while I will have Destro Staff equipped. It makes no sense. I think that each race should have its own unique passives. Devs made it that way so one race is (technically) better at something that the other, while also providing some unique gameplay (like for example Argonians utilizing potions in their builds etc). The problem (as always) is..... DPS, DPS, DPS ! crowd. Nothing else matters. Healing. Tanking. My Race Sucks at DPS ! Buff my DPS ! Nothing else matters ! DPS players seems to be kinda blinded here. (^ Sorry for the rant, but this seem to be the case here). I think that maybe, there is a way to kinda make both sides happy - Racial Passives Morphs. So yet again I will use Argonian Potion Passive as example. You pick the default one - nothing changes. You pick the other and you get more magicka from drinking potions, but no stamina etc. That could work. I don't think that homogenization of stuff is good. It is bad for the game. It always was. You take racial passives away and 1 day later you take armour / weapon / class passives away in the name of freedom of choice & balance, so we could all "play as we want" using same race, same class, same weapon, but with different skin bought in the crown store... :(

I agree, or allow any race to pick the already set passives for any race. Not individually pick the passives. So example say i want to play wood elf healer I could pick the argonian passives set to heal. That would be a easy fix imo honestly an say that’s healer so, I save argonian passives in my armory healer but I want to switch dps I could use my high elf passive set to save in my armory. Nefas I am glad you brought this to attention it frees up the element on role playing you can be anything thing you want an play the way you want to not to be forced to change what you want to be able to hit the same or heal the same

Morphs for the racial passives could also be an option, or if not morphs then racial passives that change what bonuses they give you dynamically based on whatever is already higher.

This! Wish they would completely nerf the racial passives. At best, they should only impact the player experience before CP 160.

Maybe if you had like a wider perk pool to choose a certain number of perks from before it locks you for getting more, some being more focused to pve and some more to pvp but also allowing for niches. So to say race combination, where you have like passive tiers of which you can only choose one, but with respecing choose others to fit current need

Ive seen every race complete every piece of content. Im fine with the passives. Its an Elder Scrolls staple after all. But if you dont want static passives, I suggest one solution: Have passives be tied to the 8 divines. That way, people can choose their passives based on what god they pray to. Akatosh could give increased crit damage/chance, Julianos could give spell damage/magicka recovery or Zenithar could give increased gold gain etc. There could even be a passive for praying to no one.

Completely agree. And it’s pretty simple. I shouldn’t be forced to play a certain race to play a certain role

I kind of agree I do like the flavor ones like swimming speed for Argonians, sneak and pick pocket for Khajitt and fall for wood elves though.

Omg it would be very great! Also it could help new players to dps easier by exemple, a new player who play bow build with a Argonian. We could play with the race we like and not with the "passive we like". I realy love this idea!

I actually like the fact that ESO still has racial identity. Coming from GW2, that was actually sonething that has always bothered me there. Yes, they have racial abilities, but they made them so bad on purpose that it's just never worth using them and, whenever they did actually become viable in certain scenarios, they nerfed them into non-existence again. However, if the racial passives were to be removed in ESO, I'd love them being moved to shrines instead, like those in Skyrim. That way, not only would it make "racials" available to everyone, but it would also offer another RP-factor, if one wishes to go by that.

CapitalCPT said it best. The CP should be your way to balance your character. Right now CP are a bloody joke on half of what's offered. They could put restriction on what race benefits could be in place. All things in the store should be pure cosmetics. It's super annoying how they create problems and sell you the solution.

It would be refreshing to see a kajiit tank for instance. I run a dunmer and argonion but still not the norm by any means

this would be amazing. I cannot believe people wanna spend money to race change!! I’ve always wanted to play high elf but I need imperial (vampire passives make sustain hard for me in pvp).

Wasn't the "report for racism" enought at the Wrathstone patch, buddy? I was back then in a guild that made troll reports like that before that patch lmao

How about we pick are race and we also get to pick the 3 pick passive or we can keep hitting a randomize button for the passive to change until we get what we want simple

As someone who enjoys harder content in ESO but also like a little RP here and there I very much agree w this video. I get too attached to my characters to race change them, plus a few of my characters do multiple roles, sometimes all three so race changing will only really help me in one of those roles

lizard swim fast because swamp iguana good passive, volcano elf does ooga damage because kinda ugly bad passive pls fix zos

Didn't want to agree with you, but I do. either balance out the races a lot more or just leave one fun stat per race and remove the rest.

I'm so shocked that people are against the removal of racial stats. This video does not deserve the dislikes. Feeling compelled to play a character you hate just to be "meta" is a shitty feeling. It's one thing when you can mod the game like BG3, it's an entirely different thing when it's an MMO. FFXIV barely has any racial differences and the game is better for it.

Make the passives that affect combat performance available to every class, and create passives for each race that affect non-combat things like NPC interactions, crafting, thievery, emotes, pets, etc.

I would rather see a system where you can select 3 out of a possible 9 or 12 racial passives that are fairly balanced. They should all be able to make a selection out of some form of increase in resistance, sustain, max stats or power and then there can still have a few more unique things like the potion passive or element/status effect immunity for flavour so everyone can play how they like, you can optimise fully and be a great bosmer healer or argonian pve dd but you can also choose more fun stats if you want it to be more lore fitting.

interesting topic. Does this stem from chasing the meta every patch?

I think it's a well laid out argument that makes sense in PvE but I disagree from a purely PvP perspective. It already feels like a lot of the variety has been taken out of the game since hybridisation happened. For the most part, I like hybridisation in PvP (I'm not so much a fan of it in PvE). But it's definitely led to less diversity in terms of skills used and therefore combat style. At least with racial passives, you can identify some strengths of your enemy and adjust how you fight them (don't try and out sustain a Bosmer, watch out for kitty crits, etc). But I mightn't mind something like just deleting racial passives and adding a couple of minor mundus boons on top of your regular one. You wouldn't be able to just see your enemy and immediately know what to watch out for, but I think it would allow for a bit more creativity and diversity than unifying all racial passives would.

Maybe you have 10 tokens to put it in any kind of passives so everyone can choose in which way he would play his toon

True I had to play a khajiit in the malacath meta pvp ; this would make me come back to the game. I will never not play a khajjit which as a warden with crit damage passives, in medium armor, and kilt at times, etc etc, with a crit cap it is sad. And in pvp crit damage is not good unless super niches builds or on some nb setups.

Look at any tank build videos. 90 % they say go Nord. ESO is escape to fantasy world. Much like books, movies, etc. When I am on ESO fantasy world I don't want to look like myself, a palefaced northen man. I want be an orc, a cat or a lizard. You never see anyone recommending an orc healer. Except those guys who do it for views while laughing disrecpectfully behind scenes. Racial buffs are good but very very Very limiting for harder content. Its a shame. I know I was bit rough here but I am on board with Nefas. Like many times before

Yes, please. Race should be a 100% aesthetic choice only.

Step 1: remove stat based racials like( dmg, resouces etc) Step 2: increase a bit the base stats Step 3: add unique passivs to mundus stones

What if the damage boosts are removed from passives? I think it would be much better then.

I feel that if every race had similar or the same passives the game would lose some of the flavor and it wouldn't make since if you take lore into account like I like to do.

To make it more interesting via a way I interpreted it... You could have the same amount of racial passives (3... 4 with the gimmicks); but maybe allow passives to be selected by choice... So then it can be changed in same way as skill points, then easily doable via armory as well... This means change fatigue is still going to be there kinda; but not cost the average player as much. This still allows a lot of diversity via choosing different passives based on what you want for personal optimisations, but allows the decision of what you want to not be based and forced through a race. EG: 1. Resistances, Move Speed, Max Mag, MaxHP, Max Stam 2. Stam sustain, Mag sustain, Hybrid sustain, Cost reductions, Max Mag, Max Stam 3. WD/SD, Crit damage, Crit chance, Move speed, Max mag, Max Stam So you would get to pick 1 from each of the option lists, one being focused on tankiness, one on sustain, one on damage. Max Mag and max Stam being a constant as they're usually always viable for every scenario.

These passives need morphs of some sort, may be. You can choose to be more tanky or more DPSy, and that abilities will depend on what race is the character. For example, nord could change his armour bonus for 2h damage bonus, or thmthng like that. But this will be even more complicated.😒 But a choice of what passives do you need would be great. Each race will have its unique style of tanking and damaging. Why not to give a kajiit a chance to choose, if one wants more krit damage, or an ability to evade boss atacks more frequently. Tanking through not taking damage. ...in your dreams lol. New crowncrates and thats all...

and what is crazy is how many people agree with this horrific vision I'm stunned. this is insane, the racial passives are what makes the game diverse in between various races, it gives the game another dept, its like saying "ok so we will get rid of white people and black people and from now on there will be only gray people living in the world"

i think it would be neat that instead of racial passives, we got "birth signs" or "subclass" or something of that sort, so the passives are just something you can have on any race, class, etc.

This is definitely a hot take.

I believe we should we able to mix and match and get half breeds or whatnot

That is so true. I've loved ORCs since TES3:Morrowind and I wanted to play an ORC in TESO ... but I hated stamina builds .... so I never could do it till this time.

C'mon dude, you're smarter than this... You're right! 100% right! But that won't change anything because racial passives feed into zos making money thru the crown store. Getting rid of racial passives means zos loses money on race change tokens and new character slots. That also means people grinding on fewer characters. That also means people playing less. That also means people spending less in the crown store seeing as they're playing less. Aint gonna happen. But its a great idea.

yolo, if it happens, just say FUCK IT, WE BALL

Skinny cheeks says race does not make a big difference. I disagree. I play on console, and never miss a light attack, and can say dark elf on stam is 5k dps stronger than wood elf.

I’ll be honest when I read the title I was opposed but after watching the video I see what you are saying, in all honesty my biggest and pretty much only issue with it is strictly from a RP standpoint. Racial abilities are a thing in the elder scrolls but I completely get it because I’d love to try some different races, but they just arnt optimized for my play style so I can’t use them and it does kinda suck. Great video

I would like for different races to still have some functional advantage for choosing it rather than purely aesthetic purposes. I don't expect that any type of functional differences between races will ever be perfectly balanced. However, I would like at least for different races to give me something that at least I can work with.

I think that OFFENSIVE COMBAT racial passives can go, but there are plenty of DEFENSIVE & NON-COMBAT racial passives that should stay (detection, agility, resistances like frost or poison, unique skill proficiency for XP, increased gold from merchants) I kind of worry that it would be keeping with ZOS's "accessibility" target to remove all static racial passives and make them changeable with tokens. I understand the eases of access that creates, but I like that my RPG game has racial buffs. I think only the top 0.01% care enough to min/max specific races and I should know, I main Bosmer

How about instead of eliminating racial passives but instead you get to choose 3 lines of passives got any race for your build

I agree with most of the points presented in this video, but personally I feel that even though what you said is true that personally I don't mind this fact as much as I do with class identity. A good example of what I mean is the necromancer, the necromancer used to be required in most groups and was regarded as a good dps or support dps because of its easy access to major vulnerability through the colossus ultimate. But over the year they had removed the use of necromancers entirely by making multiple sets (turning tide, devyric, technically kynmarcher) that give the same buff and the fact everything else the necromancer has is obtainable by other means. The problem with this is that it makes every character "class" feel the same just with new shinny effects rather than cool new abilities, playstyles, buffs/de-buffs, etc, and it really sucks because I like a lot of these classes but they all boil down to dots/hots and instant damage/ instant healing but one class has better percentages than the other.

I can definitely see your point especially for a top level player but imo the ESO world hinges very heavily on the races and how they each have their own niches. Would a middle ground be toning them down even more? I think hybridization is already hurting a lot of "identity" for builds so making everything even more bland seems lame. And you touched on this in the vid, but top level players still do buy the race changes just for class optimizations and we know how ZOS is with losing any form of monetization...

I say either add race to the armory system, or get rid of racial passives and give everyone an extra X amount of CP slottables to make up the difference.

it doesn't matter tbh. Unless you want to earn trials trifecta, which 99% of playerbase cannot

So something like mundus stones but for racial passives? 😶

I think like in a real RPG U should have the Option to choose your passives. If U wanna be a high elf that wants to be a Legolas then maybe Pick the Bosmer ones. When you wanna be a very skilled Magic Redguard, choose maybe the high elf passives. Or you wanna be a really tanly woodelf, get Nord ones. Sure, racial passives are based on Backgrounds of the Race, but it IS very limiting often. More choices would be nice in the Game.

What if they all functioned outside of combat? For example. Outside of dungeons and pvp zones and combat kahjiit run 5% faster. Bosmer can see animals farther away or something.

Disagree truth is some classes are better then others at specific things but in the end the difference is not enough to make or break any race class mix.

I love 💯% that idea. More simple for players and easy for devs to do balance changes 🤩😍

When you nuke dps, suddenly every little thing seems to matter. I think this topic is born out of the top 0.01% is trying to squeeze this lemon for every single drop. Racial passives as they exist should not be that important to completing content.

Great topic to breach, but also, homogenization! A themed tree for each race to have different ways to build towards sustain/tank/damage with limited points would be awesome (ESO2.0, like POE ascendencies.....). Nah, wishthink

what about passive hybridatization?

While I agree on some of your points, I disagree on general principle. I wish races and classes in ESO were MORE distinct, not less. I wish for more class and race fantasy. I'm okay with some race/class combinations being not optimal; I've been playing solo/DPS Breton magsorc since launch because I like Bretons more than High Elves. Once, I had a couple of free race swap tokens (don't remember where I got them, though). I used one to change my Breton to Altmer because of all that talk of Altmers being "optimal" for magsorc. Played for a week, then swapped back to Breton, because I just don't like Altmer on my sorc that much. Roleplaying is more important to me. Anyway, maybe ZOS will actually make the changes you suggest. I feel like ESO becomes more and more homogenized and dumbed down with every patch.

you leave my op argonian swim speed alone!! :P

I actually love this idea. My favorite race in the game is Khajiit. I love the fantasy aesthetics and I love their lore. However, I don't want to lose that 3-4k damage just to be Khajiit, so I have to go Dark Elf. Dunmer is one of the least interesting races to me as far as lore and it's really hard to get the look down properly as well. I would fully support this idea.

Yes but how will they make money from race change tokens and imperial bundle

Hot take on your hot take: yeah

If races just added cosmetic and we could pick 3 passives to combine ourselves out of the total mix it would defenitely be more profitable

I have the opposite opinion. Racials should separate classes even more to make them feel more unique than the others. Its what big mmos are lacking.

Thats a bad idea…what makes this game unique is the charter passive…great video Maybe u should be a game designer and make ur own game …i think this game is well put together thats why i play it ya theres flaws but go play fornite u will realize all games are broke and need fixing in my opinion this game is well put together…also im a argoinan main and never felt out matched because it really doesn’t matter maybe u should try using the worst character so u can see there is no difference its all about sets and if u have thumbs

I don't know, the lore aspect needs to be kept intact, maybe add one alternative that can be chosen, but keep what we have? No point in throwing the baby away with the bath water and all that?

I believe we should keep those racial passives but brand it another name and make them like mundus stones and switch them as much as you want for a build.

Hot take? Bruh, that's like shit that should have been done since release.

I agree. Stam , mag , race, what is all that really? Just have us click create character and type in a name, too many options. Smh

Maybe a system where you choose your passives like we choose CPs, with maybe some fixed ones ?

If it’s gonna be all the races, have all the same passes from the other classes as well then the game should only let you slide nine skill points as it does now to keep it balanced

itd make no sense to remove them without putting in a system to add in the passives for the builds you want but you can choose them compared to being hooked to a race.

I'd rather see them keep the racial perk sets as a Background or something that's detached from the cosmetics of the race you chose (and make that an easier thing to re-spec). Maybe the auto-include meta choices should be moved to armor perks or something for easier game balance, but I'd hate to see the niche stuff like the Khajit's stealth perks deleted from the game.

There's a difference between if the race is optimal for your build VS if it is viable for your build That difference being the ability to clear the content without min-maxing every minute aspect of your build If the difference is overall something as minute as 1% difference, it is viable if it can make up to a difference of 20% or more, it's not viable as long as every race is viable for every role, I don't see an issue with racial passives providing additional optimization But that isn't where we are with ESO at this point. At this point, removing yet another thing to balance when ZoS clearly has no idea to balance what is already there will have more benefits than negatives

100% agree, One thing people seem to forget is that it has been zos's goal over the last few years to make the game more accessible for new players and to live to their mantra of " Play how you want" but frankly that's not possible so long as there's always a "meta" race for tnk, healer, and damage dealers. The game would have so much more life breathed into it if they did away with racial passives

They could make the passives just not matter as much. Like they could be changed to affect damage and tanking less.

I prefer racials to be utility based and not damage contributing personally. But even those are a little shit usually because you end up with one that does something amazingly useful like bank access, and the other one shoots out fireworks that makes you summon a mount .1 seconds faster. But otherwise agree fully. I play other games with next to no racial benefits and it's nice to pick able to pick what looks the best and not what I need for an extra 1-5% damage/mitigation.

I feel like since they hybridized the game they should hybridize races and add racial abilities. Like each race gets an offensive passive, a defensive passive and a support passive. Additionally each race should get more obvious benefits for doing certain things in the game. Kind of like Imperials finding more gold. Something like WoW I guess. Though you could say the system is already similar. I just think that Races should be looked. Passives shouldn’t go away but something needs to change. Some races are useless and only people who HAVE to have one of everything actually plays them.