Do races in TESO have stats such as STr, Dex, Con, etc and if so is there a chart somewhere listing them? Or are they all just distinguished simply by their passive abilities?

Unfortunately yes - in your second question.

Killing diversity for the sake of lazy balancing. That's modern mmorpgs for you.

there is no stats to begin with for str, dex and con. Theres only Health, Magicka and Stamina.

While I don't agree with balance for the sake of balance, I suppose it's nice to be able to pick a race without seriously gimping yourself.

I think they're well aware that by now the fans have their favourites, and don't want to be bottle-necked into a certain race just to accomodate their playstyle.

In many cases, the passives ARE the stat difference.

...And races have been reduced to being just models. Different graphics. Nothing more.

At least racials save the day somewhat.

Isn't that the best part about choosing a different race? It's my favourite part at least.

Thats cool, my personal preference would be that races actually do have different starting stats but with the way Stamina and Magicka affect damage/spells its something at least.

Fortunately, yes. Being locked to certain playstyles or having to fight ocd with min/maxing and rerolling because of race is passe. You won't have to play some lame elf to be an archer.

The racials, or them being only visually different?

The visuals; their body shape, ears, eyes, heights and builds.. and so on.

yes, i would have to be at a disadvantage or being forced in a race to play what i want.

Look at what pvp become when a race clearly have and advantage (smaller races, asura in gw2). Tournaments are filled with azuras.

I genuinely find it sad that most people only seem to think in the confines of "min-maxing".

I will make an example - the elf archer is more accurate, the human archer has more attack power. Diversity, people.

I have seen it work before, it CAN work.

Yes of course, for me as well. But I find it sad that it's just visuals in most cases. They sometimes feel like lifeless cosmetic shells instead or real races.

At the same time, isn't that a little racist? "All Bosmer are good with bows" "No human is as accurate with a bow as a Bosmer"

My thoughts would be that their race might have a natural ability with bows, though with enough practice a human could be just as adept; which is actually the case in-game.

There's an attack rating in this game?
Let's use archery as an example. List an attractive and balanced option for every race regarding archery and in game stats. Then do that for every other playstyle.

It's better this way. You aren't shoehorned into playing a race because of stats. Most people want a good build. Everyone min/maxes on different levels. People don't go out of their way to make bad builds unless they are roleplaying and don't care about stats.

I wish they'd remove the rest of the racial bonuses as well

Presumably, diversity should come through other game systems. Whether that happens or not, is discussion for another thread.

Exactly. Builds and playstyles are better off being determined by other mechanics than racial selection. You can play any playstyle as any race now. That is fantastic and allows the player to play the race they really want to without having to think about stats/builds/viable playstyles etc.

I'd rather pic my race based on looks and not have to worry about stats.

I remember people saying it was racist to give Redguards more strength and endurance in Oblivion because it stereotypes the whole black people being strong and athletic.

I did mention that humans have an advantage in archery as well. Uh.. I certainly don't believe that's racist... where did you get that anyway... Instead I believe it is much lore-friendlier than the alternative.

No there isn't. That example was proof of concept.

I would, but I am not the paid developer who has to do that. Do you really think it's impossible? I have seen it work in much more complicated settings with an example being Shadowbane. Check its races. If you really check them up, their diversity will blow your mind.

As I said there is no real shoehorning or anything with this concept. And it certainly offers enough diversity to make you feel unique as a race, much beyond the visuals.

Character race diversity should come through something else other than character races? How is that possible? Because I obviously talk about character race diversity not monster diversity or anything. If you are content with the diversity being only cosmetic, then good for you.

The only thing that really grinds my gears with races is that everyone stands the same, walks the same, runs the same. Orcs should be hardy brutes even the non combatants...elves a slight grace and poise in their movements....khajits aside from tails don't really feel feline...etc etc etc...all my opinion of course.

This as well. At least there is a speed racial in this game.

This, sir, is called a strawman argument. Not only are you responding to me as if I was trying to counter your argument, but you make up my argument for me. I didn't have one or your posts quoted in mine or address you in anyway, so not sure how you came to this conclusion.

I'd like to see no racials, because it creates an empty palette. A lot of gamers don't bother with numbers more than they need to, hence any post that goes along the lines of "I want to play a archer, what race should I choose?" With the inclusion of racial bonuses, you are already guiding players into stereotypes, making their racial choice for them. I think with a blank palette, your average player will be more inclined to play the Khajiit mage, Nordic bowman, sword and board Altmer. That is the diversity I am referring to, of walking through a world full of various characters.

If you would like a direct response to your argument, here it is: I don't think you are wrong, that they could potentially create racials while maintaining enough of a balance across the board to still promote character diversity, but 1.) what we have so far in TESO isn't even close. At all. They'd need to strip the whole system and re-build the entire thing. 2.) I don't think it is lazy programming, I think of it as not making things more complicated than they need be, avoid potential racial imbalance and/or guiding players into specific stereotypes. A blank palette is a blank palette. The idea is simple, but it doesn't make it bad by nature. If the end result is the same, then the simple route is simply smarter

I played DAOC(Dark Age of Camelot) for 10 years. The greatest continuing problem was constantly trying to achieve a balance. The different races were enough different is skills and stats that soon one seemed to dominate Thus DAOC was forced into constant revisions and nerfing to ATTEMPT a balance. ESO strives to avoid this problem by making races differ at most by perhaps 10% in effectiveness. This will greatly boost long term stability. NOW you can dominate by PLAY SKILL rather than race or starting stats.

Not a strawman argument or an argument at all in the first place. I simply stated that racial diversity beyond visuals, obviously, can only come from diversifying the races and not other 'mysterious' sources. And with what I explained earlier, the race-class diversity would not be hindered, so the class combinations you are mentioning will either way, happen.

You obviously don't care about race diversification, as you view it as unnecessarily complex. Which is fine, again, good for you. But besides visuals, for example, I like my khajiit to run faster, jump higher, have greater attack speed etc etc etc than, say, a dunmer. It certainly is worth the sacrifice of complexity to me.

What you graciously call a blank canvas, to me, it is nothing than a non lore-friendly and cheap way to achieve a balance among player characters.

First things first, enough with this player skill thing. After all the race and starting stats would not give you any advantage if done correctly but will change your playstyle and gameplay.

Daoc was great in some things, less great in others. Wow devs couldn't balance classes with almost non-existant bonuses, so examples like this are kind of useless.

I think its much less than 10% - I think it's more like 0.1%. Some max level theorycrafting will make you realize that.

Well that's just plain silly.... right?

Where in the lore does it say that Khajiit jump higher than Dunmer?