Yesterday I found a website claiming to list the passives. I can't remember the details but suffice it to say that if you wanted to play a classic sneak/crit nightblade there was really no other choice than khajit.

Now, I know that noone can confirm or deny these numbers on account of our old friend the NDA, but I thought I would open a discussion on whether or not the racial passives need balancing out, should be balanced at all, or if they even matter.

The website claimed the khajit would get 15% crit damage, 3 meters extra sneak-area, and 9% extra damage from sneak, or something like that. More than enough to make it totalle unviable for me to choose the Argonian I was hoping for since he gets... well, swim speed...

Your thoughts?

EDIT:

From Tamriel Foundry:

Khajiit

• Medium Armor Expertise (1 rank) - Increases experience gain with the Medium Armor skill line by 15%.
• Robust (3 ranks) - Increases Health regeneration while in combat by (5/10/15)%.
• Stealthy (3 ranks) – Improve Stealth radius by (1/2/3) meters. Increases damage done while stealthed by (3/6/9)%.
• Carnage (3 ranks) – Increases Critical rating for melee attacks by (1/2/3)% and damage done by successful Critical Hits by (5/10/15)%.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/races/

This is on tamriel foundry, therefore not under NDA

Racial bonuses are not so incredibly powerful. In no way do they prevent you from being very good sneaky character with any race.

Well lets say I am taking a guess that most racials didn't go past 10%, but that is just a guess

Makes sense for the cats to get this kind of bonus.
I'll still play Argonian because that's who I am inside.

Er, plus I've moved away from wanting to play Nightblade.

That might or might not be a good guess

But 10% extra crit damage can still not be ignored imo. Or am I wrong?

From Tamriel Foundry:

Khajiit

• Medium Armor Expertise (1 rank) - Increases experience gain with the Medium Armor skill line by 15%.
• Robust (3 ranks) - Increases Health regeneration while in combat by (5/10/15)%.
• Stealthy (3 ranks) – Improve Stealth radius by (1/2/3) meters. Increases damage done while stealthed by (3/6/9)%.
• Carnage (3 ranks) – Increases Critical rating for melee attacks by (1/2/3)% and damage done by successful Critical Hits by (5/10/15)%.

As you can read here: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=33496, there are soft caps to stats so going all in on one particular stat (say +crit damage) will be suboptimal. You can probably get crit damage from other sources (armor stats, enchants etc), so the racials won't matter much when you start to optimize your character at max level.

Viability and optimization are differnt things, though If you feel that you must be the best of the best, particularly in dealing critical damage, then yes the Khajit are the choice for you. On a criticial hit, you would deal more damage than others. Critical hits are not guaranteed, though.

You could an Argonian and recieve better healing when you siphon from your enemy with quick mending, right?

What kind of armor do you want? What kind of weapon? You could focus all of your efforts into dealing the most damage in one way, or you could make your character useful by other means. Harder to kill(health), deadly (damage), relentless (stamina).

Everything is viable. Optimization is based on what you want exactly, as there are Tons of choices to optimize from

I think the more important factor people are forgetting about the Argonian bonuses is this:

Argonian

Restoration Expertise (1 rank) - Increases experience gain with the Restoration Staff skill line by 15%.
Amphibious (3 ranks) - Increases swimming speed by 50% and the effectiveness of potions by (5/10/15)%.
Argonian Resistance (3 ranks) - Increases maximum Health by (1/2/3)% and Poison and Disease resistance by (7/14/21).
Quick to Mend (3 ranks) - Increases healing received by (2/4/6)%.

That means only an Argonian alchemist can have the most powerful potions and poisons. Making them not only extremely valuable as merchants of potions, but also very viable as mages and stealth characters. 15% is impressive, assuming there isn't a softcap on potions that limits this. I would hope not, otherwise max rank players will all be too alike, and I can't imagine them evening out the swimming speed for all players, so why would they softcap the alchemy, since its a crafting skill?

Edited for misunderstanding. See my next post for my points about Argonian benefits.

I'm pretty sure its the effect of potions then used, not then made. so an Agonian get 115 health out of an restore 100 healing potion.

You want races to be very like in endgame for obvious reasons.

First lots of players want to play one race and one class, second new players don't work that only Breton and Altmer works for Sorcerer until they reach endgame and get kicked all the time.

None of this give happy players who keep the subscription.

Yes you get differences but not huge ones. I imagine an nord mage would use more magic regen and less health regen

Agreed. The soft cap on stats is what will save the racial attributes from getting out of control (hopefully.) On the surface, a 10-15% bonus seems huge (and it is); but, if anyone regardless of race can reach the soft cap, then that bonus isn't actually a full 15%. What it will provide is a good bonus in the early-mid levels, before you are able to reach the soft cap in any one stat.

-Travail.

Exactly. I was able to reach the softcap/overcharge in one derived stat before lvl 10 without dumping every statpoint in just one stat, so I'd imagine they're pretty easy to reach.

I sort of agree.

I can't help but feel that if I want to play a sorcerer I need to pick altmer og breton.... If I want to play a tank I have to choose a certain race, and if I want to play a nightblade (crit/sneak build) I have to play as a Khajit.

The passives are just too good to pass up. Now, I do get the point that it will even out at endgame but for weekend warriors that is a long ways away, and even if the theory is correct (about evening out at endgame) it will still free up a lot of itemization that I wouldn't need to put into crit to reach the softcap.

I know this is a min-max'ing way of thinking, and trust me, I'm not really into that at all. This difference just seems too big to pass up.

I'm willing to bet that bonus is on the effectiveness of the potions you take, not a property imbued on the potions you create. Perhaps that bonus is enough for someone with a large potion stockpile to make up for any potential shortcomings /shrug. As far as swim speed, I would be very surprised if speed in swimming comes into play in many situations where a fast swimming player would have overwhelming advantage. I suppose we'll see. Still, I'd take ANY bonus in a general purpose performance enhancement, like health regen or crit rating, over something as situational as swim speed.

Compare that to the Kajiit bonuses; a player could easily leverage most if not all of those bonuses in nearly all of their encounters. Sure, maybe you'll hit soft-cap on crit but it just means you'll start allocating your spec and gear towards other stats that much sooner and stay that much further ahead of a player investing similar effort attempting to tune for stealth, crit, and melee.

Do small percentages not matter? I suppose it depends on your play-style. Just ask yourself if you'll regret your decision when you are fighting for a gear upgrade that is better than what you have by 2% that you could have already had a bonus of 3-15% on. Not trying to steer your decision, just something to consider.

i feel each play style has at least 2 options except a stealth melee character. all other play styles have at least 2 races that will work really well based on passives.

Racial perks should be powerful: it establishes racial identity further, rather than relying on aesthetics and mediocre abilities (at best).

Also, I hope the soft cap ceiling isn't too low either.

Oh, I do agree with that... I guess I just feel that the Argonian racial passives are weak in comparison, especially for sneak/crit nightblades. So much so that I'm considering not playing my race of choice as to not gimp myself. I can't be the only one who feels this way?

Also, I don't think it's a coincidence that Khajits were leading the race-choice poll by a fair margin yesterday..

The Argonian bonuses might actually be more useful to you, because it will likely be hard to reach the soft cap for potion effectiveness or +healing received in other ways. That may make those types of unique bonuses powerful compared to more common stats like crit damage, which any race will easily be capable of soft capping.

-Travail.

That's a good point, but still it seems odd to choose the race that has the most irrelevant bonuses to me simply because they are obscure

It also depends on how much of a glass cannon you want to be. In most MMOs, going into nothing but damage boosting skills is objectively the best way to build a DPS character. In ESO, which features a looser trinity, you may find you want to invest into a more well-rounded character. And in PvP, creating a glass cannon is often not the best way to go.

-Travail.

Yeah, you're probably right. I think I misunderstood what I read for a moment. Even so, the ability to gain more effect from healing and other restorative potions would be very beneficial, let alone the possibility that this means an Argonian character hitting a player or monster with a poison would get stronger damaging effects.

I'm not sure what you mean about Bretons and Altmers getting kicked at endgame....

Yes, as Zaria pointed out, it is most likely just for personal use effectiveness, and not alchemical bonuses as well(those are already Alchemy passives for everyone). Oh well...my point remains the same: people are bothered by how the ESO devs have chosen to set up the Argonian racial abilities, though they perhaps don't have a right to be.

Just because past TES games have emphasized some stealth bonuses for Argonians, that doesn't limit the ESO devs to not extrapolate on what they feel is the best cultural and biological justification for the Argonian traits. Consider that these ESO devs are fully creating a playable Black Marsh, which has never been done before. I would say this gives them a lot of creative right to build a race that fits into the lore, land, and culture they have just finished creating for this game. Yes, I know about the Hist, Sithis, and Shadowscales, I understand that there is actually substantial lore about Black Marsh. Not to mention what came from the 2 novels, which were excellent imo.