Can anyone, anyone please tell me how does an AAA developer manage to fail very, very obviously in racial balance?

Just look at this:

Orc - Berserker - inflict double damage, take half damage for a minute.

Khajiit - Nighteye, claws do 15 damage.



...


Seriously beth? For one, if the hand to hand skill was actually in the game than that would mean the claw damage would scale, but now it's just a flat number ensuring it will svck pretty much from the get-go. Night eye? Even if this nighteye had infra-red and see-though-wall capabilities it would still svck compared to the insane scaling potential of the Berserker ability. I wouldn't have rolled either of those two races, but it's painfully obvious how, regardless of playstyle, orc just has a godmode switch whenever he feels like it.

I believe that the orsimer racial is only usable once a day. may be wrong though.

You know, some people play the game for more reasons that just stats and abilities potential. It is a... you know... a Role Playing Game with Action elements rather than an Action Game with Role Playing elements.

I don't know, man - I could see infrared + x-ray vision being pretty handy. You could use it to follow trails and set traps for Joker's hoodlu... waaaaaaait

"when ever he feels like it" = once a day. other than that i agree.

Well Orc are known for strength aren't they, in every film, book and game you watch/read/play

I do agree with you, to a point though. Since Skyrim is a singe player game, the classes do not need to be equal but I do think it is more appealing to play some races rather than others. I also think that these abilities do not really matter overall, with all the classification that can be done in the world alone, it seems a little pointless to choose one class just for the starters.

Races aren't equal in real life. Skyrim is accurate.

Dont play a cat then or an orc or play both sorry thats how lore works man orcs are tougher

That's completely beside the point. I never said I play it for stats, and a role player will feel the very obvious "do 2x damage, take 50% damage". Just seems odd how an AAA developer can't balance something as basic as this.

edit: I know it's once per day, so is night-eye most likely. But during that day he can just activate god-mode and stomp anything - regardless if you're a mage/thief/warrior.

Well, orcs only have that one once a day compared to unlimted Nighteye use. Also orcs have no passive racials. Still looks pretty crazy, and it's inspired me to make an orc shaman.

how would double melee damage help a mage character though?

It's balanced for playstyle. An Orc warrior isn't going to need Nighteye. On the other hand, a Khajiit sniper relying on stealth criticals is going to get a lot more out of nighteye than taking half damage for a minute.

kinda agree with you

Taking half damage from any source is bad? It's not balanced around playstyle.. the orc racial is the best one in the game bar none.

Again, I'm not stomping my foot because I don't like orcs, it just looks silly. I can only imagine the orc racial coupled with buffs, potions, perks and shouts, a flat x2..

The poor balancing in Skyrim probably comes from the poor balancing in OB where Berzerk was the WORST power, almost any damage knocked you down.

You got the thing inverted.

why do the races need to be balanced tho? i dunno about everyone else but im prolly not going to be powerleveling. maybe one play through...maybe not.

*EDIT* Orcs are def the best for power leveling tho.

I don't play a TES game for 'balance'. This is a singleplayer game, not a competitive multiplayer game.

And more importantly, it's a roleplaying game. You play a role and progress in a story, you don't play a toon and progress in gear and items ;p

If you think balance matters to the point of 'everything having to be equal', this is not the game for you ;p

if this were multiplayer this "racial balancing issue" would have more wieght. but again, i agree that Orcs have the best by a lot.

Deep character customization is definitely more an RPG thing than an action game thing.

Yeah then where s the sneak advantage ?
Where s the missile advantage ?

Well, races should probably lean toward one or two styles of play.. if Berserk just had melee damage x2, it would be great for both warriors and thieves (double damage backstabs).

With the huge damage reduction in addition to that, it's just the best skill for any class hands down.

Ah yes, the OP win button trait you can use anytime you want, once per day.
This isn't an MMO.

I'm with the role players here - maybe the races aren't meant to be balanced.

Or, more likely, they ARE balanced, but in a more lateral way:
If you want to play very combat/melee heavy, the Orc traits will come in handy. But if you want to be stealthy and avoid combat, night vision may be handier.