Race buffs / nerfs based on hit boxes

Solonthebandit

I am curious if races / character size will have different buffs / nerfs associated with them. It would seem being the smallest dwarf with the smallest possible hit box would be advantageous against skill shots as opposed to being the biggest possible orc with presumably the biggest skill shot hit box.

Is my understanding of the hit box concept wrong or is there a known system to mitigate the small hit box advantage?

Brolveth

Size doesnt matter. It matters how you move

My AoE wont care about your size

TheLastNoise

Give everyone hats of various sizes, different size stilts to walk on. Equal hit boxes... I think? XD

TheLastNoise

Still it is curious as to what stats a race will start with or what stats will grow faster or slower? Is race cosmetic? Hmm.

Drokk

I'm of the opinion rpg elements and fun are far more important than 'balance'. Let races have different identities, work differently, have strengths and weaknesses. This obsession over nitpicking every little perceived advantage or disadvantage is a cancer on this genre. People need to chill out and realize it's just a video game. Have fun and enjoy yourself.

Songcaller

You could aim for the beard...I've heard even some female Dwarves will have beards.

PlagueMonk

In DAoC I remember seeing 2 Kobold Savages named Teeny and Weeny. Kobolds were one of the smallest races and because of that, not the easiest to target in melee, especially without collision boxes. Very annoying!

I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see just how small the Dwarves were in some of the videos.

Adlehyde

I don't think there should be buffs/debuffs that are specifically related to hitboxes to try to equalize the playing field or anything. I mean, it doesn't need to be ignored when designing, but I wouldn't want something like large hitbox people take 5% less damage because their so easy to hit for example.

In fact, I would like to see a few genuine strengths/weaknesses from racial stats so that there is some definite reason to want to choose a specific race again instead of just appearance/roleplaying sake. I understand why games started to go the route of trying to hit even balance across the board, but this game seems to be giving enough reasons to not necessarily need perfect balance. The lack of dps meters, the emphasis on needing a diverse party to do content, the scope of the game's pvp element requiring a lot of cooperation, and probably more i'm not thinking about.

Like, I would genuinely like to see something like dwarves definitively are the best crafters of some specific craft type, but are worse at enchanting.They have a higher defensive stat, but lower magic power stat for seed growth, so can't become the most powerful min/maxed mage, but the best min/max tank in the game would want to choose dwarf.

One of the things I miss about the old games like EQ is how those stats broke down. Like, you could BE a dark elf warrior, but if you went toe to toe with a troll warrior in a 1v1, it was quite obvious which one was going to be doing more damage per hit. I miss that shit.

Solonthebandit

i agree that they don't necessarily need to try to balance it but if it's unbalanced i think some percentage of the player base will flock to the strongest possible race regardless of anything else.

I suspect this game will be in alpha 2 for many many months and during that time the devs will get tons of data on character selection ratios and pvp stats. I understand that they are focused on balancing pvp for group content but if dwarves consistently outperform all other races in pvp it would seem like you would need to balance that to prevent the majority of pvp focused groups from utilizing dwarf stacking since classes aren't race locked.

When i think about the action combat and the head shot critical damage specifically it seems that a tiny little dwarf character is going to have inherent advantages over a big orc character.

Poindexter

I think part of the problem could be solved by implementing some kind of universal player hitbox but if there are headshot mechanics in the game, this may not be viable. The only thing I could think as someone with basically no game design knowledge is perhaps give every character a generic hitbox for action combat and then make the headshot hitbox specifically for each race so that if you want the headshot you have to hit that player's actual head. For dwarves this would mean aiming slightly too high would count as a body shot, which is why this solution seems a bit wonky but otherwise dwarves are gonna be the go to for avoiding skill shots.

Aardvark

Poindexter wrote: »

I think part of the problem could be solved by implementing some kind of universal player hitbox but if there are headshot mechanics in the game, this may not be viable. The only thing I could think as someone with basically no game design knowledge is perhaps give every character a generic hitbox for action combat and then make the headshot hitbox specifically for each race so that if you want the headshot you have to hit that player's actual head. For dwarves this would mean aiming slightly too high would count as a body shot, which is why this solution seems a bit wonky but otherwise dwarves are gonna be the go to for avoiding skill shots.

Why should you be able to hit a dwarf swinging above its head? Or not hit an orc in the head due to hit boxes being normalized?

Solonthebandit

I don't like the idea of universal hit boxes. seems very unintuitive to me. I think an action combat damage mitigation system would potentially balance out the race sizing challenge if the devs were't happy with the balance.

A tiny dwarf could take +5% action combat damage and a big orc could take -5% for instance. This isn't a system i like but it's something that could work to bring balance if 25% of the player base is playing dwarf and 5% are going orc. Apex legends uses something kind of like this and a movement speed difference. I've only played a few hours of that so i don't know what the community thinks about it.