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Racial benefits
Hakaiju
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Just a little rant against racial benefits:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_benefits
Did anyone ever like to be forced onto a certain race to play a class to its full potential? Because i certainly did not. Races should be entirely cosmetic, maybe MAYBE have different base stats, which get negligible in the endgame. Furthermore, with racial augments, there will be a change in playstyle. As someone who likes to play only one character, this is awful.
Imagine this: You are a new and naive player, you level 200+ hours to reach max level, you realize your race sucks for your class. I would literally uninstall at that point.
End of rant.
So whats your opinion about this?
Edit* Please let us change our race from time to time, that would help a lot, thanks ^^
Edit** I've been convinced by now that my opinion was wrong, racial augments and stats can indeed be nice, but my first edit still stands strong :P
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_benefits
Did anyone ever like to be forced onto a certain race to play a class to its full potential? Because i certainly did not. Races should be entirely cosmetic, maybe MAYBE have different base stats, which get negligible in the endgame. Furthermore, with racial augments, there will be a change in playstyle. As someone who likes to play only one character, this is awful.
Imagine this: You are a new and naive player, you level 200+ hours to reach max level, you realize your race sucks for your class. I would literally uninstall at that point.
End of rant.
So whats your opinion about this?
Edit* Please let us change our race from time to time, that would help a lot, thanks ^^
Edit** I've been convinced by now that my opinion was wrong, racial augments and stats can indeed be nice, but my first edit still stands strong :P
3
Comments
I prefer there to always be some form of "best" race for any given class.
As a player that has spent most of my 20 years in MMO's either at or near the top end, I have never even once considered denying a recruit for their racial choice.
As such, I see no downsides at all to having slight advantages to it so that those wanting to min/max can do so, and those wanting to play the race they want to play can do so.
I honestly wouldnt care so much if we could change races at some point. Without it, I will be constantly reminded that i might have chosen the wrong race, with 200+ hours of leveling this isnt really enjoyable.
It should be enough that races are free to choose whatever classes/equipment that you as a player want to use, but I see your concern.
If everyone is playing a specific few race/class combos, I am sure that this problem will be identified and the augment will be nerfed or removed.
Yes there will be min maxing with races and classes but as has been stated many times your choices will matter while you may gain advantages in some cases there will be drawbacks in others. It will be sometime before we get to see exactly what the racial differences are and Intrepid will be looking for our feedback when they are finally revealed.
Personally I have no problem with racial stats and it sounds like your race is going to have a profound effect on how your character develops throughout the levelling process.
As Steven has stated many times AOC will not be for everyone.
Personally I am not against race changes.
Yes. Yes it would be bad. Choices should matter. Just like picking your primary archetype some aspects of character creation should remain static. Different races being better/worse then others is a good thing.
Real question why should everything be the same?
WOW and FFXIV are both hyper sterilized MMOs when it comes to balance, and this kinda hurts the genre when it comes to expectations about what should be in every game. In the old days of MMOs it was expected that Orcs would always be stronger than humans, but humans would be balanced better overall. Games like DDO,FFXI, and L2 got this right. You had an idea of what someone was best at just by looking at them.
You should know that playing a caster or ranger elf is going to be far more effective than an elf in full plate with a two handed sword. If you sink 200 hours into trying to make an elf a giga dreadnought only to find out that you are getting out paced by an orc in lesser gear. That should be your fault. Especially if the game tells you want each race is good at on the character creation screen ahead of time.
I don't know if the races will be that extreme of a difference to the point that some combinations are 100% unplayable, but I welcome the imbalance. I like it when a game gives you the freedom to make bad choices.
I also like seeing people try to make bad combinations work.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
As for the last point if I put 200h+ into a game I assume I at least enjoy it and I doubt there are people who would quit over something so.....irrelevant in the long run.
If you are the kind of person that feels like that small potential advantage matters to you, then take that in to consideration when creating your characters.
Or, alternatively, don't.
Either way, it is a choice you get to make. Having that choice is better than not having that choice. All you need to do is make it in a way where you can live with it.
Should be easy.
With that logic you shouldnt be able to change sub classes, religion, or really anything else that impacts gameplay. MinMaxing is a huge part of MMO'S (i would even say most players go for the optimal route) so having no race change available just seems stupid.
I doubt there will ever be a race change for purchase as it can be considered Pay to Win, or Pay for Convenience, which has been stated as not being in the shops (examples given were inventory expansion slots). So I'd assume putting an item that could change your skills and abilities would fall under that same category.
And in one of Jahlon's streams he did the math on the Min-Max scenario and the amount of options between race, archetype, class, social organization, armor type used, node residency, and religion picked - the possible combinations came out to be over 18,000 possible options. This also didn't include other things like the potential for guild perks, augmentation's per archetype and class, and even more things. So if anyone tells you that you're not Min-Maxing they're probably just guessing and don't know what they're talking about fully.
Not at all. In RL, a person can change their job and their religion, but they can't change their species. I expect that there'll be some sort of purchasable race change option, but as Warth said, it shouldn't be too quick/easy/etc.
Quality of life normally means things like inventory space, weight limit increase etc. Something like appearance change / gender change / race change should not be treated the same way. Pay2Win is a complete different ball game
Sure it should.
If you leveled up a character of a given race and now want to play a different race, the thing to do is to then level up a character of that new race. Anything meaning you can play that race without needing to level up that new character is a convenience.
It depends on the game. WOWs DEVs has slowly given players less and less consequences to their choices over the years, and thus it was outrageous for the DEVs to say "Choices should have consequences" when introducing the covenant system. They just came off of years of giving the player base more and more freedom to change at will.
AOC is a fresh game from the ground up. If the DEVs are telling you choices have consequences in their world. Than that is the expectations you should have of AOC.
The larger point is that these restrictions are all in place for a reason. To promote better socialization. If you can change your name, race, gender, server. You effectively become a new person. This is part of why most new MMOs have no sense of community. When a social integration goes wrong. People can swipe their credit card, and become a new person at will. When they should have been conducting themselves in a more acceptable manner in the first place.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I did try to start a discussion on racial benefits a few weeks ago. TL;DR I was advocating racial bonuses that are less combat focused, instead looking at things like artisan bonus, economics and luck. When I get time to find it I will link it here...
I hard disagree here. Social interaction comes from the need to interact with other people (no group finder, only one profession at master rank, tavern games etc.), community comes from the people behind the screen, not from the name or looks of your character. So you are just wrong IMO.
Appearance and gender are not the same as race. How your character looks won't affect how the character plays. However, based on what we know so far, the race of a character will have a tangible impact if the player uses the racial augments.
Let's pretend the Elf race has an augment that allows one of their skills to boost magical attack. Well if the person went as a physical attack class they might want to switch race to something that'd better help their class. Without convenience it would require the player to create a new character. Now if the character did switch race they'd still keep their levels, money, items, and so on which would be a great convenience instead of needing to re-earn everything.
The difference between how your character looks vs how your character will play is the big differential here as anything that impacts actual gameplay, rather than cosmetic, can be considered "pay to win" or "pay to convenience" in one form or another.
I didnt want to make this a real money thing. Something along the lines of how you change your subclass would actual be better IMO
I remember about 2 years ago they changed some racial passives in ESO resulting in some races becoming the new meta for specific classes and a lot of players bought coins (or whatever they called it) to change their race. I personally don't care if there is some sort of race switch possibility even if I personally wouldn't use it. There is more chance I level a new alt and respec the class on my main.
Inspiration is drawn from current and old games as well as dnd etc. Picking a race was and SHOULD BE a big decision for you.
This game may not be for you. Certain decisions should be binding. If you want to play another race than make another character with that race...
Ashes is about making decisions and having them not be changable.
Just play what you like best. At the end of the day, it is a game so you need to enjoy it if it is going to last for you.
But i'll just wait and see how it works.