Race and Class Combinations - Should the decision have weight?

Jahlon

So from my show on Friday we got into a discussion on Race and Class Combinations and how much weight should those combinations have?

Here is the segment: https://youtu.be/c2r8Gpejh9w


What I'm wondering though is how much weight should those decisions have? Should one sub race be better at the martial classes and the other at the magical?

And if so, what about the hybrid classes?

Patsold

Not mutch weight.
I wish to play a dwarf Scout ( Rouge + Ranger).
I realy dont know what i get as dwarf. Maby a 0.5 sec def buff for 60% ? and a elf gets a powerspike whit 60% for 1 spell ? the race shoud be a singel skill , thats usfull in any situation. but it need to match whit the class and is usfull in all pvp fights. like a singel allround buff for a short time , whit long cooldown.

Jahlon

Patsold wrote: »

Not mutch weight.
I wish to play a dwarf Scout ( Rouge + Ranger).
I realy dont know what i get as dwarf. Maby a 0.5 sec def buff for 60% ? and a elf gets a powerspike whit 60% for 1 spell ? the race shoud be a singel skill , thats usfull in any situation. but it need to match whit the class and is usfull in all pvp fights. like a singel allround buff for a short time , whit long cooldown.

So I guess then my questions would be

1) Does it matter to you if you are Dunir or Nikua?
2) What matters more to you being a particular sub race or being a Scout?

That second question is important because there has to be a "first" you either pick the class you want and you pick the race to fit or

you pick the race and you pick the class to fit

Or you pick whatever you want and you don't care about the min/max until it becomes too much min/max. (Which for the record there should be some min/max advantages

bloodprophet

I agree with you. All these choices SHOULD matter. Allowing any race class combination is the best approach. Let people chose as they want but some should be better then others or we end up with the same homogized trash as everything else.
With out these choices mattering just make everything a grey blob and everyone has all the same skills and stats. Would save a lot of development time if you remove RPG from MMORPG.

Patsold

Jahlon wrote: »

So I guess then my questions would be

1) Does it matter to you if you are Dunir or Nikua?
2) What matters more to you being a particular sub race or being a Scout?

That second question is important because there has to be a "first" you either pick the class you want and you pick the race to fit or

you pick the race and you pick the class to fit

Or you pick whatever you want and you don't care about the min/max until it becomes too much min/max. (Which for the record there should be some min/max advantages

1. I dont know what the diffrents is so i choos the sub race that helps my class.
2. My clas , Scout.

I just hope there is no " min , max" i hope all race abilittys are usfull in a part of pvp. sure a rogue needs dps but if you have a race whit def ability why not , he can also fit in some situations

the worst scenario for me is , that some races are Underpowerd or only fit whit 1 Class.


BUT i have choosen allready .. i play a Dunir or Nikua Scout. Im a dwarf and for me , it dont matter what sub race.

Jahlon

So it sounds like you want to be a Dwarf and a Scout but you will pick the sub-race that helps your Class the best.

That's a good sound line for doing things.

Plus sadly there will be min/max you can't avoid it. Even developers that try to keep everything equal, there's always an advantage, even if its small.

Patsold

Jahlon wrote: »

So it sounds like you want to be a Dwarf and a Scout but you will pick the sub-race that helps your Class the best.

That's a good sound line for doing things.

Plus sadly there will be min/max you can't avoid it. Even developers that try to keep everything equal, there's always an advantage, even if its small.

Yea thats right.
If this is true so thats sad but .. as a dwarf, I am small and if I still make myself invisible, nobody will see me anymore. i think this is "max"

bloodprophet

Patsold have you seen this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrV6epi1TYk

Patsold

bloodprophet wrote: »

Patsold have you seen this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrV6epi1TYk

no but i know what a metaslave is. But I think that AOC is not a normal mmo.
And Guild wars 2 is a good example what a race can gives you:

2 different skills per race with a maximum number of I think 10 skills that you can take with you. so you can take the class ability or the racial ability. depending on how you want to play. this results in various modifications. If the Race skills are broken , you need to balance them. but you can play a norn Hunter diffrent then a Human Hunter in guild wars. Maby they make it like in guild wars 2 ? i dont know.

bloodprophet

The point of the video is to be ok with not doing as the mass of people are telling you how to play the game. At one point he talks about how the meta in Classic just changed because someone had the courage to try something different. Even after 15years some people are still experimenting. I think this is the big point of the conversation. Most people don't want to think and try new things themselves they want others to tell them the best spec and gear so they can just meander through. That or make everything homogeneous like GW2 where it makes almost zero difference what you pick as it is all the same output.

Personal opinion calling GW2 a dumpster fire is a sin against dumpster fires. I don't like that product at all and I played a lot of GW1. But that is just personal perception a lot of people like it and that is ok.

I tend to play random one off specs that few if anyone plays and still end up tanking as a mage.

Patsold

bloodprophet wrote: »

The point of the video is to be ok with not doing as the mass of people are telling you how to play the game. At one point he talks about how the meta in Classic just changed because someone had the courage to try something different. Even after 15years some people are still experimenting. I think this is the big point of the conversation. Most people don't want to think and try new things themselves they want others to tell them the best spec and gear so they can just meander through. That or make everything homogeneous like GW2 where it makes almost zero difference what you pick as it is all the same output.

Personal opinion calling GW2 a dumpster fire is a sin against dumpster fires. I don't like that product at all and I played a lot of GW1. But that is just personal perception a lot of people like it and that is ok.

I tend to play random one off specs that few if anyone plays and still end up tanking as a mage.

I have friends who like to type "Best DPS Mage Build" in the search bar.
I have only played guild wars 2 for half a year with 3 days early start. I liked the idea of ​​racial skills. Seen from above, they were easy to balance and still gave you a special identity. So I no longer made my bleeding through a hunter skill because I had a racial skill that could do it. I remember that she was slightly better. but there was a way whitout the race to do the same combo.
I don't think we can stop people from writing something like that in the search bar either. Even if AOC has many variations, there will always be one best Combo for Class and race. but i like the idea that the race can give you normal combo just in another variation.

Jahlon

I have friends who like to type "Best DPS Mage Build" in the search bar.

George Carlin once said about playing the blues:

“I'll tell you a little secret about the Blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.”

People who run template builds know what to do, but not why to do it.

Patsold

Jahlon wrote: »

I have friends who like to type "Best DPS Mage Build" in the search bar.

George Carlin once said about playing the blues:

“I'll tell you a little secret about the Blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.”

People who run template builds know what to do, but not why to do it.

Yea thats right. If i play a template i need to understand , why this template give me the best dps.
but many peopel dont like to "think" anymore.
a exampel :
if i need a bleeding effect for my dps combo but a clerik takes care and heals it again and again then i need to know why i haven't done any DPS. but nowadays only 3/10 people know why the combo has faild. the other 7 are just wondering why that doesn't do so much dps and think that the build is just stupid.

yea yea .. I hope AOC doesn't get a brainless pvp system

akabear

I would have to go back and read on this one to see if correct, but my understanding is that the predominate race influences the node generation. If there is more weighting made to the attributes associated with each race potentially creating differential preferences then there would likely be a shift in race selection and perhaps there might be less nodal development of racial types.

I would like to see some differences but very minor so as to get a good amount of variation to nodal development.

bloodprophet

Race will effect node advancement architecture. I think as long as the differences are not so OP in one way or another it will be ok. Plus some people just won't care and roll what they think looks best. Patsold wants to roll Dwarf regardless and I will like 99% sure roll Tulnar.

akabear

bloodprophet wrote: »

Plus some people just won't care and roll what they think looks best. .

Yep, that is me.. (so long as the weighting is not too great )... or perhaps what looks best from the choices at hand..

unknownsystemerror

It should have heft and girth.

Enigmatic Sage

interesting video and discussion.

In my perspective, there will always be those players who will look for the meta and cookie cutter builds because that's their play style even if it has a miniscule advantage in some way. Other players may decide to pick their race and class based off aesthetics, lore and immersion for fantasy.

melee example

in my opinion, if sub race A1 has that higher strength than their counterpart of A2's increased stamina as an example, is it going to cater more to their specific play style or build via the skill tree etc.

Race should matter because maybe A1 wants to have that increased strength for weapon/damage as an example regardless of archetype choices. With there being so many options for different classes and changes to how that archetype performs, the sub races may excel in minor ways in the different play styles and archetypes.

By this I refer to fighter/fighter vs fighter/tank vs fighter/rogue etc. Each sub race could have their advantages in different parts of each build and play style (which creates a lot of depth when choosing a archetype and race!)
will those advantages and disadvantages be drastically significant? More than likely not. But, there is potential for some meta gaming opportunity.

IIRC their goal was to base the class balance around larger scale combat and group play vs a 1vs1 style as there is no such thing as true/perfect balance in MMORPG's. (people need to get that illusion out of their head that perfect balance exists in video games like mmorpgs)

Who knows, maybe the players decision to play something completely off meta might be the clutch build that saves the day from time to time because of it's unique choices for its class.

In terms of religion from the video, I believe the divine nodes and the religious choices could even affect the racial benefit further for different classes. If A1 strength was chosen for a class that is not meant to use strength as much except perhaps for heavier armour efficiency and some melee, but a religion may boost specific qualities to boost their non strength abilities of the class and archetype, then that could be an additional variable as well.

This is pure speculation with not knowing anything of divine nodes and religions yet, so I may just be over imaginative. But they mentioned religions could be worth looking in to.

Maybe not all the abilities for your classes choices require strength, but your utility and purpose comes from supporting by debuffing and you want better mobility for say a bard class. (again, just speculating on stats and racials)

It's a good think they didn't go too linear with archetypes and classes. Adds a lot of flavour in a different ways when deciding what one wants to play as.

Great discussion suggestion!

Patsold

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

interesting video and discussion.

In my perspective, there will always be those players who will look for the meta and cookie cutter builds because that's their play style even if it has a miniscule advantage in some way. Other players may decide to pick their race and class based off aesthetics, lore and immersion for fantasy.

melee example

in my opinion, if sub race A1 has that higher strength than their counterpart of A2's increased stamina as an example, is it going to cater more to their specific play style or build via the skill tree etc.

Race should matter because maybe A1 wants to have that increased strength for weapon/damage as an example regardless of archetype choices. With there being so many options for different classes and changes to how that archetype performs, the sub races may excel in minor ways in the different play styles and archetypes.

By this I refer to fighter/fighter vs fighter/tank vs fighter/rogue etc. Each sub race could have their advantages in different parts of each build and play style (which creates a lot of depth when choosing a archetype and race!)
will those advantages and disadvantages be drastically significant? More than likely not. But, there is potential for some meta gaming opportunity.

IIRC their goal was to base the class balance around larger scale combat and group play vs a 1vs1 style as there is no such thing as true/perfect balance in MMORPG's. (people need to get that illusion out of their head that perfect balance exists in video games like mmorpgs)

Who knows, maybe the players decision to play something completely off meta might be the clutch build that saves the day from time to time because of it's unique choices for its class.

In terms of religion from the video, I believe the divine nodes and the religious choices could even affect the racial benefit further for different classes. If A1 strength was chosen for a class that is not meant to use strength as much except perhaps for heavier armour efficiency and some melee, but a religion may boost specific qualities to boost their non strength abilities of the class and archetype, then that could be an additional variable as well.

This is pure speculation with not knowing anything of divine nodes and religions yet, so I may just be over imaginative. But they mentioned religions could be worth looking in to.

Maybe not all the abilities for your classes choices require strength, but your utility and purpose comes from supporting by debuffing and you want better mobility for say a bard class. (again, just speculating on stats and racials)

It's a good think they didn't go too linear with archetypes and classes. Adds a lot of flavour in a different ways when deciding what one wants to play as.

Great discussion suggestion!

I agree with you in all points. Now we just have to know what exactly these race bonuses are. Skills? Attributes bonuse? We'll have to be patient first. But I generally find the attributes bonuse bad. a dwarf can do everything what a elf can ,only worse, and that is unfair.

Enigmatic Sage

Patsold wrote: »

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

interesting video and discussion.

In my perspective, there will always be those players who will look for the meta and cookie cutter builds because that's their play style even if it has a miniscule advantage in some way. Other players may decide to pick their race and class based off aesthetics, lore and immersion for fantasy.

melee example

in my opinion, if sub race A1 has that higher strength than their counterpart of A2's increased stamina as an example, is it going to cater more to their specific play style or build via the skill tree etc.

Race should matter because maybe A1 wants to have that increased strength for weapon/damage as an example regardless of archetype choices. With there being so many options for different classes and changes to how that archetype performs, the sub races may excel in minor ways in the different play styles and archetypes.

By this I refer to fighter/fighter vs fighter/tank vs fighter/rogue etc. Each sub race could have their advantages in different parts of each build and play style (which creates a lot of depth when choosing a archetype and race!)
will those advantages and disadvantages be drastically significant? More than likely not. But, there is potential for some meta gaming opportunity.

IIRC their goal was to base the class balance around larger scale combat and group play vs a 1vs1 style as there is no such thing as true/perfect balance in MMORPG's. (people need to get that illusion out of their head that perfect balance exists in video games like mmorpgs)

Who knows, maybe the players decision to play something completely off meta might be the clutch build that saves the day from time to time because of it's unique choices for its class.

In terms of religion from the video, I believe the divine nodes and the religious choices could even affect the racial benefit further for different classes. If A1 strength was chosen for a class that is not meant to use strength as much except perhaps for heavier armour efficiency and some melee, but a religion may boost specific qualities to boost their non strength abilities of the class and archetype, then that could be an additional variable as well.

This is pure speculation with not knowing anything of divine nodes and religions yet, so I may just be over imaginative. But they mentioned religions could be worth looking in to.

Maybe not all the abilities for your classes choices require strength, but your utility and purpose comes from supporting by debuffing and you want better mobility for say a bard class. (again, just speculating on stats and racials)

It's a good think they didn't go too linear with archetypes and classes. Adds a lot of flavour in a different ways when deciding what one wants to play as.

Great discussion suggestion!

I agree with you in all points. Now we just have to know what exactly these race bonuses are. Skills? Attributes bonuse? We'll have to be patient first. But I generally find the attributes bonuse bad. a dwarf can do everything what a elf can ,only worse, and that is unfair.

very good point!

im assuming you're referring to a racial abilities versus racial attributes/stats?
many games get their inspiration from DnD mechanics. More specifically, banes and boons. (permanent buffs and debuffs at character creation)

In order to gain something selectively specialized to your race, you have to sacrifice something of situational potential value.

IE specific weapon/magic type increase by X% but it costs you resistances/defence by Y%

EDIT:

maybe they're adding in a mechanic like this with religion and faith by having some penalties for switching faith and choices in late game versus character creation.

This could make deciding node types to develop much more indepth

Patsold

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

Patsold wrote: »

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

interesting video and discussion.

In my perspective, there will always be those players who will look for the meta and cookie cutter builds because that's their play style even if it has a miniscule advantage in some way. Other players may decide to pick their race and class based off aesthetics, lore and immersion for fantasy.

melee example

in my opinion, if sub race A1 has that higher strength than their counterpart of A2's increased stamina as an example, is it going to cater more to their specific play style or build via the skill tree etc.

Race should matter because maybe A1 wants to have that increased strength for weapon/damage as an example regardless of archetype choices. With there being so many options for different classes and changes to how that archetype performs, the sub races may excel in minor ways in the different play styles and archetypes.

By this I refer to fighter/fighter vs fighter/tank vs fighter/rogue etc. Each sub race could have their advantages in different parts of each build and play style (which creates a lot of depth when choosing a archetype and race!)
will those advantages and disadvantages be drastically significant? More than likely not. But, there is potential for some meta gaming opportunity.

IIRC their goal was to base the class balance around larger scale combat and group play vs a 1vs1 style as there is no such thing as true/perfect balance in MMORPG's. (people need to get that illusion out of their head that perfect balance exists in video games like mmorpgs)

Who knows, maybe the players decision to play something completely off meta might be the clutch build that saves the day from time to time because of it's unique choices for its class.

In terms of religion from the video, I believe the divine nodes and the religious choices could even affect the racial benefit further for different classes. If A1 strength was chosen for a class that is not meant to use strength as much except perhaps for heavier armour efficiency and some melee, but a religion may boost specific qualities to boost their non strength abilities of the class and archetype, then that could be an additional variable as well.

This is pure speculation with not knowing anything of divine nodes and religions yet, so I may just be over imaginative. But they mentioned religions could be worth looking in to.

Maybe not all the abilities for your classes choices require strength, but your utility and purpose comes from supporting by debuffing and you want better mobility for say a bard class. (again, just speculating on stats and racials)

It's a good think they didn't go too linear with archetypes and classes. Adds a lot of flavour in a different ways when deciding what one wants to play as.

Great discussion suggestion!

I agree with you in all points. Now we just have to know what exactly these race bonuses are. Skills? Attributes bonuse? We'll have to be patient first. But I generally find the attributes bonuse bad. a dwarf can do everything what a elf can ,only worse, and that is unfair.

very good point!

im assuming you're referring to a racial abilities versus racial attributes/stats?
many games get their inspiration from DnD mechanics. More specifically, banes and boons. (permanent buffs and debuffs at character creation)

In order to gain something selectively specialized to your race, you have to sacrifice something of situational potential value.

IE specific weapon/magic type increase by X% but it costs you resistances/defence by Y%

EDIT:

maybe they're adding in a mechanic like this with religion and faith by having some penalties for switching faith and choices in late game versus character creation.

This could make deciding node types to develop much more indepth

Maby every Sub race have a Magic / physically part of " buff".

nice idea , maby they do it

Enigmatic Sage

Patsold wrote: »

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

Patsold wrote: »

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

interesting video and discussion.

In my perspective, there will always be those players who will look for the meta and cookie cutter builds because that's their play style even if it has a miniscule advantage in some way. Other players may decide to pick their race and class based off aesthetics, lore and immersion for fantasy.

melee example

in my opinion, if sub race A1 has that higher strength than their counterpart of A2's increased stamina as an example, is it going to cater more to their specific play style or build via the skill tree etc.

Race should matter because maybe A1 wants to have that increased strength for weapon/damage as an example regardless of archetype choices. With there being so many options for different classes and changes to how that archetype performs, the sub races may excel in minor ways in the different play styles and archetypes.

By this I refer to fighter/fighter vs fighter/tank vs fighter/rogue etc. Each sub race could have their advantages in different parts of each build and play style (which creates a lot of depth when choosing a archetype and race!)
will those advantages and disadvantages be drastically significant? More than likely not. But, there is potential for some meta gaming opportunity.

IIRC their goal was to base the class balance around larger scale combat and group play vs a 1vs1 style as there is no such thing as true/perfect balance in MMORPG's. (people need to get that illusion out of their head that perfect balance exists in video games like mmorpgs)

Who knows, maybe the players decision to play something completely off meta might be the clutch build that saves the day from time to time because of it's unique choices for its class.

In terms of religion from the video, I believe the divine nodes and the religious choices could even affect the racial benefit further for different classes. If A1 strength was chosen for a class that is not meant to use strength as much except perhaps for heavier armour efficiency and some melee, but a religion may boost specific qualities to boost their non strength abilities of the class and archetype, then that could be an additional variable as well.

This is pure speculation with not knowing anything of divine nodes and religions yet, so I may just be over imaginative. But they mentioned religions could be worth looking in to.

Maybe not all the abilities for your classes choices require strength, but your utility and purpose comes from supporting by debuffing and you want better mobility for say a bard class. (again, just speculating on stats and racials)

It's a good think they didn't go too linear with archetypes and classes. Adds a lot of flavour in a different ways when deciding what one wants to play as.

Great discussion suggestion!

I agree with you in all points. Now we just have to know what exactly these race bonuses are. Skills? Attributes bonuse? We'll have to be patient first. But I generally find the attributes bonuse bad. a dwarf can do everything what a elf can ,only worse, and that is unfair.

very good point!

im assuming you're referring to a racial abilities versus racial attributes/stats?
many games get their inspiration from DnD mechanics. More specifically, banes and boons. (permanent buffs and debuffs at character creation)

In order to gain something selectively specialized to your race, you have to sacrifice something of situational potential value.

IE specific weapon/magic type increase by X% but it costs you resistances/defence by Y%

EDIT:

maybe they're adding in a mechanic like this with religion and faith by having some penalties for switching faith and choices in late game versus character creation.

This could make deciding node types to develop much more indepth

Maby every Sub race have a Magic / physically part of " buff".

nice idea , maby they do it

reading the religious benefits now of having temples in divine nodes village +

currently according to their wiki, you can acquire unique augments, stats, abilities, recipes, titles, quests etc depending on your level of faith from said temples during events and sieges!

so that's an interesting variable.
Maybe there will be some sort of bane and boon system in relation to religion outside of those controlled variables (events/sieges).
very interesting.

Guess we will have to see how race and class selection tie in to this late game mechanic.

DesyncGaming

Worst part of WoW classic for me was every Mage being the exact same and people legit getting upset that i rolled as the race/character i wanted instead on min/maxing

Enigmatic Sage

DesyncGaming wrote: »

Worst part of WoW classic for me was every Mage being the exact same and people legit getting upset that i rolled as the race/character i wanted instead on min/maxing

ah, the elitist meta gaming experience where if you dont play the same way as the pro's or websites tell you, you're just bad and the list of insults continue from toxicity... lol

Patsold

dont forget ,if you want to join a grp and its full of meta gamers.
If you have the "fals" race and class combo they instant kiks you

Enigmatic Sage

Patsold wrote: »

dont forget ,if you want to join a grp and its full of meta gamers.
If you have the "fals" race and class combo they instant kiks you

what is a "fals" race? nothing is coming to mind at the moment

Patsold

The" wrong" race, sry for my english

Enigmatic Sage

Patsold wrote: »

The" wrong" race, sry for my english

no worries! I thought it was a reference to some specific game design.
I was like.. nope, dont recall that one.. lol

Jahlon

I just want to toss out here I'm really happy with everyone's ability to have a productive conversation that hasn't resulted in name calling or derogatory statements. Well done community!

unknownsystemerror

Jahlon wrote: »

I just want to toss out here I'm really happy with everyone's ability to have a productive conversation that hasn't resulted in name calling or derogatory statements. Well done community!

Jahlon's a chode!

Rhuric

I think every race and class should be viable but that certain races or sub races should excel in one area or another. I wouldn't want the advantage to be game breaking but noticeable within reason.