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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Should mount abilities be impacted by character size?
tautau
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Riding mounts across the world, through the oceans and (perhaps) in the air are fun things to do. But I am wondering, should mounts be impacted by character size? After all, in the 'real world' a 400-pound fellow cannot ride a little pony.
So, my question is this; If someone chooses to make their character one of the larger races or a large, muscle bound and heavy toon, shouldn't that increased weight slow their mounts somewhat? Conversely, if we build a petite toon and/or choose a race which weighs less, shouldn't that make our mounts a bit faster? Not a lot, but an elf on a horse might run at 102 speed, a human at 100, an orc at 98.
Maybe there would be some animals which would refuse to let a Tulnar ride them.
Sure, speed spells ought to still help, as would levelling the animal up, giving it a better saddle and training its movement and strength related skills. But a 250-pound orc warrior ought not to ride the same horse as fast as a 100-pound elf maiden. The same would go, it seems to me, for flying and swimming mounts. Perhaps a little elf could train a dragonfly to carry him, but the same dragonfly would never get a Conan lookalike off the ground. The same with riding a dolphin, smaller loads allow it to swim faster and there might be an absolute limit on its capacity....potentially including carried items.
The downside of this would obviously be increased complexity. Some players would be frustrated that their choices came with trade-offs. It might make some races slightly less attractive to play. It would make cavalry tactics more complex.
Is there an upside at all? A few odd players, like myself, might like the increased complexity and realism (I know realism in a fantasy game is an oxymoron). The genetics of breeding tamed animals would become more important, if you can breed warhorses for orcs you can sell them for a lot, for example. If you choose to play a small, fast race (like an elf), your lower strength is mitigated. We already have this in-game with lower strength often offset by higher dexterity, speed and other stats, so this is arguably a natural extension of existing game mechanics.
It seems reasonable to see elves flying on dragonflies, but not orcs doing so.
So, my question is this; If someone chooses to make their character one of the larger races or a large, muscle bound and heavy toon, shouldn't that increased weight slow their mounts somewhat? Conversely, if we build a petite toon and/or choose a race which weighs less, shouldn't that make our mounts a bit faster? Not a lot, but an elf on a horse might run at 102 speed, a human at 100, an orc at 98.
Maybe there would be some animals which would refuse to let a Tulnar ride them.
Sure, speed spells ought to still help, as would levelling the animal up, giving it a better saddle and training its movement and strength related skills. But a 250-pound orc warrior ought not to ride the same horse as fast as a 100-pound elf maiden. The same would go, it seems to me, for flying and swimming mounts. Perhaps a little elf could train a dragonfly to carry him, but the same dragonfly would never get a Conan lookalike off the ground. The same with riding a dolphin, smaller loads allow it to swim faster and there might be an absolute limit on its capacity....potentially including carried items.
The downside of this would obviously be increased complexity. Some players would be frustrated that their choices came with trade-offs. It might make some races slightly less attractive to play. It would make cavalry tactics more complex.
Is there an upside at all? A few odd players, like myself, might like the increased complexity and realism (I know realism in a fantasy game is an oxymoron). The genetics of breeding tamed animals would become more important, if you can breed warhorses for orcs you can sell them for a lot, for example. If you choose to play a small, fast race (like an elf), your lower strength is mitigated. We already have this in-game with lower strength often offset by higher dexterity, speed and other stats, so this is arguably a natural extension of existing game mechanics.
It seems reasonable to see elves flying on dragonflies, but not orcs doing so.
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Comments
Any choice of this type leads to some of the most annoying min-maxing in the game, because there is no obvious benefit offered the other way.
And if there was, it wouldn't prevent that, only change the way players perceive the meaning of things. It's bad for game design. Your choices should matter, but only in situations where they are choices you expected to matter, and MMOs do not generally have 'your weight' matter explicitly to your mount's speed, for the exact reasons of 'it leading to min-maxing in ways that obstruct an experience'.
"For every bonus, there must be an equal/comparable/opposite bonus."
While the above is subjective, not paying attention to it fails because as soon as the min-maxing happens on a large scale, the immersion one gains from doing it then vanishes.
No thanks, let size be cosmetic only.
I have never seen size balanced around well.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I’d rather have in depth content for crafters to make saddles and saddlebags with higher carrying capacity.
Imagine this: Race A has a 5% better ability than all others. All the min-maxing players will, as soon as they find out, make a new character with that race. Because that's what they do.
Then Intrepid re-balances the races, and maybe Race A is on the bottom. The uproar will be massive. A system that gives races actual bonuses is a sure-fire way to ensure the game will be dominated by the meta race. All towns will have their aesthetic, and everyone not playing the meta race will have a harder time finding people to play with.
Race is cosmetic. Leave it alone.
Just remember that’s not really true. Races will give you augments that will grant you actual benefits. They’re not just cosmetic.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_augments
In keeping with our theme of Consequence, and unlike other games, race won’t just be a matter of look, with relatively inconsequential abilities tacked on. Instead they integrate deeply into our class system, augmenting and changing the basic chassis provided by our eight core archetypes. Our goal here is to create a system where an elven fighter feels different, but serves the same role as a dwarven fighter.
Right, didn't know this. And to be honest, it is the first thing about Ashes that I don't agree with. At all.
It's a horrible idea!
Imagine this: Race A has +2 STR. Race B has +2 DEX (examples)
A race A warrior will ALWAYS be better than a race B warrior. (As long as they have the same items)
Why?
That being said, at the very least, you can see those bonuses when you make your character. So if you want a warrior, you might pick Race A.
However, having an in-game system that depends on this (mount speed) is still a really bad idea. Players don't know that is a thing when they make the characters.
Also, to further pummel the post (sorry @tautau ), the fact that someone made a bigger character means that it should be stronger than a thinner character. The orc should have extra STR compared with the elf (about your example with the speed) because they put a slider in character creation a bit more to the right than someone else.
Having a system like this is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of complexity before the game even starts. Making first time players think about "If I slide this from 15 to 20, I'll get +1 STR, but lose 2km/h speed" when they don't even know what the game is about is , in the words of Josh Strife Hayes, "a quit moment"
Add complexity later, when the players know a) what they are doing now and b) what they want to do in the future.
And I get why racial augments are a thing, as a DnD player I really get them. But I don't play DnD to win. Ashes I will play to win (whatever form that takes for me)
I hope they reconsider the racial augments, I really do...
"Each race has different base stats.[5][2]
Races are not gender or class locked.[5][2]
Some classes may work better with certain races but nothing is enforced.[5]
A player's choice of race will influence their racial augments.[2]
You'll have racial augments that are capable of being applied to active skills and those augments are going to be a reflection of the flavor of that specific race. In addition, races will have differing degrees of stats and our game in our class system relies on certain stats to achieve different metrics in the game when it comes to damage, defense, and landing rates and all that kind of stuff.[10] – Steven Sharif"
So, mages will tend towards being races with magic enhancing stats, and tanks will tend to choose races that help them tank the most. But let's not forget the subclass (to use L2 terminology out of habit). You want to be a dwarven wizard, sure! You might be a bit weaker than other dwarven tanks, but you might find some subclass magic which enhances your tanking ability in a weird but special way. Then you might figure out some divine node, religion specific enhancements which, when combined with the high-quality pot roast from your node's tavern and your custom crafted armor, makes your better at tanking frost bosses and water bosses than any tank which is purely strength maxed based.
In other words, we are probably going to be facing a much more complex series of problems than RPG gamers have traditionally faced. The Strength/Dexterity/etc. system which we have learned for decades will only be the first of several levels to master, and those who cannot adapt will not thrive. I predict they will complain about 'game imbalance' and other crap without realizing what is really going on.
It will be as if people who have learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide are being faced with issues which you can only solve with multiple regression. Perhaps we should form the Royal Society of Statisticians!
But....none of this is what I was talking about in my opening post. But I think it is interesting.
Yeah, I'm definitely expecting Nikua rouge builds to be troll meta for a little bit if they give us a remotely good racial augment for it. I personally hope that there are mounts that are better at catching mounts that runaway by knocking people off or something, but they cant match the top speed of runaway mount types or w/e. I want a mount meta.
Would this be an equal but opposite?
Smaller/lighter races could be faster.
Bigger/heavier races could be tougher therefore harder to force dismount.
And have every race/mount size fall on that spectrum somewhere?
I think the problem with that is speed is extremely strong in games as it allows you to both hit when you want to and get away when you want to.
Yes, you could make the larger character harder to dismount but in a defensive situation, that is only an advantage if they are fighting back else it's delaying the inevitable. If the roles are switched, there is no advantage and they now can't even catch the smaller race.
The imbalance is also more apparent if they are outnumbered, the faster player is able to get away where the slower, tankier player is going to be overwhelmed.