Racial augments/abilities vs backgrounds

Hello guys, I would like to hear your thoughts regarding racial augments/abilities vs backgrounds.
Personally i prefer races to affect gameplay and classes and artisan system impactfuly and even affect stat growth as was the old vision of Steven even tie certain classes to certain races and I believe this won’t be a problem in a game like ashes rather it would add more flavor, immersion and character to it,let me elaborate my view.
1)rpg elements missing from modern mmos.

Most modern mmorpgs if not all are just mmos with very few rpg elements. They tend to homogenize everything and turn the games to a min/maxing fest. You can quickly reroll to anything, no risk vs reward,easy level up easy to digest taste everything quickly get bored and move on to another game.
I was captured from the very beginning by the vision Steven has to bring back all the rpg elements that were missing from modern mmos like risk vs reward, gravity of choice, meaningful socializing and cooperation and immersion. Now in this view the race to be playing a crucial role to your character makes perfect sense.
2)homogenization vs identity

Most if not all ppl in this community I believe want back identity to our mmos. Modern mmos have an approach to satisfy everyone and give the fast and easy dopamine releases which is a recipe always doomed to fail long term and results in games without identity and homogenization everywhere, everyone can do everything.This approach may bring quickly big influx of players but they will leave equally fast, it will never create a long lasting game.Example? Wow: big numbers for 2-3 months after expansion release then big decline until the next expansion. Old mmorpgs weren’t like that. games like lineage2, EverQuest, classic wow etc. had a dedicated community/
player base. Steven stayed true to his original view but this change from class augments to backgrounds, to me is the first discount to his original view, the first step in the wrong direction.
3)why racial augments will work in ashes vs why they don’t work in modern mmos.

Modern mmos as stated above try to satisfy everyone which results in fragmented and disconnected games. Example? Wow: ur an arena guy or an rbg guy or a raider or a mythic+ guy or a gold farmer. U can absolutely play wow and do nothing but arena or nothing but mythic+. In such an environment ppl try to min/max basically just their dps for their content of choice hence race becomes just another min/max factor. They event made Taurens to be able to play as rogues.. I mean come on this doesn’t make any sense lorewise, it looks stupid and it is just a desperate attempt to satisfy the 0.0001% of ppl who wanted for some reason to play as Tauren rogue.. In ashes I believe and hope the developers are trying to create a whole game not a fragmented one. A pvx game. Everyone has to participate in most systems of the game if they want to be successful be it dungeons, raids, caravans, trading, professions, sieges or whatever else. In this environment there is no problem if a certain race-class combo excels at a certain activity because they won’t excel in all of them. Example a dwarf fighter is better at big scale pvp but an orc fighter is better at small scale pvp, or a dwarf weapon smith excels at axe crafting but an elven weapon smith excels at sword crafting. They could even create a racial skill tree! I miss the old days of lineage2 that an elf mage was different from a human mage or that if you wanted to make gold you created a dwarf. There is so much more games can do with races rather than being a cosmetic thing. Maybe Im in need of an elf to accompany me in this particular adventure because of its particular skills but in a different adventure I may be in need of a dwarf or a miner because a big mine blocks my way to the boss that requires an expert to deal with it or a mage to bring light with a magical orb of his in a pitch black dungeon room. This is RPG for me.

To my eyes 3 things should define my character’s identity in an mmoRPG. Class, race and professions and I want all of them to be equally important. I don’t want to be just a warrior that appears as a dwarf and as a hobby mines stones. I want to be a proud dwarven warrior that the time spent in the mountains has hardened my skin and grew my connection to stones and minerals! Now if this is too much development time that I’m in no position to judge maybe start small and expand it later.

Best wishes to all of you, can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

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Comments

Pendragxn

I’m not a fan of racial perks it creates meta builds based on race and class which actually takes away from diversity plus freedom. I don’t want to have to play a specific race to be a good warrior or mage, and I just want to play the race I like without being handicapped. I also think racial perks create an imbalance in PvP plus combat situations again by leaning toward or into meta-builds.

I’m okay with races having non-combat perks for life skills, artisans or lore related content but when it effects combat it’s a big no from me.

Phoenix77

Pendragon, I don’t know if u read my whole post but I mention that a dwarf warrior may be better for big scale pvp but an orc warrior could be better in small scale. In that way the game is not forcing you to be an orc if you want to play a warrior, rather if u play an orc warrior u will excel in a certain activity. The game is created in a way that u have to participate in most activities thus no imbalance is created.

Githal

Which of the 2 do you think will result in each race having more equal players count?
If there is no racial augments, players will choose race based on visuals. So in short you will get elves and dwarfs. The rest of the races will have 3-4 times less players.

If there are racial augments: then the obvious result is that you will have split of race x class combos that work best. So you will probably have good diversity of races, but at the same time most X races will be of Y class.

Pendragxn

Phoenix77 wrote: »

Pendragon, I don’t know if u read my whole post but I mention that a dwarf warrior may be better for big scale pvp but an orc warrior could be better in small scale. In that way the game is not forcing you to be an orc if you want to play a warrior, rather if u play an orc warrior u will excel in a certain activity. The game is created in a way that u have to participate in most activities thus no imbalance is created.

It’s the same thing really any racial perks that effects PvP or combat regardless or how it functions should not be in the game. I don’t like how WOW does it there are some massive imbalances and you feel forced to pick a race to play a certain class if you want to be competitive.

I think by having non-combat perks based on life skills, artisans and lore related content alone would promote people to play other races anyway.

Phoenix77

Githal the second option is far superior to me and more immersive. I mean who would want to play a ren Kai and be a mage rather than warrior??maybe 0.000001%

Githal

Pendragxn wrote: »

Phoenix77 wrote: »

Pendragon, I don’t know if u read my whole post but I mention that a dwarf warrior may be better for big scale pvp but an orc warrior could be better in small scale. In that way the game is not forcing you to be an orc if you want to play a warrior, rather if u play an orc warrior u will excel in a certain activity. The game is created in a way that u have to participate in most activities thus no imbalance is created.

It’s the same thing really any racial perks that effects PvP or combat regardless or how it functions should not be in the game. I don’t like how WOW does it there are some massive imbalances and you feel forced to pick a race to play a certain class if you want to be competitive.

I think by having non-combat perks based on life skills, artisans and lore related content alone would promote people to play other races anyway.

This is not really what this discussion should focus on tho. Weather you have race augments, or backgrounds. It matters little to the gameplay aspect. Since backgrounds will work same as augments, just each race will have access to any of the background skills.
But in the end of the day, probably wont be much different if you want to change Race, or if you want to change background. The only difference is that in first scenario you will have to change the visuals also.

Pendragxn

Phoenix77 wrote: »

Githal the second option is far superior to me and more immersive. I mean who would want to play a ten Kai and be a mage rather than warrior??maybe 0.000001%

That’s not the point it’s limiting freedom
and choice who’s to say what race can be a good warrior or mage. Again I think you would be limiting diversity by having racial perks especially from an RPG standpoint it makes little sense it’s just creating imbalance plus false barriers.

Githal

Pendragxn wrote: »

Phoenix77 wrote: »

Githal the second option is far superior to me and more immersive. I mean who would want to play a ten Kai and be a mage rather than warrior??maybe 0.000001%

That’s not the point it’s limiting freedom
and choice who’s to say what race can be a good warrior or mage. Again I think you would be limiting diversity by having racial perks especially from an RPG standpoint it makes little sense it’s just creating imbalance plus false barriers.

true, but without it, you will get 2 races that will fill 80% of the population. And the rest of the races will be really unpopular

Githal

Another thing is that its easier to know what to expect if there are racials. Since you know for example Dwarf in wow have removal of bleeds.
But in the Backgrounds option. You wont have any idea what background the enemy chose.
But again this can have pros and cons from both sides.

Pendragxn

Githal wrote: »

true, but without it, you will get 2 races that will fill 80% of the population. And the rest of the races will be really unpopular

I don’t think you will if you give racial perks based on life skills, artisans and professions people will play other races for those. Also people are limited on how many professions you can master so that promotes the other races benefits without unbalancing combat.

I don’t really think it makes sense to have combat racial perks just so you know what the other persons character does. Half the time if there’s enough build as well as class diversity in the game you won’t know what you’re going up against. Especially if they have the weapon progression system plus augments to class skills those are more important things to learn.

I stand by my point by having racial perks that impact combat it creates imbalance and takes away from diversity as well as freedom. I don’t want to play a race just to be competitive in one area I want to be flexible and be able to enjoy the game without any handicapping.

Githal

Pendragxn wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

true, but without it, you will get 2 races that will fill 80% of the population. And the rest of the races will be really unpopular

I don’t think you will if you give racial perks based on life skills, artisans and professions people will play other races for those. Also people are limited on how many professions you can master so that promotes the other races benefits without unbalancing combat.

I don’t really think it makes sense to have combat racial perks just so you know what the other persons character does. Half the time if there’s enough build as well as class diversity in the game you won’t know what you’re going up against. Especially if they have the weapon progression system plus augments to class skills those are more important things to learn.

I stand by my point by having racial perks that impact combat it creates imbalance and takes away from diversity as well as freedom. I don’t want to play a race just to be competitive in one area I want to be flexible and be able to enjoy the game without any handicapping.

Weapon is visible. So you know which weapon the enemy is. The Class is main class + sub class. So when you see Battle Mage you know its mage + fighter. What i mean is you get the wrong impression. There will be Tons of players who will know every single spell of all the 64 classes in the game + all weapon skills.
But the difference with backgrounds is that they need to be visible in some way so the enemy knows what you chose. Else you will learn what he chose after he use it. Tho as i said this may not be that bad of a thing. Having some Joker card can even make the gameplay more interesting in some cases.

Pendragxn

Githal wrote: »

Weapon is visible. So you know which weapon the enemy is. The Class is main class + sub class. So when you see Battle Mage you know its mage + fighter. What i mean is you get the wrong impression. There will be Tons of players who will know every single spell of all the 64 classes in the game + all weapon skills.
But the difference with backgrounds is that they need to be visible in some way so the enemy knows what you chose. Else you will learn what he chose after he use it. Tho as i said this may not be that bad of a thing. Having some Joker card can even make the gameplay more interesting in some cases.

Even if you can see the weapon visibly doesn’t mean anything as based on augments alone not every class will play the same. I’m not going to know all the different perks that person chose in his specific build of that type of class. I’m assuming there will be different ways to spec your class and augment different abilities changing the play-style of that character.

If there’s no difference in the races background in terms of combat perks you don’t need to know what they chose because there’s nothing there to see. This is what I’m trying to say to level the playing field making things fair without any imbalances. It just doesn’t make sense to have combat perks based on race in a competitive game. You already have the rock, paper and scissors counters why add more things that will impact diversity plus freedom of choice.

Look at it this way before I even start playing the game you’ve already put limitations on me by introducing combat related racial perks. This means you’re already limiting my choice not only in an MMO but from an RPG perspective too. It kind of feels like to me you just want a cheat sheet for racial counters in the game which doesn’t make much sense. Again I don’t like the WOW system I think it’s broken and outdated plus I wouldn’t consider wow a good PvX game or even a good PvP game by modern standards.

I’ll give another example it might not be the best but take lord of the rings for instance is Gimili the Dwarf who used an axe any less of a warrior than Legolas the Elf who uses a bow and daggers. The answer to that is no they can both fight well at close range however Legolas has a bow so he can kill target from further range or use multiple arrows at once. What I’m saying is there is no difference in their ability to fight from close range only that of weapon choice. Hence again this is where we look at the weapon progression system and class/skill augments having the option plus choice or freedom to decide on your race as well as how your character should be built without pre-defined alterations.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_benefits

Character benefits in Ashes of Creation are tied to that character's background rather than their race.[1][2]

We want players to have the freedom to choose the race they want to play because they're excited about it, and avoid situations where players feel forced to play a specific race because of gameplay benefits.[3]
Races are not gender or class locked.[4][5]
Race likely won't affect the artisan system.[2][6]
Race does not affect a character's base stats.[7]

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_augments

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