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Racial augments/perks and classes

Phoenix77Phoenix77 Member
in General Discussion
Hello guys, would you prefer races to have augments/ perks or just be a cosmetic thing and why? Also how do you feel about certain archetypes/classes being locked with certain races? I’ve made a different post with similar title explaining my view in detail but I just want to hear what’s the general opinion.

Comments

  • GrilledCheeseMojitoGrilledCheeseMojito Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Classes being locked to races is really dumb. Being a tiny Tarutaru in Final Fantasy XI while also being the tank of the team and able to mitigate tremendous damage is amazing, and cutting that off just makes your game look weak. Every lock of a class on an attribute that players choose for identity (looking at you, BDO) is dumb.

    I think determining attribute bonuses/penalties for given races is fine and reasonable, but don't lock any features behind it. If you want to be an Empyrian Tank you should probably get less toughness than a dwarf, but you shouldn't be locked into anything.
    Grilled cheese always tastes better when you eat it together!
  • GrandSerpentGrandSerpent Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I don't think choice of race should have a significant mechanical effect.

    Players who like the lore or aesthetics of a particular race might feel disincentivized to pick them if a different race is better in the meta, or has a unique ability they want.

    I similarly dislike the idea of race-locked archetypes, as this would be a fairly arbitrary restriction on player freedom.
  • SongRuneSongRune Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited October 16
    If you make any kind of perk or augment that is in any way 'meta' for a given class, or even given build, you're limiting player expression unnecessarily.

    I do not want all Rangers to be Empyrean, all tanks to be Dunir, etc, because that's where the stats or buffs are. While my own propensities likely align reasonably well with my preference of races, anything that effectively race-locks a class, whether by hard effect, or even simply by 'meta', will make the game fundamentally worse.

    If you want to create actual in-game (possibly even "justified") racism, and all of the nasty behavior that comes with it, this is the way to do it. People do not like it when you treat them as inferior because of their race. People are killed for this in real life. Do not create systems that result in this in games.
  • BlipBlip Member, Alpha Two
    edited October 16
    Hope its low impact on race perks/ abilatys or tanks will be Dunir and Mages Vek or Elves thats boring AF
  • CaerylCaeryl Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Class restrictions no. Perks and non-combat buffs (even combat buffs imo), yes those should exist. Skin-only races cuts out too much narrative depth in the world.

    It makes no sense to frame these races as unique cultures when there's zero translation of that to the player character.
  • Phoenix77Phoenix77 Member
    edited October 16
    The way I was thinking about it is racial perks should follow the same rock paper scissors concept like archetypes. What I mean by that is that there isn’t a single best race for a particular archetype only better at a specific task. For example, an orc fighter is better on small scale pvp a dwarf is better on large scale pvp an elf is better in single target pve a human is better in aoe pve etc.out of combat racial perks are a no brainer for me
  • SongRuneSongRune Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited October 16
    .
  • SpaceWolfSpaceWolf Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited October 16
    I'm fine with races having minor differences/effects that are a function of their lore. For example, if one race hails from a place with a lot of volcanoes, and another hails from the Frigid Northlands, I think it's fine to give race 1 Fire Resistance and race 2 Frost Resistance.

    Then you get into balancing, tho - what if one of those effects is overall more powerful than the other due to how the game's designed? What if there's almost no sources of Frost damage, but lots of Fire damage?

    FFXI has differences between base stats (nothing too drastic, as I recall) for each race but nothing more complex than that.

    On the other hand, I STRONGLY disagree with the idea of restricting classes based on race. Do not EVER do this, it needlessly limits character expression and player enjoyment. The only possible exception I can think of is like, a Vampire class or a Lycanthrope class or something, wherein you are a vamped or Werebeasted version of a given race.
  • willsummonwillsummon Member, Alpha Two
    edited October 16
    Racial perks should be simple and noticeable, but not game breaking. Such as a minor stat increase, or minor regen.

    I was hoping the Niküa, with their tropical island motif, and sense of freedom and courage, would have a "dance" perk that gives one meter to the distance or diameter of spells, both direct and area of effect. A minor perk, but useful.
  • koltovincekoltovince Member, Settler, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two
    Personally I would hope any racials are small and for identity rather than have any combat impact. Big issue I have with WoW is I have to keep my hunter a dwarf because they die in higher content without the cleanse racial, when cosmetically I want to play something else.
  • nanfoodlenanfoodle Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited October 17
    Race no longer plays into any advantage or hindrance. You now pick backgrounds for your char and that gives you the advantages.

    https://www.ashesofcreation.wiki/Backgrounds
  • LodrigLodrig Member, Alpha Two
    Obvioulsy race locked classes were done away with in nearly all RPG games both pen and paper and computer based decades ago and with the broadness of the archetypes their is really no justification for it.

    I do like the idea of some racial buffs/perks and we kinda have them indirectly still in the game

    The dominant race of a node determines its archetiecture AND can determine the availability of mayor selected buffs which apply to all citizens, that's an indirect racial buff that dosn't get stricktly limited to only members of the race.

    I would also like to see what I call 'Biome attunement'. Basically each biome has a debuff that you suffer upon entering but which naturally goes away after say 8 hours of entering it or upon gaining citizenship to a node of said Biome. This helps give a home turff advantage to the locals. In addition to what ever biome you attune too all members of a Race are automatically and permanently attuned to their home biomes which encourages them to live their.
  • VarganVargan Member, Alpha Two
    edited October 17
    nanfoodle wrote: »
    Race no longer plays into any advantage or hindrance. You now pick backgrounds for your char and that gives you the advantages.

    https://www.ashesofcreation.wiki/Backgrounds

    So glad they chose to do this.
    Too bad, you lose! The correct sequence was blood - blood - blood.
  • IustinusShivaIustinusShiva Member, Alpha Two
    They seem to want races to not be picked for mechanical reasons.
    I hope they keep the augments but make them mostly minor/flavor.
    Remember augments apply to primary skills, they don't add new skills. I'm less worried about the met of dwarven tanks (because that makes sense in this kind of world) I'm more worried about the meta of dwarven mages because an augments offsets a weakness.
    In 5th edition D&D one of the dwarven subraces got proficiency with armour regardless of class. This allowed them to be armoured mages since proficiency was all that was required to cast arcane spells in armour.
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