Racial benefits

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

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McMackMuck

I think the challenge for the devs is to come up with racial benefits and disadvantages that don't lend themselves to a class-race meta. An Elf Tank should be no better than a Human Tank, just different (maybe one benefits from an evasion build, the other benefits from a parry build, for example) and dependent on personal preference. There could be minor differences in the ability to perform in a role but nothing that makes one option clearly better than the other. There are no DPS metrics (a different discussion!), so only empirical testing would indicate the balance or lack thereof.

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...

Hakaiju

Vhaeyne wrote: »

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.

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.

Jamation

Hakaiju wrote: »

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

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.

Hakaiju

Jamation wrote: »

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

Jeetoph

Even if we choose the race to min/max our class now it doesn't mean the meta will not change in the future.
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.

Damokles

Its all about the flavour my dude. They want to bring back the old concept of MMORPGs. That includes the RPG aspect of it.
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.

Damokles

Hakaiju wrote: »

Edit* Please let us change our race from time to time, that would help a lot, thanks ^^

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.

SerChubulas

Speaking to the OP...I feel ya. I had an issue with this a while back and talked to Jahlon about it in Discord. Going so far as to say guilds or raid groups concerned with the meta may ask specifically for the best race for the best class, I think this is inevitable in the current design of the game. Some races are going to be better suited for some classes over others. On that aspect I see eye to eye with you in that I dislike the idea, however Steven has said choices need to matter. Which is why your main archetype is not going to be respecable, only your secondary archetype will be and apparently that may have a cost or quest associated with that. Going along with that idea, I just don't see where you could 'respec' your race to whatever you like. If he isn't going to allow main archetype respec'ing he isnt going to allow race changing. My two cents on this.

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.

insomnia

I don't care for it either. That is one thing i liked about swtor. You could play what race you wanted with what class. Though some was faction locked until you had maxed level the race.
But i'll just wait and see how it works.

sarkado

I just hope the +20 mana pool on elves doesn't make me too op.

Hakaiju

Damokles wrote: »

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.

As i said before, why is it possible to change subclasses, religion or social organisation then? Not being able to change your race is just not consistent with everything else

BigPapa1

Hakaiju wrote: »

As i said before, why is it possible to change subclasses, religion or social organisation then? Not being able to change your race is just not consistent with everything else

It doesn't have to be consistent because they are not the same things.

mcstackerson

Hakaiju wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

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.

As i said before, why is it possible to change subclasses, religion or social organisation then? Not being able to change your race is just not consistent with everything else

I think having your body reconstructed is a little different than switching the organization you are with or the religion you follow.

We still don't know how significant the changes will be.

We know that there are ways to modify your base stats with a profession so the stat differences shouldn't be a big deal later on.

To my knowledge, you can only have one augment per skill so it's unclear how often you will choose a racial augment over an augment from another source. I'd imagine the meta would revolve around class augments with only niche builds making use of race augments. If there ever was a race augment that was a must have meta pick, i'd imagine it would be nerfed.

I'd rather see the differences before assuming the worse. I can't remember the last time i played a game and felt pressured to play a certain race because of its bonuses.

Hakaiju

mcstackerson wrote: »

I'd rather see the differences before assuming the worse. I can't remember the last time i played a game and felt pressured to play a certain race because of its bonuses.

ESO would be the most recent one

Hakaiju

bloodprophet wrote: »

Real question why should everything be the same?

I got convinced by now that those differences are nice, but ill stay thickheaded that there should be the option to change races (I really dont care if its once a day or only once a year).

mcstackerson

Hakaiju wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

I'd rather see the differences before assuming the worse. I can't remember the last time i played a game and felt pressured to play a certain race because of its bonuses.

ESO would be the most recent one

Ok, and that's because you can spec into passives that you always have access to if i remember correctly. Not only that but those passives provide a decent benefit if i remember correctly. To my knowledge, ashes won't have racial passives like ESO. We have augments and stats. Stats that might be able to be changed and augments that will be competing with augments from other sources to be used.

Now do the opposite, tell me the games that you have played that haven't pressured you into a race despite their being differences.

Hakaiju

mcstackerson wrote: »

Now do the opposite, tell me the games that you have played that haven't pressured you into a race despite their being differences.

If there are differences, the pressure to choose the best class is always there. I dont condemn race benefits, if they are balanced I actually see this as an advantage (partly because of the discussion here and on reddit) but with a 200h+ leveling process, I might want to change my race after 1k hours to have some other augments available. Making a new character with the same class just to change race seems really out of place. As i said before, a once in x month possibility to change race is all I'm asking for, not necessarily to go with the flavor of the month, but to try out some new augments and playstyles.

Warth

Hakaiju wrote: »

Warth wrote: »

Choices Should matter. So i'm pro meaningful racial differences and against quick and repeated racial changes.

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 would support that notion fully. Make the differences matter and don't let switch player to whatever FOTM is currently without leveling a new character.
I do understand why they don't go for it..

Khronus

I am definitely against race perks for stats. I would hate to have to be a dwarf because I want to tank and dwarf would gain "X" stat that benefits tanks. This would be trash as all dwarves deserve to be murdered on sight.

mcstackerson

Hakaiju wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Now do the opposite, tell me the games that you have played that haven't pressured you into a race despite their being differences.

If there are differences, the pressure to choose the best class is always there. I dont condemn race benefits, if they are balanced I actually see this as an advantage (partly because of the discussion here and on reddit) but with a 200h+ leveling process, I might want to change my race after 1k hours to have some other augments available. Making a new character with the same class just to change race seems really out of place. As i said before, a once in x month possibility to change race is all I'm asking for, not necessarily to go with the flavor of the month, but to try out some new augments and playstyles.

What if the differences don't effect what's best?

If the best augments come from a combination of augments from other sources then the race doesn't impact performance at the top level.

GW2 has a similar situation where races have different abilities but since it's better to slot the class abilities (in most cases), they don't have an impact on the meta.

I'm against race changes as I feel like it's part of your characters identity which i think is important in RPGs. I would prefer no racial differences if it was ever felt necessary but i also don't think it's hard for them to nerf any augments that become problematic like this.

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