Guild Wars 2

I’m reposting a comment I’d put on a thread regarding the blandness of humans here, because I’d like to have a discussion regarding the impact of a toon’s race in game! Let me know your thoughts – I have some suggestions regarding how ANet could try to make races more meaningful.

I’d love to see the choice of one’s in-game race actually matter, and not just be limited to some crappy race skills ANet was so afraid of disrupting the balance with that no one uses them (due to said crappiness).

To mention a few race ideas gw2 could make use of:

• Norn: Movement buff lasting maybe 5 minutes with a 7 minute cooldown. This would be due to their size (giants), making complete sense for them to move faster than other, significantly smaller races. Increased resistance to knockdowns, etc. Again, they’re giants – it should be harder to cc them. This would have a more significant cd (maybe an hour).
• Human: Increased endurance regeneration. All I can really think of when I think “human” is resiliency, etc. as mentioned in other posts on this thread. It might be cool to give humans increased endurance regen based off of this. Reduced damage received when under a certain health percentage (maybe 10%?). This would have a longer cd once activated, but would tie in to human resiliency again.
• Sylvari: Casting speed buff (I guess similar to quickness) for magical spells/mantras, etc. This would only affect the individual player, and make sense due to the nature of sylvari’s attunement with magic and the Dream. I’m not sure what an appropriate cd on this would be to prevent overbalancing. Health restoration, similar to the mistlock singularity in fractals, but for straight PvE. It would have a 1-2 hr cd as well. Increased gathering speed of plants – speaks for itself.
• Asura: Decreased falling damage – Asura are the smallest of all the races, so I think they should take significantly less damage from falls based off of this size difference and their (assumed) increased agility. Increased crafting speed – based off of asura inventing, etc.
• Charr: Increased combat speed, based off of the charr affinity for war and their military government structure and training. Have to be careful to prevent overbalance, but I think it could be cool to treat it similar to the current “quickness” buff in game. It could have a longer cd on it since it’s racial, and would only affect weapon skills, not utility ones. Increased ore gathering speed. When I think of charr, I think of big, heavy metal weapons, so I think this would also make sense.

I think all of these suggested skills would be a mixture of passive or active powers. Passive would be continuous and uncontrolled by the player (like node gathering), while I think it would be important to add the active skills onto the F1, F2 toolbar and not the utility tool bar. This way, players could still make proper use of builds in game, without having to choose between “Call Owl” ([&BmMwAAA=]) or “Save Yourselves” ([&Bn0jAAA=]).

Oh and one last idea: Maybe a free tele to respective race capitals

ANet doesn’t want metas to include a character’s race. Hence why the racial skills are underwhelming and very very niche when compared to other skills.

And I would hate this in game. My main is an Asura Elementalist. I also have a Human Warrior. I would hate for my Warrior to have higher endurance regen which is useful for Elementalists while my Ele has a very useless to me skill. I RARELY die to falling and never ever use the fall damage reduction traits.

I agree they shouldn’t be part of the meta – but I think there is an inherent problem with, as you said, racial skills being underwhelming. No one can get away with using them in game. Because of that, the races don’t feel very different, and I’d like to see that change, and have more of the character creation decisions matter in game.

I’m just throwing out ideas at the moment and trying to come up with racial abilities that wouldn’t be part of the utility/weapon build and instead already present.

For example, the human god that blessed your character at birth, or the invention your asura was working on – that would be cool to see somehow incorporated into the game, rather than hidden away as a boring and personal story quest you forget about the second you complete it.

Any meaningful mechanic distinction would eventually end up included in build metas. If a racial ability is something that could make you pick one race over the other, it would create the very effect Anet wants to avoid. And if it’s something that wouldn’t influence your decision, it’d be something you would probably consider underwhelming and bland.

You’re probably right regarding a racial ability that would influence quickness, etc. (so some of my suggestions are probably off), but I disagree that a racial perk like gathering herbs/ore or running faster would end up being in the meta. I’ve seen other games make use of passive racial skills like this with no issue.

I agree that there should be more meaning and substance to choosing a race, I have been putting some thought into this as well. Tinkering with racial skills wouldn’t solve the problem, I don’t think. The only thing that could be done is to just outright scrap them from the game and drum up something else entirely. Something that doesn’t provide any sort of advantage to combat and is neither mandatory to equip/wield or use, if you see what I mean. With the use of masteries, perhaps Anet could incorporate unique racial masteries? So, for example..

Norn Mastery = Gain a large sum of mf, gf and exp in Shiverpeak locations.

Charr Mastery = Gain mf, gf and exp in Charr locations (I don’t know what they’re called).

And so on for the other races.

Ok, so that’s a very robust idea, obviously I wouldn’t really like to have it that way but just a feasible idea really.
With the implementation of masteries, I think Anet could definitely tie in some unique racial abilities to them! And hell, that would be awesome!

WP on youtube had a pretty good idea regarding racial skills

First if you are of that race you get all their skills unlocked by default. If not you would have to unlock them perhaps through a mastery or perhaps through hero points.

Second if you are of that race you get all the flavorful elements of those skills when you use them, for example norns with bear form would be able to transform into a bear. If you are not of that race you can use the skills and get the same effects but just not the flavor elements of the skill. There was also precedent for that back in GW1 using the same example even you could get a bear form skill but you did not literally transform into bear form.

In this way the racial skills COULD be impactful and it would not mean the racial skills would be making the race a part of the meta.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

WP on youtube had a pretty good idea regarding racial skills

First if you are of that race you get all their skills unlocked by default. If not you would have to unlock them perhaps through a mastery or perhaps through hero points.

Second if you are of that race you get all the flavorful elements of those skills when you use them, for example norns with bear form would be able to transform into a bear. If you are not of that race you can use the skills and get the same effects but just not the flavor elements of the skill. There was also precedent for that back in GW1 using the same example even you could get a bear form skill but you did not literally transform into bear form.

In this way the racial skills COULD be impactful and it would not mean the racial skills would be making the race a part of the meta.

As long as it was relatively easy for players to obtain them, I’d be fine with that. It just can’t be too hard as to push players to require a certain race in the meta due to needing to prove they have the racial skills. So I’d be fine with hero points being used to unlock it. There are already unused hero points in core Tyria.

No thank you. Tera is that way.

I don’t think putting in such as minor bonuses will hurt, but I don’t think it will help the game either. It’ll feel like another bunch of numbers for number’s sake… just like the WvW server bonuses… doesn’t do anything to reinforce racial/server identity. (I’m talking about the minor map bonuses… the quicker attack/spellcasting/endurance bonuses will be OP)

I personally would have preferred it if they made race (and story choices) more meaningful to the open world… e.g. if you are Asura and were unethical in your personal story choices, you get invited to the otherwise inaccessible Inquest area in Rata Sum where you glimpse some tidbits of their research or Inquest history/politics. Or if you made honorable choices as a Charr, the soldiers in the Black Citadel will salute as you walk past (or sneer at you if you made dishonorable choices).

But that’s something that would need to be incorporated when the game was first released… I don’t hold out any hope of it being added to GW2 now.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

WP on youtube had a pretty good idea regarding racial skills

For anyone interested in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxmQoJeRlYc
(WP’s suggestions start about 6 min in)

When the mmo Neverwinter launched races had pretty meaningful bonuses. Naturally once the meta matured in PvP you had every single high end PvPer rollling halfling alts for 70% of the classes for the racial constitution bonus. Similarly in PvE quite a few people rolled min-max race based alts.

I believe the game has significantly lessened the impact of the racial bonuses at endgame now, but in the first year and a half it was extremely significant…having a min-maxed halfing would often mean much greater survivability in PvP vs an INT focused Drow for example.

Thus, I think racial bonuses and abilities should be for fun rather than for any real purpose.

We see a large variety of races now thanks to not being locked behind traits. With this idea, GW2 would be just meta builds that also includes race.

Instead, we can enjoy the rich lore of them rather than hearing someone go “hahaha you are an engineer on a sylvari? You are supposed to be Charr, gtfo and reroll”.

The most I’d be willing to agree to is something like an extra 10% Magic find and experience gain in your characters home region.

Anything that would give extra damage or healing etc, or make you choose one race over another because it has a better bonus, not because you want to play that particular race, will never get my vote.

There shouldn’t be a reason why a certain profession is better as a certain race.

This sounds like a Morrowind / Skyrim mod I would get bored of in 20 minutes and uninstall

I would like more things unique for each race. But that seems unlikely since now the racial hair styles are just being swapped around.

Racials in open world pve and WvW would be ok. Absolutely not in SPvP, raids or fotm.
Why WvW? it’s jsut a kittenty unbalanced zergfest anyway.

Racial traits could be re-balanced and improved to be slightly less useless. Some are quite a bit stronger than others.

Also, racial skills could be made available at lower levels than profession skills to at least allow players to use them before getting profession skills.

All that having “meaningful” racial skills does is make certain race / profession combos almost mandatory as has happened in many other MMOs that make race have powerful features. One of the biggest ideas of this game is the ability to style your character as you want. With the removal of the “play as you want” mentality, I would not like to also see the “look as you want” mentality nerfed.

No, it would cause imbalance.

Yet another topic my opinion will be ignored because it is not mainstream, anyway:

The racial skills are not as bad as people talk about them. In fact there are very good reasons they are still completely locked away from PvP. They just do not exist in any meta build, thats why people say they are useless. As useless as the shortbow for a ranger ^^.

For example, my first main character is an engineer. I had to completely reroll him once, as I noticed that I have chosen the wrong race. Took me a few weeks back then, but I do not regret it. Why did I do that?
- Prayer to Dwayna is one of the most powerful self-healing skills in the game. The 30 seconds cooldown are OK, compared to the hp you get back. There are more powerful skills with other classes, but for the engineer it is fine. Also suited well into my build. The toolbelt skill is a ground-target area instant heal with a nice range.
- Utility Skills: Prayer of Kormir and Lyssa are basically conidtion removers, which (on toolbelt) are also ground-target area skills.
- Hounds of Balthazar Elite is nice for short dps boost in case motar and elexir/supplies are not efficient enough. Sometimes it is the little extra dps that grants success.

There are many other good examples of racial skills doing an excellent job and provide help beyond the limits of the class-skills. The elite of the sylvari for example, which roots you but grants immortality and spawns turrets is nice as well. Not as powerful as the focus-elite from the guardian, but if you are no guardian it is a nice life-saver.

The norn bear transformation was proven to be highly effective when it comes to tanking extreme damage, when skilled correctly. The asura skills are a bit tricky but the golems are a nice addition for lower levels and the radiation field, depending on your class ofcourse, can be a good addition to your condition-fields.

They are not bad, they are just not meta.

HnRkLnXqZ.1870:

They are not bad, they are just not meta.

They were all toned down to eliminate the possibility of people just picking meta races. However there are some rare niches that certain racial skills help out a ton with, and that’s fine. Like Norns for the most part being able to solo heat room with no rods on any class. So yes they’re not meta, and it’s a big problem if any become meta.

However I agree with the OP that something should be done for the races. So my suggestion is that exclusive areas should be implemented to all the major cities. I know the content would be found and consumed immediately with guides like Dulfy. But I would love it if they added something like that with a medium sized story behind it and didn’t say anything about it in the patch notes. And they by no means need to be equal size and content per city. That’s what plagued personal story and just isn’t how meaningful interactions are done.

The areas could change and progress the hidden story too. So you might miss some parts, but there’s always people like Wooden Potatoes to catch us up. I think something like that would add the cool stuff we want.

I could go along with norn having more stability due to size and weight, but I’d also make them slower, perhaps only in regard to recharge on dodging — due to size and weight. Gain something, lose something, and all that.

I would give asura the casting speed buff, but make them more fragile somehow, and more awkward (that big head overbalancing everything).

I’d make sylvari resistant to being knocked around (some sort of rooting mechanism) but being plants, maybe more susceptible to hot and cold attacks.

Charr I would give better dodging, due to their cat-like aspects, and maybe lesser fall damage, but make them more susceptible to crowd control effects (like, ya know, laser pointers).

Not sure what I’d do with humans. Maybe play up their will power/stubbornness and give them some resistance to mental control effects, or make them more susceptible to physical damage but with better healing. Or maybe just make them the standard baseline, even though that’s kinda boring.

However! Whatever race was least likely to be knocked around would be the class I’d want to play most, because I hate that.

I think the races are already meaningful, albeit in ways not related to combat stats.

To the OP: As others have said, race should be a personal choice and not a dictated meta. With the bonuses you outlined, players would be strongly pressured to pick the most optimal race for class and similarly, they would be shunned from PUGs for choosing non-optimal characters.
Making race matter does not require stat bonuses. It’s good the races are equal.

allias.1420:

…Norn Mastery = Gain a large sum of mf, gf and exp in Shiverpeak locations. …

I think it’s not a bad idea for a mastery to grant extra magic find and such, but restricting it to a character’s “homeland” would lead to a bunch of voluntary segregation and a lot less mixing of racial groups. Nearly every AC run would be a pack of charr. Players may be less likely to do much in non-homeland zones if the payout is much better because of the bonus, too.

MoarChaos.8320:

… exclusive areas should be implemented to all the major cities. … And they by no means need to be equal size and content per city. …

I like the concept, but… implied or actual inequality is a can of worms. Do you not recall the HoT outrage players had over missing smidgeons of dialogue if they didn’t play Sylvari? The zones would have to be equal— as much as the home cities are. Anet cannot show overt racial favoritism. (There is some perceived favoritism, but it’s highly debatable.)

Wooden Potato’s idea of choosing your racial elite skill set keeps everything equal, but giving everyone access to all racial skills loses the racial skills’ exclusivity. It’s not a bad solution and has a lot of merit.

All in all, I think GW2 made the right call keeping the races an aesthetic choice. I hope they’ll keep it that way.

Revenants can’t use racial skills. Keep that in mind when offering suggestions!