Guild Wars 2

How boring is it that races in GW2 are merely cosmetic?

Not only aren’t dialogue and storyline personalized depending on your choices made during character creation (except for that tiny bit of the game until you walk off to fight Zhaitan), but racial skills are also underpowered and therefore never make it into any build (there should be an additional skill slot dedicated exclusively to racial skills), nor do races (for instance) have special abilities that modify stats to add some spice to profession choice.

I say race should matter. It should make a difference in both story and builds. It should not be merely cosmetic, because that only adds to the increase of boredom any game with a lack of variety poses.

(Note: Quantity in content, like constantly adding new maps with new mobs to bash or new items to the Gem Store, doesn’t make up for a lack of quality in story-telling, like having a more personalized story with more options and different paths, racial abilities, and what not.)

I’m sure it is difficult to balance 5 skills exactly, thus avoiding the ‘must take this race for the optimal skill’.

I’d prefer not to have to create and play a Charr (or any other race) because that race has the option for the best build.

Good luck.

GW2 have competetive PvP and WvW, I have no doubt that this would make meta skills for racials. Race isnt supposed to matter. We dont need that.

In PvE theres nothing stopping you from selecting a racial skill anyway.

A single extra slot for a racial skill could be a good answer, as currently they aren’t game changing so it shouldn’t matter as much.

Dawdler.8521:

GW2 have competetive PvP and WvW, I have no doubt that this would make meta skills for racials. Race isnt supposed to matter. We dont need that.

In PvE theres nothing stopping you from selecting a racial skill anyway.

1. This could be deactivated in PvP? (PvP is imbalanced anyway as it is, what with the random way teams are being scrambled together.)
2. In PvE end game, no, you can’t pick racial skills, because underpowered.
3. “We”? Speak for yourself, as I clearly disagree.

None of you has made any argument that makes it more equitable to not have race matter (at least in the story!). On the contrary, it’s like you are defending having less variety, “because”.

I agree – it’s nice to see little nodbacks to personal story every now and then, like what they did with Auric Basin. Pact Medic Ceera and Lieutenant Francis, for example, were excellent callbacks to personal story – making it less a story about a generic cookie cuter, and more a story of a commander who actually has their own resources, their own history and their own opinions (compared to other characters with different backstories).

Yeah, I’ve always thought about how much more immersive the world could be if people interacted with you differently based on your race. Think Skyrim and how some people make unique ‘passing by’ comments based on your race and such.

To extend things further, it would be cool if your personal story was affected by your profession as well. Imagine you’re a Charr elementalist and your story starts off by everyone around you making comments that question your use of magic instead of steel, as would be canon. As you progress, the leaders begin to realise that hey, you aren’t just a weakling and begin to acknowledge you as a hero for your actions rather than your fighting style.

My preference instead would be to beef up the racial skills and open up a way for each race to use all of them. They could even only allow you to use one race’s skillls at a time if balance is an issue.

Ashantara.8731:

special abilities that modify stats to add some spice to profession choice.

NO!!! I hate other MMOs in which I must pick a certain race for the class I like because of the racials! I want to play the race I enjoy aesthetically and I don’t want to worry about racial skills / passives! GW2 is doing it RIGHT.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’d prefer not to have to create and play a Charr (or any other race) because that race has the option for the best build.

^ This 100%.

Race should NOT matter for stats builds, I like my human warr and I’m sure as hell I don’t want to be force to create a cat to have a better warrior build in pve. There is freedom in this game, the freedom to choose whatever race you want without worring that your choice could affect your playstyle with whatever class/builds you want, I’ve seen many players using asura warriors and such a change would bite them surely.

And because you say the game is boring that way doesn’t make it so, many, if not most gw2 players don’t want those differences (the stats/build part at least) and that should be respected as well. About the story being affected by your racer, well that is a different matter and I don’t think many would disagree with you there.

Ashantara.8731:

Dawdler.8521:

GW2 have competetive PvP and WvW, I have no doubt that this would make meta skills for racials. Race isnt supposed to matter. We dont need that.

In PvE theres nothing stopping you from selecting a racial skill anyway.

1. This could be deactivated in PvP? (PvP is imbalanced anyway as it is, what with the random way teams are being scrambled together.)
2. In PvE end game, no, you can’t pick racial skills, because underpowered.
3. “We”? Speak for yourself, as I clearly disagree.

None of you has made any argument that makes it more equitable to not have race matter (at least in the story!). On the contrary, it’s like you are defending having less variety, “because”.

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

Getting a better story has nothing to do with how skills are dealt with. It’s a straw man to pretend like the quality of story telling would improve with a revision of racial skills.

One can happen without the other and having more useful racial skills can just as well disrupt the balance in story telling. Say if people started exploiting some sylvari skill which makes them superior in a scenario where any asura should be superior.

If more immersion is needed, custom story related skills are already available and are getting used more an more.

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

So, you’re saying that story plots that force you to use racial skills will lead to better story lines?

Noooooooo. I don’t think so.
1) the two, good stories and specific skills, aren’t connected
2) I dislike story instances that force me to abandon my regular skills and take certain specific skills, because [reasons]. That’s not good story telling or fun play at all.

What OP said x10000. But I don’t think race should affect builds. It should feel more personal pve wise. It would bolster the RP community a lot.
It felt more personal in Gw1 when you met the norn for the 1st time. It sucks that your faith/school/life quotes have nothing to do with anything whatsoever. Why pick what god blessed you? It doesn’t affect a thing. Why pick your motto as a sylvari? It has no meaning since it doesn’t even tie into anything except that you’re a sylvari.
Like picking spirit of the raven over the others as a norn. You’d think it meant something but it doesn’t & that’s why I don’t play norn, there is nothing exceptional about them.
Charr have the best of both worlds, you pick your companion & your legion & both make a difference.
GW2 has certainly lost all aesthetics it once had that made it unique in the beginning.

Having race affect dialogue and storyline is fine by me- not so much OP racial skills. I spent time in two games that, via racials, gave races advantages to particular classes, resenting it, feeling forced into “optimal” race-class configurations, feeling at a disadvantage on any character that didn’t.

One thing I dug though- in LOTRO, if you were an Elf, you could not kill environmental creatures. It really upset me when those little creatures got caught in the AoE of other races (as it does in this game). Don’t think that would work in GW2 since some people use environmental creatures towards weapon master achievement, but something like that, that could set the races apart- how they affect the environment.

I would say it is counterproductive to promote race advantages in a game where race change doesn’t exist. And to be fair, these so called race advantages already happened in some raid encounters. The game really doesn’t need more of that. Imagine how toxic pugging will become. It is already toxic enough in some cases, there is really no need to add more of that. Edit: in terms of immersive story line, profession based interactions like Lake Doric update or wing 4 should happen however imo.

I would LOVE to see a single Racial utility skill slot per character…

also, YES YES YES to having your race (and profession) have a larger presence on personal story… I haven’t gotten very far in HoT’s story yet, but so far I’ve been highly disappointed in it due to the complete lack of and personal presence… I understand the Living Story not having a personal presence since time constraints to release them as live content limits what they can do for production, so that’s fine… but an expansion should have had a full personalized story…

Race should matter in PvE, because it would greatly enhance the immersion and lore.

In PvP, and WvW, race should not matter. In fact, it must not.

As far as I can tell, this is absolutely not what GW2 is about, and I wonder if they communicate it well enough, otherwise people who play this game wouldn’t wish for it here on the official forums.

It’s one of GW2’s main selling points that you want to do away with. They advertise their game with the ability to play the way you want when it comes to the combination of skills, combat, crafts, classes. That is one of the unique selling points of the game compared to most other MMO games. Changing this by implementing unique skills for races would probably be breaking with the creators’ vision.

If such unique skills existed, they must be only of cosmetic nature.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

So, you’re saying that story plots that force you to use racial skills will lead to better story lines?

Noooooooo. I don’t think so.
1) the two, good stories and specific skills, aren’t connected
2) I dislike story instances that force me to abandon my regular skills and take certain specific skills, because [reasons]. That’s not good story telling or fun play at all.

Yes. And notice how I didn’t make mention of racial skills. At all.

I just think the story should be represented by your character – personal baggage like race and past decisions included. Not by some sort of omni-creature that can take the perspective of any of the 5 races on the fly.

I get where you are coming from with this but I just can’t see it working. We may get the old Trinity problems. “Looking for 2 more for fractals – charr only!” No one wants that.

Way back I had made a suggestion for classes to have certain bonuses. Example Rangers could skin animals for hides etc. Was a few years ago now but it’s still there if I search hard enough I guess lol. It would not have been game changing I don’t think just adding flavour to the classes a bit more. Maybe something like that could work for the races but I doubt it will ever get any traction because……Anet.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

So, you’re saying that story plots that force you to use racial skills will lead to better story lines?

Noooooooo. I don’t think so.
1) the two, good stories and specific skills, aren’t connected
2) I dislike story instances that force me to abandon my regular skills and take certain specific skills, because [reasons]. That’s not good story telling or fun play at all.

Where does anyone say “force” you to use racial skills? I must have missed that part.

Djinn.9245:

Where does anyone say “force” you to use racial skills? I must have missed that part.

Well, to be fair, I did suggest there to be a skill slot added that serves exclusively for racial skills — but that was a mere suggestion and doesn’t change anything about the point of this thread.

Djinn.9245:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

“Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!”
~ Guildwars 2 opening page.

Having a cookie cutter commander is hardly “customised”.

So, you’re saying that story plots that force you to use racial skills will lead to better story lines?

Noooooooo. I don’t think so.
1) the two, good stories and specific skills, aren’t connected
2) I dislike story instances that force me to abandon my regular skills and take certain specific skills, because [reasons]. That’s not good story telling or fun play at all.

Where does anyone say “force” you to use racial skills? I must have missed that part.

No one. Westenev already told me I was confused.

Westenev.5289:

Yes. And notice how I didn’t make mention of racial skills. At all.

I just think the story should be represented by your character – personal baggage like race and past decisions included. Not by some sort of omni-creature that can take the perspective of any of the 5 races on the fly.

Of course, if you read the whole thread then you already saw that and didn’t need my reply.

Glad to see some people agree. It shows that there are people who prefer good story-telling and variety to boring linearity and simplicity.

Let me quote myself from another thread:

“Another problem is the boredom that derives of the fact that things that were initially in the game, and that represented a great foundation for diverse, personalized story-telling, were completely abandoned in future content: the choice of race and character background, the implementation of “personality” — they were all there, but instead of expanding on that, everything was linearized, thus simplified, and the focus was put on other things that just can’t make up for the lack of variety (bouncing mushrooms, grinding maps,…).”

Even the nay-sayers here can’t deny that race (like every other choice that initially made your character unique) has zero influence on anything anymore these days.

You know what I did these past couple of months out of sheer boredom? I started collecting legendary weapons I don’t need to feel like I was playing some “unique” content, and making new characters I don’t need of professions I already have only so I could play through different personal story options in order to experience that thrill of feeling like my choices during character creation somehow matter.

I believe many people have more than nine characters (one for each profession) for that very reason. It is the only part of the whole story (from two campaigns and three LW seasons!) that actually makes you feel like your race etc. matters. What a waste of potential in this game!

FairyNuff.3452:

A single extra slot for a racial skill could be a good answer, as currently they aren’t game changing so it shouldn’t matter as much.

I really like this idea. An additional slot dedicated to racial skills would be a good addition. To the points already made these skills are far from best in slot so they rarely make build and I think this would be a good option to allow people to slot one with less concern that they had a better skill to use.

On top of that I agree racial skills add an additional level to toon creation and should have more importance than they do. Ask any alt-o-holic and those that have more than one of a class and odds are they would have more if different races played differently for the same class.

2 cents.

GW2 launched in 2012, almost five years ago. You want the personal story to be updated now, after all that time passed, and after all those millions of characters went through it? Why would Anet do that?

And the story is customizable… just not very. Sure, it could’ve been much better, but I can’t see that part of the game being rewritten. And going forward, there is only the boss/commander, so race matters not.

[edit]

It was mentioned that adding a racial skill would enhance roleplaying. Well, if you’re roleplaying, what prevents you from taking a racial skill now? I can’t imagine many roleplaying groups are going through raids. You want the flavor, make the choice to include it.

DeanBB.4268:

GW2 launched in 2012, almost five years ago. You want the personal story to be updated now, after all that time passed, and after all those millions of characters went through it? Why would Anet do that?

And the story is customizable… just not very. Sure, it could’ve been much better, but I can’t see that part of the game being rewritten. And going forward, there is only the boss/commander, so race matters not.

Personzlly I just want them to return to the personalized storytelling style we had in vanilla… the inpersonal storytelling is fine and acceptable for living story seasons, but the expansions need personal story.

Ashantara.8731:

Even the nay-sayers here can’t deny that race (like every other choice that initially made your character unique) has zero influence on anything anymore these days.

As nay sayer I have to say: great, that’s exactly how it should be.

Also you are incorrect, the sylvari racial Take Root was nerfed not even 2 months ago because it provided a damage advantage to condition builds in raids.

Other racial skills encountered similar fates in the past.

Ashantara.8731:

You know what I did these past couple of months out of sheer boredom? I started collecting legendary weapons I don’t need to feel like I was playing some “unique” content, and making new characters I don’t need of professions I already have only so I could play through different personal story options in order to experience that thrill of feeling like my choices during character creation somehow matter.

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

Welcome to fashion wars. Legendary weapons are endgame design for most players who have completed the story multiple times. No matter how many “improvements” you believe might benefit the story, once you are doing it for the 10th time it will get stale.

I dont think that improved racial skills are necessary to good story telling. I think that good story tellers and a willingness to commit to good story telling are.

Cyninja.2954:

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

You are hung up on that strawman of yours… NO ONE has made any such claim that changing racial skills would improve story telling. The suggestions to improve racial skills and to improve story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… matter are TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONCEPTS.

1) Improving racial skills and making a racial skill slot makes your choice of race feel more impactful and meaningful in general content as you can actually make use of your racial skills without sacrificing build performance.

2) Improving story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… have meaning in the story again (how it was in the early part of the vanilla story)… would have a profound impact on the quality of the story. Our “personal story” would actually be personal again.

Two related but separate ideas. There is ZERO need to “explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling,” because that was NEVER a part of the suggestion to begin with. You called it out as a strawman when you brought it up in the first place, but the truth is, you created the strawman with that very same breath.

On the one hand I think that a greater personalization of the story could be fun.

On the other hand I am firmly of the belief that the increased costs of essentially writing multiple variations of the story, at least one per race (and why not per class or temperment?) would lead to a massive reduction of storytelling in the game.

Panda.1967:

Cyninja.2954:

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

You are hung up on that strawman of yours… NO ONE has made any such claim that changing racial skills would improve story telling. The suggestions to improve racial skills and to improve story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… matter are TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONCEPTS.

1) Improving racial skills and making a racial skill slot makes your choice of race feel more impactful and meaningful in general content as you can actually make use of your racial skills without sacrificing build performance.

2) Improving story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… have meaning in the story again (how it was in the early part of the vanilla story)… would have a profound impact on the quality of the story. Our “personal story” would actually be personal again.

Two related but separate ideas. There is ZERO need to “explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling,” because that was NEVER a part of the suggestion to begin with. You called it out as a strawman when you brought it up in the first place, but the truth is, you created the strawman with that very same breath.

Thank you, Panda, you spared me the typing.

Ashen.2907:

On the one hand I think that a greater personalization of the story could be fun.

On the other hand I am firmly of the belief that the increased costs of essentially writing multiple variations of the story, at least one per race (and why not per class or temperment?) would lead to a massive reduction of storytelling in the game.

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

Ashantara.8731:

Panda.1967:

Cyninja.2954:

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

You are hung up on that strawman of yours… NO ONE has made any such claim that changing racial skills would improve story telling. The suggestions to improve racial skills and to improve story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… matter are TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONCEPTS.

1) Improving racial skills and making a racial skill slot makes your choice of race feel more impactful and meaningful in general content as you can actually make use of your racial skills without sacrificing build performance.

2) Improving story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… have meaning in the story again (how it was in the early part of the vanilla story)… would have a profound impact on the quality of the story. Our “personal story” would actually be personal again.

Two related but separate ideas. There is ZERO need to “explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling,” because that was NEVER a part of the suggestion to begin with. You called it out as a strawman when you brought it up in the first place, but the truth is, you created the strawman with that very same breath.

Thank you, Panda, you spared me the typing.

Ashen.2907:

On the one hand I think that a greater personalization of the story could be fun.

On the other hand I am firmly of the belief that the increased costs of essentially writing multiple variations of the story, at least one per race (and why not per class or temperment?) would lead to a massive reduction of storytelling in the game.

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

No confusion on my part. If the storytelling aspect had its cost dramatically increased then it is what would likely be curtailed.

Personally, as much as increased story personalization could be fun, adding it through racial diversity would do nothing for me. I would need to be able to make decisions that would completely alter the story itself..to a degree that it would likely not even come close to resembling the story experienced by other players.

Personalization of the story would add virtually no replayability for me.

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

No confusion on my part. If the storytelling aspect had its cost dramatically increased then it is what would likely be curtailed.

How would it “increase the cost”, if the devs were working on the several story path options instead of “more story content”? Logic?

I have previously made the suggestion that there should be a separate racial skill slot when in open world PvE.

It would be disabled for dungeons, fractals, raids, PvP, and WvW (maybe not in WvW, but I’m leaning towards disabled), for balance purposes.

Ashantara.8731:

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

No confusion on my part. If the storytelling aspect had its cost dramatically increased then it is what would likely be curtailed.

How would it “increase the cost”, if the devs were working on the several story path options instead of “more story content”? Logic?

Technically… they are right… since ANet didn’t bring the voice actors for the player characters back on for HoT, they probably arn’t using them on the new expansion either… and would have to either A) have the other voice actors they did bring on for the expansion voice the player characters (minimal cost increase, but is a very poor practice)… or B) hire the voice actors back on thus increasing costs… it would actually take a severe cut in story content to bring the added cost of more voice actors down to the same costs they were at without them…

That said, I still honestly would prefer to have the personal story back in all it’s glory.

Ashantara.8731:

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

No confusion on my part. If the storytelling aspect had its cost dramatically increased then it is what would likely be curtailed.

How would it “increase the cost”, if the devs were working on the several story path options instead of “more story content”? Logic?

More story paths would cost more than fewer story paths. Seems pretty logical to me that X * 5 > X (where x is tbe cost of one story path).

Producing less content overall leads to a perception of stagnation, lowered revenue, and reduced player population. If it takes 2 years to produce kitten expansion for sale, what percentage of the player base would wait for 10 years and be willing to pay $250?

Perhaps the increase in production time would not be exactly proportional to the increase in number of story paths. Perhaps it would only take 7 or 8 years and cost only a$175 – $200. Or, since a portion of the player base will have abandoned the game while waiting everyone remaining will have to pay more to cover the loss… $300 expansion? Perhaps, instead of raising prices Anet will decide to reduce costs in another way. Less staff. An expansion every 12 years?

Of course, if adding more story paths raises income above what more content can bring in, more power to you. I wouldnt pay for more race based story pathing. I also wouldnt buy smaller and/or more expensive expansions made so in order to include an element of no interest to me. HoT story was short enough. Reducing its play time to a few minutes or an hour would not look good in the media.

“New GW2 expansion released with 1 hour of play time…but you can replay that 1 hour 5 times with minor variations.” Not good press.

Edit: chuckle. “A fifty dollar” (using $ and 50) was kittened.

I don’t even care that much about the racial skills after 5 years… I just want to see racial tensions in the story. I want the humans and charr to fight. I want Dragon’s Watch to be caught in the middle trying to choose a side. I want to uncover an Asuran conspiracy to manipulate the other races with politics and eugenics. The story is just boring as hell when everyone is always holding hands like carebears. We are supposed to be fighting a war, not singing kumbaya.

Panda.1967:

Cyninja.2954:

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

You are hung up on that strawman of yours… NO ONE has made any such claim that changing racial skills would improve story telling. The suggestions to improve racial skills and to improve story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… matter are TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONCEPTS.

1) Improving racial skills and making a racial skill slot makes your choice of race feel more impactful and meaningful in general content as you can actually make use of your racial skills without sacrificing build performance.

Very first post by TC equates story telling and racial skills:

Ashantara.8731:

How boring is it that races in GW2 are merely cosmetic?

…

I say race should matter. It should make a difference in both story and builds. It should not be merely cosmetic, because that only adds to the increase of boredom any game with a lack of variety poses.

Which then lead to:

Westenev.5289:

Cyninja.2954:

So your argument is that race should matter, except in any situation where it would actually be of any use?

Interesting.

Or, and hear me out here, we could just keep the system as is and not waste a huge amount of developer ressources on this issue.

Shrugs Is it so useless though, if it leads to a better story?

To which I had responded that one is not necessary for the other. Racial skills have nothing in common with good story telling. I’m all for improved storytelling.

Panda.1967:

That said, I still honestly would prefer to have the personal story back in all it’s glory.

Which is your right, others can have a different opinion. This has nothing to do with racial skills. Race as far as story can matter, though I doubt arenanet has the ressources at this time to create both, unique content per race and enough content to satisfy a majority of the playerbase.

Ashantara.8731:

You are confusing “content” with “story-telling”. I’d gladly have “less content” if it meant that the content I got had more diversity and was replayable without causing boredom.

No matter how much replayability you have, once you play character number 10 through it you will get bored (I have 24 characters for example). The main drive for most players is not story past the first 1-2 characters they play it with.

I don’t see race, only class.

While I agree should matter on how lore interacts, and maybe slightly open up extras, there are some.. difficult.. tidbits,

In WoW for a long time, they had a clear racial bonus, and high end raiders would not have you if you didn’t run specific combos. So in the last 2 years Blizzard worked really hard to minimize the differences between the races.
Retro-actively, such diversity works very well for singe player games where you don’t have to compete for a position, in games like Elder Scrolls, for example, some races make better hunters, better mages, or better fighters.

The problem is, if there are differences, there is a best way of doing thing X, and if its online, people will exclude others from content if they don’t run perfect model X.

But I wholefully agree on the lore aspect, Anet could do a lot in making racial quips in the story, maybe even have a different branch or an extra mini-event in the stories. Like in LS3, the earlier chapters, Taimi talks down to the commander, even if you are an Asuran Savant, she’ll treat you like a skritt, and that’s just plain wrong.

What if racial skills were the same between races, except for aesthetics? Like the HoM pet skins.

Give every race the same number of racial skills, that do the same thing, but with different names and animations. Thus, for example, the sylvari Summon Sylvan Hound, human Hounds of Balthazar, asuran Summon 7-Series Golem, charr Warband Support, and a new norn racial skill (since they have no elite summon racial skill) all summon an NPC that has the same exact stats and skills, but different names and appearance.

Thus there’d be no balance difference between races and at the same time the skills can be improved to matter/be effective in PvE/WvW.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What if racial skills were the same between races, except for aesthetics? Like the HoM pet skins.

Give every race the same number of racial skills, that do the same thing, but with different names and animations. Thus, for example, the sylvari Summon Sylvan Hound, human Hounds of Balthazar, asuran Summon 7-Series Golem, charr Warband Support, and a new norn racial skill (since they have no elite summon racial skill) all summon an NPC that has the same exact stats and skills, but different names and appearance.

Thus there’d be no balance difference between races and at the same time the skills can be improved to matter/be effective in PvE/WvW.

^This. The end.

Good solution. Except the people wanting racial diversity really wouldn’t be getting any diversity. Still, best solution so far for skills — except the racial skills all already exist, and it is hard to imagine Anet radically changing them and not causing a mutiny.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What if racial skills were the same between races, except for aesthetics? Like the HoM pet skins.

Give every race the same number of racial skills, that do the same thing, but with different names and animations. Thus, for example, the sylvari Summon Sylvan Hound, human Hounds of Balthazar, asuran Summon 7-Series Golem, charr Warband Support, and a new norn racial skill (since they have no elite summon racial skill) all summon an NPC that has the same exact stats and skills, but different names and appearance.

Thus there’d be no balance difference between races and at the same time the skills can be improved to matter/be effective in PvE/WvW.

I like it. This idea has come up in the past and I’d even go further and say it would provide a nice way to get rid of some of the excess hero points if slightly modified.

Make all races able to use hero points to gain other races racial skills and create unique animations for each race. That way racial skills could even get slightly improved from absolute useless tier.

At the same time people can use some of their up to 364 extra hero points to buy not needed skills to complete their main characters.

Downsides:
- races would lose all racial uniqueness
- people who want to “finish” characters would have to grind more hero points
- extre developement ressources required in the shortterm
- doesn’t fix the problem revenants have of not having any access to racial skills

The OP contends that race should matter in combat. I disagree. Some flavor skills are fine; anything that is more interesting than what we already have could lead (and has led) to situations in which race matters in determining optimal builds. Players should never be in a situation in which they have to care about combat when creating a character and ANet should never be in a situation in which they have to balance (or rebalance) racial skills alongside the rest of our skills.

Is it boring? Sure, in the same way as it’s boring to be cancer-free; there are some things in the game for which gameplay trumps lore or other components of “excitement.”

Wooden Potatoes version of this idea remains the best one: Racial masteries. Any one from any race and train to learn all racial skills from every other race.

Boom, no worry about a charr being more powerful than a sylvari. Sylvari can simply learn the charr skills and fight on equal footing.