Please stop assuming I’m a guy… I am female.
Race should matter! A short rant.
Ya’ll need to stop exaggerating. Battle Roar is not going to make Charr the optimal race for warrior, or any class for that matter. 2 stacks of might & 1 stack of fury for half the duration of “FGJ” ( which gives 6 stack of might) with an extra 10 second cooldown is going to provide no more of a spa boost as any other races “best” racial utility. In fact you’d actually get more mileage out of Hidden Pistol on a Charr than Battle Roar.
Also have any of ya’ll stopped to consider that by making racial skills relivant it would create a reason to actually balance them against each other as opposed to being mostly throw away garbage flavor skills.
The comments about one race surpassing others for given professions was in response to the idea of buffing the racial skills or the race itself significantly as suggested earlier in the thread.
Ya’ll need to stop exaggerating. Battle Roar is not going to make Charr the optimal race for warrior, or any class for that matter. 2 stacks of might & 1 stack of fury for half the duration of “FGJ” ( which gives 6 stack of might) with an extra 10 second cooldown is going to provide no more of a spa boost as any other races “best” racial utility. In fact you’d actually get more mileage out of Hidden Pistol on a Charr than Battle Roar.
Also have any of ya’ll stopped to consider that by making racial skills relivant it would create a reason to actually balance them against each other as opposed to being mostly throw away garbage flavor skills.
The comments about one race surpassing others for given professions was in response to the idea of buffing the racial skills or the race itself significantly as suggested earlier in the thread.
Even with buffing them, there is no reason to believe that any one race would become the “optimal race” for any given clakittenace may be more flavorful for a class or provide a little extra utility for a particular build, but it wouldn’t become the “optimal”… and even if the tryhard elitists think “you must be a Charr Warrior” or whatever, if things are balanced properly (which wouldn’t be too hard to balance a mere 14 skills against each other). The skills only have to be balanced against other racial utility skills and compared to similar class skills.
Quite frankly, if they were to do this it would actually help balance out more than just racial skills. If it’s discovered that buffing Prayer to Lyssa to provide a comparable bonus to Battle Roar results in Prayer to Lyssa being stronger than the similar Mesmer skill Signet of Inspiration, then that actually serves to point out that Signet of Inspiration is in need of a buff. (NOTE: This is only an example)
The design goal that was stated for Racial skills would be fine, if Racial skills actually followed that design goal… What they said the goal was:
“Eric Flannum: Each of the five races has unique skills available to them. Our philosophy behind the design of these racial skills is that they are slightly weaker than equivalent skills determined by profession. While they may be less powerful, the racial skills capture the flavor of each race and provide additional options for the player. For example, a human playing a profession that normally doesn’t have a good way of dealing with conditions could take the Prayer to Kormy racial skill, which removes a condition but is a fair bit weaker than comparable skills provided by a profession specializing in condition removal. By doing this, we hope to give the various races access to skills that make them feel unique without making them overpowered when played as a particular profession.”
Their design philosophy for racial skills outright states that the skills were intended to be useful… They outlined a human playing a class that doesn’t have good condi clear using Prayer to Kormir as a useful option… far from the reality of what the skill actually turned out to be… which was diminished into “why does this even exist” status even further by every class getting flooded with condi clear options in specs, weapon skills, healing, combos, etc…
Lets just look at what each race has to offer for racial utility skills for a second…
Human
Prayer to Dwayna – Heals some health in one burst
Prayer to Kormir – removes 3 conditions…
Prayer to Lyssa – grants 1 random boon to self and 1 random condition to target… very short durations
Asura
Technobabble – daze 1 target
Pain Inverter – grants Retaliation to self and 3 stacks confusion to enemies
Radiation Field – deals AoE damage, inflicts 2 stacks poison and 1 stack vulnerability, creates combo field: poison
Norn
Call Owl – deals damage, inflicts 3 stack bleed
Call Wurm – nearly immobile pet, killable
Charr
Battle Roar – grants 2 stacks might and 1 stack fury to allies
Hidden Pistol – deals damage, evades, combo finisher: projectile
Shrapnel Mine – deals AoE damage, inflicts 2 stacks bleed and 1 stack cripple
Sylvari
Healing Seed – heals health, grants regen to allies every few seconds, destructable
Grasping Vines – deals damage, immobilize, destructable
Seed Turret – deals damage, inflicts 1 stack bleed, destructable
looking at effects alone, humans need some serious buffs just to be on par with the next weakest race in terms of utility skills (Norn)… Charr and Sylvari have the most functional skills, and Asura toe the line between useful and in need of buffs…
a few simple buffs that would help improve them and not make them too powerful.
Technobabble – changed to AoE daze
Prayer to Dwayna – grants a boon or something instead of just healing the base heal value… (Healing Seed heals the same amount AND grants continuous regen stacks…)
Prayer to Kormir – reduce cooldown from 40s to 20s (still less useful than any other condi clear, but at least now it wouldn’t be utterly useless)
Prayer to Lyssa – inflicts multiple condition stacks and provides multiple boon stacks (Mesmer Signet of Inspiration could use the multiple boon stacks buff too)
Call Owl – continues to attack target for a duration (between 5 and 10 seconds)
Call Wurm – uses it’s ranged attack more and can actually move when out of combat
Norn – add a new 3rd racial utility, use the Norn Skill from GW1 as a basis… something like “I Am the Strongest!” (grant self Might stacks) or Feel no Pain (grant self regen and invulnerability) would be good…
The rest would just be tweaking some numbers, as all the other racial utility skills provide useful and functional benefits… they just need to be balanced against each other…
Please stop assuming I’m a guy… I am female.
Even with buffing them, there is no reason to believe that any one race would become the “optimal race” for any given clakittenace may be more flavorful for a class or provide a little extra utility for a particular build, but it wouldn’t become the “optimal”… and even if the tryhard elitists think “you must be a Charr Warrior” or whatever, if things are balanced properly (which wouldn’t be too hard to balance a mere 14 skills against each other). The skills only have to be balanced against other racial utility skills and compared to similar class skills.
There is every reason to believe that one race would become optimal. If one race’s racial elite offered even one percent more of something than is available for another race it would be optimal. Perhaps the difference would be minimal, but optimal, yes.
They do not have to just balance 14 skills against each other, they would need to balance 14 skills and every possible synergy with every other skill, trait, weapon, sigil, rune, etc against each other.
Give us the ability to by a pass or w/e in the genstore that unlocks a small questline to unlock x’s race’s skills on your current toon (sylvari skills on my human). That way making a sylvari you have their skills to select from and if you dont want to make a toon you can simply buy a pass to acess their skills.
Yes that would work if it dident go against exactly what the OP wants for races to matter.
If everyone could buy a pass races again dont matter so its meaningless work that gets us back to the same spot.
No nececerally because havng one race holds value since the skills no longer are niche. The ability to pick from more racials is just for those who dont want to make a new race just for that and have the money. You will have the scenario tho where “this race s better for this this rac is better for that” if we go down this road.
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”.
If the race mattered, we would have less variety. All warriors would be Charr or Norn, all Rangers would be sylvari, all engis would be Asuras. That’s an example of course, we might have ended with a different race/class pairings, but we would end up with those. That is exactly why race doesn’t matter buildwise.
Still, more emphasis on player character race should be made in LS and personal story,
This is an assumption not based in fact.
Its an exaggeration but the basis is true that people will chose to play the race that is objectively stronger and synergies best with their class. Unless all racial skills are perfectly balanced (unlikely) then racial skills cant be worth using in combat at all because race stop being cosmetic.
What he actually said was:
If the race mattered, we would have less variety. All warriors would be Charr or Norn, all Rangers would be sylvari, all engis would be Asuras. That’s an example of course, we might have ended with a different race/class pairings, but we would end up with those.
And this is what I objected to. We don’t actually know that an improved Race would correspond with only one class. That is the assumption that I am objecting to.
I did not say that, if you actually read what i wrote. I said that most likely for every class there will be one-two races that would be best suited for it.
No, i did not say that a race would correspond with only one class. That’s impossible, because we have 9 classes, but only 5 races. It is possible, however, that a race might end up not being the best choice for any class
it would mate its 5 times nor time consuming then making it one story fits all.
Yeah, no. Tweaking the dialogue or characters in one scenario depending on race is not the same as making 5 separate scenarios. Even making the tasks/approaches different is not the same as “5 times” more work.
Would it be more work? Yeah. Would it make players feel more appreciated and their choices have more weight? Definitely. I’d welcome even small nods to who my character is and the choices he’d made. Heck, I’d love it if my character even behaved a little more in-character instead of like a human all the time.
So if you write 1 line on a piece of paper or 1 line on 5 pieces of paper, you dont make 5 times the work.
I would like to hire you mate.
Do you think that any scenario only consists of those class-specific parts? Or that creating a story requires only writing dialogue?
oh we want class specific now aswell thats 45 combiations then even more work.
Meant to say race instead of class. Obviously. Still, i’m surprised that you answered “yes” and apparently think that everything in a story encounter except from text and voice parts that are different for each race requires no work at all.
.
There is every reason to believe that one race would become optimal. If one race’s racial elite offered even one percent more of something than is available for another race it would be optimal.
That already happened with take root and condi rangers. And that’s why that elite got nerfed.
So, we don’t even need to believe in it. We already know it.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
There is every reason to believe that one race would become optimal. If one race’s racial elite offered even one percent more of something than is available for another race it would be optimal.
That already happened with take root and condi rangers. And that’s why that elite got nerfed.
So, we don’t even need to believe in it. We already know it.
That really speaks more to how poor the actual ranger elite skills are than anything… Spirit of Nature is more in line with how Water Spirit should function… Entangle is more in line with a regular utility skill than an Elite… and “SotP!” is really the only actual Elite Skill available to Rangers… it’s no surprise that Condi rangers would have looked to Racial Elites… with Take Root nerfed, the next best option is Entangle for it’s 5 stack bleed.
Please stop assuming I’m a guy… I am female.
There is every reason to believe that one race would become optimal. If one race’s racial elite offered even one percent more of something than is available for another race it would be optimal.
That already happened with take root and condi rangers. And that’s why that elite got nerfed.
So, we don’t even need to believe in it. We already know it.That really speaks more to how poor the actual ranger elite skills are than anything… Spirit of Nature is more in line with how Water Spirit should function… Entangle is more in line with a regular utility skill than an Elite… and “SotP!” is really the only actual Elite Skill available to Rangers… it’s no surprise that Condi rangers would have looked to Racial Elites… with Take Root nerfed, the next best option is Entangle for it’s 5 stack bleed.
Except that it wasn’t only rangers that took Take Root as elite but almost all condi classes as long as content allowed it. Thus this was not a ranger specific issue.
I was running Take Root on my (specifically for that purpose created 3rd warrior) on encounters where Headbutt was not required.
Necros used it as well.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Even with buffing them, there is no reason to believe that any one race would become the “optimal race” for any given clakittenace may be more flavorful for a class or provide a little extra utility for a particular build, but it wouldn’t become the “optimal”… and even if the tryhard elitists think “you must be a Charr Warrior” or whatever, if things are balanced properly (which wouldn’t be too hard to balance a mere 14 skills against each other). The skills only have to be balanced against other racial utility skills and compared to similar class skills.
As much as I’d like race to matter more – this point is wrong. Have you met a min-maxer before? I know the type in person, and that’s exactly what they will do. Other games have played this out, going back to MUDs in the 90s, and probably tabletop games before that. This critique isn’t based on assumption – it’s based on evidence from games previous to this.
Race should matter. But it was a good decision that race doesn’t matter as to stats.
So if you write 1 line on a piece of paper or 1 line on 5 pieces of paper, you dont make 5 times the work.
I would like to hire you mate.
Yeah – no, mate. You minimize the amount of storywork that is not dialogue. That is to say – the vast, VAST majority of work in setting up a story. When’s the last time you read a book or wrote a story that was just conversation? It’s not often (or usually good) when a line of speech is what was the primary driver of an entire scene. Usually an author will think of structure, then lay the dialogue on top of that. Dialogue – while important – is not the primary focus of a story, it comes last and usually quickest.
Editing 5 sets of dialogue when the story structure and action is already set is not 5x the work. It’s even less work, say, when someone has already set up the scene and character models for all the characters that will be used in the story instance.
Again, I concede it will be more work. I do not concede – however – that it will be an unreasonable amount of work, considering the goodwill and dividends it will pay.
(edited by azureai.9764)