Guild Wars 2

After playing through Guild Wars: Eye of the North, I had fallen in love with the Norn.

Everything about them was great.

They were a race of shapeshifting giants, who all sought out to be great hunters, and revered the spirits of nature.

I understand that Arenanet does not want any races to be any better than the next in Guild Wars 2…. but I am extremely disappointed in the watered down version of this race that appears in Guild Wars 2.

Racial elite skills have, of course, taken a back seat to the elite skills available for each of the different professions. It comes as no surprise that all of the Norn’s racial elites are unusable due to their lack of practicality, and with it goes the Norn’s claim to fame, the shapeshifting.

Not only that, but even if a player were to go against the grain and use the elite skill to shapeshift, it would only last a measly 30 seconds… then go on cooldown for a full four minutes. Which is very different from that of the Norn in Guild Wars:Eye of the North which lasted for an entire minute and recharged after two minutes of being cast …. meaning Norn spent an equal amount of time in combat as a beast and as a humanoid.

We are unable to use our weaponry or armor in Bear form in Guild Wars 2, and we are just a naked beast swiping at foes with our claws….. which is not what the Norn ever did. They continued to use their armor and weapons even while transformed.

Would it be out of the question to simply grant Norn players a soulbound “tonic” upon creation that allowed free (solely cosmetic) transformation in and out of animal form?

Even if we just got a generic beast-mode model (that was not dynamic to what our characters were wearing) as long as it was wearing some armor and wielding weapons, I would be happy.

Thanks for reading.

I was hoping you would have said that what they did to the Norn was unbearable.

niea.7504:

I was hoping you would have said that what they did to the Norn was unbearable.

It is…
I can barely stand it.

woosh!!! [15char]

I was also a bit appalled that the transformations just weren’t a thing anymore. They’re no better than big humans honestly. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen an NPC do it, whereas it was always the firs thing they did in GW1. They don’t even feel like Norn.

Gameplay > lore

Vayne.8563:

Gameplay > lore

Why not have both?

Several NPCs do it actually. Norn enemies and bosses tend to transform. (Not ones that are subset of specific other enemies, like risen norn or Atherblade norn, though)

That said, Going beast form and KEEPING all the class and weapon skills seems like an interesting compromise between lore and gameplay (Making shapeshifting solely cosmetic) but the problem is that really only works for bear form. You can make Bear hold weapons, but other animal forms, like say Leopard, would have some issues.

Same goes for all the other races really. I get WHY Anet made racial skills as a whole useless, but it’s really disappointing.

Arioso.8519:

Several NPCs do it actually. Norn enemies and bosses tend to transform. (Not ones that are subset of specific other enemies, like risen norn or Atherblade norn, though)

That said, Going beast form and KEEPING all the class and weapon skills seems like an interesting compromise between lore and gameplay (Making shapeshifting solely cosmetic) but the problem is that really only works for bear form. You can make Bear hold weapons, but other animal forms, like say Leopard, would have some issues.

Same goes for all the other races really. I get WHY Anet made racial skills as a whole useless, but it’s really disappointing.

Its got opposable thumbs…. it can wield weapons.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Its got opposable thumbs…. it can wield weapons.

Oh. Well then.
Stupid me.

I haven’t rolled a Norn yet, I’m thinking I might save it for Reverent, I just looked up what the forms actually look like. Yeah, they could make some kind of battle tonic-esque thing for those. I can’t think of any other place to stick it in the UI other than inventory, so maybe they could be “totems” You could get some from a shrine in Hoelbrak and they’d only actually work for norn characters.

(Or, maybe for a bit of hilarity, it gives a worthless non-combat transformation to other races. So instead of a fearsome wolf beast you get a non-combat wolf cub transformation more in line of what you usually get for a tonic)

They should definitely do this if they plan to phase out racial skills entirely (we have yet to hear about how they’ll work post-specilization system so that might be on the table) since norn would be hit the hardest.

Julie Yann.5379:

woosh!!! [15char]

You’ll just have to grin and… deal with it.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

Gameplay > lore

Why not have both?

Because sometimes you can’t, and in those cases gameplay is given the advantage because people have to play the game.

CureForLiving.5360:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

Gameplay > lore

Why not have both?

Because sometimes you can’t, and in those cases gameplay is given the advantage because people have to play the game.

NPCs are often “OP”, but when you make them playable you have to make them in a such a way that other people will not gravitate to them just because they have something on other race does.

If you could shapeshift and stay in that form, people would gravitate to that, because humans can’t.

Vayne.8563:

CureForLiving.5360:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

Gameplay > lore

Why not have both?

Because sometimes you can’t, and in those cases gameplay is given the advantage because people have to play the game.

NPCs are often “OP”, but when you make them playable you have to make them in a such a way that other people will not gravitate to them just because they have something on other race does.

If you could shapeshift and stay in that form, people would gravitate to that, because humans can’t.

Giving them a purely cosmetic transformation as the OP suggested seems like it avoids that.

Arioso.8519:

They should definitely do this if they plan to phase out racial skills entirely (we have yet to hear about how they’ll work post-specilization system so that might be on the table) since norn would be hit the hardest.

It seems like having the racial skills automatically unlocked would be the most sensible option. They’re intentionally not as good as the class skills, but would give new players skills to use until they can get the skill points to unlock the better class skills, far more use than they get now.

Eponet.4829:

Vayne.8563:

CureForLiving.5360:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

Gameplay > lore

Why not have both?

Because sometimes you can’t, and in those cases gameplay is given the advantage because people have to play the game.

NPCs are often “OP”, but when you make them playable you have to make them in a such a way that other people will not gravitate to them just because they have something on other race does.

If you could shapeshift and stay in that form, people would gravitate to that, because humans can’t.

Giving them a purely cosmetic transformation as the OP suggested seems like it avoids that.

I dont’ think purely cosmetic would help them be larger than life. I’d consider that watered down.

Norn could have a beastly bear race, but instead we have humans that are just slightly taller than other humans.

when i played EotN for the first time i saw the norn as strong fighters, honerable and tough to get trough.
a race that can take down a horde on their own and boast about there victories with a paint of ale, a race that doesn’t chase after some rumor but after making them self legends.

in GW2 they are kitten, so toned down and way to friendly.
they rather boast about past victories then chase after new ones, they make a fool of them selves.

they were considered dangerous to other races, now they are hiding behind walls with machinery.
of all the races in fact, the only non-human influenced race is the asura.
even the charr, a race of strong warriors bread in war are changed in half humans, at least the asura are still the same as the GW1 equivalent.

I have a pretty cool solution: Give all norn transformations the new defiance bar mechanic, with a hitch.

Make it a bigger bar, maybe slightly more durable than a hero from Stronghold and all the norn shifts last for maybe a little over a minute. Maybe a 1min, 30 secs tops.

The hitch being this defiance bar is slowly draining on it’s own and will wear off in that time. Sounds pretty OP, right?

On top of that since it’s a defiance bar, obviously, any CC will make it go down. When the defiance bar hits zero, the norn is knocked out of it.

That can happen naturally in the allotted time no matter what, or players and NPC CC can make it end even sooner.

Two players coordinating hard CC can probably knock the norn out of the wereform within 10 seconds. Further, no forms should offer any real resistance to this.

To fight back and escape, sure. But something like stability or resist, no.

If the norn is knocked out of it, it goes on full CD, and any damage the norn occurred in wereform is approximated.

Norn should not be able to cancel the transform until it wears off, they’re knocked out of it, or downed.

They need to be rightfully durable, but without access to the heal skill or utilities (as it is at present). For the trade off, the wereforms need to be amazingly awesome.

Short, obviously vulnerable to CC and focused fire, but incredible truck hitting stuff.

A real gamble, an all in “you done kittened me off now” berserker kind of thing unique to the norn.
_

Or, TL;DR:
Make norn transformations an awesome, if not slightly crippled revenant-channel-esque racial elites for the norn.

This can work because they can be different in function, norn specific, remain far weaker and niche than class specific elites; but still a fun way to use the norn transformations.

If you want details, read you lazy kitten.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Norn could have a beastly bear race, but instead we have humans that are just slightly taller than other humans.

I would LOVE to play a norn as described in the OP but yeah, I class them as humans. The race is just bigger than the other and likes nordic stuff more. Since I consider humans boring in a RPG rather than having 4 playable options it is 3 for me in reality.

edit: I read in some other thread they were supposed to be somewhere between nordic and native american. That part could be implemented without affecting any game mechanics.

Norns, my once favorite Race, is now barely used. Being a large visual target is certainly a negative for them. Norn’s should have some design advantages to balance this fact. At the very least, revert the Snow Leopard nerf. Maybe then we’ll see an elite transform used once more.

And what about a mastery line for racial visuals? You know, if you are a norn you could unlock that cosmetic bestial form by picking a “Race Lore Mastery line”.

As it, other races could get their own thingies. Asura could get sci-fi weapon effects and inquest-like turrets (for engi).
Humans could get something like the Revenant Legend´s whispers but with their gods.
The wo only races that I can´t come up with something cool are Sylvari and Charr…But maybe you guys can make up some. Keep in mind that it must be cosmetic-only and a race-related concept.

What do you think guys?

Oh oh, this is similar to my somewhat relevant thread a couple of weeks ago!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Tired-of-just-being-a-tall-human/first#post5100610

Granted, mine was more about overall appearance than the shapeshifting aspect, I guess because I just finally “gave in” to that never getting better, but if it could…

If Anet is reading this, give the norn some love please.

You know what, there’s a second solution to the Norn transformation balancing issue.

Give EVERYONE a functionally similar (Or even straight-up identical transformation) but with different aesthetics.

So,
Norn=Beast Form
Asura=Golem Suit (One of the ride-able golems)
Sylvari= Giant tree spirit or a husk-like thing
Charr= Honestly the hardest one, since they currently seem to have nothing lore-wise that really works, but they could possibly have a steam-punk battle suit along the lines of a dredge mining suit
Human: A god avatar form, probably Balthazar, or maybe some kind of overall “Avatar of the six” sort of thing that’s channeling the power of the gods in general.

Then they can ALL have stability pulses or a break bar, a punching/slashing melee auto-combo, an exploding AOE projectile that’s either magical or physical depending on the transformation aesthetics, a stealth/cloaking skill, a dash/teleport mobility skill, and a shout/support skill that buffs allies in range.

Because then, the transformation skill could actually be made strong and fun to use because it no longer gives any single race or specific race/class combination an unfair advantage.

For that matter, other random skills can get the same treatment. Like Asura’s Techno-babble could be a different shout for each race. Char/Norn could roar, Humans could have “Lyssa Confound you” Sylvari coud… uh… I dunno… Ask “Why” 30 times in a row like an obnoxious child until the enemy gets annoyed? (Seriously though, something could be made up)

If the racial skills got changed in that way, on one hand it would take away some uniqueness if all the skills have pretty much the same effect, but they would still look/feel different and if they could get buffed to actually be worth using, you’d actually SEE them used to make races look more unique.

Also, they clearly want race to be an aesthetic choice rather than a gameplay choice anyways, so that version or racial skills seems to better fit their design philosophy in the first place.

this is what becomes from alcoholics and party people, they forget things and can not keep up anymore.

(Got 3 norn myself and OP is completly right)

Arioso.8519:

You know what, there’s a second solution to the Norn transformation balancing issue.

Give EVERYONE a functionally similar (Or even straight-up identical transformation) but with different aesthetics.
~snip~

An alternate idea to this would be to buff all racial skills and make them all available to all characters through the upcoming mastery system. Characters automatically start off with all of their racial skills unlocked and can acquire other races racial skills through mastery tracks for the other races.

For lore and flavor some racials would be visually different for other races using them. For example the norn “Become the Bear” would be “Ursan Blessing” for non-norn characters and while mechanically identical would not transform the character into bear form.

Riot Inducer.8964:

An alternate idea to this would be to buff all racial skills and make them all available to all characters through the upcoming mastery system. Characters automatically start off with all of their racial skills unlocked and can acquire other races racial skills through mastery tracks for the other races.

So… I could have a Charzooka AND a Golem for my engie? Where do I sign up!?

It actually makes sense too. because the races are mingling and it’s not like they’re actively witholding information from each other. If an asura actually showed up at a human temple interested in the god’s teachings they’d be able to listen to the sermons. Charr are ALREADY handing out their tech, (hence engineers) so who’s gonna miss a few shrapnel mines and charzookas when they’re handing out tanks and hellicopters to the pact? Asura are snooty as hell, but have been shown to work with outstanding individuals from other races who can keep up, so you might be able to find an Asuran scientist that will take you under their wing if you can prove yourself useful, etc.

Very few racial skills actually require the race’s physiology, and the few that do can have alternates, like your “Bear form” Vs. “bear’s blessing” idea or Sylvari giving you a packet of turret seeds, so instead of taking root, you bend down to plant them, which keeps you immobilized for a moment.

Each race could even have some a few short story missions to detail your “apprenticeship” where you learn these skills. It could even be used to explain some of the other skills, like you go on some kind of dangerous missions with some Charr and become an honorary member of their warband (Thus getting the warband skill)

On top of that, it could work for the non-playable races too as a delivery system for new “universal” skills. Like mastering the lore tracks of the Hylek tribes might give some elixer skills, or you might get a new underwater only utility from the Quagan, etc.

The more I think about that idea, the more I like it. It has a lot of possibilities. Plus it’s another way of opening horizontal progression.

Only problem: It could seriously clutter up the skill selection UI.
So if that happens, it’d be nice to have a skill selection option where we can check off which skills we do and don’t want to appear on the up arrows over the skill bar when we quick-swap skills out of combat.

That might actually be a nice feature anyways NOW for skills you never use that are basically already cluttering things up.

Arioso.8519:

Charr= Honestly the hardest one, since they currently seem to have nothing lore-wise that really works, but they could possibly have a steam-punk battle suit along the lines of a dredge mining suit

Charr have their warband they can call on.

As for the OP, I sure would like a cosmetic only beastform with weapons for my norn. But then this is ANet we’re talking about, so it’s too much work.

Jelle.2807:

As for the OP, I sure would like a cosmetic only beastform with weapons for my norn. But then this is ANet we’re talking about, so it’s too much work.

It doesn’t hurt to voice your opinion, though.

Anet is listening… whether or not they choose to do anything is completely up to them.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

After playing through Guild Wars: Eye of the North, I had fallen in love with the Norn.

Everything about them was great.

They were a race of shapeshifting giants, who all sought out to be great hunters, and revered the spirits of nature.

I understand that Arenanet does not want any races to be any better than the next in Guild Wars 2…. but I am extremely disappointed in the watered down version of this race that appears in Guild Wars 2.

Racial elite skills have, of course, taken a back seat to the elite skills available for each of the different professions. It comes as no surprise that all of the Norn’s racial elites are unusable due to their lack of practicality, and with it goes the Norn’s claim to fame, the shapeshifting.

Not only that, but even if a player were to go against the grain and use the elite skill to shapeshift, it would only last a measly 30 seconds… then go on cooldown for a full four minutes. Which is very different from that of the Norn in Guild Wars:Eye of the North which lasted for an entire minute and recharged after two minutes of being cast …. meaning Norn spent an equal amount of time in combat as a beast and as a humanoid.

We are unable to use our weaponry or armor in Bear form in Guild Wars 2, and we are just a naked beast swiping at foes with our claws….. which is not what the Norn ever did. They continued to use their armor and weapons even while transformed.

Would it be out of the question to simply grant Norn players a soulbound “tonic” upon creation that allowed free (solely cosmetic) transformation in and out of animal form?

Even if we just got a generic beast-mode model (that was not dynamic to what our characters were wearing) as long as it was wearing some armor and wielding weapons, I would be happy.

Thanks for reading.

I heard the norns only purpose for males was to make eternity look even bigger than on a human and the females purpose was to look more like a barbie than the humans and/or add tattoos. Halfway joking.

Also while the elite skills in gw1 were definitely very op (especially bear form) and obviously they shouldn’t be that strong, I do think that racial elites should be just as powerful as their class counterparts, if not and no one uses them might as well take them out of the game. That was the whole idea behind the racial elites. Like say a charr thief that excelled in single target dps was against a big mob, the idea was it could use charzooka to have a different situational option. The elite skill differences are way better than wow’s old format where it was like do u want shadow or fire resistance. But since they fall short so much of their class counterparts it suffers the same problem that wow did, which is the only real difference is the appearance. Or how hard you want to make the jumping puzzle lol.

Chrono.6928:

Also while the elite skills in gw1 were definitely very op (especially bear form) and obviously they shouldn’t be that strong, I do think that racial elites should be just as powerful as their class counterparts, if not and no one uses them might as well take them out of the game.

Can’t be so.

The racials absolutely cannot be better than the class specific elites or so much better than the other racials, or else players will do what players do.

They need to be watered down by default.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be fun though. I want them to be fun. They shouldn’t be taken out of the game. Just reworked.

CETheLucid.3964:

Chrono.6928:

Also while the elite skills in gw1 were definitely very op (especially bear form) and obviously they shouldn’t be that strong, I do think that racial elites should be just as powerful as their class counterparts, if not and no one uses them might as well take them out of the game.

Can’t be so.

The racials absolutely cannot be better than the class specific elites or so much better than the other racials, or else players will do what players do.

They need to be watered down by default.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be fun though. I want them to be fun. They shouldn’t be taken out of the game. Just reworked.

Exactly….. which is why I asked for a completely cosmetic transformation.

Cosmetics can be fun :P

Worse still…it’s very likely racial skills will be going away

Razor.9872:

Worse still…it’s very likely racial skills will be going away

Based on what? please state your source?

Pretty Pixie.8603:

Razor.9872:

Worse still…it’s very likely racial skills will be going away

Based on what? please state your source?

I think there was a stream about the new system anet has planned for elite skills…

There was a thread about it here , but since I didn’t watch the stream I really don’t know whats going on.

Pretty Pixie.8603:

Razor.9872:

Worse still…it’s very likely racial skills will be going away

Based on what? please state your source?

There isn’t anything official regarding it. However, people are assuming racials are going away due to:

1) During the 4 hour core specializations stream they were never mentioned and there didn’t seem to be a ‘track’ for them present on the new UI

2) They don’t seem to work with the revenant set up, from the information that we have

That’s my understanding of what people are basing this speculation on, and I think they do have very going points.

Revenants aren’t able to shapeshift at all…
Making a Norn revenant just a bland oversized human.
So how about that tonic suggestion?

I remember someone suggesting that racial skills could be specializations for each profession and you start with the one of your race.

Then you can learn the ‘racial specialization’ of other races by doing some “quests” for them.

With that they could certainly buff all the recial skills since everybody would be able to use them.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Revenants aren’t able to shapeshift at all…
Making a Norn revenant just a bland oversized human.
So how about that tonic suggestion?

Well this bites…and rends and mauls. I’ve only just started off on my Norn revenant and hadn’t noticed. I love using the shapeshifting while levelling.

3/8 elites are usable. Says a lot about GW2.

While I would absolutely love to see the racial skills get buffed up so that they are on par with normal skills (perhaps we could get an additional skill bar above our utility slots purely for racial skills, with 3 slots), the obvious trend is that they are likely going to be removed at some point in the future. For starters, Revenants can’t even use racial skills, so if they got any better you can imagine Revenant players would be howling in outrage at this “discrimination”. Wooden Potatos also mentioned in one of his videos about how certain racial skills are being used in the raid, and I think ANet doesn’t want to see a situation develop where you get posts like “LF Chronomancer for Gors. Must be Human”. (Even though I think that’s really not much better than things like “LF more DPS for VG. No Thieves!”)

Being able to get a tonic for each transformation that at least let’s you keep your weapon in your hand would be splendid. Make it function mechanically like an outfit so you keep your profession skills.

It won’t effect SPVP because they already have standardized models thanks to everyone exploiting how hard it is to see asuran animations.

Speaking of asura, give them a tonic as well so they can transform into a golem battle suit skin and fight.

Norn males are horrible. Their very short legs and giantic torso look so unnatural. I have 9 characters, but only 1 norn – a big boobed female. Btw, did you try to create the shortest norn male possible? His height doesn’t scale down his feet, so he looks like a clown. Horrible…and weird it isn’t fixed after so many years.

Sorry for offtopic. I also agree that racial skills are heavily underpowered. They should make them on par with normal elites. Yes, and I don’t care about that blablabla about fairplay.

I’m pretty sure they’re more liquored up than watered down.

I’d really really love to make a Norn if their males were not absolutely ridiculously proportioned, i have no idea why the females look perfectly fine, but the males.. oh man, what’s up with the short legs and tiny heads? why do males always get the ugly stick? do guys really enjoy playing with ugly characters that much?

niea.7504:

I was hoping you would have said that what they did to the Norn was unbearable.

unBEARable.

CETheLucid.3964:

I have a pretty cool solution: Give all norn transformations the new defiance bar mechanic, with a hitch.

Make it a bigger bar, maybe slightly more durable than a hero from Stronghold and all the norn shifts last for maybe a little over a minute. Maybe a 1min, 30 secs tops.

The hitch being this defiance bar is slowly draining on it’s own and will wear off in that time. Sounds pretty OP, right?

On top of that since it’s a defiance bar, obviously, any CC will make it go down. When the defiance bar hits zero, the norn is knocked out of it.

Truncated for brevity, but I DID read all of it…. and I think that’s a very innovative solution, but am simply uncertain how feasible it is, in both a programming sense and a balance sense. But it would be really nice if it could be made to work.

In other words…. I’m absolutely ravin’ about your idea; this is the kind of content I could wolf down. It would make for some grizzly combat, and that’_s now lie, pard_ner. (Ow! Ow! Okay, that last one was stretching it.)

Duke Darkwood.4237:

CETheLucid.3964:

I have a pretty cool solution: Give all norn transformations the new defiance bar mechanic, with a hitch.

Make it a bigger bar, maybe slightly more durable than a hero from Stronghold and all the norn shifts last for maybe a little over a minute. Maybe a 1min, 30 secs tops.

The hitch being this defiance bar is slowly draining on it’s own and will wear off in that time. Sounds pretty OP, right?

On top of that since it’s a defiance bar, obviously, any CC will make it go down. When the defiance bar hits zero, the norn is knocked out of it.

Truncated for brevity, but I DID read all of it…. and I think that’s a very innovative solution, but am simply uncertain how feasible it is, in both a programming sense and a balance sense. But it would be really nice if it could be made to work.

In other words…. I’m absolutely ravin’ about your idea; this is the kind of content I could wolf down. It would make for some grizzly combat, and that’_s now lie, pard_ner. (Ow! Ow! Okay, that last one was stretching it.)

Well for the beta and a bit after launch, the earth overload for the Tempest worked on the break bar mechanic. So, it’s not impossible in that regard.

(I think berserkers get a break bar for something as well, but I don’t play warrior.)

But yeah. It would be a lot of work to strike a balance with the mechanic + the unique balancing problems of trying to keep the racials in check VS the class elites.

A simpler solution might in fact be to make the transforms largely cosmetic (what BlackLeech said) with about a ~1.3mins duration.

Perhaps some relatively minor boost or quirk depending on the form taken?

In their current iteration though, the racial norn elites are pretty dismal given the great lore they’re inspired after.

If it helps, I’m pretty sure one of the Vigil warmasters in Orr is a norn who is always in bear form.