Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if anybody noticed this in the last year and a half of GW2 but… Have you seen an asura dodge! They’re doing back flips! When they jump they basically jump their height imagine a human being doing that, not possible!

Whats even more is that they’re a cave dwelling race! I find it hard to believe that a race whose evolution came from the undergrounds have such strong jumping powers.

ANET DEV PLS EXPLAIN WHY!

(but pls don’t nerf I’m Asruan master race and I like our animations)

theyre lighter since theyre smaller, and maybe they have more compact muscles than the other races, they can also jump higher than the other races if we use jump to height ratio, and run faster

Uhh…it’s because every race has to has the same movement distance. It’s the same reason why Norn look like they run so slow. Just a simple game mechanic.

they wanted to know lore-wise hence why its in this section and not general talk, when people ask about the elder dragons and what their motive/history is i could easily say ‘thats what the devs wanted it to be when they designed it’ but its not quite what they wanted to know

Ehhh, I’m with Obsidian on this one. Might as well ask for the lore reason that Norn don’t hit harder than asura. The answer is that there is no lore reason that this is the constant rule. The answer is that it is a game mechanics issue.

So any lore reason doesn’t really exist. We could make some up but those wouldn’t be lore, they would be fan-fic. We can also use pseudo-lore to explain why OUR characters can do it, but that also wouldn’t really be the “lore of the asura.”

Fan-fic reason: They evolved closer to the dense core of the world so the gravity was higher which accounts for greater jumping prowess, “John Carter” style.

How far a creature can jump depends on its structure, not its size. Two creatures of the exact same proportions will be able to jump the same distance. You can prove this by a sraightforward physics calculation:

The distance jumped will be proportional to the energy of motion divided by the mass of the creature.

The energy of motion will equal the force of its muscles used for jump times the distance over which the force was applied.

Muscle strength is propotional to the cross-sectional area of the muscle.

The distance jumped is proportional to the contraction length of the relevant muscles.
Assume 2 creatures of equal proportions. One creature is twice the length, width and depth of the other.

The larger creature will have muscles 4 times as strong (twice the width, thus 4 times the cross-sectional area). It will impart this force over a distance twice as long as the smaller creature (it is twice the height). Therefore, it has 8 times the energy motion.

However, since all the dimensions of the larger creature (height, width, depth) are doubled, it will have 8 times the mass.

Therefore, the distance jumped will be the same even though one creature is twice the height of the other.

Getefix.9150:

they wanted to know lore-wise hence why its in this section and not general talk, when people ask about the elder dragons and what their motive/history is i could easily say ‘thats what the devs wanted it to be when they designed it’ but its not quite what they wanted to know

There isn’t a lore reason, which is why I answered it as such. I think the devs even stated before launch they were adamant about a level playing field for all races regardless of size. I’m sure anyone of us, or even ANet could make something up to explain it, but that’s like trying to make up a reason why our toons never age, or require sleep, or use the bathroom, etc.

I like Shannonhouse’s explanation though.

I think there is at least some basis in lore for it- there’s an NPC is Soren Draa who says that asura enjoy jumping, and many of their staircases require it. I’d say that since they’re the only race to use jumping on a day-to-day basis, they’re just better at it then the others, and that advantage is enough to offset their size.

Bambi Is Strong.6083:

I don’t know if anybody noticed this in the last year and a half of GW2 but… Have you seen an asura dodge! They’re doing back flips! When they jump they basically jump their height imagine a human being doing that, not possible!

Actually humans can do flips too. Just hit dodge the same time as jump.

How about this? Asuran are good at dodging, because their lab equipment and experiments have a tendency to….achieve explosive results.

Rolling on the floor would be a bad choice if it was covered in a volatile liquid. Better to do a somersault over the work table and land on top of the golem.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

How far a creature can jump depends on its structure, not its size. Two creatures of the exact same proportions will be able to jump the same distance. You can prove this by a sraightforward physics calculation:

The distance jumped will be proportional to the energy of motion divided by the mass of the creature.

The energy of motion will equal the force of its muscles used for jump times the distance over which the force was applied.

Muscle strength is propotional to the cross-sectional area of the muscle.

The distance jumped is proportional to the contraction length of the relevant muscles.
Assume 2 creatures of equal proportions. One creature is twice the length, width and depth of the other.

The larger creature will have muscles 4 times as strong (twice the width, thus 4 times the cross-sectional area). It will impart this force over a distance twice as long as the smaller creature (it is twice the height). Therefore, it has 8 times the energy motion.

However, since all the dimensions of the larger creature (height, width, depth) are doubled, it will have 8 times the mass.

Therefore, the distance jumped will be the same even though one creature is twice the height of the other.

Pretty much what I was thinking on seeing this thread – I was just going to invoke the square-cube law, but that’s because I simply hadn’t thought of the relation between longer legs and being able to apply that force over a longer distance → more work → more kinetic energy.

If anything, in fact, it looks like the asura have more powerful legs in comparison to their size than humans – their legs are about as thick as a human’s despite their considerably smaller stature otherwise. I think they may also be a little shorter than human legs in comparison to their overall height, though, which might counterbalance that.

Either way, though, I could certainly see the possibility of jumping being <em>more</em> of an advantage underground rather than less. They’re much more likely to come across natural stairways to be jumped up, chasms to be jumped over, and other such obstacles below ground, particularly since a creature on the surface is much more likely to be able to find another way past an obstacle than one in an underground cavern.

Arikyali.5804:

How about this? Asuran are good at dodging, because their lab equipment and experiments have a tendency to….achieve explosive results.

Rolling on the floor would be a bad choice if it was covered in a volatile liquid. Better to do a somersault over the work table and land on top of the golem.

Yeah this reply wins.

But to the people who say “It’s about game mechanics” I wasn’t really asking about the distance of the dodge roll but more about why must they jump like that? Can’t they do some lousy human roll? or something else fitting a lab geek?

Magic

It’s called suspension of disbelief.
In lore Norn can rip apart their enemies with their bare hands, and still Norn and Asura warriors are equally as strong.

Lore-wise this isn’t the case—asura can’t do that. Charr and norn are far faster, stronger, and more lithe then the other races, and asura struggle behind the rest (But this is offset by their intellect)
However, it would be unfair to make an asura player less physically capable then a charr player, so in-game they make them have equal abilities.

Lore-wise, I think those are the averages, but those averages come out because lore-wise, races do have profession preferences. Norn and charr are much more likely to be physical professions while asura are more likely to be magic-users.

We saw in GW1, for instance, that particularly impressive human warriors could beat the reigning norn tournament champion in a one-on-one contest.

The leveling factor is probably what wouw said, but to go beyond simply going “a wizard did it” – we’ve been told that everyone in Tyria has some magical ability, if not necessarily enough to be a scholar profession or a guardian, and for those that don’t use it for flashy magical effects this goes into augmenting their magical abilities. So asura super jumping abilities are probably a mix between the square-cube law in action as Johni and I have already discussed, and magical augmentation of various forms.

It’s probably an oversimplification to say that among the major races, the smaller they are, the more magically adept they are… but in broad strokes and stereotypes, it fits. Asura are more magical as a race than humans and sylvari, who in turn are more magical than norn and charr. Thus, in the cases of more heroic figures like PCs, the decreased physical strength of the smaller races are probably compensated for by having more magic to augment it, leading to heroes of each of the races coming out to about the same.

(For average specimens, though, that’s something entirely different. I’m personally of the opinion that the average norn is more powerful than other races, through a mix of what we’ve been told in fluff, logical deductions from their lifestyle, and the mechanical observation that it’s fairly common for norn NPCs to have an elite (animal form) while NPCs of other races usually don’t. However, the greatest heroes of each race are at about the same level as each other.)

Master Yoda taught them how to jump

Bambi Is Strong.6083:

Arikyali.5804:

How about this? Asuran are good at dodging, because their lab equipment and experiments have a tendency to….achieve explosive results.

Rolling on the floor would be a bad choice if it was covered in a volatile liquid. Better to do a somersault over the work table and land on top of the golem.

Yeah this reply wins.

But to the people who say “It’s about game mechanics” I wasn’t really asking about the distance of the dodge roll but more about why must they jump like that? Can’t they do some lousy human roll? or something else fitting a lab geek?

Because Asura are kinda the “silliest” playable race in Tyria? /shrug

The flips, wobbly stops, and arm-swinging jumps are inherent to that Asuran schtick. Silly isn’t the right word, but surely you get my meaning. So I guess you could call that lore, or race personality or something. :/

It’s because regardless of what race you choose to be, all players need to have equal jump distance because of the world around them, including Vistas, Jumping Puzzles, Platformer Dungeons, everything.

Now imagine an Asura jumping the same distance as everyone else, but not as high as they do know. Instead, a more “real” height. That’s basicly floating a few centimeters above the ground while jumping forward 4 meters. It would look akward. Totally weird.

So that’s why ^^.