Racial Traits, Traditions, and Abilities (Revamp)

[Tary]

They're not OP if they add an insignificant amount of DPS/Survivability/Heal-potential to your character.Good lord, you people are such whiners.  You're complaining about incredibly insignificant things.I think it's nice that race actually does have a tiny bearing on your character.  Yes, they said it wouldn't matter at launch, but it actually did (as pointed out earlier in this thread).  If you made your character 4-5 years ago around launch, and it mattered then, then why does it surprise you that it continues to "matter" now?The differences are infinitesimal. Regardless of what other races have/don't have, focus on how much these abilities actually add to peoples' characters. Enough to justify using X race for a min/maxer, but a min/maxer will also tell you that App2 is better than App1.

Just play thr game and stop acting like everyone else has a huge advantage over you because you picked an Ogre Wizard instead of an Erudite Wizard.PARSE!  Parse or everything you claim is invalid.  I guess people don't need evidence anymore...so I hereby claim that the FSM exists, and that you must believe in Him.  No evidence required.

[Vonotar]

Personally I don't care if one race is more suited to certain classes than other races, that actually makes sense. 

There is a belief (rightly or wrongly) that Dark Elves are OP and would be first choice for virtually all classes, that may have to be addressed, however personally I think it would make more sense to improve the weaker races slightly rather than nerf the Dark Elf.

Then add a racial respec to Station Cash. The change can't be too difficult to code (change race parameter, generate random body, toggle for free 'makeover', reset character development tree).

Sure some people will switch on the basis of racial traits, some races might become more popular and others might become less popular as people change around.  However I assume that the dev's already monitor the number of new toons rolled per race with a view to ensuring that they all maintain a level of popularity (else why bother fitting new equipment to .. say a halfling, if nobody is playing them).

Incidentally I have one of each race spread over two accounts, so I consider myself to be 'racially neutral'.

[Faenril]

I can guaranty that in pvp barbarian sprint for instance is all but an infinitesimal difference

[Tary]

Faenril@Nagafen wrote:

I can guaranty that in pvp barbarian sprint for instance is all but an infinitesimal difference

So content should now be balanced based on PvP?Ask the devs to change it for the PvP servers, but it's perfectly ok on any PvE servers.

[Ranja]

All I have to say about this is - since the new traits have been added I have rolled 4 new characters - a dirge, a brig, a wizzie and a Inquisitor. Guess which race I took for all 4. Dark Elf that is right. not because I like them but because they have by far and away the best racial traits of all classes. There is not one single trait that is fluff for the DE.

[Zorastiz]

I play whatever race I think best suits the class I am choosing based purely on appearances.

Iksar Necro because I like Iksars.

Barbarian Guardian because he is big and beefy and I think thats what a guardian should look like.

Troll Paladin Just for fun.

Who cares about racial traits.

[Tary]

Zorastiz@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I play whatever race I think best suits the class I am choosing based purely on appearances.

Iksar Necro because I like Iksars.

Barbarian Guardian because he is big and beefy and I think thats what a guardian should look like.

Troll Paladin Just for fun.

Who cares about racial traits.

Lol, back at launch I chose an Iksar Necromancer over an Erudite Necro because Iksars have more Sta, and I figured I'd need a little extra HP 

Plus...Iksars ftw.

[Shadowinajar]

Zorastiz@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I play whatever race I think best suits the class I am choosing based purely on appearances.

Iksar Necro because I like Iksars.

Barbarian Guardian because he is big and beefy and I think thats what a guardian should look like.

Troll Paladin Just for fun.

Who cares about racial traits.

I do. many others too.

Not everyone is alike but everyone should be equal..hehe

[Zorastiz]

Taryth wrote:

Zorastiz@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I play whatever race I think best suits the class I am choosing based purely on appearances.

Iksar Necro because I like Iksars.

Barbarian Guardian because he is big and beefy and I think thats what a guardian should look like.

Troll Paladin Just for fun.

Who cares about racial traits.

Plus...Iksars ftw.

Ya I had an Iksar in EQ1 so that was my first choice here, I'm not totally happy with how they evolved from an appearance standpoint over the originals but it's cool.

[Andok]

Player 1: “Racial abilities are not balanced.”

Player 2: “Sure they are – they are all meaningless fluff”

Player 1: “Ok, if they’re just meaningless fluff, then a racial respec wouldn’t hurt anything”

Player 2: “Now way, then everyone would change to a dark elf for their over-powered abilities!”

O.o

[Motzi]

Any reason we expect this tirade on racial abilities to be more successful than the previous versions?

[Tary]

Andok wrote:

Player 1: “Racial abilities are not balanced.”

Player 2: “Sure they are – they are all meaningless fluff”

Player 1: “Ok, if they’re just meaningless fluff, then a racial respec wouldn’t hurt anything”

Player 2: “Now way, then everyone would change to a dark elf for their over-powered abilities!”

O.o

Actually, they've stated that a racial respec would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to code.  I believe it was said during the original slew of complaints about racials.Get over it.

[Gisallo]

Noaani wrote:

I remember back in T5, people were complaining that some classes got 30 int as a racial, and others only had 10!

Back then, the argument was that 20 int is as much as is on one piece of gear, so that race with the extra 20 int can equip an item with more power or HP instead of that 20 int!

Racial traits can be considered a gear slot, in terms of effect. The original game had them set to be about as useful as a single piece of equipment, and the RoK revamp to them bought them back in line with that (fyi, that means they are almost due to be increased again). Since there are 21 other gear slots, that means racial traits are 1/22 of what you can get via gear.

Since gear makes up about 1/3 of the effectivness of any given character (tanks excluded due to mitigation, but no racials provide mit, so it can be discounted for my purposes), it stands to reason that the single slots worth of effects you get from racials account for 1/66th of any characters abilities.

This is ~150 DPS on a 10k parse, an amount that can be made or lost due to lag. Players that say there was no difference, or not as great a difference when they made their toons as their is now simply have bad info. The game released with racial traits being the equivlent of a single slot of gear at the end game, and that continues.

Sucks for you if you didn't do some research.

The point is though some races get an ability that is worth a t7/8 charm slot and other get an ability in turn is a t4/5 charm slot.  Some races also get multiple abilities that are the equivilent of a charm slot while others get only one 1.  I for one am NOT saying that DE or Erudites should lsoe what they have.  Heck I propose, since they have gone this far, that they go further and make race matter across the board rather than with just a handful.  What they need to do is objectively look at the races and then add abilities to some races to balance it out.

On top of this everyone talks about how insignificant things are but they fail to see that some races have an ability that is not even the equal to a charm slot but that of an unupgradeable spell. 

What I find funny is this.  No one is saying the DE and Erudite abilities mentioned in this thread are equaled by Gnome abilites A and B or Woodelf abilities C and D.  They are just saying "they are not OP'd".  They are simply saying that "well I don't think this makes a big deal to my end game character" not "the other races have equally effective abilities."  This pretty much shows, I think, that they recognize that their abilities are better than that of the other races BUT want to preserve them and so they try to focus on the end game effect of the ability rather than the lack of balance related to the other races.

Remember when looking at this stuff that this game is more than end game and when you do the research and look at the races IN TOTAL you see the disparity.  Sucks for you when you have a closed mind and blinders on.

[Andok]

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Any reason we expect this tirade on racial abilities to be more successful than the previous versions?

Any reason we expect a tirade on the futility of feedback to be more successful than the previous ones?

[Motzi]

Andok wrote:

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Any reason we expect this tirade on racial abilities to be more successful than the previous versions?

Any reason we expect a tirade on the futility of feedback to be more successful than the previous ones?

No, but it has been made very clear before that a racial respec would not be happening.  As far as retuning the current racial traits, very persausive arguements about specific races being way under powered vs others have also been made previously and again it was made very clear this would not be looked into.

The racial traits are horribly biased, this is fact.  It has been made clear there is no intentions of changing this.

Personally, I feel there are just so many other problems with greater game impact that need addressing over DE envy (and no, I don't even have a DE)

[Gisallo]

Taryth wrote:

PARSE!  Parse or everything you claim is invalid.  I guess people don't need evidence anymore...so I hereby claim that the FSM exists, and that you must believe in Him.  No evidence required.

The haven for people that refuse to believe math, look at balance and want to continue to hide behind their veil of shenannigans.  If you need a parse to tell you that a class with only permenant +2 crit for melee or ranged combat is going to be at a disadvantage to a class that has a permenant +2 double attack AND a 30 second toggle of +5 melee crit and +35 attack speed then you need your freakin head examined or you are simply a liar.  The difference at end game in a raid is irrelevant.  This is what you are faced with.  When you look at Gnome, Woodelf, half elf and halfling, all races lore wise seen to make good scouts that is what you see.  The advantage the Dark elf has is pretty clear.  You may say its "insignificant" BUT insignificant does NOT mean non-existant.  When people talk this way its called SPIN.  Spin is used to obfuscate inconvenient truths.

[Andok]

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Andok wrote:

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Any reason we expect this tirade on racial abilities to be more successful than the previous versions?

Any reason we expect a tirade on the futility of feedback to be more successful than the previous ones?

No, but it has been made very clear before that a racial respec would not be happening.  As far as retuning the current racial traits, very persausive arguements about specific races being way under powered vs others have also been made previously and again it was made very clear this would not be looked into.

The racial traits are horribly biased, this is fact.  It has been made clear there is no intentions of changing this.

Personally, I feel there are just so many other problems with greater game impact that need addressing over DE envy (and no, I don't even have a DE)

I'm not very clear on this, but has SoE ever changed their mind on something they had once said that they would or would not do?  I suspect it has happened once or twice...

On this issue, some people are not content at taking "no" for an answer.  SoE may have said "No", but we can still respectfully (some more than others) say "I still want it."

[Asif]

Just wait folks and i bet you will beable to buy a racial respec on SC someday.

I would love for my 80 Troub to be a DE and not a Rat.

[Thantoes]

But that would be a game changing ability available for RTM IE Station Cash and SOE said that would never happen --

WAIT... WHAT?

[Illine]

Derkin@Antonia Bayle wrote:

So dark elf

5% Melee and Spell Crit,+10% Casting Speed+35 Attack Speed, -Parry, -Defense

For 30 seconds makes little difference in the end? 35 haste? really? 35?  Honed Reflexes ad3 is 37 haste for 1min with the same 5min recast.

Pretty nice clicky to go along with a permanent 2% dbl attk, extra poison charges, stealthed run speed, slow fall, and a pbaoe deaggro.

Arasai are very similar.

How about half elves? 1% crit, 5 parry.  5% out of combat speed.  Single target deaggro.  A small physical mitigation debuff. Neat.

Why wouldn't ratonga for example get the dps clicky? They are more scout/thief/rogue like than any other race. Where is the +ranged double attack and dps mod temp buff for wood elves? Wouldn't it make more sense for wood elves to have feather fall than dark elves?

I was going to roll a half elf coercer until I realized how lame it would be next to an arasai. But I don't like the look of arasai so I'm stuck with chosing a race I don't like with a ton of good stuff or a race that looks OK and has trash racial traits. Why weren't the traits spread out a little bit? Half elves could have had the Fury of Innoruk or Dark Envy buff and dark elves and arasai would still have plenty of good things for their race, and half elves would have 1 kinda OP thing with a bunch of garbage.

I'm for yet another racial trait revamp. Some of the traits are nice, like ogre stun immune and troll fear immune clickies, the human soothe spell... but they get a lot of garbage or fluff to go along with it. Other than arasai and dark elf I can't think of another race that has so many combat beneficial traits.

pb with your exemple is that you choose only one exemple.

races are better with some classes than with some others. Innoruuk buff is not great for tanks, DE don't have any any defensive traits if they want to be healers or tanks.

erudites make great mages, which is logical with their background, but suck almost at everything else while high elfes can outshine them on different ways. Humans also have some nice racial traits and some garbage. ratonga too depending your class.

So yeah, maybe DE make the best assassins, Erudites make the best wizards, and so on, ... still I'll play a High elf over an erudite any time just because rudites are ugly.

now high elf ge 2% crit spell, an encounter spell, it's still nice

[Gisallo]

Illine@Storms wrote:

pb with your exemple is that you choose only one exemple.

races are better with some classes than with some others. Innoruuk buff is not great for tanks, DE don't have any any defensive traits if they want to be healers or tanks.

erudites make great mages, which is logical with their background, but suck almost at everything else while high elfes can outshine them on different ways. Humans also have some nice racial traits and some garbage. ratonga too depending your class.

So yeah, maybe DE make the best assassins, Erudites make the best wizards, and so on, ... still I'll play a High elf over an erudite any time just because rudites are ugly.

now high elf ge 2% crit spell, an encounter spell, it's still nice

I agree some races should be better at certain things than others.  Here is the problem.  Its not like all races say 20 pts worth of value spread amoungst their racial traits.  If you really look at it some classes have 16 points, some 20 some 25.  Also this game still tries to at least pretend that lore and faction matters.  this being the case where is the "good" or even "neutral" version of the dark elf.  I for one am NOT saying DE or Erudites need to be nerfed.  I just think its appropriate for ALL of the classes to have a similar value to their racials.  If the dark elf has A and B then as the "good" scout maybe the Woodelf or the Halfling should have equally valuable C and D.  As Erudites are neutral maybe the Fae and the arasai should be as good at spell casting etc.

[CoolBreeze]

My Main is an Erudite Wizard. Am I happy with this? Mostly. Frankly I made my main one year ago after carefully studying races and classes, deciding what class appealed to me and what race would be best for that class. BUT - I think erudites are ugly. Hiding my character's bald head and tattooed face under a hood and mask are my solution to that, even the racial illusions leave her bald, so why bother? (Wigs for Erudites, I say!!)

From an aesthetic point of view I'd never have selected an Erudite, but the advantage of having racial characteristics that more or less amount to a free, end-game piece of fabled equipment that doesn't take a slot and stacks with all other spells, effects, procs and abilities is too substantial an advantage to pass on. People will go into an instance more than a hundred times trying to get a single piece of raid gear with similar stats - knowing that it may only increase their stats slightly over the one that it will replace.

I think that someone who has spent months, if not years, developing a character, only to realize that it has such a signifigant disadvantage when compared to one of a different race should have the option to change their race rather than having to completely restart leveling, gaining AA's collecting raid equipment, completing lore and legend quests, language quests, tradeskilling and all of the other time and effort that goes into developing a character. I'd quit the game if I was faced with that. Not that I mind leveling new characters, but anyone who tells me that all my work is wasted and meaningless when compared to the trouble of putting a simple method of changing a character's race just one time into the game is asking me to go looking for a game where the developers have a little more respect for the players.

Don't try telling me that those of us who made a better choice from the beginning deserve an advantage over players who chose their race before these characteristics were put into the game or even players who underestimated the importance of such a choice before they actually experienced its results - we don't deserve it, and we shouldn't want it. I'm a damned good raid wizard, I don't need to maintain a minor advantage over a few other players based on a choice they made months or years ago, let them change it if they need to. And while you're at it give me some hair.

[Waruri]

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Andok wrote:

Motzi@Unrest wrote:

Any reason we expect this tirade on racial abilities to be more successful than the previous versions?

Any reason we expect a tirade on the futility of feedback to be more successful than the previous ones?

No, but it has been made very clear before that a racial respec would not be happening.  As far as retuning the current racial traits, very persausive arguements about specific races being way under powered vs others have also been made previously and again it was made very clear this would not be looked into.

The racial traits are horribly biased, this is fact.  It has been made clear there is no intentions of changing this.

Personally, I feel there are just so many other problems with greater game impact that need addressing over DE envy (and no, I don't even have a DE)

It was also made very clear at launch that choosing a specific race will not detriment your toon comparatively vs. choosing another race. Coolbreeze made a perfect point. The fact the people run raid zones over and over to get gear that is close to equallying the same level of upgrade that these racial abilities give is "proof in the pudding" that it is an unfair advantage.

If it is too hard to recode the ability to swap your race. Then put the traits in a pool that everyone has and let us choose equally, or get rid of them completely.

It should not be too much to ask for a respec.

What are you afraid of?

You're afraid that all assassins except the few that prefer looks over stats will change to dark elf ?? (Rightly so)

You're afraid that all mages will change to high elf or erudite? (Rightly so)

Why hurt the loyal customer?

If there is no meaningful difference then there is no reason to be afraid people will massively swap and therefore no reason not to allow us to respec. If there is a difference then there is obviously an advantage and that is unfair to the loyal customers who have been playing since the start. Why would you want to hurt the very people who got you started and have helped to carry you this far? Those who have stuck with you through the good times and the bad? Shouldn't we be thanked for our many years of service to the "overlord" or "queen antonia"?

Heck you could even make the respec part of the 1 year veteran reward since it's been a little over a year since the revamp this allows those who started before the revamp and have stayed loyal the option to change.

[Faenril]

Taryth wrote:

Faenril@Nagafen wrote:

I can guaranty that in pvp barbarian sprint for instance is all but an infinitesimal difference

So content should now be balanced based on PvP?Ask the devs to change it for the PvP servers, but it's perfectly ok on any PvE servers.

Well, you said they are infinitesimal differences, I simply correct you, nothing more, nothing less.

Now regarding your question, there are several servers running the pvp ruleset in that game, one being one of the most populated EQ2 servers. The devs decided one day to implement pvp and to launch servers. Nobody forced them right? We pay our monthly sub too right ? You can argue this was a bad decision all you want, but nevertheless Sony made that decision consciously, they didn't decline the incoming $$, so now they have to live with it.

So...

"so content should now be balanced based on PvP ?" is as stupid as me saying "so content should now be balanced on PvE?".

If content is released/offered, it has to be supported and balanced on all formats. Otherwise you can cut my subscription by half I'm fine with that too if we are meant to have no support anyway.

[Waruri]

I still don't get why the devs won't just allow us a one time respec. It seems to me from a customer service stand point if nothing else it would be a good idea.

[Tary]

Faenril@Nagafen wrote:

Taryth wrote:

Faenril@Nagafen wrote:

I can guaranty that in pvp barbarian sprint for instance is all but an infinitesimal difference

So content should now be balanced based on PvP?Ask the devs to change it for the PvP servers, but it's perfectly ok on any PvE servers.

Well, you said they are infinitesimal differences, I simply correct you, nothing more, nothing less.

Now regarding your question, there are several servers running the pvp ruleset in that game, one being one of the most populated EQ2 servers. The devs decided one day to implement pvp and to launch servers. Nobody forced them right? We pay our monthly sub too right ? You can argue this was a bad decision all you want, but nevertheless Sony made that decision consciously, they didn't decline the incoming $$, so now they have to live with it.

So...

"so content should now be balanced based on PvP ?" is as stupid as me saying "so content should now be balanced on PvE?".

If content is released/offered, it has to be supported and balanced on all formats. Otherwise you can cut my subscription by half I'm fine with that too if we are meant to have no support anyway.

Read my post again.  I didn't say that PvP shouldn't be supported and worked on...I said content shouldn't be balanced around it, as it's the minority population by far.  There are two PvP servers, not several, one of which is barren in comparison to any other decently populated server.

I further went on to say that you should "ask the devs to change it for the PvP servers..."Never once did I say that PvP shouldn't be updated.  *sigh*

[Lethe5683]

Racial respecs are not important. The traditions simply need to be balanced and need to make sense! I wouldn't change race even if I didn't have any racial traits but that's besides the point. They are not difficult to balance... why waste time making changes like the fighter revamp that almost everyone is against while there are so many things about the game that actually are broken and need to be fixed.

[Grimfang]

I just didnt want to read through all these pages of rant of something as trivial as racial traits etc. Get over it, some races are obviously better at some things and others are weaker at other things.

But to end all this trivial bickering, I agree... Let us all play the same race, with the same traits. Like Barbarians! I love barbarians! Let us all be barbarians! It will be fun when everyone is a barbarian, right?

Wrong. Be proud of your race and profession selection and perhaps some wierd combos you have made. Like that Ogre Illusionist, or that nice litte Troll assasin. THAT is what makes this game more unique than the others out there. You can be whatever you want to be no matter how wierd it might be!

And for closing this post. Barbarians rules. They are the only race (that I know of) that are offsprings of gods, and are the forefathers of 2 other races (quite possible 3), namely Humans and Erudites. (and possible halfelfs too)

[Silerua]

I am by NO means even close to a good example, but I was reading through this thread while my character was smacking a training dummy to work on her skills (28/400 is just sad, honestly)... She is a dark elf, but she's also a necromancer, so her melee dps is amusing at best.

The results of my pseudo-parse testing using ACT (if there is a special output I should use that'd be preferred, let me know and I'll put that instead of just manually reporting):

WITHOUT FoI:Damage: 1087Ext DPS: 25.28Hits: 23Swings: 28

WITH FoI:Damage: 2484Ext DPS: 75.27Hits: 26Swings: 30

Again, Aure is a necro, and I have no clue how that would translate into an assassin that's actually meant to be using melee, but hopefully that might mean something to someone.   I have no opinion either way on the matter... I picked Dark Elf because I always roll Drow.  p:  Only thing that I love is Shadow Slip, for when my tank pet loses aggro.

[Wurm]

People are crying about this once again? /rolleyes

I've played a DE Crusader since release. And the only new racial ability I really love is hover. The dps clicky as you call it, adds such a minuscule amount that I hardly ever use it, its not worth the lowered protection as a tank. I'd gladly trade it for a Barb's Health Bonus or a Ogre's Stun Resist. I'd also gladly trade ALL my poison traits for anything else... anything else at all. Not everyone who plays a DE plays an Assassin.

There is so much stuff broken in EQ2 you could be focusing your ire on.

Seems to me the only people whining about this are those who whine about everything else as well. Play the game, have fun or go do something else with your time and money.