50 replies to this topic

[JDraky]

No. I like when companies make a real difference between races.

[velourfog]

Racial skills should absolutely be weaker than profession ones.  Their purpose should be to add a little extra flavor to the race, and to possibly fill a minor gap in a profession's abilities if you choose.  I don't want to have the same situation in GW2 that you have in WoW where you can't play a Norn warrior, for example, if you want to be competitive in PvP because the Charr racial is too good to pass up.

If you want to be an Asura warrior, you should be able to do so without gimping your potential due to an underpowered racial.

Racial balance, at least power wise, is a good thing.  The only way to do that is to either make them all the same, ie everyone gets a condition break, damage modifier, heal, or summon, or to include them just for fun / minor bonuses.

Edited by velourfog, 24 May 2012 - 05:03 AM.

[Xynth22]

Because there is competition in pve as well, and if a certain race as a better racial for a certain profession then people will feel forced or be forced, depending on the guild, to go with certain races for min/maxing

[Deuzerre]

velourfog, on 24 May 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

Racial skills should absolutely be weaker than profession ones.  Their purpose should be to add a little extra flavor to the race, and to possibly fill a minor gap in a profession's abilities if you choose.

When the flavour tastes like poop, it's not really an option. Seriously, would you take "hidden pistol", for example, to add flavour? It's one ranged hit. Nothing else. No fancy effects. -Absolute nothingness-. Anything could replace it. i'd even prefer not to take anything instead of it.

Some are totally worthless and add no RP.

Some are slightly too good.

Most don't even have any possible synergy with any class, and are weaker in general tan anything any class can compare them to.

[velourfog]

Deuzerre, on 24 May 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

When the flavour tastes like poop, it's not really an option. Seriously, would you take "hidden pistol", for example, to add flavour? It's one ranged hit. Nothing else. No fancy effects. -Absolute nothingness-. Anything could replace it. i'd even prefer not to take anything instead of it.

Some are totally worthless and add no RP.

Some are slightly too good.

Most don't even have any possible synergy with any class, and are weaker in general tan anything any class can compare them to.

Yes, I would rather not have racial abilities with actual combat usefulness if it makes one race the best choice for a certain profession.  I want to play a human ranger.  If humans got a self heal and norn got a 2% damage bonus to bows, then I would have to play a norn or else I would be purposely not maximizing my profession's potential.

GW2 puts a lot of emphasis on competitive PvP with all the fancy leaderboards and resources out of game.  If it's to be taken seriously, it needs to be balanced.  That means either forcing people to choose the optimal race + profession combo if they want to win, or making every race equally viable in competitive PvP.  For the sake of being able play the character you really want, I'll take option number two.

[Deuzerre]

velourfog, on 24 May 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

Yes, I would rather not have racial abilities with actual combat usefulness if it makes one race the best choice for a certain profession.  I want to play a human ranger.  If humans got a self heal and norn got a 2% damage bonus to bows, then I would have to play a norn or else I would be purposely not maximizing my profession's potential.

GW2 puts a lot of emphasis on competitive PvP with all the fancy leaderboards and resources out of game.  If it's to be taken seriously, it needs to be balanced.  That means either forcing people to choose the optimal race + profession combo if they want to win, or making every race equally viable in competitive PvP.  For the sake of being able play the character you really want, I'll take option number two.

That would be true if racials were included in PvP. They aren't.

[velourfog]

Deuzerre, on 24 May 2012 - 05:50 AM, said:

That would be true if racials were included in PvP. They aren't.

While it's true they won't work in competitive PvP, they will still function in regular PvP and all PvE.  I still don't want to have to choose a certain race profession combo to be more desirable in dungeon groups or even feel gimped in regular PvP, and just in the game in general.  I'm a min/maxer, but I also like to play the character that I want.  If I have to feel gimped in order to be the race I want, then that's not fun.

Edited by velourfog, 24 May 2012 - 06:19 AM.

[Protoavis]

velourfog, on 24 May 2012 - 06:18 AM, said:

they will still function in regular PvP

?? what's this "regular" pvp?

[cataphract]

Shriketalon, on 23 May 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

If they don't fit into the game balance, they shouldn't be implemented in that manner anyway.

A Racial Aesthetic would work just as well (changes the animation/graphics of a skill, but keeps the mechanics), and would let people be powerful AND cool at the same time.  No need to make a Bear Form if the Norn Warrior can turn into a bear while using Rampage.

+1

Making a skill inferior to others would not only avoid forcing the use of that skill, but it would go overboard and discourage the use of that skill.

Either make the skill equal in capability, or like Shriketalon said, simply make different animations for specific skills.

[Thyar]

Yep.

All racial skills should be made into absolutely and completely cosmetic visual effects only.

They should not augment, change, or otherwise provide any sort of advantage to any degree for any race.

Period.

[Altrun]

dd790, on 23 May 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

If the racial's need to be balanced then shouldn't they all do about the same thing but with a cool racial slant on them?
Basically IMO to make them balance they should be re-skins of each other influenced by each race

I like that.
Each race's version should be exactly the same skill with a different skin. If the animation and effect is cool looking enough, nobody would complain.
Have the Char launch an air strike, the Silvary sprout thorny vines, the asura launch a huge Tesla coil, I don't care if they all technically do the same AoE damage or apply the same CC so long that it looks great and might be remotely usefull.
You already pick a class for aesthetics and roleplay purpose only, why would the racial skills be any different?

[Imaginos]

velourfog, on 24 May 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

Racial skills should absolutely be weaker than profession ones.  Their purpose should be to add a little extra flavor to the race, and to possibly fill a minor gap in a profession's abilities if you choose.  I don't want to have the same situation in GW2 that you have in WoW where you can't play a Norn warrior, for example, if you want to be competitive in PvP because the Charr racial is too good to pass up.

If you want to be an Asura warrior, you should be able to do so without gimping your potential due to an underpowered racial.

Racial balance, at least power wise, is a good thing.  The only way to do that is to either make them all the same, ie everyone gets a condition break, damage modifier, heal, or summon, or to include them just for fun / minor bonuses.

Few things/thoughts here.

• Very few people, if any, are going to take a flavor skill instead of something useful in pve. As racials don't work in pvp/www (from what i understand) the choice of balance becomes irrelevant as far as pvp style stuff is concerned.
  
• Anet has stated in one of their videos or a video interview that Elites were supposed to be game changing, amazing abilities. So racials can't be weaker then normal abilities if there will be racial elites.
  
• I see no problem with giving everyone a basic set (heal, condition, boon, transform, pet) and just mix it up a bit to keep everything more balanced.

As to 2 above. Either the Elites would need to be downgraded to standard abilities so they could be "weaker" or racials shouldn't be weaker at all and can just be as good. Costs of all racials would need to be lowered too as they cost the same as all other standard/elite abilities. If it's going to be fluff that no one will take then they should be free or cost 1 pt.

It is a waste of development time to make skills that will never be used due to being fluff or sub par and will cost you by taking a precious slot on your skill bar.

So if Racials are going to be skills, both normal and elite, and cost the same as other skills then they should be balanced as such and the same style of variety should be given to every race to keep said balance with small changes in flavor, such as bleeds for one race, dazes or cripples for another, etc...

[Deuzerre]

There is also the fact tat Racials can't be traited as far as I know. Basically, a racial will never get stronger than it is. To compensate, it should be slightly above normal skills that can be improved.

Note: They worked in WvW in the BWE build. WvW isn't balanced anyway, so I don't see the problem (There are so many possible combinations that it's impossible to balance).

[Imaginos]

Deuzerre, on 25 May 2012 - 12:21 AM, said:

There is also the fact tat Racials can't be traited as far as I know. Basically, a racial will never get stronger than it is. To compensate, it should be slightly above normal skills that can be improved.

Note: They worked in WvW in the BWE build. WvW isn't balanced anyway, so I don't see the problem (There are so many possible combinations that it's impossible to balance).

Very true about not being traited the same, though I'd expect them to be affected by a universal trait like conditions last longer or some such.

Thanks for the note on WvW.

[Unholy Pillager]

Thyar, on 24 May 2012 - 11:09 AM, said:

Yep.

All racial skills should be made into absolutely and completely cosmetic visual effects only.

They should not augment, change, or otherwise provide any sort of advantage to any degree for any race.

Period.

Exactly. I was really hoping that they would make the norn forms purely aesthetic, because I knew that if they weren't that way either a ton of players would go norn to use them, or else they would be so underpowered as to be almost unused.

[John F Kennedy]

Protoavis, on 24 May 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

?? what's this "regular" pvp?

Apparently regular PvP is WvW... I thought it was fairly irregular... Ah well!

[Imaginos]

Unholy Pillager, on 01 June 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:

Exactly. I was really hoping that they would make the norn forms purely aesthetic, because I knew that if they weren't that way either a ton of players would go norn to use them, or else they would be so underpowered as to be almost unused.

Or you know, ArenaNet could do something novel like make sure that every race had their own themed transformation that would fit in with their lore and make these elite skills worthwhile, which is the basic route they seem to be taking. The skills just need to be balanced a bit more and the excessive charrlove balanced amongst the other races.

Humans get a transformation and a summon
Asura get a summon/transformation (golem battlesuits)
Norns have their forms
Charr can summon warband support (but no transform, they could always have made one of the charr skills summon one of the whiptail tanks but instead have given them the very powerful charrzuka).

Sylvari could summon a wolf in one of the demos but no transoformation as of yet.

ArenaNet just needs to do another pass to balance these skills out and make sure that every race basically has the same set of skills to use, then it ends up being pretty much just flavor (no one race better then another) and not useless stuff.

[rukh]

I like that they are trying to keep profession/race combos from affecting the gameplay, but the way they have gone about it leaves much to be desired.  

In most circumstances you get a useless emote that takes up a valuable utility/elite slot, which is a bummer to everyone who wants to show off their race.  
Then there are those few circumstances where a racial skill is actually one of the stronger options by offering something that profession doesn't have for a specific situation, creating ideal race/proff combos.  As long as racial skills provide different functionalities that normal skills (despite being weaker in magnitude), min-maxers will find those optimal race combos.  The only way Anet can combat this is by making racial skills weaker..and weaker.. more bland...etc.


Racial skills are supposed to be flavor.  How do we express flavor in other parts of the game?  Do we introduce a different functionality for every armor skin or weapon skin?  No, skins are independent of functionality.  One weapon skin can have identical stats to another.  Costumes simply go over your armor but otherwise mimic the same stats as that armor.


Maybe it has been suggested in this thread already.  I think Anet should take a handful of normal utility and elite skills and apply racial animations to them, maybe even a different name.  They don't even have to be the same skills, as long as each profession/race combo gets enough to make them equally attractive.  Down the road, Anet's excellent art/animation team can pump out more and sell them on the cash shop.

In addition, they should make some common PvE-only skills that all professions can use, then apply racial flavors to them.  This would allow them to include things like transformations and extra weapons that don't fall under most professions' u-skills.  For example, Norn would have a Form X, which would be equivalent in every way to Human Avatar of Y,  [charr pulls out] Weapon Z, and Asura Golem U, except different looks and animations.


Imo this middle ground Anet is trying to achieve with the racial skills isn't going to please either side.  Anet should know better than to make players choose between cool looking and effective.

[Thyar]

In fact, ArenaNet sort of missed a chance to make some money with the racial skills.

Had they indeed made them completely cosmetic -
and put some serious time in on those ability's asethetics -
once again absolutely without having them provide any new powers that directly affect battle -

- then they could have sold them at the Cash Shop along with the vanity gear.

Edited by Thyar, 01 June 2012 - 11:17 AM.

[Haterx732]

Honestly what I think they should of done is made different skins/animations for skills or say pets depending on race.

Like for example; Humans have an elite skill called Hounds of Balthazar and I think it would be neat if a ranger pet had their skin replaced with one of those hounds specific to the human race. Same case for Norn given their elite/culture, a unique bear, raven, ect...

This is just an example and I honestly see no purpose in the way they set-up race specific skills considering that they are weaker then profession specific skills. They become useless really...

[borovnica]

Well I see and understand why Anet wants to make racial skills weaker than prof counterparts, but I would actually like if they were just a little bit stronger then they are right now. In BWE prof skills were much better and stronger then the racial ones, I didn't feel rewarded enough to have racial skill on my bar, it just felt like I'm wasting space on them.

Edited by borovnica, 01 June 2012 - 11:47 AM.