Goblin Squad Member
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I realise racial attributes is part of the pathfinder structure, but in games where pvp is a significant component, it can cause issues, you end up with a "best" race for certain pvp layouts (eg all pvp mages end up being elves, all the barbarians dwarves"
Are the racial characteristics going to have this kind of effect on PFO or are they going to be less... Directed to advantages in combat areas?
I ask mostly put of a concern for diversity in characters, and choosing the "wrong" race.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well from what I remember the Stats will be involved in your training times and saves tied to different stats. Other than that I am not sure.
Edit: So an Elf and a Dwarf might both be wizards but, the Elf might learn his skills faster than the Dwarf. That being said our Dwarven wizard will have a higher con and might be able to pick up universal abilities that require con faster. These might be general health bonuses or something.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only racial trait I've seen so far is dwarves get extra encumbrance, which is useful, but not giving you any sort of edge, except perhaps as a more desirable looting target.
But for all we know (and I'm hoping its not like this ) elves get an extra spell cat for each spell per day, which could give an edge to an elf wizard over any other race, causing most magic users to go elf.
Or half orcs doing more damage in melee combat.. That sort of thing that actually puts you at a disadvantage if you choose anything else, that's what I'm worried about.
Personally, I neverchoose based on racial traits because I go by the rp idea of th character, but is every Mage I meet going to be an elf?
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Goblin Squad Member
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But for all we know (and I'm hoping its not like this ) elves get an extra spell cat for each spell per day, which could give an edge to an elf wizard over any other race, causing most magic users to go elf.
Or half orcs doing more damage in melee combat..
These sound like huge oversights. I highly doubt this would happen. I mean if we can see the unbalencing of abilities like this in seconds then I am sure GW can.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One thing to keep in mind is that GW isn't incredibly concerned with balancing 1v1 PvP. In games like WoW where PvP is sports, it matters. Less so in war, where actions taken before a battle may decide it before it starts.
I'm not sure if this philosophy will mean much when they look at 'balancing' race abilities. By this I mean: I'm not sure they will balance the races with regards to combat specifically.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not worried about balance, I'm worried about diversity :p
I don't think you have anything to worry about. The incentives in WoW to extract every last ounce of bonuses in PvP are only strong incentives because of Blizzard's attempts to balance PvP. Since PFO isn't concerned with 1v1 or XvX arena-style PvP balance, there won't be a strong incentive to make sure you have the best racial bonus.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not worried about balance, I'm worried about diversity :pI don't think you have anything to worry about. The incentives in WoW to extract every last ounce of bonuses in PvP are only strong incentives because of Blizzard's attempts to balance PvP. Since PFO isn't concerned with 1v1 or XvX arena-style PvP balance, there won't be a strong incentive to make sure you have the best racial bonus.
It will if all other things are equal. Which I'm assuming they are. I'm assuming that 2 characters of equal skill and level with the same abilities and equipment will be fairly evenly matched,
If you get an edge choosing this race over that one for this class/synergy, you'll get the same combos cropping up over and over.
I suppose the long time it takes to level will mitigate it a bit for the first few years, but after that... You still have to consider the down the track consequences of a design decision too. It's just easier if its brought up now than in 2 years.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If racial skills happen, I'm interested to see how humans are managed. In TT PFO, they get extra skill ranks to allocate, so I wonder how that will translate (if at all). Likewise wondering the same for Rogues - the skill monkeys of TT PFO. I do like my human rogue with skills coming out his ears :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It will if all other things are equal.I think that's what they're saying we shouldn't expect. "All other things" would only be equal if the game designers made a deliberate attempt to balance "all other things". They're not going to be doing that in PFO.
I interpret that as "a wizard doesn't have to have equal chance in a fight as a paladin"
With any game where there aren't classes, there will always be certain builds that work better in a certain situation, once those builds are worked out, they will become more common. Eg, perhaps a wizard with level 6 martial arts is the most efficient build while raising all other wizard abilities past level 8. After that, some other template builds on that to make most effective use of abilities, perhaps it gives the best damage combo at that level. (Just as an example)
If you add a racial bonus to wizardry or spells or something, then you get an influx of level 8 wizards with level 6 martial arts that are all elves, because that is the "best" build for a "wizard focused on damage" or for "magic combat classes"
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Goblin Squad Member
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I interpret that as "a wizard doesn't have to have equal chance in a fight as a paladin"
I believe it's also correct to interpret that as "a wizard who makes choice A doesn't have to have equal chance in a fight as a wizard who makes choice B, or choice C, et cetera ad infinitum".
However, I hear what you're saying and I agree that they should avoid making "must have" Racial Bonuses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If racial skills happen, I'm interested to see how humans are managed. In TT PFO, they get extra skill ranks to allocate, so I wonder how that will translate (if at all). Likewise wondering the same for Rogues - the skill monkeys of TT PFO. I do like my human rogue with skills coming out his ears :)
I imagine humans would get a few cultural groups to choose from and a skill set appropriate to them. They might not have to actually lock in what cultural group they are from until they start training in one too.
Rogues as skill monkeys will probably end up being a lot of really quick easy to learn utility skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah I'm not so worried about these decisions not making you as effective in this situation than if you chose those skills instead, rather that given the SAME skills one race will have an edge, making it favored for that build.
It's not a problem immediately, and I suppose since a 3 year vet can start branching anyway, it won't be so significant, but at any particular level of advancement, it could mean this race will always be a better magic user, or that one always a better melee combatant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't mind if racial attributes tied into more advanced parts of the character, and made one race 'better' at a certain activity.
I want the world to make sense, and Half Orcs having the highest potential for strength, halflings being more dexterous, and elves being wise makes sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It makes sense, yes, but in a game with strong pvp interaction, you end up with no diversity. You can refocus skills by training others, changing race is not so easy. No one wants to train for 2.5 years only to find someone else at the same point has an advantage just because they picked a different race, and If they wanted that class they should have picked it too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So a halfling or gnome should be able to wield a greatsword in the same fashion and to the same effect as a half-orc?
I'm not a huge fan of the 'anybody can do anything they want with any character' idea. I want there to be limitations set in place on day 1 based on your choices during character creation. I don't want people to be able to experience the entire range of the game on one character. I want there to be things like a faction that only allows in one race.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That would be reasonable expectation if you freely advance multiple characters, but my understanding is that you will need to pay for each character you want to advance.
Allowing any character full access to everything is balanced by the fact that it could take years before your character can experience many of the aspects of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With any racial bonus comes a racial negative. I'm sure this will balance things out in the long run. Smashy the halforc might be a little better at hitting stuff, but his thinky stuff isn't as crash hot.
I agree with other posters in that I don't want to see every barbarian/fighter as a half orc simply for that +1 damage bonus though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Races being able to bypass some normal prereqs for skills or merit badges may be an interesting way to do it. Basically the race becomes an alternate prereq for skills and merit badges that are particularly fitting for that race making it easier to build in ways that match the race.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So a halfling or gnome should be able to wield a greatsword in the same fashion and to the same effect as a half-orc?
I'm not a huge fan of the 'anybody can do anything they want with any character' idea. I want there to be limitations set in place on day 1 based on your choices during character creation. I don't want people to be able to experience the entire range of the game on one character. I want there to be things like a faction that only allows in one race.
While I don't want that, that did remind me of something.
Will Gnomes and Halflings be Small size, like in the TT? And will their weapons do less damage accordingly?For example, longswords do 1d8, but small longswords do 1d6. Medium greatswords do 2d6, small greatswords do 1d10. Will size be a factor in PFO?
I think race/class balancing will come from diversity of activities rather than any heavy handed attempts at "fairness" from GW. Just for an example lets say an Elven wizard might be better at large scale warfare because of his/her attribute increase to train faster while the same is true for a Dwarf in smaller skirmish battles because of durability. I do believe that there will be a best build and race/class combination for specific tasks, but hopefully they are only slight and easily overcome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Races being able to bypass some normal prereqs for skills or merit badges may be an interesting way to do it. Basically the race becomes an alternate prereq for skills and merit badges that are particularly fitting for that race making it easier to build in ways that match the race.
Wow, that's a really novel idea!
One of the great things about it is that over time, as skill time accrues, the racial differences become less meaningful, which was a concern for some in this thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yup, I'm not concerned about "fairness" so much as something creating an unbalance that causes there to be a "right" race for a class.
If over time it evens out, that means at different points different races might have an edge, but in the end it won't matter by the time you've mastered the skills, and that's ok
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Goblin Squad Member
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So a halfling or gnome should be able to wield a greatsword in the same fashion and to the same effect as a half-orc?
I'm not a huge fan of the 'anybody can do anything they want with any character' idea. I want there to be limitations set in place on day 1 based on your choices during character creation. I don't want people to be able to experience the entire range of the game on one character. I want there to be things like a faction that only allows in one race.
While I don't want that, that did remind me of something.
Will Gnomes and Halflings be Small size, like in the TT? And will their weapons do less damage accordingly?
For example, longswords do 1d8, but small longswords do 1d6. Medium greatswords do 2d6, small greatswords do 1d10. Will size be a factor in PFO?
A gnome or a halfling could use a medium size longsword, but would have to use it two-handed. And they wouldn't be able to use the medium greatsword. If they go by that rule in PFO... no clue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a character has a number of training slots to advance, the human could get an extra slot fillable with most any skill, while gnomes could get a bonus one fillable only with a crafting skill, and elves get a bonus slot to fill with a perception skill. A human wizard would have a more diverse and less predictable skill set than his gnomish and elven counterparts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yup, I'm not concerned about "fairness" so much as something creating an unbalance that causes there to be a "right" race for a class.
If over time it evens out, that means at different points different races might have an edge, but in the end it won't matter by the time you've mastered the skills, and that's ok
If any race gets any bonus, there will always be a 'right' class, even if the bonus is tiny. I would like the bonus' to be meaningful, so that would involve a race being 'better suited' for certain skill types than others. I think one way it could be done is by carrying the racial attribute bonuses and penalties from the PnP.
I like obscure race/class/skill combinations an all, but I want them to remain obscure, the people that do them should really know what they are doing and be able to cope with 'not being the best'. If a half-orc want's to be a wizard, they should have to work harder.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yup, I'm not concerned about "fairness" so much as something creating an unbalance that causes there to be a "right" race for a class.
If over time it evens out, that means at different points different races might have an edge, but in the end it won't matter by the time you've mastered the skills, and that's ok
If any race gets any bonus, there will always be a 'right' class, even if the bonus is tiny. I would like the bonus' to be meaningful, so that would involve a race being 'better suited' for certain skill types than others. I think one way it could be done is by carrying the racial attribute bonuses and penalties from the PnP.
I like obscure race/class/skill combinations an all, but I want them to remain obscure, the people that do them should really know what they are doing and be able to cope with 'not being the best'. If a half-orc want's to be a wizard, they should have to work harder.
I think that's fine in theory, but you end up with all the wizards being elves and all the barbarians being orcs (or whatever) and then it's just...disappointing.
I suppose EVENTUALLY in this game you could have someone compensate for their disadvantage with some other abilities they throw into the mix that the "best" in that class doesn't.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The Devs will have to decide where and how they will balance the game. They will need to determine if they wish the game to be asynchronous or synchronous; 1vs1, 4vs4, 50vs50, ext.
If they choose to make it asynchronous where a race has a bonus to a game mechanic there will be more of that race running around when dealing with that game mechanic.
It's math and all MMO's come down to math. The level of importance per mechanic will change based on the group size balance. If the balance is 1vs1 whatever race/class combination that produces the best survivability/ DPS ratio will be the most numerous (mage-tanks) or gathering/ crafting, ect. The larger the group balance is scaled to the broader the choices will be, however, in the end there will still be the mechanically "best" group set up.
The only way to remove this would be to make it a synchronous game where each ability is grouped to a specific mechanical type and that specific mechanic does the same thing for each of the abilities in the group while having different skins/ animations. Then remove any mechanical adjustment from a race leaving only social/ RP things.
In the end it's the Dev's call and if anyone thinks that they will not be balancing the game in some format, then you are simply fooling yourself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that's fine in theory, but you end up with all the wizards being elves and all the barbarians being orcs (or whatever) and then it's just...disappointing.
I suppose EVENTUALLY in this game you could have someone compensate for their disadvantage with some other abilities they throw into the mix that the "best" in that class doesn't.
I wouldn't say ALL, but maybe most. Doesn't the same thing happen in the TT? I wouldn't see it as disappointing, I would expect to come into the world and see races leaning towards their favored archetypes. I would be disappointed to see equal distribution of archetypes between the races.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Devs will have to decide where and how they will balance the game. They will need to determine if they wish the game to be asynchronous or synchronous; 1vs1, 4vs4, 50vs50, ext.
I get what you mean. Most MMOs dedicate themselves to the impossible task of balancing every mechanic in 1vs1 PVP.
I think it is less effort, and leads to more interesting tactics if everything is balanced on the scale of 10+ vs. 10+.
If GW entirely dedicated themselves to balancing 1vs1 they would fail. There will be too many classes and races in this game to do that.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I honestly expect them to build the game around asynchronous mechanics and focused on a small party (4-5 players) with around a 60/40 split between combat/ non-combat abilities. This breakdown wouldn't be per individual abilities but per role; ie 60% adventures/ explorers 40% crafters/ gathers/ others.
I also expect the combat section of the mechanics to break down into sub-roles; Main non-magic, Main Arcane magic, Support Arcane magic, Main Divine Magic, Support Divine magic, and support non-magic. I am sure there will be variations like main arcane/ divine support, ect. I simply expect there to be a subset of roles within the combat roles that everything within the sub-role is balanced across each other while the total balance would be party vs. party with each comprised of the correct roles.
In my experience building a synchronous game is much easier to balance but players seem to not enjoy every ability of the same type doing the same thing mechanically while looking different. Then again at the same time the players also want all abilities to be balance and different; can't win them all...
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Though in hind-sight PFO might be better off with the synchronous version. Most weapons and spells have similar mechanics while producing different effects.
For example a short sword does 1d6+str and a hand axe also does 1d6+str. Visually the fighting styles would be different but mechanically they do the same amount of damage. Sure one is Piercing and the other is slashing but that section of the mechanic would only be situational and since i assume you can swap weapon or at least re-equip new weapons at some point the players could then use what they liked most of the time.
The same would go for most spell; there is no reason why fireball or lightning bolt verse lightning-ball and fire bolt (yes they're made up spells) would not have the same mechanics while having different visuals.
Just a thought...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though in hind-sight PFO might be better off with the synchronous version. Most weapons and spells have similar mechanics while producing different effects.
For example a short sword does 1d6+str and a hand axe also does 1d6+str. Visually the fighting styles would be different but mechanically they do the same amount of damage. Sure one is Piercing and the other is slashing but that section of the mechanic would only be situational and since i assume you can swap weapon or at least re-equip new weapons at some point the players could then use what they liked most of the time.
The same would go for most spell; there is no reason why fireball or lightning bolt verse lightning-ball and fire bolt (yes they're made up spells) would not have the same mechanics while having different visuals.
Just a thought...
I really disliked this in TOR. How every class seemed like a clone of every other class with the same role and only tiny variations.
They just need to do their best to balance things. Thankfully the 2.5 years required to train even a single role to completion will give them a lot more time to nerf overpowered abilities before they can become Flavor of The Month.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think some of this also depends on how combat works. Is there an attack speed? Is everything going to be the same speed because of the points? Or will you see slower, heavier weapons using more points per attack, and thus attacking less, but still utilising their points?
Same goes for spells, you can do different damage based on the casting speed. Burst damage vs dps type stuff, or a combination. I'd like them to be different, and to have all the various damage types.
But personally I'd take it a bit further, with things like non magical platmail might be great against slashing and piercing weapons (except maybe crossbows) but takes full damage from maces and extra damage from lightning and fire. Insulation (crafting enhancement) might mitigate the fire and electricity damage, reinforcement (different enhancement) might reduce the damage from mace weapons a bit instead.
Insulation on leather might reduce cold damage, but you're less resistant to piercing and slashing.
cloth reinforcement might slightly improve it's slashing and fire resistance, but you'd need insulation for cold damage, and insulation might also reduce bashing damage (we'll call it cushioning)
etc, stuff like that. Where there are variables in all equipment, and customisations in it that could be exploited or used to your advantage.
Then there could be a bunch of magical enhancements for other things not so easily covered.
Perhaps powerful, rare magical enhancements (rare resources? limited charge? other restrictions?) that provide larger or broader bonuses.