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Comments
Troll Magi was not viable by any means before. Stoneskin punches could only get you so far. Now I'm pretty sure you can build a troll Magi with a statpack that can out-perform the humans of old. It wasn't too remove min-maxing. Now you can take a less than optimal combination and still experience a majority of the game's content.
Human's bonuses are pretty great, too, and universally so.
There's more'n enough to make up for not being able to pick up a 15-point statpack in some races. And the races that do not have 14's in strength/dexterity/intelligence are the ones with a really great statpack and one rougher one; that's a more than fair tradeoff, imo.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Dwarves have four racial resistances, second only to Dragon.
Horkval gives you the ability to use better armour'n you'd get to for some classes, and you get leap, which is crazy helpful, specially if your class can't use a mount.
All really, really good compensations for missing out on a +1.
Again, until I see all you people with 11 dex tripping over yourselves constantly and people with 11 con missing out on entire days of playing because you're sickly, and people with 11 int unable to do rituals, it's not even a valid excuse.
"But the potential to roleplay it is there!" is useless, no one does it. Almost anyone who pk's at all is going to pick the best race for pk.
How's 11 dex 'tripping over yourself' but 12 dex able to walk about fine even make sense?
It's about nuances. I always liked the way they explained it in the player's handbook of D&D 3.5, and I think the philosophy is applicable to Achaea- PCs are the cream of the crop, the elite. By their very nature, they're extraordinary, so even the things that are not their strengths are -at least- well within a normal person's capabilities.
Walking around with the strength of a dragon doesn't mean you're breaking everything you touch. After all, the dude who plays the Mountain in Game of Thrones is perfectly capable of using a fork. You're actually looking at roleplay from a numbers perspective, and it's super, super bizarre.
That guy CAN walk around with a tree log on his shoulder, if he wants to/has to. Is he always using all that strength? No. Similarly, if, I don't know, someone was stuck in a burning car, I might be able to punch through glass or pull open a jammed door, even if I wouldn't ordinarily consider myself a particularly strong person most of the time.
So measuring EVERYTHING (particularly the ordinary) by the absolute maximum of your character's stats seems weird. On the other hand, it -does- seem to make sense that a person with a human's genetic makeup can't do things as well as someone whose body has evolved/been made different.
ETA: You may not like it, but stereotyping and prejudices are a part of life, and of our characters' lives. You're perfectly willing to write off anyone as Targossian IC as no big loss, if they kick the bucket, but assuming that a Tsol'aa monk won't be as hurty as a Troll monk is invalid and boring... why?
This isn't even getting into the fact that the idea that some races are better than others at things is already boring in and of itself. All it does is play to the tendency people have IRL to stereotype groups.
But even under a equalized system, you could definitely balance around them. Either give the races with bonuses that are worth it a penalty, or give everyone an equal bonus. (And even if you did nothing, it'd be the same amount balanced as it is now).
I'll bite, last time.
If everyone's suddenly equal, everything that makes some denizens stand out, is suddenly irrelevant. I cited Alcibiades earlier. Talarna's dexterity in the times I've seen her be roleplayed also stood out and made an impression because Trolls aren't usually that way.
The Mhun Knights would not be special anymore, because all Mhun are perfectly capable of being over six foot and muscular as a bodybuilder. A super fat Mhunna wouldn't stand out, either, because it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for the usually slender Mhun to be fat anymore, right?
Remove those differences, and a lot of what gives Achaean individuals their distinctiveness is suddenly out the window. I suppose the fundamental difference in the way we're looking at it is this (and I already know on which side of the fence you fall, given your earlier comment)- for those of us who DO suck up a mechanical penalty because roleplay's more important, you're taking away an aspect of the game that is a bit like lighting effects. It helps round things out, gives the world edges, and that helps immersion.
Making everyone the same basically does away with that, and, like I asked before- will people suddenly start taking their roleplaying more seriously? I'm cynical enough to believe they won't. The more uniform and standardized games get, the blander the roleplaying. I've seen it in tabletops, in MMORPGs, and in some MUDs, in my time gaming (and I feel like 15+ years of this kind of thing is pretty solid!).
ETA: @Nakari: I suppose people can really push to equalize racial advantages, but I dunno. If you adjust for racial traits, you're going to end up in a similar-ish place, except Atavians and Mhun are gonna get nerfed into having no 15's.
As you yourself said, player character are the very cream of the top, and even if we suddenly had Mhun body builders as par for the course (Which I doubt, again, because of how most other mhuns in the game world would be presented) I don't think that would make the special denizens you mention any less special.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
@Kiet if everyone had access to the same stats, people'd just pick based on what racial ability gives them the best pvp advantage in 4/5 cases, I'm pretty sure
@Shirszae I get what you're saying. But if Atavians didn't have the statpack they have, and everyone had the same stats, the amount you hurt when we sparred wouldn't've stood out at all. As a player, I wasn't expecting it, and as a character, Anedhel wasn't either, and it was a very immersive moment. Little things like that make the game feel a bit more alive, wouldn't you say? If everyone's numbers were always the same according to how they min-max, that little moment wouldn't've meant a thing, because it would have no reason to stand out- thus, the game would've lost something. I hope that highlights what I'm trying to say
Re: denizens- yes, their descriptions are mostly what it boils down to, but the fact that a keeper and a knight hurt way more than your average Mhun miner, means that you immediately associate those changes in description with something mechanical. What you read, and what you experience, from a mechanical point of view, are linked.
I doubt literally anyone can tell at a glance if someone has 14 or 16 str just from fighting them until they get DSB'd at the exact threshold of hp.
Not sure what the con score has anything to do with it, so I dunno what to do with that.
I'm also not really sure if there's anything to gain by going down this road again, so that's it for me!
Again, though, if her having no 15 str base let her hurt you just the same it's pretty clear there's not that much 'immersiveness' to it, if you can't immediately tell at a glance that she's got lower str?
(Edit: @Anedhel eep, read your edit. I think balancing around racial traits would make it so that mechanics would trade off with other mechanics instead of roleplay. And I was pretty sure that's what you were saying was how dwarf/human/horkval worked, and how that was a good thing)
You're off on where I fall, though. None of my characters who I've seriously tried/started getting into combat with are the optimal race for their build. Two (of three), were pretty much the worst choices for their class. I DO suck up mechanical penalties because roleplay's more important, and have done so every time I've rolled up a character. But to me that doesn't add immersion, it makes me perpetually tempted to make a decision that would be way out of character because it would basically mean 1250 free credits.
The problem with your argument is that you're citing examples of people roleplaying the strengths and weaknesses of their race and claiming that results solely from having +1 or -1 in a stat.
I think that's just not true. Under the current system, roleplaying those strengths and differences is entirely optional. You could be a fat mhun or a smart troll (again, Aodfionn's one, and I bet he isn't even int specced) just as easily as anything else. Or you could describe yourself as a 7 foot tall bodybuilder siren, and even get a magic strength whatever so that you could claim that your stats back you up. All of that is totally independent of your actual stats. No one can see what specialization you are, and arties can boost you up damn high as well.
The examples you list are of people who integrated the lore into how they portrayed their character. They didn't have to do that just because the numbers said so, they did it because of the lore. That lore doesn't go away if you change the stat system. By the racial lore, fat mhuns and strong grooks would still be rare, just like 7-foot dwarves and emaciated trolls. It's not mechanics that makes those things rare right now, it's the impressions of the races that players have and the lore that drives that.
Besides, adventurers are already supposed to be rare and exemplary individuals among a much bigger populous. That just makes the claim that somehow the moment stats got changed that there would be a whole host of people wanting to play fat adventurer mhuns and dextrous trolls and Mhunna and Talarna seem even less likely.
This is true. And its the only item I have won from Auctions and I will never participate in an auction again. Immediately after I spent all of this money, dragons can track to people and everyone started becoming dragons and now it feels useless (just in terms that so many people can do it and everyone is on alert for it now, instead of when I first got it and it was like "Zomg a Paladin tracked me!")
Yeah. I had a point of pride in being Knighted by the Paladins as a Horkval way back when. Everyone said I would be too slow to ever realistically participate in a fight and so couldn't win the Duel against Itkovian. It did take me -forever-, but it happened.
Are you all lesserforming everytime you have to go indoors? I don't think so.
If you like racial disparity, then I'd like to start seeing some of you RP'ing what you are saying. When you go clouds as a dragon, you need to lesserform first, because dragons in Achaea are huge and can't fit into small indoor rooms that aren't vaulted halls.
The racial disparity because "realism" arguments make 0 sense.
Also, nostalgic reasons for "well I did X in the past and it was awesome" don't translate into 2016 Achaea.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
No more posting or saying anything smart unless you have at least 15 into.
If you have less than 12 con you better get sick all the time.
Less than 12 strength? That armour you're wearing coupled with carrying 10k gold in your pack is now impossible.
Are you a mhun? You better not go outside for more than 3 seconds at a time or you'll burn to a crisp.
Groom? Better carry around buckets of water to keep your skin moist or you'll dry up!
Xoran? You better wear 10 coats if it's cold out our you'll die.
P.s. they removed the size stat (yeah it used to be a real thing) so long ago that I'm probably the only one around that still remembers it, as they felt it hindered role-playing as not all trolls have to be 8 feet tall.