Skritt as a playable race: Hive Mind?

I know there have been tons of discussions about new playable races, but I wanted to make this topic specifically to discuss the issue of the Skritt Hive Mind.

I've wanted Skritt to be playable for a long time, although I don't think that's ever going to happen. It'd make it super weird to do those heart quests where you have to kill Skritt. =\

But a bigger issue, imho, is the lore behind Skritt intelligence. From what I've read, it seems like Skritt on their own are, well, not very bright. But Skritt together in large groups are more intelligent. The wiki says, "Skritt communicate mainly using a series of swift, near ultrasonic chirrups and chitters. While this sounds like a buzz to human ears, the skritt have exceptional hearing and so can communicate a great deal of information in a short period of time. This may be the basis of their group intelligence; larger groups of skritt are capable of expressing a greater number of ideas and making a greater number of decisions in a shorter amount of time, so despite the short attention span of an individual skritt, a large group can collectively possess a formidable intellect, and a full-fledged colony can rival even the asura for cunning."

Assuming I wanted to roll a Skritt and have it be fairly close to the established lore, that means I'd have to make my character pretty spacey and easily distracted, but what if I created a Skritt-only guild? Could my guild feel confident that, lore-wise, we could outsmart an asura?

I'm just really interested in how the lore descriptions of their intelligence might impact how people would/could play them as a playable race.

This could be a great discussion in the Lore section, with lots of people who study the various areas of the game. I'll do my best to discuss this topic here, though.

Skritt intelligence is extremely flexible. A single skritt or two would have just a couple of ideas, but generally a single-minded obsession with shinies. However, get 5, 10, or even 50 of them together, and they'll get super-intelligent.

As a playable character, this makes things tricky. In skritt scratches, they become more intelligent, and super smart in a place like Skrittsburg. But alone, in most of the world, they have very basic communication skills. Would the player be smarter when fighting other skritt? Would the other skritt get smarter as you fought them? Would it even be possible to talk to them, where either you or they get convinced to switch sides?

Honestly, the concept works better for an RP method than in the game. Far too many variables to control in an automated system. There are also problems with the other "lesser races" as playable races, but that's a topic for another post.

Skritt are not STRICTLY a hive mind.

There are many instances of individuals having their own thoughts and ideas.

Among other reasons the Skritts Hive Mind based intelligence is one of multiple reasons why, even if in the future new playable races would be implemented, will most likely never be available. While with many other races you can make a point of the PC belonging to a more pacified subgroup eg a peacefull tribe of centaurs or something like that, the point cannot be upheld with skritt. Unlike other races here it would nt be a problem of there being no truely friendly Skritts around, there are quite a few in fact. The problem is that the lore would force you basically carry around an entire Skritt hive wherever you go - which simply is not the case. In addition to that Skritt are treated explicitly as one of Tyrias "lesser races" as you may know from playing the story. All in all, while I think there is a rellativly big number of races that could be made available as playable, even though it might waste a lot of rescources better placed elsewhere, in my opinion Skritt number among the races that are definitly out of question as a playable race.

edit: changed a word to be more gramatically proper - I'm not a native speaker.

There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

So the 500'000+ skritt characters have all been the sole survivors of some magical freak accident?

skritt will probably never be playable just like any other minor race in that they have a niche they fill but aren't substantial enough for a playable race. (just like ogres, quaggan, hylek and grawl)

@lokh.2695 said:

@"Eekasqueak.7850" said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

Not "sole survivors" but survivors of a freak magical accident that built a society would work.

Besides from a story perspective we're already the "only" commander.

Also, there's no need to say that 500k skritt survived the accident. Just 1 that had sons and daughters and passed his mutated genes to his progeny.So after a Mother Tree, we'd have a... Father Skritt. (I think we're fine with 5 races though)

We already have asura. Don't need two types of rats.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

But wouldn't even 5 of them in ear shot of each other have enough collective intelligence to outclass the entire Asuran race? Generally Asurans are self regulated by tripping over their own egos..... and the half dozen that figured out how to get around that have come closest to world domination on more then one occasion. And if you count alternate time lines, one did.

Imagine the Council of Rikkitis becoming the dominate power of the Multiverse. They might even develop an immunity to shinnies.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

That sounds like a positive to me.

@"starlinvf.1358" said:Imagine the Council of Rikkitis becoming the dominate power of the Multiverse. They might even develop an immunity to shinnies.

"Now that the dragon crisis has been solved and world order restored, let us bask in the peace we have made and ponder the aesthetics of that which reflects the luster we have created.""Shiny!""Tsk, show a little composure, Bitichek...""My apologies, I was overwhelmed with childlike glee."

Krewe member Toppi, current leader of the Brill Alliance:"We had a very solid equation for the number of individuals vs IQ growth, but we needed to test how distance affected the IQ conglomerative subtelepatic properties of the subjects. The methodology was sound, the testing instruments were at perfect tuning, the crewe was motivated, we even had developed a super-shinning ooze colony producing golden waste to pay our skritt... it was all going so well..."

Pacemaker Eek: "Then what happened. This disaster is not something a simple experiment like you describe can produce. Explain, Toppi!"

Toppi: "Truth to be told, the problem was real state. We needed to distance the subjects to measure the effect of separation over the mind link. The results were interesting and easy at first, inside the first steps. 10 units, 100 units, 300 units, 1000 units, It was all well. When we hit the 5000 units we discovered we couldn't separate the subjects anymore while inside the lab. Then at 15000 units we were at the limits of our crewe property, stepping into Inquest turf in the north and into a toxic bog in the south. The experiments become tricky. We needed to control the subjects and keep them focused, while walking across very public roads, dangerous bandit territory, noisy cities, or worst, areas with shinies in them. It was a mess. We lost many subjects, we got a bunch of injured crewe members, and the numbers were still not clear. We needed more distance, much more."

Eek: "I still can't see how this relates to a Superskritt killing dragons out there, Genius."

Toppi: "Evidently. You will not be relegated to pacemaker duties if you were brighter. I mean no disrespect, its just a fact."

Eek: "I concede. Now continue with the story or I'll put you behind bars for a year. Its just a fact."

Toppi: "Ok, ok. The point is, according with our more detailed model at the time, to properly test the influence of distance in the IQ conglomerative subtelepatic nanoparticles, we needed a gigantic, circular, subterranean, super-shiny and very well polished tube, with a diameter covering from rata novus to amnoon, at minimum. A big, fat, brilliant Head-Rodent Brain-Tickles Accelerator.The experiment was well worth it, of course, but no one wanted to finance us. Ridiculous. We even tried to convince Evon Gnashblade he could use the loop as a secret railroad afterwards, but there wasn't anyone interested."

Eek: "So?"

Toppi: "We needed to think inside the box."

Eek: "For the Ethernal Alchemy, you spoke with Moto?!"

Toppi: "Yes."

Eek: "Now I'm seeing how this went south."

Toppi: "We went southwest, really, but that's not the point. The point is Moto's helped us develop what we called the Virtual Headrodent Braintickles Accelerator. A construct the size of the whole Tyrian planet, but neatly compressed into binary code. We stopped walking around bad neighborhoods with valuable equipment and unruly test subjects, and went into the comfy lab again. We put this tiny device in the head of our testing Skritt, an began the experiments again, only now the distance was virtual. The thing is capable of adjust the apparent distance of any skritt in the world: for the wearer subject the other skritt would be as close or as far as we defined in the base parameters. To complete the "Going Away" phase of the experiment was a breeze, we were able to detect even the point where the decrease of the IQ due to distance increasing became a flat constant. The "Dumb as a Plank Constant" as we called it.The "Getting Close" phase was the scary one. We were very confident, and applied the principle of Extreme Risk Solving Itself right away. We make the virtual distance of the device wearer subject to every other Skritt in the planet just 100 units. And then everything exploded. Not literally, of course."

Eek: "That was when the Allmighty MultiSkritt Individual arose?"

Toppi: "Yes. He/she was super nice. And really really shiny. He/she eat lunch with us, asked us to stop making experiments on people without asking first, telekinetically stole all our shinies, then just floated away into the sky. It was spectacular, with all the multidimensional tails and orbiting coins and stuff. But of course we weren't stopped just by that. So we tweaked the devices to just put every other skritt in the planet at 50000 units away from the wearer test subject."

Eek: "And?"

Toppi: "And the test subject took over the experiment, and the papers, and the whole crewe. It was impressive. Such efficiency. Hrappa was furious. It was his experiment, his crewe, his research, after all. He was so furious he even made some terrible mistakes when making the new VHBA device. He forgot to activate the turn off option. So now the test subjects were permanently intelligent and coherent skritt...

Eek: "And?"

Toppi: "And then Gorr published his Draconic enchanto-consumption theory, and everything fell into chaos when our Subject 98 decided to stop the dragons before they destroyed Tyria. Was a real hero, so clever and brave and strong, a true leader. But we, the Brill Alliance, were instantly forgotten. After all, more intelligence didn't improved at all the terrible attention span the Skritt had. Now the commander keeps going on without even remembering us!"

Eek: "It is sad when the experiments leave the lab and decide to do things for themselves."

Toppi: "Yes it is. But I'm proud, you know. It may be just a superintelligent skritt, but is like family to me. So talented at destroying things! Just like me!"

Eek: "Come on, don't cry. Its all good. The commander can't be so stupid to kill Balthazar that close to Kralkatorrik. It will all be better, don't worry."

Toppi: "Ok. Thanks for listen to me."

Eek: "No problem, that's what we Pacemakers are for, isn't it?"

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

Or the descendants of such a sole survivor. How rapidly can skritt generations breed?

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:There's a hyper intelligent singular Skritt in metrica province, check the survivor camp, it is a side effect of the Thaumanova reactor explosion. Playable Skritt could easily use a similar justification.

Pretty fast if they're anything like RL rodents.

Interesting topic. If they are going to add skritt as a playable race, I think it would make sense that they also include Grawl, Hylek, Ogre, and Quaggan.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Racial_sympathy

You know what race I want to play? Centaurs! Actually.... nevermind, not sure how they can use mounts.

@Lost Dimension.9014 said:You know what race I want to play? Centaurs! Actually.... nevermind, not sure how they can use mounts.

Thank you, sir or madam, for putting that amazing image into my head.

Now I want to ride a horse. I hope it'll be a real mount one day (although I should stretch my finger to reach the #7. But doable. Until #8 is doable)

Skritts are very intelligent together as intelligent as asuras, they are one living story instance that take place at Skrittburg, an asura was trading some lesser technologies against shinies with a skritt. But, one day, the skritt came with his friends, ~20, and understood that he got scammed. And together they decided to fight the asura. A real story.That hive intelligence returned in sandswept where lesser skritts can enhance the big one.

Yes please, or if not playable then at least a permanent skritt combat tonic. :)