Make racial skills good! Make racial trait trees!

[Cyninja.2954]

It doesn't matter if pve, spvp or wvw. Each segment has high end min-/maxing players for the content. Once racial skills become relevant, race selection WILL have an effect on the game.

 

The graph posted by Ashgar.3024 demonstrates very well of how far it can go.

 

There have been unique racial skill uses in the past which prompted a response by the developers, and usually a "let's make sure this skill becomes absolutely useless", as to ensure that these skills don't find their way into endgame (sylvary turret was one on some condi builds).

 

There still are a few racial skills out of place, Technobabble for one. High breakbar damage on a low cooldown, great for those asura chrono tanks (or boonthief when that was still a thing) in encounters where cc is demanded (Matthias). 

 

Hounds of Balthazar as precast in fractals is another. It's free dps, might as well use it.

 

Now I will say I am luke warm on the idea of racial skills via hero points, mostly because it would give another reason and use for the excessive spare hero points available without adding something gamebreaking. It would take away some flavor and lote though

 

Finally let's not forget the 1 class which has 0 access to racial skills ever since HoT and would subsequently be very disadvantaged of racial skills actually became useful: revenant.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Gorem.8104]

4 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

It would be an issue for PvE as well. Back in the days you had entire guilds transfer to become Trolls in WoW cause they had a 5% damage bonus to beasts and a few of the bosses were beasts lol. You can't get away from minmaxing nowadays. Specially in a game like GW2 where making alt characters is trivial.

 

Its not like racials are entirely unusable, in my raid team we have 2 Asura Chrono Tanks and both run Technobabble on some fights. The Norn transformations and the Charrzooka are all useable in open world and even for some WvW trolling (there's videos on youtubes of people mauling people in Bear Form lol). I don't really have examples for Humans or Sylvari as i don't play Humans and my only Sylvari is a competitive toon but i'm sure you can screw around with their abilities too. Sure none of this is meta and is just silly fun, but that sounds like a good place for these abilities to be to me.

 

The game has already a lot of power gaming layers between stat sets, sigils, runes, trait builds, ability builds, weapon choices etc, leaving at least the race choice as a more cosmetic/personal one shouldn't be a problem imo.

 

This is the problem, and I feel using WoW as an example in this argument already invalids your argument by a lot. 

GW2 is NOT WoW. You need to understand this concept. In GW2 the way you can play is varied massively. NEVER use WoW as a comparison or example for ANYTHING GW2 related. WoW is all about end game pve content, GW2 is NOT. 

Racial skills can not be used in competitive content and if they turned them off in WvW as well then entirely so. And GW2 raiding scene is its raiding scene already established, would it really matter if suddenly Racial skills were usefull? No it wouldn't. The problem is this fallacy from other games that it would be an issue. The problem is people think it would be a problem. The problem is they think it would force them to play certain classes. But in GW2 it wouldn't. Charr could be the best race in the entire game and people would still play Asura or humans even if their racials were the worst. Norn's should be able to transform and play as their spirits. GW2 is not about min/maxing for end game content. That is why Racial skills being good would work only in GW2 and no other game. 

 

If you are of the mindset that a race being better then others is why you'd pick that race, then you should play a different game. 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Farohna.6247]

16 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

 

This is the problem, and I feel using WoW as an example in this argument already invalids your argument by a lot. 

GW2 is NOT WoW. You need to understand this concept. In GW2 the way you can play is varied massively. NEVER use WoW as a comparison or example for ANYTHING GW2 related. WoW is all about end game pve content, GW2 is NOT. 

Racial skills can not be used in competitive content and if they turned them off in WvW as well then entirely so. And GW2 raiding scene is its raiding scene already established, would it really matter if suddenly Racial skills were usefull? No it wouldn't. The problem is this fallacy from other games that it would be an issue. The problem is people think it would be a problem. The problem is they think it would force them to play certain classes. But in GW2 it wouldn't. Charr could be the best race in the entire game and people would still play Asura or humans even if their racials were the worst. Norn's should be able to transform and play as their spirits. GW2 is not about min/maxing for end game content. That is why Racial skills being good would work only in GW2 and no other game. 

 

If you are of the mindset that a race being better then others is why you'd pick that race, then you should play a different game. 

What you miss about the WoW reference is that it does become about min/max and dps meters and your gear score/stats and if you're serious in PvP you only play a human because it was like having an extra trinket...those are things that are not prevalent in GW2.  Enough issues already with meta builds in some aspects of the game, why add yet another factor to this?  Why add them if you're going to turn them off for WvW, or pvp, etc.  And yes people will always play what they want to, it doesn't prevent that, but is it needed?  No.

[Liewec.2896]

its a bit depressing how you are all more eager to balance the game around the minority of minmaxers instead of everyone else who just wants to have fun.

you can still pvp on your asura warrior, you can still raid on your norn mesmer.

ditch the min maxer attitude and just have fun, or if you want to be a min maxer, go ahead.

 

also i never said i wanted racials to be OP, i don't.

racial skills being decent isn't going to prevent you from using other things.

i would like shapeshift forms to be a viable option, i don't care if they're not the best option

but i'd atleast like to have them as an option.

currently all of the racial skills are short duration with hilarious cooldowns.

things like powersuit are so weak, why can't i use it all of the time?

why does a weak ability that hogs the elite slot need a 240 second cooldown?

same goes for shapeshifts, we should be able to use these things as much as we want, and they should be made better.

firstly the static skills need to be updated to allow movement, its not 2012 anymore.

secondly even if we make these skills decent they will still be a worse alternative to profession skills,

fear of min maxing is unjust.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Liewec.2896

[Ashgar.3024]

35 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

If you are of the mindset that a race being better then others is why you'd pick that race, then you should play a different game. 

 

How is GW2 different than WoW or any other team based online multiplayer game? Its entire end game revolves around game modes with clear win conditions. People will naturally flock to whatever increase their chance of meeting these win conditions, its video games 101 here.

GW2 doesn't escape that, if anything i find this mindset just as if not more intense here as rerolling a character is trivial while in WoW the dev team work their hardest to make the process a complete pain. Just step a toe in a Fractal or Raid if you don't believe me. In WoW unless you push cutting edge content people won't care which healer you play. Here in T4s you can't play anything but FB or you get kicked.

12 minutes ago, Liewec.2896 said:

its a bit depressing how you are all more eager to balance the game around the minority of minmaxers instead of everyone else who just wants to have fun.

 

Complete opposite actually, i oppose changes because i want certain aspects of it to be free from the minmaxing and the meta. I already showcased that the way the current racials work you can have silly fun with them if that's your thing.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Ashen.2907]

The idea of purposefully creating situations where a character might be excluded,, or otherwise be at a disadvantage, due to their race is absolutely awful....especially as a post launch change. I would never have bought the game if this had been in at launch, and would stop spending money on the game immediately if implemented.

[Ashen.2907]

36 minutes ago, Liewec.2896 said:

its a bit depressing how you are all more eager to balance the game around the minority of minmaxers instead of everyone else who just wants to have fun.

 

You mean everyone else who wants to be able to chose character race without having to consider game mechanic impact?

 

Seriously, YOU are the one arguing for adding more min/max to the game, not the people who oppose your suggestion.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Tails.9372]

There are definitely some aspects of them that could be buffed without running the risk of "making them meta". E.g. the elite summons could be "always up" like the necro or the rune summons and no one would actually care. Same with the "transformations" / ""power suit" summons", just make sure that they're inherently selfish and are nowhere near the "meta" level performance wise (which is an incredibly easy task to accomplish) and then there wouldn't be any issue either.

[Gibson.4036]

While we’re at it character hit boxes should scale to their toon size.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

19 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

While we’re at it character hit boxes should scale to their toon size.

Only if their attack ranges decrease by the same proportions.

[Ashen.2907]

57 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

While we’re at it character hit boxes should scale to their toon size.

I like this.....and have eye color affect vision quality.

Height  could affect vision range as well.

And being asuran could cause you to blow up as soon as you log into the game.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

18 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I like this.....and have eye color affect vision quality.

Height  could affect vision range as well.

And being asuran could cause you to blow up as soon as you log into the game.

Mmm realism....

[SeTect.5918]

Didnt we have this thread like a thousand times already?

Its not a good idea, I hope at least around 95% of players know it. Making some races better than others is surely bad. 

Can a forum Moderator be So friendly now to close this thread already? 😂

Edited February 5, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[Ellye.9123]

5 hours ago, Liewec.2896 said:

its a bit depressing how you are all more eager to balance the game around the minority of minmaxers instead of everyone else who just wants to have fun.

 

It's not exactly about designing for those sad meta drones.

It's about not giving them yet another excuse to throw a tantrum when someone joins their party and doesn't have the exact build they saw on whatever meta-build site they use.

 

In the end, it's about protecting the players that just want to have fun too. Protecting them from the tantrums of those meta slaves that think that something having 1% less hypothetical DPS is going to make or break a party in some way.

[Zephire.8049]

Yeah, no. Them being purely cosmetic/flavour is a good choice because it means people who min-max don't feel forced to change up their character race every other balance patch, people who aren't min-maxers aren't yelled at to shell out for a race change, and WvW/PvP isn't dominated by a single race.

And with race changes not being a thing in GW2, it would mean people would have to make brand new characters of every race of the same spec(s) for if/when the meta shifts to favour another race.

And it's not just PvP, either. If you do anything in PvE, you'll either be required to change races, be berated for choosing aesthetic over utility, or be yelled at by someone for abusing a racial ability.

Single-player games can get away with that because, well, they're single-player. In MMOs it creates a schism and adds friction between players when there's zero reason for it to exist.

[Tails.9372]

22 minutes ago, Ellye.9123 said:

It's about not giving them yet another excuse to throw a tantrum when someone joins their party and doesn't have the exact build they saw on whatever meta-build site they use.

The thing is you can still have decently strong racial skills without them becoming "an excuse". Them being viable doesn't lead to the issues people complain about, them being better than the stuff classes have access to does. As long as you keep them basic and selfish in what they do you can easily buff several of them in various ways without causing any issues.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Cyninja.2954]

9 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

You mean everyone else who wants to be able to chose character race without having to consider game mechanic impact?

 

Seriously, YOU are the one arguing for adding more min/max to the game, not the people who oppose your suggestion.

 

 

Well said.

[DarcShriek.5829]

8 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I like this.....and have eye color affect vision quality.

Height  could affect vision range as well.

And being asuran could cause you to blow up as soon as you log into the game.

I think that last idea could work.

[Linken.6345]

18 hours ago, Liewec.2896 said:

as the title says,

i suggest we make racial skills good! 👍

picking a race should be more than just appearance, you should also be able to think about what kind of character you want to make and what race might best fit your character!

want to make a tanky warrior? imagine if bear form was decent, toggleable and perfectly supplemented your playstyle! 💪 🐻

looking forward to mechanist and wanting to get a full robomancer experience? imagine if your asuran genius could stay in their powersuit all of the time! (and the abilities weren't awful) 🤖

prefer to play a mender/healer playstyle? imagine if rolling sylvari increased your healing and gave you potent support skills?

 

currently racial skills are borderline useless, a forgotten relic from release days.

some have a tiny niche like using bear/snow leopard form to charge short distances, but generally the choice of race makes no difference whatsoever.

 

so i propose we have a "race update" which revamps and modernises the racial skills and allows them to be more woven in to gameplay.

 

also we could get a 4th (always present) trait tree "the racial-trait tree" with traits that are based around the race and the racial skills.

for example Norns could have traits that increase their health, power and toughness, effectiveness with greatswords/hammers, and traits that enhance their shapeshift forms. 🐺

and unlocking racial-traits could be woven in with lore-rich quests,

perhaps to unlock a grandmaster trait that allows for unending and togglable shapeshifts you would be sent on a great hunt to slay several mighty beasts. 🐓🐇🐖

were as a minor trait (to boost health and toughness) would simply require winning a drinking game in hoelbrak. 🍻

 

what do other people think? is it time that racial skills were reincarnated? what kind of stuff would you like to change for your favourite race? 🙂

So OP you want something like this yea?

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Linken.6345

[Liewec.2896]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

So OP you want something like this yea?

 

thats the "niche" use i was talking about, 🙂

but nah i'm talking about allowing us to use the racial stuff way more/permanently.

i want all of the static attack stuff from 2012 to be updated to allow for movement,

and for damage i'd like it to be a little less than with profession weapons, but still decent enough that we can happily PVE.

bear form should be more than just a gimmick on ranger to deal one large hit in 4 minutes.

if a norn player wants too, they should be able to go through the entire story in bearform!

[Alcatraznc.3869]

For PVE, why not, at least as far as CD goes. But this is opening a pandora box . Last thing this game need is ingame racism. 

[Puck.3697]

No. 

If they were to introduce something like that now it'd force some to completely reroll their mains. Given the quantity of completion and more tied directly to your main character that would be absurd. 

It's too late now to introduce racial gains. Espically in a game with no race changing feature. 

[Fangoth.4503]

20 hours ago, Liewec.2896 said:

care to explain why?

it would force you to chose the best race for each class. they have purposly mad them weak so they don't force people into picking the best in slot race

[Vidit.7108]

It was a mistake that they put racial skills in the game in the first place, they're an artifact of the 00s in game design. You don't see a lot of newer mmos giving their races special perks.

Part of the reason the cooldowns on these existing skills is so high is to keep them deliberately non-viable. Adding a special trait line would have to be severely underpowering so as to make it almost useless except in the open world. Huge ICDs, no stat bonuses, no cooldown reductions or duration/radius/target increases. It would be pointless, and a future balance liability. 

There is a hard enough time balancing the elite specs and making those fun and interesting. We don't need gameplay reasons to pick one race over another on top of that. You have a lot of cool lore and story branches, that's enough to make each character unique and special.

[Fangoth.4503]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

So OP you want something like this yea?

 

making a ranger norn right now, thanks