Make racial skills good! Make racial trait trees!

[Harak.8397]

I'd be all for actualizing racial skills to 2022 level but as was mentioned before  "min/maxer drones is why we can't have nice things". So it would have to be done very carefully. ( I'd be the first one to cheer if Battle Roar was interchangeable with "For great Justice!" ... if only because it doesn't always say the same kitten thing ). It's a simple change but the trickle down effect in some circles would be unpredictable.

I wouldn't want to be booted out of groups because my given character doesn't have the 1% chill condition reduction some Norn has... and you know it would happen to.

Open world wouldn't be an issue but if you ever want to run end game instanced content, that's another metric the min/maxers will use to pre-judge you with.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Harak.8397
I can't type

[Stx.4857]

While racial skills being viable would make buildcraft more fun, it would be a balance nightmare and not worth it in the end.  No one should ever have to choose between the race they want to play and the race that has better performance. 

[Sobx.1758]

On 2/4/2022 at 4:08 PM, Liewec.2896 said:

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.

The way you want it to be might seem like an attempt at making the choce of race more meaningful, but in reality it removes limits the choice. All it does is pigeonhole each "role" into specific race. It also makes it harder to efficiently play the same character in multiple roles. Not only that, but implementing that change years after people already made many characters as they wanted them to be seems like a bad idea as well.

Overally I don't really see anything good about this idea.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Harak.8397]

11 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

While racial skills being viable would make buildcraft more fun, it would be a balance nightmare and not worth it in the end.  No one should ever have to choose between the race they want to play and the race that has better performance. 

I did so all the time in WoW and among friends and in the open world, it's fine. As soon as it gets competitive, it's an issue. In GW2's framework that would probably mean disable any and all racial skills/perks in any PvP mode and Fractal/Raid. That's a lot of content. Would it be worth it man/hour wise? Probably not... but it would be cool for much needed racial flavor in a game that lacks as much as GW2 does.

Either you're a game company and do cool things sometimes or you're a business and you do what's most efficient. Tin foil hat theory here but deep down, I have a feeling they regret adding 4 more playable races in GW2.

[Harak.8397]

1 minute ago, Sobx.1758 said:

All it does is pigeonhole each "role" into specific race. It also makes it harder to efficiently play

That's the crux of min/maxing. Efficiency and optimization.

[Sobx.1758]

Just now, Harak.8397 said:

That's the crux of min/maxing. Efficiency and optimization.

Yes, that's what I wrote. Are you interested in responding to my post in its entirity or elaborate if you want to point something that changes anything about what I said? Tbh currently I don't really understand whether you're trying to agree or disagree with what I wrote 😄

[Harak.8397]

I don't agree or disagree. Just pointing out on which side of the river you stand. There's team "filthy casuals/RPers" who would think the OP has a point on one bank and there's team " Min/Maxing robots" who think it's going to be a balancing/efficiency nightmare on the other. Both are right but want different things and there is no way Anet can please both unless they present a separate solution for each.

At that point Anet would have to decide is "cool" is worth the cost or not. I'm not in management to make their minds for them.
This thread won't change minds either.

[Sobx.1758]

21 minutes ago, Harak.8397 said:

I don't agree or disagree. Just pointing out on which side of the river you stand. There's team "filthy casuals/RPers" who would think the OP has a point on one bank and there's team " Min/Maxing robots" who think it's going to be a balancing/efficiency nightmare on the other. Both are right but want different things and there is no way Anet can please both unless they present a separate solution for each.

At that point Anet would have to decide is "cool" is worth the cost or not. I'm not in management to make their minds for them.
This thread won't change minds either.

Ok, ty for explanation. The only thing that doesn't exactly fit here for me is the somewhat mixed notion of RPers caring that much about racial performance boosts during the character creation (which is the reason for implementing that in the first place, as far as I understand?), while at the same time the point seems to be that they don't. If they don't care about actual min/max performance, then the notion of them needing buffs to the races (in the form of either more impactful racial skills or some sort of passives) for specific roles seems to be mostly meaningless anyways.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[DarcShriek.5829]

What the OP doesn't realize is that slyvari have a secret trait that is OP.  That trait is that they make great wood for BBQ.  They smoke they produces has by far the best flavor of any other wood known.  This trait makes them most wanted by char whenever Meatoberfest comes around. 

[Math.5123]

We used to have this. Sylvari racial used to be a 2k dps gain on condi soulbeast.

[Doggie.3184]

Can I be a mixed race and like... a Norn bled on my seed and I was born with their werewolf powers and can turn into a werewolf tree as my racial ability?

[Rogue.8235]

On 2/4/2022 at 2:23 PM, Moira Shalaar.5620 said:

This is the best illustration of what ANET was trying to prevent from happening. IN what seems to be an unpopular position, I concur at least in part with the OP in desiring racial choice to have greater significance than purely cosmetic, and I was disappointed when racial skills were thoroughly nerfed into balance oblivion. 

But rather than the options recommended by the OP and for the same reasons that have been beaten to death already, I would propose minor passive buffs tied to race and zone; buffs that are largely inconsequential in the scheme of combat and skill balance. Perhaps a speed boost (30%?) in home region maps, a small MF bump (5%? 10%?) a small XP bump, and (My favorite) an increased contribution rate to event & heart completion, making events and renown hearts easier to do in a region home to a race than those completed in other regional zones. 

I'm welcome to all the criticism this might bring as well, just my own mental meanderings over the years regarding the (to me) sad state of race choice in GW2. 

 

This kind of exists in the smallest of ways with the Charr.

Salute this statue for some boons

 

I would like far more of the above example throughout the world.  Little things that don't mean much and are fun and a bit immersive.