Race Change [Merged]

[Broha.4392]

I absolutely love GW2 and I love my characters with map completion, expanding inventory and build space and so on. The only thing that has been a little irritating is I cannot race change my toons without completely starting over, erasing the gems I spent on expanding the inventory, build and equipment expansions. I'd be okay with the race change resetting our personal stories since that's a key element to each race and it would make it so you feel more attached to that race. I've heard that's the biggest reason why we can't race change.

 

However, if lore is the concern, I feel they could add an asura in Lion's Arch that has perfect transfiguration that could alter our appearances - including race. It could have a "malfunction" option that would send you back in time which would allow you to redo the personal story to match your update. You could get tickets from the Black Lion Trading Company. This would also allow for potential to have new races added to the game as we explore the Secrets of the Obscure! Maybe we find a whole new race and we add that to the player pool.

[Dante.1508]

I wish, i'd make all my old characters Asura

[Danikat.8537]

As I understand it the problem with the personal story isn't that it wouldn't make sense. When Anet tested it changing a character's race could lock them out of the story completely, not just the personal story but also living world and expansion storylines due to errors. (I assume something to do with the dialogues which change based on your race.)

If it just made it look confusing I suspect Anet would release it and just add a warning that your story might look weird because it won't update or will update with random choices or whatever. They know it's a feature players want (and would pay for) and only you can see your story journal so if the player making the change is ok with it then it wouldn't be a problem.

I'd never use a race change (I also don't buy build or equipment slots and only bought 1 bag slot) but I've got no objection to other players having the option if Anet can get it working.

[Nagash.5307]

I don't mind paying $30 to change race TBH. And if you prefer creating and replaying everything with a new race, by all mean.

Lacking this service has been the result of me going AFK a few times

[Bankrotas.8215]

On 7/4/2023 at 5:27 PM, Dante.1508 said:

I wish, i'd make all my old characters Asura

Because they grew old and wrinkly?

[Khisanth.2948]

On 7/4/2023 at 10:33 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

As I understand it the problem with the personal story isn't that it wouldn't make sense. When Anet tested it changing a character's race could lock them out of the story completely, not just the personal story but also living world and expansion storylines due to errors. (I assume something to do with the dialogues which change based on your race.)

If it just made it look confusing I suspect Anet would release it and just add a warning that your story might look weird because it won't update or will update with random choices or whatever. They know it's a feature players want (and would pay for) and only you can see your story journal so if the player making the change is ok with it then it wouldn't be a problem.

I'd never use a race change (I also don't buy build or equipment slots and only bought 1 bag slot) but I've got no objection to other players having the option if Anet can get it working.

They also know that most people play human characters which is seen both in the information they released years ago as well as in the GW2E data and it is also the same with other games.  No matter what it is there is always someone around who wants it. The challenge is having enough people to make it worth selling. We can see an example of this with most gemstore items being overly blingy.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

Make level 30 and completion of the first two story chapters a requirement for race chance -> problem solved. 

[Lanfear De Noir.9127]

7 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

They also know that most people play human characters which is seen both in the information they released years ago as well as in the GW2E data

I don't know about that now. That was probably in the past, you see MANY Asura and there are a lot more Charr now too. It would be interesting to see if/how things have changed over time and see where we are now.  I think there would be fewer humans than you realize. But that is my point of view.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Maria Murtor.7253 said:

Make level 30 and completion of the first two story chapters a requirement for race chance -> problem solved. 

And then you enter Drizzlewood as charr, so the game tries to reference your legion and warband... and then game crashes because you were originally an Asura, so those choices were never set. Or it crashes because you are an Asura who due to race change does happen to have a legion set.

There's hundreds of such little interactions with the story and race throughout the game. Most of them aren't even seen... Anet devs admitted that they were unable to follow them all to be sure all those things are correctly changed on race change, or are all correctly foolproofed in case some weird combination of personal flags gets set. And they admitted that around the time HoT was launching - since then the amount of things to look for has only increased.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Dante.1508]

11 hours ago, Bankrotas.8215 said:

Because they grew old and wrinkly?

No because i only like Stunties.

[Danikat.8537]

3 hours ago, Lanfear De Noir.9127 said:

I don't know about that now. That was probably in the past, you see MANY Asura and there are a lot more Charr now too. It would be interesting to see if/how things have changed over time and see where we are now.  I think there would be fewer humans than you realize. But that is my point of view.

We can get some idea from GW2 Efficiency's stats page: https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

There are some limitations: it can only get data on accounts where the owner has chosen to share their API key with the site, and I think that page shows all time stats, there's no way to get a version just using data from the past year or whatever. But it's a start, and considering humans account for just over 40% of characters and 44% of play time with the next most popular on 15% I doubt it would have changed enough to bump them out of 1st place.

Although GW1 might have had an influence early on as well. My main character is human because I wanted her to be descended from my GW1 characters and human was the only playable race in that game. If I'd started GW2 without playing GW1 she'd be a sylvari.

(Edit: I'm surprised that not online is charr female revenant not the least popular choice any more (I'm sure it used to be) but it's not even the least popular of the ones I'm using, that's norn male thief.)

Edited July 6, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Luthan.5236]

Better to put the resources into something else. I doubt many people would use it. And while you say you can just ignore the problems with older story steps (if they don't with with the new race) ... this could lead to other problems. I think the name change and style change are fine and enough.

Race and profession: There you can buy a new char slot and make a new char instead. Most stuff really can be transferred nowadays. Except bound gem store stuff (bag slots and template slots) - but a high price for a race change item vs. buying that stuff new - not a bit difference I guess.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And then you enter Drizzlewood as charr, so the game tries to reference your legion and warband... and then game crashes because you were originally an Asura, so those choices were never set. Or it crashes because you are an Asura who due to race change does happen to have a legion set.

There's hundreds of such little interactions with the story and race throughout the game. Most of them aren't even seen... Anet devs admitted that they were unable to follow them all to be sure all those things are correctly changed on race change, or are all correctly foolproofed in case some weird combination of personal flags gets set. And they admitted that around the time HoT was launching - since then the amount of things to look for has only increased.

If that's the problem, I wonder how they handle to create brand new content without getting trapped in their own spaghetti code (which – to be honest – they do from time to time). 

My oldest character is stuck in a story limbo for about 3,960 days – and somehow she's still kicking.

https://imgur.com/a/dbUg75e

Edited July 6, 2023 by Maria Murtor.7253

[Bollocks.4078]

What if they could do a strictly cosmetic race change.  Would that work for people who want race change?  You'd look like the new race is most areas but technically would still be the old race.  For example, if you're Asura and you change to Norn you'd look like a Norn in the open world maybe you'd have to live with looking like Asura in your personal story and other story instances.  That would completely eliminate any issues with story stuff.  Maybe there's a way they could make you look like your new race in newer stories.

It would be like wearing a disguise.  We've seen that sort of thing in open world and in story instances.  Obviously this would be a lot more complicated.

I'm sure it's still a lot of work but it would be a lot more feasible this way.

[Linken.6345]

43 minutes ago, Maria Murtor.7253 said:

If that's the problem, I wonder how they handle to create brand new content without getting trapped in their own spaghetti code (which – to be honest – they do from time to time). 

My oldest character is stuck in a story limbo for about 3,960 days – and somehow she's still kicking.

https://imgur.com/a/dbUg75e

How is it stuck you got victory or death done so you completed the core story right?

[kharmin.7683]

49 minutes ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

What if they could do a strictly cosmetic race change.  Would that work for people who want race change?  You'd look like the new race is most areas but technically would still be the old race.  For example, if you're Asura and you change to Norn you'd look like a Norn in the open world maybe you'd have to live with looking like Asura in your personal story and other story instances.  That would completely eliminate any issues with story stuff.  Maybe there's a way they could make you look like your new race in newer stories.

It would be like wearing a disguise.  We've seen that sort of thing in open world and in story instances.  Obviously this would be a lot more complicated.

I'm sure it's still a lot of work but it would be a lot more feasible this way.

You know that this would never be sufficient for those who are clamoring for it.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Maria Murtor.7253 said:

If that's the problem, I wonder how they handle to create brand new content without getting trapped in their own spaghetti code (which – to be honest – they do from time to time). 

My oldest character is stuck in a story limbo for about 3,960 days – and somehow she's still kicking.

https://imgur.com/a/dbUg75e

If I've understood the screenshots correctly that's showing you did both the 'letting an innocent die' and 'make another suffer' storylines on the same character, which should be impossible. But it also looks like you were able to continue past that point and do the next chapter (Victory or Death), so how are you stuck?

I'm guessing this character was created and/or got onto that part of the story during the stupid period when they cut the 'greatest fear' arc out of the level 80 story and mangled the rest of it and then this section was added in later when they finally reverted the changes. But if you were able to continue the story past that point you're not stuck, it's just the story journal that's messed up.

Edit: The aforementioned stupid period started in September 2014 with the Feature Pack update and ended in June 2015 when they restored the original order for the Personal Story. There's an announcement/FAQ about it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Personal-Story-Restoration-update/first which says if you had any problems you should contact Support.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Tachenon.5270]

Oh, dear. It seems something went a little bit wrong during your last waypoint/asura gate transfer. Sorry about that. These things do happen from time to time. Remember, you're still yourself. On the inside. Where it counts. And you DID sign a waiver, after all. So, what else can I say but, enjoy your new physicality!

Oh, one more thing. Here's a 50%-off coupon for a pretty little pony, should they become available in your region any time SOON(tm). Thank you, ride through.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

With "stuck in story limbo" I didn't mean to be "actually stuck in story" but in a weird concatenation of  events which simply don't make any sense, except maybe while wearing a strait jacket and while singing "By Ogden's Hammer - what savings!". (Funny enough, I WAS stuck back in the days because the  story part "A Grisly Shipment" was bugged for days. But never mind) This character was created at the very start of the game and was not created in between the time when ArenaNet decided to change the personal story. She fought her way through the entirety of vanilla Guild Wars 2 and Heart of Thorns. And even after talking with Ceera, Tonn's widow, in Auric Basin, the planet of  Tyria still keeps spinning and didn't implode (yet).

I, on my point of view, do agree with Tachenon's theory and already asked for a accident pension at the College of Dynamics. Still waiting for an answer – and for a race change (not for me but in general. Because in my opinion this whole personal story excuse sounds reasonable on paper, but there are ways to address that).

Edited July 6, 2023 by Maria Murtor.7253

[Linken.6345]

8 minutes ago, Maria Murtor.7253 said:

With "stuck in story limbo" I didn't mean to be "actually stuck in story" but in a weird concatenation of  events which simply don't make any sense, except maybe while wearing a strait jacket and while singing "By Ogden's Hammer - what savings!". (Funny enough, I WAS stuck back in the days because the  story part "A Grisly Shipment" was bugged for days. But never mind) This character was created at the very start of the game and was not created in between the time when ArenaNet decided to change the personal story. She fought her way through the entirety of vanilla Guild Wars 2 and Heart of Thorns. And even after talking with Ceera, Tonn's widow, in Auric Basin, the planet of  Tyria still keeps spinning and didn't implode (yet).

I, on my point of view, do agree with Tachenon's theory and already asked for a accident pension at the College of Dynamics. Still waiting for an answer – and for a race change. 

Nice that you got to finish, I heard there are people that actualy never got to finish the core story due to the change.

And it did not matter when character was created, just that it was on those story steps when Anet decided to mess around with em.

So if them messing with afew story steps can break characters, what would them trying to shoehorn additional races in there do?

[Lanfear De Noir.9127]

14 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

We can get some idea from GW2 Efficiency's stats page: https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

I use that site and they have my info. My account has all races so I am sure they include my humans (3 of them). I think that maybe most accounts have at least 1 human, that is probably why there is such a huge number in their stats.

If they looked at my account alone, they would see that at least 1/3 are Asura, then the other races fit into the other 2/3 of my account equally. I love playing Asura, they are funny.

I am going by what I see around, yes there are humans, but I see many Asura and Charr. Maybe I am just blind to humans... lol

[Astralporing.1957]

19 hours ago, Maria Murtor.7253 said:

And even after talking with Ceera, Tonn's widow, in Auric Basin, the planet of  Tyria still keeps spinning and didn't implode (yet).

Ironically, she's bugged. She treats all players as if they did the Tonn's path, even if you picked a different option.

[PzTnT.7198]

To get around the problem of the personal story i could see a requirement for race change actually being to have it completed. Then when you do the race change you just get to pick the choices from a list and its all set and the story remains completed but the choices are there in case they are used in the future.

[Maria Murtor.7253]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Ironically, she's bugged. She treats all players as if they did the Tonn's path, even if you picked a different option.

I guess we're all in limbo now.

[LaFurion.3167]

I just made an asura engi cos i love them, but atm my main is a charr engi and i look smexy af, but occasionally i want to play different race same character, its annoying (like to the point i dont even bother trying) to swap all my gear sets and builds and that over.

Will we get race changes any time soon? Imo it would be a huge influx of hard cash for arena net no?