We NEED race change! [Merged]

[Kitty La Boom Boom.4065]

On 6/28/2021 at 12:25 PM, ugrakarma.9416 said:

also a check if theres cultural armor being used.

 

aside cultural armor/personal history i cant remember any more game mechanics tied to race.

 

or even more simplier: just reset personal history. most ppl want race change don't bother with history,.

Personal story begins in the character creation screens.  If you're going to erase personal story to change race, it would be far easier and less expensive to to create a new character and use a Lvl 80 boost.

[Duglaive.5236]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Feel free to use the forums search feature.  Those of us who have been around here for a while remember the point being made.  I'm sure that you can find it.

 

Oh, I've seen those both through searches and having read through them as the threads hit the forum. And, sadly, I see them as excuses rather than evidence of anything. You do know that most - if not all - mmo (and other game genres) devs claim at some point that "spaghetti" code is at fault, or the people who wrote the code are long gone, or it "Will break the game!!!!" ... And then comes along an update saying something like "In this update we're implementing a long asked-for feature ...". Oh, and feel free to use google search; I'm sure you can find some reading material.

 

I get Anet doesn't want to do it, but BREAK THE GAME? Give me a break.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

4 hours ago, Duglaive.5236 said:

 

Oh, I've seen those both through searches and having read through them as the threads hit the forum. And, sadly, I see them as excuses rather than evidence of anything. You do know that most - if not all - mmo (and other game genres) devs claim at some point that "spaghetti" code is at fault, or the people who wrote the code are long gone, or it "Will break the game!!!!" ... And then comes along an update saying something like "In this update we're implementing a long asked-for feature ...". Oh, and feel free to use google search; I'm sure you can find some reading material.

 

I get Anet doesn't want to do it, but BREAK THE GAME? Give me a break.

Then continue on in ignorance, calling the devs liars without proof, screaming into the void over a feature you'll never get to have.  Mean while I'm going to move on.

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by The Greyhawk.9107

[Duglaive.5236]

20 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Then continue on in ignorance, calling the devs liars without proof, screaming into the void over a feature you'll never get to have.  Mean while I'm going to move on.

 

 

 

 

Lol, wow! I never even stated I wanted this feature. No, the only reason I even posted the first time was due to your, *ahem*, screaming at another poster. With, I'll add, no proof of your own.

 

Oh, and be sure to tell all those pesky kids to stay off your lawn 😠

[Gibson.4036]

It doesn’t help that sometimes people confuse their own arguments against a thing as something that came from the devs. Then the thing gets added, and the perception is that the devs did a 180, and possibly weren’t being truthful.

Then, when the devs say something isn’t possible, people don’t believe based on fictitious past experience.

UPDATE: Okay, I get convoluted sometimes. So to try and clear this up:

Witness the amount of "but mounts!" responses people use even in response to things where ANet has given us a definitive "No". They never said "no mounts", so they never did a 180 on it, they just eventually added it. But somehow all the forum arguments about how mounts weren't appropriate for GW2 gets fuzzed into the idea that ANet was against it, then wasn't.

That means people can hold out hope that something they've been clear about will change, even though it's not the same thing.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Zaoda.1653]

I'd like a race change option, personally. I think it was dismissed a while back simply because of the problem with how Anet would go about working it around the storyline. I think the most obvious fix would be to just reset the storyline. Sure, it would mean players being able to get the black lion key again at all the various storyline intervals (I think it's levels 10, 40 and 60, in the storyline from memory?), but considering how many gems it would cost to reset the character's race and storyline, and the work involved in doing the storyline all over again, I can't see how that would be a problem.

 

I'm sure there'd be people who would argue that there's no need for a race change and that you could simply just delete your character, however one important thing to note is the AGE of the character, which gives birthday gifts every year, and while deleting a character and starting over is an easy option, it's nice to keep the age of a character simply for the extra goodies with an older aged character.

 

I'd also like to see a price reduction in the name change contracts, because I think for 800 gems, it's ridiculous. It should be 200-400 gems IMO. Even a name change contract once per account per year after, say, a character reaches 8 years old, would be nice too. That way players get a name change contract once per year after a character reaches 8 years old. It wouldn't be PER character, it would be ONCE per ACCOUNT per year, after 8 years old.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If one were around, way back when the Devs tried changing the Personal Story, and experienced all the bugs that caused, one would have the proof sought.  (The Devs had to change it back.)

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

I hope the devs don't waste development time on this.  Based on how complicated they implied a change like this would be, I'd rather their efforts be put somewhere else. 

[Gerebos.1065]

On 1/28/2022 at 9:41 PM, Blockhead Magee.3092 said:

I hope the devs don't waste development time on this.  Based on how complicated they implied a change like this would be, I'd rather their efforts be put somewhere else. 

Indeed but I hope effort is not put in making achievement walls and gatings like they did in PoF...

But we still hope for a better change between factions,with Asura tech everything is possible

[Astralporing.1957]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:26 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

If one were around, way back when the Devs tried changing the Personal Story, and experienced all the bugs that caused, one would have the proof sought.  (The Devs had to change it back.)

And this changing stuff back and forth resulted in at least some people ending up with broken/stalled story progression even after everything was put back.

That was indeed a very good lesson in how easy it is to break stuff when tinkering with story content. I'd definitely not want to see a repeat of that.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Yes, we, to this day, still see a few posts about broken Personal Story because of those changes.

[Sinmir.6504]

It wouldn't bother me if race change was introduced in that it doesn't effect me if somebody else uses it to change their character's race. But I can't see myself ever using it. I'd buy a new character slot and make a character of the race I want.

A new character slot is 700 gems, a name change is 800. And if I was wanting to change my character's race I'd probably want to change their name as well. A name that sounds good for one race might be out of place on another. So that would be 800+ the cost of a race change.

Then there would be the personal story. Would people repeat it after a race change or would it change and just be marked as done?

Though I'll admit I may have bias in finding race change unnecessary when you can buy a new character slot. I play a lot of WvW so I have tomes and testimonies I could use to get a new character to 80 and unlock a full elite spec.  I do understand if you don't play WvW,  race changing and keeping all the experience and hero points may be preferable to leveling a new character and rediscovering the hero points.

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Sinmir.6504

[PinkTacoLover.7603]

An official answer pls not some guess like "cuz spaghetti code go brrr" 😒

[kharmin.7683]

They have answered.  It's because of the personal story.

[PinkTacoLover.7603]

So is really some potato level spaghetti code 😒

I mean the the hell is a "savefile go brrr" on a mmorpg...

It shuld be  some table in some db and that should be the same for any race/classes but i guess they hardcoded some whatever values into some whatever classes instead so on load it go brrr because is different for each race 🤦‍♂️

[loregnum.3619]

I realize the personal story aspect is given as the reason but why couldn't it just be implemented once a character has completed the personal story.

 

I'd really like a race change for my female sylvari necro. 

[Labjax.2465]

I think I'd settle for a token that allows you to delete one character and create a new character with the same birthday age as the one you deleted. Complicated on the user end? Maybe. But probably simpler to implement than a race change.

That's the main reason I can think of why I wouldn't want to have to delete a character and remake them to change their race, is birthday age.

Edit: And I guess for some people, there would be things like bags and template slots they wouldn't want to lose either. They could make it so you can transfer those type of character-specific unlocks as well.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, loregnum.3619 said:

I realize the personal story aspect is given as the reason but why couldn't it just be implemented once a character has completed the personal story.

 

I'd really like a race change for my female sylvari necro. 

Why?  Just purchase a new character slot.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Dear. God. Why.

[Artemis.8034]

I would love a race change, they can charge me w/e i would pay it. They can just give a warning that you will lose all access to racial items and spells. Im fine with that

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, loregnum.3619 said:

I realize the personal story aspect is given as the reason but why couldn't it just be implemented once a character has completed the personal story.

Because it's not just personal story. It's all the choices you make about your character that are tied to your race that get baked into your character data, and then start influencing other things (like some story elements in later expansions, or LS chapters). And some of those choices are made at the very beginning of the game - in the character selection.

And example i have already given in this thread: during IBS, if your character is a charr, the legion and warband picks they've made get referenced by the story, and even by some dynamic events. What you'd think could happen if you were a charr, the game tried to reference those datapoints, and then realized they were never set, because when there was a time to make choices you were still a sylvari and so never even saw those choices? Or the other way around - what might happen if you were a sylvari, but with legion picked because you happened to be a charr before?

Your race influences a number of choices you make throughout the story. Those choices in turn have impact on other stuff, which has impact on even further stuff, and so on and so on. The interactions are apparently so complicated, that Anet mentioned having problems with tracing all those even before HoT, and since that time the amount of stuff that might break only increased.

At some point in the past they have tried to make race change possible, and they have tried to make core personal story repeatable (so it would be similar to how LS/latter expansion story works). In both cases they were unable to make it work, and always ended up with even small changes resulting in character data corruption and stuff breaking.

It does not mean this suggestion is impossible to implement, but it does mean it is likely very complicated, costly and time-consuming to do. And very risky to implement.

[disco.9302]

5 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

I would love a race change, they can charge me w/e i would pay it. They can just give a warning that you will lose all access to racial items and spells. Im fine with that

You're in luck!

If cost is no issue to you, just purchase a new character slot and a lvl80 boost (optional) and you can make another character of a different race.  

If you are concerned about the name being identical, simply purchase a name change contract for the original character, "remove" their name and use it on the new alt you are creating with a different race. I believe a character name stays bound to the account for 24 hours after deletion or change so you will have plenty of time to "claim" it again.

 

If you think about it, that process completes a race change. Ascended gear can be transferred to the new character, exotic gear is cheap to replace anyway.

 

Always happy to provide fool proof solutions :))

[The Greyhawk.9107]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Because it's not just personal story. It's all the choices you make about your character that are tied to your race that get baked into your character data, and then start influencing other things (like some story elements in later expansions, or LS chapters). And some of those choices are made at the very beginning of the game - in the character selection.

And example i have already given in this thread: during IBS, if your character is a charr, the legion and warband picks they've made get referenced by the story, and even by some dynamic events. What you'd think could happen if you were a charr, the game tried to reference those datapoints, and then realized they were never set, because when there was a time to make choices you were still a sylvari and so never even saw those choices? Or the other way around - what might happen if you were a sylvari, but with legion picked because you happened to be a charr before?

Your race influences a number of choices you make throughout the story. Those choices in turn have impact on other stuff, which has impact on even further stuff, and so on and so on. The interactions are apparently so complicated, that Anet mentioned having problems with tracing all those even before HoT, and since that time the amount of stuff that might break only increased.

At some point in the past they have tried to make race change possible, and they have tried to make core personal story repeatable (so it would be similar to how LS/latter expansion story works). In both cases they were unable to make it work, and always ended up with even small changes resulting in character data corruption and stuff breaking.

It does not mean this suggestion is impossible to implement, but it does mean it is likely very complicated, costly and time-consuming to do. And very risky to implement.

I think I'm going to spam this every time I see this topic pop up.

 

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

I think I'm going to spam this every time I see this topic pop up.

 

If people used the forums search feature, you wouldn't have to.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

If people used the forums search feature, you wouldn't have to.

The mods are very responsive to reports that request new threads be merged into a previous thread on the topic.