Pimp my 'Ped!

[Galdethriel]

Hehe, I thought that title was quite clever. Rings a bell though. If anyone did that title before me, tell them I apologize for my unoriginality.

Not too many people play Bipedial races purely because they'd like to play them... I think it's worth discussing why, and what could be done to uh... pimp the 'peds. Hehe. XDDD

I'm just gonna try and get the ball rolling by saying the lack of distinction of one biped race from another really bugs me. What lore I can find is generally good but I don't see much of it in game... and I don't see much of its effects in game either. Seems like the original devs spent so much time fiddling with the Dragons (prompting the whole Dragon versus Biped thing) they forgot that Dryads and Half-Giants... well, they're kind of different too. To me, Bipeds should be different from one another, not sort of cookie-cutter with a different model.

I've also heard there are some serious DPS issues with Bipeds that make them unviable as purely DPS-focused characters. I can't really say anything about this in too much detail first hand, because I don't have any maxed out Biped characters, but I am aware of how pathetic the individual classes are.

~Galde

[AmonGwareth]

Actually, the reason all biped races are nearly the same is a fundamental design decision for the game. The idea was simply that you should not be penalized for choices you make for your character before you know what impact that choice will have. In the majority of other games people create tons of alts because Race A can only play Classes X and Y, while Race B can only play Classes Z and W.

In Istaria if you choose a Half-Giant the only penalty is your starting stats (which matter more at the start and less fairly quickly) and your Racial abilities (which are not totally game-changing). You won't find many players who spend 6 months leveling their character only to find out they have wasted their time and have to reroll.

Now, we could debate the pros and cons of that approach because it certainly has them in spades. But, that was the original intent behind the decision.

[Akrion]

I personally prefer the current design decisions for bipeds. Making it so only some races can take some classes would be a big middle finger to just about every biped player and I don't see it adding anything worth while in return. For example, any biped player that rolelpays their biped as a specific class may suddenly find they can no longer play that class, any biped player that spent the better part of 4 years multiclassing every single class to 100 would suddenly find a good chuck of those classes missing, etc.

[Frith-Rae]

And just to remark - many RPGs consider it standard that all biped races (and for 99% of the MMORGPS out there, they are ALL biped races..) can be any class and have no real game-changing differences between them for the reasons Amon mentioned.

And the few games I know of that once limited class choice to races- have either gotten rid of the mechanic over time or opened up so many race/class options that there are in fact VERY few limitations at this point in the game.

Most games take the "cookie cutter with a different head/model" simply because in the grand game design - its far far, more difficult to not only balance classes with each other but if you have races that are significantlly different from other races you haveto figure that balance in as well

(as a WoW dev recently said - we dont balance 10 classes, each class as 3 trees, therefore we really balance 30+ classes). I imagine that if you threw in specificatins for 6 or 8 races into there you would be balancing 6x30+ classes to make sure no race had any huge advantage or disadvantage in any one class type/spec/multiclass etc.

To bring it back to Istaria (thought he comparison I feel is valid) - with multiclassing a possibility then yes - any ONE school, IMO,should be underpowered. Dragons are built around (or if you wish, limited to) one school and that one schooll *has* to build them up to be equally compariable to a biped with x amount of classes (I dont know if thats 3 or 5 or 10 honestly..). Bipeds have the ability to take on whatever amount of classes they wish/can/have in game as an option - and the game is built aroundt his. If any ONE class became adequate by itself then that woudl be OP once you added other classes to it. Or, even worse, *imo*, everyone ends up rolling that ONE class so they dont have to level up 2-3-10 others to get the same effectiveness. Thereby making every other class in game useless...

Its not right that humans work that way - but most do. You see it over and over again in every single game if there is one build or one race or one class than even has a 5% buff/effectiveness over another then you have multitudes of people who will only do that 1 thing simply because its the "best/OP/most efficient/easiest/whatever" way of doing things. The people who vary from that then either feel ngatively about their experience because they feel "weak/nerfed/unaddressed/ignored" compared to the "awesome class" and either end up rolling that one class anyway or end up leaving the game (if nothing is ever addressed).

In fact, you currently see this HERE in IStaria - with the builds Dragons are "forced" into using if they want to be effective in game! (hence the other thread lol). There are only a few dragon builds that are ultimately effective in game (esp. end game). And the exact result I state above is what has happened to the dragon players as a whole and has remained this way for awhile (though things are way way way better than they use to be, there is still only one playstyle..).

However- I totally agree with you on the idea of working on lore and such for each race - cuz I think that just adds awesome all around .

But perhaps you are meaning racial distinctions in another way, so please, elaborate if you are .

[Galdethriel]

Actually, the reason all biped races are nearly the same is a fundamental design decision for the game. The idea was simply that you should not be penalized for choices you make for your character before you know what impact that choice will have. In the majority of other games people create tons of alts because Race A can only play Classes X and Y, while Race B can only play Classes Z and W.

I respect that, and although yeah admittedly from my point of view race restrictions/requirements on classes would be okay, I don't really place too much hope on the idea for the reasons you and Akrion (edit, just read Frith's post, solid reasons there too XD ) described, and the mass ragequitting that could well follow such a change. But class restrictions are only one way to make the races distinct.

What about race-specific quests? They don't need to give any special reward save for maybe a bit of experience and a touch of money, the usual stuff, but they would add a lot. I've seen all sorts of Dragon specific stuff... you have figureheads, factions, names cropping up repeatedly (though still not enough for my taste XD ), all this about Dragon's views and Dragon's pride and Dragon's arts and history and all that lovely, lovely stuff.

But I've never actually seen this sort of thing for the bipedial races, and I would love to. I mean, I'm not an expert... I'm hoping that whatever stupid things I say will be picked up and beaten into line by the true-true-veteran biped players, but I've never been given a real sense of identity while playing a biped race. I just think if they had their own details and controversy and things that made them truly unique it would help them stand on their own, even if that stuff was just all in a text box.

Just getting ideas out there. Or trying. XD

~Galde

[AmonGwareth]

I appreciate your thoughts on this and you are correct that having more race lore is good. We have added quite a bit, in fact, over the last few years. Dwarven race lore, Gnomish, Elven, some Fiend even. The only issue is that we haven't restricted those things to particular races for the most part as we don't wish to heavily restrict the content that we add to a smaller sub-set of players.

[Frith-Rae]

I totally like those ideas and have always thought it would be so nice if bipeds all had their own epic racial quest lines (even if they don't result in physical changes the way dragons do they could result in say maybe titles "Champion of the XXX race" or something to that effect...).

And of course more lore for them to individuate from each other! To give everyone their racial identity. I cant imagine playing a game and not "feeling" my character and her history and where she comes from! Even if some of that is shared with several bipedal races since they've all been like this forever - at least varying sides-opions on the same events would be helpful to that racial identity (cuz everyone has their own opinions..lol).

(yes bored at work..so quick response! LOL)

[Galdethriel]

I appreciate your thoughts on this and you are correct that having more race lore is good. We have added quite a bit, in fact, over the last few years. Dwarven race lore, Gnomish, Elven, some Fiend even. The only issue is that we haven't restricted those things to particular races for the most part as we don't wish to heavily restrict the content that we add to a smaller sub-set of players.

True enough, but I do think somewhere down the line it could be something nice to add. It's not going to make a race feel special if just anyone can do it. That's my logic anyway... no other race can take the RoP for obvious reasons, it's something very special and it has a lot of information packed into it. Something like this for the other races could be great.

It might not be right up on the to-do list but... my opinion, it could really add something. Maybe more NPC interactions with one another, stupid little quests that are purely for a laugh, races poking fun at each other and squabbling for a bit of light comedy; it doesn't all need to be deep, deep factual stuff. ...are you guys still accepting player-written quests? Or have I been living in a digital cave? XD

I totally like those ideas and have always thought it would be so nice if bipeds all had their own epic racial quest lines (even if they don't result in physical changes the way dragons do they could result in say maybe titles "Champion of the XXX race" or something to that effect...).

Absolutely!

~Galde

[Sigi]

Question
What is DPS? If that's such a serious issue I would like to know what I am suffering from.

[Akrion]

Question
What is DPS? If that's such a serious issue I would like to know what I am suffering from.

Damage Per Second. It basically allows you to compare the damage of different spells/abilities/characters that all do varying amounts of damage over varying amounts of time by relating them to their DPS.

For example, if you assumed Gold Rage hit for an average of 3000 hitpoints, then 3000 is the amount of damage it does on average per 15 seconds (assuming the highest level of it anyway). 3000/15, or 200, would be the amount of damage it effectively does per second. If you have something that does 50 damage every 2 seconds then its DPS would be 25.

[Sigi]

Thanks Akrion a clear explanation.

It is something I totally do not consider while playing, makes me think too much of work, lol.

[Phillip]

There used to be distinction between the peds, adv-wise. On a server you may have maybe a handful of players who are simply awesome DPSers, for example. The zerker/dorf or battlemage line done right was amazing. I actually seen 3 amazing different lines of Clerics, too - melee, mystic and arcane (not really arcane but seemingly so, can you guess the schools needed?). There's a lot depth to this.

The basis of this is in direct correlation with time spent figuring out the right multiclassing schools and how they work together. The rest of the populace were without a paddle. In the early days this was it.

Things are not the same when an entity, abeit single playstyle takes precedence on supreme legitimacy by design. This takes away the distinction on the other side since it can't measure up regardless.

Lore don't add much but RP stuff. The lesser relevance.

True pimpage legitimacy should come from the art of adventuring itself. I mentioned that on the soul shard thread. There's a need to have the balls to the wall mentality which can differentiate one ped from next through lots of challenging effort, on an individual basis.

I don't know if such is welcomed.