crimsonwhite wrote:Vampires - Undead nobility, having existed for centuries as undying. Due to their inherent death, animals avoid them like the plague, and they gain almost no benefit human food. However the strength and speed that they posses from death gives them an excellent edge in combat. As such they see no reason to waste time on ranged weapons, being as they can much more easily use their advantage in melee. Their noble upbringing also precludes them from lowering themselves to thievery and begging.

I agree on Some points.
1. Vampires Live forever..common knowledge right? thus they should be able to train what ever they want to train be it crafting or any weapon type they want all of this should be open to them.
2.vamp should have a zero in Animal types and thievery types with the exception of stealth.
3. the set back should be blood sucking required...like have to have human blood every 5 hours, or animal blood every hour.

i know i used alot of very bossy sounding terms in there sorry just how i see it. would make more sense to me for that to be vampire restrictions.

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GMBob wrote:

oldman wrote: If you chose a human warrior, then you were at a distinct disadvantage - forfeiting parry or poisoning or anatomy (or some combination).

Because the shard is not going to be balanced to race characters. It is balanced to humans. If races get a banefit, they get an equal disadvantage to balance it out, so that they are equal to humans, and neither one has a distinct advantage. This way some players will be vampires, some human, depending on what style of play they want.

This is what broadband said originally, and I asked him again today just to be sure.

The balance of the shard is to humans, not to races. So quit trying to bring humans up to the level the imbalanced races were left at when they were left incomplete, and instead think of balanced ideas that handicap them in response to the advantage they get.


And no, the point of a balanced shard is that you will eventually NOT see everyone have the same skills, because all skills will be viable options, and instead you will see people play how they want to play, not "whatever skill combination works the best".

The weapons balance patch is an example, after balancing out weapons you no longer saw the bow, ba, hamer pick, and warfork/kryss be the only weapons in the game that were used.

It's a slow process, but eventually we will reach a point where everything's balaanced and all skills are equal.

The magery caps were the balance. A Human tank mage when used effectively was equal to a pure vamp warrior. A human mage was so overpowered at one time that even vamp warriors had a hard time with them. What you are trying to do is make it so a human warrior will be equal to a vamp warrior and there is just no way that that is going to happen because it all falls on the extra 100 points. 2 warriors one has 8 gm skills the other has 6. Both equal at pvp who do you think will win?

I have been watching this thread with fascination since I was not privilaged enough to have created a racial character "back in the day".

I appreciate the efforts that are being put into the balance and am wondering if I could lend an analogy to help those that might not understand.

(I am going to draw on information in my brain that is probably more based on fiction than anything else. Since this is a fantasy game it shouldn't be a problem.)

Let's look at two different monks in two very different geographical and cultural situations. On one hand, you might have a monk from a certain part of Europe. At that particular monistary where he works and lives, they have had a long tradition of wine making (crafting). In another part of the world, say some part of Asia, lives another monk. At that monistary, they have focused on incorporating martial prowess (wrestling and tactics) along with their spiritual goals.

If one were to join the European monistary, the knowledge of crafting would probably come fairly easy since that is what they have done for generations. The same would apply to the martial monks of the Asian monistary. The European would probably learn fairly quickly how to make some darn good wine and the Asian would probably be able to kick some ass as soon as possible.

However, in the long run, both types of monks could conceivably learn the other's craft. It would just take quite a bit longer and they might not even be able to perfect the "skills" to the level that the others have.

Is this the correct interpretation of the balance you are looking for Bob?

In the end, I hope you guys succeed in your goal. I'm sure you'll have it pretty well roughed in by Beta End but don't loose heart. Initially people ARE going to figure out which race is "best" for what purpose. However, that will work the best in the long run since no matter how long it takes I'm sure you will keep dialing in those skills/abilities. One point at a time if you have to.

I know I have at least two characters that I'm not so sure about so I look forward to the outcome of the race discussion.

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Speaking to you from the third eye of the society machine.

I thank everyone for weighing in their opinions on this matter.

I've been able to draft up some alternate ideas for the balance, and hopefully will get a chance to talk with broadband today to see which one fits his ideas the most.

I make no promises that you'll like or dislike the next implementation any better than this one, because it is ultimately up to broadband, as this first setup was when it was made. However there always be the vocal minority, like this time, that will decry any changes and make a fuss about it. So we'll just see how things go.

I'm acually digging what Cyber said alot (if im understanding him correctly) that some races should gain certain skills more slowly than others.
Like vamps gain swords 30% faster than humans and like 60% faster than elves?

_Venom_ wrote:I'm acually digging what Cyber said alot (if im understanding him correctly) that some races should gain certain skills more slowly than others.
Like vamps gain swords 30% faster than humans and like 60% faster than elves?

Ding ding! You win a prize, Ven!

Even though I think the discussion is officially over, I believe that implementing a weighted skill gain factor would more than adiquatly reflect each race's differences and make everyone happy in the long run.

Instead of capping or outright denying skills to a certain race it might be better to simply use Humans as a baseline and compute from there. I say use Humans since in most if not all games they usually represent the "generic" race that can be a "Jack of all Trades". They usually don't get any major bonuses except that, once again, they can do anything after a long time.

Using your Vampire example, let's look at something that no Vampire would ever consider learning: Cooking. I'm sure for some god-awful reason, some masochistic player out there is going to want to have their Vamp be a cook. Well, they are going to have to face the fact that their Vamp is going to want to practically vomit every time they attempt to use the Cooking skill. Thus, again using the Human as a baseline, we will give them, say, 5% of a "normal" chance to increase 1/10th of a point in Cooking. It sounds insane but, yes, someone out there, after probably two years of solid work, is going to have a GM Cooking Vamp.

I can't help but see this as being a "win win" situation for everyone. I know that there are more than a few people out there with "grandfathered" Vamps who are upset that the time they put into Archery has seemingly gone to waste. However, much like the Cooking skill, just why is it that a Vamp can't eventually learn to sling some arrows? Granted, under the current concept of the Obs Shard Reality, it should just maybe be super super hard to do so but once again: why not?

Having said all of that, I can see where the designers are coming from. Capping skills seems to be an easy way of doing things. Also, they are trying very hard to put into play something that was designed years ago. I can't help but think that maybe skill gain weighting might not be possible under the current system and, if that is so, I apologize for exciting the masses. However, I can't help but wonder that it seems to be a better and more, how should I say it, organic way to reflect the different races.

If skill gain weighting is possible, I think it would be reasonable to drop the skills of "grandfathered" racial characters down by the percentage of difficulty to gain based on the baseline. If that is too hard, then just leave everyone's non-human characters where they are. I can't help but think that out of the almost 8000 player accounts that there are more than just a mere handfull of old pre-made racial characters.

Well, I think that is enough for now. Whatever happens I think it will be more than adequate for the task at hand and the shard as a whole. Again, thanks to the powers that be that make this all possible.

Even if this discussion is closed for further debate by the designers, I am curious how other people think about the weighted (i.e. easier/harder racial skill gain) vs. absolute (i.e. skill caps) skill situation.

Remember keep it civil. We don't gain anything if the mods shut down the thread.

Peace and Rock On!

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I like cybers idea and just thought of something else...... how many characters did this little change effect im sure not more then a handful. but of those effected i have a feeling that we were affected mostly for the worse and i have a feeling that the majority are some of our most dedicated players, unfortunately I can't count myself in that number anymore which i sorely regret. but I really do understand where others are coming from with the anger issue because I felt the same way. putting 3 years into one char that I played on and off for that 3 years only to be told you get to loose the skills you love or change your character completely. it is a bit hard to swallow.

back to my initial point I really do like Cyber's idea I think that it would suit everyone just fine. My only concern with it is would you penilize those of us who have skills in an area that is not "traditional" for that race? because there is no way of really knowing how ofen we used that skill after hitting gm. all those sets of armor or ingots smelted "should" have gone towards gm'ing that skill.

but if we aren't penalized then there will be an outcry from other newer characters. I personally dont relish the idea of re-gm'ing mineing or blacksmithing or tinkering for that matter.... but a point (as in set to 99) i could handle as a trade off since that point will take me way to long to get back.

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