racial traits are being revamped

I think what most people are missing is that these are RACIAL traits, not CLASS traits. Thus they are going to reflect the nature of your character's race, so they're going to be stereotypical. Dark Elves, being products of Hate, stealthy and sneaky by nature, SHOULD get bonuses that allow them to be more stealthy, more deadly, etc. Arasai, being a product of the same, should also get similar benefits. Ogres, being the favored of Rallos Zek and being large, hulking warriors, SHOULD get bonuses to strength, mitigation, agression, etc. Dwarves, being strong, hardy warriors that love a good ale, SHOULD get bonuses to their overall hardiness, health, defense, etc. Gnomes SHOULD get bonuses to their intellect, deaggro, and cool clockwork stuff. Ratongas are sneaky, conniving, agile and thus SHOULD get bonuses that reflect those traits.

I could go on but my point is just that instead of looking at how the racial abilities fit with your CLASS, look at how they fit with your RACE. To me, they make sense from a racial standpoint, if not necessarily from a class standpoint. I can find something about each of my racial abilites for each toon that I will get a lot of use out of, and I can find something about each one that won't benefit me at all. My characters that picked "traditional" choices for their class are loving their new abilities. My "non-traditional" ones though can still find things about their abilities that benefit them in their current class choice.

It's all about perspective. Players had been asking for a revamp to the racial traits for a long time, and now that it's here too many are looking at the racial abilities from the standpoint of their class, and finding themselves disappointed. Stop. Look at them from the standpoint of your RACE, not your class. And try to do it with an open mind.

Xova wrote:

Well said.

The racial traits list I saw showed kerras got a super jump as the racial trait

Yummy wrote:

People are going to play what they want now, but I meant diversity as far as racial skills, not races in general. You are considering the so-called "min-maxers' who have to calculate their character logically for full effect. I am speaking more of the people who play to play and enjoy their character based on looks or roleplaying background. If you want a troll wizard, by all means, you can still make one. You will just be surrounded with a troll heritage, as you are now. As far as wood elf rangers go, I see more dark elf rangers than wood elf anyday. Where you stated, '...you're talking about how one should expect to play 1 race and not get the same traits as another,' just makes sense to me. As a gnome, you won't have the strength of an ogre, or as a troll, you won't have the intelligence of an erudite. How does that not make sense?

And you won't have the wisdom of an high elf.. oh wait altough they belong to the best-in-one-aspect like ogre and erudites, they don't have anything outstanding or focus... except for crafters maybe, how about a heal spell instead of fire?(since wisdom is more tied to healers than mages). I don't understand why it's fire anyway, both light elven races had bad experiences with fire.., someone feeled in charge to tease high and wood elves even more?
And the dark elf ability is just.. i highly doubt there will be any item in rok with this ability, melee crit, double attack ok, but no super spelluser+melee buff. How could they loose so many times in lore with "this" fury of innoruuk?

illaria wrote:

Kerra, Froglok, and Sarnak got a better jumping ability, but they changed them the day before I got into beta so I never got to see them.

I think they looked funny so they took it out.


drago.

For me the gripe is that we were told by SOE years ago that race would not matter in this game. I think the catch acronym they used was ARAC - All Races All Classes. One of the points they made when this game launched was that race would mean nothing. Now by adding these new abilities it looks like they are going back on this statement no matter how small the difference might seem to some. People might have been more inclined to pick one race or the other if they saw these abilities when choosing a race for the class they wanted to play. This is not fair to the veteran players who selected races based on the concept that race would mean nothing because to some people the new abilities might mean something. It gives people that feeling of buyer's remorse. It's like buying a computer part and then noticing that for the same price you could have had another model that has an extra port or something. Both do the same job but the other has an extra doodad that you would have liked could you make the choice again.

Dragowulf2 wrote:

That actually explains a lot. Even leaving the balance issues aside, I am still really underwhelmed by the kerra traits. The whole re-doing racial traits thing came about cos fae got the really cool fae glide, which technically was unfair but which personally I didn't mind. Now they've made it worse, not better, and now personally I do mind.

Xova wrote:

I agree 100% the problem is at the time most of us made a char those traits were not in place and or were so small to not matter when you picked your class. That is not the case now your changing the rules of play after the fact! I always thought it was silly that race made no diferance but since it did not i picked a race that i liked for the class even if they were a not so likely one. a couple years later thu they change the rules and now compared to a diferant race. Now no matter how hard i try no matter how well geared i become a dark elf player will be a better swashy than iam give same player skill/gear/group/raid.
Since we now pidgion hole some races as scout races and so on i can find nothing helpful or WOW feeling to my barbarian swashy. Please dont tell me his str in melee b/s iam so far into the diminished returns curve that even 100 str means close to nothing.

RAYVEN2 wrote:

You were also told a by SOE years ago that we're not going to see epic weapons.

Do you not want epic weapons?

You barbarians have melee crit,knockdown and strength, and if solo or tank, +defensive skills, +hp and +cold resist, compare this to a high elf(and just btw they are even a common swashbuckler race according to the roleplaying book).

Lhangion@Innovation wrote:

As a raiding swashy knock down means nothing to me, its 1% crit and double attack nice yes but less than 1 item from RoK, + to defense, hp and cold really mean nothing to me ether since i only tank 1 mob as it is and raid buffed those minor +'s will mean very little. Iam not sure how bad it is for a high elf swashy but that does nto mean you need to belittle your race over mine.

Dragowulf2 wrote:

I would be fine with the traits as they are, if we were able to respec race. However, Grimwell posted in the beta forums a few weeks ago that it would be impossible with the current database structure.

Those of us who made characters three years ago made those decisions based on how the races were then ... the only differences between my Half Elf and a Dark Elf were that Half Elves got a +5 STA choice instead of another underpowered 30 mins clicky, and HE got magical mitigation while DE got mental mitigation. Now the rules have changed greatly, so since respecing (and thus fixing our mistakes from three years ago) are off the table, racial choices need to be equally useful for all classes.

As for epic weapons, I'd rather have 24 quests that are of Heritage Quest depth, that all can be done on my main instead of 24 seperate quests that each character can only do one of. But, thats not really related to a choice made three years ago when conditions were much different, and so not really a good comparison.

Let me just repeat what I said above, its not about necessarily wanting races to be homogeneous, but rather wanting to be able to fix a choice that when made, didn't matter, but now does, OR wanting the traits to have equal usefulness so a Half Elf Brigand isn't boned when compared to a Dark Elf one.

Dragowulf2 wrote:

Just how does that apply to this? the epic weapons will be class specific not race specific. Apples to oranges

This is so not the game it was when it was released, so comparing current ideas and concepts to what it once was is irrelevant. Remember when you had to choose an archetype instead of a class? Remember doing quests at level 10 and 20 to eventually pick your actual class? That was a key focus of the game at release. Remember when Antonia and Lucan were important? Remember when tradeskills had subcombines? Things have evolved over time...some would say for the better, others not. But either way, this is not the same animal we saw at launch.

I would love to see where SoE advertised that every race could be equally good at every class. They never said that.
Players probably told you that from their experience, but SoE never did.

Cayden, you missed the point of my post. Yes, I did start out about diversity, but diversity because we could and it was fun and pointless. Now you're making diversity something that isn't wanted. As a mage, especially in the lower levels, you would be foolish to pick anything other then the races that gave you a free nuke or a 2% crit. Congrats on making the people who pick race/class combos for fun seem incredably foolish. And now, in the end, if you really dream of being at the end-content, you have to pick a certain race. Sure, you could be a troll wizzy if you wanted to, but in a raid, I definatly would pick an erudite wizzy over you just because they can produce better numbers.

Yummy, from a casual perspective that, I can see that. But you haven't given, in fact, no one in this entire thread, has given any sort of logical reasoning why a human assassin is now sub-par to a Dark Elf one. "Oh, but it makes sense lore wise", ok... but where is the lore that states "Now, after three years into the world, the Dark Elves have finally awakened their true abilities and were granted with the Rage on Innorruk" keep in mind that Inny abandoned them. Yeah, makes perfect lore sense. And you are right, as a gnome you should not expect to have the str of a troll, and people have accepted that. Seeing how stats can easily be made up in this game, that shouldn't be a problem. But to say that a race has better abilities just because they are that race over another one... that doesn't make sense.

I, personally, am against racial traits. I see no point in them, especially when some are just so much better then others. "Oh, but it gives more diversity" ah yes, especially when all new mages will be erudite, all scouts will be DE... thats a lot of diversity. I'm still not sure as to why they can't give us a racial change. We can already illusion ourselves into anything but the fae and emo-fae, so would the problem be city and faction? Fine, let me do a quest thats 3x harder/longer then the betrayal if thats what makes it work. Either that, or make the racial traits fair. In no way should all human chars start becoming harvesting/crafting bots just because they didn't get any decent traits.

NiteWolfe wrote:

i can tell you what i get if not tanking that is remotely usefull:+3% power and a heavely underpowered nuke(even if i only fight against 4 mob encounters its same damage as knockdown and less once i fight against less mobs and no knockdown/stun attached in either case), for solo and tanking i get +5 defense,+5 parry and magic resist. So i doubt one can deny that high elf is even worse than barbarian for this class.. sure dark elf is superior to both.

Yeap, not happy either. Three reasons:

• You dirty Rat! I'm fine with Racial Flavour - but come on... this is supposed to be a Racial Trait balancing. This is giving me a w00t! factor like Fae glide.
• Give Me My Ball Back! - Removing old racial traits... err why? Any reason you are pulling some current abilities?
• "Is it 'cos I is Purple?" Race meant nothing. It now does. Ask Wood Elf mages, High Elf Swashes and Ratonga healers. (NB I don't have any of the above). What percentage of the population are now not a class/race match? ie High Elf Fighters

Sure balance is kinda wacked right now on certain abilities here - but that isn't my issue.

Amphibia wrote:

Why do I have the funny feeling that for each of these abilities Crusaders will automatically be given the melee option over the caster option, despite the fact that that anyone who has played an SK or Pally for more than 5 minutes would know that spell crits are incredibly more important than melee crits?
We'll see if that's the case, but I'm willing to bet good money that SOE has again showed their fundamental lack of understanding of the Crusader classes.