Author Topic: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?  (Read 14969 times)

Daklore

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #15 on: 06/21/07, 17:06 »
We got more than enough races for the playerbase we have at this moment. Now, if that playerbase was going to expand and bring us to an average of 60 people on at any given time of the day, then more races might be more plausible. As it is, most players are either a Dragon, or an Elf of some sort (whether they be Drowish, Kalchi, or Siltha). Which is also why I think the other races that are less played, need a bit of an 'umph' to their racial skills. It's either that, or let them go the way of the dinosasur.
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SeanBoggz

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #16 on: 06/24/07, 12:01 »
I completly agree. KOTL has a ton of races as is if anything we should trim it down. Maybe rework some of the skills like Daklore suggested.

Only thing I can really see an maybe an improvement with races is maybe plot lines where notables get involved and post notes and what not giving the players things to talk about and try to figure out on their own.
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Chalgyr

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #17 on: 06/24/07, 18:30 »
I can see where doing more with say, Deus would be good for getting notes and and moving along storylines.  Beyond that - okay, if the idea is flaws with races - let's examine which races are missing what, exactly?

I keep hearing that only dragons and kalchi have good attack skills and that some reaces have good defense/immunes, and a few have nice buff-like skills but that is it and there's a lot that is lacking.  If that's so, specific examples perhaps?  I'd be mostly interested in helping 3rd evolution over others, so instead of saying: all dwarves suck, let's look at 3rd evo dwarves. :)
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Daklore

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #18 on: 06/25/07, 10:32 »
Well, I can only -personally- look at the Gnomish line, or Snifvliblin, if you want. Essentially, we're just short humans with better stats, a couple small resists, and two racial skills. One of which does next to no damage, and the other... I can't honestly say I see any difference between using blur and not using it.

Compared to Dragons, which I have played, and yes, I realize they're uber beasties, but still. Dragons innately have one immune (or near immune), and at least one weakness hitting... what, +200, or is it 150? They get breath weapons, which get -STRONGER- with age, and do area of affect damage. Lets compare my wimpy gibberish that might do 150 points of damage, to a breathweapon that probably hits an average of 300-500 at a fairly young age. On top of that, they get the best stats in the game, trade for a very high TNL. Sure, their other skills are lacking, but yeah.

Then we take Kalchi, also another uber race, one I haven't played. Mentalflare. Enough said. Chalgyr calculated that with Daklore's pre-wipe hours and health, he could probably have hit 10K damage easily at full health. I know it's been, as Tsythor would say, rebalanced, but still... it gets better with time as well.

Now lets look at ShadowElves. I don't play one, but honestly... do they -even- get any racial benefits? They're just Drows with better stats? o_O

Rakshasa and the were evolution. They have a kick-ass were-form, which is rocking at low levels, but a drawback at higher levels. That has been answered with the probability of a skill to allow them to control that transforming urge at a higher evo/age/whatever. They also get double stat gains, and fairly decent resists.

Equus.... I've not played any... but they can gore an enemy/player and have a chance for an "instant kill". Over power much? I mean, I can get hit by a sword fifteen thousand times and not loose a limb, but I get ran through by a horn from a horse, and I'm dead? 9800 health in one hit, assuming it was successful at max health. ... Yeeeeeah.

Atach... whatever... they finally got a use for that third arm.. but really, that's the only thing anyone can say about them.

Can I say anything about any other race? Maybe Yuan-ti... their defensive skills are good from what I've heard. Can I say anything about any other race? Not really. They're pretty much just, 'meh, whatever. They can't really do anything cool, they're just there."

How's that? >P
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SeanBoggz

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #19 on: 06/25/07, 10:44 »
I'm cool with dragons being the uber race. But if they are going to be so uber maybe they shouldn't have the elven form. It makes being a dragon way too easy. Yea it comes with little slap on the wrist negative affects but the Kalchi don't have a way out and they do just fine when played right.

That's my main beef with races

Dragons are just overpowered to have such an easy out with the elven form. Just doesn't seem right when Kalchi have to suffer through it.
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Daklore

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #20 on: 06/25/07, 10:49 »
The overall agro toward Dragon and Kalchi has also been reduced, because the code was altered to offer them a chance to -not- be agro'd, which gives them even more of an advantage. We have to take into consideration that Dragon and Kalchi are -endangered species- though. Would it make sense for the 'lesser races' to simply wander around and do nothing? They'd be making themselves better, so they can prevent those two races from regaining their former glory, less the dragon-kalchi wars renew or something. But yeah, I understand they're the uber races, but the other races need something going for them as well now. They're so powerful, they're ridiculously overplayed for an endangered species. Mostly dragons (because they can morph out of agro). Speaking of morph, maybe the stat hit should be a lot more severe, rather than a few points off of select stats, which can be over-come with stacking customs over the stat limit.

How about limiting morph to force the maximum they can raise a stat to, while morphed, to say, 40, or lower? If they get to trade off a few points to be non-agro, and still have access to their breath weapon... donut make sense to me.
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Magus_Sairos

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #21 on: 06/25/07, 10:54 »
On the "morph" part of being a Dragon, I could understand us being penalized a little bit more for being in our Elven forms.  And I'm amazed that I know something that Daklore doesn't, but we are no longer allowed to use our Breath attack while in Elven form.

And speaking about the Breathe..  I recently passed 1300, which is the most I've ever logged on one character.  I was told that with age, my Breath attack would get stronger.  In all honesty, I haven't seen anything that I would consider to be stronger.  Is it that I'm supposed to hit 2k, or even 3k hours for it to gain its former glory?  Cause if thats what it is, then alright, Im cool with that.
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Chalgyr

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #22 on: 06/25/07, 12:10 »
The dragonbreath goes up in increments (as does the kalchi thing) around every 100 hours, and it's not a huge amount each time.  it's the fact that over time, a dragon with 1000 hours has had 10 upgrades over one with 20 hours.  There is a cap built in somewhere as well, but I don't remember where.

I'm all for improving some 3rd evolution abilities.  At this rate, humans are getting hosed worse than anything alive, but no one sticks up for them. :p  Am I the only one who plays them? :D

Shadow-elves: they are driders with different equipslots.  I think I made a post about that when we first implimented them, but that was years ago.

There have also been a couple of skills/spells geared to be anti-dragon.  Once upon a time, we were working on anti-kalchi and dragon stuff equipwise too, but that just sorta fell through, so there were at least some strides being made to counteract their power.  Also keep in mind that the tnl is different by race.  a dragon or kalchi has a much higher tnl than say, a gnome.  Not saying that it's the world's worst penalty, but when we were first designing races and putting this stuff out there to the staff and players at the time, that's the sort of response we were getting from people.

:)

Keep it all coming.
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Leesil

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #23 on: 06/25/07, 16:41 »
As far as Drow go, they get several affects that build with each Evo for darksight, being hidden and such which are cool, they could use a bump on the attck front, right now shadow elves/driders get darkness as racial spell which as far as I've ever seen is just a weaker darkbomb.

I like the toneing back on the aggro for Dragons and Kalchi, for those who don't play dragon/kalchi all the change did was make it poosible to pass through a room without being noticed, but if one jumps you everything else in the room still atacks.  But Dragons do need more of a penalty for Morph, and maybe a random chance of it failing at any given time.

From what I've seen of the new races they all seem good, which is to say more powerful than the old races which most of could use being dialed up a bit, maybe with a new racial ability or the ones they have being made stronger.

And Yes Chal, you are the only one who plays Humans because one there no real bonus to being human, and two the other races are all cooler.

And I know I'm rambleing at this point but I just thought of something else. Since Kalchi and Dragons are supposed to be hated races how about RP like sanctions on them such as shops paying them less, and not getting as much recovered from healers or having to pay double other races and maybe in places like Murkwood the shopkeepers, trainer, etc. just flat refuse to help them?

OK I'm done..... for now.  Now where did that Rum go???
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Lx6

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #24 on: 06/25/07, 17:09 »
>> Dragons get to hide.... Why can't Kalchi's in final evo get something so their not the constant target of mob hate when they enter a dungeon?
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Daklore

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #25 on: 06/25/07, 18:20 »
The lil army of ten... erm... seven... makes a fine point... but then there's also "How to balance it?" Do we give them morph, which would make no sense at all. The fiery wings are an extension of their power.... it's sort of like Naruto trying to control Kyuubi at four tails. >P Well, that's a half decent... okay, it's a lame assed description.
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Lx6

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #26 on: 06/26/07, 01:49 »
alright idea for fairness sake on Kalchi.

They only become aggro'ed when their wings are flared?

and the Wings must be flared to use racial skills?

if that makes sense? Kinda like how Dragons must be in dragon form to do Dragon Breath
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Leesil

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #27 on: 06/26/07, 06:07 »
That could work, you just tuck the wings away and pose as a normal Elf. But speaking on behalf of my Kalchi alt, "We don't need no sticking hideing ability. Kalchi aren't little wusses like those big baby lizards."
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Chalgyr

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #28 on: 06/26/07, 09:46 »
See, that approach Leesil is how I always viewed my kalchi.  They don't want to blend in, they still deep down often think they're as good if not better than others, almost to the point of being proud of what they are. :)  I think I gave darkelves some sort of combat bonus during night time or dark rooms or something like that.  Nothing huge, nothing announced, but it seems like some time ago I slipped them an extra 5% damage or something for darkened conditions, but I could be mistaken as well... in fact, I just clipped this:

http://www.screencast.com/users/n.herber/collections/Arcturus/media/533d9a7b-7e08-47b4-acf4-8f71cf929d8e

Kalchi for example, don't have any of these bonuses.  It's not much, but as you can see - a lot of the races (that list goes another page or two for the faces) have built-in bonuses you might not even be aware of. :)
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Daklore

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Re: Races -- What needs to be improved? What's missing?
« Reply #29 on: 06/26/07, 10:24 »
Yeah, Gnomes are just -there-. No bonuses for us, or else we'd be able to make explosives. C'mon, everywhere Gnomes go, explosions are soon to follow.
"Okay, who let Odin out of his cage?"
*A blue bouncy ball bounces by*
"That's it, I'm outta here."