Why would all races being able to play all classes make sense? I started with EQ so maybe I'm biased, but an Elf dark knight or ogre enchanter don't make sense. I LOVED my Erudite Cleric in EQ. Interesting and rare race/class combos add flavor to the game for me. That being said, I find some of the choice they have put on the chart for Pantheon a little strange.
Because that should be up to the player, not the developer. What if I want to play a wizard but I hate Erudites? Why should I be forced to pick a race I hate to be the best I can be? Shouldn't my actual PLAYing matter, not an asinine choice of how my avatar looks?
Some classes have up to 8 options for race. Most 4+. Paladin only has 2 races to pick from but again this is all bound to lore and common sense. Would you ask an Ogre to do brain surgery on you? No and for many reasons no. If you dont get they are trying to create Races/Class diversity. Making Races matter, then maybe you are looking at the wrong game. With how open the options are I am sure you could find a Race/Class combo you could enjoy. If your life boils down to only a Ogre Wizard will do, then I dont know what to say to you to see reason. There are tones of options.
Do brain surgeons exist in the fantasy world we're talking about? Is anyone a brain surgeon? I wouldn't want a human or elf doing brain surgery either in that world.
It's completely arbitrary. There is no reason an Ogre couldn't be a paladin or a mage. I guess you could go with the D&D trope of inherent magic resistance, but then that should apply to weapon, spell, and armour too. Those should fail for non-magic users, or they shouldn't be allowed to use magic items because of lore reasons.
There is no reasoning to this because like I said the entire concept isn't built on reason. It's built on a perspective of arbitrary choices. Some of the great fantasy works have specifically broken out of those early D&D tropes because why should Gygax and Cook decide how we play fantasy characters forever going forward.
If the design is good you could have diversity and still let any race take on any profession. Just saying it can't be done "realistically" is weak, or just not honest.
My point with the Ogre is no different then VR insistent that the fingers of an Ogre are not deft enough to play a flute. Sure make an Ogre Wizard, as long as enough negative hits happen to make it sensible. Should end up being a character no one would want or be wanted for a team. Everything should come at a cost. You want to petition for that? I feel bad for the newbe that does not know they are rolling a laughable character.
The class race combos available are awesome as it stands.
If his fingers aren't deft enough to play a flute then that sounds like a dexterity hit. Then it would make sense they can't do any job that requires dexterity, intelligence, or wisdom as a main class attribute.
By your reasoning every race should have severe penalties as well. And what's the reasoning again, that realistic lore reason, that humans can do it all? The inconsistencies are obvious.
I can live with it though. It's only a deal breaker if I find a class I like and the only racial options suck. There are only 2 main dealbreakers for me in an mmo - race class combos that suck (I can't find one I like) and crappy combat. There are a few more but mostly all the rest I can work out. If I hate my character or their appearance then it's game off.
Right on. To add to that, Ogres can be Shamans and Druids, both magic using classes so if someone wants to play a magic using Ogre, they can. Only the ones they are told they can. They should be able to be played as a Enchanter or a Cleric or whatever.
well if it's like EQ shamans and druids are wisdom based casters, not inelegance based. meaning they gain power from wisdom, not intelligence.
Yep. But in EQ and EQ2 shamans and druids are nature 'priests' not casters. Shamans are fauna (animal) based, druids are flora (plant) based. Hence Wisdom not Intelligence. Clerics are priests of formalized worship and are spirit based.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race as a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Sort of ...... If I am from a race that has a system of worship that is nature based it makes sense that druid and/or shaman are valid choices. It does not make sense for those classes that are based on a formal 'church' like religion (cleric, paladin) to be valid choices. The character would never have been exposed to those as options during their early life.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Sort of ...... If I am from a race that has a system of worship that is nature based it makes sense that druid and/or shaman are valid choices. It does not make sense for those classes that are based on a formal 'church' like religion (cleric, paladin) to be valid choices. The character would never have been exposed to those as options during their early life.
So then... there is an assumption that every race just does one thing. All humans worship some paladin-y god. All ogres worship some voodoo god. They ONLY stick together and NEVER branch out. The world at that point is made up of clusters of separated races that do not co-mingle. When I think about a world designed in such a way, it seems very closed minded and... almost adolescent.
Even without lore consistency, I think games that have major consequences based on the choices you make at character creation are more interesting than those that don't. If you choose to be an ogre mage, there should be large consequences, positive or negative.
However, I will say that 100% restriction seems mostly silly to me. Allow the players to make poor decisions (and therefor good ones too). With an interesting progression system, maybe ogres could be great mages and elves could make great warriors.
My feeling exactly. You may be a crappy mage, but you'll have the element of surprise working for you XD and possibly twice the HP of the "good" mages.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Sort of ...... If I am from a race that has a system of worship that is nature based it makes sense that druid and/or shaman are valid choices. It does not make sense for those classes that are based on a formal 'church' like religion (cleric, paladin) to be valid choices. The character would never have been exposed to those as options during their early life.
So then... there is an assumption that every race just does one thing. All humans worship some paladin-y god. All ogres worship some voodoo god. They ONLY stick together and NEVER branch out. The world at that point is made up of clusters of separated races that do not co-mingle. When I think about a world designed in such a way, it seems very closed minded and... almost adolescent.
It's just an opinion though.
Hardly, way to construct a strawman though. Every race does a variety of things. But no race does everything (yes I know humans, but I don't like that). Somethings a race does, or attributes it possesses. (like innate magic resistance) precludes other things.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Sort of ...... If I am from a race that has a system of worship that is nature based it makes sense that druid and/or shaman are valid choices. It does not make sense for those classes that are based on a formal 'church' like religion (cleric, paladin) to be valid choices. The character would never have been exposed to those as options during their early life.
So then... there is an assumption that every race just does one thing. All humans worship some paladin-y god. All ogres worship some voodoo god. They ONLY stick together and NEVER branch out. The world at that point is made up of clusters of separated races that do not co-mingle. When I think about a world designed in such a way, it seems very closed minded and... almost adolescent.
It's just an opinion though.
Hardly, way to construct a strawman though. Every race does a variety of things. But no race does everything (yes I know humans, but I don't like that). Somethings a race does, or attributes it possesses. (like innate magic resistance) precludes other things.
I may have misunderstood you. I mean, no race does everything well? Or some races can't do something? That is basically what I was getting at. There are advantages and disadvantages to choosing a race. Let the player decide if they think it's worth being a class/race combination.
By the way, it's perfectly legitimate to just randomly say that, I don't know, dwarves are not touched with the magic gene or something. But unless there is something very significant and important about it, it just ends up feeling contrived and underdeveloped. Building out culture is great in my opinion. I've just see a lot of games do class/race restrictions fairly terribly. You an ogre? You bash things. You an elf? You shoot things with arrows.
Another thing is that I was specifically addressing your religious argument. That a system of worship (class in this case) would be based on a race being nature-y. That all other races would be excluded because it is impossible for them to be as nature-y as this one race is what seems absurd to me. It wasn't a strawman at all really, just an interpretation on what you wrote.
Considering all the races of the Pantheon planet, Terminus, were brought there from other worlds, it would be unlikely that every race would do everything. This is just one reason I find it strange that the Pantheon's humans do it all.
Considering all the races of the Pantheon planet, Terminus, were brought there from other worlds, it would be unlikely that every race would do everything. This is just one reason I find it strange that the Pantheon's humans do it all.
Well that would fit the A typical cloned idea that the Human race is a jack of all trades master of none.I feel this idea has stood around far too long and should be changed.EVERY single race should have a purpose and do something the other races cannot. I would love to see an idea where EVERYTHING has to be learned and Humans are the faster learners but start out with less known.
I don't know how skills and abilities and spells are going to be learned but i hope it is a creative plausible idea and NOT like their past games.
Example,simply crafting ANY spell or ability and you automatically know it and can use it,if you are of that class of course.I would rather see a deeper system,like having to travel and discover secret trainers that of course are not standing around with a yellow ? over their head.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Considering all the races of the Pantheon planet, Terminus, were brought there from other worlds, it would be unlikely that every race would do everything. This is just one reason I find it strange that the Pantheon's humans do it all.
Well that would fit the A typical cloned idea that the Human race is a jack of all trades master of none.I feel this idea has stood around far too long and should be changed.EVERY single race should have a purpose and do something the other races cannot. I would love to see an idea where EVERYTHING has to be learned and Humans are the faster learners but start out with less known.
I don't know how skills and abilities and spells are going to be learned but i hope it is a creative plausible idea and NOT like their past games.
Example,simply crafting ANY spell or ability and you automatically know it and can use it,if you are of that class of course.I would rather see a deeper system,like having to travel and discover secret trainers that of course are not standing around with a yellow ? over their head.
They've pointed out - in great detail - that spells will have long, perhaps epic questlines, be very rare dungeon/raid drops, and exactly what you said - that far out old master hermit spell trainer in the deepest most dangerous part of a cave/dungeon.
Additionally humans needing to be changed or revamped; that's simply personal opinion/preference. Humans being a jack of all trades for class selection, great faction with most races, better at tradeskilling, easier to group with any of your friends more easily as opposed to being locked out if you choose certain races; how are these are not viable reasons humans would have "purpose" or advantages that other classes would not? Apart from Vanguard because of Qalithari, humans are the least played race in any game. They're rarely ever seen in Everquest. Not sure what people want/expect humans to possess or not possess as races, but it feels good to me.
Humans are typically the baseline jack-of-all-trades race in any MMO because it gives a sense of perspective and standard to look outward at other races that no other fantasy race could possibly achieve due to the fact that the reader/customer/writer/developer is human.
That said, it'd be easy enough to exclude magic from humans because magic itself is fantastical, with the in-universe explanation being "because reasons" (or rather, "because magic") but that's up to the developers/writers. On the flip side of the coin, so are the restrictions for other races when it comes to magic. Physical disabilities, meanwhile, are easier to explain with more realistic reasons like "Ogres' fingers are too fat to play a lute properly and no one bothers making ogre-sized lutes". That said, as pointed out in other places, there really aren't many ways to physically realistically explain how a race could have no warriors whatsoever. The only way for that to happen would be if a race was so physically handicapped that they psychically levitated their near-corpse-like bodies to get around. "Gnomes can rely on golems!" would only work if tech was such that golems could be EVERYWHERE, and while it's easy enough for the developers to make golem npcs, that wouldn't explain why the players don't have access to such power. (and then there comes all sorts of other plot holes that start appearing when one thinks hard about a world where a race can have golems everywhere)
But whatever. Another major reason for racial restrictions would of course be developer money. Animating gnome combat animations might be significantly different from human and ogre ones, at least if they wanted to be up to a standard like guildwars 2 or Wild Star's small race warriors.
I just would like to point out that this is a lost battle.
Humans without magic only occurs in low magic fantasy settings. Which are btw also very depressing to play for me because its basically medieval times, and those havent been a great time for mankind. I avoid such games.
EQ, Vanguard, D&D etc are all high magic fantasy settings. And there humans have magic. You dont like it ? Fine. Go and play something else then.
It's a good thing Pantheon is offering multiple races for every class, so no one gets shoehorned.
It just barely fits the definition of "multiple"
Edit: Ultimately it's not a huge deal for me, as I will simply not play the game if my preferred race/class combo is unavailable. I was really just trying to point out the fact that there's no good reason for restrictions on character creation at all. "Lore" just means you haven't taken the time to come up with exceptions to a rule, less work.
No, there's plenty of good reasons, they just don't happen to be reasons you agree with. To you, being able to be any race you want for any class is important. For a lot of us, it ruins the immersion and the consistency of the in game world and lore. If Ogres are supposed to be dumb brutes, why would it make sense for them to be an enchanter or a wizard? Now, if you feel that player choice is more important that's fine, and if that is a litmus test for you, that's also fine. You have a thousand other MMO's you can play with all the player race/class choices in the world you can choose from.
Think about this, what would you do if you were watching Game of Thrones and all of a sudden a character rode up on a Harley Davidson and jumped off and started shooting people with a machine gun? You would think it was ridiculous and stupid, and justly so, it's inconsistent with the story and lore of the show/books.
All we're asking for is that the game be internally consistent with it's lore.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how. If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
It's a good thing Pantheon is offering multiple races for every class, so no one gets shoehorned.
It just barely fits the definition of "multiple"
Edit: Ultimately it's not a huge deal for me, as I will simply not play the game if my preferred race/class combo is unavailable. I was really just trying to point out the fact that there's no good reason for restrictions on character creation at all. "Lore" just means you haven't taken the time to come up with exceptions to a rule, less work.
No, there's plenty of good reasons, they just don't happen to be reasons you agree with. To you, being able to be any race you want for any class is important. For a lot of us, it ruins the immersion and the consistency of the in game world and lore. If Ogres are supposed to be dumb brutes, why would it make sense for them to be an enchanter or a wizard? Now, if you feel that player choice is more important that's fine, and if that is a litmus test for you, that's also fine. You have a thousand other MMO's you can play with all the player race/class choices in the world you can choose from.
Think about this, what would you do if you were watching Game of Thrones and all of a sudden a character rode up on a Harley Davidson and jumped off and started shooting people with a machine gun? You would think it was ridiculous and stupid, and justly so, it's inconsistent with the story and lore of the show/books.
All we're asking for is that the game be internally consistent with it's lore.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how. If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
So you want to be a Drizzt character. That unique snowflake that breaks all norms. Do that for every race and its not long till there is no unique races. Just mirrors with a cosmetic skin. There are lots of MMOs out there like that. This MMO is about choices have meaning. Get over it.
It's a good thing Pantheon is offering multiple races for every class, so no one gets shoehorned.
It just barely fits the definition of "multiple"
Edit: Ultimately it's not a huge deal for me, as I will simply not play the game if my preferred race/class combo is unavailable. I was really just trying to point out the fact that there's no good reason for restrictions on character creation at all. "Lore" just means you haven't taken the time to come up with exceptions to a rule, less work.
No, there's plenty of good reasons, they just don't happen to be reasons you agree with. To you, being able to be any race you want for any class is important. For a lot of us, it ruins the immersion and the consistency of the in game world and lore. If Ogres are supposed to be dumb brutes, why would it make sense for them to be an enchanter or a wizard? Now, if you feel that player choice is more important that's fine, and if that is a litmus test for you, that's also fine. You have a thousand other MMO's you can play with all the player race/class choices in the world you can choose from.
Think about this, what would you do if you were watching Game of Thrones and all of a sudden a character rode up on a Harley Davidson and jumped off and started shooting people with a machine gun? You would think it was ridiculous and stupid, and justly so, it's inconsistent with the story and lore of the show/books.
All we're asking for is that the game be internally consistent with it's lore.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how. If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
So you want to be a Drizzt character. That unique snowflake that breaks all norms. Do that for every race and its not long till there is no unique races. Just mirrors with a cosmetic skin. There are lots of MMOs out there like that. This MMO is about choices have meaning. Get over it.
"Choices that have meaning" Or in other words every Wizard is an elf. Boy that's so much better!
As we've discussed before, I'd be all for them adding a way via quest line, to betray your class and join another class guild which isn't available at character select. Which would probably include betraying your deity, and possibly require gaining faction with another guild or even another race.
It's a good thing Pantheon is offering multiple races for every class, so no one gets shoehorned.
It just barely fits the definition of "multiple"
Edit: Ultimately it's not a huge deal for me, as I will simply not play the game if my preferred race/class combo is unavailable. I was really just trying to point out the fact that there's no good reason for restrictions on character creation at all. "Lore" just means you haven't taken the time to come up with exceptions to a rule, less work.
No, there's plenty of good reasons, they just don't happen to be reasons you agree with. To you, being able to be any race you want for any class is important. For a lot of us, it ruins the immersion and the consistency of the in game world and lore. If Ogres are supposed to be dumb brutes, why would it make sense for them to be an enchanter or a wizard? Now, if you feel that player choice is more important that's fine, and if that is a litmus test for you, that's also fine. You have a thousand other MMO's you can play with all the player race/class choices in the world you can choose from.
Think about this, what would you do if you were watching Game of Thrones and all of a sudden a character rode up on a Harley Davidson and jumped off and started shooting people with a machine gun? You would think it was ridiculous and stupid, and justly so, it's inconsistent with the story and lore of the show/books.
All we're asking for is that the game be internally consistent with it's lore.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how. If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
So you want to be a Drizzt character. That unique snowflake that breaks all norms. Do that for every race and its not long till there is no unique races. Just mirrors with a cosmetic skin. There are lots of MMOs out there like that. This MMO is about choices have meaning. Get over it.
"Choices that have meaning" Or in other words every Wizard is an elf. Boy that's so much better!
No every Wizard will have the option of 5 races. Archai, Dark Myr, Elf, Human or Gnome. Stop acting like their are not a good selection of options. Wizards cover more then 50% of the races.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race as a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Having hard race / class restrictions does treat races as a suit of clothes. Say you want your character to be a paladin (since that's been used in the thread). Say the game has 4 races with different stats. It's basically choosing what look and stat combo you want for your paladin.
The race doesn't mean much. It boils down to a stat choice and there will always be a single best stat choice which leaves you hoping you like what that looks like. It's a one dimensional approach but it's easier to balance and less costly to implement.
In a more in depth racial and character profession system each race would have strengths and weaknesses to any profession they take up. Say your elf does want to be a paladin. Their strengths might not best suit that at outset so they would be at a disadvantage, but there could be other racial qualities that would add to the class. Maybe they level slower but have better health, as an example tradeoff.
We used to do the latter system in table top AD&D and Rolemaster. The DM would adjust xp curves (or xp gained) and other things that made sense within the context of the choice and campaign.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race as a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Having hard race / class restrictions does treat races as a suit of clothes. Say you want your character to be a paladin (since that's been used in the thread). Say the game has 4 races with different stats. It's basically choosing what look and stat combo you want for your paladin.
The race doesn't mean much. It boils down to a stat choice and there will always be a single best stat choice which leaves you hoping you like what that looks like. It's a one dimensional approach but it's easier to balance and less costly to implement.
In a more in depth racial and character profession system each race would have strengths and weaknesses to any profession they take up. Say your elf does want to be a paladin. Their strengths might not best suit that at outset so they would be at a disadvantage, but there could be other racial qualities that would add to the class. Maybe they level slower but have better health, as an example tradeoff.
We used to do the latter system in table top AD&D and Rolemaster. The DM would adjust xp curves (or xp gained) and other things that made sense within the context of the choice and campaign.
What race / class combo is missing for you?
The one I can't choose? :chuffed:
Like I said, practically speaking I'll deal with whatever. When I play games I just take them for what they offer and have the fun available. When it stops then I move on, but I'm pretty flexible and open. I can find fun in most games.
With this we're mostly talking design theory. I certainly don't expect VR or any studio to act on it. For one, while the ideas about in depth race / class building could add a lot, they're also very expensive. It's not necessarily a realistic expectation of any development budget and certainly not an indie studio budget. The cost for the animations, meshes, and textures alone for all those combinations would be huge. Balancing complexity increases as well. I still think it's a good goal and the right way to approach things, but it's not always pragmatic.
I just want to point out that VR has a lot more funding than people think. I work in PR and consulting, we deal with a lot of market research. Not sure if that "angel investor" Kilsin has mentioned is responsible, but I can assure you VR has plenty of funding for this game at this point in development. My bet is the recent award from this site and the massive flux in popularity/advertising that subsequently followed has given way to a new investor or perhaps the same investor feels he/she can sleep a lot better at night seeing the recent pull towards the game (more like a black hole than a pull to put it lightly).
Updates are now coming in at an increasingly logistic rate, newsletters now give concrete results, the amount of updates/new content that is going to be shown in this stream is about 5x the amount between the stream 6-8 months ago and the stream that took place 2-3 months ago; the list goes on. A starting city for each playable race? Come on. That is unheard of and requires massive funding as well. This game is going to be huge. What I tihnk they're doing is literally pouring their soul into this to make the game special, taking their time and adding layer upon layer to give us something we haven't seen. The kind of systematic updates theyre boasting in this short period of time (and you know it's reliable, they were very hush hush up until the recent months) cannot be accomplished without a sizeable payroll and large, active team. Again, the visual, graphic, animations, sound, part of the game they already said they wont be mentioning as improvements, for they are expected and will always be improving. The new systems etc is what they're preaching, and these systems are huge.
As we've discussed before, I'd be all for them adding a way via quest line, to betray your class and join another class guild which isn't available at character select. Which would probably include betraying your deity, and possibly require gaining faction with another guild or even another race.
absolutely! i am for this 100% as long as it's not easily attainable.
It's a good thing Pantheon is offering multiple races for every class, so no one gets shoehorned.
It just barely fits the definition of "multiple"
Edit: Ultimately it's not a huge deal for me, as I will simply not play the game if my preferred race/class combo is unavailable. I was really just trying to point out the fact that there's no good reason for restrictions on character creation at all. "Lore" just means you haven't taken the time to come up with exceptions to a rule, less work.
No, there's plenty of good reasons, they just don't happen to be reasons you agree with. To you, being able to be any race you want for any class is important. For a lot of us, it ruins the immersion and the consistency of the in game world and lore. If Ogres are supposed to be dumb brutes, why would it make sense for them to be an enchanter or a wizard? Now, if you feel that player choice is more important that's fine, and if that is a litmus test for you, that's also fine. You have a thousand other MMO's you can play with all the player race/class choices in the world you can choose from.
Think about this, what would you do if you were watching Game of Thrones and all of a sudden a character rode up on a Harley Davidson and jumped off and started shooting people with a machine gun? You would think it was ridiculous and stupid, and justly so, it's inconsistent with the story and lore of the show/books.
All we're asking for is that the game be internally consistent with it's lore.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how. If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
Like all arguments like this it suffers from a basic fallacy. You are making an argument for one Ogre to be an enchanter, case of special pleading. The devs allowing the choice would allow an unlimited number of Ogre enchanters, thus totally changing the lore. How can you justify that with your unique story?
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race as a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Having hard race / class restrictions does treat races as a suit of clothes. Say you want your character to be a paladin (since that's been used in the thread). Say the game has 4 races with different stats. It's basically choosing what look and stat combo you want for your paladin.
The race doesn't mean much. It boils down to a stat choice and there will always be a single best stat choice which leaves you hoping you like what that looks like. It's a one dimensional approach but it's easier to balance and less costly to implement.
In a more in depth racial and character profession system each race would have strengths and weaknesses to any profession they take up. Say your elf does want to be a paladin. Their strengths might not best suit that at outset so they would be at a disadvantage, but there could be other racial qualities that would add to the class. Maybe they level slower but have better health, as an example tradeoff.
We used to do the latter system in table top AD&D and Rolemaster. The DM would adjust xp curves (or xp gained) and other things that made sense within the context of the choice and campaign.
That sort of thing works fine if you have half a dozen players and your own DM. This is a Massively Multiplayer game with the DM hard coded. You can't make your case for a set of unique exceptions to the lore when you don't have that level of fine control, you have to accept that the lore and the game code will have hard edges.
I just would like to point out that this is a lost battle.
Humans without magic only occurs in low magic fantasy settings. Which are btw also very depressing to play for me because its basically medieval times, and those havent been a great time for mankind. I avoid such games.
EQ, Vanguard, D&D etc are all high magic fantasy settings. And there humans have magic. You dont like it ? Fine. Go and play something else then.
You could, on the other hand, not have humans at all. Just add another race or two with their own racial characteristics and limited class choices. You could even call them barbarians and townsfolk and have them look very much like humans.
A lot of people here seem to regard race as a suit of clothes their avatar wears. Why should there be class restrictions on my wearing green trousers? But if you are actually wanting to play a Role Playing Game a character's race is a fundamental part of their nature and should have a large effect on what classes they could become.
A lot of people do seem to think of race as a suit their avatars wear. On the other hand, a lot of people pretend like it's should be impossible for certain races to try and be something other what a developer decides it should be. In my opinion, give the races certain leanings that makes sense with their lore and allow the players the power to decide what makes sense. And allow the players to try and find ways to make things make sense.
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
Having hard race / class restrictions does treat races as a suit of clothes. Say you want your character to be a paladin (since that's been used in the thread). Say the game has 4 races with different stats. It's basically choosing what look and stat combo you want for your paladin.
The race doesn't mean much. It boils down to a stat choice and there will always be a single best stat choice which leaves you hoping you like what that looks like. It's a one dimensional approach but it's easier to balance and less costly to implement.
In a more in depth racial and character profession system each race would have strengths and weaknesses to any profession they take up. Say your elf does want to be a paladin. Their strengths might not best suit that at outset so they would be at a disadvantage, but there could be other racial qualities that would add to the class. Maybe they level slower but have better health, as an example tradeoff.
We used to do the latter system in table top AD&D and Rolemaster. The DM would adjust xp curves (or xp gained) and other things that made sense within the context of the choice and campaign.
What race / class combo is missing for you?
The one I can't choose? :chuffed:
Like I said, practically speaking I'll deal with whatever. When I play games I just take them for what they offer and have the fun available. When it stops then I move on, but I'm pretty flexible and open. I can find fun in most games.
With this we're mostly talking design theory. I certainly don't expect VR or any studio to act on it. For one, while the ideas about in depth race / class building could add a lot, they're also very expensive. It's not necessarily a realistic expectation of any development budget and certainly not an indie studio budget. The cost for the animations, meshes, and textures alone for all those combinations would be huge. Balancing complexity increases as well. I still think it's a good goal and the right way to approach things, but it's not always pragmatic.
Armchair devs are an embarrassment, you have no idea where VR are at with funding and investment. Stop assuming they are still in the same situation as when they first started the kickstarer.
Don't like the class/race restrictions then go play a game that lets you play to your style.
Comments
This all really depends on what kind of game it wants to be. Is it going to be distilled into min/max style raiding? Then you might as well restrict classes so that less people can make mistakes. If it's going to have depth, then give the races what makes sense lore wise and give classes what makes sense lore wise and then give the players agency.
If I am from a race that has a system of worship that is nature based it makes sense that druid and/or shaman are valid choices. It does not make sense for those classes that are based on a formal 'church' like religion (cleric, paladin) to be valid choices. The character would never have been exposed to those as options during their early life.
It's just an opinion though.
Every race does a variety of things. But no race does everything (yes I know humans, but I don't like that). Somethings a race does, or attributes it possesses. (like innate magic resistance) precludes other things.
By the way, it's perfectly legitimate to just randomly say that, I don't know, dwarves are not touched with the magic gene or something. But unless there is something very significant and important about it, it just ends up feeling contrived and underdeveloped. Building out culture is great in my opinion. I've just see a lot of games do class/race restrictions fairly terribly. You an ogre? You bash things. You an elf? You shoot things with arrows.
Another thing is that I was specifically addressing your religious argument. That a system of worship (class in this case) would be based on a race being nature-y. That all other races would be excluded because it is impossible for them to be as nature-y as this one race is what seems absurd to me. It wasn't a strawman at all really, just an interpretation on what you wrote.
I would love to see an idea where EVERYTHING has to be learned and Humans are the faster learners but start out with less known.
I don't know how skills and abilities and spells are going to be learned but i hope it is a creative plausible idea and NOT like their past games.
Example,simply crafting ANY spell or ability and you automatically know it and can use it,if you are of that class of course.I would rather see a deeper system,like having to travel and discover secret trainers that of course are not standing around with a yellow ? over their head.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Additionally humans needing to be changed or revamped; that's simply personal opinion/preference. Humans being a jack of all trades for class selection, great faction with most races, better at tradeskilling, easier to group with any of your friends more easily as opposed to being locked out if you choose certain races; how are these are not viable reasons humans would have "purpose" or advantages that other classes would not? Apart from Vanguard because of Qalithari, humans are the least played race in any game. They're rarely ever seen in Everquest. Not sure what people want/expect humans to possess or not possess as races, but it feels good to me.
That said, it'd be easy enough to exclude magic from humans because magic itself is fantastical, with the in-universe explanation being "because reasons" (or rather, "because magic") but that's up to the developers/writers. On the flip side of the coin, so are the restrictions for other races when it comes to magic. Physical disabilities, meanwhile, are easier to explain with more realistic reasons like "Ogres' fingers are too fat to play a lute properly and no one bothers making ogre-sized lutes". That said, as pointed out in other places, there really aren't many ways to physically realistically explain how a race could have no warriors whatsoever. The only way for that to happen would be if a race was so physically handicapped that they psychically levitated their near-corpse-like bodies to get around. "Gnomes can rely on golems!" would only work if tech was such that golems could be EVERYWHERE, and while it's easy enough for the developers to make golem npcs, that wouldn't explain why the players don't have access to such power. (and then there comes all sorts of other plot holes that start appearing when one thinks hard about a world where a race can have golems everywhere)
But whatever. Another major reason for racial restrictions would of course be developer money. Animating gnome combat animations might be significantly different from human and ogre ones, at least if they wanted to be up to a standard like guildwars 2 or Wild Star's small race warriors.
I just would like to point out that this is a lost battle.
Humans without magic only occurs in low magic fantasy settings. Which are btw also very depressing to play for me because its basically medieval times, and those havent been a great time for mankind. I avoid such games.
EQ, Vanguard, D&D etc are all high magic fantasy settings. And there humans have magic. You dont like it ? Fine. Go and play something else then.
1) I can give you a 10 second backstory on that. My ogre was abandoned in a small copse of woods near an arcane college. Eventually a student came across him and took pity on him, making friends and eventually convincing him to join the college. Fast forward 10 years and the college is attacked by some unknown group and our Ogre enchanter is now on a quest to figure out why/how.
If your counter-point is that they are dumb brutes incapable of learning magic, then they should never able to fight with anything other than their fists, because being at all effective with a weapon requires.......learning.
But it's easier to just say "no". Less coding, less work. Less imagination
2) That's a terrible comparison. For one, we're talking about classes and races that all exist in the same world with the same technology, so..... speaking of consistency I don't know how you thought that comparing motorcycles and machine guns in a high fantasy setting to simply choosing one fantasy race over another would be a good idea.
Edit: You would think that people who claim to be RPG fans would have an easier time being imaginative but apparently all the old RPGs did was teach you to think in a box.
"Choices that have meaning"
Or in other words every Wizard is an elf. Boy that's so much better!
Updates are now coming in at an increasingly logistic rate, newsletters now give concrete results, the amount of updates/new content that is going to be shown in this stream is about 5x the amount between the stream 6-8 months ago and the stream that took place 2-3 months ago; the list goes on. A starting city for each playable race? Come on. That is unheard of and requires massive funding as well. This game is going to be huge. What I tihnk they're doing is literally pouring their soul into this to make the game special, taking their time and adding layer upon layer to give us something we haven't seen. The kind of systematic updates theyre boasting in this short period of time (and you know it's reliable, they were very hush hush up until the recent months) cannot be accomplished without a sizeable payroll and large, active team. Again, the visual, graphic, animations, sound, part of the game they already said they wont be mentioning as improvements, for they are expected and will always be improving. The new systems etc is what they're preaching, and these systems are huge.
Armchair devs are an embarrassment, you have no idea where VR are at with funding and investment. Stop assuming they are still in the same situation as when they first started the kickstarer.
Don't like the class/race restrictions then go play a game that lets you play to your style.
This isn't ESO.