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Race vs. Profession - what will have most bearing on the gameplay?
F2PMMO
Member UncommonPosts: 122
When I read about this game, on their official web site and on discussion forums like this, I get the impression that professions are what really counts when it comes to gameplay. The different races are more about the storyline and physical appearance, but it is the professions that will decide your skills etc. and thus your way of playing your character in combat.
So for all the Asurian talk about intelligence what really counts is whether you are an elementalist or a necromancer. The fluff and fiery stuff may vary, but the way you play your Norn or Sylvari is mostly decided by your profession.
How will all the talk about strenght, fate and intelligence in the Races of Tyria trailer play out in actual gameplay? I really hope they will surprise us with some ingenious Charr inventing new techniques to take down the enemy. Thus to show that the protagonists of the races denouncing strenght as a concept of physical brutality are mistaken, and that was is meant by the Charr in question is audacity. Just as one example.
In general I hope for more diversity within the different races than seemingly outlined in the Races of Tyria trailer. The dialogue between the protagonists of each race in this trailer, I find tedious almost childish. And I hope what race you choose will have an impact on how you play, not just on how your playstyle looks.
Comments
The difference in races are:
-Different story
-Different zones
-Racial elites
-Asthetics
And that's pretty much it, sadly. They are making it so you are not pushed to a certain race, however I would like a norn warrior to be generally more powerful than an asuran warrior, but that won't happen.
I do not know, but i made a skill in the GW2 skill contest.
Norn Elite Racial Skill
Skill Name: Northern Call
Skill Affect: Call wild animals from the shiverpeaks to aid the norn in battle and a cold wind along that slow the enemies.
Cast Time: 3 sec
Recharge Time: 12 min
sorry, but no, your choice of race will not decide your play style much at all. Its really all about giving everybody the opportunity to be what they want and to play the way they want to. Otherwise, they might just as well limit the classes each race can use, much around with each classes attribute balance, and then proclaim that they want to have a 5-faction PvP game (and that would be tough to balance).
no...just no...
its not like all the races will play exactly the same. The will have there selection of racial skills to use after all.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
My guess is Racials abilities will sort of function like artifacts do in Magic the gathering. As in give access to abilities that a proffession would normaly not have access to but with steaper costs than a similar ability given to a specific proffession. A way to give the player the ability to round out the proffessions build to the players liking that they possibly couldn't do in the proffession.
That's an interesting possibility. It's been pointed out that they could be a bit weaker than equivalent profession skills also available in the skill slots 6-10, and their function is primarily flavor. But I think your suggestion rounds them out in a more balanced way put that way. They might be a prime candidate for PvP / PvE skill split in effect also? There's been little real info on Racial skills so far...
OP: GW2 has 8 professions and all 5 races can choose any profession with no advantage/equal efficacy. This allows easier balancing so that eg PvP all team-matchups are all balancing the same pool of possible skills in all of: PvE, 5v5 and WvWvW. The trailer is just introducing the iconics of each race which additionally introduces each races' strengths and differences not for combat but for story. In fact it's to be hoped every npc per race DOES NOT CONFORM to a racial stereotype with 1 exception being some kind of hero, but that you get all sorts per race as with any good story?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
in terms of game mechanics (read powergaming) there will be very little difference that will influence what race to play.
That is at least what most of us will exspect from arenanet, based on there previus track record in balancing GW1 and their statements.
But there are a few other things that might be interesting about races and who they cater to!
look killtenrats up to see this http://www.killtenrats.com/2010/09/15/bartle-ized-guild-wars-2-races/ . you might disagree but i think he is into something about what perspective the races are create from. But that will properly not be what makes peoples decision anyway.
If you look at the bartle test i my guess is that the design attract players a little different. it had been a good practice for years for a hardcore PvP'er that size matters and small is better. Therefore Azure will attract some ekstra killers. Sylvari will properly not be mainly eksplores, but also wannabe elfs = ekstra socialisers. my quess for Norn is thats where some ekstra eksplores will go. And furry, thats furry wannabe killers, and achivers maybe!
The way I see it, it's already difficult enough for developers to balance 8 classes so that one is not more powerful than another, and while having distinct differences between races would make for interesting and strategic play, it would be nigh impossible for them to make the game work fairly - we'd see constant buffs and nerfs (more so than already for the classes).
It's a shame, and it would be great if it could be balanced, but I don't see it working.
Yes, it is a shame but it is true. Although maybe ANET will surprise us when they release more information!
I agree with most of the posters in this thread as to why there isn't likely to be a huge difference between each of the races.
With 8 professions it would be a nightmare to have each race go about them in a way that provides different gameplay. Something that might be nice to see would be for instance if an Asura warrior was actually an Asura riding a golem that would use all the same skills but add a different flavor by having the Asura use his intelligence (in creating the golem) to output the physical damage.
I think if they add a few flavor things like this then that would make each race feel unique enough. I can't recall playing any other MMO where your choice of race significantly affected how the profession/class was played and it becomes obvious why that is when you consider the amount of work that would be involved in making 5 races play each of the 8 professions in a unique manner.
We'll know more when we receive more information regarding the racial traits and just how much flavor they add.
There are no racial traits, just racial skills. Racial traits were originally planned but were deemed unbalanced at an early stage of developement.
I disagree with most of the posters on the race vs. professions discussion. Did anyone that played the demo's respond? I would like to hear their take on this. With the ideas of so many race related parts of the story, I find it hard to beleive that there will not be bonuses given to each race. Each race has a stereotype ready built and bonuses should push the races in that direction. Will the bonuses be burdensome to overcome, probably not, but you might not be as an effective Asuran Warrior until level 30 or 40, if not higher.
In GW it wasn't impossible to be an wa/ele, but practicality for most players, left that mix in the dust. I'm thinking the same will be happening in GW2. Asuran warrior vs. Charr Warrior huge difference.
I know this is kind of rambly, but another way to look at this is anyone can be any profession, but your race will decide which profession is most efficient to become.
Look at these quotes from http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=91307&postcount=73 :
And from http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/250/guild-wars-2-developer-interview/1 :
Missed those articles! Thanks. Now I'm disappointed. I have to agree with the idea of immersion breaking here. Seeing an Asuran go toe to toe with a Norn and winning based on strength really is more than strange.
This was where I figured they would have Races receive bonuses to particular things, in other words an Asuran would get an automatic +1 to something a Norn a +1 to a different trait. This wouldn't preclude becoming a warrior or anything else just slow down the progression, or possibly building in an inherent advantage/disadvantage (no stun skills for Asuran warriors, an abundance of cripple skills, etc.)
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/traits-overview/
Pros and cons to this really... obvious con being the lack of difference between races (which we'd all like to see but realistically isn't possible). Obvious pro is that the game will be more balanced.
Another con I see is that if you play e.g. a sylvari (whose racial skills have been announced, I believe, to be healing based -- please correct me if I'm wrong as I can't find a link), you don't get to use your racial skills if you choose to play a healing class (as your racial skills will simply be a weaker version of your class skills). -- I know there's not necessarily a healing class... perhaps a bad example.
OK --> Imagine the Char's racial skills are fighting based, all to do with strength as one would imagine. That's all well and good for an elementalist Char who would otherwise be struggling for strength, but a Warrior Char will never use their racial skills because their warrior skills do the same job, better.
I hope that makes sense...
and if they choose to have many different types of skills for each race, regardless of their lore, (e.g. healing, strength, intellect etc etc.) to remove this issue then there is no distinguishable difference between any of the races and you might as well make everyone a human again!
I know it probably feels immersion breaking on the surface, but think it through a little bit with me.
This is a world where one thousand full grown adult characters (that are level 1) with standard starter swords can't even slightly wound a level 50 adult character, but one character that is level 50 and has a level 50 sword can do significant damage to the same enemy. If you think about that then you have to accept the fact that the level 50 sword is able to do damage because of it's incredible magic, that's what separates it from the starter sword. Keeping that in mind you have to accept that in this world it doesn't matter how hard you swing the sword, but rather that it is so magical and therefore doesn't matter if its a Asura or Norn doing the swinging.
Just some food for thought that if an Asura doing as much damage as a Norn breaks the immersion then the whole house of cards falls down when you think of the other factors.
Each race has:
- Different story
- Different home instance
- Different racial skill
Afaik that's it.
Last I checked I didn't need the strength of a Norn to stab something in the heart. Maybe the Asura just has better aim.
Honestly there's so many ways people can RP things like this so as not to break the 'immersion' or whatever. I've been seeing more and more of this and it's just a silly argument. I know anything reading this is gearing to say 'it's only silly for you, but it breaks the immersion for someone else', but that's not a valid argument. It will always be something, to someone else. Nothing will ever make every single person happy, so it's an obvious and irrelevant argument.
Stop letting little things bother you. There are bigger fish to fry.
EDIT: By the way, how come I never see anyone complaining about immersion with console games? Let's give Final Fantasy 7 a go. The whole game, I'm getting cure spells, super cure spells, ressurection spells, I can even summon a Phoenix. But Sephy stabs a chick in the stomach and suddenly she's gone for good. That's not the only RPG to do something like that, either. It's fairly common. If people can suspend their belief for that, why is it difficult to believe some little gremlin critter with an IQ off the charts can be just as deadly as a tower of muscle?
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
It looks like at least two Charr skills are known already: Battle Roar and Shrapnel Mine. These both sound like skills that any class could use depending on the situation! They also list some of the other racial skills that have been announced. However, do not forget that there are going to be elite racial skills as well, I know that the human skill, Hounds of Balthazar fits into that category, and perhaps the Norn shape-changing ones will as well!
Here is the link to see for yourself:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_charr_racial_skills
OK well then that comes under my second point - if every race has racial skills that fit into every class, how race-specific can the skills be? You wouldn't expect an Asura to have some powerful-imascarethecrapoutofyou-racial skill, but if they have to fit for every class, they're going to have to have one of those skills.
In the grand scheme of things, as gaenprayer said, it's pretty irrelevant, but it does kinda destroy the barriers between races and make them all the same - which kind of eliminates the point of having races, and especially, the point of having racial skills.
Race skills can still be very race specific while at the same time suiting any class. For example a Norn might have some kind of battle rage that increases their physical DPS whereas an Asura might summon a golem to provide physical DPS. Both accomplish similar tasks while having racial specific flavor to the skills.
No but the asuran would have to reach a whole lot further to do that! ;-)
Please let me add, my disappointment is not going to prevent me from buying, playing, or do what little of role playing I do in the game, but I was under the impression that racial traits would be more of a differentiating force in the game.
Race will have little to no bearing on the gameplay compared to professions. You will indeed have a number of skills available to each race, but they were said to be weaker when compared to an equivalent skill of a profession. They won't make or break builds, and by the sounds of it will be merely an extra for some flexibility, replacing the secondary professions of the original Guild Wars IMO.
Then you have the appearance changes, but to me the impact is really minor as in this regard it's just an appearance change. Every race has the same speed and stats (health, strength, intelligence, etc), all races can be of every class, arm reach, dodging capabilities, jump hight, etc, which is a pity, but it's a design choice I will respect that has to exist in order to achieve the e-sport balance level they want (otherwise it would be waaaaaay too complex to balance skills on top of race choices).
Racial traits would be interesting like mentioned, but I don't know if these exist.
Im sure that many people feel that way but would also agree that differentiation should not hinder gameplay options for race (make each race too different and you might start having situations where one race is clearly better at certain roles which would not be a good thing for what Anet wants to do.)
basically im saying that nothing is perfect but, then again, nothing can be perfect for everyone. better to make more people happy with something still pretty decent, than to make less people happy to satisfy the desires of a minority...well, unless the majority is wrong in liking something (like the holy trinity, and limited race/class combinations)
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Racial skills are slightly weaker skills that have special effects and names attributed to them from their more powerful profession specific skills.
So like a sylvari warrior has grasping vines that immobilizes an enemy in vines, but at the same time theres a warrior skill counterpart thats a bit more effective and does the same thing, but ultimately has a different animation and name.
there will be other race specific powers like the norn's animal forms, an asura's golems, humans have special abilitys from surtain gods like hell hounds from balthazzar, sylvari get alot of nature related skills, ect...
They'll make each race very unique, and in some ways have different abilitys, but that doesnt mean that a norn warrior will be more effective than a human warrior, both have something they can bring to the table and be effective at; since the change between the races is minimal, almost to it being purely about looks; which one each person prefers to play.