[TLDR: I made a chart detailing a method to select archetype based racial abilities as to create flavor and differentiation while maintaining a semblance of balance]
Over the course of a few months, I was going over in my head the instance of character creation and how many games in the past gave various races certain innate qualities or passive and even active abilities within that race. This was seen as a concept borrowed from that of classic RPGs to include the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) series.
They were powerful but largely balanced due to the complexity of combat, class depth and design as well as the inherent limitations built within. However, there was a known effect with this concept in an MMORPG as it created a somewhat unbalanced approach with the type of players who would min/max. For those of whom may not be aware, a 'min/maxer' is a type of person who selects attributes, statistical values or other metrics that benefit their character by performance above all else. This can be seen in both character creation, gear selection and skill tree allocation. The latter two gave birth to the Flavor of the Month (FoTM) styling seen throughout many competitive video games with robust character alterations.
Those of you who played Everquest may be familiar with how powerful an Ogre Tank was as they had 100% frontal stun immunity, or the Troll with their increased health regeneration. These traits came at a balance of those races being largely Kill(ed) on Sight (KoS) throughout most cities and from typically non-hostile NPCs. They were also given an experience penalty, something else borrowed from the D&D games of old. The issue with these forms of balance was that of the former was only an issue in certain areas of the vanilla game and became pointless through later expansions as it had little to no effect with them. The latter was a penalty that had no effect on that player once they were level capped, a point which comprised of the majority of a player's game time in Everquest, especially in Velious and a few months after Luclin.
Before the year 2008 which was when most MMORPG's decided to water down racial abilities or innates, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was released. Vanguard not only had 19 races from three distinct factions but each of those had an extremely robust racial layout. Many of the abilities were extremely powerful and completely unbalanced.
Vanguard Racials
https://i.imgur.com/ob3hUtO.png
I considered everything above and then decided to pull up a sheet and create my own. The original idea was to throw out the concept for you all to entertain and even criticize and I didn't plan on creating a detailed ability selection as this was only to showcase how the archetypal based racial selection would work. The concept creates a system that allows players to select any race they want for their class within normal restrictions without feeling one is hugely overpowered for that role, such as in Everquest with the Ogre Tank. This chart also allows for you to select a different role if it fits within your class makeup, such as the Monk as a DPS class but is able to off-tank, or the Warrior who can select the 'Tank' layout but also has the 'Support' layout available. You can only select from one of those layouts if available and that Warrior for instance can't have both 'Support' or 'Tank' selections chosen.
With that said, I got carried away and decided to put some effort into the individual abilities themselves and had to account for a number of issues. One of which was how the Bard, Enchanter, Shaman and even the Warrior would work within a racial archetype. We don't know how a Bard works and all four are extremely different classes and play styles. I had the same issue with balancing which had me create a turn-based combat dynamic on paper. This allowed me to play out an arbitrary character with base health and armor values and resources against a series of arbitrary monsters. This was used not to balance against a metric from the game of which I do not have (such as AC coefficient, etc) but instead balance it against itself. That part I'll agree isn't perfected so expect to see variations of balance where some abilities and their values seem a bit out of place. The sheet is extremely mutable and allows for changes and even additions or detractions from class and archetypal design.
If you've read through that and got to this point, I thank you and I welcome any criticism you may have.
Within the sheet you have the main page and in the below tabs are the individual class tabs which showcase their options. Every player gains that race's 'Innate' (light purple selection) regardless of what archetype they select as it's built into the race.
Pantheon Racial Abilities
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ub6RphtxAHr_52C4HLC0PbpMIPn64MZ9cBhBQkQ5gPk/edit?usp=sharing
You know, I only read this article because I assumed it would just be another person spitting out random ideas that would never work, and I really wanted to pick it apart lol.
But after reading (just the warrior passives) they do for the most part seem balanced. Obviously we wont know the breakdown of spell damage vs melee damage. Or how much damage reduction an extra 1% AC will provide.
And even though I know racials will not nearly be as in depth as these are. I certainly hope VR takes a look and at least considers the possibility.
Yeah, the values themselves unfortunately I don't have details on so in that sense, I'd ask people to be a bit forgiving as that's something they can balance relatively easily given the metrics and calcs. I hope they take a look at it and consider it but you're right, they may go with a proposed system already in the works. I'm just continually reminded of the racial list from Vanguard for 19 races and hope Pantheon moves in a somewhat similarly brave position.
We'll see but if the class spells are any indication, I don't think we'll be disappointed with what they come up with. At least I hope not.
@Kittrik
I appreciate it but it wasn't all that much work. Just bits here and there during free moments at work. It was oddly enjoyable.
You've done a great work overall and a very clear presentation.
I'm simply not super sold on "role bonuses". I don't really understand how, in logic, a character would be able to tap into the desired benefits of his race to fill a role.
Dwarves are allways sturdy and thoses seems resistant to cold, as an example. But beeing a damage dealer wouldn't make you less sturdy than the common dwarve or non resistant to frost.
The same goes with the physical strength of ogres, even as shamans they should be aimed toward it.
I know theses bonuses are made to reduce the min-maxing of "resilient racials on tanks and offensive ones on DPS", that would by some sort, sever the gap between min maxing. I just would prefer them to be more minimal, limited to base spell resistance, base statistics and just one little active or passive per race but nothing more. Your innates bonus would be enough for me, more than passive and actives that even if thought for balance and flavour purpose, might bring more problems than solution.
@MauvaisOeil
I appreciate it and yeah, you lead on with some good points as well. The idea was more about taking something from EQ and Vanguard and making it a bit better. The issue with EQ and especially Vanguard was they were a bit OP in some instances such as the Ogre Tank with 100% stun immunity or the Troll Shaman etc. Did you play Vanguard at all? If so, I'd be curious to see what you thought about those racials.
Cleansing Waters of Syronai
Your understanding of the curative powers of your ancestral waters allows you to cleanse your target of any poisons or diseases while granting immunity for 24 seconds. (5 minute recast)
Granting immunity to poison and disease? Or just pure immunity from all damage. I assume you meant immunity to poison and disease. But just checking.
MauvaisOeil said:I'm simply not super sold on "role bonuses". I don't really understand how, in logic, a character would be able to tap into the desired benefits of his race to fill a role.
It's probably safe to assume that dwarf clerics have a different training (curriculum?) Than that of human clerics. It's not at all "implausible" that this would allow the 2 races to have minor differences in abilities more so than just starting stats.
Janus said:@MauvaisOeil
I appreciate it and yeah, you lead on with some good points as well. The idea was more about taking something from EQ and Vanguard and making it a bit better. The issue with EQ and especially Vanguard was they were a bit OP in some instances such as the Ogre Tank with 100% stun immunity or the Troll Shaman etc. Did you play Vanguard at all? If so, I'd be curious to see what you thought about those racials.
Frankly no. I played on VGemu for a few hours and went to level 15 or so with a warrior. But I don't think the emu is really true to the game for now, so I wouldn't take it for a granted try out and most racials aren't even working, which doesn't really help me...
I'm sorry, that's a subject I will run dry in a few sentences.
Janus said:@MauvaisOeil
I appreciate it and yeah, you lead on with some good points as well. The idea was more about taking something from EQ and Vanguard and making it a bit better. The issue with EQ and especially Vanguard was they were a bit OP in some instances such as the Ogre Tank with 100% stun immunity or the Troll Shaman etc. Did you play Vanguard at all? If so, I'd be curious to see what you thought about those racials.
Very cool indeed. Again - all around awesomeness. :) I’ll pull it up again on my comp later.
MauvaisOeil said:I'm simply not super sold on "role bonuses". I don't really understand how, in logic, a character would be able to tap into the desired benefits of his race to fill a role.
There's always variety within a species. Just like some humans have a body type more suited to swimming, or sprinting, or whatever else, it makes sense that within a species in Pantheon there would be some variation that might point one individual toward a given role.
That's how I see it, at least.
Porygon said:Cleansing Waters of Syronai
Your understanding of the curative powers of your ancestral waters allows you to cleanse your target of any poisons or diseases while granting immunity for 24 seconds. (5 minute recast)Granting immunity to poison and disease? Or just pure immunity from all damage. I assume you meant immunity to poison and disease. But just checking.
It's for poison based spells only but I would need more info if I was to add disease. It all depends on the frequency and unfortunately I don't have that info.
MauvaisOeil said:Frankly no. I played on VGemu for a few hours and went to level 15 or so with a warrior. But I don't think the emu is really true to the game for now, so I wouldn't take it for a granted try out and most racials aren't even working, which doesn't really help me...
I'm sorry, that's a subject I will run dry in a few sentences.
Yeah, the game's racials were hugely disparate in power, use and strength. Barring the upper portions, check the active abilities. They were a bit extreme. https://i.imgur.com/ob3hUtO.png
My intention was to keep the differentiation high with your choice feeling like there's grounding in a real racial selection. Oddly enough, when I did play, I didn't see a lot of people picking classes for their racials. Especially since any race could be any class if I recall.
@BamBam
"I can see a perma stunned boss"
The duration and recast makes that unlikely. Also, you can perma stun a boss by that method with just a few Enchanters chain stunning it. My guess is certain mobs won't be stunable. As for the racial Ogre stun from the tank, you would need 40 Ogre Tanks to perma stun something whereas 3 Enchanters would do.
"a player with 80%crit"
Which is brief and somewhat balanced to the damage output of the other actives. You're also looking at possible 45% with the active.
"a mob that is slowed for 99% atk speed"
Currently the cap on melee slow is 25% in Pantheon for level 40 slow. If the 10% is stacked on that and by a multiplicative value as is stated, that's now a 32.5% slow. Only a 7.5% for 18 seconds.
"Even with a long Cooldown I feel it's to much power to hand out from a racial."
Which is why I kept them within a similar power structure so it isn't grossly imbalanced like in VG or moderately so with EQ.
One of the nice things about Pantheon is it's following the mantra and combat dynamics where peak performance isn't as much an issue from a singular player as much as synergy and use of variable skills from the whole group or raid. Values can be easily balanced to near perfection if I had the actual metrics. The problem is, I don't so I was going by a rudimentary approach. One of the issues that came up was how watered down and pointless racial seelctions felt in later MMORPG's after 2008. This was a way to bring back the D&D approach that was followed through in EQ and Vanguard.
Let's hope and let's also hope they aren't as broken as these were.
https://i.imgur.com/ob3hUtO.png
Janus said:One of the issues that came up was how watered down and pointless racial seelctions felt in later MMORPG's after 2008. This was a way to bring back the D&D approach that was followed through in EQ and Vanguard.
I've never seen that as an issue really, more of a return toward the old ways of racial selection. Games tried to spice things up for a while to stand out, adding all kinds of powerful abilities and traits that tie in to specific races but it never really felt good in the end for a lot of players since when you lock such impactful things behind race it tends to pull at the hands of players who might otherwise prefer race X but the powers/bonuses of race Y are too alluring or worse: a community agreed upon clear best. Even if one isn't a hard min/max player that pull is always there, the shadow doesn't go away, and every time that player looks at their racial power(s) there is a little stinging doubt that maybe they made the wrong choice.
In EQ race mattered just enough to feel a little distinct but not enough to make it so choosing one over another felt like a real loss, many of the advantages of any given race over others could be overcome with gear, spells of some kind, faction grinding, or even just a certain amount of levels. In DnD racial selection isn't that much different for the most part. It sets up how your character will be perceived in the world by others (faction), some minor bonuses/penalties to stats, a small bonus to a couple skills or resistances, and vision type.
Racial selection is not pointless, it is for the player to choose the skin of who they want to be in the world. It should not be a decision weighted down by irreversable and heavy pros/cons or otherwise made more complicated by adding dramatic active powers/weaknesses that cannot be reasonably made up for within the players journey in the world. Race should matter a little bit but all of it should be able to be overcome and made more or less equal via gear/spells/whatever else within the game.
"I've never seen that as an issue really, more of a return toward the old ways of racial selection."
The EQ method was having some races have frontal stun immunity, super health regen, AC bonus, Hand to Hand damage bonus, Ultravision, Faster swim speed, the ability to Tinker, sense Heading bonus, Hide Skill, Sneak Skill, Slam, Forage, Safe Fall, etc.
Vanguard had spells that allowed you to negate all damage for ten seconds, heal your target for 45% of their health and energy, 25% rune to all damage for 20 seconds and purges all poison and immunity to stuns and knockbacks, 50% health bonus for 1 minute, 2% damage bonus, ALl spell damage reduced by 50% for 10 seconds, etc.
I'm thinking more in the center and more along the lines of something you typically see from the depth of D&D character creation.
"In EQ race mattered just enough to feel a little distinct but not enough to make it so choosing one over another felt like a real loss"
That wasn't the case for Tanks who didn't select Ogre for the stun immunity, or Shamans who didn't select Trolls or Ogres for the regen or inability to be stunned interupting spells, or Necros who didn't select Iksar for the health regen to counter lich, or Monk who didn't select Iksar for teh AC bonus and regen bonus. People played other races largely because they weren't min/maxers and that was an aspect only seen in a partial segment of the playerbase.
"In DnD racial selection isn't that much different for the most part. It sets up how your character will be perceived in the world by others (faction), some minor bonuses/penalties to stats, a small bonus to a couple skills or resistances, and vision type. "
D&D had racial skills and abilities and due to how powerful statistical and racial bonuses were within a D&D game, it was largely imbalanced but you made up for it in a combat and game world that was varied and required strengths of just about every contingency making the purist builds not nearly as important.
"Race should matter a little bit but all of it should be able to be overcome and made more or less equal via gear/spells/whatever else within the game."
Essentially the variations in my chart allow for that. Keep in mind though, the values can be easily adjusted to be fine tuned into balance within archetypes if I had actual values and coefficients. The chart was to entertain the concept of an archetypal spread allowing a player to select from roles for their class so they don't run into the issue like with Ogre and having stun immunity whereas other tanks are going to be stunned every few seconds.
The chart isn't perfect but it details a methodology to go about it and the abilities in particular, their values are something I ask people to take with a grain of salt.
Janus said:One of the issues that came up was how watered down and pointless racial seelctions felt in later MMORPG's after 2008. This was a way to bring back the D&D approach that was followed through in EQ and Vanguard.
I think that was a major issue as well. I hope racials, death penalty, travel etc do not get watered down over time in Pantheon as they have in other mmo’s that have been on a subscription downward spiral. They really shouldn’t get watered down in a game of this type. An Elf and a Human should be pretty different from each other. Ofc.
