Shaloren supremacy... should something be about done it?

[Doctornull]

I'd like it if all races were really good at something.

It doesn't really bother me if Shalore are generally better than everyone. The game is single-player, and everyone knows that winning with a Yeek on Nightmare is harder than winning with a Shalore on Normal. That's not a problem.

What bothers me is that some races are just not that good at anything in specific. I'd like it if Highers had more of a niche, for example, but nerfing Shalore won't make that happen.


Regarding Exp penalty, the thing I dislike about it is that it seems to encourage grinding more low-level dungeons rather than progressing to the t2 areas. Grinding is boring.

[HousePet]

I see no point to having xp penalties in a game with (effectively) infinite xp available and level scaled enemies.

Its not an option in the poll, but I would prefer to see all the racials weakened slightly. Racial talents being stronger than other generic talents makes me feel restricted, as though I have to invest in these great abilities. This is a problem because the point system is supposed to be flexible, so no brainer choices shouldn't really exist.

Stopping Timeless from interacting with certain prodigy effects is definitely a good thing. I expect it was just an oversight that allowed such cheesy combos in the first place.

[grayswandir]

The thing is, timeless is so strong I see room for it to be nerfed and still be an automatic 5/5.

I don't really like the idea of racial talents being too weak. I feel like they should be strongly preferred in at least a majority of cases. I'd like races to actually play differently, if possible. I'm very much for the idea of making races more distinct.

[Red]

With just one tree and a few other minor details, it's hard for me to see how races can truly play differently. They can offer small tweaks on a build, but you won't be seeing builds based around races. And the ones that do (Timeless anything) are centered around one single ability, which just seems dull to me.

That being said, while I support making races matter more, I can't really figure out how. An idea that's probably not workable would be to no longer have a racial generic tree and instead have racial points in addition to stat, class, generic, and cat points. So you'd have a whole 'nother set ok skills, passive, sustained, and active, to play around with. It'd require an entire reworking of every race, and would almost certainly act as a huge buff to every race requiring a lot of further balance, but it'd certainly make race choice matter more.

[grayswandir]

One way to do it would be to make races more focused. A lot of the racial talents right now are very generic. For example, a couple of different races give saves. We could focus races so that none give saves - except for the one race whose strength is status immunity. Classes are already supposed to be "balanced" by themselves, so races can afford to have their one tree be extremely lopsided.


Like, as a rough example, here's a mobility focused halfling:
Luck of the Little Folk: Could be changed, but as is is fine.
Duck and Dodge: Whenever you take 14%-10% of your max life from a single attack, gain Wild Speed (+200%-500% movement speed) for 1 turn.
Fleet of Foot: Move up to 2-4 spaces. At talent level 3, enemies will not block you. At talent level 5, this will not break Wild Speed.
Indomitable: As is.

This would give the halfling a clear, well defined role, instead of just being a couple of talents that boost several different areas.

[Doctornull]

I see no point to having xp penalties in a game with (effectively) infinite xp available and level scaled enemies.

Agree.

Its not an option in the poll, but I would prefer to see all the racials weakened slightly. Racial talents being stronger than other generic talents makes me feel restricted, as though I have to invest in these great abilities. This is a problem because the point system is supposed to be flexible, so no brainer choices shouldn't really exist.

Disagree. You have full control over which race you play. If you choose a race, it should offer something to your class, or compensate for a lack in your class, or somehow impact your game in interesting ways.

The thing is, timeless is so strong I see room for it to be nerfed and still be an automatic 5/5.

Yeah, possibly. Dunno if it needs that, though.

I don't really like the idea of racial talents being too weak. I feel like they should be strongly preferred in at least a majority of cases. I'd like races to actually play differently, if possible. I'm very much for the idea of making races more distinct.

Agree.

(snip good stuff)

Like, as a rough example, here's a mobility focused halfling:
Luck of the Little Folk: Could be changed, but as is is fine.
Duck and Dodge: Whenever you take 14%-10% of your max life from a single attack, gain Wild Speed (+200%-500% movement speed) for 1 turn.
Fleet of Foot: Move up to 2-4 spaces. At talent level 3, enemies will not block you. At talent level 5, this will not break Wild Speed.
Indomitable: As is.

This would give the halfling a clear, well defined role, instead of just being a couple of talents that boost several different areas.

Yeah, I dig this. I was thinking of putting Indomitable at level 1 instead of Luck of the Little Folk, since Indomitable remains relevant at high levels and at higher difficulties. Also, pin and daze negation ties into mobility.

Limit Duck and Dodge to once per turn_proc and we're gold.

[Red]

Ghoul

Ghoul-as is.

Ghoulish Leap-remove and replace with Rot Away, dealing 5-1% of your max life in damage per debuff and removing 1-5 debuffs.

Retch-as is.

Gnaw-replace with The Flesh Lives, an instant ability that increases Constitution by 5-25, allresist by 2-10, and makes them not die till they reach negative 20-100% of their max life for 3-5 turns.

Changes Ghouls to make their racials almost entirely focuses on tanking. Ghoulish Leap being removed cripples their mobility further, but offers a potent status cure at not too high a cost. Retch is now their only offense, and serves better use as a regen effect with a slight change to cure debuffs. The Flesh Lives temporarily makes a Ghoul nigh-unkillable, increasing max life and physical saves through Constitution, making everything deal less damage, and most importantly doubling their HP for five turns at max level.

As a small side note, perhaps we should move talk about grayswandir's ideas to their own thread, since it's not very Shaloren focused.

And here's the new thread for just making races more focused.

[Delmuir]

I actively dislike the idea of making the races more specialized.

If one really wanted to add more competition in the races, simply add some quests/random events for particular pairings… http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=43154

I rather like that they're largely similar with just minor differences… other than the undead races.

After all, that makes sense. Otherwise, the "kingdoms" would all essentially be single class-category races as everyone would focus on their specialty. All Higher would be mages and so on… you're just making the races of this game more like stock races in every fantasy game/novel/movie ever.

The differences between the races ought to be somewhat minor. Why wouldn't they be? The ones with big differences make perfect sense: Undead, Yeek, and maybe Orcs in the future.

What, exactly, is wrong with having Shalore being largely superior? I personally almost never use them even though I know they're incredible in some ways… I just hate the play-style that they demand so I don't use them. I love Ghouls myself.

[Doctornull]

Nah, ideally the specialization would be applicable to a large number of different classes.

Like, the Halfling mobility thing would work great with many classes.

[Red]

Don't get me wrong, Delmuir, I love Ghouls too. That being said, half their abilities are out of line in one way or another-Gnaw, while perfectly thematic, is out of line with them being tanks and not all that good besides. I'd rather the Ghouls be able to survive anything than an extra, only decent attack. Ghoulish Leap, while fantastic as an ability, just makes little sense to me at all. They're explicitly slow, shambling, clumsy, etc.-how exactly do they have pinpoint leaping skills?

I'd agree that it shouldn't be class specialized, but specialization in a certain area would be wonderful. Like I've said earlier, a lot of races are just kinda boring, and related to that is a lot of races feel the exact same. If they specialize, that goes away, and each option actually matters.

[HousePet]

Its not an option in the poll, but I would prefer to see all the racials weakened slightly. Racial talents being stronger than other generic talents makes me feel restricted, as though I have to invest in these great abilities. This is a problem because the point system is supposed to be flexible, so no brainer choices shouldn't really exist.

Disagree. You have full control over which race you play. If you choose a race, it should offer something to your class, or compensate for a lack in your class, or somehow impact your game in interesting ways.

I wasn't saying that race shouldn't have an impact, just that the impact of one ability shouldn't overshadow everything else.
I want to be picking a race, not an ability.

[Red]

So what would you recomend for Yeeks and their +15% global speed? Their resists are nice, but the summons aren't really and Dominant Will, while fantastic for your first few dungeons, once you get decent (for a Yeek) survivability, it really stops being needed or even that helpful against trash mobs and is unusable against more powerful ones. (The exception being Solipsists with Thought-Forged anythings. Those can actually be semi-reliably dominated even if they're higher level than you.)

Likewise, Higher and their Bloom. A decent amount of races have one killer ability, though none so extreme as Timeless, that defines them as a race and in comparison to classes. The only class I can think of off the top of my head that wouldn't need major changing is Dwarves, since Money is Power, Stone Walking, and Resilience are all useful and Dorfy abilities. Stoneskin... Could use a buff.

[HousePet]

Had a thought for Cornac: Increased mastery for those optional extra generic categories you can find.

[Doctornull]

You have full control over which race you play. If you choose a race, it should offer something to your class, or compensate for a lack in your class, or somehow impact your game in interesting ways.

I wasn't saying that race shouldn't have an impact, just that the impact of one ability shouldn't overshadow everything else.
I want to be picking a race, not an ability.

Races are basically four abilities, or a catpoint, so you'll have to explain what you meant by "picking a race, not an ability".

Had a thought for Cornac: Increased mastery for those optional extra generic categories you can find.

Increasing Escort mastery to 1.0 would benefit everyone, but might benefit Cornacs most, since Cornacs can more easily afford an Escort category.

[HousePet]

I'd like to be picking a race based on all 4 abilities rather than just 1.