Racial/Cultural skills rebalance

[Tekoneiric.6817]

Are they ever going to do a balance update or even a overhaul of the racial skills? I really think they are in need of it.

 

I always though calling it race or racial is a bit odd given that Norn, Charr, Humans, Sylvari and Asura are different species not races. I think cultures and cultural skills would be better generic terms. Calling them cultures would open up to possibly playing different cultures of the same species such as Tyrian/Olmakhan Charr, Tyrian/Elonian/Canthan Human, Pale/other Tree Sylvari, etc. Each could have their own cultural skills. GW1 allowed playing different human cultures with the different expansions. It'd probably to much for them to do that now giving all the lines of dialog that would need to be recorded and story branches. Maybe it could happen with an expansion.

 

One of the things I've mentioned before which I think is still a good idea despite others being negative about it is moving the health skill to the health indicator in the center of the skill bar then using the vacated skill slot for cultural skills exclusively. It would either tighten up the other skills lists or they use the space for new profession skills. If they rebalanced the existing racial/cultural skills to fit the current game it would make them much more useful to justify it's own skill slot on the bar.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> Are they ever going to do a balance update or even a overhaul of the racial skills?

 

Short answer: No.

 

Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 

The simple fact that 1 of the 9 classes doesn't have any access to racial skills should have made this obvious by now.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> Short answer: No.

>

> Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

>

> The simple fact that 1 of the 9 classes doesn't have any access to racial skills should have made this obvious by now.

 

Such negativity. There is always someone that will be unhappy with a suggestion.

 

With the Revenant they could use the cultural skill slot for an extra legendary skill from the currently selected legend or they could just give a elite cultural skill from whichever one they are channeling. Imagine what that would be from the non-playable races. We know what the charr ones are but canthan, dragon, centaur, demon, and dwarf leaves it open to unique skills they could create for it. I never really understood why Revenant wasn't just a elite specialization for Warrior since Rytlock was a warrior before he was a Revenant.

 

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > Short answer: No.

> >

> > Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

> >

> > The simple fact that 1 of the 9 classes doesn't have any access to racial skills should have made this obvious by now.

>

> Such negativity. There is always someone that will be unhappy with a suggestion.

 

No, he/she is not unhappy with your suggestion.

 

They're telling you the cold. hard truth. Anet is never going to buff these skills or make them anything other than fluff because they don't want race choice to have any kind of balance implication like that.

 

 

[lokh.2695]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > Short answer: No.

> > >

> > > Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

> > >

> > > The simple fact that 1 of the 9 classes doesn't have any access to racial skills should have made this obvious by now.

> >

> > Such negativity. There is always someone that will be unhappy with a suggestion.

>

> No, he/she is not unhappy with your suggestion.

>

> They're telling you the cold. hard truth. Anet is never going to buff these skills or make them anything other than fluff because they don't want race choice to have any kind of balance implication like that.

>

>

 

Basically this. If any of the racial skills would be worth anything it would seep into the meta and you wouldn't be good enough as an engineer or thief or druid, you'd need to be a charr engineer, norn thief or a sylvari druid to compete.

 

It would be cool and flavorful and immersive if your racial skills mattered more, but I'd rather have it like it is. If you like the skills you can still use them, open world let's you use lots of stuff.

[derd.6413]

the only thing i see anet do is remove the current skills and give the races fluff abilities (like tonics or the riding broom or some nonsence)

 

tho i don't see it happen before the year 2350.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> Are they ever going to do a balance update or even a overhaul of the racial skills? I really think they are in need of it.

No.

 

The reasons for that are never going to change: they do not want it to be possible for their to be a meta around which race people bring (except to be silly). Racial skills are meant to add a little flavor to biography choices while leveling up, a "not that bad" alternative. They are intended to be non-competitive with weapon & utilities.

 

Accordingly, there's little to no benefit to rebalancing them unless, by accident, they start to be important to some sort of build/meta/speed-clear technique.

 

****

>

> I always though calling it race or racial is a bit odd given that Norn, Charr, Humans, Sylvari and Asura are different species not races.

In the universe of GW2, they are different races. Lots of things in-game use are jargon terms modified to suit a different purpose. "Burning" doesn't burn wooden objects in core Tyria, different herbs can drop from identical plants.

 

> I think cultures and cultural skills would be better generic terms. Calling them cultures would open up to possibly playing different cultures of the same species such as Tyrian/Olmakhan Charr, Tyrian/Elonian/Canthan Human, Pale/other Tree Sylvari, etc. Each could have their own cultural skills. GW1 allowed playing different human cultures with the different expansions. It'd probably to much for them to do that now giving all the lines of dialog that would need to be recorded and story branches. Maybe it could happen with an expansion.

"Cultures & cultural skills" is an intriguing idea, but has nothing to do with balancing or overhauling "racial skills." It's an entirely new set of features & mechanics.

 

> One of the things I've mentioned before which I think is still a good idea despite others being negative about it is moving the health skill to the health indicator in the center of the skill bar then using the vacated skill slot for cultural skills exclusively. It would either tighten up the other skills lists or they use the space for new profession skills. If they rebalanced the existing racial/cultural skills to fit the current game it would make them much more useful to justify it's own skill slot on the bar.

They aren't going to increase the number of base skills from 10 to 11.

[Oglaf.1074]

"Races" is just tradition. Even old-school Dungeons & Dragons used "race" when "species" clearly was warranted. Same thing in GW2. Hell, humans are actually aliens.

 

I guess it just looks and reads... better? Less science-y and dry.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > Short answer: No.

> > >

> > > Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

> > >

> > > The simple fact that 1 of the 9 classes doesn't have any access to racial skills should have made this obvious by now.

> >

> > Such negativity. There is always someone that will be unhappy with a suggestion.

>

> No, he/she is not unhappy with your suggestion.

>

> They're telling you the cold. hard truth. Anet is never going to buff these skills or make them anything other than fluff because they don't want race choice to have any kind of balance implication like that.

>

>

 

This.

 

There is multiple reasons as to why racial skills will not get buffed, changed, reworked, etc.

 

I could have written paragraphs explaining this as has been done multiple times before. I instead chose to reduce my answer to a simple: No, while adding one of the simplest and most apparent reasons why this will not happen: class balance.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > [...]

> [...]

> Accordingly, there's little to no benefit to rebalancing them unless, by accident, they start to be important to some sort of build/meta/speed-clear technique.

>

Just to add - this has already happened! The Sylvari elite **Take Root** became meta for a couple of condi builds, and ANet nerfed its bleeding from 10s to 3s. *A 70% nerf* is how ANet makes sure there is no race-meta.

 

While I would **love** a reason to shapeshift/summon golems/call on my warband etc more often, I have to say I'll rather sacrifice that than suffer race choice to become meta.

[Tails.9372]

Yes, these "skills" should be rebalanced and made useful. But should also be turned into mastery lines associated with their respective races. There's no reason why a sylvari shouldn't be able to learn how to build a "golem" and we already know that transformation magic exists.

[lokh.2695]

As I come to think of it, if they would rewor them to be disabled in WvW, PvP, Raids, Fractals, Dungeons, only available in open world and story instances. They maybe could make the racial skills usable. But it would also generate more balancing work.

[Zelanard.5806]

Wouldn't it be neat if they removed all the cultural skills, then instead made some specializations themed by, but not bound to, each race?

This would make balancing viable for cultural stuff.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

To all the negative posts; the whole point of rebalancing is to make sure all are equally competitive yet made relevant in the game. The skills are there and a sizable chunk of skills so why shouldn't they be made more useful? Moving health skills to the health indicator would free that slot up allowing all the cultural skills to sit in a single slot. If cultural skills need to be disabled in a game mode like PvP then it would be much easier from a developer standpoint. They could also double that slot up for alternate actions while it's disabled for cultural skills.

 

As to using cultural skills from other cultures; why not. I don't think the mastery system is the best place for it since masteries are account wide. Each character should have to train with a given culture to get those skills. They could use it as a sink for hero points and set it up like elite specializations where you can't mix them but have to choose to use it exclusively. If they did it right you could train cultural skills from new cultures added to the game such as Olmakhan and Elonian. It'd be a bit of a change on the Hero Panel GUI but they've changed that up before. I know a lot of people who play charr love the Olmakhan charr. They could train their skills and align themselves to Olmakhan without the need for stories to be changed. They could even call it "cultural alignment".

[Hesacon.8735]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Yes, these "skills" should be rebalanced and made useful. But should also be turned into mastery lines associated with their respective races. There's no reason why a sylvari shouldn't be able to learn how to build a "golem" and we already know that transformation magic exists.

 

Scarlet says hi.

 

---

 

Some racial skills are situationally useful, for example radiation field on classes with lots of finishers but few fields or technobabble on classes with poor cc potential, but it's _very_ niche situations, like clearing an open field pve champ in orr. But as others have said, it's almost always better to take class skills.

 

That said, a few of them could use a little love. Not enough to make them useful, but enough where you could swap them in in a few more niche situations.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

To add to my last comment; in addition to the current playable cultures they could add Kodan along with Tengu, Other (non-Pale Tree) Sylvari and Canthan as the stories open them up. It might be an excuse for them to finally open the Tengu areas up so we could start our Tengu skill track with a Tengu master.

 

If they really wanted to go crazy with it they could add holiday themed ones like Mad King's skills, Wintersday skills, etc that could only be started during that holiday.

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > [...]

> > [...]

> > Accordingly, there's little to no benefit to rebalancing them unless, by accident, they start to be important to some sort of build/meta/speed-clear technique.

> >

> Just to add - this has already happened! The Sylvari elite **Take Root** became meta for a couple of condi builds, and ANet nerfed its bleeding from 10s to 3s. *A 70% nerf* is how ANet makes sure there is no race-meta.

>

> While I would **love** a reason to shapeshift/summon golems/call on my warband etc more often, I have to say I'll rather sacrifice that than suffer race choice to become meta.

 

Same feelings here, bruv/bruvette.

 

I would love for nothing more than shapeshifting intoa Werebear on my Norn to actually be valid, but at the same time I realize the balancing nightmare it would be to make all racials on equal footing.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> To all the negative posts; the whole point of rebalancing is to make sure all are equally competitive yet made relevant in the game.

I think you're missing the reason people are saying this isn't going to happen: ANet doesn't want these skills to be _relevant_ in the game. They are meant to be colorful, not useful (although, it turns out that some are indeed useful while leveling up).

 

ANet has little enough dev time to devote to balancing; I can't imagine them spending more than the minimum looking at cultural skills except to nerf them if they are too strong.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > To all the negative posts; the whole point of rebalancing is to make sure all are equally competitive yet made relevant in the game.

> I think you're missing the reason people are saying this isn't going to happen: ANet doesn't want these skills to be _relevant_ in the game. They are meant to be colorful, not useful (although, it turns out that some are indeed useful while leveling up).

>

> ANet has little enough dev time to devote to balancing; I can't imagine them spending more than the minimum looking at cultural skills except to nerf them if they are too strong.

 

I'm glad you can read the devs minds. As a player I can offer suggestions. Yes they might not take them or even have resources to invest, they might not even see it but I can offer the suggestions that from my perspective would improve the game. At one point people said ANet didn't want underwater skills relevant to the game but guess what? They rebalanced them! I seem to remember a lot of people complaining that they couldn't get their swim infusions when the chest bug hit. Likely many who thought underwater wasn't relevant.

 

As to those skills, they are there and IMHO should be relevant in some form. My suggestion is a way to optimize the skill bar while putting those skills together in a way that can make them useful. It's a waste not having them useful beyond as you say for people leveling up.

 

The idea someone else seeded about cross training different cultural skills to which I added that they could bring skills from other cultures such as Olmakhan is valid and can make that part of the game experience very relevant to the current game. Those skills could not only be applied in open world but also story sequences to shape the game play of that sequence. Someone was talking about monk in another post. A monk cultural skill set could be trained. This is how they could add it to the game. Using a single slot for cultural skills would only allow a single cultural skill to be used which would make it limited enough to keep from balance issues at bay.

[crepuscular.9047]

i would personally definetly like to see them reworked to bring a bit more diversity to build craft, but after all these years it seems anet totally gave up on them

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:> I always though calling it race or racial is a bit odd given that Norn, Charr, Humans, Sylvari and Asura are different species not races. I think cultures and cultural skills would be better generic terms. Calling them cultures would open up to possibly playing different cultures of the same species such as Tyrian/Olmakhan Charr, Tyrian/Elonian/Canthan Human, Pale/other Tree Sylvari, etc. Each could have their own cultural skills. GW1 allowed playing different human cultures with the different expansions. It'd probably to much for them to do that now giving all the lines of dialog that would need to be recorded and story branches. Maybe it could happen with an expansion.from LiveScience> Race is associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture. > > In biology, races are genetically distinct populations within the same species; they typically have relatively minor morphological and genetic differences.so...a Charr is a speciesTyrian/Olmakhan Charr are racesFlame Leigon can consider a different culture since they have a different belief

[Oglaf.1074]

Eh. One could argue that Olmakhan Charr are still the same race but another culture. Guess it comes down to just how long they’ve been isolated.

 

Then you throw magic in there and it gets even wonkier. Like a Son of Svanir’s body has been warped and altered to the point where one could argue they are a different “race” of Norn. Same thing with the more hardcore Flame Legionaries who undergo similarly extreme changes.

[lokh.2695]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > To all the negative posts; the whole point of rebalancing is to make sure all are equally competitive yet made relevant in the game.

> > I think you're missing the reason people are saying this isn't going to happen: ANet doesn't want these skills to be _relevant_ in the game. They are meant to be colorful, not useful (although, it turns out that some are indeed useful while leveling up).

> >

> > ANet has little enough dev time to devote to balancing; I can't imagine them spending more than the minimum looking at cultural skills except to nerf them if they are too strong.

>

> I'm glad you can read the devs minds. As a player I can offer suggestions. Yes they might not take them or even have resources to invest, they might not even see it but I can offer the suggestions that from my perspective would improve the game. At one point people said ANet didn't want underwater skills relevant to the game but guess what? They rebalanced them! I seem to remember a lot of people complaining that they couldn't get their swim infusions when the chest bug hit. Likely many who thought underwater wasn't relevant.

>

> As to those skills, they are there and IMHO should be relevant in some form. My suggestion is a way to optimize the skill bar while putting those skills together in a way that can make them useful. It's a waste not having them useful beyond as you say for people leveling up.

>

> The idea someone else seeded about cross training different cultural skills to which I added that they could bring skills from other cultures such as Olmakhan is valid and can make that part of the game experience very relevant to the current game. Those skills could not only be applied in open world but also story sequences to shape the game play of that sequence. Someone was talking about monk in another post. A monk cultural skill set could be trained. This is how they could add it to the game. Using a single slot for cultural skills would only allow a single cultural skill to be used which would make it limited enough to keep from balance issues at bay.

 

I see, so you're looking for an echo chamber. Sure can do....

 

Wow, awesome sugegstion. ANet should totally do this. So great. I wish racial skills would make balancing harder and would limit races into certain builds/classes for competitive play. Why hasn't this been in the game from the start tbh. Every player with a spark of intelligence has to see that this is the way. Liked and subscribed.

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

> @"lokh.2695" said:

> As I come to think of it, if they would rewor them to be disabled in WvW, PvP, Raids, Fractals, Dungeons, only available in open world and story instances. They maybe could make the racial skills usable. But it would also generate more balancing work.

 

This seems like it would the one solution that would keep everyone happiest. People get their flavor abilities being non-useless, but anything "important" where balance matters wouldn't be affected. Zerg rush beats basically anything in open world, so unless they were powerful to the point they could break meta events, it wouldn't be a problem there. The main thing that might hold that back would be how much work it would take to restrict skills other than by game mode. It would take likely more dev work than it's worth to implement this, but if they ever add a new race, they might have an excuse to take another look at racial abilities.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > To all the negative posts; the whole point of rebalancing is to make sure all are equally competitive yet made relevant in the game.

> > I think you're missing the reason people are saying this isn't going to happen: ANet doesn't want these skills to be _relevant_ in the game. They are meant to be colorful, not useful (although, it turns out that some are indeed useful while leveling up).

> >

> > ANet has little enough dev time to devote to balancing; I can't imagine them spending more than the minimum looking at cultural skills except to nerf them if they are too strong.

>

> I'm glad you can read the devs minds. As a player I can offer suggestions.

 

You can offer as many suggestions as you like. Please show me where any body in this thread has said otherwise or has tried to prevent you from doing such so we can report him.

 

Please don't get touchy with people though who disagree and/or point out reasons as to why your suggestion won't work or won't get picked up by Arnenanet.

 

A. This suggestion is not unique or new. People as far back as launch were making this. The official respons back then was: racial skills are meant to be cosmetic and funsies to prevent racial bias or necessity in class creation. Games like WoW were intentinally not copied as to prevent what racial skills in that game cause

 

B. The games balance as a whole is already difficult enough. Adding one extra skill is not a simple addition of work, it's a multiplication and with the amount of racial skills in game a huge undertaking. Writing about balance and actually achieveing it are two very different beasts.

 

C. Making racial skills in any way viable means they have to be made accessible to all races which automatically voids their initial purpose of being favor without affecting racial choice

 

D. Removing racial skills from x-amount of content to justify them being useful automatically reduces the value of work which needs to get invested to make them balanced. If you can only use racial skills in open world pve, what use is there for them to be viable? You can already use them in open world pve due to its simplistic nature

 

You can moan and complain about other posters opinion as much as you want. It doesn't change valid objections to having developer ressources used on something this trivial.

[JDub.1530]

> @"crepuscular.9047" said:> i would personally definetly like to see them reworked to bring a bit more diversity to build craft, but after all these years it seems anet totally gave up on them> >

> > > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:> > I always though calling it race or racial is a bit odd given that Norn, Charr, Humans, Sylvari and Asura are different species not races. I think cultures and cultural skills would be better generic terms. Calling them cultures would open up to possibly playing different cultures of the same species such as Tyrian/Olmakhan Charr, Tyrian/Elonian/Canthan Human, Pale/other Tree Sylvari, etc. Each could have their own cultural skills. GW1 allowed playing different human cultures with the different expansions. It'd probably to much for them to do that now giving all the lines of dialog that would need to be recorded and story branches. Maybe it could happen with an expansion.> > from LiveScience> > Race is associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture. > > > > In biology, races are genetically distinct populations within the same species; they typically have relatively minor morphological and genetic differences.> > so...> a Charr is a species> Tyrian/Olmakhan Charr are races> Flame Leigon can consider a different culture since they have a different beliefWe also have the term "human race". For all we know, if earth had multiple sapient species that weren't human, we'd refer to them as races too. Heck, referring to them as a "species" might be considered offensive in common non-scientific speech, implying they are more akin to animals.