Rebalancing Racial Bonuses
- Thread starter Spiritplx
- Start date
Tempus
Staff Emeritus
100% agreed that is why any and all bonuses should be useful but not excessive relative to other races.
Renshu
Dalayan Elder
Elves get +1 to Thac0 on longswords, shortswords, longbows, and shortbows. Halflings get +1 Thac0 to all range attacks. Large Races get -2 Thac0 when fighting Dwarves, ETC...
Salarus
Dalayan Master
Okay, comparing diety bonusus to racial bonsus, added together thats 20% compared to 21% ...yea *hudge* differnce...?
Racial bonuses may not be completely balanced, but I think for the most part they are fine as they are. Half elves (correct me if i'm wrong) get a 2.5% xp bonus, erudites goet a 5%? specializatoin bonus, iksars get innate armor, gnomes get a better focus effect. The only race that I see that could use a better bonus is troll tbh, and i'm bassing this simply off that I see so few trolls in the raid scene. However, I'd liek to reiterate the point, 20% to 21%.....yea....not even worth bothering with
Racial bonuses may not be completely balanced, but I think for the most part they are fine as they are. Half elves (correct me if i'm wrong) get a 2.5% xp bonus, erudites goet a 5%? specializatoin bonus, iksars get innate armor, gnomes get a better focus effect. The only race that I see that could use a better bonus is troll tbh, and i'm bassing this simply off that I see so few trolls in the raid scene. However, I'd liek to reiterate the point, 20% to 21%.....yea....not even worth bothering with
If I am remembering correctly, going from 0% deity bonus to 20% deity bonus gave me about 150 to my big heal. The gnome bonus does over 100 bonus to big heals.
They are modifying different things. Deity bonus is affecting specializations, while gnome bonus affects all item focus effects and haste.
iaeolan
Dalayan Elder
Where are you getting these numbers?
20% vs 20% + 5% = 25%
We are talking erudites here, right?
Just for Energy/Defense you get a 12.5% increase in base spell damage at 250. with deity that is a 15% increase and with erudite bonus 15.625%. Yes a .625% increase in base dps. This doesn't seem like much, but this is just ONE part of ONE specialization.
Severien
Dalayan Adventurer
If this is the current line of thinking, then why do some races (namely, dark elves and to a lesser extent, the other elves), suck for pretty much any class, if we look at starting stats and racial bonuses?
We'll go with my race, dark elves, because its the worst of them all, and it's my race, which is what people usually argue about in S&R... Though this will probably get me jumped all over.
It used to be that on live (yes I know this isn't live, I'm making a point) dark elves were popular for int casters because of high int, and clerics to a lesser extent because they are decent in wis. However CHA wasn't used for resists there, and dark elves weren't tweaked up any when it was made to be used for resists here, which means dark elves are a HORRIBLE starting choice for wizards, magicians, enchanters and necromancers in dalaya. If they work really hard, they can cap it by endgame, but unless you've got the top 2% in gear on the server, this can mean sacrificing other important stats. I mean, come on people, a dark elf int caster potentially can have 60 less starting cha than another race. Thats insane! Its made worse by the simple fact that it was low in Live for lore reasons which no longer exist in Dalaya (evil hateful race etc etc). The only class/race combos that have it worse (as casters) are ogre and troll casters, but at least that makes some amount of sense from a lore perspective. Let's have a look at Dark Elf starting statistics in this very poorly copied and pasted chart:
Class STR STA AGI DEX WIS INT CHA Points
Cleric 65 70 90 75 93 99 60 30
Enchanter 60 65 90 75 83 109 70 30
Magician 60 75 90 75 83 109 60 30
Necromancer 60 75 90 85 83 109 60 30
Rogue 60 75 100 85 83 99 60 30
Shadowknight70 70 90 85 83 109 65 20
Warrior 70 75 95 85 83 99 60 25
Wizard 70 75 90 85 83 109 60 30
Gnomes suffer similarly for CHA, but they have a very, very powerful racial bonus to balance it out. So what does the dark elf have?
Consider the Dark Elf racial bonuses:
Ability: Ultravision
Mez Resistance: +20%
Charm Resistance: +20%
Hide: +50
Mez and Charm +20% is nice, but its very situational and doesn't help the race fill any sort of role - since thats what you were getting at. Hide +50 is nearly worthless and is just a carryover from Live. Ultravision is good to have but isn't something you give a second thought at character creation at all.
If each race is supposed to fill a general niche, what niche is a dark elf supposed to fill? The only classes that don't roll out of character creation crippled are rogues and clerics - and if you wanted, you could really make a case for rogues. And if you're just looking at starting stats and racial bonuses, there are a handful of races that do either of those classes better.
In general, I'm not terribly upset with the status quo. I realize the desire to keep elves and especially dark elves somewhat mediocre to keep 3/4 of the server from rolling dark elves (see EQ2 for lols). I just think that if you're going to look at the balance, it should be considered. If an erudite is the best race in game for enchanter, magician, necromancer AND wizard, and gnomes are the best at clerics (and rogues?) and a close second for enchanter, magician, necromancer AND wizard, dark elf should be able to be at least 3rd best at 1 or 2 classes. After all, we have trouble with some of those ******* ladders too.
As an aside, I dont like pigeonholing classes because it encourages players to all play the same race for the same class and throw variety to the wind. That doesn't seem to be the case in SoD, so having some races be better at some classes by a small margin adds some neat flavor. Let's just not get carried away.
Last edited: