Racial stats rebalance

[Cherek]

Hello Genesisians,

Anyone who has followed the forums or Discord discussions the last couple of years (or more) will know that racial balance in Genesis has always been a hot topic. It's not a secret that it's something that I've wanted to change for a long time as well. And now, the time has finally come. We have a new system to present to you!

Now, we'd like your help to find any potential problems or drawbacks we have not considered before we actually implement this. So, dont be shy (as if you ever are) with your feedback, but please keep things respectful. Obviously there are hundreds of different ways to do this, and obviously not all of you will agree with our solution, and that's fine. Feel free to share what you don't like, but I kindly ask you to refrain from pitching completely different ideas or having a complete meltdown (we have a flames section for that). This thread if for feedback on OUR idea. We mainly want you help in identifying problems we may not have thougght of, so we can fix them before launch, rather than after.

How we made the decision

The last couple of years I have both come up with and listened to many many different ideas regarding our races. I've discussed it with players, wizards, and admin members, and the ideas have come from the entire community. Both mortals and wizards. About a year and a half ago I narrowed it down to four main ideas, and mainly me and Arman (the AoB at the time) discussed them all in detail. In short, the ideas were:

A: Make races cosmetical only, like gender is. All races have human-like stats.

B: Remove the core racial stat modifiers, and instead let our racial guilds modify players stats (Amazon humans become stronger, Traveller humans become wiser, etc).

C: Set all stats to human-like, and give each race special racial abilities / natural skill boosts instead.

D: Keep the racial modifers, but rebalance them and tone them down a lot.

We removed option A, since, while it creates perfect balance, it feels a little too bland to have no difference at all between the races. Option B was removed because racial guilds will go from being an RP choice to a choice based on "power", and the original idea with racial guilds is to provide RP flavour. Also, some races have many racial guilds to choose from, while some races have very few (hello gnomes), something that might just make racial balance worse overall. Unless we code A LOT of new racial guilds, which is a too big and unrealistic project. For a long while we also explored option C, which felt like the best idea. We came a long way with this one, and while I still think it's a good idea, there are some potential pitfalls as well. Adding skill bonuses is a bit redundant with racial guilds who also provide skills, and replacing racial stat modifiers with racial abilities risks just replacing one imbalance with another - unless we can balance these abilities perfectly, which always is tricky and requires a lot of time and testing (with no guarantee of getting it right anyway). Regarding option D, we've toyed with a lot of different setups, and many players have suggested their ideas on this as well, but eventually Zizuph came up with a very simple but also very balanced setup, that both me and Ckrik really liked. So, option D it is.

The new racial balance

Here is how the new races will work:

All races will have the same stats, except that all five non-human races will have ONE stat that they are stronger in, and ONE stat that they are weaker in. To ensure a good balance, the strong stat and the weak stat will belong to the same group of stats. That is, if you have a strength in a physical stat, you will also have a weakness in another physical stat. And if you have a strength in a mental stat, you also have a weakness in another mental stat.

Here is how it will look:

HUMANS will have stats that are all the same. However, all humans will become scaled up slightly to match the other races better mathematically. So, humans will keep their even stats, but be slightly stronger in all six stats compared to now.

GOBLINS get a STRENGTH boost, but a weakness in CONSTITUTION. All other stats will be the same as the new humans.

DWARVES get a CONSTITUTION boost, but a weakness in DEXTERITY. All other stats will be the same as the new humans.

GNOMES get an INTELLIGENCE boost, but a weakness in WISDOM. All other stats will be the same as the new humans.

ELVES get a WISDOM boost, but a weakness in DISCIPLINE. All other stats will be the same as the new humans.

HOBBITS get a DEXTERITY boost, but a weakness in STRENGTH. All other stats will be the same as the new humans.

Please note: The strengths and weaknesses will be relatively small, and not nearly as big as some of the extreme stat modifiers we have today.

Why are we doing this

Basically, races have been unfair in Genesis since the birth of the "modern" Genesis in the early/mid 90s. (Probably since the creation of the game). For starters, the stat modifiers don't add up mathematically, so some races are just better than others - for no apparent reason. Also, it's no secret that some races are just better fighters than others while other races are superior casters - and some races aren't really good at anything. I strongly believe that all races should be equally playable, and you should be able to play a wildrunner legion elf fighter or a goblin caster shaman if you want to, and still be competitive. I don't think players should feel forced to pick a specific race just to be competitive, and I also think players in race-restricted guilds should be just a competitive as players in guilds where any race can join. In short, we wan't more players to be able to compete on even terms, and this is a big step in that direction.

Possible problems and drawbacks

- After we make this change, a lot of non-human players will end up with pretty weird stats. For example, a hobbit who has focused on STR and CON for their entire life will suddenly find themselves really strong and sturdy, but with pretty poor DEX. To sort this out, the Thaumaturgist in Palanthas has agreed to give every player ONE FREE stat change. (actually it's not free, we wizards are paying him A LOT of money to do this).

- We realize that many players will probably also want to try another race, or aren't happy with how their current one turned out. Therefore the Thaumaturgist will also offer to change your race ONCE for FREE. No death, no payment. (Yes, we wizards had to pay him even more to agree to this).

Please help fill in the list above, with anything else you can think of that might be a problem after the change.

Things that need to be updated

- We need to change the help files on races.

- We need to update the race information in the player creation sequence.

- We need to update the tutorial sign and the room with the statues in the tutorial.

- We need to go through the file that controls which stats a new character starts with, so the starting stats align with the new stat modifiers.

Please help fill in the list above, with anything else you can think of that needs updating.

Okay, this is long enough. Now it's up to you to help us identify all the problems and other stuff we haven't thought about. More brains are better than few brains!

[Baz]

Looks great. Is simple, and will be a big change.

As for the transformation, I would propose for the transformation to happen a lot quicker than normal. I recall when I did it on Baz at his peak when he was a mortal it took more than a week. IIRC it took around 2-4 weeks to complete. My memory could be flakey, but this is the case if we look at those who are much much larger than me at the time it will take a lot longer.

So that would be my first thought in implementing this change.

[zizuph]

Thank you Cherek for posting about this!

I just wanted to reinforce one thing here.

All races will be equally viable for all occupational/layman guilds (and only limited by which races they allow). The very slight difference in stats will be not provide you any tangible gains, so play the race you enjoy. Getting to play your character the way you want to is central to this, and meditation will be the mechanism through you can differentiate yourself stat-wise.

[Snowrose]

I think the proposed stats are great, Ive always been an elf despite the bad str and con, i feel there is no downside for me, ive always had dis my dump stat (im timid oocly)

[zizuph]

Looks great. Is simple, and will be a big change.

As for the transformation, I would propose for the transformation to happen a lot quicker than normal. I recall when I did it on Baz at his peak when he was a mortal it took more than a week. IIRC it took around 2-4 weeks to complete. My memory could be flakey, but this is the case if we look at those who are much much larger than me at the time it will take a lot longer.

So that would be my first thought in implementing this change.

The time change for the stat change depends on how extreme of a makeover you are doing, and continues accumulating when you are out of game, with transformation taking place more quickly as long as you are logged in to give time for the transformations to catch up. I don't expect anyone, of any size, to take 4 weeks, unless they are simply not logging in.

[Drazson]

First off, "Nice!".

I'm curious about how race and AG stat-focusing will come to differ after such a rebalance, mathematically. Will someone be able to use their secondary focus to even out their racial detriment for example, or would that take their main focus to cover for? Mostly curious about that, not some kind of pitfall or anything.

My biggest question is whether the change would incentivize a massive migration cause that would be a bit weird. Of course goblin players are very dedicated to their race, but if they happened to suddenly all realize that goblins stink and switch to human that would be a weird genesis to wake up into. Still, a goblin with AG focus on STR and CON is still steered well into STR, so I assume it won't happen.

I am not sure why humans need an exp boost, considering the other races get a - to cover for their + . If they + and - are equal you only need apply the math correctly (something about using /1.14 instead of *86% comes to mind). That sounds weird and very dangerously close to exploitable but you guys know best.

Thanks for the update.

[zizuph]

I'm curious about how race and AG stat-focusing will come to differ after such a rebalance, mathematically. Will someone be able to use their secondary focus to even out their racial detriment for example, or would that take their main focus to cover for? Mostly curious about that, not some kind of pitfall or anything.

Meditation effects are far stronger than racial modifiers, even the secondary focus. It would take little time with secondary focus to overcome the racial detriment.

I am not sure why humans need an exp boost, considering the other races get a - to cover for their + . If they + and - are equal you only need apply the math correctly (something about using /1.14 instead of *86% comes to mind). That sounds weird and very dangerously close to exploitable but you guys know best.

Thanks for the update.

Humans have been at a racial disadvantage for decades. The positives total effect was bigger than the negative total effect for every other race. We had the option of weakening all non-human races, or increasing humans. We thought it better to increase the humans, so a bunch of people did not see their mortal titles drop.

[TaranGoatWalker]

Looks awesome. Human combat meta?
T

[Budwise]

In the early days all we had was HP/SP. Don't recall anything race related.

I must confess I feel A-D are basically the same thing. Make us all alike and the game more bland.
I fear it will reduce racechoice to a "mere" rp-choice. Not that that is a bad thing as such.

Also the weak and strong stats seem a bit strange. I would think you would be strong either
in body or in mind and thus have the strong stat in, say, str, and the weak one in your mentals.
And vice versa. Also the elf one, since I am an elf, high wis and low dis? And much reduced from today.
Will we even notice it in our daily lives after a trip to thaumathurgist to set stats?

That being said I guess it can and will be tweaked and the abillity to reset stats for free is nice.

[Quantum]

My first impression is that I'm very disappointed in this. Everyone will be humans from now on since they get a stat boost, however slight it may be. There is no incentive to choose another race.

No warrior would ever want to have his con reduced, and such all melee guilds will steer away from goblin. No other race provides anything useful to warriors. If you are a wizard, why would you want to boost one mental and loose something in another when you need all 3?

Honestly I see this as a huge boost to vampires and a major nerf to every other guild in the game.

I think you should change it so that if you get a boost to a physical stat, you get a disadvantage to a mental stat. And vice versa. Otherwise, what is the point of choosing anything but human?

Option E - Each race except humans get a boost in their primary stat - Elves intelligence, gnomes wisdom, hobbits dex, goblin strength, dwarves con - And no detractor. Humans get a tiny boost in all 6 equal to the boost the other races get in one stat. Honestly that would make it a lot more interesting to choose a race.

Option F - Keep the current system.

Would it be possible to make a vote to see what the players actually prefer? In-game and only for players 100 days or more?

The current system works with many people choosing races other than human. There is no need to fix it.

With best regards,
Quantum