Racial stats rebalance

[Quantum]

7. "Vampires received extra power in guild balance because they are race restricted to humans, so, when everyone gets human-like stats, vampires will become comparably better than everyone else".

I have no idea where this idea came from, but it's definitely not how it works. Or not how it should work at least. Like Ckrik said above, race should not be factored in when balancing a guild, unless the race is part of the guild (ogres). Also humans definitely aren't the weakest race, so, if we actually did factor in race in guild balance, the Secret Society of Kenders is the guild we should worry about after this rebalance, not the Vampires. Kenders have pretty lousy stat modifiers for a melee guild AND they are goodie align restricted (which is a big drawback too), so, if their guild is boosted because of the drawbacks of the kender race/subrace, they will be serious killing machines after the change. But that won't be the case, because race isn't part of guild balance. However, I do think it's good that this was brought up, because it is something to keep an eye out for. We have a lot of guilds, and not all have been balanced recently. Obviously it's possible someone, at some time, has factored in racial pros and cons into their guild. It _should_ not be the case, but, it's Genesis, and Genesis is full of surprises, even for us admins.

Are undead a separate race? Humans, gnomes, hobbits, goblins, elves - and undeads? As I understand it MM and vampires are both undead on the same template.

Would it be possible to add undead as a separate race that anyone can join, and then join occ and layman guilds as they want? Not as vampires or wraiths, but as undead humans or undead gnomes?

It would appear that the undead racial guild by far offers the most interesting abilities. I won't mention what. Far more interesting than a wolf or a messenger. Those things you can buy outside of racial guilds and as such hold little to no value. Just like the vast majority of racial guild skills are useless or already included in occ/lay guilds. Racial guilds mostly exist to add flavour and titles?

Also from the same post by cherek - Looking at the goblin population, the vast majority seem to be goodaligned. I do not know the entire population, but from the rankings there is one evil - Cassius. On the good side you have Zhabou, Bonk, Madmanmat, Quantum and Seren. A 5 to 1 factor of goodies. Why? Because good players have vastly more options than evils.

What is the end goal here? Do we want to remove all racial impact so you can freely choose your race? Do we want to make all guilds the same so none are perceived to be more powerful than the other? Do we want all races to be able to join all guilds based on me wanting roleplay a goblin knight?

Several people have put forth alternate ideas for the racial rebalance. Can you state which one you have currently chosen and which ones are still a possibility? Shesara and Zhar made some really good comments in regards to other options.

[TaranGoatWalker]

There was me thinking y'all monks are neutral.

[Quantum]

There was me thinking y'all monks are neutral.

We get that a lot. The guild itself is neutral, but we do not dictate what each member should be. Personally I am holy 99,9% of the time. Mostly because all the good hunting areas are evil..

Trollshaws, Faerun, Icewall, Terel, Mithas. All evil areas.

On an entirely different note - kudos to Nils for being so honest about the past years changes. Looking past the profanity there are some hard hitting truths. People have played the game with these racial imbalances for 30 years. Do another 30?

In regards to the clean slate approach - Sounds like an interesting idea....but delete all quest info while you're at it. Some people have max quest xp and are nowhere near completing all quests. However that happened. Resetting the entire mud, booting everyone from all guilds in the process, will even out the playing field for everyone. It's not such a bad idea when you think about it.

[Riva]

Also from the same post by cherek - Looking at the goblin population, the vast majority seem to be goodaligned. I do not know the entire population, but from the rankings there is one evil - Cassius. On the good side you have Zhabou, Bonk, Madmanmat, Quantum and Seren. A 5 to 1 factor of goodies. Why? Because good players have vastly more options than evils.

Correlation does not equal causation. And that is simply not how statistics works, you don't get to pick a tiny sample size and claim it represents the entire game.

Good Aligned mele occ guilds goblins can join: Calians

Evil Aligned mele occ guilds goblins can join: AA, BDA, RDA, FK,

Neutral Aligned mele occ guilds goblins can join: Mercs, Glads, Monks, (technically ogres),

[Quantum]

Also from the same post by cherek - Looking at the goblin population, the vast majority seem to be goodaligned. I do not know the entire population, but from the rankings there is one evil - Cassius. On the good side you have Zhabou, Bonk, Madmanmat, Quantum and Seren. A 5 to 1 factor of goodies. Why? Because good players have vastly more options than evils.

Correlation does not equal causation. And that is simply not how statistics works, you don't get to pick a tiny sample size and claim it represents the entire game.

I very clearly stated that I do not know the entire population. As such I never claimed to have perfect statistics. Please don't put words in my mouth.

[Riva]

Also from the same post by cherek - Looking at the goblin population, the vast majority seem to be goodaligned. I do not know the entire population, but from the rankings there is one evil - Cassius. On the good side you have Zhabou, Bonk, Madmanmat, Quantum and Seren. A 5 to 1 factor of goodies. Why? Because good players have vastly more options than evils.

Correlation does not equal causation. And that is simply not how statistics works, you don't get to pick a tiny sample size and claim it represents the entire game.

I very clearly stated that I do not know the entire population. As such I never claimed to have perfect statistics. Please don't put words in my mouth.

You're right you didn't. What you did claim was "the vast majority seem to be goodaligned" and it seemed to me you supported that assertion by using the tiny sample size of the tops list. I misspoke but my point still stands. What you're saying simply seems to _not_ be the truth. There aren't vastly more options for goodies than evils.

Looking at the guild list overall there are eight neutral guilds, six evil guilds, and six goodie guilds. I really fail to see how evils are massively disadvantaged in the number of options they have. Are all options equal? No. But are you hurting for options? Also no.

[Ckrik]

Are undead a separate race? Humans, gnomes, hobbits, goblins, elves - and undeads? As I understand it MM and vampires are both undead on the same template.

MMs allow races other than humans theoretically. Being undead is just an overlay on top of existing races and yes that is standardized. It just so happens that the two occupational guilds we have catering to undeads are human dominated thematically.

From the game design and balance perspective, being undead is a separate issue from race stats.

If we ever have the player population to support new occupational guilds perhaps a Lich guild would be an interesting guild to add and if added to a domain without pre-existing lore, I would strongly argue for the guild to be open to all races. Such a guild would obviously transform the character into an undead version of the race. So while an undead hobbit lich king would sound rather odd to me, I'm sure our best role players can make it work.

[TaranGoatWalker]

New khalakhor racial when

[TaranGoatWalker]

<derail>
A racial that makes you undead, and does nothing else would be interesting.
I for one think that undead life (never having been undead) sounds easier than living person life... and surely if undeads are so balanced, and not taxed for (?) there'd be no AoB objection to such a thing?
I wonder how many would join such a racial. I suspect many. Free DV. No need for food. Maybe some laymans not working (heals) would be annoying... not like herbs are used by the majority of players though...
</derail>

[Ckrik]

<derail>
A racial that makes you undead, and does nothing else would be interesting.
I for one think that undead life (never having been undead) sounds easier than living person life... and surely if undeads are so balanced, and not taxed for (?) there'd be no AoB objection to such a thing?
I wonder how many would join such a racial. I suspect many. Free DV. No need for food. Maybe some laymans not working (heals) would be annoying... not like herbs are used by the majority of players though...
</derail>

Wiz and code it. As long as it's not ridiculous from a balance and theme perspective I don't see any reason to stop a wizard who wants to make it happen.