Races and bonuses

So, in game many races. Each race should have some features and bonuses to the perks (2-3 points to the perk). Also, each race must have some restrictions. For example, the Picts do not believe in Mithra. Clothing and armor of one race (I would add a light, medium and heavy armor set for each race or for groups of races) is not available to another race if the player does not have a armorship or player of race in clan. Otherwise, the choice of race does not make sense. The player must choose the race meaningfully and not by chance (random).
I hope that the devs thought about this and will work in this part of the game. In my opinion, races and religions are very important parts of the game. Even in aoc you need to choose a race meaningfully. The class of mages in aoc is available only to the stygians, but they do not have access to a class of warriors. This concept is very good. CE does not have this. :slightly_frowning_face:

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I believe the official reason is that then people would pick races by min maxing. All ranges players would choose hyrkanian. Something like that. Race is just pure fluff.

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Very good point. The pure fluff of races is excellent for RP servers though, as they could be a racist or to add more depth to their characters background. This same reasoning applies to the religion system, where at one point they were toying with religious perks such as Set followers not being aggro’d by snakes. It could (and would) be used to exploit areas and fights.

I think that ideally least Religion would be restricted at start for certain races. But that would require all of the in-game playable races to have their religions defined.

However I do like the freedom of being able to make a Pict who worships Yog, or Derkheto, or whatever else I feel like playing.

So it’s kind of an opt-in system. Players on RP servers will probably want to pick the religion that suits their race, or create a backstory for why their character converted from their assumed religion.

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Racial bonuses are well and good most of the time but with something like CE you’d be faced with an insanely daunting task to design something that was balanced, enough variety to make it worthwhile, all while not majorly cutting out people from choosing the races they want unless they feel like they’re forced to gimp themselves. I can totally see why Funcom made the decision that racial choice would be a purely cosmetic thing given the huge amount of choice REH’s stories provide, all while not cutting out or forcing certain aspects of the culture due to a forced ‘balance’ like with AoC and how Stygians couldn’t make a soldier archetype. There’s plenty of descriptions of Stygian warriors and archers in Black Colossus, for example.

Religion choice is ideally where the variety would come in, though it isn’t immune from the same pitfalls of balance and fighting the min-max efficiency mindset that seeks to boil anything remotely competitive down to a my-way-or-the-highway meta-game. I still think they should enforce the hard restrictions with religions; Mitra’s ‘jealousy’ keeping his worshippers to himself or Set worshippers not harming snakes but that brings a whole new set of troubles with trying to actually implement that stuff from a technological point of view.

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This seems like an interesting point for a nature vs nurture debate. What about Hyrkanians makes them good archers? Genetics, culture, or equipment? And considering we start in the exiled lands naked on a cross, and knowing almost nothing, we’ve mostly only got the first one.

Currently, race only functions as a preset of character appearance options, and that’s fine. Adding more in game bonuses just means a player has more ways to hobble their character later. Worse, a race selection couldn’t be fixed with a swig of yellow lotus.

Maybe the really strong stuff.

I think races should lock away some customization, like, so there wouldn’t be short black nordheimers, huge white picts, blonde cimmerians and etc.

Of course there would be some variations and you could make a nrodheimer who is shorter than most and with a little darker hair due to some racial mixing but he would never be as short and dark skinned as a pict, also the other way around and yeah, Arnold was a blonde Conan but we all know that ■■■■ ain’t rite.

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Locking away some customization might be a good idea. That wouldn’t affect skills or ‘min/max’ game balance problems, yet still provide some significance (though cosmetic) to racial choices.

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i think there there could be very insignificant boost for that start. like have +2 or +1 and +1 to stats based on your race (this would count to total point you can invest to that stats). In fact this shouldnt be any game breaking stuff, just RP option that would guide you what in that way - what is that race good at -

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Race is entirely an aesthetic choice now.
If the race is going to be tied to a set of bonuses then we might as well remove yellow lotus potions. So after all this there should be an option to hold multiple characters becouse this would make the game class based. This is not an MMO this is a survival game.

Star Wars Galaxies did race right. CE has the same style game play. One would almost think it inspired CE.
Each race had a unique and special detail, that went with each race. Since each was different, and everyone got something, all was well in game play.

Our two Pict toons are opposites, its the way we have played over the past 20 years. Im light with dark features, my other half is dark skinned with light features. Been this way since a long, long time ago, yes in a galaxy far away.

In-game there’s one buff very few people talk about: I didn’t even consider it until I saw @TwinCrows post elsewhere. Your toon size can make the difference between fitting through certain openings or not fitting at all. Or having to crouch. There’s a lot of room (no pun) for that meta in builds. Effectively, it’s a no-penalty body mod.

Just taking character height as one example of what’s already in-game, limiting the MIN/MAX possibilities during customization would be a nice feature that adds depth (again no pun) without changing much.

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Yeah, to summarize that post:

  • Taller characters have longer range (their collision boxes are bigger overall)
  • Smaller characters can fit in very small crevices

A tiny character could even make a ‘hobbit hole’ that only other tiny characters could fit in. While other, regularly-sized characters would have to crouch to walk around inside, the ‘hobbit’ could run around freely.

The ‘hobbit’ could even make chambers that only tiny characters can barely squeeze into — it would be impossible for larger characters to fit, even while crouched.

Not a build I would particularly like to do myself, but I think it’s really hilarious. You would just need to separate your building foundations for your floor and your ceiling, to make the roof height about 3/5ths of the regular height. Best to do this inside a cave.

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I am already planning my clan of pygmies for the swungle. :grinning:

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Then I stand corrected: it’s a buff not without penalty if range is limited. Good to know. :+1:

Since even before climbing came along I’ve experimented with annoyance apertures. Long story short, bad guys blow off the door but collision makes it so they’ve got to perform one maneuver to get in. This forces them to blow off the doorframe, which takes out the foundation, dropping them to ground level with no easy way to attack the next door in. I like this about collision, and think it’s also neat way to keep nuisance clanmates out of your stuffs. Being a quite tall human, I have yet to create a small toon. I think some of my hidden “hold-out” niches would be cavernous to a smaller dude.

If I were making the perfect game (for me) it’d be like Age of Empires et al, where character composition is everything, and yet when you get into team play – and this dates me a bit – when a guy is playing as a Frank you kind of say “awww, he’s new.” After serious players dissect the OP nature of the paladin, they quickly move to exploit its weaknesses, and then choke out the resources of the enemy because of limited late-game supply chains.

As a follower of Set (PBUH), if I chose Stygian, I’d gladly trade stamina for a bow buff. And it would be really awesome if I took damage for every damage point I dealt vs a snake. Practically, I think I’m asking too much.

So taller characters have more range because the arrows start out a few inches higher off the ground? Is that why?

No, I’m referring to melee range, not bow range. A larger character might be 20% larger than an average character, and thus the larger character gets an additional 20% melee range. Their whole body is larger, including their attack collision boxes.

It’s a difference of around -20% to +20%. A large character has 20% extra ‘reach’ than an average-sized one. A small character has 20% less reach. Consider that a spear might have a reach of 7 feet: The largest character will actually have 8.4 ft, while the smallest will have 5.6 ft. That’s quite a difference!

Bow range will be just about the same regardless. The only difference with archery is that a smaller character would be about 20% harder to hit, while a larger one is 20% easier. That’s also very significant.

The size of your character is a very meaningful choice. If you plan on using archery, then you ought to make a tiny character. If you plan on using melee, then you’re best off being a giant. If you’re somewhere in-between, then you should be more average.

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I wonder if this will remain the case in New Combat.

Is there anywhere noteworthy on the map that only a small character can fit, or is it more for player structures?

Yeah, I get it Crom is the god of “go ■■■■ yourself” but I always felt kinda bad that worshiping Crom was gimping yourself.

Mechanically speaking, Crom is a choice because Conan doesn’t really have an atheist option. Are there benefits to religion? Yes. But you can also play without those benefits if you want.

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