Spear users and new race

[Arch Magi]

I'm going to make a big assumption here, then ask for a request.

ASSUMING that the new race will have Spear as their weapon, would it be possible to allow characters who are already rolled up and have Spear Specialized (ie existing characters) to "become" Vimothian and get 4 skill credits back?

I have a level 72 Spear toon that I enjoy, but I would love the 4 skill credits to put elsewhere if I had the choice to make him Vimothian when I rolled him up.

[Septa Scarabae]

So we should magicly be able to change races, now?

[Ghorak]

I don't see any way they can choose an existing weapon as viamontian racial weapon without pissing anyone off. That's why I think (pure speculation here) we're going to see a new weapon type.

.

[Paraduck]

I believe it was posted that no new skills will be added with the expansion, so I doubt it. That would be cool, though.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I don't see any way they can choose an existing weapon as viamontian racial weapon without pissing anyone off. That's why I think (pure speculation here) we're going to see a new weapon type.

.
Turbine said that there were no new skills to be added by the expansion. If that statement is still correct the heritage skill(s) will have to come from skills that exist today. My preference is just like yours Ghorak - I would like them to create a new melee weapon for the Viamonts and not dilute - annoy - etc.

For the original three heritage groups - Turbine used a total of 6 free skill credits to do the heritage customization. That means Turbine is going to pick from spear, axe, thrown weapons, etc.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Uzi-El]

I believe it was posted that no new skills will be added with the expansion, so I doubt it. That would be cool, though.
I dunno. If it was the more usual "no plans to add such and such in the foreseeable future" or some other vague statement, I'd believe that. Since they've specifically and repeatedly (at least twice, I think) said "not in the expansion", I'm more inclined to believe they will be adding a new skill. If nothing else, adding a skill "in the expansion" makes it sound like it'll only be available to those who buy the expansion, and I don't think they would/could make an XP-only skill.

[Ghorak]

Ahh, didn't know that Yula...Well, my bet then will be that they will choose axe (just a hunch again). Anyway, my next hunch says that they will give a skill credit refund to CURRENT axe users, but any newly generated non-Viamont characters will have to pay the full cost (like when they change quest weapons, old ones are grandfathered).

Again, this is just my hunch, and we have already seen how unreliable my hunches are, :D

.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Again, this is just my hunch, and we have already seen how unreliable my hunches are, :D

Mine are not any better than yours Ghorak. I have fun making them though. I think Turbine reads my predictions - goes Yula thinks.... - Well that perfectly good idea is ruined. Yula I hate you.... Ok what is left on the list.

So I am going to continue to make my predictions and wait for Turbine to make a hash out of the lot. Comparing Turbine's implementation to the Yula predictions should be a source of great amusement for the community and me. :p

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Hungwell]

the only answer for turbine here is to not give the viamontians any racial weapon at all. Give them some useless skill like assess monster and maybe magic item tink.

this would make them a desirable race as they would get more credits for discretionary spending but would not step on existing toons toes by giving them a racial weapon that in use by a bunch of non racial users.

In addtion giving them a racial weapon from the existing mix would force the loot gen to drop that paricular type of weapon with a race requirement. Not a big deal unless it has a major on it but for the lower level toons hving a self buffing weapon is kind of nice.

[Ghorak]

That won't work either hung, because folks have toons which don't use a racial weapon. So, viamonts would get 56 credits to start, no racial weapon, and choose any weapon they want. In this case all of the Sho, Aluvian, and Gharu non-racial weapon users (lets use sword in this case) will complain saying that the viamontian swordsman has six more credits than the Sho, Aluvian, or Gharu swordman.

I personally do give a darn, but most people will...


.

[Composition]

That won't work either hung, because folks have toons which don't use a racial weapon. So, viamonts would get 56 credits to start, no racial weapon, and choose any weapon they want. In this case all of the Sho, Aluvian, and Gharu non-racial weapon users (lets use sword in this case) will complain saying that the viamontian swordsman has six more credits than the Sho, Aluvian, or Gharu swordman.

I personally do give a darn, but most people will...


.

I think they'll just give them spear and let everyone sell back their racial skills. We're getting more skill credits anyway...

[MVOFJR]

I think they'll just give them spear and let everyone sell back their racial skills. We're getting more skill credits anyway...

If this becomes the case then Turbine will have to do a round of name changes for all the spear users who incorperated "spear" into their name.

[Arch Magi]

Spear is the most logical choice. They are the fewest in number of Axe, Spear, and TW.

[MaddyFF]

Weapons have been balanced pretty well on skill credit cost for DoT. Look at where Axe lands at on the DoT charts. Making it Axe without re-balancing the weapons will mean every new character will be heavily leaning towards Axe, much like people leaned towards dagger when hilts came out.

[Chrono]

Ya, axe is way too buff for a racial weapon. Spear would actually rock. It has similar DoT to UA and costs less :p

[Composition]

If this becomes the case then Turbine will have to do a round of name changes for all the spear users who incorperated "spear" into their name.

I don't see why people wouldn't want spear just because it isn't their racial, if, like I said, they could sell back UA or whatever for spear. If you could trade off UA to get 3/4 of spec'd spear, or 3/8 of spec'd sword, or whatever, the weapons would just be rebalanced according to absolute cost instead of according to minimum cost. It would mean that spear, dagger, and staff would be ideally equal in DoT (and hey, that'd give one that specializes in each damage type at the 4/4 credit mark), axe, mace, and UA would be equal, and sword slightly better. Given the proportionally low difference in credits between all of the weapon types given 56 effective starting credits plus the increased number of additionals, spear at 8 total credits could be pretty close to sword at 16 in terms of DoT and it really wouldn't matter to anyone who wasn't wanting a Sword/Life/Melee/Cooking/Deception/whatever spec'd character.

But anyway, the name changes thing is a lot more reasonable than RACE CHANGES for spear users (which just went to show me that if I were to become an MMORPG dev I'd have to accept that a lot of my users would be idiots), though calling yourself Spear Master, or Axey Johnson, or A War Mage as a NAME is fairly strange given titles exist for that purpose. Of course, my last active character was sworn to one Ms. Turkey Sandwich who cohabitated with a tinkerer by the name of Ug the Unplayable (who was on my account), so what do I know about stupid names.

[MVOFJR]

....though calling yourself Spear Master, or Axey Johnson, or A War Mage as a NAME is fairly strange given titles exist for that purpose.

Im gonna take a guess, and assume you were not playing long ago when such titles were not available... Before titles were able to be purchased names such as those were the only way to associate ones self with their weapon of choice.

[chronoivan]

Turbine would have to do something to compensate these characters if they made spear a racial weapon. I mean no one makes an Aluvian character with UA specced and seriously uses it?

[UK-PP]

Listen to this, a few months ago axes had almost the same damage as swords, but right now swords got improved by a LOT. I think they racial weapon COULD be axe because axe's damage has been decreased. Turbine doesn't want the new race to be very overpowered but they want want 'em to be powerful enough. My guess is that they would have axe as their racial skill just to have the balance with all other races. There is almost no way for the new race to castch up so they should be pretty powerful.


Axe it is!


What do you think?

[MaddyFF]

I think they racial weapon COULD be axe because axe's damage has been decreased.

Not by that much it hasn't. I can't see Axe or Mace as a racial weapon, spear maybe.

[PartyVT]

Not by that much it hasn't. I can't see Axe or Mace as a racial weapon, spear maybe.


Mace could work tho, the Viamont in the video intro wields one :)


Maybe they get it trained for free, but specing will cost 10 credits?

[MVOFJR]

Listen to this, a few months ago axes had almost the same damage as swords, but right now swords got improved by a LOT. I think they racial weapon COULD be axe because axe's damage has been decreased. Turbine doesn't want the new race to be very overpowered but they want want 'em to be powerful enough. My guess is that they would have axe as their racial skill just to have the balance with all other races. There is almost no way for the new race to castch up so they should be pretty powerful.

I dont know how you could have come to this conclusion, but by the numbers, axe has the 3rd highest damage over time (bow being 2nd, sword being 1st)

[Composition]

Im gonna take a guess, and assume you were not playing long ago when such titles were not available... Before titles were able to be purchased names such as those were the only way to associate ones self with their weapon of choice.

Well, you'd be wrong, but I still feel that it's strange to do so, and kind of ridiculous. Less so than putting spaces between all of the letters in your name, or a terminal apostrophe, but regardless, if your parents named you something stupid like Engineer Bill Smith, and you turn out a male stripper, you've got a problem. Maybe the authorities will decide it's worth the difficulties caused to society to let you change it. Or maybe you want to keep it, that might be a pretty good stripper name. Anyway, maybe John the Spearman just decided to take up swords. Everyone still knows him by his old name. Maybe Jimmy's War Mage is too busy facing the philosophical questions of being owned by a mysterious external figure to bother with correcting his name to match his new Person-Assessing status.

[UK-PP]

I dont know how you could have come to this conclusion, but by the numbers, axe has the 3rd highest damage over time (bow being 2nd, sword being 1st)

yeah its not the best but is pretty close to the best. turbine needs to make Viamons a very powerful race just to compete with all these high lvl players. don't you think?

[MaddyFF]

yeah its not the best but is pretty close to the best. turbine needs to make Viamons a very powerful race just to compete with all these high lvl players. don't you think?

No, because there will be 126's within a month.

[Myll]

I like the idea voiced previously, but I will say it more boldly-
Eliminate Racial Weapons.
Those have never made sense. It would be better to go with the 56 Skill Credits to start and go from there. The debate on this would be if it is required to have at least one melee or missile skill. This is important because a Mage would then get 6 free credits to use on non-missile or melee skills, and it could make Mages way too powerful in PK. This being said, there could be a requirement in the character generation phase that forces you to buy a melee or missile skill, and in the Skill Sell-Back it could be tagged that at least one melee/missile skill be left on the character.

Is this idea worth generating a separate thread and proposing to the Devs, or is it going to be Flamed?

Myll
Wintersebb

[Myll]

I just wanted to reply to my own post and clear something up-

If Alluvian is equivalent to Anglo-Saxon/Caucasian people, then why is Dagger a "Racial Skill"? Sword, Mace, Axe, Bow, X-Bow and Spear are all weapons that Anglo-Saxons used, and Sword more than any other.

If Sho refers to Oriental people, then what about the Samurai who carried swords, and the Chinese who used Staffs or a form of Mace as much as any of the "Unarmed" skills. Also there were many Oriental nations who had excellent X-Bows and Bows.

If Gharundim refers to any "Dark Skinned" people, what about the Africans who use Atlatls, or the Arabs who wielded Scimitars (swords), or the numerous African nations that relied on long spears.

I just think the whole racial weapons thing was a silly idea that has been accepted far too long.

Turbine please give the "No Racial Weapon" idea some thought.

Myll
Wintersebb (semi-retired, will be back IG in a couple weeks)

[CyranosCottage]

I remember hearing how there will be a chance to allow pre existing characters the option to change to the new race, there was a post saying that they were looking to spear being the racial weapon.. That post seems to have faded away (I am looking to see if maybe someone copied and pasted it at the time of the post).

They arn't planning to make any new weapon skills for expansion, but they said they had ideas tossed around for maybe some other skills to be added, but they said don't count on it. Most suggestions were just for laughs anyways.

I can only imagine what the racial weapon could be and what other skills that race automaticly have, will let anyone that have them replace what they have now.. So unless they make it a skill thats worth less than dagger/UA/Staff you won't get any skill credits, only have the skill replaced. And if you had trained it/spec'd it, yes, they would more than likely refund the credits.

[Silifi Of Death]

If Gharundim refers to any "Dark Skinned" people, what about the Africans who use Atlatls, or the Arabs who wielded Scimitars (swords), or the numerous African nations that relied on long spears.



Actually, the Atlatl is an American Weapon. The Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans used this as a ranged weapon along side bows during the invasion of the Spanish.

[AnotherDude]

For the original three heritage groups - Turbine used a total of 6 free skill credits to do the heritage customization. That means Turbine is going to pick from spear, axe, thrown weapons, etc.

I agree it'll be a minus to existing users of that skill as they won't have the ability to take that as a racial skill.

However, perhaps they don't have to make the Viamont racial weapon a6 skill point (or less) skill. They have the ability to adjust skill credits now if spare skill credits are left after character creation - perhaps they could give it say an 8 skill point skill and then allow 48 skill points in character creation?

Cheers.

[eelektrik]

I agree it'll be a minus to existing users of that skill as they won't have the ability to take that as a racial skill.

However, perhaps they don't have to make the Viamont racial weapon a6 skill point (or less) skill. They have the ability to adjust skill credits now if spare skill credits are left after character creation - perhaps they could give it say an 8 skill point skill and then allow 48 skill points in character creation?

Cheers.

But doing that would make Viamontians pointless for anything other then that 8 point skill, If Sword was there racial weapon only new sword characters would pick Viamontians since any other type of character would obviously prefer starting with 50 skill points over 48. Also, 8 point skills(currently Sword and Bow) are a bit too powerful to make a racial weapon, even with starting with 2 credits less.

Personally, If they wont add a new weapon skill, Id like to see Thrown Weapons be the racial weapon to give people the option of having a Racial Missile character. If they are sticking with melee though, its obviously going to be Spear since Mace and Axe are slightly too powerful for a racial weapon as well, though I still think Spear has an advantage over Dagger, Spear, and UA already anyways its the weakest non-racial melee weapon.

Still, they could easily solve all that, by making a new weapon skill for the Viamontians, balanced properly with other racial weapons so it wouldnt upset anyone.

[darkpriest]

Mana Conversion.

[MaddyFF]

Mana Conversion.

Heh, then such a high percentage of the characters would be Viamont it would be silly. Be worse then when Gharu's were the only one with a free tinkering skill.

[Kossuth]

My only quibble over spear is that 99% of the weapon wielders are using swords in the Viamontian Lore (the 1% being tankards!). Ok I'm exaggerating but swords is almost exclusive. the only instance of mace is in the video and unless I missed something axe is non-existent. There have been mention of soldiers with spears so that is still likely to be the way to go.

On the good side looks like daggers are in the clear if the storyteller wasn't properly trained in their use!! but then he could about use them ....... oh dear! :D