Gameplay: The Difference Between The Races: There isn't any. :(

Yes. This is exactly the intent. Tiy and the other devs want your choice of race to be entirely cosmetic by endgame, he stated to the effect that he doesn't want you to have to create a second character just to experience the other racial abilities, he wants you to be able to experience all the game has to offer with a single character if you want to.

 

For reasons already stated, I think race bonuses should stay purely cosmetic.

So are you suggesting that racial armors of the same race as the PC would have different abilities than the races themselves, or just give a boost to the current racial ability when worn?

 

You missed my point. The bottom-line of my post is that racial bonuses are bad because it forces players to pay gameplay and cosmetic costs TOGETHER instead of SEPARATE.

 

I think putting the abilities on armor is good. I just hope, eventually, changing racial armor is a tad more difficult than it is now.

 

But even with the racial armor abilities, the races still feel the same at the beginning of the game also. On that note, why do the abilities have to be on armor? Why can't they be a tech that that race can make?

 

This seems like a great idea! I'd love it if in the future there's both racial armor and racial abilities! This sounds great! That way the racial armor can be worn by all races (such as in pillaging villages or killing enemies and gaining their armor.) and the racial abilities will be specific to that race. I love the complexity.

That sounds awesome! I realize that this is only beta, but the game is pretty amazing already! I'm SO impressed, but I also want us as a community to help the developers figure out the bugs and find out fun ways to ingenuity new gameplay while the game is being made.

 

Will be great to see the races being a bit more fleshed out, but first they should finish the last race, otherwise it'll get messy.

 

I second this proposal. I understand that keeping the races simply cosmetic will allow the meta to be a lot more balanced. However, I believe it destroys the point of having different races. I didn't even realize this game was centered about PVP, and if it isn't (which i didn't think it was) an unbalance is something that shouldn't be feared.

I think a great way to do racial passives it to make them essentially useless for combat. Jumping slightly higher(or reduced fall damage) for birdfolk, photosynthesis for plantfolk; the fishfolk could survive underwater slightly longer, etc.

 

Count me in on the team that would've preferred having at least some traits inherent to the race itself or the system proposed earlier. I personally would find a bit more replay value that way.

 

Exactly, my main character is a human and I love the evil little planet raider... but when I tried making a Apex, I didn't feel anything different. So after 5 minutes, I just went back to my human.

 

I don't think the races should have inherent abilities because I feel like it would imbalance them and then I would only be taking into consideration the abilities of a race and not how they look.

For example: Personally I think the Glitch are the coolest race in the game ATM (though once Novakids are in that will be #1). The glitch "ability" linked to the armor, iirc, is digging faster. Kind of a lame ability if you ask me since end-game (once you have the final armor tier that is) you probably wont be digging around in the ground a whole lot since well, you'll have the final armor and weapons and you wont need ore anymore! But I don't really care because end-game armors with the abilities can be worn by all and because of vanity slots, I can look however I want while still getting the same benefits of the armor of my choosing.

However, the Avian's ability is just SO useful. Being able to glide means you can get over terrain faster as well as negate fall damage. Since fall damage is such a huge factor to survive-ability in the game, if Avians had the same ability as a racial bonus, I would HAVE to play as an Avian even though I think they are one of the worst looking races in the game. This wouldn't make me happy obviously because I would feel like I'm being forced to either play the race I want and be punished for it or play a race I don't want to play just to have that racial advantage.

There is literally no amount of balancing that would make racial abilities NOT a factor in character creation.

So, obviously by giving racial abilities, it would imbalance the game and force people to play races regardless of their preference.

 

To quote a friend of mine, when speaking about Starbound races today, "Well, it's not DnD."
I don't know why people have such an obsession with the races all needing to be different in order to "feel" different. When I play different races, it feels differently to me because I made a conscious decision to play that race. When I start a character, I think about what kind of base I want to build, and what kind of character I generally want to play. Do I want to avoid meat altogether, etc?

If you lack the ability to feel differently when you play different races, I feel sorry for you. You're missing out on a lot of what is great about gaming. What I feel it really comes down to is that playing a specific race should be about how you want to play your character. Not how you want to get the best advantage. Even with the bonuses from armours, there isn't a whole lot to gain over other races the way it is.

Aside from that, as others have said, Tiy has stated that he wants races to be cosmetic only. So I don't see the point of all these threads arguing for racial differences when there are probably mods for it already. It won't be in the official game because the game developers aren't making that kind of game. End of.

If you want it, mod it in. At least stop arguing about it in some vague attempt to bully the developers into satisfying your need.

 

Why would you HAVE to play Avian?! You can choose to play a certain race because you want their passive... but you don't HAVE to do anything. Racial passives only imbalance the game if they aren't balanced to begin with. Gliding and negating fall damage is an OP passive... so they wouldn't use those abilities. However, slightly less fall damage and a slightly higher jump however would not be imbalanced.

 

The ONLY differences that each race make are your appearance, what schematics and food recipes are available early in the game (and what can be safely eaten apparently), and dialogue from NPCs as well as what your character says when they inspect objects, as well as the storyline. There are no racial bonuses, whoever says that innate racial bonuses/passives haven't been implemented yet because it's beta don't know what the hell they're talking about. The "racial bonuses" exist on equipment only, meaning anyone can technically glide while wearing Avian armor, for example.

Personally, I wish a little more creativity (and diversity) was used with the races, but whatever. Not much we can do, I guess.

 

The added flavor is the armor, the ship, the lore, the analysis of items in the world AND the main plotline that will be implemented on completion of the game >_>

 

racial passives shouldnt affect combat in any significant way. things like breathing underwater (Hyotl), eating whatever you want due to being immune to most poison and poison resistant (Florian), the ability to jump a little higher (Apex), digging quicker (Glitch), gliding ability (Avian), and carrying more stuff (Human), i fail to see how any of those would directly affect pvp in any significant way. jumping higher might provide a slight advantage, but in the end, not enough to make them godlike. its a jump. breathing underwater actually might be better for the simple fact that you can just jump in the ocean and stay there shooting. but things like that are very situational and a skilled player can and will find ways around weaknesses.

my view is this. races should have racial passives, but have armor pieces that you can find the blueprints to and piece together armor that would give you some advantages to augment or complement your god given ones you started out with.

eliminate the base armors completely (copper, silver gold), keep the racial armor assets. and instead have new armor pieces that can be crafted and possibly improved upon. this goes for any armor. the base armors arent really anything more than the base that the racial amror is based on, and compared to racial armors its usually terrible.

once armor is built, you could reforge your favorite pieces with the better stats to be better in the areas that youll be exploring. so if you like a specific style better than another one being able to upgrade it might not make it as great as the tier after it but it would be close enough to still compete.

new pieces would be things like a rebreather, rocket boots, exosuit pieces, pretty much anything that could give the player the opportunity to match another player with a couple of equipment modifications.

Would this help you so much if you were ambushed? maybe not. but this game isnt just about kill or be killed, there are bases to be built and the scope of what theyll be able to do isnt fully realized yet. so in a 'sanctioned' one on one duel youre going to have time to do some gear switchout.

the additional pieces of armor could mesh with racial armors already present, as with space exploration, even on star trek the one piece jumpsuit wasnt sufficient for all situations. same should be true in starbound, there should be variation pieces or upgrades to your armor that provide things like an oxygen mask or whatever that race would need to function in that environment. this wouldnt be overly difficult to do. they have the base assets already, so adding additional assets would be as simple as rendering them alongside the existing ones (no need to actually make new sprites with the additions shown, just show the additions with the armor.

 

Gliding IS unballanced since A it speeds up travel on the surface and B it saves you from fall damage. The system is fine as it is.

 

This!

Nope. Just like you said yourself in the sentence before that... only if it is not balanced.
There is no such thing as an ability being OP all by itself.

It all depends on what they are balanced against...

For instance:
Avian: no falling damage and gliding

Robots manufacture 40% more things with the same raw materials.
10 copper ores make 7 copper bars, not 5.

Fishes swim faster and can breathe underwater indefinitely.

Plants do not get hungry when above ground. They feed on sunlight.
When standing still, they slowly light up the subterranean area below them. The roots tell them. (auto mineral scanner)

Human: generate energy 10% faster

Monkey: climb vertical walls


There is no harm in useful abilities... if all races get something useful.
As long as they are completely different, there is no stronger or weaker. It's all situational.

 

it doesnt affect combat in anyway really. and theres already techs that surpass gliding ability by a LOT. the butterfly boost comes to mind. Even skyrim kept racial passives in with their 10 races despite making the initial skill trees pretty much the same across the board and removing almost all the previous games race restrictions from the game, sure. some races in the elder scrolls are better suited to certain styles of gameplay than others, but thats part of the fun of playing them.

 

You can't /thread your own post. Pfft, amateur.