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

Please take some time to actually read the arguments presented, and then learn something about game design.

It's not protecting people from themselves, it's creating a game that doesn't incentivize people down one particular route, rendering portions of your content useless.

 

Oh, so there is no absolute best character in BL2, only best in certain situations? I thought you said every game would have a best. So much for that idea, huh?

 

Hi everyone,

Try to remember that this is a discussion about a video game. Please don't get take things personal with regards to this discussion - its meant to be fun. Everyone take a deep breath and a step back before you make another post. Thanks guys!

 

I'm pretty certain that the game needs *some* racial differences; a lot of the hylotl lore is about them living underwater, so they need to be able to breathe underwater; and if they give them a difference, they'll have to give other races some too

 

But as a game without racial traits/incentives to play as other races aside from aesthetics (also when most of the things you can get through schematics anyways), the game itself already renders portions of the content useless. I for one will never play as anything other than Floran as there is no real need to play as any other as I can get anything the others can, as Florans.

 

Let me try to explain this in another way:

Empty content is not content.

This is why people complained when they removed armor penetration. The alpha sector still has just as many planets, but with only one threat level across the sector there's no reason to visit them. Before you had reason to, at LEAST run a level 10 planet once to get a weapon to prepare you for threat level 11 when you move to the next sector.

However, there's now no purpose in exploring alpha sector. . . and the majority of people don't. It's empty content. Which means it's not content at all. There's no gameplay reason to explore until Tier 10 Sector X. And at that point you only do it because that's all there really is to do.

Racial traits work out the same way.

If one racial trait is advantageous in most situations--which one of them will be, most likely the Apex or Glitch ones--the other races become empty content. There's no reason to play them. The majority of people won't.

Because lets compare from a meta point of view the races:

Apex: Faster run, higher jump. This is useful forever for everyone.
Glitch: Faster digging. Depending on the percentage of speed, this may or may not be as useful as the faster run/jump.
Floran: Faster energy regen. Useless at high levels unless they balance guns better.
Hylotl: Breathe water. Useless at high levels. Just. Useless. Unless we get some very good back items, but even then probably not as good as Apex/Glitch unless those back items mimic Apex/Glitch abilities.
Avian: Gliding. Useless as soon as you find an energy dash or jump pulse ability.
Human: Extra Inventory. Useful forever, but as we already have enough inventory to dig/explore for hours without filling it. . . not actually useful.

So. . . which one do you choose?

Let's say they don't have races attached to them, at the start you just get to pick a perk: Do you pick one of the ones that's going to be useful for your entire gameplay experience?

Most people are.

That means Hylotl and Avian are out. They're now the least popular races.

Okay, so now do you pick something that accentuates a part of the game that you're going to use often, or one you use rarely?

Most people are going to pick something that they use often.

Florans are out, because guns are trash, and energy regen in impervium is high enough to use techs. Granted, if guns get fixed Florans may move up in the tier. But as it stands, Florans are empty content.

Now do you pick something that's going to aid you in a noticeable way or something that's only going to come up very rarely?

Most people are going to want something they notice all the time, not just when they happen to have spent 3 hours digging as opposed to a normal one or two hour session.

Humans are out.

That leaves Glitch and Apex, and now it's just how often do you surface skim vs dig and how big is each difference? With the right numerical advantages they might be roughly equal based on playstyle. . . This also implies they never 'fix' surface ore generation, like some people are asking for (which would make Glitch much better if everyone HAD to dig for most of their materials)

However, that's still about 60% of your races being more or less useless.

The Hylotl lore is about them living in air filled underwater cities, and wearing specialized suits when actually going into the water.

Leaving things equal doesn't make them useless. It means the choice is made entirely on player prerogative, not on gameplay impetuous.

 

You sure? That doesn't sound right. I remember there being a line or two about how hylotl don't use certain things because they don't work underwater.

 

Exactly. If one race has a racial ability I like, then I might play that race, and that would be wrong. I should play a different race instead.

You don't want me to play the wrong race, do you?

 

Like 95%. I'd go re-read and make sure, but I'm busy running that hunger + sleeping test for that other thread.

Also, I know the images we've seen from devs of Hylotl cities were air filled underwater domes connected by tunnels.

 

Making them to equal can make them useless. And on the subject of the races having racial traits or the like, it would be the players prerogative to choose. So it wouldn't really be the games fault if they can't choose not to pick something just because the other traits may seem better.

 

Yes, but it's also your prerogative to choose if I offer to give you a hundred dollars or a piece of unbuttered toast.

It's still pretty obvious which you're going to choose, because there's a clear impetuous toward taking the money.

This is how gameplay decisions work. It's only fully player prerogative if there's no clear advantage in taking a specific choice.

 

Personally, I think having the armor define the racial bonuses is the better idea. Characters can still receive those bonuses -- for example, if you start out as a Floran, all Floran armor crafted gives you those bonuses -- but a person isn't forced to play a race that they are otherwise uninterested in simply because it has the stats they want. Shrug!

 

This is the same issue with having the races all be equal. Out of races that are all the same aside from aesthetics where you can get anything the others can through schematics, it is pretty obvious that you will pick the one that is most aesthetically pleasing and likely never the other ones. Hence because they are the same and there is no really need to be as any of the others ones, that content becomes useless.

 

The difference is aesthetics are not objective.

Every person has different ideas on which race is most attractive.

However, math is objective, and a mathematically/statistically best race doesn't care about your, or anyone else's, personal aesthetics. It's still the best. It's still going to see the most play.

Unless it's like. . . super duper ugly I guess? But none of the races are that awful.

Edit: To put it another way, if I instead offered you a choice between two paintings, of equal market value, one of a beautiful mountain stream, and one a portrait of a victorian woman. . . I'd have no idea which you're going to choose.

It'd depend entirely on which you liked better.

 

But the racial abilities are still relative to what the player may think. Not all people are going to think 'Hey I should just always pick Glitch or Apex because I will like mining or moving faster'. Just as having all the races being exactly the same, makes it so that you don't need to play as any of the others to gain anything they have, hence why the other races become useless/obsolete when you can just play as one race and the only difference would be aesthetics, which would be up to what the player likes for them to choose.

 

I couldn't have said it better. Right now, my Apex can do everything, so why would I want to play a Floran? But if gameplay with a Floran were to be made different from gameplay with an Apex, then I would have an incentive to play a Floran.

The downside is maybe the min-maxers will argue about which racial ability is "the best" and somebody's ego might get bruised because that's not their favorite race.

 

Not everyone, but the majority.

Some people still explore alpha sector too! For some reason.

As a game designer you aren't really concerned with ONE person's play through. If I were Tiy I wouldn't care if a single person played Floran every time they started a new character. What I would care about is if 50% or more of my players were playing a single race on most play throughs, leaving only half the players split between six other races (once we have Novakids). That's not a good spread, and it shows that something is broken in your design.

Which is why you put the perks on the armor. Races still get access to their perks sooner, but if you don't like the way Apex look, or really really like Novakid appearances, you can play them, and then learn blueprints for other racial armors or go on a server and trade for them, or make a second character of the race you want armors from, and rush them through tiers to trade yourself the armor you want.

I think where you and I are having problems is you seem to be concerned about a single person's choices.

I'm concerned with the choices of the entire demographic playing Starbound taken as an aggregate.

 

Not to mention the main plotline for each race that's only been barely hinted at in the beta so far

 

Ditto for my Floran character. Why play as anything else when you can get everything with one character (aside from maybe starting a new character that is, but if that's the only race you think is aesthetically cool looking, then more than likely you will just keep choosing that race). Since there is nothing to differentiate between the races, there is nothing that really makes you want to play as anything other than the race you find to be the coolest. And also on min-maxing, how would they even min and max on racial abilities that would likely stay the same throughout the entire 10 tiers?

 

I thought this was supposed to be a game about experiencing new things and exploring, not min maxing even the most trivial of variations once so you can rush to the end a bit faster than someone else.
Right now playing a different race is underwhelming. It doesn't *feel* different. A few pixels changed under a suit of armor. So what? That's not immersive. That's not fun.
If you make decisions purely based on slight mechanical differences I don't feel like you have the right to complain about being slightly limited in your choice of aesthetics.