It's great that we can choose a race to play. But aside from looks, and ship type, why would we want to choose between any one race? I think each race should have it's own pro's and con's, so that a player can choose one according to his play style. For instants: Glitch: Pros: Not affected by poison, radiation or suffocation. (Can still freeze and melt though though) Cons: Killed almost instantly by electrical traps and weapons, drowning is traded out for rusting, and cannot stand in the rain without rusting. Hylot: Pros: Can move faster under water, can breath under water, Cons: Cannot survive in desert or volcanic planets. Avain: Pros: Can jump really high, unaffected by fall damage. Cons: Slower than most when walking. Apex: Pros: Survive longer in extreme weather conditions. Cons: Easily affected by poison and radiation. Etc, you get the picture... Anyway, these are just examples. I'm sure you guys could come up with better stats, but I think this is a much needed feature for races.
I don't think that avians should negate fall damage, that would imply that everyone would survive jumping the tower! but the jump height is something cool and natural
Alright, then maybe not completely invulnerable, but possibly less vulnerable than most, since they are light, like birds, because of their hollow bones and such.
I was thinking in a "racial tech" slot, which could have a branch of techs specialized for each race, and you could choose one
Ah yes, sort of like the skill tree in games like Skyrim, where through it you can choose your "class" in a more natural way via skills. Interesting, I'm liking this idea, though I still think each race should have some unique starting pros and cons, nothing too drastic, but enough to make a rewarding difference.
I understand you, right now there is no major impact the race you play with (except the initial weapons), but yeah they plan to add something in the future, but i want something now
Solar radiation can destroy unprotected electronics though, So why would glitch be immune to it? Also logically speaking you could argue that without an atmosphere glitch would overheat due to their air cooling systems being unable to function. Which would most likely result in hardware failure. What I'm getting at is you shouldn't try to throw game balance and tier progression out the window simply because a race looks like it should be able to survive in certain enviroments at first glance.
*nod* Fair enough. But I'm still against letting glitch skip through two tiers of progression on the sole principle that they're robots.
We could still find some more cons that could balance it out. Such as not being able to be healed by bandages, but only by some sort of station on the ship, or special repair kit.
Racial passive abilities like these have been suggested before, and have been largely ruled out in the past. In early development, before the beta and public releases of the game, the devs stated that racial capabilities would be handled by their armor, which would possess unique 'armor mods' that would provide racial modifiers. Later in the game, these armor mods would be buildable and swappable between armors, but in the early game it would give each race a racial 'flavor' in how they went about exploring. Nothing has been stated about these armor mods since then. They may have evolved into what we now recognize as Techs. I would be wary of having negative racial effects, especially ones that make an entire planetary type unexplorable. Positive bonuses that allow early access to some worlds would also be ill-advised. If you're going to design good racial effects, they need three common traits: They must always be relevant, from your first planet to the endgame They must be minor - they should not be game-changing, but simply nice bonuses that give you a situational advantage They must be thematically appropriate to the race Here's what I'd suggest: Humans:Scrounger Life as a refugee among the stars has taught you get the most out of whatever you find. You get more than most when enemies or pots drop minor loot or pixels. Apex: Efficient You build things more efficiently than most - sometimes, you wind up with spare parts. Occasionally, you'll receive a refund of part of the crafting cost of an item. Avian: Featherweight You fall noticeably slower and have more air-control than other races, thanks to your lightweight skeleton and the drag from your feathers. Unfortunately, brittle bones means you take just as much fall damage. Floran: Big Eater Let's face it - you work better on a full stomach. Being well-fed from eating food provides a discount on all energy costs. Glitch: Well-built You were built to last. Environmental damage, such as from acid rain, falling, touching spikes, or being exposed to lava or poison, is noticeably less severe for you. Hylotl: Peaceful Whether it's your scent or appearance or something else, hostile monsters just don't seem to see you as a threat or prey... unless you get a little too close for comfort. Novakid: Energetic You're just full of energy... literally! The problem is getting it out of you without killing you. As your health drops, your energy regenerates faster and you don't have to wait as long for it to start regenerating. This effect gets stronger the lower your health gets.
Well, you sure outdid me here. A much better solution. Good job. (I'm not being sarcastic, seriously, way better.) Babies be like Dictators be like Obama be like
Wow. Well, thanks for the overwhelming support, folks. Naturally my suggestions could do with some refinement. Particularly, Scrounger could do with some work. The idea is that humans get more basic supplies and pixels than other races, and thus don't have to work as hard to stock themselves up. However, implementing that will likely be a pain - I'm not even so sure that you can have dynamic treasurepools, and having humans using a lot of alternate treasurepools will probably be a lot of dev work. How do you determine which treasurepool to use when multiple characters are present? In addition, later in the game, where monster-killing and capsule-busting takes a backseat to mining, the ability would be less useful, as most players would be making money by putting their ore through the refinery. When coming up with these suggestions, I considered a lot of alternatives to Scrounger. Let me go over a few of the candidates I considered, and why I tentatively rejected each. Charismatic - You appeal to just about everyone. You recieve a discount when shopping from NPCs. Why I rejected it: It's not useful in the very beginning of the game, before you encounter a shopkeeper. It's also not really useful in the endgame, when there's not much to buy, unless there is a consumable that's very necessary that can only be obtained through purchase. Hardy - Time spent wandering the stars has inured you to a lot of environments. You take less environmental damage from things like spikes, inclement weather, falling, poison, and exposure to other dangerous liquids. Why I rejected it: It fit better for the Glitch, becoming Well-built. Greed - It's one of the most basic of human traits, and it serves you well, because you get more pixels than most any time you get them. Why I rejected it: Didn't seem strong enough to matter on its own, so I rolled it into Scrounger. Survivor - You shake off debuffs faster than anyone else. After all, you've survived worse. Why I rejected it: Debuffs don't seem all that common, outside of environmental effects which would overlap with Well-built but this was probably the closest to Scrounger to being suggested. Versatile - You can be anything you put your mind to. You can even take on the racial trait of any other race. Why I rejected it: It's a cop-out to say "humans don't get a racial trait of their own, instead they get to pick someone else's."
Personally, I hate anything that has to do with race passives/stats. Lets say you want to be an avian, but you want the passive of the glitch or novakid? What do you do?
I mentioned that, by and large, racial abilities and traits had been shot down in the past by the community. I don't entirely support them myself. On one hand, I can sympathize with you. I've often felt that way in other games where races have unique traits. Like, for instance, in World of Warcraft, the Forsaken have the Cannibalism ability, which lets them eat the corpse of a downed organic foe for health after a fight. It means less expense on food, and less downtime between fights, preserving your Rage between battles if you're a Warrior or Bear-druid. As a result, Forsaken make fantastic Warriors - but can't be Druids at all. And going Forsaken means you aren't a Tauren, who has the useful War Stomp ability, allowing him to stun enemies in melee range briefly and get in a free shot or two. It can be frustrating to not be able to do what you want, when you want, with the character you like most. On the other, tradeoffs and opportunity cost are a fact of life. You can't do everything or be everything, at least not all the time. I'd like to be able to use Targetted Blink and Boat at the same time, so I didn't have to switch Techs when exploring the surface of Ocean worlds. But they're both Head techs, so I can't. I would like to be able to craft guns from tier 1 on up, but unless I happen to be a Novakid, I can't. Similarly, if I am a Novakid, I can't craft melee weapons at any tier - something that every other race can. You can overcome some tradoffs, there is direct progress and some limitations can be beaten, but you have no guarantee that every limitation can be overcome. This is where the idea of game balance comes from - once you establish that not everyone has identical abilities, you must then attempt to make the various types of character balanced despite their inequalities. If race selection becomes more than merely cosmetic, then choice of race is just another aspect of that.
How about this one: Adaptable - Your largely unchecked freedom has allowed you to acquire a large amount of experience in using tools of all kinds and to determine the best way to use them. The more you use a tool, the more effective it becomes for you - weapons swing or shoot faster, pickaxes and drills last longer, matter manipulators dig harder. I say "unchecked" because most of the other races have some limiting factor in their freedom; Avians have their fanatic religious devotion to Kluex, Apex have subjugation by the Miniknog, Florans are slaves to their passion for stabbing, Glitch are part of a hivemind, Hylotl don't take much unneccessary action, and Novakid have a memory slightly better than that of a goldfish (which negates any possible adaptation). And the adaptation doesn't need to be very much. 10% or even 5% can give an edge.
