Yes, the speed bonus races will be noticeably slower. No, that's not necessarily such a bad thing because that's the entire point of the balancing. Sure, these faster races may not be as desirable for certain archetypes now, and that's a good thing because they seem to be in places they shouldn't.

Being drunk and taking less damage is all well and good, except that when you're drunk (no matter how high your tolerance) you start talking funny, messing up actions, and even falling down or passing out. I'm not really worried about drunken dwarves or dracnari suddenly being "omnitanks."

I'm worried that igasho are being unfairly targeted for a nerf when they could use a very small buff (to int or dex or writhing speed). Actually, I could completely understand the increased fire weakness if something else was given in exchange.

I'm really hoping this balance thing doesn't go through.

As an Aslaran, I have 12 con to start with, and it's not going to increase like a humans will. I assess people of meaningfully lower circle, and they'll sometimes have more health than I do, even when I def up with weathering and spend power on yellow. On top of this are the Aslaran slower herb and elixer balances. So we've got slower curing balances, lower hit points, and a level 2 vulnerability to fire.

Through large and (for me, fortuitiously incidental) investment in time and real life money, I have nicely reforged fullplate I keep forging runes on, and trans resilience. I don't have DMP, but I do have medinebag. Even with all these things, I feel squishy at times, especially considering that a naturally tougher race could do the same thing and the gap would remain identical.

It's not as if fast balance warriors are dominating race choice sub demi anyway either, not even the way mugwumps dominate the less physical archetypes. The Serenguard has a whole bunch of loboshigaru, humans, and elfen.

If the global balance changes go through, it's basically saying, "hey, not only is your redeeming quality really diminished, but you've retained all your weaknesses, and, oh, the big strong rawr races that were slower are also faster than they used to be!"

It's nice the way it is (sub demi at least) because there is a lot of variety. Please don't rip apart the sub demi races that rely on balance bonuses just for the sake of managing the preception that the relatively small number of demigod, fast balance, warrior archetype characters are powerful due to these bonuses. They're powerful because they get tougher, not because of the bonuses. Keep them relatively less tough, and it wouldn't be this way. There's no reason to make every faeling, aslaran, and furrikin warrior out there feel like they're no longer viable when compared to tougher races.

And Zarquan, it is a bad thing, because right now there is a lot of viable diversity sub demi. Aslaran are even suggested in their racial description that they do well in physical things. Shadowlord faelings only exist in the warrior archetype. And there are still many viable, not speedy warrior combatants, because it's not as essential as it is for the reasons there are so many mugwumps.

One of the reasons high speed needs to be nerfed, in the case of aslaran as well as the more obvious faeling and mugwump, is that it's a bitch to balance around. When you have afflictions which are okay at slow speeds but devastating at higher affliction rates there's nothing you can do but force people to go to that race to effectively afflict anyone, which is needed against...well, people with systems. Once you reach a certain point, which anyone can do effectively, between Tosha, various con buffs and just getting a higher level, you're tanky enough to do okay. Not so with speed, which only three skills in the game exist to boost (and they're all class specific, and two of them are broken and in need of replacement.)

Aslaran warriors are still going to be considerably tankier than most non-warriors between surge and fullplate - the real casualties from this are things like furrikin which only have L1 balance/eq gain and didn't really need to lose anything from it...but then not many people played races like that for the combat anyway (although free tumble was always nice.)

If you want to make a case for their being improved in some other area to compensate, that's one thing, but the speed still has to go.

That's it exactly. People, go actually look at the warrior guilds at least, and see how many of them are actually speed races? It's even a joke in the Serenguard that it's being taken over by loboshigaru. Faelings have really really low con. Aslaran have 12 con, sip penalty, herb penalty, and fire vulnerability.

Where does this fiction come from regarding the speed races? Is it only demis? If so, please... just stop.

The issue (for the balance races, at least) is mostly tied to stun concerns and Monks. When a warrior specialization can easily pull off a lot of stun at low wounding states, it doesn't really matter what their strength is-- their speed is the only thing that matters. A lot of that is just because stun is designed to be extremely strong, and for some reason it was thought to make it a key component at low wounding ranges of a specific archetype. The same sort of thing happens with Monks (though there's also the issue with fast races also having high dexterity, and high dex meaning more wounding / more owchy from a Monk).

So, the speed is being changed to fix the stun issues. What about the specializations WITHOUT the stun issues that were already balanced beforehand? That's the part being talked about, not the stun fixing (which I think most people will agree was very much necessary). Personally, I'd like to just fix stun itself so it's not such a be-all end-all affliction, but doesn't seem that's the route we're taking.

I do believe that these races should be viable on some level to be warriors outside of Bonecrusher specialization, pre-Demigod. With the current changes, they really aren't looking to be. Like I said, though, I'm short on other ideas beyond fiddling with stats that have less impact on BC stun-afflictions and more on the other specs.

Btw, Casilu, speaking of faeling monk damage - all monk damage is pitiful by way of the class' design. With the dexterity reliance of monks I don't actually lose a significant amount of wounds transitioning from human to faeling and back despite the strength dropoff. Looking at the terrible 150 wounds per hit figures you're going to get and then glancing over at Shuyin's stonking 1700 isn't that reliable.

But needlessly soft with nothing to show for it when compared to other warriors.



That's fine too, but it would need to be really meaningful.

It is mainly demis, yes-- and demi speed races are pretty overpowered, because demi removes most of the negatives of a speed race. However, it's not ONLY demis-- Bonecrusher, for example, is pretty darned nasty with nothing but a speed boost. It doesn't need anywhere near as much wounding as the other specs to severely hammer someone.

It really wouldn't need to be that drastic. Maybe a couple of points of constitution, or a level off that sip penalty, or even something more original. It's not even like you lost -all- your speed advantage, it's still there - it's just not quite as solid as it was before. If that level 2 speed now is more or less equivalent to old level 1 (getting exact times on test server is so difficult I wouldn't even try if I had a timer, so this is something of an assumption) then I can tell you from experience it's not completely negligible - I definitely notice the difference between furrikin and human and did as an MD as well.

After reading only the first post, just my two cents for now:

a) I don't like con being taken away. :(
B) I don't like regen to be lessened. -.- Make it level 2 for demigods everywhere? Please? So I at least have that last thing remaining for me after I bashed it up for insta-havens, +3 in stats and level 3 regen on all planes.


EDIT: Hmm, okay, let me try to be constructive:
After these changes, Demigods will be left with Divinefire, level 1 regen, +2 to stats, Havens. Due to the changes to how stats work, the +2 are mostly worthless anyway, -except for con-. Havens can't be used to escape anything and is basically just a convenient way to get out of the UV. Divinefire can be used once an hour. And regen, the last good thing that was left for Demigods after all the changes gone through in the last few months, gets nerfed massively. Why? Whyyy? Really, I am trying to be constructive here, but +1 regen meant little enough for the fast races with low con, who were already nerfed by the changes to speed and con. As a demigod faeling with acrobatics, I can barely tank 2 linked astralbulls, I doubt I could tank one single fully runed Desitrus for combat, and now with the change to speed, I can hinder him even less from carving up my poor form. So please be generous and at least allow Demigods a level 2 regen, so we can relatively easy stock it up to level 3 with 350 credits for each health/mana/ego.
And don't exclude ascendants from these changes, they actually deserve them more than Demigods who worked their butts off to get where they are, instead of winning a popularity contest.

Then they do need to lose this sip penalty, and need a little more constitution. I can't speak for bone crusher, Akui is a pureblade, but doesn't that seem more like an issue about changing Bonecrushers? These changes as they are? Incredibly frustrating when I definitely felt the drawbacks of Aslaran as much as the advantages. I never picked Aslaran because of the balance bonus or anything of the sort. I didn't even know what that meant, or if it was particularly good when I started Akui. I picked Aslaran because they seemed cool. I don't need to be some super code advantaged race, and I never have. But, I would like to be at least viable, not "slightly faster than average but a whole, whole lot easier to take down". That's just rankly unfair.

I'm more irked because I know that I won't be reincarnating. Akui's armour, clothing, and jewelry could be changed easily with time and gold (since they're all tribal/aslaran themed, even the fullplate), but her opinions on things, even her spiritual beliefs and decision to follow stag are threaded around with her racial heritage. And that's harder to change. "I changed clothes because the fates wrecked Aslaran" (well, I wouldn't say it like that IC, but yeah) is easier than "I held these beliefs and maybe hold them but they don't make any sense because I was another race that they did make sense for before it was made relatively unviable."

I was planning on reincarnating, now I may well go Dwarf

I'd totally be a female dwarf Druid if that was in any way viable. In my not-demi case, it isn't, sadly!

Ummm serious question time. What prompted the admin to look at Igasho, a slow not really viable race with not a lot of players behind them and say hey let's up that weaker to fire bit see those puppies squirm? I can understand if an advantage was given but Igasho in my opinion did not need a nerf.

Edit:I need to check my word usage more often

We've been discussing trying to attack stun for a while now, but... it's a pretty hefty topic. Fixing it for bonecrushers/monks will smack it down everywhere else (including the kneeling pact for angels, crucify, etc). It's got a pretty broad range of uses, and it's only really in places where it can be spammed at very fast speeds that it's the massive issue it is at present.

I can see the problems for Bonecrushers, but why can't monks just be changed to have to rely less on kata? Right now it seems I have to go 90% kata if I even want to be able to kill anyone decent. No clue if even that works after these changes to speed, so I guess we have to see.

I ask if Igasho can be given the ability to Scale and instead they get the weakness to fire upped. Not cool.
Well, whatever we five igasho did to upset the admin I'd just like to say 'we're sorry, please don't hurt us anymore'

Yay, I'm still squishy, but I die looking pretty. Oh well, I'm used to it.

So, balance disadvantages were supposed to be lessened, right? I think I'm still just as god-awfully slow as a tae'dae now as I was before the changes.

Are you on the testserver or on the real one?