Illusoryself is awesome, but a power hog.

Because being a trill hurts, man. MAN.

Sometimes, listening to complaints regarding races, I wonder if the problem isn't that (merian/mugwump/viscanti/illithoid/faeling/elfen/lucidian/trill/dracnari/taurian/orclach/tae'dae) are too weak, but rather, some races (well, humans, and maybe faelings re influencing/debating?) are simply too strong? Might be something to consider.

I'd definitely say Humans are too strong, since almost anything that is good about x race, humans have it better.

You forgot to mention aslaran in the too weak set.



On a serious note, I think aslaran were nerfed with the bal/eq bonus nerf, but were never compensated. The only thing needed that would help to fix aslaran to make them available to the non-arti whores of the world would be a reduction in the fire weakness (level 2 to level 1) or + 1 or 2 con. If we're feeling generous, perhaps +1 con and weakness reduction OR one or the other with either another +1 con or +1 str.

Because people would prefer to raise the floor, than lower the peak.

Some races are arguably too strong, most are okay, and some are arguably too weak. I think, in general, that it's hard to get a good sense of game balance on the forums alone (as evidenced by all the bickering) though it can be a good source of just general ideas. Also, it's generally unpopular to suggest nerfs for races, even if justified, since it radiates negative mud-slinging feelings all around. It's probably easiest to see which races are played most (or least) for what purpose (or lack thereof) over a period of time and go from there.

Aslaran need +1 str/+1 dex a lot more than the con IMO. The speed change hurt their offense and that change would help offset the problem with the race.

No way, aslarans already have the best dps potential for monks of all races already - they don't need that upgraded.

Tae'dae nekotai has been the best dps that I've seen..

I guess aslaran is another thing monks have screwed over warriors with, aslaran hasn't been a good warrior race since the speed nerfs.

If oothai is still wonky, then yes, but that's an exception!

I won't argue that aslaran has taken a hit with warriors, though. It's in about the same position as shadowlord faelings as far as being not-quite-powerful-enough, especially if you lack demi (except the specced faeling is tankier). And then with stronger races not really having enough dex either... maybe the answer lies more within adjusting warrior formulas for STR/DEX, as cringe-worthy as that might sound.

And don't forget this:



And if we just want to wave the nerf stick around, humans can probably have their base stat value dropped from 12 to 11.

As far as faeling being OP for influencing/debating I am compelled to note:
elfen - 15 cha
high elfen - 15
wild elfen - 16
faeling - 16
shadowcaster - 16
shadowsinger - 17
imperial merian - 15
seasinger - 15
tae'dae - 15
trill - 15
cloud trill - 16

All of these races/specs are able to max out (demi with endowment of vanity) in the 22-24 range, and the differences within this range are fairly small. I'm wondering why faeling alone is singled out as too strong. Also worth noting that it's actually just me with 19 base at the moment, so the common high end range is just 22-23.

One of the big issues in terms of performance in revolts and debating is probably that pretty races, for whom influence is generally a viable activity, are more likely to have high skill in influence and dramatics, compared to the uggos who normally do not influence the rest of the time, and thus don't bother learning these skills until they're out of other things to learn.

I'm not sure what the solution is here, if these races gain more charisma, it stands to reason that they would have to lose points elsewhere, or else these far tankier races have fewer drawbacks than others. Similarly the other races, if charisma were reduced, would need to be compensated for weaknesses elsewhere. If we continue balance to make up for emerging disparities on this one stat, all the races just become more and more similar, which defeats the purpose of having over twenty of them. I guess you could standardize village influence to be independent of charisma (but not skill related bonuses), but this is not really a racial rebalance and arguably may not make sense in the game world. That said, it's slightly unfair to base possible performance in villages on Magnagora/Gaudiguch's (singled out for the lower cha of their spec races) recent performance. Magnagora used to win revolts, and viscanti stats have not changed since then. The charisma stat is probably not responsible for the turn of events.

Viscanti charisma is 10 and 12, to make up for that they were given influencing advantages to village influence and intimidation influence. These advantages, however, do not seem to do much for anyone even semi-serious about influencing. I am not one for testing but a credible source (whose name I cannot recall now, been a while) has stated a while ago that these bonuses are useless as influencing buffs in the form of perfume, beasts, runes etc already max out the cap. It probably wasn't tested for village influencing and I'm not sure how that one measures up.

In any case, some charisma for viscanti wouldn't hurt either . No combatant of note that I can think of in Magnagora is viscanti, even the most devoted ones have switched to human due to viscanti outrageous dex.

As far as I know, there's no cap to the bonuses but there are diminishing returns as you stack up more and more of them, as with some other types of buffs. The difference is also more noticeable the more difficult the mob is, so if you test on a fairly low level mob, and it takes 5 goes with or without, that might not be indicative of effectiveness, If any admin want to step in and clarify please feel free, I would love to know for sure.

As for village influencing - the only bonuses to it are these racial ones, so viscanti are certainly ahead of other races with similar charisma. I don't necessarily disagree that viscanti could use more cha, particularly irontongue, but I wonder what you'd exchange for it? The race does have a number of existing benefits. As an aside, maybe Dracnari, and possibly Lucidian should also get a +1 village influencing buff, their cha being on the lower end as well.

That's mostly what I question about viscanti too. I can see that viscanti do have a limitation with low charisma, but they're also exceptionally tanky with level 2 (20%) innate resistance to blunt, cutting, and magic damage - all very common damage types. And level 1 resist against poison damage (not as common of a damage type, but still finding significant poison resist is rare outside of Glomdoring) on top of a level 3 regen to health and mana on tainted land. I mean, these are pretty hefty bonuses even if you consider the level 2 elixir sipping malus (which was lowered across the board in the last revamp).

It feels like viscanti have decided to be extremely good at one thing while being mediocre at the rest to add more without removing some of their pre-existing bonuses would start to introduce the same type of problems that have been complained about in other "overpowered" races.

Are you implying that many racial suggestions are solely motivated by self-interest, how dare you.

so deadpan

I was trying to say it diplomatically.

Adding influencing advantages to other races seems like a good way to go too. I have also briefly considered influencing disadvantages to certain races. For example, Trills do not come across as particularly scary or mighty, so should not be able to use weaken as affectively as other races.

Also agreed on that Viscanti have wonderful buffs already but I'd gladly trade some of those for some cha/dex/lack of sip malus which are the main concerns I hear about viscanti.

The main reason a number of things have been asked for merian is mainly to help address imperial merian (by far the most) and to a lesser degree the comparison between an evolved human and a merian lord. In the last revamp, imperial merian lost about 1/3 of their damage due to the stat flattening and a reduction in their equilibrium bonus from 10% to 5% without any consideration for compensation. While, I can agree that dealing that much damage was too much, having significant weaknesses to common damage types and low health means that there are many other better choices than merian for anything other than the most hardcore roleplayer (admittedly, merian rp is awesome). This has made bashing as a celestine imperial merian next to laughable, even as an aquamancer, it only made sense to play as a TK imperial merian (even then, faeling and trill were a better choice due to the nice sip bonus and better cha/con ratio or decent resistances with no drawbacks, respectively)

Merian lord have a slightly different problem, though still significant. The standard race for paladins who undertake any combat over level 85 in Celest has been human because of several compelling reasons. First, humans have reasonable charisma so that they are not confined to hunting or helping in revolts in only one way. Secondly, because humans with no weaknesses are easier to fight and bash with than merian lords who have resistance to a rare damage type but significant weaknesses to common types, the extra point in constitution did very little to overcome 20% additional damage that no dmp could fully cover (as racial resistances aren't counted in dmp).

The aim isn't to push merian into the realm where they are considered overpowered, requiring another racial revamp to fix, rather to help them hopefully retain uniqueness while making them an attractive race to play. (Also makes it easier for everyone else to figure out what kind of elemental runes they want to buy. Hah!) Which is the main thrust behind the suggestions for +1 cha, +1 eq bonus, +1 or 2 elixir sip bonus, and -1 fire/lightning malus with the possibility of better bashing damage for high stats.