Because you are confusing game balance logic with real life logic. These are just words to explain game mechanics, not literal happenings. It is equally illogical that a creature could be 'dismembered' and be at a few scratches or that your ability to endure blows scales linearly with your rank in some guild. Does a soldier in real life get 50 times the bullet tolerance if you promote him 50 times in the army?
I can equally justify these three different representations of HP in a game:
HP is a measure of physical health. It thereby solely relies on the con stat and thus completely based on race. Class is ignored. A fire giant shaman, warrior, and zerker will have the same HP because they are all fire giants with similar bodies.
HP is a measure of your ability to stay alive under duress. In this example, this is a function of training and experience, in other words your class. Race is ignored. My faerie zerk has super training and can shrug off, instantly magically regenerate, or otherwise simply ignore wounds that the fire giant cleric cannot. At what limit? HP of course.
HP is a measure of some invisible power's favor to keep you alive. You can take a certain amount of punishment deemed acceptable by the power. When you hit zero, you die. This ignores both race and class.
Which is the correct way? Depends what game system you want to run...any one could be correct or incorrect. HP is a completely arbitrary number. Choose the mechanics and THEN justify them with whatever lore/definition you want.
I want to see the HP of a gnome warrior with trains vs a FG warrior with trains, just for curiosity.
Then I want to see a gnome with higher HP compete. They won't. They don't have the strength. The HP value won't change how well the combo does, in my opinion.(An opinion that has no evidence behind. Its just what Ithink.)
I agree that HP adjustments alone will not magically make low/bottom tier races competitive in their classes. It will, however, make them MORE competitive than they currently are. A gnome warrior might go from absolutely horrible to somewhat bad. That is a big improvement in balance to me. I'd rather play a drow warrior with 1100 hp than one with 750, but I still won't be choosing a drow warrior as a 'power combo' because I can get that 1100 hp + better stats + better perks in other races. If the drow can dump tons of trains into HP and actually have an HP advantage over giants, that still won't make them any better than giants. It is significantly better than our current situation though.
/----------------/----------------------------------------------| Draethyl || Blademaster of GLADIATOR |----------------/----------------------------------------------/| Str: 18(18) || Level: 50 Sex: M Age : 1077(337h) || Int: 24(24) || Class: blademaster Ethos: chaotic || Wis: 20(20) || Race : drow Align: evil || Dex: 24(25)^6 || **Hp : 1066/1066 ** Exp : 49680/631120 || Con: 17(16) || Mana : 642/737 |\ Lck: [|||---] / Move : 529/533 +Hit: 68 +Dam: 60 //----------------/------------------/--------------------------| ARMOR || SAVES || Deity : Tongar || Slash : -286 || Spell : -32 || Faith : Combat || Pierce: -289 || Afflictive : -26 || Weight: 252/325 || Blunt : -290 || Maledictive: -14 || Items : 38/43 || Magic : -302 || Mental : -33 || Prac : 0 Train: 0 || || Breath : 0 || RP : 134 || Weapon: high || Pos: right || Gold : 346K CP: 16.1k |----------------/------------------/--------------------------// Condition: You are in the prime of your health. | Anatomy :Mob Human Elf Dwarf DemiHum Giant Beast Flying Unique || 100 100 120 100 16 120 110 100 100 || You are ready for a cabal promotion. || [WARMASTER] forces are aiding your feet and stamina. |----------------------------------------------------------------/
Draethyl had 1066. Now, I know he was a blade master and not a warrior, but I would bet if he WAS a warrior, it'd probably be higher than that and much closer to the 1100-1150 range.
EDIT: How much of that is coming from EQ, I don't know.
I want to see the HP of a gnome warrior with trains vs a FG warrior with trains, just for curiosity.
Warriors have 9-15 health per level, last I checked.
Gnomes get 30 to start with and +2/lvl for CON for a total of 569-863 health.
FG's get 50 to start and +6/lvl due to CON for a total of 785-1079.
Warriors have what, 40 skills all said? Let's use that.
Gnomes get 5 prac's per level, FG's get 2. That's 245 practices for the gnome, 98 for the FG. Spending one prac per skill we've got 205 and 58 respectively. Let's make it 200/60 for ease. That's 20 extra trains for the gnome and 6 for the FG or +200 and +60. On top of the 13 trains you get every 5 plus the base 3.
Final total:
Gnome: 899-1193 (1046 avg)
FG: 975-1269 (1122 avg)
You're looking about 76 hp difference, base.
Not counting pracs/trains through quests, +hp gear, etc.
Thanks for running some more numbers for us, Magick. Mya's examples are showing a 200-300 spread in the ranger/warrior combinations she chose, but elf to dwarf is more extreme than Magick's gnome to giant. If the variance is tight, the change isn't worth it. If the variance gets above the 10%ish range ~100 - 150 hp, it starts to become significant enough to think about. That call is up to @Ereleias he has the information.
I'd be really curious to see faerie to human thief (6? con gap on thief) and human to (fire) giant berserker (3 con gap on zerk).
I'm confused, is the purpose of this to make classes better/equal at their field or to make them viable with any class?
If its the latter just go or mana isn't enough, you have to modify the other stats which I suggested a small idea to before. If we want all of these races truly viable you'd have to give stats to the class and every race would then be the same minus racial bonuses.
A fg warrior would have the same str/dex/con as an elf or gnome with the explanation that they've done the same training or magic has empowered the small creatures etc... Same for mages, low str high int for all.
Does that make the game boring for some? Maybe. Does it open up the path for multiple RP angles while also allowing you to be viable on pk which is important as well? Yes.
The racial bonuses would still mean ogre/giant would be better but not as much.
Only other idea I have is to give each race 0 stats at creation with the same number of points and each class has a requirement in their main stats. Being too low in offstats would have huge penalties, this would allow someone to modify stats to suit their RP/backstory.
Maybe their Gnome wears mechanical arms so they gave high str, or their elf was blessed with bark skin so they have high con.
Not saying these ideas are good or better just tossing them out for someone to run with them. Doesn't really matter to me how viable my race is I'll die anyways so I focus on RP and fun now haha.
Luck also pays a factor, although more minor than con. Most people ignore it when leveling since it could still roll low and net you an additional 20... Or it could be great and net you 50+...
As to the main thread.
If it came up to a vote on the immortal threads, I would vote no. Personally, my goal is to reduce the amount of "game-isms", especially if they just plain don't make sense. Unfortunately, this falls into that category.
As well, Erelei's time is much better spent with more impactful code. Magick's numbers are pretty spot on, and really illustrate the lack of impact there would be for the amount of effort put into an overhaul of the hpgain system.
Thanks for running some more numbers for us, Magick. Mya's examples are showing a 200-300 spread in the ranger/warrior combinations she chose, but elf to dwarf is more extreme than Magick's gnome to giant. If the variance is tight, the change isn't worth it. If the variance gets above the 10%ish range ~100 - 150 hp, it starts to become significant enough to think about. That call is up to @Ereleias he has the information.
The gap between a gnome and a FG is as extreme as the difference between the elf and the dwarf. The only difference is that gnomes can convert practices to hp in quantities no other race can. Though illithids come close as they get 4 instead of 5 practices per level, but they're limited to one class anyway. With them out of the way, we can for the most part ignore train acquired hp.
As it's been said before, all warriors get the same base hp range, the second highest in the game, by the way. 441-735 + (base hp [ranges from 15 to 60]) + (CON [+0 to +8]). The variance in race hp comes from CON. Some races are sturdier than others, hence the dwarves, duergars and giants high con. Some aren't, like faeries. So yes, there's going to be disparity. The faerie will clock in at a lovely 456-750 (assuming faeries could even BE warriors, but this is an example, so let's roll with it [and for the record elves/drow have 510-804]), and of course we have the Dwarf which clocks in at a hefty 893-1187. The average CON bonus is 3.5 based on +hp per CON point and 3.66(6) averaging out the con bonus of all the races. Just shy of Sliths (672-966), even with their lower number of trains.
Necro's get the lowest hp range, giving drow necros the lowest base hp in the game, hands down. Like 363-461 range. Lower still than our mighty faerie warrior.
If I'm reading your proposed change correctly, you want to wipe clear the CON difference. That would essentially put the Faerie Warrior on par with the FG Warrior. Let's talk extremes and averages. If you put the extremes down to the average, would that really balance things? Faerie Warrior given +200 hp (25-43% buff) while the dwarf is docked the same amount (17-22% nerf). Based on the current system, no, that wouldn't balance things. I'll come back to this.
An alternate way to read your proposal is to give warriors and necros the same HP pool. Averaging out the current 363 (drow nec min) -1187 (dwarf war max) makes it 775, or 726 averaging the averages. That's a massive boost to one and a sizable nerf to the other. Based on the current system.
Of course, you propose a change to the current system to where CON gives a smaller/larger regen bonus. This would basically make the equal hp irrelevant, regardless of how your proposal is read, and instead increase or decrease recovery time. A Faerie would take an arbitrary five minutes to recover 750 health while the dwarf would take just the one. Which if you look at it, is just a different way to calculate our current system, only instead of breaking down the faeries recovery time into five separate instances, you're lumping them all together into one. You're also causing people to have fewer encounters due to prolonged recovery time while at the same time, giving an incredibly massive advantage to those classes that can heal themselves.
Unnecessary work, if you ask me.
8 hours ago, Celerity said:
I'd be really curious to see faerie to human thief (6? con gap on thief) and human to (fire) giant berserker (3 con gap on zerk).
The 6 CON gap between faerie and human is only 3 hp/lvl while the 3 CON gap between the zerks is also 3 hp/lvl. 147 hp. Humans start with 30 hp, faeries with 15 and FGs have 50. So you can add another 15 hp to the human thief making the difference 162 and give 20 to the FG zerk (though the FG effectively loses 50 hp due to fewer practices) giving only a 117 point spread. Assuming averages, of course.
For your viewing pleasure, not including trains/quests/etc:
Faerie thief: 407-603
Human thief: 569-765
Human zerk: 667-961
FG zerk: 834-1128
It's entirely possible you can get a faerie thief with about 40 more health than a human thief and a human zerk with 177 more than the FG.
In my opinion the better route to go for making these combos more viable is to offer combo specific skills/buffs.
Examples:
Quote
Gnome Warrior -- TINKER
Because a gnome's heritage is so deeply rooted in science, inventions, and overall tinkering with their surroundings, a gnome warrior has decided that the run of the mill armor that is acquired this his adventures is no longer suitable in its current state. The gnome warrior has the innate ability to "tinker" with his armor. Through this time honored tradition of the gnomes, the warrior can add increased plates to the armor, sharpen bolts, or similar affects to increase the effectiveness of the plate.
Though, tinkering with something will surely decrease its life-span and once something has been changed, it is on a downhill slide to needing repairs. After a certain amount of time, the armor will break and will need to be repaired via the Slith Repair Shop in Falen Dara. Once repaired, all alterations to the armor will be removed. Once armor has been altered, it is not suitable for any other save the tinkerer until it is repaired via the Repair Shop.
Is this skill going to make gnome warrior play style different? No. Will it make it competitive as their armor could be that much better giving them an edge against their counterparts? Maybe.
If each "unique" combo was given a peculiar skill like this, it would open the door for players to give them a shot. I would DEFINITELY play a gnome warrior for the above skill. If anything, just for fun. And ESPECIALLY if that skill was available on rangers for their pets. IE: Giving your pets armor that increases their damage/hp/whatever for X amount of time. That'd be sick to have a leopard running around in spiked platemail or give your mammoth an extra tusk and you know it.
Some race/class combinations are impossible to enjoy in our current environment. Some simply vanished for utter weakness...
What can we do?
Lets add some special stuff for them.
Wait, now this gnome warrior is giving giant warriors a fight, what can we do?
Laugh, well its what I do.
We can do many things to make the classes like gnome warriors better, but why would we?
Have we a million complaint threads where players are moaning about under powered gnome melees?
That point made, if we did want to fix gnomes, read about breach gnomes. A gnome warriors AC should drop, and hit/dam should raise depending on the number of exits in a room. Normal rooms have four exits, for every missing exit a breach gnome (gnome warriors/rangers) would see a significant improvement to these numbers. Fight a breach gnome in a no exit room at your own peril.
Maybe we don't have any threads because people have just accepted that they aren't worth the effort in their current form? If we give the "weaker" combos these little buffs or abilities will we see a more diverse PBase and less of the same? I don't know.
You posted a thread for a new class. If we made other combos more viable, would we need to implement new classes? Wouldn't allowing for more combos to be played make for more interesting RP instead of seeing the same giant warrior with a tribal mentality go through WM or Nexus?
I don't know for sure. How much of it would be a "gimmick" and how much of it would be a real character that someone makes their main and not just a fun alt to play around on? I don't know. But, I'd like to see it.
I can say personally I would love to play a drow, gnome, or halfling warrior. It would be fun and great RP potential. Until I want to be competitive against a giant or ogre warrior.
I think you should be able to play any race/class combo and be competitive. Some combos just aren't and it sucks. It would be cool to see some skills or bonuses to at least make them competitive in the right hands.
If the playerbase wants to, we can go over races and try to balance them to the current meta - with regards of weakness and strength. We also need to remember that adding a cabal can severely disrupt this balance, and shouldn't be included in the suggestions of balancing (such as, Savant Druid is OP, so we should make their con 18 instead of 20.) Of course, this is all up for suggestion.