I havent seen a post about this so I thought we should take a crack at it. I have seen several times where people have complained about racial stats (Other Forums that SUCK!). For instance I played Elvaan Samurai with my first character and found myself @ level 40 in the Altepa Desert fighting beetles. Another player had noticed that I had missed 9 times in a row...  I had about enough with missing. I couldnt remember the last time where I didnt miss a ton. Again, this particular issue was due to gear and found myself trying to find other ways to get gil to feed my equipment needs. But as a Mithra I didnt have as much of an issue. It was easier to level as a Mithra Samurai than it was a Elvaan Samurai. 

As we all know Elvaans have low agi but have ok dex. In some cases we used a program to determine who had a better hit ratio Mithra or the Elvaan. In this particular case we found that the Mithra not only hit more but they SC'd more because of the hits. But Elvaans were able to do more damage.. considerable more damage. When they didnt miss...

The same would go for the being a Whm Galka which we always joked about. But in comparison to a Taru, it seemed like you were better off not even thinking Galka with any kind of mage job. So my question is.... Do we hope that Square changes this? Should they close that gap so you can play whatever race to whatever job?

In my opinion, I rather they didnt change a thing! That was the thing that set your character different from the rest. My friend Hason who was a Hume Whm could heal better than most Taru Whm's not because of his stats but because of his game play! Dont get me wrong, if you are going to be a Whm you should pick a Taru. I also had a friend that was a Galka Blm and he did a great job at being a Blm Galka. Although he wouldn't do as much damage as the Taru Blm's, he did a better job being ready for the MB's. But if you liked a particular race because it described your personality better then, I say DO IT! Or because you liked it! Do it! Dont let something as stats deter you from playing the style you want. Or simply start another character. Thats only my opinion...

Your thoughts???

Race shouldn't impact your ability to play a job equally as well as anyone else. As of today you can see that there is not much diffence between races as far as stats (outside of taru's hp and galka's mp) and gear can easily fix that. I think there should be as much parity as possible when building a game where you are encouraging everyone to play every job on a character.

One thing I think they should add is extra abilities that a player can get that are race specific. Nothing that changes the game where you have to have race X to go with job Y ... but something to differentiate between the race. As it stands ... really teh race is just the model you choose, nothing more.

Yes they should keep it like it is. Certian races should indeed be better at certian jobs. Some love to play the underdog too, galka whm anyone?

I think there is more validity to the arguement that all races are equal in stats but that each race is capable of attaing Race specific abilities.

 This allows the choice of race to be based on fun things, like aesthetics and lore, not whether you will be able to get into a party or actually "be a capable mage etc.".

The race specific abilties can make it beneficial for some races to choose a certain job and in that way create "under dog" races for certain jobs, while still allowing for competent gameplay accross all jobs. Since the theme of FF14 will be creating a charatcer that u can play multiple jobs with.

However, with the "wheel" skill system,this entire conversation may be moot.

Originally posted by toddze

Yes they should keep it like it is. Certian races should indeed be better at certian jobs. Some love to play the underdog too, galka whm anyone?

I played a Taru and played as a sam and a drg as my main, one time somebody asked me why.  I just didn't feel like having to do everything all over like getting access to Kazham and stuff.   I still ended up doing pretty decent damage because of food and gear. But someone told me that at max level there really isn't much of a  difference between which race you are if you have the right gear on. I never tested it out cuz I never got to max level with any of my characters.

Reason why I loved the FFXI community...

No one has said yet, "Galka WHM! OMGWTF FAIL! L2P NOOB!"

The sheer fact of the common opinion that just because the race isnt the ultimate optimization for the job doesnt mean you shouldn't play it is refreshing.

It was good the way it was.

Also the best WHM on my server, Bahamut, when I played was a Galka WHM.

I'd keep it the way it was/is. If there are going to be racial stats that favor certain types of jobs I'd like to see the option of having more then one character without paying any extra though.

I would rather race had zero impact on your job choice.  Reason being, it was bad enough in FFXI that everyone's gear looked the same, but because of the racial stat differences people were pigeon-holded into playing the same races for the same jobs too.  I would rather there be more diversity and more opportunity for people to look different from one another.  Making races restrictive just limits our choices.

Another reason is often times people will start the game as one job and later start leveling a different job and find out they like it better.  This happened to me and I eventually re-rolled as a different race because the original one I choose didn't compliment my new favorite job choice.  It was a painful decision to reroll, but I didn't want to have to deal with the racial bias so I bit the bullet and restarted.

I liked the variety that different racial attributes brought to the game.  It really added another depth and, as others point out, gear could really balance almost all advantages if the player knew what they were doing. 

With rare exception (and that was normally in the absence of appropriate gear/food), it all really came down to if the individual player understood their job and got how to fit their skills and play style into the current PT, given whatever mobs the PT is grinding.  Also, a good party could normally compensate for minor weaknesses without it hardly mattering that you had a galka whm, for example.

All in all, player skill supersedes the choice of race and this is best seen by those times that we played with Galka WHM's who were awesome at their job vs. others who rolled a more "appropriate" racial choice for a caster class, but who were awful at playing that job and got us wiped multiple times.

I get that some players don't like being pigeon-holed, but I always enjoyed how you could take your race as a challenge and do your best to compensate for your weaknesses and play jobs that other races would be more suited for (or at least on paper were).  While on the flip side, it was also cool when a player aware of the stats could really get the most out of their toon by playing a job suited for their race (and gear/play style).

Finally, I liked people's ideas about race specific abilities.  One, it would be nice if just a handful of these were actually exclusive to one race (for example, only a Taru could use an INT based skill for their "Lvl 15 special skill"... while an elvaan's Lvl 15 special = some MND-related skill).

Then, it would also be amazing (but impractical from a development standpoint) if each generic skill shared between races might have racially specific names/backstories/animations with them.  You know, your standard "provoke" for a galka is called "beastly roar" and sounds, and looks like some crazy grizzly egging somebody to attack... Whereas a taru throws an "impish taunt" instead and does stuff like dance around, or stick out their tongue out in some cutesy and taru-ey fashion.

I know some might cringe at that particular thought of billions of taru dancing around in front of the mob, but I think the bigger thought of all races getting unique packaging and abilities would make a character's racial choice make them feel special as far as having choosen that particular race.

So, short and sweet, keep racial strengths/weaknesses and specialize the names and animations of each skill for particular races (which would be very impratical) AND throw in a rare special ability that is only unlocked by a particular race, your job and preferences as a player notwitstanding (or... maybe you get to choose one from a small list of skills unique to that race that would fit your job/play style).

Originally posted by cukimunga

Originally posted by toddze

Yes they should keep it like it is. Certian races should indeed be better at certian jobs. Some love to play the underdog too, galka whm anyone?

 

I played a Taru and played as a sam and a drg as my main, one time somebody asked me why.  I just didn't feel like having to do everything all over like getting access to Kazham and stuff.   I still ended up doing pretty decent damage because of food and gear. But someone told me that at max level there really isn't much of a  difference between which race you are if you have the right gear on. I never tested it out cuz I never got to max level with any of my characters.

Actually this statement in the underline is incorrect. Again, in the end which I was able to do a comparison to. I had a friend named Wiggen who was a Elvaan Samurai. We had been in a LS together for a very very long time and became very good friends. In the end he always did more damage. When he didnt miss. Races in FFXI, had inheritently bad stats, stats that you carried with you through out the entire game. I would never do as much damage as Wiggen. Nor should I.... Dont get me wrong I was trying but there was not anyway I was going to match his damage. But I would always laugh when he would WS and miss... Must suck hard when you have 300 TP and you miss..... What a chump! LOLOL!

But there is a route that I could have taken and upped my Dex even more for crit ratio and up Str for damage. You could always merit your stats. That could be one way I could start closing the gap with Wiggen. But in the long run, I would not be able to ever compare to his damage. Which is fine. Just the way Square made the game. Im not sure what program it was but it was a Windower plugin that my friend had installed on his PC. But it was a way to keep track of damage. It helped me decide what food and gear I went after.

I don't think it matters much provided you stick with it. Because by the time you reach endgame, things start to balance themselves out with the awesome gear you can get.  Like when I first started I was an elvaan but decided I wanted to become a ranger. EVERYONE was saying that mithra make the best rangers so I went and created a new character. However, by the time we all started to reach endgame, we realized that it didn't really matter (granted for the record, I would have preferred having the elvaan's STR but the additional dmg was negligable)

to the above post, you're talking about the Parser. I ran that program all the time. One of its features was you could see your avg dmg & acc and compare them to others. and it's because of that program that I say it was negligable. For ranger at least... I only ever ran it at level 75 and I never bothered running it while playing any other jobs. I was a dmg whore who quit with the ranger nerf lol

Originally posted by Hendo255

I don't think it matters much provided you stick with it. Because by the time you reach endgame, things start to balance themselves out with the awesome gear you can get.  Like when I first started I was an elvaan but decided I wanted to become a ranger. EVERYONE was saying that mithra make the best rangers so I went and created a new character. However, by the time we all started to reach endgame, we realized that it didn't really matter (granted for the record, I would have preferred having the elvaan's STR but the additional dmg was negligable)

to the above post, you're talking about the Parser. I ran that program all the time. One of its features was you could see your avg dmg & acc and compare them to others. and it's because of that program that I say it was negligable. For ranger at least... I only ever ran it at level 75 and I never bothered running it while playing any other jobs. I was a dmg whore who quit with the ranger nerf lol

It was sad the way they went about nerfing Ranger. My friend loved that job more than his main which was Whm and to say that is something (well for my friend). In the end, the differences are little but enough to notice. Its when you start noticing the guys around you (LS members & Static PT) do more damage. Since we always were in party our LS would post the most dmg for the night and would buy that person a gift. Which always seemed to be ninja tools or food. Either way it was a nice little incentive. Back on subject. Food, equipment and merit will always give you the ability to overcome the stat deficiency that your race may hold. In the long run I still believe that you play what you want the way you want. Just dont be an asshole! lol!

Originally posted by toddze

Yes they should keep it like it is. Certian races should indeed be better at certian jobs. Some love to play the underdog too, galka whm anyone?

not in my party.

Honestly, i'm fine with racial differences. Just make it clear how the difference will matter by releasing information to players!

Let people know *explicitly* how the differences in stats will show in the LONG run.

Conclusion:

If people have enough information to make an educated decision on release day about their classes, then racial differences are a HUGE PLUS! If they keep us in the dark, as per usual, then no, racial differences will just serve to piss people off.

Originally posted by Proximo521

Originally posted by Hendo255

I don't think it matters much provided you stick with it. Because by the time you reach endgame, things start to balance themselves out with the awesome gear you can get.  Like when I first started I was an elvaan but decided I wanted to become a ranger. EVERYONE was saying that mithra make the best rangers so I went and created a new character. However, by the time we all started to reach endgame, we realized that it didn't really matter (granted for the record, I would have preferred having the elvaan's STR but the additional dmg was negligable)

to the above post, you're talking about the Parser. I ran that program all the time. One of its features was you could see your avg dmg & acc and compare them to others. and it's because of that program that I say it was negligable. For ranger at least... I only ever ran it at level 75 and I never bothered running it while playing any other jobs. I was a dmg whore who quit with the ranger nerf lol

 

It was sad the way they went about nerfing Ranger. My friend loved that job more than his main which was Whm and to say that is something (well for my friend). In the end, the differences are little but enough to notice. Its when you start noticing the guys around you (LS members & Static PT) do more damage. Since we always were in party our LS would post the most dmg for the night and would buy that person a gift. Which always seemed to be ninja tools or food. Either way it was a nice little incentive. Back on subject. Food, equipment and merit will always give you the ability to overcome the stat deficiency that your race may hold. In the long run I still believe that you play what you want the way you want. Just dont be an asshole! lol!

When I played I too worried about what race to play. I ended up playing Elvaan because I originally intended playing Dark Knight but I changed jobs because I missed too much haha (I didn't get far enough nor rich enough nor was the game out long enough to have enough of it, to buy any of the acc gear). So I switched to RNG and ended up loving it. I worried that I should have been Mithra at first but soon came to realize that I never missed as an Elvaan anyways so I was better off. Man there was soooo much rng acc+ gear, even at lower levels, it was crazy. That and they didn't make it retarded hard to hit anything when using ranged weaponry (until they did the ranger update I suppose, now it's a little different I'm sure).

To answer the question...part of me would like all the stats to be the same because it's annoying having to worry about the fact that maybe you can't be the best at your job because of your race but it also adds variety to the game and allows you to have different types of playstyles within certain job/race combos because you have to adjust to your stats. So, I think they should keep the difference in stats but continue to ensure that any race is viable for any job if you can find a way to make it work.

Originally posted by Erhun

It was good the way it was.

Also the best WHM on my server, Bahamut, when I played was a Galka WHM.

Wow, I played on Bahamut, primarily under the moniker "Saral" and I swear you ran around with Godslayer and that crowd.  They were once my crowd but I quit for a while and when I came back briefly I could never catch up, haha.  Small world, eh? :)

I don't think FFXI pigeon holes anyone but those who buy into the idea that if I want to play x job I need the best stats and to do that I need to play y race, for those of us who think outside the box the racial stats don't stop us.  Galka WHM or BLM get invites to groups, a good play style can overcome playing a class perhaps your race wasn't meant to play.  Sure you may never do the same damage or healing but a good measurement is, are you having fun, did digital things die, did everyone survive?  If the answer is yes to all three then you did well even though you were playing a class better suited to another race.  I don't have a problem if they keep it the same, I'd prefer they did, but we will have to wait and see.

Honestly, If all they did was redo graphics, ad neww quests and maybe races and jobs, Id still pay. Mostly because I know I'd be starting with everyone else and able to truly enjoy the community as I start on par with everyone. But there are things that were tedious and tended t piss people off about FF11 that just seemed like they could have been tweaked in slight ways to make them challenging , while still fun, not tedious. I hope to see these changes in FF14, but as my bf has sgreed to play with me... I know it will be mostly about having fun exploring a new world together ,, and I will probably seldom voice complaints :D

Originally posted by Bellarion

Honestly, If all they did was redo graphics, ad neww quests and maybe races and jobs, Id still pay. Mostly because I know I'd be starting with everyone else and able to truly enjoy the community as I start on par with everyone. But there are things that were tedious and tended t piss people off about FF11 that just seemed like they could have been tweaked in slight ways to make them challenging , while still fun, not tedious. I hope to see these changes in FF14, but as my bf has sgreed to play with me... I know it will be mostly about having fun exploring a new world together ,, and I will probably seldom voice complaints :D

I agree! That was how much fun I had playing FFXI. I do hope that they tweak a couple things like making grouping the primary and Solo secondary. but other than that I simply cant wait. Someone before stated that they had faith In Square to make a great game and I truly believe they will.

Originally posted by Brialyn

I don't think FFXI pigeon holes anyone but those who buy into the idea that if I want to play x job I need the best stats and to do that I need to play y race, for those of us who think outside the box the racial stats don't stop us.  Galka WHM or BLM get invites to groups, a good play style can overcome playing a class perhaps your race wasn't meant to play.  Sure you may never do the same damage or healing but a good measurement is, are you having fun, did digital things die, did everyone survive?  If the answer is yes to all three then you did well even though you were playing a class better suited to another race.  I don't have a problem if they keep it the same, I'd prefer they did, but we will have to wait and see.

 

The one major gripe I had was the huge difference between Taru-taru MP pools and everyone else. If another race was a mid-way point inbetween that'd be better. It was crazy how much more MP the taru's had. It made me sad to see a brd/whm taru with almost as much mp as my whm/blm elvaan. (This probably wouldn't be true at max levels but I only made it into the 50's.)