To which I said:
"It would piss off a lot more paying people if the race ended up being anything but flavor."
Yes, you don't have to repeat yourself.
It's simple math. Less people have access to Imperial than the other races, so if Imperial ends up being the most powerful race, everyone except the few with access to it would be pissed off. Imperial has to be a flavor thing, unlike Breton, because very few will be able to play one. You can be damn sure the hardcore guilds would be extremely loud if a race that is unobtainable after the launch of the game offered some sort of unique bonus that made them the best choice for high end content. It's simply not an option, not even close.
I'm sorry, but there's no way that your position on this is somehow magically a guarentee that developers who've already demonstrated they're willing to break promises will follow your line of thinking.
I have NO idea why you'd expect me to just accept your hopeful position as some kind of fact.
The race will NOT be unobtainable after launch - it will just cost money.
We can hope you're right, but to talk as if that's the only option is ludicrously naive.
I'm not saying percentage-based bonuses are meaningless. I'm saying the ones Imperials get will be, so the whole "P2W" argument is moot. It would be beyond stupid to give them anything but mediocre bonuses.
Oh yeah - you're psychic and that's the end of it?
What kind of percentage-based bonuses are objectively mediocre and are they not advantages? Tell me, please.
I'll believe that when I see it. Power gamers will find the most efficient way of doing something, and then everyone will be forced to do it that way. I would be very surprised if that way didn't end up being a straight forward trinity based on what I've seen so far.
No one will be forced to do it that way if their design is successful.
I know there's a common perception of a "best" build for WoW - but that's bullshit. What's true in theory on a spreadsheet is rarely (if ever) true when you're doing an actual encounter.
Sheep follow what they hear - but that's not "everyone". There's a huge difference between the perceived best build and the actual best build, and there's never a best build for everything.
I can't say if they'll make their system work or not - but there's nothing to indicate it's a traditional trinity game at this point.
Like it? It's not a matter of liking anything. I would love to see something other than the straight forward trinity recipe, as I'm very tired of it by now. However, it's a matter of what works. Protection for Paladins didn't work in vanilla. Period. Intelligence and Spirit on Enhancement/Retribution sets didn't work. It just didn't work at all. Flavor is irrelevant if guilds refuse to bring certain classes because they're underperforming.
Guilds aren't refusing to bring those classes, morons or primadonnas are refusing to bring those classes.
I've played in several guilds - and I've run my own guild. I looked at player behavior first, player skill second - and class last.
Again, it's about sheep and the perceived "we must have this class" - which is something you can never avoid where people are concerned. Most people like to follow - and most people who lead don't really know what they're talking about with mechanics as complex as WoW. You can't protect yourself from that - that's an illusion.
You can't out-design idiots - and you can never protect your game from assholes.
If you go out of your way to change human nature - you'll end up with Chess or some extremely rigid and flavorless design.
You don't have to go that way - and you can accept that morons will be in the game no matter what you do.
I actually agree, but I still think it's going to get balanced the way WoW is in time, simply because the community will eventually demand it. As long as there's PvP in a game, and there is quite a bit of that in ESO, people will demand balance. It is inevitable.
No one in their right mind would call WoW balanced. They will probably try to fix exploits and extremes - but there's no guarentee they'll just emulate Blizzard in all things.
Besides, we don't know - we can't know.
It's not a possibility. No bonuses so far affect specific skills in the game, and there is only one taunt ability (the first ability in the 1H + shield tree). For one race to have one specific, unique effect on a single ability, of all the dozens of abilities the game has? Not a chance.
I'm not talking about specific skills. I'm talking about aggro. Like we have skills that say x% more cold, fire, shock damage and we have skills that say stealth range is increased by x.
You're now claiming to know for a fact that taunts (not a specific skill AFAIK) or "aggro" abilities can't possibly be enhanced in some way by a racial? For instance, they're X more effective?
Get real. You have no facts to support this whatsoever.
Races are not meaningless, but Imperial will be mediocre or the outcry would be insane. There's no way they'll make better casters than Breton and no way they'll be better tanks than Orcs. The result would be catastrophic for ESO if that was the case.
The outcry is already very loud. You think it's not justified, because you're incredibly trusting and naive - but not all are.
Catastrophic?
Let's calm down a bit, shall we.
As for the paid content - I've never even mentioned that. I personally don't like unique races or races available to every faction as part of the pre-order scheme. All I'm saying is that it definitely will not be a case of P2W. Even if Imperial started out awesome (which I very much doubt it will), it would quickly get nerfed due to community demand.
I'm sorry - but this psychic business is laughably naive to me.
You could be right - but at this point anything is possible.
They offer pay gated content - and the Imperial race is the definition of P2W in the sense that you buy yourself in-game advantages that other players won't have access to.
If they turn out to be totally meaningless unlike ALL other 9 races - I'll come back here and personally congratulate you on being right.
If they get WHATEVER percentage-based bonus to damage, skills or similar - that will be an in-game advantage that you can't get around. I don't care what bullshit you come up with - as you'll KNOW it's an advantage that you have to pay for.
Again, we simply don't agree that it's a safe assumption that the Imperial race definitely won't have in-game advantages that will be desirable for certain builds and players.
Now, let's see when the information is finally released.
Until then, we're just going in circles.
