Species system

[Blavek Araven]

What Vantus said sums up my feeling as well pretty much.

I'd really like it if Blavek was able to have full sense or something due to his enhanced smell and so on. Would allow me to RP him much better. And I also agree with Arik that there should be negatives on species so that human is still a good species to be.

[Gabe Alkorda]

we might start seeing a lot more of certain races which would normally be a rare sight

Council to Hopeful: We're sorry but we already have 8 wookiees, could you please think about being one of these other species: [INSERT SPECIES LIST HERE]

someone will need to write a new entry in the species.dat file

This takes about 15 seconds and a server restart.

These are fun extras that can enhance RP but I refuse to be forced into a inferior position because somebody decides to make a wookiee with 1000 HP

The highest HP (IMO) would remain at 250 (the current high for guardians), obviously we wouldn't implement anything RIDICULOUS.

How about we have humans as a "jack of all trades" species, getting minor bonuses to everything with nothing standing out? And then even out the other species with negatives, i.e.:

Wookiees have greater strength and toughness than other species, but can't use the Force as efficiently. And then maybe have something where their fur keeps them underwater (heightened water damage).

This is exactly what I'm proposing, Arik haha.

Humans would be the middle ground, much as sentinels are currently. They would drown at a regular rate, they would have an average HP (say that of the current sentinel class), an average FP (again, think sentinel), and average dmg (100%).

THEN, Wookiees would have increased HP (think guardian), increased drowning rate (say 105% or something like that, again, nothing RIDICULOUS), and slightly increased damage (like 105%). However, they'd have lower FP (think guardian), etc etc.

Nautolans would be close to humans, only they wouldn't drown. Shistavanen could perhaps have a VERY slightly increased speed, as well as increased melee dmg (those claws have to hurt), etc etc.

Obviously a *LOT* of care would be given to this. Thorough research would take place, as well as a lot of brainstorming. Given enough effort, a species system could become very nice and create a much more realistic environment.

The only real differences between classes with the current system is basically your HP and your FP levels, as well as at which level you can buy certain powers. But let's say you're... Jim the Quarren and you want to be a guardian. Buy saber powers, practice sparring more than you practice mind tricking or having philosophical discussions. The whole "distinction between classes" comes across much stronger and much more complete if done through RP rather than game mechanics. My consular template has higher guardian powers than many of the guardians in JEDI, and were I good with a saber and preferred sparring than having nice discussions, I could *EASILY* RP that I'm a Guardian while still using the Consular class. Coren is a Jedi Healer (I think?), but he doesn't need an RPMod class to make him such, he just RPs it. That's how it should be done.

Yes, species differences can be RP'd as well, and they are (enter Blavek), but it makes it much nicer if species differences are further enforced through game mechanics for things such as not drowning, not being affected by mind trick, etc etc etc.

It seems to me that many of you misunderstood what I was saying, and then you basically said what I meant. Think about it. Species > KOTOR (or d20) classes.

[Vantus]

In the end the sad fact remains that a lot of JEDI's day-to-day events revolve around game mechanics and the major one being combat.

Giving a particular race an edge in combat would weigh far more beneficial to that race than any other negative impact you could conjure.

Lets take the Wookiee as an example.
Increased Strength and Increased HP. Thats the making for a potentially impossible oponent.
Then look at it's weakeness in this example. Drowning.

Now ask yourself, how often does a player spend sparring as opposed to swimming underwater in the pond outside...

Furthermore, a reduced Force Pool is hardly a negative impact. I know a handfull of people prefer Full Force spars but I could count on one hand the amount of times i've sparred with somebody where Full Force was agreed at the start. Occasionally it's just Kael giving a cheeky mind trick or Aknaross Grip-slashing me.

Any species-orientated skills or tweaks should be purley cosmetic and/or an ehancement to Role Playing. Powers like Sense do not directly affect a player's HP or damage dealt by saber swings so it wouldn't give that species an edge in combat. Nonetheless it is still a usefull trait to have.
I believe combat shoud stay out of it simply to try keep that little bit of equality that is actually left.


This is the way in which I am looking at it so I am, infact, in partial agreement with the suggestion.

[Gabe Alkorda]

I am a lvl23 Consular with 144 hp/shields. I could just as easily be a lvl23 guardian with 244 hp/shields, but I'm not. Aside from my horrible skills with a lightsaber, it'd still be difficult for me to beat a guardian, because they outweigh me so heavily in combat abilities. The Guardian class is by far the best class as far as combat goes (obviously), but we still have plenty who have chosen sentinel or consular instead.

However, even still, a Wookiee has more HP and does more damage. If you pitted a human against a wookiee in combat, I'd say it'd be a harder fight for the human than for the wookiee. It's realistic. Let's use another example: a Kushiban versus a Wookiee. The Wookiee has higher HP, but he also has a pretty large modelscale, whereas the Kushiban is tiny. It's gonna be tough for the Wookiee to hit the Kushiban and pretty easy for the Kushiban to hit the Wookiee. It's realistic.

That's what I'm shooting at here: realism.

EDIT // Also, a species system does not mean "hp+fp+dmg bonuses". There's all kinds of other stuff, we just have to think of it and brainstorm it up. The differences between species as far as hp, fp, and dmg goes would be minor so as to not throw anything too out of whack.

[Iverian Prey]

Vantus is saying it perfectly in regards to combat.

Currently, we guardians can be electrocuted to death once our small amount of protect and absorb run out.

Counselors on the other hand can only take about five heavy swings and they're on the ground.

Sentinels have an equal shot at each, but not an assurance.

It's rather fair. Add in all these other things, and while it might be more "realistic," you still get people going, "eh, screw it. I never win against that person anyway."

I know for awhile quite a few people were surprised by Moza's abilities jumping in a day's time. A lot of people PM'd for a bit like, "Wtf. How is Moza pwning so hard?"

What it came down to was simple: his model scale raised and he was able to get much better hits in. That in addition to his new saber throw ability brought him a good number of wins.

When someone gets something a bit more special than everyone else in the mechanics, others do notice, and it causes trouble.




Why fix what isn't broken?

[Gabe Alkorda]

Nothing's broken, it's just old and outdated. We're upgrading!

IMO (and sorry to you "gamers", even though none of you really are) combat mechanics and what-not should *always* take the back seat to RP and realism.

[Azrael]

There is certainly a high potential for such a system, granting different species certain atributes but i find myself agreeing with Vantus on this. When the vast majority of people spend their time in the sparring halls then Wookies, Echani and even Zabrak would have a decided advantage in the day to day proceedings. Add onto them being Gaurdians and they'd become nigh unbeatable in combat.
For Humans, as someone allready mentioned, being a 'jack of all trades' race there'd be little attraction as they'd recieve no bonus'. For myself, being a Chiss, the only notable differences are a slightly higher metabolic rate and good eyesight in low light levels. The vast majority of differences would be carried out in RP.
To run this alongside the current system....i just see a large potential for abuse with this.

[Nivek Tholmai]

Firstly, I'll add after reading all of this I actually support Gabe, and I trust this to be done correctly.

When the vast majority of people spend their time in the sparring halls then Wookies, Echani and even Zabrak would have a decided advantage in the day to day proceedings. Add onto them being Gaurdians and they'd become nigh unbeatable in combat.

Being a Zabrak & a Guardian here, we're not that much better than humans, if at all really what bonuses would we get? Not to mention, it's a Guardian's job to be really good at combat, you wouldn't want one that was an easy kill would you? Also Gabe is trying to emphasize there is more than combat here anyway, everything we do shouldn't revolve around it, who cares if you can't beat any of the Guardians? It's their job dude. ;_;

[Azrael]

I agree with Gabe in that there is more than just combat but my point was it seems to be the most common going on rather than out of class RPing (ie. a science project, a game amongst the younglings, research into the history of such and such, the list goes on.)
While i also agree that it's the Gaurdians 'job' to be practically unbeatable in combat when it comes down to the temples too regular spars there's the possibility of it becoming boring for some people. When sparring is the main course of the day and people drop it due to the same old people winning through a Gaurdian+species combo that could leave a chunk of bored people wandering the halls.
Sorry if i didnt state it properly.

[Nivek Tholmai]

Go look on the residents page and tell me how many Guardians there are lol, not as many as one would think, you still have over half the clan to spar if you feel like it.

P.S - Being a Guardian, guess how much I spar? Hardly ever lol

[Azrael]

Primary concern was over exploitation from future members using particular class/species combos simply for being able to beat everyone rather than have a good and enjoyable RP experience. This easily applies to Consulars also with certain species and not just Gaurdians .
Anyway, i have no wish to cause any kind of confusion so i'll leave it here.
Kudos to Nivek for RPing more.

[Nivek Tholmai]

Primary concern was over exploitation from future members using particular class/species combos simply for being able to beat everyone rather than have a good and enjoyable RP experience.

If that was anywhere close to the case, I'll say it isn't very likely they'll be in the clan. We are a Role-Playing community after all.

[Aslyn Denethorn]

I'm in full agreement regarding the potential for abuse - and that goes for existing members as much as potential future members.

[Kael Sekura]

I'm in full agreement regarding the potential for abuse - and that goes for existing members as much as potential future members.

I agree also. I'd still like to see species traits added though. I mean the breathing under water, sensing, species that cannot be mind tricked etc. As far as health and force bonuses go though, I don't think it's such a great idea. I think instead that there should be more focus placed on the current set-up. I'm only a Sentinel because I was under the impression I couldn't develop mind trick abilities and sensing the same way being a Guardian. (which is the case but not until Knighthood)

But currently as far as RP goes, the three ranks mean nothing. Consular/Guardian/Sentinel are all one in the same. You can't tell the difference just by looking at peoples RP. I'd say put more focus on integrating the ranks into the RP because currently they are only an ooc indication of health and force regeneration.

As far as health bonuses go and what not, surely even wookiee's have weedy little weaklings among them? and surely there are cowardly Zabraks out there? I'd say leave the health and force regain purely in the current ranking system and find a way to introduce minor species traits into the system set-up.

Just my thoughts

[Aslyn Denethorn]

I definitely agree with Kael on that part. It would be nice to have some in-species diversity, too. But we don't need bonuses based on species beyond the RP stuff ONLY. Anything that aids with combat or Force abilities is just going to end up being abused somewhere down the line.