Human gripes

Submit and discuss your ideas for the MUD.
Dalar
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Human gripes

Postby Dalar » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:06 am

1) Our agi is horrible
2) Our int is even worse
3) Con is 2 notches above elves and 2 below barbs I believe
4) The only reason we exist is for the crappy paladin/anti-paladin classes.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.
Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:37 am

Speaking on human int, it's my experience so far that only halfling/duergar are dumber..and not by much. (speaking of mages)
amolol
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Postby amolol » Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:47 am

take note that HUMANS ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE THE BASE LINE!!!!!!

thank you for your cooperation please go directly to jail donot pass go dono collect 200 platinum
i dont know what your problem is, but i bet its hard to pronounce

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Dalar
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Postby Dalar » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:02 am

base line, with every race being better than them in all areas? who cares what rangers think/say
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby Yayaril » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:11 am

8)

Who says the base line can't change?
irta
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int notches

Postby irta » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:27 am

amolol wrote:take note that HUMANS ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE THE BASE LINE!!!!!!

thank you for your cooperation please go directly to jail donot pass go dono collect 200 platinum


I have no problem with humans being the baseline. But this doesn't take into consideration that a very bright elf should to have a tough time raising his intelligence higher still in contrast to the easier time a very bright human would have. As I see, humans should get get their int notches a lot faster then elves and elves should continue to have better memtimes then a human if their int scores are the same.

Also, the baseline doesn't explain why quite a few of the nicer pieces of equipment are elf only and i'm not aware of a single piece of human only eq.

the Irta
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Postby Gyrx » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:31 am

they're just going to tell you to make an area with a piece of human only eq, you know that right?
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Postby Cirath » Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:23 pm

amolol wrote:take note that HUMANS ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE THE BASE LINE!!!!!!


And herein lies the problem. Humans are not supposed to be the base line, they are supposed to be the average. When there is not a single class that they can do better than any other race that has that class available, they are not average, they are the foundation from which everything is built up from.

Got to love living in a world where average means bottom of the barrel.
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Postby rylan » Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:50 pm

Just let humans be dual class. That'll make all you stinky dwarves and silly elves feel bad! :P
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Postby Ashiwi » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:19 pm

There's lots of human only equipment... have you checked out GN recently? Barbs are human, ya know.
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:07 pm

amolol wrote:take note that HUMANS ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE THE BASE LINE!!!!!!

thank you for your cooperation please go directly to jail donot pass go dono collect 200 platinum


Are you all missing the ranger's wisdom? Look how much they gather while sitting at 1w :P

The CAPS are just to point out that his far superior wisdom shall enlighten us with a new, unforseen understanding that: Hey! Humans are great *roll*

My idea of a base line is you take the extreme of each attribute and split it. It certainly doesn't come out as midline. Memtime for human is 5 or more seconds worse than most other races when you start at lvl 1. Later on, it levels out when spells are 6.5 seconds for another race, where it's 7.9 for human...still annoyingly slow at 50.

To address Irta's speak of elves notching from int, vs. humans is erroneous too. You should see substantial relative notching in times, regardless of race. Otherwise, it'd be pointless to use max_int for smarter races _or_ dumber races. Because I understand what was said as a symetric bell curve, where the average notices the most, and as it widens to extreme int. There would hardly be a noticable time bonus. If ya work hard for max_anything, you should benefit. Lastly, wearing all the max_str eq I've ever found, a dwarf still doesn't hit ogre strength..quite a bit away actually. So why should a human ever hit elf int? :P But..that leads me to -

What I did find weird is that dwarf notches to duergar str at 105, then at 117 str, they're STILL 7 innate damroll. What gives? :P
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Postby Dalar » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:30 pm

Ashiwi wrote:There's lots of human only equipment... have you checked out GN recently? Barbs are human, ya know.

How recently? Lurkwood (not GN) has half-elf/barbarian/human equipment.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
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Postby Ashiwi » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:05 pm

Half-elves count as human because they're half human, barbarians are human, and last time I checked, humans were human. If I were talking about elf-only equipment, I'd count half-elves because they're half elf.

Lurkwood, GN, more precisely Grunwald, whatever, I really didn't want to come out and spell it out. Not that it matters, I guess, since everybody and their dog knows anyway.
Dalar
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Postby Dalar » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:13 pm

drow elves are elves!
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

Aremat group-says 'tanks i highly suggest investing 20 silver in training weapons from cm to cut down on the losing scales to shield'
othelil
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Postby othelil » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:29 pm

Cirath wrote:
amolol wrote:take note that HUMANS ARE AND FOREVER WILL BE THE BASE LINE!!!!!!


And herein lies the problem. Humans are not supposed to be the base line, they are supposed to be the average. When there is not a single class that they can do better than any other race that has that class available, they are not average, they are the foundation from which everything is built up from.

Got to love living in a world where average means bottom of the barrel.


Actually, no. Humans are supposed to be the baseline.

Code: Select all

help human
HUMAN

The human race encompasses the general population of civilized towns
and cities.  They are commonplace beings, and are found in most
populated areas.  Humans have the broadest range of classes from which
to choose, but no extraordinary innate abilities.

Human Class List:  Warrior, Ranger, Paladin, Anti-Paladin, Cleric,
                   Druid, Enchanter, Invoker, Necromancer, Elementalist,
                   Rogue.

     Human Stats:  Humans are the baseline against which all other races
                   are compared, as a result, they have no strengths or
                   weaknesses.

Innate Abilities:  None

See also:  RACES, INNATE


"Humans are the baseline against which all other races are compared, as a result, they have no strengths or weaknesses."

In other words, when I say an elf is intelligent that means they are intelligent compared to a human. When I say that a troll is not very wise, they are not very wise compared to a human.

Humans are not intended to be average at all attributes, they are intended to be used to measure what other races are good at so that there is always a valid point of comparison.

Whether or not humans need their stats adjusted is a different question, but humans are the baseline and not the average.
Despite the high cost of living it remains popular.
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Postby Mitharx » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:58 pm

It seems that the statement should be changed to "They have no strengths except in their diversity." Since it is apparent that they are relatively weak, unintelligent, unwise (foolish), etc.

I suppose the biggest strength of the human race is the ability to be most types classes and have a fairly easy starting home town.

Not sure about changing the stats. They get along okay...
Ashiwi
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Postby Ashiwi » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:54 pm

Dalar wrote:drow elves are elves!


Drow elves are NOT elves!!! While some of them may have some redeeming qualities (like Telina), drow are an entirely different species... like weasels or opossums.
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Postby Salen » Wed Oct 29, 2003 11:26 pm

Prolly shouldn't explain the difference between average and baseline should I?
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Postby omrec » Thu Oct 30, 2003 3:55 am

Minor gripe: Humans at least used to be better warriors than halflings/elves/gnomes, but then people whined enough to get some extra agi effects for thos races, making them mostly better than 'umans.

The truth is that for any given class, there will always be a better racial choice than human, and potentially multiple better choices. Except, of course, for human-only classes. But that is by design. That was the way it was set up in 2nd ed. d&d, but humans could reach higher levels than anyone else (Let humans hit 55th level! *nod me*). Not too familiar with 3rd ed. yet, so not sure what the benefits/tradeoffs to being human are there. Are there any races that, in every stat, are better than humans? I certainly don't think so. In stats that matter for the class, yes, but in all stats, no.

Humans aren't supposed to be good at anything, and they aren't supposed to suck at anything. I have played human warrior-classes, mage classes, and rogue classes, and really don't see them as sucking at any of those. And discounting Rylan, they make decent clerics too...:) There is nothing a human can't do, so there is nothing they do particularily well. Jack of all trades, master of none.

That said, I do like the suggestion that human exp tables be slightly easier than other races. I also wish that the ratio between races was more variable, such that the top end of attributes were a lot closer than they are, and the bottom end was the variable part, but I realize that this isn't very realistic for the way the game is set up.

For example, I'd like something more like this:
elf 100 int = 110 human
elf 50 int = 80 human

This would be more "realistic", but given that any stat that matters is always going to be 90+ anyway, it wouldn't really have an effect. Anyway, if I actually have a point at all, its that humans don't suck, they just don't excel. If you think that humans suck, you're probably right, you're just thinking about the wrong human (try the one at the keyboard).

-Om

Nerds would like statistics read on.

[For a more detailed description, try to think of the attribute number as a percentile (as in, I scored in the 99th percentile on the LSATs). Then apply this attribute by looking at a normal distribution for that race (given some mean and some variance..not exactly precise, but more accurate than a linear distribution). The percentile has a nice precise definition here, as being the percentage of the area of the curve that is less than the current point. Normal distributions for each race would have to be calculated separately, as well as a maximum (in a smooth distribution, there will be no max, but we're limited to whole-number increments, so we need to choose what 100 means). The mean for the race gives you the offset from the baseline, the variance gives you the range of values within that race. Following the int example, the elfish intelligence mean would be higher than that of humans, but the variance would be lower. Now, if you think that using normal distributions is too imprecise, you could alternatively just define a mapping function for each race, that maps certain attribute values to "real" values. This gives you even more flexibility, but is much more work, depending on the complexity of your mapping function.]

Yes, I am a nerd, and damn proud of it..:)

(soon to be, Dr. Om)
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Make humans for New people to the mud

Postby Abbayarra » Thu Oct 30, 2003 4:54 am

Make it so that when a human loses level below 25 they don't lose max hp. That would not really help experienced players but would be of huge benefit to new players who tend to lose level quite a bit below 25. Maybe give this benefit to orcs as well.
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Postby Mitharx » Thu Oct 30, 2003 7:58 am

Omrec is human and he gets innate nerding. I want that too.
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Postby Ambar » Thu Oct 30, 2003 4:41 pm

Maybe I am wrong here but these are some of the reason's I'd never roll a human caster .. I know you are pretty much screwed with necro/lich .. but Human seems the perfect race for goodie necro ... And Paladin and A-P well i have seen dwarf paladins and orc a-p's so I don't see why they can't be other races ...

I have always thought humans were the base for everything ... that human nach 100 int is about equivalent to drow 108 or some stuff like that and seems like people always compare other stats the same way ... I thought that humans werent horrible casters but not great either ... same with all the other classes available to them ...

just thought i'd add my own 2 coppers here

-Jen
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Postby Teyaha » Sun Nov 02, 2003 7:27 pm

humans are not that bad. lestion and i had humans on soj2. we did rather well.

certainly better choice than an ogre shaman. :P
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Postby chandigar » Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:10 pm

Heres a question for the staff, if anyone is actually following this thread.

For classes with bonuses greater than humans, do they have equal penalties?

IE. do the sum of a human's max stats equal the sum of say.. .an elf's max stats?

If so, that sounds pretty balanced to me. If not, then maybe they need some looking into. Everything posted right now seems to be about what people think that stats should be as opposed to what they actually might be.

I play humans pretty much exclusively *shrug* I don't see a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.... oh except that I'm much more hung than most of the goodie demi-humans (aside from those rare halfling tripod freaks). :D
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Postby Stamm » Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:41 pm

How can humans need an upgrade when there are so many of them being played/
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:12 am

chandigar wrote:I play humans pretty much exclusively *shrug* I don't see a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.... oh except that I'm much more hung than most of the goodie demi-humans (aside from those rare halfling tripod freaks). :D


Damn! I wanna be an illusionist ASAP :P
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Postby kiryan » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:10 pm

how can rangers need an ugprade there are already so many of them
and tonights winner in the Toril EQ lottery is demi belt and skull earring!
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Nov 12, 2003 7:19 pm

Cuz it's like telling a 2 yr old a stove's hot. You walk out the room, tzzzt! Waaah! They go and try it out anyway.
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Postby Elseenas » Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:37 pm

If humans are the baseline and have no strengths or weaknesses then if we average the abilities of any other race (the hidden numbers in the game itself) they should come out to 100 or possibly lower than that to account for additional compensating factors (read as: advantages) such as infravision.

Anyone know if this is actually the case?

D&D 3rd Ed did it the right way. No benefits or penalties to stats, the other races tend to stat-balance correctly (same number of plusses and minuses, with a few exceptions) and the advantages don't necessarily outweigh the advantages given to humans (I find myself playing humans more often because of how useful I find that extra skill point and feat).

AD&D, and AD&D 2nd attempted to make humans look more appealing by providing level restrictions, which most Dungeon Masters ignored, and by providing class restrictions (I'm not counting D&D at the moment since its system was so different in this regard). This led to Humans being everyone's least favorite race--unless you played one of the "human only" classes--which is exactly the situation we are seeing here.

That the exact values are masked in the game only exacerbates this problem.

Humans simply lack any real advantage over other races. They may be the baseline, but there should still be some compelling reason to pick them over another race beyond class/hometown selection.
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Postby thanuk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:06 pm

Elseenas wrote:They may be the baseline, but there should still be some compelling reason to pick them over another race beyond class/hometown selection.


Why?
Mysrel tells you 'have my babies'
You tell Mysrel 'u want me to be ur baby daddy?'
Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'
You tell Mysrel 'comeon now we both know i would be the top'
Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'
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Postby Elseenas » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:57 pm

thanuk wrote:
Elseenas wrote:They may be the baseline, but there should still be some compelling reason to pick them over another race beyond class/hometown selection.


Why?


Because they are presented as a choice.

Either remove them as an option or give people a reason (beyond "you can play a paladin") to pick them.
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Postby thanuk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:15 pm

Elseenas wrote:
thanuk wrote:
Elseenas wrote:They may be the baseline, but there should still be some compelling reason to pick them over another race beyond class/hometown selection.


Why?


Because they are presented as a choice.

Either remove them as an option or give people a reason (beyond "you can play a paladin") to pick them.


Ok. I still don't understand why you need a compelling reason to play a race in order for them to be an option. It seems like the compelling reason to play a human is they have no real disadvantages...they aren't exceptionally weak, or dumb. They can't be severely hurt by any particular attack (i.e. fire for trolls). Plus they have a few classes, plus they start in the populated towns. Why do they need a reason beyond that to be selected?
Mysrel tells you 'have my babies'

You tell Mysrel 'u want me to be ur baby daddy?'

Mysrel tells you 'daddy? No, I think you have the terminology wrong'

You tell Mysrel 'comeon now we both know i would be the top'

Mysrel tells you 'can be where ever you want to be, yer still getting ****** like a drunken cheerleader'
Elseenas
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Postby Elseenas » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:57 pm

thanuk wrote:Ok. I still don't understand why you need a compelling reason to play a race in order for them to be an option.


Then the choice is non-obvious and forced. This is the exact kind of thing you avoid when designing games.


It seems like the compelling reason to play a human is they have no real disadvantages...they aren't exceptionally weak, or dumb. They can't be severely hurt by any particular attack (i.e. fire for trolls). Plus they have a few classes, plus they start in the populated towns. Why do they need a reason beyond that to be selected?


All true, however, how long can you define a group based on what it is not rather than what it is? Humans have no advantage over others and there are a large range of options for them that they just get trounced at by other races. In short, if you want the lack of disabilities to be a viable point, the disabilities of other (non-evil: ultravision is the ultimate mixed blessing) races need to be more severe because they are no so severe now that we see human being considered as a viable alternative (despite their range of classes) to other races.

They are given an unlimited array of class options, but there is no compelling reason to select them over another race for many of those.

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