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What's your opinion on faction-specific races in an MMO?
EA84
Member Posts: 30
First and foremost, I'm sorry for making a WoW reference right off the bat (and I know other MMORPG's have done it way before and even better), but one of the things I really liked about WoW were the faction-specific races. (WAR does this too) Now this may seem simplistic, and hell, maybe even a drawback for those who wanted to, say, be a Tauren and yet fight for the Alliance, but I really took this to heart in terms of immersion. (At least, as immersive as WoW can get)
I've always been the type of gamer who's never really enjoyed pvp that much, I was never any good at it no matter what MMOG I was in, but something that really urged me to go and fight would be seeing a horde (pun not intended) of my factional races fighting a surge of the other faction's races. I enjoyed seeing two very different sides, consisting of very different races and points of view dishing it all out, in an open world full-scale war/raid. I don't know, maybe it's just me.
But one thing I'm seeing in some of the new upcoming MMOG's are less differential races and more instanced pvp (which I don't mind at all, but I do like having the option of open-world pvp in specific zones.) For example, all of Tera's races are pretty much on the same side, there's no real counter-faction (though I may be wrong and havent seen it yet). Rift and SW:TOR will both have different races, but they all will be available to whatever faction you choose (Guardian / Defiant for Rift, Republic/Empire for TOR), and in terms of Rift, most races are human-like anyway. EVE of course are all basicaly humans with different nationalities/ancestries. SWG had plenty of races, but either could join whatever faction they wanted.
Another thing is faction-specific classes. I raged when Draeni could be shamans and blood elves could be paladins. That's just my opinion, of course, I tend to really get involved with the faction I belong to (even if I don't pvp that often), and felt disappointed that horde specific and alliance-specific perks were being spread around to each other.
So, I just wondering, what's the general opinion about factions, the lore behind those factions, and whether or not each faction should have specific races, classes, mounts, or other perks, or if it's better just to have everything equal? And would you like more than 2 factions in future MMOG's?
Comments
I like Factioned Races only.
Makes PvP Storyline a more interesting
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I like faction-specific races, but I think it can be taken further than the Horde vs. Alliance or Team A vs. Team B method used by WoW. Look at EQ1, for example. There were [i]tons[/i] of different factions. Certain races like certain other races, and some races would kill other races on sight. But even if your race was mortal enemies with another race, you could always work your faction up and become non-KoS. It was very realistic in that sense.
I realize, of course, that these kind of mechanics can be difficult to develop and balance, but I think they're worth it.
Virtual Reality
Faction-based classes are more important than races. But races if valuable enough are important as well..
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I completely agree, I never really got into EQ (I wasn't an MMOGamer at the time) but I had a few friends that were, and I was psyched when they told me how those factions and races worked with one another.
I disagree. That makes PvP even less balanced
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I don't really mind but you don't see non race factions anymore. Once upon a time in a lot of games you would start off neutral and the decide who to join, and could change factions if you wanted.
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Yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention-- a lot of games now start you off in a faction, and very few allow you to switch.
At least in SWG, you started off neutral and then choose which side to be on, and then even switch back if you changed your mind. I've heard TOR will allow you to switch sides as you progress through the story.
Yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention-- a lot of games now start you off in a faction, and very few allow you to switch.
At least in SWG, you started off neutral and then choose which side to be on, and then even switch back if you changed your mind. I've heard TOR will allow you to switch sides as you progress through the story.
That is likely an assumption that turned into a rumor. However, if it's true it would add a little extra spice to the game.
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Faction specific classes/races please. It's become a sad trend that most MMOs today for the sake of keeping people from having to make a *GASP* "choice" in their MMO experience that they can't immediately reverse, nearly everything is cloned across two factions. Sure, there will be some cosmetic differences, but they'll always make sure to have an "elf type" class on both sides (ex: Blood Elf/Night Elf). Additionally, it's just lazy development. Cloned races/classes means less skills, animations, models etc you have to develop, but even though you only have six truely unique classes/races, you can spaltter in giant bold 120pt font lettering "12 RACES AND CLASSES!!!! I THINK I JUST POOPED A LITTLE!" all over your box and marketing.
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The term 'Faction' is totally meaningless in todays MMOs. The last game I played where faction actually meant something was the original EQ. As for faction specific races I don't think so. I think every group in a MMO should have a faction tied to it. This means every race, every guild, every city, every mob group, etc... would be it's own faction. Now some of those factions can be aligned with other factions to form alliances. But of course this is all moot if the game doesn't have a mechanic to raise or lower your faction with any particular group. Without it any faction system is totally meaningless... like in every game since WoW.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
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beat();
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Faction specific.
If you can get everything no matter what side you choose, you've just taken away a lot of replayability.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
Totally wrong imo<------
Faction vs Faction adds roleplaying value to the PvP gameplay. I enjoy it much more then FFA PvP.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Actually I'd like it if some classes or races would not be available for everyone at first. For example, to play some zombie, you'd first have to do several loooong questlines for some zombie factions, and then, the next time you create a character, you could choose to start as a zombie in that town.
Or you unlock new races and classes by succeeding in some very hard group content. Or finding a very rare item.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Totally wrong imo<-------
The only factions that should be involved in PvP should be player made guilds/clans/alliances. Give a player a pale and a shovel and they might just build one hell of a castle. Being told what side your on at character creation adds absolutely nothing to the RP aspects of PvP.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
What about a mechanic where you can choose whether your character starts off as 'neutral' or already belonging to a particular faction at character creation?
Non-sense DAOC is probably best example of a faction based pvp game. And it worked out better than anyone could have ever imagined. Players would band together to defend factions, help each other out with crafted items, and even Powerlevel random strangers just so they would get up in level faster to help defend the kingdom.
The real problem with faction races and classes is they have to be very well balanced. Many games that have created a faction based pvp system do a very poor job of balancing them. WoW is the perfect example of this. For years the race and class options to each faction were very unbalanced.
After attempting to balance it all out over and over through nerf's and buff's. Blizzard finally just caved and vastly nerfed all the racial abilities. And let each faction have access to all of the classes.
I think on this forum, you should have added an option "I don't want a faction-based MMO", and it would get 90%+ of the votes.
Ah, yes, that would have been another option....but I didn't think of it
So many MMO's have some sort of faction system, that it would feel a little empty without it, in my opinion. You think factions take away from an MMO's gameplay?
Inevitably when you use the word "race" some people are going to come here and say being racial is bad. I prefer the term "species" when talking about different playable character types. That way people don't have to accuse others of being a bigot for talking about a video game.\
I chose faction-based races only. I thing each side should have the same classes mostly for balance concerns. But I would choose a classless system if I had my druthers.
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I can go for just races, but I think all classes need to be available to both saides for balance reasons.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
I think that faction specific races are fine, as long as there was a way to change faction. Make it a hard quest, or why not just a sickly long questline? Something I don't like on the other had is this idea that all classes has to be mirrored on all factions. People says it's for balance but really it's just for simplicity.
I prefer when classes and races make sense for the lore, not the gameplay. I preferred EQ1's style of dark elves which were hated and feared by the other races and couldn't be classes forbidden by their culture, over EQ2's style of just objectifying every element of character creation at the expense of the lore. I feel this should apply to factions as well, if the factions are to have any emotional attraction (such as good vs evil, angels and demons, or whatever the theme is). But I realize that's not the easiest thing to plan for in an RvR or PvP game so I'm willing to overlook it at times.
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I agree with the forespeaker on the fact that race and class availability need to be logical when confronted both by the game world's lore AND gameplay of said game.
The usual situation in modern MMO's is that factions don't mean jack ass shit. Using developer-speak "they are not limiting player gameplay options", which translates too "they are all the same". Usually they could be named Team Blue, Team Yellow and Team Red and players wouldnt give a damn. Personally, I think that faction diffrences are too low usually. And there are way too few factions to join. This is mainly the logical effect of the "factions are the same" policy. The real choose is mainly on the guild level. But guilds are also designed to be the same. It is the players who makes them special.
When this ^ is happenening I don't really see many reasons to forbid certain classes or races from factions. You can do a workaround and provide equivalents looking a little bit diffrent. But it's the same thing, only camouflaged a little.
If in the other hand factions differ greatly between one another, for example: Faction A cannot use magic at all and is in war with magic affiliated factions, Faction B cannot regenerate or potion up mana or hp in any way, but is heavily armed with drain abilities (think something vampire like), Faction C is considered warmonger and in the state of war with every single other faction (fanatics of some sort), Faction D is weak in terms of combat but is using mercenaries/summons and so on and so on....
There is suddenly a NEED to make faction exclusive races and/or classes. Without them, the world doesn't make sense.
If we are talking about typical DnD like fantasy world then: Faction A have races like humans, dwarfs, orcs, gnomes and classes like fighter, barbarian, thief, inquisitor and witch hunter. Faction B has humans, elves and special classes (or special abbilities) resolving fighter, thief, sorcerer and fallen paladin. Faction C has humans, orcs, dwarves and classes like fighter, barbarian, sorcerer. Faction D would have gnomes, elves, humans and classes like merchant, summoner, thief.
TLDR: It heavily depends on the game. I prefer when factions mean something beside a name.
Hm, I never really thought of it this way. I agree totally. If it makes sense within the game lore and overall backstory, of course I'd love faction-specific races and classes, but I also see on the other side of the coin that certain games just aren't built like that, or were designed to encorporate name-only factions leaving the rest to the players.
And of course, I also agree with the fact that modern MMO's being made prefer simplicity and face-value gameplay when it comes to factions. It certainly seems that way.
Another thing I've been wondering that relates to the 1st point, is if faction-specific races and/or classes are harder to incorporate in science-fiction games compared to fantasy games or not.
Mmmmm...
I think I'll honestly have to say I, like others, am getting kind of tired between choosing side A or side B.
Factions are great, but I think they've been underplayed.
At the very least, give me the option of changing my faction after character creation. Let me change sides as I please, with necessary penalties and so forth. It makes for a more interesting experience in my opinion.
Or let me be a lone wolf. Or part of a small band of tight-knit buddies.
Sticking a label "A" or "B" on everyone's head seems a little demeaning.