Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsMaking the Racial traits more individual
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 8th 2008 at 4:00PM
Hot on the heels of word about all the new changes to racial abilities in Wrath, reader Mike sent us a suggestion he thought up to give a little twist to racial abilities in game: Blizzard could unlock some of them from a few races, and instead give players the ability to choose a few on a peronal basis -- they could pick and choose certain abilities for their characters to have from the beginning. As in, each ability would get put into a budget, and instead of merely choosing a race, players could then choose one or two skills from the budget to give to their characters. You could end up having a Troll with Escape Artist and Diplomacy, or a Human with Hardiness and Magic resistance.Of course, some abilities are pretty strictly defined by the races themselves, so not everything could be pick and choose -- Gift of the Naaru and Will of the Forsaken would have to stick with Draenei and Undead, respectively (they'd have to stay Racial traits, not personal ones). But abilities like Endurance and Quickness are so insignificant in the bigger picture of things that it would be nice to customize your character a little bit more -- match it up to your style of play rather than just want race you'd like to be. Character creation is quickly becoming the one thing in the game that's stayed exactly the same since launch, and for many reasons, from RP to theorycrafting, players would really get a kick out of customizing their characters that little bit more.
As Mike told us, each character has their own personal background and insights, so why shouldn't each individual character have their own personal traits to shine in? It's a little late for Wrath, of course, but it's something to think about in the future -- if Pets get their own choices about their strengths, why shouldn't the different ingame races?
Filed under: Human, Gnomes, Trolls, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Expansions, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Taytayflan Sep 8th 2008 4:38PM
I'd think that just "talenting" your races racial abilities would work better.
Like ever 10 levels you get another racial point, like to reduce CD or increase effect.
meh Sep 8th 2008 4:39PM
Nah I don't like this idea.
Nice try though.
Jariaji Sep 8th 2008 4:41PM
So how long would it be before if you wanted to talk you would have to have Endurance?
Jariaji Sep 8th 2008 4:45PM
That is tank* not talk.
jasran Sep 8th 2008 4:45PM
If this is passed, WoW would be more like playing with dolls than a unique video game. "I want this racial ability but I want my doll to look like this..." What's the point of having races if the uniqueness is gone? They're on the path to making every character/race/class indistinguishable from others.
I'd rather they got rid of racial abilities altogether. We're supposed to be PC, right?
Candina@WH Sep 8th 2008 4:57PM
If I may be so bold. Other than ascetics, what other than racial abilities define a WoW race?
If you want escape artist play a gnome.
Chris Anthony Sep 8th 2008 6:09PM
You want "aesthetics". An ascetic is someone who lives a very simple, deliberately deprived life.
And I agree; without discrete racials, the differences between races are looks and which factions you have automatic rep with.
Ladli Sep 8th 2008 9:21PM
I agree as well - if they make these "customizable", they're no longer "racials" at all, they're just options and abilities. Keep them racials. I agree as well - if you want a certain racial, roll that race.
Darthregis Sep 8th 2008 4:58PM
"if Pets get their own choices about their strengths, why shouldn't the different ingame races?"
Umm...we already have talent trees.
Sure, that's class related and not race related, but that's how we have the choice for our strengths. And we can optimize that by chosing the best race for that class, based on the inherent racial traits.
And the thing with pets... to me that's like giving a class association with a type of pet. Just like some races can't be certain classes...
(Mmm... that just brought to mind the idea of a Tauren Paladin. Sexy Holy Cow...) :)
Anyway, the pet business it's just allowing you to customize their class talent tree... which we can already do for ourselves.
So, yeah, things are fine the way they are in regards to racial inherant abilities, in my opinion.
Jake Sep 8th 2008 5:03PM
I think the character customization aspect of WoW is definitely lacking - especially as you compare WoW to other recently developed RPGs like Bioware's Mass Effect or Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion. I'm not sure the solution is releasing racial abilities carte blanche, but providing additional physical characteristics or even a special ability (something like the Gift of the Naaru) to be customized would be nice. As a Shaman, I've noticed countless identical lvl 70 Shamans...same armor, same spec, even same looks.
Obviously it would be difficult to introduce new customizable traits with the reality that there are millions of characters already created who did not have the option to customize as such. Maybe Blizzard could introduce the change when a character takes the ship to Northrend (or a similar geographic change in a future expansion)...say your character is in a shipwreck and gains some new (customizable) battle scars, and somehow develops a new ability. When a character returns to Outland or Azeroth, those new customizable traits would revert back to normal.
Arktic Sep 8th 2008 5:04PM
Rather than having traits that are shared cross-race, way not have a pool of 5 or six of them that are specific to your race, and then you can choose 4 of them. Some race talents are completely pointless and this would allow for gnome warriors to not have to have an increased intellect.
Tenchan Sep 9th 2008 2:05AM
I must agree to this idea.
I.P.freely Sep 8th 2008 5:18PM
Only time Racial ability comes in to play is in Arena and BG.
Simple solution is to disable racial ability in Arena and BG.
No one cares about racial ability in PVE.
roguedubb Sep 8th 2008 6:39PM
The argument that pet's get their own choices was a bit odd, given that you linked to a post which describes pet talent trees and we have talents. And pets get racials too in WotLK.
Nice try, but I don't buy it.
Mike Sep 8th 2008 5:47PM
Wow, it's great seeing my little idea brought to life on WoW Insider =)
I cancelled my account some months ago so I couldn't post this to the WoW forums, so I sent it here. My suggestion had been removing the name "racial" and consider them more like "traits". From an RP perspective you can just assume you grew up with a focus on...who knows, breathing techniques, and so if you played an explorer, you might take the undead breathing racial (but it would now be a trait, not a racial).
The fun in this is knowing you might be a big PvPer and focusing your 'traits' on what would best benefit you. For grinding/rep chars, Diplomacy (just assume your char. was something of a historian before becoming a hero).
Anyway Mike, thanks for getting this out there =)
Hashx Sep 9th 2008 3:08AM
Terrible idea... I like knowing what abilities are associated to which races - ie I'll need to be ready for the undead to break fear or be careful sneaking up on humans.
But rather than simply complain and offer no solution, I would make an alteration to an interesting idea. Allow players to choose from a list within their race. Such as 1 of 2 active racials and 3 of 6 passive racials.
But then can they pay to change it?
Adamanthis Sep 8th 2008 6:08PM
I like the idea of some form of customization for racials. If the point is making my player character more in-tune with unique characteristics of her race, I'd have to say that my dwarf paladin's gun specialization is a failure. It's weird having irrelevant, inappropriate spells hanging around in my spellbook.
Some sense of choice would be very beneficial to the system, like allowing selection of race-appropriate options. These could perhaps be grouped by category, like giving every race:
- a single, pre-determined resistance bonus,
- two choices of from a selection of race-appropriate combat bonuses, (e.g., dwarves pick 2 of: Stoneform, Gun Specialization, Hardiness, Command and Axe Specialization)
- one utility or trade-skill bonus, (e.g., dwarves choose 1 of: treasure finding, mining bonus, blacksmithing bonus, jewelcrafting bonus)
schm0 Sep 8th 2008 6:22PM
I don't like this idea one bit. Weighing racials (as well as appearance, factions and other small bits of preference) are some of the best parts of choosing what race to play. Taking this away and making it "pick and choose" will be a detriment to the character creation process.
darth.duck Sep 8th 2008 6:25PM
"But abilities like Endurance and Quickness are so insignificant in the bigger picture of things that it would be nice to customize your character a little bit more -- match it up to your style of play rather than just want race you'd like to be."
Those abilities are so "insignificant in the bigger picture of things," but significant enough that you should be able to cherry-pick the abilities you want? Sounds like double-talk to me.
Alveredus Sep 8th 2008 8:56PM
IMHO, what would work better is simply for every race, individually, to have:
- A Tree (too complicated?)
- Two sets of racials. One more aimed at PvE and one more at PvP. You choose which one your character falls into. Respec is very expensive as you aren't intended to respec this.