Uneeded Races and Current Race Consildation

Rather than just looking at the themes as they currently are attempting to ameliorate them, I'd like to look at if all the races or themes are really needed and if some could be combined.

My thoughts:
There are 8 total centaur and only 7 in KF, they have no racial and only a loose Rally the Herd to unify them. I suggest making each Centaur Race: Barbarian, Beast, there are already 2 of the 8 with Race Barbarian and Race: Beast would help them fit better into a theme amongst K'thir. With the low amount of ties they have currently Centaur could just as easily be a Class as opposed to a race and revisited at a later date if they get a racial or even just increase their cohesion.

There are 4 Djinn all of which are in Shattered Peaks, granted they belong to the Hyaenid theme to excuse their lack of number all contain Elemental as is, removing race Djinn and making it a class would require minimal edits to Serf to the Djinn and the classes serve little purpose for the Hyaenid theme or the Djinns themselves.

Goblins are low in number with just 7, their racial Goblin Thievery is on 2 of the 7 goblins and even doubling them all up you're hard-pressed to make it a real theme. Goblins can easily be spirits or fairies playing to their origins. As Fae it'd offer them non-flying shallow range options in a split with KF without affecting the Goblin "theme" in full faction Underdepths at all. Additionally Imps are lesser Goblins in origin, turning Imps into Goblins while leaving the Imps with their Mischief "racial" would expand the viability of the Goblin theme as they could have a wider array of champions to affect with Goblin Thievery while adding options to the imps at the same time. Expanding Race: Fairy to include Goblins and Imps would also open up design space in IS to include Gnomes and Brownies, under the current design space with how the goblins are portrayed the typical fantasy version of a hobgoblin can be used as a larger more durable Goblin. Satyrs could be used in a branch of Shattered Peaks as Race: Fairy or could be grouped together with the Centaurs in the K'thir Forest just to expand that theme.

In IS there are 8 Trolls, with a few outside the race with Rock Defiance, simply put I feel they just need larger numbers since you can't really re-appropriate them in a way that makes much sense.

Shattered Peaks got a construct module with the Ronin expansions, but counting the Rust Firecase Limited Edition there are 7 Shattered Peaks Constructs only two of which are Cyclopean Machines infringing on the Dwarves' territory from Complex Machines, sharing niche design space out of the blue doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Salaman still lack a 'real' racial despite having more viability towards a theme atleast numbers wise than several other races such as Jellebrium, Goblins, and Centaurs, nearly doubling their numbers.

There are a total of 5 Strig and they seemed to drop off as a dead race and their racial doesn't have any restrictions for other Strigs and simply fit with a flying theme, would the replace of Race: Strig with Race: Beast cause that many problems? If need be they to could gain a class to replace their unneeded Race.

Snaptooth are like the Trolls IMO, simply need a larger number to make a viable theme and don't re-appropriate into existing races that well. Salaman might work if it had to be forced.
Since the Ferren lost their racial and became part of the Monk theme, their Race: Ferren doesn't do much of anything for them making them beasts like the Strig would remove an unneeded race and add to their theme options to inclusion in beasts.

Vashal are all Vashal, Beast and their racial affects Vashal and Beasts alike, simply another unneeded Race.

There aren't enough Jellebrium to make a real viable theme and they share the Psychic design space with Firk currently, I would propose making the Jellebrium as a Forglar detachment of Slags and taking the Jellebrium Mind Racial ability and re-appropriate it for the Firks who also being psychic could make sense to use it if the Jellebrium were changed despite the Firk being in a relatively decent place theme-wise it'd remove the Jellebrium's simply overlapping Psychic theme while attempting to be a racial theme.

 

I'd argue that we need more races, not less. There are too many beasts in the game. And I guess more races don't actually hurt anybody. While reducing the amount of races hurts flavor, future expansion possibilities (Centaur Theme/Racial in 2016?!) and possibly negatively screws with balance (Boost: Race, probably other stuff that I'm forgetting).

 

Also could you hit enter a few more times

 

It can screw with some things if they're fleshed out I think, but my argument for less races is about the current races not being fleshed out. Witches aren't aren't a race they're a class yet they're a viable theme, it's not as if consolidation is elimination. I'd also counter-argue that more races means less fleshed out races take Centaurs as a prime example, they have nothing unifying about them save a single spell card outside of that they're just a bunch of cards that share a token race and don't exactly belong anywhere. If they were fleshed out I'd cautiously agree that races open up design space however as there is there are simply races that are completely unnecessary. Additionally more races to sort through adds a measure of unneeded complexity and there was a consolidation of skills as is more races would re-introduce that likely needlessly.

Because people are so apt to read posts that are more than 2 sentences as is, they need one giant block of text right?

 

Sok is currently improving existing theme so if there are any races that cannot become their own theme they can most certainly be and will likely be consolidated into an existing race/theme.

 

beast should not be a race. it should be an archetype along with demon and undead (and others).

 

Agreed. We need more races IMO, not less. I think that, the more themes there is, the more new players will try the game out of curiosity. In this case, less is not more.

 

Get rid of Draksar though. No one likes em.

 

I want my KF snakes back, men, those were the days!

 

Let's just get rid of SL altogether to see Burn cry?

 

As someone who really hopes more is done with Centaurs (more FF, less split). i disagree with this!

 

Insex tho?

 

Alright for those who want more races not less let's spread races out into individual cards where they're are more races for simple race sake and have no chance of being a coherent theme, because 1000 races with no uniformity seems to be what is wanted here right? I'm seeing a lot of opposition to it, but no real supporting arguments as to why more is better. When there are supports it's about themes not races, you don't need a specific race to make a theme as is so consolidation and removal of just the words Race: X wouldn't remove the the runes that formerly existed in them, it'd eliminate pointless races for race sake. Can any of those who want more races for race sake tell me what Race: Djinn gets the Djinn that making it a Class wouldn't? How about Race Strig? Centaur? Ferren?

 

Reasons
Flavor: PoxNora is deep into the fantasy stuff. For some players the PN lore and backstory is actually interesting. They want a Goblin to be a Goblin and a Centaur should also be a Centaur. Sure you could make every other creature a beast and get away with it, but that wouldn't be fun.

Design: When you limit races you also limit the design options for the greens. A while back Beasts were very problematic because of various stat boosting abilities, including Boost: Beast, being stacked on them. Beast is a Race with a lot of members. So if the greens wanted to include something like Commander: Beast in the game they'd have to take a look at many runes and interactions to make sure that it's not going to be OP. Meanwhile making something like Commander: Djinn should be relatively simple because there isn't an overwhelming amount of Djinns around.

Future: At some point DOG said that once they fix balance and get into the groove we'll be getting expansions on a regular basis. Which means we'll likely see races that currently feel lackluster being worked on and expanded in the future.

Races are not adding to complexity: Races are a very simple concept to grasp. It is something that you can figure out very quickly, mostly because the race is an obvious feature of the rune sprite and art. As long as PN doesn't differentiate between 20 different breeds of cat we'll have no problems with races.

 

A Goblin is still a Goblin and a Centaur is still a Centaur, changing the card's specs doesn't change what the card is.

The developers made runes fluid, they can edit things later as more are released and have proceeded to do so many times over. Changing simple things and consolidating while they aren't even cohesively unified wouldn't affect the potential to revert in the future if they so choose, but in the meanwhile they could ameliorate the items that aren't viable. Commander Beast would use the current number and still have to go through numerous runes as is and removing something as a race and using it as a Class still allows for abilities like Commander Djinn, the same respect they have Commander Paladin currently and a number of Archer abilities designed around that sub-theme. If you read I'm talking about the themes that aren't established the small ones that you could hardly attempt to make a theme group as is. Try to make a coherent group out of just Djinn, just Jellebrium, just Centaurs, just Goblins and see how they work out currently. You're talking about Commander: Djinn so surely Djinn without Hyaenids is a viable theme since you wouldn't want to have to fuss with all those other Elementals in the Peaks or fuss with all those Hyaenids when designing runes. When things are made as is and given any ability you still have to account for all the other runes, they have to be in the comparable power range you want them to be and since runes are theme restrictive you still have to think about how they work in a generic groups. When you make heavily thematic runes that don't live up to expectations of a new release outside the theme you have to make sure they ameliorate a viable theme. Were there not people complaining about the Construct release in Shattered Peaks? What purpose does the Cyclops Warsmith serve in a Cyclops theme? If all the runes were restricted to their current theme then I'd agree that adding to a large race or a large class causes problems, but the fact of the matter is already that runes like the Vashal or Djinn already contain an alternate race so future releases affect that alternative race as well already so Commander Beast has to look at the rune interactions with all the Vashal a theme that you should be able to consider separate and yet the only thing that separates them from Beasts as is title alone, removing that wouldn't break anything at all.

You make assumptions about the future, but what is guaranteed is what you have now. So since in the future it can be ASSUMED that there will be better runes is it okay to make a rune that is clearly dominant in the current game or would you expect that to be brought into line? I'd assume the latter as it affects the current game you're playing it should be no different for the current status of themes, they exist as they are now, they should be dealt with what is guaranteed not what is assumed.

Races do add complexity, first off you have to realize if X is of this or that race so you have to know what x ability affects which is determined by race. Races affect the sorting of the runes, affect the inclusion or exclusion of a rune from a theme, they affect the need of additional abilities to compensate for that race and by your own statements they affect whether an ability can get out of hand or not and limit design space. If you want to have a Commander Beast, but you want it to work with the Centaur, or Vashal you'd have to spend resources designing a rune with Commander Vashal or Commander Centaur instead of making a single rune of Commander Beast or what have you. There are only so many runes that are released each expansion and if the expansions are released too frequently that you over create runes where you have to spends hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get what you want because you have to sift through hundreds of expansions to get the race you want to play since they're spread out so far you're going to lose interest or if they released 200 new card right now, instead of releasing those 200 cards over an extended period of time which will make them more money? I have 15 dollars now and get 15 dollars next month, but the cards are all released now so I spend the 15 dollars I have today on a box or whatever and get everything I want so I don't spend the next 15 dollars alternatively you see the chances of getting the items you want as so bleak that you decide not to buy anything at all. Races do add complexity, be it in the amount of runes needed to be released to get a viable theme or whether it comes to the inclusion of or exclusion of certain runes during the design most importantly it affects the complexity of creating runes from a developer stand point. You say you want more races not less, yet you yourself are putting restrictions on it, having a tiger, jaguar, panther race in the Leoss is having more races, it's what you said you wanted, but now you're contradicting yourself and saying you don't want more races when you can have them because of X, that X is the determining factor whether current races can be consolidated to better the state of the game ameliorating the status of the runes in the CURRENT game that belong to a theme in name only like the Centaur, but don't have anywhere to go with that additionally Witches are a perfectly viable class base theme with abilities of their own that play off their class while at the same time letting those runes potentially belong to other themes, changing the current status of a few races to classes where it can make just as much sense doesn't have to affect anything within their current theme and instead can simply expand their viability. 25% of the centaurs are barbarians as is 1 being a straight out split with IS there are only 8 centaurs that should say something about the Centaur theme, 25% of them work how I suggested and what of the others would making them all barbarians to further include them in that theme for a KF/IS split group break anything

You want more races, but don't want more races so basically you're saying you have no rhyme or reasoning behind it's just what you specifically want and can't rationalize any rhyme or reason to it. Your desire contradicts your arguments for wanting more races saying races don't add complexity, but you turn around and give an example where they're completely pointless, you realize you're actually arguing the same thing as I am, right? The difference is the cut-off point and that alone, so again I pose to you what does Race Centaur get the Centaurs other than a race for race sake? What does race Centaur get them that Race Pantier or Race Jangar wouldn't get their respective runes? That's an additional race after all and more races not less and races don't add any complexity so how can you say no to that, but yes to more races, there are too many straight Leoss in the game, there are too many beasts in the game so lets make Race Owl, Race Pegasus, Race Bat, Race Horse, Race Frog, Race Sky Serpent, that's what your thesis is more races not less and races don't add any complexity after all.

 

I'll be honest with you, I didn't read your wall of text. Though since you somehow came to the conclusion that I apparently don't want more races in the game I think it's fair to assume that you didn't read my post either. So we are even.

I skimmed over it though and I'll reply to random things for the sake of replying.

1) Turning everything into a beast to turn it back into whatever it was before is a waste of time/resources of the greens.
2) The Commander: Beast example was just there to show that it's problematic to add abilities that interact with a massive amount of runes, which is why it's likely not going to happen.
3) Good job comparing OP runes with a race tag.

That is about the point where I gave up. So have a good one.

Oh, Owl as a race would be awesome! And yes I'd be totally confused and lost and not know what to do with the Jakei Owl Raider anymore if it wasn't a Beast but an Owl.

 

Can't read a post and yet people are supposed to take your arguments seriously? Read and you'd realize how the conclusion came about, if you can't read posts before responding to them then your posts aren't worth taking seriously.

 

I still take her seriously. And to be fair, if somebody came to you and said "your arguments are flawed; here, read this book and find out why", would you feel compelled to read it? I wouldn't.

Maybe add some sections to make your post easier to read. You've put a lot of effort and time into writing it, and it would be a shame if all that effort was for naught; but without more formatting it's very difficult to read.

On topic: Whats wrong with giving Runes several Races? Jakei Owl Rider could be Jakei, Owl, Beast. Centaurs could be Centaur, Beast. Pantiers could be Pantier, Leoss.

 

@iPox what is your feeling about adding more structure to the race/class system in the form of archetypes? example: undead would no longer be considered a 'race' but rather the 'archetype'. the advantage of this being you can group similar races such as skeleton, zombies etc under the same archetype so that some things can affect them as a group (such as unholy tomb not hitting 'undead') but also have other effects (such as vengeance) that wouldn't key off of that grouping since undead isn't a 'race' anymore. seems to me this increases design space rather than limiting it.

 

So we would have Class, Race and Archetype? I like the idea.