Bith

R)ace: Bith

Str Plus: -2 Dex Plus: 2  Wis Plus: 2  Int Plus: 2

Con Plus: 0  Cha Plus: 1  Lck Plus: 0

Hit Pts:  1000AC Mod:   0  Frc Plus: 0

Price:    1000Deposit:  500App Only: No

Default Language: bith

(P)ossible Skincolors:

(34) pale white (35) ivory

Affected by: none

(L)evel approximations for Bith by class:

main\/  lvls-> COM PIL ENG HUN SMU DIP LEA ESP SLI MED SCI

combat            2   2   3   1   2   2   2   2   3   3   4

piloting          2   5   4   1   2   3   2   2   3   3   4

engineering       2   3   5   1   2   2   2   2   4   4   5

bounty hunting    1   2   2   3   2   2   2   2   3   3   4

smuggling         2   4   3   1   5   2   2   2   3   3   4

diplomacy         2   2   3   1   2   5   3   2   3   3   4

leadership        1   2   3   1   2   3   5   2   3   3   4

espionage         1   3   2   1   2   1   1   5   5   3   3

slicer            2   3   4   1   2   2   2   3   5   3   4

medical           2   2   3   1   2   2   2   2   4   5   4

science           2   2   4   1   2   2   2   2   3   3   5

Bith as they are are not worth the points that are required to be spent on them. You essentially are paying 2000 points for a character that will only be good for RP. The only class you seem to have the ability to choose and get decent levels on is engineer. The price should be lowered, and/or a slight increase across the board be added so other mains will actually get 150 in their respective classes.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

Honestly if you’re trying to compare races to other races that are ‘the best deals’ then really the vast majority are not worth the points they cost from a powergaming mechanics perspective, it’s just about the RP.

Luckily we’re all about metagaming and not so much the rp factor here on LoTJ!

Whether or not Logan was kidding, it’s actually the most truth you’ll ever hear come out of anyone in this game.

Concerning metagaming… I wonder if the removal/adjusting of perming would make it better or worse in that regard.

Adjust how perma-death works  and people might be less interesting in going that extra mile (metagame) to stay alive.

The metagaming problem is one of the HUGE elephants in the room when it comes to LOTJ that even as a new person I’m going ‘dafuq?’

Remove PK and see how many people leave the mud to the point of non existence.

We are a RP-heavy MUD. Not a MUSH. Actions here have consequences which are code supported. If you ask me, the way that LotJ is set up makes combat and danger situations much more fair as there is less opportunity to bend the rules or a situation in your favor by godmoding for the sake of a beloved character. It makes true conflict possible, and makes each action you take hold weight.

That being said, characters here need to be able to fill a role aside from RP, as the game does not revolve solely around it. Bith as “engineer or gtfo” is unrealistic and limiting to the racial diversity of the game.

As someone who does in fact enjoy solid RP when it can be found, I must admit that when people throw out the “oh they don’t need to be changed because its all about RP”, it makes me want to vomit a little bit. I’m so damn sick of hearing this excuse from people when they either A) don’t have any interest in the subject or B) don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. We are a half and half mud. What does that mean? It means that its a hack n slash mud guided by RP. So, with that, it means you should be able to do one thing to accomplish the other and vice versa. Example: You can RP all day that you’re an excellent slicer, but if you can’t actually do those skills in game, it means absolutely squat. If a race is so underwhelming to the point of worthlessness, they are never played and might as well just be removed. Bith are one of those races. Their stats are basically worse than baseline humans which not even new players want to play, yet we charge 1000 points for them. There are many races on the list that should be priced a lot higher than what they are (Hapans and several other free races) and many on the list that should be practically given away due to how bad their stats are (Bith) and a lot in between that could be tweaked. There’s a reason if you did a tally in game right now there’s an overwhelming amount of the same races in play and its not because they’re so awesome that they advance RP and that’s it.

Oh I completely agree this is not a MUSH and removing PK would not only drive away players but make things less interesting in general.. however it really does seem like a 90/10 PK/RP ratio whereas the initial draw for some was the illusion of a 50/50 pk/rp ratio.

Standard disclaimer.. this is from my LIMITED view as a new player.  People always forget that the view from a new player can be vastly different than the view of someone who’s been around for years however every opinion has a nugget of validity…blah blah blah etc etc.

If you have not found a place to RP, you are not associating with the right people ICly. It may take you a while to do it, but I go out of my way with each character to find people who RP rather than finding people who go from room to room, look, and walk away without a word. I have never been disappointed at the end of a character with the RP they participated in throughout the whole of their life, even when I had a character who went from one public plaza to the next selling trinkets on a blanket.

Corey’s argument is accurate and I agree with it. Bith being made more accessible or at the very least worth the points someone has to spend on them is a step in the right direction toward having a more diverse set of races in play.

don’t get me wrong, I’ve found plenty of fantastic RP (with you as well) here however pvp to the newbie appears to be the underlaying primary goal of a large number of folks.

that’s my perception of things.

Just going to state the obvious here. If you don’t feel like paying the points for a race you can always put in an application for it.

As for the pvp, this mud’s story line is driven by war and conflict. Without pvp you have neither.

So why we are at it – What do you guys think would balance races in general?

We always seem to have this balancing act with race stat spreads, so… what do you guys think? any systems that could streamline this a bit? maybe put races into tiers, with X amount of bonuses that are distributed equally per tier?

Just spit balling here.

One of the things that I tend to do is add up the total numbers across the board on a race/class combo. While this doesn’t exactly give you a fair look at if a race/class combo is balanced or not, it does give you something to look at. In general, most combos clock in around the 32 point mark, some a little under, some a little over. From there I can look at say two 500point/500 deposit characters and if one consistently hits 35+ and the other is say at 30, then you can easily point out that there’s a difference. The problem however comes when you get token tier points in stuff that doesn’t matter for that combo. IE a BHer getting 3 diplomacy versus say 1. So suddenly you have extra points showing up to “balance” the race combo out, when they are in fact just useless points. What about freebie races having X amount of points offered towards attributes and X amount of points offered towards their skills per class. Then the next tier up can offer more or something additional to the character (IE infra red, aqua etc) Of course this is just brainstorming though. I know that a lot of people will read this and instantly kick in the min/max complainfest and say RP RP RP, but as pointed out prior, there has to be a balance there. However, no matter what is decided or not decided to do about it, I think the key aspect here is common sense and I’m just not sure that was used on all the races (which honestly there’s a ton so there will be mistakes, but be open to fixing them when its pointed out I guess?).

Edit: Another thing to look at to determine which races aren’t balanced is rather simple. Which one’s are flooding the game and which one’s aren’t. I know the argument can be made that there should be more humans pretty much than anything, which I agree with, but at a certain point you have to ask yourself things like…When was the last time you saw a Gran? A Neimoidian? Draethos? Kaleesh? Nautolan? Sullustan? Bith? Sure there will be a token one once an era or so.

Veska, put the old stat gain/racial gain values back, the changes just flat out screwed more or less every race out of playing something out of the norm. Its not a balancing act when all you do is wield the nerf hammer and never buff anything.