Let’s Talk: Racials

Since early development of Project Epoch and through Beta 1 our current incarnation of racial abilities has been essentially placeholder while we experiment and discuss internally what direction we wanted to take them. From today we're announcing our plans for Racials and our reasoning why we're going down this path.

We like Racial abilities for a lot of reasons, and also have issues with them too. From our perspective this boils down to:

Pros

• In theory increases diversity in play style between two Classes of differing Races.
• Provides lore flavor.
• Important RPG mechanic that many people recognize and care about.
• An RP friendly way to tailor your characters place in the world.

However, the key drawbacks for us can also include things that directly clash with the above even if they are the exact same point.

Cons

• Racials are so well known that it can affect decisions too greatly. For many playing a Warrior in a Vanilla world is "wrong" if you're not a Human or Orc. We strongly dislike this.
• Attempting to balance racials can upset players due to the time it takes to level and gear a character. In addition, if we were to provide a Race Change option in the future then any Racial balancing might be seen by the community as money-grubbing attempts to make players pay for better racials. This could lead to a problem where, over time, certain race/class combinations are seen as the best and players won't accept other players who don't conform to this, and trying to fix it would upset even more people.

Base Racials

The simplest entry point for this racials based post is to elaborate on the core racials you already know. The existing versions in Beta 1 were the product of simply experimenting with tools and not intended to be final long term. That decision predates the move to Burning Crusade based Classes by a good amount of time and as such needed revisiting.

Going forward our "base" for Racials will be the Burning Crusade incarnations of each Racial ability mechanically and from that we are making additional tweaks on top to tailor them how we want them.

Weapon Specializations

With Beta 1 many of you saw that Weapon Specialization Racials had been reverted to a + Weapon Skill variant however the value of Weapon Skill in a 3.3.5 core / client is drastically different to how it behaved in Vanilla. Going forwards these have been recreated to use an Expertise based Dodge and Parry reduction when fighting enemies.

Some of the key issues we have with Weapon Specializations are simple, limited availability and limited variety. Due to this we are expanding the pool of Racial based Weapon Specializations to include the following:

Specialization	Effect
Sword	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Swords and Two-Handed Swords by 1%.
Mace	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Maces and Two-Handed Maces by 1%.
Fist	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Fist Weapons by 1%.
Gun	Your chance to critically hit with Guns is increased by 1%.
Polearm	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Polearms by 1%.
Staves	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Staves by 1%.
Bow	Your chance to critically hit with Bows is increased by 1%.
Crossbow	Your chance to critically hit with Crossbows is increased by 1%.
Dagger	Reduces your chance to be dodged or parried with Daggers by 1%.
Thrown	Your chance to critically hit with Thrown Weapons is increased by 1%.
Wand	Your chance to critically hit with Wands is increased by 1%.

Ranged attacks are traditionally not affected by Expertise, which is why those give Critical Strike chance.

These will be distributed to the following Races:

Race	Weapon Specializations
Orc	Axe, Fist, Polearm.
Tauren	Gun, Staff, Mace.
Undead	Sword, Dagger, Wand.
Troll	Bow, Thrown, Axe.
Human	Sword, Mace, Wand.
Dwarf	Gun, Axe, Mace, Fist
Night Elf	Staff, Bow, Polearm.
Gnome	Dagger, Sword, Thrown.

How does this stat work?

Expertise existed in the Burning Crusade as a way to reduce the chance that an enemy will Dodge or Parry. This key stat was important for a lot of classes and specs feeling correct and the loss of the stat was sorely felt. Despite us generally aiming for a 1.12.1 style of itemisation we felt this key stat needed to be an exception to the rule.

The primary issue we had was in the Burning Crusade this was acquired in the form of Expertise Rating. We don't generally like Ratings as a concept so we will be doing this in flat percentage values. 1 point of expertise gives a 0.25% damage reduction which means for us Expertise will always be given out in chunks of 4 -> 8 -> 12 and so on equaling 1% -> 2% -> 3%. We feel that this helps to ground the stat in a Classic manner.

Any existing Blizzard items that previously gave + Weapon Skill will be converted to use Expertise, with some items retaining their weapon type requirement. However we didn't want it to feel like you were adding an overwhelming amount of Expertise per item or feel like you have to target Expertise based items in as many slots as possible. To make this viable we have made an additional key change to how Parry and Dodge function.

Typically a Raid level boss would have a base Parry chance of 14% and a base Dodge chance of 6.5%. We are reducing this across the board by 50% which means using the same example of a Raid level boss they would now have 7% base Parry and 3.25% base Dodge. This lowered value means that on average a DPS should only want 1 or 2 items that use Expertise and a Tank may want up to 3 depending on the raw amount of Expertise on an item.

Priest Racials

With Beta 1 we experimented with the removal and genericizing of Priest Racials and frankly that did not go over well with players. We are reverting this so that Priest Racials are acquired in the same way they were acquired during The Burning Crusade and the options provided for each race match appropriately.

With the addition of two new Priest Race combinations in the form of Tauren and Gnome the topic of Priest Racials came up once again internally and new ones needed creating. The Priest Racials for these combinations are as follows:

Race	Name	Effect
Gnome	Bedside Manner	Greatly increases the morale of party members, giving them X mana every 5 seconds. Effect lasts 15 seconds.
Gnome	Medical Practice	Increases your Spirit by X% of your Intellect for 20 seconds.
Tauren	An'she's Protection	Reduces the chance you will be critically hit by spells and attacks by X% for 15 seconds.
Tauren	Radiance	Causes the target to emit harmful rays of light, dealing X Holy damage to up to 3 enemies around the target every 2 seconds for 14 seconds.

Please note, explicit values have been artificially removed due to varying ranks and needed balance changes going forward.

Racial Knowledge

With all of the above in mind we as the Project Epoch team still generally fall under the umbrella of believing that your choice of Race should be focused on the available classes, aesthetic and lore. It is clear that Racial abilities and passives however have a very large impact on these choices more often than not especially with a "known" meta such as the TBC base we are targetting.

Due to this we wanted to provide an in game way for a Player to focus on aesthetics, lore and vibe rather than concrete power gains. The system we will be testing in Beta 3 to solve this goes by the name Racial Knowledge.

Racial Knowledge skills once unlocked allow a player to take on the Racial Abilities of another Race in the game on a lengthy cooldown of two weeks (Subject to change). There have been many other projects in the past which have used a "Racial Swap" system however we feel that we can go the extra mile to make it fit in a lore friendly way. The Classic feel and RPG mechanics are extremely important to us, and our decision to add Racial Knowledge was not made lightly or quickly.

Racial Knowledge will be acquired at level 60 through a series of quest chains each focused on teaching or uncovering lore related to the race you're interested in. The aim is for these to be solo friendly.

As a Horde player wanting to learn how to use Tauren racials you might simply need to track down a legendary Tauren warrior and learn from them through acts of bravery and skill.

As an Alliance player wanting to learn how to use Tauren racials you may have to conquer Grimtotem throughout the world to learn through combat how an average Tauren fights.

Once a racial quest chain is completed from that point on you have the Knowledge to swap to their Racials. Swapping to a new Racial Set can only be done at specific NPC's within major faction capitals.

The Knowledge you have acquired and your currently chosen Racial set can be viewed in a new Spell book tab.

An important part of how we view it is that your character is learning what a specific race does, not exactly how they do it and will instead attempt to gain the mechanical abilities but with new spell names, descriptions and visuals.

A simple example of this the Human Racial "The Human Spirit" when used on a Night Elf will have the name "Spirits of the Forest" and a new icon but it still functions the same way. A Troll will gain the ability "Spirits Be With Ya" with a new icon. This applies to a large swathe of Racial abilities and for each requires a new variant for the other 7 races.

A more involved example of this would be the Dwarf Racial "Stoneform". The ability to strip Bleed, Poison and Disease effects is transferrable to any race. However specifically turning to Stone is an act only the Dwarves can do due to their Earthen lineage. Due to this all other Races using this ability will get a new Icon, Name, Description and Spell Visual to make them thematically fit with your current race. For Night Elves this ability is known as "Elune's Embrace".

A Gnome using the Tauren War Stomp would feel strange however with a slight thematic tweak of the player instead using a downward facing Jetpack to slam themselves into the ground fits the race while accomplishing the same end result.

Priest Racials will also be affected by this system, with cosmetic changes as well where necessary.

Replacement & Cosmetic Racials

There are some cases however where changing icons, descriptions and spell visuals can only go so far and where we felt we needed to draw a line in the sand. These two obvious ones are Cannibalize and Wisp Form.

In the form of Cannibalize while the thought of a Dwarf chowing down onto a fallen comrade is an entertaining thought we decided that it is definitely a step too far. Due to this with the above Racial Knowledge system we have decided to create a new Cosmetic Racial category that is not part of the Racial Knowledge system and we reworked these Racials.

The Cosmetic Racial category will be used entirely for visual and flavour based Racials that provide no explicit benefit to your character.

Night Elf - Wisp Form

The ability for Night Elves to turn into a Wisp when dead is iconic and far too engrained within Racial lore to be expanded to other races. We are converting this to be classed as a Cosmetic Racial that only Night Elves can have access too. Due to the removal of their ghostly run speed however we are assigning Night Elves a new base Racial.

Touch of Elune: Increases your Attack and Casting speed by 1% during the night. Increases your Critical Strike by 1% during the day.

The above ability "Touch of Elune" will be included in the Night Elf Racial Knowledge set.

Undead - Cannibalize

A common use case for an Undead to use Cannibalize is as a way to metaphorically "tea bag" an enemy combatant. We like this and would like to keep that behaviour however the benefit itself needed to be moved elsewhere. Cannibalize will now be considered an Undead Cosmetic Racial and only available to them.

To replace the benefit of this we are adding a new Undead base Racial.

Rotten Rations: When activated, regenerates 3% of total health every 2 sec for 10 sec. Any movement, action, or damage taken will cancel the effect.

The above ability "Rotten Rations" will be included in the Undead Racial Knowledge set.

A summary of all planned Cosmetic Racials are as follows:

Race	Name	Effect
Human	Banner of Heritage	Place a Kingdom of Stormwind Banner at your feet lasting for 3 minutes. Multiple Kingdom Banner options via Glyph system.
Dwarf	Special Brew	Provide a placeable Keg of Special Ale for your allies to drink from.
Gnome	Gnomish Innovation	Your flight path routes throughout the world will take on the appearance of a Gnomish Gyrocopter. Can be toggled off.
Night Elf	Wisp Form	Take on the visual of a Wisp when you travel while dead.

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Race	Name	Effect
Tauren	Tribal Totem	Don a Tauren Tribal Totem on your back for 10 minutes. Multiple model options via Glyph system.
Troll	Bwonsamdi's Judgement	On death there is a chance for the Loa Bwonsamdi to appear and mock your failure. Multiple model options via Glyph system.
Undead	Cannibalize	Appear to consume an Undead or Humanoid. corpse.
Orc	Lo'Gosh's Guidance	While travelling when dead you will ride an embodiment of Lo'Gosh with his pack.

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Final Thoughts

We hope that the above makes it clearer what our plans are for Racials going forwards and that the changes made lead you to picking your Race for the vibes and not the power. In the long term we hope that utilising the Racial Knowledge system this will allow us to expand the possibility of Racial abilities down the line. This may include new Class racials, if it is something more players want to see.

It is our intention that players shouldn't change their Racial Knowledge often, which is why it currently has a 2 week cooldown. It isn't intended to be something you swap for different modes of gameplay, it is supposed to take the place of a power decision you might make when you first create your character. It is also optional.