Guest_Faerunner_*
Before proceeding, I will acknowledge that many players will always prefer humans no matter what, and/or feel that human gameplay advantages will always be more appealing, and that's cool. It's their prerogative. A lot of people feel the same about non-humans. However, I've also noticed many "neutral" players who pick races for solid bonuses.
A common criticism for DA:O player races has been the lack of solid gameplay advantages for elves/dwarves that humans can't also get. Common praise for DA:O's Human Noble Origin was getting the Mabari sooner, and being able to become king queen at the end. By contrast, roughly 20% of players picked non-humans. Of those, most of the 15% of elves seem to have been mages to reap the magic and mana bonuses, and most of the 5% of dwarves were nobles to get Gorim's discount.
So, I propose expanding on the advantages so they can be more appealing this game.
1) Higher Stat Bonuses. In DA:O, dwarves got 10% magic resistance but couldn't be mages, which honestly seems like a small gain for losing an entire class. The elves had +3 magic and +2 mana, and that was it. Many players felt the dwarf wasn't worth it since they could get Templar armor fairly early for the same bonus, and the elf stat bonus was negligible.
For DA:I, I propose increasing dwarf magic resistance to maybe 15-20% (again, making up for losing a class, and making it higher than magic-resistant items for first half or 3/4ths of the game) and the elves to maybe +3 magic and +2 mana so their stat bonuses are more noticeable? Maybe give both dwarves and elves some extra physical stat points? That way, mage-friendly dwarves and non-magic elves can still be desirable.
2) Discounts/Exclusive Items. In DA:O, Dwarf Nobles got a great discount from Gorim. I propose a similar feature for all non-humans for DA:I. Maybe have one or two dwarven vendors offer a dwarven protagonist discounts and/or specialty items for whatever reason: old friend, xenophobic, etc.
Same with elves. Yeah, most people figure city elven vendors wouldn't have anything humans want anyway, but discounts are always nice. Plus, maybe a Dalish and/or Mage Elf vendor could have a secret stash of desirable items? For instance, any protagonist can buy from a Dalish Camp, but non-elves get standard items while fellow elves can get the "specialty" named items, magic weapons, craft substances, higher tier armor and weapons (+Dex Dalish armor), etc.
3) More In-Game Acknowledgement. In DA:O, many players felt that not enough characters acknowledged the protagonist's race. I have more faith for DA:I since the devs have vowed to fix the lack of in-game acknowledgement like for ME backgrounds and DA Origins. Still, it bears repeating to include more frequent comments from NPC's, more in-depth conversations with companions, maybe a race-specific quest or two, etc.
4) Cooler appearances. For DA:O, many people felt the elves were "just slim pointy-eared humans," and the dwarves "just short, guerilla-armed humans." In fact, many female players felt that elven women were less attractive than human women (which I sadly agree with), and dwarven women had ugly orangutan arms, qne I've actually seen many female players claim to pick human women just to look prettier.
People care how their character look, so a quick fix would be making elves and dwarves (and kossith??) look cooler, sexier, and even more exotic; which is what the devs are doing anyway. Still, this would still be a good way to draw more "meh" players; or at least not scare them away.
So, your turn. Any thoughts, suggestions, hopefully fairly easily(ish) implemented ideas that you think can help make non-human protagonists more desirable than the first game, and thus more worth the investment?
- Edited to make the proposed stat increases not so game-breaking.
- Fixed the title.
Modifié par Faerunner, 08 août 2013 - 03:07 .
Retour en haut
Don't have a default human warrior auto selected at the beginning of the game. Actually have all race choices appear on screen at once and don't prioritize one.
