Are Altalar A Bit Broken?

[NZ_Nix]

To clarify this is an Opinion. I wanted to know others thoughts.

I was going through the proficiency pages and a few things caught my eye as far as character creation went. Altalar, in my opinion, is a pretty broken race as far as abilities go from what I can see.

The first thing of note was that their points gained from aging ends at 70 instead of 60, this on top of the +10 points they can put into anything they like due to their racial boost means that they essentially have 80 points to put freely wherever they choose, if you include the +10 for History as the other half of their boost; then they not only get the same boost of points as the 'boosted' races that have their +30 points such as Dwarves and Orcs but they can freely put the majority of those extra points into whatever they like.

The next part to point out is that they then have their martial ability which although requiring them to be an Estell worshipper, and only uses the weapons specified grants them the ability to make use of a bow, two polearms, a sword and a shield which no other race is capable of; even if they don't count for combat points a Non-Altalar would have to invest 4 points across proficiencies to be as versatile.

Running the numbers then I could make an Altalar that invests 40 points into the Martial Proficiency, 10 from Racial and 30 from Points who then has the additional +10 for History and another 40 points to spend wherever I pleased. I understand this is an example of min-maxing but it raised some flags in my eyes, I have no doubt that whoever reviewed an app like this would hold it to scrutiny.

 

[Conflee]

They are overpowered. But that was kind of the point to their rewrite too. Altalar for the longest time were a meme in lore "We are so much better than everyone" when they were objectively one of the worst races. The new power is meant to give actual meaning to their mentality instead of having them look like morons.

Their body shape is still limited though so they can be overpowered in physical fights but combat-oriented ailor etc.

 

[MrNoot1]

They have been turned into the extremely OP elves that aren't suppose to be pushed around, which is what Lore Staff wanted to happen in the first place. When they created the update, they stated that they are now suppose to be the top dog Elves of Massive. I personally love it because it shows how much superior the Altalar race is suppose to be with the new Power Rings.

 

[FireFan96]

https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/altalar-rework-complete-revision.71273/

"All around, if anything we want the players to say "oh wow, Altalar now OP", and that's entirely intentional. In the lore of Aloria, the reason why the Altalar lost their grip over the world was because of circumstances and inner turmoil, not because they were the basic bitch Elf as they had essentially become over the years, when compared to all their sub races and the Ailor.

This puts the Altalar back to the top of the racial charts in terms of flexibility and overall Proficiency powers. It puts better to light why what happened to the Altalar Empire happened, and how it continues to be a theme for their future interactions with the world."

 

[Gwyndo]

I like the power rings and the higher proficiency point cap. That stuff to me makes sense and fills the purpose of making Altalar stronger.

I'm less into the idea of them having a proficiency stat that gives them understanding of various vastly different things like you mentioned, with the two polearms plus a bow and whatnot.

I get it tho, it's just almost boring to think most Altalar that strive to be decent warriors will either dump into that proficiency or have objectively less useful skills overall.

 

[Magivore]

What specifically makes the Altalar balanced is the fact that they must worship a tolerated, but not well-liked religion and that they cannot ever surpass an athletic build. No matter how great their martial skill, the potential to be curb-stomped by an Orc wielding a maul named 'Yub Club' or a particularly mighty Ailor carrying a halberd is always present since they are limited to protecting themselves using only light to medium armour and tactics. A human might be forced to sacrifice the same, but the difference between athletic and ripped is worth it since ripped implies both higher endurance and strength. As for the Altalar gaining more points, unless they specifically choose to put +5 in every skill, it is difficult to minmax because, no matter how hard they try and how good their martial skill is, their damage output will always be low and their scholarly skills will only be able to be applied to very certain areas. Even taking heavy bow while using a crossbow will still soften them up because a significant amount of strength is necessary to pull the string back or to constantly wind a crank. If other rings are considered, the ring allowing you to lift up a 500+ lbs object can't be used to throw the aforementioned object or swing it for combat, the ring sacrificing a limb for life is self explanatory, and the ring allowing better metallurgy just makes sense because they forged almost everything on their own. The Dwarves just managed to nick most of their ideas using better resources and had their mysterious Metalitra, which the elves didn't and still can't use due to its sheer density outweighing their natural strength. Being limited to a mere athletic build basically neuters their combat ability against anyone willing to swing around an armour-crusher or mildly heavy tool.

Plus, it just makes sense that looking and feeling 30 while actually being 283 would understandably give them the bonus of letting them get pretty damn good at stuff.

Last, but not least, points don't matter as much in roleplay as they do progression rolls. Perhaps they might be crazy powerful in progressions, but again, they aren't exactly able to give 'no' as an answer to stopping a heavy door or protecting themselves from the monster that will eventually show up to knock some melons together (which is how they lost their empire, in fact!).

 

[MonMarty]

Not enough Altalar players to justify it as a problem yet. But yeah they are overpowered by design.

 

[NZ_Nix]

What specifically makes the Altalar balanced is the fact that they must worship a tolerated, but not well-liked religion.

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I have absolutely no issue with this, I think it's excellent incentivizing people to go play something other than a Unionist!

And that they cannot ever surpass an athletic build. No matter how great their martial skill, the potential to be curb-stomped by an Orc wielding a maul named 'Yub Club' or a particularly mighty Ailor carrying a halberd is always present since they are limited to protecting themselves using only light to medium armour and tactics. A human might be forced to sacrifice the same, but the difference between athletic and ripped is worth it since ripped implies both higher endurance and strength.

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I think where this falls apart is that where the Orc might be able to grab his Yub-Yub club or the Ailor could wield about his halberd, that is all that those two are doing, where the Altalar has incredibly more versatility; he can shoot either from a distance and then switch out for the use of a polearm, then finally engage with a sword and shield. Or he can just choose to simply not engage unless pressed into a corner. The gripe is mostly that there are 5 different weapons for each point that another person puts into a singular weapon.

how hard they try and how good their martial skill is, their damage output will always be low

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But why? I understand the concept of more force creating more damage to an individual blow but that's also carrying the assumption that you hit actually hit and that the speed of blows is proportional. It doesn't state that the 40 points for the Martial Skill are any less effective than 40 put into another skill just that it bears no difference on their body shape.

and their scholarly skills will only be able to be applied to very certain areas.

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I think this point is a point that's extended to anyone using scholarly/cultural skills.

That's at least what I have to put as a response but I do appreciate that you took the time to answer and it's good to get more perspectives on the matter but as Marty said there are not many people playing them I just felt it was something that I wanted to bring up.
@Magivore

 

[Magivore]

I have absolutely no issue with this, I think it's excellent incentivizing people to go play something other than a Unionist!

I think where this falls apart is that where the Orc might be able to grab his Yub-Yub club or the Ailor could wield about his halberd, that is all that those two are doing, where the Altalar has incredibly more versatility; he can shoot either from a distance and then switch out for the use of a polearm, then finally engage with a sword and shield. Or he can just choose to simply not engage unless pressed into a corner. The gripe is mostly that there are 5 different weapons for each point that another person puts into a singular weapon.

But why? I understand the concept of more force creating more damage to an individual blow but that's also carrying the assumption that you hit actually hit and that the speed of blows is proportional. It doesn't state that the 40 points for the Martial Skill are any less effective than 40 put into another skill just that it bears no difference on their body shape.

I think this point is a point that's extended to anyone using scholarly/cultural skills.

That's at least what I have to put as a response but I do appreciate that you took the time to answer and it's good to get more perspectives on the matter but as Marty said there are not many people playing them I just felt it was something that I wanted to bring up.
@Magivore

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I'll have a more constructed response at not 4 - 5 AM later today, I promise, but I do love debates about certain aspects of lore!

 

[_Grimmy_]

Quick mentions/rant thing
Everything here is largely from a cheese it till you make it perspective.
Altalar, although seemingly op can only really boost like 2 skills to 50, those being smithing and history and hell 40 in a stat is nothing to laugh at, but what you're missing is that at that point an altalar is highly specialized since the free choice +10 boost can't be split so it's mostly a waste in stats such as Linguistics ( due to it working on a base of 6 not 5 ) and magical knowledge since you can always have a magical scholar in the party to take care of that aspects, plus how often does it really come up in rp with the reduction of magic and vampires basically fizzling out in favor of social rp.
Ok, let's go with you dumping into a stat, you're left with 40 points to spend, if you chose a weapon it better be agility based or ranged because elves are not built for direct conflict, which would mean you probably dump atleast half of that into athletics due to the ability to dodge ( Since thinblades also technically also include dodging they're actually the best cheese weapon ), let's say you went with ranged, which is actually one of the most powerful ways to fight since most people don't guard their back in a group fight and generally don't hug you in fights so a nice vantage point is enough to sink a few shots if you start. Speaking of starting a fight, you'll probably want to focus on stealth and possibly fast blades or precision weapons. So what this boils down to elves, due to naturally being weaker than most ailor, are best suited for pseudo rangers and rogues since magic is not available. On a smaller note, altalar weapons are extremely hard to obtain as are most non-hunting/tool based weapons.
Dealing with altalar martial or How to mess up an elf's day.
Remember how I mentioned most people giving you distance, pole weapons are cheap, easily available and best of all really good at locking down areas with your buddies. If you're one of those fancy people who want to spend hard earned regals on cheesing, there's always bombs, napalm and bows and stealth tactics. In short, don't duel people because honor is for people who care, be a dick, fight dirty, poison the drinking water.
That sweet sweet allorn bling is kind of bad considering things, there are three main rings, all of which belong to the outer court because fun, that aren't oriented as support bitch / mobility, in a party, which is fine in on cheese focused scenerios, but if you want a broke elf you don't pick anything that isn't the main three, and they are Asc'tea(Which is kind of a mute point since pure cheese would be vampirism instead of a ring offering you a far better mind slave ability at practically no cost) , Ammu-loa(Again vampirism is a far better option due to reduction of negatives and allowing greater choise of abilities ) and Tal'Sieth. These rings are useful only because they allow you to power through the incoming horde of enemies, may it be by disabling their tank or not getting shield slammed by that orc. Tal'siet is by far the weakest ring due to requiring you to find a willing smith, obtaining enough regals and smuggling everything past the guard. Remember, elf weapons don't use normal spears or bows so you're screwed unless you make a buddy, and at that point you're just making a gank squad of kitty-hulks because no armor, no weapons and personalities that fit ( plus those sweet sweet 60 unarmed points ).
On body stat, if bodystat functions into a roll, they can certainly her the highest one available ( 140 ) but I don't see that really going into any non graple rolls or your ability to run away.
Pure combat wise elves suffer from all the issues that orcs do, although only rank higher on the Don't want to deal with scale because vampirism is a nice stack.
What if you want to make a scholar, well you won't suffer advanced age issues like ailor, but that's not an issue for all magus races and half elves. You get a total of four +30 stats which is all fine and dandy but what are you going to put that into, magical knowledge requires +40 for you to be useful outside of a group, languages are rarely used and rest of them are prog skills.
It's almost worth it if you want a lol stack for alchemy when combined with vampirism but again, why would you want 60 alchemy.

In short, elves really aren't better than most magus & gorr races or even humans without easy access to battle magic due to them essentially being frailer ailor that require you to either do everything or highly specialized to the point where you're the party's dump stat mitigation.
Elves aren't broken, you're just bad at using easy fighting tactics. It's extremely easy to break an ailor to the same level. If anything most elves are underpowered in straight up fights, which by design they're not meant to do, due to body limitations.

 

[FireFan96]

Orc might be able to grab his Yub-Yub club

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frowns as a completely mentally sound orc who has more honor than a knight.+

 

[NZ_Nix]

I'll have a more constructed response at not 4 - 5 AM later today, I promise, but I do love debates about certain aspects of lore!

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I look forward to it! I wouldn't have brought it up as an opinion if I didn't feel like it was worth getting other perspective on.

frowns as a completely mentally sound orc who has more honor than a knight.+

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It was just making an example of Magivore's post before, not a dig at orcs.

Snip

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There were a few things in this I didn't quite follow, their max caps are still at 40 when you account for the +10 Racial Boosts, admittedly it would have to be History and something else but in reality, you could just ignore putting anything into History and leave it at the +10. As it says on the proficiency page. "+10 To be invested in a Proficiency of the player's choice" which can extend to really anything. As much as it can't be split across the board there's more than likely going to be a stat you want at 10 or more that you can just put it into. Given you only have access to the one ring, I can imagine it's only for people who take an interest in being an elven smith that the boost to Metallurgy applies, they could get to +50 then sure, but that's if they want to fill that role. Otherwise, they could do anything else. And if someone does go down the route as a smith it starts to eliminate the idea that Altalar couldn't have ready acess to their weapons and armors given all they need is a few alchemical ingredients and regular steel.

I would disagree that Magical Knowledge and Linguistics are pointless stats to put points in either, all that's needed are two more points invested in linguistics to add another language which isn't difficult given the 70 possible points to pool from age if you look toward the maximum. You don't have to know about either of these things but it's entirely dependant on the character nor do you have to max out either to be useful. Sure there's plenty of things that are more progression based but that doesn't mean that they can't find things to scrape others onto the ground with.

Stacking vampirism with these abilities comes with its own costs too (10 Proficency points per ability). Where you can get any of these rings simply require the character to follow the religion to gain an ability. That is to say that the inherent weaknesses of being a vampire would also need to be taken into account such as the daylight and hunting by the inquisition/guards. I mean by all means an Altalar vampire could work but it doesn't have clear advantages over the rings unless you're looking for that style of play.

Your final point I'm in disagreement with, the point is that they're not specialized. They have so many options available to them to approach a situation as opposed to an Ailor or any of the other races. If they haven't invested in any other fighting styles then they still have the four different weapons to go through for each other race's one. A straight fight is never a straightforward thing where might is right. If I was to break down an Ailor levy the same he only has an advantage of some more physical strength behind him/her but it's still a matter of fighting someone with far more skill and less issues with aging. I'm not arguing against the idea that an Altalar shouldn't be able to do extremely well or that they can't be beaten but if someone is intelligent about playing one with the martial skill it would take luck, numbers or good circumstances to beat them.

 

[_Grimmy_]

(10 Proficency points per ability).

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It's just a flat 10 for 5 abilities. Alais is literally imune to all the problems you brought up.
For rp, linguistics is useless and for magic itsi not worth pumping anything under 40 into magical due to the split up. Again, cheese it till you make it is the way you judge broken and an extra 20 points and a weak ring ability is generally not broken, at best it's vampirism mitigation which barely effects older chars.

 

[_Grimmy_]

It's just a flat 10 for 5 abilities. Alais is literally imune to all the problems you brought up.
For rp, linguistics is useless and for magic itsi not worth pumping anything under 40 into magical due to the split up. Again, cheese it till you make it is the way you judge broken and an extra 20 points and a weak ring ability is generally not broken, at best it's vampirism mitigation which barely effects older chars.

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PS stop looking at flights as duels, altalar are only advantaged if you fight alone and with honor.

 

[NZ_Nix]

It's just a flat 10 for 5 abilities. Alais is literally imune to all the problems you brought up.
For rp, linguistics is useless and for magic itsi not worth pumping anything under 40 into magical due to the split up. Again, cheese it till you make it is the way you judge broken and an extra 20 points and a weak ring ability is generally not broken, at best it's vampirism mitigation which barely effects older chars.

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Alais isn't immune to anything, at the end of the day they're still vampires, that specific bloodline has to feed off of nobles and is still subject to the same persecution as the other bloodlines it's just harder to notice them. You're still spending proficiency points for these abilities is the point I'm making. Compared to the rings where you don't spend /any/ points to gain an ability.

PS stop looking at flights as duels, altalar are only advantaged if you fight alone and with honor.

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I once more disagree, I'm not just looking at them as individual fighters. As a levy force, they are undoubtedly superior being an Archer, Cavalry, and Footman unit at the same time at one-fifth of the cost. What's holding them back from going over everything is really just the use of siege weapons and the in lore infighting, along with the Monsters as Magivore said.

The talk about Magic and Linguistics is a tangent that is getting away from the actual conversation at hand about the race not specific unrelated proficiencies: If you don't think either of them are useful then that's fine, I think that Linguistics could be incredibly useful for translation, scrying things in secret, eavesdropping, and things of the like. It can be used for academics, among nobles or criminals and all sorts if you allow yourself the chance to think a little bit out of the box for its use. I would say that you still don't need to know everything for Magic either, the average person might not actually care about the events, artifacts or anything to do with Silven. Just because something has options doesn't mean you're useless not being a know it all.

 

[NZ_Nix]

they're broken just a little bit but at the end of the day it's just roleplay

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You're 100% correct there, was purely an opinion.