Physical advantages of the races of Eorzia

[Khaze'to Zhwan]

So because another thread was getting a little sidetracked I thought at a suggestion from Alothia to start up a new thread.  

 

We all know that the different races have different base stats and these are generally based around SE's views on the average member of the race.  Roegadyn are the big strong race with "limitless" endurance and Miqo'te are known to have a great sense of smell and in the case of the Keepers at least they have excellent night vision.  I believe that the Elezen have good hearing but I could be remembering that wrong.  

 

I was wondering how one would approach this aspect of their chosen race without cries of god modding and op.  The example given was a murder mystery with a Miqo'te being able to smell the murderer on the victim.  And have you seen any examples of Mary-sue where say a lalafell defeats a Roegadyn in an arm-wrestling match.

[Eva]

The elezen clans are both divided a bit.  Duskwight elezen are said to have a very strong sense of hearing.  Wildwood elezen are said to have a very keen sense of sight.  Just to clarify.

 

From the duskwight wiki page:

The Duskwight Elezen have spent centuries in the peace and seclusion of Eorzea's caves and caverns. They have developed an acute sense of hearing, capable of detecting the faintest of sounds. This natural gift, and the uncanny awareness it grants, has proven advantageous in the field of hand-to-hand combat. Many of the reclusive Duskwight resort to robbery and pillaging to survive, earning them the scorn of their woodland relatives.

 

From the wildwood wiki page:

For Hundreds of years the Wildwood Elezen have lived in the safety of Eorzea's lush forests. They possess an incredibly keen sense of sight - a contributing factor in their unparalleled expertise as archers. With the formation of the realm's governments, many Wildwood ventured forth from the forests, drawn either to the exhilarating cosmopolitanism of the urban centers of the simple nomad-ism of the plains.

 

 

 

Also about the miqo'te...

From the miqo'te wiki page:

Since then, the Miqo'te have diverged into two physically distinguishable groups— the diurnal Seekers of the Sun and the nocturnal Keepers of the Moon. Both groups share a superb olfactory sense and powerful leg musculature, results of a long evolution geared towards hunting and predation.

[Alothia]

One of the things that I always found interesting was Duskwight hearing. I've played with a few Duskwights who will ask to hear your whispers if you're whispering or mumbling about something. People who don't know the lore might get offended, but it's an interesting conundrum. The lore states that they have exceptional hearing, so it wouldn't be outside of bounds for them to ask about your whispers and such.

 

Some people don't like it, but it is a part of the lore. Just something to think about.

[Khaze'to Zhwan]

The elezen clans are both divided a bit.  Duskwight elezen are said to have a very strong sense of hearing.  Wildwood elezen are said to have a very keen sense of sight.  Just to clarify.

Ohh thanks for that, don't want to stumble there

[Varus]

According to the wikia, Miqo'te do have extremely strong sense of smells - I believe that's confirmed canon from 1.0, someone will have to verify, but it doesn't sound far-fetched, considering they are a feline race.

 

I've actually RP'ed with a Lalafell that overpowered my character in an arm wrestling match!

[Eva]

I went back and edited that post accordingly to include snippets from the wiki about each of the elezen clans.

 

As a duskwight I have not ever demanded to know what people nearby may be whispering about.  I think it's an interesting angle but it's not something I'm personally comfortable encroaching upon private RP about.  I know others who have and I don't think there's anything wrong with perhaps invoking that sense of hearing in the form of a request, but when it's made as a demand I think it's just kind of rude.

 

To elaborate just a little bit, in RP scouting events and such I have factored these racial/clan attributes into particular things.  For instance, as a group got close to a band of poachers who had a campfire, it might make sense for the miqo'te in the group to be able to smell the fire if we were downwind, or perhaps the wildwood in the group might see the flickering of the flames before any of the others.  It's little things like this that make the RP a bit more interesting, I think.  

 

EDIT:  Also added the tidbit about miqo'te sense of smell as well, since I already had the wiki open still  ;-)

[Naunet]

Having roleplayed characters in the past who belonged to races with lore-supported "super senses" so to speak, I've found that including such things into one's RP can be great fun. For example, elves in TERA are said to have such great hearing that their archers can triangulate the precise position of a target from seemingly impossible distances. For one of my characters, this wasn't something that came up (rather the opposite, as I roleplayed her as having rather poor hearing when it came to elves), but for another I really played it up when I could, even giving her a magitech-crafted earpiece that she could use to enhance her hearing further when needed. She was a scout and an information gatherer, so this skill synergized well with her roleplay.

 

The /say range in TERA is fairly long, so I generally roleplayed that it was possible for her to hear something as long as I could see it in chat. To avoid accusations of god-moding (which is not something I partake in), I generally only applied it when my character was specifically listening to someone. If they said something to another person a whisper, I would /w them and ask if I could get a repeat of what they said because my character could hear them (elven hearing and all). Usually this was met amiably.

 

I fully intend to make use of such traits when appropriate in ARR roleplay. They can be great fun!

[FreelanceWizard]

So, in City of Heroes, this was a common problem, as you can imagine. Empaths and telepaths quite legitimately, by lore, could argue that they could read your character's thoughts, especially if mechanically you had no protection against Psionics. My SG, its coalition members, and many of the RPers on the server came to two approaches that work in parallel.

 

First, for "passive" powers like empathy -- or, in this case, superhuman senses used passively -- we floated it to the other player as an RP hook. We'd say something to the effect of, "Hey, my miqo'te has an amazing sense of smell, so if there's anything you want to tell me about how your character smells that might make for some interesting RP, feel free to let me know. If not, that's cool, too." In that way, you put the ball in the other player's court; if they want to use the hook, they can, and if not, you can easily RP that there's nothing particularly interesting about them.

 

Second, for active uses of powers -- in this case, actively sniffing someone to, for instance, see if they've committed some crime, or actively listening in on a conversation -- you request consent. That means reaching out to the player OOC and saying, "Hey, I'd like to have my character listen in on this conversation, because he has superhuman hearing. Is that cool?" If they say no, and there's no reason why they'd have to consent, then for some reason your character just can't use that ability. Requesting consent makes the RP process collaborative and is not godmoding if the ability is supported by lore (since you're not demanding the ability to do something to someone). People are also more likely to grant consent when asked as opposed to when they're told to do so because of (possibly questionable) interpretations of lore. Remember that, mechanically, being miqo'te doesn't extend your character's vision or hearing range, so it's easy to chalk up the racial advantage as "superior but within human range."

 

I mentioned situations where people have to consent. Obviously, you can't enforce that with random RPers, but in an LS or FC or alliance thereof, you can enforce the rule of IC Actions Equal IC Consequences (and good RPers will play that way anyway, even with random people ). So, if a person uses something active on you, and you agree to it, they have to consent to you doing the same to them. Likewise, if they murder a friend of yours, they consent to the powers and actions that could reasonably result from that.

 

Of course, with NPCs and in storylines, you can do whatever you want. But I'm a strong believer that, when dealing with other players, you put the ball in their court as much as possible and let them run with the hook, and possibly other mixed metaphors. It makes everyone's lives easier and can produce some great RP.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Reposting this from the other thread to continue the discussion.

 

"Midlanders do not possess the endless stamina of the Roegadyn, nor the hawk-like eyes of the Elezen, nor the hound-like noses of the Miqo'te, nor the deer-like ears of the Lalafell, nor even the muscle-bound builds of their cousins, the Highland Hyur."

 

It's the only quote I could find equating Miqo'te to hounds. Considering this comes from an NPC description of Midlander Hyur rather than a description of Miqo'te, my take is that it's a little bit of poetic license, and that they were likely exaggerating a little bit to punctuate the notion that Midlanders were the "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none." Just as I would doubt that Roegadyn all have no limit to their stamina and that Elezen have eyes that are literally capable of telescopic vision like many birds of prey.

 

Further searching yielded this quote, which seems to come directly from a description about Miqo'te. This same quote appeared on several wikis. Although I couldn't find its source in game, it sounds like it came from the character creator:

 

"Adaption to a hunting lifestyle has fashioned them with a keen sense of smell, powerful legs, and a tail which provides them with exceptional balance."

 

Doing a little bit of internet research, I came up with the following numbers. Real-world cats have senses of smell that are roughly 14 times as acute as humans. For wolves, their sense of smell jumps to 100 times the strength of humans (about 7 times more powerful than cats). Bloodhounds are the terrestrial kings. Their sense of smell is around 300 times more powerful than humans (3 times that of wolves and 20 times that of cats).

 

Given the source in game is NPC dialog and the fact that bloodhounds are the result of 1000 years of artificial selection by humans to specifically strengthen their sense of smell over all other traits, the idea that Miqo'te have scent capabilities equivalent to bloodhounds is unreasonable. A shark, for example, can detect blood in the water at concentrations as low as 1 part per billion, but it dedicates a third of its brain to olfaction in order to do so.

 

The other problem with a super-human sense of smell is that it's game breaking for a variety of scenarios. If you're throwing a murder mystery event and someone's character can just smell the butler's scent on the bloody candlestick as well as the victim's blood on the butler despite him washing his hands, the story ends in three minutes and no one had any fun. It becomes an arms race where the storyteller has to bend over backwards to find a means to completely negate the player's ability just to have an interesting story, leaving both parties aggravated.

 

If we consider the second quote as giving a more reasonable interpretation for a Miqo'te to have a sense of smell somewhere in the real world cat to wolf range and limited the capability of the trait to something along the lines of the scent feat from D&D 3.5, I think that would be more reasonable.

 

Personally, I'm curious about Miqo'te night vision. I was watching a documentary on lions yesterday and learned that their night vision is far better than humans can achieve even with military grade night vision goggles. Real world lions do a lot of their hunting at night, and often sleep through the heat of the day, so they differ from Seekers in that regard. While not explicitly mentioned anywhere that I can find, I wouldn't think it unreasonable that at least the Keepers would have really good night vision.

 

Doing a little bit of internet research, I came up with the following numbers. Real-world cats have senses of smell that are roughly 14 times as acute as humans. For wolves, their sense of smell jumps to 100 times the strength of humans (about 7 times more powerful than cats). Bloodhounds are the terrestrial kings. Their sense of smell is around 300 times more powerful than humans (3 times that of wolves and 20 times that of cats).

 

To clarify what I actually said in that post. I didn't include lions on the list of animals because I couldn't find any source to tell me "Lion sense of smell is X times stronger than humans." I suppose it is slightly implied by the comparisons, but I never stated explicitly that Miqo'te sense of smell should be on par with house cats. In fact....

 

If we consider the second quote as giving a more reasonable interpretation for a Miqo'te to have a sense of smell somewhere in the real world cat to wolf range and limited the capability of the trait to something along the lines of the scent feat from D&D 3.5, I think that would be more reasonable.

 

Here I assert that I would be cool with someone playing a character whose scent capabilities fall anywhere within the range between house cats and wolves. In D&D, a character can absolutely develop a sense of smell capable of tracking someone by smell, it just requires them to expend two of their feats and invest skill points in survival/wilderness lore, and skill penalties accrue for every hour since the scent trail was laid. Since those two feats and skill points are a limited resource, it's balanced by the fact that you're giving up an opportunity for attack feats or stealth skills by improving it. If you can find some way to do that in an MMO where we don't have RP character sheets or stat points to balance between a large number of character options, I personally would be cool with it.

 

Mostly this comes down to a balancing act. In tabletop systems, you have a limited pool of resources (experience points, feats, skill ranks, etc.) to balance powers so that every character conforms to some sort of par and encounters can present a reasonable challenge in order to be fun. MMOs are more of a balancing act since there are no stat points, so this kind of discussion is good to help establish what is reasonable and what is overpowered/god-moding.

[Kyatai]

Great suggestions Freelance.

Reminds me of my time in Vanguard RPing a psionicist. Yes, lore-wise, I could read minds, but I set up certain constraints to my character and ensured any 'deep reads' had the full consent of my RP partners. It was a challenge- but a fun one.

Similarly, with some 'work arounds' and self-limiting adjustments (maybe) that we add into our RP, I see no reason we couldn't fully utilize the 'superpowers' mentioned in lore and remain true to our characters w/o metagaming.

 

I can see how expanding and using our various racial attributes would be an awesome addition to Adventure RP.

 

Like... I know Antimony wears glasses, so her eyesight would not be as great as other Miqo'te (though she's a Seeker, I can see it still being better than a Hyur's), but still quite good... over long distances maybe. That seems logical based on her Miqo'te genetics... and the fact that as WE grow older, the older eye has more difficulty seeing up close, but not from afar.

 

Likewise, my DW will have great hearing- but whereas that might be great for hunting and so on, it would be HORRIBLE in busy marketplaces and taverns. I kinda RPed this in Ph3- her covering her ears and becoming more disgruntled and annoyed- both at the claustrophobia of the crowded tavern with non-DW... and the noise. I can see her figuring out a way to diminish her natural hearing when she must be in situations like that, so as to not make her ears and nose bleed and head explode with the noise and over-stimulation. haha

(one thing of note... I find it odd that DW don't have great eyesight, given that they are accustomed to the darkness of caves. It seems logical to me that they have great nightvision, but not necessarily acuity in day or over long distances)

[Khaze'to Zhwan]

(one thing of note... I find it odd that DW don't have great eyesight, given that they are accustomed to the darkness of caves. It seems logical to me that they have great nightvision, but not necessarily acuity in day or over long distances)

This I feel is because they don't want the races to overlap with the different senses I guess.  I have to agree it doesn't make much sense to me.

[Kyatai]

(one thing of note... I find it odd that DW don't have great eyesight, given that they are accustomed to the darkness of caves. It seems logical to me that they have great nightvision, but not necessarily acuity in day or over long distances)

This I feel is because they don't want the races to overlap with the different senses I guess.  I have to agree it doesn't make much sense to me.

Meh.

the Keepers can still have the best nightvision... they're hunters, afterall. DW would just be conditioned to see in limited light of caves. 'Course can't think too hard on this, b/c logically they'd have lighter skin too (less sunlight) not darker.

but i see no issue with grades of abilities... with the best being those mentioned in lore.

But that's just my take.

I mean... no one's mentioned the other senses... touch and taste.

When used with Echo, touch could be quite cool- delving into a bit of psychometry.

And taste... perhaps very valuable to detect poisons by both smell and taste (as smell and taste are cognitively linked, I'd think Miqo would be very good at this).

 

Now regarding stamina, strength, mind, etc... those seem fairly straightforward... Hm.

[Naunet]

(one thing of note... I find it odd that DW don't have great eyesight, given that they are accustomed to the darkness of caves. It seems logical to me that they have great nightvision, but not necessarily acuity in day or over long distances)

 

Actually, if you compare the Duskwight to organisms in the real world that live in caves, eyesight tends to be one of the first things to go - and hearing one of the first senses to improve. There are many cave-dwelling organisms (most notably fish) that actually lose the entire external eye structure. This is because in the darkness of caverns, eyesight really isn't needed, but senses like hearing are useful in telling the difference between an open area and a narrow area, or if refined enough, even the direction that a path is taking and the location of branches off a main tunnel. So yeah, it totally makes sense for Duskwight to have worse vision than Wildwood but significantly better hearing.

[Skyborn]

Man Midlander Hyur reeeeeeeeeeeeeally get the short end of the stick as far as racial advantages lol. But that's understandable. I like what Freelance had to say on the subject, though. Even though the abilities are lore-supported, a character doesn't have to give consent to let your character hear and smell everything that they're doing. It can make it interesting if they're cool with it, especially if they mutter something relative to the story or plot. 

 

Conversely it also adds an interesting social question: Since it's common knowledge that these races have these heightened senses...would people be less prone to mumbling things that they wanted to be kept private? Whether you were sitting next to an Elezen or not, there's probably one in the room and they can probably hear what you're saying. I would think that people would be more cautious about stuff like that. In our society, where hearing has a baseline across ethnicities, we don't really have to think twice about it. But in Eorzea, lots of folks have that super hearing. Mumbling and saying stuff under your breath might not even be very common place.

[Kyatai]

Hm... you do have a point.

I was actually thinking of those albino fish and bats and such too- but guess I wasn't thinking of them being entirely closed off from light, being sentients that would need light for reading, writing and cooking, etc.

 

BUT... calls to question if DW actually have poorer eyesight than Hyur. I mean... if your light is limited, you'd have to cluster by candlelight, fires, torches, etc... and eyestrain might be significant.

Adaptations would seem logical over time...

But which?

 

Personally, I'd -definitely- see them as photophobic. I can imagine my DW wearing a hood or some such all the time in the desert to shade her eyes. If there was a headdress such as in GW2 that looked like a blindfold, or one of those eye-veil things that the Miraluka wore, I'd see her wearing them.

 

I'm actually ok with the eyesight being weaker in light... but still seems that they'd be more sensitive to glimmers of light in the dark than others, mainly because they don't purely exist in the abyssmal dark.

[Naunet]

I'm actually ok with the eyesight being weaker in light... but still seems that they'd be more sensitive to glimmers of light in the dark than others, mainly because they don't purely exist in the abyssmal dark.

 

I could definitely see the Duskwight vision being more tuned to catching changes in lighting, rather than picking out details or color or somesuch. Certainly they haven't progressed to the point where vision is completely abandoned, so they're not exactly like, oh, the blind cave salamanders or fish or whathaveyou.

 

Makes me wish the lore had them developing echolocation. That would be hilariously awesome.

[FreelanceWizard]

Conversely it also adds an interesting social question: Since it's common knowledge that these races have these heightened senses...would people be less prone to mumbling things that they wanted to be kept private? Whether you were sitting next to an Elezen or not, there's probably one in the room and they can probably hear what you're saying. I would think that people would be more cautious about stuff like that. In our society, where hearing has a baseline across ethnicities, we don't really have to think twice about it. But in Eorzea, lots of folks have that super hearing. Mumbling and saying stuff under your breath might not even be very common place.

 

That's kind of a tricky question, and I guess it depends a lot on how far you want to take the abilities based on the available lore. Other than some text that I believe is just dramatic license, I feel the game sets the bar at "clearly better than hyur, but not supernaturally so." So, an elezen can probably hear things further and with greater clarity, so most people would probably avoid muttering things under their breath at them... but overhearing a conversation across a room with background noise, or through a wall without obviously eavesdropping? That gets into "superpowers" territory for me, anyway, and I don't feel the lore -- especially as expressed in game mechanics -- supports that.

 

Likewise, with miqo'te, I can buy that they could, by sniffing someone like a cat, ascertain that they'd been a fight recently, or just went through a lot of physical activity, or maybe even roughly the last time they bathed. On that basis, I could see miqo'te finding employment as detectives and investigators (CSI Sagolii?).That said, I don't see them being able to scent-track people from a crime scene to their home in a city, track across water (excepting exceptional circumstances, like tracking a fresh blood trail), or distinguish a scent through attempts to conceal it (like strong herbs, smoke, or perfumes). Again, I think that strays too far into "superpowers" territory.

 

But, all that's just my opinion. I agree that'd we see some societal stereotypes (don't mutter insults to an elezen, don't sleep around with a miqo'te's partner because they'll know, etc.), but unless the advantages are extreme, probably not huge societal differences.

[Ildur]

Makes me wonder what sense the lalafell have improved over time, if any. I guess those long ears they have would mean their hearing is a bit better than those of the Hyur.

[Kyatai]

I'm actually ok with the eyesight being weaker in light... but still seems that they'd be more sensitive to glimmers of light in the dark than others, mainly because they don't purely exist in the abyssmal dark.

 

I could definitely see the Duskwight vision being more tuned to catching changes in lighting, rather than picking out details or color or somesuch. Certainly they haven't progressed to the point where vision is completely abandoned, so they're not exactly like, oh, the blind cave salamanders or fish or whathaveyou.

 

Makes me wish the lore had them developing echolocation. That would be hilariously awesome.

... omg... that would be great...

LOL! talk about a unique character trait! :surprise:

[Naunet]

Makes me wonder what sense the lalafell have improved over time, if any. I guess those long ears they have would mean their hearing is a bit better than those of the Hyur.

 

They're described by an NPC as having ears like deer, whatever that means. Does that mean lalafell can swivel their ears around like deer??

[Kyatai]

your cat agrees, Naunet... haha

 

Hm... maybe they're totally mobile? not floppy like a rabbit or something?

That just seems odd... imagining a Lala with ears moving all over to capture sound, perking when feels threatened...

Hm.

Need more info as to the benefits of deer ears.

[Eva]

I don't know how much this supports the lore pertaining to duskwight hearing and sense of sight, but Eva is prone to headaches around shrill noises and lots of clamour (like a busy marketplace was mentioned). She prefers quiet and silence to the almost "sensory overload" of something like the bustle of commerce at its busiest hour.

 

Eva's father before he passed away suffered (among other things) a disease that left his eyes extremely sensitive to light. He wore shaded eyeglasses most of the time (much moreso in his twilight years), even indoors. And the shades to his house were kept drawn closed all the time, even on overcast days.

 

I'm not sure either condition is something that all duskwight would exhibit, but it certainly seems like something that they might be more prone to than other race/clans.

[Spiritual Machine]

I'm not sure how people can complain about godmoding and metagaming with regard to these senses if the following things are true:

 

1.) If people aren't forcing others to acknowledge their supersenses, or making a big stink about it. People who godmode using these senses were probably already the sort of ignorant or unsavory folk who use godmoding regardless of lore support, and don't play well with others.

 

2.) If most of the time the people using these senses have to ask to hear the whispers, follow the trail, see the sights and know the information that the roleplayer themselves doesn't know OOC. You have to actually know the stuff in order to metagame it.

 

3.) The people using these senses politely ask if they're allowed to use them in a given roleplay scene, and there's some OOC collaboration about it.

 

And most importantly:

 

4.) If this game is anything at all like FFXI, then there are magical spells and cheap, easy-to-obtain alchemy concoctions that can completely hide a person or thing from sight, make something or someone completely silent, or completely mask a scent.

 

So if you need a reason for someone's supersense not to work (for plot purposes), that ought to be easy to handle while also adhering to the lore.

[Vinter]

I imagine miqo'te hearing is akin to that of cats. They can hear much higher frequencies, and their hearing is much more sensitive than that of humans. However, as predators, the main use for their hearing is triangulation of prey.

 

So, if someone dropped a ball in a pitch black room, a miqo'te could possibly hear the sound of the ball hitting the ground and tell you in which direction the sound came from, and how far away it was, within a very small margin of error. Whereas a human would only hear a ball being dropped somewhere to the left, and depending on the loudness of the sound, determine if it was close or far away.

[Clover]

My main is a hyur, so she's nothing special.

 

If the lore states that my Miqo'te has a very good sense of smell, I'll have to RP accordingly. With this I mean, if someone wants to hide a pie somewhere and doesn't want it to be found, then just avoid RPing with a Miqo'te? I don't want to be forced to be OOC, when it wasn't even me the one who decided that Miqo'tes have a nice sense of smell. Lore is lore; I don't see any problem with characters being as the lore states.