The Tavern

So I have always thought it is weird how there are only 5 or 6 white options for the Human race since 0.14. They are Berzerker, Conjurer, Necromancer, Fire, and Ice Elementalist. Why? It is perfectly viable for a Human to be almost anything, because the only bad aptitude they have is a -1 in spellcasting, which isn't even that much considering the fact that Humans can win with any magical class, and has no other bad aptitudes in anything! They could do very well with any class. So, are the greyed out options inaccurate? Keep in mind, this is the case for EVERY other race, which, in the case of a human, is completely inaccurate! I feel like they are confining new players to something not true, because let's say a new player comes up and says "I wanna be a Human... Wait. Only these 5 classes are optimal? Whatever happened to your classic medival knights? Or those old wizards like Gandalf?" Even though there is nothing stopping the player from choosing a greyed-out option, it is sort of influencing the player to pick something else, even though the option they truly wanted to be is perfectly fine. I think there should be more white options for each race, because only 5 or so classes for each race is completely ridiculous!

Too many options are greyed-out! Even though this isn't really THAT important, it sort of is for a player making their new character. Besides, who would want to pick a race that looks like it is only good at a few select things? Oh wait... All the classes are. But they only SEEM to be like that! What is going on?

They're meant to guide new players and not overwhelm them with too many choices. The highlighted backgrounds are not the strongest few backgrounds for most species, and not every viable background is highlighted, so in those senses they are misleading.

Even so, there's inaccurate stuff. ex: Hill Orc should definitely have Gladiator highlighted if Monk is, because Monk is considerably worse(and less simple) than Fi/Gl

With that logic, monk wouldn't be highlighted for ANY species. It's all about what a species is better at than other species. So HO gets monk because of their great invo aptitudes.

Sure, but why not highlight Gl for HO as well when they're so similar?

Because enough other backgrounds are highlighted

+1 to shields and armour with a -1 to throwing makes Fighter a much more attractive option than Gladiator, which means they'd promote the stronger of the two melee focused combos than the weaker one, even if Gladiator is still really good.

Even if you think +1 backgrounds highlighted would be enough to take things over the line from "not too many choices" to "an overwhelming amount of choice", this still has the issue where greyed out backgrounds imply to new players that that combo would be bad.

It seems odd to me to highlight Mo as an option for HO because Hill Orc is one of the better options for playing Monk, when Monk is one of the worse options for playing Hill Orc. I think it makes sense to highlight Hill Orc if you choose Monk first but not vice versa, if that makes sense.

Honestly, we should just get rid of recommendations like this altogether, and just offer "recommended characters" as a menu option that takes new players to a list of, say, 6-12 species/background combos that are ideally suited for introducing new players to various aspects of the game. You can't ever solve the problem of misleading players with the kind of diversity of choices the current system goes for, whereas a more curated list would offer the opportunity for additional context and aids for the player.

OTOH, this is a process designed to turn into counting angels on the head of a pin. Someone will always be unhappy with the recommendations, because there are Too Many Combos.