Why are there no human characters in the game who are black? Can you fix that?
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Good question! And no black lapina nor dwarf skin options either.
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Not counting the player avatar, there are a few in Leonis Empire. Keep in mind that there are only 3 human kingdoms. This is in obviously a fantasy midevil time period except for Adana and dwarves with some steampunk.
When the devs get art to review, they aren’t probably looking for a quota or color, but if it played a factor, it would be where is this troop going to go or where are they from lore wise (which isn’t as prevalent anymore).
Whenever calls for inclusion happen for whatever reason, while I know they are coming with good intentions, it can come off as accusatory without considering the why. If this was closer to a reflection of our world, adana tech would be everywhere, dragons would be pilot & plane, and zuulgoth would be a third party candidate.
As for the avatar skins of other races, perhaps they will revamp it in 5.0
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I believe they don’t even review art anymore. They just trust people will send reasonably acceptable art and then the “Art” Departament been lacking lately…
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To Kyle’s point:
Those few characters in Leonis Empire have never read as black to me. It’s pretty clear to me the artist is signaling the couple of darker characters are Arabic non-black because of the phenotype they used.
As for the OPs request, I’d love to know the answer to that question as well. Myself and another black player asked them about adding black avatars a long time ago. And to the credit of the devs, they said they would work on it, and they did eventually add a black option. I appreciated them adding it.
In the same vain, I hope they will eventually increase racial diversity in the game. I find it hard to believe the whole world of Krystara is devoid of black people.
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The Australian ppl are very migrant resistant. More so than any nation I can think of. The indigenous real Australians have been practically obliterated make you own decision as to why.
Yes, Ashasekayi, that’s how I read it too.
All of Infinity Plus Two’s staff that I am aware of are Caucasian.
Just an observation.
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Who cares about the race. Its a game geez. I can see it now. " Why is that racist white troop burning my black troop, and has a hunters mark on me and has me entangled. " This is a game people so please keep race out of it…
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This is so confusing a statement. So Krystara is a fantasy world. Fantasy can’t have black people in it?
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It’s about representation. The same reason why the devs added totally-not-Russia and totally-not-China to the game (both around the same time the game was released in the totally-not-language). People like seeing people like themselves in books, movies, or games.
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Racism is everywhere. Australia is probably one of the most racist nations on earth. But this is off topic. Just don’t float your dinghy too close to the shoreline.
EDIT
Why this is flagged is beyond me.
Gamers of other races also like to see themselves represented in the worlds they play in. The OP’s request for at least 1 black troop in a sea of 100s of troops isn’t unreasonable.
And, your example is beyond disingenuous.
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The beginning was not meant to be accusatory, but could be seen as such. Some other comments have gone down that route.
The short answer is no, of course not. The long answer is out of a quick token troop added, the game map needs an expansion.
As mentioned before, other cultures have kingdoms influenced by those cultures. The main problem is that almost none of them have any humans in them. Perhaps a better fix would be the inclusion of more human kingdoms spread across the current region, or a zoom out to include new lands to explore.
Fantasy games with rich lore like the elder scrolls can do this with a largely customized avatar system and npcs built and varied by that character creation. There is a balance of races of various types, colors, etc. This game has a problem where kingdoms are more regions, and most of these regions are filled with mythical beasts and entities who attack on site. It would be cool to find other settlements, but the devs move at the speed of molasses, so I’m waiting to see what they have planned for future updates.
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I believe someone already eluded to this in this thread.
I don’t think I+2 has a say in the art that they use. I think they just use whatever is made available to them.
So I think the question would be better asked to the art studio that actually designs the troops.
The OP did get me thinking though about the lack of diversity in most Dark Ages based fantasy world’s.
I would guess that it has to do with Europe being the base inspiration for those worlds at that time. When we think of the past all the races were supremely segregated… So past fantasy represents that. Meanwhile most future fantasy tends to be super diverse. Maybe some “future fantasy” based new delves wouldn’t be out of the question. And would be able to include more diversity to the human races.
Or simply rework a kingdom or two to be more ancient African based.
As I’m brainstorming kingdoms I quickly think of Adana which under cuts my theory entirely.
Therefore…yep… No excuse not to have black humans in the game.
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I get what people are trying to say when they say it, but I personally don’t think any game that has dragons, robots, and elves can claim time period/geology/real life basis in an exclusionary manner.
The only reason I can think of it being so white in Krystara is that the art dept aren’t good at drawing black men and women well/without it being disrespectful. But thankfully (or otherwise given the context they’re getting the exposure they deserved years ago in), due to the most recent two major events worldwide, there is a massive amount of black artists being showcased on Twitter and social media who are also complaining about a lack of work. Ten minutes of browsing trending tags and that would solve that.
If it’s for the sake of theming, great, we could have tons of kingdoms with all of the dead space on the map. Below Bright Forest, in the mountains to either side of Shentang, the river between Mist and Zhul, the little island to the west of Khetar that exists for seemingly no reason currently.
If it’s a matter of ideas, how about some black elven mages secluded in a tower on that weird Khetar-adjacent island who thought they were too powerful to allow their powers into Krystara until somebody brought them into the world war with an attack against their tower? Nomadic barbarians that wear winter wolf pelts and have immunity to frost and have spell-resistance with extra skull damage? Or desert travelers on mechanized camel-shaped robots that carry their tribe’s water? Or maybe underground groups of spider-hunters who use the webbing of the spiders as camouflage and stick it to their boots to travel unhindered in the spider caverns? Or secluded mountain-dwelling monster hunters/trap masters who use a ton of Stealth and poison/bleed? Or maybe they could ignore stealth with the “tracking” mechanic and finally allow people to shut down the Life & Death/Orbweaver and be the heroes people have been asking for for years. Have those, I’m not doing anything with them.
It’s a digital game in a digital world during a pandemic that has everyone there working remotely anyways. There are freelance artists trending all over Twitter given the current topic of conversation lately who do beautiful fantasy and sci-fi art that are also incredibly easy to contact. I’m following a few new artists recently because they’re finally getting the kind of exposure their beautiful sci-fi/fantasy/etc art deserves. Devs, if you need recommendations, I could drop some online portfolio names you could take a look at!
To the people who have and inevitably will pour in with the “it’s just a game, who cares” mentality, your privilege is showing incredibly hard. You’ve grown up in a world where every game, every movie, every visual representation of “normal and acceptable” is a white, cis, hetero man or (sometimes) woman. Congratulations, everything revolves around you already and is catered toward you and you lack the desire to exercise your empathy to extend to other people who might not have the same benefits in life. If you’re doing it to be dismissive and are aware it’s a big deal, congratulations as well, because you suck and aren’t being clever or funny echoing “edgy” talking points.
If your personal preference is the lack of diversity at the expense of any race besides your own, nobody cares what you think. Literally nobody. The people on the message boards who echo your sentiments? They don’t care either, they’re only trying to express their own viewpoints and you have a pulse. Nobody cares. Not one person. The king of the racists could see you shouting your crap here and he himself wouldn’t care. Nobody cares. Nobody. A lot of people probably don’t like you and cringe physically when they hear you coming with your new “hilarious” joke about Hispanics or whatever. But nobody cares. Nobody cares, we’re all talking around you, and you can take it elsewhere. It’s not edgy, it’s not funny, it’s not a personality trait, it’s not worth attention, it’s not clever, it’s not shocking, it’s not interesting, it’s not a “hot take,” it’s not worthwhile, and you’re not worth entertaining. Go read a book on how to have a personality because you’re exhausting and we’re all tired of pretending like you can shock us anymore. Maybe if you leapt off the top of a building while kicking a dog while on fire we’d look your way but that takes effort and this shit is lazy and tired. You’re boring. Go home. Read a book. Watch a television show. Ride a bicycle. You’d already be making huge steps toward not being extremely boring. You’re boring. We’ve heard it for years and it’s boring. Learn a new trick.
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This reminds me of the time I was in Chicago visiting family and we went to an art museum. There was a painting called “a sunday afternoon on the island of la grande jatte”
I was immediately struck by the lack of diversity in the painting. Fortunately I had a brown sharpie on me and was able to “fix” it. 
Yeah ok . We will see.
My example is todays society. Where you been?
I honestly think the art departament in general is simply lazy and/or unmotivated to pursue new things most of the time. They have the usual “Who cares?” approach I believe, and that is reflected in the poor artworks as well as representativity.
As long as it’s just a few people complaining about the issue with representation and quality of the artwork they will keep ignoring the matter, or maybe they will take their sweet time to address part of it until the end of the year. (Unlike what happened when they changed Sunspear’s trait…)
But I can expect a “token” post by Salty or Kafka in this thread just to estate they are not as bad as some people claim/imply and to say they can’t change the whole schedule just to accomodate this matter, hence why our feedback will take longer to bring results.
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I don’t seem to understand what you mean with this statement and how it relates to adding black troops into the game. Would you please elaborate on it? Please, be as specific and detailed as possible, I’m not terribly well-read or intelligent and might need you to be extremely explicit about what you’re trying to convey here. Thank you very much for your time!
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