Character creation mechanic is dying.

[Zhukov]

I actually prefer character creators where you choose from premade facial features rather than fiddle with sliders. (So for example picking from a list of noses rather than having nose length, nose height and nose width sliders.)

Dragon's Dogma did this very well, but then Dragon's Dogma has one of the best character editors.

While DD's editor was indeed good, its engine was not.

No matter what you did your character was going to come out looking like a slackjawed mannequin.

Had some nice armour models though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dragon's Dogma did this very well, but then Dragon's Dogma has one of the best character editors.

While DD's editor was indeed good, its engine was not.

No matter what you did your character was going to come out looking like a slackjawed mannequin.

Maybe that's why they were able to give all those options; because the renders were fairly simplistic. I don't know the finer points of what goes into making a character editor. Still didn't give you the option to save your edit though.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Meh, I don't really care about making my own character, mostly because I almost always regret it once I'm playing.

 

[K12]

I think proper slider-based character creators are really hard to do well for average players.

I imagine there'll always be people who know where the "sellion height" should be but I sure as shit don't. Sliders like "age" are far more useful because it's clearer what the overall effect on the face will be. Most people have a particular mental image in mind when they're doing character creation and the ease of getting close enough to that is the key aim.

It's too easy to get a character creator like Dark Souls 2 were you can potentially make any type of character you want if you're prepared to dig deep into but but if you want to make a realistic looking black character in less than a few hours of tinkering then you're out of luck.

One thing I've never seen but would like to is a sword and armour creator since these are the things you see most of the time anyway. This could either allow you to personalise the eventual "ultimate" gear you'll receive later in the game. Or have a personalised surcoat, shield logo or sword hilt that can applied to the weapons and armour you find.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wasn't Dragon Age: Inquistion supposed to have the option to test your creation in various lighting before finalizing, so you could check if it looked like shit?

No clue, since I never really followed the game. Origins killed my interest in the series really fast. That should be, like, perfunctory at this point, though.

Agreed about Dragon's Dogma, BTW. Loved the diversity in creation there.

"Oh look this game is a shooter/MMO hybrid, slap in a character creation so people can feel like they are different". (at least until armour drops make every look the same anyway).

Armour doesn't impact character appearance in the game. You get separate clothing drops which you can use, but the best stuff is mostly from pre-orders or the season pass bonuses anyway. Well, except my purple scarf.

The problem is more "with like six premade faces, you only feel different until you've met the thirtieth character with the same face model."

Fortunately, if you're playing with a female character, you can suspend the disbelief a bit further.

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

Now, I can't tell you about the rest of the games, but I did put a solid 25 hours into Gat Out of Hell and you play as either Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington (which is fine by me, because I adore Kinzie) and don't even have so much as clothing options for either. Canb you even choose your President? Mine was automatically loaded from my primary SRIV slot and I was under the impression if you loaded without save data it used a default.

Hard to talk about a robust character creation system when your choice is between two premade and well-established story characters.

"Say what you want about the Saints, but at least they let you play as a girl."

Good. It's getting to be an old idea anyway. How many times in how many games can you create your own character or yourself painstakingly before it gets repetitive in itself?

Probably as many times as I can drive a race, shoot a bad guy, or grab a power-up mushroom.

I find it weird what people find repetitive in gaming. Gaming is almost always a series of repetitive tasks. And in The Division, that's pretty much the whole game.

I wish more games had the option to customize your character on the fly, like Mount and Blade. Less drama of spending 3-4 hours on the customization screen.

This is one place where the Saints Row series is actually pretty good. I don't remember about the first game (the only game I never really went back and played again), but 2-4 all let you change your appearance for a small fee. Kinda wish they'd just drop the fee, but you usually get so much money it doesn't matter. I'd still like better preview options, as it took me like 12 trips to Image As Designed to get my character's nose right in 3 (or to make it not look like an unholy abomination). Thank Kinzie you can import from 3 to 4.

 

[Amaror]

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

Now, I can't tell you about the rest of the games, but I did put a solid 25 hours into Gat Out of Hell and you play as either Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington (which is fine by me, because I adore Kinzie) and don't even have so much as clothing options for either. Canb you even choose your President? Mine was automatically loaded from my primary SRIV slot and I was under the impression if you loaded without save data it used a default.

Hard to talk about a robust character creation system when your choice is between two premade and well-established story characters.

"Say what you want about the Saints, but at least they let you play as a girl."

Hmmm...
Sorry about that. I just saw that an Saints Row expansion had been released and just kind of asumed that it had a cc, like all SR games before.
I should have probably made a bit more research before naming that game. The other games should still be perfectly valid though.

 

[Something Amyss]

Hmmm...
Sorry about that. I just saw that an Saints Row expansion had been released and just kind of asumed that it had a cc, like all SR games before.
I should have probably made a bit more research before naming that game. The other games should still be perfectly valid though.

The big problem is you've got a list of games I've never played because they're of little or no interest to me. I can't comment on most of them, but in a billion dollar industry, a list of like eight .games with varying values of character creation (Listing Stardew Valley and Pillars of Eternity make me think you have a radically different idea of what robust character customisation is, and one not in line with this thread). Not to mention MGS V, which I also haven't played but if you point out it doesn't really change your appearance it comes off as padding the list.

What OP is looking for isn't "choose head, choose hair, choose facial hair if male," which seems to be the limit of several of these games. They want something more akin to actual Saints Row, or the next-gen (current) version of GTA V Online. Presumably, they're fine with Fallout and TES since they mentioned those franchises specifically, which should probably give an idea of what we're looking at in terms of games. Stardew Valley and PoE don't provide that level of customisation. I even watched videos to look at the options they provide. I'd check 'em all out, but that's a lot of time watching videos about games in which I'm simply not interested.

I mean, if you're cool with this level of character creation, that's fine. But it's not really a counter to the notion that started this thread, the one I was talking about.

 

[Amaror]

The big problem is you've got a list of games I've never played because they're of little or no interest to me. I can't comment on most of them, but in a billion dollar industry, a list of like eight .games with varying values of character creation (Listing Stardew Valley and Pillars of Eternity make me think you have a radically different idea of what robust character customisation is, and one not in line with this thread). Not to mention MGS V, which I also haven't played but if you point out it doesn't really change your appearance it comes off as padding the list.

What OP is looking for isn't "choose head, choose hair, choose facial hair if male," which seems to be the limit of several of these games. They want something more akin to actual Saints Row, or the next-gen (current) version of GTA V Online. Presumably, they're fine with Fallout and TES since they mentioned those franchises specifically, which should probably give an idea of what we're looking at in terms of games. Stardew Valley and PoE don't provide that level of customisation. I even watched videos to look at the options they provide. I'd check 'em all out, but that's a lot of time watching videos about games in which I'm simply not interested.

I mean, if you're cool with this level of character creation, that's fine. But it's not really a counter to the notion that started this thread, the one I was talking about.

My point with those games was less to point out how many games there are with character creators, but rather how many games with character creators there are that either don't really need them or traditionally never had them before.
Xcom and Xcom 2 are tactical turn-based strategy games with character creators.
Stardew Valley is a Farming Sim with Character creator.
MGS V, as I said, has a character creator, even though it doesn't actually change your character appearance.
And traditional RPGS, Fallout 4, Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity, all have character creators. My point is that character creators are as far away from dying as they get. Just because a few games come with sh***y cc's doesn't mean that the whole mechanic is somehow dying.

 

[zombiejoe]

I'm honestly surprised at the amount of people who don't seem to care for extensive character creators. I don't get super complex when creating my characters, but I always love having the options there in case I do want to tweak something here or theres. I'd rather have the options there and not touch them then want to use the options and not have them.

 

[CaitSeith]

I can't comment on this until I compare Dark Souls III character creation with Bloodborne.

 

[DementedSheep]

If anyone wants to just mess around with a character generator All Points Bulletin has one that is actually quite good. Customisation across the board is with you able to make your own designs for tattoos, clothing and the paint job on your car. Unfortunately the rest of the game was shit last time I played it (that was years ago to be fair).

Eve Online was good specifically for making faces, I was using to make some refs for drawing.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

I usually tend to fiddle with it for like an hour and end up making a character that looks a good 4% different from said game's Default McGee- unless it's a game that uses a system like you said the division has, where I have a short list to pick from.

Also, if the game offers helmets or headwear, I tend to just use that at the first point of availability.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I actually prefer character creators where you choose from premade facial features rather than fiddle with sliders. (So for example picking from a list of noses rather than having nose length, nose height and nose width sliders.)

Sliders tend to result in faces that look fine during creation but then fall apart when animated or when seen from a particular angle.

Although of course providing more and varied features to choose from is never a bad thing.

Immediately brings to mind first Mass Effect.

Spend half an hour making a character, as soon as the first cutscene runs 'fuck!'

Yes!

Exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote that.

I am intimately familiar with that first cutscene. The suspense as the camera follows Shepard up to the cockpit then pans up to his/her face where you finally get to see what horror you have created.

With that great big swell of music behind it. Like even the game is taking the piss.

 

[Strazdas]

i never found character creation as something that i want to spend time in, so ill often go with default setup. the only times im going to see my character is during the cutscenes anyway. and even then only if i dont have a helmet on (i played through mass effect games with my helmet on, even in stations. the cutscenes clearly were designed with helmet off though so it lead to some funny situations.

Immediately brings to mind first Mass Effect.

Spend half an hour making a character, as soon as the first cutscene runs 'fuck!'

in first mass effect there was a bug on PC where in certain circumstances the first level, including the cutscene, would run at 5 FPS (the rest of the game is fine though). The animations during that cutscene didnt knew how to handle low FPS like that. I thought i created a monster.

 

[Vigormortis]

This is a trend that needs to stop

What trend? That character design tools[footnote]Because almost no game, even Bethesda games, have had true 'character creation' tools. They let you change the appearance of the predetermined character, not actually make whatever character you want. (ala pen-and-paper games like D&D)[/footnote] are still included in a LOT of RPGs and MMO games? Is that a bad thing?

That you happened to find a few big-name titles that have limited player-defined character design options does not mean the industry is following a "troubling trend".

This thread is the definition of hyperbolic.

Yes!

Exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote that.

I am intimately familiar with that first cutscene. The suspense as the camera follows Shepard up to the cockpit then pans up to his/her face where you finally get to see what horror you have created.

To be fair, that's less to do with any inherent problems with player controlled character designs and more to do with Bioware being absolutely abysmal at building good animation systems.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, to me, the "best" character creation "mechanic" I've ever used were in South Park and the Stick of Truth, Splatoon, and Magical Diary... only the first one could only create a male character for "plot-related" reasons, the second only has the one body type of skinny-ass squid kid, and the third could only create a female character, however for a much better reason than with Stick of Truth overall... Anyway, as long as I can make my characters as black as me, then the more choices I have afterwards, the more I'll spend time on that shit alone...

Other than that, I don't play that many games with actual character creation... Apparently, I got to play me some Dragon's Dogma and/or Saints Row in my future...

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I prefer very intricate creators over premade stuff. I used Black Desert CC for my avatar here and elsewhere. In Oblivion I can make a character that looks easily 3x better than any I can make in Skyrim (both on ps3).

Bretons in Skyrim suffer from a forehead malady and a general potato head syndrome.

One thing I wish was that more games would allow you to SAVE YOUR DAMN CHARACTER AS A SEPARATE FILE FROM YOUR GAME SAVE. I hate having to remake the same character every time I start a new game.

In Skyrim for example its easy, just keep an extra save with my Nord right at the start of Helgan Keep etc. and just load it for a new game.

But in Dark Souls 2 it gets really damn annoying when you are doing a no death run and have to remake your character every time you die.

I basically memorized every option I change and how much I move the slider in which direction because, of course, providing numerical values of the position would be too much trouble.

If you want to make my Dark Souls 2 character just:

Spoiler

Gender - female
Build - bottom right
Homeland - north
Age - far left
Hormones - right, to above the F
Hair - braided bun thing
Hair color - R -5, G to zero, B -5
Eyebrows - Right once
Eyebrow color - same as hair
Eye Color - red zero, G right 6, B left 6
Skin Color 2 - right 1 (bright)
Skin Color 5 - left 5 (red)
Cheekbone Height - left to zero then right 6
Cheekbone Depth - right 6
Eye Position - left 5
Eye Size - right 4
Eye Angle - left 5
Eye Spacing - left 4
Eye Liner - right 6
Eye Shadow - right 6
Nose Ridge Angle - left 5
Nose Ridge Length - left 5
Nose Protrusion - right 10
Nose position - right 5 (up)
Nostril Angle - right 5 (up)
Nostril Width - left 5 (wide)
Lip Fullness - 5 bigger
Lip Size - 5 bigger
Lip Thickness - 5 bigger
Lipstick left 5 & right 5
Mouth Expression - left to the circle (cheery)
Mouth Protrusion - left 5
Mouth Width - right 8 (narrow)
Jaw Height - right 3

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Wasn't Dragon Age: Inquistion supposed to have the option to test your creation in various lighting before finalizing, so you could check if it looked like shit?

Just one of the many promises that Bioware failed to deliver on with Inquisition.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I just watched some character creation in Dark Souls 3 and it literally addresses everything I wanted to be changed in my previous post. They now have numerical values on the sliders, the ability to change the values 10 at a time, and you can save your character to a favorites list!

I was laughing too hard watching this.