BG3 devs complained because they “put so much work into character creation” and people kept picking “bland builds”. The simple fact is people will either pick entirely off min-maxing or what they find most aesthetically pleasing. Character creation is also lazier than a static character as it wipes out most the need for a backstory (again see bg3) for the character which makes them feel empty.
except BG3 has very poor customization. You need to choose from a short list of predefined faces, for humans is worse since you have asian, african or european esthetics and you end up with just 2or3 choices.
By 'bland builds' they meant 'Why do people keep making characters that are white and male?'
And being the bubble-drowning, coom-brained retards that they are, the obvious answer of 'Because people want to play as themselves, you stupid fuck' never occurred to them.
Or that, gee, the majority of their customer base are white men with alot of spare income on hand.
Having said all that, I don't mind character creation, as it atleast gives me the option of roleplay and self-imposed custom game modes.
'Because people want to play as themselves, you stupid fuck'
Actually, this isn't even true, IMO. I don't think I'm that unique in not caring much about what I'm playing as as long as it's a game that I like. I've played countless games with main characters that are people, animals, aliens, gods, vehicles, objects, plants, robots, whatever. I don't care.
But if a game has a character creator, I'm just going to make myself. I'm not that interested in "being" someone/something else.
Pretty hypocritical of them, considering most of the companions in the final game ended up being some variation (or combination) of human or elf, which in D&D usually translates as "human with pointy ears." Didn't even include any other staples of high fantasy like halflings, dwarves, or (half-)orcs in the main cast.
It's more about immersion and allowing players to add a little bit of extra veneer to the story they want to experience. And I wouldn't entirely discount the impact of this from the player's perspective.
That said, the extent to which customization needs to be offered to achieve an appropriate level of benefit can vary. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker for example custom character portraits and a basic level of customization for the 3D model was absolutely sufficient. In the Avernum series, pretty much the same deal (though that didn't have built-in support for custom portraits).
In something like Skyrim though, where the level of visual detail and interaction in the world is pretty high, I'd have the same level of expectation for what I can do with character visuals. And then of course there's games where I'm perfectly fine with playing a pre-set character or a "no-name" character in general, like in the STALKER series, Half-Life, Dishonored, etc.
It all depends on the kind of game experience you're aiming to create and what kind of story you're trying to tell.
Interesting thought experiment to make the customization actually affect the gameplay in various ways.
Would be funny to see NPCs start reacting to those "MAX every slider to make a hideous character" types in horror & revulsion. Although unlikely to happen since developers would rarely want to gate content or acknowledge that those essential "character creation" type features actually are deeply relevant to how you interact with the world.
Wrestling games come to mind; expansive character options in terms of both looks and stats which affect the game and even the story.
I also liked the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre system where, while not directly affecting your appearance, you were asked a series of morality questions which affected your alignment and starting units and actually had an effect on your story paths (although you could modify your alignment with in-game choices).
The only time character customisation affected a game I played was mass effect and that just gave you an additional mission based off it.
Most if not all of it is simply aesthetics of how you want your character to look to having their own backstory, which 4/10 makes you fantasy Batman.
The last time in terms of build it affected how I played was Fallout NV, there I actually made one build for early game to beat speech checks in the first mission then used the 'are you sure you want this build as you leave the starter town' to respec. Fallout 4 ruined that to where I just abuse the leveling glitch thanks to the autonotron dlc to get everything I want.
The true purpose of character creators is to make you spend time in the game and get invested before you start playing it.
If they just put you in the game then you say "ugh y-axis control is backwards. delete." If you spent 15 minutes on your character then you say "fine I guess I'll dick around with ten pages of settings to fix it".
If this wasn't the case they'd say you can change your look at any time, or any time before endgame, or at least once. But instead they say you better spend lots of time on character creation or you'll regret it later.
Yeah, while most elements of a character creation mechanic are just a re-skinned version of the developer tool, some features are clearly "we dumped a lot of excess dev cycles into this".
Like BG3's vitiligo slider. They spent time on that.
Character creation is the only way we’re getting straight white males at this point, so I’d classify it as essential to most games.
If you think it’s just meaningless superficial detail, then I guess you don’t mind playing as disabled transgender black lesbians.
BG3 devs complained because they “put so much work into character creation” and people kept picking “bland builds”. The simple fact is people will either pick entirely off min-maxing or what they find most aesthetically pleasing. Character creation is also lazier than a static character as it wipes out most the need for a backstory (again see bg3) for the character which makes them feel empty.
except BG3 has very poor customization. You need to choose from a short list of predefined faces, for humans is worse since you have asian, african or european esthetics and you end up with just 2or3 choices.
MassEffect had much better customization.
Definitely not a coincidence, I think it was white in beta. They could have made it random skin color but they realy wanted black.
They were getting input from Curtis Yarvin 👀
By 'bland builds' they meant 'Why do people keep making characters that are white and male?'
And being the bubble-drowning, coom-brained retards that they are, the obvious answer of 'Because people want to play as themselves, you stupid fuck' never occurred to them.
Or that, gee, the majority of their customer base are white men with alot of spare income on hand.
Having said all that, I don't mind character creation, as it atleast gives me the option of roleplay and self-imposed custom game modes.
Actually, this isn't even true, IMO. I don't think I'm that unique in not caring much about what I'm playing as as long as it's a game that I like. I've played countless games with main characters that are people, animals, aliens, gods, vehicles, objects, plants, robots, whatever. I don't care.
But if a game has a character creator, I'm just going to make myself. I'm not that interested in "being" someone/something else.
Pretty hypocritical of them, considering most of the companions in the final game ended up being some variation (or combination) of human or elf, which in D&D usually translates as "human with pointy ears." Didn't even include any other staples of high fantasy like halflings, dwarves, or (half-)orcs in the main cast.
Seems like they were very intent on playing up demons (tieflings) in the cast.
Based Human Male Fighter Gang
Been that way since 1998.
I consider it to be a feature because i like fucking around in that shit.
It's more about immersion and allowing players to add a little bit of extra veneer to the story they want to experience. And I wouldn't entirely discount the impact of this from the player's perspective.
That said, the extent to which customization needs to be offered to achieve an appropriate level of benefit can vary. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker for example custom character portraits and a basic level of customization for the 3D model was absolutely sufficient. In the Avernum series, pretty much the same deal (though that didn't have built-in support for custom portraits).
In something like Skyrim though, where the level of visual detail and interaction in the world is pretty high, I'd have the same level of expectation for what I can do with character visuals. And then of course there's games where I'm perfectly fine with playing a pre-set character or a "no-name" character in general, like in the STALKER series, Half-Life, Dishonored, etc.
It all depends on the kind of game experience you're aiming to create and what kind of story you're trying to tell.
Interesting thought experiment to make the customization actually affect the gameplay in various ways.
Would be funny to see NPCs start reacting to those "MAX every slider to make a hideous character" types in horror & revulsion. Although unlikely to happen since developers would rarely want to gate content or acknowledge that those essential "character creation" type features actually are deeply relevant to how you interact with the world.
Wrestling games come to mind; expansive character options in terms of both looks and stats which affect the game and even the story.
I also liked the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre system where, while not directly affecting your appearance, you were asked a series of morality questions which affected your alignment and starting units and actually had an effect on your story paths (although you could modify your alignment with in-game choices).
I was just about to mention wrestling games.
It's been twenty years since Knight of Lodis came out, and I'm still looking for another tactics game that scratches that itch half as well.
The only time character customisation affected a game I played was mass effect and that just gave you an additional mission based off it.
Most if not all of it is simply aesthetics of how you want your character to look to having their own backstory, which 4/10 makes you fantasy Batman.
The last time in terms of build it affected how I played was Fallout NV, there I actually made one build for early game to beat speech checks in the first mission then used the 'are you sure you want this build as you leave the starter town' to respec. Fallout 4 ruined that to where I just abuse the leveling glitch thanks to the autonotron dlc to get everything I want.
White male human knight with Hairstyle 1, Hair Color 1, Eye Color 1, maximum muscle slider, and a longsword please.
ahem
Elden Ring.
The true purpose of character creators is to make you spend time in the game and get invested before you start playing it.
If they just put you in the game then you say "ugh y-axis control is backwards. delete." If you spent 15 minutes on your character then you say "fine I guess I'll dick around with ten pages of settings to fix it".
If this wasn't the case they'd say you can change your look at any time, or any time before endgame, or at least once. But instead they say you better spend lots of time on character creation or you'll regret it later.
Yeah, while most elements of a character creation mechanic are just a re-skinned version of the developer tool, some features are clearly "we dumped a lot of excess dev cycles into this".
Like BG3's vitiligo slider. They spent time on that.