Character Creation

[pistolpete2525]

I see that I am not the only one mentioning the elephant in the room,
While I admit to seeing far worse character generators, The character generator for this game is..... Conflicting.
the mechanics side of things I think works very well. but the visual and audio of the characters is just horrid. the Devs need to have someone spend a little more time on the available hair styles and face shapes. a few slider bars for the face would make a ton of improvements. and having beards not clip through the clothing like some 1990s low poly graphics.
As for audio. you just need more than 5 voice actors being recycled for each race and gender.
Why not put word out to the community you are looking for people who want their voice in the game. I'm sure you would find more than a few table top DM's willing to contribute to the different race's voices. and if you set things up right it wouldnt take that long. they need a script of the most common lines and just need to add time stamps to the breaks between phrases. then they are ready to be final edited and put in the database. a little extra coding to have the game pull the right voice database and done. (Yes, I know it is a bit more time and effort than that.)

Just a couple small fixes and the immersion would be so much better

[Berserkr]

small fixes lol

[Helldiver]

Originally posted by pistolpete2525:

I see that I am not the only one mentioning the elephant in the room,
While I admit to seeing far worse character generators, The character generator for this game is..... Conflicting.

It's a double edged sword really. A lot of these indie games are made by small teams where the majority of the team just isn't artistically talented but instead come from an engineering or software development/programming background. They simply focus more on numbers and don't find importance in Character aesthetics, design, character image, and customization.

Their talent is mostly focused on making sure the game works right, the programming is sound, bug free as possible, 'systems' work as they should and so on. You see this in a lot of indie titles on Steam.
The same bland generic graphics shaders, along with the same bland sterile lumpy shaped Character models that seem reused from every indie game ranging from Wasteland 3, WarTales, and so on. These small teams simply don't have the artistic talent to give their game its own unique art style as say a game like Fortnite, World of Warcraft, and several others.

It's not a money issue either. You'd think "well they're a small team and can't afford an art director, environment artist, character artist", but being a contract artist I've discovered that it's simply the lead developer that more often than not has no interest. They're just as happy with generic unity asset store characters as they are with something simple yet functional made by a temporary contractor.

Again they make the assumption that their title will more than likely cater to a niche math-oriented, engineering, tactical-turn based, strategy boardgame crowd that has no interest in those artsy/RPG/pretend things. Which judging by the forums is somewhat true.

I really don't blame them as when you make a game you focus on what you can do best.

Common among all these indies you'll notice a pattern:
- Very limited character creation options
- Very limited hair, face, skin options
- Simplistic "one size fits all" Human shape. Other races just borrow the same human shape but change the head or ears.
- Very limited clothing, armor, accessories, even throughout the game you'll probably find a few armor designs that are reused.
- Lighting and shaders are almost always the default ones used in unreal or Unity with some minor changes to suit the needs of the developer.
- The UI or UI Artwork is used more commonly over actual 3D objects in the game world. For example, if you get a quest item, the item 'token' is simply a 2D sprite put in your inventory instead of an actual 3D model attached to a character's belt (as an example).

Anyhow, I want to be clear that I don't blame the devs. Their focus just isn't on that and they don't give it much priority. They're also probably not trying to market to a mass audience but are content with the smaller audience they have.

[Raverik]

didnt we get more face in next dlc?

[Wizard of Woz]

This topic again good God. I hope all future developers just make characters different color squares that move around with absolutely no features.

[Helldiver]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

This topic again good God. I hope all future developers just make characters different color squares that move around with absolutely no features.

Curious, would you be just as happy with the game if the heroes and enemies were just a round RPG token with artwork on them instead?

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by Helldiver:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

This topic again good God. I hope all future developers just make characters different color squares that move around with absolutely no features.

Curious, would you be just as happy with the game if the heroes and enemies were just a round RPG token with artwork on them instead?

I don't know about Woz, but I know I wouldnt have a problem with that. I'm here for the tactical side of the game, not the role play. My units could be cardboard cut outs for all I care.

Heck if the devs simply redid the graphics so everything was table top cutouts or mini-figs I'd buy the game twice!

[Bananabringer]

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Originally posted by Helldiver:

Curious, would you be just as happy with the game if the heroes and enemies were just a round RPG token with artwork on them instead?

I don't know about Woz, but I know I wouldnt have a problem with that. I'm here for the tactical side of the game, not the role play. My units could be cardboard cut outs for all I care.

Heck if the devs simply redid the graphics so everything was table top cutouts or mini-figs I'd buy the game twice!

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

I don't know about Woz, but I know I wouldnt have a problem with that. I'm here for the tactical side of the game, not the role play. My units could be cardboard cut outs for all I care.

Heck if the devs simply redid the graphics so everything was table top cutouts or mini-figs I'd buy the game twice!

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

It isn't miserable, it is just understanding gameplay is vastly more important than playing dress up when it comes to video games.

And to the person you responded to me, yes I would be just fine with a circle and artwork.

[BoxMageOfOld]

Honestly if they can't handle character models i would have been 100% happy with tokens casting animated spells and what not, then they can allow you to upload your own token icon for your characters as well as an option for custom enemy tokens if you wish to do so as an option.

As much as i prefer pretty character models that look half way descent i would rather them just do tokens if they don't want to put the effort into the character models. I have a folder filled with token icons for rpgs, plus doing the token rout also could've allowed more voice acting to be done for more voice options in the end.

[CBrown]

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

I don't know about Woz, but I know I wouldnt have a problem with that. I'm here for the tactical side of the game, not the role play. My units could be cardboard cut outs for all I care.

Heck if the devs simply redid the graphics so everything was table top cutouts or mini-figs I'd buy the game twice!

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

What an incredibly stupid take. I don't care about a face on a character I look at for maybe 10 minutes through the game. I want deep strategic gameplay that I can replay multiple times without getting bored. Having a few more face templates aint doing that. You think theyre in the minority looooool

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

I don't know about Woz, but I know I wouldnt have a problem with that. I'm here for the tactical side of the game, not the role play. My units could be cardboard cut outs for all I care.

Heck if the devs simply redid the graphics so everything was table top cutouts or mini-figs I'd buy the game twice!

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

Yeah, because games with minimal graphics like Rimworld, or Dwarf Fortress, are just complete trash. Who would ever enjoy those games. I still shudder at the years of wargames ive played that only used vague tokens to represent units. Chess is a terrible game because my king does not look like a real king and I didn't spend 30 minutes in a character creator to get his looks just right. Balder's Gate 3 will be far superior to the original game because it has a detailed character creator. The stinky original game only allowed you to pick from a feeble selection of pre-rendered images. My elf has blue hair...THERE ARE NO IMAGES OF BLUE HAIRED ELVES, THIS GAME SUCKS!!!!

Wooden tokens work just fine in my book, as long as the game itself is good.

[Bananabringer]

Originally posted by CBrown:

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

What an incredibly stupid take. I don't care about a face on a character I look at for maybe 10 minutes through the game. I want deep strategic gameplay that I can replay multiple times without getting bored. Having a few more face templates aint doing that. You think theyre in the minority looooool

I don't think they are in the deep minority, the gaming community proves it. Customizable character creation is one of the most asked for updates in games. Baulder's Gate 3, WoW, CoD and many others spent A LOT of money in customizable character creation because people like it. You think they spent millions of dollars knowing that people just want tokens in their games? Not a chance. There are people who like tokens and name their characters what their build is because they only care about numbers and that's fine, but don't think your token idea is what 80% of gamers think. You are overwhelmingly in the minority.

[Bananabringer]

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

What a miserable way to look at a game. No features, no artwork, no customizable character creation just a group of clones with different genders. Fortunately, you are only in the deep minority of people who think this way.

Yeah, because games with minimal graphics like Rimworld, or Dwarf Fortress, are just complete trash. Who would ever enjoy those games. I still shudder at the years of wargames ive played that only used vague tokens to represent units. Chess is a terrible game because my king does not look like a real king and I didn't spend 30 minutes in a character creator to get his looks just right. Balder's Gate 3 will be far superior to the original game because it has a detailed character creator. The stinky original game only allowed you to pick from a feeble selection of pre-rendered images. My elf has blue hair...THERE ARE NO IMAGES OF BLUE HAIRED ELVES, THIS GAME SUCKS!!!!

Wooden tokens work just fine in my book, as long as the game itself is good.

Never said token games are trash.

[EthanT]

Real DnD is played with pencil, paper, and imagination. Sometimes you get miniatures (which you cant customize the look of, only the color) and most people use circular or square tokens with official art on them. Thats what 90% of DnD players ive ever met want and are comfortable with.

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by Bananabringer:

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Yeah, because games with minimal graphics like Rimworld, or Dwarf Fortress, are just complete trash. Who would ever enjoy those games. I still shudder at the years of wargames ive played that only used vague tokens to represent units. Chess is a terrible game because my king does not look like a real king and I didn't spend 30 minutes in a character creator to get his looks just right. Balder's Gate 3 will be far superior to the original game because it has a detailed character creator. The stinky original game only allowed you to pick from a feeble selection of pre-rendered images. My elf has blue hair...THERE ARE NO IMAGES OF BLUE HAIRED ELVES, THIS GAME SUCKS!!!!

Wooden tokens work just fine in my book, as long as the game itself is good.

Never said token games are trash.

Yeah, you just said it was a miserable way to look at games. The miserable take is buying into cutting edge graphics, only to have them look dated after a couple of years.