Ugly female protagonist > portrait and character model

[Schutzengel]

Edit2: The OP is based on the original female (and male) portrait:

I only started Torment and I think I have played through the tutorial (Im back in th real world?). Until now I had no option to change the ugly, almost disgusting portrait and character of my female protagonist. Does that come at a later point? Looks like Half-shaved and aged Paris Hilton.

I know Torment 1 featured an undead protagonist with not the best looks, but even he had full hair. Also his look made sense back then and more importantly was fitting into the storyline.

After the tutorial I encountered a woman with red hair. She looked old but agreeable. Id change to this look anytime.

Also the male protagonist looks agreeable. Like a young man that grew up in harsh conditions. I could very well imagine this character for any of the three classes. Like an agile fighter, an observant thief or even a powerful mage.

In my opinion the ugly female character model and portrait offers no character options at all and doesnt fit into the line of other highly distinguishable characters. Id never want such a person to be the leader of my party. Its like having to play Planescape Torment with just a common thug on the streets as a main protagonist. All of the Planescape Torment characters had a unique personality and a fitting look for them.

I highly urge the developers to find a fitting character model and portrait for the female Torment 2 protagonist. The current character model and portrait is not fitting at all.

Edit:

Original female portrait (game version 0.0.0):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mfgsfb6dn89ukjy/TormentF.jpg

Second female version (game version 0.1.1):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4z3mwvyrigsftrg/TormentF2.jpg

Third female version (Tidal Surge update):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xdy9ezj2710nrtl/TormentF3.jpg

[Schutzengel]

In my opinion this female portrait and character model is the worst of all games - RPGs and otherwise - that I ever played. I think for RPGs first and foremost that the player should feel comfortable with their character in order to empathize with them.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

引用自 Schutzengel：

In my opinion this female portrait and character model is the worst of all games - RPGs and otherwise - that I ever played. I think for RPGs first and foremost that the player should feel comfortable with their character in order to empathize with them.

True, but the characters in every other RPG have their own face - the Last Castoff doesn't. He/she is stuck with someone else's face and the history and baggage that can accompany it.

EDIT: More details if you missed them in the conversation after the Last Castoff awakens in the real world, spoilered for those who want to go into the game completely blank. Although if you want to go in completely blank; what the smeg are you doing here? :P
The Last Castoff is the consciousness spawned into the most recently-discarded body of the Changing God - once a normal person, he (I'm just using a male pronoun for convenience; I don't know what gender the Changing God was originally or if it's even worth applying gender to them anymore) found a form of immortality by transfering his consciousness from one body to another. Eventually he had to knowledge to craft his own bodies that fit his own specifications. When he left a body, a new consciousness was spawned within it - TToN quite literally begins when the Last Castoff is born, the Changing God leaves the body and you are born in their place within the body.

So you're stuck with a face and body designed by someone else. A face and body they had been using for who-knows how long before the game begins and so has a lot of history attached to it - people could mistake you for being the Changing God (a concern Aligern voices when you meet him after waking up), some may blame you for his actions.

Now as for why inXile went with the appearances they did, I have no smegging clue.

[Schutzengel]

This 'Changing God' better thinks of a worthy successor to Torment 1 then. If this god created (he is able to do that) many former bodies than they should each look better and better over the time. Definately not worse. Male portrait and character model looks good so far. The female :(

[Schutzengel]

Id reserve my best creation for the end.

'Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.'

[Void]

The shaving is because of the tattoo, which has story significance. You're literally named a castoff, a body that was discarded after no longer being seen as satisfactory by a being that obviously no longer consider such bodies as more than mere vehicles for their consciousness. Otherwise I see little reason to mark them so prominently with the tattoo equivalent of a serial number.

Heck, it is even mentioned that the Changing God optimized for robustness and functionality. Looks were most likely a secondary concern even when they had a specific social goal in mind.

So you don't like your looks? Deal with it like you're supposed to deal with all the other crap your creator saddled you with.

[Void]

Disregarind all the previous, I actually like the female portrait better than the male portrait. So personal preference is in full effect, and storywise the character is not necessarily going to look like how you want it to.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

引用自 Schutzengel：

This 'Changing God' better thinks of a worthy successor to Torment 1 then. If this god created (he is able to do that) many former bodies than they should each look better and better over the time. Definately not worse. Male portrait and character model looks good so far. The female :(

I imagine he got bored with physical looks a long time ago (the guy was around for several centuries - even if you're switching bodies every thirty of forty years to avoid the drawbacks of aging, that's still a long time to experiment on that front).

Or maybe his image of what looks good is stuck in the era he was originally born in - what constitutes an attractive man or woman can change a lot even within a couple of centuries and there's more than enough examples of it in real history. Good one is that obesity was, at one stage, considered attractive because it meant you had the means to obtain a lot of food and, thus, could support a family with ease. Today... not so much (yes, yes; I know some people still consider obesity attractive - I'm talking about societal opinions in the broad sense, not the individual). Could be as simple as him no longer really caring about looks, as well, maybe he grew bored of that a half-dozen bodies back and now just goes for whatever gets the job done? Like someone who's grown bored of, say, Skyrim's character creator - eventually they're just going to do a bunch of random stuff for a while until they find something that works and just go "Yep, good, done."

So it could just be that societal disconnect or just his personal preferences or a range of other possibilities. I don't think you can readily get into the mindset of someone who's been body-surfing like that for centuries and studied that much of the numenera.

[Gosen]

I don't like portraits in this game overall, especially black guy and pink haired woman. Maybe it's art, but too many colors (sickness of modern games).

[Tyria]

I had to quit the game after seeing the female portrait. It is definitely one of the worst EVAR. I restarted with the male and its acceptable, except a bug then showed up and when scrolling off screen from the character the female portrait icon appeared pointing to where the male protagonist was. I can't escape the female picture! Would appreciate custom portrait option.

[Schutzengel]

If the tattoo for the last castoff is mandatory I suggest it is moved from the head to the back or arm both for the portrait and the character model. Also the face is not in line with distinguishable / unique characters and more importantly main protagonists from story based RPGs like Torment 1, the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale series, Neverwinter Nights and more.

I suggest the developers to make three distinguishable character models and portraits and let the players choose the winner which gets into the game for the female protagonist. Mass Effect 3 (not a good game I know) had the playerbase choose which female character model the final game box would receive. The team from GoG (Good old Games) recently pledged for Divinity 2, receiving a high tier perk to create a character and let their community create this character for Divinity 2 instead of themselves.

[Nuee]

It might be interesting if the tattoo location location and the appearance of the player was based on what choices the player made during character creation.

[David]

Moving the tattoo would possibly warrant a story re-design in at least some aspects, if it's not easily visible. It has a knock-on effect, with NPCs referencing it and such, thus altering how interactions proceed and the story progresses. (And it seems like the tattoo is indeed integral.)

[rn_archl0rd]

Hey, they are still working on the portrait. She looks better in the new patch and the half shorn look is visible among the college kids in Austin.

[Saereth345]

I think if they just gave people a choice for portraits(with matching character models) for the last castoff, people would be at least happier with the character. Story wise this would make sense since the changing god in order to ditch sorrow would have changed his appearence around alot. So long as the portraits fits the story I think this would work out ok.

[Empu]

I'd like to be able to customize my characters look + portrait.

People here are trying to rationalize our characters look, but i'm not sold on the arguement that the changing god decided our look and we should be content with what we get, other games have character customization options and i think it's an important part for many players to be able to customize your characters looks.

It's not going to be game breaking for me, but if i could choose, i'd rather have the option to do so.