Character creation?

[San-Kyu]

Is this something akin to Darkest Dungeon or Etrian Odyssey wherein you create your own characters from a list of classes/jobs and allocate stats/skills to them? Or are the characters premade?

Wondering how much control the player has over their arsenal. The description of this game is right up my alley, but I would prefer having my own characters so I can roleplay them to some extent.

[Silvus]

There is no mention of a character creation in this game and I'd be shocked to find out it has one at this point with it just a day away. While I understand the want of it (I also enjoy making my own characters in games and making my stories for them) they have gone for set characters, 48 in total. There was a renaming option I noticed in the Beta though.

As for why, seems they want to make the characters more relevant to the events, story and each other. In DD and EO for example, swapping out characters doesn't really have any sort of effect other then how that character works and what skills you set them.
While in this game they grow to be friends and give passive bonuses to each other and have team up attacks and have conversations while camping. Not sure if the bonuses require them both to be in the party or not.

This of cause has some good but bad points if done well, which we won't be able to tell till it is out. If they tie into the story well then that will be great but it risks making a feeling of I have to bring these characters for story/bonuses or what have you, which could feel limiting.

Also just want to make note of "Progeny" characters (which are included in that 48 total to my understanding and wasn't sure where to fit this in the rest of the answer) we have very limited knowledge of how they work, will it be like in Fire Emblem games where they get different skills/classes depending on who was paired up, are they set to certain pairings, can we get all of them in one game or will some get locked out? This could add in a very limited creation of sorts but don't expect too much if there is.

[NoPJag]

Originally posted by Silvus:

they have gone for set characters, 48 in total.

48? Really? That's huge! If that's so, that is really cool!

[Silvus]

48 is the number that has been mentioned a number of times by the dev team in their Discord, there is a break down that was made about it i believe somewhere on here, that effectively was 13 or so unique base heroes, most unlocked with spending resources and 1 with a hidden unlock. Then from them you get the rest via Progeny, by maxing out the relationship value between characters. While they will share a class with the base 13 heroes they will have different stats and gain skills in a different order but that is all I have read on them.

While 13 base heroes and the rest based on their skill sets can seem like there will be a lot of repetition, I fully expect that the passive bonuses and team attacks they unlock should help them feel different enough and give some options, say if you really like one character's skill set but wish they had more health, one of the progeny might just met exactly that or they have no good team attacks you like using in your set up but another with the same class might have some you'd want to use. It's a lot of potential that will have to be seen to know just how well it was done as we just don't have enough information to know exactly how it'll play.

[NoPJag]

Originally posted by Silvus:

48 is the number that has been mentioned a number of times by the dev team in their Discord, there is a break down that was made about it i believe somewhere on here, that effectively was 13 or so unique base heroes, most unlocked with spending resources and 1 with a hidden unlock. Then from them you get the rest via Progeny, by maxing out the relationship value between characters. While they will share a class with the base 13 heroes they will have different stats and gain skills in a different order but that is all I have read on them.

While 13 base heroes and the rest based on their skill sets can seem like there will be a lot of repetition, I fully expect that the passive bonuses and team attacks they unlock should help them feel different enough and give some options, say if you really like one character's skill set but wish they had more health, one of the progeny might just met exactly that or they have no good team attacks you like using in your set up but another with the same class might have some you'd want to use. It's a lot of potential that will have to be seen to know just how well it was done as we just don't have enough information to know exactly how it'll play.

That's a lot of helpful information! I'm eager to discover all this as much as you are! :-)
What sold the game to me is the fact they mention some interactions with the enemies. This is new to me, but also very enticing! With this system, looks we will have much replay value with the game. Can't wait till tomorrow (still not decided whether I buy it here or on gog depending on how fast it is available), 1 night to sleep :-P

Thanks again for the explanations!

[San-Kyu]

Thanks for all of the info as well!

So its more akin to Valkyrie Profile then.

[ModMax [Massive Damage]]

No character creation but it's more like squad creation. For the dev team and our early testers, unlocking all the heroes, then mixing and matching the various squad loadouts to find interesting combos and synergies, was the key highlight for us.

[Mentally Unstable]

A quick question, is the girl with the sword(ie main character,sorry forgot the name) mandatory in squads? In other words, must I always have her inside any squad composition or can I switch her out for someone else? Reason being that I'm more of a ranged player so I would like to fill out my squad entirely with ranged characters if possible, especially those with guns.

PS: I know "ranged" is a meaningless concept in this game since it is only aesthetic but my desire to create such a squad is for aesthetic reason as well.

[oleg-provotorov]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

A quick question, is the girl with the sword(ie main character,sorry forgot the name) mandatory in squads? In other words, must I always have her inside any squad composition or can I switch her out for someone else? Reason being that I'm more of a ranged player so I would like to fill out my squad entirely with ranged characters if possible, especially those with guns.

PS: I know "ranged" is a meaningless concept in this game since it is only aesthetic but my desire to create such a squad is for aesthetic reason as well.

Same question, but for a different reason.

[oleg-provotorov]

We'll find out soon enough, though.

[ModMax [Massive Damage]]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

A quick question, is the girl with the sword(ie main character,sorry forgot the name) mandatory in squads? In other words, must I always have her inside any squad composition or can I switch her out for someone else? Reason being that I'm more of a ranged player so I would like to fill out my squad entirely with ranged characters if possible, especially those with guns.

PS: I know "ranged" is a meaningless concept in this game since it is only aesthetic but my desire to create such a squad is for aesthetic reason as well.

Wynn (the Valkyrie) is only “mandatory” during the tutorial. Normally you can select any combo of unlocked heroes for your squad.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by ModMax Massive Damage:

Wynn (the Valkyrie) is only “mandatory” during the tutorial. Normally you can select any combo of unlocked heroes for your squad.

Thank you for the reply! Will be picking it up shortly after.

[San-Kyu]

Decided to dip into this.

I'm entering this with a bit of hope and with a bit of worry. Some of the reviews have concerned me regarding some of the misc. elements of the game but it seems at least the core of the game is solid.

Everything I was seeing on the previews was giving me deja vu of the game Indivisible, particularly the beautiful 2D visuals. However I ultimately ended up hating Indivisible because of its braindead gameplay and insufferable protagonist.

Was also reminded of Crosscode for the same reasons. I also soured on that game towards the end because how that game with its highly entertaining combat system eventually became nothing but puzzles upon puzzles.

Hopefully this similarly visually appealing game won't go those routes.

[Darx]

but do you have a main character. so are you part of the story or do you play as everyone