How important is character creation/customization?

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

For you in a rpg/simulation etc. For me personally if a game has that feature the game automatically gets a + point

[gugnihr]

It is a double edged sword in my opinion.
If a game allow a lot of grinding, leveling up just for the sake of it, it can become very addicting and a good character creation tool can give you a chance to creatra a character exactly as you like. Sometimes in certain games you just don't find characters that you like enough and grinding is not fun if you don't like a character enough.
But
on the other hand, knowing that the data of the character is only saved in my save files and don't exist in the default files of the games is a bit stressful for me, I mean it makes me feel like the chances that the character basically disappear forever if sometrhing goes wrong are too high. I know in most cases you can keep backups but it always feel a bit more stressful, a bit more "volatile" than a default character.

[Volfogg]

Honestly... Don't care. I don't like "blank slates" that much. The results of my playthroughs are always bland as heck then.

[LQIM]

Zero. I'm using the default character every time

[kilésengati]

For looks: I often just use default characters or randomise until it looks good.
For skills: Depends. I absolutely hate it when the character can't do x task because a couple hours ago a different skill was levelled-up and there's no way of having different builds. As I'm not someone that enjoys doing multiple playthroughs, I find such a mechanic annoyingly limiting.

[Goldias]

Unless I can make it anime-ish, anything's fine.
Most western games I don't bother.

[GlaceonChireiden]

Not important at all. Honestly, I kind of prefer that they don't exist. By making customization an option, the main protagonist design usually suffers because it has to fit any mold or combination of choices. So the main character you're playing as usually looks super generic and uninteresting, whether you actually customize its looks or just leave it default (which is what I tend to do).

There's always the reason of "self inserting" or being "relatable" but that doesn't matter to me. Hell, that matters even less to me. I don't play video games to imagine myself in a fantasy world, I want to see someone's story unfold. I want a character with their own personality, their own ideals and their own reasons for doing what they do. Why the hell would I want to place my boring personality over that?
This kind of ties into why I think blank slate/silent protags are as boring as it gets, give me a character to root for and to actually enjoy. A blank state won't do that, a blank slate is just boring because they lack a personality of their own and expect you to fix it by inputting your own equally boring personality.

If by "customization" you mean in terms of equipment/rpg elements, then that's also not important. If anything, that will make me lose interest in a game. Just give me a playable character with a very defined set in stone moveset, very predictable defenses so I know how safe to be, and that's all I want. I really do not feel like shifting through inventory to find the best most optimized loadout I can. Just let me play the d*mn game.

[Chris]

Well character creation is king. You build him from the start which makes him way more interesting than any generic default character

[Nightlight]

As in physical character customization? It's actually a rather big detriment for me since it causes me to disconnect from the character. Even just being able to choose the sex of the character can dramatically lower my enjoyment of a game, despite the fact that I'm fine with playing as either sex. I have played and enjoyed games with such features, but I don't think I can understate how much more I'd enjoy the majority of those games if they had a physically set MC.

Years of video game playing has taught me this about myself, and it's one of the reason I prefer JRPGs.

As for stuff like skill customization, it can be fun it play around with it. I typically don't have a problem with it.

[Phirestar]

Creating and customizing your own character is literally the entire point of an RPG, in my eyes. That is what makes them appealing to me in the first place.

[Abaddon the Despoiler]

I just use random and play the game.

[$2 Hero]

I never beat the Witcher 3 for probably this very reason.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Phirestar:

Creating and customizing your own character is literally the entire point of an RPG, in my eyes. That is what makes them appealing to me in the first place.

Well said sir. Would be a pretty boring game if you could only play one character right

[Rio]

character customization usually annoys me because I just want to start playing.

[Magma Dragoon]

I prefer RPGs where the player character has a name and a face and a prior life that is part of the story instead of some customizable cog of an Everyman who floats above the story.

[MoonC A T]

Originally posted by ⛧Black⛧:

character customization usually annoys me because I just want to start playing.

Yeah, but it's better than choosing the wrong stats for your play style and finding out 3 hours into the game though.