Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
In the end as long as i can get back into the creator at any point to modify things I'll probably always be toying with it from time to time. Thanks and look forward to seeing you in A2
I want to have very detailed character customization, not just 10 different preset faces.
All Points Bulletin had a nice character creation.
However i dont want players to be able to make characters that looks severly disfigured, like arms longer than the body, and 30cm leggs.
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
I always go for looks. Don't care about synergies. If some classes are class locked, i'll pick the race first then figure out which class i want to play.
1. For male humans and dwarves good modern and fantasy beard options.
2. For elves a non-manga ear size (nothing worse than warcraft elf ears and eyebrows)
3. The ability to preview all expressions in character creation so you know your facial look works in all circumstances.
4. The ability to save individual elements while you tweek others.
5. No timer, nothing worse than the game timing out due to taking to lo g creating a character.
If you want to blow people away make hair and beard models stackable so that you can create unique styles by clipping hair/beard models together.
I'm a fan of sliders over pre-set options for any character features. That said, pre-sets can be a nice addition to sliders for different base lines. (Eg. Pony tail vs. short hair vs. long hair)
For character features such as Tattoos, Scars, and Piercings, having the ability to adjust size and location is amazing.
Race/class synergy is a nice thing but more often than not the race choice for me falls back on the racial abilities and how they will play into my characters performance. This isn't ideal but is the reality and it would be awesome to not see that as a factor in Ashes.
The other aspect of character selection for me, comes down to the variation in Hit box. A smaller character is always going to be harder to see in cover or at distance but with Action targeting being a thing, could be even more advantageous to be small.
My last character creation took me 5 hours to decide the meaning of appearance that should make sense with the race it was and its history, then the character creation began, it took me about 11 to 13 hours to finish my character.
When I create a character, I know that his character creation is good or bad when it makes me want to be there for hours.
Among those characteristics that make me want to be for hours, they are:
etc
Goals: I am not a min/maxer, so the most important thing to me is my character is sufficiently handsome. If I have a particular role for my character I'll match my character to the role. In EQ2 I had a red mustached, bald, ear-speckled cleric. He was a reformed pirate.
Tools: Facial hair is my number 1 priority. I find most shaved faces bleh, a mustache (which I myself sport) can make the character. I really appreciate sliders for arms, legs, chest, abdomen. A portly rogue shouldn't be out of the question. Scar options are always nice.
However, it all depends on how playable it makes the game. If I spend a lot of time and thought on a character, then the graphics is always having trouble rendering details or performance drops through the floor. Then, less detail is better.
Also, some features like below would impact development time. Most likely in the tools used to develop player interactions in quests and with NPC's.
This strays away from character creation a bit in my examples, but the main point is choices have consequences that might not be apparent at that time. (Hmm, like real life?)
Some things I like to see are options that modify the characters performance or gives/removes special abilities.
- Age, If I can adjust age perhaps I'm wiser and can have more education/experience and might loose endurance for example.
- Body features size changes might add/subtract from options. If I'm Short for example I can do some things well and others are harder. Reaching high objects might be harder or impossible and hiding behind smaller things might give a bonus?
- Preferences, Say I'm human and prefer elves over other races. Other players get a bonus if they are of a preferred type. Maybe, I get minus' in interactions with the non-peferred but, get access to learn some preferred race knowledge/crafting/trading etc... Preferences might be Race, Gender, Food types, mounts, physical attributes, etc... These could extend to the Point where they cause Fear, loathing, aggression, sympathy, generosity, etc... Maybe a 5 point scale. Loath, Dislike, Neutral, Like, Adore. (just some samples, needs more thought)
- Mixed Race/Single Race? With some kind of story choice on How you became mixed (war, famine, orphan,...), who you grew up with (Race, Farmers, Trades people, Warriors, Bandits, ...)
This can get very complicated I understand. Options for the developers of say creating quests that monitor these ideas and causing reactions based upon the players chosen reactions to them would require more effort and better NPC responses.Crafting item quality, fighting learning abilities, and other modifiers to how well you interact with the environment would be high on my list of the Best Games features.
I'm not sure it was intended, but in Alpha One some choices would lock you out of the quest line. Perhaps, modifying a quest line making it longer/harder, shorter/easier, or maybe better/worse loot.
Anyway, you have plenty to do. But, even if these ideas were designed and only the basic coding/data collection were implemented at the start. It would be some killer features down the road.
Thanks for keeping the community in the loop. Just knowing you will read and consider ideas is so far ahead of other development teams.
Another thing I have found that I didn't like in games was skin tone options, there's a point where you get it right and you get it wrong. Native like skin tones reddish in hue should not look like a cheeto to all players, it comes off as offensive. If we can get a sliding scale on skin tones, maybe a wheel where we can drag it around and pick different hues I think people would enjoy it more than just picking set colors.
Hairstyles need to have a mix of classic and edgy, some people prefer one or the other, the options of one extreme is just off-putting to both. My personal preference is probably just crazy long curly flowy hair. I also think inclusivity needs to be recognized with the ability to just have a third gender, maybe if its only for certain races allowing neutral features for both. We want everyone to feel comfortable and enjoy playing this game in their own way. Some species having the feature would awesome.
For eyes I would like some different unique eyes, maybe some that look like galaxies, magic, yellows, reds, vortexes, cat eyes, the sky is the limit on that.
Definitely a lot of choices for tattoos, birthmarks, freckles, aging, and scars. The more realistic on that aspect the better.
Tools include face shapes, skin tones, nose sliders, ear sizes, chest, waist, and body height, features like tattoos, scars, eye color, Eyes effects like blind eyes, glowing eyes, war paint, Hair styles galore (don't give us just old time period style but modern styles too), Facial hair and beard options, Muscle tone sliders, Horn and fang sliders or options, voice options for battle cry emotes and others.
I usually focus on Creating a look that matches a class, race, and goes well with what my final armor will look like on me. (a preview of armor options on the character could be nice in the creator to give the player a preview of what our Characters will look like in endgame gear). I will also focus on the RP back story aspect and weather my character has been through something horrible I might add scars. Give us the options to preview our characters with final head armor and no head armor on.
member of Gray Sentinels
Not that long, really. While I do care what my character looks like, that's mostly for posed screenshots. When I'm playing I zoom the camera out as far as I can, and I can't really tell what I look like - nor anyone else.
The time I do spend though, I spend on making something I think looks cool.
Sliders are nice, but as long as there's enough variety to come up with hundreds or thousands of permutations, that's good for me.
More important for me than the initial creation is the ability to change it later on. It can cost some currency (but ideally not real world money).
Honestly who looks at an avatar and know who that person is solely by what it looks like? Most people go by their names floating above their heads for recognition.
Within a span of years, I will have thousands of screenshots of just one character from multiple angles.
And likely a bunch of vids, too.
(And I will likely have multiple alts)
Hopefully, Ashes will have decent camera movement controls.
I like to recognize others by avatar appearance, as much as possible.
But, a lot of recognition is by height and weight and body movement... and we typically don't have enough cues in-game for easy recognition - hence we still need nameplates - especially when we can go to a barber and drastically change faces and hairstyles.
Selected choice (pregenerated options):
Dragon’s Dogma.
Body/Face morph (sliders/sculpt):
BDO (with mention to ESO)
Reading through, many have voiced similar opinions as my own, but a few key things I have definitely noted in some systems that are nice (if not needed)
The ability to compare current to highlighted options. In CCs that run off of pregenerated selections, nothing is more grilling than having to tab all the way between option 2 and option 37… a preview screen or a toggle option between your current selected option and the highlighted option is a godsend.
Lighting in CC matching the lighting in game. This was gone over in detail in another comment, but the way I have seen it implemented best is the CC having a stage mode that can change “scenes” to different environments in the game. You get a preview of the different ranges of light that way.
Saveable template slots. You go through an hr and a half of creating an elf, the decide you wanna go orc for this char? You can save the look for the next char you play.
Randomizer. Sometimes, you just wanna roll the dice and play something unique that the game puts in front of you. Just beware on “slider” systems, it’s important to have an acceptable range for the values, otherwise the monsters that come from it are… yeah, we’ve all seen those chars. Lockable values is something really beneficial for this option as well.
These are pretty much all my thoughts on it. Hope it’s helpful.
Faces, sure. But hairstyles? Nah, people change those in meatspace all the time, and we still recognise each other. Notwithstanding that armour in many games can change a silhouette much more (and hide faces and hairstyles to boot).
I understand what you're saying about recognition, and while I agree with you I sometimes like a change. I've changed toons from male to female, I've changed race, I've changed everything at one time or another when the game allows it. I have even paid real money for it, such is my desire to change things now and again.
In guild groups, of course we start to recognise each other by armour, size etc. But I find that while things are jarring at first, people I play with often soon adapt to my new form.
I want a fully adjustable 3D model. No sliders. Everyone should be bald and have beards. 🌞
tl;dr: an excellent char creator is the one that let us be as unique from other players as possible and is practical to use.
How much time do you typically spend on character creation, and what are the tools you like to have available when you’re building your character?
I can literally spend hours working on my "perfect" character
1) HAIR: I always try to make a me version with a bit of twist and uniqueness in the game - to do that a variegate hair type is always important (for me especially will be beautiful long curly hair, I saw the curly pony tail you had in the latest non nda alpha and they are gorgeous!
It's also terrible and off putting to see 100 hair type that are basically the same, be creative as much as possible! I'd rather have 10 gorgeous hair types that I'll seriously struggle to decide on rather than 100 hair divided in 20 different variations of bald, 20 straight plain hair, etc.
BEARS: same as hair in terms of variety
2) TATTOS: I never saw it implemented properly in other MMOs but it would be really nice to finally have body tattoos as well that can show with specific armor types instead of having the same usual facial tattoo
3) MAKE UP: Make up as well would be nice and as much variety as possible -- for example huge eyeliner line, soft one, etc (with again a full color palette)
4) SKIN TONES: I'm personally quite boring on this as I typically go for mine - pale European. But I had lots of friends from outside Europe that were quite sad in different games when they realized their skin tones are not present - maybe it would be nice to just have a full color palette for skin too? At the end if someone wants to create even crazy skin colors like red, violet, etc why not?
5) FRECKLES: Different types would be lovely
6) BODY TYPE: best for me was always when you could make any shape possible (ark is a good example of it with some crazy funny ones together with more regular ^^)
7) SCARS: possibility of having different types and they can be freely moved on the face/neck like bdo style
8) E:YES again full color palette customization with possibility of having eyes of different colors too
9) FACIAL FEATURES: this is probably the most challenging for developers(?) as it's quite easy to create ugly faces presets. The game that nailed it the best so far for me is the sims 4 as you can literally drag, move and change basically anything.
10) EARS: as much variety as possible, cut ears, pointy elfy ones, human ones, etc
11) PRESETS: they are important to give an idea to the player of what you can create and to give a base - maybe have fun with it and add 1-2 of them that are a bit "crazy"? ^^ In general the more different they are to one another the better!
12) TEMPLATES: one of the most comfortable features to have!! Let us save our work with a catalogue function. (would be perfect to have a lot of saves we can do, I hate that in bdo you can just save a handful ones). It would be 1000% nailed if we could save not only the character created but also palette colors.
13) Possibility to change how I look like (see idea below + I can change my char myself as well)
14) PIERCINGS AND EARRINGS: I love them, would be really nice to see them in the char creation with (again
15) GOOD OVERVIEW: the most off putting thing of a char creator is when your char looks slightly or even completely different between the in-game world and the char creator - this is really bad especially for colors. Skyrim nailed perfectly this part as the char is already inside the world when you're creating it and not in a "showroom" like BDO (you have no idea how many times I had to return back to the char creation because the colors were simply different from what I picked in the creator!)
16) BACKGROUND STORY: dragon age origin was one of the best ones for me, it's also super cool when the background is not the classical hero / poor thing that got a bad start / noble with perfect life for example could be a villain that everybody hated, someone that just cares about themselves and their profit, etc.
OTHERs: I'm adding things that are not really that important for me but I heard my friends liking them a lot: different ages model types (wouldn't it be fun to have a granny character roaming around after all? ^^), height sliders, voices.
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Do you focus on race/class synergy, looking good, or something else entirely?
I would say is a combination of looking majestic and being unique from the others, I hate to see people around me that are the exact same copy of me - what is the point of char customization if we all look the same anyway because there are only 1-2 beautiful facial features preset / hair / colors?
Race/Class synergy: I hate it, it blocks your creativity because you might prefer race xyz but the combo with the class you really want is not ideal and you feel like you're working against yourself.
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SIDE IDEA:
While I'm writing this post I had an idea (apologies if you've already confirmed the feasibility/non feasibility, I've been following aoc a bit randomly): Why not having a "character creation stylist" - meaning a player that can set up their own shop and work on a character change for other players for in-game money?
BDO has a catalogue from which you pick a char created by others and it's always quite popular; instead of having it in the char creation we could have something similar by visiting a specific player and they'll prepare a character figure for us to change by paying them (with possibility of preview the char before of course!). Plus give a tag like "char created by player XYZ" when other players open your player's recap.
I want to have the option to create a wise old man with a cane. I want to be able to have my character slouch and walk with a humpback. If I have an old man (especially for RP) I don't want to walk up tall and straight as if I am some gallant 20-something year old warrior.
I also want for an alt to create something similar to my Darksouls character. she was a beast of a women and had a fat gut, thick thighs, thick arms, pink hair, and carried a huge two-handed axe in one hand, and maxed out her strength.
All I'm trying to say is please design it so that we can create it so that we control every aspect of our character, from weight, to height, to age, to voice; to being able RP walk animation with a cane for my old man ascetics. To slouch or "look" like I run slow animation wise if I make a overweight character.
A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.
Also, as someone already said: posture is probably a very significant aspect of a character. Way more significant than the length and shape of my character's nose.
I'm really excited already at what you're doing with hair options. The ones you've shown so far tell me you're going in the right direction. Just give us loads of different options, as hair style is one of the big ways to make your character different.
Other than that, as much body customisation as you can give us without breaking your armour models.
And underneath all that armour, can you give us some underwear options that don't make us look like a 70yr-old granny. We want to know we look good in and out of our armour!
It might be cool to have the community design some face tattoos/paints for the creator. That way, you know they're going to be used by someone. Just give us a head-image like you did with the Halloween gourd, and let us go cuh-razy.
Oooh, yes. Good shout.
- Height slider
- Weight slider
- Muscle slider
- A 3-point slider for facial shape: round, angular, or square
- Options for freckles/scars and tattoos/body paint
- A wide range of natural skin tones for humanoids, and additional moderate ranges of unnatural color options for appropriate racial options
- A wide range of natural and unnatural eye colors with options for alternate pupil shapes (goat, slit pupil, no pupil, etc)
The first five are required if I’m going to feel like my character is actually mine and not just dragged out of a cookie cutter. Above and beyond would be directly adjusting eye/nose/mouth/eyes locations, scaling of body features, adjusting color of tattoos/paints.
If it ends up like FFXIV where every character I could ever make looks like a mass produced barbie with crazy hair, then I’ll be severely disappointed.