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Physique impact on Character Creation
Mavryk
Member
I was watching the twitch stream and saw some of the new models. At one point Steven called one of the orc models a "Beastie Boy" which made me wonder what could be done in linking the character model options with certain stat attributes. I can't think of anywhere this has been done or even if attributes will be assigned through a system that would support this. Similar to how Steven described being able to size up an opponent by assessing the unique armor models the character model itself would become another way to connect what you see with what you get.
In these examples, I use the concept of a point-buy system but it can be adapted to whatever method attributes are assigned. Points are reduced or increased based on the physical elements selected in model creation.
- buff characters have a higher minimum strength
- wiry characters have a higher minimum dexterity
- character weight (as a percent deviation from average for the race) have a reduced starting and maximum constitution
- character height have a reduced starting and maximum dexterity
What other connections between body and stats can you think of? How could (or should) these physical characteristics impact the character in the end-game? As a character grows in level should their physical form change with their new attributes?
In these examples, I use the concept of a point-buy system but it can be adapted to whatever method attributes are assigned. Points are reduced or increased based on the physical elements selected in model creation.
- buff characters have a higher minimum strength
- wiry characters have a higher minimum dexterity
- character weight (as a percent deviation from average for the race) have a reduced starting and maximum constitution
- character height have a reduced starting and maximum dexterity
What other connections between body and stats can you think of? How could (or should) these physical characteristics impact the character in the end-game? As a character grows in level should their physical form change with their new attributes?
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Comments
since aoc looks towards realism. its only logical that these are taken into consideration
EVEN FIFA AND PES football games have this !
a very rall or fat player is just not as agile and dexterous as a small and thin player !!
like how often did you see obese ninjas in movies and games hanging from a branch or doing parkour? xD
they said "we dont want unrealistic armors that are overly sexualized and are not logical as armor"
by the same standard, as a tanky person wears full plate and huge armor pieces but takes a penalty in movement etc but takes advantages in strength and stamina etc ...and it should also work in the same way.
(e.g. small people are harder to hit, but their attack boxes are also smaller)
As it is however, I don't think Ashes combat intends to add that level of complexity.
Seems like stats would be part of racial progression and social org progression.
For example a strength based archetype being locked out the slender builds and casters being locked out of bigger muscle sizes.
It’s an added layer of unnecessary options but I think it could be interesting.
Your physical build has nothing to do with your actual game performance, and it shouldn't, because what you are doing in a game like this has nothing to do with physics. It's all magical gobbledygook. Which is fine, that's why we play games like this. So we can embody superheroes that do impossible things.
If I want to make a very big boy character and still be super fast in-game, let me.
100% agree. Character gender and looks should have no impact on the mechanics of the game.
However, I do find the mentality of "I should be able to do anything I want with my character creator, immersion be damned!" to also be a bit silly. Racial advantages do matter to me from a world building perspective. Having a Nikuan swordsman be equal to an Kaivek swordsman who has trained just as hard, with the same exact skill set, is immersion breaking. You should still be able to be a Nikuan melee, but the playstyle should be different. But, the problem is that you don't want to make the racial advantages so strong, that entire race/class builds get left out. For instance, in Classic WoW, Dwarven priests were always taken before Human Clerics because they had fear ward. So, it's a hard system to get right and I won't blame the Devs if they don't solve it, since no MMO seems to be able to do it right.
What will happen in Ashes is that your race will give you augments you can slot. How that works with your build will be situational. You aren’t going to have a situation where a Kaivek (I assume you mean Ren’kai) swordsman is objectively superior to a Nikuan swordsman, but depending on what you’re trying to do you might find one set of augments better than the other. Maybe you can close into melee range faster as a Nikua, but the Ren’kai gets a knockdown ability. (Just a hypothetical.)
It can be somewhat cool, but at the same time, if I wanna play a buff as hell Renkai, I shouldn't be punished if I try to play a caster class.
It would also lead to a type of min maxing that would harm player agency in their character's design. Especially in games like an MMO, where you spend thousands of hours looking at your character, it would suck to have something you don't like visually, only because it gave you that 10 extra MP.
Furthermore it just plays into trite stereotypes that all mages are skinny dweebs and fighters are all hulking brutes. There can be in between and you can be a science ace with 12 inch pythons.
However I do stand on the side of every race having a certain spectrum for their appearance to be modifiable, rather than a completely free for all. A dwarf sized Renkai or a mountain of muscle Py'Rai elf
In summary: never restrict a player's agency for choice over how they wanna look like.