What do you think about character creators?

NightmareFarm

NightmareFarm

Member
As for me, I mildly dislike most character creators as there are a ridiculous amount of sliders, most/all of the sliders are just there to alter aesthetics and it feels tedious spending a lot of time adjusting everything. I would rather my character look as natural as possible to increase immersion as well. I would prefer for the developer to create a preset character whose appearance, voice, etc fit the role that they will play in the story than create one myself. I only appreciate it if it's very simple aesthetic customisation(just hair colour, eye colour, height, weight for example) and you can externally customise your stats/build to an extent, like the creator in Fire Emblem Awakening.
 
I love tinkering with a character creator. The more detailed the better. I usually dislike character designs from the developers so creating my own is much a better option for me.
 
I only play single player game, and honestly, character creators almost always turn me off.

Strong story fare is almost always associated with very well-defined characters from the get-go.
 
I tend to prefer simpler ones, with a bunch of face or part presets and such. Naturally, if they want to add "advanced options" thats fine but i tend to ignore those.
 
if you dont have full sculpting in your CC then WTF are you doing? Presets? Really? I thought things like UE5 had that shit preinstalled and yet we still get presents
 
My favorite way of playing God.

Now I understand why he/she couldn't stop before bringing humanity into existence. And I'm sure we had the same feeling of regret by the end.
 
They're one of the greatest things in gaming, imo. Always spend a ridiculous amount of time on them. Of course, now that I'm getting older, I start to get impatient cuz my game time is shrinking of late.
 
If I can create a hot babe, I'm good with it. If all the options are ugly motherfuckers with goofy haircuts then I've got a problem.
 
I liked it detailed , but not too complicated to use .

Bethesda's characters creator was a weird one . Its look very detail at first,lots of option , a bit complicated to use . But the (female)characters you make end up looking very similiar to each other . Unless you make a extreme ugly one .
 
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They always give me mild anxiety 5 minutes into the creation.
It's always a rush job after that.
Any 'art' centric thing I do in life, always takes a long time. The need for it to be 'perfect' throughout the entire process.
I have made a compromise. Any character creator will just be a demon template. Grey skin, white hair, gnarly eyes, some scars… so emo 🖤
 
I either pick with the default choices or keeping hitting the random generator (if given) until I pick something I like. It will be rare for me to go into deep detail
 
I'm usually too lazy to tinker it too much. I like it when devs make a lot of presets so I can find one I like so I have less things to adjust to make a character enough to my liking.

Big props for character creators that has import/export function. That makes games that have fewer presets much more manageable.
 
More complex is my preference. I like to edit many things, i want to be able to redesign the characters, weapon, armors, even vehicles, house, or something else. Tons of customizations is my thing. Although not required for me to enjoy. But giving more personal touch is welcome for me. I think MH series, Xenoblade DE, Code Vein, Wolcen, Dragons Dogma, Elden Ring, even BoTW or ToTK (although only armor things) are my favorite for this. i got immersified by games that have tons of customization.
 
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Can't stand them - I always use the default, and I resent every minute a game forces me to wade through character creation menus.

Making good characters is a skill, and when I buy a game I'm paying for somebody's expertise in that field.
 
Bad memories of the Mass Effect game and spending ages on what looks like a good Shepard, only for them to look completely different once the game starts.
 
I love to make deformed looking creatures for my characters. If they don't allow that, then they inherently suck by not being inclusive.
 
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I tend to use default presets as i get older. No point in spending any relevant amount of time only to get the character fully covered by massive armors.
It's also a good thing that most games are starting to include a way to customize your character looks later on, this way you can skip the char creating step without regrets.
 
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Hopefully some enterprising developer figures out that the best character creator is a built-in AI prompt system.
No more sliders or ten hours of fiddling with "chin height" nonsense.
Let us describe exactly what we want and give it to us.
 
I mostly like them, I don't need it to be super deep and complex but I do like it when it's more than just some pre defined faces and body shapes.
The last game I played that really impressed me in that regard was Nioh 2, though even the default options in that one look great.

The one thing that bothers me is when your character doesn't look as good in game as in the character creator. I remember spending around an hour making a character I liked in Dragon Age Inquisition, but then in game he often looked awkward.

intbal said:
Hopefully some enterprising developer figures out that the best character creator is a built-in AI prompt system.
No more sliders or ten hours of fiddling with "chin height" nonsense.
Let us describe exactly what we want and give it to us.
Click to expand...

That would actually be a pretty cool use of AI in games.
 
I don't have any strong feeling for or against it.

Only thing I wish they'd do is let you see your character in a real game map with the ingame camera before finalizing your choice.
 
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If I can easily create good looking characters, it's good.
If it only allow average/abomination faces, it's bad
 
Phobos Base said:
Bad memories of the Mass Effect game and spending ages on what looks like a good Shepard, only for them to look completely different once the game starts.
Click to expand...
I don't know how many times I restarted Mass Effect to get a character that did not look like trash in cut-scenes and during game-play.

Games where you can "create" a character should have NO restrictions, you should be able to edit the character whenever/however often you choose.
 
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intbal said:
Hopefully some enterprising developer figures out that the best character creator is a built-in AI prompt system.
No more sliders or ten hours of fiddling with "chin height" nonsense.
Let us describe exactly what we want and give it to us.
Click to expand...
Yeah this would be great. Although I'm not sure about some of the body characteristics for say something like BG3.
"I would like my labia to be...."
 
I think they're fine and the more options they have the better. There have been some cases where they have one that is incredibly barebones, which to me just feels like low effort. If you're going through that much trouble of adding one, might as well make it good.
 
I don't like them because the defaults are usually some very ugly looking characters. So if you want a good looking character you are forced to waste your time tinkering until you get something passable at best.

I never liked the whole "create your own thing" idea in video-games anyway. I just want to explore what the developers made for me since they are better and more talented than me. That's why i never played the latest Zelda game and probably never will.
 
More options the better.
But dont force me to lock it all in at the beginning of a game- i wanna get to playing. Give me the option to adjust my options within the first 30min of playing so i can come back to it.
Like going to a vendor etc.
 
I like em if it fits the game, like MMOs or multiplayer games/open-world games.
Just think that often it's too limited.
 
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Guilty_AI said:
I tend to prefer simpler ones, with a bunch of face or part presets and such. Naturally, if they want to add "advanced options" thats fine but i tend to ignore those.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the best ones give you plenty of options but don't force you to get into the deeper stuff.
 
I don't have the patience for it/care for it. I'd rather they just design a protagonist and be done with it and let me jump into the game straight away.
 
I appreciate them when they're well-executed, but I can do without them if they're mostly shallow.

Beyond providing plenty of cosmetic options, I find it more engaging when customization options impact the gameplay style.
Whether it be through unique builds, or when certain choices have a subsequent impact on the player's interactions with NPCs or the game world.
 
I prefer original designed characters, I hate wasting my time creating character in boring and convoluted menus so I end up just choosing default option.
 
Usually take generic character templates and head on to the game(Souls games) unless the character speaks and is featured in a lot of cut scenes(BG3, Sunset Overdrive) then I might put in a little more effort into character creation.
 
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best one is dark/demon souls.

very granular detail
spend an hour fine tuning the face
start the game, put on a helmet within 10min, never see the face again
 
Two words:

Code vein

Red Eyes Vampire GIF by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment


Spent more time in the character creator than playing the game
 
Unpopular opinion, but I think Character Creator ruined the Soulcalibur IP and it continues to devalue fighting games that implement in like SF6's avatars and even Tekken's customization aspect. In my opinion, in fighting games more than others, the character design and aesthetics are one of the most important parts. Having a bunch of random generic lower quality assets to customize them or make meme characters just has a reductive effect on a game for me.

I think they work just fine in self-insert games like the Souls series where it's just you or whatever character you make up in the world, but in games where the characters have purposeful designs, it can only make them worse.
 
I generally find them to be a chore. "Ugh, so I have to do this before I can start playing. FINE, whatever." IMO it's the dev's job to create a good looking character as they see fit and hand them over to me.

The only time I can recall truly enjoying a character creator was Saints Row 2, when I spent way too much cycling between the facial expressions over and over. "Happy... Sad... Angry.... Amused... Horny... Excruciating Pain... Happy... Sad..."
 
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Absolutely LOVE them.

I've downloaded free games before just to mess with their character creators.
For games I'm interested in, and that have the proper tools, I can easily spend upwards of 3 hours creating a single character.
 
Starfields/Bethesdas is trash

Baldur's Gate is nice, rather simple.

Wo Long/Monster Hunter/Diablo is nice

Dragon's Dogma was interesting with the variety of body types

I prefer good pre-made selections rather than fiddling with every single slider. Bonus points if you can do both. I wish more games would just let you mess with character creators online.

AND please let us re-edit our character after the fact.
 
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I mostly dislike them. If they're there I feel like I have to engage with them and make something I'm gonna feel ok with for the next 50 hours or whatever, which feels like a chore. I much prefer the developers deciding what character the story is about.
 
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