Character creation.

[Celtic_wolf10]

I'm not sure if the developers read this or not but I'm new to threads and love the land of Eora. The history and lore that was built in pillars of eternity was amazing and I'm hoping that carries over to avowed. With that said I am excited for avowed but a little disappointed with only being able to choose Elf or Human and hope that if not on release a patch will come out down the line allowing us to use some of races that are featured in pillars. 

[UrbaNebula]

Whilst I'm sure there are lore implications that explain why we can only be a human or elf, I can only assume that the main factor is a case of the other races being a little more challenging for a first person title. Aumaua and Orlans vary greatly in height compared to Humans and Elves and would require a bunch of animation variants if we see any first person interactions with the world space at any point.

Level design in a first person game you are constantly mindful of scale, making sure that the dimensions of environments and assets make sense. I can only imagine the nightmare that would be trying to get this right while also factoring in different camera heights. Shorter players would be able to fit into smaller gaps. Larger players could surmount obstacles that other races shouldn't. You'd be tripling the QA team's work.

[ronniej]

On 10/31/2023 at 5:04 PM, UrbaNebula said:

Whilst I'm sure there are lore implications that explain why we can only be a human or elf, I can only assume that the main factor is a case of the other races being a little more challenging for a first person title. Aumaua and Orlans vary greatly in height compared to Humans and Elves and would require a bunch of animation variants if we see any first person interactions with the world space at any point.

Level design in a first person game you are constantly mindful of scale, making sure that the dimensions of environments and assets make sense. I can only imagine the nightmare that would be trying to get this right while also factoring in different camera heights. Shorter players would be able to fit into smaller gaps. Larger players could surmount obstacles that other races shouldn't. You'd be tripling the QA team's work here. 

However, I think it's also worth noting that there are some creative solutions that can be implemented to overcome these problems. For example, developers could use different camera angles or field of view settings to make the player character appear taller or shorter depending on their race. They could also design levels with multiple paths or obstacles that different races would be able to overcome in different ways.
 

[mrhawkprime]

At this point we now know that the character creation is going to be limited to human or elf rimarily due to the region our character is from. I'm hoping we'll have the option to place a god like since that would at least increase the amount of customization options available maybe even give us access to God likes we never got to play in pillars of eternity like the avian appearance

[the_dog_days]

18 hours ago, mrhawkprime said:

At this point we now know that the character creation is going to be limited to human or elf rimarily due to the region our character is from.

This is bullcrap. You can play as an aristocrat from Aedyr of any race in POE 1&2. This isn't an 'immersion' decision. The reason is 'cause they don't want to have to program the game to work with characters of different heights.

This is one of the most contradictory designed games I've ever seen. "We don't have classes 'cause although they make sense in the world, players should be able to play as they want." but simultaneously, "We don't have more playable races 'cause they don't make sense in the world despite they're want players want." Maybe I'm just old school. I prefer the Tim Cain approach of give the players all the tools and let them make sense of it if they want to roleplay.

[karmer96]

It feels like such a bad way to follow up the other games taking away character creation options for "lore" reasons is a lazy excuse if it's a technical limit Obsidian just need to be upfront about it especially since they don't have a good track record for mod support so odds are the players will not be able to take it onto their own hands like and elder scrolls game

[SellSwordDev]

Yeah...I don't know about this. I've always enjoyed a good character creation screen. It's one of the reasons why I love RPGs so much. Every personal detail adds an extra degree of flavour, making your experience more unique. Having a limit on playable races detracts from this somewhat. This isn't a problem if every system involved is deep enough, but just hearing "there will only be two available races" doesn't sound very appealing no matter how you slice it. While we're at it, not many games these days (at least in my opinion) have done this well. While not a role playing game, Skull & Bones has a measly amount of presets, with all of them looking mediocre at best.

Still, if everything else surrounding this is good, then I'll be willing to sacrifice this part of the game.

[Ordo!]

On 3/5/2024 at 9:05 PM, karmer96 said:

It feels like such a bad way to follow up the other games taking away character creation options for "lore" reasons is a lazy excuse if it's a technical limit Obsidian just need to be upfront about it especially since they don't have a good track record for mod support so odds are the players will not be able to take it onto their own hands like and elder scrolls game

But they are upfront about it : https://www.ign.com/articles/obsidian-explains-why-avowed-only-lets-you-pick-human-or-elf 

Quote

"And one of the things about the species of Pillars that I think is a lot easier to account for in an isometric game is just the variation in sizes. You have aumaua and then you have humans and elves who are at roughly the same scale, and then you have orlans and dwarves who are quite a bit smaller. And for each of those, especially in first person, you're adjusting the height of the player character's capsule and sort of where their weapons are relative to enemies and how their hits land and how hits land on them. And it's obviously not that any of these things are impossible to solve, but you're always making choices and choosing your priorities and development."

And from this technical limitation they draw a lore explanation of why you can't play other races.

[karmer96]

Okay I was wrong Thank you Obsidian I am happy that we are god like and with the third person cam many of my worries of the game have been answered