Character Creation: Still Kinda Not Great

[Tamerlane]

I think Obsidian has generally done a pretty good job of responding to concerns raised and incorporating feedback from here, SA, Twitch streams, and other places, on a wide variety of topics. But one area that's seen a fair few complaints but no real acknowledgment (that I'm aware of, at least) is the character creator itself. Complaints about the character creator typically fall into two categories: it's a pain in the ass to navigate, and it doesn't give you as much information as it should when it asks choices of you.

 

The navigation problems mostly relate to character cosmetics and customization. A character's cosmetics are bookended: gender and race up front, and all the other stuff at the very end. It takes 16 clicks minimum to get from gender selection to head selection, and another 12 to go back to gender. That's a whole lot of clicking when I just want to check out the difference between male and female island aumaua heads. The customization options being split up like this didn't matter so much in the first game when 1: there were far fewer things to go through in character creation, and 2: you could click on any section of the character creator to jump to it. The Deadfire character creator has all these little symbols at the bottom of the screen that you should be able to click on to jump to a different section of it, and they even make a sound when you mouse over them to indicate that they're interactive, but... nothing.

 

Then there's the issue of information. Most of the complaints I've seen (and occasionally made) have been in relation to the weapon proficiency page. Telling players what the modals do before they choose them is all well and good, but when you're asking a player to choose between weapons, you should probably also tell them what the weapons themselves do. What's the difference between a sword and a sabre? Or a flail and a mace? Hell if I, or any new player, knows. But we get to choose between them now, apparently.

 

But there are vagueries elsewhere. The character creator tells me that pale elves are resistant to Burn and Freeze damage. By how much? The Darcozzi Paladini cast Flame Shield whenever they use Lay On Hands. What is Flame Shield?

 

Then there are more minor complaints. Culture gives an attribute point, but choosing a culture doesn't actually change the attribute display in the character creator. Kind of confusing. Class and background both give skills, but they're separated by multiple other important choices, and there's no way of seeing what skills your class gave you from the background page. Stuff like that.

 

I've grumbled about these things for a while but figured they were probably internally-known and low-priority issues that would be dealt with later on. I know other people have complained about them sporadically. Several backer updates later, I'm still hoping the creator sees some improvements before the rapidly-approaching launch.

[Boeroer]

Very nice and helpful criticism.

 

I agree.

[Novem]

I'd also love the ability to set my character model as my portrait rather than go through a whole screenshotting and cropping process to do it myself. Portraits make me feel like I'm limited to only making characters which fit the portraits.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

My  main issue with character creation is that it takes too long. I find myself remaking slight variations of the same character over and over and over again, and if you're creating a whole party, it takes a LONG time to pick all the options.

 

I think the ability to set presets or defaults might help a lot.

[M4xw0lf]

Very good points, most of which I also have taken issue with so far.

[PatrioticChief]

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

[drchocapic]

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

 

I have to agree with that, you can never go wrong with fully descriptive tooltips.

[snphillips0@gmail.com]

I fully agree with all of these criticisms, and think they all actually amount to the largest and most important problems the game has, above and beyond remaining balance problems and most non-game-breaking bugs. This is one of the very first things a player sees on starting, after all.

 

Its a less urgent thing, but I'd also like to add, I hate that choosing gender locks appearance options. Especially when it doesn't lock portrait options. Why can I have a beard in my portrait but not my model? It's an unnecessary and frankly silly restriction. That said, it's obviously a secondary concern to most everything in the OP since unlike all that it doesn't make the process actively more difficult to go through.

[Aramintai]

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

I recall the same problem when creating an assassin - no mention of exact numbers nor for the bonus nor for the penalty. You can only see those numbers when you've already made a character and found those passives in your character sheet. Other classes have the same problem.

 

I also don't like that if I'm already at the end of character creation in customization and then want to change something in the beginning, like sex or race, I have to backtrack through all the screens in the middle along with the warning message about multiclassing to get to the beginning. Why aren't these clickable?

[Boeroer]

By the way: where's Sonic? Somebody needs to tell OP he's gonna get toasted for criticizing.

[dukeisaac]

Very good points all around. To me, Obsidian should fix this issue asap.

 

Initial reviews are going to be critical for early sales and if the character creation screen isn't 100 %... well it doesn't bode well for the rest.

[PatrioticChief]

 

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

I recall the same problem when creating an assassin - no mention of exact numbers nor for the bonus nor for the penalty. You can only see those numbers when you've already made a character and found those passives in your character sheet. Other classes have the same problem.

 

I also don't like that if I'm already at the end of character creation in customization and then want to change something in the beginning, like sex or race, I have to backtrack through all the screens in the middle along with the warning message about multiclassing to get to the beginning. Why aren't these clickable?

 

 

Oh yeah that is a good point. I found that annoying as well. 

Edited April 7, 2018 by PatrioticChief

[ShakotanSolari]

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

It's there... could be a little more intuitive though, having to navigate several menus just to see everything each subclass gets is pretty tedious.

[PatrioticChief]

 

My biggest issue, and it's a systemic issue in the game it feels like sometimes, is the lack of information. Helwalker gives me increased damage in exchange for taking more damage? Sounds fun! How much? Oh it doesn't say. Oh I've created my character. Oh it's 5X the amount? Jesus Christ. Now I have to roll an entirely new character. I just don't understand why they cannot take the time to explain the mechanics at work. It's very frustrating. 

It's there... could be a little more intuitive though, having to navigate several menus just to see everything each subclass gets is pretty tedious.

 

 

Thanks for pointing that out! 

[IndiraLightfoot]

This seems like the thread to mention something that I've reported in the bug forums since the beta started, including the latest one, and I haven't seen any progress to write home about:

When you are picking a weapon or a shield, you are reliant on tooltip info only, and the big text window to the right never gets filled with the name of the weapon (a logical title of said window when you click on a weapon or a shield, no?), and even worse, it doesn't mentioned the damage of the weapons and any stats for the shields. Instead, we get some vague noob text about the modals and extra effects of these items? What the heck?

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

This seems like the thread to mention something that I've reported in the bug forums since the beta started, including the latest one, and I haven't seen any progress to write home about:

When you are picking a weapon or a shield, you are reliant on tooltip info only, and the big text window to the right never gets filled with the name of the weapon (a logical title of said window when you click on a weapon or a shield, no?), and even worse, it doesn't mentioned the damage of the weapons and any stats for the shields. Instead, we get some vague noob text about the modals and extra effects of these items? What the heck?

 

Yeah this is a bigger issue than it seems. Like, ok, I'm picking proficiencies, theoretically only proficiencies are what matter since anyone can use any weapon, but it would be REALLY helpful to know that (for example) Battle Axes have bonus Critical Hit damage when I'm creating a high-perception character.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Many of us here are CRPG veterans, and we stumble considerably when creating our characters. Imagine how it would be for somebody new to PoE, coming from D:OS2, and then...

C  O  N  F  U  S  I  O  N     E  N  S  U  E  S  . . .

[fortuntek]

i just assumed these changes would be made right before release, so as to not expend the man-hours making tooltips before everything was locked in.

Doesn't explain why the sections at the bottom don't let you switch back and forth though, as they clearly seem intended for... Has me a bit worried. Surely Obsidian wouldn't make so large an oversight?

[Boeroer]

Well...

[PatrioticChief]

Lol

[Heijoushin]

Great post OP. I especially hate the lack of info when choosing 1st level spells. Okay, this one's fire and this one's acid, but give me some solid numbers! 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh, it's like you have to play the game thoroughly with a full party at least once in order to begin to grasp the esoteric flow charts otherwise known as "character creation".

[JerekKruger]

Not got anything to add, but in case Obsidian are watching this thread I'll add that I agree.

[illathid]

I agree with everything here. However, I'm not that hopeful as similar issues were brought up for Character Creation in PoE and they were never addressed.

[CottonWolf]

At least each tab was clickable in Pillars.